The fortress did not sleep.
It pretended to lanterns dimmed, guards slowed their steps, prayers murmured behind closed doors but beneath the stone skin of Ahmednagar, something stalked the dark.
Chand Bibi felt it.
She stood alone in her chamber, armor loosened but not removed, fingers resting on the pommel of her sword. Hyder's blood still stained the courtyard stones in her memory, but his final words echoed louder than his screams.
There are more.
The wind pressed against the latticed windows like unseen hands. Somewhere deep in the fort, a door creaked. Chand Bibi did not turn. She had learned long ago fear announces itself before danger does.
And danger was already inside.
The assassin moved soundlessly through the corridor, bare feet touching stone as lightly as a whisper. He knew the guards' rhythms, the places where torchlight thinned, the moments when vigilance wavered. This was not a Mughal soldier from the camps outside.
This was someone who belonged here.
He paused outside Chand Bibi's chamber, pressing his ear to the door. Silence. He reached beneath his cloak and drew a thin blade curved, blackened, its edge coated with a poison that killed slowly, painfully.
One scratch would be enough.
He pushed the door open.
Steel flashed.
Chand Bibi spun, sword already in motion. The assassin barely had time to raise his dagger before her blade struck, knocking it from his hand. The clang echoed like thunder in the confined space.
They collided her shoulder slamming into his chest, the scent of sweat and poison filling the air. He recovered quickly, lunging for her throat with bare hands, fingers clawing for her veil.
She drove her knee into his ribs.
Bone cracked.
He staggered back, gasping but did not fall.
"You should have fled," she said, voice low, furious. "That was your only mercy."
He laughed through bloodied teeth. "Mercy?" he hissed. "The Mughals promised fire. Gold. Power. They promised your head would end this war."
He lunged again.
This time, Chand Bibi did not defend.
She attacked.
Her sword cut across his thigh, deep and clean. He screamed, collapsing to one knee. Before he could beg, before he could speak another poisonous word, she slammed the hilt into his temple.
He fell.
Guards burst into the chamber moments later, spears raised, faces pale.
"Seal the fort," Chand Bibi ordered. "No one enters or leaves. Bring torches. I want every corridor lit."
She knelt beside the assassin, gripping his chin and forcing his eyes open.
"Who sent you?" she demanded.
Blood bubbled at his lips. His smile was terrible. "You think killing me ends this?" he whispered. "You are already surrounded, Begum. By blades. By lies. By hunger."
His eyes rolled back.
Dead.
By dawn, the fortress trembled with rumors.
An assassin. Inside the queen's chamber. Poisoned blade. Mughal gold.
Fear crept into the cracks of loyalty.
Chand Bibi stood before her generals in full armor, her presence iron-clad, unshaken. She displayed the assassin's weapon for all to see.
"This is what waits for cowards," she said. "And this" she lifted her sword, still nicked with blood, "is what waits for those who try to end me."
But even as the soldiers roared their approval, she saw it.
Doubt.
Not in their courage but in their hope.
Food stores were nearly gone. The villagers outside the walls were dead. Mughal cannons were being dragged closer every night.
And now the enemy had proven they could reach her in the dark.
That afternoon, Mughal envoys approached under a banner of truce.
They brought terms.
"Surrender Ahmednagar," the message read, "and Chand Bibi will be spared. Resist, and the fort will burn. Every man, woman, and child will pay."
The words were meant to fracture her spirit.
She laughed.
She walked to the battlements herself and had the message read aloud to the soldiers.
"Look," she said, voice carrying across the stone and steel. "They offer mercy because they fear us. They offer peace because they cannot break us."
She raised her sword to the sky.
"If Ahmednagar falls," she cried, "it will fall standing. And history will remember that when emperors came with armies, a woman stood in their way and did not move."
Thunder rolled across the horizon.
The Mughal cannons fired their first test shot.
The war had entered its bloodiest phase.
And Chand Bibi knewthe next chapters would not be written in ink,but in fire.