Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

That dream again.

The tunnels deep in the mountain lit by two sets of flames. Two giant figures. The Phoenix, so bright and beautiful. Gold and red, the slightest halo of blue. Green pinions like flame on copper. But it was screaming. Screaming as it was chased by the shadow.

He could never see it clearly, whatever it was, just catching a blur of claws and the overhang of horns, the lash of its tail. Huge and hulking, withering heat bloomed off its dark-burning skin. Its every movement was a roar of flame, vast as a forest fire. It burst out of the tunnels, crashed across cliffs, and smashed through whole rock formations. The Phoenix dodged and weaved, even threw fireballs at it, but it was no use. The burning shadow was always there. Always right behind, claws grasping at the Phoenix’s feathers. Always roaring, its rage burning as strong as its flames.

And then the shadow caught up. A single dodge not far enough and it seized the Phoenix, throwing it on the stone below, and cracking the Phoenix’s body against the ground.

Then the shadow was on it, raising its fists, bringing them down - again, again, again, again. The Phoenix was screaming, his own voice was screaming, all of it lost in the beast’s roar.

The thing - the monster - stopped its blows only for a second. Only to shift its grip. Then it simply ripped the Phoenix apart from the sternum out. The Phoenix tried to scream once more, the sound breathy and pained, without the force from before. Its wings shuddered. Shuddered again.

Then all his fires went out.

—

Wyvern blinked his eyes open to see a small fire burning in front of him. Right. Just a campfire. He’d lit it himself for just a trace of warmth in the bitterly cold desert night, kept small so the light would remain hidden. The smoke smelled like all the other campfires the tnearby Dhalmekian army lit - like the dried dung the Dhalmeks used for fuel, rather than woodsmoke and scorched masonry. 

He might be sleeping sitting up, wearing broken armour, in one of the most flame-benighted wastelands outside of the Blighted Lands themselves, perched on a ridge in the Nysa Defile above what would soon be a battlefield, but he wasn’t back there.

Now, what had woken him? After thirteen years in the Imperial Army, he woke at the slightest disturbance. Often before he even knew it was a disturbance.

A clatter of pebbles and the scrape of armour on stone brought him to full awareness. Aevis was back from his scouting trip. That was it. Wyvern didn’t bother to look up. Dawn was breaking. The battle would be today. 

“They’re on the move,” Aevis said. “With Shiva. We need to get around behind them.”

“Any sign of Titan?” Tiamat asked.

“Not yet.”

There was a pause while Tiamat thought it over. Wyvern could feel the eyes on him. None of them said it, but they were relying on him far more than usual today. There was but the one effective way a Bearer could hope to deal with Shiva’s ice.

He stayed where he was, staring into the fire he’d lit. Eight years he’d been with this crew, nearly nine. Tiamat always took the time to think about the situation. Aevis was cautious too. Assassinating Shiva’s Dominant on the battlefield was by far the most dangerous thing they’d ever been ordered to, but survive and the rewards…

…were another day of life. Which was enough for Wyvern. Another day to find out about that thing. Another day he had to kill it.

Shiva’s Dominant would be practice.

“Let’s get in position,” Tiamat said. “We’ll stick to the plan. The Dhalmeks will have to send out Titan if Shiva takes the field too. We wait until the Dominant is tired and then strike. We make for the rear of the Ironblood line. Move!” 

Biast took the lead through the narrow redstone chasms. True stealth was next to impossible in this accursed place. The grit and dust got everywhere. Fallen ruins dotted the chasms, even their white arches and swirls seeming dull and dirty. Wind whipped through the canyons, hiding any disturbance they made. In the distance, the sound of marching feet grew closer. The Ironblood had come in force. After ten minutes, they could hear the faint echoes of shouting. From both sides. The battle would be joined soon. Wyvern’s heart sped up.

The four of them edged around the main force of the Ironblood, even as the marching turned to the clamour of arms and the screams of the injured. The Ironblood Bearers were at the front, as they always were when the Ironblood went on Crusade. The faith of the Ironblood, their Crystalline so-called Orthodoxy, taught that the sin of using magic could only be expiated in a Bearer’s own blood. The Bearers were here on the field to kill as many of the enemy as possible and hopefully get killed themselves once they’d done it. Both the Bearers and the Ironblood might be doing that hoping. Wyvern had heard stories.

He traced a gloved hand over the black brand on his own jaw. They carved it into them with poison ink and magic. Not just the Ironblood but all the peoples of the continent of Storm. The mark of those with hearts of crystal, beyond human feeling, fit only to work for true humans. Expendable. Lesser.

A new chill washed through the air. Clear and refreshing, so different to the dry claustrophobia of the Defile. Wyvern looked up.

High, high above the battle, there was a figure in the sky. Her back was to them, giving them no more than a glimpse of pure white silks and long silver hair fluttering in the breeze, half shrouded in mist and sparkling shards of ice. Shiva - in full form.

“Oh, shit,” Biast said.

“Move!” Tiamat barked.

Wyvern didn’t argue. He ran. If Shiva was here, ice would soon be raining down on the entire battlefield. And then Titan would come to counter her. They didn’t have much time. They might not have enough time anyway. When Eikons fought -

No. Not now.

They made it only a little further before the ground rumbled. The crashing of steel turned into the roar of the earth splitting apart. Titan was coming. Titan was here. The air turned bitter cold and thick with dust.

“To the valley floor!” Tiamat shouted. “It’ll knock us off the ledges!” Unspoken was the sure and certain knowledge they’d have a far better chance with the Ironblood than they would with Titan.

But even something as simple as ‘to the valley floor’ was easier said than done, Wyvern thought grimly.

He dodged a shard of ice and a flying armoured body - whether Dhalmek or Ironblood he couldn’t tell. Dust obscured everything, coating everything. Smashed ice melted on hot rock, turning footing treacherous. Rocks flew overhead. The path split, separating him and Biast from Tiamat and Aevis. They dashed down a crumbling ledge. Above them, Wyvern got a glimpse of Titan himself. Like looking up at a moving mountain. The rictus smile of the massive Eikon would give anyone nightmares.

“Down there!” Biast called. He’d spotted the others. But even as they sprinted towards them, another rumble split the cliff apart. They ended up sliding, as shards of ice pelted down on them. Wyvern ducked under one boulder -

- Only to see the next crush Biast where he stood.

“No!”

The word burst out of him as he lost his balance. Wyvern tumbled down the slope. Another rock hit his head, or his head hit the rock, spinning him back around to face the bloodied boulder that had smashed Biast to nothing more than a gory paté. The world flickered dark.

“You got him?”

“I’ve got him.”

“No,” Wyvern said. The blood - the rock, like a fist from the sky - like that thing - “Brother…”

Chapter Text

Thirteen summers earlier…

Lord Commander Rodney Murdoch was merciless. “Again, Clive!” he called merrily, while Clive was on his backside in the dirt.

Clive climbed back to his feet. He was better than this. He knew he was better than this.

After he’d won the tournament, though, and he’d been appointed Joshua’s First Shield, Joshua had given him the Blessing of the Phoenix. Clive had used magic before, from time to time, channeling it through a crystal. His father said that knowing how to use magic to fill a waterskin or mend a cut was important for a soldier. Clive had never had any talent for it. They’d had him attempt all the elements, one at a time, and he’d failed miserably with each and every one. Using magic with a crystal was slow and clumsy, like trying to move a large rock with long sticks on his arms instead of fingers. He would never make a battlemage. That much was clear - and though nobody dared say it to his face, disappointing. Rosaria needed them now more than ever, since the Archduke had banned conscription of Bearers in the army. 

No, Clive was a hand with a sword. And no more, as his mother said. His father and Sir Rodney said he had potential, and Clive tried to listen to that instead.

That all changed with the Blessing, Joshua’s gift of a spark for him to use. That was different. Once the burning pain had faded, the Blessing of the Phoenix brought fire to his fingertips with hardly a thought. More disconcertingly, when he tried to use the Blessing while sparring, the flames caught his movement and he’d find himself far from where he intended to be. Sometimes yards from where he intended to be. It was not helped by Clive’s first real growth spurt. He’d been more coordinated this time last year. Now none of his limbs were where he expected them to be.

Hence the Lord Commander beating him into the dirt until he got a proper handle on new abilities and his hands and feet both.

“You can do it, Clive!” Joshua himself called from the sidelines of the practice yard, where he and Jill and half the garrison - and even his puppy Torgal - were watching him get roundly thrashed. 

It was good to be the morning’s entertainment, Clive thought. Even Torgal looked amused, as much as a wolf could look amused.

After three more rounds, Clive was at least back to more or less holding his own. In no small part because he was working better with the flames.

When the Lord Commander at last relinquished him from his training, Joshua ran up and climbed halfway up the fence, heedless of catching his fine scarlet velvets on any splinters. He caught Jill’s wince out of the corner of his eye. His and Joshua’s mother did not react well to torn clothes and she had a tendency to blame anyone who wasn’t Joshua. “Could I learn to do that, do you think?” Joshua asked eagerly.

“If you rest,” Clive said. “Mother doesn’t even want you out here.”

As if to show exactly why, Joshua coughed. It was a little sound, but a painful one from deep in his little brother’s chest. This time Clive was the one to wince; if their mother found out Joshua was sneaking out to watch Clive train, Clive would be the one to pay. “But I hardly ever go out. Father wants me to learn about Rosaria but I never get to see it.”

“There’ll be time when you recover,” Clive said. Though he wasn’t exactly sure when that would be. Joshua was ten; when Clive was his age, he’d been two years into training with the sword and working as his father’s page. Joshua got sick so often…

“But -”

“Look alive! The Archduke returns!”

The shout went up from near the gate, and soon it rang through the white towers of Rosalith Castle. Guards rushed into position. The servants of the castle assembled, from the High Chamberlain in her crisp red linen livery and Sir Murdoch in his shining armour right down to the lowliest Bearer in coarse but clean undyed wool. 

Joshua stood front and centre as the heir to the duchy, all hope of pretending he had been in his room lost. He coughed once more into his handkerchief but stood straight and tall, somehow looking vulnerable in his starched white collar like he hadn’t before while he was just watching Clive spar. Clive took a place behind and to Joshua’s left, suitable for the First Shield. Jill stood to his left in turn, even further out of sight. As a princess of the Northern Kingdoms, even a hostage princess (though she said being a thegn's daughter wasn’t quite like being a princess), she could have stood further forward if she chose, but Clive could never blame her for wanting to be out of the way for these events.

As usual, the Duchess Anabella preceded her husband, emerging from her sedan chair at the earliest opportunity to the bows of the assembled residents. Clive’s mother was known as one of the great beauties of the duchy. At thirty-two, she still looked like a woman five years or more younger, her pale complexion flawless, her ice-blonde hair carefully displayed in a jewelled hairnet, her back straight and her chin high. She disdained to wear Rosfield red, preferring instead black and violet to better complement her eyes. Joshua’s hair was a shade darker than their mother’s, more like the gold their grandmother’s hair had once been, but otherwise he looked very like her. 

Only the Duchess Anabella had none of her younger son’s warmth. Especially not where her elder son was concerned. That was just a fact Clive had to come to terms with.

Clive saw his mother’s eyes widen as she realised that Joshua was there to greet the ducal party. Then he forced himself to meet her cold glare. Fortunately, it did not last long. “My dear Joshua,” she said, not bothering to allow them to rise. “You should be in your room. You’ll injure your health.”

Still with his head respectfully tilted down, Joshua said, “I wanted to greet Father.” But he couldn’t help glancing at Clive as he did so, just out of the corner of his eyes.

Anabella’s gaze followed Joshua’s. Clive decided to step in. It was always worse when he heard his mother tell Joshua to stay away, somehow. He’d rather deal with her frosty silence for a day than that. “It was my fault, Mother,” he said, also without raising his head.

“As expected,” she replied coldly. “If you are to be Joshua’s Shield, you had best learn to protect him.” Returning her attention to Joshua, she said, “Come along now, dear, you can greet your father inside just as well.”

But before she could whisk Joshua off, the cries went up for the Archduke himself. No doubt he’d been delayed talking to the gate guards. He usually was. Or the merchants on the Market Road.

Archduke Elwin Rosfield approached at a trot and swung off his chocobo at the last minute. He gestured for everyone to rise as soon as he was back on both feet, clasped forearms with Sir Murdoch, and then stood before Joshua.

Elwin Rosfield’s maternal grandmother had been a wealthy Dhalmek trader hailing from what was then one of their great houses. Dhalmek’s own version of a great lady, in that republican state, and easily marriageable to Rosarian nobility. Several of her children and grandchildren inherited something of her brown skin and jet-black hair along with ridiculous amounts of gil and trade goods. Her daughter the late Duchess and her grandson Archduke Elwin included. From Elwin’s paternal side, he’d inherited the sharp, almost craggy facial features that had haunted their line. The Rosfields were carved from the same stone as Rosalith Castle, Elwin sometimes joked, but a good deal less gracefully. He looked severe - but his sons knew his nature better.

Joshua said, “I bid you welcome home to Rosalith, my lord Archduke, and give thanks to the Founder and the flames for your safe return.”

“My thanks, Joshua,” Elwin said. Then he smiled and lean down to give Clive’s brother a hug. “That was well done.” He spared a smile at Clive, too. “Clive, Sir Rodney, I need to speak to you in my study anon. Whatever else you have to do today, cancel it, and I will see you in thirty minutes.”

Aware that his mother was still watching, Clive bowed again. “My lord,” he said. He tried to ignore the worried look on Joshua’s face.

“About your business, everyone!” the Archduke shouted, and strode inside without a backwards glance. Anabella took Joshua by the shoulder and ushered him inside too, but not before stopping to hiss at her attendants that if they let Joshua out of their sight she’d have their heads.

Jill reappeared at Clive’s side then, Torgal wriggling in her hands and trying to snap at a nearby butterfly. “What do you think he wants?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Clive, “but I doubt it’s good.”

His father had been gone for weeks. Since the tournament and the reports that had come in with all the attendees. First up north, where they said the Blight was spreading, and then to Port Isolde where his uncle Byron kept watch for the Ironblood. There could be bad news on either front. And if it weren’t urgent, Elwin would still be out here talking to the castle staff to learn what had been happening in his absence.

“You’d better get changed,” Jill said practically. “You’ve got dirt all over you.”

“Right. Can you and Torgal rescue Joshua?”

“We’ll do our best,” Jill promised. Torgal barked. More and more Clive thought that Torgal could actually understand them. But there wasn’t time for anything more than a half-knowing glance with Jill before he hurried off to make himself presentable.

He jogged off, rounding the side of the main building where preparations for supper were ongoing in the outdoor parts of the kitchen - and cannoned into a Bearer. Ceramic jars flew everywhere, smashing on the flagstones. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Clive said on reflex.

The Bearer looked down at the smashed jars - filled with apricot preserves, it looked and smelled like - in stunned silence. A second man came screeching up, panting. “You blithering idiot! That’s the Lord Marquess!” He tried to pull the Bearer down into a bow.

“It’s fine,” Clive said. “It was my fault anyway.”

“Bow!” the freeman hissed, reaching up to cuff the Bearer. “Even so, my lord, that this one would touch you -”

The Bearer was perhaps thirty or so, hair bleached from time in the sun, hands scarred from who knew what sort of work. Some of those scars were fresh. There were plenty of people in Rosaria who would beat a Bearer, but… more often, those with such scars had been sold from the Empire of Sanbreque.

It struck Clive, suddenly, that he was not so different from the Bearer. The Blessing of the Phoenix allowed him to use magic like they did, without a crystal. The Ironblood, for sure, wouldn’t see any difference between them. And nor would his father, for quite a different reason. There weren’t many people who saw Bearers as human, but that was just how he had raised Clive and Joshua.

“An accident,” interrupted Clive. “Please do not punish him. I’ll see that you receive payment for the goods I broke.”

The freeman hesitated. “If - if you’re sure, my lord -”

Clive waved one of the pages over to get it sorted with the Lady Goditha, head of the household clerks. As he hurried off again, though, he spared a glance back. While the page was already leading the freeman off to find the clerks, the Bearer looked back at him too, eyes full of a stunned disbelief.

—

By the time Clive was shown into his father’s study, Lord Commander Murdoch was already there. So was half the paper in Rosalith Castle and what looked like all of the maps. A second table had been brought in for the maps alone. 

Clive sunk into a bow upon entering. “Your Grace. You sent for me. How can I serve you?”

His father looked at him for a long moment. Then he said, “All right, you can stop licking my boots, your mother isn’t here.” Upon saying it, Archduke Elwin immediately rounded his desk to embrace Clive just as he had Joshua out front of the castle. “It’s good to see you, son.”

“And you, father,” Clive replied.

With a final clap around the shoulders, Clive’s father headed back around the desk as soon as he’d left it, returning to his maps.

“How fare the territories?”

“Not well,” Archduke Elwin said. “Clive. War is coming. We must prepare.”

The news hung in the air. Sir Rodney was silent too. Clive could hardly breathe. “War?” he said.

“War,” Archduke Elwin repeated. “Refugees are flooding south from the Northern reaches. The Kingdoms are no more. We cannot feed and house them all, not even if we send them south to Port Isolde. The Blight will be at our borders within the year. We need to take control of Drake’s Breath and secure the Mothercrystal’s blessing for Rosaria.”

Drake’s Breath. Rosaria and Sanbreque had the same name for the towering flame-coloured Mothercrystal that sat alone on Mount Drustanus, halfway between Rosalith and Ironholme, constantly spewing white smoke into the sky. Rosaria had lost the Mothercrystal almost eighty years before, distracted by an invasion from the North after their own Mothercrystal, Drake's Eye, had collapsed. Clive’s grandfather had made an attempt to recover it as a younger man, but to no avail, and the Ironblood had made attempts to wrest Rosaria’s coastal villages away from them ever since using the island as a base.

“Will you be calling for the ships, Father?” Clive asked.

“We will have to. But first, we must go to Phoenix Gate.”

A chill went through Clive. “Joshua.”

“Yes,” his father said gravely. “We must listen to the Words of Our Ancestors. Joshua is the only one who can enter the Apodytery. He has to come. We will need him if we are to be successful.”

“Am I to go with you?”

“Ultimately. I have another job for you first. Routine, yes, but you need routine to learn and I cannot spare you for such things much longer. It will be a chance for you to prove your strength and shut your mother up for good.”

It was simple enough, for Clive’s first command, shocking though it was to pursue beastmen in Rosaria itself. It was Joshua’s part that worried him more. But some things, even the First Shield could not protect the ducal heir from.

—

He couldn’t sleep.

Clive suspected it was normal. It was his first command. Nervousness was to be expected. And more than that, Joshua…he wished there was another option. Not for the first time he wished that he had been born the Dominant of Phoenix, just to spare Joshua. If he had, perhaps even their mother -

- But that was no good, Clive thought, rolling over in bed. He was who he was. Same as Joshua. Same even as Duchess Anabella.

This room was too hot. Torgal stirred from his place at the end of Clive’s bed as Clive gave up on the idea of sleeping and pulled on proper clothes. Maybe a walk would help.

Rosalith Castle was never truly asleep. Servants, both Bearers and otherwise, did the heaviest cleaning by conjured light. The kitchens would be busy, the bakers hard at work. Guards occasionally paced through the halls on their rounds. Some nodded as Clive passed, Torgal at his heels. He just wanted out. He wanted to sleep. He wanted Joshua to be all right.

As he passed his father’s suite, he could hear his parents arguing. He heard his mother’s voice rise as she said Joshua’s name, and his father’s voice rumbled something low in response.

Now the entire castle felt too hot.

He headed out to the upper northern balcony. From this side of the castle, this high up, he could see over the hinterlands and all the way to the mountains. Phoenix Gate lay beyond those peaks. Above him, the sky was cloudless. The full moon and the red star Metia shone down over all of it. Finally, air.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Jill!”

She padded up behind him. She was wearing a robe over her light day dress. If she’d been trying to sleep too, she’d ended up just like him. “I couldn’t.”

“Yeah.”

They stared up at the moon together for a minute or so. At last, Clive said, “Are you going to be all right here? With Mother?”

“She’ll probably ignore me,” Jill said flatly. “It’s you and Joshua I’m worried about. There’s going to be another war, isn’t there?”

There were things he could say, probably. But Jill’s father had gone off to war once too and never came back. Most of her brothers too, and her mother. She knew the feeling. She knew the buzz of activity that had taken over the castle in the late afternoon. “We’ll do our best,” he said, inadequately.

She looked away, silver hair covering her eyes. “I doubt that.”

“I will make sure Joshua comes back, at least,” Clive said. Anything else was unacceptable.

“That’s why I’m worried. I want you to come back, too.”

He was silent for a few seconds. He didn’t even have inadequate words for this. At last, he said, “Before I took my vows as a Shield, the Lord Commander told me…being a Shield means I die first. Out of Joshua, my father, and me…I know which one of us the duchy can afford to lose most. I chose that. I know what it means. I don’t want to die, I just…”

“I understand,” Jill said. She didn’t look back up at him. “If you aren’t going to pray to Metia for your safe return, then I will. Don’t forget that there are people here who want you back too. Torgal, as well.”

Torgal yipped up at them.

“Torgal is people,” Clive said. “As good as.”

At last Jill looked up. She even smiled a little. “Better than most.” After a little while she said, “The moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to come back and watch it with me again. Promise.”

It really was a beautiful night. He’d never seen the moon so bright, while next to it Metia was a scarlet as vivid as the Rosfield banner. Standing out here in the clear cool air with Jill - yes, he wanted to do this again. “As you wish, my lady,” Clive said.

They stayed out there a long time. Longer than he should have, perhaps, but this was the better rest.

Chapter Text

Joshua watched Clive and the two soldiers Father had assigned to him ride off to the east as their own procession turned north. His brother sat tall and proud on his white chocobo, Ambrosia. He could see several soldiers smiling off after them. Even their father.

It was silly, but…everyone liked Clive. Even Ambrosia, and Ambrosia didn’t like anyone.

“How long will it take for Clive to meet us at Phoenix Gate?” Joshua asked.

“Not long, hopefully,” his father said. “Three will travel faster than our party. If all goes well, with luck they will be no more than a day behind us, maybe half.”

It felt like a long time since Joshua had last been allowed to leave Rosalith Castle. Even now his mother had insisted he wrap up in a heavy coat before he left, far thicker than what anyone else was wearing. Plus a hat and gloves. His chest hurt every time he breathed. But he was outside the castle.

To his dismay he ran out of energy within a few hours. He just didn’t have the stamina to keep control of his chocobo. Instead he found himself back in one of the wagons. The soldiers were all very kind, but…it wasn’t how they acted with Clive. They were polite and distant and hardly ever smiled at him.

Joshua tried not to let it bother him.

Though he’d been on his father’s inspection of the territories once before, Joshua had never been on the coastal road up to Phoenix Gate. They passed group after group of ragged people struggling down the road. Some were camped by the side of the road. None of them spoke to their procession, but instead watched them with hostile gazes. One or two of them even spat. Northerners, the soldiers said. Fleeing the Blight.

When they stopped at an inn on the coast the first night, Joshua asked his father, “Are the Northerners why we’re going to war?”

“In a way,” his father said. “We all need the blessing of the Mothercrystal. Maybe one day we will not, but for now, we do, and we must fight for it. For everyone who lives in Rosaria, whether they would rather live here or not, whether they just arrived or if they have lived here since the Founder’s day.”

Joshua didn’t sleep well that night. He had the second-best room in the inn all to himself, but it still wasn’t like his room in Rosalith Castle. The mattress was stuffed with straw and it prickled. The wooden inn creaked in ways the castle never did. Even though he could hear noises from the rooms either side, it was somehow darker than usual and very lonely.

They set out again early the next morning after a cold breakfast. Mist drifted over the road as they approached the mountains. Phoenix Gate was built high on a wooded cape overlooking the coast, the marshes of central Rosaria, and the northern reaches. Joshua had never been there before either. Clive would know more than he did, but he didn’t think Father kept very many soldiers there any more. Not since Jill came to live with them.

The Apodytery was inside the mountain. Joshua didn’t know exactly what an Apodytery was. Nobody could tell him. He had to go in there alone.

“My father never spoke of it,” his father said, as they rode through the gates. Joshua had asked if he could ride his chocobo again for the last mile and his father had agreed. “Some things are for the Phoenix and only the Phoenix. Or perhaps you can tell us all about it!”

Joshua thought about it. “Can we wait for Clive?” If he told anyone, it would be his brother.

“We cannot wait for long. No more than a day,” his father said. “There are plans that must be made.”

“Please, Father?”

His father agreed to that as well, in the end. Just the one day.

But that meant they had to wait. There wasn’t much to do. The soldiers they’d brought ran drills. Father, the Lord Commander, and two aides went to inspect the walls. The servants they’d brought met with the Phoenix Gate staff to plan a feast. Joshua was told to stay inside and rest so he could save his strength for the next day. That left him stuck in a high tower room, looking out at the road, hoping he’d spot Clive. It wasn’t fair. Even after he finally, finally, managed to get outside Rosalith Castle he ended up in another one.

In the late afternoon, he at last saw the shine of Ambrosia’s white feathers on the road up to Phoenix Gate. Plus two other chocobos, all mounted. From his tower window he could see his brother dismount. Within a minute he was mobbed by a group of soldiers. They all looked happy.

Joshua hurried down to the bailey, but Clive had already been whisked off. Some of the soldiers were talking about Clive fighting a morbol and winning. He’d read about morbols. Jill told stories about them too. Monsters ten feet tall made up of wriggling, rotting vines with teeth as long as a man’s arm, spewing poison everywhere. Joshua couldn’t even imagine fighting something like that. Did you just start hacking? He had so many questions and Clive wasn’t free to answer any of them.

Once the sun went down, Joshua went down to the feast. Phoenix Gate was dark inside, all brown stone blocks trapping shadows. Most of the windows were small slits. Even the main hall was dark and gloomy. He sat awkwardly next to his father, picking at the roast.

The soldiers were all having a good time. One, a dark-haired man who’d gone with Clive, stood on one of the benches and ended up telling the story Joshua had wanted to hear. He listened to the tale of how Clive had charged a morbol and felt somewhat queasy. He couldn’t do something like that.

“Is everything all right, Joshua?” his father asked.

It wasn’t, but Joshua wasn’t sure how to explain it.

“Why is the Phoenix always born into our family?” he asked instead.

His father sighed. “You’d have to ask the Founder. Some mysteries are not for us.”

“Well…How do we know the Eikons make the right choice?”

This time his father reached out for his hand. The noise of the revelry washed around them. “I don’t know. I do know that it is our family’s duty to share that blessing, that strength, with all of Rosaria. You will do your best. I know it. Your brother and I will both help you as best we can. Now. Smile, Joshua. Show these soldiers your strength.”

He tried. He truly did. His father squeezed his hand, then stood to go join the soldiers. They started singing. Singing about the Phoenix and how it protected Rosaria.

Joshua left them to it and slipped out of the hall to finally go find Clive.

—

“At least you’re enjoying the feast,” Clive said to Torgal. “Jill’s going to be worried about you too.”

The puppy had stowed away on one of the wagons, then filched a bone from the cooks. He now sat here, gnawing happily, keeping Clive company. Clive didn’t feel like going inside. He thought he could still smell the morbol. That reek was going to haunt his nose until the day he died.

This was a peaceful courtyard. Quieter than anywhere in Rosalith, even with the cheers and singing echoing from the hall. Only a few guards patrolled the walls, and barely any servants crossed while going about their duties. The perfect place to sit and think.

Until the door opened behind him.

“What are you doing out here?” Joshua asked. 

Clive relaxed. Joshua was - a lot of things, a lot of which Clive was jealous of, but Clive didn’t have to pretend so much around him. “Feasts are the only time Shields can take their ease,” he said. “And I’ve never really been one for cakes and ale.”

“It’s the vegetables I don’t like.”

It was so childish of them both Clive couldn’t help but laugh. The two of them, hiding out here and making excuses about the food. Joshua laughed too. A rare sound. Over too quickly. “They’re in there right now telling stories about how brave you were,” Joshua said. “You don’t want to join in?”

Never. It would be excruciating. It wasn’t something he deserved.

“They never used to do anything like that. They used to think I was a spoiled little lordling,” he said. He didn’t blame them. “If I didn’t learn, if I didn’t practice twice as hard, they’d think me twice a failure. It must be nice to know they all believe in you.”

Joshua looked at the tips of his boots. “It’s not me they believe in. It’s the Phoenix.”

The Phoenix. Ruler over life and death. Bahamut might have brought light to humanity, but the Phoenix brought warmth and life. Patron of Rosaria since the Founding, source of their strength and protection. All that in the form of Clive’s younger brother, too small, so physically frail.

“It should have been you,” Joshua said, still not looking up. “I’m not strong enough. I don’t have what it takes. You do.”

But how to explain?

Clive pulled Joshua down next to him. “I believe in the Phoenix,” he said. Joshua was always warm. This close, it was clear he was warmer than a human should be. It had never bothered him. “So I believe there’s a reason it’s you. Whatever you have, I think it’s what the Phoenix needs. Everyone has their duty. Rosaria is on the Dominant’s shoulders. You were born for this.”

“But -”

“And I was born to be your shield. To keep the Dominant safe, no matter what. Whatever happens, I will be there to help you. No matter what.”

It worked. Joshua smiled. How could Clive not believe in him when Joshua looked at him like he - might actually be worth something? How could Clive not want to live up to that?

“Thank you, Clive,” Joshua said.

The night seemed a lot lighter now. Clive might even go inside for some ale after this. “You have to look after yourself, too,” he said. “Come on. You should get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be busy.”

—

A faint noise woke Joshua, there and gone before he really knew what it was. He sat upright in his bed.

Something smelled like smoke. Not wood smoke. Something dirtier and more choking. There was something strange in the aether, too. Something ominous.

Joshua decided he’d better dress.

No sooner had he put on his boots and the belt that held the shortsword his father trusted him with than his door crashed open, revealing one of the soldiers who’d gone with Clive to fight the morbol. The dark-haired one who’d stood on the chair. Sir Wade, he thought. “My lord! The castle is under attack. You need to come with me.”

“Under attack?” Joshua asked, even as he followed the man down the first flight of stairs. He could feel the smoke in his throat.

“They are already inside the castle,” Sir Wade said. “Be ready to fight, my lord.”

This was - this was real. He was in danger. His father and Clive had to be in danger too. He would not let them down. 

As they descended it grew hotter and hotter. Somewhere below them, flames crackled. It was fine for Joshua, most fires couldn’t hurt him, but Sir Wade would definitely be in trouble if they didn’t get out soon. Once, he heard a man scream.

When they reached the door to the main floors, Sir Wade said again, “Ready yourself.”

He kicked open the door to reveal the long barracks where most of the soldiers had been staying. There were still men in it now, but these ones wore the bright silver armour of the Empire of Sanbreque. But that didn’t make sense, because Sanbreque were supposed to be their allies.

Nobody had told these Sanbrequois soldiers, though, because two of them advanced on Sir Wade as soon as they saw him. The fire had reached this room too, but even so Joshua could see huddled shapes on some of the bunks. He could also smell something like cooking meat.

Joshua didn’t hesitate. He threw a fire spell at the soldier attacking Sir Wade.

Gathering that much aether sucked the energy out of him, leaving him feeling dizzy and weak. The fireball was strong, though, killing the soldier in only a few seconds, and that was what mattered. Sir Wade looked back at him and said, “Don’t overtax yourself, my lord. You may need to fight again.” Joshua only nodded in reply, trying to regain his breath, and together they set off again.

By the time they found a way to the ground floor, Joshua had killed three more people. By then he was grateful for the smell of smoke because it was easier to bear than the smell of burning meat. There was no sign of Clive or their father but Sir Wade wouldn’t let him stop to search for them. They reached the very hall where just hours ago everyone had been laughing. Now there were more bodies and more fires.

Sir Wade shouted when he saw one of the bodies, propped up against the wall. “Tyler!”

That was the other soldier who’d gone with Clive, then. They’d helped Clive kill a morbol. Tyler was crumpled up like a doll. Even in the flickering light of the fires licking at the walls and the chaos all around them Joshua could see the black-red stain on the soldier’s side and hear the gurgling wheeze of his breath. But he was breathing. Joshua didn’t waste his own breath talking. He summoned the strongest healing magic he could and rushed to Sir Tyler.

Sir Tyler coughed. “Don’t waste that on me,” he said.

“Just stay still,” Joshua replied. Healing magic was difficult. A lot more difficult than just throwing fireballs. It seemed unfair.

Sir Wade didn’t say anything. He took up position over them.

Soon after, just as Joshua was getting control of Sir Tyler’s bleeding, there was a crash at the door. Then a second. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sir Wade bring his sword up to guard. They were all right in the middle of the room. If they were rushed…he’d have to make a choice. Sir Tyler, or himself and Sir Wade.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. He could save Sir Tyler.

The door splintered. Smoke and sparks rushed in. Behind them, shadows and the clinking of full plate.

But it wasn’t more Imperial soldiers. It was Lord Murdoch, his father, and Clive. It was going to be okay, Joshua thought. Everything might be on fire now, but his father and Clive would make everything be all right again.

Chapter Text

A flock of bolting chocobos could not have dragged Clive back from checking on his brother. From what he could tell, Joshua had a few scrapes, no more. His heart soared even as his head throbbed. It was not a good night for one of his headaches. He didn’t have time.

“We have to go,” Sir Murdoch was already saying. “Get Tyler on his feet and we head to the rear gate. Clive, take point.”

Tyler struggled to his feet with Wade’s help. He’d have to stand and run under his own power. They couldn’t afford to slow down.

They only came across two Imperial soldiers between them and the rear gate. Sir Murdoch covered the archduke as he made for the stolas keep. Wade checked on Tyler. Joshua was Clive’s responsibility. “You have to get a chocobo and get out of here,” he said. “Father will go with you.”

“What about you?” Joshua asked, voice high and desperate. He was covered in soot, unburned - could the Phoenix even burn? - and his blue eyes looked huge through the grime streaking his face.

“I need to stay here and cover your escape,” Clive said. The headache was getting worse with all the smoke seeping out of the castle. It rose into the sky, black against black, blotting out the stars. “Sir Rodney and I will rally any survivors. That’s our duty right now.”

“I want to help!”

“You have to look after Father,” Clive said. Their father had finished sending the stolas and was having a quick discussion with Sir Murdoch. “That’s your duty right now. Protect Father, protect Rosaria.”

Seconds passed. Valuable seconds. Every minute that passed was one where the Imperials could be regrouping and Rosarian soldiers burning in the keep itself. Rallying the survivors was the best way to protect Joshua over the next few days, no matter how much he wanted to stay with his brother now. How else could they be sure there were no pursuers? But at last, Joshua nodded and said, “All right.”

Clive squeezed his shoulders and let go. He turned his back and headed back to the burning courtyard behind Sir Rodney. He glanced back once. Joshua was still watching him. Then the door between them closed.

His head hurt.

“Leave none alive,” Clive said, as they marched toward the hall.

“As you command, my lord,” Sir Rodney replied.

They didn’t make it halfway across the main courtyard before some sixth sense made Clive look up. A glint of light was all the warning he had. He threw himself right, rolling, narrowly avoiding the point of a dragoon’s spear.

As quick as he’d fallen, the dragoon leapt back up to perch on an exposed bit of scaffolding. He called down to Clive mockingly, “May I have this dance?”

Clive raised his sword. “Go on,” he told Sir Rodney.

The dragoon fell like a hailstone, spearpoint first. Clive dodged again but stayed on his feet, slicing back in while the dragoon was open following his fall. He’d aimed at the gap under the left arm, but not well enough, catching only a glancing blow. His sword’s point came away bloody.

Dragoons fought by jumping in and out of combat, turning their spears into weapons with an even longer range and denying their opponents the ability to strike back. Clive’s greatsword meant he wasn’t quite so disadvantaged as most, especially with the Blessing of the Phoenix to help him close the gap. Clive stepped out of the way of the next thrust and tried again. Unarmoured, he couldn’t afford to take a hit himself, while the dragoon’s plate protected him. This time, he pricked the back of his opponent’s right knee.

The dragoon didn’t try the same thing a third time. He stayed on the ground instead, fighting as a more conventional spear-wielder. Clive fended off the spear with his sword and did his best to pepper the dragoon with fireballs in the gaps.

Suddenly, the butt of the spear whipped towards Clive’s knees. Too high to jump from how Clive was holding himself; too low to dodge under. Clive wrenched himself into the Phoenix’s flames and forward, swordpoint first.

This time, Clive found the gap. All the way, under the dragoon’s right arm and into his chest.

Clive flung the dying dragoon off his sword and finished the man off. Even a wounded opponent could still be dangerous. Sir Rodney jogged up to him. “Well done, my lord. Five survivors at the east gate.”

But Clive was focused on the dead dragoon. This was not someone wearing stolen Sanbrequois armour, whether deserter or bandit. This had been a Holy Dragoon in formal plate, fully trained in their style of combat.

The Holy Dragoons followed two alone: the Dominant of Bahamut and the Emperor of Sanbreque. In that order. When the two were separate people.

Prince Dion was a little younger than Clive, a little older than Joshua. Emperor Sylvestre had announced that his son was the Dominant of Bahamut three years ago now. He would still be training as a dragoon, not leading them. Leaving only the Emperor to order this attack.

“This is no invasion,” he said. “They’re here for heads.”

“And they knew where to find the Archduke and the Phoenix,” Sir Rodney said. “I agree. We have a traitor, my lord.”

“Then we clear the castle and return to my father as soon as possible.”

He meant to head to the west gate. But then there was a sound. High and grating, scratching across his brain. He blinked, and a shadow appeared in front of him. A person - not in Rosarian armour, nor in Sanbrequois armour. Just in a simple hooded robe, standing in the midst of the flames. “Who -” Clive began saying.

Scaffolding crashed down, sending splinters and soot across his view. When his stinging eyes cleared, the hooded person was gone.

“My lord?”

“The west gate, Sir Rodney. We must hurry.”

Above him, all through the castle, the flames burned unchecked.

—

Sir Tyler was well enough to stand again. Joshua had done that. Sir Tyler had been bleeding out for real. Joshua had summoned and channeled the aether, and now Sir Tyler was only a little hurt. It was something good and useful he’d done.

Now he had to keep his promise to Clive. Protect his father, protect Rosaria. He just didn’t know how. His chest hurt. Every breath felt rough and his entire body felt like it was weighed down with lead.

They made it to the outer gates on the north side without incident. Father tried to harness a wagon for them, knowing that Joshua wouldn’t be able to ride far. It felt strange after all the fighting they’d had to do to get out of the building. Joshua could still smell smoke and see the flickering glow of the burning castle against the night sky. It was hard to be leaving when Clive was still there.

Joshua’s worrying was interrupted by the sound of marching feet. A small squad of soldiers in Rosarian armour jogged up to them, halting in front of them with a quick salute in the shadows.

“My lord!”

Something about this wasn’t right. Joshua realised it just as they stepped forward again. None of them were smoke-stained. None of them were women. 

The soldier in the lead threw a dead stolas at Archduke Elwin’s feet. “Leave the Phoenix, kill the others,” he said.

Faster than Joshua could breathe and start another fire spell, his father went to draw his sword. Faster even than that, one of the other soldiers brought his own sword down.

His father’s head dropped to the ground. Blood sprayed against Joshua’s face.

It was hot.

He’d promised Clive he’d protect their father and do his duty.

More blood poured from the horrible space where his father’s head had once been, the pulsing slowly failing. There was so much blood. It was so hot on his skin.

Joshua took a breath. Then another. It didn’t feel rough this time. It tasted like copper and aether. Someone was screaming. Men were cursing. And all Joshua could feel was heat and aether.

—

Something was wrong. Even more wrong than everything else that was going wrong. Clive could feel…a tear, almost. A spark? Something bursting into flame, in a sense he couldn’t describe.

He looked towards - what? 

Without warning, the Phoenix burst forth from the other side of the keep’s wall, shrieking. Glorious and graceful. He spat fire in the sky, brighter and hotter than the sullen flames licking at the keep. The Phoenix screamed again. The sound was all pain and rage.

“Joshua!” Clive screamed back. His little brother was hurting. Something had gone wrong.

He started to run back to where they’d left the others. Sir Rodney caught him by the shoulder. “No, my lord! It’s too dangerous!“

Then, without warning, Clive’s headache abruptly turned from a throb and a scratching pain across his brain into a sucking vortex inside his skull. He fell to his knees, right out of Sir Rodney’s grasp, only just catching himself on the way down and preventing himself from falling face-first onto the flagstones. The pain was worse than anything he’d ever felt before.

But for all its intensity, it wasn’t a wrong pain. Like a muscle tired but not torn, strong alcohol washing out a wound, the harsh fumes of a pungent healing poultice, a hundred times over and all in one. It was a pain that, once endured, returned the body to what it should be. That sucking pain in his head felt like it was removing a blockage. Or something like it.

A voice like the flames themselves said, we have found you. Clive saw a shadow in the smoke again. A person. A person made of the fire itself, shrouded in a deep hood.

Clive forced himself to his feet. His headache vanished. So did the being. None of that mattered. He had to reach Joshua.

“My lord!” Sir Rodney called again.

“It’s my duty!” Clive shouted back, and ran into the fire.

—

Joshua came back to himself with a second roar of flame. He only had an instant to register the massive column of devouring fire before the demon rammed into him.

It had to be a demon. It looked like one, from the stories his tutors sometimes told him. The demon was hewn out of black volcanic rock, the dull, rough kind that nobody could touch without getting a hundred little scrapes, all crazed with the red-hot fire within. It was crowned with tall, sharp horns; its arms and legs ended in claws longer than the Phoenix’s beak; and its tail lashed in either rage or impatience. Its short, wolf-like muzzle lifted in a snarl that revealed jagged obsidian teeth. 

It didn’t have wings, but it leapt for him anyway. Unnatural strength took it far from the ground and cannoned it into Joshua. They hit the side of the mountain.

As the Phoenix, it hurt less than he’d thought it would. Joshua had never actually fought as the Phoenix until now. He’d only fully primed twice before, the first time by accident and the second just to see what it was like. It was a natural change. Instinctive. Beating his wings to recover from the heavy hit took as much thought as getting up off the ground did. He flew up and up, intending to rain fire on the new Eikon.

Below him, Phoenix Gate was well and truly alight. Some of it from his own flames. How he knew, he couldn’t have said. They felt different to the dull natural flames - and different to the other Eikon’s. Those felt…hungry. If given a chance, the other Eikon’s fire would consume everything in its path, cracking open even the bare rock.

It would kill any of the Rosarian soldiers who were still in Phoenix Gate. It could kill Clive. 

Clive was brilliant with a sword. Joshua knew that he couldn’t fight something like the Eikon that roared up at him in frustration. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

He didn’t understand how there could be a second Eikon of Fire, but he had to stop it. It was up to him. It was his duty.

Joshua understood now.

“Right,” he said to himself.

He was smaller than the other Eikon, but more agile. Joshua veered off, aiming fire spells carefully. He couldn’t risk hitting any of the soldiers on the ground. The second Eikon dodged some and simply allowed others to hit it, all with a ferocious snarl. It jumped at Joshua again, pushing off against the cliff. It might as well be able to fly!

Joshua led it through the peaks around Phoenix Gate. He tried going through the tunnels below the mountain that the Fallen had left there ages ago. But no matter how he twisted and turned, he couldn’t lose it. No matter how many fire spells he threw, he couldn’t deter it. And it was catching up.

He pushed himself harder, twisting around blighted mountains, skimming low over the ground then soaring high in the sky. The second Eikon dug in its claws, channeled aether into fire, and chased. More than once, Joshua felt claws through his tail feathers. He had to do something and soon.

In a patch of blighted mountains not far north of the castle, Joshua whirled and finally, finally, hit the mystery Eikon with a fireball strong enough to knock it to the ground. It crashed into bare rock in a cloud of smoke and dust. Joshua beat his wings hard, hovering above it. He summoned fire. As much as he could. Then he reached inside himself and summoned more.

“Leave me alone!” he screamed, not even thinking about whether the other could understand him, as he unleashed a white-hot torrent of flames at the creature.

Once he’d poured all the flame he could at the monster, he waited another few moments. Nothing stirred in the crater. Joshua banked and started to fly back to the castle.

There was no warning. Just impact.

Joshua tumbled to the ground in sight of the castle gates, screeching. The second Eikon roared in triumph. Then it, too, summoned aether. Stunned, Joshua lay there for a few crucial seconds. Was the demon copying him?

There was no time to contemplate. Move, he had to move. The other Eikon gathered fire like a small, malevolent sun. Joshua hadn’t known flames could be dark before. The spell seemed to make the night all the darker and the moon itself vanish.

But it was fire. Joshua held Phoenix, Warden of Fire. This attack would not kill him. Could not kill him. No matter how it hurt, Phoenix would revive. The opening afterwards would be his chance.

Instead of fleeing, Joshua prepared himself. Quickly as he could he gathered fire of his own. The Phoenix protected.

The mystery Eikon threw its spell, driving the intense fireball towards Joshua. Despite his own flames buffering the impact, it hurt more than any hit he’d taken so far. The demon’s flames were hungry as he’d thought they would be, eating first at his feathers and then at his skin. The fire of the hells, Joshua thought, in a blur of light and pain.

Then it ended in a backwash of pure heat.

He was alive! He was alive, and this was his chance.

He charged the Eikon, knocking it down. He gouged at it with his talons. He beat at it with his wings. He pecked at it. 

But it didn’t fall. It fought. It was like the fire Joshua had thrown at it had barely even hurt it. 

Somewhere behind him, from the castle, he thought, he could hear Clive’s voice. Almost shockingly loud. Don’t hurt him! Stop!

The demon kept punching him, rattling his thoughts in his skull. Now its claws were digging into his flesh. It ripped whole feathers out. Joshua blasted fire in its face but it only shook it off and hit him across the beak, its whole weight pinning him to the ground. He couldn’t move it. He couldn’t escape.

Clive, help me, he thought, irrationally, hysterically.

As if in reply, he heard Clive screaming again. No! Joshua!

The Eikon didn’t even slow down. Its next punch felt like it cracked Joshua’s beak. Then it seized Joshua’s wings, one in each arm, and started to pull. Something was being yanked out of him -

The world went out in a blaze of red. The last thing Joshua heard was Clive’s sobbing.

—

They’d ridden hard to make it to Phoenix Gate. Anabella despised riding. She did it, of course, because it was necessary, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She straightened her skirts compulsively as her retinue dismounted outside the smoking wreckage that had once been a strong Rosarian fort.

That had not been in the plan. Her handmaids had woken her late last night when the fire in the sky started. Anabella had watched, heart in her throat, as the Phoenix fought with a horrible flaming something in the distance. In the end, there was a giant fireball, and then silence. The Phoenix had not been seen again.

So riding hard it was. Joshua could be in danger. Joshua could be hurt.

She had negotiated carefully. For months. Joshua was not supposed to be in danger. He was never supposed to be in danger. How could this have gone so wrong?

The weather was cold and damp, as much fog in the air as smoke. She was ruining her clothes just being out here. “Where is my son?” she demanded of the captain who escorted her to the rear gate. “Where is the Dominant of the Phoenix?”

The man quailed. “My lady. We have not been able to find his body. Our witnesses say that the second Eikon killed him.”

“And where is that thing?” Anabella flared. The Phoenix may not have graced her branch of the family, but she too was of the firebird’s blood.

“No sign of a second Dominant, my lady.”

“Explain.”

They took her through the wreckage itself, where the Sanbrequois were scouring the gutted remains of the castle and killing survivors. One charred and headless body, they told her, was Elwin’s. It was the right size, though he’d been burned beyond even her recognition. Rodney Murdoch had been cooked in his armour and good riddance to him. He’d been a bad influence on Elwin and Joshua both. As they went, the Captain recounted how the Rosarians had rallied against expectations, until the Phoenix and the mysterious second Eikon appeared and fought.

At last they reached the edge of the great crater. Anabella covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief against the reek of charred flesh. “Here, my lady,” the Captain said. “This is where the Phoenix fell.”

Her Joshua. Her Joshua died here. This was…almost all for nothing, then. “Captain. Please dispose of my handmaids.” She had warned them what would happen should Joshua get hurt. It was only appropriate. She closed her ears to the screaming and gurgling behind her.

It was time to leave. The Emperor would shortly be requesting her presence to finalise the annexation.

But as she wound her way back through the soot and crumbling stone on the arm of the captain, another officer ran up to them. “My lady,” he said breathlessly. “Please come see.”

They took her to the other side of the crater. There, in the shelter of a large chunk of masonry, was an unwelcome sight.

Clive. Breathing. Utterly filthy, of course, but Anabella could only see a few small cuts on his face and arms. Blood and black dirt caked around one eye and his upper right arm, while he twitched as if caught in a nightmare.

He deserved it, too. What did Elwin even name him a Shield for, if not to protect Joshua? Now Joshua was dead and Clive yet lived.

“What should we do with him?” the captain asked.

Nightmares were the least Clive deserved for failing her and Joshua as he had. What a wretched creature he was. Anabella looked down at him. Utterly useless, for all Elwin had - wait.

“My husband always said he was a fine soldier,” Anabella told the captain. “And the power he stole from my son can still do some good. He can join the Empire’s front lines. The Sanbrequois army still uses Branded, do they not?”

“Understood, my lady.”

Anabella turned her back on the creature that had once been her son. What became of him now was in Great Greagor’s hands - but a short and miserable life was all he deserved and, most likely, all he would receive.

—

I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you…

Clive awoke to pain. Across his jaw as the brand was applied. Across his forehead and arms where he’d been wounded. In every muscle from the exertion of the fight.

In his heart, where a flame burned sullen and smoldering.

Was this what the Blessing of the Phoenix felt like when the Phoenix was dead?

A groan slipped past his lips, then a scream, as the pain of the brand grew to an all-consuming acidic intensity. Above him, one of the men said, “Chin up, you’re going to be a soldier!” and all his companions laughed.

Clive clung on to the fire inside, all he had left of the brother he’d failed. This pain didn’t matter. The laughter didn’t matter. The brand didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what happened to him at all. 

Not as long as he killed the second Eikon before he died.

Chapter Text

Consciousness returned in fits and starts, full daylight stabbing at his eyes and through his head. Right. Nysa Defile. Still part of his own personal hell. A tingle of aether on his skin told him that Aevis had spared some energy to make sure he wasn’t incapacitated by whatever blow to the head he’d suffered.

“Back with us, are you?” Tiamat asked.

“Enough,” Wyvern said. He climbed to his feet. He was a little scraped up, but otherwise fine.

“While you’ve been taking your little nap, the Ironblood called a full retreat,” Tiamat said. “We’ll have to move fast if we’re going to take the Dominant’s head.”

“We’re down a man,” Wyvern said.

“We’re all dead if we don’t follow through,” Aevis replied from his position on the nearest cliff edge.

“All three of us,” Tiamat agreed. “Shiva’s already fought Titan today. We don’t have to fight the Winter Queen herself. Just the girl controlling her. She’ll be tired. We’re not getting a better chance, Wyvern.”

Reluctantly, Wyvern nodded. It was practice. Practice he’d need when he finally faced the Dominant of that second Eikon of fire. “I am not dying today,” he said.

Aevis took the lead as they moved on. “There are a few groups moving through the chasms. We’ll have to move fast.”

High above the valley floor, they could spot various groups of straggling Ironblood as they headed in the direction of the coast. Men and women both; unlike the Imperials and Dhalmeks, they allowed women to serve in their armies. Usually in separate squads only, but in the chaos of the battle, units had disintegrated. Some groups had chained Branded in tow, but none with the rare and expensive crystal fetters that stopped a Bearer - or a Dominant - from using their powers.

It was an hour of hard marching before they found a larger party. This one was formed up around several priests and a chained woman in a stained white dress. There were children in the party, also chained. The woman and the children were all unarmed, unarmoured, and staggering.

“Hostages,” Wyvern realised. “They’re using the children to control the Dominant when she’s unfettered.”

Tiamat surveyed the situation with cool blue eyes. “Leave the children alone, then. We can use them as leverage too if we have to.”

They’d planned this approach with four. They also knew what to do if they’d lost someone on the way. Tiamat threw a ball of light into the midst of their attackers while Aevis used his earth magic to help get them to the valley floor. Wyvern’s job started when the fighting did. His skills with magic were…rather narrower.

But there were too many. Even as they watched, one of the Ironblood got the shackles off the Dominant. But then, in a break of luck for Wyvern and his comrades, she collapsed to her knees, breathing hard, instead of priming and freezing them where they stood. One of the Ironblood threw a sword in front of her and growled something in their language.

The Dominant of Shiva was of average height, skinny, dirty pale hair hanging lank and loose. A cruel parody of Shiva’s snow-clean elegance. She seized the sword with white-knuckled fingers, visibly shaking, probably from exhaustion. Wyvern remembered. Priming could tire a Dominant - but even a tired, weak Dominant was a fearsomely powerful mage. Their element’s magic came to them easy as breathing.

So it proved to be with the Dominant of Shiva. Wyvern dashed to his left, narrowly avoiding a shard of ice as long as his arm flung straight at his head. Tiamat and Aevis fell in behind him, keeping the Ironblood clear of his fight. Shiva’s Dominant fought like a Northerner, better trained than he’d expected - probably taken captive late. But she was exhausted. She could throw ice at him indefinitely, but not swing her sword or evade his blows. He used the Blessing to get in close. Too close for her to use her powers effectively, forcing her to use her sword instead.

Behind him, he could hear the clash of steel. The smell of blood and wet dust was back in the air. He heard children fleeing. Wyvern could not afford to let up. His sword was difficult to use in such close quarters but it was his only real chance.

At last, she overextended her lunge. Wyvern smashed the pommel of his sword into her hand, knocking hers from her grip. The momentum threw her to the ground and she lay on her back in front of him.

He thought he heard her say “at last” before her eyes fluttered shut.

Her voice was…familiar.

Wyvern held his sword over her chest. The fighting behind him had ceased too, and in the moment of stillness he looked at the Dominant of Shiva. Her hair was dirty, but it was a silver shade he knew well. In the right light, it would be silver-blue like the best steel. The face was older, but he knew it too, round and solemn.

Jill.

“What are you waiting for, Wyvern?” Tiamat shouted.

No. Clive had fallen a long way, but he would not do this. Not to Jill. Never.

The problem now - the only problem - was how he could get them both out of this situation.

Aevis started to push past him. “If you won’t do it -”

Clive’s face was spattered with blood as an axe lodged in Aevis’s skull. The Ironblood had caught up again. Tiamat swore and started to cast. Clive braced himself over Jill’s prone body and fended off all comers. There weren’t many. Scouts only, no doubt come to investigate the earlier fight.

Within another two minutes, it was only him and Tiamat. And Jill. Still unconscious on the ground but still alive. Clive was breathing hard. So was Tiamat.

“So you would betray the Holy Empire?” Tiamat asked.

“The Holy Empire branded me. They took my service,” Clive said. “I never pledged it.”

Sergeant Tiamat had plucked him from the ranks of mage fodder on the front lines. Sergeant Tiamat’s favour meant better food and better armour than most Imperial Branded could expect, helping him to survive when Clive might not have survived alone. Clive would not raise his sword against Tiamat lightly. For Jill, there wasn’t even a question.

He used the Blessing to close in on Tiamat, too. The sergeant got his own steel up and pushed Clive back. A counter didn’t pierce his gorget but landed with bruising force. Clive stood his ground as best he could, controlling the space between Tiamat and Jill. He peppered the sergeant with fireballs. The first two missed. The third, Tiamat batted away on his sword. The fourth splashed over the metal, scorching Tiamat’s fingers. Clive was shifting towards him on the flames even as the fifth fireball hit Tiamat square in the chest.

Clive made it quick. Out of respect.

Exhaustion was starting to drag at his every movement. His head throbbed unpleasantly. He couldn’t afford to rest now, though, not if he was going to save Jill. Clive staggered back to where Jill lay.

She was so…thin. So pale. Beneath the dirt, he could see cuts and bruises, not so different to his own. She had been fighting just as he had, but without even the tinpot armour the Imperials had deigned to give their assassins.

Clive scooped her into his arms. A cool breath of aether washed over his skin, the faintest trace of Shiva. Now that he was holding her - he could not let her die. He was not going to let her die here.

But he could already hear feet running towards them. Heavy, armed men. Scattered and shattered as the Ironblood forces were, they could not afford to lose Shiva. They would do anything to stop them escaping. They would sooner kill Shiva’s Dominant than let her fall into an enemy’s hands.

Fire flared deep in Clive’s chest.

He knew they were lost when a second group ran around in front of him. He didn’t let go of Jill. This time, he swore, he would die first.

—

The dog was in a right state, pacing and making little half-yipping noises before finally just jamming his nose into the back of Cid’s knee. Cid stubbed out his cigarette. The dog was also at least as smart as most people Cid knew, so if he thought it was time to go, it was probably time to go.

He called it a dog. It was a wolf. Waist high, teeth as long as his fingers, shaggy as a sheep. For all that, very good with humans, and not at all startled by magic. Not even when Cid had to semi-prime. Someone - some mage half out of their minds most likely - had worked long and hard with it.

The dog led Cid to a cliff, nose stuck firmly in the dirt. “You’re going to sand your nose off if you keep that up,” Cid said.

The dog barked at him in reply.

“I won’t have that sort of cheek from you.”

“Why are you talking to the wolf, Cid?” Goetz asked. The man had a heart as big as he was, a gentle manner, and a surprisingly high-pitched voice, but nobody had ever accused him of cleverness. The good heart counted for a lot.

“We both know the dog’s smarter than the both of us,” Cid said. “More focused on the job, too.”

Another bark. This time the dog looked at him as if it was sure Cid was an idiot. Sure enough, down on the valley floor… “Well, I’ll be. Imperials.”

Imperial assassins, to be precise, wearing a mishmash of dull armour and dust-stained cloth to hide the glint of metal. Bearers who were given a sword and told to take heads in exchange for a slightly longer leash. Some came to believe in their missions, probably to protect their own minds from what they were doing if you asked Cid. A lot of them died gruesomely and well before their time. So did a lot of their targets.

Three imperials total. All branded. A stocky blond who, incredibly, wore a tattered sergeant’s stole. A surprisingly well-groomed brunet - not that Cid would begrudge a man his vanity, especially when he had so little else - staying back and using earth magic from a distance. And a tall, lean man with a mop of black hair who took point fighting a woman in a ragged white dress who had to be Shiva’s Dominant. She fit the meagre description he’d been given, anyway, and the Northern steel-grey hair was hard to miss.

The black-haired one took over fighting Shiva’s Dominant alone as more Ironblood rushed in. Poor woman was half falling over even now. Cid swore and started to rush down the slope, lightning charging in hand, but the damned dog leapt in front of him, hackles raised and a rumble deep in his chest.

Yet despite the frustration, Cid’s eye was caught by the flash of steel. That was all he needed to regain his senses.

That was a flippin’ Rosarian greatsword the black-haired assassin was using.

No Sanbrequois army taught its soldiers to use Rosarian greatswords and it especially would not waste the time teaching a Branded to use a Rosarian greatsword. Oh, they were beautiful weapons, massive reach, capable of cleaving a soldier in two right through their chainmail, but you had to actually teach people to use them. Otherwise a soldier was like as not to cut their own throat just drawing it, cut the next poor bugger’s throat on the first backswing, or leave an opening in their defenses so massive they’d be skewered in the first minute of a fight. It just wasn’t worth it. Especially not for Branded.

Black Hair followed a swing of the monster sword up with a flicker of fire. Not just a common fireball, but a blindingly fast dash wreathed in flame that took Black Hair right into the Dominant’s space, knocking the sword from her hand and her to the ground.

That was the Blessing of the Phoenix. Any Dominant could tell the mark of the Phoenix from common flames.

Black Hair down there, currently menacing the Dominant Cid had come to rescue, was the bloody Marquess Clive Rosfield.

Not dead after all.

“Shit.”

The dog outran him. Behind him, he could hear Goetz scrambling to keep up.

Cid sprinted through the canyons, trying to remember everything he could about the intelligence briefings that had reached Waloed about Archduke Elwin Rosfield’s sons all those years ago. There had been plenty about the younger, the dead Dominant of the Phoenix. Not so much on the elder, who everyone had generally assumed was thirteen years a corpse charred beyond recognition at Phoenix Gate.

It has happened before that some Dominants are not equal to the Eikons they hold within them, and such appears to be the case with the Phoenix, heir to the duchy of Rosfield. The heir is fair and frail and when he is not being smothered by his mother the duchess, he is trailing after his elder brother like a lost puppy. That one, the archduke grooms to be his brother’s strong arms, both sword and shield.

That was about it. One line at the end of a disparaging paragraph. End of useful memory. There had been a short time there the king had thought Rosaria’s archduke might become a true ally. Their source had therefore focused far more on the archduke. As he’d been instructed. All very reasonable at the time but less useful now.

Maddeningly, he could hear what was going on in the valley below, angry voices bouncing off the stone. It seemed Clive Rosfield did not, in the end, actually want to kill the Dominant of Shiva.

It also seemed as though the Ironblood were regrouping around their imperilled Dominant.

“Oh, screw this.”

Cid stopped dead as he heard the disagreement between ‘Wyvern’ and his sergeant turn to steel. He waved Goetz back. The dog was already back, silent and focused on the other side. He called on Ramuh’s power within him, lightning easier to summon than anything else. After all these years he knew how much he needed to blast apart some rubble plus some Ironblood with it. He didn't even have to look.

Wait, wait, and - zap.

Clive Rosfield turned to stare at him with a very gratifying look of shock on his face. There was no denying that being a Dominant had at least some perks.

—

The smell of spent levin hung in the air, and somehow Clive wasn’t dead.

From the dust and the char, several shapes emerged. The first was…a wolf? It was hard to tell through the dust, but those markings…

Clive knelt down to free up a hand, resting Jill on the ground while still sheltering her as best he could. The wolf padded up to him, tail wagging. There was a metal band about his foreleg, carefully crafted, not cutting into him. “What a fine hound you are,” Clive said.

The wolf yipped, shuffled, and shoved his head under Clive’s hand for a pat.

“Torgal,” Clive said. The name caught in his throat. His eyes prickled in a way they hadn’t since he was fifteen and learned that tears were useless. Torgal. All these years - and now, in the same day, he’d found both Jill and Torgal somehow.

“Never figured you for a dog person,” one of the other shapes said.

Dust cleared to reveal a man of medium height and medium build, with dust-brown hair and quality leather armour. Made for him specially, unless Clive missed his guess. Two swords at his waist, both of which also looked like custom work. Fit and somewhere in his forties. No travelling gear. And despite the lightning that had struck all around him, he had no crystal on him at all. A Bearer, then, but not branded.

“Clive Rosfield,” the man drawled, as if it were an afterthought.

Clive twisted to make sure Jill was behind him. Small protection from a Bearer who had already shown he could cast accurately without seeing the target, but all he could do.

The man took out a cigar and lit it with a tiny spark of aether. “I’d heard rumours of your survival,” he continued, as Clive gently lowered Jill the rest of the way to the ground. This was not a regular soldier. This was an intelligencer or a ’specialist’ like Wyvern himself was. Had been? Too casual with his powers to be anything but a Waloeder. “Never paid much attention to them, mind, it did seem pretty unlikely. But here you are.”

Clive levelled his sword at the man, right at his torso. He could feel shakes all along his arm from the exhaustion and shock. He squashed them as best he could. But he’d hold back. Torgal didn’t look at all concerned. His tail was still wagging, even.

The naked steel didn’t bother the man in the slightest. He raised the hand with the cigarette, not drawing in any aether for a spell. When he saw Clive would not attack, he gently slid the sword aside as he stepped towards Jill. He called back over his shoulder, “Goetz!”

A second man emerged from the chasms. If Clive hadn’t seen Titan this morning, he would have described this man as a mountain; as it was, he was merely very large, with an equally large nose and a square blond beard. “Coming, Cid!” piped a voice that didn’t match that massive frame but did, somehow, fit the man’s wide and guileless eyes.

“Let’s get her up,” Cid said. “Easy now. Lady Shiva’s had a rough day.”

Clive readjusted his sword so it was pointed at this Cid’s throat. “What do you want with her?”

“To get her somewhere with a warm bed and a good meal,” Cid said. “Might not be a down mattress or roast peacock in its plumage, but it’s rest and food. After that…we’ll see what she decides she wants. Maybe it’s something I can help with.” He looked back at Clive along the sharp length of steel. “Same offer for you, lad.”

That offer…couldn’t kill him more than the Ironblood would.

He nodded and lowered his sword. Cid exhaled heavily. “Right!” he said. “Let’s finish getting Lady Shiva settled in, if she’s not waking up -”

“Jill,” Clive said. “Her name is Jill Warrick.”

Cid raised an eyebrow. He clearly recognised the name. More and more, Clive was thinking he was an intelligencer, not a specialist. “Lady Warrick it is,” Cid said. “But we still need to get moving.”

The blond giant Goetz strapped Jill to some sort of carrying chair with more gentleness than Clive expected. It would be a bumpy ride, no doubt, but maybe at the end there really would be a warm bed and a good meal. For both of them.

Clive had fought for the hope of less.

Chapter Text

It was simple enough to make her temporary excuses to Hugo after the battle. He would be tired. Too tired to be of use to her, surely. Fully priming could be taxing on a body. She would have to go back to him eventually, of course. Hugo Kupka, permanent economic advisor to the Dhalmek Council of Ministers, Dominant of Titan, would not be put off altogether. 

For the moment, however, Benedikta could plead her duties to King Barnabas in gathering a post-battle report. Hugo understood, even if his so-called masters didn’t like it. But that was what allies did. They shared information.

Even if they didn’t always share troops. How sad for the Republic that was. A good thing they had such a strong Dominant to protect them.

A simple use of her Eikon’s power carried both her and her squad to a bluff above the Defile. Necessary, maybe not - but Garuda was always a joy to her. Garuda was freedom and power. From here she had an adequate view of the field. More detailed reports would be needed, but as an initial summary for King Barnabas…

It had been an expensive day for the Dhalmekian Republic. The Iron Crusaders had been turned away from Ran’dellah, but thousands of the Republican Guard lay dead on the field. In his rush to display his Eikon’s might, it seemed Hugo had not been so careful as he perhaps could have been. What a terrible shame that was. The expenditure of crystals was hardly less. In some ways this was the worst victory the Dhalmeks could have won.

The king would be pleased with that, at least. She thought. The complication was Shiva. “What’s your impression?” she asked her second, Gerulf.

Faithful and considered as ever, Gerulf took a minute to evaluate. “Shiva was trying to avoid collateral.”

“Indeed.” Benedikta had watched the whole thing. Shiva was powerful, no doubt, but her heart had not been in it. Untrained and unpractised, as one would expect from someone held as an abomination by the Crusaders, all she’d brought to the fight was raw desperation. And not even all that much of that. Benedikta knew well how desperation matched against trained magical might.

There was no sign of the Dominant herself. Titan had not been able to kill her outright. It was possible the Ironblood still had her. They’d have to investigate further. The whole reason the King had come in person was to pursue a Dominant. Benedikta scoured the field, looking for any signs of fresh ice.

Suddenly, from a clear sky, violet-hued lightning struck somewhere in the maze of chasms. Familiar violet-hued lightning.

Benedikta grit her teeth. She’d known Cid was out there somewhere. Garuda could tell Ramuh still lived in human flesh. But what was he doing here? What did he want? He always wanted something. He wouldn’t stick his head out of hiding if he didn’t think it was worth it.

Shiva. It had to be. Everyone had come for Shiva today while she was on Storm, vulnerable.

“My lady? That colour -”

“Cid,” she ground out. “He was always a fucking snake. We’ll be seeing more of that soon, no doubt. Find me where that struck.”

She had no doubt that Cid would be gone before her squad could catch up with him. He’d just slither away. But she’d find him. She would.

In the meantime, she couldn’t be dawdling over a field of the dead and dying all day. She had to go carry out her duties with Hugo. He might not be the most creative or the most gentle, but there was something to be said for size, at least.

—

The journey was four days on foot, first through the wastelands and then through the deadlands. Cid set a punishing pace. He also whistled constantly. It echoed, thin and hollow, through the barren landscape. Clive did not know what to make of him. Aside from ‘intelligencer’. Rogue intelligencer.

He felt a fugue reaching up for him. Entire hours went by where Clive could do nothing but set one foot in front of the other. Shock, he suspected, in a part of his mind that felt very far away. Even when he was…present…he was hardly very alert.

Since it was the deadlands, there was no using magic. No fire for that hot meal at night. Nothing to stave off the bitter cold after sundown in the blighted lands. No spare bedrolls. Cid gave his up for Jill, who hadn’t so much as stirred. Clive slept on the ground, as he had the nights before. He didn’t begrudge Goetz, doing all the hard work of carrying Jill, his own meagre comfort.

For dinner, Clive shared his few cakes of hardtack. He tried to, anyway. “Trying to kill us, are you?” Cid asked when Clive pulled his scattered thoughts together to make the offer.

Clive didn’t bother responding. He did, however, accept the offer of bighorn jerky and dried apple to supplement the tack. He also managed to get some water down Jill’s throat. She was cool under his hands. He didn’t know whether it was because she was ailing or because she was the Dominant of Shiva. Joshua had always - had always been warm. He could feel Cid’s eyes on him as he tended to her.

In the morning, they headed even further into the Blight at the centre of Storm.

“A long way from anywhere,” Clive said. His voice felt rusty. No magic, either. Making a living out here…difficult, if not impossible.

“No nosy neighbours,” Cid agreed. “For everything else, we make do.”

Cid and Goetz headed into a patch of hills that Clive wanted to think would have been beautiful once, when they were covered with grass. The broken hills had cracked apart to reveal Fallen ruins half-buried in rock and earth. Clive’s companions took them to a particularly large one whose top poked out above even the crest of the hill. A tunnel took them through to the base.

They’d hollowed out the entire thing, Clive saw, stepping into an improbable beam of sunlight right in the middle of the Fallen hall. People - Bearers - were hard at work with huge trays of dirt and plants. Others were working together on chores - laundry, cleaning, the like - but unlike Branded on the outside, these people were smiling. It was…less bleak, inside, than he’d thought it might be. The Fallen ruins were still white-grey and caught the sunlight.

Behind him, Cid shouted, “Tarja!”

Several people scrambled towards them. They couldn’t all be Tarja. But they helped Goetz lower Jill to the ground all the same, until a tall, slim woman with deep red hair descended from a staircase and shoved everyone else aside. He got a glimpse of a purplish scar on her cheek rather than a brand.

Tarja, Clive assumed.

“Easy, lad,” Cid said. “Tarja’s a physicker. Damn fine one too. She’ll get Lady Warrick what she needs.”

He nodded. This Tarja was checking Jill’s pulse already, rapping out orders to helpers. She had the bearing of a physicker for certain. Before he knew it, Jill was being carried up one of the ramps to the level from whence this Tarja had emerged.

“Now, as for you, Clive,” Cid said. “I reckon you need a wash, a feed, and a nap. Probably in that order too. Otto over in the bunks will get you sorted. Once you’ve got ‘em, come see me in my solar. If it’s tomorrow, well, I’m not going anywhere for a few days. We’ll have a chat about what comes next for you and your friend.”

The bunks were a narrow warren off the sunlit main hall, separated from the open air area by a crude wooden door. The ‘Otto’ he’d been sent to find was unmistakeable. Clive could spot a sergeant from a hundred paces. The stocky, greying man with a perpetual scowl was most definitely a sergeant. By nature, if not in title.

“Greagor’s tits,” the man growled, when he spotted Clive, and more likely, his imperial-make armour. “He’s picked up another stray, has he?”

“If by ‘he’ you mean Cid, then he’s picked up two of us,” Clive said. Cid didn’t seem like the sort of man to do things by halves. This Otto had an air of a man who knew what it was like to pick up after someone who didn’t do things by halves.

“Of course he did,” Otto muttered. More loudly, he added, “Name’s Otto. I keep things more or less running around here. Now I suppose you’ll be needing some things…”

Not just a former sergeant but a former quartermaster, unless Clive missed his guess. Within half an hour he’d found Clive a set of clean clothes, a washcloth, a washing board, a bar of soap, a basin of hot water and a second of cool, and a screen for privacy. “You’ll feel a little more human once you’re cleaned up a bit, I’ll wager,” Otto said.

Once again, Clive felt that strange dryness in his eyes that would have been tears when he was younger. “Thank you,” he said. Those words especially felt rusty.

“You’re not the first Bearer who’s showed up needing some basic human comforts. Your friend isn’t the first Bearer to come in needing a physicker, either,” Otto said gruffly. “We can handle it.”

The washcloth was no more than rags, the soap was gritty, and the new clothes were worn thin and ill-fitting, but when he was done, he was clean. His own clothes he hung to dry where he’d been shown. Then he was handed off to one Kenneth, in an area of this little hideaway that someone had built to look like a tavern. Someone shoved a bowl of stew in front of him. Fish and vegetables. They gave him a heel of bread as well, and a cup of watered-down blackcurrant juice. While he’d been on missions he’d foraged and hunted and fished as needed - he’d stolen from market stalls and farms and ordinary citizens as needed too - but this was the best meal that had simply been set in front of him for years. The Empire begrudged its Bearers even hardtack and gruel.

And after that, he was taken back to the bunks, given a straw pallet and a blanket, and told he could rest until he was ready to talk to Cid.

Clive set himself up under the stairs instead of in the cramped barracks that were just too busy and too claustrophobic, near a strange Fallen tablet. As he approached, it started glowing from within, light flowing down the ancient grooves of its design. He eyed it carefully, but it didn’t seem to be dangerous, so he ignored it. He’d been a soldier of sorts long enough to know that rest was something you got where you could, when you could, as you could. It didn’t take long to quiet his breath and relax his body. 

True sleep did not come so easily. When he did at last reach that elusive state, his dreams were full of fire again. Grisly nightmares that slipped away on waking, images too painful to think on. More intense than they had been these past thirteen years.

When he woke, he ached slightly less than he had before he slept. He was ushered towards the tavern-like area for a bowl of porridge and half a painfully bitter apple, another breakfast far better than Imperial Bearer issue.

With that done, there wasn’t much to do but find Cid’s solar and talk to him. For that ‘whatever came next’.

Cid’s solar, such as it was, was deep in the heart of the Fallen ruins. A long way from the light and air of the central area. When Clive opened the door, the man himself didn’t look up from the letter he was writing by the light of a mundane lamp, fuelled by oil and a wick rather than a crystal.

“Hang on a second, Clive,” Cid said. “If you don’t finish your thoughts when you have them, you’ll never get them down.” He was smiling as he wrote. Clive waited, standing as straight as he would have for any superior officer.

The smile vanished when Cid at last put his quill down, rolled up his letter, and fixed Clive with a searching gaze. “So…from an Archduke’s son to an Imperial Bearer, and then to cutting your sergeant’s throat and deserting. You’ve fallen a long way, Lord Rosfield.”

Clive didn’t respond. It was evident. Cid shook his head. Then he stood and poured Clive a cup of wine. His nose prickled at the rich, fruity scent. This was not the half-vinegar swill soldiers saw on the rare occasions they saw wine instead of ale. This was wine that could have been placed on his father’s table. Cid passed it to him.

He didn’t drink it. He wanted to. He could imagine it on his tongue, heavy and sweet. But he would not be lulled into complacency with alcohol or luxury. “What do you want with Jill?” he asked.

It didn’t matter what happened to him. But Jill - Jill deserved better.

“I’ve got no interest in using her,” Cid replied easily. “If I did, I wouldn’t be talking to you, unless I also had a burning desire to get my throat cut where I stood, which I don’t. No, what I want is to help you. All Bearers and Dominants. The realm doesn’t approve, which is why we live in a cave. But we’re always on the lookout for recruits who can use a sword.”

Clive looked down into the dark surface of the wine. His own face stared back at him as if blood-soaked. “There are things I need to do first.”

“Do tell.”

So far, these people had treated him fairly. They’d treated Jill fairly. Better than just fairly. “My brother…was murdered. By a second Dominant of Fire.”

Cid’s head jerked up. “The Phoenix’s evil twin?” When Clive nodded, he said, “Bugger me, another rumour proven true.”

“He was there that night. I saw him. His Eikon. As it tore Joshua apart.” Even after so many years it was hard to say aloud. As usual, when he thought too long on it, he could feel the flames inside burning, the remnants of his brother’s gift. “I have survived all these years - killed so many people - only for the chance to kill him myself. For what he did to my brother.”

Cid kept watching him with that pale, searching gaze. Damned intelligencers. Clive was past caring what he thought. “I don’t need to tell you that deserting means those chances of yours will be rather sharply limited from now on,” Cid said. “You won’t get far with that mark on your chop.”

“I’m planning to make the most of my freedom,” Clive replied grimly. “I’m not so easily killed.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But consider. Instead of wandering off on your own, you could come with me for a bit. We’ve had a few reports over the past few years of a certain individual. A very powerful Bearer aligned with fire. Strong enough to be a Dominant, some of my scouts say. I’d discounted that particular possibility, because I thought it was too soon for the Phoenix to be reborn, but now you tell me there are two Dominants of Fire wandering round Storm…”

He headed back around his desk and started shuffling through papers. “Cursebreaker reports,” he explained, not looking up at Clive.

“Cursebreakers?”

“Don’t look at me, they picked the name. We do try to be a bit organised about sending people out to rescue the oppressed. That means squads -”

“- and squads mean names.”

“Precisely.”

Letters slid across the desk. Clive caught a glimpse of a mad scrawl and a neat ledger, Dhalmek script and Waloeder runes. The one Cid grabbed was a tightly-furled scroll written by someone who could barely write at all, from the handwriting. “Here we go,” Cid said, “Report from the village of Lostwing. There’s a group of fugitive Bearers there and some nasty armed people sniffing around. Plus our mysterious fire mage.”

Clive accepted the scroll when it was offered, setting down his untouched wine. It was exactly what Cid said it was. However bad the handwriting, the content was good - numbers, dates, potential holes in information. The brief description of the Bearer who used fire.

“You can come with me if you like,” Cid said, when Clive looked up at last.

“You don’t think that this is perhaps a bit too good to be true?”

Cid snorted. “Lad, I’ve spent the last ten years of my life tracking down Bearers. If anyone on Storm had this information at hand it would be me.”

It couldn’t kill him any more than the Ironblood would. Any more than the Imperials would if they caught him. Clive put the scroll down and picked up the wine. “This doesn’t mean I’m joining you.”

Cid raised his own cup towards Clive. Had he ever washed it? It was easily the filthiest thing in the room. Pouring good wine into it was probably an insult to the vintage. “To a productive partnership, however temporary it may be.”

It was a good wine.

Chapter Text

Otto had given Cid one of his looks when Cid insisted on taking Clive out to Lostwing himself and alone.

“Battle shock that bad? Dubious allegiances? Are you trying to get killed? It's one thing to have him here where more than your stupid ass is keeping an eye on him, and keeping him sweet with regular meals, but out on the road and fighting again is a different story.”

“I feel sorry for the boy,” Cid said. “Besides, don’t you think I can handle him?”

“I’m sorry, what did you find him trying to do, again? Was it ‘kill a Dominant’ or was it not? The ‘boy’ is a fully-grown Imperial assassin. Feel sorry for him all you like, but he’s one of the most dangerous people we’ve ever had in here. I don’t like it.”

“Your opinion is noted. Disregarded, but noted all the same.”

Besides. Cid wanted the chance to observe Clive a bit more closely and in action. That was caution, as far as he was concerned. Dragging a man through unfamiliar landscape was a good way to see what he was made of. In this case, the Greatwood would be the testing ground. Cid wanted to see if what he’d done for Lady Warrick was a one-off.

Pity about the bloodflies. Possibly the worst creatures in all of Storm, bloodflies.

“I told you we should have taken the Crystal Road,” Clive said. There was the faint clank of cheap steel as he swatted at them. Clive had very sensibly seen Blackthorne about getting that armour patched up a little, but their smith couldn’t work miracles.

“What sort of outlaws take the main road?” Cid asked. “Besides, I know a shortcut.”

He meant to take it, too. The Greatwood was a humid place. Bad enough for Cid in his leathers, but poor Clive in his chain and plate? It hardly bore thinking about, which was exactly why Cid stuck to leathers.

Still, the other man didn’t complain. Whiners would not have got far in the Imperial units Clive had served in. Instead, after almost an hour of walking, Clive said, “It’s beautiful.”

There was something in his voice other than numbness or anger. It made Cid take stock. Sunlight filtered down through the leaves above them, taking the worst out of damp forest chill and dappling their view in shades of green. The smell of rotting leaves and dirt was in the air as they made their way along the creek bed, thick but not unpleasant. The wolf - Torgal, right, turned out he did belong to a half mad mage - trotted along cheerfully, tail swishing back and forth.

“It’s a nice enough bit of Storm, I suppose,” Cid said. His tastes ran more to wild weather than serene forests. Even visited the Surge, once, the frozen wave tucked into the southern reaches of Ash, before the Blight cut it off entirely.

“It’s good to see somewhere that hasn’t been taken by the Blight.”

Cid filed that away for later.

Of course there was no such thing as a place that wasn’t at least affected by the Blight. Not these days. A pack of starving worgens tried to make them their dinner. Nothing that Cid, Torgal and Clive couldn’t handle.

“This is not looking like a shortcut,” Clive said as the day drew on.

“One tree falls across your path and you’re ready to condemn an entire experience.”

At least out of the deadlands Clive was a bit more useful when it came to camping. The Blessing of the Phoenix made for a steady campfire and a perfectly cooked bird for dinner. “If I wasn’t already trying to recruit you I might try just for this,” Cid admitted around a mouthful of well-crisped skin and juicy roast. He couldn’t cook for shit. Clive’s mouth twitched up at one corner, just a tiny little bit, just for a second. 

They traded off night watches with no issue. And more importantly, without Cid getting either a sword in his guts as he slept or abruptly woken up by angry wildlife.

They pressed on through an area of forest that felt like it was more than half Fallen ruins. There were a few signs of bandits, but nothing too recent. More worrying were the freshly gnawed bones of several worgens. Clive saw them as quick as he did. Torgal, on the other hand, ignored them. Because he was too busy growling at the giant thorny-skinned lizard who’d left them there.

“Oh, shit,” Cid said.

“That’s Fafnir,” Clive said.

“What?”

“Northern legend!”

But they didn’t have time to discuss the origin of the overgrown horned lizard, because it seemed to think they’d make a better meal than the worgens.

The upside was that it gave Cid the opportunity to watch Clive fight again. Not just against a bunch of mangy worgens, but against something challenging. He fought like a Shield of Rosaria, for the most part, but the Imperial Bearer-assassin was there too, in sneaky off-hand magic strikes that the Shields wouldn’t have had the crystals to use or teach. A formidable combination. A flexible combination.

He was an impressive mage on top of that. Not in power, Cid had seen plenty of Bearers who could dish out more powerful spells. It was the efficiency. No matter how many fireballs he threw or neat little fire-dashes he did, Clive barely disturbed the ambient aether. If he were a Dominant, Cid would think he was casting from his personal aether reserves, but no - Cid could feel the draw, slight as it was. The smallest drop of aether, an amount Cid would use to light a cigarette, turned to entirely respectable fireballs in Clive’s hands. Clive could keep casting those all day without tiring, and he fought like he intended to do just that.

He’d have to talk to Clive about his technique as well. If that was something that could be taught…the curse’s progression would look very different.

Now was not the time, however. Here and now, what mattered was that Cid fought alongside someone who fought smart. Clive finally got a jab into this Fafnir’s eye, causing the bloody great beast to rear up. Now that it wasn’t thrashing around with intent, Cid took his chance and semi-primed, feeling the aether wash through him, filling his flesh without transforming it. The lightning he threw at the thing finished it off for good.

That just left Clive.

The man who’d fought down Shiva’s Dominant, brother of the Phoenix’s Dominant, knew what he was looking at and wasn’t so easily cowed. He kept his sword at the ready.

Now that he’d thought of it, a cigarette really was a good idea.

Cid let the aether go, keeping only the spark to light up. He could feel the curse gnawing at his bones. Men weren’t meant to keep that sort of power for themselves. One of the few things he still agreed with Barnabas on. “Whole realm of strapping young lads and it’s this sorry sack of bones Ramuh saw fit to haunt,” he said.

“What’s in this for you?” Clive asked.

No beating about the bush. Cid appreciated that. A duke’s son would know. A Dominant could walk into any court other than in Ironholme and name their price. Fame, fortune, relative safety - all of it could be theirs. If they just asked. If they were willing to do as they were told. Yet Cid lived in a cave in the middle of the deadlands. “What we deserve,” Cid said.

“And what is that, exactly?” The sword did not lower. The sword did not rise. If nothing else, Lord Rosfield hadn’t lost all political awareness in the past thirteen years.

Cid just chuckled. “My days as a firebrand are over.” For most people, the curse started like frostbite did, in their fingers and toes, in the tips of their ears and noses. For Cid, it had started in his bones. He could overwhelm most opponents still, but if he didn’t win in the first onslaught, he was in trouble. “No, what I want is to offer our kind a place to die on our own terms.”

Clive nodded and turned away.

A few minutes of forest trudging later, Cid had his own question. “What do you plan to do with this second Dominant of Fire?”

He could almost feel the flames when Clive answered, “Show him the same mercy he showed my brother. And cut the tongue out of any man who tries to talk me out of it.”

“All right, the forest’s dark enough as it is.”

It did kill conversation, though. No wonder Clive had lowered his sword when Cid had shared his goal. Clive’s aim was not so different in some respects. A good death for himself. An end he could convince himself was worth it. Who knew? Maybe he really could kill a Dominant.

The mood hadn’t recovered by the next morning. As if to contrast Clive’s sullenness, it was another bright and clear day above the canopy. As much as Cid liked watching the rain, he didn’t always like walking through it. Nothing for it but to press on. He hadn’t invited Clive out here for his scintillating conversation anyway.

Once again their trip was interrupted by a growl from Torgal. A glance between them and they followed the dog.

They saw the footprints in the mud soon enough. Cid loosed his sword in its sheath. Clive checked to make sure his not-all-that-shiny armour was covered by cloth. Together they followed the trail, both with more than a little apprehension. Whoever this was, they sunk into soft earth like only an armoured soldier could, and they weren’t trying hard to conceal themselves in the woods.

After a while, they heard voices, right about where the footprints headed into a small valley. Cid and Clive headed up rather than down. It gave them rather a nice view over the small camp of Royalists set up here in the verdant green of southwestern Sanbreque. “They’re a long way from home,” Cid whispered.

Clive didn’t respond, sharp eyes following every soldier there. This sort of thing would have been his bread and butter - well, maybe just bread.

Cid put that aside and turned his attention to the camp too, just in time to see a very familiar figure in dark leathers emerge from the sole tent. “Oh, that’s bad news.”

“You know her?” Clive asked, not turning away from his observations.

She’d cut her fair hair shorter. Lost some weight, which she never had to lose, turning her face almost gaunt. Her stride was confident as ever, but Cid could see the unhappy set to her jaw and the tension around her eyes. He’d never wanted that for her. He hadn’t been able to give up his soul piece by piece for her either. “Her name is Benedikta Harman,” Cid said. “She’s Barnabas Tharmr’s chief intelligencer.”

“But why here?”

They watched a few moments more, as Benedikta checked on her soldiers.

“How’s your Ashtongue?” Cid asked.

“Not as good as my Dhalmekian, but I get by.”

Ducal education. You had to love it. Cid didn’t need to be on translation duty on top of everything else. The Royalists below were on the tense side, as you’d expect for soldiers deep in enemy territory. They exchanged terse comments about breakfast and sentry duties. Benedikta left to meet with - “A local informant. Hm.” Quinten would not be pleased. If the informant in question survived to return to Lostwing, which Cid doubted. Barnabas had ideas about loyalty, which he instilled in his underlings.

“There’ll be trouble in the village soon, then,” Clive said. 

They both caught the word for Dominant. Benedikta ordered half her soldiers to move out. Immediately.

“I’d think so,” Cid agreed.

They retreated down the hill - and ran right into a scout. “This is not our day, is it, Clive?”

“It hasn’t been our trip,” Clive replied, already moving.

It was over in seconds. Cid didn’t even need to do anything. Clive truly did fight beautifully. “Does that second Eikon of your hand out blessings as well?” Cid mused. “I can think of a few people who might find it useful.”

“Do you even believe me?” Clive scowled.

Cid patted down the scout’s corpse, looking for money. “And lo, the Creator did make of the Elements, Eight Eikons, to serve as Keepers of the One Law. I’ve never heard anything about two Eikons for an element before, not at once. Maybe the Phoenix has been reborn, but they’d still be a child. It’s a stretch to believe. But I have your word, I have a lot of reports that there might be a Dominant about, it seems like it’s worth investigating.” He looked up at Clive. “You don’t strike me as a liar. Come on. I’d like to get to Lostwing around the same time as Benedikta, if possible.”

 Clive looked around. “What if someone finds the body?” the former assassin asked.

Cid, however, was an outlaw. Even a bandit, from time to time. He threw a few coins to Clive for him to hang on to. Only fair, he’d done most of the work. “Then they’ll be disappointed.”

—

They emerged from the Greatwood as the sun went down. Silvery moonlight spread over the vineyards of Orabelle Downs. Their path to Lostwing was clear. “Are we going to camp or head to the village?” Clive asked.

“The village,” Cid replied. “The innkeeper’s a friend, of sorts. Might be we can sleep with a roof over our heads tonight.”

It was a nice walk. Peaceful. Quiet. The cicadas were humming in the early summer warmth. The moon was so bright there was no need for a torch. How long had it been since he just…walked somewhere, on the main road, with a friend? 

More than thirteen years. The night he rode up to Phoenix Gate alongside Sir Wade and Sir Tyler.

The thought jarred him back into full alertness and had him scanning the horizon for the glint of armour again. Worse, he found it. “Cid,” he said quietly, hand flying to his sword.

Cid cursed. “Royalists. Let’s stay out of their way.”

It was a full squad, heading down the hill to where Fallen ruin and valley met. Right to where Cid had said the village was. They were looking for the Dominant too. It had to be a good sign, of a sort, that the Waloeders were putting in such effort.

At last they reached the village itself. Lostwing was a small place, built around a low-lying lake. Boardwalks ran between a jumble of houses, some built into the ruins, some built outside. There were only a few sources of light in the deep shadows - the crystal light outside what looked to be an inn, and another strange bit of Fallen stone that had inexplicably whirred to life as Clive passed, causing Cid to shoot him a glance that was half curious, half irritated. In spite of those lights, nobody was moving except the patrol passing through.

“Hard to believe there could be a Dominant here,” Clive whispered. The only thing of note here were the vineyards. What would a Dominant want with those?

“There’s a bit more here than the location might immediately suggest. My man is reliable, though. We should split up and search.”

“How will I find you?” Clive asked.

But Cid was already halfway gone, melting into the shadows to the right. “I don’t know…shout?”

Clive didn’t even know what this scout of Cid’s looked like.

He was starting to think that Cid might have a different idea of planning than he did. He certainly had a different idea of planning to Tiamat. Nothing he could do about it.

The left side of the village was the side closest to the Fallen ruins. They were even more extensive than the ruins Cid had built his hideaway in. Or maybe they were just more exposed and built-around. Clive stuck to the boardwalks. Experience had taught him to search a place from the ground up.

The first house he checked was empty. When he eased his way into the second house, he heard a soft sobbing from the loft.

“Hello?” he called. “I’m a friend.”

It had been a long time since he’d been anyone’s friend, but this sounded like a child. The sobbing mostly stopped. A few short, muffled gasps slipped out.

Clive climbed up to the source of the noise. It looked normal, a clothes chest and bags of stores stashed above the damp. Except for the scrape marks on the floor near the chest. In the shadows, in a small space between the chest and the wall, another muffled sob.

“It’s all right,” he said, not leaving the ladder. “I won’t hurt you. I’m just looking for someone.”

A small face peeked around the edge of the chest, tear-stained and topped with a nest of dirty blonde hair. “Promise?” the girl asked.

“Promise. Do you know where all the grown-ups went?”

“The church,” the girl said. “The bad men came and took the adults to the church.” She sobbed again.

“Your parents as well?” Clive asked.

The girl nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.

“All right,” Clive said. “I’ll look for them too. You stay right here. Can you do that?”

A nod. Clive tried not to think of the last time he tried to comfort a child that small. He didn’t waste any more time, but ducked back to ground level. Torgal followed at his heels, vigilant but not reacting to any imminent threats.

The church was built in the Imperial style, on the highest point of land in the village. There were proper stone walkways leading up to it, a marked contrast to the rough boardwalks surrounding the houses. Despite the damp air, the stones were clear of moss and lichen. The villagers here cared for the church. That was all the clearer when Clive entered. The heavy pews and the statue of Greagor had been upturned and smashed, but they had been well-made pews and a fine white marble statue.

As far as Clive was concerned, its very presence here boded ill. Whatever Cid said about friends, the faith of the wyrm was rarely kind to Bearers.

Below, a familiar voice shouted, “Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!”

Clive had thought he was joking.

Chapter Text

“I thought you were joking,” Clive said, when he pulled up at the end of the tunnel that had been hidden under a church trapdoor. Beneath the well-cared-for stone was some sort of…jail. Every village, no matter how small, needed some way to deal with miscreants.

Cid stood in front of the open door, Royalist corpse at his feet, unconscious peasant at his feet, and a blond man with Northern braids by his side. “Who’s this, then?” the blond asked.

“Gav, Clive,” Cid said. “Clive, Gav.”

“Is he…? This Gav’s question trailed off. Suspicious blue eyes darted to the remnants of his Imperial-made armour. The rest of the question didn’t need to be said aloud.

“He’s fine,” Cid said. “Go on.”

Another apprehensive glance and Gav turned to Cid instead. “Anyway. The Waloeders came and hauled off all the Bearers. Wanted us to know that the Bearers, at least, were ‘worth keeping’. Don’t know where they went, they were careful not to mention it in front of us.” He had a strong Northern accent, stronger by far than Jill’s.

“Was there a Dominant among them?” Clive asked.

“Dunno. Not like they’ve got a sign on them. They took two without brands -”

There was a clank and a gasp behind them. Clive turned to see a Royalist soldier approaching from the other end of the tunnel.

He only had time to think who builds a jail with two exits before the Royalist was running. Clive tore off after him. Unlike Clive, however, this man was clearly fresh from a rest and a decent meal, and not carrying all his travel supplies with him. They were about the same speed over the ground. Clive, a little faster even with his disadvantages. But the Royalist fled with purpose. Clive wished for Torgal, but of course the wolf couldn’t handle the ladder down from the church. Torgal would have to go around.

They tore through the woods, Clive losing ground again as he struggled with roots and ridges underfoot. He lost sight of the Royalist, still clearly sprinting through the woods with a goal in mind. A Royalist camp.

Somewhere ahead, he could hear laughter. Both men and women, one of the women coughing and cursing about Imperial swill. It stopped when the sound of running stopped.

And then Clive barreled into the clearing - the camp - as well.

The woman in the centre, wineskin still in hand, was the one Cid had said was King Barnabas Tharmr’s chief intelligencer. She looked him up and down, not so very different from Cid’s scout Gav. “Well, well,” she drawled, in Sanbrequois, “an Imperial Bearer.”

Clive drew his sword.

Benedikta Harman turned to the soldier who’d led him here. “Fool,” she said. To the bearded man next to her, in Ashtongue, she said, “I’ll meet you at Caer Norvent. Secure the Dominant.”

So they did have a Dominant. He’d just have to cut down Harman and her squad first.

She switched back to Sanbrequois again as she said, “I think I’d like to have a little fun, first.”

The aether in the clearing stirred. Clive felt it like a breeze against his skin. Then he felt the air move with it. More than just a lowly Bearer alone could command.

Harman was a Dominant. The Dominant of Garuda. The people of Storm had long since lost track of Garuda’s Dominant, since the previous one had died fighting against the Holy Empire more than forty years ago. And here Clive had found her, when he was tired and ill-prepared.

There was no way Cid hadn’t known what Harman was. He’d known the woman on sight.

But there wasn’t time. It was all practice, he told himself. All practice he would need when he faced the monster that killed his brother.

Harman laughed as Clive struggled to keep his footing in the gale she conjured. Even while she buffeted him, a smaller and more intense gale formed near her, a glowing shape forming in the tornado. At last, Clive felt her release the spell. A too-slender woman made of wind hovered before him, faceless, with sharp wings and even sharper claws.

The wind-spirit lunged for him, darting around the clearing, as quick as the wind that spawned her. “Dance, Chirada!” Harman called merrily, Waloed accent thick with mirth.

A dance, was it?

Clive centred himself. It was hard to stay steady when he called on Phoenix flame; fire always wanted to move. Harman, and her creation, were stronger than he was. He had to fight smart. Even the powerful could grow sloppy.

The spirit Chirada swept at him again. At the last instant Clive stepped aside with the flames and let Chirada’s own momentum cut her open on his sword. The spirit screamed as it laid her open all along her side. Aether spilled over the clearing rather than blood. Chirada rushed at him, leaving Clive to parry frantically at a flurry of slashing blows.

It wasn’t a smart construct. Fast as she was, every strike was horizontal. Clive angled his blade, deflecting everything away from him. She was too fast for him to take advantage of the openings, but if he could withstand a little longer -

Chirada shrieked in frustration and pain and lunged at him again. And that was an opening Clive could use. This time, when he let Chirada cut herself open on his sword, he took an entire wing. Chirada’s spiraling charge spun out of control. The severed wing dissolved into another gust of aether. Chirada screamed like the howl of a gale. Her next desperate charge knocked Clive off balance, and the slash that followed it left a scratch in the chestplate of his armour. Clive brought his sword around, pommel first, and punched Chirada away from him.

Finally, the spirit started to dissolve. Behind him he heard more running feet and a bark from Torgal. A bolt of lightning crashed down and finished off Chirada.

When the spots cleared from his vision, Benedikta Harman was standing on a ridge above them, glaring down at Cid with a ferociousness that had to come from familiarity. “Look who’s here to save the day,” she said. “Always the gallant, aren’t you, Lord Commander? Is this how you recruit all your charges?”

Clive wanted to look back quite badly. He didn’t dare take his eyes off Harman. 

Since he himself was dressed as an Imperial, he’d bet she was trying to sow some division between them, possibly distract him long enough to hit him or Cid with another spell. That Cid was a Waloeder he’d already guessed, but Lord Commander? It did make sense of Cid’s knowledge and skills. Whatever Cid had once been, he’d helped Clive - and more importantly, helped Jill. Even if Clive had questions, he was not going to turn on the man here and now when faced with a Dominant who’d already set a wind monster on him.

But Cid was already replying. “I don’t recall you complaining.”

“Tell me - what made you decide to leave? To sneak off like a thief in the night? To betray our king?”

“I was tired of your king’s shenanigans,” Cid snapped. “His promises are as false as his dreams are twisted. I want nothing to do with him. He’s lying to you too, I’ll wager.”

“How dare -” Harman began, even the feathered collar of her coat seeming to stand on end in aether-charged outrage. She was only interrupted by a Royalist soldier arriving at her side, out of breath.

“My lady,” the woman gasped. “The Dominant - your help - needed -”

Harman knew her priorities. With a final irritated glare, she blasted Cid with a gust of wind so powerful its slipstream buffeted Clive, blinding them both, and vanished into the woods on her own personal tailwind.

Clive moved to start after her, but he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. “Wait,” Cid said.

“She’s going to get away,” Clive growled. After they’d just confirmed there was a Dominant wherever she was going.

“She’s not,” Cid said. “She’s going to interrogate a prisoner. She’ll be holed up wherever she is for a while yet, but if she’s here for information she won’t have many people with her. She’ll have to keep her prisoners close by. Gav’s already out looking at Caer Norvent - best place for that sort of business within a day’s march, if you can take it, and some tracks heading in that direction too. You and I, we need to rest.”

He looked into the darkness where Harman had fled. He was so close.

“Clive,” Cid said, not without sympathy. “Let’s go back to the village. Get some food in you. Learn what we can about who was taken. Leave Gav to his business, eh? He’s the one with the nose for it.”

His armour felt like it was going to drag him to the centre of the earth. A steady ache pounded between his eyes. He’d felt worse, but…

“All right,” Clive said.

“Good decision. We’ll stand more of a chance this way.”

Cid was right, Clive knew he was right, but it still felt wrong.

—

The mood in the tavern was high on both relief and anxiety. Relief for the people who had returned. Anxiety for the people still missing. Cid might not agree with everything Quinten did or how he did it, but only a fool would deny he ran a village that embraced Bearers.

More importantly right now, and something Cid could definitely approve of, Quinten had broken out a barrel of entirely decent wine (he sold the good stuff) as well as the usual ale, and most of the adults of Lostwing were busy getting drunk. Exactly the sort of thing he liked for a touch of information gathering. “So,” he said, passing out some more ale. “A Dominant, then.”

“As if we’d keep a monster like that under our roof,” one man said. Then he realised who he was talking to and added, “No offense.”

Cid waved it off. There were plenty of Bearers out there who didn’t consider Dominants to be like them at all. He could see where they were coming from. It did no good to take it personal-like.

“So the two without a brand who got picked up…”

“Skinny lad in a deep hood. Seemed sickly. His woman did most of the talking. Royalists picked her up first and he went along with them meek as a lamb after that.”

Cid grunted. “See either of them use any magic?”

“I did,” a woman said. “My husband was having trouble with his kiln. The lad fixed it for us, no crystal, as easy as you please. The woman glared something awful after that and got him straight to the inn.”

His understanding was controlling a fire’s temperature with any sort of precision took considerable skill, almost as bad as making lightning strike where he commanded. Lacking Tomes to consult, he could try Clive. The man knew his own fire magic well. A few more villagers thought they’d seen the hooded man summon a flame to see by. None of them had seen him raise a hand to fight.

Cid didn’t like the sound of that. Dominant or not, the reports he had of this fire mage was that he was a strong fire mage. Strong and cautious was not a combination he liked in mystery mages. Unless they were working for him.

When he’d got all he could out of the villagers, he went to go find Clive. He’d expected him to be moping at the bar or in some dark corner. Instead he was out helping some of the more industrious folks of Lostwing dismantle a barricade the Royalists had inconsiderately left behind. He’d gone so far as to light a little fireball like the one the other villagers had described the maybe-Dominant as using, casting a little section of road in surprisingly steady, surprisingly warm light. 

It did wonders illuminating the deep shadows under Clive’s eyes.

“Excuse me, good people, I’m just going to borrow Clive here…”

“Oh, please do,” one older man said. “He’s been working himself to the bone. Better help than most Imperials we’ve seen around here. Tell Quinten he’s earned his keep and then some.”

Clive said nothing. He swayed on his feet a little, then lit a nearby torch for the villagers with a flick of his hand. Cid took the general lack of protest as agreement. “Come on, Clive, off we go.”

“The road’s clear,” Clive said. He sounded half dazed and entirely exhausted. “We could go to Caer Norvent.”

“And arrive dead tired while all the Royalists are just getting up nice and fresh from their breakfasts? Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.”

The cheerful little fireball followed Clive as they headed down the quiet road back to the inn. A blessing of the Phoenix. “You know,” Cid said, taking a risk, “Revenge won’t bring him back.”

The warm campfire-like light immediately dulled to a sullen, angry red. A dying ember - or a banked coal. Clive’s voice was slow and almost dreamy as he replied, testament to how hard he’d worked in the past few hours, thick with loathing. “Thirteen years ago…I watched as a monster killed my brother. It grabbed his wings and pulled him apart. Like you would pull apart a pheasant at dinner. And I did nothing.”

Cid tried to imagine it. Most reports said that the Phoenix was one of the smaller Eikons, but it was still an Eikon. You could feel the power rolling off them. At least that had always been the case when he saw Odin, Garuda, and Bahamut up close. For something to just pick up an Eikon and rip it apart…

“All these years - I have drunk from gutters, lost count of the people I’ve killed, used my brother’s gift to hurt people - but now I have a chance. I can kill that son of a bitch. Bring peace to my brother’s soul.”

“And after?” Cid asked.

Clive shrugged. “Whatever happens can happen.”

But the fireball stayed an angry dull red. Whatever fury fuelled it wasn’t going away.

“You’re content to be a slave to fate?” Cid asked.

For that, Clive had no answer. Might be he was too tired for philosophy. At least he didn’t fight Cid as he guided him to the corner of the inn floor Quinten had generously allowed them to occupy for the evening. Nothing fancy, but a warm spot by the fire was nothing to turn your nose up at. Clive didn’t sneer at it either. Just propped himself up on a wall. Delicate noble sensibilities had been beaten out of him, that much was clear.

Now it was a question of whether he could get Clive to take care of himself. Everything Cid had seen so far - the rare flashes of humour, how he cared for the dog, the time he took to help, whether it was cooking dinner or dismantling a barricade - whatever his violent past, he was a good kid at heart. That anger could be pointed in a more useful direction. He deserved better.

Something told him that Clive wasn’t going to get better. And wasn’t that, too, fate?

—

It wasn’t the Dominant who’d been causing the trouble, Benedikta realised when she reached Caer Norvent. It was his little friend. Ropes and guards had not been enough. Not the usual sort of peasant, it seemed. “Gag her, chain her, and bring her up to the Dominant’s cell,” she ordered. Hopefully her presence would make the Dominant more cooperative.

She took her time making her way up to the high tower room they were using as accommodation for their guest. Better to give him time to think on what might happen to his companion.

Not that the Dominant looked like much either. Stripped of his hood he was a bony, delicate thing with a mop of hair so dirty there was no telling whether it was brown or blond, and bright blue eyes. As birdlike as the Phoenix he’d killed. Probably in his early twenties - he would have been a child at Phoenix Gate. A squire or page, most likely, dragged along with the ducal retinue. Benedikta could imagine it, how the boy must have panicked when the Phoenix primed and then lashed out at the source of his fear.

Tied to the room’s only chair, he hung limp in his bonds and simply waited. Well then. If she wasn’t going to outwait him, she needed to make the first move.

“It’s not a bad deal I’m offering, you know,” she said.

The Dominant didn’t move. Instead, he started to - hum?

It took a few seconds before she recognised the tune. The bards were playing it from here to Oriflamme, after all. The Lay of Prince Dion. The cheeky little shit. Maybe there was some spirit to him after all. “Bahamut may lead a hundred full legions,” she said, “but he may be defending a house of cards. Surely you must see the rot in the so-called Holy Empire.”

No response. Not even a musical one. She didn’t have time for this nonsense. No matter what she said about a house of cards, the Imperials would not ignore Caer Norvent and its silent garrison forever. Not to mention Cid lurking around. With a new pet, no less.

“You have the power to slay gods,” Benedikta said. “The Phoenix perished in your flames. But you do not fight, or flee. Join us and you will not need to do either.”

Silence. Patient, watchful silence.

Benedikta stepped forward and slid her sword into the bound woman’s flesh in the same motion. The woman groaned, then stifled it. The Dominant’s back stiffened. Definitely a lever there, but not one she could push too hard. The servant only had so much blood to lose.

“With us, you will be treated with the respect our kind deserves,” she said. “Whatever you desire can be yours. My king gives his personal guarantees. If you will just meet with him…”

The Dominant looked down at his companion, bleeding on the floor. The woman looked up at him and shook her head. And the Dominant said nothing.

“I see you need some more time to consider your options,” Benedikta said.

She gave the woman another long, bloody cut on her way out. Hopefully it would speed this whole process up.

Chapter Text

Clive dreamed disturbing dreams, full of fire and screaming and the people he’d cut down over the years, and woke disoriented in the misty pre-dawn. Cid was still asleep next to him, spread out as if the splintery floorboards were a stack of feather pillows. Clive shook himself fully awake and eased himself past the other man. It was clear enough that they wouldn’t be going anywhere until Cid was good and ready. Clive might as well take the time for morning ablutions.

The cold-eyed innkeeper, Cid’s friend Quinten, pointed him in the right direction. Chilly as the man’s manner was, Clive had heard the love and respect with which the villagers spoke of him.

When he returned, a bowl of hot porridge was set in front of him. “Thank you,” Clive said.

“While you are here, you will be treated with respect,” Quinten said. “I appreciate what you did last night. Both with the Royalist camp and with the barricade.” His voice was no warmer for his words, but they didn’t need to be. 

Clive ate his food without comment.

Cid only woke when Gav returned, the scout breathing hard and half covered in mud. He must have run half the night. “It’s Caer Norvent all right, Cid,” he reported. “Looks like the Royalists ambushed the Imperials. They’ve taken the keep.”

“Well, they won’t be here to stay, they can’t possibly hold it,” Cid said. He had his own bowl of porridge now. Clive’s fingers itched. He wanted to go. “We’d better get moving.”

“What’s the plan?” Gav asked.

“Simple enough. Clive here and I are going to sneak in and make a bit of a distraction. You, Gav, you will stay outside and guide any Bearers we free to safety.”

Gav scowled and shot a glare at Clive. “Why him and not me?”

“You’d really trust Clive to lead freed Bearers through the country? Gav, I need someone with good sense for this job.” Clive just barely caught Cid’s wink. “Good sense and a good nose. Clive would probably just trundle right over a cliff.”

To bolster Cid’s argument, Clive said, “My unit was stationed in Caer Norvent for a time. I’m familiar with the keep.”

That got him a sharp glance from Cid. Right. Cid might even know what had brought him to Caer Norvent. But Gav leaned backwards, appeased, a broad smile on his face at the praise. “Well, in that case,” he said. He pointed at Clive. “You look after him, though.”

They set off in less than half an hour after that. It eased something in Clive’s chest to finally, finally be on the move. Still just him and Cid, with Gav still in Lostwing for a catnap and a meal before taking a different approach to the caer. Clive and Cid were going through the valleys. It meant a steep climb at the end of their trip, but overall they were far less likely to be spotted.

“There’ll be sentries, of course,” Cid said, once they were well away from the village. “So. Familiar with Caer Norvent, are you, Clive? I seem to recall maybe two, three summers back now, one of his High Holinesses was having a few issues with paying a company of Dhalmek mercenaries he’d hired for a little extra security around his supply caravans. They wouldn’t have camped too far from here at all. A bad season for spot wildfires in the woods, though. Lightning strikes and such. Very bad.”

It was minutes before Clive managed to respond. “Yes,” he said. “It was unpleasant for all involved.” Except, perhaps, his High Holiness, who did not, in the end, have to pay his mercenaries.

Cid just grunted. He could hardly be surprised, given where he’d found Clive. Given what he’d found Clive attempting.

“A question for you,” Clive said. “Why would the Royalists take a castle they know they cannot hold?”

It was a question for the Lord Commander. Someone who had been as close to Barnabas Tharmr as Rodney Murdoch had been to Archduke Elwin.

Just as Clive had, Cid took his time replying. It had cleared to be a beautiful morning in this corner of Sanbreque, bright and unseasonably cool. The area was even clear of worgens and beastmen alike. Not a sign of the Blight. At last, Cid said, “The only thing I’m sure of is that King Barnabas is taking this seriously. He wouldn’t send his people here for nothing, he wouldn’t send Benedikta out on a whim, so for him to risk both…I don’t like it.”

“And Harman?” The two had clearly been close at some point.

“Best and worst decision I ever made,” Cid said, far more easily than Clive had expected. “Angry at the world, she is, and everyone in it. Not that I can blame her, mind, she’s had a hard time of things over the years. Doesn’t make her a whit less dangerous. On the contrary. If we tangle with her again, let me handle her.”

