A heavy silence lingered after their shared confessions, fragile and new. It was Seraphina who broke it, her voice hesitant.
"Anyways... what did the Blade Master say when I was... you know." Amir gestured to the floor.
Seraphina's hand flew to her neck, a nervous gesture. She looked away. "He... he said to wait for him here."
Amir watched her for a long second, his gaze sharpening despite his throbbing head. "Don't lie to me, miss."
"I'm not!" she protested, her voice rising slightly. "I am—"
"You are lying," Amir cut in, his tone flat but not unkind. "You get all... you know what, just tell me what he said. Don't make it weird."
Seraphina deflated, her shoulders slumping. After a few seconds of tense quiet, she whispered, "He told me to leave when you wake up."
Amir let out a short breath. "Finally. Thanks for telling the truth. A little dramatic, but okay." He grunted as he pushed himself fully to his feet, ignoring the protest from his ribs. "We should see what's left of the world out there."
He moved past her, stepping onto the balcony. The scene that greeted him was one of contained, brutal finality. The revolution had been strangled in its cradle, right here in the plaza below. Sovereign's View Plaza, the stage for the Iron Triumph just hours before, was now a smoldering painting of chaos. Fires still licked at overturned steam-wagons, their armored hulls blackened and rent. The polished granite was scarred and littered with the dark, scattered shapes of bodies and debris. The air, thick with the smell of ash and spent Aether, carried the distant, frantic shouts of Cog-Watchers establishing a perimeter. The immediate threat was over, but the cleanup had just begun, a grim testament to the cost of the night.oks like the outside has been cleared. The Inquisition and the Cog-Watchers have things in hand. We're good to move."
Seraphina shot to her feet, her eyes flashing with sudden, fierce determination. "I will not leave without my parents!"
"Relax, miss," Amir said, holding up a placating hand. "First of all, thank you for the whole... hitting me, then patching me up thing. A real rollercoaster. But we gotta get out of here. It's not safe for you."
"Are you insulting me?" she snapped, her regal temper flaring. "I already told you it was a mistake! I thought you were one of them! And I am not leaving without my parents!"
Amir's own frustration bubbled over. "First of all, you were just telling me you were about to be sold by your own parents for a fricking business deal! They didn't even want your opinion! And you still care about them?"
Tears instantly welled in Seraphina's eyes, shimmering with a mixture of fury and profound hurt. The sight immediately doused Amir's anger. He took a deep, steadying breath, running a hand through his grimy hair.
"Princess Seraphina," he said, his voice softer now, laced with a weary empathy. "Relax. I believe your parents are fine. They're probably the most guarded people in this entire fortress right now. The Harmonic Inquisition is trying to take control of everything."
He took a tentative step forward and, in a gesture that surprised them both, gently patted her head. It was an awkward, clumsy comfort, but it was real. "They're okay."
Seraphina's breath hitched. Her heart performed a strange, fluttering skip in her chest. She looked up at this grimy, bruised, and impossibly strange man who had fought for her, argued with her, and was now trying to comfort her. He is strange, she thought, but... in a way, wholesome too.
Amir pulled his hand back, the moment passing. "So, where is the Blade Master? Do you know where he went?"
Seraphina was still lost in the echo of that simple touch. Amir snapped his fingers gently in front of her face. "Hey. You in there? What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing!" she said, a little too quickly, her cheeks flushing. "I wasn't thinking about anything. He... he went to look for my father and mother. The King and Queen."
Amir's eyes widened in genuine shock. A slow grin spread across his face. "Woah. The Blade Master himself? Then your parents are definitely alive. No doubt about it."
Seraphina's face went pale. "What? Then you... you thought my parents were...? You lied to me!" The tears she'd been holding back finally spilled over, tracing clean paths through the dust on her cheeks. "You tried to calm me down by lying, didn't you?"
"No, no, no!" Amir backtracked, his hands up in surrender. "That's not what I meant! I meant that with him on the case, their chances went from 'maybe' to 'definitely'! Even with this whole castle flooded with assassins and rebels, if the Blade Master is looking for them, they are as good as found."
But it was too late. The stress, the fear, the whiplash of emotions—it all crashed down on her at once. Seraphina's composure shattered completely. She didn't cry out; she folded in on herself, her shoulders shaking with silent, heart-wrenching sobs. She cried for the parents who had betrayed her, for the kingdom that had fallen apart, for the terrifying unknown, and for the confusing kindness of a stranger who now stood helplessly watching her break.
BOOM.
The sound was different this time. Not the sharp crack of a sniper rifle or the controlled blast of a potion. This was a deep, foundational thump that came up through the marble floor, vibrating in their bones. The entire castle gave a sickening lurch. A large painting of some stern-faced ancestor shook loose from the wall and crashed to the floor. The delicate crystal bottles on Seraphina's vanity chimed together in a frantic, terrified chorus.
The Princess's sobs cut off in a gasp of pure, unadulterated shock.
Amir's head snapped towards the door, then back to her. There was no time. No more debate. The calculus was simple: moving target, harder to hit.
He lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. "We're leaving. Now."
Seraphina looked down at his hand encircling her pale skin, then up at his face, her tear-filled eyes widening in outrage. The instinct of a lifetime, drilled into her since birth, overrode the terror of the explosion. "HOW DARE YOU TOUCH ME, YOU COMMON PERVERT!"
