The Tuileries Palace was dark.
Not the darkness of night. The darkness of abandonment.
The great iron gates stood open. No guards. No sentries. The courtyard, usually bustling with courtiers and soldiers, was empty.
Wind blew dead leaves across the cobblestones. They skittered like dry bones.
"It's a ghost ship," Napoleon whispered, stepping out of the carriage.
I looked up at the towering façade of the palace. A single light burned in a window on the second floor.
The Solar. The King's study.
"Where is the Swiss Guard?" I asked.
"Gone," Napoleon said, kicking a discarded pike. "Mercenaries don't fight for a bankrupt client."
I walked up the grand staircase. My footsteps echoed in the silence. Clack. Clack. Clack.
It felt like walking into a tomb. A tomb I had built.
I reached the double doors of the Royal Apartments.
A single guard stood there. He was young. A boy, really. He wore the red uniform of the Swiss, but it was too big for him.
He leveled his pike at me. His hands were shaking.
"Halt," he squeaked. "By order of the Regent."
I didn't stop. I walked right up to the spear point until it touched my chest.
"Go home, son," I said softly. "The check cleared. The war is over."
The boy looked at me. He looked at Napoleon standing behind me, grim and silent.
He dropped the pike. It clattered loudly on the marble floor.
He ran.
I pushed the doors open.
The Solar was a wreck.
Maps were torn from the walls. Books were thrown on the floor. A priceless vase lay shattered in the fireplace.
In the center of the chaos sat Louis-Charles.
My son.
He was seven years old. He was wearing his blue uniform—the one modeled after Napoleon's—but it was unbuttoned. His sash was dragging on the floor. His hair was a mess.
He was sitting on the carpet, surrounded by hundreds of lead toy soldiers.
He was arranging them in lines. Battle formations.
He didn't look up when I entered.
"You're flanking on the left," he muttered to a tin grenadier. "But the cavalry is late. Why is the cavalry always late?"
"Louis," I said.
He froze.
His small hand hovered over a cannon.
Slowly, he looked up.
His eyes were red-rimmed. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath them. He looked like an old man trapped in a child's body.
"You cheated, Papa," he whispered.
"I didn't cheat," I said, walking into the room. "I audited. You spent more than you earned."
Louis-Charles scrambled to his feet. He knocked over his army. Tin soldiers scattered across the floor.
He tried to stand tall. He tried to puff out his chest. He tried to be the Wolf Cub.
"I am the Regent!" he shouted. His voice cracked. "I am the State! I order you to kneel!"
I stopped three feet from him.
I didn't kneel.
I walked over to the desk—his desk—and sat down in the chair.
"You aren't the State, Louis," I said tiredly. "You're a child playing with fire. And you burned the house down."
"I won battles!" he screamed. "I took Milan! I took Venice!"
"And you lost Paris," I countered. "You won the battles and lost the war because you forgot that soldiers need to eat."
Louis-Charles stared at me. His lip quivered.
He reached into his waistband.
He pulled out a pistol.
It was a heavy cavalry pistol. Too big for his hand. He had to hold it with both hands to keep it steady.
Napoleon stepped forward, his hand going to his sword.
"Stay back," I ordered Napoleon.
I looked at the gun. The black hole of the muzzle pointed straight at my chest.
"I can execute you," Louis-Charles whispered. Tears spilled down his cheeks. "I have the power. Robespierre said so. I can kill the traitor."
"Do it then," I said.
I stood up. I walked toward the gun.
"Shoot me. Close the account."
"Stop!" he screamed. "I'll do it!"
"Pull the trigger, Louis. If you want to be a King, you have to be able to kill your father. That's the price."
I was a foot away. I could see the rifling in the barrel.
My heart hammered. Thump-thump-pause.
If he shot me, I deserved it. I had created this monster. I had taught him that emotion was weakness. I had taught him that people were numbers.
Now the number was me.
Louis-Charles squeezed his eyes shut. He screamed—a high, thin sound of pure anguish.
He pulled the trigger.
Click.
The hammer fell. Sparks flew from the flint.
But there was no powder in the pan.
He hadn't loaded it.
He wasn't a soldier. He wasn't a killer. He was just a seven-year-old boy who forgot to prime his weapon.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Louis-Charles opened his eyes. He looked at the gun. He looked at me.
The gun slipped from his fingers. It hit the floor with a heavy thud.
The Wolf Cub died in that moment.
The child collapsed.
He fell to his knees, burying his face in his hands. He sobbed. Great, heaving sobs that shook his small frame.
"I tried," he wailed. "I tried to be strong. I tried to be like you."
I dropped to my knees.
I pulled him into my arms.
It wasn't a warm hug. It wasn't a happy hug. It was a desperate, clutching embrace. I held him tight, trying to hold his pieces together.
He smelled of sweat and unwashed clothes. He felt so small. So fragile.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into his hair. "I'm sorry I made you this way."
He clung to my coat. "Mama is gone. You left. Everyone left."
"I'm here now," I said. "I'm back."
Napoleon watched us from the door. His face was unreadable. He sheathed his sword.
I looked up at him.
"The paper," I said.
Napoleon walked over to the desk. He picked up a document I had prepared in the carriage.
The Act of Abdication.
He placed it on the floor next to us.
I picked it up.
"Louis," I said gently, pulling back. I wiped the tears from his face with my thumb.
"You have to sign this."
He looked at the paper. "What is it?"
"It's your resignation."
"Where will I go?" he asked, his voice small. "To prison?"
"No," I said. "To school."
"School?"
"In England. A boarding school. Where no one knows who you are. Where you can learn to play with toys instead of armies."
He looked at the toy soldiers scattered on the floor.
"I don't want to be King anymore," he whispered. "It's too loud. The hunger... it's too loud."
"I know," I said. "I'll handle the noise now."
I handed him the quill.
He signed his name. Not Louis XVII. Just Louis.
The letters were shaky. Childish.
I took the paper.
I stood up. I picked up the boy. He was light, exhausted. He put his head on my shoulder and closed his eyes.
"Take him to the carriage," I told Napoleon. "Get him out of here before the mob realizes the war is over."
Napoleon took the boy from my arms. For a moment, the great General looked at the sleeping child with something like pity.
"He almost shot you," Napoleon said quietly.
"He tried," I said. "That's the tragedy."
Napoleon carried him out.
I was alone in the Solar.
I walked to the desk. I sat in the chair.
It was uncomfortable. The leather was cold.
I looked at the map of Europe on the wall. It was covered in red pins. French victories. British blockades.
I reached out and pulled the pins out, one by one.
Italy. Gone.
The Rhine. Gone.
The blockade. Gone.
I swept the pins into the trash.
The desk was empty now. Just smooth wood and silence.
I had won. I had defeated the army, the inflation, and my own son. I was the absolute ruler of France.
But the room felt incredibly empty.
I put my head in my hands.
The audit was finally complete.
Balance: Zero.