Ameena’s loud footsteps echoed from behind Ellis as she ran to catch up to him. Michael was walking ahead of them in the middle of the hallway, out in the open without a care. He would sometimes tip over a painting, but more often than not he ignored the artwork lining the white and purple walls. Except for the statues that dotted hallways or stood guard outside a doorway. Those he would kick over with a giggle every time he laid eyes upon them.

  They only encountered one patrol on the way to the throne room, which Ellis didn’t get involved with. He fired one bolt into formation they formed into, and then hid in one of those doorways previously lined with statues. Ameena stomped past him and helped Michael deal with the men screaming obscenities at them. The moment he ducked away, he clamped his hands around Helena’s ears, making sure she did not hear a single thing that happened down that hall.

  When they were done, Ellis tried to be gentle as he firmly pressed the girl’s head into his shoulder and ran past the bodies now decorating the tiled floor. He could do nothing about the smell of released bowels and blood, but she would never live with the image carved into her mind.

  He hoped that was solace enough.

  Ameena took point, going against her previous orders so that she could lead them through the maze of her old home. After sometime, they came across large double wooden doors, decorated in carvings that showcased the gods lounging in their domains. She didn’t even pause as she pushed the doors open, revealing a magnificent cavern, bright torches lining the walls decorated in vast images of some war Ellis hadn’t heard of. They depicted long battlelines of men screaming their heads off as they charged into one another.

  The torches cast the room in a dim light, large chandeliers hanging from the ceiling trying to brighten up all the areas they didn’t reach. The paintings were cut short though, since they were bisected by a large wall that seemed to have fallen through the mountain and stopped its descent in this cavernous room. Ellis activated his truth sight the moment he saw the discrepancy in the painting, and sure enough, it was a barricade Ameena had warned him about so long ago in Leno Warde’s home.

  In front of the barricade stood a dozen palace guards, all shaking in their boots at the sight of Michael, who, at the sight of them, had started dancing. With a spin he drew his sword and tapdanced towards the men.

  Ameena took a glance at the girl and Ellis, before shaking her head and indicating that he needed to put her down. Ellis threw up one hand in disagreement, indicating he needed to keep her safe.

  She rolled her eyes and waved her wand in Helena’s direction. Ellis half stepped in front of her sorcery, but it didn’t matter. Two black disks covered the child’s eyes, and Ellis heard a loud orchestra playing around the girl's head.

  She screamed at this, clawing at her face because of the sudden appearance of impossibilities. Ameena could change or add, never remove something in existence. And he supposed this was good enough.

  He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I’m right here, you're okay. Nothing will happen to you, we just need to have a chat with those men.”

  He didn’t move as much as he was used to in a fight, since he was simply circling around the chaos and taking potshots at any guard stupid enough to take their eyes off Michael. He had a hard time reloading, Helena getting in the way during the process, but not for a second did he think of putting her down. It took less than three minutes to kill them all, and once they were dead Ellis almost ordered Ameena to cover their corpses in an illusion.

  She had muttered some unsavory things about him under her breath when he did that, but she did what he asked. More than what he asked. Wherever a blood stain or severed limb stained the floor, plant life would sprout above it, covering the cavern in a lush garden.

  Ellis was awestruck at the ascending view that blocked out the horror. Helena squirmed in his arms, trying to turn around to get a look at everything. She was greeted by high bushes sprouting beautiful golden flowers that towered into the sky. Shrubbery the colour of silver moonlight dotted the landscape, melding together with the torches' dim light to cast a glow over the entire illusion.

  Ellis mouthed a thank you at Ameena, Helena taking it all in with the widest eyes he’d ever seen. Ameena didn’t even try to keep the subtlety up. “It cost 4 mana to do this… It will make any man who comes through that door pause.” She nodded to the large double doors leading into the cavern. “As you would say, it’s a ‘win-win.’”

  Helena finally found her voice and half turned to him as he walked toward the large wall. “What happened? Where did those men go? Where are we?”

  Ameena came up to his side, and answered for Ellis. “The throne room.”

  Helena turned to squint at her. “But there’s bushes? And I don’t see a throne?”

  “The Archduke likes the bushes,” Ellis lied. “And the thrones beyond that five meter thick wall kiddo. Once we break in you’ll see it.”

  “My daddy says you shouldn’t break into places,” she said, loud enough that it got a chuckle from Michael.

  “And my daddy says you should. So we will,” Michael teased, patting the girl on her head as he joined their little makeshift group. Ellis ignored the grey light that flashed in his eye. “Although, Ellis saying it’s five meters thick does make me question if that’s possible. Ameena, ya know any way around? Secret shortcut or what have you?”

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  “I barely knew about the tunnels behind the walls—”

  Helena stared at her wide eyed. “There’s tunnels behind the walls!?”

  “So I don’t know where the secret entrance to get in would be.” She finished with a sigh, beckoning Ellis closer as she placed her hand along the wall's edge.

  Michael mimicked her, placing his hand against the wall before pulling back his fist and hitting the stone as hard as he could. Small cracks rippled out as a loud bang echoed through the cavern, but otherwise nothing happened.

