Fourteen was the age when the world outside Shanti Sadan began to shift into soft, vibrant colors for normal girls, but for Khwahish, it only deepened the grey.

The transition into her mid-teens brought changes that made her already fragile existence even more precarious. Her body grew taller and leaner, her brown skin taking on the warm, earth-toned depth typical of her ancestry, while her collarbones became sharply defined under her thin cotton tunics. But alongside growth came an acute, painful self-awareness. The silver, jagged line of the scar across her left eyebrow and cheek had not faded with time; if anything, as her features matured, the contrast between her smooth skin and the raised, pale tissue of the wound became more stark.