"That's a lot to ask of me, Tauram." The silken pillow behind Anjarah shimmered as she shifted in her seat, her back straight and her bun perched perfectly at the top of her head. "You're asking that I defy the current king, risking everything I have in the process..."

"I know." Tauram's hands were still pressed together. A few strands of his black hair had fallen over his eye. "But you are by no means obligated to accept just because I would like your help."

He left it at that, to Esmera's surprise. He didn't remind Anjarah about the dreadful fate that awaited Milatanur should they fail to remove King Ruagu by the gods' deadline. He didn't tell her about the scene on the main street that afternoon, of the king's gruesome power, of the terrified princess and civilians who had watched him wield it.

The choice was well and truly hers, as he had promised.

"As for you, Belaren..." Tauram turned his pleading eyes on his best friend next. "I did promise you that we would never return here after I was banished and you left with me, but Milatanur is our home. We can't leave it to be destroyed by the gods. The last ten years have been hard, but I would've never gotten through them without you. I need you to be with me on this too. Please."

Belaren's face hardened, and for a moment, Esmera feared he'd stand and leave the meeting, but he let out a breath. He swept the curtains of his hair away from his face and folded his arms over his chest. "Fine. I'll join the team as long as Anjarah doesn't."

She bristled beside Esmera, swivelling to glare at Belaren. "What does that mean?"

The lord slid his cool, dark gaze towards her. "It means that I only work with people of their word, and I know you make promises you don't keep." His eyes were like ice as he rested them on her.

Where she sat between them, Esmera shivered. She had seen the snow-capped mountains bordering the horizon. She had hurried across the edge of Parnakshi after sunset, but she had never sensed anything as cold as Belaren in that moment.

"You listen to me, Belaren Vinsingh." Anjarah leaned over Esmera and jabbed the object of her indignation in his chest. "I had every intention of marrying you ten years ago until my father gambled away my hand in marriage, having nothing else to put on the table."

The frost crusted over Belaren's manner melted, softening his face as he stared at Anjarah. Realisation widened his eyes. His lips parted, but he said nothing, just gave Anjarah space to finish her side of the story.

She retracted the weathered fingernail she had prodded him with now that she had made her point. "Did you know that I did everything I could to terminate the agreement my father made with Xin Mingei? I went to the Mingeis' estate and offered them everything I owned in place of myself, which wasn't much. Understandably, they laughed me out of their gates." That had happened a decade ago, but the quivering of her mouth told Esmera that she still felt the humiliation and powerlessness in her fate as keenly as she had then.

Time didn't heal as much as people said it did. It only gave scars the chance to darken and harden and itch.

"Oh, Jarah—" Belaren started, his voice soft.

She interrupted him, her words like bulldozers flattening his. "I asked a legal officer I worked with if there were any loopholes, but it turns out that deals by drunkards are legally binding while rosy promises made by lovestruck boys are not." Her voice trembled. She folded her hands into themselves, seeking comfort from herself now as she had then.

Esmera wanted to reach for her hand, remind her that she wasn't alone because she knew what it was like to hurt and have no one to make it better, but she couldn't do that for Anjarah. Only Belaren could.

"Until the end of our days, you said, but I was barely eighteen when you left me." There was accusation in Anjarah's gaze, harsher than the fragile tears filling her eyes.

Belaren had the good grace to look into his lap, overwhelmed by everything he hadn't known, ashamed to have assumed everything that he had.

"You were my friend, Belaren. I thought that you'd understand when I told you what had happened, but you ran off to Arkōsāra with Tauram before I could reach you, and now you return filled with hate that you let fester over a decade because you never gave me a chance to explain." She looked away from him, staring at the blue and brown ridged ceramic vases behind Tauram. The angry tears gathering in her eyes fell over her cheeks. "You may think you were the only one who suffered all these years, but you weren't."

Belaren reached across Esmera and took Anjarah's hands in his, a mildness in his motion, in his face, that she wasn't used to. Years' worth of feelings coursed between them, so stifling that Esmera had to free herself for air.

Their interlaced fingers made a doorway Esmera could just fit through when she slid down the couch and wiggled her way out from between them, hoping to be as smooth as a raindrop running down a window but feeling more like a slug slipping down a mountain.

Tauram fought a smile as she reached the ground on her haunches. She rolled her eyes at him as she stood. Belaren and Anjarah didn't seem to have noticed her empty the space she had filled between them or her crossing the room to Tauram's side, ignoring his amused half-grin as he gazed at her. They were lost in each other's starry eyes.

There was no other way to describe the lights glimmering on their dark irises and the endless depths within them.

"I'm sorry, Jarah," Belaren murmured, his voice like the first warm breeze of spring. "I didn't know."

