Chapter 77: The Tale of Lyros (Part 2)

The stone corridors of Lyros Castle held a silence that felt wrong — too still, too complete.

Hughes walked briskly down the dim hallway, his footsteps echoing louder than they should have against the cold limestone floors. His encounter with Princess Jeanna had left him emotionally wrung out, and all he wanted now was a washroom where he could splash cold water on his face. But the castle's layout fought him at every turn, throwing up identical archways and dead ends like it was designed to confuse.

He tried the iron ring of a wooden door. Locked.

He moved to the next one. Also locked.

Hughes frowned, scanning the empty corridor. Where were the guards? Where were the maids who should have been hanging the mourning draperies by now? It was as if the entire household staff had simply walked out of existence.

He turned into a darkened servants' wing, and a smell hit him — sharp, biting, with a faint sweetness underneath.

Hughes froze. He knew that smell. It pulled him straight back to the R&D lab in Dian City, to Kael — Lord Inori's safety officer — barking at the apprentices about ventilation. "If you catch sweet acetone over rotten eggs and sulfur," Kael had warned, slapping the chalkboard for emphasis, "that's the nitric acid reacting. That's the smell right before something explodes."

Hughes rubbed his temples and exhaled. "I'm losing it," he mumbled. "I've spent so long in Lord Inori's lab I'm smelling phantom chemicals in a castle."

He shook off the unease and pressed on, too caught up in his own rationalizing to notice the soft shift of fabric in the shadows thirty feet behind him — or the dagger gleaming faintly in a stranger's hand.

✽✽✽✽✽✽

High above the silent halls, on the balcony of the royal suite, the cold mountain wind tugged at Eliana's black mourning dress.

Mathew stood beside her — the HSD officer responsible for keeping her alive.

"The funeral route is secured, Grand Duchess," he reported, eyes sweeping the city below with the focus of a man who never really stopped watching. "My officers briefed what's left of the loyalist guards. We hold the high ground the entire length of the boulevard."

"And the royal cemetery?" Eliana asked, grief still tightening her voice.

Mathew bowed his head slightly. "Forgive me if this sounds disrespectful to your father, My Lady, but protocol doesn't care about timing. A unit is sweeping the burial grounds now — every crypt, every mausoleum — before you arrive tomorrow."

Eliana nodded. "I understand. Thank you, Mathew."

A knock interrupted them.

"Enter," Eliana called.

The door opened. A young maid in grey stepped in, carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups, her eyes lowered out of habit more than deference.

"Chamomile tea, My Lady," she said softly. "For your nerves, before tomorrow."

"Thank you, Mary." Eliana smiled, warm and unguarded.

The maid set the tray down and turned to go.

Mathew didn't smile. He watched her cross the room, and as she passed him, a scent reached him that had nothing to do with tea or kitchens — something acidic, something that didn't belong.

"Wait." His voice cut flat across the room.

The maid stopped. Her shoulders stiffened, just barely.

Mathew turned to Eliana. "How well do you know this woman?"

"Quite well," Eliana said, thrown by his tone. "Mary's worked here a year now. When the famine hit and most of the staff fled for other work, she stayed. I trust her."

Something behind Mathew's eyes shifted — pieces locking into place.

"When exactly did she start?" he pressed.

"I just told you. A year ago."

Eliana reached for a teacup.

Mathew crossed the room and knocked it from her hand before she could lift it. Porcelain shattered against the wall; hot liquid splashed across the stone floor.

"Mathew!" Eliana gasped, stumbling back.

"Don't eat or drink anything in this castle," he said, already reaching for his sword. He spun toward the door — empty. The maid was gone, vanished the instant the cup broke.

"What is going on?" Eliana demanded, panic rising.

"My gut," Mathew said, moving to the balcony to scan the courtyard. No guards at the inner gates. None of the usual patrols. "This isn't a breach at the perimeter, Eliana. It's already inside. Where's Princess Jeanna?"

"In her room — changing," Eliana stammered, fear closing around her chest.

"Take me there. Now."

He pulled her into the corridor, sword drawn, and they ran. When they reached Jeanna's door, he kicked it open, blade first.

Eliana screamed.

The room had been torn apart. The wardrobe lay on its side. Bedsheets shredded, chairs broken — the kind of damage that comes from people searching, fast and without care, for something they couldn't find.

No blood. And no Jeanna.

"No — Jeanna, no—" Eliana sank to her knees, sobbing.

"On your feet." Mathew hauled her up, eyes never still. "We're leaving the castle. Now."

He half-dragged her down the grand staircase, her vision blurred with tears, her mind spinning around the thought of her sister taken.

At the first-floor landing, a figure stepped out from the throne room archway.

Mathew's sword came up.

"Wait!" the figure cried.

It was Jeanna, clutching the hem of her dress, staring at the blade pointed her way.

"Jeanna!" Eliana broke from Mathew and threw her arms around her sister. "You're alive — thank the Gods—"

Jeanna blinked, bewildered, hugging her back. "Of course I'm alive. Eliana, what's happening? Why does he have a sword out?"

"Where were you?" Mathew cut in, still scanning the room. "Were you in your room at all?"

