Singh
The three accused arrested near Daulat Haat in the murder case of a twenty-three-year-old woman named Susan Ansari had been sent to the King of Rawat in prison for further interrogation. The Seargent appointed to the post at Rawat states that the accused were performing Almourah on the poor woman for a week straight, and she died of blood loss and severe signs of struggle. The suspects were booked in the Panchayat and extradited to Rawat, where they were detained and are awaiting a hearing from the King.
Hayden sighed and used a finger to mop his bushy brow that dripped sweat. He scratched his dirty, long beard and ran his fingers through his long hair locks falling past his jawline. Sitting on a sculptural stone chair, he stretched his neck to the left and right, rubbed his nape, and then allowed his body to slump into a position approaching comfort.
The ceiling of the cell, which housed the King for the past five years, was too low for Singh to ever know. The room was too gloomily lit by a simple candle lamp perched at a corner. Damp was creeping out from other corners, and the plaster had erupted with flaking blisters, speckled with black mold. There were dried blood marks and a long bloodstain over the four walls, which had come from all the culprits the King had tortured in this cell. The cell, that he considered his sanctuary.
The Noble Knight of the Rawat Dynasty, the boy Yuvan, all grown up and robustly healthy, walked in and stood on the other side of the room with his big arms folded across his broad chest. A knight, who called himself a Sergeant, was standing next to Yuvan. He gave the Paramarashtrian hello gesture to the King and Hayden, with the emotion of a stone, acknowledged with a nod.
Between them crouching on the floor and shivering like mice were three naked fat men with their hands tightly bound behind them with a thorny rope. Their quick, muffled breathing was the only sound reverberating in the cell. It was pleasant and warm down here, but the men were sweating like overdriven pigs in a sauna. There were dark bruises across their cheeks, necks, and down their bodies. The man crouched in the middle of the three had his watering eyes adjusted as he looked up to the King sitting opposite to him, and his face once again filled with fear and anxiety.
"You're wasting time, and I'm not getting any younger," Hayden said, with his strident cold voice. "But I have nothing else to do, nowhere else to be, so...I can do this all day, every day until you confess." He leaned forward, placing his elbows over his knees before he continued, "Say it. Now!"
"It was just for once," the man said, words rushing out in a mumbling mess.
"What?"
The man winced, and the pitch of his voice rose towards panic. "Just once, we did it just once. It wasn't for a week. We're wrongly accused."
"Is that so?" Hayden said. "You mauled and pawned the girl with your teeth just for once, so I guess... it's okay to torture a girl ever so slightly, am I right?"
The man said nothing, but stared unblinking and licked his lower lip.
Hayden paused for a moment and then shifted suddenly. Flaming up his hand, he raised and landed a swift open-handed blow across the man's cheek. It was powerful enough to knock the man down and burn the skin of his face entirely. He writhed and struggled, groping on the floor for something to soothe the stinging pain. His cries reverberated across the cell and outside.
The rest of the two men at the back looked pathetic in their sobbing and sniveling.
"Do you want to know how a girl feels when you perform Almourah on her, even if it's just for once?" Hayden said with his tightened jaw, then flicked his eyes and saw pointedly at Yuvan. The noble knight came forward and forcefully made the man sit who was drooling and sweating, his charred skin reeking of smoke. Yuvan pulled off the rope and lifted the man's bleeding hand up by his wrist.
"Singh!" Hayden called.
The Constellia harrumphed before he got up from a seated position down the floor and slowly made his way out of the shadows of the cell, showing himself to the accused. The three of them shrieked and yelled with almighty fear. Singh didn't stop walking, even though he knew that his presence itself was enough to make the men wet themselves. As per his master's orders, Singh roared slightly, opened his mouth wide, revealing his canine teeth, and munched on the man's arm.
The blood spurted out, and the bone broke with a loud crack.
The insanity of the violent outburst was nothing new to Singh. He had done this before, and he knew he would be doing this again and again until the country was free from humans who performed dark magic on others without their consent. It had been five years now. When will the humans learn?
"Yes, we did it! We did it for a week!" One of the men at the back cried out, shuffling and huddling towards the wall. Singh raised his head up with his mane soaking wet with dripping blood. The man on the floor, beside Singh's front paws, had stopped wailing and was silent now. The shock must have pulled him into unconsciousness.
The Seargent sighed audibly, dropping his hands down, and walked away from the jail cell.
Hayden smiled. "There may be hope for y'all yet," he whispered, and bend down to pick up the pile of papers and a pen placed beside his feet. He scribbled on it for a moment and passed them along to Yuvan. "Give these to the queen," he gave his instruction. "She will know what to do next. And take these creatures out of my sight!"
