The desert had not yet surrendered to the sun when the palace of Bikaner stirred awake. In the still-blue hour before dawn, servants moved quietly through the courtyards, their bare feet whispering over the sandstone floors. Brass oil lamps flickered in the breeze, casting long, dancing shadows against carved pillars. Somewhere in the kitchens, the smell of cardamom tea and baking parathas mingled with the faint scent of rosewater sprinkled on the palace steps for good fortune.
In the women’s wing, Princess Amara Devi, twenty-two years old and untested in marriage but seasoned in her own kind of battles, stood at the center of a flurry of motion. Silk garments were being folded into cedar-lined trunks. Jewelry was carefully wrapped in strips of muslin — each piece cataloged by a sharp-eyed maid with an ink-stained ledger. Scrolls of poetry and her favorite ink pens were being packed into a small rosewood chest at her request.
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