The sky was filled with gray, snow-laden clouds when Celaena and Len appeared on the sidewalk before the Black Alps, both wearing heavy winter coats. Upon seeing them, Gideon and Surelin left the tavern, and the two groups briefly traded greeting. The cold had deepened while they’d been inside the tavern, and small clouds of vapor escaped from their mouths as they spoke.
Soon afterwards the time came for the new pairings to split off, and Gideon suddenly felt strangely hesitant. From the look of concern on Surelin’s face, he gathered that she felt roughly the same way. They’d been together constantly ever since Kenan. The idea of separating now seemed strangely daunting.
Gideon gave her a cheeky smirk. “What’s that face for? You're not gonna miss me or something, are you?”
She was flustered. “I—no! What are you trying to say?”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be just fine without me.”
“What?! I am not worried! You’re the worried one!”
Celaena and Len watched their exchange with surprise. Len seemed to be merely taken off guard, but Celaena seemed alarmed.
“Come along, ma'am,” she urged.
Surelin nodded to her, then turned to Gideon with an annoyed frown.
“I’ll see you back at the estate.”
“Mhm.”
She waved goodbye as they set off, crossing the strip in the direction of the market street.
Len gave Gideon a friendly smile. “After you.”
Gideon responded with a shrug and set off down the sidewalk to the east, heading for the Fabresco bridge.
“They’re still gonna do this thing even with the snow?” he asked as Len matched his stride beside him.
“It would be very surprising if they canceled it. Displaying Edwin to the public is immensely prestigious for the Capellas.”
“Hm.”
“The princess seems to get along quite well with you.”
Len looked mildly amused when Gideon glanced at him.
“Does she?”
“Do you deny it?”
Gideon rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing to deny, old man.”
“Youth,” Len chuckled. “The young are patient when they should be bold, and impatient when they should be cautious.”
“You’re off your rocker.”
“Every member of the royal family was headstrong and willful, but none more so than the princess. She has a charming empathy about her, a quality the rest of her family lacks. It endears most people to her.”
“...Yeah.”
“I trust her judgement, but the princess is kind-hearted. Her grandmother and I are not. You'd do well to remember that.”
Gideon understood the implicit threat within his words.
“I won't betray her trust.”
“Good.”
“You gonna explain why I’m here?”
“Of course. When we enter their estate, pay very close attention to the layout of the grounds, and keep a count of how many guards you see.”
Gideon shot him a surprised look. “...You’re planning to attack them?”
“We will discuss that after the play.”
“So we’re going to watch it? How long is this thing?”
“A little under six hours.”
“Six—” Gideon slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, fuck me.”
“Agreed. And unfortunately, as I understand it, the play itself is not very…entertaining.”
“Why did I agree to this…” Gideon muttered.
“Chin up, Gideon. If duty demands us to be bored, then bored we shall be.”
----------------------------------------
The Silver River burbled pleasantly beneath the Fabresco bridge as Gideon and Len walked across, underscored by the occasional huffing and baying of horses pulling carts in the street nearby. The din of activity on the strip was nearing its usual cacophonous peak as midday approached.
Overall, Loso did not add up to home in Gideon’s estimation. He’d passed through the city many times, in between deployments or during rest periods, but it wasn’t a particularly special place for him. Loso was just as smitten with slavery as Kenan was—it merely practiced it in a way that was slightly less objectionable. Slavery alone was more than enough reason for Gideon to hate Loso and it’s great houses. Still, there was far less risk of being kidnapped in Loso, and far less paranoia over foreigners.
Edea was right about me, he realized. I’m a vagabond.
As he walked quietly beside Len on the sidewalk, he wondered if Surelin had ever felt at home anywhere, until he realized his mistake. She’d never actually left Forelia City until after the siege, as far as he was aware. Surelin certainly had a home, or at least she used to.
I guess we don’t actually have that much in common.
The thought bothered him, and he pushed it deep down.
They walked along the strip for another twenty minutes or so before reaching the tall stone brick gate to the Elysium Hills on the strip’s north side. The gate was guarded by more hussars, wearing their distinctive wings on their backs and silver scaled armor, buffed to a gleaming shine. The wings indicated that the hussars at the gate were not merely members of the city watch, but members of a noble retinue, the personal bodyguards of Loso’s bluebloods.
