"Take her."
The order was almost quiet.
That frightened me more than shouting would have.
The twelve people blocking the Crown Garden street moved immediately.
No battle cry.
No hesitation.
Four advanced.
Three widened toward the walls.
Two stayed behind them.
The remaining three reached for the long folded frame I had noticed earlier.
The princess's guards tightened around her.
Captain Merrow stood at the front.
I recognized him from the Ward preparations.
Older than the others. Gray at his temples. A short saber in one hand and a small blue ward plate strapped to the other.
"Back!" he shouted at Xavier and me.
The nearest attacker accelerated.
Merrow met him.
Metal struck metal.
I barely saw the second one.
Board Sight caught the shoulder first.
Weight forward.
Right heel already turning.
Blade coming low.
I shifted.
His strike passed my coat.
My ribs remembered the tournament before I did.
Pain tightened my side.
Gravity.
Short pulse.
His lead foot became heavier at the wrong moment.
He stumbled.
I hit his upper arm instead of his face.
Hard enough to change the line.
Xavier stepped through the opening.
One palm against the attacker's shoulder.
Earth rose beneath the man's rear heel.
Only an inch.
Enough.
His balance disappeared.
Rex hit him from the side.
Not teeth.
Mass.
The man flew into a shop shutter and dropped his blade.
Two more came.
"They're trained!" Xavier shouted.
"I noticed!"
Water flashed across the stones from his left hand.
Not a wave.
A thin sheet.
One attacker adjusted.
The other didn't.
His foot slid.
Xavier changed rhythm.
Fast step.
Slow.
Nothing.
Then forward again.
His elbow struck the man's guard before he could recover.
I turned toward the princess.
Wrong.
Three people on the wall side had not attacked us.
They were moving past.
"Merrow!"
He saw them.
"LEFT!"
Royal guards shifted.
That was what the enemy wanted.
Their line changed too.
Not toward the princess.
Around her.
Chessmaster started building.
Twelve.
No.
Eleven standing.
Four pressure.
Three flank.
Two—
The folded frame.
One attacker snapped the first section open.
Black metal.
Four narrow legs.
Mana markings dull across the joints.
I had never seen it.
I knew what it looked like anyway.
A cage without walls.
"Don't let them set that!"
Merrow glanced back.
Too late.
The first anchor struck the paving.
A pulse traveled through the stones.
The princess staggered.
So did I.
My mana circulation dragged for half a second.
Not stopped.
Resisted.
Like moving through cold oil.
Xavier cursed.
"What is that?"
"No idea."
Wonderful.
Second anchor.
Another pulse.
The blue ward plate on Merrow's arm flickered.
There.
Capture.
Not execution.
Confirmed enough.
I opened Ground Resonance.
One pulse.
Four mechanical sources.
Two active.
One carried.
One—
behind us.
I turned.
A woman in a brown coat was crouched near the corner we had just crossed.
Fourth anchor already in her hand.
"They're closing us!"
Rex moved before I ordered him.
He crossed between us and the princess, body low.
The woman threw the anchor.
Not at Rex.
Past him.
It struck the stones upright.
Three.
Mana resistance thickened.
My skin prickled.
The personal reinforcement around my legs became sluggish.
The royal guards felt it too.
One tried to raise a ward.
The light collapsed halfway.
The princess looked at the frame.
Her face changed.
"You know it?" I asked.
"No."
A blade came toward my neck.
I ducked.
Poor timing for conversation.
I caught the attacker's wrist with both hands.
His strength surprised me.
My injured side protested.
He twisted.
I lost the grip.
His knee struck my thigh.
Muscle went numb for a heartbeat.
I stepped back.
He pressed.
No wasted swings.
Short weapon.
Close range.
Trained to keep me busy.
That thought arrived late.
Keep me busy.
Not beat me.
He attacked again.
I parried with my forearm guard.
Impact ran to my shoulder.
Xavier shouted somewhere right.
Rex roared.
Merrow gave an order I couldn't hear.
The entire street narrowed into fragments.
Blade.
Foot.
Wall.
Breath.
I let Board Sight collapse to one body.
