The momentous news did not so much trickle down as disseminate among the Lyceum’s faculty and students, like a wildfire gaining in speed and intensity as it leaps from one tree to another, each auditor serving as fresh fuel for the incendiary developments touching upon the monarchy.

Zephyrin was in the grand dining room along with all the instructors and student body when he received an indication that something of import had transpired. This sign took the form of an unfamiliar cleric, who appeared and advanced with a disconcertingly quick tread toward the table reserved for the academy’s priests. As Zephyrin watched, he approached the centrally seated figure and leaned in to whisper something into the Father Director’s ear. The pairs of eyes attracted by this curious development quickly multiplied as the clatter of a silver spoon rang out.

Staring dazedly into space, a morsel of bread still in hand, the Father Director seemed not to listen as the man spoke into his ear urgently some time longer, before eventually pushing back his chair and rising to his feet unsteadily. Leaving behind his breakfast, he stumbled forward at the man’s beckoning, made to leave, then turned back and tapping Father Athand on the shoulder, who wordlessly rose to follow them both.

By some mysterious osmotic process, it then seemed as if the masters seated at their own table knew the cause of the Father Director’s consternation, and it wasn’t long before the students, similarly and inexplicably apprised, began discussing the dire happenings as well.

King Rudolf XIII was a prisoner.

With the King’s Isle surrounded on all sides and its bridge under the control of an unruly mob, King Rudolf XIII had thought it prudent to refrain from acting personally. Either the fury of the populace would run its course, or his troops would come to restore order; he had only to bide his time. But the days had succeeded one another, and still the looting raged unabated.

At a loss as to how proceed, the king summoned a privy council and demanded of his ministers their opinions. Most were in favor of flight, in the hopes of regaining the mainland by force if necessary. Their troops were waiting for a sign to jump into action, they urged; a bold action now by the king would invigorate his supporters and put their enemies on the back foot. Rudolf XIII heard and acknowledged their counsels and those of Queen Adelaide-Estelle, yet continued to vacillate.

This lack of resolution proved fatal to his hopes of escape. A week passed devoid of activity, while the fans of unrest were stoked ever higher on the mainland. Finally, in mid-January, word reached the king that the majority of the city’s garrison had deserted their stations. At the same time, he learned that in a disastrous coincidence, the regiments most loyal to him had recently left the capital for training exercises near the Fleurian border. Those that remained were bleeding soldiers daily, or on the verge of defecting outright.

Finally, the king made his decision. Before the number of desertions became too great and the situation untenable, he gathered a small force of loyal, experienced veterans and informed them of his plans to quit the capital and travel with all haste to the fortress of Madiensis, twenty leagues from the Elysian border. There the royal family would weather the storm, and call upon the assistance of King Éthèrius V if necessary.

Zephyrin overheard the whispers of a nearby table-mate with a sinking feeling in his stomach. There’s no divergence. Everything was unfolding exactly as it did in the original history…

And so it was for the remainder of the account.

The King’s Guard had ridden ahead, and been shot and set upon by the waiting rebels. After pulling down the guardsmen and savagely butchering them, the commoners congregated around the plain coach containing a poorly disguised Rudolf XIII and his pale-faced family. What the queen and her children felt at that moment, seeing the commoners brandish bloody weapons and draw near to lay hold of the carriage and press their grinning, straggle-toothed faces to the windows was something Zephyrin couldn’t imagine; assuredly, they could have only concluded that their last hour had come.

But the basebloods had other intentions. Perceiving the king’s outline through the curtained glass windows, they angrily motioned for him to open one. He did so. A succinct negotiation ensued, and after that followed a sequence of events that astonished observers on both riverbanks—common laborers and shopkeepers watching with bated breath on one side, affrighted palace nobles and servants on the other—as the waylayers conducted the carriage in triumph back across the bridge, content with the promise they had extracted from the king.

The General Estates would be convoked for the long-awaited financial reform of the kingdom, having as their priority the deeply resented taxation exemptions for the clergy and nobility.

The loud impact of a stout hand upon wood overpowered the murmurs of conversation. “My father will see the curs hanged before they touch our privileges!” snarled a youth whom Zephyrin soon recognized as Loris d’Arx, and it was only with difficulty that his comrades dragged him back down to his seat before a master intervened.

Zephyrin gave the upperclassmen huddled together a sidelong look. They were Prince Corentin’s “Friends of Truth”. Absent since the end of the winter holidays, Zephyrin surmised that both he and his mother the Countess of Aurellis were still in the palace, trapped since the New Year’s festivities. A circumstance that almost made him reconsider his theory on the mastermind fomenting unrest behind the scenes, but perhaps the man was just that devious.

Setting aside his speculations for the moment, Zephyrin listened with a deepening sense of hopelessness as the chatter around the table verified his predictions. The king’s flight had failed. And, however graciously the commoners had escorted him back to his residence, forming a guard to replace the one so recently slaughtered, they had no intention of letting him leave, nor did they believe for a moment that the royal family wouldn’t seize upon another opportunity to flee, were one to present itself.

To prevent another such occurrence, they decided to bombard the King’s Isle—not the palace itself, but the frozen river winding around it—to prevent any crossings in the dead of night, by sled or by foot. Appropriating the cannons of an ammunition depot whose guards had willingly laid down their arms, the commoners wheeled up the artillery to the riverbank and rained shells on it, until great chunks of ice broke apart and the river lurched forward once more. Anyone hoping to escape the palace by means other than the great bridge would have to brave the Seicwan’s frigid currents.