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The hussars stopped Gideon and Len at the gate, but let them through once Len flashed their tickets at them.
“How are we supposed to get past those guys for whatever you’re planning?” Gideon asked once they were out of earshot.
Len merely tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger.
There could be no doubt that they’d entered the wealthiest sector of the city. From the gate, the street widened as it ran straight north, and it was paved with unblemished white limestone tiles. Teams of slaves carrying brooms with wide heads and thick bristles traveled up and down the street, brushing piles of freshly fallen snow into the gutters. It was a very far cry from the rudimentary cobblestone and simple dirt footpaths trailing through the rest of the city.
The street gradually increased in elevation as it continued north, and all along it on both sides stretched tall stone brick walls, perfectly symmetrical and unbroken except for where gated entrances met the street, each one guarded by more winged hussars. Astonishingly beautiful mansions and impressive but gaudy palaces rose from behind the walls, outlining themselves against the dark gray sky. Very few of them were shorter than five stories, and one castle-like palace they passed had a cylindrical stone brick tower that looked to be at least ten stories high.
The buildings made Gideon feel tiny in comparison.
“What’s the point of such a gigantic home?” he wondered aloud.
An amused chuckle left Len. “That is an interesting question, one I’m not fully equipped to answer. In Forelia City, the Lilac Palace occupies the city's tallest hill. It has a rather commanding view over the rest of the city, and serves as a constant reminder to the people that the monarch resides with them. The buildings along this street seem to have no real purpose beyond flaunting wealth.”
“A palace…?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“Did Surelin live there?”
“Of course. The royal family and their retainers all resided within the palace.”
Gideon frowned at him. Surelin’s home was a palace.
“We’ll arrive shortly. Remember, the guards and the layout.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Soon afterwards, Len stopped before a gated entrance to one of the castle-palaces on the street's west side. As he showed their tickets to the guards, Gideon took a careful look around. The front entrance was a miniature version of the gate into the Elysium Hills, with a heavy portcullis and a complement of hussars—two outside on the street, and four more standing inside just beyond the gate.
A frontal attack would have to neutralize these hussars before they can drop the portcullis.
He shook his head. That would be way too easy to screw up.
The hussars accepted their tickets and waved them inside. Gideon lingered for a moment as he scanned the area around the entrance. The walls were no more than twelve feet high, which meant they could potentially be scaled relatively easily, but more interesting was the gutter on the curb out front. It seemed large enough for a person to crawl into.
“Gideon?”
When he looked up, the six hussars and Len were all staring at him.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, trotting up to Len under the irritated glares of the hussars.
Inside the walls, the Capella’s estate was shaped like a long rectangle, with a great deal of snow-covered hedgerows and shrubberies occupying the generous amount of space between the walls and their palace. Blue and white ceramic floor tiles lined the main walkway in a checkerboard pattern that led up to the front door of the palace, with smaller pathways splitting off into the hedgerows at random intervals.
The palace itself was every bit a castle in miniature. A low wall separated the front door from the rest of the grounds, with two small corner turrets visible from their location by the front gate. Four more hussars armed with bows stood atop the palace's roof, and Gideon noticed they were all staring straight at him.
As they walked towards the castle-palace, Gideon and Len passed over the lid of an iron sewer manhole, cut straight out of the floor tiles.
Sewers….
If they could find an access point from somewhere outside the walls, the sewers could be an ideal approach. At the very least it could get them past the front gate, though the possibility of a sewer patrol couldn’t be discounted.
The walkway snaked around the walls of the castle-palace, and as they rounded the far corner Gideon caught sight of an open-air stage, with many rows of stone benches set before it. A large assortment of well-dressed people occupied the benches—Losoans mostly, but a few Kenanites and Easterners seemed to be in attendance as well. The play was apparently popular with all of Loso’s nobility.
The crowd chattered quietly as Len led Gideon to one of the unoccupied benches in the back row. After they sat down, a small column of hussars appeared from the walkway behind them, marching between the benches towards the stage.
