I Destroy the Empire

Chapter 7: Party Crashers

The Astrea Night Market was on fire.

Not literally, yet. But the energy was raw and lively.

It was nothing like the stuffy, silent balls of the Royal Capital. This was the lower nobles' and rich commoners' secret, a place of rebellion. This was a party with life.

The massive, two-story warehouse, once a place of shipping manifests and dust, had been transformed. Brightly coloured, thick silks were draped from the rafters.

Magical, glowing orbs pulsed in time with a heavy, thumping bass beat that can be felt more than it was heard.

The air was thick and hot, smelling of spiced wine, roasted meats, and a hundred expensive, conflicting perfumes.

Hundreds of people—minor nobles in garish, animal-themed masks, wealthy merchants in gaudy jewelry, and common-land celebrities—were packed onto the dance floor. They were sweating, laughing, and drunk.

On a small, makeshift stage, a bard with a magically amplified lute was singing a very rude, and very beautiful song about a "certain Lord who lost his pride for a common woman.” People really liked that type of music, it would seem.

The crowd roared with laughter. It was loud and chaotic. It was perfect.

In a dark, second-floor alcove, hidden by a heavy velvet curtain, Kaelen Yunis looked down on the scene with his lips curled up.

He was in disguise, but he hadn't compromised his standards.

He wore a tailored, high-collared black coat, his silver hair tied back in a perfect tail. A simple, elegant silver half-mask covered his eyes, making him look like any other aloof, bored noble.

"I absolutely despise parties," he muttered, wiping a smudge of... something... from his spectacle lens with a silk cloth. "It's a logistical nightmare. Too many variables. Too many... germs. Just... so many germs but I can’t deny that it makes people happy."

Next to him, Lyra Ashwood was almost unrecognizable.

She was wearing an elegant, dark-violet gown that Kaelen had... acquired... for the occasion. Her pale, silver hair was styled in a complex, beautiful braid, and a delicate, black-lace mask covered her eyes. She looked like a ghost princess.

But she was trembling. Her small, gloved hand was clamped over the silver locket at her throat, a death-grip.

The noise, the laughter, the sheer, crushing press of emotions from the crowd below... it was a feast for the Echo, the wraith inside her.

It was greedy.

"It's... too much, Kaelen," she whispered, her own violet eyes wide and bright, almost glowing in the dark. "It... it wants to join. It's hungry. It wants to... feed."

"Not yet," Kaelen said. His voice was a calm, anchoring presence in the storm of her senses. He didn't touch her—he knew better—but he moved a fraction of an inch closer.

"You are our insurance, Lyra. You are in control. We are here to observe, not be the main event. We... are Plan B, remember?"

He looked down at the main doors, then at his pocket watch.

"Just... breathe. And wait for the cue. It should be any... second... now."

Two streets over, the air was cold and smelled of rust.

Pyralis, Elara, and Bo were crouched in the absolute darkness of a collapsed alley. The only light was the distant, pulsing, purple-and-red glow from the warehouse party.

Pyralis was pacing. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn. His new, metal footfalls were the only sound, a soft, rhythmic clink... clink... clink... on the cobblestones.

He was muttering, his favourite habit.

"He'll send Brog," he muttered, his voice a low, obsessive hum. "He has to. He's the hammer. He's predictable. Theron loves predictable... But he'll send Fenris, too. He has to. He knows we're slippery. Where is he? He should be sniffing around by now. Is he on the roofs? No, the wind is wrong... he'll be in the alleys, downwind..."

"Will you shut up?" Elara hissed, her voice a sharp, frustrated whisper.

Pyralis froze. "Stop what?"

"The muttering. You're kinda making me nervous," she shot back. She was perched on a stack of rotting barrels, her body perfectly still, her eyes scanning the rooftops like a hawk.

"I'm not nervous," Pyralis snapped, too quickly. "I'm... processing. V—vocalizing my tactical assessment."

"You're muttering. It's creepy," Elara said. She hopped down from the barrels, landing on the cobblestones without a single sound. The thief was in her element.

"And what about your part of the plan?" she asked, her voice low. "You neutralize Brog. Brilliant. But you left out the part where we're running for our lives from a nine-foot-tall werewolf."

Pyralis’s grin was a flash of white in the dark. "What, this old thing?"

He walked over to a heavy, rusted sewer grate set into the ground, half-hidden by trash.

"This," he said, tapping the grate with his metal boot, "is the 'Sunken Serpent.' The old sewer main that collapsed twenty years ago. You and I used to use it to steal apples from the market, remember?"

Elara’s eyes widened in the dark. "You're kidding. It's still clear?"

"Bo checked," Pyralis said.

The mountain of a man, Bo, who had been standing as still as a statue, just grunted in confirmation. He had already lifted the 300-pound iron lid an hour ago, sniffed the air, and declared it "bad," which means it was perfect.

