I hurried back to the room where the servant with the key was still hiding, expecting to stumble across the stragglers left behind by Charlie to guard against my pursuit. It never happened. I kept running and never once came across another member of his team.

  When I arrived at the room he was hiding in, the door was already missing and there was no sign of Charlie. I poked my head into the room to see what had happened, and my worst fears were confirmed.

  The servant who had been stonewalling their efforts to access the interior was dead. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. He was lying against the back wall with a trail of blood behind him. Several cuts and injuries suggested that he was standing in front of the door when Charlie blew it open, before they pumped a bullet through him and left him to bleed out.

  It was rather impressive how stubborn he was. Even in the face of an imminent threat he refused to sell out his boss. You couldn’t pay for that kind of loyalty. He was someone the King placed a lot of trust in. Now the key he guarded was in their hands, yet we hadn’t crossed paths again despite taking the most direct route. Charlie had thought twice about risking another confrontation. They were beelining for the security doors and leaving me for later.

  They were due a serious lesson in manners, leaving a noble lady waiting when a meeting was arranged in advance was a grave social offense. They were moving extremely fast. A powerful vibration rumbled through the floor and up through my legs like an earthquake. There was only one thing big enough and heavy enough to cause that kind of sensation.

  I couldn’t wrap my head around how, but Charlie had run all the way here, killed the servant, got the key and returned to the door without allowing me to catch him in the process. The fight in the study wasn’t that long – he was hauling serious ass to try and open some distance between us.

  If they could open the door then Charlie could easily close it again behind them.

  That was the worst-case scenario. I couldn’t keep abusing my nihility magic in this state. I could break through, but whether I stayed conscious afterwards was another notch of uncertainty on top of many others. The joke was on me this time. I spun around on my heel and dashed back the way I came.

  It was my mistake. I should have remained by the door instead of getting ahead of myself and rushing after them. A rookie error if there ever was one. Charlie had to go that way to complete his objective and I willingly ceded that advantage. The area outside of the secured doors was very exposed though. Winning a fight from there would be difficult, if not impossible given their superior numbers.

  Too many variables to keep track of.

  The red mist descended, physically with the iron-tinged mask that covered my face, and mentally as I entered crisis mode. The blunt application of extreme violence was the only solution that they understood, and the only one I could manage in these pressing circumstances.

  I charged headlong into the danger. When I arrived at the doors, they were already starting to close up again with the heavy rumble of an unseen mechanism. There was no time to waste. I rushed for the narrowing gap and dived through, rolling to a stop moments before it could crush me.

  My head snapped to the right. There was a man working the levers, and when he saw me his face dropped like a stone. I drew my pistol and shot him twice, once in the chest and once through the stomach. He fell down to the ground. He was still clutching the ‘key’ that they had killed the servant to get their hands on.

  It was no ordinary key. I could sense a magical wave coming from it. It was large and covered in a layer of brass, with thick pegs that slotted into an industrial machine placed next to the door. Kicking the body out of the way, I inserted it again and pulled the lever – causing the machine to grind back to life. The doors caused the floor to vibrate once more as they slowly opened back up.

  I couldn’t risk leaving one of the only escape routes closed with the odds stacked against me. There was also the possibility of the Royal Guardsmen coming to the rescue once they regrouped and dealt with the half-hawk outbreak. I wasn’t confident about that one though, I could already see a dead body poking out from an open doorway further down the hall. Charlie was going to take whatever punishment they could dish out and blow them away with his magic.

  I pocketed the key to make sure they couldn’t return and close the passageway. An isolated segment of the palace was what they wanted, so I had to deprive them of it. I wiped more blood onto the sleeve of my formerly-white dress shirt and prepared myself for round two of our cat and mouse game.

  Gunfire echoed through the long corridors. I followed my ears through the sanctum, stepping over the deceased and mangled bodies of the guards who attempted to stem their progress. One of Charlie’s men wasn’t so lucky and joined them in a bloody heap near one of the intersections. At least someone stuck around to try and protect the King.

  The sad reality was that they couldn’t stop Charlie. He could blow his way through with magic and absorb their attacks without much risk of those injuries being his last. The Royal Guard prepared endlessly for this eventuality, or they liked to believe that they did, but practicing and doing it for real were different beasts. The number of eviscerated and hole-filled bodies I found along the way was evidence enough to support that.

  I finally found the men I was looking for. I could hear Charlie yelling up ahead, but he dispatched several of them to stop me in my tracks before I got the chance to interfere. I ducked into an open doorway and braced for impact as a barrage of gunfire came from down the way and stripped the plaster from the walls.

  I attuned to the magic in the air and tried to locate them using the draft blowing down the hallway. Everything was so big and exaggerated that it caused pretty powerful currents to travel through certain areas of the building when the doors were left ajar. I used a similar technique back at the start of the year during the ball.

