The citadel of Ahmednagar had seen many dawns, but never one like this. The sun's fire rose in silence, its rays veiled by a haze of smoke that lingered from the night's torch-lit councils. The air was thick with an omen—the kind that made soldiers fidget with their swords and mothers clutch their children tighter.
On the ramparts, Chand Bibi stood cloaked in black. Her sharp eyes, lit with both defiance and despair, scanned the horizon where Mughal banners quivered in the wind like vultures circling a dying beast. The siege had dragged on for weeks, draining the city of grain, of strength, of hope. Yet within those stone walls beat a heart that refused surrender.
She heard them behind her—the whispers. "The Queen consorts with djinns.""She speaks to shadows in her chambers.""Why does she not yield? Who does she truly serve?"
The rumors had spread like poison, slithering through the ranks of her own people. She could sense the weight of treachery pressing closer each day, the shifting of loyalties, the tightening of knives in the dark.
"Your Highness," came a hushed voice.It was Mirza, her most trusted guard, his hand trembling as he held out a sealed letter. The wax bore no emblem—only a mark scorched into it: the shape of a falcon with wings aflame. Chand Bibi's blood chilled. She had seen this sigil before, once, long ago, when she had been a young princess in Bijapur. A symbol of an unseen hand, a network of spies and assassins that had stalked Deccan courts for decades, always working in shadow, loyal to no throne but their own hidden master.
She broke the seal. The parchment inside carried only a single line:
"The walls will fall, but not by cannon."
Her grip tightened until the paper tore. She turned her face back to the sunrise, but the warmth did not reach her.
That night, the city trembled with unseen movements. Chand Bibi walked through the labyrinthine passages of the citadel, her torch casting elongated shapes on damp stone. Each echo of her footsteps seemed to multiply, as if unseen followers trailed her. She halted by the armory—empty shelves gaped where weapons had once been. Someone had begun to smuggle steel into the enemy camp.
In the silence, a sound slithered—a low chant, hidden behind the walls. She pressed her ear to the cold stone. Words seeped through, words not of prayer but of conspiracy:
"Tomorrow… the gate… open at dawn."
Her heart thundered. Traitors were within her citadel.
By the time she returned to her chamber, the moon hung low, casting its pale light across her room. There, upon her desk, lay a dagger. She had not left it there. Its hilt gleamed like obsidian, carved into the same flaming falcon sigil. Beneath it lay a single feather—black, glossy, and sharp-edged, as though plucked from some infernal bird.
Chand Bibi's hand hovered above the weapon, but she did not touch it. Instead, she whispered, "So… the hunters come at last."
A shadow stirred in the corner of the room. Mirza stepped forward, his face strained. "My queen, the walls weaken, but not by cannon, as the letter warned. The enemy already walks among us."
Chand Bibi turned, her eyes flashing like a drawn blade. "Then let them come. If the gates are to fall, it will be over my dead body—and theirs."
The next dawn did not bring cannon fire, nor assault, nor the blare of war horns. Instead, it brought silence. Soldiers awoke to find one of the gates ajar, its locks broken from within. Panic spread through the citadel, but Chand Bibi was already there, mounted on her steed, her sword gleaming crimson in the early light.
From the fog beyond the gates came figures—cloaked, faceless, their movements swift and unnatural, as though shadows given form. Not Mughals. Not men of flesh alone.
The flaming falcon had come to claim its prey.
"Seal the gates!" Chand Bibi roared.Her voice cut through fear like a whip. Steel clashed against steel as the first of the shadowed intruders lunged forward. She met them with fury, her blade flashing like lightning. For every traitor that fell, another seemed to rise from the mist.
Mirza fought at her side, blood streaking his arm, his breath ragged. "They are not soldiers. They are something else…"
Chand Bibi's eyes narrowed. "Assassins. Not for conquest. For me."
The realization was fire in her veins. The siege, the cannons, the endless weeks of attrition—it had been but a distraction. The true weapon was betrayal from within.
And in that revelation came resolve.
By nightfall, the citadel was littered with corpses, their blood staining the stones black. Chand Bibi stood among them, her face pale yet unbroken. Around her, her remaining guards knelt, their loyalty tested and proven in blood.
But even as silence settled, a chill lingered in the air. The message was clear: the enemy would not stop until she fell.
From the battlements, she looked again at the Mughal banners, flickering like restless flames in the distance. The cannons waited. The vultures circled. And now, the shadows within her own citadel had declared themselves.
Whispers rose again, carried by the wind—rumors of a queen who defied death itself, of a woman who stood between empires and the abyss. Some called her savior, others sorceress. But Chand Bibi knew the truth.
She was neither. She was something else.
A queen forged in darkness. A shadow of fire.
And she would not break.
🔥 End of Chapter Eight