The sun had already bled orange into the Yamuna when Priya Mehra climbed the last rung of the scaffolding. From up here, Agra Fort looked like a sleeping giant—red sandstone walls still warm from the day, catching the dying light in patches that made the marble inlays glow like forgotten promises. She adjusted her hard hat, the strap digging into her chin, and leaned over the railing to check the crack in the Diwan-i-Am's eastern arch.
Another hairline fracture. The monsoons had been merciless this year, and the Yamuna—brown and sluggish below—seemed to lap at the foundations with deliberate spite. Priya sighed, pulled out her notebook, and sketched the damage in quick, precise lines. Restoration wasn't romance; it was math, mortar, and fighting entropy one centimeter at a time.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Ma, again.
Beta, come home soon. Arjun is bringing that girl for dinner. The one from Noida. Don't be late.
Priya typed back without looking: Stuck at site. Late. Save me some paratha.
She pocketed the phone before the next guilt-trip text arrived. Twenty-seven years old, a master's in conservation architecture from Delhi, and still the family treated her like the daughter who needed reminding to eat. Or marry. Or stop "playing with old stones" and start a real life.
The sky darkened faster than expected. A full moon was due tonight—Karva Chauth, the one day every year when half the women in Agra fasted for husbands they hadn't even met yet. Priya had never bothered with the ritual. No husband, no fasting, no fuss. But tonight the moon felt heavier, closer, as if it had decided to linger over the fort just to watch her work.
She glanced across the river. The Taj Mahal sat on the opposite bank like a white ghost, its dome catching the first silver of moonlight. Even from here, it looked perfect—untouched by the cracks and compromises that plagued every other monument in the city. Sometimes she hated it for that.
A breeze stirred off the Yamuna, carrying the familiar stink of sewage mixed with dying fish and faint jasmine from somewhere upstream. Priya wrinkled her nose. The river was dying, everyone knew it. Developers kept promising "beautification projects," but all they built were more concrete walls and luxury flats that blocked the view for everyone else.
She turned back to the crack, shining her headlamp into it. Something glinted inside—not mortar, not sandstone. A thin vein of silver? No, impossible. The Mughal builders hadn't used silver here. She reached in with gloved fingers, brushing dust away.
Her fingertip touched cold metal. A small, flat amulet, no bigger than a coin, etched with faint script she couldn't read in the dim light. It felt warm against her glove, which made no sense.
Priya pulled it free. The chain was broken, but the pendant itself was intact—white metal, almost marble-smooth, with swirling lines that looked like henna patterns frozen in silver. She held it up to the moonlight.
The world tilted.
Not dramatically. Not like in movies. Just a sudden, quiet shift, as if gravity had decided to lean in a different direction. Her heartbeat stuttered—once, twice—then settled into something slower, deeper. The scaffolding creaked under her weight, though she hadn't moved.
She blinked. The moon was directly overhead now, impossibly large, its light pouring over the fort's marble inlays and reflecting off the Yamuna in a shimmering path straight to her. The silver amulet grew warmer in her palm, almost hot.
A sound escaped her throat—half gasp, half growl. She clapped her free hand over her mouth.
No. Not now. Not here.
Her nails itched. She looked down. They were longer—impossibly so—curving into black points that gleamed like onyx under the headlamp. She stared, horrified, as fine silver veins traced across her knuckles, rising like rivers under the skin.
The pain came then—not sharp, but deep and exquisite, like every bone in her body remembering it was made of stone and deciding to flow instead. Her spine arched. She gripped the railing so hard the metal bent.
Below, the river whispered. Not words, but something older—echoes of grief, of love carved in marble, of a curse whispered four centuries ago on these very banks.
Priya tried to speak, to call out to the night watchman who should have been patrolling the lower levels. Nothing came but a low, rumbling sound from her chest.
The amulet pulsed once, bright as moonlight on marble.
Then everything went white.
When she opened her eyes again, the scaffolding was empty. Her hard hat lay on the planks, cracked. The notebook had fallen open to a blank page, pen rolling gently toward the edge.
Priya—no, something wearing Priya's shape—stood taller now, limbs longer, skin shimmering with faint marble patterns that caught the moon and threw it back in soft gold. Claws flexed at her sides. Eyes—gold, glowing—reflected the Taj across the water.
She tilted her head back and howled.
The sound rolled over Agra Fort, low and mournful, swallowed by the night before it reached the city streets. Somewhere downstream, a stray dog answered with frantic barking. A security guard on the far gate paused, thinking it was only the wind through the battlements.
But the river heard.
And the marble remembered.
Priya—or what was becoming Priya—leapt from the scaffolding in a single fluid motion, landing on the fort's outer wall without a sound. She ran—fast, silent—along the ramparts, the moonlight painting her path in silver.
Behind her, the amulet dangled from her neck, warm against new skin.
Ahead, the Yamuna waited.