Kjan briefly studied the disheveled map. The entrance to the passage seemed near enough. So all they had to do now was navigate a few pitch-black streets without running into any soldiers, locate the tunnel, find their way through the palace to the Regent's quarters, and convince their worst enemy that it was time to be friends. Nothing too difficult, then.

The group took half a moment to plan their route, then set out, moving as quickly as possible form shadow to shadow. Kjan kept waiting for someone to sneeze or trip or just happen to leave the shadows right as a soldier turned the corner, but somehow they managed to reach their destination safely (though not without a few close calls).

Their destination, as it turned out, was a dead end. A solid, unremarkable brick wall at the end of an empty alleyway. Kjan opened his mouth to comment, but Jate merely stepped forward and whispered some phrase that Kjan didn't understand.

A pause, and then the wall started to move. Or rather, the bricks started to move. The wall was still there, much as it always had been, but it was reshaping. The pieces continued to rearrange themselves, until finally the rebels found themselves facing a large stone arch, keystone marked with the royal crest. Beyond the arch, a long, sloping tunnel could be seen, but the opening shimmered faintly as though still covered by a transparent wall.

There was a moment of hesitation before Jate stepped forward again, this time to place his hand on one of the larger stones. The piece immediately began to radiate a faint glow and the barrier disappeared. Jate motioned the others through.

As they started down the long tunnel, Kjan heard the stones snapping quietly back into place behind them. "Knew there was a reason that we kept him around," he muttered wryly to the Phantom.

"Yeah, otherwise we'd chuck him," muttered the Phantom in reply. "Heirs are so easy to come by."

Light sparkled into view with the faintest of crackles. Eledhe held aloft what appeared to be a fistful of fire. "You're welcome," she said, and it echoed down the expanse of tunnel.

The ground beneath their feet, worn smooth, was sloping gently downward. The Phantom instinctively ducked his head in anticipation of a lintel waiting to conk him one. His senses hummed, amplifying their footsteps to exaggerated volumes and making a threat of every rustling whisper and plink of dripping water. It was even more eerily silent here. He allowed himself a fool's hope that their mission in the palace would be so unmarked by intrusion.

The slope did not continue for long before it reversed, and he felt the strain of the uphill climb in his legs. Anticipation was making violent swooping motions in his stomach. He quickened his pace beyond the limited radius of Eledhe's light. There was no glimmer at the end of the tunnel, and no warning that the walk was ending until -

Stone connected solidly with the Phantom's skull. He cursed and rubbed his head. "Oy, I found the end," he hissed. "Does our resident heir feel inclined to let us in?"

_________________

As they navigated the eerily silent corridors of the palace, moving from niche to niche, ever mindful of approaching footsteps, Kjan couldn't help but be reminded of a similar excursion that had started this all. Had that really been so many years ago? It felt like yesterday that Phae had gotten bored and suggested that they start poking around. They'd had no idea, then, just what their curiosity would lead to.

Suddenly, a door started to open further down the hallway. Everyone scrambled for a nearby tapestry-covered alcove, only barely manging to conceal themselves before a pair of soldiers stepped out and began walking toward them.

The stakes were quite a bit higher this time, Kjan reminded himself. Last time they'd done this, getting caught would have meant little more than a severe reprimand. Maybe a brief stay in a cell, if their fathers hadn't felt like bailing them out. Now, he was fairly certain they'd be killed on sight. Pleasant thought, that.

The space was really much too small to comfortably accomodate all of them, and Kjan found himself in a somewhat awkward position with Eledhe, but nobody dared move as the soldiers passed. Indeed, it wasn't until the sound of footsteps had long since faded that Kjan felt safe even breathing normally.

They waited, carefully checked the corridor for persons potentially harmful to their well-being, then quickly moved on.

