Once more, she woke up to the smell of ashes. She cleared the air in her room with her aether, something that was almost subconscious by that point. It wasn't bad enough that the smoke would cling to her skin, to her clothes, but it was ever-present, and a reminder of what was happening outside of her golden cage.
The Elysian troops had arrived a week before, warships emerging from the horizon one after the other, turning the blue sea black. She'd seen them from the top of the Arqan palace's rooftop, and had marvelled at their appearance: covered entirely in tar, their designs were sleek, made for speed. Unlike the cargo ship she'd been in, these required no oarsmen: they were pulled by grace of the Elysians' aether. She'd been told by one of the Knights that a regular merchant ship would take two weeks and a half to cross the Atlantean sea to arrive at the Empire; for them, it was only a week-long trip.
With their arrival, those who had been waiting for their chance called for all-out rebellion. The Lord Principal had all but been sequestered to a wing in the palace, and most of the preceptors had been rushed away, to remain housed in the central temple of the city until the Elysians stabilised the situation. Philistia and Latil had protested what they considered an invasion, but officially the Elysians had been called to protect the citizens doing trade in the city, citing specifically the brutal attack of the envoys that had been escorting Ophelia.
It all became busier during the night. She'd observed from her balcony as more people would hurriedly walk through the gardens, occasionally shouting someone's name to get their attention. Every now and then she'd be woken by the sound of the knights arriving to their quarters late into the night, sometimes laughing, sometimes in silence – but she'd noticed, never mourning. Throughout the hostilities, she hadn't seen a single Elysian casualty outside of the men that Phobos himself had killed on the day they'd parted ways.
"They're not warriors, most of them," one of the Knights had said to her. "They're commoners who are simply using this as an excuse to loot and riot. Those that are trying to agitate them are not well-organised, for the most part."
"Why is this lasting so long, then? By now you'd think they would have calmed down."
"There are outside forces interfering, your highness. We've seen foreigners carrying swords, mercenaries shooting war bows, explosives that could've only come from one of the trade posts in the east. What we're really fighting against is them."
And when they fought, they showed no mercy. The Elysian envoys she'd initially met, she'd learnt, were mostly diplomats and bureaucrats in similar rank to Baron Doria, with very limited access to their aether and a skill mostly for rhetoric. Aegyr had been sent as part of a longer reconnaissance mission, and if the Phrygians hadn't done their part, he would've left the council after the initial night she'd translated for him.
Those now on the streets were the elite soldiers – the ones sent to invade, or as they liked to call it, pacify other kingdoms. They attacked ruthlessly, they were trained to use their aether in conjunction with highly complex tactics, they were disciplined and had no fear of the men they faced. She'd learnt they were all men past their mid twenties, and would've been expected to have at least two children before they were sent away. "To ensure the legacy is carried on," one of the Knights had said.
She'd found that, despite her initial impression of the envoys and Aegyr, a lot of the Knights seemed to enjoy a bit of banter, and were not above playing pranks on each other. She'd come across two of them about to drop an entire bucket of old wine on an unsuspecting colleague two days after her visit to Hyperion. Until then, they'd been exceedingly formal with her, and initially the two pranksters froze when they realized she'd caught them in the act… only for her to use her own powers to tip the bucket and finish the job. Hilarity ensued, and relieved that she wasn't about to tattle on to Aegyr, they'd become bolder, letting her join in their little games.
There was, however, an invisible wall between them that could not be broken: they still had a hierarchy to respect, and a job to carry out. It was all the more obvious when, a few days after the prank, she was taking her customary daily walk through the palace gardens (coincidentally, she passed through the same one she'd once been almost chased off from) and an Arqan preceptor she'd spoken to during the Council meetings recognised her.
"Lady Ophelia!" he called after her, "you're here!"
She stopped to say hi, when the Knights that were with her blocked her vision, and she felt a gasp from the preceptor as he was thrown backwards by an unseen force. "What's wrong?" she asked, hand reaching out to the black robes of the man in front of her.
"His excellency has given orders that your highness is not to associate with foreigners."
Ophelia protested loudly, absolutely livid that Aegyr would try to control who she spoke to. "Your highness," one of the Knights leaned in to whisper in her ear, "we're under orders to retaliate if you make a scene – if you continue, we'll be forced to kill that man."
That was enough argument to calm her down. "Let's go then. I'll go complain to Aegyr myself."
However, and as expected, the man would hear no arguments. He received her in his room a few hours later, and after her initial rant, he spent a few minutes in silence, looking through the window. "You will not see them after a week – is it really that important?"
"What do you get out of this?"