  “Can you not do that!?” Ameena seethed.

  Helena agreed with Ameena, nodding her head as she put her hands around her ears. Ellis gave Michael a side eye as the man ignored all of them and asked, “how do you know there’s a secret entrance?”

  Ellis knew it was a stupid question. But he couldn’t quite place a finger on why.

  Ameena started tapping against the wall at certain points, but answered the question. “If the nobles on the other side were ever trapped by a conquering army, they would need a place to run. That, or stay behind the wall and die of thirst.”

  Michael nodded, so Ellis went back to scanning every inch of this place for an entrance. Every status screen popping out in his view showed thick walls and a far thicker ceiling, the floor no less daunting. He was surrounded on all sides by salt and rock and he doubted those barricades Ameena went on about would keep the palace guard occupied long enough to make a difference.

  That is until the loudest screeching he had ever heard filled the air, so much so it even made Michael flinch. He didn’t have time to contemplate that, since Helena screamed as unseen gears made the mountainous barricade of stone and salt rise before them.

  Ellis tried to cover his own ears at first, but Helena’s crying was too much to bear. He clamped his hands around her tiny ones instead, and sat down as the noise became a deafening, all encompassing roar that filled his head with nothing else but noise.

  And somehow, above all of that, he could hear a shrill voice through the grinding gears. It took thirty seconds for the wall to rise high enough for Ellis to see what lay on the other side, and for that entire thirty seconds the voice screamed and screamed.

  It almost sounded in pain, except it was angry and petulant, the mad ravings of a baby that hadn’t gotten its way. After a full minute of Ellis having his ears destroyed, did he finally lay eyes upon the Archduke of the Albus Citadel.

  He sat upon a throne of gold and purple, raised high on a platform with long steps leading up to it. The man himself wore a purple garment that would put all the wealth Ellis had seen throughout the palace to shame, since it came down the first few stairs and seemed to be trying to swallow the throne. Despite the large garment, however, the man beneath it still managed to stick his bulbous stomach out, almost using it to point at Ellis.

  Behind the throne hid nobles in slightly less impressive garments. Ellis recognized a few from the viewing deck they had entered through earlier. They all huddled together, a lot of them crying and the rest trying to shush them as they hid behind the throne’s platform, and what lay at its base.

  The Archduke did not seem to share their appetite for living, and was focused entirely on the man sitting at the first stair leading towards the throne, holding a woman in his arms as tears streaked down his face.

  It was the Ant Killer. The woman in his arms was dead.

  It didn’t take a status screen popping up above her head that had his last name attached to it for Ellis to know she was someone important to him. All he had to do was look at what must have been the finest of the palace guard, torn apart down to the last man, limbs and body parts he couldn’t identify sprawled out around him in a view Ellis was all too familiar with.

  “—And if you hadn’t complained so much at the honour I bestowed upon you she wouldn’t have died you useless fool! How could you do something so stupid as to try and leave!? I was helping you and your peasant wife stay safe, you stupid—” the Archduke continued to scream at the Ant Killers back.

  Everyone besides Ameena ignored him. She looked at him with such utter repulsion, such utter hatred that Ellis could almost feel her glare as he rose to his feet. He walked up on her left, and Michael sauntered up on her right with his sword over his shoulder. Together, they gazed upon the throne room in all its glory.

  Once, Ellis would have loved this. The paintings of brave men charging into battle, entire armies willing to do the right thing. But that was because he could imagine himself among them, being brave. Useful. Respected.

  Now… it did nothing for him. Because he knew he didn’t belong among their number.

  The Ant Killer had locked eyes with Ellis and his companions the moment the wall had gone up, his hand twitching towards the sword at his side with every movement they made… Until he saw his daughter, still in Ellis’s arms. He gently placed his wife on the floor, and rose to his feet. The stare he gave Ellis was one that made Michael’s seem kind.

  Michael, on the other hand, did not seem to take well to the Archdukes screaming. He shouted, “Oh shut the fuck up! Annoying prick!”

  The Archduke looked from the Ant Killers back to Michael’s face, his eyes wide like he had never been spoken to that way in his entire life. “Excuse me!? I am Pompey Fray the third! The Archduke of the Albus Citadel! You will address me with respect or you will be executed!”

  Michael hummed and hawed, scratched his chin then gave the Archduke a half shrug. “Well, I don’t think you can follow through on that threat, fat man. So no, I will not.”

  The fat man started shouting at them again, and Michael’s smile dimmed into an annoyed frown. Ameena patted him on the shoulder and said, “Michael, may I have this?”

  He took a step back and gave a half mocking bow, like he was a gentleman letting her go through a door first. Ameena took a step forward, and shouted loud enough to equal the Archduke's screeching.

  “Hello Father!”

  It was like a lightning bolt had struck the throne, because all the noise ceased instantly. The Archduke scrunched his eyebrows at Ameena, before slowly, so slowly, crawled his way out of his throne and stood up to stare at her.

  A small whisper escaped his lips after a long, silent moment. “Ameena? Could that really be you?”

  “Yes. And I have come…!”

  She lifted the knife and pointed it at him.

  “...To kill you, monster!”