The kitchen was a pocket of warm, steady calm, the scent of porridge and baking bread a shield against the morning chill. Bora scraped the last of his breakfast from the bowl while Taru debated the merits of stealing a second muffin.
It was then that the sound first reached them—a low, persistent rumble that was felt through the stones more than heard.
Bora paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. “What’s that?”
Taru shrugged. “Smithy’s hammer? Cart with a broken wheel?”
But it grew, swelling into a wave of voices, thousands of them. It was a sound of chaos, but not of panic. There was a strange, unsettling rhythm to it.
Mrs. Supu stopped her stirring, her knuckles white on the ladle. The kitchen fell silent, the only sounds the hiss of the pot and the unsettling tide from beyond the walls.
The door to the servants’ passage burst open. A young scullery maid stood there, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with a terror that was laced with a frantic, bewildered excitement.
“Mrs. Supu!” she gasped. “The word… from the council chambers!”
“What word?” Mrs. Supu’s voice was sharp. “What’s got the city sounding like a cracked bell?”
The maid took a gulping breath. “It’s the Councillor… the one they call Sage. He… he’s torn it all down!”
Bora and Taru exchanged a blank look.
“The Resource Manager,” the maid pressed on, her words tumbling out. “Jaren Voss! They say Councillor Sage laid bare his crimes before the whole council. Proof! In ledgers! They’ve stripped him of everything. His title, his assets… all of it!”
The silence in the kitchen was now absolute. Mrs. Supu’s stern expression did not change, but a deep, weary understanding settled in her eyes.
“He cut out the rot,” Taru whispered, a slow, uncertain grin spreading across his face.
But Mrs. Supu slowly shook her head. “No, boy,” she said, her voice low and grave. “He didn’t cut it out. He kicked the foundation. And when you kick a foundation, everything above it shakes.” She gestured with her chin towards the window. “That… is the sound of the shaking.”
Bora stood up, his breakfast forgotten. The distant roar was no longer just noise. He could hear it now, the chaos resolving into a single, thunderous word, chanted over and over by a thousand voices.
“Reformation! Reformation! REFORMATION!”
The word itself had been a spectre, a threat whispered in the council to mean chaos and loss. Now, the people were screaming it back at the palace walls as a battle cry.
“What’s the cause of all that commotion?” Bora asked, turning to Mrs. Supu, though the chant was answer enough.
Mrs. Supu met his gaze, her face a mask of grim prophecy. “That,” she said, “is the sound of a beast that has been starved for justice, and has just been thrown a single, bloody piece of meat. It will not be satisfied. It will only get hungrier.”
Her eyes then narrowed, shifting from Bora to Taru. “And you two listen to me. You finish your duties, and you stay inside these walls. The streets today are no place for stablehands. That cry out there… it’s a fire. And it will burn anyone it can reach.”
But as the chant for Reformation swelled again, pounding against the palace like a wave, Bora felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. The system he had clung to for safety was fracturing. And in the roaring chaos of its collapse, he could think of only one person who would not be hiding behind walls, but standing right in the path of the avalanche.
Mrs. Supu barked an order for everyone to return to their stations, breaking the spell. Pots clattered, benches scraped, but the air in the kitchen stayed tight, expectant. Bora rose, trading a look with Taru, and the two slipped out through the side corridor that led to the service wing.
The noise of the city followed them down the passage—a pulse of sound that grew stronger with every turn. By the time they reached the stables, it was a living thing, rattling the shutters and setting the horses on edge. The smell of hay and sweat hit them, oddly comforting in its familiarity, but the air was trembling now, alive with the echoes of the crowd beyond the palace walls.
And then—boots on stone, rapid, uneven.
A boy burst into the stable yard, his face pale and slick with panic. He was maybe thirteen, and Bora recognized him with a jolt—it was Temi, the son of the fishmonger whose stall stood next to Eva’s in the market. The smell of the sea and a fainter, sharper scent of smoke clung to him.
“Bora!” the boy gasped, his chest heaving as he skidded to a halt. His eyes, wide with terror, locked onto Bora’s. “Eva—she said if it got bad, to find you. The stablehand named Bora at the palace. She said you’d come.”
Taru, startled, looked between them. “What’s happened?”
“The crowd… it’s a riot!” Temi’s words tumbled out in a frantic rush. “Eva’s right in the middle of it! She was shouting with them, leading them, but it’s out of control now! They’re throwing stones at the guards! She won’t back down, she’s trying to get them to march on the ministry quarter, but the guards are forming a line! It’s going to be a slaughter!”
Bora felt the familiar weight of the stable around him—the scent of hay, the soft snort of a horse, the shadow of the stablemaster somewhere nearby. Mrs. Supu’s warning echoed in his mind: Stay inside these walls.
But Eva had sent for him. She had lit the fuse and was now standing in the blast zone. She had foreseen this, and in her moment of need, her plan was him.
That was the image that broke his inertia. Not Eva as a victim, but Eva as a defiant leader who had unleashed a force she could no longer control, and who had trusted that he would come. His friend. His responsibility.
He met Taru’s eyes. “The feed bins,” Bora said, his voice low and decisive.
Taru understood instantly. It was a code they used for dodging the stablemaster for a few minutes. A flimsy excuse, but it was all they had.
“Go,” Taru said, giving a sharp nod. “I’ll cover for you.”
Without another word, Bora dropped his brush, and with a final, shared look of understanding with Taru, he followed the fishmonger’s son out of the stable yard at a run. The solid, predictable world of hay and duty fell away behind him, replaced by the roaring, uncertain current of the streets. He wasn’t joining a protest; he was answering a call.