THE GIRL WITH HER MOTHER’S EYES
THE GIRL WITH HER MOTHER’S EYES
YUVAAN
There are certain things a Maharaja simply doesn't do.
You don't wander through the staff quarters without notice. You don't appear outside a female staff member's room. And you definitely don't ask the Human Resources department for the room number of one particular employee because you can't stop thinking about the look in her eyes.
I know every one of those rules.
I knew them twenty minutes ago when I pushed away from my desk halfway through reviewing a contract.
I knew them when my secretary looked at me in mild confusion after I told him to cancel the rest of my evening and not let anyone disturb me unless the palace was literally on fire.
None of that has stopped me.
My feet keep moving anyway. The staff corridors feel strangely unfamiliar beneath them. I haven't walked this way in years.
Not since I was a boy who regularly escaped his tutors and hid in the servants' wing because nobody ever thought to look for the future Maharaja there. That’s how I found her.
She had challenged me that she knew more rooms in this palace than I did .
. . she won of course but I considered it as my victory because I found her.
Back then these corridors had felt alive—filled with laughter drifting out of open kitchens, aunties gossiping while folding laundry, Me and her racing barefoot despite constant scolding.
Now . . . Most of the faces are new.
The doors have been repainted. The old wooden nameplates have disappeared. Time has quietly replaced an entire generation while I wasn't looking.
I pass one room after another until I finally stop outside the number I'd memorised before leaving my study.
The number from a file I never should have opened. After she'd walked out of my office, I'd sat there for a long time without moving.
The coffee she'd brought had gone cold. I hadn't touched it. I kept staring at the closed door, trying to convince myself I hadn't imagined the entire thing. It wouldn't have been the first time. Over the years, I'd mistaken strangers for her more times than I care to admit.
A laugh carried by the wind in a crowded market.
A familiar silhouette disappearing into a taxi.
A girl with hair the same shade she used to have.
Every single time, my heart had leapt before reality quietly corrected it.
I'd stopped trusting my own hope a long time ago.
But today . . . Today felt different.
There had been nothing imagined about the way she'd looked at me.
Nothing imagined about the way she'd frozen when I said her nickname. Nothing imagined about the ache that had torn straight through eight years of carefully built distance.
Eventually, I'd reached for the office phone.
Asked Human Resources for the details of the newest kitchen recruits under the pretext of reviewing employee accommodation.
A lie.
A terrible one.
The file had arrived within minutes.
My eyes had found her name before I'd even realised I was searching for it.
Anamika Srivastava.
I don't know how long I stared at those two words. Long enough for the rest of the page to blur. Then my eyes moved lower.
Marital Status: Single.
Below that—
Dependent: One. Age: Five.
The words refused to make sense together. I read them once. Then again. Then a third time.
Single mother.
Somewhere during the years we spent apart . . . She had become someone's mother.
The thought settled heavily inside my chest. Not because she had a child. But because there were suddenly years of her life I knew absolutely nothing about. Years that belonged to someone else. Someone who had been there when I hadn't.
Who had stood beside her?
Who had held her hand through that chapter of her life?
If she was raising a child alone now . . . Where was the man who should have been standing beside her?
I’d shut the file before the thought could go any further. Those answers aren't mine to demand.
Not today. Maybe not ever.
I lift my gaze to the door in front of me.
It's slightly open. Just enough for voices to spill softly into the corridor.
I should leave.
Instead . . . I find myself listening. "Sara!" Anamika's voice reaches me and my heart clenches. "I told you to stop jumping on the bed! You'll break the springs. Then tell me, are you planning to sleep on the floor tonight?"
There's no real anger in her tone.
Just the familiar exasperation of a mother who's delivered the same warning so many times that it's become part of the rhythm of her day.
I slow my steps without thinking.
The staff quarters are quieter than the rest of the palace, the narrow corridor lit by a row of old tube lights that hum faintly overhead.
Through the narrow gap in the door, I catch the smallest glimpse of the room inside.
It's tiny.
Far too small for two people.
A single iron bed pushed against the wall. A faded bedsheet.A few crayons scattered across the mattress. And in the middle of it all . . . A little girl.
She bounces enthusiastically on the bed as though gravity is merely a suggestion, dark curls flying wildly around her face with every jump. She's laughing so hard that she almost loses her balance before springing right back up again.
