CHAPTER 260: THE BELL

"What have you done?" Aralyn’s voice tore through the stunned silence like a blade.

At the sound, Lord Morrathen peered from the doorway, his foxy face paling as he took in the scene... blood on marble, the Emperor’s hand trembling, the guards of the door frozen between horror and flight.

Aralyn could not believe her eyes. Who in their right mind would think a son could drive a blade into his mother? The thought was impossible and monstrous and suddenly very, very real.

Without thought, with only instinct, she lunged forward. She threw herself under the Dowager as the woman slumped and shoved the Emperor back with a strength born of panic. The world narrowed to the warmth of collapsing flesh and the metallic scent of blood.

"Isabella!" Aralyn cried, dropping to her knees. She caught the Dowager’s head in her lap, fingers slick as she sought the knife’s haft. Her hands shook; there was no protocol here, no rank, only a human being, breathing thin and ragged above her palm.

All the years of grievance, the plotted revenge, the sharpness of old resentments... none of it mattered now. The iron-faced sovereign who had tormented her through decades was gone; in her place was a woman small and exposed as a child. Aralyn pressed her hand over the wound. Hot blood soaked her sleeve.

Isabella’s eyelids fluttered; her breath came hitching and thin. For a long moment, she stared up at Aralyn as if seeing her for the first time. The hall’s chorus of gasps and whispers receded until all Aralyn heard was the hollow of the Dowager’s breathing and the frantic beat of her own heart.

"Isabella..." Aralyn’s voice failed her. What could she possibly say? Forgive? Curse? There were no words that fit this collapsing world.

Isabella’s hand, soiled, small, human... found Aralyn’s. Her lips moved; the sound was almost lost under the sound of the gale of wind that somehow found its way in the corridorway. Aralyn leaned in closer, swallowing bile and fear.

"Run."

The single word landed like a command and a benediction. Isabella’s eyes held an ocean of meaning: fear for what would come next, a last, strange mercy. She knew, Aralyn understood, Isabella had raised the boy who had just killed her; she knew what he might do. On her final breath, she chose to give Aralyn a chance.

Aralyn felt the impossible wrench in her chest. The dying woman in her arms, the one she had vowed to cut down, was not even trying to live, but was trying to protect her. She could not move. How could she lift herself from this ruined, warm weight and run... run down marble corridors, through a palace now rife with soldiers and suspicion? Where would she go? How far?

The hall was collapsing into chaos around them. Aralyn’s fingers tightened on Isabella’s hand, and for a breath she simply held on, the world narrowing to blood and the single, desperate command echoing in her ears: Run.

The Emperor’s breath came shallow and uneven. His eyes were wide, not with remorse, but disbelief, like a man waking from a nightmare and finding the blade in his own hand.

Isabella’s lips trembled. She wanted to speak, to tell him she forgave him, that this... this final act could be his first step to freedom. She knew she deserved this death. She only worried about her son’s soul now. But her words never found air.

Her gaze lingered on him one last time; no longer the Emperor, no longer her son, but the boy who once reached for her hand in the garden.

And then her eyes dimmed.

The hall seemed to shrink, the silence deafening. Aralyn was frozen, unable to breathe, the scene burning itself into her soul.

The Emperor slowly looked at his blood-soaked hand. And for the first time in his reign, he looked afraid.

Then his eyes landed on Aralyn.

"You... You killed my mother!"

-----

In the mansion, Emma and Elias sprinted through the narrow corridors, their footsteps muffled against the old rugs. The air was thick with the scent of oil and smoke, and the distant clatter of armor echoed through the halls. When they reached the courtyard, the sight that met them froze their blood... soldiers. Dozens of them, disciplined, merciless, bearing the Emperor’s crest.

They weren’t guarding. They were trapping.

"Don’t stop," Elias hissed, dragging Emma behind a pillar as another squad passed. From where they hid, they could see the soldiers hauling barrels that were heavy, metal-rimmed, and reeking of pitch.

Emma’s stomach turned. "What are they—"

Elias’s jaw clenched. "They’re going to burn the house."

The words struck her like a lash. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t just a raid; it was an execution. Everyone inside, every loyal servant, every child... they would burn alive.

Elias squeezed her trembling hand. "Emma. Look at me."

She forced herself to meet his eyes. There was a calm in them; a soldier’s calm, the kind that was born of terror survived and seen too many times. "Now’s not the time to freeze," he whispered. "You can be afraid later. Right now, we ring that bell. Do you hear me? We warn them. Remember, I am here with you."

She nodded, swallowing hard.

They crept along the shadows, slipping between servants’ quarters and broken archways until the tower came into view. A single guard stood beneath the bell: a burly man, his halberd gleaming in the torchlight.

Elias motioned for her to stay back. He picked up a loose brick, waited for the guard to turn, and struck. The man grunted, staggered, and Elias lunged, steel flashed, a brief struggle, then silence. The guard crumpled to the ground.

"Go!" Elias rasped.

Emma ran. Her legs felt like lead, but she reached the rope and seized it with both hands. The bell’s iron weight resisted her pull, as if the tower itself fought against the warning, but she pulled harder.

The first clang split the night like thunder.

Then another.

And another.

In the ballroom, people stirred, faces pale in the flickering light. The bell tolled again, and again, and again, a desperate cry for survival.

Elias grabbed Emma’s shoulder. "They’ve seen us! We have to move!"

But Emma didn’t stop.

Emma didn’t stop.

Even as the shouts drew nearer and torches flared at the base of the tower, she kept pulling. The sound of the bell thundered through the evening, her heart in its rhythm, her terror in its song, until Elias dragged her away just as arrows whistled past the window.

Behind them, the mansion burned.

-----

Sylvia tightened the scarf around her head, concealing the brown threads of her hair as she slipped into the shadows.