The city had never felt so loud.
Drums rolled like distant thunder. Horns cut the air into tidy, polishing notes. Flags — countless banners of the crown — flapped and painted the sky in green and silver. The people of Caldemount thronged the mid-ring streets, faces turned expectant, hands clasped, children perched on shoulders and atop stone walls. Today the princess rode through the city to meet her people, and for the first time in many lives the ordinary and the royal moved in the same breath.
Solis and Ada had agreed, with the secrecy of conspirators, to split from the Postknight line and watch from the crowd. Devon had given them two curt instructions for this — "Stay in formation when called." and "Don't get swept away." — then left them elbow room to be among the folk they'd sworn to protect.
They melted in: ragged cloak, dust-streaked boots, faces like everyone else's. Ada's grip on Solis's sleeve was tight enough to be mistaken for a lover's nervousness; he appreciated the distraction that can divert any suspicion.
"This is nothing like that ceremony," Ada murmured as they threaded between market stalls. "It's more… breathtaking."
Solis nodded. People lined the route two and three deep. Laughter and the smell of roasting meat rose in equal measure. A perfumed woman thrust small bowls of sugared nuts toward flowered hands; an old veteran tossed a handful of wheat at the passing carriage as if scattering a blessing.
They'd come to watch, to see how a ruler chose to be seen. To Solis it was a test of his own eyes: would he see the crown as an edict or as a person?
Then, as the royal carriage rounded the wide square, the procession slowed and the Hereditary Guard planted their lances like a forest. The crowd quieted. Solis pulled in a breath so he would not be trampled by ceremony.
And there she was — Princess Lily, not covered in silk and protocol but smiling into the crowd with a gentle, inquisitive openness that made the people lean forward as if to be heard. She lifted a hand, and the square exhaled.
Commander Orsic rode at the front of the K.P.P. contingent. He sat draped in finery that matched his seriousness, his jaw a carved obelisk of control. Beside him, a younger officer kept close, eyes noting, evaluating. Orsic's posture suggested a man who planned security like a chess master arranges pawns: every position deliberate, every glance a calculation.
"Watch out for him if needed." Devon had said before they parted. "Orsic likes to set marks."
Solis watched then, uncomfortably aware: where Orsic turned, the crowd shifted its angle of attention as if pulled by an unseen magnet.
When the carriage halted at the central fountain the procession loosened into a hush. Orsic dismounted and bowed as custom required; a curt nod, public and formal. Lily stepped down gracefully and walked forward, barefooted on polished stone for a small, theatrical moment, to receive the people's gifts and the priests' prayers.
She spoke with a baker whose stall smelt of cardamom, laughing at something only the two of them understood. She accepted a child's drawing with such warmth the child went limp with joy. She listened — really listened — when a seamstress complained of taxes.
Solis felt something knot and loosen in his chest; Ada leaned close enough that their shoulders brushed.
"See it now?" she whispered. "This is why people came."
He stood with a expression os awe on his face. "She is... ugh... I can't describe it properly. "
At the outer edge of the circle — where the city's folk pressed in tight — Solis saw a figure detach from the crowd and step forward. For a second his brain gave him the wrong name: a memory blurred into place. Then everything cleared.
Razille.
She wore Postknight colors — the same dark trim and practical leather — but there was a difference in her movements, in her behavior, a wariness Solis couldn't mistake. The last time he had seen her she'd been with them in Pompom's underground place, pale and silent and filled with a secret that had left more questions than answers. After that, Commander Colins had pushed a dozen searches and found nothing.
Now she moved through the press with an odd grace, like a shadow.
Solis's heart did a tight thing.
"Is that—?" he breathed.
Ada turned, eyes flashing. "Razille? Here? Why would she be… delivering something to the princess? She disappeared after the explosion in Pompom. Captain Colins was—" She stopped, the sentence a thin thread.
Razille walked to the foot of the dais where Lily stood. She carried a Postknight scroll; she kept her head bowed. No one made way for her. The K.P.P line did not move. Razille's approach was an intrusion in choreography, but she had a reason — her steps said so.
Solis could not bring himself to move. He felt frozen — like the moment before a strike in a sparring match — only this was a different kind of danger: the sense that an answer might step into the open and change the whole chessboard.
Commander Orsic's eyes narrowed the instant Razille was visible. He crossed his arms as if the air itself had become a thing to be inspected.
"Hold there," Orsic called out. His voice cut the murmur like a whetstone. "Who are you? Step forward."
Razille's head lifted. Her face—impossible to read — turned toward Orsic for the briefest of beats.
Princess Lily inclined her head the tiniest fraction. "She's a Postknight." Lily said calmly. "She's come to give me something."
Orsic's lips pressed thin. "You will not accept any item without inspection, Princess. King entrusted your safety to me. I owe him my duty." He dismounted, and the stiffness in his posture became a blade. "These crowds are a hazard. There are… elements that would harm the royal path. I will inspect."
Lily's brow furrowed. "It's a simple delivery. There's no harm. Please—"
Orsic's hand rose. "I insist."
For a heartbeat there was a tense diplomacy — primitive and practical. The priests shifted. A murmur of distrust moved through the crowd like a faint wind. Even some of Razille's old allies — like Ada and Solis — stiffened.
Razille bowed her head and, with hands that did not tremble, handed the wrapped parcel to Orsic's nearest aide. It was sealed tight, it could have held anything — a note, a symbol, a small token.
Orsic gave the scroll a hard look, then produced a inspection dial from a leather loop at his belt — an official instrument used to detect dangerous enchantments and contraband. The crowd leaned closer; even the air seemed to expect a verdict.
He unrolled the scroll with a practised flip and, with Authority's precision, pulled the wrapping away.
There was a soft, almost innocent sound — a light tik-tik — and a small pink sphere gleamed inside the scroll. It looked too pretty to belong to danger: pearl-luster, the size of a gobstopper, and it pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat under glass.
Silence hit like a struck plate. Hands moved a hair's breadth away from metal hilts.
Orsic's face changed in a way Solis had never seen before: a flash of understanding and something harder — fear flaring to anger. In one motion he flung the sphere away from them and shouted, as though the action had been rehearsed for a worse eventuality.
"Bomb! Everyone — duck!"