The hum of the airship engines is remarkably quiet, Archadian ships and their commanders all such subtle destroyers. A rumble that seeps into Ashe's bones and intrudes on her thoughts all the same. She shifts on the narrow bench in the tiny room, wondering how long she's been inside. It feels as if an age has passed. Exhaustion pushes at her like itchy roving behind her eyes, the soft murmur of the Ifrit as a constant reminder that two years of planning and determination have all ended here. Trapped in the confines of an impenetrable Archadian warship, in abject failure on her way to an even more total imprisonment - or worse.

Who knows where Vossler is, or any of those who fought so valiantly in Dalmasca's name. Ashe doesn't even know of the fate of the pirate or his unfortunate crew, and even if he was not there to aid her she does not like to think of him dead.

She keeps her back straight, her poise commanding and her chin held high, even though there is no one watching. It had been bad enough, escorted between the soldiers like a prize, with the Judge Magister's smug satisfaction as their vanguard, but Ashe thinks this might be worse. Ignorant of what is happening or when her situation might change, with no idea of where she will end up or why they haven't simply executed her.

An easy enough task, to kill a girl who is already dead.

Vossler had feared exactly this, he had counseled caution and patience but there were others who had assured her it was now or not at all, those who would not wait around to see what Vayne Solidor would make of the city - of her city, and her people. Oh, to be there in the shadows, forced to listen to that poisoned speech, to hear him invoke her name and her father's name and the people, the people had cheered for him…

Two years of patience, and to have Vayne Solidor's heart at the point of her blade and fail to end it. If it had killed her to finish him Ashe would not have begrudged it, to know that final satisfaction as she ran him through, and that her triumph would be the last that he would ever see.

Two years of hiding and planning and cowering in corners, and now she has even less than that, not even the dream of vengeance and a land restored to shore up her resolve.

Not even her wedding ring, the one memento Ashe had managed to cling to for all these days - preferring hunger to handing it over - but the pirate had set his price and she had been desperate enough to be stupid, and now he is dead in Nalbina and she has only a thin, pale line against her hand and the hope that she might die before it fades.

Frustration knots itself deep into each of her muscles, demanding action, not at all the first time she wishes she had been born a prince, a warrior meant for battle. Destined to die at Nalbina, perhaps, but at least there with a sword in her hand.

If only there were a way to transmute her rage into a worthy purpose. Ashe has pondered it countless times, staring into the darkness in some borrowed bed, some dry corner of a storage shed or a chocobo's stable or whatever shelter Vossler had found for the night. If Ashe could only make her vengeance burn as it ought, Archadia would lay in desolation, and never think to cross their borders again.

Truly a foolish fancy, a child's contemplation - at least until the pirate had told her of the Dusk Shard, and the reason that it sang in her presence. Balthier spoke of the Midlight Shard, and she had heard the name whispered once or twice after the loss of Nabudis; old legends, the gifted relics of the Dynast-King, presumed lost to time if they had ever been real at all. Ashe had always thought her father kind, for how he tried to shelter her to the end, but she is no longer as certain of him as she needs to be.

The pirate spoke of it all so knowingly, as if it were not her heritage but his own. Balthier had been surprised at Ashe's ignorance and she lacked any explanation for him, or for herself. How she had never been told of all he spoke of, supposedly the birthright of those who had come before her. Did her father know of the Dusk Shard? No, he could not have, to keep such a weapon at his disposal without ever speaking of it, or wielding it against their enemies, even at the end, even at Nalbina.

Why did he never tell her? Had he searched for it - but how could she have missed that? Surely the palace vaults would have been turned upside down in desperation. He would have told her, if he'd known - but how could he not have known?

Ashe had lunged for the Dusk Shard, a few moments after they'd boarded the Ifrit. The guards believed she'd been subdued, the Judge Magister off his guard and she'd taken her chance. For a moment it even seemed she might win. Her hands had even brushed against the smooth, cool surface and Ashe remembered Vayne Solidor taunting her, how she lacked the nerve to finish him if Rabanastre must fall as well. An Imperial airship was not the city, though, and well worth the price of her life. Ashe had been prepared for that end, hands tight on the reins of her hate and her determination, flinging her will into the stone as she would with the strongest of magicks, wishing and hoping and commanding - Burn them. Do it. Kill us all.

Nothing happened. No whisper of power, no spellsworn vengeance rushing to her aid, not even the faintest glimmer of light. All Ashe received for her valor was a blow to the head from the hilt of a soldier's sword, before Ghis had thrown the guard away from her, shouting about how she was not meant to be harmed.

Not yet, Ashe thinks. Not yet. They have plans for her first. Oh, and she's heard a good deal about the Empire and all they like to do behind closed doors. Her jaw aches, to match the twinge in the straightness of her spine and the place where she'd been struck, but she does not tremble, or tuck her legs up and wrap her arms around herself the way she had done as a small child, or in those long, blank days after they'd come to her with news of Nalbina.

Who could imagine how much she'd come to hate a place she's never seen?

