Fella clasped her hands in front of her body. Hundreds of people stood in an arc around the Academy’s entrance. The guards did not even bother closing the iron-wrought gates, they quickly stepped away from the scene when the crowd advanced to the gardens, looking for hiding under some azure pines.

‘Hear, hear!’ bellowed Kazrin, one of the guys with whom Nael hang out the most. The students shouted back as loud as they could manage, ‘Hear, hear!’

Heads appeared in some of the nearest windows of the Academy’s sprawling building. Those few lingering students staying at the park at the time the group advanced through the gates came closer to the mass, reluctant.

Fella felt suffocating among the shoulders pressing to her sides from all directions. Nael stood next to her, straight, his gaze fixed on Kazrin who stood on the steps in front of the entrance, using it as a podium. Silver grey skies gathered above the city; the first drops of rain already splattered across the gravel pathways. Fella looked up, squinting as rain fell onto her brow.

‘Be not afraid there, good folks!’ Kazrin shouted and waved to the crowd beyond the gates. ‘Come closer, come closer! Injustice must be spoken of! You must hear it!’

‘Hear, hear!’ bellowed the students obediently. Many of the pupils residing inside the Academy now gathered in the entrance hall behind Kazrin’s back. Fella was glancing at the far side of the building close to the cliff. There was no chance she could slip inside by the young man shouting at the wide-open oaken doors, but there was another entrance to the building further down the lane.

‘Two painful weeks has dragged away since our tradition, held dearly in many a heart, settler and native alike, was mocked! Two indignant weeks has passed since the son of our beloved King Bryne pronounced himself King of Amrith!’

Kazrin was a real showman. Even Fella felt a wincing sensation invoked by the boy’s words, a feeling of agitation quivering in her bones. But she did not like any of this, not one bit. Bethlorn has always been like a cousin to her. She did not wish to make him dirty like that.

The audience mumbled in agreement; some of the students roared inarticulately.

‘Tell me this, my wise brethren, tell me this, my sensible sisters: what made the Council of Amrith accept such travesty of the Mainland? Why did they abandon the tenets that had been laid by our benign mothers, our prudent fathers? Why did they abandon the tenets you had laid after the Landfall?! Folk of Amrith, hear my question!’

‘Hear, hear!’ rumbled the mantra, and this time way too many voices joined to the chorus of the students. Fella quivered; hair stood on end on her neck. Nael watched in silence, motionless as a statue, not bothered by the rain trickling down on his temples and cheeks.

‘For they did! They did, indeed. And to what end? Amrith dared defy the Gods and their so-called will. No Royal family reigned here, no Nobleborn growing fat on the miseries of an Empire!’

Fella glanced about, cautious. Mentioning the Gods with a tone like that would mean no good, and that hint at Andoriel … and yet, all faces, not only of the students but the civilians of the city too, were nodding, some vividly mumbling to their neighbours.

‘We have been cheated, my friends. All the representatives agreed to call Bryne King of Amrith, unanimously. Both the Circle of Elders, both the Council of Amrith. And yet now, grasping at a vacuous assumption, according to which one’s son shares the same values just because they share the same blood of their predecessors, Amrith is no longer pure. Bethlorn stained our beloved lands with his own two hands when he put the crown on his head, while the body of his very own father was not even cold!’

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Thunderous roar rolled through the gardens of the Academy. Cold shook Fella’s body. This was not a group anymore but a mob, a rabble. Fists raised, faces distorted into violent masks, the mob roused their bloodthirst with Kazrin’s every word.

‘But it’s fine!’ Kazrin shouted, arms up, mollifying the crowd within moments. ‘It is fine, my brethren. These are only rhetorical questions, after all. We all know the whys. We all know the reasons. Have you not seen enough Roses in the city already?’

Low, rabid grumble permeated the air.

‘Yes! Andoriel’s sickening hands reached us once again! There is no escape from that behemoth. It sends its daughters across the Kingdoms, clad in beauty and grace, whispering words so sweet, ah, oh-so tempting. But do not let them deceive you, good folks, for it is but to conceal the true nature of their poisonous schemes, their petty games!’

Fella frowned absent-mindedly when she realised Kazrin was talking about Medh.

‘But fear not these times! The power resides in our hands. Our hands, brothers and sisters, not theirs! It was us who gave the Crown, thus it is us who give power! It is us who wields the will of the Gods! It is you whose will is to be pronounced! IT IS YOU WHO ARE GODS!’

‘HEAR, HEAR!’

Fella pressed to Nael when the mob’s roar rumbled from all directions, touching the boy’s arm. Her brother turned to her, surprise on his face, then he smiled. Without any mockery. For once, that smile seemed genuine, and Fella found that oddly comforting.

‘Today is the day. We have been anticipating the time to act, and as fate would have it, today is the day our voice be heard at the Palace. They will learn not to dismiss the voice of the small folk!’

Much of the mob seemed eager to leave for the Palace at that very moment. Kazrin seemed distracted for a second, looking at the road running from the Old Town, then he turned back.

‘But for us to be authentic, we need to appoint a brave soul to follow the steps of Bryne.’

The mob quieted. Fella tried to crane her neck to see what Kazrin saw. Air left her lungs when she spotted a group of Crownguard advancing to the Academy.

Nael gently touched her shoulders and leant in.

‘Perhaps this is the time you go and do what you need to,’ he whispered, and Fella nodded willingly.

She elbowed her way out of the mob and breathed deep when she finally could move freely under the everbeech nearby. She took only a moment to collect herself, dabbing her wet face, then she proceeded to seek out the entrance at the Eastern part of the building. The people did not bother with the rain at all, even though it intensified greatly.

Kazrin’s words followed her like shadows.

‘… and who, I ask, was behind the initiative to aid our brethren from the Islets when everyone branded them rebel scum and broke into their houses, raided their homes? Who spent all the time there is to give comfort to the families who’ve lost their loved ones in the war Bethlorn foolishly enforces on us? The one, whose mother can already be a powerful ally for our demands, since she, too, challenges the putative authority of Andoriel here in the Castle! Folk of Amrith, our goals could never be more secure than with Nael Morbane in our ranks!’

Fella recoiled in disbelief, daunted by what she heard. She slowly turned in the showering rain, hearing only the thunderous frenzy and applause of the mob only vaguely. Her gaze was fixed on her brother, ascending the steps of the Academy, stopping at halfway to Kazrin, turning to the crowd praising him.

Fella quickly turned and fled. Thoughts born dead in her mind. The clamour behind soon congealed into one comprehensible word, lumbering as the heart-beat of this whole comedy:

‘Hail! Hail! Hail!’

Distraction, damn it! All of that had been long planned.