A week later, Yamini watched the familiar outline of the palace emerge from the shadows of the snowcapped peaks.
As soon as the helicopter landed, she stepped out. The air here was sharper. The mountains stood exactly as they had the day she left, white peaks, quiet, unmoved by anything that happened down here.
She pulled her coat tighter around herself.
I didn’t come for him. I came here for my pendant.
It's family history. It belongs to me. I will not leave the country without it.
She had come to take back the emerald fish pendant.
She even planned to pay him for it. It would take a while, but she intended not to be indebted to him in any way.
The guards at the gate straightened when they saw her.
“Maharani—”
She lifted a hand gently before they could say anything more.
“I'm just here to collect something,” she said.
Their expressions shifted. Relief, then confusion, then something close to hope.
Inside the courtyard, staff slowed mid-step. The housekeeper nearly dropped the folded linen in her arms.
“You're back home,” she breathed.
Yamini gave her a polite smile. “Just for a few hours, Kamla.”
Home.
Jogra Palace was no longer her home.
She walked through the long corridor toward the master's suite wing. The marble floors echoed faintly under her footsteps. The palace smelled the same as always, polish and pine smoke.
Her chest tightened because it did feel like home.
I'm here for the pendant,she told herself again.
She stepped into her bedroom first and searched.
It wasn’t in her jewelry boxes.
Then she turned.
The connecting door between their bedrooms was closed.
When she turned the handle, she noticed that it was unlocked.
Her fingers paused on the handle before she pushed it open.
His room was empty. She knew it would be because he was usually at the office during the day. He never broke his schedule.
Then she recalled that he had broken the schedule sometimes when she was working from the palace studio. He had joined her for lunch in the dining hall, and sometimes they even ate in the garden outside.
Pushing away the thoughts, she focused on his room.
I’m here for my pendant. Not reminisce about times when he only pretended to care.
