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Chapter Text

A crimson-bellied airship punched through the clouds above the white-capped mountains that bordered the kingdom of Baron. She was the Xu, flagship of the Red Wings. Behind her, emerging in V formation, trailed four of her sister ships, identical in all but name. The ships rose and fell on the air currents as their ocean-going predecessors had on waves, but unlike those, these ships had but one small sail in their masts, and trailed at their sides great canvas fins that directed them. Their other two masts held aloft enormous fan-bladed propellers. The sound they made forcing the air through their blades could not be mistaken for any natural sound, and peasants below left their houses to look up at the noise of the engines as the shadows of the great vessels fell on them.

In the prow of the Xu stood a man in armor of darkest blue, a twilight sky on the verge of night, indistinguishable from black in all but brightest daylight. On his helm were curved horns, like those of a beast or some summoned devil.

A man in red uniform approached behind him on the deck “Lord Captain! We are approaching Baron!” he said as he bowed briskly.

The captain took a moment to respond, as if he had been lost in thought. “So we are,” he responded finally, and tore his masked face from the sky to turn and stride down the center of his ship. The crew had been swift at work, turning rudders and adjusting turbines as they prepared to make a landing, but as their captain walked through their midst they fell silent and still.

“Listen well!” he said, his voice carrying over the noise of the engines. “I know some of you are disturbed by what you have seen today.”

A murmur went through the crew, the captain caught only a few words in it, but they confirmed his suspicions.

“—innocents—“

“—troubles him too—“

“—thieves plundering from weaklings—“

“Enough!” the Dark Knight shouted, and silence fell, punctuated only by the chopping of the turbines against the wind. “We have done no more than Baron’s prosperity requires! The Mysidians knew too much of the magic of the crystals. The king had decreed it! Remember, we are the Red Wings of Baron! It is not our place to question the orders of our king.”

Silence fell again. An animal scream broke it.

“Monsters, ten o’clock off the starboard bow!” a man shouted from the crow’s nest.

“Aft as well!” shouted another voice.

The Dark Knight glanced around. Dozens of dark, winged shapes were circling the Xu and her sister ships. Their shadows fell on the sails. “Man the cannons!  Fire as they come in range!” he shouted. He shifted a kite shield the same night blue as his armor from his back and pulled a long, dark-bladed sword from the sheath at his hip.

Cannon blasts echoed from the Vermillion behind them, and one of the dark shapes burst into flames. More shots rang out with a sizzle of lightning in the air, the impact of magical cannon rounds. A shadow fell on the Xu, with hairy feathers, a long, snakelike neck, and a wingspan of more than thirty feet. The carrion bird that was the airship’s namesake let out a throat-tearing screech as it dove under the ship’s propellers.

The Dark Knight charged forward to meet it. The xu struck, its long neck like a viper’s, the series of quick strikes it rained down on the knight like the pecking of some smaller bird at a worm. The knight sidestepped the blows, and the bird’s broad beak hit the deck, splintering the wood. The third strike the knight caught on his shield, and sliced at the bird’s neck as it pulled back for another. He breathed in as his blade hit, taking in the power of blood and pain into himself through the sword. The bird struggled to take flight, but bleeding now, couldn’t quite get its mass into the air. It advanced once more on its quarry. The knight caught the bird’s head with his shield as it struck again, crunching light avian bones, and the knight swung his sword, his strength augmented with the bird’s own pain he had taken in, and beheaded the beast in one slice. Without its head, it took a few more, lumbering, spasmodic steps. Spurting red-black blood onto the deck, it fell.

The Dark Knight assessed the situation around him. A flock of three batlike creatures with single, huge eyeballs were diving at his men, who were shooting crossbow bolts at them. Some others attempted to get the cannons on them, but they were proving too small and too erratic to properly aim at. The knight leveled his blade in the direction of the creatures.

The substance of what he sent at them when he thrust his blade in their direction was hard to pin down. Some might say it was like a dark purple mist, or the afterimage that one sees after pressing one’s fingers to one’s eyelids. In any case, it was something more felt than seen, the vibrations of a scream barely heard. When it hit them, the monsters spasmed, ceased their flapping, and fell. Most dropped to the earth below, but one fell to the deck of the Xu, hitting like a stone, already dead, rolling its single, enormous eyeball to the sky.

With the last of the monsters dispatched, the knight flicked the black, monstrous blood from his sword and sheathed it. “Is everyone all right?” he called out to the deck at large.

“Aye sir,” a few of his soldiers answered.

“So many more monsters of late,” one of his lieutenants said as he kicked the creature over.

**

The ships landed in the cavernous holds of the lower levels of Baron Castle. As his men reeled in sail and doused the fires of the engines, the Dark Knight went down into the hold of the Xu and retrieved an unassuming object, wrapped in spare rope and canvas to protect it. It was about the size and weight of a newborn child, and touching it made the Dark Knight’s hands tingle and spasm even through its wrapping and his dark gauntlets.

He marched alone through the winding stairs and halls of the castle, to the anteroom to the throne room, where he met a man in the red uniform of the royal guard, with blonde hair closely cropped.

“Sir Cecil, I see you have returned triumphant.”

“If you can call it triumph, Baigan,” the Dark Knight said.

“Would you call it other?”

“The crystal is ours, but the Mysidians gave no resistance. There was no battle. It was a slaughter.”

“Do I detect some bitterness? Why? Is it not good that our enemies know better than to go against our might?” The man paused with his hand on the door to the throne room. “Hold a moment.”

The Dark Knight—Cecil—stood still, his blank armor and rigid posture betraying nothing of his mood to the four royal guards that flanked the doors.

In moments, Baigan returned and held the door open for him, bowing. “Enter, my lord.”

Cecil did, striding forward over a strip of scarlet carpeting on top of polished stone tile. To either side were single files of fighting men. A line of knights to his right, in silver-blue armor, and the dragoons to his left side, armored more variously, at attention with their spears planted in the floor beside them, their helms fashioned in the shape of dragons’ heads. Cecil frowned beneath his helmet. In the past, the royal court had been a much more relaxed, with fewer attendants, and none in this military display, not for anyone, but certainly not for him.

“Baron welcomes you home, Cecil,” said the king in tones for all the court to hear. He was a balding man with a thick, graying beard, sitting on a dais in the shadows of thick columns. “You have brought us the Crystal?”

“Yes, your majesty,” the knight said, freeing the object from its wrappings and dropping them to the floor as he approached. Underneath was a bar of clear crystal, an octahedral prism, perfectly cut and tapered into points, about the length of a man’s forearm.

Baigan lifted it from Cecil’s grasp and climbed the four steps to the throne to present it to the king. “It seems to be genuine, sire,” he said. The king took it into both hands and gazed into it. It had a barely detectable blue gleam that reflected in his eyes as he turned it.

“The water Crystal,” the king said tenderly. “How it shines.” His eyes flicked to the Dark Knight. “Well done, Cecil, you may go.”

The Dark Knight turned to leave, his steps loud in the silence of the hall, but as he neared the door he stopped. He pulled off his helm, revealing the pale face of a young man in his mid-twenties. Shaking out white-blonde hair, he turned to re-approach the king. His lips were a grim line. “Your majesty,” he said.

“Is there something else you require?”

“Father,” Cecil said. “What are you doing?”

“What?” asked the king.

There was shifting in the soldiers of the court, no words, no movements, their discipline did not allow it, but breaths drawn and muscles tense in the discomfort of playing forced witness to a family conflict.

“His majesty has dismissed you, Lord Cecil,” said Baigan.

“My men are troubled and confused,” Cecil went on. “They wonder—“

“And you, Cecil? Are you troubled?” asked the king.

“No, your majesty,” Cecil said, bowing his head and putting a hand to his heart. “I only want to know,” he said. “Why are we taking the crystals from unarmed people? If I understood your plans, I might better—“

“Silence. Do you think I do not already know of your misgivings? I have let your treasonous tongue say more than enough,” the king handed over the crystal to Baigan without looking at him. He folded his arms in the sleeves of his robe and looked down at Cecil. “You wound me.  After all I have done for you. If you no longer trust my judgment then I am afraid I can no longer trust yours. I am relieving you of command of the Red Wings.”

“What?” Cecil said, head snapping up, looking as though he had been slapped.

“Your Majesty,” said a deep voice from behind Cecil, and a dragoon in blue was breaking ranks. “Cecil has done nothing wrong.”

“Kain!” Cecil said with alarm as the other man stepped forward to stand beside him.

“He has done everything you asked,” continued the young dragoon. “You have no cause to punish him.”

The king leaned back on his throne, narrowing his eyes at the two men. “Very well, Kain, if you are determined to join him in insubordination, then you will also join him in disgrace. I have a task for the both of you. Complete it before you return to my sight. Go to the Valley of Mist and slay the eidolon there, and take this,” he said reaching in his robes to pull out a ring. He stood for the first time in their audience and walked down the steps to hand Cecil a ring. “Deliver it to the village beyond. They will know what it means. Now go.”

“Your majesty?” Cecil asked, taking the ring in confusion.

“I have nothing else to say. Leave, both of you, or I will have you removed.”

“Your majesty,” Cecil began again, but the king snapped his fingers. Baigan and another royal guard advanced on Kain and Cecil, and the two turned heel to go before they were forcefully ejected from the throne room.

Cecil spoke after the doors had shut behind them and they were out of earshot of the guards. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this, Kain.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kain said, shaking his head in his dragon helmet, only his mouth visible beneath it. “We’ll get this done and everything will be as it was.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Get some rest,” Kain said, clapping a gauntleted hand on his shoulder. “We’ll set out in the morning. I’ll take care of all of the preparations. I’m sure you’re tired.”

Cecil let out a breath. He was weary, but not in a way he was sure sleep would mend.

Chapter Text

Normally, upon his return to Castle Baron, Cecil would be overseeing the cooling down and maintenance of airships, assuring any wounded were attended to by the White Mages, making the beginnings of plans for their next flight. Having been relieved of command, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He couldn’t imagine resting. He stalked the parapets and courtyards of the castle, still in his armor, with both his own and his father’s actions troubling. He found himself in the bowels of the castle, in the long hallways of the magic laboratories, when a figure in white came running toward him, emerging from a shadowed arch in a long corridor.

“Cecil, it is you!” the young woman said, pulling down her hood to reveal curling golden hair trying to escape its ponytail. “I worried so. You left on such short notice. You didn’t come to see me when you returned. And I’ve heard you’re leaving again?”

“Rosa, I…. don’t worry about me,” he said, and found himself shying away from her. He wanted to be happy to see her.

“Cecil, look at me,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong, are you injured?”

“I’m unhurt.”

“Did it go badly? I heard you were successful.”

Cecil shook his head. He wanted to confess to her, but couldn’t speak the words. Telling her would make his actions real, undeniable.

Rosa looked at him for a long moment, and when Cecil still didn’t speak said. “I’ll come to visit you tonight, alright?” and before he could assent, patted him again on his armored shoulder, and passed behind him in the hallway, leaving him alone.

He continued his wanderings into a cobblestone courtyard, when a voice called down to him from the parapets.

“Heyey! CECIL!” the voice shouted.

From his position levels below, Cecil could only see the man’s bushy beard, but that loud voice could only belong to one. Cecil raised a gauntleted hand to him.

“Stay right there, boy, I’ll come down to you!”

Cecil had half a mind to slink off somewhere, but knew Cid wasn’t above chasing him through the corridors of the castle.

The man came huffing through a nearby door. He was short and broad, and dressed in dark coveralls, his face obscured by bushy beard and the pair of goggles he was never seen without. Rumor was that he had a bit of dwarf blood in him. Cecil smiled, momentarily distracted from his dark mood.

“Rosa’s been worried sick about you, you know,” Cid said.

Cecil’s smile vanished. “I… I know.”

“Come on, come down to the docks with me while I tune up our ladies. I wanted to talk to you, but that doesn’t mean I can shirk all this work you made for me.”

Cecil followed him, not quite having the heart to tell him that he could no longer claim any ownership over the Red Wings.

“Yeesh, I hope you treat Rosa better than you treat my girls,” Cid said as they entered the cavernous airship bay. “Vermillion had a burn in her fins, and Ibis needs a recalibration. Talk to whoever you’ve got helming her, Cecil, they’ve been running her too hot—“

“I—“

“What did you fight out there?” Cid asked as he lifted a comically large wrench from a work bench and propped it on his shoulder. “I didn’t think Mysidia had any kind of weaponry to touch our girls, though I’m sure it’s coming…” Cid said, walking into the opened hull of one of the Red Wings and expecting Cecil to follow.  “His Majesty is having me draw up plans for more heavily armed ships, faster, more cannon, more armor,” he turned to Cecil, his face lit only by a lantern in the manmade cavern of the belly of the ship. “You’ve got to talk to him, Cecil, I didn’t make these birds for war.”

“He won’t listen to me, Cid, I’ve told you. He hardly speaks to me.”

“Well if he doesn’t listen to you, who is he going to listen to?”

“I don’t know,” Cecil sighed, coming to sit on one of the wooden ribs that supported the ship’s hull, and resting his helmet beside him.

“Enh? What’s eating you, anyway?”

Cecil considered for moment which part to tell him. “His Majesty stripped me of command of the Red Wings.”

“What?” The man peered at Cecil for a moment, trying to discern if he was telling the truth. When Cecil didn’t look away or elaborate, he vibrated in anger for a moment before rolling up his sleeves and stomping toward the exit as if he meant to march right to the throne room. “Oh I’ll tell him. I’ll give him a piece of my mind if you won’t.”

“Cid!” Cecil said, grabbing him by the shoulder. “You can’t, you know what’s been happening to anyone who dissents, I can’t protect you if you--”

“I know, I know,” the stout man said, stomping in a little circle. “Who’s he gone and replaced you with? Who does he think can do it better?”

Cecil shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Cid let out a breath through pursed lips and turned his back on Cecil, turning the gasket on a pipe fitting with his enormous wrench. “There’s been some bad rumors. Mood in the town is grim. I’ve been thinking what we might have to do, if…”

“You probably shouldn’t finish that sentence.”

“No, I…. of course. But this is my domain down here, Cecil, if we’re not safe to talk here we’re not safe anywhere. You need to start getting prepared, if worst comes to worst, you’re the heir, if…”

“Cid,” Cecil pleaded. “Don’t give voice to this. He’s my father in truth if not in fact. I can’t contemplate what you’re contemplating. And I meant it when I said I can’t protect you.”

“Agh, forget I said anything,” Cid paused in his work and peered over a pipe at Cecil. “You’re obviously dead on your feet.” He waved a hand. “Get some rest. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“No, we won’t.”

“I mean it, Cecil,” Cid said, swinging his wrench to point it at him. “You need to start thinking about the future. It’s going to be worse if you don’t play your part in—“

“No, I mean, he’s sending me to Mist tomorrow, to deliver something.”

“What?” Cid said. “He’s fired you from the Red Wings and he’s sending you out like some errand boy? What the hell is he thinking?”

“I suspect it’s meant to be punishment for questioning orders.”

“Well, maybe he’ll reinstate you when you get back, then. He’s not sending you out alone, is he?”

“Kain is going with me. I suspect it’s meant to be punishment for him as well, he stuck his neck out for me.”

Cid hissed through his teeth. “There’s not much I can imagine that the two of you couldn’t handle, but still. Old Odin’s sending you out without an entourage?”

“I’m not a child, Cid, I can handle myself.”

“You’re the heir to the throne and you need to start understanding what that means,” Cid said, pointing at him with his wrench again. “You’re a valuable target, and any man alone can be vulnerable, no matter how strong a fighter he is. I don’t like anything about this. I was hoping talking to you would make me feel better, not worse.”

“Then you’re in good company,” Cecil said, and caught himself. “I’m sorry to be peevish with you Cid, you’re one of the few men that are actually honest with me. But, Rosa was going to meet me in my quarters. I should attempt to be there when she arrives.”

“When are you going to marry that girl, Cecil?”

Cecil sighed yet again, his exhalation matched with a drop of guilt and dread in the pit of his stomach. “When Father gives me permission, and since he won’t speak with me outside the audience of the full court…”

“Alright, alright, I get it. But if you break her heart, I’m lashing you to the front of the Xu as a figurehead. She’s practically a daughter to me.”

“I know, Cid. I know.”

“Speaking of which, I should get to work so I can get out of here myself, instead of standing here jawing with you. My own daughter is going to kill me if I pull another all nighter in here.”

“As would be her right,” Cecil said, standing. “Take care of yourself, Cid.”

“You too, kid,” Cid said, clapping Cecil on the shoulder. “Talk to me as soon as you get back.”

“I will.”

**

Rosa wasn’t there when he arrived. His tower room was empty, and as it ever was. The maids had turned down his bed for him. The shutters were open to warm, summer air.

Cecil got himself out of his armor, washed, and dressed for sleep. He perched himself on the side of his bed and leaned his head in his hands.

What was he going to do? Did his father want Crystals so badly he would kill all in his way to get them? And if so, how could Cecil stop it? Especially now, stripped of his command. He couldn’t defy the king, or, or…. Assassination? Whatever Cid was suggesting, it was unthinkable. King Odin had raised Cecil from an orphaned child. From literally nothing to heir apparent to the throne. What power Cecil possessed derived from him. But… Did he even consider Cecil his heir anymore? He had always spoken as if he did, but he had never made it official in writ or ceremony. And in the past months, he had scarcely treated Cecil as his son, speaking to him no more than he did any of his other soldiers.

Stripped of his command, Cecil was helpless to even take part of his father’s bloody campaign, and must simply wait helpless as whatever ends his father meant to carry out were accomplished. If Cecil hadn’t been stripped of his command, would he be questioning any of this? If King Odin had simply told him the reason for his desperation for the Crystals, would Cecil have simply gone along with it no matter who they had to slaughter?

In his mind’s eye, Cecil saw blood running bright across clear glass tile. He pushed the memories that came with it from his mind.

A bar of moonlight shone through the open window and slid slowly across the carpeted floor as Cecil ruminated. The clock on the cold mantle ticked, tortuously loud in the silence.

The door creaked as Rosa opened it. She entered quiet and furtive, but Cecil jerked his head up as if the door had banged open. Lost in his thoughts, he had forgotten he had been waiting for her. He stood to meet her.

“Cecil!” she cried, darting toward him and sweeping off her mage’s hood. She embraced him, put her hands to his face, kissed his cheek, his lips.

Cecil put his hands to her waist weakly, and did not return the kiss.

“What is it? What’s wrong? You weren’t hurt?” she grabbed his bare wrist, and Cecil knew she was using the skin on skin contact and her practice as a White Mage to feel out his energy for injuries. Finding nothing, she dropped his hand. “What happened in Mysidia? I’ve heard they’re sending you off to Mist tomorrow? So soon? What happened? What’s wrong, Cecil?”

Cecil sat down heavily on his bed and looked away from her. “Nothing.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

Cecil breathed out. The clock ticked out several more seconds before he answered.

“In Mysidia, we killed… a dozen? Perhaps two dozen… I don’t even know.”

“There was a battle, then.”

“No,” Cecil shook his head. “No. They weren’t soldiers. They weren’t knights. They weren’t even battlemages. They were dressed in robes, like mages or priests, but they might have been peasants for all the fight they put up against us. I was told to kill any who resisted us. I hoped they would stand down, but…”

Kill them. His own voice had rung in that vaulted room, and Cecil felt unreal as his men, who followed his orders at drills and at hoisting airship sails, also followed his command in slaughter. Cecil didn’t even look as the bodies fell around him. He only strode forward on his cleared path to the Crystal through cries of anger and panic and pain, his dark armor drinking it in as power to use for later. The man who Cecil guessed was the high priest had been old, the whiskers and eyebrows that peeked from under his robe gray-white. Cecil hadn’t even drawn his sword, wasn’t sure even now if he had meant to kill the old man. Cecil had grabbed him by the collar of his robes and jerked him out of the way. He was used to sparring with young men, fighting men, and was shocked at how light and frail the body in those robes felt. The man fell to the floor, and Cecil heard a wet crack as his skull met the tile.

In the present, Cecil felt Rosa’s gaze on him but didn’t dare look at her. “I suppose this has always been my fate as a Dark Knight. One day soon I won’t even feel remorse for it.”  

“That’s not true,” Rosa whispered. “You’re… you’re a good man, Cecil. That’s not… That’s not true.”

Cecil turned to look up at her. Her robe was open to reveal a brief dress, barely more than a slip. Her hair was loose, red blonde curls turned silver in the darkness. Her eyes were glints of moonlight. He knew her as well as he knew any other person, loved her. But she seemed like some alien creature to him in the dark room. What was she thinking? Why was she here?

She’d come here hoping for love. Deserving it. She got him instead.

Cecil clawed his hands into the bedspread and looked away from her. “What does it matter if I feel remorse if I’m a coward who can’t do anything about it?”

Rosa sat beside him on the bed, and leaned against him, and brushed another kiss on his jaw. Cecil fought not to shy away from her. He was not something that should be touched.

“You are many things, Cecil of Baron,” she whispered to the darkness. “But you are not a coward. The man I love is not a coward.”

Cecil looked down at his lap where she had cupped his hands in hers, and felt sick. Why wasn’t she running, or berating him for what he had done? Had he already pulled her down with him so far? Why was she comforting the monster for being a monster? Why wasn’t he pushing her away? Telling her to go while she still could?

Because he knew that would hurt her, and he couldn’t stand to that any more than he could stand to go against his father.

His throat constricted. He wanted to scream, or weep, but doing so would push his self disgust past tolerance. He laid himself on the bed instead, and she curled herself around his back, and rested her hand over his heart.

He breathed in shakily, unable to speak. He was disgusted with himself for being unable to deny himself the comfort of her touch, for needing her too much to push her away, for needing her, not even as a man needing a lover, but as a child needing comfort.

The clock ticked on interminably. Cecil’s breathing steadied.

“Why are you here, Rosa?” Cecil asked after long silence.

“Because I love you,” she breathed against his neck.

“I can’t… we can’t… be together, Rosa.”

He felt the hitch of her breath against his back. “Are we not together now?”

“Furtive meetings and healing my wounds and sneaking into my room at night. This isn’t… this isn’t a relationship. Since I took up the dark sword this has all been one long charade. I wanted to make you my wife, not endlessly take from you and give nothing in return.”

She let out a breath that tickled the hairs at the nape of his neck, and lifted her head on one elbow, and carded her fingers through his hair. “I am with you because I wanted to be with you. Not because I wanted anything else.”

“I wanted something else,” he said, turning onto his back to look up at her. “I wanted to be with you in daylight. I wanted to make you my queen.” He shook his head. “As if that was a power that was ever mine. How foolish was I to think that he thought of me as his son when I’ve only ever been a weapon to him. How foolish was I to do everything he asked of me, even so. I suppose I should still be grateful. Being brought up as a knight is still a better fate than that of most foundlings.” He stared into the shadows of the vaulted rafters. “Damn it. I can’t go against him. Even now.”

“I can’t… tell you what you should do,” Rosa said very softly. “But I will be beside you, regardless.”

She bent to kiss him, and he returned it this time, burying his fingers in her hair, melting under the sweetness of it.

He found that he was exhausted, not so much in body, but in mind and spirit. Too exhausted for guilt or for worry, or to do anything other than accept the weight of her body on his, and sleep. She curled herself around his chest.

“You should go,” he said blearily as sleep was taking both of them.

“You’re leaving again in the morning,” Rosa whined. “I don’t know when I’ll see you next.”

“It’s a short journey, and Kain will be with me. I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m glad you won’t be alone, but I worry. Everything you do is so dangerous. Promise me you’ll be safe.”

“I will,” he said, and received her kiss again.

She slipped from the bed and out of the door, closing it behind her.

“Thank you,” Cecil said to the empty room.

Chapter Text

Kain waited for Cecil before the gatehouse, in full armor and his dragon crested helm, leaning against a wall with his arms folded, two small packs waiting beside him.

“I owe you, Kain,” Cecil said when he approached. “I’m afraid I’ve left all the logistical work to you, my mind hasn’t been—“

“Forget that,” Kain said, standing up straight and handing Cecil one of the packs. “Just be prepared to back me up in combat.”

“Back you up?”

Kain nodded with a small smirk. “Five hundred gil says I kill this beast we’re seeking without you unsheathing your sword.”

“Ha! You’re on.”

Cecil took a pack from Kain and riffling through it, checking that they had everything they would need.

“They’re watching us,” Kain said, pointing one gauntleted finger up. Cecil turned his masked face from his pack up to the tops of the walls. The guardsmen in their bronze capped helmets were indeed peering down to look at them.

“We cut an impressive figure,” Cecil said, turning back to his pack.

Kain had to admit, with Cecil in his near-black plate and he in his own azure scale and plate, they were a fine sight to look at.

“The two best fighters in Baron…” Kain said in his deep voice.

“‘I saw them set out that morn, to slay the eidolon,’” Cecil said in a creaking parody of age. “That’s what they’ll tell their grandchildren.”

“Come on,” Kain said, and signaled for the guardsmen to open the gate. He walked out into the sunlight, with Cecil in perfect step beside him. He felt the eyes of the guard still on them, and couldn’t help the smile on his lips nor the swagger in his steps as they crossed the bridge over the lake and into the town.

“Do we need to buy anything for the journey?” Cecil asked once they had reached a turn in the path between the plaster and thatch buildings of the town.

“No, I think I have everything we’ll need, it should be short enough. Mist is…” Kain paused and turned behind them, gesturing toward the snow-capped mountains. “That way, as the crow flies, but we’ll have to cross through the mountains. The easiest way is the underground pass, to the west. I thought we’d go south and pick up some chocobos first, speed up the journey, avoid the worst of the monsters.”

“Is that laziness I detect, Kain?”

“You must be rubbing off on me. No. It’s haste. I want to get this over with. Get you back in his majesty’s good grace.”

“I thank you Kain, but…”

“But?”

“I fear it may be more complicated than that.”

Kain said nothing for a long moment as they walked the white cobble paths through the town. “Regardless… this journey to Mist is our next step.”

“Yes…” said Cecil. “And after…. We’ll see.”

The streets were nearly empty of people. Early morning sunlight made the whitewashed buildings of the town bright and the shadows gray and cold. A young boy ran across their path as they walked, and tripped on a gap between pavestones. Cecil reached out an arm to catch him. Looking up to see his benefactor, the boy scrambled away in shock. “S-s-sorry, Sir.”

“Just… be careful,” Cecil said.

The boy backed away, his eyes as big as moons. He turned and ran.

Few would have noticed anything amiss with Cecil underneath his dark carapace, but Kain noted the stiffness in his posture all too well.

“Hey, Ari!” they heard the boy yell from around the corner. “Guess who I just saw! The Dark Knight!” he yelled, his voice breaking. “The Dark Knight!”

“Let’s go,” Kain said.

The child wasn’t the only one who had a strong reaction to Cecil’s presence, a group of young women were breakfasting on little tables outside the pub. One of them eyed the two young men and whispered to a friend as they approached. The girl, who had been sitting with her back to them, sprang from her seat, spilling her drink.

“I didn’t, I didn’t say anything bad about the king!”

Another of the girls put a hand to the skittish one’s shoulder and spoke to Cecil. “Ayay, don’t mind my friend here,” she said, grabbing the hem of her skirt to show off her leg to mid-thigh. “Don’t listen to anything she says, hear, mister—sir Dark Knight.”

To Kain’s horror, Cecil slowed in his walk, definitely taking in an eyeful.

“Yeah, honey,” she said as her companions collapsed into hoots and giggles.

“Don’t look, you imbecile,” Kain whispered, popping Cecil in the middle of his back with the heel of his hand. “Keep walking.”

“I know her,” Cecil said, after they had walked in silence for a while.

“What, the girl hiking her skirts up? You would.”

“When I’d sneak out, to go to the dance halls and the taverns, I… I’ve danced with her. I don’t think she recognized me.”

“She can’t see your face.”

“Yes, of course, but…. When we parted…. it’s been years ago now, but she gave me a wink and called me ‘Prince.’ She knew who I was then, and she didn’t just now. I wonder, if to the common folk… I wonder if they know I am the same person?”

“You are the only Cecil among Baron’s knights.”

“Yes, but…” He glanced behind him and then shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

**

The houses and shops of the town became sparse as they traveled to the farmland beyond. The road became a path, and the two young men stepped off of it, into the wood.

“You’ve packed some gysahl in here, then?”

“Yes, I’m surprised they’re not nosing at our packs already,” Kain said, unshouldering his pack and pulling out a packet of wax paper, which he unwrapped to reveal a cluster of the leafy vegetable. He handed a fistful of it to Cecil.

Kain made a little whistle, like one would use to call a dog, and waved the leaves in front of himself. Cecil did similar, minus the whistling.

“I haven’t done this in… ages,” Cecil said.

“It will be like old times.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a chocobo in full armor.”

“They’re more than strong enough for it. If you were worried.”

Long minutes passed without their bait being taken.

“That’s strange, I’ve never had it take this long. I wonder if something has scared them off. Are there monsters about, do you think?” Kain asked.

“I’ve heard no movement at all.”

“Do you think we should leave the gysahl and wait out of sight?”

“No. If they’re not in the mood to approach us, they’re not in the mood to let us ride, and this will be a wasted effort. Mayhap we should split up. The birds might think we want one of them to carry us both.”

With a nod of agreement, Kain wandered into the trees in one direction, and Cecil in the other. No sooner than Kain had lost view of Cecil did one of the big birds stretch its neck around a tree trunk to peer at Kain.

“Hey, boy,” Kain said softly, approaching with careful, even steps. “Here, yeah, you can have some,” he said, pulling a leaf from his bundle, and holding it out to the creature, who snatched it with his beak. The creature’s back was at the height of Kain’s shoulder. He was a dark, mustard yellow, with a broad triangular beak and black, intelligent eyes. He blinked slowly at Kain as he chomped the leaf.

“You can have more, but this is in trade, right?” Kain whispered. Kain wasn’t sure whether the birds understood human speech, but they seemed to understand intent. The bird snatched another leaf, and then bowed its head. Kain patted its long, downy neck before climbing onto his back.

“We’re going to go meet my friend, alright?” Kain said gently to the bird once he settled on its back. He eased into an amble with Kain’s hands on his shoulder to direct him, back to the clearing where he had left Cecil.

Cecil wasn’t far away. When Kain caught up to him, he had taken off his helm and was looking up at the face of a pale yellow bird with rather magnificent tail feathers. A ray of sunlight filtered down from the canopy, making Cecil’s skin and hair shine shocking white against the shadows of the forest and the black backdrop of his armor.

“I think my helm scared them,” Cecil said, feeding the bird a leaf. “That was all.”

The bird headbutted him gently, and Cecil laughed. Kain didn’t mention that he hadn’t taken off his own helm, scarcely less fearsome to look at than Cecil’s.

“Shall we?” Cecil said once he was mounted.

Their birds broke into a run. Chocobos couldn’t fly, but they could fly, through the road winding through prairie and farmland. The crisp wind whistled through Kain’s helm as he hugged the neck of his mount.

“Race you to that tree, yonder?” Cecil shouted.

“You hear that friend, are you up for a run?” Kain said quietly to his mount, who trilled happily. “Yah!”

“Oh, no fair, you traitor, you can’t have a head start!” Cecil said, but with laughter in his voice.

Cecil’s mount proved to be the stronger runner, and the two set a more gentle pace after giving the birds a break. The two young men chatted occasionally, but mostly rode in companionable silence, each happy to be away from the castle and away from their duties, even if their reprieve was only another duty and even if this reprieve was meant as punishment. When the shadows grew long, they made camp at a travelers’ circle, and they and the chocobos went their separate ways.

Chapter Text

Cecil regarded Kain over the fire. With the both of them out of their armor, Kain was no longer the fearsome dragoon, but a tall, lean young man in loose trousers and shirt, his long nose turned to the sky, languidly regarding the stars as a small smile played across his thin lips. Warmth bloomed in Cecil’s chest that was one part fondness for his friend and one part the two fingers of liquor that friend had poured in his cup.

“I envy you, Kain, I envy the path you chose. You were right, all those years ago, not to take it.”

Kain started from his reverie, and absently tossed his hair in its long, straw blond tail from his shoulder to his back. He breathed in to speak, as he remembered, but stopped himself. A log on the fire shifted, sending embers flying into the sky.

**

The only man in Baron available to train two young boys in the art of the Dark Sword was a retired knight fortunate enough to outlive the wars he had fought in. His name was Sir Garland. In his 60s, he was white haired and white bearded, but had the remnants of a dried out, sinewy strength.

He had Cecil and Kain come to the training hall early in the morning. He had them sit on their knees in front of him, and he gave them each a dark-bladed knife.

“I understand you are both well-trained in sword and shield, or spear in your case, Kain. Sword is traditional, but there is no reason we can’t have the smiths and alchemists brew you up a spear for this purpose.”

“Your first lesson is pain,” he said, and shook out the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a series of thin scars on the back of his left wrist and forearm. “Eventually you will learn to inflict it on yourself without physical injury. But for now, you’re going to cut yourself.”

“Not…quite so fast,” Garland said, for Kain had begun to turn the knifepoint toward his own hand with some trepidation. “When you do so, concentrate upon the pain. Pain opens the door to a well of power within yourself. Normally, the body tries to keep that door closed. A blade of darkness acts as a wedge to hold that door open, so that you may draw from that well. The blade absorbs it, where you can release it as force to use against your enemies. Now, cut yourself and try to wick that power into the blade. In a moment you will try to direct that power toward me.”

Kain pressed the knifepoint into the back of his wrist. With a burst of willpower he drug in a straight line downwards, about an inch. Cecil made an unhappy noise beside him, cutting himself in a similar fashion. As the pain hit Kain, he tried not to grit his teeth against it, but to let it wash over him and through him, as he let a cold wind wash through him when he stood on the roofs in winter. He thought he felt some part of it wick into the blade, as an energy that gave his palm on the hilt of the knife a ghost of a tingle.

“Now,” Garland said, standing before Cecil in a ready stance with his hands folded behind his back, about six feet away from him. “Thrust the blade toward me, and strike me without touching me.”

Cecil made a stabbing motion. There were sword forms that began from kneeling, and the thrust Cecil made resembled those movements, perfect in form. Garland did not budge. He nodded, unsurprised, and moved on to stand before Kain.

Kain made a similar motion to the one Cecil had made, though he knew, to his pain, that it was not so perfect. And yet. Kain felt energy leave him as he made his thrust, and Garland rocked back on his heels as he was hit by that invisible force. He blinked at Kain.

“Very good. Cecil, again. Kain, when you do it this time, try to see, or feel, the depth of the energy within yourself.”

Again, the two boys cut lines across the back of their wrists. Again, Cecil did not move Garland at all. Kain, for his part, tried to discern what Garland meant as he bled. The pain seemed to open up a door within himself, like Garland said, but he couldn’t see what was beyond it. Garland, better braced for the impact from Kain’s strike this time, let out a huff as Kain’s wave of dark energy hit him.

“Again. Make the cut deeper if you need to,” Garland advised. Cecil hissed as he dug the knife into his arm again, and Kain understood for the first time that Garland was having them kneel in case they passed out.

Kain had the sense that what was behind that door was both like and unlike an underground cavern, the space impossible to see or feel out. Kain sliced himself across the arm once more, cutting more deeply, dimly aware that blood was dripping down his forearm onto the floor.

Pain seemed to strike a bolt of lightning in that underground cavern within Kain, lighting the power he was tapping, revealing it, like a vast lake within the caverns of his mind. Even in the flash of pain, he could not see the edge of it, or fathom its depth. Kain held onto the pain, savored it, closed his eyes against it.

