I. The Night Before Stone Cracks
The night before Kadapa fell, Rayalaseema held its breath.
From the balcony of his mansion, Narasimha watched the far horizon where the fort lay—a darker shape against the already dark hills, barely visible, but heavy in his mind.
The wind that came up from the plains was warm, but his skin prickled as if a storm was coming.
Behind him, a familiar staff tapped once.
Venkanna joined him, looking south-east.
"For years," the Guru said quietly, "you have tugged at the fringe of the Company's cloth. A convoy here. A ledger there. Tomorrow, you take scissors to the fabric itself."
Narasimha's jaw shifted.
"I remember," he said, "standing at Kadapa's gate as a boy. My father spoke politely to officers who could barely say our names. I swore then: one day, those walls would hear our voice, not theirs."
He exhaled slowly.
"Tomorrow, I keep that promise," he added. "And in doing so, I burn all bridges back to 'loyal zamindar'."
Venkanna's eyes were calm, as if watching a play whose end he already knew.
"Child," he said, "you have been at war since the first time you saw a widow's grain seized for 'arrears'. Tomorrow only changes the volume."
He turned slightly.
"The question is not whether you fight," he said. "It is how openly you carry the weight of that choice."
Narasimha smiled tiredly.
"As if I had a choice to be small," he muttered. "The Trimurti themselves threw me into this script."
A faint rumble rolled from far away.
Not thunder.
Cannon practice at Kadapa.
He listened, eyes narrowing.
"Enough," he murmured. "You've roared long enough over my people. Tomorrow, we steal the voice from your guns."
II. A Fort Built on Old Scars
Years earlier, when the British had decided Kadapa's old walls needed strengthening, they had called on local expertise.
"Your people know this land," they'd said. "Help us make it secure. We pay."
Secure.
Narasimha had agreed, with a pleasant smile and the polite tone of a "cooperative chieftain".
He had sent Basava, his best overseer, and a hand-picked crew.
They had:
repaired cracked foundations,
deepened drains,
widened old Qutb Shahi-era maintenance passages,
and "improved" water channels.
On paper.
In their own secret diagrams, they had done more:
carved narrow crawl-tunnels where none had been,
left mortar slightly weak in key interior walls,
mapped every twist of storage cellars, powder magazines, and gate-chain chambers.
"Mark this," Basava had told a young Tiger Corps recruit, tapping a hidden line on his private sketch. "One day, when the sahibs sleep thinking this fort is theirs, we will come back through the stomach they let us build."
Now, those lines had come back to claim their due.
III. The Snout of Varaha
On a moon-thin night, on the hillside above Kadapa, men moved like they were part of the rock.
Ayyappa crouched with his squad in a scrubby hollow.
Beside him, Basava, broad-shouldered and scarred, ran a rough thumb over a carved stone chip—a superstition, a promise.
"Last time I went in here," Basava murmured, "I came out with British coin and complaints about damp walls. This time, I bring them… dry barrels."
Devudu grinned quietly.
"And we make sure those dry barrels never bark," he said.
Ayyappa's voice was low and firm.
"Devudu, Basava, ten with you," he said. "Tunnels, powder room, gate-chains. No extra fights. If a guard must fall, make it quick, clean. No fire inside. We're not martyrs, we're plumbers—clog their pipes."
He glanced at Basava.
"You're sure the shafts are sound?" he asked.
Basava looked mildly offended.
"I tested them myself," he said. "Dropped stones. Counted breaths. Rock remembers good masons. It will hold us one more time."
They moved.
A dark cleft in the hillside—just an old drainage cut to any casual eye—swallowed them.
Inside, the air was:
cold,
damp,
heavy with the remembered footfalls of men who had built in secret.
Basava led, belly scraping stone, fingers reading the tunnel like braille.
Behind him, leather bags sloshed softly: water for the powder.
Above, muffled through rock, the fort muttered:
boots on stone,
a guard's cough,
muffled English curses over bad tea.
At a fork, Basava veered into a narrower cut.
"We made this when they whined about mould in their storage," he breathed. "'Improve drainage, Basava,' they said. 'Make us comfortable.'"
He smirked.
"Tonight, we improve their discomfort."
At the tunnel's end, his fingers found a prepared groove.
A stone plug shifted inward, and cool, dry air kissed their faces.
Beyond: a narrow crawl-space hugging the inner foundations.
Above that, through hairline cracks, the faint glow of a lantern in the powder room.
