The morning arrives quietly in the Varma house, the way most mornings do before the world outside is fully awake. Sunlight moves slowly across the floor of the room where Pranavi sleeps beside her sister Hridaya, still tangled in the last hour of a dream she won't remember by the time she opens her eyes. Today she turns twenty, though nothing about the room, the light, or the sound of her mother moving in the kitchen suggests anything unusual is about to happen. That is how birthdays have always been in this house. No parties, no grand declarations, just temple visits, new clothes, her mother's cooking, and the quiet weight of being loved by people who show it through small, consistent things rather than loud ones. The mehendi applied the evening before sits dark against her palms, darker than she remembers any previous year's mehendi turning. It is only natural mehendi, always has been, her skin has never tolerated anything else, but even natural mehendi does not usually deepen quite like this overnight. Somewhere in the house, a fan hums steadily against the early summer heat that has not yet reached its full intensity for the day. Somewhere outside, jasmine and hibiscus planted years ago by her mother and her own hands are already open to the morning. Somewhere far from this house, in a life she knows nothing about, a decision has already been made that will eventually reach her, though not today. Today is only supposed to be an ordinary birthday morning. She has no reason yet to believe it will be anything else.