Pranati’s POV

The night after Bathukamma should have felt magical. My heart should’ve been light, floating with the scent of thangedu flowers and the rhythm of kolatam sticks clicking under the moonlight. We had danced, laughed, and offered our floral goddesses to the lake like generations of women before us. But instead, I lay wide-eyed on Satakka’s rooftop, wrapped in my cotton dupatta, the memory of Siddharth’s kiss burning like a fever in my chest.