I saw but I did not comprehend. My eyes had opened at some point, but no light hit them. My lungs contracted and expanded, but I couldn’t feel air passing through them. I couldn’t feel my fingers, or any of my limbs. I couldn’t feel if they were moving. I waited for the discomfort to fade, shutting my eyes despite the futility. I didn’t feel the beating of my heart, nor the anxiety or adrenaline I’d felt before I’d come here, simply an all-enveloping calm detachment.

Between the physical world and Penelope’s memory, I drifted for what felt like infinity and no time at all.

Then my senses fluttered to life, as if emerging from sleep. My lungs pulled in a breath stained with frozen stone, acrid sulfur, silt and ash, hints of burnt and preserved flesh. I heard distant sounds of cannons, shouting, panicked screams— not close, luckily— and barked orders. My mouth tasted distinctly of ash, my hands grasped at cold air. My senses slowly faded the noises into the background. Anxiety and distant nausea sparked back to life, slowly bubbling up my throat.

They died when my eyes fluttered open to a sky of cracked glass. Like the great mosaics of the cathedrals, spreading from horizon to horizon, only broken by the staccato reach of Tisali’s spires, only slightly fogged by the smoke and ash choking the air, contrasted against the errant garnet sparks of floating Fireflos— the sky looked as if it were composed of massive panels of sapphire-purple stained glass affixed in perfect synchrony, reaching out from its centerpiece: a brilliant, piercing star.

My guiding star. The sight calmed me some, and any lingering anxiety was crushed beneath the sharp focus of training.

Check your time, ready yourself.

Habit had my hand fishing for my pocket watch, while another withdrew both my wand and false Philosopher’s stone focuses from my sleeve. My head spun on a swivel, scanning the surroundings. Maroon Fireflos sparks trailed through the air, and I pulled on a cloth mask. Immediately, I was aware that this would be nothing like Dmitri’s wake; for one, I didn’t find myself buried with dirt in my eyes— rather, I stood in the center of an enormous bridge.

Massive, pale, almost seamless stone bricks made up the bridge, expanding over fifty feet on either side of me and far into the distance ahead of me. The edge terminated at out-of-place wooden railings, which were folded down and stained with half-melting snow. A distance beyond the ledge, separated by a sheer drop, sat large, weathered towers that ran along the entire length of the bridge, tightly packed as to form ramparts. Embrasures-turned-windows were placed at regular intervals on both sides, dark and inactive.

In all honesty, it didn’t look that much different than it did today. The only things that had really changed was the replacement of the transforming wooden railings following the end of the war. Though, that wasn’t much of a surprise, as the bridge had been standing since the Empire’s inception.

My gaze flickered to movement in the corner of my eye.

Pale silhouettes wreathed in gray and black stood hunched over corpses near the ledges, features slowly sharpening the longer I stared. They had paused, blurry hands halfway through the corpse’s pockets, tensed to run if needed. I did my best to ignore them, and they soon resumed scavenging when I looked away.

I scanned the bridge once more, taking note of the Shades, as well as the sporadic wreckages of carriages and wagons, some smoldering, others still alight and spilling forth black smoke. My eyes paused at the arrow slits once more. I couldn’t see into them, but seeing as I hadn’t immediately been shot, I felt easier about temporarily ruling that out. Charred corpses, both uniformed and in civilians clothing, lay in the slick snow. I tore my gaze away, taking a deep breath through my mouth.

You knew there’d be bodies.

I glanced at my pocket watch, whose minute hand had barely begun to move. I began to move, keeping to a brisk pace as I crossed the bridge towards the palace. While prudence would call for stealth in a situation like this, there was little need— most of the Silver Flower Company had been documented as surrounding the palace, and the presence of Shades to replace scavengers made me doubt that there were any lingering soldiers.

Even so, I kept a wary eye out for danger, and both my focuses in my hand.