Devudu's eyes gleamed.
"Time to turn thunder into mud," he whispered.
They worked with:
padded chisels,
breath held,
patience.
A thin section of mortar weakened long ago peeled away.
A fist-sized hole opened into the magazine.
They saw:
rows of powder barrels,
shot stacked in crates,
spare fuses coiled like sleeping snakes,
a lone lantern dying in its corner.
Voices drifted from the open door above.
"…sergeant says one more barrel coming from Madras…"
"…with this much powder, we could blow the hills apart…"
Laughter.
Then, eventually, a yawn.
Footsteps.
The creak of a door closing.
Silence.
Basava made a small sign.
Now.
Leather bags were lifted.
They didn't simply drown the room.
They chose.
A little water in this barrel, enough to turn the top into sludge.
More in the central kegs feeding the main guns.
Fuses were soaked thoroughly.
In other barrels, no water—just fine sand and salt trickled in small amounts.
Enough to foul ignition.
Devudu wriggled through the hole, landing catlike between barrels.
He moved fast, but not hurried:
loosening bungs,
stirring wet powder deeper,
switching labels so the freshest shipments now read "old stock", and vice versa.
On one interior wall, faint scratch marks from years ago still lingered: his first visit.
He added two new strokes in a tiny corner.
A silent signature.
We returned.
They slipped back, stone plug eased into place.
By the time they emerged into the night again, the eastern horizon was paling.
Devudu wiped dust from his face.
"In the morning," he said to Ayyappa, "their guns will roar like a toothless man chewing gravel."
"Good," Ayyappa replied. "Our boys prefer not being turned into paste."
IV. The Dawn March
The army that walked toward Kadapa before sunrise did not look like an army at first glance.
From a distance:
cloths wrapped tight,
spears and swords carried low,
no drums,
no flags.
Up close: five hundred men with eyes like banked coals.
At their centre, Narasimha walked, armour light but well-fitted:
chain at vulnerable joints,
leather over his heart,
spear in hand,
sword at his side.
To his right strode Avuku Raju, the chieftain from the Bellary frontier of Karnataka.
Not some wild "tribal" caricature, but:
a seasoned border lord,
scars on his forearms from old campaigns,
moustache sharp as his tongue,
his men known for their hard riding and harder loyalties.
To Narasimha's left, Ayyappa and Raghava.
Further back, Devudu, Sri, and selected Tiger Corps leaders threaded through the ranks.
They halted in a shallow depression before the fort came fully into view.
Narasimha turned.
Face to face with five hundred breaths waiting for his words.
"Look well," he said quietly, pointing.
Kadapa's outline loomed ahead.
"Those walls," he went on, "have sheltered orders that flogged our elders. They have stored guns that threatened our children. For years, they stood as a reminder: 'The Company's will reaches here.'"
He swept his gaze across his men.
"Today," he said, "we answer."
He didn't shout.
But the words carried.
"This is not a raid for loot," he said. "This is not a tantrum. This is the first open blow of a war for freedom. Until yesterday, they could pretend I was merely an inconvenient zamindar. After today, they will know: we are not their subjects."
He pressed the butt of his spear into the ground.
"But understand," he added, "from this step there is no path back to safe neutrality. From today, in their eyes, you are rebels. Which means your families will live under a sharper gaze. Your fields will stand in the shadow of the guns we fail to take."
Silence.
Broken only by the soft clink of armour, the faint early birds.
"If any man here," Narasimha said, "would rather stay back to guard villages and not march on stone, step out now. There is no shame. Guarding a field is not lesser than fighting at a fort."
He meant it.
He waited.
No one moved.
Then Avuku Raju laughed, the sound low and sharp.
"Simha Reddy," he called, "Bellary has lived on the knife's edge between many kings. We've bled under local courts and Company scribbles alike. My bloodlines would disown me if I walked away now."
He thumped his chest.
"Let Madras scribble 'tribal uprising' in their reports if it helps them sleep," he added with a wolfish grin. "We know who we are. We are border chieftains of the south."
A few Bellary men behind him clapped spears lightly to shields.
Narasimha's chest loosened a notch.
"Yes," he said. "Let them misname us. But we will name ourselves correctly: we are people of this land, fighting for the right to breathe without paying tax for the privilege."
He lifted his spear.
"Remember our rules," he said.
"We aim for speed, not spectacle. No war cries until the walls are ours.
We spare those who drop their weapons.