"Absolutely nothing," the man said, and he stood up to walk to her. As it'd become a strange custom for him, he reached out to touch the earring he'd lent her, which permeated her face in a soft golden shimmer that became more noticeable as the evening grew darker. "It hasn't escaped everyone else's notice that you're roaming around the palace escorted by two Knights at all times, and that the one-time translator is now wearing the Elysian robes. Those who want to believe we started all this mess murdering the two Philistians, they might think that you were part of that plot."
"Is it possible in this world that someone might blow another person up by simply greeting them?" Ophelia crossed her arms, arching an eyebrow at the other's ridiculous explanation. "Or how is a simple conversation meant to be so dangerous?"
Aegyr's lips curved in amusement, despite his frustration. "You've given me no shortage of examples yourself, my lady. I wonder how is it that I'm still standing, sometimes."
Ophelia's glower didn't join in the joke, and Aegyr sighed, releasing the earring he'd been playing with. "It is best to minimize all the possible disruptors. I don't want to take any chances. One never knows what someone's words will trigger."
As it had become the norm, there was no satisfactory conclusion to the conversation. It always felt like he'd listen to her, twist her words around, and then agree to disagree, as if it was the most natural of things to have to disagree to her wanting to do something that was possible for most of humanity.
She decided, eventually, that her only option was to play the long game: she'd obey their rules, don the robes and the Lyre's Tears and spent her days like a ghost roaming the crumbling Arqan palace while the Baron whispered in her ear.
Her compliance, she knew, would breed carelessness.
"Your highness!" Baron Doria called her from inside her room. She was in the balcony, watching distractedly as what seemed to be a group of twelve Knights escorted an Elysian man into the inner courts of the palace. "His excellency is calling for you," he said, partly out of breath. Ophelia guessed, correctly, that she was to meet some more Elysian personalities that afternoon; the Baron probably had come running from the large meeting hall on the south wing, which is where Aegyr normally conducted his business from.
She nodded and let him lead the way. "Baron, who is it this time?"
"It's Duke Crescentio," he said with some excitement. "He's the vice-commander of the Knights."
Ophelia remembered Aegyr's words from the day before, when he'd told her he expected them to sail to the empire very soon. He'd been waiting for someone to take over his post.
Duke Crescentio was a man in his mid-forties, similar in stature and build to Aegyr, but a polar opposite in nature. Where one was stoic and distant the other seemed more relaxed and approachable – when he saw her he stepped out with a smile to bowed her head to her, telling her he was very excited to see history being written.
"It'd be an honour if you could pay my wife a visit when you arrive in Aurelia," he said with a candid look on his face. "You must be tired of the company of all these soldiers – I'm sure you'll want to spend some time with other ladies, make some friends."
Ophelia, unbeknownst to him, made him subject to the age-old British custom of politely promising to make plans that one never intends to follow through. It didn't escape her notice that he was wearing the Lyre's Tears as well – which shone in a delightful violet colour – as none of the Knights had ever done something as outrageous as offer their wives as potential connections when she arrived at the Empire.
After a few more platitudes she was released, and she began to make her way back to her room. Someone had called for Baron Doria before they left the meeting hall, so she had a rare moment of solitude as she traversed the palace on her own. She'd told the Baron a Knight was waiting for her outside of the room, and she'd acted so swiftly with her lies that he didn't suspect her at all.
She was wondering if she should sneak out to see Hyperion when she heard a man's shout above her. Before she had time to properly understand what was happening, she willed her aether to act, and the body that had been about to fall on her floated weightlessly into her arms.
"I seem to have caught… a man?" she said out loud, not quite understanding what had happened.
"Most gallantly, at that," the man said with a wink, before jumping out of her arms. He grabbed her hand and then began to run through the garden, towards the entrance to the ruined forum building.
"Wait! What are you doing?" she asked, but she knew from the shouts that were following them that the man was running away from the Knights. They stopped inside the charred hall, near the stone platform where the orators had once taken the stage. The stranger put a finger to his lips, and made a gesture towards the ground – and then, to her surprise, it began to move. What had seemed to be just a platform turned to be a big stone slab, with stairs leading to an underground passage.
"My mouth ran on me," the stranger admitted once they were hidden away in the stairs, the slab covering their exit. "I think I angered them."
"What do I have to do with all this?" Ophelia asked, incredulous. "You just kidnapped me!"
The stranger laughed, and pointed towards the Lyre's Tears.
"You're no damsel in distress, my lady," he said. "But you looked a bit mischievous, so I thought we could be mischievous together."
Ophelia frowned at him. She didn't recognise him: if he was a Knight, he must've arrived with Crescentio's troops. He was taller than her and rather skinny, although not as frail-looking as Hyperion. His hair was blonde, and was kept in a messy braid at the back of his head, but what was most surprising to her were his eyes, which seemed to be a beautiful, regular, normal brown.
