“Oh God.”
She threw the heavy covers back, and her feet hit the cold marble floor. The temple rituals. Rani Suchitra. The valley gathering. Her first public appearance.
And she was running late. Very late.
They were supposed to leave by seven-fifteen at the latest because the temple rituals were scheduled to begin at 7:30.
She spun toward the door and immediately saw that she was not alone in the room.
Four palace maids stood near the far wall in absolute silence. They had clearly been there for some time.
Yamini stared at them.
“Why,” she said, her voice still rough with sleep, “did nobody wake me?”
The maids exchanged a very small, very careful glance.
Savita spoke first, her tone apologetic but careful. “We were ordered not to disturb you, maharani.”
Yamini's eye twitched. “Ordered?”
“Yes, maharani.”
“By whom?” Yamini said, although she already knew the answer, and her jaw was already tightening.
“Maharaja gave instructions last night,” Savita said. “He said you needed rest and were not to be woken before you were ready.”
He said you needed rest.
Yamini stood there for exactly two seconds, her hair in complete disarray, her nightclothes wrinkled, the clock reading 6:53, and somewhere downstairs, Rani Suchitra Devi was probably already dressed and composed and had been for the last hour and a half.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered.
The man had stood in the dining hall and told her not to wait for him and then gone ahead and decided, at his own absolute convenience, that she needed rest. Not once considering that rest would make her late in front of his mother. Again.
Inconsiderate, controlling, infuriating jerk!
“Maharani,” Savita said gently, “shall we begin?”
Yamini took a breath. “Yes. Quickly. Please.”
The next twenty minutes passed in controlled chaos.
She took a quick, hot shower and stepped out.
Savita shook out the red pheran with careful hands. The garment was heavier than it looked, layers of fine wool lined with silk, the kind that had been made for mountain winters and mountain ceremonies both. She stood still long enough to be helped into it. The gold tilla embroidery ran the full length of the wide sleeves and along the hemline in an intricate pattern of paisleys and chinar leaves that she recognized from the Jogra royal crest.
Another maid worked quickly through her hair with practiced efficiency while Savita moved to the jewelry tray. Heavy gold earrings, long, crescent-shaped, set with rubies, came first. Then the layered dejhoor, the traditional Jogra ear-to-head chain that connected the earring to the hairpin, with its fine gold links set with small emeralds. Thick goldkangan bangles were slid onto her wrists. A broad gold aath, the traditional waistchain, was fastened at her waist over the pheran.
Her eyes fell on the nightstand.
The emerald fish pendant lay exactly where she had placed it the night before.
Her fingers moved toward it before she consciously decided to wear it. She fastened it around her neck over the pheran's embroidered collar and straightened.
“The mathapatti, maharani,” Savita said, already holding the traditional gold headpiece. Its fine chains spread like a crown across the forehead, set with small rubies that matched the earrings.
Yamini held still while it was pinned and arranged. “How do I look?”