As much practice as he wanted fighting Dominants…Cid had already done quite a bit for him. Cid was helping him find the Dominant he most wanted. Clive said, “All right. I’ll follow your lead when it comes to Harman.”

“Appreciated, Clive.”

Another two hours of walking brought them out of the lusher valleys to the scrubby evergreens that dominated this part of Sanbreque. Granite peeked out here and there from thinner soil cover. Many of the trees leaned at strange angles thanks to the area’s high winds. Caer Norvent was in view, two hilltops away, its towers proud against the sky. From here, everything looked fine. Not at all as though Royalists had taken control of the fort and imprisoned a village’s worth of Bearers. 

Cid frowned at the peaceful skyline. “Did you learn anything from the villagers about our Dominant of Fire?” he asked.

“Not much,” Clive admitted. “A description. Not a very good one either.”

“Same. Honestly, it worries me." Cid shook his head. “A Dominant could burn through a company of Royalists without much trouble. But he hasn’t. Hasn’t lifted a finger to fight back, to hear the villagers tell it, trying to protect his partner. Whoever they are, they’re careful, cunning, and level-headed. We can say that much for sure.”

“A problem for us as much as the Royalists.”

“Exactly. They’ve been careful not to be found until now. I can’t help but wonder what’s brought them out of hiding.”

It wasn’t going to be a problem once Clive drove his sword through the Dominant’s guts. Maybe he’d burn them too, give them another taste of Phoenix flame after all these years. He wondered idly who their companion was. Who’d stay by a monster like that. Why.

He supposed that didn’t matter either. If this companion stood in Clive’s way, he would have to cut through her as well.

Once again they lapsed into silence. Cid didn’t seem to mind it. Clive remembered similar marches with the Bastards - Biast never tolerated quiet until he had to. Aevis, though reticent himself, had always taken Wyvern’s silence with unease. This was…pleasant. Whatever they were marching towards, travelling with Cid did remind him of better days.

Despite himself, he found him trusting the man. Maybe that was a bad decision. Cid was, or had been, the Lord Commander of Barnabas Tharmr’s own forces. It was hard to believe anyone would turn their back on that to live in a cave and steal desperate Bearers from all over Storm. He wondered if even Cid knew what he was doing.

They stopped only twice in the last valley before Caer Norvent. Once for a quick rest break, time to refill their waterskins and eat a cold meal of bread and cheese. So much food! Clive hadn’t known plenty like this for thirteen years. The second time was to dispatch some of those sentries Cid had warned of when they set out. Only two, severely outmatched, but they had to take the time to move the bodies from the beaten path and delay the Royalists from finding the corpses just that bit longer.

Even then, they both knew the sentries would be missed. They were now running on borrowed time.

“We should skirt around the west side,” Clive said when they were finished. “There’s a sluice not far from the bridge. Almost impossible to see after sundown.”

“Familiar with the keep indeed,” Cid chuckled. “This is going well, considering.”

Clive focused on the climb and the keep above. Soon, he promised himself. Soon.

—

Benedikta had feared to give this report to her king. Orcs, overrunning the eastern provinces. All their adamantite mines, lost. Thalen itself, the largest town for leagues, lost. With all its smithies. If they could not retake them, their armies would be strangled from within in a matter of years, broken sword by broken sword. The king knew that as well as she did.

But kneeling in the dark halls of Stonhyrr as she gave her accounting, in a pool of candlelight in the king’s own rooms, Barnabas Tharmr had simply sighed. “The dark swallows more of the realm with each passing day. The land starves of its aether. And all people do is flock to the Mothercrystals, starting wars to hasten them to their own destruction.”

Benedikta did not rise. Had her king spoken to Cid like this? This unguarded?

“I have another mission for you,” her king said. “Tell me, what do you know of what the Rosarians call the Night of Flames, and the second Eikon of Fire rumoured to have appeared there?”

Benedikta perched on the edge of Caer Norvent’s Green Tower, enjoying the night breeze whispering around her. The Blight hadn’t reached these lands yet. Up this high, the wind brought her only the scent of the forest in summer. Not so different to the forests outside Stonhyrr. The ones Cidolfus had taken her to while she explored Garuda’s powers for the first time. Back when he could be relied on. Back when he’d said he wouldn’t leave.

She knew better now. He’d taught her well in that respect. 

A scuff of boots on stone interrupted her reverie. “My lady,” Gerulf said.

“What is it?”

“A group of our sentries has failed to report.”

Her anger brought the wind, sudden and strong. How dare Cidolfus. He left her, and he only came back to kill those who stayed loyal? To undo and undermine her work? How dare he?

“Lead him to the chapel,” she said. If Cid was coming, she would lose more troops. There was no way around it short of abandoning everyone, Dominant included, right here. Unacceptable. “I’ll entertain him myself. Deal with his little pet as you see fit.”

She needed to have a little chat with the former Lord Commander. Perhaps she could even…get him to see sense.

—

Interesting, how a man’s life could shape him, Cid thought, trailing in Clive’s surprisingly quiet footsteps. Rare was the noble knight who could slink through the bowels of a keep like this. Most Bearers - most people, full stop - would have made or found a bright light. But Clive’s little floating fireball was a wisp of a thing only enough to show shadows from deeper shadows, barely bright enough to qualify as candlelight. The only time he brightened it was to negotiate a latch over a door, and he dimmed it again straight away.

He hadn’t been lying about knowing the keep, either. As if the sluice hadn’t been proof enough.

“The dungeons are empty,” Clive reported in a whisper.

“That’s hardly going to stop us, is it?” Cid whispered back.

Cid could hardly see a thing in the dark. He didn’t need to see to gauge Clive’s reaction. The ambient aether trembled like the string of a lute.

They pressed on.

At least, until they saw a flicker of light around a corner, followed quickly by a harsh voice reporting, “The traitor Cidolfus Telamon is in the keep! Find him, kill him.”

Wonderful. So Benedikta had noticed her missing sentries. Well. It wasn’t surprising. He glanced over to the patch of darkness where Clive was lurking. “Any way around?” Cid breathed.

Clive shook his head, only a glimpse of movement in the darkness.

“Follow my lead then.”

So he kicked the door open.

“Good news, boys, your search is over!”

While they were all gaping like stunned mullets, Cid charged up a spell. A flame licked around the edges of the room, already herding the four Royalists away from the outer door and back towards Cid, before they even worked out what was happening. One was cut down outright in a blur of burning steel. Cid’s lightning took care of the other three.

Clive peeked around the outer door. “No good. They’re all on alert.” He crossed to a window on the other side of the room. “This way.” He slid through and dropped down without hesitation or stumble. 

“Show off,” Cid said good-naturedly and followed, knowing he would feel it in his knees.

What they fell into would probably feature in Cid’s nightmares whenever he next had the chance to sleep. They’d found the Imperial garrison. No survivors. From the smell of things, there hadn’t been survivors for a few days now. Even to his hardened nose it was bad. The only upside, such as it was, was that the bodies were all too ripe to be the Bearers from the village.

Torchlight flickered on the walls above them. “Patrols are out,” Clive said. “It’s going to be hard to search this place. Harman was waiting for us.”

“We go up,” Cid said. “I think it’s a Garuda thing. Benedikta likes towers.”

“Up,” Clive said. “Right. Follow me. This isn’t going to be easy.”

As promised, it wasn’t. Clive led them up the narrow back stairs, the warrens servants and Bearers used to stay out of the way of their nominal superiors. There were fewer Royalists in those narrow corridors. There weren’t no Royalists there. They just had to kill them as quietly as possible.

At last they reached a large inner courtyard. It wasn’t the functional sort of yard where soldiers might gather to train, even though the Royalists had put it to that purpose. There were raised flowerbeds, wrought iron railings - it was a place to spend time in. All in front of the unbearbly tedious-looking Imperial-style chapel. You’d think the Empire was allergic to building an interesting-looking building outside of Oriflamme.

“The entrances to both towers are through there,” Clive said. “There’s no other way through.”

Cid stared. “That’s the stupidest design I’ve ever heard of.” Everything and everyone would have to go through the single door at the front. Wide a door as it was, it was a single point.

It won another miniscule smile from Clive despite their grim surroundings. 

They could both see that the single point of access was suspiciously unguarded.

“Come on,” Cid said, “Great Greagor must have plans for us.”

Inside was as grand as one would expect given how the castle had been built around this structure. A statue of Greagor all in alabaster towered above the pews, ethereal in the moonlight slanting in through a rare glass window, the scales of her wyrm sculpted in painstaking detail. The goddess herself bore an expression half of peace and half of rapture in this depiction.

It wasn’t to his liking. That expression reminded him too much of…others.

His gaze snapped down to the woman with her back to him, staring up at that expression. Her disgust flickered over her face with the torchlight. “All this effort into venerating false gods,” Benedikta said. “Wasted effort. Their precious Greagor cannot save them.”

“You wanted a chat, then,” Cid said. He waved Clive off. He’d do better out of the way of a fight between Dominants. Promises aside, he had to know that.

“I was waiting,” Benedikta pouted. “We hardly had a chance to talk last night.”

“I’m on business. Looking for some Bearers taken from a nearby village. Wouldn’t happen to know where any of them are, would you?”

The aether in the chapel stirred. Benedikta’s work, familiar from years of training. She’d draw it in slowly, as much as she could hold. When she felt the time was right, she’d unleash it. Not so different from how he preferred to work. Wasn’t surprising.

“You mean the Dominant. King Barnabas will be requiring his services indefinitely.” The words rushed out of her as if she didn’t care about them at all. “You can come back too,” Benedikta said. “Think of the world we could build. I need you.”

For a moment, he would have liked to believe it. But Benna would never, ever genuinely admit she needed someone. She would sooner tear off her own arms. Which meant, even if she did want him back, this was a ploy.

Something else to lay at Barnabas’ feet. A small thing, maybe, but something that mattered to Cid. Benna shouldn’t have ever felt like she needed to use her own pain to win him over.

But if she was that desperate…she wouldn’t back down that easily.

Gathering his own aether, Cid said, “It’s your king who needs me. And I told you before, I don’t want to build the world he’s got in mind.”

“He saved you,” Benedikta said. Real disbelief under the anger. She looked so young. She’d never had the chance to grow up properly, had she? “How can you betray him like that?”

“I don’t owe any loyalty to a man who’d use me,” Cid said. “What about you, then, Benna? You used to want freedom. Surely you know Barnabas is using you too. That’s not freedom. You’re a piece in his plan. What changed?”

Benedikta just laughed at him. “Not free? You think that I’m not free?”

He had to make her see. “Then why are you going round telling me that you need me? What sort of freedom is that?”

Mistake. Bad mistake. The aether draw turned into a sucking vacuum. Almost literally. Even inside, the wind whipped around her, tossing her hair, wrapping around her now-drawn sword. “Stubborn! But if you’re going to stand between my king and his dream, you’re not needed after all!”

She didn’t bother with a mundane fight. Cid met her semi-prime for semi-prime. She’d got faster. Or maybe Cid had got slower. Both could be true. Garuda’s magic washed the colour from her hair and bore her aloft on snowy wings as the shock from their impact flung her backwards. Cid took it better than she did. He had his next spell up and ready. Levinbolt. It would ground even a Dominant.

Benedikta’s wings flared, bringing her to a halt mid-air. She zipped to one side almost too fast to see. Cid tried to pin her with more levinbolts and didn’t get more than a glancing blow.

He didn’t want to kill her. He had to hit her hard enough to stop her, though, and he had to do it fast.

He wasn’t fast enough. She summoned that Chirada of hers when he took just a second too long to summon another levinbolt. It was two against one. He had to take the time to dodge Chirada’s lunge and Benedikta’s winds at the same time, and Benedikta had Suparna as well.

The pair of summons started to draw aether. Cid recognised the spell. “Clive!” Cid called. “Stay out of the way!”

Two massive tornados converged on him. Cid danced around - only for Benedikta to blast him with both wings and a spell. Right in the back.

Cid catapulted forward. He had a moment to look upon the face of stone Greagor and to think this is going to hurt before he hit. It felt like bones shattering. 

Somewhere a long way away, he heard Benedikta order, “Deal with the spare.”

After that, things got a bit fuzzy for a while.

Chapter Text

Two of Harman’s magical creations were more difficult to deal with than one.

“You going to be any help?” Clive yelled at the pile of rubble, narrowly avoiding a scythe-like claw.

“No!” Cid wheezed, just loud enough to be heard.

At least he had Torgal this time. He’d seen Torgal hunt birds before. In the air. Chirada and Suparna weren’t different enough. Torgal dragged them down and Clive sliced them up. Dangerous magical creations they might be, but they weren’t smart and they didn’t fight well as a team. Not better than he and Torgal did, anyway.

When they were at last dissolving into the aether from which they’d been called, Clive rushed over to Cid. The older man was barely starting to pull himself from the wreckage of the statue of Greagor, covered in a thick layer of white stone dust, hacking up blood. He moved like a man thirty years older still.

Still, Cid took one look at him and said, “Benedikta will be going to collect the Dominant. She’s got wings and you don’t.” More blood came out with the words. 

“And you?” Clive asked. He wanted to go - he had to go - but Cid had been as steadfast a companion as any he’d fought with for these last thirteen years. More selfless than any, truth be told, or at least more willing to help him. Now he was hurt. It would be…poor repayment. Something pulled in his chest at the prospect of just leaving the man here. The old headache pounded between his eyes.

Cid asked, “Before or after I catch my breath?”

It was permission enough. Neither of them could afford to wait around here. And if Cid was well enough for sarcasm, he was well enough to drink some potion and actually catch his breath. Dominants weren’t killed so easily.

Clive took off running for the tower. If Harman had wings, she’d be going up. As far up as she could go. Just like Cid had said. Which meant the Dominant they were after would be there as well.

His breath burned in his lungs as he climbed. Torgal kept pace at his side, pink tongue lolling out and coat spattered with blood from earlier. There was more blood soon after that, as Clive cut down a group of Royalists trying to retreat from the caer. There were no Bearers with them other than their own. No sign of the Dominant either.

Up he went.

At last he reached the top of the Green Tower. Unlike the echoes of the tower, all shouts and marching boots, it was quiet up here. There were only a few clouds in the sky, all of them clear of the moon and Metia. In the very distance, just visible on the horizon, was the faint blue glow of Drake’s Head. Harman was waiting for him, perched on the crenellation.

“Where is the Dominant?” Clive said.

“Detained,” Harman repeated. “You didn’t bring Cid? Honestly, I expected more of him.” She twisted around to face him then. “And less of you. You know, my king’s offer extends to all with magic of their own. You could come with me. Find shelter under my wings, little lamb.”

Clive drew his sword. “You know what I want. The Dominant.”

Sure enough, Harman snarled at him. Changeable as the winds. “How dare you make demands of me, Branded? A slave like you who lights petty sparks to throw at cattle, make demands of the next thing this world has to a god?”

Aether wrapped around her. Even though he himself was clumsy with aether other than his brother’s blessing, he’d always had a good sense for it. How it moved. He recognised this by now. She was semi-priming, aether carrying her to that halfway point between human and Eikon. There was nothing he could do to stop her.

She floated above him with a few languid beats of her wide, white wings. Her eyes burned blue. “I think you need a lesson, little lamb.”

Clive braced for impact. But Harman was smart. She didn’t charge him like her creations had. She threw a spell at him. Three vortices of spiraling wind that looked like they could strip a man’s skin off. He dashed left, only to have to throw himself under a vicious swing of Harman’s slim sword. 

So she actually knew how to use it. Great. Just what he needed.

He’d still have the advantage in a swordfight. Still better to engage her that way. He leapt and slashed up at her the best he could, aiming for her wings. To his dismay, when he did get a hit in - at the cost of a bruising blow to his collar - the wound vanished in sparks of aether.

Harman couldn’t keep that up forever, Clive thought grimly. Dominants did not die so easily, but even a Dominant could be worn down.

Clive pressed his attack, trying to stay close and stop her from gaining the room to throw more spells at him. The green glow of her magic lit the tower top as bright as the moon as she gathered more aether. Harman flung him to the ground, hard. Clive managed to get an arm between his head and the unforgiving stone, but before he could recover, Harman dived, talons of solid aether seeking his throat.

Torgal hit Harman from the side an instant before she could tear out his jugular. They went tumbling off to Clive’s left. Clive scrambled to his feet, trying madly to get another good hit or two on Harman before she recovered. The tip of his sword scraped the stone as he drove it through her wing. It healed again. She wrenched around and hit him full in the face with a gust of wind. Clive went flying again. He hit the corner of the tower and fell back to the floor.

For a moment, both of them took the chance to breathe. Neither bloodied, both bruised, both tired.

Torgal lunged at Harman again and the fight was back on.

“Fucking dog!” she shrieked, as Torgal got his jaws around her throat, however briefly. She flung him away as Clive peppered her with fire. “I am done!”

The ambient aether turned to a whirling storm as a green glow built around Harman’s entire body. She flew higher, out of reach of Clive’s sword and Torgal’s leaps. Once again Clive tried to hit her with enough fire to make her stop. But he just wasn’t strong enough. His fire sputtered out in the wind wrapping around Harman, showering her with sparks.

Behind him, he heard masonry creaking.

She was going to bring the turret down on him.

Clive started to gather aether for himself. The Phoenix - the Phoenix could use flame as a shield. Clive didn’t have that trick, but whatever he could blast away from whatever Harman threw at him would give him the best chance. By the time she threw the maelstrom of air and stone at him, he had one of the most ferocious fireballs he’d ever made at his fingertips. He was already moving out of its way, trying to get to the edges of the mass rather than its centre. At the last minute, when the razor edges of the storm were whipping at his exposed skin, he released it.

There was a roaring in his ears, a shower of stone dust, and then the sensation of impact. Again. He was going to be bruised all down his back. If he survived this.

But when the roaring stopped, he was alive. More importantly, Harman was open. “Sic her, Torgal!” he ordered.

Torgal leapt. He caught Harman’s foot and dragged her back down to earth. Clive was ready. His sword cut through her left wing. It came away in a spray of aether and she howled with pain. He smashed the pommel into her face on the way back. While she reeled, he cut her other wing. This time, it didn’t heal. He’d run her out of aether. For the moment.

He didn’t have time to feel triumphant. The headache was pounding in his skull. How long had it been since he’d had one this bad? Something in his chest felt off.

So he levelled his sword to her throat. The sooner this was done, the better. “Now. The Dominant,” he panted.

“How,” Harman spat, “How could a mere Branded -”

“He just brought more conviction,” a familiar voice said from the rooftop entrance.

“You-”

“Come on, Benna,” Cid said wearily, moving to stand next to Clive. “You’ve lost.”

“We’ve played your games,” agreed Clive. “Tell me where he is.”

Harman just glared up at him.

Every minute he spent here was one the Dominant might be hauled to Waloed. Or escaping. He stepped forward, intending to grab her by the collar.

But as he reached out, something pulled inside his chest. Aether started rushing into him. Not the trickle he used to cast spells, but a torrent. No, a tornado. It was - overwhelming, everywhere, all he could see, all he could feel - the wind herself was fleeing Harman and making a home inside his chest - something gave way inside his mind -

There you are.

The scouring pain washed through him, just like it had all those years ago, until Clive mercifully blacked out.

—

The night had not turned out like Cid thought it would, and by the lack of light on the eastern horizon, he still had a few hours of it left.

Clive was writhing on the ground screaming. Benedikta was also on the ground screaming. Torgal wasn’t screaming, or howling, or whatever, but he had his hackles raised and looked like he’d bite the next person to make a loud noise. And then the other tower blew apart in a massive ball of flame.

At least they knew where the Dominant was, Cid thought, less calmly than he would have liked.

Cid tried to keep Clive still, or at least stop him from hitting his head on the stones of the caer or biting his own tongue off. He still ached something terrible from his last fight with Benedikta. Even if Clive had - somehow - fought her down, he couldn’t go another round. They’d have to fight Benedikta together or not at all.

Benedikta was the one who stopped screaming first. There was a wild look in her eyes. In the light of the burning tower she looked almost feral. “I have had it with all of you!” she half-snarled, half-screamed.

Cid braced himself for another blast of wind. This was it. They were going to go off the tower this time -

It didn’t come. He barely felt the draw of aether. The air stirred at Benedikta’s command, but nothing more. Just a gentle summer breeze diverting slightly from its path.

“What -” Benedikta gasped.

Cid looked down, to where Clive was just blinking himself awake. “What happened?” Clive asked groggily, slowly pushing himself upright.

“You tell me,” Cid said.

Benedikta stumbled towards them as if drunk. “No - she’s gone - she’s gone -”

Clive held out a hand. There was a tiny draw on the aether, that efficient spellcasting technique of his. And a gust of wind blew Benedikta backwards.

All three of them stared at Clive’s hand, where the green glow of wind magic still lingered.

This time, Benedikta fully launched herself towards them. “Give her back. Give her back. Give her back give her back -”

A second gust of wind sent Benedikta sprawling almost all the way back to the door. She looked up at Clive, the whites of her eyes huge in her face. “What are you?” she asked.

Damned if Cid knew. From the expression on his face, damned if Clive knew either. He was busy staring at his hand as if he’d never seen it before. Without warning, his legs gave out. Cid tried to haul him back to his feet. He still needed Clive if either of them were going to make it out of this mess.

The door to the tower below burst open, revealing one of Benedikta’s people. Cid didn’t know them anymore. “My lady! We have to leave - the prisoners are escaping - the Imperials will be here in hours -”

But Benedikta wasn’t responding anymore. With a decisiveness Cid approved of, the officer grabbed her and started hauling her downstairs.

Clive, the heavy bastard, was so much dead weight. There would be no catching them even if he wanted to. “Come on,” Cid urged him. “Wondering later. We have to get out of here.”

That startled Clive alert again and no mistake. “The Dominant -”

“Is clearly getting out of here himself,” Cid said. “Or did you think he set the tower on fire just for fun? We’ll have better luck looking for him outside.”

Clive nodded, clearly unhappy. He could be as unhappy as he liked. What mattered now was leaving.

In the chaos of the fire, getting out didn’t mean as much fighting as he’d feared. The Royalists had scattered, only a few fighting a rearguard action in the tower to aid Benedikta’s escape. Most of them were dead, as far as Cid could tell. There was no sign of the Bearers in the castle either. He hoped they’d made it out. Wasn’t much else he could do for them but hope at this point.

By the time they made their way back through the sluice they’d entered through, the sun was coming up at last. Behind them, Caer Norvent smoked sullenly but was no longer aflame. More worryingly, there were Imperials on the way. The gleam of bright silver armour shone through the trees. On the way, and getting close.

“We better get out of here before they assume we did anything like blowing up a castle,” Cid said. “But while we have a minute…how are you with wind magic?”

Clive frowned. “I’ve never used it before today. I’ve always been a poor mage.”

“Chocobo shit,” Cid said immediately. “I’ve seen you use fire.”

“I can use my brother’s blessing just fine. It’s everything else I can’t use. Trust me. After my father outlawed conscripting Bearers into the Rosarian army, we trained every mage we could. I couldn’t even manage to use the most basic spells with a crystal, and the Blessing of the Phoenix grants only fire.”

That…was exceedingly strange. “No element is easy to master,” Cid said, “but from what I saw of watching Benedikta practice over the years, the winds are wilder than most. And you blew Benedikta across that roof like it was nothing.”

The frown turned inwards. There was a tiny draw of aether, and a stirring of the breeze. Less aether and a gentler breeze than Benedikta had ever favoured, but familiar all the same. “I can feel them,” Clive said. “The winds. With the flames. Inside.”

Useful as it was, it made Cid uneasy. He didn’t understand it. He’d never done well with things he didn’t understand. Worse, who was to say that Clive couldn’t take Ramuh from him?

Now that was an idea he didn’t want to put to the test.

“Keep it in mind,” Cid said. “Might be useful, if people hereabouts have been hearing about a Dominant of Fire. Nobody expects them to show up wielding the winds like that. I’d hate to have to sort out any misunderstandings.”

“Understood.”

First, they needed to find Gav. Cid made for the highest hill he could see nearby, with the best view over the caer. The sort of place he might find a man with a nose for information. And conveniently enough, not the closest hill to the road.

Sure enough, they didn’t even have to look for Gav. They were hardly halfway up the hill when Gav slipped out of the undergrowth. “There you are,” he said. “I was getting worried. What the hell happened?”

“Oh, you know, just a little scrap with the Dominant of Garuda.”

“What? Cid!”

Cid let Gav fuss for a few seconds. It wouldn’t do the man harm. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said, once he’d had his thirty seconds of being upbraided for carelessness. Nearly as bad as Otto, Gav was. “Did the Bearers escape?”

“A bunch ran out not long after the tower went up. Saw a woman who matched the description the villagers gave of the un-Branded the Royalists took leading them out, but couldn’t get close enough to confirm. No sign of her friend that I saw. Could have missed him.”

Clive swore. He had a look in his eyes Cid had seen before, ready to gnaw off his own leg to chase down what he wanted all unfettered, and never mind the bleeding wound. He really did remind Cid of Benedikta in some ways. The Benedikta he’d known years ago and thrown to Barnabas Tharmr instead of helping.

But Gav spoke first, before Cid could stick his self-pitying foot firmly in his mouth. “Easy there,” Gav said. “Just because we’ve lost him for now doesn’t mean he’ll stay lost. I’ll go look for him. On your account.”

That stopped Clive in his tracks. Cid quietly breathed a sigh of relief, even though Clive looked like he’d been punched in the guts. Amazing what kindness could do to a man starved of it. “Why?” Clive asked.

Gav’s answering smile was tight and grim. “Cid may have mentioned your name. Can’t say I’m all that fond of Rosfields, but I know Imperials did for your pa. They did for mine as well. Sometimes revenge is all that keeps you going.”

While Clive tried to process that, Gav jogged off. Cid clapped his hands. “Right,” he said. “It’s been a long evening. Time for a nap, I think.”

“A nap? Now?"

“Same argument as yesterday, Clive,” Cid said, settling himself down at the base of a tree. Not the worst place he’d ever slept by a long shot, though his aching bones would regret it in the morning. Afternoon. Whenever he woke. Still, he had to set a good example for the youth, didn’t he?

Besides, if he was right about Clive, he wouldn’t go charging off and leave Cid alone in Imperial territory. Not a proper rest for him, but better than tearing all over the countryside.

Clive shot him a disgusted look. “I’ll take watch,” he said.

It was at least one thing that had gone to plan in the last half day, Cid thought.

—

Daylight.

Somewhere in Sanbreque.

Leaning on Gerulf’s shoulder.

Endless emptiness where Garuda once was.

“No…”

“My lady, please, try to focus. We need to get out of here.”

Benedikta did as she was asked. She knew better. She had to - had to stay alert, stay aware of her surroundings. Cidolfus had drilled that into her. Long ago. Sunlight filtered down through the trees. Birds were singing. The smell of smoke was in the air. A burning castle. The winds were - the winds were -

“What happened to that creature?”

“What creature?”

“The one with Cid.”

“The…wolf?”

“Fucking dog,” Benedikta mumbled. There was an ache in her ankle where it had seized her and dragged her to the ground at the last. It was nothing compared to the gaping wound inside. “The one that looked like an Imperial Bearer.”

She shivered as she said it. That thing could not have actually been an Imperial Bearer. It could not have been a human at all. She’d felt it when it tore Garuda from her. Infinite, mindless hunger. It wanted, so it took. The blackness between the stars in the skin of a man.

She had to get Garuda back from the creature. She didn’t know how. She just had to.

Somewhere far away, Gerulf was still speaking. “- no sign of Telamon or his companion. No sign of pursuit at all.”

“Imperials?” Benedikta asked.

“We’ve seen scouts to the east. I recommend making for Dhalmekia through the Greatwood to the south. We should be able to take ship for home there.”

Home. Where her king waited. Her king, who would…if she didn’t have Garuda…he would cast her out. How could she serve him like this? She couldn’t. She couldn’t face him - she wouldn’t, not until she’d proven herself again after such a grievous loss. “No,” she said. “No, we need to go north.” She had to go back. She had to find the creature who’d stolen Garuda from her.

Gerulf looked over his shoulder at one of the soldiers behind her. “North is risky, my lady,” he said.

“North,” Benedikta repeated.

They turned a different direction in the endless Sanbrequois forest. Benedikta slipped in and out of awareness. Half a day ago she had been a goddess, or the next thing to it. Now she struggled to put one foot in front of the other.

At last she could walk no further. Her chest felt like it had been split apart. Her mind and heart burned every time she reached for the winds. Benedikta fell to her knees in the dirt.

Gerulf was at her side in an instant. “My lady, we -”

There was a wet thunk. Hot blood sprayed on the side of her face. She turned to see Gerulf slumping next to her, a hand axe through his skull, as very far away men laughed.

Benedikta looked up. There were men advancing on her. A fireball blasted one of her other soldiers off his feet. Another axe took out a third. Their attackers were still laughing. “Look what we’ve got here,” one said.

“Stay away,” Benedikta said. She tried to reach for the winds again. When that didn’t work, she tried to push herself back. Gerulf’s body flopped in the dirt next to her. His eyes were already glazed in death.

“She’ll fetch a good price,” one bandit said.

No. No! She would not go back - could not go back. Cid had saved her from this. He’d left them lying dead for laying a hand on her and taught her how to make it so it never happened again.

Cid had left her. He’d led the thing that stole Garuda right to her - stood by while it ripped the heart from her. He wasn’t coming back.

Everything she’d worked for. Everything she wanted. It was going to be taken from her.

Benedikta reached inside, into the ragged and bleeding wound that had been torn into her mind, and screamed.

Chapter Text

Even after Clive took his own turn to rest, at Cid’s flat insistence, there was no sign of Gav. More importantly, there was no sign of the Dominant. Just lots of Imperials. Hardly an hour went past where there wasn’t a new patrol on the road below.

They trekked north, making towards the more populous areas of Sanbreque. That was the most likely path for the Dominant to take. Not that they saw any sign of him. Clive couldn’t believe it. They’d been so close.

“That sort of power can’t hide forever,” Cid said, in an attempt to be reassuring. “I’ve had reports of him for years, I just haven’t been chasing them up. Nor has Gav, and he’s the best of the best. He will be found, you know.”

Clive didn’t reply. Thirteen years he’d waited.

He knew he was snappish even putting aside the fury of the Dominant escaping them. He was on edge and then some. Deep in his chest, alongside his brother’s flames, the winds were whirling. They felt like - like part of him. Ingrained in his soul now. They came as quickly to his command as fire, natural as an extension of his arm.

Magic didn’t work like that. He wasn’t even a true Bearer. He had no magic of his own. Moreover, he had no idea what he’d done and he didn’t like the idea of, of some sort of Blessing of Garuda or whatever this was just making itself at home inside him, as if it could compare to the gift and the honour his brother had given him.

He knew Cid didn’t believe him about being a terrible mage. And if Cid thought Clive couldn’t see the mix of curiousity and calculation on his face, he wasn’t half as clever as Clive thought he might be.

“Five days to Northreach from here,” Cid said. “There are a couple people we can ask. I’m not letting him go this time either. Not after blowing up half of Caer Norvent.”

Clive had just opened his mouth to remind Cid of Phoenix Gate - far more than just half destroyed - when a strange sensation ripped through him. A massive disturbance in the air and the aether. Clive’s head snapped up. Where -

“You feel that too?” Cid asked. He was looking in the same direction. Northeast.

“It’s Garuda,” Clive said. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. He knew it like he could see the sky was blue. Easier, even, because he didn’t have to look to know it was Garuda.

Although - the sky wasn’t blue anymore. Not to the north. Even as they watched, the wind picked up over the hill opposite them, ripping twigs and dust into the air and turning the sky a dark and dusty grey-brown. A spiral of clouds started to form. Aether followed it, invisible but no less powerful for that.

“What’s she doing?” Cid whispered.

Something sounded in his thoughts. A voice. He thought it might be calling his name. It rang like a bell over the wind in his ears. Come, Mythos.

He couldn’t look away from the aether storm. Somewhere in there was…he didn’t know. Something he needed.

Come.

“She’s drawn in too much aether,” Cid said. “If she isn’t stopped, she’ll build a hurricane that’ll swallow the entire forest.” His eyes were wide and he was clutching at his left arm. He hadn’t been moving well today, either.

“Right,” Clive said. “Then I’ll stop her.”

“You’ll stop her?”

“I heard it again. Someone’s calling me.” On the wind, in the fire. He had to know. He didn’t even wait.

Behind him, Cid called, “Damn it, lad, that doesn’t mean you have to follow!”

Clive didn’t listen to him. They were just about in Sanbreque’s western highlands now, cool even in summer and studded with rocks. He crested the hill where the hurricane was building to find a windswept plateau.

He’d seen this on maps before. The Dragon’s Aery.

“I don’t think you understand,” Cid panted, having run to catch up with him. “Benedikta’s rage is boundless on a good day. I don’t want to know what’s waiting inside of that.”

Cid didn’t have to say what that was. The hurricane grew taller and darker by the minute, a black and grey pillar in the sky. “I do. I have to find out. I’m not turning back.” It was still calling him.

Whatever was happening up ahead, it was summoning wind elementals to hover, shrieking, over the plateau. 

“A dozen Chirada,” Cid grunted, after cutting one of them down. “Gods of the Circle, lad, you’re putting us both through the wringer here. I’m getting too old for this.”

Clive raised his eyebrows. Cid favoured his right arm and was not as limber as he’d been the day before, as he’d implied, but he was still near as dangerous. He clearly preferred to use magic from a distance, but he was no slouch with his sword, darting in and out in the Waloeder style. He was precise and efficient. Favouring one arm hardly seemed to matter when every cut hit something important.

“Too old for this doesn’t mean completely decrepit,” Cid added, when he noticed Clive’s expression.

Whoever was calling him was calling from the steep path ahead, where plateau turned to cliff and an abandoned keep loomed over the edge - the precursor to Caer Norvent, back when the borders had been different. There was still a narrow stair leading upwards.

And at the base, there was a slender figure wearing hooded robes. 

It had been thirteen years, but Clive knew who - what - that person was. “Wait!” he shouted, hoping they would hear him.

“Clive?” Cid asked, still behind him, Torgal at his side. “That him?”

“I’ve seen him every night for the past thirteen years. Watched as the flames from his Eikon took Joshua.” His voice broke on his brother’s name.

Above them, a chunk of masonry broke loose. Clive felt another, yet another, impact on his back. This time it was Torgal, springing forward to shove Clive out of its path. He caught himself before his chin met the path, but the narrow route was blocked. “Torgal! Cid!”

“Fine! The dog’s fine!” Cid called back. “Go on ahead! Not like I can stop you.”

Clive rested his head against the stone for a second. “Forgive me,” he said.

When he turned, the hooded man was still there, standing in a fiery aura seemingly untouched by the wind. Clive started to run. Higher and higher, up to the top of the ruined castle. Every time he thought he was catching up, the winds would blow something between them, Clive would lose sight of him, and when he looked back the hooded man would be in the distance again.

At last he reached what had been some sort of courtyard, flat and clear. A shriek of laughter rang in the air and Clive ducked on reflex. He barely evaded the massive talons.

“You won’t stop me, Garuda!” he hollered into the wind.

In the maelstrom, he could only see a vast shape as she sped off. She was toying with him. He wasn’t even here for her.

The hooded man waited at the edge of the courtyard, back to a cliff, face still shrouded in cloth and shadow.

Clive drew his sword. “You called me,” he said. “Why?” What could the man who killed Joshua want from him?

A downdraft almost slammed him into the ground. Garuda followed.

The progenitor of the lesser wind spirits was many times their size. Her face was Harman’s - or was Harman the one who resembled Garuda? Her mouth, stretched open in a wide smile, was filled with sharp teeth. Her talons were longer than his forearm and sharper than his sword.

Part of his mind asked how he was supposed to fight this creature. Another part of him, in the depths of his soul, felt little but a stony determination. Who knew how much damage had been done to the forest? Who knew how many people, caught on the roads, had been hurt by this gale?

And most of all, Garuda was between him and his answers.

Clive bared his teeth and summoned fire. Garuda’s own winds whispered to him how they might carry those flames. He flung them into the gales and watched as they splashed and scorched Garuda’s skin. Her scream of rage shook the already-trembling heavens.

She tried to grab at him. Clive danced backwards, then thrust forward to bloody her talon. She would not kill him so cheaply.

She wouldn’t kill him at all, something in Clive said.

A gust of wind caught him off balance. Strong enough to send him spinning in the air. Clive abandoned the flames and reached for the winds fully. With them at his command he could stay aloft longer.

His feet found Garuda’s arm. Clive clung on for his life. He had a better idea than just stabbing wildly.

Before Garuda could adjust to what should be nothing more to her than a fly, Clive used the winds to help propel himself up to her face. He had an instant to see the madness there before he drove his sword home. Aether sprayed everywhere. Garuda started to fall. Clive rolled clear as she did, feeling every scrape and windburn.

When he stood, Garuda was out of sight. There was no sign of the hooded man. Gone again, just when Clive had thought he’d found him.

Clive stood there and hated.

He turned away from the cliff’s edge to return to Cid and Torgal and admit yet another failure. 

There was a rumbling from below. Then a roar. Then a scream.

Garuda burst from the ground and seized Clive, taloned hands wrapping around his lower body. She held him so tight her talons cut into her own skin while she tried to crush him.

She brought him up to the level of her remaining eye and smiled as the missing one regenerated with another surge of aether. She squeezed.

Through the pain, Clive felt little but anger. How dare she. What gave her the right? What gave her the right to stand between him and his answers, out of nothing more than mindless rage and spite?

Something in his heart sparked and something in his mind twinged.

With the only breath Garuda would allow him to draw, Clive shouted up at her: “You are nothing but a monster, and I will not let you stand in my way!”

Awaken, something said, echoing in his mind. Ifrit.

His soul cracked open. The world dissolved into fire.

—

This was out of control.

Cid had been just far enough away not to get caught in the obscene wave of dry heat that had spilled from Clive’s form as he scorched Garuda to the bone, and just close enough to see. Clive’s form looked like nothing so much as a jagged, moving mountain of coal and stone bursting into flame. Aether burned and Cid recognised the prime for what it was.

Clive was a Dominant. The very Dominant he’d been chasing, it seemed.

What a mess.

The Eikon, whatever it was, was about the same size as Garuda. Horned and clawed, bestial in shape, he spat flame at the most immediate threat. Garuda, regenerating the wounds to her hands, screamed and tried to blast Clive’s Eikon back. Clive wasn’t having that. He dashed forward on a wave of fire and started punching.

Garuda got a few hits in. Once, she managed to tear a ragged gash in Clive’s stomach. Clive looked down at it, snarled, and regenerated it. Then he kept hitting. The claws came out. All wreathed in fire.

All that anger. Cid had seen it, but until now it hadn’t been unleashed. Not fully.

“Control it, Clive!” Cid shouted. “Come on! Think!”

The Eikon didn’t stop. Watching it fight Garuda was more than Cid could bear. Ripped apart like like a pheasant at dinner. Gods of the Circle. Clive hadn’t been wrong.

Only Clive wouldn’t stop.

Benedikta had been dead since she started that hurricane. Cid knew that. There was no coming back from a spell that big. Still, watching the second Eikon of Fire, Bane of the Phoenix, tear Garuda apart…wasn’t easy.

Garuda soon lay dead in the bottom of the smoking crater, form dissolving into aether and Benedikta’s corpse, and now Clive was looking around for another target.

He caught sight of Cid at the edge of the crater.

Nothing for it. Cid didn’t wait around. He primed. Fully.

Ramuh’s form cloaked his own. Divine power, Barnabas had always said. Cid wasn’t sure about divine, but it wasn’t human. Ramuh thought differently from Cidolfus Telamon, that was for sure. Where Cid had seen only rage, Ramuh Lord of Insight saw something else entirely. Ramuh’s thoughts were not meant for mortals, though, even when they resided in Cid’s head.

First things first was making sure Clive didn’t go on a rampage elsewhere. Ramuh summoned a cage of lightning.

Clive snarled and summoned a flame. Noticeably weaker than anything he’d thrown at Garuda; he had to be tired. Hopefully also less willing to fight Cid.

This had to be over in the first blow. Cid couldn’t hold this for very long at all anymore.

He was fresher than Clive, at least. He brought a levinbolt crashing down on the other Eikon and when the smoke cleared, it was just Clive left. Human shaped and everything. Cid released his prime.

His body reminded him why he shouldn’t prime at all as soon as his feet touched the ground. Coughing up blood - never fun. Getting worse, too. “You’re bad for my health,” Cid told Clive’s unconscious form. That was two semi-primes and a full prime in the past few days. He’d gone weeks without.

“This is a bloody mess,” he added aloud.

Clive didn’t respond. He was out cold. So to speak. When Cid reached down to check his pulse, he was unnaturally warm. Not that that meant much. Tarja had told him often enough that the bodies of Dominants didn’t always share the same norms as everyone else’s. Ramuh did something to his heartbeat Tarja still deeply disliked. Benedikta could out-eat three grown men, literally, and never put on an ounce. Barnabas…there were many things different about Barnabas. Clive was likely in the same boat.

He should be scared. But Ramuh’s thoughts stayed with him. What little he could cram into a human brain, anyway. Child, Ramuh had thought, along with a confusing welter of not-really-human things. As far as Cid could tell, they boiled down to unformed. All that sinister-looking red flame and black stone skin, the shimmering and ominous cloak of heat haze - that was a baby Eikon, as best Cid could glean from Ramuh. It needed something. Cid wasn’t sure what.

He’d have to settle for looking after Clive, he supposed.

Satisfied that Clive was unconscious but breathing well and not in any immediate danger of dying, he went to Benedikta’s corpse.

She lay there, broken and bloodied. He’d loved her once. Benna. This couldn’t be how she wanted things to turn out. The woman he’d known wanted freedom. A life on her own terms. She’d…not had it.

There was a glint at her throat. Somehow, when half her clothes had been ripped to shreds, a delicate chain around her neck had survived. One he’d given to her. Years ago, now. Years and years ago. He hadn’t realised she’d kept it.

“Why’d you have to listen to him?” Cid asked her.

But Benedikta was dead, and didn’t answer.

Cid sighed. There wasn’t anything he could do for Benedikta now. He didn’t even have the time to give her a decent burial, or the energy to cremate her. Not if he wanted to save Clive. 

The lad would be a danger to himself when he woke. Cid was sure of that. His rage for his brother’s killer had been very real. If he’d run out of denial that he had, as he’d said, torn his own brother apart… Cid couldn’t deal with that out in the highlands. He needed to get them back to the Hideaway as fast as he could. Somewhere that couldn’t be set on fire.

He just had to hope. Hope and move quickly. He turned his back on Benedikta and left her behind, for the last time.

Chapter Text

Belenus Tor should have been a beautiful place. The Tor itself, a darker stone than found in most of Sanbreque, towered over the Straits of Autha. Straits which should have been clear and deep blue, even on this overcast day.

Now, instead, the Royalists had camped upon the shore and floated upon the choppy water, dark ships and dark smoke drifting every which way, hiding dark lines of soldiers. They had gone so far as to seize the high hill opposite the Tor, leaving the Tor itself contested.

Contested! The Holy Empire’s own territory.

The Dominant of Odin was ever hungry for war. That much was known of the man. Barnabas Tharmr, conqueror of the Veldermarke, Last and Only King of Ash. Forty years he had ruled and yet by all reports he still appeared as a warrior in his prime. And he was here too, to fight his latest war. On the field. As was his custom.

The battle itself was going well, as such things went. Still. They should count themselves lucky that the Dhalmeks were not taking the opportunity to join in with their Waloeder allies. 

A man might say that the Council of Ministers had chosen peace and wisdom. A more cynical man might say that their permanent economic advisor, and Dominant of Titan, currently had more interest in clearing Storm’s southern shores of Ironblood and maintaining his monopoly on trade down that stretch of ocean than he did in the Straits of Autha. Regardless of where Dhalmekia’s interests lay.

Dion did not understand Hugo Kupka. He hoped he never did.

“The lines hold,” Terence assured him. The words were as to be expected, but when Dion looked over he could see the sympathy in his deep brown eyes. Nobody knew better the frustration Dion felt, safely back from the lines, unable to assist his men meaningfully but to serve as deterrence to Odin.

“Then I will go to the command tent,” Dion replied. The only other way he might be of some real assistance. There was both art and craft to war, and as the future ruler of the Holy Empire of Sanbreque, Dion had to learn that too. Bahamut would never fail him, but unlike Barnabas Tharmr, apparently, one day he would be old and grey, too slow to lift a lance. Then he would have to serve his nation with thought and word alone.

And as Bahamut's Dominant, presumably. If he lived that long. There was always a price.

Terence was not the only one to fall in behind him. In a camp, so close to a battle, three others accompanied him as well. All in full armour and ready to repel any assassins who may find their way in. Royalist assassins were unlikely, but it was hardly unknown for a third party to wait for two Dominants to battle it out and assassinate one or both in the aftermath.

As if summoned by Dion’s idle thought, there was a pull in the aether. The shouts went up shortly thereafter.

High on the ridge was Odin himself, in full prime. The Warden of Darkness was a shape cut from the world itself, given texture by shadows somehow lighter than the heart of the Eikon. He raised his sword and below, the Royalist army charged.

Dion didn’t need to think. He shoved his lance into Terence’s arms and primed himself. This was what he was here for.

Bahamut soared into the sky on wings of light. He charged Odin and Odin alone, diving dangerously close to the other Dominant’s sword. The lightless helm tilted up to survey him.

Odin raised his sword and swung. The sword that cut the light, some called it. Not if Bahamut had anything to say about it.

He banked hard to the left, avoiding Odin and circling around Belenus Tor. Bahamut understood how to fly even when Dion could scarcely comprehend it. The Great Wyrm’s instincts were all that saved him. Stone cracked behind him. Dion summoned the holy light of his own Eikon and blasted it towards Odin. Odin slashed it away with apparent ease.

On his next banked turn, Dion caught a glimpse of Odin assessing the bright smoke rising from his sword. As if satisfied, or convinced of something, Odin abruptly released his prime, and returned to being merely Barnabas Tharmr. Sometimes Dion thought that might be only a slightly less ominous existence. Far below where Bahamut soared, there was a lone figure in armour of black and deepest blue, watching him.

Not a win. Not for either of them.

The only thing Dion had accomplished was, once again, deterrence.

He soared back to the Imperial camp. Dion landed and released his prime in the same motion, the cheers and awed whispering familiar but no less unwelcome. All he had done was simply exist.

He also knew better than to show the exhaustion and pain that followed a full prime. Maybe the only thing he did was exist, but whether or not he liked it, Bahamut did give strength to his countrymen. The least he could do was maintain his own composure.

Terence stepped up to his side. “Word from your royal father, your highness,” he said. “If you will return to your tent?”

Dion nodded, though he suspected this was mostly Terence’s ploy to ensure he rested after priming. He worried so. What Dion had done to earn Terence’s love and care, he did not know, but this was a small thing he could do to ease Terence’s heart.

Sure enough, Terence had taken the short time Dion was primed and clashing with Odin to send for a cold meal of bread, cured meat, fresh grapes, and watered ale, all waiting for him upon his return. Terence had also made sure he had a canvas chair to collapse into, so much easier on his aether-aching body than a hard wooden bench. Dion loved that man.

He was almost shocked when Terence motioned to the guards, closed the white canvas of the tent behind him, and produced a tightly furled scroll. There was a message after all.

“Not a stolas?” Dion asked.

“The Royalists have been shooting them down,” Terence said. “This came by courier from Oriflamme. All the countersigns were in order.”

Dion broke the wax that bore the Emperor’s personal seal, dragon rampant above a wyvern tail bloom.

When he finished reading, he crushed the note in a fist. Then sense returned and he summoned all the fire magic at his command, a bare spark that was still enough to catch the parchment alight.

“What news?” Terence asked as the note smoldered into withered black flakes.

“Saboteurs under the Mothercrystal itself,” Dion said. “Royalists, apparently. His Majesty is safe and well, as are my half-brother and his mother, but there will be no reinforcements here. Nor will we receive more crystals for some time.”

“What?” Terence breathed. “We are fighting for the Empire! We should be the first priority for any crystals that can be spared.”

“This has the feel of the Empress’s work,” Dion agreed. He did not care for his stepmother. If she could be called such. From all Dion had seen, she cared only for the son she’d borne the Emperor. But the Empire did not need her to be a kind person - the marriage and her administration had brought a semblance of peace to the Empire’s more unruly western provinces, and that was what the Emperor had hoped to achieve in the match. Dion reminded himself of that every time he was forced to meet her cold eyes and sneering smile.

He could see Terence biting back a harsher opinion again. Another thing Terence spared him. Dion was duly grateful. He would otherwise have been obliged to defend the honour of his father’s wife, however half-heartedly.

“I can agree with her position that my father’s safety is paramount,” he said. That and little more. “I will simply have to be equal to the task the Emperor sets before me.”

He looked at the meal set before him. A cold meal that could be eaten at any time. Because Terence had already anticipated the demands on Dion's time and energy.

“Forgive me, Terence,” he said, “but I must speak to the other commanders here.”

“The food will keep, my lord,” Terence replied. He glanced over his shoulder, and when he was satisfied for himself there was nobody there, he reached out for Dion’s cheek. The caress was warm, and wanted, and over too soon.

There was more strength in Terence and his forbearance than in a hundred Bahamuts. But it was not how the world saw such things, and they both had to live in the world Greagor had given to them.

Chapter Text

He begged. He screamed. He held it back as best he could.

But the beast would not stop.

All Clive’s fear and anger seemed to do was drive it madder. Of course it did. Now he could see it clearly. It was his eyes that beheld the Phoenix, injured and pinned beneath him. His fires consuming Phoenix Gate. His claws tearing into his brother’s chest. His soul howling for some fulfilment in the Phoenix’s death Clive didn’t understand. His. His, his, his.

He was the beast. He always had been.

Clive woke from a nightmare into a nightmare. He blinked. There were bars in front of him. Bars and stone, lit dimly by a crystal on the other side. His shoulders burned, his wrists chafed, and his knees were naught but bruises. He’d been stripped entirely bare, he realised. There was clammy air on his skin rather than clothes. For a second he thought he’d been captured - but the fire that rose inside him at the thought was not the fire of the Phoenix.

The memories slammed into his conscious mind. The aether that had crackled through him, turning him from flesh to fire. The inferno he’d become. The way he’d fought Garuda, tearing at her like - like -

- Like the other memory just now making itself clear. Two fires in the night. Blood flying. Bone cracking. Feathers snapping. Joshua screaming for Clive to help him.

Desperately, he rattled his chains. He had to get free. He had to get free and end himself. But whoever had brought him here had chained him tightly on top of removng all his clothes. That was fair, he thought. It just…wasn’t helpful. Chained like an animal was the least of what he deserved. Clive would see that he got what he deserved.

Footsteps echoed outside. Then a cheery whistle pierced the gloom. A familiar figure stood on the other side of the bars and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Awake, are you?” Cid asked. “Took you long enough. Hang on a second.”

He was…in the Hideaway?

Cid ducked back around the corner and returned with an armful of cloth and metal. He opened the cell and tossed the bundle unceremoniously on the floor with a muffled clang. “Sorry about the chains and the cell. Didn’t want you doing anything rash when you woke up. A good part of this place is flammable.”

Clean clothes. His armour. Clive blinked at it all. Why would -

“You’re full of surprises,” Cid said. “First that trick with Garuda, then whatever the hell that other thing was. Didn’t know you had it in you.” He stepped back out and returned with Clive’s sword. Cid propped that upright against the wall. Inside the cell.

“Kill me,” Clive said.

Cid shifted on his feet. Clive couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eyes. “Bit of a waste, wouldn’t you think?” Cid said mildly.

Clive got his feet under him and lunged at Cid. He had to make him see. His arms burned as he strained against the chains. The skin at his wrists tore under the shackles. Cid was close but not close enough. “I told you what I saw,” he said. “I did it. Me. I tore my brother apart. I killed everyone at Phoenix Gate. I’m a monster, and I deserve -”

A fist to the jaw interrupted him. Unbalanced in his desperation, Clive crashed to his already-bruised knees. His shoulders screamed anew as they took the full weight of his body. His jaw first went numb with the impact, then started to ache. Blood dripped from his lower lip, split against his teeth.

Not enough blood.

“Now, I reckon I could take you, if that’s really what you want,” Cid said, casually shaking out his hand. As if he were challenging Clive to nothing more than a bar fight. “But first, you can benefit from my timeless wisdom.”

He could feel it inside him. The fire. Hungry. It had always been there. He’d just…never wanted to know about it. Now he couldn’t deny it. It fed on the winds he’d stolen from Garuda. It reached out for Cid. It would take everyone if Clive let it. Who was to say he wouldn’t? He’d killed his own brother. The beast inside him, the beast he was, was capable of anything.

But Cid didn’t seem to even notice. “The long and the short of it is,” he said, when he realised Clive wasn’t going to speak, “While you’re here and breathing, you may as well make yourself useful. There’s still plenty of work to be done. So come upstairs and find something productive to do until we hear back from Gav.” He gave Clive another look over. “Better get dressed first, though. Pretty as you are, you’re not my type.”

He stepped closer. He didn’t touch Clive. He just unlocked the chains. Without them to take the weight, Clive collapsed entirely, falling into a heap on the rough stone floor. 

That small impact knocked the tears from him. Cid left him there, sobbing on the ground like a child.

He didn’t know how long he lay there weeping. It felt like hours. Thirteen summers worth of tears. Long enough for his throat to start rasping, his eyes to start burning, and his head to start throbbing. He couldn’t even summon the will to get up, take his own sword, and end it like he should.

Then, from above him, there was a faint whine. Torgal stuck his cold nose right into Clive’s face, the little bit of it he could reach while Clive was face down on the floor, and licked him.

Like old times. Back when Clive was just a disappointment and a failure rather than a monster and a murderer. A kinslayer and a traitor. And a disappointment and a failure still.

Torgal settled down by Clive’s side while he wept the last tears he had in him. Just like old times.

He couldn’t…he couldn’t disappoint Torgal too.

Slowly, Clive peeled himself off the cell floor. He put on his clothes but could not bring himself to put on his armour, nor touch his sword. How many people had he killed with that blade, or another like it? So many. He’d lost count. He’d told himself it was to stay alive, so he could find Joshua’s murderer and kill them. Now - it was just pathetic self-justification, wasn’t it?

What was he going to do now?

The man who watched the cells didn’t comment as Clive staggered out, feeling fifty years older than his age. In a vague, distant sort of way, he appreciated the silence. Upstairs Cid’s Hideaway was bustling, all the rescued Bearers going about their business. They paid him little mind. Still dazed, he wandered up towards the infirmary. Jill was there. He hadn’t spoken to her in…so long.

But what would he say? What could he say? He found himself outside the rough wooden door, hesitating, Torgal whining slightly at his side.

The decision was made for him when red-haired, sharp-faced Tarja stalked out. “Clive, was it? Your friend isn’t awake yet. I won’t have you disturbing her.”

“She’s still asleep?” Clive asked. It had been…a long time. Half a turn of the moon at least. He hadn’t seen any serious wounds on her when they’d brought her back, but he’d heard some stories over the years about what happened to Bearers in the Iron Kingdom. What if - ?

Tarja’s severe expression softened a little. “She’s been in and out. She’s exhausted - physically, mentally, aetherically. The Ironblood worked her right down to her very last spark of aether. Your friend -”

“Jill.”

“- Jill, isn’t in what I’d call good health, but I’ve seen people in this condition before and I’m not overly concerned with how long she’s taking to recover. What she needs is sleep. Undisturbed sleep.” Her gaze sharpened again. “Now you, on the other hand, look like you’re approaching dehydration. If Cid tells me true, you haven’t been eating either. I want you to go to Kenneth. Right now.”

Clive nodded.

Back at the little mess area, still valiantly trying to pretend it was a tavern, Kenneth took one look at him and shoved him into a seat. Once again a bowl of stew was set in front of him. Antelope, this time. Clive hardly tasted it.

When he was done, he returned his bowl. He asked, “Is there anything here I can help with?”

Useful. Cid had said to make himself useful.

Kenneth set him to delivering meals all over the Hideaway. One of Tarja’s assistants, caught up in the crowded bunks nursing a dying Bearer. The chocobo-keeper by the entrance. The pair of botanists absorbed in their trees. Blackthorne himself, who accepted the meal with a grunt. He helped chop vegetables and wash dishes, though he couldn’t bear to tend to the fire in the oven. Then there was another round of meal deliveries to do.

Towards the end of the day, the white-bearded old man who spent his time teaching people to read and write smiled at him. “Come, sit down, young man. You look sorely in need of a rest.”

“I’m fine,” Clive said.

“Take him off my hands, Harpocrates!” Kenneth shouted across the room. “The next meal he was to deliver was his own.”

“There we are, then,” Harpocrates said. He ushered Clive to a nook in the back, far from the natural light that filtered down into the centre of the Hideaway. The reason why was apparent - there were books here. An entirely respectable library. More books than many noble families had.

The old man didn’t try to engage Clive in active conversation. He simply spoke. About small things, mostly. His students. His efforts to acquire more books. He spoke, and Clive ate.

After that, Clive helped wash the dishes. A chore he’d rarely done after he’d been recruited by the Bastards. And when he could hardly stand upright, he admitted defeat and went to bed down in the nook by the infirmary stairs again.

He’d long ago learned not to scream in his sleep.

The next day he fetched and carried for the carpenters and the terrifying Lady Charon. The latter had a soft spot for Torgal, though, and she scolded Clive for neglecting him.

“I’ll do better,” Clive said.

“See that you do,” Lady Charon replied.

Torgal wagged his tail and stayed close to Clive.

Around him the business of the Hideaway carried on. Clive began to get a feel for it despite the haze he lived in. A woman named Dorys took charge of the fighters Cid had called Cursebreakers. They came and went, returning with money or supplies or sometimes more Branded. Dorys ran the units much as the Bastards had operated, though she did not strike Clive as an experienced commander. Few Branded would be, just as few Branded could use a sword or read a ledger. Otto the quartermaster ruled the buildings themselves, ensuring everything stayed standing and clean and supplied. Unlike most in the Hideaway, he was no Bearer. It was not a talent he appeared to need. He marshalled the residents not willing or able to assist the Cursebreakers, hardly a soul idle for more than a day.

Cid said there was a place for everyone here. Clive couldn’t bring himself to believe it. What place could there be for something like him?

Still. He made himself useful. The botanists sent him out to retrieve dirt, for some reason. Cheerful Martelle gave him some gil for his help. One of the couriers asked if Clive would assist in finding his missing bag. Clive did that too, and ran meals to people, and washed dishes, and did laundry, and cleaned floors. The harder he worked, the less time he had to think on…everything.

Nightmares came anyway. Mercilessly clear nightmares of fire overtaking him, twisting his form until he lived in the skin of the beast. Ifrit, something whispered in the back of his mind. He knew the name like he knew his own. Similarly vivid dreams of tearing Garuda apart. Hazier memories of doing the same to - to the Phoenix. Hunger, deep in his soul. Every night Clive woke while it was still dark, fingers twitching, aching for something he couldn’t put a name to, tears on his cheeks.

Each day he went to check on Jill. Each day he was told she was still asleep. Improving by the day, Tarja told him - waking long enough to take broth, improving in colour - but not entirely reaching consciousness.

He did not touch his sword or his armour. Why not, he couldn’t quite say. It was stupid. He didn’t need steel to - hurt anyone.

After ten days or so, Clive was running water for Blackthorne. The smith had told him that he had no use for crystals (or Clive) to help him maintain the forge. He had some device that allowed him to do that himself. A bellows, he called it. “This way I don’t have to bother with asking anyone to make it hotter, whatever the fuck that means for what I’m working on that day, not that I could here even if I wanted to,” Blackthorne explained gruffly. “More responsive, see. More precise. Doesn’t burn through crystals or whatever poor sod’s doing the helping. Best of all, it works in the deadlands. What I can’t spare the time for is fetching barrels of quenching water.”

Cid caught him as Clive fetched a second barrel from the filters. Blighted water was no good for smithing either, apparently. “There you are,” the older man said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Didn’t expect you to take usefulness to heart quite so enthusiastically.”

The words stung. Clive looked down.

Cid breezed on. “I’ve had word from Gav, if you’re up for another trip. We’ve still got a mystery Dominant out there. Get your sword, armour up, we’ll head out in an hour.”

Sword. Armour. Clive hesitated. “Cid, I -”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Cid said, not exactly severely but with a certain intent, “Gav’s been out there working on your behalf. The least you can do is hear him out.”

He had a point. More than just a point. Misguided as the effort was, Clive did owe Gav for his assistance. The least Clive could do, in this case, would be to apologise.

But first, the water barrels for Blackthorne.

Chapter Text

Once again, Cid just couldn’t seem to leave with Clive without Otto voicing his opinion on the matter. Cid’s oldest friend let himself into Cid’s solar and shut the door behind him. That was usually a good sign that Cid was about to get himself yelled at.

“Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing, you old bastard,” Otto growled.

“Old, am I?” Cid asked. “Last I checked, I was six years younger than you.”

“That boy is three or four harsh words from trying to kill himself.”

“Now he’s a boy? I thought you said he was, what was it, a fully grown Imperial assassin?”

Otto glared at him. More or less as planned. Cid had been right about Clive and they both knew it. Even three or four harsh words from trying to kill himself, even without quite knowing it, Clive was fighting back the guilt and the self-hatred. It wasn’t the sort of fight anyone ever really won, especially not when they’d most likely killed their brother and definitely doomed their country, but he was still upright and breathing and had veritably thrown himself into helping out around the Hideaway.

And Otto, at least, had been won over. Or else he wouldn’t be so worried that Cid was planning to push Clive a bit further. 

Secrets didn’t stay secret in the close confines of the Hideaway. Everyone here knew now that Clive was a Dominant and an archduke’s son. Just as everyone had seen him working hard at any and every menial task they had around here, right down to shovelling chocobo shit, without being asked and without complaint.

If it weren’t for that little suicidal complication, Cid’s plans could hardly have gone better.

“I’m talking about you as well,” Otto said. “Tarja told me, Cid.”

“Ah.” Maybe there was one secret in the Hideaway. This one wouldn’t go further than Otto and Tarja. “That’s why I have to be sure, Otto.”

“And I take your point, but I don’t approve of you testing all this face-first. You’re not going to keel over tomorrow unless you do something completely stupid.”

Cid stuffed a spare tunic into his bag. Always good to have a spare if he could fit it in.“Never could stand sitting back and letting other people do the work for me,” he said.

“You’re a damn fool,” Otto said.

“I know,” Cid said.

Thanks to the tight time frame Cid had imposed on them, the matter wasn’t up for a lengthier discussion.

Clive had donned his armour again after a few days without. It wasn’t armour for style at the best of times, but somehow Clive was making it look even more awkward at the moment. There was still something very vulnerable about him that the metal couldn’t hide. And this time, when Cid set a punishing pace to western Sanbreque, Clive didn’t say a thing.

Three days out of the Hideaway, Cid had yet to see Clive use his magic. They’d had to fight what was rapidly becoming the usual dangers of the road: bandits, beastmen, very angry plants. Not so much as a spark or a stray breeze. Clive was using steel and steel alone.

“Have you ever been out this way before?” Cid asked, when they reached the Kingsfall. The flagstones of the road that ran alongside it were in sad disrepair these days, and once-lush trees turned spindly and frail, revealing barren reddish mud which ended up caking everything. Even the sky above looked wan and cold despite the clear weather.

The road followed the Kingsfall River all the way to the Rosarian border, eventually, and on to the Northern Realms. Or, well, where the Northern Realms used to be. Once upon a time the Northerners sent furs and amber and walrus ivory down these roads, preserved fish and smoked bighorn. The Sanbrequois sent back incense and oak and wheat, the Rosarians perfume and wool and fruit. Now it was all but abandoned. Only a few desperate hamlets remained, living on cabbage and saddle leather.

Clive’s response was slow. “It was…contested, here, when…no. I haven’t.” He added, “Jill’s family lived not too far northwest. She would know the area.”

Ah, yes. Jill Warrick. Only daughter and only surviving child of the clan chief Alister Warrick, the Silvermane, and his wife Morag Tavish, great-niece of Kristen Tavish, previous Dominant of Shiva. Cid had done some additional research since Clive had given him that name. Alister had once been little more than the firebrand chief of a small clan split off from a greater one, but as the Blight took more and more of the North, Alister had been more and more effective holding his lands against all comers, until it was the Warricks who were the greatest clan in the North. Successful enough to win the hand of a Tavish lady, whose clan had produced the Dominant of Shiva for the past four hundred years and more.

Not successful enough to drive back the Blight. Not successful enough to defeat Elwin Rosfield and his Sanbrequois allies. And so Alister, two of his three sons, and his wife had all fallen in battle, with young Jill taken as a hostage against her surviving brother’s good behaviour. Not that her brother survived still. Small wonder the Archduke’s children had been kept away from the ancestral lands of Warrick.

When Jill had awoken to her powers, Cid did not know. He suspected it was after the Ironblood invasion of Rosaria. Had it been before, surely the Archduke would have betrothed Jill to his heir in a heartbeat. Or failing that, to Clive, who was certainly dedicated to her wellbeing.

It was the one thing he regretted from the past few days, ordering Tarja to keep Clive away from Lady Warrick. Unfortunately, Cid remembered how Clive had stolen Benedikta’s power. He would much rather lie to keep them apart than take the chance that Clive accidentally inflict what Benedikta had suffered on his weakened friend. Even now, if Cid really concentrated, he thought could feel a…pull. Of sorts. Easily ignored, able to be resisted without even a thought. So faint he was hardly sure it was even there. If someone wasn’t thinking, however…

He suspected Clive didn’t know what he was doing. Hells, Cid wasn’t certain enough of what he felt to ask the lad. 

Even if he thought Clive was up for the questioning, which he didn’t.

“You can ask Gav about it,” Cid said. “He grew up two days’ ride to the northeast, near the Imperial border.”

“Domhal lands?”

“Used to be.”

Clive didn’t acknowledge that. They trudged on, Cid voicing his hatred of the mud at every chance and Clive bearing it silence, not so much stoically as with a worrying indifference to his own discomfort. 

Their miserable little jaunt was broken by the chirp of a southern red pigeon. A bird which had no business this far north. Clive’s head jerked up just as Cid’s did; he’d know Imperial scouting signals just as well. Probably better.

“Gav,” Cid said, dread flashing through him. “Let’s go.”

Cid did not leave Clive the option. He started tearing through the undergrowth, abandoning the rough road for a more direct route. The Empire rarely sent patrols this far nowadays except to root out beastmen. A few minutes later, as they scrambled across a fallen log along the riverbank, they saw Gav running as well, a little distance downriver. Pursued by an Imperial dragoon, of all things. What had Gav got himself into now?

They lost sight of the chase again, but unexpectedly, Clive proved to still have some motivation left in there. Rosarian greatswords cut through underbrush as well as they did armoured soldiers. Normally Cid would be appalled to see such a beautiful weapon treated as nothing more than a wood-axe, but needs must. They hacked their way into a clearing -

- Where the dragoon, his squad, and his wyvern awaited.

“You take the dragoon,” Cid said.

The squad kept pursuing Gav. Cid took the wyvern. He couldn’t bear another semi-prime. The great scaly git was near as fast as Benedikta’s wind spirits and spit fire to boot. Cid kept his distance and did his best to hit joints with levinbolts, only closing the gap when he was sure he had the opening. Around him, the dragoon leapt at Clive, who still wasn’t using his magic. He fought the dragoon steel to steel. Wasn’t doing badly, either, but they could be done with this by now. As Cid's aching bones kept reminding him.

When Cid at last had the wyvern breathing its last, he turned levin on the dragoon. Levin loved a long bit of metal. The dragoon dropped his lance with a startled howl, then dropped to his knees as Clive cut him down.

The squad was gone. Not far ahead, the commotion continued. Cid burst into the next clearing, Clive at his heels - just in time to see the last few Imperials crowd Gav off a cliff at spearpoint.

Before Cid could bully his aching bones into movement, a flash of orange and red split the squad. Phoenix fire. Cid hit the soldiers with levinbolts. No need to go overboard when they were all wearing metal. “I’ve got you,” Clive said from behind them, Gav dangling from his outstretched arm.

Oh, to be young again. And to have the Blessing of the Phoenix at any age.

“Thanks,” Gav said once Clive had hauled him all the way up, probably more stunned by a Rosfield using the Phoenix’s powers to save him than his brush with death.

“I thought I said Clive would go off a cliff,” Cid said.

“Very funny,” Gav said, clutching at his shoulder. Blood stained his jerkin.

Good a time as any to sit down for a rest. Cid started seeing to Gav’s wounds while Clive started to drag bodies into the underbrush for animals and rot to hide them more permanently. Tidy and conscientious former assassin that he was, he wasn’t even taking the chance the bodies would wash downstream to one of the remaining settlements. “At least check them for valuables first,” Cid complained.

A few coin purses landed at his feet after that, even as Cid set a stitch into Gav’s shoulder and applied the salve Tarja made sure he had every time he left the Hideaway. Once Gav was no longer bleeding, they moved away from the fight. Scavengers would be here soon. There had been plenty of signs of beastmen on and near the road.

They set up camp in a clearing not so very different from the one they’d fought in. Cid fished while he had the chance. To his surprise, Clive was almost as good at cooking their catch without magic as he was with magic. Once they were settled and fed, Cid said, “Right. What news?”

“The Dominant of Fire,” Gav said. “I’ve picked up his trail.”

Clive muttered, “This is stupid.” More loudly he said, “Gav, I’m the Dominant of Fire - this has all been a waste of time -”

“What are you talking about? The one from Lostwing. The skinny one. He’s headed back towards Rosaria.”

“That’s impossible -”

“It’s not,” Cid interrupted. “Clive, I saw him too, back at the Dragon’s Aery. You weren’t imagining him. There was someone else heading into that whirlwind.”

For a second, Cid thought he might have done less damage to Clive had he stabbed him. The naked despair and self-loathing on his face was an awful thing to see.

“I saw you prime,” Cid said, ignoring Gav’s start of surprise. “And yes. There’s a good chance you killed the Phoenix.” He could not lie. Lying here would surely shatter Clive for good. “But we weren’t alone there. Our mystery Dominant of Fire is a real person.”

Clive looked up at him, lips slightly parted, eyes still dull. The poor kid had been broken so badly he could hardly bring himself to hope, it seemed. But he was trying, damn it. “Who is he, then?” Clive asked.

“No idea,” Cid replied. “But you swore an oath, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Clive said. He schooled his features. “I did.”

On their way back to the Hideaway, there were a few more flashes of Phoenix flame. Once or twice, Cid felt Garuda’s winds as well. Better still, he could leave Gav to ask Clive any number of questions, and Gav would even get a response more often than not. To his surprise, Gav even won a smile from Clive at one point, which had Gav positively blushing. Gav had a good head on his shoulders, though; it would take more than a pretty face to put him off his game.

Maybe it was manipulative of him. But Cid couldn’t just walk in and save everyone. Cid wasn’t even sure he could save anyone. Clive had to want to save himself. Cid didn’t know any better way than to find Clive some friends and some purpose.

—

Jote noticed when her lord started to flag. He was suffering after his exertion to escape the Dominant of Garuda. After all the events of that night.

After he had spent some of his scant energy to heal the wound to her shoulder, too, Jote thought, with a pang of guilt. Still, if he had not, she could have lost the use of her arm. That would have hampered her ability to help him. It was a pragmatic decision. Jote could see that. She didn’t like it. Her lord was pale and drawn, his breath starting to hitch in the damp of the marshes.

He’d felt a disturbance while they were in Caer Norvent, he’d said. Not a maddened Eikon, he’d sworn to that, claiming he knew what a maddened Eikon felt like. He would know far better than Jote. She trusted his word. But whatever it was, it had them travelling hard for Rosaria.

As hard as her lord’s delicate health permitted him, anyway. He was going to push himself too hard and end up bedridden for a week in some inn in the middle of nowhere, not for the first time. Jote didn’t know how to stop him. She thought there might be only one person who could.

“We should rest here, my lord,” she said.

Her lord looked around, surveying the miserable stretch of mud and reeds with disdain. Few would have recognised it, but after years in his company, Jote could read his expressions. This part of western Sanbreque had been sparsely populated even before the Blight started creeping closer. Abandonment made the marshes even less appealing. “I would rather push on until we’re closer to the border,” he said.

“The terrain will not improve for another day’s travel,” Jote argued. “There’s higher ground we can camp on just over there.” It was barely more than a low hillock that she pointed to, but it would be slightly drier.

Her lord sighed. “True. All right, Jote. We’ll stop.”

The decision proved to be a good one, because her lord was suppressing coughs before they reached the hill. She let him spread out his own bedroll, but quickly gathered some dry-ish reeds and wood and lit a fire by hand before he could use his own magic. He shot her an a glance that was half amused, half exasperated. It turned fully exasperated as Jote brought out the herbs that best treated that cough of his.

“Really?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

“You must at least let me cook,” he said.

It was close to their usual agreement. Jote fed and groomed their chocobos while her lord carefully roasted tubers in the coals. The only thing Jote had caught to supplement it were bony marsh-fish hardly worth the effort of cooking.

“There are no birds,” her lord observed.

“Signs of goblins, though. Cold, but further south than they should be.”

There were not as many insects as there should be, either. Nor frogs, nor flowers. The land was dying. Soon this place too would be swallowed by the Blight.

After a while, her lord asked, “How long do you think until northern Rosaria is like this too?"

He'd only visited intermittently over the past years, keeping as far away from villages as possible, travelling the places that had been wild even before the chaos that hit their homeland, there and gone as soon as they got what they wanted. He’d stayed in the dry heat of Tabor for the most part with the rest of Jote’s order, for the good of his health. Far from anyone else who could recognise him as Joshua Rosfield.

“I only have reports, my lord,” she said. “But yes, I understand some parts of Rosaria are suffering similar.”

“I find I don’t want to see it,” her lord said. “Strange. I thought it was still my home. Perhaps I would feel differently if we were going to Rosalith rather than -”

He cut himself off. It was something he had never discussed, not in the thirteen years he’d been with them. What happened at Phoenix Gate haunted her lord still. He flatly refused to speak of it. Some things were not for mere servants such as her to know, she supposed.

“No matter,” he said instead, staring into their little campfire. “We’re running out of time. We all must do our duty.”

Chapter Text

For a long time there was nothing but Metia-blessed blackness.

Then there was soup.

Damn, Jill thought. Not dead, then.

There were no dreams. She was too tired. When the blackness lifted, there would be more soup, or some bitter grassy drink with honey, or a cool cloth, or sometimes a voice speaking to her. A woman, mostly, but occasionally a man. There was something strange about their voices that she couldn’t quite place.

Details filled in slowly, in between periods of more blackness. Warm, flickering light from a lamp of some sort. Cool, humid air that smelled of bitter herbs. Rough wool on her skin. Jill’s limbs felt like lead, her fingers and tongue clumsy.

“Are you with us, Lady Warrick?” the woman who spoke to her asked.

“Where?” Jill asked, but she fell asleep again before she could hear the answer.

Then, without much warning, she woke and stayed awake, blinking up at a ceiling of timber and swirling Fallen stonework. Somewhere that wasn’t, could not possibly be, Ironholme. Jill tried to push herself upright. Instead of lead, her limbs now felt like undercooked dough. What she managed was rolling onto her side.

Someone across the room, behind her, got to their feet. “Don’t you dare move,” a sharp female voice said. Footsteps. Strong, narrow hands around her shoulders. “All right. Just shift your weight forward a bit and tilt back left. We’ll get you sitting up.”

The woman helping her had hair the deepest red Jill had ever seen and an awful scar dominating her face. Right where a brand would have been. “I’m Tarja. I’m told your name is Jill Warrick.”

“How -” Jill asked, as another softly steaming cup of that bitter grass tea was shoved into her hands.

“Drink,” Tarja instructed. “If you finish the cup without dropping it or throwing up we’ll start you on porridge again. As for your name, your friend told us.”

“My…friend?” Marleigh hadn’t been taken with them to the battle. Emma had been killed just to make a point to Jill four winters ago now. Jill hadn’t had friends other than Marleigh since then. It was too hard.

“Clive. The one who brought you here.”

Jill laughed bitterly. The tea froze in her grasp. “The only Clive I knew is dead. He has been for thirteen winters.” Burned up at Phoenix Gate, the only mercy in his passing that he had not outlived Joshua.

“Dark hair, blue eyes, Blessing of the Phoenix. To hear Cid tell it, he deserted on the spot when he realised you were alive.”

She tried to take that in. It was a little girl’s fantasy. Jill had grown out of those when she was six and her father never came to rescue her from Anabella Rosfield. Tarja tugged the frozen mug from her hands and started brewing a second to replace it. This was more likely some dreaming. Maybe she was dead. Kindness and Clive, two things she hadn’t thought she’d see again in life.

“Where is he, then?” Jill asked at last. “Clive.”

“Out with Cid,” Tarja replied. Whoever ‘Cid’ was. She said it like it should mean something. “They should be back in a few days. If neither of them do something stupid. I’d like to rule that out.”

She would believe it when she saw it, Jill decided.

Tarja didn’t seem at all bothered by Jill’s suspicion, as long as she took her medicine, drank her broth, and attempted mild exercise. Mild exercise was the best Jill could manage. Though to her relief, she could at least wash herself. She felt like she hadn’t been clean since she left Drake’s Breath. Before that, even.

This was the Hideaway. An entire community of escaped Branded - Bearers, she corrected herself - and others who supported their cause. Cid was their leader. Jill didn’t know what to make of it. She didn’t have the energy.

Despite her lethargy, it didn’t take Jill long to get bored. Eventually Tarja shoved needle and thread into Jill’s hands, claiming that it would do her good to make herself useful while she sat quietly and recovered.

Jill had learned something of needlework while she lived in Rosalith. The Duchess had insisted. But it had been years since all those endless tedious lessons on how to embroider delicate roses onto delicate handkerchiefs. The people of the Hideaway needed plain clothes made and mended with sturdy stitches.

Still. She persisted. Clumsy as she was with it. Tarja was right - it was better than lying abed wondering if she was dead, or if not, whether she should die.

One morning, after her slow and painful morning walk downstairs to the kitchen and back, she was working on her next attempt at hemming a shift when the door behind her creaked open. She felt it before she even turned around. The heat of the Phoenix’s flames.

Jill turned to look at the man in the doorway.

Dark hair. Blue eyes. Jill remembered him as a boy with a strangely shy smile. His face and frame had filled out with age, he bore the brand dark along his jaw, but the unguarded expression - wonder and hope -

- to see her -

“Clive?” she asked, hardly daring to believe it.

He crossed the small infimary in a few strides and engulfed her in an embrace. He smelled like several days on the road, his armour pressed into her bones, and as he bowed his head over her shoulder his tears fell on her back, soaking through her thin dress, almost burning hot against her skin. She could not have let him go if she tried.

At last he raised his head again. He pulled back, but he kept a hold of her hand.

“Tarja said you brought me here,” Jill said. Everything from that last day was foggy. She had fought Titan, fell back to the ground, and been scooped up by the Ironblood. She’d hoped that this time, this time at last she might finally be free of them all. Be free of herself.

Clive had…not let that happen. But at least he’d brought himself back from death as well.

“I did,” Clive said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it was you at first. I - hope I did not hurt you too badly?”

“No. No, not at all.” It was strange and awkward, to be discussing a fight to the death like this. Swords had been bared, Jill remembered that. She’d used her ice intending to kill. Some of the new red-raw scars on her arms and legs had been made by Clive’s sword. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not badly. I was fresh enough, in that fight. You were not.”

Fresh? Jill did not let go of his hand, but she took in what he was wearing. Not just armour, but Imperial armour. What were Imperials doing in the Nysa Defile?

She had a few suspicions. She shut them down. It was Clive, and he hadn’t killed her. That was what mattered. Not to her, but to him. He was still - he was still Clive. 

“Jill,” Clive said. “I - how did you end up with the Ironblood?”

Now those memories were all too clear. Smoke in the streets somehow less choking than the crystal cuffs holding her arms. The Ironblood had charged her the instant aether started flowing over her skin and they realised that unlike most of the cowed Branded in the city, she meant to fight. Even though she hadn’t known how. They dragged her all the way up the gangplank of a ship, threw her in a hold, and not ten minutes later a man came with a child hostage, a tow-headed boy no more than four years old. 

At first Jill hadn’t believed that the Ironblood would kill a child that young, especially not just because she ignored a command to step back. That belief had left her along with the blood from the boy’s gaping throat.

“The Ironblood invaded not long after Phoenix Gate. As soon as their commanders got word of - of Joshua’s death. Most of the men were killed. They took any Bearer they could get their hands on. A lot of the women, too. I - I used ice for the first time that day and they put me in cuffs. Shiva, Shiva happened a few days afterwards. They got better cuffs after that. Crystal ones. They told me to fight for them or they would kill their other prisoners in front of me.” Her voice cracked. She hadn’t always been able to do as she was told. “Children.”

Clive’s hand tightened around hers. He looked away. “And they call us Dominants,” he said.

But - Clive - he wasn’t - “What?”

He couldn’t look at her at all. Jill searched for him in her sense of the aether. To her surprise, she found him. Those couldn’t possibly be Joshua’s flames she felt echoes of. In the hazy memories of her time in Rosalith, that brief golden period where she thought she might one day have a place in Rosaria after all, Joshua had always been a warm presence. Warm like a hearth fire in her father’s hall. Warm like the Rosarian summer sun. Before she even knew what she was, she’d known what Joshua was.

These flames…she knew them too, didn’t she?

She’d felt them when she’d watched Clive pick himself up after losing a bout to Sir Murdoch and when Clive fought down his every expression to face the Duchess. Faint as they were, these flames hungered, constantly reaching out for something to burn.

Jill also remembered what happened when she first became Shiva.

“What happened at Phoenix Gate?” she asked, mouth dry. Even Joshua, gentle as he was, had lost control of the Phoenix the first time he primed. The grassfire he’d started had burned for days, until an autumn rain had extinguished them.

Clive took a deep, shuddering breath. He took his hand from hers and looked her in the eyes. She’d never seen those blue eyes so scared. “I killed Joshua,” he said.

Immediately, Jill said, “No.” He wouldn’t. Clive would never.

“I did. I - not long ago, I took that form again. I lost control. There was someone there both times, a man in a hood. He spoke to me. He said - ‘we have found you.’ And then everything grows…strange, in my mind. I recall - tearing my enemies apart. Then nothing, and I wake unharmed.”

Jill stared at him, speechless. Appalled. Clive was - had always been - the kindest person she knew. This could not be. It could not.

“We should go there,” she blurted out. “Make sure you’re…right…about this.” It could not be true. If it was, there had to be more to it.

“What?”

“I need to know,” Jill said. “It might be selfish of me, but whatever home I had in Rosalith was because of you and Joshua. Knowing what happened -”

Clive needed to know too, she could see it on his face. But he hadn’t changed. He still wouldn’t do anything for himself.

“And if it’s true,” Jill continued, “then we will face it together.”

“Together,” Clive whispered.

She clutched Clive’s hands, as hard as she could. Whatever had happened to him, just having him back was a gift a thousand times greater than any Jill had ever deserved. Her prayers to Metia answered. 

And whatever she deserved, first she would make sure that Clive was well. That was something she could do. Something right.

—

They didn’t leave immediately. Even though Jill was awake, she wasn’t well. She needed to regain her strength.

Together, he’d promised. His sins had waited for him thirteen summers. They could wait a turn of the moon more.

Clive continued helping around the Hideaway. There was always a need for people to go fetch supplies. He made a risky trip to Lostwing - through the Greatwood again, rather than the roads, and to Cid’s amusement - to earn some gil. He killed some beastmen on the roads around the village and some giant wasps near the vineyards. Clive was good at killing. Quinten paid him for his efforts with a mild, pale, unblinking stare.

He gave half of it to Otto when he returned. Gil to help buy food and cloth, tools and weapons. He and Jill had to earn their keep here, after all.

The mornings when he was in the Hideaway, he practiced with Jill. They hadn’t been allowed to do so when they were children. At first Clive’s father hadn’t trusted Jill not to take her chances with a weapon in hand. Later, Clive’s mother had deemed it inappropriate for them to undertake such physical activity together when neither of them were betrothed, much less to each other. In the empty Blighted lands where Clive practiced and Jill rebuilt her strength step by painful step, all that seemed very far away.

After all, he could only hope that Jill would strike him down, if that was what he needed. And the both of them knew all too well what swords were for. They were practicing for butchery and desperate self-defence. Neither lent themselves to thoughts of romance. They practiced with each other now because neither could bear to practice with any of the Cursebreakers - most of them so much less experienced, all of them so much more breakable.

Neither of them used their magic. Neither of them even spoke of it. They would, in due time. Not now.

At last there came a day where Jill was the one to leave the Hideaway with only Torgal for company, stay out overnight, and return the next morning. When she did, she came to Clive and said, “I walked all day. I can do it. We should go.”

“All right,” Clive said, and that was that.

They bought their supplies from Lady Charon, who scowled at them for taking Torgal with them. Blackthorne had likewise been persuaded to replace Clive’s sword and supply a new one for Jill. Tarja lectured them about what to do if Jill’s energy should flag - rest, mostly. Otto said a clipped farewell and bustled off to take care of the hundred and one other things demanding his attention.

Cid was nowhere to be seen.

“Yeah, that’s not a shock,” Gav said, when Clive tracked him down to say goodbye. The scout was a good man. One of the best he’d met in years, a Northerner willing to look past him being a Rosfield and a human being willing to look past Clive being a kinslayer and a monster. “Cid hates goodbyes. Got a soft spot for you, he does. He wouldn’t want to draw it out.”

“I owe him a debt,” Clive said.

“Most here do.”

Clive nodded in rueful acknowledgement. He wasn’t sure exactly what use he could be, but Jill was right - it had to start with being certain of what his sins even were. Cid had got him back on his feet so he could try.

Gav was still speaking. “Look, if you get into trouble out there, you can always go to Martha’s Rest. The landlady’s a friend of the cause. Mention my name, or Cid’s, and she’ll do what she can.”

“We’ll keep that in mind and do our best not to presume on her goodwill,” Clive promised.

Gav turned away then, as bad with farewells as he said Cid was.

There was nothing left to do but leave. Back to Rosaria. To Phoenix Gate. He could not avoid it. He’d made his promises.

The first few days on the road were quiet. The pace was taking all Jill’s energy. She didn’t complain, of course. Jill hadn’t complained even when she was first brought to Rosalith. A little thing like blisters weren’t going to stop her.

“Where did you get the boots?” Clive asked, when they’d stopped for the first night out. The Hideaway had no cobbler, of course; there were none on Storm who’d take Branded to apprentice. Fortunately, they’d long since come to regard shoes that fit as a luxury. Clive had stolen his own boots from a dead man two summers back. They pinched a bit at the toes but nothing worse. He’d taken good care of them ever since.

“Otto,” Jill said. “They came in the last shipment. Closest fit they had. I’m still getting used to boots again. The Ironblood only let us wear slippers.”

Right. It would be that much more difficult for most Bearers to escape over the stony ground of the Iron Kingdom in soft slippers. Some volcanic rock could cut flesh into ribbons.

“We should find you better travelling clothes too,” Clive said. “The best chance we have on the road is if you pose as my mistress.”

Jill’s head snapped up. “Are you right with that?” she asked quietly.

“Better than being mistaken for a deserter,” Clive said. He could think of far worse things than pretending to be Jill’s servant. He had done far worse and more degrading things than pretending to be Jill’s servant. Dignity had little place in the life of an Imperial Bearer. “I trust you. Can you play your part?”

For a long moment, Jill was silent. The crackling of their little cookfire was impossibly loud between them. “As long as we pretend to be Rosarian,” she said at last. “Do not ask me to pretend at being an Imperial or a Dhalmekian. I could not. Especially not with you.”

“I understand,” Clive replied. “May I ask - what magic can you use?”

“Besides the obvious?” Jill asked with a wry twist of her mouth.

“Besides the obvious.”

Most Bearers could use four or five of the eight elements to some extent or another. Dominants, however, could use their own element to heights none other could compete with, one or maybe two more to only the tiniest degree - a spark, no more - and the remainder not at all. Joshua, like most of the Phoenix Dominants known to history, had miniscule talents with light and wind to go with his mastery of fire. Clive had never known Jill as a Dominant. He had no idea what she was capable of. The soldier in him, Wyvern of the Bastards, had to know. Knowledge helped you and your squad survive.

Experience told him it could often be a difficult conversation.

In the Empire of Sanbreque, Bearers discussing magic between themselves was seen as lowering a sacred mystery. For the Bearers, it often meant revealing the last little bit of power they had to protect themselves. Even if it was only a tiny spark of levin to startle an attacker or the power to deepen a shadow just enough to hide for a second or two.

To his relief, Jill answered easily. “I have some very little skill with water. Everything else is beyond me, but we won’t go too thirsty.” Where she hesitated was when she said, “And you, Clive?”

“Fire,” he said, mouth dry. “Nothing of the Phoenix’s healing. And wind.”

It still disturbed him how easily his stolen powers fit within him. He’d tried to use wind magic before that night and failed utterly. A single inhale of aether, several moments of pain and disorientation, and wind came to his call as easily as fire. He understood it. Just like that. It was eerie, and completely unearned. How could he trust an understanding he hadn’t worked for?

Aside from the fact that as a Dominant of fire, he should not be able to use wind magic anywhere near that well in the first place.

Jill didn’t comment on his unease.

They slept back to back, trusting in Torgal to wake them if needed. Not that it was likely, in the middle of the Blighted lands. Jill’s body against his was cool, as Joshua had been warm. It wasn’t the clammy cold of death or illness, but more like sleeping next to the first truly chill breeze of winter cutting through stale autumn mugginess. It had been a very long time since Clive had felt so safe.

Chapter Text

Anabella did not enjoy her regular trips to Rosalith. They were required of her, as Vicereine of the Imperial Province of Rosaria, and she undertook them dutifully. Duty did not mean pleasure. That had been drilled into her from her earliest childhood.

The smallfolk of the city turned out to see her procession, just as they always had for Elwin. She hadn’t dressed her grandest - the streets of Rosalith threw dust, and she would not risk ruining her gowns - but she could still make a respectable show of things. Violet silk, not the true colour, of course, and black embroidery in the Rosarian style. It was a balancing act. She must appear Imperial, but not too Imperial. Not here in Rosalith. Much to her frustration, even after thirteen years the people of the city were still sullen about the Emperor’s authority here.

It was Elwin’s fault. He could have sought more. He could have been more. For them. For their son.

Now it was left to Anabella to simper for an entire province and pretend she was happy to be here and see the past shoved back in her face.

Her retinue arrived at Rosalith castle just after noon. They were awaiting her, of course. Anabella washed, dressed in something more suitable - more violet and black, but this time with more gold jewelry - and proceeded down to the feast that awaited her.

It was nothing next to Oriflamme. Oriflamme had trade. And wealth. And variety. This was the same Rosarian fare that had been set in front of her day in and day out through all the years of her first marriage. She smiled through that, too, but no more than she had to. The cooks should have known better. Word would be sent to the kitchens.

Afterwards, it was time to get down to business. She sent for Cardinal Emeric, who handled domestic Rosarian affairs while Anabella was in Oriflamme, and Sir Nazaire, who represented the Imperial Army, and took her place in her study. Once it had been Elwin’s.

“So?” she asked, once they had made their required bows. “How fares Rosaria?”

Much the same as it had the past thirteen years, it turned out. Endless whining about taxes and crystal rations. Complaints about Imperial magistrates and Imperial troops enforcing Imperial law. Rebels skulking around the woods and the swamps, not in great numbers but with annoying persistence.

“Most worryingly,” Cardinal Emeric said, “is news of villagers harbouring Branded for themselves rather than turning them over to the proper authorities or paying the proper taxes.”

“And you saved that until now?” Anabella flared. “How many villages? How many Branded? Are they working together in this…rebellion?”

It was Sir Nazaire who stepped forward to answer, but he’d ever been more useful than the Cardinal. “Our reports indicate perhaps as many as two hundred Branded, sheltered between a dozen villages or thereabouts. We’ve started to hear rumours of a group stealing Branded and spiriting them away - not the usual pirates, bandits, and slavers, but targeting Branded specifically. It will likely become more of a problem in the years to come, your Grace, as the crystal shortages continue.”

“Not in this province, it won’t be,” Anabella said. “Sir Nazaire. Which villages?”

Sir Nazaire handed her a piece of paper. Anabella perused it. One name in particular stood out. “This one,” she said at last. “Visit them all, but make an example of this one. I guarantee you will find loyalists to the old regime there as well as Branded.”

“Your Majesty,” Sir Nazaire said.

“We must find a more permanent solution to this,” Anabella mused. “Tell me, what do you know of the old Shields of Rosaria? It may be an idea worth…repurposing.”

Both men hung on her every word as she explained what she had in mind. She could not have this sorted soon enough. Then she could go home. To her place.

Anabella belonged in Oriflamme, now, with the son who would make all her sacrifices over all her years worth it.

—

After four days, Clive and Jill topped the Hawk’s Ridge and looked down upon the green fields and marshes of Rosaria. It was a beautiful day, noon sky a clear but not oppressive blue, sunshine spilling over the still-lush grasses, a soft wind swirling refreshingly from the Rosarian side rather than the Blighted side.

“I haven’t been back here in thirteen years,” Jill said.

“Nor I,” said Clive.

The Ironblood knew better. So had the Imperials. Both had plenty of enemies for captive Bearers to be set upon. There was no reason to risk a Bearer turning upon their captors. For some it did not matter, especially with those branded young. In Clive’s case, a Branded soldier almost beneath notice, there had been a simple note against his entry on the Imperial inventory - not to be used in Rosaria.

If only he’d deserted earlier.

“I was afraid,” he confessed.

“You’re here now,” Jill said. “We both are.”

“Thanks to you.”

Jill offered him a wan smile.

In the end, they hadn’t been able to get her a new dress, but the clean wool the Hideaway had provided was stout enough for most travellers. They had traded a passing refugee for a better travelling cloak. Now Jill had a dark blue cloak with fitted sleeves and a deep hood. She looked somewhat fragile in all that heavy fabric, but that was fine with them both. Clive was there for intimidation and to make sure Shiva wasn’t necessary. Anyone who tried for the ‘easier target’, who underestimated Jill, deserved what they got. That didn’t mean they wanted the attention.

“Martha’s Rest, then?” Clive asked as they started down the hill. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Neither have I. I suppose it’s not unreasonable to think that things might have changed since we’ve been away.”

The swamps of Three Reeds were very similar, though. A slog to walk through no matter how times had changed. There were a few more monsters. They were also larger.

“It must be dangerous for the locals,” Clive said, after they took down another swarm of killer wasps. They’d already fought a bighorn and a pack of beastmen, all in the same day, and not far at all off the road.

“We haven’t seen any traders yet,” Jill pointed out.

They found one. A wrecked carriage by the side of the road, mobbed by wild chocobos. When the man spotted them, he called out, “You there! Branded!”

Clive ignored him.

“I say! Branded!”

Clive continued to ignore him as he and Jill drew level. Then the man reached out for Clive’s arm. Clive stepped back, still without responding. He looked to Jill. As a good Branded would look to his mistress.

“Excuse me,” Jill said. “May I ask why you are accosting my man?”

The merchant looked at Clive. “Man?” he asked.

“It hurts nobody to refer to him as such,” Jill said coolly. “He is my protector. So I ask again. Why are you accosting him? He has duties to attend to as it is.”

This time, the merchant looked Jill over, and seemed to come to the conclusion that she was a moderately respectable merchant much as he himself was. “Begging your pardon, madame, I didn’t see you at first,” he said, politely enough. “Could I ask a favour, then?”

“It depends what it is,” Jill replied.

“Nowt troublesome. Just if you’re passing by Martha’s Rest, let them at the stables know that Cas is stranded down here and could use some help.”

“That I can do,” Jill said. “Good day.”

She hurried them both off. Clive didn’t look back. He hoped the chocobos pecked this Cas for his rudeness, a little indulgence of freedom he wouldn’t have dared while he was still in the Imperial army lest someone see it on his face. 

Once they were out of earshot, he asked, “Are you all right?”

“I don’t like it,” Jill said. “But I can bear it.”

He didn’t want to insult her by fussing further. She’d never tolerated it when they were children. He remembered one day she’d fallen off her chocobo and ruined her dress - her handmaid had fluttered around her so. Jill had taken it all with a stony, furious expression, until Clive had whispered to her that her handmaid was worried what his mother would do to the handmaid herself when she found out Jill’s new dress had been torn and stained.

The road grew better-travelled as they went on. It was still maintained reasonably well, though to his sorrow he saw the aqueduct his father had started construction on had never been finished. They passed the stables and delivered their message and carried on, up the hill, where a plateau of harder rock stood high above the surrounding swamps. A few wisps of smoke drifted up to the sky above. A settlement up there would hardly need walls.

After the stable, the road turned to a bridge. It wasn’t one Clive recalled, yet it had several years of weathering on it. How long since the people here had been driven to build in such an inconvenient place?

There was no need to ask why. There were still plenty of monsters around here. He’d never seen so many cray claws in the swamps before.

The sun started to set as they made their way up the final incline. Mercenaries in plain leathers and chainmail guarded the top, idle but not glazed over with boredom, their weapons well kept. They nodded at Jill and let them both pass. More mercenaries in the same sort of leathers gathered around the well-lit inn and a newly-constructed barracks. From the friendly-enough reactions of the townsfolk to the armed men in their midst, Clive guessed they were here to supplement any town watch.

What was missing were Bearers. Clive spotted only two, and they were both children no more than ten and small even for that age.

The inn itself was the largest building by far. Two storeys, with a companionable rumble of conversation audible even from the street. The painted sign outside, the usual bed-and-tankard that most inns on Storm bore, had lettering above. The Golden Stables. Martha’s Rest, and Martha was the landlady, but the inn didn’t bear her name?

He followed Jill inside.

The common room was crowded. More mercenaries, not all of them drunk. A few traders at ease enough to have their hands well away from their weapons. Serving staff who didn’t look overly harried. Behind the bar was a woman of maybe forty or so, strawberry blonde hair bound up by a teal-and-red patterned kerchief. Her force of personality filled the room despite her diminutive height.

Seemed about right, for a friend of Cid’s.

Jill stepped forward, ready to take the brunt of the talking as they’d agreed. “Good evening. Would you happen to be Martha?”

“I’m Martha, aye,” the landlady said. “Good evening to you.”

“We were hoping we could stop for the night,” Jill said, “And in the morning, head west, if you knew the safest route.”

“Not many safe routes nowadays,” the landlady said. “Might find it even more difficult with a strapping young man by your side. Imperial armour or no. Not many immune from conscription these days. As for a room, we’re a little crowded.”

Clive shot a look at Jill and took a risk. “Gav spoke highly of your hospitality,” he said.

“Gav did, did he?” Martha asked slowly. “Come on upstairs, then. We’ll see what we can do for you.”

Upstairs was as plain and well-kept as downstairs. The wooden floors were sanded smooth, not a splinter to be seen. A few well-cut crystal chips provided light in the narrow hallway, until Martha opened the door to a modest parlour. That was lit by sun streaming through the window, its heavy shutters still open.

“So. Friends of Cid’s, are you?”

“People who owe Cid,” Clive said.

Martha gestured that they should sit. The chairs were worn, but the upholstery was still comfortable. “Cid’s got a way about him for sure,” she said. “Seems like the only people end up owing him are the sort who take those debts seriously.”

“If there’s some way we could assist you in return for your hospitality…” Jill offered.

“As it happens, that might be the only way you can head west, at least if you mean to circle around the garrison first. Bridge is out to the east side. The nearest ford is a solid two days’ ride, and there’s the Imperials to the west of course, but you would be doing a lot of people here a favour if you went and fetched that fool of a carpenter.”

Clive and Jill shared another glance. “Where should we start looking?” Clive asked. They were already running out of light.

“Stairs by the south,” Martha said. “He dropped his hammer over the edge of the bridge yesterday and went out to find it. Bring him back and we’re square for your lodging. Give it an honest attempt and I’ll take off half the fee. Our carpenter’s a short man, brown hair, built like a barrel, largest hands you’ve ever seen. Probably wearing a red kerchief but I can’t swear to that. Name of Bernard.”

The description already put her miles ahead of Cid in matters of reconnaissance, as far as Clive was concerned. “A fair deal, Madame Martha.”

She did allow them to leave their bags - neither of them worried leaving them with a friend of Cid’s, and neither of them feared losing their worldly possessions anyway - and sent them off with a heel of fresh bread each. Down payment, she called it, noting it would do no good if the would-be rescuers keeled over themselves before they could help anyone.

The short journey to the stairs took them through a small market. “This place is doing well,” Clive said. He hoped that all of Rosaria was doing this well. He doubted it.

“I suspect it’s Martha’s work,” Jill said around a mouthful of bread.

“If she’s responsible for this, she deserves to have the village named after her,” Clive said. Though closed for the day, there were stalls for a fishmonger, a weaver, a village smith, even extra spots for travellers. This wasn’t just a rest stop at a crossroads. This was a proper town. The hub of its area, most likely.

As they reached the base of the south face stairs, they passed another spindle-spire of Fallen stonework. It, too, lit up as Clive approached. Jill eyed it suspiciously.

“They’ve been doing that for some reason,” Clive said. “There was one back near the ridge as well.” He was growing used to it, right down to the shiver it sent down his spine when it activated.

But the light attracted another kind of attention. The carpenter, who started yelling for help. And the cray claws that had clustered around the rock he’d sheltered on, too.

It was quick work, though to maintain her cover as Clive’s mistress, Jill could not use her ice. She helped the man down from the rock while Clive did most of the actual fighting. No more than an hour and a half after striking a deal with Martha, they were back in her parlour. With more bread and a rather good crayfish soup. Waste not.

“Well, you have my thanks for that,” Martha said. “Like as not the Bloodaxes could have handled it, but it would have been a sight more dangerous for them than for you.”

“It was nothing,” Clive said. “But could you tell us - why are there so few Bearers here?”

“Yes,” Jill said. “When we were younger, there were many more. The only two we saw were children.”

Martha breathed out hard through her nose. “The Empire’s been conscripting. If they’re not sending Bearers to the front -” she lowered her voice “- they’re mining Drake’s Head.”

Clive and Jill spoke as one. “What?!”

From north to south, east to west, every nation of Storm believed the same. The lesser crystals, the ones that lit houses and filled wells, were harvested. They were a blessing - of Greagor, of Metia, of whichever god a land followed. All the faiths taught that crystals were to be nurtured and gathered when released from the greater Mothercrystal, not ripped from within.

Mining a Mothercrystal was worse than blasphemy. It was sacrilege.

“I’ve talked to some from the mines. They force the crystals with magic, then cut them. And still there are fewer now than there have been in the past ten years. People turn to Bearers, but they’re taken almost as soon as they’re found. Cora and Tris, the two children we still have in the town, neither have any talent for earth magic and are small besides, the only reason we’ve been able to keep them here with the few people who give half a damn. They’re children, they should be ‘prenticing or playing, not trying to do the work of half a dozen grown men. And still people treat them worse every year. As if it’s their fault -”

Martha stopped with a furious huff.

“Go on,” Clive urged.

“You don’t need to hear my complaints about some of the damned fools here,” she said. “Every village has them and I do what I can for Tris and Cora. If you want to do more, you should go to Glaidemond Abbey. You can call it another favour if you like. I’ve got a delivery for them.”

“The bridge will take some time to repair anyway,” Jill said. “It’s no trouble.” Clive nodded. Now that he was back - he wanted to see more of his homeland. Good or bad.

That night, he shared a room with Jill. Nobody commented on a Bearer sharing a lone woman’s room, no more than they would have commented on a bedtable sharing the room. “Bearers aren’t even human to them anymore,” Clive said. He was facing the door, to give Jill her privacy. They’d both decided to take the opportunity to wash their clothes. Clive could dry them easily enough.

“I can’t recall it being this bad,” Jill said. “But would we have even noticed?”

“Father…tried,” he said. “But we had plenty of crystals back then, and even then…people like my mother…”

His mother had thought many people were below her. She hadn’t been the only person who’d thought that way. But as usual, even the mention of Anabella Rosfield was enough to make him not want to talk at all.

Chapter Text

“What was it like for Bearers in the North?” Clive asked her as they negotiated the steep path down from Martha’s Rest. He had Martha’s donation in his pack, a small sack of gold and a small box of vials. Some sort of medicine.

“Not so different to here,” Jill said, then corrected herself. “How it used to be here. Children were tested and sent away if they showed, and we all assumed it was for the best.” Bearers had hearts of crystal, her mother had taught her, the same as children in Rosaria were taught. They didn’t feel emotions like people did, more like dogs or chocobos than humans.

In Elwin Rosfield’s Rosaria, Bearers had been pitied instead. They were still less than ordinary people, but the Archduke’s pity saw far fewer Bearers conscripted into the army, forced into the mines, or beaten by their masters. He’d made such things law a bare few years before Phoenix Gate.

Clive’s gaze was a thousand miles away. “For a child to be hated by its parents…through no fault of its own…”

“We knew nothing of what it meant to be born that way,” Jill said. Clive’s mouth tightened and too late she remembered. Clive knew something of that way. “I was thinking of your father,” she added.

He forced a smile back at her. “I try to forget my mother as well.” It did not entirely ring true. Anabella was not a forgettable person.

Having so thoroughly put her foot in her mouth, Jill let it lie for the rest of the walk around Sorrowise Bay. There were a few more signs of settlement out here. Fewer monsters. Even a few farms and hamlets still, though the farmers in the fields seemed to carry stouter pitchforks than Jill would have thought strictly necessary for soft Rosarian hay.

Fully around the cape was a building Jill was certain was relatively new, for it was a church in the Imperial style. It looked newer even than the buildings of Martha’s Rest. Glaidemond Abbey, as promised.

Outside, in the front garden, there was a stooped figure in undyed wool. His faded blue stole marked him as the abbot. Jill cleared her throat to catch his attention.

The man straightened. He was perhaps fifty, with hair the colour of rust. His eyes flicked to Clive’s armour, then his brand, before returning to Jill. “Might I help you, travellers?” he asked.

“We’re here to help you,” Jill said. Clive offered the bag and box Martha had given them. “A delivery from Martha.”

Tension leached from him. “I see. This way, my friends. This way.”

The abbot led them behind the main chapel to a rough collection of other buildings. There were more gardens there, a small orchard, beehives, tended by a number of monks and nuns - and Bearers.

Bearers who moved with painful stiffness. Even as Jill watched, one of the nuns hurried to the side of one of the stiffest and helped lower them down to a seat in the grass.

“Oh,” Clive said. “The curse. I - haven’t seen it much before.”

Curse?

“You may not, in the Imperial army,” the abbot said. “Your burden, and those of your peers, is rather different, though no less perilous. All these here came to us from the mines or the quarries, the tanneries and the smithies. Hard work that calls on them to use their magic day after day without rest. Until they break.”

“Martha buys them?” Jill asked. She might not know what exactly was going on here, but Martha’s involvement was plain enough.

“She does. She can only afford those who are…suffering. Unfit for the occupations their original masters set them to. We do what we can for them here for the time they have left to them.” He looked over the abbey grounds, where half a dozen Bearers worked alongside Greagor’s devotees. “Most try to work until they are in the final stages of the curse.”

The abbot invited them to spend the night before heading back to Martha’s Rest in the morning. They accepted without needing to discuss it; they might as well, while they waited for the bridge repair. “We need to talk to everybody,” Clive whispered. “You speak to the monks, I’ll see if the Bearers will talk to me.” He was already taking off his armour. Without it, he still looked like a fighting man, but…less so.

“I don’t even know what this curse is,” Jill whispered back.

“I don’t know much more,” Clive said. “Once someone started to suffer from the curse, and it didn’t get them killed in the usual way, a lot of them…took matters into their own hands.”

“The Ironblood didn’t let me speak to Bearers,” Jill said. “They didn’t want us colluding.”

They looked at each other. Jill knew what they were both thinking: they knew nothing. Only the tiniest corner of misery.

So Jill went to speak to the abbot more in the man’s humble solar, tucked in a tiny room just off the chapel. “Your honour. We did have one matter we’d like to confirm. Martha mentioned the Imperials were mining the Mothercrystal in Oriflamme. Is it true?”

“Aye,” the abbot said. “We’ve had two Bearers through here recently who came through the new mines. Both dead now. The curse takes Bearers quickly in crystal mines.”

True. Metia above. The Imperials were carving away at their own goddess’s blessing. What could that possibly mean for Sanbreque? For all of them? Had the Emperor gone mad?

“Forgive me my ignorance,” she said, through the horrible sinking feeling in her stomach, “but - the curse. I know nothing of it. I’ve never seen one afflicted.”

Graciously, the abbot only nodded. “I hope that is the result of good fortune, rather than the result of your Imperial friend’s sort of fortune,” he said.

She thought of her childhood in her father’s hall, and then in Rosalith. She thought of her time in the bowels of Drake’s Breath, watching Imreann carry on. “A bit of both. And please. Soldier he might be, but my friend is no Imperial. He wears the armour he - we - can get.”

Another gracious nod. “Either way, explanation hurts nobody.”

So he told her. The ‘lithification’ that slowly turned a Bearer’s flesh to stone. Slowly, and painfully. It started as small as a stiffness in the joints or a hard patch of skin. Then it spread and deepened, until entire limbs or organs were petrified. Even when the lithification didn’t kill outright, it could and did cause other problems as it progressed - blood poisoning and infections, brittle bones, blindness, a gruesome range of digestive failures. Jill listened in horror. She had noticed in the past few years how priming had begun to hurt, but she had put it down to living a difficult life. And the Bearers here worked through that pain?

Was that to be her fate too? Clive’s fate?

Truly, she’d only known one way a Bearer or Dominant could be miserable.

“There is always a place in the shade for them here,” the abbot said. “Or a place by the fire. A cool drink. Martha’s donations keep us in poppy, when their pain becomes too much at the end.”

He looked away from her then, towards one of the solar walls. There was a simple hanging on blue fabric there, a white wyvern tail bloom in clumsy stitches. Anabella Rosfield would have been appalled. In the abbot’s solar it had pride of place. She wondered how hard it must be to learn to embroider even as your hands turned to stone, and how much the Bearer who’d made it must have cared.

Jill straightened. “Can you show me to the kitchens?” she asked. “I’d like to do my own part here.”

Their goodbyes the next day were subdued, especially when the abbot gave them the message for Martha that two more Bearers had died since she’d last sent a messenger - Rene and Walter were the names he gave them to pass on.

“What did you find out?” Jill asked, as she and Clive started the walk back to Martha’s Rest.

“They’re treated well,” Clive said. “They thought they would die in the mines, or whatever miserable place they’d come from, so being sold to a monastery to pick fruit or stir soup only if they feel well enough, and maybe die in a sunny room on a proper pallet without much pain…a lot of Bearers in the army would have killed for an opportunity like that.”

“It doesn’t seem like enough,” Jill said.

“No,” Clive agreed.

—

They stopped by Martha’s on the way back. Had to give the chocobos a rest. Plus Cid was almost out of cigarettes.

