One week passed.

  Only one.

  And it was enough.

  The first report arrived just before noon—routine in appearance, folded with the same disciplined hand as every other border dispatch. Surya read it once without expression.

  Then again.

  “Not the border,” he said quietly.

  Pratap looked up immediately. “Where?”

  “Inner towns,” Surya replied, sliding the parchment across the table.

  Pratap scanned it quickly. His jaw tightened.

  Incidents in villages two days south of Indraprastha.

  Men and women behaving erratically.

  Groups gathering without coordination, then lashing out.

  Attacks not on soldiers—but on fellow travelers.

  “Mindless,” Pratap muttered. “That’s the word they used.”

  Surya nodded.

  The seeds.

  Not rumor.

  Not suspicion.

  Acting.

  By evening, three more reports arrived—from separate towns. Similar patterns. People described as vacant-eyed, agitated, obsessed with heading north. Some were stopped. Some turned violent when restrained.

  In one case, a small group attacked a caravan they had been traveling beside for days.

  No theft.

  No motive.

  Just eruption.

  Virat paced the chamber as the information accumulated. “So the border skirmishes—”

  “Were smoke,” Meera finished grimly.

  Varun’s voice was tight. “The real disruption is internal.”

  Dharan, who had entered silently, spoke from near the doorway.

  “And spreading.”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “The southern camps near the checkpoints,” Dharan continued. “Activity increased at dawn. More shouting. Small clashes between groups.”

  Surya’s gaze sharpened. “Aggressive?”

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  “Yes,” Dharan said. “More than before. Not organized—but coordinated enough to worry.”

  “And the capital?” Surya asked.

  “Nothing yet,” Pratap said. “No incidents inside the city. The outer ones are told as thug attacks.”

  Surya nodded slowly.

  “Masked,” he repeated.

  For now.

  The capital did not yet know.

  But it would.

  It always did.

  Rumors traveled faster than horses.

  “They’ll realize soon,” Meera said quietly. “If not from us, then from traders.”

  Surya didn’t respond immediately.

  Instead, he turned to Dharan.

  “The pulse?”

  Dharan’s face gave little away—but his silence spoke first.

  “It’s decreasing,” he said at last. “Steadily.”

  The room seemed to contract.

  “How steady?” Surya asked.

  “Not sharp,” Dharan replied. “But consistent. Like a drumbeat slowing.”

  Surya felt something cold settle beneath his ribs.

  “The anchor weakening,” Virat said under his breath.

  “Or withdrawing,” Varun added.

  Vashrya, who had entered without announcement, stepped forward.

  “It is not withdrawal,” he said softly. “It feels… burdened.”

  Surya looked at him. “Explain.”

  “When darkness spreads,” Vashrya said, “light does not always grow louder. Sometimes it strains.”

  Silence followed.

  In the towns south of the capital, the pattern grew clearer by nightfall.

  Groups—small at first—attacked passersby. Not for money. Not for territory. Just for proximity.

  Witnesses described blank stares.

  Sudden, unprovoked strikes.

  Then confusion afterward—as if the attackers did not remember their own hands.

  Some were restrained.

  Some fled.

  Some simply wandered north afterward, as if pulled by something unseen.

  The southern camps flared again—this time not with speeches or protest, but with scuffles between clusters of people who had once shared food peacefully.

  And always—

  The direction remained the same.

  North.

  Indraprastha.

  Inside the capital, the streets remained deceptively calm.

  The incidents were too few.

  Too scattered.

  But the reports were stacking.

  Surya stood alone again by the balcony that evening, reading the latest dispatch as the sun bled into dusk.

  “They’re spreading faster than we thought,” Virat said quietly behind him.

  “Yes.”

  “And the city doesn’t know.”

  “Not yet.”

  Below them, the lamps flickered on, one by one.

  The capital breathed.

  But beyond its walls, something was unraveling.

  Surya folded the report carefully.

  “We cannot hide this much longer,” he said.

  Pratap entered hurriedly, holding another parchment.

  “This one’s closer,” he said.

  Surya took it.

  A town only half a day’s ride away.

  Three separate group attacks in one afternoon.

  Two injured critically.

  Attackers described as unresponsive to reason.

  And then—

  A line that made Surya’s grip tighten.

  After restraint, several attackers continued to stare north.

  Even while bound.

  The chamber fell silent once more.

  Dharan’s voice came low and steady.

  “The pulse is faint tonight.”

  Surya closed his eyes briefly.

  Not gone.

  But thinning.

  The stone beneath Indraprastha had once answered faintly when he stood still enough.

  Now—

  It felt like waiting in a room where someone had just stopped breathing.

  Not silence.

  But absence.

  When he opened his eyes, resolve had replaced the flicker of doubt.

  “We move now,” Surya said quietly.

  Pratap nodded. “Increase patrols outside the capital?”

  “Yes,” Surya replied. “But carefully. No mass arrests. No visible panic.”

  Virat frowned. “And when the masses find out?”

  “They will,” Surya said. “And when they do, we must already be acting.”

  Outside the chamber, the city remained unaware that something deeper had begun to crack.

  The camps were stirring.

  The towns were fraying.

  The seeds were spreading.

  And beneath Indraprastha—

  The pulse slowed again.

  Steady.

  Fainter.

  As if whatever held the city together was no longer preparing…

  …but enduring.