Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

Carolien took Goldie back to the royal section of the palace.

The route there was more chaotic than Goldie had experienced before. Servants and guardsmen were rushing around, tripping over each other.

Some of the palace's retainers were trying to restore order. Others were running around with bags, preparing to leave and perhaps discreetly pocketing a few pieces of silverware or other small but valuable items.

The word seemed to be out that the city might fall at any time. The King was dead. Nothing was safe anymore.

Nobles who saw Carolien tried to ask her questions, confirm what had happened, or even make demands. Goldie wasn't sure of what was being discussed or asked in all cases. The cacophony of thoughts and sounds around her was almost deafening, and she tried to dampen the noise as best she could without actually deactivating Telepathy. The Queen might need something, and with their close physical proximity, Goldie would at least hear her a little more loudly than others if Carolien shouted in her thoughts.

The Queen ignored and brushed past every single obstacle in her path, literally shoving noblemen to the side when they obstinately insisted on barring her way.

She passed through the more public areas, and her cold indifference to those around her seemed to pay dividends. Goldie couldn't sense a single person following them. A peaceful silence settled in the air around the two, and the spider finally felt as if she had a minute to think.

I have to go with Carolien, she thought. After what happened to Alistair… I have to go with Carolien. I don't even have the excuse of protecting my children as a reason not to. I at least have to see that the Royal Family make it somewhere safe. But the others? Should Sammy, William, and Frederick really join us? I imagine that despite the tough talk, the Dessians have safe passage out of the city whenever they want to take it. I have a bad feeling that even if this escape route through the catacombs takes us away from the front lines, the path between that and the nearest friendly country won't be a smooth one.

When the Queen stepped into the room, her children rushed to hug her. Goldie guessed from the tear-streaked faces that all of them already knew what had happened to their father.

While Carolien comforted her babies, Goldie went with Frederick to speak with him, his brother, and Samson once more before they left.

The Queen is going to take us out through the catacombs, Goldie sent. Apparently there is a secret escape route out of the city there.

"I figured every ruling family of a country had something like that somewhere," William replied very quietly, trying not to interrupt the parent and children talking just six feet away.

Why are you bringing that up? Frederick thought.

Is there something wrong with her plan? Samson asked.

No, there's nothing wrong, Goldie sent. It's just that… you know, the three of you don't have to go where the Royal Family is going. Where I'm going. I know the Empire's messenger said that they would let diplomats like the two of you leave, and I doubt they would check to see if you had a little spider like Samson with you either.

"Where you go, I go," Frederick replied, smiling. His face did not show a single trace of fear. "If Samson wants to leave separately, I suppose William can take him out."

Where my little brother goes, I go, too, William added inside his mind. No matter how thoughtless the decision may seem. His well-being is my responsibility.

I'm going, too, Samson added.

Why are you going, Sammy? Goldie asked, beginning to be slightly annoyed. You, more than anyone, have no responsibility to the Royal Family. You've only been here a short time, and they haven't done anything for you that I couldn't have done myself. I feel a certain responsibility to the children because of what happened to their father, but you don't have that either. Think carefully, son. This could be very dangerous. It could—

I want to protect the Royal Family, Samson sent in a firm tone. I'm pretty sure it's what Adon would do if he was here and what he'd ask me to do if he could talk to me right now. He wanted us to stay here while the country was at war because he felt like he owed them something. I'm not worried about being in danger. Spiders aren't supposed to live long lives naturally, but even if I could live to be a hundred years old, life isn't about how long you keep it. It's about doing the most you can with it while you have it. I'm going to protect this widow and her children. I get to do the right thing and maybe do something that will be important to the future of this world at the same time. Also, Mama, I wouldn't let you go into danger by yourself either.

At that, Goldie had to give up.

I forget that you lived a long life before you came to me, she sent after a short pause. Sometimes you sound like the old man you were. Or like Adon. At times like this, I can see you truly are brothers.

She felt a wave of pride from Samson. He had apparently taken that as a simple compliment, but the feelings underlying Goldie's words had been much more complicated.

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That matter settled, they waited for a few minutes for the family to make their last minute preparations. Their bags were already packed, but Ailsa insisted on making a quick run back to her room to grab her favorite velvet rabbit. Baltazar chose a bastard sword that hung on one of the walls to wear at his side. Carolien took up her walking stick. Goldie had passively noticed her limping slightly as she moved, but the spider had almost forgotten that the Queen was essentially semi-crippled.

It made Goldie more nervous about the prospect of a fight.

The burden would really be entirely on the Dessians and mystic beasts if violence broke out between the Royal Family and any enemy.

But there was no time for further discussion.

"Time to go, before the panic spreads too close to where we are," the Queen said.

Carolien led the way out of the room, through the halls of the palace.