He wasn’t in a rush to get back to the Hideaway. Mid’s next letter wouldn’t be for weeks. Maybe he should go to Kanver and see her in person. That said, if he didn’t return Goetz, Lady Charon would kill him, and if he didn’t bring these supplies, Otto would kill him.

But when he opened the door to Martha’s Rest, Martha glared at him from across the counter like she wanted to kill him.

“Just stopping in for a drink,” Cid said when he reached the counter. 

“Upstairs. Now,” Martha replied.

“With an invitation like that, who dares refuse?”

Martha didn’t say a word until they were up in the private parlour, door firmly shut behind them. “You said distinguished company,” she hissed. “You didn’t say it was the bleeding Lord Marquess. Fuck, Cid, he’d be Archduke if he just gave his name, brand or no brand, there’s not a Rosarian who would hold that brand against him, not when he got it for the Blessing of the Phoenix. Imperial bastards have no appreciation for our customs. He’d be our Archduke! And Lady Warrick with him!”

“I wouldn’t mention the Archduke angle to him if I were you,” Cid warned. “Best you’re likely to get out of him for the moment is a helpful sword. Two, once you account for Lady Warrick’s as well. The Imperials don’t treat their Branded kindly. ”

“No, they don’t,” Martha sighed. “Wishful thinking on my part. I know well the Imperials leave their marks. I’ll take all the help they’re willing to offer and be grateful for it.”

There were a few more business things to discuss - supplies, the Vicereine’s grip on the region, Martha’s contacts elsewhere in the Rosarian countryside. Always a pleasure to do business with Martha over her excellent ale, it was. Cid left an hour later, feeling decidedly more cheerful.

He started saddling up his chocobo when his good mood was ruined by a harsh twinge in his left arm. The one that had taken the brunt of all the semi-priming he’d done running around after Clive. He hissed and pulled the sleeve up slightly. Was it spreading?

What was he thinking? Of course it was spreading. Could he see it spreading, now that was the question.

There was a disturbance in the aether. He knew that faint pulling sensation.

Cid looked up to see both Clive and Jill looking at him, his half-petrified arm clearly visible. A matched set of stoic faces. They knew what it meant. “Think of it as a reward for exemplary misconduct,” he said, instead of hello. Death by a thousand little levinbolts. “It’s not always so bad.”

Other days it was that bad. Those days had him wondering how many days he had left. How many days he could trade for his goals. Fewer and fewer. He wasn’t quite half a statue yet, but the day was surely coming.

Here and now, he had two young people in front of him, all grave and concerned.

“We’re glad to see you,” Clive said. “We wanted to thank you for what you’ve done for us before we left and were sorry to miss the chance.” Lady Warrick stood at his elbow, presenting a silent but united front.

Cid waved it off. “If you want to leave, that’s your call,” he said. “Can’t make you stay, don’t want to make you do anything. Can’t force it. If nobody’s listening to what you say, you might as well not say it. Learned that the hard way by now. I knew a girl once. I wanted to save her. I thought I could, for a while.”

He could remember Benna’s smile when she bested one of Cid’s lieutenants and realised that whatever happened to her, she could fight back. The joy she took in learning Garuda’s powers. Free as the winds, he’d thought. It hadn’t been enough. He’d been a conceited old fool. Even when he’d been younger.

He might still be a conceited old fool, but - “I want you to know,” he said to Clive, “You’re not a monster. You’re a man. Same man you’ve always been. Hold to that - and you might be able to save yourself.”

The Dominants weren’t divine, after all. Nor were the Eikons. Clive wasn’t what he feared he was. Cid believed that. Clive was a young man who’d been put through things as bad as Benna had ever suffered and who hadn’t yet broken like she’d broken. Who didn’t have to break like she broke.

Clive looked down, his shame written clearly on his face. “I’ll try,” he said.

Well. He’d just told Martha there was only so much she could ask of Clive. That went for conceited old fools as much as it did for patriotic landladies. He could only hope that Clive was listening. He turned to Lady Warrick then. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to talk to you more, my lady,” he said. “Look after this one, will you? Make sure he doesn’t do anything too daft.”

Lady Warrick had all of Shiva’s proud, cold beauty. Her amused smile was like a glint of sun off the ice. “Of course,” she said.

“Anyway, I’m off,” Cid said, and mounted up. His arm ached something fierce. He’d said what he needed to. He always was shit at goodbyes. “You know where my door is. It’s always open.”

He turned his back on them. If this was the last he saw of them, he’d rather remember Clive’s sincerity and Jill’s smile than anything else.

Chapter Text

Worgens aside - so many of them! - the trek up the Broken Hilt wasn’t too bad. It was a mere two days before they saw the windmills of Eastpool rising up across the river, churning slowly and steadily in the morning fog.

“It looks almost the same,” Clive said in wonder. “Lord Murdoch used to bring me here when I was young and Father wanted me out of the castle.” Away from his mother. There had been times where it was worth being away from Joshua just to get away from his mother.

“This is where you went?” Jill asked, looking around curiously. “You always came back black and blue.”

“It was a trip with Lord Murdoch. He wasn’t one for going easy on me or letting me skip training.”

The road was still well maintained, even though when the wind blew from the north Clive could smell the strange deadness of Blighted lands, and here and there he could see trees turning dead and brown though summer would not end for another moon. Eastpool, despite its name, was almost on the northern border of Rosaria. The Blight would not be far. The village itself was a prosperous one. Less so now than it had been when Clive was young, now that trade with the North wasn’t possible. 

“It’s very quiet,” Jill said, once they reached the centre of town.

That was true. The paved square was almost empty of people. There had been a market here every two weeks when Clive was younger. The stalls stood empty. They looked like they’d been empty for a long time. One old Bearer sat by the well, staring absently off to the east. One man was up on a rooftop repairing thatch. Most everyone who lived here, it seemed, was out in the fields and out of sight.

Clive turned around to see if there was anyone else. The woman whose eyes he met dropped her basket of laundry in shock.

“My lord?” she asked, staring at Clive. “Lord Marquess?”

This woman - was familiar. Somewhere around fifty, blonde hair greying, face worn more with emotion than long time in the sun. He knew her. He remembered her younger. Happier. A kind smile. “Lady Hanna?”

Hanna Murdoch. Lord Rodney’s wife. The Lord Commander had wed her when Clive was six or thereabouts, the wedding feast one of his earliest clear memories that did not revolve around Joshua. His mother had not attended, claiming Joshua needed all her attention that evening, leaving the Archduke alone to honour his friend. And Clive, who had guiltily enjoyed the feast all the more for his mother’s absence. He recalled that Hanna had never much liked Rosalith - she had much preferred to occupy her time managing Lord Murdoch’s holdings in Eastpool, close to where her mother served as a local magistrate and the rest of her family still lived. His father had sometimes jokingly threatened to appoint Hanna as a chamberlain, and never had.

Still, she had been a familiar sight in Rosalith, and she had always opened the Murdoch home to him when he visited with her husband. With far more welcome than his own mother would have.

Her eyes brimmed with tears as she sank into a curtsey. Clive stepped forward to help her straighten. He wasn’t here for people to bow and scrape - he didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t his place. “You’re alive. You’re alive!”

Clive looked around. Empty as the square was, that could change at any minute. “Lady Hanna, could we please have this conversation inside?”

She wiped her eyes. “Of course. This way, my lord - Lady Warrick too, forgive me. I can’t believe - I don’t have much to offer, but what I do have is yours.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Clive said, picking up the dropped laundry. Jill moved to Lady Hanna’s side to support her. “Though I would be grateful to take tea with you again, Lady Hanna.”

Together, they headed towards the Murdoch home. It was the largest in town by some ways. Its garden gave it its own space. Even at this time of year the large rosemary bushes by the gate were heavily fragrant. But once they were inside, and Clive looked closer - there was dust in the corners. A crack or two in the plaster. The Murdochs had once owned a fine teak dining table, an heirloom of the Murdoch family, but the one Lady Hanna sat them at was pine.

“Now,” Lady Hanna said, when she returned from her kitchen with tea. Mint, from the smell of it, fresh and sharp. “My lord, my lady - if you can, would you tell me how it is you both survived?”

The story they told was not a truthful one. Clive was a poor liar and always had been. He could edit, and elide, and little more. He could not bear to burden Lady Hanna with what he’d been these last thirteen years. When it came Jill’s turn to talk, she said much the same. They’d been on the road, they told her, unsure where to go and who they could trust.

They could both see that Lady Hanna did not believe them. They could both see she wanted to. But the brand on Clive’s face spoke for itself.

“Enough of us,” Jill said, when she drew her own false tale to a close. “What of you, Lady Hanna? Do you plan to stay in Eastpool with the Blight drawing nearer?”

“My home is here,” Lady Hanna said, looking fondly at the room. “What’s left of our families still live nearby. Besides, even if I wanted to move to the city, I couldn’t. The Vicereine - I’m sorry, her Imperial Majesty - closed the capital to newcomers.”

“Of course,” Clive muttered. He’d heard of his mother’s remarriage to the Emperor. Who on Storm hadn’t? Of course she made a logical appointment as Vicereine. And of course she’d close Rosalith to people she saw as lesser. “Surely she would make an exception for the Lord Commander and his family,” he said.

Lady Hanna’s eyes dropped towards her cold tea. “You haven’t heard, then, my lord.”

“Heard what?” Fear pooled in his stomach. This house was too quiet. Too empty. Too much dust in the corners.

“My husband died at Phoenix Gate.”

—

Jill was starting to worry again. Clive had all but shut down once Lady Hanna had told them of her husband’s death. He’d stammered out an apology, then stammered out an excuse to leave. 

“I’m sorry,” Jill said, for more than just Lord Murdoch’s thirteen-years-past death.

“It’s all right, Lady Warrick,” Lady Hanna said with a wan smile. “I don’t expect courtly graces from either of you under the circumstances. I know the Lord Marquess cared for my husband. It’s - more than I can say - to see he cares so deeply still.”

For the rest of the day, Clive busied himself working on Lady Hanna’s house. Mindless, heavy work. Jill asked if Lady Hanna would simply leave him to it - “Allowing him to help you is the best way to help him,” Jill said, praying again to Metia that it was true - and Lady Hanna at last relented. It was plain enough she didn’t like the idea of Archduke Elwin’s son mucking out her chocobo stable. She had fewer objections to Jill helping in the kitchen, but some things were just to be expected. She was dealing with Rosarians, and she was no Rosarian.

The next battle was over where Clive would sleep. Lady Hanna tried to clear out her guest room, but in a spare moment Clive turned his deep blue eyes to Jill in anguish and said, “I can’t.”

So no matter how much she might have wanted to sleep in a proper bed under a proper roof, she made excuses for both of them. She would not leave Clive alone for this.

Even so, once they were on their bedrolls outside, she asked, “Are you sure?”

“I killed her husband,” Clive said, staring straight up at the stable ceiling. At the hole in it, the full moon shining down on both of them from a clear sky. “The last thing I remember from before - before the Phoenix, Lord Murdoch was next to me. He didn’t die on an Imperial sword. I did it.”

It would be cruel to point out that it could have been Joshua. Accidents happened, with Eikons and their power. Jill didn’t know. But neither did Clive. “We don’t know that yet,” Jill said. “That’s why we’re going to Phoenix Gate, to see for ourselves.”

“And what are we going to find?” Clive asked. He didn’t look at her. “These past thirteen years…I’ve killed so many people. I told myself it was so I could avenge Joshua. But if I did that, if I killed him, and Sir Rodney, and all the others, what was the point? Why am I still breathing?”

His voice cracked open on the words. Boy or man, she’d never heard him like this. Not even when he confessed first that he was a Dominant.

“I wish I knew,” Jill said. Guilt was a barren tundra inside her. Shipfuls of traders, raiders, Waloeders. Entire hamlets on the Rosarian and Dhalmekian coasts. The Ironblood had turned her on all of them. She’d agreed to save just a handful of women who she couldn’t even bring herself to speak to. A handful of Rosarians. “I ask myself the same thing. After Titan, that time…I hoped someone would kill me.” And spare her even the choice of killing herself.

Clive pulled himself upright. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ve been through worse -”

“There’s no comparing. It’s the same, but it’s not. I don’t want to - weigh things up.” She might have killed more people. He might have killed Joshua. Weighing things up could only make things worse for both of them.

“But,” she said, “When I wanted to die, Metia answered my prayer. My last prayer. You came back to me. I believe that has to mean something.”

If she could help him, maybe she could help herself. If Clive wasn’t beyond saving, maybe she wasn’t either. She leaned in, trying to look him in the eyes. They were almost black in the silvery moonlight, wide and afraid. She wanted to help him. She wanted to help him more than she’d ever wanted anything except for him to just come back.

“The heavens must have a plan for us,” she said. She was so close now she could feel his breath on her face, see how his pulse was jumping in his neck. She wanted - she wanted -

There was a sharp pulling sensation, just for a moment, and Clive flinched away from her.

Not tonight, then. Tonight she would have to settle for her one answered prayer.

—

“I did have something for you, my lord,” Lady Hanna said.

The box she presented to him was full of armour. It wasn’t new by any means, several of the leather straps needed replacing, it wasn’t even a full set, but it was far better quality than what he wore now - and it was Rosarian. There was fabric underneath. Spare clothes.

“An old set of your father’s,” Lady Hanna explained. “He left it here for when he practiced with Rodney. At some point he got a new set and, well, neither Rodney nor I ever cleaned it out. It’s not fitting, you walking around Rosaria looking like an Imperial.”

It turned out he was built differently through the chest and shoulders than his father had been, too much so to repurpose chestplate and gorget. The greaves and vambraces fit him well enough, the spare shirt was better quality than his own by far and more forgiving than the chestplate, and it would take a lot for him to reject a solid cloak of oiled canvas. Staying dry was a privilege. Wearing this, he felt less like Wyvern of the Bastards and more like Clive Rosfield again. 

A different Clive Rosfield to the child he’d once been. Wyvern would always be a part of him. What he’d made of himself could not be unmade. Just pushed to the background for him to be Clive again. Whatever else he must face, he could at least face it with his own name.

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. 

“They do me no good,” Lady Hanna replied. “It’s only right that you should have these.”

Jill smiled when she saw him. “It suits you much better,” she said.

They said their farewells to Lady Hanna and headed for the northern gate. Beyond were Blighted lands, but a clear path to Phoenix Gate as well. Clive was lightheaded with a mixture of relief and dread. 

A second person called out, “My lord!” before they even reached the village gate. “My Lord Rosfield!”

This speaker was an older man, stooped from years of hard work, with a square white beard. He wore a red stole, marking him as the mayor. Clive thought about trying to lie and say he must be mistaken, but the mayor’s shrewd gaze deterred him. Not for the first time, Clive wished he was a better liar.

Instead, he inclined his head and said, “Honourable Mayor.”

The mayor nodded. “I thought it was you. Why, you look just like your father.” Anger creased his brow as he took in the whole of Clive’s face. “Though I see someone has mistaken your honoured late brother’s gift for a curse.”

He restrained himself from touching his brand. Just. Fortunately, the mayor didn’t ask who had branded him, or when, or why.

“You’ve been away a long time, my lord. Are you planning to stay, by any chance?”

“Just passing through, I’m afraid. I have business elsewhere.” He’d crushed some hope the man held. He could see it in his eyes. “Is there a problem in Eastpool?”

The mayor snorted. “There are more problems than I know what to do with. The Blight is on our doorstep. Our harvests are failing. We have more than a dozen Bearers here, two dozen almost, who fled here from the capital after the Ironblood sacked it. They’re wards of the duchy, with their masters lost, but the Vicereine -”

“I know how the Vicereine treats Bearers,” Clive said. “Giving them refuge here was a generous act.”

“With respect, my lord, we cannot afford - they’re city Bearers, mostly, hardly any with a lick of talent for what we need out here in a country town even after all these years. The Vicereine’s men have been sniffing around, too. We cannot keep them safe here much longer.”

That explained why the village was so quiet. If they were all keeping Bearers hidden, out of the main square where a traveller could come through and report them to the Vicereine…

“We know someone who can help,” Clive said. “We’ll be back in a few days and I will help you arrange to meet him. In the meantime, consider contacting Martha at Martha’s Rest. She may have some ideas, and she shares some contacts.”

The relief and gratitude on the man’s face was almost more than Clive could bear. “I know Mistress Martha a little,” he said. “Not well, mind you, but if you say she might be able to help I will take your advice and gladly. Thank you, my lord.”

“Hardly a lord, these days,” Clive said. “But if I can help, I will.” He had to make himself useful, after all.

He and Jill said their farewells there, too, and at last managed to make their way past the northern gate. Torgal made an unhappy sound behind them.

“I know, boy,” Clive said.

Blighted lands never felt right to travel in. The lack of ambient aether was unnerving. Just breathing in felt stale. This place had none of the comforts of Cid’s Hideaway to take the edge off. They set off up the sloping path, winding through more Fallen ruins. Another one of those strange spires lit up as they passed.

“Why are they doing that?” Jill asked.

Clive shook his head. He still didn’t have an answer.

An hour further up the trail, Jill said, “You know…you could take your father’s place, if you wanted to. He and Joshua would both have preferred you to rule, rather than your mother.”

The very idea made him feel sick to his stomach. “It’s not my place,” he said. “Even if I wasn’t the one who killed Joshua - it’s not my place. I can’t. I couldn’t.”

“You don’t have to,” Jill said calmly. “But you should hear it all the same.”

She didn’t press any further, for which Clive was grateful.

They climbed all day in the deathly silence, footsteps hushed in the crumbling pitch-black earth. Not another living thing stirred.

It was like this from here to the northern edge of Valisthea. A whole kingdom, Jill’s home, swallowed up in this bleakness. It was creeping south to swallow his home too. There was little but numb despair in the thought. He tried to ignore it. The feeling crawled down his throat anyway.

They stopped at sundown in a narrow rocky niche. Somehow that was better than camping on Blighted soil. There would be no foraging here, no hunting. They had to rely on their supplies.

To his surprise, Jill took both their waterskins and, with the subtle blue glow of aether, started refilling them.

“How are you doing that?” Clive asked. It was Blighted land. It just didn’t work.

Jill blinked. “I can’t do much with water, but I promised you we wouldn’t go thirsty.”

“I mean there’s no aether to draw on.”

“I’m using my own. Dominants can.” She tried to smile at him. Clive tried not to think of how Jill would have learned this. “It’s probably the best thing I’ve done with these powers.”

Oh. “I appreciate it,” he said. That was something he thought she might need to hear.

Clive sipped at his refilled water. He couldn’t afford to drink too much even with Jill’s help; he didn’t want to overtax her. It made a kind of sense, now that Jill said it. Dominants were different to Bearers in many ways. Cid wouldn’t have used his magic in the Blighted lands where he made his hideaway because Cid was dying slowly from using his magic.

If he truly was a Dominant, he could just…reach inside right now. Light a fire. Call a breeze. He could know. Without summoning the monster.

He didn’t even try. He knew how to light a fire without a crystal. Before Clive had received the Blessing, Sir Rodney had always said that a soldier in the field couldn’t rely on having one.

The next morning they kept climbing. North and west, then more west than north. The roads were still reasonably clear. Just terribly dead.

At last they reached the top of the ridge that overlooked Phoenix Gate itself. Still another day’s walk, but within sight.

Clive found he couldn’t look at it for long.

“Come on,” Jill said. “It’s time to learn the truth.”

She led the way down and towards the castle Joshua had died in thirteen years ago.

Chapter Text

The Blight hadn’t taken Phoenix Gate. Not in the sense that most understood the term. Despite that, the place was hardly any more alive. Grass grew over some of the rubble. A straggly sapling was busy taking over the shell of a fallen tower. Scorch marks were everywhere, old and weathered, but still black.

And, of course, there was the crater.

He could no longer see exactly how deep it was. Water filled it, still and clear. Its unaturally round shape betrayed it for the mark of impact that it was. He shuddered at the hazy memory of making that crater - he’d drawn fire, he thought, as hot as he could make it. The beast had simply thought more. Then it had thrown it at the Phoenix for daring to fight back.

It had thrown the fire. More accurate to say that he had thrown the fire. After that, flashes. Violent, gory flashes.

“Could I have done this?” Clive asked aloud. This was an entire lake.

Jill replied, “Could anyone?”

Behind them, Torgal started growling.

Clive whipped around. There, behind them and heading deeper into the ruins, was the hooded man. Again!

Clive didn’t even ask. He ran. Jill would understand.

Just like in the high hills of Sanbreque, Clive couldn’t seem to catch up, no matter how fast he ran. The hooded man was always just out of sight, a trailing robe just whisking around the nearest corner. Clive followed through the grassed-over ruins of a courtyard, the open wreckage of the hall, and then down into a mostly intact tunnel.

There he stopped, because this was a dead end, and the hooded man was nowhere to be seen. Only the door to the Apodytery stood here, shut fast against intruders. It was a relic of the Fallen, like the Apodytery below was supposed to be. It was the same immovable white-grey stone as the ruins that built the Hideaway, lines engraved into it in stylised winglike patterns. The door none but the Dominant of the Phoenix could open.

Joshua was supposed to have opened it, all those years ago. Opened it and ventured beyond, to hear the Words of Our Ancestors and prepare himself for war.

“Clive!”

Jill and Torgal caught up with him. Torgal didn’t look like he had a scent.

“What’s going on?” Jill asked.

“The hooded man - he came this way -”

“I didn’t see anyone. Or pass anyone. There’s nobody here.” Jill’s voice was not disbelieving. She was stating three facts for him and nothing more.

Which left but one path. Clive growled in frustration, staring back at the closed door. “He’d have to have the power of the Phoenix -”

They realised it in the same moment. Clive took a deep breath and focused on the Phoenix’s flames within him. Not the beast’s. Now that he knew there was a difference, there was no mistaking one for the other. Carefully, gently, he raised his hand and touched the Phoenix flame to the door.

The dark, gem-like nodes on the door glowed briefly. With a faint whisper of sound, the heavy door slid open.

Thank you, Joshua. 

“Well then,” Jill said. “Shall we?”

She took the first step into the Apodytery. Clive was grateful for that too. It wasn’t a sacred place to her. Following her felt less wrong than stepping into the Apodytery himself. It wasn’t his place. 

Aether washed over him the instant he stepped inside, tingling and fizzing against his skin. Hazy blue light illuminated a space more vast than Clive could possibly have imagined. He, Jill, and Torgal were venturing along only a narrow span of Fallen stonework above a space that could fit the castle above into it three times over. More walkways were visible below, twining around the sides of the great open area.

“It’s pristine,” Jill said in awe. Her voice didn’t echo quite as it should.

“What could it be for?” Clive asked.

This was a sight none but the Phoenix would have ever seen. Who knew what the previous Dominants would have known of this place? So much knowledge lost.

The walkway ended in a round platform. As soon as Clive stepped on it, there was a hostile hissing noise. Panels arose from previously innocuous grooves and reformed themselves into - “What are they?” Clive asked.

“Dangerous,” Jill replied, drawing her sword.

The Fallen constructs looked like insects. Insects made of white stone. Some were low, scurrying things. Two more were taller and bore swords that seemed to be made of pure light, as bright as Bahamut’s but somehow colder. They advanced with soft clicking noises and undeniable hostility.

Clive slashed down at the nearest one. His blade took a substantial chunk out of its hide, if hide was the right word, so - “Not Fallen stone,” he said. Just Fallen make. Fallen guards? Fallen servitors?

Whatever it was, it reared back, scuttled around, and lashed a claw-like limb at his ankles. Clive stepped back, turning to take the blade of light from one of the big ones as he did so. They worked together in eerie harmony. Though none of their opponents were strong individually, together they posed a threat to be taken seriously.

When the last of the constructs fell, and the three of them were trying to catch their breath, the floor fell away with a low hum. Down and down it took them, until it finally came to a stop at another walkway. Clive looked at Jill. Jill shrugged. They kept walking, following the spiralling path.

The next round platform they came to housed what was clearly a guardian of some sort. This one was made of black metal, like a giant made of steel, bigger even than an Imperial cannonier and their cannon, put together. Its arms had to be as thick as Jill’s entire waist.

Without needing to discuss it, Jill stayed back and used her ice from a distance. Clive was faster, especially with Phoenix flame to help him. Torgal growled but there was little he could do against something so large and so impervious to teeth. Once he struck the golem in a moment of unbalance, knocking it to the floor and allowing Clive and Jill to hit it with almost everything they could. It, too, fell.

“These have to be guards,” Jill panted. “The Phoenix can’t possibly have to deal with this every time.”

The thought of Joshua ambushed by these monsters…it might not have been as bad as what happened to him at the monster’s hands, but it sent a shudder through him all the same. “I’ve never heard of it,” Clive said. “I’m not an expert, but we never had records of the Dominants of the Phoenix leaving the Apodytery injured.” 

This all raised another question, though - had the hooded man also run this gauntlet? Clive, Jill and Torgal were certainly leaving a substantial trail of shattered Fallen ceramics and twisted metal. The floors in front of them, however, were all clean. So. Either the hooded man was passing unobstructed or undetected, or Clive was seeing things.

It was possible.

The swirls of the stonework grew more and more ornate as they descended. Impossibly delicate designs whirled everywhere. Blue light filled the gaps in the spaces between designs, bright as crystal light. Between the decor and the aether, Clive was starting to grow dizzy.

At last they reached what appeared to be the bottom. A circular space stretched before them, large enough to hold the Phoenix when fully primed. Easily. The spiralling path led them to that open space, where the aether seemed to pool more thickly again. 

Clive blinked. That wasn’t just thick aether.

“What is that?” Jill asked.

The aether, if that was what it was, coalesced into…groteseque beings. Some like tortured spirits. Others were more like shields. The magic they wielded was without element. It hit like the impact of a mace or a flail. “They don’t look like the others,” Clive gasped in a gap in the combat that brought him back to back with Jill.

“They don’t look like anything!” Jill cried.

At least they died. Or dissolved. Whichever. Clive didn’t care as long as they didn’t come back.

In the middle of the open area, more of that thick blue glow swirled. What rose from it this time was a tall and terrible shape, like a man if you stretched a man to nine feet high, with clammy pale blue skin, two tendrils of sorts hanging limp from its shoulders, and no face to speak of. It bore a scythe with a blade as long as Clive’s legs.

It inclined its head to Clive. And then, it started to fight.

The thing didn’t breathe. The only sound besides Clive’s panting was Jill’s steady recitation of a Northern prayer to Metia. He understood the sentiment if not the words. There was something unholy about this creature.

Torgal was the one to bring it down, ripping out its throat (or what served for its throat) after Jill froze its feet to the floor and Clive kept the scythe in a lock with his own blade. It dissolved instantly, not even leaking aether.

“Are you all right?” Clive asked.

“If I never see one of those again, it will be too soon.” Jill wiped down her blade with the edge of her cloak and shuddered. “I could feel its hate.”

Clive hadn’t, but it wouldn’t be the first time Jill had noticed something he missed. Instead he looked up. “This looks like a temple,” he said. “That’s an altar, I think.” It was nothing more than a low bench before a mural stretching up into the shadows.

He drew closer. The bottom half of the mural was cracked and blackened. Above the blackened patch was a dark shape, horned but vaguely humanoid, its wings stretching out to the heavens in a dramatic sweep of gold paint. It was the brightest thing in this silent, aether-lit place.

The hooded man was nowhere to be seen. Clive turned back to Jill.

Pain in his head drove him to his knees. As bad as - as bad as the last time. The world turned grey and frozen. Clive staggered upright. A drop of drool hung from Torgal’s jaws, unmoving. The world was frozen.

Then he felt a presence behind him.

Clive turned. Behind him, the hooded man stood at the altar, just out of arm’s reach. He’d never been so close. He’d never had a chance like this before. “Who are you?” he asked.

The figure raised his hands to his hood and lowered it. Clive’s own face stared back at him.

You, it said.

Everything went black.

—

Clive opened his eyes to his oldest nightmare.

Phoenix Gate burned above him. Around him. And before him, the beast Ifrit struck the Phoenix again and again.

It was impossible. It was real. He was a child again, helpless to do anything but beg the monster to stop. The words tore from his throat without thought or intent. He barely recognised them as words. He was simply screaming, willing this not to be real. Willing it not to happen.

This time, the beast stopped.

The entire world stopped. Again.

Ember and ash hung unmoving in the night. The only sound was Clive’s ragged breathing. In that frozen moment, it was all too clear what the beast was doing. The violence of the act. The madness and the fury.

Clive did that. That was Clive’s hand, rearing back to strike, and the other, pinning the Phoenix to the ground with cruel claws. Frozen in time. Merciless. He fell to his knees.

I did this. I killed Joshua.

A hand touched his shoulder. Clive looked up through his tears to see his own younger self. A child in truth, the child he’d been the day the sun set on Phoenix Gate. The child who’d killed his own brother. The impossibility of his presence here didn’t matter. “Joshua asked me to be his Shield,” the boy said, looking up at the grisly tableau. “He gave me his blessing and asked me to keep him safe. I should have protected him that day. It was my duty.”

It was nothing Clive hadn’t thought a million times before, but in this place of all places, the truth of what happened in front of him, Clive could do nothing but weep.

Through his tears, golden embers started to swirl again, the image of the Phoenix dissolving under the still-too-real Ifrit’s onslaught, until Joshua himself stood in the flames. Just as he’d looked the day he died. He was so small. So young. Clive stumbled to his feet and tried to reach him - if he could just explain - apologise -

As he reached out, Joshua’s fiery shade dissolved back into the sparks and heat haze it had always been made from. Nothing but a mirage. Clive fell to his knees again.

Behind him, his younger self continued. “Joshua died. I killed him.”

He - had. He had.

“And I blamed another for what I did to spare myself the guilt,” he said, staring at the spot where the Phoenix had been. Inevitably, his gaze travelled up to where the beast stood. Still frozen. Still alight. “If I accepted it, I would lose what little was left of me. So I ran.”

His younger self put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you ready to accept it?”

The beast - Ifrit - filled Clive’s vision. That was him. That was what he’d been that night. What he still was and would always be. “I must. So Joshua can rest in peace.” No matter how bitter, he had to know. There was no greater disrespect to his brother’s memory than living this lie.

Clive stood. Around him, the flames were still halted in their tracks. He breathed out, and they started to move again. Ifrit turned to him as Clive raised his sword. If this was the monster, and this was him, there was only one way to sort this out.

“Come, Ifrit,” he said. “Show me who you really are.”

The beast looked at him with its golden eyes. Its body wavered in heat haze and - shrank.

When the embers and ash cleared, Clive beheld his own human face and form, but slightly altered. The brand upon its face glowed with hellfire. As did its eyes. When it charged at Clive, fiery sword drawn, it used his own swordsmanship. Nothing of the Phoenix. Nothing of Garuda. Just its own dark flames, wreathing every movement.

Clive had never fought an opponent like it. He cut to the right; its blade met his halfway through the stroke. He swung high; its blade again blocked him exactly halfway. When the fiery shadow attacked him, though, Clive too could meet its attacks. Clive had won swordfights and he had lost swordfights, but he had never been so unnaturally matched to an opponent.

But that only made sense, didn’t it? This was him. The monster had a human form, too, and it was his.

Still he denied it, even when he was staring it in the face.

Ifrit smiled slightly, as if it could hear his thoughts. Maybe it could. It retreated a step, then summoned more flames. Jagged stone formed in gauntlets and greaves around its body, its hair turned the colour of ash. Its fire was so intense it stole the breath from Clive’s lungs just standing near it.

A semi-prime.

It charged in a rush of fire and steel, bright enough to hurt the eyes. Clive could barely get his sword up in time. Ifrit followed it up with a barrage of fireballs as strong as anything Joshua had ever been able to conjure, sending Clive dashing frantically backwards. Another atttempt to get in close was blocked. Ifrit was faster than him now, stronger, capable of using more magic.

But if this was Ifrit, and he was Ifrit, and Ifrit could do this - then -

Ifrit once again left him the opening. It wanted him to learn by example, Clive realised.

He was a Dominant. He could semi-prime. He had to accept that truth, no matter what it meant. Clive took a deep breath and reached for Ifrit’s flames inside him. They answered readily, licking at his skin, catching in his hair. Inside the torrent of power he felt the aether around his flesh forming the same stony armour as the other figure bore, melting into him.

It was power on the edge of pain. The best high after the hardest training, with all the knowledge that he’d feel it when he let go. Lava in his blood. His own charge took him over still-burning rock and he didn’t even notice until a spark flew in front of his eyes.

They were back to being equally matched again. Strike for strike and spell for spell. And so Clive was not surprised when Ifrit stepped back for a second time.

The pillar of pure fiery aether it summoned almost knocked him unconscious, even though he was - semi-primed. By the flames, that was a strange thing to think. He didn’t have time for reflection as Ifrit itself, second Eikon of Fire, formed before him out of stone and fire.

This was the monster. The thing that killed Joshua. His own reflection.

He didn’t need to fight his reflection any more.

“Enough,” Clive said. “I know the truth of it. You are not Ifrit.”

This was not Ifrit, because Clive himself was Ifrit.

It was like being unmade and remade in the same breath. Everything he was became fire. When his eyes cleared, he was changed, and he was restored. Horns and claws and tail - it felt good, it felt natural - but there was something missing. Some chasm inside himself where something should be. He wasn’t complete.

But, he thought, as he flexed his claws and looked down on the barren stone from far higher than he had thirty seconds ago, it was a good start.

The reflection had vanished as soon as Clive had fully primed of his own volition. With another effort of will, Clive released the prime. It wasn’t needed anymore. The rush of power and aether was replaced by a stony exhaustion. The same as he’d felt in the Hideaway. Wherever this place was, whatever it was, even if it was only in his mind, it felt real enough.

Was this what every Dominant went through after priming fully? How had Jill managed to fight through this? On top of the Ironblood’s abuses. No wonder she’d been so ill.

His head spiked with pain again. Something…laughed.

He’d heard that voice before. If you could call it a voice. It came from everywhere without and everywhere within, the voice of his thoughts that weren’t his thoughts at all. Good, it said. At last you accept the truth.

The truth? Yes. The truth. He was Ifrit. With everything that came from that and everything that meant. He closed his eyes against the agony in his head.

You were born to wield limitless power. Embrace it.

What?

The pain crunched his thoughts and between one blink and the next, Clive was back in the Apodytery. No longer grey and frozen. Jill reached out to him. “Clive? Are you all right?”

The sudden absence of pain was disorienting. He felt something like a puppet at the Founder’s Festival, strings cut and slumped next to the stage. “Fine,” he said. His eyes were drawn back up to the mural above and its dark-golden winged figure. There was no sign of the hooded man.

There wouldn’t be.

“No more chasing shadows,” Clive said. “We should go.”

Though Jill shot him another concerned look, she fell into step beside him as they started the journey back to the surface, through this empty unknown temple only the Phoenix was ever supposed to enter.

Chapter Text

All the long way out, Clive was lost in his own head. No explanation for why he’d turned and left, convinced that whoever he’d seen was no longer there. Jill was past merely starting to worry. She didn’t push him while they backtracked through the Apodytery. When they reached the sunlight outside and he still didn’t speak, Jill decided to ask anyway.

“What happened down there? Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

She’d just got him back. She wasn’t going to leave him. Together, he’d promised.

Slowly, Clive said, “I had a hard enough time telling myself.” He bent down and brushed a patch of dirt aside, revealing the blackened rock beneath. “I do know the truth now. I awakened as a Dominant here thirteen years ago and I’ve been running from it ever since. The second Eikon of Fire, who killed Joshua, who killed half the Shields of Rosaria, and ended what safety we enjoyed - was me.”

His voice was calm. Calmer than she expected. Jill doubted she could speak of her own crimes like that. The seas full of wreckage and frozen bodies, the villages coated with killing frost.

Clive was still speaking. “I must atone for my crimes, but first I have to know what’s behind all this. Why is there a second Eikon of fire? What caused this to happen? What is the voice that spoke to me that night? I have to know that too. And while I’m still breathing, I may as well make myself useful.”

“Yes,” Jill said. “Answers. We’ll find the truth together.” Answers would help Clive. In his answers, maybe she could find her own. If not…then she would still have helped Clive. Clive was worth it.

He smiled at her. The first time she’d seen that smile since they’d reunited. In the late afternoon sunlight, he didn’t look so very different from the boy she’d known in Rosalith, brand or no brand. “You never were one to hide from the truth,” he said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

All of a sudden she couldn’t stand it. That sweet smile and those warm words. How had he found them in all the horror? But it wasn’t Clive’s fault. She hadn’t made it clear. The truth he had just praised her for acknowledging. And she didn’t have Clive’s strength. “You’re wrong,” she said. “I have changed.”

They made her a monster. She’d let them make her a monster. An uncaring, unfeeling being of ice, just like Shiva within her. She’d stopped caring about the others abducted from Rosalith. She’d had trouble caring about Lady Marleigh. She’d even caught herself tempted to just let them kill the children if it meant she could stop fighting. What kind of person -?

“I don’t want to be that person anymore. The things she did were unforgivable.” She wanted to be Jill Warrick again, not just the Dominant of Shiva.

Clive turned to her and mercifully he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Atonement, then?” he asked. “Atonement and answers?”

“Atonement and answers,” Jill said.

“Together?”

“As long as you need me,” she promised.

He smiled at her again and this time it was easier to bear. “Shall we return to Eastpool then, my lady? I did promise I would arrange to contact Cid for the Bearers there.”

“We should do something for Lady Hanna, too,” Jill said, as they set off to retrace their steps all the way back through the Blight and to the road. They didn’t even have to discuss it - they were not camping here for the night. Acceptance or not, better the Blight than this haunted place. “It’s not right how your mother’s treating the Murdochs.”

“No,” Clive agreed. “I don’t know what we can do that will also spare her pride…”

They tossed ideas around for the next hour or so. Atonement. Helping one widow of Phoenix Gate. It was a start, Jill supposed.

—

They hadn’t made good time to Phoenix Gate. That was Joshua’s fault. Jote had warned him he would make himself sick, and then he’d pushed himself too hard and made himself sick. They’d been stuck waiting for him to recover for more than half a turn of the moon this time. He certainly put Jote through a lot, though he could do little but rely on her word that she believed in her duty.

Joshua had his own duty. He understood something of its obligations. From a very different vantage point, admittedly.

It was simple enough to evade the garrison on the coastal road Joshua had used to travel here that first time, so long ago now. Nobody sought out a dead ducal heir. Sometimes he thought he should return publicly, reclaim the Duchy from the Empire - but no. He was needed elsewhere.

He’d never been suited to the job anyway. That had been more than clear since he was very young. This was how he could best serve Rosaria.

It was strange, but since he’d returned here for the first time three years ago, he found the ruins of Phoenix Gate peaceful. Not peaceful enough to stop the nightmares he always had here - bad enough that Jote refused to set up their camp within an hour’s walk - but even so, there was something reassuring about seeing grass growing over the char and the crater he’d almost died in slowly becoming a crystal-clear lake. There were plants growing in it now, water weeds around the edges and in the still silt at the bottom. It wouldn’t last if they couldn’t halt the Blight, but for now the above-ground parts of the ruin were a pleasant place. Despite its grim history.

The grim reputation also tended to keep people away. Which was why it was surprising when he found footprints in the dirt. What looked to be fresh footprints. “Jote,” he said, “Come see.” Of the two of them, she was by far the better tracker. 

“These aren’t even a day old,” she said with a good deal of alarm. She poked around a bit further, examining bent pieces of grass and tiny marks in the dirt that Joshua wouldn’t have even noted at all. “Two people. One an armoured man, the other less armoured and considerably smaller.”

“Footpads?”

“There’s nothing here to rob,” Jote said. “Stay here. I’m going to search for signs of a camp. If you see anyone, my lord, please take refuge in the Apodytery.”

He wanted to protest that he could look after himself. Unfortunately, he felt his lungs tighten in protest of whatever it was his lungs had taken a dislike to today. He huddled into his cloak despite the late summer heat.

Jote did not return quickly. The ruins were a warren and took a lot of searching. Joshua soon grew bored and restless. He needed to get back into the Apodytery and examine the altarpiece again. She could hardly complain if Joshua went towards the safest place (for him) in these ruins. But since he was also not a complete fool, he did at least move slowly and carefully, both for the sake of his health and in case of any hostile intruders.

Which was why he heard the voices from near the entrance to the Apodytery.

Joshua stopped. A man’s voice, followed by a woman’s, too far away for the words to reach him. He pulled himself up through a section of wreckage seeking a better view. After a little bit of exertion, he reached his chosen vantage point and looked down on his unwelcome guests.

He nearly fell off the edge of the crumbling wall.

That was Clive. That was his brother! His brother was here! 

It had been so long since Joshua had seen him. Thirteen summers, right in this very castle. Joshua…preferred to remember Clive from before the chaos started. With that memory it was all too clear how he’d changed. Clive was a grown man now, dark hair uncombed, wearing an odd mixture of armour pieces and a black cloak, sword over his shoulder like he used it in earnest every day. Joshua feared that was the case. He looked more like a sellsword than a Rosfield.

Though he’d been long since warned about some of what had befallen his brother, the brand along Clive’s jaw was stark, darkly visible even from this distance. The Imperials had dared. Clive was no Bearer. It was a gift and an honour Joshua had given him. It was always supposed to be a gift. Because it should have -

The thought pulled him up short. Joshua found he was shaking. He could feel that faint pulling in the aether. A very familiar pull. Was it - stronger? His knees wobbled dangerously. It was. He remembered -

“Your Grace!”

Joshua blinked up at Jote’s worried face. Past that to a crumbling roof and the sunset beyond. He was flat on his back, his chest tight and aching, cold sweat drying on his face and under his clothes. He tried to push himself back upright only for his treacherous elbows - joining forces with his lungs, it seemed - to give out on him. “Oh,” he said. Even his voice felt shaky.

Jote helped him to sit upright and passed him a waterskin. He got more down his front than down his throat on the first attempt. Jote didn’t relent until he’d finished the entire bottle. When he did, she took it back and asked, “What happened?” She tacked on “your grace” a second later.

“My brother was here,” he said.

“The Lord Marquess?” Jote stood and peered out over the entrance to the Apodytery as if Clive were still standing there. He wasn’t, of course. Joshua would know.

“Indeed.” Joshua climbed to his feet with some difficulty. He felt dreadful. As bad as after his nightmares here. “He looks…healthy.” Over the years he’d wondered. Worried. That had been the worst thing about not reclaiming the duchy. He hadn’t been able to protect Clive from the Empire. “But why is he here? What could possibly draw him here?”

Even as he said it, he knew. The disturbance at Caer Norvent. Garuda’s rampage north of that. There was something that could draw Clive here.

And if that were so…”The hour is later than we thought,” he said. “We’re running out of time.” Clive was running out of time. Joshua had failed his father. He had failed Rosaria. He would not fail his brother, not any more than he already had.

—

The heart of Castle Dazbog ever made people uneasy. It was grand as the palace of any minister, king, or emperor. Delicate polished tiles in hundreds of earth tones fit across the floor in intricate geometric patterns, lit by finely carved crystals bearing the golden hue of those harvested from Drake’s Fang. Rich tapestries and carpets hung on the walls, depicting Titan in its might and the beauty of the Mothercrystal the palace was built beneath. The throne in the centre, grand and gilded as anything the Empire could make.

There were no windows. Lord Kupka heard audience here in the heart of the earth he was Warden of. To enter this room was to put oneself into the power of the Dominant of Titan.

Despite ten years serving Lord Kupka as courier, factor, and agent, Armando found that he was not immune. He had a very ill feeling about the package he now had to deliver.

As usual, he waited at attention until the steward announced Lord Kupka’s arrival. Armando’s master did not look like the shrewd businessman and political advisor he was, near seven feet tall and near as broad as two men, his white hair and beard cropped severely close to his head. He disdained the robes of most ministers and advisors, favouring instead a fighting man’s short-sleeved tunic and trousers, but made of exquisitely treated wyvern hide. If Armando saved all his wages for a year, he could not afford a single sash made from that material - and Lord Kupka paid fucking excellent wages.

Some people had all the luck. Anyone could have been born the Dominant of Titan.

Lord Kupka took his seat, crossed one leg over the other, and said simply, “Speak.”

“A delivery for you, my lord,” he said. “Couriered to the Rock on behalf of an individual named ‘Cid’.”

This ‘Cid’ was a known troublemaker. A source of some small losses, in both the value and labour of the Branded he stole. Enough to be annoying and repeatedly mentioned in the reports of business and security that arrived at Castle Dazbog, never enough to be a threat worth Titan’s attention.

“Cid?” Lord Kupka said, leaning back. “The bandit who steals Branded?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

“What could a pest like that possibly be sending me?”

“We have not opened the package. No traces of aether or poison as far as we have been able to tell, my lord.”

Heavy gold rings and a massive square-cut emerald flashed on Lord Kupka’s fingers as he gestured for Armando’s man to get on with it.

The sweet stink of dead flesh hit the air as soon as the box was cracked open. “Well?” Lord Kupka asked.

“A woman’s head, my lord,” Armando reported. Decaying badly. Armando’s nose wrinkled as he got a good look at it. Blonde. Not much fat on her.

When he looked back up, he saw something he’d never seen in Hugo Kupka’s eyes before: fear.

“Bring it here,” his lord commanded.

Armando waved the guard forward. Carefully, the man set the box at Lord Kupka’s feet. Lord Kupka peered inside. Armando took the chance to take a few discreet steps back.

Hugo Kupka saw what was in the box and howled like an animal in grief and rage. Before Armando could blink he’d stood, summoned Titan’s fists, and slammed them into the ground, smashing a goodly section of tiles worth near their weight in silver into fine powder - and warping the silver inlay, too. It knocked the guard to his backside and nearly sent Armando sprawling.

Dominants. Not so different from Bearers, only more powerful. They only felt the simple things. No amount of gold could hide that.

When Lord Kupka looked up, there was fury in his eyes. “Bring me Cid,” he said. “Alive. Or it’ll be your head.”

He didn’t have to tell Armando twice. “My lord,” he said, bowed, and fled.

If he heard Lord Kupka whisper “Benedikta…” as he retreated, he knew better than to ever breathe a single word of it to anyone.

Chapter Text

At first Clive didn’t think much of the column of smoke on the horizon. It was late summer. Grassfires were known to happen. The marshes in the area typically stopped them before they grew too bad and began to threaten villages.

Then, as they drew closer to Eastpool, Torgal’s hackles rose and he started to rumble a growl deep in his chest.

“That’s not a grass fire,” Clive said.

Jill’s forehead tightened and her hand stayed near her sword. “I can go faster than this,” she said.

They started to jog towards the village. When they heard steel and shouting, and felt a draw on the aether, they started to run.

Clive hit the gate shoulder first. The Blessing gave him even more speed and force. The old wood splintered under the assault. Torgal came bounding through next. Jill brought up the rear - and then her arm, flinging an icicle through the eye of an Imperial soldier raising his sword over a prone body. Impressive aim, Clive noted.

There were several more bodies already littering the square. Some of the houses were afire. Clive could smell spent black powder. “They brought a cannonier,” he warned Jill.

“Nothing we can’t handle,” she replied. “Let’s go.”

They’d arrived at the tail end of a massacre. Here at the outskirts, a few corpses lay. Blood soaked the ground beneath. Many hadn’t died quickly. Several had been hacked to pieces. Clive was no stranger to Imperial massacres, to his shame he’d participated in several, but this…

…this was Eastpool. It was Rosaria. Wasn’t it supposed to be an Imperial province? Why?

“If the Imperials massacred everyone who was in the village centre, they’ll be sweeping the fields for survivors,” Clive said. Then, “Torgal, seek.”

It would be the fastest way by far to find anyone who still lived. As much as it hurt to turn his back from where he could see smoke rising from the Murdoch manor.

Torgal in the lead with his nose firmly to the ground, they made their way past the windmills and into the wheatfields. They passed the mayor’s body by one of the bigger houses, bloody scratchmarks on the flagstones telling their own tale of the old man’s death. They passed the corpses of children. 

“Why…?” Jill asked, staring down at them white-faced in horror, before she turned away.

Torgal led them to one of the outlying houses. Clive saw the glint of sun off metal and felt more draw on the aether. Two people drawing. They started to run again. They didn’t make it in time. Even as Jill threw another volley of icicles at the Imperials, the astrologer at the back of the squad of five blasted a ball of light straight through a ragged Bearer vainly trying to shield herself with earth magic. At least the astrologer did not long outlive his latest victim.

“Why?” Clive asked, raising his sword into an attacking position. “I think these fine soldiers can help us find out. Let’s leave one alive.”

“Easily done,” said Jill.

The squad’s sergeant barked a laugh. He didn’t laugh for long. A quick burst of Jill’s ice froze the surviving Imperials to the ground, leaving them open to Clive’s sword, Torgal’s teeth, and the Phoenix’s flames. He cut them down as they had cut down the people of Eastpool, sparing only a young man who stared up at him with utmost horror. The most likely to talk, Clive judged. He laid his sword by the man’s throat. “Tell me who ordered this and why and I’ll make it quick,” he promised.

“The - the Vicereine herself,” the man stammered. From where he was frozen, he had a good view of the soldier whose throat Torgal had ripped out, gurgling and twitching as his dying weight folded awkwardly to the earth. “We were told - ducal loyalists, hiding Branded - they were hiding Branded - mercy -”

Beheading was a quick death. It was the only mercy Clive was inclined to grant.

Torgal led them to another squad of five also searching the fields for survivors. They dispatched those too, again too late to save any of the villagers.

“From what I know of the Imperial army, there should be a third squad closer to the village itself,” Clive said. Somewhere central where the sweeping squads could join them easily, while themselves making a more thorough check of the houses for anyone who had somehow escaped the first attack. Plus they hadn’t found the cannonier.

They had likely been in the Murdoch manor as Clive and Jill had made their way around the village and into the fields. Which boded poorly for Lady Hanna. It was with heavy hearts but ready swords that they returned to the centre of Eastpool. By the south this time.

A small cluster of Imperials talked in the square now, cannonier included. The giant mortar was propped against the wall of the Murdoch manor. There was a tension about them that said they’d noticed the other squads were late to report in. That was fine. Clive didn’t intend to make a habit of slaughtering defenceless people going forward. He didn’t mind having this fight.

“Branded!” one of the soldiers hissed. As if that were a good enough reason to kill Clive where he stood.

Clive still wasn’t in a mood for mercy. Neither was Jill.

And then Clive, Jill, and Torgal were alone in a village of the dead. “It makes no sense,” Clive said, staring at the sprawled body of a Bearer clearly cut down while fleeing. “Why would my mother do this?" He understood the soldiers. Not long ago he had been amongst their number. He would have done the same had he been ordered. It was giving those orders that just... "She always hated Bearers, but…”

He trailed off. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand.

“Bearers have power she doesn’t,” Jill said. She was calm, now. Icy calm. “Remember how angry she was when your father appointed Lady Lisbet as a magistrate? She hated that someone less than her had the authority to hand down judgment in the archduke’s name.”

“Maybe,” Clive said. Jill wasn’t wrong about his mother, but could that truly be all? Enough to kill an entire village? “We should find Lady Hanna. And…we should build pyres.”

He was aware of Ifrit’s flames within him, crackling with anger. He wouldn’t use those flames for this. These were Rosarians who had died with honour, upholding Archduke Elwin’s ideals. They deserved a pyre and they deserved for it to be of the Phoenix’s flame. Even coming from him, even if Jill was the only one who knew.

They set about their work, gathering all the cut wood and kindling they could find and laying out the bodies of the villagers. Clive was the one who found Lady Hanna, slain at the table where she’d hosted him and Jill several days before.

Several hours into their grim task, running footsteps approached. Clive looked up, ready to fight.

“Damn it, we’re too late!” a familiar voice cried.

“Gav?” Clive called.

When Clive rounded the house he’d been clearing, the scout was indeed there. With three other people, all of whom bore deep purplish scars on their faces. Cursebreakers.

“Clive! What are you doing here?”

“We were going to meet with the mayor - what about you?”

Gav looked around at the still-smoking ruins and the blood pooled on the flagstones of the square. “We heard that the Imperials were on the move and looking to make an example of one of the villages up here. We were hoping to get the Bearers out first. Guess this was the one. Poor bastards.”

The Cursebreakers started helping without another word. Gav introduced them as Cole, Clara, and Sev. Clive introduced Jill, who hadn’t had the opportunity to meet Gav before they left the Hideaway. Now that the Cursebreakers were here, they stopped to strip the Imperials too - Cid’s organisation could use their gil, their boots, their swords. Anything that could be carried away. Clive showed them where they could leave the bodies for the wyverns and worgens.

Working together, they were ready to light the single mass pyre by sunset.

There wasn’t enough wood to build the fire high enough for a proper disposal. Clive had to supplement it himself. Maybe the curse would take him faster for what he was doing now. It was worth it.

Afterwards, he and Jill followed Gav and the Cursebreakers. It wasn’t safe to stay in Eastpool. More soldiers from the Imperial garrison would no doubt come to check what happened there. It felt like the right thing to do, just as taking care of the village had felt like the right thing to do.

Trailing behind the other four on the path down the Broken Hilt, Clive asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“We can’t let this stand,” Jill said. “It’s not right.”

“So we go back to Cid,” Clive said. Cid, the driving force behind everyone who had treated them well in the past few weeks, even when they didn’t deserve it. “Fight for something better.”

Jill reached out for his hand. “We agreed on atonement, didn’t we?”

“We’re not the only ones made into people we never wanted to be.” He remembered the Bastards. Tiamat’s bitterness, Aevis’s secrecy, Biast’s bouts of temper. “We’re not the only people who’ve suffered.” The Bearers at Glaidemond Abbey, who considered a slow and painful death in the sun an improvement on what came before, and were right to do so. “If we can change that, even a little bit…”

“Nobody should go through that,” Jill agreed.

“You’re okay with this?” he asked. “We’ll have to fight again, most likely.”

“This is a better thing to fight for. I’m choosing it, Clive, myself.”

He inclined his head to her. She may never have been truly part of an army, but it was hardly as though Jill didn’t know exactly what she was committing to. If it was something she’d chosen herself - who was he to argue with that?

They made camp with the Cursebreakers that night. “How long are you planning to stay with us?” Gav asked.

One last glance at Jill to make sure she was still fine with what they planned. “All the way back to the Hideaway, if you’ll still have us,” Clive said.

“I don’t think that’s going to be an issue,” Cole said. “Kenneth will be glad to have his favourite scullion back.”

“Cid told me he’d let me stay for being able to roast a bird alone,” Clive said.

“That sounds like you’ve just volunteered to cook the whole way back.”

“Of course. My skill in pitching tents leaves something to be desired anyway.”

Strange how one decision could make his heart feel so much lighter, even with all the horrors he’d had to accept. It felt like a new start already.

—

The Cardinals of Sanbreque were as tiresome as the representatives of the Seven High Houses of Rosaria. Anabella had realised that long since. The best that could be said for them was there was one fewer.

Sylvestre had made a place for her and Olivier both at his councils years ago, when she first said it would be prudent for Olivier to start learning statecraft young. Joshua had ever been too sickly for such things, and she would never have encouraged Elwin to waste such valuable time and experience on Clive, but Olivier was different. They both sat behind the Emperor and to his left, the place to Sylvestre’s right being reserved for Prince Dion even in his absence.

That would have to change eventually, Anabella thought. Dion was forever away. Olivier was here, learning from his father.

In the meantime, they would both sit here and observe, in the Gardens of Counsel, this beautiful walled garden with a view of Drake’s Head above. Only a very few were granted the privilege of entrance here. The cardinals’ voices washed over her like the sea breeze of Oillepheist Bay. Blight this, crop yields that, crystal harvest the other. Exactly the sort of thing that would have come before Elwin.

“Enough,” Sylvestre said, stopping all their petty whining in a word.

Sylvestre Lesage was no Elwin. 

For one thing, he looked like the Emperor he was, reclined in his white marble seat. Only a small amount of grey touched his straw-coloured hair and the traces of wrinkles around his mouth and eyes lent him dignity rather than frailty. Nor was he afraid of dressing for his role. White velvet robes, enough gold and crystal jewelry to make a point - he was no mere cardinal, and he should not appear as such.

Yes, Anabella had made a far better choice in allying with the Emperor. And her Olivier would grow to be a greater Emperor again. She was sure of it.

“It is with a heavy heart that I propose this,” he said, “but if it is fertile land we need…we need only look south.”

Anabella allowed herself a smile. Sylvestre had listened to her counsel and he was prepared to take bold action for the sake of his empire and the sake of their son.

The Cardinals were less courageous. The High Cardinal’s jaw actually dropped. If that was what he called composure, no wonder his daughter ran roughshod over his household. “The Crystalline Dominion?” he asked. “The Treaty of Neutrality - it has stood for nearly a hundred years -”

“And it is no longer fit for purpose,” Sylvestre said.

The Cardinal for the West, a sallow stick of a man whose black and blue robes did not become him, coughed. “Your Majesty. If we march south on the Crystalline Dominions, Waloed shall surely take advantage, and Dhalmekia with it.”

“Waloed will be hostile as it ever is,” Sylvestre reminded them. “The Dhalmeks are still licking their wounds from the Nysa Defile, and cannot decide in any case whether the Council of Ministers rules or Hugo Kupka does. We have an opportunity here.”

“You cannot be talking of a war of conquest,” the Cardinal for the West went on.

“I am,” Sylvestre confirmed. “We all swore to protect and serve the people of the Empire. We cannot let them starve. Sanbreque is nothing without her citizens. If her lands are lost, we must claim new lands for them and the blessing of another Mothercrystal.”

Anabella reached over to squeeze Olivier’s hand. Her son, as ever, was quiet and attentive. His father was fighting for him. For the world he should inherit, as a child bearing the blood of the Phoenix and Bahamut both. Drake’s Tail, greatest of the Mothercrystals.

The Cardinals protested again, but Sylvestre raised a hand to silence them again. “This is the will of great Greagor,” he said. “Private prayer and the imperial astrologers have revealed it to me. A vision of the goddess herself.”

That shut them up all right. She tried not to smile too obviously. Prayer was all well and good, but imperial astrologers could be persuaded to provide divine revelation with a little more…support.

The Cardinal for the East was the first to speak. Of all of them, he knew well what Anabella favoured. “If great Greagor wills it…” he began.

“I will leave the details to you,” Sylvestre said, standing. “The generals are at your disposal.”

“And Bahamut?” the High Cardinal asked.

“For now he remains in his camp. As he will until your plans are settled. I will send a stolas then and not before.”

The lone sour note in what was turning out to be a very successful afternoon for her. She stroked a hand over Olivier’s fine, silky hair, so like her own. Dominant of Bahamut or no, it was all Anabella could do to persuade Sylvestre that Dion was better kept in the field. Some men were meant for a soldier’s life. That was just a fact. Besides, what good would Dion do at court? It wasn’t as though he was likely to find himself a wife. Yet despite the distance and all Dion’s various inclinations, Sylvestre’s affection and trust for his first son remained strong.

It was unbelievable. Dion’s mother was nothing more than a tavern wench.

But there was time.

Anabella followed her husband out of the garden a dutiful and respectful step behind, Olivier tucked under her arm. This was another step towards what should be.

Chapter Text

Cid realised what was going on before anyone told him, but only because he was paying attention. That pull in the aether, back again after a few weeks gone. He really wasn’t imagining it. Plus there was the sense of Shiva.

Sharing space with another Dominant again was going to take a bit of getting used to. Strange how the elemental powers of the universe could be like standoffish cats.

He headed to the entrance in time to see the Gav and the Cursebreakers he’d borrowed return, plus two additions. Lord Rosfield and Lady Warrick. Not taking back Rosaria, which, granted, he hadn’t truly expected. Not off hunting the other Dominant of Fire, whoever that was. Maybe there were three of them now. Who knew. They were back here, presumably to join the cause.

He dared to hope. He dared to hope more when he saw Clive smile at Otto, and Kenneth, and Martelle, as all of them came up to greet him and Jill. Who also looked a good deal happier. She hadn’t confided the details in him, and why should she given he barely knew her, but only a fool would bet that she hadn’t been put through much the same as Clive. On a larger scale. Not that it mattered. The scale was different but the…forcing…was the same.

Maybe he should encourage them to speak to Dorys? Or Geoffroy? No, they wouldn’t thank him for sharing what they held close. All in its own time.

Speaking of. Time to be a welcoming host. Comrade. However this would turn out. “Back, are you?” he called down. “Come on up, we’ll have a chat.”

Hope. What a bastard of an emotion. Whether it was his and Mid’s little enterprise in Kanver (she was already going out and securing investors! They grew up so quickly) or another Dominant, maybe two Dominants, joining in to help protect the people here…

It took a little while for them to make it up to his solar. Not surprising - as short a time as they’d been here by comparison to some, they’d both made friends with their willingness to do their part and more, even when they were clearly not well. There would be plenty of people who’d want to say hello again.

They’d both been divested of their bags when they finally made it up the steps. Jill was holding one of the Hideaway’s apples and staring at it like she’d never seen an apple before. Clive was half a step in front, once again looking like a man on a mission.

Hopefully, the sort of mission that didn’t end with him dead in a fiery crater.

“So you found your answers, did you?” Cid asked.

“Some,” Clive said. “I still don’t know what to make of it, but I am a Dominant. I know that for certain. And I cannot change that.”

Cid nodded. “Your Eikon got a name? Call me crazy, but it didn’t strike me as Leviathan making a reappearance.”

“Ifrit,” Clive said, taken aback.

Ifrit. It was something to go to Tomes with, if just to check that old man Ramuh was right when he thought that Clive’s Eikon was something new. Also raised an interesting question about how Eikons got their names.

While Cid was pondering, Clive was speaking. “I’ve been thinking. You told me that you wanted to build a place where our kind could die on their own terms. But that can’t be enough, can it? I want to build a place where we can live.”

…he really had found some answers for himself, hadn’t he? His eyes were brighter than Cid had yet seen them, his expression alight.

Cid remembered when he’d had something like that fire. He’d been young, and he hadn’t yet noticed Ramuh turning his bones to rocks levinbolt by levinbolt, and Barnabas Tharmr had said - “Do you want to save the world?”

But Clive wasn’t as young as Cid had been back then, and nor was he as naive. “A corner of it,” he said. “You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved. But there are people who do want that. There are people who don’t know their options. If we could make a place for them, before they die…”

It was a better, wiser answer than the one Cid had given Barnabas almost thirty years ago.

He stood to get two more goblets and a fresh bottle of wine. This conversation was going to take a while and he still didn’t intend to be a poor host. “If that’s how you’re thinking, Clive, then let me fill you and Lady Warrick in on the next part of my grand plan.”

“You have a grand plan?” Jill asked with a raised eyebrow.

“The grandest. And with you two on board, it might just work.” He poured, and he did not go easy.

—

The camp was rowdy tonight. Dion walked his usual circuit through the white and blue tents of the Empire, trying to get a feel for what the men thought. The ale was out - the sentries were sober, naturally, Dion would not tolerate anything else - but those who were off duty were making merry around their campfires. They cheered as he passed and offered toast after toast. Toasts for Dion, who had supposedly driven the Black King from Sanbreque’s lands.

It was enough to make him sick. Odin had not been driven off, he had withdrawn unharmed and unhurried. Dion thought the man might even have grown bored of his conquest and occasional spars with Bahamut.

Next to him, Terence glowed with pride.

“You know the truth of this farce,” Dion said to him between campfires.

“I know that whether or not Odin took a single scorchmark from Bahamut, you did your best to see us through this conflict. You. Dion Lesage. It’s our honour to serve you.”

“There is more to this,” Dion said, eyes fixed straight ahead, down the long row of tents he had yet to parade himself before. “I can’t help but feel I have failed them all. Failed you.”

“You are the only one who thinks that,” Terence said staunchly. “I will tell you as many times as you need to hear it, since you don’t ever seem to get it through your head properly. In the meantime, I am still proud of you and you still have to keep visiting the fires.”

Another hour and he had at last made his way through the camp. The only tents that lay ahead of him were made of older, more worn canvas - the quarters of the Branded who served the army. This part of the camp was always quiet. Dion sighed. The Branded quarters were the one place here he was not meant to make an appearance . The envy of lesser beings could pose him a threat, his father had said, when he issued Dion an order not to spend any time there beyond what was strictly necessary. 

His Majesty had a point, too. Just as a pack of worgens could kill an aevis, so could a team of Branded kill a Dominant. Dion was aware that the army had used units of Branded as elite strike forces in the past, most recently to assassinate the Dominant of Shiva. None from that unit had been heard from since - but neither had the Dominant of Shiva.

Even with the risks, it seemed wrong to leave this part of the camp in misery while the regular soldiers celebrated. “Terence…relay an order that the Branded should have soldier’s rations tonight.”

Terence blinked. “Even the wine ration, your highness?”

Ah. Of course. Branded and alcohol were ever a dangerous combination. “Except for the wine ration. They should have meat and vegetables, though.”

“I will relay it to the quartermasters.”

There were messages awaiting him when he arrived back in his tent. He bade Terence take over the evening routine for the dragoons, closed the flaps, and set himself to the paperwork.

No sooner had he taken up his quill, however, than his chief intelligencer Fabien was shown into the tent, stolas on his arm. “A message from his Imperial Majesty, your highness.”

Dion beckoned him in and accepted the owl. It blinked up at him with its clear blue eyes. Dion closed his own and accepted his father’s message.

When he finished listening, he swore so violently the stolas startled and flapped back to Fabien’s shoulder.

“Your Highness?”

“Find my commanders. Immediately. Report back here once you do.”

As an intelligencer, Fabien knew better than to show his own alarm. He saluted and left. Soon, the sound of messengers departing echoed outside Dion’s tent. Dion had mere minutes to regain his own composure.

If it hadn’t come by stolas, he would not have believed it. Orders to march south to the Crystalline Dominion? To occupy Twinside?

Yet it had unmistakeably been his father’s voice speaking in his mind. By the will of Great Greagor, for the good of Sanbreque, he’d said. Bahamut’s holy light is needed to secure this gain for our citizens.

Dion’s duty was to Greagor. To Sanbreque. To his Emperor and his father. He could not disobey. No matter how disquieting it was to be ordered to march on a neutral nation. His commanders would take guidance from him as he took guidance from the Emperor. He could not so much as hint at any…unease.

Once again he saw the hand of his father’s wife in this. If Dion did not see the good of the empire in these orders, he would put it fully at her feet. His father must see some wisdom in this, not just Anabella’s avarice.

No, no. Now was not the time for that. Composure. He needed composure. The commanders would be coming. Terence would be coming. And Dion needed to start a plan for the occupation of Twinside he’d been ordered to.

May Greagor have mercy on them all.

—

Wine spilled across the table as Clive leapt to his feet. “The Mothercrystals are causing the Blight?” Next to him, Jill tossed back her entire goblet.

“The smaller crystals, taken from the Mothers, all work by absorbing ambient aether,” Cid said. “The bigger the crystal, the more it can take and hold. Why should the Mothers work differently? Except much bigger. How much aether do you think a crystal the size of a mountain can draw?”

It made sense. As much as Clive wished it didn’t, it did. “So the aether leaves the land, withdrawing from the edges first, and growing thick near the crystals themselves - the blessing that the nations of the world live on - and then what?”

“That, I don’t know.” Cid righted Clive’s goblet, heedless of the spill, poured him another, and went back to huffing on his cigarette. “Imagine what sort of a spell you could cast with a Mothercrystal, though.”

Clive couldn’t even conceive of the amount of aether involved, let alone what you could do with it. “But you think destroying them will work?”

“Letting them stand isn’t going to do much, that’s for sure,” Cid replied. “It took a while, but I got my hands on some records from the Northern Territories. Specifically, some records about what happened after Drake’s Eye collapsed. There were aetherfloods in the area to be sure. Bad ones. More interesting were the trade notes from the years afterwards. The Blight slowed down. Once you take into account the reduction in yields from the wars with Rosaria, the harvests even recovered a little bit.”

Jill took Clive’s refilled goblet and downed that as well. Clive empathised. “You’re sure about all this?” he asked.

“I’ve been, shall we say, testing the idea with a few others. Harpocrates included, if you want to go have a chat with him about it. Man’s got twice as much book learning as just about anyone on the Twins. I’m as sure as I can be.”

“If it’s true,” Jill asked, “then how has nobody noticed before?”

“That’s one of the things I asked Tomes about.” Cid leaned forward. “He’s dug up some records. People did know. At some point, here and there. Obviously it’s never made it out to the general population, but there’s the odd diary or letter, buried in stacks and stacks of paper, that refer sideways to the Mothers draining the aether from the land. According to Tomes, even over just his career, he’s seen a couple of fellow scholars go missing rather abruptly. The sort of scholars who study the Mothers or old diaries. Their work tends to vanish with them.”

Clive sat back, fiddling with the stem of the goblet Jill had emptied for him. He did want to check all this with Harpocrates, if Harpocrates could find the time for him. A claim this big…

…but it made sense. He kept coming back to that. It explained the Blight at the edges of the Twins and the floods near the Mothers. It matched how the smaller crystals harvested from the Mothers worked. Even the claim that this secret had been discovered and hidden before. “Hiding it makes sense,” he said slowly. “People do tend to…run from their problems. It takes strength to face them.”

“Aye, that’s true enough,” Cid said. “So what do you say? If we have to bring the old world down to build a new one, are you with us?”

He didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes,” Clive said. A world without the Blight was a world where everyone could live. Magic or no magic. This would upend the order of the world as they knew it - and that was fine.

“And you, Jill?”

“Of course,” she said.

The old world hadn’t been kind to them. They weren’t alone in that. He reached out for her hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. Together.

“Excellent,” Cid said briskly. “Then our next step is actually going out and smashing a Mothercrystal. Now, I welcome suggestions on this, but I think our logical first target would be Drake’s Head.”

He said it as if it would be simple. Somehow that made it seem like a wilder prospect. “Now?” Clive asked. “Do you have a plan to get inside?”

“I’ve been inside before,” Cid said.

“This sounds like you have a shortcut,” Clive muttered.

“Nothing so fancy,” Cid demurred. “Look, we’ll go speak to Otto, we’ll make a plan, and while we’re there we can pay a visit to your mother if you like.”

Pressing Cid on details got him nothing further. Tiamat would have been appalled. Wyvern wasn’t best pleased either. Not planning was a good way to get killed. Clive had no intention of getting himself or Jill - or Cid, no matter how annoyed he was - killed through carelessness.

Even that irritation couldn’t diminish the fire inside. The one that had nothing to do with Ifrit and instead felt a lot more like how he’d felt when he decided to become a Shield.

—

They hadn’t lingered long at Phoenix Gate. Jote was privately grateful for that. His Grace had such terrible nightmares when he stayed there.

The reappearance of his brother hadn’t helped. Not if you asked Jote.

Jote knew His Grace better than almost anyone, and so she knew of His Grace’s brother as well. Joshua clearly thought the world of him, even when he complained of his brother’s stubbornness and overprotectiveness. Jote had two older sisters, the eldest of whom had served in the Rosarian army. Founder knew she’d complained of the same things. And caused her own younger sister to complain herself.

But she also knew of arguments His Grace had with Cyril, long into the night. The nightmares. The aftermath of His Grace encountering his brother again.

She knew of the reports from their agents in the Sanbrequois army.

Joshua spoke of Clive Rosfield, First Shield of Rosaria, noble and true. Jote read missives recounting the deeds of Wyvern, on the rare occasions her order had tracked his unit down. The murder of a bishop who had spoken out against a cardinal on some convoluted matter of local property. The purge of a unit where there were mumblings against the new empress. The massacre of a village on the Dhalmekian side of the Crystal Belt after a customs dispute, officially attributed to bandits. Deserters hunted down and made examples. It seemed to Jote that whatever His Grace’s love for his brother, there was also good reason for caution. Good reason for her, if not for Joshua, not to trust him.

She did not know if His Grace would allow her to protect him from his brother, should it become necessary.

Even now Joshua spurred them both to Oriflamme, stopping only to send a quick stolas to Cyril in Tabor. Why Oriflamme, she did not know.

They rode into the grandest city in the north in the late afternoon, barely half a moon after leaving Phoenix Gate. His Grace was worn from the effort, fair skin sickly in the pale blue light of Drake’s Head. They’d been forced to circle around Imperial troops for the past two days. It seemed something was afoot.

“We should get you to a physicker,” Jote said, “and then to an inn.”

He shook his head. “Library,” he wheezed.

“Physicker, my lord.” She couldn’t call him by his proper title or honorifics here. “You are not well. You won’t be able to read if you fall too sick to read.”

This time, she won their battle of wills. Unfortunately that only showed how ill His Grace truly was.

Oriflamme’s streets were crowded. Like Twinside, another city that lived in the light of a Mothercrystal, it never truly seemed to sleep. Day markets turned to night markets with the setting of the sun. People went about their business, or pleasure, irrespective of the hour.

There were signs of disrepair here, too. Surely the streets had been cleaner the last time they visited, the stalls better stocked? Surely the citizens did not eye the guards with such suspicion and fear? 

In one of the poorer neighbourhoods - not the most desperately so, but a street that was no stranger to quiet desperation nevertheless, nor to people who needed results without questions - Jote found a physicker’s sign tucked into a second-storey window. The man examined His Grace with brisk efficiency and didn’t ask questions when they said Joshua’s apparent fever was nothing to be concerned about.

“Your lungs are weak, lad, but I dare say you don’t need me to tell you that,” he said to Joshua. “You’re holding up well despite it. Rest if you can, take a spoonful of this if you can’t. No more than two spoonfuls in a day, mind you, and not more than five days in a row.”

Jote pocketed the syrup the physicker sold them. She knew more or less what should go into a syrup of this kind and preferred to check medicines before she gave them to His Grace. Ideally she’d make them herself, but that hadn’t been possible with how hard they’d been riding.

They found an inn shortly thereafter, the visit to the physicker having done enough to halt His Grace’s mad dash for a library. Once he was safely ensconced in a safe, private room, she took pity on him. “Is there anything I can do to assist you, my lord? Any message I might deliver?”

He hesitated. “There are books I need,” he said.

“Do you have the titles?”

It would not be the first time she had stolen for His Grace. He hesitated to order her to such things. Jote didn’t care. Her duty was to Joshua. Sanbreque had stolen far more from him than a few books. Eventually, he did tell her the titles he particularly sought - none she had ever heard of, naturally. All the talents she had for learning she had poured into the apothecary’s art; His Grace was a true scholar. 

They had visited the great university of Kanver two years ago now. She had never seen him as happy as he was while he searched the libraries there. Just remembering his smile…he should have had the choice to attend in his own right, to better learn and prepare himself for his duties, while his honoured father continued to rule Rosaria. In a better world.

Satisfied that he was not too ill to prevent him looking after himself, just in need of a few days of quiet to prevent a relapse of one of his many ailments, Jote headed back into the streets of Oriflamme.

Whitewyrm Castle towered over the city in a deliberate echo of Drake’s Head. The Imperial Court, the central imperial bureaucracy, much of the local judiciary, and the great Cathedral were all within that towering structure, largest palace in all of Storm. Likely the largest in all Valisthea. There were libraries within - the Emperor’s personal library, for one, and the masses of paper known simply as the Records. Neither were Jote’s target tonight.

In deference to the idea that the High Cardinal was his own power in the Holy Empire of Sanbreque, he maintained his own cathedral-cum-palace. With its own library. One that held many a volume on the nature of Bahamut. And, of necessity, work to support that learning.

I don’t need anything on the nature of the Wyrm himself at present, which is just as well since those volumes will be guarded heavily, Joshua had instructed, eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. She knew him well enough to know he was examining the ambient aether in a way only a Dominant could. But whatever you can find on the nature of god, bring to me at once.

Jote did her duty, even when she didn’t understand why. Even when His Grace’s requests sent shivers down her spine. Whatever he saw, she doubted it boded well.

Chapter Text

The conclusion Clive came to was that if Cid wasn’t going to plan, he’d have to do it himself. There were a few logical starting points.

“Lady Charon,” he said. “I’ve come in search of supplies.”

“Aye, I suppose you have,” she said. “Cid dragging you off on one of his little jaunts, is he?” Her gaze was flinty and focused, a remarakble feat with her glass eye.

“To Oriflamme,” Clive said. He counted out the gil to make his food purchases. The Lady Charon, as she’d said many a time, ran a business.

“Good timing, that is,” Charon told him. “My suppliers are telling me that the legions are leaving Oriflamme in droves - the best trading’s near Twinside, now. Don’t like what it says about what the Emperor’s up to, mind you, but as far as sneaking into Oriflamme goes you ought to have it all your own way once you get past the Northreach checkpoint.”

He pushed the coins over to her. Plus an extra or two for the information. “My thanks.”

“You take care of that dog of yours, you hear? I expect the three of you to bring him back safe and sound.”

Clive smiled at her. Lady Charon’s bark was far worse than her bite, at least when it came to the residents of the Hideaway.

The next stop was Otto. Clive tracked him down near Gaute and the ledgers, where he was discussing the Hideaway’s stores of cooking fuel with Kenneth. Otto caught sight of him approaching and said, “Back in a mo, Kenneth.”

First things first. Half the gil he’d picked up while he and Jill were in Rosaria, whether from doing odd jobs like delivering messages from rude merchants or found on bandits they’d had to deal with. Their contribution to the Hideaway. “You don’t have to, you know,” Otto said, looking at the bag of coin.

“We want to,” he said.

Otto sighed. “What else did you need?”

“Advice on getting past the checkpoint at Northreach,” Clive said.

“Northreach?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“There’s a problem all right,” Otto growled, “I’m going to take this out of Cid’s hide.”

Ah. Otto knew what this was about already. He just hadn’t known that Cid was planning it so soon. The former wasn’t surprising; the latter was. “For whatever it’s worth, Jill and I will both be going with him,” Clive said. 

It didn’t offer Otto much reassurance. Instead, he pulled Clive over to a table in the corner of the mess. The shadows made him look old and even more grave than he usually did. “Look, Clive, I don’t doubt you’ll do your best,” he said. “I trust you both will defend him from anything you find on the road, right down to running into bleeding Bahamut himself. The one thing you can’t protect Cid from is his own stubborn self.”

Clive nodded. “I know. Which is why I’ve come to you. The better we plan, the less likely it is Cid will have to do anything…drastic.”

Otto gave him a long, speculative look. “I take your point,” he said at last. “I’ll send a stolas to a friend of mine in Northreach. She tolerates Cid, but if you ask nicely she might help you. I’ll tell Cid to hold off leaving until I hear back.”

“Might I know who this contact is?” Clive asked.

“Proprietress of the finest house of ill repute in Northreach,” Otto said. “Most know her as ‘the Dame’. If anyone can get the three of you through the checkpoint without calling down Ramuh’s judgment on half the soldiers around Oillepheist Bay, it’s her.”

“A house of ill repute - the Veil?”

“That’s the one. Don’t suppose you would have been allowed near it, though.”

“No,” Clive said. His unit had been through Northreach more than once, each time kept to the pens for the Branded. Biast had talked a good game about sneaking out. Aevis had cut his dreams down with a few sharp words. Wyvern had not involved himself in the fight that followed, only for Biast, bruised and bitter, to accuse him of being Tiamat’s pet. And that fight Wyvern had participated in with a fury.

Looking back, he had indeed been a pet. Not Tiamat’s, though Tiamat held the leash. A pet to the Empire. He’d left Biast burned near to the bone for speaking a truth Clive hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

That was…over now.

Otto was still watching him in silence. “You all right, lad?”

“It’s nothing,” Clive said. 

“If you say so. Once I let the Dame know you’re on your way, I’ll send you out with some bribes for her.”

“Thank you, Otto.”

“Don’t go blinding her with your charm,” Otto said, then pushed back his chair and headed back out with a certain intent. Probably to take strips out of Cid’s hide, as promised.

Two days later, Otto returned with news that he’d made contact with the Dame. That was their signal to finish their preparations. Preparations to shatter a Mothercrystal. That part didn’t seem quite real. Still, Clive had talked it over with Harpocrates, who didn’t have much comment on the nature of crystals and the workings of aether, but did have strong opinions on what the historical record showed.

The three of them gathered by the entrance to the Hideaway while Otto came to see them off. As promised, Otto handed Clive a small package of…something. Clive accepted it. The paper wrapping smelled faintly of flowers.

“Why him?” Cid complained.

“Because as I’m rapidly coming to realise, Clive has more common sense than you do,” Otto growled. To Clive and Jill, he added, “Take care of this idiot, will you?”

It was raining as they set off for the edge of the deadlands. Miserable as it made travel, Clive had learned by now it was a boon for the Hideaway. Rain over the Blighted Lands was often not blighted itself. “This is fun,” Cid said cheerfully from underneath his own hooded cloak. “You know what, I’m starting to feel optimistic about this. Three Dominants have a much better chance of success than one.”

“Is it hard to learn how to prime?” Clive asked.

The other two looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “You don’t know how to prime?” Jill asked, like he’d just told her he didn’t know how to walk and now she had to confirm that.

“No,” Clive said.

Jill and Cid looked at each other, baffled.

“Well,” Cid said to him, “It’s not as if your existence is in the normal way of Dominants and Eikons. This can be another weird thing.”

Jill added, “Once I’d called Shiva that first time, I could always feel the way back.”

“Aye,” Cid added. “I’ve never met or heard of a Dominant who couldn’t do the same after that first priming.”

Heart heavy, Clive had to confess: “I may not be as much use as you hoped, then.” That was a strange thing to confess. He was accustomed to being useful in only narrow situations, called on only when something needed burning to the ground, but Cid and Jill could both call forth far more destructive magical power than he could. Strange that it happened only after he accepted Ifrit.

It figured that he’d be a failure of a Dominant.

He got a surprise when Cid shook his head. “I think you’ve got enough to be going on with,” he said. “Situations don’t always call for Old Man Ramuh to blast things to the ground. I’m sure we can find a use for you whether or not Ifrit decides to join in.”

It was a thought that stayed with him even as their group parted to travel in less noticeable pairs, he and Torgal turned north towards the Greatwood.

—

Jill couldn’t help but feel somewhat apprehensive as she set out with Cid. Neither quite a stranger nor quite a friend, she’d nevertheless agreed to join his cause. Now he asked to travel with her and her alone.

Asked. Not ordered. Not even assumed. If she said no, she could travel with Clive, or by herself.

She wanted to know Cid better. It was just…

She had sought hurried, quiet assurances from Tarja, Dorys, and Charon anyway. Not Clive, though Clive had no objections and that did count for a lot with her; some things a man was not likely to understand. The three women had all assured her the only danger she was like to be in with Cid was from Cid doing something absurd. “Like hauling a strange angry Dominant back to the Hideaway in regular iron chains,” Charon said with a snort. “Don’t let him bring another back unless they’re as well-behaved as your Clive, you hear?”

All in all, the people of the Hideaway all spoke of Cid with affection and exasperation rather than reverence and fear. Not every man was Imreann, Jill reminded herself, watching Cid carefully as he forged ahead on the Crystal Road.

She wondered how long it would be before she could stop reminding herself of that.

They made good time down the road. This far west, there were few travellers and even fewer traders. The Blight ate away at the surrounding countryside. This would all be the deadlands in a few years. Some of these trees, their leaves turning brown with the approach of autumn, would not leaf again in spring.

“Bit of a dismal sight, this,” Cid said, breaking the silence. “Almost wish I’d told Clive to take this road and we’d go through the Greatwood.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jill asked.

“His brand,” Cid said. “One of us would have to go with him and play pretend masters and bearers so he didn’t get conscripted right back into the Imperial army, and then I’d miss out on the pleasure of your company no matter which way we split.”

Jill did not feel like her company was much of a pleasure right now.

“Besides,” Cid continued, “This way he’ll stop by Lostwing. Quinten liked him. Maybe we can get another bottle of Gaultand out of this.”

She very much doubted that all Cid wanted from sending Clive to Lostwing was a bottle of wine. There was something she was missing here and she didn’t know Cid well enough to tell.

That was in spite of Cid keeping up a decent stream of conversation all day. Not constantly, he had a good sense for when he just needed to let Jill walk in silence for a while, but there was hardly a landmark he didn’t have some comment on or a stretch of road he didn’t have an anecdote for. Goetz and the time he tried to smuggle a kitten back to the Hideaway and nearly got it past Charon. The time Tarja managed to improvise a hangover remedy on the edge of the deadlands with a handful of herbs brewed up in one of Otto’s old helms. The Hideaway’s master carpenter Geoffroy learning to mend a wagon even as it rolled on.

Very few of those anecdotes were about Cid himself, Jill couldn’t help but notice.

Clive had told her the basics when he’d recounted what happened at Lostwing and Caer Norvent. She could feel that he was the Dominant of Ramuh easily enough, aether constantly crackling off him. She knew Cid was a Waloeder. She’d slaughtered hundreds of his countrymen and women. He showed no signs of holding it against her. She didn’t know why. What sort of person could just turn his back on where he’d come from, just like that?

As promised, Cid was as much of a gentleman as Clive was. Life on the road had its intimacies. Cid didn’t leer, didn’t peek, didn’t touch, didn’t comment. Still some part of Jill stayed on guard.

A week into their journey, they came across Imperial troops.

“We’d best be careful,” Cid told her. “They might not recognise your face, but I’ve been making a nuisance of myself across Storm for a few years now. Some people might have a description.”

“I’ll fight first,” Jill said. “Someone might recognise your lightning.”

With the additional benefit of not worsening Cid’s curse affliction. Road life intimacy went both ways. He was suffering worse than he cared to speak aloud.

They didn’t need to fight. With Cid’s hood up and Jill being a woman - the Imperials didn’t allow their women to fight - it didn’t seem to occur to the garrison commander that they might be anything but refugees. They just stood in the mud to the side of the road and allowed them to pass.

“Why so many of them?” Jill asked.

“Good question,” Cid said. Then, “Gods of the circle, they have siege crystals.”

“Siege crystals?”

“Heavy crystals - they’ll usually be attuned to fire or earth. A commander will bring them to take down some walls.”

Jill looked at the giant cut crystals, as long as her arm and shining the pale blue that marked them as being harvested (mined?) from Drake’s Head, on their wooden wagons. They were twice the size of the municipal crystals that filled village wells. “They have Bahamut.” Why would they need these siege crystals if they had Bahamut?

Cid’s eyes were still fixed on the procession. “Sylvestre Lesage cares a whole lot more for Bahamut than the Ironblood did for you,” he said. “With those, Bahamut can have a meal and a kip while he recovers from priming, then pick up the next day without even a tiny break in the siege.”

“Martha told us that the Emperor was mining crystals,” Jill breathed. There was no way any of the soldiers could hear her, but horror made her quiet anyway. “Whose walls are they trying to break down?”

Cid’s face was grave as he said, “If I had my guess…Twinside.”

They travelled near the Imperial soldiers for most of that day. They weren’t the only ones. Most of the refugees clustered close for safety. Then they came to a place where the Crystal Road kept going, and the Emperor’s Road met it and turned to Oriflamme. Jill and Cid took that one while the army marched on. Towards Twinside.

When they camped for the evening, they picked at their meals in silence for a long time. Cid was a dreadful cook. Jill wasn’t much better. They’d agreed on the first night out that as soon as they reunited with Clive, cooking was his job.

Eventually, Jill asked, “Who are the gods of the circle?”

The gods of the North were the gods of the sky. For granting her wish, Metia had her faith again. More than ever before. Rosaria, like Dhalmekia, worshiped freely. When she’d lived in Rosalith it had seemed to her that there were dozens of gods there. Ancestor gods, nature spirits, some worshippers of Greagor, others who shared her own faith.

The Ironblood, of course, had only one god. And one Patriarch.

She’d never heard of the gods of the circle.

Cid sighed and threw a stick into their fire. “Old habit,” he said. “On Ash, a lot of us worship the Eikons. The Circle. There’s nothing like awakening as a Dominant to cure a man of the worship part - as I’d bet you understand.” Jill nodded, and he went on. “But it gets a hold of you, their ideas of what Eikons are. No matter what meaning they give to them, the people of Ash never claimed the Eikons to be kind gods. Even after all these years it speaks to something in me, I suppose.”

“What’s Ramuh supposed to be like?” Jill asked.

“The Lord of Insight,” Cid drawled mockingly. “But it’s the second insight that’ll tell you insight in general isn’t necessarily a good thing to have.” He glanced at her and seemed to put some of that insight to use. “Shiva stands for truth, back home. Dangerous as the clear ice.”

He continued, slowly and almost with longing. “Bahamut for all things in order - time, the seasons, law, things like that. We have a word for it, doesn’t translate well. Odin for the things outside that order, the deep mysteries, death mostly. The Phoenix for passion, Garuda for freedom, Leviathan for change, Titan for strength. All of it can be good or bad. Concepts humans can’t do without, but too big for any one human to contain. So the humans who channel the gods pay the price.”

He was cradling his left arm close to his chest. The arm afflicted by the curse.

“Complete bastard gods, they are,” Cid finished with a bitter chuckle. “Always seemed more real to me than Greagor or anything like that, even when I stopped believing they were gods. No offense to you and your divinities.”

“None taken.” After a few seconds she said, “I wonder what they’d make of Ifrit.”

Cid sat bolt upright and swore.

“What is it?” Jill asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Jill. Listen to me. If you ever find someone else who swears by the Circle, you need to ask them what’s in the centre. If they do anything but run you out of town for heresy, anything, whether they tell you that in the centre of the circle is Titan’s toenail or a bag of moldy gysahl greens, you need to run. And you need to stop Clive getting anywhere near them.”

When she didn’t respond immediately, he leaned forward and said again, “Promise me, please. For Clive’s sake, at least.”

“For Clive’s sake,” she agreed, shaken at Cid’s own wild-eyed insistence and use of the word ‘please’ in all sincerity.

She didn’t know what had rattled him so in what had been a brief discussion of comparative religion. She did at least feel she knew Cid a little better now. Bastard gods, she thought. She knew about living with bastard gods.

Chapter Text

The last time Clive visited Northreach he’d been wearing Imperial armour. Four, five years ago, was it? They’d wintered here, which for his unit had meant only the coldest moon of the year. It hadn’t meant rest, though, since the Empire would not feed idle Branded. Clive had been kept busy maintaining fires, heating water, and clearing paths in the snow. 

One night he’d been summoned by an overfed bishop to roast chestnuts for him and his mistress. At least that was how the night had started. It wasn’t a memory Clive cared to revisit. He shook his head as if he could shake it away.

He’d been kept to the garrison, mostly, and so he was less familiar with the markets on the south side of the wall. From this side, they sprawled in the mud, separated from the moors of Claireview by only a few flimsy rail fences. No threats had advanced on Oriflamme from this direction for centuries.

Clive made his way through the stalls, the cries of the merchants hawking their wares ringing in his ears. He did his best to move with purpose. If he looked like he was on an errand, he was less likely to be stopped.

Otto had told him the Dame would visit the Northreach markets every other morning wearing either a comb or a brooch in the shape of a crescent moon. He just had to be careful while he looked lest someone find him threatening. Eyes down, shoulders low, back ready to bow. It came back easily. More easily than he’d like.

Or maybe not. He’d deserted…two turns of the moon ago? A little more? He’d been a slave all his adult life. Of course shuffling and scraping still came easily.

At last he spotted a woman idling at a stall selling strings of cheap jewelry. A silver comb in the shape of a moon held her chestnut brown hair into a graceful bun, revealing a slender, pale neck. Her dress was in the brightly-coloured, shoulder-less style common amongst many of the courtesans in the north of Sanbreque, but she wore a sheer silk shawl over her bare skin and more silver at her waist and throat. A woman of wealth, despite her business, and confidence. She floated through the muddy markets as if she owned them.

Clive waited until her leisurely stroll brought her to the rail fence that marked the edge of the markets. “A moment, my lady?” he asked. 

“You could not afford a moment, Branded,” she replied, haughty as any great lady.

“My apologies,” Clive said. He tried to sidle away.

He hadn’t made it half a dozen steps before she said, “Wait. Come here.”

He hesitated. 

Strangely, that seemed to reassure her. Quietly, she said, “You haven’t the fear the others do. You came from Otto, yes?”

“I did, my lady,” he said.

The Dame laughed. It didn’t seem quite real, but he supposed that was simply how courtesans had to work. “He did warn me you were a gentleman. And as a gentleman, I hope you will listen to a woman in her need.”

Clive offered his arm as he’d been taught when he was a boy. When she took it, her hands were soft. For an instant he thought of Jill and the hard muscle along her arms, the calluses she bore from renewed training with a sword. “What problem do you need assistance with?” he asked, as they slowly proceeded along the edge of the markets. 

If it was a client who needed running off, Clive would gladly do so. Intimidating a girl who hadn’t paid her fees to the house itself, he would not. He was not going to be Wyvern anymore. Not for anyone.

“It may be a little onerous, but as Cid trusted you enough to send you alone despite the brand on your face, I have confidence in your resourcefulness,” she said. “One of my girls is missing. I have been…making my own inquiries, but our brave soldiers hardly ever take notice of common whores.”

That was a relief. “I would be happy to assist, my lady,” he said, “But Branded rarely receive answers to their questions either. Even when working on behalf of another. I can try. I am unlikely to succeed.”

“A man with a sword, Branded or not, can find different information to what my girls and I can turn up. Perhaps together we can solve this mystery.” Her voice was tight with tension. Whoever this missing woman was, the Dame’s concern for her was palpable - and she must truly be desperate to ask a strange man, a Branded no less.

“You remind me of Cid already, my lady,” Clive said.

The only sign of her surprise was how her hand tightened on his arm. “I’m sure he would tell you that’s a dubious compliment,” she said smoothly. “But Cid did me a great kindness once, and I know some of what he does for others. I am honoured. Now, shall we see about getting you through this checkpoint?”

Here was where he hoped the Dame would not remind him of Cid. “What did you have in mind?”

“My preference would be to simply claim you as my guard and walk you through. It will let you come and go as you need for a while. Are the guards here likely to recognise you?”

“I was last here several years ago. It’s unlikely the gate guards would recognise me, though some of their superiors might.”

The Dame nodded decisively and handed him a copper brooch in the shape of a moon and stars. Clive pinned it to his cloak. “The garrison commanders in Northreach have changed twice in the past three years - politics, you understand. The Empress and the Cardinal for the North do battle in such ways. The Cardinal’s men currently control the garrison. The Empress has ceded political ground in Oriflamme and works to some other goal now. Come. You know how to pose as a guard, I assume?”

Clive released her arm and stepped back so he was in her wake, yet still close enough to defend her. “My lady.”

“Acceptable.”

Back in more public view Clive maintained that distance. He hadn’t been a true guard for so long. Even on those occasions when the Bastards were used as additional protection for one noble or another, it was the sort of protection that involved pre-emptive removal of threats.

The guards moved aside for the Dame. “What’s this, then?” one said with a jerk of his head towards Clive.

“My new guardian,” the Dame said. She briefly rested a hand on the guard’s arm. “I cannot be troubling you boys all the time for protection, can I? You come to me for something quite different.”

Gate guards wore steel caps rather than the full helms given to captains and dragoons. The way the soldier’s face reddened at the Dame’s touch was plain for all to see. Clive hurriedly returned his gaze to the ground, knowing that some soldiers would lash out at a Bearer for…just about anything, actually, but witnessing a guard’s discomfiture was definitely on the list.

“You look after the lady, you hear?” the blushing guard barked at him.

Clive inclined his head. “Sir.” Not that this man was a sir, not to anyone but a Branded. It couldn’t hurt.

And just like that, they were through.

“That was easier than I dared hope,” Clive said, once they were out of earshot, working their way through the narrow streets of Northreach proper.

“They only ever see the brand, not the man beneath,” the Dame said. “I learned that long ago. And if they will be so stupid -” she hissed, then once again recovered her composure “- then I will take advantage.”

“Wise words, my lady,” Clive said. Once again he offered her his arm.

“Please,” she said, “Isabelle. When we finish with this farce, call me Isabelle.”

“Isabelle,” Clive said. “I’m Clive.”

—

They passed more soldiers on the Emperor’s Road. Whole legions flowing south, blue banners flying above the golden wheat of the area known as the Breadbasket. In their wake came traders of all sorts - and refugees.

“Could they be fleeing Oriflamme?” Jill asked.

“Who knows?” Cid said. He got out a cigarette and used a crystal to light it. He’d given Jill a spare a few days ago, telling her it was good cover for most small uses of magic. She still struggled to use it for anything but ice, though.

Jill had never been far beyond the borders of Sanbreque. As a child, she’d stayed in the North. When she’d been taken to Rosaria, she had been allowed some travel with the ducal family, but though she’d seen much of Rosaria, she’d never gone beyond Sanbrequois or Dhalmekian border towns. As a slave to the Ironblood, they kept her on Mount Drustanus - or a ship, harrying the coasts. The endless golden fields here were beautiful. Peaceful. She didn’t know why the refugees wouldn’t stop here, in any of the wealthy villages and hamlets that dotted the road. Half of them didn’t even have walls.

Hard to believe the Blight could ever come here. But when she was little, her mother used to tell her about the crystal blue lakes high in the mountains and the way the tundra sometimes came alive with flowers. They hadn’t thought the Blight could take that either.

And all that was due to the Mothercrystals, Cid said. The Mothercrystals were turning places like this into vast expanses of poisonous blackness.

But even in the villages they passed - “There are no Bearers,” she said, as they shared a meal in the common room of an inn. “There were almost none in Rosaria either.”

There were three or four in this town, one suffering the curse, three young. One of them was a toddler, brand still red around its edges, following in the footsteps of the Bearer with the curse. She had the same beaten look in her eyes as any of the hostages the Ironblood had used against her. Only it hadn’t been the Ironblood who’d done it.

She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought about it when she was younger. That was a child, treated as nothing more than a tool. Frost started to crackle on the surface of her ale. Shiva felt very close to the surface.

Cid reached out for her stein, breaking the connection between it and her magic before she could cause a scene. “I know,” he said. “Took me a long time to start asking questions too.”

“How could we let this happen? How could we agree to this?”

“An answer like that needs a historian or three, I think,” Cid said. “Tomes has a few theories, I know, but damned if they make sense to me. I just keep telling myself that we don’t agree to it now.”

“In the meantime we just have to walk past all this,” Jill whispered bitterly.

“The first few weeks are the hardest, not going to lie. When I started, I wanted to charge off and free every Bearer I could see. Otto had to knock some sense into me. In his state, too. It does no good to free people only to see them killed or caught again. It’s not about feeling good ‘cause we’ve broken some chains. We have to do this smart. Which means doing it patient, so we can hold on to what we win.”

She took her ale back. Still cold, but not frozen. She had control of herself. She could choose how she acted. “Patient,” she said. It was a bitter pill to swallow. “Right.”

Jill did not sleep well that night. She wanted Clive. Clive had patience. Clive had been branded. He’d understand, and if he couldn’t explain he’d at least tell her why he couldn’t. More than anything, though, Clive would simply be a comfort.

They left the village behind in the grey light of dawn. The only thing they were doing for that little branded child was trying to change the world. It didn’t feel like enough.

There were very few Bearers left in these villages. More than there had been in Rosaria, perhaps to be expected in a province compared to the heart of the Empire. “They can’t all be going to the mines, can they?” Jill asked.

“No,” Cid replied. “They’d have to be going to the army as well. Though, if they’re all marching south, I wonder what resistance they’re expecting to find? The Dominion won’t be prepared - but the royalists might. The Dhalmeks are closest…”

He was off pondering again, muttering to himself as he tried to sort out his thoughts. Jill was starting to suspect this was one of the things that resulted in the people of the Hideaway treating Cid with exasperation. “You expect a full-blown war over Twinside?”

Cid startled.

“You know why I wanted the pleasure of your company?” he asked. “It’s because I wanted to work out how much we have in common. I reckon it’s more than you think, at least when it comes to big battles like what could be coming.”

“Clive told me you were once Barnabas Tharmr’s Lord Commander.”

“Aye, I was,” Cid said. “Obviously there are some important differences in how we came to be on those battlefields, since you were forced and I was just stupid, but if you look at it tactically, mind you, there are some things the same. You know that there are plenty of Bearers out there who don’t see Dominants as the same as they are?”

Jill blinked, thrown by the sudden change in topic. “No,” she said.

“We’re hardly the only ones who think that Bearer slavery is wrong,” Cid said. “There’s a group works mostly in the east of Dhalmekia and the Free Cities, won’t even talk to me on account of the fact I’m a Dominant. They’ve freed Bearers who were enslaved in Hugo Kupka’s palace and who’ve served in Dion Lesage’s army, so I can’t say I blame them. Their point is that Dominants like you and I and ordinary Bearers don’t always go through the same shit. On a battlefield, we’re the ones doing the killing. They’re the ones getting killed. They get mown down, maimed, left behind, the lot. First into the fight and last to be treated.”

Clive. Clive had been a Bearer in an army. That was what he’d faced. She’d done that to him. Him and thousands of others. 

So had Cid. That was his point.

“So - what are you planning to do?” And how could she help?

“I want to get a message to the Dhalmek group,” he said. “If Dhalmekia marches on Twinside to counter the Empire, they’ll be better placed to rescue Dhalmek Bearers. Obviously we can’t just send a stolas.” He sighed. “This is when we actually do need to bring Gav along.”

He went back to his muttering. Jill didn’t have any solutions for him either. She was still coming to grips with the problems.

She’d think of something. She wasn’t going to tag along with Cid forever, or look on helplessly. She liked how Cid talked about those problems, as if they could be broken down and attacked one by one. As awful as it felt to walk away now…it wasn’t going to be forever or always.

—

Before he set off, Clive did get the name and description of Isabelle’s missing girl. Tatienne, about twenty summers of age, fair-haired and plump, not given to smiling. She’d last been seen with a frequent client of hers, a young soldier by the name of Yannick. Arguing.

“I doubt I have set you a true mystery,” Isabelle said tightly. “But I would like to know for sure, all the same. The soldiers will not tell me where he went.”

So Clive took a risk and went to the Bearers of the garrison. 

He first approached a woman at a forge, who told him in a low and frightened voice that she was hardly ever allowed to leave her station. She hardly knew any of the soldiers. The curse was climbing its way up her legs.“Will you allow me to take over for a few minutes?” he asked. He reassured her that he knew how to match her flames - was it understanding from the Phoenix, or from Ifrit? - and gave her a strip of jerky from his supplies. Even then she didn’t dare sit down for fear she might be seen. The most she would risk was a few steps to get herself a ladleful of water. It was all he could do for her.

Another Bearer in the yards, a younger man working on the endless task of garrison laundry, told him that he knew of this Yannick but hadn’t seen him for several days.

“The Old Man might know,” the Bearer told him.

“The Old Man?” Clive asked. “He’s still here?”

“Near dead from the curse now,” the Bearer said. Curiosity lighting his eyes at Clive’s clothes and armour, so much finer than standard Imperial issue, he asked, “You know this place then?”

“I was sold on several years ago. Does he still work with the healers?”

Yes, as it turned out. Clive gave this Bearer some of his hardtack in exchange for the information.

Clive had to wait for the Bearer known only as the Old Man. He’d been called such even when Clive had wintered at Northreach. He had no idea how old the man truly was - but as a rare Bearer with healing power, he had never been risked in open combat. Instead, he was kept on standby, ready at a moment’s notice to patch up any injuries that could disable a soldier. He knew every soldier in Northreach. He’d known them all for many years.

Today it was a badly dislocated shoulder. The afflicted man was not kind as he waited for the healing magic to take effect, either.

But at last it was finished, the soldier striding off after cuffing the Old Man around the ear for ‘tardiness’. Clive stepped forward and said, “Excuse me.”

The Old Man looked up at him from his seat on the ground. He wasn’t that old. Maybe about Cid’s age, maybe a little older. His blue eyes were dull and even seated, he looked as though the weight of the world was pressing him down. Perhaps it was. The ashen lines of the curse were visible beneath the collar of his roughspun shirt. It would not be long before he died. A matter of weeks, perhaps.

“I remember you,” the Old Man said. “Wyvern.”

“Not anymore,” Clive said.

“I worked for hours on those burns. What reason did you have for that?”

Clive closed his eyes, just briefly. “No good one.”

The Old Man did not seem surprised. “What do you want, Wyvern?”

“I’m looking for a man named Yannick.”

“You plan to kill him?”

“That depends,” Clive said. “A woman named Tatienne vanished with him. Her friends are concerned and cannot get answers from the soldiers here. If he’s hurt her, then yes, I may kill him. I would prefer to bring him back here to face justice.”

The Old Man thought about it and then said, “Moore. Yannick went to the town of Moore.”

Unlike the other two, the Old Man would not take anything from Clive in return for his information. He didn’t want to look at Clive at all.

So instead he left a message for Isabelle at the Veil and set off to Moore.

On this side of Northreach, most farmers grew rye instead of wheat. It covered the gentle plains outside Oriflamme in softly rolling waves. Here and there he passed a windmill, much like those at Eastpool. There were travellers on the roads, like there once were in Rosaria.

Unlike Rosarian travellers, these ones caught sight of the brand on his face and turned away with a scowl. To a man.

Clive tried not to show his displeasure. It would not end well for him.

Though he knew the right roads to take to Moore, he’d never been there himself. The pastoral heart of the Empire was not usually the place where the services of the Bastards had been required. Just as well, as Bearers were treated very poorly in Oriflamme and its nearest neighbours. Biast had come from a village outside of Oriflamme and he had nothing but horror stories. Wyvern hadn’t believed all Biast’s tales, for good reason, but those he took more seriously.

He was walking into danger here. No mistake about it.

Chapter Text

Jill’s first impression of Northreach wasn’t very good. From what she’d seen of the maps, Oriflamme was but a few days’ walk beyond it, the Banner of the Empire alone and proud on Oillepheist Bay, in the shadow of Drake’s Head.

Northreach was neither tall nor proud, just muddy and crowded and split in half by a forbidding chunk of wall. She had no idea how the locals could tolerate it.

There was a Fallen stonework spire near the entrance lit up with its eerie blue light. Jill nudged Cid. “Clive’s been here,” she said.

“Wish I knew why they did that,” Cid said. But he recovered when they entered the market. He clapped his hands together. “Right. Now to find our lady!”

The madam of a brothel, as Jill understood. She wasn’t familiar with this sort of thing - in Rosalith she’d been kept sheltered, and after that she’d been kept captive. She knew what brothels were for, and why men visited them, of course. She just didn’t know what they were like. It wasn’t hard to spot the women who worked there, in their sleeveless, shoulderless gowns of flimsy fabric. Cid didn’t give them a second glance, peering around the crowds for someone he clearly knew.

At length he gave up, bought them each a stick of some sort of fried dough balls, and sat on the market’s rail fence to wait. The dough balls were actually rather tasty. It reminded her of festival food in Rosalith.

“You can go explore if you like,” Cid said. “I’m pretty sure by now you’re a lot less trouble-prone than Clive. I’m not going to run off without you.”

“The man who taught him how to use a sword threatened to keep him on a leash too,” Jill sighed. Cid chuckled. Jill did not go exploring.

After an hour or so, one of the courtesans approached them. This one was different than most of the others on the streets. She was a little older, her clothes a good deal finer, and her mouth narrowed into a thin line when she saw Cid.

“Ah, my lady,” Cid said. “A pleasure as always.”

“Cid,” the woman said. “And this must be Jill.”

“Madame,” Jill said, and decided on a small curtsey.

“My, you are finding polite souls to assist you these days, Cidolfus,” the Dame said. “It makes for a pleasant change.”

“I live for the moments I hear your wit, my lady.”

“But not as much as you live for the moments you hear your own.”

Jill stifled a snicker.

The Dame’s face grew serious. “It’s good that you’ve arrived so quickly. I just received a message from your man Clive. I asked him for a favour, you see, and he kindly agreed to it.”

“Well, that just proves it’s Clive,” Cid said. “What’ve you got him doing?”

“One of my girls went missing. Cid, he’s gone to Moore to find her.”

Cid swore. Jill asked, “What’s the problem with Moore?”

The Dame’s face pinched even further as she said, “The entire area is one of the most godsforsaken, backwards, vicious, Bearer-hating wastelands I’ve ever had the misfortune to walk through. And the misfortune of the Bearers who walk through it - or who have no choice but to stay there - is greater still. Last month one of my men reported a local noble using Bearers for worgen-baiting. One of the Lord Chief Justice’s appointees, may he burn in the hells of Dzemekys.”

“Clive can look after himself,” Jill tried to reassure her.

“But will Clive look after himself, that’s our question,” Cid said. Jill glared at him; he wasn’t helping.

“I swear to you that I did not intend for him to journey alone to Oriflamme’s outskirts. He left a message and departed before I could stop him.”

Again, that sounded like Clive. “We’ll go after him,” Jill said.

“I’m not going to hold it against you, my lady,” Cid said. “Clive makes his own decisions and I’ll wager he knew something of what he was heading into when he left.”

Jill wanted to be going straight away. The Dame walked them through the checkpoint at an agonisingly slow pace. Not slower than fighting all the guards would have been, and a great deal safer. Clive could look after himself, Jill told herself again. He’d survived thirteen years in the Imperial army, he could survive rural Sanbreque.

Northreach beyond the gate was wealthier than the markets and the itinerant camps around it to the south. It was still a rather forbidding place. The streets were narrow and every corner seemed to hold a loitering, bored-looking soldier. The Dame esscorted them deep into the warren of streets into a neighbourhood that seemed to be inhabited mostly by the…less legitimate members of Northreach society, or those who lived on the edge of it. Jill tried not to keep a hand on her sword. The Dame received nothing but respectful nods of the head and Cid didn’t look at all concerned. There was no danger here.

The brothel itself, the Veil, wasn’t what Jill had expected. There was an open courtyard in front of it with well-tended flowers. A few women loitered outside while a rather pretty young man tended the garden beds. It was well-kept and easily the most properous-looking business in the entire block. 

There weren’t many people inside at this time of day. In fact it looked like the place was being cleaned. Jill supposed a brothel would need it. The Dame took them to the kitchens in the back and sat them down with a cold meal. She had a few more hushed words with Cid. “I’ll see you supplied,” she said. “And with the gil to send a message back from Moore.”

She was as good as her word. She sent them on their way within an hour with new supplies and the details of a contact in Oriflamme who could shelter them inside the city if they needed.

The Sanbrequois countryside didn’t seem anywhere near as idyllic as it had earlier. There had been little danger in town. The danger was here.

—

Moore was a simple cluster of houses on the edge of the mountains that wrapped around Oriflamme’s eastern side. An old chapel perched on a cliff above the village; a newer chapel stood in the village centre. Clive approached the gates with trepidation.

Unlike Eastpool, there were people going about their business. Peasants tending to their small gardens. A pair of merchants. A priest with flinty eyes tracking Clive’s every movement.

Normally Clive would have gone to the priest for information of this sort, but the hostility in the man’s gaze put him off immediately. Instead he headed for a man mucking out the chocobo stables. As he crossed the small square, one of the village women hissed, “Ere, what’s this? I thought we weren’t having any new Branded shipped until the end of the war.”

He ignored that. The man he’d approached stood up straight when Clive approached, eyes flicking briefly to the copper brooch still pinned to Clive’s cloak. “What do you want?” he asked brusquely. Which had to be an improvement from outright hatred.

“I come from the Dame of Northreach,” Clive said. “I’m looking for a woman.” He gave Tatienne’s description, and finished, “She may have been travelling with a man in Imperial uniform, name of Yannick.”

