Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,63

try it?”

More sure than I’ve been of anything in my life. “Maybe later.”

The way she smiled at that made him want to press a hand into his heart, it made him want to step closer, it made him want to . . .

She stepped back, going straight from playful and unguarded to scared. Scared of what she’d just seen in his face. Her withdrawal felt like pulling a patch of skin off with the tape on a wound.

Maybe he’d just offended her. Some people were sensitive about people not eating things they’d made. Nisha would’ve shoved it down his throat. Fortunately, Nisha stuck to baking cookies and brownies.

Was not offending India important enough to try orange-colored sludge with . . . with . . . oats? All he knew was that he wanted that easy teasing smile back.

Her fingers fiddled with the spoon in the bowl she’d filled for him. Without thinking about it, he touched the spoon with a finger. Her fingers lingered on the cool metal for a moment and something tingled all the way up his arm. Then she pulled back, that fear back in her eyes.

He drew back too, stepping away from the island. The sugary tart smell of mangoes and yogurt was suddenly overwhelming. “How’s your mother?”

“She’s upstairs working.” That wasn’t an answer to his question. Which meant her mother was not doing great. India never outright lied. Not even in the small, seemingly harmless ways people naturally did.

It’s what had struck him that first time he met her, when she’d picked up a box that was obviously too heavy for him with ease. It hadn’t struck her that some men might see it as emasculating or threatening. She wanted to help him and she had. For the rest of the time they’d spent together, she had been more honestly herself than anyone he’d ever met.

It was what he’d always strived for. How easily it came to her had been yet another thing that dazzled him. Her core of truth, of goodness. Back then it had been raw, unformed. Now she’d turned it into a practice. A lifestyle.

“Do you know who Yudishtir is?” he asked.

That threw her. Her lips quirked again in curious amusement. How much he loved that reaction wasn’t something he had the luxury to analyze.

“Isn’t he one of the Pandava princes?”

It was his turn to be thrown. Self-satisfaction glittered in her eyes at getting that reaction out of him.

“Yes,” he said. “He was the oldest of the five princes in the Mahabharata.”

“The rightful heir to the throne.”

“Yes. He was also the most virtuous of all men. He followed Dharma—the righteous way of living—to the letter. Never told a lie in his life, never stole or coveted what wasn’t his, never reneged on a moral duty or shirked a responsibility. So strong was his virtue that his chariot floated a few inches above the earth when he rode.”

She smiled. It was dangerous how much he loved that smile. “An inbuilt air-suspension from the fuel of his virtue.”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t he lose that inch of air-suspension when he lied during the war?”

“Well, technically he never lied.” The Mahabharata was the Hindu epic that ended, as all epics do, with a war of good against evil. With the Pandavas on the side of good and Kauravas, their cousins, on the side of evil. “The commander of the Kaurava army, Drona, was unbeatable on the battlefield, his will as strong as his incomparable skill. The only weak spot in his otherwise indestructible emotional strength was his son Ashwathama.

“The Pandavas knew that the only way to defeat Drona in battle was to break him emotionally. If Yudishtir lied and told him that his son was dead, Drona would believe him, given that the prince never lied. But Yudishtir refused to lie.

“So the Pandavas named an elephant Ashwathama and killed him. Yudishtir repeated this news on the battlefield. ‘Ashwathama—the elephant—is dead,’ he told Drona, whispering the words ‘the elephant’ under his breath so Drona didn’t hear them. As a battle strategy, it worked. Drona, broken by the news, let down his guard and was defeated and killed. Yudishtir never technically lied,” Yash said, watching her watch him tell the story, utterly absorbed. They were standing almost toe-to-toe, he could feel the warmth radiating from her body, but he didn’t remember moving closer.

“Nonetheless, his chariot no longer floated above the ground after that,” India said, jet-black strands falling across her forehead. “Because you can’t win a moral argument with the universe