The morning sun had barely kissed the sandstone domes of Suryagarh when the palace erupted into a frenzy unlike any in recent months. It wasn’t the kind of chaos that came with panic—it was regal, urgent, laced with the sharp discipline of trained servants and the quiet fear of failing tradition. Footsteps echoed across marbled corridors, swift and frantic, like orchestrated thunder beneath silk carpets. Orders were whispered but carried the weight of steel. The smell of rosewater, fresh mogra garlands, and incense rushed through the air, overlapping the usual stillness that cloaked the ancient palace halls.

Somewhere near the inner courtyard, a conch shell was blown—long, steady, vibrating through the stone and souls alike. It was a sacred sound, echoing not just a welcome, but an announcement: a royal arrival. The sankh’s call was quickly followed by the soft ringing of ceremonial chimes, strung with golden tassels and hung from archways, now dancing with sound in the morning breeze. A shiver of awareness rippled across every inch of the palace. The King of Jaipur had arrived—uninvited, unannounced, and in full royal fashion.