Despite his earlier impatience, Tazar climbed to the cellar door and put his ear against it. According to Pratik, they had entered under the kitchens off the throne room where banquets were prepared for grand celebrations, and where apparently a few hungry Dresh’ri occasionally snuck up to pilfer food.
As he listened, he fingered the whistle around his neck, hoping he would get to use it to rally his other splinters. For now, all sounded quiet in the neighboring kitchens. He was about to turn with final instructions when a sharp voice cut through to him.
“Long live the imperium!”
His heart clenched.
Aalia.
He grabbed the hilt of his sword and shoved the door open. “With me!” he ordered, and rushed headlong into the long hall of a kitchen. A fire still roared in a hearth, bubbling a pot of stew. The space was a wreckage of pots and pans. A few scullery maids and kitchen boys hid in corners, waiting for the fighting to end, indifferent to who sat on the throne, only that they lived.
Tazar had once been one of those boys.
No longer.
He did care who sat on the throne. He cared deeply.
He hurried his forces down a pinched tunnel that led toward the throne room. He didn’t need a map any longer. The clash and screams drew him forward. He reached the end and drew the others to stop behind him. Pratik squeezed up next to him.
The tunnel exited at a shadowy back corner of the throne room. No grand entrance was needed for menial servitors or drudges. Out in the cavernous hall, Tazar watched two forces crash into one another. The din was deafening, echoing across the space. In that moment, several despairing realizations struck him.
—He and the Fist were vastly outnumbered.
—He could never reach Aalia in time.
—There was no evidence that any of the other Shayn’ra splinters had made it this far.
And his last realization was the grimmest.
—We cannot prevail.
As if highlighting this assessment, a huge explosion lit the rosette window behind the thrones, so thunderous that it cracked the stained glass, fracturing the Illuminated Rose. The fighting paused at the strength of the blast.
Behind the window, the silhouette of a large ship fell across the glass. Its fiery prow swung and shattered the rest of the window, raining glass across the dais below. Flames raged through the opening, roaring like a dragon into the throne room.
Tazar smiled, hope surging.
Those flames were the emerald of naphlaneum. He flashed to another ship brought down by such fire, off in Qazen, a battle barge smashing down before the gates of the Augury’s villa.
“Llyra’s here,” he whispered into the chaos—and watched it get worse.
Men and women poured in from all sides, shedding byor-ga robes or wiping ash from faces. More explosions echoed from outside. Another spear flamed the skies, trailing naphlaneum flames.
Of course, Llyra would not have set up camp out in Kysalimri, not when the clever guildmaster of thieves could build her low army right here in the palace.
Tazar lifted his whistle and blew with all the strength of his lungs and heart—less to draw his allies and more to alert someone that he was here.
He rushed with the others into the fray.
Aalia, I’m coming for you.
* * *
PRESSED AGAINST THE tunnel wall, Pratik let Tazar’s Shayn’ra sweep past him. With his cheek tight to the wall, he spotted Tazar’s second-in-command rush out of an arcade on the far side. Althea had responded to Tazar’s signal, drawing her men with her.
Elsewhere and around, Llyra’s forces continued to flow into the throne room, but their numbers were already dwindling. Like Tazar, she must have been caught off guard by the unexpected attack. It must have taken her until now to organize her forces and get her weaponry into position.
The battle remained far from over.
