The Phantom and the Empress - Third Chapter

“No!” Cyrile protested, clenching her fists as she looked at her father. “We’re this close to another breakthrough, I can’t just abandon everything. This research is my life!”

“Cyrile, dear, I’m not asking you to abandon it,” her father said and ran his hand through his hair. “I just want you to put it on hold for now.”

“How long do you want me to wait?” Cyrile asked.

“Until the end of the war,” the emperor said. “I need the Church’s support to maintain stability, and they’re demanding an end to your research into those strange particles.” He picked up a pen and added his signature to a document on his desk. “You’re not the only one who’s affected by this. They also want us to pause the Royal Starfaring Program.”

“I can understand why they’d want to shut that down,” Cyrile said and shrugged. “It makes sense that they don’t want us to prove that the moon is nothing more than a rock. But…” She raised her hands in frustration. “How is my research into s-particles a threat to them?”

“I don’t know,” her father said. “Apparently, it’s classified information related to the interpretation of the Stellar Order itself, and I’m not allowed to interfere with that.”

“Aren’t you the emperor?” Cyrile asked and propped herself up on his desk. “You could easily order them to back off. What’s the point of being the head of the imperial family when you have to walk on eggshells all the time?”

“Just because I have the supreme authority on paper does not mean that I can just do whatever I want,” her father said and sighed. “Look, the empire has turned into a powder keg, and I need the Church to get the House of Nobles to approve next year’s budget. Who knows what those greedy bastards will demand if they find out that the arch-oracle is not on my side.”

Cyrile pressed her lips together and kept staring at her father. Then she sighed and took a step back. Even if she didn’t agree with his reasoning, she wouldn’t have been able to refuse his orders.

“I’m sorry,” the princess said. “I’ll do as you asked.”

“Thank you.” The emperor nodded. “One of the arch-oracle’s underlings will come to the Royal Academy tomorrow. They want to confiscate all of the shards that you’ve collected.”

“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth and turned around to leave the room.

“Oh, and Cyrile?” the emperor said. The princess looked back and was surprised to see a smile on her father’s face. “I’m proud of you. It’s good that at least one of us found a calling outside of the imperial apparatus. I’ll make sure that you’ll be able to continue your research in due time. That’s a promise.”

Cyrile gave him a resigned smile. “Thank you.” Then she turned around and left the study, wondering how she would explain everything to Erin and the others.

As she walked through one of the doors on the way back to her own section of the Palace Complex, she almost collided with a young man who was wearing a black uniform decorated with an unusually large amount of golden filigree.

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” the man said when he noticed who she was. He put one of his hands behind his back and bowed gracefully.

“Don’t worry,” Cyrile said and shook her head. “It’s my fault for not paying attention.”

“It’s kind of you to say that, but there is actually something that I need to apologize for,” the man said and looked up. “I am sorry for my subordinate’s behavior earlier today. Spying on you of all people during one of your experiments was just unacceptable.”

“Your subordinate?” Cyrile asked. Judging by his almost doll-like face, this man was barely an adult. She was surprised that someone so young could have any subordinates. Then she remembered what had happened while they had been looking for more shards in the countryside. “Do you mean Capitaine Mazzo?”

“Yes, that’s her,” the man said and brushed some of his dark hair out of his face. “My name is Matvei Genkov. I’m the cheffe of the Golden League. I hope that the capitaine didn’t cause any issues with her interference.”

“Oh, none at all,” Cyrile said. “It was nice to have someone around who didn’t know anything about s-particles. It gave me an opportunity to brag about our work.” She clicked her tongue. “Or what’s left of it now that the Church told us to pack it up.”

“The Church?” Genkov raised his eyebrows. “Why would they get involved?”

“I don’t know.” Cyrile shook her head. “But there’s no room for me to disobey.”

“A member of the imperial family shouldn’t have to deal with such insolent subjects,” Cheffe Genkov scoffed. “His Majesty certainly has a… uniquely careful approach towards ruling an empire.”

The princess raised her eyebrows. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be like that,” Genkov said. “But I’m sure they’ll let you continue your research eventually. Thank you for being so understanding, Your Highness.”

The cheffe bowed once again and made his way to her father’s study. Cyrile watched him go, still wondering how someone so young had ended up in charge of the Golden League of all organizations. But he was right. The Church had no right to interfere, and even though Cyrile did not want to get involved in politics, it seemed unavoidable now.