As the bell sounded for the students to disperse for recreation, breathless recitals became guesswork as older boys gave free reign to their imaginations in front of wide-eyed younger pupils. Zephyrin tuned it all out. He had heard all he needed to know.

She didn’t use the asterite. However rudimentary her offensive magic and wasteful in terms of mana usage, replenishing her magic with the stone would have allowed the queen to easily sweep aside the assailants. The baseblood crowd would have been routed and offered a clear path out of the city. Then, once outside the capital, the coach could have sped onward to the royalist stronghold and linked up with the regiments that had remained loyal to the king…

But she hadn’t used it. Queen Adelaide-Estelle had chosen not to use the asterite, or else no longer had it in her possession when the attempt to break out was made.

Seated on the stone bench where he and Narcissin had gone over his homework not two months removed from the day, Zephyrin stared down at his hands emptily. What the reason was mattered not; the end result was the same. She hadn’t used it, and now it was too late.

His thoughts somber, his eyes still fixed on his childish hands, Zephyrin bowed his head.

He remained in that posture for at least half of recreation, and would have stayed statuelike for its full duration were it not for a sound that caught his attention. Akin to the rustling of leaves, it was remarkable by the mere fact that the stone courtyard was devoid of any greenery. He looked down, and was puzzled by the sight of a sodden newspaper. Bending over to retrieve it, he spread it out and scanned its contents.

The Discourse Of Deputy Amédea dy Réz

“… The Tree of Liberty stands before your very eyes, citizens. Will you dare outstretch an emancipated hand to pluck her golden fruits of hope and prosperity, or will you rather allow the enemies of the people to take a malicious axe to her trunk, wherewith to fell our only hope of salvation, and thereby throw her sacred wood into the inferno of licentious passions, augmenting the comforts they enjoy at the expense of the downtrodden populace?

“One more generous effort, citizens! One more generous effort, and we will see shattered the throne of Gaulyria’s haughty ruler, summoning the astonishment and jealous wrath of the sovereigns of Orbe, who in beholding your triumph will foresee their end. They can only fear the valiant hearts of so dauntless a people, of men upon whose hearts the Absolute has so thoroughly impressed the stamp of divinity.”

“For it is this consideration that holds the heart of the haughty in terrible suspense: pray tell, what can terrify a tyrant more, who, enslaved to falsehood, desperately devotes his every waking moment to convincing his inferiors of the imposture that their worship finds a meet object around his person, than that they should reveal themselves men who stride under the light of the sun, imbued by an unshakable certainty of their dignity? What can he do but cower as they fearlessly dispel the black lie of subordination by the mere act of walking unbowed beneath a sun that makes no distinction in shedding his munificent rays upon the proud and the humble alike?”

“No, you need no arguments, citizens: the daystar himself pleads your cause, when in emulation of him you ascend the heavens and attain godhood; they need make no excuses as they claim their birthright, whose eyes flame with the ardent love of justice, and in whose breasts blaze holy fires kindled by the Almighty. Et illi fecerunt unus sanguis super universam faciem terrae. Who among this present company will dare to dispute this wisdom from on high? One word…”

(Roars of approval, applause.)

“One word more will I presume to say, patriots, imbued with the certainty that it will be the last of the hour: for the vehemence of your generous passions, the overflowing sentiments of your noble hearts, these all want relief; the virtues of your incandescent souls must needs vent themselves in action such as to become the scourge of immorality, immortalizing the grandeur of your aspirations in deeds no less spiritually elevated than exalted in their corporeal splendor. In this duty to mankind, patriots, I know you will acquit yourselves with a fervor that will shame the doers of iniquity as it uplifts the just to the halls of everlasting glory.”

“Down the ages, resounding long after my tongue has fallen still, and reposes as dust in the solemn crypts sanctified by the heroes of this hallowed hour, your deeds will trumpet your fame to descendants whose chief boast it will be to name themselves as the first progeny of God. It will be their sorrowful felicity, their happy grief to know that, strive as they might, and however grand their undertakings be, no glory can they win that will not be eclipsed by your own prodigious feats, neither them nor their children, or their children’s children, until the ages expire and the earth bears no fruit nor flower, save that which blossoms on men’s lips at the remembrance of your deeds, wrought in this the hour of our redemption.”

(Here the orator was interrupted by a loud voice, whose owner was roughly seized and removed from the square.)

“I say your deeds and not your names, for as the People you are divine, and the divine is unnameable.” (“Bravo! Bravo!”) “Such is the enviable crepuscule of the world to come, the world whose dawn you inaugurate by the fires of your valor.”

(At this moment a hush fell over the crowd.)

“Patriots, dare to see your faith rewarded! During the long night of tyranny and oppression you kept the beacon-fires of liberty burning in your breasts, even as the chains of superstition weighed you down to the mire and threatened to extinguish your dearest aspirations. It is superfluous for me to pronounce that a new world draws nigh—this you know in your inmost selves, ye valiant heroes and mighty fashioners of verity: the winds of change speak to you, or you to them; intermingled now are man and nature, and earth and heaven; the stars themselves marvel at your luminosity, the seas recoil before your impetuous course, and no meteor lights up the heavens that does not wonder to see itself outshone by your radiance.”

“Patriots, the tree of the old order must be toppled; the new must be watered by the blood of slaves; her roots given anchor in the entrails of tyrants. Let none despise and shirk from our collective duty! Consecrate we all our energies to the glorious task at hand: the world grows impatient, Gaulyria groans, the hour is long overdue to exterminate men in order to save the people.”