If Esmera had ever received such an apology from Stephan, she would've probably forgiven him with a kiss, but it wasn't enough for Anjarah.

It was better that way. It was better that she knew she was worth more than an apology that didn't take any responsibility.

Anjarah's jaw clenched as she wrenched her hands out of Belaren's. "You were so ready to believe the worst of me, that I would go back on my word to you and run off with the next man who looked my way. I think that's what hurt the most." She looked away from him as her hands settled back into her lap, but Belaren rested a cautious hand on her cheek.

When she didn't push him away, he dared to trace his thumb along the soft line of her jaw.

She still managed to avoid his eyes, glaring down at the camel-brown fabric spanning the distance between them instead, but he tilted her face up to his by her chin, and there was nowhere she could look but him.

There was nowhere she would rather look if the way her eyes latched onto him and the way her face uncreased itself was any indication.

"Do you know why I believed that so quickly?" he asked softly. "Because I thought I didn't deserve you. I wasn't surprised that you would marry a man who could give you more than I could. The oldest son of the Mingeis could take far better care of you than the second youngest of the Vinsinghs."

Anjarah glared up at him, but her downturned mouth faltered. "You were an idiot to think that, Belaren Vinsingh."

"I was, and I'm sorry." Belaren swallowed.

Anjarah leaned into the hand he rested on her cheek, and that seemed to give him the courage he needed to ask his next question.

"Do you love Xin Mingei?" He bit his lip as soon as his words escaped him, awaiting the answer that would sweeten his return to Milatanur or ruin his day all over again.

It hurt to love so hard, but it could also make many things better. Or so Esmera had heard.

Whatever she'd had with Stephan wasn't love. It may have been lust, maybe dependence, maybe a fear of loneliness, but it wasn't an adoration that spanned a decade or an affection that could be felt by everyone else in the room.

Stephan felt like a part of her distant past, but with that realisation, he receded even further into her memory, like a stranger she had spent a night with instead of the man she had shared two years of her life with.

Esmera couldn't claim love had hurt her because she didn't even know what it was. The revelation released her into a more hopeful present and a happier future where love—the real thing, not a lacklustre imitation—might be awaiting her.

"Xin passed away five years ago." Anjarah took a deep breath as she finally spoke. "He was good to me. He could've done anything he wanted with me after I was given to him, but he did the respectable thing and married me. We have a son." She smiled softly at the thought of the child who was the centre of her world. "I won't say I didn't care about him, but I thought of you every day. I never loved him as I loved you ten years ago." She looked up at Belaren, the tenderness of her confession soaking up her anger.

Belaren drew her into his arms. They both let out breaths as they settled into each other's embraces. Anjarah pressed her cheek against him and held him to her fiercely, as if she was afraid he might slip out of her grip and into a realm where she couldn't reach him as he had ten years previously. He was gentler, resting his bearded chin on her head as if the slightest roughness of movement would shatter her in his arms.

Esmera closed her eyes, and the sounds of their erratic heartbeats weaved around her. It told her nothing about what was going on in their minds, only left her as confused as ever about whether this was going well for Belaren or not when she opened her eyes.

He tucked a lock of Anjarah's hair that had escaped her bun during her impassioned speech. "Jarah, I'm not who I was ten years ago, but I think I can be better now if you'll give me a chance."

Anjarah rested her hand over the one he had laid on her cheek. "Only if we can resume where we left off."

"A decade is impossible to disregard, but I can try. For you." Belaren gave a tentative smile that was out of place on his usually impassive face, but it reminded Esmera something that she sometimes forgot, that he was a person just like she was, that she only knew him because he served as Tauram's assistant, but he'd had a life outside that designation.

Belaren's eyes widened when Anjarah pulled him to her, but he seemed to realise what was happening when her lips found his. He relaxed into her as her fingers tightened on his glittering collar, drawing her closer by her waist, leaving no space for Esmera had she chosen to stay sitting between them.

Esmera blinked. This was going a lot better for Belaren than she had thought.

She couldn't help but smile. If love's light could shine through the clouds hanging over this world, perhaps it was more powerful than she had thought.

Where Tauram stood beside her, he cleared his throat, and the darkness of reality stained the bright moment.

Anjarah and Belaren pulled away from each other long enough to shoot Tauram a look. As different as their faces and personalities were, their expressions were amusingly similar. It told Esmera of the closeness they shared without using words.

Tauram tilted his head. "So is that a yes or no on joining the team?"

"Yes!" they cried in impatient unison.

Belaren's eyes wandered back to Anjarah like hands grabbing at wisps of cotton candy on a windy day. Esmera knew the struggle, but she also knew the reward when she finally snagged a shred of the fluffy sweetness.