His right shoulder dropped slightly before every low-line attack.
Learned habit.
Third exchange.
Shoulder.
I moved early.
His blade went where I had been.
Gravity increased across his front leg.
Not enough to pin.
Enough to ruin the recovery.
I shoved him into the wall.
He hit stone.
I took his weapon.
He reached for another.
Of course.
Rex's tail struck the ground between us.
The attacker stopped.
Not fear.
Calculation.
He backed away instead of trying to win.
That bothered me.
All of them were doing it.
Attack.
Delay.
Withdraw three steps.
Reform.
They were not trying to break the guards.
They were shaping them.
"Merrow!"
"What?"
"Stop retreating toward the garden!"
He stared at me like I had suggested treason.
"We're moving Her Highness to the inner ward!"
"That's where they want you!"
"You don't know that!"
Correct.
I hated him for being correct.
Fourth anchor struck.
The Black Lattice closed.
The sound was small.
A metal click.
Then my mana lurched.
Xavier dropped to one knee.
One royal guard's ward vanished entirely.
The princess grabbed the man before he fell.
"Stay up."
He looked stunned that she had touched him.
"Highness—"
"Stay up."
She pushed his arm over another guard's shoulder.
Not passive.
Good.
The lattice did not remove magic.
I could still feel mine.
But circulation resisted every change.
Gravity cost more.
Ground Resonance returned fuzzy.
Xavier's water trembled before forming.
Rex snarled and spread his wings.
The attacker nearest him smiled.
First emotional expression I had seen.
Bad sign.
"Raymond!" Xavier said.
"I know!"
"No—you don't!"
He pointed down.
Water he had spilled across the paving was moving.
Not downhill.
Toward the four anchors.
Thin streams curved toward them.
Mana being drawn?
No.
The liquid itself remained water.
But the active lines inside the anchors were using moisture across the stone as conduction paths.
Xavier had seen it before me.
"Can you disrupt it?"
"With more water?"
"Probably not."
"Excellent."
He slammed his palm down.
Earth rose.
Not beneath an attacker.
Beneath the nearest anchor.
The stone tilted.
The anchor remained embedded but its angle changed.
The lattice flickered.
Every personal ward in the street flashed at once.
Merrow understood.
"BREAK THE POSTS!"
Finally.
His guards moved.
One attacker threw himself directly in front of the tilted anchor.
There.
That mattered to them more than their own formation.
I ran.
My leg still half-numb.
Mana heavy.
The defender met me.
Board Sight.
Left-handed stance.
Center low.
He wanted to hold ground.
So I stopped trying to move him.
Gravity shifted sideways across the stone beside his right foot.
He compensated instinctively.
Xavier raised that same section of paving.
The defender stepped exactly where neither of us had originally intended.
Rex crashed through the gap.
The man avoided the claws and lost the anchor.
Merrow's saber struck the black metal.
Once.
Nothing.
Again.
A crack ran through one joint.
"Not the body!" Xavier shouted. "The hinge!"
Merrow hit the hinge.
The anchor folded sideways.
The lattice collapsed.
Mana returned too quickly.
I nearly fell.
Xavier inhaled sharply.
One guard vomited onto the stones.
No time.
The enemy reacted immediately.
Whistle.
Three short notes.
They withdrew.
All twelve—
No.
Ten.
One still against the shutter.
Another struggling to stand.
The rest moved north.
Not fleeing randomly.
Same direction.
"After them!" one guard shouted.
"No!"
Merrow and I said it together.
He looked at me.
Maybe we were becoming friends.
I disliked that.
The princess stepped forward from the protective ring.
"Captain."
"Highness, we move now."
"To where?"
"Inner Crown post."
"No."
Merrow froze.
Even attackers might have stopped for that tone.
"Highness—"
"They knew the South fallback. They knew the Garden route. They placed that device before we arrived."
She looked at the broken anchor.
"Your next route is compromised until proven otherwise."
Merrow's jaw tightened.
He knew she was right.
I looked at her.
"You understand your own procedures."
"I was required to memorize them before I was allowed to attend a public event."
"Wise."
"I considered it tedious."
"Most useful things begin that way."
