Page 72 of Scars and Crowns

Another of the two of us drenched from head to toe after getting caught in one of Devgarh's sudden monsoon showers, laughing so hard that the entire photograph is blurred from movement.

A third catches me in the middle of an argument, finger pointed accusingly at his chest while he's looking at me with that familiar mixture of long-suffering patience and barely contained amusement.

I stare at the pages. I don't even remember someone taking half of these. "You . . . " My voice comes out much softer than I intended. "You kept all of these?"

He doesn't look at me. His fingers lightly brush the corner of one photograph before he answers. "There wasn't much else I wanted to keep."

The sentence is spoken so casually that it almost sounds insignificant. It isn't. It settles somewhere deep inside me, heavy enough that I have to look back down at the photographs because suddenly looking at him feels like too much.

Sara, blissfully unaware of the emotional earthquake quietly happening beside her, climbs straight into Yuvaan's lap as though it's the most natural place in the world to sit. She points enthusiastically at another photograph. "Mumma!" Her eyes widen. "Why are you sitting in a tree?"

I lean forward. Oh. The old mango tree near the staff quarters. I laugh before I can stop myself. "Because your Mister challenged me."

"I did?" Yuvaan sounds genuinely offended. "You absolutely did."

I point at the photograph. "You told me girls couldn't climb as high as boys."

Sara gasps dramatically. "He said that?"

"He did." I nod gravely.

"So I climbed three branches higher than him."

"I made one very unfortunate mistake," Yuvaan says with equal seriousness. "I underestimated your mother." He shakes his head, "You refused to come down," He reminds me.

"I was making a point."

"You were proving you were impossible."

"I only admitted defeat because you threatened to stay up there until dinner." He shrugs.

"I meant it."

"I know." He sighs dramatically. "I've never recovered."

"You sulked."

"I absolutely did not sulk."

I raise one eyebrow. Without saying a word, he turns the page. The next photograph immediately proves my point.

He's sitting on the palace steps with both arms folded tightly across his chest, wearing the unmistakable expression of a fourteen-year-old who has been deeply, personally wronged by the universe.

Beside him, I'm smiling so broadly my cheeks look ready to burst. Sara stares at the photograph. Then slowly turns toward him. "Mister . . . "

"Hm?"

"You look exactly like this when Kairav Chachu wins." I don't mean to laugh. I truly don't. But the sound escapes before I can stop it—a completely undignified snort that makes Sara collapse into giggles.

Yuvaan pinches the bridge of his nose with exaggerated suffering. "I'd like it officially recorded . . . " He gestures toward the album. " . . . that I was not sulking."

"No?"

"I was contemplating life."

"You were fourteen."

"I contemplated very early."