The thunder of the bombardment currently hitting the courtyard deafened the German. She could hear nothing but constant ringing in her ears.

She didn't know when or how, but one minute all was calm, and the next, it was like the gods themselves were attacking them.

With no other cover, both she and Tabitha dove into the mass grave with the rest of the bodies.

Another blast rocked the grave, the explosion happened somewhere above, Tabitha shouted something, but it was impossible for Kirche to hear her in the chaos, all she could do was press her head into the dirt, and hope this would all be over soon.

Minutes felt like hours, as explosion after explosion detonated around them. Thankfully the bombardment subsided.

Kirche blinked in a daze. Her hearing had yet to return. She had to crawl out of the grave on all fours as her body refused to listen to her.

Sitting up, she was able to see the destruction around her fully. Through the fog of dust, she could see that the church was but rubble, having collapsed in on itself, however, the cause for concern was the entrance to the castle had been hit directly crushing and destroying it.

The realization hit her. "Louise." She could barely hear herself over the ringing that was slowly fading. She rose to her feet, stumbled a few yards and collapsed.

Gritting her teeth, she rose to her feet, allowing her to see the full extent of the destruction.

The earth where she believed the castle had sunken into the ground, had the whole place collapsed?

"Tabitha... give me a hand." Drawing her wand, she began to levitate chunks of the dirt,

But there was no response, not even a hum of agreement or refusal. Looking over her shoulder, her eyes widened.

Tabitha was hovering off of the ground, grabbing at what seemed like an invisible hand around her neck. Beside her was a Reconquistan soldier, whose hands were devoid of a wand or similar foci, followed by a near armouries worth of small arms.

Kirche drew her wand with lightning speed. "Ign-" The breath was sucked out of her, and something squeezed around her neck and wrist.

In a flash, she slammed against a remnant of the cobblestone wall. She attempted to aim her wand while in this state if she could just get a fire off a spell.

A muffled scream escaped her lips. Her wrist began to twist, causing pain to shot from her hand until it felt like it was about to snap.

Dropping her wand, the pressure released.

The figure drew closer while Tabitha was moved closer to her. They had a presence that Kirche couldn't help but recognize. Then she spoke, "Where is my daughter." her tone was cold and deadly serious as if she would kill them if they lied.

Kirche felt like she was in the jaws of a manticore, and complied by pointing to the collapsed church. The Duchess narrowed her eyes and then turned to where she had entered the courtyard. "Reconquista will be here soon,"

Kirche suddenly found herself released, collapsing to her knees, gripping her sore wrist. Before she could even react, she was grabbed by the pit of her arm and hoisted to her feet before a pistol was shoved into her chest. "What do you want me to do with this?" The Germanian questioned.

"Use it, if you need to, it's faster than a wand." There was a pause as the Duchess took a step away from them to survey the environment. "We need to find a place to hide," Valliere ordered.

Kirche felt anger building at the gall of this woman. "You're just going to leave your daughter?"

Karin shot the Germanian a glare that could kill a dragon. "It would do her no good if we die before we can reach her. We'll wait for rebels to start clearing the rubble, and then we'll strike."

Baring her teeth, she looked away from the woman before her. "Then, where are we supposed to hide?"

Karin took a moment to survey her surroundings before posing a question. "Your group has been here longer than me. What do you have in mind?"

Kirche put on the spot aimlessly looked around for any around but couldn't come up with an answer, all she had seen was the castle.

"Sewer?" Tabitha said in the same dreary tone as always grabbing the pair's attention.

"Right, Right, Tabitha, you're a genius," Kirche said, suddenly remembering a critical feature of the castle. "The hidden entrance to the underground castle, it. It looked like a sewer. Maybe it connects to the city's sewer system somehow, and then we wouldn't have to wait for them to clean up the church."

The Duchess hummed, "No."

"No!?"

"Their mission was to capture the royal family; they'll start clearing the rubble as soon as they arrive. But the sewer is probably the best place to hide for now." Karin said.

The trio made their way until they had reached a manhole, propping open the Kirche lead the descent down into the dark, damp tunnels beneath this accursed town.

