19-24 May, 759:
Though the reunion with her father meant Reina could fall asleep more readily, even on her darkest nights, Ardyn's ubiquitous presence in her Dreams meant what sleep she did get was hardly restful.
She felt no more connected to the real world than she had been before, even though the third anniversary of the Fall marked her first day without a waking Dream—or at least without waking—in four months. Perhaps she could have engaged again. But she would much rather have spent that time with her father, instead.
So she slipped through the days, one by one, waiting for the nights and the little lulls between bursts of activity where she could close her eyes and find herself in Insomnia. It must have been six calendar months ago, by now, that she had told Iris she would have been better off letting Clarus go. It was true. But the knowledge that she was trading live friends for a dead one and the understanding that she would have been happier if she hadn't didn't make her willing to stop.
Her father had more to give than emotional comfort, however. She justified her decision by telling herself it was helping the kingdom. If she hadn't reached out and pulled him back, if she hadn't asked Ardyn how to do it, none of them ever would have learned what the strange metal discs that the Glaives brought back from the royal tombs meant.
The first of them came from the Tomb of the Just—a circle of metal just bigger than Reina's palm. On one side was a shallow and intricate design, not unlike those they had encountered in ruins dating back to Solheim. On the other side was a single, distinct symbol.
All Reina had to do was shut her eyes for a moment, drop into that Dream-like place, and ask her father.
And she knew.
"The symbol inscribed here is the Sigil of the Just," Reina recited his words, tracing the sign on the disc before she pushed it across the council table toward Cor. "The artifact is, for lack of a better word, his anchor in this world. The ring binds the souls of the Lucii—preventing them from passing to the Realm Beyond—but the sigil gives them a stepping stone, of sorts, for channeling their power in the physical world. It is, as you may have noted, inert. As it stands, the sigil is not empowered by The Just. I suspect this is because Lucis' current king is dormant."
"What does it do, when empowered?" Ignis asked.
"It empowers. Much as the ring lends the strength of the Lucii to bearer—if he or she is deemed worthy—this sigil might lend the strength of The Just to one whomever is marked with it."
"With the same price?" Cor asked.
"That would depend on the disposition of The Just. In any case, the point is moot; it does nothing, in this state," Reina said.
"Can you activate it?" Cor asked. "You have the ring. You have the royal blood. Does it truly need the Chosen King in order to work?"
"I suspect that would require a certain level of cooperation from the Lucii, which I currently do not have."
But of course, if she could call on her father, couldn't she call on the others?
The possibility that this was what Ardyn wanted her to do held her back. The fact that, undeniably, having their cooperation would behoove Lucis tempted her.
She vacillated for days. Ardyn didn't alone; invariably, whenever she slipped from the Dream-like trance where she sat in a place untouched by time and drank spiced tea with her father, Ardyn was waiting for her. Sometimes it was that same un-place as before: just blackness and smoke and his twisted grin drifting in and out of existence. Sometimes he appeared in her normal dreams.
On a beach where the sun still shone, though the land crumbled away beneath it, he found her.
"Naughty, naughty, little Dreamer. Dreaming normal dreams like a normal little girl. You should be looking at Solheim…"
His voice appeared before he did. And all at once the dream became less solid. Regular dreams always seemed real while you were in them—unless you tried to think about them. Then they dissolved and you noticed that all the pebbles on the ground were shaped the same or you realized how strange it was to be having lunch with the Emperor of Niflheim. That happened now.
Where once there had been empty space, now he was there.
"Don't you want to know the truth?" He asked.
"I don't need to see the past to know that you are a liar and a snake."
"Well of course I'm a liar. But the only way to be a convincing liar…" He leaned closer to her, but she didn't lean back. They were practically nose to nose; he smiled an unpleasant smile and blackness leaked from his mouth. "Is to pepper in the truth, now and then."
If she wasn't so loath to touch him, she might have shoved him back. Instead she set her jaw and met his gaze, ignoring the way her skin crawled in close proximity to him.
"What possible good would it do me to lie to you and encourage you to prove me wrong?"
"You've already proven you can manipulate my dreams. How could I ever trust that what I see isn't what you make me see?"
Ardyn threw his head back and laughed. At least that moved his face away from hers and gave her some breathing space.
"Oh little Dreamer—you really have no idea how it works, do you?"
Reina didn't respond; she kept her face carefully neutral, refusing to let her thoughts show. He knew how her Dreams worked; she had already guessed that much, but if he knew she didn't—if he knew she wanted to know—he would only use it against her. Then again, perhaps he was already doing that.
"So solemn! Well, since I can see you're just dying to know, I'll let you in on my secret…" He was back, nose-to-nose with her once more. "I can walk in the In-Between, too. Whenever you're here, I can find you. I can see you. I watched you have tea with Father-dear just now."
The hair on the back of her neck stood up. If Ardyn could see her in this place, he could hear everything she said to her father—he could appear at anytime.
"I see he doesn't have the answers you want…" Ardyn grinned. "But I do. All you have to do is open your eyes."
Invariably she woke, frustrated and afraid, and ran back to her father's arms until the day called her back to her duties.
Her waking-Dreams hadn't stopped completely, but they came in ebbs and flows, now. Some days, like the anniversary, she didn't Dream at all. Other days time flickered before her, a knot of possibilities weaving all around.
