HAUNTING (1)

"King Vigrayana has already given up on the throne and they're preparing for the first prince's coronation"

"Rumours are he's on the death bed, counting his final breadths"

"The first prince, Eshanth has already made moves and formed an alliance with the eastern kingdom of Prak"

"Rumours are circulating that Udichi has been desperately trying to summon the soul of Agha, by performing countless sacrificial rituals"

"After causing so much chaos and bloodshed twenty years ago, they still want the possession of Anta. Shameless indeed"

"But what if they manage to resurrect Agha? Will Anta recognise it's master and create the same chaos again?"

The Royal court was in a chaos after the news of Vigrayana voluntarily stepping down the throne and announcing the first prince, Eshanth as the next king.

"Calm down this are just mere speculations, nothing can be said for sure" king Prajya decided to chime in since the ministers were going on and on without any full stop.

"But, His Majesty, you're well aware how the Udichi are perfectly capable of doing such atrocities. Even after years they still haven't learnt their lesson" one minister spoke.

"And besides it's a fact that they have a started to form alliances with neighbouring kingdoms. I've heard that Prince Eshanth is really reckless and hundred times worse than this father" another minister added.

King Prajya rubbed his temple, it was indeed an alarming situation. With the rumours flying about Udichi trying to resurrect Agha made everything thousand times more dangerous.

During the bloodshed of Anta, Agha was the leading force of Udichi known as the "Master of Anta" . With Anta in his hand, he killed countless Yamaya soldiers effortlessly but in the middle of battle he lost control and the rays from Anta, killed hundreds of Udichi soldiers and Agha's corpse was torn into thousand fragments causing Yamaya soldiers to outnumber Udhichi leading them to win the historical battle.

"For now, all we can do is wait and watch how everything will unfold with this new king. Court dismissed"

King Prajya

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"What do you think we should do, Arinanda?" King Prajya asked in distress.

"Like you said, your majesty. All we can do is wait and watch"

As they were discussing potential options to deal with this situation a guard walked in.

"Your majesty, the spiritualist from Ujjayini have arrived" the guard announcement

"Call them in"

Recently in the outskirts of Mudita, few people went missing and few were found dead with their skins removed and flesh exposed. It was most probably done by some non human entity so King Prajya called the Parahita sect of Ujjayini to exorcise whatever was causing this unfortunate events.

---

4 men and 1 woman entered the room, all of them in their youth. Everyone of them carried bows and arrows as the Parahita sect's specially was Archery.

"Your majesty" all of them gave a bow.

Just after a moment, Abhitha and Anugraha came in as well. As they were heading to the training ground Abhitha saw some familiar faces, she had met few disciples of the Parahita sect before so she knew they were spiritualists. She became curious and decided to follow.

She heard the details and she couldn't help but feel like joining in.

"Your majesty, please allow me to join as well"

"Sure, you can join them but be careful"

"Let me join as well, your majesty" Anugraha spoke.

"Don't, it's dangerous" Abhitha

"She's right, you don't have any work there"

"Let me join in, I've improved my swords skill. I can protect myself, I just wanna see how spiritualist work. It's a request"

King Prajya looked at the spiritualist, as if asking if it was okay to let him accompany them.

"It's okay, your majesty. Their are enough people to protect the prince. It should be fine." Leader of the spiritualists spoke.

----

They all stepped outside of the Royal court. Abhitha went and stood infront of the leader of the spiritualists and gave him a bow.

"Senior Taksh"

For the first time since she arrived at Mudit she genuinely smiled, not as an obligation but a real smile.

Anugraha was watching the exchange from a distance. Seeing her smile, he felt a tingling sensation in his chest.

So you do know how to smile, huh?

"Abhitha, I was surprised to see you here! Did his majesty inform the hauntings in Raktapadma aswell?" He seemed really excited to see her here.

"No, Senior Taksh. I've been given the task as the prince's personal gaurd, I'm staying here temporarily"

"Ah I see. Do your best! We'll be leaving at after sunset so make sure to show up on time, understood?" With that Taksh left.

"Are you two close?" Anugraha who was silently watching them from afar finally spoke.

"You can say that, He's my senior"

Before each sect starts training their disciples their speciality they're send to spiritual school for learning the basic principles of practicing spirituality. Taksh was one year senior to Abhitha.

"I see, he seemed oddly excited for meeting just a junior"

"What do you mean?" She frowned

"You sure he secretly doesn't have a thing for you?" He asked with a sly smile.

"Don't make it weird"

"Just saying what I saw, I know when a man has an ulterior motive"

"Not everyone is like you" she rolled her eyes.