Page 35 of The Promised Queen

“Who made this?” My voice comes out softer than intended.

“Maharaj did.”

I whip my head around. “He paints?”

She nods once. “He used to. In his childhood… and some years after. Before he was crowned.”

I look back at the painting. Something inside me stirs, unsettled. “He made this?”

“Yes, Maharani.”

The words sit heavy in me. Devraj—the man of clipped words, of duty, of controlled silences—had created this? This canvas of light and water and aching quiet?

My feet move on their own. I brush aside another cloth. And another.

One by one, they reveal themselves. A field of mustard under a stormy sky. A young horse in mid-gallop, its mane caught like fire in the wind. A child’s sketch of a woman smiling, unfinished at the edges, colors bleeding into one another. Each canvas tells a different story, yet each feels like a glimpse into a part of him no one has spoken of.

He used to paint.

Before the crown. Before the burden of a title became larger than the boy who once held a brush.

“I wonder what made him stop,” I whisper, mostly to myself.

The staff lowers her eyes. “Perhaps, Maharani, only he can answer that.”

I hum in response, my mind loud with questions I cannot yet ask.

I pause before one canvas. A courtyard bathed in twilight, arches arching into the shadows, a lone diya glowing in the corner. Something about it tugs at me, familiar and foreign at once. I stare until I realize—I want it near me. I want to see it every day.

“I want to keep this one,” I say, my voice certain.

The staff looks startled. “In your chambers?”

“Yes. Please have it moved.” My hand lingers on the painting’s edge, as though claiming it. “I want this one.”

CHAPTER 27

A Queen in Waiting

MEHER

The clinking of cutlery and the polite hum of conversation carry through the long dining hall, bouncing off the high ceilings and ornate chandeliers.I keep my spine straight, my face polite, my hands resting delicately on my lap—every gesture drilled into me by weeks of being watched, judged, measured. Tonight feels no different, except that it is.

Because she’s here.

Priyanka Rathore. The daughter of some influential aristocrat whose family has been close to the royals for generations. Everything about her is impeccable—the way her silk sari drapes without a crease, the subtle diamond studs at her ears, the poise of her chin, and the calm confidence with which she occupies the space beside Rajmata, as though it is hers by right.

Rajmata introduces her warmly, too warmly, the way a mother might introduce the girl she hopes her son will marry. I know exactly what this is. A presentation. A comparison. An unsubtle display of what kind of woman a queen should be.

And so I sit here, smiling faintly, keeping my eyes on my plate when all I want to do is scream into the cavernous room that I am not here to be tested, not here to be put against another woman like a jewel on display. I stab at my food, though careful not to clink the plate too loudly, my jaw tight.

Out of the corner of my eye, I dare a glance at Devraj.

He sits at the head of the table, shoulders broad and commanding in his tailored black bandhgala, the gold buttons catching the light. His expression is unreadable, calm, regal. But his eyes—those stormy dark eyes that never let me breathe easy—aren’t on Priyanka. They’re on the table, the glass of wine in his hand, occasionally flickering toward me with such intensity that it almost startles me.

Not once does he really look at her.

Priyanka laughs at something Rajmata says, a melodic, practiced laugh. Devraj doesn’t even react. He lifts his glass, takes a measured sip, and then sets it down with the kind of care that makes me feel his thoughts are elsewhere. My heart clenches, because as much as I want to convince myself otherwise, I know exactly where his thoughts are. Every glance confirms it.