Page 1 of The Promised Queen
CHAPTER 1
Dust, Dance, and Unpaid Bills
MEHER
The mirrored wall reflects twenty little faces—bright eyes, messy hair, and the kind of unfiltered excitement only children can carry into a room. They’re fidgeting on the polished wooden floor, waiting for me to start. The tabla beats echo softly from the speaker, a warm thump-thump that seems to match my heartbeat.
“Backs straight, shoulders relaxed,” I remind them, clapping my hands once to get their attention. A few straighten immediately. Others are still whispering to their friends, giggling like the secrets they share are the most important things in the world.
I let the smile tug at my lips. This—this is my world. Not the crumbling, stale-smelling apartment I return to every night. Not the hollow eyes of the man who used to be my father.
Here, I’m not Meher Sharma, the daughter of an alcoholic. Here, I’m Miss Meher, a dance teacher at the royal school of Udaipur—where the classrooms smell faintly of marigold and chalk, and the corridors are hung with photographs of smiling royals handing out books to children.
I glance out the high windows. Beyond the courtyard, the palace’s sandstone walls rise like a fairytale backdrop, glowing gold in the late morning sun. To me, it’s always felt like another world—untouchable, unreachable. I don’t dream of it. I’ve learned not to dream about things I can’t have.
“Okay, dhol beat in three, two—” I start the rhythm with my feet.
They follow me, tiny hands moving into the mudra positions I taught them last week. Some stumble, others over-exaggerate, but they try, and that’s what matters. The sound of their feet hitting the floor in uneven harmony makes my chest loosen.
It’s in moments like that I almost forget.
Almost forget how life has never really offered me peace.
My mother died when I was six. A fever, they said, as if two words could contain the ruin of an entire world. My grandmother—Amma—took me in her arms that day and promised me that I still had someone to love me. She kept that promise until I was ten; then she left, too, quietly in her sleep.
With both of them gone, my world turned cold, colorless. All the warmth they gave me was replaced by the bitter smell of alcohol and the sound of glass bottles clinking in the night.
Amma had saved every rupee she could from cleaning jobs, cooking jobs, even mending clothes, to put me through a good school. Every time I stepped into a classroom, I carried her pride with me. My father… well. He never saw it that way.
Even now, he taunts me about it. How Amma’s savings could have been used for his drinks instead of my education. How “adiploma won’t fill an empty stomach” but whiskey will fill his veins.
Now all I have left is him.
I don’t love him—not anymore—but I can’t quite bring myself to hate him, either. I remember the father he used to be. His warmth. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. The silly songs he’d make up on the spot. How he gave me the nickname Cherry because I blushed too easily as a child.
But that was before. Before my mother’s absence hollowed him out from the inside. I tell myself I understand. He lost the love of his life. Of course he broke. But still—this isn’t the man she would have wanted him to become.
I’ve told him that. Sometimes, he cries when I say it. Apologizes, even swears he’ll change. And for a day, maybe two, he tries. Then the bottles find their way back into his hands, and the man who calls me Cherry turns into the man who calls me selfish, useless, ungrateful—especially when I don’t give him the money he demands.
The clinking of my anklets jolts me back to the present.
A small tug at my anarkali pulls me down from my thoughts. I look down and see Rahul—five years old, big eyes, hair that never sits flat—staring up at me with his most dramatic pout.
“Miss Meher,” he says, “Priya says I’m always stepping on her dupatta, but I’m not doing it on purpose.”
From across the room, Priya glares at him like this is the greatest betrayal of her short life.
I crouch down to Rahul’s level. “Hmm. Maybe your feet are just too excited, and they’re jumping everywhere.” I tap hisnose, making him giggle. “How about you give Priya a royal bow before the next step?”
“Royal bow?” His eyes widen.
“Yes. Like a prince greeting a princess.”
He straightens immediately, then walks to Priya and gives a clumsy bow. She bursts into laughter, the kind that makes her whole body shake, and I can’t help but laugh with them.
These children. My dance. This small class brings me more peace than my home ever could.
I move to the front again and signal the tabla beat. We start. The rhythm flows into my bones. My feet know what to do, my hands curve through the air like they’re shaping the music itself.
