1

Charlotte had, of course, intended to go with her troops to finish this matter personally. Her family had started it all.

It was only natural that she should put an end to it. For better or for worse.

It felt like her responsibility. A new responsibility, as if she didn't have more than enough of them.

To be fair, this new responsibility, like all the others, was but an extension of the role of queen she had to play.

In any case, Charlotte opened her mouth to express this to her troops.

She shuddered, licked her lips, as if sensing that something bad was coming. But she could never have predicted what really happened.

Something made everything tremble.

If it hadn't been for the table right in front of her, Charlotte would have ended up on the floor. Not that she had reacted in time to lean on the table. She had simply fallen on top of it, and that broke her fall.

Many of her soldiers weren't so lucky. They fell sideways and ended up on the floor, some dragging chairs or things on top of the table with them, in a failed attempt to grab onto anything to keep their balance.

It was shaking. Everything was shaking.

And those sounds. It was as if the earth itself was roaring.

The first thing Charlotte thought of was Desmond's ridiculous claims. His visions of the end of the world. Her heart filled with dread.

Charlotte shook her head. No. He told us about the end of the Empire. Not ours.

That didn't mean she had nothing to fear, of course. Something like this was not a normal occurrence. They were under attack.

The golden masks?

Would they go this far on their mission? And, another good question, how would they have done something like this?

"What was that?" Charlotte asked, recovering, almost reflexively. She wasn't expecting an answer. And, as she thought, no one had it.

The answer came to her in a different way. Nonverbal.

It happened again and this time she couldn't help it. She fell to her knees. If those tremors hadn't knocked her down all at once, the last one would have been the windows exploding almost at the same time, plus anything made of glass in the vicinity.

Despite all that commotion, the screams didn't go unnoticed by her. Screams of terror, despair.

Her own subjects. The people she was supposed to protect.

A bubble grew around her, trapping her. She panicked. She made to draw her sword to try to break it, but dropped her hand when she saw that it had been done by one of her soldiers.

It was a protective bubble, not a death trap.

It wouldn't have hurt if he had warned her, but hey. Charlotte wasn't going to waste time and oxygen telling him that now.

"Let's evacuate the palace!" Charlotte shouted, to make herself heard in the midst of the chaos. Forcing her voice, it sounded more childish than she would like. Sharp, vulnerable. Or maybe that was just fear. "Let's get out of here!”

They ran out into the hallway, as fast as they could, stepping over the broken glass. All except her. Not only was Charlotte not stepping on the glass, she wasn't walking. Instead she was being dragged, a few feet above the ground, inside the bubble.

Charlotte had no doubt that the explosions weren't over. On top of that, the palace was nine stories high, no more, no less. It wouldn't be easy. Nor would it be quick.

They had to do it, somehow. It had to be possible to get out of this one. But Charlotte couldn't think straight. It had been so sudden, so....

She didn't even know what the hell was going on.

So how could she see herself getting through this?

A third explosion.

The bubble burst and she fell to the ground. Shocked, scared, but intact. Many... were not so lucky. She saw soldiers losing arms and legs, saw soldiers being torn in half and even bursting like a balloon filled to overflowing. Spreading blood and guts all over the hallway.

Blood.

She felt other people's blood hit her, running down her hair. She had the feeling that it was going to sink into her, beyond skin and flesh. An invasive, horrifying sensation.

Charlotte took a deep breath. She was going to scream, she was going to scream at the top of her lungs, scream like she was going crazy.

She didn't get to scream.

Because the floor beneath her feet sank and then fell. She hadn't been paying attention to the creaking. To the true scale of the destruction caused by the explosion, so now....

They all fell. Like birds shot down in mid"flight.

Charlotte unsheathed her sword. She felt strangely calm, suddenly, as though it made all her fears disappear. That's why she was able to think clearly.

And really look at what she was seeing. The danger wasn't the height.

They would fall to the floor below.

They could survive that fall easily, even if they were a little bruised. The problem was the debris raining down.

Charlotte gritted her teeth. That was what she needed the sword for, not only to deceive, to divert attention.

Also to determine the size of the portals accurately. It wasn't as if she could only make them one size, it was that she rarely needed a bigger or smaller one.

Rarely. But rarely didn't mean never.

Charlotte cut a huge portal, right underneath many of her soldiers as they fell. Of course, that way the debris would go with them, but not all of it. Besides, she didn't have time to create dozens of portals while falling. This was the best she could do for them.

Through the hole in the building, she could see outside. So that's where Charlotte cut the exit portal. They would fall into the garden and the rest would be a matter....