"How mischievous are we talking about?" Ophelia smirked. "Pulling a prank on a Knight, inciting a riot, or making Aegyr angry? I've done all three."
The stranger laughed.
"I think tonight we can try to make Lord Scipio grow a few white hairs," he said, and pulled her forward, deeper into the passage. "At some point this secret tunnel was constructed in case some angry terrorists tried to create an uprising… but as it often is the case with such things, the automata they created to move the stone failed in a crucial moment. It is, however, a fun option for an Elysian who wants to sneak into the city to have some fun."
"Is it possible to have some fun in the middle of war?" she asked, frowning.
"This is not war," the stranger said as he chuckled. "An army on both sides is needed for a war. These are just some petty riots."
Ophelia begged to differ, but she wasn't about to school the man on the details of modern warfare. Perhaps he was right, in that time and place, where conflicts should last only a few months, if not less.
The passage wasn't long – they must've walked a few minutes before they came across a wooden door. It was thick, and the moist air of the tunnel had made it swell until it seemed to be bursting into the stone walls. Upon closer inspection one could feel cracks where the cool sea breeze would sneak through. The man held up a single finger against it, and it crumbled into pieces, as if the rot of a hundred years had spread in the course of one second. Behind, they found that the entrance had been hidden from view by a number of thick bushes that had been left to their own devices: to get through, they had to make their way hacking through them.
It wasn't just the bushes they had to struggle with: it seemed whoever had originally planned the passage spared no thought to its maintenance. She wondered, had they no recourse to their aether, how would they be able to safely make their way out of the palace like that? The bushes had grown on a small terrace, the size of two large buckets: below, the bedrock of the natural hill on which the palace stood offered a clear drop into the slums, about forty feet of nasty free fall. "I guess that's why the passage was forgotten," she commented as they both looked down below. "Count to three?" she looked at the man that was still holding her hand.
"Before that," he said, reaching out to her face. She froze, unsure for a moment as to what he was trying to do, before he removed her earring and handed it back to her.
After it was safely put away along with Hyperion's armband in one of the satchels that hung from her waist, she pointed out that her blue robes were incriminating enough.
"Take out your toga, and put this on," he said. She supposed that his black outer tunic was simple enough that it wouldn't draw too much attention: she was wearing a simple off-white skirt, and underneath the shimmering blue tunic there was a simple one-piece gown of sorts. She folded the toga and hid it in the foliage of one of the bushes, and gave a thumbs up to the man.
He looked confused, almost taken aback. "Ah, apologies," she said, figuring she'd just committed a faux pas, "I forget our expressions are different."
"What does that mean for you?" he asked, curious. "I'd think you were telling me to die."
"What?! Oh, heavens no – it means 'ready', 'all-good', I suppose?"
"I will come back to ask you to teach me more Byzantine expressions, my lady," he said, satisfied. "But for now, shall we go?"
And off they jumped, hand in hand so they could time their fall better. Ophelia had never done such things, and it almost felt like one of those dreams where one was able to kick into the air and fly at will, but instead of floating awkwardly one sort of knew that at the end of that cliff their descent would softly stop, and their feet would touch the ground as if they'd been walking down a flight of stairs. They carefully climbed over the roofs of the densely packed houses; these were some of the slums that dotted Arqa like any major city that had any semblance of wealth.
Owing to the ingeniousness of poverty, most of the houses had been half-built into the bedrock, making use of the natural terrain when it allowed them to. They could hear the animated voices of families gathered around to prepare their food for the evening, or to finish their last pieces of work before the night sky robbed them of their light. Like giggling teenagers trying to skip class after lunch, they jumped into a dank, solitary alleyway, and made their way into the streets, trying to blend in with the crowd.
"You can speak Arqan to me," he whispered in her ear, and she nodded. Their disguises were complete.
He seemed to know his way through the city. "Are you hungry?" he said, leading her through a maze of very narrow streets, so small one would not be at fault for calling them alleys. She nodded. "I know of a good place for food. But first," as they neared the end of the street they were met with what could be considered a dead end for someone of a specific size. The buildings had proliferated so uncontrolled that the walls of the two houses that lined the end of the street had greedily occupied every bit of terrain possible, leaving only a gap of about half a meter to go through to the other side.
The stranger squeezed in first, and then it was her turn – it was only a step or two, hardly anything that would make anyone uncomfortable. What met them on the other side was nothing short of a stunning view of the port, with the dark blue sea dotted in black ships reflecting the reddening sun. They had arrived at a square of sorts, and from it one could see the rise and fall of the different districts in the city: slums, guilds, workshops and villas, all naked to the eye, ready to be captured in a map.
"It's a beautiful sight," she breathed. "Certainly better than the one you get from the palace."
"Confinement tends to make a lot of things uglier," the man said next to her.
