The first sign of war was wax beneath a fingernail.
It began quietly inside the treasury chamber of Rohtak, where ledgers breathed dust and ink like a second atmosphere. A junior clerk sorting grain receipts paused under the afternoon light. He turned one parchment toward the window.
The seal bore the Maratha revenue mark.
It looked correct.
It felt wrong.
He pressed his thumb against it. The wax gave too easily. Official seals from Delhi carried a heavier resin mixture—harder, darker, sharper in scent. This one was faintly oily.
He swallowed and carried it upstairs.
By the time the document reached Zafar Khan, the treasury was still calm.
Zafar did not accuse. He compared.
Three genuine receipts.
One suspect.
He ran his finger across the wax again.
"Who delivered this consignment?" he asked evenly.
"Kheri village, sir. But the grain was redirected."
"Redirected?"
"Yes. Order stamped under Maratha authority."
Zafar's eyes sharpened slightly.
"Redirected where?"
"To the neighboring district granary."
That district.
The one whose faujdar maintained quieter correspondence with northern circles.
Zafar stood slowly.
"Bring me all redirected consignments for the past ten days."
By evening the scale was clear.
Two villages.
Three consignments.
Moderate—not a theft of desperation, but a test of control.
And then the second confirmation came.
A caravan arrived at the western yard expecting to unload grain that treasury records showed already received.
The yard supervisor protested loudly.
"This was signed and sealed!"
"No," the clerk insisted, holding up the ledger. "It was redirected two days ago!"
Arguments spread quickly through the lower corridors. Voices rose. Inkpots trembled.
Treasury confusion.
Not chaos.
But enough to feel the ground shift.
Zafar brought the receipts to council.
In the chamber sat Kalyan Singh Rathod, calm as always. Bhairav Malik stood with folded arms. Slightly apart, observing the undercurrents, was Raghuveer.
Zafar placed the forged receipt on the table.
"Wax mixture incorrect," he said quietly. "Maratha seal forged. Grain redirected."
Bhairav's jaw tightened.
"Arrest the clerks," he said immediately. "Publicly."
Zafar did not respond.
Kalyan examined the seal carefully.
"How many?" he asked.
"Two villages confirmed. Possibly more."
"And destination?"
"The neighboring district."
Silence settled in the room.
Bhairav stepped forward. "We seize every clerk who handled this."
"Yes," Kalyan replied calmly. "But not publicly."
Bhairav's eyes flashed.
"If we punish openly, we frighten the market and close the trail," Kalyan continued. "I want to see who grows nervous."
Zafar nodded slightly.
This was not petty corruption.
Clerks did not commission dies to forge Maratha seals for a few sacks of grain.
This required silver.
And intention.
The replacements happened before dawn.
Two record-keepers were summoned quietly and informed of their "transfer" to peripheral postings. No accusations. No humiliation.
They left pale.
Their replacements arrived the same morning—men trained directly under Zafar, meticulous, loyal to arithmetic above personality.
Whispers spread through the treasury.
Was Delhi dissatisfied?
Had Rohtak offended the Maratha governor, Antaji Mankeshwar?
Zafar offered no reassurance.
Fear, if contained, revealed cracks.
Meanwhile, Bhairav moved differently.
He wanted arrests.
He wanted spectacle.
But he obeyed.
Instead of public flogging, he placed watchers along cart routes. Men who counted axles, memorized drivers, noted carved markings in wood.
One such marking appeared twice in the same week—a small triangular nick carved into the rear axle beam.
Haridas noticed first.
He stood near the grain yard as a trader might, eyes lowered, mind calculating.
He reported to Raghuveer that evening.
"Same cart maker," Haridas said quietly. "Different drivers."
"Track it," Raghuveer replied. "Without alert."
Haridas nodded.
Three days later, Bhairav's men detained a traveling faqir at the southern gate.
Not roughly.
Just long enough.
Inside his cloth bundle lay folded parchment sealed with plain wax.
Addressed not to Rohtak—but to the neighboring district.
Bhairav brought it to Kalyan immediately.
In the council chamber, candlelight flickered as Raghuveer read the line aloud:
"The north wind returns before harvest."
A simple sentence.
Agricultural.
Poetic.
Zafar leaned back slowly.
"Metaphor," he murmured.
"Signal," Raghuveer corrected softly.
Silence followed.
North wind.
Return.
Harvest.
No names.
No dates.
But meaning hung between them.
Bhairav broke the quiet. "We interrogate the faqir."
"He knows nothing," Kalyan said calmly. "Messengers carry words. Not plans."
"Then we arrest him anyway."
"No."
Bhairav clenched his jaw.
"If we arrest openly," Kalyan said, "the sender changes method."
Raghuveer studied the phrase again.
"They expect something," he said. "They anticipate a shift before the next grain cycle."
Zafar exhaled slowly. "Abdali?"
"No proof," Kalyan replied.
But suspicion lingered.
That night, Raghuveer began a different approach.
He instructed Haridas to spread a controlled rumor in the bazaar.
Quietly.
Casually.
That Rohtak had begun marking all official grain sacks with a new ink stamp before sealing.
False information.
A trap.
Within two days, a redirected consignment appeared bearing the new ink mark.
Which meant the network was listening inside Rohtak.
Close.
Very close.
Zafar's eyes darkened when he saw it.
"Someone within treasury corridors," he said.
"Or within grain yards," Raghuveer replied.
"Either way," Bhairav muttered, "I prefer a cell."
But Kalyan shook his head again.
"We follow upward."
The treasury tension deepened.
Clerks worked more slowly.
Every seal was examined twice.
Every wax mixture tested by touch.
One junior record-keeper failed to appear for duty on the fifth morning.
His house was empty.
Neighbors claimed he left at dawn.
No farewell.
No trace.
Vanished.
Bhairav's patience thinned.
"This is not coincidence."
"No," Kalyan agreed.
"It is escalation."
A message arrived from Delhi that same week.
Not accusation.
Not threat.
An inquiry.
Routine verification of revenue flows under Maratha oversight.
Zafar read it twice.
"They are not yet suspicious," he said quietly. "But they are watching."
"Good," Kalyan replied. "So are we."
Invisible war.
Not sword against sword.
System against system.
Wax against grain.
Rumor against ledger.
On the sixth night, Haridas followed the marked cart.
It did not head directly north.
It stopped at a warehouse near the boundary.
Haridas observed from shadow as sacks were unloaded and re-sealed.
He memorized faces.
One face he recognized.
A clerk's cousin.
Connection confirmed.
The network was local in execution.
External in intention.
He returned before dawn.
When he finished speaking, the chamber fell silent.
"They test resilience," Raghuveer said softly.
"They test response," Zafar added.
"And they test fear," Bhairav concluded.
Kalyan rose.
"We do nothing publicly," he said.
Bhairav stared at him.
"For now."
"We isolate the warehouse quietly," Kalyan continued. "Monitor. Replace more clerks. Let them believe their plan moves undetected."
"And when the north wind truly returns?" Bhairav asked.
Kalyan walked toward the fort wall.
Night air pressed cool against stone.
He looked into darkness beyond the town.
"The wind only weakens those who stand unbalanced," he said calmly.
Behind him, the treasury lights flickered as clerks recalculated.
Below, grain sacks rested in shadow.
And somewhere beyond the district line, another forged seal was being prepared.
But now, Rohtak knew.
Not proof.
Not names.
But pattern.
The war had begun without banners.
And the next move would not be made with steel—
—but with ink.