The Hall of Petitions remained in a state of muted chaos as Deacon and Julian exited. The heavy obsidian doors swung shut, muffled the shouting of the High Lords, but the silence of the palace corridors felt even more dangerous.
"You didn't just kick the hornet's nest, David," Julian whispered, his boots clicking frantically against the marble as he struggled to keep pace with Deacon's long, rhythmic stride. "You set the entire tree on fire. The Silver Circle has funded the Sun-Throne for two centuries. They have eyes in every shadow of this palace."
"Then they'll see a man who isn't afraid of them," Deacon replied. He wasn't looking at the tapestries. He was scanning the intersecting hallways, his Logistical Insight calculating line-of-sight and potential ambush points. "Belasco is a merchant wearing a scholar's robe. When a merchant loses his monopoly, he stops using logic and starts using force. We need to get back to the villa and prep the Mark IIs for transport. If they can't win the petition, they'll try to destroy the evidence of our tech."
They entered the Garden of Glass, a vast, enclosed arboretum where the Imperial family grew rare flora from the Great Waste. The air was unnaturally still, the only sound the trickling of a fountain carved from translucent jade.
Deacon stopped. He raised a hand, signaling Julian to be silent.
"What is it?" Julian breathed, reaching for the small, ornamental dagger at his belt.
"The fountain," Deacon said. "The rhythm changed."
In the center of the jade fountain, the water wasn't splashing—it was vibrating. A high-frequency hum began to resonate through the air, a sound that set Deacon's teeth on edge. From the shadows of the oversized ferns, three figures emerged. They weren't wearing the robes of alchemists or the bronze of the Sun-Guard. They wore slate-gray leather and masks made of smoked glass.
"Censorship Knights," Julian hissed, his face draining of color. "The Circle's 'cleaners.' They don't arrest people, David. They erase them."
One of the knights raised a hand. In his palm was a Resonance Sphere—a glass orb filled with a swirling violet mist. It wasn't magic in the traditional sense; it was a pressurized chemical reaction designed to destabilize the "soul-fire" of a target.
"Lord Cassian," the lead knight spoke, his voice distorted by the mask. "Your 'demonstration' in the hall was a breach of the Imperial Peace. You are ordered to surrender the Oakhaven prototypes for purification. Resist, and your house will be struck from the registers."
"I don't care about your registers," Deacon said. He didn't draw a sword. Instead, he reached into his duster and pulled out a small, iron-bound cylinder—a Pressure-Cap Flashbang, one of Miller's side projects. "And I don't answer to the Silver Circle."
The knight threw the Resonance Sphere.
Deacon didn't dodge. He calculated the trajectory and threw his cylinder to intercept it mid-air. The collision was a violent eruption of white light and pressurized air. The violet mist was instantly neutralized by the magnesium flare of Deacon's device.
"Julian! To the left! Use the jade basins for cover!"
Deacon moved with a speed that baffled the knights. He didn't fight like a duelist; he fought like a combat engineer clearing a room. He closed the distance with the lead knight before the man could draw a second sphere. Deacon didn't use a blade; he used the heavy, iron-weighted end of his micrometer casing, striking the knight's wrist with the precision of a hammer hitting a nail.
The knight's hand shattered. The smoked-glass mask cracked as Deacon followed up with a brutal, short-arc elbow to the temple. It was "Close Quarters Battle" (CQB) refined by years of NCO training—efficient, unlovely, and devastating.
The other two knights lunged with Vibro-Blades—short swords that hummed with high-frequency alchemical energy, capable of shearing through steel.
Deacon grabbed a heavy jade planter, its weight nearly two hundred pounds, and swung it with the assistance of his "Logistical Insight" to maximize torque. The planter caught the first blade, the vibration shattering the stone but halting the strike. Deacon stepped inside the second knight's guard, seizing the man's weapon-arm and utilizing a joint-lock that forced the vibrating blade back toward the knight's own chest.
"Stop!"
A sharp, authoritative female voice rang through the garden.
Tessa, the Imperial scout from the Sinks, stood on a high balcony, a heavy-tension crossbow leveled at the remaining knights. Beside her stood a man in the golden breastplate of a Sun-Guard Commander.
"The Empress does not permit 'purifications' in her personal gardens," Tessa said, her voice dripping with frost. "Knights, stand down, or the Sun-Guard will treat this as an assassination attempt against a guest of the Throne."
The knights hesitated, then gathered their fallen leader and retreated into the shadows without a word.
The Commander descended the stairs, looking at the shattered jade and the unconscious knight Deacon had left on the floor. He looked at Deacon's hands—steady, grease-stained, and unarmed.
"You fight strangely, Lord Cassian," the Commander said. "No mana-exhaust, no traditional forms. Just... impact."
"It's called efficiency, Commander," Deacon replied, wiping a smudge of jade-dust from his coat. "You should try it. It saves a lot of lives."
Julian stepped out from behind the fountain, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "They tried to kill us. In the palace. Belasco has gone mad."
"He's not mad," Deacon said, his eyes turning toward the high windows of the Sun-Throne. "He's terrified. He knows that if Oakhaven gets that charter, the Silver Circle becomes a footnote in history."
Tessa leaped down from the balcony, landing lightly beside them. She looked at Deacon with a new, guarded respect. "The Empress wants to see the Mark IIs now. Not in the hall, but in the Royal Workshop. She wants to see if your 'language of iron' can do more than just burn coal."
Deacon nodded. "Tell her I'll be there. But tell her to bring her best smiths. I'm going to show her how to build a world that doesn't need 'cleaners' in the garden."