At the column’s rear, a gangly dark skinned teenager with short and curly brown hair was being pulled along by the hussars via a chain wrapped around his wrists. He wore a nobleman’s purple gambeson, with fine white leggings. His feet were wrapped in simple cloth footwraps, which were clearly not warm enough for the weather.
Len tapped Gideon on the shoulder as the teen passed them.
“Edwin,” he whispered.
Gideon nodded. Edwin’s resemblance to Surelin was immediately obvious. He was a fairly tall and handsome boy, with high, defined cheekbones and a square jaw. Good looks seemed to run in their family.
As the hussars dragged Edwin on stage, Gideon saw an enraged scowl flash across his face before he disappeared behind the curtain.
“He’s done ten performances so far,” Len whispered. “We’ve had agents present at each one.”
“Have they harmed him at all?” Gideon whispered back.
Len nodded slowly. “We’ve seen bruises around his neck, and his eye was blackened.”
Before Gideon could respond, something loud clumped to the ground behind them. Startled, they both turned to look.
Two hussars had set an ornate oakwood loveseat with pearl white cushions on the tile a few feet behind them. The hussars stood out of the way, and a bald, gaunt Losoan man with angry, beady eyes settled into the loveseat, followed closely by an overweight Losoan woman with a wimple covering her hair. The man wore a thick green tunic with gold embroidery and black breeches, the woman a fine white gown with many furs wrapped around her neck and arms.
“Oh, I love this so!" the woman tittered. "I do wish you would allow me to put the play on again. Just once more. You know how much it pleases me."
“As always, your weak character is a loathsome grating upon my ears,” the man sneered. “My decision is final.”
He turned a baleful look upon Gideon and Len, who’d been watching them. Len looked away calmly, but Gideon gave the man a blank stare. The man’s expression darkened as they held eye contact. After a few moments, Len delivered a painful pinch to Gideon’s leg, and he finally looked away.
“Oh, I do wish it,” the woman mumbled.
Suddenly, a black haired Losoan man in a minstrel’s uniform popped out onto the stage from behind the curtain. The crowd fell silent as he took a few steps forward, and bowed. His voice was a deep, smooth baritone.
“Good evening, noble ladies and gentlemen of Loso. Today we present to you the final performance of The End of the Eternal Kingdom, hosted by our beloved patron, the scion of house Capella, his excellency, Ennio Capella!”
The minstrel bowed in Gideon’s direction. The crowd turned towards him and began to clap politely. He was utterly baffled at first, but then heard the man behind him rise to his feet. When Gideon turned to look, the man—Ennio Capella, apparently—scanned the crowd with his chin lifted, accepting their polite adulation with mild disdain. He sat down again before the crowd's clapping ended.
“The story shall now begin, without further ado,” the minstrel said. He kowtowed gracefully to the audience, then disappeared behind the curtain.
Moments later, the curtain pulled back, revealing a painted backdrop. It was a room inside a castle, with an open window showing a nighttime view of the full moon and stars. A prop fireplace, with fake flames made of paper, was set against the wall. Before it, at an angle where the crowd could easily see him, Edwin sat in a large armchair, peering at the flames.
“Honorable manhood,” he began. “For whom have you forsaken me? That you should abandon me at the hour of greatest need. As the hungry people wail bitterly at the mere remembrance of sustenance. As my noble mother sinks into the depths of black depression, must I accept your absence?”
“What sorry fate have I been granted, when my future afore now was rose-colored. For whose unseen destiny has fate turned her cheek to me? They say she is fickle, but I say she is monstrous.”
He stood up, and scanned the crowd. His gaze passed over Len, then shot back to him, and Gideon watched as Edwin's eyes widened with shock.
“T-to which of these men?” he stammered, then regained his composure. “To which of these women has my birthright been given? To what unseen purpose?”
His gaze passed over Len once again, then settled on Gideon.
“Perhaps she smiles upon the wicked simply to spite the just. Perhaps still, all the purposes we knew her for were mere affectation, and she serves truly the purposes of madness.”
“For madness is all that is left in this kingdom.”
He whirled away from the audience, and stared at the painted window with his arms locked behind his back. The curtain closed slowly on him.