Across from her, Anamika stands with both hands on her hips.
She's trying very hard to look stern. She's failing spectacularly. Even from here, I can see the corners of her mouth fighting not to smile.
"Mumma!" the little girl protests between giggles. "I'm not that heavy!"
"Oh? Then who keeps making the bed squeak every morning?"
"It's . . . the bed's fault."
"The bed's fault?"
"Yes."
A beat.
"It started first."
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
Anamika pinches the bridge of her nose in dramatic defeat. "I don't even know how to argue with that logic."
The child beams at her as though she's just won an important debate. I don't realize I'm smiling until my cheeks begin to hurt. It catches me off guard.
For the first time since I saw Anamika in my study yesterday . . . The ache eases.
Only a little. Just enough for something softer to settle in its place.
My eyes drift back to the little girl.
Sara.
The name fits her somehow.
Bright.
Playful.
Impossible to contain.
She has Anamika's smile. The same unfiltered joy that always arrived before caution had the chance to interrupt. I wait for something unpleasant to surface inside me.
Jealousy.
Resentment.
Bitterness.
After all . . . This little girl belongs to a life Anamika built without me. A life I know absolutely nothing about. Instead . . . None of those emotions come.
Not one.
All I feel is something unexpectedly gentle. A tenderness I haven't earned.
She's just a child. Completely innocent of whatever happened before she existed. And somehow . . . It's impossible to look at her without seeing pieces of Anamika scattered everywhere.
The way she laughs with her whole body. The way she argues as though she's already won. The way every emotion arrives honestly, without calculation.
It's . . . familiar. Painfully familiar.
A warmth settles quietly beneath my ribs before I even realize it's there. Before I can examine that feeling any further, movement inside the room pulls me back.
Anamika bends to pick up two empty water bottles from beside the bed. "Stay here," she says, pointing a finger at Sara. "No jumping while I'm gone."
"I'll try."
"'Try?"
"I'll . . mostly try."
Anamika gives her a look. Sara immediately presses both palms against the mattress. "I'm sitting."
"Good." She walks toward the doorway.
My heartbeat stumbles.
Idiot.
Move.
Now.
I step back instinctively and slip into the recessed doorway of an unused storeroom just across the corridor.
The space is barely deep enough to hide an adult man.
I'm standing in my own palace . . . Hiding from a woman I've known since childhood.
If anyone from the council saw me right now, I'd never recover.
I almost laugh at myself.
This is absurd.
I've negotiated land disputes worth crores without breaking eye contact.
I've addressed thousands of people from palace balconies without a single note in front of me.
I've faced journalists determined to corner me.
And yet one glimpse of Anamika walking toward me has reduced me to hiding behind an abandoned storeroom door like a schoolboy caught stealing mangoes from the royal orchard.
Some things, apparently time doesn't fix.
Her footsteps grow closer.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Close enough that I can hear the soft rustle of her cotton uniform brushing against itself. Close enough that I catch the faint fragrance of soap and freshly washed clothes as she passes. "I'll be back in two minutes," she calls over her shoulder. "Don't leave the room."
"I won't!"
"And don't jump." Sara huffs and I almost chuckle at how her cheeks puff up.
Her footsteps continue down the corridor.
I stay exactly where I am, holding my breath like a complete fool until the sound fades into the distance.
Only then do I let myself relax.
Well done, Yuvaan.
Thirty years old. Maharaja of Devgarh. Successfully hid from one woman carrying two empty water bottles. A remarkable achievement.
I shake my head at myself, somewhere between embarrassed and amused.
Maybe I should leave before I do something even more ridiculous. Just as I shift my weight to step out something taps gently against my thigh.
Once.
Deliberately.
I freeze.
Slowly . . . Very slowly . . . I lower my gaze, only to find a pair of enormous dark brown eyes staring straight back at me.
Sara.
She's standing barely a foot away, tiny hands planted firmly on her hips, looking up at me with the kind of deep suspicion usually reserved for cartoon villains and adults who claim vegetables taste good.
Her tiny eyebrows are pulled together in concentration. She's studying me. Properly studying me. For one completely disorienting moment time folds in on itself. Because I've seen this expression before.
Many years ago.
On another child.