The blazing midday sun scorched the streets of Treasure Island, turning the blood and damp of the previous night into a heavy, suffocating wave of heat.
That strange, tense standoff continued.
The deep-blue surcoats over the Minisia Royal Guard's plate armor and the mismatched uniforms of the Noble Private Army formed two sharply distinct, motionless bands of color in the sunlight.
Officers stood before their ranks, exchanging looks full of suspicion and calculation, while ordinary soldiers gripped their weapons tightly, sweat running down their temples, their nerves stretched like bowstrings about to snap.
Behind the scenes, unknown to everyone else, the generals and noble representatives on both sides might have been wiping away sweat in some safe, secret chamber, arguing endlessly over whether to install Charles's young, timid son as a puppet under a "constitutional monarchy" or abandon all pretense and establish an "aristocratic republic," calculating how to divide the Kingdom's last scraps of flesh.
Yet the balance on the streets was as fragile as a sheet of thin ice.
"Tch. These bastards have been arguing all morning without getting a damn thing done."
Dorok lay on the tiled roof of a three-story house, slowly sweeping his flintlock's sights over the Royal Guard's ranks below through a gap in the low wall.
He had yet to wipe the crusted blood from his face, but his eyes held nothing except impatient ferocity.
"Guess we'll have to give them a hand."
He drew a steady breath and held it, fixing his flintlock's sights firmly on a Royal Guard officer in a junior officer's uniform who was gesticulating at his subordinates.
Bang!
A single sharp, lonely gunshot abruptly tore through the oppressive midday air, echoing between the buildings lining the street, jarringly loud and terrifying.
The junior officer's body jerked as a spray