We do not harm cooks, women, stable boys—unless they take up arms.
We are here to break a garrison, not slaughter a town."
Ayyappa raised his own blade.
"Tigers," he murmured, "time to hunt."
They moved, melting toward the stone.
V. When Thunder Fails
Inside Kadapa, dawn began like any other.
The sky greyed.
The fort yawned.
A gunner on the eastern bastion scratched himself and shuffled toward the powder barrels, grumbling.
"Another day of polishing cannon that never fire," he muttered.
He shoved a lid aside, plunged his hand into the powder—
—and found paste.
Cold, rough, wrong.
He frowned, lifting a handful.
"What in God's name—?"
Nearby, another man opened a fresh keg.
He tried to pour some out.
The grains clumped, reluctant.
On the lower levels, a sepoy in the armoury tried to prime his musket.
His first pan fizzled.
He tried again.
Amlmost nothing.
"Your powder's damp," he called to the armourer.
The man swore.
"It's from Madras!" he snapped. "If that's gone bad, may the governor drink this instead of tea."
At the main gate, sleepy sepoys yawned and stretched.
Then one of them squinted.
"Is that… dust?" he murmured.
A thin, controlled line of movement approached.
They didn't look like a rampaging mob.
They looked like intent.
"Sir!" the sepoy shouted up toward the parapet. "Riders—no, men on foot. Many. Coming this way."
An officer cursed.
"Blast it, you're imagining—"
Then he saw.
He grabbed his musket.
"Form line!" he yelled. "Get those cannons ready! Move!"
Men scrambled.
Powder was fetched.
Flints struck.
The first musket cracked…
…with a miserable pop.
A spark in the pan.
No shot.
The officer stared.
"What—?"
Another soldier fired.
Same.
Fizz, hiss, nothing.
From the bastion, a cannon crew—blissfully unaware of the sabotage—rammed home a charge, swabbed, aimed toward the approaching force.
"Fire!" their sergeant bellowed.
The linstock touched the vent.
There was a cough, a belch of smoke, and then…
nothing.
The cannon spat its ball out like a sick goat spitting a pebble.
It thudded into the dirt halfway, rolling to an undignified stop.
The crew stared, horrified.
Across the slope, Narasimha watched that weak cough, and a grim satisfaction moved through him.
"Basava," he murmured, "you old fox. Good work."
VI. Silent Steel at the Gate
By the time Narasimha's front ranks reached the half-lowered gate, the garrison was already sliding into panic.
"Close the gate! Close it!" a British officer shouted, hauling on the chain.
Inside the gatehouse, Tiger Corps infiltrators hidden in the shadows moved.
A knife flashed.
A chain pin, weakened earlier, snapped.
The gate shuddered and stuck, frozen half-open.
Enough for men to slip under.
Not enough to shield.
"Hold!" Ayyappa called softly. "Shields up—push."
The first wave of Narasimha's fighters surged forward, not screaming, but with teeth bared.
Bayonets met spears.
The clash was:
ugly,
intimate,
brief.
Narasimha plunged into the choke-point, because he knew if he let others break the first formation while he watched from behind, his own heart would never forgive him.
A bayonet lunged for his chest.
He knocked it aside with the shaft of his spear, stepped in, and shoulder-slammed the man backward.
Another soldier swung at his head with a musket butt.
He ducked, thrust the butt of his spear into the man's knee, heard the crack, moved on.
Breath came in controlled bursts.
This was not rage-blindness; this was honed violence.
A British sergeant, moustache bristling and eyes wild, charged him sword raised.
"Traitor!" the man spat. "The Company gave you title, land—"
Narasimha parried, their blades sparking.
"The land was my ancestors' before your queen was born," he shot back. "You gave nothing. You only put your name on what was already ours."
He twisted, disarmed the sergeant with a snatch and wrench, then slammed a pommel into his jaw.
The man folded.
Behind Narasimha, more of his men flooded in—Avuku Raju's Bellary warriors with curved blades; Rayalaseema farmers wielding spears with terrifying familiarity; Tiger Corps in close, surgical motions.
Above, along the walls, defenders tried to rally.
Some, in sheer desperation, hurled rocks.
Others swung empty muskets like clubs.
Without working powder, the fort's teeth were blunt.
Inside ten heartbeats that felt like ten minutes, the main gate was theirs.
"Gatehouse secure!" Devudu shouted from above, slamming a British flagstaff down.
"No cheering!" Ayyappa barked. "Save your throats. Work's not done."
