The palace was vibrating.
Not from the wind, but from the sound of thousands of feet stomping on the cobblestones outside. A low, rhythmic roar, like the ocean crashing against a cliff.
"Death to the Austrian!"
"Give us the bread!"
"Burn the nest!"
I ran up the stairs to the Royal Apartments. I needed to see them. I needed to know they were safe before the shooting started.
The hallway was deserted. The guards had abandoned their posts to join the defense downstairs.
I reached the nursery door.
It was closed.
I tried the handle. Locked.
"Marie!" I called out, pounding on the wood. "Open the door! It's me!"
Silence.
Then, the click of a lock.
The door opened a crack. Marie stood there.
She wasn't crying. She wasn't hysterical. She looked... hollow. Like a porcelain doll that had been emptied out.
Behind her, I could see the Dauphin and Madame Royale huddled under a table, clutching their dolls.
"Are you safe?" I asked, breathless. "The smoke... the wind is blowing it away from the palace, but—"
"I heard the explosion," she said. Her voice was flat. Dead.
"The rioters," I explained quickly. "They burned the warehouse. They're drunk. They're coming for the gates."
She looked at my sash. The tricolor sash of the Revolution. The symbol I wore to appease the people who were currently trying to kill us.
"You unleashed them, Louis," she said.
"I tried to save the economy!"
"You told them it was legal to steal," she cut me off. "You told them the rich were traitors. You pointed the finger at my friends, at your family. And now you are surprised they are pointing the finger at us?"
"I am fixing it!" I pleaded. "I have a new officer. He has a plan."
"A plan," she repeated. A bitter, cold smile touched her lips. "Another plan. Another lie. Another betrayal."
She started to close the door.
"Marie, wait! I'm doing this for you!"
"No," she said. "You're doing this for yourself. Because you're afraid to lose. You're playing a game, Louis. And my children are the chips."
"Marie—"
"Go back to your soldiers," she said. "Go back to your mob. Leave us alone."
The door slammed shut. The lock clicked.
I stood there for a second, staring at the painted wood.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick the door down. I wanted to tell her that I was the only thing standing between her and a jagged rock in the face.
But I didn't have time for a marital spat.
Outside, the roar was getting louder.
I ran to the balcony overlooking the Cour du Carrousel—the main square in front of the palace gates.
The scene was a nightmare.
A sea of people stretched as far as I could see. Torches flickered in the twilight. Pikes and scythes glittered.
They were pressing against the iron gates. The metal groaned under the weight.
Inside the courtyard, Lafayette's National Guard was lined up in neat rows. They looked terrified.
They held their muskets with shaking hands. They were looking back at the palace, looking for orders, looking for a way out.
"Hold the line!" Lafayette was shouting, riding back and forth on his white horse. "Do not fire unless fired upon! We are citizens of a free nation!"
"Open the gate!" the mob screamed back. A bottle smashed against the bars. A rock hit a soldier in the face. He went down.
The line wavered.
Then, movement on the left.
A side gate opened.
Captain Bonaparte marched in.
He wasn't marching like a parade soldier. He was walking quickly, purposeful. Behind him, men were dragging two small cannons.
They weren't the big, ceremonial guns. They were field pieces. Ugly. Scarred iron.
Napoleon barked an order. His voice cut through the noise like a whip.
"Position! Cross-fire vector!"
The soldiers—Fournier's roughnecks, men who usually hated officers—jumped to obey. They sensed the competence. They sensed the violence.
They wheeled the guns into position. Not pointing over the heads of the crowd. Pointing directly at the gate. At chest level.
Lafayette saw them. He spurred his horse over.
"Captain!" he screamed. "What are you doing? You cannot fire artillery into a crowd! It's murder!"
Napoleon ignored him. He was sighting down the barrel.
"Load canister!" Napoleon shouted.
The gunners shoved bags into the muzzles. Not round balls. Canister. Tin cans filled with scrap metal, nails, and musket balls.
It was a giant shotgun shell.
"Captain!" Lafayette drew his sword. "I order you to stand down!"
Napoleon turned. He looked at Lafayette with absolute contempt.
"General," he said, his voice carrying up to the balcony where I stood. "The gate will hold for two minutes. If we do not fire, they will swarm us. They will kill the King. They will kill your men. They will kill you."