Cecil failed a third time. Garland again huffed and rocked back on his heels when Kain struck him.

“You might try cutting into the same spot more deeply, to increase the pain,” Garland said to Cecil. Cecil nodded hurriedly. Kain watched as Cecil drew the knife across the back of his hand, obviously in increasing distress, shaking, struggling to do it at all.

Kain turned to himself, drawing a long line of blood across the back of his forearm and letting out a long hah of breath as the pain hit him, rolling his eyes in the back of his head, sinking himself, in his mind’s eye, into that subterranean lake.

Kain hated Sir Garland for making Cecil and himself hurt themselves. He hated him for making Cecil hurt himself worse for not getting it. He hated himself for going along with the lesson in the first place. He hated King Odin for suggesting it. He hated Cecil for being bad at it and having to hurt himself more.

Cecil’s strike did nothing for a fourth time. Kain’s knocked Garland flat on his back.

Kain was afraid that Sir Garland would be angry with him, but the old man rose creakily to his feet, laughing. “Oh, you’re a natural,” he said, looking down at Kain with an oily, possessive emotion that Kain wouldn’t be able to name until years later. “They’re going to write songs about you, boy.”

Garland dismissed Kain not long after, telling him not to go to a healer, to meditate on the pain and that dark space within himself until he returned the next morning. Cecil stayed, continuing to slice himself into ribbons Kain knew not how much longer.

Kain’s version of meditation was to stalk the castle grounds.

Kain didn’t understand why he wasn’t pleased. Perhaps because it was so easy. He had learned to catch himself with wind magic, to jump from a height and glide, to make the air push his jumps higher and back his strength. His father had made sure he learned these things young. Those lessons had come with their share of pitfalls and bruises and stern words from his father, because he must get it perfectly, or the landing might mean death. When he’d finally begun to perfect the dragoon’s arts, he felt pride for his pains. Yet the dark blade and the pain and opening the door within himself behind which was his shadowed self? That had been nothing. On that last blow, he’d actually felt like he was holding back, like he could have pushed Garland much harder.

And Cecil couldn’t do it at all. That gave Kain pause. Why were they so different? He could think of no reason that he would have a talent in it while Cecil did not that didn’t reveal a lack in Kain rather than Cecil.

He hopped into the air and pushed himself, upward, upward, from wall to wall and from roof to roof, to the top of the tallest tower. He balanced himself on the very peak of the conical roof, wrapping his foot and ankle around a lightning rod and tucking his other leg in a balanced figure four. He closed his eyes and let the cold night wind buffet him until he had goosebumps, until he forgot his goosebumps and the wind seemed to whistle through him.

This was the dragoon’s art, to make oneself transparent, to balance and push and catch oneself with the wind. It felt so different. The wind felt like forgetting himself, like forgetting he had a body that weighed anything until he could move on pure will. Dredging up the darkness within himself had felt like considering nothing but himself, like forgetting the world outside his own skull.

Here on the roof with nothing but the wind for company, it was easy to say what he preferred. Garland had said he could continue with both arts, adapt the spear to the Dark, but Kain doubted it. He suspected it was rather like Black and White Magic. One could learn both, but having a true gift for both was rare, with mastery of both schools of magic not even attempted by most and only achieved after decades of practice. Physical fighters simply didn’t have that kind of time before their body failed them.

Would he give up the wind for the dark?

Kain opened his eyes as he suddenly felt the chill. They’ll write songs about you, boy.

Kain only knew one song about a Dark Knight, and it ended with the man dying in an ecstasy of agony, surrounded by hundreds of the corpses of his foes. That deep subterranean lake within him, that source of darkness, he could tap it. He could channel all of it through himself. He could do it. He knew he could. It would be easy.

And once he had, there would be nothing else of him left. Not the wind. Not anything.

If he dove deep within that darkness, if he tried to find the bottom of it, if he submerged himself in it, something would rise again, dripping with that darkness. He wasn’t sure it would be him.

He imagined the weight and mass of that subterranean lake rising and coalescing into a person. A being. A monster. A creature of terrifying power.

He remembered a piece of his father’s advice: don’t run from anything weaker than you. A goblin will die or run from a good kick from a strong lad. But if you run into any coeurls or ogres or even a bigger pack of goblins led by one of those domovoi, you run. There’s no pride lost in running from a fight you can’t win. There’s no faith in foolishness. Don’t be a fool. Turn and run.

Kain hopped from the roof of the tower, down to one of the long roofs of the castle proper and paused for a moment. He turned back to where he knew Cecil’s window was. He hopped from the roof, caught himself on the ledge, and flipped inside.

Cecil gasped from his bed. “God, Kain, you scared me half to death.”

“Hey,” Kain said, rising from his crouched landing. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cecil said, but Kain saw Cecil’s bandage wrapped arms and weary eyes in the moonlit shadows and knew that wasn’t really true. He was sitting on his bed, with blankets covering his legs, but it didn’t seem that Kain had woken him.

“Did you ever get it?” Kain asked.

Cecil shook his head. “Maybe you can give me some pointers. So I can catch up to you tomorrow.”

Kain shook his head. “I’m not going back,” he said, making his decision as he said it. “And I don’t think you should either.”

“Why?” Cecil breathed. “You were so good at it.”

Kain shook his head again. “I can’t do this and be a dragoon too. And. I just think. It’s just like burning yourself up. Using yourself as fuel for a fire. There’s a reason Garland’s the only one left.”

“Yes, but. They’re the best warriors, aren’t they? If it’s what father wants me to do…?”

“Why, though? We’re not even at war and he wants you to do something this dangerous? I don’t like it.”

“I can’t believe you of all people are telling me to give up.”

Kain shook his head. “This isn’t being tough, it’s just being stupid. I hope you don’t ever get it.”

It was the wrong thing to say. “Why? So there’s finally something you can do that I can’t? Screw you, Kain, I’ll be the best Dark Knight in Baron.”

“You’ll be the only one.”

**

Kain looked at Cecil over the fire. Face bare, hair loose, dressed in loose shirt and trousers with his dirty, bare feet kicked out in front of him. Just an overly pretty young man. Not the creature that children and animals ran from. Not the terror King Odin seemed to be trying to make him. Kain’s friend.

“It didn’t feel like I was right, at the time,” Kain said softly, but his deep voice carried. “I thought about going back, time and again. More than anything else, it seemed wrong letting you do it alone.”

“I’m glad you didn’t come back. Oh, maybe it wouldn’t have taken the toll on you it’s taken on me,” Cecil said. “But I….” he looked away from the fire and shook his head. “I shouldn’t mope to you without action. Rosa already hears enough of it from me.”

There was a moment of silence.

“We’ll run this errand,” Kain said. “And we’ll go home and go to your father and speak on everything that’s troubling you. We’ll find out what his goals are, and then perhaps you can find some peace.”

“Do you really believe that, Kain?”

Kain let out a sigh. “I believe it’s the first thing we have to try.”

“What if he gives me good reason for taking the crystals at any cost? What if everything makes sense? Or what if he tells me nothing at all of his mind? Must I still continue?”

“It sounds as if in your heart you’ve already rebelled.”

Cecil snorted. “Perhaps I have. And already too late. I… I don’t know what to do. I fear every path I can take will be wrong.”

Later in the night, when they were lying beside each other in their tent, and Kain was nearly sleeping, Cecil said. “Kain, who are you loyal to?”

“What?” Kain said, alerted from his dozing.

Cecil lowered his voice, as if the protective stones and the grass surrounding had ears to hear secrets and lips with which to tell them. “If it comes down between myself and my father, who are you loyal to?”

Kain did not take long to think. “You, Cecil.”

Chapter Text

The path under the mountain had been well-traveled once, a merchant road from Baron to the outlying villages of Damcyan. A stream cut under the mountains, grinding over millennia a cave passable by humans and other creatures. Boardwalk filled in gaps where the natural stone floor was too perilous, but the boardwalk paths, after a decade of disuse, were also becoming treacherous from damp and disrepair. The occasional stone imbued with magic lit the darkness under the earth, flickering to life as any traveler passed, but many of these had also failed with time. One such stone flickered to pale blue life from the bottom of a shallow, still pool as Cecil and Kain stepped onto the wooden bridge crossing it. As the light stirred, so did something else from the faraway ceiling of the cave, fluttering great wings.

The flickering light made the shadows of wings huge against the cave ceiling, and their number impossible to gauge.

“Hells,” Cecil whispered as he readied sword and shield. Kain pulled his lance from his back, behind him.

“Hold, they may not attack—” Cecil started, but was brought up short as the first of the great, furry moths beat its wings down upon him. Its wingspan was nearly the height of a man, but it fell with one slash from Cecil’s sword, falling heavily to the boardwalk. Cecil kicked it over into the pool below.

With a “hup!” Kain Jumped, leaping well over Cecil’s head. He speared one of the great moths on his path back to the earth, landed in front of Cecil and speared a second as it dove in to harry him. Cecil started to run forward to stand beside Kain, but found his foot bound by an enormous, sluglike creature wrapping itself around his ankle. The thing was smooth and wet and gray in the flickering twilight. With a sound of disgust, he awkwardly prised the thing from his armor with swordpoint, and shook it into the pool blow, where it made a splash like a cannonball.

“Are you well, Cecil?” Kain called from the end of the boardwalk bridge, standing in a small graveyard of the velvety moths, still twitching their wings.

“Yes, just—ugh,” Cecil said, seeing one of the sluglike creatures crawling on the underside of the boards beneath his feet. He ran to Kain to be clear of the board path, and the slugs. Kain stood still, spear still at ready. There was the sound of movement somewhere deep in the cave, but nothing else stirred to attack them.

“Not much sport,” Kain said, returning his spear to his back with a twirl.

“We didn’t come here for sport,” said Cecil.

“No, but,” Kain looked around warily. “With all the talk of the increase in monsters, I was expecting worse.”

“We’ve a ways to go,” said Cecil. “We may yet find your ‘sport.’ And your ‘worse.’”

The pair wended their way through great, dripping columns of old stone. A light mist hung in the air. No more than was natural in a cave formed by an underground stream, but as they delved their way deeper, it seemed to thicken. Though still cool, each intake of breath became heavy with the damp of it.

“TURN BACK.” Said a voice, loud and feminine and sourceless. It made no echo in the cavern.

“Did you hear that?” Cecil asked.

“Yes, but I know not whether the voice was in my head or in my ears,” Kain answered.

“I wonder if that’s our eidolon.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Kain said. “Let’s keep going.”

The pair continued. They came to a point where the boardwalk path had collapsed. Kain neatly jumped the gap, a distance longer than his height, and beckoned Cecil to follow. Cecil gathered a running start to make the jump, but discretion became the greater part of valor before his feet left stone. He stopped short, his armored feet sliding in dirt.

“Come, I’ll catch you if you can’t make it the last foot or two,” Kain said, reaching a hand back to Cecil over the gap.

Cecil looked down. The distance to rock scrabble below was difficult to judge in the twilight. It seemed far enough that a fall would cause him injury but not death.

“You may need to scrape me from the rock,” Cecil said uneasily, but he backed up to make another running start, clenching his teeth as he jumped.

Cecil’s feet indeed did not quite find the opposite ledge on their own, but his hands caught Kain’s. Kain jerked him backwards the last few inches, and Cecil fell into him. The two kept their feet, but it was a near thing.

Kain patted Cecil’s arm through their armor, a clack of gauntlet against gauntlet when they had both found their footing, and released him.

“Do you hear that?” Cecil asked after they had again traveled a ways. There was a distant sound of running water, a fluttering of wings that might be bats or more moths, but there was another sound, lower, a whispering susurration.

Kain stopped and stilled. “Breathing?” he asked.

Cecil nodded. “You have a torch?”

“Somewhere in the packs. I was going to spare them if we didn’t need them. In case the lights fail further in.”

“Good thinking, but…. I would feel better with a brighter light just now,” Cecil said. He dug a torch from the pack as Kain found flint. With only a little coaxing, the torch took flame. Cecil held it high overhead as the flame quickened, and took in a sharp breath as he saw dozens of pinpricks of light reflected back at him. In the path behind, in a rocky ledge to their left, and as he turned to look around, behind a crack in the rock face to their right. Eyes. Dozens of pairs of round, staring eyes, silver and sickly yellow. Blinking at them from about a child’s height. Shadows that skittered away and then stared back again.

“Goblins,” Kain breathed.

“Have you ever seen this many at once?” Cecil asked.

“No,” Kain answered.

“Good thing they’re cowards by nature,” Cecil said uneasily.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Kain said turning to stare around the cavern, one hand behind his head holding on to the haft of his spear. “All sorts of monsters are growing more bold.”

“Who wouldn’t with numbers like these,” Cecil said. There weren’t so many that Cecil feared for his and Kain’s lives, but there were enough that he didn’t relish fighting the mass of them if they chose to attack.

“Let’s hurry on, I don’t want to have to stop to rest in here,” Kain said.

“Right,” Cecil agreed and continued on the path after Kain, but they got no more than a few steps before the cavernous voice spoke again.

“LEAVE AT ONCE,” she said. Silvery goblin eyes retreated deeper into the shadows.

“Show yourself!” Cecil yelled, but was answered only by the echo of his own voice. Undaunted, the two knights continued, Cecil taking the lead now.

They seemed to be gradually climbing upwards, yet the mist thickened and the air became more chill. Drops of water clung to the carapace of Cecil’s armor as if he had walked through rain. The two came to the place where the natural cavern ended. There was a smaller tunnel, a dark oval in the rock, where humans had hammered and blasted the rest of their way through to the other side of the mountain. Between Cecil and Kain and that exit was a wide, shallow pool.

Cecil dipped a foot in the water. His heel hadn’t sunk all the way in before his toe touched rock.

“I think we can wade it,” he said, but before he made another step, the voice spoke again.

“KNIGHTS OF BARON.”

“You know who we are?” Cecil asked the cave.

“LEAVE NOW AND NO HARM WILL BEFALL YOU.”

“So sure are you?” Kain challenged the voice. “That we’ll be the ones harmed?”

“YOU WILL NOT HEED MY WARNING?”

“We must deliver this ring to the village of Mist!” Cecil called out. “We will not turn back!”

“SO BE IT.”

There was a rush of air. Water droplets struck Cecil’s armor. The torch guttered and died. There was a moment of near total darkness before a few of the glowing pathstones came back to life. With each stuttering flicker of the glowing stones, a form took shape from within the pool and the swirling mist in stages. A huge creature, a flicker of the light revealed the swell of its back, another flicker showed its long, fringed, serpentine neck, another flicker, an overlarge head, its open mouth and long, transparent teeth.

“A dragon,” Kain breathed.

Cecil dropped the torch into the pool, where it steamed, and readied sword and shield.

It advanced on Cecil in stutters in the flickering light, striking like a snake. Cecil raised his shield to defend, but it availed him little. The head of the great beast crashed on his shield like a wave, and exploded into a hail of water droplets as it struck. That water seemed to seep into every gap in Cecil’s armor, soaking him to the skin. The water that struck him was unnatural cold and seemed to immediately begin to rime over in frost so that there was a cracking sound when Cecil moved. He shivered.

The light of the pathstones was constant, now, and Cecil saw Kain strike at the indistinct form in the mist that had just attacked him. Kain received a similar hail of freezing water for his efforts, and shook and stamped, splashing in the pool with his spear still at ready.

“There’s nothing to hit! It’s like striking at a pudding,” said Cecil. “I wonder…” he said, and sunk back on his heels in a ready stance, his blade parallel to the ground. He had not gathered up enough darkness in their brief combat with the moths, so he pulled it from himself, ripping at his own vitality as he thrust the blade into the mist. The howling, dark afterimage rolled into the mist but did not seem to strike anything at all. The mist swelled outward again, hitting both himself and Kain with another wave of freezing cold.

The two knights stood in uneasy readiness, unsure what to do. Cecil had a brief dread that they had been set against a foe they could not win against. A mage could have perhaps evaporated the thing with fire, but two knights with sword and spear could hardly pierce or slice a creature made of mist.

The mist swirled. The dragonlike form arose again and advanced on them.

“Distract it!” Kain shouted, and Jumped.

Cecil did as told and beat his sword against his shield with a clang. “Come on!” he yelled, his voice muted by the mist. Dark Knight and eidolon wove in a dance. The dragon struck with its serpentine head, and Cecil leapt to dodge it instead of taking the blow on his shield this time. The thing remained in its dragon form. It drew up its head to strike again, but its neck jerked upward with a howl of pain and rage as Kain, falling into its back spearpoint first, struck it.

The mist splashed outward again in a wave of freezing cold.

“I think I hit it that time!” Kain said, falling back beside Cecil.

Cecil sank back to his heels with his sword high, ready to strike with darkness again.

“Wait until it takes the dragon form!” Kain said.

The mist swirled but did not reform, leaving the two knights in suspense for a long minute.

“We need to end this soon or it’s going to freeze us to death,” Cecil said tightly against the chattering of his teeth.

“Aye,” Kain answered. “Though it seems a shame,” Kain said. “To see a dragon in the flesh only to slay it.”

“It’s not ‘in the flesh.’ It’s not real. It’s only an idea. That’s what an eidolon is.”

As if in response to Cecil’s words, the mist swirled again into the shape of the dragon’s head, striking at Cecil with its teeth before its body had fully formed. Cecil didn’t bother blocking this time, but thrust into it with his endarkened sword. He did indeed seem to strike something solid, and tore at the thing with his own lifeforce and the dark blade. Entangled with it, he could feel it shudder as Kain struck it as well. He pulled back his blade and thrust again with the force of darkness, gritting his teeth as stabbing pain bloomed from the interior of every one of his bones.

Again the creature dissipated, but the mist was not so freezing cold this time.

The knights stood again in tight readiness, their steps forming ripples in the pool. Cecil’s breath was coming fast and heavy.

“Are you well?” Kain called.

“Yes, but not for long,” Cecil answered.

The mist swirled again. Kain Jumped. Cecil pushed himself into readiness, banging the back of his shield with his sword once again. The dragon charged, its great legs not stirring the pool. Cecil ducked behind his shield to receive it. Kain struck.

There was a moment where Kain’s spear stood in the beast’s back, and then the dragon suddenly dissipated, as if its skin were the exterior of a bubble that had popped, and there was nothing but mist that floated outward weakly in the absence of its container. There was a ghost of the dragon’s shape, and then it was gone.

Kain landed with a splash. Cecil’s sword and shield felt suddenly immensely heavy, and his arms quivered as he brought the blade to its sheath and the shield to his back. He waded to the edge of the pool and sat heavily at its edge where he worked to slow his breathing.

Kain handed him a flask. Cecil pulled off his helm, took it from him, and took a long drink. The liquid seemed to sink into him as it poured down his throat, warming the chill, easing the deep ache that had set into him, fortifying weary muscles. Healing potion.

“Thank you,” Cecil said as he caught his breath. “That thing didn’t feel pain so I had to take it from myself. Too much.”

“Or just enough,” Kain said. “Our enemy is gone and we are not. Drink it all if you need to, I have more.”

Cecil did, and handed Kain the emptied glass flask, and stood, mostly steady. “There’s the hard part of our mission done, then.”

“Yes,” Kain said. “Let’s get out of here and into the sun. I’d like to warm up.”

Chapter Text

The sun was at its zenith when Cecil and Kain emerged into the valley of Mist. Despite its name, at midday the valley was bright and clear, drying out Cecil and Kain’s sodden underthings and easing muscles tensed against the chill as they wended their way down the last stretch of mountain, through tall, straight pines.

“It seems you owe me 500 gil,” Cecil said as he bounced down the mountain path.

“What?” Kain asked, genuinely boggled.

“You said you would defeat the eidolon before I so much as unsheathed my sword.”

“That was clearly a jest.”

“Was it?” Cecil called over his shoulder.

“I’m not so proud as to truly believe I would defeat an unknown enemy singlehanded. I was speaking to cheer you up. Get your mind off things.”

“Strange way to cheer a man up, issuing him a challenge.”

“I am a strange man,” Kain deadpanned.

“Never more right. Nonetheless!” Cecil continued, “I do remember you offering specific terms and I also remember accepting them.”

“You will also remember that I struck the final blow against the beast.”

“Yes, but those weren’t the terms you offered! Am I not to trust the honor of a sworn knight of Baron?”

Kain made an exasperated noise and stopped to rifle in his pack. He counted out the money, five silver 100 gil pieces, put them in a little cloth purse, and threw it at Cecil, who caught it against his chest, smiling.

“You know you need not actually give me the money,” Cecil said softly. With them both being wards of the king, and with Kain being in possession of a considerable fortune of his own despite his rather spartan way of living, coin was mostly symbolic between the two of them.

“If you’re going to question my honor over it I need to,” said Kain.

“I would never,” said Cecil. “I shall keep it close to my heart,” he said, and lifted his chin to slip it under his gorget. The little purse fell, under his armor, somewhere in the vicinity of his navel.

Kain smiled genuinely at that as he passed Cecil on the path. “Hope you don’t need to pay for anything before we disarm.”

“Oh, I have coin of my own aplenty. But tokens of Sir Kain Highwind’s honor I must keep more dear.”

“Shut up,” Kain called as he tromped down the path.

“Genuinely, Kain,” Cecil said after they had walked for a spell. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own. I’m grateful for your help.”

“I’m grateful you’re not passed out, facedown, drowning in a foot of water, which is about where you’d be without it.”

“Indeed.”

“I won’t say I couldn’t have taken the beast alone,” Kain said. “But it would have been considerably more troublesome without you taking the brunt of its blows so I could get a good strike in.”

“We’ll call it a team effort,” said Cecil.

“Aye,” said Kain, with a smile in his voice.

“How much further is it, do you think?”

“Want me to get a good look?” Kain asked. Cecil nodded, and with that Kain was jumping up the branches of a pine, needles showering in his wake. Cecil craned his neck up to see Kain in the crown of the tree, looking no bigger than a large bird at that height, standing on one of the top most branches with the crown of the tree in his hand, the tree bending with his weight and Kain swaying easily with it. Kain called down something that Cecil couldn’t make out, and then jumped from the top of the tree, doing a neat somersault and falling to the earth, slowing his fall to a float before landing lightly on the balls of his feet.

“Show off,” Cecil said.

“It’s beautiful,” Kain said, refusing to acknowledge Cecil’s complaint. “There’s a lake a little ways up the mountain, clear as a mirror, and falls that flow from it, to a little stream that’s about to cross our path.”

“And our village?”

“Less than a mile as the crow flies,” Kain said, gesturing with his hand in a chopping motion to the northeast. “Maybe two dozen houses.”

“Let’s finish our errand, then,” said Cecil.

Their path became more well trodden as they neared the foot of the mountain, and Cecil caught his first glimpse of the village, a few wooden walls and mossy thatched roofs. They walked between two wooden buildings into what passed as the village green. 

“I wonder where we’re meant to deliver it?” Cecil asked. 

“I’m sure there’s a mayor or headman or something to leave it with,” Kain said.

Chimney smoke rose from a few houses, but there was no other activity to be seen, the people seemingly shut up in their homes. Cecil felt suddenly strangely awkward. Two knights in full armor, coming from seemingly nowhere, striding up the village green. What an odd picture. Not quite a threat, but certainly not a friendly gesture.

Cecil looked around, trying to determine what direction a chief’s house might be in.

“Cecil, your pack…” Kain said suddenly. “It’s, um, smoldering.”

Cecil spun around dumbly, catching a whiff of smoke and burning leather. He shifted the pack off his back and dropped it. 

“There shouldn’t be anything in here that would burn,” Cecil said in confusion. “I dropped the torch in the cave and even if that was still in there it shouldn’t—the ring.”

Remembering the object they were assigned to deliver, Cecil opened the flap where had placed the ring. A puff of dark smoke flowed out. He fished the ring out with his gauntleted hands. A hole had burned through the cloth Cecil had wrapped it in, revealing a ring a little too large for a human hand. Had it been that big, before? The round, red jewels that studded its circumference glowed bright as embers.

“What…?” Cecil held the thing on the palm of his mail-clad hand. It seemed to stretch as he stared at it, the stones growing and glowing more brightly as he watched. The heat became too much to bear even through his armor and he dropped it. It singed a burning ring in the grass where it fell. Still growing, it rose, spinning, spitting out flames now. Cecil backed away.

The glowing jewels became balls of fire, balls of fire with grinning, monstrous mouths, spitting out more balls of fire, multiplying, expanding like balloons. The ring, a hoop of ash now, dropped to the earth, and the fireballs exploded outward in every direction, howling as they went. Cecil dropped to the dirt as one zoomed near his head. The fireballs flung themselves into the houses, landing with concussive, explosive bursts on every structure. Some of the townsfolk were realizing something was awry, now. There was the sound of running and of doors slamming open and shut. Someone screamed but the scream was cut off. The screams, multiplied, echoed, became indistinguishable from the sound of the flames.

“Why?” Cecil asked as he climbed to his feet. “Why is this happening?” He looked around helplessly as flames roared and wood splintered. “What can we do?”

Kain was standing very, very still. “His majesty meant us to slaughter these people,” he said.

“Why!?”

Kain shook his head. He had no answer.

Cecil spun around, not knowing what to do. He had never felt so foolish. So helpless. So frozen. He had nothing that could douse the unnatural fire that was still spreading. He stared at the porch of the house nearest them. There was a rocking chair, burning. A pair of boots by the door. Signs of a normal life, burning, melting in the flames. Someone screamed from within, an old woman’s voice.

From behind them was a sudden crash. The two knights spun to see what it was. An enormous wave of water crashed over one of the houses. Someone was trying to fight the fire, a powerful mage.

“We have to look for survivors,” Cecil said, coming to his senses.

“His majesty meant for us to kill all of these people,” Kain repeated, not moving.

“And what if he did!?”

“Are we looking for survivors to try to help them, Cecil? Or to ensure they don’t survive?”

“ Kain?!”

“Well, Cecil? Which is it ?”

Cecil darted through the spaces between burning houses, and Kain followed on a quick tour of hell. The only people they found were on the ground, on fire. On fire, and not moving. Cecil moved toward such a pair, but halted as he realized he had no succor to give what were likely already corpses. The only mercy of the unnatural fire was its unnatural quick deadliness. The heat and smoke continued to grow. Cecil paused, staring, Kain coughed beside him. They could not linger. Cecil ran on, slowing only to glance between buildings. Kain followed. 

Just when it seemed the search for survivors was hopeless, they turned a corner to see a garden that was as yet unburned. In it was a small, green-haired girl, trying to drag a lifeless woman by the armpits. The air here was relatively clear, and neither the girl nor the unmoving woman seemed to be touched by the fire. The two knights skidded to a halt.

“Come on, mommy,” the girl said, her broken voice barely audible over the spreading fire. “Come on, you can’t die.”

“Foul work to be sure…” Kain said, loosing the spear from his back as if in a trance. “But we’ll need to kill the girl as well.”

“Kain,” Cecil hissed, grabbing his arm. “Have you lost your senses?”

“It’s her or us!”

“No,” Cecil said, stepping between Kain and the girl and her dead mother. “ No! No more!”

“You’d betray your king?” Kain asked.

“He is not my king if he would order this!”

“Heh,” Kain said. His mouth was the only visible part of his face under the dragon’s head helm, and that was twisted in a deranged, one-sided smile, flames reflecting in his teeth. For a moment Cecil was sure Kain was going to stab him. Too late, Cecil’s hand twitched for the sword at his hip, but Kain lowered his spear. “I hoped you would say something like that.”

“Kain!?”

“I owe the king much, but not so much I’d dirty the dragoons’ name with his.”

“Then you’d join me in… in—”

“Treason? Rebellion? Civil war?” Kain said. He swung the spear back to his back and clapped a hand on Cecil’s shoulder. There were the beginnings of laughter in his voice, the sort of glee that presaged hysteria. “Count me in, but we have to get out of here first. Grab the child,” he said, twitching his head toward the sobbing girl. “We have little hope of saving anyone else here.”

“Thank you, Kain!” Cecil said, grabbing him by the forearm.

“I’m not doing this for you,” Kain said, jerking out of his grip. “We’ll need allies. We can’t go against the mightiest military in the world alone.”

“We’ll go to other nations,” Cecil said in a rush. “Tell them what we’ve seen.”

“Yes. And Cecil,” Kain said as Cecil moved toward the child. “Listen to me. Before we begin this. We have to get Rosa out of Baron.”

“Of course,” Cecil said, turning again to the wretchedly sobbing child.

“Come on, you have to go, I’m sorry,” Cecil said, kneeling beside her and grabbing her by the shoulder. She pulled away from him, but otherwise gave him no heed.

“What happened?” the girl was saying to the lifeless woman through tears. “Did your dragon die? Did you die because your dragon died? Mommy?”

“Dragon?” Cecil said, turning toward Kain. The two stared at each other in shock for a moment.

“I’ve heard of summoners,” Kain said slowly. “Men who can conjure and command eidolons.”

“Was the dragon we slew…?”

“YOU killed it?!” the girl stared up at them, wide-eyed.

“W-we…” Cecil stammered. “We didn’t know.”

“You killed Mommy’s dragon?” she wailed.

“We didn’t mean to—”

“YOU killed my Mommy?” the girl asked, clinging to the shoulders of the dead woman, her eyes huge, tears making tracks in the ash on her face.

“We have to get out of here,” Kain said, staring around them. “The trees are starting to catch. This village is done for. It’s going to be a forest fire. We need to get out of here as fast as possible.”

“Come with us, little one,” Cecil coaxed.

“No!”

“Come on!” Cecil said, grabbing her arm. 

“No! Go away!” the girl screamed, squirming and kicking, trying to pull away from Cecil, who was trying to pick her up.

“We’re trying to help you!”

“Knock her out if you have to!” Kain yelled.

Fighting with all her little might, the girl succeeded in pulling away from Cecil, and ran, clear of the burning houses. The two knights followed.  

“You have to come with us, it’s not safe here!” Cecil called.

“No!” the girl screamed, looking behind her with eyes wide with terror. “I won’t go with you!” She ran ahead to the widening path that led outside the village, and turned to face the knights. She gritted her teeth, and stood rigid, clasping her hands in front of her as if in prayer. Orbs of particolored light that didn’t come from the fire rose around her. The two young men stopped short. Behind the girl, the earth was rising, rising into a hillock as tall as the burning pines, rising to a shape like a broad, powerful man made of earth and rocks and turf. The thing took shape before the knights could make sense of it.

The girl raised one open hand, her dress billowing around her and her hair snaking about her shoulders with the power she was commanding. Her lips pulled back in a grimace of rage, an avenging spirit in the form of a tiny, green haired little girl. Behind her, the thing also raised its enormous arm. She closed her pudgy fist.

She screamed in a voice that must have torn her throat as she did it, bringing her fist down to the ground. The creature moved with her, striking the earth with impossible force, screaming with the girl from a mouth that was a hole in a voice that sounded like boulders crashing together.

For a moment, nothing made sense. The ground, the smoke, the fire, the very air seemed to ripple. The ground beneath Cecil’s feet fell away, and then rose up again, smacking him in the face and the knees. The entire universe shook.

Cecil ran toward the girl in staggering steps as the ground fell away and met his feet again. He grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder and kept running.

The creature fell into pieces as Cecil ran past it, only a pile of earth now. The girl went limp on his shoulder, but the quake didn’t end. The ground continued to shake and Cecil continued to run as behind him there came a world-ending rumble. Cecil looked over his shoulder only to see what he wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, the white caps of the mountains sliding down into the valley, snow flying into the air forming an oncoming wall of mist. He was thrown into the air once more, and lost consciousness before he hit the ground.

Chapter Text

Cecil came to with a jerk, the sun glaring in his eyes from the slits in his helm. He jumped to stand reflexively, and regretted it once he found his feet. Every part of his body felt rattled and sore. He looked around and found himself on relatively level ground in a stand of pines, the quake seemingly over, only a faint whiff of smoke on the air.

“Kain!” he yelled, turning to scan the trees around him. There was no answer. Did his friend make it through the quake?

“KAIN!?” he yelled again. He almost clapped his hands over the slit in his helm as his own voice echoed back at him, remembering something about loud noises triggering avalanches, and the mountain that he had witnessed falling. He couldn’t imagine Kain, with a dragoon’s affinity for the wind, with his miraculous jumps and dodges, being crushed beneath the earth. Cecil tried to remember when he had seen him last and realized he hadn’t looked back to him after that thing had arisen from the earth. He had been too focused on running, and on--

He heard a whimper and whirled around to find, near his feet, the little green haired girl, the one who had summoned the titan. She was crumpled in fetal position near the base of a tree.

“Hey!” Cecil said, and ran to kneel next to her. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently, and then more forcefully. She stirred but did not wake. He knelt beside her and patted her all over her little body, looking for injuries and not finding any, at least not anything so obvious as a badly broken bone. He wished, not for the first time in his life, that he had some skill at white magic, but he had only ever shown the smallest aptitude with the art and was therefore deemed more useful with a sword, even before he took up the dark blade.

He pulled open an eyelid, the pupil shrunk and the girl tried to curl away from him. Still she did not wake. Not a head injury, but what was wrong with her?

He stared down at her helplessly. Cecil had never been around children enough to begin to guess her age, but it was too young by far. Young enough that she looked round-faced and babyish to his eyes. She wore a simple sleeveless dress whose skirt seemed to be made of scraps of several different fabrics. A heart-shaped pin held back hair that was the color of a new leaf. Dirt smeared her face and her bare legs. Her green brows furrowed in unquiet dreams.

Looking at her, Cecil was more afraid than he had been as the village burned. She was so young. She was so small. He couldn’t leave her here. With her mother and her village now gone, there may not be any place for her left in the world. He was her mother’s killer, and he was all she had.

What safe place did he have to take her? What safe place was there, even for himself? He hadn’t committed treason, but he had contemplated it aloud. He’d been stripped of his rank and commanded to kill innocents unawares. He couldn’t go back to Baron, his heart rebelled at the thought of it. But Rosa! As the thought of her entered his head, he stood, and his feet unconsciously made a few steps back toward the direction he thought the mouth of the cave was in. Rosa was still in Baron, and Kain…! If Kain was alive surely he would make his way back home?

But Cecil was now sure he could go back to Baron. Not now, and perhaps not ever. He could neither leave the girl here, nor take the girl there.

Heartsick, Cecil sat on the earth beside the girl. As terrible as the burned and now crushed village had been, what made his stomach twist was that King Odin had sent him to do it unawares, with that awful ring in his pack. Cecil could have very easily died with the village, and Kain with him. That was very likely the king’s intention.

He silently begged the stars that Kain was alive and well enough to get to some sort of safety on his own as he picked up the girl and threw her over his shoulder. She weighed no more than a heavy pack. He started walking.

He had walked nearly half a mile before he realized that he didn’t know where he was going. He turned behind him to look at strange, newly formed mountains, raw dirt and rock, pines sticking out of it in the wrong directions. Should he have gone that way? With the terrain now shifted, he didn’t even know if he would be able to find the entrance to the undermountain passage he and Kain had come by. Crossing the mountains on the surface would have been impossible, even if he had the gear for it. What was on this side of the mountain? He knew the terrain by air well enough, but he had never had need or opportunity to see it from the ground. As he walked, he thought about where they must be and tried to form a plan. In the shadow of the mountains the land was relatively green and fertile, fed by snow melt from the icy peaks. But the further one went, the more dry the land became, morphing from pine forest to scrub and finally into sandy desert. The area was passed by the occasional nomads and caravans, but the nearest permanent settlement was…. Cecil’s stomach clenched with dread… an oasis. Well into the sands. Perhaps an hour or two’s passage in the air, but by foot? He couldn’t say.