Xavier looked between us.
"Can we discuss education somewhere people aren't trying to kidnap her?"
Also wise.
A horn sounded west.
Two long notes.
One short.
Merrow turned.
"Western breach."
Another horn answered farther south.
Different pattern.
He swore.
The princess did not.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Two ward posts have lost contact."
"Destroyed?"
"Unknown."
A shadow moved above us.
I raised the stolen blade.
Arrow.
It struck the street.
Black fletching.
Anata.
Message tied to the shaft.
Merrow almost seized it.
I reached first.
His face suggested future legal trouble.
The note contained seven words.
**ROOFTOP TEAM RETREATING NORTH. SECOND CARRIAGE FOUND EMPTY.**
Below that:
**ARKAD MOVING GARDEN SIDE.**
Anata had somehow become a battlefield courier while fighting.
Useful woman.
I showed Merrow.
He read.
"Who is Anata?"
"Someone I trust."
"That is not identification."
"Today it may have to be."
The princess held out her hand.
Merrow gave her the message reluctantly.
She read.
"Second carriage?"
"The attackers used forged supplier credentials earlier."
Her eyes sharpened.
"You knew?"
"We knew someone had forged permits."
"And you did not warn the Crown?"
"Anata did."
Merrow looked away.
That answered whatever question followed.
The princess returned the note.
"Captain, how many public emergency corridors converge north of here?"
He hesitated.
"Three."
"How many private?"
"I cannot discuss—"
"She's standing here," Xavier said.
Merrow looked at him.
I liked Xavier.
The princess didn't smile.
"Answer."
"Two."
"Do they share infrastructure?"
Pause.
"Yes."
I understood before he finished.
"Under the garden."
Merrow's eyes snapped toward me.
"How do you know?"
"I didn't."
Now I did.
The street above was theatre.
The attacker team had not simply forced the princess along roads.
They had forced the royal protection protocol toward a region where multiple routes shared the same underlying service structure.
Tunnel.
Water access.
Maintenance corridor.
Something.
"Where is the access?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Captain."
The princess again.
He breathed through his nose.
"Old irrigation service beneath the north garden. Most entrances sealed. Royal Ward maintains two."
Xavier looked at the broken Black Lattice.
"They only needed to get her close."
"Yes."
My earlier classification changed.
The twelve in front of us had looked like extraction.
Wrong.
They were shepherds.
The real extraction point was still ahead.
A bell rang.
Not Seven-Bell sequence.
One deep strike from the north.
Merrow's face drained.
"What?"
"Inner garden warning."
Then another.
Not a bell.
An impact.
The ground moved.
Ground Resonance opened accidentally.
Pain flooded my legs.
Too many footsteps beneath us.
Beneath.
I closed it immediately.
Then reopened narrow.
Question only.
Movement below this street?
Answer.
Yes.
Many.
"Below us."
Merrow went still.
"How many?"
"Can't tell."
"Try."
"No."
He stared.
"That technique has limits."
Apparently royalty disliked those.
A cracking sound came from the north garden wall.
Stone dust drifted from between the blocks.
Someone beneath the street was breaking supports.
The princess looked toward the sound.
"We leave."
Merrow nodded.
"South."
"No."
He stopped again.
"Highness—"
"If they know the protocol, every official destination is a suggestion from our enemy."
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because she understood.
Merrow looked at me.
I could see him hating the next sentence before saying it.
"What would you do?"
Terrible question.
Chessmaster opened.
Known:
Garden compromised.
Subterranean movement.
Attackers retreat north.
Southern corridor previously struck.
West unstable.
Crowds east.
Maison Vaudrin southwest.
La Baronna evacuation corridors southwest and lower merchant district.
Sierra farther.
Celcium/Nexus zones fractured by fighting.
Unknown:
Enemy numbers.
Enemy command.
Tunnel exits.
Whether the enemy knew our current position.
Whether this was still another layer.
The obvious move was to take her toward my network.
Maison Vaudrin.
La Baronna.
People I trusted.
Which meant dragging the entire attack toward them.
Céliane.
Lucien.
Families in the cellar.
No.
I felt the answer before liking it.
