Chapter 1 ~ The First Encounter

Ghazal POV

It had been a whole day since I had begun running. My knees hurt, my throat felt parched, and my strength was being ripped from my body with each passing moment.

The sharp rays of the sun hazed my mind. Stumbling over a broken tree trunk, I fell to my knees, huffing and crying out in pain.

My disheveled hair caught a few dry leaves along with the dirt. My knees scraped against the ground.

But I couldn't stop.

They were after me, and I couldn't let them catch me.

Holding my breath, I stood again, searching for the man I had been dying to meet for the last two days.

Our Sultanate was at war; it was the best time to escape.

Nobody knew about it. No one cared.

I loved everyone my whole life, but they didn’t care about my love.

To them, a man should have a sultanate, an attitude, and unnecessary anger. Otherwise, he couldn't be called a man.

But my heart only beats for my Zayan, the love of my life. I tried teasing about being interested in marrying a commoner, but my family had always been rigid about status, caste, lifestyle, and money.

To them, death is no concern as long as you die in a golden cage.

I knew everyone dies, but I wanted to die in the arms of my love.

Sadly, he worked as a footman soldier in the army of my sultanate, and I learned from an attendee that we had been losing.

But Abbujaan wasn't ready to wave the white flag, which meant his life was in danger.

Honestly, I didn't care.

Two men were ready to satisfy their egos, and the deaths of thousands of soldiers would never be justifiable to me.

Especially when I hadn't seen my future without Zayan.

I could do anything.

So I ran from the Sultanate. After running ten miles, I overheard a few people in the village say that a troop of soldiers was following me.

The forest seemed like the best option.

But now, I was stuck.

I couldn't find my way, and all I could see around me were trees—not a single person. On top of that, I had to get out before it got dark.

Otherwise, I would end up as a piece of flesh in a wild animal’s stomach.

The thought alone irked me to the core.

I didn’t run to marry him or be with him. I just wanted to meet and talk to him once. I knew he would protect himself, but my heart wasn’t settling.

Suddenly, I noticed the faint noise of screams. Goosebumps lived on my skin. Holding my shattering breaths, I stepped ahead, one after the other, slowly and steadily. I followed the noise.

By the end of the evening, I arrived at the battleground. It was nearly a mile from the forest. I heard the screams of people fleeing through the woods to protect themselves.

“Zayan!” I breathed to myself. My clothes were rugged in the mud, slightly torn. My hair fell open, and my stomach growled with the utmost hunger.

The death seemed nearer than ever. But I didn’t want to die at seventeen. I hadn’t even been kissed, let alone loved and married.

Zayan promised me he would raise the matter in court once the war was over. I was the youngest child of my father.  I believed that he wouldn’t mind if one of his daughters would marry a commoner and live a life away from the Sultanate.

However, a part of me expected that he might give us a small village in which we could live happily and contentedly.

But as soon as I raked my gaze over the battleground, happiness and content shattered apart like the castle of sands.

The smell of blood engulfed my senses, leaving me frozen to the ground. Tears welled in my eyes as I gazed at the screaming soldiers. Someone lost his hand, someone lost his leg. A person lost both his hands, and I noticed a man trying to help him.

Fire was around.

 Suddenly, a loud shot broke through the air, and I shivered to the core. Canon!

My fingers trembled, fidgeting over my apple-green sharara as I stepped ahead. My torn bellies felt the blood-soaked sand beneath my feet.

Never in my whole life had I seen a view so brutal.

Thousands of men were trying to kill each other because two men couldn’t settle over one thing.

My feet stumbled, hardly compensating for my weakened knees. Unconsciously, I scanned the different, sweaty, tired, and bloodied faces, searching for the only one: my Zayan.

“Hey, have you seen Zayan?” I asked a soldier. He looked confused. “He is tall, lean, around twenty-two years old, curly hair, beautiful—”

“No,” he inhaled sharply, shaking his head, and running away from there.

What the hell was happening here?

How would I ever find him in this crowd?

I had thousands of questions and wondered if he was near the tents. It was almost dark now, and the soldiers would soon return to them.

But I didn’t know which side was ours. My gaze fell on the dark green tents closer to me. I couldn’t see or find the other sultanate tents.

“Who are you?” suddenly a soldier asked, and I stepped back in fear.

“Me?” I stuttered. “I am…I am Ghazal.”

“Ghazal who?” he asked, stepping closer. The fear raised in my nerves, and I shook my head unconsciously, calculating the uncountable possibilities for how my life could end here and in different ways I couldn’t know.

“Daughter of Sultan…Ayzan.” My heart dropped to my gut when, instead of a bow out of respect, this soldier sharpened his gaze at me.

“Ayzan’s daughter?” he asked, and this was when I knew I had messed up.

I immediately turned around to run, but he held my hand and yelled, before I could. “Come with me.”

I shook my head. “No, please, leave me. You are mistaking me. You are taking it all wrong. I am not who you understand. Let me go, please!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

But my strength and cries were nothing in the middle of the enemies and in front of him.

