Santosh’s face remained wide open with astonishment. He had never seen such a miracle before. He pinched himself and rubbed his eyes, but nothing changed. To him, it was like fairy tales he heard when he was a child.

Masses were aware of the existence of magic due to the Great War, but not many had seen it first hand. Only a those who were either soldiers or were from royal families had the luxury to see it. 

Santosh grew up in an orphanage where they were lucky enough to eat and sleep properly. Other luxuries like these were far from them. Even when he started working at the East Coast constructions, he never got a chance to see it. Therefore, he looked at Shilpi’s glowing hand like a curious little lamb.

“Heena on the other hand is different. Although she is my daughter, but she has a spiritual energy pool almost double the size of mine. Moreover, she can’t properly control it. Whenever she is stressed, she starts releasing her spiritual energy.”

“But I never noticed anything strange with her until now, if she has any powers like you, why was she unable to protect herself from all the comments made by villagers.”

“You see, that is because it didn’t matter to her much earlier. But when she met you, things changed. As you may recall from your story, you punched the delinquent so hard that he fell half unconscious. 

That is because Shilpi got vulnerable as the man made derogatory remarks in front of you, the man she loved. So her energy leaked out of her body. That was when, the seal on your spiritual energy broke. And someone as frail as you got the power to punch a man half dead.”

Shilpi’s explanation went over Santosh’s head. ‘The only thing I can understand by all this is Heena is bad news. Wonder what would happen if he made her angry.’, Santosh confused his powers with Heena’s. This made him shivered with the thought that he might die one day if Heena got annoyed.

As Santosh was hallucinating his mourning picture, his hand hit his bag which was lying on the table. A letter came out of it. ‘Monad’s seal and father’s signature?!’, Shilpi picked it up as soon as it caught her attention.

“Hey! That’s from work, so it would be real nice if you don’t open it.”, Santosh interrupted her as she tried to open the seal.

“Huh! If that is the case, then why does it have the King’s seal on it and even The Duke of Eastshire’s signature.”, Shilpi asked.

“I don’t know why the king of monad will seal it, but the signature is actually of the company’s chairman. So do you mind handing it over, it might be sec…”

Shilpi removed the seal before Santosh could finish talking. Shilpi read aloud.

21st December 1890,

Dear,

I hope this letter finds you in excellent health.

This might come to you as a shock, but because of your parent’s untimely death, I had to send you far away from me for your own safety. I always wanted to bring you back as soon as possible, but the duke advised against it. But today the duke told me that I can do that now. So as your twenty-second birthday approaches near, I want you to come back to Helmstad as soon as possible.

The landlady will help you with that.

Shilpi was shocked as she read it. ‘How did he know that I was going to read the letter.’ On the other hand, Santosh was surprised with the shocking revelations that came to him one after the other. First the spiritual energy shit and now this.

Don’t be surprised, my child, the Duke knows everything. And besides, this letter can only be read by you, the duke’s daughter. He is my most trusted man for a reason. He wants you to respect your agreement with the duchess and come along with my grandson and your daughter.

I shall wait for the three of you, Shilpi Aether, Heena Aether and Polaris Walters.

Yours truly,

Yahweh Walters

(King of Monad)

Shilpi was stunned, but Santosh was awestruck. Firstly, he never knew that the landlady or Shilpi was the Duke’s daughter. All he was ever told or knew was that Shilpi’s husband died in an accident and the two had been living in miserable conditions since then. He also didn’t know what this spiritual energy she was talking about was. But what he couldn’t digest was the fact that he was a prince, whose name was Polaris Walters, not Santosh Basu.

The midnight clock struck. Both Polaris and Shilpi went to their beds without uttering a word to each other.

*Present*

“… And that is how I became Polaris Walters in just one night. You see, even I didn’t know of anything before. Hell! I couldn’t even sleep a whole night, thinking about all this. This was a lot to take in, to be honest.”

Heena looked at Shilpi for confirmation. Shilpi nodded her head with a gentle smile, “He is right, the night your father died, the Supreme One told me that the situation in the Kingdom wasn’t good. Otherwise, we would have already been there. I am sure that then’s when he was brought here.”

“OH MY GOD! Right now, I am so bewildered that I can’t even think straight.”, Heena said.

“Don’t worry, you will understand everything once we reach Monad. Gather your personal belongings. We are heading over there right now.”, Shilpi said with a strong determination.

“Yes, Ma’am!”, both Heena and Polaris spoke in sync with each other. And hence they laughed together. Everyone was happy. Heena was happy with the fact that Polaris now had a family, Shilpi was happy because after all these years she would finally meet her parents. But Polaris had a different reason, he was happy because now Heena wouldn’t need to endure the taunts and humiliation of the villagers.

They quickly gathered all the things they needed and gathered in the drawing room. Polaris carried the same suitcase he had when he first arrived. Shilpi held in her hand an amulet and some things that belonged to Titan. Heena didn’t carry anything except the rag doll her mother gave her on her twelfth birthday.

“Hold on to me, both of you.”, Shilpi instructed. As soon as they were held to her, Shilpi broke the Amulet, and they vanished from the house. The building which they once called home was now vacant, echoing with the sounds of wind flowing in.