“Boy, I sure didn’t think we’d end up here again!” Roger commented, squinting up at the scriptorium’s stained glass windows as he eased himself down on cold stone. “Do ya think Father Athand’s right? That a great big battle’s about ta break out?” Not without for a reply, the young Alérian flashed his companion a grin full of bravado. “Part of me hopes this place isn’t as safe and out of the way as Father thinks. If a rebel sticks his nose in through the door, I’ll give him what-for!” Roger’s sleeve slipped down his arm as he waved it dramatically, imaginary sword in hand. Then he sat back against a wall and looked out sideways, mischief in his eye.

“Bet I surprised ya without my glasses, huh? Ye were just thinkin’ to yerself, ‘now, who could this good-lookin’ rascal be,’ I’ll wager!” Nothing daunted by the stony silence that greeted this quip, Roger continued lightly, “It’s silly, I know. I dunno how I lost them. The last I saw them, they were—”

More often set atremble by the tolling of the lyceum’s bells, it was now tremendous, distant booms that disturbed the air. The noble youth cocked his head at the muffled thunder drifting through and down the scriptorium’s twin bell towers and spiraling stairway. “That’s queer. D’ya reckon it’s a storm, or…” The boy trailed off, his carefree demeanor ceding to a troubled look. Roger wet his lips nervously. “… All kiddin’ aside Zephyrin, this might be a big deal. I think we should say a prayer, that the king and queen will be alright. Agreed?”

“… Yes,” was the reply after a moment’s hesitation. Roger’s lips quirked up again, seemingly despite himself. “Are ya scared?” he asked, peering through absurdly narrowed eyes at the short-cropped blond hair of his comrade. “There’s nothin’ ta worry about, ya know! The King’s Isle could hold out against a weyr of dragons!”

“I’m not scared.”

“Good! Now, let’s kneel… O Twice-Holy Dyad, hear our prayers. O Holy Goddess, hear our prayers…”

“What on earth is happening?” the king demanded. “What were those sounds?”

“The rebels are inside the palace!” an Exalted minister fairly shrieked, his voice ascending at every word. “All is lost! The Guard has been routed—”

“Impossible, they’ve just engaged with the Volunteers,” said the captain and latest arrival to the King’s Apartments, striding over to the window to confirm the intelligence he had been sent to deliver. “The baseblood militia has finally launched its assault.”

“The frontal assault is a diversion,” remarked the king’s confessor, his feather-soft voice somehow wafting into every ear. The captain grimly nodded.

Horror dawned in the minister’s crinkled eyes. “Your Majesty, the Guard must be recalled at once! The Great Bridge must be abandoned and the Courtyard and Palace regained—”

“No,” said Madame d’Aurellis urgently, her eye arresting on the door to the king’s private apartments. “It is too late for that. Those weren’t gunshots we heard. It was magic.”

The minister’s chest heaved as his eyes traveled wildly from one face to another. “M-Magic? But who—”

Another rumble shook the floor. A lion-paw handled clock wrought of gold trembled on the purple-veined marble mantelpiece, then fell with a crash.

“They’re coming,” said the captain, the direness of the situation injecting in his voice a semblance of authority that paid scant respect to protocol. “Barricade the doors! We must—”

“No, captain,” broke in the king. Raising his abstracted eyes from the boot-scuffed lacquered flooring, Rudolf XIII spoke ponderously, as if the events of the hour were of no more import than the selection of his daily wardrobe. “Instead, I have a mission for you.”

The soldier stood ramrod straight, ears strained for the order that would decide the outcome of the day, and, the hour seemed to forebode, the very fate of the kingdom.

“Make your way out of the palace, regain the courtyard, and relay an order to Marquis Euvarhnal.” The king’s heavy breathing occupied the space between the combined sounds of rushing boots and imprecations as several soldiers—too few—rushed to repel the invaders. Rudolf XIII’s eyes wandered over to the queen and the children huddled at her skirts, before meeting the soldier’s resolved gaze once more. “The Royal Guard is to stand down.”

As the sounds of combat in the corridors grew ever louder, the soldier’s eyes seemed to widen in due proportion, his posture faltering. “S-Sire? Stand down? But…”

“I will render myself to my captors. By my surrender there is yet hope that an equable solution may be reached.”

As the queen lowered her head, the king’s advisers sought to reason with him. “Monsieur, I must strongly counsel you against this course of action. Telling our troops to lay down arms at this juncture is tantamount to suicide.”

“Better the suicide of the nobility than the murder of the commons.”

“But Sire—”

Heavy footsteps congregated outside the door; shouts from without nearly overpowered the conversation. The king expression turned grave. “There’s no time. Captain, take Madame and my children to safety,” he said steadily, as the attackers began to throw themselves against the door. “There is a secret passageway behind the armory next to my bed! Use it, and—”

The king was interrupted by a terrible crunch as the door yielded, giving a glimpse of strewn corpses in the corridor as assailants swarmed into the apartments. A maid screamed; several noblemen and Madame d’Aurellis stepped up, ready to lay down their lives.

“Leave the women untouched!” an attacker yelled over the din. “Safeguard the honor of the nation! We want the king! We want the king!”

Soon all the room’s occupants were encircled at bayonet-point, the weapons bristling inches away from exposed necks. In jarring contrast to the fair aspect of the man who had cried out for mercy, a small, rodent-like man with a pinched expression waded through the crowd to leer at the queen. “Not so high and mighty now, are you, wench? Don’t try to hide yer brats; yer all comin’ with… eh?”

The man was roughly jostled aside; shouting rebels raised a commotion as a small figure escaped the queen’s grasp and darted from her side. The queen stumbled forward but groped only air; desperately, she screamed,

“Sophia!”

