The gilded oppression of Princess Seraphina's chambers was a universe away from the warzone of the plaza. Silk drapes the color of crushed violets hung limp in the still air, and the scenes of wyverns carved into her canopy bed felt like a mockery. Here, the only sound was the ragged, hitching rhythm of her sobs
It had vanity of polished silverwood held crystal bottles of perfume, their delicate scents unable to mask the underlying smell of dust and isolation. On the walls, tapestries depicted the glorious history of the Iron Republic, but to Seraphina, they were just reminders of the legacy that now felt like a chain around her neck. A single, large stained-glass window depicted the Republic's emblem, casting fractured, colorful shadows across the plush velvet rug. It was a room of immense wealth and profound loneliness.
Seraphina sat on the edge of her bed, her shoulders shaking. A single, hot tear traced a path through the powder on her cheek, dropping onto the embroidered silk of her dress.
"A sacrificial lamb," she whispered to the silent, opulent room. "That's all I am to them. They don't see a daughter. They see a treaty. A business deal." Her voice hitched, the image of the Veyronson prince's leering face flashing in her mind. "He could have... he could have raped me right there in the banquet hall, and Mother would have just... watched. For the kingdom."
The dam broke. A raw, guttural sob tore from her throat. She buried her face in her hands, her cries echoing in the vast chamber, a symphony of personal despair completely detached from the apocalyptic symphony of violence happening just beyond her door. She was utterly unaware that the world outside her gilded cage was ending.
Outside her chamber doors, that world was a nightmare of steel and blood. The two Royal Guards, Brennan and Galoid, were a bastion against a tide of black-masked assassins. They fought with the disciplined fury of men protecting their last shred of honor.
Brennan, a mountain of a man, used his tower shield to slam an assassin against the wall, the impact cracking the stone. He followed with a brutal short-sword thrust under the assassin's ribs. Galoid, faster and more agile, dueled two others, his twin rapiers a blur. He parried a poisoned dart thrown from a wrist-launcher, the needle embedding itself in the doorframe inches from Seraphina's room. He spun, ducking under a garrote wire and driving his blade through his attacker's throat.
But more kept coming, flowing down the corridor like a river of shadow. They didn't scream; they fought in eerie silence, their movements efficient and deadly. Brennan took a deep gash on his arm from a monofilament whip that nearly severed his limb. He roared, grabbing the assassin and using his own body as a battering ram to clear a temporary space.
"We can't hold forever!" Galoid shouted, deflecting a flurry of strikes from a masked figure wielding two curved blades.
The sound of that distant, desperate fight would never reach the royal dais. Here, the only sounds were the King's wet, shallow breaths and the Queen's silent, catatonic shock.
King Valerius lay on the cold floor, his breathing shallow and wet. The dark rose of blood on his chest had blossomed into a grotesque garden. Queen Anya knelt beside him, but her eyes were vacant, staring through him, her mind shattered by the rapid-fire trauma of betrayal and violence.
The Royal Guard who had taken cover with her, a man named Ronald, gritted his teeth. He's bleeding out. Right here in front of me. The thought was a cold spike of terror. He made a decision. Ignoring the whine of bullets and the shattering of glass around them, he lunged, grabbed the King under the arms, and dragged him behind the heavy, overturned throne. It was a pathetic shelter, but it was something.
He ripped a sleeve from his own uniform, balled it up, and pressed it hard against the sucking chest wound. The King groaned, a bubble of blood forming on his lips. I need to get him to the medical chambers. To the Royal Physician. But the castle was a slaughterhouse. The physician was likely already dead, his throat slit by the same silent killers flooding the halls.
And the sniper. Evander's eyes flicked to the star-shaped crack in the bulletproof glass. He's still out there. I can't make a run for it. He'll pick us off. My rifle can't even scratch that glass. I could try to shoot back through the hole he made... but it's a pinprick. A one-in-a-million shot. I'm not some hero from a storybook. I'm a guard. And I'm trapped and king&queen's life is on my hand
He looked at the catatonic queen, then back at the dying King. A feeling of utter helplessness threatened to consume him. ...Shit.
That same feeling of being overwhelmed was entirely absent from Pyotr's demeanor in the plaza. To him, the battlefield was a tedious chore. A rebel lunged with a rifle's Bayonet Pyotr pointed, and the Bayonet rusted into a lump of silent, flaking iron.
His partner, however, embraced the chaos. Johnathan Blake slid into cover beside him, his arrival marked by the shattering of a vial that released a cloud of corrosive black smoke. "Fucking amateurs!" he snarled, not at the rebels, but at the poor craftsmanship of their stolen weapons.
Together, they were a symphony of ruin. Pyotr decayed the ground under a squad's feet; Johnathan ignited the air above them with a firebomb. It was brutal, efficient, and utterly terrifying.
During a brief lull, Pyotr glanced at his partner. "Where's Amir? We could use his illusions. This is becoming... quite tedious.
Johnathan snorted, pulling a fresh set of potion vials from his bandolier and slotting them into the quick-access loops on his belt. "The rookie? I sent him with the Blade Master to secure the royal family." He gestured with his chin at the chaos around them. This... is just pest control.
