Eternal Night

(III) Chapter 33: The Darkness Stares Back

"What if we set up fronts here and here, and have a few of us come around here through the back?" Rémy offered. He was motioning to a place on a three-dimensional holographic map that was being displayed on the dining room table. "Lyra – you and Frank should be able to plow through whatever Augustine has set up here in the courtyard easy enough to get to the main gate."

"And having the two of you up front and center, that should draw enough of Augustine's attention to keep him distracted long enough for Rémy, Jacob, and I to slip in and clear you a path through the main area of the palace," Carmen continued. "With Jacob's help, it should be a pretty straight-forward thing clearing out the foyer and the reception hall..."

"And we could hold that centralized area – get more people to come in through this route here to assault his army from the back. We'd have him surrounded on all sides."

"And it would give you a clear shot to the throne room."

"But would Marcus really be somewhere so obvious as the throne room? I doubt after what happened the other evening at Heroes' Square that he'll be in any hurry to put himself so blatantly at risk – not unless that room has some sort of strategic advantage we're missing," Jake pointed out.

"He's arrogant enough to be in the one place he feels is rightfully his," Niklaus replied with a bit of a shrug. "I wouldn't put it past him. But if he's not there, there are a few more locations we could check," and he started to adjust the view of the map, zooming in on the illuminated rendering of the palace. "There's the south tower, closest to the Danube. Or the main siege tower here a little more to the west... If he's not there, his left and right hands certainly will be."

"More council members, you mean," Rémy translated. Niklaus nodded.

"Do you think he'd be in his rooms in the east wing?" Tempest wondered aloud, turning the image of the map around so the aforementioned part of the structure was closest to her. "There's a private courtyard in that part of the palace I remember Uncle Antón mentioning a number of times – some secret passageway hidden within the shrubs on the north side he could easily steal away in if things go in our favor. He could try to run."

"Oooh, good thinking, Tempi!" Jack announced, already zooming in on that very location. "The memorial he erected for Mathis is in that courtyard. If he's not in the throne room, he'd probably be there..."

"It'd certainly be the most poetic location," Louise agreed, arms folded across her chest. "The place commemorating to the person responsible for starting this whole bloody thing."

"But how would we even get to that part of the palace without getting pinched off?" Lyra asked. "It's clear on the other side of the building, and there's a labyrinth of halls and stairwells between us and that location."

"I personally see him making a run for it from the throne room to the east wing," Tempest replied confidently. "He knows every route to that courtyard like the back of his hand and if he can get you to chase after him, he'll probably hope to lose you or overpower you entirely along the way."

"So our best bet is to take him out in the throne room the second we have the chance," Lyra said. "How many entrances and exits are in that chamber?"

As the little band of revolutionaries continued to plan their upcoming assault on the palace, Vladislaus lingered somewhere in the periphery, only partly listening to the conversation as he otherwise attuned himself to the presence of Francesca, on her return back to Vilkova from lycan territory. To his surprise, she was travelling alone.

Where's Ezekiel? he inquired down their shared bond. He was still get used to how clearly her voice resonated in his mind, as if she were standing right beside him.