Kirche fought back the urge to vomit as she smelled the vile stench of rot and shit the lingered in the air and clung to the walls like mould. "Oh, founder." She muttered.

Valliere closed the manhole behind them, and took the lead, bringing them just around the corner where she set down her stuff and the pile of guns that she had collected and looked to Tabitha. "Tell me. Where did you get that staff of yours?"

"My fathers."

The Duchess was silent for a moment. "I see."

Kirche looked between the woman and the girl who seemed to be having a silent conversation. "Uh. Is there something I should know?" Kirche asked.

Karin shook her head. "No. I was simply curious." Turning her gaze to her bag, she fished out a letter one that had the seal of the provisional government.

"So whats the plan."

The Duchess said nothing and pulled her wand from her waist and peeled the seal off. "Deception... Now do you have your old uniforms?"

xXXXx

The trio emerged from the sewer sometime after sunrise. In the time since the Royalist's capitulation, the Reconquistian army had turned the city into one giant celebration. Flags hung from shattered windows, music was being played on instruments of various quality, alcohol flowed through the streets. On every corner, there was dancing and gunshots as men fired their muskets into the air.

Probably the most apparent change was the sudden appearance of Prostitutes who wandered the streets in their ragged dresses looking for any man desperate for the touch of a woman.

Kirche only saw this type of party a few times in her life, when the Kaiser ascended to the throne when she was six, The Kaiser's first marriage to his late wife, and the birth of the Kaiser's first son.

The only place that had been spared by lawlessness was the area directly around where the church once stood. Checkpoints manned by people in strange uniforms consisting of blue peaked caps in a style she had only seen worn on travellers from the far north-east frontiers of Germania. They carried themselves differently to the rest of the army, more like a police force of some kind, but were armed like a soldier.

Kirche didn't know how they were supposed to get in. However, Duchess Valliere, who had covered her head and arms in bandages made out of their old uniforms, took the lead, leading straight to one of the checkpoints. It was a look that she was all too familiar with. She was portraying a person who had survived a gas attack.

Nearing the gate to the collapsed church, one of the strange officers raised a hand to stop them and said something to the Duchess as he stepped forward. She produced the letter that she had made the night before. The man took the letter and opened it and paled at its contents. The man squinted and attempted as hard as he could to read it, but it seemed that he just couldn't.

As they stood waiting to gain entry, Kirche heard a familiar roar of an engine that made her blood run cold, looking over her shoulder, she saw a tracked machine come into view, there so many soldiers atop it waving their flags and firing their guns into the air, that she couldn't see much more than its hull and its gun which resembled the cannon on Louise's familiar then that of the armoured car.

Her mind was spinning, just where was all this equipment coming from? First, these panzerfaust's and now tanks, were there more hidden away? Could her parents have some of these weapons? Her gaze shifted to the Duchess, 'Could she have some of those weapons?'

A tap on her shoulder by the Gallian's staff pulled her back to reality. The makeshift gate to the church was now open, and they could now enter.

Crossing the wall, revelled just how much work had been done since they had left the night before. Most of the debris had been pilled to the side, and a near-perfect outline of the castle had been dug. Ladders led down to the bottom of the gorge where what looked to be prisoners working on digging out the rest of the castle.

Kirche couldn't help but draw closer to the edge of the hole, which looked to be around forty feet deep. 'How could they have done so much?'

The answer soon presented itself as shouts from the depth below filled her ears, the group of prisoners all of which were dressed in Royalist's uniforms, were in the far in a section of the castle she had never been in before, it was deeper than the rest. A pair of guards marched forward, grabbing a man who had collapsed and dragged him away into a room that hadn't been collapsed.

The remaining guards shouted and fired a round into the air, forcing the rest of the group to continue to clear the rubble.

Out of the corner of her eye Kirche saw, Tabitha took a place beside her. "Why aren't the mages fighting back?" Kirche muttered just loud enough for the girl beside her to hear.

"Damaged wands. Will break if too much willpower is funnelled into it." Tabitha explained.