He had no provisions, no potions, no gil, and an unconscious girl on his back. He mercifully still had a canteen that was strapped to his swordbelt, his shield, his sword, and his armor. His armor that he would broil in once they reached the high desert. Yet he couldn’t leave it, they were so likely to be accosted by monsters. He wondered if he should fashion some sort of sled, some better way to carry the girl, perhaps with his shield…. He kept walking east, forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other instead of giving in to panic. No. He had no tools to make such a thing. The surest things he had were his feet.

In the days to come he would think it a miracle that they hadn’t been attacked by monsters while the child was vulnerable and he was exhausted. He put one foot in front of the other. When he heard the sound of a stream he followed it. He filled and refilled his canteen and drank steadily as he walked, and prayed that the girl woke soon so he could make her do the same. He had nothing to occupy his mind but his own thoughts, filled with nothing but the horrors he had witnessed and worries of what might happen next. To him, to the girl slung over his shoulders, to Rosa, to Kain, to Baron, to Cid, to his men in the Red Wings. To the man he had called father. A thousand what ifs and maybes. A thousand unanswered questions.

His memory of the terrain from the air proved correct, though the miles were far longer and wearier on foot and with the burden he carried. Where the stream dried to a trickle, he laid the girl as gently as he could on the sandy soil and debated whether to continue on or to risk resting where they were until nightfall.

He dug his gauntleted fingers into the ground to let the last of the tiny stream pool into the hollow he made. As he waited for the water to flow, he caught of glint of light out of the corner of his eye. The silver blue of the magical etchings of a travelers’ circle. He took the girl into his arms once more, praying what he saw wasn’t a mirage or the beginnings of madness.

His vision proved true. The traveler’s circle rested in a tiny hollow in the bleached rock of the foothills. Perhaps manmade, barely deep enough to be called a cave.

He laid the girl down once more, and sat with his leg against her back so that he would know if she moved. He leaned against rune carved rock, taking a few moments to breathe deeply, and get what he could of rest. 

He woke in confusion to night illuminated by pale moonlight. When he got his bearings, he realized he had woken because he was cold, and that the girl’s warm little body was no longer beside him. His heart raced in sudden fear for her, but a quick look around made him realize that she was sitting at the cave’s mouth, casting a long shadow over him.

“You’re awake,” he said.

Her gaze spun toward him, and she stared long and hard at him with wide eyes, but said nothing.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” he said.

“You should drink some water,” Cecil said after a long minute with no reply from the girl. He reached for his canteen and realized it wasn’t there. The girl raised it to her lips and drank from it.

“Ah,” Cecil said. “I’d give you food if I had any. How long was I asleep?”

No answer from the girl but a wide-eyed stare.

“How long has the sun been down?”

Another stare punctuated by the occasional blink.

“You do… understand me, right?”

The girl sighed, a more weary sound than should have ever come from a child that age.

Cecil thought back to the village, to her screams to leave her alone. She understood.

“I suppose you don’t want to talk to me,” Cecil said, and felt a new horrible emotion in a day full of horrible emotions, the shamed sadness of a kicked dog. He had less than no right to her trust, but his nerves were raw, and her rejection stung all the worse for being deserved.

Cecil watched as she looked out onto the desert. He was surprised that she hadn’t run away while he had been asleep, but he thought back on being that young. The unfamiliar landscape of short trees and spiky brush casting long shadows in the moonlight must be terrifying to a child. On this night it was terrifying to him. He had so few tools to conquer it.

“Can you walk?” Cecil asked her. She did not reply.

“Listen,” Cecil said. “You may not believe me but I’m trying to help you. Your village is gone. There is no safe place for you where it was. My home may not be safe either. We’re going to have to cross the desert to the nearest town. I don’t have any food or a tent or any sort of shelter or tools. We need to go as fast as possible so we can walk as much of it by night as we can. I could carry you, but without food or rest I’m not sure how far my strength will take us. So: can you walk?”

She nodded, but she closed her eyes as she did, her face a theater mask frown, and Cecil realized she was closing her eyes against tears.

“Hey. You can’t do that now,” he said, not liking how harsh he sounded. “We have a hard road ahead of us. You need to be strong.”

The girl nodded and sniffed, but that frown that looked like it might turn into a scream at any moment hung on her face. She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand, and then with the back of the other. She hugged her stomach and curled into herself, holding her breath to hold back tears. A stuttering sob escaped her nonetheless. She was fighting it with everything she had, and losing.

Cecil looked away. He needed her to stop crying, but how could he comfort her? He was the source of all of her grief. They needed to get going. He didn’t know how many hours of night they had left or if they were already too late. He put his helmeted face between his hands, twisting his gauntlets over the horns of his helm as the girl whimpered and sobbed.

“Right,” Cecil said to the girl after a long moment of grinding down panic beneath his will. “Drink everything in that canteen, I’m going to go to the stream I got it from and drink as much as I can myself. I’m going to come back and take it from you and refill it, and when I’ve done that, we need to go.”

He turned back once he had taken a few steps out of the cave. “Don’t waste water on tears!” he turned back again after taking a step. “You’re going to have to be strong if you want to survive.” He turned his but pivoted back once more. “I’m sure that’s what your mother would want.”

When he returned the second time with the canteen and his belly full of water, her face was still a portrait of misery, but she was on her feet.

Later, Cecil’s memories of that trek would come in brief moments, images saturated with colors of emotion. Asking the girl her name, how old she was, whether she had any pets (and realizing as soon as he said it that it was a terrible question because if she had then he had killed them), what her favorite color was. Anything to get her to speak and to distract her from her misery, but she didn’t answer any of it. Urging the girl to keep going when she sat on the ground and started to cry, using every encouragement and dirty trick he could think of. Finally carrying her on his back with her arms clasped around his shoulders when she began to stagger from weariness. Fearing he had already killed both of them by taking this route. A thump and shower of falling sand in the distance making his heart race because he remembered there were sand worms in this desert big enough that he had seen them from the air. Moments of strange beauty, the clarity of the cloudless night sky, the moon setting over the dunes, tracing out Artemis in the stars with her bow, thinking of Rosa, desperate desire to see her again lending strength to his stride for a few hundred yards. Dread mounting as the sky lightened from black to indigo to azure.

The girl wriggled off his back when the sun rose.

The canteen was long empty. Sweltering in his armor, he realized she had fallen behind. He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth to call to her and realized she was kneeling in the sand with her hands cupped in front of her. A cool breeze spun around her and an ice crystal bigger than his fist and growing was spinning above her hands.

“Oh bless you,” he croaked as he knelt beside her. “How much of that can you make?”

She shrugged. The ice fell into her hands. She crunched a part of the ice crystal in her mouth and handed the rest to him. Then she placed her open palms on his breastplate and frost crackled outward from her hands, riming his entire armor, cold a blessed relief as it washed over his body.

They passed the next few miles with considerably more hope, the girl balancing Cecil’s shield above her head to protect her from the sun, but the effort of keeping them hydrated and cool with her magic on top of the many miles with too little fuel took their toll again and she was soon too weary even to hold on to Cecil’s back.

In this state, Cecil finally stepped into the little oasis town called Kaipo, his arms shaking from holding the green haired girl, asleep (he prayed merely asleep) with her soft cheek squashed into the hard carapace of his breastplate, every step an active act of will, feet and knees and hips aching.

The spaces between buildings were almost empty near the peak of the midday heat, but the shadows of palm leaves and cloth awnings fell on him like a lover’s caress.

A woman came out of a building and shooed him toward the inn, assuring him the owner would give them lodging.

As his eyes adjusted from the midday desert glare to the shadowy front room of an inn, a dark haired and dark mustached man emerged from behind a beaded curtain and stared at Cecil.

Cecil, so focused on their destination, had not given thought to what to do when they got there, or to how strange they would appear.

“I… we….” He thought of removing his helm, but couldn’t with the girl in his arms. He had some trouble forcing his thoughts and words to flow, and had a horrible vision of being turned away after trekking so many hard miles. “We came from Mist, to the west. There was an earthquake. We may be the only survivors. I need a place for her to rest but I have no way to pay you.” He bent his head. “I must rely on your mercy, and you on my honor that I will pay you back when I am able.”

The man mouthed Cecil’s words silently, finding something about them amusing, as his eyes flicked over his armor to the girl in his arms.

“Is she well?”

“Merely exhausted, I think.”

“She looks pale. You crossed the desert on foot?”

“Yes.”

The man laughed weakly. “I’m not sure if I am impressed or horrified. But you may stay of course,” he said, pulling a key from below his counter and walking to a hallway, gesturing for Cecil to follow. He unlocked a door and showed Cecil inside.

“Rest. The house is empty so the mercy costs me little.”

Cecil laid the girl down on a narrow bed and watched her for a moment, reassuring himself that she breathed. “Thank you,” he said, turning back to the innkeep. “I hope there is some way I can repay…”

The man waved a hand. “We’ll discuss it later. Rest.”

Cecil was tempted to flop on the bed opposite the girl immediately, but knew both he and the innkeep would regret it, so he began the arduous task of removing his armor by himself, letting each piece drop to the floor with less care than he usually would have managed. As he removed his breastplate, something else fell to the floor. Puzzled and bleary, Cecil knelt to pick up a small purse.

500 gil, Cecil realized, remembering. Kain Highwind’s honor.

Chapter Text

In the evening, the innkeep knocked on their door with bowls of rice and some sort of mild curry. Cecil shook the girl awake to offer her the food. She watched him with a fixed, round-eyed gaze as she sat up.

“It’s me,” Cecil said, realizing she might not have connected his face to the creature in the horned armor. With that he also realized he hadn’t exactly introduced himself. “My name is Cecil. Will you tell me yours?”

The girl only stared at him, stone-faced.

“Well, we made it,” Cecil said, sitting on the floor and digging into the food. “We’re at an inn at the oasis.”

She sat on the bed and picked at her bowl while Cecil ate gratefully.

“How old are you?” Cecil asked the girl from where he sat on the floor.

She opened her mouth to answer, but stopped herself. Cecil ducked to hide his smile.

“Well, however old you are, you’re a very brave and smart little girl,” Cecil said. “We may not have made it without your ice. Thank you.”

The girl continued to pick at her food.

“You need to eat to keep up your strength,” Cecil said. “You’ve had a hard day.”

The girl frowned and stopped poking her spoon around the bowl.

“I would think that a such a brave girl would not be afraid to try new food?” Cecil said.

With that the girl put her bowl down on the bedside table, laid down, pulled the blanket around herself, and turned away from him.

Of course it would be grief rather than childish pickiness that choked her appetite. How dare he speak to her as her mother had probably spoken to her.

Cecil put his own bowl on the floor and bent his head, burying his hands in his hair. What could he say? I’m sorry?

“It’s my fault you lost your mother,” he said. “And I can’t…. I know I can’t ask you to forgive me, but will you let me protect you? Will you at least let me take you someplace safe?”

But he was talking to the girl’s back. If his words reached her she showed no sign.

Cecil was an orphan himself, but he’d been taken in by the king when he was a babe less than a year old. The loss of his parents or any other family he might have had was long past remembering. He didn’t wonder where he might have come from or who his birth family might have been very often, but he wondered now. Who had they been, and what had taken them from him?

The little room they were in had an arched window shuttered with thick wooden blinds that Cecil stood and opened. A cool night breeze wafted in with the rustle of palm leaves and the faint fragrance of some desert bloom. Beautiful. Peaceful. Remote.

Cecil sighed. In the morning, he would try to find some sort of work to repay the innkeep, and think on where he and the girl should go from here. For now, he settled himself in the narrow bed once again, and slept.

He awoke to the thud of a fist on a door and rolled out of bed, disoriented in a dark and unfamiliar place. There was another muffled series of bangs and he realized the insistent knocks hadn’t been on the door of their room, but one nearby. There were men’s voices, low and insistent, one sounded familiar, but Cecil couldn’t place it. Men from Baron, then. Cecil looked around the room. The child was still in bed, apparently asleep.

The room was dark. He considered trying to get dressed, but had only the padded shirt and leggings he wore under his armor, not much better than his underthings. Did he have time to get in his armor? Did he have need? He took his shield and leaned it against the bed, and unsheathed his sword and leaned it beside it.

There were voices from nearby, more than two people, but difficult to say how many. They were making a lot of noise, dragging furniture across the floor, searching for something. For someone. For him. He had expected this, but not so soon. Would they force him to return to Baron? Would they kill him? He glanced back at the window. He wouldn’t be able to leave that way without destroying it, and he didn’t have time. The only way to flee was across bare desert with nowhere to hide, and he didn’t relish returning that way without supplies.

Whatever trouble he was facing, he would have to face here.

There was a bang at the door, he opened it a crack.

“Lord Cecil,” the man on the other side of the door said. “We’ve found you.”

“Captain Davit,” Cecil said slowly, matching the voice he had heard to the man that was in front of him, an officer of the king’s guard with a square jaw and curling brown hair.

“We’re to take you back to Baron, king’s orders.”

“Will you allow me to get dressed?” Cecil asked.

“Ah,” the man said, perceiving Cecil’s bare chest and feet for the first time with some embarrassment. “Yes.”

Cecil shut the door and scrambled to put on his armor as quickly as he could. Once he had pulled on his helm, he hesitated, trying to decide whether or not to wake the sleeping girl. He shook her shoulder.

She tried to pull the covers over her head. “Hey,” Cecil said, pulling the blanket away. The girl made an unhappy groan. Round eyes blinked at him groggily. “Some soldiers are here, trying to take me back home. Things may get ugly.”

“Who are you talking to?” Davit said, opening the door wide. The light from the hallway fell on the girl.

“One of the Mist villagers?” Davit asked Cecil. “A summoner?”

Cecil stood upright slowly and picked up his sword and shield as he turned to face him. “Yes,” he said.

“The king said you’d turned traitor. I didn’t want to believe it.”

Cecil said nothing, standing still between the knight of the king’s guard and the girl.

“Stand aside and let us end this, Cecil, and the king will pardon all you’ve done.”

“’All I’ve done?’”Cecil repeated. “The king would have me slaughter a village full of people, including children, and you want to speak of what I’ve done?”

“You’ve preserved a threat to our country that should be pulled up by the root!” said one of the men behind Davit.

“You believe that, do you?” Cecil asked, tilting his head toward the man that had spoken. “You’d kill this child and call it good?”

“Yes!”

“Well. Come on and try, then,” Cecil said, dropping back into a ready stance.

Davit took a half step back, and the soldiers outside the door shifted uncomfortably. Cecil was well known in Baron as a superb fighter, and the dark blade shone best against human opponents. Cecil smiled grimly beneath his helmet. Six against one and they didn’t like their odds.

“We don’t have to do this, Lord Cecil,” Davit said, his hands up, placating. “The king is willing to pardon everything.”

“No,” Cecil said evenly. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to follow the orders of a king willing to slaughter the entire world if it means he can get his hands on a few shiny baubles.”

“I’m afraid we do,” Davit said, reaching for his sword.

Cecil charged at him with his shield, not letting him unsheathe it. Davit stumbled backward as Cecil hit, into the soldiers behind him who were now struggling to loose their own weapons. Cecil pulled back his sword to strike, aiming at the man’s neck between faceguard and gorget. If there was a moment where Cecil might have had mercy on these men, it ended the moment his blade tasted flesh. His swordtip pierced the man’s neck, angled downwards, and caught somewhere between ribcage and armor.

Blood spattered the dark armor and Davit fell to his knees with an awful gasping sound, clutching at his maimed throat. The dark armor poured the power of the dying man’s pain and fear into Cecil’s body. His heart beat double-time. Cecil had thought that this fight would demand perfection, outnumbered as he was, but these men were not prepared to fight him. They never had been, and were now even less so with their captain gurgling out his life’s blood near their feet. The first two soldiers behind Davit were looking down at their dying captain when Cecil struck. The power flowing into the dark knight augmented his strength so that each sword-strike dented armor as he tangled with the two knights of the king’s guard. Cecil backed deeper into the room, daring them to attempt to take him one by one. One took the bait and died as the dark sword pierced his armor under the ribs. The next was slashed across the face in the same motion Cecil used to withdraw his blade. The injured man showed impressive fortitude and still brought sword and shield to bear against Cecil even as his cheek and nose streamed blood, forcing Cecil to block, and block, and block again as the remaining soldiers also rained sword blows against him. Each blow seemed to echo into Cecil’s body through the shield and armor, strengthening his limbs, lengthening the seconds. He was experiencing a dark knight’s power in full in a way he had never quite been able to in training or in combat against monsters. The dark armor and sword drank blood and pain and death and killing intent. The soldiers’ movements seemed weak and slow. Cecil sliced through an arm holding a shield and thrust the ribs behind that shield, piercing armor, into the chest, into the heart.

Three soldiers remained standing as Cecil danced backwards, flicking blood from his blade. Their dead and dying comrades lay between them and Cecil. Cecil slashed his sword in the air, heavy with Dark power. The wave of Darkness washed over all. The three who were still standing fell, dead before they hit the floor. All were silent. No lungs drew breath. No heart beat but Cecil’s.

And that of the little green-haired girl behind him, sitting up in bed.

Cecil sat on the floor and pulled off his helm, breathing heavily.

“Are you alright?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” Cecil said, closing his eyes and clutching his sword against his shoulder. “I’m not hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” the girl said in a small voice.

“You have done nothing to apologize for. I should be the one apologizing to you. Even if I never stop apologizing there’s nothing that can right what I’ve done.”

The girl slid from the bed. She pattered on bare feet to stand in front of Cecil and look down at him. “But you protected me anyway.”

Cecil nodded, looking up at her.

“My name’s Rydia,” the girl said.

“Nice to meet you, Rydia,” replied Cecil.

Chapter Text

Cecil loaded brick after brick after brick of square, adobe brick into a handcart and rolled it to the men he was working with. As soon as he had settled it down, another man waved him over to where he was stomping out mud in a little enclosed pit to make mortar. “Fetch more water for this would you?” the man asked Cecil, and Cecil nodded and took one of the big, clay jars they had been using for the task and hoisted it onto his shoulder. He walked slowly toward the narrow canal that flowed from central oasis pool, and settled it into the shallow water to let it fill. He pulled the veil from his face. The sun was near setting, its heat pleasantly warm instead of beating down on him as it had earlier in the afternoon. The first of the night’s stars twinkled on the horizon.

Cecil righted his pot and bent to retrieve it from the water. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and heard the patter of feet. He stood, hands in a low guard in front of him, ready to fight, though he did not have his sword or shield. He relaxed as he realized it was neither monster nor Baronian soldier that approached him, but three children, one of whom was on the back of the oddest looking creature.

“Cecil, Cecil!” Rydia called from the back of a beast that was almost-but-not-quite a chocobo, as it splashed into the canal. “Meet my friends!”

“Hiiii!” called a little girl smaller than Rydia that was running after the not-a-chocobo.

“You don’t look like a knight,” said an older boy that looked like he was perhaps the small girl’s brother.

“Who said I was a knight?” Cecil said, amused. “Rydia, what? What are you riding?”

“You’re covered in mud!” the boy said.

“I was working,” Cecil said, holding out a quelling hand as he looked at Rydia. Her mount sauntered out of the water to stand next to Cecil. Its head was at the level of his chest.

“This is Boko,” Rydia said, beaming. “You can pet him if you want, he’s nice.”

“Wark,” said Boko. Not the sound that chocobos made that humans imitated with the word wark, but the actual word. “Wark,” Boko said again. Its beak moved open and closed in the stiff motion of a puppet.

“And what is Boko?” Cecil asked warily.

“He’s a chocobo!”

“No,” said Cecil. Boko, for one, was the ideal size to be a mount for a seven-year-old. A real chocobo chick might be near Boko’s height but had different proportions, more like those of a chicken, without the long legs of Rydia’s mount. Boko’s head was also far too large, especially his eyes, which were fathomless, black, unblinking, and about the size of Cecil’s hand. They were also, Cecil realized when Boko turned, not positioned symmetrically on his head, with one very near the rounded beak and one way too close to the plumage—which was one solid crest and not made of individual feathers—on the back of his head. Looking at the thing was beginning to put Cecil on edge. He held his hands up, palms open, not sure whether to pet the thing or ward it away.

“Haven’t you seen a chocobo before?” the other little girl said, as if Cecil were obviously being very stupid.

“Not like this one,” Cecil said slowly. He put a hand on the thing’s head, smooth as an egg and lemon yellow. What he was looking at, he realized as he patted its roughly beak shaped nose, was something like a child’s drawing of a chocobo made flesh, grossly the same shape but wrong in all the details. Suddenly his hand went through the thing, and it disappeared, leaving only a brief, smokey afterimage.

Rydia fell to her backside with an oof. One arm and elbow hit the water with a splash.

“Aww,” said the boy. “Bring him back, Rydia!”

Rydia shook her head, making her fluffy green hair wobble.

“Come on, Rydia!” the girl chimed in.

“He’s not coming back today,” Rydia said as she stood up, wincing.

“Awwww, I miss Boko,” the little girl whined. “Can’t you bring him back?”

“No!”

“C’mon Rydia…” the little girl whined again with the beginning of tears in her voice.

“I’ll bring him back tomorrow!” Rydia said, standing stiff, her little hands balled in fists. “Don’t you cry about it, or I won’t!”

“Rydia…” Cecil said slowly. “I think it’s time for us to call it a day.”

Rydia closed her eyes and nodded. “Bye Kasi. Bye Mela.”

“Bye, Rydia,” sniffed the little girl.

“Thank you, you two, for playing with Rydia,” Cecil said.

“Oh, no problem,” said the boy called Kasi. “She’s pretty great. You know, for a little girl.”

“Yes, she is,” Cecil said with a smile. “Help me look out for her, would you?”

“Sure,” said the boy. “I’ve got to watch Mela anyway, it’s no big deal.”

“Thank you,” Cecil said. “Have a good night, you two,” he said, hoisting his jar of water to his shoulder.

“See you tomorrow!” Rydia called as they left. “I can play with them tomorrow, right?” she asked as she jogged behind Cecil.

“I think so,” Cecil said. “But… I’m not sure you should have let them see Boko.”

“Aww, but Cecil—” Rydia whined.

“You summoned him, right?”

“Yeah! You told me to practice my magic!”

“Yes, but I meant black magic, Rydia, not…. That.”

“But making Boko stay is way harder than black magic.”

“That may be, but Boko isn’t going to be very useful if someone attacks you. Or tries to take you away.”

“Yes he is! He can kick really hard!”

Cecil sighed. “Even so. No one should know that you can call things like him, alright? Plenty of people can do black magic. It doesn’t call the same amount of attention. There are still going to be Baron soldiers looking for us, and the more people who know you can do that, the easier it will be for them to find us. You may have even put your friends in danger.”

Rydia was quiet for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, in a warbly voice.

“Just… tell them to keep it a secret. And don’t let anyone else see. I’m glad you’ve made friends, but…. You know we won’t be able to stay here much longer.”

“I know.”

“I wish it wasn’t that way. I wish you could stay. I’m sorry.”

Rydia was quiet for several strides, then she ran ahead, spread her arms wide, and said, “If we have to keep running, that means we’ll see the whole world, right?”

Cecil gave her a sad smile. “Maybe. But I hope we can find someplace safe before we see all there is to see.”

Cecil had been working the past several weeks, throwing himself into whatever manual labor the innkeep and the village at large seemed to need. The work paid more in good will than it did in gil, but Kain’s bet money and the innkeep’s generosity were so far keeping them afloat. The innkeep, whose name Cecil learned was Azem, had gone far beyond what anyone owed to someone in need. He had given Rydia clothing, old things that had belonged to his grown-up daughter, loose trousers and vests, some of which had fine embroidered and beaded patterns on them. Cecil had needed to fend for himself in that regard, buying clothing in light desert fabrics that was little more than rags, but Azem had nonetheless insisted on giving Cecil the hat that he wore now, fretting about his pale skin in the desert sun. Cecil was grateful. His armor had protected him from the sun when they had made their crossing, but Rydia hadn’t been as lucky. Cecil had found out that she could do white magic as well as black when she told him casually that she had healed her own burns before they could get too bad. Even with her healing magic, her skin was still flaking in places.

More than protection from the sun, the veiled hat gave Cecil a small amount of anonymity. Most of the people of Kaipo were dark skinned and dark haired. The people of Baron were fairer in complexion on average, but Cecil was unusually pale even there. Here in the desert, his face stood out nearly as much as his armor did.

Kaipo existed by virtue of being a convenient stop on caravan routes for water and supplies. The caravans carried news from all corners (though unfortunately nothing recent from Baron), and would eventually, Cecil hoped, carry them away from here. A caravan could take them northeast, to Damcyan or Fabul, or to the southeast, to any number of fishing villages. From there they could perhaps find a boat to a larger port, and from there go…. Anywhere. Cecil was favoring the idea of going by sea. There was only one route by land from the desert, another undermountain pass like the one he and Kain had taken to Mist, and that would be the way anyone pursuing him from Baron would be most likely to follow. Unfortunately, passage by ship would require funds that Cecil didn’t have.

So he worked.

Beyond their lack of funds, Cecil was reluctant to take further steps away from Baron, not knowing when he might be able to return or if he would ever be able to return. He fantasized that Kain might come limping out of the desert, or that he could take a boat south to Baron and sneak Rosa out. With Rosa by his side, running from Baron for the rest of his life would feel much more like Rydia’s dreamy world tour.

If he had been alone, he might have risked smuggling himself into Baron in order to smuggle Rosa out, but he had to think of Rydia. He had to keep her safe.

The only things Cecil had bought so far with Kain’s gil other than the clothes on his back` were a pack much like the one he had lost at Mist, a handful of healing potions, and a carved wooden rod tipped with a round, polished crystal, about the length of his arm and suited for a beginner practitioner of black magic.

Rydia was gifted, and Cecil prayed that gift might save her if she were attacked when he could not protect her, or—stars help them both—if he was killed.

When he wasn’t busy working, Cecil had taken her a short distance beyond the walls of the little oasis town, where they had walked in circles until a sahagin or two pulled themselves out of the sands to menace them.

The sahagin were disturbing to look at, roughly man shaped and sized, but fishlike, with scaled skin in shades of red and blue, fins on back and limbs, and long, needle-like teeth. Like all monsters, they seemed to hate people beyond reason or self-preservation. Cecil grappled with the things, avoiding striking them while he waited for Rydia, circling the crystal of her little rod in front of her, to cast the spells to take the monsters out.

The magic itself she needed little help with, which was fortunate as what little knowledge Cecil had of it came secondhand from Rosa. What she needed real practice with was keeping her calm and concentration in the midst of battle. Once, when one of the monsters charged at her, she had turned around and ran, and once she had ended her cast to bat ineffectively at one of the monsters with her rod, and Cecil had needed to kill the fish men himself before one of them caused her serious injury.

With the sahagin dead and dying in the sand, she knit the bleeding gouges from teeth and claws on her arms and legs with a little green-white glow from her rod.

Part of Cecil wondered if he wasn’t being monstrously cruel to her by putting her through this. Part of Cecil was merely grateful that Rydia’s healing abilities meant they could save their small supply of potions for emergencies.

Cecil reasoned that he himself had gone through similar training when he was not much older than Rydia, and when he thought of the trackless path ahead of them… Sahagin may be the least of their worries. Rydia needed to learn to defend herself.

“You’re late,” the man who had been stomping out clay told Cecil as he arrived with his burden. “Just put it in the shadow of the wall there, we’re wrapping up for the day. Hey kid,” he said to Rydia. Rydia beamed at him. A few of the other workers waved at her, and she waved back. If not for Rydia, Cecil sometimes wondered if the villagers would tolerate him at all.

Cecil and Rydia made their way back to the inn, passing close to the outer wall of the town. As they passed, Cecil’s mind fell on what he knew was on the other side, bordering bare desert. Six unmarked graves, already difficult to distinguish from the sandy desert soil surrounding them, earth leveled over the bodies. Azem had helped him dig the graves and drag the men to their resting place in the sand, the greatest of his favors to Cecil after not turning them away. Azem had suggested the spot, where knee-high grasses fed by the oasis grew. The roots held the sand in place, so that wind would not shift it and reveal the corpses. Azem had watched Cecil nearly the whole time it had taken to dig the graves, mostly silent. Whatever judgement he made of Cecil, he kept it to himself.

First the Mysidians, and then Cecil’s own countrymen. The superstition lay that wielders of the Dark Sword were cursed. King Odin had dismissed those fears. We’re only bad luck to our enemies, Garland would say. But the old knight also spoke of old comrades, of men that survived the battles that expanded Baron’s borders only to die of illness or suicide in middle age, leaving only Garland behind and he too now years dead.

“Did it have to come to this? Would they really have killed her, I wonder?” Cecil had thought aloud as he and Azem tamped down the earth over the graves. “Maybe I should have….” What? He wondered, even as he said it. Waited until one of them was aiming a sword at Rydia’s throat?

“They said they were going to,” Azem said, leaning against his shovel. “You have to take a man at his word with that kind of thing.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Cecil had said, thinking of the crystal room in Mysidia. He had been as good as his word there.

He had spent the next day scrubbing the blood from Azem’s floors, contemplating the debts he owed and could not repay.

Azem was sitting on a stool at the counter of the inn when Cecil and Rydia arrived, apparently waiting for them. He hadn’t done that the past several days, instead going about his business and treating Cecil and Rydia as semi-permanent residents with comings and goings that didn’t need attending.

“I need to speak with you, Cecil,” he said, standing as they entered. He looked Cecil over and took a moment to decide how to say what he had to say. For a moment Cecil was sure he was going to tell him to get out of his inn and out of Kaipo and not so much as look back. “A man from one of the caravans told me they found a girl wandering the desert. She was in bad shape, seemed to have been lost for some time. She was delirious and not talking much sense, but… one of the things she said was your name.”

Chapter Text

“Where is she?” Cecil asked Azem, his throat constricting around his words.

“The infirmary down—”

Cecil spun around and walked back out the inn doors, letting them flap behind him. Rydia ran after him.

“Who is she? Who is she?”

“She’s my—” Cecil started. Cecil couldn’t encompass what Rosa was to him in a word, and couldn’t be certain it was her, besides.

A middle aged woman with graying hair in a bun answered the door when Cecil knocked.

“What are you here at this hour for?” she asked.

“The girl you brought in from the desert. I think I know her, is she here?”

“Yes, but… she’s not in much state to receive visitors,” the woman said, but held the door open so they could enter.

The back of the clinic held three narrow beds, divided by curtains. The one in the corner was occupied, a head of tangled blonde hair poking out of the blankets. Cecil ran to her.

“Rosa!” he said, reaching to touch her.

“Mister, I wouldn’t wake her, she’s been—” the caretaker said and sighed deeply as Cecil reached for Rosa’s shoulder—for it was indeed Rosa. She made a piteous whine as she turned and stirred, squinting her eyes shut and turning her head this way and that as if she were fighting something in her sleep. Her lips were cracked and her skin had the same new, too pink look Rydia’s had, as if she had recently been healed from burns.

“Rosa? Hey. It’s me, it’s Cecil.”

“Cecil!” Rosa said, and sat straight up in bed.

“Rosa! I’m so glad you’re here, I’ve—”

“Cecil!” she said again, gripping the front of his shirt. “Cecil!”

“Yes,” Cecil said, grabbing her arms. “It’s me, I’m here, I’m here.”

“Cecil,” she groaned, and Cecil realized that though her eyes were open, they weren’t really focusing on him. “They’re going to kill Cecil!”

“I’m fine, I’m here, I’m alright.”

“I’ve got to find Cecil,” she said, throwing off Cecil and her blankets, trying to get up.

“I’m right here.”

“You’re not listening!” Rosa said. “The king is going to kill him. Golbez is going to kill him. I have to get to Cecil,” she said, fighting her blankets to try to stand up. When she did stand, she staggered three steps and walked into the curtain dividing her bed from the others, and batted at it, shrieking. Cecil put a hand to her shoulder, but she shoved that off too. “LET. ME. GO.” She said, with wide-eyed animal fury that Cecil had never seen from her.

“Rosa…” Cecil backed off, bewildered.

The matronly woman put her arm around her, and said “There there, doll, all is well, nothing is going to hurt you here, nobody is going to kill anybody.”

“Why?” Rosa sobbed. “Why don’t you listen to me,” Rosa said, but let the woman lead her back to the bed, and sat there, crying senselessly.

“I wish you hadn’t woken her, mister, she’s been like this. Going on about a Cecil and a Golbez and a Dark Knight and somebody’s killing somebody.”

“Golbez?”

“She’s a wreck, I wouldn’t put any credit to anything she says.”

“Yes, but she’s not wrong about… well, some of it,” Cecil said weakly.

“I take it you know her.”

“Yes, she’s my…” Cecil paused for a moment. “Girlfriend,” he said, and frowned, finding the term inadequate, but he was unable to call her anything like fiancé or stars forfend wife, not and there be any truth to it. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked, continuing to watch Rosa heave heavy sobs on the side of the bed.

“Delirious, happens sometimes with the desert fever.”

“Will she get better?” Cecil asked the woman, who had sat beside Rosa on the bed, and was holding her hand and patting it.

“Yes. Well, most like.”

“’Most like’?”

“I’m not a true physicker, mister, just a little bit of a white mage and an apothecary. I expect she’ll see improvement in a day or two. You said her name was Rosa?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a pretty girl, Miss Rosa.”

Rosa didn’t respond to that. With her hair tangled and skin peeling and sobbing into her hands she was a pale shadow of herself.

“You have no idea,” Cecil said. “What will you do for her?”

“Have her rest. Give her extra water and food and cool baths. Most like, she’ll be better in a day or two. Probably she was just unlucky and the sun hit her worse than most.”

“I thank you for taking care of her. I… don’t know if we’ll be able to repay you.”

The woman didn’t look exactly happy about that, but she waved a hand. “Ah, you know, pay me if you can. But I’m not going to toss this poor dear back on the sands like this, don’t you worry about that. My name’s Magda, by the way.”

“Cecil,” Cecil said.

“So I’d heard,” Magda said with a smile. “And who’s this pretty little thing?” she said, looking at Rydia, who was watching Rosa with wide eyes.

“You can tell her,” Cecil said when Rydia didn’t say anything.

“Rydia,” she said, still watching Rosa.

“That’s a very pretty name,” Magda said. Rosa shifted, trying to lay down, and Magda let her, saying “There you go, there you go, doll. Rest.”

Cecil sat in a chair beside Rosa’s bed for a long time. Rydia sat on the floor and leaned her head on Rosa’s bed and asked him questions about Rosa. She’s a white mage. She’s very good. Yes, I’m sure if she were right in her head she could heal herself. I’ve known her since we were children. She’s very kind, and very smart.

Finally Rydia asked: “Why do you think she tried to cross the desert by herself?”

“To help me,” Cecil said softly, watching Rosa as she put her head in her hands and mumbled some words he couldn’t make out. In fact, helping Cecil had been the reasoning behind a great deal of Rosa’s decisions, including studying white magic, but doing anything this ill prepared wasn’t like her. Cecil looked through the things Rosa had been found with. She had her bow, but no arrows. She had a small satchel, empty save for some cloth wrappings that had probably once protected some sort of food. She had nothing to hold water with, and she didn’t have her white mage robe, which would have been heavy in the desert but would have at least protected her from the sun as well as offering some magical protection against monsters. Why was she so desperate that she tried to navigate the desert half-prepared? What did she think she could save him from, alone?

Rydia eventually fell asleep, head on the narrow sickbed and knees on the floor. Cecil couldn’t let her spend the night that way, so he scooped her up in his arms. Cecil paused, looking at Rosa, sweating and fitful in some state between dreams and waking. He couldn’t do anything else for Rosa, for now, but he could take care of Rydia. So he pushed the door of the little clinic open with Rydia balanced on his hip.