Tisali rose on either side of me like a spiked, black-iron fence. The towers blended together, the gray stone that made up a majority of the city having dulled and stained and crumbled with time and smog and the endless snow. Their slit windows stared down at me, murky and stained, housing a dark I couldn’t see through. Inherently, I knew that the bridge was practically deserted, that the only people here were myself and the Shades, but it didn’t stop my heart from skipping a beat whenever something shifted within the windows.

Eventually, biting the inside of my cheek, I casted a sensory-divination spell that allowed me to examine the nature of magical phenomena. While it wouldn’t let me to see into the dark windows— if anyone decided to throw magic at me or left magical tripwires lying around, I’d spot it before it had a chance to hurt me. The bridge, at least, seemed devoid of wards or traps.

When I spun back to continue walking, I paused.

In the distance, where the palace loomed, I watched as strands of ether were pooling near the top, seemingly sucked in like water in a whirlpool. That, paired with the report that traced the Enchantment pulse to the center of the palace, seemed as good as any indicator that it was my destination.

I let out a steadying breath before continuing.

Farther down the bridge, I happened upon another ruined wagon with Shades crowding it. They picked through the rumble, uncaring for the cinders, but stopped and stared as I got closer. I eyed them warily before continuing, giving the smoldering carriage a wide berth.

As I walked, I silently went over my mental list of expectations once more.

While I’d still been in my carriage, I’d dug through a quick primer on the coup— and while there wasn’t a succinct way for me to explain it other than general discontent leading to an eventual coup, I had entered on the assumption that I’d encounter Silver Flower Company members, on the basis that Penelope had been one of their members. I’d also come to learn that the siege on the palace itself hadn’t been particularly bloody— despite the coup’s colloquial title— and while the fight leading to the palace had been a bloody affair, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. No, what made this coup the bloodiest in recent history had been the concentrated wave of Enchantment magic that had gone off near the end.

Relatively speaking, from my surroundings, I could surmise that I’d arrived at precisely the point following the assault to the palace, and the actual end of the siege itself, meaning I was relatively safe as I walked. The Silver Flower Company hadn’t gone out of their way to threaten civilians— even going so far as to collaborate with them to make sure no one but the soldiers they were fighting got hurt.

That, as well as the fact that they hadn’t released Fireflos into the city had made their transition to power relatively simple and bloodless— if you ignored the catastrophe that had shortly followed it. Though, not many people attributed that incident to them.

As I walked, I swiped a gloved finger through what I was relatively certain was silt, and dragged a thin line across my left cheek— the Company’s mark.

At the end of the bridge was the wall and the gate— though said gate was currently a crumpled scrap, torn traces of a fading Abjuration spell clinging to its metal. Milling about near the wall were people— not the gray, shadowed silhouettes that the Shades were at the edge of the dream— loosely making camp near where the gate had fell. As I got closer, I tucked my focuses away.

Camp might be a generous assessment…

The people— citizens turned rebels, from the deliberate gray streak across their cheek— were mainly milling about, looking mostly aimless. Many of them bore solemn expressions, though a couple looked smug— talking to each other about how many they had gotten— as if war was something to be proud of. Others had decided to stand guard beside the destroyed gate, but none of them looked particularly attentive. A couple others had begun setting up open-air tents to set the injured in. A majority of the injured seemed to be already tended to, with a couple others walking between each to check on them. Some others had begun stacking bodies— soldiers were set into one pile, while rebels were set into another. Some tensed as I approached, but relaxed when they saw the stripe of gray on my cheek.

“Heya!” a man called out when I got within earshot, raising his hand. He was one of the few who looked excited. My eyes flickered to his sheathed blade, still stained red. “’m ‘fraid you missed all the action!”

“Is that so?” I stifled my discomfort, looking towards the gate. “Has the Emperor been captured yet?”

The man barked out a laugh. “If tha’ bastard’s in chains— then I’ve not heard of it.”

“I see.” I continued walking past the man, towards the palace.

