A Name Whispers Through Marble

The event was over, but the weight of it hadn’t left Meher’s chest.

She walked out of the palace gates slowly, trailing behind her college group. The night air was cool now, brushing softly against her flushed cheeks. She should have felt proud — she had just attended a royal event, something most students only saw in television dramas. But her heart thudded differently.

She could still feel his gaze.

Like it had stitched itself into the folds of her dupatta, clung to her hair, and settled into the curve of her spine.

Prince Veer Pratap Singh Rathore.

That was the name the host had announced. That was the name that belonged to the man who had looked at her like she was… known to him. From another life maybe. Or maybe from no life at all.

“Meher!” her friend Kavya whispered, nudging her arm. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve been zoned out since we left the palace.”

“I’m just tired,” Meher lied, glancing at the palace once more as it faded behind trees and shadows.

But the truth was sharper. That look hadn’t felt like admiration — it had felt like a decision.

---

Inside the palace, Veer stood alone in one of the inner courtyards. A fountain murmured nearby, but he didn’t hear it. His hand ran absently along the curved edge of a marble pillar.

“She’s not royalty,” his cousin Rajveer said behind him, approaching quietly.

Veer didn’t turn around.

“I know,” he replied.

Rajveer smirked. “Then why do you look like a man who just saw his queen?”

Veer’s silence was his only answer.

He didn’t believe in signs. Or love at first sight. Or in destiny. But tonight… the moment their eyes met, something had moved inside him. A voice — ancient and undeniable — whispered only one word.

Her.

---

Two days passed.

Meher didn’t talk about the event. She buried herself in classes, assignments, and walks around the campus, pretending everything was the same. But every time someone mentioned the palace or the prince, her stomach coiled.

Until one afternoon, the head of the heritage department walked into her lecture hall and said:

> “A special internship project is being launched under the patronage of Raj Mahal. Two students will be selected for a month-long cultural documentation inside the palace premises. You’re one of them, Meher.”

The pen slipped from her hand.

Her breath caught.

“No,” she whispered before she even realized it.

But it was too late. The list was already submitted. And behind the heavy glass windows of Raj Mahal, Veer was already waiting — not as a prince, but as a man who had chosen something… or someone.

---

That night, Meher sat in front of the mirror. She stared at her own reflection, trying to find the girl who had once been excited by small things — the smell of old books, a good rain, hot samosas.

But the girl in the mirror looked different now.

More aware.

More watched.

She didn’t know what lay ahead inside those palace walls.

But a part of her already feared that her life — her freedom — would never be the same.

Not after him.

Not after Dastoor had begun to write her fate.

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