Eledhe drew a finger to her lips and hastened ahead of the silent party, senses attuned. Not far down the quiet, carpeted hall, past the squares of silver the moon cast through the windows, light could be seen from a narrow doorway. As she crept closer, not placing even a footstep without checking it twice, female voices floated from the bottom of a steep staircase. She caught the clink of dishes.

Relaxing marginally, the mercenary backed away and motioned for the rest to come forward. Only servants, up late. Hardly a threat - they were not even listening.

She snapped her head up, eyes following the corridor first down and then back the way they'd come. One of the windows showed a silhouetted sentry, moonlight gleaming off the metal of his uniform.

The Phantom jerked his head silently toward a set of spiraling stairs, broad and lined by an ornate banister. Eledhe paused to swivel and look for a servants' back stairway. The threat of finding themselves face-to-face with a guard upon their ascent grappled with the convenience of merely skipping up to the royal quarters unmolested.

Exposed though they were, climbing without the chance to dart into a nearby niche, there was not even the echo of a guard's footsteps to disturb them. Eledhe felt as though her senses were humming faintly. Where was everyone? Something tinkled and she nearly leaped out of her skin. The crystal chandelier sparkling above the semicircle of stairs glistened innocently.

These halls were lined with torches, doors, and fewer alcoves than Eledhe would have liked. She found herself judging the distance to a bend in the corridor. If even one sentry strode through...

"Servants' staircase," she hissed. "We need one."

_________________

Having never set foot in this part of the palace before, Kjan had no idea where said staircase might be. Granted, it was usually fairly easy to distinguish anything used mostly by servants - more utilitarian, less central - but that still meant taking the time to look for it. Every minute spent sneaking through the halls was another minute in which they might get caught, especially now that they had signficantly less cover.

The silence that seemed to pervade the whole palace was growing increasingly unnerving. Even this late, there should have been more people about. Guards, servants, somebody. Oh, they'd nearly encountered a few sentries, heard servants going about late-night tasks once or twice, but it seemed rather sparse given the size of the palace. One would think that a largely unpopular monarch would have tighter security.

Finally, at the end of one of the corridors, they discovered what looked to be the sought-after stairway. As they carefully ascended, Kjan was suddenly struck with a thought - this was it. Regardless of what happened beyond here, there would be no more rebellion. If they were successful, they would be joining forces with the Regent (he still cringed inwardly at that thought). If they weren't successful....

No time to consider that. They'd reached the top of the stairs. In theory, it would now only be a short distance to the royal quarters, and then they'd get to find out just how unpopular they'd made themselves in the past few years.

The Phantom unwrapped his fingers from the hilt of his sword and flexed them several times. The torches marched a path down to where the corridor turned, and he heard a shift of footsteps and the sound of metal clinking upon itself.

Eledhe's hissed intake of breath did nothing to stop him dropping into a crouch without checking both ways along the corridor, gaze fixing on the flash of torchlight on armor, and creeping forward with a gesture to the others. Two guards. Two of them, and then he would be standing with his blade finally at the throat of what the rebellion had opposed from the first.

It was intoxicating.

Muscles tensing, he edged around until he could see the pair of guards, keeping to the shadow of the corner of the corridor. He'd learned something from long association with Eledhe.

They stood quiet enough, spears in hand, royal insignia emblazoned on purple. From within there was no sound. The Phantom twisted to look over his shoulder.

He held up three fingers. Then two. Then one.

The hilt of his greatsword slotted neatly in between his palms. The Phantom came up swinging and bore down, suppressing a hungry grin. He saw one young guard's eyes widen and was swinging at him before the man's cry had finished exiting his mouth. It had words to it that he didn't quite catch.

The man blocked once with the shaft of his spear, kicked out, and then turned to pelt headlong down the corridor.

If the blood had not been pounding in the Phantom's ears, and his mind not thick with the near-tangible taste of triumph, he would have stared in consternation. Instead he whirled on the other soldier -

- who wasn't there. His yell echoed back to them where he flew after his fellow.

