The air in Princess Dhara’s chambers was thick with the scent of jasmine and the unspoken weight of expectation. At twenty-one, Dhara felt less like a princess of Indriana and more like a carefully crafted doll, every movement, every utterance, measured and approved. Her parents, the Maharajah and Maharani, loved her, of course, but their love was a gilded cage, especially where her magic was concerned.

Dhara possessed a light magic, a vibrant, unpredictable force that pulsed beneath her skin like a second heartbeat. It was a secret, mostly. To her parents, it was a volatile blessing, a power to be contained, kept under strict control with ancient incantations and secluded training. She was frustrated by their fear, by the endless lessons on suppression, when all she truly wanted was to understand, to master, to use it. This yearning often made her feel restless, trapped behind palace walls that shimmered with opulence but felt like bars.