"You seem to be familiar with this city, but I know you haven't been here for long."
"You know?" He shot her a quizzed look.
"At this point I've memorised the faces of all the Elysians that go through the palace; I assume you came with Crescentio, as I haven't seen you before."
He laughed. "You are right, I did arrive with his troops. How observant of you, my lady. And yes, this is not my first time in Arqa. I'm not quite one of the Knights, but trained like one. They call us praetorians, and we're tasked to travel outside of the Empire on various missions, often the type that require things other than full-scale combat."
Ophelia narrowed her eyes, a smirk on her face. "A spy, then?"
"We gather intelligence when needed, yes."
She was about to ask him for a story, but her complaining stomach stopped her. "To our next stop, then," the man said with a smile, and made a gesture for her to follow him.
They began to walk down the hill, taking streets that seemed to become wider and framed by larger, better-kept buildings. Instead of simple one-room shacks, and pig pens taking half of the street they began to see more carefully tended gardens poking out of brick walls, with some residences even boasting a private well. It also became quieter, with families sequestered further into their homes: only servants roamed the streets, carrying buckets of water to and from the collective fountain at the end of the street.
It certainly didn't look like an area that would boast from a lively public house. And to Ophelia's surprise, that wasn't where they were headed to: it was some other building, the likes of which she hadn't yet seen before in that world. At a place where six roads converged stood a large hall, almost like a market building, surrounded by galleries. It was very lively, unlike the dead streets around it, with families sitting inside in long, communal tables, and groups of men hanging out in the galleries drinking and eating.
"Wow," she breathed, eyes shining with the recognition of something she hadn't know she'd missed. "It's like a food market."
"Fu-maer-ke?" the elysian next to her repeated. "Is that what you call a taberna?"
Ophelia nodded. "Where I'm from, these were very common. You can sit and have food at that place, or you can take it with you and eat it as you walk."
"How silly. How does one eat and walk? Why not just sit down and enjoy it?"
"Uh, life is very different there," she couldn't help but shrug at the intricacies of modern life back on earth. "Since we invented clocks to tell the time, we barely have time for anything, let alone eating."
"Well, I propose we do it my way rather than yours," he said with a smile. "And you can tell me more about this strange way of life."
Ophelia, prisoner to the ache in her belly, had no choice but to accept. They ended up getting something that the Elysian called 'a pease pudding' – which was a variation from the one she was familiar with: spiced with herbs and mixed with fig paste, it packed more of a punch, and it was served on a large flat bread of sorts, but made with animal fat.
"I didn't think I'd catch myself saying this, but I'm happy to do something that I used to do in Byzantium," Ophelia confessed, happily munching away at the street food.
"Do you not miss your land?"
She shook her head with a smile. "That land doesn't miss me; I have no one waiting for me back there. But there are certain… luxuries, that I miss. Instead of using chamber pots, each house has at least one room where one can do their necessities, and by pressing a button water comes from a pipe and flushes away all the waste. There are taps for bathing, one for cold water, one for hot water. Taps in the kitchen, to wash the dishes or get water for cooking and drinking. And the machines…"
"There are machines that wash the clothes for us, that do the dishes for us. We don't need to keep open fires in our kitchens: we have machines that are able to heat pans without the need for fire. And there are machines that act like ice houses, the size of a large chest, where one can keep food fresh for weeks, in the cold."
Ophelia laughed to herself. "I guess when one can use aether in this world it might not seem as miraculous; it'd be quite amazing for those in Byzantium to hear that one can do such ridiculous things here."
"You traded one magic for a different kind," the man said. Ophelia agreed. "But it's not all lost – should you want to, I'm sure there would be enough scholars ready to hear your ideas to make these machines exist in this world, too."
Where could the scholars of that era start, if they didn't seem to know what electricity was? "I wonder," she said thoughtfully. "This world named mine Byzantium; there, that was the name of an old empire that had fallen about a thousand years before my time. But from what I've seen of this land's technology and knowledge, it is very much like what my world's technology would've been at the time of that empire. I thought, at first, that I had travelled back in time, until I realized none of the territories seemed familiar."
The man seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. "Do you know the story of the founding of the empire?"
"Not in detail."
"Me neither," he said, "but the emperor, who came from Byzantium, did not just bring aether into this land; he was also said to have brought knowledge of technology that had not yet been invented, and it was that which made the empire great. The brute force of an Elysian will only do so much."
Ophelia became lost in her own thoughts. If the technology the emperor had brought was medieval, would that mean that he'd hailed from a time a millennia before hers?
She'd never given much thought to that other man that came from her world; she'd doubted, as she lay at night wondering about what had brought her to that place, that they'd even belonged to the same universe. There was, after all, nothing but centuries of myths between his arrival and hers, and the only thing that connected them was their strange appearance, their travel to that realm, and the strange powers they had.
