People poured in, flowing into the castle. Her father and brother were among the first through the gap, racing to join her. Ceres gestured with her sword.
“Spread out!” she yelled. “Take the castle. Kill only those you have to. This is a time for freedom, not butchery. The Empire falls today!”
Ceres went at the head of the wave of people, heading for the throne room. In times of crisis people would head there to try to learn what was happening, and Ceres guessed that those in charge of the castle would stay there as long as they dared, trying to maintain control.
Around her, she saw violence breaking out, impossible to contain, impossible to do more than slow down. She saw a young nobleman step out in front of them, and the crowd fell on him, beating him with whatever weapons they could grab. A servant got in their way, and Ceres saw her shoved against the wall and stabbed.
“No!” Ceres yelled as she saw some of the ordinary folk there starting to grab for tapestries or running after nobles. “We’re here to stop this, not loot!”
The truth was, though, that it was already too late. Ceres saw rebels chasing after one of the servants there, while others grabbed for the golden ornaments that filled the castle. She’d let a tidal wave into it, and now there was no hope of turning it back just with words.
A squadron of royal bodyguards stood in front of the doors to the great hall. They looked formidable in their gilt-edged armor, etched with false musculature and images designed to intimidate.
“Surrender and you will not be harmed,” Ceres promised them, hoping now that she would be able to keep that promise.
The royal bodyguards didn’t even pause. They charged forward with drawn blades, and in an instant, everything was chaos again. The royal bodyguards were among the finest warriors of the Empire, their skills honed through long hours of training. The first one to lunge at her was fast enough that even Ceres had to bring her blade up sharply to intercept the blow.
She parried again, her second blade slipping around the bodyguard’s weapon and darting into his throat. Beside her, she could hear the sounds of people fighting and dying, but she didn’t dare to look around. She was too busy pushing back another opponent, shoving him into the heaving mass of the melee.
It was nothing but crushing bodies then. Swords seemed to emerge from it as though from some great writhing pool of flesh. She saw a man crushed against the doors, the sheer weight of people behind him squashing him there, just as they carried her forward.
Ceres waited until she got closer, then kicked the door to the great hall. The castle gates had been solid, but these broke open under the power of her blow, rocking back until they slammed into the walls on either side.
Within the great hall, Ceres saw clusters of nobles, waiting as if unsure where to go. She heard several of the noblewomen there scream as if some horde of murderers had descended upon them. From where they stood, Ceres guessed it probably didn’t look too different from that at all.
She saw Queen Athena at the heart of it all, sitting on the high throne that should have been the king’s, flanked by a pair of the largest bodyguards there. They ran forward in unison, and Ceres stepped in to meet them.
She did more than step, she rolled.
She threw herself forward, diving under the sweeping blades of the attackers, tumbling and coming up in one smooth movement. She turned, striking out with both of her swords at once, catching the bodyguards with enough force to punch through their armor. They fell without a sound.
One sound did echo over the clashing blades at the door: the sound of Queen Athena clapping with deliberate slowness.
“Oh, very good,” she said as Ceres turned back to her. “Very elegant. Worthy of any jester. What will you do for your next trick?”
Ceres didn’t rise to the bait. She knew Athena had nothing but words left. Of course she was going to try to get all she could from them.
“Next, I bring the Empire to an end,” Ceres said.
She saw Queen Athena fix her with a level glare. “With yourself in its place? Here comes the new Empire, same as the old.”
That hit closer than Ceres would have liked. She’d heard the screams of the nobles as the rebels with her had spread like wildfire through the castle. She’d seen some of those they’d cut down.
“I’m nothing like you,” Ceres said.
The queen didn’t answer for a moment. Instead, she laughed, and some of the nobles joined in with her, obviously long accustomed to tittering along when their queen found something funny. Others seemed far too scared, cowering back.
She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder then. “You’re nothing like her at all.”
There was no time to think about that though, because the crowd around Ceres was getting restless.
“What are we going to do with them?” one of the combatlords demanded.
A rebel provided a quick answer. “Kill them!”
“Kill them! Kill them!” It became a chant, and Ceres could see the hatred rising there in the crowd. It felt far too much like the baying that had come in the Stade, waiting for blood. Demanding it.
A man stepped forward, heading for one of the noblewomen with a knife in his hand. Ceres reacted on instinct, and this time she was fast enough. She smashed into the would-be killer, knocking him sprawling so that he stared up at Ceres in shock.
“That’s enough!” Ceres yelled, and the room was silent in that moment.
She looked around at them, shaming them into stepping back, meeting their gazes regardless of who they were.
“No more killing,” she said. “No more.”
“What do we do with them, then?” a rebel demanded, gesturing at the nobles. He was obviously braver than the rest, or just hated the nobles more.
“We arrest them,” Ceres said. “Father, Sartes, can you see to that? Make sure that no one kills them, or harms anyone else here?”
She could guess at all the ways it might go wrong. There was so much anger among the people of the city, and among all those the Empire had wronged. It would be easy for this to turn into the kind of massacre worthy of Lucious, with horrors that Ceres would never want to be involved in.
“And what will you be doing?” Sartes asked her.
Ceres could understand the fear she heard in that. Her brother had probably thought that she would be there to organize all this, but the truth was that there was no one Ceres trusted more than him to do this.
“I need to finish taking the castle,” Ceres said. “My way.”
“Yes,” Queen Athena said, cutting in. “Coat your hands with more blood. How many people have died so far for your so-called ideals?”
Ceres could have ignored that. She could have just walked away, but there was something about the queen that was impossible to just leave be, like a wound that wasn’t quite healed over.
“How many have died so you could take what you wanted from them?” Ceres countered. “You’ve put so much into tearing down the rebellion, when you could have just listened and learned something. You’ve hurt so many people. You’ll pay for that.”
She saw Queen Athena’s tight smile. “No doubt with my head.”
Ceres ignored her, starting to walk away.
“Still,” Queen Athena said, “I won’t be alone. It’s too late for Thanos, dear.”
“Thanos?” Ceres said, and the word was enough to stop her. She turned back to where the queen still sat on the throne. “What have you done? Where is he?”
She saw Queen Athena’s