Page 26 of The Promised Queen
Later, backstage, when the echoes of applause have finally died, I find him waiting. His tall frame leans casually against the wall, as though the universe conspired to place him exactly where my path ends.
I hesitate, fiddling with the folds of my dupatta, before blurting, “were you… invited here?”
He shakes his head once.
My brows knit together. “Then why—”
He cuts me off with a smile. Not the faint, polite smile of a king used to obligations. No. This one is gentler. Real. And it hits me with a force I don’t know how to defend against.
“I wouldn’t want to miss my wife’s performance, would I?”
I gasp before I can stop myself, staring at him as if the words were something impossible. My lips part, my voice barelyabove a whisper. “So you’re saying… you would never miss my performance?”
A quiet chuckle rumbles from his chest, the sound so intimate it feels like it was meant only for me. He steps closer, closing the space between us until the air thickens with his nearness. His hand rises, steady and deliberate, and he tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
The touch is featherlight, yet it sears me.
“Yes, Meher,” he says, his voice low, certain.
My heart slams against my ribs so hard I think it might give me away. My breath stutters, and I can do nothing but stand there, rooted to the spot, every thought scattering like startled birds.
God—help me.
Because I am falling, and I don’t even know how to stop.
CHAPTER 21
Under the Same Sky
DEVRAJ
The terrace is quiet tonight.
It’s a kind of quiet I don’t get to experience often in this palace—where walls have ears, where corridors echo with footsteps, and where silence usually means something is waiting to ambush you. But here, above it all, I can pretend for a while that I am not Maharaj Devraj Singh Shekhawat.
The air is cool, crisp almost, carrying the faint scent of clematis from the gardens below. I lean my elbows against the stone railing of the jharokha and tilt my head back, searching.
The stars are fewer now.
When I was a boy, Baapu-sa would bring me up here. Back then, the night sky used to spill with stars, countless and shimmering, like scattered jewels on black velvet. He’d point them out to me—the constellations, the myths behind them. He’d laugh when I mixed them up, or when I insisted that a cluster of stars formed a horse when clearly it was supposed to be a hunter.
“See, Devraj,” he once told me, placing his large, warm hand on my small shoulder, “when the world feels too heavy, look up.The stars remind us there’s always more beyond our troubles. They’ve been here long before us and they will be here long after. We are but travelers beneath them.”
I believed him then. I still do.
But tonight, looking up at the sparse sky, I wonder if the stars have given up on us too.
A sound breaks my reverie—the faint, unmistakable chime of payal.
I turn, half expecting I’m imagining it. But she’s there.
Meher.
She steps into the terrace light, and for a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe. She’s dressed simply, her dupatta draped carelessly over her shoulders, her hair loose and tumbling down her back in waves that shimmer under the faint moonlight. Her anklets are delicate, catching with every hesitant step she takes.
Our eyes meet, and something unspoken passes between us.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she explains softly. Her voice doesn’t disturb the silence—it blends into it, like it belongs here.