After a heartbeat, the man called out. “If yer thinkin’ of goin’ in don’t bother.”

I paused, turning. “Why not?”

“We’s supposed to stay out here,” he supplied. “Captain’s orders, or somethin’.”

“But surely more hands on the inside would be helpful for whatever they’re trying to accomplish?”

“Ey.” He shrugged. “Fuck if I know— thata captains of ours don’t like sharin’ whats on her mind.”

“Well,” I sighed, crossing my arms. “That’s a shame. I had hoped that I wasn’t too late.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Count yerself lucky, lil lady—“ he gestured towards a bandage on his arm “— the skirmish to get here was mighty brutal…”

“I can handle myself.”

A dubious expression crossed his face, but he didn’t comment any further, and we settled into silence. I folded my arms, running my gaze along the walls surrounding the palace. The atmospheric ether gathering at the top was growing.

How am I going to get past those guards?

Unlike Dmitri’s case, I couldn’t just shift the setting of the dream without compromising the integrity of the memory, and I couldn’t dispel all the Shades in the area— even if this was a dream I’d still run out of Shimmer. I also wasn’t particularly privy to incapacitating everyone in the area.

What if you only had to incapacitate the two standing by the gate? Or cause a commotion to draw their attention and run in?

I didn’t enjoy the idea of either of those ideas— and any commotion I could make would probably be far too ether intensive. I checked my pocket watch again. It had moved to three. Simply walking here had already drained a quarter of the ether I had— anything ether related would have to be kept to a minimum.

I let out a long sigh, arms crossed. If you don’t find a way in soon, you’re probably going to miss the actual event you’re here for.

“Say…” the man beside me piped up, his eyes narrowing. “… yer not related to the Captain by any chance, ye?”

I kept silent. A part of me suspected who he spoke about, but I refrained from saying anything that could potentially contradict whatever he assumed.

He continued. “I— ‘m sorry yous just look a lot like her, is all, Captain Mariam, that is.”

“No offense taken,” I mildly replied, still watching the gate.

“… So… uhh…”

“My relation to my m— Mariam is none of your concern.” Her name felt foreign on my tongue, and my scowl deepened. The man said something else I tuned out, focusing on the idea that had sprouted at the mention of my mother.

I haven’t exactly been forthright with what or who my family is.

The status that my mother currently held— that of Duchess— was a recent development. The title had been… awarded, let’s say, for my mother and father’s contribution to the Coup. Both of them had served as soldiers for the effort, and— from what I understood, given our high standing, had been both talented and in close proximity to the current Empress.

Regardless, while my mother had neglected to tell me anything relating to the event, and my memory hazy at best— it had been simple to scrounge up an older newspaper covering the event, and piece everything else together from there. Digging through later issues had also revealed that while my mother once been nobility on the lower rung, she’d used the Coup to betray the former Emperor in favor of the current Empress.

Her involvement had become widespread in the last days, with her officially coming into her mother’s title, as well as her open endorsement of the Silver Flower Company— a decision that led to her being branded a traitor to those who still supported the old Emperor.

That is to say that the crest she’d used was popular, and had featured prominently during the Company’s active years.

I pushed off the wall, making my way towards the fallen gate.

At the end of the day, this was still a dream, and while I didn’t physically have my family’s crest on me, it was trivial to reach into my back pocket like I did, and actually end up having one. The silver emblem felt cold beneath my hand, and I schooled my expression into something serious.

The two people guarding the fallen gate looked neither trained nor particularly tough, but both perked up as I approached. I spared neither a glance, privately hoping that if I looked like I knew where I was headed, they’d let me pass.

“H— hey!” One of them suddenly shouted. They quickly moved to block my path, looking uncertain. “You can’t come through here. Captain’s orders…”

I scowled, narrowing my eyes. I flashed my family’s emblem— a circle of thorns encompassing a bird— and dredged annoyance into my voice. “… Mariam has requested my presence within.”

“Wh— what?”