The man said, “I don’t know about the girl, but a man named Yannick came through here not three days ago. Ended up in a fight with Benfrei over there.” He jerked his head towards one of the merchants. “Ask him.”

“I thank you,” Clive said. He hoped the man took it as the Dame thanks you, because Clive could not say it. He was not going to speak on behalf of a master.

The merchant Benfrei not only knew what Clive’s badge meant and was a sight readier to help him than a Moore farmer, but he also remembered Yannick. The argument had been over a comb, of all things. On the one hand it was a good sign that he was purchasing items for a woman. On the other hand, he didn’t like that nobody had actually seen Tatienne. Benfrei pointed him northeast, into the hills.

The priest was waiting at the gate. “They hunt things like you out there,” he said. “Your mistress’s token cannot protect you from everyone.”

Hunting Branded for sport was one of the tales Biast had told. “I thank you for the warning,” he said. That was all the bowing and scraping he could bear.

Whatever this man of Greagor thought, Clive was a free man.

This was going to be difficult, he thought, as he headed into the foothills. Clive was only a passable tracker. He’d learned much with the Bastards, but he hadn’t grown up with those skills. Yet his gloomy assumptions were soon proven wrong when he found a trail of footprints in the mud. Perhaps Clive was no woodsman, but it seemed that neither Yannick nor Tatienne were either. And Clive had Torgal’s assistance.

His search ended abruptly not a day out of Moore with a pair of bodies and a pack of worgens.

“Damn it,” Clive said, staring down at the mutilated remains of what used to be two young people. He doubted Tatienne had gone full willingly, yet with them both dead there would be no means of proving that Yannick had taken her to her death. Isabelle would not have the justice she sought after all. Though she would have Tatienne’s body to bury.

Maybe it said something about how hardened he’d grown, but as he looked down at the decaying corpses, he hoped that his failure wouldn’t affect how Isabelle saw Cid.

He trudged back towards the town with a heavy heart. The sun would set soon and he’d have to make a choice. Sleeping in Moore could be dangerous. As a Branded outsider, the prospect of being forced back into chains was not as remote as he might have liked. Or being used for some sort of entertainment. Clive had no intentions of being entertainment ever again, but such a refusal could grow messy.

If he slept outside, however, he’d just had ample proof there were worgens about. He trusted Torgal’s senses, but Torgal needed to rest too.

The old chapel. That was the answer. He’d stay there overnight and then head back to Northreach in the morning. Hopefully it would be empty. No doubt there were a range of people who’d use it for their various clandestine dealings. As he planned to.

Clive pushed on through the night and made it back to Moore a few hours after sunset, with only one minor interruption by a lone worgen desperate enough to try to take on Clive despite Torgal’s presence. The chapel, when at last he got there, was dirty and smelled of moonshine. Better than finding a couple here for a surreptitious tryst.

He propped himself up against a wall where he could see both the main entrance and the window overlooking the side path and was grateful for the shelter.

Some hours later he jarred awake. There was something in the aether again. A concentration. Clive got to his feet, instantly alert, hand on his sword. Torgal, strangely, cocked an ear and then remained asleep.

“Clive?”

Oh, that was why. Clive smiled.

“Jill! In here.”

“Thank Metia. The Dame had us worried.”

Cid was with her. “Picked a nice spot,” he said as he prowled the edges of the nave.

“I didn’t like the look of the villagers.”

They quickly exchanged information. Cid said he’d arrange for the runner back to Isabelle in the morning and then promptly went to sleep. Clive took watch, since he’d had a nap. Jill and Cid had both pushed themselves hard. For his sake, which they hadn’t needed to do. It had…been a long time. Since someone had cared enough.

Jill leaned against his shoulder, apparently not willing to sleep yet. “I was worried,” she whispered. “The Dame told us…terrible things.”

“They’re probably true,” Clive said. “But I’m all right. Nothing worse than some glaring.”

It didn’t seem to comfort her. 

“I hope Cid treated you well,” Clive said, changing the topic. It wouldn’t do either of them any good to think on how Sanbreque treated Bearers.

“He’s a good man,” Jill said. “I think he thinks too much. I don’t think there are many people he can talk to, not really. It can be…lonely…having the power we do.”

“I remember,” he said. Joshua was always set apart from others, even in Rosaria where he and his power were valued. Because of that value. Jill must have gone through the shadow of that, enslaved by the Ironblood because she was too valuable to kill even as they hated everything she was.

What had Cid been through? As Lord Commander for Barnabas Tharmr, he would have had two other Dominants with him. Two people who might have understood. He’d left that behind.

Clive added, “Now he has you, though. To talk about…Dominant things with.”

“You as well.”

“I suppose,” Clive said. “It’s hard to think of myself as a Dominant.” He was, he knew he was, but it wasn’t a concept he associated with himself deep down.

“It was always Joshua, wasn’t it?”

Clive nodded, lump in his throat. “It feels like…a betrayal, almost, to call myself a Dominant when he’s dead.” At his own hands. The stab of pain and guilt at the reminder was growing familiar.

“He would have been overjoyed,” Jill said. “There would have been nobody happier.”

“And for you,” Clive replied. Tears pricked at his eyes, imagining a world where there was no burden with the power and Joshua could just be happy that the three of them shared this in common. “We’ll just have to have this in common with Cid.”

Jill chuckled. There was a sob to it. “We’re going to change things, Clive,” she said. “We’re going to make it so what happened to us doesn’t happen to other people. We’ll stop the Blight and build a place for all of us.” She tucked her head further down.

“As you wish, my lady,” Clive said. “Rest now. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

She fell asleep like that. Right there on his shoulder. Trusting he wouldn’t hurt her. Seeming to actually want to be close to him.

Cid did as he’d promised and headed down to the village in the morning. Clive prepared their breakfast on request from both of the others.

“Message to the Dame is on its way,” Cid said when he returned. “And your apologies, Clive, yes, not that she’ll think you need to send them. Nothing keeping us here now. Shall we be off?”

Not soon enough, as far as Clive was concerned.

—

It was nice that Clive was no longer so insistent on trying to get himself killed, but the boy was a planner. Cid had always had trouble working with planners. They liked to plan things. No wonder he’d teamed up with Otto. Whatever happened to the impulsivity and impetuousness associated with fire? Really, Clive was playing against type.

“I’m a deserter, remember?” Clive said, with the exaggerated patience of a man quickly running out of it. “I can’t linger on the street. I was stationed here long enough that I might be recognised.”

In total fairness, Cid would bet he might be. Brand on his face or not, more than a few women and the occasional man had done a double take or turned a rather shocking shade of red when they got a good look at Clive. The son of one of the most famous beauties in all Valisthea. Several of them would remember him, no doubt. How he’d managed as a semi-covert assassin was a mystery. Whoever had signed him up for the job needed a few things explained to them.

Honestly, between him and Jill (one man had walked into a wall and bounced off, for staring at her), Cid was starting to feel like the ugly chocobo chick.

That was beside the point, though. The point was that Clive was, unfortunately for Cid’s ideas about getting in and out of Oriflamme posthaste so he could check on all those books he wanted to check on, absolutely right.

“Fine, we’ll go find the Dame’s contact,” he said. “But as soon as the sun starts going down we need to move.”

Clive kept his head down as they made their way through the streets. He made a fair shake of pretending to be the moderately well-treated Branded armsman of a wealthy couple, played by Cid and Jill. He fancied that he and Jill played their parts better, though. Nobody challenged them, and when they introduced themselves to the madam of the Blooming Orchid, they were off the streets and safe for the time being.

The madam sent them to a room. Nothing to comment on in three people in a room in a brothel. It was clean enough, there was plenty of incense to mask the various brothel smells -

“It doesn’t seem very private,” Jill said.

The walls were a bit thin.

The door was also a few strings of beads over a thicker curtain. It would hide various goings-on from passerby, but it wouldn’t provide real security. That was more concerning. Clive went to fetch them all wine and bread from the kitchens, then pulled the thick red velvet firmly across the door behind him.

“Now that we’re here,” Clive said, “Did you have a plan?”

There was a distinct lack of faith there. “There are only two ways to the heart of Drake’s Head. The first is through Whitewyrm Palace itself. That’s not happening. So that leaves us with one option.”

“The Glass Gate,” Clive said. “One of the most heavily guarded points in all the Empire.”

“Ah, but I know Martha told you - there have been some changes in how the Glass Gate works these days. Can’t turn one thing into another without some infrastructure. Carts, tracks…tunnels. It’s an expanding operation. We’ll be able to make it to the inner sanctum that way, where the heart of the crystal stands.”

That had Clive nodding along. Jill didn’t have that sort of experience, fortunately for her in that one respect, but she was no fool.

“How did you learn about this fatal chink in the Empire’s armour?” Clive asked.

“I may have attempted something similar seven or eight years ago.” When he realised the curse was drawing tight around his bones and his days were numbered. “I may also have had to run like hell from Bahamut. But Bahamut’s not in town this time, is he?”

He was off invading Twinside instead. What was Sylvestre thinking?

Clive asked, “What happens if there’s an aetherflood after we smash the Mothercrystal?”

“One of us primes and drives everyone away,” Cid said. “Don’t know if there’s much else we can do. If we let people know beforehand they’d stop us and then where would we be?”

“You’re all right with this? With innocent people being hurt?”

“No,” Cid said, “Ordinary Bearers are going to be the first to get hurt from what we do. With fewer crystals, their talents will be in greater demand. The desperate and the greedy will pursue Bearers harder than ever. Things will get worse before they get better. But I don’t see any way around it. We can’t win this fight with words. We have to change our fate another way. No matter what it takes.”

“They’ll call you a villain for this,” Clive said.

From someone else, it might have sounded like doubt. From Clive, it sounded like certainty. Planner or not, it seemed there were things the lad understood.

“I’d like to think they’ll call me an outlaw,” Cid said with a grin. He’d like that. His name not associated with what he’d done for Barnabas Tharmr, but for defying the order of the world that would see them all dead from the Blight and Bearers enslaved. Something his daughter could be proud of.

“Either way,” he continued, “there’s no turning back now. The world won’t save itself.”

Chapter Text

The people of the Dominion mustered a hasty defense of Twinside when they realised the Imperial legions were there for their city. Dion beheld ragged lines on the walls, poorly constructed barricades on the bridges, some ragged Branded manning the front lines.

Dion’s lines were also a little threadbare due to the haste of this action, but he had the vanguard in order, ready to advance down the bridges. Armour shone silver in the morning sun. The supply lines were in place. There was no sign of the Royalists. Several stolases had been sighted flying towards Dhalmekia, not all of which his men had managed to shoot down, but it would be too late for them to assist the city by the time any assistance could be mustered.

Something felt curdled in his stomach. It had since they’d started to march south to the Dominion. Even if this was for the good of Sanbreque…it didn’t feel right. What had been a vague unease was now uncomfortably sharp now that he beheld the Great Spire of Twinside. Something about the structure, built around an older Fallen building by the people of the Dominion, caused him even greater reserve than looking upon Drake’s Tail.

“Your Highness,” Commander Pascal said. “Your orders?”

He cast his eyes over the paltry number of soldiers sent to oppose them, with their paltry crystals. “Preserve as much of the city as you can,” he said. “Civilians are to be spared, Branded captured wherever possible, and buildings to be left standing. The Dominion is to become part of Sanbreque, and so should be left whole so we may share our prosperity. Make sure every man to the lowest soldier understands that.”

It was a paltry salve to his conscience. Civilians would die. Their homes and livelihoods would be ruined. The best he could do was to minimise the damage.

For the good of the Empire, he told himself. This was his duty.

Dion watched and waited as the final arrangements were made. Then, as the army marched forward, he primed. A cheer went up from below as Bahamut soared over Twinside. 

From up here all he could see were the slate rooftops, the sea shimmering on all sides, the Great Spire, and Drake’s Tail. It was beautiful. Whatever his loyalty to his home he had to say he liked the colour of Drake’s Tail better than he did that of Drake’s Head, the clear true blue of a summer sea. And most importantly, what happened up here felt so very far away from the fighting on the ground.

Yet he was not here to simply enjoy himself. Nor even to make a show for his men.

There was no Dominant on the other side of the field. A demonstration from Bahamut could minimise the damage to the city and its people even further.

He gathered Bahamut’s holy light and strafed it over Twinside’s outer walls. He could hardly hear the splintering of stone and the screams of people caught up in the blasts. He’d aimed for clusters of soldiers, just as he’d have his men do.

There were screams below him when he swooped back down. These were not cheers.

The sooner this was done, the sooner the citizens of Twinside could enjoy Bahamut’s protection. They would be citizens of the Empire with all the same rights. They would all benefit. He had to keep telling himself that.

He flew around to the north side, where the Imperial Navy was establishing their blockade and repeated the blast there. More screams. More destruction.

Bahamut yearned to fly. Not just away, but up. To see how high he could go. Beyond the sky. He knew it was possible in a way he could not possibly have explained, except perhaps to another Dominant. If they too just knew things about the capabilities of their Eikons. 

Pointless speculation. He was held to this objective by things far stronger than mere gravity.

Not wanting to taint Bahamut’s light further with whatever this move on the Dominion was supposed to be, he flew back to the main camp to continue his oversight of the campaign simply as Dion. It would not be long.

—

Not long after darkness fell - as close as Oriflamme ever got to darkness - the guard outside the Glass Gate changed. Clive watched the handover from a ledge above the entrance. “Fewer than I thought,” he whispered back down to Jill and Cid. “This might not be a terrible plan after all.”

“Oi,” Cid said.

Clive didn’t wave them forward. There weren’t many guards, but the way they were patrolling wasn’t right. “There are no shipments of crystal being prepared,” he reported. He dropped back to the others.

“Aren’t they mining the Mothercrystal?” Jill asked. “They should have plenty of crystals.”

“Something is wrong here,” Clive agreed.

“No plan is perfect,” Cid said. “Embrace the moment.”

“Running for my life when a squad of guards turn up where they shouldn’t be is not a moment I care to embrace,” Clive growled.

“Even life’s smallest challenges offer the opportunity to grow and to change!”

“A small challenge -” he cut himself off when he noticed Jill laughing at them behind a hand. “What happens if the path to the inner sanctum is guarded?”

He was not surprised when Cid grinned at him, put a hand on each of his shoulders, and said, “Then we embrace the moment and use it to grow and change.” Cid took the lead then, Jill following behind him. 

Clive sighed. “You understand, don’t you, Torgal?”

Torgal leaned against his legs briefly but then trotted after Cid too.

This was going to go horribly wrong. Clive was certain of it. Those patrols were organised, just not organised around keeping people out of the Glass Gate. There was going to be some embracing the moment whether Clive liked it or not. The next Mothercrystal they destroyed, he was going to plan their approach.

Cid led them to a narrow tunnel above the main gateway. The footing was treacherous, crumbling stone. It wasn’t hard to see why it was abandoned and unpatrolled. A good choice to get in.

Then he heard Cid say, “Hm.”

“Let me guess,” Clive growled, “It’s guarded.”

“I swear it used to be secret.”

Before Cid had run from Bahamut, or before the mining operations had expanded through the stone base surrounding Drake’s Head. Clive was about ready to tear his hair out. How could a man so smart also be so stupid? Jill turned back to him and she was smiling again. “Then we’re fighting our way through.”

“Follow my lead,” Cid said.

His lead was a crackle of lightning in a mining tunnel. In such close quarters they all felt the heat off it. There were no screams from this small group, the attack too fast and too lethal for it. There was a rumble as air rushed in to replace what the levin had burned away. Hopefully it would be mistaken for the normal noise of a mine. Whatever that was. Clive had been in a mine twice in his life and never this deep before.

Eventually, the tunnel came to an end in a large open area containing several tracks for minecarts, a few loads of crystals ready for shipping, a number of crates of mining equipment, and long tables for guards and miners to use while on their breaks.

“Well,” Cid whispered, “I think we’re going to be fighting from here on in.”

“There’s another cannonier here,” Jill said. “I’ll take that one.”

Since she could stop up the man’s cannon and spoil the black powder with her ice, that only made sense. Clive and Cid could both explode the powder, maybe warp the barrel, but both posed different risks. Safest by far to let Jill handle it.

Clive slid into the fray behind Jill, guarding her back while she focused on the cannonier. Becoming a Dominant hadn’t changed how he fought, steel and Phoenix flame in equal measure. Ifrit flickered in and out, seeming to come and go as he pleased.

“Cover me,” Jill said, gathering the aether for a larger spell. “I need ten seconds!”

Ahead of them both, near the entrance to the deeper tunnels, Cid called back, “We have more problems! Aetherflood coming!”

His first instinct was to flee. He had to halt himself. Jill needed him. He cut down a guard trying to edge around the reach of his sword with a flame-assisted lunge, then spun back with more flame to fend off another who tried to take advantage of the opening. Jill was nearly finished with her spell.

Around their ankles, the thick blue glow of aether pooled and eddied. 

Jill released the spell she’d created. The air snapped with sudden icy weight. The cannonier found himself encased in a boulder of ice half again as tall as Clive was, and broader still. Cid finished off the last guard and whistled at its gently steaming mass. “That’s damned impressive for something you pulled together in ten seconds without semi-priming.”

“There was only the one,” she said. “It was less aether. Clive had my back.”

The curse was on her mind, Clive knew. It was on his as well.

“We can’t all be Clive,” Cid said.

“Is now the time?” Clive asked, keeping an eye on the swirling blue seeping further towards the entrance. Surely they had only a matter of an hour or so before the aether ate away at their minds and turned them Akashic.

“The aetherflood isn’t a problem for us,” Jill said. “Dominants are immune.”

His first thought was but, and then his second thought was oh. 

“Or so close to immune it makes no difference. Breathe deep of the benefits, my friends,” Cid added. He started towards a downward-sloping tunnel. “But we were talking shop! It’s been a long time since I could talk shop with Dominants. I’ve been meaning to ask for ages now, how do you get by using that little aether, Clive?”

Behind them there was a deep, ominous crack.

They whirled around to see the cannonier smashing his way out of Jill’s icy prison. The man’s skin was an unnatural dusty blue, his eyes glaring white in the recesses of his helm. His skin shed the powdery residue of too much aether. “He’s gone Akashic,” Clive said, taking up his guard.

“Put him down!” Cid shouted. “No talking to him now!” Then, muttered, “Not that there was before.”

The Akashic lost all reason when the aether took their minds, but they gained strength. Even with the Blessing of the Phoenix Clive only just managed to throw himself in front of the charging, turned cannonier as he rushed for Jill.

“No traps,” Cid warned, “he’ll just smash them again.”

Clive swung at the man’s throat. The cannon blocked it. Clive’s hands went numb from the impact. Cid threw levin as soon as Clive’s sword was clear, locking up the cannonier’s muscles and giving Jill a clear path to throw an icicle through his eye.

The cannonier dissolved into flakes of ash.

“Let’s get moving,” Cid said. “Nothing else we can do for these poor bastards.”

The aether grew thicker the further they went, thicker even than in the Apodytery. It felt almost like soup against Clive’s skin. Tingling soup. They were forced to dispatch a group of miners turned Akashic. Branded miners. The very people they most wanted to help.

“That’s the problem with the patrols,” Clive realised. “They weren’t there to keep intruders out, they were there to keep the Akashic in.”

“Only for them to turn as well,” Jill said bitterly. “Guard duty here would have been a death sentence. For the workers and the guards.”

“This might be why the Dame said she thought the Emperor was considering abandoning the capital entirely,” Cid mused.

“Isabelle said that?”

“Wait, she let you call her Isabelle?” Cid turned around to gawk just briefly. “But anyway, yes, aetherflooding like this would explain why the Imperials are so keen to move on Twinside. If it’s this bad, they can’t supply the provinces with crystals from Drake’s Head. They need another. Fast.”

They didn’t see a single miner who wasn’t Akashic, all the long way through the tunnels. Why had it flooded this badly? Had mining the Mothercrystal done this? And if so, if this was the result of just mining Drake’s Head, what would come from breaking it entirely?

Clive supposed they’d find out.

He lost track of time, but fortunately Cid did not lose track of their location. Eventually he turned off into a smaller tunnel, and then a smaller tunnel again. This one had an iron grille barring the way.

Cid chuckled. “As if that’s going to keep us out.” He inspected it. Clive had seen him poking at enough bits and pieces of machinery and metal at the Hideaway that he didn’t doubt Cid knew what he was looking at. After a minute or so of examination he said, “Cheap metal, badly installed. Quietest way is going to be shoving it down with plain old muscle. Clive, that means you and me.”

It took a few attempts, but Cid was right. Eventually the grille buckled and slid from its moorings in the tunnel walls.

“The Mothercrystal’s just up ahead,” Cid said.

“Is it?” Jill asked, peering down a dark tunnel that looked like every other dark tunnel they’d already been down.

“Unless someone’s moved it,” Cid quipped.

Clive barely heard him. The Mothercrystal was up ahead. He could feel it.

—

Jote was again on an errand when Joshua felt the disturbance. Like a second Mothercrystal had sprouted in Oriflamme, a concentration of aether approaching the town and starting to loom in Joshua’s senses.

It could only be other Dominants. A group of them. That left very few options as to their identities. Garuda’s Dominant was dead. Odin, Bahamut and Titan were accounted for. Leviathan still lost. Which left Ramuh, Shiva, and - the second Eikon of fire.

As soon as Joshua thought it, he knew. His brother was in Oriflamme.

In Oriflamme and completely unaware of the danger that lurked here.

Joshua scribbled a quick note for Jote - she would kill him herself when she returned, no doubt - donned his heavy cloak, and made for Drake’s Head.

The streets of Oriflamme were emptier than they should be. Joshua had heard whispers that the army were taking as many men as they could and marching south. The Emperor, his wife, and his second son (Joshua’s mouth twisted at the thought) had followed, to go and witness Prince Dion’s conquest. Even the city guard was depleted, and in the absence of the guard, many ordinary citizens were staying off the streets. The few people who did venture out, even when that was just to sell their usual wares, kept their weapons close. Their eyes darted around nervously as if calamity might strike from the skies.

Perhaps it might. Joshua could think of few reasons for three Dominants together to be in Oriflamme while Bahamut was away. Joshua very much doubted his brother had any love for the Holy Empire. He himself did not either.

What could he want here? Could he be seeking revenge against his captors?

It didn’t matter. The Imperials weren’t the danger. The danger lay in wait in the heart of the Drake’s Head, and Joshua had to seal it away. Before it could do any harm to what Joshua actually cared for.

He made his way to the Glass Gate. Jote’s research had indicated that was the best way into the Mothercrystal.

But to his horror, it was aetherflooded. Aetherflooded and utterly empty. There should have been guards. There were weapons. Scorchmarks, including the distinctive branching marks of levin burns. Strange patches of water, some with small shards of ice still floating atop them. All the signs of a fight with magic except for the bodies. There were even a few strands of fur.

At this distance, Joshua could feel a faint pulling sensation. The thought of getting closer sent cold dread marching down his spine.

Three Dominants who might be in the city, his brother included. And no corpses.

It hardly took much intellect to reason out that Clive, along with the Dominants of Ramuh and Shiva, had fought their way through the mine, opposed by Akashic, who would leave no bodies behind. Long enough ago that the ice had melted, but not so long that the meltwater had dried. He wasn’t too far behind.

He found himself staring at a scorchmark on the wall. Was it Joshua’s blessing that had been used to make that mark? Or the other flames?

Why had they come here at all? What could Clive want here, or his Dominant companions?

Was Clive drawn here as he had been drawn to Phoenix Gate?

If he had been, Joshua truly did have to hurry. He refused to fail his brother again.

Chapter Text

The aether was starting to give Jill a headache. Low and dull, like the headaches she got after priming for an extended period of time. It wasn’t a good sign, but it wasn’t unbearable, it wouldn’t be too much longer, and she didn’t feel like she was about to lose her mind. It was probably fine. For the moment.

Only a minute or so past the grille, they saw a glow from an opening up ahead. Clive extinguished the little ball of fire he’d been using to light the way. Cid frowned. “Why haven’t they closed it up?” he asked.

‘It’ turned out to be a sizeable, jagged hole. They climbed down from it and onto a massive marble terrace built around the inner root of the Mothercrystal. Around and above them was nothing but swirling aether and bright blue-green light. She could taste the magic here just by licking her lips. Shiva felt uncomfortably close to the surface.

Looking back, the hole was an ugly tear in the fine masonry. Why hadn’t the Imperials repaired it? This was their most holy place, the place where Greagor descended to Storm and gave Bahamut to the service of the Empire.

“They used to hold processions through here,” Clive said. “Every year on Light’s Day for the services of Greagor. I guess we know why they stopped.”

“Apologies for ruining the festivities,” Cid said.

“No, you’re right, they should have closed it up. It’s the Path of the Goddess. Why didn’t they?”

“Something is badly amiss in Sanbreque,” Cid growled.

They were going to make it worse. Jill pressed her lips together. There were plenty in Sanbreque who deserved that worse. It just seemed that the Emperor had turned his back on most of his empire. Its people, its faith. It would be worse for them than it had to because of the Emperor’s abandonment.

High above them, a roar echoed. “What was that?” Jill asked. Did this place have demons as Mount Drustanus did?

“Most likely the Guardian,” Clive said grimly. “I heard soldiers speak of it from time to time.”

“What’s the Guardian?”

“I don’t know.”

They continued on. It wouldn’t be long now. The great marble bridge that led to the inner sanctum slid ever closer in their view. Their footsteps echoed in the vast space. There was no other sign of this guardian, whatever it was.

Jill felt it first. The hate in the air. The malice. “Clive!”

The air trembled and warped before them, once again consolidating into the eerie blue-lit wraiths they’d fought below Phoenix Gate. Cid swore in a language she didn’t know. “What are these things?”

Clive ducked under another dark-glowing edged slice of energy from the tallest wraith. Just as below Phoenix Gate, they targeted him first. “We don’t know,” he managed as he danced between blasts of aetheric energy and the clawing hands of the lesser wraiths. Jill felt the tiny draws on the aether as he called on the Blessing of the Phoenix to help him move, luring his attackers into the path of Jill’s sword and Cid’s levin.

“Not even half an explanation?”

“No!”

All three of them were out of breath when the last one fell. “I hate those things,” Jill said with a shiver.

“They hate us right back,” Cid said.

“I still don’t feel it,” Clive said.

Cid looked at Jill. Jill shrugged. Then Cid sighed. “I’m keeping track of all the strange things that happen around you, lad,” he said. “But if you truly couldn’t feel that…you’re not missing out.”

“We saw them beneath Phoenix Gate, deep in the Apodytery,” Clive continued. “Could that place be connected to here, somehow?”

“A question for Tomes, I think. Don’t worry, I’ve got a list of those too.”

At last they reached the main bridge. A straight shot between them and the heart of the Mothercrystal.

Naturally, that was when the Guardian decided to show itself. With a roar, a massive scaled shape flung itself from the caves above. Jill caught a glimpse of shining teeth, dusty Akashic poisoning, and maddened reptilian eyes. An Akashic dragon. Not like the peaceful lava demons of the Sanctuary at all, though if they were to turn Akashic…

Clive threw himself into the fray, utterly fearless. He dodged every swipe of the dragon’s claws, and though one particularly violent thrash of its tail knocked him to the ground, he was up again in what seemed like no time at all. Once, after Jill had knocked it off balance with a particularly large ball of ice to its jaw, he called wind magic (he was good with that, far better than a Dominant of fire had any right to be), dragged it to the ground, then let the Blessing carry him close and laid into its face with steel.

Jill knew that fighting this beast close up was beyond her. She stayed back, gathered aether carefully to use less of it, and threw her icicles where she could. Her magic was strong, but she’d only received cursory training with a sword - half-remembered lessons from her childhood home that sometimes the Shields had helped her develop, when the Duchess couldn’t see - a turn of the moon practicing next to Clive, clumsy with more than just recovery, though he never said anything about it -

- And Cid was brutal proof that she couldn’t keep using her magic to get by in fights. He was hanging back just as she was, taking the same approach with levin as she was with ice. Not for lack of skill, but because he could hardly move his left arm, and now even his left hip looked like it was troubling him.

It wasn’t age. She had known many a warrior older than him who mightn’t have been so reckless as a young fighter, but could still move freely. It was the curse.

A levinbolt left the dragon stunned for a second. Clive darted in again with the Blessing and cut deeply into the dragon’s front leg. It roared again and tried to smash Clive into the ground, but he charged under the dragon and started cutting at its other foreleg. It collapsed with more of a shriek and Clive shouted, “Now!”

They didn’t question it. They poured every spell they had into the Guardian until it fell with a whimper.

Breathing hard, Jill watched it dissolve into flakes of ash.

“Poor thing,” Clive said. “This is no place for a dragon.”

“Pity later. The guard’s going to know we’re here now,” Cid said.

Jill steadied her breath. “I’ll guard the bridge,” she said. Her ice could bar the way better than either Clive’s fire and wind, or Cid’s levin. That would be her role here.

“Good woman,” Cid said, then hesitated. “If we succeed, things will get worse for Bearers before they get better. Our talents will be…sought after, and the only hope we have is that in the end everyone will understand it was the only way to get to a better place.”

The same thing he’d said before. One last warning. One last chance to back out. Clive looked at her. Jill nodded. “We have faith in you,” Clive said simply.

She could almost see the burden settling onto Cid’s shoulders. But like Clive, he seemed to be the sort of person who tried to rise to meet expectations. “All right then,” he said, heading for the inner sanctum. “Time for me to earn a nickname. I don’t know about you, but I like ‘Cid the Vicious’.”

“I think it might need some work,” Clive said, following a step behind him.

Jill drew her sword and readied herself for any guards who came their way.

—

Being this close to a Mothercrystal’s heart was…overwhelming. The heart itself was smaller than he’d thought compared to the masses of crystal all around them, almost spindly, but there was no thinking of it as fragile. Power radiated off it, heady and sweet as mead fumes.

“The heart of Sanbreque,” Clive murmured. The cause of the Blight that even now strangled Oillephiest Bay and advanced from the north down to the Straits of Autha. The source of power for the Empire that had murdered his father.

“Right, let’s smash it,” Cid said.

He practically skipped up the last few steps, drawing his sword as he went. Quick as one of his own levinbolts he slammed the edge into the heart. 

The heart reverberated like the cannonier’s cannon had when Clive had hit it with his own sword in that first fight. Except more. Clive felt the recoil in his bones and his teeth alike. A second later, Jill shouted back, “What was that?”

Cid remained unperturbed. “I think we’re going to need a bigger sword,” he said.

“Mine’s bigger,” Clive said, already reaching for it.

But Cid held up a hand. “Thank you, Clive, but I was talking a bit more…metaphorically.” He breathed out heavily and muttered, “Tarja’s going to kill me.”

Clive felt the aether gathering around Cid, through Cid, and knew what it was for without having to be told. He backed up right to the wall of the sanctum. It was going to be crowded in here in a matter of seconds.

Aether swirled, turning to mist and a charge in the air, spiraling up towards the bright haze that filled the top of the cavern. When it focused again, Ramuh filled the sanctum almost entirely. Clive recognised the presence from the memories of his fight against the frenzied Garuda. He had Cid’s face just as Garuda had Benedikta’s, though Ramuh’s aspect added age to Cid. Violet robes swathed him like clouds, hiding his legs, and thunderstorm pressure filled the air.

“Oh, that’s more like it,” Cid said, voice like a rumble of the storm.

Ramuh levelled his staff at the Mothercrystal’s heart and unleashed a blast of levin at it. Clive closed his eyes before it struck, but even so it left an imprint on his sight right through his eyelids. The sound of it cracking was so loud it was nothing more than a feeling passing through his body, reverberating in his chest. And so Clive felt more than saw the heart shatter, falling into sparks of light and drifting away like Akashic ash.

One Mothercrystal destroyed. Now they’d see the difference it made.

As he watched, blinking away the violent afterimage of levin, a warping began where the heart had been. Blue aether concentrated, so dark it was almost black in the centre. A cold energy leaked through. In the centre - “What is that?” Clive breathed.

Before Cid could answer, a bolt of dark energy blasted through the hole in the world. Clive’s eyes tracked its path high above him. From the portal, right to Ramuh.

Ramuh, even now falling backwards and trailing aether.

“Cid!”

Clive drew his sword. There was something…pushing…its way out of the warp. A giant head crowned with lank dark hair, skin white like the finest bleached paper but coarse and shot through with miniscule black cracks, with arms as heavy as any labourer. It roared at them as if in pain.

Ifrit. He needed Ifrit. Clive sought within himself, searching desperately for the spirit behind the flame. Where was it? Why wouldn’t it come? And the harder he tried, the more his head hurt.

Mythos.

Something was calling his name again.

Show us your strength.

The world went black as Cid threw another vicious levinbolt right into the mouth of the thing emerging from the portal.

—

It did not feel like waking. The world snapped back into place around Clive in an alien, blinding light. The ground beneath his feet was stone black as pitch - it almost looked like Fallen masonry, and heavily carved with circular grooves. Treacherous footing, just rough enough to risk an ankle at every step. The air felt like nothing. No breeze, no taste of aether nor any scent.

It was thoroughly unnatural, and also familiar somehow. Had he been here before?

Clive turned, seeing nothing but infinite white light in every direction - until he faced the opposite direction, where the monster hung on shattered nothing, pinned there by Ramuh’s levinstaff. In this place it was even more horrifying. Shreds of something hung below where legs should have been, like the thing had been torn in half and its entrails spilled out.

Typhon has been repelled. The insult will not go unpunished.

“Show yourself!” Clive shouted. It did not echo in this vast empty space. He was getting awfully sick of this voice in his head showing up with his headaches. “What do you want?”

There was no response.

The thing, Typhon, groaned its outrage. Its hands rose to seize the staff it was impaled on. Warps formed and resolved into more wraiths.

Unleash your power, the voice said. 

Clive unsheathed his sword. “I don’t answer to you,” he spat. “But I will cut down as many of these things as I have to so I can leave.”

In this our desires are aligned, then.

Typhon seized the levinstaff and yanked it out of his torso with a roar of pain. With a hideous grin revealing square teeth, it bore down on Clive.

Clive didn’t think. He summoned flame, and more flame, and more flame, until it filled him entirely. He was going to destroy this thing. The fire filled him and became him, and next Clive knew he was staring down from a greater height. Tail, claws, and horns, that aching sense of not being complete, and lava for blood. He launched himself at Typhon with the power of the inferno behind him.

Typhon swung back with those heavy blacksmith arms, but too slow. Ifrit slipped around the side, flames taking him in a curving trajectory around the attack. He rammed into Typhon, horns first. It didn’t penetrate, but it threw Typhon back, tumbling awkwardly without legs to balance it. Ifrit skidded back from the force of the impact and then charged forward again.

It righted itself before Ifrit reached it, firing off a burst of dark blue-violet magic. Ifrit threw himself aside at the last minute, the deceptively placid-looking magic scoring a freezing line across his shoulder. Something to be careful of.

But he had this fight. He knew it. Typhon was powerful, but too slow.

This time, Ifrit summoned fireballs. He’d seen Jill do something similar with ice. Big enough that they couldn’t simply be shrugged off, Typhon too slow to dodge them, it had no choice but to try and block. He fired them off one after the other, using them as cover for his own preparation to close the distance again. This time he didn’t curve around, just charged in right after his fireballs. He bore Typhon to the ground, shoved away the memories of doing the same to the Phoenix, and started to tear at Typhon’s neck and shoulders.

It didn’t bleed like normal creatures, but eventually Ifrit ripped off enough that Typhon shuddered and sagged beneath him, dissolving into the same blue-black energy. Even unfocused, it stung against Ifrit’s hide.

The voice said, A promising beginning. There is more we would see.

Whatever it was, it had to be joking. 

Ifrit watched in horror as the space warped again, revealing a full dozen Typhons. They grinned at him with their black mouths, before they shimmered and resolved into one single being. 

The conglomerate Typhon was even more terrible a creature, some mockery of holiness. Its hair turned a white gold, its skin a sickly violet. Veins of gold ran down its arms and traced across its torso. This one did not smile at him. It looked down its nose at Ifrit as a disdainful god.

Now, the voice said, show us your true strength.

“As you wish,” Ifrit growled.

The new Typhon was a massive thing, twice the size of him. Ifrit only had to try once to realise that he could not possibly knock this one down as he had the last. Its magic kept it anchored upright to the nothingness they fought in. It blasted a full wall of magic towards him, knocking him backwards in agony. He’d never seen such a vast spell before. Then it followed that up with a second wall. And a third.

Fuck. Ow. Fuck.

Ifrit got his feet beneath him in time to blast his way through the fourth wall at a place where the magic felt thinner. Less potent.

Forget strong. Smart was the way he’d get out of this fight in one piece. Smart and fast.

He’d get one shot at this. Ifrit dodged more huge pillars of violet energy bursting from the black ground underneath him and started swinging. He raked a few shallow cuts across the second Typhon’s skin and lashed it across the face with his tail, then flung a barrage of fireballs at it. None had as much effect as he would have liked.

So he began to summon flame. There was plenty of aether to work with in this space, even if he hadn’t been able to taste or smell it. The aether within him helped, fuelling the fire hotter and hotter. Ifrit had created a flame like this once before. He knew how.

Typhon threw more walls of magic at him. Ifrit could just spare enough energy to burst through them, only to get clipped by a surprise beam of energy. It blasted a chunk out of his torso, immediately robbing him of his air. But he didn’t lose focus on his fireball, holding it high above Typhon. One shot. He’d only get one shot. Whatever he had to endure, he would.

The monster charged at him and Ifrit could not take the time to dodge. A heavy fist collided with his jaw. Something in his face crunched. Just a bit longer. It hit him again, from the other side this time. Ifrit leaned back to rob it of its momentum. 

It gave him the distance he needed, just as he gathered enough aether.

Ifrit’s face was not capable of anything but snarling. He saw the moment Typhon registered that something was amiss. But by then, Ifrit was already pulling hellfire down on its head. More than enough to burn it to a crisp. It vaporised with a horrible groan.

Clive let the fire go and dropped back to the ground, breathing hard.

Most suitable, the voice said.

The world warped again.

Chapter Text

The Hideaway just wasn’t the same when Cid was away. Not only because he always left Otto in charge, the miserable old bastard. Almost as bad as leaving Tarja in charge. Not that Tarja wasn’t in charge anyway, even when Cid was there.

Gav was no good at this waiting around crap. That was why he was a scout, not a guard. But Cid had told him to take a break, stay in the Hideaway for a week or two, and he’d have a better idea about where Gav was most needed when he got back. 

A week or two was much too long. After about three days he felt like there were ants crawling under his skin. He was so bored.

“I’m going to have a look around the Hideaway,” he told Dorys, who just nodded and made a note for her sentries.

Even that didn’t do much for him. Gav felt like he was just walking in circles around the Hideaway. The deadlands weren’t an interesting patrol route. There was nothing to learn out here. Lots of black dust. Gav kicked at a pebble and watched it skitter across the ground, kicking up, yes, more black dust.

He made it all the way out to Bennumere once. Tomes said it was the biggest lake in Storm. Looking over the expanse of black water dotted with Fallen ruins, he could believe it. You couldn’t see the other side from where he was. All of it Blighted.

But that was an exception to the boredom and soon enough Gav was back at the Hideaway, tethered to it by the need for supplies and useful direction.

“What a load of shite,” Gav muttered, the third time he made a trip out. He hoped Cid came back soon. Clive too. Things were a bit more exciting with them around.

His family would throw a fit if they knew he was looking forward to seeing a Rosfield. Or a Warrick, but for different reasons. Gav was just some bloke. His family had been nothing special either, just his. Hanging around with lords and ladies might have been the craziest thing Cid had got him into yet. Wasn’t sure how he felt about that one either.

Gav climbed a ridge and what he saw below froze his blood in his veins.

He ran back to the Hideaway as fast as he could. The Dhalmeks were between him and the Hideaway, though, and staying out of sight in the barren lands was a bitch and a half. He barrelled through the tunnel past Avril the chocobo-keeper. “Otto,” he gasped, when he reached the central courtyard, bent over and heaving from the run. “I need Otto!”

“Here,” Otto said. “What’s the matter?”

“The Men of the Rock,” Gav said. “Hugo Kupka’s own guard. They’re coming here. They’ll be here in an hour, I reckon, maybe less.”

Otto blanched, but he was only a grumpy bastard, not stupid, not cowardly. He started barking out orders. Figured that he and Cid would have a plan and a back way out. The Hideaway sprang into action even as Gav tried to catch his breath. “Gav, you go back out there and keep an eye on the bastards,” Otto said. “Make sure they don’t split up and take us by surprise.”

“Can do,” Gav said. His legs were cramping something fierce. But it was leg cramps or death. Not a difficult choice.

Heading back the way he came, Avril was already mustering the chocobos to carry their injured and ill. The more he ran the less it hurt, until he was climbing the pass overlooking the best approach for the Men of the Rock.

They’d arrived sooner than he’d thought. They’d known exactly where they were. They didn’t have maybe an hour to get out - they had minutes. Oh, he hoped Otto had worked fast.

In the middle of the pack was a mountain of a man. Bigger than even Goetz. Wearing fancy armour too, fancier than Clive’s new gear.

Shiva’s kiss. That was Hugo Kupka himself. And when Cid was out of the Hideaway too.

The band halted before the entrance. Kupka motioned for the soldiers to stand back. Gav had a bad feeling about it. A Dominant asking for others to clear the area? Bad signs. He scrambled back down but he could already hear an inhuman roar. The ground shook and started to break apart, showering Gav with black dirt and fragments of stone. The earth under his feet split apart and heaved. Something hit his eye and cut a stinging line across it. Something smashed into his knee. He lost track of which way was up.

When the ground stilled for just a moment, there was a new mountain in the deadlands, name of Titan, grinning and bearing down on their home, and it was far too late for any more warnings.

—

Above him was nothing but light. The light of Drake’s Head, not a flat stark white but an eerie pale blue-green. Every bit of him ached. He groaned and tried to sit upright.

“Clive!” Jill called.

He was back, then?

Clive climbed to his feet. He wasn’t injured, just exhausted. When he turned, he forgot all of it.

Cid was lying across Jill’s legs, half propped up in her arms. Blood soaked his leathers. It soaked Jill’s shirt too, even as she tried to slow the bleeding with a strip of her cloak and ice magic combined.“Cid!”

“It’s just a scratch,” Cid wheezed. Blood mixed with air as it bubbled from his mouth. “All right, a hole.”

Clive scrambled over to him and Jill. One look at it told him everything he needed to know. Something that Jill knew too, he could see it on her face. It was too much blood. If he’d woken up faster… “I can try to seal the wound,” he said. “We’ll find you a healer.”

“Clive,” Cid said.

Something…shifted. A presence in the aether. Cid and Jill both started in surprise. Clive rose again, twisted - and saw a pale palm reaching for his face.

Aether washed over him. He couldn’t move. He could barely think.

Clive’s focus was dragged to the being who held him immobile. Tall and white-haired, pale as a corpse. Four arms. Most of its skin - or was it armour? - was a leathery and iridescent blue-purple-green. Its eyes were the most terrible of all, lidlesss and intent. On him.

Now we shall become one, it said.

Its power hit him like a tidal wave, annhiliating all thoughts of escape or resistance. Clive’s vision swam and doubled. He saw his own face through the vessel’s eyes - he saw the vessel himself, adjusting to their presence as he was meant to - and the dying man behind him rising to his feet.

“I know what you are,” Cid spat, words more blood than air, “And if you think I’m going to let you have him, think again.”

Ramuh drove his sword through his palm and up towards his face.

Clive blinked. The world came back into focus. He seized his sword and finished the job Cid had started, cleaving the thing’s head from its alien shoulders. What had it done to him? Behind him, there was a thump as Cid collapsed again. Jill, just climbing to her feet, knelt back down. Clive half-collapsed with her.

Cid was bleeding even more violently now. Standing had clearly taxed him beyond even the faint hope of recovery. Jill propped him right back up again, but Cid was still moving. Searching in his coat. “Ah,” he said, more blood spraying from his mouth. “I do have one.” He lifted the cigarette to his lips with a shaking hand. Clive lit it. 

“You were right,” Cid said. “About building a place to live. Not much point reclaiming your death if you can’t choose the life that takes you there.”

Tears were running down his face. He glanced at Jill, and she was crying too.

Cid grabbed Clive’s hand. “I believe in you. In both of you,” he wheezed. “One last present…something to help you change everyone’s fate…”

He felt Cid summon his own aether. Ramuh’s power. Without even meaning to, Clive reached back and started to tear it away. “No,” he said. “No, no. It’ll kill you.” He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t control it. Something in him just wanted it.

Cid just smiled at him, blood in his teeth. “Dying anyway,” he said. “My terms.” And he shoved Ramuh’s power into Clive. 

It hurt, just as it hurt when he’d taken Garuda. Clive forced himself to stay conscious despite that. Lights flashed behind his eyes. Cid groaned as aether streamed into Clive, jerked - and collapsed. The cigarette fell from his lips.

Jill looked up at him. “He’s gone,” she said, voice thick, “But…what was that?”

Clive just shook his head, choked by his tears, almost incoherent from the sudden presence of Ramuh’s powers within him. Like a storm had moved into his soul. It hurt.

Is this how you would waste your will? the voice asked.

Clive’s head snapped back up.

You deny your fate. Your purpose. And for what?

“Show yourself!” Clive shouted. Jill looked around, confused.

Perhaps it is time you learned your place in this grand scheme.

—

Too late, too late, too late!

Joshua cursed his weak lungs even as he tore through the tunnels. There were no Akashic left in these aetherflooded mines, while the sources of aether drew closer. The pulling sensation was closer.

But even now, one of those sources was fading out. Ramuh, Joshua thought. Ramuh was dying, and there were still greater disturbances taking place.

Joshua found the hole leading to the terraces within the sanctum and sprinted towards the centre. Ramuh’s power was contorting somehow, caught in the pulling that was making Joshua’s knees weak from fear even at this distance. He couldn’t afford to dwell on it. He couldn’t afford to fail. No matter the effect on him. He could have his nightmares later. Clive needed him now.

A wall of ice blocked the path to the lower levels of Whitewyrm Castle proper. Shiva was nowhere to be seen. Clive’s voice called out, “Show yourself!”

Then a concussive blast of aether rang through the sanctum. Joshua barely summoned a shield in time, still running towards the centre. There were bodies on the floor. At least two, maybe three. Clive had to be one of them.

At least that awful pulling sensation wasn’t so strong anymore.

Joshua pulled up in the centre of the pedestal where the Mothercrystal’s heart had once stood, panting.

The monster had vanished from sight. Joshua looked down at his brother. Too late. Too late. Another man, who must have been Ramuh, lay dead and bloodied on the floor. Next to him, a woman - was that Jill? She was Shiva’s Dominant? She was breathing, though spattered with Ramuh’s blood. They’d tried to save the man, Joshua realised. They weren’t just travelling together, they were friends.

A whine. Torgal approached him, the only other conscious living being. “Good boy,” Joshua said. He scratched Torgal’s ears. Another friend come back. That was good. Clive would need him. “Can you keep protecting them, Torgal?”

The thing would not have fled, after all.

“I know you’re there, Ultima,” he called.

The monster reappeared. “Oh,” it said. “You have learned our name.”

“I’ve learned more than that,” Joshua said, approaching with care. He had to do this right. “You were responsible for what happened thirteen years ago. You seek my brother’s power. But if you want him, you will have to go through me.”

The being Ultima tilted its head to the side, expression impassive. “That is acceptable,” it said.

Joshua gathered fire in his hand. “You will leave - my brother - alone,” he said, punctuating each phrase with some of the strongest fireballs he could conjure on short notice. Some veered off target. They didn’t do anything to Ultima, of course, but they were satisfying to throw all the same. This thing was responsible for a great deal of evil.

When the last of the sparks cleared away, Ultima was nowhere to be seen.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Joshua said.

“We agree,” Ultima said. From behind him. “No more games, Phoenix. We are come to claim our vessel.”

Right where Joshua wanted him.

“And I said no,” Joshua said.

Every fireball, every step, he’d left a feather. A physical token of his Eikon’s power.

When Clive was younger, just starting to train seriously to become Joshua’s Shield, he’d told him that even when someone was stronger and faster, that didn’t mean they’d be better. People used to winning grew overconfident. And what applied to men and their muscles held true for a being that wielded unthinkable aetheric power too.

He lit all his scattered feathers, connecting them with streams of flame in a web around Ultima, binding it where it stood. He felt the trap snap shut around it.

“Pathetic,” Ultima said. “You will know what it is to burn.”

It said that as if Joshua had not already felt the flames of the second Eikon of Fire. He turned back to face the thing. “Yours is a fleeting form. I am not fool enough to think I can harm you.” Ultima, as it stood now, was naught but aether and will. “But to protect my brother, I don’t have to.”

He pulled every strand of fire taut, collapsing Ultima’s aether down into a single point. Joshua could not destroy aether and will. He could not burn it and scatter its ashes. But he could compress it. Contain it.

There was just the one downside. He took a deep breath. This was going to hurt. It would be worth it.

Then he drew all the strands of fire back into himself, Ultima still trapped within.

The creature did not fight as much as Joshua thought it would. He’d caught it unawares. Arrogant. He poured every last bit of aether he could, all the power of the Phoenix, into the binding. It did hurt. It hurt a great deal. The aetheric equivalent of shoving a sharp rock into his own chest. He didn’t dare let up.

For a few seconds, the world went white with pain.

When it was finished, he could feel something lodged in his chest. He raised a shaking hand to the place where Ultima was now encapsulated. “Try getting my brother now,” he whispered.

More pain. He hacked up blood. Jote was going to kill him.

A problem for later. He couldn’t stay. Not when he now served as a prison for Ultima, with its object right in front of him.

“Fare well, Clive,” Joshua said, and started to stagger back towards the exit and the streets of Oriflamme.

—

There was something here.

Clive fought his way to consciousness despite the pain. He knew this presence. It was more familiar even than Jill’s. But how…

Through blurry, fading vision, he saw a tall man in a plain travelling cloak, his blond hair shining in the light of the fire he’d conjured. But…it couldn’t be. Clive had killed him with his own hands. Still. He knew those fires.

He reached out and the fire seemed to solidify in his grip. A single, flaming feather, warm and bright, only as long as Clive’s little finger. So small. Such a little thing. More than Clive had ever thought he’d see of his brother again.

“Joshua,” he mumbled. He tried to stand, but exhaustion and pain dragged him back under.

His last thought was that his brother lived.

Chapter Text

Jill woke to a cold nose and a rough tongue licking over her cheek. “Torgal?” she mumbled.

Torgal barked. Right in her ear. Insistently.

She startled all the way awake. Above her, the Mothercrystal was dissolving into sparks of light. It was…strangely beautiful. But more importantly, she could hear a commotion from where she’d built the ice wall.

Oh, shit.

Jill rolled over, slipping in Cid’s blood. “Clive!” she called. “Clive, wake up!” Rather more gracefully, Torgal trotted over to assist as he’d helped Jill. 

Clive came to with a groan, then he jerked fully upright. “Joshua!” He looked around wildly, as if his brother might descend from the heavens. “Jill - Joshua was here. He’s alive.”

Before she could protest, he held up a feather. Not just any feather. It glowed gently with the soft reds, oranges, and blues of the Phoenix. Jill gasped. “He’s alive,” she repeated.

“He saved us,” Clive said.

That snapped her back to full alertness. There would be time to focus on Joshua later. “We need to get out of here. The ice won’t hold them back forever.”

Clive rolled to his knees and hoisted Cid’s body over his shoulders. “He deserves to rest at the Hideaway,” he said. “Can you freeze us a path out?”

Without the Mothercrystal, the waters of Oillepheist Bay were rushing in. Freezing rough waters like that would be difficult. It was still the easiest way out. The way they were least likely to be followed. “If you can get us down there with wind,” she said.

“I can.”

Her ice barrier across the bridge came part way down in a blast of black powder. From a distance, one of the Sanbrequois soldiers shouted, “Who goes there?”

Clive looked at her. She nodded.

“Cid!” he shouted back to them.

Then he jumped off the bridge, Jill and Torgal just half a step behind him.

Wind magic seized them about halfway down. As soon as she steadied in the air, Jill drew on the aether and froze them a ramp. Clive hit it with a stumble, unbalanced with Cid’s dead weight, but recovered and kept sliding. Torgal looked like he was having a good time, though, tongue hanging out of his mouth. Jill froze the way ahead of them and dissolved the ice behind them. The Imperials could try to follow. They’d need a lot of crystals or several Bearers with strong ice affinity. She doubted they had either to hand. By the time they found them, they would be well out of sight without a trail to follow over the waters.

It wasn’t long before they reached the shore. Above them were stars. Nobody had seen them above Oriflamme in thousands of years. They’d been blotted out by the light of Drake’s Head.

They couldn’t stay there long, but they could stop long enough to catch their breath.

“What do we do now?” Jill asked.

“We get a cart and a chocobo,” he said. “We hide Cid’s body in the back and pretend we’re refugees. Can you keep him frozen?”

Immediately, she said yes. Another thing that would be difficult, but Cid deserved that much. She’d never been a thief before either, but she refused to feel bad for stealing from the farmers outside Oriflamme. They’d stolen far more from the Bearers they enslaved.

They trudged along the edges of the rye fields as the sun rose, avoiding the roads for now, both of them absorbed in their own thoughts. The fresh grief.

At last, Jill asked, “Clive…what was that thing?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was talking nonsense, whatever it was. Fate and will and purpose. Nothing useful.”

Jill frowned. “I heard a voice. It wasn’t speaking any language I know.”

“What do you mean?”

“It all sounded like…I don’t know. Garbled. It hardly seemed like words at all to me.” The only thing that had been clear to her was the contempt in its tone. “I think we need to talk to Tomes about this too.”

“Ultima,” Clive said. “Their name is Ultima.”

Ultima, then. How he knew that, Jill had no idea.

A few minutes later, Jill had another question. “What did Cid do at the end there?”

This time, Clive turned away from her. “He gave me Ramuh,” he said. “Or part of Ramuh, at least.”

“He gave you Ramuh,” Jill repeated. “How?”

He didn’t look back. Was he…ashamed? “I couldn’t stop it,” he whispered. “I don’t know why, but…I can…take Eikons from their Dominants. I did it with Garuda. That’s why I can use wind magic. Cid saw.”

Clive could take Eikons? It was like nothing she’d ever heard of. If, if that was true, and she’d seen and felt Cid move an awful lot of aether into Clive…

…she could be rid of Shiva.

She didn’t have to be Shiva.

Clive would never say no.

She looked at him. The side of his face, anyway, because he would not meet her eyes. He was ashamed. If she were to guess, he’d blame himself for hurting Cid and blame himself for taking something he did not think was his to take. Never mind that from what she could tell Cid had given it willingly - if anyone had been unwilling, it was Clive.

It might take her a little while to forgive Cid’s soul that much. She admired Cid, she already missed Cid, but he was not perfect, and in this much she thought he’d wronged Clive.

The important things for the moment were that he was hurt himself from what Cid had done, and that he wouldn’t say no to her no matter how much it hurt him.

She couldn’t ask him to take Shiva from her.

It was a selfish wish anyway. Shiva was part of her home and her culture. The one lost to the Blight. Her ancestors - her mother - would have been furious if they knew she had considered giving Shiva up for even a second. Especially to a Rosfield. No, she should keep Shiva. Even though she wished she didn’t have to.

“Are you hurt?” she asked instead.

“Not badly. It hurt at first, but now it feels…” He shook his head and set his jaw before turning to look at her again. Jill knew better than to press. “What about you?”

“Tired,” she said. This wasn’t a time for false bravado. “I can keep going a little further, but I’ll need to rest soon.”

“As will I. It’s been a long day. How about you, Torgal?”

Torgal yawned.

“Three out of three, then,” Clive said. “We’d better get as far as we can first.”

They’d smashed a Mothercrystal. A crystal that had stood for thousands of years and brough prosperity to millions over that time. At the cost of the Blight that now threatened all, Jill reminded herself. They’d done a good thing.

Cid would have known it.

They kept walking.

—

If Jote wasn’t so scared she’d be furious.

She had no options but to wait at the inn for His Grace to return. There was no tracking him down in a city like this. Which he would have known when he left, of course. The infuriating - !

Perhaps she was exactly scared enough to be furious. Damn it all, she was not supposed to be some useless maiden in a Sanbrequois fable, waiting passively for her man to return. She was a Rosarian.

Since she refused to be useless, she started to work on restocking her medicines. Some she could not produce here for lack of alembic and retort, but there were others that needed only a clean, dry surface. Jote set about crushing certain herbs with rather more force than strictly necessary, determined to look after His Grace’s health in at least this one way. If he had any scratch - any cough - any pain - and he would, she was going to make him take his medicine and then she was going to lock him in here until he rested properly! 

A strange sound rang through the streets. Almost like a bell, Jote thought, if a bell was also like the sound of the largest window in the world shattering.

Jote grabbed her sword and moved to the window. As always in Oriflamme, there were people in the streets. They were all looking around in confusion. In a generally northerly direction, when this window faced south down the slope and over the outskirts. She sheathed her sword, swung out the window, and climbed to the roof for a better view.

From atop the inn’s roof she could see Whitewyrm Castle and Drake’s Head towering behind it. As always, it lit the Oriflamme night almost as well as the sun did. There was no sign of whatever caused that awful sound. Below her, the streets started to return to normal. Jote did not. She did not like this. His Grace deliberately absented himself and then something strange happened.

And so she was still watching when Drake’s Head began to dissolve. Slow at first, then faster, unevenly and awkwardly, it started to drift away as if it were the seeds of a puff-flower rather than solid crystal.

What in all the hells was happening?

Not long afterwards, the screaming started. The citizens of Oriflamme had noticed the same thing Jote had.

Jote ducked back inside. She had very little idea what happened when a Mothercrystal was destroyed aside from what Joshua had told her - she had no idea why anyone would destroy one - and she did not intend that His Grace would stay in town to find out. No matter his academic interests. She packed his bag and her own. They wouldn’t be the only people fleeing Oriflamme this night.

Jote had no doubt His Grace had something to do with the broken Mothercrystal. The calculation didn’t change - he could be anywhere in town, returning to the inn by any number of routes, and the best chance she had of getting him out of here safely was to wait.

It was a full hour and more before Joshua came staggering back to the inn, meeting her in the stables. True darkness had fallen over Oriflamme for the first time in thousands of years. There was no street lighting in the city. Why would there be? So it was by the dim and flickering light of a makeshift torch that she saw there was blood at the corners of his mouth and on his sleeves, and his eyes were glazed with exhaustion. “Jote,” he said. “We need to leave.”

She didn’t bother responding. She’d spent her time ensuring nobody stole their chocobos. She helped him mount his own. “Hang on, Your Grace,” she said. “Can you follow?”

Joshua nodded. Jote had her doubts, but they were out of options. She could smell the aether in the air. According to Joshua, all the records from the collapse of Drake’s Eye eighty years ago indicated that aetherfloods would follow in a matter of hours after the crystal fell. The Keep of No Shadows beneath it had once been the closest the Northern Territories had to a city. Most of its people had turned Akashic in the night.

The same disaster was about to strike Oriflamme. They had to get out of here.

Mounted and riding with intent, Jote and Joshua made good headway through the panicking, confused masses, seen in flares of torchlight and once by the light of a burning house. More than one person was sitting in the street weeping. Some were making for the city gates. A few brave but misguided souls were heading in the opposite direction entirely. A priest started shouting about the judgment of Greagor visited upon them.

Then they were through the gates and onto the crowded nighttime road. “Further still,” Jote urged His Grace. 

They did not make it as far as she would have liked. After only a short while Joshua began to cough. Hard. He’d been taking his medicine, he shouldn’t be in this poor a state. She took them off the road towards a stand of trees where they could take at least a few hours of rest away from the chaos of the road. “Your Grace, what ails you?”

He laughed. And coughed. “Oh,” he said, “I had a little chat with Ultima beneath Drake’s Head. Now I fear I have brought it along for the ride.”

…if she wasn’t so scared, she’d be furious. 

“Your pardon, Your Grace,” Jote said. “Is this causing some impact on your health?”

Joshua sighed and pulled his tunic open a little. Right at his breastbone was a dark, jagged crystal of black-purple energy, the skin around it a raw red. Jote swallowed hard. She was an apothecary, not a true physicker. Magical wounds like this were beyond her. “I would rather we return to Tabor to have this seen to properly,” she said. She was already thinking of salves to ease the skin irritation and tisanes to ease his airways and stimulate his breathing. She could not fix this, but she could ease his pain.

“Cyril will not be pleased, will he?” His Grace asked.

“He will not,” Jote confirmed.

“It was to save Clive,” Joshua said. “I will not let that creature have him. No matter what.” He did not need to clarify: even if it means my own life. He coughed again.

In truth the master of Jote’s order was unlikely to be swayed by that reasoning either. They served the Phoenix first, foremost, and always, he said. Jote was honoured to serve the Phoenix. She would do what she could to protect His Grace.

But she had older sisters. She understood a bit of what Joshua felt.

“If we head to Tabor, my lord, I promise to do my best to divert Cyril’s ire,” she said.

It was the right answer. Jote tried not to show her relief as Joshua managed to smile at her. “A bargain indeed,” he said. “Tabor it is, then.”

She would have to make some unpleasant reports. But it was more than worth it for the safety Tabor offered. Even if it were for just a short time, Joshua could be safe.

—

“Your Majesty. I ask leave to return to Oriflamme.”

Dion’s father looked down at him. Not far. The main council chamber in Twinside’s Great Hall was not a throne room, and had not been built for a single ruler to look down from on high as its equivalent space in Whitewyrm Castle had. A shallow pedestal allowed the council - or His Majesty, as the case was now - to be seen, and no more. “Why would that be needed, Prince Dion?”

Why - “Your Majesty. The campaign here is over. I alone can safely weather the aetherflood that engulfs Oriflamme. If there are any left alive -”

“Bearers,” the Empress said. Her chair was behind that of Dion’s father, but every bit as ornate. Her clear voice rang out over the hall. “All those left would be Bearers. It has been a full day. By the time you arrive, even on Bahamut’s wings, it would be near two.”

Dion took a deep breath. It was to be an argument such as this, then. He strongly disliked the woman.

From the superior smirk she wore as she took in the sight of Dion kneeling, she knew it, too.

“Bearers who remain valuable to the Empire,” Dion said. “It is not a death I would wish on anyone, Bearer or no. There is little risk to me in this. On top of that, I can aid in the investigation into how and why Drake’s Head collapsed. After thousands of years, three Mothercrystals have collapsed in the past two hundred.”

His father was no fool. Dion clung to that.

“Very well,” Sylvestre said. “You may go. You are to take no risks to yourself and prioritise the investigation of the collapse. This is the course of action that will serve the living citizens of Sanbreque best.”

Dion rose and retreated with another deep bow.

Outside, Terence was waiting with a squad of their men. “I have been given leave to return to Oriflamme,” he said. “I will be flying.”

He did not miss how Terence’s mouth tightened at that announcement.

He continued on anyway: “I need word sent ahead for the preparation of team of reliable Branded to assist with the recovery of whatever and whoever may yet be salvaged.” Hopefully that would already be under way before Dion arrived, but there were those - such as the Empress Anabella - whose contempt for Branded outweighed any common sense. Compassion was not something he expected from such people.

“It will be done,” Terence promised. The stolases would arrive after him, but better late than not at all.

Bahamut left shortly afterwards, the long march exchanged for a relatively short flight. What would take a traveller days he could do in mere hours. A long time for him to remain fully primed, but he bore it. He had to bear it.

He hardly recognised the shape of Whitewyrm Castle without Drake’s Head behind it. The city looked incomplete without it. Naked. Every colour around the city looked wrong.

Or perhaps that was the aetherflood raging through the city.

The higher levels were still spared. The upper levels of Whitewyrm Castle too. There might still be survivors. Dion released his prime above a courtyard, dropped to the ground, and hurried into the palace itself. As he’d hoped, he was soon greeted by survivors who had fled to higher ground. Several of the guard included.

“Report,” he instructed them, as he tried to hide the aftereffects of priming. Every bone ached. But his people needed him to be strong.

What the surviving guards told him had him making his way directly to the Sanctum. His father had ordered him to prioritise the investigation, after all.

Intruders in the Sanctum. The Mothercrystal had not collapsed of its own accord, but been deliberately smashed. The guards had fled when they realised the area would soon be aetherflooded. Their lieutenant had been most perceptive to realise that reporting the intruder and preserving that knowledge was more important than the immediate pursuit.

The Sanctum still bore the melting remains of a nearly unfathomable amount of ice. More than the guards had ever seen a Bearer summon before, the guards had told him, and Dion agreed. This could only be the work of Shiva herself. So she had survived the Nysa Defile. Survived and escaped the Ironblood, for the Crystalline Orthodoxy would never destroy a Mothercrystal.

Dion ventured in further. There were scorchmarks on the stone, a sort and quantity that indicated a skilled wielder of fire but not necessarily a Dominant, and a great deal of burnt blood. The guards had reported a woman, a large dog, and a man, carrying a third person. From the amount of blood, Dion was inclined to think the man had carried the corpse of a companion. But what had slain that companion? An Akashic in the mine? There was no trail of blood indicating a prior injury. Had one of them found reservations about destroying the crystal only to be struck down by the other two?

He looked at the space where the heart of the Mothercrystal had stood for thousands of years, now just an empty span of stone above the bay. For a second he almost felt that something was watching him. Considering.

That was absurd, though. Dion turned his back and went to assist with the rescue efforts.

Chapter Text

This was a trap.

Nine years of work as an assassin and almost three more as an outlaw had taught Clive the hard way what made for a good trap. In this case, it was bait. He looked down into Kostnice’s abandoned courthouse from the beams around its dome, the dirty sandstone room beneath conveniently equipped with iron grilles that but a few years ago would have been used to separate those charged with a crime from the magistrate and the accusers. Now it was Branded behind the grille, while the gold-sashed Men of the Rock - Hugo Kupka’s ever more overweening and oppressive troops - menaced them. More than one of the Bearers was bleeding.

It hardly mattered how obvious the trap was when the bait could not be ignored.

“What do you think?” he said to Jill.

“Kupka can’t really expect this to work,” she said.

She’d accompanied him on most of his errands outside the Hideaway, until Clive had at last asked Tarja to remove his brand and spared her the need to pretend to be his owner whenever they ventured into a town. In his company, Jill had seen her fair share of Kupka’s traps as well. The bounty on her head was near as high as the one on Cid’s, and here in Dhalmekia she kept her beautiful hair covered, lest anyone recognise her.

She refused to dye it. She had once told Clive that her hair was all she had left from her father.

“I doubt he arranged it himself,” Clive said. “I wish we knew why he carries such a grudge against Cid.”

They’d both said as much several times over the past few years. Since they’d returned to the Hideaway to find it reduced to so much rubble and the few survivors with half-incoherent accounts of Titan bearing down on them all.

“If wishes were chocobos us outlaws would ride,” Jill said. “Shall I take the lead or will you?”

“It’s only a squad,” he said. Not something that should require priming, or even semi-priming. Not something that Jill should have to bear the brunt of.

“I’ll get the Bearers out, then.”

Clive waited for her to circle around towards where the Bearers were held in their enclosure. Then he dropped to the centre of the room and summoned Ramuh’s powers. “I’m here to even the odds,” he told the soldiers, and let them see the levin wreathing his arm.

He’d found he liked using Ramuh’s powers, almost as much as he valued the Blessing of the Phoenix. It wasn’t like having Cid back, no more than the Blessing could make up for Joshua’s absence, but it was a reminder.

The shout went up from the men inside: “It’s the Outlaw!” As expected, they started calling their reinforcements. Clive shocked swords from the hands of their wielders and danced between more prudent spearmen. Most he killed, but a few fled. Not good. They didn’t have the time to chase them down, and in any case, chasing people down through the hastily-constructed chaos of Kostnice and its refugee shelters was a nightmare.

Behind him, Jill was talking, her voice raised. He didn’t even have the time to take in what she was saying.

And then, from a hole in the upper storey of the building, there was a hissing, snarling roar.

Of course Kupka had the means to set a war panther on him.

Clive hastily rolled out of the way as the huge, muscular cat pounced. It followed his movement, taking out the last of the Men of the Rock itself with the swipe of a paw almost as large as Clive’s head.

There wasn’t enough space in here. Clive ducked a second swipe. This time its paw hit the grille and the panther yowled as the metal bent.

What followed was a short and vicious fight. Clive was bruised but not bleeding by the end of it. The war panther, on the other hand, bled out. Clive hated killing beasts like that. They were only there because humans had made them that way.

He turned back to the exit - and found that the Bearers were still there, though the metal grille was open and the nearest door unbarred. He shot a glance at Jill, who shook her head.

One of the Bearers stepped forward and spat at his feet. Clive closed his eyes. They weren’t the first Bearers who wanted nothing to do with him. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. Jill would have told them, but he thought they should hear it from him directly.

“You have already hurt us,” a woman in the group said. She was one of the ones who was bleeding, a long laceration that looked like it came from a spear along her upper arm. “For every one of us you say you free, we all suffer.”

“We don’t say we free you, we do free you,” Jill protested.

The woman snorted. An older man said, “We cannot go back now. You have doomed us.”

“I won’t force you to anything,” Clive said. “If you want nothing to do with me and my people, and if you can’t return to where you came from, I suggest you make for Boklad. There are people there who help Bearers, and as they will tell you themselves, refuse to have anything to do with Cid.”

“Boklad?” a young man said. “That’s days - across the desert -”

“You have doomed us,” the older man said, and led the Bearers out of the courthouse into the sunny streets. Right out in the open, where no doubt they would be picked up by more of Kupka’s men within hours.

As Cid had told him, you couldn’t save people who didn’t want to be saved.

Clive believed - but he also ached, and he couldn’t tear apart Kostnice to protect people who didn’t think he offered them protection. All he could do was give them the choice.

He and Jill left by the rafters again, heading over the rooftops to where their contact Viktor was currently living.

Kostnice was a warren of a town. It had grown a great deal since the Empire had moved on the Crystalline Dominion, residents of the villages on the Dhalmek side of the Crystal Belt no longer trusting Sanbreque would hold to their neutrality agreements and making for a safer community. And there was always the Blight. Drawing closer. Eating away at good land. Driving more people from their homes. The end result was a sprawling mess of hastily constructed buildings and winding laneways turning to dead ends and uneven rooftops. As they went, Clive’s side started to ache and pull sharply. Jill noticed, of course.

“We should get you to a physicker,” she said.

“Viktor’s place,” he said. “I’ll be fine once I get these ribs wrapped. They’re not broken.”

Viktor was one of Cid’s old contacts. He lived in a hastily subdivided building at the edge of where old Kostnice met new construction. He opened his door a crack only when Jill gave the passphrase and let them in with a sigh.

“I take it you two were responsible for the disturbance at the old courthouse?” he asked, even as he handed over the bandages Clive needed.

“Kupka’s minions,” Clive said. “Not even very serious.”

“There was a war panther,” Jill added. “Little else.”

“Clive,” Viktor sighed.

“What were the options? Kupka would have killed them otherwise.” That was Kupka’s standing order for all his traps. He understood that when it came to hostages, one had to be prepared to kill them. And the lives of Bearers meant nothing to him. “I sent the Bearers on towards Boklad. They wouldn’t speak to me.”

There was only so much he could do in the moment. He had to hold to that. In the end - even if that end was hundreds of years away - people would see that the Mothercrystals had to fall and the Bearers had to be freed.

Viktor had other news to share. Slavers along the caravan routes to both Boklad and Ran’dellah. “Our friends in Boklad might need your help,” Viktor said.

“If they want it, they’ll have it,” Clive said. “Until then, the best thing I can do for them and the Bearers they free is to leave them alone.” And, though he dare not say it in front of Jill so soon after tangling with a war panther, the other contribution he could make was to draw the attention of both Dhalmekia and Sanbreque.

There were more rumours of late meetings in the Ministry of Law, orders given for the army to assemble. “There’s no sign yet of the Men of the Rock being summoned for action,” Viktor said, “But it cannot be far off.”

That both worried Clive and excited him. If the Men of the Rock were called away, that could be their chance to take another Mothercrystal.

Time to start planning in earnest again.

—

“What news this week, gentlemen?”

Hugo lit his cigar and waited for his intelligencers to begin their briefing. Every week for nearly three years this meeting had been sacrosanct. When he was at the Rock, it took place in this antechamber. When he was abroad, he made the space and the time.

The first Cid had evaded him, disappearing - most likely dying - not long after he’d slain Benedikta. Hugo didn’t pray for anything, but he hoped it had been a painful, humiliating death. The man who’d taken Cid’s name was still out there.

Hugo now sat at the head of a lacquered table in the windowless heart of his castle. Shelves lined one wall, filled with reports of Cid and his doings. Reports that had largely gone nowhere.

The original Cid had been described as a man near Hugo’s age or a little older. An unbranded Bearer with a strong affinity for levin, at least. They had not been able to confirm the rumour that he was Barnabas Tharmr’s former Lord Commander and Dominant of Ramuh, defected from the Royalists. Hugo coudn’t see why a Dominant would leave wealth and power like that. More likely Tharmr had killed his Lord Commander for one reason or another and the first Cid was just another Bearer. After the destruction of Drake’s Head, another man had come forth naming himself ‘Cid’ - one who matched the description of an associate of the first Cid’s.

And who matched one of the descriptions Dhalmekia’s intelligencers kept on Sanbreque’s ridiculous assassins. The ones who named themselves after lesser dragons in the mistaken belief a name would make them more fearsome.

Cid the Second, they’d concluded, had once been called Wyvern. The old reports indicated he had a middling talent with fire and a somewhat greater one with the sword - hiding a greater talent again with levin, it now seemed, which these days he used to proclaim his identity as Cid. 

There the trail ended. The Imperials were at least sensible enough not to allow their assassins to have pasts.

Hugo would learn who he was, though. He had to know so he could make it hurt when he killed the man at last. Physical pain alone was not enough.

“We have a promising lead this week,” old Armando told him. Faithful man. A bastard, but one who could be kept loyal by money. “A report from Kostnice. One of our agents got close enough to overhear a conversation between Cid and some of his associates. The name ‘Clive’ was used to address him.”

“A Rosarian name,” Hugo mused. A common one, too, since one of Rosaria’s dead brat princes had been named Clive. The name had only grown more common after their Night of Flames. Every second snot-nosed Rosarian boy-child (and a fair number of the girl-children) born in the past fifteen years was named after the old Archduke or one of his sons, mostly to piss off Her Imperial Highness. “What do the Imperials know about Cid?”

“Not much,” one of his other intelligencers said. “They’ve focused on Shiva’s Dominant as the culprit behind the destruction of Drake’s Head.”

Something to be cautious of. Shiva’s Dominant had been seen with the second Cid more than once. Of the two, she was likely more dangerous in a fight. A Dominant reduced to a mere bodyguard.

No matter. He’d defeated her once, even if he hadn’t managed to kill her. He would gladly go through her to get to Cid.

“Leak what we know about this Clive to some of the Empress’s sources,” Hugo decided. “I don’t mind if she does the work for us as long as we find the man himself first.” If Cid the Second were Rosarian, the Empress would not suffer him to remain anonymous. She could scourge Rosaria to its foundation stones for all he cared. As long as Cid fell into his grasp.

Did Cid care for Shiva’s Dominant? Did he care for Rosaria? 

Hugo stood. “We’re done here. Go and buy two Branded for every one Cid freed from your last…efforts.”

This Cid would try and free Branded. That was the only thing he could be sure of - yet. Hugo would find out what the man cared for, whatever it took, and he would crush it. If he couldn’t hurt the first Cid, he would kill the man who’d chosen to bear the murderer’s name.

—

Joshua sifted a pile of dead black dirt in his hands. He hesitated to call it earth. It was difficult to equate this…refuse…with the material that nourished all the crops of Valisthea.

“What do you think?” he asked Jote.

His attendant was standing guard, even here. They hadn’t seen a single soul since crossing the border into what used to be the Northern Territories. Nor a single living thing. Not so much as a bug or a blade of grass. “I think the Northern Territories are no more,” she said.

That was…true enough. He hoped Jill never had to see this, even if she had to live with the knowledge. “The rate of expansion has increased again over the years,” he said. “The Blight slowed around the remains of Drake’s Eye at first, but now it appears to be more consistent with the rate of expansion near Drake’s Tail or Drake’s Fang.” The Blight near Drake’s Head had slowed with the collapse of that Mothercrystal too.

Joshua straightened and dusted off his hands. “This has to be what Clive sought when he and his comrades destroyed Drake’s Head,” he said. A delay to the Blight. It was remarkable. If what happened around the Northern Territories held true, Clive had bought the fields of Sanbreque perhaps…thirty years? Nothing was certain when it came to the Blight.

“I cannot speak to the Lord Marquess’ motivations, Your Grace.”

It was enough to make Joshua sigh. “My brother is a good man, Jote.”

“I accept your word on it, Your Grace.”

He knew she did not fully believe him. He also knew Cyril did not believe him. Cyril had been vocal enough on the subject to leave no doubt. But Joshua believed it. He had to. “In any event, it’s helpful. Chasing Ultima might not even matter if the Blight took us all first. Even now I wonder…”

Jote turned to face him fully. “Ultima is clearly a threat to you, Your Grace,” she said sharply. “Pursuit of the creature is justified for that alone.”

As if it heard its name aloud, the shard in his chest throbbed. Joshua could not hide his wince. After almost three years, Joshua was now quite sure - Ultima would kill him through it, sooner or later. Joshua could only fight it every step of the way. Neither sooner nor later mattered, as long as he thwarted its designs on Clive. Which still remained frustratingly opaque in several crucial respects. Did Ultima want Clive’s ability to absorb Eikons? Did it want the second Eikon of fire, the Eikon that should not exist? Both? Something else entirely? It had called Clive its ‘vessel’, but what did that mean in practice? What did that mean for Clive?

He was still almost as ignorant as when he’d started. Except for the knowledge that the Blight could be slowed. That was valuable. “We should send this on to the members of your order in Kanver,” he said.

“Will you go yourself, Your Grace?” Jote asked.

“No,” Joshua said. A shame. He had enjoyed his time in Kanver’s libraries a great deal. “It is back to Tabor for us, I think. I need to confer with Cyril over this finding. In person.”

“A long journey,” Jote observed. “Shall we go through Rosaria or Sanbreque?”

“Rosaria,” Joshua decided. He forestalled Jote’s protest with a hand. “It’s not just tempting fate. I wish to visit some Fallen ruins in the Velkroy on our way back. The Rosarian road will take us past them.”

“Every time we go through Rosaria risks someone recognising you, Your Grace,” she said. “You look more like your honoured late father every year.”

Not compared to Clive, Joshua thought. “Mother has largely lost interest in Rosaria since the Empire moved to Twinside,” he said. “It will be fine.”

Jote screwed up her face. “Your Grace,” she complained.

“We can see your family,” Joshua said, turning and starting towards the south. “Come now, Jote, I can hardly ask you to do so much for my family without acknowledging that it’s hard on you to be away from yours.” In the years before Phoenix Gate, after all, Jote would have served from Rosalith, not distant Tabor. Though she said she could bear it, and Joshua believed her, she didn’t have to. He missed Clive terribly. Jote did not have to miss her sisters the same way.

“It’s not that,” Jote said. “You said it would be fine.”

There was something accusatory there. “I did, didn’t I.”

“The last time you said it would be fine we had to wait three days for the blizzard to subside. The time before that, it was bandits. The time before that -”

“We shall simply have to be prepared,” Joshua said, and offered her his arm.

Chapter Text

Rebuilding the Hideaway was a work in progress. Two and a half years was not a very long time in the greater scheme of things. In the days after Clive and Jill had returned to the pile of rubble that had so briefly been their home, Gav had suggested moving closer to the great lake Bennumere. As soon as he’d seen it, and the airships half sunken in its centre, Clive had suggesting moving into the lake.

The huge Fallen airship in the centre provided a structure for them to build around. With the filters, they had all the fresh water they could process. And nobody would be sneaking up on them again.

Getting there remained an ongoing issue.

“We’re going to need more pitch for the boat, Cid,” Obolus the boatman told him as he and Jill boarded for the ride back home. “Or whatever it was that substitute Tomes thought up for us.”

“Pitcher wax,” Clive said. “I’ll let the Cursebreakers know, thank you. We would be in dire straits indeed without your boat.”

He’d come to enjoy the rhythm of returning to the Hideaway. Yes, it was busy, as the people here came to him with a welter of requests and disputes to resolve, and he was often tired even when he agreed to help, but it was useful. He felt useful.

Though his first stop this time ought to be with Vivian.

Vivian Ninetales was not the usual sort of resident in the Hideaway. Educated, elegant, and rather curt in most every dealing, she had once been a lecturer in political studies at the Great University in Kanver. She had shown up on nothing more than a recommendation from Cid’s daughter Midadol, one step ahead of the assassins pursuing her. They had not been bought by Kupka, which made for a refreshing change, but instead by one of the councillors of Kanver. “So much for academic freedom,” Vivian had quipped at the time.

So now she worked for Clive as the closest thing he had to a chief of intelligencers. In her spare time, she collaborated with Tomes in writing pamphlets calling for better conditions for Bearers.

Today she wore a coat of lilac against the chill breeze off Bennumere, setting off both her stark white hair and brown skin. She smiled slightly when she saw him, which was the most warmth she ever showed anyone. “Back with news, are you?” she asked.

“Back, at least.”

Clive gave her the bare bones of what he’d learned from Viktor. As usual, Vivian had her own questions to follow - names, impressions, even just gossip. It took her a long time to satisfy herself that she’d wrung all the information she could out of Clive. “I’ll send someone for Jill,” she said.

“Any particular cause for concern?”

“Read Gav’s latest report from Ran’dellah and you tell me. It’s in your chambers.”

Wherever Vivian worked, she was a teacher still, Clive supposed.

Otto was next. Clive passed on the request for pitch, in the event Otto’s contacts knew anything about a substitute that didn’t involve Cursebreakers risking their lives fighting deathblossoms in Rosaria’s swamps, and Otto added it to the list. “Supply’s in a good place, all things considered,” Otto reported. “Got a letter from Mid. Says she might be paying us a visit soon enough.”

“From Kanver?” Clive asked, surprised. Cid’s daughter could hardly be prised away from the place. “Did she say why?”

“Course she bloody didn’t.”

“You’ve warned Blackthorne and Bardolph?” The Hideaway’s blacksmith and carpenter would be the first to suffer from whatever requests Mid might make. She would have requests. They wouldn’t make sense. But whatever she made from them would make lives easier.

He had been surprised to learn, three years ago now, that the filters that provided them with potable water were her work. Surprised and infinitely grateful. Like her father, Midadol Telamon chose to share her work freely.

But she was a veritable tornado of a human being.

“They’re prepared,” Otto said grimly. “You aren’t, though. Go put your head down.”

Clive did not.

Last came Harpocrates. The old loresman was in the middle of lessons with Tett and Crow, two of the children orphaned in Kupka’s attack on the last Hideaway. Lessons, for children their age, mostly meant that Tomes read aloud to them. To foster a love of learning, he said, though the children were too young for their letters as yet.

Clive loved this part of the Hideaway more than most. They’d sealed off what they could against the elements, built shelves, and everyone brought all the books they could get their hands on. The Cursebreakers tallied new titles collected as eagerly as they tallied their minotaur kills. The result was a library well stocked and a community that loved to make use of it.

“I fear I have had no further success chasing reports of the creature you saw in Drake’s Head,” Harpocrates said. “There are many myths out there, but none mention the name Ultima, nor even describe a being with four arms.”

Clive resisted the temptation to growl in sheer frustration. Tomes was doing his best, which was all he could ask. Especially when it came to a side project such as this. True, he was haunted by what had happened in that instant where Ultima had reached for him, but it wasn’t as important as his work with Bearers, nor their attempts to end the Blight. He could feel the warmth of the Phoenix feather he still kept tucked into an inner pocket he’d sewn into his shirt. Joshua was out there, and he was looking for that thing as well. “There are other libraries,” he said. “We could arrange a journey to Oriflamme.”

Harpocrates shook his head. “I am quite familiar with Oriflamme’s libraries, Clive, and I fear it holds little of interest for us. I have been corresponding with a friend of mine in Ash, as trade allows, and I suspect we would have more luck in Stonhyrr’s library.”

He sighed. “Keep sending your letters, then,” he said. “A journey to Stonhyrr itself is too risky for us, but if your friend can even point us in the right direction…”

“As you say, Clive. Thank you for always making the time to humour an old man’s academic pursuits.”

“I value both your learning and your wisdom, loresman.”

And now, perhaps, he could go and catch up on his letters.

“Cid!”

Or maybe not.

—

Jill took advantage of Clive’s distraction with all his usual post-return business to go see Tarja.

“Did you semi-prime at all?” Tarja asked, as she manipulated Jill’s left hand and elbow through a series of stretches. There was no sign of grey on her skin yet, but she was losing sensation in that hand. The joints were slowly but surely seizing up. And there was a pinch developing in the base of her lungs she didn’t like one bit.

“No,” she said, honestly.

Tarja finished up. “It doesn’t seem noticeably worse than the last time you came to me. Let’s keep it that way if at all possible. I want you to rest.” She looked at Jill. “Have you told Clive?”

Jill shook her head. “You know what he’s like. He’d blame himself.”

Two years and more, and he hadn’t been able to prime again at all. He couldn’t even semi-prime reliably. Which left Jill as the only Dominant capable of priming in the Hideaway. Their last line of defence.

“Then you’re going to have to talk some sense into him,” Tarja said bluntly. “You need to rest. Every time you get back. Blame the Ironblood when you tell him, I don’t care, but if you keep going at this pace you have maybe five to seven years left. Slow down and we can make it ten to fifteen. Stop using magic at all and you can still expect to live to a ripe old age.” Tarja scowled as if Jill’s poor life expectancy was a personal affront. 

What the physicker didn’t understand was that the number of years didn’t matter to Jill any more. She hadn’t cared since back in Mount Drustanus and it was little different now.

Yes, she wanted to live again. But the number of things that mattered more to her than whether she lived or died…she could not count them.

“Thank you for your advice,” she said.

“Thank me by following it,” Tarja replied.

Jill went to speak to Vivian next for her debriefing. It was not typically an experience she enjoyed. Jill could admit to herself she was a little intimidated by Vivian, who was only two winters older than she was but so much more knowledgeable about the world. She was courteous always, but she could not hide how she pitied Jill her ignorance. It was important, though, so they both persisted.

Afterwards, Jill went to Clive’s chambers with a bottle of wine. He’d been given his own room, by Otto’s insistence, though Jill knew Clive would have been content sleeping in whatever nook or cranny they had. The privacy was the room’s only real luxury; the narrow cot Clive slept on was no different to Jill’s bunk, the floor was the same splintery wood as most of the rest of the Hideaway, the draughts that whistled through gaps in the walls just as biting. The room was mostly taken up with Clive’s desk and, like his predecessor’s room, a table for more private meetings. 

She didn’t expect him to be there and she was not disappointed. Jill set the wine aside and started flipping through Clive’s new letters. He’d inherited most of Cid’s contacts and made a few of his own.

Gav had sent a letter, rather than a stolas. There was another letter from Martha. Jill set those aside - they both looked important and Clive would want to discuss them together. Others she could handle herself. These should go to Vivian, these to Otto, these to Dorys.

Clive blamed himself for not being able to prime and to fight for them as a Dominant could. Jill blamed herself for not being able to assist Clive in any way but fighting. She’d come to enjoy needlework, to her surprise, when she was creating things herself rather than merely decorating them. Her most precious memories of this place were the rare afternoons when she could sit and work on a pile of clothes for the people here while Clive read to her.

But she had next to no education for anything at all practical. Politics, languages, history, commerce, bookkeeping, the sciences - Anabella Rosfield had only wanted her to be a decoration, and the Ironblood, of course, had only cared how she could kill for them. Now most of what she could do for her friends and family here was…kill for them.

She did it willingly. It was worth fighting for. The effects were worth living with - or dying with - but sometimes she did…hope.

Clive only returned to his chambers late in the afternoon. With two plates of food, she was pleased to see. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “Anything interesting on the pile?”

She slid the letters from Gav and Martha across to him. He read Gav’s and sucked in a sharp breath. “By the flames,” he said. “Our chance is nearly here.”

“Cid would be thrilled,” Jill said. She missed him. She knew Clive did too.

“It won’t make us any more friends.”

“They’ll understand eventually.” They took it in turns to reassure each other, when the hatred grew too much to bear easily.

“Maybe they won’t,” Clive said quietly. “We are making lives harder. It will take years before the Twins recover. Many will die before then.”

She sat next to him. He radiated heat, as he always had. He didn’t look at her. “If I have learned one things these last few years,” she said, “It is that the crystals take more from us than they give. Whatever it costs us today, we have to do something.”

“I know it costs you a great deal,” Clive said. “You spoke to Tarja?”

Oh. Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. Clive was attentive to his people. “I did.” She did not need to say more.

Clive buried his face in his hands. “I wish I could help you,” he said.

“You help in other ways. I do this because it’s something I believe in.” Jill dared to rest her hand on Clive’s shoulder. He did not flinch away. “I’m glad you don’t suffer from the curse yet.”

“It’s hardly fair. All those years I’ve used magic and I’ve yet to feel anything from it.”

“You use so little aether, though,” Jill pointed out. He was a Dominant; he was as at least as resistant to aether as she was. Dominants had to have that resistance in order to withstand the sheer amount of aether needed to prime and to semi-prime. But Clive used hardly any in his ordinary spells. Even on those rare occasions he semi-primed, he used far less aether than she did for the same feat. He’d tried to teach others, including Jill and the Cursebreakers, how he got by with so little, but with no result. “It’s hard to imagine you ever using enough to be affected. I’m grateful for it.”

Clive sighed. “You will let me know if you need to rest?” he asked, at last looking back at her. “I…would not drive you to an early grave. I can manage by myself, or with others, if need be.”

She could no more make him that promise than she could Tarja. “I’ll be fine,” she said instead. “What word from Martha?”

Though he eyed her suspiciously, he allowed her the change of topic. He slit the letter open and began to read. He began to frown as he did.

—

It had been two full years since Anabella had been forced to return to Rosalith. In her absence it seemed matters had deteriorated. The gardens outside Rosalith Castle were in a dreadful state. There was rubbish in some of the walkways. The city outside was much the same. Disgusting.

Cardinal Emeric escorted her and Olivier upstairs to her study. As soon as the door was closed behind her and they were safe from prying ears, she rounded on him. “What has been going on here, Cardinal? Have you lost all control of the rabble?”

“Not at all, Your Majesty,” the cardinal said nervously.

“This place has ever been infested by insolence,” Anabella said. “What are you actually doing, pray tell, to prevent matters from deteriorating further?”

Olivier would one day rule this miserable place. She refused to hand him a province in rebellion, whose people willingly hid filthy Branded from the law and their duties to the Empire. She stroked a hand over her son’s soft hair. He let her, as he always did. Such an obliging soul when it came to her.

The cardinal kept blathering on. Taxes and rent increases, when what he needed was firm discipline backed by steel. “I have a mind to put Sir Nazaire in charge,” Anabella said at last. “His work in forming the Black Shields has done more good than any of your measures.”

“Your Imperial Majesty!”

“Then what can you tell me?”

The man spluttered, red in the face, then composed himself. “The intelligencers here have learned something interesting from the Dhalmeks,” he said. “You know of Cid the Outlaw, of course?”

Anabella rolled her eyes. She didn’t even try to hide it. Cid the Outlaw, who had accompanied Shiva’s Dominant in destroying Drake’s Head. “I have.”

“The Dhalmeks traced him back to the Imperial Army,” he told her. “We are targeting this Cid’s Rosarian operations in an attempt to draw him out. Apparently he was once part of the Branded squads, called Wyvern, and we have reason to believe that his original name was Clive.”

The blood drained from her face.

It couldn’t be. Half the boys in Rosaria these days were named Clive. To spite her, those insolent wretches who called themselves citizens. It couldn’t be him. Branded didn’t live that long, not on the front lines.

“Mother?” Olivier asked.

“Do we have a description?” she asked, mouth dry.

“Of Cid? Branded - more recent reports describe him as scarred - dark of hair, tall. Handsome, to hear most tell it, enough that reports mention it.” But then he handed her a sketch.

She could hardly remember what Clive looked like. He’d been a pretty enough child, she supposed. Something else to resent him for. If not for that failure, that one unforgiveable failure, he would have been the son she’d always wanted.

The face in the sketch could almost have been Elwin’s, if not for the scar.

She could not risk that it was truly him. Back from the grave to ruin everything she’d worked for.

“If you have reason to believe this Cid has sympathies for House Rosfield, then it is but another reason to harry them to the ground,” she said. “I want checkpoints around Rosalith and Port Isolde. Nobody in or out without reason. Abandoning farmland is not a reason. Sir Nazaire will take control of Port Isolde’s checkpoints; Byron is not to be trusted with this.”

“Lord Byron has never given us any reason to believe he’s disloyal,” Emeric said. “He even pays his taxes promptly.”

“Byron sits and counts his money because it’s all he has left,” Anabella sneered. Even when he’d been a boy, he’d sooner frequent a counting-house than the training yard or the Archduke’s court. “He would throw every last gil into the Fingers if he thought it would bring Elwin back.” Or Elwin’s son. Byron had always been fond of Clive. He’d loved Joshua, everyone had, but he’d always made a point of his affection for that worthless - No, Byron was not to be relied on. “Leave him be for now, but don’t give him the responsibility.”

There were a few more details to be sorted out. A stolas to send to Sir Nazaire. Emeric had a list of villages where Cid was suspected to have contacts. Anabella approved the removal of Branded from all of them. Any who resisted were to be made examples, as were any villagers who tried to assist them.

When they were done, she handed the sketch back to Cardinal Emeric. “Burn this,” she commanded.

When she’d dismissed Cardinal Emeric, Olivier stood and looked her in the eye. “You really think it might be my brother?” he asked.

“He is not your brother,” Anabella said, sharper than she meant to. She took a deep breath. “He is not your brother, no more than Dion is. Clive is nothing more than a common soldier, determined to make trouble for those more worthy than himself.”

“Is he dangerous?” Olivier asked.

“He is Branded,” Anabella said. She did not believe in the Rosarian tradition of the Blessing of the Phoenix. Why should the Phoenix make itself lesser? What need did the Phoenix have of an ordinary guardian? If only there had been some way to take the Blessing back from Clive. Perhaps then Joshua would have had the strength to survive. “I will not allow him near you, my dearest. I will not allow him to spoil your birthright at all.”

Olivier smiled at her. He was so calm, her dearest boy, and nothing seemed to frighten him at all.

Chapter Text

He’d never seen Martha’s Rest in such a state.

The streets were torn up and muddy from boots and violence. Several of the market stalls were overturned. Doors had been broken down.

And in the middle of all that, the people. Only a few bodies, thank the Founder, but plenty of bruises and broken bones. Plenty of fearful eyes and angry words. The Bloodaxes, still here after almost three years and, by Clive’s judgment, unlikely to leave Rosaria, were the most battered of all. They’d taken the brunt of whatever this was. The townspeople were tending to them like they would their own.

The sign for the Golden Stables had been torn down and trod into the mud.

Clive and Jill found Cole in the crowd, organising his squad to help rebuild the town’s defences. Dorys’ second-in-command often took assignments in Rosaria, saying he liked it best of all the realms he’d visited, second only to the Hideaway itself. Clive tended to agree - and he was only too happy to arrange for Cole to avoid Dhalmekia as much as possible, where he’d once been enslaved. “What happened here?” he asked.

“The Imperial garrison stopped by,” Cole said grimly. “They took the last Branded here, the children. Only a few hours ago. Cid, we haven’t been able to find Martha since. Some of the Bloodaxes said they saw her being clapped in irons and dragged out west.”

“West?” Clive repeated.

“Glaidemond Abbey,” Jill said.

If they were targeting Bearers… “Cole, when you’re finished with the defenses, head over to the garrison and tell me what you can. Retrieve the Branded if possible but don’t risk yourselves unnecessarily.” Tris and Cora. Martha had been working for years to get them to the Hideaway, but she hadn’t yet had the opportunity to spirit them away safely. “Jill and I will find Martha and do what we can for the abbey.”

They took the journey as fast as they dared. Despite all Martha’s efforts the countryside here suffered as more and more people fled the farmlands for the towns and cities. There were fewer farmers out here now than there had been even three years ago. Weeds and death blossoms were starting to reclaim the fields, fruit trees growing gnarled and untended.

It wasn’t difficult to follow the trail of the Imperials. They’d churned up the muddy road. Jill elbowed him as they approached the last bridge before the Abbey. “What is that?”

‘That’ was a dark shape sprawled against the bridge’s rails. As they drew closer, Clive made out teal fabric and a patterned headscarf. “Martha,” he said.

They started running towards the bridge.

Martha was alive. Her hair was dark with sweat and dirt, her face was bruised and cut as if a man in armour had given her the back of his hand, and she had deep bruises around her wrists, but she was alive. “Clive!” she cried, words slurring through her split and swollen lips.

“What do we need to know?” Clive asked, seeing the desperation in her eyes. Jill was already making an ice crystal and wrapping it in a rag, something to numb the pain.

“Black Shields.” Martha spat. A tooth went with it. “Talking about…culling. Were going to hang me for fighting back, the Abbot too.” She looked up at Clive, her eyes bright with both fear and fury. “The Bearers fought. Help them.”

“Can you get back to the Rest on your own?” he asked. “There’s nothing behind us but distance.”

Martha nodded grimly. “Aye.”

Clive turned to Jill. “Let’s go.”

Jill pressed the ice into Martha’s hand. “Take care,” she said, and they were both off again.

As they approached there was no sign of anything wrong but the churned-up path. Unlike Eastpool, no smoke rose from the abbey. It was not reassuring.

They passed the first body just within the gate. An older nun, head half hacked from her shoulders, clearly taken by surprise as she’d opened the gate for official visitors. Past that, there were divots in the ground and small scorch marks. Then clothes seemingly discarded in piles of dust. The Bearers had fought back. They’d fought until the Curse took them. Behind those were the bodies.

The Bearers had fought, and they had fallen, and the Imperials had cut down these people of peace anyway.

“Why?” Clive asked. “They were only trying to help the ill and dying! The Bearers here were hurting nobody!”

“They were different,” Jill said. “You know how much your mother likes different.”

Everyone in their place. As if either of them could forget.

“The orders had to come from her. Bearers are the property of the Empire. The garrison wouldn’t have the authority to act alone.” Even for Bearers on their very last legs. This was a church of Greagor. The land was still productive. The orders had to come from the very top.

There was a shout and a draw on the aether from the general direction of an outbuilding. One of the dormitories. Clive and Jill ran towards the disturbance.

Clive stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the attackers. “What is that?” he breathed. “Are those…Shield uniforms?”

They were, but in black, with Imperial-style scrollwork on the edges of the armour. Full armour, far better than standard issue. It gleamed in the afternoon sun. The dark enamel obscured the blood. The full breastplates, the chain - the insignia on the pauldron and the design of the shields.

“What is this?” he breathed.

“Captain! Stragglers,” one of the Imperials called.

A man with blood still on his sword pushed his way through the squad of these - these - supposed Shields. “Identify yourselves,” he said.

“Why did you do this?” Clive breathed. Ifrit’s flames burned higher inside him, itching for destruction. He wanted to burn them. Ifrit wanted to burn anything. “Why are you wearing those uniforms?”

“Sympathisers, I see,” the captain said. “Men, form up!”

Clive didn’t wait. He launched into these murderous imposters with greatsword and fire both. The flames licked along his arms and legs, freezing into jagged black stone. He hardly noticed. Every movement was traced in scorching heat and he didn’t care. He rent their armour, brought his fire to bear until the enamel warped and soot blackened the embossing. He didn’t stop until the last of them fell screaming.

He stood in the midst of the charnel he created, breathing hard, and only then did he let Ifrit’s fires go.

“There has only ever been one order of Shields in Rosaria,” Clive told the smoking corpses, “and they fought to protect all Rosaria’s citizens.”

Behind him, Jill said cautiously, “Clive, are you back?”

“Yes,” he said. “Did I - semi-prime?”

Jill nodded.

“Fuck.”

Why now? Why, after all these years, did Ifrit come to him - and only to destroy?

—

Cole arrived soon after Clive calmed down, though he was still smoldering. More literally than was safe. Jill sent him off to return the ashes of the Bearers to the waters nearby, a task that would calm him rather than drive him further into fury, while she and Cole dealt with the abbeyfolk and the intruders.

The faithful of Greagor preferred burials. Jill lent her arms to the grim task of hauling bodies while Cole used his earth magic for graves. Normally they’d dig and save Cole the aether use, but they had to be fast. Separate graves for the abbeyfolk; a pit for the imposter shields.

The people of the Abbey were worth the sacrifice. Jill agreed with Cole wholeheartedly there.

“Cid did a number on them, didn’t he?” Cole said, looking over the newest corpses.

“He was a Shield once,” Jill said. “It was all he wanted to be, growing up.”

Cole shook his head. “Hard to believe sometimes. Cid hardly seems a nobleman at all most days. Or the type to burn people like this.”

Not usually. Clive’s temper was slow, Jill well knew. Most people in and from the Hideaway would not have seen his anger before. She agreed, however, that Clive would not usually burn people as he had. “He hardly ever semi-primes,” she said, by way of explanation. Talking about a Dominant’s powers made them less mysterious and therefore less frightening. So she tried to be open about such things to her friends and comrades. “It can be overwhelming. It’s why Dominants sometimes lose control.”

They looked at the ruin of the fake Shields. “If that’s the result, I’m glad Cid’s an easygoing soul,” Cole said. “Not to mention on our side.”

That was what Dominants did, after all. Even her so very kind Clive. Jill did not have that kindness. If she lost control, when she lost control, when she gave herself to Shiva so she didn’t have to feel anything she did - the results were so much worse than this. She looked away from Cole. It was terrible, but how else could she help?

Clive came back near sunset, no happier but a great deal calmer. None of them wanted to stay in the blood-soaked abbey any longer and they left without a word.

By the time they returned to Martha’s Rest, Martha herself was back in charge. The people of the town were bandaged, stalls had been righted if not repaired, and the defenses were back up.

“We’re like to need to defend against our own garrisons,” Martha said. Her bruises were starting to turn yellow around the edges. The gap where one of her teeth used to be was just visible as she spoke. “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later. They are not going to break us like this.” She circled the entire town and said it again and again, leaving the people she talked to with more spirit in their step than when she’d first approached them.

“She should have a Mayor’s stole,” Jill whispered to Clive.

“She could have a general’s,” Clive whispered back. “The town seems to be in good hands here. They trust her.”

When Martha was finished her rounds, Clive approached her again. “I’d like to speak to you about these Imperials calling themselves Shields, if you can spare us the time?”

“For you? Always.”

The small parlour in the Golden Stables hadn’t changed in the past three years. But once out of sight, Martha slumped in her seat, clearly exhausted and in pain. It was pure trust. Such a capable person showing them that weakness… Jill could not have done it.

“I heard about the Black Shields a few moons ago,” Martha said. “I didn’t pay it much mind. Stupid idea. Rosarians would never stand for it. Thought it was just the Imperials spreading rumours to make people think twice.”

“My mother is not the sort to bluff about matters such as this,” Clive warned. “If she makes a threat, she will follow through.”

“Always an insight that’s useful to have. Founder knows what it must have been like for you two growing up in her household, if you’ll pardon the impertinence.”

“No offense is taken. I’m an outlaw, not a lord.”

Though as Jill listened to him discuss how to approach the garrison and the townspeople both with Martha, she thought: he could be. He would have made a good Archduke. She’d told him once that he could claim Rosaria’s throne, but that was another thing entirely to realising that he would actually do it justice. He was more than just the Dominant of Ifrit. What Clive was doing now would be important if he couldn’t cast a single spell.

She was…jealous. Of Clive.

Clive, and Vivian, and Martha, and Tarja, and every tradesperson and scholar in the Hideaway.

Everyone there who was more than what they’d been born as.

It rocked her on her heels like one of Cid’s thunderbolts.

“I’m inclined to borrow some of your Cursebreakers to help out the Bloodaxes.”

“You believe the townspeople would accept them for who and what they are?”

“After this? Most of them, aye. If you’ve got some in mind who can stand up for themselves without provoking the dolts - not that they wouldn’t be justified, mind, but as a matter of practicality.”

“Even when it was explained to them that the Cursebreakers choose when and how to use their magic? I know you know of the toll the curse takes on Bearers, but not all are so sympathetic, and some turn violent when Bearers stand up for themselves.”

“My guarantee on it. Your assistance is a gift to this place. Good Rosarians don’t inspect a gift chocobo’s feathers.”

She listened to them and she could not imagine being that good, that confident, at anything other than using Shiva’s ice.

Jill excused herself from the discussion - Clive and Martha had it well in hand, truly - and went back outside to Martha’s Rest itself. It had been Martha’s idea to move up to the tor. Martha’s idea to build the bridges and the defences. From here she could see the unfinished Trans-Rosarian Aqueduct that Clive’s father had poured gold and manpower into. So much building. What did Jill know how to do? Anything but.

Jill went to help with repairs, thinking hard. Outside as she was, the stolas from Gav summoning her and Clive back to the Hideaway with all speed reached her first.

—

It was unworthy of him, perhaps, but Dion could only be relieved that the news of Dhalmekia’s declaration of war came while the Empress was away. When he was summoned to his father’s council chambers, the seats reserved for her and for Dion’s half-brother were mercifully empty. He would not have to endure her sneering, nor Olivier’s unnervingly flat stare.

That was truly an unworthy thought. It was hardly Olivier’s fault who his mother was.

Dion took his seat at his father’s right hand.

“Your Holinesses, Prince Dion,” his father began, “long have we prepared for this day. The Republic of Dhalmekia has declared war on Us for what they name our illegal and unjustified invasion of the Crystalline Dominion. What have we accomplished thus far?”

That was a question for him, first and foremost. He outlined the repairs and preparations they’d made to Twinside’s walls, their crystal reserves and the status of the army’s Branded. “We can rely on the Branded less than we have in previous years,” Dion warned, “There are Branded liberation groups active in the area. We can little afford to spare army or city guard to enforce discipline amongst the Branded at this stage.”

“Then we shall rely on the intelligencers to keep this menace from our territories,” his father said. “Raise the bounties on the ringleaders. Escapees and dissidents are to be sent to the mines under Drake’s Tail - and I want those mines expanded to cover the shortfall in our crystal production.”

Dion suppressed a flinch. “Your Majesty, aside from the bounties, those are harsh measures indeed.” The sort of proposal he was more used to hearing from the Empress. He still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of mining the Mothercrystal, no matter how his father argued for its necessity. “Reintegration is often successful. I see no need to kill Bearers who could still serve the Empire faithfully.”

“In the long term, we must deter this sort of behaviour,” His Majesty said. “These so-called liberators go against the natural order of things. It is a lesson that must be taught. Harshly, if necessary.”

Great Greagor, he really did hear Anabella in those words. How had this happened? Dion bit back his criticism. His father would not hear it, not in this setting. He had to pick his battles. “As you command, sire.”

Dion listened to the reports on food supplies with equal disquiet. He accepted the need for rationing, and the need to enforce it, but again his father was pushing for harsher punishments in the name of deterrence. Even ten years ago he was sure his father would not have supported such a thing.

At length, the newly-installed Cardinal of the Dominion asked, “What of Bahamut?”

“Bahamut is only to be used in the uttermost extreme of need,” His Majesty said. “Prince Dion, I would not have you take the field at all lest it provoke Titan to action.”

“I can still serve with a lance,” Dion said.

“No,” his father said, but then his eyes softened momentarily. “Dion, I would not risk you unless I must, nor squander your strength.”

“I am the commander of the dragoons,” Dion protested.

“You have a second,” His Majesty snapped, all softness gone. “I expect you to make use of him.”

Terence. But Terence would kill him if Dion did not allow this. Terence would say much the same thing - that he earned his position so he could face those things Dion was not strictly needed for. “As you say, Your Majesty.” Yet what good was he if he could not protect those he loved? If he had to sit back and be reserved?

He hated Twinside, and all that had come from this occupation. This war.

That thought was not only unworthy, but borderline treacherous. He shoved it away and returned his attention to His Majesty and how they would adjust to the influx of refugees from Twinside’s outskirts, where his mind belonged.

Chapter Text

From the look on Gav’s face, Clive knew they would be heading out again soon. His friend’s remaining eye - the one he hadn’t lost to shrapnel in Titan’s attack on the Hideaway - was bright with glee as he waved Clive, Jill, and Otto over to Vivian’s table of maps. Clive sent for Dorys, who’d need to know what conditions the Cursebreakers could expect, and Tarja, who’d be patching them all up afterwards.

“All right,” Clive said, once everyone was assembled. “What news?”

“Dhalmekia marches,” Gav said. “I left as soon as I heard how the Council of Ministers would vote. Passed some of Kupka’s men making ready on the way back, heading to Ran’dellah. Drake’s Fang is open.”

“They’re claiming the liberation of Twinside as their reason,” Vivian noted. “After almost three years, it rings somewhat hollow - but yet they must march. Hugo Kupka controls both Drake’s Fang and an ever-increasing proportion of Dhalmekia’s Bearers.”

Bearers that he purchased in revenge for Clive’s own efforts to free them, Clive thought bitterly. But that was a sin on Kupka’s head, and no fault of Clive’s. There was enough blood actually on his hands without him borrowing more.

“So the Council of Ministers makes a bid for Twinside to free themselves of Sanbreque and dependence on Kupka both,” Clive said. “How is it that they are still forcing Kupka to march?”

“Kupka would rather hunt us than fight the Council,” Vivian said. “As matters stand, it would still be a fight. No doubt he considers his energy better spent elsewhere. This is the Council of Ministers’ last stand - if they do not win at Twinside, it will be Kupka who rules Dhalmekia. By default, most likely the literal kind.”

Clive saw it. “Then Drake’s Fang will not be open at all. He knows we destroyed Drake’s Head; he’ll have reasoned we might want to destroy Drake’s Fang as well or at least free the Bearers he has imprisoned there; he will have left plenty of his men to defend the Rock. That would be his condition for taking the bulk of his forces to Twinside.”

But.

“With all focus on Twinside, the Ironblood will move,” he continued. “Whether to the Narrows or to raid Rosaria again, they will do something. And Drake’s Breath may be vulnerable.”

Vivian’s eyes were sharp. “The Ironblood being ancestral enemies of Rosaria in particular. Are you looking for some revenge, Lord Rosfield?”

He hated the Ironblood. Like he hated the Empire of Sanbreque. But that just meant that he believed it when he said, “No. I want the Mothercrystal destroyed. We will do what works.” He turned to Jill. “You know the Ironblood and Mount Drustanus better than all of us. Do you have any suggestions?”

Jill’s face was white and her mouth thin as she stared at the map. “A small raid,” she said. “The smaller, the better. The Ironblood would never leave Mount Drustanus totally undefended. If the fleet sails, the Patriarch will stay at Drake’s Breath conducting rites to bless the Crusade. But there are a few places where smaller boats could get through if the main fleet is away.”

“How small?” Clive asked.

“Rowboats,” Jill said. A small movement caught Clive’s eyes. Jill’s hands were shaking.

He changed the topic slightly. They had to finish this discussion and he had to trust Jill to know her own limits. “If rowboats are the only option to sneak in, we will still need a ship to get us through the Boiling Sea.”

