The fete opened the palace to the sweltering Dalmascan night. The assembly glittered in its ceremonial armor and jewels. Flowers and perfume scented the air. Champagne flowed as freely as the water in the fountains. Couples waltzed to the impassioned strains of an orchestra. The dancers were as beautiful and as neutral as the ichthons of the sewers, Dalmascans and Archadians alike hiding their tusks behind their smiles. It would only take one sword swing to end this false peace, for the assembly to leap into violent action that would purge the palace of all Imperials. Two years' exile was going to work in the Resistance's favor. It had given Dalmasca's ministry time to learn hate for their new overlords.
There he was. Vayne Carudas Solidor, the eldest living son of Emperor Gramis Gana Solidor, and the newly appointed consul-governor of Dalmasca. He stood on one of the many balconies overlooking the garden stairs, smiling – somewhat unsuccessfully, Daina thought, for his eyes remained as cold and as sharp as those of a vulture. He bowed to the ladies introduced to him, shook the hands of the men. His dark, wavy fall of hair blended with the night sky. He wore armor green as wyrmscale, the gold trappings fashioned all over in a style like steeling's wings. Daina crept forward with Amalia at her side, Vossler and several Resistance soldiers mimicking them from the opposite end of the room, closing the jaws of their coup d'état on the unsuspecting consul.
Vayne, clasping his white-gloved hands behind his back, looked over the balcony railing. This time, his smile was sincere. And cruel.
Shouts exploded from the garden stairs, metal clashing, feet pounding: The sounds of fighting where two squads of the Resistance had taken up watch. Vayne turned his back on the night, his gaze sweeping the ballroom.
His eyes picked out Daina, and Amalia next to her. Daina felt a shock as tangible as a blast of thundaga magick.
Because he knew. Daina could see it on his face. Vayne knew.
A gun, she thought wildly. Why didn't she have a gun, or a crossbow? Someone, please, shoot him now!
Vayne's right hand rose.
Daina hurled herself backward, colliding with Amalia and nearly impaling herself on her lady's drawn sword. Both women crashed to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. Amalia swore, pinned beneath the taller Daina. Bullets embedded themselves in the wall above their heads, and the marble burst outward in a shower of flakes and dust. A tremendous boom that made Daina's ears hurt rode in on a fiery wave, knocking most of the dancers flat.
The blast from the sky set the gardens on fire. The night morphed from quiet blue-black to a hellish orange.
Daina scrambled to her feet, just in time to meet the downward slash of an enemy sword. She parried it easily and thrust her kotetsu between the chinks of the Imperial's plate armor. As he gurgled behind his helm, sagging over her blade, she looked frantically around for Amalia. She saw Amalia fending off two Imperial swordsmen, her escutcheon on her arm. She also saw the Imperial airship – the Ifrit – making short work of their comrades outside. The protective paling, an impenetrable barrier of Mist that the royal magi sustained around the palace at all times, didn't seem to be active. Of Vossler, she saw nothing.
Despair turned into the berserker high of battle. Amalia. She must protect Amalia.
Daina yanked her kotetsu out of the dying swordsman and kicked him to the floor. She slew one of the Imperials harassing her lady, while Amalia dropped the other, but more began flooding out of the walls, or so it seemed. If Daina and the princess didn't move, now, they would be surrounded and either killed or captured.
"Retreat!" she shrieked, just in case any of their friends remained alive to follow the order.
"We can still do this!" Amalia shouted. Agony tore her expression apart, her elegant features twisting with pain as their assassination attempt disintegrated around them.
"It's no use!" Daina said. Both women ducked from incoming attacks. "It was a trap, my lady. We must flee!"
After a few minutes of frenzied fighting, Amalia gave in. With Daina and a trio of bleeding Resistance soldiers flanking her, she cut a path through their enemies, back the way they had come. The waterway – they would lose their pursuers in the waterway. It had, after all, sheltered them twice before, and three times lucky . . .
As soon as their route was clear, the five of them raced down the palace corridors. They lost one man to an Imperial marksman along the way, but the remaining four did not slow. They could not.
Daina's breath whistled through her teeth. She fancied she could feel snipers draw beads between her shoulder blades. She was tiring, but Amalia seemed driven by something deep in her core. It was she who set the pace as they clattered down the damp steps into the Garamsythe Waterway. At the bottom, they splashed into cold, green water.
The crack of a gunshot made Daina's heart stop; a second Resistance soldier collapsed, dead.
"No!" Amalia screamed.
Daina shoved her. Amalia stumbled out of the line of fire.
"Go!" Daina commanded, brandishing her kotetsu. "Go, we'll hold them here!"
Amalia's expression scared her. Tears filled Daina's eyes. She couldn't bear to have her lady angry with her. To send her away, when they hadn't been apart for two years, could very well be the death of her. "You must survive!" she cried. "Please!"
A second gunshot took their last man. Amalia and Daina stared at his half-submerged corpse, and then Amalia's lips tightened. She ran.
Tears streaking down her face, Daina grasped her kotetsu in both hands and charged up the stairs, removing the marksman's head from his shoulders in a clean sweep. Below, Amalia vanished in the gloom. Daina kept going. She returned to the palace, where her ferocity drew all pursuit after her. Her supply of potions dwindled until there were none left. She hoped she'd discover Vossler somewhere, for his aid and salvation. Truthfully, she'd have been ecstatic to find any friendly face, even Balzac's, and he was no proper soldier.
But the only friends she encountered were already dead.
Amalia herself had said it: He is a great warlord, the best Archadia has to offer.
Vayne had baited his trap well.