In no time, he took me to a big tent and called a man. “Amir Saheb.”

I gulped with fear and knelt to apologize. “I am sorry. I am here by mistake. I wanted to go to my father. Please, I am sorry. Please, let me go. My father would kill me,” I begged.

My mind was filled with the possibilities of what could happen now.

I would never be able to meet Zayan. My father would find out about it, and he would most definitely kill me before I could get either my love or my freedom.

“Yes,” a deep, resonant voice with a smooth texture and soft timbre caught my attention.

I lifted my gaze and noticed a young man turning his head back from a soldier to me. His hand carried a sword. His clothes were ruined in the blood and dust. There was a tiny cut on his fair cheeks.

“She is spying on us. She is Ayzan’s daughter.” Soldiers’ words dropped into my ears like cannon balls, blasting my life, confidence, and future, and leaving the ashes and smoke of hell and torture.

“No,” I immediately spat back. “No, no, Amir Saheb, he is lying. I just…” I fell silent.

I had done enough by entering the enemy’s empire; I couldn’t let him know the true reason. They could use it against my father.

And, if I had waited a year to make things right for Zayan and me, I couldn’t let things be ruined for me.

“What?” he walked to me.

My body cooled. The blood suddenly left every ounce of warmth from me as he placed the tip of his bloodied sword below my jaw to make me lift my gaze and look at him.

Tears fell freely, not only because I had messed up but also because now he could kill me without letting me either meet Ayzan or my father.

“I am so sorry. I just came here to beg you to stop the war. My father and brothers’ lives are at risk. Please,” I lied.

This wasn’t the reason I had come here. I wanted to meet Zayan, but it seemed practical to just hear what he might have wanted to listen.

“She is lying, Amir Saheb,” the soldier said, and I shook my head.

Amir Saheb chuckled. I didn’t know who he was. He seemed pretty young, in his early twenties, but there was a kind of innocence layered on his face.

His aura exudes comfort and forgiveness.

“Take her inside my tent,” he ordered, and my prejudices regarding him shattered like glass.

“What?” I shouted. “No, what are you doing? No. Please, leave me. It’s not what you think. Please let me know. My father doesn’t know I am here. Please let me go, please, please,” I screamed, letting uncountable tears fall down my cheeks.

But neither the soldier listened nor the Prince cared of my beggings and tears. I was dragged into his tent and fell to my knees.

My scream now echoed through the tents, and my heart stopped beating when I noticed Amir walk inside.

“Please, please, I am begging you. Please let me go,” I shivered with fear but tried to stand on my feet.

“You can leave,” he ordered the soldier.

 My heart stopped beating, and I noticed him collect a cloth off a small table.

“What are you doing?” I immediately stepped back, but before I could go far away, he held my hand and pulled me closer to him.

“I don’t know who you are, but I can tell you want to leak my location so that Ayzan Sultan can plan a night attack and get rid of us without any fair battle. But I won’t let that happen. So, stay here,” he said, tying my hands with the clothes.

I struggled. I struggled hard. I fell to my knees, trying to break free from his hold. My hair brushed against the carpeted ground. I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“Please, please, I am begging you. Please, let me go. My father hates me already. And, if he ever gets to know that I stayed here, he would never accept me. Please, please, leave me alone,” I begged shakily.

But, his deaf ears couldn’t even get the slightest of sense of my words.

After tying my hands firmly, he grabbed my arm and stood me up.

And, before I could think of running, he threw me over the bed.

My eyes widened with shock.

“Please, please, please, stay away from me. What are you doing?” I screamed, noticing him lift the ropes kept in the corner.

“Tsk tsk tsk,” he tsked, mocking my situation. “Your plan failed. I am so sorry.” his words worked like salt on my burnt wounds. Stepping closer, he tied my legs and hands to the bedpost.

I felt insanely ashamed lying over his bed.

My sobs came out frightened.

“Please, please, let me go. You are being mistaken, please,” I begged again and again.

But, nothing occurred to his brainless mind.

And when he was tired of hearing my screams, he just tied a cloth over my mouth to keep me shut.

“See, there is nothing personal between us. But I can’t risk my life along with the other soldiers. I will let you go, and I will ask my own soldiers to leave you to the territory of the Ayzan Sultanate. But, this night, I can’t. Tomorrow is the conclusive day of battle. I can’t risk it.” his words made me cry and only cry harder.

He left me alone. I could sense the soldiers standing outside the tent.

I couldn’t close my eyes for a single moment throughout the night. With every passing moment, I could only imagine the wrath that awaited me.

My tears had dried, and so did the hopes for the future.

Not only would my father disown me, but Zayan would also question my integrity.

What would I answer if he ever asked what I did the whole night in a young Prince’s tent in the middle of the battlefield?

How would I look into their eyes, knowing what they must be thinking about me?

He didn’t do it to protect himself; he did it to torment my image and take revenge on my father.

