PROLOGUE
At half past eleven at night, the Suryagarh Palace always felt a little different.
During the day, the place was crowded with people-tourists' voices, footsteps beneath old chandeliers, the quiet conversations of staff, the flash of cameras, and the portraits hanging on those walls, in which every man looked so certain, as though he already knew the next page of his life.
At night, everything fell silent.
So silent that, sometimes, you could even hear the old stones contract.
Kavya couldn't sleep that night.
She stood beside the library window, staring out at the courtyard spread beneath the darkness. The rain had stopped only a little while ago. Water had collected across the stone floor, and the yellow lights shattered across its surface, floating in broken reflections.
She held a file in her hands.
Thin.
Only seven pages.
And yet, perhaps, everything she had lost over the past six months had begun with those seven pages.
She opened the file again.
Her father's signature was on the first page.
The Suryagarh Trust's seal was on the second.
A date was written on the third.
The same date Kavya had spent the last three years trying not to remember.
She turned the page.
And stopped.
A name was written at the bottom.
Raghavendra Singh.
Kavya closed her eyes.
For a few seconds, she stood completely still.
Then a voice came from behind her-
"You shouldn't have found this here."
Kavya didn't turn around.
She knew that voice.
Raghav.
She didn't need to see him to recognize his footsteps. Unlike everyone else, he never entered a room as though he were simply opening a door and walking in. It was as if he always knew his presence had already been felt.
Kavya closed the file.
"Then where was I supposed to find it?"
There was no answer for a few moments.
Then she heard footsteps behind her.
Slow.
Measured.
Raghav came to stand beside her, but he didn't look at the file.
"You should be asleep."
Kavya gave a faint laugh.
"Is that advice?"
"Yes."
"Or an order?"
"For you, is there a difference?"
She looked at him.
As always, Raghav was wearing a dark shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. There was exhaustion on his face, but he wasn't even trying to hide it.
That was what bothered Kavya most about him.
Even when he lied, he never looked like he was lying.
"You already knew about this?" she asked.
