Gurukul, Chandragarh
"Sure, let's go and confirm it now. I believe that your first session starts in twenty minutes, right? I have been tasked to observe the current schedule before allocating a slot to myself. Should we grab some breakfast before that. Your efficiency would be badly affected if you don't eat now," Yash grinned as he said the last bit, knowing her penchant for food.
Mriga gritted her teeth and said to him, "I will see you at the training place in twenty minutes."
After that, she took off in the direction of the Admin department. She needed to find out what was happening and suddenly stopped midway, remembering Ishani's words. Running quickly to the boys' dorm, she hastily scribbled a message for Vandit and then took off again for the Admin department. Vandit was always there for breakfast these days with Ishani and her. Hence, she had left a message, hoping that he would be able to inform her about Mriga not making it for the breakfast.
Damn! Few minutes ago she had been dreading meeting Abhirath and now this. Was one guy not enough to play havoc with her head right now? Why was the other one entering the foray? How was she supposed to concentrate on her competition prep at this rate? Argh!!!
Himprayag
Things seemed to be occurring quickly. Two days ago, Bela received a missive from Prithvi informing her that Rani Samyukta had rejected Prince Mithilesh's proposal regarding some financial scheme. Even though she had done it because it wasn't in the national interest of Chandragarh, Prithvi wanted Bela to take the credit and showcase it as Chandragarh's positive intent towards Ahilya and her leadership.
This morning, he sent another message to Bela, which despite its decoding, remained cryptic.
"Expect help from unexpected quarters. Accept it but be wary!"
She had no clue what was he referring to or rather whom. But her hypothesis was that he seemed to be in a hurry to have galvanised different forces to come together. Under the circumstances, she wanted Shaurya to cut short his time which he had asked of her, but refrained from doing so. To do things right, people doing them needed to be ready and sure. The scars on her body were a proof of hasty decisions and actions.
Later that evening
"Were the past three days successful?" Bela asked Shaurya when he met her at the designated point.
He smiled and told her that he was confident about his upcoming meeting. As they made their way towards the military barracks, a messenger intercepted them and handed a note to Bela before excusing himself.
"It's time to meet old comrades. Let's have kesar milk at midnight tonight at the lodge!" It carried the seal of a Himprayag minister.
After being here for a few weeks now, Bela had understood the two political factions and their important players. Had the message been from someone on Ahilya's side, the person wouldn't have needed to hide herself or himself in this manner. Also, most of the ministers in the royal court belonged to Prince Mithilesh's camp. Someone from that group sending this message meant that he was well aware of Bela's identity. To make it worse, he knew about Shaurya as well, since he had mentioned the lodge in the note. Kesar milk was a preferred drink in Chandragarh and his reference to that was unmissable, as well.
Bela didn't let her inner turmoil show on her face as she led Shaurya towards the meeting place with the princess.
Eastern zilla, Chandragarh
It was the second day since the zilla head, Dushyant aka Sharada had taken possession of the Suraksha Chakra building. Prithvi's first directive for Ramanujam had been to find out if this move had occurred because of their identity getting leaked or not.
Till now, whatever Ramanujam had heard, that didn't seem to be the case. Sharada seemed to be keen on this building because of its proximity to the seashore. Apart from the zilla head, there were only a couple of people who visited the building and it was tough to catch their entire conversation because they were moving around a lot.
But the thing which stood out was the fact that this person was hiring a lot of workers. There was a lot of footfall taking place on the ground floor since the past evening. Even though he had been asked to stay in and listen to the conversation, Ramanujam was feeling that there was something wrong with this picture. What was Sharada upto? He intended to step out after dark tonight to keep an eye out on the people coming in and out. If needed, he was going to tail the zilla head to find out the truth. Ramanujam wasn't the kind to be easily spooked but there had been a sense of urgency in Sharada's instructions all through the past two days.
Southern Zilla, Chandragarh
A week to go! Saraswati was fretting about her target date coming closer. Prithvi was constantly on her case, like never before. Even if she didn't know the purpose of her mission, she was sure about the seriousness of it, seeing her mentor's less than calm state over this.
In the midst of all of this, she had received an unexpected message all the way from the Eastern zilla. In his usual acerbic manner, Ramanujam had admonished her about not taking care of herself and cautioned her against the ill-effects of ageing. Unlike the norm, the message had been long and she had gotten so incensed by the time she unencrypted half of his message, that she was tempted to throw it in the bin before even finishing its translation. But she couldn't have done it, even if she wanted to, lest he sent something of importance in that note apart from words which were meant to irk her.