They pressed inward, toward the inner courtyard.
VII. The Moment of Naming
When resistance finally broke, it did so unevenly.
Some sepoys, seeing their officers down and their guns failing, dropped weapons and sank to their knees, hands raised.
Others fought to the last, fear and pride making them reckless.
Narasimha enforced his rule with iron.
A young villager, sword high, charged toward a kneeling sepoy.
Narasimha caught his wrist mid-swing.
"He dropped his weapon," Narasimha snapped. "He is no longer your target. Find someone still stabbing."
The youth flinched, then backed off, shamefaced.
Ayyappa and Avuku Raju did the same on other fronts:
dragging away men whose blood was running too hot,
barking orders,
stopping vengeance from turning into butchery.
By the time the last echo of fighting faded, the sun had risen fully.
Kadapa's inner courtyard lay under a new kind of silence.
Broken weapons.
Groaning wounded.
British officers tied, guarded.
Local non-combatants—cooks, washermen, families—huddled under watch, terrified.
Narasimha walked to the centre of the courtyard.
Dust clung to sweat on his face.
Blood stained one side of his tunic—not all of it his.
He looked up at the flagpole.
The Union flag hung there, limp.
He nodded to Devudu.
A moment later, the cloth was cut down and tossed aside.
No lion banner replaced it.
Just empty sky.
Narasimha turned to the watchers—his own men, British prisoners, townsfolk peering from doorways.
"This fort," he said, voice carrying, "has spoken with the British tongue for too long. Today, it speaks a different truth."
He gestured at the walls.
"Do you hear cannon?" he asked.
Silence answered.
"Do you hear their guns?" he pressed. "Their whips?"
Again: silence.
"They thought this stone gave them the right to rule you," he said, his tone hardening. "Today, standing on this earth, I say otherwise."
He drew in a breath that felt as if he was drawing the weight of all Rayalaseema into his lungs.
"This," he proclaimed, "is a rebellion for freedom by the people. Standing on the soil of my motherland, I am warning you—"
His voice sharpened, ringing against stone.
"Leave my country… or it is war."
The English carried across the yard like a thrown spear.
British officers flinched.
Some clenched their jaws.
Some looked away.
He let it hang a moment.
Then, instinctively, he said it again in the tongue that had raised him, not for their sake but for his people's hearts:
"Swatantram kosam prajalu chestunna thirugubatu…naa Bharatamatha gaddamida nilabadi heccharistunna…naa desam vadili vellipondi…ledha yuddhame."
Men who didn't know every word still felt it.
Freedom.
Motherland.
Warning.
War.
A murmur rippled through his ranks—hoarse, raw.
Not a cheer.
Something heavier.
Venkanna, watching from the shade of a pillar, closed his eyes briefly.
"It is done," he murmured. "He has named it."
VIII. No Crest, Only Claws
In the commander's office, stripped of its former owner and his personal things, Sri unrolled a fresh cloth.
"Shall I have them paint your crest at the main gate?" she asked. "Lion rampant, sun behind, proper drama."
Narasimha shook his head at once.
"No," he said. "No royal sign. No 'Uyyalawada owns this' written anywhere."
Sri raised a brow.
"You don't want credit for your first fort?" she asked. "The poets will be so confused."
He stared at the map spread out on the commandeered desk.
"I want time," he replied. "Madras already suspects me. If I stamp my name over every stone we take, they will throw regiments at me until even my immortality feels tired."
He tapped Kadapa's location.
"Let them think," he said, "this was a regional uprising. Bellary men, Rayalaseema farmers, angry border chieftains—something they can file under 'tribal trouble' and pretend is local."
Sri chuckled mirthlessly.
"They will call Avuku Raju's Bellary cavalry 'tribal raiders' in their reports," she said. "He will be furious if he ever reads that."
"He'll laugh and then drink it off," Narasimha said. "We know he is a chieftain of the Bellary frontier, not some nameless hill-bandit. Let the British flatten all our differences into one lazy label. It makes their thinking sloppy."
He sighed.
"I will leave this fort garrisoned with minimal men," he went on. "Mostly local relatives, retainers, some of Raju's trusted lieutenants. The bulk of our force melts back into fields and hills. On paper, Kadapa will look like a troublesome outpost held by unruly locals."
Sri nodded slowly.
"A fort without a flag, only whispers," she said. "Very unnerving… for those who need everything neatly labeled."
