CHAPTER FOUR

Stephania ran through the castle, pushed on by the sound of the war horns, like a hart ahead of a hunting party. If she didn’t get out now, there would be no escaping. She’d done enough when it came to Ceres.

“Let Felldust finish her off,” Stephania said.

She retraced her steps through the castle, to the point where it connected with the tunnels beneath the city. She hoped that Elethe had kept her escape route open as Stephania had ordered. Now was a time to flee. If they were caught by the rebellion, that would be bad enough, but to be caught in the middle of a battle between it and Felldust’s Five Stones would be far worse.

Except…

Stephania paused, looking out of a window toward the harbor. She could see the sky dark with missiles, ships on fire as a dark ribbon of invading vessels made its way closer. Stephania ran over to a spot where she could look out over the walls, and she could see fires beyond, too.

Whichever way she ran now, it seemed that there would be enemies. She couldn’t just slip out over the water, the way she’d come into Delos. She couldn’t risk slipping out into open countryside, because if it were her running the invasion, there would be raiding parties out to drive people back toward the city. She couldn’t risk wandering Delos openly, because the rebellion’s forces would try to snatch her.

Yet, where were those soldiers? Stephania had passed a few guards on the way in, her disguise more than enough to let her slip by them. There hadn’t been many though. The castle had the feel of a ghost ship, abandoned in the face of more pressing matters. Looking out, Stephania could see rebels moving through the streets in bright armor and patchwork stuff. There would be a few figures close by, but how many, and where?

The idea came to Stephania slowly, more as a possibility than a reality. Yet, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like her best option. She wasn’t one to dive in without thinking. In the circles of nobility, that was a way to put yourself in someone else’s power, or find yourself cast out, or worse.

There were times, though, when decisive action was the answer. When a prize was there to take, hanging back could lose it as surely as overeagerness.

Stephania made her way down to Elethe, who was looking back and forth between the tunnels and the city as though she expected a horde of enemies to arrive at any moment.

“Is it time to leave, my lady?” Elethe said. “Is Ceres dead?”

Stephania shook her head. “There has been a change of plan. Come with me.”

To her handmaiden’s credit, Elethe didn’t hesitate. She walked along with Stephania in spite of the worries she must have had.

“Where are we going?” Elethe asked.

Stephania smiled. “To the dungeons. I’ve decided that you’re handing me over to the rebellion.”

That got a shocked look from her handmaiden, although it was nothing compared to the surprise there when Stephania explained more of her plan.

“Are you ready?” Stephania asked, as they got closer to the dungeons.

“Yes, my lady,” Elethe said.

Stephania put her hands behind her back as if tied, then walked forward with what she hoped was a suitable show of fearful contrition. Elethe was doing a surprisingly good job of looking like a tough rebel with a freshly captured enemy.

There were a pair of guards near the main door, sitting behind a table with cards set out, showing how they were passing their time. Some things didn’t change, regardless of who was in charge.

They looked up as Stephania approached, and Stephania was quite amused by the surprise she saw there.

“Is that… you’ve captured Lady Stephania?” one asked.

“How did you do it?” the other said. “Where did you find her?”

Stephania could hear the disbelief, but also the sense that they didn’t know what to do next.

“She was creeping away from Ceres’s rooms,” Elethe answered smoothly. Her handmaiden was a good liar. “Can you… I need to tell someone, but I’m not sure who.”

That was a good move. They both looked over at Elethe then, as they tried to decide what to do next. That was when Stephania brought out a needle with each of her hands, bringing it forward to strike the guards’ necks. They spun, but the poison was a fast-acting one, and their hearts were already pumping it through their bodies. A breath or two later, and they collapsed.

“Fetch the keys,” Stephania said, gesturing to one guard’s belt.

Elethe did so, opening up the dungeons. They were full almost to bursting, as Stephania had suspected they might be. As she hoped, at least. There weren’t any more guards, either. Apparently, all those with the ability to fight were on the walls.

There were men and women who were obviously soldiers and guards, torturers and simply loyal nobles. Stephania saw more than a few of her own handmaidens there, which struck her as a little foolish. The sensible move was not to insist on their loyalty, but to pretend to serve the new regime. The important thing was that they were there.

