“I know… how to know," rasped the captive.

  Tanhkmet faltered at the words, Kera saw, even with his fist still raised. But Lycera spoke up first, before Tanhkmet finished hesitating.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know where — how — could find… what information, you want know. Of… of city-weapon. Of what you not know… that makes you can’t fight. To want give surrender.”

  “Where,” grit Tanhkmet.

  “If I say — you have mercy. You must, to let my soldiers… mercy. If I say.”

  Tanhkmet stared at the man unblinking, only tilting his head with unreadable ambiguity.

  The soldier bit his lip.

  “Information… far away. There… there is… ship. In the sky. Sky ship… I not know the word. On ship, my commander is… leads us. It is fly this way, now. Already. There are… messages, there. Messages between us and… others, of us. And back home. Messages, written down, to keep track of what said. Not everything writes down… but much. Enough. With those… from where we come from… those messages… they would say much. You could understand. Decide better.”

  Tanhkmet didn’t appear impressed.

  But Kera was starting to see a path forward. A course that offered the slightest chance to avert the catastrophe of surrender.

  “And… she is there, too,” added the white-coated soldier. “The prinzess. Information and prinzess, both of them, on that ship, in sky.”

  “There’s no point in this,” Junius scoffed. “He’s just feeling out for what you want to hear.”

  “How would you suggest that we gain control of this airship, then? To access this information?” asked Tanhkmet.

  “Gain… control?” asked the captive, confused, before seeming to realize Tanhkmet’s meaning. He swallowed before answering.

  “No… no control. You can not defeat this… ar-ship.”

  “What’s it to me, then?” bellowed Tanhkmet, crushing the man’s shoulder ever tighter in his steel-gauntleted grip.

  But the captive stared back with an expression almost blank, as he mustered the courage required for his next words:

  “Let me go to it,” he said.

  The inconceivable audacity of the request stunned everyone present in equal measure. Kera wasn’t even sure she’d heard him right, until he went on.

  “I go to ship. And get them. For you. The messages… the information. And her. Prinzess.”

  Junius laughed, but it was a shortened, beaten thing devoid of humor.

  “You can not defeat the ship,” the man continued. “But my commander… has not information, of what is happen here. Not yet. So I go, to bring for you. Before he knows. That is… only way.”

  “Don’t insult me,” said Tanhkmet quietly. “You take me for a fool, then? All of us, for fools?”

  The man’s reply was only the same stare, completely blank. But the expression wasn’t meant to be devoid of meaning, Kera realized.

  It was the best he could manage.

  It was his attempt to convey absolute earnestness, all while he knew there was practically no chance at all that his words would be believed.

  “No. Not fools,” said the white-coated soldier. “Desperate. Like me. And I give you word — give you my word. This… only way. Otherwise, I also think, same as you. You, no choice, except give up. Let prinzess… to what fate might come. But if I go, and get for you… then maybe not. Maybe you fight. And my men, here – they can be for you… hostage. You have them, so if I not keep word, kill them. So I must keep word. I get information, and prinzess, and return, only. There is small ar-ship I can take, some miles east. Perhaps is broken, but easy fix—“

  “No. Absolutely not,” said Tanhkmet. He threw the man down at last, sweeping his scowl back over Kera and the others. “I think we’ve wasted time enough with him.“

  And so Kera said the only words that came to her mind:

  “I’ll go with him.”

  “Hand me your fucking pistol, sergeant,” barked Junius. The navy fire of his vis flickered above him. “Saber and pistol, right fucking now.”

  But Theo never wavered, standing before Kera like a bodyguard.

  “No,” Tanhkmet repeated to her. The word enunciated and deliberate, as if speaking to a slow child.

  “Why?!” Kera shouted back. “Don’t you understand–’

  But she froze, mid-sentence.

  The next words of her deluge died half-formed in her throat.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Her long-gathered tirade stopped cold, paralyzed by a single realization:

  That over the course of their argument, their voices had cast far and wide, reaching many of those attending to various duties across the former battlefield. Combined with the gravity of Tanhkmet’s presence, and the threat Junius had implied with his vis —

  They’d started to draw a crowd.

  A great many patrol officers, mustered civilians, and Imperial Guards had gathered around them at that point, even while trickling in slow enough to avoid Kera’s notice until then.

  And still more were coming. Coming to see the great Captain Tanhkmet — Captain of the Guard — struggle to control a single, lowly patrol sergeant.

  Many of the spectators wouldn’t have caught the entire exchange. But many had heard enough to get the gist of the matter. And so all were interested in seeing how the struggle would be resolved.