“I take it you have an idea for this as well,” Vivian said.

Clive took a deep breath. He’d hoped to avoid this. “My uncle,” he said.

Vivian’s eyes lit up. “Ah,” she said.

“You’re talking about Byron Rosfield?” Otto asked, with a characteristic scowl. “The same Byron Rosfield that Lady Charon complains about price gouging half of Storm every other week? Hugo Kupka’s only real competitor along the west coast? That Byron Rosfield?”

“He’s always been an…aggressive…trader,” Clive admitted. “But he loved my father and shared many of his ideals about Rosaria’s economic development. I’m less certain of where he stands on Bearers, but if we can convince him that the Mothercrystals cause the Blight, we will most likely be able to convince him to support us in destroying Drake’s Breath.”

Jill added, “Clive was always his favourite nephew. He’ll listen to Clive.”

“If he can be convinced that it is Clive who seeks his aid,” Vivian said. “Through your association with Madame Martha, rumours of your survival are starting to spread in parts of Rosaria. Whether they’ve reached the upper classes of Port Isolde is another matter.”

Martha had never made a fuss about his birth. They’d rarely discussed it these past years. She knew. He knew she knew. He supposed it was futile to expect it would remain a secret forever, for all he’d rather be known as Cid to the people he helped.

“I can convince him,” Clive said. “If not, we’ll find another way.”

They threw around a few more options. Otto had some ideas from his time as a sailor. Tarja listened attentively but claimed she had nothing to contribute here. Clive took that to mean she would be approaching people privately with her concerns.

Jill, most likely, and it was Jill he was most concerned about too. Though she’d steadied her hands, she bore an expression like she was in the midst of a difficult battle. She must be, in a way.

They did not finalise exactly who would be going to Drake’s Breath.

“I wanted to talk about it with you first,” Clive said, once he and Jill were alone in his room.

“I’m going,” Jill said fiercely. “You had the chance to face your past. Now it’s my turn.”

Clive reached for her hand. She let him take it. “We’ll do it together, then. Like we promised.”

Their contact was brief. Jill turned away from him, arms around herself as if cold. Jill never got cold. “When Cid told us his plan I knew I’d have to go back one day,” she said. “It’s not a surprise that I have to, it’s just…sooner than I’d thought.”

“Is there anything you need from me? Anything I can do for you?”

“I’m not sure,” Jill whispered.

“Then - can I get you some dinner?”

Jill always made sure that he ate, when he was stuck in his own head. It was a simple favour to return. Some things were more easily faced on a full stomach.

He hurried to bring them both plates of the stew Molly was serving in the kitchen. He even came away with a few dried figs when he said it was for Jill. It was a small thing, but as Jill herself had shown him, the small things could make a difference. He could only hope that it might do so for her.

He wanted so badly to protect her. But he couldn’t. He shouldn’t. Not from her own past.

—

This was not the first time His Grace had met Jote’s family. Her order checked on its members’ families as a matter of course, starting when Jote had begun her apprenticeship as a girl. They would not have accepted her into the order if her family had not been deemed absolutely loyal to the Phoenix as well.

In times such as these, it was…a relief, to know she could rely on them. Her order was often distant.

So each time they passed through the eastern Rosarian hinterlands, more by Joshua’s insistence than hers, they stopped at her parents’ house in the town of Orchard Bend. Her mother owned one of the orchards that gave the town its name. Her father had been a soldier in Rosaria’s army, and Jote had followed closer in his footsteps than those of her mother.

They had a suspicion as to how she served the Duchy, but they knew better than to ask. Just like they knew better than to ask about Master Margrace, who even now sat himself on the bench by the big kitchen table and entertained some of Jote’s nieces and nephews with edited tales of their travels. As far as the children was concerned, Master Margrace was a wealthy young student of history at the Great University in Kanver, travelling to Fallen ruins across Storm for his research, and Jote earned her living as his guard.

…he was telling them about the wivre out near Lostwing. Jote could have done without her family hearing that tale.

“We’re glad to see you,” her mother said as she set a mug of cider in front of Jote. “Things have been…frightening, lately.”

Jote glanced back to Joshua, now taking his turn to listen to Jote’s nephew Thomas. He had no younger siblings, no nieces or nephews (that either of them knew of), and was genuinely fascinated to spend time with them. Jote knew how Joshua missed his own family. “Is it still safe here?” she asked.

“For you and him? Always,” Jote’s father promised. “Your mother and I, and Marian, wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Marian was Jote’s oldest sister. A full twelve years older than her, she had served in the Rosarian army too. She had been one of the Duchess’s own guards, briefly, before she left to marry a fellow soldier. Marian lived on the orchard now with her children, her husband having refused to serve the Vicereine and taking up employment as a private guard on merchant caravans. He was away often, for long periods of time. And as their parents aged, Marian took over more of the business of the orchard that required travelling - she was away discussing grafting with another orchard-keeper two towns over.

“The Vicereine has been sending her soldiers through the outlying towns,” her father continued. “Looking for someone named Cid and taking every Bearer who even meets their eyes.”

Jote didn’t blink, though she knew what her family did not - ‘Cid’ was the Lord Marquess, and any hunt for him made His Grace’s journey through Rosaria all the more perilous. “We’ve heard of the man,” Jote allowed, “and Her Majesty’s Black Shields.”

“It’s going to strangle us,” Jote’s mother said angrily. “Hardly a crystal to be had in the entire province except at twice the price, and now the Vicereine goes and kills our Branded just to stop an outlaw from taking them! We’ll be right here, but there are plenty that won’t be.”

“It’s not right how she’s treating them anyway,” her father said. “The Archduke never would have stood for it.”

None of them looked to Joshua, who was now answering questions about Kanver’s university from Jote’s elder niece Lissa.

“No,” Jote agreed.

Her father’s voice dropped to a whisper. “There are other rumours. People out east are saying that the Lord Marquess survived the Night of Flames.” His eyes, and his eyes alone, darted towards Joshua at that.

“You know I cannot tell you anything,” Jote said. “Not to confirm, not to deny.”

“Of course,” her mother said. “But in case he hadn’t heard it…”

“It’s too dangerous to speak of,” Jote said gently.

That was as much politics as they dared speak of, which told Jote more again. She couldn’t remember a time her mother had been afraid to speak her mind fully in her own kitchen.

The meal her parents set in front of them told its own tale as well. Her family was reasonably wealthy, by the standards of commoners, yet every time she visited there was less to eat. There was little to do about it but enjoy her mother’s roast chicken and grapes while she could.

Her parents saw them off before dawn the next morning, before any of the neighbours could see them and ask questions - and before her nieces and nephews could raise a fuss. Both her parents embraced her. “Be safe, girl,” her father warned her gruffly.

“You as well,” Jote said.

A mile down the road, His Grace said, “They’re frightened.”

“Yes, my lord. They are.”

His Grace sighed. There was a trace of a cough to it. The thing in his chest pained him greatly and Jote still did not know what she could do about it other than ease his pain. “It’s not going to get better,” he said. “Tell me true, Jote. Do you think I should have tried to wrest Rosaria back from the Empire?”

The answer, her answer, was on the tip of her tongue. But she couldn’t give it. “It’s not for me to say, my lord. These decisions are for you and you alone.”

“I see,” Joshua said. Perhaps he did. He was a clever man. “I suppose…I have made my decisions already. Looking back on roads not taken can do neither of us any good.”

A little further down the road, he added, “It was good to see your family. A shame your sisters were not there.”

It was. Nora was off with her own family in Port Isolde, but she’d hoped to see Marian and Winnie. She didn’t know when she could expect to see any of them. “Another time,” she said.

“It seems we both must say that in relation to our siblings.”

“Reports would have your brother in every corner of Storm,” Jote replied.

Joshua laughed. Actually laughed. “You see what I grew up with! Once he set his mind to something he wasn’t happy until he mastered every aspect of it. Nor was he happy unless he had something to set his mind to. Now that he’s free to do as he wills, I’m not surprised to hear he’s found himself a new purpose. He had a way of dragging people along with him, too.”

And now there were rumours of Clive Rosfield’s survival in Rosaria. Jote would have to think on that.

She knew Joshua would choose not to.

—

Drake’s Breath. Mount Drustanus. She could do this. She would do this.

They planned to travel through the hinterlands of Rosaria first, to gather more information on these Black Shields and whatever it was Anabella thought she was accomplishing with them. The village of Amber was the first they came across, a hamlet built along the side of a hill near Hawk’s Cry Cliff.

“I haven’t been here before,” Clive said. “There are few towns out this way and little to draw the Archduke’s attention. They paid their taxes, they cooperated with the magistrates, and caused very little trouble for anyone.”

“Sounds dull if you ask me,” Jill said.

Clive flashed her a smile. “I’m not expecting this to be a hotbed of rebellion against my mother,” he said. “I just want to hear what they have to say.”

It didn’t take long to see that life in Amber would never be easy. The soil here was not rich. The crop fields they passed were mostly gysahl greens, kale and the like. Hardy plants. The villagers probably relied on chocobos for their food. Nothing like Sanbreque’s sweeping wheatfields.

There was nowhere to hide a Bearer here, not in this small cluster of one-room houses.

As for the villagers themselves, they appeared poor and tense as they went about their business. Jill and Clive drew every eye they passed. They weren’t friendly stares, either.

Clive struck up a conversation with a nearby farmer over maybe buying supplies while Jill watched his back. The system they’d agreed on when they were first freed was flipped on its head, and it worked much better for it. Clive started guiding the conversation to how Amber fared while Jill kept her eyes on a farmer who’d sidled over to an old man with a mayor’s stole.

She doubted it was official. This place wasn’t big enough for the Archduke - or the Vicereine - to appoint a mayor. Still, a village chief was a village chief. While Clive asked the farmer if aught was amiss here, any trouble on the roads travellers should beward of, Jill watched the mayor move from watcher to watcher with quiet words for each person.

“Some folk,” and here the farmer spat, “have been attacking the Imperial garrison hereabouts. Theft of supplies, mostly, but there’s been a murder or two on the roads.”

“Bandits?” Clive asked.

“Firebrands,” the farmer said.

“Fortunate for us that we’re not Imperial soldiers. Do they pose a danger to anyone else, do you think?”

The mayor stepped forward and said, “They pose a threat to us.”

Clive whipped around. Jill readied her hand near her sword.

“The Firebrands will bring down the wrath of the Empire on us. I will not have this village become another Eastpool, you understand? You should leave, now.”

Well. Jill supposed they had the information they’d come for.

Clive seemed to think the same, because he inclined his head and said, “We’ll be on our way, then.”

They left by the back road, the one that skirted through the foothills past Shallop Rock. The path was a tangle of rocks and Fallen ruins, none of them in anything like the same condition as the Hideaway. It was a treacherous road, only used as a matter of last resort. But it was the fastest way to the Baum Arches, if one was fit enough to travel it.

When they were well away, Clive shook his head. “It won’t save them from my mother,” he said. “If she thinks she’s been slighted, they’re not going to be able to convince her.”

“I’m more interested in these Firebrands,” Jill said. “Ducal loyalists, do you think?”

“I assume so. Let’s keep our ears open. They may be useful contacts later.”

Jill was less sure. But then, she was not a Rosarian. Clive loved his homeland. He had his preferences. He believed the best of Rosarians, on the whole, in a way he’d never believe the best of Imperials. In a way that Jill herself would never believe the best of Rosarians in general. These Firebrands could as easily be little more than bandits than they could be honest Rosarian soldiers.

The walk was a good one. The weather was clear and fine, the breeze from the mountains bracing if slightly Blight-smelling. They were just about to start discussing camping for the evening when they arrived at a clearing full of Fallen stonework.

There was the expected spire there. It flashed when Clive approached it. After two and a half years Jill was used to it by now. They simply had to be careful that such things didn’t give their presence away.

Then what looked to be scraps of stone rose and formed themselves into the insectoid shapes of the Fallen guard-creatures they’d first encountered in the Apodytery.

“Fuck,” Clive said.

At least none of them were the towering sort that wielded two swords of light each as large as Clive’s. These were more of a nuisance. The rough ground made the fight more difficult, but Jill had improved a great deal in the past years. Actually being allowed to practice consistently was paying off in full. 

“I say we camp here,” Jill said. “I think we’ve cleared this area and I don’t want to fight any more of them in the dark.”

“Agreed,” Clive said.

“The Cursebreakers are reporting more and more of these things in the hinterlands,” Jill said. “Does Tomes have any idea what’s causing it?”

“Best he’s come up with is the Mothercrystal’s collapse,” Clive said.

“That seems…reasonable.” From what she’d heard from Tomes herself, the effects of a Mothercrystal collapsing were not well documented. It wasn’t her area of expertise. She didn’t have an area of expertise other than killing.

There was a look in Clive’s eyes, though. A doubt.

She didn’t mention it. What did she know about any of this? If Clive had his own theories, he’d tell her, or someone who knew better than her, in due time.

Chapter Text

The next village was more of a town. Auldhyl. Clive had been to Auldhyl before, several times, with both his father and his uncle. The shipwrights of Auldhyl were some of the best in Rosaria.

There should have been more traffic on the road, Clive thought. But they passed the Baum Arches, the most difficult part of the Trans-Rosarian Aqueduct to build, and…nothing. He and Jill had to dodge Imperial patrols a time or two, but the ordinary people of Rosaria were just not on the roads.

No trade. Now more than ever, with the Blight closing in and neither Bearers nor technology to assist, they needed to trade. What was his mother doing?

He was so distracted he didn’t notice the shapes in the early morning fog off the Fingers until Jill put a hand on his elbow. Black Shields, she mouthed.

Black Shields. The rage came back. Ifrit, always burning inside but not always so ready to make itself known, flickered a bit closer to his skin.

He thought of the village of Amber and their fear of Imperial soldiers murdered near their roads. “We should let them pass,” he said.

He didn’t want to. He would much rather tear into them. Words and swords both. How dare they disgrace the Shields of Rosaria so. How dare they terrorise Rosaria’s citizens?

But it wasn’t the smart thing to do. Not if it would result in immediate reprisals on nearby villagers. Instead, he and Jill veered off the road themselves and let the Black Shields pass. They had to cut this off at its source. Attacking random patrols wouldn’t fix that.

He regretted it when they approached Auldhyl and Torgal started to growl deep in his chest.

“Enemies?” Clive asked.

Torgal barked and ran off ahead. Unlikely to be enemies then. He didn’t run off when there were hostiles about.

Which meant something worse than a fight with bandits. Clive broke into a run.

The gates of Auldhyl were open. No, not just open. They were hanging askew.

“Is that blood?” Jill asked.

Torgal was still growling. Now Clive could smell it too. Blood, yes. And gut wound. They pelted through the gates, knowing that whatever they saw it would be bad -

- But not this bad.

More than a dozen Bearers had been crucified in the main square. Some of them had been crucified upside-down for an even more agonising death. Clive went to check each of them, hoping against hope that even one would still be breathing. None were. None were even warm. The smell of blood was coming from the villagers, who had been cut down and left to rot in the streets. They were all dead a day or more.

“Why?” Clive asked. There were sparks on his breath. Ifrit, ever quick to feed on his rage. He could make this village a pyre for those murdered here. He was eager to do so. But he tamped it back down. There was more they needed to do in Rosaria, and they’d never manage it if he lost his temper.

“Clive,” Jill said, “Look at this.”

She’d found a sign. He’d pushed past it in his rush to reach the Bearers.

“Ducal dogs,” he read. Next to it was a crudely sketched Rosarian sigil crossed out violently. “This has to stop, Jill. Somehow we have to stop this.”

“How? How do we stop an empire?”

It struck him like twin levinbolts. Cid’s inspiration. “Twinside,” he whispered, as if the Emperor himself might be eavesdropping. “We destroy Drake’s Tail, and I take Bahamut from Dion Lesage. If we take their second Mothercrystal and their Dominant both…”

“…they’ll have too much to do to bother with Rosaria,” Jill finished.

They stood before the sign and the murdered Bearers, the fall of an Empire in their minds.

“Drake’s Breath first,” Clive said, voice ragged. “Then the Empire.”

They didn’t have the time to bury the Bearers or the villagers, and burning the town would be a beacon for the local garrison. The most they could do was take down the posts and smash the sign. They may have to leave these people to lie, but they would not let them be used as a display.

Clive brooded as they moved on. He knew he was brooding. Jill left him to it; Torgal stayed close. They started to pass a few more people on the roads. Most of them carried their worldly possessions with them. Refugees. Heading for Rosalith or Port Isolde, Clive would bet. At the Bewit Bridge, the great bridge across the Fingers, there was a crowd.

“No passage!” they heard the Imperial soldiers calling. “By order of the Vicereine, the city is sealed!”

Rosalith had only ever been sealed to citizens in times of desperate emergencies. Ironblood imminently bearing down on the capital sort of emergencies. The city was supposed to be a place of safety. All these people would have grown up with the knowledge that Rosalith was there and would shelter them in times of trouble. Now his mother turned her back on that.

The road to Port Isolde was another day and a half of travel from the Bewit Bridge. There were still more people on this road, the refugees turned away from Rosalith making for another place of safety.

“Do you think Port Isolde will be open?” Jill asked.

“If Rosalith itself has closed? I doubt it.”

The walled district of the Lazarus, across from the fine white sands of the Silken Strand, came into view first. Clive hadn’t spent much time there in his youth. The main branch of the Rosfields kept their manse in Port Isolde itself. His mother’s side of the family had a house there, of course, but she had never wanted to take him. Back when he was a child, the gates had been shut against the ‘riffraff’, as his mother had called them, but not chained as they were now. Vines overran the walls. Not the fashionably manicured sort. There was not even a guard. The place appeared entirely abandoned.

The most fashionable area of Port Isolde, where the realm’s wealthiest families came to spend their summers. A chained-up, abandoned ruin.

At least the people who were affected by the ruin of the Lazarus could most afford to weather the loss.

“Mother would have purged it,” Clive said. “If she’s taking Bearers from villagers…she would not have suffered the other High Houses to keep their manses.”

“How reassuring to know she takes from rich and poor alike,” Jill said. Clive snorted.

Past the Lazarus, there was a riot on the road.

Refugees clustered about the gates, howling invective at the Imperials stationed there. A large troop, far larger than Clive had been used to seeing as a boy, but perhaps only just enough to keep this crowd at bay. They passed tents. What seemed like a whole village of makeshift tents. Here and there a wagon had been turned into a temporary dwelling. Some people had brought the tools of their trade with them. Valuable objects.

“They’re not letting anybody in,” Clive said. “Not for any price.”

“So we find another way,” Jill said.

There was one. He’d hoped not to use it, mostly to keep it in reserve for their exit from Port Isolde. “Come on,” Clive said. “Back to the Lazarus.”

He held his tongue until they were at the chained gate, where refugees were not even bothering to approach. He’d rather not be overheard. “There are a few houses in here with secret passages to Port Isolde,” he explained. Jill raised an eyebrow. “The oldest, usually. Some nobles don’t want to be bothered by guards. You know the sort.”

The district itself was an utter ruin. From the looks of it, nobody had been here in, what, ten years? Twelve? The vines that were taking over the walls had started to tear apart the houses too. There were slates missing from every rooftop. Trees had dropped branches, sometimes through the structures, and had never been repaired.

It was a sad sight, in its way. This was once a busy place.

Clive stopped dead when he saw the footprints in the mud. Those were fresh. “Squatters,” he said. “We’d best be careful. Torgal, keep an ear out.”

Torgal took the lead as they advanced deeper into the district, towards the house that had once belonged to Clive’s maternal grandmother. They hadn’t walked ten minutes before Torgal started to growl.

Clive looked up and saw a man in plain brown behind the nearest barred gate. As soon as he realised that Clive had seen him, he whistled. 

“We’ll show ourselves out,” Clive said. He turned, Jill at his heels, but there were more approaching from behind them. “Maybe not.” He drew his sword. “Let’s try not to kill them.”

One of them barked a laugh, and the fight was on.

—

To Wade’s surprise, the sounds of a fight kept going. The scout signals had indicated two people. Two people only. Oscar bolted in and said, “Sir! Your assistance in the courtyard!”

He waved at the others to form up on him.

The house they used as headquarters was on a higher level than the courtyard, allowing them a good vantage point on the fight. The intruders were a man and a woman. The man was tall and broad, with a head of shaggy dark hair not unlike Wade’s own, and a Rosarian greatsword. The woman was slender and silver-haired, clearly a Northerner, and fighting with a rapier.

Both were Bearers, Wade realised. Ice bloomed across the courtyard, fouling the footing of Wade’s men. Her companion - there was fire at his hands, which he was using to blind and distract rather than maim. Even as Wade watched, the man seemed to shift between one point and another in a flash of warm orange light.

There were no bodies. The intruders were not trying to kill. In fact, they were trying not to kill.

And those flames…

Wade had been a Shield for half his life. He whistled, calling for his people to back off. The intruders stood in the centre, breathing a little hard, but still prepared to fight. Wade focused on the man. He knew that face, didn’t he? Without the vicious scar along the jaw… “I’ve only seen one man fight like you,” Wade called down, “And he’s dead!”

Fire gathered in the man’s hand. Warm and orange-gold. He did know that flame. He served that flame. Before Wade could say so, the fireball was flashing past his eyes with a rejoinder of “Perhaps you should join him!”

It couldn’t be. Wade had been there the day he’d died. But he even had the same look in his eyes.

Wade waved for the others to stay back and leapt down.

“The Blessing of the Phoenix,” he said. “My lord Rosfield, is that really you?”

The man blinked. The fury drained from his expression. “Sir Wade?”

He hadn’t expected that the Lord Marquess would know him after all these years. He grasped the hilt of his sword and saluted. “In the flesh, my lord,” he said, unable to stop the very improper grin. “I thought you dead!”

“And I you,” Lord Rosfield said, reaching out a hand to clasp Wade’s.

There had been rumours, lately. Wade had discounted them all and discouraged his people from repeating them. He had been there, that night. He had seen the flames and felt the infernal heat against his skin. He had fled blindly, unable to even think of fighting back. He had thought - he had been convinced - that nobody within the castle itself could have survived. Never had Wade been so glad to be wrong.

“Stand down!” Wade ordered the others, who had started murmuring as soon as Wade had called him Rosfield. “My lord, if you’ll follow me?”

“Of course. I don’t suppose you remember Jill?”

Wade glanced to the woman by Lord Rosfield’s side and tried to match the skinny knock-kneed little hostage girl with the woman grown who’d fought alongside the Lord Marquess with grace and ice. “My lady,” he greeted her. Even in dirty, worn travelling clothes, Lady Warrick was a beauty. She offered her hand for Wade to shake as well. Whatever had become of her, she was clearly a fighting woman now. Hard to disapprove. Times were difficult, and it was clear she remained close to Lord Rosfield.

“You must be the Firebrands we’ve been hearing of in the villages hereabouts,” Lord Rosfield said, as Wade led them back into their makeshift living quarters-cum-headquarters.

“We prefer Guardians of the Flame,” Wade said. “Most of the Shields technically deserted once we saw the ideas the new Vicereine had about running Rosaria. The way we see it, she deserted us first. It’s more than we could ever have dreamed to discover you live, my lord,” Wade said. “If I may ask, how by the Flames did you survive that beast? You must have been in the courtyard with it!”

“It’s…a long and complicated story,” the Lord Marquess said. “But when I woke the next morning I was in Imperial custody.” His hand went to his face, where the scar was. “They branded me and sent me to the army. I was there for thirteen years.”

Fury. Sudden and strong. The sort of anger that always had the Lord Commander telling him to get a grip before he hurt someone, probably himself. “Those barbarians,” he hissed. “They spit on our traditions. They spit on the Phoenix.”

“I deserted almost three years ago,” Lord Rosfield said, ignoring Wade’s outrage. It wasn’t a thing Wade would want to dwell on either. “I, ah - you may have heard of Cid?”

“The Outlaw? The one who helped Lady Shiva destroy Drake’s Head and gave the Imperials the worst black eye they’ve suffered in centuries?”

Lord Rosfield and Lady Warrick looked at each other. “It didn’t happen quite like that,” Lady Warrick said. “I was just holding the gate.”

“My predecessor, the first Cid, was the one who destroyed the crystal, and it wasn’t to hurt the Empire,” Lord Rosfield said, while Wade’s mind whirled at the implications of what Lady Warrick just said. “Sir Wade - we’ve learned that the Mothercrystals cause the Blight. They all have to go. For the good of everyone.”

That -

That was -

“I think,” Wade said, voice a bit shakier than he’d like, “I think I’d like to see some proof.”

“Of course,” Lord Rosfield said. “Write to Martha of Martha’s Rest. She knows how to contact me. We can put you in touch with some scholars. In the meantime, we are devoted to freeing Bearers.”

A goal to make his father proud. And one he must have a different perspective on now.

“We’ve been doing much the same, where we can,” Wade said. “We didn’t start out with that in mind, but when we took some from the Imperials a number begged to help us. They’re no fonder of the Empire than we are, my lord, and those who are willing to fight make good recruits.”

Lord Rosfield’s face lit up. “Truly? And your soldiers accept them?”

“With some adjustment, yes,” Wade said.

“I should like to meet any of them you have with you at present.”

“Easily done, my lord.”

They made the introductions over the fire that night. The Lord Marquess had been rather tightly wound as a boy, but now he seemed to have an easy word for everyone. Very like his late father. Just the sight of him, back where he belonged, was enough to give Wade renewed hope. “He seems happy,” he commented to Lady Warrick.

“Much more so these days,” she said, with a thoughtful smile. “He loves Rosaria. He believes in our work. He has purpose.”

Rosaria was a different place these days. “He’s seen the Black Shields?”

“A few times now. He tore one group apart in the aftermath of one of their cullings. We came through Auldhyl on the way here too.”

Wade shook his head. “The Vicereine cares less for the duchy every day. You were the ones who cut the Bearers down?”

“We were.”

“My people gave them decent burials,” he said. “We can’t do much, but we could do that.”

“How long have you been fighting?” Lady Warrick asked.

He wondered if she was thinking of the Northern Territories. He would, in her place. “A long time. Since the start. Sometimes I think we’re fighting in vain, but Rosaria is my home, and I swore to fight for her.” As long as the Firebird’s flame burned in even one heart, the Duchy would not die.

And to know that the Lord Marquess lived - he had to speak to the other Lord Rosfield about this. This could change a great many things for the Guardians of the Flame.

—

“Show him through.”

“My lord,” his steward said, ducked his head, and did as he was told.

Hugo didn’t usually receive visitors in his bath, but for news of Cid, he wouldn’t wait. Not even to dress. What was the spy going to do to him, anyway? Naked or clothed, Hugo could call on the powers of Titan in a second, and blades would do the wielder no good.

His Rosarian spy kept his eyes down as he addressed Hugo. “My lord, the Empress has made certain orders…circulated descriptions…”

“What are they?” Hugo growled. “Speak up.”

“My lord. We have reason to believe that Empress Anabella believes that the second Cid is, in fact, her son Clive. Clive Rosfield. The one who was thought to be dead.”

Clive Rosfield…the closest thing Rosaria had to a prince.

Hugo could work with that.

Chapter Text

If Joshua had known that this was the state of Rosaria right now, he would not have suggested travelling through it. Jote grew more stressed with every league they passed - and every patrol.

It didn’t help that Joshua’s particular ailment was starting to trouble him again in the damp Rosarian air. Quite unfair, if you asked Joshua; surely a magical ailment shouldn’t be so sensitive to mundane weather conditions. But when he mentioned it to Jote she only answered with a look of disbelief and a sharply worded explanation that she expected the magical ailment to make his normal conditions worse again.

“We will get further if we travel slowly but steadily,” Jote said. “What we do not have time for is for you to fall ill.”

Joshua didn’t have time for anything. He could feel the slight shortness of breath always, slowly turning to a constant pain. He didn’t know how much time he had before his condition immobilised him, but he suspected if that time was measured in years rather than months, it would not be many.

They camped outside the town of Beechstand, not daring to show their faces within. Not because they thought Joshua would be recognised, but because they were outsiders. Nevertheless, Jote went alone to gather information and hopefully some more fresh supplies.

“There’s word of ducal loyalists in the area, my lord,” Jote reported. “They are growing more bold in response to the Vicereine’s so-called ‘culling’ of Bearers.”

“Really? After so long?”

“My order remains loyal,” Jote pointed out. “Not all of Rosaria will be so quick to forget the Rosfields. These loyalists call themselves the Guardians of the Flame, though some call them Firebrands. It sounds as though they are made up from the remnants of Rosaria’s Shields. The Vicereine clamps down on what she sees to be rebellion, and even as some are cowed into submission, others come to find Imperial rule intolerable.”

“Indeed?” Joshua perked up. He would have expected his mother to dispose of them. If Jote told it true, they’d seen it coming. “That is something to report to Cyril.”

Jote hesitated. “He won’t be pleased, my lord. The rumours of your brother’s survival are spreading. The people may well start to look to him as their Archduke.”

Joshua blinked. “Clive wouldn’t accept it,” he said. “He’s had three years, but he continues as Cid the Outlaw. Whatever loyalty he has to Rosaria, he’s made his choice about who and what to fight for.”

“You know that Cyril will not accept that, my lord.”

“Cyril doesn’t know Clive. We will have to have the argument again.” And again. As many times as he needed to.

Besides. Joshua had never wanted to be Archduke, and Joshua wasn’t going to live much longer. Why shouldn’t Rosaria look to Clive? Clive was better suited to the role as it were.

Such thoughts kept him occupied all night and well into the next morning, when they ran into a patrol of Black Shields.

“Halt!” the leader barked. “State your business!”

“Travelling merchants, my lord,” Jote said. “We are making for Lowbridge.”

“With no trade goods?”

“Lost in a bandit attack, my lord.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Auldhyl,” Jote lied.

It was the wrong answer. The Black Shields stiffened. “Auldhyl,” the captain said slowly. “That makes you either traitors or liars, then. Weapons down. You are under arrest in the name of the Holy Empire.”

Jote looked to him. Joshua said, “No survivors.”

If the Black Shields were labelling all from Auldhyl traitors, then Auldhyl had been ‘culled’. Joshua was not of a mind to let that pass, any more than he was of a mind to allow himself to be thrown into an Imperial dungeon.

His attendant didn’t bother affirming the order. She drew her sword and flew at the Black Shields. He knew only a very few as skilled with a blade as her. She was not as physically strong as any of these men, no doubt, but strength was not everything. She was fast, precise, and usually a literal step ahead in her thinking. Her blade slid between gaps in armour. Joshua stayed back, using his fire to keep the entire squad from converging on her, unwilling to reveal he was anything but a Bearer.

In the end, he did not need to draw his own sword. Just as well. He was competent with it, but nothing more. Jote finished the last of them off with a delicate slice behind the man’s knee, quickly followed by her dagger through his visor when he fell.

“Can I help you hide the bodies?” Joshua asked.

“We can’t burn them. Too much evidence.” Jote surveyed the road. “It’ll have to be the marshes for them. Search them for gil and crystals. We need to make it look as much like ordinary bandits as possible in case they’re found.”

It probably wouldn’t be enough to prevent reprisals. Yet what else were they to do? They could not allow themselves to be captured.

This was his mother’s doing. He bore his own responsibility for how he handled the situation, but the fact he could not yet reveal himself was her fault. It was, as ever, difficult to come to terms with. His mother had loved him. As much as she was capable of it. He was sure of it. Just as he was sure she loved so little else.

He helped Jote drag the bodies into the marshes. They couldn’t spare the time to take them far.

“We stay off the roads from now on,” Jote said. “I am sorry, my lord. Our journey will be slower and less comfortable for it.”

“It’s nothing we have not endured before.”

He tried to say it bravely. Physical conditions aside, this was not the Rosaria he’d grown up in. He did not know what his mother was trying to make of it.

—

Clive awoke in the morning refreshed in spirit if less so in body. He had never dreamed that there would be true loyalists remaining - and even less that they had made their own progress in freeing Bearers!

There was still a long way to go. Each of the Bearer-soldiers he’d talked to the night before had quietly admitted that sometimes their unbranded fellows made certain assumptions, or that they took on unequal shares of distasteful work, or felt compelled to use their magic, but it was still progress. Some had chosen names of their own, different from those that had been given to them. Others had learned to use weapons. A few, a Bearer named Clementine had confided in him, had even learned their letters. Fuck, he had to get some of these people to the Hideaway, especially those who couldn’t fight. They could learn more than their letters there.

But they couldn’t stay there forever. “We were hoping to gain entry to Port Isolde,” Clive told Sir Wade. “We’re aware of the passage.”

“You’re going to see Lord Byron?”

“Indeed. We need his assistance.”

Sir Wade chuckled. “He’s been giving his assistance to us freely. I nearly got myself killed sneaking into Port Isolde the first time. No doubt he’ll be thrilled to see you, my lord - if you can convince him you are who you say. He’s grown suspicious over the years. Deceiving the Vicereine has taken its toll on him.”

His poor uncle. Perhaps Clive should have contacted him earlier. But how to explain everything? He couldn’t tell it to Wade. He was the Dominant who had doomed Rosaria. “Thank you for the warning,” he said. “Is there a way you could send word ahead of us so we can at least get through his gates?”

“He won’t believe this on my word alone,” Wade replied.

“That’s fine. I expect he’ll leave us waiting for a while and come to kill me himself.”

“Clive,” Jill protested.

“I’m not going to let him,” Clive said, “I just need to ensure I can see him in person first.”

Wade sent a runner. By mid-morning she’d returned bearing instructions for ’Sir Wade’s guests’ to call upon Lord Byron at two hours past moonrise that night.

“He’ll be waiting for us with his axe,” Clive predicted.

“As long as you know it,” said Jill.

At moonrise, he and Jill said their temporary farewells to Sir Wade and his fellow Guardians of the Flame and took the tunnel into Port Isolde. It was narrow but well-constructed, having been used by Rosarian nobility for decades. They emerged into Port Isolde’s wealthiest district, in an otherwise unremarkable alley between the old counting-house and the Rosfield Manor. That was well, because the city bore the signs of curfew. Nobody was on the streets save for guards. Clive and Jill waited in the shadows until a patrol passed, then scurried as thieves to the trades entrance.

As soon as they knocked, a guard opened the door for them. “Sir Wade’s guests?” he asked.

“We are,” Clive confirmed.

They were escorted in by not one but two guards, then handed off to a steward, a man some fifteen or so years Clive’s senior that he didn’t recognise. That wasn’t unexpected; Clive recalled his uncle’s last steward being nearly sixty when Clive himself was fifteen. It was unlikely this new steward would recognise him. Rutherford, he introduced himself as.

Rutherford showed them into the parlour. It was…not just as Clive remembered it, but it was close. The carved furniture upholstered in green velvet, the heavy low table in rich red wood. The preserved wyvern head on the wall. Some of the ornamental weaponry and paintings were different, but Uncle Byron had ever rotated through his collection. And of course -

“The couerl’s new,” Jill said. “Do you think your uncle really hunted it himself?”

It was a huge specimen, perfectly preserved and standing in pride of place not far from the table. When Clive was young, that space had been taken up by a sculpture of…Metia delivering a message to the Moon, yes.

“You remember the rule,” Clive said. “Nothing displayed that Uncle Byron didn’t obtain himself.” Though he wondered what had driven his uncle to pursue something so dangerous.

His attention was caught by a painting in the dimmest corner of the room. It showed a figure in red. Elwin Rosfield, on the day of his accession to the Duchy, only a few months before Clive was born.

Clive looked up at it. He hadn’t seen his father’s face in a very long time. Now, here…this depiction showed him as younger than Clive. Captured at the age of twenty. The painter had caught his father’s strength and conviction.

“Interested in that one, are you?” a harsh voice said. “A good likeness, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Clive said. “I wasn’t born when this was painted. I never knew him at this age. The eyes look right.”

He took a deep breath and turned to face his uncle.

Time had not been kind to Byron Rosfield. Clive remembered his uncle as a broad, laughing figure, always neat as a pin and dressed in the latest fashions. But though Byron was not yet fifty, he could have passed for sixty or more. His hair had gone full grey, his beard was no longer so neatly trimmed, there were deep lines on his face that Clive knew hadn’t been there fifteen years ago, and he was starting to run to fat.

He hefted his axe as confidently as ever, though.

“Imagine my surprise,” Byron said, “when Sir Wade told me my nephew had come to visit.”

“He told you true,” Clive replied. “Here I am.”

Utter fury took over his uncle’s face. “Clive Rosfield died long ago. For claiming his name, you will pay with your tongue.”

Clive backed up, against the panelled wall. “It is I, Sir Crandall of Camelot,” he recited. The Saint and the Sectary. His uncle had taken him to see it almost every year since he was eight, and humoured him when play-acting it out at home. Or here, in this room, all those years ago. He did not draw his sword, but simply mimicked the motion from the famous scene. “Loyal servant to Her Serene Holiness, Saint Sybil the Unshod.” A flourish. Even after all these years…

His uncle dropped his axe with a heavy thunk. It landed blade down and chipped the edge. Byron didn’t seem to notice. “Curse you,” he said, stuttering out Madu’s next lines. Clive smiled at him. Byron’s voice gained steadiness as he continued through the dialogue, Clive contributing his own lines.

When Byron finished, Clive applauded. “Still the finest Madu in the Twins,” he said.

“Clive?” his uncle asked.

“It’s me, uncle. I’m sorry I didn’t come back earlier.”

His uncle’s hug knocked the air from his lungs. “Sooner than I expected.”

Clive could do little but allow his uncle to weep on his shoulder for several minutes. Truth be told he was crying as well. After a few minutes, aware that Jill was still there and waiting, he said, “Uncle, we need your help.”

“Anything,” Byron said.

“We need a ship.”

His uncle straightened up, though he did not let go of Clive’s shoulders. His eyes were red and watery. “Of course. But first - tell me everything. Or don’t, and you’ll still have your ship.”

“Everything I can,” Clive promised.

—

Now that Byron had been convinced, Jill slipped away to give Clive some time with his uncle. She suspected they’d be talking long into the night. She hoped they’d be talking long into the night.

She wondered if he’d tell his uncle that Joshua lived. He carried the feather he’d salvaged from Drake’s Head with him always; he had the proof.

She let Rutherford show her to a room. The very room she’d usually stayed in whenever she’d visited Port Isolde with Clive and Joshua as a girl - the one for honoured guests, a spacious room with a glass window to let in the morning sun. Clive would no doubt be in one of the family rooms, whenever he finally went to sleep. There was a light repast on the low table and a basin of steaming water in the small private washroom, both saving her the trouble of calling for anything else. Or going looking for it. It had been a very long time since Jill had been waited on.

It was not enough to distract her. Clive’s plan had gone off without a hitch. They would have their ship to Mount Drustanus. It was going to happen. Soon.

She thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she must have dropped off, because she snapped awake at a knock on her door. She was atop her blankets, still fully dressed, cloudy light streaming through the window.

“My lady?” a voice at the door said.

“I’m awake,” Jill called.

“Lord Byron requests your presence for breakfast at your leisure,” the servant said, without opening the door.

She did her best to tidy up, aware all over again that she’d become accustomed to travelling light. Spare clothes were…not high on the priority list.

Although, when she reached the dining room, she was not the only one in the same clothes as the previous night. Lord Byron himself looked as if he hadn’t gone to his bed at all. “Lady Jill!” he greeted her, warm and enthusiastic. “Sit down, sit down, eat! I am sorry we didn’t have the chance to catch up properly last night!”

“I completely understand,” Jill said.

“I doubt my nephew has betrayed your confidences, but he has told me some little of what happened to you - the Dominant of Shiva!” His face grew serious. “And that you were gravely mistreated by the Ironblood. On behalf of House Rosfield, I apologise. It was our duty to ensure your safety in Rosalith.”

Safety…from everything but the Rosfields themselves. The Archduke was a good man, his brother was a good man, Clive and Joshua went without saying…but Anabella. Anabella was different. “You couldn’t have known. Neither could the Archduke.”

“Even so. My house failed in its duty to you. I might not be the best person to apologise, but I doubt you’ll get what you deserve from Her Grace.”

“I hold no grudges against anyone but Anabella Lesage and the Ironblood themselves,” Jill said.

“And now, Clive tells me, you intend to go to Mount Drustanus itself. Strength in the finest tradition of your clan.”

“You flatter me,” Jill said. It wasn’t strength that was taking her back. Quite the opposite. She had to cut out this weakness in her. The broken thing the Ironblood had made of her. Her parents would be ashamed of all she’d done with Shiva. The pride of the North made a slave.“What is it you want?”

“Aside from seeing for myself that you are as well as can be after your various ordeals?” Byron sighed. “My nephew is not much of a liar, it’s true…but I doubt time has broken him of his habit of simply leaving out those things that shouldn’t concern us. Like his own wellbeing. There are gaps in his story. How has he been, these past years? Truly?”

“Better since he escaped the Empire,” Jill said. Gaps, Byron said. Jill could guess where. “He doesn’t talk of what he went through before. I can hardly blame him. Working to help Bearers makes him happy.”

“Happy.” Byron sighed. “I feared happiness would be something he never attained. He’s too much like his father, or maybe Elwin taught him about duty too well. But I am glad to hear it, Lady Jill.”

They finished their breakfast talking only of lighter subjects.

After dark that evening Byron had one of his guards escort them to the shipyard to see the carrack he had ordered fit out for their journey into the Boiling Sea. It was blatant defiance of curfew, not that any of them cared. Byron pressed some gil into the hands of a town guard commander and nothing more was said about their late-night ship inspection.

Byron took them both around the carrack, but while he was explaining-cum-haranguing Clive about ships (Clive hadn’t been on many and had little opportunity to learn), Jill slipped off again. Right to the end of the pier. The wind off the Boiling Sea was only cold in winter. This late in spring it was warm. The air smelled of salt and tar and wood.

It was impossible to see the light from Drake’s Breath from Port Isolde. The only time you could see a sign of it from shore was after an eruption, when the smoke drifted across to Rosaria.

Jill knew it was out there anyway.

She heard Clive’s footsteps behind her but she didn’t turn to face him. Another one of those moments when she wasn’t sure she could bear the concern in his gaze. His care. She didn’t deserve it.

“They made me a monster,” she said.

Another man might have told her it wasn’t true. Clive had destroyed a castle, grievously injured his own brother, and spent thirteen years nothing more than a blade in someone else’s hand. He said, “Did you want to talk about it?”

“No. But you should know.”

He moved up to stand alongside her. Close enough that she could feel how hot he ran. “You’ve got more business there than just destroying Drake’s Breath,” he said.

Jill took a deep breath. Salt and sea air. She’d spent so much time with that scent. “When I was a slave to the Ironblood, I was the charge of their Patriarch himself. Imreann. He was the one who - who worked out how he could force me. He brought children - he’d do horrible things -”

The memories flooded in on her. Blood and worse.

When she didn’t say more, Clive finished, “So you did as they said. To stop the pain.”

“It didn’t work,” Jill said. “Instead of them doing horrible things, I did horrible things. To hundreds of people. Thousands. And it still hurt. Until I learned how not to feel anything at all. By the time you found me, I - I don’t know if even the children would have mattered. I just wanted it to stop. I didn’t see any other way I could not be a monster except my death.”

Another silence.

“I don’t want to be a monster, Clive,” she said. She turned to face him. If she could not face him, how could she face what waited for her on Mount Drustanus? “I want to kill Imreann for what he did to me and lay it all to rest. Kill him and take every child we can from Mount Drustanus so whoever replaces him can’t terrorise them too. Killing Imreann…that’s for me. It’s what I need to move forward.”

So at last she could stop reminding herself that not all men were like him. So she knew that he was dead and that she had fought back.

Clive seized first her left hand, then her right. “I will be there for you. As you were there for me. Whatever you need of me, I will give it. All I want is for you to be well, whatever that means for you. We’ll do it together. Or if that’s not what you want, then I will be at your back.”

Jill looked at him then. He was staring into her eyes earnestly. He meant it. He meant almost everything he said. He was the most sincere person she knew.

She loved him. She wanted to spend her entire life with him. However long that might be. She wanted to fight alongside him for the cause they both believed in.

She loved him and she wasn’t worthy of him.

But she would be.

Killing Imreann was just the start.

Chapter Text

Since journeying back to the Hideaway would be a waste of time and just as dangerous as staying near Port Isolde, they stayed.

“At least we get beds, baths, and three meals a day,” Jill said. If her amusement and relief didn’t quite reach her eyes, Clive wasn’t going to comment.

They did send a stolas back, and received one in reply from Otto. The Hideaway was well. They’d lost two Cursebreakers in Dhalmekia and another in northern Rosaria. They couldn’t sustain those losses. They needed more allies.

So he took the tunnel back to Sir Wade’s camp. The best way to make allies was to help others, after all.

Sir Wade was less enthusiastic. “Of course we’re grateful for any and all assistance you can give us, my lord,” he said, “But do you know what your lord uncle would do to me if he found out I got you hurt on a routine raid?”

“I’ve done far more dangerous things,” Clive said.

“I don’t doubt it, my lord. With respect, it’s been a long time since you’ve done dangerous things with blood family waiting for you at home.”

“Allow me to manage my uncle, Sir Wade. Just let me know where I can be of assistance.”

Sir Wade sighed. “We’re raiding through the foothills around Rosalith. If we make enough trouble, we think we can draw out some of the Imperial troops quartered in the city and start smuggling more people inside.”

“How fortuitous that I have some fifteen years of experience in similar situations.”

After that, Wade’s only question was whether Jill would be coming as well. To which she said yes - she hated the cullings as much as the next decent person.

“I hope you don’t feel obliged to fight for Rosaria,” he said.

“I don’t. But this will help us at the Hideaway too, and that matters to me more than fighting for a country that isn’t mine.”

So they left a message for his uncle and went out into the foothills to start harassing Black Shields. The Guardians of the Flame were good at what they did, moving frequently, maintaining relationships with sympathetic villagers, and reporting back to their fellows. In little more than a week, Clive and Jill had freed four more Bearers. It was unlikely they would ever make Cursebreakers - the Imperials were only leaving Rosaria with the most fragile of Bearers - but they were owed their freedom regardless.

When they came back, his uncle was not best pleased. “It’s a great deal of danger for very little reward,” he said.

“Uncle, I did tell you that we fight for the freedom of Bearers. That hasn’t stopped just because we also intend to destroy a Mothercrystal.”

“I might fund the Guardians of the Flame, but I am not so blind to believe in their cause,” Byron said. “Rosaria is dead, Clive. The Guardians are dead soldiers walking. They intend to go down fighting, but their chances of success are next to nothing. I do not want you risking your life with theirs. Please…do not make me bury you again.”

“I will do what I feel I must, uncle. I don’t intend to die. If you wish to help, tell me what I need to know.”

His uncle tried to stare him down. Clive raised his chin and refused to relent despite the guilt that stabbed at him. He hadn’t told his uncle the full truth of the Night of Flames. He couldn’t hide it forever. He had very little of his own moral high ground to stand on, but for the sake of Wade and his people…

“Very well,” Byron said at last, “Some more information on Rosarian politics as they currently stand.”

He sat Clive down in his parlour again for the lecture, though he spared Jill. He poured fine black tea, an expensive rarity from the southern islands (and only growing rarer and more costly as the Blight swallowed those lands). If Clive didn’t know better, he’d think his uncle was trying to bribe him into staying somewhere safe.

“The Vicereine might be in charge of all that happens here in Rosaria, but she is not often in Rosalith,” Byron said. “Emeric, Cardinal of the Rosarian Province, handles most of her administration. Or at least he has for most of the past ten years or thereabouts. In recent months, Sir Nazaire Defeu has had the Vicereine’s favour. She’s named him an honorary dragoon and given him the title Knight of the Lasting Dark.”

“A dragoon?” Clive asked. “Prince Dion will know it for an attack on his position.” As well as another offensive mimicry of a Shield’s oaths.

“No doubt it is. Her focus has changed since she bore the Emperor a son. I would be surprised if she did not intend to see Olivier on the throne. Anabella looks beyond Rosaria now.”

“A legitimate son in conflict with bastard-born Bahamut,” Clive mused. “A Sanbrequois conflict for sure.” For Rosarians, it was simple. The Phoenix had pre-eminence over all other would-be heirs. Man, woman, bastard. The Phoenix saw what humans could not and chose its Dominant as it would. He’d pass it on to Vivian. She’d know what to make of it.

“The Cardinal is shrewd and cautious. The Knight of the Lasting Dark -” the words were liberally coated in sarcasm - “is a brute, but not one completely devoid of brains. There is animal cunning there. Neither are to be taken lightly. They are competent enough tacticians.”

“Even competent tacticians can struggle to eradicate groups such as the Guardians. My own unit in the Imperial Army occaasionally had to deal with Marshal Havel sending his troops out against us.”

“Marshal Havel? Eugen Havel? Clive.”

“Exactly my point, Uncle. We retreated into the hills and despite their greater knowledge of the area, they never found us.” Marshal Havel was considered one of the finest military minds in all Storm. The Dhalmek Council of Ministers had released him from service after the Nysa Defile over some conflict with Kupka. But while he’d been guarding Dhalmekia’s northern boundary against Sanbrequois incursions, he’d never been able to catch them. The worst he’d managed to inflict on them were a few nights’ lost sleep and hard travel. Nothing for a Branded slave.

His uncle sighed. “That is not the life your father would have wished for you.”

“No,” Clive agreed, “but I cannot just live the life someone else would have wanted for me. I must fight for my own convictions.”

At last, Byron said, “I suppose that above all is what he would have wanted for you. To have convictions and the strength to follow them where you must.”

“So you will not scold Jill and I for accompanying Sir Wade, then?”

“I suppose I will not,” Byron said. “By the flames, boy, I never thought I’d be so keen to make a ship ready for a man to destroy a Mothercrystal! It almost seems safer!”

Clive laughed.

—

They were not so fortunate to get a spring fog over the Boiling Sea when they approached. Clive had warned them in advance; between Garuda and Ramuh he always knew what the weather would be. Instead, Jill had to make the fog for them. She didn’t have to semi-prime to cover a single carrack, not like when she’d been told to hide the approach of an entire fleet, but the effort required to freeze such fine particles of water in the air was still substantial.

Clive sat on the forecastle next to her, running his fingers through the cold mist. “It’s a useful talent,” he said.

Jill tried to hide what it cost her. She knew she couldn’t conceal it forever. This could be her only chance.

The carrack had been ordered to stay as far back from the shores of Mount Drustanus as possible, awaiting Jill and Clive’s return and any hostages they managed to rescue. The island was surrounded by strong currents, sharp rocks, and frequent aetherfloods.

Clive stepped ashore and said, “Daunting natural defences.”

“It’s made them arrogant,” Jill said. She remembered this smell, fire and sulphur as well as salt water. She remembered the black stone she’d been surrounded by for most of her thirteen years here. “When I was there, the aetherfloods had been growing worse for the past ten years. There was an old trail they had to abandon altogether. It’ll take us straight into the volcano itself.”

They started the trek uphill. At least she had boots now. Maybe two years after she’d been taken to this hellhole she’d seen what had become of a would-be escapee - even before they’d bled their life out for their insolence, their feet had been sliced to ribbons by the sharp volcanic stone that made up the island. “Keep your hands clear if you can,” she told Clive, “Everything here will either cut you or burn you.” Or maybe it wouln’t burn him. She could feel that familiar heat on her skin, pushing her to call on the ice inside, and Torgal was panting hard, but Clive was unaffected.

“I always thought that if I came here, it would be to retake it for Rosaria,” Clive said, as the Oratory came into view.

Jill knew the building as the Comraich. She’d long since decided she’d rather use the Rosarian name. Out of sheer spite. “It was my home for thirteen years,” Jill said. “I know its secrets.”

“And you will use them to take them down,” Clive said reassuringly. Then the ground shook underneath them. “Is that normal?”

“Absolutely. Just a little earthquake. Nothing to worry about.”

He looked so dubious Jill almost laughed. The first time she would ever have laughed in earnest here. That impulse stopped dead as soon as they encountered the first aetherflood. “It’s as bad as Drake’s Head,” Clive said. “Were they always like this?”

“Never,” Jill replied.

There had never been morbols in the Arboretum, either. The Arboretum hadn’t been abandoned at all when the fleet had sailed for Dhalmekia, just over three years ago. There had never been a morbol in it, let alone an akashic one. They dealt with it, though it left Clive muttering furiously about the stench and the slime both.

He stopped his muttering when they reached the caldera. “I understand why you said only we should do this,” he said.

The caldera path took them inside the volcano itself. Everywhere they looked there were signs of rock that had once flowed as liquid. Being forced to come here and work on this path, meant to be a way out in case of emergency rather than a way in, was one of the harshest punishments the Ironblood inflicted on their own. Many a miner had been slowly baked to death in this passage.

But able to prime at will or not, Clive was supremely unbothered by most heat. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on his skin - Jill made herself tear her eyes away, no matter how she might want a distraction here - but no more. Jill herself was relying on Shiva. The pinch in the base of her lungs was back.

“Is the Oratory cooler?” Clive asked, casting worried eyes over her.

Jill nodded. “It’s built into the side of the mountain. It’s hot, but people can survive there.”

They were interrupted by another earthquake. This one was as violent as she’d ever felt here, nearly knocking her off her feet even though she knew how to brace herself against the usual rumblings. “Is that something to worry about?” Clive asked, once the ground stopped pitching like the deck of a ship.

“Yes. We should hurry.”

She led them around and up to the Comraich - the Oratory - though the mountain continued to shake and the normally peaceful fire demons screeched and made threatening poses as they passed. Torgal growled right back at them. At one point she had to semi-prime to make them a safe path, neither of them wanting to test Clive’s resistance to heat against the lava when he could not prime to ensure his safety. It hurt like it had never hurt before, and she wasn’t sure whether it was because of the suffocating heat or the curse.

“We’re going to the servants’ entrance,” Jill said. “It’ll be busy, but most of the servants are prisoners. Few would report us, whether they want us to succeed or simply wish to avoid trouble.”

Some would. Just as some Bearers preferred their brands and the knowledge of their place in the world. But they hadn’t ever planned to slip in and out undetected.

“There may also be someone amongst the serving staff who’ll help us,” Jill said. “Lady Marleigh. I don’t know if you remember her from Rosalith?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

They climbed the worn and crumbling black stone steps to an equally ill-maintained walkway and an unobtrusive door. It saw its heaviest use when the Fleet returned from a raid and all the fresh captives were marched through here. To teach them what their new status was. They slipped through and into the comparative relief of the Oratory’s halls.

It hadn’t changed since she’d left. It was still oppressively dark and smoky inside, since the Ironblood did not believe in using crystals for light or cooling. In the servants’ quarters, only the cheapest candles burned. Nothing seemed to chase the shadows away here, nor anything soften the harsh edges of every block of stone.

From the cramped servants’ assembly where they gathered to hear the latest edicts and learn who amongst them would be next taken to the Comraich altar, to the kitchens. These were less dark, out of necessity and from the fires in the ovens, but always busy. Jill swept along the corridors, trying to exude all the confidence she did not feel. Clive had her back, as he always did, glaring down any suspicious glances that lingered too long. Here in the Oratory, fear won out over curiosity.

Jill recognised many of the faces here still but knew few names. She had been set apart even from the servants here, the lowest of the low. Where was Marleigh? Few people here knew that they were friends. Marleigh had always been discreet.

“Who should I look for?” Clive said.

“A woman about my height, brown hair with grey in it, round face, blue eyes. She’d be…fifty or so? Old enough to be my mother, if not by much.”

“Not many people here older than forty,” Clive noted grimly.

“Especially not women,” Jill agreed grimly. “Marleigh is a survivor.”

She couldn’t imagine that Marleigh wouldn’t have had the strength to endure these past years. Marleigh had the strength to share with Jill; surely she could not have run out of it for herself.

They couldn’t spend all their time here searching for Marleigh, though. They were here for the Mothercrystal. And for Imreann.

“Which target first?” Clive asked her.

It was…a difficult decision. “The Mothercrystal,” Jill said at last. Even if this was the last and only chance she had at Imreann, stopping the Blight had to be their priority. This was about more than her. It had to be. Only a monster would let the world wither for her own revenge.

Fortune intervened. Or Metia answering a prayer she hadn’t voiced.

Marleigh was around the very next corner.

Jill’s only surviving friend in all those long years nearly dropped the tray she was holding. “Jill?”

“It’s me, Lady Marleigh,” Jill replied. What else could she say? She’d left without a backwards glance and both of them knew it wasn’t a thing to regret.

Sure enough, Marleigh said, “Why would you come back, girl?”

Jill threw herself at her friend. Before, she hadn’t been able to. She’d frozen over too many of her own feelings. “I owe you more than I can possibly repay,” she said. She was crying. That was…good, actually. They were good tears. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Clive had turned his back, both to give them as much privacy as possible and to protect them. “Marleigh, please, take everything and everyone you can and get out of here. Tonight. Now.”

“Jill, what -”

“We’re going to kill Imreann,” Jill said, stepping back. She didn’t let go of Marleigh’s hands. “We’re going to kill Imreann and destroy his precious Mothercrystal. So please. Get out of here. Steal a boat, get back to Rosaria, go to Martha’s Rest and ask for Martha, or the Lazarus District and look for Sir Wade. Mention my name and they’ll help you.”

Marleigh stared at her, wide-eyed, for a few precious moments. Then she nodded. “All right. Imreann is in the Comraich now, worshipping. If you’re going to do what you said, I dare say there’ll be enough commotion. I’ll round up as many of the children as I can and let the others with their wits about them know to be ready.”

“Thank you. For everything. All these years.”

Jill started to step back but Marleigh clung on for another second. “Don’t you get yourself killed now, Jill. You’ve come too far for that. You promise me you’ll live.”

“If you do the same,” Jill said.

“I will. I’ll see you again, Jill. That’s a promise.”

“A promise,” Jill echoed.

She let go of Marleigh’s hands. She could turn around and do this now.

—

They started to run into guards as they reached the inner sections of the Oratory. With the bulk of the Ironblood sailing for lightly-guarded Dhalmek shores, the soldiers left behind were slightly older, those who did not need to win more glory in battle. Though the Ironblood would never leave Drake’s Breath defended by incapable warriors, Clive took one look back at her and started to cut through them like they were nothing more than straw. She barely had to draw her sword, and didn’t have to use a single spell.

Despite the oppressive heat of the Oratory, it made for a bit of a breather. She was grateful for it.

As they drew closer to the bridge that led to the heart of the Mothercrystal, Jill stopped and grabbed Clive’s elbow. “Clive. The Patriarch…he does…awful things.”

“So you’ve warned me,” Clive said, gravely, warily. “Should I be prepared for anything in particular?”

“Awful things,” she repeated. “To children.”

She saw the comprehension flare in his eyes. “He’s yours to kill,” he promised, “but if there’s anything left…let’s throw his bones into the volcano. We’ll leave no martyr for these people. And no more demons for you to face here, either.”

He pushed open the door for her. Then he and Torgal took places flanking her.

Jill had never been allowed into the holy centre of the Orthodoxy’s faith before. An abomination like herself could never be permitted to set eyes on the holy crystal, after all.

It was surprisingly similar to Drake’s Head. A span of stone bridged the gap between the Comraich and the heart. The heart of Drake’s Breath looked different, though, a ball of spikes blooming into a thistle. It towered above the altar, casting a warm orange glow on…

…the results of Imreann’s worship.

The Patriarch himself hadn’t noticed her yet, standing above the bodies with his dripping knife and a look of ecstasy on his face. His henchmen, other priests of the faith, were knelt before the altar reciting their prayers.

She took a deep breath and screamed, as loud as she could, “Imreann!”

That got his attention. The Patriarch sneered down at her. “Shiva’s Dominant! Come to return to your place with us?”

“I’ve come to kill you,” she shouted. One of the priests’ heads snapped up in alarm. Imreann smiled. A ghastly expression. “All those years. I did everything you wanted. To protect the children. And you killed them anyway!”

Imreann spread his arms wide. “I cleansed them of their sins, as the Holy Mother wills. More than you could ever hope for, abomination. You cannot repent or recant. Sacrilege is in your bones. Monstrosity is your very nature.”

“It’s you who is the abomination! A monster who makes more monsters…” She drew her sword. “But no more. I will smash your precious Holy Mother and make you watch before you die.”

The surrounding priests screamed in outrage. They didn’t even need Imreann’s order to attack.

 Before they could reach her, there was another vicious, ominous rumble from the lava. Jill had a moment to register the familiar feeling of otherworldly malice before a mass of liquid flame ten feet tall started bearing down on Clive. It looked only vaguely like a human, with two arms, two legs, and a head, but the shape of all its limbs changed from step to step. First it had hands, then it had blades; first it had feet, then it had hooves. And just like the dead-looking blue abominations in the Apodytery and Drake’s Head, it was impossible to miss how much it hated everyone. The priests in its path were scorched to death in an instant. Clive and Torgal were unharmed for the moment - as was Imreann, at the altar above.

“Go!” Clive shouted, jerking his head in the Patriarch’s direction. “I can handle this!”

Jill dashed forwards, semi-priming and then fully priming as she went, just to protect herself from the absurd heat. Imreann was just a man. There was no way he could stand against -

- Behind her, Torgal yelped in alarm.

She had Imreann right there. Dead. If she just flew forward a little more. But Torgal would die.

She turned back.

Clive was struggling too. The lava was too much for him. Aether swirled around him. He was trying to prime again, pulling aether into himself. Whatever he was doing, though, it wasn’t working. Even as Jill watched, he had to give up and roll aside before the fire monster could smash its mallet of a hand right onto him. As he rolled, he came close enough to the lava that his cloak caught in the edges and started to smoulder. Whatever aether he was exuding that kept the heat at bay, it could not overcome the lava.

Shiva could.

She held her arms out wide and summoned all the ice she could. She shaped it into a dam around Clive, leaving him and Torgal clear space to fight whatever it was that had attacked him.

It hurt. Every second it hurt more. Her ice melted as fast as she could replenish it. Despite her best efforts the circle grew smaller and smaller. Shiva’s power could not stand against the volcano, it seemed. Or whatever malevolent creature this was. Shiva could destroy fleets and villages and who knew how many people’s lives, but she couldn’t save just these two.

Jill dug as deep as she could. She’d never used this much power before; never wanted to push Shiva this hard before. Her head screamed with pain from all the aether. She summoned a storm of ice unlike anything she’d ever summoned before, a wall of diamond-clear ice between Clive and death. All she could see was ice and fire. The only thing that mattered in the world was keeping the barrier in place, for once protecting someone -

“Jill!”

She dragged herself back to awareness. Clive stood over the dissolving remains of the fire monster, staring up at her with wide, worried eyes.

“Jill, it’s all right, it’s over! You can let go now!”

If she let go…she didn’t know what would happen.

Instead, she eased her grip on her powers. They’d be safe at the altar, where even now Imreann cowered like the worm he was. She let part of her icy dam go, reshaping the ice into a path for them to finally reach safety. Though, she noticed, the lava was receding by itself. Or perhaps with the destruction of whatever that thing had been.

Finally, when Clive and Torgal were both well away from the molten rock, Jill released her prime entirely.

Pain washed over her and she crashed to the ground. She rolled into the impact with the stony floor, barely managing to get her feet beneath her. The places where she’d hit were numb and it was a relief. The bruises would come later. She still had a job to do now. The job she’d come to do in the first place.

Imreann hunkered behind the altar. The blood from his latest victims had long since dried in the scorching heat, flaking off his face. He looked at her with real fear in his eyes.

This was what he’d made of her. He should be afraid.

And she would make an end to it. She had nothing more to say to Imreann.

With what felt like the last of her strength, Jill drew her sword and shoved it into Imreann’s guts. The monster would die.

Chapter Text

Heart in his mouth, Clive was helpless to do anything but watch as Jill collapsed against the altar, coughing hard, blood on her lips. He ran to her side, ignoring the dying Patriarch at her feet. He picked up her sword where she’d dropped it, flicking the blood off it as best he could before offering it, and his arm, to her for support.

She brushed off his arm and instead reached for his sword, ice once more at her fingertips. “Take it,” she gasped. Her voice was jagged as the volcanic stone around them. “This crystal falls to my powers.”

“My lady,” Clive said.

She wreathed his blade in purest ice. “Quickly,” she said, shooting the dying man next to her a poisonous glare. “I want him to see it.”

Clive could do nothing but honour her effort and her sacrifice. Watching the object of his devotion, the thing for which he’d committed so many atrocities, shatter into dust was the least that this Imreann deserved. He smashed his sword, wrapped in Shiva’s ice, into the vibrant orange heart of the Mothercrystal.

Are you watching, Cid?

He’d never know, but he knew Cid would be as proud to call Jill a friend and comrade as he was right now. He wished he could help her better.

The Patriarch died with his Mothercrystal. As soon as he rattled his last breath, Jill let out a gasping sob. Clive moved to help her.

As he did, he felt another stab of pain in his head. He’d felt the same when the flame thing had emerged from the lava. Someone - something - was watching him. Again. He knew that sense of attention now. From Drake’s Head.

Ultima. Ultima was watching him.

Satisfactory, something whispered in the back of his head.

He shook it off. Jill was bent double, coughing blood. “The curse?” he asked.

She didn’t have the air to do anything but nod.

“Can you walk?”

“I can run,” she said.

But she was moving very poorly indeed as Drake’s Breath shook around them. Torgal stayed close to her while Clive made sure their path was clear. They just had to get to their boat.

They were nearly out of the inner sanctum when Jill called, “Look!”

Clive followed the line of her finger. The falling stone revealed a mural in the same style as they’d seen in the Apodytery. The wings and the silhouette in the centre were the same, at least. “No time!” he shouted back. It was strange, and unlikely to be a coincidence, but they had to go.

The desperate sprint back to their boat was a blur. At the last, when they had to run through the caldera again, Clive picked Jill up and called on all the speed of the Phoenix to take them through before she could suffer more. She didn’t protest, a terrible sign for her health. He couldn’t spare the breath to ask how she fared. Torgal, too, was suffering, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his flanks soaked with sweat.

Jill only revived somewhat when they reached the boat and the breeze off the ocean. “Let me walk,” she said, with more than a bit of a wheeze in her throat. “Need to - steer -”

He set her on the bench and took up the oars. Jill navigated them away from Drake’s Breath as it spewed lava behind them, the night darker than before without the Mothercrystal’s glow but still a hellish red.

“Any sign of Marleigh?” Jill asked.

“None,” Clive said. He’d been scanning the horizon for other boats. They hadn’t had the time to rescue anyone themselves. They could only hope that Marleigh had been able to do what they could not.

“There are more boats on the other side of the island,” Jill said. “She might be coming around. It would take a few hours with the currents. We can’t stay. We’ll just have to trust.”

“We’ll ask Sir Wade and my uncle to keep watch for any who escaped,” Clive said.

It took the very last of Jill’s strength to climb back aboard ship. Her knees gave out as soon as her feet hit the deck. Clive went scrambling for the bag he knew she’d left aboard - the one where she kept some supplies from Tarja. There were two small bottles. One contained something to ease womanly complaints; the other was green glass he didn’t recognise. He brought it out. “How is this taken?” he asked.

“Two drops in water,” Jill managed to tell him, around another coughing fit.

Once she’d had it, though, her breathing eased and she managed to fall asleep. Clive stayed by the side of her bunk, wishing he could be more useful. Once again he’d been unable to prime, and so Jill had not only had to do her share of the fighting but save him as well. He had to figure this out. For Jill’s sake, at least. He had to be able to pull his weight.

Eventually, he too fell asleep.

He woke before Jill and so went to the galley to see whether he might be able to get her a hot drink. Something to soothe her throat. Hot water with lemon was the best he could do. She woke when the tart scent of lemon filled the cramped cabin.

“Clive?” she asked groggily.

Clive called a flame. Just a small one. “I’m here. Drink this.”

“I killed the monster.”

“You did.”

“I’m an outlaw,” she whispered.

“You are.”

Her eyes fluttered shut. She was asleep again before she could drink.

Jill slept long enough Clive was starting to worry by the time she woke, and when she did wake it was hard. She had to take more of Tarja’s medicine just to get ashore. His uncle supplied all that he could - a quiet room with a soft bed, a steam bath, a nourishing meal.

There was no sign of Jill’s friend, nor anyone who might have escaped with her. Clive let Wade know that there could be survivors, but it was all he could do. And they couldn’t wait.

“We need to return,” Clive said to Byron, when Jill was once again resting. “We have a physicker at the Hideaway whose knowledge of the curse’s progression is second to none. And I have been away for several weeks now. There are things I must do.”

“Of course, of course. I can only imagine the things that demand Cid the Outlaw’s attention.” Byron laughed. “A whole Mothercrystal destroyed. Your father would have been appalled to hear it, but delighted if he knew the whole story.” But he sobered abruptly. “I have news for you, though. Your mother has taken her son by the Emperor and gone to Dhalmekia. It’s all very hush-hush at the moment.”

“Dhalmekia? Why? How do you know this?”

“My contacts keep a close eye on Anabella. A very close eye.” Byron sighed. “She’s not the woman she was, Clive. She was always…well, even as a girl. But since she bore Olivier, she’s been far worse. I keep a close eye on Anabella for my own safety.”

Clive could hardly believe it. “She’s never particularly hated you, as far as I recall.”

But Byron chuckled. “Oh, dear boy. She’s hated me since I started taking you to the theatre. And if she would not hesitate to condemn you to the most vicious slavery on the continent of Storm, disposing of an inconvenient cousin would be nothing. But that’s all besides the point. No, Anabella could be going to Dhalmekia for nothing other than truce negotiations.”

“With her son?”

Clive knew of Prince Olivier, of course. He’d behaved…shamefully, when he heard. The only outlet available for his feelings had been violence. Looking back, he suspected he’d used Ifrit’s flames rather than his brother’s. He hoped he had, because he should not have disrespected his brother’s gift by venting his rage on people who had nothing to do with its cause. He should not have used flames at all, nor blade, nor fists.

That had been the turn of the moon that brought him to Tiamat’s attention and given him the name Wyvern.

It was past and done; Clive was older and wiser; and he knew there were very few reasons for the Empress to take her son to truce talks when the Emperor had an heir already. It seemed clear to him that his mother was making her move on Prince Dion in earnest. He wondered if the prince was aware. All the reports he’d heard had the Dominant of Bahamut very much occupied with the siege of Twinside rather than any involvement with the administration of the provinces.

“With Prince Olivier,” his uncle confirmed. “There will be trouble in Sanbreque sooner than we thought, Clive. Dire trouble.”

It was all a problem for later. He’d go over it all with Vivian. For now, what mattered most was getting Jill home safely.

—

Patience, Anabella told herself. More than once.

She was Empress, here with the future Emperor, and she was sitting in this gaudy antechamber in Dhalmekia’s Ministry of Law. She and Olivier had been smuggled in like some sort of scandal, swathed in cloaks that were surely heavier than they needed to be in the desert heat. Thankfully, the Dhalmeks had invested in cooling crystals for their council chambers, else she would be sweating through her silks right now. Olivier would be even worse off. He’d never taken to the heat well, her poor dear.

Kupka, common-born pig that he was, hadn’t taken such things into account. But then, his idea of finery was to find a rare animal, skin it, and wear it. Anabella was quite sure such an ensemble couldn’t be ruined.

In the meeting room beyond, Anabella could hear raised voices. The fatal flaw of the very idea of a Republic, not that anyone had asked her. Who were these ministers but jumped-up merchants. Not a one of them knew what it meant to rule. Not a one of them had the breeding and the destiny for it. No wonder they were in the situation they were.

When the voices reached a crescendo, Anabella stood and straightened her gown. Olivier stood next to her, silent and attentive.

There was a sharp click and the door swung open.

Kupka might be a pig, but she had to admit, the looks on the faces of the assorted ministers were quite gratifying. The discussion grew quiet after that. Subdued. And very much in the Empire’s favour.

It was well past dark when the Council finished their business for the evening. Kupka had Anabella escorted back to his own residence in Ran’dellah in a covered carriage every bit as gaudy as the Council’s chambers. It must be a Dhalmek thing, all that gold. From there to another, more private parlour. Here, ostentatious gilding gave way to ostentatious threat. Did he think she would be intimidated by this windowless room of stone? She was not. Nor would she allow Olivier to be intimidated.

Servants brought out various dishes for a late supper. Antelope glazed with sticky-sweet syrup. A thicker stew of chocobo flavoured with another, sticky-sweet syrup. Ice given flavour with, yes, another sticky-sweet syrup. A meat pie dusted in cinnamon and sugar. Was there a flavour here that was not sweet? She ate politely, as was expected of her.

Between one course and the next, Kupka said, “I must admit, I wasn’t sure you’d accept my invitation.”

“Sanbreque is ever open to courteous and productive dialogue with her neighbours.”

“Or maybe just polite invitations,” Kupka mused.

Oh, no. Anabella knew that tone of voice. Kupka was about to try and be clever.

“Imagine my surprise,” he said, as a servant slid a tray with a few parchments onto the table next to him, “to discover that Cid the Outlaw isn’t the son of a whore…he’s the son of an empress. Your own dear Clive.”

“Of course he isn’t,” Anabella retorted, but it didn’t even sound convincing to her own ears. Olivier’s eyes widened slightly. Kupka leered. Curse Clive; she never had been able to keep her composure as she should when faced with all the failure and disappointment he brought. Now he’d made her show weakness to this common thug. “‘Clive’ is a common name in Rosaria.”

“Now,” Kupka said, “After the presumed death of Clive Rosfield in your Night of Flames. Tell me, did you send him to the Imperial front lines yourself, or simply allow it to occur?”

“The only time I spend in the company of criminals is when I attend the gallows,” she told Kupka frostily. “And I assure you, Lord Kupka, in the Holy Empire we know how to keep Branded in their place, well away from the sight of their betters.”

The Dominant of Titan accepted that with nothing more than a tilt of his head. “You might even thank me for what I plan to do, then.”

Unlikely. “Do tell.”

“Cid took the life of someone very dear to me,” Kupka said. “A woman by the name of Benedikta. He killed her and sent her head to me in a box. Your son took the man’s name, and now I will take his head for his precedessor’s crimes. I will burn all Rosaria for it if I have to. All Dhalmekia.”

That was about what she expected from such a brute. She had to play this right. She looked down her nose at him the best she could. Let him think she was putting on a front. “You say this as if I should care what becomes of this Cid.”

Kupka snorted. “You sold him to the Imperial Army as a Branded. I thought you might have at least some reservations about what happens to Rosaria. Leave me to play my hand, and Sanbreque is all yours.” His bovine gaze landed on Olivier. That, she wished she could shield him from, but it would be too much weakness to show. “You can have as much of Sanbreque as you can wrest from Bahamut.”

“Bahamut is the greatest glory of Sanbreque. And Dion is my stepson.”

He clearly wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t need him to be. She just needed him not to tell the world about Clive, that wretched boy. How was he still ruining her life?

“As long as you don’t get in my way. Your Majesty.”

With that, Kupka stood and departed, leaving Anabella and Olivier with mounds of horrible, over-sweetened Dhalmek food.

All of this, for what? The death of some Waloeder whore as common as Kupka was? What nonsense. Anabella shook her head. Dominant or no, breeding always showed.

“Mother?” Olivier asked. “Can we go home now?”

“Tomorrow, my sweet,” she promised. “We’ve made excellent progress today. You’ll have to tell your father all about it.”

She’d make sure he listened, too. Perhaps Dion could wage a war, but what she’d won here in Olivier’s name was Sanbreque’s own peace. She knew Sylvestre would see it her way. And then - then she could truly start on building an empire for her son.

—

Most days, the mass in Joshua’s chest that encapsulated Ultima was nothing more than an unsightly and painful lump in his chest. Other days…other days it was a restless, malignant, living presence within him.

Those were the bad days. When Joshua could feel that Ultima was indeed a separate being, with its own malevolent agenda, trapped within him like an insect in amber.

This night, it was thinking of Clive. So intently that Joshua could feel it himself. The details were elusive - Ultima could hardly wish Joshua to be privy to its plans, after all - but the object of those plans was clear. So clear Joshua could swear that he could feel Clive’s presence for himself. The familiar pull at the Phoenix’s aether that terrified him more than he liked to admit even to himself.

Clive would never choose to take the Phoenix from me, he told himself, as he’d told himself a hundred times before when waking from nightmares of Phoenix Gate. Clive cannot help what he is.

Jote noticed his disquiet in the morning, naturally.  “My lord? Is aught amiss?” she asked, as they went about the same routine they’d used at a thousand campsites before. Her with the heavy work, him with the cooking. 

Or, in this case, him poking listlessly at the ashes with a charred stick. He supposed it was not very subtle that he was out of sorts.

“Ultima,” Joshua said, by way of explanation. He was loath to mention his concerns about Clive to her, after her own concerns back in Rosaria. No matter what he did or said he could not seem to reassure her, let alone Cyril, or indeed any of her order. Clive would not take the Phoenix from him. Clive would not take Rosaria from him.

Yet if he could not fully trust Jote…

“My brother is much on Ultima’s mind right now,” he said. “I don’t know why. But I suspect we will find out in due course. I’m of a mind to let Cyril know.”

They headed for the Crystal Road instead of across the Velkroy. It was a roundabout route, but the Crystal Road was safe enough and they’d make up the time just travelling on the roads. Joshua’s trip to the Fallen ruins he’d wanted to investigate could wait.

Though not much longer. Every league they travelled he swore he could feel Ultima digging further into his ribcage and pushing further at the confines of his binding.

Every town they passed, they saw Dhalmek soldiers heading back west.

“Towards Rosaria,” Joshua murmured. “That can’t be right, though. Dhalmekia cannot win a war on two fronts against the Empire. It’s all they can do to besiege Twinside…”

“A split between the Men of the Rock and the Men of the Fist?” Jote suggested grimly.

“That seems most likely. But surely even Kupka wouldn’t…not without assurances…”

And who would assurances come from? Not the Emperor himself, surely. Treating with Kupka directly would be beneath him. Dion Lesage wouldn’t - the only thing the Sanbrequois held against him was his common-born mother and the only thing his enemies held against him was that he was the Dominant of Bahamut. A practically spotless reputation. Olivier Lesage was too young for such machinations. He was, what, twelve? Thirteen? A child.

That left one person with the authority to make deals with Hugo Kupka. The second time his mother had done something so drastically…wrong.

“Something is badly amiss in the Holy Empire,” Joshua said.

More days went past, and so did more refugees. Dhalmek refugees, mostly, with a definite lack of men of fighting age. Many of them seemed aimless. Their choices could not be good - towards Twinside and the siege, back towards Kupka’s levies, or into the Blight. There could hardly be much of a future in any of those places.

Most seemed to err in favour of Twinside, perhaps in the hope that the siege would be over by the time they got there. Twinside, home of maybe the most accessible Mothercrystal left in Storm, because neither Hugo Kupka nor the Ironblood were freely sharing the bounty of the Mothercrystals they controlled.

Joshua took sick again while on the road, despite the dry summer heat that usually helped him feel a little better. It felt like Ultima was digging into his lungs and all Joshua’s effort was spent just trying to keep his body functioning. Without the power of the Phoenix, he would be dead. But then, without the power of the Phoenix, he never would have been in this situation. And Clive would be doomed. To what, he did not know.

Jote listened to him cough, saw that he was bringing up blood, and said, “We’re going to Tabor and you are resting. Or at least working from somewhere comfortable for a time. You can’t keep this up, my lord. Whatever you hope to accomplish, you cannot do it if your health fails.”

He sighed and felt it catch in his chest. Jote was quite likely right. It was not yet time to spend himself to the last. He accepted her most recent vial of medicine - thick and bitter - and said, “Very well. Tabor it is.”

Whatever else, it would at least give him a chance to see what information Cyril had collected on the goings-on across Storm. The ruins would be there later.

He hoped. 

Storm was shaking itself apart with wars. Ultima was plotting. He did not know whether the two things were related. Perhaps Cyril would be able to help him discover if so. And if not…he’d have to seek out other avenues. More drastic ones.

Chapter Text

Midsummer in Bennumere was more pleasant than Clive had thought it would be when first they moved there. Blighted lands baked whenever there was sun and became uncomfortably chilly when there wasn’t. The waters of the mere, even blighted, took the edge off both. It could get a bit sticky, but nothing worse.

Clive tried to stay close to the Hideaway. There were always things that needed doing. Blackthorne got himself into a rather impressive sulk over some bit of leather or another. Some of their suppliers were being a little difficult. He had to follow up and make sure Sir Wade and Martha were in contact with each other. There was always construction going on around the Hideaway as they built floors and walls and ramps into the shell of the Fallen airship, which meant noise and disruption and sometimes conflict.

Jill rested.

Jill’s health had been subject to more than one argument with Tarja, which Tarja won. Which was why Clive was staying nearby for as long as he could; he knew Jill would want to come with him when he left again.

He did go out the once, to hunt one of the white-plated echoes outside Martha’s Rest. It had been giving Bloodaxes and Cursebreakers alike no end of trouble, and besides, he wanted to see how the Cursebreakers were faring now they were openly living in town. When he returned there was a mournful letter from Jill in amongst his papers. For every day we spend together it seems we must spend two more apart, she’d written.

Clive didn’t want that. He hated the idea of her just - waiting. Jill wasn’t the waiting sort. Her life should be - should be full, and active, even if it wasn’t with him. Though he would prefer to be at her side, or she at his, whichever worked out on the day.

It was just after the solstice when Gav barrelled into Clive’s solar, breathless and filthy.

“What is it?” Clive asked anxiously, while Gav caught his breath.

Gav raised his head, remainung eye wide. “Rosalith’s under attack. By Kupka.”

Clive had Jill, Vivian, Otto, Dorys, and Harpocrates in his chamber for an emergency meeting within a quarter hour.

“It’s the Men of the Rock,” Gav said. Kupka’s private army. “They came up the coast.”

“Most Imperial forces retreated after Drake’s Breath fell,” Vivian said. She’d reported as much to Clive, pleased with the addition of the Guardians of the Flame to her sources of intelligence. “But that was recent. I don’t like this, Clive. Either Kupka launched what he thought would be a suicidal attack on Rosalith, there are critical failures in the Empire’s intelligence, or someone high up the Imperial ranks in Rosaria has struck a deal with Kupka. I don’t know which yet.”

“He’s clearly after you, though,” Otto said. “Looks like he worked it out.”

Dorys added, “The Cursebreakers will investigate.”

Clive sat back and watched as Gav told Vivian all that he’d seen, and Vivian moved her various markers around. Clive watched the representations of the Men of the Rock form up outside Rosalith. Outside his home.

“I have to go,” he said.

The entire table sucked in a breath.

Jill was the first to speak, “That’s what he wants, Clive,” she said.

“I agree.” Vivian’s voice was cold. “This sort of force cannot maintain an invasion of the Duchy, even with the Imperials absent for now. The Dhalmeks cannot afford to open an entirely new front in the war. This is a raid, intended to draw you out. Going to Rosalith would play into Kupka’s hands.”

The fate of the old Hideaway flashed before his eyes. The ruins ground into rubble, the rubble ground into dust. The smears of blood and the knowledge that they would not be able to recover most of the bodies. He couldn’t let Kupka do that again. Not to Rosalith. Not to Rosaria.

“I don’t know why Kupka holds such a grudge against Cid,” he started slowly, “But it cannot continue. If he’s willing to do this to an entire city, all to get his hands on one person, he has to be stopped. As soon as possible. Unless we truly think that we will escape that fate here at the Hideaway if he ever discovers us?”

They knew, as well as he did, that if they sought a conflict with Titan’s Dominant there were only two here who stood much of a chance. It was just a matter of convincing them that the conflict was necessary.

Support came from Gav, who said, “I’ve lost enough friends and I don’t want to lose more.”

Jill said, “You mean to go whatever we say. I’m coming with you.”

“Two Northerners arguing to defend Rosalith for a Rosfield,” Vivian mused. “How strange.”

“But hardly an unwelcome strangeness, I think,” Harpocrates added with a small smile.

The important thing for the moment was that Clive would be going to Rosalith, and he’d be going with his most reliable friends and allies.

The meeting went on long into the night, until they were arguing and planning by lamplight even with the late midsummer sunset. The Guardians of the Flame were working to evacuate Rosalith, Vivian reported; Dorys wanted to send Cursebreakers to see if Drake’s Fang truly was undefended now that Kupka’s men were in Rosalith and the remainder of Dhalmekia’s forces were still laying siege to Twinside. They needed to plan a route for himself, Jill, and Gav to get into Rosalith while the Men of the Rock held Bewit Bridge.

At last they agreed on an approach from the north and a small scouting mission to Drake’s Fang. Exhausted, everyone but Jill left for their own beds. Jill shut the door behind them.

“Are you all right, Clive?” she asked.

“Yes,” Clive said. Then, “No. I don’t know. I’m glad we’ve agreed to do something.” He stared down at their maps. Vivian had left them for him to ponder, saying she’d reclaim them after he left. He looked back up at Jill. “What about you? I know that we…think of Rosalith differently.”

“It matters to you, and so it matters to me,” Jill said. “Maybe it’s not my home, but I have good memories of the place, Clive. It’s far better than Mount Drustanus. I don’t want to see it destroyed.”

She sat down next to him. She smelled of Tarja’s sharp medicines and the lavender she pressed into her clothes. “We promised we’d see this through together, didn’t we?”

“Your health -”

“Is mine to manage,” Jill said firmly. “I don’t want to see my friends die any more than Gav does. This is my cause too.”

“And there are many ways you can help,” Clive replied. “You are…I wouldn’t waste you on something like this.”

“I don’t consider this to be a waste.”

She was so brave and so beautiful. Jill’s eyes shone like the moon itself. Her lips were slightly parted. She was looking at him and only him, like she wanted to keep looking at him. His heart was trying to pound its way out of his ribcage and his breeches were starting to feel confining.

She leaned forward slowly.

No sooner did her lips touch his than a welter of black memories erupted in his mind. Awful things. Things he didn’t want to taint her. Taint this.

Clive jerked his head back.

Jill blinked at him, confused, still so close. “Clive?”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

She drew back at that. “I suppose it’s not the right time,” she said slowly. He knew her well enough to see the hurt she was trying to hide.

He wanted to tell her it was no such thing, it wasn’t that, but the thought of telling her what it was had his tongue freezing in his mouth, a thick and useless chunk of meat. He felt like a useless chunk of meat. He managed to choke out a weak “No…”

Jill nodded. “All right. I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well, Clive.”

She shut the door behind her. Clive dropped his head to the table, the nearest markers jumping with the shock of the impact. He hadn’t meant it like that at all.

—

Dion burst into his father’s study with only the most cursory announcement, Terence at his heels. He still half expected to see the white marble of Whitewyrm rather than the elaborate murals of Twinside’s streets; careful arrangements of wyvern tail blooms rather than the Dominion’s favoured lilies.

There were two long tables flanking his father’s desk. One for private meetings. One bore a detailed map of Twinside and its surrounds.

Dion frowned, distracted. The markers for the Dhalmek forces didn’t match his own. They showed a retreat. Or rather, the preparation for such. A way to back down from the siege without causing disorder in the ranks. He hadn’t seen evidence of it outside, but -

“What is it, Dion?”

“Your Majesty,” Dion said, “we have received reports that Dhalmek forces have landed in Rosaria. Currently, we believe that they are Men of the Rock.”

Men of the Rock, sailing on one of the Empire’s own provinces. Rosalith might still hold a grudge against the Empire - and Dion had to admit they had their reasons - but it was still part of the Empire. It deserved their protection.

“It’s not unexpected,” his father said.

Behind him, he heard Terence suck in a sharp breath. Disciplined, unflappable Terence. Dion didn’t even bother. He gaped openly. “What?” he asked.

“As I said, Dion, it’s not unexpected. I am not concerned. Anabella is not concerned. She is Vicereine and I trust her judgment.”

“She is allowing Dhalmeks to invade Rosalith,” Dion said incredulously. “One of the oldest and proudest cities in all Valisthea! They rely on us for defense! We have failed to defend them before!”

“Our focus must be here in Twinside,” the Emperor replied.

“The Dhalmeks cannot fight us on two fronts. In order to raid Rosaria, they must have lessened their forces here. We can afford to send troops - wherever Kupka is, send me there to hold him back. If it worked for Odin, it will work -”

“I will not.”

Dion stopped.

“This is our chance to refortify Twinside properly and to increase its stores,” the Emperor said. “I require you here, Dion, in case the Dhalmeks try anything. This is our capital now, Dion, and since Drake’s Breath fell the Mothercrystal here is more important than any other resource the Empire controls. Including Rosalith.”

“We don’t have to choose one or the other,” Dion argued. “We have the resources for both. Unlike the Republic.”

“We might. But we have one Mothercrystal and one Dominant. I choose to keep them both here.”

Terence stepped forward while Dion was still breathless with horror. “Your Majesty. In the alternative, may I suggest a detachment of dragoons. We are willing to travel to defend the Empire in its entirety.”

Not ideal, but better. Dion could have kissed him. At least they would be seen to defend the province of Rosaria.

The Emperor looked at them thoughtfully and said, “No. Rosalith has never wanted Imperial protection and it shall receive what it has asked for.”

While Dion once again tried to school his expression, his father said, “If there’s nothing else, Dion?”

He took it for the dismissal it was and retreated with a bow. Terence did the same. “We need to talk,” Dion said, as they headed back to their rooms.

He insisted on at least thinking of them as ‘their’ rooms. Terence had his own assigned quarters, not far from the barracks. He also insisted on staying there often enough and long enough that people still thought of them as his rooms. It was rare they could share a bed as they both wanted.

At least nobody questioned why the second in command of the dragoons would so often visit Dion’s chambers.

He asked his long-serving, loyal guards to check for listening ears and sent for both meal and maps. As far as anyone need be concerned, this was just a strategy meeting between him and Terence.

But as soon as they were alone, Dion couldn’t contain it any longer. “I do not know what is happening here!”

The Empress. It had something to do with his father’s wife. She’d vanished on some myterious ‘diplomatic’ mission a few weeks ago. She was still travelling, Dion had been informed. He was quite sure it was not travel to Rosaria to rally the Empire’s troops there and demonstrate that the Empire took care of its own.

“It’s incomprehensible,” Dion continued. “The past few years…we’ve invaded Twinside against our treaties. We’ve abandoned Oriflamme. And its people. We abandon our provinces. For what?”

“One might say it was your father’s foresight,” Terence said. “Seeing as Drake’s Head was destroyed hardly a week after the Empire changed its capital. His action secured us a Mothercrystal when we might have had none.”

“But why not recall me to deal with Shiva, if he knew of the impending sabotage? We had siege preparations under way. I was not needed to deal with any Dominant near Twinside.” Dion asked. He’d asked himself the question many times over the years. He’d driven off Ramuh once when he’d come to destroy Drake’s Head; he was confident in his ability to handle Shiva.

Nobody, not his father, not any of the intelligencers, had said anything about sabotage any greater than royalists planting fire crystals in the mines, meant to derail production. Even Odin wouldn’t dare do more - Barnabas Tharmr was a warmonger, not a fool. Dion’s fear was that his father hadn’t known of any greater plans to destroy Drake’s Head.

That he had meant to break their treaties, to abandon Oriflamme and all who lived in it, in order to obtain Drake’s Tail and Twinside.

“I don’t know,” Terence whispered.

So he thought the same.

“I am concerned for all our outlying provinces,” Dion said. “We cannot call ourselves an empire if we do not defend our own subjects.” 

Truth be told, he was starting to doubt the holiness of his father’s actions too. Dion had tried to consult the Imperial Astrologers for guidance in recent months. They had given him few answers. However, they seemed to have more than enough time to entertain the Empress and her requests. A woman who only attended the most important religious ceremonies and no more. Hardly pious. What guidance could she seek? Or, more worryingly, what guidance did she seek to give?

Terence said, “We have several dragoons who hail from the western edges of the Empire. None from Rosaria, but several from just across the border.”

“Grant them all leave,” Dion said. “It must have been some time since they saw their homes and families. They may wish to travel west together. The roads can be perilous. Please let them know that the Emperor has forbidden them from assisting Rosalith.”

The forces posted to Rosalith now could not withstand the Men of the Rock, much less Titan himself. They would have to retreat into other parts of Rosaria. And that, Dion had not been forbidden from assisting with.

—

Despite all the various troubles that engulfed Dhalmekia, Tabor was a quiet place. It nestled into the chasms of Titan’s Wake on one side and the Gilded Path on the other. The tradespeople that made it their home paid their taxes regularly and produced a great deal of the Republic’s finest leather goods. There was a certain odour that lingered in the town as a result of that, but Joshua had long since become accustomed to it. It even had its benefits, as few soldiers from outside wished to linger overlong.

And it was old. Perhaps as old as Rosalith. Probably not as old as Twinside or Kanver, the cities built from the first refugees of Dzemekys and its Fall. When he was recovering from Phoenix Gate, just rebuilding his strength, Joshua had spent many hours examining the ruins that still stood in amongst the newer houses.

They arrived late in the afternoon, the sun just starting to turn all the red stone of the chasms gold. Joshua hardly noticed it, bent over his chocobo’s back and breathing hard.

“Let’s get you inside, Your Grace,” Jote said anxiously.

Much to Joshua’s irritation, Jote was soon accompanied by several other of the Undying. They helped him down from his chocobo and shuffled him off to the small room where he had spent far too many years of his life.

“I would like to see Cyril at his earliest convenience, if you please,” Joshua told Ida, the physicker who’d tended to him since he woke from his injuries.

“He was running an errand to Dalimil and is expected back tomorrow,” Ida told him, “Which gives you plenty of time to rest, Your Grace.”

No escape, then. Joshua sighed and allowed the physickers to examine him as they deemed fit. He even took the medicine they ordered.

“For Jote’s sake, I beg you,” Ida said. “She’ll take years off her life fretting over yours.”

A memory struck him. Fifteen-year-old Clive looking up at him anxiously after receiving some healing magic, worried more about the impact on Joshua than his own hurts. “Well, if it’s for Jote’s sake,” Joshua said. The cursed stuff sent him straight to sleep. He loathed sleep. What a waste of time it was.

When he woke the next afternoon, having slept far longer than he intended, he felt only a little better. Cyril was summoned as soon as Joshua had dressed.

The leader of the Undying, most faithful and clandestine servants of the Phoenix and House Rosfield (in that order), was at least ten years older than he looked. Despite years living in the harsh deserts of Dhalmekia, there were few lines on his tanned face and little grey in his sandy hair. It perhaps had something to do with his devotion to wearing his thick grey hood. The sun could not weather you when it didn’t touch you.

“What brings you back to Tabor, Your Grace?” Cyril asked. He sounded calm. He always sounded calm, even when he argued with Joshua.

“My health, mostly,” Joshua said, “But I’m sure you’ve had that report from Jote already.”

“I have.”

Joshua sat up straight. “The disruptions in Sanbreque are becoming steadily worse,” he said.

“More than you know,” Cyril replied. “Word in Dalimil is that Hugo Kupka has marched on Rosalith. He sailed the Men of the Rock past Port Isolde and is sacking the city as we speak.”

Rosalith. Joshua closed his eyes for a moment. He’d made his decisions about the fate of the Duchy and now he had to live with them. He’d chosen Clive and Valisthea over the city he’d grown up in and he knew that he’d make the same choices again. “That would be to draw my brother out, then,” he said. “Do you know how Kupka discovered his identity?”

“Most likely from Imperial intelligence. We can’t say for certain.”

He’d known their mother despised Clive. He had never understood it, but he knew it. It was simply a fact of his life. What he had never understood was why.

Nor, it seemed, had he understood how much she loathed Clive. Enough to let Hugo Kupka burn Rosalith itself, apparently. Hundreds, if not thousands of lives, extinguished. Thousands of years of history and knowledge, smashed to pieces. The suffering that would come from this, because two people hated his brother so.

“And Kupka’s motivations?”

“Remain unknown.”

He felt so powerless. Now that Kupka himself was in Rosalith he could not risk a confrontation. Joshua wasn’t remotely sure of his ability to win, either. Kupka knew his ability to wring ever more money and influence from Dhalmekia rested on his might as a fighting man and a Dominant, and so did not allow his prowess to wane. He had demonstrated that against Shiva. Joshua hadn’t primed since Phoenix Gate. He’d rarely fought in earnest since Phoenix Gate. Jote’s skills had been more than enough.

Now they weren’t, and still Joshua could do nothing. “We will trust in Clive to resolve it,” Joshua said heavily.

Clive wouldn’t allow Kupka to rampage as he would. It was unthinkable. No matter that the glint in Cyril’s eyes said he felt differently. They’d had this argument before. No doubt they would again. Here was a place where Joshua was more than happy to lean into his status as the Phoenix.

One day, Joshua wouldn’t have to hide anymore. If there was something he could do to hasten that day…something that would not leave the entire burden of Rosaria on Clive…

“Actually,” he asked, “what contacts do we have in Sanbreque?”

Hopefully, it would distract Cyril from the matter of Clive, too.

“Few in Twinside,” Cyril said calmly. Another glint in his eyes betrayed that he knew perfectly well Joshua was trying to distract him.

“Is there nobody who will oppose the Empress?” Joshua asked.

Cyril said, “Perhaps.”

Cyril told him. It wasn’t a contact that the Undying could utilise. “But such things should wait until you’ve recovered, Your Grace,” he added. “Never fear, we have plenty of reports on Ultima to keep your mind active.”

That was a mercy. If he was stuck abed for all this time without anything of use to do he could have gone mad. “Bring it here,” he said.

Most of it was translation work. The Undying ferreted out ruins all across Valisthea and learned what they could. Hunting an adversary last active several thousand years ago was no easy task. They deciphered the language of the Fallen letter by letter and word by word. He had done his share too, in the years of his recovery. He did his share now, when his health permitted nothing else for a time.

Maybe he couldn’t fight Kupka. Yet there was more than one way to defeat an enemy.

The crystal in his chest burned cold as he set to his task.

Chapter Text

The smoke rising from Rosalith could be seen a long way off. Thick and black against a clear blue sky.

“It seems wrong that it’s such a fine day,” Clive said.

Jill kept a close eye on him. His mood had been off since they heard of the attack. Half desperate, half despairing. She’d never seen him like this before, even when Cid died.

But then, he’d only made ‘Cid’ his own identity after that. Rosaria had always been part of Clive, as long as she’d known him. Jill couldn’t help but wonder what that felt like. She’d never been so attached to a place, not even the lands of Warrick she’d been born on. The Hideaway was the closest she had to a home like that, and she did not dare trust that the Hideaway would always be there. It must be nice to know you always had a home. And it must cut Clive deep to see what was happening to it now.

She was pushing herself hard to be out here. Tarja had told her that it was a risk to try and fight as hard as she had been, as soon as she was. Jill could feel the truth of that. She was growing tired more quickly. Her breath was coming shorter and harder. She was still keeping up with Clive’s punishing pace - nobody could keep up with Gav’s - but it was more of an effort, and Jill suspected she would not be able to keep up for as long as she was used to.

A problem for later, Jill thought viciously, and shoved all the discomfort away as best she could.

As planned, they approached from the north. The landward side. Gav reappeared at Clive’s side early in the morning as they camped. “There’s plenty of holes in the wall if you want to get in that way,” he reported. “You won’t have to circle around and sneak in.”

“How goes the sack?” Clive asked, white as rotten ice. Something in the aether pulled at her sharply for a second. Something angry and hungry.

“Not many civilians left, Clive,” Gav said soberly. “Hard to say how many got out and how many are hiding. The Imperials aren’t looking out for them, that’s for sure. They’ve holed up in whatever hidey places they have. And there aren’t many of those left.”

White in the face Clive might be, but he never hesitated. “The north wall it is then. The sooner this is ended, the better for the citizens.”

He didn’t hesitate as they approached the walls either. Or the smoking wreckage they’d been reduced to. Broken, soot-blackened blocks scattered what had once been a marketplace. Even days later the smell of char and aether was still in the air.

So this was what a siege crystal did, Jill thought. She would rather think than feel at the moment. It wasn’t the nothingness she had used to defend herself against the Ironblood, just delaying the feeling for a bit. She could be upset later; Clive needed her now.

Once Gav had guided them into the city, he said, “I’ll go see if I can get anyone else out. I’ll leave Kupka to the two of you.”

It was a relief to Jill, and from the look on his face, a relief to Clive as well.

They started to climb up the hill to where the towers of Rosalith Castle were still standing, smokeless, above them. The city itself was in far worse shape. Houses were torn apart, market stalls were overturned - she and Clive used to buy sweets from that stall, she recognised the splinters of its striped awning - and even the cobblestones were torn up.

And there were the bodies. Men, women, and children. Imperial soldiers. Some Dhalmeks with the gold sashes of the Men of the Rock. Blood spilled over the ground. After the days Kupka’s forces had been here, the smell of rot and alcohol was strong too. Some bodies had been burned, but more had just been abandoned like rubbish in the street. Others had been posed, or stripped, or both. When Kupka’s forces had tired of tearing houses apart in search of loot, they’d turned to the citizens of Rosalith for their entertainment.

Jill was no Rosarian, but this was appalling.

The further they walked, the more heat she felt next to her. Haze was boiling off Clive’s skin, nothing more than a slight distortion in the air. He was drawing in aether. Huge amounts of it by his standards.

“If you’re going to prime, warn me,” Jill said.

“I thought I was ready for this.” He turned and smashed the corner of a building. The meagre pillar of stone was all that remained of it. “Kupka hasn’t imposed any discipline on his troops at all. He wanted it to be a massacre.”

“Then there’s only one fitting punishment.”

“Only one,” Clive agreed darkly. The slight pulling sensation in the aether became a sharp tug again, then eased.

They had to dispatch two patrols on their way up the hill. They saved a lowly Imperial soldier, his surcoat almost stiff with blood, and sent him on his way. If there were any citizens left, neither Jill nor Clive saw them. It was a lonely, bloody journey.

“This is my home,” Clive said.

Jill had to agree. It was strange, but even if she had mixed feelings about Rosalith Castle and the sort of home it wasn’t to her, the streets of Rosalith were more familiar to her than any of the villages her father had ruled. When she had needed to escape the Duchess and her domain, she’d come here. When Archduke Elwin ruled, the city had been mostly safe for a child. Even a foreign hostage child. Now it wasn’t safe for anyone.

When they reached the hilltop, they circled around to the rear of the castle. There was a passage through the walls there near the stables, Clive said. There was no guarantee that Kupka wouldn’t have found it, but their chances were better than simply charging through the main gate.

Their luck did not hold. There were several soldiers there. On alert for her and Clive both by the shouting. She didn’t speak much Dhalmek, but she heard them call out Shiva.

Then, with a colossal crash, a couerl burst through one of the stables. It had been collared. Brought here deliberately. Just like the one in Kostnice. Jill looked to Clive, who said, “I’ll take the coeurl, you take the guards.”

For most men, that would have been suicide. Jill simply nodded, trusting that Clive could keep himself alive, at least. The way he was fighting, she wouldn’t be surprised to turn and see him semi-prime.

But she had her own job to do.

Her time fighting for Bearers had taught her how to use her magic in ways other than simply freezing everything in sight. Jill brought up walls of ice between groups of soldiers, dancing between them with her sword and the smallest amount of projectile ice possible. She’d learned efficiency along with the sword, and now the Men of the Rock fell to her blade, one after the other. Behind her, Clive dodged the couerl’s blasts of levin and its whiplike tendrils, occasionally crashing through her ice walls.

She had to clear the area of soldiers as best she could so that no archer, no battle-mage, snuck up on him. She slipped through their ranks, dividing them into pockets with her ice. Clive’s fight faded into background noise as she pushed further into the main courtyard. An arrow grazed her arm; she ignored the wound but not the archer. She threw an icicle through his throat.

She wished she was good at more than this, but here and now, she was protecting Clive and doing what she could to protect all Rosalith.

And then she found herself alone in the centre of Rosalith Castle’s training yard. The place where she and Joshua used to watch Clive train with Rodney Murdoch. Only it was her in the centre of the yard now - and across from her stood Hugo Kupka. She recognised his face as Titan’s. She knew the feel of Titan’s aether.

“Shiva,” he said. “Here to fight Cid’s battles for him?”

“Here to fight my own,” she said.

She flew at him on her own ice. Titan was powerful but slow. If she could use his own weight against him, she might have a chance. She was tired. He was not. She was afflicted by the curse. He was not. She had to finish this fast.

Kupka roared and drove his fist into her ice formation, shattering it to pieces. The shockwaves shook her off balance. She lunged at him with the last of her momentum, hoping to pierce Kupka’s armour. He grinned the same feral grin that she saw in her nightmares of the Nysa Defile. He brought up a shield of earth and her sword bounced. Another arrow hissed into the ground near her feet. She wasn’t fighting Kupka alone.

She couldn’t fight Kupka and all his men alone. Not without semi-priming, but if she did that, Kupka might do so as well, and then they risked destroying the city she and Clive had come to help.

Not to mention that she might collapse as she had in Mount Drustanus.

There was no time for pride. “Clive!” Jill called.

Another barrage of icicles took down two soldiers near Kupka, but Kupka himself simply brought up another shield and let them smash ineffectually. Jill changed tactics, creating ice in the air and letting it fall, but Kupka launched a boulder at her before she could draw enough aether and all she managed was a minor fall of hail.

“Jill!” Clive called back from somewhere behind her.

Kupka advanced on her in earnest when he heard. Jill threw icicle after icicle, drew frost spell after frost spell, as fast as she could, until her bones ached and her lungs felt like they were about to tear open again. None of it did any good.

Kupka’s fist slammed into her stomach and drove her to her knees. “Got you,” he said.

He grabbed her upper arm, squeezed it so hard she dropped her sword, and lifted her, feet dangling in the air. She brought a hand around and smashed what ice she could muster into the side of his head, but it wasn’t enough. Her spell died as her lungs protested. She coughed blood in Kupka’s face and had the pale satisfaction of seeing him grimace with disgust.

More of his soldiers came and clamped hated crystal fetters around her wrists, cutting her off from her magic. The whole fight had lasted some two minutes, maybe three.

When she’d fought Kupka in the Nysa Defile, the fight had lasted more than ten minutes. Had she grown so weak? Or was this just the consequence of not priming? 

Not for the first time, she missed Cid fiercely. Cid had faced these problems. He would have known what to do. How he could help even when his own body fought him.

For now, there was no time for pride, and she’d have to trust in Clive. Even as he gave himself up and was clapped in fetters himself - she'd trust. He hadn't let her down yet.

—

There was a headsman’s block in the middle of the courtyard. Right in the middle of a bunch of yellow and blue flowers. Gav had heard some stories about the Vicereine, but he doubted she’d want the blood on her precious pathways. No, this had to be Kupka’s work. It was fresh, too, right under the balcony.

No sign of Clive or Jill. Torgal neither. He wasn’t quite sure why Kupka was holding off executing them, but no doubt it made sense to him.

Well, Rosalith Castle wasn’t the first castle he’d broken into for Cid. If Kupka was setting up a block special, they’d be in the castle somewhere awaiting Titan’s pleasure.

Clive and Jill had told him a lot of what they remembered of the castle, just in case. Handy knowledge to have. He took the way back near the laundries, on account he doubted any of the Men of the Rock were looking for loot in the washtubs. And if they were looking for washerwomen, they’d already gone. Left Gav with a good way in.

Hard to imagine Clive and Jill growing up here. It was all the marble. Clive only got airs and graces about wine, and only in the Hideaway. Jill spoke all proper but she’d put up with anything. Mud, spiders, snakes, mice, blood, anything.

He passed a window where some of the Men of the Rock were cleaning up a gods-awful mess outside. Was that a dead couerl? Not for the first time he cursed his missing eye. So often he had to stop to look properly, make sure his half field of vision wasn’t playing tricks on him. It slowed him down.

A couerl might explain some of the levin he’d seen blasting above the walls at weird angles. Gav couldn’t say he’d ever fought one. Sensible people just ran. Other bodies had a distinctly frostbitten look. Seemed a good indication that both Clive and Jill had been here and been fighting. Where would Kupka put them? If one or both weren’t breaking out right now, that meant either Kupka had one hostage or he had two sets of crystal fetters. 

He hadn’t seen Clive’s Eikon himself - he didn’t think anyone at the Hideaway had - but he’d heard from Jill that Clive's semi-prime or whatever it was, was fearsome. He could do with a front row to watching Kupka try and fight that.

Gav got his first stroke of luck as he made his way to the kitchens. Always a good source of gossip, kitchens. These looked like they might have been nice ones, once upon a time. Homey without being too small to turn around in.

“Seems a pity about Shiva,” a man said. Gav stopped in his tracks and lurked around the corner, out of sight. “She’s a pretty one.”

If Gav had a second eye to roll, he’d roll both. The Queen of Winter, the pride of the North, ‘a pretty one’. On top of them just talking about Jill like that. He’d like to see them face off against her in the training yard.

“It’s what she gets for getting into bed with an outlaw,” another man said, which had Gav rolling his eye even harder. “If I were Lord Kupka I’d have thrown them both in the dungeons to stew.”

So one of them was in the dungeons. Figured that Kupka would be competent and split them up.

Gav skirted ‘round the base of the castle, feeling ridiculously out of place in front of all the white marble. No sign of activity near the new headsman’s block. He did find a patrol. “Any sign of that stars-damned wolf?” one man barked.

“None, captain!”

“Find him! Lord Kupka demands the wolf’s hide before we get under way. He wants to show Cid before he executes Shiva.”

Good boy, Torgal. Gav kept circling until at last he came to the barracks, hiding himself behind one of the decorative bushes. The barracks weren’t housing the Men of the Rock. Or if they were, they’d moved a lot of soldiers out so they could chain Jill up there too. Right out in the open. Soldiers were gawking at her like she was one of their war panthers. It made him sick.

Jill looked like she was holding up okay. As far as anyone could. He couldn’t risk showing himself to comfort her, and he couldn’t risk getting any closer.

Fuck.

He turned away reluctantly - and nearly jumped out of his skin. Torgal had found him.

“You’re going to give me a heart attack,” Gav whispered. “Good to see a friendly face, mind, even if it is a snout.” 

Torgal wagged his tail.

“Can you keep an eye on Jill for me, boy?” Gav had long since got over talking to Torgal as if he understood. Years on years had shown that he absolutely did understand. Smartest hound Gav had ever heard of. “Clive’s in the dungeons. I’m going to go get him out.”

Torgal wagged his tail again. Looked like agreement to him.

“If anything happens, bite the bastards as hard as you can from me, yeah?”

A third tail wag.

“Good boy.”

So into the dungeons it was. They weren’t well guarded. Guess Kupka thought that nobody would make it all the way past his minions. Clive’s stuff was all just tossed aside at the entrance. Gav picked it up and tucked it all under his arm. Why’d Clive have to use such a big sword? Couldn’t he have picked something a bit more reasonable in size? Honestly.

Clive was all the way down the end, sitting nice and still behind heavy bars. He was white in the face like he’d never seen him before. Gav knifed the guard at the door and started working on the lock. “Hold tight!” he called through the door.

“Gav? Are Jill and Torgal okay?”

“Torgal’s fine, Jill’s not.” The lock on the door sprung open. Fetters next. “Just so you know, crystal fetters are a bastard to open.”

“They’re not much fun to have on, either.”

As he worked, Gav tried to catch him up. “The Imperials finally called the retreat. They’re getting out of here. So on the one hand, it’s only Men of the Rock here, but on the other, there are still plenty of those bastards lurking around every corner.”

