Chapter Thirty-Nine: Chaos is a butterfly and order is a fallacy

A/N: Hello, I went away on hiatus (two weeks -that's a long time for me) to re-gather my wits about this story but now I am back! ;)

Fran tilted her chin as she heard the scuff of shoes on the stone stairs of the turnpike and the rasping rattle of uneven, unhealthy breathing. Rising and uncoiling from her perch in the quiet and now deserted library on the ground floor of Balthier's tower she walked out into the stairwell to meet her partner.

He was sitting on the bottom step with his head almost between his knees and slumped against the stone wall. He was shaking with exertion and the Dreamhare crouched on the step beside him looked equally exhausted from numerous healing attempts.

'You would survive one demise to tempt another, it seems.' She chided him gently once it seemed that he had his breath back somewhat.

'Gods be damned but there are too many stairs in this tower.' He groaned making a swiftly aborted attempt to stand before slumping down on the step. Pale and dappled in sweat he contrived to smile faintly at her.

'I knew you would be waiting, Fran.' He quirked an eyebrow, 'I hear that you have reconciled with the Wood?'

Fran picked up the Dreamhare and placed the creature in Balthier's arms (he had most need of it) she then sat down on the step beside him.

'Strange to me, it is, to once more hear the voice of the Wood – to see once more the Green Way and all her paths laid out across the land.'

'Hmm,' he murmured absently scratching the head of the Dreamhare between the ears, 'Jote and Mjrn are well I take it?'

'Mjrn wishes to see the cities of man and many Viera would travel to take seed from Golmore to germinate throughout Ivalice; the Wood could be vast once more and many Viera would see the lands that humes built for themselves.'

Balthier studied her keenly, 'And dear, jingoistic Jote?'

Fran resisted the impulse to frown, knowing that Balthier was deliberately teasing her, now that he could do so without rubbing salt into old wounds. 'Jote is child and servitor of the Wood and Green Way. That path she will follow, Wood's voice she heeds. The loss of Golmore grieves her but know she does that Golmore will rise again anew.'

'Yes,' Balthier smiled impishly, 'Had I known that all it would take was a forest fire to break her intransigence I would have torched the place years ago.'

Fran gave him a very level look, 'I strike you not solely because you are ill. I do not find your humour entertaining.'

Balthier chuckled which in turn became a stifled cough, 'Oh, but I do.'

Fran sighed, 'You play dangerous games when you are so newly restored to life and liberty. Do you follow your father's path or is the breath of cold and Mist that enshrouds you of some other nature?'

The moment she had laid hands upon his sleeping form she had sensed the presence, faint and resting, of the Occuria within him; she had raised no alarm because she had also sensed, with mind renewed by restoration to all knowledge Viera, that the greatest influence upon Balthier (for good or ill) was himself.

'Ah,' Balthier gave her a level look in return, 'There's no fooling you, Fran. How long have you known?'

'I did not know until now,' Fran told him frankly, 'but merely sensed it. Mateus' cold but too much knowledge and power for the Esper alone.' She cupped his chin in one long hand and scrutinised him closely as she met his brown eyes. 'Do you flirt with your father's evil or are you merely pawn of circumstance?'

Balthier smiled wanly, 'Fran please, I have never been a pawn of circumstance; I made a deal, it's true, but I assure you the only bad influence I am under is my own.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow letting go of his chin, 'That reassures me not; know I do what mischief you are capable of.'

He smirked, 'Too true, and to that end there is something I would like you to do for me.'

Fran raised both eyebrows, 'Indeed?'

'Yes, I'd like you to take a trip to see Hamish he's been keeping something safe for me, that we are going to need. Also, it would be good if you could summon Mjrn to Rabanastre. It would be better if it was Jote but frankly she scares me, so let us make it your more genial sister.'

Fran shifted slightly, shaking her hair behind her back, 'You would weave my kin into your newest scheme?' she asked him in very steady voice; he would do well not to attempt to lie to her now.

Balthier smiled, unabashed, 'Why not? I am gambling mine in this venture, after all.'

Fran considered his words, 'How so?'

Balthier flicked a coin from inside the fold of his sleeve cuff and twiddled it between his fingers, flipping the dulled Quidion of Betrayal over his knuckles.

'I have a plan that will negate the threat of the Occuria once and for all. Sadly I fear that it might cost me a handful more of the scant few years I have left to live, and more grievous to me, even if I succeed, my only reward is like to be immediate divorcement.'

