The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 124: The Day the Empire Fell

A mob. A mob. A mob outside her gates in Goldhill. What was this – the City of Dawn Song all over again?

No, this was a nightmare. This had to be a nightmare.

Anthea was padding towards the door that led to the kitchens and her patron god's altar. Two feet from it, she turned on her heel and padded back the other way. Turn and pace. Turn and pace. She wasn't nearly calm enough to call upon the Kitchen God – assuming he even answered.

At the far end of the hallway, her retinue quivered in a clump of silk and dangly hair ornaments. They'd have paced right after her, like a line of ducklings, if she'd let them.

She hadn't let them.

"Oh, my lady, whatever will we do?" quavered one lady-in-waiting. "Whatever will become of us?"

A chorus of teary questions, all variations on the same theme, echoed hers. They weren't helping to calm Anthea down.

It was all too much like the City of Dawn Song, five hundred and twelve years ago.

Anthea hadn't been in the palace on the day the Empire fell.

She'd long since been driven out by Piri, banished to a shabby mansion insultingly close to the West Market. (Her previous, opulent estate right off Imperial Way, a gift from Empress Aurelia, had been confiscated and awarded to one of the fox demon's sycophants.) If you were the optimistic sort – or the twisted sort – you might call Anthea's disgrace a blessing in disguise, because it meant that she'd been holed up indoors when Cassius burned down his palace around himself and the city went mad.

It had been nighttime. She'd heard an odd, dull roar outside, and she'd pattered upstairs to peek out a window. Through the lattice, she'd seen firelight from torches: some raised in fists, some clutched in beaks. All manner of humans and spirits were crammed into the boulevard that ran past her gates, just like on a festival day after a parade. They were even shouting something about Cassius.

Except these weren't the usual happy shouts of "Long live the Son of Heaven!"

"Down with the false emperor!" shrieked a voice, so cracked and mad with rage that she couldn't tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.

"Down with the false emperor!" those around the person roared, in a ragged chorus that spread in a wave throughout the mob.

Up ahead at the intersection, a Golden Bird Guard patrol of eight golden pheasant spirits stood their ground. With their bright yellow crests, vermillion breasts, and long, speckled tails, they made for an impressive sight. Their captain opened his beak wide and bellowed, "Citizens! Cease this madness! Go home!"

All of the guards leveled their spears.

For a moment, confronted with authority and the habit of obedience to it, the front edge of the mob wavered. Stillness rippled back down the boulevard. Anthea realized that she'd forgotten to breathe, and she sucked in a short, shaky breath.

"Go home, citizens!" the captain repeated. "Treason will not be tolerated!"

For a heartbeat, Anthea thought it had worked. Some people at the front stepped back.

Then the same cracked voice from before shrieked, "Down with the false emperor!"

Others nearby took up the shout, "Down with the false emperor! Down with the false emperor!"

The captain's beak moved again, but the roar drowned him out.

The mob rippled again. Then, in the space of a blink, it was surging forward, screaming and howling. Most of the Golden Bird Guards pumped their wings and shot up into the air above the bird spirits, but two weren't fast enough. The mob engulfed them and knocked them to the ground – not even on purpose, from what Anthea could tell – and then their golden crests were vanishing beneath the crush of bodies.