Page 39 of The Promised Queen
His smile is faint but real. “You will represent the family at the inauguration of the new school in the city for girls. Speak on our behalf. They should see who stands beside me.”
The napkin crumples in my lap beneath my clenched hand. My chest thrums with something between fear and anticipation. A school. A place where girls will walk into classrooms instead of kitchens, where their futures might stretch longer than marriage proposals. I think of my own grandmother, who had to fight for me to dance, who hid money from my father just so I could take lessons, who told me over and over that dignity comes not from titles but from what you build with your own two hands. A girls’ school feels like that kind of dignity.
But to stand before the city? To speak not as Meher the dancer, but Meher the Queen? That feels impossible.
I search his face for mockery, for some kind of test. But he only waits, his eyes steady, like he is already certain I will rise. The way he looks at me makes it hard to breathe.
When the day comes, I am dressed in a saree the color of sunrise, soft and luminous, with a pallu that shimmers as though it carries the morning on its threads. My hands tremble as Sitara adjusts the pleats one last time, her fingers gentle on my shoulders. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes meet mine in the mirror, steady and sure, as if telling me silently I can do this.
The car ride into the city is long enough for doubt to claw its way in again. The headlines still burn in my memory, the whispers in the corridors, the sting of being reduced to a scandal I never lived. And yet here I am, being sent to represent a crownso many wish to see me unfit for. I chew the inside of my cheek and glance out the window at the blur of streets.
Beside me, Raja s- sits composed, his fingers resting lightly on the armrest. He doesn’t speak until the gates of the school appear, white and new and festooned with marigolds. “You do not need to be anyone but yourself,” he says quietly, as if he can hear the storm inside me. “That is enough.”
I turn to him, and my heart stutters because I want to believe him. I want to believe that I can be enough.
The crowd is waiting outside the school—children in pressed uniforms, their parents, reporters, officials. When I step out of the car, the flash of cameras makes me blink, but I hold my chin high. My palms are damp, but I remind myself: these girls are not here to see perfection. They are here to see possibility.
The headmistress leads me to the stage. My heels click against the tiles, too loud in my own ears. A microphone waits, tall and silver, with the crest of the royal family carved into its base. My stomach flips. The whispers of the crowd swell as I step up, but I force myself to breathe, to look at the rows of young faces staring up at me with wide eyes.
I grip the podium. My voice feels lodged in my throat, but then I see them—these girls who might become lawyers, teachers, dancers, doctors, if only given the chance. I think of myself at their age, clutching a tattered notebook, begging for lessons, desperate to be seen. And suddenly, my words find me.
“I was told once,” I begin, and my voice surprises me with its steadiness, “that a girl’s dreams are too heavy for her to carry alone. That they should be set down, traded for smaller ones that fit inside the walls built around her.” My eyes sweep the crowd,and I let my hand rest lightly on the podium. “But I stand here today because I refused to set mine down. Because someone believed that I could carry them.”
There is a hush. Even the reporters lower their cameras for a moment.
“Each of you will walk through these gates and carry dreams that feel heavy. And maybe people will tell you they are too big, too bold, too impossible. But here, in this place, you will learn that they are not impossible. That you can carry them—and more.”
I pause, my throat tight, my chest rising and falling too fast. “If I stand here as your Queen, it is not because I was born into it. It is because I learned to fight for the worth that was always mine. And so I tell you today—your worth is not something anyone gives you. It is something you already hold.”
Applause erupts, loud and insistent, spilling over the stage. I blink rapidly, trying not to let tears ruin the kohl on my eyes. In the front row, I see little girls clapping with their whole bodies, eyes shining, and in that moment, I feel a kind of freedom I’ve never known.
When the ceremony ends, when the ribbon is cut and the classrooms are opened, I step down from the stage, my hands still trembling but my heart soaring. And then I see him.
Raja-sa stands a few steps away, surrounded by officials and ministers, but his eyes are only on me. There is pride there—undeniable, unhidden—as though he has known all along I would not falter. When our gazes lock, something like heat travels through me, making my breath catch. He does not need to say a word; the way he looks at me says enough.
I walk toward him, my pulse hammering. He leans closer as if he cannot help it, his voice low enough that only I can hear. “You didn’t just speak for them, Meher. You spoke for me, too.”
My cheeks flush, my lips parting, but I can’t form an answer. All I can think is how his words curl around me like a promise, how the air between us feels charged, alive.
And in that moment, with the sound of applause still echoing behind us, I know that for the first time, I have stepped not just into his world, but into my own. I didn’t want any responsibilities, but I was wrong. Now that I have this title, I should fight because I have the power to make changes, for these little girls, for the little Meher in me, for the poor, for the disabled, for everyone who cannot fight for themselves. I may have not wanted to be a queen, but now that I am, I am going to use every opportunity to make it difficult for the people in power. I want them to know and remember that the king and the queen are with their public, and that it’s no longer power against the poor, but rather powerwiththe poor.
CHAPTER 31
The Brush I Left Behind
DEVRAJ
The room is quiet when I step inside, quiet in the way only these palace corridors allow—grand, echoing silence that makes a man feel both important and terribly small at once. My attendants have left a lamp burning, its golden light stretching across the carpet, but it isn’t the lamp that pulls me to a halt.
It’s the coffee table.
For a long moment, I just stand there, staring as if the world has rearranged itself when I wasn’t looking. My coffee table—usually littered with reports, a decanter of whiskey, the occasional book—is no longer mine. It has been claimed. By her.
A canvas rests there, clean and white, untouched, leaning against a neat stack of art supplies—brushes wrapped in soft linen, jars of fresh pigments, oils, pencils, even a palette. All of it arranged with care. Not a servant’s precision, but someone’s heart in their fingertips.
My chest tightens as I take a step closer. There’s a folded sheet of paper placed on top, weighed down by a charcoal pencil. My name is written across it in careful strokes. Not my full title. Not “Maharaja Devraj Singh Rathore.” Just “Raja-sa.”
I sit down heavily, the old armchair creaking beneath me, and unfold the letter. Her handwriting greets me—small, precise, neat, yet carrying something delicate and vulnerable. I breathe it in before I even start to read.