Two weeks later

To Ashe the forest of inter-connected glass tubing, spiral wires, cables and lead piping criss-crossing the ceiling of the Nalbina cellar room was disturbing in the extreme but not as worrying as the irregularly shaped, multi-faceted golden brown crystal that had been uprooted from its centuries long plot in the middle of Nalbina town to be replanted in the centre of this workroom.

The crystal sprouted wires, metal clamps, strange sensors and other peculiar objects of an incomprehensible scientific nature from every surface. It also hummed softly, at an almost subliminal level, as it crouched in the centre of crowded space.

Moogles rushed hither and thither in organised chaos and flurries of activity. The occasional exclamation of 'kupo' punctuated the sonorous music of hammering, tinkering and fiddling with a variety of tools and apparatus Ashe had no name for. A field of invisible, but palpable, energy filled the small chamber and rifled the skin at the back of her neck.

At the centre of the hub of activity Balthier sat in a straight backed chair fiddling with a nest of wires and tightening something or other with a strange tool that vaguely resembled some manner of screw-driver. Sitting at his feet Hallie was cheerfully braiding the wires into elaborate knots while Heios sorted nuts and bolts and re-arranged the tools in his father's tool pouch.

The hume scientists from Draklor remained in the periphery of the room much as Ashe remained with her back against the wall nearest the door (she had never been completely comfortable surrounded by too much science). Larsa had insisted that his scientists be present for all experimentation on the Mist Faults and his mistrust of Balthier was almost insultingly overt.

Not that Balthier himself seemed to care. In fact he seemed to be going out of his way to encourage their allies to mistrust him; Ashe suspected she knew why but hesitated to call him on it; she very much hoped she was wrong in her suspicion.

In the last fortnight since Balthier's miraculous return to the living the Occuria of Giruvegan had been uncomfortably quiet. The only indication that they were aware of events in hume run Ivalice was the heightened concentration of Mist surrounding Giruvegan and the Pharos. It seemed like as not that Gerun was fortifying his strongholds in preparation for a long siege; the Occuria had to know of the planned attack on the Pharos.

Ashe glanced over at Balthier, in the last two weeks he had undergone a battery of tests and dubious magickal procedures to enhance his strength and speed his recovery.

Ashe had been opposed to the whole thing; her husband was so stuffed with magickal curatives and strengtheners that she thought he should be glowing brighter than the damned crystal. However, Balthier had been content to be eradiated with vast (unhealthy) amounts of magick over a very short period of time and his argument when she had told him he risked Mist poisoning was as follows:

Been there, done that. Frankly Highness, under the circumstances what difference does it make?

Although this blasé attitude hardly reassured her Ashe could not precisely argue the point or the necessity for the procedure. Balthier needed to be mobile and at least partially able to defend himself when they breached Giruvegan.

The door to the chamber opened to admit Larsa and Ashe curtly nodded to him in response to his own polite head bow of greeting. Larsa, grown tall and spare, and swathed in black velvet doublet with slashed sleeves in Solidor red looked about the room before settling his sharp eyes on Balthier; Ashe narrowed her own eyes, she did not appreciate the way her allies had been treating Balthier of late. He was not the enemy nor had he ever been.

'Balthier.'

'Your Lordship.'

Balthier did not bother to look up to address Larsa and continued to examine the component in his hands. Heios stared up at Larsa thoughtfully and Hallie curled her arms around her father's right leg; she had become quite clingy since Balthier's return and watched her father for any signs that he might vanish on her again.

'I have been in discussion with Dr B'Nellin,' Larsa continued not reacting to Balthier's lack of deference (it was a diplomatic grey area whether Balthier was still a citizen of Archadia and therefore nominally under Larsa's sovereignty or whether he was a nationalised Dalmascan via marriage to the queen – for the most part everyone ignored the issue for simplicities sake).

'Good isn't he?' Balthier interrupted Larsa, 'I dislike physicians as a matter of habit but I must concede that B'Nellin is a rather good sort.'

'I…yes, he is. Now Balthier, he and I were discussing a certain aspect of your recent experiences…'

'Interesting lineage, the man has too; Dalmascan name, but his mother was half-Nabradian and half-Archadian and he was educated in his craft in both Bhujerba and Archades.'

Balthier once more interrupted Larsa and now everyone in the room was watching this tête-à-tête with interest. It was clear to all, Larsa included, that Balthier was deliberately baiting the Emperor.

'Am I to assume from your evasions that you have some idea of what I came to discuss?' Larsa asked in a voice as dry as dust.

