In front of the palace's iron gates, the ground was already a mosaic of stones, thick mud, and trampled propaganda leaflets.
Jacques Duclos stood just behind the front line, gazing down at the filth.
The masses were hungry to charge.
The heart of the Empire throbbed before their eyes, so close it felt as if they only needed to reach out and seize it—that a single step forward would end it all.
But this was, predictably, nothing more than reckless bravado.
Duclos understood the danger better than anyone. An impetuous breach invites blood; blood invites madness; and madness inevitably invites looting.
That was exactly the tableau the Empire was waiting for. The moment the heat of the streets turned them into a 'mob,' the barrels of the palace guns would regain their moral legitimacy.
He summoned a nearby liaison. His voice was low, tempered like cold iron.
"Are they loaded?"
The liaison answered in a stifled breath.
"They are, Comrade General Secretary. Five guns. All loaded with special shells."
Duclos nodded, though his eyes never drifted from the crest of the iron gates.
The rifle barrels lined the ramparts. Behind them were bloodshot eyes, parched lips, and trembling hands.
They could still fire. But they wouldn't last much longer.
He issued his next command.
"Five warnings."
"Sir?"
"Before you fire, give five warnings. Shout for them to open the gates. Shout for them to send out the wounded. Shout that we will grant them mercy if they surrender. We must be the ones to prove it first—that we are the merciful ones, fit to govern this city."
The liaison nodded firmly.
Duclos swallowed a sigh.
He raised his hand, giving a sharp signal to the vanguard. They stepped forward, their unrefined voices melding into a singular roar of the dispossessed.
"Send out the wounded first!"
"Send out the children and the servants!"
"Open the gates!"
A brief silence hovered over the ramparts.
It was a silence of calculation, not resolve.
They were weighing who would be the first to get their hands dirty, and who would be forced to carry the weight of the aftermath.
Then, the clatter of shifting metal echoed from the walls.
The gun barrels shifted.
Duclos realized instantly: they had no intention of negotiating. This was a battle against the clock. They were clearly clinging to the delusion that reinforcements were coming.
Consequently, he gave the liaison a nearly imperceptible nod.
"Fire."
The liaison sprinted to the rear. There was a short, sharp intake of breath from the artillery pieces—the sound of the machine preparing its work.
*******************
At first, no one recognized them as 'shells.'
There was no deafening roar. No hail of shrapnel. Instead, a suspicious cloud of gas briefly blossomed and then vanished.
The defenders thought they were blanks—pathetic attempts by an unskilled rabble who didn't even know how to properly handle a cannon.
But the reality struck in the very next heartbeat.
A soldier atop the gate grimaced. The one next to him rubbed his eyes frantically. Beside them, another opened his mouth to shout, only to fall into a fit of dry, violent hacking.
It was wrong. Horribly wrong.
First came the tears. With the tears, their vision disintegrated. With their vision gone, their aim followed. And when their aim failed, terror rushed in to fill the void.
The rifles were no longer threats; they were dead weight.
"Cough! Hack! He-help me!!!"
Someone screamed from above, but the plea was cut short as they choked on the air. Every agonizing detail was visible to the crowds gathered below.
Duclos spoke curtly to the front lines.
"Do not charge."
The shoulders of the crowd surged forward like a breaking wave, the instinct to seize the opportunity nearly overpowering their discipline, before his voice reined them in.
He spoke again. "Clear a path. Open the way so the cowards have a chance to flee."
The vanguard formed a corridor. Someone held back a stone they had intended to hurl; another lowered a makeshift spear.
Instead, their voices gathered into a thunderous chorus.
"Open the gates!"
"Come out and live!"
A single shot rang out from the ramparts, but the bolt missed its mark, soaring aimlessly into the sky.
In that moment, Duclos heard the sound of multiple groups moving—not just outside, but within the palace. Something was collapsing from the inside.
He couldn't help but allow a grim smile to touch his lips.
*******************
The interior of the palace was transforming from a fortress into a squalid refugee camp. They were short on men and shorter on ammunition.
But more than that, they were short on order.
The nobility had been the first to flee inward. Trunks of fine silk clogged the hallways. When a porter stumbled, more luggage was piled atop him. Bureaucrats ran with their arms full of dossiers. When a stack scattered across the floor, others simply trampled the documents in their haste. Someone was on their knees, frantically gathering papers, wailing, "My name is on these!"
An officer barked orders. "Move aside! Make way for the soldiers!"
But the nobles would not budge. To move was to abandon their baggage, and baggage was all they had left.
A non-commissioned officer ground his teeth, trying to muster a squad. "Fall in! Form up by the gate!"
But formations require space, and every inch of space had been consumed by the aristocracy's greed. There wasn't even enough room in the corridors to reinforce the dwindling lines of those who hadn't already deserted.
In the eye of this hurricane stood Empress Friliv.
She did not weep. She likely wanted to, but she knew that if she broke, the final shred of order in this dying palace would dissolve with her.
She was intelligent. She could see the outlines of the collapse—where the seams were tearing. However, she had spent her life in a world that believed 'decorum' and 'tradition' would hold even as the foundations crumbled.
Surely, they wouldn't come this far. Surely, things wouldn't be turned so utterly upside down.