But she'd been walking in his legacy the whole time, seeing his shadows in the changes he'd brought to the empire he'd created, the kingdoms they'd conquered. She was starting to get curious about him, if only to understand if they had any similarities to share.
"Have you seen the emperor?" she asked the stranger.
"I don't think anyone alive has. Why do you ask? Do you want to see him?"
"No, not really," Ophelia confessed. "I'm slightly curious as to where he comes from, if he'll feel familiar to me. But I fear I'll end up a prisoner in Elysium until I die," she couldn't help but laugh bitterly. "Not that it matters, since that's where I'm heading anyway."
The strange man stood up, and offered her a hand. "Never cast your lots too early, my lady. If he was able to build an empire, I'm sure you can make your own story."
Ophelia took the offered hand, and they both starting retracing their steps to make their way back. "For an Elysian, you're fun to talk to," she said with a laugh. "If I had said that to Aegyr, he would've told me it's my fate and not to cry about it or something absolutely heartless along those lines."
"I've been away for too long," he smirked, "that sometimes I forget where I'm from. It's all part of my work as well – if I spoke like them, I wouldn't be as free to roam around."
Having arrived back at the entrance of the passage, she returned his black tunic to him, and donned her blue stola again. "Although you know my name, I'd rather present myself: my name is Ophelia."
The praetorian smiled at her. "I'm honoured, Ophelia. You can call me Orion."
The way back felt a little less adventurous and more like the preface of a horror movie. Although anything could happen at that point, Ophelia had no doubts that Aegyr would know of her disappearance, and she started worrying for Hyperion. As if caught in a storm she'd been whisked off, entranced by the moment and the prospect of leaving behind that asphyxiating prison for a bit, forgetting that her rebelliousness would have consequences.
Orion noticed her increasing tension and told her not to worry – "Lord Scipio will be too busy scowling at me."
The way they were caught reminded Ophelia of teenage movies where the rebellious female protagonist would be trying to sneak back into her own room, only to find that one of her parents was waiting for her all along. She'd always wondered about the logistics of pulling something like that off – how long would the parent need to wait in the room, and what would they do in the mean time?
Aegyr's version of that storyline, however, had him sitting on her bed, reading through scrolls as though he was in the middle of a study session. He looked up as they walked in from the balcony, and after a long, suffering minute of silence he sighed.
"I shall not place the blame on you this time, lady Ophelia, as I know better," he said. "But please do reconsider for next time. As for you… praetorian primum, is it really beyond your control to act responsibly?"
Orion smiled cheekily at the commander. "She's not a prisoner, your excellency. And wasn't I appointed as her chaperone? You know, after all, that those Knights are far too uptight; it's too cruel to force their company on anyone."
Aegyr's curt expression didn't change. He gathered his scrolls, and moved to leave the room. "Perhaps this is a conversation we should continue ourselves. Lady Ophelia, be warned that what the praetorian primum considers reasonable and what the rest of Elysium considers reasonable are two different things. It's best kept in mind."
Ophelia, who had already made her mind up that Orion was great to hang out with and didn't care for any warnings Aegyr gave her, simply nodded and waved him goodbye. As her new 'chaperone' walked to join the commander, he gave her a hesitant thumbs up that she returned.
She slept sounder than she'd done in weeks. It was the morning that brought back that jaded feeling that made her second-guess herself and all the memories from the previous afternoon. Perhaps she should've been more cautious about the mysterious Elysian who'd called himself her chaperone. The slow dread of her incoming journey to Elysium began to make her paranoid.
And then, Orion showed up at her door with a basket full of food and an amphora of water, and asked her if she was feeling like having breakfast outside.
"A… picnic?" she said, slipping into English. As she closed the door behind her and hurriedly put the Lyre's Tears in her ear she explained to him, "it was not often that we had a warm, sunny day, so when it happened during the summer or the spring we'd take baskets of food with us to the commons. My father would bring something to read; I would bring something to play with."
"Can a… picnic happen anywhere?" Orion, delighted at the new word, asked.
"Well, I suppose it could happen in one's backyard as well. Anywhere that's not inside the house, or a place where normally one goes to eat. It would normally be done somewhere scenic."
"I suppose we'll get a rather nice view of the port from there," he said.
He led her through the gardens into the north wing, where the entrance to the palace was located. As they walked, she noticed that there was an abundance of Knights gathered in small groups or by themselves, eating, talking, or simply relaxing. It was more common to see them like that during the evening, after they'd come back from doing the rounds in the city during the day; by mid-morning the palace tended to see only the comings and goings of bureaucrats.
"Is something happening? Why are all the Knights here?"
"It's been very quiet the last few days," Orion told her. "They're preparing to leave for their next mission."