Balthier finally deigned to look up at him, 'You know what people say about assumption, your lordship.' He purred.

Ashe pushed away from the wall. The tension in the room was palpable and Hallie was clamped so tightly to her father's leg Ashe thought that her daughter's cheek would be patterned with the creases in Balthier's linen trousers, as she buried her face into his shin.

'I could force the issue,' Larsa pointed out sounding just slightly annoyed. 'Al-Cid agrees with me that there is justification and I believe a vote of the other concerned parties would favour me.'

Balthier flashed Larsa a wolfish smile as Ashe stepped forward, delicately tip-toeing over the mess of wires covering the floor and inserted herself into the fraught beginnings of the confrontation.

'Larsa what is this about? What issue are you trying to force?'

Balthier chuckled, 'He and Al-Cid, and possibly Basch, although his precise diplomatic credentials are somewhat fluid, suspect that I am lying.' Balthier murmured pleasantly, 'They think that I am under the influence of Venat; admittedly I would make a very dapper fifth column for the Occuria.'

Ashe frowned. She had suspected as much herself but had hoped that her friends and allies would hold their tongue.

'Balthier is not possessed.' She said very levelly looking Larsa in the eye. Alas even at the tender age of twelve Larsa Ferrinas Solidor had had the wherewithal to withstand Ashe's steel-eyed glare.

'Indeed, but with all due respect to you Lady Ashe, neither was his father.'

The words, a challenge more overt than Ashe might have expected from the subtle and even-tempered Larsa, shocked her and she looked sharply to Balthier who had leaned back in his chair with a slight, amused smile playing over his lips.

'Hmm, quite true,' Balthier's voice was that sweet, melodiously even timbre that was far more dangerous than raised voice and sharp words. 'What of it?'

For the first time, as the words left his lips, Ashe allowed herself to admit her own, tiny fear. The fear that Larsa was not being unreasonable and spiteful in his suspicion, that perhaps, when given the choice of never seeing his wife and children again, or survival at the price of servitude to the heretic Occuria already in residence in his head, even Balthier would agree to an alliance with the entity that had led his father to his doom.

She could not dispute that Balthier was pragmatic enough to barter his soul if the price was right…….but still it was one thing to sell your own soul and another to risk that of your children. Ashe's eyes fixed on Heios who sat peaceably at his father's feet and Hallie who clung to her father (who she worshipped) as if he was the centre of her existence. The certainty that Balthier would never hurt his children had been enough, until now, to banish any doubts she had; until now.

'I think there is an inconsistency in your story, Balthier.' Larsa said.

Around the room the Moogles had stopped their work and downed tools. It was difficult to say that the Moogles appeared hostile (Ashe could not truly envision a hostile Moogle) but there was a tangible presence of wariness and inhospitality towards Larsa and his questioning.

Balthier raised his eyebrows questionably but said nothing. He reached down to pull Hallie into his lap and Ashe almost reached out to snatch her away. Tongue-tied in her suspicion and guilt Ashe was suddenly not at ease with the children being so close to their father. Still to remove them would be to make clear that in her heart of hearts she agreed with Larsa and Ashe was not yet prepared to do that.

'Mateus,' Larsa explained watching Balthier intently. 'The Occuria, if the legends are to be believed, created the Espers who later rebelled; regardless it is interesting that Mateus was a part of you when you were dispersed within the Mist Faults and rejoined you immediately afterwards.'

Balthier maintained the smile, 'I do not find that very interesting; get to your point.'

Larsa nodded and Ashe had the feeling that he was as aware as she was that Balthier had not once chosen to defend his innocence or deny that Venat had not perished after all. Ashe wanted to believe that Balthier was just playing his cards characteristically close to his chest, but still she wished he would simply come out and say to Larsa, as he had to her (hadn't he?), incontrovertibly, that Venat was gone.

'I would like you to come with me back to Archades. In Draklor there is a device that can separate the Esper from your psyche without harming you. I think, to avoid any and all suspicion and recrimination, this is the best course to take. I am returning to the Empire at sundown to supervise the final preparations of the anti-Pharos armada I request that you join me.'

'That is out of the question!' Ashe exploded. She had not minded hugely that she had been mostly ignored by the two men as they battled wits and egos but now her indignation knew no bounds.

Balthier reached out to squeeze her hand, 'Highness, it is fine. I rather want to see these new-fangled aquatic airship anyway.' He smiled snakelike at Larsa, 'of course if I am Venat's willing, or unwilling, co-conspirator our dear Lord Larsa might think twice about returning us to Dr Cid's former lair, hmm?'