IX. A Bloody Letter
Yet for all the misdirection, Narasimha knew one thing had to be absolutely clear:
This is not over unpaid taxes. This is a statement.
In a shaded corner of the courtyard, Ayyappa supervised a grim arrangement.
The bodies of senior British officers from the Kadapa garrison were:
cleaned as best as possible,
dressed in their uniforms,
laid side by side on a wagon.
Not mutilated.
Not posed grotesquely.
Just… dead.
On the chest of the ranking officer, Sri pinned a folded piece of cloth.
She had written on it in English and Telugu, Narasimha's words, ink still wet:
"This is a rebellion for freedom by the people.Standing on the soil of my motherland, I am warning you:Leave my country… or it is war."
Swatantram kosam prajalu chestunna thirugubatu…naa Bharatamatha gaddamida nilabadi heccharistunna…naa desam vadili vellipondi…ledha yuddhame.
At the bottom, no name.
No title.
Only a simple mark:
A lion's paw, claws extended, crushing a chain.
A small escort of Narasimha's men, dressed as ordinary cart-drivers and labourers, was chosen.
To their leader, Narasimha gave precise instructions.
"You will drive this wagon to the outskirts of the nearest major Company post on the main road," he said. "Close enough that their patrols can see it at dawn. Then you vanish into the fields. If someone stops you early, you say men from the hills—angry at taxes—forced you at spear-point to bring the dead. Nothing about Uyyalawada. Nothing about organised armies."
The man nodded, grave.
"And the message, Dora?" he asked, touching the pinned cloth.
"Make sure it is clearly visible," Narasimha said. "I want the men in coats in Madras to be unable to pretend this is some drunken scuffle. They must know someone has said 'go, or bleed.'"
Ayyappa regarded the covered bodies.
"You're sending them back as a letter," he said. "Iron ink."
Narasimha's gaze was steady.
"Empires love paper," he said. "Let them read this."
X. The People's Fort
They could have held a celebration in Kadapa.
Songs.
Drums.
Boasting.
Narasimha forbade it.
"What happens in this fort stays quiet," he said. "Our joy belongs to the villages who hear of it and think, 'Maybe we are not cursed to kneel forever.'"
Before he left, he walked through the bazaar streets below the fort.
Word had already spread.
Women peeked from doorways.
Men stood, hats twisted in nervous fingers.
Children stared openly.
An elder, back bent but eyes sharp, stepped forward.
He touched his forehead, then chest.
"Simha Dora," he said, voice shaking, "for years, that fort up there was a thundercloud over our heads. Today, when I look up, it feels like the sky cleared a little."
He swallowed.
"My son died on that wall," he added. "They said he slipped. We know they lashed him. I thought I would go to my pyre tasting that helplessness. Today… it tastes a little less bitter."
Narasimha's throat tightened.
"I cannot promise they will not return," he said quietly. "They will. With more men. Bigger guns. Angrier letters."
He looked around at the gathered faces.
"But I can promise this," he went on. "As long as I draw breath, you will not be alone when you stand. These stones are not theirs alone anymore. They have been reminded of that."
A young boy, eyes wide, asked timidly,
"Dorayya… does this mean the Company is gone?"
Narasimha knelt so they were eye level.
"No," he said gently. "This means they now know someone is willing to tell them go. They will not listen easily. We have many roads to walk. Some red. Some dark. But today…"
He smiled faintly.
"Today," he said, "we made them answer to us, not just demand from us. That is the first step."
As he rose and walked away, Ayyappa joined him with a sideways glance.
"You do realise," Ayyappa said, "that you've just volunteered for a lifetime of more battles and three lifetimes of paperwork."
Narasimha groaned softly.
"Don't remind me," he muttered. "Taking a fort is one day's work. Managing latrines, rations, patrol rotations… that's the real punishment from the gods."
"Shiva gave you battle," Ayyappa said dryly. "Brahma gave you files."
"Vishnu gave me the urge to run away and sleep," Narasimha added.
They both chuckled, a brief bubble of humour in a day thick with blood and resolve.
XI. Madras Opens the Envelope
Several days later, not far from a major Company station, a dawn patrol spotted a wagon by the roadside.
Flies.
Smell.
Shrouded shapes.
"Not again," a sepoy muttered.
When they pulled the covering back, the officer leading the patrol went very still.
"Those uniforms…" he whispered. "That's Major Wilcox from Kadapa. And the others…"
Pinned to the major's jacket, stiff with dried blood, was a folded cloth.
