"What do you mean by this, Vossler?" Amalia asked in her imperious, low-pitched voice. She crossed her arms over her stomach, her hands cupping her elbows.
Because her lady was facing her, Daina went to one knee, her hands resting on her thighs. Captain Azelas didn't say anything, but Daina heard Amalia's annoyed release of breath. Then the ex-princess said, "Leave us."
After the other men had left, Amalia turned again to Azelas and said in a weary way, "Well?"
"I would like her to remain by your side at all times," he said in his quick, no-nonsense way. "She can see to your needs better than my men can."
"I do not wish it," Amalia said flatly. From under her hair, Daina watched Amalia's feet march away, heard the rap of her boots against brick. Daina's hands curled into fists.
"I alone will keep Your Majesty safe, if that is what you wish," Azelas said, his voice loud in the confined space. It sounded like a threat. Daina goggled at her fists. Did he dare speak to Amalia in such an angry tone? Did he dare to disagree with her to her face? He was asking for a demotion!
Amalia's boots hesitated. Turned.
"Vossler," she breathed. Then, more crisply, she said, "Very well. I will do as you ask."
Daina raised her eyebrows, impressed. Was this what it meant to serve royalty, to know when to push the boundaries of their assumptions and arrogance?
"We move!" Like his speech, Captain Azelas's movements were sparse, wasting no energy.
Daina waited until Amalia, following him, passed her. Then she stood without using her hands. She took her proper place behind her lady, a lethal shadow, gratitude for Azelas's intervention warm in her chest.
The warmth carried her through the labyrinthine waterway. They emerged in the fifth storehouse of Rabanastre's Lowtown. Someone closed the gate to the waterway and locked it, and they moved into the warren of Lowtown proper. The alleyways closed around them, full of foul, stale air because there was no ventilation. The ceiling pressed down on them, damp and dingy, and there were no streetlights. Phosphor lamps flared up and down their line. Fortunately, the threat of occupation kept most of Lowtown's inhabitants behind closed doors on that night.
A Rabanastre hume introduced to Daina as Balzac met them at the egress to the city above, his harem trousers the same sky blue as his turban, his sandals well-worn and molded to his feet. Here, the numbers of the Resistance swelled with more than humes: A quartet of moogles, furry, cherub-cheeked creatures the height of hume children with nimble paws and vestigial bat wings poking from the backs of their trim little jackets, offered Captain Azelas their mechanical services. Each one wore a cap fitted snugly between erect, rounded ears that sprouted a different-colored pompon on a single antenna. A pair of thickset seeqs snorted and grunted out a few words in their native language that Daina didn't understand and then hunkered down at the end of the procession, looking vaguely like tusked, multicolored pigs wallowing in a sty. And a handful of proud, shirtless bangaa in harem trousers and sashes came forward. They balanced crates and chests of supplies on their muscular shoulders. Some wore blindfolds over their tiny reptilian eyes, a fashion statement adopted only by the boldest of their kind. Thus fortified, the Resistance snuck out of the royal city through the gargantuan Westgate.
And not a moment too soon. Daina heard the telltale hum of Imperial air cutter remoras and looked up as a wave of the small, spinning top-shaped hovercraft whooshed by overhead, their spinning glossair rings glowing with eldritch blue light. The remoras headed unhurriedly for the aerodrome. Dalmasca's independence vanished in their wake.
"They have no reason to search for us," Captain Azelas said from the darkness ahead, stilling the nervous whispers that sounded like a herd of chocobos rustling their feathers. "We have the advantage. When the time is right, we will give them reason, but not tonight. Tonight, we move on."
Move on they did. Weariness dragged at Daina by the time the sun reached its zenith. Her head ached from the constant glare, her ankles ached from carrying her through the burning sands that dissolved beneath her feet, and her heart ached as hour upon hour passed without conversation. Memories of her lost home and parents gnawed at it.
She began to sing to herself. Softly at first, ballads of which her mother had been fond. As she continued to cut down red wolves and fat, feathered cockatrices, her voice gained confidence, and she sang battle hymns that suited the exercise. The men of the Resistance took heart from the lone voice that drifted over them. They marched with renewed purpose and strength, in turn sweeping Daina along with them.
Daina jumped from song to song, choosing without thought. She broke off when Amalia abruptly stopped walking and stared at her, her face blank with shock.
Captain Azelas came to a questioning halt when he noticed Amalia was no longer at his side.
Daina swiftly knelt. She should never stand in front of Amalia. She should never speak unless spoken to. Why had she started singing at a time like this?
After a thought-filled pause, Azelas called a break. The column of marchers broke up, pooling among the boulders and spindly trees to soak in the precious shade.
Azelas strode up to Daina and offered her a canteen, thrusting it low into her line of vision. She took it and drank gratefully, feeling the water ease the wasteland of her throat.
When Azelas spoke, his voice was regretful. "Soon enough, Ivalice will forget the sound of a Nabradian hymn. We welcome your songs, Praeities."
Unmindful of Azelas's courtesy, Daina clenched her fingers spasmodically on the canteen, spilling some of the precious water. Not as long as I live, she thought fiercely. Archadia can't take my heritage from me!
Someone called for the captain, and he left the two young women alone. The bustle of the men didn't touch them where Amalia stood and Daina knelt, unmoving. Daina watched the spilled water sink into the sand, counting down from one hundred while she waited for orders from her lady. She reached zero, and still, Amalia did not move. Daina watched a wasp buzz tiredly around the white and pink blossoms of a scrawny desert tree. She didn't know its name and wondered if anyone else did. The wasp lit and then simply hung there. The flower nodded in the heat.
"Rasler used to sing that song," Amalia said.
Startled, Daina looked up. The ex-princess stood in the sunlight, close enough to touch. With another shock, Daina remembered that Amalia was only a year older than she was.
"The things you do," Amalia went sadly on, "the way you speak. You remind me of him. And I . . . I don't want the reminder."
Amalia sat down. Not as if she meant to, but rather as if her legs had turned to flan. The mythril sword landed with a puff in the sand. She put her face in her hands.
At last, the arrogant princess was crying. Her slender frame shook with quiet sobs.
Daina felt her own grief well up. Then it receded, and compassion took its place. Who was Daina Praeities to judge a future queen, to whom appearance was everything? Without her façade of granite, Amalia's people would have no confidence in her. With her throne stolen from her, she had precious little except her people's goodwill. Without that, she was no more than a usurper, grasping greedily for power that was no longer rightfully hers.
Daina shifted her body, kneeling in a way that would hide the weeping Amalia from the Resistance. It was a start. For now, she would do what she could, and perhaps someday, she could prove her worth to her lady.