The rebels stood unchallenged at the door of the royal chambers

"Quick!" said the Phantom, seizing the doorknob. "He's probably awake!"

Eledhe leaped forward. "Wait - !"

The Phantom flung open the doors.

Light. Torchlight. Too much torchlight, gleaming on metal. Too much metal. A forest of metal points. The royal insignia, purple, emblazoned on hauberks - the canopied bed empty -

The Phantom's eyes finished their frantic spin about the room and came to a dead stop.

"Silvryn," he gasped, as though winded. Slowly he followed the line of the blade at her throat. It let him to the one person he had expected to see.

The Phantom let out a bellow of rage, and at that moment Eledhe's change of loyalties was most fortunate, for she seized the back of his shirt and hung on, while a forest of points sprang forward to receive the rebel leader.

Even with the red clouding his vision, the Phantom took in Silvryn, the ropes that held her to a chair, the Regent with his knife at her throat, and the sizable chunk of militia arrayed in the royal chambers, and he could come to a reasonable conclusion.

This was not what he had bargained for.

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Even as he instinctively jumped forward to restrain the Phantom, Kjan found himself rapidly assessing the situation. Twenty armed soldiers. Six armed rebels. Lots of sharp metal objects uncomfortably close to his face. Princess tied to a chair. Knife being held at said princess's throat by the person with whom they'd intended to negotiate. This was leaning toward the not successful possibility.

Curse it, they should have expected this! Just like they should have expected what happened outside the city. They'd been fighting relentlessly for over half a decade - only a fool would believe that they intended to surrender now. And the Regent certainly hadn't lasted this long for lack of foresight regarding his opponents' moves. Silvryn... alright, they could hardly have been expected to anticipate that. But everything else was absurdly obvious, in retrospect.

It had been much too easy to get this far. Someone should have recognized that long ago. When the corridors seemed all but deserted, when only two guards had stood outside the Regent's private quarters, when those two guards had simply run away, by the stars - somewhere, they should have realized that this was entirely too easy.

Had obtaining the Heartshard made them overconfident? It had always been somewhat assumed that once they had that, the struggle would be easily won. (Not that it was doing them a lot of good in their present situation. Kjan could already picture that conversation - Sorry that we just blew up twenty of your soliders. We actually came here to negotiate a truce.) Or were they all just so ready for this to be past that they'd ignored all the warnings of danger?

Regardless of the cause, this shouldn't have happened. They hadn't done anything this foolish since the very beginning of the rebellion, before the loss of lives had made painfully clear the importance of caution. They should have known better.

"I found this in my bedchamber, Phantom Grey," the Regent said, indicating Silvryn with a nod of his head. The knife hadn't moved. "Yours, by chance?"

The forest of points was minus one when the Phantom lashed out, fist connecting solidly with the nearest guard's nose. Blood spurted. He whirled on the next one, only to find metal at his throat, and hands forcibly restraining him by a grip on the back his tunic.

The Phantom found his eyes spinning wildly around the chamber while he remained perfectly still. Once more they found Silvryn's face.

What had happened to her? Why was she here? He breathed through a clenched jaw, fists tightening, unable to move his eyes from the blade glittering at her throat. If it moved an inch - two inches -

"Not yours," he snarled.

"Ah, you'll find you are mistaken." The toad's smile that stretched thinly across the Regent's face did not in any way bode well. "Finders keepers, as they say. What will you give to have her back?" His eyes moved hungrily over them - every leader of the rebellion, right here, powerless. "Yourself, perhaps?"

Did he only imagine the glitter of the knife blade moving - the Phantom jerked forward with a muffled yell.

"Do I hear an aye?"

_________________

Kjan examined Silvryn closely while maintaining a firm grip on the Phantom's arm. She was sitting very still - probably wise - and, from her expression, seemed quite calm. Exceptionally calm, considering that a blade was being held an inch from her neck. Not that the princess tended to ever display extreme emotions of any sort, but he really would have expected at least a bit more concern.

