The temple bells still rang in her bones long after the family carriage rattled home.
Ananya sat in silence, her posture obedient, her lips murmuring the prayers her mother had assigned. Yet every word slipped past her without meaning. All she felt was the weight of the maroon folds of her sari pressed against her thigh, where the ribbon lay hidden.
Her pulse had not slowed since that impossible moment.The brush of his hand. The heat of his touch. The sudden, electric press of silk against her palm.
She had carried it through the rituals, through the return journey, through her father's endless instructions—each second stretched taut with fear that someone would notice. That her mother's sharp eyes would pierce through the layers of cloth. That her father would demand she unclasp her hands.
But the gods, for once, had been merciful.
That night, the house slept heavy.
Her father's snores thundered from down the hall. Her mother's faint, wheezy breaths rose and fell like a pendulum. Even the cousin who sometimes lingered near her door had retreated. The lamps had been dimmed, the courtyard silent, the air thick with the scent of burned camphor and jasmine.
Only Ananya lay awake, eyes wide in the darkness, heart pounding.
The ribbon was still tucked at her waist, the fabric soft and warm from her skin. She traced its edge with trembling fingers, half-afraid the silk would melt away like a dream if she pulled it free.
She waited. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Until the house sank deeper into its midnight hush.
Then—finally—she dared.
Her fingers slipped beneath the folds of cloth and pulled it free. The ribbon unfurled in the faint moonlight spilling across her bed. Crimson. Creased. Alive.
Her breath hitched.
There, nestled inside the silk, was the small square of paper.
Her hands shook as she lifted it, every rustle sounding deafening in the stillness. She turned it over, pressing it flat against her knees.
And then she read.
This cage won't hold forever. Trust me. Every step I take is toward you.
The words blurred at first. She had to blink, blink again, until they steadied. Until they burned into her vision like stars.
Her throat closed. A tremor rippled through her chest.
It was his hand. His letters. His voice breaking through the silence they had forced around her.
Tears welled and slipped silently down her cheeks. Not the helpless tears of nights past, but something fiercer, hotter. Relief and longing and defiance braided together into fire.
She pressed the paper to her lips, breathing in the faint trace of him—the scent of dust, of ink, of the world beyond her barred windows.
For a long moment she could not move. Could not think. Only feel.
When she finally lowered it, she tucked it close to her heart, her fingers gripping the fragile sheet as though it might vanish if she let go.
And in the stillness, a realization took root.
She was not alone.
The walls her parents built, the locks they turned, the watchful eyes—they could not sever the ribbon between them. Not now. Not ever.
Her body might be confined, but her spirit was already reaching out, threading itself through the darkness toward him.
She lit the tiniest stub of a lamp, shielding its glow with her hand. The flame trembled like her pulse as she read the note again. And again. And again. Each time, her lips moved silently, shaping his words. Memorizing them. Branding them into her very breath.
This cage won't hold forever.
She repeated it until the walls of her room seemed to pulse with the promise.
Trust me.
She whispered it into the shadows, as though the night itself could carry it back to him.
Every step I take is toward you.
Her chest ached with the force of it.
Fear still lingered, coiled in the corners of her mind. At any moment, a door could creak, her father could storm in, her mother's voice could pierce the silence. Discovery would mean ruin, punishment harsher than before.
But for the first time in weeks, the fear did not win.
Because in her hands lay proof—solid, undeniable—that he was still reaching for her. That their love had not drowned beneath the weight of duty and control.
The ribbon, the words, the touch—they were rebellion stitched in silk and ink.
Slowly, carefully, she folded the note back into the ribbon. She pressed the bundle flat and slipped it into her pillow, where no casual glance could find it. Her fingers lingered there, unwilling to let go.
Finally, she lay back, her face tilted toward the sliver of moonlight cutting across the ceiling. Her tears dried on her cheeks, but her lips curved—not in the wide, reckless smile she had once carried so freely, but in a secret, unshakable one.
Her parents might believe they had locked her away. But tonight proved otherwise.
There was still a thread binding her to him. A thread strong enough to survive walls, whispers, even storms.
As she drifted into uneasy sleep, one thought beat steady against the darkness, louder than the echoes of bells, stronger than her fear:
He is coming. And I will be ready.