The entrance was not marked on any current map.
Old stone, older than the palace itself, sealed the tunnel mouth behind the granary yard. Overgrown vines clung to its arch like skeletal fingers. Onake Obavva stood before it, pestle in one hand, a torch in the other.
With her were Kaashi, Veda, and Reva — the core of the Obavvari. And behind them, a silent wall of palace guards awaited her signal. But this path was not for soldiers.
This was for shadows.
And shadows were her domain now.
"This tunnel was sealed during my great-grandfather's time," Mallamma had whispered before they left. "They said it breathed poison. That it cursed the soil above."
Obavva had only nodded. "Sometimes poison must be swallowed to find the cure."
They entered just after midnight.
Each footstep echoed through the bowels of the fort like the heartbeat of something ancient. The deeper they went, the more unnatural it became. Walls shifted texture — from granite to a dark, tar-like stone that pulsed faintly under their torchlight.
"Do you hear that?" Kaashi murmured.
Obavva paused. Beneath the quiet, there was a hum. Low. Pulsating. Like the growl of a sleeping beast.
Or something alive... waiting.
A chamber opened before them — circular, vast, with broken pillars and collapsed arches. In the center stood a stone platform covered in dried blood and cracked iron manacles.
"The Old Eye's altar," Veda whispered.
Obavva stepped forward, pestle ready. But before she could reach it, a hiss stopped her.
She turned.
From the far shadows, they came.
Figures — robed in black, faces veiled, glyphs glowing blue on their foreheads. Five. Ten. Fifteen.
The Veilmakers.
Obavva raised her pestle. The torchlight flickered as wind rushed through the tunnel — but no one had moved.
And then one stepped forward.
He pulled back his hood.
Obavva froze.
"Lankesh," she whispered.
The boy she had once saved. His eyes now fully black, rimmed with pale fire.
But it wasn't the boy that spoke. It was something inside him.
"You walk in corridors older than your gods," the voice rasped. "This is no tunnel. This is a vein of the Eye. And it sees you, pestle-bearer."
Obavva's jaw tightened. "Then let it watch me shatter it."
With a cry, she charged.
The battle erupted like a torn dream.
Kaashi flanked right, blades singing. Veda hurled fire powder. Reva's slingshot cut the air with deadly speed.
Obavva became a storm.
Shaktiraaksh lit up in her hand, the pestle humming with old energy. Every swing cracked bone, every step burned glyphs off the Veilmakers' skin.
But Lankesh did not fight. He stood at the altar, chanting. Blood poured from his nose. The glyphs on the walls began to glow.
"The Eye opens..." he whispered.
Obavva saw it too late — the walls were not walls. They were lids. And they were peeling back.
A circular slit of pulsing, fleshy light opened behind the altar. Not a portal — an eye the size of a chariot wheel.
It blinked.
Then screamed.
The sound wasn't just heard. It was felt — slicing through minds like a dagger dipped in ice. Reva dropped, clutching her ears. Kaashi staggered. Veda fell to one knee.
Obavva stumbled forward, vision swimming.
Lankesh raised both arms.
"You cannot fight it. You were chosen — to awaken it, not kill it."
Obavva dropped the pestle.
For one moment, the world tilted.
The tunnel faded.
She saw herself — younger, kneeling by her husband's corpse. Saw the moment she had found the hidden chamber under the temple. Saw the whisper of the blade calling her name.
"You carry a shard of the Eye," Lankesh said. "But you could join us. Become its voice. Its fury. The world has always feared women like you — we could make them kneel."
Obavva knelt slowly, picked up the pestle, and whispered:
"Then kneel to this."
She hurled it.
Shaktiraaksh struck the altar.
The stone exploded in blue flame.
The Eye shrieked, its slit narrowing. The tunnel shook. Chunks of ceiling collapsed. Veilmakers screamed as the glyphs on their skin flared and vanished.
Lankesh fell backward into the rift behind him.
And Obavva ran.
She grabbed Veda and Reva, dragging them. Kaashi stumbled beside her. The tunnel behind them cracked open — not collapsing, but folding. Like paper burning in reverse.
The Eye was dying.
But it would not die quietly.
They burst out of the entrance just as the stone mouth sealed shut behind them — completely fused, as if it had never existed.
Obavva fell to her knees, coughing.
Above them, dawn was breaking.
Mallamma ran to them from the courtyard. "What happened?"
Obavva looked up.
"It's buried," she said. "The Eye. The Veilmakers. The altar. All of it. For now."
"For now?" Mallamma asked.
Obavva looked at her pestle. A crack ran through it.
"Lankesh said I carry a shard of the Eye," she said. "The blade is... connected. It's not just a weapon. It's a key."
Mallamma's face turned grave. "Then they will come for it again."
"Yes," Obavva whispered. "And next time, they'll bring something worse."
That night, alone in her chamber, Obavva laid the pestle on the stone floor.
It pulsed once.
And in her mind, she saw a vision:A woman centuries before her, holding the same blade.A child centuries ahead, forging it anew.A line of women, linked not by blood, but by refusal.Refusal to be silenced.To be ruled.To bow.
The Eye might open again.
But so would she.
End of Chapter Ten