I raised an eyebrow, slipping the emblem away, as I stepped around the guards, who looked conflicted on whether to let me continue. My pace slightly quickened over the remains of the destroyed gate, and I didn’t look back. They didn’t choose to come after me, fortunately.

The courtyard following the gate wasn’t in much better state than I’d seen— more bodies of soldiers, presumably retreating into the palace— the grass had been stained red, mud littered both the stone path and the forgotten corpses, and chunks of stone from the wall had been blown about. The path itself was devoid of living people, and the palace sat at the end of it.

I’d never actually been to the palace in the center of Tisali, and the sight of the building so close nearly floored me. From afar, I’d only ever seen it as a collection of spire-tips, loosely strung together as if they were a bundle of spears. Closer, that description did it improper justice.

It was enormous— pale stone walls bending up and out of view, encompassing the entirety of the horizon. Each stone making up the wall was as large as a carriage, and undoubtedly just as thick. There were no signs of weather or damage on the stones, eerily stark and pristine in the dim light. It was disconcerting, as I knew that this palace had been present since the Empire’s inception. Only once before had I felt so small, standing at the base of the gargantuan gate that led south out of Tisali, which was constructed in a similar manner— both older and greater than anything we could do today. It felt as if the palace, as well as the bridge and Tisali’s gate, were built for giants rather than people.

As I got closer, the sensory-divination spell I still had active allowed me to view the frankly ridiculous number of wards that had once been on everything. Everything wasn’t an exaggeration, I caught scraps stuffed behind pillars, another fifteen in the courtyard alone, and another ten stuffed into each stone forming the archway of the palace.

Fortunately, though, all of them had been forcibly collapsed. What was left over were ribbons of ether and arcane script loosely resembling what they once were. My mother’s work, no doubt.

I took a moment to reach into my bag, checking for the spiky bead of glass that would become a memory marble with the proper ritual. It was still there, and I slipped it into a cloak pocket.

As I stepped past the marble threshold, the ceiling opened up, like the grand halls of a great cathedral. Colorful murals decorated the walls, depicting historic events that I vaguely remembered learning about. Large statues nestled into nooks on either side of the entrance sat silent, probably depicting some great warrior or ruler from history. Grand columns over thrice my height sat on either side of those. I didn’t particularly care— the known reports had said that the pulse of Enchantment had come from the center, and my earlier analysis had saw an abundance of ether gathering near the top, where the Emperor would hold court.

So I picked a direction and began walking, keeping an eye out for any danger.

Eventually, I found the first set of stairs leading up, with more murals, which seemed to slowly depict the events of history in chronological order, which, while interesting, I found myself particularly uninterested. History had never been my strong suit. I hadn’t run into anyone. From time to time, I saw lingering traces of a Transmutation ward, as ripped apart as all the other wards I’d seen so far.

Fifteen minutes later, I’d arrived at another set of stairs. I climbed those, then spent thirty more finding the next set. After I’d found nothing new with the divination spell, I let it drop. The hour hand of my pocket watch was a quarter past seven.

I wandered for some time, slowly getting more and more anxious the higher I went without seeing the source of that unknown spell. Each time I ended up in a hallway that looked vaguely reminiscent to the first one I’d been in, or arrived at a set of stairs that only led down, I got more confused.

The audience chamber is at the top, and is where the ruling emperor holds audience— so why is it so difficult to actually get there?

When I arrived at another statue that I was certain I’d already seen, I wanted to scream. Instead, all that came out was a long, tired sigh. At this point, the dull anxiety I felt from the possibility of running into someone had been replaced by the fear that I’d miss whatever I had to observe.

I turned my head up and down the hallway again, weighing my options. Down the hallway again? Maybe a sixth times the charm?

Mhm, a snide thought deadpanned, yes, you’d have missed something the first five times you walked through it— and only on the sixth pass will you finally catch it…

I sighed.

Have you ever considered, the thought mused, that maybe your sense of direction is shit?