The cacophony of the plaza—the screams, the gunfire, the distant roar of the airship's impact—faded into a muffled hum, replaced by an oppressive, dripping silence. Infront of the grand hallway of Black Iron Keep was a charnel house. The air, thick with the coppery stench of blood and the ozone-tang of spent Aether-rounds, was cold. Marble floors, polished to a mirror shine for the Triumph, were now sticky and slick, reflecting the grotesque, still forms of the fallen Royal Guard in distorted, crimson pools.
One of the black-masked assassins stood over his latest work, his chest rising and falling in a steady, practiced rhythm. A Royal Guard lay at his feet, but not cleanly. This had been intimate. The assassin had gotten in close, past the guard's bayonet thrust. He'd caught the weapon's stock, yanked the man forward, and driven his own serrated combat knife up under the chin. The angle was brutal, designed to sever the spine at the base of the skull. A wet, crunching pop had echoed in the hall, followed by a gurgle. The guard's body had convulsed for a few seconds, boots scraping a frantic, final rhythm on the bloody marble before going limp. The assassin wiped his blade clean on the guard's fine ceremonial cloak.
He looked across the hallway to another masked figure standing sentinel by a shattered stained-glass window. "The castle is almost cleared, right?" His voice was a low, metallic rasp filtered through his mask.
The other assassin gave a single, sharp nod. "Yes. Everyone is dead. Except the King, the Queen, and the Princess."
A flicker of irritation. "Why aren't they dead yet?"
"Our men are having trouble entering the royal dais its protected by finest royal guards. The glass is tougher than anticipated thus the sniper is having trouble finding a clear shot. And the Princess?" He gestured with his head down a side corridor. "Our team is about to breach her chambers."
The first assassin grunted in acknowledgment, turning to survey the slaughter. It was then he noticed something wrong. A fine, almost invisible mist of blood hung in the air where his companion had been standing. It hadn't been there a second ago.
He opened his mouth to speak, to ask a question that would never be formed.
There was no sound. No whistle of steel, no warning rush of air. One moment, the second assassin's head was on his shoulders. The next, it was tilting, then sliding, then falling to the floor with a soft, meaty thud. The cut was impossibly clean, a perfect, horizontal slice through the neck. For a heartbeat, the headless body remained upright, a fountain of arterial blood jetting from the severed stump to paint the ceiling in a lurid red arc. Then, like a felled tree, it crumpled.
The first assassin froze, his mind short-circuiting. His training screamed at him. He dropped into a combat stance, his serrated knife flashing into his hand. His eyes darted, searching the shadows, the ceilings, the corpses—anything.
He saw nothing.
A primal fear, colder than the marble floor, seized him. He began to back away, his breath hitching.
Swish—
It was the softest sound, like a silk sheet being drawn aside.
His world tilted. The grisly hallway spun in a lazy, nauseating circle. He saw the headless body of his comrade, then his own boots, still planted firmly on the ground. The last thing his processing mind registered was the sight of his own headless torso, still standing, before darkness swallowed him whole. His head hit the ground and rolled, coming to a rest facing the carnage he had helped create, his mask still hiding a final expression of uncomprehending terror.
From the deepest shadow between two towering wyvern-bone statues, a figure emerged without a sound. The faint, smoky light gleamed on the obsidian and dragon-bone curves of two blades, their edges clean, not a single drop of blood clinging to their impossible sharpness.
The ornate door to Princess Seraphina's chambers stood as a fragile barrier between her and the nightmare outside. Before it, the lifeless bodies of Brennan and Galoid lay in a tangle of royal red and crimson, their armor pierced in multiple places, their swords still clutched in cold hands. The air was thick with the smell of blood and iron.
One of the black-masked assassins nudged Brennan's corpse with his boot. "Finally… these royal dogs are dead."
"Enough talk," growled a larger mercenary. "Breach the door. Kill the girl. Now."
A third fighter, his voice slick with a dark hunger, chuckled. "Wait. I hear the princess is the finest flower in Steelhaven. Why not pluck her before we cut her down?"
The leader ripped off his mask, revealing the hardened face of Kael, the traitor Royal Guard. "Shut your filthy mouth," he snarled. "We were paid for a kill, not a damn orgy. Do your job."
Another man pulled down his own mask—Roric, his eyes burning with cold, vengeful fire. "Kael," he countered, voice tight. "The men aren't wrong. The Aetherian Dominion paid for the king's head. But that won't quench our thirst. Not after what his Coin-Cogs did to our families." He glared at the ornate door. "Seraphina is that bastard's most treasured prize. The only true revenge is to ruin her. Let her be her father's final, broken legacy."
A wave of grim, agreeing laughter rippled through the men.
As one moved to kick the door in—
SHHHK—
A sound like silk tearing, and the man's head toppled from his shoulders, hitting the floor with a wet thud. Before the head stopped rolling, three more fell in quick, silent succession—clean, perfect cuts. The headless bodies stood for a grotesque moment before collapsing.
Panic erupted. "What in the hells—?!"