The little green haired girl stirred in her sleep but did not wake as Cecil carried her through the little oasis town. He paused near the pool, the reflection of the greater moon a broad lane of silver on its surface and the lesser moon a narrow, red stripe. He looked at Rydia’s face on his shoulder, shadowed in the moonlight, soft and nerveless with sleep. “You’re going to be too big to carry soon, little one,” he said softly. And suddenly, that small grief, that this little girl would soon not be so small or so innocent, broke him. She was already showing signs of growing up too soon, spurred both by what he had endeavored to teach her and the disaster he had brought upon her. He hugged her close to his chest, staring out at the silvered pool, breathing shakily. The moonlight blurred, he blinked his eyes, tears catching in his eyelashes with no free hands to wipe them with. His arms were full.

“I’m being stupid,” he said out loud to himself. “Rosa’s here. Rosa’s alive. She’ll be well.”

But she wasn’t, not the next day, or the next day, or the next.

Cecil came to visit Rosa often. He found he couldn’t keep his mind on anything else for long. He would try to talk to her, but Magda would tell him to stop, that he was upsetting her. She was certainly right that it didn’t seem to be helping, especially when he tried to tell her of the events that had led him here.

“She doesn’t know who you are,” Magda hissed at him as he left. “But she knows you’re upset and it’s making her more upset. Come back later when you can be calm.”

Cecil bit back the desire to yell that he was calm at the closed door.

There was no route to learning the Dark Blade save through pain. On the very worst nights, Cecil had felt as if his bones were barbed and every movement was tearing his flesh. He was unable to do anything but breathe and even that hurt. Rosa had stayed awake with him, his face pressed against her thigh and her hand on the back of his neck. Her magic would ease the pain, but not for long. What gave longer solace was her touch. Her hand in his hair or on his back couldn’t end his hurts, but they eased his tension against them, gave him courage to take a full breath, made it so he could believe that he wouldn’t feel like this forever. Through it all she had remained calm, gentle, cheerful even, as she sang softly and murmured reassurances.   

All will be well. All will be well.

He couldn’t do the same for her. He couldn’t muster up that faith.

Magda judged Rosa’s needs as one would judge a child’s too young for speech. When Rosa became more upset or fitful, she gave her food, or made her lie down, or took her to relieve herself.

“I can help with that at least,” Cecil had said.

“No you can’t, mister! You say you’re her man but until she’s well enough to say so herself it’s going to be another lady tending to her!”

And so Cecil sat back, feeling ever more useless and helpless.

Magda made her eat and drink, but every sip was a fight, and she was fretting that it wasn’t enough. Rosa was beginning to sleep more, which relieved Cecil at first. She was so difficult to watch while she was awake.

“She’s wearing down,” Magda said sadly. “She’s a strapping little lass and she’s barely ate or drank enough for a babe.”

Cecil followed Magda when she went behind her curtains to prepare medicine. “Is there anything else you can do for her?” Cecil asked. “This isn’t working.” He’d asked her this before and gotten bland assurances that it would take time.

“I don’t know,” Magda put down her mortar and pestle and went limp. She turned to Cecil. “I know how to treat desert fever, I’ve done it enough, but I don’t think that’s what this is. I had suspicions in the beginning, but now I’m near certain. She’s not feverish, not anymore. When she came in, she was still fully awake and walking, and as delirious as she was, she should have been on her back if it was just the sun that made her sick. And if you really are her man, she ought to be getting some comfort from you being here. She ought to know you even if she can’t make sense of anything else, but she doesn’t. It’s like she’s trapped in a nightmare.”

“What would do that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried everything I thought might help and a few things I was pretty sure wouldn’t. I wish I knew.”

“Please,” Cecil begged. “If there is anything you know, if there is any sliver of hope, tell me. I cannot sit here and watch her die.”

Magda chewed on her thumbnail. “I haven’t wanted to say, because I don’t think we’re going to be able to get it.”

“What is it?” Cecil asked. “Please.”

“Sand pearl,” Magda said. “It’s said to cure most ailments of the mind. It comes from Damcyan, from the antlions that are pets of the royal family. But no one has been able to get through the pass for months, the monsters have been so bad. Even if you got through, it’s more expensive than real pearl. And I’m not even certain it will work. I’ve never seen the stuff myself.”

“Thank you,” Cecil said, taking Magda’s hand. “Thank you for all you’ve done. Take care of her.”

“I’ll do my best. Cecil… don’t go alone.”

“I won’t,” he said with a sad smile.

“And don’t let that little girl get hurt. No matter what happens.”

Cecil asked around the tavern to see if there were any caravans headed northeast, in the direction of Damcyan, but there weren’t any. The crowd was sparse, and the only traffic expected from any direction came from the south, and in a trickle. They would have to go alone or not go at all. Cecil packed up what little he had, put on his armor, and went looking for Rydia. He found her drawing in the sand with Mela and Kasi, and drew back, waiting for the two other children to go home for the evening. He thought, perhaps, it would be less painful for Rydia that way.

“Hi Cecil,” Rydia said as he approached. She had seen him lurking nearby, a jagged shadow in his armor.

“We’re leaving,” he told her without preamble.

Rydia nodded, stood, and brushed herself off. “Now?” she asked.

Cecil nodded. “I already packed all of your things.”

“Did you tell Mister Azem?”

Cecil shook his head. “No, I… I’ll talk to him later. When I can repay him.”

“Is somebody here?” Rydia asked. “Is somebody after us?”

“No. I’ve heard of something that might help Rosa. We’re going to go find it.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll need your help,” Cecil said, handing over her rod.

Rydia clutched it close to her chest and nodded.

They walked once more into the desert. Cecil knew the rough direction they were going, to the northeast. The distance was nearly that they had traveled from Mist. He did not tell Rydia this. They fought off more sahagin. They fought the same sort of giant moths Cecil and Kain had faced on the path to Mist. Rydia finished off six sahagin all by herself in a cloud of freezing mist. They were all right, Cecil told himself. It would be a long, difficult journey, but they would make it.

And then there was a thump, like thunder, or a single beat on the biggest drum in the world, and the sound of sand falling like rain.

A sand worm. Close.

“What was that?” Rydia asked.

Cecil shook his head, not wanting to scare her on the off chance that it decided not to pay attention to them, but it was no good. They walked only a few more steps when the sand beneath their feet rose and fell back down again. Cecil staggered. Rydia fell and scrambled back to her feet as the round, toothy maw of the thing rose from the spot they had just walked across, streaming sand as it rose. The worm was the color of the desert sand, thicker than the thickest tree Cecil had ever seen, and rising to more than three times the height of a man, the rest of its thick body still planted in the sand.

Cecil ran to put himself between it and Rydia, planting his feet in shifting sand, readying sword and shield. He struck the thing as it reared, slashing deep into its thick hide. The wound oozed a brackish, sour smelling fluid, but Cecil pulled no darkness from the thing with the blow, and he saw, with dread, that the worm had several long, thick scars up and down its length where others had tried to bring it down with a blade, and failed. The thing whipped itself around wildly. Cecil stabbed up at it, and nearly lost his grip on his sword as it twisted.

The wind was picking up all around them, and Cecil realized too late that it was no natural wind. The worm was casting magic. Sand was flying all around them, wind roaring in his ears, reaching even into the seams in his armor, sand scraping at his skin as a tornado turned around them. He ran toward Rydia. He could no longer see her, but could hear her screams. Before he could get to her, the unnatural wind picked him up off his feet. He fell from half his height, gracelessly catching himself on his arms. When he stood again, the wind had died down and he saw Rydia, her face and arms were caked with sand and there was blood oozing into that sand, but she was raising her rod, her lips were moving, still casting her spell even though she was badly hurt.

Cecil raised his sword. He was going to have to take this thing out quickly or they were both dead. He thrust his blade at the worm, ripping Darkness from himself with a wordless scream. The worm recoiled as it hit, but did not fall. Cecil readied himself to do it again when Rydia stopped murmuring her spell. Under his armor, the hairs on Cecil’s skin stood on end. The air vibrated with a sourceless hum just past hearing. A bolt of lightning hit the worm out of the cloudless sky with an almighty crash. The thing spasmed and fell with a thud that shook the ground. Thunder from Rydia’s lightning echoed back at them from nearby hills.

In the sudden silence, Cecil breathed in to let out a whoop of triumph, but saw Rydia, a mess of blood and sand, whimpering, stock still because her skin was flayed and it was surely agony to move. He reached into his pack instead, pulling out a healing potion and uncorking it with fumbling fingers. He brought it to her sand-crusted lips.

“Here. Drink, drink,” he said, but then he pulled the bottle back. With her skin abraded with sand that was still clinging to it, the sand would be embedded in her skin, and then when it knit together…

“Wait,” he said. Rydia whimpered. Her eyes were squinted shut. He lifted his hands to brush off the sand, but the clawed steel and hard leather of his gauntlets would make this hurt even more than it already would.

He recorked the potion and dropped it in the sand, then unbuckled one gauntlet to pull it off, then the other, as quickly as he could, his fingers trembling with panic.

“I’m sorry, little one,” he said, and patted and swept her skin as best he could while she cried out. He picked her up by the hips and shook her gently and most of the last of the sand fell off, most in a loose shower and the rest in clumps, red with her blood. “Now drink,” he said, putting the bottle to her lips. She did, and a faint glow of magic traced her skin. Slowly, as if she were untensing each muscle individually, she moved, and opened one eye at a time. She still looked a horrific fright, her own drying blood streaked on every exposed bit of her skin. She peered behind Cecil at the dead worm.

“We got it,” she said. Cecil breathed easily for the first time in several minutes.

“Yes. We did. You did.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I hate to ask this of you, Rydia, but I need healing as well,” Cecil said. He had pulled deep when he had struck the worm, meaning the blow to be the last. A weary ache was coming over him. Rydia nodded, closing her eyes and raising her rod. But she murmured only a few incomprehensible words before she snapped her eyes back open again.

“I’m out,” she said in a small voice.

“What?”

“I’m out of magic.”

Cecil was grateful he was wearing his helmet so that Rydia did not see the look of disbelief and unwarranted rage that was on his face. He turned away from her and sat down on the sand.

“I could try aga—”

“No!” Cecil said, punching the sand. “Don’t, Rydia, that’s not a safe thing to do. If you’re out you’re out.”

A mage could take years off their own life by trying to cast more magic than they had in them. In the worst circumstances, it could kill them on the spot. Cecil realized in the days following their arrival in Kaipo that Rydia had probably overdrawn her magic when she summoned the Titan, and that was probably why she had been unconscious for so long after. He certainly didn’t want her to do it again.

There were potions that could replenish a mage that had used up all their magic, but they were much more expensive than the healing kind, and Cecil had been able to afford few enough of those. The only other thing that could restore a mage’s magic was rest. Sometimes days of it.

Cecil pulled the pack over to his lap and opened the flap where their potions were stowed once more. There were three left, glowing faintly blue in their glass bottles.

He looked over at the hills where their destination lay. They had gone less than a quarter of the distance they needed to travel. If they kept encountering monsters at the rate they had so far, and if the rumors were right and the pass was truly infested with them… Rydia was more or less helpless without her magic. Cecil would be fighting anything they faced alone. Not just alone, but while needing to defend Rydia.

Maybe, if they got incredibly lucky…

Cecil shook his head. No. He wasn’t going to bet Rydia’s life on such long odds. Even if they succeeded, he’d never forgive himself for it. Cecil swept off his helmet, took one of the healing potions, uncorked it with his teeth, and drank.

“We’re going back to Kaipo,” Cecil said, pulling his gauntlets back on.

“What?” Rydia asked in alarm, clutching her rod to her chest. “But what about Rosa?”

What indeed. Cecil thought, getting to his feet and feeling sick. Rosa would never forgive him if he got this girl killed trying to save her.

“We’ll figure something out,” Cecil said.

“But,” Rydia squeaked. “B-but I did good.”

Cecil turned and, hesitating only a moment, dropped to his knees in front of her so that he could look her in the eyes. There were tears in them that she was trying to blink away, falling in the streaked blood on her face. “Yes,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “You did good. You did perfectly. You are so brave and so good and no matter what happens it isn’t your fault.”

Chapter Text

Kaipo Punch, which was allegedly world famous according to the sign painted on the tavern wall, was a concoction of nectar from one desert plant and liquor distilled from another, with the greater part of it effervescent water, the whole only mildly alcoholic. It was sweet and refreshing, and Cecil had never tasted it until someone plunked down a glass of it in front of him on the small round in the oasis bard.

“I hope a drink will buy a moment of your time,” that someone said. That someone was an old man, draped in a variety of fine fabrics in an unlikely mix of stripes and patterns, most of which landed somewhere near purple in color. He had thick, coarse white hair and beard. The hair curled upwards, defying gravity and perhaps other natural laws. His eyes were hidden behind round, black glasses. He sat across from Cecil, who had been lost in his own dark contemplations and was having trouble making sense of this sudden turn of events.

“When I heard a Dark Knight was lurking around Kaipo,” the old man said. “You were the very last person I suspected. I expected someone nearer my age. You, my friend, are a relic of a lost time.”

Cecil slid the drink toward himself as he regarded the stranger. “I suppose some think that time should return.”

“Do you?” the old man asked as he sat across from Cecil.

Cecil blinked at him. “No,” he said, surprising himself with the simplicity of his answer.

“Which is I suppose why you’re here and not in Baron where you belong. Either that or you’re a coward.”

If I were less of a coward I would have left sooner. “Who are you and what do you want from me?” Cecil said.

“Sage Tellah, at your service,” the man said, and looked to Cecil for a reaction.

Cecil took a slow sip from his drink and narrowed his eyes, more in the mood for being suspicious than being impressed. “Sage” was a title given to those who had mastered both Black and White magic. There were only a handful of true sages in the entire world. If he was what he said he was, this man was very likely famous, at least among mages. Would that Cecil had a mage that was currently in their right mind to ask.

With Cecil unmoved by his introduction, Sage Tellah moved on. “I need your help. I need to get to Damcyan, and I cannot find a single person in this fool town willing to brave the waterway to get there. Ohhhh, the Octomammoth will get us,” he said, clawing the air in feigned terror. “I’ve never met a people so galled by seafood. But! If you really are what you say as much as I really am what I say, I believe the two of us can take it!” he said, bringing his fist to his palm.

Cecil sat up, feeling the first hope that he had in days. “I also need to get to Damcyan,” he said.

He looked at Tellah more closely and tried to get the measure of the man. The strange array of fine fabrics he wore—some in stripes, some in purple damask, some in a spotted abstract pattern with tasseled ornamentation—gave an air of practiced eccentricity, but then, skilled mages were rarely conventional. He had thin limbs and a bit of a paunch, but his face and hands were leathery from wind or sun in a way that suggested he was at least well traveled. He might have been well-worn 60 or a very spry 80.

“When would you leave?” Cecil asked.

“As soon as possible. This very evening if you’ll do it.”

“I think I will. There is another that would need to come with us. A young girl who is… in my care.”

“How young?”

“She is seven years old.”

Tellah sat back with a hiss through his teeth and stroked his beard.

“She is a summoner of Mist,” Cecil said in a low voice. “And a great talent at magic.”

Tellah stopped stroking his beard. “That is a tender age. But. If she is of Mist…. She will not be entirely defenseless. And I would not mind seeing that talent close up.” He sat up straight and extended his hand to Cecil across the table. “Very well then, it is decided.”

They shook hands. Cecil stood.

“What would you ask of me in payment?” Tellah asked.

Cecil had not even considered that he might need or want payment for his escort. He opened his mouth and couldn’t think of anything reasonable to say.

“You’re desperate too, aren’t you?” Tellah said with a grin.

“I… don’t require payment, but… we don’t have much in the way of gear. Or supplies. Or money. If you could acquire anything we might need for the journey I would consider myself in your debt.”

Tellah waved a hand and pulled a long, glass pipe from a fold of his robes. “Have no worries there. I’m an old wanderer, I can get us everything we need and then some. I’ll meet you at the inn. Is a couple of hours enough?”

“Plenty, yes. We’ll see you there.”

“And who shall I ask for?” Tellah asked, lighting his pipe with the flick of a finger.

Cecil shook his head. “Forgive me, my manners…”

“No worries, my boy,” Tellah said, looking more amused than offended.

“It’s Cecil.”

“Pleasure to work with you, Sir Cecil of Baron.”

“Let us say ‘of Harvey’” Cecil said, naming the village near which he had been found as a babe. “And the sir is unneeded.”

“Very well, Cecil Harvey,” Tellah said, and took a drag from his pipe. “See you in a bit,” he said with a puff of smoke. “Don’t dawdle, will you? I want to get underway.”

**

Tellah was indeed a skilled mage, making their passage across the desert even easier than Cecil had predicted. He made images of himself to lure monsters off their path and then fried them with a bit of fire or lightning. Cecil needed only to push back the sahagin and larva and a few upsettingly large centipedes before Tellah assaulted them with his magic, or directed Rydia to.

Still, late in the night, a group of goblins caught them unawares from behind. Rydia gasped as one of them grabbed at her ankle. Both Cecil and Tellah reacted. Cecil drew his weapon and sliced at the creature. Tellah, casting very fast indeed, threw up magical shield between Rydia and the little humanoid monster. The goblin stabbed at her, making the barrier glow bright, a honeycomb of ethereal, shining wire. The knife still struck her, but slowly, the barrier seeming to repel it. It nonetheless cut at Rydia’s midsection, and then immediately died for its efforts as Cecil struck it. Cecil struck its companion next. There were one, two, three, four, five more goblins. Cecil counted them with his sword strokes. There was a sixth, but it stopped and stared at Cecil with wide, silvery eyes and turned to flee, disappearing over a sand dune.

“Here, let me see, little one,” Tellah was saying, crouched near Rydia, who had her eyes squeezed shut, frowning and breathing rapidly in a way that spoke more of fear than of pain. Tellah laid his staff in the sand and raised his hands, fingers shaped into a triangle, before him.

“There, it’s just a scratch,” he said soothingly. “It only cut your dress a little. Let me be sure there’s no cloth in the wound and then I’ll mend it,” he said.

A pale green glow radiated from Tellah’s hands.

“There, good as new,” he said to the girl.

**

In the light of a small fire at another travelers’ circle on the border of the desert, Rydia called up an image of one of the goblins Cecil had slaughtered.

“Amazing,” Tellah said, walking around the short, wiry, humanoid creature. He reached out and pinched the thing’s long, pointed ear. It scuttled backward, hissing and brandishing its knife. It looked more like a goblin than Boko had looked like a chocobo to Cecil, perhaps because he had spent more time around chocobos than he had goblins, but there was still something subtly wrong about it that he had trouble defining. It waved its little knife in a herk-a-jerk way, like a marionette, but then, he thought, that was how goblins moved.

“What could you make it do?” Tellah asked Rydia.

Rydia shrugged. “Whatever goblins do.”

“Could you make it speak?”

Rydia squinted her eyes shut, then opened them and shook her head. “No, goblins don’t speak.”

“Interesting,” Tellah said around his pipe.

“Should you be making her use her powers for your entertainment?” Cecil asked from across the fire.

“No harm in it,” Tellah said. “We’ll rest for the remainder of the night. It does the girl good to use near all the magic she can in a day. That’s the only way her pool of ether will grow. It’s something like strengthening a muscle. But you can let him go, dear,” he said to Rydia, patting her on the shoulder. “That satisfies my curiosity for now.”

Rydia stretched her hands, and the figure of the goblin faded.

They took a small meal of popotoes and sausage roasted over the fire, and Rydia dropped off to sleep, leaning against Cecil.

“Out like a light. She must have been truly exhausted,” Tellah said as he settled down near the fire with a groan. “Such a sweet little face. She reminds me of my Anna at that age.”

“Your daughter?” Cecil asked.

“My one and only,” Tellah said, stretching out his legs. “She didn’t inherit the magical talent, unfortunately. Hardly any at all. If she had… Well. Spilled milk,” he said bitterly.

Cecil made a non-committal hmm, unsure if he wanted to hear the story there.

The old man let out a long breath. “She’s the reason I’m in such a hurry to get to Damcyan. She was tricked by some little silver-tongued twit of a bard and ran off with him. I’m trying to get to her before she’s done something she can’t take back.”

Cecil made another non-comital grunt, now sure he didn’t want to know the full story. It seemed more likely to him that the girl hadn’t been tricked at all and had instead made a love match her father didn’t approve of. If Tellah wanted to drag her back home he was on his own.

“What about you?” Tellah asked lightly. “What has you so keen to get to the land of the lyre?”

Cecil thought of Rosa, back in Kaipo, feverish and mad. He hoped she was safe. He hoped that if there were any soldiers of Baron still looking for him that they wouldn’t drag Rosa back home as a consolation prize.

“A… friend of mine took ill with the desert fever, or…. Something worse.”

“You seek a sand pearl.”

“Yes.”

“Then haste drives you as well.” His dark glasses reflected firelight, pale eyes barely visible behind the lenses. “I pray these premonitions of mine are only an old man’s fretting, but if they prove true, our time is short.”

**

The path further into Damcyan followed a river that flowed down from the mountains. A brief segment of it was underground, a tunnel blasted through rock via some magical method in some bygone era. The path sloped upwards, and the river flowed toward them, crashing through a series of short falls. The underground segment of the pass was short enough that magical stones like those that lit the path in Mist were unneeded. Pale sunlight shone throughout, though weakly, making the damp stone of the cavern floor shine. Tellah used his staff as a walking stick. Cecil was careful in his footing and took Rydia’s hand to navigate the more treacherous parts. The air was blessedly cool and damp here after the heat of the desert, and the shadows gave their eyes a rest from the sun, but there was no shortage of monsters. Cecil knocked a barbed, oyster-like creature into the water so they could pass without its tongue (or tongue-like appendage) reaching out and grabbing them. Every so often, a man-sized, fanged fish, a warty parody of the pale orange and white sort that rich men kept in their ponds, would leap from the water, and Cecil had to leap to repel it from the mages. He didn’t know how well Tellah would be able to endure a hit, or Rydia for that matter, and he preferred not to find out. He stayed close to them so that he could shield them. After the fourth time this happened, Tellah had an idea.

“You two, make sure you’re standing somewhere dry,” he called, and didn’t wait for them to confirm they weren’t standing on treacherous ground before he started to cast. Cecil looked down at the stone path under his feet, and pulled Rydia with him to a spot near the cavern wall.

A conflagration of lightning in shades of green, blue, purple, and yellow, arced out from Tellah’s staff to the surface of the water. Thunder from the strike echoed throughout the cavern. After a second of silence, the water appeared to be boiling. Dozens of the barnacle creatures rose to the surface, fish leapt from the water, and toads nearly as big as Cecil.

“I think that was a bad idea,” Cecil said, drawing his sword.

The old man cackled and the sound of it bounced off the walls like the thunder from his lightning spell. “Never too old to be too clever by half. Well,” he said behind gritted teeth. “Time to fight like hell.”

Cecil let out a long, controlled exhale. “Rydia! You said Boko can kick really hard? Summon him and have him run ahead, clear us a path! Tellah, follow! I’ll guard you two while she casts and then bring up the rear!”

Cecil stayed close to the mages, wary, on the balls of his feet. He caught a long, sticky tongue on his shield. The toad it belonged to tried to pull him forward with it. He planted his feet. The tongue dragged Cecil forward into the water, but failed to bring him to its wide mouth. It flung itself at him instead. The giant toad hit with a thud and slid down, its lips trying to close around his shield. Cecil sliced it open with his sword, getting a quick and unsettling look at far too large amphibian eyes far too close to his face before the thing fell in a steaming pile of its own guts. Next to him, Tellah dispatched one of the huge, orange, fanged fish with a gout of flame.

There was a shine of particolored light as Rydia completed her cast. Rydia pointed her staff in front of her as the last of the light faded, reflected in her eyes. The little chocobo seemed to rise from the ground in a circle of light. Or was it quite so little this time? It ran past Cecil in a yellow blur, kicking barnacle creatures in their path into the water. It spun and did a martial artist’s kick that Cecil was fairly certain a real chocobo couldn’t have reproduced, punting one of the monstrous frogs out of its way.

Tellah followed the chocobo eidolon, slower than Cecil would have liked. He was casting as he walked, holding his staff ahead of him and walking with his head down as if he were a man walking through a rainstorm.

“Rydia, go!” Cecil said, and she ran after Tellah and her eidolon, which was still kicking its way through barnacle creatures. One of the fanged fish leapt at her, and, in reflex, Cecil brought his sword up, parallel to his shoulder and stabbed in its direction. The wave of darkness overtook it, and the deaths of its fellows all around them were Darkness enough for Cecil to strike it dead without pulling from himself. Cecil blocked another of the fanged fish as it leapt at him from behind, but didn’t manage to strike it with his sword before it landed with a splash on the other side of the path, into the river.

Tellah finished his cast and raised both his arms, one fist wrapped around his staff and his other palm open, fingers splayed. A wave of magic washed over the cavern. It was almost but not quite palpable, like the impact of a spray of mist on Cecil’S armor. Around them, the barnacle creatures and fanged fish shrank and transformed, as if they were made of clay being shaped by an unseen hand, into… frogs. What were once fish were now an acid orange, swimming in the river. The barnacles were a hopping and croaking pale blue. The monstrous frogs, of which there were three left, hopping at the mouth of the cave, were unaffected.

“Not… what I meant to do,” Cecil heard Tellah mutter. “Ah well, it will serve.”

Boko impacted with one of the shadowy frogs at the mouth of the cave. Cecil ran forward to fight beside him. Another of the frogs managed to catch Rydia on the shoulder with its sticky tongue. She shrieked and tried to pull away. Cecil sliced the thing’s tongue off and stabbed downwards at the head of the creature it belonged to. Tellah set the last one aflame. With a smell like burning rubber and charred meat, it hopped three times, a frog-shaped burning coal, into the river. It sank like a stone under a column of smoke.

“Let’s get out of here, the spell won’t last long,” Tellah said in the sudden stillness, raising his head and lowering his staff.

Boko had already vanished. Rydia wriggled, trying to get the tongue of the dead frog off of her but not wanting to touch it. Cecil reached out with one gauntleted hand and pulled the thing off of her, dropping it on the ground. He brushed her shoulder. It had left nothing but a sticky residue in its wake.

“Ew ew ew!” Rydia shrieked, hopping.

Tellah was already striding ahead on the path, into sunlight. “If you’ve never seen this place before, you’re in for a treat,” he called in their direction.

The sound of crashing water had echoed throughout the tunnel. Outside, the sound was almost too loud to talk over. With the sound of falling water in his ears and his eyes unaccustomed to the suddenly bright sunlight, Cecil was briefly both blind and deaf. When his eyes adjusted, he saw that the narrow river continued to move rapidly over rocky terrain, with the path beside it narrow. At some points, whoever had cut this path had cut into the rock of the mountains to broaden it. Vegetation was sparse. The path and the river curved upwards, between rocky hills, out of sight. As they moved onward, the air became more and more misty.

“The river spills into the lake, soon,” Tellah called. “And that means facing our adversary! I’d rather do so well rested. There’s a travellers’ circle somewhere around here. Help me look for the runes.”

The reflective markings were difficult to see in the mist on the light colored stone, but find them they did, leading to a nook carved out of the rocky cliff that shielded them from monsters and the noise of falling water.

Chapter Text

“Do you see anything? Any sign of it?” Tellah shouted as he, Cecil, and Rydia crept along the path under the falls.

“No!” Cecil yelled back. He saw only a wall of water and mist. Sunlight shone through it weakly, making a rainbow that moved with his eyes on the writhing surface. He was tempted to peer over the edge of the rocky path they walked to see the surface of the lake below, but that risked a slide from the water slicked stones, and he would be able to see little other than more mist besides.

“Perhaps our beastie was only a fantasy!” Tellah yelled.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Cecil called back. “Not until we’re well out of its reach!”

At least Cecil’s armor was keeping him dry. The mages were well on their way to being soaked to the skin. Rydia shivered. Cecil wanted done with this part of their journey, monster or no monster.

He crept forward, sword drawn. Better to have too much caution than too little. Tellah was casting a spell that protected them from magical attacks that appeared as balls of wiry light that shone bright around their target for a moment and then faded. This was their agreed upon strategy. With the water all around them, a lightning spell would more than likely transfer at least some of its energy to all of them, especially to Cecil, who would very likely end up grappling with the thing.

A bright orange appendage burst with a splash through the falls, crashing far ahead of them. Rydia shrieked.

“Steady, girl, steady,” Tellah said and flowed smoothly from his admonition to the words of a spell. Cecil charged forward, but the tentacle—acid orange with brilliant blue spots—withdrew and disappeared back into the falls before he could strike. A moment of silence stretched while Cecil turned to face the falls, guessing at where their enemy might appear. Two orange tentacles crashed through the water this time, one between Cecil and the mages, and one behind them. The limbs of the enormous octopod appeared spindly in their length, but they were thicker than Cecil’s body, and groped blindly on the walkway, writhing, seeking them. Tellah loosed his first spell and an arc of lightning exploded outward. Cecil felt his hair stand on end with the thunderstrike, but he wasn’t hit. He sliced at the tentacle. He cut a deep gouge in it and raised his sword to strike again, more like a woodsman than a swordsman. The wounded tentacle writhed, the thickest part of it spiraling out of range and the small, dexterous tip yearning toward Cecil. The thing knew his position now. Somewhere, another bolt of lightning arced out. Rydia.

Cecil chopped at the thing again, slicing cleanly through the limb this time, but only cutting off a short, spindly section of it. Tellah grabbed Rydia by the shoulder and urged her with him backward so that their backs were against the cliff wall.

“Keep casting! Don’t stop! Just keep casting lightning!” He said to the girl, his left hand on her shoulder and his right clawed around the orb that topped his staff. Rydia kept casting, and two more bolts arced out.

“Keep me alive!” Cecil yelled to the mages, and stood in front of them. Cecil breathed in deep, and readied his sword. He swung it in a jagged arc. The Darkness he sliced at the creature was one part its own hurt and rage at losing its fingertip, and two parts wrung from Cecil’s own vitality. Two tentacles were severed in the slice, near their thick bases where they thrust out of the waterfall. Their severed ends writhed where they were still attached by their suckers to the stone walkway.

There was a splash and a spray of water from below, the sound of a massive impact on the surface of the lake.

“Let’s go!” Cecil yelled, sweeping his shield arm to point toward the path ahead. Rydia ran in the direction Cecil pointed. Tellah trotted a few steps forward, but stopped, planted his feet, and shook his head.

“We need not fight this thing to the death!” Cecil shouted over the falls.

“But we can! And we should!” Tellah shouted back, turned back toward the crashing water, and murmured the words of a spell.

Cecil didn’t have time to argue, because another writhing orange tentacle crashed through the falls to grasp at the path ahead of him. Another snaked up from below, groping near Rydia’s feet. She backed away from it, running into Cecil with a shriek. The head of the creature thrust through the falls above them with a spray of mist, surrounded by a sunburst of its remaining tentacles. It was toweringly huge and had a face no true sea creature had ever had, with a mouth large enough to swallow any one of them in one gulp, lined with grinning, pointed teeth and topped by two globular, mad looking eyes. It would have been comical to look at were it not so large and so bent on their destruction.

Tellah released his spell, shouting “There you are, you bastard!” as his lightning crackled and flashed.

Cecil swung his sword again, pulling Darkness from himself with a grunt. The creature flinched and roared as it hit. The beast flowed back toward them, no longer grasping for them blindly, pulling itself up and forward with the tentacles that already clung to stone. Rydia was standing frozen. Cecil rushed to stand in front of her.

“Keep casting! Keep casting, I’ll protect you!” he said. He sliced at a tentacle that flew at him, and at another, unable to pause now to see if he’d managed to sever them. Lightning flashed and crashed again.

Cecil sliced ineffectively at another tentacle. He could feel himself beginning to weaken. “I need help!” he cried out. He felt a spell wash over him, but it was not a cure spell. His heart beat double time, everything around him seemed to be moving too slowly. A tentacle sailed toward him and he thrust his sword toward it, slicing it down the middle, helped by the creature’s own strength.

Tellah had put a haste spell on him.

Not what I meant, but I’ll take it.

Cecil ran toward the creature, sense struggling to keep up with his newfound speed, and made two hacking slices at another tentacle, severing it. He heard Rydia shriek, a tentacle had wrapped around her and lifted her off her feet. Cecil sliced at the orange trunk, augmenting his strength with darkness. Rydia fell to the path, rolling and disentangling herself from the huge limb. Tellah was casting and holding his spells so that lightning lashed out whenever the thing reached for him. Cecil sliced at a tentacle as it reached for Rydia, so that he didn’t see the one that was reaching for him until it had wrapped around his middle, pinning his elbows down and crushing his shield against his chest. The haste spell he was ensorcelled with offered little help against the strong, snake-like limb that wrapped him. Cecil concentrated all his will on keeping his grip on his sword as the tentacle lifted him in the air, squeezing tight, making it difficult to breathe. The water of the falls crash into him, hammering his armor, soaking him through its gaps. The slender tip of the octopod’s arm wrapped itself around his throat. He choked. The haste spell on him could only make him suffocate faster. His vision grayed, though he could already see and hear very little through the beating crash of water.

A cure spell hit him, a strange and unpleasant sensation. He was still being slowly crushed, he still could not breathe, but renewed strength flowed into his body and he could see clearly again. He was upside down. He could see Tellah and Rydia far below. His arms were numbing, and he could feel his grip on his sword weaken… Another spell tingled through him, but he couldn’t say what it was.

His grip loosened further. He tried to struggle, but there was nothing left…

His entire universe became light and pain and every muscle in his body clamped down all at once as lightning hit the creature, and the pitiable man that was in its grasp along with it. Cecil would have screamed if there had been any air in his lungs to do it with.

The thing loosed him. Nothing but luck brought him clattering down to the rocky path rather than into the lake. The impact battered him, rattling his teeth. He rolled weakly and struggled to stand, gasping for breath, arms and legs quivering. He could feel each beat of his heart, tight and painful in his chest. He’d only managed to get to one knee when Tellah appeared before him.

“Come on, you’re not done yet,” the sage said. A wash of blue light expanded outward from his staff and then Cecil was merely terribly weary rather than inches from death.

The octopod was holding onto the cliff face with three limbs now. The rest were stumps or blackened shreds. Its still grinning head was sagging loosely behind it.

Rydia had her rod thrust in front of her, murmuring her spells with eyes wide and teeth gritted, standing between Cecil and the monster as Cecil had stood before her minutes before.

Cecil stumbled back into the fray and hacked at one of the last, grasping limbs. He imbued his artless overhead cleave with Darkness. He sliced through the tentacle and the creature sagged further down the cliff, barely able to hold itself to the wall with its two remaining limbs. Rydia’s lightning hit it again. Tellah hit Cecil with another cure spell, for a mercy. The second to last tentacle sprang away from yet another arc of lightning with a smell of burnt rubber and overcooked seafood. Cecil hacked at the last limb, pulled taught and bearing all the thing’s weight. The grip of its suckers slipped with a series of little pops, and the octomammoth’s body, or head, or however one wanted to call it, fell with a rubbery sound as it swung against the cliff face, followed by a huge splash as it fell like a stone to the lake below. 

Chapter Text

They were eating a late breakfast when Cecil heard the sound. The droning, chopping, noise. For less than a minute, Cecil tried to convince himself that it could be something else, a swarm of insects. But no, nothing else in the world made the sound of airships cutting through the sky. Cecil had stood on the deck of those ships, practically lived on them, and knew the rhythm of their engines like he knew the beat of his own heart. The sound was distant. Faint. But getting louder.