It was a painful minute before the fetters clicked and released. Clive jumped to his feet as soon as they were off, colour back in his face immediately. “Where’s Jill?”

“Outside the barracks. If you can’t find her, might be they’re taking her to the garden. Kupka’s got a block set up. He wants you to watch so she’s probably right until they try and drag you there.”

“A block? By the flames.”

By the flames was right. He was getting scorched just standing next to Clive. It was about as angry as Gav had ever seen him. He passed Clive his sword and gear. “I’ll go ahead and circle ‘round the back” Gav said, while Clive geared up at a breakneck pace. Clive’s answering grunt was closer to a growl. Not so different from Torgal, really.

When he got to the barracks, there was nobody there. “Shit,” Gav hissed. He could see grooves in the dirt where Jill had fought every step of the way. Across the way he saw Clive, already caught up. He didn’t wait a second, just tore off straight to the courtyard.

No sign of Torgal.

Gav followed as best he could. Clive knew the castle better than Gav ever would. But Gav managed. 

As he sprinted for the courtyard he heard men shouting. Then barking. He burst on to the upper walls, too late, too late -

- But Torgal was not. Gav saw the wolf launch himself into the men forcing Jill’s head down over the block. Blood flew. And then ice flew as well, in a burst of bright light from Torgal, not Jill. “What the hell,” Gav gasped. “Good dog!”

Clive arrived a second later in a flash of fire and steel. “Gav!” he called.

“Here!” He jumped down, rolling as he hit the ground. He came up sword first, just in time to sink it into the gut of a soldier. He ripped it free, shoved another man aside, and cut his way through to Clive and Jill.

“Get those fetters off,” Clive ordered. Close to, Torgal was a whirling furry mass of ice and teeth, fuck knew how he’d done it. Gav breathed on his hands quickly to keep them limber in the magic cold, trusted in Clive and Torgal to have his back, and started his work.

“You right there, Jill?”

“I will be once these are off!” Her voice was tight with pain.

“Not to worry, I’m getting some practice!” He flinched away from an errant blade, steadied his hands, and started again. This time it seemed like it took only seconds. Jill didn’t bounce back as easily as Clive had. “I don’t have your sword,” he was forced to admit.

“Not a problem,” Jill said. “It’s back in the barracks.” With a deep breath, she summoned her ice and started throwing it around. Three men fell to sharp icicles. Gav took the opening and dashed through the ranks to get Jill her blade. Behind him, he heard her shout, “Clive, go take Kupka!”

“But -”

“I’m fine,” Jill shouted. “Do what we came here to do!”

Gav didn’t waste the breath to tell Clive he agreed. “You better win,” he said to nobody, and did his best to help Jill.

Chapter Text

Kupka waited for him, back turned, before the Archduke’s throne. The throne that should be Joshua’s even now.

“You’re late,” Kupka said.

“I was held up with the celebrations,” Clive replied. He flicked some more blood off his sword.

“Are you here to defend your father’s throne?” Kupka asked. He ran a hand along its white marble. It was one of the most precious objects in all Rosaria, a relic from not long after the Founding, given to Archduchess Adelaide, the second Phoenix, the Founder’s first heir. Clive had last seen that seat only a few days before everything had gone to hell. “Your mother dared not sit in it herself, not while the people of Rosaria bleated about their precious dead Archduke and his dead sons. It has stood empty here for fifteen years. Gathering dust.”

Joshua lived. Joshua lived, and one day Clive would see him on that seat. To rule the duchy as it should be, a place where Bearers and ordinary people could live together in peace.

Kupka turned to him and kept speaking. “A realm without a ruler, an army, even a people…a veritable kingdom of dust. Truly, I see no throne to defend.”

He crashed his fist into the throne backhand. The ducal throne. Clive’s father’s throne. The top crumbled, leaving only the seat, empty and mostly ruined.

The rulers of Rosaria didn’t wear a crown. They simply used the throne. The throne was all the symbol of authority a ruler of Rosaria was ever supposed to need.

“No,” Clive gasped, before he could help himself. It was only a seat, but what it represented…could he not stop failing his family and his country? “Just tell me what you want,” he said. None of this made any sense. None of it ever had. Thousands had died for this madness.

“Cid’s head in a box,” Kupka said. “Imagine my disappointment when I learned that he met his end at the hands of another.” He stepped forward. “And my relief to learn that someone had taken up his thrice-damned name.”

Clive still didn’t understand. Not the simplest thing. But Kupka wasn’t finished.

“Your master slew Benedikta Harman and defiled her body!” he shouted, apparently offended by Clive’s lack of comprehension. “If you choose to bear that murderer’s name, then you shall answer for his crimes!”

Benedikta…Harman? The Dominant of Garuda? 

That was it?

Clive’s lip curled.

“Cid was not, and was never, my master,” he said. All this for Benedikta Harman? Just the one loss? Of a woman who had killed Founder knew how many and who willingly served a warmongering king to kill uncountable more innocent people? He didn’t believe this. He didn’t even try to hide his contempt. “The only crimes I shall answer for are my own.”

There were many. This was not one of them.

He stalked forward, the flames inside him urging him to twist the knife. He wanted to see Kupka hurt. He wanted to see Kupka burn. “Cid did everything in his power to save that woman, though she was long past saving. And so I did what he couldn’t.”

Kupka’s eyes widened and his face crumpled.

“It was me all along,” Clive said.

“You?” Kupka asked. The mighty Titan sounded strangely vulnerable. “You killed her?”

“I did,” Clive said, drawing out the words just slightly. Making sure Kupka knew the taunt for what it was. The only regret he had about killing Benedikta Harman was that he hadn’t been in control of himself while he did.

For a long moment, there was silence except for the sounds of fighting outside.

Then Kupka started to laugh. “Then I am fortunate indeed!” Aether started flooding into him. Clive braced himself. He would likely end up fighting a semi-primed Kupka with naught but his sword, if Ifrit wouldn’t cooperate. “I thought the most I could wish for was to take the life of one Cid loved, just as he did to me…but it seems I was wrong, and I shall have my revenge!”

The aether reached a peak as golden crystals formed along Kupka’s arms. His eyes glowed the same shade of gold. The same shade as crystals from Drake’s Fang. Over the rushing of aether and the crackle of forming crystals, Kupka started shouting again: “We had a dream! I would be the king of the world, and she would be my queen! We would rule like the gods we are! You crushed that dream, and for that I will tear you apart with my bare hands!”

Let him shout himself hoarse. All the less air he’d have to fight with. The gall of him. “How many dreams have you crushed?” Clive asked, readying sword and flames alike. “You’re not the only one who’s seen their world fall apart around them. You’ll have no pity from me. No pity - and no mercy!”

Kupka made the first move, lunging towards Clive elbow-first.

He was much faster than Clive would have thought. He barely got his sword up in time. Kupka hit him with a loud, flat clink and leaned in. As well as fast, he was monstrously strong. “It is time you learned what happens to those who cross me,” Kukpa growled into Clive’s face.

“Cross you?” Clive asked, arms straining. “I’ll kill you!”

He twisted and flung Kupka away from him. He needed Ifrit. He needed Ifrit badly if he was going to stay in this fight. It was all he could do to turn Kupka’s flurry of punches away from his body. Every impact shuddered through his blade and into his body. A blow from the right snuck past his guard. He jerked his head away so fast he felt a shock of pain down his neck, but he only received a slight nick from a crystal instead of a blow that would have shattered his skull. 

Clive started circling with all the speed the Blessing of the Phoenix granted him. Kupka might be faster than anticipated, but he wasn’t faster than Clive, and all his bulk meant that there was more of him to move. He saw his opening and lunged in, the force of his shoulder behind the blow. Kupka brought up a shield of earth but Clive’s momentum was too great. The tip of his sword punched through and cut a track through the crystals that clad Kupka’s arm. No blood fell. Kupka roared more with anger than with pain and sent a shock of magic through the stone floor, deforming the marble and sending a block cannoning straight towards Clive’s chest. He twisted aside just in time.

More destruction here in his father’s hall.

Kupka seemed to pick up on the pain that caused him and started to throw more of the floor at him. Clive skipped around them, wincing as marble tiles smashed against marble wall. “Stay still!” Kupka roared.

He didn’t dignify that with a response, only another attempt to get past Kupka’s crystalline armour. He used Garuda’s winds to carry him out of the way of Kupka’s blows, which again had Kupka screaming in outrage.

Fine. Clive wondered how much more violent his reaction would be if he knew that Clive wasn’t just a Bearer with the power of winds, but that he’d taken Harman’s own powers for his own.

The air around him was starting to heat beyond what a fight in a closed space would result in, fire and rage boiling off his skin. Ifrit still wouldn’t come out. Clive would just have to make this be enough.

This time, when Clive swung his sword in a heavy arc that forced Kupka to bring up another shield, he followed it with his off-hand wreathed in Ramuh’s levin. He punched through another bunch of crystals and scorched Kupka’s bare skin.

That snapped something in Kupka’s composure. This time, he sunk to his knees, dug his hands into the floor, and howled, “Let this palace be your grave!”

It took a second for Clive to realise what Kupka was doing. Oh, shit. Kupka was tearing up the entire floor. All of it. It ripped free of the walls, tilting Clive backwards. He dug his sword into the tile just to get some purchase. Once he had it he scrambled up the rapidly rising end of the slab Kupka was tearing up. He leapt for Kupka’s head, Garuda’s winds buoying him up and extending his leap. Swordpoint first, he dropped through the air seeking blood.

Kupka wasn’t stupid. He swatted Clive out of the air, no force behind his blow in freefall. They both hit hard. Clive rolled away, bruising himself on his own armour, but mostly unscathed.

He came to a stop staring upwards.

Clive knew this place. Whenever he’d been here before, it was always dark. Now light streamed in from the windows high, high above, lighting up the faces of dead Rosfields past. Phoenixes all, the only ones here whose place in the crypts were marked with statues. Lit in the wan overcast light of day, they seemed pale and dead rather than foreboding.

A dynasty of dust, Clive thought irrationally. But Joshua lived.

For a moment, he and Kupka faced each other, each nursing the pain from the impact, the breath knocked out of them.

Then Kupka too looked around and realised that they were in the crypt, in the heart of the hill, and began to laugh. He spread his arms wide and turned around to take it in - leaving his back open to Clive for just a moment, the distance too great for him to take advantage - and said, “The world has chosen! The earth will always be my domain!”

Infuriated, Clive shouted back, “This is not your domain!”

The Dominant of Titan grinned. Clive had caught a glimpse of that grin at the Nysa Defile. “I’ll rip out your heart,” he promised. “You can lie next to your forefathers. Gutted.”

Never.

At last, Ifrit rose to the surface, filling him with fire and armouring him with molten rock. His rage at last brought to the surface. Kupka’s eyes widened when he saw it. “A neat trick. Not good enough!”

He didn’t see it for what it was. Good.

Clive didn’t respond. He charged. Now it was Kupka who was on the back foot. He could hardly find the stony shields to guard against Clive’s flames. Clive changed it up, summoned Garuda’s winds, and used them to drag Kupka to the ground. Kupka was too strong and too stubborn for the narrow, intense band of solid wind to hold him down for more than a few seconds, but it was long enough for Clive to strike him with one of the heavy levinbolts Cid had favoured. It blasted right through all Kupka’s crystal armour and he felt the other man’s semi-prime dissipate.

This was it. Clive brought his sword around -

He was a second too slow, and Kupka sent him reeling back from a wild blow. He lost his grip on Ifrit as suddenly as he’d found it. Clive staggered from the impact and the abrupt loss of the aether. Kupka charged into him, still bigger and stronger than he was even now neither of them were semi-primed. His sword went flying. It rang as it landed barely an arm’s length away.

“This is the end for you, Rosfield,” Kupka growled.

Out of the corner of his eye Clive saw Kupka raising both fists for exactly the sort of decisive blow Clive had just tried, but he didn’t waste time. He flipped onto his stomach, scrambling against the broken stone. He had to get his sword.

His hand found the hilt and he hadn’t been smashed into bloody paste yet -

With all the strength he had remaining to him he flung up his sword in front of him -

- And met resistance for a bare moment as the edge sliced neatly through Kupka’s arms just above the wrists.

Kupka’s hands fell without any force behind them. One bounced off Clive’s knee. Kupka stared in horror.

Then he stared to scream. He fell to his knees, blood spurting from the stumps in pulses, covering him and the ground. “I’ll kill you!” He smashed the stumps into the ground. The ground shook. Dust flew. It settled over the blood and formed disgusting clumps of warm mud. “I’ll kill you!”

Clive shook his head and adjusted his grip on his sword.

Something deeper inside adjusted itself too. Clive recognised the feeling. The reaching inside. Titan was vulnerable, and something inside him just couldn’t be stopped. The flow of aether started before Clive could bring his sword down.

“No, no, no,” he muttered, trying to cut himself off. He didn’t want Titan’s powers, he wanted Kupka dead. But the power was like water over desert sand, soaking into him. He could feel it making its place inside him. He didn’t want it.

For a moment, he lost track of everything. It was a haze of aether and shadows and dust and blood. Clive blinked his eyes open when the pain subsided. He’d fallen on his backside at some point. Pain was rapidly becoming - it was uncomfortable and he hated it - pleasure. He’d felt it a little after Cid had given him Ramuh, just a warmth along his spine. This was far stronger.

It left him almost as helpless as the pain did.

Kupka was back on his feet. Only the power of hatred could explain it. “I’ll kill you,” he said, “I’ll kill you.”

Clive started to push himself to his feet when, from the dust and the shadows, emerged a young man in white. His equally pale hair, tied into a simple braid, shone in the dusty light from the hall above. His mouth was curved into a cruel smile, as fixed as if it had been carved that way.

The newcomer came to stand next to Kupka and patted him on the upper arm, since the top of his head barely came up to Kupka’s shoulder. The man looked a switch of willow next to the Dominant of Titan, but was completely unafraid. “There, there,” he said comfortingly. “You mustn’t get yourself worked up.” He spoke Dhalmek, but with a heavy Waloeder accent.

Without warning, the newcomer drove a fist under Kupka’s sternum. It folded him like the Hideaway’s laundry. With deceptive, impossible strength, the man hauled Kupka over his shoulder heedless of the blood smearing across his white and lilac clothes.

He was going to take Kupka?

“Wait!” Clive called. He had his feet beneath him. He could give chase. He could.

The man turned back. “Another time, Mythos,” he said, and then he was lost in the dust again.

Mythos?

The sound of the word was unfamiliar, yet the man said it as if it should mean something to Clive. When he repeated it in his own head, unfamiliar became familiar. Someone had called him that before. Just not aloud.

Weary and frustrated beyond belief, Clive started the long climb back up to the courtyard.

—

She was running out of energy. More and more, Torgal started to pick up the bigger spells - she hadn’t known he could do that - while Jill relied on her sword. The ground below them was growing sodden with melted ice and blood. Ominous rumbling and the grinding of stone could still be heard from the castle, but Jill could feel Clive’s aether. He wasn’t dead. If he wasn’t dead, he was still fighting.

“How many of them are there?” she asked Gav.

“More,” Gav said, sharp eye on the far gates. “Fuck me, those don’t look like Men of the Rock.”

Jill had already whirled to engage with one of the dagger-wielding elite soldiers that leapt out from the bushes with clouds of poison. By far the most annoying soldiers Kupka had.

“Fuck me!”

“What’s the problem?” Jill asked. She took a deep breath, ignored the pain in her chest and the taste of blood in her mouth, and raised a wall of ice around her, Gav, and Torgal, just to give them the breathing space.

“They’re Waloeders!”

“Waloeders?”

She took down some of the ice. Sure enough, soldiers in blue and grey were advancing on them, women along with the men. Most definitely not Men of the Rock. “What are they doing here?”

“Fuck if I know,” Gav said. “They don’t look friendly, though!”

Torgal raised his hackles at the newcomers. “I don’t think so either,” Jill said. She trusted Torgal’s instincts.

They weren’t. The Waloeders approached with drawn swords and crystals alight with aether.

Jill hadn’t fought so long since she was with the Ironblood. Even when she and Clive had destroyed Drake’s Breath Clive had taken the burden of most of the fighting while in the mountain itself, allowing her to save her energy for Imreann. Now it was her turn to take that role and she would not fail.

What she might have to give to ensure she didn’t fail, she’d think about later.

Her lungs burned and her arms shook as cutting down Waloeders turned into a chore. Not as bad as with the Ironblood, it could never be as bad as with the Ironblood when she had people to protect and a cause to fight for, but nothing she enjoyed, either.

At last the courtyard seemed to clear. There were bodies upon bodies. They had to have killed nearly two full squads. Some had broken and fled. Jill could only hope that they weren’t wreaking more havoc in the city.

“Are we done?” Jill asked, breathing heavily. Her bones hurt.

There was a thunk behind her.

“You missed one,” Clive said.

“Clive!”

Relief rushed through her, better than any of Tarja’s painkillers. Clive was covered in dust and blood, but if he was hurt he wasn’t showing it. Jill went to embrace him, remembered the awkward moment in Clive’s solar before they set out, and pulled back, but he embraced her readily enough this time. He always ran hot. The heat was such a relief to her aches. Maybe he was running even hotter than usual - she could feel a pulling in the aether around him. She usually did, but this was stronger again.

“What happened to Kupka?” Gav asked apprehensively.

“He got away,” Clive spat. “I had him. If it wasn’t for my gift -”

Jill pulled away, just enough to look him in the eyes. “You took Titan from him?”

Just as he had the night Drake’s Head fell, Clive looked away, ashamed.

Well. There was something she could say here, wasn’t there? “I’m glad Kupka doesn’t have that power any more. However it came to you, I believe Titan’s powers are better used in your hands, Clive.”

“I don’t care about the power,” Clive whispered back. “I don’t want it. I wanted him dead, Jill, that’s all.”

“I know,” she said, and stepped away. Or rather, she tried to step away. Her legs gave out on her with a final, dramatic wobble and collapse. Clive caught her on the way down. Then he rearranged their positions slightly so she was leaning on his arm as if they were at a dance. It spared her dignity.

But without her between him and the carnage she, Torgal and Gav had made of the courtyard, Clive’s eyes widened. “These aren’t all Men of the Rock,” he said.

Gav spat. “Waloeder scum. Nobody invited them.”

“When did they get here?”

“Not long after you went in. Just as soon as we were shot of Titan’s lot, in pile Odin’s. Not enough to worry us, though.”

“Enough to distract,” Clive pointed out. “The man who took Kupka was a Waloeder. You didn’t see them leave, did you?”

“Give us some credit,” Gav complained, “If we’d seen Kupka, we’d’ve tried to kill him too.”

Clive nodded his agreement. “We should go,” he said.

Gav exhaled hard. “Can’t be soon enough for me. Sorry Clive, but I don’t think I saw Rosalith at its best this trip. I’ll go scout the way.”

He left at a run. “I don’t know where he gets the energy,” Jill said. She was bone tired. But Clive was right. They had to go. They couldn’t stay. The Men of the Rock would regroup enough for a proper retreat and they were all exhausted. Gav was in the best shape, but he wasn’t even a Bearer. He didn’t have a drop of magic to defend himself with, let alone others.

Jill’s legs still weren’t as steady as she would have liked. She was afraid they’d be relying on Clive to get them both out of here safely.

But Clive was stock still, even as Jill kept testing her weight. He stared up at the towers, still intact, only a little smoke-stained.

“Clive?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Come on.”

Jill wanted to tell him he’d come back, but they both knew it wouldn’t be true. Rosalith would never be the same again. There was no comfort for that.

Chapter Text

“His Majesty will see you this evening at the eighth bell.”

“Thank you,” Anabella replied. “You may go.”

The servant bowed and backed out of her chambers.

Anabella allowed herself a victorious smile. Then she summoned her own chambermaids. She had to get this meeting right. A deep blue gown to set off her pale gold hair - what few strands of grey were there, she did not yet have to dye. Gold jewelry to set off the blue. Powder and paint, but not too much. There was little sadder than a woman who thought she could hide time itself with cosmetics.

More and more these days, Sylvestre spent hours upon hours in prayer, seeking visions of his precious Goddess, rather than pursuing younger women as he had been wont to in the past. But she was the woman he had wed, for far more than mere appearances, and besides that Anabella knew well that she was still beautiful even at forty-and-seven. As beautiful as an empress should be. She would uphold that image. She had her pride. Always. She would go to Sylvestre this evening looking the part and she knew she could capture his attention.

Especially with the news she had to share with him.

It took hours, but at last she was satisfied. The gown was modest and just a few shades deeper than the Sanbrequois flag. She had selected a slim gold chain set with sapphires, a gold belt with blue enamel and yellow topaz, and two rings set with more sapphires. Her hair was bound up in a golden hairnet rather than a crown; while she wanted to look regal, she did not want that station foremost in Sylvestre’s mind. Tonight she wanted to be the noblewoman he married for the alliance she offered rather than the fully-fledged Empress seeking her rights. She wanted this to seem at least part an entreaty.

At the eighth hour, when Sylvestre’s manservant came to fetch her, there were fewer people in the halls of Twinside’s Great Council Palace than usual. The evening meals were under way. Others would be taking carriages into town for the evening’s salons. Anabella and her maids passed through the palace without remark.

She was escorted to the Emperor’s private chapel - not a proper chapel, but a hurriedly refurbished councilor’s office with a favourable aspect, meant to make do while a purpose-built chapel was constructed.

Anabella entered alone only to find her husband prostate before his favourite icon of Greagor. He’d had it moved from Oriflamme. To her it seemed a statue of Greagor like any other, an improbably waifish and demure figure in alabaster staring down at the Wyrm curled around her. What utter nonsense. To tame a dragon, one had to be fierce.

At the sound of the door closing, Sylvestre climbed to his feet and came to greet her with a clasp of hands and a kiss upon each cheek. “My lady Empress. What brings you here this evening?”

“My lord husband,” Anabella said. She cast her eyes down, just slightly. “I come to you as the Vicereine of Rosaria and as your loyal wife…I fear I have disturbing news from the border. Twice over.”

Sylvestre frowned. “Kupka has overstepped the mark, has he?”

“Worse. By all accounts, he invited Waloeders to his little raid.”

“The double-crossing dog,” Sylvestre spat. “How fares Rosalith? Did he at least succeed in drawing out this Cid? Or better yet, Shiva?”

Despite herself, Anabella’s heart beat faster at the mention of the so-called Cid. The very idea that he was still out there, causing trouble for his betters, was utterly infuriating. “Titan fought with one of them, maybe both. The Waloeders had to rescue him. My intelligencers tell me that the Men of the Rock believe Kupka died of his wounds. Nothing has been confirmed.”

Sylvestre spat a curse, then turned and quickly genuflected to his statue in pointless apology. “We cannot let this treachery go unpunished. Kupka asked much and has repaid it poorly.”

“Your majesty…I beg you hear the rest of what I have to report before you make any decisions.” She looked up through her eyelashes mournfully and arranged her face into a semblance of regret. This had to be handled delicately. “I have reports that several dragoons have been seen on the Rosarian border aiding in the retreat.”

That hit the mark. The Emperor’s eyes widened. “Dion? He disobeyed my orders?”

“No doubt he thought it best,” Anabella said. “It is defiance of your orders in spirit, at least, even if he skirted around violating your exact words. I fear he means to provoke revolt amongst the troops.”

“No,” Sylvestre said, but he looked lost, not angry. If Anabella had suggested as much to Elwin, about his precious Clive, she would have been thrown from the solar without question.

“My lord, I have grave concerns about this development. It undermines your authority. And if Prince Dion will go this far -” she ler her voice crack “- then I fear for Olivier as well. In the history of the Holy Empire, you know well the threat a brother may pose a brother, a son his father.”

“Dion would not,” Sylvestre said. Not very convincingly.

“His actions are borderline rebellion,” Anabella pressed. “He has disobeyed you once. It will happen again if he is left unchecked. It might be it looks harmless this time, or next time, but now that he has violated the principle…”

Sylvestre started to pace anxiously. Anabella waited patiently. This was never going to be accomplished easily. Sylvestre had been blinded by Bahamut for a very long time. “I understand the principle,” he said. “I agree. But the Empire relies on Bahamut. Without Dion's might...”

“Bahamut can be replaced, if need be,” Anabella said. “You have another son. One with the blood of the Phoenix as well as Bahamut. We of Rosaria know that preserving the bloodlines of a Dominant works. We control Drake’s Tail.”

He kept pacing.

“How about a test?” Anabella suggested, after several minutes. “See if Prince Dion will continue to obey your orders without protest. The astrologers will be able to assist you, I’m sure.”

She’d thrown him a lifeline, just when he needed it. She could see him grasp it. “The astrologers. Yes. I will think on what you’ve told me, Anabella.”

“I will send my intelligencers to you for questioning,” Anabella said. “I do not make such an accusation lightly, my lord.”

The only response he gave her was a terse, troubled nod. That was well enough. Anabella retreated with a curtsey, leaving Sylvestre to his prayer and his anguish. But this could only end one way.

She knew better than to smile. Not until she was back in the safety of her own chambers.

—

The Undying certainly did have a lot of translation work for him. At least Joshua wasn’t as bored as he could have been while he recovered.

Reading the Old Dzemekys script and translating it into modern Sanbrequois was a skill he had to maintain. Too long without it and the letters slipped away after a time in a way that the other languages he learned didn’t. Irene, one of his teachers and the person in charge of all the Undying’s recovered documents from Fallen sites, theorised that it was because he used those languages more frequently, and even if he went months without looking at Old Dhalmekian, he used its modern form enough that the links remained in use. Much like using a muscle.

He worked through the first document at a pace he found almost painfully slow. The second went quicker. After the third, it came back easily.

The current documents were records of some sort of upheaval. Half a diary. The Undying’s historians would order it into one of their chronologies, but it wasn’t Joshua’s area of interest. He wanted to know about Ultima more directly than learning about the war and devastation left behind afterwards. Joshua wrote his translations out to be cross-checked with someone else’s work, making a note wherever he couldn’t translate a word or phrase.

After several pages describing a miserable, painful trip across the blasted plains that had eventually become the golden fields of Sanbreque (judging from the location the record had been discovered) he hit upon something more interesting.

The writer, it seemed, had been a priest of sorts. A priest of Ultima. Many of the words were utterly incomprehensible, referring to concepts, people, and places Joshua had never heard of and had no way of knowing. But he understood enough to know that here was an author struggling with their faith.

“Have you discovered anything interesting, your grace?” Jote asked him, when she stopped by his rooms to satisfy herself that his health was improving. And also to test one of her new concoctions on him. She studied as much or more than he did when they stopped in Tabor.

“It reads like anything a true devotee of Greagor has written in the past two years,” he said. “All that destruction and people, it seems, remain the same.”

Jote set down a cup of steaming tea in front of him. It smelled almost sickly sweet and when he peered into the cup, it was an alarming shade of pink. Some sort of berry, then. It had to be better than some of the bitter powders Jote had tried to pour down his throat before. “Hard to imagine a people with genuine faith in Ultima.”

“I suppose there was no way to know what it was in truth before it turned on them,” Joshua replied.

He kept reading while Jote went through her satchel of assorted herbs and powders. The next document was more interesting, written as it was just after the Fall of Dzemekys.

I know not what everyone in the world wanted, but I just wanted to see more of the world. It seemed so large and wondrous. But the Lord called our works ‘akin to Logos’. Then he called levin beyond levin upon them, to blast them from the sky. As though our airships were dangerous. Right down to the ships for stargazing. The sight of my mother’s ship falling from the sky in flames and dust is burned into my memory.

My world is now as small as the rubble we crawl in. If this is Logos I embrace it.

“What is Logos?” Joshua asked aloud.

“What is what, Your Grace?”

“Logos,” Joshua repeated. “This writer speaks about it as a threat to Ultima.” He had never before seen any writer describe anything that could hurt Ultima. If it was the sort of thing that could make the creature take action…

He sipped the tea Jote had given him and nearly spat it out. Despite the sweet smell, the bitter powder was lurking at the bottom of the cup.

“Drink it all, Your Grace,” Jote said severely.

“I need to know where this document was found,” Joshua said. “I want to see this for myself.”

“If you take your medicine I will ask.”

“You’ve become a hard bargainer,” Joshua said lightly. He drank the tea. It didn’t seem to make much difference except to coat his tongue with a thick astringency that he knew from experience would drown out all other flavours for several hours. But she took down his notes and went to find the Undying’s record-keepers for excavations.

An hour later, Jote returned. “It’s from the Velkroy, Your Grace. Not far from the site you wanted to visit anyway.”

“Excellent. We can visit there as well.”

As a trial for his imminent departure from Tabor once he recovered, Joshua took the time that evening to seek out Irene. His old teacher made him a pot of tea - plain mint, not medicinal - and sat down to discuss his progress.

“Have you ever seen this word before?” Joshua asked. “Logos?”

“I don’t believe I have,” Irene said. “But looking here - I have seen another word that seems to be related. Mythos.”

She wrote it out for him. From his own knowledge of the script, he agreed that it was a related word. “It looks to be negatived, though,” Joshua said. “Logos and Mythos are opposites, perhaps?”

“Or Mythos refers to a lack of something,” Irene said. “A cleansing? A state of purity? The references I’ve seen to Mythos have been approving or positive.”

Most of the documents and inscriptions they had were written before the Fall. When they mentioned Ultima, there were a range of opinions about the creature amongst the surviving records. Some were true worshippers. Others felt only a civic sort of piety, like Greagor’s less faithful in Sanbreque. A few fragmentary lines had asked what they could learn from Ultima’s powers. The only point of agreement seemed to be that it was vastly, unfathomably powerful. “But what are these things? They don’t sound like places. People? Concepts?”

“I can’t make a convincing argument either way.” Irene shuffled through a few more papers. “We have…three mentions of Mythos in our archive, one of Logos, which you have just found. Your mention of Logos sounds like a concept. Two mentions of Mythos sound like a person - or a mythical figure, perhaps, such as a Dominant, and one sounds like a concept.”

“What is clear is that Logos evoked some sort of violent reaction from Ultima. Person or concept, we need to know more. At the very least, we may be able to use the knowledge to provoke it, even if it doesn’t pose an outright threat.”

“I agree, Your Grace. I will let the researchers know to focus on this and alert the excavators to the words.”

The rest of the discussion was quite pleasant and rather more academic. If only he lived in a  world where he could do this all the time. For a living. Instead he’d been born the Phoenix and the heir of an archduke.

He’d do his duty, of course. So he thanked Irene and returned to his room to rest. He had some sites in the Velkroy to visit and he’d need his strength.

—

No sooner had Clive set foot on the main deck of the Hideaway than Otto appeared from the main hall and said, “Thank Greagor you’re back.”

He looked to Jill. She still didn’t look totally recovered. “It’s okay,” she said, “I can make it to Tarja on my own.”

He watched her go, not favouring either leg but moving slowly and gingerly. Then he turned back to Otto. “What’s the matter?”

“Midadol Telamon,” Otto growled.

“She’s here?!” Clive looked around. Nothing appeared to be on fire. He couldn’t hear any screaming. Or clanging. Or smell anything but the usual slightly acrid Blight and the pot of stew Molly had simmering at every hour of the day. “What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? The problem?” Otto was going red. “She’s gone and monopolised Blackthorne, Bardolph, and Lady Charon!”

“Charon is perfectly capable of deciding not to be monopolised,” Clive said. “But what could Mid possibly need both Blackthorne and Bardolph for?”

“Greagor only knows but we need them both to keep this place in more or less one piece and above the mere. I love the girl like my own and the work she does keeps us alive in the long view. All the same, we can’t have our builders yanked off their usual work keeping us literally afloat and that’s just how it is.” Otto sighed heavily. “She don’t listen to me, not about this sort of thing. Barely even listened to her da. She respects you, Clive. Would you have a word with her?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Before the Hideaway starts falling apart.”

He did drop his bag in his room and wash the travel dust off. He stopped by Lady Charon’s nook to purchase the largest, meatiest treat she had in stock for Torgal, who settled himself in a sunbeam peeking through the roof and set to it with noisy abandon. The Hideaway didn’t appear to be in imminent danger. Yet. Then he went to Vivian to give her the usual briefing. “Good,” Vivian said fiercely, when Clive told her what had happened to Titan. “I’ll find out where he went for you. It might take some time.”

“I doubt Kupka is an imminent danger to us. The blood loss was significant.”

“I can only imagine.”

When he was finished, there were still no signs of the Hideaway about to collapse into the sea.

No sign of Jill, either. He asked Tam, one of her roommates, whether she’d gone back to her bunk at all for a much-needed rest. She hadn’t. She was still with Tarja. Not a good sign.

Then, at last, he went to find the noisiest and most chaotic part of the Hideaway.

Usually it was the back deck, where the botanists and gardeners constantly tended to their garden beds, weaving in between training Cursebreakers and people just taking the air on a break from their other work or studies. Today, Clive only had to head towards the atrium to hear hammering, clanging, and swearing where before there had been a storage area.

Clive headed down the stairs to see that all the boxes had been cleared out and replaced by workbenches. There were already a range of strange instruments and tools and a small mountain of schematics cluttering the top. In the centre, overseeing the chaos, was Mid.

Cid’s daughter was twenty-three years old but looked younger. She wore her sun-blond hair in a lengthy braid, which was just about the only tidy thing about her. Most of the time she could be found covered in grease or smoke or ink or some combination of all three. Today was no different. When she spotted him, she grabbed him for a hug that transferred a decent smudge of black grease to his own clothes. “Clive!”

“Mid,” Clive said. He hugged her back. He couldn’t help but love Mid; she reminded him of Joshua, oddly enough. “Otto said you were trying to bring down the Hideaway.”

“‘Course I’m not!” Mid said indignantly into his collarbone. She skipped out of his grip as quickly as she’d thrown herself at him. “I’m just making meself a workshop! Needs a bit of renovating down here!”

“A workshop,” Clive repeated.

“Aye! For whatever I decide to make next. Haven’t worked that out yet. Not to worry, I’ll think of something. Probably three or four somethings actually. And now I have help!”

Clive looked over to the other side of the room. He recognised several of those faces. All people who’d studied with Harpocrates and, no doubt, hit the end of the old scholar’s knowledge of the sciences. He sighed. “May I talk to Mid alone, please?”

They shuffled out, one of them clutching a schematic.

“What are you doing here, Mid?” he asked. “Really?”

Mid wilted. “They’re all panicking in Kanver, you know. ‘Oh, Kupka’s gone rogue, if he’s invaded Rosaria he’ll be coming for us next!’ Half me classes are cancelled until the winter. Da sent me to Kanver to learn, not to sit about town. So I came back.”

“What about the other half of your classes?” Clive asked.

“They’re the boring useless half,” Mid said. “You know, the ones run by barmy old codgers or stuffy old gits too up themselves to realise that there might be any danger at all.”

“Are you planning to go back when it’s safe? Kupka’s been, ah…compromised, even if he isn’t dead. Since we’re paying your tuition.”

Mid’s chin tilted up in a stubborn expression that reminded Clive of Cid. They shared no blood, but they had the same spirit. “That’s why I have to give back to this place,” she said. There was a shimmer of tears in her eyes. There often was when she spoke of her father, which had to be why she didn’t do so very often. “I know Da sacrificed a lot to make sure I could go. Wanted me to learn what he never got the chance to, he did.”

“Oh, Founder, he would have been the terror of Kanver,” Clive said. “Can you imagine him in one of Vivian’s lectures?”

Despite herself Mid burst out giggling, even as she wiped at her eyes. “They’d never have got to the lecture for arguing.”

Clive squeezed her hand. “You’ll always be welcome here and we value your work. We do need you to ask before you take Bardolph and Blackthorne from theirs, just so you have somewhere to come back to.”

“All right, all right. If you insist.” She squeezed back, then whirled back towards her bench. “Don’t suppose you could find a second carpenter, could you?”

“For you, I’ll see what I can do,” Clive promised.

Chapter Text

Day three of her confinement to Tarja’s infirmary and Jill was about ready to stage an escape. Clive had run off to Rosaria again just that morning, without Torgal for once, hoping to borrow a carpenter. With any luck one who could help teach a few more willing hands here the craft. Without him, the Hideaway was just a bit lonelier. And the infirmary just a bit more boring.

Gav dropped by to visit before he ran off as well. “Not too badly off, are you, Jill?” he asked anxiously. Torgal leapt up onto her cot and curled into a ball. A large, heavy ball. She wouldn’t have moved him even if she could.

“Better than Tarja thinks,” Jill said sourly.

“Oh, I’m not brave enough to cross her.”

“That’s what Clive said.”

Gav looked at Torgal, already asleep, “I’ve been worrying about Torgal here,” he said. “He’s  been sleeping a lot since we got back from Rosalith. Maybe whatever he did took it out of him too. Maybe wolves have Bearers too.”

The idea of Torgal suffering the curse struck fear into her heart. It hurt. She never wanted Torgal to suffer that. She was glad enough that Clive, for whatever reason, was spared it, but she had never dreamed that Torgal -

“I’ve asked Tomes to look into it,” Gav said. “If anyone can work it out, it’s him.”

“I certainly hope so. He saved us all back in Rosalith.”

Torgal’s ear twitched in his sleep. Jill gave it a scratch.

Gav stayed only a few more minutes. Torgal stayed an hour more, before Tarja noticed and shooed him out. Jill tried to take another nap. Hortense at least brought her some sewing to do, which meant she wouldn’t be totally useless during her enforced rest.

But all this meant that she had to find something else for her. She was not going to be able to fight alongside Clive in the field much longer, if at all. Shiva was exacting her price ever faster and ever more deeply. There had to be something she could do so she could still fight the same fight, even in a different way.

When Tarja released her to what she emphasised had to be light duties, she went about the Hideaway collecting all those errands that would usually fall to Clive. No doubt he’d help if he were here, but did he need to be the one going to fetch errmonea for Rodrigue? She sent the request to Martha’s Rest for the Cursebreakers stationed there to deal with. Along with the usual request for news of any sign of Marleigh or other escapees from Drake’s Breath.

When she let Dorys know, she also had a request for Clive. “Several of the Cursebreakers are late reporting in from outside Northreach. I’m concerned.”

“How late are they in reporting?”

“Only a day, but we’ve had reports of slavers in the area. Some fights. I’m familiar with both groups. These slavers are particularly vicious.”

“I’ll let Clive know,” Jill promised.

By the end of the day, she knew little else than that this would not suit her in the long term. Clive could use someone whose job it was to manage all his various tasks and letters. It could not be her. She’d go mad.

She ended up wandering into the shelves, where Torgal had relocated. “It might be easier being a wolf,” Jill said.

“Ah,” Tomes said from behind her, “But he might not be a wolf. Or at least, not just a wolf. Tell me, do you know where Clive got him?”

“His father,” Jill said. “Archduke Elwin brought him back from the Northern Territories. Said he found him alone in a snowdrift, without any sign of his pack.” And Clive, ever considerate, had gone straight to her and said they’d both look after Torgal so they could both have another friend.

“Hmm. The late Archduke must have had a soft heart. Not every man would bring any sort of wolf home to his sons.” He smiled down at Torgal, sprawled out happily in front of a shelf. Some of the children had tied a ribbon around his foreleg, in a clumsy match to the cuff Cid had given him. “I believe that Torgal is a frost wolf.”

Jill looked at Torgal too. “I thought they were all white,” she said. “At least, they always were in the stories.”

“A myth, from what the old bestiaries tell me. Frost wolves are simply rare, and ones with grey fur even more so. Our Torgal is simply odder than most.”

“And what does that mean for him?”

Tomes looked up at her then with as bright a smile as she’d ever seen on the old man. “For once, Jill, it’s all good news. The records say frost wolves usually live as long as a man - or woman - and there are no records of them ever being afflicted by the curse, much like stolases.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Truly?”

“Truly, that is what my research has shown. Frost wolves have a long history of acting as companions to the Dominant of Shiva. Keep him in some extra big game and Torgal might well outlive all of us.”

It was an undignified, teary laugh that burst from her mouth. “I look forward to telling Clive,” she said.

“By all means. Ask him to keep an eye on Torgal too, if you would. For obvious reasons, we have no records of a frost wolf spending so much time around a Dominant other than the Dominant of Shiva - perhaps the years Torgal has spent with both our Cids has had some effect on his powers. I would be interested to record whatever I can for future generations.” He  sobered. “But, if you will forgive me saying so, Jill - you seem rather lost at the moment. Is there anything I can do to be of assistance?”

“Lost,” she said. “I suppose I am. It’s hard to know what I can do here other than fight.”

Tomes nodded sympathetically. “I do not have experience of my own with your burden, but several of the Cursebreakers share those struggles. Perhaps you would like to take up some study with me? I am hardly an expert in everything, but if you will allow me the self-aggrandisement, I can often point an active mind in the right direction for them.”

Jill laughed. “My mind has rarely been called active.”

“Hmph. What nonsense. You have had not even half of the advantages in your education that Clive has had, let alone the advantages that Vivian has had, or Mid, or myself, and if you are several steps behind us in knowledge, then I consider it largely due to lack of opportunity rather than lack of aptitude. Not an uncommon problem in this place. Tomorrow evening I will be introducing several similarly active but under-nurtured minds to some of the beauties of mathematics. You would be most welcome, Jill. We will find something for you beyond Shiva’s powers.”

Mathematics? She’d been taught her sums, enough to balance an account book, but otherwise all she knew of it was both Clive and Joshua complaining of the problems they were set by their tutor.

Harpocrates had once been Prince Dion’s own tutor. Jill should not be daft enough to turn down this invitation. “I’d be honoured,” she said.

And so she found herself attending a small lesson after the evening meal the next day. She had never heard anyone speak of a simple triangle before like Harpocrates did that night, and then he set them all to measuring various triangles to see the truth of it for themselves. Three nights later - and Jill had worked her way through all the problems Harpocrates had given her, working them out with slate and chalk - he started telling them about circles.

It was difficult. She made her share of errors in her calculations. But there was a beauty to it as Tomes had said, and reward in working out the angles. Best of all, nobody had to die, and it did not take a single drop of aether.

By day she still had other work to do. She could not just sit on her heels until she worked out what she wanted to do with her life. Which was why Otto came to her when Obolus’ boat pulled into the dock with an unexpected passenger.

“It’s bloody Byron Rosfield,” Otto said.

—

The council was called for just past midday, in the Grand Hall.

“Why there?” Terence asked as he helped Dion with the delicate buttons on his sleeves.“There’s no table. No seating. Does the Emperor mean to make you discuss whatever matter this is standing?”

“So it seems,” Dion said. “Hopefully it will be a brief announcement.”

He had to leave Terence outside. And when he entered, he saw that the senior cardinals were in attendance. No seating. Not even for the old Cardinal of the South, who was already leaning heavily on his cane. Dion offered the old man his arm, but was refused. Naught he could do about that save allow the old man his pride.

The door at the back opened and two people filed through. The Empress was first, in a wide skirt of dove grey silk and narrow panels of cloth of gold. Behind her was her son. Dion’s half-brother. Dion hadn’t seen him for several months. Olivier was small for his age, silent and uncomfortable in deep blue silk and several gold chains. At his age, Dion had been training as a dragoon, and usually dressed in a squire’s modest livery. They took up seats behind the central throne reserved for the Emperor.

Dion was here in his capacity as the commander of the dragoons. It was unusual that he wouldn’t be put on the same level as the rest of the royal family, but nothing to be concerned about given his alternate rank.

Then the Emperor entered. He took up his seat in the centre of the podium. As one, everyone bowed. The Empress, Olivier, and Dion straightened first, as was their right. The Empress and Olivier took their seats while everyone else composed themselves.

“My honoured advisors,” the Emperor said, “this morning we received a message from Dhalmekia suing for peace. I see no reason to refuse them.”

Dion worked hard to keep a straight face. The map he’d seen in his father’s study weeks ago - it had a retreat mapped out. He’d known this was coming. What deal had been done?

The Cardinal of the North beamed. “We’ll need to arrange for reparations, then. This siege has sorely taxed Twinside’s grain reserves. Much longer and we would have had to cut rations.”

The Cardinal of the South said, in a much reedier voice, “There is also the matter of rebuilding to consider - the damage to the walls -”

“We could ask for part of the reparations in crystal, the provinces are crying out for more-”

The Emperor’s voice rose above the discussion. “Of course, we must graciously acknowledge the efforts of Prince Olivier in brokering this breakthrough.”

Olivier?

In the beat of dead silence after his father finished his sentence, Dion’s eyes flew to the Empress. This was not Olivier’s doing. This was hers.

Around him, praise for Olivier was rising. Who else could have had the courage to bandy words with the Titan? Who else could have had the wit to win him over and so fatally undermine the Republic’s war efforts?

Dion had a horrible suspicion what the price of the Republic’s retreat might have been. He’d been forbidden to interfere for a reason, it seemed. And behind his father, Anabella of Rosalith was smiling.

“To return to the timeline,” the Cardinal of the North started to say.

“No need to ponder overlong,” the Emperor broke in. “Dion’s fire can rid us of them like that.”

Silence fell.

…he must have misheard the Emperor’s words.

The Emperor continued, “The Men of the Fist will not withdraw until a treaty is concluded. We shall keep the negotiations open, allow them time to gather what grain and crystals they can, and once we have it in our storehouses…what worth is a piece of parchment?”

Surely his father could not be suggesting what Dion thought he might be?

But the Cardinal of the North was speaking again, horrible words that flowed on from what had, incredibly, already been said. “Your Majesty, my endless pardons, but surely if Bahamut is deployed to the front, Titan will be summoned as well. The risk is great.”

Only because Dion was watching closely did he notice his father’s hands tighten around the arms of his throne. He knew something about that too, though he said simply, “Titan is engaged on the western front. He could not arrive in time even if he was sent for. I might enjoy seeing the clash, but it is not to be.” Which made no sense, if his father proposed exactly the sort of delay that would allow the Dhalmeks to gather their wealth. What did the Emperor know?

His eyes went to Anabella again. Still smiling. What did she know? Olivier, as always, was dispassionate to the point of open indolence. Nothing to be gleaned there.

Dion stepped forward, heart in his throat. His father had never proposed anything at all like this before. “Your Majesty,” he said, “If there is fighting in the city, the population of Twinside will take the brunt of it.”

To say nothing of slaughtering surrendering Dhalmeks. Such things had happened before, but Dion had never participated. It was improper. Immoral.

“There will be losses,” the Emperor said. He leaned forward, looking deep into Dion’s eyes. Dion did not know that cold blue gaze. “Yet for every citizen that falls, another can be bred. For every home that burns, another can be built. The Empire will live on.”

Anabella’s words. They had to be. They sounded as hers. Dion felt frozen with horror. What had happened? What had he missed? How could someone like her ever -

The Emperor snapped his fingers and a servant appeared, a single wyvern tail blossom on a silver tray. The Emperor took it and twirled it between his fingers for a moment. “Prince Dion.”

“Sire,” Dion said.

“Kneel.”

How could he? With the orders his father had given? How could he not? It was his father. His legs carried him forward despite himself. For a moment he thought he could feel a strange, alien malice in the room, looking down upon him with contempt, and he wanted nothing more than to stand up and scream against it. His duty was heavier than his instincts, though, and he took a knee as he’d been told.

His father leaned down and tucked the wyvern tail into his ceremonial armour, right over his heart. “Prepare for battle,” he said.

“Sire!” Dion protested, so quietly only the two of them could hear.

But the Emperor simply shook his head. “Return to camp and await your orders,” he said, and straightened.

Dion resumed his feet as well. He caught a glimpse of Anabella’s satisfied smile on his way up, quickly hidden. She’d wanted him to see that, the witch. She knew.

For the rest of the court, he saluted. “I shall depart at once,” he said.

May Greagor have mercy on your soul, he thought, as he walked out.

Chapter Text

When Clive returned, bags full of errmonea, it was not just Jill and Otto waiting for him at the dock. There was a stocky figure in blue waiting as well.

“Clive, my boy!”

“Uncle Byron?!”

The shouting echoed across the mere, and Clive gladly embraced his uncle again when he disembarked. “How did you find us?” he asked.

“Through good Sir Wade,” Byron replied, “Who also had some strange stories about the things you’ve been up to. Beyond simply smashing Mothercrystals, that is!”

“Then you were assisting in the evacuation of Rosalith?” The last letter he’d had from Wade had been more positive about the evacuation of Rosalith than he’d expected. More positive by far. Wade had reported that thousands had escaped. Which the Guardians of the Flame simply couldn’t do without assistance, though without a stolas, Wade knew better than to name his benefactors in communications.

“Indeed I did,” Byron said gravely. “Sir Nazaire withdrew with the rest of the Vicereine’s men. I opened Port Isolde to who I could. If we could have only used the sea to escape -”

“Would you mind speaking to Vivian about this?” Clive asked. “She’s doing her best to track down Kupka’s location.”

“Of course, of course. Jill there told me you relieved Kupka of his hands!”

“Would that I could have relieved him of his life,” Clive said, and showed Byron towards Vivian’s room. Jill and Otto followed.

Vivian’s eyes lit up when Clive introduced his uncle. “You’ve brought me quite the source,” she said.

Byron bowed. “My sources are at my nephew’s disposal,” he said, “and if that means they are at yours, by extension, I am sure you will make excellent use of them.”

Clive, Jill, and Otto all sat in and listened as Byron described his perspective of the sack of Rosalith. The interesting part - “The fleet went past Port Isolde quickly. Their flags were lowered and from what we saw of the sailors on deck, they were disorganised and demoralised.” There had been no sign of Kupka and no sign of the Royalists from the sea, either before or after.

“And yet the Royalists must have arrived by sea,” Vivian said, eyes alight. “The Royal Navy is the finest in Valisthea. No ship known can match the Einherjar, which has been seen off the coast of Dhalmekia.”

“What are you thinking, Vivian?” Clive asked, all too familiar with the glint in her eyes.

“Think about it. If you wanted Titan to survive, where to? Drake’s Fang, most obviously. The heart of his power. The one place you could be sure nobody would venture in to attack him while grievously wounded -”

“- with enough aether to help him survive,” Clive added.

Vivian’s eyes were sharp as ever. “Is that a factor for a Dominant to consider?”

“If he can muster the energy to semi-prime, he can use the aether to recover,” Clive said. “It might accelerate the curse, but if the choice is dying from the curse in years or dying from infection, or remaining vulnerable…”

“It’s hardly a choice, I see,” Vivian finished. “The important part is that by sea, it’s a weeks-long voyage over treacherous waters. More likely, what happened is that the Black Galleon and maybe one of its lesser sisters brought a small party to Rosalith staying out of sight of Port Isolde, then effected a retreat by land back to Drake’s Fang. It’s a move of stunning confidence by the Royalists, and in my opinion it is all but certain that Kupka is now at Drake’s Fang.”

That was both good news and ill. Good, in that they knew where Kupka was and that he would still be vulnerable. Clive had yet to see a fighter short of Garuda herself who could recover from two severed hands. Ill, in that Drake’s Fang would still be difficult to access.

“I’m inclined to pursue,” Clive said. He closed his eyes. “Alone.”

He would not be Wyvern of the Bastards again. But there was no denying that he had learned many skills as that man, several of which could be of use now. He opened his eyes again and met Jill’s sympathetic, silent gaze.

His dread was punctured by his uncle’s incredulous laughter. “Clive, you cannot be serious. Drake’s Breath is one thing, but Kupka is a Dominant. You yourself just told us how he might recover fully!”

Awkward silence fell.

Clive couldn’t put this off any longer. He shouldn’t have put it off this long. He just…well.

“Uncle,” he said, “Will you come with me? We need to speak alone, I think.”

“I’ll gather our reports on the Velkroy,” Vivian said, and returned to her papers.

“I’ll get someone onto getting your provisions arranged,” Otto said.

Jill didn’t say anything, just squeezed his hand as she passed him.

His uncle just said, “What is all this about, Clive?”

He showed his uncle into his solar and shut the door behind them.

“Clive?” Byron asked. His uncle didn’t take a seat. Neither did Clive.

“There’s no easy way to say this, Uncle,” Clive said. How he wished he could sink through the floor. Or run away. “But the Night of Flames…I didn’t tell you what happened.”

“Is there anything more to tell?” Byron asked. Clive could see the fear in his eyes and despaired.

“Uncle. You know that a second Eikon of Fire appeared at Phoenix Gate?”

“Just rumours, surely. Such a thing is impossible. More likely -” Byron’s voice hitched “- more likely poor Joshua lost control of his own priming. No matter what Sir Wade says.” With a harder tone, he added, “Though I suspect there was some Sanbrequois provocation for him to do so.”

Clive had to tell him. His uncle deserved the truth. Byron’s brother had died that night. Joshua had vanished. So much of what his uncle loved and worked for gone in a few minutes because of Clive.

…he should have told him right at the start.

“I don’t know what made Joshua prime,” Clive confessed. “There’s a lot I don’t remember about that night. I think - I think he saw Father die. I left them together. The Sanbrequois forces had already killed so many of us. What I do remember is that Joshua primed - and then I lost control, too.” Impossible to explain the hooded man, the pull he’d felt, the call.

Byron laughed, but his pupils had shrunk to pinpricks. “Clive, my boy, honestly -”

Self-loathing kindled a spark inside him. Clive fanned it into the familiar destructive blaze. His semi-prime. Aether wrapped around him in flame-veined stone.

His uncle staggered back several feet. “Clive?”

Clive dropped the semi-prime. Why now? Why not when he needed it to help Jill, but only to destroy and to terrify? Even the bare few seconds he’d held the semi-prime was about all he could manage. Just enough to hurt his uncle.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I didn’t know. I didn’t realise for thirteen years what I was or what I’d done.”

“You - to Joshua -” There were tears in his uncle’s eyes now.

“I lost control,” Clive said. “I know it’s not an excuse.”

“You think you need an excuse?” Byron said. Almost shouted. His mouth worked around more words that he wasn’t getting out. His face was white as chalk.

Clive’s nerve broke. “If you decide to withdraw your support, we can pay you back - return your money - I understand -” His uncle’s face was rapidly turning from white to red. “I’ll leave you,” he said, and fled.

Some hours later Clive had sought a temporary refuge in practice, trying to lose his anxiety in the familiar exertion of sword drill. The sun was well and truly set; the day’s heat was leaching away into the bitter waters of the mere. He’d done the last several drills by the light of the moon alone.

More refreshing than the night air was the sense of Jill’s aether drawing closer to him, chill and refreshing.

“So?” he asked.

“Well, he’s insisting on going at least part of the way to Drake’s Fang with you,” Jill said, “and he’s unloading the talents he brought himself. I’d say he’s trying to do the same thing you are.”

“Then…not as bad as I feared.” Unless his uncle meant to take his revenge somewhere quieter, but that was not Byron Rosfield’s way. “There’s still hope. Even if he is angry with me.” How could he not be?

“Oh, he’s definitely angry,” Jill said. “But if I know Byron, it has more to do with not telling him than with what happened at Phoenix Gate.”

Clive shook his head. He deserved every bit of it.

Nevertheless, in the morning, his uncle did as Jill said, and insisted on coming with him. He had business in Kanver, he said. Clive left Otto in charge, wished Jill a speedy recovery, and set off with his uncle silent beside him.

—

His uncle barely said anything to him until they reached the Velkroy. Clive left him to it. It was…a lot to process. Clive would know.

But at last, as the red stone chasms opened up into the wide sandy expanse of the Velkroy, blindingly bright beneath the cloudless blue sky, Byron said, “Do you remember when your father took you this way?”

The question took him by surprise after such a long time riding in silence. “I’m afraid I don’t,” Clive said.

“It was not long before Joshua was born. Bare weeks, in fact, and your father was eager to return - but not so eager as you. You pushed your chocobo far too hard, you’d only just learned how to ride, and you took a nasty tumble. I will never forget how you cried and Elwin fussed.”

It made sense, then, why Clive didn’t remember. Joshua was his earliest clear memory. As soon as he’d seen his little brother for the first time he’d known his life would never be the same.

“Clive, I - you know I believe you, when you say you were not in control of your actions. It’s just…”

Painful. “Of course, uncle.”

“I do not think less of you for being this second Dominant of Fire, even if I am angry that you didn’t tell me straight away. Founder, Clive, of course I would believe you. I dare say I’m more likely to see the best in you than you are in yourself.”

Clive looked down at the sand, ashamed. “I’m sorry, uncle.”

“My father was a Dominant of the Phoenix too,” Byron said. “Rosfield history is full of Dominants who could not control their powers immediately. I might not know what it feels like to experience, but if there is a single family in Valisthea who knows that a Dominant losing control can happen, it is us. And how could we expect a second Dominant! No, if you say you had no way to control yourself, I think the evidence supports it. Everyone who knew you back then knew you would never have deliberately hurt Joshua or endangered Rosaria.”

“Yes, uncle.” If only he could believe it himself. He’d been supposed to protect Joshua. To protect the duchy. He hadn’t just failed, he’d torn it apart. With his own claws.

How he hated Ifrit.

“So consider it a lesson learned about telling people who care for you, hmm? I don’t want to hear that Sir Wade was blindsided by this news.”

He felt like a child scolded for stealing sweets from the kitchen, but it was, absurdly, almost comforting to hear that scolding. “I haven’t told Sir Wade,” Clive confessed. For much the same reason as he hadn’t confided in his uncle. Sir Wade had been there that night. He’d seen what Clive was and watched him tear apart a great deal of what mattered to them both. He just didn’t know it yet.

“I hope you will think about it, Clive. Sooner rather than later.” His uncle directed his chocobo a little closer to Clive’s. “For the moment, I’m simply relieved that your going after Kupka will not be half so dangerous for you as I feared!”

“My Eikon has its…quirks,” Clive said. “I have rarely been able to control it. And I have tried never to rely on it.”

His uncle nodded. “A sensible policy, I feel. Eikons are hardly the most subtle of creatures.”

“We’re trying to build a world that doesn’t rely on magic anyway,” Clive said. “No more crystals, no enslavement of Bearers, no Dominants in gilded cages. Relying on Ifrit and Shiva wouldn’t help, in the long run.”

His uncle didn’t react to that. Not in the way Clive thought he might, at least. He just nodded gravely. “Ifrit, is it?”

“Yes.”

Byron sighed. “I never gave much thought to the state of Bearers, you know,” he said. “That was Elwin’s cause, though I thought a lot of the intermediary steps were good ideas for Rosaria in the long run. What I did see was what being a Dominant did to Joshua. I am sorry that that burden is yours as well. There’s nothing for it now but to see that burden removed. From everyone. You have a convert to the cause in me, Clive.”

After that, it was easier to speak. 

The Velkroy was a large, bone-dry place; even though he suffered very little from the heat, Clive tried to avoid it and travel through Dhalmekia by other routes just for the easier access to water. But there was simply no better way to get to Drake’s Fang. They stopped at a trading post that was, like the Hideaway, built into the ruins of a Fallen airship. The shell of the ship kept the worst of the sun off, but for his uncle there was no escape from the scorching heat.

“Dalimil is nearby,” Clive said.

“I certainly hope so,” Byron huffed. “How are you coping in all that armour?”

“One of the benefits.” He thought of Cid’s face when he said that, in the mines beneath Drake’s Head. “They’re few and far between.”

The trek to Dalimil was a few more hours over the sands, marked carefully by stone wayposts. Sometimes bandits (or a group of imperial assassins) altered them in an attempt to lure travellers astray. For the first time, Clive prodded at the power of Titan lodged in his soul for insight into rock and stone. The posts hadn’t been disturbed. He would have felt the fresh fractures and stresses if they had. Reassured, Clive urged his uncle on.

Dalimil, located in a narrow strip between the Velkroy sands and the harsh savannah of Corava, was a beautiful town. Most of the buildings had been constructed from local sandstone, leaving the delicate limestone terraces pristine. The water from the narrow stream wasn’t plentiful, but it was reliable and it was clean. Arches and shade cloths provided relief from the baking sun.

Clive stopped dead as they came in sight of the walls. “Look. Ashen steeds.”

The chocobos of Ash were not gold as their most common counterparts of Storm were. To his eyes they appeared soot-stained. All the Twins knew that Ashen birds were not quite as fast as their cousins of Storm - but hardier. 

“Then we’ve found some of our Royalist friends,” his uncle said. “Shall we see if they are enjoying a drink?”

“A very good idea, uncle.”

There was another one of those Fallen spires at the entrance. Clive had long since lit up the one at the edge of the Velkroy during his travels; now he saw his uncle flinch back from the hissing sound and beam of light as it activated.

They left Torgal outside the inn. Most innkeepers didn’t like wolves in their establishments. Clive understood even if he didn’t agree. Inside was dark, shadowy, and much cooler than outside. The smell of a spiced chocobo stew wafted through from an outdoor kitchen, masked somewhat by an inn’s ever-present scent of ale.

There was a group of men and women with distinctly military bearing occupying a table near the door. One was even Branded, as Waloed enlisted such in their military and allowed them to serve alongside ordinary soldiers on much the same terms. Save for one - they could not leave. They were slaves still, but they could be a valued part of a squad such as this rather than the arrow fodder the Imperials treated their Branded as. Sometimes they even rose to a sergeant’s rank. Clive took a seat with a good view of the group. Byron sat across from him, back to the group, but angled so as not to obstruct Clive’s line of sight. Soup was brought - chocobo, as Clive had thought, but with lentils as well - and flatbread fresh from the oven. Fare for a prosperous town. He nibbled at his food and observed his surroundings.

The soldiers were drunk. That much was clear.

“We’ve got him back to the Fang, I don’t see why we’re still out here,” one complained. He had a heavy Waloeder accent.

“We’ll be done soon enough,” another said. Clive would have put him as the sergeant of this troop. Unlike the others, he sounded sober.

The first man wasn’t done, though. “Why the Lord Commander dragged us all this way just to save that blockhead’s skim I’ll never know.” One of the other soldiers elbowed him, a third shushed. But he was too far gone. “What?” he asked, at a volume half the tavern could hear. “Dominant or not, the man’s a blockhead.”

In the horrified silence that followed, only Byron’s voice could be heard: “That’ll be Kupka, then.”

Clive resisted the temptation to bang his head against the table. “Uncle,” he hissed. The Waloeders were already moving, ready to vent their aggression and their shame on the pair of them.

“Sorry,” Byron said sheepishly.

Clive dropped his hand below the table, towards the hilt of his sword. He couldn’t use magic here. His uncle started shovelling his stew down as fast as he could.

“It’s time for us to go, then,” Clive said, loudly.

The sergeant was looming over their table. “Perhaps you could escort us,” he said. “We are newcomers to these lands. We could use a guide.”

“We have business in Kanver that cannot wait,” Clive tried.

“It’ll only take an hour or two…friend.”

Damn. No other options now.

Chapter Text

They had barely been at His Grace’s excavation site in the Northern Velkroy Desert for two days when a stolas arrived from Tabor. Jote brought it to Joshua dutifully and waited as he listened.

When he was done, he said, “We have to go. Now.”

“My lord?”

“Cyril reports movement at the front in Twinside,” Joshua told her. “The Dhalmeks are retreating and Prince Dion has been ordered to his camp. He also reports rumours that there is conflict between him and the Emperor.”

The excavation site was several minutes’ walk from the main camp. His Grace didn’t even pack up his brushes, just his notebook. The other Undying working here would take care of the equipment.

“Didn’t you expect conflict between Prince Dion and the Emperor?” Jote asked. She moved closer to Joshua to support him; she’d noticed him struggling in the deep sand and with the long hours of a scholar.

“I did,” he said quietly. “Mother could never let Prince Dion stand above her own son, no more than she could ever allow anyone to honour Clive. She’s been working towards an opportunity to arrange for this split. But with the timing…I fear there is more to this than just my mother.”

They set out in the heat of the day. Most unwise, as far as Jote was concerned. At least it was easier to get His Grace to wear proper protection from the sun than it was to get him to take his medicine. The heat itself barely affected him, but he still needed water, and his skin still burned red and raw. And she was most definitely affected by the heat.

“We’ll stop in Dalimil,” she said.

“We can’t lose the time,” Joshua replied tersely.

“We’ll lose more if you fall ill again.”

The familiar argument. They’d been having it for years. Joshua sighed and said, “I’m not going to get better, Jote. This will kill me, sooner or later.”

She knew. Founder help her, she knew. Every time he got sick, he got sick a little worse. Every time it took him a little longer to recover, which he never fully did. Every month he was in a little more pain. “Then spare the chocobos, at least,” she argued.

Her lord’s gaze was unyielding. “If we miss this opportunity, Prince Dion will be dragged into active battle. It will be that much harder to contact him in the midst of a fighting war. And…I would spare him the trauma of fighting a war he does not have to fight, if I can. The chaos in Sanbreque is linked to either Ultima, my mother, or both.”

“Why are you so sure Ultima meddles in Sanbreque?” She dropped their pace just a little. It would be easier on the birds. And while he explained, he wouldn’t notice their slowed pace. For a time.

“The Emperor has taken to spending a great deal of time in prayer,” Joshua said. “The reports are that he sees visions of Greagor. My personal theological leanings aside, we have no records of Greagor appearing to an Emperor or Empress who was not also the Dominant of Bahamut for five centuries. My suspicion is that it is something else taking the form of Greagor.” He tapped at his chest. “And Ultima’s thoughts sometimes dwell on Sanbreque besides.”

“Can Ultima do that?” Jote asked, frightened.

“Ultima, as we perceive it, is nothing more than aether. Why could it not shape that aether to appear in any form it desires?”

With that sobering thought, Jote picked up the pace again.

When they arrived in Dalimil, Jote was ready for the next round. After they stabled their chocobos, she took their luggage to Dalimil’s inn and ordered Joshua to the baths. Dalimil’s limestone terraces meant that the water here was clean and pure. They piped it from the hot springs straight into a bathhouse. Jote meant to enforce quality rest while they were here.

It all seemed justified when Joshua returned from the baths breathing more easily and then fell asleep. She brought food for him for when he woke, the very first order of business. Water, too.

Around the middle of the day, however, his dreams turned sour. His sleep went from peaceful to restless. He woke, picked at his food, and then started violently.

“My lord!” Jote scrambled to his side, hoping to prevent him from falling from his chair.

“Clive,” he said, breathless and wild-eyed. “Clive is here. Founder, I can feel - is it stronger?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jote said. She checked his pulse. Fast, but strong - he should be fine -

Joshua rose and headed to the window. They had a decent view of the street, sacrificing some quiet for knowledge. Jote would never pick a room without escape routes or good visibility. He stared down, clearly searching for his brother. In a halting voice, he tried to explain. “Clive has - a distinct presence in the aether currents. I say presence, but in truth it would be best described as an absence. Like water pouring down a drain. When we were young I thought nothing of it, but at Phoenix Gate -”

His voice broke. Jote did not dare interrupt him. At length he mustered the strength to continue.

“At Phoenix Gate, that feeling sharpened. Strengthened. It tried to rip the Phoenix from me. I believe it was my brother’s efforts, rather than my own, that prevented him from doing so. Now I fear that this presence is - a characteristic. Of what Ultima seeks in him. The sensation has only grown stronger. Stronger when we saw him at Phoenix Gate than when we were children, stronger under Oriflamme than Phoenix Gate. Now I feel it again. Stronger still. Clive is here.”

Fifteen years and he’d never said so much about what happened to him at Phoenix Gate. “I’ll go see,” Jote said.

She slipped out the door and towards the top of the stairs, which had a good view over the tavern’s main area. Two people hurried past her as she arrived. A third stopped next to her, eyes on the floor below.

Beneath them, a group of men were advancing on some fellow tavern-goers with an air of unmistakeable hostility. Soldiers, Jote realised. Swords were being drawn. One of the cloaked tavern customers was devouring his meal at an unhealthy speed; their companion was reaching for his own weapon.

Whatever words were exchanged, as soon as the eating man ducked to one side - a chunk of flatbread still in hand - his companion kicked the table into the soldiers, and the brawl broke out in earnest.

Jote got a good look at the sword first. A Rosarian greatsword, wielded with confidence and skill. Then she saw the man who held it.

The Lord Marquess truly had grown to look very much like the late Archduke Elwin.

She dashed back to Joshua’s room. “Are you willing to let your brother find you?” she asked.

“No. Not yet,” Joshua said. His hand was already creeping to his chest.

“Then we go out the window. Now.”

They hadn’t even unpacked.

Jote helped Joshua climb down a nearby stack of crates. Behind them, shouting, splintering wood, and a few screams echoed from the tavern as they slipped away into Dalimil’s covered market.

She only caught Joshua looking back the once.

—

Killing drunk soldiers was nothing to be proud of. Not even when it was self-defence. The inn smelled of blood now, rather than chocobo stew. He took a few deep breaths to centre himself, wiped down his sword, and started back towards his uncle.

Then the Phoenix feather he kept with him at all times pulsed with flame. Clive sensed out the aether and got a shock.

Joshua was close. 

He bolted upstairs. Joshua hadn’t been in the common room, but perhaps -

Clive knocked open one door, then another. Both were occupied. The sense in the aether didn’t tell him direction, only proximity. He tried a third. Empty. Recently occupied, the window gaping open. There was no sign of anyone’s bags. Just a half-eaten plate of food on the table.

A plate with the carrots all pushed to the side.

Together with the Phoenix feather, it didn’t seem like a coincidence. Clive stared out the window, where anyone could have climbed down the crates. Just across the canal that brought hot water to the bathhouse there was an entrance to the markets. The sense of Joshua, close, was rapidly fading to Joshua, less close. 

“Where are you?” Clive whispered to the empty room. Why didn't he want to show himself?

There was little chance he’d catch Joshua in the bustling Dalimil markets. So instead he returned to Byron, busily smoothing over the chaos with a hefty sack of gil. Nevertheless, from the sour look on the proprietress’s face, Clive thought they had better find lodgings elsewhere.

Once they were outside again, Byron said, “At least we know where Kupka is at the moment!”

“To the south gate then,” Clive said.

But when they arrived there, the gate was barred by more men in gold sashes. Hatred surged in his heart, almost enough for him to semi-prime again. There was no way these preening peacocks could have been in Rosalith, but they wore the same uniform. They were proud of it. He stood back and fumed while his uncle tried to buy their way through. And he wasn’t surprised when Byron returned shaking his head, silver still in hand.

Dalimil was big enough for a second inn, and it was there that Clive bought them lodgings. It wasn’t as fine as the place they’d been thrown from, but it was better than many places Clive had stayed over the years. Clean, at least. Mostly.

“Try not to get us thrown out of this one,” Clive said, but without any real heat to it.

“I’m not accustomed to your line of work,” Byron replied apologetically.

They waited for discussions until they were eating their replacement meal of thin chickpea soup and drinking inferior ale - alone. Byron said, “What now, then?”

“My predecessor had a contact here. We haven’t heard from them since he died, but Otto gave me some of the details. Enough to find their intermediary, who works out of the western part of the markets.”

Byron wrinkled his nose. “Not the most savoury area of town. Staying away from disreputable bordellos is always a good rule of business.”

“I’ve been to plenty of disreputable bordellos.” In both the lives he’d lived after Phoenix Gate. Then he realised what he’d said, to his uncle - but was it worse to let Byron assume Clive had been a customer, or tell him the truth? 

Clive erred for the truth. In many ways it was no worse than the truth of Ifrit. “I’ve met people in places like that before, hidden in them - and before that…people let their guards down when they were occupied…and I was an assassin.” Further details, Clive would take to his grave. Nobody needed to know the details. He certainly didn’t want to think on the details.

He saw the shock on his uncle’s face, quickly hidden away. Byron Rosfield was not an unworldly man. “I am consorting with an outlaw. So the western markets then,” Byron said. “Very well. Do you think your contact will be able to assist us?”

“Perhaps. There may be complications. There usually are. Another group with similar aims to ours operates in Dhalmekia and seeks to expand.”

“That doesn’t sound like a problem.”

“We’ve had a few run-ins over the years. They thought Cid’s concern with Dominants was misplaced, to put it mildly,” Clive said. “They usually try to free Bearers from us as well. Most of the Bearers they free come either from Dion Lesage’s army camps, Kupka’s cattle pens, or Barnabas Tharmr’s wars. Wars Cid participated in. Even Jill was forced to kill Bearers. So I can understand their perspective. My time in the Sanbrequois army did nothing to endear Dion Lesage to me.”

Byron’s brow furrowed. “That just goes to show their experience is more like your own. Would they not listen to you on that account?”

“We haven’t had the opportunity to sit down and discuss,” Clive said dryly. “In any case, our contacts may prefer their fellow Dhalmeks, or at least work with them out of prudence. I don’t want to disturb their arrangements if I don’t have to.”

“There’s a time and place to disrupt a market,” his uncle said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Clive, I’m going to take advantage of Dalimil’s baths before we have to meet anyone.”

A great deal of business in Dalimil - in most of Dhalmekia - took place in the evening, to avoid the worst of the afternoon heat. Clive chose to nap while his uncle was at the baths, cleaning up only just before they went out to find the contact. Ferda was the name Otto had given him. A trader of miscellaneous goods. No word on what proportion were legitimately acquired.

With his uncle at his side, Clive started asking around. The peddlers near the gates were reluctant to speak, but a local hunter was not. His information matched that of the local courtesans, who always knew just about everyone in a town.

Eventually he was pointed to a small courtyard near the walls. A suspiciously empty one.

Clive sighed.

The ambush went as expected. There were only four attackers. Professional, as these things went. No archers, none armed with crystal. Clive stuck to using his fists; too many accidents could happen if he used his sword. This didn’t have to become lethal.

When it was over, and the four attackers were lying breathless on the ground, Clive asked, “Will you tell us where Ferda is, now?”

“No need,” another voice said from the shadow of an archway. “Distinctive scar you have there. And an interesting means of dealing with attackers.”

Clive waited as Ferda examined the result of his test. No dead, no seriously wounded, none scorched by magic. One man had a bloody mouth and a missing tooth, while Clive had matching grazes across his right knuckles. Once they’d been knocked down, they’d had the sense to stay down. After a minute, Ferda said, “You should speak to Master L’ubor at the Briar’s Kiss. He might be able to assist you.”

“Master L’ubor at the Briar’s Kiss. What manner of trade?”

“A smith,” Ferda said.

Ah. A very useful tradesperson to have in contact. “Thank you,” Clive said. “We’ll be on our way.”

Further conversation here was useless.

—

Clive had always been such a good boy.

That was the thought that occurred to Byron, anyway. Joshua had more than his share of fey moods and temper tantrums, and whenever he was anything close to healthy he could not be prevented from sneaking out places - the library, often as not, far too late at night for a growing boy of delicate health, to read books not appropriate for a child by the flames of the Phoenix itself.

Clive had been nothing like that at all. To the point Byron knew his brother had been terribly worried about his elder son. Clive had been studious and disciplined and rule-abiding, solicitous of his brother, utterly dedicated to others. The worst he’d ever done was vanish for an afternoon or two, usually after some particularly cruel comment from his mother. Otherwise not even the stuffiest and most hidebound cleric of Greagor could have complained of his behaviour. Or Anabella. Who had almost certainly been the cause of all that in the first place.

Now he watched Clive stride through the less legitimate markets of Dalimil as if he belonged there. The most hardened toughs saw him and decided to find another victim. He could see the pickpockets deciding to find a different mark as they made their way back to the legitimate businesses where this Desert Hare could be found. Elwin would hardly have been less concerned for his son’s wellbeing. Though at least it seemed Clive could look after himself.

Especially if he was a Dominant.

The ‘Briar’s Kiss’, as the smithy was called, was a bustling operation near the northern gate of Dalimil. From the number of anvils he would have said there was a master and several apprentices working, yet all the smiths were young.

Clive surveyed the scene, then stepped up to one young sprig with the narrowest shoulders Byron had seen on a smith, and asked, “Are you Master L’ubor?”

The smith did not answer immediately. He tapped away at his piece while Clive waited patiently. Byron not so patiently. He could be a customer, damn it.

Once he was done with organising his tools, the smith said, “What makes you think so?”

Clive nodded towards the other smiths. “They’re working on nails and simple knives. You were examining that sword.” The sword in question was a highly ornamented one. Not to Byron’s taste. Markedly more complex to make than a nail, though.

“Interesting,” the smith pronounced. “You have a sharp eye…Cid the Second.”

“I have a friend who is a blacksmith,” Clive said. “In any event, we would be grateful for your assistance. I won’t waste your time. We need passage through the south gate.”

The smith busied himself wiping his hands and arms down with a damp rag. “Tell me. What do you think a merchant’s most important commodity is?”

“Trust, of course,” Byron interjected.

The smith flashed him a sly smile, sharp as his blades seemed. “Indeed. Without it you have nothing. Which is what you have for me, and I have for you! I’m not in the business of helping every lost puppy that wanders in off the street.”

“A puppy!” Byron sputtered. This smith would treat a Rosfield -

Clive stepped in front of him and said patiently, “What do you need us to do?”

“Come now,” Byron said, “This preening peacock cannot possibly -”

“It’s only natural an ally of Cid would seek assurances of strangers,” Clive said. Byron heard Elwin in his voice. Elwin at his most immovable. “So again, Master Smith. What do you need of us to win your trust?”

Another smug, vulpine smile. “I appreciate a man willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. It gets me what I want. And what I want is an end to the trouble in Dalimil.”

“What trouble?” Byron demanded. “You speak of trust and refuse to speak plainly! The very basis of trust!”

“Manners, greybeard. One catches more damselflies with honey than with vinegar. I have no use for the stupid puppies who wander in off the street.”

“Why, you -”

This time, Clive took him by the shoulder and steered him backwards. “Understood,” he told the smith. “We’ll leave you to your business.”

“Don’t keep me waiting long, hmm?”

Clive’s grip on his arm was iron as he half-dragged Byron from the smithy. “What is the matter with you, uncle?” he hissed. “This is not a business deal where you can trade on the Rosfield name or your own vaults of silver. L’ubor is afraid, and he has right to be. He doesn’t know us. If he misplaces his trust, it’s the gallows for him, ruin for his apprentices, and the end of his ability to help Bearers who need it.”

And just like that, Byron was chastened. “I apologise, Clive.” He took a deep breath and spoke words he’d rarely had cause to speak. “I know little of the world you have been living in.”

Clive - such a good child, no matter that he was a man grown now - softened. “Neither did I, when I was forced into it. The important thing is to learn, I think. Speaking of learning, you will help me solve L’ubor’s problem, won’t you?”

“Of course. We should split up, I feel. Our differing areas of knowledge will be a strength, rather than a hindrance.”

“Well said, uncle.”

Byron headed for the markets. Not these back warrens, but the main markets, where the legitimate flow of goods and information was bountiful. His own area of expertise. Now he just had to find out what was on sale in Dalimil - and what was not.

A quick wander through the shopping area and the answer was soon apparent.

“Excuse me,” he asked one stallholder, “Where can I purchase crystals?”

She said nowhere, of course. Not that it stopped Byron from making the same inquiry at several other stalls, all at some volume, sometimes emphasising how much he was willing to pay.

It wasn’t long before a pair of guards approached him. “We heard you’ve been looking for crystals,” one guard said, without so much as the courtesies.

“Indeed I am, my good man,” Byron said. He’d already let down his nephew with his indiscretion, but this wasn’t cloak-and-dagger work. This was a negotiation. He arranged his face into his best Madu - ill-concealed cunning. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could purchase some, would you?”

“There are no official rations being issued at this point,” the other guard said.

“And how about unofficially? This is a business necessity for me. I am more than willing to pay.”

Greed won out. It didn’t take long. “Follow us,” the guard said.

“As long as we remain in view,” Byron said.

The deal was done on one of the rooftop walkways. Byron had no illusions that he was talking to the masterminds here. No. The masterminds would be out in the desert with their supply of crystal. He took out a pearl, one of the emergency supply he kept with him at all times, to prove the depth of his pockets.

He could see them salivating over it already. It wasn’t even a very good pearl. Standards had declined amongst the Men of the Rock.

The guards gave him directions eagerly enough once the pearl was in their hands and left him in peace. It was bad business to rob him here, after all. Once they were gone, Clive appeared at his shoulder as if by magic, Torgal on his heels.

“Buying your way into the local black market?” Clive asked.

“It seems the only way to get crystals around here,” Byron replied.

“The townspeople have told me that the Men of the Rock have been showing more gil than usual of late,” Clive said, “while the townspeople can barely get a shard of crystal.” He shook his head. “I’ll talk to L’ubor about some of our solutions to replace crystals. Relying on magic is no way to live.”

“Be sure to cut me in on this as well,” Byron said. “Fortunes are made on such things, and I would see that fortune spent on your father’s aqueduct and similar projects before anything else.”

Clive nodded. “We’ll all need it,” he said, eyes distant. “There’ll be no other choice. We can’t avoid suffering altogether, but we can reduce it.”

He was such a good boy. And a clever one, far-sighted. Good with people now, too, far better than he had been as a child. Stronger than Byron had ever been.

There were conversations he had to have. With Clive, with Sir Wade, with certain others of his acquaintance.

But that was a matter for later. For now, he grinned at Clive. “That popinjay thought his task would be difficult. If we keep this up, we’ll have Dalimil’s problems sorted in no time at all!”

Chapter Text

Understandably enough, his uncle’s new supplier was insisting on a meeting well away from town. It did mean another tedious hike over the Velkroy. Into the harsher corners, at that. There were some places where the sand gave way to treacherous chasms and the sun was unrelenting.

There were a few posts set up to guide people on the way. Not many. “We have to pass that abandoned warehouse,” Byron said, “then follow the cliffs.”

Clive couldn’t help but feel the frustration, even if he was trying not to show it. One errand seemed to lead to another. Every day that passed was another Kupka had to recover. Maybe it wasn’t very honourable of him - Wyvern’s experience speaking - but he had found the best way to kill powerful people was when they didn’t expect it and couldn’t fight back. 

Besides, he had promised Kupka no pity and no mercy. He had shown none to those people in the Hideaway who were in their beds when he crushed it. He deserved none in turn.

Torgal started growling softly as the cliff wall turned to a narrow canyon. Clive took point until the soldiers came in view.

A trio of guards waited at the end of the canyon. “Three?” Clive whispered.

Torgal growled a bit deeper.

“More behind us?”

A soft whuff.

“What a fine hound you are,” Clive said, and loosed his sword in its fastenings. “Uncle, are these the men you met in the market?”

“Two of them are,” Byron said quietly. “The ones without the captain’s helmet.”

Behind the trio were boxes. Plain boxes. Stacks of them.

With such money as Byron had offered them at stake, no wonder the captain had come along. Hopefully they could cut the head off the snake with this. Though Kupka was the true head. It would be naive to think that this corruption was not permitted by Kupka. Dhalmekia’s trade in crystals was firmly under his thumb. With him buying up every Bearer he could, Kupka held a near monopoly on magic in the Republic.

Byron stepped forward to take the lead in negotiation. Clive hung back, ready for the attackers Torgal had sniffed out.

“May I see your merchandise?” Byron asked.

One of the boxes was cracked open to reveal crystals, mostly the shining gold of the crystals from Drake’s Fang. Mixed in were a few of a deep violet hue, a shade Clive had rarely seen before. They were not the blue-green of crystals from Drake’s Head, nor the true blue of crystals from Drake’s Tail, nor less the vibrant orange of crystals from Drake’s Breath. Clive had never seen crystals from the fallen Drake’s Eye or Drake’s Horn, said to be purest white and a bright spring green respectively in any case. Which left only one source for these.

Drake’s Spine. In Stonhyrr.

“An interesting colour,” Byron said. “I am also interested in your guarantees of security. If I am stopped, how am I to know that these will not be seized as the property of the Republic?”

Behind Clive, one of the hidden soldiers emerged, a lean woman in Waloeder greys. “You are not buying from the Republic,” she said. “You are buying from the Kingdom of Waloed. We have no more jurisdiction here than you do, good sir.”

“I see,” Byron said. Clive didn’t. “I think we’ve heard enough, haven’t we?”

“If you say so,” Clive said.

The guards and the Waloeders had to die. They’d seen Byron’s face. Clive wasn’t going to risk his uncle. The only upside was that it freed him to use magic. He summoned Garuda’s winds and whipped up a blinding cloak of sand - inspiration borrowed from Jill’s mists - but with Titan and Garuda both, he found he could track his enemies in the sandstorm well enough without the use of his eyes.

One of the Dhalmeks grabbed a crystal and tried to channel winds to blow the sand away. Clive seized the currents of air with contemptuous ease. With the Dominant of Garuda dead and her power within him, there were few, if any, who could match him for wind magic. He turned it into a tornado flinging his foes into the cliffs with awful force. He heard bones crack with the impact.

There was a gurgling half-scream off to his left; Torgal likewise did not need his eyes. His uncle, not for lack of personal bravery, was staying on guard rather than throwing himself into the fray.

Within a matter of minutes the Dhalmek guards and Waloeders both were dead.

“Did you have to scatter the boxes quite so thoroughly?” Byron said.

“We can bring one or two back to L’ubor as proof,” Clive decided. “We’ll stack the rest out of sight and let him arrange to pick them up.”

Clive took charge of most of that, too, since he was less affected by the heat. “What was the point of that charade?” he asked his uncle, as he strapped up a smaller crate for the trip back.

“Part of Kupka’s deal with the Parliament for controlling Drake’s Fang,” Byron said. “They let Kupka ‘guard’ the Fang, and by extension control the crystal harvest, and in return he must sell a certain percentage to Dhalmeks, within Dhalmekia’s borders. Sell to Royalists in plain clothes, claim ignorance of their allegiances however unconvincingly, his men are free to profit and the ministers have nothing official to complain of. To say nothing of the people of Dalimil.”

Clive shook his head and kept stacking.

Once done, they started the long trudge back. He wanted nothing more than a bath and maybe a glass of wine - he missed Jill fiercely - but he’d forgotten that the Briar’s Kiss was just within the gates. The smith hailed them both.

“I see you’ve taken to hauling cargo,” he said.

He could sense the harsh words on his uncle’s tongue at L’ubor’s flippant attitude and once again interposed himself. “As promised,” he said.

“Come to the back room,” L’ubor said, “We’ll talk business.”

The back room was meant for the smith’s clients. Which Clive supposed he was, in a way. “We’ve brought some of the stolen crystals back,” Clive said. “The rest are in the canyon where we met the thieves.”

“Excellently done,” L’ubor said approvingly. He turned to Byron. “Especially you, greybeard! I hardly expected one so venerable to bribe his way so shamelessly into Dalimil’s black market.”

“Venerable! Greybeard?!”

“I will arrange for the remainder to be brought back here and distributed as they should have been in the first place. Minus a percentage as a service fee, but our line of work isn’t cheap.”

“And the matter of the south gate?” Clive asked.

“With their resellers missing, I dare say quite a few of the guards will be called away to other work. Enough for you to be able to bribe your way through as you normally would.” He smiled at them, for the first time looking genuine. “The people of Dalimil had no recourse against the Men of the Rock, let alone the Royalists. I needed someone…outside the law, as it were.”

“You worked with my predecessor?” Clive hadn’t heard much of Cid’s exploits in Dalimil. He was sure there were some.

“Not me,” L’ubor said. “My master, Ruzena. Dead last year of a tumour.” The grief in his tone was real.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Clive said.

L’ubor nodded. “It’s a lot of work, stepping into another’s shoes. From one replacement to another, shall we renew professional acquaintances between our people? Our cause is still the same, is it not?”

“It is,” Clive said gravely. “And I agree.”

“Then you may avail yourself of my stolas and let your people know. Shall I ask your name, Cid the Second?”

“Clive,” Clive said.

L’ubor cocked his head. “Could have been worse.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Byron demanded. “Clive is a good, traditional name -”

“-that shouts to all to hear it, ‘I’m Rosarian’,” L’ubor finished.

Clive nodded. “There are several reasons I chose to take my predecessor’s name.” Including those he would never tell his uncle. Jill understood, but other than her, he could think of few others who might.

But he left his uncle and his new friend to their bickering. It was all in good spirits, nothing that his insecurities needed to bring down. It had been a productive couple of days - and soon he would be on the move again.

Kupka was not long for this world. This time he would finish it properly, no matter how many Royalists were in his way. That, Clive vowed.

—

They didn’t leave Dalimil straight away. Clive insisted on staying long enough for a return stolas. That suited Byron fine. He’d spotted a carpetmaker and a joiner whose work he thought might sell well in Kanver while he was in the markets. It gave him the time to arrange some sample pieces to be sent to appraisers elsewhere. And to communicate with his own household. He had Bearers to free, first of all those who’d served in his home, but his time in Clive’s Hideaway had been instructive in terms of what support he needed to provide afterwards. It wouldn’t do to just say ‘you’re free’ to Port Isolde’s Bearers and turn them out on the street!

Most of all, he got to spend time with Clive. No emergencies, no mission. A few precious days. Founder, he’d thought - well, he was duly grateful for the blessing he’d received.

Not that Clive would stop for anything. If L’ubor wouldn’t assist every lost puppy wandering in off the street, all Clive had to do was see that one of L’ubor’s apprentices was stressed by his most recent exams and he was off all over town to help find them some extra information. The next day he was off to the limestone terraces to help clear it of the monsters that had set up camp at the source of the springs.

“I know I should rest,” Clive said, half-abashed and half smiling, when Byron brought it up as they travelled towards the source of the springs. “It’s habit, mostly. For a very long time, quiet was…bad. Making myself useful helps.”

Bad, he said. Since Clive had reappeared, and since Lady Jill had told him that Clive did not speak of his time as Branded, Byron had been trying to discover what conditions in the Sanbrequois army were like for its Branded. What he’d learned was horrifying even before Clive’s blunt confession that he’d been forced to work as an assassin. In disreputable bordellos, no less. The thought of his brother’s son enduring it, that Anabella herself had condemned him to it, was more than he could bear.

Yet bear it he must. It was the past. Unchangeable. Clive had lived it. Byron only had fragments of knowledge.

“Very well,” Byron said, because he could not and would not push Clive on this. “But I insist you take at least a few hours when we return!”

Alas, when they did return from a successful expedition hunting the self-willed balls of flaming aether Clive said were called ‘bombs’, L’ubor had sent a messenger. So come the evening cool, they paid another visit to the Briar’s Kiss by its back entrance to see what news had reached Dalimil. The smith was a reasonably wealthy man despite his youth (he could hardly be more than twenty!).

The return stolas flew to Clive, who accepted the message. “Everything is well at home,” he said. To L’ubor, he added, “Our smith is sending a letter by paper with some trade matters. How you put them to use in Dalimil is up to you.”

“I could be an even richer man in a few years,” L’ubor mused. Accurately. Byron wanted these trade secrets for Port Isolde’s smiths. The Empress hadn’t bothered to send much in the way of crystal rations for several moons now.

“You could. But we will be sharing these matters with other smiths, so whatever advantage it gives you will be temporary.”

“You’re a cruel man, Cid.” But he smiled. “Now, I assume you’re heading to Drake’s Fang?”

“To kill Hugo Kupka, yes. I understand he’s been keeping Bearers there, too.”

“Mostly in the castle town outside the Fang,” L’ubor said. “Conditions there are bad, Cid, and getting worse. They’re treated worse than cattle there.”

“Largely a result of our feud, I’m sorry to say. Some years ago I killed the Dominant of Garuda - Kupka’s lover, as it turned out.”

Clive had left that out of his recounts! Though Byron supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. He’d seen Clive’s mastery of wind magic himself now. Which was strange, when he came to think about it. Byron’s knowledge of magic was limited, but his father had been the Phoenix and so he could not help but pick up a thing or two. A Dominant could use fewer magics than an ordinary Bearer, and the talents not of their Eikon were miniscule things. The reports from Phoenix Gate had all spoken of a second Eikon of fire. But then, he supposed, the second Eikon itself was an impossibility.

Meanwhile, L’ubor was speaking again. “I confess I will never understand why some men feel entitled to destroy lives wholesale over personal grievances.” His tone was light but his eyes were cold.

“Is there any place I might be able to send freed Bearers on? If I assassinate Kupka, I will likely have to flee and may run in any direction. I doubt I will have the time after the deed to make arrangements.”

“The abandoned warehouse on the outskirts,” L’ubor said immediately. “Any who find their way there will have water, shelter, and a degree of privacy from, shall we say…nosy townspeople. I can arrange to check regularly.”

“And I can assist these Bearers to leave Dalimil,” Byron added. He had ships, businesses, all those things that could cover the journey to Clive’s Hideaway with a minimum of outside attention.

“Thank you both,” Clive said. “Do you know anything more about conditions in Drake’s Fang?”

“That’s actually what I called you here to discuss. My informant tells me that the Fang is currently playing host to a large contingent of Royalists. Who are allowed to roam the Fang as they will, apparently, right into the innermost sanctum. Waloed may be an ally of Dhalmekia at this time, but really, allowing the Royalists into one of the very few places we hold sacred as a country! It’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

“Indeed,” Clive said. “Any estimates on their numbers?”

“It was described to me as an infestation,” L’ubor said. “I asked for more details, of course, but my agent has not replied for several days.”

Clive laughed grimly. “Always more trouble, isn’t there?”

“You understand! And so I recommend, in the strongest possible terms, entering the Fang through the mines. Ruzena and I lost one Cid already. If I lose a second, people may start to think me careless.”

It was remarkable how much better Clive had become with people since his youth. It truly was. Only a few days ago L’ubor had turned Clive away from his door, and now he willingly told Clive all he knew of the layout of Drake’s Fang. It was a level of trust Byron usually took years to achieve with his own contacts.

Perhaps matters were different for outlaws.

In the morning, they set off towards the south gate, past the limestone terraces, and to the rocky arch known as the Jaw. It was here their paths would diverge. Byron eastwards towards Kanver, Clive south to Drake’s Fang.

Past the Jaw, one could see the Fang itself. It stood alone in a waste that had only become more severe as the Blight encroached from the south, a smooth and rounded profile against the sky. It was hollow inside, all knew, lined with crystals growing towards the ground rather than the sky. The route towards it was old, but the road was newly paved. The work of Bearers, Clive had told him, forced to use their magics to build Kupka’s palace in the heart of the Fang.

He snuck a look at his nephew, eyes fixed on the skyline.

“There are an army of guards and Royalists there, Clive,” he said. “Please be careful.”

“I’ll be as careful as I can,” Clive replied. “I don’t intend to ignore our new friend’s advice.”

Silence. Byron did not want to leave. His nephew was walking headlong into danger. Byron couldn’t help him.

And there were things he still needed to say.

“Allow me to apologise,” he started.

Clive turned to him, startled. “Apologise? For what?”

“My actions after the Night of Flames. I accepted Anabella’s version of events…I thought that cooperating with her would be the best way forward, for a time. Even now I have not resisted like I could have.” He met Clive’s eyes. “It’s not too late, you know. You and Sir Wade have shown me that. If you would take your father’s throne, there are those who would help you.”

Byron’s heart thumped in his chest as Clive mulled his response.

“I can’t,” he said at last, “and I won’t. Taking Father’s place would tie me to Rosaria first. What I want, what I’m fighting for, is a better world for all the Twins, not just Rosaria. The best of Father’s ideals, the work he started - I want to take it further. I’m sorry for that, uncle, but it’s my decision.”

Clive looked to be bracing himself. Byron would bet there was more to it than Clive was willing to say - but the reason he’d given was one Byron could accept. Even if he didn’t fully understand it. He’d never understood a great deal of what Elwin did, either.

“You remind me so very much of Elwin,” he said. “And no matter what, I am proud of you.”

Whatever darkness he’d lived through. Whatever he thought he still had to hide. Even if he could never confess. Byron was proud of him.

“Uncle, I -”

“No need to explain,” Byron said. “Just be careful, and wish me luck convincing my Kanverian friend to contribute to the cause. I expect the full story when you next see me!”

“Of course, uncle. Good luck.”

He leaned down to scratch Torgal’s ears too. “You be careful too. Look after Clive, please.”

Torgal leaned into the ear scratch and wagged his tail. As good an affirmative as he’d ever received from a hound, and reassuring from as intelligent a specimen as Torgal.

With a final nod, Clive set off down the road. Byron watched him until he was out of sight.

Chapter Text

The prosthetic hands were strapped securely to his stumps, fastening across his chest on both sides. The harness pulled under his shirt. The prosthetics themselves irritated the sensitive flesh at the ends of his arms. The physickers had said he should wait, even though he’d lost two fucking Branded from pouring healing magic into him, but he couldn’t stand the idea of walking around with two useless fucking stumps at the ends of his arms.

Hugo reached for the fork. A simple thing. Despite himself his arms trembled. He could still feel his hands. The metal things at the ends of his arms weren’t his hands. He couldn’t coordinate them. He couldn’t balanace the stupid fucking fork in them. It fell from his clumsy attempts at eating a meal with a mocking clatter.

“Fuck!”

He was on his feet before he knew it. He could still do that, at least. He channeled his magic through his arms and brought them down on the table. He could do that too. The wood splintered and the inlay warped. He could do that and it was just his fucking hands!

And his hands still hurt!

Not to mention whatever Rosfield had done to Titan. His power was muted. Faded. Like Rosfield had scooped it out and left Hugo’s magic hollow. It wasn’t like the work of any Branded Hugo had ever heard of. Some dark Imperial magic.

A servant scurried in to start clearing away the latest evidence of his failure. He kicked her away and turned back towards the table, prosthetics held up in front of him. Fuck, they hurt.

There was a sigh behind him. Hugo was getting mightily fucking sick of that sigh.

“Peace, Hugo,” Sleipnir Harbard said, in his thickly accented Dhalmek, “The table shan’t hurt you any longer.”

Hugo was even sick of how Harbard steered the servant out of the room, always trying to stop him just breaking something that was his to break. Right now he just wanted to smash someone. He settled for shouting instead. “Curse you, Rosfield!” Whatever gods were listening, they could take the message to the gutter rat. The cowardly wretch, relying on tricks. 

“He can’t hear you, Hugo,” Harbard pointed out condescendingly. “Perhaps if you shout louder.”

“Fuck!” Hugo smashed the rest of the table. Fuck what Harbard said. He just didn’t want to look at that fucking fork anymore. “He was trying to humiliate me! If you hadn’t interfered, he’d be dead!”

“Do you really think so?” Harbard asked.

“Rosfield is nothing but Branded scum. Titan would have ground him into dust.”

Harbard tsked at him. “Clive Rosfield is akin to a Dominant, and you could not even force him to prime. How would Titan have crushed him without his head?”

Hugo scoffed right back at him. “How could Rosfield be a Dominant?”

“All the same. You saw him semi-prime with your own eyes, Hugo. And within seconds you’d lost. You just weren’t strong enough. And you call yourself a Dominant.” Harbard paused. “Or at least, you did.”

Hugo didn’t think, he charged. Somehow, Harbard slipped aside. He didn’t even raise his hands. There was a sharp impact at his ankles and then Hugo went sprawling.

He brought his hands up to try and break his fall. The fucking metal hit the ground first, jamming into the sensitive area. Pain screamed up his arms.

Harbard wasn't even a Branded. Harbard was just one of Tharmr's hangers-on.

And Hugo was still on the ground.

“You’re weak,” Harbard said from above him. “But if you have…fire…then you still have hope. There is still something you can do.”

Shameful. Pathetic. “What is it?” he asked. “I’ll do anything.”

He would. To avenge himself. To avenge Benedikta. He had to be strong enough.

Harbard looked out the archway to Hugo’s private balcony. He’d ordered it built so he could always see the heart of the Mothercrystal from his room. He’d earned that. He’d won it. With his own strength. He was not weak.

“My lord has entrusted me with certain secrets,” Harbard said. “A Mothercrystal’s heart is the most concentrated source of aether in all creation. If it is aether you lack, there is a source right here. The crystal will not yield her blessing to just anyone, of course…but you are not just anyone, are you?”

Hugo fixed his eyes on the shining heart. “He…did something to me,” he confessed. “Titan doesn’t answer anymore.”

“That need not be a barrier to your success.” Harbard knelt down in front of him. “Clive Rosfield has stolen the powers of other Dominants. He took Benedikta Harman’s Eikon from her, before he killed her. When he used the power of wind against you, it was her power you felt.”

Benedikta’s powers? Her own powers?

The rage - the rage had almost burned itself out. All that was left was emptiness. Rosfield hadn’t just desecrated her body, he’d desecrated her soul. Rosfield had turned what remained of Benedikta against him. Was it spite? Was the man simply evil?

Harbard continued, “But before the end, she found the strength to summon what remained of her powers. She drank deeply of the aether. Gave herself over to it, so that she might fight to the bitter end.”

It risked everything. There was no coming back from some spells. Hugo had never pushed his magic so far, not even against Shiva. There was nothing to be gained in frying his brain on aether.

Or there hadn’t, until now.

Vengeance for Benedikta…the strength to do like she did and summon his Eikon. More, to overcome the unnatural thing that had felled her.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “My Benedikta… how should I know when?”

There was still no point in risking all this if Rosfield never came.

“He is coming now,” Harbard said. “Some of my scouts have failed to report back. Once is an accident. Three times…”

It was all so fast. But what was waiting for him? What was the point, after all that Rosfield had done?

Behind him, Harbard was mumbling some nonsense, as if he were talking to his master. Hugo staggered to his feet and towards the passage that led to the Mothercrystal’s sanctuary. It was harder without his hands. No matter. None of it mattered. It would be over soon anyway.

And Rosfield would join him in whatever hell there was. Hugo prayed it was a terrible one.

—

Jill had to admit that extended time in the Hideaway had done her a lot of good. She missed Clive and worried about him daily, of course, but to her mild aggravation at Tarja’s triumph, her health was improving again.

The damage the curse did could not be undone. But she wasn’t making it worse and the rest allowed her body to bear the strain better.

She also continued to attend lessons with Harpocrates and the Cursebreakers who, like her, were starting to see a day where their illnesses would prevent them fighting in all but the most extreme need. She would take her latest mending project and work on it, the mindless activity of her hands allowing her mind itself to focus all the better on what Harpocrates taught. Late at night she worked on the written problems he set. She liked to think she was improving. And though the late nights left her groggy in the morning, it was nothing so physically taxing as her travels with Clive.

So when a letter came from Wade, she felt confident enough to follow up on his report.

“I’ll take Gav,” she said to Otto.

“Thank fuck,” said Gav. “I was going to go barmy if Tarja told me to rest one more time. Rosaria again, is it?”

“Port Isolde,” Jill said. 

“Byron Rosfield’s stomping ground? You know that bastard had me unloading crates of silver talents when he last visited?”

Jill winced. “Byron…isn’t always in touch with the common folk, it’s true. We’re going to see the Guardians of the Flame, though, since Sir Wade finally tracked down some escapees from Drake’s Breath.”

“That sounds much easier to deal with,” Gav said.

They ended up taking a cart and two young Cursebreakers, Michelle and Andreia, both of whom could use some experience in a low-risk mission. Neither woman had been to Rosaria before; Michelle had been born in Sanbreque’s breadbasket, while Andreia had been bound to a forge in Kostnice. Both were interested in seeing the land where their Cid had grown up - and, to her surprise, they were almost as interested in her thoughts on Rosaria as well.

“It’s a beautiful place,” she said. “The old archduke, Clive’s father, was a fair man for the most part.”

“For the most part?” Andreia asked.

“Archdukes cannot always be fair to everyone,” Jill said. “Sometimes, to be fair to Rosaria, he had to be unfair to others.”

She tried not to build Rosaria up too much in their minds. It was a very different place under the Vicereine. It would be different again now that Rosalith had been sacked for the second time in fifteen years.

Sir Wade waited for them in one of the least attractive parts of Rosaria, too: a swampy stretch of coastline complete with reeking mud flats. It was a good place for harvesting clams and crabs. Not very scenic, though less isolated than many other villages - Rosarians could not live on shellfish alone, after all.

“Lady Warrick!” Sir Wade greeted her.

“Please, just Jill.”

“Jill,” Sir Wade said amiably. “Thank you for coming all this way.”

“You said there were reports of strange refugees here? Women in Ironblood clothing?”

“There were. My scouts talked to the villagers, but I haven’t talked to them myself yet. It’s coming third-hand to you. Shall we?”

She fell into step beside Wade, Andreia and Michelle behind her. Gav had wandered off to go look at something more interesting. As he did; Jill wasn’t offended. He knew how to find what was important.

The village of Tidewell, despite its location, was almost like a piece of the old Rosaria. People on the village’s only path, people out working their gardens and their boats. An elder woman, perhaps seventy years old with hair of purest white, watched over several children, eyeing the four of them with caution but not hostility.

“Sir Wade,” the woman greeted them. “What brings you here?”

“I heard there were some newcomers in these parts, Mistress Sara,” Wade said. “It so happens we’re looking for some Rosarian women, and perhaps others, who’ve escaped the Ironblood after a long captivity.”

Jill stepped forward. “Whatever you know,” she said. “Please. The women we’re looking for would have been held captive for years.”

Wade glanced at her. “Mistress Sara, may I introduce Lady Jill Warrick?”

“Warrick?” Mistress Sara asked sharply.

“Companion to the Lord Marquess and his late brother,” Wade explained further.

Jill’s heart leapt to her throat. By describing Joshua as dead but not saying any such thing about Clive, was Wade saying what she thought he was? She knew there were rumours that Clive had lived, but now it seemed she was watching them start before her eyes.

The old woman’s eyes grew sharper. She’d caught it too. “What are you trying to say, Sir Wade?”

“Nothing at all,” Wade said.

“Hm.”

The old woman looked Jill up and down. “I won’t have it be said we did nothing to help Rosarian captives. Yes, we saw some women. Took ‘em for thieves. Ironblood. Figured they were escaping whatever happened at Drake’s Breath and came here to try and live off our land instead.” She spat. “They were out east last we saw them. Maybe an hour from here if you take the north trail past Winnie’s house. Some of the men tried to drive them off.”

They thanked the elder and did as she bid.

“Friendlier than some of the towns to the east,” Jill observed.

“Archduke Elwin spent a lot of time travelling the coasts as a young man; him, Lord Byron, and Lord Murdoch. Most of the older villagers remember him, better than anyone in the eastern villagers does. The Vicereine knew that, of course, and they’ve felt the Empire’s boots, but their love for Elwin is stronger. After Lord Byron, most of our support comes from villages like this. Your people will find friends here too, if they know it’s Lord Rosfield.”

Jill smiled, but behind it she worried. It was inevitable that people would discover that Clive was still alive. They’d discussed that. Clive had always told her he’d prefer to be Cid.

Now, she feared, the matter might be out of her hands and Clive’s alike.

She put it aside for now. There was nothing she could do. She was here for Marleigh.

—

It was as L’ubor had said. The Bearers that Kupka had brought were being kept in nothing so much as cattle pens. They could be smelled before they were seen, because sanitation was little more than a trench. Shelter was a few stretches of canvas. Comfort was non-existent. Clive didn’t even want to think about what rations must be like.

The pens were more lightly guarded than he’d thought they might be. Than they should be, with the stranglehold Kupka held over magic in Dhalmekia. Did he not care if his Bearers were stolen? Or escaped?

He’d be a fool not to take advantage.

Clive waited until nightfall and infiltrated by the simple means of scaling a fence. It wasn’t much of an obstacle to someone in good health. He dropped to the ground in the bare, stinking yard and received only numbly disbelieving stares. “Do you have any leaders amongst you?” he asked.

It took several minutes to find what passed for leaders in this group. They were slightly less exhausted than their compatriots.

“What is it you want here?” their spokesman said, a thin man no doubt several years younger than he appeared.

“There will soon be a disturbance at Drake’s Fang,” Clive said. “I cannot stop to help you escape. What I can do is kill the guards between you and freedom. If you run tonight, you may be able to make it.”

“Make it where?” the spokesman asked.  

Someone behind him whispered, “It’s Cid the Outlaw. It has to be.”

“Some call me that,” Clive said. “If you choose to leave, head towards Dalimil.” He told them of the abandoned storehouse on the outskirts, though not who would be waiting for them. Sometimes Bearers turned in their would-be saviours, sad as he found it, and he owed L’ubor as much protection as he could give. “If you want to leave but don’t want anything to do with me or mine, you may be able to find assistance in Boklad.”

His words were greeted with numb despair.

At last one woman gathered the courage to ask, “Why are you doing this? We were brought here because of you.”

“You are here because Kupka sees you as nothing more than a means to hurt me,” Clive said steadily. “His sins are on him and on him alone. I do what I can for those he hurts in my name, but I refuse to take responsibility for another man’s crimes, committed because I was trying to help others. Take my advice or leave it, it’s up to you.”

These Bearers were too exhausted and maltreated for anger. And if they were too weary for anger, most of them would be too weary for escape.

He had to take a chance if he wanted to help these people.

Clive went through the camp and killed the guards as he’d promised, one by one. There weren’t enough of them for a camp this size. Why so few? Then he took the precious time to roll a cask of fresh water right over to each enclosure. No doubt each cask had been filled by some of the Bearers within, their hard work and health taken to benefit others. It was such a little thing to try and give back, but if it gave even one of these Bearers the energy to flee…

He left the pens behind with a heavy heart.

Next came the castle town, such as it was. No castle could be maintained and guarded without people. At Drake’s Fang, with waste and Blight both creeping in, it was little more than a caravan stop. The houses nearby were dilapidated, their whitewash peeling. That was a relief. If his confrontation with Kupka turned more destructive, there would be all the fewer people here who might get hurt. He may never truly forgive the Men of the Rock, but there would be families here.

It was nearly dawn before Clive reached the entrance to the mines.

He shouldn’t have been surprised to see it. Yet he was. The husks of Bearers lay stacked outside like wood, right by full carts of crystals. They were forcing the crystals here too. What did reverence mean to Kupka when there was money to be made?

As soon as he entered the dusty tunnel, the smell of blood and worse struck him in the face. Freshly spilled. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours since whatever violence here had taken place.

Clive advanced forward in the dimness, hand pressed over his mouth and nose. Torgal’s hackles rose and he started to growl.

The torches were out. There was nobody here. Just darkness and the scent of blood.

Ahead, Clive heard a wet crunch.

Quietly as he could, Clive drew his sword. One wet crunch was followed by another. Then slurping. Not too dissimilar from Torgal when he had an antelope haunch. 

Around the next corner a light flickered. Not a crystal torch but a regular fire, whatever smoke it produced lost in the steadily-stronger stench. Unwashed bodies, open defecation, blood.

Clive burst into the next massive mining chamber and found orcs.

There was no time to wonder what Ashen beasts were doing in the bowels of Drake’s Fang. They were on him in a matter of seconds, all three head and shoulders taller than he was and almost twice as broad, clothed in crude leather vests and loincloths adorned with necklaces of bone. Tusks jutted from their lower jaws, coated in blood. Clive ripped his sword through one’s exposed stomach, twisting as he went to avoid being crushed as it fell. By his side, Torgal lunged, failed to get any purchase with his teeth, and barked in what sounded an awful lot like frustration.

“Use your magic, boy,” Clive encouraged him.

It worked well, since Clive’s fire magic wasn’t much use either. The edge of ice and blade was what was needed.

All three fell, and Clive stood over the corpses, breathing hard. More from shock than exertion. What the hells were orcs doing on Storm? It had to be the Royalists who brought them here but how? And why? Orcs couldn’t be controlled - Clive was staring down at the reason why in the splintered, bloody bones of what had been the Men of the Rock. Or ordinary servants. There was no longer any telling.

At last, since there were no answers to be found staring at the ruin Kupka’s allies had made of his own people, of the economic heart of his own fiefdom, Clive moved on.

