Diverging Paths

The cheering lasted less than five minutes.

Which was probably healthy.

Revolutions became slightly less impressive if everyone stopped to celebrate too early.

A group remained in the entrance courtyard to disarm the surrendered Imperial Knights, separate the wounded and establish enough order that nobody accidentally restarted the battle through poor communication.

Nobody had enough rope for the prisoners, so sword belts, cloak ties and several lengths of decorative curtain cord had been repurposed with varying levels of success.

Somewhere behind me, Marek was explaining to a surrendered knight that losing his belt was a small price to pay in order to keep everything above it attached.

I did not hear the response.

The palace doors stood open at the top of the steps, and beyond them a servant appeared with several others hurrying behind him. He discovered several hundred armed men and women standing outside, then seemed to reconsider every life decision that had led him to this very moment.

Isabelle caught the door before he could close it, and we entered.

The entrance hall looked exactly as I remembered it, but also completely different at the same time.

The same marble covered the same floor, the same impossible ceiling stretched above the same columns, and red-and-gold banners still hung high between them as though nothing important had happened outside.

The people, however, ruined the illusion.

Servants hurried between rooms carrying boxes and papers, while two Imperial guards beside the central staircase placed their weapons on the floor before anyone reached them. Somewhere deeper inside, glass shattered, and somebody shouted something about burning records.

The palace was not waiting for us to conquer it.

It was already falling apart on its own.

Our forces split almost immediately; Arden took knights towards the western administrative wing, another group moved east to secure the remaining entrances, and several other knights spread through the lower corridors checking rooms and accepting the surrender of guards who had decided that dying for a hallway was no longer appealing.

Gideon gathered several dozen mercenaries near the eastern stairs after a runner reported Imperial movement towards the inner courtyard.

Marek and Tessa went with him.

I caught Gideon’s eye from across the hall before they left. He lifted one hand, nothing dramatic, and I returned the gesture. His group disappeared beneath the red-and-gold archway a few moments later.

Marek turned as he followed them and raised two fingers.

I did the same.

Then they were gone.

“We need to find Rafael,” Isabelle said, reaching my side.

Before the uprising, Rafael had given us one promise concerning the palace: if everything collapsed quickly enough, he would try to reach the throne room. It was central, defensible and connected to several routes known only to the Imperial family.

We took the central staircase.

The first corridor was empty. The second was empty too.

By the third, Isabelle had slowed.

“There should be guards here.”

“I know.”

The great doors waited at the end of the gallery.

No guards stood outside them.

No bodies either.

I put one hand against the wood and looked towards Isabelle. She drew her sword, then nodded.

We opened the doors together.

The throne room beyond was almost empty; lamplight stretched across polished marble towards the raised throne, cutting between red-and-gold banners that hung untouched along the walls.

Rafael was on the floor beneath them.

Crawling.

One hand slipped against the floor as he tried to push himself backwards from the Imperial Knight standing over him. Blood ran from his temple, and one leg dragged behind him as the knight raised his sword.

For half a second, the marble became dark wood.

A hand slipping in blood.

Elara.

My body moved before the memory could finish.

The knight heard me at the last moment and began to turn, but his blade was already committed to the strike. Mine caught it hard enough to throw both weapons sideways while Rafael rolled clear.

The knight recovered quickly.

So did I.

His next attack came towards my shoulder, then changed halfway through when he realised I had already shifted inside the angle. I caught his forearm with my guard and drove him backwards before he could reset.

He struck again, and I turned it aside as his weight settled too far forwards.

There.

My blade stopped beneath his throat, and the knight froze.

“Drop it.”

His eyes moved towards Isabelle, who had already reached Rafael, then towards the doors behind me.

His sword struck marble.

Isabelle crouched beside Rafael while I pulled the knight’s weapon further out of reach.

“What happened?” Isabelle asked.

“They knew,” Rafael said.

“They knew what?”

He wiped blood away from his eyebrow and looked towards the surrendered knight.

“My brother discovered what I had been doing sometime after the Southern Gate fell.”

“Where is the Imperial family?” I asked.