They opened it with a gloved hand.
The message was read aloud.
"This is a rebellion for freedom by the people… Standing on the soil of my motherland, I am warning you… Leave my country… or it is war."
In Madras, the Collector-General's office felt strangely small when the translation was repeated.
Harwood stood to one side.
He didn't bother hiding his expression.
"I told you," he said quietly when the official finished reading. "This isn't stray banditry. This is intent."
The Collector-General stared at the blood-stained cloth, at the crude yet powerful lion's paw crushing a chain.
He looked older than he had a month ago.
Official reports stacked nearby told the fuller story:
"Kadapa outpost overrun by organised force."
"Gunpowder stores found sabotaged internally—possible insider assistance."
"Survivors speak of disciplined attackers with multiple banners, possibly from Rayalaseema and neighbouring regions."
"Draft a dispatch to Calcutta," he said at last, voice tight. "Inform them that the situation in Rayalaseema has… escalated. A major fort lost. Enemy appears coordinated. Possible involvement of multiple local chieftains, including… certain zamindars previously considered 'loyal'."
He paused.
Then, almost as if to reassure himself, he added,
"We will, however, describe it as a regional tribal and border-clan uprising in official phrasing. No need to… encourage the imagination of Parliament."
Harwood's mouth thinned.
"Label it what you like, sir," he said. "The man who sent that message doesn't care what we call him. Only that we hear him."
The Collector-General looked at the cloth again.
"Leave my country… or it is war," he murmured.
For the first time in years, the idea that this land might not be theirs forever pressed cold fingers around his heart.
XII. Gods Above a Taken Fort
From the vantage of worlds beyond eyes, Kadapa's fall appeared as:
a knot of dark threads severed,
bright filaments rising from villages like candles newly shielded from wind,
an Empire's aura flickering in one small but real place.
Lakshmi watched, her gaze lingering on the courtyard where Narasimha had spoken.
"He did not whisper his intent in secret halls," she said softly. "He spoke it under the open sky, with stone and blood as his witnesses."
Parvati's lips curved with fierce approval.
"Standing on his mother's soil, he warned," she echoed. "This is the kind of son a land remembers even when his name fades. The words remain in the soil like seeds."
Saraswati let her fingers fall on veena strings, notes echoing like distant war drums.
"Many will speak of freedom in ages to come," she murmured. "Politicians. Generals. Actors. But the taste of it was held first in throats like his, saying, 'Go, or fight.'"
Maheshwara's eyes gleamed like embers.
"He breaks a fort not to rule as tyrant in another colour, but to carve breathing space," he said. "Destruction in service of dharma. That is a dance I bless."
Vishnu looked toward more distant futures—cities of glass, heroes in metal suits, gods from other realms visiting Earth.
"In Marvel's time," he said quietly, "when men in capes and iron armour argue about who has the right to defend the planet, they will not know the names of these early lions. Yet their path has been made smoother by those who first taught empires to fear the word 'no'."
Brahma wrote, line steady:
Kadapa Outpost seized by U.N.R.-led coalition (Rayalaseema warriors, Bellary frontier chieftain Avuku Raju, allied forces). Powder rendered inert via pre-planted tunnels. Minimal non-combatant casualties. Enemy combatants offered quarter on surrender. Public declaration: "Leave my country… or it is war." No personal crest left; British administration frames event as "tribal/border uprising," underestimating strategic central coordination. De facto independent zone consolidating in southern region.
That night, back on his own balcony, Narasimha looked again toward where Kadapa lay—now a little less like a looming threat, a little more like a promise.
Venkanna stood beside him.
"Well?" the Guru asked. "How does it feel, fort-breaker?"
Narasimha took his time answering.
"It feels," he said slowly, "like I have signed my name at the bottom of a contract written in fire."
He smiled, tired but bright.
"And it feels," he added, "like for the first time, the land under my feet answered back, 'I heard you.'"
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"Let Madras call it a tribal revolt," he murmured. "Let London call it a paragraph in some report."
He opened them again, gaze steady.
"We know what it is," he said.
"The first fort fallen in a war that will last generations."
Below, fires in villages burned steadily.
Above, unseen, the Trimurti and their consorts watched their chosen lion take another step along the long, bloody, luminous road toward a world where Bharat and Marvel would collide—
with a Deathless King at the crossroads.
✦ End of Chapter 33 – "The Fall of Kadapa Outpost" ✦