CRUNCH.
The center lock of the main gate snapped. The iron bars bent inward.
The mob roared. They poured through the gap like water bursting a dam.
Hundreds of them. Dirty, screaming, armed with knives and clubs. They rushed toward the thin line of Blue soldiers.
Lafayette froze. He couldn't give the order. He couldn't butcher his "brothers."
I gripped the stone railing of the balcony.
Do it, I thought. God forgive me, do it.
Napoleon didn't hesitate.
He raised his hand.
"FIRE!"
BOOM. BOOM.
The two cannons fired almost simultaneously.
The sound was physical. It punched me in the chest. A massive cloud of white smoke erupted, blinding everything.
Silence.
For a heartbeat, there was absolute silence. Even the screaming stopped.
Then, the smoke cleared.
I looked down. I grabbed the railing to keep from falling.
The gate was still there. The mob was still there.
But the first twenty yards of the crowd... were gone.
Just... red wetness on the cobblestones. Shredded fabric. Broken pikes.
The canister shot had acted like a scythe. It had cut a swath of devastation through the mass of humanity.
The rioters in the back stopped. They stared at the carnage in front of them. They had never seen this. They were used to muskets, to swords.
They weren't used to industrial slaughter.
Napoleon stepped forward. He walked right up to the smoking guns.
"LOAD!" he screamed.
The gunners scrambled. They shoved new charges down the barrels.
The sound of the ramrods scraping against the iron was the only sound in the square. Shhh-clack. Shhh-clack.
The mob looked at the cannons. They looked at the little man with the cold eyes.
Panic broke.
It wasn't a retreat. It was a rout.
They screamed. They dropped their weapons. They trampled each other to get away from the gate. To get away from the monster.
In thirty seconds, the square was empty, save for the dead and the dying.
Napoleon didn't fire again. He watched them run. He nodded, satisfied.
"Secure the gate," he ordered calmly. "Reload. Wait for the second wave."
There wouldn't be a second wave. I knew it. The spirit of the riot was broken.
I walked away from the balcony. My legs were numb.
I went down the grand staircase to the courtyard.
The smell hit me first. Sulfur. Rotten eggs. And the copper tang of blood.
I walked out onto the cobblestones. My boots crunched on glass.
Lafayette was off his horse. He was standing by the fountain, bent over, retching violently into the water. He was a war hero, but he had fought armies, not citizens.
Napoleon was inspecting the touchhole of the left cannon. He wiped soot from his hands with a rag.
He saw me approaching. He snapped to attention.
"Perimeter secured, Majesty," he said. His voice was calm. conversational.
I looked at the gate. At the red stains.
"I told you to defend the palace," I whispered. "I didn't tell you to massacre them."
Napoleon tilted his head. He looked like a tutor explaining a simple math problem to a slow child.
"It wasn't a massacre, Sire. It was a lesson."
He gestured to the empty street beyond the gate.
"They thought they were invincible. They thought the King was weak. Now they know the King has teeth."
He tossed the dirty rag onto the cannon barrel.
"Order is restored. The looting will stop tonight. Fear is a very effective policeman."
I looked around the courtyard.
The soldiers—Lafayette's Blues, Fournier's butchers—were staring at Napoleon.
They weren't looking at him with contempt anymore. They were looking at him with awe. Terror and awe.
He was the alpha predator now.
I looked up at the palace windows.
At the window of the nursery, a curtain moved.
I saw a face. Pale. beautiful. Horrified.
Marie had seen it all. She had seen the smoke. She had seen the bodies.
And she had seen her husband standing next to the gunman, nodding.
I looked back at Napoleon.
I had solved the riot. The assets were safe. The currency would stabilize.
But I had created something far more dangerous than a mob.
"Good work, Captain," I said. The words tasted like ash.
Napoleon smiled. It was the smile of a man who had just realized that the world was soft, and he was hard.
"Thank you, Majesty," he said. "Shall I clear the bodies? Or leave them as a reminder?"
"Leave them," I said, turning away. "Let Paris see the price of business."
I walked back toward the palace.
I was alone. My wife hated me. My cousin wanted my throne. My allies were terrified of me.
But as I walked through the smoke, I realized something.
I wasn't the Accountant anymore. I wasn't the Imposter.
I was the Tyrant.
And God help me, it was working.