Chapter 1
(Ruhani’s POV)
Morning came like it always did — quietly, almost apologetically.
A pale light slipped through the curtains, landing on the cracked wall across from my bed. The Khanna house never woke up gently; it snapped awake like a whip.
Down the hallway, I could already hear Meera Khanna’s voice — sharp, slicing through the stillness.
It was strange, how one voice could fill a house and still leave it feeling empty.
“Ruhani!” she called, her tone dripping with impatience. “You’re still asleep, aren’t you? The breakfast won’t cook itself!”
I wasn’t asleep. I hadn’t really slept at all.
Sleep didn’t come easy in a house where even silence felt like walking on glass.
I slipped out of bed and wrapped my dupatta around me, the faded fabric thin and soft from too many washes. The mirror on my wall had a crack running through it, splitting my reflection into two halves — one that looked alive, and one that looked like it had given up.
Sometimes, I wasn’t sure which one I truly was.
By the time I reached the kitchen, Meera was already there — her gold bangles clinking, her brows furrowed in that familiar way that said I was already doing something wrong.
Sia sat at the table, scrolling through her phone, her laughter bright and careless.
“Do you have to breathe so loud?” Meera muttered without looking at me.
“I—sorry,” I whispered.
She didn’t reply. She didn’t have to.
I moved to the stove, lighting it carefully, pretending not to notice how their eyes sometimes flicked toward me like I was something inconvenient.
I’d stopped asking why a long time ago.
The sound of butter sizzling on the pan filled the silence. I let it drown out everything else.
When the breakfast was ready, I placed it on the table.
Raghav Khanna folded his newspaper, just long enough to give me one of those looks — the kind that made my chest tighten even though he hadn’t said a word.
“Late again,” he muttered.
“I—”
“Don’t answer back.”
My words shrank before they ever reached my lips.
I simply nodded and stepped back, like I always did.
They ate. I cleaned.
It was a rhythm.
A cruel, familiar rhythm.
After they were done, Meera’s voice echoed again.
“Go to the market after this. Sia needs fabric for her college project.”
I nodded. “Yes, Ma.”
The word Ma slipped out automatically, though it never felt right on my tongue.
Sia looked up from her plate, smirking. “Don’t embarrass me at the shop this time. Last time you looked like a servant.”
Meera laughed softly. “That’s because she is one.”
They laughed together.
And I smiled — a tiny, practiced smile that didn’t reach my eyes.
Because sometimes smiling was easier than crying.
When the house finally emptied — Raghav to his shop, Sia to college, Meera to gossip with the neighbors — I allowed myself one minute of stillness.
Just one.
I sat near the window, hugging my knees, and watched the sunlight spill across the tiled floor. Outside, Jaipur was alive — a thousand colors, a thousand sounds.
Inside, everything was muted.
I reached for the anklet on my ankle — the only thing that had ever truly belonged to me.
A small silver chain, simple yet beautiful.
On the inside, hidden where no one could see, were two letters: R.R.
I didn’t know what they meant.
But whenever I touched them, I felt something strange — like my heart remembered something my mind couldn’t.
Sometimes, when the world grew too heavy, I’d imagine stories around those initials.
Maybe they belonged to a family who’d loved me once.
Maybe they were proof that I was meant for more than this.
I used to believe in things like that — until belief started to hurt.
The day grew warmer. I wrapped my dupatta tighter, gathered my small cloth bag, and stepped outside.
The air smelled of spice and sunlight. The noise of the market drifted from down the street — vendors shouting, children laughing, rickshaws honking.
It was chaos, but it was beautiful.
I walked slowly, clutching the little list Meera had given me.
People brushed past, busy with their own lives. No one looked twice at me.
And yet, for the first time that day, I didn’t mind being invisible.
Being invisible meant being safe.
Being unseen meant being free.
A soft wind carried the scent of marigolds and dust.
A street musician plucked at his sitar, the notes melting into the afternoon air.
I stopped for a moment, closing my eyes, letting the sound wash over me.
For a brief second, I felt something I hadn’t in years — peace.
And then, a voice broke through the music.
“Miss, careful!”
I blinked — a man rushing past had almost knocked into me, his basket tipping, petals scattering across the ground.
“Sorry,” I murmured, bending to help him.
“It’s all right,” he said, smiling. “You’ve got a good heart.”
His words were simple, but they lingered.
No one in my world had ever said that to me.
When I looked up, the sunlight caught on the temple domes in the distance, golden and bright.
For a moment, I thought I saw something glint — high above the city — like a crown in the sky.
I shook the thought away.
Dreams like that weren’t meant for girls like me.
Still, as I walked back through the market, a strange feeling bloomed quietly inside my chest — something small, something fragile.
Hope, maybe.
And somewhere far from the noise and the dust, in a palace of marble and silence, a man stood by a window, watching the same golden light — without knowing it had touched her first.
