Page 57 of Scars and Crowns

Her breathing is still uneven against my collar. Mine probably isn't much better. For a long while neither of us speaks. The room remains completely silent except for the quiet rhythm of our breathing. I know this doesn't mean every wall she's built over the last eight years has disappeared.

Tomorrow she'll probably put half of them back. Maybe all of them. Habit is difficult to outrun. Pain even more so.

But today—for one brief moment—she let herself lean on me.

She let me carry even the smallest piece of the weight she'd insisted on bearing alone for far too long.

And somehow . . . That feels like the most precious agreement we've ever made.

A PACT I DISLIKE

ANAMIKA

I've spent most of the morning trying to convince the two people in this room that I'm perfectly fine. I'm losing. Spectacularly. It's a little humiliating to discover that a five-year-old and the Maharaja of Devgarh make an alarmingly effective team when they decide to gang up on someone.

Every time I insist I'm feeling better, one of them gives me the exact same look—the one that says, nice try, we're not believing a word of that.

If someone had told me a year ago that I'd someday be sitting in a palace bedroom being fussed over this relentlessly, I would've laughed in their face.

I keep waiting for it to become uncomfortable. For that old instinct to return—that restless feeling that comes whenever someone tries to take care of me, the one that makes me want to insist I'm capable, that I can manage on my own, that I don't need help.

But it never comes. Instead . . . There's relief.

Quiet. Unexpected relief.

It settles somewhere deep inside me, so unfamiliar that I don't quite know what to do with it. Maybe that's what surprises me the most. Not that someone wants to take care of me. That I've become tired enough to finally let them.

Yuvaan disappeared about twenty minutes ago, announcing that he was bringing lunch himself because he wanted to "personally verify" that I actually ate it.

Apparently neither my word nor the kitchen staff's word is acceptable evidence anymore.

He refused to let anyone else bring the food. Something about not trusting me not to quietly feed it to someone else.

I’d rolled my eyes.

He ignored them completely.

Now, in his absence, Sara has appointed herself acting doctor. She climbs onto the bed and settles directly in front of me, scooting forward until our knees almost touch.

Then she studies my face with complete concentration. Tilting her head. Squinting thoughtfully. As though she's conducting a medical examination of national importance. "Do you feel better, Mumma?" The worry in her voice is small.

Careful.

Much older than five.

My heart squeezes.

I smile and gently lift my chin, letting her inspect me as thoroughly as she likes. If looking at me helps convince her I'm truly okay, then she can stare for as long as she wants. "Just a little weakness," I tell her softly. "Nothing else." Before she can argue, I pull her into my arms. She comes willingly, wrapping herself around me with the wholehearted trust only children seem capable of. "I promise," I murmur into her hair. "I'm okay." She stays there quietly for a moment.

Then, still tucked against my shoulder, she says in a muffled voice, "Mister is really nice." I smile despite myself. "He didn't lie." She murmurs against me. "He took care of you while I was in school." Another tiny pause. "He really is nice, isn't he?"

I close my eyes for a second. Sara always smells like sunshine.

Crayons.

Baby shampoo.

And something else I can never describe except by calling it her. The scent wraps itself around me as completely as her little arms do. For years . . . She has been the place I returned to whenever life became too heavy. No matter how exhausting the day had been . . . One hug from her somehow made carrying it possible again.