Cecil stood, as if standing would give him a better view of the sky, and turned to gaze in the direction of the mountains they had travelled under and through.

“What?” Tellah asked. He seemed to notice the sound too, but, not knowing its origin, did not seem alarmed until he noticed the change in Cecil.

“The Red Wings.”

Tellah’s gaze darted around from beneath his glasses.

“Stay under the trees!” Cecil said to Rydia and Tellah.

Whoever was captaining the Red Wings was after him, surely, but it was possible they wouldn’t see. They might not be flying low enough to find them. Not yet. He looked around the low trees. The sound was growing louder. Cecil took his own advice and crouched against the trunk of a fig tree, beside Rydia. The sound of the engines grew yet closer, and with it, the rustle and creak of tree limbs whipped by the wind they created. They’re flying low. They must indeed be looking for me. His heart hammered. He was a mouse in an open field that had just heard the scream of a hawk. His only hope was that the hawk didn’t see him.

Cecil closed his eyes. Let them pass over. Let the trees be cover enough. Let them not see. Let us get to Damcyan. Let us get the pearl. Let Rosa be well. Please. Please, he said again, forming the word with his mouth, but making no sound. When he opened his eyes, the shadow of the first of the ships was passing over them. The limbs of the trees all around them waved as if beaten by a sudden squall. His hair whipped against his cheeks.

But they passed over, still over a hundred feet above. Cecil watched five ships with five sets of red sails as they grew smaller again in the distance. The wind around them died down. The trees stilled.

“They’re coming in for a landing nearby,” Cecil said, his mouth dry. “I’ll go ahead alone. I’ll surrender to them. We couldn’t fight one ship and its crew, let alone five.”

“What the blazes are you talking about?” Tellah said. He was already wrapping up the remains of the breakfast in a cloth, stuffing it in its bag, retrieving his staff from where it leaned against a tree. “You think the entire fleet is after you?”

“I… I…” Cecil said, and with his terror of moments earlier dying, it did indeed seem unlikely. Baron might send one ship after him. If they were for some reason willing to find him at any cost they might send the entire fleet, but then they would be canvassing the country separately, not flying together in v formation.

But very few of his father’s decisions made any sense at all in recent months.

“No,” Tellah said pointedly, pulling his pack over his shoulder and gesturing in the direction the ships had flown. “Damcyan castle is that way.”

“But why would they…?” Cecil wondered. “The crystal.” He answered himself. He turned to Tellah. “Already?”

“Don’t ask me, boy. You’d know better than I. But that’s our destination.” He strode onto the path.

“Mr. Tellah!” Rydia shouted, running after him. Cecil had no choice but to hurriedly gather their remaining things and follow.

Tellah set the pace, one he himself struggled to keep. A brisk walk, a jog, a walk again. The old man was breathing heavily. He would pause to lean on his staff for less than a minute, then stride on once more.

“How far is it to Damcyan castle?” Cecil asked.

Tellah shook his head, leaning on his staff. “Ten miles, maybe. Fifteen? Not so far,” he shook his head. “Too far.”

“They’ll get there hours before we do,” Cecil said. “Even with this haste.”

“I know!” Tellah said sharply, twisting his gnarled hands on his staff. But he turned his face toward the path, and strode on. Cecil followed, with Rydia near. The little girl sometimes lagged behind and sometimes jogged ahead.

If the Red Wings attack the Damcyan royal family, that may end my hopes of getting a sand pearl, Cecil thought, feeling ill. Even if they survive, why would they give such a treasure to a knight of the country that just attacked and robbed them?

Cecil clenched and unclenched his fists as he ran. I’ll get one somehow. I’ll steal it if I have to. I’ll—I’ll do something. I will not give up on Rosa! One foot in front of the other.

Yet somehow, striding ahead with his robes swishing behind him, Tellah seemed even more desperate to get to Damcyan than Cecil.

He thinks his daughter is at the castle, Cecil realized.

A sound reached their ears, a distant thud of impact. The dull whoompf of a faraway explosion. A sound Cecil knew, from practice runs in empty countryside in Baron. There was another thud of impact, and a series of them that blurred into each other. Cecil could feel the blows vibrate through the earth under his feet.

He remembered a long ago conversation between his father and Cid, about whether explosives could be dropped from the deck of an airship, whether they could be useful in war.

Now why would someone want to go and do a thing like that? Cid had said.

Why indeed? Cecil thought grimly as he ran after Tellah, out of irrigated orchards now and into bare desert, praying the Red Wings didn’t make a return pass, praying he was indeed not in their minds as a target, because if they returned he would soon be very, very dead, with Tellah and Rydia beside him. He thought through impossible scenarios. Would they have any chance at all to strike back? The three of them had taken out that octomammoth, after all. Perhaps Tellah could cast a spell? Aim for the crew abovedecks?

No. The sage couldn’t be fast enough, or accurate enough. If Cecil had a dozen mages with him, perhaps they could strike one ship hard enough to destabilize it, but even then… without some sort of fortification, they would all die in the attempt.

He thought of the Titan Rydia had Called. Something like that was the only thing he could think of that might contest a fleet of airships built for war.

That’s why he had me kill them, he realized. That’s why he condemned the villagers of Mist to die.

There was smoke rising from the palace as they approached. Cecil looked to Tellah, who said nothing, but the grimace on the sage’s face had deepened to show teeth, and he continued in his stride in that direction.

The main structure of Damcyan castle was squat and square and in the color of the desert sands. It had once been a fortification, but it showed few signs of that old life now. The walls had been imbedded with jewel-colored glass and painted in stripes of lacy geometric patterns. Irregular towers rose from the old structure, their tops capped with glossy, onion shaped domes in gold and turquoise and pale pink. One had been felled like a tree, its top a jagged edge of bare masonry. Another tower stood with its cap shattered.

Rows of columns, ornamental and holding up nothing but sky, extended out on the approach to the castle. Black soot streaked the sand where some columns were missing or felled. Cecil stepped over one of these as they approached. Rydia rode on his back now, a much easier burden to bear now that she was awake and willing and able to hold on to his shoulders. A blasted, crumbling wall lay before them, opening onto a courtyard. It would have been impossible to say where the front gate had been if it were not for the remains of the columns that marked the approach to it. A grim weight of dread lay in Cecil’s stomach. He let Rydia slide off his back.

There was no movement save rising smoke. Cecil was surprised the whole place wasn’t ablaze, but he supposed the stone structure couldn’t truly catch.

He glanced at Rydia. Her eyes were downcast and her expression was unreadable. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?” she said.

Cecil took her hand. “We can hope that no one was here.”

Rydia looked up at him with large, doubtful eyes. She knew better.

Cecil hesitated, thinking about staying outside with Rydia and sparing her the sight of whatever lay within, but Tellah was already picking his way over the ruined wall. The sage would not be dissuaded from his search. Cecil wouldn’t let him go alone, and he couldn’t leave Rydia alone at the entrance of this grim scene.

I’m sorry little one. One day there will be peace for you, but not today.

The first wave of corpses lay in the courtyard immediately past the ruined gate. Soldiers in purple lacquered armor. Over a dozen, though Cecil didn’t count them. Too many, but too small a force to be protecting the royal family. Perhaps many of their soldiers had died in the initial bombardment, or perhaps Damcyan was too used to peace. Tellah prodded each with the end of his staff, a morbid test that made Cecil grit his teeth. None stirred, though the blood of some was still dark red and tacky on the stone tiles around them.

A long, rectangular pool split the courtyard before them. Palm trees bent around it. Another soldier lay beside it, fallen forward, killed while fleeing. His stilled hand dangled in the pool.

The vast front doors—one charred and dangling off its hinges—hung open to shadows within. Here the next wave of dead soldiers lay. Tellah again went about his grim and methodical prodding. One soldier stirred with a whimper. Cecil scampered forward to turn him onto his back. His breathing was ragged and wet. Tellah crouched before him, and a glow formed at the tip of his staff and washed over the man, a healing spell.

The soldier’s eyes fluttered open, and he sat up straight with a gasp. He tried to scoot away from them, backwards on the floor, but his hand touched one of his dead fellows, and he recoiled with a yelp.

“We mean you no harm!” Cecil said, with hands splayed open in front of him.

Seeing Cecil only increased the man’s panic. He reached for his sword, and when he realized it wasn’t at his hip, he scooted himself further away.

“Do you know Anna?” Tellah asked, heedless of the man’s emotional state.

“W-w-what?” the soldier asked.

“Anna! A young woman! A dancer with red hair! Do you know her?” Tellah demanded.

“N-n-no?” the soldier answered, panicked and bewildered.

“You have nothing to fear from us,” Cecil said gently, his hands still before him. “What happened here?”

The soldier looked far away for a moment. “They took the crystal.” He looked at the bodies splayed in the floor around him. “Oh Hugh, Oh Alva, ohhhhh.”

Cecil’s heart broke for the man, but he had a sudden need to know: “Who took the crystal?”

“Baron! Who the hell else do you think!?” the man said, gesturing upwards with his hand.

“Yes but who? Who was leading them, did you see them? What did they look like?”

“Don’t know, he looked like you,” the man said, waving a disgusted hand in Cecil’s direction.

“A Dark Knight?”

“I guess! No, he was a mage, blew in the door with a giant blasted fireball. Listen, before you kill me, please, tell my sister—”

“Tell her yourself,” Tellah said, and strode past him.

Cecil offered a hand to the man. He didn’t take it. Cecil sighed and dropped his hand. “I suggest you get out of here. Quickly,” he said, and went after Tellah, looking behind his shoulder to make sure Rydia followed.

Tellah followed the carnage and broken down doors, and Cecil followed Tellah, which led them to an anteroom splayed with more bodies. Not soldiers this time. There were some women among them. Cecil saw a wash of long, dark hair. They were dressed plainly—

Servants. They killed the servants, Cecil realized. Tellah glanced around at them, but his head jerked up when they heard a sound from the room within. They strode forward into a cavernous, beautiful room. Light flowed in from tall, ornate lacy wooden shutters. Glossy tile crawling with twisting patterns covered the floor and the thick columns that lined the room. A low dais stood at the rear of the room, and upon it two empty thrones. In the shadows behind them were--

Cecil heard it again, a soft, rhythmic, almost animal sound. Tellah heard it as well and quickened his pace toward it, but stopped suddenly. His shoes squeaked on the tile floor.

In a beam of light falling from the tall windows was a person, bent over another person lying on their lap. They were crying. A weak, gasping keening.

“You!” Tellah said.

The person’s head snapped up. They had lank blonde hair crowned by a huge silk hat.

“Anna!” Tellah cried out, and for a moment Cecil thought this person, with the huge hat and bloodshot eyes and lute swung on their back, was Anna, but then he understood. Anna was lying on this man’s lap, her back bent at an angle no conscious person would willingly keep themselves in. She wore a white dress and had a spray of red hair that looked nearly pink in this light. A trail of blood led from where she lay to the the dais at the head of the room.

Tellah’s hands twisted on his staff. He strode forward.

“YOU SPOONY BARD!” the old man yelled, and, either forgetting that he was a powerful mage or simply desiring to do this man physical violence, swung his staff at the man’s head.

The bard twisted and scrambled away like a crab on his backside, barely avoiding being brained. The lute made a sad thunk and twang as it impacted with the floor.

“No! Please! Wait!” the man said, holding his hands in front of him.

“DIE!” Tellah yelled, and swung again. He connected this time, but not very forcefully, either because the man was guarding his face and head with his arms or because Tellah was trained in magecraft and not in stick fighting.

“Please! Things aren’t as you believe!” the bard begged.

Tellah hit him again and the bard made a wretched sound of pain.

“I beg you, please,” the man said, walking toward Tellah on his knees now with his hands clasped before him and speaking very quickly. “Listen to me. I am Edward Chris von Muir. I am the prince of Damcyan. I never lied to her. We were going to marry, we were—”

“I don’t care who you are!” Tellah yelled as he swung at him again.

“We were going to come back!” the bard yelped.

Tellah struck him again, and the bard—the prince--fell before him, head bleeding, but he still spoke.

“She wanted to go back! She couldn’t stand to be on bad terms with you! But we were attacked, and Anna—” his voice broke, he looked behind him, at the dead woman that had lain in his lap. “Oh Anna,” he said, extending a hand to her, sobbing. “She protected me,” he wailed at Tellah, tears streaming down his face. “She took the arrow meant for me.”

Tellah struck him again, and the man lay on the floor, sobbing, stretching his hand out for his dead love.

The sage raised his staff again.

“Tellah!” Cecil yelled sharply. “Are you truly going to beat this man to death--the man your daughter died for—in front of her corpse!?”

The old man paused, holding his staff before him, vibrating with anger.

Cecil came forward into the light, meaning to take Tellah’s stick from him.

“You!” Edward said, dragging himself to his knees, pointing at Cecil. “You,” he repeated with a hysterical laugh. “Come to finish me off!?” He pulled at his shirt, baring his chest. “Go on! Go on! I welcome it,” he hissed and closed his eyes, waiting for the blow.

When Cecil didn’t move, Edward opened his eyes. “No,” he said, squinting at Cecil. “No. You’re not him, are you?”

Tellah dropped his staff and knelt by Anna’s body.

“Who?” Cecil asked the prince.

“The man who—” he waved toward the dais. “My mother! My father! Even Anna!” he sobbed.

“Calm down and tell me,” Cecil said.

“Golbez! He was clad all in black.”

“Damn him!” Tellah said. “What do you know of this monster, Cecil?”

Cecil shook his head, bewildered. “There is no Golbez among Baron’s knights.”

“There is!” Edward said. “He commanded the Red Wings, he took the crystal, he killed, he killed my, he killed—” he broke off into tears again.

“Quit crying, boy,” Tellah said as he pulled himself back to his feet. “It’s too late. Tears won’t bring back the dead. We can only avenge her.”

“Tellah…” Cecil started.

“I have his name, that’s enough,” Tellah growled. “I’ll kill him with my own hands.”

He spun on his heel and walked toward the entrance of the throne room, for all the world as if he was on his way to kill the man that very moment.

Tellah paused at the door. “Not coming with me, I suppose?” And whether he was talking to Edward or Cecil or to the both of them was unclear. “Fine. I don’t need your help. I’ll kill Golbez on my own.”

“Tellah, wait—!” Cecil started again. He’s in an airship. He has all of Baron’s forces with him. He may be a phantom!

Before Cecil could voice his protests, the sage had turned to go, a whirl of purple silks in the shadows. Cecil considered running after him, but knew the effort would be wasted. He put a hand to his head, squinting his eyes shut behind his helmet, trying to think over Edward’s sobs.

“Stop! Crying!” Rydia yelled suddenly. Her voice echoed in the still chamber.

Edward was so shocked that he did stop crying for a moment to raise his head and look at her.

“You’re a grown man!” Rydia yelled, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Stop crying!” She repeated. “I lost my mom and I’m not still crying.”

“Rydia…” Cecil started.

“No,” Edward said, laughing though his tears. “She’s right! I’m no good for anything but weeping. Which is why I’m going to stay here, right here,” he said, stroking the dead woman’s cheek. “With Anna.”

Cecil was beginning to believe that Tellah might have been correct in hating this man. He was considering dragging the prince out of the palace by force when he heard the rumble of airship engines again. He looked upwards, as if he could see the sky through the vaulted ceiling.

Cecil looked at the poor dead woman. She had delicate features. A red ponytail lay loose over one shoulder. A hand lay over her chest where she had been wounded, almost but not quite hiding the stain of blood that drenched her clothes. She wore a brief white dress and a fine, loose robe. She had long, pale, legs and dainty, slippered feet. Her mouth hung slightly open, a bit of dried blood at the corner of her lips.

Cecil thought of Rosa.

The noise of the airships grew louder.

“We need to leave. Now,” Cecil said. “They’re likely to bomb this place again.”

“You can go,” Edward said, not taking his eyes off Anna, his voice suddenly even and steady in his resolve to die. “I’m staying here.”

Cecil had had it. He strode forward and struck Edward across the face, a backhand with his gauntleted hand. He didn’t hit him as hard as he could have, but the blow still knocked the prince backwards. The lute on his back once again made a weak twang as it hit the floor.

“You are the crown prince of Damcyan!” Cecil spat, surprising himself with his own sudden fury. “You are the rightful ruler of this country!” he said, pointing downward at the floor in his judgement. He could hear his own father’s tone and words coming from his mouth, but could do nothing but forge ahead. “So start acting like it! You owe it to your people and you owe it to Anna!”

Edward sat up, a hand to his cheek, glaring at Cecil. Being slapped across the face seemed to awaken some wounded pride in him that Tellah beating him with his staff had not.

“Who are you to tell me my duty?” The prince asked.

“Your Majesty,” Cecil said, bowing from the waist with his hand over his heart. “I am Cecil, I am a knight of Baron, and I came here because I have desperate need of your aid,” he said, as if he were humbly accepting Edward’s audience and had not just slapped him across the face.

“What need does a dark knight have of me?” Prince Edward asked, no small amount of loathing in his voice.

“A… friend—" Cecil hesitated on the word, finding it inadequate. “—of mine is deathly ill. If she is to live, I need a sand pearl.”

Edward blinked up at him, softening suddenly. “What is her name?”

“Rosa, Your Majesty.”

Edward looked again at the dead woman that lay on the floor in front of him. He looked back to Cecil. “You love her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” breathed Cecil, his head bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty, please.”

Edward looked up toward the ceiling as if just now arriving in the present moment and hearing the sound of the approaching airships. “We need to flee,” he said. He stood, and turned his gaze once more toward Cecil. “There’s an underground passage that leads to the sea. There’s a vessel moored there. From there, I can get you your sand pearl. Come, follow me,” the prince said, but before they had gotten more than a few steps, he glanced back and hurried back to the side of the poor, dead woman. He knelt beside her once more. “I’m sorry, we have no more time,” he said, his voice once more wet with tears. He bent and kissed her lips. “Farewell, my love.”

Chapter Text

“Have you ever seen the sea, Rydia?” Cecil asked the little green haired girl.

The underground passage had led Edward, Cecil, and Rydia to a narrow, sandy beach under the shadow of tall cliffs. The breeze off the sea ruffled Edward’s hair, and the feather in his hat. Gulls wheeled and called overhead.

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Then I think we can spare a moment. A short one one. I want to get this sand pearl and get back to Rosa soon.”

Rydia took a few steps toward the water. The waves were gentle, a low roar rolling against the sand in the rhythm of the slow breaths of a sleeping lover. The girl paused, as if she didn’t quite know what to do. She looked back at Cecil.

“Go!” Cecil said, with good humor, though the figure he cut in his dark armor, pointing toward the surf, was grim.

“Go what, Cecil?” Rydia asked.

“Look at it! Splash in it! Make a sand castle! Go!” he repeated, making a shooing motion.

Rydia dropped her rod and then her person on the sand and slowly and dazedly took off her shoes, looking to the sea. She dug her fingers into the sand and let a fistful of it flow through her fingers. “It’s softer than the sand in the desert,” she said, watching the fine, white grains fall through her fingers.

She hopped up suddenly and ran toward the surf. Gulls took flight in a crowd, cawing.

“How did she come to be in your care?” Edward asked in a soft, hoarse voice after the two young men had stood in silence for a moment.

“How do you know she isn’t my child?” Cecil said in a tone that proved Edward’s suspicion correct, as he put his carapaced hands to his waist and shifted his feet.

“She isn’t,” Edward said. She simply wasn’t. For a moment he couldn’t think how to make any more coherent argument than that. Even opening his mouth seemed more effort than he could muster. He sat down in the sand. He wanted to simply lay there. Perhaps the gulls would eat him if he stayed still long enough. He unstuck his mouth. It hung open for a moment as the mask that hid Cecil’s face pointed toward him.

“She calls you by your given name,” Edward finally said.

The unmoving demon mask continued to stare at the bard prince.  “I killed her mother and all her kinsmen,” it said.

The cold weight that already lay in Edward’s gut twisted. Though his nerves were burnt out husks, he found he could still feel horror. He had made a mistake. His instinct toward mercy and his empathy with two lovers unwillingly parted had led him to keep company with a monster in human skin.

If he were even human under the mask.

“It wasn’t willingly,” the voice inside the helmet said wearily, looking out at the sea. “Or even knowingly, if you can believe me. My king tasked me with bringing a magical object to her village that set the place ablaze. I wasn’t told what it would do. I didn’t know. But that is hardly an excuse.”

Edward looked at the girl tentatively testing the water with her toes. He rested his forearms on his knees and his face on his forearms, the dread in his stomach loosed. “I want to believe you,” he said softly. The alternatives were all too terrible to think of, and Edward too weak and weary to fight them. “But I don’t know if I can.”

Edward lay his hat beside him in the sand. The sun was blessedly warm but painfully bright to tired eyes. He sat, hugging his knees, face upturned, eyes squinted closed, simply breathing.

The girl shrieked.

“Rydia!?” Cecil yelled, running toward her, hand on the hilt of his sword. Edward climbed to his feet, heart hammering.

“Monster!” Rydia yelled back, splashing away from whatever she had seen. She splayed her hands and began to say the words of a spell.

“Ice! Ice, Rydia!” Cecil shouted. “No lightning until you’re out of the water!”

Rydia finished her spell. A chunk of brackish looking ice bobbed up out of the surf, trailing what looked like many dark, thin tentacles.

The dark knight stilled. He loosed his grip on his sword hilt and began to laugh. He waded into the water and grabbed the frozen thing. Rydia shrieked again.

“WAGH! Don’t touch it!”

“Look! Look, Rydia,” he said, shaking it at her. “Seaweed!”

Edward breathed again, his heart slowing from its panicked hammer.

Rydia shrieked again and backed away from him, falling on her backside in the shallow water. Cecil continued to shake it at her, letting the cold, slimy trails of it touch her arms. Rydia splashed to her feet and continued to yell at him, now more angry than scared.

“You certainly showed it, though,” Cecil laughed, and threw the slimy mass into the sea as if it were the ball in some game. It landed with a splash.

“Well, I think that does it for our seaside adventure,” Cecil said as he and Rydia returned to Edward and the girl pulled her shoes back on. “Will you take us to your boat, Your Majesty?”

Edward looked dazedly at him, taking a moment to process why the dark knight was addressing him that way and how deeply wrong it felt. He swallowed bile. “It’s not exactly a boat,” he said, and stood. “Follow.”

Hat back on his head, he led them around a bend in the cliffs that lined the shore. In its shadow was what looked like a small ship, large enough that Cecil was unsure how they would be able to push it to the water. Perhaps with the tide…? He thought, until Edward pulled at the canvas covering and revealed the shape of a large circular cage on the rear of the vessel, like one that would protect wandering limbs from a powered fan. The exterior of the hull was shaped rather strangely, not wood at all but something soft and round. It reminded Cecil of the balloons used by some of Cid’s smaller and more experimental—

“An airship?” Cecil asked.

Edward glanced at Cecil and away again. “No, not quite. Though I daresay our engineers will crack it eventually. This little hovercraft is the closest we’ve come so far. Here, help me untie it.”

The vessel wobbled and rose as Cecil and Edward loosed it from the ropes and stakes that held it in place. Cecil crouched to look underneath the “boat.” He could see Edward’s cuffed boots on the other side.

“Fascinating,” Cecil said, putting a hand to the air-filled bag that was the bottom of the little ship, what Edward had called a hovercraft. The whole vessel shifted slightly. “I think it works by entirely different principles than ours.” He looked to Edward. “I have a friend who’d give an arm to see this.”

Edward set his lute gently on the floor of the craft before swinging a leg over the side himself and climbing aboard. “Even if he gives the rest of his limbs,” he said. “It’s not a high enough price. Stars know what horrid use your countrymen would put the knowledge to. I pray I’m not a fool to let you see it.”

“Thank you for your trust,” Cecil said, seeming to revert to a habit of stiff good manners. “I hope I might repay you for it someday.”

Edward made a dismissive gesture, but the look on his face was sour. Cecil helped Rydia up into the craft as Edward turned a crank. The fan on the back of the vessel began to spin with a surprisingly gentle whir and the hovercraft rose a few inches higher. Edward took a seat behind what looked like a smaller version of a ship’s wheel. Cecil wondered how that worked—the Red Wings were far more complex to steer and couldn’t be guided by a single hand, but he dared not ask. Instead, he sat on what looked like a bench that ringed the craft’s deck. It seemed to be made of the same air-filled fabric that made up the hull. He wondered, too late, whether the sharp points of his armor might puncture it. Rydia sat up on her knees on the seat next to him as the craft began to move. The ride was incredibly smooth, except for the wind in their face it hardly felt that they were moving at all. Rydia looked out in wonder as they glided out over the sea. She laughed as her hair whipped around her face. Cecil smiled beneath his helmet. Her joy was infectious, their traumatic day and her ruined wade in the sea now forgotten.

“Don’t lean out so far!” Cecil said, grabbing her by the waist to sit down as she peered over the side of the vessel at the white caps. “Do you even know how to swim?”

Rydia shook her head, and bounced gaily on the seat. The craft bounced a little with her. “No!”

Cecil sighed. “Something else I need to teach you.”

They rode in silence. The wind and waves surrounding them would have made conversation difficult, and Rydia seemed content to gaze at the sea and the clouds. Cecil noted that they never strayed too far from the coast and wondered if that was a limitation of the hovercraft or a limitation of the navigation skills of their pilot. He did not ask. He was entrusting their lives, and Rosa’s, to their strange benefactor, who said nothing but glanced toward them every now and then, his eyes shadowed by his large, feathered hat.

“I’m hungry!” Rydia announced after a while.

Cecil reached in his pack, and his mood sank as he remembered that Tellah had been carrying much of their food for the journey, as well as their tent. The old man had paid for it all anyway, he reasoned bitterly.

“There are some compartments near the back, under the seats,” Edward called out. “Not quite what I would normally offer guests, but it will keep you from starving.”

Cecil found, carefully wrapped separately, each in ornamental cloth, biscuits, cheese, dried fruits, sausage, and something in six wax sealed bottles. Cecil used his own knife to cut the cheese and break the casing on the sausage. There was enough for several more people, and Cecil had eaten quite a bit, finding himself hungrier than he had realized, before thinking of Edward.

“Would you like some….?” He trailed off, unsure of how to address the bard prince, not familiar enough with him to call him by his name, and not sure whether he should call him ’Highness’ or ‘Majesty.’ The prince had not seemed to like the latter.

Edward understood that he was being spoken to and spared Cecil the difficulty of solving the conundrum at this moment. “No, nothing for now. But I’d thank you to bring me something to drink. That is. Water. Please. The wine we’ll save for another day.”

Cecil offered Edward his own canteen, which he took, and drained. “There’s a barrel of fresh water back in one of the other compartments,” he explained before Cecil could become bothered by this.

By the time Edward said they were near their destination, the sun was beginning to lower in the sky.

“I know you want to make haste,” he said. “But the tunnels will be too dark to navigate in the night.”

“We could all use some rest,” Cecil said, looking to Rydia. “We have little in the way of shelter, but the weather’s amenable enough. Is there a traveler’s circle anywhere near, do you know?”

Edward shook his head. “No, not that I could find in the dark. I suppose we’ll set a watch.”

“We could sleep in the boat.”

“Not out at sea, this craft can’t carry any meaningful sort of anchor. We would have to make landfall, and there we would be as susceptible to beasts and monsters in the ‘boat’ as you call it as we would be on the ground.”

“Might give a little more comfort though,” Cecil said, patting the inflated seat next to him.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Edward said morosely.

Edward guided the little craft onto a sandy beach and stopped its fan far from the tide. He pulled out stakes and rope that Cecil helped to anchor the vessel to the ground with. They agreed that there was little need for a fire. Without a travelers circle it would only attract monsters or other unwanted attention, and the food they had with them had little need for preparation. Rydia was half asleep already and Cecil forced a little food and water on her before she fully drifted off. There was only one blanket packed in the boat, a padded, reflective thing meant for emergencies, that Cecil draped over Rydia. Edward shivered, though the night was warm. Cecil removed his armor, and settled down.

“So you are human, it seems,” the prince said, making Cecil start. “Though perhaps I am mistaken, in the dark.”

Cecil didn’t know what to say in response to this, so he said nothing.

Edward pulled out his lute and began to play absently, settling on a high, tripping melody.

“You’ll take first watch then, I suppose?” Cecil asked.

“Yes,” Edward said, not pausing in his playing. “I doubt sleep will come for me easily.”

Cecil settled in the floor of the boat, though rest did not come easily for him either. He was cold. He lay close to Rydia but did not dare to get close enough to share her body heat or her blanket as she slept, at first fitfully and then like a stone. He was too tired to think of the events of the day or the past several days logically, but sights, sounds, smells of it all lingered with him. Through it all, the sound of Edward’s lute followed him, the same sad, unsteady melody. He wasn’t sure if Edward had continued to play for hours or if the sound of it had followed him into his dreams.

When he next regained sense, the horizon was bluing with the coming dawn. Edward had not woken him. He was no longer playing, but he was sitting with his lute still in his lap, staring sightlessly at the sea.

Cecil slapped him gently on the shoulder. “Get some rest, you fool,” he said.

Edward assented and climbed to his feet stiffly. He began to cry again, and tried to hide it, badly. He curled on his side on the floor of the boat, turned away from his companions, his shoulders shaking. Cecil was unsure if he ever actually slept, but he eventually stilled.

Cecil climbed out of the boat and stretched and sat in the sand to wait for the dawn, and for Rydia to wake.

Rosa. Rosa. This is all for Rosa. He thought.

**

Edward flew them a few miles further, to the base of a shallow, dry desert hill. The hovercraft couldn’t be flown at much of a slope, he said, so they took a short hike to the mouth of a cave, near a rock formation that looked like some sort of musical instrument peppered with holes. They wended their way into the earth, through tunnels half shaped by wind and half, it seemed, by the scratching claws of the creatures that lived here. They saw patches of sky occasionally through the hollowed out rock. Through these, daylight shone, though less and less of it as they went further.

Cecil went around a bend in the tunnel ahead of them, then sprang back into view, his back to the sandy earthen wall.

“Lamia!?” he hissed at Edward.

Edward, who had been mostly silent through their trek, narrowed his eyes at the dark knight in confusion. “Do you think I’m trying to lure you to your death? No,” he walked calmly around the corner and gestured Cecil and Rydia to follow. Cecil drew in a breath again to call Edward a fool who was going to get them all killed, but saw again what had spooked him, a figure that looked like a pale, nude woman. Looking now he saw that its lower body was not the snake tail of those treacherous monsters, but misty in form and glowing a faint, jade green.

“Lesshe. Wind spirits,” Edward explained. “Not nearly so dangerous.” As he spoke, the indistinct face turned toward them, and the figure rushed them in a gust of wind that whistled through the tunnel and behind them, ruffling their clothes and hair and making Cecil take a step back. Edward turned in the direction it had passed. “Though they may give us some trouble if we linger,” he amended.

“Would that Lamia were to be found near here,” Edward said as they continued onward. “There was a famed harp whose strings were made of Lamia hair, said to charm the hearts of all who heard its song.”

“And who would risk giving a Lamia a haircut to make such a thing?” Cecil wondered.

“Probably only a tale,” Edward said lightly. “But it would be interesting to find out, would it not?”

“I’d not risk an encounter with one for so trivial a reason.”

“You fear buxom snake women, do you, sir knight?”

“I fear I may prove… susceptible to their charms.”

“You and I both! But what a way to go, aye?”

“Were I to die in the arms of a—” Cecil stopped himself. “This is not an appropriate conversation to have in front of Rydia.”

“What?” Said the girl, who had not really been paying attention to what Cecil and Edward were saying until she heard her name.

“Ask me when you’re older,” Cecil said.

“I wanna know!” Rydia whined.

Cecil sighed. Edward snickered.

“I thought,” said Cecil slowly. “That wind spirit that just whooshed by us was a type of monster that looks like a cross between a pretty lady and a giant snake that can make men… go a little mad.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you just say that!”

“I don’t know, little one,” Cecil said with a smile in his voice. “Sometimes grown ups make things more complicated than they need be.”

They continued to follow the narrow burrows, seeming to go deeper underground, the vents that let in air and light becoming more infrequent.

“I have a friend, a fellow knight,” Cecil said. “Who happened upon a den of lamias on a training mission.”

“Oh?” Edward said, glancing at Cecil. “And what happened to your friend?”

“The rest of his troop fell upon each other, fighting each other for the snake women’s ‘love’ and trying to throw themselves into their teeth. To hear my friend tell it, he was unaffected and slew them all singlehandedly. I forget how many of them. Seven or eight, I think.”

“Interesting. Assuming he’s not lying….”

“He’s not the type,” Cecil said.

“Does your friend prefer men, perchance?”

“No!” Cecil stopped for a moment and twitched his head to the side, thinking. “Or… at least I don’t think so.” He began walking again. “In truth, I’ve never known him to prefer anyone.”

“I suppose that might save him some trouble,” Edward said, glancing to Cecil. “But it’s not the way I’d live, given the choice.”

“Nor I!” said Cecil.

“Which is why,” Edward said. “If we happen on any lamia then it will fall to Miss Rydia to save us. What do you say, little one, can we count on you?”

Rydia made a pose with her feet wide and her rod leaned jauntily on her shoulder. “Of course!”

Cecil looked at Rydia with his mouth a grim line behind his helm. The possibility of Rydia having to save them came too near the truth for him to find any humor in it, but he wasn’t going to ruin the fair mood of the girl or the prince by saying so.

They took many bends through the warrens, the floor ever sloping slightly downwards. Cecil prayed Edward knew where he was going because he had lost track of their path long ago.

The tunnel ahead of them ended in darkness. Edward slowed, and then stopped. He held out an arm for Cecil to stop too.

“Is there something blocking the path?” Cecil said. Peering into the dark, he could almost make out the form of what was blocking the tunnel. A large boulder, perhaps. Cecil wondered how anyone may have rolled it here, some of the tunnels they had squeezed through would have been too narrow. It moved.

Edward laughed. “It’s a tortoise!” and once Edward said it, Cecil could see the limbs, and its snakey head retreating back into its domed shell. “They sometimes share space with the antlions. It’s been long since I’ve seen one this large. It must be a real grandfather.”

“I don’t suppose we can convince him to move out of our way,” Cecil said.

“Not unless you’ve got a lettuce leaf in your pocket,” Edward laughed weakly. “If I’d have known we would come into this predicament, I would have packed a salad for him. I suppose we can just push him out the way. He’ll retreat back into his shell, most like. He’s a big fellow, but I daresay you’re up to it.”

The two men approached the creature, and it did indeed pull its limbs back into its shell as they approached, but as they touched it, the snakey head sprang out, snapping at Cecil and then at Edward. It did no damage through Cecil’s armor, but Edward made a startled yelp and sprang back. Cecil made an exasperated sound and tried to push the creature again. It had extended its limbs back out from his shell, and was pushing back. Cecil let up his pressure, and the tortoise moved in a very un-tortoise-like way, shifting the weight on its limbs and spinning to check him with its domed shell.

Cecil stumbled backwards. He loosed his shield and had not quite unsheathed his sword when the creature charged him. The impact knocked him to his back. He unsheathed his sword as he scrambled to his feet. He could see it fully now, big elephantine legs, a sharp beak, and the dome of its shell taller than the knight when the creature fully standing. It was slow, even strangely enraged as it was now, but that hardly mattered in the small space. Cecil stabbed at the tender space between its neck and its shell, but it spun so the blow only hit shell.

