The sand didn't crunch under my boots. It squelched.
I stepped off the landing craft onto the beach of Calais. The air tasted of salt and rotten eggs.
The sand wasn't white. It was black, streaked with a vibrant, glowing green slime.
"Steady, Your Majesty," Mrs. Graves hissed. Her grip on my shoulder was like a claw. "Don't trip. It would be a shame to ruin your coronation suit."
I looked down.
The green slime was hissing. A small crab scuttled through it. The shell blistered, popped, and dissolved into foam.
"Chemicals," I whispered.
I looked up at the French coastal fort. Or what was left of it.
It looked like a candle that had been left in a furnace. The stone walls had slumped. Granite had turned to glass.
Smoke poured from the ruins. Not gray smoke. Purple smoke.
"Move forward!" a British sergeant shouted. "Clear the beach!"
Redcoats marched past me. They were laughing. They slapped each other on the back.
They weren't fighting. They were touring a graveyard.
I walked toward the fort. Mrs. Graves forced me along, her nails digging into my collarbone.
We passed the first line of French defenders.
They hadn't retreated. They hadn't died fighting.
They were fused to the barricades.
The green fire had melted their uniforms into their skin, and their skin into the wood. They looked like statues made of meat and charcoal.
My stomach heaved.
I doubled over and retched into the sand.
"Stand up," Mrs. Graves whispered. Her voice was grinding stone. "Kings don't vomit."
She yanked me upright.
"Look at them, Charles. Look at the art."
"It's not art," I choked out, wiping bile from my lip. "It's an equation. Energy plus matter equals ash."
"It's beautiful," she smiled. Her eyes were empty, reflecting the purple smoke. "Entropy in motion."
General Abercrombie, the British commander, strode over. He looked immaculate in his scarlet coat. He didn't look at the bodies. He looked at the map.
"The way is clear to the town," Abercrombie announced. "The rockets have done their work. Total demoralization."
"You melted them," I said.
Abercrombie looked at me with amusement. "We saved British lives, Your Highness. Modern warfare is about efficiency."
"It's about terror," I said.
Suddenly, a bugle sounded from the tree line.
"Contact!" a sentry screamed.
A regiment of French National Guard burst from the forest. They wore mismatched uniforms. They carried pikes and old muskets.
They were terrified, screaming battle cries to drown out their fear. A desperate, suicidal charge.
"Target front!" Abercrombie barked. "Rocket battery, rotate!"
Fifty yards away, the artillery crews scrambled. They swiveled the iron tripods of the Congreve rockets.
They were sloppy. They were drunk on the smell of victory.
I looked at the flags on the landing boats.
They were snapping violently toward the sea.
Wind speed: 20 knots. Direction: North-Northwest.
I looked at the rockets. They were aiming dead ahead. Into the teeth of the wind.
My mind flashed with the trajectory.
Thrust < Wind Resistance.
The liquid payload wasn't solid shot. It was a spray. A mist.
If they fired into that wind, the mist wouldn't hit the French. It would blow backward.
"Stop!" I shouted.
I broke free from Mrs. Graves. I ran toward the battery.
"Don't fire!" I screamed at the gunnery officer. "Check the wind! The drag coefficient!"
The officer, a Major with a thick mustache, looked down at me. He sneered.
"Get back to the boat, boy. Let the men work."
"You'll kill us all!" I grabbed his arm. "Adjust elevation! Account for the blowback!"
Whack.
The Major backhanded me.
I flew backward, landing hard in the chemical mud.
"Fire!" the Major roared.
The sergeant lit the fuses.
SCREEEEEEEECH.
Twelve rockets screamed off the rails.
They hit the wall of wind.
They stalled.
The casings ruptured mid-air, fifty feet in front of the battery.
A cloud of green liquid exploded outward.
The wind caught it. It didn't fly toward the French. It sprayed back like a hose hitting a wall.
It rained down on the British line.
It rained on the Major.
He didn't have time to scream. The green slime hit his face. His skin bubbled instantly. The gold braiding on his uniform ignited.
"Aaaaaaah!"
The battery crew dissolved in a flash of emerald light.
The fire spread. It hit the ammunition crates.
BOOM.
A secondary explosion rocked the beach. Sand and body parts rained down.
The British line collapsed. Soldiers threw down their muskets and ran into the surf, trying to wash off the burning jelly. But water didn't stop it. It just spread the oil.
I lay in the mud. I felt the heat on my face.
I watched the Major run in a circle, a pillar of living green flame, until he collapsed.
"Variable confirmed," I whispered. My voice was trembling, but my mind was cold. "Wind direction is critical."
A hand grabbed my collar.
Mrs. Graves hauled me up. She wasn't panicked. She wasn't helping the wounded.
She was laughing.
A low, throaty chuckle that sounded like dry leaves breaking.
"Look at them run," she whispered. "Red coats, blue coats... they all burn the same color."
I looked at her.
"You knew," I said. "You saw the wind."
"The Watchmaker doesn't care who wins, Little King," she said, her eyes dancing with the reflection of the slaughter. "He doesn't want a British victory. He wants a bonfire. He wants to burn the board so no one can play."
A chill went through me that was colder than the Channel wind.
Cagliostro wasn't an ally. He was a cancer. He was arming both sides with unstable weapons just to watch the world disintegrate.
If I let this continue, there would be no France to rule. There would be no England. Just a scorched rock.
I looked at the chaos.
The French were retreating, terrified by the friendly fire explosion. The British were in disarray, their officers burning.
To my left, a dead Redcoat lay face down in the sand. His hand was outstretched.
Near his fingers lay a flintlock pistol.
I looked at Mrs. Graves. She was distracted, watching a horse gallop burning into the sea.
I calculated the angle.
Distance: 3 feet. Time: 2 seconds.
I stumbled. I feigned a fall.
I landed on my knees next to the body.
My hand snatched the pistol. It was heavy. Cold.
I shoved it inside my coat.
I stood up.
"We need to move," I said, my voice hollow. "The ammo dump is exposed."
Mrs. Graves looked down at me. She smiled, patting my cheek.
"That's a good boy. Survival instinct."
She didn't check my coat. She thought I was a frightened child.
I looked at the stacks of crates further down the beach. Hundreds of rockets. Enough to burn Paris to the ground.
And enough to burn this beach into glass if they all went up at once.
"Yes," I said, feeling the hammer of the gun against my ribs. "Survival."
I wasn't fighting for the British anymore. And I wasn't fighting for my father.
I was auditing the battlefield.
And I had just found a major discrepancy.