Yuvan did as told. He brought in more knights, and Makara, who was now subordinate to My Lady and the official queen of the dynasty- Nazira - and pulled the shivering, bleeding accused men out of the cell.
Hayden sat back, steepled his hands, and stared at the wall for a few seconds, thoughtful and trying to mask the deep-seated anguish with solemn seriousness.
Five years of confinement. Would you think that's enough of a remedy to resolve the burning guilt beating like a slight pulse?
Imagine being an elite and turning yourself in, hands shackled, willingly becoming a ward of the state. Imagine living in complete seclusion, inside a dingy cell with no company of friends or family. A Constellia was meant to do that, to live like a slave, chained with little room to move and such, but how could a King bear it all? How could a King sleep on the floor even if there was a bed available? Eat off the floor even after the food was served on a fine plate? Why would a King like my master would agree to live a life like that?
I am Constellia and I cannot process this at all. But can anyone?
There had never been a complaint, though. It was a part of his incarceration that he chose for himself.
Hayden Mackay was a prisoner, and he had never made his Constellia prouder than ever. No matter what, in the end, he stood by his commitment to his own words. Still an idiotic kid though, since he made this decision without considering the adverse effects it may have caused on his friends and the dynasty. Singh could never forget how dismayed the people had been when the news broke. The boy, Yuvan had called upon a riot demanding his king to change his mind. Poor guy, he is yet to know how stubborn his King was, someone who carried absolute and unwavering loyalty to his own decisions and ethics. Kumbh's master, Leena was outraged more than anyone for losing another friend to fate, albeit temporarily.
Hayden knew himself too well. He'd always been aware of his shortcomings more than his Constellia realized. He knew - and Singh had to agree to it as well, no matter how much it hurt - that carrying the monstrous guilt of killing his own friend would not allow him to rule his dynasty, nor be the protector of the country in the way he aspired to. It was understandable that he needed to take a measure to preserve the sanctity of his mental state. A self-imposed exile was necessary to start afresh. As per the Book of Law, and on High King's demand, my master had been given five years to recuperate to his former self. Otherwise, his fraying mental state would have made him lose his corporeal reality, forcing him to live like a ghost that haunted itself.
There's no doubt that prison changes people. It coerces one to put an effort to fully heal first, to establish the inner work that was required to become a whole person once again. My master, in jail, did everything he could do to become a better person, a better king. On Mylady's behest, he read extensively and widely, gaining a thorough knowledge of Paramarashtrian magic and politics. He got himself infatuated with the country's history, physics, religion and philosophy. He invented his own Formations, and he never stopped writing his diary entries. With all the knowledge and draining away the impurities of his mind, perhaps he'll return stronger this time. A wiser and mentally tough as nails, like regenerating from the ashes as they say? Perhaps he'll be less vulnerable to future waves that we all know would not stop hitting the course of the country.
A new fresh refined start. That was what he was looking forward to.
The good thing was that he was going to be released tomorrow. The wait was over. Preparations were in full swing, with villagers embellishing and decorating the dynasty with the most attractive items they possess. The villagers were tirelessly waiting for Hayden Mackay to take over the throne once again. After Pruthvi Krishna's demise, for the very first time, Singh noticed the remaining of his friends contented again. They all wanted a fresh start. Who wouldn't?
Singh washed all the blood off his face from the tub of water placed beside the door of the washroom. Today's harsh judgment from the king was just a sample that Singh was used to. The king who blamed and punished himself for an unmitigated tragedy, how far could such King go to punish the wrongdoers?
"Psst! Hayden!"
The lanterns outside cast a shadow onto the floor outside the cell. As Singh walked back to his former place, he saw Kanya's master Tyrell holding the bars of the cell and peeking inside. He often came to visit his friend. And every time, with his appearance, came an aura of leisure and recreation.
Hayden relaxed his shoulders before standing up and walking into the sublet brightness that fell on the bars. His confident gait reminded Singh of his own. "I knew you would come," he said, smiling.
"You certainly look better," Tyrell said. "I bet you're ready for Uilani tomorrow after the wedding. I have got a dozen bottles ready."
"Tyrell, you know I've lost the touch," he said, still hanging onto the smile. He leaned, placing his shoulder on the bars, his black long bangs falling into his light honey-colored eyes.
"Five years is a long time, but is it really enough sober completely up?" Tyrell asked cheekily. "Come on, tomorrow's your wedding! You gotta loosen up a bit! Leena and Celina are practicing a dance number for celebrations. Do you know that?"
