Page 66 of The Promised Queen

Rajmata rises slowly from her chair. Her movements are graceful, measured, but I see the tension in her shoulders. “Your father loved me once, too,” she says, her voice low, almost lost to memory. “But love didn’t stop him from drowning himself in ambition. Love didn’t protect me from loneliness in this very palace. So forgive me if I do not place blind faith in it as you do.”

Her confession cuts deeper than her steel. For a moment, she isn’t Rajmata, the queen mother. She is just a woman who was left behind.

I swallow hard, my chest tight. “I’m not my father. And Meher… she isn’t you. She’s everything you’ve forgotten how to be. Honest. Alive. Human.”

Her eyes glisten, but she blinks it away swiftly. She won’t give me that victory. “Even if that is true, what then? She’s gone.”

The truth slams into me again. My throat tightens, but I force the words out. “Because she thought she had to leave. Because you made her believe she didn’t belong here.”

“Does she?” Rajmata challenges softly.

“Yes,” I answer without hesitation. My voice doesn’t shake. “More than anyone. She belongs here because I belong to her. And without her, none of this—” I gesture around at the grandeur, the weight of centuries, the palace itself “—none of this matters to me.”

The silence after my outburst is deafening. Rajmata studies me, her eyes searching, peeling me back layer by layer like she always has. Except this time, I don’t hide. I let her see it all—the rawness, the ache, the stubborn certainty that Meher is mine.

Finally, she exhales, the sound weary, almost human. “You sound like your father when he was young.”

I don’t know if it’s an insult or a reluctant admission.

“I am not asking for your approval,” I tell her, my voice calmer now, steadier. “I am telling you what I’ve already decided. I will find Meher. I will bring her back. And I will not let you, or tradition, or the weight of your fears keep me from her.”

Her chin lifts, regal again, but her eyes betray her—shining with something she doesn’t want me to name. “You think love will save you, Devraj?”

“No. I think she will.”

The silence swells again, but this time it feels different. Less suffocating, more… shifting. As though the walls of this palace might finally, after years, be ready to let some air in.

“And I warned you,” I announce, my back straightening, “I ordered you to stay away from her. You didn’t listen to my command, Rajmata.I gave you a chance because Meher is too kind; she would have blamed herself for taking you away from your children. But you have left me with no choice. You will be sent to the Royal villa, and you will live your remaining life there.”

I stop, my heart stuttering in my chest. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this treatment, Maa-sa. I don’t know why you won’t love me like you love Vihaan and Veeraj. I was your son, too.” A lump forms in my throat. “I…I wish I could have at least one percent of love they got from you…but you just made me your expectation.” I shake my head, unable to form more words. I bow in front of her. “However I would like to thank you for birthing me.” I straighten and look into her eyes. They glisten with unshed tears. “Meher will always be my wife, whether you like it or not, but you are no longer my mother.” I smile sadly. “You were never one for me, so…you will never be seeing me again, Maa-sa.”

I turn to leave, my hand already on the door. Behind me, Rajmata’s voice carries softly, almost too quiet to hear.

“Take care of yourself, Devraj.”

For a moment, I think I’ve imagined it. But I don’t turn around. I don’t need to see her face. I just hold on to those words, let them steady me.

And then I walk out.

Because for the first time in my life, I know exactly where I need to be—and who I need to fight for. And it’s not the crown, or the throne, or power, it’s my wife.

CHAPTER 47

A Name on the List

DEVRAJ

Vihaan’s voice cuts through the quiet of my study, carrying that hint of hesitance he always has when he’s not entirely sure how I’ll react. “Bhai-sa… there are two dancing events where someone namedMeher Sharmahas been registered.”

The name strikes me sharper than I expect. My hand stills on the papers I’ve been pretending to read for the past hour, my mind catching on those two words—her old name. My wife’s name before she becamemy wife. Before all of this.

“Give me that,” I say, sharper than intended, and I snatch the papers from his hand. My eyes skim down the list, scanning, burning through the black ink until they find it. There it is.Meher Sharma. Registered in two places. Udaipur. Jaipur.

For a moment, my chest tightens. A pulse of longing, sharper than breath. She’s here, somewhere close. Not far away in some corner of the world where my men couldn’t trace her. She’shere.

But she wouldn’t be foolish enough to sign up under her married name. No. Too smart for that. Too careful. She knows how I think, knows how to vanish when she wants to. But still, she left this—her old name—as if some part of her didn’t want to cut herself off completely. As if she wanted me to find her.

I glance up at Vihaan, who’s watching me like he’s trying to read what this means to me. He doesn’t understand. He can’t. “She can’t be in Udaipur,” I say, the certainty rising unbidden. “She’s too smart for that.” My voice is firm, final. “I’m going to Jaipur tomorrow.”