A whistle pulled the pair's attention to the Duchess in front of a ladder leading down into the castle. "Gallian is still the language of the nobility, so try to keep conversations to a minimum," Karin explained. "But they didn't find Louise, so she's most likely still down there," Karin said as they drew close. Looking to the ladder, "They said that one of their earth mages familiar discovered an underground river over where they are currently digging."

With nothing else to go on other than some vague hope that Louise was in this unclasped portion of the castle, the group climbed down into the ruins, it was almost haunting to the Germanian, how the luxury that had plastered every single wall had been torn and destroyed in its collapse. After reaching the floor they walked through the ruins until they reached a new drop, Kirche recognized this area as the stairwell that leads down to the entrance, but she didn't remember it being so deep.

Climbing down another ladder to a thick, strange-looking door with a hole in the middle, that stood without a frame. Kirche stopped and took a moment to examine the door as she pondered how it worked.

Reaching forward with an open hand, she was about to insert it when Tabitha smacked it with the end of her staff. "Bad idea."

The redhead rubbing her sore hand merely looked to the girl with a sour look but didn't say anything.

By the time they had reached the group they had already broken into a room at the end of the hall, and a group of guards had already entered.

A sudden gunshot from within the cave, caused their blood to run cold. Kirche was the first to react, sprinting forward into the group of prisoners, many of which attempted to stop them from getting through. But the fire in her soul forced her forward through the men and into the cave.

A single man stood on a deck overhanging a river, musket in hand, aiming at a small empty boat that was floating away.

Confusion grew until she noticed a small amount of wet pink hair poke out from the side of the boat. "Hey!" She shouted in Germanian as Loud as she could, causing the man to flinch as he fired. The shot flew wide and blew a hole next to where the top of Louise's head was.

The grey-haired old man looked to her in anger just as a massive explosion detonated on the roof of the cave. Chunks of the roof began to fall, crushing the older man. Kirche herself was about to be crushed when she was suddenly pulled from the cave and thrown on to her back. In the middle of a shouting match between the positioned guards and the Duchess.

Kirche was powerless to do anything as the argument grew more heated, the man Karin was arguing with, drew his gun. The Duchess shouted something which got the rest of the guards to attempt to deescalate the situation as if driven to fear.

The man grew silent for a time before holstering his pistol and pointing towards the way out of the chasm.

Kirche floated off the ground and onto her feet. The Duchess turned, and their eyes met, and Kirche in that single moment felt as if she was staring death in the face. The Duchess led them to the ladders, where she stopped and asked. "What happened in there." Her eyes were void of the pervious anger as if that display of killing intent was merely an act.

Taken aback by this sudden shift, Kirche took a moment to compose her thoughts. "There was an underground river, A man was aiming a musket at a boat from the dock. I-I didn't see who was in it, but I saw pink hair and uh, and after he missed, an explosion knocked down the roof."

The Duchess was silent for a time, "And which way did the river go?"

"The river flowed that way." She said, pointing to her right.

"Alright," Karin muttered. She said nothing as she climbed up the ladder.

Kirche was at a loss by the Vallieres tone. "Alright?" She said, almost taking offence from the lack of care in the Duchess's voice. "That's all you have to say?" She said, following her up. "And why are you leaving?"

The Duchess awaited her at the top of the ladder. "I'm leaving because there is nothing else that can be done here, you said there was an underground river, by the time they clear that debris she'll be long gone. So, I'm going to try and find her while you two head back to the mainland."

Kirche wanted to scream, did this Valliere not realize what they've been through up until this point. She turned to Tabitha in hopes of that the pair of them could convince her. But all the blue-haired girl said was, "Trust her."

Kirche let out an annoyed sigh, this entire journey she had been strung along, her ideas ignored and look where it got them. As a new idea popped into her head, her resolve solidified. "Fine, I guess we'll head back to the mainland."

She would follow along for now.

"We'll split up once we leave the city."

xXXXx

"Louise- Louise?" Louise Lazily opened her eyes to the sight of a young viscount sitting across from her in a small wooden boat. She looked around, attempting to get her barring's, but everywhere she looked, there was nothing but white emptiness.