  The picture I received in return was rather unclear. There were three men in visible range when I moved out of the way, but there were six signals that raised my suspicion now that they were out of sight. By chance the palace was built in a location with a low atmospheric magic level. Wasting what magic energy I had left on a sensory spell felt like a bad trade. It was easier to assume that there were a lot of bad dudes out there. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

  A brief lull in the firing squad gave me my first chance to respond. With that said – poking my body out of the doorway and getting blown into next year was a horrible plan. I needed a way to isolate my foes and thin out their number, but options were few and far between.

  Forced to bide my time, I kept my ears pricked up for any hints about what they were doing. The marble floors always easily transmitted the sounds of shoes a good distance. They couldn’t sneak up on my hiding spot without alerting me first.

  “She’s not coming out!”

  “Should we chase her?”

  “There isn’t a way out from there,” one of them declared confidently. I reached behind me and jostled the handle on the door to check, it was locked.

  That was bad.

  While my mind was running a mile a minute, in reality there was very little action being taken in line with those thoughts. The time pressure was squeezing me from every angle. I had to break through this blockade and get to Thersyn before Charlie could kill him. The fate of the entire country rested on that outcome.

  “Stop being a bunch of chickens and get her! One of those shots must have hit!”

  “You first.”

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  “Son of a- you’d better get behind me, then! You worthless shitpile!”

  Here came the brave and the bold. I counted four pairs of feet making their way to my position. I would have to do something stupid if I wanted to get the drop on them now, but convenient timing was the real hero of the day. An ear-splitting screech came from the entryway into the sanctum.

  “It’s that bloody half-hawk again!”

  “It’s not going to find its way over here. Let’s hurry up and kill her-”

  He spoke the magic words, and thus did fate conspire to make a total fool of him within seconds. The skittering of claws against the hard floor made it obvious to everyone present that the half-hawk was making a straight run for our position. I tucked myself into a little ball in the cubby and hoped to all that was holy that it wouldn’t spot me in the blind spot.

  “It’s coming right at us! Shoot the damn thing!”

  It barrelled down the corridor like a steam train – rushing past me with enough momentum to bring a gust of wind along for the ride. With flared wings and a gore-covered beak, it cut an intimidating figure, filling the entire space from end to end with its huge wingspan.

  The armed men took aim and fired their handguns. They hit the great bird, but did nothing to stop it from crashing into them with bone-breaking force. I rolled over and peered around the edge of the indent to witness it with my own eyes. The two men in front were forced down onto the ground thanks to its chest hitting them from above, with enough of a thud to break skulls and maybe worse.

  They were the lucky ones.

  Those who were ill-afforded a swift knockout were instead clawed at by its front legs, which resembled the claws of an eagle. The man on the left got it the worst. The claws came down right on top of him, stabbing through his torso and getting stuck there. His body was brought up into the air with its next stride, before being forced down and bisected into two pieces. The man on the right was merely crushed under its weight and tossed across the floor like a ragdoll.

  It was carnage captured in an instant. The half-hawk continued on until it met the wall at the other end, smashing into it. Its rear half lifted up into the air from the force of the impact, its lion-like tail swishing aggressively from side-to-side. It was injured. Those bullets could still rip through the bare flesh of a half-hawk effectively, although they wouldn’t travel far through the dense muscle and fat beneath the feathers.

  Getting caught and subjected to a similar fate wasn’t my idea of a great time. These horny devils had caused a serious amount of damage already, and the only safe way to handle them was to find a secure room and hide until they went away.

  The half-hawk shook its head clear and swivelled in place to find where to go next. It limped down the left artery and out of sight. There were still more men waiting over there, but they must have done the smart thing and gotten out of the way too. Leaping from my hiding spot, I pilfered the pockets of the mangled bodies for whatever ammo I could find.

  The guy who met the hawk’s claws was a ghastly sight. Even with my years of experience in killing people, that was usually at the end of a gun, and not via cutting a man in half and letting everything inside spill out over the floor. He was the only body I refused to touch during my search. Looking at it for too long made my stomach turn.

  One of Charlie’s men was trying to get smart with me. The moment my fingers slipped into the jacket of the last corpse, a flurry of feet clattered against the floor. A heavy-set man jumped from behind the corner, half-hawk be damned, and tried to finish me off while I was out of position.

  I reacted on instinct, grabbing the corpse’s collar and pulling him up whilst sitting down on the ground, transforming him into a makeshift piece of cover. Several shots flew through the air – but only two or three hit the mark. More bloody explosions rippled through the battered stiff, painting me with a fresh layer of crimson.

  I pulled out my gun and used his shoulder to steady my aim, firing two back at him and striking him in the arm. He cried out and dropped his weapon. Caution prevailed, and he staggered away to try and bring more assistance, or simply to preserve his own life at the expense of the others.

  “Get back here you son of a bitch!”

  I shoved the cadaver to the floor and scrambled back to my feet. My eyes were threatened by another dribble of blood. My sleeves were already soaked through with the stuff – but what was a little more when it was already completely ruined? It made me wonder how on earth I managed to fight my way through the ball without getting blood on that expensive dress...

