By morning, Ira realized something was wrong.
She did not feel hunger.
Not the gentle reminder she usually woke with. Not even the sharp discomfort that followed a missed meal.
Nothing.
She tested herself carefully—pinching her wrist, pressing her nails into her palm.
Sensation was there. Emotion was not.
"That happens sometimes," she murmured to herself. "Temporary."
She hoped.
Devansh watched her from a distance as she moved through the Hall of Still Waters, cataloguing her behavior the way one might observe a storm forming far away.
"You're quieter," he said.
She smiled faintly. "You noticed."
"Yes."
That should not have mattered.
He should not have cared enough to notice patterns.
"I need to leave soon," Ira said, more to convince herself than him. "The villages—"
"You won't survive the journey today."
She frowned. "Why?"
"The city won't release you yet."
Her breath caught. "That's not comforting."
"It's truthful."
She looked around at the pale stone walls, the still pools reflecting a sky that didn't belong to any season she recognized.
"If I stay," she asked, "what happens to me?"
Devansh did not answer immediately.
"Your heart will continue to bind," he said at last. "And it will take more each time."
"And you?"
He searched himself for an answer.
"Nothing," he said.
That was when Ira understood.
She was paying a price he could not feel.
"Then teach me how to survive here," she said.
He should have refused.
Instead, he nodded.