shook her head. “There has been a change of plan. Come with me.”
To her handmaiden’s credit, Elethe didn’t hesitate. She walked along with Stephania in spite of the worries she must have had.
“Where are we going?” Elethe asked.
Stephania smiled. “To the dungeons. I’ve decided that you’re handing me over to the rebellion.”
That got a shocked look from her handmaiden, although it was nothing compared to the surprise there when Stephania explained more of her plan.
“Are you ready?” Stephania asked, as they got closer to the dungeons.
“Yes, my lady,” Elethe said.
Stephania put her hands behind her back as if tied, then walked forward with what she hoped was a suitable show of fearful contrition. Elethe was doing a surprisingly good job of looking like a tough rebel with a freshly captured enemy.
There were a pair of guards near the main door, sitting behind a table with cards set out, showing how they were passing their time. Some things didn’t change, regardless of who was in charge.
They looked up as Stephania approached, and Stephania was quite amused by the surprise she saw there.
“Is that… you’ve captured Lady Stephania?” one asked.
“How did you do it?” the other said. “Where did you find her?”
Stephania could hear the disbelief, but also the sense that they didn’t know what to do next.
“She was creeping away from Ceres’s rooms,” Elethe answered smoothly. Her handmaiden was a good liar. “Can you… I need to tell someone, but I’m not sure who.”
That was a good move. They both looked over at Elethe then, as they tried to decide what to do next. That was when Stephania brought out a needle with each of her hands, bringing it forward to strike the guards’ necks. They spun, but the poison was a fast-acting one, and their hearts were already pumping it through their bodies. A breath or two later, and they collapsed.
“Fetch the keys,” Stephania said, gesturing to one guard’s belt.
Elethe did so, opening up the dungeons. They were full almost to bursting, as Stephania had suspected they might be. As she hoped, at least. There weren’t any more guards, either. Apparently, all those with the ability to fight were on the walls.
There were men and women who were obviously soldiers and guards, torturers and simply loyal nobles. Stephania saw more than a few of her own handmaidens there, which struck her as a little foolish. The sensible move was not to insist on their loyalty, but to pretend to serve the new regime. The important thing was that they were there.
“Lady Stephania?” one said, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. As if she were their savior.
Stephania smiled at that. She liked the thought of people seeing her as their hero. They would probably do far more that way than simply from obedience, and she liked the idea of turning Ceres’s weapons against her too.
“Listen to me,” she said to them. “You’ve had a lot taken from you. You had so much, and those rebels, those peasants, dared to snatch it. I say it’s time to snatch it back.”
“You’re here to get us out?” one former soldier asked.
“I’m here to do more than that,” Stephania said. “We’re going to take back the castle.”
She hadn’t expected cheers. She wasn’t some romantic who needed fools to applaud her every decision. Still, the nervous muttering amongst them was a little grating.
“Are you afraid?” she demanded.
“There will be rebels up there!” a nobleman said. Stephania knew him. High Reeve Scarel had always been quick enough to challenge others to fights when he knew he could win.
“Not enough to hold this castle,” Stephania said. “Not now. Every rebel who can be spared is out on the walls, trying to hold back the invasion.”
“And what about the invasion?” a noblewoman demanded. She was little better than the man who had spoken. Stephania knew secrets about what she’d done before she married into wealth that would make most of the others there blush.
“Oh, I see,” Stephania said. “You’d rather wait in a nice, safe dungeon for it all to be over. Well, what then? At best, you spend the rest of your lives in this stinking hole, if the rebels don’t decide to kill you quietly once they realize how inconvenient prisoners are. If the others win… do you think being in a cell will protect you? You won’t be nobles to them in here, just amusements. Brief amusements.”
She paused to let that sink in. She needed them to feel like cowards for even considering it.
“Or we could go out there,” Stephania said. “We take the castle and we close it against our enemies. We kill those who oppose us. I’ve already dealt with Ceres, so she won’t be able to stop us. We hold this castle until the rebellion and the invaders kill one another, then we take Delos back.”
“There are still guards,” one said. “There are still combatlords here. We can’t fight the combatlords and win.”
Stephania gestured to Elethe, who started to open the locks on the cells. “There are ways. We’ll gain more weapons with each guard we kill, and we all know where the armory is. Or you can stay here and rot. I’ll close the doors and send a few torturers later. I don’t care which.”
They followed, as Stephania knew they would. It didn’t matter whether they did it from fear, or pride, or even loyalty. What mattered was that they did it. They followed her up through the castle, and Stephania started to give orders, although she was careful to make it sound better than that, at least for now.
“Lord Hwel, would you mind taking some of the more able men and sealing the guard barracks?” Stephania said. “We don’t want rebels getting out.”
“And men loyal to the Empire?” the noble said.
“Can prove it by killing those other traitors,” Stephania replied.
The noble hurried to meet her command. She sent one of her handmaidens to gather more, and asked a noblewoman to instruct those servants who would be obedient to Stephania’s bidding.
Stephania looked around the group with her, judging who would be useful, who had secrets she could employ, whose weaknesses made them easy to control and whose made them dangerous. She sent the noble who had been so keen to avoid a fight to control the gates, and a cantankerous dowager to the kitchens where she could do no harm.
They gathered people as they went. Guards and servants came to them as they heard, their loyalties changing with the wind. Stephania’s handmaidens knelt before her, then rose at a touch to be sent about their next tasks.
Occasionally, they found rebels who wouldn’t submit, and those died. Some died in a quick rush of nobles, their weapons seized, their bodies broken as they were beaten to death. Others died with a knife taking them from behind, or a poisoned dart sliding into their flesh. Stephania’s handmaidens had learned to be good at their tasks.
When she saw Queen Athena, Stephania found herself wondering which it should be.
“What is this?” the queen demanded. “What’s going on here?”
Stephania ignored her bleating.
“Tia, I need you to find out how things are going at the armories. We need those weapons. I imagine High Reeve Scarel will have found a fight by now.”
She kept walking in the direction of the great hall.
“Stephania,” Queen Athena said. “I demand to know what’s happening.”
Stephania shrugged. “I have done what you should have. I freed these loyal people.”
It was such a simple argument, and such a neat one, that it needed no more. Stephania had been the one to do the work of saving the nobles. She was the one they