They stepped into the palace chapel, and the Dessians raised their eyebrows.

Is this the way? both men wondered at almost exactly the same time.

Goldie saw a half-formed picture of another place, an outdoor entrance to this underground space, in Frederick's mind. In the snippet of memory, the young lord's point of view was much lower than his present-day height. Goldie guessed that he, William, and Rosslyn had played in or around the catacombs when they were children.

The Queen answered the unvoiced question without speaking. She strode forward confidently, stopped at a nook in the wall, and pressed her hand down firmly on a certain stone.

The hollow space slid sideways to reveal a deep darkness.

Carolien conjured a bit of fire and lit a torch that she pulled from the wall. Then she led them down a narrow stairway, into the darkness of the catacombs.

Goldie couldn't see much at first, despite the torchlight. What she could see, she did not like. The halls they passed into now were too narrow to do much fighting if an enemy were to suddenly overtake them—though she supposed that might be more to the disadvantage of an enemy than a problem for them, since broad paths lent themselves better to crushing others with numbers.

Yes, this is much safer than being back out there, Goldie told herself.

But she still jumped a little when the door slid shut behind them.

From there, though, the next ten minutes were uneventful, even boring. Carolien led them silently, as if she wanted to be very careful to focus on the path she needed to take. There were myriad side tunnels, but it looked to Goldie as if most of those led into tombs. She thought there was a fairly straightforward path that the Queen was on with only occasional forks.

Goldie continued to believe that Carolien was just taking them on the route straight through until Frederick thought, Was there a wall here when I was younger? as they passed a certain point.

The spider turned her head and saw a chunk of jagged stone sticking out of one of the walls. It looked out of place, as if the stone was meant to be somewhere else.

Did a wall retract at some point? Goldie wondered. Is that what Frederick noticed?

She turned her head back, and just after William and Samson passed through, Goldie saw the chunk of jagged stone extend out until it met the other wall, sealing the space the group of them occupied from where they had been.

So there is more to this than just walking straight…

The Queen was opening up secret passages.

I should have realized sooner. That's why there is no wind in this place. The torchlight had been suspiciously stable, when any outside wind should have caused it to move much less predictably.

As they advanced further, Goldie actually noticed a few of the secret passageway triggers, tiles that Carolien pressed with her cane in passing.

Finally, she stopped them outside of one of the side tunnels that led up to a vault. There was a stone statue outside of it with a bronze engraving identifying the person whose remains lay beyond as "Bryan the Blessed."

"Is that the tomb of the first king?" William asked in a tone of surprise. "I had always heard he was buried outside of the city—perhaps even outside of the country, although the Claustrian nobles I've spoken to about it have always been strangely reticent about that subject."

"Outside of the city, outside of the country, who can say?" Carolien replied with a shrug and a mysterious smile. "Perhaps the secret is lost to time. At any rate, this tomb belongs to us."

She walked up to the vault and turned the handle, and to the brothers' surprise, it opened easily. Her children rushed through, followed by Carolien, and the others quickly moved after.

Instead of a tomb, the vault door led into another long, narrow passage. This one was different from the main catacombs they had experienced thus far, however.

Where Goldie had been able to roughly tell that those catacombs were entirely located underneath the palace and its surrounding grounds, this passage seemed to go on forever, and in an entirely different direction.

The group walked for another ten minutes in relative silence. Ailsa whined at one point about her feet getting tired, but then Frederick set her on his shoulders, Goldie shifting to lower on his back to accommodate the new passenger.

As the crew advanced, they began to hear the noise of combat carrying from somewhere above. At first it was just the occasional blunt noise of heavy impacts, but as they stepped closer to wherever the invisible line was that delineated the separation between Wayn and the outside—clearly the direction they were going—the sounds grew more varied and distinct. Clashing steel indicated that the fighting had shifted from mere bombardments back and forth to groups skirmishing outside the walls.

It was impossible to tell who was winning, but from Carolien's grim mood, which felt extremely loud through Telepathy, Goldie was fairly certain it was not the Claustrians.

"Everyone be on your guard," Carolien said quietly. She had stopped at another statue. This one featured a large, shirtless man wielding a sword and wearing a kilt. "Beyond this point, we will no longer be within the city of Wayn. I do not know—" she swallowed nervously—"if we still have the other side of this tunnel secured.

She pulled on the statue's sword, and the statue and its pedestal slid to the side, revealing another passage. This one felt deeper and darker than the ones they had passed through already.

But the torchlight flickered.

There must be an opening to the outside world somewhere at the end of this tunnel, Goldie thought. Not so far away. An opening, and light. We don't have so much further to go.

Though the spider feared what was to come when they made it out, at least the battle outside would hopefully distract the Empire from locating this place and the fugitive Royal Family.