The rain had not stopped for two nights. The fortress of Ahmednagar groaned beneath it, stone walls slick with water, torches sputtering weakly as though even fire itself feared the storm. Soldiers huddled beneath cloaks, their weary eyes scanning shadows as if darkness itself might strike them down.
But Chand Bibi had found clarity in the storm.
The viper was close. Too close.
She had felt it with every poisoned goblet, every sabotaged storehouse, every whisper left scrawled upon her walls. The enemy was not simply trying to kill her—they were unraveling her fortress thread by thread.
That night, she decided: if the serpent would not reveal itself, she would lure it into the open.
Inside the war chamber, she summoned the council again. The fire burned low, long shadows crawling across the cracked maps on the table. Each man's face was taut with suspicion, with hunger, with fatigue. Chand Bibi let the silence stretch until the tension became unbearable.
Finally, she said, her tone casual yet deliberate:
"Our spies bring word the Mughal lines weaken on the eastern flank. Tomorrow at dawn, I will ride out with two hundred men and strike where they least expect it. A swift raid. A small wound to remind them Ahmednagar is not broken."
The words were a lie. A carefully baited lie.
She watched as the council shifted. Some straightened with relief, others leaned forward, eager for battle. But one pair of eyes—narrow, darting—avoided hers. Khwaja Hyder. His lips twitched nervously, and his fingers drummed the table as though playing out an unspoken plan.
She said nothing more. The meeting ended.
When the torches dimmed and the fortress fell into uneasy slumber, Chand Bibi did not rest. She waited in her chamber, armor half-buckled, sword across her lap. Outside, the storm raged harder, drowning the night in sound. It was the perfect cover for betrayal.
And betrayal came swiftly.
A runner burst into her chamber past midnight, his tunic soaked, his face pale. "Begum! The Mughals—they march toward the eastern wall. Thousands of them. It is as if they knew—"
Her eyes sharpened. As if they knew.
The trap had worked. The serpent had whispered the lie into the enemy's ear.
She rose, her sword flashing in the lamplight. "Wake the guards. Double the watch. And seal the council chamber. None leave until I say so."
The boy nodded and vanished into the storm. Chand Bibi's pulse hammered. Tonight, she would not sleep until the mask was torn away.
At dawn, she entered the sealed war chamber. The councilmen sat in silence, their faces gaunt from sleepless hours. Soldiers flanked the doors, spears crossed, their expressions grim.
Chand Bibi strode to the head of the table and dropped something onto the map—a bloodied Mughal arrow. Its fletching bore a fresh smear of wax, a wax seal she recognized too well: the crest of Ahmednagar's own court scribes.
Gasps rippled through the room.
"Last night," Chand Bibi said, her voice calm but deadly, "the Mughals struck where I alone suggested. They marched before dawn, with precision too sharp to be coincidence. Which means only one thing—my words were carried beyond these walls before the candles in this chamber had burned out."
Her gaze sliced through each man, until it landed on Hyder.
He shifted, his eyes darting again. His hand brushed his cloak as if to hide something.
"Stand," Chand Bibi commanded.
Hyder hesitated, then rose. The room grew heavy with silence, the kind of silence that shatters when steel is drawn.
"Search him," she ordered.
Two guards stepped forward. Hyder snarled, struggling, but the guards were faster. From his cloak, they pulled a folded scrap of parchment, sealed not with Ahmednagar's mark—but with the Mughal insignia.
The council erupted in shouts. Hyder paled, sweat slicking his brow.
"It is not mine!" he cried. "A trick, a lie, planted by—"
Chand Bibi's hand shot up, silencing him. Her dagger gleamed in the torchlight as she stepped forward, closing the space between them.
"You poisoned our wells. You burned our grain. You murdered our men while they slept. And still you dare deny?"
Hyder stammered, trembling. "I did it for survival. The Mughals promised—"
"The Mughals promise nothing but chains," she hissed.
The chamber was silent, every eye fixed on her. For a heartbeat, even the storm outside seemed to still.
Then, without hesitation, Chand Bibi drove the dagger into the table, inches from Hyder's hand. The wood splintered under the force.
"You will hang by dusk," she said coldly. "And your body will remind every coward in Ahmednagar that betrayal has only one reward."
As Hyder was dragged screaming from the chamber, Chand Bibi looked upon the faces of her council. Some were pale with fear, others steeled with new resolve.
But she knew this was not the end. Hyder was but one serpent. Others lurked still, watching, waiting, whispering.
She returned to the battlements as the storm cleared, the sun breaking weakly through the clouds. Beyond the walls, the Mughal army stirred like a sea of steel.
Her fortress was scarred, her soldiers weary, her food stores dwindling. Yet her spirit blazed hotter than ever.
"Come," she whispered to the horizon. "Come with your fire and your blades. Ahmednagar still stands. And I stand with it."
But in the shadows of her mind, one truth lingered:If the Mughals did not break her, the traitors within surely would try again.
The real war was only beginning.
✨ End of Chapter Twelve ✨