The basement was deep in the stone foundations beneath the Council Hall, a place of damp earth and decaying parchment. Barrels of ancient records stood like silent, slumped witnesses in the shadows cast by a single, unsteady lamp. It felt less like a secret chamber and more like a tomb.
The three Elders were already there in the gloom. Qasim, the merchant, paced frantically, his soft hands clasping and unclasping as if trying to hold onto his evaporating fortunes. Elder Theron, the pious traditionalist, stood rigid, his fingers tracing the facets of a polished sunstone, the sacred symbol of an Epistoic Sunworshipper. And Lykos, the old soldier, was a statue carved from granite, his face a map of the Empire's road system.
"We are four," Theron stated, his voice heavy with crumbling tradition. "Elder Nestor has taken to his bed with a 'fever.' A coward's ailment. We are four, when the law demands five."
"The law demands five for the passing of new statutes," Aliya's sharp voice cut through the gloom. "An emergency vote on the fitness of the monarch is an executive action. It requires only the unanimous consent of all sitting members. We are the state, as it currently stands."
Theron's jaw tightened, but before he could argue, Qasim came in with his own high pitched objection. "State? We are dead men! This is a death warrant with our names signed at the bottom. When the King discovers this, he will send executioners to our doors and tax collectors to the homes of our children's children! Our legacies will be erased!"
"What good is a legacy if your throat is cut?" Lykos growled. "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."
"An easy sentiment for a soldier!" Qasim shot back. "You have nothing to lose but your life. I have warehouses, a family name built over four generations!"
Before their fear could ignite a blaze, I stepped forward and unrolled the scroll Aliya and I had prepared. "Your wealth is already lost, Elder Qasim," I said, quietly. "It is merely a matter of who collects it: the King's taxman or the Legion's quartermaster."
I could have begun with the terror of the Legion's attack, but I chose to focus on the practicalities of survival. "The Legion is coming, that is a fact. But a city is not just walls; it is a system. Our system is broken. Here is how we fix it."
I pointed to the first section of the scroll. "Fortification. My work crews can produce bricks four times stronger than what the royal masons use. We will work at night, reinforcing the Dawn Gate and the western wall, turning crumbling facades into true defenses."
I moved to the next point. "Logistics. When fear spreads, people hoard. To prevent riots, we will implement a public and transparent 'Ledger of Things' in every district. Every household will be accounted for, and every ration of grain and water will be distributed fairly. Order prevents panic."
Finally, I tapped the last section. "Civil Defense. Commander Kael taught me that an invading army fears a city that fights back street by street. Our citizens will not be soldiers, but they will be defenders. We will organize them by district to turn their neighborhoods into fortified labyrinths. They will barricade secondary alleys, forcing the Legion into kill-zones prepared for the Captain's archers. Every rooftop will be a strongpoint, every narrow street a trap."
The Captain of the Guard stepped from the shadows. "The boy's assessment is sound," he stated. "His plans are practical. They can be implemented within days."
The room was silent. They must have realized that it was a reasonable proposal. But reason, I was learning, was its own kind of threat.
"A fine fantasy," Qasim scoffed, though with less force than before. "But it dies without gold. Who pays for the bricks? The grain? The training?"
Theron nodded, his gaze falling on me with open skepticism. "You speak of war, boy. But you are a prisoner steward, not a commander. You ask us to stake the city's survival on the tactical daydreams of a ex-convict."
Aliya moved to speak, but I held up a hand. This was my test.
I met Theron's condescending gaze. "I learned more about leadership and logistics in the prison brickyard than the King's nephew has learned in his entire pampered life," I said. "I learned that waste costs lives and that competence is the only currency that matters when the walls are crumbling. Your King values monuments. I value men."
I turned to Aliya. She stepped forward, her expression resolute. "We will not use our own fortunes," she said, her voice iron. "We will use the King's."
Aliya's eyes gleamed in the lamplight. She reached into a satchel and produced a thick scroll, letting it unroll across the table with a dry whisper. The King's elaborate seal was stamped at the bottom. "This is the latest requisition for the monument. Ten tons of quarry-cut stone. Timber for scaffolding. Five hundred sacks of grain for the workers." Her finger tapped the seal. "The budget is already approved. The funds are already allocated. As this Council, we have the authority to issue logistical amendments." She looked at each of them in turn. "The stone will be redirected to the Dawn Gate. The timber will go to the Captain to build barricades. The grain will go to the public granary under the Captain's guard. We will not steal a single coin. We will simply change the destination of the river."
The audacity of it stunned them into silence. But then the fear returned, stronger than before.
"Madness!" Qasim breathed. "A single paymaster questions the order, a single guild foreman sends a runner to the palace, and we are not just traitors—we are thieves! Our heads will be on spikes by sunrise!"
"This is not about a sacred oath to the crown!" Theron's voice boomed, his piety ignited by a deeper, more painful history. "The founders of this city envisioned a republic, governed by this very council. The throne is a foreign imposition, a scar left by the Empire when it co-opted our freedom and installed this King's ancestors to rule in its name. To do this," he swept a hand around the tomb-like room, "to use the law to sideline the monarch… it is to declare our independence not just from a madman, but from the Empire that backs him. They will see this not as an internal matter of governance, but as rebellion. We are inviting an annihilation, not just a siege!"
This was the heart of it. Not just fear of death, but the terror of breaking a lifetime of belief. Logic would not sway him. He needed a new catechism.
I stepped toward him, my voice dropping, becoming personal. "And what of your oath to the people of this city, Elder Theron? The oath you swore before the sun to protect them? The King sentenced me to a flogging that nearly killed me. My crime? Stealing a flower to save my dying sister."
I took a deep breath. "The law, in his hands, became a tool to protect a plant over a child. Is that the sacred order you are sworn to uphold? Or is your true oath to the hundreds of children who will die in the coming siege because he values a monument more than their lives?"
My gaze swept over them all, landing on Qasim. "You speak of your legacy. The Legion will not distinguish between your gold and a baker's loaf. They will take both. The only thing you can save now is the city that allows you to prosper. The only legacy worth leaving is a city that still stands."
The cellar was silent save for the sputtering of the lamp. I had offered them no easy comfort. I had simply held up a mirror.
Lykos, the old soldier, slammed his hand on a wine barrel with a crack of finality. "The boy has the steel for it. The Princess has the means. It may be lawful, but it will be judged as treason. Our alternative is annihilation. I am in."
Theron looked as though he were being torn in two. He closed his eyes, his hand gripping his sunstone so tightly his knuckles were white. When he opened them, the conflict was gone, replaced by a grim, weary resolve. "May the sun forgive us," he said, a low prayer. "It is our duty to restore balance."
All eyes turned to Qasim. He looked from the Captain's unyielding face to my pragmatic map, and finally to the quiet, determined princess who had just hijacked a royal budget. He let out a long, shuddering breath, the sound of a man watching his entire world burn, and choosing to save the ashes.
"So be it," he whispered.
Aliya gave the first official order of our shadow regime. "Captain," she said, like the princess she was, "Secure the eastern granary. Nadim, assemble your work crews. We begin tonight."