“Took you long enough!” The emperor stepped out of his study for a moment and looked around to make sure that nobody could listen in on their conversation. Cheffe Genkov bowed as deeply and elegantly as he could and entered into the room. “What were you thinking?” the emperor finally asked after closing the door.

“Your Majesty, I don’t understand,” Genkov said with what was probably feigned confusion. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I never told you to kill them!” the emperor complained and went back to his desk. “You were supposed to intimidate them or to find some other way to make them stop what they were doing.”

“Anselm and Paisley von Eidenau were conspiring to destroy the empire.” Genkov shrugged. “We have more than enough evidence of them colluding with pospolist agitators and other filth. The only fitting punishment for something like that is death.”

The emperor fell into his chair and sighed. “You’re lucky that I can’t let anyone know about this. If the other nobles find out that I’m willing to kill them…”

“We would only benefit from making them learn that their actions have consequences,” Genkov argued. “Even just spreading the rumor that Anselm and Paisley were executed for their involvement in a conspiracy like that would make some of them think twice before they decide to act against you.”

“Or it will convince them that they need to get rid of me as soon as possible,” the emperor said. He leaned forward and started looking for something on his table. “Getting us through the war requires careful balancing, and we’re lucky that Marise is still alive. Poor thing. I met her today, and she was as pale as a ghost.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, we’re most certainly lucky,” Genkov said as the emperor grabbed a pile of letters. “What should we do about her?”

“Nothing,” the emperor insisted. “Absolutely nothing. The little bird has her entire life ahead of her, and I want to give her enough time to mourn.” He stood up, made his way to a fireplace, and incinerated all that remained of their correspondence regarding the Eidenau family. “Nobody will miss Anselm or Paisley, but Marise is not a threat to anyone.”

“Your Majesty, with all due respect, she’s a massive security risk,” Genkov said and straightened up. “Even if she’s not conspiring against you, the pospolists will still use her as their next symbolic citizen empress. She doesn’t even have to work with them. Your father would have understood that.”

“My father spared them, and he let them keep their land titles,” the emperor said and sat back down on his chair. “If anything, I’m following his example.”

“Your father was in a different situation,” Genkov explained as he watched the letters burn. “Sparing the Eidenau family despite the fact that they nearly ruined the empire brought the rest of the nobles to his side. There was no other way to win the civil war. But the duke and the duchess were actively working on dethroning you. If your father were here today, he would have congratulated you for making such a decisive move.”

“Yes, yes, I know that you’ve read his autobiography.” The emperor sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, too exhausted to react more fiercely.

He did not know why he tolerated this young man’s overbearing behavior. For what it’s worth, the cheffe’s loyalty to the empire was earnest. Genkov did his job well, and his simple solutions were a welcome alternative to any noble’s empty promises. The empire would have fallen apart a long time ago without him. However, the cheffe had gotten much more brazen as time went on, and he was turning into a liability. The emperor had a feeling that he had to take this young man down a peg or three by the time the war in Ratisbon was over.

The emperor finally opened his eyes and said, “Perhaps you’re right about Anselm and Paisley, but we’ll leave Marise alone. She’s more useful to us alive than dead.”

“Very well.” Genkov nodded.

“Are you sure there is no evidence that any of us were involved?” the emperor asked and glanced at his fireplace, where the letters had been reduced to nothing more than ash.

“Absolutely, Your Majesty,” Genkov said and smiled confidently. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Marise looked out of the window of her motor carriage, through which she could see a corner of the city that she wasn’t really familiar with. On their way to her parents’ funeral, she had asked Kai to take a detour through Redonparc, a spawling industrial district on the southern side of the Wesser River. Over here, the police didn’t even try to maintain the illusion of stability by chasing homeless people off the streets, so it was easy to see the damage that the emperor’s rule had caused. Despite the cold weather, many people had to rely on tents or improvised shacks to survive, and the actual buildings in the residential quarters, most of them row houses or apartment blocks built to accommodate as many people as possible, were in desperate need of repair. It was pathetic that even in its own capital, the empire couldn’t afford to give everyone a place to live.

“You know, until now, I’ve never even bothered to care about any of this,” Marise said as she watched a line of people waiting in front of a soup kitchen.

“What do you mean by that, milady?” Kai asked and moved his hand to change gears.

“I’ve always known just how poor the average commoner was, but for some reason, I just… didn’t do anything with that knowledge,” Marise said.

