Hazy light filtered in, pressing against his eyelids, beckoning him to open his eyes. There was the distorted sound of voices, one male, one female. The male was exasperated, the female insistent; they were arguing over something, but the sounds were too indistinct - his ears felt as though they had been stuffed with cotton - to determine the nature of their disagreement.

Fresh as a daisy, she'd said. That was a load of rubbish - his head ached abominably. He was itching to move, to simply lift his lids and find out where she'd brought him, what prison he'd find himself rotting away in - but his muscles refused to cooperate.

The argument grew to a peak; the man's voice had lowered into sullen acceptance, the woman's to righteous indignity. Finally it seemed to be at an end; there was the sound of retreating footsteps, then a door slammed. From the tone of the weary sigh that followed, Balthier guessed that the woman had taken her leave. Penelo. It had to have been Penelo. He only marveled that she had not stayed to see what her handiwork had wrought.

Time soldiered on for interminable minutes; he focused his energy on wiggling his toes in his boots, then his fingers, recovering movement where and as he could. At last the sounds around him had sharpened from confusing murmurs into identifiable patterns. There was the steady tick-tick-tick of a clock, the scratch of a pen across a sheet of paper, the occasional footsteps down the hallway outside the room. Finally he could open his eyes without feeling as though the lids had been weighed down, glued closed. The bright light burned his retinas; he squeezed his eyes shut again with a groan.

"Ah, you're coming round, then, are you?" There was the scrape of a chair's legs against the floor, the even click of footfalls as the speaker neared.

Balthier winced; the male voice was clear now, and he was hoping he was mistaken, that it did not belong to whom he thought it did. Surely not - she wouldn't have dared. But he opened his eyes once more, and though the room spun enough to nauseate him, he was certain that the face peering down at him belonged to Larsa Solidor. He brought his hands to his face, groaned again.

"Damned irritating wench," he growled, his voice rough and unsteady, scratching out of his dry throat.

Larsa choked on a spurt of laughter. "You've no idea," he said.

Balthier managed a fair approximation of a glare. "She drugged me and brought me here," he snapped. "I should think I'd have a decent enough idea."

"Well, yes," Larsa acknowledged. "But then, she is a bounty hunter, and you did have a sizeable reward for your capture."

"Why the devil was there still a bounty on my head?" Balthier inquired icily. "Oughtn't that have been done away with, given my services to the crown?" He pressed his fingers to his temples, massaging away the lingering pain. "Two crowns," he amended.

"Ordinarily, yes, if we'd known you lived," Larsa responded. "But, as you didn't see fit to inform anyone of that happy fact, revoking the bounty offered for a dead man didn't rank very high on my list of priorities. We thought you'd been entombed within the Bahamut; clearly recovering your body would not have been feasible." There was a touch of snide mockery in the tone; the boy had acquired a bit of sophistication in the past year, clearly. "Rest assured that I've sent a message to Ashe; I imagine she'll rescind any outstanding warrants promptly."

Balthier got the feeling Larsa expected to be thanked for his services, but he was hardly in the mood to be so obliging. He shoved himself up on his elbows, swung his legs over the side of the sofa he was resting upon, and sat up. For a moment the room spun, and he dropped his head into his hands in an effort to recover his equilibrium.

"Of course, I was still obligated to give her what she was due," Larsa said.

Balthier's head jerked up. "You paid her?" he snapped.

Larsa shrugged. "She had a valid warrant; she was entitled to the promised reward." He sighed, and admitted, "I did try to convince her to let it go, but she was rather insistent upon it."

Hence the argument, Balthier assumed. "Vindictive, isn't she," he muttered.

Larsa's eyes widened. "I thought so as well - what did you do to her?"

"None of your damn business," Balthier muttered irritably. Good gods - the last thing he needed was a fourteen-year-old child prying into his affairs, Emperor or not.

Larsa took the surly response with relatively good grace, clasping his hands behind his back. "It was simply idle curiosity," he said in his defense. "One does wonder how you might've earned her enmity." He backed away a few paces, then said, "Of course, I've taken the amount owed to her from your accounts."

