Elpis was beginning to fear that she hadn't thought her excursion underground through.

At first, it had gone well enough. Nothing had appeared out of the darkness to hurt her, and she felt an emptiness in the air around her that led her to believe she was alone. Or she was mostly alone. There was something-a vibration, maybe, an echo-that she couldn't quite pick up. Slowly, she'd made her way down into the depths. She'd been inside the cave for some indeterminate amount of time when her flashlight flickered, then went out, leaving utter blackness around her.

Panic spiked through her. It was so dark that she couldn't see her own hand in front of her face, never mind her surroundings. Though Elpis was scared to take her hand away from the rock wall, she did so, banging her flashlight in the hopes that it would turn back on. No such luck.

Ignis and I checked these before we left. The batteries were new and full.

Which meant something was fucking with her.

Taking a deep breath, Elpis pocketed the flashlight and tried to turn on her body light. No luck there either.

A shiver went down her spine as, at the edge of her hearing, Elpis picked up the echo once more. She couldn't make it out. And it wasn't an echo so much as a sensation, a feeling in the space around her.

... E... is...

She only barely managed to keep herself from jumping ten feet into the air. That had been a voice.

"Oh fuck no," Elpis whispered to herself. "I saw that movie with Alexus. It ended with everyone dead."

The smartest thing to do would be to turn around, go back to the entrance, and tell Ignis she'd found nothing. It would be a lie, but frankly, it would be worth it at this point. Somnus surely hadn't left anything for her. It was all a wild chocobo chase.

But what if this is the thing that saves Ardyn?

Biting her lip to hold back a groan, Elpis closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Somnus," she said quietly, her voice almost lost in the near solidity of the dark, "if you want me to do this, you have to give me something."

At first, nothing happened. Then, in the distance, a golden light began to dimly glow. Elpis wasn't sure if it was real or a figment of her imagination, her brain making up something in the dark. Then it grew stronger and she began to see the outline of the cave once more.

Hesitantly, she placed her hand back on the cave wall. She hadn't expected that to actually work.

"Okay," Elpis said. "I guess I'm still doing this."

The light was low enough that she was still nervous to step forward, but she forced herself to do so. She tried not to think about the walls closing in around her, about being buried underneath the earth, never to be found again. She had grown up with the open sky of the desert in her first life. In her second, the sky had been visible in Insomnia, even as the buildings were so tall they looked as if the tops of them could touch the sun itself. She had never been in such an enclosed space.

Don't think about, Elpis told herself. Instead, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

How long she followed that dim glow, she couldn't say. The air grew hotter the lower she went, until she began to fear she would come upon a lake of fire at the end of the trail. And every now and then, she heard something or someone whisper her name.

When Elpis finally came to the end of her road, she almost didn't believe it. The golden glow touched her hand first, then the rest of her, and between one breath and the next, she entered a large cavern. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did, she gasped.

All around the walls were etchings, like the one of a sun in the door leading to the underground trail. They covered every inch of the rocks, maybe even all the way to the top, though the cavern was so large that the ceiling of it was hidden in shadows. Her eye caught on one nearest her, of a horned figure in chains, while next to it was a man in a crown with people kneeling before him.

"Ardyn," Elpis breathed, running her fingers over the etching. Ardyn in chains in Angelgard, waiting for the day he'd be released. Her fingertips followed the line of his horns. Then, with a barely restrained snarl, she turned away from the picture.

Stepping out further into the cavern, Elpis raised her hands.

"I'm here!" Her voice echoed back to her. "Is this all you wanted to show me, Somnus? More of your lies?"

... Elpis...

She jumped again, her heel catching on a sudden dip in the ground. After she caught her balance, she twisted around to see what she'd stepped on.

Engraved into the ground was a sun. Its rays stretched the length of the floor until it hit the walls of the cave. A strange stirring took up in her chest to see the symbol, the stark and hard lines of it. Something - she could not have said what - tugged her forward until she came to stand in the middle of the disc that made up the body of the sun.

