Scene: The Ashened Court, Ullal
The court had changed.
The once vibrant murals were blackened. The ivory pillars bore scorch marks. The scent of salt and flame clung to every stone.
Abbakka sat on the black throne—not out of pride, but necessity. She had won the war at sea, but peace was proving a deadlier serpent.
The priests brought her scrolls. The merchants demanded reconstruction. The spies whispered of new European flags on the horizon—Dutch, French, Danes.
But she wasn't listening.
She was staring at a single item in her lap.
Asha's red ribbon, burnt at the edge.
The last piece of her soul that didn't scream.
Scene: Ashkara's Vision
Ashkara, once sharp-eyed and silent, was now blind. But his mind had only grown keener.
He moved through Ullal like a shadow, his ears catching every shift in breath, every tremor in the earth.
And he began to dream.
Not ordinary dreams—prophetic seizures.
He saw a city built under the sea, lit by bio-lanterns.
He saw white men shaking hands with kings in iron masks.
He saw a queen who spoke in reverse tongue—a sister of the Inquisitor, born of ash and rebirth.
And he awoke screaming.
"The war never ended. It just changed its shape."
Scene: The Arrival of the Dutch Envoy
A grand ship arrived, white flags fluttering, promising diplomacy.
A Dutch envoy named Cornelis Van Rooten came ashore with silk robes, forged treaties, and a smile sharper than any blade.
He bowed low before Abbakka.
"We bring knowledge, trade, and alliance."
"I smell no alliance," she replied, "only spices wrapped in chains."
But she allowed his presence—for she needed to know what they were after.
And when she asked what happened to the Santa Madre's survivors, Cornelis' smile froze.
"What survivors, Your Majesty? That ship was… never in our records."
Her breath caught.
The warship she destroyed had already been erased from history.
Scene: The Plague Priest
That night, a new corpse washed up.
The body wore Portuguese robes, but its chest was tattooed with Dutch runes.
Inside its mouth: a glass orb.
Inside the orb: a black worm.
The temple priests screamed when they cut it open.
The worm sang in a frequency that cracked stone.
Abbakka stood over it.
"This is not man-made."
Ashkara whispered:
"It's older. Something they dug up, not built."
The enemy wasn't just foreign.
It was ancient.
And it had changed masters.
Scene: The Conspiracy Beneath
By now, two of her court's ministers had disappeared.
A third had begun speaking in tongues and tearing at her own flesh during a council meeting.
One word kept reappearing in their mad scrawls:"Varhaal."
Ashkara, meditating in the fire temple, remembered the word.
"Not Dutch. Not Latin. Not of any sea.It's from the Deep Language.It means: The Vault That Screams."
Scene: Descent into the Forbidden Ruins
Abbakka and Ashkara followed the priest's map into the buried shrines beneath Ullal—places sealed since before the Cholas ruled.
Torches flickered. Rats fled.
What they found wasn't a tomb.
It was a theatre of madness.
Chambers lined with paintings of ships that sailed the sky.Figures with eyes in their chests.Maps of stars that no longer exist.
And at the center: a sealed door. Covered in bone, stitched with red sinew.
It pulsed. Alive.
Ashkara touched it. His eyes rolled back.
"They aren't colonizing us for gold," he whispered.
"Then what?"
"They're after what sleeps beneath Ullal."
Scene: Letters from a Ghost
That same night, a pigeon arrived from the ruins of Goa.
Its leg bore a metal clasp.
Inside: a sealed letter.
It was written in Asha's hand.
"I walked into the fire and found the root of their world.They do not worship a god.They worship a signal.One that speaks through bones.I followed it to the Vault of Varhaal.It is not locked. It is waiting."
Abbakka stared at the letter for hours.
And then she gave her final order for the night:
"Burn the archives.Prepare the war drums.And wake the Wind Serpents."
Scene: The Wind Serpents
These were not myth.
They were real—ancient war-birds raised in secret, fed the flesh of traitors, bathed in oil and stormdust.
Once, Abbakka's mother had ridden one into battle.
Now, the queen would ride again.
The people gathered in silence as the first serpent unfurled its black-feathered wings.
It hissed, tasted the air.
Abbakka mounted it, spear in hand.
Ashkara tied the red ribbon around her arm.
"Where you fly, the sky breaks."
"Then let it break."
As she took to the air, the stars seemed to shimmer.
And deep beneath the sea,Something turned.
Final Scene: The Ship of Mirrors
Far out on the sea, under moonless dark, a ship none had ever seen drifted silently.
It had no sails, only mirrored panels that twisted reality.
And inside, a throne of living roots.
Sitting upon it: a woman with no face—only a mask of mercury.
She whispered into a silver mouthpiece:
"Abbakka rides again."
Then she smiled.
"Send the twin fleets.Let her believe she wins.Until she stands before the Vault.And hears what screams back."
✨ End of Chapter Eight