"You what?" Balthier snarled. Larsa's retreat had been a calculated one - he'd likely known that if he'd been within Balthier's reach at that particular moment, he'd be throttled to within an inch of his life. Which would likely achieve nothing more than to vent his fury and restore the bounty on his head, as one did not assault an Emperor and get away with it - unless that Emperor was Vayne. In which case, one might even be lauded for it.

Balthier surged to his feet, only marginally steady yet. "You had no damned right to access my funds!"

Larsa's eyes widened. "I have every right - those funds reverted to the crown's possession upon your father's death; Vayne would never have surrendered them to you." He cast Balthier an arch look. "Of course, the crown, currently, would mean me."

Balthier pinched the bridge of his nose, uncertain whether or not whatever Penelo had laced his wine with was yet exacerbating his confusion. "What the devil are you talking about?" he inquired.

"Your father's holdings," Larsa supplied helpfully. "His assets - his monies, properties, investments - they've been in my possession. They would have gone to you directly, but you were dead - or so we thought. With no other heirs, what was to be done with them?" He flicked a hand towards the desk at the opposite end of the room, stacked with papers clearly of an urgent nature. "Again, disposing of them was not high on my list of priorities - fortunately for you. The amount I've deducted for Penelo's payment is hardly a drop in the bucket; your father possessed a respectable fortune. I assume you'll wish to take possession of it immediately?"

Balthier hadn't expected to take possession of it at all. His father had been a madman, intent upon ruining the whole of Ivalice - his holdings ought to have been forfeit to the crown, given the havoc he'd wrecked upon the world. But then, maybe heroism was good for something after all - perhaps he'd earned the right to inherit.

"It's intact?" he asked. "All of it?" The child was really going to surrender to him a fortune simply because he hadn't found the time to sell it off?

"Most of it," Larsa corrected. "I did arrange for Draklor to be cleared out. The building itself is intact, but the research has been confiscated and destroyed. Manufacted nethicite is a thing of the past; I'll not have it resurrected if there's even the slightest chance such a thing might be possible. Anything not related to nethicite was left behind; I am given to understand there are a number of personal effects still there. Your father was, apparently, a meticulous record-keeper."

"Yes," Balthier muttered absently. Now that he was on his feet, the worst side-effects of the drugs that Penelo had slipped him were fading. "Yes, he was." His head still spun, but whether it were a lingering effect of the drugs or the unanticipated news of his sudden obscene wealth, he couldn't be sure.

Larsa tilted his head to the side curiously. "I'll have the papers drawn up as soon as possible to transfer ownership back to you," he said. "Of course, I'll not restrict your access in the meantime." He crossed to the desk, scrawled a hasty note atop a sheet of gold-embossed stationery. "Should you wish to transfer your father's liquid assets to your own accounts or to access his properties, this will suffice as proof of your claim."

Balthier folded the note, tucked it into his pocket. "My thanks," he said.

"I'm sure you have better places to be just now," Larsa said. "And I've got mountains of paperwork, myself. If you'll excuse me."

Summarily dismissed - not that Balthier minded in this particular case; he needed the time to wrap his mind around his present circumstances. With a nod of acknowledgment, he turned and headed for the door, pleased to find that the last of that wretched wobbliness had vanished.

As he made to leave, Larsa called, "Oh, one more thing."

Obligingly, Balthier turned.

"Whatever you did to her," Larsa said, "I'd recommend that you apologize - there are surely some territories in which you may still be a wanted man, and I wouldn't put it past her to turn you in for a bounty in those should she get the opportunity. And I really do not have the time to waste, extricating you from such situations."

"I did apologize," Balthier snapped. "A year ago - damned contrary woman wouldn't see reason."

Larsa threw him with pitying look. "Then you had better find a way to earn her forgiveness," he advised. "She's clearly got no love lost for you - and she's actually a rather excellent bounty hunter."

"My thanks for your advice," Balthier said acidly, "But it comes rather too late; I have managed to discover that much on my own."

