Page 140 of The Burning Mountain
Veer gazed up at the bas-reliefs with a slight frown. “Almost from the time I destroyed them. You were so upset about losing such cultural treasures.” He halted. “I have my own selfish reasons too. I wanted to preserve such things in case it’s needed in the future. They do tell important stories from Amarendra’s past.
“I know this is probably nothing, but I want to start here,” continued Veer.
“Start what?” she asked, still inspecting the bas-reliefs.
The thick silence behind made her turn.
To her everlasting surprise, Veer bent a knee and knelt on the floor, a hand over his heart.
“Start my apology to you. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness yet. But I need some assurance that when you stayby my side, you are here by choice. All this, the distance, the gifts, this surprise, is to give myself a fighting chance. So that when I asked, you’d choose me.”
He looked like he was in agony. She realized how important her answer was to him. He probably had been preparing his speech for a while.
“Will you be by my side, Chandra, even though I don’t deserve it, even though I caused you so much pain? I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life making amends.”
“Now you ask me?” she asked exasperated. “After you do things like this for me? Don’t you think you have gotten this backward? You are supposed to ask me in the beginning, before anything happened, not at the end of everything.”
“True. But I wasn’t going to make it easy for you to say no or give up without a fight,” he said, an entreaty in his eyes. “Say yes, Chandra. Say you’ll stay with me. Stay because you want to take another chance with me.”
“Am I allowed to come closer now?”
Veer nodded.
“Good. Because then I can do this.” Her fist came at him. She didn’t put any strength behind it, and Veer caught it easily in his broad palm and brought it to his mouth, kissing her clenched knuckles. She opened her hand and caressed his jaw, spearing her finger through his hair, as she looked fondly down at him, still on his knees, waiting for her answer.
“You foolish, foolish man,” she said softly. “Have you been keeping a tally all this time? Love, and for that matter, relationships don’t work like that. I am here because I want to stay, and I stay because I love you, Veer.”
“I love you, too, Chandra.” His eyes were suspiciously moist as he stood up and hugged her tight. “Never leave me again. In thought or action. In death or the greater beyond. Asking you ifyou wanted to be free of me took everything I had, to stop myself from tying you up. I don’t think I can do it again.”
She kissed him, answering his question with the assurance of her actions.
68
AN ALMOST STRIPTEASE
Chandra extended her hand through the window in wonder, trying to catch the drifting snowflakes. They landed on her fingertips but melted before she could bring them closer to inspect.
She had initially questioned the presence of a window this big, built inside the sleeping rooms. But then realized something peculiar. She could feel the bite of the wind when she leaned her head out the confines of the window but inside it was as cozy as a heated brick.
“The side corbels are magical,” said Veer, watching her puzzlement. Chandra glanced at the unique brackets surrounding the window’s wooden frame. They were painted with red lac in a branching, arching pattern, similar to what she had noticed in Rajgarh’s main palace. “The ones I set here trap the heat inside,” he explained. Chandra decided she would rather suffer the odd draft than miss the spectacular view it afforded, even without the benefit of magical supports.
The terrain outside showed snow piled in dips and swells, smoothing the rugged edges of boulders. Conifers looked like they had been dusted in white powder. The undersides of theirbranches were perhaps dark green, but in the darkness outside, everything appeared white and black, obscured by the soft flurries eddying in the wind.
“Is your husband less interesting than the snow, Princess?” came a voice from across the room. “You’ve been standing at the window for a solid ten minutes, not listening to a word I was saying.”
“I’ve never seen snow up close before. Is it as soft as it appears?” she asked, amazed. Veer had explained that the mansion was in an area that saw year-round snow. A few months ago, when she had first arrived at Rajgarh’s main palace, she had seen snow-covered peaks but had been too busy with other things to indulge in her curiosity.
“Why don’t I take you tomorrow so you can see for yourself?” he said as he set about building a fire in the large stone fireplace, making clear his intention to sleep together in the same room. She could feel the flare of heat from across the large room. And it had nothing to do with the fire he was busy building.
She could intuit, by the look in his eyes, what he had in mind for this evening. Definitely not sleep.
She shivered in anticipation, looking forward to the night after their long separation, but was a little irked that maybe she was caving in too quickly to his charm. It had been weeks, after all, that he didn’t talk to her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said archly, her attention once again going to the scenery outside. “I’ve never seen a snowfall, much less imagined this is what it could look like. Why not go now?”
“It will snow again tomorrow, too, Chandra. Tonight it’s too dark to see much outside,” he said reasonably. “Not to mention how cold it will be.”
“Oh well.” She sighed and plonked herself on the windowsill. It was large enough to be called a ledge, and she could sit acrossit comfortably. “Then I’ll just sit here and enjoy watching the snowfall.”
