Jin threw open the front doors. “Rue!”

She was finishing up the last of her morning blood soup. “I’m right here,” she said mildly. “No need to yell.”

Then she saw the color of his face, saw the color of the letter he was holding. Cream, with a red wax seal so big it seemed a bloodstain on the letter. It had already been torn open.

“It’s from the Emperor,” said Jin, voice tight. “Sent out to all noble families. He says passage to the Lower City will be blocked for the next few weeks. They’re conducting a special operation.”

“A special—” When was the last time he’d said such a thing?

She remembered blood soaking through the bottom of a sack.

She was on her feet, soup forgotten. “When?!”

“Doesn’t say.”

He was striding past, heading for the courtyard.

“Where are you—”

“Getting my spear,” snapped Jin. “I have a feeling I’ll need it.”

***

They rushed down to the Middle Wall and found the entrances walled off by steel plate. Brown-smocked workers were still hammering in the last of the nails, putting the finishing touches on arrays inscribed there with rods of chalk. Around huddled a mass of Imperial Guard.

“What is the meaning of this?!” snarled Jin, marching up to them. The nearest guardsmen flinched at the sight of him.

“S-sir!” said one, hastening up a salute. Half of them did the same. The other half looked to one another nervously.

“Sir,” another piped up. “A special operation is underway. Please stay clear of the area.”

Jin had publicly, explosively, quit the Guard—the break was so bad Chen Qin reportedly gave a speech ripping into him once he’d gone. They shouldn’t really be acknowledging him at all, much less saluting him.

“Who ordered this? Chen Qin?”

The first guardsman looked to him, to the rest of them, then to him again, swallowing as he spoke. “Yes, sir—that is, citizen Yang. This matter does not, uh, concern you. If you would—”

“What does he plan to do? Put down the protests?”

He took a step closer and the guards stumbled back. “Answer me!”

“Down, Yang.”

A gray-cloaked, gray-masked strode up to them, his Nascent Aura flared with muddy qi. A massive off-white sword, chipped down the edge like teeth, was strapped to his back. His cloak bore the Emperor’s markings. This was a man of the Imperial Family’s personal guard.

By his qi, a Qin man—one of the Duke’s own. Ruyi could guess who he was here to protect.

“Young Master Qin is here to clear out unruly insurgents,” said the masked man. “It is as Guardsman Luo says. This is none of your concern, citizen.”

“Tch!” Jin turned to the Guards. “This is madness. Surely you must see this. It’s like the Cult all over again—Chen means to make war on his own men!”

An uncomfortable silence.

“You must see this.” His voice was getting desperate. “We can’t allow this!”

“That’s enough.” The masked man’s hand rested casually on the hilt of his sword. “If you insist on causing a disturbance, I shall be forced to remove you.”

“Let me through.” Jin said this to the Guard, as though the masked man had said nothing; he didn’t spare a second glance at the man. “Please.”

A pause. Then the first guardsman found his voice. “We are not, uh, allowed to do that. Kindly step away, citizen.” He seemed nearly apologetic when he said it. But he still said it.

For a second Ruyi really thought Jin was going to fight them then and there. His hand went for the spear—

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Jin.” She called.

He froze. He turned, eyes wide. In that second he seemed to remember where he was. All the tension drained from him, and he came back to her.

“There’s another way, remember?” she whispered.

***

They wound their way around the outer walls, squeezed through the moss-eaten crack, then sprinted up to the main streets. They let their ears guide them. At the far end of the Lower City they heard two sounds warring in the background—to one side the lapping of the ocean, the other a low scream of voices, of crashes, of steel on steel. Soon it was all you could hear, rattling off the narrow alleyways, turning the streets into wind tunnels of horrible sound, sound that jarred the heart. They drew nearer.

When they burst out onto the main street, they saw the crowd pressed up against the Middle Wall, crashing up against it, then washing back, then crashing again, an angry sea breaking against a sheer cliff. They got closer and she saw it wasn’t the Middle Wall they were pressed up against. There was a bank of Imperial Guard all armed with square steel shields, their surfaces sizzling with electricity. Linked together they formed an arc of a wall.

A wall slowly crumbling. Qi of all colors rained down on it—not very strong qi, most just Founation, but there was such an outpouring the wall began to flex. Stones flew through the air, fruit cores, hunks of scrap metal. A guard got up on an unseen platform, screaming red-faced at the crowd. He only marked himself out as a target. He was swept away in a tide of steel and rock and debris.