The Archadians sent a healer to deal with the cuts and scrapes she'd collected from her bid at escape, but Ashe refused him before he could step past the threshold. Let another be their perfect, pretty hostage. She ignores the food they leave just inside the door, even thought her stomach seems to have grown claws, even though it is obviously a better meal than she's had in months. The courtesy is not for her, but for the prisoner they believe her to be, and so there is nothing to eat.

If Ashe were truly brave, she would kill herself, here and now, without a single insult or desecration to her honor. Let her body burn upon the fire that had consumed her name some two years ago, and be done with it. Ashe clutches her hands tight along the bench, and stares past the opposite wall, the floor and ceilings all the same blank, flat gray and she kept breathing, even if each beat of her heart feels more and more a betrayal of the braver girl she ought to be.

At first, the sound slips in and out beneath the rumble of the engines, easy to ignore because it ought not to exist. It takes a long time for Ashe to realize someone is singing, and that she knows the words - it's a courting song, one of those that sounds like a lament, a desperate plea even if the love between lord and lady is certain. Ashe knows… she knows the voice even if she never had need for such favors, even if she'd been courted for so many years in so many small ways that by the time the vows were made there had never seemed a moment it might be otherwise.

Rasler is in the room with her. A pale ghost, green-blue and flickering like light through water, but he is there and he is singing and when he sees her looking, he smiles.

"Hello, my beautiful one. My brave love."

Ashe pushes herself back into the corner of the room, all false stoicism abandoned, the breath rushing out of her. Funny that she should be so frightened, to finally go mad when she had wished for it through all the dull and leaden hours after her exile, or Nalbina. When what remained of the army had finally stumbled home, when his body lay cold before her and sanity seemed so pointless, without use or value.

"You aren't mad, Ashelia. Beloved. My wife."

Rasler wears the armor he died in, though it bears not a single scratch or mark of battle, and his is the same kind and noble face that whispered to her on starlit terraces, of nervousness and determination - and love. The way he'd leaned in and told her how much he loved her, a private confession even as they made their way to be wed, and later, on their wedding night, when he'd come to her like a man finally finding home and Ashe had never known the joy - even more than her own fierce love - of meaning so much to another.

"You can't be real."

He kneels before her, close but not quite touching. He cannot touch, she can still see right through his hands, past the gleam of a ghostly wedding band.

"I am as real as you want me to be."

He looks so young. A brow unfurrowed by the weight of an unexpected crown and the tragedy that set it there, his eyes clear of the endless plans, the strategies and determinations, working always against unfavorable odds. No sign of the strange, frozen set of his expression when he had left her that final time, and though Ashe remembers his kiss and his embrace when she thinks of that moment it is only of the swirl of his cape and the set of his shoulders as he walked away forever.

Whatever this Rasler is, his eyes are clear of all but adoration, and it sticks in her with all the memory of losing home and husband.

"No." Ashe whispers, the word a litany she has no power to stop. "No no no no."

It must be some Archadian trick, to make her think she's gone mad, or perhaps it is not even that and this is just their way of amusing themselves, a bit of torture for the long journey home. The false vision of her husband does not move from his genuflection, not the slightest waver of a man of flesh and blood but the worry in his eyes for her - that is her Rasler, and she cannot bear to see it.

"I never wished to see you weep."

Ashe is crying - stupid, stupid useless girl - in great, hot tears that bubble over from whatever's broken inside of her, that make it so difficult to speak. Rasler had not had time for her pleas, not in those final hours. Ashe remembers how it was, to be kindly but firmly set aside - it was her job to wait, to have faith and trust, and she had done as she was bid and they were all dead now.

"Oh my gentle Queen, to be given no more courtesy than the weakest pawn. To stand as the noble sacrifice of those you trusted, who were themselves betrayed. Your father believed he might treat with Archadia for peace, but such false empires only respect power, and ruthlessness."

An offer, hidden in his words, not hidden at all well but that is likely the point. He is not Rasler, this is not a reunion. Ashe forces the tears back, curbed further by a sort of morbid curiosity. She is helpless aboard a ship that every moment takes her further from home, toward imprisonment, torture, execution - likely all of these, and with that in mind there is no reason not to entertain such delusions. What can this illusion possibly do that is worse than what is coming?

"What do you want?"

"I want to see you smile again, love."

Ashe smiles, but it is bitterl."My husband never spoke to me so, with such endearments."

"His mistake."

It is not him, Rasler is not real and not here and yet she has to keep her hands clasped so tight in front of her, to keep herself from reaching out, to run her fingers through his hair and they had so little time together. Nothing at all to call a life, with all her memories buried beneath what came after. There are times she wonders if those brief, beautiful days had happened at all.

Ashe knows she ought to strike out at this creature - whatever it is, whatever dares to wear his face, but she can't. The lie is still better than being alone.

"What are you?" She whispers, nails digging into her thighs hard enough to hurt. "What do you think I can do for you?"