As the far-off din continued to beat against the implacable heavens, Roger assumed a meditative expression. “Ya know, I’d have thought someone else would have showed up by now. Did Father Athand tell ya how many of us are supposed to hide here?”

“No.”

“Huh. Well, I’m sure someone’ll mosey on in before too long—Viristin, most like. He’s a bit of a scaredy cat, ya know.”

The young provincial noble craned his neck to contemplate the dark expanse above them, shafts of multicolored light no longer streaming through the stained glass windows as heavy clouds rolled overhead. “Things sure have been different these last few weeks. First Master Verénus leaves without a word in the night, then Master Gwuppe… it’s hard ta know what ta make of it all. So many have fled across the border, or crossed the strait. We’re practically the only ones left!”

Roger’s lips briefly rose in amusement, before dropping down again as his expression turned serious. “Ya know, Zephyrin, there’s somethin’ I’ve been meaning ta tell ya.” The Alérian hesitated. “About the day when ye were at the Dragon Cathedral with Théander. Well. Ya see, I’ve been meaning to tell ya about…”

Receiving no encouragement to continue, Roger hemmed and hawed, before laughing a little too loudly. “Eh… Never mind! It’s not important! Well, I mean it is, but…” The young noble’s smile turned sheepish as he scratched his cheek. “Um, forget I said that. Anyway! I wanted ya to take a look at this.” Drawing out a crumbled note from his pocket, the boy smoothed it out before offering it impetuously. “Here! Read it!”

The point of pray’r? Why, there’s none to speak of.

To pray is to become wholly inept,

To sink obscurely ‘neath the world's contempt:

Thereby our Dame to dwell with, lost in love.

Prayer’s an exercise devoid of sense,

Like stoking a fire at high-noon for light;

A prodigious, pointless waste of incense,

Like lit candles forgot dwindling o’ernight.

To pray’s to love and hope and take pains

To do naught, to ban thought, time to steal;

The point of prayer’s not to learn or feel:

Its aim? A return measured not in gains.

Roger wore an apologetic smile as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Hope ya don’t mind my sayin’ so Zeph, but ye’ve been a trifle glum lately!… Between Narcissin leavin’ and everythin’ else that’s happened, I thought ya might be havin’ a rough go of it. Ah, but don’t mind me if I’m stickin’ my nose where it don’t belong—this is just my way of sayin’, ‘cheer up! The Goddess is on our side! Things ain’t so bad!’ Haha…”

A long pause ensued, followed by a slow nod of acknowledgment. Roger stared, then pretended to teeter in mock-dismay. “That’s it? I don’t get a ‘golly, that’s mighty swell of ya, Roger ol’ chum!’? Not even a ‘Thank ya kindly!’?” He grinned through his teasing, leaning in to pat Zephyrin good-naturedly on the shoulder. His relaxed posture left him all the more exposed when a pair of hands flung outward to send him reeling.

“Don’t touch me!”

Roger cried out as he fell awkwardly on his right arm. “W-What was that for?” he yelped from his sprawled position on the hard stone, then winced, tears springing his eyes. Carefully shifting off his arm, he finally managed to prop himself upright and rubbed it gingerly, looked more bewildered than offended. “Hey! I know I’m not as good a poet as Foudris, but that doesn’t mean ya had ta jostle me like that.” Despite his protestations he made to scoot closer once more.

“Stay back!”

Roger blinked rapidly, uncomprehendingly. “Z-Zephyrin? Did I do somethin’ wrong? Or are ya feelin’ under the weather—”

“I said, stay back!” A hand was held up in warning, around which reddish light shot through with sunbright sparks coalesced ominously. Roger blanched and went stock-still, like a mouse confronted by a serpent poised to strike. “Y-Yer—” he gaped, before gulping hard, his dull brown eyes wide and golden as harvest moons as they reflected a swirl of incandescent magic.

“Who… are you?”

“Don’t make a fuss, girl! Get back to your mother’s side and—what the!—” The tall baseblood’s growled warning had almost finished morphed into a disbelieving yell as a shimmering wall of mana materialized, then fell like a domino tipped over by a demigod’s finger. Men were blown off their feet by the impact, the doorway disintegrated, and splinters danced in the air as the rectangular force dissolved with a shockwave that swept away bullets and the desperate attacks who fired them from beyond the threshold.

A slender hand fringed with silken ruffles rose a second time, this time to summon an orb like a blue sun. Rapidly gaining in intensity and rotational speed, it was finally unleashed into the panicked midst of the remaining attackers in the corridor to blind and scatter them violently, autumn leaves helpless before the whirlwind’s onslaught.

The palm glowed once more, as if its owner was considering another, more destructive vortex. Five, maybe ten seconds passed in relative silence; then the palace hallways could be heard to echo with the sound of groaning. The rat-faced man lay motionless; the ethereal glow that had illuminated the corridor to its farthest reaches faded. Slim fingers relaxed and the figure turned around slowly, light diminishing and a throbbing hum decrescendoing as the palm-held concentration of mana dissipated into the aether.

Brilliant blue eyes turned to meet those of the king and queen. “I ask Your Majesties pardon for two reasons. Firstly for my disobedience, and secondly for my deception. For at this moment it is not His Majesty’s daughter who implores pardon, but Her Majesty’s son,” breathed the princesslike figure—retaining that aspect only for a few moments longer before a hand reached up to yank off flowing blond tresses. Several individuals flinched; the queen stared intently, recognition steadily supplanting uncertainty in her gaze. “You—You’re—” The queen’s mouth worked soundlessly, closed, then opened again. “Zephyrin?”