“Gone from the public wing. My father and brother left the throne room before they came for me.”

“Where?”

“There’s a passage.”

Rafael looked towards the throne.

“Where does it lead?”

“Into the old foundation corridors. From there, three routes split beneath the private wing.”

“Can we follow them?”

“Yes, but not all three at once.”

Isabelle stood.

“Then we move now.”

Something in his face stopped her.

“What?”

“The courtyard.”

My attention sharpened.

“What courtyard?”

“The inner one. Cedric pulled what remained of the palace reserve there before the front fell.”

“Cedric?”

Rafael nodded.

“He had perhaps forty of the palace’s best remaining knights with him when they moved through. Maybe more.”

The eastern stairs led towards the inner courtyard.

Gideon, Marek and Tessa were already there.

“When?”

“Ten minutes ago. Perhaps fifteen.”

By the time Rafael finished, I was already looking for every exit.

Isabelle noticed.

“Leon.”

“Which way?”

Rafael pointed towards a side door beyond the throne.

“Eastern gallery, down one level. Though—”

I moved before he could finish, but Isabelle caught my wrist.

Not hard.

But enough.

“Wait.”

“They went there. Gideon’s group.”

“I know.”

“Marek and Tessa are with him.”

Her fingers tightened slightly.

“I heard you the first time.”

Something in her voice finally made me look at her properly.

Her eyes had moved over the blood along my shoulder, then down towards the way my hand had closed around the sword.

“Come with us.”

I stared at her.

“What?”

“Rafael will open the passage. We can go after the Imperial family together.”

“But Cedric is in the courtyard.”

“I heard that too.”

“Then you know why I’m going.”

“Yes.”

Isabelle stepped closer, still holding my wrist.

“That’s why I’m asking you not to.”

How am I supposed to respond to that?

“You’ve been fighting all day. You were bleeding before we entered the palace, and now your hand is shaking.”

I looked down.

It was.

I tightened my grip until it stopped being so obvious.

“That solved nothing,” she said quietly.

Why is she always like this?

“They might need help.”

“They might.”

“Then—”

“And Gideon knows how to fight. So do Marek and Tessa.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

I pulled my wrist free, not sharply, but enough that her hand fell away.

“They’re with Cedric.”

“No. Cedric is near them.”

“That distinction seems optimistic.”

“It matters.”

“Not if I get there too late.”

Her expression changed.

There it was.

The sentence I had not meant to say.

Isabelle looked towards my sword hand again.

“You’re already thinking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like something has happened and you’re the only person who can stop it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Her voice never rose.

I looked towards the eastern door.

“Leon, look at me.”

I did.

She was frightened.

Not of Cedric, but of me going towards him.

“Come with us,” she said again. “Rafael knows the passage. We can finish what we came here to do, and Gideon’s people can handle the courtyard.”

The logical part of me understood every word.

Gideon had chosen his route. Marek and Tessa had chosen to follow him. They were not pieces on a board I had forgotten to protect, and everything I had learned over the past few weeks said trusting them meant letting that choice remain theirs.

Then Cedric’s face appeared in my head.

The burning manor.

My parents.

I wouldn’t let it happen again.

“No.”

Isabelle closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, whatever argument had been there seemed to have disappeared.

“Please,” she begged, her voice quavering. “Just this once, Leon. Come with us.”

I wanted to.

That was the part I had not expected.

For one impossible moment, I could see it clearly: take the passage, stay beside her, let somebody else deal with the courtyard because others were already there.

Then I thought of Gideon.

Marek.

Tessa.

“I’m sorry.”

Isabelle’s face fell before I finished.

“No.”

“I have to—”

“No, you don’t.”

Her voice cracked around the last word, and for the first time since I had met her, she looked as though she hated the fact that she couldn’t make the decision for me.

“You can come with us.”

I looked towards the eastern door, then back at her.

I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t bring myself to.

Isabelle didn’t tell me to go or pretend to approve. She simply stood beside Rafael and watched me choose.

Behind them, stone shifted as Rafael opened the hidden passage beneath the throne.

I looked towards the opening.

Then turned towards the eastern gallery and walked the other way.