Jin got out his spear and ran for the melee. But before he could get very far, a vast, reverberating voice rose up, drowning out all others, a tidal wave of sound which washed out all those lesser noises, set the crowd to cringing.

“CEASE!”

It came from the gate in the wall, which was thrown open. Silver-cloaked Guard poured through—the Emperor’s personal force, their Nascent auras blasting the crowd. Even from here Ruyi could feel the heat of them on her face, her arms, and the crowd recoiled as one like a huge, frightened beast.

The final man to step through was the man who’d spoken. Chen Qin. A turquoise gem sat at the hollow of his throat. Its silver etchings flashing bright as he opened his mouth once more.

“The Emperor has seen enough!” he snarled. “I shall say this only once. Stand down!”

A man in red sprung to the fore even as his fellow protesters were still reeling. He had a flash of red about his head. Not a man, Ruyi realized—tall and wiry, but a boy, a teenager. It was Tai Kong, the fresh-faced leader of the Red Scarf Knights. He leveled his sword at Qin.

“I refuse!” he shouted, and though his voice was a tenth, a hundredth of Chen’s, it seemed no less loud, no less fierce in the yawning silence. “We are done kneeling to the likes of you! Too long have we taken abuse at the hands of the Emperor, swallowed his taxes, rationed our meats as he held Banquets—no longer! Today is a new day, Chen Qin. Today you and your kind shall learn that the common man is not to be trifled with!”

He said it with such ferocity it was an electric thing, taking to the air. She could see it start to touch the crowd, spreading as heads lifted, breaths caught, rippling out. Their confidence, briefly broken, was surging once more. Chen gaped at him.

“If you think you frighten us, think again! We are not the commoners you knew. We are powerful, and we are many—tens and tens of us for every one of you. You think we don’t see it? You fear us, Chen Qin, because you know—”

“Kill him,” said Chen.

Tai blinked. “Uh—”

In the space of that blink a silver-cloaked man crossed the distance between Chen and him.

Tai stared. Maybe it was too fast for him; maybe he was so high on his speech he hadn’t realized just what was happening. Or maybe he knew he couldn’t stop it if he did. Or maybe he didn’t even see the sword as it flashed up. Whatever the case he stood still, mouth half-open, as a length of steel no more than two fingers’ widths neatly separated his pretty head from his shoulders. His expression was frozen on his face. It drooped as the head fell, bouncing, rolling to a halt. The eyes sagged shut. The corpse bent the knee, gushing streams of blood.

A heartbeat. Then many things happened at once.

“No!” A clump of warriors, all red-scarved, charged the swordsman. The crowd dissolved into a violent sea, some shoving to get at the front, most shoving to get away; panic and rage choked the street. No one could make themselves heard.

Then Chen made a fist.

The shield wall fell. Swordpoints glistened in their stead.

“No!” screamed Jin.

They crushed through the pack in V formation. If the crowd was like the body of some huge beast the Guard were a spearpoint, driving through the flesh, finding blood wherever it moved, deeper and deeper. More poured in through the gates.

“I was inclined to be lenient,” said Chen. His sigh, blown up by qi, was deafening, drowning out the panic. “Perhaps spare those who surrendered. But the boy is right. Every last one of you is a traitor. It is my duty to see justice done. Ready?”

For a moment Ruyi wasn’t sure who he was asking. Then she looked up and saw the horde of archers bristling up and down the curve of the wall, bows knocked.

“NO!” she cried.

At the same time, “Fire!” A vicious joy lit up Chen’s face as he said it.

They weren’t even aiming. They didn’t need to. The crowd was so panicked they got in their own way; the side alleys were clogged with bodies. They could only watch, and cringe, and scream.

Fire swept the air—Jin trying to ward off the flight. An umbrella in a hurricane. She tried calling out to him—

The surge of the crowd knocked Ruyi over, bore her sprawling; she felt boots, feet, trampling her. Growling, she shoved herself to her feet and fought her way back. Absent hands clawed at her face. Flapping elbows, slamming torsos, she tried leaping but the air was crowded with folk surging for the roofs; she got tangled up with another girl, found herself rolling back into the main street.

Wildly she tracked the running of the crowd. They were spilling into buildings where they could, but most could only seek out the side streets—her wards! Chrysanthemum street was just a street down!

“There is no hiding from justice,” came Chen’s silky voice, echoing between the alleys.

Above there was a whirring and great creaking, and long arms of darkness fell across the alleys as high above, the cannons atop the skyscrapers came to life.