I would never forgive him.

Suddenly, the noise of him entering the tent made me move my gaze to him. Lying in the same position, my whole body had numbed.

He yawned and walked to the nearby water vessel to splash a few handfuls of water on his face. Hopefully, he could splash some brain into his empty head as well.

My jaw hurt with the cloth tightened around my mouth. I tried to scream, but my voice only came out muffled.

He chuckled.

“Good morning, Shahzaadi,” he mocked me. Despite the burning in my eyes from endless crying, fresh tears still rolled down my cheeks.

I screamed even louder, trying to say ‘Leave me.’ But he only laughed a little, and came closer to the bed’s edge and sat beside me.

I inhaled sharply, looking away.

“What’s your name?” he asked, leaning in closer. I press my head back into the mattress, trying not to get infected by his touch.

If my father, brothers, soldiers, and lover would deny or fear to avenge what happened here, I would avenge it myself.

My life was over, and I would make sure his would end soon as well.

“Let me untie it, Shahzaadi Saheba,” he said, and the moment his cold, damp fingers touched my cheeks before reaching to the back of my head, I lay frozen.

His breath tickled against my face, and I couldn’t help but let silent tears roll down my cheeks.

The clothes were taken off my mouth. My swollen lips hurt when pressed together. The dried skin peeled off with the slightest of biting.

“You can go now. As I say, I have nothing personal against you; it’s just I can’t risk my soldier’s life,” he said in a low voice, and this was the last thing I wanted to hear from his mouth.

And the moment he untied my hands, I pushed him away. He fell off the bed.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” I shouted, leaning forward to untie my legs.

He scoffed, placing his hands on his chest and gazing at me.

“Such a wild, stray, mannerless orange cat,” he commented, gritting his teeth, and I stepped off the bed and glared into his eyes.

“Such a heartless molester, kidnapper, killer, rapi…” I inhaled sharply as he cocked his brow. “dog.” I finished, unable to stop myself from saying, and I barged out of the tent.

The soldier stepped before me, and my anger was already high up to the sky, so I raised my hand and landed a tight slap on his cheek. “Move aside.”

“Let her go.” He shouted from inside the tent, and the soldiers moved out of my way.

I immediately sprinted through the mazes of tents. The sun was about to rise. I didn’t know where I got such strength. I had abused no one like that before.

But, before him, I couldn’t stop myself.

And, at this moment, nothing mattered to me, not even Zayan, because my whole life was at risk.

All I wanted right now was to go back into the Sultanate.

But, in the middle of the battleground and the forest with the early morning sunlight slowly spreading wide, it seemed I had absolutely no clue about the whereabouts and the way.

I was lost.

I Was Lost.

The first chapter of the most awaited book 'Haider's Ghazal'. Things will go wild in every direction. So, buckle up as the journey starts on May 11th 2025.

The update schedule and the rest of the information will be updated to you in time. Till then, enjoy some fiesty, crazy, and cute chapters of 'Mohe Rang Do Laal', a sneak peek into the third generation of Hind as they celebrate Holi.. It has one chapter for a few people who will be there in the third generation of Hind Sagas.

Don't miss out on the promising couples' early days of chemistry building.

Rudraja X Hridhaan

Ishwaran X Ekaah

Harshwardhan X Satyawati X Yashwardhan X Saraswati (God knows what their story is)

Important Information

1. The book will later be available on Kindle and in Paperback. Stck and Patreon versions will only be the early access, and the first drafts of the books as I write them. It's like you guys are getting the front row seats to the drama, and very raw world building. Disclaimer - expect errors.

2. Although everything has its own pros/cons. People who enjoy reading chapter by chapter, instead of reading a book in one sitting, and also like inline comments and enjoy what others have to say, can stick to Stck.me and Patreon.com

3. I have made my decision not to make the books available for free for a few reasons. One, I am willing to experiment with more mature themes (Life and romance), so that could make people under 17 uncomfortable. Second, the paid option can really carve and help me in making writing my full-time job.

4. If at any point in time, my writing makes you uncomfortable and hits the last nerve of your brain, leave the book immediately. I hate seeing things go down the gutter as they have lately.

5. Also, at last, I only demand the freedom to write my thoughts, weave them into stories, and serve the people as I can. As I have always said, 2% of my earnings go to girls' education. (Any platforms—stck, patreon, kindle, whatever). It is not to market myself, but to contribute as an author, with a commendable audience, because simply, we can. And, as we strive towards success, love and peace in our own lives, we must keep contributing a portion to others. You never know, you are helping someone in what way.

6. At very last, don't hit my last nerve. I am 99% a very sorted woman, but that 1% is really scary, even to myself. You don't know me, you don't know my past, my upbringing, my education, my lifestyle, my health issues, my traumas, so better keep your personal judgements down your throat. And, if you want to vomit, just ask your bae for a deep throat, that might help. Judge a character, criticise mannerly, and never go personal with me.

7. Peace out!