Arjun's Pov
The dinner with Natasha had ended hours ago, but I couldn't remember a single thing she'd said. Not the taste of the food, not the music in the background — nothing stayed with me except that girl in the room upstairs. The girl who refused to eat, who refused to speak, who refused to flinch.
And I needed her to speak.
Not because of some stupid sense of power, or pride — but because of the damn curse. Because of the answers buried in her blood, her name, her past. If she really was the witch's daughter… she could be the key to ending all of this. Ending my family's slow, cursed destruction. Ending my father's silent countdown toward death.
I walked into the room. She was still there.
Sitting like a queen in chains — proud spine, sharp eyes, unmoved expression. The steel shackles on her wrists hadn't dulled her fire. The food beside her sat untouched on the tray. Still.
"Is this some form of protest," I said, closing the door behind me, "or are you trying to get yourself killed?"
Her eyes moved slowly toward me. Green, dark like forest shadows after a storm. She looked at me like I was nothing more than a pebble in her path.
"Maybe I'm just tired of being offered food by people who threaten me with knives," she replied. Her voice was scratchy, like she hadn't spoken in hours, but there was venom laced into every word
I exhaled slowly and crossed the room.
"You think this is easy for me?" I asked. "Do you have any idea why you're here?"
She gave a sharp laugh — bitter and dry. "Let me guess. You're the tortured heir to a cursed throne, trying to save your bloodline by hunting down women like me. How original."
That cut deep.
Too deep.
I knelt beside her. "Look, I don't care about the theatrics. I don't want to hurt you. I just need to know about your mother."
Her eyes flared for a second — pain, rage, something darker — and then settled back into that calm contempt.
"You kidnapped me. Locked me in a room like an animal. And now you want bedtime stories about my mother?"
"She was Maeraya," I said quietly. "The witch who cursed my family. She destroyed everything."
"You destroyed her everything" she responded
"You're saying she was innocent?"
"I'm saying she was human," Zara said, her voice trembling now. "You only saw her power. Not her pain. Not her reasons."
And for the first time, I hesitated.
I saw the shackles again — not just as restraints, but as wrong. I saw her wrists, bruised. Her face, tired. And something in my chest twisted.
She looked away quickly, like she hadn't meant to say so much. But I wasn't letting her off the hook.
"She cursed my family," I said, softer this time.
"You think I can break your curse?"
"I think you know something," I replied. "You're not just some girl who happened to be in the wrong place."
She smiled then — not sweetly, but with a tragic sharpness. "You think everything in this world revolves around your curse. What makes you so sure I didn't curse you myself?"
Her words should've chilled me.
But instead, I looked at her — really looked — and all I felt was a strange pull.
She was fierce, yes. Angry. But there was sorrow buried beneath it. A kind of pain that couldn't be faked.
I set the food tray down beside her again.
"I don't know who you are," I said honestly. "But I don't want to be my father. I don't want to drag this out with torture and threats. I want the truth."
She studied me for a long moment. Her expression softened — slightly — like the steel around her heart melted just a little.
"You want the truth?" she whispered. "Then look me in the eye, Arjun Raisinghani, and tell me... would you still be here if I weren't useful to you?"
That question.
That damn question.
It hit something raw.
I didn't answer.
Couldn't.
Because I wasn't sure anymore.
The silence stretched between us, thick and humming. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked — sharp, mechanical, oblivious to the war blooming quietly in the air between us.
I should've walked away.
But instead, I knelt beside her again — not out of dominance, not to interrogate — but because standing felt like a lie. Like I was pretending to be something above her, and I wasn't. Not anymore.
Her eyes flicked toward me, still guarded. Still stormy. And yet… there was something else now. A tiny, wavering flicker. Not fear. Not submission.
Curiosity.
"Do you always stare like that?" she asked quietly, her voice roughened by dryness, exhaustion — or maybe she just wanted it to sound sharp enough to push me back.
"Only when I'm trying to understand someone who makes no sense," I replied.
Her lip twitched. A hint of a smirk, quickly buried.
"You think I'm the one who makes no sense?" she scoffed. "You people dragged me from my life, chained me like a criminal, and now you ask questions like I owe you answers."
"I never said you owed me anything."
She looked away.
The side of her face caught the light, softening the fierce planes of it. Her skin was pale — not with natural tone, but from wear. Fatigue clung to her like mist. And still, she held herself upright, chin raised like a queen refusing to bow.
There was so much fire in her. So much pain. It crackled in the air around her, turning every breath between us into something dangerously alive.
"I didn't want this," I murmured.
She turned to me again. "Then why are you here?"
Because your haunts me.
Because your silence screams louder than any curse I've ever studied.
Because I'm supposed to hate you — and I can't.
"I want to break the curse," I said aloud, keeping my voice even. "But not with violence. Not with more blood. I just… need to know about your mother. Who she really was. What she wanted."
Her jaw clenched, and for a heartbeat, she looked like she might spit in my face.
Instead, she asked, "And what makes you think I'll help you?"
"Because something tells me you hate this cycle as much as I do."
Something cracked in her expression.
Her gaze dropped — just for a moment — and that single moment was louder than any scream. A sliver of vulnerability, too fast to catch, but real.
"You don't know anything about me," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I want to," I said, the words escaping before I could stop them. "Not as a prisoner. As a person."
Zara blinked slowly. Her eyes didn't soften, but something behind them shifted — a ripple across a frozen lake.
I reached out, not to touch, just to move the tray closer.
She stared at the food like it was poison.
And yet, as I held it steady, her gaze moved — not to the tray, but to my face.
"I don't want your pity," she said.
"It's not pity."
"Then what is it?" she demanded. "Curiosity? Guilt? Or are you just trying to play savior because your dinner date didn't make you feel like a man?"
The sting landed clean. And how did she know.
"How you know ?"
"Ears of wall you know every servant of yours is talking about your date and i can smell her
Her perfume " she replied
Natasha. Cold laughter. Perfume. Eyes that never saw past my surname.
I swallowed hard. "Maybe I'm here because something about you doesn't feel like a curse."
She stared.
And for the first time, she didn't speak.
The silence wasn't sharp anymore. It pulsed with something slower, heavier. Something like realization.
The spark was faint, but it was there — in the set of her shoulders, in the sudden uncertainty in her breath.
I stood. I had stayed too long. Felt too much.
"I'll come back tomorrow," I said.
She didn't answer.
I reached the door and placed my hand on the knob. But before I turned it, I said one last thing — gently, truthfully.
"You don't have to trust me. But if there's even a part of you that wants this pain to end… talk to me."
Then I walked out.
The moment I closed the door, the chill returned. The air outside her presence felt colder, duller, wrong.
I took the stairs two at a time and found my father pacing the hallway. His eyes snapped toward me the moment he saw me. Sharp. Angry.
"Did that thing said something " he demanded.
"She's not a thing, Dad," I said, chest heaving. "She's a person."
"She's a witch."
"And you think that gives us the right to treat her like a dog?" I snapped. "What's the plan here? Starve her until she breaks? Beat answers out of her?"
"She is dangerous—"
"She's hurting."
That silenced him for a second. But his eyes narrowed.
"You're getting too close."
"Maybe that's the only way anything will change," I said, stepping forward. "She's not our enemy. She's the key. And we need to stop treating her like she's just another weapon."
My father's jaw locked.
"You're letting her get to you."
"Maybe I am. But maybe that's better than being so damn stubborn we lose our humanity."
I walked past him before I could say anything I'd regret.
But in my chest, something had already changed.
Something irreversible and i am not sure what it is.