Just as it had on the entrance leading to the cave, the sun began to glow, and the stench of burning flesh suddenly filled her nostrils, causing her to cough, and-

And-

The flames of the pyre seemed as if they could reach the sky itself. They moved almost like water, and if he squinted, he thought he could see someone dancing in them. But that was only a trick of the mind. The acrid smell of the smoke and something worse that Somnus didn't want to think about filled the air. He watched as the last traces of Elpis' mortal body burned away to ash, the embers flying into the air, carried up by the gusts coming off the ocean. Angelgard stood in the distance.

Somnus thought he could still hear Ardyn screaming.

Shuddering hard, Somnus forced himself to watch until the pyre died down. It was all he could do. He had killed Elpis-though yes, she'd forced his hand-and now the right thing to do was to stand watch as her body burned.

It was something a king should do. And he was king now.

For all the good it did him.

Astrals, Somnus thought, is this the destiny you had in mind for me? Or is this my punishment, for killing my brother and the woman who was to be his wife?

The gods did not give him an answer.

Something cracked in him then, to hear the silence of the beings he'd spent his life worshiping and following devoutly. Not even Bahamut could rouse himself to say anything to his King? After all he had done in their names?

Laughing, Somnus buried his face in his hands and let the tears run down his cheeks until he thought he'd never do anything else but cry.


He could not return to Solheim. He had no wish to. That was meant to have been Ardyn and Elpis' kingdom, rising from the ashes. Somnus would let the ashes rest where they lay and look elsewhere to place his throne. It took him two years of searching, but finally he came upon a place where he felt he could build something new: A large island off the Eastern most shore of the world. It was, perhaps, too close to the desert-to Elpis' desert-for his liking, but his doubts faded once he set foot on the island's warm beach.

Yes, Somnus thought as he eyed the greenery. This will do.

He'd expected to feel something like excitement or even resignation. Nothing budged the hollowness from his chest.

"It will need a name," his friend, Deus, said from beside him, having seen something in his king's posture that told him Somnus had made a decision.

What would Ardyn have named his city?

He would have hated the responsibility of it, Somnus thought. He would have hated being king, even as he accepted the burden. And Somnus had hated him for it, had hated that his holy older brother would get everything he'd never wanted, even Elpis, while Somnus was left to the scraps in his shadow.

"Your Majesty?" Deus urged, voice gentle.

"I will think on it," was all Somnus said.


He no longer slept. When he did, his dreams were full of horrors, bodies twisting, bones breaking and muscles tearing into new shapes, agonized voices echoing in the dark, and through it all-

Through it all was his brother's voice, cold and furious, whispering in his ear:

I will never forgive you. Everything you build, I will tear down, stone by stone, with blood soaking the ground.

Eventually, Somnus named his city.

Insomnia.


He was well into his forties before the main parts of the palace were finished-older than Elpis would ever get to be, though perhaps not Ardyn, if Somnus' fears were true. Around it, the beginnings of a city were taking root like the trees they'd had to cut down to make the space.

Somnus walked the main corridor slowly, sword at his side. It could be something amazing, one day. He was beginning to realize he was leaving his mark forever on Eos, that even after his body had turned to dust, his name would still be spoken by people a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years from then.

He was not entirely certain he liked the thought.

No one would speak Ardyn's name ever again. Somnus had seen to that. No history book would ever make mention of him nor Elpis, and anyone living now wouldn't dare speak up about it. He was the king. They would do as he said.

"You know," Deus said, joining Somnus' side, "now that the palace is mostly livable, you should consider... taking a partner."

Somnus stopped in front of a painting of the birth of the Astrals, his eyes on Bahamut's form. "Should I."

"Yes," Deus said bluntly. "A king needs an heir. The last thing Insomnia needs after these recent years of upheaval is for you to die without naming an heir to inherit the crown. Do you have anyone in mind? If it's a man, a surrogate can be found easily."

Somnus made a noncommittal noise. No, he had never shared Ardyn's tastes in that manner, had not loved both women and men and some who were neither.

Save for Elpis.

Somnus had thought Elpis beautiful, at first, and honorable. And even when she began to spout her heretical views, some part of him had wanted to save her from herself, to show her the truth of the Astrals and turn her properly to the light she'd been blessed by.

