39. Hoodman Blind

Kinch awakens slung over the king’s minister’s shoulder, injured and accused of causing the massacre. As they, the queen, and Princess Renata hurry through a city reeling with shock, new tremors and volcanic blasts escalate the chaos. The palace stands cracked and dust-choked when they enter.

In the great hall, kitchen and household slaves—led in spirit by Xander, Hasp’s lover—have begun an uprising. Pulhu the geigon is nearly freed from his ankle-chain; Xander brandishes the severed head of slavemistress Sylvae Mar Mexes. When Queen Neffa bellows commands, the slaves hesitate, but the spell breaks after someone strikes the queen with an iron skillet.

The crowd surges. Several slaves assault the fallen queen while the minister charges to protect her and is killed. Kinch flees into a smaller receiving room, only to find his exit blocked by a fallen beam. Pulhu squeezes in, demands Kinch lead him to the kitchen, and follows Kinch’s weak whistle.

A faint jingle of Hasp’s bell betrays Renata’s hiding place. Pulhu, guided by hearing, raises the fallen beam and crushes the trunk, killing the princess despite her screams. Kinch refuses to look back at the queen’s fate, sickened by the mob and the ruin around him.

Resolving that only escape matters, Kinch turns from the palace carnage and runs for the ludus, fixed on finding and saving Galva amid the collapsing city.