DARSH SINGH RATHORE

Yahvi didn’t slam the door when she left.

That was worse.

Silence from her wasn’t surrender—it was declaration. A line drawn in ash, daring me to cross it. She walked away in a storm of marigold and fire, and I stood there like the fool I had become, half-hoping she would look back. She didn’t.

I told myself I wasn’t waiting for her gaze.

I lied.

My jaw ached from grinding my teeth. My hands curled involuntarily when I thought of the way she had leaned in—so close I could smell sandalwood and ink. She knew exactly what she was doing. And I hated how easily she could turn me feral.

She was unravelling me.

Piece by piece, word by word.

I should’ve hated her for it.

But all I wanted to do was chase.

Instead, I spent the next few hours buried in old records, trying to track down the names she demanded. The ones who had helped my father silence Zoya. Politicians. Priests. Family friends with blood under their fingernails and temples full of lies. I documented everything, teeth clenched against guilt.

I was halfway through one file when I heard laughter.

Hers.

Not directed at me. Not even near me. It floated in from the courtyard. Sharp. Bright. Terribly out of place in this mausoleum of memory.

I stood, walked to the balcony, and saw her.

With him.

A guest—a visiting diplomat’s son. Young, golden-skinned, too smooth for his own good. He was showing her something on his phone. She laughed again. He leaned in.

Too close.

I gripped the railing hard enough to hear the stone groan.

It was a mundane scene. Innocent. But it felt like watching someone reach into my ribcage and stroke a nerve they didn’t earn the right to touch.

I turned away before I could stalk down like a jealous husband.

Except I wasn’t her husband.

Not really.

I was her captor turned confessor.

And now I wanted to be her choice.

What a pathetic, cursed thing to be.

I didn’t eat that night. Couldn’t. I listened for her footsteps, tracked them like a wolf in the dark. At one point, I heard her pause outside my study. She didn’t enter. Just stood there.

And then walked away.

She was teaching me patience. And I was failing.

The next morning, I found one of her earrings on the library floor. Silver. Small. Delicate. I closed my fist around it, and for a moment, it felt like holding her pulse.

I didn’t return it.

I kept it.

Because I was starting to understand the sickness of longing.

And God help me, I didn’t want a cure.