They awoke on the shores of a marsh. The three of them all slowly roused with an air of satisfaction between them not a word was said as the breaking dawn crested on the stone wall in front of them, shadows revealing every flaw.

"The day is ours." the words caught adrift in the cool morning air from behind a veiling cloak dark as the night preceding the dawn.

Three stood with the sun to there backs.

Glancing past the breaking of the light, feeling the dew on her legs as she gingerly plucked the dead leaves clinging to her dress, "How do we know we got away with it?"
"We go and find out." emanated from the cloak.
"Yes, that's all well and good but how do we know we aren't dead already?" garishly exhaled as the young man fastens his rotting leather boots.

The cloaked man seemed to disappear in toward the draping of his cloak, remaining for a second and falling backward only to seemingly right himself as quickly, all but his hood as it sauntered it's way down the bald scalp it had been sheltering unveiling a middle aged man with piercing grey eyes contrasted by the straight scar running the left length of his face from his unusually pronounced cheek bones to his perfectly square jaw.

"We don't." was all that needed to be said.

The three set off on the beaten down farmers path that crossed the marsh bending along the great stone wall that skirted the city bounds. They came to a great arc. The only entrance and exit to the city mired in stone. They peered inwards. The great white marble cathedral was the fist thing immediately visible. Blue fabric draped and adorned the monolithic ivory tower. A crowd slowly starting to gather in the city square directly below.

Moving slowly the three started to stagger themselves as if not to be seen together, moving through an ever building crowd the cloaked man stopped and took notice of a young woman on her hands and knees weeping.

He caresses her shoulders with her finger tips. She looks up.
"My dear, your tears have turned to pools."
"Can't you see the cathedral? can't you see it's blue!" There are no drops only streams of tears running down her face. Her cries hurried in between gasps for breath.
"I can see things quite clearly" The cloak in piles as he kneels beside the grieving woman.
"Then what is wrong with you?!" exclaimed the woman.
The cloaked man rose and fixed his gaze at the balcony of the tower.
"Tis not I who breaks all restraint and falls to my knees at the sight of blue"

"Our empire stretches from sea to sky. Our empire claims mountains and oceans. Our empire claims nature itself..." The daily crier hollers from the top of the cathedral tower.

"Have you no respect, ROYALTY might be dead!" The woman sobbed as she pressed her open palms to the earth.
"A shadow shows only the respect it is given." His eyes still locked atop the tower.

"Our empire has risen from nothing to claim everything" The voice boomed off the massive stone walls encompassing the city.

The three companions stood shoulder to shoulder once again.

"But today our empire has no heir and no king." The echo silences any noise from the crowd.

The silence was follow by an explosion of the crowd into a mob of unbridled emotion, the flailing of limbs and shedding of tears as all moved either to give comfort or receive it, the remainder cursing the heavens in futility. All but the three who awoke in the marsh.

The cloaked man turned to his companions his eyes ablaze, “I am nothing more then your blade, an instrument of will dealing in death, revel in what you have created never forget the day you betrayed your king and became the shadow of an empire.”