On the third floor of the palace, in Oskar's wing, beyond the shattered double doors and the dead men lying in the hallway, smoke drifted from one of the girls' rooms like breath escaping into the cold.
Inside, the world had become white-gray haze and ringing silence.
The room itself was not large. It had never been meant for battle. It had been one of the younger girls' rooms, a pretty little princess chamber with six narrow beds, soft curtains, small wardrobes, dolls, ribbons, books, slippers, a wooden horse, and bright toys scattered across the carpet. Not long ago, little girls had slept there in peace, tucked beneath warm blankets, safe beneath the illusion that the palace was still a palace and that morning would come gently as it always had.
Then the silent alarm had come.
No bells, no shouting, only urgent hands shaking children awake, pale-faced women whispering for them to be quiet, Eternal Guards standing in the doorway with rifles already raised, and the terrible order to move. The youngest princes and princesses had been carried or hurried toward the hidden service lift in Oskar's wing, the small reinforced kitchen lift that led down through the servants' passages toward the secret basement level. They had been told not to cry, not to speak, not to make a sound, because enemies were already coming down the hall, and below them other loyal guards waited behind steel doors.
That had been only minutes ago.
Now the beds were broken, the curtains torn, the toys scattered beneath splinters and dust, and blood stained the carpet where children had once played.
Azarael lay on the floor, coughing smoke from his lungs.
At first he could hear almost nothing. Only a high ringing inside his skull, as if the explosion had filled his head with bells. His hands scraped over the carpet. Something wet clung to the sleeve of his white nightclothes. He blinked through the smoke and pushed himself upright.
Then he saw mother Cecilie. Or rather, he saw what remained of her, for she was not whole anymore.
Pieces of white cloth, blood, and broken flesh lay scattered across the center of the room, across the carpet, across the shattered toys, across the place where she had thrown herself onto the grenade so it would not take the children. For one frozen moment, Azarael stared without breathing, his violet eyes wide, his small face blank with shock.
Then understanding came.
Azarael was young, but he was no fool. He was not some sheltered little prince who had been kept ignorant of death. His father had taught him about war. His instructors, and his mother Tanya most of all, had taught him about wounds, killing, discipline, and the ugly truths men hid beneath uniforms, medals, prayers, and banners. He had watched his grandfather, the Kaiser, hunt animals and seen their bodies opened afterward. He had heard Eternal Guards speak in low voices of battlefields, ambushes, and men who did not come home.
He knew the world was cruel.
But knowing cruelty was not the same as seeing it.
Hearing of death, or imagining death dealt out to deserving enemies, was not the same as seeing it fall upon someone he loved. Watching hunted animals butchered was not the same as seeing Cecilie scattered across the floor of a child's room.
She was gone.
And the child she had carried inside her—the little brother or sister he had imagined one day meeting, teasing, teaching, and protecting—was gone with her.
Horror struck him first. Then grief. Then rage came so quickly it seemed to burn the grief alive.
Azarael's hand tightened around the bayonet still gripped in his fist. Tears filled his eyes, but they did not soften him. They made everything redder, hotter, sharper. Deep inside his chest, beneath the beating heart of flesh, something answered his anger with a pulse of crimson light. The violet in his eyes flickered, then bled toward a strange red-pink glow.
A few steps away, Liorael coughed and pushed himself up from the floor.
His brother looked just as stunned as he felt. The usual smug cleverness was gone from his face. There was no wicked smile, no bright little arrogance, no hint of mischief. Only dread. He looked at Azarael through the smoke as if begging him to say it was not real.
Azarael stared back. Then he understood something else. The grenade, Liorael had rolled it into the hallway. Liorael had laughed. Lioraels actions had caused it to be kicked back.
"You…" Azarael whispered.
Liorael's lips parted.
Azarael rose, shaking with fury.
"You did this."
Liorael shook his head at once. "No…"
"It's your fault!" Azarael screamed, pointing the bayonet at him. "You killed her!"
The words struck Liorael harder than any blow. He stumbled backward and fell onto his backside, eyes filling with tears as he shook his head again and again.
"No," he stammered. "No, I didn't mean to. I didn't—"
Azarael took a step toward him.
Behind them, Juniel and Lailael were crying near what remained of Cecilie, horrified and helpless, their small hands trembling as if they wanted to gather her back together and did not know how. Anna moved through the smoke toward them, her white nightdress torn, blood running in thin lines from her cheek and across her back where shrapnel had bitten into her. Her face was pale, but she was still fighting for control.
"Stop it!" she snapped. "Both of you, stop it!"
Azarael froze by instinct alone, for it was Anna's voice, and within Oskar's household even the fiercest children knew better than to ignore Mother Anna when that tone entered her words.