"We don't take her to Vaudrin."
Xavier nodded immediately.
Merrow frowned.
"What is Vaudrin?"
"My restaurant."
The princess looked at me.
"You own a restaurant?"
"Forty percent."
An explosion sounded two streets away.
She blinked.
"Of course."
"We also avoid the lower evacuation routes. Too many civilians."
"Then where?" Merrow demanded.
I looked east.
Academy demonstration grounds.
Open stone.
Minimal civilian population after evacuation.
Multiple entrances.
Known Ward presence.
Also—
Celcium.
Nexus.
People capable of fighting.
"Academy field."
Merrow shook his head.
"Too exposed."
"Exactly."
"You want Her Highness in open ground?"
"I want anyone trying to approach her visible."
"And ranged attacks?"
"Oren."
Xavier understood.
"Celcium defensive reserve."
"And Nexus has ward professors."
Merrow still hated it.
Good.
Perfect plans are often just plans nobody has insulted yet.
The princess asked:
"How many civilians?"
"At this hour? Fewer than anywhere west."
She decided.
"East."
Merrow closed his eyes briefly.
Then pointed.
"Formation!"
His guards moved.
No argument afterward.
Authority had landed.
We ran.
---
We made perhaps eighty meters.
Then the road ahead collapsed.
Not dramatically.
A section of paving simply sank two feet.
Then four.
Then vanished into a cavity.
The first Royal guard barely stopped.
Dust rose.
From below came a metallic clatter.
A ladder hit the edge.
Hands followed.
Attackers climbed.
Not twelve.
More.
"BACK!"
Merrow's guards formed.
Xavier stepped beside the hole.
Earth.
He tried to collapse the edge inward.
The ground resisted.
Black lines flashed beneath the exposed stone.
More artificery.
Prepared reinforcement.
"They hardened the tunnel walls!"
"Can you break it?"
"Eventually!"
We did not have eventually.
First attacker climbed out.
Arkad hit him.
I hadn't seen Arkad arrive.
Neither had the attacker.
Arkad's shoulder drove into the man's chest guard and sent him back into the opening.
"YOU PEOPLE STARTED WITHOUT ME!"
His white ceremonial uniform had lost one sleeve.
He was smiling.
Idiot.
Good idiot.
Two more attackers surfaced.
Arkad took the center.
This was his terrain.
Narrow breach.
They had to come through him.
His sword moved short.
Efficient.
No flourish.
One attacker tried to climb left.
Merrow's guard forced him back.
Another reached right.
Xavier flooded the edge with water.
The man slipped.
Arkad kicked his shield into the opening.
"Raymond!"
"What?"
"Plan?"
"I'm developing one!"
"Develop faster!"
A second arrow fell.
Anata.
This one had no message.
It struck a rooftop attacker I had not seen, knocking his weapon from line just before he fired.
Anata herself appeared on the roofline a heartbeat later.
Small silhouette against smoke.
She pointed east.
Then down.
Then made a cutting motion across her throat.
Route blocked?
No.
Enemy below east too?
I gestured question.
She fired another arrow.
This one landed beside a drainage grate.
Of course.
Underground.
Every eastern path might intersect the tunnel network.
The city had roads beneath roads.
Old irrigation.
Storm channels.
Service tunnels.
The attackers had not built a corridor today.
They had chosen one that already existed.
The paving behind us shook.
Princess looked down.
"So east is compromised too."
"Yes."
Merrow's face was becoming steadily more unpleasant.
"Then we need an interior position."
"No," the princess said.
He turned.
"If we stop moving, they surround us."
She was right.
Again.
Unfortunate for the traditional royal dynamic.
A runner appeared from the south.
Baronna badge.
He almost collapsed before reaching us.
"Korr message."
I caught him.
"What?"
"Vaudrin secure. Lower civilians moving riverward. Westbridge wagons abandoned."
He swallowed.
"Riverglass opened cold rooms for shelter."
Interesting use of a coldhouse.
"Casualties?"
"Some injuries. No count."
"Eulalie?"
"Medical post moved to Guild Hall."
"Balthazar?"
"Helping Ward artificers with black spikes."