Kupka’s palace had been built only a few years ago. Once, he might have walked its halls marvelling at the tiling, the infinitely small earth-toned pieces woven together in an interlocking, repeating pattern all along the halls and floors. Now, he’d met and spoken and lived with people who’d done that work, or similar. To do tiling that fast, that intricate, that well-fitting - that was Bearer work. Skilled work, the sort that took hours upon hours of delicately drawing aether to shape earth and stone.

This amount of tiling would have killed the Bearers who had done it. Without question. The blood of dozens of Bearers were in the tiles of Castle Dazbog.

Clive continued throught the halls of the castle. He found another orc in one large hall and killed it from stealth, not wanting to fight on tiles slick with the blood of the orc’s victims. He did not see a single other human.

He stuck to the grander halls anyway, reasoning that sooner or later they would lead straight to Kupka’s inner sanctum and the Heart of the Mothercrystal. What, after all, was the point of having all this if it couldn’t occasionally be shown off?

He was proved right when he found a pair of grand bronze doors that, when opened, were the exit to the outer mine-castle and opened onto the great stone bridge leading to the less fortified palatial manor that was Kupka’s private residence. Long daggers and formations of golden crystal lined the inner surface of Drake’s Fang, casting the centre of the mountain in a warm and ethereal light. It was…beautiful. One of the most beautiful sights Clive had ever seen. The manor was an eyesore compared to the inside of Drake’s Fang.

In the centre, right over the largest dome of the manor, there was a single ray of cold white.

The Heart. It had to be.

“Come on, Torgal,” Clive said.

They weren’t even halfway across before Torgal started growling again.

“More orcs?” Clive asked.

Growling.

They drew close to the iron gate. That was when the fabric of reality warped in a way Clive hadn’t seen for nearly three years now. From the warps emerged an array of revolting spectres and, more worryingly, a giant that seemed strangely familiar.

He’d seen a metal version of this monster in the Apodytery, Clive realised, as he threw himself out of the way of a beam of light that scythed through the gate and chunks of the wall that supported it. He summoned Titan’s powers to block more blasts of energy. This was not metal. It was that strange, fleshy-textured substance that seemed to make up all the other spectres.

Ultima’s thralls, they had to be. Ultima, again. He cleaved through a lesser spectre even as he summoned levin to paralyse the larger creature. Whatever material it was made of sizzled and burned, but smelled like nothing Clive had ever smelled before - and he had smelled many things burning over the years.

When at last the final specter fell, Torgal fell to his stomach and started pawing at his nose. Clive scratched him behind the ears. Jill had said that these things felt awful to fight. Cid as well. Clive still didn’t feel it himself.

“It looks like we were expected,” he said.

The question was whether the nightmares here were here because of Kupka, or here because of him. Little as he liked that prospect. He could not shake off the sensation that he was being watched.

Chapter Text

The trail that Elder Sara had pointed out led Jill, Wade, and their companions into the broken limestone hills that bordered the mud flats. Unforgiving terrain. Cid would have said that just made it better for hiding.

Oddly enough, even as she picked her way over sharp-edged boulders, it gave her hope. Marleigh was a survivor, through and through.

Eventually, Wade pointed to some broken sticks and other signs of humans turning off the narrow trail worn by the villagers.

“Is there water nearby?” Jill asked Wade.

“A few streams. Enough.”

After a while, Michelle decided she’d had enough of the sharp-edged, treacherous limestone - possibly after she’d seen Jill stumble and nearly fall - and started smoothing their way a little with magic.

“You don’t have to do that, Michelle,” Jill said. “I’d advise against it. The curse catches all of us sooner than we think it will.”

Michelle flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Jill said firmly. “It’s your magic, your life, and your health. I know Dorys tells you all it’s your decision when something is worth using magic. All I’m saying is that we can handle the walk.”

She was young. She’d lived a cruel life and now she was trying to use her powers for herself and for people she cared about. Jill understood. And better that a young Cursebreaker heard that advice sooner rather than later. She smiled at Michelle as they climbed over the next rock.

They followed more tracks, mostly relying on Wade. Jill’s knowledge of woodcraft was minimal. And then, after another half hour, they heard voices. Women.

“Weapons away,” Jill whispered. Then, once everyone had done so, she called out, “Hello?”

The voices stopped. No sounds of running or panicking, though, and if they’d set a watch Jill hadn’t seen any evidence of it.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Jill said. “There are four of us. Can we come out?”

After several tense seconds, a familiar voice said, “Jill? Is that you?”

She didn’t wait this time. She scrambled forward past the last few trees and rocks. She burst through the last foliage, twigs scratching at her face.

And there was Marleigh. Free.

Horribly underweight, hair even greyer than the last time Jill saw her, filthy and clearly exhausted, but on her own two feet and back on Rosarian soil. Jill embraced her all the same. “I was worried,” she said.

“So was I,” Marleigh said. She laughed. “Oh, Jill, it was such a horrible journey.”

“Then you must tell me all about it,” Jill replied. “Come, let me introduce you to my friends, and introduce me to yours.”

They built a fire and started sharing some of their supplies. Split between fifteen instead of four, it wasn’t much at all, but even a little dried meat and fruit would get these people further than none. Wade smiled at Michelle and Andreia and asked if they’d like to learn a bit about foraging in Rosaria.

This was what they were working for. Wade knew that Michelle and Andreia were both Bearers - they weren’t even Rosarian like the Bearers he recruited for his own cause - but he offered to teach them without a second thought.

There were eleven refugees in total. Just eleven. They’d started at twenty-one all packed in a rowboat. They’d been blown off course, lost a great deal of their fresh water, and finally struggled to the Rosarian shore not knowing exactly where they were, only that they could see Rosalith burning in the distance. Ragged and starving, nearly half the number they’d been when they set out, they’d been chased off by already taxed and frightened villagers who’d seen too many refugees. They’d run blindly and hidden, and hadn’t had the strength to get back to the main roads.

“The Archduke wouldn’t have stood for it,” Marleigh said. “Though I can’t say I’m surprised to hear the Duchess would.”

“The Duchess does worse, these days,” Jill told her.

Marleigh tried for a smile. She didn’t succeed entirely. “It’s been fifteen years or near enough. Rosaria was bound to have changed.”

“We can take you to Port Isolde,” Jill said. “Byron will know what’s happened to your lands and assets. He’ll be willing to help, I’m sure.” Marleigh was from the south of Rosaria. If she remembered right, the older woman had told her once she’d only visited Rosalith twice before the day she was captured. Port Isolde was far more familiar to her.

Marleigh laughed. “Byron Rosfield, help someone not a Rosfield?”

Ah. Right. Byron’s reputation.

“He’ll help.” She took a deep breath. What harm could it do? It wasn’t as though Marleigh hadn’t seen him herself. Nor as though the rumours weren’t spreading. “Clive will make sure of it.”

“Clive? What Clive?”

“Clive Rosfield. My friend.”

It had exactly the effect Jill thought it might. Marleigh’s eyes widened. Even though Clive wasn’t the Archduke, wasn’t the Phoenix, the Rosfield name still mattered in Rosaria.

“Rosfield,” Marleigh whispered. “He’s alive?”

Jill nodded. “He’s well. He’d help you too. Byron knows.”

This time, Marleigh’s laugh was more genuine. “Maybe there’s hope for Rosaria after all, then.”

Even now, even after years and years, these people still remembered. Jill couldn’t help but wonder if the same would be said of her if she ever went back north. If there was ever a north to return to. She doubted it. Even if they stopped the Blight’s advance, who knew if it would ever recede? Or how long it would take?

Wade came back some hours later with roots, roughage, and several fish. Jill recognised most of it as less than tasty but perfectly edible. Again, not much for fifteen people, but again more than Marleigh and her charges had. Hopefully enough to get them moving.

“What’s going to happen to us now?” Marleigh asked, as Jill helped with the cooking. Still not a task she excelled at, but she could gut a fish just fine.

“That depends,” Jill said. “You can come to our Hideaway if you like.” She told Marleigh about their home in Bennumere. Not about its comforts, because in truth it didn’t have many, but the people. Their courage. Their strength. Marleigh barely batted an eyelash at the idea of a place built for Bearers, mostly by Bearers.

When she was done, Marleigh said, “It sounds lovely, Jill, and I’m glad you’ve found a place for yourself, but I want to stay in Rosaria. I am a Rosarian. It’s my home.”

“The others are welcome with us too,” Jill said, “Not just you.”

“They’ll likely stay with me,” Marleigh said.

Jill nodded. “I’ve seen how that happens. Byron’s people will look after you, then. Just know that whatever happens, you can come find us in the Hideaway.” She smiled. She could smile. “I’m glad you’re free. You deserve it, Marleigh.”

“It will take some getting used to, I’m sure.” Marleigh’s smile was once again tremulous. “It’s been a long time since I had to worry about things like working for my own sake.”

That was true. They saw it a lot at the Hideaway, former Branded who didn’t know how to make themselves keep going without a master threatening them. But because of that - “One of our physicker’s apprentices keeps notes on the ailments of the mind that sometimes appear after people are released from captivity.” She knew that Tarja, Harpocrates and Vivian were working on a plan to send those notes and the analysis that went with them to Kanver and have Rodrigue officially accredited in their college of physickers. A Bearer. A still-branded Bearer, for Rodrigue had decided not to risk the surgery. “If you need advice or support, send to us - and to him.”

There were other offers of support as Jill and her group escorted Marleigh back to the village. Wade promised he’d see them all to Port Isolde, where Lord Byron would look to their housing. Whenever he returned from Kanver, that was, but his factor had orders to assist Clive’s people and Wade’s alike.

By the end of their journey Marleigh seemed only a little healthier, but happier than Jill had ever seen her. There had always been steel in her, but now it wasn’t hidden. “Whatever we get I’ll see it pulled into shape,” Marleigh declared happily. Back on Rosarian soil she reminded Jill more and more of Martha. “I might not be ready for your grander fights, Jill, but those of us who’ve survived so far can survive a little better now on free soil.”

Not free soil, not with the Vicereine in charge. Not free for the Branded. But free for Marleigh, and Jill would take what she could get.

Marleigh embraced her again before they parted. Jill returned it.

“It’s good to see you growing into yourself at last,” Marleigh said. “Your own mother couldn’t be prouder of you.”

Jill looked over at the small group of refugees from Mount Drustanus, happily talking to two former Bearers. She’d escaped. They’d all escaped. She’d only used Shiva to help and to defend her honour. “You know,” Jill said, smiling herself, “I think my mother would have been proud.”

—

Kupka’s bedchamber had seen better days. There were splinters and spilled food all over the floor. Which let him see quite clearly that there had been three people in this room when the food had been spilled. Two men and either a boy or a woman; one man and the woman leaving by the door Clive had used, and the final, largest man heading towards first the balcony and then a private staircase.

Outside the balcony was the beam of white light Clive had seen from the entrance. 

There was no sign of Kupka. There was, however, a…resonance. In Titan within him, in the Mothercrystal’s aether surrounding him.

Kupka was in the sanctuary. He was certain of it. He could feel it.

“Get out of here, Torgal,” he said. If this went wrong, a fight between Dominants was no place for him. “If you find anyone alive, do what you can.”

Torgal leaned against Clive’s knees and bounded off.

He headed through the other exit to the room. More stairs led down to a gazebo-like structure that had been built around the Heart. The stonework here was delicate instead of imposing, holding large windows of coloured glass.

Before the Heart stood Kupka, his back to Clive.

Clive frowned. Kupka had his arm stretched out as if reaching for something. He was mumbling to himself. He didn’t acknowledge Clive. Clive wasn’t sure Kupka even knew he was there.

Well. Whatever compunctions he’d once had about stabbing someone in the back, he’d lost long since. At least this time he could say it was for a good cause.

He readied his sword. Then, suddenly, Kupka shouted at the empty space before the Heart. “Don’t you touch her!”

Clive started in confusion. There was nobody there.

Kupka roared, “I’ll kill you!”

Without warning, aether started pouring into Kupka, straight from the Mothercrystal’s Heart. In an instant he had semi-primed, golden crystals forming across his skin a bare second before Clive’s blade came down. Just like it had in Rosalith, it bounced away. The ringing sound cleaved into Clive’s skull. And stayed there. It echoed in his head, building and building into pure pain.

Not again!

Through bleary eyes he registered Kupka drinking more aether. Semi-prime was turning to prime. Not the prime Clive recognised from the Nysa Defile. Something larger, toned in blue-grey instead of brown earth and red dust. Almost like…could Eikons become Akashic?

Whatever was going on, it was bad, and Clive needed to prime too. Now.

The pain subsided, just a little. Enough for him to focus. The fire inside, the fire he hated so. He stoked it. He hated the fire but he hated Kupka more. It burned within. That wasn’t enough, though. He remembered what it was like, the last time he primed, years ago now. Ifrit was nothing more and nothing less than fire itself. He had to make it burn without - he wanted it to burn -

Like a dry leaf catching to a spark, Ifrit caught alight.

There.

That was better.

No longer quite so large and unwieldy as he’d been the first time. Four arms and four claws instead of two. Still that aching lack of something, that feeling of incompletion, but less than it had been. Still right and natural. Still hard to believe that he had ever avoided this. 

Above him, Drake’s Fang was cracking open as Titan’s head grazed its roof. Crystals showered down on both of them. As Ifrit watched, Titan held up its arms. There was naught but empty air at the end of them - until aether gathered and regenerated the wounds Ifrit had inflicted upon him.

Frustrating. But not impossible to deal with.

Titan roared again, all human words lost in its aether-madness. Then it attacked.

It was bigger than Ifrit, but Ifrit had fought foes larger than himself before. None as large as Titan, granted, but he could adapt. Titan was slow and clumsy. It swiped at him with fists the size of a small house. It dropped on him, elbow first, trying to crush him with sheer size. Ifrit’s own flames carried it away. He struck back at Titan’s ankles. Something so huge - if he attacked its connection to the earth, its own size would bring it down. His own slashes, with obsidian-edged claws, took delicate slices out of Titan rather than the chunks that would destabilise it. If it had muscles, it would have fallen. Since it was a creature of aether, more destruction was required.

He was rethinking his strategy when Titan growled with frustration and leapt backwards, into a hollow in the standing wall of the Fang.

Ifrit growled too. He’d have to blast apart the entire Fang to get around -

- It threw a slab of the wall at him. Shattered shards of crystal, still attached to the rock they’d grown from, flew before his eyes. A second clipped his uppermost right arm, spinning him about.

Right then. Ifrit summoned fire to each of his hands, small but intense. Just as knowing Garuda’s power helped him fan those flames and spread them, Ramuh’s power let him know how to make the heart of every flame that much more concentrated. He pelted Titan with those instead. Titan used earth to shield itself with, Ifrit’s fires leaving little glassy pockmarks in every blown-away chunk. One blew through the shield and hit Titan’s abdomen. It howled in outrage more than pain. This time, when it summoned a shield, it was pure aether.

A nice trick. But if Titan could do it, so could Ifrit. He was certain of it. There was no power any Eikon was capable of that he could not also achieve.

Titan threw another slab of rock and crystal at him. Instead of dodging, Ifrit shaped the aether in the air into the same sort of barrier Titan had just used. It took a lot of ambient aether. There would be no using this technique outside a Mothercrystal’s sanctum.

But while he could…

Ifrit pushed the shield forward, trying to jam Titan into the nook it had chosen to throw rocks from. While Titan pushed against it, Ifrit summoned more fire between his hands. Not individual balls, but a scything beam like the thing outside the castle gates had used. He held it on Titan, battering through its own shield and into its main body. It roared and charged out to him, finally abandoning its defensive position.

Off guard from generating the beam, Ifrit wasn’t quite fast enough to dodge the grab. Titan grabbed him by the ankle and slammed him into the ground like a child would a ragdoll. Fortunately for him Titan’s own power within him helped blunt the impact - how, he did not know - and on the third Ifrit dug in and reversed Titan’s hold with all the strength in his arms. When he got his legs and tail underneath him, it was Titan who went flying, sprawling into a pile of crystal.

It lay there, stunned. Ifrit did not immediately advance, not willing to risk another grab.

A mistake. 

When Titan stirred, it did not try to seize Ifrit. It seized the crystals. Even as Ifrit watched it jammed them into its mouth. Like a child with a toffee apple.

What the hell is he doing?

Then several of the hells broke loose.

Chapter Text

The mood in Dion’s camp was in sharp contrast to his own despondence. The men were sharp. Prepared. Upbeat. They cheered when they saw him return.

Bahamut, they cried. Bahamut!

One older foot soldier, apparently more perceptive than a great deal of his fellows, shouted, “It will be over soon, your highness!”

They sensed the weakness of the Dhalmeks. Rumours of Titan’s injury, perhaps even death, were swirling. No matter how desperate the forces of the Republic became, Titan would not come.

Knowing all that, Dion did his best to smile back. To raise his hand and acknowledge them all. He had a duty to these men. To their families. As they served the Empire, so did he, and he must serve them as well.

The problem was that he had to serve the Emperor, too.

Dion blinked and tried to keep his face still. When had that become the problem? He owed much in his life to his father. Almost everything in his life he owed to his father. His father was one of the people who had taught him his duty, who had first implored him to protect and defend the citizens of Sanbreque.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Terence’s worried expression.

He wished he could go to Terence, assure him that he was well, but there were too many eyes here. There were always too many eyes in camp. What he wanted was a long hunting trip, just the two of them, deep in the woods outside Oriflamme. Time for him just to be himself. Somewhere far away from war.

His captains and commanders met him within his tent. “How have things fared here while I was in the capital?” Dion asked.

“Quiet, for the most part,” General Octave of the regular troops told him. “The Republicans know they are beaten but have not the spirit to make a fight of it. Their leaders on the field see little but paralysis from the Council of Ministers. It infects every part of their army.”

“The exception are their rebels,” Commander Thibault added. “We’ve had infiltrators amongst the Branded. Rabble-rousers. We’ve caught and hung three trying to incite rebellion, but there are more.”

Dion frowned. “And the Branded themselves? How have they responded?”

“I have concerns, your highness. There are whispers now where there were none before. Flogging has not been sufficient to quiet them. I fear I will have to hang the Branded themselves caught speaking out, and we can hardly spare the magic.”

There had to be better ways than this, surely. His boyhood tutor, Harpocrates, had sometimes spoken of those scholars in Kanver who devised ways to accomplish that which magic could, without the use of a single crystal. To Dion it seemed a marvel. His father had never shown interest in that line of thinking, however, and now marvel was turning necessity. “I mislike the idea of flogging,” he said. “If you must hang them, hang them. If you must give them double duty to prevent them from finding time to speak, do that. Flogging deprives all of the useful work Branded might do for us.”

Behind him, Terence asked, “Is there any connection with Shiva or Cid the Outlaw?”

Commander Thibault shook his head. “No, these agitators are Dhalmeks for the most part, often disguised as porters, merchants, or even whores. As far as I know they operate in both camps.”

“Then we are all in the same position,” Dion said. “The Dhalmeks can spare the magic even less than we, with their supply lines to Drake’s Fang. Though having two groups attempting to free Branded is concerning.”

“We should be glad of it,” Commander Thibault said. “Word from the Empress’s intelligencers - the ones who will talk to us - is that Cid the Outlaw used to be one of ours. If they’re not cooperating, so much the better for us.”

What piqued Dion’s interest, though - “A deserter? Truly?” Such things were rare due to the Empire’s harsh policies. Where a soldier might disobey for his own interests, they would rarely betray their entire squads. Even Branded hesitated to do so.

“Rosarian, apparently. One of the squad sent to assassinate the Dominant of Shiva three years ago. Named Wyvern when he was with us.”

But instead, Shiva had gone free, and so had the man who would become Cid the Outlaw. If it had not continued in blood and ice and a shattered Mothercrystal endangering the Empire and its citizens, it would have been…strangely romantic. That together they had decided to defy the laws of goddess and man alike. Like the northern tale Lord Harpocrates had once told him of Ysay the Wanderer and her knight fleeing the thegns to see the world beyond the Northern Territories. Would that this Shiva’s idea of freedom had been, perhaps, a little house together with her partner somewhere quiet, rather than chaos and upheaval.

Would that he was willing to do the same for Terence, but duty was too strong. And Terence himself would say it was only right and proper that Dion’s love for the Empire and love for his principles was stronger than Dion’s love for him.

“And speaking of Shiva, no sign of her?” Dion asked. Titan was accounted for. Odin was far away. There was no sign of the Phoenix’s rebirth even after all these years, nor of Ramuh, nor of Garuda. 

“Last seen in Rosalith fighting against Kupka,” Fabien said, as usual on top of the latest intelligence to reach Dion’s camp.

Which explained how Kupka came to be so seriously injured. And little wonder Shiva fought harder when not used by the Ironblood but fighting for her own reasons.

Alas, he would almost have welcomed a report of Shiva. She could have helped him avoid taking the field against the Dhalmeks himself. Bahamut against Shiva would be just as unacceptable a risk to Twinside as Bahamut against Titan. But of course Shiva would not help the Empire, even so indirectly, even when it would mean the good of the people of Twinside and Dhalmekia alike. It was a bitter thought.

More reports flew past. Supply levels. A commander laid low by illness. Coordination with the people of Twinside. Dion heard only as much of it as he had to. And at the end, he sent them all away except for Terence.

“What is it, Dion?” Terence asked him, anxious.

“There’s nothing left that might stand against Bahamut,” Dion said. “No threat of Kupka. No threat of Shiva. Terence, the Emperor might send Bahamut out at will.”

What he did not dare say, what he did not need to say: he no longer trusted his father to refrain from such orders.

—

The shockwave blasted Ifrit clear through the wall of Drake’s Fang, well into the wastelands that surrounded the mountain. Arms hit the ground, then tail, then arms again, feet, hipbone, tail. It was all he could do to protect his head. Eventually he came skidding to a halt, thankfully on his feet.

No major injuries. He drew in aether from the Mothercrystal to heal himself, broken patches of rocky skin regenerating. Even the fatigue faded away.

Jill said that priming or semi-priming for extended periods of time left her with terrible headaches and general numbness on top of exhaustion. Clive had felt the exhaustion after priming, but never anything else. Perhaps it was simply that he didn’t prime enough. Semi-priming, on those rare occasions he managed it, left something like a battle rush burning clean in his veins, without even a crash later.

But he’d never shown any signs of the curse whatsoever. After fifteen years of using magic.

Now wasn’t the time to think of that, though. Before his eyes, Drake’s Fang was cracking like an egg, opening the entire contents of the dome to the sky.

And from within emerged the terrible shape of Titan. Just not as Valisthea knew the Eikon.

The size of a mountain, overtopping the rounded silhouette of the old Fang, Titan had grown with the infusion of aether. Veins of darker blue aether laced its stone limbs and mass of waving, prehensile tendrils. A mountain that moved. A mountain that could reach out and grab you. Though it had a head, it did not seem to have a face. There was no more of Hugo Kupka in this thing than there was of Benedikta Harman in the maddened Garuda.

How was he going to fight it?

Founder help me…it’s do or die.

There was nothing more to do than scramble across the wasteland back towards Titan, even as the monster flung steadily larger chunks of rock and earth at him. At one point half a cupola flew by, bronze ornamentation narrowly missing Ifrit’s head. Another of the chunks was the better part of a tiled wall. Castle Dazbog was no more. It would end up scattered across half the wasteland and good riddance to it.

Then Titan bellowed and started using the…tails? Limbs? Tentacles? Whatever they were, thankfully Titan was stupid with rage and aether and jabbed them at Ifrit rather than sweeping them across the landscape. Much easier to dodge.

Two at once barreled at Ifrit. He flung himself left, glad of the open ground, and watched as one tendril smashed clear through the other, passing so close the impact showered him with pebbles.

He had to get in close. The closer the better. Close meant no space for Titan to use those damned things against him.

Ifrit leapt atop the next tendril to stab at him, clutching at it while it whipped high into the sky. He leapt to the next when Titan tried to swat him. He must be as a fly to the massive, maddened Eikon, but so had he been a fly to Garuda at first the day he awoke again. Size alone did not decide this fight.

Though he did feel as though he were attempting to slay a mountain with a needle.

He dropped back towards the earth when he spied an outcropping of what used to be the Fang’s outer shell close to Titan’s core - though close was a relative thing. He summoned fire as he fell. He’d need destruction for this. If he could perhaps disrupt the aether that flowed through the creature -

Of course, Titan would not just simply allow him to stand back and fling fire. Clive found himself dodging yet another tendril, this one curling around from the other side of the creature’s mountainous mass. Then he had to leap away from the brutal clutch of its hands. If Titan seized him it would be over.

Ifrit pummeled Titan’s core with fire as he could. It barely seemed to make a dent, though his fire was hot enough to leave more glassy marks where fire and earth met. He risked taking the extra second to summon more heat - endless aether providing endless fuel - and got clipped by a tendril. He spun with a roar and a blade of flame, severing the annoying limb clear from Titan’s body.

Fine then. If his fire wasn’t doing enough damage, he’d see what Titan could do to himself.

Ifrit hurled the tendril back at Titan, driving it into the space under its arm, seeking its centre. He could feel the aether thickest there. Break that, break Titan, finally put an end to Hugo Kupka.

The tendril, driven forward with all his strength, cracked open the stony shell. Mine, Ifrit thought, and followed up with the most vicious fireball he could manage, Garuda’s winds and Ramuh’s levin charging it with even greater power.

It landed. There was a blast of wind to replace the burned air. Dust scattered. And Titan’s right arm fell away, severed at the shoulder. The noise Titan made - it did feel pain.

A tendril hit Ifrit right in the core. Only Titan’s own power, now within Ifrit himself, saved him from instantly being cut in two. He was knocked back, pinned to the tendril itself, and carried high into the air. Higher and higher, well above Titan’s head, until the only air Ifrit had to burn was brought to him by Garuda. Ifrit’s flames were not so easily extinguished.

He was heartily sick of this monster.

Ifrit twisted away from the tendril’s tip, took a breath, and sliced through it. It still went up even severed from Titan’s body. Ifrit seized it. Now he would have more than just his own strength to break Titan apart.

He charged down through the air, powered by his flames, the tendril now a lance like those of Sanbreque’s dragoons. A snarl formed across his face.

 He saw his target, a vein of aether between Titan’s head and shoulder. This time, he’d finish it. Heat gathered around him as he drew closer to the earth, less a dragoon and more a falling star now.

He drove the piece of tendril right into Titan’s neck. Then, as he fell further, he burned as brightly as he could, blasting into the opened expanse of aether. 

Titan’s head vaporised and Ifrit felt nothing but sheerest satisfaction.

But it wasn’t over.

Ifrit fell through the disintegrating shell of the oversized monster Titan had become. It had been as hollow inside as the Fang itself, and as lined with crystal. The centre, where Titan in its previous form had still been suspended puppeteering the greater construct, fell with him. It kicked out and flailed at him, leaking aether from several fractures. It was dying. Dying, and still dangerous.

It caught Ifrit’s gaze for a single mad second and grinned its awful rictus grin. Then it drew in aether again. What remained of the Heart’s aether.

If you can do it…so can I.

Ifrit breathed in as well, wresting the flows of aether away from Titan and into himself. It was as fine a rush as speeding towards Titan with its makeshift lance had been. He burned, and burned, and burned, and it was wonderful. If he could laugh, he would.

Bit by bit, Titan crumbled away under his flames. Still Ifrit drew more. He would not stop until Titan and Drake’s Fang both were dust in the wind. He would be free.

Ifrit landed lightly, cushioned by his own radiant flames. The dead earth scorched under his claws as he looked up at the heart. How it still stood he didn’t know. Rocks fell all around him. It didn’t matter. Titan’s power would protect him.

He released all his flames towards the Heart and watched as it shattered.

The job was done. Ifrit released his prime and became Clive once again.

He expected exhaustion. It didn’t come. He felt…on edge. Like he didn’t fit into his skin quite right. He’d have to ask Jill, though Shiva’s form was far more like a human’s than Ifrit’s was. He stood in the shade of the broken mountain where once there had been a castle. Now there was nothing. He feared for the castle town and the pens where the Bearers were. Hopefully at least some of them had escaped.

Now to find Torgal and go home, he supposed.

Clive turned to see that one of the rocks that had fallen so close to him was in fact the corpse of Hugo Kupka. Bleached and white, crumbling away, it looked as if the curse had consumed him in a matter of minutes. He’d used that much aether.

Yet…yet Clive had matched him blow for blow. He’d used more aether than he’d ever used in his life. He’d drunk the same power from the Mothercrystal. He rotated his shoulders, stretched out his joints and muscles - there was not a trace of stiffness. He was fine. Completely fine.

He shouldn’t be fine. Everything everyone knew about aether, about Dominants, about the curse, said that he shouldn’t be fine.

Before he could ponder it further, there was a high-pitched sound in his head. Noise was followed by pain. Pain like at Drake’s Head, pain like at Phoenix Gate. Scouring, cleansing. It couldn’t be withstood.

Clive blacked out.

—

Clive came back to awareness with the sudden lack of pain in his skull. For a moment he just kept his eyes closed and breathed.

His surroundings crept back in. Where was he? No light pressed against his eyelids. No sound of cracking rock or settling earth reached his ears. He couldn’t even smell anything.

Beneath his prone body was nothing but textured black stone.

He knew this place. He’d been here before. Or somewhere like it.

Clive jerked upright. Was he about to be ambushed by another one of those monsters, like the one that had killed Cid three years ago now? He thought he might be able to, despite the fight he’d just had with Titan - why wasn’t he in worse shape -

A hooded figure appeared across from him. The same one that had appeared to him at Phoenix Gate. The one that bore his own face under its hood. Clive glared at it. It shimmered for a second and was replaced with a figure Clive recognised in an instant.

Ultima.

With them standing once again before him, Clive felt an aching familiarity with the creature. They knew him. And…he knew them. Somehow. Something deep inside him.

“What do you want?” he snarled.

Ultima tilted their head and beheld him with naked curiosity shining in their opalescent eyes. “Your soul is tainted with worthless human will, yet your thirst for power remains undiminished,” they said. In this space, Clive could not misunderstand. They did not refer to a thirst for a throne, or for wordly recognition. They meant a hunger for aether. Power in its purest form. Nor did they mean a mere passing desire or whim, but a deeper, more intrinsic need.

With a shudder, Clive realised - yes. It was what had taken first Garuda, then Ramuh, then Titan from their Dominants without Clive’s conscious mind consenting. Without the will Ultima called worthless. It was what felt satiation and, increasingly, pleasure, once the burning pain subsided. He did feel that. Founder, he’d drunk the Heart of a Mothercrystal without hesitation.

They continued, “With every sip you take, you grow in strength, and soon you shall reach perfection.”

What Ultima described was utterly repugnant to him. Whatever this perfection was, he didn’t want it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. Lied. He’d never been a good liar.

Ultima’s expression did not change. “You will accept us, Mythos. It is inevitable,” they said. “You were created for this purpose and you shall serve it.”

And what did his will count for in this plan? Nothing. Less than nothing. Worthless, as they had said.

Clive would not be a slave again. 

“Never,” he hissed, for the affront alone. He swung his sword at the creature, as Cid had three years ago, hoping it would work. But in this space, his blade passed through Ultima as it would through air.

Ultima barely reacted. They but sighed and stepped forward, ignoring another slice of Clive’s blade. Then a fireball. What could hurt it? Could anything hurt it?

It reached out for him again with its top right arm, the other three stretched wide as if to embrace him. As its hand drew nearer, Clive once again felt that pressure on his mind. He could feel his very self shifting, moulding itself to their will - the shape they were meant to take -

- A pulse at his chest. Just over his heart, where he kept the feather of the Phoenix.

Fight it, Clive, a familiar and dearly-loved voice whispered. Don’t let him in.

Clive summoned all his will and pushed.

For a moment he could feel it. The strain between them. Then, with one last desperate wrench of willpower, one last thought of what would become of Jill and his brother should be give in, Ultima withdrew.

“I see,” they said. “Consciousness, is it? Human will is so insubstantial, it cannot exist in isolation. You mitigate its weakness through the bonds of consciousness.” Ultima tilted their head curiously, then went on, while Clive could do nothing but stand there, more breathless from the mental effort of repelling Ultima than the entire fight with Titan. “We believed we had merely to purge you of your will. It appears we first have to sever every thread of the consciousness that supports it.”

Again, in this strange space, Clive knew exactly what Ultima meant. They meant to sever every human connection he had until he was completely alone. However they could. He was being studied, a bug under a lens - a craftsman searching a tool for flaws -

“No matter,” Ultima said. “The time to build a new world is not yet upon us. We will contemplate.”

With another bright flash of pain, Clive found himself back in the wastelands. If he’d even left at all. Torgal was at his side, nosing at his hand, tongue lolling out. He must have run hard to return to Clive’s side so quickly. Clive gave his ears a scratch. If he had any antelope he’d give it to him. He deserved it.

In his jerkin, over his heart, he coud still feel a pulse of warmth. Clive withdrew the feather. Soft red-orange with a green-blue eye, it burned as strongly as the day Clive had first picked it up. The power of the Phoenix. A reminder.

Clive pressed all his sincerity into his voice and tried to reach out to his brother’s power. “Thank you, Joshua,” he said.

There was no response. But he thought he could feel that connection anyway.

—

Through the grace of the Almighty, he felt the Mothercrystal fall. His god called him, and Barnabas would ever answer. He summoned Odin’s power and let it carry him to his Lord Commander, on a cliff above what used to be Drake’s Fang.

It seemed to amuse Sleipnir. His Lord Commander was given to musing, whether or not any could hear him. Any but Barnabas, who could always hear him.

“One can no more command the power of aether by drowning in its flood than one can constrain the tides by standing in the sea. It seems Hugo’s head was full of rocks after all.”

“Titan was strong,” Barnabas said. Sleipnir immediately turned and dropped to his knees, ever the obedient servant. He had done his work in Drake’s Fang well. “But he was only strong. And Mythos is stronger.”

Three years Kupka lived only for revenge, clinging fast to a fiction even as it swept him into the abyss. Him, his castle, his nation. Rotting from the inside with Kupka’s need for vengeance. Mythos had survived thirteen years thusly, then stood up and fought the tide instead. Such was the difference between them. “Once cannot change one’s nature through force of will alone,” he said aloud. “Only the Almighty can do that.”

Sleipnir bowed his head in acknowledgement of that fact. “Hugo Kupka, the man who gave his life for a woman’s head. A fool like all the rest.”

Barnabas stepped forward, closer to the cliff’s edge. Below, he could see the tiny shapes of a man and a wolf starting the lonely trek north. Above them, motes of aether drifted on the wind. Like sparks, vibrant even in the sun. They would not last for long. “That the death of a Mothercrystal should be so beautiful,” he said.

The Lord’s design in all things. The wonder of creation.

He stayed and beheld the Almighty’s work until the sun set and every trace of the great crystal had dissipated into the air, returned unto its maker.

Chapter Text

Thank you, Joshua.

Joshua’s head snapped up. Strange voices in his mind were, regrettably, only an uncommon occurrence since he had imprisoned Ultima within himself. Rarely did they speak in words he could understand. This was not only perfectly common modern Sanbrequois, but his own brother’s voice.

“Your Grace? Is it your injury?”

“Perhaps,” he admitted to Jote. “In a way.”

Within a second she had a vial of painkiller in her hand, as quickly as she ever drew a sword or knife.

“No need for that,” Joshua assured her. “There was no pain.” Just another mystery.

Once again Clive had been in Ultima’s thoughts. He had felt his captive’s focused attention. Joshua had feared, especially as Ultima’s attention drew to a point. He begged his brother to fight, hoping that if Ultima could make itself known to Clive that somehow he could too - but then that attention had subsided, and Joshua had told himself that all was well. That Clive was well.

Had his brother managed to hear him? And if so, how had he managed to respond? It was his brother, of that Joshua had no doubt. He’d felt the power behind it. The second Eikon’s flames - but their ferocity hadn’t been directed at him. Could his brother borrow or otherwise use some of Ultima’s powers? He still did not know what Clive’s nature as Ultima’s self-proclaimed vessel entailed.

Either way, he was glad of Clive’s words.

“Your Grace. We are nearing Prince Dion’s camp.”

“Already?”

“We’ve made good time,” Jote replied with a rare smile.

Joshua nodded. It was the sole good thing about Ultima’s attention landing on Clive - it was not on Joshua himself. The pain had been less these past few days. “How would you suggest we infiltrate?” he asked. “I doubt Dion’s guards will allow a dead man through for an audience.”

“The prince is known to keep his camps in good order, but we can always attach ourselves to the civilian section,” Jote said. “I suggest we avoid their scouts and join the ordinary workers before we approach His Highness.”

He suspected Jote also wanted him to have a day where he would primarily be resting. He could see the benefits of that too. He would much rather approach Dion after a full night’s sleep and a wash. “And I can plan what to say. On condition we see no signs of either side preparing to attack, I agree.”

There were always people drifting in and out of such a large camp. There were guards at the perimeter, of course, but Jote fended off their questions and they were directed to the civilian camp with stern reminders that troublemaking would not be tolerated.

There were occupied gibbets on the way, so Joshua believed it.

Hanged for inciting Branded, the sign nearby read. Joshua raised his eyebrows. It was just as well he was here to make alliance with Dion, rather than his brother who would most certainly risk his life just being here. His presence alone might be considered incitement. Sanbreque’s callous treatment of Branded never failed to confuse and sadden him. Such unnecessary cruelty. Such a waste. It was well worth remembering that no matter Dion Lesage’s reputation as a fair man and a fair leader, Sanbreque had a different definition of fair.

Jote took the lead as they wended through dusty rows of tents. The site she deemed best for them to set up was a few minutes’ walk from the communal firepit but with an excellent view of the nearest guard post.

They hardly had to speak to divide up their duties. Joshua took some of their supplies and went to cook them their meal, while Jote vanished amongst the crowds.

What could he say to Dion Lesage? He would not have to prove his identity, that was for sure. The Dominant of Bahamut would know him for what, and who, he was.

It was almost amusing. Dispossessed archduke he might be, but even when he was heir to his father’s holdings in truth he had never dabbled in politics as he was planning to do now. His first time, how exciting. He could only hope his father would approve.

He could only hope his brother would approve. Gibbet or no gibbet. He did this to protect Clive, first and foremost. Ultima would not stop until Clive was in its clutches. Dion Lesage might be able to stop Ultima's plans for Sanbreque in their tracks.

Joshua lost himself in the routine task, thinking deeply on the words he must say and the information he needed to gather. He made small talk with other people at the fires, mind miles away. Jote would scold him later, of course.

Later was when she returned, long past sunset. Joshua smiled and introduced her to their erstwhile neighbours at the fires - never real names - while Jote herself ate in silence. They retired as the watch changed a second time, without any sort of suspicion falling upon them.

In the relative privacy of their tent, Joshua asked, “Well?”

“I have a way,” Jote said. “It needs some refining. You won’t like it.”

Joshua frowned. Jote rarely said such things. “May I hear the first draft of this plan, then?”

Jote told him. Joshua did not like it. Alas, they had little time for alternatives.

—

The last skirmish had been fiercer than most. In the past few days, the Dhalmeks had found their fire - or at least realised how cornered they were. Dion had been forced to use his magic. Not even to semi-prime and take upon himself some of the light of Bahamut, just one of the more powerful flare spells Bahamut’s power granted him.

And even then, it had left his right arm - his favoured arm - aching. Unlike the other usual aches of priming, this one had not faded.

Now, alone with Terence again, Terence tended to him. “There’s a patch of grey skin,” Terence said quietly. “It will take your elbow first, I fear.”

And with it, his hand. Blood would not be able to flow through his afflicted limb and he would be left with a festering lump of flesh at the end of a stone stub. The physickers would have to amputate as soon as the curse advanced so that blood poisoning would not kill him outright.

“I beg you, Dion, trust in the dragoons. Even if a show of force is needed to keep the Dhalmeks at bay. Bahamut comes at too great a cost.”

“I agree,” Dion said, “But the Emperor has ordered it otherwise. I cannot avoid the battlefield entirely.” Fury overtook him. He would lose his arm for this. “We’ve agreed to an armistice, but still we fight! This is - this is needless! My presence most of all. If anything, I am more likely to drive them to desperate action, should they decide it is worth taking Twinside down with them.”

He had thought there could be nothing worse than waiting around Belenus Tor and deterring Odin just by his existence. This was worse.

“Never needless,” Terence said. “You give us hope. Not just hope for victory, but for a better Empire.”

In the privacy of their tent, he reached out for Dion. Their kiss was too brief. Could he just stay -

“Would that you were my master,” Dion said, when they broke apart.

But Terence could only say, as he had said before, “I will always be your loyal servant.”

They could not risk anything further, and so Dion turned back to the map table, with its hateful markers, and his father’s wyvern tail bloom standing in a small vase at its head. Strange how a flower could seem to loom.

“One small mercy,” Terence said, “You will not be forced to do battle with Titan.”

Their intelligence was unclear. Whether Titan was dead or wounded, Dion did not know. But all agreed that Titan would not be available for any fight against the Holy Empire.

From outside, there was a call of “Pardon, my prince! An urgent message!”

“Enter,” Dion said.

The messenger saluted as he ran inside, breathing hard. He proffered a sealed scroll. Dion frowned. One seal only - his father’s personal seal. Not the Emperor’s. “Who gave this to you?”

“From the Emperor’s own hand,” the messenger replied. “I was instructed to deliver it to your hand and your hand only, Your Highness, with all speed.”

“I thank you for your diligence. Please, find the mess and take some refreshment. I will send for you if I have need for a return message.”

The messenger saluted in acknowledgement of the dismissal, but added, “I have also been instructed to convey to you that the Emperor wishes for you to maintain your position here. Your Highness.”

“Acknowledged,” Dion replied.

This time, the messenger left. Then, and only then, did Dion crack the seal.

His eyes widened with horror.

“What is it?” Terence asked.

“My father…writes that by the time I receive this, Olivier will be Emperor,” Dion said, voice faint to his own ears. “The Goddess Greagor has appeared to me and directed me that… no, and, the diviners, cardinals and lords of the Empire are in agreement … Terence! My bloody stepmother pays the diviners, half the realm knows it!”

“None dare say it,” Terence said bluntly, also white around the eyes. “This is her work and you know it as well as I.”

“This is ridiculous. Olivier is a child. We are at war.” He stood, none too gracefully. The vase holding the wyvern tail upended. “I need to go to the palace.”

“The orders -” Terence started.

Maintain position. So he would not go to the palace and demand his explanation. The dangerous, treacherous response of hang the orders! was on his tongue. Did duty to the Empire not extend to ensuring the orders were right?

While he hesitated, there was a soft tearing sound from behind him. A blade slipped through the thick canvas of the tent. “My pardon, Your Highness,” a woman’s soft voice said as Terence drew his dagger and Dion called aether to his off hand.

Another voice said, “Please, stand down,” and Dion felt another, different source of aether.

Terence whirled around, blade in hand, but Dion called, “Stop!”

A young man followed the woman into the tent. Tall, thin, and unhealthily pale in the face, golden curls framing his eyes, Dion could nevertheless feel the power inside him. The fire. It was…familiar. Flickering, but bright. An intensity only Bahamut could exceed.

“Forgive the intrusion, Your Highness,” the man said, stepping in front of his companion.

“I know you,” Dion said. But how could this be? “Terence. We stand in the presence of the Phoenix. If you do not sheathe your blade, you may get your fingers burned.” Or, from the careful balance of the woman, cut. He had faith in Terence’s skills but there was no need to take risks.

Terence hissed in shock, “The Phoenix-” before cutting himself off.

Joshua Rosfield, Dominant of the Phoenix, dead man, cast his eyes over the map still unrolled over Dion’s table, the letter thrown down atop it, and the fallen wyvern tail, and said, mildly, “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Some minor internal matters,” Dion said. “I admit I was not prepared to receive such a distinguished guest.”

The Phoenix, after all, was supposed to be dead. While this explained why no new Dominant had been born in the past fifteen years, Dion’s mind raced trying to parse all the reasons. The Phoenix was a child when Phoenix Gate burned - an accident on his own part, though there were darker rumours Dion gave little credit to - so why stay away? Why not fight for the Duchy?

The Phoenix bent down to retrieve the wyvern tail. “How many years since the Remembrance Ceremony?” he asked, inhaling its scant fragrance. “Twenty?”

“It must be,” Dion said. He’d been a child too. A ceremony to acknowledge the ties of friendship that bound their nations, between the Dominants who protected them. A reminder of the costs of war between them, too. “I thought you long dead. Do I address a ghost?”

A trace of a smile flitted across the Phoenix’a face as he righted the vase and returned the wyvern tail to its original position. “I’ve been told I look the part,” he said, with a quick glance back towards his companion, whose blade was now sheathed. “But no. I’m alive. Just.”

Dion eyed him carefully. Wan and thin as the Phoenix was, he did not seem like a man on the verge of death.

The Phoenix turned to him fully, hands tucked behind his back. “Prince Dion of the House Lesage,” he said, “I have a tale to tell you.”

—

The journey back to Dalimil was difficult but mercifully uneventful. His supplies had all been lost when he went to confront Kupka - destroying the Mothercrystal had never been in the plan. He relied on Torgal to lead him to water and a place to gather his senses and sleep for a few precious hours, then he pushed on back towards Dalimil as fast as he could.

He saw no signs of refugees on the roads.

L’ubor greeted him with a smile - not that L’ubor would greet him with anything else - and ushered Clive once again into the back room where he met clients. “To think I just sent a stolas to your people,” he bemoaned theatrically. “I could have told them that their Cid lived through his nonsense at the Fang!”

“Thanks to your hospitality, I’ll see them soon enough,” Clive replied. Cool water, lentil stew, fresh dates, and enough gil for a bath and a bed. All the hospitality a man could want.

“By all accounts it was quite the sight. Many traders from Dalimil take those roads. Or roads with equal views of the Fang.” Smile vanished, L’ubor said, “I’ve never heard of a Bearer with anything like your powers, Cid the Second. They must be equal to your predecessor’s.”

There was a question there. “In a way,” Clive said, cautiously.

“Rumours of another Dominant, one that should not exist, are spreading,” L’ubor warned. “I know such rumours have lurked in Rosaria for, oh, fifteen years now.”

“Not entirely unfounded,” Clive admitted.

“How peculiar.”

“We don’t know what to make of it either.”

“I suppose it makes certain things easier. Such as fighting Hugo Kupka. There are many who will rejoice at the news of his death.” L’ubor’s words were deliberately light. Clive was starting to learn his reactions, though. The man was concerned. “The loss of the Mothercrystal, though. Three destroyed in as many years. A catastrophe for Storm. Some might start to whisper Cid the Outlaw is in the pay of Waloed.”

Clive snorted. “Hardly. And while losing the Mothercrystal will be a problem in the short term, we hope to have solved another problem in the long term. The Mothercrystals don’t create magic. They suck it in like every other crystal. They cause the Blight, L’ubor. They suck the aether from the land on a massive scale and leave it dead. We need to learn to live without magic to help us, or the Blight will kill us all.”

L’ubor’s face was solemn. “And when non-magical means of working are as easy as magical, there will be no need - no value - in enslaving those who can channel aether as well as any crystal. I see. A clever plan.”

“My predecessor’s,” Clive said.

L’ubor observed, “In the short term, though, I would think that you risk Bearers becoming valuable prizes.”

Clive nodded. “We do. We’ve seen it already in Sanbreque. It will take a long time for people to find other ways to meet their own needs, and even longer for attitudes to change, but we must start somewhere, somehow. It will never happen if we don’t make it happen.”

He would not live to see equality, not if he somehow lived to be a hundred. He knew that. He would likely only live long enough to see things reach their worst, as people grew poor and angry at the changes in their world. But he would live to see the start, damn it.

They sat in silence for a long moment. Clive tried to focus on his food.

“I have yet to receive your smith’s notes,” L’ubor said, “But in light of your plans…I would appreciate it if you could assist me in contacting anyone in Rosaria informed about the construction of their great aqueduct. There are many places in Dhalmekia that could make good use of such a thing. If on a smaller scale. We prize Bearers who can draw water here. It might be well to make them…surplus to requirements.”

The reminder saddened Clive. His father had been so proud of the progress on the aqueduct. He’d poured as much gil into it as possible for as long as Clive could remember. “You may have to fight my uncle for them,” he said, “but yes. I meant what I said about not hoarding our knowledge.”

L’ubor nodded and changed the topic. “You will be heartened to know that four Bearers from Drake’s Fang have reached us here in Dalimil.”

Only four. Clive let out a heavy exhale. Four was more than none. Hopefully more had run and scattered. He might even have overtaken some on the road, as he was far healthier than most of the Bearers he’d seen in Kupka’s cattle pens and moved far faster. “If they’re still here and wish to go to the Hideaway, I can take them myself. Are any injured?”

“The usual cuts, scrapes, and severe lack of food. Ferda is standing guard while they rest. It will do them good.”

“Freedom will do them good,” Clive agreed.

Clive spent the night on L’ubor’s floor rather than either of Dalimil’s inns. In the morning he went to the warehouse where the four Bearers had taken shelter. Two men and two women, no longer filthy and bearing open wounds thank to L’ubor’s care, but still dangerously thin.

He’d had these conversations many times over the past few years. Some Bearers couldn’t be more eager for freedom; others wanted it, whether or not they could say so aloud, but had used all their courage to take it and now didn’t know what to do with it. Three of these were the former and one the latter.

“You won’t make us use magic?” one of the men asked suspiciously.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Clive said, “Since we live in the deadlands. I won’t lie, everyone with us works hard for their living. But it’s for ourselves and others like us. You can learn a trade, or how to defend yourselves with a weapon, or your letters.”

“Letters,” one of the women breathed.

The man who had spoken asked again, suspiciously, “Why would you do this for us? You’re a Dominant.” Like Kupka, he didn’t need to say.

No secrets any more. The Second Eikon of Fire had been seen near Drake’s Fang. Rumour was becoming fact. And now Clive would have to deal with being known as a Dominant, just as Joshua had. Even when it should not matter.

“I was a slave in Sanbreque’s army first,” Clive said. “When I was young I learned my letters, learned the sword, like any other boy my age from a family like my own. My father had questions about how Bearers were treated. My mother was different, and she sent me off as soon as my father died, the same day my magic first showed. I was fifteen. I served for thirteen years.”

There was a collective wince from all four. Clive knew why. To start life as a Branded that late…it wasn’t unheard of, and few survived long afterwards. He had very nearly not survived, a predicament that had little to do with being thrown into battle against Waloed. And the army…every Sanbrequois and Dhalmek Branded had heard horror stories about serving in the army. It was almost as feared as the mines.

“My predecessor helped free me before he died. He said he wanted to build a place where we could live on our own terms. It took time, but it has helped me heal. It’s helped others to heal. Now I’m offering that to you. It shouldn’t matter whether I’m a Dominant or not - that’s what we’re working towards.”

He stopped there and let them think on it. It could be difficult to work through, even for those who knew they wanted freedom. Trust was difficult as well. Clive was asking them to risk their new freedom on his word.

But they’d all run and come here, of all the places they could have gone.

Slowly, ever so slowly, all four nodded their agreement.

Clive sat down on the ground. “Then let me tell you about our next steps. We’ve got to get home first.”

Chapter Text

“Here we are,” Clive said, “Bennumere. Home.”

His companions looked up at it. “Did you build all that?” Talia asked.

“The ruins were here first,” Clive said, “But yes, we built what goes over it. We’re still building.”

For a moment he thought he saw a figure with silver hair walking along the front deck. Soon enough, Clive thought, once she was out of sight.

He ushered his new friends off and handed them to Hortense to see them fed, clothed, housed, and shown around the Hideaway. It was all the work anyone did on their first day. Adjusting to a new world was difficult. 

For now, though, he had news to deliver.

Otto was at his usual place in the mess, poring over the ledgers in the bright morning light. They’d become more complex with Lord Byron’s most recent donation and he didn’t entirely trust his chief clerk, Gaute. The Sanbrequois Bearer had worked hard to keep up, but Gaute would be the first to admit his work could still use improvement - and Otto’s oversight.

Before Clive could greet Otto, Jill and Gav both walked in. “Clive! You’re back!” Gav exclaimed. Otto’s head snapped up.

Jill just smiled. She looked well. Far better than when he’d left. “We had a stolas from your new friend L’ubor,” she said. “Is it true? Has Drake’s Fang fallen?”

“It is,” Clive said, “and Hugo Kupka is dead.”

“Lot of old friends who’d be smiling right now,” Otto agreed, eyes suspiciously and unusually bright.

Gav sagged into the nearest seat. “Fuck me. That’s a relief.”

“You’re okay, though?” Jill asked, moving to stand next to him. She gripped his hand, cool and firm.

“Only a little wear and tear,” Clive said.

They pretended not to notice Otto still wiping at his eyes. At last, Otto said, “Now, I thought you said you were only going to kill Kupka. Care to explain how you brought down Drake’s Fang as well?”

“It’s a long story,” Clive said. “The Royalists are up to something. I need to speak to Vivian and Tomes.”

He wanted to speak to Jill. He needed to speak to Vivan about the Royalists and Tomes about Ultima. He tried to convey that with a regretful return squeeze of her hand. Once that was sorted, he knew who he would seek out.

“Go on,” Jill said. “We’ll catch up when you’re finished. A lot of people here will want to hear your news.”

Vivian was already waiting at the entrance to her lair. “So,” she said, when Clive approached. “Kupka is dead and the Fang is motes of aether in the breeze. And you without a scratch on you.”

“It’s a bit more than a scratch,” Clive said. But not much. “I have news of the Royalists.”

“Our chief concern.” Vivian found quill and paper. “Tell me what happened.”

Clive went through all that he’d seen in the Fang. The orcs. The massacre. “I don’t understand,” he finished. “Why would the Royalists work so hard to rescue Kupka, only to invade his home, the Mothercrystal of their only ally on Storm, and let both fall? Make both fall?”

Vivian tapped her notes together idly. “Do you know the tale of the blind men and the adamantoise?” she asked.

“One grasps its tail, one touches its shell, and one nearly loses their finger getting too close to its mouth,” Clive said. That part of the story had always bothered him when he was a child. Who let anyone get so close to an adamantoise’s mouth unsuspecting?

“But the moral is that one can be led astray by focusing too closely on individual details,” Vivian said. “One must focus on the bigger picture.”

“The Royalists have been acting strangely for years,” Clive said slowly. “Since Belenus Tor. They haven’t even stepped in while Dhalmekia and the Empire war over Twinside.”

“Until Belenus Tor, Odin would ever be where the fighting was thickest,” Vivian agreed. “Barnabas Tharmr. The man who forged Waloed in the fires of war. The war that destroyed the Veldermarke, until then the greatest kingdom ever to rule on Ash. The Kanverian War of Independence. The Battle of the Twin Realms. And now he sends not a single ship in support of his allies, nor moves on lands free of the Blight. It is not for want of soldiers, nor for want of ships.”

Clive frowned. “So we’re the blind man with their fingers too close to the adamantoise’s mouth.”

“Essentially. The good news is that your uncle has been as accommodating as anyone could hope for. He’s sent proposals by stolas to incorporate our people in his various commercial ventures. The details are on your desk.”

“Thank you, Vivian.”

“Thank me by spreading the news of Kupka’s demise. There are a lot of people here who will rejoice to hear it.”

“Hardly an imposition. I’ll set to it right away.”

He saw Charon as he headed towards the backyard - the gardeners and botanists had lost almost half their number in Kupka’s attack, and even now had not recovered or replaced all their work. The stern old merchant kept her cool, as she always did. “No more looking over shoulders,” she said. Blackthorne, by contrast, nearly burst into tears.

When he let himself into the library and told Harpocrates, the old man did burst into tears. “I must offer up prayers,” he said. “No more lessons today!”

“A minute more of your time, loresman,” Clive said.

“Of course.” Harpocrates composed himself.

“I encountered Ultima again when the Mothercrystal fell,” Clive told him. He wanted to talk to Jill first about the more personal details. And his own concerns. “Have you found anything about the creature? I need to know what he is.”

Harpocrates leaned back in his chair. “Alas, I have nothing. There is nothing in the records I have been able to access. Not even that very particular absence that suggests a concealment of fact. If it were not for you telling me, Clive, I would doubt that this Ultima exists at all. It seems you may be the only person who has ever seen Ultima. If we know anything of this being, it is only that which it leaves in its wake, like a terrible force of nature beyond the ken of mortal man.”

“I fear you’re right,” Clive said. “Your efforts are appreciated.”

Harpocrates smiled at him. “My investigations will continue. But tomorrow, perhaps. I believe I can hear something of a celebration starting outside.”

It was true. He could hear footsteps in the main structure outside. People running. Even some music. “Then let’s join them,” Clive said.

—

As usual, Clive had plenty to do once he returned. Jill was neither surprised nor offended. Nor was she planning to wait in his quarters. She had a letter to write to Marleigh and several mathematical problems from Harpocrates to finish, as well as her usual pile of mending.

She had to admit she felt a lot better. Now that Clive was back, and clearly well enough for his usual duties, it was as close to perfect as she’d ever dared to imagine.

But as the news spread, the back deck of the Hideaway grew more crowded and steadily noisier. Molly cracked open two barrels of ale and half a dozen bottles of their precious wine and decreed that everyone should drink, no contribution required. Even now she and her fellow cooks were hard at work making honeycakes, a treat usually reserved for Midsummer alone, and roasting the antelope their hunters had brought in today rather than stewing it. Both of the Hideaway’s lutes, its only fiddle, and a few rough pipes were out, and the spoony bard Cid had found somewhere was playing a Dhalmek funeral march to raucous cheers.

Jill set aside her work. Impulsively, she drew ice from the clean air high above Bennumere and brought it down for the party. An offering for Molly.

“Oh, Jill - you didn’t have to,” the chief cook said.

“I wanted to,” Jill replied. “Trust me, I can’t think of much I’d rather use magic for.”

She’d thought Molly would use it to chill drinks, but not long afterwards, Molly instead presented Jill with a bowl of shaved ice flavoured with mint. A line was forming at the bar for a chance to try such a treat. One man, Jill thought his name was Claude, started crying over his. “I used to make the ice for these,” he said, “But I never got to have one.”

Outside, Gav taught a group of Cursebreakers a Northern leaping game Jill remembered from feasts in her youth, half a dozen children copying them with falls and shrieks of glee. Lines formed for a dance and Jill was swept up in them, learning the steps as she went. She danced with Otto and August, Tarja and Dorys, Gaute and Goetz and even Lady Charon - and then the rotation brought her to Clive.

He was laughing.

She spun away and spun back to the makeshift drumming and clapping keeping time and step. He’d stripped down to shirtsleeves and trousers, since a party was no place for armour. He looked smaller than usual for it, but…brighter. Softer. Her face suddenly felt very warm and she doubted it had much to do with the exertion. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Clive so happy. Not even when they were young.

She danced a second dance with Clive. Then a third. At the end of that, breathing hard after ten whole dances, Clive offered her his arm, escorted her to one of the benches, then brought her half a cup of ale. “You look much better,” he said.

“I feel it,” she replied. “Whatever your next trip is, I want to come with you.”

“I missed you,” he said. “Not that I didn’t welcome the time with my uncle, but I missed you.”

“And I missed you.”

That smile. Oh gods.

“I went to Rosaria while you were away,” Jill said, hoping he wouldn’t notice that she was no less flushed now than when she sat down. “We found Marleigh.”

“Your friend?”

He insisted on hearing all about it. Jill had to half shout to make herself heard over the party carrying on apace. “A far happier story than mine,” he declared, when she was finished.

More quietly, Jill asked, “Were there other problems?”

She hated herself for a minute, because that smile faded. “Some,” he said. “But…let’s not discuss them tonight.”

“It would be a shame,” Jill agreed.

“Shall I introduce you to the Bearers from Drake’s Fang?” 

The celebration swept them both up again. Together, at first, but then Mid demanded Jill come help convince Vivian to dance while Clive was called upon to recount his first fight with a morbol - Jill had heard the story before, but it was always a shame to miss out. Amongst friends, Clive was a fine storyteller. The compensation of seeing Vivian gamely attempt a waltz was worth it, though.

It was well past midnight when the party finally broke up. But instead of drifting back to her bunk, Jill went to find Clive again.

Maybe it was the wine she’d drunk. Maybe. But he was so happy tonight, and he’d looked so handsome, and she couldn’t be happier that he was back and safe and smiling. She found him just heading away from the clean-up he’d been helping with, and without a word he seized her hand. He looked at her like she was beautiful, like she was worth something, and before she knew it his mouth was on hers and he was pulling her back into the privacy of his room. He’d been drinking wine too. She arched up into him even as she wound her arms around his head and tried to pull him down. His mouth slipped from hers as he nuzzled into the crook between her neck and jaw. 

She let go of him only long enough to claw away her own bodice, baring her breasts to him, and she moved one of his hands to grip her there, his rough palms almost blazingly hot against her skin. She could feel him pressed against her. She could feel how much he wanted it. Wanted her.

Still brave, Jill tried to unlace him.

He jerked back as if she’d stabbed him.

“Clive?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry. I - you know I - want…you’re so beautiful…” He trailed off as he looked at her longingly. He always wore his heart on his sleeve. If that wasn’t enough, she could see the truth of it tenting his trousers. If he wanted her, and she wanted him, why shouldn’t they have each other?

“I just don’t understand,” she said. Frustrated as she was, the wine muddling her thoughts no longer felt so sweet. Nor could she enjoy his eyes on her when she’d clearly caused him pain, somehow.

“It’s not you,” he said, but then his words seemed to fail him. 

After a long silence, Jill started to pull her dress back up. “I should go,” she said.

“No - I mean, you don’t need to. Even if we - I’d still like you to stay. If you want to as well.”

Jill hesitated. “All right,” she said. Clive sank back to sit on his bed, shifting aside to make room for Jill. She finished pulling her dress back up first, but when she sat beside him he leaned into her. Not too much, but enough for her to feel his comforting weight against her side. She leaned back against him, the two of them propping each other up.

Maybe not what she had hoped for this evening, but…it was still nice. Clive was very warm.

Some time after that, she fell asleep.

She was still warm when she woke, though the bed beside her was empty. Clive was not long gone and he’d tucked his blankets around her so gently she’d never felt a thing. One of the chairs had been dragged over to serve as a makeshift bedside table, and right in front of her was a steaming cup of mint tea.

Jill smiled. They’d talk again later. For now, this was not bad at all.

—

“Have you thought about giving the old Cid the news?” Otto asked. “Grumpy sod’s spirit might be happy to hear it.”

“That’s a good idea. I haven’t been back in…six months? Seven? Winter, anyway.”

“You know he’d be proud of you.”

Clive couldn’t meet his eyes. “I can hope.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m proud of you, and when you first came here I thought you were a vicious little snot who was mostly looking to bite any hand that fed you. Cid thought you could take over from him.”

Well, Otto hadn’t been wrong. There was a long time there where Clive…hadn’t been a very good person. What was surprising was Cid’s opinion. Cid had thought he could lead in his place, that long ago? “I spent most of our time together wanting to strangle him,” he admitted.

“You and everyone else with sense. Clive, honestly, you’ve met our contacts. Cid shoved you at his contacts. He knew you all wanted to slap him silly. He figured that was the best way for you to make friends.”

That. Admittedly sounded a lot like Cid. And his plans. 

“I’ll take it up with him when I visit,” Clive said. “I’ll take Mid if I can.”

“Good luck. You might have to tie her up and throw her in the boat.”

Mid’s workshop-cum-lair was deep in the bowels of the Hideaway. There were a few people who worked with her, most at Harpocrates’ recommendation. They were all a particular brand of enthusiastic. Mid herself didn’t so much supervise as egg people on. The results could be alarming. Today, though, she was merely at the centre of a cluster of people poring over some sort of schematic. When Clive beckoned her aside she went with a small frown.

“It’s a good idea,” she said, “But I’m busy right now. I need to make a thermal displacement stack.”

“I have no idea what that is or why that would stop you visiting Cid,” Clive said.

“I’m building a ship,” Mid said, eyes shining. “Da and I started working on it together ages back. The fastest ship the world has ever seen. Way faster than Odin’s old Einherjar. It’s going to have mythril engines. As soon as I can get them to work, that is, and that means I need a thermal displacement stack or the whole thing will catch on fire. I’ll visit Da’s grave when I’m done.”

For a moment Clive had the strongest mental image of a tiny Mid drawing out her first schematics with Cid. He sighed. “If I help you, will you come with me when I go?”

“Seems fair enough!” Mid chirped.

The list of things she wanted from him wasn’t too bad, by Mid’s standards. A specific sand from the Velkroy, easily requested from L’ubor in exchange for the plans for one of Mid’s devices for collecting water from the air. Some Fallen plating the other engineers had located in the Norvent passes - Clive needed to visit Quinten anyway, so he could kill two birds with one stone there. And after a brief consultation with Tomes, they needed to make a trip up to the markets in Northreach.

Jill entered the room at the tail end of the conversation and Clive felt like sinking through the floor. Which was stupid. He was thirty years old and hardly a blushing virgin.

There was pink in her cheeks too, though, as she said, “I can take the Northreach request, if that’s what you need.”

“Wonderful! Many hands make light work.”

Clive fell in step with Jill as they both left the library. “I know you said you wanted to come on my next little trip with me.”

“It’s fine,” Jill said. “The important thing is that I’m not just sitting around the Hideaway. I want to do what I can, while I can.”

Because she still had to worry about the curse. He didn’t. He’d just used staggering amounts of aether, drawn concentrated aether straight from the Mothercrystal’s heart into himself, and he was perfectly fine. How was he supposed to feel about that except guilty? He had all of the benefits - more benefits - and none of the drawbacks.

“The adventure after, then,” he said. “We’ll find something appropriate.”

“Twinside, maybe,” Jill said, and the look in her eyes was a promise. Together they would break the back of the Empire. 

Though, Clive realised, it was well worth issuing a few warnings first. “Would you be able to take a message to Isabelle for me while you’re in Northreach? A verbal one?” There was only so much a stolas could remember, and only so much he could entrust to paper.

“Of course. But some time between Mothercrystals will do us all good. Take Gav when you go to Lostwing. I think he misses spending time with you.”
 
Outside of the flaming ruins of Rosaria, she meant. That had not been a good trip for any of them. “Good advice,” he said. He hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

Her eyes went wide and round.

Like a coward, Clive fled before she could say anything. Damn it all.

Chapter Text

They made it through the Greatwood at record speed. Gav’s shortcuts were far better than Cid’s. Fewer giant monsters. Though these days, there weren’t as many worgens in the Greatwood full stop. There just wasn’t enough prey here for them to survive, and steadily less of that as the Blight started to creep through even the woods.

“Been a while since we went on a trip like this, just the two of us,” Gav said.

Clive cast his mind back. “I think we’ve only done it two or three times.” Mostly he travelled with Jill. “You need to move faster than I do.”

“And you normally go on missions where blasting things is needed,” Gav chuckled. “Or just someone better at speaking to people than I am.”

“My mother would be appalled at the use to which I’m putting my rhetoric lessons.” She’d never wanted him to have those lessons at all, nor Jill, arguing it was a waste of their tutor’s time, but his father had insisted that both of them join Joshua in lessons. Wherever they end up in life, they will need to know how to speak to it, he’d said. It is our duty to make sure they learn.

Clive hadn’t heard the rest of the argument, but the next morning he and Jill had both been requested to attend on Master Michelson.

Gav, though. Gav said, “Fuck me, I don’t even know what rhetoric is, but as long as it pisses the Empress off I’m for it.”

“The study of how to argue,” Clive said. Joshua had loved it. Clive had liked parts of it - the writing, mostly. Jill had dutifully attended the lessons and completed the work she was asked to complete.

He hoped Joshua had the opportunity to continue his lessons.

“No wonder she didn’t want you to learn.”

“…that makes a lot of sense.”

Gav laughed. “Not often I remember you’re a lord,” he said. “You’ve normally got more sense than that.”

“Otto once told me I had more sense than Cid. I’ve never known whether it was a genuine compliment or damning me with faint praise.”

Gav laughed again as he gave Clive a hand up over a particularly tall fallen tree. “The second, for sure. Cid always was half mad. More than half mad. But in the good way.” He paused. “Been a while since thinking of Cid made me laugh.”

“Hopefully now that Kupka’s dead a lot more people around the Hideaway will share your opinion.”

From the Greatwood through the vineyards that supported Lostwing. With any luck Quinten would let them have some wine. If they were luckier still they’d be able to take a few bottles back to the Hideaway after they finished with whatever Fallen thing Mid needed deactivated.

Quinten himself was in reasonably high spirits - by his standards - and let them have a meal and a nap without much complaint. There was just the one minor matter Clive could assist him in sorting out, however: the villagers had seen shadows in the forest near Laubert’s Pass.

“Gav?”

“On it, Clive.”

Clive set out an hour later, after speaking to some of the other villagers to see how they were faring. The relocation of the Imperial capital suited them well. Less interference from the Emperor, and all they had to cope with were the local lords and magistrates. The Lord Chief Justice was always a thorn in their side, but most of the villagers smiled and assured him that Master Quinten had a plan.

His own journey through Laubert’s Pass was quiet. The only things to disturb him were a pair of arachnes who had nested in a tree above the only trail. Easily dispatched.

He found Mid’s assistant Helena where Laubert’s Pass opened up to allow a good view of Caer Norvent. The empire had never re-occupied it after the incident with Garuda, too busy fighting its wars in the Crystalline Dominion and ravaging Rosaria, and it was starting to fall to ruin. The Fallen ruins that surrounded it were, as ever, untouched.

“Cid!” Helena greeted him excitedly. “The pieces are right over there!”

Not even a how was your journey. Engineers were a different sort of person, especially when there was a project in their sights.

The Fallen echoes were hostile, as all seemed to be these days. Clive still didn’t know what had caused them to wake, but he had the ugly and growing suspicion it was somehow connected to the reason the narrow spires he passed sometimes started glowing. Clive tried not to smash them up too much. It wouldn’t do to ruin the parts Mid wanted. A whole other trip out to find more appropriate cladding, or whatever it was she wanted for this thermal displacement stack, was a diversion he couldn’t afford.

Afterwards, he left the engineers planning how to move the strangely rounded pieces and headed back through the pass towards Lostwing. Gav caught up with him within he hour. “Bad news,” he said. “It’s those Black Shield buggers.”

“Black Shields? What are they doing here?”

“Reporting on the village, mostly,” Gav said. “I found their camp. Didn’t look like they were staging for an attack, not straight away anyhow.”

“We need to tell Quinten,” Clive decided. He’d happily burn every Black Shield to char and cinder, but this wasn’t his home.

They arrived in Lostwing the next day, and Quinten was Clive’s first port of call, while Gav got his well-deserved meal. “What do you know of the Black Shields?” he asked.

Quinten’s normally-cool eyes were frosty. “Once they were the Empress’s bloodhounds. They are still, in some ways, but she has been known to loan them out to her allies. The Lord Chief Justice is one such ally and the one most likely to be holding the leash. They have the same hatred for Bearers, you see.”

“We’re familiar,” Clive assured him grimly. Worgen-baiting was just the beginning.

“I thought we’d have more time. But if we are cornered, then we  have no choice to bite back, and bite back we shall.”

“Are you cornered?”

“The Lord Chief Justice is not unfamiliar to me either,” Quinten said. He smiled, a thin-lipped little expression that still didn’t fit his severe, pale face. “Quite the opposite. I used to be a magistrate, you see. We had rather a violent falling out ten years ago. My wife always warned me to be careful. My son was due to start in the university a year early. My daughter was always writing.”

He didn’t need to say more. As long as Clive had known him, Quinten had no wife and no children.

Quinten continued. “No, I know the Lord Chief Justice well. As he once knew me. If he has found us, he will pursue us. If you will excuse me, Clive, I need to make certain preparations.”

He marched out without another word.

Gav sidled up to him, bowl of thick vegetable soup still in hand. “That bad, is it?”

Clive watched as Quinten started to rally the villagers, straight-backed and determined. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to talk him out of it,” he said. Just like nobody could have talked him out of his own revenge. I’ll cut the tongue out of any man who tries to convince me otherwise. The words shamed him now, but back then they had been the only thing that made sense.

Some things people had to learn for themselves. He’d try anyway.

“I need to send a stolas to Jill. I’ll be meeting her in Northreach. Isabelle needs to know about this too.”

—

Since their last ill-fated journey to Drake’s Head, Jill had been to Northreach only twice. Each time it was bigger, and each time more miserable. First the refugees of Oriflamme had streamed in. Then the refugees from the surrounding countryside. But no trade came with them. No wealth.

She’d been in the room while Clive and Isabelle had discussed it last year. Northreach had nothing to offer but its wall and plenty of vice. “Which is good for me and mine, of course,” Isabelle said, “but hardly something to build a city on. The underbelly of Kanver is not a state to aspire to.”

These days it seemed Northreach was not much different from Kostnice.

Jill knew better than to look hesitant as she navigated through the ever more crowded streets. She was an outlaw. She’d seen much of the world, from Oriflamme in the north to the Surge in the southern reaches of Ash. A lot more than most of these people could imagine. So she held her head high and made her way straight to the Veil. 

Isabelle herself was outside enjoying the garden. She looked up as Jill approached and smiled warmly. “Ah, Lady Jill,” she said. “I received our mutual friend’s warning of your arrival. He’s sent a second, in fact, begging you wait for him in Northreach.”

Jill counted her gil in her head. She had enough for lodging and the ingredients. Just. “How could I refuse?”

“Excellent decision,” Isabelle said. “Now, shall we retire and discuss business?”

In the middle of the day, the Veil was undergoing its usual cleaning, providing them a nice and quiet place to talk. “Is Clive well?” Isabelle asked, once there were steaming cups of rose tea in front of them.

“Fit as a fiddle,” Jill said.

“I hear your people have been busy. Two more Mothercrystals! There is a good deal of anxiety here in Northreach.”

“Busy, yes,” Jill said. “Clive sent me here to give you warning. We’re planning to move on Twinside next. Within the next few months.”

Isabelle sipped at her tea, hiding her mouth, but Jill could see the tension around her eyes. “We’re at the breaking point here,” she said.

“The Empire won’t help you,” Jill said. “You’d be better off on your own.” The only thing the Empire cared for in this area was its wheatfields. The people had been abandoned to mostly govern themselves.

“Perhaps. Sometimes when the powerful flee, worse powers come to fill it.” She sighed. “But I’m in agreement with Cid. The Mothercrystals must go. The Blight is a greater threat than anything else. I will work something out. There are reasonable men yet amongst the garrison.”

She didn’t discuss those plans with Jill as she might have with Clive. That was fine. It wasn’t her area of expertise. Afterwards - with a strong reminder from Isabelle to hide her hair well, since the Imperials blamed her more than Cid for Drake’s Head - Jill went to meet with the Cursebreakers who usually patrolled around Northreach. They knew the best spots to camp, and she could help track down monsters for gil. There was a rogue wind spirit terrorising what few traders came this way that the Cursebreakers didn’t think themselves equal to. She took it down herself.

The Cursebreakers took her up to the top of one of the ruined towers near Northreach. “You can see the flooding from here most days now,” Reynald told her. “The smaller villages are all but gone.”

He didn’t look particularly upset by that, but then, he’d originally been from rural Sanbreque.

Clive and Torgal arrived from the southwest after several days. None the worse for wear, just tired. Clive had pushed himself hard. Not even the fact he’d cleaned up first could hide that.

“What’s the problem?” Jill asked, when she met him at the market gate.

“Quinten,” he said grimly. “He’s going to get himself and half of Lostwing killed.”

He told her the story, then hurried off to tell Isabelle the same. Whatever else happened, the local magistrates and law-keeping in Oriflamme would be affected by at attack on their chief. Torgal decided to stay with her. Jill thought of worse people in power and all the things she couldn’t do to help. Then she fished out the list of ingredients from Harpocrates, the entire reason she’d come here in the first place, and went about her shopping.

Since she had the gil for it, she also got a few more things.

Clive arrived back in the market well past midday. He still looked rather haggard. With her basket of extras on one arm, Jill took Clive’s arm with her other. “Let’s walk down to the lake,” she said. “Get out of town for a few hours.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Clive sighed.

It had turned into a fine afternoon. Still warm, but not unbearable, autumn’s approach tempering summer heat. They didn’t stop at the muddy bank, but walked around to a place where a grassy hill sloped down to a narrow pebbly beach of sorts. They didn’t have a blanket like they had when they’d been on picnics as children, but Jill had other things.

“Bread?” Clive asked, eyes wide. “Wheat bread?”

The expensive kind from fine-milled flour, light and fluffy as a cloud. Dry-cured ham. A lump of good cheddar. Fresh plums and a honeycomb. “I had a little extra from a monster I took down,” Jill said.

“This is amazing,” Clive said. He tore off a shred of ham. “How’d you keep Torgal away from this?”

“He went chasing sausages at the next stall,” Jill said. “Like he did when he was a puppy.”

Torgal barked at them, then returned to chasing a butterfly. Also like he used to. But instead of simply snapping it up, he let it flutter off before jumping around after it. Clive huffed. “I’m not convinced he isn’t a puppy.”

They spoke for an hour or more about nothing of consequence. The possibility of visiting a proper beach. Jill’s fight with the rogue wind spirit and the last so-called ‘notorious mark’ Clive had stumbled across, the thing nicknamed the Bomb King, in a Fallen ruin not far from Lostwing. That time Clive had been called upon to prove his worthiness to associate with Isabelle; Jill’s lessons with Harpocrates. 

And gossip from the Hideaway, of course.

“We’re likely to have another wedding in the Hideaway soon,” Jill said. “You didn’t hear it from me - you didn’t hear it from anyone - but Tamara’s missed her bleeding for the third time.”

“Do you know if she’s spoken to Tarja?”

“She was planning to before I left,” Jill said. “She’s been brave - her previous owner was the sort who’d force the Branded women in his camps to drink tansy tea.” So that none of the women lost value, or working time, from bearing children. Never having been branded herself, Jill hadn’t known - until she started sharing space with women who had. They spoke of it in whispers, at night, like the women at Mount Drustanus had passed on information of which men to fear most. At Mount Drustanus, none of them had been forced to drink the tea, and none of them had been allowed to keep their children. Two different griefs from the same sort of men.

“They did the same in the army. Tamara’s been courting Miguel, yes?”

Jill nodded. “They couldn’t go three days without fighting at the start.”

“It’s a lot to learn. How to be a person again. How to be a person at all.”

After a while, Jill asked, “Are we courting?”

He'd kissed her before they left. Just on the cheek. Even after the incident after the party at the Hideaway.

Clive looked away. “I want to,” he said. “By the flames, I want to.”

“Then why not?” she asked. “I just - I want to understand, Clive. I know you want to. I know I want to.”

He was silent for a very long time. Then said, very quietly, “I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to be scared of me,” Jill said. She wanted to touch him, but he was hunched in on himself. When she reached out anyway, he flinched back, and she didn’t force it on him. “You know what the worst I did was. If you can bear my past for my sake, I can bear yours for you.”

Clive huddled down even further. “There were…things. In the army. That people did to me. And later, when they wanted me to kill people for them, I -” His voice shook. “I’m scared. You deserve someone who can meet your needs. In every way.”

It took her a few seconds to understand. Clive had always been taller than her. Stronger than her. Taller and stronger than most. He was so good with a sword, and his magic was strong.

But he’d been a slave for a very long time, too. And he’d always, always been beautiful.

“Oh,” she said.

Then, “Oh, Clive.”

She tried to reach out for him again and this time he let her rest her hand on his shoulder. She shifted a little closer so at least he’d know she was there. “The things that were done to you weren’t your fault.”

Clive looked up at her. “The things that I chose to do were.”

“In the same way that the people I killed with the Ironborn are my fault. There weren’t good choices for either of us, were there?”

“No,” Clive whispered.

Jill knew all too well that didn’t take away the pain. “I’m not asking if we’re courting so I can bed you,” she said. “I want to bed you, yes. The bed isn’t even needed. I want you to be happy even more. If we have to go slowly, or wait until we’re both ready-”

He stood. “I need a moment.”

Off he went, soon hidden behind the grassy hill. Torgal wandered back over to her, finished with his chasing games, put his head in her lap, and whined. “He’ll be back soon,” Jill assured him. She nibbled on some of the remaining bread, stomach turning. And she waited.

It took a long time. Jill tried not to fret.

But at last, she heard Clive’s familiar foosteps. He sat back down next to her. Then he offered her the flowers he’d clearly gone to pick. “My lady,” he said. “Would you do me the honour of allowing me to court you?”

It was a simple bunch of white and yellow grasslands flowers Jill couldn’t identify. No bouquet of scarlet Rosarian roses could be so perfect. “But of course, my lord,” she said, eyes cast modestly down. 

Then she burst out laughing. They’d travelled together for a very long time. They’d lived in close quarters and worked together more than many of the married people she knew. They’d seen each other naked, more than once; she’d looked after him when a tavern meal had turned out spoiled and left him puking and shitting his guts out; he knew when she preferred tea over Tarja’s drugs to ease the pain of her monthly cycle; they’d seen each other shaking in the aftermath of nightmares uncounted. Modesty hardly seeemed an issue - she knew she wanted to spend her life with him already. But there was wanting, and there was making it work. When she'd been a little girl, her mother had said that was what courting was for. “Thank you, Clive.”

He shifted closer to her. She rested her head on his shoulder. He tensed a little, then relaxed again. “Thank you,” he said. “This was a good idea.”

“We’ll make it work,” she said, enjoying his warmth and the last of the sun. “We have so far.”

Chapter Text

By the time they returned to the Hideaway, L’ubor had sent the strange sand called stardust (I don’t understand why you’d want such a thing, he’d written, but at least you won’t experience supply issues) as well as two more Bearers who’d escaped Drake’s Fang. Six was not many, but it was more than four. Whatever they could do. Whoever they could help.

Right now, though, the important thing was getting all these parts to Blackthorne for him and Mid to assemble.

Clive left them to it. As far as he was concerned, it was a lot of shouting, measuring, and banging on bits of metal.

The next time he made his way to the front deck - the only suitable place for a project of that scale - there was some sort of thing there. Blackthorne was cradling his arm and grumbling. Mid was standing over it proudly. “Now we’ve got a working one, I can just send it down to Kanver for the blokes at me shipyard to build the others,” she told Clive happily.

“Just as well. I think you might have broken Blackthorne.”

“Oh, he’s a strapping blacksmith, he’ll get over it.” Mid circled her displacement stack. “Da and I took ages to work out how to make this bloody thing. Just working out what we needed took months.”

“He’d be proud of you,” Clive said.

Mid stepped back and looked out at the mere. “We originally wanted it to be an escape, you know,” she said. “We wanted the ship to have everything we’d need for as long as we could, so if every scrap of land in the Twins turned black we could find somewhere else to live.”

A bleak future, Clive thought. Hard to think of Cid planning with a much younger Mid how to survive in a dead world. How old would she have been? Fourteen? Thirteen?

Mid turned back to him. “I don’t want that. I don’t want the Enterprise to be a giant bloody lifeboat. I want people to sail on her because they want to, not because they have no choice. When she’s finished, she’ll be at your disposal. She’ll go where you need.”

“The first place I’m going is Cid’s grave,” Clive said. “Will you come with me?”

Mid blinked at him. “I’ve just got a thing to finish up first. Be there in a second.”

Clive started his packing and then went to Otto. “Suppose you’ll be gone for a while,” Otto said.

“A few weeks, most likely,” Clive said. “First to Cid’s grave, then to Twinside by Boklad.”

Otto grunted. “Are you going to take Mid with you?”

“To Cid’s grave, yes.”

“Good luck. Girl would do anything to avoid it. The little shit.”

“She said she’d be right here,” Clive objected. “She said she had just one more thing to do.”

Otto did a double-take, then looked at him as though he were a particularly pitiable child. “Clive, were you born yesterday or something? There is no other thing.”

…Clive felt like a fool. Doubly so when it transpired that Obolus the ferryman had departed. When he returned three hours later, he reported that Mid had indeed prevailed upon him to take her to shore.

He did, however, have a letter from Kanver. 

“My uncle reports, quote, ‘trouble’ in Kanver,” Clive read. “He’d like to borrow Gav to keep an eye on it.”

Gav - who was eavesdropping, like a good scout would - sauntered over to peer over the letter himself. “Well, wouldn’t do to keep Lord Byron Rosfield of the Seven High Houses waiting, would it?”

“I’m sure you can withstand the tongue-lashing, but it’s a good idea,” Clive said. “My uncle’s been very vague about this so-called trouble and I can’t think of anyone better to learn what’s behind it.”

“If you ask me there hasn’t been enough trouble in Kanver,” Otto said. “If you ask Vivian she’ll say it twice as loud.”

“Then it’s decided,” Gav said. “Hate to miss the trip to the old man’s grave, but I’ll need to be off south as soon as possible.”

He took the next ferry, since Charon wanted a word or two more before Clive and Jill left.

“Take Goetz with you,” she said.

Goetz, standing next to her, went wide-eyed. He made a high-pitched noise that just did not match a man so large and fearsome-looking. “You mean it?”

“He’s got the trading pass you two’ll need to get past the checkpoints. Better to disguise yourselves as the guards of a trader, right?” Charon drew on her cigarette and exhaled. “Twinside will be guarded more heavily than any other place left in Storm. He can help.”

He considered. Lady Charon was right. The only Mothercrystal left on Storm would be secured behind layers and layers of Imperial guards. The checkpoint would only be the start of it. “All right,” he said.

“I can help!” Goetz almost squealed. “Ohhhh, thank you thank you thank you!”

He leaned over the counter, picked up Charon, and swung her around. Not another person in the Hideaway would have dared to touch Lady Charon without her permission. But his ‘Nan’ only gave token protests. Clive tried not to smile too obviously. Jill hid her own smile behind a hand, and then Clive tried not to stare too obviously at the way her laughter lit up her eyes.

She’d actually agreed to court. Court him. Even if he was…damaged.

When Obolus returned from the south side, he agreed to one final trip across the mere, to take him, Jill, and Goetz north. 

The journey to the old Hideaway was relatively short once one crossed the lake. When the survivors of the Hideaway had fled, they had been in no shape to run far. Only Kupka’s arrogance had allowed them to escape at all. Bennumere had been the only place they knew of with water. They made their way back up the hill and over the rough ground, then back down to the jumble of rocks where the old Hideaway had once nestled.

Wind and dust were starting to smooth away the edges, but it couldn’t yet hide the violence of the disturbance. Jagged spikes of broken earth still thrust upwards where rocks had no business being. Fallen ruins laid across the ground, knocked or smashed there where thousands of years hadn’t been able to move them.

It had taken a long time for them to bury their fallen comrades. Cid included. They’d been left to rot in the sun because they couldn’t spare the resources to bury them straight away.

But they’d come back. Everyone they could find had been buried. Little memorials and cairns dotted this part of the deadlands. Otto had spent hours scratching something into the stone they’d propped up to mark Cid’s final resting place. He said it was a Waloeder rune for levin. Only one of their runes I ever learned, Otto had said.

There was a glint at the base of Cid’s stone. When Clive came closer, he saw it was a pair of calipers. A pair of calipers he’d last seen in Mid’s hands.

He laid his own flower next to them, plucked from the backyard with the blessing of the gardeners. “Hugo Kupka is dead,” he said. “I killed him and the Mothercrystal he guarded. He did not destroy all that you worked for. It will outlive Kupka as it has outlived you. I can only hope that the knowledge brings you some peace.”

It might have been different if Joshua had arrived sooner. Maybe the flames of the Phoenix could have made a difference. But not even the Phoenix could bring people back from the dead.

Besides. As much as it pained him, Cid had known his mortality. Life had a beginning and an end. It was what made the time in between all the more precious. Cid had chosen what to do with his time even though he knew it might draw short around him.

Jill stepped up next to him. Her flower joined his and the calipers. Whatever she had to say to Cid’s spirit, she didn’t say it aloud.

When she was done, they turned to look at the distant hills. Two years ago they’d been a dusty green. Now black was slowly crawling up their slopes. Dust hazed the view, dried and exposed and finally blown away entirely.

“It’s like destroying Drake’s Breath did nothing,” Jill whispered.

“We’ve still got two to go,” Clive said. “Maybe it’s slowed.”

There was only one left in Storm. Drake’s Tail, largest of all the Mothercrystals, once the heart of the Crystalline Dominion and now the new capital of the Empire. “Then let’s get moving,” Jill replied.

To the Mothercrystal. And to the breaking of the Empire.

—

Laetny’s Cleft was a brutal sort of place. It reminded Jill of the Nysa Defile. They weren’t that far away from each other. Not that anyone at all had any call to go to the Nysa Defile anymore. She and Titan had torn up most of the roads in the area. They’d left it even more desolate than it started.

Unlike the Nysa Defile, Laetny’s Cleft still had its road. An old one, disused since the Republic had gathered the crystals and Bearers to build a wider one that led straight to Ran’dellah. Now only outlaws and the plants called leg eaters frequented the trail. Torgal was sent by Metia to get rid of the things. Unlike their Rosarian cousins, the death blossoms didn’t have bright flowers. They just looked like sticks and brush.

Some ways in to the Cleft a pair of caravan guards - or at least they appeared to be caravan guards - who wanted them to locate a caravan for them. Most likely accosted by bandits. They politely declined a request for help that sounded suspiciously like assisting in a criminal enterprise.

“We’re not that sort of outlaw,” Clive said, once they were out of earshot.

Jill couldn’t help but agree. That sort of person was best left alone.

There were many Fallen ruins on the road. They were thick in this part of the world. Like a whole fleet of airships had fallen out of the sky, right over Dhalmekia’s coast. They were all different sizes, too, from the large airships like the ones that had half sunk into Bennumere, and smaller ones maybe the length of two chocobos from talon to crest. How any of them had flown was a mystery to her. How could stone stay aloft like that?

However the Fallen had managed it, maybe it was well lost. The only thing Jill could think of that might be able to turn stone into a flying machine was magic. Which meant aether, which meant crystals or Bearers. Always crystals or Bearers.

The trail through Laetny’s Cleft gradually trended upwards. The smell of the sea started to seep through the canyons, bringing a smile to Clive’s face.

Agreeing to court hadn’t changed much, in some ways. But when it was just the two of them, it was easier to give herself permission to just look at him, whether it was his shy smile or just hanging back a little to appreciate how his calves worked under his trousers as he climbed the hill ahead of her, all the way out of the canyons to the crest.

At the top, the roar of a vast waterfall drowned out the sound of the local birds, even the wind.

This was the Final Sin.

Jill had never seen it before. Neither had Clive. The unnaturally round waterfall was an unimaginably giant hole punched into the land. From the top of the rise, she could see the curve of the crater. The waterfall seemed to stretch on forever. The amount of water that poured over the edge was beyond anything she could ever have imagined. And yet a place like this - right in front of her.

“Long ago,” Clive said quietly, “man was overcome by avarice, and challenged the gods in a bid to win their power.”

She’d heard that before. It was a story. It might have been one of Moss the Chronicler’s tales. She even knew the next line, bubbling up from childhood memory. “That the gods emerged victorious, and punished man for his defiance, by visiting upon him two curses.” Despite herself, she found that she was hugging herself.

“Dominants and Bearers,” Clive finished. “I never did understand that part of the story. Whenever I reached it…well. It just wasn’t very satisfying an explanation.”

Neither had she. In the North, Shiva was revered. The greatest of Metia’s servants. Greater than any thegn. In Rosaria, the Phoenix inherited the throne. No question. Whether they were firstborn or second, a legitimate child or a bastard born to the lowest whore in Rosalith, the Dominant of the Phoenix became the Archduke. How could they be cursed? How could they be a curse?

She understood more now than she did before.

“You always did have your head in a book,” Jill said, trying to think of happier things. “If you weren’t training, you were reading.”

“Father did say it was good for me,” Clive replied. Another smile. Good memories for him, then. “I think he hoped I read more histories than I did, but at least he always kept me in storybooks.”

A luxury few in Storm could afford, but these days Clive paid it back by telling as many stories as he could remember to the children of the Hideaway. A habit that made Jill feel warm inside whenever she saw it. “You were a boy like any other,” she said. A boy just like the ones who hung on Cid the Second’s tales.

“Just look at this,” Clive said, eyes bright. “It’s enough to make you believe the legends are true.”

But then, suddenly, he frowned.

“Clive?”

“I thought I heard something,” he said. “Never mind. The main road should be ahead.”

“It’ll be busy,” Jill said.

“We’ll just have to be careful,” Clive replied. “Pickpockets everywhere, no doubt.”

Jill nodded. It was unfortunate, but desperation could lead people to do strange things. Jill had had her pocket picked back in Kostnice. That had been a bit of a mess. They hadn’t got their gil back, either.

When they reached the main road it was as bad as they’d feared. People and carts thronged the way, all travelling in the same direction. All were carrying a selection of their worldly goods, whether it was a wagon full of clothes and heirlooms or a simple pack of food and a tin cup. There were camps by the road. That wasn’t a good sign. It meant that not many were gaining admission to Twinside.

“All these people,” Jill whispered.

“All going to the Mothercrystal,” Clive said. “We need to find another way.”

“We will,” Jill said. She believed it.

—

It was nothing but the usual early autumn storms sweeping through, but even so, the sky suited Dion’s mood as he approached his Imperial audience. Rain pelted down with a vengeance, throwing itself against the windows. 

…perhaps it should not have been a surprise that Olivier sat in the Emperor’s seat, the central one, flanked by both his parents, but it stung all the same. His half-brother toyed with a white wyvern tail bloom, its stem fraying under his attentions. It was still Sylvestre Lesage, Emperor Emeritus, who spoke.

“Emperor Olivier shall rebuild the Holy Empire of Sanbreque,” his father said firmly.

Dion did not dare look towards the Empress-Mother, not after what the Phoenix had told him, for fear that the fury and shame would be plainly visible on his countenance.“How is he to rule an empire?” he asked. “He is but a boy!” When he had been Olivier’s age, he had been training all hours of the day and night. Training with arms, training with magic, hours upon hours with his tutors. If he had known one thing at Olivier’s age, it was that he did not know enough.

Olivier had accompanied the Emperor to many a meeting and negotiation, but he spent hardly any time with the army, and his tutelage was solely directed by his mother.

“I shall advise the Emperor until he is of age.”

They both looked at Olivier then. Dion’s half-brother wasn’t even paying attention. A strip of stem peeled slowly away from the wyvern tail bloom.

“Father, please,” Dion begged.

“The Empire we seek to build needs young blood to rule it,” his father said. “It pains me, Dion. I have not done the work for the Empire that I should. I have prayed long on this, but strength and wisdom greater than mine are needed now.”

Another glance at Olivier.

“There is more news,” his father said. “Hugo Kupka is dead. Drake’s Fang has fallen.”

“Shiva?”

Sylvestre shook his head. “There are reports of a strange creature that fought Titan at the Fang. An Eikon unknown to humanity heretofore. A creature of shadow and fire. There have been rumours before, but now the beast has appeared for all to see.”

A shiver went down his spine. The Phoenix had told him something of the second Eikon of Fire, too. Clive Rosfield, the Phoenix’s own brother. The true name and form of Cid the Outlaw, and a form far more dangerous than anyone in the Empire had suspected at that. More dangerous than Dion thought even the Phoenix appreciated. “That only means it is all the more important for the Empire to be in safe hands,” Dion said.

“It is all the more important we get this new start for the Empire right,” Sylvestre replied. “Mysterious second Eikon of Fire or no, the pillars of the Republic are no more. Our armies will have a free hand to take all Storm if we so choose. I have prayed long on this, Dion. Greagor wills it. All shall bow before their Emperor.”

Dion’s feet took him a step forward. “These are the words of a tyrant!”

“These are the words of a god,” Sylvestre snapped back. “The Emperor whom I gladly serve. Great Greagor made flesh.” He rose to stare eye to eye with Dion. They were of a height. Dion could still see their resemblance, their shared hair colour, the nose and chin he’d inherited from the man. He’d never before hated that resemblance.

His father raised his cane and brought it back down again across Dion’s shoulder. His armour took the sting out of it, but some blows hurt in ways other than physical pain. Sylvestre pushed down. Dion took a knee, not willing to defy the prompt. When he was on his knees, his father removed the cane and instead tucked his wyvern tail bloom into Dion’s armour. “Return to your camp and prepare, Prince Dion. It is time for us to show the world the true power of Sanbreque.”

Still on his knees, there was little left for Dion but to continue his entreaties. “Father, I find you much changed. Is this truly the path you wish to tread?” He hesitated. The Phoenix had urged him to caution, yet he had to know. “Or are these the ambitions of another? Of Ultima, perhaps?”

The Phoenix had been unable to say where the rot in Sanbreque was for certain. It may lie first with my mother. It may lie first with your father. No doubt we both have our own hopes in that regard. He was only certain that there was some form of interference from this Ultima creature, and that Dion was not its source.

His father’s face showed no recognition. “What nonsense are you talking? I speak my mind, and my mind only.”

Relief surged through him. But it was short-lived, for his father’s ignorance of Ultima meant there was one candidate remaining for the source of Sanbreque’s woes.

That was all the clearer when his father went on: “I do owe Empress Anabella my thanks for reminding me of the nature of nations, of rulers, and of the divine.”

Dion stood. Faster than he should have, but this was past all civility. “You’d trust the words of that traitor?” he said. “She betrayed her country, she slew her husband!”

Anabella glared at him, eyes cold as ice. Dion was not supposed to know of the role she’d played in Rosaria’s Night of Flames, it seemed. Just as it seemed that the Phoenix had been right. What befell Rosaria could be laid at Anabella Rosfield’s door. Dion would not have a similar tragedy befall Sanbreque. She spoke for the first time. “You have ever been a valuable servant to Sanbreque, Prince Dion. I trust you will continue to serve in the wars to come?”

She dared - 

Dion was halfway up the stairs before he knew it. He only realised when his father barged in front of him. “Silence, insolent wretch!”

Dion stopped in his tracks. His father had never spoken to him so before. Not once.

“You will bend the knee,” Sylvestre said. “All else is heresy.”

He - he had to kneel. However much it pained him. The time was not right. He didn’t know enough. He bent, allowing his knees to brush the carpet, not daring to allow himself to remain too vulnerable. Not in front of that snake who called herself his father’s wife. “Sire, forgive me,” he said. And if everyone chose to pretend he had addressed those words to Emperor Olivier, so much the better.

His father turned his back on him and addressed the Emperor. “Come now, sire,” he said, “We have a pair of syndicates to meet with.”

Olivier spoke for the first time. “Another boring meeting with silly old men? Must we?”

“Silly old men who control forty per cent of the coin in Twinside,” Sylvestre said, and they were both out the door.

Leaving Dion with Anabella.

He didn’t dare turn his back on her. She deserved it, of course, but she might also strike. For a long moment, all he could hear was rain on the windows.

At last, she said, “Does it pain you that you will not inherit your father’s throne?”

“I have suffered worse,” Dion said. Like knowing how little he could do to remove this viper from the court. Like knowing she had poisoned his father. But he was hardly going to show her that vulnerability.

She smiled at him. Forty and eight, yet Dion knew that there were many men who still considered her a great beauty. He could only see how tight and cold an expression it was. “Count your blessings, Dion, for a baseborn child to be chosen by Bahamut is miracle enough. You have risen high on his wings. But you shall rise no higher, lest your impure blood stain the throne.”

How dare she. What did this witch know of his mother. What she had been through. Even now he sometimes wondered where she was and what had become of her. “What do you know of my blood?”

“I know it is wholly unworthy of the highest offices of state, which rightly belong to those of…purer breeding,” she said. “Alas, your bloodline runs through the Oriflamme gutter, from a whore who weighed her child’s worth in gil.”

The leather of his gauntlets creaked as he clenched his fists. She knew nothing.

“Have you threatened my father?” he asked. There were those who would use Dion’s mother to threaten the Emperor and Dion himself, his father had told him. That was why Dion could not know anything further about his mother’s fate. The less he knew of her, the less could be used against him.

But Anabella just laughed. “Of course not. Sylvestre is my husband. But I have been married before, of course. I know of the danger an extra son can pose to an heir.”

There were none who cared for me more than my brother, the Phoenix had told him. None. Whatever barbs our mother threw his way, he would take them for my sake. Whatever our father required him to give up, he gave.

She would make him a second Clive Rosfield. A martyr for Olivier, never to threaten him.

He wondered if she knew what the Phoenix did - that Clive Rosfield lived. Lived and made himself a danger to the whole Empire.

“You have fed him lies, then,” Dion said. “In Rosaria, before the duchy was dissolved, the Phoenix inherited the throne. Your elder son could never have been a threat to your younger.”

Anabella laughed again, spitefully. “And what do you know of Clive, then? You remind me of him. It is not a comparison that flatters you, trust me.”

Well, why not? If she would needle him over his mother, he could repay that in kind. The fork-tongued witch.

“I know Clive Rosfield lives,” Dion said. “Not for lack of effort on your part. I know that now he goes by the name Cid the Outlaw. I know that he and Shiva are behind the destruction of three Mothercrystals, arguably the greatest threat to the Empire after Odin himself. I know all this.”

Her blue eyes bored into him. “But you have no proof, do you, Dion?”

He hesitated. He had the Phoenix. But he could not produce the Phoenix before the court. Not without his consent. “The question is whether my father knows this,” Dion said. “And how easily you dispose of a son who displeases you.”

“Careful how you go,” she said coldly. “His Radiance has already seen your insubordination. Should you remain loyal, Emperor Olivier may yet crown your head with laurel and not with tar.”

So Sylvestre didn’t know. And Sylvestre was no fool. Dion clung to that. If he knew Anabella had already plotted against one of her own sons, her own flesh and blood, a child, then he would very likely re-evaluate any lies she’d told him about Dion. That knowledge was the only thing that stopped him from charging up the stairs at her right now.

“You’ll pay for this,” he said. “You are far more the whore than my mother ever was. You have no respect for goddess, or country, or even family. You disgrace the title my father bestowed upon you.”

Anabella went white with rage. “In consideration of your long years of service to the Empire, I shall forgive this uncharacteristic rudeness,” she said. Even her voice was shaking, Dion saw with satisfaction. “Hurry and make ready, Your Highness. The Emperor expects much of you. Or should I say, of Bahamut. But his patience is not infinite, and neither is my own.”

Dion did not bow. He would not bow. Not to her.

Not to Olivier.

Chapter Text

The tent city started well before the building line did. Just like Kostnice. But this was newer. And almost entirely Dhalmeks at that. Too many for the shelters at the trading stops. People huddled in the shade of the thorny trees that grew along the coast, or in the shadows cast by Fallen ruins. Only a few had proper tents. More used whatever fabric they had to make whatever shade they could.

Infiltrating the Crystalline Dominion - or what remained of it - would not be simple. There were too many people trying to get in, and all were being turned away. Having lost one capital already, Sylvestre Lesage would not allow a second to fall. His troops were well-trained and battle-hardened. Even more so in the years since Clive had deserted. They were well used to checkpoint inspections of potentially unfriendly refugees. Even on this side, the Dhalmeks wanted to keep their people and their treasure within their borders.

But they had to try. It would be easier to fool gate guards than it would be to swim to the Isles of Ark.

Boklad was built along and into the side of the steep hills along the coast. The markets were further back, behind a second row of hills, protected from the storms that blew up from the south. Clive and Jill passed stands selling bread and fish and pottery. Other stands sold good clearly pawned from refugees. If you were so inclined, you could purchase a family’s history for gil instead of talents.

They passed one wealthier-looking stallholder who had managed to retain a Bearer. The berating the man was giving his slave echoed along the main street.

Yet they couldn’t stop. They could only keep going.

They spotted Goetz in the shade near a stall full of furniture. The big man was looking oddly forlorn. Especially under the circumstances. “Uh-oh,” Jill said under her breath.

“Will you wager he’s been pickpocketed?”

“No bet.”

Sure enough, when they approached him, Goetz said, “I’ve lost me trader’s pass.”

“Was it in your pockets?” Clive asked.

“Yes,” Goetz said miserably.

“Did anyone bump into you?” For obvious reasons, Goetz wasn’t jostled much. He was just too big. There weren’t many people who were willing to risk angering him. Not everyone knew that Goetz wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Goetz turned scarlet. “A bairn,” he mumbled. “A whole group of ‘em.”

A gang of child pickpockets. Oh dear. 

“We can’t get through the checkpoint without that pass, can we?” Jill asked.

Goetz shook his head. But then he perked up. “I know someone who might be able to help, though! Follow me!”

He led the two of them back through the packed streets before ducking off to the right, just where the main road from Ran’dellah split into two. Chocobo stables on one side of the road, warehouses on the other, a busy tavern a little further down. Goetz took them to one of the warehouses, one with a bright purple shadecloth over its loading area and a bright red chocobo on its sign.

An woman around Clive’s age with short dark hair and a deep blue dress in the Kanverian style marched out from around the corner. She took one look at them and said, “A coach to the Crystalline Dominion is ten million gil. Gil preferred, talents accepted. Two bird coach. Take it or leave it.”

“El?” Goetz spoke up. “We’re not here for that, El.”

The woman, El, blinked. “Goetz? What are you doing here? Is Charon with you?”

“No, El,” Goetz said.

Clive took over. “A group of children stole his trader’s pass.”

“You’re the size of a morbol!” El said, clearly dismayed. “Honestly.”

“Can you help us get it back?” Jill asked.

Clive tried to reassure her. “We don’t intend to punish anyone, especially not children. We just need the pass.”

El’s gaze was sharp. A lot like Lady Charon’s, actually. “Well,” she said at last, “I can’t tell you who, not for sure, but I can almost certainly tell you why. Trader’s passes have become essential to cross the border. They’re more common than an emissary’s pass or a minister’s pass, and much easier to replace the inscribed names. The street thieves steal the passes, the real masterminds doctor them and sell them. It’s a very lucrative black market. That also utterly ruins the livelihoods of ordinary merchants.”

Clive glanced to Jill, who nodded. “Then we help you, and you help us,” Clive said.

“Not without getting your name I won’t,” El said.

“Clive,” Clive said. “This is Jill.”

“A pleasure.”

“Eloise,” El said. Clive was relieved; it suited her a lot better than just ‘El’ did. It would have been horribly informal, and this woman did not look like a casual business partner to have. “If you want a place to start, I suggest the turner. Her son lost his own pass that way and she’s not one to forget a slight. Her stall is the one with the green cloth and the lathe on the sign.”

They arranged for Goetz to leave his goods with Eloise, lest another pickpocket realise he was an easy target. “For Charon’s sake, I’ll waive the holding fee,” Eloise said with a small smile. She also kindly let them stay for the early afternoon, when most people would be sleeping through the heat. Clive and Jill were less bothered than most, but the rest didn’t hurt either.

A few hours later, when the second business period of the day was starting up again, they went to look for pickpockets.

The turner’s stall was near the main road. She looked to be a reasonably prosperous stallholder, her table displaying several tasteful examples of her craft. They introduced themselves as coming from Eloise and explained something of Goetz’s plight.

“They target traders with the largest packs,” the turner told them. “Harder for anyone to chase, you see. The children know every street here and most of the smaller spaces.”

She sent them on to the fishmonger, down by the road that led to the shore. The fishmonger told them that none of the children were local - not even with the families of refugees that were coming to the Dominion. Children alone, abandoned by their parents. Nobody knew them, and they had nowhere to go.

They trudged back up the hill as the sun set with little but a fresh coat of road dust for their efforts. “Perhaps we should ask the children working in the stalls,” Jill suggested. “Even if the adults don’t know the children, the other children might.”

“Good idea,” Clive said. “It’ll have to wait for tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” Goetz said.

“You’ll know better for next time,” Clive told him. “We don’t know we can’t get the pass back yet, and if we can’t, we’ll work something else out.” Nothing was irretrievable. 

The next morning they went to find the children. Several of them were sullen. One aggressively tried to sell them fresh fruit (though buying it didn’t yield much in the way of information). It was not until they spoke to a girl of maybe ten years old at the potter’s than they got a name.

“Honza,” Clive repeated. “All right.”

“Don’t hurt him,” she begged.

“We won’t,” Clive promised.

—

Anabella’s secretary placed a stack of papers on her desk. Reports from her friends in the city. And in Oriflamme. And in the outskirts. All reporting on the news of Emperor Olivier’s accession.

Positive, for the most part, Anabella saw. They knew who was responsible for recent negotiations with the late Titan.

If there was one thing that gave her pause, it was that few of her informants were suspicious of Dion. Mentions of him were much more along the lines of It relieves us greatly to know that Bahamut’s attention will not be divided in these trying times. To some extent that was all to the good. She and Olivier still had need of Bahamut, especially with the so-called Cid the Outlaw and his bitch Shiva still lurking around the edges of the Empire.

On the other hand, there was no greater threat to Olivier than Dion. Including Cid the Outlaw and his bitch Shiva. She had to be able to discredit Dion if necessary, but he was so well-liked by most in the Empire that scandal seemed to bounce off him. Nobody cared that he was fucking his second-in-command, not next to the tales of Dion the Bold swooping in and saving a village from Waloeders or personally slaying twenty Dhalmeks on the battlefield.

And he knew about Clive.

It was a problem that required some thought. And exactly the sort of problem that had resulted in her arranging for Elwin’s tragic death. She was loath to try that again after what had happened to her poor Joshua.

But if their conversation had shown her anything, it was that precious Bahamut had a temper. Oh, he put up a good front. He pretended he was the sort of noble prince anyone could be proud of. But blood would out. It always would. He would try something. Sooner or later. With that temper, probably sooner.

Anabella bundled her reports together and went to see her son.

Olivier’s father had him meeting with syndicates, of course, but she caught him between those meetings. The Emperor’s mother did not need an appointment.

Her son was tucked behind the Emperor’s grand desk in a chair upholstered with plush blue velvet, awash in a sea of papers. But he scrambled from his seat to embrace her when he realised it was her and not another delegation of coin-counters escorted by Sylvestre. “Mother!”

“And how is your day treating you, Your Radiance?” Anabella asked.

“It’s so boring,” Olivier wailed despairingly. “They’re so petty, and stupid, and boring!”

“I know, dear heart,” Anabella said. “Yet sometimes they must be tolerated. The more you do now, the less you will have to do later, when they respect your strength as they should. Your father and I will do what we can to…expedite this process.” Finding an excuse to seize some syndicate member’s property would likely do the trick.

Olivier sighed heavily and sagged against her.

“I hate to interrupt your busy day, my dearest,” she said, “But I have information from several of my friends.”

“Is it important?”

“It regards your brother,” Anabella said.

“Dion? Why? Is he planning something?”

The trace of fear in her son’s voice - oh, he was learning the perils of power too quickly. “Dion will return to his camp,” Anabella soothed him. A white lie. She would sort this out and Olivier wouldn’t have to know. “Your father believes he’s plotting against you, yes, but there is little he can do while our troops control the Council Chambers.”

“What if he takes the city?” Olivier asked. “Don’t most of the army like him?”

“The army know their duty,” Anabella said. “I will take care of it.”

“Oh, good. Dion is boring too,” Olivier said.

“Very tiresome indeed,” Anabella agreed. “Do I have your agreement to make sure he doesn’t bother you, dearest?”

“Please, mother,” Olivier said. He looked so small and overwhelmed at his desk. Anabella’s heart went out to him.

She excused herself. A review of the palace guards was in order, she felt. She spoke to the captain and soon she was in the midst of a cluster of officers, walking around the posts. It was a lot of pretending to smile and exhausting graciousness, but it reminded the guards of their rightful ruler. None of them seemed overly concerned. Dutiful and diligent, attentive to the safety of their rightful Emperor. As they should be.

