The dense trees let up after an hour as they reached a pond. It was unofficially named ‘shikara’ because of the black bucks, gazelles and foxes that used it to quench their thirst, making them sitting ducks for generations of Ranakpour’s royal hunters. The hunts included a famed tiger Abhimanyu’s great-great-grandfather had brought down almost a century ago that inexplicably had a rudraksha embedded in the fur right under its neck. Its embalmed head hangs in the local museum to this day.

As they pulled up to the pond, Abhimanyu jumped off his horse effortlessly and helped her disembark. He held her hands in his and walked towards the edge of the pond. As a child, when the palace and his siblings got too much for him, that was where he’d escape to. How ironic that a palace of over a hundred rooms could not offer him the peace that this pond – this little patch of land under the sky – did. Unlike his ancestors, he never came there to hunt; he came there to just be. It was his special place, and never before had he ever felt the need or the desire to share it with anyone. But after listening to Meera sing, after watching his mother’s face mirror his own emotions, there was nobody else he wanted to bring there but her.

Meera couldn’t bear the suspense any longer. She was dying to know what the queen had said to Abhimanyu, and a flurry of questions breathlessly sprang from her mouth.

‘What is this place? Why have we come here? What did the queen, your mother, say? Does she hate me? Did you bring me here to tell me it’s over? Why aren’t you saying anything?’

Abhimanyu smiled at her. He didn’t want to speak at all. He drew her close to him, closer than he had ever dared to before, and lifted her chin. Meera’s eyes widened for a tiny second, and then she understood. The queen was on their side. She sighed with relief and smiled back at him, her smile growing wider as his mouth touched hers, ever so gently. Her first kiss, their first kiss, under a starry sky. Meera’s heart imploded with happiness.

Chapter 7

At first, it was a faint rustling. Must be the wind, thought Abhimanyu. It had been a fairly still night up until then. They were seated at the edge of the moonlit pond, talking about their meeting with the queen. Abhimanyu had asked Meera about why she had chosen that particular couplet.

‘Some things can’t be explained,’ Meera answered, referring back to Kabir’s couplet, smiling and then looking away. They had shared their first kiss, and their second, and many more only a few hours ago. In the past, she had worried that these things would be awkward, that physical intimacy would be a line she would not cross till after marriage – an unlikely outcome of their relationship up until then. The queen’s approval had raised her hopes such that she allowed herself to dream. She couldn’t stop smiling, mystifying Abhimanyu even more.