Her breath caught in her chest, looking at him walking over a layer of ice.
“Are you mad?” she called after him.
He glanced back. “No. I had it clinically tested.”
She stood still for a moment, not knowing if it was sarcasm or a strange joke she didn’t understand.
Muttering under her breath about arrogant maharajas, she followed carefully, boots crunching against hardened ice.
At the center, he stopped.
He stamped once with his heel.
The ice answered.
A deep, resonant tone rolled outward beneath their feet—low and layered, almost like temple bells struck somewhere far below the surface. The vibration moved up through her boots and settled beneath her ribs.
He stamped again. The sound shifted, richer, carrying across the frozen expanse and echoing faintly off the mountains.
Yamini exhaled slowly. “What is that?”
“I found it when I was twelve,” he said. “If the ice freezes evenly, it carries sound.”
He didn’t elaborate. He simply watched her reaction.
“Try it,” he said.
She hesitated.
“The ice is three feet thick,” he said. “It’s safe.”
She heard those words, and something moved in her chest. He had said the same thing yesterday in the factory tunnel.You’ll be safe.
Both times, she had believed him immediately.
She stamped once.
The tone rolled out again, deep and clear.
She stamped again, and again, until the lake hummed steadily beneath her feet. She looked up, smiling before she could stop herself.
He was watching her.
He didn’t return the smile. But he looked at her differently here than he did anywhere else. Less like the cold maharaja that everyone knew. More like something she didn’t have a word for yet.
The wind lifted a strand of hair across her face. His hand moved before she saw it coming, brushing it away. The gesture was controlled. Deliberate. But entirely personal.
He stepped closer.
Close enough that the cold between them thinned.
His mouth hovered near hers, close enough that she caught mint and winter air on his breath. Beneath their feet, the lake still hummed faintly.
“You’re trembling,” he said.
“From the cold,” she lied.
He didn’t say anything.
