"All right, I've got it," Page announced, slamming her hand down on the map. "I take a small group of soldiers down this route and blow up the west barracks. It will draw their attention and open up the main route."

"How's that better than my idea?" Ben asked crossly.

"We will live longer than a few seconds?" Kalin suggested dryly.

"Oh. Well. Now you're just picking holes," he blustered.

"Give it up, boy," the tiny bearded man at the end of the table sighed. "What I want to know is what my men need to do."

"That's for the future queen to decide," Walter told him.

"Page knows the city best," Rina stated. "We'll follow her plan. Personally, loosing the entire coop of chickens onto the soldiers won't do much to stem the tide of battle, so I'm sorry, Ben."

"Fine," he growled. "I only put mine forward to annoy her anyway."

"I see you've really matured on your travels," she drawled. "If you'll look at the map, we can go through the details."

"My ships will take you to the beach, here," Kalin began, pointing at the drawn shoreline.

"We can expect heavy mortar fire, but most of Logan's soldiers will be busy dealing with Page and her men," Walter added.

"I want to be in the thick of the smoke, and the fire, and the glory," Sabine said reverently. "If Page takes the west route, it's only fair I take the east."

"Which leaves the centre to us!" Ben announced. "Huh. Less chance of getting lost."

"Then we're agreed?" Walter asked.

"Are you sure you're up to this, Walter?" Rina asked gently, brown eyes shining with concern beneath the fox mask.

"Oh, don't worry about me. I may feel old and tired, but the day hasn't come yet that I can't charge into a good, old-fashioned fight," he assured her. Rina's eyes weren't convinced. Fists were pushed into the centre as a warrior's vow. "Let the battle for Albion begin!"

Close enough to the shore, the three of them hopped from the boat and waded onto dry land, guns at the ready. The princess dropped a summoning potion, and spectral Balverines spilled from the liquid. Ben shivered. He never really trusted those things. They were creepy and far too Balverine-shaped to ever be a good idea to him.

A mortar shell exploded nearby, and Ben coughed out the smoke.

"Our people are getting torn to shreds out there! They need our help!" he yelled.

"Let's take down that mortar," Walter growled.

Another boom sounded over their heads as they started to move, a crash and splinter and a gurgle of water, and Ben refused to look at the ship that had just died behind them.

"We've already lost one ship, Kalin's could be next!" he warned, watching the princess roll behind a barricade of sandbags, aiming her gun over the top and pulling the trigger without looking. An Elite dropped like a sack of potatoes.

"You should lead from the front!" Walter called. "It's time you did so!"

"Mortar!" Ben reminded them.

She led from the front like she was born to, sword and Will blazing a trail through the purple Elite, and when she got to the mortar she disassembled it with a cold fury of ice and wind, scattering the pieces, turning the metal brittle and useless should the Elite seek to rebuild it.

"Signal to Kalin to move in!" Rina ordered, and they ducked as Ben tossed up a flare, waiting for the ship to get in closer. Minutes later, the heavy wooden gates exploded, and Rina let out a sigh of relief. They were now, at least, in the city.

But the Old Quarter was burning. Even as Walter declared his joy at being in a close-combat situation, Rina couldn't keep her eyes off the Old Quarter, going up in flames. Were the citizens all right? How many families were now homeless?

Smoke got in her eyes, and she used her Will to suck the choking air away, clearing their vision somewhat. Elite fell like daisies under a knife, and they progressed quickly up the street, past smoke-filled houses and choked-up ruins. Rina had not expected the house in front of her to explode, but Ben watched as she seemed to phase in and out of reality, her gauntlet switching, and then a barrier of Force Push was around them, keeping them from the debris. Dust nevertheless got past her, and they coughed it out as a tiny figure appeared from the smoke.

"Is this not the grandest time you've ever had?" Sabine declared as Boulder followed him from the carnage.

"Sabine!" Walter berated. "You almost blew us up!"

"You saw!" Sabine breathed. "A glorious beacon of freedom, burning in the night for all the-"

Boulder began to make a series of increasingly distressed sounds and the Dweller turned to him in confusion.

"What is it Boulder- oh, bloody hell! Move, move!" Sabine said urgently, and they fled as a grenade fell upon their previous position.

"It'll take more than a grenade to finish off that old sod," Walter chuckled as the two vanished deeper into the city.

"Meanwhile, let's do what he says, and get moving!" Ben prompted. "We don't have all day, and the princess here will look like utter sod if she has to be crowned after a long battle."

"I'll look fine," she said primly. "I'm more concerned about the resident pyromaniac."

"You're not the only one," Ben muttered.

Will and guns blazed as the three of them made their way towards another gate, joined by a new wave of Dweller soldiers who fought like complete animals, hardy and mountain-roughened. The Elite were decked, but the gate remained stubbornly closed.

