The Stowaway and the Captain
Copyright© 2025 by Rycliff
Chapter 17
The ballroom was not a ballroom anymore.
It was a storm trapped in crystal.
Smoke drifted near the ceiling where chandeliers still hung, glittering absurdly over the chaos below. A section of the west wall had shattered—crystal panels blown inward, jagged fragments scattered like ice across the floor. Guests huddled behind overturned tables and marble pillars, their fine clothes stained with soot and spilled wine. Guards shouted orders that no one obeyed.
The orchestra was gone.
The music had been replaced by alarms and the sharp crack of energy fire.
Alliyanna stepped through the archway beside the Emperor and felt the immediate shift—every eye that still dared to look turned toward him. Toward her. Toward the sudden gravity of Imperial presence in a room where Birsha’s authority had just begun to bleed out.
The Emperor’s guard detail moved like a shield around him. Weapons drawn now, no pretense.
Birsha stood near the center of the ballroom, furious and upright, his formal coat torn at the shoulder. His House guards formed a loose ring around him, firing toward the shattered west wing where dark-clad intruders moved between smoke and broken crystal.
Quan’s men.
Alliyanna recognized the shape of their movement—professional, cruel, efficient. Psi-shields wouldn’t matter here. This was metal and fire.
Birsha saw the Emperor and for one heartbeat, his anger paused.
Then it returned, sharper.
“My Emperor!” Birsha called, stepping forward as if the chaos were merely an inconvenience. “You are in danger. This is an assassination attempt—”
The Emperor did not look impressed.
“I can see,” he said.
Birsha’s eyes flicked to Alliyanna, and something ugly flashed there—suspicion, calculation, the first hint that perhaps his prize had teeth.
Alliyanna’s telepathic link sparked again, stronger now, as if proximity to crisis made it easier.
Alliyanna.
Talak’s voice was closer—no longer distant static, but not in the room yet.
Where are you? she sent.
North corridor. We’re cutting in. Kalen’s with me. We have allies—some of my clan. We’re moving.
Alliyanna’s breath stayed steady.
Do not enter the ballroom through the main arch, she sent. West wing is compromised. Use the service galleries. There’s a side door behind the statue fountain.
A pulse of agreement.
Then gunfire crackled again and shattered a crystal column near the far wall. Guests screamed. Guards shouted.
The Emperor’s guard captain leaned in. “Majesty, we need extraction—”
The Emperor’s gaze swept the room, took in Birsha’s men, the intruders, the terrified nobility.
He wasn’t thinking about escape.
He was thinking about consequence.
Birsha raised his voice, trying to seize control of the narrative even as his house burned.
“This attack proves what I have said—enemies of stability lurk everywhere! I require emergency authority to—”
He never finished.
A dark-clad intruder lunged from smoke, weapon raised. One of Birsha’s guards fired. The bolt missed, struck a mirrored crystal panel, and ricocheted wild across the room.
Birsha turned, rage twisting his face, shouting something at his men—
And another shot cut through the air from an unknown angle.
It struck Birsha high in the chest.
He jerked, staggered, the sound of impact oddly small in a room full of alarms. His eyes widened—not in fear, but in disbelief, as if the universe had broken a rule by touching him.
Birsha tried to speak.
Blood darkened his formal sash.
His legs buckled.
He fell hard onto the marble floor among shards of crystal and spilled wine, and for a moment no one moved because no one could understand a world where Duke Birsha simply stopped being alive.
Alliyanna stared.
Not with satisfaction.
With a cold, grim recognition.
This was where all his choices ended.
The room erupted again—panic, shouting, weapons firing as if Birsha’s death had released the fight from restraint. Birsha’s guards surged forward, some toward the intruders, some toward the Emperor as if their loyalty could still protect the House by controlling the story.
The Emperor’s guard detail snapped into motion. They formed a wall and barked orders, herding civilians back, forcing space.
Alliyanna took one step back, then another, because she was not a soldier and she would not be stupid in a room built to kill the unprepared.
She reached outward through her telepathic link.
Talak—now.
His response hit like a hammer.
I see you.
A side door near the gallery burst open and Talak strode in—taller than everyone around him, hair damp with sweat, coat dark with grime, a weapon in his hands that looked too utilitarian for a palace. Kalen was with him, moving fast despite a bruised face, eyes sharp. Behind them came three more figures—broad-shouldered, armed, disciplined, their clan insignias half-hidden under tactical gear.
Talak’s gaze locked on Alliyanna.
For a heartbeat, the room narrowed to that line.
Then Talak spoke, voice rough and controlled.
“Allie. Can you walk?”
Alliyanna nodded. “Yes.”
Talak glanced once at the Emperor, recognition flickering—then his focus returned to Alliyanna.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
The Emperor’s eyes snapped toward Talak, then toward Alliyanna.
“You brought armed men into my—” the Emperor began, then cut himself off as another explosion rocked the west wing.
He looked at Birsha’s body on the floor.
Then he looked at Alliyanna.
And the decision he made in the library took its final shape.
“Baroness Alliyanna Kar’Jan,” the Emperor said, voice carrying despite alarms, despite gunfire. Every head turned. “Step forward.”
Alliyanna did.
Her gown was torn at the hem now. Soot smudged her sleeve. She stepped over crystal shards without flinching.
The Emperor’s gaze swept the stunned nobility, the guards, the shattered elegance of the room.
“Duke Reginald Birsha is dead,” he said, calm as ice. “His title and holdings must not fall into chaos.”
Birsha’s legal team stood frozen near a pillar, faces pale.
The Emperor’s eyes returned to Alliyanna.
“By Imperial statute and the executed betrothal contract witnessed under Imperial Registry,” he said, each word a nail hammered into place, “Alliyanna Kar’Jan is recognized as the lawful inheritor of House Birsha’s ducal title and estates—pending full Senate confirmation.”
A ripple went through the room—shock, fury, awe.
Alliyanna’s breath caught—not because she hadn’t expected it, but because hearing it spoken aloud made it real in a way her mind couldn’t fully brace for.
Duchess.
The Emperor’s gaze held hers, and in it was warning.