Hayden sniggered and shook his head. "I bet they are. Tell me, how did the meeting in the Panchayat go?"
"Smooth," he said, getting comfortable. "Just like we'd prepared. And Nazira was good at representing in your place as always. By the way, the High King is looking forward to having a direct talk with you at the end of this week. You're about to receive a long letter with all the restrictive preconditions. So best of luck with that."
"Preconditions," he said, furrowed his brow, then mused. "Talk about debating whether or not Panchayat will ever give diplomacy a chance."
Tyrell chuckled. "That's never going to happen. Anyway, the Kings are a little scared that you're getting released tomorrow."
"Scared? Why?"
"Well, let's recap, alright? You've managed to find the strengths necessary to rebuild your dynasty and become a guiding light of a multicultural and non-tolerant Paramarashtra, right from jail. You've acquired the part of the land from Madhyakshetra that once belonged to King Harsh and started the long process of modernizing the institutions and Rawat's economy, again, from the jail. The entire country is abuzz with Rawat's manufacturing activities. You've coerced the impelled Clan of Pradhan's to move and sustain in Uttarameer in the late Almourah's territory and blocked them from hurting the rest of the country. Oh, and you stood victorious in the job that none could have made possible – you convinced Leena to take charge of Sharad all by herself. So I guess the Kings are making a pretty good case against you."
Hayden gently scratched his forehead. "Thanks for scripting the past five years of my life, Tyrell. But you didn't tell me the reason for them to fear me."
"Well, they are talking about what else you might do once you sprung out."
"Hmm, perhaps I should talk about how they and their dynasties are none of my business in the meeting tomorrow...well as a King. Perhaps that would relax their minds a bit."
"You do that," Tyrell said. He chuckled again and then broke off, biting his lip in uncertainty. "They want to ask you something besides that. Something Celina, Leena, Nazira, and I want to know too."
Warmth descended. No emotion flickered across Hayden's face, except the display of razor-sharp twinkle of perception in his eyes. There was no telling what was running inside his mind. "We are almost there," he said slowly, his voice deep and slightly cracked.
"Not yet," he said. "You need to speak of it more. And I know that you have been dodging it ever since you made this ruthless decision."
Hayden sighed. "I thought you knew."
"Frankly, I don't. I think I do but...I want to understand the core value of it through your words," he said, suddenly serious. Perhaps this conversation was going to be between them, and Singh was their witness. "Tell me. Why did you do it? Why did you break our hearts into a million more pieces, much more than they already had after his death? What made you do it?"
Hayden's smiled again, but this time, there was sadness clung to it. "Tyrell, Nazira started this. Thousand years ago, she dreamed of seeing a crime-free country, and that is what I intend to make of it. Every ordeal that began centuries ago shall come to an end in this generation... especially with me. We're halfway through already. Her ambitions have turned mine now, and mine are hers. You and my other friends will always be our supportive force, but it has always been about Nazira and me.
Pruthvi proved himself to be an earnest protector of this country by ending himself, but he did not have to come in the middle of all those crises. Not that much. There's no denying that whatever happened shouldn't have happened. He became the victim of my beliefs. It was honestly supposed to be me in his place.
I know in my mind that I did the right thing by letting him go, but in my heart... A king can not carry his emotions on his sleeve, and the only way to toughen up was by punishing myself. Starting tomorrow, I promise to move with more agility, with no space left for guilt and regret. I can not allow my self-doubt and fear to stop me from doing what I want to do next. Every effort I make will be only to shower my people with more affection, and the country's faith in me shall be my biggest shield against future danger. I want that kind of life. I want to lead by having such a grand life."
"But you've achieved everything," Tyrell said. "All of it that you ever wanted to do, you've done it already."
"No," Hayden said, "Reasons are unknown, but something is not sitting well with me. Something's still missing. Because this story is not about Shashi. It can not end with Shashi's death. It is mine and yours, and every Samagraha who is working for the progress of this country. Not in my good conscience, I'd say that I've accomplished all of it."
Tyrell smiled. "Hayden Mackay, what do you want? What do you really want?"
Hayden looked away, eyes filling with a sort of determination that had been missing for the past five years before he said, "I want to acquire a place for this country on the world map."
------------The End of the Series----------
Author's (Quick) Note:
Thank you so much for reading, everyone. I sincerely hope that you drop a review. Please head over to the next chapter, answer my questions, or write a review for me. I promise I will reply to each one of you and chat personally. It shall help me to get better at writing. Thank you again!