Ananya
The words would not leave her.
Follow the river's bend, three nights from now.
They were burned into her eyelids, stamped onto her pulse, whispering through every second of her suffocating routine. She turned them over in her mind during prayers, at meals, even when her mother's voice droned through instructions. The notebook was hidden now, tucked beneath her mattress, but it might as well have been carved into her bones.
Three nights.
And she had no idea how she would do it.
The Cage
Her house had become a prison. The air was always thick, stale, like someone had pressed the walls closer. Her parents no longer left her unattended. A cousin hovered during her lessons. At night, the bolt on her door scraped shut from the outside. Even her window had been checked, the iron grill locked in place with a new padlock.
She lived under eyes. Always watching. Always calculating.
Her father's gaze was the heaviest, full of suspicion she could feel across the room. Her mother wielded guilt like a knife—soft-spoken reminders of how shame could ruin them all. And her cousin… her cousin had become a shadow, slipping into corners, pretending to read but always listening.
They thought she was broken now, too fragile to resist.
But they were wrong.
The Whisper of Rebellion
Each night, when the house fell to silence, Ananya lay awake in the dark, her heartbeat hammering against the locked air. She repeated his words in her mind like a prayer.
The river's bend. Three nights.
It seemed impossible. How could she, who couldn't even step into the courtyard alone, hope to cross the threshold of this cage? And yet, her chest ached with the need.
The thought of his face waiting in the shadows, of his hand reaching for hers—it ignited something reckless in her blood. If she stayed here, if she folded herself into silence, she would wither.
So she began to plot.
The First Attempts
She tested the house like a thief.
The first night, she pressed her ear to the door and waited, measuring the rhythm of her cousin's footsteps outside. The second, she tried the window again, tracing the new lock, memorizing its grooves. She studied the old keys on her mother's ring, wondering if one fit.
Every tiny experiment was a battle against her fear. Her palms sweated, her knees trembled, but she forced herself to keep trying. She had to know the shape of the cage if she was ever going to break it.
The Doubts
But with every attempt, doubt grew heavier.
What if she was caught? The punishments would be worse, unbearable. Her father might never let her step out again. They might marry her off just to crush the whispers.
And then there was Riyan.
What if this was madness? What if he wasn't there? What if it was a trap, or worse—what if her cousin suspected and followed?
She pressed her fists against her eyes until stars bloomed. She wanted to scream, but the sound would betray her.
And yet, beneath all the doubt, the fire never went out.
Because she remembered the brush of his hand in the temple, the tremor in his voice when he whispered her name. She remembered his words in the notebook, every letter carrying the weight of his heart.
That memory alone was worth the risk.
A Small Spark
On the second day after the note, she caught a chance.
Her cousin was distracted, arguing with her aunt in the courtyard. Her mother dozed after lunch, a folded newspaper rising and falling with her breath. For a single stretch of minutes, Ananya was unobserved.
She slipped to the kitchen and filled a small brass bowl with water. With a trembling hand, she dipped her finger and traced on the stone floor, hidden by the table's shadow:
A circle unbroken.
It would vanish when the water dried, but if Riyan ever heard of it—if Kabir somehow managed to carry it back—he'd know she was saying yes. She wasn't surrendering.
Her chest pounded as she scrubbed it away with her foot before anyone returned. Even that small act of rebellion felt like breathing after drowning.
The Battle in Her Mind
That night, as she lay locked in her room, she waged her fiercest war yet.
Her father's voice echoed in her memory, sharp as a lash: "A single mistake ruins everything."Her mother's whispered prayers: "Stay obedient, and life will be easier."Her cousin's smirk, the promise of betrayal in his silence.
And beneath it all, Riyan's voice: "You're not alone."
Her nails dug crescents into her palms. She had never been this scared in her life. But she had also never been this alive.
If she risked everything, she might lose it all.
But if she did nothing, she would lose herself.
The Resolve
By the third night, the decision hardened.
She stared at the notebook one last time before tucking it back under the mattress. Her body trembled, but her heart was iron.
Three nights. River's bend. I'll find a way.
Her lips formed the words silently, a vow only the shadows heard.
The bolt outside her door clanged shut. The footsteps receded. And Ananya sat on the floor, knees hugged to her chest, fire burning steady in her eyes.
Somehow, some way, she would get to him.
Even if it shattered everything.
As she drifted into restless sleep, she didn't see the shadow pause outside her door—her cousin lingering, suspicion sharp in his eyes.
He had noticed the shift in her silence.
And he was watching.