  Someone was approaching from behind. I turned and pointed my gun at them, only to quickly pull away to keep my finger from pulling the trigger. Of all the people in the palace, it was the one guy I wanted to see the least.

  Theodore had followed the sounds of carnage and found me in a compromised position. He stuttered to a halt in front of me, eye’s widening as he took in the scene and my dishevelled appearance.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I barked.

  Theodore was frozen solid in shock. I looked every bit the unhinged killer, drenched in someone else’s blood and wielding a gun in one hand. I jolted him back to life by snapping my fingers in front of his face.

  “Answer me!”

  “I was worried about my Father!”

  “And what do you suppose that you can do if he’s in trouble?”

  “It would be ignoble of me to stand back and let them murder him.”

  “There is nothing noble in the slightest in being gunned down like an animal by these... psychopaths. Would your Father be happy to learn that you’re willingly placing yourself in danger for no good reason?”

  “It seems like a good reason to me. And what about you?”

  “I can handle this. I’m the one with the gun here.”

  Theodore’s brow furrowed. That wasn’t enough of an explanation for him to be satisfied, but there was no time for me to offer a better one. It was easy to put myself into his shoes and imagine the line of thought he was treading down. Why was I covered in gore? Why did I have two guns? Why was I so insistent on rushing in head first and putting a stop to this madness?

  “Wait a moment! You can’t go and shoot those men!”

  “Why not? It’s not difficult.”

  “That would be... you can’t just... You’re a noble! You’re Maria Walston-Carter!”

  As utterly meaningless as that rhetoric was – it was also the best distillation of the situation that he could proffer. It made no sense. Maria Walston-Carter would not be expected to kill anyone under any circumstance. To do so would be to cut against every idea other people held about her. In the face of that, to assert a fundamental fact was the only reasonable recourse.

  “I am a lot of things, but do you suppose that now is the right time to enter a prolonged debate about what I ‘should’ and ‘should not’ be doing? It’s far too late to get concerned about killing these crooks.”

  I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the corridor, into an open side room.

  “I need you to stay right here. Protecting you as well as Thersyn is too much of a burden.”

  “You need to tell me what’s going on here! Where did these hawks come from? Why are you covered in blood?”

  “I don’t need to tell you anything,” I snapped in response, “You’re a smart boy. It should be obvious to you that this palace has been turned into a veritable death-trap, all for the sake of killing your father.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s more popular than Ekkehard, clearly.”

  “Would he really go that far for such a stupid reason?”

  “It isn’t a hypothetical, Theodore. We’re living through it! If I spend any more time flapping my gums with you, they’ll break into your father’s room, slaughter the rest of the guards, and decorate the spiked fence out front with his decapitated head! And don’t get me started on the chaos that would ensue once the news breaks!”

  Theodore was a good guy beneath the cold exterior and away from the high-tension crucible of noble politicking, but at the end of the day he was still as much of a toff as the rest of them. The image I was painting in his head evoked a bitter taste in his mouth and a forlorn scowl. Reading him was easy; ‘why would you say such a distasteful thing?’ Said as if it wasn’t a very real possibility.

  Manners over substance. It’d take work to break him out of that way of thinking.

  “I don’t see why you have to put it like that...”

  “I am attempting to communicate the urgency of the situation to you. Stay here and make sure that you don’t attract attention. It would be a terrible shame if you were hurt, or Goddess forbid, worse.”

  “And what about you? I can’t let a lady engage in this kind of violence.”

  “That isn’t your choice to make-”

  I held the revolver aloft in my palm, hooking the guard with my finger.

  “-I’m the one with the gun.”

  I motioned to leave the room, but Theodore reached out and grabbed my shoulder.

  “Listen to me for a second!”

  “We don’t have a second. They’re moments away from killing your father as we speak.”

  “The Royal Guard are capable of handling this!”

  Tired of his meaningless platitudes, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him close, pulling his arm over my shoulder and flipping it around into a painful lock. Theodore gasped in pain and got up onto his tip-toes in an attempt to prevent me from applying any more leverage and wrenching it free from the socket.

  “You want to make something of yourself? You bloody sad-sack! Moping around and enjoying all this money isn’t going to deliver you an easy solution. You get what you need and you go out and you make it happen. I’m not sitting here and leaving it to anyone else, I’m not going to cry and complain when I don’t do my part and they screw it up.”

  I released him. Theodore clutched his arm and backed away. The sudden outburst of violence was the last outcome he expected. His noble interloper act would have gone over well with any other girl my age. In this circumstance – I didn’t want to hear it.

  “Where the hell is your father hiding right now?”

  Theodore swallowed his pride and regaled a series of directions; “Down the hall, to the left, straight on past the next junction, and another left to the private quarters. That’s where he usually rests during the day.”

  “Thank you kindly.”

  It was the first helpful thing the fellow had done since my arrival. Maria really did screw up his life when she started manipulating him in the original game’s story. It goes to show how much of an impact a single choice can have on the people around you.

  Theodore did not try to stop me the second time.