Charlotte hit the ground, the air was violently expelled from her lungs. She was hit by a few pieces of debris and at times she feared she was going to be crushed.

But they weren't big enough to kill, only hurt.

She tried to stand up and couldn't.

In the midst of the chaos, Charlotte tried to crawl to safety. If such a thing existed. The floor... No, what for her now the ceiling was still falling chunk by chunk. She was surrounded by the moans and grunts of the damned. She passed a soldier who had been crushed by a large boulder, but he wasn't dead, not yet, his legs twitching as if the last spark of vitality in his brain was struggling to cling to life before inevitably snuffing out.

He wasn't the only one going through something like that, of course, she just noticed him more because he was closer to her.

And the dust.

Clouds of dust were rising, dust was getting into her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Making her cough and cough, cough like she was about to puke her fucking guts out.

To top it all off. Her nostrils were permeated with the smell of burning flesh; she wasn't conscious enough to notice where it was coming from or to care, for that matter.

The only thing on her mind right now was getting to safety.

She opened a door by slamming it with her shoulder and dropped inside.

Her ears were ringing, her head spinning slightly. That explosion had been too close. If not for the bubble, if not for the initiative of that soldier who could very well be dead now, she would have died too.

Just like that.

From one second to the next. Without her having time to notice. Tears welled up in her eyes.

She had never... She had never experienced anything like this... She had never thought that... That someone...

She took a deep breath.

She had to keep her composure. Charlotte stood up, using her free hand for support. The hand she wasn't holding her sword with.

There was only so much she could do.

With her affinity, she could remove the debris easily. Much more easily and quickly than a large group of people would be able to, regardless of what affinities they had.

Charlotte set to work, desperate to save as many people as she could. Aware of the unknown threat that hung over them all like an executioner's axe.

2

Desmond fell to the ground. Not because of his weakened body, but because there was an explosion. He raised his head, looking around, gritting his teeth in anger and anticipation.

There was no damage to their surroundings, so the explosion hadn't occurred near them.

Still, it had been very intense.

Enough to give him the feeling, which was perhaps true, that the whole palace had shaken.

What was going on now, what were they facing?

The golden masks, in a last desperate attack? But Abigail was outside and the bomb, or whatever it was, had exploded far away from them.

"What do we do now?" Amy asked. "Should we...?"

She couldn't finish the sentence. The girl swallowed.

"We don't have the responsibility to fix every problem that comes along," Christina said coldly, not that she could blame her for thinking so. They had done more than enough. Sacrificed more than enough.

"Yeah, but... I was going to say that we might be in danger here."

Desmond walked over to the door.

"I'll go see what's going on. Stay where you are," he said, even though he was currently the most vulnerable member of the group, by far.

Desmond opened the door.

The hallway was full of people. Frozen, not knowing what to do, as if hoping that if they didn't react to what had happened, it wouldn't become their problem.

And then... There was a second explosion.

Desmond was thrown backwards by the force of the shock, falling midway between the hallway and the room.

The air was filled with the sound of shattering glass and screams that were all too familiar to him. How could they not.

In the blink of an eye, all the windows were shattered, their shards scattered across the floor. And those who hadn't died simply because they were too close to the blast... were now burning.

The flames were more intense than any other. The blue fire of the Empire.

Desmond found himself surrounded by ghosts engulfed in blue flames, screaming at the top of their lungs. Those who could scream. For many not even that. Many were only writhing shadows, opening their mouths in a mute scream.

Burning, burning, burning.

They will burn until they leave nothing.

Like that day... Like that day, like that day, like that day....

One of the burning people almost fell on him. Desmond let out a gasp and backed away, narrowly avoiding it.

Desmond would scream, too, joining his voice to that infernal chorus. But he was too scared to scream. His throat wasn't working.

"We've got to get out of here! "Christina shouted, helping him up again.

Get out. Yes.

This was more serious than they had dared to think. They couldn't just sit here and wait for it to be over. If they just sat there, they would die. They had to get out no matter what!

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

They joined the sea of people desperately searching for a way out. As Desmond did his best to keep up with his teammates, he couldn't help but think about how unfair this was.

They hadn't even dealt with one enemy and now a much bigger one was coming.

Not directly at them. Abigail and he were desired targets of the Empire, but this was surely more an attempt to conquer the capital and put Charlotte's head on a pike. Though if they saw them, they wouldn't mind capturing them while they were at it. Of course.

An invasion and he hadn't even had time to recover, or to catch his breath a bit.

Which meant he wouldn't be able to fight. That he would be forced to flee with his tail between his legs.