“Lady Stephania?” one said, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. As if she were their savior.

Stephania smiled at that. She liked the thought of people seeing her as their hero. They would probably do far more that way than simply from obedience, and she liked the idea of turning Ceres’s weapons against her too.

“Listen to me,” she said to them. “You’ve had a lot taken from you. You had so much, and those rebels, those peasants, dared to snatch it. I say it’s time to snatch it back.”

“You’re here to get us out?” one former soldier asked.

“I’m here to do more than that,” Stephania said. “We’re going to take back the castle.”

She hadn’t expected cheers. She wasn’t some romantic who needed fools to applaud her every decision. Still, the nervous muttering amongst them was a little grating.

“Are you afraid?” she demanded.

“There will be rebels up there!” a nobleman said. Stephania knew him. High Reeve Scarel had always been quick enough to challenge others to fights when he knew he could win.

“Not enough to hold this castle,” Stephania said. “Not now. Every rebel who can be spared is out on the walls, trying to hold back the invasion.”

“And what about the invasion?” a noblewoman demanded. She was little better than the man who had spoken. Stephania knew secrets about what she’d done before she married into wealth that would make most of the others there blush.

“Oh, I see,” Stephania said. “You’d rather wait in a nice, safe dungeon for it all to be over. Well, what then? At best, you spend the rest of your lives in this stinking hole, if the rebels don’t decide to kill you quietly once they realize how inconvenient prisoners are. If the others win… do you think being in a cell will protect you? You won’t be nobles to them in here, just amusements. Brief amusements.”

She paused to let that sink in. She needed them to feel like cowards for even considering it.

“Or we could go out there,” Stephania said. “We take the castle and we close it against our enemies. We kill those who oppose us. I’ve already dealt with Ceres, so she won’t be able to stop us. We hold this castle until the rebellion and the invaders kill one another, then we take Delos back.”

“There are still guards,” one said. “There are still combatlords here. We can’t fight the combatlords and win.”

Stephania gestured to Elethe, who started to open the locks on the cells. “There are ways. We’ll gain more weapons with each guard we kill, and we all know where the armory is. Or you can stay here and rot. I’ll close the doors and send a few torturers later. I don’t care which.”

They followed, as Stephania knew they would. It didn’t matter whether they did it from fear, or pride, or even loyalty. What mattered was that they did it. They followed her up through the castle, and Stephania started to give orders, although she was careful to make it sound better than that, at least for now.

“Lord Hwel, would you mind taking some of the more able men and sealing the guard barracks?” Stephania said. “We don’t want rebels getting out.”

“And men loyal to the Empire?” the noble said.

“Can prove it by killing those other traitors,” Stephania replied.

The noble hurried to meet her command. She sent one of her handmaidens to gather more, and asked a noblewoman to instruct those servants who would be obedient to Stephania’s bidding.

Stephania looked around the group with her, judging who would be useful, who had secrets she could employ, whose weaknesses made them easy to control and whose made them dangerous. She sent the noble who had been so keen to avoid a fight to control the gates, and a cantankerous dowager to the kitchens where she could do no harm.

They gathered people as they went. Guards and servants came to them as they heard, their loyalties changing with the wind. Stephania’s handmaidens knelt before her, then rose at a touch to be sent about their next tasks.

Occasionally, they found rebels who wouldn’t submit, and those died. Some died in a quick rush of nobles, their weapons seized, their bodies broken as they were beaten to death. Others died with a knife taking them from behind, or a poisoned dart sliding into their flesh. Stephania’s handmaidens had learned to be good at their tasks.

When she saw Queen Athena, Stephania found herself wondering which it should be.

“What is this?” the queen demanded. “What’s going on here?”

Stephania ignored her bleating.

“Tia, I need you to find out how things are going at the armories. We need those weapons. I imagine High Reeve Scarel will have found a fight by now.”

She kept walking in the direction of the great hall.

“Stephania,” Queen Athena said. “I demand to know what’s happening.”

Stephania shrugged. “I have done what you should have. I freed these loyal people.”