"I desire what you desire, to right the wrongs that have been done to you, and to Dalmasca. I long to see you tread upon the broken fangs of Solidor, and see all Archadia bow before you."

Rasler never spoke so - but then, she was never there, in those the meetings when the battle lines were drawn and the plans arrayed. Ashe wasn't there, when he learned of Nabudis, the deaths of father and mother, brothers and sisters and all he'd ever known. Dalmasca was not the home he chose for himself, and she'd done all she could to be that safe harbor, but he still woke in the night, shouting, angry - and he would always apologize, and never show that side of himself to her. It did not feel like Rasler was protecting her, but that she was not worthy of seeing it, not strong enough to know him true. Her husband had never truly confided in her, either his darkest fears or his most vengeful desires.

So little time for the two of them. Ashe has been a widow far longer than she'd ever been a wife. She stares at her fists - pale, delicate, useless - and strangles her voice into a toneless calm.

"… how would I accomplish such a thing?"

"The treachery of Archadia lies deep, they have betrayed more than you know. The Shards are your birthright, set down from the Dynast-King, so that such an Empire could not rise to threaten those the gods have blessed. The sins that have been wrought, the blasphemy of those who would dare to challenge-"

"I can't use the Dusk Shard." Ashe blurts out, hating it that her voice cracks, that he hears her weakness and knows her failure. "I tried. I tried to stop them, but it didn't work."

"Oh, Ashe. Oh, my darling." He is just a little bit amused by her naiveté, another expression Rasler never wore. "You are meant for a far greater purpose. Together, we will restore Dalmasca to its proper place, and then I will stand at your side, loyal consort to the Dynast-Queen."

"You are not Rasler of Nabradia."

Is she doing aught else now, but trying to convince herself? He smiles, so gently, looking up at her. They have been here before.

"You would never know it. Before long, all this would seem no more real than a passing fancy, a meaningless dream that we had ever been parted. I would be such a husband to you, Ashe."

"W-what…" Ashe says, and swallows hard, each word taking all her strength to pull free, and she might be desperate and disloyal and alone but she is not such a fool to believe him. "What do you want in return?"

No tales of this end well for princesses, not a single one. He will want her soul, or the soul of her firstborn. He will ask for her absolute obedience, or perhaps dangle a silver sword above the throne, to take a limb each time she tells a lie. This spirit must want some obscene payment, in return for all her dreams.

He laughs, richly, and it floods through her like a river warmed by the sun.

"I want to live, Ashe." Need and hunger bleed through the familiar tone, turning it strange. A glimpse of truth through the illusion. Rasler never wished for anything so fiercely. "I want to walk in the world again. I want only to love you."

"That can't be…"

"I ask nothing you do not wish to give. I will make you the sword to shatter that of Solidor, to cut down the Consul where he stands. You will break the back of proud Archades, and the world will know peace as it has not known in a thousand years." His voice lowers, hands hovering over her still-clasped hands as if he would give anything to cross the barrier between them, to touch her for but a single moment. "Our children will walk this world as gods. You cannot imagine what I offer you."

It's all she can do not to gasp for air, and Ashe wants to shut her eyes, to retreat to darkness but that would mean looking away and he is not the man she loved, he isn't, but Rasler is gone and dead as the King her father is dead and she is alone. Is there a point in pretending she can cast aside an offer of aid, even one so impossible? If he did not look like Rasler, it might be easier to agree… but is that truly what she wants?

He smiles, as if he can hear those thoughts, as if he knows how little he needs to press his advantage.

"Wish for me to stay. Tell me that I must never leave your side."

"I… I don't…"

Noises come from the hall, the sound of footsteps outside the door and Rasler's image flickers violently as he rises quickly to his feet. Ashe moves with him, a spike of panic through her heart that only pierces deeper when he looks back to her and there is nothing but fear and worry and sorrow in his eyes.

"They are going to hurt you, Ashe, and I can't stop them."

"Wait! Please! Please-" Ashe steps forward, reaching for him, all thoughts of real or unreal lost against the pain of seeing Rasler vanish again, of being alone in an empty Archadian cell - but he is gone, as if he had never been.

The door opens, Vossler lifting the faceplate on the stolen helm even as he steps into the room, his expression tense and alert, too noble for anything so base as panic even though it's clear he expects an alarm to ring out at any moment.

"My lady. Faram the father bless us, that you are safe. We must make haste."

Ashe is seized for a moment by the absurd desire to order Vossler to leave her, so that Rasler might return. Whatever he is, he offered power, and even if his terms are false, even if the price is her soul - just imagine it. Imagine Archadia trembling before her, throwing men and ships and all their might and deception against a power no augury could portend, their great armies scattered and broken at her feet. As Ashe had witnessed the end of all she loved.

Justice against those who deserve it most, and the return of her kingdom to glory. Name a price not worth the paying.

"Highness?" An edge of worry in Vossler's tone. "You are unharmed?"

"I'm fine." Ashe says, glancing from corner to corner of the empty room, no sign that she hasn't been alone all this time. She fights back a shudder. "Let us quit this place at once."