He'd say as he did then, but that wouldn't be quite right. On that day ten years ago he hadn't even been able to run. Desmond had lost that opportunity immediately, and had been dragged the rest of the way. By Abigail.

It wasn't exactly the same situation, but it was close enough for him. Desmond couldn't fight, so he lacked control over the outcome of the battle.

His fate in the hands of others, once again.

Desmond gritted his teeth so hard they chattered.

Useless show of resistance, even more so when he collapsed as soon as there was a third explosion. His heart trembled, his legs trembled.

But the moment passed and he realized that the damage from the explosion had not reached them.

Only the tremors produced by the shock wave. From the absurd power of... whatever they were using.

They managed to stay together in the midst of that sea of people dragging and pulling them. They could see the double doors to the entrance. Only about ten more meters.

A very short distance.

But it turned out not to be short enough. Desmond saw the roof starting to collapse over their heads. He pushed the girls forward, through the door, they almost fell through. But they were on the other side. Safe.

He had done well to get this far, but his body failed him at the last strait, he couldn't get out of the way in time. And he ended up buried under a mountain of rubble.

The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him were the terrified faces of his friends.

3

Christina fell to the ground, but barely noticed. Similarly, the shaking of the palace and the ground in front of her collapsing were nothing more than background noise in her mind.

All she could think about was Desmond.

There were no last words.Desmond had simply pushed them away. Choosing to save them rather than save himself, when he was the one who was worse off, poisoned, damaged, to the point where he couldn't even trust his regeneration that bordered on immortality as he had so far.

Only that had never been the problem, had it?

Only that even before he died for the first or second time, before he really knew what was wrong with him, the power he possessed, he had been tremendously careless. As if his life didn't matter to him.

And now he had disappeared before her eyes.

In the blink of an eye.

Disappeared without her being able to do anything apart from watch like a fool, wide eyed, scared shitless. The palace was shaking badly from the repeated shots, the power of whatever they were using. So it took her a while to realize that it wasn't just the ground that was shaking. Her legs were shaking too.

It had all happened so fast. Damn.

And being caught in the middle of an attack on the capital was sudden enough in itself. This...

Amy grabbed her shoulder, pulling her up. She helped her up and Christina was extremely grateful, but then started dragging her away from the hole Desmond had fallen through. The hole that had been left when the ground collapsed.

Away.

Why?

She didn't understand. She didn't want to understand.

"We have to help him. You know how he is." Poisoned. Because of me, because I wasn't good enough. Because of me... "He could die!"

She felt like a dirty hypocrite.

Speaking almost as if she were indignant, pleading for Desmond, when in recent times she couldn't say she had treated him too well. She hadn't openly despised him and had even risked her life to save him (even, even, as if he wasn't her teammate, as if he wasn't her family, even), but she had to admit that she had been somewhat unfair.

Still resentful for what he'd done that night.

And for all the fear the nights after, not knowing if he was alive or dead. Worse still, believing she knew that sooner or later the boy would die because he had gone on a suicide mission.

So yes, she had been quite unfair to him. Always assuming the worst.

But now she didn't care about any of that, her panic was the only thing that was real. She remembered the times Amy had privately told her to calm down, to give Desmond a chance. Practically begging because she wished everything could go back to the way it was. And so did she, so did she, regardless of how she behaved.

And now, and now...? It wasn't going to be possible? She had already lost her chance?

"If we stay here, we could die. We have to get out of the building. Christina, please!"

Christina bit the inside of one cheek hard enough to draw blood. She noticed it instantly. Her best friend's words made sense, but right now she didn't want to hear things that made sense either.

She just wanted to jump into that hole.

Remove the debris with her bare hands, if necessary.

Even if Desmond had been perfectly fine she would have felt guilty, but now it seemed unthinkable to turn her back on him. He could die. He could really die this time.

Another shot. How many already? Three, four? How many had there been already?

Christina had no idea. What mattered was that it had been far away, this time, only the aftermath reached them. In other words, the building, once again, rocked.

That's all it was. The shot, whatever it contained, hadn't even come close.

But it was sending the right message, anyway. Or at least the message Amy wanted her to understand. That this wasn't just dangerous, they were in a death trap and they had to keep moving. She was perhaps in the most dangerous place in the city, because the palace and the princess would naturally be the priority target, after which the entire capital would fall with ease.

In theory.

And, maybe this was just part of her selfishness, her hypocrisy, but she imagined what Desmond would say if he could talk to them right now. And she didn't think he could exactly ask for help. He'd send them away. He'd beg them to leave him, even say he could manage. Whether it was true or not.

In any case, Christina didn't fight as hard for Desmond as she thought she would or should.