At the site of the entrance, the palace's outer walls curved inwards into a semicircle: covered in blocks of white marble, the outside acted as a sort of plaza where people gathered to trade and to meet. From its vantage position at the end of the street that climbed uphill from the port, it had been where the Arqan preceptors had met the envoys at the start of the Council, and where protestors had gathered weeks before to try and break into the palace.
As it would be necessary with any edifice of that importance, the walls were fortified: watch towers had been built into them at every corner, with soldiers stationed along the top of the walls. It soon became clear that Orion's picnic was to happen somewhere on the fortifications, as he took her to the stairs that led to the left gate tower. She wondered where they'd find the space to do anything, as the space inside was cramped and only allowed four or five soldiers, all of which were present and on duty.
After three flights of stairs, she had to stop to catch her breath.
"It'd be quicker to climb to heaven," she said to his amused stare. He laughed, but mercilessly carried on, and finally, they climbed up to the roof. The sun and the sea breeze rolled over their shoulders and their backs, welcoming them outside.
Like any fortified tower, the roof had been lined with stone blocks in a step formation, to give spaces from which archers and other artillery could be shot from. That day, they'd be repurposed as seats, as some of them were wide enough for the two of them to sit comfortably.
It was a nice view of the port, she thought. Not as good as the one he'd taken her to the day before, but it would be nice to have their food while they did some people-watching. The unrest had never discouraged the traders and their clients; as long as no one rushed to the palace, they would make use of the plaza to carry out their business.
"What is to happen to Arqa now?" Ophelia asked. "It seems like Crescentio and his troops were not needed in the end."
"Oh, he wasn't sent here to deal with the Arqans. That was Aegyr's task. After this mess, I suppose the cleaner option is to simply cut off the roots and plant a new tree, which is what has been happening so far."
"What does that mean?"
Orion pointed towards the far side of the plaza. She'd been told by a servant, during the Council, that the little wooden platform with the pole was a hanging noose, and that the plaza was were public executions were carried out. She'd thought it morbid at the time, and had made a point of avoiding looking in that direction when she passed it on her way back to Hyperion's villa. That's why she couldn't quite remember if the extra poles at the side of the platform had always been there or was a recent addition, one made to hang the corpses that were exhibited there.
"Who…?" Ophelia quickly looked away, dropping the bread she'd been eating to the ground, in disgust. A seagull that had been eyeing them from the other tower landed at her feet, intent on claiming the food for itself.
"Careful, we don't want to give them any ideas," Orion said as he pointed towards the seagull, which had been trying to greedily swallow the bread piece in one bite. The bird froze, restrained by the man's aether. "The moment you yield an inch to the vermin, they will try to take a yard."
A hole appeared in the animal's body, as if pierced by an invisible arrow. The force that was restraining it disappeared, and it crumbled on itself, lifeless. Ophelia grabbed Orion's arm and yanked it roughly towards her. "Please don't do that in front of me," she said. Her voice came out firm, but she felt like she was trembling.
The praetorian smiled softly, trying to pacify her. "Apologies," he said, patting her hand. "I shall keep it in mind."
Ophelia released him, but she'd lost her appetite. She walked to the opposite end of the tower, incapable of looking at the plaza anymore, lest her eyes be drawn towards the bodies. Death had a morbid way of calling someone's attention.
"Who are they then," Ophelia repeated her question.
"The Lord Preceptor, and some of his ministers," Orion said with some amusement. He watched her tense, turning to look at him with surprise in her eyes. "A new government was needed, one that will serve the empire's interests, and will satisfy the demands of the city's guilds. Sadly for the Lord Preceptor, his tendency to coexist with his officials' corruption earned him no friends amongst the merchant class."
"I thought the Arqans wanted nothing to do with the Elysians. They won't stand for it."
"You will see that nationalism is an illness that arises only when there's too many empty pockets. And fragile as the current peace might be, the rebels will soon lose all their support from Latil and Philistia. That is why Lord Crescentio was sent in."
"They're… invading the Free Cities."
Orion smiled. "Veiling for the empire's interests, and ensuring peace in the Atlantean Sea. It wouldn't do for pirates to be roaming free again, taking refuge as they have in the outskirts of their ports."
Ophelia turned towards the view inside the front courtyard of the palace. Inside, the Knights were gathering. Her eyes roamed through the dozens of dark blue robes. She wasn't looking for anything in particular, but she found a small group of six Arqan bureaucrats trying to make their way among the Elysians, looking by all intents and purposes scandalized that they seemed like foreigners in their own land. Two of them ended up splitting up, walking off to the left, while the other four seemed to head towards the entrance. Amongst the latter, she saw one of them stop by one of the decorative urns that lined the stairs leading to the inside of the palace.