It was a symptom of a greater problem. Nobles like her lived easy, carefree lives as part of the elite. There were exceptions, of course, but as a group, they rarely had a reason to think about the needs of commoners. Marise had to be better than that if she truly wanted to destroy the empire, especially since she would have to find allies among the commoners to do that.

She turned her head and looked at Kai. He may not be a noble, but he had grown up around them, and his family was comparatively well off. As far as he was aware, she was on a quest for vengeance against the one who had ordered her parents’ execution, and he didn’t have any problems with that. However, the odds that he would support her new, more ambitious plans were relatively low. She had to be careful around him.

Kai stopped the Prisa-Sallan at a busy intersection, and some of the people on the sidewalk started talking to each other while pointing at the motor vehicle. Marise glanced at them for a second and noticed that their stares were full of contempt and derision. It suddenly dawned on her that it didn’t matter what her plans were, to them, she was just another rich noble, and therefore, part of the problem. She wouldn’t be able to find many allies among them if they knew who she really was. Maybe some of the pospolists that her parents had been in contact with thought that her family could be trusted, but the vast majority of the commoners did not.

After a while, Kai turned the motor vehicle to the left, and they were soon driving over a bridge to the central districts of Nesstrada, which were located on the point where the Wesser river joined the much larger Sezanna river. Almost immediately, all the run-down buildings and improvised shacks disappeared from sight. Instead, Marise could see wide boulevards, delicate fountains, and beautiful parks. For the first time in her life, she wondered just how many people had to suffer to create all of it. Or maybe she forced herself to do that. Hopefully, it did not make much of a difference.

Kai stopped the Prisa-Sallan in front of the city’s central cathedral, where one of the Church’s attendants picked it up and parked it out of sight. A large crowd of people, both onlookers and reporters, had gathered under the Canopy of the Stars, an intricate, constantly moving network of cables, wire ropes, and electric lights that covered the entire plaza in front of the cathedral. If you stood below it after dark and looked up, you would be able to see an accurate map of the night sky featuring the most important constellations, planets, and, of course, the moon.

But right now, the only lights that greeted Marise were the flashes of cameras. The reporters were photographing not just her but also all the other rich and influential guests who had been invited to the funeral. Once again, some of them tried to ask her various questions about her parents’ death. Marise ignored them and made her way up the stairs, where an elderly man wearing a beautifully decorated robe was waiting for her close to the entrance.

“My dear child, I am so sorry for your loss,” Arch-Oracle Claus Tissier said and folded his hands. “Your father was a friend of our congregation. Both he and your mother will be missed. Moon willing, your parents have already found nothing but peace and tranquility among the stars.”

“Thank you, Exalted One,” Marise said and took off her top hat. “It means a lot to me that you’re letting us host the service in this cathedral.”

“Oh, we are the ones who should be honored,” the arch-oracle said. “You are always welcome here. Shall we begin?”

Marise nodded and followed the man into the cathedral, expecting every single one of her movements to be watched by the Golden League. She might have convinced the organization itself that she wasn’t aware of anything, but there was one woman left who had no reason to believe that.

Capitaine Mazzo was standing next to an open window in a hotel at the Canopy of the Stars. She was opened a folder full of reports and summaries and started browsing it, occasionally pulling some of the documents out to read them. Finally, she found a description of the motor vehicle that the residents of Cellendor had seen on that strange night.

“Just as I expected,” Mazzo said when she noticed the name Prisa-Sallan appearing on several interview transcripts. None of the townspeople had any idea which model it was, but after reading through some of the physical descriptions, she knew that she had a match.

“Here’s the picture, ma’am,” one of her troopers said and gave her a photo of the car that he had taken with an instant camera. Cursing the amateur who had been assigned to the initial observation of the countess’s movements for missing such a crucial detail, Mazzo attached the picture to the summary that she had just read and put it back in the folder.

“Take all of this back to the headquarters and leave it in my office,” Mazzo said as she grabbed her handbag and took one last look in the mirror.

Under her winter jacket, the capitaine was wearing an elegant but uncomfortable satin dress. She had also put on a wide-brimmed hat that was hopefully big enough to hide her face. Mazzo’s financial situation had improved a lot ever since her last promotion. However, she still felt dirty for paying so much just to have an outfit that would help her blend in among so many nobles and other parasites. But her reputation was on the line right now, so she simply had to tolerate it.

When the capitaine’s troopers had failed to show up with the body, most of the people involved in the operation to assassinate the Eidenau family had immediately grown suspicious of her. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. She often had to deal with those accusations because she came from a family of disloyal peasants in the Kingdom of Trecime. But any remaining trust they still had in her disappeared completely when Marise von Eidenau had been spotted at the Royal Academy, completely unaware of what had happened that night.