  Kera felt her heart pound in her chest, each beat with violence enough that her whole torso quaked. Her knees weakened, and her vision blurred at the edges.

  And she could think of nothing else then but how to escape. How quickest she might leave that place, and hide for however long it took those onlookers to forget they’d ever seen her.

  But Theo swayed back, then, just enough to brush her uniform. Grazing her arm without a single step backward, as if pushed by the wind, to remind her of her presence as an ally.

  And for the first time in her life before such an audience, Kera became aware of the world in a much different light.

  Before fear could regain control and seal off her perception once more, Kera saw her surroundings for their tactical reality. In the manner she otherwise found so natural. The nightmare facade projected by her anxieties threatened to return at any moment, but a single coup d'?il was all she needed.

  In the faces of the crowd still growing around them, she saw their focus was not truly on her, at all.

  Their collective attention rested on Tanhkmet.

  They were waiting for Tanhkmet to answer her question. They weren’t wondering why she was being insubordinate, or stubborn, or so loud — but rather, why Tanhkmet wasn’t elaborating on his point. Why he was so insistent on his plan to surrender, which most of them detested just as she did. Why he was being so unreasonable.

  She had the advantage, she realized. The ever-so-brief advantage.

  And as the crowd had Tanhkmet encircled, underwhelmed by his half-logic, so she had him encircled. If for but a moment, with the initiative in every relevant domain.

  But if only she were to seize it.

  Tanhkmet was calculating, winding up to speak, perhaps bracing for the riot that might ensue when at last he ordered her arrest.

  If only she were to seize it.

  If only she wouldn’t shirk from her duty, as she had in Reglus’ camp.

  If only she wouldn’t shy from that final leap.

  “Commander Junius—“ Tanhkmet began.

  “If you think there’s no hope of success, then it’d be a suicide mission,” Kera cut in, preserving her command of the tempo. “But if we’re all to surrender, anyway, what difference would it be to you if I perish?”

  Her voice still trembled as she spoke, but it reached all those assembled, as she stepped forward to project her challenge. And her understanding of their audience deepened, but not from fear. Rather, because she directed her words as a speech to them, rather than Tanhkmet alone.

  She was fighting to win them over, she knew then. While she had her advantage, leveraging it.

  Tanhkmet grit his teeth, as he reached the same conclusion about their spectators.

  “Once you’re captured, you’ll compromise our entire—”

  “Do you truly wish to actively work against the wishes of the true and rightful heir of Setet?” she asked aloud. “We know now that the heir wants us to resist. As long as we are able, shouldn’t we seek to abide by her will? That’s all I propose.”

  Tanhkmet slowly shut his mouth. His only response then, a silent, baleful regard.

  “Is that truly your order, for all of us? Here we have knowledge of the heir’s — the Empress’s exact wishes. And you want us to work towards the opposite of what she desires?”

  Junius’ vis flared once more as he snarled in contempt. But Tanhkmet said nothing, as her words sent ripples throughout the crowd, and he sensed the danger she conjured. So she pressed on her advance.

  “You risk nothing by allowing me to try,” she finished.

  “He would betray you as soon as you were out of sight, sergeant,“ Tanhkmet ground out.

  “He would still be my prisoner,” she countered. “I could hold him at gunpoint.”

  “That’s idiotic — his vis — You stand no chance—“

  But Kera was just quick with the riposte, refusing to allow Tanhkmet even a single opening.

  “Then perhaps he would betray me, and my life would be lost. But again: what would it matter to you, if we are all lost, anyways?”

  “If the enemy captures one of my soldiers clearly working counter to the spirit of a general surrender, while I am attempting to make such overtures in earnest—“

  “Then disavow me,” she said, even as the idea terrified her. “A single soldier is nothing. If you take the rest of the forces to lay down their arms, the actions of one rogue — one deserter — will mean nothing.”

  A droplet of strained sweat slid down Tanhkmet’s brow.

  “Allow this of me,” she demanded, one final time. “Prepare as you would otherwise to surrender, and if I do not return before you would leave, then simply get on with your march east to give yourselves up to the enemy. But if I do come back, you stand only to gain.”

  And the eyes of the crowd, and of Junius and Lycera, too, were on Tanhkmet then, as she took her last step toward him. Stepping past Theo, to truly mark her challenge.

  But then she let the mask slip in subtlest measure, all while still staring him down.

  Meeting his gaze at last with sincerity. No longer playing up the crowd as before, but rather laying bare her true desperate plea. Before hiding that weakness away once more.

  He held her regard a moment longer. Then he looked to the gathered soldiers, still high from the battle’s victory, and saw what they expected of him.