"Wardes?" Louise questioned. "Where are we?" A wave of sadness suddenly washed over the girl. Tears formed in the girl's eyes, and she began to shiver.

A warm smile formed on the Viscount's face. He reached over a wiped the stream. Louise grabbed the man's hand, pulling it to her cheek for the small comfort and warmth that it brought.

The man's smile grew warmer. The Viscount looked to his side, where a dock had formed into the white void. Pulling his hand away from the girl who reached to capture it again, Wardes stood up and stepped onto the dock. "Don't go Wardes." Begged Louise. "Please don't leave. I... I don't want to be alone."

The Viscount stopped, "I'm truly sorry, Louise. But this is my destination." Turning, he kneeled at the edge. "But, your journey will continue, it has to." Wardes pointed to his left, drawing Louise's gaze to another boat at a similar dock. In the boat sat Henrietta in her royal gown curled up and crying in her legs. On the dock stood king Henry and prince wales both paid her no mind as they walked into the bright light.

"She needs your help Louise," Wardes said. "So please find Matilda, and wake up."

Louise looked to her fiancee, who now mirrored his older self, confused. "Wake up? What do you mean, wake up?"

The man said nothing, but the void grew brighter and brighter, the last thing she saw was a soft smile before the light enveloped her.

xXXXx

A groan escaped her lips as Louise began to wake up; it felt as if her entire body was sore. Opening her eyes revealed a dark rock ceiling above lit by a few torches on the walls.

Wiping the tears that stung her eye, she stuffed the letters into her pocket and turned her attention to her body, bits of rock and remnants of wooden supports covered her legs. Panic gripped the girl for but a moment when she realized that her legs hadn't been crushed, and she could simply slip them out from under the rubble.

Taking a moment to breathe, Louise slowly stood up, silently thanking the gods while rubbing a sore spot on the back of her head, she pulled off her glove to see if she was still bleeding, thankfully she wasn't, but that wasn't what confused her, her runes had a faint glow to them.

Pursing her lips, she put her glove back on, and she looked around to orient herself. She stood on the edge of a fast-moving river, next to a small dock that led out to a wooden boat. Hanging from a short pole was a lantern.

A clang of metal filled her ears as she moved, looking to the floor she Noticed her pistol next to her, she picked it up and examined it with both hands, her thumb glided over the barrel that was still warm to the touch. Oh, founder, what had she done.

Pushing that thought aside, she stuck the pistol back in her holster and Looked towards the other side of the room, where she supposedly came in, the entrance and stairway were covered in rubble from a partially collapsed roof.

Moving over the rubble and clambering up the ruined stairs, she reached the entranceway and placed her two hands upon one of the larger stones and pushed with all her might, but they wouldn't budge.

Pursing her lips, she looked to the wand on her hip. That was an option, but. 'It would only cause another cave in.'

She would have to wait for Kirche and Tabitha to fish her out of this hole.

'Could they? Or would they?' Shaking her head, she dispelled those thoughts. They would obviously come for her, 'I mean, why would they risk their life if they would just leave me.' She let out a nervous chuckle at the thought. "Oh, founder."

She had to give them the benefit of the doubt; gods knows where the river would take. As she was about to head back down to the dock, she heard a muffled voice come in through the rubble.

Pressing her ear up in between the cracks in the rubble. She couldn't make out what was being said, but the voices didn't belong to Kirche or Tabitha, they were distinctly male.

Just how long was she out for?

Listening closer she was able to make out what one of the voices were saying. "Hurry up, Cromwell has a speech this afternoon."

She paled; how long had she been asleep?

Shooting her gaze back to the boat, she quickly stumbled down the steps to the dock where the boat laid. She had to get back to Tristian.

She undid the rope as quickly as she could, but as she was about to climb in the entrance was blown open.

Without thinking she ran over to some rubble on the shore of the river to hide and peered over her cover, Louise watched as two Reconquistan grunts followed by a well-dressed officer entered the cave.

Shooting a quick glance over her shoulder, Louise watched as the boat was slowly being pulled away from the dock by the pull of the river.

