The moment they stepped out of the temple courtyard, her cousin's grip on her shoulder tightened like iron. His fingers dug in, not in guidance but in warning.
"You were drifting," he hissed, low enough for only her to hear. "Eyes wandering where they shouldn't."
Ananya kept her gaze lowered, her lips pressed into silence. Her mother walked a few paces ahead, humming softly as if she hadn't noticed. But her cousin's shadow stretched over every step.
In the bullock cart ride home, she sat perfectly still, her dupatta covering her face. Inside, her heart was still racing from that one impossible brush—his wrist against hers, his touch that burned like a brand.
Her cousin's eyes never left her. When they reached home, he spoke to her father in the courtyard. She caught only fragments: "crowd too thick… too restless… she mustn't be left unchecked."
Her father's sigh cut deeper than any lash. "Then we'll keep her closer. The house is safer."
And just like that, her world shrank smaller.
That night, the latch clicked on her bedroom door. Not just shut—locked. The faint sound of a key scraping against the metal sent a chill crawling up her spine.
But in the dark, lying on the thin mattress with her heart thundering, Ananya pressed her fingers against the empty place at her wrist. The missing bangle. Gone from her hand, now in his.
The thought flared like rebellion, a secret warmth against the suffocating walls.
He didn't leave the temple with Kabir. He slipped away, heart hammering, ducking through alleys until the crowd thinned.
In the shadow of a banyan tree, he opened his fist.
The bangle gleamed in the dusty light, a sliver of green glass, delicate yet unbreakable. His thumb brushed its curve as though it were her skin. The chaos of the day, the crush of bodies, her cousin's eyes burning across the crowd—none of it mattered.
She had given him this. Not by chance, but by choice.
Riyan pressed it to his lips, closing his eyes. She's still fighting. She's still mine.
Kabir found him leaning against the temple wall, the bangle clenched tight. "You're insane," Kabir muttered, but his voice softened when he saw Riyan's face.
"Maybe," Riyan whispered, "but I'll never let her feel alone."
The bangle glowed faintly in the evening light, a fragile circle of defiance—and a promise that he would risk everything to reach her again.
Behind locked doors, Ananya lay awake, fingers brushing the phantom of her missing bangle. Across the city, Riyan held it like fire in his hands. Neither of them knew how soon the walls would close tighter—or how recklessly they would have to fight to break them.