Ranvijay's jaw tightened, his fists clenching as he stared at her. The sunlight bouncing off the palace gates could not pierce the storm in his eyes.
"What happened to you?" he demanded, voice low, dangerous, but threaded with desperation. "What did Aditya say to you?"
Her gaze didn't waver. She looked at him with a mixture of desperation and accusation. "I just… I want to know the truth. What happened? Just tell me, Ranvijay. Please… tell me what happened."
He swallowed hard, his throat tightening. "I… I cannot," he whispered, the weight of secrets pressing on him. "I can't tell you what happened."
Her voice rose then, fragile but fierce. "Why? Are you afraid that I'll find out… that you're a murderer?"
The words struck him like a dagger. His chest tightened, and the air around him seemed to shatter. Her suspicion, her fear, her accusation—it pierced him deeper than any wound. For the first time, he felt truly powerless.
Ranvijay's world tilted. Every memory he had guarded, every choice he had made to protect her from the unbearable truth, all felt meaningless if she thought him capable of such darkness. He wanted to explain, to defend himself, to tell her the truth—but he couldn't. He knew that if he revealed what really happened, Myra would carry a burden far heavier than his own guilt, a wound that would break her completely.
His lips pressed into a thin line. His usual control, the aura of dominance and certainty, faltered. His dark eyes, blazing yet haunted, met hers.
"You… you can't even imagine," he finally whispered, voice trembling, "how much I've carried… how much I've sacrificed… just to keep you safe."
But she didn't see that. She only saw the man she had once trusted, the man she feared might be a monster. And in that instant, Ranvijay realized his world had shattered—not from loss, not from pain, but from the thought that she now saw him as the villain.
Ranvijay's face darkened, his stormy eyes locking onto hers. Without a word, he reached out, his strong palms cupping the back of her neck, pulling her closer until their foreheads nearly touched. His voice was low, resonant with a dangerous mix of grief and defiance.
"Whatever you want to understand, understand," he murmured, every word dripping with intensity. "If you see me as a murderer… if being a murderer is what it takes to keep you safe from the truth… then yes… I am a murderer. But I cannot… I cannot tell you what I've been hiding from you."
Her chest heaved. Tears blurred her vision. She shoved him back violently, her hands trembling, and gripped the gun she had pulled from her side. The cold metal pressed against him, steady in her trembling fingers.
"Everything… everything is a lie!" she cried, her voice breaking into sobs. "Everything you've said to me… your feelings… all of it! Why did you lie to me?"
Her tears streamed freely, mingling with the pain in her voice. "Why… Why trap me like this? You should have let me die! Wherever I was… whatever was right… why did you come into my life? You should have let me die!"
Her body shook, grief and rage colliding. She fell to her knees, the gun slipping from her hands with a clatter that echoed through the empty room. Her sobs wracked her small frame.
"At last… at the very moment I fell in love with you… my whole world shattered," she whispered, her voice hoarse, almost broken beyond recognition. "I always knew love could destroy someone… but I never… I never imagined the pain could be this unbearable."
Ranvijay knelt before her, silent, the dark storm in his eyes softening only slightly as he watched the woman he had loved more than life itself crumble into pieces before him.
The moment he had waited for his entire life—the love he had yearned for, the confession he had dreamed of—arrived like a dagger. He had never imagined it would come this way. The moment he had longed to fall into love, to finally hear her heart speak, came with a gun pressed against him, trembling hands, and tears that cut deeper than any blade.
The very moment he had been breathing for, the one that had given his soul its fire, now felt like it was burning him from the inside. He realized, with a cruel twist of fate, that the instant his soul had felt alive, it had also begun to die. Every heartbeat he had lived for had turned into unbearable pain.
He had never known that the love he had protected, waited for, and sacrificed for would arrive wrapped in anguish, betrayal, and heartbreak. And yet… even as his chest tightened, even as despair clawed at him, he could not let go.
This was the moment he had been living for—and it had shattered him completely.
They both sank to their knees in the rain-soaked courtyard, the heavens themselves weeping above them, drumming hard against their backs and faces. Water streamed down their hair, soaking their clothes, mixing with the tears that burned their eyes.
Ranvijay's palms rested lightly—but impossibly—on her shoulders, as if trying to anchor himself to her, to keep both of them from breaking apart completely. Myra's hands trembled at her sides, still raw from the storm inside her chest, but she did not move away. Not yet.
Their eyes met, glistening with grief, fury, and longing. No words could pierce through the silence between them; only the rain, heavy and relentless, filled the space with its rhythm.
Every heartbeat was a war. Every breath a confession too late, too heavy, too dangerous to speak aloud.
Yet in that moment, soaked and broken, kneeling in front of each other in the torrential rain, they were entirely, achingly alive—two souls ripped apart and stitched together again by love, by pain, by the unbearable weight of truths neither could fully share.
The rain soaked them both to the bone, their clothes clinging, hair plastered against their faces, yet neither moved. Kneeling in the downpour, their eyes locked, trembling from the storm outside and the storm inside.
Finally, Myra's voice broke through the silence, raw, trembling, almost drowned by the rain but impossibly sharp:
"I never thought… I would fall in love with a criminal of my… with a criminal… a person who killed my own mother, and… I never thought… And from this moment onwards… I will hate you more than I ever loved you."
Her words hung heavy in the air, falling like shards of glass between them. Ranvijay's eyes widened, a storm of pain, disbelief, and heartache flashing across his face. For the first time in his life, the one he had waited for, the love he had lived for, spoke words that shattered him completely.
The rain continued to pour, as if the world itself mourned with them.
Ranvijay's chest heaved, rain plastering his black shirt against his broad frame, yet he leaned closer, eyes burning with a possessive intensity. His voice was low, yet it cut through the storm around them, a mixture of pain and fierce devotion:
"Hate me all you want… but you know what, Myra? You are the only reason I exist. The moment you leave… the moment you are not here… my whole existence… will cease. You are my world… my soul… my everything."
His palms gently cupped her face, rain dripping between his fingers, yet he didn't flinch. Every word was a confession, every syllable a vow. The storm outside mirrored the storm inside them, yet in that chaos, he held her close, unwilling to let her go—not for the world, not for anything.
Ranvijay's fingers tightened slightly on her arms, yet his voice softened, breaking through the rain and the chaos around them:
"I don't know what he told you… or what you think… but just this once… can you… trust me?"
His eyes searched hers, fierce yet pleading, as if the whole world had shrunk to that single question. Every drop of rain sliding down his face mirrored the vulnerability he rarely allowed anyone to see. The storm raged around them, but in that instant, only his gaze and those words existed—an unspoken promise that, no matter what she believed, he would never let her fall alone.
The man to whom the world had bent its knee, the one who commanded armies, feared nothing, was now kneeling in front of her—his chest heaving, fingers brushing the rain-soaked ground, and eyes locked onto hers with an intensity that could burn through steel.
Every word trembled on his lips, a rare fracture in the armor of the man who had always been untouchable. The storm poured over them, but the world felt silent. Here he was, the king of his empire, stripped to nothing but a man pleading for the one soul he could never live without.