He walked to Draklor. It had always been the great love of his father's life - his family hadn't even been a distant second. Seventh, maybe, or eighth - if it had even merited mention. Balthier supposed he could sell the building and make a tidy sum from it, but it would be infinitely more satisfying to see it razed to the ground.

The massive brownstone building dominated the skyline; it belonged to him, now - he could destroy it if he pleased, obliterate the building that had been his father's legacy. It was nothing more than an extension of Cid, a monument to his ego. The cruelest fate he could inflict upon his father was to be forgotten, lost to memory, to time, to history.

Draklor was deserted, abandoned. The windows, once pristine, had dusted over, having had no one to maintain their sparkling gleam. Not even a guard stood watch to ensure that the facility was kept free of vandals. Balthier easily picked the lock on the door and slipped inside.

The electricity had long since been shut off; the lifts wouldn't function without it. He had a long walk ahead of him - some thirty stories stood between him and Cid's office. He used it to consider his options, mull over whether or not it would be more offensive to Cid to demolish the building, or to put it to more worthwhile uses - donate it to causes that Cid would no doubt have deemed worthless.

The massive white doors marking Cid's office had gathered a thick layer of dust and cobwebs - Cid would have been horrified at the sad state of neglect his beloved facility had fallen into. He pushed the doors open - the office was much as he'd remembered it; sterile, lifeless. Once it had been lined with filing cabinets; those had likely been confiscated, their contents screened and destroyed. All that remained of Cid's inner sanctum now was his ornately carved desk, his stately wingback chair.

Cid had been intensely private; he had never cared to have anyone invade his lair. Balthier had rarely made any sort of appearance at Draklor himself; the few times he had, it was because he had been summoned by Cid to be lambasted for some nonsense or other. He had quickly wearied of his role as the scapegrace son, the eternal disappointment.

He wanted to exorcise Cid from this place; it gave him great pleasure to drop into the chair, lean it back until it creaked in agony, and prop his booted feet upon the unblemished surface of the desk. He dragged his heel; it carved a deep divot into the varnish, grinding in the dust that had settled and disrupting the immaculate perfection that Cid had so cherished.

There was a drawer in the desk to his right. He yanked it open, relishing the groaning of the wood as it protested the furious motion. A stack of papers held in a folder, a sheaf of letters bound in brown string, and a...picture frame? A miniature, it looked like - just a tiny square, bordered with an elaborate golden frame. He picked it up, swiped away the dust, experienced a frisson of shock.

Penelo's face stared back at him, unmistakable. Younger, certainly - only a girl when it had been painted, her cherubic face lovingly rendered upon the small canvas. He brushed his fingers over the surface of the miniature; she looked so...cheerful. Just a starry-eyed dreamer who still believed in fairytales, in miracles. She had had reason to smile when this had been done, she had been happy.

Why the devil would his father have had a portrait of Penelo? Briefly his mind wandered back to the last time he had been in this office, when they had confronted his father for the first time. He had referenced all of them - except her. Vaan, even, he had made a point to complain that he did not know. But he hadn't said a thing about Penelo - not even to demand an explanation for her presence.

Why had he not realized it before? There had been other things to concern himself with at that point, of course - namely, not dying. But he had always been such a master at noticing such seemingly insignificant details, because inevitably they were always significant.

He set the miniature on the desk, reached back into the drawer, retrieved the stack of papers. Their stiff parchment was heavy, solid - the sort typically used for contractual documents, designed to give import to them, to assure the owner of their legitimacy.

In indelible ink of purest black across the first page, elegantly flourishing calligraphy proclaimed the papers a betrothal contract.

His stomach pitched and rolled, his eyes drew helplessly to the miniature, to Penelo's sweetly smiling face - surely Cid had not sought out a new wife? But then, Balthier's mother had been dead for years already, when this alliance would have been arranged, and Penelo's family had been so very wealthy. He could easily have thought to take a young bride to collect the monies from her dowry, and certainly he would have expected that a young girl would be easily lead, manipulated into behaving precisely as Cid expected, the perfect biddable little wife.