Of course, he was still confused as to how she had gotten there in the first place. Last they'd seen her, she had been leaving with the refugees. Kjan had never been stupid enough to assume that she would actually content herself with sitting idly by while they carried out this mad scheme, but she was usually more responsible than this. The only thing more foolish than barging into the Regent's private quarters as a group was showing up there alone. Had she actually been hoping to accomplish something?

One glance at the Phantom told him that the original purpose for coming here was completely forgotten. Wonderful. Before any rash promises could be made, Kjan hastily stepped forward, mindful of the sharp objects now being displayed all the more prominently due to the Phantom's outburst.

A deep breath to calm himself, and he spoke up. "We didn't come here for a fight. We came to negotiate."

The Regent didn't appear convinced at all. "In the past seven years, you've not shown even the slightest interest in negotiation. Curious that only now, as you find yourselves completely trapped, do you seek to solve matters civilly." He looked to one of the soldiers. "Go fetch Commander Sorian. Inform him that, as we anticipated, there has been a failed assassination attempt, and-"

"If we wanted you dead, you'd be dead," Kjan interjected coldly. "This wasn't about killing you. If anything, it's about keeping you alive and is therefore in your best interest."

"Do tell," the Regent obliged uninterestedly, even as he waved for the soldier to leave. With his free hand he brushed back a loose strand of Silvryn's hair. Kjan was certain that he saw the princess tense slightly this time.

He glanced uneasily to his left. This was the Phantom's job, delivering fiery speeches and negotiating with even the most stubborn opponents. Kjan rather wished he would step in at some point and get to that. "This has to stop. There are threats out there bigger than the rebellion - bigger than Kytana."

"And I imagine that you, a small rebel faction, would be the experts on handling these threats, hmm?"

"No," said the Phantom. He forced himself to tear his eyes from Silvryn's face and fix them on a point just above the Regent's head. He ground the words out through his clenched jaw. "We are not the experts. Nor are you."

He saw the skepticism and forestalled it. It was difficult to keep his eyes from being pulled toward that glittering blade. "You have never fought a war, Your Highness" - he spat the title - "much less against a force that is stronger, faster and more intelligent than your piddling force of soldiers."

The man was about to reply, when the Phantom saw a shuriken blur past in his peripheral vision. It thunked into one of the solid oaken bedposts. Eledhe froze as spearpoints darted to her throat.

The Phantom jerked his head at the black star. "You didn't see it coming," he said. "Elvish warfare. That is what threatens Kytana." Uncontrollably, his eyes darted back to Silvryn's face.

"Have you ever faced an elf in combat?" he heard Eledhe spit the words like a cat, behind him. "You have not. Or you would not be alive."

_________________

The Regent appeared no more convinced, though his expression seemed more carefully guarded than it had before. "The elves have not dealt in the affairs of Kytana in well over a century," he said at length. "And even then, it was a mutually profitable relationship. I would consider the constant thread of anarchy brought by your rebellion to be the greater concern."

"You of all people, Lord Regent, should be aware of what can happen when power changes hands."

Everyone in the room - well, except Silvryn - looked beyond the Regent in surprise. Perched at the foot of the bed, toying with a dagger, was Lord Adaniar. Kjan wasn't entirely certain what happened next. One moment, several of the soldiers were rushing forward to defend their leader. The next, Silvryn was no longer tied to the chair, and it was she holding the knife at the Regent's throat, rather than vice-versa. When he tried to back away, he found that Adaniar was already there.

"I would strongly advise that you heed what he is saying," the elven leader said smoothly. Nothing in his tone suggested that he was intimidated in the slightest by the large number of weapons now pointing in his direction. "My followers and I desire continued peaceful relations with the humans. We are the minority."