She let herself be swept away.

By the course of events, by the convenient path. And by Amy's warm hand.

4

Desmond found himself in darkness, feeling like he couldn't breathe. When he realized that there was nothing metaphysical about the pressure in his chest, the first thing that came to his mind was that this was just another dream about his past.

The same old thing, really. Rebirth, yes. A death in reverse, starting from the grave formed by the rubble of what had been his home and ending far outside the city where he had grown up. Alone under the open sky. Alone.

But no.

That was not what it was about. It was no dream.

He managed to remember, albeit vaguely, what had happened. The details didn't come into his head. Not yet, but it was enough. He'd tried to save his friends, and that was why it had ended this way. It was worth it, of course, but now he had to get out of here.

Quickly.

The palace was under siege, wasn't it? Attacked by the empire.

They had picked the worst possible time to attack the capital, almost as if it had been planned.

Just almost.

Desmond didn't believe in coincidences, but neither did he believe that the chief of the golden masks would cooperate with the enemy. He was a smug son of a bitch, convinced that he was the only one with the answer. Convinced that Desmond was a problem for the world while only changing things for the worse.

But that's precisely why. Richard fancied himself a hero of sorts.

His selfishness and conceit kept him from being a traitor. Although he had ended up being a traitor, anyway. In the sense that Desmond was this way at the worst possible time. When Albion and the princess needed his strength the most.

They needed him. Half or dead or not.

Desmond began to pick his way through the rubble, groping in the darkness. Painfully aware that one false step could finish him off. If he removed the wrong piece, the debris could come down even further and crush him like a bug on the side of the road.

When he had tried to get to his feet, just to test, he had been able to get on all fours before his sword touched anything.

So his situation could be much worse. Something was keeping the debris from falling. If he screwed up, they would fall, crush him, and nothing guaranteed he would come back to life when he hadn't even recovered from the poison after so long.

Desmond was well aware of that, of the dangers. But also that he couldn't just stand still, waiting for the end.

The siege of the palace would continue. If he simply waited, the evil Imperials would most likely finish him off without him even realizing it.

He needed to move. Quickly.

From darkness to light. Once. He didn't know how many more times he would have to repeat this process, when the world would tire of kicking him in the fucking mouth.

But he would resist. He would keep fighting.

Desmond had a reason to continue. Love was what moved his arms and legs. Love, not hate, was what had always moved him. He understood suddenly. That he wasn't a creature of hate and rage. That he hadn't been even before he met Amy and Christina.

Love was the key and the lock.

The gear that moved the world.

From light to darkness. Mom, Mom, I have to see your face again. Gods...

Gods.

For the first time, he clung to his vision as something that confirmed that he wasn't going to die here, uselessly. Because he had a destiny. Because the gods hadn't yet tired of toying with him.

For one thing or another, Desmond finally emerged into the light.

Panting, body burning all over. But alive. A beam had scraped his back. He hadn't realized it until now. The pain of his open, scraped back was impossible to distinguish from all the pain.

Practically unbearable.

Now he wasn't going to tell himself that the pain just passed, like any other sensation.

He emerged from his grave of rubble and immediately collapsed against the wall. His legs were unable to support his own weight. He needed the urgent help of that wall.

What's the matter?

Gods, how he was glad to hear his mother's voice. Well, it wasn't really hearing her voice. Just an foreign thought in his mind. But it was enough for Desmond.

"We're under attack. Not those guys. The Empire."

And why did he feel the need to clarify? It wasn't as if Abigail had left the city, surely she could see it from wherever she was. Just as she wouldn't doubt for a second that the golden masks wouldn't do this.

"Shit. I'm on my way. Hold on."

On my way.

That was good. Desmond had climbed out of that fetid grave, out of that makeshift corpse pit, driven by a desperate desire to see her face again.

Or it should be a good thing. But in reality it was the last thing any of them needed. It didn't take him long to figure it out.

Desmond was on the move. Toward the exit.

Toward where he hoped his friends would be.

"Don't come to the palace."

He lost his balance instantly, as if the mere act of uttering those words had taken it away from him. There was a no doubt disgustingly expensive pot on a pedestal.

He dragged it to the ground with him as he grabbed at the pedestal in hopes of regaining his balance and it didn't hold steady either. Sitting on the ground, looking at the pieces, he thought stupidly: that could have been my head.

"There came a shot from far away. Several. They shook the palace and almost... The thing is, I think they've developed a new weapon. You have to take care of it or we'll be lost. I don't know where the shots came from, I..."