And yet, a wisp of a memory trickled back - "The most I ever received was a missive from his father with a list of skills I ought to be instructed in."

She had spoken of sacrificed sons, of her fury that her fiancé had failed to send to her even the most basic of correspondence, since she had been made to send regular letters. Not a bride Cid had chosen from himself, then - one selected for him.

With fingers that trembled, he turned the page. Even though he knew what he would find, it still sent an electric jolt down his spine to see it there, undeniable, writ in ink.

Rostran and Linna deii Leonne do hereby give their daughter, Penelo ven deii Leonne, in promise of marriage, to Ffamran mied Bunansa, son and heir of Cidolfus Bunansa of Archadia.

Balthier slumped in his chair, scrubbing his face with his hands. How could this have come to pass? How had he never known? How could she not have told him?

But...she couldn't have known; at least not initially. He had cast off his name when he had broken with his father, with Archadia. She had known him as Balthier, not Ffamran - until that night when he'd stolen her secret from her, when he'd confessed to one of his own. The way she had scrambled away from him - he had taken it as horror over his parentage. And perhaps it might have been, only not in the way he'd expected.

He had told her of his hatred of his father, of Cid's efforts to mold his only son into his image, and, after that brief display of appalled dismay, she had thrown back her head and laughed - wildly, uproariously.

So she hadn't known the truth until then - but she hadn't deigned to share it with him, either, and she must have deduced that he did not know.

But then, she harbored no small degree of bitterness about the situation; she had clearly not wanted to find herself wed to a man whose character she did not know, who hadn't bothered even to write to her. And then, once she had discovered that he was the man to whom she had been affianced as a child, perhaps she had simply not wanted to wed him. Perhaps she thought the alliance had been dropped, forgotten, even formally dissolved - but Balthier had the proof in his hands that it had not. Cid was, in point of fact, a most excellent record-keeper.

The sheaf of letters - they were probably from her; all the correspondence she had sent over the years. They must have been addressed to him, but he had never seen them before. He carefully lifted the stack of them from the desk-drawer, tugged at the string binding them to release it, lifted the first from its vellum envelope.

The date at the top corner was a little over seven years ago - just after he'd fled Archadia, too late to reach him by mere days. Cid had made this alliance expecting his son to carry it out, but had failed to inform him of it. What sixteen-year-old boy wished to find himself engaged, after all? But Cid had expected unquestioning obedience; he would have considered Balthier's opinion on the matter immaterial. Quite possibly he would simply have expected Balthier to show up and do his duty as commanded, no need to go through with the bother of informing him of his own engagement.

Penelo would have been just twelve at the time - only a little girl, and suddenly her world had shifted abruptly. She had been expected to write weekly letters to a stranger, a boy she had been told she would someday marry. How confusing it must have been for her, how odd to write to a boy she had never met, never seen.

Her penmanship had been quite neat; level, regular characters with their perfectly executed loops and swirls, blossoming across the page in straight, evenly spaced lines.

Dear Sir,

I am Penelo ven deii Leonne. We have not yet met, but Mama has told me that we are to be married when I have turned eighteen.

I hope I shall be a good wife. I am sure there will be much for me to learn before then, but I shall endeavor to study as much as I can so that I will not bring you disappointment. Teacher says that I am an apt pupil, and that she will do all she can to prepare me for our future marriage.

I hope that we may better acquaint ourselves through correspondence, so that we may not remain strangers. Perhaps we might even grow to be friends.

I await your response.

Yours very sincerely,

Penelo ven deii Leonne

The stilted letter evoked a wretched pain in his chest. Poor child - she had waited in vain for a response that had never come, for he had not been there to give it. He sighed, folded the letter, and tucked it back within its envelope. There must be at least a hundred and fifty other letters; she had not exaggerated, she truly hadwritten him faithfully every week for years. But, of course, it had been compelled by her parents. He wondered how her letters had changed over the years, if the resentment she still carried around with her had shown through in her later correspondence.

He slipped out the envelope on the bottom - this one was different from the others, coarser - it was not the expensive, ostentatious sort that ladies of leisure were wont to choose as stationery for their correspondence. This was the cheap, mass-produced stuff that commoners used. The red wax that had sealed it had leached its color into the paper, leaving behind a rusty stain.