Her free hand swung in a wide, furious arc.
SMACK.
The slap connected with his already bruised jaw with a stinging crack. Amir's head snapped to the side, his vision swimming with fresh, white-hot stars. A single, clear thought cut through the pain and ringing in his ears: There is something fundamentally fucking wrong with this woman.
He turned his head back, his eyes narrowed into furious slits. You know what? Not my problem. My job is to get the asset to safety. The "asset." It was easier to think of her that way.
Without another word, his grip on her wrist tightening from a hold into an iron clamp, he yanked her towards the chamber door.
"UNHAND ME! HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE! THIS... THIS UGLY MAN IS KIDNAPPING ME!" Her screams echoed down the cavernous, blood-splattered hallway, a shrill beacon in the unsettling quiet that had followed the blast.
The silence shattered.
From a connecting corridor to their left, three figures—two in the scavenged armor of rebel royal guards and one in the sleek black of an assassin—spun towards the sound. Their eyes, wide with a mix of battle-lust and surprise, locked onto the struggling pair.
"Hostages! Take them!" one of the guards barked, raising his rifle.
Amir didn't think. He reacted. He shoved Seraphina behind a massive, overturned statue of a wyvern, its stone wings providing meager cover.
"Stay down!" he snarled.
The world in front of the statue rippled. One Amir became two. Then three. The phantom Amirs sprinted in different directions, one diving for cover, another charging foolishly forward. The real Amir pressed his back against the cold stone, the Iron Argument heavy in his hand, but useless in this game of deception.
A volley of gunfire tore through the hallway. Bullets sparked off marble where the illusions had been, chewing apart tapestries and pocking the walls. The rebels stared, confused, firing at the fading after-images.
Seraphina, peeking from behind the stone wyvern's wing, watched with her hand clamped over her mouth. The grimy, vase-wielding man she had just slapped was now a conjurer of phantoms, a weaver of lies made solid. The raw, untamed power of it, so different from the disciplined, mechanical might of the Iron Army, was terrifying and… mesmerizing.
"Wow," she breathed, the word escaping her lips before she could stop it. "You… you have cool powers."
Amir chanced a glance back at her, his face a mask of grim exasperation, utterly unswayed by the compliment. "One more time you call me a pervert, Miss," he hissed, his voice low and deadly serious, "I swear I will feed you to the next Flesh-Consuming Wraith we—"
He saw her lower lip begin to tremble, her eyes welling up again. The threat died in his throat. God damn it.
A thrown dagger, meant for his throat, clattered against the statue where one of his illusions had been. The distraction was over. The remaining assassin, smarter than the rest, was circling, his eyes scanning, trying to find the truth in the lies.
"We can't stay here," Amir muttered. He looked down the hall. The path to the main staircase was blocked. But he remembered the servant's passages Pyotr had mentioned were woven through the castle like a hidden nervous system. There had to be one nearby.
"Come on!" He grabbed her wrist again, this time with less force but no less urgency. He didn't run for the grand stairway; he pulled her towards a seemingly solid wall panel adorned with a bas-relief of the Great Artificer.
"Where are you going? It's a dead end!" Seraphina cried, trying to dig her heels in.
Amir ignored her, running his free hand along the carved gears of the relief. There. A gear that was merely painted on, not carved. He slammed his palm against it.
With a soft click and a groan of disuse, the panel swung inward, revealing a dark, narrow passageway smelling of dust and damp stone.
"Move!" he commanded, shoving her through the opening before following and pulling it shut behind them. They stood in pitch blackness, the sounds of their pursuers suddenly muffled. The only light was a sliver from under the door, and the only sound was their ragged breathing.
"Wh-what is this place?" Seraphina whispered, her voice small in the oppressive dark.
"Servant's passage," Amir grunted, pulling a small, glowing Aether-crystal from his pocket—standard Inquisition issue for dark places. It cast a sickly green light on their faces. "Now, unless you want to be trapped in here, shut up and follow me."
He led the way, the passage twisting and turning, descending through the bowels of the castle. They passed grates that looked out into other hallways, some eerily silent, others echoing with the sounds of distant, final skirmishes. They saw the boots of Cog-Watchers marching in formation and, once, the silent, gliding form of a black-masked assassin that made them both freeze until it passed.
The journey was a tense, silent nightmare. Seraphina didn't speak again, her initial hysteria replaced by a shell-shocked silence. She just followed, her hand occasionally brushing his arm in the dark, the only anchor in the terrifying labyrinth.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Amir stopped before a heavy, iron-banded door. He listened for a moment, then carefully pushed it open.
They emerged not into the grand foyer, but into a side courtyard used for delivering coal and supplies. The air here was cleaner, though still tainted with smoke. The sounds of the plaza were a distant roar. A single, battered Inquisition steam-wagon, its engine idling with a low hiss, was parked near a gate leading out to a back alley. Pyotr was leaning against it, casually blowing a smoke ring into the air.
He looked them up and down—the fuming, bruised Amir and the disheveled, silent princess.
"Well, well," Pyotr said, a slow smirk spreading across his face. "Look what the cat dragged in.