Wind clawed through the jagged rocks surrounding Chitradurga, as if the land itself was uneasy. Down in the marketplace, oblivious children chased shadows between crumbling stone pillars, while a lone figure slipped through the east gate under a veil of dusk.
Obavva was no longer just a guard's wife.
She now bore the Queen's silent command: Intercept the courier bearing the second seal.
He carried with him more than letters. He bore a ciphered route to the fort's southern aqueducts—unguarded, forgotten, and perfect for an invasion.
According to the blood-stained map recovered from Minister Jaisingh's hidden lair, the courier would pass through Jogimatti forest at midnight under a false trader's guise. Obavva had only hours.
She rode through dry brush and moon-bathed ruins. The forest loomed ahead like a dark thought. Her pestle was strapped to her side, but tonight, she also carried a Mysorean blade, gifted long ago by her father—a former rebel, executed for treason.
Justice, it seemed, ran in her blood.
By the time she reached Jogimatti's outer ridge, the forest was thick with fog. Each tree branch twisted like a claw. Wolves howled in the distance, but it was the silence between that unnerved her most.
She tethered her horse beneath a Banyan tree and walked deeper, listening for hoofbeats.
Then—there.
A faint jingle of bridles. Two riders. Not one.
She crouched behind a moss-covered boulder as the figures passed, both dressed as spice merchants. But their posture was wrong—too alert, too rigid. Not traders. Soldiers.
Obavva waited until they rounded a bend, then followed quietly.
They stopped at an abandoned shrine—a granite structure half-swallowed by the earth. One man dismounted, pulled a scroll from beneath his robe, and placed it inside a hollow statue of Nandi the bull.
Obavva moved in.
A twig cracked beneath her boot.
One rider spun, drawing a curved dagger. "Who's there?"
Obavva didn't answer.
She lunged from the fog, blade flashing, catching the rider by surprise. He parried, barely. Steel clanged in the stillness. The second man drew a pistol—Mughal make—and aimed.
Obavva hurled her pestle.
It struck him in the temple with a crunch. He fell.
The remaining man lunged with fury. Obavva dodged left, then countered with a vicious slash across his thigh. He roared and collapsed. She pinned him down.
"Who sent you?" she growled.
"Too late," he spat, coughing blood. "You stop one—we send ten."
She twisted the blade. "Who holds the cipher?"
He laughed, weakly. "The one who used to write them... is now writing against you."
His eyes rolled back. Dead.
Obavva retrieved the scroll from the Nandi statue.
This one was unlike the others—its ink shimmered under moonlight. Not just a map, but instructions… embedded with invisible glyphs.
She recognized the language.
The ancient code of Kadambas—used only by the secret chroniclers of the old queens.
Only one man alive could translate it now.
A prisoner. Banished. Blinded. Held in the Queen's own dungeon for betrayal.
Obavva returned to Chitradurga before dawn. The guards at the southern gate, now under her command, stood aside as she passed.
She went straight to the dungeons beneath the court.
The prisoner was chained in a cell lit by a single oil lamp. His hair was wild, beard longer than any scroll in the archives.
"Satyavrat," she said.
The man turned. White eyes flickered.
"I told her," he rasped. "I told the Queen that one day, the ink would betray the throne."
Obavva held out the scroll. "Then read the betrayal."
He touched the edges. Fingers danced across the parchment like he was playing a forgotten instrument.
Then he stopped. His expression changed.
"This… this is not just a message," he whispered. "It's a ritual plan."
"What kind?" she asked.
"A symbolic death," he said. "They intend to breach Chitradurga not with cannons—but with the fall of her symbol."
Obavva's blood ran cold. "The Queen."
"No," he said. "Her protector. You."
Later that day, at the Queen's secret war chamber, Obavva laid the decoded parchment before her.
Queen Mallamma read in silence. Her jaw tightened.
"They're crafting a spectacle," the Queen said at last. "A betrayal orchestrated in layers. They plan to murder you dressed as me. At the northern gates. At sunrise. Before our own soldiers."
Obavva nodded grimly. "They want confusion. Civil fracture."
"Then we reverse the illusion," the Queen said. "We stage your death."
That night, two women stood cloaked atop the palace spire.
One was Obavva.
The other was Kethana—her cousin and double, trained in voice, gait, and bearing.
"The blade will fall," the Queen said softly. "But on a shadow, not on you."
Obavva gripped her pestle. "If they want a symbol, I'll give them one. But they'll never forget which woman struck the first blow."
At sunrise, a procession of Queen's banners marched toward the northern gates—where the traitors planned to strike.
But this time, Obavva was waiting.
And so was the truth.
End of Chapter Four