The Captain of the Guard led me to the city's former center of authority. We moved through a servant's passage in the Council Hall, the scent of dust pervasive. Every shadow seemed to hold an assassin's blade. The fresh, searing pain in my forearm was a constant reminder that the city's rulers had already tried to kill me once. My trust was a currency I no longer possessed.
He stopped before a heavy, iron-banded door and pushed it open into a small records room. A single oil lamp cast a pool of flickering light on a table layered with dust, illuminating the figure of a woman who stood waiting. It was the Princess.
"Princess," I began, my voice rough.
"In this room, my title is a liability," she said, cutting me off. "Call me Aliya."
I remembered her from the market two years ago—the plain, serious girl who had stepped out of the crowd. The date-seller had Dalia by the wrist, his face red with anger, and this girl had appeared, her voice calm and clear, her purse heavy. She had paid the man's ridiculous new tax and for the spilled fruit, her kindness a small, bright shield in the face of my own helpless rage. She had spoken to Dalia with a gentleness I hadn't seen from anyone outside our small family. That memory, a confusing mix of gratitude and shame, was all I had of her.
Now she stood before me, a woman grown, but the plainness remained. She wore a simple, dark blue robe, and her face was pale, her expression a mask of control. This was not a royal holding court. This was a conspirator in a dusty back room.
Her eyes immediately fell to the crude bandage on my arm. "The Captain told me what happened," she said, her voice low and steady. "Elder Ermias sent those men. My father has ordered your arrest. They don't fear you because you're a criminal, Nadim. They fear you because you're competent."
"And you? What do you fear?"
"A city of the dead ruled by a madman," she replied without hesitation. She gestured to a stiff, yellowed scroll. "I have a plan. A legal path. The _Civic Safety Act_ states that if the monarch is deemed 'incapacapacitated,' the Council can, by a unanimous vote, temporarily assume executive authority." Her voice softened. "This is not to destroy him. It is to save him from himself, and the city from his illness of spirit."
I looked from the scroll to her. "How?" I asked.
"My father's vanity is his own undoing," she said. "He has demoted me to the planner of his ridiculous 'Festival of Confidence.' I have used that as my cover. I met with each Elder separately, in secret. It has been… a busy night."
She had been moving through the same shadows as Ermias's assassins, but armed with law instead of knives. The thought was startling. The quiet girl from the market had become a strategist. "A busy night," I repeated. "But it still leaves you with an impossible vote. The law is sound, Aliya. But it is wielded by cowards. Ermias would never agree."
A flicker of satisfaction passed through her eyes. "He won't have to," she said.
She slid another, smaller scroll across the table. "Codex of Civic Governance, Article IV, Section 3: On the Conduct of Elders. An Elder may be removed from the Council prior to the end of their term upon a majority vote of the remaining members, should evidence be presented of High Crimes against the State. Such crimes shall include, but are not limited to: conspiracy to commit murder, or the use of their office to the clear and present detriment of the city's security."
It was a move of stunning intellectual elegance. She hadn't confronted the obstacle; she had simply removed the ground from beneath its feet. The girl from the market had vanished. In her place was a woman who possessed a kind of practical intelligence I had only ever seen in Elias.
"The Captain provided sworn testimony of the assassination attempt," she continued. "The other three Elders were… persuaded. They held their emergency session an hour ago, right here in this room. They voted. Ermias is no longer on the Council. He just doesn't know it yet."
The room was silent. She had surgically removed the primary obstacle. "That leaves four Elders," I said. "The law requires five for a quorum."
"It does," Aliya said. "The law also provides for the immediate appointment of a replacement in a time of crisis. They needed a fifth vote they could trust absolutely." She took a small, steadying breath. "The Elders have appointed me. Secretly. I am the fifth vote."
A princess, joining a shadow council to declare her own father unfit to rule. It was both brilliant and utterly insane. My mind, trained by Kael to see a battlefield not as chaos but as a series of interlocking levers, began to move. The King was a predictable force, driven by a terror of appearing weak. Prince Kareem was a simpler machine, fueled by malice and ambition. The Elders were the weakest point, motivated by the singular desire for self-preservation. They feared the King, but they were beginning to fear the approaching Legion even more. Aliya's plan didn't require them to be brave. It simply offered their fear a new, safer channel.
"Why tell me?" I finally asked. "You have your votes."
"Because the law is just ink without the will to enforce it," she shot back. "The Elders are still terrified. They have committed treason in the shadows, but they will shatter the moment they are faced with the light. They need more than a legal argument; they need a plan for survival."
"And you think they will follow yours?" I countered, my voice sharp with the memory of Borin's incompetence and Tarik's corruption. "Your plan rests on the courage of four men who have spent their lives avoiding risk. A single threat from Prince Kareem, a single rumor of the King's displeasure, and they will abandon you. Your law is a beautiful, intricate machine with gears made of sand. The moment pressure is applied, it will crumble into dust."
"Then we will give it a spine of stone," she retorted, her eyes flashing. "That is why you are here. They don't have to be brave if the plan is sound. Our only shield against the Empire is legitimacy. We must show them a stable government is in charge, a government with a viable strategy. That is why this council must remain in the shadows, a legal counterweight that my brother, Kareem, and Ermias do not yet know exists."
As she spoke, her face alight with fierce intelligence, I saw past the plain features to the brilliant, unwavering core of the woman herself. It was a different kind of beauty than I had ever known, not of form or color, but of pure, unyielding will. She had assessed the motivations of every player just as I had, but she had found a way to use their flaws as leverage. The kindness she had shown Dalia was not a weakness; it was part of the same clear-sighted strength that now dissected the city's politics.
"I have the political key," she said, her voice softening again. "But you have the city. The people trust you. The guards respect you. You understand how to organize. I need you to stand with me before our secret Council tomorrow night. I will give them the law. You will give them a plan. You will be the reason they find the courage to turn the key."
She wasn't asking me to trust the system that had failed me. She was asking me to help her build a new one on its ruins. She was offering my sister's memory not vengeance, but justice.
My grief for Dalia was ever-present, but for the first time since I had knelt by that empty grave, a different feeling ignited alongside it: a fierce resolve.
"They will need more than courage," I said. "They will need bricks, grain, and a defensible wall."
A small, weary smile touched Aliya's lips. She pushed a fresh, blank scroll into the center of the lamplight.
"The Council meets tomorrow night," she said. "They need more than promises. Show me, Nadim. Show me how we save this city."
I looked at the blank scroll, then at her. The pact was sealed. I pulled a stool to the table, and together, under the light of a single lamp, we began to write the first lines of a strategy for survival.