Capitaine Mazzo glanced back towards the window, through which she could see more guests approaching the cathedral. She knew that it had just been an act. She had gone out of her way to check the countess’s pulse. There was no way she could have survived all three of those shots. And yet, here she was, attending her parents’ funeral service, and Capitaine Mazzo had no explanation for any of that.

The cheffe was still giving her the benefit of the doubt due to her excellent track record, but even in the best case scenario, Mazzo would most likely end up getting demoted or dismissed for gross incompetence. She had to find some evidence to exonerated herself before she ran out of time, and she was getting desperate.

Down in the hotel’s entrance hall, a young man was sitting on a sofa, tapping his foot as he waited for Mazzo. When he saw the capitaine walking down the stairs, he immediately jumped up and offered her his arm.

His name was Níng Yúnshān, and he was a forgettable knight from Diyù, Nivolar’s newest client kingdom. Because of his friendship with Anselm von Eidenau, he had been invited to the funeral. Mazzo knew that she was breaking several of her orgaization’s taboos by working with him. Aside from the imperial family, the Golden League had no respect for any nobles, whom they saw as corrupt leeches, so relying on his help to get in was already a sign of weakness. But that wasn’t the only problem.

“Do you have it?” Yúnshān whispered as they made their way to the hotel entrance. Capitaine Mazzo reached for something in her handbag, pulling out an imperial passport and a small envelope. Yúnshān grabbed those things and carefully stuffed them into his jacket.

“Your ship is leaving in six hours,” Mazzo said. “As long as everything goes as planned, you’ll be able to leave the continent unharmed. Try to stay away from Korien for a couple of years and don’t get involved in any moneymaking schemes again. Trust me, we’ll know.”

“Thank you,” Yúnshān said and took a deep breath. The capitaine knew that putting actual corruption on top of all of the other accusations was a bad idea, but everything would be fine once she found some definite proof that she was innocent. The cheffe valued pragmatic solutions, so he would understand.

Together, they made their way across the plaza and up the stairs towards the cathedral. Yúnshān occasionally greeted some of the other nobles or waved towards the onlookers while Mazzo had trouble maintaining her composure. She felt defenseless without her uniform, and the cameras that were pointed towards her didn’t make it any easier. She hoped that the reporters wouldn’t care about her among so many influential guests, who were using the occasion to gain prestige by being seen, and after one of the Church’s attendants checked Yúnshān’s invitation, they walked through the entrance.

The atmosphere in the cathedral was noticeably more reserved and sorrowful. Every step could be heard inside the spacious main hall, and nobody dared to raise their voice beyond a soft whisper. Like most of the Church’s communities in Eastern Nivolar, the local congregation followed the Primacy of the Moon, so all the windows were decorated with intricate images of the moon in its different stages. And far in the distance, close to the altar, Mazzo could see the pale face of Countess Marise von Eidenau, who was holding her top hat with both of her hands as she listened to all the guests that were offering their condolences.

“Go ahead and greet her,” Capitaine Mazzo said and let go of Yúnshān’s arm, “I’ll find us a place to sit.”

Yúnshān hesitated for a second, probably thinking about what people would say behind his back if they noticed that. Mazzo raised one of her eyebrows, and he winced before following her orders. The capitaine took off her jacket and made her way to an empty bench in the back of the cathedral, where she sat down behind a pillar. All she had to do was participate in the chants, listen to all the speeches, and tag along until they made it to Shenerie Manor, the Eidenau family’s main residence. Then she could start looking for clues and restore her reputation.

Two hours later, Mazzo put her hand on the marble casing that was housing one of the coffins in the Eidenau family crypt and pretended to quietly pray for them. While the underground hall was large enough to house generations upon generations of dead nobles, only a small handful of people was buried here. The remains of anyone older than the countess’s great-grandfather were still stuck in Praskovya, on the far side of the Unincorporated Territory, and the revoltarpospolist government was unwilling to return them until the Empire gave up its claims on any land west of the Venne River.

Once Yúnshān was done showing his respect for the dead, they walked up the stairs to the entrance past a line of people waiting for their turn. Outside the crypt, Mazzo could see warm light coming from Shenerie Manor, a graceful, partially half-timbered building on an elevated platform. Snow had started to fall, while some of the guests that had already been in the crypt were taking walks in the twilight, most were making their way to the manor to escape the cold temperature.