The ink, too, was inferior - it bled into the paper, blurring the words with its reaching spidery tendrils. Gone was the careful, perfectly practiced penmanship - her fury was tangible in the quick slashes of cheap ink on the page. She'd wielded her pen like a knife, her words cutting across the paper as though she would strike at him through them.

In her fury, she had dispensed with greetings, jumping right into her righteous diatribe.

It will cost me sixty-three gil to post this letter, which I can ill afford to spend given the fact that your countrymen have stolen from my family everything of value.

Tomorrow my family will be executed. You and your hateful father might have prevented this, had you cared to intercede on our behalf. It is my understanding that your father has the ear of your emperor - surely in light of our long-standing betrothal we were due that small amount of consideration.

I know not what shall become of me - I was raised only to be a wife, and perhaps I flatter myself to believe that I should have been a good one - but know that wherever life takes me, it is no longer any concern of yours.

This is the last you shall hear of me; from this moment on I shall never think of you again. I cannot imagine this ought to trouble you overmuch, as I have seen no evidence that you have ever spared so much as a single thought for me.

Please consider our betrothal broken, for despite my reduced fortunes, I would not be persuaded to wed you were you the last man in the whole of Ivalice.

Penelo

He stifled a wince - she had risked much to post such a letter. She had been a fugitive from the Empire; had she been caught she would have met the same unhappy fate as the rest of her family, struck down upon the palace steps. Her hatred had been so extreme that she had been called to take such a risk regardless, simply to vent her outrage, to heap her scorn upon his head. Or his father's, rather, as he had never known of her or her letters. He wondered if that had occurred to her at all - the fact that he hadn't ignored her, precisely, he had simply not known that his father had seen fit to betroth him to her.

So many letters she had sent over the years - if he had known of them, he would have...well, he would have behaved precisely as he had. The feelings of a young girl he had never met would hardly have signified to him then, a rash and reckless boy of sixteen. He would have been furious that he'd been sold off in marriage in return for a fortune - but he hadn't yet reached the age of majority, and his father had had the legal authority to do so.

Even if it hadn't been his doing, his heart wrenched in sympathy for the young girl she had once been - so frightened, so full of rage and grief - left alone in the world to make her own way, abandoned to an uncertain fate by the family she had expected to one day join with. Small wonder she had lain the blame at his door in her letters.

He stuffed the letter back into its envelope, then slid it back into its place at the bottom of the stack. He tried to tell himself that they weren't for him, not really - they were for the man that had willfully ignored her all those years, for the man she imagined to be just like all the other noblemen who had ever scorned her.

Of course, he had honestly earned her enmity in other ways. Perhaps she still hadn't wanted to wed him after learning the truth about his background - but she might have nurtured a fragment of trust. Which he had promptly crushed, without understanding how precious it was, given her disastrous earlier experiences.

Probably she had never expected to him to learn of their betrothal. Certainly she wouldn't have told him of it, not after he'd proved himself just as unworthy of her faith as she'd always believed him to be. She would be content simply to let it be lost to any memory but hers - after all, their parents were deceased, there was no longer anyone to demand its fulfillment.

And then, a wicked thought struck him: Except for him.

He could demand its fulfillment - he was as much bound by it as she.

And the little termagant would have to resolve it; she could not ignore him, not with this yet standing between them. This contract was fifty pages at least; surely it contained something that would be of use to him, something he could use to get her attention, to force her to acknowledge him at last.

He sighed, conflicted. He ought to let her go - he knew he ought to. He could find a solicitor, draft up a page for the dissolution of the betrothal contract, let her go on her way free at last.

But he had done precisely that this past year, and he would likely never have learned of their betrothal in the first place had she not sought him out, drugged him, dragged him back to Archadia to collect a bounty she knew very well ought not to be on his head at all.

He would have left her in peace, as she deserved. She had started up this war.

And this contract represented something he'd not had where she was concerned in a very long time.

Leverage.