The scream of the murdered Queen was still echoing in the high ceilings of the court, but Princess Tirumala’s mind was already a weapon. She led her four loyal maids—Radha, Leela, Kavya, and Shanti—with ruthless urgency, not toward the palace gates, but deeper inside, plunging toward her private royal suite. Survival superseded mourning.

The detour was for armament. They worked with silent, desperate efficiency. Tirumala’s rooms, usually a sanctuary of soft silks, became an armory. They ripped the lining from cushions, stuffing the pockets of their serviceable travel garments with heavy gold coils and valuable, small jewelry—currency that would buy their occasional necessities. Clothes that were necessary. From hidden niches, they gathered their self-defense arsenal: four slim daggers, two ceremonial swords (light and razor-sharp), and two tightly strung bows with quivers of arrows. Most crucially, from the Queen's medicinal chest, they seized dried herbs for various ailments and ten small, stoppered vials of various poisons, weapons of last resort for a desperate heir.

"We go now," Tirumala commanded, her voice sharp with adrenaline, as the heavy-booted soldiers of Rudra-Sen began their methodical, destructive search through the halls above.

She led them to the wall of her bath chamber—a secret known only to the five women. A turn of a specific bronze latch hidden in the stone molding, and a narrow, dusty passage yawned open. This tunnel was their lifeline, winding its way beneath the city’s heart and leading directly to the perimeter of the Capital.

They didn't stop until the glittering lights of Vijaynagara were a distant, smoky haze. Their objective lay ahead: the desolate, treacherous haven of the Anjanadri Hills.

For weeks, the five women lived like shadows. Tirumala’s knowledge of the land was their salvation. They sheltered in cold, dark caves, then behind the misty sheets of a towering waterfall. Using their combined strength and the few iron tools bought with their initial gold, they constructed a defensible cottage hidden precisely behind the curtain of rushing water. Only the five women knew the path through the slick, treacherous rocks to the dry, secure space—a fortress of nature, impregnable without their guidance. They were ghosts, armed, resourceful, and hidden.

***

Meanwhile, in the conquered palace, King Rudra-Sen was descending into a terrifying frenzy. He stood in the wreckage of the throne room, his face dark with frustrated fury. He had seized an empire, but his single coveted prize, the "moon-faced dancer," had vanished.

"She is not a spirit! She has flesh and bone!" he roared, slamming his gauntleted fist down on a marble table so hard the stone cracked. His soldiers flinched, terrified more by his singular obsession than by any enemy sword.

He rounded on his lieutenant, whose face was pale with fear. "You fools look in the taverns and the silk markets for a courtesan! She is a creature of light, a star born in this very stone! She would not hide among the unwashed. You are searching for the wrong woman in the wrong place!"

He knew the true worth of the woman he sought was not her royal title, but her unparalleled beauty and defiant spirit. He had to own her. He needed to break that icy control he had seen in the courtyard.

"Double the patrols! Search the abandoned temples! Bring me the woman who dances like a flame and defies a king!" His voice dropped, raw and dangerously low. "I care nothing for the gold. I only care that she is mine. She cannot escape the sky I own."

He spun away, dismissing the fearful silence of his men. His eyes settled on the empty space where she should have been standing, a terrifying promise in his gaze.

"Find her. Because until she is breathing under my command, I have conquered nothing at all."

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