The fort hadn't slept.
Rumors spread like wildfire—of a hidden temple that had vanished in flame, of ghosts silenced, of Obavva rising from ash with eyes no longer human. Some feared her. Some followed. All watched.
Obavva stood atop the highest bastion, blood on her tunic, the Root's mark pulsing under her skin like molten script. Behind her, Kaashi, Reva, and Veda stood silently, each changed in their own way.
But Obavva? She was becoming something else.
And the Eye wasn't dead.
It had moved.
Two nights ago, deep in the temple's ruins, as the last of the Veilmaker turned to dust, something slithered free—a shard of obsidian still flickering with blue fire. It hissed through roots and earth, unseen, unnoticed, until it reached the fort's inner sanctum: the Queen's well.
There, it waited. Growing. Watching.
And tonight… it would act.
The Palace Courtyard. Midnight.
A guard screamed.
Another collapsed, his shadow turning on him like a snake.
By the time Obavva and her allies arrived, half the eastern garrison had vanished into smoke.
"What is this?" Reva gasped.
"The Eye's other half," Obavva replied grimly.
"What do you mean?" Veda asked, breathless.
Obavva's hand began to burn again—the Root script searing like iron beneath her skin.
"I shattered its body," she said. "But not its will."
She turned toward the Queen's well.
"It was never just an object. It was an echo—a memory with claws."
They descended the steps of the old well, where the deepest water held no reflection.
The torches sputtered out.
The smell hit first—wet stone, burning bones, and old grief.
Then came the sound.
Whispers.
Like insects scraping against the walls of the world.
"Do you hear that?" Kaashi whispered, cocking her slingshot.
"They're not speaking," Veda said, staring blankly into the dark. "They're remembering."
"Remembering what?" Reva asked.
"Us," Obavva said. "Every time we screamed and no one listened. Every betrayal. Every lie. The Eye feeds on suppressed memory."
And then it spoke.
"You broke the temple. You defied the Veilmaker. But you… left me."
From the depths of the well, it emerged.
Not an orb.
Not a creature.
But a being of liquid shadow, stitched from whispers and forgotten pain.
It had no eyes—but it saw.
It had no voice—but it commanded.
And from its core, it projected mirrors—twisting the fort's past, showing Obavva what had been scrubbed from the records:
A Queen silenced on her coronation night.
A healer buried alive for knowing too much.
A child marked as cursed for asking why.
Every injustice carved into history's margins.
"You want a war?" the Eye's Will said. "Then let it be one of truths."
The mirrors exploded, releasing echoes—phantoms of wronged women from every age, but distorted, weaponized, turned against the present.
The fort's soldiers fell back in panic.
Even Reva faltered.
"They look like us—"
"They were," Veda whispered. "Until the Eye twisted them into vengeance without memory."
Obavva stepped forward.
"I remember them."
She closed her eyes, the Root's heat blooming in her chest like wildfire.
And in that instant—she became a beacon.
Every echo paused.
Their heads turned.
Their voices quieted.
Obavva raised her arms, palms out, and chanted something in no known language.
The runes from the temple flared across her skin, lighting the well chamber like a second sun.
"I name you," she said. "I remember you."
And as she did, one by one, the echoes shuddered—and dissolved into light.
Obavva wasn't fighting them.
She was freeing them.
The Eye's Will howled, a sound like glass screaming.
"You rob me of my army!"
"No," she said. "I rob you of your lies."
With the Root glowing in her hand, Obavva struck forward—not with steel, but with memory.
She drove the truth into the Eye's center.
And it split.
A final, furious burst of shadow erupted—
—and then silence.
Dawn.
Chitradurga stood intact, but changed.
No one could explain the night's events. Some said a storm passed. Some whispered of ghosts. Others began to speak Obavva's name in prayers, though she forbade it.
The Queen summoned her.
"You've torn something open," the monarch said quietly. "The people sense it. A shift."
Obavva said nothing.
The Queen stepped forward and placed a small crown of steel and vine in her hands.
"Then lead them."
But Obavva didn't take it.
"I wasn't born to wear crowns," she said. "I was born to break walls."
She turned, walking away from the court.
Kaashi, Reva, and Veda followed.
Later that night.
Alone, Obavva climbed the southern cliffside.
The mark of the Root still glowed faintly on her palm.
The war was over.
But something deeper had begun.
From the edge of the fortress wall, she looked out into the horizon.
Somewhere, beyond forests and ruins and forgotten tongues, other Eyes waited.
Watching.
Whispering.
But now… she whispered back.
End of Chapter Thirteen