It’s a governmental building! I scowled. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be easy to navigate!

On what grounds?

Oh yes, because whenever court is held, the Empress makes the nobility complete a fucking maze every single time.

Well, after the first it’d—

Hells! Be quiet! I sighed again, exasperated. You’re so not helpful!

It fell silent, and after looking around again— as if the hallway would magically provide me stairs when I looked an eighth time. I checked my pocket watch.

Practically three from twelve. I frowned, glancing around a ninth time for that miraculous staircase. I sighed, the longer this dragged on, the more and more I believed that the Empress did make the nobility complete a maze each time she held court.

It’s not like the maze would change— so really it’d only be annoying the first time around. Unless it does change, but the Transmutation wards would—

“— Transmutation,” I blurted out, blinking.

The thought clicked, so blindingly obvious that I nearly smacked myself. I scowled, letting my anger override the underlying voice that suspected the palace to be warded against it. Quickly, I slipped my wand away, grasping my false philosophers stone tightly in my palm before finding a flat section of wall devoid of embellishments.

My thoughts narrowed, and frost flooded my veins as I touched my focus to the section of the wall. Immediately, and to my growing triumph, steps shot out, unfolding as I willed them to. The stone warped and twisted— almost laughably easily— the column I was beside slowly diminishing into the wall as it turned into stairs leading from the ground to the ceiling. Craning my head to look around the stairs I’d made, I drew more material to run supports, drawing another small line within the wall following the stairs that would act as a handrail.

Don’t want to accidentally fall.

After, I let my ether dissipate, feeling barely winded. My pocket watch had only moved a quarter of the way from nine to ten. After another moment to assess my handy work for sound structural integrity— not that I was an architect or anything, but the action soothed my quickly returning nerves— I began the climb up to the ceiling.

When I’d gotten there, I braced myself against the wall, then reached out to the ceiling, silently hoping that this both worked and didn’t collapse something atop of me. Another flicker of ether and will had the stone melting away, dripping and bending down to join with the stairs I stood. Another hallway peeked through the initial opening, and after pausing to make sure nothing would begin crumbling, I widened the hole, reinforcing my stairs with the additional material and slowly climbing into the hallway above.

I smiled, unable to help the triumph that warmed my chest. Who cares about mazes when you can reform the walls whenever you’d like?

Though, that triumph quickly gave way to anxiety once more. I’d gone up, seemingly closer towards where I wanted to go, but at the same time I’d wasted so much time figuring that out that a small part of me doubted that I’d get to whatever I needed to look at in time.

It probably didn’t help that I’d arrived in another hallway that looked virtually the same as the one I climbed out of. I sighed again, before repeating the process once more.

Then again, and again, and again.

I lost count after the fifth hallway I made stairs, and partway through I entertained the idea that the palace had some kind of space-distorting ward, but a quick glance behind me showed that all my stairs were still there.

Not to mention a space-distorting ward is difficult on a minor scale, and certainly impossible given a building this size.

The monotony was interrupted when I’d ascended into a hallway that looked different from the others— terribly different.

Great cleaves of stone were missing from the walls and columns, statues had been obliterated, chunks scattered across a bloody floor. Paintings and murals had been destroyed, lying in heaps of scorched wood and canvas. Alongside those were bodies— slain soldiers in unassuming gray armor laid haphazardly across the floor, strewn and broken across chunks of stone and scorch marks. Smoke lingered in the air, punctuated by the metallic scent of blood. Some of them had been bisected. I turned away, nausea bolstering my anxiety.

In the far distance, I heard scraping metal and crashing objects. I let out a slow, steadying breath, and slipped my wand back into my hand.

Focus on what you’re here to do.

I slowly began picking my way through the hallway, gingerly avoiding corpses and growing puddles of blood.

Then, I arrived at a grand set of doors made of stone, one of them sat slightly ajar, and a quick glance inside told me I was exactly where I had to be.