Larsa did not smile in return, 'I think you will find Draklor quite a different place than the one you once knew.'

Ashe, made powerless by her own suspicions more than anything else, did not like Balthier's answer at all.

'Is that so? I shall look forward to it then.'

Hours later once they had pried a hysterical Hallie from her father (she did not want to let him go and for a five year old she had a shockingly tenacious grip) Ashe stood on the royal airship launching pad just outside the fort (created after Balthier, in frustration, had docked the Strahl right in the centre of the Nalbina marketplace – incinerating much of the wares, produce and stalls therein) under a blood red sunset (the Mist storms had faded, but the weather was still unsettled) waiting to see her husband off.

As she embraced him she whispered fiercely in his ear, 'Whatever you are planning, remember that I will do whatever I must to defend my family and my kingdom – from whoever might pose a threat.'

Balthier enfolded her in his arms and his scent, part airship oil, part crisp linens, part leather and part some indefinable scent that was purely him, edible and enticing, filled her senses like a caress. He kissed the side of her neck and whispered in her ear.

'I would expect nothing less. All I would ask is that you not be too hasty, princess.' He purred the old title, the old endearment that always tripped off his tongue like the sweetest of blandishments, or the most sensuous of curses.

Ashe pulled back from him aghast, once again, that he had not denied that he would ever pose a threat to his family, and the man had the temerity to wink at her. He stroked his palms down her bare arms to her wrists and took up both her hands, pressing a kiss to each knuckle of each hand in an unusual show of public affection; all the while never breaking eye contact with her. His brown eyes bored into her own and the intensity of his look did not match the flirtatiousness of his voice.

'I am my father's son, highness, but I have never been his substitute.'

He turned away with a swish of jade green suede long coat with silver filigree embroidering before Ashe could react and boarded the Archadian light aircraft with an ironic bow to Larsa.

Ashe waited until the airship was no more than a memory on the bloody horizon before she looked down into the palms of each hand. Holding her breath she turned over the Quidion coin Balthier had slipped into her palm under the guise of his farewell. Betrayal; the dulled silver was surprisingly cold in her hands. When she closed her fist around the coin a strange sensation of electric cold shivered up her arm, almost as if something had slithered free of the coin and seeped into her veins.

She dismissed the notion with a sharp shake of her head; she had a headache all of a sudden. As she walked over the wide, smooth paving of the Nalbina courtyard, the fast flowing shadows of encroaching dusk harrying her heels, Ashe could not help the creeping feeling that she was not alone. When she glanced back at her shadow for a moment she thought it moved without her.

It was almost enough to make her think that these old pirate coins were truly cursed, Ashe thought dryly, examining the coin in the safety of her own chambers, but then she did not believe that Balthier would ever pass onto her a curse.

(She did not want to think over why he had handed her yet another Quidion – or how he came to possess so many of the damnable things in the first place. Once again she had her suspicions and once again she feared being proved right.)

Sitting with her face to the window, positioned to catch the last dying rays of the sun as it fell to the purple swathed undulating landscape of the Highwaste, its high crags and steep inclines a myriad patchwork of rust red shade and indigo velvet darkness, Ashe did not notice that the small fire in the grate winked out as the temperature in the tower room plummeted abrupt.

Behind Ashe's back the shadows of the room coalesced with liquid grace and the frigid air glittered with moisture condensed into particles of frost.

'Oho, Ashelia B'Nargin Dalmasca, we meet again!'

Balthier stroked his fingers over the fine silver thread embroidery of his coat sleeve. He did not usually favour green but he could not deny he looked good in it. The long coat helped to hide the loss of definition in his shoulders and the scrawniness of his frame; not that he would admit that his increased interest in his wardrobe was an attempt to overcompensate.

Larsa was deliberately not talking to him, neither man felt the need to pretend amiability now they were in flight. However Balthier did feel the need to needle the highbrow Emperor a little.

'I hear congratulations are in order.' He spoke across the plush hush of the well furnished cabin. Larsa, who had been sifting through a large budget of official papers brought to him by one of his attendants glanced over in surprise.

'Pardon?'

'Congratulations,' he smiled, 'Our Penelo is with child, or so Ashe tells me.'

'Oh, yes,' Larsa stammered, 'thank you. Yes, it is very good news.'

Balthier smirked at Larsa's tongue-tied expectant father glow; the naïve sap. 'Hmm. What is the preference; boy or girl?'