He had only realized that it had to be from far away, despite the power contained in the shots. Apparently the new weapon had it all. Range and power.

No tradeoffs.

"Don't worry. I'll manage," Abigail cut him off.

She was going to do as he asked. Of course she was. It was what he expected of her. She cared more about him than anyone else, but at the same time she was aware of what needed to be done.

Somehow, though, he was annoyed at the ease with which she had agreed to it.

And he remembered that Amy and Christina weren't around, they hadn't even tried to help him. If he had been conscious to tell them anything, he would have told them to leave, to run while they could.

It didn't make sense. He knew that. But it bothered him a little, just the same.

All of it.

Abigail was managing. Of that there was no doubt, and he would try to manage, too.

5

Amy and Christina made it as far as the lobby, that is, to the exit. All that remained was to go down the stairs, which split in two, and through the door. Then they would not be safe. But more than in the palace. Anywhere was safer, solely for the same reasons it had been the safest before this.

Before... the invasion.

She knew the war had resumed with the attack on the academy actually, but this was more real than an unseen enemy knocking on their doors. They were here, they were on to them.

Almost literally. They had arrived too late.

The exit was effectively blocked. Not by debris, but by Imperial soldiers. They had arrived first, covered in that night's special armor. The mage"killing armor, designed to close the gap that had kept them in the fight for so many years. Even such a long conflict sought an end and Amy feared more every day that the end was near. For better or for worse.

She swallowed hard.

They hadn't stopped at blocking the exit, of course. Many people from all over the palace had arrived before them. And now they were being coldly executed. Their agonized screams hung in the air.

They could run... but not very far. Amy grimaced as she witnessed another execution.

"I don't know if I'll be able to...."

She glanced at her.

She had moved away from the cliff, but Christina was still a shadow of herself. Shrunken, frightened. Worst of all were her eyes. She had always seemed imperturbable, but now....

Now there was no hope there. And it wasn't because she was under attack right now.

Since that day. Ever since that day when she'd been on the brink of the abyss, on the brink of losing even her own identity forever, her eyes had been that way.

Amy wished she could heal her scars. Wished she could look into her eyes, command her to get over it with this power and it would be done, just like that.

Unfortunately it didn't work that way. Neither her power nor the world.

The world always exacted a price for every bit of happiness people ripped from his filthy hands.

She wasn't going to force Christina to fight, to dive into the usual tangle of feelings and guilt. To throw herself into the abyss that could consume her without a trace. Surely it would be inevitable for her to intervene in the end. But, for the moment at least...

"Stay back. I'll take care of this."

Yes. Amy would take care of this.

They had been crouched behind the railing, watching the horrible spectacle as discreetly as possible. Now Amy stood up. She took a leap, not a very big one, just enough to land on the railing.

Down which she quickly descended. Sliding down.

No, not down the railing itself, but down the slippery ice she was summoning. Not smoothly. She made so much noise as she passed, it didn't take long for them to notice her. And open fire.

"Let's see if you can take on someone who knows how to defend themselves, motherfuckers!"

She had priorities. But that didn't mean she wouldn't see red by being forced to witness the cruel execution of human beings for the crime of existing.

Before the bullets hit her, Amy tilted the ice bridge slightly higher.

The momentum carried her in the same direction.

Up, up, up, up. For a moment she had the feeling she was about to take flight. But unlike Desmond, she had no wings. Gravity would pull her to the ground in no time.

The illusion shattered, beginning to fall.

Amy fought back as best she could. In other words, creating a shield of ice that covered three hundred and sixty degrees, with her in the center. Bullets hit, and the ice crackled, but didn't explode.

Until she blew it up. Basically shooting back at them, only in the form of broken chunks of ice.

It was dangerous, she knew.

Not that dangerous, but it was a possibility that the ice shards would end up where she least wanted them to. Still, she couldn't help it. She would do what she could to save the survivors, but if she held back or hesitated too long, she was lost. Only Desmond, who was so powerful, could afford to fight without the slightest regard for himself.

Only someone so powerful could be so heroic.

Although it left a bad taste in her mouth to refer to what was almost a mad dash to his death as heroic.

She'd left him down there. In the rubble. But it wouldn't be the last time they would see each other.

No, it wouldn't be the last time. No way.

Amy landed amidst the shower of ice that crunched like falling glass. And she lunged forward long before all the shards hit the ground, gripping the sword with both hands, swinging it at the nearest enemy as if it were some kind of spear.

It impacted against him with enough force to knock his feet off the ground.

It didn't send him flying like a straw doll, but it did drag him back far, far away.

With her sword buried in his shoulder.

She could do this.

She could and she would.