The Lack of a Welcoming Party Was a Bad Sign, In Hindsight

Lavender was practically bouncing off the walls. Scratch that. She was bouncing off the walls.

Hazel found herself squeezed tight by her younger sister to the point that she could barely breathe.

“Yes yes yes yes yes!” Lavender grinned. “You have no idea how much I wanted to see you again! I mean, I wanted to see everyone again, but I’ve been trapped in a castle for ten years and now everything’s crazy and you’re the first member of the family I’ve seen since I got back and where is everyone anyway and –”

Hazel threw a pillow against Lavender’s face to make her shut up. But Lavender was going a mile a minute now and now instead of not stopping she was not stopping and heavily muffled.

Removing it didn’t make her stop either. “– I don’t know what’s going on and I –” There it was. Lavender finally had to stop to take a big gasp of air.

That was when Hazel put a finger on Lavender’s lips. “Lavender. I don’t know how to tell you this. But Dad’s not Emperor anymore.”

----

The Dezerin Empire had been ruled by the House of Wea’Vor for ten generations. You don’t get to rule for that long without some degree of stability. Or a healthy relationship with the Assassin’s Guild.

But the thing about stability is, sooner or later something will end it. And that was the case eight years ago. Two years after Lavender had been sent to the dragon’s keep, every noble family in the Empire got extremely upset with the Emperor. And all at the same time.

No leader has a chance at survival when that happens. They can deny it, they can send soldiers to enforce their will, but at a certain point it becomes a question of how much gold they’re willing to spend, how many soldiers they’ll send to their deaths, and who’s willing to go furthest to get their way.

And it turned out those noblemen were united in being really, really mad. 

Whatever the Emperor had done had not just convinced the nobility that their oaths to him should be broken, it had shattered any sense of fealty to the throne at all. And while everyone had agreed the House of Wea’Vor should not be in charge, a thousand noblemen, princes, mayors, and bishops all had a thousand different ideas on who should be in charge instead.

That is how an empire with stable institutions crumbles into countless petty kingdoms and republics.

----

Lavender had sat down on the bed and leaned her back into the wall.

“That… explains one reason why knights stopped trying to rescue me,” she admitted. “Means I was right to make a break for it.”

Hazel shook her head, however. “Sis, they’ve been hunting anyone remotely associated with our family to find us. There’s bounties on the heads for everyone in the family. At least in the castle you survived. You were safe.”

Lavender’s head tilted. “But I don’t want to survive, I want to live. I want to breathe fresh air! See the ocean! Have a birthday cake for all those years I missed! Find out why they dedicate whole sections of libraries to romance! The last thing I want to do to spend my life cooped up again!”

That made Hazel shoot Lavender a glare. “I have to go back to work, sis. You look tired. Get some rest. The Guild will let you stay here tonight.” She pulled out her wand again and tapped the walls a second time, the shimmering of the walls being sucked back through the wand’s tip. “By the way, you may want to get some earplugs or something.”

Lavender rolled over onto the bed once Hazel left, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling for the first time in years. She could feel herself want to drift off to sleep. All the mana she’d exhausted to get here was catching up with her. But it was hard to do without hearing the usual background of bubbling lava echoing against the walls of the volcano.

----

Hazel worked in the shop for the rest of the day, tuning out everyone else. On occasion she would tap her wand on the sewing machine and make it spit out a gust of steam before it continued.

It was only when it was time to close for the day that Yanice approached her. “Everything alright?”

“Peachy.” Hazel let the machine discharge all of the steam she’d enchanted it with. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, Yanice.”

Yanice stopped Hazel from getting up from the machine, planting a firm hand on her shoulder. “I remember when we brought you in to the Guild. Crying. Hungry. Alone.” She looked to the stairs. “You needed a lot of help fitting in.”

Hazel’s eyes lingered on the sewing machine. “I know.”

“People like that need all the help they can get.” Yanice’s hand gently squeezed Hazel’s shoulder. “It’s our way, Hazel.”

“Mmm.” Hazel knew that. She’d thought she was the only one left for years. But now her sister was back out of nowhere and she had no idea what to do about it.

That wasn’t true. There was one thing Lavender had told her that she knew she could do something about.

----

The next morning, Hazel took time off from her job to journey to a bakery. She didn’t have much gold to pay with. But she’d helped make a pair of oven mitts for the owner and their staff so they owed her one.

If she hadn’t joined the Seamstresses’ Guild, she would’ve wanted to join the Bakers’. Even as a child she had enjoyed hanging around in the kitchen when the staff were making meals.

Hazel walked out of the store with a pink box that she held against her side with a hand. Mornings in Westeron were the worst part of the day. Everyone was in a hurry and their time was the most important thing in the realm. 

As if it wasn’t hard enough getting around at the moment, a large crane had been set up and blocked half the street. Three exhausted men were walking in a large wheel, their efforts helping wind a rope that lifted a gorgeous piano into the air.

It had been years since Hazel had seen one. One of her brothers loved practicing on the piano; he could’ve identified who made it just by appearance.

But what she was looking at was exactly the problem. The crane was lifting the piano over the street, over the part of the street everyone was passing around it through. If the rope snapped –

One of the three men in the wheel collapsed, taking the other two with him as they tumbled around inside. The rope holding up the piano lost tension, and the instrument began to fall down upon the people below.