The once and evermore boy emperor smiled softly, 'I do not mind; though Penelo is convinced that she is carrying a son. I am not quite sure where that conviction comes from but she is happy enough.'

Larsa frowned abstractedly before continuing, 'There was some fears – an injury she took many years ago to the abdomen, and then there was the swelling fever that took me last summer…' he shook his head, reasserting the smile, 'Regardless she is in good health and so too is the baby.'

'Hmm,' Balthier murmured in noncommittal manner. He had grown bored with the discussion, well aware of the fact that Penelo's fertility had been in question within Archades for a number years (no one dared suggest that it was the Emperor who was deficient – except of course the oft loquacious Jules that is).

'Yes, becoming a father changes a man, which allows me to segue quite nicely to other business.' He admitted quietly, more to himself then the Emperor.

Larsa stopped smiling and looked keenly at Balthier, 'Other business?'

'Hmm,' Balthier rested his head back against the red velvet headrest of his chair in the comfortable, walnut wood enamelled cabin. 'I want you to know that what I do is not personally motivated. We are not friends, but I have no particular ill-will against you.'

Larsa tensed, 'Meaning?'

Balthier shrugged indifferently, 'Meaning I am not intending any harm to come to you and if you do what I say when I say you will live to see your child born.'

Balthier smiled, the cold smile he had used a hundred times before as he robbed rich men of their livelihoods or boarded airships' to pilfer cargo holds in his days of piracy. He flipped the Quidion of Mind on one thumb and it danced end over end across the air to land on top of the pile of papers sitting on Larsa's lap.

'However if it is a choice between your family and mine, I shall choose mine.'

He said simply without undue melodrama. He would defend his family even if, by doing so, he forsook any chance of their love and forgiveness. Was that selflessness or merely a deficit of trust and imagination on his part? Would a nobler, more honest man have derived a better plan or did it take a conniving bastard to finally defeat Ivalice' great and sinister would-be gods and puppet masters once and for all?

'What have you done?' Larsa demanded, always quick minded. 'What manner of underhandedness do you attempt this time?'

The younger man rose to his feet smoothly and reached to pull the cord to summon his personal guard. Balthier sat back in his chair and smiled. Larsa was Archadian through and through and despite all his wealth he had not been able to resist taking up the shiny coin into his sweaty palm without conscious thought, which was precisely as Balthier required.

It was at that moment that the very air of the cabin seemed to twist and condense with the crushing weight of white burning Mist. There was the scream of failing airship engines and, from a tear in the fabric of reality that split the outer wall of the cabin, Professor Kry stepped through.

'Ffamran Bunansa, we meet at last.' He quavered seeking gravitas and managing only a reedy whine.

Balthier smiled, 'Professor Kry,' he nodded to the unkempt and foul smelling geriatric bag of sallow flesh, bone and rags, 'Where is your master? I have brought him a new body to play with.'

Kry's eyes jerked to Larsa who was staring at Balthier with white faced fury held in check only by years of diplomatic training.

'Ashe will not forgive you for this.' Larsa told him with admirably calm and steady voice. The young Emperor knew the best weapon at his disposal and did not waste breath on a hopeless appeal to Balthier's better nature; such a thing, if it had ever existed, was long gone now.

Balthier shrugged, 'I know.' he said softly. We all reap what we sow and I have lived on borrowed credit far too long.

It was then that the airship was swallowed completely into the Mist, dragged through ancient eldritch channels of magick, torn into its component atoms along with its occupants, and deposited into the heart of Giruvegan.

Ashe was not fast enough to react, upon recognising the voice of the dead man, and could do nothing but gape in astonishment as the frost glittering image of Cidolfus Bunansa glided across the tower room leaving a trail of crusted ice and snow in his wake and settled in the high backed chair across the room.

The dead man steepled his fingers and peered at her genially from over his half-moon spectacles.

'Mmm-hmm, we have much to discuss my dear,' the man (who could not possibly be here - Ashe had seen him evaporated into thin air) smiled resting his stubble coated chin on the tips of his steepled fingers as he leaned forward elbows on knees.

'I hope that you do not require me to address you by honorific; we are, after all, family now. Are we not?'

'Y….you cannot be here…this is not possible.' Ashe stammered, groping blindly for the dagger she kept in her thigh sheath at all times.

The visage of Dr Cid leaned back in the chair and splayed his fingers over the armrests comfortably. He propped his right foot on the knee of his left leg and regarded her myopically through his spectacles.