The palace woke before he did — like it always had, for generations.
There was a rhythm to royal mornings:
the echo of footsteps in marble corridors, the murmur of staff opening curtains, the faint scent of sandalwood and sunlight.
Rudra Raj Rathore’s world was built on precision — a kingdom that no longer ruled but still demanded perfection.
He sat in the quiet of his study, the first rays of dawn spilling across old portraits and polished floors. Jaipur shimmered in the distance — pink walls catching gold, the sound of the city faint but alive.
To him, mornings were a reminder of everything he couldn’t escape: duty, legacy, silence.
The world called him King of Rajasthan, though the title meant little now. India no longer had thrones, only history — and he was the living, breathing ghost of it.
The marble walls of Rathore Palace were heavy with stories that no one dared to tell anymore.
And Rudra — he was the keeper of them all.
Arjun, his secretary, entered quietly.
“Good morning, Your Highness. Your schedule for the day—”
“Leave it on the desk,” Rudra said, not looking up.
“Yes, sir.”
When the door closed again, silence returned — familiar, unbroken.
He turned the pages of an old file, numbers and letters blurring into one another. Somewhere, beneath the weight of polished authority, there was a man who hadn’t smiled in months.
He leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting to the window.
Outside, sunlight kissed the domes of the city — and for a fleeting second, something stirred in his chest.
A feeling he couldn’t name.
He dismissed it quickly. Feelings were distractions.
A King couldn’t afford them.
Breakfast was a quiet affair — it always was.
Rajmata sat at the head of the long dining table, elegant in her cream saree, her eyes sharp with the wisdom of age.
“You didn’t sleep,” she said, without looking up from her tea.
“I did,” Rudra replied softly.
She raised an eyebrow. “You still lie like your father.”
He smiled faintly — the kind of smile that vanished before it reached his eyes.
“I have meetings today.”
“You always do.”
Rajmata’s gaze lingered on him, proud and sad all at once. “You carry too much silence, Rudra. Sometimes, I fear it will crush you.”
He didn’t answer. There were no words that could fix the emptiness that came with being a King in a world that no longer believed in crowns.
When he finally stepped out into the courtyard, the palace glowed in the morning light.
Guards bowed, servants hurried by, the air smelled faintly of roses and dust.
He moved through it all with effortless grace — tall, calm, unreadable.
People often mistook that stillness for coldness.
They didn’t know it was armor.
He got into his black Range Rover, the royal emblem glinting faintly on the license plate.
The city was already alive when he drove through the gates — shopkeepers lifting shutters, schoolchildren running late, street vendors calling out in sing-song voices.
Rudra lowered the window slightly, letting the noise and wind rush in.
It felt real, raw, almost comforting.
This was the Rajasthan he loved — not the throne rooms or silk banquets, but the people, the colors, the heartbeat of it all.
For a moment, he wished he could disappear into it — a nameless face in a crowd.
But wishes, like crowns, came with weight.
At a red light, his gaze drifted — absent-mindedly, casually — across the crowd on the street.
A group of schoolchildren laughed, an old man sold flowers, a woman bargained for vegetables.
And then, his eyes caught something.
A girl — standing by a fabric shop, sunlight tangled in her hair, her dupatta catching the wind like it belonged to another world.
She wasn’t doing anything remarkable — just waiting, holding a small list in her hand — yet something about her made the noise fade.
He couldn’t see her face clearly.
But something — a feeling — rooted him to that moment.
Something quiet.
Something familiar.
The car behind honked, the light turned green, and the moment broke like glass.
Rudra looked away, pressing his foot on the accelerator, the city moving again around him.
He didn’t know why that small glimpse stayed with him, why it felt like the echo of a dream he couldn’t recall.
All he knew was that, for the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel completely numb.
Back at the palace, the day carried on in perfect order — meetings, calls, discussions. But his focus drifted.
Every so often, he found himself glancing at the window, wondering why the morning light felt different now.
He’d seen thousands of faces in his life — politicians, aristocrats, models, dignitaries — but that one face, barely glimpsed in a busy street, lingered in a way none of the others ever had.
It made no sense.
Rudra Rathore didn’t believe in fate, or signs, or magic.
He believed in numbers, control, structure.
And yet, beneath all that control, something ancient stirred — something that didn’t belong to the modern world.
A whisper, soft and persistent.
You’ve seen her before.
He shook the thought away, setting the pen down a little too sharply.
But even as he turned back to his files, his mind betrayed him — replaying the image again and again.
A girl, sunlight in her hair.
A dupatta that danced like fire.
A feeling he couldn’t explain.
He didn’t know her name.
He didn’t know that destiny had just placed the future Queen of Rajasthan in his path.
And somewhere in the city, the same sunlight that touched her had followed him home.
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I hope you like the chapter.
Bye!!!!!!!