It was such a simple argument, and such a neat one, that it needed no more. Stephania had been the one to do the work of saving the nobles. She was the one they owed their freedom to, and perhaps their lives.

“I was locked up too,” the queen shot back.

“Ah, of course. Had I known, I would have rescued you along with the other nobles. Now, excuse me. I have a castle to take.”

Stephania strode off briskly, because the best way to win an argument was not to give one’s opponent a chance to speak. She wasn’t surprised when the others there continued to follow her.

Nearby, Stephania heard the sounds of a fight. Gesturing to those with her, she headed up a flight of stairs, searching for a balcony. She quickly found what she was looking for. Stephania knew the layout of the castle as well as anyone.

Below, she saw a fight that would probably have impressed most people. A dozen muscled men, no two of whose weapons or armor matched, were fighting in the courtyard before the main gate. They did so against at least twice as many guards, maybe three times as many before the battle started, all led by High Reeve Scarel. More than that, it seemed that they were winning. Stephania could see the bodies scattered across the cobbles in their imperial armor. The noble who loved to pick fights had picked one for the ages, it seemed.

“Foolish man,” Stephania said.

Stephania watched for a moment, and if she had seen more of a point in the Stade, she would probably have found some kind of savage beauty in it all. As she watched, a man with a great axe slammed the haft into two men, then spun, catching one of them with the blade hard enough to nearly split him in two. A combatlord who fought with a chain leapt over a soldier, wrapping it around his neck.

It was a brave performance, and an impressive one. Perhaps if she’d thought, she could have bought a dozen combatlords sometime earlier and turned them into a suitably loyal bodyguard. The only difficulty would have been the lack of subtlety. Stephania winced as a spatter of blood managed to rise almost to the lip of the balcony.

“Aren’t they magnificent?” one of the noblewomen said.

Stephania looked over at her with as much scorn as she could muster. “I think they’re fools.” She snapped her fingers in Elethe’s direction. “Elethe, knives and bows. Now.”

Her handmaiden nodded, and Stephania watched while she and some of the others there drew throwing weapons and darts. A few of the guards with them had short bows taken from the armory. One had a ship’s crossbow, better fired braced on a deck than a balcony. They hesitated.

“Our people are down there,” one of the noblemen said.

Stephania snatched a light bow from his hands. “And they were going to die anyway, fighting combatlords so poorly. At least this way, they give us a chance to win.”

Winning was everything. Maybe one day, these others would understand that. Perhaps it was better if they didn’t. Stephania didn’t want to have to kill them.

For now, she drew the bow as best she could with her swollen belly. Firing down like this, it almost didn’t matter that she could barely pull it back halfway. It certainly didn’t matter that she took no time to aim. With the mass of those struggling there below, it was enough that she would hit something.

More than that, it was enough to serve as a signal.

Arrows rained down. Stephania saw one punch through the meat of a combatlord’s arm, and he roared like a wounded animal before another three slammed into his chest. Knives flashed down to cut and skim, dig and gouge. Darts carried poison that probably had no time to act before the targets were punctured by arrows.

Stephania saw imperial soldiers fall along with the combatlords. High Reeve Scarel looked up at her with accusing eyes as he pawed at a crossbow bolt that had struck him through the stomach. Men continued to fall under the combatlords’ blades, or found gaps in their defenses, only to find their moment of victory cut short by arrow fire.

Stephania didn’t care. Only when the last combatlord fell did she raise a hand for the assault to cease.

“So many…” one of the noblewomen started, and Stephania rounded on her.

“Don’t be so foolish. We have taken Ceres’s support, and we have taken the castle. Nothing else matters.”

“What about Ceres?” one of the guards there asked. “Is she dead?”

Stephania’s eyes narrowed at that question, because it was the one thing about this plan that irritated her.

“Not yet.”

They had to hold the castle until either the invasion was done or the rebels somehow found a way to beat it back. At that point, they might need Ceres as a bargaining chip, or even just a gift so that the Five Stones of Felldust could show their victory. Having her there might even draw in Thanos, letting Stephania have all her revenge at once.

For now, that meant that Ceres couldn’t die, but she could still suffer.

And she would.