She paled. It was something that had lived in her mind only as a by-product of the popular imagination of the era she'd been raised in. Her disbelief, however, wasn't enough to stall her hand, as her instinct proved stronger: somehow, she made the urn and the man shoot up into the air, as if suctioned by the tail of a tornado.
And as they flew up, several things happened: people shouted in shock, she felt Orion approach her to ask her what was happening… and the urn exploded mid-air. She'd raised it far above the palace enough that the only one affected was the Arqan who'd set off the explosion, and whose body disintegrated in the hold of her aether as the shockwave of the explosion and the burst of flames devoured him.
That was not the end of it: more explosive devices had been hidden along the courtyard and the palace, and one after the other they were set off by suicidal Arqans, who seemed like they'd been ready to die in the process of punching hard into the heart of the Elysian hold over their city. It was a tactic that been unknown in that land, until a bunch of Phrygian men proved that it was the best way to trap the Elysians: as some tongues had whispered in the underworld of Arqa, the element of surprise trumped over all aurelian miracles.
It was devastating. Around them, four or five of the explosions burst into large fireballs, raising up dirt and debris into the air. Ophelia felt each of them like a punch in her guts; she called Orion to her, and threw the both of them to the floor as the shock waves hit. She imagined a shield over their bodies; Orion shouted something at her, but the explosion had blown her eardrums out. As the shrill pitch of the explosion's scream rang in her ear, she felt the tapping of the debris as it was rejected by the invisible wall her aether had created.
She laid there, tears trapped in her eyes, not quite sure what to do. Her mind was blank, spent after her initial reaction. Orion turned to face her. He was shocked, as well, pale as a ghost. His blond, wavy hair was halfway out of its braid, charred and full of soot. He closed his eyes for a moment, muttered something under his breath, and then reached out to her.
The moment his finger touched her nose, she felt the world came back in focus. He'd fixed her hearing.
"Let's go down," he whispered, almost as if he was afraid to awaken any more explosions. "We ought to find survivors."
Ophelia sat up, shakily, and observed the aftermath: the courtyard was covered in smoke and fire. She could barely see past the tower itself. She willed the smoke to clear, and as it did she also wrestled with the fires, putting all her concentration in slowing them. It almost felt like she was pushing down on them, trying to smother them with her will.
It worked. And what was left behind was nothing short of an absolute massacre. Parts of the north wing had collapsed, along with the entirety of the west side of the wall. The inner courtyard was a mess of debris and bodies, black marks and bloodstains dripping on the once white marble.
Everything was still, silent for an instant – and then, moans from the survivors began to arise from the confusion in the ground. They were incoherent, low pitched chirps, and in someone's morbid imagination they might've seemed as if the underworld had opened its gates, and one could hear its inhabitants call for their own from the other side.
Orion and Ophelia jumped from the tower, landing in front of where the gate had been. The explosion's shock wave had forced its hinges, and the thing fell backwards due to the effect of its own weight. Orion ran to the nearest Knight to begin his first aid while Ophelia paused to stare at the people standing outside, in the plaza. They were all silent, looking into the wreckage. The ones that stood closest had a dispassionate look in their faces, almost bored.
"What are you doing?" Ophelia shouted at them, gesturing inside. "Will you not help?"
None of them moved. A kid, a little street urchin, reacted by running towards the fallen gate with a blue piece of cloth, and then throwing it in her direction. He said nothing, only laughed cheekily at her, and ran back to hide amongst the crowd.
Ophelia heard no arguments, no shouts, but somehow could tell what they were thinking. Elysians, help yourselves.
She turned around, and as she walked, the gate behind her went back into its own place, hiding the massacre from the eyes of those who were surely rejoicing themselves. Could she blame them? The palace was nothing but a tangled mess of Arqan corruption and Elysian interests. For the common Arqan, it better not exist. But she wasn't ready to try and play emotional chess with the rest of the city's population at that exact moment, and so she joined Orion as they singled out the survivors and provided them with the Elysian version of first aid.
The debris and the collapsed building soon became a hindrance. "There're more people trapped underneath," she said to Orion, pointing towards the fallen roof of the north wing. "We'll need to find a way to remove all this debris."
"There's only so much we can do, my lady," Orion's fatigue became evident as he dropped to the floor to catch his breath. Using aether, as with any other muscle, would eventually drive one to exhaustion. "I'm afraid I can't be as useful as a Byzantine in this situation."
Ophelia wasn't deterred. She took one look at the scene in front of her and bit her lips. "What is it that you call them? Aurelian miracles? Let's see if we can pull one now…"
She closed her eyes, and remember the palace as it had once stood. She walked through its hallways in her mind, sometimes patting the walls as if she was a mason checking the quality of what she'd just built. She reopened the gates of the north wing, sauntered towards the west wing, even visited the fallen parliament chamber. She had no idea how any of what she was doing worked; she only followed her instincts, and willed the stones and the bricks, the mortar and the stucco on the walls to go back in time, pretend the explosions had never happened.