“Rydia, ice!” Cecil called, and heard the little girl make a “mmm!” sound in assent. The creature backed up and began to charge again, waving its head in rage, but Cecil was ready this time, guarding with his shield and bracing his legs against the blow in a low stance. Still, the thing was big, and heavy, and the blow rattled his teeth. Cecil spun his sword. It was useless against the thing’s shell, and it didn’t seem worth it to aim darkness at it, not yet. A faint glow of sunlight was coming from the tunnel behind the creature, making its beady eyes shine as the beast snapped at Cecil mindlessly, both the knight and the tortoise unable to do much against the others’ armor.

There was a crack, and the beast was rimed with crackling frost. It still snapped its head against Cecil, but it had slowed. Cecil thrust his swordpoint to the soft point behind its neck again, this time aiming true and sinking it there to the hilt. The tortoise’s head on the end of its snakey neck spasmed once, twice, and stilled.

Cecil withdrew his sword and arced it downward to flick the blood from the blade. “Rydia, are you well?” he asked.

“Yeah!” the little girl answered.

“Edward?” Cecil called, then spun, looking around him when he received no answer. “Prince Edward? Where did he go?” he asked Rydia.

The girl shrugged.

“Did he run away? Did he leave?” Cecil asked in disbelief.

Rydia shrugged. “He went that way,” she said, pointing down a tunnel. Cecil stalked in the direction she had pointed, and he almost tripped on the man, who was sitting on the floor, hugging himself, shaking.

He’s not a fighter, Cecil reminded himself. He lost everything only yesterday.

Cecil poked him with his foot. The prince made no response other than shrinking further into himself.

He may be no fighter, but Rydia comported herself far better than this on her worst day and she is seven years old.

Cecil grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and drug him to his feet. Edward yelped.

“Ah, so you are alive. I’d wondered. Tell me, would you have returned? Or would you have left Rydia and I lost down here?” Edward had begun to cry again now as Cecil ushered him roughly to the place where they had fought the tortoise. “Are you even a bard? Or just a minstrel with delusions of grandeur?”

“I’m not—I’ve never—I’ve not used my art like that!” Edward said, pushing himself out of Cecil’s grip. “I’ve never raised my hand against anything. I—I can charm men, I’ve never charmed ravening… beasts!”

“A turtle. Let me remind you that it was a turtle. A very large and angry turtle, I’ll warrant you, but a turtle. Which is surely simpler than a man. So you admit you had the power to help us, and simply chose not to.”

“Did you kill it?” Edward asked as he came into the chamber where the tortoise was lying still.

“Yes, yes, we killed it, have no worry about that. It will never harm a hair on your precious head.”

“Did you have to kill it?” Edward asked dismally, putting a hand to the shell of the dead tortoise. “It must have been so old.”

Cecil stared at him. He opened his mouth and then bit his tongue. He still needed this man and anything he said to him at this point would be needlessly cruel.

“Here,” Rydia said in the heavy silence, sounding far too weary for a seven-year-old. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fi—” Cecil started, but realized she hadn’t been talking to him. He had not noticed Edward’s bleeding arm or his torn sleeve.

Edward watched with wide, wet eyes as Rydia’s magic knit the gash in his right arm back together.

“We’ll continue on,” Edward said wearily, standing and flexing his hand. “It’s not far now.”

They entered a chamber, open and large enough to fit several houses. A single vent in the chamber’s ceiling let in sunlight.

“Here we are,” Edward said. “This is the heart of the nest.” The sandy walls muted his words. Rydia and Cecil followed him down a circular, terraced path. Edward paused and looked around them, squinting into the shadows. “I’m surprised we’ve not seen any of them yet. Perhaps something has made them skittish.” He glanced to the dark knight behind him. “Don’t be afraid when you see them. They are quite gentle, but they can be fearsome to look upon if you’re not used to them. They are very curious. They may approach you and feel of you with their antennae. If that happens, simply let them. They will move on once they’ve examined you.”

Something rose from the sandy ground in the center of the terraced pit. In form like a giant ant, it had six long, spindly limbs. Spindly, that was, in comparison to its body, which was bigger than than two chocobos. The legs were the width of Rydia’s wrists. Long pincered jaws snapped at the air.

“Ah, we’re in luck, the queen,” Edward said calmly as he approached the creature with raised, open palms. “See the red on her back there? We painted her to distinguish her from the others. It’s the fluid that is excreted with her eggs that forms the sand pearl, so it’s her we’ll need. There, girl,” Edward said, touching the creatures long, serrated snout.

And then he gasped, for the creature had snapped those dangerous-looking jaws closed and Edward had narrowly avoided having it snatch his fingers.

Cecil sprang forward, sword in hand, as Edward leapt back. It lunged for Edward, and grabbed him about the waist with its jaws.

“No!” Edward shouted, even as the creature was raising him in the air, swinging him wildly as if it meant to either toss him or rip him apart.

Cecil thrust his dark blade into the creature’s midsection. It made a scraping, chittering sound, and dropped Edward to the dirt. Edward fled blindly. In his haste to escape, he collided with another antlion that had appeared silently behind them. It wasn’t so large as the queen, nor did it have such mighty jaws, but it was still larger than a man. It snapped its jaws. Edward crawled backward away from it and into one of the terraced earthen walls. He looked around them. In every direction there were antlions. Here was the hive that he had been disturbed not to see any signs of until now. Dozens of them surrounded them on every level of the terraces. They must have moved in silently while the three of them had approached the heart of the nest.

Rydia was edging very close to Cecil, her staff up.

“Don’t attack them, you’ll only anger them further!” Edward called out weakly.

“Do you have some way to calm them,” Cecil said, keeping his voice carefully even.

“No! I’ve never had to!” Edward cried out. “They’re gentle creatures, I swear it!”

An ant lunged at Rydia. Cecil intercepted it, slashing it across the face. The hive responded as one, closing on them. Edward ducked and covered himself, curling into a ball. Rydia shrieked. There was a bruise-dark afterimage that came across Edward’s eyes as Cecil made a broad slice that seemed to hit several of the creatures, clearing a little bit of space. Edward crawled behind him.

“Cast, Rydia,” Cecil said levelly. “And keep casting.”

She did as told, performing better than many a mage multiple times her age, seeming to alternate: ice, lightning, ice. An ant gripped at Edward’s shoulder. He slapped weakly at it to try to make it loosen its cutting grip. It released him as Cecil struck it. Another ant lunged at Edward. He ran from it only to run into the jaws of another that pinched at his face while yet another caught him about the leg and still another grabbed at his arm to pull him into the crowd of ants. The one that had caught his leg loosed him as it was struck by a bolt of lightning. Edward pulled himself away but the jaws clamping his arm shred it into ribbons as he did so. He scrambled back into the relative safety of the clearing Cecil was cutting in the seemingly endless mass of ants.

“Can’t you do anything!?” Cecil asked, breathing heavily. “Sing?! Charm them? Something!”

“I told you, I’ve never--!”

“TRY!” Cecil bellowed. A wall of dead antlions was building around Cecil, but he was breathing heavily, the dark sword sapping his energy. Ribbons of green light from Rydia’s staff surrounded him for a moment, and the dark knight stood a little straighter.

Edward brought the lute around from the strap on his back and tried to play, but his hands were shaking so badly he had to tense his hand into a tendon-cracking grip to form a chord, and his other hand could only brush the strings chaotically. He tried to sing but his throat seemed to close in his terror and he could only let out a weak gasp of sound. His arm was bleeding, he noticed. He dimly noticed that his arm was badly wounded. It hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes and looked even worse than it felt, blood welling from it steadily with his pulse.

“Keep healing me, Rydia,” Cecil said grimly, seeming to give up on any help from the prince.

Edward could only sit on the ground and shake as he watched the strange, friendly creatures he had known since childhood turn into a nightmare. They died, one by one, dozens of them, but dozens more kept coming. Rydia’s teeth were gritted and her eyes were wide in the glow of her staff. She had gotten hurt at some point, too. There was blood on her face and still dark and wet on her dress. She was going to die here, Edward thought. They were all three of them going to die here unless Cecil could kill every last one of them. He tried to remember how many were in the hive. Last he remembered, they couldn’t count their exact number, but had estimated it to be greater than a thousand.

Cecil was slowing. He failed to check the jaws on one of the beasts with his shield, and writhed away from it, forcing the creature off of him with his sword. He was no longer using that dark energy. Rydia loosed one last lightning bolt that cast the cavern around them into a single still image of shadows and spiked jaws and wandering antenna. The bolt crashed around the cavern and made Edward’s skin tingle in its wake. Antlions fell. Still more crawled over the bodies of their fellows.

“I can’t do this much longer!” Rydia said in nearly tearful desperation.

Cecil seemed to rally a little. He crashed into one of the beasts with a yell and thrust at another with his sword.

I led them here. I killed them. Edward thought. The mission failed. The duty done. Rest.

But that poor child.

“Cecil!” Edward called out. “Kill the queen! Kill the queen and they might stop coming!”

“Where?” Cecil asked, looking about.

Edward scanned the room and found a set of outsized jaws.

“There! Just there!” he said, pointing.

Cecil charged with a yell, gathering darkness as he ran at her. Her colony stood in his way to defend her, but a sweep of the dark sword ended some and made the rest slow.

For the queen, he had a thrust to the abdomen, an underhand slice to the neck. Death.

An energy seemed to dissipate from the chamber. The remaining antlions stopped, chittered, seemed to look around as if lost. Most left the chamber at a leisurely pace. A few stayed, wandering about, chittering.

Edward breathed. Rydia raised her staff, seemingly to heal Cecil, who waved her off.

“Heal the prince first,” he gasped. “I’ll keep a moment.” Though Edward noted each of his breaths seemed to take the effort of his whole body, and his arm trembled as he sheathed his sword.

Rydia came close, and looked at the prince calmly. She pulled his hair and the cloth of his torn shirt away from his wounds before casting her spell.

Edward nearly laughed in the euphoria that came from the relief of pain and fear. “Thank you, child,” he unstuck his throat to say.

“I suppose that’s the end of our hopes for a sand pearl,” Cecil said heavily after Rydia had healed him as well.

Edward came to sudden alertness. “No! There is one chance,” he said, climbing to his feet and pushing aside the carcasses of ants to go where the queen had fallen. “Here, help me turn her,” he said. Cecil helped him push the creature to her back and he rolled up his sleeves, grimacing as he prepared himself for the somewhat disgusting task before him.

He cupped his hand and reached inside her still warm body, frowning against the feel of ichor coating his arm. His hand touched something semi firm and he reached further to cup his hand around it.

“An egg,” he breathed as he pulled it out. “It can hatch into another queen. The hive won’t die, at the least,” he said. He reached in again and pulled out another. A little further and he pulled out a third. Cecil watched, stoic and silent in his armor. Rydia came very close to him, lips pulled back in a kind of mortified fascination. Hoping, Edward reached in again, and brushed his fingers against something smaller and harder than the eggs had been, but he couldn’t quite wrap his hand around it.

“Could you… cut her open a little bit?” he asked Cecil. “Just there, very carefully,” he said as Cecil brought out his sword once more. “That should do, I hope,” he said, after Cecil had widened the opening.

He thrust his arm into the creature once more, to the shoulder this time, not daring to think too much about what he was doing. “Yes, there it is, I have it!” he said, hooking his fingers around the smooth, round object and pulling it out into the air with a wet squelch. He set it in the sand. It was about three inches in diameter and pale pink in color.

“Thank all the stars,” Cecil breathed in relief as Edward wrapped it in his scarf.

Chapter Text

Edward led them to a traveler’s circle near the antlion’s den, nested in a wide point in a wind-blown canyon, a hallway for giants. Their campfire made the sandstone walls golden, and its smoke rose to narrow ribbon of starstrewn sky beyond.

Edward played a tune on his lute that, while not exactly jaunty, at least sounded more like a lullaby than a dirge. Rydia watched and listened, insisting she wasn’t sleepy while rubbing her eyes. Cecil had doffed his armor and was taking a moment to apply a whetstone to his sword, his unwashed hair pulled in a queue at the nape of his neck.

“You know,” Edward said, not pausing or slowing his playing. “You are not at all what I expected to see under that armor.”

“Then what were you expecting?” Cecil asked, flicking his eyes to him warily.

“Someone older. And uglier. Or at least more weathered looking. In fact…” Edward said, giving Cecil a considering look as he continued to play. “I think I know who you are. I’m only surprised I didn’t recognize it sooner.”

Cecil stilled and looked at him levelly. “And who, pray tell, am I?”

Edward stopped his tune and played a single chord. “You’re the crown prince.”

Cecil shook his head. “I’m no prince.”

“No,” Edward said, continuing to play as he peered at him. “I suppose not technically, but only because Baron has no such title.” He strummed another chord. “But you are the heir apparent. The king’s ward. His bastard, some say.”

“I am not King Odin’s son. Not by blood. Perhaps not at all, in the end.”

Edward leaned back and gave Cecil another long, considering look, his mouth slightly open. “You were quite the icon, do you know that? Even so far as Damcyan Palace. Violet rouge was a mint for a season, if you could find it all. I always meant to attend one of your fetes, but I put it off because I confess the idea of you annoyed me. All of my olive-skinned countrymen powdering their skin and lightening their hair because of you.”

Cecil glanced at Edward, whose hair was yellow, but dark at the roots and at the moment rather lank. Cecil didn’t ask whether Edward had bleached his hair due to his influence because he really didn’t care to know.

“I didn’t ask anyone to mimic me,” Cecil said softly.

“Ah, but you confess that was you,” Edward strummed another chord. “The Pearl of Baron.”

“I don’t love that nickname,” Cecil said. It was a relic of a time in his life that he now looked on as rather foolish.

“Ah, excuse me, would you prefer the Butcher of Baron instead?”

Cecil glared at him. He was reevaluating his opinion of this man. Perhaps he wasn’t a coward at all but simply whatever would be the largest thorn in his side at any given moment.

“Want to slap me?” Edward asked. “Get the left cheek this time, the right is still rather sore.”

“Forgive me,” Cecil said, enunciating each syllable with care. “For saving your life. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

The prince turned back to his lute, but his lip wobbled a bit. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask it of you. I expect we’ll part ways when we return to Kaipo.”

Cecil realized he had thought little about what he might do after he revived Rosa. Saving her had been his only goal in otherwise directionless weeks.

Edward began to play that mournful, tripping melody again, the one he had played for what had seemed like hours the night before. He curled around his instrument, like it was his last friend in the world. There was an audible plip, plip as teardrops fell on wood shaped for resonance.

“Stop that,” Cecil said, unclear himself whether he meant the weeping or the playing of that seemingly endless and repetitive song.

Edward huffed out a weak laugh. “You would deny me my only indulgence? The single comfort left to me? Bitter though it is,” he said, continuing to play as he spoke, his hands steady, his voice very much not.

“I need you to keep it together until you’ve brought us back to Kaipo.”

Edward stopped playing suddenly and glared at Cecil with his wet eyes reflecting firelight. “Forgive me that my grief inconveniences you,” he snarled.

Cecil met his glare, and frowned, but could make no retort. Rydia sat attentively with large eyes.

Edward eventually looked away. Cecil suspected he might have stalked off into the desert if there had been any safe place to stalk to. Cecil slaked back the fire and they readied themselves for sleep with only a few whispered words between himself and Rydia.

**

The return to Kaipo was easy. The hovercraft flew over the shallows and along seaside cliffs. It leapt over desert dunes, faster than any monster could catch. Cecil didn’t bother with his armor and stayed dressed in his ragged desert clothes.

“Are you worried about Rosa?” Rydia asked Cecil as they rushed through the desert.

“No,” Cecil said, lying. “I just hope she hasn’t worsened while we’ve been away.”

They arrived in Kaipo in midmorning, just as the day really began to show its heat, and made a procession to the clinic.

“Throw open all the windows before you reveal the pearl to her,” Edward said as they approached. “And make sure she’s where she can see it. It will lose effectiveness the longer it reflects the light. Eventually it will be only a jewel,” he said. He did not follow Cecil as he and Rydia mounted the steps.

“Are you not coming?” Cecil asked.

“Am I welcome?” Edward asked.

“I thought you might like to see the end of your work,” Cecil paused. “And you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Used a sand pearl to cure someone? Yes,” Edward said. He had a brief flash of memory, the cellar of a hovel, packed with family, a tower room with only the afflicted and her servant, the warm presence of his mother beside him. “But there’s little enough to it, the pearl does the work, I can’t imagine that you’d foul it up.”

“Still,” Cecil said seriously. “Having come this far I wouldn’t leave anything to chance. Please?”

The flicker of real fear in Cecil’s eyes softened Edward’s heart to him. The prince nodded, and followed when the matron of the clinic let them in, giving Edward a respectful nod and a curious look as he entered. They made a crowd in the small room. Rosa lay there, her body still but her brows drawn and her eyelids twitching with troubled dreams. Cecil looked at her for a moment, then knelt on the floor beside her and dug in his pack.

Cecil handed Edward the rolled up ball of his own scarf as if it were something fragile and holy. The room stood in a hush. Edward had the absurd notion of pretending to trip in order to break the solemnity of the moment. Seeing sunlight too soon would harm the pearl’s effectiveness more than letting it fall to the floor would.

Edward untied the cloth around the pearl but did not yet unwrap it.

“We’ll want a little more light,” he said. The matron fluttered around the room and threw all the shutters wide, making the shadowy room nearly as bright as the outside.

“Wake her,” Edward directed.

Cecil reached for Rosa tentatively. “Rosa. Rosa?” Getting no response, he shook her shoulder gently. “Hey, wake up,” he said.

She groaned and turned her head. “Look at me,” Cecil said. She didn’t, still fluttering her eyes. Only after some vigorous rubbing of her shoulders did she open her eyes, groaning and seeming very unhappy for it. “Hey, sit up, dear one,” Cecil said gently, but she did not follow this command either. Seeing her like this sent a pang of terror into his heart. He fought it down and coaxed her into sitting up, half lifting her.

“Now,” Edward said, half to himself, holding the pearl in its scarf before him like a street pantomime about to perform a trick. He pulled the cloth from the pearl. It shone, mirror bright, and a wave of light washed over the faces of all present, like the beam of a lighthouse passing over them. It faded to a glimmer. Edward recovered it.

There was a moment of stillness. Rosa blinked. Her gaze darted around the room. She turned her head.

“Cecil?” she asked in confusion, reaching for Cecil’s face. “Whatever could be so wrong?”

Cecil held her by the shoulders, looking at her, hair tangled and eyes sunken and utterly bewildered, but Rosa. He threw his arms around her.

Edward let his arms drop, still cradling the pearl in his hands. Magda let out an enormous sob. “What’s wrong?” Rydia demanded of her. “Did it not work!?” Magda fanned her face, struggling to speak for a moment. “No, no. She’s well, child.”

“Then why are you crying?” Rydia demanded of her.

“Where am I?” Rosa asked bemusedly, muffled by Cecil’s shoulder.

“Kaipo, in the Damcyan desert,” Cecil answered.

“Why there? I must have been ill,” she said, putting the palm of her heel to her head and shaking it as Cecil released her. “I must say, I feel terrible.”

Cecil laughed weakly. “I’m sure we’ll have you perfect in no time now.”

“Goodness. Was it that bad? I didn’t mean to worry you, I—CECIL!” she said suddenly, grabbing his shoulders. “Golbez!”

Edward felt a chill run up his spine. From the look on his face, Cecil did too.

“Are you alright, Rosa?” Cecil breathed. “Are you with us?”

“Golbez is going to kill you!” she said. The look on Cecil’s face in that moment was awful, from a place beyond despair. The pearl hadn’t worked. She was lost to him. “He’s sent the guard after you,” she went on. “To bring you back if they can and kill you if they can’t. Don’t go with them!” she said. “He’s going to kill you when you return.”

Cecil closed his eyes briefly in the most profound relief. “There’s no worry of that now,” he said. “Rosa…” he went on. “Who is Golbez?”

Rosa blinked. “I don’t know. No one knows. He appeared in Baron. The king gave him command of the Red Wings. Everyone acted like he had been there for ages and it felt so wrong…. I… spoke with him?” She put the heel of her palm once more to her forehead. “I think I spoke with him. I can’t remember now. I can’t remember… a face.”

“Very tall. Dark armor?” Edward said.

“Yes! I… I’m sorry, have we met before? I seem to be having problems with my memory.”

“Edward Chris von Muir,” Edward said, and Magda breathed out a little oh. He swept his hat off his head and planted his heel before him to bow. “And I have not had the pleasure of meeting you until this moment.”

“Goodness, the prince of Damcyan,” Rosa said. “Rosa Joanna Farrell and I’m incredibly charmed. I would curtsy but I’m covered in blankets. And well wishers.”

“Edward helped us journey to get the sand pearl that we cured you with,” Cecil explained. “I owe him a great deal.”

“Then I suppose I do as well. I hope Cecil wasn’t too much of a bear.”

Edward laughed genteelly. “Any hardships I endured I would gladly face again to rescue so fine a lady.”

Cecil gave Edward a look that said I will kill you with my bare hands in fewer words.

Rosa laughed. “A lady! I’m barely a Mage.”

“Some of us are ennobled by love, Lady Farrell,” Edward said.

“Oh, oohhhhh, I like him, Cecil.”

“Yes, well,” Cecil said acidly. “If the rest of Prince Edward were so skilled as his tongue, we would have had an easy journey indeed.”

“We all have our gifts,” Edward said lightly, but he took the jibe as intended and said no more.

“You don’t know me at all, do you?” Magda, whose eyes were still wet, said.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Rosa said, but she took her offered hand and smiled up at her.

“Magda,” she said, and sniffed. “And I’m so glad to meet you.”

“Magda took care of you while you were… unwell,” Cecil said.

“Thank you,” Rosa said, pleasantly bemused. “I wish I remembered.”

Magda put a hand over her heart. “It’s probably better that you don’t, child.”

“Was I so terrible a patient?”

“No, my girl, not at all, but I’m glad you’re well and in your mind now.”

“As one healer to another I will remember you in my prayers,” Rosa said, taking Magda’s hands. There was moment of solemnity as their eyes met. Rosa looked around the room with some trepidation. “How long was I out?”

Cecil answered. “Nearly three weeks.”

“Oh, my poor Cecil,” she said. “You really were worried, weren’t you? I’m really so sorry to have caused you all so much trouble. I hate to be a burden on anyone,” she scooted toward the edge of the bed, but paused. “Can I—am I allowed to get up?”

“Certainly, child,” Magda said. Rosa threw off her bedcovers, and Cecil stood to give her space. “Slowly, though!” Magda warned. Rosa stumbled a bit as she stood. Cecil jerked to catch her, but she caught herself.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said to him. “Really I’m alright, Cecil, just a little lightheaded. Oh, and who is this?” Rosa asked, looking to Rydia.

“I’m Rydia,” she said. After a moment of awkwardness, the little green haired girl dropped into a curtsy. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Rosa.”

Rosa laughed. “You don’t have to curtsy!” she said. “Or even call me ‘miss.’ Perhaps I should fall unconscious more often, to be treated with such courtesy.”

“Please don’t,” Cecil said weakly. Rosa glanced at him with an unvoiced question.

“Rydia is from the village of Mist,” he said.

Rosa breathed in and narrowed her eyes but did not give voice to her question. “You’ll have to catch me up on everything I missed,” she said instead.

Magda allowed Rosa to wash herself, and change out of the shift she had been wearing and into her own clothes, which she had kept clean for her. She bundled up Rosa’s things, her bow and her mostly empty pack, which Cecil carried, and hustled them out of the door, seeming genuinely elated that Rosa was well, but also eager to see the back of them. Edward wandered off elsewhere at some point while Rosa was bathing, and Rydia begged to go see her friends.

So Cecil and Rosa wandered alone, Rosa exclaiming over desert plants, over the shape of the houses, over the cloudlessness of the sky. In her small yellow dress with her white mage’s robe thrown over it, and her hair half loose and half on the back of her head, she looked herself again. Every time her eyes met Cecil’s, she found him looking at her with a kind of worship that made her look away, slightly abashed.

They ambled slowly to settle in the shade of the palms near the oasis.

“I almost forgot that you’ve never been outside Baron,” Cecil said as Rosa touched the frond of a low branch.

“I’m sure I’m like a lost kitten,” Rosa said as she settled and twitched her robe away from a spiky bit of vegetation.

“It’s charming.”

“I have to rethink what I believed the word ‘house’ meant,” she said. “Of course they wouldn’t be stone, or wood, in the desert. There’s no stone. Nor trees.”

They sat in dazed silence. Rosa shrugged off her robe. “Ugh,” she said miserably, looking at her own arms.

“What?”

“I’ve gotten quite the tan, haven’t I?”

“You were badly burned,” Cecil said gently. “Blisters in a lot of places. Magda healed you well.”

“I’ll have gone down two shades,” Rosa said unhappily. “Is my face like this too?” she asked, turning toward him and closing her eyes. “Tell me, how bad is it?”

“Bad?” Cecil laughed. “I think it makes a rather striking contrast with your hair.”

“’Striking’ is what people say when they don’t want to say ‘ugly.’”

“Or when someone’s beauty can’t be contained by something so foolish as a chart.”

“Easy for you to say, Mr. Indigo. Paler than the moon. Can’t be contained by the chart because you’re whiter than the chart accounts for. What will this make me? Green? Ugh.”

“The color wheel is a suggestion. Do whatever you want. Pink for the rose of your name.”

“You know that’s not what Lady Lorimer is going to say. Or my mother.”

“I don’t think either of us is going to have to worry about what Lady Lorimer is going to say for quite some time.”

“No. I suppose not.” Rosa said, suddenly sober. “My mother must think I’m dead.”

“Did you tell her where you were going?” Cecil asked.

Rosa shook her head dazedly. “I don’t know.”

She eventually gave Cecil an appraising look. “You look like you belong here.”

Cecil smiled sadly and shook his head. “You only think that because you’ve seen so little of the people that do belong here. They’re not indigo-paler-than-the-moon, for one, and would laugh at the notion of that being favored. They keep asking after my health.”

“I suppose we really are in a different place.”

“And anyone with sense is somewhere well shaded, this time of day.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Rosa said, hugging herself. “The heat feels good. I feel like I’m cold on the inside.”

“Maybe we should get some hot food in you.”

“Maybe. Not yet. Let me just be for a while, yet. I feel so strange.” She leaned back and rested her head on Cecil’s thigh.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Rosa said, but she was smiling.

“Like what?”

“Like I might dissolve.”

“You might.”

“Now I’ve found you and I’m in my right mind, you’re not going to get rid of me so easily.”

“I feel strange, too,” Cecil said.

“Hmm. How?”

“Like neither of us are supposed to be here.”

“Funny. I feel like I’m where I’m meant to be for the first time in ages.” She looked up to Cecil. “I would tell you to stop brooding, but for once I think you’ve enough to brood about.”

Cecil stared with unfocused eyes at the oasis pool. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just be for a moment longer.”

Rosa sat up and made a sudden squeaky noise.

“What?” Cecil asked.

“Something moved!” she had dropped to all fours to watch whatever it was. “I think it was…?” she said, watching the grass, looking like a cat about to pounce. She saw it again. “A tiny lizard!” she said with delight.

**

Later, Cecil, Rosa, and Rydia sat at a round table at the pub connected to the inn. When their food was brought to them, Rosa took a couple of bites and then looked unhappily at it.

“Is something wrong?” Cecil asked.

“No,” Rosa waved him off. “It’s fine, it’s just… a lot.”

“You need to eat,” Cecil said. “That was one of the things that worried me most, you were barely eating at all.”

“I’m sorry to have worried you,” Rosa said.

“No, it’s fine,” Cecil said, moving to stand. “It’s just. Here, we’ll get you something else, bread and water or—”

Rosa waved him off and stood, taking her bowl. “No, it’s fine, I’ll take care of it.”

Cecil turned to watch her talk to the man behind the counter.

“I’m so sorry,” Cecil could just hear her say. “I don’t want to bother you at all, but I’ve been ill and this more than my stomach can take right now. Is it possible you could give me something… more simple?”

The man took the bowl from her.

“Thank you so much. It really does look delicious. I hope I can try it another time.”

She said a few more words to the man, smiling, and by the time she had finished, he was smiling back to her. She came back to the table with a bowl of rice and unseasoned meat. Cecil kept looking at her unhappily as she ate.

“Cecil, you’ve never had to take care of me before and I don’t expect you to start now,” she eventually said primly.

Cecil sighed. “Good thing since I’ve proven so poor at it.”

“I don’t think that. I’m alive,” she said. “You got that sand pearl, which can’t have been easy. I don’t know how you did it, they cost a king’s ransom, and I’ve never heard of the Damcyan crown giving one to anyone who wasn’t their citizen.”

“I suppose I did what I had to,” Cecil allowed. “But… Magda kept sending me away because I was upsetting you. Making it worse just by being there. Back in Baron, whenever you had to heal me you were always so calm. Just you being there made me feel better. I never realized just how much strength that must have taken. I wasn’t able to return the favor. Not at all.”

“It’s not quite the same,” Rosa said. “I was never afraid you would lose your mind.” She looked away and seemed to think for a moment. “No, I can’t say that’s true either. I’m sorry that I—”

“No, no,” Cecil interrupted, shaking his head. “The last thing I want is for you to apologize to me. Don’t. Just. Let us say that I have a greater appreciation for your gifts and leave it there. And still. Just you being here does make me feel better. Even now.”

After they had eaten in silence for a while, Cecil eventually worked up his nerve to ask. “Did Kain ever make it back to Baron?”

Rosa put down her fork and looked troubled. “I don’t know.”

Cecil looked at her, expecting her to go on, but she just shook her head and said “I don’t know,” again. “I don’t know where the news you were headed toward Kaipo came from if he didn’t. I don’t think I saw him, but I can’t say for sure. I really don’t remember. I remember deciding to go after you. I remember flashes of the desert… I must have gotten on a ship, but I don’t remember it. I don’t know. Cecil… what happened?”

Cecil looked at Rydia. “I’ll tell you later,” he said.

“Cecil and his friend killed Momma’s dragon,” Rydia said, suddenly speaking up in a rather matter of fact fashion, gesturing with her spoon. “So Momma died. Then they set the village on fire. Don’t know how, since Cecil doesn’t know a word of magic. Even though he’s a grownup he uses those little rocks to start fires. They tried to take me away from Momma, so I called Titan. Titan knocked the mountains down. I was asleep for a while and Cecil carried me across the desert. And now we’re here,” Rydia didn’t look happy about it, but she continued to eat her food as if she had said nothing particularly notable.

Rosa stared at her.

“That’s more or less the truth of it, yes,” Cecil said.

“’Knocked the mountains down’?” Rosa echoed.

“I surmise…” Cecil said slowly. “That my father wanted to eliminate the only credible challenge to the Red Wings. The ring we were sent there to deliver was a magical explosive, we had no idea. I think… I believe, I have to believe, nothing else makes sense, that he didn’t particularly care if we lived or died. All the better if we had died, in fact, to eliminate a pair of potential dissenters.”

“Oh, Cecil, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not—it’s not—spare any sympathy you have for Rydia.”

“It true,” Rosa said, looking at the girl. “You have been through a great deal, little one.”

“It’s alright, I’m not sad anymore,” Rydia said, looking down.

Rosa laughed weakly and gave Cecil a look that was all too knowing. “Sweetie you know that it’s alright to be sad, right? That you don’t have to pretend to be happy all the time?”

Rydia shook her head. “No. I don’t want to be like Edward.”

Rosa gave Cecil a questioning look.

“I’ll have to tell you the rest of the story,” Cecil said. “I met a sage—of all things—here in Kaipo. He was looking to get to Damcyan to chase after his daughter, who eloped with a bard. It was… a difficult road, and since I needed a sand pearl, our paths went the same way. The bard he was seeking turned out to be Prince Edward. We got to the palace just after it had been bombarded by the Red Wings.”

Rosa twitched at this, but stayed silent.

“It was a near total loss,” Cecil went on. “Only one survivor that I know of, other than the prince. Perhaps there would have been more, but Sage Tellah was more focused on finding his daughter than healing the wounded.” Cecil sighed. “It was truly awful, I won’t deny it. The king and queen dead, and Edward’s fiancé—Tellah’s daughter. Edward has… not taken it well.”

“You can hardly blame the man!”

“Yes, I keep repeating that to myself as well. But I doubt he was much use before the tragedy. I almost wish he had simply pointed us in the direction of the sand pearl and let us fetch it ourselves. He has been more hindrance than help.”

“Not everyone is a knight, Cecil.”

“Rydia, by contrast, has been a great help,” Cecil said, tilting his head toward the girl, who gave a large and cheesy grin. “She’s becoming a seasoned monster fighter.”

“Well, certainly not everyone is a summoner, either.”

“I don’t think he’s even really a bard,” Cecil said in what might be a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t much blame Tellah for hating him.”

“Where did he go?” Rosa asked. “Where will he go?”

“I don’t know, it’s his own business.”

“Cecil,” Rosa said, leaning toward him with both her hands on the table. “He could be a powerful ally, and he saved my life besides.”

“I doubt he’ll have gone far, he’s not the sort to brave the desert alone. Or… he might,” Cecil allowed. “In that hovercraft of his. I suppose I should look around town for him. Make sure he isn’t hanging from a rafter.”

“Cecil!”

“There’s not much I can do for him. His family’s dead, the love of his life died in his arms. This may well be the death of his country and the end of his entire world. What can I say or do that would comfort him? I’m in poor enough a position to help myself. Or you.”

“You’d be in a better position if you could keep the allies you’ve made.”

**

Edward found himself sitting by the spring at the Kaipo Oasis among the sparse grasses that grew by the water. He watched the water ripple with the occasional breeze that rustled the palms. He sat there, not thinking, wanting to think but unable to do it. In his mind’s eye he saw only his parents’ dead eyes, Anna’s blood on his hands, that towering figure in the black armor. His lute sat on his lap. He began to play, out of habit more than out of desire, and landed, as he often did lately, on that tripping melody the dark knight had so hated. He had started the song meaning to make it into a dance for Anna and had not yet quite gotten it right. Now the song seemed forever trapped in this infant state, a few tripping bars, more mournful than lovely. The next notes would not come to him, so he played the ones he had. Over, and over, and over, and over.

He did not know how to go on.

When the greater moon rose he stopped playing, not so much looking at the reflection of the lane of moonlight in front of him as going still while it happened to be in front of him.

He blinked and she was there, standing in the pool, walking toward him, the water sloshing about her ankles, the hem of her white dress floating on the surface, blending with the reflected moonlight.

“Ed-ward,” she said, sing-song, leaning down with her hands on her knees to look at him. Her red braid fell off her shoulder.

“Anna,” he breathed, for she could be no other.

She looked over her shoulder as if perhaps she could hear someone else calling her. She looked back to him. “I have to go on soon,” she said. “But I wanted to see you one last time. Oh my love,” she said, and she kissed his forehead, and each eyelid. “You can’t go on like this.”

“No,” he said, trembling, weeping again. “I can’t. Not without you.”

“My love, my heart, I know you loved me, but you must.”

“Love you,” he corrected. “Love you still, will always love you.”

“It’s too much, isn’t it? Too much to hold in you with nowhere to go.”

Edward nodded quickly, gaze downwards, eyes streaming with tears now.

“Once, you gave that love to me. Now,” she said, sweeping her arm in an arc that included the town, the oasis, the sky, beyond. “You must share it with all the world.”

“How?” Edward said in a breath between sobs.

“You’re going to have to fight,” Anna said mournfully.

“Anything but that, my love, you know that I am no fighter.”