Excellent.
"Message from Korr?"
The runner nodded.
"Her words?"
He looked uncomfortable.
"Say them."
"She said: 'Stop trying to come save us. We're busy.'"
Arkad laughed in the middle of blocking a sword.
I loved my organization.
"Tell her—"
The runner waited.
I stopped.
No.
She did not need my answer.
"Tell her nothing. Go back only if the route is safe."
He nodded and left south.
The princess had heard.
"Your organization?"
"Yes."
"Military?"
"Complicated."
Arkad shouted:
"VERY COMPLICATED!"
Merrow looked appalled.
This would be a difficult report.
---
The attackers stopped climbing.
Just stopped.
Arkad waited.
Nothing.
He looked into the hole.
"Don't," I said.
"I wasn't going down."
"You were thinking about it."
"Yes."
Silence below.
That was worse.
They had pressure from north.
Pressure from underground.
Then suddenly—
none.
Why?
Chessmaster moved.
Fixing team in street withdrew north.
Tunnel team forces us east.
East tunnel exposed.
Now disengagement.
Did we escape their predicted route?
Or enter the right one?
I looked around.
The princess.
Six guards now five effective.
Xavier.
Arkad.
Rex.
Anata above.
Open intersection.
Drainage grates.
Garden wall behind.
Academy route east.
The enemy had stopped pressing.
Because—
"They want us here."
Xavier's face changed.
"What?"
The princess looked around.
"Why?"
I did too.
Buildings.
Four directions.
Enough height for ranged attacks.
Too open for abduction.
Unless the street itself was the target.
Ground Resonance.
Narrow pulse.
Not footsteps.
Structure.
Something beneath the center.
Large.
Metallic.
Four evenly spaced points.
My stomach dropped.
"MOVE!"
No time to explain.
I grabbed the princess's sleeve.
Merrow almost killed me for it.
Xavier understood tone before reason.
Earth erupted beneath our group.
Not wall.
Ramp.
He threw the ground upward on one side.
We slid, stumbled, collided toward the west edge.
The princess hit one knee.
Arkad caught Merrow.
Rex leaped.
Anata jumped from the roof to an awning.
Then the intersection activated.
Four black pillars punched upward from beneath the paving.
Not nails.
Full anchors.
Each twice the height of a man.
Lines of dark artificery connected between them.
The air inside changed.
A deep pressure.
My mana circulation dragged violently.
Merrow's royal ward plate died.
The princess's clasp flashed once.
Then nothing.
Black Lattice.
Not portable.
Prepared.
Big enough for the entire intersection.
We had escaped the center by perhaps three meters.
One Royal guard had not.
He stood inside.
Tried to move.
Could.
Slowly.
Like water had turned thick around him.
Figures emerged from four surrounding doors.
Not twelve.
Twenty.
Maybe more.
No rush.
They had finally reached the place they wanted.
The princess stood.
Dust across her white coat.
Breathing hard.
She looked at the lattice.
Then at me.
"You said they were shaping a corridor."
"Yes."
"And this is the end?"
I watched the attackers spread around the intersection.
No banners.
No doctrine.
No explanation.
Only preparation.
Months, perhaps.
Fake permits.
Bell sabotage.
Service tunnels.
Emergency-route study.
Ward Nails.
Portable restraint.
This larger structure.
"No," I said.
Because one thing was wrong.
A capture site this elaborate should have been hidden.
Instead, they had revealed it while we were still outside the center.
Unless this was still not the end.
Across the intersection, one masked attacker raised a hand.
Not toward the princess.
Toward the sky.
A flare rose.
Black light above Catington.
Three seconds later, another answered from far south.
Then another from the western district.
Then east.
Signals.
The attack had just entered another phase.
Arkad looked at the sky.
"That seems bad."
Xavier wiped dust from his mouth.
"Very perceptive."
Merrow raised his saber.
The princess stood behind him.
Rex moved beside me.
Anata drew another arrow above.
And all across Catington, horns began answering the black lights.
The first battle had been about moving the princess.
The second, I realized, had been about moving everyone else.
Whatever they wanted next, they had arranged the city before asking for it.