Nightfall over Chitradurga wasn't just a curtain of darkness—it was a whisper, soft and treacherous, that slithered through walls centuries old. The fortress had quieted after the failed coup, but in Obavva's mind, the real war had just begun.
The symbol carved in reverse—the inverted onake—still haunted her thoughts. It wasn't just a threat. It was a code.
And it had been left for her.
She stood alone in the royal archive chamber, torchlight casting long shadows. The floor beneath her feet bore ancient inscriptions—some faded, some scratched in recently. One inscription stood out. Not for its beauty, but for its precision: a map.
She knelt, tracing its curves and lines with charcoal. The design twisted underneath the very throne room of Chitradurga—a subterranean network not listed in any known blueprint.
A labyrinth.
Had it always been there? Or had someone been digging, slowly, methodically, over decades?
She took her torch, slung her pestle across her back, and descended the narrow servant's stairway behind the archives.
The stone corridor she followed narrowed as it dipped deeper, lit only by flickering flame. Strange carvings emerged along the walls—symbols she had never seen before. They weren't from the Nayaka dynasty. They were older. Primitive.
And then she saw it.
A broken grate. Bent outward—not inward.
Something had come through, not fled from the fort.
Beyond the grate was a spiral tunnel, walls slick with ancient damp. The air turned metallic, heavy with iron, dust, and something more... alchemical.
Obavva pushed on, the silence pressing against her eardrums like a scream held too long.
Half an hour in, the tunnel opened into a vast underground chamber—its ceiling arched and ribbed like a great beast's skeleton. In the center was a raised dais, and on it, a single, rusted onake.
But this was no ordinary pestle.
It was massive—taller than a man, with carvings along its length. The carvings matched the inverted symbol she had found. And at the base, a blood groove.
"War ceremonial," she whispered. "But not ours."
She knelt, examining the pedestal—and then, she heard it.
A slow, deliberate inhale. Behind her.
She whirled, pestle drawn. But the darkness behind her was too complete. She moved in circles, back to the pedestal, torch raised.
From the edge of the chamber came a voice.
Soft. Measured. Male.
"You've come far, woman of fire."
Obavva said nothing.
The voice continued. "This fort's foundation is older than kingdoms. Older than the name Chitradurga. Older than your Queen's family. This… was once a sanctuary. And you've desecrated it."
She turned toward the sound. "I've desecrated nothing. I only chased the stench of betrayal."
A figure stepped into the torchlight. Robed in black, with a crescent mask covering his face.
"You do not yet understand," he said. "This fort is the seal. The pestle is the key. And you… are the trigger."
He raised a hand. From the dark, two more figures emerged—armed, quick, and silent.
Obavva did not hesitate.
She leapt to the side, hurling her torch at the masked man. It shattered against his robe, briefly setting his sleeve aflame.
As he batted it out, she lunged at the first attacker, catching him mid-strike. Her pestle cracked his jawbone, sending teeth skidding across the stone floor. He dropped with a gurgle.
The second rushed her. Obavva ducked low, rolled behind a stone column, and threw a blade from her ankle sheath.
It hit the woman's thigh. She screamed, dropped her dagger, and fell into the dust.
Obavva turned to finish her—
—but the masked man had vanished.
Only the echo of his words remained.
"You are the trigger."
She tied up the wounded assassin and hauled her into a forgotten chamber off the side of the labyrinth. The woman's eyes were fevered, her mouth bloody.
"Why are you digging under the fort?" Obavva hissed. "Who's behind the tunnel?"
The woman laughed. It was a choked, brittle sound.
"You're already too late," she whispered. "The real tunnel isn't under the throne."
Obavva frowned.
"It's under you."
Before she could speak, the assassin bit down on something in her mouth.
Foam bubbled at her lips.
Poison.
She died with a grotesque smile on her face.
By the time Obavva returned to the surface, dawn was approaching. She emerged through a hidden stone slab in the eastern courtyard—near the water well she had once defended with nothing but her pestle.
Now, that well no longer felt like a symbol of her past. It was a gateway.
She approached it slowly, peering down. The water was still, like a sheet of black glass.
But beneath it, she saw movement.
Like something had blinked.
Queen Mallamma stood over a table when Obavva entered the War Hall, maps and scrolls spread before her. Her generals stood back, watching in silence.
"Report," the Queen said, without looking up.
"They're not just infiltrating from outside," Obavva said, voice low. "They've built something inside us. Under us."
The Queen looked up.
"What did you find?"
Obavva placed a small cloth bundle on the table and unwrapped it.
The rusted onake's carvings.
"The same symbol the traitors wore in rings. But older. Ancient. They've been waiting for centuries to reclaim something buried under Chitradurga."
"And what do they want?"
"I don't know yet," she said. "But they called this place a seal. And me—a trigger."
The Queen's brow furrowed. "They're trying to awaken something."
Obavva nodded.
And then added softly, "And I think it's waking."
Outside the War Hall, the wind picked up, scattering dust across the sandstone corridors.
From deep within the earth, a low rumble echoed.
Not an earthquake. Not a collapse.
A pulse.
And somewhere below the water well, the stone shifted.
A circular gate, once bound by centuries of silence, began to tremble.
It was no longer just a tunnel.
It was an entrance.
End of Chapter Six