“Not all fighting is done with swords. You are stronger than you know,” she said. She cupped his face, and tilted his chin to gaze up to look at her. Somehow, in that moment, in the moonlight, through his tear-streaked eyes, she was more clear and real to him than she had ever been, like he was seeing not just her face but the essence of her. “You have to believe,” she went on, and her breath touched his face as she spoke. “Promise me that you will believe. In this world. In yourself.”

Edward swallowed. “For you, my love, I will try.” He shook his head. “But I don’t understand. What would you have me do?”

“Golbez cannot be allowed to have the crystals.”

“But how can I stop him? He’s a powerful mage, he has an army, a battalion of airships! How am I to—”

“Fight!” Anna said with urgency.

“My love, I told you—”

“FIGHT!”

Edward jerked to standing. His heart was hammering as if he’d run a race. The greater moon had set, and he was in the light of the lesser moon, and starlight. There was movement in the grass to his right, dark scales, the shape of a man that did not move like a man. It stood, and hissed at him.

Edward froze.

Anna’s voice still echoed in his ears. The sahagin sprang at him.

Edward swung the body of his lute—the only thing he had—at the thing’s head. He winced as it hit, a weak blow, without even his meager strength in it. The monster jumped back, but more in confusion than anything else.

Not all fighting was done with swords. He thought back to Cecil’s urging to prove he was a bard. He, Edward Chris von Muir, had caused women to throw themselves at his feet. He had brought great lords into open weeping with his song. A monster’s mind was surely simpler.

He clutched his lute, wielding it as an instrument now instead of as a bludgeon. He dragged his fingernails along the strings, a warning, scratching hiss.

He opened his mouth. He played a chord. He sang:

I am the last of a line of great rulers.

He strummed his lute, improvising:

I have stolen the hearts of both dancers and kings

He plucked the strings, a simple melody.

I am greater, far greater, than whate’er commands you

And I command you: LEAVE

The monster flinched again and again as if the notes had indeed struck it. It froze, as Edward had a moment before. Starlight reflected in its blank eyes.

It turned and ran, loping into the desert on all fours.

Chapter Text

Cecil and Rosa lay together in one of the two narrow beds in the inn room, curled together in a space meant for one. She was soft and relaxed in his arms, and he found himself unable to resist the pull of her, petting her, kissing her cheek and her brow and her lips, running a hand down her body. Desire kindled in him. She returned his kisses, but slowly. She was barely out of her sick bed, she had to be tired, and Rydia was only a few feet away in the other bed, almost within arm's reach. Cecil cursed himself for every time Rosa had come to him in his tower room, every time he might have made love to her and had not. He contented himself with petting. Even his own frustrated desire was warm comfort.

"What will happen now?" Rosa asked him, her mind apparently not as sleepy as her body.

"I don't know," Cecil said, speaking in a low voice, hoping not to disturb Rydia. "We need to get away from here. I'm afraid we've already lingered too long. I wanted to pay off my debts, but I may have to leave those behind me as well. I don't want to bring my father's wrath down on this place."

"I'm surprised the soldiers he sent after you never made it here."

"Oh," Cecil said, his hand on her back suddenly stilling. "No. They did make it here."

Rosa's face was in darkness save for a thin bar of moonlight shining through a gap in the shutters, illuminating one blue eye, looking through him. "What happened?"

Cecil breathed out and shut his eyes. "I can show you where they're buried."

"Oh, Cecil," Rosa breathed in horror, but she didn't draw away.

"I might have gone with them, but they were going to kill Rydia," Cecil said, tone not rising from the low voice he was speaking in so as not to wake the girl they spoke of. "I couldn't let that happen. It was. Davit. It was Davit. I don't know the others' names. I'm not… happy about it."

"I wouldn't believe that you would be."

"But I don't regret it, either," he said, speaking more quickly now in a whispered hiss. "They made their choice. Decided that they'd rather kill a child than back down. I… I almost feel like I should feel worse about it. Maybe the dark sword has done its work on me. Maybe I don't feel remorse any more."

Rosa lay in stillness and silence for a long moment, her hand still upon his arm.

"If you feel remorse for not feeling remorse, do you feel remorse?" She eventually wondered aloud.

"Maybe I'll come to regret it," Cecil said. "I probably will, if our paths ever lead us back to Baron. But for now…" He shook his head against the pillow. "I regret Mist. I regret Mysidia. I don't regret that. What does that make me?"

"Do you want the honest answer to that question, Cecil?"

"Yes."

"A traitor."

"Thanks," Cecil huffed. "Very comforting."

"Do you want comfort for it? For killing those men?"

"No."

"Thank you for telling me," Rosa eventually said earnestly, looking into his face. She looked girlish and vulnerable in a way she always looked to Cecil with her hair loose.

"I could hardly keep it from you."

"You could. You could have chosen to keep many things from me that you didn't."

"It would have been foolish."

"Let me ask you for another truth, then," Rosa said slowly, looking at him intently.

"Go on."

"What will you do with Rydia?"

"What will I 'do' with her?" Cecil repeated.

"Would you leave her someplace safe? With an orphanage? Some old childless couple who would love her, not knowing what she is? Something like that?"

"There isn't any place safe," Cecil said.

"But if there were?"

Cecil turned to his other side to look at the girl sleeping in the other bed, her wild hair and the lashes of her closed eyes all that was visible under her blanket. She slept as quietly as a doll, not knowing her fate was being discussed. To give her to a stranger? To never see her again? The thought felt like it gnawed at Cecil's stomach.

"Cecil?" Rosa said.

Cecil didn't answer.

"She seems very fond of you," Rosa prodded.

"I don't want to hurt her," Cecil said eventually.

"Yes, but if you must, it would be better to do it sooner than later, wouldn't it? So that she won't get… false hopes?"

"You think…what?" Cecil said in a small voice. "She should go to an orphanage somewhere, dye her hair, lie about who she is, pretend she doesn't have this magic?"

"It's the closest to a safe thing that I can think of."

"That seems awful. Like burning all those villagers again."

"Better than her dying too." Rosa wrapped herself around his back, throwing an arm around his chest.

"Anything that tried to kill her would have a hard time," Cecil said with pride. "She's such a brave, fierce little thing."

The affection in Cecil's voice was half the answer Rosa was looking for. Cecil heard it himself.

"She's strong enough that it worries me," Rosa whispered. "And she's going to be even stronger when she's older." She had taught her to make potions that afternoon, a simple process of storing a curative spell in clean water and sealing it. The results lined the windowsill, over a dozen bottles. Reused potion bottles, but also bottles that had once held liquor and perfumes and ointments that they had begged off of Mr. Azem. They had run out of bottles well before Rydia had run out of magic. "She could cause such devastation if she doesn't learn tight control over it. Leaving her with someone who doesn't know what she is might be a nightmare, now that I think on it. What she really needs is a teacher."

"You could teach her," Cecil said with hope, turning his head halfway toward her.

Rosa scoffed. "I know almost nothing of black magic and less than that of summoning. And I've had to work to build power. I've never needed to reign it in."

Cecil breathed out. "I wish Tellah hadn't run off. He was good with her."

"He was from Mysidia originally, right? I wonder if someone there…?" she trailed off. Cecil sighed. There were a whole host of reasons that was an impossibility. "We'll think on it," Rosa said.

Rosa fell asleep soon after, leaving Cecil too much to think about to do the same. He shifted to face her once more, the bed so small he was touching her no matter how he lay. She lay on her side, hands loosely curled in front of her on the pillow. He realized suddenly that this was the first time they would ever sleep a full night next to each other in the same bed. The thought made him feel a strange, warm little joy. She had done it without thought or comment, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if they had been wed for years.

**

Cecil woke alone in the inn room with midmorning light shining through the shutters. He wandered out and eventually found his companions seated around a table at the neighboring tavern, Edward returned from wherever he had been and in serious conversation with Rosa. Rydia was merrily kicking her feet and piling cream on a pastry.

Rosa scooted a plate piled with eggs and fruit toward him, and Edward poured him a cup of coffee from a brass carafe as Cecil moved to join them.

“You miss things when you don’t rise before noon,” Rosa said pleasantly.

“It’s not noon yet,” Cecil corrected her. “And you also miss other things when you go to bed with the sun,” Cecil said in a tone suggesting they'd had this conversation at least a dozen times. He looked between Edward and Rosa.

“I have paid your debts,” Edward said, apparently reading the look of slight confusion on Cecil’s face. “With a little to spare.”

“With what money?” Cecil asked as he took the cup from him.

“I played here last night. The crowd wasn’t what I’d hope for, but it gave me chance to think. Moreover,” he admitted. “I bartered the wine that was stored in the hovercraft. With the assurance—truthful, unfortunately—that it was unlikely those vineyards would be producing any time soon.”

“Then I am further in your debt,” Cecil said slowly as he sat down.

“And I am going to give you a chance to repay it,” Edward said, folding his hands in front of him on the table.

Cecil took a sip of the coffee and nearly choked.

“Add some of the cream to it if you find it to be a bit much,” Edward said around a smile, delaying what looked like it was going to be a fervent sales pitch. “Most of my countrymen would be mortified, but I understand such a strong brew is not to everyone’s taste. Anyroad,” he said, shifting back into seriousness as Cecil stirred cream into his coffee. “It seems Baron is intent on gathering crystals and none too concerned about the cost of doing it. If you are indeed no friend to your former country…” Edward trailed off.

“Go on,” Cecil said.

“I have no power to resist the might of Baron. Even were I to muster what remains of Damcyan’s forces, we could do little against the Red Wings, and we would likely be too late besides. Baron has thus far moved very quickly to gather the remaining crystals to them. What we may have time for, however, is to warn the other nations.”

“We’ve agreed it’s most likely they’ll try to take the crystal at Fabul next,” Rosa said.

Cecil nodded. It was the nearest crystal to Baron remaining, and the location of the Wind crystal at the monastery at Mt. Hobs was well known.

“Which may give us a chance,” Edward went on. “Damcyan and Fabul have long been allies. I know their king. He will believe my testimony. As for the path there…. I can get us as far as the base of Mt. Hobs in the hovercraft. From there, we’ll need to hike up the mountain to the monastery. We would likely be waylaid by monsters. As you know, I’ve no strength at arms. I would not get very far alone.”

“So you want me to escort you to the monastery at Mt. Hobs?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, I agree. We should be on our way as soon as possible. Rosa, I would ask you watch over Rydia until I return.”

“I’m going with you,” Rosa said, and the look in her eyes and the set of her jaw was hard.

“You’re barely out of bed!” Cecil protested. “You’re in no condition to hike up a mountain and into stars know what.”

“I’m fine,” Rosa said firmly.

“You could barely walk yesterday!”

“I’m a white mage, Cecil, I know my condition better than you do. You tell me that you’re glad I’m here, that you have a new appreciation for my skills, yet you won’t let me go with you?”

“Rosa…”

“You know I can help you," Rosa said, the set of her jaw melting into hurt. "Please. Don’t leave me behind. I wouldn’t insist if I thought I would be a burden to you.”

“Cecil…” Edward started, looking at him with a pointed wince. He stood and motioned for Cecil to follow him. “Excuse us a moment, ladies.”

Cecil followed Edward out the door and into the morning sun, bright but still pleasant this time of day, a slight breeze wafting the aroma of sagebrush to them.

“Rosa only wants to be with you, Cecil," Edward said as soon as the door closed. "Let her.”

Cecil crossed his arms and frowned at the ground.

“Listen, I have no idea what is going to happen," Edward said. "It is very likely there is no safe place for any of us anywhere. It is very likely all of our lives end in blood and tears. A few more days at your side may be the only thing you can give her. Asura’s mercy, Cecil, let her have that at the least. Do you know what I’d give for a few more days with Anna?”

Cecil met his gaze and did not unfold his arms. “Anna took an arrow for you.”

Edward’s mouth twisted. “You are stronger than I. If you want to protect Rosa, surely the safest place for her is by your side.”

Cecil was silent for a moment, considering. “What about Rydia?” He asked. Placing her in Rosa’s care seemed a solution to a problem he had been trying to solve since he had picked the girl up in the aftermath of Mist. It seemed like wisdom to leave the child in the hands of someone whom he trusted. Someone who would be a better caregiver than he.

Or did he just want to relieve himself of that responsibility?

“Rosa and I spoke of that,” Edward said. “We’re going to need her. In times of trouble, Fabul closes the path to Mt. Hobs with a wall of magical ice. If they’ve had any word from Damcyan, it’s very likely that barrier is already up, and we would need a powerful black mage to pass through it. We would need Rydia. And besides, you know your countrymen hunt her. If you leave the both of them here, do you truly think they would be any safer than if they came with us?”

Cecil cast his gaze around them here and there and shifted uncomfortably. Having so recently reunited with Rosa, the thought of leaving her filled him with a nervous dread that paradoxically convinced him that it was the right thing to do, convinced him that he was clinging to her for comfort in a way that would help neither of them. Surely Rydia and Rosa together could fend off most foes?

But Baron was not most foes, and alone and unguarded, caught unawares? Cecil could only envision a scenario that ended with them both in the bowels of Baron's dungeons if it didn't end with both of them dead. He could see—he could feel, as if he held the blade himself—swords cutting through very tender flesh.

“You’re right," Cecil breathed. "You’re right. Of course you’re right,” Cecil said. “It’s only…"

"What?" Edward said gently, sensing Cecil was on the edge of some confession.

"I've caused so many of her troubles I'm sometimes convinced if she simply got herself far away from me they would end."

Edward laughed, but not unkindly. "She braved the desert and madness itself to fly to your side. If you want her far away from you, you're going to have to stop braving monsters and miles and strange allies to help her."

Cecil made a sort of miserable noise in the back of his throat.

"Cecil, you can make the both of you miserable, desperately trying to both be with her and not be with her at the same time. Or accept that it's her choice. That she chose to cross the desert. That she's choosing to come with us. That she didn’t choose relative safety in Baron. She chose you. You could prove to her that she's not a fool for it."

Cecil was silent for a moment.

"Or…" Edward said lightly. "If you really like, perhaps I could convince her that she deserves a lover that is not quite so miserable a bastard as you. I do find myself newly single."

"You are not serious," Cecil said through his teeth.

Edward laughed nervously. "No! No. Lovely as she is, she was made for a warrior. She'd be wasted on me." He smiled wistfully enough to make Cecil believe that he had given the matter serious thought. He suddenly sobered. "Seriously, though, Cecil. We're in agreement? The girls are coming with us?"

"Yes. Yes, you've made your point."

"You seem to honor courage, Cecil," Edward went on. "So honor hers. And tell her,” He continued, not seeming to be in the mood for mercy. “That the reason you were reluctant for her to go with us was because you didn’t want her to suffer further and not because you thought her incapable. Else she’s going to be trying to prove her strength to you and may not ask for help if she does need it.”

“You’ve certainly found your voice.”

“And I pray that I might keep it." Edward looked away for a moment. "I… I have to believe that Anna did what she did for a reason, that there is work to do that only I can do. I can’t be worthy of that sacrifice, I simply can't. But I have to try to be. Or else hate every moment that I draw breath.”

To honor that courage. To be worthy of that sacrifice.

Edward held the door open for Cecil. He smiled graciously, but Cecil noted that his hand trembled. He felt suddenly wretchedly guilty. He had suspected before that Edward was afraid of him, and that notion had only served to strengthen his contempt for the man. Now he had evidence, and yet Edward was trying to treat him as a friend despite of it.

“You can come with us,” Cecil said as he sat once more at the table. “I ask you to come with us,” he amended. “Rosa, Rydia.”

“I for one will be grateful for the company of an experienced healer,” Edward said. “Mage Rosa.”

**

They gathered up supplies. Food and water. Arrows for Rosa. Cecil assisted Edward in finding a tent that would fit them all comfortably and protect them from the weather. Rydia made a stiff goodbye to the villager children she had befriended. Rosa gifted the sand pearl to Magda. It was of little use for healing now, but still a valuable jewel. Cecil looked back at the empty inn room, suddenly bare of everything that had made it his and Rydia's home for the past few weeks, before he locked its door for the last time.

Azem, the innkeep, was not behind his desk, so, leaving the key on the desk and hesitating for a moment, Cecil went behind it himself and drew back the beaded curtain. The room behind smelled of pipe smoke. The man Cecil sought was at a desk in the corner of the room with his back to him,

Cecil cleared his throat and the man turned. “I don't want to trouble you, but we're leaving. I wanted to speak to you,” Cecil said to the innkeep. “To thank you.”

The man put his quill in his stand, and there was a scrape of the wooden chair on the floor as he stood. “Your friend paid me more than what was due," he assured Cecil. "But I would not have left you and Rydia helpless if I had any power to do otherwise.”

“Still…." Cecil closed his eyes and bowed his head to him. "There are things you have done for us that money can’t repay, and I wanted to give you my debt in gratitude, even if I could give you nothing else.”

“Very well, my friend,” Azem said, and grasped Cecil's forearm with his hand. “Thank me by seeing that the road takes you home.” Cecil returned his handshake and turned to go.

“Cecil?” Azem spoke again from the beaded doorway as Cecil leaned on the Inn's front door to open it.

“Yes?” Cecil said, pausing in the doorway.

“Remember me when you are king,” he said with a wink.

Cecil didn’t couldn’t say whether Azem had known his identity from the very beginning, or deduced it when the soldiers of Baron had come for him, or which swirling rumours and suppositions had reached his ears. He didn’t know if what Azem supposed would ever come to pass, or if any road would take him there, but he met his eyes, and bowed to him, and left Kaipo.

Chapter Text

The hovercraft zoomed through the countryside, passing through the route Edward had taken oversea to the antlions’ lair, then going over land beyond. Their path became more lush the further they headed east, through prairies, farmland. The mountains they were headed always in the distance, visible as they crested hills, seeming to take an age to draw near to.

Cecil and Rosa were accustomed to the constant presence of the snow-capped mountains of Northern Baron. The capital city nested in the foothills. Their native mountains were tall and unforgiving enough that the other side was another universe and none had ever touched the tallest peaks, pointed white and gray that seemed to blend into the azure of the skies on clear days.

The mountains of Fabul were neither the snowy monoliths of Baron nor the dry, windswept rocks of Damcyan. They were a maze of jutting spires, shaped like jagged tree trunks and dwarfing the actual trees of forest at their base a hundred times over, tall enough that the trees that grew at their tops looked like moss. Higher into the mountains, the spires clumped together, forming walls and mazes of rock until a traveler would arrive at a sheer cliff face whose seemingly unreachable top was covered with more of the distant, mossy-looking trees, more of the spires, another cliff face, all adding up to the terraces of a giant, mad and negligent gardener, onwards and upwards, as far as the eye could see, or until vision was blocked by clouds.

Edward flew the hovercraft a little ways into a dirt road leading upwards, but eventually parked it, tucked against a cliff face, hidden from the road.

“I won’t be able to fly this much further,” he said as he slowed the craft. “I only hope I’ll be able to come back for it before it becomes the fancy of some thief or curious traveler. I fear I won’t, but I suppose it’s a small sacrifice.”

“Have you been here before?” Rosa asked Edward.

“To Fabul, yes,” Edward said. “But not here. There are several monasteries scattered throughout the country, and I’ve visited one, but not this one. It was built specifically to house the crystal of air and is therefore better fortified than most and not typically open to outsiders.”

“Is this even the route we should take?” Cecil asked Edward. “Will they even let us in?”

“I’m not certain,” Edward said as he covered and tied up the craft. “I’m afraid if we headed toward the capital it might take us some time to even be admitted to the gates. Time I don’t think we have. Best to bring the news to those who will use it.”

**

“That, I believe, is our destination,” Edward said after they had hiked some distance. He pointing upwards.

Between the clouds that poured over the mountains was a square red structure with a curved pyramidal roof peeking out from high walls made higher by the surrounding cliff face. The roof could have belonged to a simple house, but must have belonged to a massive structure to be visible from so far away. Looking now, Rosa could see, peeking out from the mist, lines of steps in the surrounding mountains, cut into the rock.

“It seems well defended,” Cecil said. “From the ground, at least,” he added grimly.

“To my knowledge, it has never been captured,” Edward said. “But as you note, times change.”

“I think I see our ice wall, up ahead,” Edward called as they turned a corner.

Cecil squinted to see. It looked not much different than the cliff face, but he could see a patch of the natural wall that was lighter in color, and gleamed faintly in the late afternoon light. The path ended at its foot. Looking up, one could just see the gap between the cliffs beyond it, where the path continued and where the hand wrought stone steps began.

“How do they keep it up? How do they keep it frozen, I mean?” Rosa wondered aloud. “It’s not cold enough here to stay frozen on its own.”

“I don’t know," Edward said. "And I imagine they might be reluctant to tell us. Higher in the mountains, higher even than the monastery, it snows even in the summer. Maybe they bring the cold down here, somehow.”

Rydia stopped walking. “Tired, little one?” Rosa asked. The little girl shook her head and continued on.

“Well, Rydia, do you think you can melt it?” Cecil asked as they came within 20 feet of the wall.

“No,” Rydia said in a small voice.

The three adults looked at her.

“I know it looks like a lot,” Rosa said, breaking a tense silence. “But we would only need to melt a small hole in it. If you could cast Fire, I’m sure it would…”

Rydia shook her head emphatically, her green hair swinging around her shoulders.

“Rydia?” Cecil asked.

“I can’t cast fire,” Rydia said in a small voice.

Now that Cecil thought about it, he hadn’t witnessed her casting fire in the whole time of their acquaintance. He or Tellah had started all their fires. She had directed plenty of ice and lightning at monsters, but never that most basic of spells.

Rosa looked deeply confused. “You summoned an eidolon that cast down a mountain, didn’t you? Compared to that, fire should be easy. It’s the first black magic spell everyone learns.”

“I’m not casting Fire any more. I hate fire,” Rydia said. She had gone stiff, and her eyes were very large.

Cecil was hit with a sudden, stunned realization. “Her village…” he started. The village of Mist in flames was so often in his mind. How much more often was it in hers?

Rosa looked to Cecil and then back at Rydia. She knelt on the ground in front of the girl to look her in the eyes.

“Please, Rydia, listen to me,” Rosa said, taking her gently by the shoulders. “You’re the only one of us who has the power to melt that ice. We can’t make you do it, and I'm sorry we didn't ask you about this before now,” Rosa went on. “But if we don’t make it through here to Fabul, a lot of people could be hurt.”

Rydia pressed her mouth into a miserable frown. Her eyes were filling with tears.

“Rydia,” Edward started, and drew near to place a hand on Rydia’s shoulder. “You’ve helped me, and you’ve helped Cecil and Rosa. You have the power to help many more people. Please, we need your courage.”

Rydia sniffed, and wiped her eyes and nose on the back of her hand. She took her rod from where it was thrust in her belt and walked forward until she could touch the wall of ice with it. She held it before her with both hands. She took a breath, then two. She sniffled again, and then she began to cast, saying the words of the spell in a whisper. A red glow began in the round crystal of the rod, giving the white ice an orange tint.

“Good girl,” Rosa said softly as she rose to stand behind her.

From Rydia’s wand there bloomed a small ball of fire that moved to kiss the wall. The ice sweated. The fireball grew and burrowed into the ice. The whole of the wall made a sudden crack as its integrity was challenged. Cecil drew near in case he needed to dive to protect any of them should a sheet of ice fall. The fireball grew bigger, bigger than Rydia’s whole body and candleflame blue at its center, spinning with writhing tongues of flame at its edges. Rydia walked forward slowly as her flames clear a path. One halting step. Another and another. The adults followed her close behind, walking through a tunnel of ice glowing orange with the flames, dripping water, Rydia’s fireball emitting intense heat ahead of them. Rydia staggered forward when there was no more ice ahead of them. The fireball vanished, leaving an echo of heat in its wake.

The wall of ice cracked mightily behind them. Cecil had a sudden memory of the avalanche at Mist.

“Go, go, go!” he said, breaking into a run, grabbing Rydia by the arm, half dragging her forward.

The ice wall shuddered and fell, fracturing into pieces and sliding into sheets and crashed as it hit the ground, leaving a pile of fractured ice behind them and a burst of crystals that fell on their shoulders like snow.

“Incredible, Rydia!" Edward said in the sudden silence.

“I knew you could do it,” Rosa said.

Cecil patted her on the shoulder carefully, with the sense he often had lately, that his armor was keeping him from showing her more affection, reluctant as he was to pet her head or noogie her and get her hair caught in his gauntlet. Rydia seemed to almost sense this, and leaned back against his leg, thunking her head on his breastplate as he rubbed her shoulder.

“Thank you,” Cecil said.

Rydia giggled and smiled a gap-toothed smile, though her eyes were still red from tears.

Chapter Text

"I understand that the monks run these steps as part of their training," Edward said, huffing and clutching at his side. "I don't think I'm cut out for it, myself."

“Were Kain here, I’d end up racing him,” Cecil said, the sunlight through the trees alternately illuminating his face and sending it into shadow. “He'd be minutes ahead, waiting for me at the top, barely winded.”

“You boys could have it," Rosa said wearily. "This is challenge enough at a steady pace.”

“Do you need a rest?” Cecil asked.

Rosa shook her head. “I’ll manage. Still a little weak, that’s all.”

“I could give you a piggy back.”

“Heavens, no.”

“You can’t be too much heavier than Rydia, and I carted her most of the way across the desert.”

Rosa glanced back at the girl dubiously. “I weigh at least twice what she does, what are you talking about?” she laughed.

“Isn’t that what ladies want to hear?" Cecil asked. "That they’re lighter than air?”

Rosa rolled her eyes. “I’m extremely aware that I am made of flesh and blood, lately.”

They walked in silence for some minutes. Cecil slowed his pace such that Edward and Rydia passed them. Rosa hung by Cecil's side. "What is it?" she asked.

Cecil opened his mouth but took a few steps before he answered. “Do you think Kain’s alive?”

Rosa stopped walking for a brief moment. She looked away into the long shadows of the trees.

“I don’t know. I would think, if he lived…” Rosa said, looking to Cecil and resuming her climb. “That he would have come after you. Like I did.”

“And he would have found me, because he didn’t have Golbez to send him mad, first.” Cecil sighed as he continued his steady, rolling walk. “I keep hoping, believing that he’s somehow just a step behind us on our trail, but if he were…. Surely he would have caught up to us in Kaipo.”

“I pray for him,” Rosa said, but she looked unhappy. “You never know,” she said. “I would not have expected to be here, now, in Fabul, especially not through the paths we’ve taken to get here.”

“Do you think…” Cecil said, slowing down. “If he did make it back to Baron… you don’t think Father would have imprisoned him?”

“You would know better than I."

“It’s possible, I suppose,” Cecil said. "He wouldn't be the first inconvenient person to simply disappear, but in that case…. He's more likely dead than in the dungeons."

Rosa bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Cecil, I can’t give you any comfort. But remember that he is not only your friend.”

They continued in their slow climb in silence.

“Forgive me, I’m only looking for some way he might... It’s selfish of me, really. After the Mysidians, and Davit and his men, and every soul in Mist save Rydia, it’s Kain I… I can’t stand the thought of him trapped under some rock, or wandering the desert, or locked in the dungeons, thinking that I abandoned him. Were our positions reversed, I know he would have done everything in his power to find me.”

Cecil looked up at the gap of sky between the trees, streaks of cloud turning orange as the day waned. “Some dark part of me hopes he died in the avalanche. It would be better than being trapped, waiting for help that never came.”

“I don’t think you did the wrong thing," Rosa said. "Getting Rydia to safety. You trusted that either Kain was beyond your help or that his strength would lead him out of whatever situation he was in. I don’t think you were wrong to judge it so. Wherever he is now, he’s beyond our reach.”

**

They eventually arrived at a traveler's circle at a flat, plaza-like landing of the seemingly endless steps. Edward threw himself on the ground beside one of its stones, huffing.

"So…. tired," Rydia said in concert with him, dragging her feet like a zombie. Cecil, too, sat on the ground, grateful for a safe place to rest.

They had only gathered their breath for a moment and had not begun to make camp before Rosa was stringing her bow. "I think I saw some wild cockatrice earlier, I'm going to see if I can shoot one."

"Shall I go with you?" Cecil asked, sitting up straight.

Rosa shook her head. "I'm quieter than you. You'll scare them off."

"Are you sure? We've been traveling all day and you've still not fully recovered—"

"I'll be fine," Rosa said, holding up a hand. "We haven't seen any monsters. I think this path is fairly well protected."

"One might call a cockatrice a monster. Can't they turn a person to stone?"

"Only the males. I won't shoot at them."

"How do you know the difference?"

"Crest," Rosa said, making a fan with her spread fingers on top of her head. "I won't go out of earshot. I'll scream if I'm in trouble. You trust me, right?" she asked, bending toward him, near enough to kiss.

Cecil did just that. A quick peck.

"I won't be long," Rosa said, and scurried out of the circle.

After a breather, Cecil and Edward gathered wood for a fire and pitched the tent. The fire itself was an easy matter, with Rydia able to start it with barely a thought now. Once they had begun warming a simple meal, Cecil's concern got the better of him, and he went to find Rosa.

He found her not far away, near the path, on a cliffside with a rather marvelous view of the mountain spires below, casting long shadows in the setting sun.

As he approached, one of the birds Rosa was searching for took flight from the cliffside below. Rosa drew and aimed with impressive quickness, but her arms trembled as she held the bow taut. She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat and relaxed her aim without firing. She turned to Cecil, having apparently heard him approach.

"No luck?" Cecil asked.

"No," she shook her head and sighed. "I lost one arrow. Foolish. I'd have had little chance of retrieving the bird even if I'd hit it."

"That's the way of it, isn't it?"

"Yes, but… I can barely pull my bow. I've hardly felt tired at all today. If anything, I was restless while we were riding. I thought I'd made a full recovery. But I'm not as strong as I was."

"I saw."

Rosa sighed, blowing the air out through her lips like pipesmoke.

"Keep working at it," Cecil said. "And eat well, and you'll be back where you were soon."

"It was with the aim of eating well that I was hunting cockatrice," she said, with an eyebrow raised at him. "The meat of magical creatures strengthens the spirit as well as the body. It would be good for Rydia."

"Do you want me to take a shot at it?" Cecil asked.

Rosa shook her head. "No, you'd just waste more arrows."

Cecil made a scoffing sound in mock offense.

"Not that you're so terrible of a shot. It's getting dark. I don't know this place and the paths are steep. More risk than reward. We're at no risk of starving, and we'll be at the monastery soon. Still… I would have liked to have extra, when we have no idea what tomorrow will bring." She put her arrow back in the quiver at her hip, and planted one end of her bow in the earth, holding it steady with her foot and bending it past its taught curve with her arms to unstring it, less smoothly than he had seen her do that practiced motion in the past.

Cecil drew near her when her bow was loose in her hand, and held her close for a moment. She exhaled in the ghost of a sigh as she relaxed into his embrace and returned it, one-armed. Such appreciation of his touch could conscious no other response other than to give her more of it. He caressed her back and the back of her neck. She dropped her bow and pulled him into a kiss, long and deep and sweet. When they had kissed each other breathless they stood, clutching each other, steadying one another.

"Were I not a little afraid of cockatrices…" Cecil trailed off.

"Yes?" Rosa said with a grin. "Go on?"

"Were I not a little afraid of cockatrices," Cecil said in a low voice, as if the trees could overhear. "I would spread your robe on the forest floor and take you on it."

"I'm not afraid of cockatrices," she said, wide eyed, with a mad little smile.

"Are you sure you're a holy woman?"

She was undoing the clasp on her neck herself, watching Cecil watch her with knowing glee. She swept the heavy garment off her shoulders and spread it on the ground herself, and sat on it, leaning back on her hands and kicking her feet. "Just think. If a cockatrice does get us, we would be stuck in the midst of the act for all—" He silenced her with a devouring kiss.

Their coupling was more desperate than sweet, still mostly clothed, conscious of their vulnerability to monsters and the elements and their proximity to the path and their friends. For Cecil's part, it more whet his appetite than quenched it, leading him to think longingly of the time when they might do this again in safer environs, slowly and teasingly. Still, he sat on his lady love's cloak, with her in his arms, undone and fully drunk on him, feeling more charitable toward the earth and all its creatures.

She eventually turned around in his arms to look out at the mountains as the first stars shone in the night sky, leaning against him as he held her.

"Beautiful," he breathed.

"Yes," Rosa agreed, but she wasn't looking at the mountains.

**

When they arrived back at camp, Rydia was kneeling by Edward's elbow as he strummed a few chords and sang a tune, something about hedgehogs in meadows.

"No! No! That's not how it goes!" the girl protested, bouncing on her knees.

"Sing it for me once more, then."

"Little rabbit hoppingway hopped up on the trotting-way…" Rydia sang, tilting her head back and forth.

Edward started to play along with her, hesitatingly.

"No!"

Edward stopped very still with the air of someone carefully holding on to his patience.

"The words are right," Rydia whined. "But it doesn't sound right!"

"The rhythm, or the notes?" Edward asked her.

"I don't know!"

"I'm trying my best, my dear. I do want to get it right for you, but maybe it's best if we move on to something else now. See, Rosa and Cecil are back," he said, gesturing toward his companions with some relief. "No luck, ah… hunting, I take it?"

"Nothing to bring back, but the trip wasn't entirely wasted," Rosa said, refusing to recognize the bait. "What were you playing? I don't think I know the tune."

"Nor do I, apparently. Something Rydia's mum sang for her. I will try again, Rydia, I promise, but for now…. Anything else you'd like to hear? Any of you? Don't say 'Sir Daniffen's Grave,'" He said to Cecil with narrowed eyes.

Cecil shuddered. "No, spare me please. I've always found it ghastly."

"Then we are in agreement on that."

"What about that one…" Rosa started as she settled herself on the ground. "I don't know the name. Elder, blue, and rolan…" she began to sing meekly.

"My love has gone to pick the cherry," Edward sang. "Elder, blue, and rolanberry…"

Cecil realized that he hadn't actually heard Edward sing before this moment. He'd assumed his moonlighting as a bard was the act of a spoiled prince putting too much stock in his hobbies in order to avoid his responsibilities. Cecil had so strongly imagined what his singing voice would sound like that hearing the real thing came as a bit of a shock. He had imagined something thin and reedy as the man himself, but what he heard was a light but confident baritone, smooth and honey sweet.

The tune was simple, but Edward's fingers danced on the strings between the verses, and he thumped his thumb on the body of the instrument in lieu of a drum.

"One day I'll drink my love as wine," Edward ended the song. He had not looked up as he played, and caught Cecil's eye with a smirk as he did so now, apparently reading the surprise on his face as the knight settled into a place a comfortable distance from the fire.

"Anything else you might hear?" Edward asked his little audience. "Or shall I simply please myself?"

"I wanna hear the one that goes loolay loolay," Rydia said.

"That's not much to go off of!" Rosa said with a laugh, but Edward was already humming a few notes.

"That one?" he asked. Rydia nodded in reply.

"Still thee now my tiny child…" Edward began.

He played very simply this time, a chord before each line, letting only his voice rise over the cracking of the fire.

"Beautiful," Rosa breathed when he had finished.

"You know what it's about?" Edward asked with narrowed eyes.

Rosa shook her head. "It's a lullaby."

"I suppose it is, but…" Edward hesitated. "Perhaps we've too many real things to fear to be telling each other ghost stories just now."

"I'm not scared!" Rydia protested.

"Well…" Edward started. "In one of the versions of the tales about Cagnazzo—he was a very evil king," he said for Rydia's benefit. "He conquered all the lands of the world but still wasn't satisfied, so he went down under the sea to conquer the lands there as well. The people called upon Leviathan to defeat Cagnazzo and hold him under the sea, because Cagnazzo had magical armor that he never took off, and no one who had tried had ever succeeded in killing him. Leviathan agreed, but in exchange, he demanded all their infant boys be offered to the sea."