From her balcony, she watched people pass below like shadows. Then the world stuttered and she watched them pass below again. She watched the shadow of a spindly old woman carrying a crate of cans stumble, watched the shadow of the cans topple and spill. Then she watched the woman stumble and heard the crash as two dozen cans rolled in different directions.
Ignis appeared beside her and afterward he opened the door to their shared rooms and entered.
"Reina…" The voice whispered in her ear, rolling over her skin like oil. "Have you looked, yet, little Dreamer?"
It came from nowhere and everywhere, just like when he walked in her Dreams. But she was awake, wasn't she...?
Then again, what did 'awake' mean, anymore? When the world stopped and started, leapt and stuttered, how could she ever claim she was awake? Now it seemed he was in her mind all the time. Or else she was going completely mad and hearing him, regardless of whether or not he was present.
"Go away…" she whispered, shaking her head as if to jar him out of it.
"I—if that is what you want…"
Reina's eyes snapped open in time to see Ignis turning away from her.
Shit. How had she forgotten he was there?
She reached out, catching his arm. "Not you."
Ignis halted, turning back toward her.
"Who?" He asked.
She hesitated. What was she supposed to tell him? That she had gone seeking Ardyn in her Dreams and ever since he had been coming into hers? That in return for the chance to see her father again, she had listened to his poisonous lies about the Gods and her family? That on those days when she drifted a little farther from reality, Ardyn broke free from her Dreams and seemed to walk in her mind?
"It's… no one," Reina said. "Just ghosts."
Whatever conclusion Ignis drew from that, it at least convinced him that she hadn't meant to send him away.
"They will use you like they used your father and your brother… but you can break the chain, little Dreamer…"
Reina ground her teeth together, thankful that Ignis couldn't see her expression. Lies. Everything Ardyn whispered in her ear was a lie. The Gods demanded great sacrifice from the Caelums, that was true—but it was for the greater good. They knew the path better than she did. They could see the bigger picture; they could direct their servants on Eos as was necessary.
For the greater good.
She didn't need to Dream about Solheim; she knew the Gods hadn't created the Starscourge. And when the nagging doubts in the back of her mind grew too loud, she fled to a false Insomnia and her father's arms.
If she didn't think too hard, she could just believe it was real. Snowflakes were lit by a thousand citylights as they swirled to a silent song and covered Insomnia in a thick, white blanket. Inside, a fire crackled merrily in the hearth. A mug of tea steamed between her hands as she sat across from her father with her feet tucked up in his chair.
She missed the snow. More than that, though, she missed the city; she missed home; she missed him. For now, at least, she could pretend. She could sit in the Citadel and spill out her worries and her troubles; she could tell him everything that had passed and hear his wisdom. What did real mean, anyway?
"And so you have recovered that first sigil—yet I note you have yet to approach the others for aid. Do you still intend to?" Her father's voice broke the silence, drawing her eyes away from her steaming cup and up toward him.
Reina sighed. "I suppose I must. But I—"
She stopped. How did he know about the sigil at all? Yes, she had asked him what it was, but that hadn't really happened. She knew, because neither Ignis nor Cor remembered her Dreaming in their presence, and yet she had done it in the middle of their meeting while they stood by. If they had no memory of it, her father shouldn't have, either.
He must have seen it. And yet…
"I thought you were unable to see details without an anchor."
"My dear, you told me of that the last time we spoke." He set one hand on her leg.
"That… didn't happen." Her pulse picked up. She could feel it pounding in her fingertips, hear it in her ears—drowning out the crackle from the fireplace.
"No?" Regis raised an eyebrow at her. "Odd, then, that I recall it so clearly."
For a moment she simply gaped at him. Then, "You remember that?"
"Should I not?"
"You remember my Dream?!"
He sat, still as only the dead could, and considered her levelly. He said nothing, perhaps because he was waiting for her to begin making sense.
"I Dreamed that conversation with you. But you remember it. No one else except for me remembers my Dreams, but you…" Reina leaned forward, setting her tea aside on the table. She ran her hands over her face and through her hair. Bit by bit, thoughts trickled through her mind. It wasn't possible. It was insane and the fact that she was thinking it at all meant she was insane. And yet— "This place where we meet is like a Dream… Gods, Gods, Gods—time doesn't pass the same here… and it will never reset for you like it does for everyone else. You'll never forget."
How long had it been? Months? Years? Decades of living minutes, hours, days over again without intent and reaching as far as she could—desperately trying to grasp someone on the outside and failing time and time again. No matter how she tried, they were always left behind. They weren't really with her. They were all on the outside while she turned in the midst of a tempest. She was surrounded by people and utterly alone…
Until now.
A tear streaked down her face. Her father leaned forward, brushing it away automatically.
"I swore to stay with you and I meant every word."
Impossible. It was wonderful and impossible and absolutely, utterly insane.
"This isn't real. It's just in my head, like a Dream." She shook her head but caught his hand and hung on.
"You have told me yourself those Dreams are real—I cannot explain it myself. Nor can I explain how it is possible for you to be here, in the In-Between at all, and yet you are. I suspect the two are related. One thing is abundantly clear to me, however," he said, "And that is that this is real. It is more real than I have been for three years, your time."
Everyone else always told her it was real, as well. They told her she was awake when she wasn't so frequently that it meant nothing anymore. What was awake? What was real? But she wanted to trust him. She wanted to believe that he would be with her, always remembering, no matter how often she lost hold.
So she believed.