"This is our escape route," Pyralis explained, his voice electric with the thrill of the plan. "It goes straight under the Old Canal. Fenris will track us here. He'll see us vanish into a dead-end alley. He'll think we used magic. He'll have no choice but to follow us into the tunnel."

"And then we fight him in a sewer?" Elara said, wrinkling her nose.

"And then," Pyralis said, his voice turning cold, "we lead him to the tannery drainage pit on the other side. The one place in this city so full of blood, chemicals, and rotting hides that his nose is completely useless."

Bo hefted his massive Zweihänder, the blade scraping softly on the stone. "He's blind. Then... we fight."

"Then we fight," Pyralis confirmed.

"It's a good plan," Elara admitted. She looked back toward the party. "So... where are they? I'm getting cold."

As if summoned by her words, the sound of marching cut through the night.

Thud... thud... thud...

It was the heavy, disciplined, synchronized sound of a First Knight garrison.

Pyralis's grin vanished. He doused the small lantern they had. "Showtime." He pushed Elara and Bo deeper into the shadows.

A full garrison of First Knights—twenty strong—marched down the street toward the Astrea Warehouse. Their black-and-silver armor was silent, oiled, and terrifying in the moonlight. They moved like a single, disciplined predator.

At their head was Brog the Unbroken. His massive broadsword was strapped to his back, but he carried his tower shield and a crude, heavy cleaver. He was huffing, impatient.

But he was not leading them.

Vice-Commander Aelia Solara marched at his side with her own sun-crested armor gleaming. Her face was visible beneath her helm.

She held up a gauntleted fist and the garrison stopped.

The thumping music from the warehouse was loud now, almost an insult.

“Lord Theron's orders were clear, Brog,” Aelia said, her voice sharp and low, cutting through the music. “We are to capture one of these 'Shadows' alive. That means we go by the book. You will take your squad and secure the rear exit. I will take my squad and breach the front. We move with precision. Understood?”

Brog grunted, his small, piggish eyes fixed on the warehouse. He could hear the music. He could smell the food.

It was making him angry… or hungry. He couldn’t decide yet.

"Theron said... smash," Brog rumbled, his grip tightening on his cleaver.

"You smash when I tell you to smash," Aelia snapped.

She hated this. Hated being paired with the brute. Theron had sent her to manage him, and she knew it.

"Fenris is already on the perimeter," she continued, "and Nefeli is posted on the Citadel spire. This entire district is locked down. We go by the... what is that noise?"

She was finally hearing the party clearly. The bard's magically amplified voice, singing a new verse: "...He huffs and he puffs, our great Lord T, But his little black castle's a-fraid of me! He sends out his wolf, he sends out his... pig... While the Shadows are dancing a merry jig!"

Aelia's face went white with rage. "Blasphemy!"

Brog, however, heard one word: "Pig."

Yes, he was simple, but he wasn't that simple.

"They... mock... BROG!" he roared.

"Brog, hold the line!" Aelia commanded, drawing her sword. "That's an order, Lieutenant!"

But it was too late. The taunt, the music, the smell of food, and his one, simple, driving order from Theron... it all crashed together in his tiny brain.

His orders were to smash. Theron said smash.

"SMAAAAAAASH!" he bellowed.

"BROG, YOU FOOL! STOP!" Aelia shrieked.

He didn't even hear her. Ignoring Aelia, ignoring the plan, ignoring everything, the half-ogre brute lowered his tower shield and charged the main doors.

He didn't use a battering ram. He was the battering ram.

CRASH! BOOOOOOM!

The heavy oak doors and a ten-foot section of the brick wall exploded inward in a shower of splinters, dust, and shrapnel.

The music stopped. A woman screamed.

Brog the Unbroken, eight feet of rage and armor, stood in the smoking hole where the door used to be, his cleaver raised.

And he froze.

He wasn't in an empty warehouse. He wasn't facing "Shadows."

He was in a ballroom.

He was staring at hundreds of the richest, most important people in the common lands, who were now staring back at him in dead, terrified silence.

A man in a gold mask, Lord Astrea himself—dropped his wine glass. It shattered on the floor.

"In... in the King's name... what is the meaning of this!?" Astrea stammered.

Brog's tiny, brutish mind spun.

Smash?

Don't smash?

Aelia was behind him, her face a mask of pure, apocalyptic horror. Witnesses. Hundreds of noble and merchant witnesses. This was a political nightmare.

She had thought the shadows were just partying, not the commoners.

Brog looked at the crowd. He looked at the silks. He looked at Aelia.

He had one order: "Smash Shadows."

He was confused. He was angry. He was completely, totally, and utterly panicked.

He raised his cleaver and bellowed the only thing his brain could produce.

"WHICH ONE... IS SHADOWS?!"