The stagnant air of the dungeon was unusually heavy, thick with the suffocating metallic scent of old blood & centuries of damp stone. While the rest of the vast kingdom of Rudra-Garh was graced by the warm light of the Sun and the Silver glow,this subterranean abyss remained forgotten by the heavens. It was the only place where day and night were not allowed to cast their light. In this pitch-black labyrinth, death did not feel like a punishment - it seemed far easier than survival.
The iron-reinforced cells were usually filled with the wretched screams of pain & agony from the kingdom's enemies,but tonight,a heavy silence hung over the stones. It was quiet. Unusually, terrifyingly quiet. It felt as if the broken men trapped within these walls required no more torture, & all that remained wandering the dark corridors were their ghosts.
But someone was there. Someone very special.
In the dead center of a windowless, solitary cell, a prisoner hung suspended from the high stone ceiling. His raw wrists and bruised ankles were bound tightly by rusted iron shackles. His body was cruelly stretched into an awkward, painful spread-eagle position, pulling his joints to their absolute limits and turning every single breath he took into a ragged, agonizing rattle.He could no longer feel the fierce bite of the iron digging into his skin; that kind of blinding pain only comes later when the numbness fades. Being captured and left to rot in a place that knew no dawn and no dusk, any ordinary soul would, at the very least, feel utterly terrified. But he... he didn't feel fear at all. In fact, he felt nothing. Neither fear, nor anger, nor the biting cold of the stone walls.All the prisoner could truly feel was the suffocating, heavy weight of a pair of gray eyes.They stared at him directly from the shadows-unwavering, entirely emotionless, and terrifyingly blank. It was a fixed, piercing gaze far more chilling than any scream of agony echoing through the dark. It was the look of a man who had already decided that the entire world was his to rule, and everyone in it was merely a piece on his board.
"What... what do you want from me?" the prisoner finally managed to scream, though his physical weakness reduced the shout to nothing more than a desperate, breathless whisper.A thick blob of dark blood dripped from his cracked, swollen lips with each word he forced out, splattering heavily onto the filthy, dust-covered floor below.A low, melodic chuckle vibrated through the darkness, entirely unbothered by the prisoner's desperate question or the grim surroundings.
Slowly, deliberately, the figure stepped forward, moving out of the shadows and into the flickering, orange glow of a wall-mounted torch.
The eyes of the prisoner widened in absolute shock and sudden surprise as they finally met the newcomer's gaze. Because in front of him, no longer stood the vulnerable, broken youth he had once cast aside and left for dead .
Wrapped in heavy, gold-embroidered velvet that swept majestically against the stone floor, stood a King. A ruthless, self-made monarch who had carved his way back from exile with blood and iron.
VIKRAMADITYA SINGH RAJPUT
"Want?" Vikramaditya's voice was a soft, lethal caress that seemed to drop the temperature of the dungeon by several degrees.
"No, old man. You are wrong . Very, very wrong."
He took another slow, commanding step forward, the heavy royal rings on his fingers catching the firelight. His piercing gray eyes locked onto the prisoner's terrified ones, trapping him under their absolute authority.
"Vikram Aditya Singh Rajput never asks to get what he wants. He takes it."
Vikram leaned in slightly, his face a mask of cold, unyielding certainty. "You better start counting your last days, old man. Because as I promised you , I am going to reclaim every single thing I lost. And no one in this desert can stop me."
Despite being utterly terrified, with his ribs broken and his body failing him, the old man was not one to break easily. He spat a mouthful of blood onto Vikram's polished leather shoes and let out a jagged, bitter laugh. The sound was hollow, echoing like a dying crow through the dead silence of the palace corridors.
There was only one secret which held them together. The prisoner knew very well why he was there.
"She won't come!" the prisoner choked out, his voice cracking with a mixture of malice and desperation.
"You can chain me until my bones rot, you can burn this entire kingdom to ashes, but she has forgotten you! She was a child, Vikramaditya! Your face, your name, your promises-she remembers . She will never come back to a devil like you, nor to this living hell!"
Despite the agony ripping through his body, the prisoner's spiteful voice echoed like a curse through the damp, hollow dungeon.But Vikram remained completely unfazed. He stood motionless, emotionless-a statue of dark royalty.
"Doesn't matter," Vikram whispered. He leaned forward, closing the distance between them until he was close enough for the prisoner to see his own terrified, broken reflection trapped in those bottomless, gray eyes.
"You know, old man... in the end, everyone gets to the place where they ought to be. Why don't you see yourself?" His lips curled into a cold, confident smirk that sent a shiver down the old man's spine.
"I love her, and she is mine. Nobody-I repeat, nobody-deserves her more than I do. And nobody deserves her more than me. So what if she does or doesn't remember? Where will she even go if not to me?"The prisoner shook his head weakly, tears of pure despair and helplessness mixing with the grime on his face.
"What do you think you will accomplish, Vikramaditya?If you force her to remain here, she will only grow to loathe you. You cannot possess a soul by force, Vikramaditya. You cannot keep her." The prisoner wheezed.
At his words, Vikram's expression transformed into a mask of pure satisfaction. A lazy smirk made its way to his lips, because Vikram knows what he's doing,and what he's going to do. He knows it very well.
Letting out a dark, low chuckle, he said...With a sharp sweep of his royal cloak, Vikramaditya turned his back on the cage."It's my matter to handle. You better not worry about it,and fear not , old man," he whispered, his voice cutting through the damp chill of the dungeon.
"I will not permit you to die just yet. I shall ensure you survive long enough to look upon your grandchildren-my future heirs. Don't you dare perish before then."
He did not look back as he walked away. A Surya Rajput never revisits the past.He strode confidently from the cell, the guards lowering their heads in silent reverence as he passed. Slipping into the absolute darkness of the outer corridor, he left the heavy silence of the dungeon behind, leaving the remaining prisoners to scream into the void.
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That's it!!
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