"Phew."
Ett snapped the clasp of the last pouch, undergarments, a few trinkets, coin heavy enough to jingle. Jewelry counted like talismans. An ordinary dress folded on top in case things went sideways.
The sky was bruised black near midnight. The air smelled of cold stone and wax. Tonight, they would arrive.
"System? System."
Where are though, my golden finger? My legendary cheat, come online, I beseech thee.
Silence answered. The crickets, for once, were obscene in their volume.
She let out a humorless laugh. No miraculous System. Not like her ancestors. Not her. Fine.
Right. Where was she?
Oh yes, it was time.
Ett rang the bell. The maids came like shadows with face kept down, eyes glued to their skirts though they were permitted to look up. Servants were efficient but distant; meals arrived on silver, tasteless as carved marble. The wing felt less like a domicile and more like an exile: cold curtains, colder glances. They batched and fussed over her like nurses dressing a porcupine, the old nannies moving with a tired, stubborn fidelity that pricked Ett's pity. Medcare Part A and Part B, she thought, biting back a scowl. Retirement should be a right, not a punishment.
She'd free them, or not. Well, if she weren't discovered, they might keep on living. If she was...well. There was a clean shortcut to the grave for everyone who stayed.
Ett checked the map again. Istandar: the route, the months it would take, ,the masquerade required to hide royal markers of her body. Her brows compressed. Make a scene, she told herself. Create just enough chaos.
Back in her chamber she rattled, paper, cloth, secret drawers. "Tell Xiwen there will be assassins, too." She said to Eru.
"Yes."
A back up plan. If anyone attacked, Guren would take a wound that slowed his blade. A small push in the story's future: a pill to numb pain, a hidden disadvantage no one but the readers knew.
You see if Guren could swing uncompromised, the ending might change. She grimaced at the thought, then shrugged it away. Theatre for tomorrow's consequence.
She unlocked the window on purpose. Let the assassins think doors were soft.
She made the room look robbed without making it caricature. Papers scattered just-so; some crumpled other's splayed like wooden birds. Coins from her secret drawer were fished out and allowed to spill on the royal carpet, a crooked trail to catch the eye. A lamp knocked askew, a few porcelain pieces nudged. Subtle, deliberate. "Something falling or glass breaking can be done without falling or glass breaking," she muttered and grinned a her own dark logic.
"Done."
Ett returned, silent as a leaf. Ett opened the door halfway and followed, moving in a hurried hush to the Emperor's wing. Painting lined the corridor: a procession of rulers faces fixed the air with history's heavy stare. The current ruler's portrait Guren as a nine year old, ept its indifferent, imperious expression. The pain held a power beyond pigment, a small, staring ruler on canvas.
She hurried to the seven portrait at the far end. There they were, the Empreror, Empress, and son, Veridian eyes all, their faces carved from old grief. The boy's hands clutched a toy horse so tight a vein popped in his wrist. The background was unnerving black that, when she stared long enough, coagulated into the suggestion of a skull. The painting didn't just hang; it watched.
Ett dragged a chair, climbed on tiptoe, and tried to reach the horse. Her fingers brushed frame. "Boy, was the painting too tall for me?" she joked to no one. Eru cocked her head. "Help me up. Peck that toy or nudge it with your, uh, claws."
Ett pointed.
"Alright." Eru's voice was flat, obedient.
She pushed. The painting swung to reveal a hollow: a passage, not a wall. A cold breath exhaled from the dark beyond. Ett checked the lever etched into the stone floor, it could seal the other side if needed.
Her stomach rolled. She swallowed bile like old nerves. "It should be here," she whispered toward a red porcelain vase near the door, exactly in the story, an assassin would spring.
Eru settled on her shoulder. "Nod or shake if you want to say anything, okay?" Ett whispered.
Eru nodded.
From a small pouch, Ett took out a powder, fine and pale, the kind you imagine dissolving into silence. "Pour that in the vase when the black-masked man squeezes in," she instructed. "Wait on top. When he slips, throw it. Knock three times on the painting; I'll open."
Nod.
She explained the Hakkan oil carefully, smelting stuff with a nasty propensity to explode if misused. She'd found the recipe in a blacksmith's ledger and turned hazard into tool. It smelled of dangerous cleverness. "Be careful, " she said. Eru tapped once.
Behind the portrait, with a lamp warm against her palms, Ett set the trap. The floor matched the novel's description. She leaned close to the stone age, tuned to the castle's breathing. The corridor outside grew alive: muffled steps, a distant clatter. Then, far off, an explosion, a reverberation like a bounder kicked down stairs.
Heavy boots thundered; soldiers rushed past the portrait, their armor clanking. Xiwen, her ex butler stamped in the front, face all angles of worry. Ett's throat tightened. The commotion was perfect cover.
Ett closed the painting and waited. Silence filled the framed space like a held breath. Tak. Tak. Tak. The pattern of Eru's knocks, the bird had habits.
She closed the painting and waited. Silence filled the framed space like a held breath. Tak. Tak. Tak. The pattern of Eru's knocks, the bird had habits.
Then: a softer rhythm at the frame, a tapping with intent. "Eru..hm?" Ett's eyes narrowed.
Eru hopped off her shoulder and flew like a shadow toward the doorway she'd come from. Ett peered and saw Guren in the mall, tall and breath-steady, an unreadable expression on his face. Eru alighte on Guren's right palm and pecked at a cluster of green grapes he held.
Time paused like a held coin.
"Guren. Wants. Come," Eru said, beak busy, mouth full of grape-sweet betrayal.
Ett 's stomach dropped. The bird had traded her scheme for grapes. After all those instructions, the nods, the carful plan a few bits of fruit had been cheaper than loyalty.
She could feel the plot folding around her throat: the vase still waiting to be filled, the secret passage yawning behind paint, the powder tucked away. Xiwen had run past, the explosion paid for. The assassin might still be in the vase. The corridor still breathed with soldiers. Everything could still go according to plan if Eru had done his part.
Aiya, the timing of the betrayal is like sour grapes. If it's music, it wasn't in tune.
Ett closed her hand around the lamp so tight the metal bit her palm. She imagined rewinding, taking the knock again. "I plead for a second take," she thought, but the palace does not grant retakes.
She steadied her jaw. Even without a System, theatre works if you are bold enough to pull the strings by hand. She had one move left: trust the chaos she'd build and leap into it.
Outside, the night continued to wait. Inside, every painted eye seemed to watch her decide.