At night the streets were quieter than usual, veiled in that strange kind of silence that only came after too many secrets had been whispered in the dark. The moon was bright, cutting through the clouds, spilling silver light over the cobbled roads as Prince Rudra and I rode through the narrow lanes toward the lower quarters — toward the brothel my men had reported seeing Prince Vikram in.

I didn’t want to be there. Brothels disgusted me — not the women inside them, but the men who treated them as playthings, forgetting that every pair of painted lips once had dreams, too. But duty didn’t wait for comfort. When you served the royal house, when you swore loyalty to the Prince, you went wherever the shadows led.