Himprayag
Since the time he had been informed about the throne challenge, Mithilesh was waiting impatiently for Rudradev's response to his invitation. Even though he hadn't foreseen this situation arising, the timing of these two events left him tickled. All he had to do was execute the financial expansion which Rudradev had proposed earlier and claim glory for it in front of the royal court later. He was confident that he would be able to do so in half the period which his father had allotted to him and his contending sister.
"Don't worry. I only want to help you make a tremendous success out of it. If we manage to do it well, I promise to elevate you to the highest level of ministers, hell, I will even create one specially for you," he assured Rudradev.
It was imperative to win Rudradev's loyalty completely towards himself.
The minister shook his head and said, "I have wholeheartedly committed myself to serving you. You don't have to worry about my cooperation. This project is really close to my heart. If I could gain an ally like you in the process, it is sure to become a success."
Eastern zilla
Ramanujam had just received a missive from Prithvi. Things weren't looking great in the capital and he desperately wanted to be there in such trying times. But Prithvi had been adamant about the recruitment team to be nowhere near the capital. Saraswati was currently in the Southern zilla and was overseeing a project which Prithvi had assigned to her. The details of the same weren't known to anyone except the two of them. As for Shaurya, he had no idea about his whereabouts. But he knew that guruji had something brewing up in his mind, else he wouldn't have scattered his core team in such a manner.
Ramanujam's assignment in Eastern zilla had been to try and trace the two people whom Prithvi had given him the sketch of. Also, he was keeping an eye on the movement of those poor, homeless people who apparently had been hired by the infiltrators. Unfortunately, all was quiet, actually, too quiet for it to bear good news.
He started his day around late afternoon and did his surveillance tasks after the sun set. He invested a couple of hours in the night to build an information network before the five trainees came to him. Training these kids was a by-product of his presence in this zilla. In fact, Prithvi had told him that all of them had been asked to go to Eastern zilla at the last minute just when he was set to leave the Gurukul.
In his usual cryptic manner, he had told Ramanujam that it would be good if he could spare sometime out of his routine to start training them for the level meant for the spies who join the Suraksha Chakra after passing out from the Gurukul. It had been on the tip of his tongue to say that these interns were nowhere close to being qualified to receive that training but he had held back, believing that his mentor would not speak without a reason.
Much to his surprise, all the interns were showing great promise despite facing challenging tasks every night. Even though he had worked with each of them at a much closer level than Prithvi, he hadn't been aware of their potential. It was true – a guru would always be a guru!
Saptsindhu
Ratansingh had his misgivings about the sudden defection of Shauryaveer. More than that, he was worried about his own situation getting exposed in front of his seniors at Chandragarh. How did he get to know about Ratansingh switching allegiance? And if he had known about it sitting in the capital, how many people between here till there, were aware of it? Were they coming for him?
Despite his asking repeatedly, Shaurya remained tight-lipped about his source who had informed him about the shift in Ratansingh's loyalties from his motherland to Saptsindhu. He went to his handler and told him about the situation. He was advised to send a message to Chandragarh about Shaurya's wish to defect. The action from their side would determine the truth.
Northern zilla
Bela's face broke into a smile when she saw her eagle seated at the front gate of her house early morning. Nearly running towards it, she untied the tiny brown scroll from its leg. The scroll was the same colour as the bird's foot as an extra measure of precaution.
She read the message which said, "all hell has broken loose."
She heaved a sigh of relief that he had made it safely to the other side and their plan was intact, for now. First stage cleared, many more to go. Even though Prithvi had told her about getting information from his mole about a person being sighted in the 'ghost spring' at the mountain base few nights ago, she had still been on tenterhooks till she didn't hear from him directly.
Capital, Chandragarh
Prithvi received the message from the Western zilla's Suraksha Chakra office. When unencrypted, it read that Shauryaveer had been sighted in Saptsindhu by multiple sources. It was speculated that he had managed to slip into the country through the western border. He had contacted their spy, Ratansingh, there and had confided in him about his wish to defect to the other country.
The missive said that Ratansingh had drugged him with the truth serum and extracted this information out of him and hence was sure about its credibility. The message went on to ask Prithvi about his opinion regarding the future course of action since Shauryaveer had mentored and worked under him.
Prithvi rolled back the parchment before burning it. He stared at the blank wall, grimly. After pondering over it for a few seconds, he picked up his quill and started to write back.