XXIV.

The labyrinthine hallways of the Leviathan wound around them, seeming to slither past by their own will. Ghis's crew extended a hover field around the Strahl while soldiers cuffed the princess and her retinue in irons, lifting it into the Leviathan's docking bay. Fran looked to Balthier, who stared ahead as the last flashes of sunlight glinted off his ship, pretending he didn't care as much as Fran was sure he did. It had seemed to her then that the Leviathan embodied Archadia's military coldness, its massive magicite engines humming and its high steel frame gleaming, and the thought of these people—these Judges, Imperials—possessing two of the Mist-glutted stones struck in her the first chords of regret she had felt since leaving the Wood.

Fear—the desire to hide, to withdraw, to ignore the violent squabbles of humans as the Viera had always done. The very law she had forsaken—the very practice she had condemned—the craving for it festered within her for just that moment, a childlike longing to immerse herself in the whispers of the Green Word that breathed even now beneath her skin. And she recalled the clout of the Mist that swept into Raithwall's final resting place, the buzz it sent reverberating through her blood; fear was a motivator, a reinforcement to her resolve.

Ghis stood tall on the Leviathan's bridge, his crew calm at their stations, and Fran could almost taste his satisfaction as the group followed their escorts into the room.

"Well now…" he growled in Dalmascan, cocking his head downward to give Penelo a foreboding steel glare as she entered behind the rest of the prisoners. "I knew you were trouble."

The girl stared at her irons, chest sunken and eyes dim.

"Leave her alone," Ashe snapped.

"Ah," said Ghis, almost sighing, "it is a tremendous honor to again be graced with your presence, Highness. You left us with such great dispatch upon our last encounter that I must confess I had begun to worry that we may have given Your Highness some cause for offense."

"Such a heartfelt display of remorse," she sneered. "Now what is it that you want?"

"I want you to give me the nethicite."

"The nethicite?"

Penelo pressed her arm against the little stone tucked away in her sash, shaking her head. "No!"

"Do not flatter His Little Lordship so," Ghis droned. "That is a base imitation. We seek Raithwall's legacy—the ancient relics of the Dynast King: deifacted nethicite." And he laid his gaze gravely on Azelas. "Did you not tell them, Captain Vossler?"

"Highness," Azelas said softly, "he speaks of the Midlight Shard—that is the nethicite."

"You…" The princess jerked away from him, leveling a glare that caused him to step back as well. "You're working for them?"

"No!" he defended. "Not for them—with them. For the greater good."

Basch stepped to the princess's side. "Are you mad, Azelas?"

"There is nothing to be gained from fighting the Empire," Azelas replied. "If we are to save Dalmasca, we must accept the truth."

"The captain has struck a wise bargain," Ghis added. "In return for the Midlight Shard, the Empire will permit Lady Ashelia to reclaim her throne, and the Kingdom of Dalmasca will be restored."

Ashe grit her teeth. "Dalmasca would be restored in the same way that Bhujerba remains sovereign."

"Princess…" Azelas intervened.

"Shut it, Azelas!" she snapped. "Haven't you said enough already?"

"Honestly," Ghis replied, "such a harsh tone is unbecoming of royalty. Given that the Dusk Shard vanished from my possession along with Your Highness over Bhujerba, you should count yourself lucky that I ask only one stone of you."

"We don't have the Dusk Shard!" Ashe insisted, shaking her head.

"You've already proven yourself a liar," Ghis shot back. "There's no need to further your efforts. Just think on it. An entire kingdom for a stone; you must admit it's more than a fair exchange."

Balthier glowered at him. "And when all is said and done, your master will have another pet."

"You're one to talk," Ghis scoffed. "Fetching rocks for the highest bidder."

"You're just a bitter old man, aren't you?" Balthier bit back. "You'd sooner kill Gramis than do any more tricks for him. Do you even know what nethicite is capable of? What Cid is capable of?"

Ghis considered this a moment, holding steel-shielded eye-contact with the pirate for a few seconds before turning back to Ashe. "Lady Ashelia," he said, "let us take this poor wretch for the people of Dalmasca. Your Highness wallows in indecision on peril of their heads…" He drew his sword and swiftly set it at Balthier's throat. "And his shall be the first to fall."

The pirate didn't flinch. "Well, at least your sword is to the point."

Ashe fell silent, her countenance drained of all readable emotion, and Fran thought for the barest moment that she felt a pulse of Mist—a flutter from the Midlight Shard in Ashelia's hands. The princess's eyes met Balthier's fleetingly, and she held out the nethicite, her face blank, dazed. Ghis took the stone and lowered the sword.

"Princess!" Balthier growled.

"Shut up!" she lashed back.

Ghis stared at the nethicite, a vague shadow seeming to overcome his helm as he turned his face down to study it more closely. "Captain Vossler," he said, not bothering to look away from the treasure, "take them to the Shiva. They should have leave to return to Rabanastre soon."

Azelas led the group back into the winding halls of the Leviathan,withholding a heavy sigh and accompanied by a small troop of Archadian soldiers. Ghis handed the stone to an engineer as they left, and Fran turned her ears to listen in:

"I want you to assess its power."

"Forgive me, sir," the man replied, "but did our orders not specify that we were to return the stone for testing?"

"I will not chance returning with a stone that is yet unproven."

The voices echoed a bit as her distance from them grew, but the metal passageways honed the words to a sharpness that ultimately clarified them. There was some concern over the Leviathan's equipment—a second engineer opted to use the ship's drive to make their assessment. Once they connected the stone, it flared to sudden life, and the reaction was easily measured: the rates of energy detected surpassed the rates found in all of the magicite utilized by the fleet as a whole—and as Fran followed her companions into an elevator, the count still climbed.

The voices muffled as the doors closed, the lift dropping them downward, far from the command bridge.

"Something's wrong!"

Fran unfurled her ears—stretched them wide.

"What?" Ghis was growling. "What is it?"

Scrambling footsteps, metal pounding on metal. Something about the backup generator—the engines draining, the stone burning. Then the lights began to flicker as the elevator's door whisked open, and Fran could barely decipher the shouts as the soldiers prodded her into the docking bay.

"Engine power is falling rapidly! We can't maintain hover!"

"Damn it, what's happened?" Ghis demanded.

"The nethicite is draining the ship's power!" another soldier replied.

"Disengage it at once!"

"We're trying! It's no good!"

One of the engineers spoke up amid the panic: "She'll reach critical in three hundred!"

A cloud of Mist billowed down the elevator shaft, rolling against Fran's legs and pouring into the open air over the desert between the docked ships—and Fran could hear no more.