Princess Prabhasa walked with slow, languid steps down the long, ornate corridor of the Junagadh Royal Palace. Her heart throbbed with a heavy, unknown dread. Just moments ago, Didi Snigdha's savage rage, toxic threats, and the violent shove onto the floor had dealt a severe blow to Prabha's soul.
Before reaching her room, Prabhasa leaned against a decorative pillar in the balcony and let out a deep sigh. Pressing her hands together, she began to reflect in remorse, "Why... why couldn't I control my emotions? Rupanjan warned me repeatedly with great caution! Standing in Rupnagar, he explicitly told me that no one in the Junagadh Palace should know about our love! Rupanjan cautioned me so many times that if Didi Snigdha caught even a whisper of this news, she and that cunning Jishnu would conspire by any means to break our auspicious wedding! Why didn't I listen to Rupanjan's wise words? Why was I so foolish to reveal everything to Didi out of sheer emotion? But... but what could I do? She is my own elder sister! Since childhood, every small and big event of my life, every story of joy and sorrow, I came and shared with this sister first! After receiving such a paramount piece of joyful news in my life after so long, how could I keep it to myself? But I never imagined even in my dreams that Didi would pounce on me with such a ferocious and venomous serpent-like fury today! How do I calm this storm now? No matter what, regardless of how terribly she treats me like an animal every day or acts so uncouthly... in the end, she is my own sister, isn't she? Blood relations cannot be erased just like that..."
Weighing these equations of dilemma, love, and deep pain, Prabhasa slowly entered her room with tears in her eyes and sat on her bed in fatigue.
Meanwhile, right after Prabhasa left the room, a ghastly frenzy of destruction broke out inside Snigdha's bedchamber!
Driven completely insane by blind jealousy, extreme savagery, and the boundless fury of losing Rupanjan, Snigdha became like a lunatic! Venomous flames of fire seemed to burn through every nerve in her head. Screaming like a monster, she began smashing the room's beautiful glass vases, earthenware pots, and bottles of scented oils against the walls!
With loud shattering sounds, the room's expensive glass and delicate furniture were smashed to pieces and scattered everywhere! Yet, the fire of jealousy inside Snigdha's heart was not quelled in the slightest! Leaping wildly, she landed on her massive silk bed. Snigdha began jumping up and down on the mattress like a wild beast! She jumped so continuously and frantically that the expensive, soft mattress burst open, sending carded cotton flying into the air, creating a ghostly scene inside the room!
Suddenly, Snigdha took a massive leap and landed from the bed onto the floor! Her eyes turned blood-red, and manic profanities and drool escaped her mouth!
Thrashing her arms in the air, she roared venomously, "NOOO! I will never... as long as I have the last drop of blood in my body, I will never let that stepmother's wretched daughter Prabhasa marry Rupanjan! Never! I will not let that miserable girl become the supreme, sacred Queen of Rupnagar! I will break and shatter their wedding with my own hands! If necessary, I will capture Rupanjan myself and force him into marriage! But I will never let that devilish young girl become the Queen of that vast royal palace! How dare she possess such audacity and nerve? She is supposedly going to be the supreme, revered Goddess Queen of the Rupnagar Empire, while I, Snigdha... the most beautiful woman on this earth, spend my days as a humble wife of a ordinary zamindar's son? Absolutely not! Under no circumstances! Before any of this happens, I will strangle that Prabhasa to death with my own hands! I will kill her and truly bury her so deep beneath the dirt of the royal garden that even a deadly viper won't find her! Even then, I will not let her become Rupanjan's better half!"
Saying these words, Snigdha began laughing wildly like a demoness—"Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Listen Prabha... and listen, you devilish child Rupanjan! Next week, on the day of my wedding auspicious hour with this worthless Jishnu, I will cleverly escape from the wedding mandap! Fleeing from here, I will storm straight into Rupnagar and forcibly marry Rupanjan using power! Let's see then what that wretched Prabhasa can do and how that devil Rupanjan stops me! Ha ha ha!"
Laughing hysterically, Snigdha left her hair wildly disheveled, threw open the door of her room, and went dancing toward the garden.
Shortly after this, Queen Arohi was passing by Snigdha's room. Seeing the door open and sensing a ghastly stench and eerie silence from within, Arohi stepped inside, and her eyes widened in utter shock!