'Eh? Oh, but you are quite mistaken, for you see, I never left.'

'No!'

Ashe lunged forward, the dagger held in her hand, point forward. She thrust expertly towards Dr Cid's sternum, angling the thrust upwards to slip under and up behind the breastbone, her aim true and unwavering for the phantom's heart.

A wave of agonising, frost-bitten cold almost caused her to drop the knife as she threw herself at the figure and for a second she met the resistance of another body before suddenly she was falling face first into the leather upholstery of the chair, her wrist jarring backwards painfully as the dagger found its home in the back of the chair.

Ashe spun around, scrabbling off the chair and wrenching the dagger out of the chair. Her eyes scanned the room but she could see no sign of the phantom except for slush puddles drying on the floor and the pervasive and unnatural chill in the air.

Almost involuntarily Ashe found her gaze settling on the Quidion coin Balthier had deposited with her as he made his departure. The coin of Betrayal had a rim of frost growing like a furred halo from its rounded edges.

Quidion - Betrayal – Cid – Balthier.

Beyond the window the last vestiges of the sunset faded behind the ugly, jagged rises of the Mosphoran hills. The small chamber was plunged into momentary darkness far more intense then seemed purely natural. Ashe shivered in the chill as she strained her senses for any suggestion that the phantom (or whatever it was) was still in the room; her eyes stared blindly at the coin on the windowsill.

She was still staring at the coin, deliberately not thinking of anything, when Vaan clattered into the room.

'Ashe….Ashe..?'

Slowly she turned to face her Captain, but she could not find words even when Vaan stopped, frowning as he took in the over turned chair with the whole in it, the icy chill in the air of the small room and the fact that Ashe still held the dagger close to her in readiness.

Ashe met his confused and anxious eyes with her own, flat and guarded gaze. Carefully she re-sheathed the dagger.

'Ashe – the Archadian cruiser – Larsa and Balthier….' Vaan hesitated, but was too upset to shuffle his feet of rub at his neck.

'It's gone Ashe. It was flying over Jahara, flying south to avoid the Mist storms over the straits of Betlana and suddenly there was this explosion of light and the ship was just gone. Even the Archadian flying escort don't know what happened. There wasn't any debris so it couldn't have been an explosion.'

'Gone?'

She repeated dully walking numbly over to the window and picking up the coin. She stared down into the face of the tarnished silver – interestingly the image of betrayal was a smiling face and for just a moment she saw Balthier's smile as he said his goodbyes and slipped her the cursed coin.

'You knew didn't you Balthier? You knew that Larsa would demand you go with him and you knew this would happen; you planned all this.'

The conviction settled into her stomach like a sickness; a slowly expanding lump of ice. He had planned to sow the seeds of suspicion from the beginning. He had lured Larsa into action and Gerun had waited for this very moment to seize them both.

The Occuria had no physical body -they had to possess corporeal life forms to interact in Ivalice – that was the only solid fact of their existence that she was sure of. Gerun had one old, tired man's body to call his own but the twenty-one year old body of the Emperor of the largest still existent Empire in Ivalice would be a much more attractive offer.

Balthier had planned all this……no, he and his father had planned all this.

Ashe closed her hand around the coin, the cold silver cutting into her palm. She looked up at Vaan, 'Is Penelo still here?'

Vaan nodded numbly, 'She's pretty distraught.' He said the unfamiliar word carefully, as if trying it out.

'Where? Take me to her, we must launch the Archadian Armada now; this is the distraction we needed.' - Or was it merely the denouement of a betrayal wrenching in its irony and inevitability? The old phrase like father, like son, whispered insidiously through her mind.

I to Giruvegan go - follow if you dare. Another Bunansa, a familiar arrogance, the same likely destination. Was she to follow the son as she had the father, straight to the heart of Occuria power once again?

Shaking herself from her spinning, unanswerable thoughts Ashe did not give Vaan opportunity to question as she grabbed his arm and propelled him along down the turnpike stairs.

'We only have a short time,' Ashe said as they flew down the stairs, 'Balthier is using Larsa as bait to distract Gerun,' or at least that was what Ashe hoped and she would not allow herself to consider the alternative, 'he's going to offer Gerun Larsa's body to detract attention from our attack. We have to break the Occuria Mist paling, before Larsa's soul is forfeit.'

Or before Balthier betrayed them all though in many respects it was already too late for that - Ashe was not sure she could forgive this greatest of secrets revealed; this most final of betrayals of her trust.