"In that case, this meeting is adjourned." Tauram leaned back against the table behind him, folding his arms over his chest as he looked between his friends. "I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do, but this is my house, so please clean up after yourselves." Leaving the suggestion in his words hanging in the air, he turned to leave the room.

Esmera trailed after him. She had been a third wheel enough times to read the charge in the air. She looked back to see Anjarah shaking her head at Belaren.

"I see Tauram hasn't changed at all."

Esmera smirked to imagine him a decade ago, being the downer of the group, even as she pitied him. He had been raised to be a king. She imagined he had only ever known responsibility, even with things as small as cleanliness.

Belaren rolled his eyes, leaning his forehead against Anjarah's. "Imagine living with that for ten whole years."

"Imagine having nowhere to live at all for ten years!" Tauram called back from the passage, stopping in front of the exquisite textured rendering of a snow leopard on the wall.

It transfixed Esmera with the dimension in its white fur and grey-black blotches as she caught up to the prince. Its eyes glittered with life although they were merely painted.

"Touché." Belaren sounded like he was trying not to laugh as he used Tauram's favourite word against him. "Now please, leave us alone."

"Also, in case you've forgotten, Esmera is a śradūgara, so try not to be too loud."

Esmera shot him a look. She didn't agree to be party to his antagonising of his friends. She only wanted to leave them to the tentative happiness it had taken them a decade to recover.

Anjarah stifled a chortle while Belaren let out an exasperated breath.

"Gods, will you stop?" he asked. "As if I would endorse such indecency."

"I'm leaving, I'm leaving. Please don't throw anything at me." Tauram's eyes glimmered with mirth when he looked over at Esmera.

Like her, he must've heard Belaren's fingers scraping against the silk as he took hold of it, but fortunately, no cushion came flying their way.

The prince turned to Esmera, his grin bright in the dimness. "So, in the span of a few hours, we've doubled our team."

"If you haven't changed their minds with your antics." Esmera shook her head.

"All good fun, Esmera." Tauram put a hand on her shoulder, laughing, back to the seemingly carefree man she had first met in the Himalayan exhibit.

It was difficult to see him as such knowing everything she knew about him.

"I'm glad they made up." Although Esmera wondered what was going on in the sitting room—probably just ten years' worth of conversation—she didn't dare to look back.

"As stubborn as those two can be, they can't stay away from each other." Still grinning, Tauram squeezed Esmera's shoulder. "Now, since I'm apparently no longer welcome in my own house, would you like to join me on the balcony for dinner?"

Esmera didn't know what made her bold enough to ask, "Is that a date, Prince Tauram?"

Maybe it was seeing Anjarah and Belaren's vulnerability heal the rift of the misunderstandings in their past. Maybe it was her realisation that she liked Prince Tauram a lot more than she'd admit to anyone, even herself.

"It is if you want it to be." He tilted his head. "I mean, it's about time. We've been betrothed practically all our lives."

But not for the entirety of them. Tauram had been engaged to someone else for a short while, but that didn't seem important when he was gazing at Esmera like that. She had belonged to someone else not too long ago, but when her marriage had fallen apart months before she gathered the courage to leave it, it didn't seem important either.

Stephan and everything he had done couldn't follow her to Milatanur if she didn't let them.

Two traitorous spots of heat rose in Esmera's cheeks.

She shouldn't be blushing. She shouldn't like this. She shouldn't treat this as anything more than a playful agreement between acquaintances that were becoming friends, but it made her feel warm inside to have something to look forward to, to know someone wanted her company. Tauram could've dined alone if he didn't want to be with her, but he had asked her to join him.

Even if Esmera wasn't starving, even if it was impolite to reject an invitation from a prince, there was only one answer she could give.

"Yes, I would very much like to have dinner with you." She smiled as she started up the stairs to her room, glancing back to see Tauram staring at her.

For a moment, his eyes were the starry ones of a lover, then he tilted his hand and they turned dark again without the reflection of the lights above to illuminate them.

"See you then." Tauram gave her a soft smile diluted by the frown that passed over his forehead. It was quick, just a flicker of confusion, and then it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Esmera hurried to her room before the flutter in her chest became loud enough even for non-śradūgaraha to hear.

She closed the door behind her and pressed herself against the back of it, hugging herself and smiling like the idiot she was.

Just today, she had seen a tyrant king murder an innocent man, accepted a mission to save a kingdom and stroked her father's familiar as she died in front of her.

Somehow being around Tauram made Milatanur less terrifying and its challenges more beatable. Somehow, he flooded the dull world around them with colour, just like a single swish of a paintbrush could brighten the most sombre of landscapes.