The air, heavy with the intoxicating blend of incense and the musk of excited bodies, pressed in on her from all sides. Nandani’s senses were overwhelmed as she stood at the heart of a pulsating, open-air festival. The night sky stretched endlessly above, but it was the crowd below that consumed her attention—thousands of faces, a sea of glittering eyes and hungry mouths, all fixated on her. Their collective energy was electric, a thrumming undercurrent that seemed to vibrate through her very bones. She was no longer in the shadowed chamber; she was on a raised dais, utterly exposed, her body displayed as if it were a sacred offering.