"TUNER!" Roric bellowed, his combat instincts overriding the shock. He hurled a smoke bomb to the floor, flooding the corridor with a thick, grey screen. In the same motion, he scattered a pouch of dark seeds onto the marble. "RISE!"
From the seams between the stones, thick, whip-like roots erupted, snaking through the smoke with unnatural speed. They coiled around a flickering, half-seen figure—the Blade Master. For a heartbeat, the roots held, tightening like iron bands, pulling him down to one knee.
It lasted only a moment.
With a low grunt of effort, the Blade Master flexed. His obsidian swords became a blur, shearing through the enchanted wood with a sound like snapping bone. Splinters and sap filled the air.
"Kael! Flank him!" Roric yelled, already channeling more power. He slammed his palms on the floor. "ENTANGLE!"
A fresh volley of roots, sharpened to points, burst upward, aiming to impale. The Blade Master became a specter of motion. He didn't block; he flowed, spinning between the lashing tendrils, his blades a whirlwind of silent dismemberment. He was closing the distance, an unstoppable force.
Kael and two other mercenaries tried to circle, seeing their chance.
They never made it.
From the smoke near the princess's door, a new voice cut through the chaos, cold and steady.
wait i think you guys failed to see me
Amir Zen stepped forward, his grey coat stained with the grime of a city tearing itself apart. The heavy hand cannon, The Iron Argument, was leveled in a two-handed grip, its barrel aimed unwaveringly at the group. His eyes held none of the uncertainty from the sewers. This was the gaze of a man who had already stared into the abyss tonight.
Kael, a professional soldier, didn't waste time on questions. He saw a young, unknown man in a civilian coat pointing a comically large gun. He didn't see a hero; he saw a target. A fool blocking the kill.
"You picked the wrong side to die for, boy!" Kael roared, hefting his sword and signaling the others to charge.
Amir's response was the simple, brutal grammar of the .577 caliber.
BOOM.
The roar was apocalyptic in the enclosed space. The round didn't just hit the lead mercenary charging beside Kael; it erased him. The man's torso disintegrated in a spray of red mist and shredded leather, the concussive force hurling his remains back into the two men behind him, sending them stumbling.
In the stunned silence that followed the deafening shot, Amir worked the clunky mechanism, the spent cartridge clattering to the floor. The remaining mercenaries, now trapped between the silent, deadly dance of the two Tuners and the grim stranger with the street-sweeper cannon, hesitated.
Kael's eyes widened, not in fear of a rookie, but in raw calculation. This wasn't a Cog-Watcher. This wasn't Army issue. This was something else. Something new.
One of the mercenaries, enraged by his comrade's death, lunged with a guttural cry.
Amir didn't have time to reload. He fell back on his first, most natural weapon: deception.
The mercenary's blade passed through the space where Amir's throat should have been. It was an illusion. The real Amir was already three feet to the left, the jagged, heavy rebar he'd wrenched from a shattered wall sconce already in motion. He swung it like a club, catching the man hard in the ribs. The crunch was sickening. The man staggered, and Amir didn't relent, driving the iron bar down on his helmeted head with a final, brutal impact.
Another mercenary fired a pistol. The shot went wide, tearing into the wall beside Amir's head as he dropped the rebar and created a phantom image of himself charging forward. The gunman turned to meet the false threat, and Amir closed the real distance, jamming the barrel of his now-reloaded hand cannon under the man's chin.
BOOM.
The second shot was quieter, more intimate, and infinitely more gruesome.
Kael watched, his soldier's mind re-evaluating. This wasn't just a man with a big gun. This was a trickster. A liar. A fighter who used misdirection and overwhelming force at point-blank range. He was holding the line, a desperate, bloody anchor against the tide. Kael tightened his grip on his sword, readying himself to face this unexpected variable.
Inside the opulent cage of her chambers, Princess Seraphina huddled on the floor, her sobs the only sound in her world of silk and sorrow. The fine velvet of her dress was damp with tears, the images of wyverns on her canopy bed seeming to mock her powerlessness. She was a sacrificial lamb, a business transaction. The thought was a cold knife in her gut.
Then, a new sound wormed its way through her despair. Not the muffled shouts or the occasional, earth-shaking BOOM from the hallway, but something else. A sound from her balcony.
A soft scuff, like a boot finding purchase on stone.
Trembling, she pushed herself up from the floor. Her legs felt weak, but a desperate, morbid curiosity drove her forward. She crept past her vanity, past the shattered remains of a fine porcelain vase knocked over in her earlier distress. Her hand, shaking, reached for the handle of the glass-paned balcony door.
With a slow, silent push, she opened it and stepped out into the cold night air.
The sight that greeted her stole the breath from her lungs.
The world below was chaos incarnate. Sovereign's View Plaza, usually a stage for orderly parades, was a roiling, screaming mass of humanity. Fires burned unchecked, casting a hellish, dancing light on the scene. The grand, polished granite was littered with bodies and debris. She saw the hulking forms of armored steam-wagons, one of them overturned and burning, its cannon pointing uselessly at the smog-choked sky.
It was not just a coup. It was the end of the world.
Princess Seraphina stood frozen on her balcony, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes wide with pure, unadulterated horror.