She reached them before Azarael could take another step. Her hand closed around his shoulder and turned him hard enough that his eyes snapped to hers. Then she looked from one boy to the other, grief and fear shaking beneath the surface of her face, but not ruling her.
"Both of you, listen to me. You are brothers. You are family. He did not mean for this to happen, Azarael. Do you hear me? He did not mean it."
Azarael's jaw trembled. His eyes burned red through tears and smoke.
"She's dead."
"I know." Anna's voice cracked for only a moment before she forced it steady again. "I know she is. But if we break apart now, then we die too. All of us. So calm down. Work together. Stay behind me."
She pushed Azarael back, then turned toward the fallen Eternal Guard near the ruined doorway. His black carbine lay beside his torn body, slick with dust and blood, the bayonet already gone from its mount. Anna dropped to one knee, pulled the weapon free, and searched his ruined pouches until she found a magazine. Her hands shook only briefly before she forced them still and clicked the magazine into place.
Then Wilhelm's voice thundered from the corridor again.
"Do not stop, you fools! Push forward! Capture them or kill them, I do not care! Advance, my Resurrectionists!"
Azarael went still.
That word struck the rage inside him and turned it away from Liorael.
Resurrectionists.
To him, it meant only two things. Traitors and enemies.
He looked at his brother once more. A low growl rose in his throat, but this time he swallowed it. Liorael was stupid, reckless, guilty, and terrified. But he was not the enemy. He was his brother.
Azarael turned away.
Ahead of him, Mother Anna crouched barefoot and bleeding in her torn white nightgown, trying to place herself between the children and the men coming to kill them. She was reloading a dead soldier's rifle with hands that had once soothed fevers, braided hair, carried babies, folded blankets, and held Oskar when even he needed peace.
No, Azarael thought. Not again. Mother Cecilie had already died for them. He would not watch another woman throw herself in front of death while he hid behind her. He would not stand there and be protected like some helpless little thing.
This time he would be the shield.
Near Klaus's body, the dead Royal Guard's rifle lay across the floor, empty but still fitted with its bayonet. The blade beneath the barrel was dusty, but not broken.
Azarael moved before Anna could notice. He braced one foot against Klaus's arm, seized the rifle with both hands, and tore the bayonet free.
The sound made Anna glance back. Her eyes widened and she ghasped, "Azarael, what are you doing?"
He stood there with two bayonets in his hands, both reversed along his forearms. His violet eyes burned crimson through the smoke, tears still wet on his cheeks.
"I am doing what Father would do," he said. "I am protecting everyone."
Anna's face changed. She reached for him at once as she yelled in distress, "Azarael, no—"
But he was already moving.
He crossed the broken room in a blur, small bare feet striking carpet, splinters, and blood without hesitation. Then he leapt. Both feet struck the shattered doorframe, and for one impossible instant he clung there sideways, body flattened against the ruined wood and stone as if gravity had forgotten him.
His crimson eyes fixed on the hallway. Then he kicked off, with both bayonets held forward and his small body stretched like an arrow, Azarael launched himself out of the room and into the smoke.
Anna screamed his name behind him. He did not hear her.
In the hallway, three Royal Guards were advancing toward the girls' room.
The first was the man who had kicked the grenade back. His rifle was low but ready, his face pale beneath grime and smoke. He expected to find what soldiers always expected after an explosion in a closed room: broken bodies, wounded women, perhaps one child still moving among the dead. He was ready for horror.
He was not ready for a child to come flying through the smoke straight at his face.
His eyes widened as he tried to raise his rifle, but too late.
Azarael spun as he passed him, both bayonets flashing in a tight, vicious circle. One blade cut across the man's face, tearing through cheek and eye. The other opened his throat so deeply that his voice vanished before it could become a scream.
Blood sprayed in a red arc through the smoke.
The Royal Guard struck the wall, rifle clattering from his hands, both palms flying to his neck as he slid downward. Only wet gurgles escaped him. His boots kicked once against the floor, then again, weaker.
Azarael landed in a roll and came up already moving.
A rifle cracked from farther down the hallway. The shot missed him by inches, tearing through smoke and broken plaster where his body had been.
The second Royal Guard had steadier nerves. He tracked the boy, aimed down the barrel, and fired straight at him.
Azarael saw the line of the shot, the muzzle, the angle, the death coming for his face.
Mid run his right-hand bayonet snapped forward. Steel met lead with a sharp metallic crack. He did not cut the bullet cleanly; the force twisted the bayonet in his grip and dented its edge, but the blow turned the round just enough. It screamed past his cheek instead of through his skull.