"Offered to the sea?" Rydia repeated.

"Thrown in," Edward clarified. "So the song is a farewell to their sons."

"My own mother sang me that song," Rosa said. "I don't think I ever knew that was what it's about."

"Most don't, I think," Edward replied. "Only that it's pretty, and slow."

"Did Leviathan save the little boys?" Rydia asked. "Or did they just drown?"

"No one knows," Edward said with a raised eyebrow. "If he did, they're still under the sea with him."

"I thought," Cecil said. "Cagnazzo drowned or Leviathan killed him, no infant sacrifice needed, and all the lands that he conquered went back to their former lords. That's the point. It's a warning against overspreading yourself."

"I do find admit that version is more simple and satisfying, however…" Edward shrugged. "Not much of a song there. Why anyone ever thought it fit for lulling children to sleep, though, I can't say."

"I think maybe…" Rosa started and trailed off.

"You have some insight, Mage Rosa?" Edward asked with genuine interest.

"I don't know if it's insight, but the story I know," Rosa said. "Cagnazzo marched an army with him into the sea. The army washed up on shore, dead, but Cagnazzo himself was never found. The point is, he's gone, but no one knows for certain what happened to him. He could come back at any time. And…" she hesitated a moment, gathering her thoughts. "The baby boys, the army, maybe they're one in the same. Maybe it's not such a strange thing to sing to your children. It's a prayer that they won't die in war, or if they do, the gods will honor them for it."

Chapter Text

Cecil woke to the sound of men's voices, distant shouting. He blinked confusedly. The light of dawn shone weakly through the fabric of the tent. There was a searing sound that reminded him of the fireworks of the Heavensturn festivals, or…

He jerked to sit up.

…the bomb monsters at Mist.

He scrambled over Edward's legs to get out of the tent. He lifted the flap, standing half upright. Nothing seemed to be amiss in the camp, nor were there enemies surrounding the circle, waiting for them. He stood and looked up, further up the path, further up the mountain. Smoke rose from the trees. It was difficult to say exactly where it rose from, or how to get there from here. The concussive force of an explosion echoed between the hills.

Cecil lifted the tent flap again. Rosa was stirring. "What going on?" she asked with a sniff.

"I don't know, something's wrong." He shook Edward, who batted at his hands and groaned, but rolled to sit up and walked out of the tent in an awkward crouch, squinting in the weak sunlight.

"Could the monastery already be under attack?" Cecil asked.

"They would have to have passed us in the night," Rosa said. "Surely we would have heard?"

"If they were traveling by land," Cecil said darkly, already scrambling to put on his armor.

"We would have heard the airships," Edward said with a shudder. But he too was pulling on his boots. He looked to Cecil. "The monks train outside the monastery. Could it be some sort of mock battle?"

Cecil shook his head. "I don't think so."

Once Rosa had pulled on her own boots and robe and woken and dressed a very cranky Rydia, she helped Cecil into his armor, tightening the straps in a way that made him feel strangely more secure while taking half the time it took him to put it on himself. "Thank you, my love," he said as he tied back his hair.

In agreement without discussion, they left the remains of their camp behind, not bothering to carry anything besides their weapons. They went forth at a brisk walk and had not gotten far before a gout of flame rose through the trees in the direction of the shouting voices. The four of them stopped short, staring in the same direction.

"Rosa? Cecil?" Edward said tightly. "I'm sure the two of you can run faster than Rydia or I. Go. We'll catch up."

Rosa and Cecil looked at each other. "I suppose we'll have your footrace after all," Rosa said. Cecil nodded, and together they continued up the steep path at a jog, Cecil slowing his pace a bit so that Rosa could keep up and so that neither of them turned their ankles on the steep path.

The sounds of shouting began to die down as they ran, but the fire seemed to be spreading.

They arrived at a courtyard of dirt, well packed by the steps of many feet. It was littered with the bodies of men, bare-chested and in loose trousers. Only one still stood, knees wide in a stance as if he were riding an invisible fat chocobo, his fists ready at his waist. He was badly burned on the left side of his body, the flesh red and weeping where it was not cracked and blackened. It was impressive that he was standing at all. He breathed in slow and deep, awaiting his best chance to strike at his foe.

That foe hovered, bobbing this way and that just above head height. It was a round, fiery monster, the same as those that had arisen out of the ring Cecil had delivered to Mist. As its cackling face drew near, the monk ran to meet it, leaping to the air and aiming a kick at the monster. At first it seemed that he had not gotten quite high enough to hit the thing, but he spun in midair, striking with his other foot to punt the creature, which was wide as a man's outstretched arms. It struck the earth and skidded, leaving black marks behind it.

The monster bobbed into the air once again as if it were a float on a fishing line, seemingly unperturbed by the strike.

Cecil ran, hand on his sword hilt. The monk readjusted his stance, taking the dark knight in as a potential new enemy. Cecil took his hand from his sword hilt and raised his empty hand. "I'm here to help!" he yelled, and loosed sword and shield to stand beside the man in a ready stance, glancing at the courtyard around them. Among the bodies of men were the scattered remains of the larger goblins some called domovoi, and what seemed to be remains of more of the bomb-like creatures like the one they faced. Round, black ashen husks.

The monk took a defensive stance and looked between Cecil and the bomb, unsure. Cecil heard Rosa's footsteps behind him, and at the sight of her, the monk seemed to relax. He had a long, dark moustache, and a head shaved bald save for the back, where his hair was in a thick, dark braid held by gold bands. His bare chest and arms were heavily muscled, and he seemed unperturbed by the burns on his left side, though they must have been excruciating.

The bomb struck again while the monk was distracted by his new allies. Cecil darted forward and intercepted the blow with his shield. It drove him back several inches. His planted feet made furrows in the earth. The heat of a furnace radiated off the creature, and Cecil struck at it with his sword, more to drive the thing and its intense heat away from him than in any hope of damaging it.

"May I heal you?" Rosa asked the monk. With his nod of assent, she laid her bare hand on his injured arm, and began to murmur the words of a spell. A white-green glow, barely perceptible in daylight, radiated from her hands. As it touched the monk skin knit together, taking on a pink, new look, though still smeared with ash. "I'm going to Shell you, too," she said, and at his perceived confusion, added. "A magical barrier," she said. "To protect you from the fire."

At Cecil's strike, the bomb had drawn back, and seemed to be growing, slowly, as if it were expanding a little with each breath.

"Shall we take it together, sir monk?" Cecil asked their new companion, who drew up beside him.

"Wait, Cecil!" Rosa said, and put a hand to his shoulder and whispered some unintelligible words. With the sound of her voice, a net of light was briefly visible around him, and a faint shimmer came all around his field of view, something like the mirages he had become all too familiar with in his time in the desert.

Rosa had scarcely completed her spell when the creature struck again, flying at the three of them. Rosa staggered back with a cry. Cecil tried to intercept it on its arc toward the monk, but caught it only glancingly on his shield. The monk ran toward it instead of away, and punched at it with a low, guttural "hah!" as if he were expelling all the air in his lungs with the blow. Cecil wince at the thought of touching the fiery monster with bare hands, but the monk seemed unperturbed. As he punched it a splash of ice arose on the creature with a sound like shattering glass. The ice weighed the creature down and it drifted toward the ground. It again started to swell.

Cecil struck it, an upwards diagonal swing, the grip at the hilt of his sword arcing from hip to shoulder.

It exploded.

Cecil fell to his back, his universe briefly heat and light and the echo of concussive force ringing in his ears. The monster was gone, but in its place was a towering billow of red smoke. As it rolled over him, enveloping him, he had the brief impression of a maw full of jagged teeth closing over him. The heat was unbearable, and were in not for Rosa's protective spell, likely lethal. Embers and ash touched the barely visible barrier Rosa had cast around him, each one making the force field burn briefly brighter.

Cecil rolled to his feet and made the mistake of taking a deep breath in. His throat and lungs burned. He hadn't been aware, until that moment, that one could feel pain from the inside of one's lungs. He coughed, he couldn't help it. His instincts forced him to gasp for breath and each breath caused more pain. He staggered from the smoke, coughing, eyes stinging, mostly blind.

Rosa was there. He somehow knew her touch even through his armor, and so strongly did her presence mean comfort and safety and the relief of pain for him, that his breathing steadied before she had completed her spell. She put an arm around his waist and ushered him away from the smoke as he coughed the ash from his lungs and as tears washed the soot from his eyes. Eyes still bleary, he looked behind them to the pillar of red smoke, and found that the giant mouth had been no illusion but the face of an unnatural creature of smoke and fire, two eyes glowing like coals over the maw. It seemed to breathe in, expanding as it did so.

"How do we kill it?" the monk cried out.

"Don't know," Cecil said, shaking his head and coughing again. "Can't hit smoke." He thought of the Mist Dragon. He and Kain had been able to injure when it took a solid form, but he wasn't sure this thing had any reason or ability to do the same.

The monk, not hearing him, or determined to try anyway, charged at the smoke monster. Frost coalesced at his fists, as it had before, but the smoke shrank away from his strike. The monk spun, letting his misaimed strike flow into a kick, but this also hit only air. The smoke monster shifted, moving like a venomous snake rearing to strike, but slowly. Not turning its face away from Cecil, Rosa, and the monk, it billowed toward the tree line, and in a motion something like the same striking snake and something like a person crawling on their belly, fell on the first of the trees. The gaping maw enveloped the crown of a tree, catching it on fire, and the smoke monster grew in size and brightness.

"We have to stop it,” Cecil said. “It's only going to get stronger!"

"We need magic," Rosa breathed. "I could try to cast Holy, but I've never managed it before. I'm sure when Rydia gets here she could damage it, but if it keeps eating trees…"

"We'll distract it until she gets here," Cecil said, steeling himself for what he was about to do.

"I am pledged to defend the monastery or die trying," The monk said. "You two have no such charge."

"No time for discussion. My love?" Cecil said, tilting his head to Rosa, not without regret, the demon armor making a kind of ironic shrug of the shoulders. "Keep us alive."

He spun on his heel and ran at the monster, darkness gathering in his sword. The monk was a half a step behind him, and Cecil heard a slightly mad chuckle from the man just before he slashed his sword at the monster.

The darkness did not seem to harm it much, but it did enough that the creature noticed. The red smoke twisted, the "face" looking comically offended that they had interrupted its meal. The monk skidded to a stop within reach of the monster, punching and kicking at its smokey body. The blows did little, though some bloomed with ice on impact that the smoke shrank away from with a hiss. The monster moved to envelope the monk.

"Ah ah ah, no, fiend! Look to me!" Cecil shouted, swinging his sword in an arc at the creature, aiming more darkness at it. Being in the furnace of that thing's body had been a nightmare in his armor, he hated to think what it would do to the monk's bare flesh. The creature at least seemed confused, twisting this way and that to look at its attackers. Cecil aimed more darkness at it and danced backward when it raised itself as if it meant to crash down on him again. Even without it touching him, he was sweating profusely under his armor, the fabric of the padded undergarments so hot he feared it might burst into flame. Only long experience in working through pain allowed him the willpower to stay near the thing. That pain, that malice, that was something he could use, and he aimed it at the monster in the form of darkness, blows that the creature seemed to shrink away from, but not be significantly harmed by. The monk continued to aim strikes at the thing, and though his icy fists seemed to do it some harm, his skin was red and blistered from its mere proximity. At one point he staggered away from the monster in a half-swoon, and Rosa appeared at his elbow, tending to him again.

There was a sudden chill in the air, a relief against their burning skin. the burning inferno that was the monster they fought. A trail of icey wind twisted about the monster with a faint tinkling of falling shards of ice. Spurs of ice exploded from within the creature.

Rydia had arrived, her little rod thrust in front of her, with Edward standing at her shoulder. Edward had his instrument in his hands and was… singing. Cecil caught only a few notes of it over the fiery roar of the creature, but what he heard seemed to ease something in him, loosening muscles tensed in fear. Courage. It would be over soon. They would win. Of course they would.

The thing had been swatting at Cecil and the monk as if they were gnats. It responded to Rydia as a real threat, rolling toward her, snorting out flame. Cecil ran to put his shield and himself between her and the monster. It breathed a gout of flame that was mostly caught on Cecil's shield. Rydia was already speaking the words of her next spell, gaze fixed, doing as Cecil had told her: Just keep casting, I'll protect you. Rosa appeared between the child and the knight, touching them both, speaking the words of her own spell, words to command the two sides of magic buzzing in Cecil's ears in a discordant round that made goosebumps rise on his skin in the furnace heat. Ice exploded again as Rydia completed her cast. The monster swelled.

"Cover!" Cecil yelled in premonition. Rosa completed her cast a breath before the creature exploded. A wall of fire washed over them, causing the magical net Rosa had cast around them three of them to glow.

Edward had been far enough away that he had been able to dive behind a treetrunk. The monk had not been so lucky. He had crossed his arms in an x before him, and seemed to have somehow given himself some spiritual protection against the wave of flame, but he staggered to a knee. Rosa ran for him.

"It's not over!" Edward warned. Rydia made a mewling sound. In the remnants of the column of flame were a half-dozen of the grinning, round, bomb creatures, glowing red and ash-grey, smaller than the first one had been. The same as those that had destroyed Rydia's village.

"Not yet!" Cecil said with conviction, and stood to slash at cluster of glowing creatures, hitting two of them with darkness. It didn't stop them, but it slowed them enough that he was able to stab one of them. It dissolved into ash.

Edward was singing again, not the soothing song from before, but a distressing sounding sort of chant with his fingers on the lute making an accompanying hiss. One of the creatures seemed to react to it, and careened into one of its fellows, driving the both of them into the trees where they exploded somewhere in the canopy. The monk arrived again, leaping to tackle one of the creatures out of the air and pummel it with icey fists. One of Rosa's arrows went through the mouth of one of the last two of the creatures. Another arrow hit it and it fell to the ground like a stone. It exploded, but was too far away to do any of the five of them harm. One remained in the air, swelling larger. Cecil waved an arc of darkness at it. It swelled further. The monk leapt and kicked the thing away. It exploded harmlessly before it hit the ground.

Silence echoed. The smoke from several small brush fires rose, but the trees were wet with morning dew, and with the smoke monster gone, the flames were dying out. Cecil sheathed his sword, breath slowing. Loosed from the grip of battle, he felt the full-body, spiking ache that he felt whenever he used a great deal of darkness.

Suddenly, Rosa broke from the others and ran to the nearest of the fallen monks to kneel at his side. She put one hand on his chest and raised the other to the sky, whispering . After a pause, she rose and ran to the next. She shook her head at his stillness, and then moved on to the next. The others watched in solemn silence. The monk bowed his head.

"What is she doing?" Rydia whispered.

"Seeing if she can bring them back," Cecil said at the same time the monk said:

"She is trying to raise them."

"Aren't they dead?" Rydia whispered.

"Yes," Cecil said, and trailed off, sounding pained.

"Before the body grows cold," the monk said. "If the spirit is strong, and willing, a skilled healer can repair the body and call the spirit back into it." He was watching Rosa with an intensity too solemn to be called hope.

Rosa slowed with more than physical weariness as she examined the last few men. On the last, she dropped her hands to her thighs, and raised her face with eyes closed to the sky. The hood of her mage's robe fell from her face, stained with soot. She mouthed a few words, not the magical language that Cecil could not parse, but ones he recognized, a prayer.

"I am sorry," she said as she approached the monk. She met his eyes at first, but looked away to the ground, gathering her composure for a few breaths. "Perhaps if I had gone to them when we first arrived, I could have—"

"If you had, Sir Knight and I might be fallen as well, and those creatures on their way to burn the monastery. I—" he paused, and put a fist over his heart, and bowed. "Yang Fang Leiden, Grandmaster of the monks of Fabul. I owe you my life, Sir…" He straightened, and looked at Cecil askance.

"Cecil, of Baron, and we were on our way to bring you warning. I regret we didn't make more haste, we might have been able to spare your men."

"What warning?" The monk—Yang—asked.

"I—that is to say Baron, has been…" Cecil struggled to gather his words in a fashion that wouldn't point blame at himself. He was suddenly overly aware of just how much pain he was in. It spiked in random places in his body, blooming in his right wrist, then shifting to his hips and settling into an intense ache in his teeth.

Rosa stepped in to cover Cecil's stumbling. "A man named Golbez has seized control of Baron's military and is using our might to take the elemental crystals by force."

"They've already taken the Fire Crystal from Damcyan," Edward said, stepping in. "Slaying most of the palace on the way."

"The Water Crystal of Mysidia is… also in his hands," Cecil confessed.

"You think he comes for the Crystal of Air?"

"Yes," Cecil said. "That fire monster all but proves we were correct," Cecil said, gesturing grimly at their surroundings. "And that they're coming soon."

Yang looked away, upward in the direction of the monastery. "This is where all of our monks come to train…" he said quietly. "The men of the monastery are brave, but most are young and inexperienced, and with so many already dead…" he said, looking at the dead before him. "This was targeted. Kill us if they could and distract us if they couldn't. Leave the monastery undefended."

"You are likely correct," Cecil agreed. "And if so, they are probably already moving against you."

Yang looked out at the courtyard full of dead men. "Do we have time to bury them?"

Chapter Text

From Cecil’s first clear look at the monastery at Mt. Hobbs, he began to think of how they might hope to defend it. Its outer wall formed a rectangle, longer running north to south, with its only gate to the south, where the four travelers entered via heavy, iron-reinforced doors, laying open and welcoming to the outside. A second set of doors was pulled open to the inside by four monks who had scurried from the parapets to the ground level on their approach.

Any attempt to assault the monastery from the ground would have be complicated, Cecil thought as they passed through the gates. The outer wall was over ten feet thick and some forty feet high with no other approach other than the path to the gate and jagged cliffs that surrounded the rest of the monastery walls. The long approach over mountain paths would make bringing any weaponry capable of cracking the walls difficult, to say the least, and bringing numbers sufficient to keep the monastery once they had cracked it even more difficult.

But their enemy was not likely to approach from the ground alone.

“Master, forgive me, we would have had the gate already open for you, but we did not expect you so soon,” said one of the monks that had opened the gates. “Nor were we prepared for…. Guests,” the monk said, looking doubtfully at Cecil, Rosa, Rydia, and Edward. The master monk gave his sorry news and asked that a few of his most senior monks be summoned.

Rosa and Edward expressed their sympathies for the monks’ dead brothers while Cecil wandered forward to get a look at the interior, guided by wonder more than his need to formulate a strategy. Rydia followed at his heels, peering around with the childish curiosity that Cecil also felt but could not express so freely.

To the east and west were long, low buildings that ran parallel to the outer walls, housing for the monks and a few lay people that served them as well as outbuildings like kitchens and toolsheds. Before these, hung in wooden frames, were rows of cylindrical chimes, the largest nearly as tall and broad as a person, and the smallest the size of a finger, all molded with symbols and script that revealed themselves as they turned in the breeze—though not revealing their meaning to the uninitiated. Every breath of wind was accompanied by a faint, low toll or shimmering tinkle. If the sound was meant to bring the place some sort of peace, Cecil felt it, or at least he felt strangely disconnected from himself for several breaths. The path he had walked to find himself in this ancient temple yard and the battle they were about to face in it became disjointed from the present moment. There was nothing but the raked walkway and the gentle tolling of the chimes under the bright sun.

There was a clanging from behind them. Edward approached, letting one hand trail over the chimes as he walked, sending them spinning and clanging.

“It’s what you’re meant to do with them!” Edward said defensively as Cecil spun to face him. Rydia copied the prince, skipping past the chimes and turning to observe her work. After the initial clamor, the sound they made as they swung and turned in the wind was slow, ethereal music.

From inside the monastery walls, one could see nothing of the outside world save sky. The rear, northern wall was the peak of Mt. Hobbs itself, and the keep, the main structure of the monastery, was built against it. This was the building the travelers had seen on approach, the tallest of its pyramidal roofs peeking over the outer walls, its eaves painted red and its walls whitewashed. The Red Wings would be hard pressed to bring the structure down, even with bombardment from the air, but they might not need to.

In the center, on the upper level of the keep, keeping watch over a broad courtyard of flat, sandy, nearly white earth, was a small structure with three layers of gold, pyramidal roofs. The back wall and main keep were like the shoulders of an ogre, the shrine its thrust forward head in a pointy cap, and the east and west walls and their accompanying outbuildings its long arms.

Yang approached, and Rosa was with him. “Have you formulated some plan of defense?” He asked Cecil. One of the monks he had been conferring with jogged past in some hurry.

“Perhaps,” Cecil said narrowly. “I take it that is where the crystal is housed?” he asked, pointing to the pyramidal structure, the “cap” on the top of the keep.

“Yes.”

“I don’t think they’ll succeed in bringing down the rear keep, built as it is into the mountain. If I were tasked with trying to take this place…” Cecil turned to look at the gate behind them. “I’d bombard the south wall. There are seven airships. I’d use two to bombard it and the rest to carry troops to march into the breach once it was down.”

Yang narrowed his eyes. “In the five hundred year history of this monastery, none have broken its walls. Few have tried.”

“Expect you will see that end.”

“I understand that my challenges may be different than those of my forebears.”

“I wish it were otherwise,” Cecil said with real regret. “I don’t think they’ll risk bombing the keep and burying the crystal under the rubble, so it’s likely the main building will come out unscathed, but…. I can’t be sure. This Golbez’s mind is unknown to me. How many men do you have?”

“Less those that died today…” Yang paused to think. “Two hundred and three monks—”

Cecil hissed through his teeth unhappily.

“And about twenty lay people. Cooks, gardeners, couriers, and wives. One white mage. I’ve already asked Mage Rosa for her help in tending to the wounded.”

Cecil swallowed. There went any hope of sending her away from the battle, but at least he could keep her away from the front lines.

He turned back to Yang. “They’ll be limited by how many troops they can carry in the airships, so I had some hope you might yet outnumber them. There’s that hope dashed. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to move the crystal. Hide it? Abandon the monastery entirely?”

“No.”

Cecil raised an eyebrow. He had not been expecting so un-equivocating of an answer. He looked at Yang sideways and let out a long breath. “How much is it worth to you?” he asked.

“Worth?” said Yang, a smile twitching his moustache. “A strange question to ask a monk,” He looked in the direction of the rear keep for a moment, and then turned back to Cecil. “When we come to the monastery we give up all. Possessions, ambitions. A normal life, our identity, our hair. We say then, that none of that is worth anything. That by giving these things up we gave nothing but burdens. Perhaps the crystal, then, is only another thing to be given up. Another burden.” Yang folded his arms across his chest and looked to the crystal shrine.

“Yet did you not say that you are sworn to defend this place with your life?” Edward asked.

“Yes. And so is every monk within these walls. Yet I know, I think we all know, save the very young, that giving up our lives is no guarantee that the crystal will be defended. There are many valuable things within these walls. Manuscripts of our most ancient teachers, icons, the crystal itself, the building itself, the lives of the young men who guard it, the wisdom of myself and my fellow monks. Of course we will endure much, risk much, in order to guard these things. Yet we may fail, we may lose the monastery, the crystal, our lives, but that is not our end, not the end of the crystal, or Fabul, or our wisdom. We must accept that we may fail. So that we may fight without fear. Do you understand?”

Cecil hesitated.

“It is best to answer truthfully,” the monk went on. “So that you may learn.”

“No, I don’t understand. Not at all.”

Yang nodded. “You are very young. Not only in years. We will stand and fight them here, not only out of devotion, though devotion leaves us little other choice. No. I believe we have a better chance of defending the crystal here than we do by putting it on the road. It sounds as if our assailants may already be on the way, which means that anyone who leaves these walls is vulnerable, yes?”

“Yes,” Cecil agreed.

“Any ruse of moving the crystal also means that we must still fight as if it is here. We may waste lives that way, and if my brothers knew the crystal were being moved—and it would be difficult to keep it from them—that will dishearten them. They will fight harder knowing they defend something. You see,” the monk said, making a gesture with interlocked fingers that seemed to have some meaning. “Our founder brought the crystal here under the guidance of Suparna, its placement is in alignment with the other Crystals of the world, and the shrine was built of materials that amplify and stabilize it. Move it, and it will lose much of its power. Move it, and we may have already lost.”

Cecil chewed on the monk’s words for a moment before he spoke. “Expect they’ll breach the walls, then. Put as many barriers as you can in the courtyard, expect to do the bulk of the fighting there. Expect you may have to fall back and defend the keep from the inside. Maybe even all the way back to the crystal room. I don’t suppose you have any archers among you? Or black mages?”

“None.”

“Damn.”

“I could—” Rosa started.

“No. Alone, you’d only be a target, and you’ll be more worth as a healer.”

Rosa bit her lip as Cecil met her eyes, but didn’t argue.

“One of the men I just spoke to is finding a runner to send to the capital,” Yang said. “And runners to place as sentries on the paths to the monastery. If reinforcements do arrive in time, there’ll be archers among them.”

“That gives me some hope. Though I wouldn’t count on them arriving before the Red Wings. OH!” Cecil suddenly. “What’s the phase of the moons?” Cecil asked, looking around to his companions. “I haven’t been keeping track.”

“The lesser was a sliver and will be for some time,” Edward said. The lesser moon changed over several cycles of the greater, and barely shed more light than a star save when it was completely full.

“New moon tonight, I think,” Rosa said. “Or very close.”

“I’ll look at a chart,” Yang said slowly, looking between his companions confused as to what relevance the information could have to the situation at hand. “But I believe she’s right.”

“Then it will be dark,” Cecil said. “If they were planning on attacking by night, that may buy us some time. They may have been counting on the place already being on fire. Sir Yang, tell all your men, everyone in the monastery, no lights tonight, nothing so much as a candle. They can’t target what they can’t see.”

Yang absorbed this. “Should we be silent as well?”

“No, no need. They can’t hear much over the engines. It’s hard enough to hear another man on deck without shouting.”

“Then we have the night to chant for the dead,” Yang said. “And we’ll burn them at dawn.”

“I suppose that’s as good an arrangement as any,” Cecil said, though he imagined what sort of grisly obstacles the funeral pyres might make if the Red Wings also chose to attack at that time.

“Can I see the crystal?” Rydia asked suddenly.

“Yes, of course,” Yang answered. “It’s no secret. We’re quite proud of it. In fact, it might be best if you had a tour,” he said, peering at Cecil. “So that you might better formulate the details of our plan. Though I think I’ll hand you off to another. I would have work enough for the day if it was only funeral arrangements I need attend to.”

“Of course,” Edward said. “Tell us if there’s anything we can do to help you. There’s no need to treat us like guests in times like these.”

“I would treat you like guests in any times, but that may not mean much luxury for you. Here. Follow,” he said, gesturing with a hand.

He led them to the east side of the monastery, to the last door of a long, lower building. There were flowers planted in the eaves of the door, Cecil noticed as Yang hesitated, breathed in as if to steel himself, and then knocked. After a pause, a small woman, dark hair bound to the back of her head in a knot and clothed in a rust-red robe that looked as if it were made of one simple sheet of cloth, answered.

“Oh, but you are here early,” she said from the shadows, still drying her hands with a cloth. She looked to the sky. “And the weather so fine, are you loafing around ag—” she saw Yang’s companions, strangers, and very strange strangers at that. “You had better come in,” she said, interrupting herself. “And you had better explain,” she said, looking to Yang. “Come in!” she said again in a tone that brooked no argument, opening the door to them. Yang gave a sort of apologetic nod as they passed inside to a small, square room, which seemed to be a combination kitchen, dining, and sitting room. It smelled of cooking. The few worn but well loved items that decorated the place—woven rugs, potted plants, a shelf of pottery dishes and cups—gave the distinct impression of being someone’s home, a comforting feeling after weeks of the road and the inn. There was a low, square table in the middle of the room that the little woman gestured at.

“I have no chairs, but sit, sit,” the little woman insisted. “What is happening?” she said very seriously to Yang. “Dearest, who are these… people?”

“Sheila this is…. Prince Edward of Damcyan,” Yang said, gesturing. Edward stood from where he was beginning to make a perch on the floor, and bowed to her.

“A pleasure,” he said.

“Oh!” Sheila said.

“Sir Cecil and Mage Rosa, of Baron,” Yang said, gesturing to them. Rosa reached across the table to shake her hand. Cecil stayed where he had landed on the floor in an awkward sprawl and waved to her.

“And Rydia of Mist,” Yang finished. Rydia said “How do you do,” pompously and curtsied. Cecil was about to chide her for it, but their hostess clapped and called her a beautiful little thing.

Sheila made them tea, a light brew that was unfamiliar to Cecil as he sipped it. Yang explained who they were and why they were there and what had occurred that morning.

“Then you saved my husband’s life,” Sheila said once Yang had explained, clutching her little iron teapot and looking distraught.

“Ahh,” Cecil blinked, momentarily taken aback. He replied with humility once he regained his balance.  “It was Sir Yang’s great skill as much or more as our arrival that saved his life,” Cecil said.

“Would that we had arrived earlier to help his students as well,” Rosa said.

Husband? Cecil mouthed, looking between Edward and Rosa in confusion.

Edward cleared his throat. “Ah, correct me if this is a wrong impression… but I thought you Fabul monks were not allowed to marry?”

“Not that it’s any of our business,” Cecil said hurriedly. He hadn’t really meant for Edward to just ask.

Sheila nodded emphatically as if this was a point of pride.

“Not during his training,” Yang explained. “Which takes upward of a decade. A master monk may, but… still, it is not common.”

“Their life is here, so we must come to them,” Sheila said.

“It is not a glamorous or an easy life, but some consider it an honor,” Yang continued with a smile. “I haven’t had the heart to convince her otherwise.”

“Perhaps it is my way of ensuring my husband does not claim all of my property,” Sheila said, gesturing around the modest room broadly. “All these riches are mine, you see.”

The newcomers laughed.

“What becomes of the children from such marriages?” Rosa asked curiously.

“What becomes of all children? I have borne him two children. They are nearly grown.”

“Are they monks as well?” Cecil asked. Oh stars, he hoped they weren’t among the dead.

“No,” Sheila answered, as Yang also opened his mouth.

“They are studying in the capital,” Yang said. “If they do choose to follow this path, I would want them to know something of the world before choosing to renounce it.”

“I pray they are safe and well,” Rosa said after a moment’s silence. “And that the troubles we are facing never find them.”

“I pray that we all may remain safe and well,” Sheila said. “My husband may not pray for such selfish things. But I may.”

**

Sheila’s tour ended in the Crystal Shrine, which they approached from a spiral stair inside the keep. Inside, there was no light save that of the crystal, mirrored against tiles on the floor and walls that looked as if they might be made of crystal as well.

From the inside, it looked remarkably similar to the crystal room at Mysidia. Cecil hung back, guarding himself against some memory, but none came. Edward hung back with him. Rydia and Rosa, who had never seen one of the elemental crystals before, came close, peering with interest.

“It’s so pretty,” Rydia said.

“It’s beautiful,” Rosa said softly. “Not just the look of it, either.”

It hung, suspended by its own power above a circular dais. Its light was faint, but so amplified by the crystal tiles around them that Cecil could see the faces of his companions clearly, though in a light that gave everything a swimming, green cast and threw shadows in random directions as the crystal turned slowly.

“It’s singing!” Rydia exclaimed.

Edward laughed. “That’s what I said of Damcyan’s crystal when I was a child, though I can barely hear it now. Could barely hear it,” he corrected himself.

Cecil heard, or almost heard, a hum in his ears, or a very fine vibration. If the Mysidian crystal had done any such thing he had been too distracted to sense it.

“Our crystal shone much brighter than this,” Edward said in a low voice.

“It would!” Sheila said. “Damcyan’s is the crystal of fire.”

“I have what may be a very foolish question,” Cecil said.

“Ask it, friend,” Sheila said.

“What are they? The crystals.”

Edward let out a sharp, short laugh. “One might as well ask what magic is.”

Sheila didn’t seem to find the question funny at all. “That’s a question one might not be able to find an answer to, but one might find other knowledge in the pursuit of it,” Sheila said, her voice echoing off the tile.

“Our oldest records state that,” she rattled off a long and rhythmic name that Cecil couldn’t parse. “Our founder, in the reign of our first king, had a winged woman come to him in a dream. She was a messenger of Garuda, and she showed him the place that he would find the crystal. Once he had found it, the woman came to him again in daylight, and showed him how to make the materials of the shrine, and told him to build in a high place in the west, and that if he did so, then the protection of Garuda would be upon our nation. I understand Damcyan has a similar story.”

All eyes in the room drifted toward Edward.

“Long ago…” Edward began. “Some hundreds of years in the past, a woman was traveling. She was part of a group of nomads in the desert. She went out in the night, with no one else around, and saw firelight in the distance. Thinking it was perhaps the light of another group of travelers, she approached it. She followed it, yet she never seemed to get any nearer. She tried to get back to her people, her family, but the night was dark and she had wandered too far away to see them. She continued to follow the light, unsure if she was following the lights of her people or of the strange light she had seen, never getting any closer, until she sat on the ground, despairing. And then the light came to her. It was no mere flame, but an egi, a messenger of Ifrit. She stared into the heart of it, the only way a human might have knowledge of flame without being destroyed by it is through the eyes, and through the eyes it gave her knowledge, though none that she could impart with words. She woke with the crystal in her arms, and eventually she married into the family that would come to unite all of Damcyan. The crystal room back home looked the same as this,” he said, tapping one booted toe against the tile of the floor. “Though I know of no stories of its making.”

Sheila spoke again. “It is said, that were the crystals damaged or corrupted the wind would stop, the earth would rot, and the seas would grow wild.”

“And what would fire do, I wonder?” Edward said. “Burn with no light? Light with no warmth?”

“But that hasn’t happened,” Cecil said. “The seas haven’t raged… No more than usual, anyway. Fire is fire still.”

“Because Golbez hasn’t destroyed the crystals. I doubt he means to,” Rosa said. “He must want to use them in some way.”

“But Yang said even the crystals being out of alignment might cause calamity,” Cecil pointed out.

“The truth is,” Sheila said. “We don’t know. None of us know. But we know that it is a great power. I know that you can feel that as well.”

**  

“Are you well?” Rosa asked Cecil as they left the crystal shrine.

Cecil nodded. “Well enough.”

“Let me rephrase: what is troubling you?”

Cecil laughed darkly. “Much, but….” He glanced back at the crystal shrine. “Ecstatic visions, messengers from the gods… What if my father was bringing the crystals together for some similar reason. What if Zeus or Odin the First came to him in a dream and told him to do it?”

“Would that make it right, do you think?” Rosa asked him.

“No!”

“Would you do the same? If you had that sort of visitation?”

“No!” Cecil said again, but then he hesitated. “Or I…. I don’t know. I hope the gods would explain themselves if they did come to me. Or else they’re no better than my father. What about you? You’ve always made it your business to know what the gods might want.”

“Yet they’ve never spoken to me directly. They speak through the world. Through feelings and insight and magic. Those who claim to have been visited by Asura, or…”

Cecil nodded. “They’re charlatans.”

“I was going to say they’re more often madmen than prophets. I think… or at least I hope, that if the gods ever need intervene so directly, they’ll do things themselves. Or deliver their message in a way that is undeniable.”

“Rydia,” Cecil said.

“What about her?”

“If ever there was a god given power, or a message from the gods…. The Titan. The mountain.”

“And Baron wants to kill her,” Rosa said.

They walked on in silence for a moment.

“Thank you,” Cecil said suddenly, grabbing her hand.

“For what?”

“For everything,” he said, and kissed the back of her hand. “For making everything clear.”