That belief was now being trodden into the hallway floor.
The Empress reached down to help a maid who had collapsed. The girl's hands were shaking, her fingers slick with tears and mucus.
"Why is everyone… having such trouble breathing?"
The maid couldn't find her voice. There are moments when an answer is itself a crime, and this was one of them.
The Empress walked toward the window—a vantage that overlooked the city, the city of her subjects.
But the world outside wasn't filled with 'subjects'; it was shrouded in a haze. Something was riding the wind, drifting up from the base of the walls.
Only then did she realize: the battle being waged outside was not merely one of swords and spears.
She rested her hand on the windowsill and whispered, almost to herself.
"Those people out there… they are my subjects."
Even without an answer, she knew the truth. She turned back for a moment to look at the portrait of the Emperor hanging on the wall. Corsica I's eyes stared straight at her from within the frame.
The Empress paused before the image. "I wanted to greet you with a smile when you returned..."
It was a statement of love, but also the final tether she had to reality.
At that moment, the clamor of the nobles at the end of the hall intensified.
"It'll be over before any reinforcements arrive!"
"The Emperor isn't even here, why should we die in this place?!"
"If we open the gates, we die! If we don't, we die anyway!"
Amidst the cacophony, someone suddenly cast a gaze toward the Empress. It was not a look of loyalty; it was the look of a predator searching for an escape route.
The Empress saw it, but initially failed to comprehend it. "Why do you look at me so?"
A nobleman knelt before her. His posture was elegant, but his eyes were filthy.
"Your Majesty. Your Majesty is… beloved by the people."
The Empress felt a brief flicker of relief. She fell into the delusion that her love for her subjects might actually count for something.
But the nobleman continued.
"Therefore, Your Majesty must come out with us."
The Empress's eyes widened slowly. "Go out? But it is surely quite dangerous out there."
"If Your Majesty goes out… they will stop."
It was the language of the world she knew—the idea that a 'symbol' could establish 'order.' For a fleeting second, she almost believed the greedy wretch standing before her.
In that instant, someone further down the hall coughed and shrieked, "The gate! The gate is opening!"
***************************
The iron gates of the palace did not open with a grand flourish. At first, there was only a sliver of a gap.
What emerged from that sliver was not a soldier, but a ragged gasp of breath mixed with tears and snot.
The riflemen who had been firing from the ramparts could no longer look down. They clutched their faces. Hacking coughs followed, their necks twisting like those of the strangled.
Duclos watched the vanguard stretch out their arms to hold back the crowd as they prepared to surge forward. He didn't feel relief. If anything, he grew more tense.
The moment immediately following a victory is the most perilous.
He shouted at the top of his lungs, "Form up! Vanguard, move in! Keep the citizens back!"
"Tend to the wounded first!"
"Stop anyone attempting to loot! You have permission to kill them!"
His commands tightened the air in the street. The people stopped. Their rage hadn't vanished; it had found a direction.
A soldier stumbled down from the palace defenses. He dropped his crossbow and raised his hands. His eyes were raw and red; saliva trailed down his chin.
Behind him came an officer, shielding his face, every breath an agony. Following them were the bureaucrats, empty-handed, their precious dossiers abandoned somewhere in the dark. Many were dragged out of the palace as if they were being expelled by the building itself.
However, it was then that a 'different' group appeared in the gap of the open gates. The crowd began to murmur.
It was the nobility.
Their faces didn't wear the look of surrender. They wore the look of those determined to survive at any cost. And in the center of them all—Empress Friliv.
She wasn't walking out on her own. To be precise, she was walking, but she was being 'pulled' out. Someone held her arm tightly. Another shielded her shoulder. This covering looked like protection, but it was only protection if it was by her choice.
The Empress gazed at the crowd. Her subjects. She saw the spears, the knives, and the crossbows they gripped. Her lips trembled with fear, yes, but also with profound sorrow.
She looked toward Duclos. Or rather, she was searching for the person with the power to 'decide.'
One of the nobles stepped before the crowd, his voice carrying an unearned weight of authority. "General Secretary!"
Duclos's face hardened. He recognized that tone—the voice of a superior bestowing 'mercy' upon an inferior.
Ignoring or oblivious to Duclos's disdain, the nobleman pulled the Empress closer. "We have… brought Her Majesty to you."
The crowd stirred. One only had to look at the Empress's eyes to see that 'bringing her' was a lie.
The noble continued, "We surrender her to the Revolutionary Government. In exchange—"
He licked his lips, searching for the right words. It was the reflexive habit of a man who had survived his entire life through talk.
"—In exchange, grant us our lives."
The moment the words left his mouth, Empress Friliv shook her head very slightly. It was the rejection of one who loved her people, the despair of one who loved her husband.
Duclos didn't move an inch. He didn't see this as a 'victory.' He found it repulsive.
The Empire he had been born into and raised in was showing its ugliest side at the very end. Though he prided himself on never succumbing to nationalism or state-idolatry, the final display of his former nation was nothing short of wretched.
He took a long, deep breath. He muttered under his breath, as if speaking only to himself.
"The Empire… remains the Empire until the bitter end."
His gaze lingered on the Empress. Then, it shifted to the noble.
He had to decide. Right here. Right now.