Page 18 of Scars and Crowns

One breath.

Then another.

Then one more.

Slowly . . . The pressure inside my chest begins to loosen. Not disappear. Just settle into the familiar ache I've learned to carry.

I can't stay here forever.

Sara is waiting for me.

The kitchen is waiting for me.

Lunch service won't stop because the Maharaja remembered the nickname he'd given me when we were children.

I wipe beneath my eyes before any tears can actually fall.

Push myself to my feet. Smooth the wrinkles from my apron with hands that are finally steady enough to pass unnoticed.

One last breath. Then I step back into the corridor. I don't look behind me. I never do.

Because if the last seven years have taught me anything . . . It's that every time I've looked back, I've found another reason to miss the life I couldn't keep.

And missing it has never once made it easier to carry.

THE GIRL WITH HER MOTHER’S EYES

YUVAAN

There are certain things a Maharaja simply doesn't do.

You don't wander through the staff quarters without notice. You don't appear outside a female staff member's room. And you definitely don't ask the Human Resources department for the room number of one particular employee because you can't stop thinking about the look in her eyes.

I know every one of those rules.

I knew them twenty minutes ago when I pushed away from my desk halfway through reviewing a contract.

I knew them when my secretary looked at me in mild confusion after I told him to cancel the rest of my evening and not let anyone disturb me unless the palace was literally on fire.

None of that has stopped me.

My feet keep moving anyway. The staff corridors feel strangely unfamiliar beneath them. I haven't walked this way in years.

Not since I was a boy who regularly escaped his tutors and hid in the servants' wing because nobody ever thought to look for the future Maharaja there. That’s how I found her. She had challenged me that she knew more rooms in this palace than I did . . . she won of course but I considered it as my victory because I found her. Back then these corridors had felt alive—filled with laughter drifting out of open kitchens, aunties gossiping while folding laundry, Me and her racing barefoot despite constant scolding.

Now . . . Most of the faces are new.

The doors have been repainted. The old wooden nameplates have disappeared. Time has quietly replaced an entire generation while I wasn't looking.

I pass one room after another until I finally stop outside the number I'd memorised before leaving my study.

The number from a file I never should have opened. After she'd walked out of my office, I'd sat there for a long time without moving.

The coffee she'd brought had gone cold. I hadn't touched it. I kept staring at the closed door, trying to convince myself I hadn't imagined the entire thing. It wouldn't have been the first time. Over the years, I'd mistaken strangers for her more times than I care to admit.

A laugh carried by the wind in a crowded market.

A familiar silhouette disappearing into a taxi.