Page 6 of Scars and Crowns

Even now . . . The gardens have never looked as alive.

I blink once and the memory disappears.

If I marry someone else . . . What kind of life am I really offering her?

A palace? A title? Jewels locked inside velvet boxes?

None of those things matter if the man standing beside her spends every anniversary wondering where someone else is.

That isn't marriage.

It's punishment disguised as privilege. And I refuse to do that to another person simply because tradition finds my bachelorhood inconvenient.

"I won't marry out of obligation." My voice cuts cleanly through the room. "If I ever ask a woman to share this life with me, it'll be because I can give her all of me."

I pause. Then add quietly, "And until I can do that . . . I won't ask anyone."

The room falls silent. No one argues. No one pushes further. Outside, somewhere in the gardens, a peacock calls.

The sound echoes through the open windows before fading into stillness. Verma closes his file with visible reluctance. "I understand."

No. He doesn't. None of them do. Because they think I'm waiting for the right woman.

I'm not.

I'm waiting for the wrong one to somehow become possible again. And that's the kind of hope no sensible man admits aloud. And I know, this will come up again, maybe in another meeting but the talks of my marriage have never really died since I took over after Papa’s demise. I reach for the next file before anyone can restart the conversation.

"Treasury allocations." The papers slide across the polished wood.

Figures.

Budgets.

Hotel renovations.

Infrastructure proposals.

Numbers have always been easier than memories. Numbers stay where you put them. Memories don't.

The meeting continues. Voices rise and fall around me. Approvals are given. Decisions are made. I sign where signatures are needed. Ask questions where questions are required.

To everyone in this room, I am exactly what they expect me to be. Decisive. Composed. Unshakable.

No one notices that, halfway through the meeting, my thumb absentmindedly brushes against the inside of my wrist. The same place where, years ago, she'd tied a daisy stem around it because she'd declared flowers looked better than watches. The flower had wilted before sunset. The habit never left.

I cap my pen after signing the final document and close the file. Outside, the palace carries on exactly as it always has.

Inside . . . There is a throne. There is a king. There is an entire kingdom depending on me.

And somehow, despite having everything, generations of men before me fought to protect . . . The only thing I've ever truly wanted is still the one thing this palace has never been able to give back.

BACK HOME?

ANAMIKA

"Sara." I crouch in front of her, tugging at the collar of her little cotton top even though I've already straightened it twice. The fabric refuses to stay still beneath my fingers, or maybe it's my hands that won't.

The room they've given us in the staff quarters is barely large enough for the two of us. Damp patches creep along one corner of the wall, the plaster smells permanently wet, and the faint scent of cheap detergent lingers in the air from freshly washed uniforms hanging outside. Through the thin ceiling, I can hear the palace waking into another busy morning—doors opening and closing somewhere above us, distant footsteps echoing across marble floors, voices carrying faintly through corridors I'll never belong to again.