Ducking behind the rock, her mind quickly cooked up a plan, drawing her pistol she brought it closer to her chest and pulled back on the hammer. 'You can do this Louise. You can do this. You need to do this.'

Closing her eyes her she attempted to focus on controlling her breathing. 'I can do this.' Opening her eyes, she clenched her gun with both hands and rounded the corner. Only to find herself directly in front of the leading man.

A scream escaped her lips, and on reflex, she pulled the trigger, a bang filled the room, but a jerk of the gun caused the shot to miss.

Her ears rang, and the flash blinded her, but even with her darkened vision, it was clear that her assailant was already in the process of bringing his gun to bear on her.

Louise did the only thing that came to mind. With a step forward, she shoved the man away with all the strength she could muster, sending the man stumbling backward into another of her pursers.

Turning she sprinted towards the boat that was already beginning to be pulled away by the current. But not a few steps after setting off, she was tackled by the third man and thrown to the dock. Her face slammed into the dock, and she was suddenly unable to breathe through her nose.

She could feel the weight of the man on her back. Without thinking, she struggled and kicked and, with a lucky strike of the elbow, threw the man off of her back and clawed and crawled on all fours in an attempt to getaway. However, the man proved persistent, grabbing a leg before she could getaway.

With another yelp, she kicked the man, a loud crunch of bone filled her ears.

Gritting her teeth, she clambered to her feet to continue her sprint. The boat was now far from the dock she would need to jump.

"Stop!" one of her pursuers shouted. Louise ignored it; she all she needed to do was jump.

*Bang!* A shot roared throughout the cave, the bullet whizzed by her leg, blowing a hole in the dock and sapping her legs of all semblance of coordination. The edge drew closer and closer, but as she was about to tumble over into the river, she kicked off with her foot, slightly overshooting the boat and landing into the river with a splash.

Her world went dark, and her mouth was flooded with water. Blind deaf and confused, she scrambled to the surface, breaking through hacking up water.

Looking around, she spotted the boat just a few feet away and swam over to it, tossing her pistol in before grabbing hold of its side, taking a small moment to rest.

"He!"

Another gunshot pierced the air, and the hole was blown into the boat next to where she had been holding onto. Her heart jumped as reality hit her like a stone. Eyes darting to her hip, she withdrew her wand and aimed it at the ceiling of the cave just behind her.

She didn't know if this idea was smart or stupid. But it didn't matter, all she cared about was getting away.

"Ignus!"

An explosion erupted at the roof of the cave, shaking the entire river. The roof began to cave in, rocks of varying sizes fell into the river, creating waves that pushed her and the boat along and encircling the girl in a blanket of darkness.

There was a moment where Louise simply stared at the wall of boulders. After nearly a minute, Louise pulled herself up into the boat and out of the cold water. Rolling over onto her back, She was content to lay in the wooden boat in the soft glow of a lantern.

Moving a hand to her chest and feeling it pound in her chest, it dawned on her just how close to death she had been.

After several minutes of attempting to calm down, a new question entered her mind. 'Where is the boat taking me?' she wondered, raising her head to look over the hull and into the darkness ahead of her.

Seeing as she had no clue when she was going to emerge from the underground, she Moved over the bench near the stern of the boat and sat down.

Sticking a hand into her pocket, she pulled out the soggy mess that had been the letters that her dead fiancee had given her.

She attempted to open them, but no matter how little force she applies, the paper would tear apart.

Her trembling hands slowly closed around the letter, her breathing grew erratic, tears began to form in her eyes, and in a single moment, she tore apart the letters and screamed, "Gods damn it!" and crumpled it up before standing up and throwing it as hard as she could in front of the boat, shaking the boat and almost sending her overboard.

Regaining her balance she Collapsed into her seat, Louise let her head fall into her hands. Tears soaked her hands. 'Why. Why do this to me?' leaning forward, she fell onto her side and wrapped her arms around herself.

As the boat drifted into the darkness, the sobbing of a lost girl echoed throughout the cave.

xXXXx

And that's that for New castle, both groups are heading their own ways and Louise is now on her own, in hostile lands. I do hope you enjoyed this chapter and i hope to see you soon.