Queen Merwenna shuddered as the castle shook from yet another impact. "How?!" she shouted. "Who could possibly be capable of launching all these fucking steamcars at us with this degree of accuracy?"
Her councilors had been assembled in the War Planning Chamber for discussing the rebellion that had somehow been fomented over the past week, a meeting she'd assembled once she'd received the news that the blasphemers' numbers had grown to a critical size. This new threat, the Order of Opened Eyes, had managed to spread to well over half the city with impossible speed, but that was far from the worst of it.
She clenched her teeth. Those fucking idiots! How dare they lie to me about a matter of such import!
On that same night after the wave had come, reports had arrived indicating the Isemeine was attempting to steal away from the city in her steamcar along with a bearded giant of a man. They'd somehow made it past the entirety of the Royal Guard, who had reported that they'd been incapable of arresting her before she'd departed the city.
In actuality, however, they'd fucking shot the fourth princess and killed her! Queen Merwenna pressed her hands to her temples. What a fucking disaster. To think my own daughter might be capable of toppling the Crown—and not even of her own will!
Isemeine's Justice, as the Order of Opened Eyes was calling the document, contained exactly three demands: the total removal of the Churches of Light and Dawn from the city, the absolute end of the monarchy, and the deaths of all nobles who'd supported what they called "The Great Lie".
A massive boom sounded out again.
"We know not, Your Majesty," said Balan, the only mage who had remained inside when the rest had been mustered in defense of the Kingdom. "A long vision spell has only now revealed to us the cars are being alternately thrown by a man and a woman standing atop a—"
"They're throwing the fucking things at us?" bellowed one of the councilors.
"It appears that way," Balan acknowledged. "And… The man bears resemblance to the same man responsible for the unfortunate demise of Her Highness Isemeine."
I'd thought restoring her to the line of succession posthumously would placate them, but they seem far more determined than I'd imagined. Queen Merwenna chewed at the tip of her thumbnail. This is all the fault of those idiot guards. They couldn't keep a single fucking secret? Why not at least claim she'd been murdered by that Carl man?
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"Your Majesty," Balan began again, drawing her from her thoughts, "we must take action swiftly, or we'll have no actions available for us to—"
A blood-covered sword emerged from his neck, and he gurgled.
"MY EYES ARE OPEN!" cried one of the youngest councilors, whose name she couldn't place and whom she'd never seen before, "I MUST ACT!" He pulled his sword from the neck of the oldest, most powerful mage in the castle in time to be run through by the men to either side of him.
Queen Merwenna stared. They've even managed to infiltrate the castle? But—
The door banged open.
"Percevale?" she exclaimed as she caught sight of the blood-drenched, mustached man at the head of a horde that filled the hallway.
"Today, I am the first watcher and nothing more," he said as his head turned back and forth, not displaying even a shred of the deference he'd shown on previous occasions when he'd been honored for his service to the Kingdom. "I am the first, but we are many. What one eye sees, so can every eye."
"I see, so I must act," chanted the people crowding the hallway in unison.
"Percevale, surely—"
"I am not Percevale," said Percevale with a shake of his head. He extended his finger and pointed around the room. "You will all be judged, not by me alone, but by all. We will see with our eyes the crimes you have committed."
"I see, so I must act," said the lunatics once more.
Queen Merwenna stood up, knocking her chair over with the abrupt motion. "Crimes?" she shouted. "You dare speak to me regarding crimes? You, who rebel against the Crown itself?!" She conjured a flame in her hand. He's whipped them into a type of madness. If I cut off the head of this rebellion, the rest will fall in line.
The most significant divide in Charus Kingdom between the nobles and commoners wasn't money, it was their education in magic. The nobility received tutoring in the arcane from a young age, and all were proficient to at least some small degree. Some, like the Queen, were quite a lot more proficient.
She hurled the roiling ball of fire forward, but Percevale had already dived backwards out of the room, his cohorts scrambling to the sides, and her conflagration landed harmlessly on stone where the magic-powered flames continued to burn. How vexing that I'm unable to contact our Heroes when we're most in need of their might! Normannus has off and gotten himself slain by the Demon Queen herself? How were they not capable of holding that blasted dwarf city against a single devil even with the aid of a Hero?! Arlene is indisposed on her so-called 'quest', G—
"You may think to kill me, but eyes cannot be closed once they have been opened!" Percevale called around the corner.
"Don't fucking laze about," she snapped to her councilors, gesturing to the open doorway. "Assist me! The Royal Guard will no doubt be here soon!"
The assorted men and women in the room with her, most of whom had never been in battle or even true combat, cringed back.
"Fucking idiots, the lot of you," she said with a grimace, already conjuring a more powerful burst of fire as she moved slowly towards the doorway.
This was her castle.
Her Kingdom.
She w