"Lord Raen would see humanity eliminated entirely," Silvryn continued, holding the knife steady. "Indiscriminantly. This civil war weakens us, and he has concerns of his own, so he has allowed it to continue without interference. Until now."

The sudden shift, tables turning in favor of the rebels, had the Phantom skittering from disjointed thought to thought - the elf leader, here? And Silvryn, first helpless and now holding the same blade that had been so perilously near her throat?

Instincts honed by years of opportunism made him brush aside the few spearpoints that remained and take a step forward. The Regent's face was slowly turning crimson. "Stop them!" he barked. "The rebels!" His voluminous robes heaved with breath sucked in past the knife threatening his jugular.

"Careful of the orders you give," said the Phantom, only drawing closer. "You may feel the repercussions." He found his lip curling as he stared at this corpulent, red-faced excuse for a monarch. "Do you want to die? I'm tempted. But Raen would gladly oblige. You and all of Kytana."

"Why should I believe you?" This, despite the dagger.

"Is there any other reason we'd come crawling in asking for an alliance?" snapped the Phantom, his momentary calm evaporating. "An alliance with this disgusting, corrupt excuse for a royal court?" He shoved his face close, tone harsh and grating. "I would rather be a thousand miles away." Slowly, he drew back, fists stiff at his sides. "Fine," he said. "Don't believe us. You'll have proof soon enough. I wish you safest passage to the deepest levels of the underworld."

_________________

Jate stood, motionless, as feelings coursed through him. He felt emotionally drained, yet every sense was heightened as well. The strain of stealthily moving through the palace gave way to despair as the group met the Regent and Silvryn. Yet at that moment, Jate realized something, and terror gripped him even more strongly.

He was paralyzed. Paralyzed by fear. Motionless, he stood watching as the Regent took away their every hope. All effort to fight back dissolved as he stared at those spears before him. And he cursed himself for it. If he was to act like this, how was he to rule a kingdom? A king couldn't let fear take hold. A king had to act, to think, to plan. A king always needed to be preparing a new angle. A king....

Berating himself did no good. He still froze in place, watching as the Phantom and the Regent moved and spoke in slow motion. He froze, and thought bitterly to himself that it was better this way. At least now he wouldn't have the chance to rule, the chance to fail. Then the slow motion changed. In a blink, the tables were turned and the Regent was the one being held captive. Jate could move again, breathe again.

But as he took a deep, settling breath, readying himself to be "king-like," a stray thought flitted across his mind.

It was only because of an elf. Not you.

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going on a journey through my old claims

The Regent appeared to be carefully weighing his options. There was a long pause, and then, quietly, "Get out." The soldiers at whom the command had been directed hesitated, clearly confused. "My personal guard will remain. Everyone else, get out!"

As the soldiers hastened to comply, many of them still looked about as bemused as Kjan felt. Even before finding the Regent protected by twenty soldiers, they hadn't expected him to agree to negotiation this quickly. Though, admittedly, the dagger at his neck might have influenced his decision. Kjan was also still trying to figure out how and why Adaniar had gotten to be here. He wasn't going to argue with free assistance - especially of the elven variety - but it would still be nice to know, for future reference.

Finally, there were only three soldiers remaining in the room - the royal guard, presumably. "Sorian will be here shortly," the Regent stated, expression dark. "Five on my side, five on yours, Grey. No more than that. And tell them to release me."

"Princess Silvryn and Lord Adaniar do not answer to me," returned the Phantom, folding his arms over his chest. His fingers brushed the hilt of his greatsword. He curled them into a fist. "They will act as they see fit."

Without speaking further - he hardly considered the man worth his breath - the Phantom turned to the rest of his band. "The princess and Lord Adaniar stay. Kjan and I. Jate, if you'll join us?"

_________________

Jate merely nodded in reply, not trusting himself to speak. He was anxious, and curious as well, to see how these negotiations turned. The Regent seemed too submissive...though sharp objects at one's throat did tend to change minds.

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going on a journey through my old claims