The Royal Guard stepped back in shock.
Azarael dropped low and slid beneath the man's rifle, then between his legs, so fast the guard twisted too late to follow him. Azarael's feet struck the floor behind him, and he sprang upward at once, landing against the man's back like a cat climbing a tree.
Both bayonets drove down into the side of the guard's neck.
The man convulsed.
Azarael tore the blades free and kicked away in a backward flip as blood burst over the guard's collar. The Royal Guard toppled forward, hands clawing uselessly at his throat, and struck the floor face-first.
For one suspended heartbeat, the hallway seemed to slow.
The third Royal Guard saw the body fall.
Anna, staring from the doorway, saw it too.
And beyond the third guard, near the shattered double doors leading back toward the main corridor, the man in black saw everything.
Wilhelm stood half-hidden by smoke and splintered wood, pistol in hand, his hood torn and his face streaked with blood that was not his own. His eyes widened, not in fear at first, but in terrible vindication.
"Yes," he whispered.
Azarael landed from the flip and rolled toward the third Royal Guard.
The man raised his rifle, while Wilhelm raised his pistol.
Azarael saw only enemies before himself, as both weapons then fired.
He rolled left. The rifle shot passed over him, and Wilhelm's round struck sparks from the floor. The Royal Guard adjusted faster than Azarael expected and fired again. Azarael knocked the shot aside with his damaged bayonet, the impact nearly tearing the blade from his hand.
Then Wilhelm fired from the side.
Azarael tried to turn the second bayonet toward the shot, but he was too late.
The bullet struck his thigh and pain tore through him. His leg folded beneath his weight, one bayonet falling from his hand as he stumbled and crashed down onto one palm. For one terrible instant, he was on the floor between them, wounded and exposed.
The third Royal Guard saw it. So did Wilhelm. Both weapons came down toward him.
The Royal Guard smiled through his panic and lowered his rifle toward the boy's head, while Wilhelm raised his pistol.
"Liorael go!" Anna screamed from the doorway. "Now!"
She fired as she shouted.
Her carbine cracked hard through the smoke. At the same moment, Juniel and Lailael appeared beside her, pistols trembling in their small hands, faces white, eyes wet, but obeying. They fired too.
The hallway flashed.
Anna's burst struck the Royal Guard in the chest and shoulder, throwing him sideways just as his rifle went off. The shot punched uselessly into the ceiling. The girls' bullets snapped past Wilhelm, one cutting close enough to his face that he ducked with a curse, his pistol shot going wide.
That heartbeat was enough, for Liorael to burst from the room like a pale shadow.
He ran low, faster than any normal child should have moved, crossed the broken hallway, and threw himself into Azarael with all the force his small body could give.
The twins hit the floor together towards the side of the hallway, just as Wilhelm fired again. The shot cracked through the empty space where Azarael's head had been.
The boys tumbled across broken glass and marble dust, rolling behind one of the pillars beside the shattered windows. Azarael slammed against the base of it with a strangled cry, one hand flying to his bleeding thigh.
Wilhelm snarled and stepped forward, pistol rising.
Anna fired again.
This time the shot tore through the edge of his black cloak and snapped fabric near his shoulder. Wilhelm jerked back, eyes wide with fury, and vanished behind the shattered double doors as more pistol shots from Juniel and Lailael sparked against the broken wood around him.
The wounded Royal Guard tried to crawl after Wilhelm, dragging his rifle with one shaking hand.
Anna saw him. So did the girls. None of them fired cleanly. Their hands shook, their breaths came ragged, and the pistols bucked wildly in Juniel's and Lailael's small grips. But in that narrow, smoke-filled hallway, accuracy mattered less than the storm itself.
All three fired, their bullets struck wood, marble, and flesh. The man jerked under the impacts, rolled onto his side, and went still.
For a few seconds, there was only smoke, ringing ears, and the distant thunder of battle elsewhere in the palace.
Behind the pillar, Azarael sat with his back against cold marble, broken glass glittering around him like ice. His white nightclothes were soaked red at the thigh. His hands shook as he pressed them against the wound.
He tried not to cry out.
He failed.
A strangled sound slipped through his teeth.
Liorael knelt beside him, horrified.
"Azarael…"
"It hurts," Azarael hissed, furious at the weakness in his own voice.
"I know."
"You don't know."
Liorael had no answer.
From beyond the broken double doors, Wilhelm's voice rose again, high and feverish with triumph.
"I knew it!" he shouted. "I knew it! I told them for years! I told them all what my brother was!"
His laughter cracked through the smoke.