“What should we do now?” Yúnshān asked while they approached the stairs that led to the main entrance. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

“No, you can do whatever you want,” the capitaine said. “Stay or leave immediately, I don’t care. Just don’t tell anyone who I am.”

“Then I’ll spend some time here to make them think everything is okay,” Yúnshān said and followed Capitaine Mazzo to the entrance, where they were welcomed by the Eidenau family’s butler.

“Food and entertainment is waiting for you in the manor, Sir Níng,” the butler said and gestured towards the inside of the mansion. “I hope that you and your partner will enjoy the evening.”

“Thank you, Vedran,” Yúnshān said and nodded. For a moment, the butler stared at Mazzo, and she wondered if he suspected something. But he didn’t ask her for her name, and when he finally averted his eyes, she assumed that she was just imagining things.

When they finally reached the parlor, Yúnshān linked up with a group of nobles that he recognized while Capitaine Mazzo looked around and tried to find the countess. There was a wide variety of guests who were talking, drinking, and listening to music. It could have almost passed for an ordinary gala or dinner party if they hadn’t all been wearing black clothes.

Countess Marise von Eidenau was sitting at one of the tables and silently staring at the food in front of her. She was joined by a small group of students who had arrived shortly before Mazzo. The capitaine slowly walked up to the table, carefully trying to stay out of Marise’s line of sight.

“I can’t believe that the police has already stopped the investigation,” one of the students, a girl with a Landvik emblem stitched into the sleeve of her jacket, said with an angry tone. “This is simply unfair. First that smear campaign about what happened at the consulate and now this! There is no way this was just a simple robbery. I tell you, this has to be some kind of conspiracy going all the way up to…”

“Kari, please, this is not the time,” a brawny student interrupted her. “You have to be careful with that kind of talk.” Kari opened her mouth for a moment as if she wanted to continue, but then she nodded and backed off.

Under different circumstances, and if the girl wasn’t actually onto something, hearing this would have been enough for Mazzo to kick start another investigation. But right now, her entire existence was on the line, so she couldn’t worry about that.

From what Capitaine Mazzo could tell, the countess seemed too tired and depressed to react to what her friends were saying with anything other than some forced smiles. After all, no matter what had happened that night, Marise had lost her parents, and nobody expected her to pretend like everything was alright.

The capitaine wasn’t happy about many of the things that she had to do for her job, and her own family despised her for it. But at the end of the day, she preferred this life to whatever she used to have before joining the Golden League, so she turned around and looked for an opportunity to slip away unnoticed.

For a while, Mazzo carefully navigated her way through the manor, hiding behind cabinets, bookshelves and statues whenever she thought someone was nearby. The closer she got to her destination, the quieter the music coming from the parlor became. Finally, she found a set of stairs that led all the way to the third floor. From past reports and observations, she knew that up there, she would be able to find the main living quarters as well as Anselm’s and Paisley’s studies. If there was any place where she could get her hands on information that would help her prove her loyalty to the Golden League, it had to be one of those rooms.

Making sure that nobody was following her, the capitaine quickly ascended the stairs and slipped through the first door that she could find, keeping it slightly open so that she could still hear what was going on outside. She pulled a flashlight out of her bag and looked around. This seemed to be one of the studies, judging by the small desk standing next to one of the windows and the bookshelf next to it.

But she had no time to search the room as she heard footsteps coming from the stairs. Mazzo quickly turned off the flashlight and hid in one of the corners. The sounds got louder and louder until whoever was approaching her had almost reached the door. But instead of stopping at her location, they continued to walk past her and opened a door on the far end of the hallway.

When it seemed like the coast was clear, Mazzo took a deep breath and stood up. Hopefully, that person didn’t enter one of the other rooms that the capitaine wanted to search. She once again turned on her flashlight and approached the bookshelf, where she started reading the words on the spines of the various folders, trying to find something that might be of value to her.

Unexpectedly, her flashlight began to flicker. She tapped the bottom of the handle, hoping that it was just a problem with a loose battery or something along those lines. Then she stopped when she felt something cold and eerie creeping up on her. The capitaine turned around and shined her still flickering flashlight at the door. For a fraction of a second, she could see a violet, faintly glowing shadow that somehow resembled a human being. The shadow flew towards her, and Mazzo tried to scream, but only a small yelp escaped her mouth before the thing fused with her body. Almost immediately, she felt like all the air had been wrung out of her body. Then the world around her faded away and she lost consciousness.