Anabella returned to her solar much relieved. Everything in their proper place. Everyone in their proper place.

It still wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough until Olivier need not rely on a Dominant of Bahamut who did not accept his place. The sooner they wiped out the Dhalmeks the better - then Odin - and then they need not suffer Dion any longer.

—

They found a group of children by the Fallen ruins at the very edge of the tent city, huddled and furtive. One of them had a small bundle of tokens in his hand. “You think we could keep them, Honza?” one of the other boys asked.

“Stupid,” the boy holding the bundle sneered half-heartedly. He had to be Honza, then. Their thief. “We can’t change the names. Besides. They won’t let us.”

The children collectively shuddered. It wasn’t hard to guess what ‘not letting’ the children do anything to better their own situation might mean.

Clive said, “Would you mind introducing us to this ‘they’?”

Half the children bolted. Half just froze. “Stay with these ones,” Clive said to Jill, before tearing off after the one with the passes.

The boy was fast, for a child, and knew how to use his diminutive size. Clive was forced to duck and weave and shove his way through the crowded streets in pursuit. He didn’t stop for the shouts of annoyance. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before he caught up. The boy ducked into a chocobo stable. There was enough clear space in the yard that Clive’s longer legs could eat up the space between them.

“Shit,” the boy hissed, looking for an escape.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Clive said, though he knew he must look threatening. He knew he was cutting off the boy’s potential escapes. “I just want to know who’s been making you steal.”

The boy looked up at him furiously. Clive pitied him, but couldn’t afford to yield. At last the boy, after trying to look around Clive, muttered, “Shit.”

“Will you tell me? I’ll do my best to make sure you aren’t hurt for speaking.”

“Only chance I’ve got now, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Clive agreed. “But groups like that are as likely to kill you as recruit you. Trust me.”

“They’re called the Cast Stones,” the boy said. “They pay good gil. Sometimes. But what were we supposed to do? Not like we’ve got family to look after us.”

“Did you take a pass from a big man? Blond? Big pack, Northern accent?”

“Yeah,” Honza admitted. “Already gave it to the bosses.”

Behind him, someone called, “Stop there! You will not force children to do your bidding any longer!”

Clive whirled.

A young man stood behind him, wearing a light dust-coloured cloak over light armour. Aside from the sword already drawn and pointing at Clive, he carried heavy knives and his boots were capped with steel. He wasn’t a soldier, but he could be a caravan guard.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” Clive said, backing away from Honza. “I’m just trying to track down my friend’s pass.”

“Liar!”

Oh, no. A hothead, or a desperate man. Clive ducked a slash of the sword. The man was fast. Not extensively trained, Clive saw with a glance at his feet, but fast enough that it wouldn’t make a difference to most. He ducked the backswing too and shoved his shoulder into the man’s chest, knocking him off balance. “I’m looking for the Cast Stones,” he said, “so I can put an end to it.”

It didn’t work. Clive remembered when he was like that. He deflected what he could. “Listen,” he pleaded. “Honza is fine. He’s right there.” Plastered to the fence in fear, but fine.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jill and Goetz running up. To his surprise it was Goetz who spoke. “Master Theo! What are you attacking Clive for?”

The man - Theo? - whirled to the side. “Goetz? You know this man?”

“Well sure I do,” Goetz said, hurrying over. “It’s Clive. Didn’t El tell you?”

“She didn’t mention a name,” Theo said, a little sourly. But he lowered his sword. “So you’re the one helping El?”

“She’s asked us to help put a stop to the pickpocketing ring here, yes,” Clive said. “We just need to get Goetz’s pass back. Honza here says he’s already passed it to his contacts in the Cast Stones.”

“Well then. What are we waiting for?”

Clive frowned. “You want to come with us?”

“I don’t carry this sword around for fun, you know,” Theo said. “My sister might treat me like a nuisance sometimes, but I can handle myself.”

Now that he mentioned it, Clive could see the resemblance between the two. They had the same eyes, the same round chin. “Then we’ll be happy for the company of someone who knows Boklad better than we do,” Clive said. “Honza, will you tell us where you usually meet the people from the Cast Stones?”

“Outside the town,” Honza said glumly, no fight left in him. He glanced fearfully at Clive’s sword. “The second set of Fallen ruins on the right hand side of the road as you head towards Ran’dellah.”

“Thank you,” Clive said. “Goetz, will you take Honza to Madame Eloise, please?”

Goetz nodded, but Honza had more to say. “I’ve tried to follow them before,” Honza warned them.

Theo grinned and clapped him on the back. “That’s okay,” he said. “We’re not children.”

Chapter Text

Theo was good company, Jill thought. He’d been working as a paid guard around Boklad since he and Eloise had moved here, he told them. He’d seen a lot of things and travelled most of Dhalmekia.

“I never like to go too far from Boklad, though,” he said. “It’s home.”

“But you and Eloise are from Kanver originally, you said?” Clive asked.

“We left when I was about fifteen,” Theo said. “Good riddance, I say. If you’re not going to attend the university or in one of the trading houses, it’s not a good place to live. Full of gossip. Endless backstabbing - and that’s just legitimate society. Hateful place.”

“I grew up somewhere not that different, in some ways,” Clive said. “Working for yourself can be much more fulfilling.”

Yet for all his chatter and cheer, Jill was reminded a bit of Cid in some ways. Like Cid, he spoke more about what he’d seen than what’d he’d done, and least of all what he felt about it. No doubt it served him well. 

The walk to the meeting point was more than an hour. The Fallen ruins Honza had referred to were a little ways off the road she and Clive had used to enter Boklad. Unlike some of the other ruins nearby, these were not tall and imposing. Not airships standing straight on end, but scattered pieces jammed into lower-lying boulders. If the tall ruins had fallen from the sky, these had been blasted from it. Visibility was a nightmare. Running through them would be a nightmare. And sound carried, bouncing from rock to rock in unpredictable ways.

Before they entered the maze of rocks, Theo gave them both a once-over. “Not the best clothing for travelling our deserts, but needs must,” he concluded. “Let me know if you feel heatstroke coming on.”

“We’ll be fine,” Clive assured him. “We carry plenty of water.”

…They had to be more careful. This sort of thing could reveal them not just as Bearers, but as Dominants, greatly resistant to certain of the elements by virtue of the aether wound into their bones. Not that they could have anticipated this when they set out, she supposed.

They crept through the boulders, even breathing softly, hoping to catch the sounds of any other human in this desolate place.

Then, laughter. Soft, but clear. Soon they could smell tobacco smoke as well.

Theo directed Jill and Clive to take one route around certain boulders. He took another way around. “What’s the signal?” Clive asked.

“You’ll know it when you hear it,” Theo said.

Oh yes. He definitely reminded her of Cid. Including in how aggravated poor Clive was. It brought a smile to her face.

Sure enough, it was hard to mistake the shouts of “You!” and “Get him!”

“That’s our signal,” Jill said. She leapt over the boulder separating them from the Cast Stones before Clive could grumble any more. He was right behind her, anyway.

There were only three of them. Two to scare the children they were expecting, one set as a lookout. They expected an even match, but they had not accounted for Clive. Even though they couldn’t use magic in company, Clive’s greatsword was more than most opponents could handle.

When it was done, one of the men was dead, one was unconscious, and a third was on the ground with Theo’s own blade at his throat. Jill stood guard over the unconscious one while Clive went to search for any valuables or lookouts. “Now,” Theo said, “We need to know where your bosses are.”

The man spat at Theo, leaning up just enough to draw blood from his own throat.

“That wasn’t very polite,” Theo said. He withdrew his sword just slightly and stomped on the fork of the man’s legs. The shrieking echoed just as the laughter had. “I’ll ask again. Your bosses?”

It took three more kicks before the man at last gasped out, voice higher than it should be, “Laetny’s Cleft. Lower fork. Past the goblin trails.”

“Thank you,” Theo said.

Clive returned just as they were tying up the man. “Are we killing this one too?” Clive asked.

“I think not,” Theo replied, as the man moaned in pain and fear. “We can leave this one for the magistrate. Come on, he’s kindly told us where to go next. We’ll pick him up on the way back.”

Back up towards Laetny’s Cleft they went, but instead of heading up the main path, they turned into a shallower offshoot that looked as though it had been carved out by floods. Soon they saw signs of recent passage. Footprints in the dust. The passage twisted around, and around again, until they were travelling what she thought was away from the coast. There wasn’t much chance anyone would stumble across the Cast Stones here.

There was also no way they could surround the Cast Stones as they had the lower-level minions, either. It would be a charge into a narrow gorge. The perfect thing for her ice to cover, if only she could use it. Or earth, if Clive used Titan’s powers. Which they could not do here.

Once again Theo took charge. “Clive, do you mind going in first?” he asked. “Just for the shock factor.”

“Not at all,” Clive said gravely.

“Jill and I will follow behind.”

Jill nodded, trying to soothe her own apprehension. Clive would be fine. He had faced down many threats without magic before. They had been in several situations such as this over the years, pretending they were common mercenaries, unable to use their powers for fear of discovery.

But even though in so many ways they’d just carried on as usual, the idea that he was first into danger, so soon after they’d admitted what they wanted to be to each other…

Heart in her mouth, Jill fell in next to Theo, ready to take advantage of the chaos that would ensue when Clive charged in sword swinging.

With a shout, Clive charged into the camp. He was fast enough that the unsuspecting gang members at the outskirts couldn’t react. They didn’t have the time. Jill rushed in to cover Clive’s back. The next minute or two was a rush of steel and blood. Cast Stones fell like their namesakes.

Then there was a surge of aether.

Not hers. Not Clive’s. Not the flat, still feeling of crystal-cast magic. When Jill turned towards it, she caught the edge of a darkness.

In his stillness, she knew that Clive had felt it - seen it - too.

Theo looked at them both with wide eyes.

The moment was lost as the next Cast Stone tried to charge them back. Then Clive pulled at the aether, that tiny little pull. A fireball leapt from Clive’s hand to the Cast Stone, right where Theo could see.

The fight didn’t last long after that. The Cast Stones couldn’t stand up to two Dominants and a Bearer.

When it was done, and Clive was hiding bodies - this time with Titan’s power, openly, though ironically to hide the use of magic in the fight lest any of the Boklad guards notice the lack of spent crystal shards - Jill said, “You’re a Bearer.”

“So is your friend,” Theo said. “Was he spared the Brand?”

“No,” Jill said. “A friend of ours cut it out.”

“A dangerous business.”

“It was awful just to watch.” Memories she didn’t care to revisit. Clive had borne it as stoically as he could, but even he had been overwhelmed at times by the pain.

As Clive approached again, Theo said, “It was El who saved me. My magic woke late. My parents were all ready to send me off to the lawkeepers, but Eloise, she was barely an adult by our laws, she packed a bag and told me to pack mine, and talked us both out of Kanver.”

“Then Madame Eloise is a lady of wisdom as well as strength,” Clive said.

Theo laughed. “Oh, she’d like that, even if she pretended otherwise. Any sign of those passes?”

It didn’t take long to find the hoard of ill-gotten treasure. The pile was scattered beneath the central shadecloth in the camp. There were whole silver talents and leather purses, loose piles of gil, and small heaps of jewelry from small gold rings to heavier wedding chains, all mounded around larger pieces. Silver serving plates and soup tureens. Two small wooden chests of south continent tea, another of spices, and a fourth with small bottles of fragrant oils. They sorted through the pile and, wherever they found one, fished out passes.

“Most of these haven’t been altered yet,” Theo observed. “That’s good. I’ll sort through with the local guards and make sure as much is returned as possible.”

“Do you need our help?”

“Probably better if you don’t,” Theo said. “The guards don’t trust outsiders.”

“We’ll report to Eloise, then,” Jill said.

“You can tell her everything, you know,” Theo said, turning back to the stash of goods. “Make sure to tell her I was useful, will you?”

It was easily promised. What she and Clive would actually do…that, they still had to talk about.

—

Once they were well away, Clive turned to Jill. “So what do you think?”

Jill was shrewd as always. “Reckless, isn’t he? We were right there.”

Clive had only had a second to make the decision. Goetz seemed to like and respect both the siblings. If Goetz knew them, then Charon knew them, and Charon was no fool. She wouldn’t allow anyone with malevolent intentions to get anywhere near her precious grandson. So he’d chosen to trust.

But on Theo’s part, it was incredibly risky to use magic in front of unknown people. Clive had known several Bearers who would rather die than risk life as Branded. Two or three had even been un-Branded. Did Theo trust Goetz and Charon as Clive and Jill trusted Goetz and Charon?

There were no signs of reinforcements as they retraced their steps back towards the main road and Boklad. That was something. Hopefully this group was limited to Boklad and Boklad alone, rather than having any links to Ran’dellah’s organised crime.

When they returned to the Crimson Caravans, just as most were starting to close up for the afternoon heat, Eloise was waiting beneath the shade cloth. “Ah, Clive, Jill, you’re back,” she said. “Goetz went to make some trades at the market. Did Theo go with you?”

“He stayed behind to sort through the goods,” Clive said, as she stood aside to let them into the relative cool of the warehouse. “He asked us to inform you how useful he was.”

Eloise didn’t blink. “He does like to be useful.”

“He also said we should let you know we saw him fight,” Clive said. Quietly, he added, “He’s skilled with his magic.”

Her eyebrows drew together and she shifted her weight slightly, ready to draw a blade. “I’ve told him to be careful,” she said.

“You have nothing to fear from us,” Clive said. Much as he’d done with Theo, he lit a flame in his palm. “No reason for us to turn him in.”

It was more dangerous for him to trust her than it was for her to trust him, in some ways. If she went to the local authorities, they would be much more willing to investigate and arrest a traveller than they would be one of their own, as Theo was. That didn’t assuage Eloise’s fears at all, from the looks of it. Clive sympathised. “You can stay,” she said.

Their afternoon rest was a stressful one. Nobody expected Theo back until late. Clive and Jill went to the tavern down the road for their evening meal and were glad of the relief from the tension. They returned only once the sun went down.

“Maybe we should go look for Theo,” Jill suggested.

“I think Eloise would feel better if we stay more or less where she can see us,” Clive said wryly.

Not that he relished the idea of staying around too much longer. It was true, there wasn’t a hard time limit on when they needed to be in Twinside. It was just…impatience. No matter how he knew that impatience was lethal, it never went away entirely. He ended up stalking the edges of the warehouse while Jill fixed a small tear in Clive’s cape. He knew how to do it himself, and he had in the past, but the mending soothed Jill’s nerves as it did not soothe his.

Near some of the crates he found a bundle of loose cloth. Clive frowned. It didn’t look like a torn shadecloth or tarpaulin or anything such as that. A bundle of rags. Not soaked in solvent. Just a bundle of old, dirty clothes kicked out of the way. In a warehouse where Eloise had already stored them, her surprise guests.

Theo was a Bearer. Eloise had rescued him. They ran a porterage company, by the Flames.

“Clive?” Jill asked.

“I think we just found who’s been freeing Bearers in Dhalmekia,” Clive said. “Want to help me look around a bit more?”

They found a few more signs of recent occupancy. A wooden bowl. A loose bracelet of carefully braided twine, a treasure so small it broke Clive’s heart to think someone had lost it. There had been other people here. People in rags. People with almost nothing.

“What are we going to do about this?” Jill asked. “We don’t have to mention it. We’ve already found out one of the secrets here.”

“This is our chance, though,” Clive said. “How long have we wanted to make better contact with these people? Now we can. They know us, we know them. We can put ourselves on even footing.” If they left now, knowing what they knew without sharing their information in turn…they might never trust them.

“I trust you, Clive,” Jill said. “This is your decision.”

“I’d still value your opinion.”

Jill picked up the twine bracelet. After a minute or two, she said, “Cid would want you to trust.”

“Then we’re agreed.”

And it was back to waiting again. Goetz stumbled in with a full pack and a heavy, but happy, sigh. He’d had some success in the markets. Turquoise was at a good price, he said, and he’d get Lady Charon to resell it in the north. There were still buyers there.

Clive wondered how much longer that would be a reliable source of income for them. People were going to need food and arms more than anything else for a long time yet.

Problems for later.

Then, not long after full dark, Theo returned. “El!” he called, from the street. “El, I’m back!”

Clive, Jill, and Goetz tumbled out into the street. Torgal didn’t bother to move. He was very much preoccupied with his evening nap. The Dhalmekian deserts were not the natural habitat of a frost wolf.

Eloise was already hurrying out the door. “What took you so long?” she asked.

“There was a fair amount of loot to sort through,” Theo replied. “But we’ve got most of the trader’s passes back. Including yours, Goetz.”

“Thank you,” Goetz said, the last sound dragging out in a relieved huff.

“Well, let’s not do this in the street,” Eloise said. “Unless we all want to get robbed again. Come in.”

All of them piled into Eloise and Theo’s house. They were wealthy enough to have a big main room with smaller private rooms upstairs. Three books and a silver teapot took pride of place on the shelves. They settled around the small table, one chair short. Theo remained standing. Pacing, more like.

“We’d like to thank you both for your help,” Clive said. “Truly. We would have had a much more difficult time without you. We’re grateful.”

“You did see a bit more than you were supposed to see,” Theo said. “But we’re all in the same carriage, are we not?”

“I think we might be,” Clive said. “We found some things in the warehouse, Madame Eloise, Theo. I think we are very likely in the same carriage.”

“What are you trying to say?” Eloise asked.

“We have our own experience moving Bearers around Storm,” he said. His heart pounded in his chest. “You might have heard of our work.”

Eloise stared them down with unmistakeable hostility. “Cid the Outlaw,” she said.

“I chose to take my predecessor’s name, yes,” Clive said.

This was a stand-off. These were indeed the liberators of Boklad. Clive and Jill knew that now. Just as Eloise and Theodore knew who Clive was. 

At last, Eloise said, “Why?”

Clive pushed his shoulders back. “I was Branded before I was a Dominant. Thirteen years. The power I have now, I did not know I had then. It changes nothing. Jill, too, was a slave, though she wasn’t branded.”

“The Ironblood used children to make sure I complied,” Jill said quietly.

“I am not Hugo Kupka. I am not Barnabas Tharmr. I am not even Dion Lesage,” Clive said steadily. "If nothing else, my actions against Kupka should prove that."

Theo asked, “How can you be a Dominant at all? A second Dominant of Fire isn’t anything we’ve heard of before until you came along and stomped on Titan. And you can use what, three different magics? I saw you use earth and fire, and everyone knows Cid the Outlaw wields levin.”

Four magics. Clive tried not to let his private unease show. He shouldn’t be able to use those magics. He shouldn’t be able to take them from their Dominants. He shouldn’t be able to withstand the amount of aether he could apparently withstand. “We don’t know either,” Clive said instead, “But I don’t enslave Bearers. I want the opposite. There is no reason we cannot be allies - or at least cooperate. It would be better for the Branded we help if we could.”

“What is it you want in Twinside?” Eloise asked sharply.

“The Empire’s fall,” Clive said, “and with it, the end of their mass enslavement of Bearers.”

Silence.

Then, Theo said, “Send a Dominant to kill a Dominant, I say. El?”

Eloise’s face was cold and guarded. Clive’s heart went out to her, remembering all too clearly what it was like when Joshua had insisted on risking his fragile health and using the magic that even then, Clive knew hurt him to use. “Destabilising the Empire will create different problems for us,” she said at last, “but I agree it would largely put an end to the army’s attempts to collect and ship Bearers throughout the Empire. We’ve already seen opportunities from the chaos of Kupka’s passing - why not the Empire’s as well?”

“Our thinking precisely,” Clive said. “Shall we at least agree to let each other go our own ways today? I would not have us work agaainst each other.”

“It’ll take more than pretty words for us to trust you,” Eloise replied. “But if what you say is true, you understand better than your predecessor did. So for now…we accept. If you survive your foray into Twinside, we’ll talk more. Send your introductions through Charon if you must."

Theo handed Goetz’s pass over to Goetz. “Thank you, Master Theo,” Goetz said.

“Just don’t lose it again!” Theo laughed.

Goetz admitted shamefacedly, “Me nan would have killed me if she found out I’d lost it.”

“We can’t offer much of a discount on a carriage to Twinside,” Eloise added. “Say…nine million gil?”

“What will happen to the children?” Jill asked, ignoring the jibe.

“I’ve given them a job mucking out the stables,” Eloise said. “It’s stinking work and it won’t pay half as well, but for now it’ll keep them in bread.”

Clive, Jill, and Goetz retired to the warehouse for what remained of the night. In the morning, they said their farewells to Eloise, Theo and Honza (already surveying the extent of his new task and how best to approach it - there was a child who’d do well for himself) and headed towards the gate.

The plan was to accompany Goetz to the outskirts of Twinside, parting ways as soon as they were across the bridges and on the Isles of Ark. Goetz’s cover as a legitimate trader was valuable. No point in risking it more than they had to through association with the likes of Clive and Jill. Besides, Charon would be expecting Goetz back with a full cargo and more contacts than he’d started with.

They joined the queue at the gate. It was a somber wait. With jealous eyes on the small group waiting to enter Dominion territory, nobody dared show too much joy to be leaving Dhalmekia. Many would even be genuinely distraught to do so. They were leaving lives behind. Maybe loved ones.

All these people who would drop everything to live in the shadow of a crystal. There was no way to do this painlessly.

Chapter Text

Prince Dion had smuggled Joshua and Jote into the Council Chambers of Twinside in his train. No Imperial prince could go anywhere without a myriad of attendants. What were two more?

“I apologise for the indignity,” Dion said, “but we both know that discretion must trump it, for now.”

“I have been in a whole realm of less dignified situations and I take no offense,” Joshua promised. Dion’s response to the news he was all Joshua could have ever hoped for and more.

A nondescript man Joshua assumed was Dion’s contact with Imperial intelligence helped usher them into the Council Chambers through a servant’s door. From there, however, the man took them to Dion’s own apartments and left them in the prince’s parlour while Dion himself waited upon the Emperor.

Olivier.

That, Joshua had not foreseen. Not so soon. Olivier was still a boy. How could his - their - mother think that she could overthrow Dion at this point? Dion was a grown man, a Dominant, respected by most of Storm, bastard birth or no. He paced around the richly-appointed room. The thick red and gold curtains were drawn close to prevent anyone peeking into Dion’s parlour from seeing Joshua there. He inspected tall white vases full of flawless red roses, as bright and velvety as any that grew in Rosaria. He sat, and then stood and walked around the room, and then he sat again.

Jote hardly looked less nervous, though he doubted anyone else would be able to tell. She stayed in her seat.

Hours passed. A servant brought a hot meal for both of them, fish baked in spices on a bed of rice, vegetables sauteed in butter. Far better than anything Joshua had eaten in the past year. The spices and the richness barely registered on his tongue. He ate mostly because Jote glared at him. The servants took their plates away. Joshua went back to pacing. Tea was brought in, in a fine silver pot. Again Jote glared at him until he started to sip at the drink served to him.

At last, just when Joshua started a second cup, the door burst open. Dion had a wild look in his eyes.

“Prince Dion?” Joshua asked, already gesturing Jote to leave. She did so without complaint. Some conversations were not for everyone. Some conversations for not even for his closest companion, much as it pained him.

Dion continued to pace just as Joshua had.

“I am certain now that my father knows nothing of Ultima,” he announced. “Though I have no difficulty at all believing a sinister force has come to exert an influence on Sanbreque.”

His jaw was set and his fists clenched and unclenched in a slow, furious rhythm. He looked as though he was imagining strangling someone. Joshua had the cold feeling that he knew exactly what this sinister influence was.

“For better or worse, His Radiance speaks his own mind,” Dion concluded. He threw himself into one of the chairs. It creaked. 

Joshua sat across the corner of the table from him. It was one of the few things he remembered his father telling him about negotiation. Sit across from a man and he will think you oppose him. Sit next to him and you can become too aligned; it can be difficult to tell those hard truths. Sit at the corner, so you can cross purposes as you need without being enemies. “The fiend works from the shadows,” he observed.

“I had my doubts when you told me your story. A beast that labours to plunge Valisthea into turmoil in order to get its hands on your brother? You must admit, it sounds nonsensical.”

“I did not relish the discovery either,” Joshua said. “It took a great deal of evidence before I myself believed it.”

“Nevertheless, the wound in your chest is proof enough that strange magics stir.”

Joshua forced his hands to remain on his teacup. Even just mentioning it brought the pain back.

“I also received word of a second Eikon of Fire from other sources,” Dion continued. “Apparently, it appeared at Drake’s Fang, fighting against Titan. Titan did not survive. Nor did Drake’s Fang.”

Joshua raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t heard that. Though it was not surprising that his brother should continue his efforts to destroy the Mothercrystals, it was surprising that he’d destroy another so soon after Drake’s Breath. Well. Clive had never been one to sit back and let life pass him by.

But Dion did not have the same concerns. “You are certain that your brother does not intend harm?”

He had to be careful here. He strongly suspected that his brother would cheer the downfall of the Empire of Sanbreque. The boy he had been would not have held a grudge over Dion’s position in the army that had misused him so, but Joshua did not know the man his brother had become, nor the hurts he had suffered to shape him. Perhaps he did mean harm to Sanbreque. Joshua could not guarantee it. All he could do was vouch for a more general good intent. “He is trying to save all Valisthea,” Joshua said.

“And free Branded,” Dion said sharply.

“We of Rosaria have always held somewhat different opinions on Bearers to those of the Empire,” Joshua said mildly. “Knowing that Clive was branded, wrongly, and forced to fight in the Empire’s army, perhaps we can agree to disagree on his aims. I assure you, he means better than Ultima does.”

“And you do not believe that he would join this Ultima.”

“Never,” Joshua said.

Dion looked at him squarely. “Then I can agree that he is lower priority,” he said.

“And you will join me?”

That, Dion didn’t answer straight away. He drummed his fingers on the table. “Not until I set Sanbreque aright,” he said at last. “The Dhalmeks are at our gates and with the fall of Drake’s Fang, they have no chance of a negotiated withdrawal. It’s a matter of time before they make a drastic attempt - to hurt us as much as possible before we force them to surrender. If Bahamut is not around to deter them, the citizens of Twinside might suffer for it.”

“Though Titan is no longer a threat, thanks to Ultima’s machinations,” Joshua said.

“I thought you said your brother wasn’t in league with Ultima?” Dion asked, half-standing.

“No - Ultima has been manipulating Kupka. The intent was to provoke Clive.” At this point. Joshua did not know the extent of its designs, but it would try to seize Clive for its own again. What it was waiting for, Joshua didn’t know. “I know the fate of Sanbreque weighs heavy on you, Prince Dion, but if we do not stop Ultima now, we will face a far darker fate. The chaos it would wreak would sweep all Valisthea into the abyss. The lives of every man, woman, and child in all the Twins are at stake.”

Once again Dion drummed his fingers on the table. His eyes were fixed not on Joshua, but on the white vase on the table, holding a single wyvern tail blossom. Just the sort of vase and flower Joshua had set aright in Dion’s tent. “I believe you,” he said heavily, “but I have duties and I must discharge them, come what may. Another darkness has taken hold of Sanbreque, and until its grip is released, the flames of war will spread ever wider, just as Ultima wishes.”

He did not refer to Ultima himself. Yet Joshua felt this was the best he could do. Dion was convinced of the matter and its seriousness, and now but had priorities that differed slightly to his own.

On top of that…

“Forgive me,” Joshua said. “My family has caused you much grief.”

Dion shook his head. “You are not her keeper. She has harmed both of us and our families; she has harmed both our nations. But as she claims my father’s name now, it falls to me to resolve the problems she poses, as a matter for the Imperial household. When that is done, what strength I have…will be yours.”

It nearly took his breath away. Dion promised him a great deal. “Thank you,” he said, offering his hand to shake.

Dion did so, his hand as hard and calloused as Clive’s had ever been. When he let go, he rang a bell set on a side table. Sir Terence entered at the sound, Jote on his heels. The audience was over. He and Jote couldn’t stay.

“Let us take to the skies together,” Joshua said, before finishing with a polite bow.

“I should like that,” Dion replied, with a bow of his own.

He and Jote were escorted briskly out of the palace the same way they entered, and indeed all the way down to the bustling streets of Twinside. The intelligencer - it had to be an intelligencer - left them instructions how to contact Dion’s people.

They found themselves their own room at a nearby inn. Quiet, secure, easy escape routes should they need them.

Once they were alone - truly alone, no eavesdroppers or servants or anything like that - Jote asked, “Is there anything I should know, Your Grace?”

“We should stay ready,” Joshua replied. Dion had plans. And from the sounds of it, they were imminent.

—

Dion watched the Phoenix and his attendant depart, leaving him alone with Terence again. Silence fell, save for the usual sounds of a palace at work. He threw open the curtains himself, not wanting to bear the stifling atmosphere a minute more. Below, guards and gardeners alike went about their business beneath the windows. They still had Branded here to tend the gardens by the Empress’s insistence.

They needed every Branded they could find elsewhere. In the mines, in the quarries, in the wheatfields. And yet she insisted on keeping them to maintain the gardens.

He looked out at the manicured hedges and the white city below. “Tell me true, Terence. Do you believe that what I am about to do is wrong?”

“The Phoenix tells an incredible tale,” Terence said cautiously, “But…forgive me, Dion. Most know that your father is not the ruler he was even five years ago. Certainly not the ruler he was before he wed Anabella of Rosalith.”

“Yet it is his right to abdicate and name his successor. That is why I ask.”

His father was - had been - Emperor. And yet what use was an Emperor who did not protect his people?

Terence joined him at the window and dared to grasp his hand, just for a second. “The dragoons have but one leader,” he said. “We shall follow him until the end, without regret.”

Dion trusted the servants who waited on him implicitly. They were his staff, not Palace staff, and so he had no hesitation in sending them to retrieve maps and the captains of the dragoons. He worked the initial part out with Terence and Terence alone, but it would be a better plan for hearing the input and criticism of others.

If he had feared his dragoons would desert him, he was soon put at ease. Terence had been right. They looked upon his plan and said, “Your Highness,” and then added their own knowledge. The southernmost garrison had several sergeants who cared not for Olivier and the Empress. It was possible to clear the Market Ward entirely, and advisable, since some of the syndicate leaders were in favour of Olivier. Separated from their sources of wealth and commercial contacts, however, there was less they could do and less chance for fighting in the streets. At least, less chance of fighting in the streets that involved ordinary people.

There would be fighting in the streets. There was no avoiding that. He could only hope that most of the ordinary soldiers would see Anabella for what she was. And that they remained standing to see it with clear eyes.

“Your Highness, with respect, I would prefer to start by securing control of the Council Chambers,” Joachim said.

“If we take control of the city, the Chambers hardly matter,” Dion said. “The stores here are minimal. I would prefer to put our resources towards protecting the people of Twinside from the fallout of this…dispute. Their safety is our foremost priority.”

As one, they saluted, and did not argue with the overall point.

It took several more hours to firm up the details. The sun set over the Isles of Ark, shadows drawing long through the streets. Night fighting was never a good thing. Yet this could not be left to fester.

Reluctantly, Dion called the meeting to a close. He and his loyal men could go over and over the details as many times as they liked, yet none of it would completely avoid the unpalatable truths of how Sanbreque had fallen, nor what must be done to retrieve it. He had dithered long enough. More hesitating would only bring more pain.

“This is my decree,” he said. There was silence in the room. Dion spoke, knowing his voice had to be steady, even though his heart was not. “For their crimes against the Imperial Crown, the traitor Anabella and her usurping son are to be put to death, and the empire restored.”

Six salutes. Six departures.

Dion waited until a runner brought him the news that his dragoons were dispersed throughout the city.

Then he took up his spear.

Chapter Text

The innkeeper mistook them for a married couple.

It wasn’t the first time. It was, however, the first time since he and Jill had…discussed matters. It gave him a little warm feeling deep in his chest. Maybe one day, maybe even one day not too far off, he would be able to call Jill his wife in truth. Maybe he could be enough for her.

But they were given the room, just the two of them, without anything but a not terribly subtle wink to Jill from the innkeep. They ordered a meal of cold chicken, bread, and pickles, and sat down to eat it. The racket from the public room below was a dull roar. Ale and wine were both flowing freely. And had been for a while, from the sounds of it.

“You’d never think they were likely to go to war so soon,” Jill said, returning from the kitchen downstairs with a mug of ale apiece.

The markets here were bare. The trade ships were not in harbour. What little was for sale was either being hoarded or consumed in a celebration such as the one below.

“They’re afraid,” Clive said. “When I was in their army, it was little different.” He remembered a few of those nights. Even the Branded had their own version. Stolen alcohol, stolen poppy. People seeking out the pleasures of the flesh. All relying on the distraction of their masters to evade punishment. He had not indulged. He didn’t deserve to.

“The Ironblood prayed, mostly,” Jill said. “Very different. And you - you went outside to watch the moon.”

“You found me there,” Clive said. For everything that happened afterwards, it was a sweet memory. He smiled at her. A much sweeter memory. But he couldn’t stay in it forever. He shook himself and added, “The city only seems peaceful. A fight anywhere, at the right time, between the right people, could spread like wildfire.”

“Which might be the distraction we need to get to the Mothercrystal,” Jill concluded. “We need Gav for this sort of job.”

Gav was in Kanver, though, and Clive didn’t want to wait. They hadn’t brought a stolas. They’d have to figure this out themselves.

Any eavesdropping prevented by the ongoing party downstairs, Clive and Jill pored over the rough copy of the map they’d brought. It didn’t show details, just the isles and the main streets. They filled in what they could. It wasn’t much. The main road was the most promising, he thought. Two garrisons, not very far from each other. A bit of commotion and they could draw them onto the street.

They hadn’t figured out any details when Torgal started barking.

Clive poked his head out of the window. Much like Oriflamme had been, Twinside was a city that never truly grew dark. In most places, anyway. The steep hillsides and tiered nature of the city meant that shadows did lurk in the lower places. They had become the poor areas, mostly. But everything else was lit by night by the mountainous Mothercrystal above, in a clear soft blue like the light of the full moon.

So he could see clearly there, above the inn higher on the hill, a flickering light of red and orange. He knew fire when he saw it. How could he not? He climbed out onto the nearest rooftop. Away from the noisy public house, he could hear other shouts. A scream split the air.

He headed back inside. “We need to go,” he said. “Something’s going on.”

Without another word, Jill grabbed their swords while Clive grabbed their bags. They geared up and then off over the rooftops they went. The fire was growing brighter. Then Jill said, “Look.”

Over to the west, there was another fire. More shouting was starting to ring out. Men, mostly. There was the clash of steel on steel. Fighting. Fighting in Twinside itself.

Their diversion was making itself, it seemed. If they could make their way to the Mothercrystal through all this.

“What’s going on?” Clive asked.

That question was answered as the shouting continued. “Secure the gates! No citizens are to be harmed! By order of Prince Dion!”

“In the name of Prince Dion!”

They looked down into the streets. There were Imperials. Fighting other Imperials. Dragoons against regular soldiers. Some soldiers had white sashes tied around their upper arms or waists, shining bright even in the nighttime streets.

“There,” Clive said. “Let’s get to that tower.”

It was only a little one, but from there they should be able to see above the next set of walls, at least. They needed to find Goetz as well. They’d agreed to meet at the clock tower in Middle Plaza if anything went wrong. This counted as things going wrong.

From below, someone shouted, “For Emperor Olivier!” He didn’t see who.

Emperor Olivier? That couldn’t be right.

Yet apparently he hadn’t misheard, for Jill gasped, “What did he say?”

“Emperor Olivier,” Clive repeated. 

His half-brother. When had this happened? And how was his mother involved? Because of course she must be involved. Uncle Byron had warned him she would make her move to take control of the Empire. What he wouldn’t do to get a stolas from him or Vivian right now. They’d know what was going on.

“We’ve missed something here,” Jill said.

“Or it happened very fast,” Clive replied. Vivian was going to be furious when she realised what she’d missed. “Let’s see if we can find a vantage point.”

The slate rooftops  of Twinside provided firm footing, though none of them were exactly stealthy as they clambered across to the small tower Clive had spotted. It belonged to a church of Greagor, it seemed, though it was built in the Dominion style. Whichever god it belonged to, it seemed they had abandoned it. 

Atop the tower most of what they could see in the streets below were shadows. The clock tower they were to meet at still stood, tall and proud against the smoke.

“It seems a long way off all of a sudden,” Clive said.

Jill leaned out to look along the roads. “It can’t be worse than Rosalith.”

In Clive’s opinion there was very little that could be worse than Rosalith, and not just because it was Rosalith. So Jill was right. “Come on,” he said. “We have to find Goetz.”

—

From the rooftops, they could see the chaos below spreading. And above, further on the hill. More and more fire and smoke rose into the sky, while screams and the clash of steel on steel echoed downwards. Staying up here was a good choice, Jill thought.

And then they ran out of rooftop.

Torgal leapt to the next with ease, claws clattering on the tiles. Clive followed, then turned back with arms outstretched. He caught Jill when she leapt and hauled her up. A true explosion rang out only a few streets away. “That sounds like a powder store,” Clive said. “They’re going after them? This is serious. Or it will be as soon as everyone realises that the powder stores are contested.”

“We don’t even know who’s who,” Jill said.

“Dragoons and white sashes against the rest of the Imperials - Prince Dion’s faction against the Emperor’s?”

“It makes sense, I suppose,” Jill said. Clive was the one with the head for politics, not her. She knew enough to follow events as they occurred, but not to predict, nor to understand the depths. And that was fine. That was what she needed to know in order to do what she wanted. She had other skills now.

“Dion’s never shown disloyalty before. Olivier must have been the last straw.” Clive’s shoulders were a tense line. “But if this a coup, or a civil war, surely the fighting will centre around the palace.”

“Right where the entrance to the Mothercrystal is,” Jill finished gloomily. “Of course.”

They kept going. Not far off they ran into the next wall and decided to take the cargo crane to reach the top. “Why climb?” Clive asked. “Better to leave that to Gav.”

After that, however, they had to stick to the sunken roads by the aqueducts. In the autumn night it was unpleasantly damp and chilly, and like every urban waterway Jill had ever encountered, smelled rather too much of waste. Not helped by the thumps of bodies falling in from above. Jill and Clive dodged aside from under one gap, as the dragoons above started dumping the bloodied bodies of Imperial soldiers.

Above them, someone said, “The ward is secure, captain.”

“Has the market been cleared?”

“Citizens have been secured, captain!”

“On to the Council Chambers, then! Form up! The pretender Olivier will be removed!”

Damn it. More dragoons around the Council Chambers was not what they wanted. Please let them focus on the throne rather than the entrance to the Mothercrystal. 

They climbed out of the sunken road as soon as they could after that. The rooftops were safer.

Up in this ring, there were more barricades up. And a lot of dead soldiers. The fighting had been through here fast. “The dragoons must have taken them by surprise,” Clive said. “I don’t think Olivier can win this fight.”

“Bahamut would be hard to defeat,” Jill said.

“Exactly,” Clive said. “But if Bahamut needs to show himself, everyone loses.”

As they climbed to the Middle Plaza, a dragon swooped low over the city. For a mad instant Jill thought it was Bahamut himself, but no. Not that a full-grown dragon was much better. Even as they watched it swooped down into the streets and tilted up again, a screaming soldier in its claws. The man screamed, but not for long.

“Must be a dragoon’s pet,” Clive said.

“Who needs a pet like that?”

Torgal barked at them.

They reached the clock tower just in time. Not a minute after they arrived, the dragon flew by, spewing ice crystals onto unseen soldiers the next street over. One clipped the tower itself and the whole thing came down in a deafening crash. But over all that, they heard a high-pitched yelp.

“Goetz!” Jill called. “Over here!”

“Clive! Jill! You’re safe!”

Safe was relative with the Imperial army tearing itself apart within the walls of Twinside. After she caught her breath from the crushing hug Goetz gave her, Jill looked upwards towards the Council Chambers. The spire of the palace remained intact. It didn’t immediately seem like there were fires up there right now. Maybe there were, smoldering away. “Should we call it off?” Jill asked. “Wait until the coup is over?”

Clive looked around them. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he said, “We can’t afford to leave the Dominion. Let’s get to the outskirts and try again when things calm down.”

They turned to head out of the plaza.

Above them, an impossibly bright light shone over Twinside.

As one, they turned to the source. At the very tip of the Council Chambers, right above the main spire, there was a point of light as bright as the sun, so bright it hurt to look at it. “Is that the Mothercrystal’s heart?” she asked. She could feel the aether pulsing around it. It felt…alive. More alive than Drake’s Head or Drake’s Breath. It was growing.

Clive stared up at it, transfixed.

“Clive?”

Clive blinked. “Bahamut,” he said. Then, “Get down!”

They obeyed just in time. Above them, an entire beam of light sliced across a row of buildings not fifty yards away, sending all of them tumbling down with as much ease as the lesser dragon’s ice had collapsed a simple spindly tower. In the wake of Bahamut’s flare, flame and dust rose from the buildings.

It was like Rosalith. Jill took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

Bahamut hovered in the sky above Twinside. It was a strange-looking Eikon, mostly spiny wing and leg and claw, it seemed, dark green with glowing teal lines of light along its wings. She could only imagine that it would be ungainly on the ground, but in the air it was a shard of crystal in the wrong place. It faced the tiny light that was the Heart of Drake’s Tail and blasted it with light so powerful it seemed almost solid. The sound it made was like the night air itself screaming in pain. A peal of thunder rang out afterwards, so loud it hurt the ears.

When the afterimage faded, Jill saw that the crystal was still there. Meanwhile, the aether currents were wilder than ever. If anything, it felt like the Mothercrystal might have absorbed Bahamut’s magic.

The heart of the crystal rose into the air and started to bloom like a flower.

“Oh, no,” Goetz moaned.

“Change of plans,” Clive said.

—

They’d started running towards the Council Chambers when the fighting started. Joshua had been expecting it, but it was still confronting. Not since Caer Norvent had he been caught in any fighting anywhere near this scale. This was worse than Caer Norvent. The half-light, and the screaming - the panic, like Oriflamme -

He had to get a hold of himself.

He and Jote hadn’t made it anywhere near the palace when the aether started going mad. So too did the malign presence lodged in his chest, inasmuch as it could be described as mad. Joshua could feel its cold satisfaction.

With mounting dread, Joshua cast his senses out for any changes in the aether. Sure enough, he found it. The pulling sensation that was the hallmark of his brother’s presence. Just as it was in Dalimil. Clive must be here for the Mothercrystal.

That was why Ultima had acted now. It had to be.

And if Clive were here now, there could only be a few things that Ultima wanted. He’d forgotten that they were working not just against the deadline of Prince Dion being drawn into war, but Ultima seeking to concentrate the Eikons in Clive’s grasp. Which meant Prince Dion was in danger, whether Clive meant to hurt him or no.

In short, he had to find Dion. The sooner the better.

Jote disagreed, he knew. She would rather see them out of the city. But Joshua pushed his way uphill against the crowd.

And then he felt it.

Bahamut priming. The Heart of a Mothercrystal spinning into life and activity. Before he reached the end of the road there was a painful flash of light, followed by falling buildings and a rumble of thunder. Joshua couldn’t stop himself from gasping.

Then, to his horror, Bahhamut peeled off and started to cast flares over the streets of Twinside.

“My lord!” Jote shouted over the racket. “We have to go!”

“This isn’t what he wanted!” Joshua shouted back. Maybe the coup was unavoidable. Maybe it was what had to be done to finally set aside Anabella and her ambitions, which knowingly or not served Ultima’s aims. But Bahamut? Terrorising Twinside? That had been exactly the thing Dion said he wanted to avoid! “Jote, please, I have to put a stop to this!”

“My lord!”

Her voice rang out behind him. 

This was dangerous. Bahamut was bad enough. His brother’s presence in the city was also dangerous, for so many reasons. Yet he couldn’t turn back, no matter how dangerous it was. This wasn’t right.

Whatever he could do - he must do.

Chapter Text

For terrifying instants the streets of Twinside were not lit by Drake’s Tail but by Bahamut’s flare, brighter than noon. Then, for a heartbeat, silence. As if the whole city was in shock.

And then the crash and roar of explosions. Larger than any powder explosion. Before they had a chance to react there was another blast of light. The aether all around them was going wild.

When Clive looked up, the heart of the Mothercrystal was twisting. The light in Twinside shfited and spun. The actual Mothercrystal was dissolving and reforming around the Heart. It looked like - a flower bud?

Taller than the original form of Drake’s Tail, but narrower, the new crystal stretched high into the sky. Higher than any spire. And above them, Bahamut howled in pain and fury. Renewed blasts of light scattered into the streets, each causing another huge explosion when it hit. The streets shook and split apart.

Clive spoke quickly as he reassessed the situation as best he could. “With this much destruction the Dhalmeks will rush in for everything they can get. We’re not going to have a better chance, Bahamut or no Bahamut. Goetz, this is no place for you. This might well end up as a fight between Dominants.”

“I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll meet you back in the Hideaway. You and Jill look after yourselves, mind! Nan would be sad if you don’t come back.”

“We have no intention of disappointing Lady Charon,” Clive said. And meant it. If anyone could make a departed spirit regret their actions, it would be Charon. “Jill?”

“I’m with you,” she said solidly.

Goetz gave them all the potions he had in his bag. Clive wasn’t so foolish as to think there wouldn’t be a bill for them later, but neither Goetz nor Charon would mind an advance.

Slowly and painfully they climbed up towards the Council Chambers, while Bahamut continued to shriek and blast the streets and the crystal above swelled and bloomed into something else, something too large to be comprehended from below. It glowed a cold blue-white, chillier by far than the original blue of Drake’s Tail. Growths of crystal erupted from the streets like roots, or fragments of roots. Aetherfloods were starting to flow downhill. Clive could only hope Goetz was far away by now.

They had to cut their way through Akashic on the crumbling walls. Most of them were dragoons or white-sashed troops. Clive didn’t know what that meant for the Empire. He cut them down anyway.

Then, suddenly, Jill said, “Clive. I can feel it again.”

The thing she could feel but he could not. “Ultima’s minions?”

Her nod in reply was grim.

Soon enough they were fighting the twisted lumps of blue flesh and crude simulacra of humanity that seemed to do Ultima’s bidding. They charged him more than they charged Jill, which was still baffling given that he just could not feel the malice they supposedly emanated.

Whatever it was, it was evidence enough that Ultima was interfering again. The creature, whatever they were, posed more of a threat than Clive had thought.

They were nearing the Council Chambers when a different light cast over them.

This light was not so bright as Bahamut’s, nor so cold as the Mothercrystal’s. It was warm and golden-orange and familiar. “Is that…” Clive breathed, even as hope and dread both swelled within him.

And then the Phoenix soared above them towards Bahamut.

“Joshua!”

Bahamut roared and shot more flares at Joshua. The Phoenix screamed its own defiance and wheeled in the sky, drawing Bahamut’s attention to it and away from Twinside. “What is he doing?”

“Keeping Bahamut occupied!” Jill shouted. “Clive, come on!”

“No!” he shouted back, frantic, eyes on his brother. “Joshua! Joshua!” If his brother heard him, Clive saw no sign of it. “We have to help him!”

“We have to focus!” Jill shouted, taking his arm. “We can’t reach him from here, we have to keep moving!”

“He’s going to get himself killed!” Bahamut was powerful. Extremely powerful. Clive could feel it. None of the other Eikons he’d faced had been that strong. He could feel its aether even through the wildly reacting Mothercrystal. And Joshua…nobody had seen or heard of the Phoenix since Phoenix Gate, which almost certainly meant Joshua had not primed since then. “Joshua!”

“He can’t hear you, Clive,” Jill said. “We have to keep climbing.”

She was - she was right. “Fuck,” he spat.

There was still most of a road leading up to the Council Chambers. What time they saved climbing, they lost fighting the packs of Akashic and other things rising from the aetherflood. “We don’t have time for this,” Clive half-howled as yet another pack of Ultima’s minions threw themselves in their path.

Slowly, too slowly, the fight started to spiral in on the centre of the Mothercrystal’s new form. At last they reached the Council Chambers, which were somehow still standing. There was a giant hole in the roof and cracks all down the walls, but it was upright.

While Clive surveyed that, Jill spat. “Ugh, Clive, it’s getting worse,” she warned.

Clive drew his sword again, just in time for the largest vortex yet to open up in the ruined front courtyard. From it emerged a being as tall as those things with the scythes. It almost looked like a man clad in heavy blue-purple armour. Its helm covered its eyes, leaving a clean-cut, paper-pale nose and jaw exposed. Like a statue of marble. That wanted to kill him and Jill.

The Necrophobe, a voice in his head said.

It glided over the ground, arm held out to the side as if it had a sword. It did not. Until it did, and a blade of pure light slashed at him. The tip left a smoking line in the stone. Clive barely threw himself aside in time. The creature, the Necrophobe, followed it up with a fire spell near as hot as he himself could cast, though instead of hand gestures it used a pair of thick, tapering tendrils that writhed from its back. Like all Ultima’s minions, like Ultima themself, it was a grotesque thing. Another gesture, and four tiny motes of light started to orbit its head, all casting lesser forms of magic that drove Clive back and back again.

Jill threw an icicle into the gap only for it to scrape across the Necrophobe’s helm. “These things are getting stronger,” she called to him.

“We can think about that later,” Clive said, bringing his sword down savagely on a tendril. The thing didn’t scream. It barely even flinched. What sort of monster - but from the way it cast its spells, it did at least have some effect. He chopped through the second tendril while Jill kept aiming for its throat. A frustratingly small target at the best of times, no matter how he trusted her eye. But they cut it down and cut it down again, and at last it fell.

Founder but Clive hoped it was the last one.

“Do you see a way up?” Jill asked, staring up at the cracked walls of the Council Chambers.

“We can try the tower,” Clive said. There was a higher terrace not far away, but the path was cracked, split, and the edges were crumbling. Torgal could make it, probably, but he doubted that he or Jill could. Up through the building was about the only way to go.

Inside was still intact, mostly. There were suspicious gaps in places in the corridors where it looked very much as though fleeing parties, whoever they might be, had taken a valuable object or two on their way out.

They were definitely in one of the more important wings. There was blue paint. Gilt paint. Fresh flowers spilled and trampled where the vases had been stolen. They found a staircase, broad and mostly intact. He took it, hoping to get to a tower or at least that upper courtyard. Another blast rocked the palace as they climbed.

“Clive. Can you hear someone?”

Clive stopped dead. “Yes.”

A woman was sobbing just beyond the door. Broken, breathy sobbing like someone at the end of her tether. Clive’s heart went out to her just at the sound.

He opened the door. As soon as he saw who it was there all thoughts of doing the right thing by one of Twinside’s unfortunates fled. Because inside the once-lavish wreckage of a bedchamber was someone he recognised. A slim blonde woman, nearing fifty, who most would still call beautiful.

If they did not know her as Clive knew her.

His mother, Anabella.

—

Anabella scrambled up the stairs, Olivier’s hand in hers. Her son didn’t protest as she dragged him upwards. Blood spattered her son’s face and the front of his clothes, but he didn’t complain.

How could Dion have done such a thing? Damn him! He would ruin everything!

The Council Chambers shook. Plaster rained down on her and Olivier. She grabbed at a passing servant, but the man ripped his arm from her grasp and fled. So did the next man she tried. All of them more interested in saving their own skins than protecting their rightful Emperor. What had the Empire come to? Half of them would be joining Dion and his uprising even now, even though it was Dion who now attacked them!

Anabella could scream, but Olivier needed her. Who would look after him now?

Up and up and up she went. They would be safe in Olivier’s own rooms, surely. They were the safest rooms in all the palace, now that he had moved into the Emperor’s chambers as he should. When she reached them she breathed a sigh of relief to see the walls were intact. They could hide here.

“Mother?” Olivier asked. “What are you planning to do now?”

“Keep us both safe,” she said. She didn’t know how yet, but she was the blood of the Phoenix. Her son was the blood of the Phoenix and Bahamut both. It would not end here. “Stay down, my love. Stay behind me.”

She tucked him behind the bed. It had to be sturdy enough. Outside, Bahamut was still destroying the city. Damn him, damn him, damn him. He was ruining everything! She let out a stifled scream when one of the walls came down. Nobody came to find them. Nobody came to try and kill them either. She huddled there, hand on her knife, Olivier hiding behind her, while above them and outside Bahamut tore the sky apart. She could not help the way her breath caught in her throat.

At last there were footsteps outside the door. “Stay behind me,” she whispered to Olivier.

A man barged through the door, sword in hand. Anabella screamed. Surely someone would hear. Surely someone would help. A woman followed behind him. She caught the gleam of drawn swords in their hands. Looters, she feared for an instant.

But then, as the man stepped from the shadows into the light of the Mothercrystal, she recognised him.

She’d last seen him in a sketch handed to her months ago. A sketch that showed the face of Cid the Outlaw. She’d known that face then. She knew it now. “You,” she said.

Clive’s eyes were hot with rage as his gaze darted to Olivier. Anabella stepped in front of her son. But though his hand clenched on his blade, he just said, “What happened here?”

“He tried to take him from me,” Anabella said. “My boy. My darling boy.”

For a second she dared to hope. Little as she’d liked it, Clive had always been attentive to Joshua. Protective. Perhaps - perhaps -

The fledgling hope was dashed as Clive’s lip curled. It made him look less like Elwin. “This is the child you made with the Emperor?” he asked. “This is what you betrayed us for? Why?” His voice started quiet, but grew in volume. He stepped forward. He was taller than Elwin had been, broader than Elwin had been. Suddenly Anabella was acutely aware that Clive had dealt in physical violence all his life. A common thug he might be, but even a common thug could be dangerous.

Right now, Clive looked dangerous.

He just marched in here on the worst day of her life and started accusing her -

Anabella forgot her fear. “You have no right!” she screamed at him. She took a step forward, only to find a blade at her throat. She followed the edge of the blade back to the hand that held it. From there she looked into a woman’s face. 

To her shock she recognised Elwin’s little Northern ward. She’d always been a frigid little thing. Now she held a blade on Anabella blank-faced, as if it were no more to her than squashing a bug. Anabella had warned Elwin. “Answer him,” the Northern girl said coldly.

She was too angry to be afraid now. “We took you in, savage,” she spat. “Show some respect for those who raised you.” The woman stepped forward. Despite herself, Anabella stepped back, pressing Olivier back in turn. But just because this savage could menace her with a sword didn’t mean that Anabella had to silence herself. “Honourable Elwin, always thinking of his precious homeland. What worth is a homeland in a world beset with the Blight?”

Rosaria was doomed. Rosaria had always been doomed. What was the point of protecting Rosaria?

It angered Clive, of course. His father’s son. “Father did not seek to protect his country,” Clive protested, “He sought to protect his people!”

“A leader’s duty is not to protect his people, it is to protect the source of his sovereignty! The noble blood that runs in his family’s veins! So long as the bloodline remains unbroken, what does it matter if a nation falls? One can always found another!” They just didn’t understand. Blood would out. Nobility would show. If the people crumbled, then their leaders would lead. “Unlike him, I did my duty, I preserved my line. I did better. I bore a son of the noblest blood to whom the whole world might kneel. That is why I gave Rosaria to Sanbreque, that I might join my line, the Rosfields, with the Lesages, and birth a saviour of this benighted land, blessed by both Bahamut and the Phoenix!”

Never before had anyone managed to combine the lines of two Eikons. She had. Her Olivier. 

And yet these two, they were staring at her in horror. The savage lowered her sword and said, “You sold your country for a child?”

Clive turned away. “Why did you need another? You had Joshua.”

“I had nothing!” Why couldn’t they understand? “You were always your father’s son, so very strong, and bold, and daring, and yet you failed to awaken!” Why hadn’t Clive been good enough? “Would that Joshua had been granted a tenth of your strength!” 

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. The shame of being slandered - the entire court at Rosalith, snickering and whispering that surely Clive had to be born from some mistress of Elwin’s, and he had them, she knew he had them, while her dear Joshua ailed. Her inferiors, laughing at her! Enraged all over again, she seized a silver goblet from where it lay on the ground and threw it at him as hard as she could. It skewed off target and hit him on the shoulder.

It should have been Clive. It should have been him who was the Phoenix. He’d had the strength. He could have made something of it. But he'd shown himself useless for anything beyond holding a sword, and her precious Joshua had not been strong enough to live. She'd had to make another child.

Her son - her hateful, hateful son - turned back to her, drawing himself up to his full height. His eyes burned with fury. “Joshua’s every waking moment was spent trying to shoulder the burden that you, and the Phoenix, and the duchy foisted on him,” he growled. “That’s why I became his Shield, to help bear the weight! What did you do? You betrayed Father, who was trying to help him. You abandoned him to whatever fate might find him!”

“I never meant to hurt him!” she screamed back. “The orders were clear! He was to be spared! Why would I ever want to hurt my boy? Why did you survive when the only one I cared for died?”

Clive stared down at her. His lip curled again, baring his teeth. In the hellish orange light from outside the wreckage of the room, he looked half a demon. “Have you not looked out the window?” he demanded. “Joshua lives. He’s here. He’s battling Bahamut as we speak!”

Anabella heard. And did not go to the window. She didn’t dare.

—

This was every bit as challenging as Joshua had thought it would be. More. Bahamut was as strong as Ifrit. His magic seared Joshua cleanly when he scored a hit. Dion didn’t answer his cries. Whatever had happened, he was lost to madness - and it was the only reason Joshua was still aloft. Bahamut seemed disinclined to focus or to aim.

Which meant there was precious little he could do to help Twinside.

Below, the Mothercrystal had transformed. He had no idea what it looked like from below, but from above it was a flower. A wyvern tail. He didn’t have the time to appreciate the beauty of it.

Joshua darted into Bahamut’s line of fire and out of it, in and out, each time hoping to draw Bahamut’s attention. It worked maybe half the time, but each flare aimed at the Phoenix was one that wasn’t aimed at the city. His wings beat hard. He’d never flown like this before. Could he feel Ultima’s power in his breast even in this form? Yes, he thought he might. A tightness, an ailment no Eikon he’d heard of suffering before. 

He couldn’t keep up.

The realisation was sudden and horrifying. If he could not persuade Dion to stand down, Joshua was going to die in this attempt.

In that frozen moment, Bahamut caught up with him. A flare caught joint between wing and body and sent him tumbling from the sky. Only half aloft, Joshua tried desperately to steer for the highest ground, splattering himself in a burst of protective flames onto the smooth flagstones of some sort of courtyard high on Twinside’s hill. His prime dissolved in an instant. He rolled over and coughed up blood.

And then, someone called his name.

Joshua blinked. His vision swam. Yes, a courtyard. He coughed up more blood. He felt it sliding down his chin. His ears were ringing. Strong arms, burning hot, seized his and pulled him mostly upright, turning him so it was easier to bring up the blood. Something pulled at his aether. He knew this person - this was his brother -

Above them, Bahamut screamed fury yet again. The arms that held Joshua transferred him gently to someone else - Shiva, Jill - and above him his brother’s voice, raspy with age and screaming said, “I am a Shield of Rosaria. Today I shall do my duty.”

He was getting up, he was leaving, he was going to fight Bahamut himself! Yet all Joshua could manage was a weak groan.

“Don’t rush,” a woman’s voice said. Jill. That was Jill’s voice. “Easy.” Bahamut was still howling, flares blasting into the city below. Somewhere nearby another woman was weeping.

“Clive,” Joshua forced out. He rolled onto his side, twisting in Jill’s arms. He made it in time to see Bahamut cast a solid spear of light at the small figure of his brother on the jagged edge of the broken courtyard.

A spear of light that was consumed by a pillar of fire so bright it was almost solid. The heat washed over him and Jill a second later.

“Ifrit,” Jill said, wonderingly.

Ifrit. So that was its name. A dark figure leapt from the flames up towards Bahamut. The name Joshua had in mind was different. “Clive?”

Surely that figure was too small to be the Eikon that had nearly ripped his heart out at Phoenix Gate. In Joshua’s memories the massive horned head towered above the keep. Now, as a grown man, he thought Ifrit might be a little larger than most depictions of Shiva showed that Eikon. Far smaller than Titan, perhaps smaller even than Ramuh or Garuda were said to be.

There was something else that was wrong with the silhouette in the fire, though. It took him a moment to grasp it.

“Has…Ifrit? ….has Ifrit always had four arms?” He was quite sure otherwise. He had felt every blow. He had felt his flesh tear and bone splinter under those claws. There had been two arms. Two arms only. Two arms were enough.

“Joshua? Are you all right?”

“I think so,” he said groggily, rolling up and onto his knees. Everything hurt. He craned his head upwards. “Bruised, mostly.” The blood was from a split lip.

He ignored it. Above, Clive was fighting Bahamut. It was not as one-sided as one might think for a fight between a dragon and a…being…without wings. Ifrit could leap to massive heights, and he did, from crystalline outcropping to crystalline outcropping, almost looking to soar itself. It was so astounding you could almost forget it was a fight to the death. Ifrit twisted in the air away from Bahamut’s flares and replied with fireballs of his own, darker than Joshua’s own but no less powerful. Ifrit swung off one of Bahamut’s spines and launched himself up to Bahamut’s face. Another fireball landed square in the Great Wyrm’s face. It reeled backwards - for an instant. Then it seized Ifrit’s ankle and slammed him into the side of the Mothercrystal’s new, flowerlike tendrils.

Then it did it again. And again.

“No… Clive…”

“You’re hurt,” Jill said.

“Not hurt enough,” Joshua said. He struggled to his feet. “The Phoenix will take care of most of it.”

Jill helped him up. “Then go help him,” she said softly.

“You could too,” he said. Three Eikons against one was surely better odds.

But she shook her head. “The curse. It will likely kill me if I try.” Her words were bitter, but her chin rose proudly. “I will do what I can without Shiva, and trust in Clive. I have one more priming in me, I think. I don’t want to use it unless I must.” She jerked her head backwards, towards two huddled figures in the shadows. “There are some here who owe Clive an explanation. I will keep an eye on them.”

The fight raged on above their heads, the steady blue light of the Mothercrystal interrupted by Bahamut’s blinding white flares and Clive’s darker red-orange flames. Joshua took a few precious seconds to take in his friend. His sister. “You know your capabilities best,” Joshua said. “I will do my best to bring him back for you.”

“Thank you,” Jill said. And, “Be careful. We just found you again.”

Joshua ran towards the fight, primed, and took flight.

This time, he was going to help Clive. 

Chapter Text

Ifrit finally slashed at Bahamut’s arm hard enough that it released him with a howl, flinging him across the crystalline petals of the giant flower the Mothercrystal had become.

That was acceptable. Ifrit could deal with that. He was on solid crystal now rather than trying to fight in the air. There was something wrong about not being able to fight in the air, but he put it out of his mind. He had to take down Bahamut. Bahamut first, and then the Heart.

He came off second best in their next scrap. Bahamut’s wings were sharp, and it could spin in the air far faster than Ifrit. He was flung to one side and crashed into a petal. Bahamut was on him in a second. Ifrit lashed out with his own tail. The tip caught a joint in Bahamut’s wings and the wyrm reared backward. A sensitive spot, but hard to hit.

Still. It was the best he had at the moment. But just as he prepared the next blow, Bahamut swooped aside, looped around, and slammed him into the ground again. Its limbs were everywhere in the frantic tussle.

What was wrong with Bahamut? It wasn’t fighting like a sane and rational being. It was as mad as Garuda, as Titan at the end, but Ifrit hadn’t absorbed the powers of its Dominant. So why -

Thought stopped as Bahamut gathered aether. A flare more intense than any other it had yet fired. A point of light so bright it burned to look at it grew in front of Ifrit’s eyes.

Then another bright light hit Bahamut in the side of its skull. It knocked the dragon away, hissing. Instead of backing off, Bahamut simply blasted its gathered aether at its new attacker.

Joshua.

Joshua, fully primed, wheeled back away into the sky, mere hands away from a renewed barrage. 

Oh no, he didn’t. Bahamut would not touch another feather on the Phoenix. Ifrit gathered aether of his own. If Bahamut could do it, so could he. He drew aether through his snout, into his lungs, preparing to breathe it out. It gathered before his jaw. The beam of fire, when he released it, was one of the most intense fires he’d ever produced. 

It collided with Bahamut’s flank. As it crashed back to the crystal flower, Ifrit twisted to bring the beam to bear on Bahamut’s breastbone. It didn’t exactly scream. The fire had succeeded in punching the air from its lungs, it seemed. Ifrit leapt into closer combat as soon as he ran out of aether. Claws, horns, tail; Ifrit brought all to bear. Two arms sought to pull Bahamut’s heavy plate scales apart while two more prepared to drive through the tender flesh below just as he had the Phoenix all those years ago. Brutal, but effective. And most importantly, it was not the Phoenix he was attacking. Ifrit had control of himself.

Bahamut twisted again, throwung off his grasp before Ifrit could finish it. Instead it brought its aether up again. This time Ifrit was a second too slow. The light slammed into him. It burned into his rocky skin, intense pressure turning to pain, blasting him backwards into a petal, so hard the entire thing snapped. Somewhere above him, the Phoenix screamed. Clive!

He didn’t know how he could hear Joshua, but he could. He thought he heard, very faintly, I’ll come back for you.

Still reeling from Bahamut’s attack, he couldn’t respond before the Phoenix wheeled off into the sky again, drawing it away with a barrage of smaller fireballs, no more than pinpricks, but enough to get its attention.

In the open sky like that, there was nothing Ifrit could do. He should be able to fight in the air. There was something wrong, something missing. No time to think about it now. He had to get back to the fight.

Slowly and painstakingly he wove his way back up the crystal stem. Shards fell past him, back onto Twinside. He heard the smashing from below and tried to block out the screams. Every so often his brother came close enough that he could hear him pleading with Dion to stop - think of your people! - but whatever Joshua’s pleas, they didn’t reach Bahamut. For whatever reason, Lesage was lost.

Grimly, Ifrit reminded himself that they’d always planned to put Bahamut out of contention one way or another. They’d just hoped to do it before the Eikon could be used against a city.

High above, Bahamut spawned several rotating orbs of pure starlight. If Ifrit couldn’t feel the aether gathering in them, it would have been beautiful. Especially against the night sky. Another thing he had to put out of his mind. Joshua had the right idea - he focused his barrage of fireballs on those orbs. Even as Ifrit watcched, one blinked out.

He kept climbing. Every bit of height he gained he checked on the orbs charging with aether. Joshua was dissipating them one by one, but would it be enough?

Just as he reached the lowest of the remaining crystal petals, Bahamut roared again. A glance up and out - Joshua had dispelled the entire array. Whatever the spell was, Bahamut could no longer cast it, and it was angry. 

The next thing Ifrit knew, Bahamut was diving to the centre of the flower, the Phoenix caught beneath its claws. The sight filled him with terror. Another leap, another. He couldn’t hear Joshua’s cries. That had to be a good thing, didn’t it?

But when he gained the top, he  saw that Bahamut was still on top of the Phoenix. It was just backing up, ready to release a flare in his face.

Ifrit launched himself into the fray. His fist, wreathed in flame, caught Bahamut’s jaw and sent it tumbling to the other side of the main flat area. The Phoenix was back in the air in a bare second. Clive, thank the Founder, he said.

They both squared up against Bahamut. Together. It felt…more right than he could say.

—

Jill hated this.

She was too far from Clive and Joshua to help them. She was too far from the main body of Twinside to help them. She was just standing here, with little she was doing or could do, save for ensuring thrice-cursed Anabella Rosfield and her son came to no harm.

Anabella was still snivelling. To think Jill had once feared this woman. This was a wreck of a human being. Her son, though - her son was calm. It was eerie, how calm he was. In shock, perhaps. Some Bearers arrived in the Hideaway like that.

“Get back to the wall,” Jill said. Less likely that debris would fall on her there.

Anabella didn’t listen. Jill sighed. That got a reaction from Anabella all right. “What right do you think you have to order me around, savage?” she demanded.

“For a start, I’m not crying,” Jill said.

“You know nothing of my grief,” Anabella spat at her.

“As you know nothing of mine. And I, for one, am standing on my own two feet.” She didn’t need to say she had a sword. That was clear at her hip. Mentioning Shiva would be pointless as well. “So stand back by the wall. Clive will want to speak to you when he returns.”

Anabella’s red, teary eyes narrowed. “Clive,” she spat. “Always the thorn in my side. Why is he always so determined to ruin things for me?”

“He only ever had to exist to ruin things for you,” Jill pointed out. “You condemned him to slavery. Why wouldn’t he want to see you gone?”

“It was what he was fit for! Thirteen years he survived - proof only that that was where he belonged,” Anabella snarled. “I saw the reports after he deserted. He was exactly where he was meant to be.”

Everyone in their place.

Jill shivered. She turned her attention back to the fight. She had a better chance of affecting that than she did of ever changing Anabella’s mind or convincing her to feel an ounce of regret.

Flares of light and fire blossomed in the sky above Twinside. Jill watched and waited, hoping that it would be enough.

—

Ifrit charged towards Bahamut, fast and impossible to ignore. A flurry of punches. A sweep of the tail. A barrage of fireballs. Every time Bahamut tried to flee into the sky, Ifrit seized it with all his might.

And that let the Phoenix attack from above with impunity.

Rosaria had always trusted in the Phoenix - but in its resilience and its protection, not its might. The Firebird was perhaps the Eikon least suited to blasting its opponents from the face of Valisthea. That aspect of fire was left to Ifrit, who could do little else without his borrowed and copied powers, he thought bitterly. The Phoenix’s attacks were little more than pinpricks to Bahamut. But they were wearing it down. Slowly, surely, they were wearing it down.

Until Bahamut, with desperate strength, wrenched itself free from Ifrit’s grip, weathered the Phoenix’s, and aether flowed like the rapids of the Kingsfall into its maw.

It’ll take out half the hill! Joshua shouted. Clive, behind me!

Ifrit didn’t question. He took up position behind the Phoenix and braced himself for whatever came next. He trusted his brother. The Phoenix called a shield of flame. Ifrit could not help but stare in wonder. If he had thought Bahamut’s flowers of light were beautiful, this was even more so. It was as delicate as a soap bubble, but all the myriad colours of Phoenix fire were captured therein. And that fragile-seeming bubble was supposed to protect them both - protect what remained of Twinside’s Council Chambers, where Jill still stood - from Bahamut’s wrath.

If he couldn’t feel the aether wrapped around them, Ifrit would have been afraid.

Bahamut fired upon them, bringing what seemed like the might of the entire Eikon to bear.

Phoenix, greatest defender of all the Eikons, withstood it all.

When the moment of blinding light was finished, the Phoenix still had the strength to say, Now, Clive!

So Ifrit obliged. He renewed the assault on Bahamut until it was Bahamut trying to shield with its magic. And Bahamut had neither the Phoenix’s powers nor its aptitude for such shielding. Ifrit and the Phoenix together blasted through the shield.

But before they could finish it, Bahamut leapt back. Its blank, glowing eyes fixed on them. Then the Mothercrystal stirred. Something in the centre - the Heart? - responded to Bahamut’s call for aether.

What is it doing? Joshua asked.

Ifrit realised in horror. It’s drinking the aether, he said. We have to stop it!

Too late.

As they watched, Bahamut’s teal glow turned a sicker, more greenish colour. Once again it tried to summon the aetheric attack that Joshua said would destroy half the hill. Ifrit dived behind the Phoenix again without instruction. The Phoenix recreated that beautiful shield.

It shattered under the blast.

Ifrit and the Phoenix were both blown backwards. The shield had taken enough out of the attack to protect the Council Chambers - to protect Jill - but little more. A tremendous cracking sound shuddered from the petal beneath him. He leapt to a nearby one, while the Phoenix gained air. Just in time. The petal they’d been standing on fell away in razor-sharp shards. More debris to crush Twinside.

And after Twinside, then what?

Whatever havoc Bahamut would wreak, this could not happen. Ifrit was going to stop this.

He drew in aether blindly. Whatever Bahamut could do, so could he. There were plenty of sources for him. The Mothercrystal, first and foremost. But there was something else. Something like him, like enough for him to use.

Clive?

The Phoenix. Wings. He should be able to fight in the air.

Join, he sent.

Clive, what are you doing?

We have to be stronger, he said. He drew on the aether around him more insistently. More, more.

Slowly, he felt the Phoenix give in. It wasn’t absorbing the Eikon. Ifrit knew what that feeling was. It was a merging. Two flames joining into one. More than the sum of its parts, the aether of each fuelling the other. His flames were hotter than ever, blue wreathing around his limbs and near white at his core.

Ifrit spread his new wings and it was the closest to right as he had ever felt.

What is this? Something in the back of his mind whispered. What did you do?

Made us stronger, Ifrit replied. It should be enough. 

Maybe, was the quiet response.

We can do this, Ifrit said. Are you with me?

Of course, the Phoenix replied, ever so slightly hesitant. Ifrit didn’t understand that; this felt glorious. But they had a job to do, self-imposed or no.

Bahamut had used the time to charge its own attack. Ifrit summoned the Phoenix’s fiery shield; this time, the shield held easily. Without the focus or intensity of aether behind it, it dissipated like thin cloud in the sun.

Fly up, the Phoenix urged him.

Good idea.

It was like talking to himself. Ifrit’s borrowed wings bore him aloft - and then he went higher. Higher than Ifrit had ever been before. Far too high for any errant fire or beams of aether to harm Twinside. A glance down to the city showed it to be impossibly small. Even the fires that tore through its outer ring looked small. 

Ifrit returned his gaze to the sky and kept flying higher. I’ve never been so high, the Phoenix said in wonder. They were so high they could see the world start to curve away. It was a truth all knew, proved by generations upon generations of sailors and scholars, but it was one thing to know and another to see, with his own eyes, that the world was round.

Beautiful.

He did not know which one of them said it. It didn’t matter. It was true. Though they didn’t have the time to enjoy it. Bahamut was following, as unaffected by the cold and the thin air as Ifrit. It summoned its light and started to shower it with a huge array of beams. Even greater than those it had used back above the crystal.

Perhaps he was holding back before, the Phoenix said, Even if he didn’t know it, Dion was resisting.

For all the good it had done Twinside. Ifrit wove between the beams of light. It was so easy now that he had the Phoenix’s wings. The way he could move with them - lighter than air. Perfect. He sped towards Bahamut, clawed at it as best he could. Those joints, the sensitive spots. Then he backed off as Bahamut recovered and let it exhaust itself.

This was enough. They were winning.

At last, Bahamut was the one to put distance between them. This time, when he summoned light, it was a maze of delicate blue threads of light. Like lace. Stunningly beautiful. Stunningly powerful.

We have to stop it, Clive said. That much aether … who knew what it would do. Not even Titan had summoned this much pure destructive power. Ifrit hadn’t dared - if Bahamut could do it, so could he - but no matter what, they had to stop this attack. Or at least point it away into the vast blackness of the sky beyond the sky.

The beams of light hurt even to get near. Like levin, but more. Ifrit ignored it even as glancing blows from the ever-shifting threads seared lines into his rocky flesh. His claws dug into Bahamut’s plates. He breathed fire onto the wounds, trying to crack them open. He battered Bahamut’s joints. Some of the threads winked out. Not enough. He tried to wrench Bahamut around so its attack faced the beyond. It resisted. Ifrit grew more desperate as the thin streams of light grew more intense.

Bahamut made a hissing sound and threw Ifrit back. As soon as he was careering backwards the light intensified.

Too late.

Ifrit gathered all the power he had. All of his own; all that he’d asked from Joshua. It had to be enough. It had to be.

He drove forth, through the beam of light Bahamut had spent himself to summon. It yielded under his fire, slowly. Slowly. He was being pushed back towards the ground.

One last effort. With a roar, Ifrit blasted through the last of Bahamut’s attack. The bright light dissipated in white smoke. Bahamut fell limp backwards. And fell. And fell. Ifrit plummeted after it. The Phoenix helped to guide them all. We need to land in Twinside, he said.

The fall seemed to take forever. About the time Twinside came into view, Bahamut’s prime dissolved, leaving only Dion Lesage again. Dion! Joshua called.

Just like that, they separated again. Ifrit was left without wings. He set his sights on the heart of the Mothercrystal - the bright centre of a glowing crystal flower visible as a star in the sky - as he plunged towards Twinside. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Phoenix catch Lesage and start banking towards the Council Chambers. Ifrit ignored them. He tried to ignore the sensation of suddenly being incomplete again, too.

As the glowing petals of the reformed Mothercrystal came into clearer view, so too did glimpses of the wreckage beneath. Smoke rose from too-straight lines of burning buildings. But the Council Chambers still stood. He could still sense Shiva in the aether. This hadn’t ended as badly as it could have.

Ifrit extended his claws and crashed through the heart. It shattered like a glass window.

He didn’t even wait for the heart to finish dissolving before he released his prime and ran back to where he could feel the Phoenix’s aether. His brother was bent over Dion Lesage, not in concern, but coughing so hard he couldn’t stand up straight.

Clive sprinted towards him. Joshua was there. Not a shape in the fire. There. 

Joshua took a few stumbling steps towards him. Clive stopped in his tracks. But then Joshua looked up at him.

He didn’t even think about the last few steps. After fifteen years he embraced his brother.

Joshua’s head was about level with his now, but he’d grown thin. It was still easy for him to wrap his arms around Joshua and just hold him close. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, then fell on Joshua’s shoulders.

“Clive,” Joshua murmured into his shoulder. He trembled slightly.

Clive straightened, though he didn’t let go of Joshua’s shoulders. “We’re alive. We both are. Nothing else matters.” He’d never hoped - he’d never dared hope - that this day would come. Even when he knew Joshua lived. Joshua met his eyes and nodded.

He felt more than saw Jill nearby. He spread his left arm wide to usher her into their embrace. There were tears in her eyes too. Torgal jumped on them as well, pawing at Joshua and trying to lick his face.

Clive just enjoyed the moment. Those he loved best, in his arms, at last. At last.

Chapter Text

Dion remembered:

The hall was lit by flickering lamps rather than crystals, giving the murmuring clusters of bishops and lords stuffed into the confined space an even more frantic air. Though he could not see through the crowd, he could hear his father barking at his guards.

“The city can wait,” Sylvestre said. “If we hold the Council Chambers - can nothing be done to call the dragoons off?”

No, Dion thought. The dragoons answered to him and him alone. Because once, years ago, his father had trusted him entirely. Once he had been worthy of Dion’s service.

He pushed through towards the throne. It was simple enough. The lords took one glance at his face - and at his spear, bared in the Imperial presence - and retreated. They parted like cloth under scissors.

Which let him see all the way to the throne, where alone of everyone in the room, Olivier appeared serene and untroubled. Even Anabella, in the seat behind and to Olivier’s left, had a concerned expression, no matter how she tried to hide it. She was the first to see him, and the shine off the point of his spear. She gasped.

His father glared at him from his seat behind the Emperor. “Dion. Have you taken leave of your senses? Call off your dragoons at once!”

“Fear not, the populace shall come to no harm at their hands,” Dion said, hoping that it remained true. “I have come to save you, Father.”

Even if his father was never Emperor again, even if Dion himself had to take the throne. He would save his father.

Sylvestre scoffed. “Save me?”

Dion gripped his spear. “There is a creeping darkness in the heart of Sanbreque. It stems from your wife. The traitor Anabella.”

Anabella knew better than to react, of course. She smirked at him and shook her head.

His father’s face darkened. “Not another word, Dion.”

“Father, though you may not see it, this darkness has taken hold of you,” Dion continued. “It has made you forget yourself. But I bid you remember, there was a time when you ruled not with cruelty but with compassion. Why now do you turn your back on your people? Why now do you seek to stoke the fires of war?”

His father was silent. So too were the gathered nobility. Dion turned to them. “You too have seen these changes, your eminences! And you know as well as I do who is responsible for it! Her puppet now sits upon the throne, but cut its strings and the master loses her power.”

With those words, he turned back to the throne and levelled his spear at Olivier. He took no pleasure in this, his half-brother’s death, but he could not shy away from it either. It was the inevitable consequence of his own actions. It was necessary. Anabella had made it necessary.

That was something she knew too. For the first time, he saw real fear in Anabella’s eyes. Olivier, though. Olivier remained impassive.

His father was on his feet in an instant, standing between Dion and Olivier. He was a fine one to talk about Dion respecting the new Emperor’s position, not when he himself took the new Emperor’s place out of little more than habit. “You bare steel before your Emperor?” He glanced up, towards the guards at the door. “Guards! Seize him!”

Dion glanced backwards. The guards didn’t move. They stared fixedly ahead. He dismissed them as a danger and turned back to his father.

Quietly, he said, “‘For every citizen who falls, another can be bred. For every home that burns, another can be built.’ Those were your words. But when the last of your citizens has fallen, and all of their homes have been reduced to ash, what will become of your empire, of its rulers, of your god? As the Mothercrystals crumble one by one and the Blight sweeps in to claim all we hold dear, our people look to their Emperor for protection. Yet he labours not to secure their futures, but to seize what is left of the Twins for himself, even if it should come at the cost of everything his loyal citizens have laboured to build!” By the end, he was shouting. He took a deep breath. Calm. He had to remain calm. It was…not as effective as he might have liked.

His father shook his head. “Dion, you must understand -”

Behind him, a cool, young voice spoke. “A small price to pay, is it not?”

Olivier.

Their father stepped aside, so Olivier could address him directly. The boy wasn’t looking at him. “You have been blessed with great power, Dion. Enough to win me the world.” Olivier looked at him, dead in the eyes. His eyes were much like his mother’s. “So go, claim Valisthea for me…brother.”

The mocking words rang through his mind, drowning out all those sensible thoughts. Red covered his vision. He barely thought - just hoisted his spear and threw. The crunch of parting bone and squelch of parting flesh followed.

But the gasp of the injured was not Olivier’s.

The red faded.

Sylvestre Lesage sagged to his knees. The butt of Dion’s spear clattered to the marble steps and he gasped again. Over his dying body, Dion caught a glimpse of Olivier’s blood-spattered face and satisfied smile.

His own knees hit the marble. Above his head, Anabella screamed. “Father,” Dion choked out. Blood spilled down the steps, around Dion’s knees. Sylvestre choked, spat out a mouthful of blood, and then his eyes glazed over in death. “Father?”

Light footsteps approached him. “Poor Father,” Olivier’s voice said from somewhere that sounded very high above him. “How he doted on his children. That he would die to protect me was plain. It was just a matter of when.”

Dion looked up. Olivier smiled down at him. His eyes were hideous. Alien. Cold. Full of bright, corrupted aether. Dion could not look away. “You planned this?” Dion asked, voice small.

Olivier advanced upon him, passing their father as if he were so much refuse. “You did well to endure so long…but you broke in the end, as I knew you would.” He stopped in arm’s reach of Dion, smiling. “And now Mythos approaches. Put him to the proof. I would see if he breaks.”

Something started to well up inside Dion. Aether. Power. It hurt. He fought it down, but it just kept flowing. Like there was a broken dam in his soul.

Somewhere far away, Olivier said, “Go, Bahamut. Kinslayer.”

Dion screamed.

After that, everything went white.

He woke in pain. Every inch of him hurt. What had happened? What had - what had happened? What was going on?

There was smoke in the air. Smoke and aether. A strange and insistent pulling sensation on his very being.

He struggled to roll over. This was…the wreckage of Olivier’s bedchamber? He’d never been inside before. Anabella stood not far from the wall, her eyes red with tears.

Behind her stood - 

- A tall and monstrous creature. Pale as a corpse, blank-faced, its four arms hung limp. Dion blinked and it was simply Olivier again, emotionless, their father’s blood still on his face. 

Hatred surged through him.

Miraculously, his spear was still nearby. He must have been holding it when whatever happened to him happened. He pushed himself up to elbows and knees, seized the weapon and once again launched it. This time, it struck true, taking Olivier in the chest. 

“For my father,” he hissed.

Anabella screamed as Olivier did not bleed, but dissolved into blue and black sparks, Dion laughed. It is done, Father. The demon that would tear our house apart is no more.

His work finally finished, he passed out. This time, it was to a merciful blackness.

—

Coldly, Clive decided there was nothing they could do for his mother. Her son was dead. If he’d ever been alive. He recognised that dark energy. How it looked, how it felt. The boy had been some creature of Ultima’s. Moreover, Anabella would hardly consent to come with them. She’d just have to look after herself. He said, “We need to leave.” The sun would rise soon. People would come to investigate.

But Joshua shook his head. “We need to take Dion with us. I owe him a debt.”

Clive looked at the prince, sprawled out gracelessly on his front on the cracked marble tiles. There were a few smears of blood beneath him. He - they - had beaten the man badly. He also had no interest in saving Lesage, not when he and Jill had come to strip him of his powers.

It hardly mattered now, he supposed. Twinside was ruined. Dion Lesage had done it himself. “Fine,” Clive said.

He bent down to pick up Lesage. No sooner had he touched the man’s arm than he felt it. The reaching inside. The connection. Clive didn’t fight it this time. He shuddered and shivered as Bahamut’s light flowed into him. Groans slipped from his lips, first from the fiery pain, then from the soul-deep sensation of fulfilment. It was beyond simple physical pleasure. He didn’t know how to describe it.

And then it was gone. Jill grabbed his arm to steady him. Joshua watched on, wide-eyed and wary. “Brother?” he asked.

“Long story,” Clive said. He didn’t want to explain. He busied himself hoisting Lesage over his shoulders.

But Joshua wasn’t done. He turned towards Anabella, still in the corner scrabbling at the place where her son had been. “You cannot stay here, Mother,” he said. “Take my hand.”

At the sound of his voice, Anabella looked up. When she met Joshua’s eyes, she screamed. She shot to her feet, knife drawn. It caught Joshua across his outstretched hand. Clive was halfway to dropping Lesage, Jill’s rapier was half out of its sheath, and Torgal was ready to pounce before Joshua waved them all back with his other, unbloodied hand.

“Mother,” he said. “It’s me. Joshua.”

She shook her head. “No. This is a trick. A dream.”

“No, Mother. It’s real. I’m alive.”

Anabella lashed out with the knife. It was defensive. Awkward. But Joshua could not go closer. Her wild eyes fixed on Clive. “You. What have you done?”

“Clive has done nothing, Mother,” Joshua said. “Please, listen to me. You cannot stay here.”

Clive once again made to drop Lesage, but Joshua caught his eye and shook his head. Anabella was trembling. “You will not take me, shadow,” she said, voice shaking as much as her hands.

Joshua risked a step forward, but as soon as he did, she brought the knife to her own throat. “Another shade,” she repeated. “You will not take me.”

Her hand steadied on the knife. An ominous sign that lasted a mere second. Then she cut.

“Mother!” Joshua said, but it was too late. Clive closed his eyes briefly as he recognised a fatal wound. The blood spurted out grotesquely and pooled beneath her.

“We have to go,” Clive said softly.

“Of course,” Joshua replied. He summoned white-hot flame. Likely enough to burn their mother’s corpse to char. Clive didn’t stop him from using his energy so. Joshua had loved their mother. When he was finished, Joshua picked up Lesage’s spear. “Shall I fly us out of the city?”

It took a little bit of organisation - Torgal not being keen - but within minutes the Phoenix carried them from Twinside, high above the devastation.

—

Closer still. The hour drew nigh.

They alit on the spire of the tallest building left standing in this human city and lookd down on the ruin Bahamut had made of it. It was well done. Bahamut had pushed Mythos far and forced him to extend his strength. Even now he could feel the echo of Mythos’s powers.

More importantly, the deaths of the human filth had woken in Mythos a greater hunger for power. That was to the good. The vessel’s hunger was innate, as theorised. He would ever seek out greater amounts of aether to devour.

The fact that Mythos had done so in order to protect humanity, however, was more troublesome. He had left this city with the Dominant of Shiva and the Dominant of the Phoenix both without taking their Eikons for his own, contenting himself with the dregs of the broken Mothercrystal out of misplaced affection for the Dominants.

Yet if it was consciousness that strengthened him, consciousness that led Mythos to blend his will with that of others, then they would set Mythos apart once more. They would sever the ties that bound him. Humanity would be returned to its proper place.

They raised a hand to the sky. The sky responded. They had not worked magic such as this for a very long time. Cloud covered the sun and shadow fell across Valisthea. All Valisthea.

By Primogenesis would a new age of reason begin.

—

For all she’d served the Phoenix all her life, she’d never seen it in the flesh before. It was all Jote could do to suppress her gasp as the Firebird in all his glory flew from what remained of Twinside, bright against the cloudy morning sky. Jote watched from the crowd that had made it off the Isles of Ark.

Surely the Phoenix was the most beautiful of all the Eikons. Those multi-coloured feathers, scarlet and orange at the base, fading to blue and green at the tips. The broad and elegant wings. Seeing the Phoenix, still there, alive, after all Sanbreque had done - Jote was a faithful Rosarian. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes. One day Joshua would be able to return to Rosaria openly and claim his throne. She was sure of it.

She kept her eyes on the Phoenix as he descended to the west. She had to find him. He would be vulnerable when he landed.

He’d already fought so hard today.

Jote shoved ruthlessly through the crowds of people who had fled and been evacuated from Twinside. Joshua wouldn’t leave without her. He’d stay nearby. She had to reach him before any of the stragglers or refugees did. She was hardly the only one who’d seen the Phoenix that night.

The people in the crowds alternately wept for and cursed Bahamut. They cursed the Emperor, whatever had happened to him. There were few tears shed on his behalf.

Some asked what the second Eikon of Fire had been. Some blamed it - and the Phoenix - for what Bahamut had done.

The crowds gave way to the fields that supported Twinside. Jote stole a chocobo and raced westward. There were villages out here. Someone would have seen.

Two hours later, she was still heading west. As she crossed a wheatfield towards the next hamlet, however, her stolen chocobo reared in alarm with a high-pitched squawk. Jote readied her sword.

A large wolf burst from the stalks of wheat. But instead of lunging for its prey, it started to bark, short and sharp. It stayed back from the chocobo Jote was still trying to calm, bouncing happily on all four paws. Jote saw a cuff gleam on a foreleg. Soon, a woman’s voice called out, “Torgal?”

Torgal?

Joshua had told her often of his brother’s wolf pup. And he’d said that the wolf was now with the Lord Marquess and Lady Warrick.

The wheat rustled again and from it emerged a pale, composed woman Jote recognised from Joshua’s descriptions as Lady Jill Warrick. The Dominant of Shiva. She carried a sword, as Jote did, but that would surely not be the weapon she relied upon most.

“You’re Jote?” Lady Warrick asked.

“I am,” Jote said cautiously.

“Come with us, then,” Lady Warrick said, apparently including the wolf as a companion. “Joshua needs you.”

“Is he wounded?” Jote asked as she made to follow. Strange that Lady Warrick just took Jote’s word for it. Unless it was the wolf that she trusted? Perhaps. It had found her. Nor was the wolf wrong.

“Not that we saw. We noticed he was ailing. He told us to try and find you, then just…fell asleep.”

“Is there nobody with him?” Jote asked, alarmed.

“Clive is,” Lady Warrick replied.

The Lord Marquess.

Her first thought was that Joshua must be so happy. But then thoughts of duty crept in as well. Whatever His Grace said about his brother being his foremost defender - as if Jote didn’t exist, a treacherous little voice sometimes said - Cyril had been quite clear to all the Undying. Regardless of His Grace’s beliefs, regardless of even what Clive Rosfield might want or believe, the Lord Marquess was also the greatest threat to Joshua. As the Dominant of the second Eikon of Fire, possibly as the object of Ultima’s plans, as a popular name bandied about for the Archduke’s throne.

With a chill, Jote realised that with Twinside half razed, there would be no better time for Rosaria to declare its independence once more. A possibility that could have taken years to come to pass now seemed a much more immediate threat.

Lady Warrick smiled at her. “Clive would never allow Joshua to come to harm,” she said.

Jote tried hard not to let any more apprehension show on her face.

Lady Warrick and her wolf led her to the burned-out shell of a silo. A man emerged from the shadows with a relieved call of “Jill!” When Lady Warrick approached, the man himself clasped her hand briefly and almost seemed to melt at her smile.

“Any change?” Lady Warrick asked.

“None,” Clive Rosfield replied.

Any warmth or softness there was not for her. Jote found herself fixed by intense blue eyes, a few shades deeper than his brother’s. Then he sighed and said, “Is there anything you can do for him, Lady Jote?”

“I’m no physicker, my lord,” Jote said cautiously. “I am an apothecary only.”

“Even so, that’s more than we are,” the Lord Marquess said. He glanced backwards, to the shadow of the wall. “This way, Lady Jote.”

Joshua lay prone on the ground. As Lady Warrick had said, he didn’t appear to be injured. He was pale, yes, maybe a bit more so than usual. Jote checked his breathing. As good as could be expected. Nor was he feverish. “I think he might just be tired,” Jote said.

The Lord Marquess sighed again. “We’ll get a stretcher ready,” he said. “If there’s anything you can do to wake him up…”

“I have a few things,” Jote admitted.

“I can imagine. I know you won’t want to use them, and I think we should let Joshua sleep as long as possible. But we will likely have to wake him sooner or later.” He glanced to another patch of shadow. There was another man lying there. With a start, Jote recognised it as the battered form of Dion Lesage. “We cannot carry both all the way, and Lesage is hurt worse.”

The Lord Marquess scowled, an expression that pulled at the scar on his jaw and lent him a forbidding air. She couldn’t imagine that he was especially invested in saving Prince Dion. That had the feel of a request from Joshua.

It was…reassuring. That the Lord Marquess would abide by Joshua’s wishes even when Joshua himself was unconscious.

There was a fourth man, too. A veritable mountain of a man, but one with shy eyes and a worried expression. Not a fighting man, it seemed, but every last person had to be taken seriously. Appearances could be deceiving. “Where are we going?” Jote asked.

“The Hideaway,” the Lord Marquess said.

Cid’s own home. Jote couldn’t help but dislike this. But for Joshua, she’d do almost anything. She just had to keep Cyril informed. And hope that he gave her no instructions she could not follow.

—

“Do you want to play?”

Barnabas remained on his knees, though the stone bit into them. Even within his castle the night air was chill on his naked skin. “If that is your wish,” he said.

His god sat on the bed above him in the bare form of Benedikta Harman, resplendent as if the furs were a throne. Barnabas did not question Their choices. “Men,” They scoffed, just as Benedikta would have. “You are as meek as all the rest.”

After so many years, Barnabas knew: it was his god who wished to play. He was not one to deny god. They had come to him. They must want something. Whether that was to amuse Themself or to deliver unto Barnabas another order, Barnabas would obey Their desires.

It was as his mother had taught.

Benedikta’s form flickered to that of another. Hugo Kupka, another Dominant dead at the hands of Mythos. Equally bare. “Such feeble creatures. Gifted the power of Eikons, yet slaves to fickle emotions which usher you to your doom.”

It had been that very realisation that ushered him here. “The wretched handiwork of a wretched people,” he said.

They took his chin in hand and tilted his face up. There was another flicker, and Barnabas beheld a new face. He had seen that face from a distance, once. He had seen it in a precious sketch copied from Imperial intelligence. Clive Rosfield. Mythos.

From here, Barnabas could see that Mythos had blue eyes. How the scar - that outrage that man had perpetrated upon its hope of salvation - cut into sun-darkened skin.

His god’s next words were in Their own language. Whatever They meant, it was not for Barnabas’ ears. A thought on humanity, maybe, sparing Barnabas Their scorn. In the old language of Barnabas’ mother’s people, They added, “The sons of fire were united at last, and for but a moment their flame burned bright. Soon, Mythos will achieve perfection.”

“And then shall the world be remade,” Barnabas said.

Everything he’d worked for all these years. Paradise upon this earth.

“Not before the bonds are severed,” his god said. “Trust, respect, love - only when every strand of consciousness is cut away may Mythos return to Our side. By Primogenesis shall all be undone. Mankind shall be rid of his wretchedness and Mythos of his will.”

They stopped there. Barnabas took another chance to gaze upon the face of the Holy Vessel. Then Their form flickered again and returned to the even more glorious sight of Their true form. The form beyond humanity. 

“But while he clings to it, he has the power to forge bonds anew. And so we bid you: find Mythos and sever every one.”

“To destroy that which has no form - you ask the impossible,” Barnabas protested. He would try, of course, his god had commanded it. Yet surely -

“There is nothing your black blade cannot cut, Odin,” his god said. The words were even, almost light, but he heard the reproof in them. “We shall unite with Mythos and bring forth a new world - so long as our vessel remains untouched by humanity.”

Barnabas swallowed his earlier protest. “It shall be done,” he said. No matter how. He would not disappoint his Creator.

When he next looked up, the face he beheld was that of his mother. Dark-haired, beautiful, just as she had been the day she was murdered. When They smiled at him, Their smile was hers. They held out their arms in invitation.

They wished to play with him. But for this chance, this memory, there was nothing Barnabas would not give.

He crawled to his god and surrendered all that he had and all that he was. As he had before. As he would again. Gladly.

Chapter Text

Clive found Jill on the little ledge outside his window, watching the clouded sky. It had been like that since Twinside, gloomy and grey, screeching on his senses. She noticed his entrance. “How’s Joshua?” she asked.

“Asleep still,” Clive said. They’d let him sleep most of the way as they fled Twinside. He’d woken naturally a few times but hadn’t been truly aware of his surroundings at any point. Even with the stimulants so carefully administered by Lady Jote he’d been almost incoherent, stumbling forward, just awake enough to move. As soon as they’d got him in the boat he’d collapsed again.

There was worse news.

“Tarja found a swelling in his chest,” Clive told Jill heavily. “Circled in stone.”

Jill turned to face him fully. “The curse?” she asked quietly. When Clive nodded she took his hands in hers. “For every mountain we climb, another rises up to greet us, doesn’t it?”

“It’s started so close to his heart,” Clive said. There weren’t many worse places. The brain. Certain places in the guts. It wouldn’t take much at all for Joshua to succumb. His health had always been delicate, now this. “I can’t protect him.”

Meanwhile, he suffered not at all. Once again he’d used amounts of aether that should drive even a Dominant to madness, and had driven a Dominant to madness, and he had not an ache or stiffness that didn’t come straight from one of the blows Bahamut had inflicted on him during their fight. Not a patch of stony skin. Meanwhile, Bahamut itself now lived inside him. That innate understanding of light magic and how to use it had come along with it. Another bit of freakishness he benefited from.

“He’s a grown man now,” Jill said. “I doubt he’d even want you to protect him, not if it meant you getting hurt.”

“I’m tired,” Clive said. “Even the sky seems tired of it all.” Never quite threatening rain, sunlight too exhausted to break through. The steady pall of clouds felt... he couldn't quite place it.

He stood there with Jill for several minutes, her mere presence enough to make his troubles seem more bearable. Eventually, though, the pull of his duties grew too strong, and he left to go speak to Otto.

The older man had been off securing a timber contract when Clive returned. This was the first chance they’d had to debrief. “What news?” Clive asked.

“Oh, fine, fine,” Otto said. “If you ignore the fact Storm’s out of Mothercrystals and the sky’s a roiling cesspit.”

“Any word from Gav or my uncle? Mid?”

“Your uncle’s quite taken by both Mid and her pet project,” Otto reported. “I don’t think her shipwrights have ever been paid so well.”

“Somehow I’m unsurprised. What does Gav have to say?”

“According to him, Kanver’s on edge. Might have something to do with someone half blowing up Twinside, just a guess. I wouldn’t know. Nothing in Kanver itself has exploded yet as far as he’s told me, but I haven’t heard from him for a few days now.”

It felt like another weight piling on Clive’s shoulders. “Is there any good news?” he asked.

With the black cheer of a man soon off to the gallows, Otto said, “It depends on your definition of good, doesn’t it?”

His next stop, as usual, was Vivian. She was where she usually was of a morning, hard at work over her maps and letters in her alcove near Otto’s own preferred station.

But to his shock, when Clive approached, he saw her eyes were red-rimmed. Not from lack of sleep, but from tears.

“I’m sorry,” Clive said, shocked.

“One day you’ll be able to leave the Hideaway without causing major social upheaval,” Vivian said, in a choked voice. She coughed, wiped her eyes, and tried again. “It’s not your fault. Nobody could have predicted that. Just know that I’m not the only one here displeased that Dion Lesage is in our infirmary.”

“Trust me, I’m amongst them,” Clive said. “It was a request from my brother, and once he wakes I hope to have the matter resolved.”

Vivian nodded. “My countrymen are strong. They can survive a few ruined clocktowers. They will rebuild. In the meantime, my sulking isn’t going to help anyone find any ways forward.”

Clive tried to smile. “So you have something for me, then.”

Vivian tapped a stack of papers together and handed them to Clive. “Most of it you won’t like,” she said. “There is cloud over all Storm. As far as I can tell, nobody’s seen the sun since Twinside. Aetherfloods are spreading, worst around Oriflamme and where Drake’s Fang once stood. The Empire has not the leadership to hold itself and its provinces together. The Ironblood are licking their wounds, equally paralysed. Dhalmekia’s ministers have fled Ran’dellah just when their organisation might have won them all they needed. Eugen Havel holds the capital in order, barely. And there is worse.”

Just a scan of Vivian’s reports showed that it was indeed as bad as she’d said. He recognised Martha’s handwriting. L’ubor’s as well. “Waloed?”

“Exactly,” Vivian agreed. “The Einherjar has been sighed off Storm. What exactly Barnabas Tharmr wants is a mystery…but his is the only nation left in the Twins with the organisation to act against all these crises. Pitchforks and palisades cannot stand against an army.”

And should the King of Waloed choose now to invade, he would face only local defenses. Isolated towns, isolated militias. It would be a massacre. Or, more accurately, several massacres. And that was just from the Waloeders. There were plenty of bandits, or scared mobs, who would take advantage of the chaos.

He skimmed through several more of Vivian’s reports. They were as dire as she’d said. At last he had to hand them back with a sigh. “We’ll do what we can. I’m going to see Tomes about the skies.”

“You’re far more likely to get useful information from him than me,” Vivian said. “Best of luck, Clive. We’ll need it.”

Clive found the loresman in the midst of a stack of books. “Ah, Clive,” he greeted him. “I’m already working on it.”

“Any progress?”

Harpocrates held up an older tome. “‘And on the sixth day did the gods tear the sun from the firmament, visiting darkness upon their prideful sons and daughters.’ It’s only fragmentary, but it’s the best I’ve found thus far.”

“An account of the Sins of Dzemekys?” Clive asked.

“Indeed. I’ve been re-evaluating a great deal in the old accounts in light of recent events, though little of it has been of assistance.”

“Is Ultima one of the gods of Dzemekys, do you think?” Clive asked.

Deep down, he knew the skies had something to do with Ultima. He could feel it. A strange resonance between himself and the power blanketing the sky. It frightened him more than he could say. Or would say. Even to Jill.

Tomes sat up straighter, replacing his book on the desk. “From what you’ve said, Ultima has displayed powers we would associate with the divine,” he allowed.

“There’s nothing divine about him,” Clive ground out.

Clive’s snappishness did not offend the patient Harpocrates. “He wouldn’t be the first god of whom that could be said, now, would he? In any event, I am working from fairy tales more than historical accounts. Ideally, I would be able to obtain a journal of Moss the Chronicler, but alas.”

He tried to hide his frustration. “You have provided ample wisdom as long as you’ve been here,” he said. “We’ll see what books we can find for you. Whatever insights you can provide, I value.”

The clouds would not abate. It was going to be a long time before they saw the sun again.

—

Days passed. Joshua did not wake. Jote could not help but worry, though the physicker in the Hideaway, a woman named Tarja, said she wasn’t unduly concerned. “We see many Bearers here worked to the edge of collapse and beyond,” she said. “Aether depletion strikes everyone differently. The best cure I know of is sleep.”

Jote watched Tarja at work on others, so she knew the physicker to be both skilled and experienced. She knew what she was talking about. Still Jote fretted.

The Lord Marquess came to see his brother often. He could rarely stay long - Tarja frequently threw him from the small infirmary since so many people came seeking his advice or a decision - but he came every day. He did not speak to Joshua. He simply sat by his bedside and waited, often with letters or a book in hand.

After two more days of this, she summoned the courage to approach him. The Lord Marquess looked up at her approach.

“Lady Jote,” the Lord Marquess said. “What can I do for you?”

“My lord. Might I access one of the stolases here?”

As well as he was loved here (and he was loved, neither feared nor worshipped but truly loved, that was abundantly clear), she did find that stare a bit frightening. She knew what he was capable of. That sharp blue gaze was the last thing many an enemy of Sanbreque or agent of Hugo Kupka had seen. Those who threatened Clive Rosfield’s goals had a tendency to meet a swift, sure death. “There are others you need to report to?” he asked at last.

“Indeed, my lord,” she said. “They will be as concerned for Joshua as I am now. I seek only to put their minds at ease.”

Another searching stare. Jote asked a lot. There was no way the Lord Marquess could check a stolas message. He would have no way of knowing whether she meant to set enemies upon his home.

Yet Cyril would worry when the reports of Twinside reached him. And Joshua would not want Cyril to take out his worry on the Lord Marquess. 

At last he said, “All right. Come with me.”

She followed the Lord Marquess through the wood and stone warren that was Cid the Second’s Hideaway. He took her up a spiralling ramp, above a rudimentary classroom where a Branded woman was teaching several children their letters, above a room full of tables where men and women both were working on sewing, ledgers - anything that could be done indoors.

There were students everywhere in this place, though. The carpenters did their work to an audience, practically. Even now as Jote watched, the master tailor of the Hideaway slowed her work and explained to the three sitting nearest to her why and how she’d chosen to cut her fabric where she had.

The Lord Marquess noticed her attention. “You said you had an apothecary’s training.”

“I do, my lord.”

“If you are willing, I would appreciate if you would work with our botanists and the physickers, even Loresman Harpocrates,” he said.

Payment, Jote understood. She would not be here long enough to take an apprentice of her own, so in return for her food and lodging Cid the Second would see her assist his botanists in learning what plants they should obtain and any insight she had on their care and harvesting; his physickers in how she prepared medicines; and his loresman to note her methods generally and add to his records.

Many a master apothecary would have screamed in outrage that he should so casually demand the secrets of the trade. Jote said, “With pleasure, my lord.”

It gained her a warm smile which made him look all the more like his brother.

The stolases perched in a shaded space at the top of the Hideaway. The shade came from canvas, but the botanists had laboriously carted planters and soil all the way up - then planted vines. They were starting to crawl up the supporting pillars and form a canopy.

The Lord Marquess called a stolas to him and then handed it to Jote. “I would prefer if you do not tell your associates where, exactly, you are.”

“You have my word, my lord.”

She spoke the incantation as she pressed her message into the stolas. His Grace and I are alive and uninjured after events at Twinside. His Grace in need of rest. Currently under the care of the Lord Marquess, who has asked us not to reveal the location of his headquarters. No reason to believe we are captives or otherwise in danger. No immediate assistance required.

She flung the stolas into the air. Its wings caught and it flew away. Towards Tabor. She knew the Lord Marquess noted the direction the stolas flew; she had no doubts that the information would be in the hands of Lady Vivian within hours.

She hoped her message would not disturb Cyril overmuch.

—

They had a few precious days of rest. Metia knew, Jill needed it, though she had been spared the bulk of the fighting at Twinside. It was good to be home. She did her usual chores, trained with the Cursebreakers, went to her lessons with Harpocrates. Things that helped soothe her heart, despite the knowledge of what else was happening beyond the deadlands.

Joshua did not wake. She knew Clive was anxious about that. But she could also remember how exhausted she’d been those first few days after she herself woke in the Hideaway.

“Priming just…takes it out of you,” she tried to assure him.

Which only made him look guilty and concerned. Priming, she knew, did not exhaust him. Not since Drake’s Head. He’d confessed once that the last few times he'd primed or semi-primed, he'd felt better afterwards. It was an utterly alien concept.

“Why am I different?” he asked. “I just - I wish I could understand.”

“I’m glad you don’t,” Jill said. “It’s not something I’d wish on anyone, much less a friend. But Joshua will recover. It will just take time. And when he does, you’ll be there. In good health, as he would wish.”

“I know he would not begrudge me my health either, but for myself…this isn’t right. I cannot help but feel - feel that my Eikon, my existence -”

“Don’t you dare,” Jill said.

That did quiet him. It would not silence his doubts, she knew, but all she could do was say it. As many times as she had to. Whatever was different about him, for whatever reason - he had made more of himself. He had chosen something else.

He changed the topic. She let him.

The next morning, August called her away from her training. “Stolases,” he said grimly. “Two of ‘em.”

She found Clive, Otto, Dorys and Vivian clustered together in the mess.

“Jill,” Clive said.

“Trouble?”

“What else?” Otto said sourly. “Chaos everywhere.”

“The Cursebreakers are spread thin,” Dorys said. Had she always had those lines around her eyes? She wasn’t much older than Jill. “Most of them are still near Rosalith, or now the Dominion. There is good news there - we’ll have new recruits. Other than that…”

“Throngs of Akashic,” Vivian said. “When aetherfloods gather quickly…and the reports from Northreach are even more ominous. The Dame reports travellers around Oriflamme’s outlying regions are being ambushed by ‘creatures the like of which nobody has ever seen’.”

A chill went up her spine. The things that Ultima summoned…the things that hated everyone and everything…

Clive said, “I’ll investigate that one myself.”

He was welcome to.

He went on, “Jill, we don’t have enough people - will you go to Dalimil to assist L’ubor? His stolas said something about ‘mindless hordes’, but otherwise he wasn’t very clear. He just speaks like that.”

She met his eyes. She didn’t like to split up, much less when the world was so perilous. But she knew Clive. Knew that this was so they could both return here and speak to Joshua when he woke. “All right,” she said.

“You’ll like L’ubor,” Clive said. 

“You and Cid might be the only ones,” Otto muttered, “Little shit. S’pose we can’t let him get overrun by his mindless hordes, though.”

The rest of the day was full of more detailed planning and then, packing. The deserts of Dhalmekia always took some thought. And a sizeable bottle of a heavy ointment that prevented burns from the sun, rather than simple aloe to soothe them. Though Jill could withstand the heat just fine, Shiva was no protection from the burns.

To her surprise, Joshua’s attendant was the one who mixed it for her. “You’ve spent time in Dhalmekia, then?” Jill asked.

“Enough,” Jote said.

“Joshua always did burn in the sun,” Jill said. “I’m glad he had the opportunity to travel.” He always used to sneak into the library at Rosalith Castle, often choosing books about faraway places. Clive, no less an avid reader than his brother, though with different tastes and a little more sensible about the hours he kept, had dragged him back to bed more than once.

Hesitantly, Jote said, “It has been…difficult, sometimes, to restrain his enthusiasm.”

Was she jealous? Yes. Was she glad? That too.

She gave Joshua’s hand a farewell pat, thanked Jote for the sun-balm, and left to meet Clive at the dock.

Obolus pushed the boat across the black waters. Jill felt bold enough to take Clive’s hand again, away from all the eyes in the Hideaway. Clive squeezed back. “This won’t be for long,” he said. “Do you want to take Torgal?”

“I think we can let Torgal decide for himself,” Clive said.

Across from them, Torgal’s head rose at the sound of his name. Then he seemed to decide it wasn’t urgent and resumed his nap.

It might have been nice. A quiet boat trip with Clive and Torgal, knowing that Joshua would be waiting when they returned. Jill tried to focus on that, on the moment.

But there was no sun on her face and no sign when it might come out again.