"We'll go this way!" the princess announced, running across a broken roof and dropping down from above into a burning building, connected to a street full of Elite.

"Look, there's Page!" Walter said, pointing down to a lower street. "She certainly knows how to handle herself," he commented, as she smacked an Elite between the eyes and stabbed his comrade. The street they were in was fortified, but ahead lay a barricade of burning wood and brick.

"There's no way we're getting past that barricade," Walter began. Ben scoffed loudly.

"Oh please, we're in a street. Haven't you noticed the houses and doors? We just need to perpetrate a little bit of breaking and entering, followed by some flanking and filleting," he informed the older man. They picked their way through a burning building and Walter gazed down to their right.

"Come on Page," he murmured, just as the woman herself appeared.

"About bloody time!" Ben yelled.

"I couldn't leave you by yourself, Captain Finn!" Page barked. "Unimaginable chaos would ensue!"

"Your vote of confidence is lovely!" he told her loudly, as the four of them, bolstered by dwellers and rebels, ploughed through the Elite, blood mixing with purple as body after body hit the floor.

"There'll be more coming," Walter warned. "And we need to find a way around this gate."

"Always with the damn gates!" Ben declared.

"We need explosives to get past this door," Page said. "But I used all of mine up on the way here."

"If only we knew some sort of tiny crazy old man who enjoyed blowing things up," Ben muttered.

BOOM.

The door blew open, causing Walter to fall back with an audible curse, and Sabine and Boulder stepped through.

"Hahah! Did you see that, Boulder? Let the whole city bow to our thunder!" Sabine roared in delight.

"Hang on, how'd you get to the other side in the first place?" Ben demanded.

"Dwellers have their ways, my boy," he said mysteriously, twirling his moustache around his finger. "Is there anyone left to kill?"

"There will be," Page said. "Reinforcements are coming. Kalin's fleet didn't manage to get them all."

"We'll hold them off," Ben said. "A tiny pyromaniac, his giant friend, a dashing captain, and a beautiful, wrathful woman who looks like she wants to feed me my own liver should be able to handle Logan's men."

"Come on Boulder, there's more fighting to be done," Sabine said viciously as he headed down the road.

"Good luck in there," Ben told the princess. "Hope the crown fits."

"If it doesn't, I will be incredibly cross," she promised.

"Let's finish this, while I can still stand up on my own," Walter said.


"Shall we knock?" Walter asked. "Nah, let's surprise him."

The two of them booted down the door and were greeted with the sound of steel rasping past metal.

"So, this is how it ends. The old fool, and the child who ran away." Logan sheathed his sword. "You're finally the woman I envisioned you being."

"She's a lot more than that," Walter assured him. "And now she's ready to take your place.

"Perhaps the time has come for someone else to lead Albion," he said quietly.

"You were never a ruler, just another tyrant," she told him starkly.

"Do you think I might have had good reason to be?" He replied, his voice soft.

"We're not interested in your reasons," Walter told him.

"Cower behind ignorance if you will, but my sister deserves to know the truth," the king retorted.

"Save it for the trial, Logan," Walter snapped. "You can beg for your life then."

"Wait."

The single command came from the princess.

"Give us a moment, Walter," she requested. "Please. He won't hurt me."

"You can talk once the troops have been made to stand down," Walter bargained. "Page and the others are out there right now, and if they don't get reprieve they might not be standing for much longer."

"All right," she sighed. "But I'm coming with you."


Any soldiers remaining in the castle laid down their arms as Walter escorted the king, like a father with a naughty child, towards the dungeons. Rina followed, holding Logan's crown in her hands and slowly twisting it around and around. Finally, they reached the prisons, and Walter pushed her brother into a dank, dark cell, locking the door. Rina gave him the crown and he left with the key.

"I know what you went through in Aurora," she told him.

"I had thought I saw Auroran flags flying on the ships," he said. "And how, exactly, do you know?"

It only took him a second.

"You, also?"

"One of your ships destroyed ours and sent us off-course. Walter and I washed ashore by a set of caves. We saw no way forward except through them, and we kept going. Walter…Walter is never going to be the same again," she whispered.

"Sister-"

"It made sense," she told him. "Why you changed. The nightmares. The scars and the haggard look. The darkness slowly seeping out of your rule. We carry it in us now, just the tiniest piece, but it's enough, isn't it?"

"You understand," he murmured.

"Brother."

"Sister."

Rina hugged Logan through the bars of his cell, crushing her fingers into his dark hair and inhaling the familiar scent, the one that reminded her of safety and love, and home.

"There will be a trial," she promised.

"Rina," he said faintly. "You don't have time for that. I was visited by Theresa, the seer of the Spire. Sister – now that you know, that you understand, you must hear this. The Darkness, the Crawler, all of it is coming to Albion. Sister, you must prepare. Do you understand? The Darkness is coming here!"