"No," Jeanna said. "I went straight to the throne hall to check on the funeral arrangements. It was empty, so I came back."

"Your room was torn apart," Eliana said, voice breaking. "Someone went looking for you there."

Mathew's jaw tightened. They'd expected her in her room. They'd struck the wrong target.

"Both of you, listen," he said, voice dropping low and even. "Stay behind me, heads down. We're going to the safe house."

He led them through the servants' corridors, away from the main halls, checking every corner along the way, until they reached a side door out to the street. He kicked it open and whistled. A Cynthia HSD officer posted across the road snapped upright and ran over.

"Breach inside the Keep," Mathew said. "Get the Grand Duchess and the Princess to the secondary safe house. Lock it down. No one in or out."

Once they were behind reinforced walls a few blocks away, Eliana finally found her voice.

"Mathew. What happened? Why did you knock the cup out of my hand?"

He paced, jaw set. "Before the HSD, I guarded Lord Inori's lab. I know that smell. Nitric compounds — the smell of something built to explode."

Eliana's breath caught.

"And what you told me about her loyalty didn't add up," he went on. "Why would a servant stay in a starving castle for a year when she could've left for food anywhere else? Because she wasn't a maid. She was placed there. Long-term."

"If they're assassins," Jeanna asked, voice trembling, "why wait a whole year?"

Mathew stopped pacing. "When did your father get sick?"

Eliana's eyes widened as the shape of it became clear. "Seven months ago. Our old doctor left during the famine — we brought in a new one. He examined Father every week. Said he was just tired. He kept getting worse."

"Slow poison," Mathew said. "The timing's too clean. The nobles who fled. The new staff. The new doctor. This wasn't an attack, Grand Duchess. It was a coup — planned by your own nobility and the Kingdom of Ennalone. They wanted Lyros."

"Why?" Jeanna burst out. "We had nothing! Our soil's salt! We were starving — why would anyone want a dead kingdom?"

Eliana pressed a hand to her mouth, the truth landing harder than she could brace for. Every meal. Every cup of tea. Every checkup. None of it had been safety. All of it had been murder, slow and patient.

✽✽✽✽✽✽

Three hundred miles east, a royal carriage rolled along the new asphalt highway, carrying the most powerful figures in the Cynthia Empire.

Inside, Princess Seraphina and the young Crown Prince traded warm, nostalgic stories about childhood trips to the Lyros plateau.

Count Takuya Kazuha said nothing. He sat by the window, watching the land pass, his face locked in the particular stillness that meant he was somewhere else entirely. He hadn't spoken in two hours.

Seraphina noticed. She rested a hand on his knee. "Takuya. What's on your mind?"

He blinked back into the carriage and gave her a smile — practiced, a little too smooth. "Nothing. Just working through the supply lines for the funeral."

Seraphina knew that smile too well. It was the one he wore when he was hiding something heavier than logistics.

"Takuya," she said, dropping the formality. "Tell me. What's wrong?"

He let out a slow breath, and for a moment the composure slipped, just enough to show what was underneath.

"I'm working through Ennalone's reasoning," he said, voice level. "Word's out about what the Empire can do — rifles, cannons, steam power. Every nation nearby knows it. So why would Ennalone risk everything to take Lyros, knowing it'll bring the full weight of my forces down on them?"

The Crown Prince leaned in. "Because they bought the mountain defense plans from the traitor nobles?"

"No." Takuya shook his head. "Look at the timing. The nobles fled almost a year ago — that's when they sold the secrets. But Ennalone didn't move then. They waited."

His eyes found Seraphina's. "Seven months ago, King Alaric fell ill. A sickness no doctor could explain. That's also when the slow killing of Lyros started."

"What changed seven months ago?" Seraphina asked.

"I did," Takuya said.

Silence filled the carriage.

"Seven months ago, my brothers and I reached Dian Village," he continued. "Inori synthesized black powder. We built the first factories. We brought explosives into a world that didn't have them."

Seraphina's hand rose to her mouth.

"Our secret's out," Takuya said. "Someone's been watching — maybe from the start. Someone inside the factories, watching Inori work every day."

The Crown Prince paled. "You're saying—"

"Once they had the formula," Takuya pressed on, "they went looking for the minerals to make it at scale. And they found exactly what Hughes confirmed — Lyros sits on the largest saltpeter deposit in the world."

He sat back, letting the weight of it settle over them.

"That's why Ennalone wanted Lyros, seven months ago and not before," he said. "Not the land. The guano. They poisoned the King slowly, meaning to pressure the princesses into surrender and annex the kingdom quietly, mineral rights and all. They didn't count on one thing — Eliana riding west to ask me for help instead of giving in."

Seraphina's pulse climbed. "Takuya — if they have the formula—"

"They do," he said, eyes gone hard. "They've already worked out the chemistry. The only reason they haven't announced it to the world is they don't have enough saltpeter yet to make gunpowder at scale."

The Crown Prince sank back, ashen. The Empire's one true advantage — its monopoly on modern weapons — had just turned out to be borrowed time.

"They're not coming for a castle," Takuya said quietly, watching the sky darken outside. "They're coming to build a bomb."