"He is not human! He never was! A devil entered him, and now look at what he has spawned into this world! Little monsters! Demons! Demons wearing children's faces!"
Anna gripped the carbine until her knuckles whitened.
"Anna!" Wilhelm called. "Can you not see it? Can you not understand what you have brought into the world? Forget Oskar. Forget that devil brother of mine. Come to me. Become mine. Together we can bring forth something holy. Something pure. Not this demon-blooded filth!"
Anna's face twisted with disgust and grief.
"You monster!" she screamed back. "You killed her! Do you understand that? Cecilie is dead! Your wife is dead because of you!"
The hallway fell strangely quiet for half a breath. Even through smoke and gunfire, the words seemed to reach him.
Then Wilhelm answered, almost gently.
"Cecilie is dead?"
Anna swallowed the sob rising in her throat.
"Yes, she is dead. She died protecting children from your madness. Why, Wilhelm? Why did you do this?"
For a moment, there was no answer.
Then he sighed.
"What a shame."
Anna stared into the smoke as if she had not understood him.
Wilhelm continued, his voice warming again, becoming soft, coaxing, obscene.
"But do not despair, Anna. You are still here. You are alive. Join me. Help me bring the others to reason when they return. Tanya, Gundelinde, all of them. They need not belong to my brother anymore. They can be cleansed. They can stand beside me in the resurrected German Empire, restored to its proper glory beneath its true heir."
Anna's mouth opened slightly. The sickness in her face became hatred.
"Never," she said, "Never, you bastard!"
She leaned out and fired into the hallway.
Her shots vanished into smoke. The girls fired with her, frightened and wild, filling the corridor with flashes. For a moment, the Royal Guards beyond the haze fell back.
Then the smoke thinned and Anna saw them.
More Royal Guards had entered the far end of Oskar's wing. Men crouched behind the broken entrance. Others formed around the shattered double doors. And there, lower to the ground, a machine-gun team was setting up again, barrel angled straight toward the children's room.
Wilhelm's voice came from behind cover.
"Then you have chosen death."
A hand cut downward.
"Fire."
The machine gun roared.
Anna threw herself back into the room and dragged Juniel and Lailael with her. The doorway exploded a heartbeat later. Wood splintered. Plaster burst. Bullets tore through wood and marble, and the already ruined body of the fallen Eternal Guard.
The girls screamed. Anna pulled them close and pressed them down against the floor.
"You did well," she whispered fiercely, though her own voice shook. "Both of you did well. Be strong. Just a little longer. Stay low. Stay with me."
Outside, under the cover of the machine gun, Royal Guards began spilling into the inner hallway again.
Some fired at the children's room. Others turned their rifles toward the pillar where the twins hid.
Bullets struck the marble wall and pillars in hard, savage bursts. White chips flew. Cracks crawled up the pillar. Broken glass skittered across the floor as the twins flattened themselves behind what little cover remained.
Azarael gritted his teeth, one hand on his bleeding thigh, the other still gripping a bayonet. Liorael pressed himself beside him, eyes wide, trembling in fear. The pillar was being eaten away piece by piece.
Anna saw it from the room and went cold.
The boys were trapped. The girls were trembling beneath her hands. The Royal Guards were advancing. The machine gun was firing. The smoke was clearing, and there was nowhere left to go.
Then, through the gunfire, a small clear sound cut across the hallway.
Ping.
The freight elevator had arrived.
For a heartbeat, the battle seemed to lose its rhythm. The machine gun faltered. Royal Guards turned their heads despite themselves. Anna froze in the doorway with one arm around the girls and the carbine still clutched in her other hand. Behind the broken pillar, Azarael and Liorael looked toward the crossroads.
Even Wilhelm fell silent.
Near the stairwell, the freight elevator stood battered and scarred, its metal doors dented by bullets and scratched by fragments from the fight that had torn the third-floor landing apart. The walls around it were white with impact marks. The stairwell beside it had become a ruin of chipped stone, smoke, and blood. One Eternal Guard lay dead near the upper steps, half-slumped over the railing with his rifle still caught beneath his arm, while below him Royal Guards and Eternal Guards lay tangled together where they had fallen.
The crossroads itself had become a slaughterhouse.
The two Eternal Guards who had first held the double doors were dead near the shattered entrance, their black armor torn, scorched, and riddled with rounds. Around them lay wounded men, dead men, broken rifles, crushed helmets, torn bodies, and pools of blood spreading slowly across the marble.
From the main corridor, more Royal Guards pushed into the space, boots slipping on blood and shattered glass, faces pale beneath their helmets as they raised their rifles toward the elevator.
No one knew what was coming.
The battered elevator doors shuddered. Then, slowly, they began to open.