Page 61 of Scars and Crowns

Nothing dramatic.

Nothing poetic.

And yet they travel through me with astonishing force. For a moment I simply look at her. Really look. The guardedness she's carried ever since returning to Devgarh hasn't disappeared. It's still there. But tonight . . . it isn't standing between us quite so firmly. The walls seem lower somehow. Not gone. Just . . . Open enough for me to see beyond them.

A thought comes quietly.

Unexpectedly.

If someone offered me everything this palace possesses . . . The title. The estate. The history. Every acre of land. Every jewel locked away in its vaults.

Or this. This room. This bed. A sleepy five-year-old. A woman who has finally looked at me and said . . . You can stay.

I know exactly which one I'd choose. Every single time. I don't tell her that. Some feelings don't need to be spoken the moment they're felt. Instead, I give the smallest nod. "Okay."

One word. She smiles. Just a little. Almost too small to notice. But I do. I settle back against my pillow, careful not to disturb Sara. For another few moments, I simply watch Anamika. The soft rise and fall of her breathing. The strands of hair resting across her cheek. The exhaustion that's finally beginning to give way to something gentler.

Peace, perhaps. Or trust. Maybe both.

Eventually, she closes her eyes. I wait until her breathing begins to slow. Only then do I let mine follow.

Sara sleeps with the complete certainty only children possess, utterly convinced that the two people she loves most are exactly where they belong.

And lying there in the quiet, listening to her gentle breathing fill the room . . . For the first time in years . . . The silence doesn't feel empty anymore.

GOOD MORNING?

ANAMIKA

I wake slowly, the kind of slow that only comes when there's nothing urgent waiting to drag you out of sleep. For a few quiet moments, I don't open my eyes completely. I simply lie there, suspended somewhere between dreaming and waking, letting the warmth around me settle into my bones.

Something feels . . . different. Comfortably different. Sara is curled against my front, her tiny body tucked into mine the way she's slept since she was old enough to climb into bed beside me. One little hand is folded beneath her cheek, her warm breath feathering softly against my neck with every sleepy exhale.

I smile instinctively. Then I realise there's warmth behind me too. Not just warmth. Weight. A steady arm resting loosely across my waist. A slow, familiar rhythm of breathing brushing against the back of my shoulder. It takes my sleepy mind several long seconds to understand what my body has already figured out.

Yuvaan.

Somewhere during the night . . . Without either of us noticing . . . He'd moved. At some point he'd drifted from the careful distance he'd been keeping since our marriage and ended up behind us, his arm loosely around my waist while Sara slept safely beside me.

For a moment I simply lie there. Completely still. Afraid that even breathing too deeply might disturb whatever this is. The room is wrapped in soft grey morning light. The curtains sway gently with the breeze drifting in through the half-open window. Everything feels impossibly quiet. Sara's warmth in front of me. Yuvaan's warmth behind me.

Somehow . . . Without either of them meaning to . . . They've surrounded me. Held me. Protected me. The thought settles so deeply inside my heart that it almost hurts.

I don't think I've ever woken up like this before. Not once. Not in my entire life. I've always been the one staying awake a little longer. Listening. Making sure doors were locked. Checking whether Sara had kicked her blanket away. Carrying the invisible responsibility of being the only adult in the room. Today . . ..For the first time in yea . . . Someone else is carrying a little of it with me. I close my eyes again. Just for another second.

If I could steal one memory from this strange, impossible chapter of my life and keep it forever . . . This might be this one.

Behind me, his breathing changes. Just slightly. A tiny pause. Then another. He's awake. I feel the exact moment he becomes aware of where his arm is.

His entire body goes rigid. The arm disappears from my waist so quickly it almost makes me laugh. He sits upright immediately. "I'm . . . " He rubs one hand through his already messy hair, looking thoroughly horrified with himself. "I'm sorry." His voice is still rough with sleep. "I don't know when that happened." He glances at the bed as though it has personally betrayed him. "I must've moved while I was asleep." His embarrassment is so genuine that something warm blooms quietly inside me.

I turn just enough to look at him. His hair is sticking up in every direction. His face still carries pillow marks along one cheek. The carefully controlled Maharaja everyone else sees is nowhere to be found. Instead . . . There's just Yuvaan.

Sleepy.

Flustered.

Endearingly human.