She didn't know how long she did it for; she didn't even know what it all looked like once she was done with her mental walk. Only two days later, when she awoke once again in the room she'd been staying in as if nothing had happened, that she realized that she'd fallen unconscious.
It was midday, and she felt as if her throat had been coated in sand. Thankfully someone had left a glass with water next to her, and she gulped it all in one go. She would've questioned if it all had been a dream had it not been for the frailness of her body. Aches ghosted over her muscles, feeling as if they were coming from her very own bones. She had barely any strength in her arms and legs. She wanted more water, but she knew she wouldn't be able to raise the jug that had been left next to her bed.
"Baron?" she tried, her voice hoarse and feeble.
She might've as well sounded an alarm bell in the entire complex. Her door was opened with some violence, bringing a rush of people in. Aegyr and Crescentio went in, then Orion, and lastly the Baron himself.
"You're awake," Aegyr was the first to reach her side, his eyes roaming over her face and the empty glass in her hands. He gently took it, and poured her more water. "How are you feeling?"
"As if a truck had ran over me," Ophelia murmured as she slowly sat up, having once again downed the entire content of the glass. Realizing she'd slipped back into English, she cleared her throat and tried again. "I feel like shit."
"That was a true aurelian miracle," Orion said as he sat at the foot of her bed with a cheeky smirk. Both Aegyr and Crescentio shot him nasty looks for his impertinence, but he ignored them both. "The palace looks as good as new. You even reconstructed the central chamber. The new Lord Preceptor will be very happy… well, if he survives."
"Did many people die?" Ophelia alternated her gaze from Aegyr to Crescentio. It was the latter that grimaced before responding, "we lost many of our Knights, unfortunately. And quite a few of the Arqan preceptors."
"What about Hyperion?" she asked Aegyr, almost frantic. "Is he all right? And Eon, and the others you took from the villa?"
"The dungeons, by virtue of their location, were entirely unaffected by the attacks," he replied flatly. It was clear that none of them cared; if he'd checked on Hyperion, it was only because he knew she'd ask. Ophelia sighed, feeling her body releasing a certain tension she hadn't noticed until then.
"Were the Arqans affected as much as the Knights and the rest of the Elysians?" Ophelia wondered out loud, knowing they weren't the target of the attack.
"The ones that survived the executions ten moons ago, yes," added Orion. "And of course, the purge…"
"Purge?"
Aegyr shot a murderous look towards the praetorian; Ophelia felt that he was very close to skinning him in front of her. Crescentio, who seemed to share his commander's feelings, put a hand on Orion's shoulder and suggested they leave. "Let's leave his excellency the job of delivering the news to her highness. I do have some errands I need you to run, as well."
Orion shot him an amused look before excusing himself. Baron Doria stood next to the door, awaiting instructions. Aegyr, always attentive, asked him to bring food for her.
"So, what is this purge? What happened…?"
Aegyr sighed before calling a chair to him and taking a seat. "After the explosions, and after you'd somehow rebuilt this entire palace by yourself, we gathered the Knights that had escaped death or injury and we began to investigate how the explosive devices had been set up. As it happened, many Arqan preceptors had colluded with rebels to make it happen. We dealt with them appropriately."
"You executed them all."
"Yes," Aegyr said as it was the most natural thing in the world. "We couldn't show them any weakness, not after the sacrifice of so many of our own. Their deaths had to be avenged."
Ophelia closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the stare in the Arqans' face as they looked on the massacred bodies. "Won't they just retaliate? This seems to be a never ending circle…"
"I wonder who is left that can retaliate, and I wonder who is left who would even attempt to retaliate," at Ophelia's doubting stare, Aegyr added, "because of what you did, there are rumours in the city that his majesty the emperor himself is in Arqa."
Baron Doria returned then, carrying a tray with some fruits and a bowl of porridge. Aegyr took it from him and dismissed him. Ophelia held out her hands to receive the tray, but was surprised when the man placed it on his lap.
"Your arms were trembling as they held a glass of water," he noted matter-of-factly. Ophelia's eyes went wide, and she held out a hand in front of her, almost horrified at the prospect of the other man feeding her. Stubborn as she was, she asked for the spoon and the bowl and he sighed, obliging: he held the bowl for her, and watched impassively as she struggled to hold the utensil.
"I hate this," she said after two attempts, feeling spent and in absolute pain. Aegyr said nothing, dipping the spoon in the bowl and holding it up to her as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Embarrassed and hungry, she said nothing more and allowed him to help her.