So many years removed, Somnus could admit to himself that yes, he had loved Elpis, in his own way. A way that he had kept locked away, once he'd seen the way Ardyn had looked at her. Even that first night, when Somnus had first met Elpis, he'd seen the flicker of interest in Ardyn's blue eyes, a flicker that had quickly become a look of awe and reverence every time Ardyn gazed at her. A flicker that had become like the sun, blinding and all-consuming.

Somnus had seen that flicker, had seen Elpis' own gaze follow Ardyn, and like so many other things, had allowed his brother to take her. He told himself that the Astrals had clearly placed Elpis and Ardyn together to fulfill their destiny. Somnus' own destiny laid elsewhere, with someone else.

But gods, how he'd burned with hatred, some nights.

"I've no one in mind," Somnus said to Deus, finally coming out of his thoughts. "Choose who you think is acceptable."

Deus paused. "A formal arrangement, then?"

"All the best noble families of Solheim did it that way. My mother and father were an arranged marriage that grew into a love match."

"This isn't Solheim. You can do things however you wish and set your own precedent."

Somnus laughed bitterly. "If that is true, then I've set the precedent that one can kill their sibling to take a crown."

Deus frowned and seemed uncertain as to what to say. It wasn't permitted to speak of Ardyn. "Someone will be found, then, from the old lines of Solheim," he said at last before bowing and taking his leave.


Her name was Beata Ximeno Sanctia. Somnus knew vaguely of her family, supposedly descended from a noble family in Succarpe generations ago, but they'd never met. She was fifteen years his younger, and by the time they would have met, Ifrit felled Solheim. He didn't know where she and her family had gone after that.

Somnus stepped into the chamber with a hint of... what, exactly? He had to pause briefly to name the emotion: Trepidation. He noted it with some vague sense of interest and wondered why he should be reluctant for this meeting.

Do you fear putting a sword through her heart at the end of it? a voice that sounded like Ardyn's whispered in the back of his mind.

Somnus shuddered. He could almost feel Ardyn's breath against his ear.

Beata hadn't noticed. Her back was to him, her gaze on the painting that hung before her, of Bahamut and his lover Leviathan. It was not a painting Somnus was particularly fond of, as it showed Bahamut and Leviathan in the midst of sex-or something close to it, given the expressions on their faces-and he'd always considered the Astrals above such human things.

And now he was stuck with his potential wife in the room housing it. Deus had arranged the meeting, and Somnus now knew that a trick had been played on him.

He wondered if he could declare it a hanging offense to laugh at the king.

But, briefly, it gave him a moment to see Beata without her knowing he was there. Her long red hair was bound in a thick braid, almost thicker than his own wrist, and it fell to shapely hips. Her dress was of a good quality, dyed dark green to set off her pale skin.

He must have made a noise, because she suddenly turned, her brown eyes bright in the sunlight. Faint freckles lined her pert nose and full cheeks, her lips unpainted. She rose an eyebrow at him, almost imperious, and something about that reminded him so much of Elpis, of her disregard for some kinds of authority, that he almost smiled.

"Your Majesty," Beata said. "Isn't it customary for you to greet your visitor first? Or are you doing away with that in your new kingdom?"

"Perhaps I shall," Somnus said. "I find I'm in no mood for pleasantries."

The eyebrow stayed raised. "And yet we are here for pleasantries. What is a business arrangement if not full of pleasantries?"

He winced. "Is that how you see this?"

"Is it not how you see it?"

To be fair, it was. Yet now that it had arrived, Somnus realized how much he disliked it.

Beata must have seen something in his expression, for her own face softened a tad, and a hint of a smile played at the edges of her lips. She motioned a hand to the painting behind her. "Of course, this speaks to a different sort of arrangement entirely."

Somnus was suddenly very glad he didn't blush easily. "I apologize," he said. "The room... was not my choice."

"Are you so easily embarrassed, Your Majesty?" Beata asked, turning back to the painting. "I should think you've seen things far worse than this, have you not?"

After a beat, she looked over her shoulder at him, and Somnus realized she was waiting for him to join her side. Slowly, he did so, keeping a good distance between them as they both considered the painting.

"I find it tasteless," Somnus admitted truthfully.

"Hmm," Beata hummed. "I do not. I find it comforting."

"How so?"

"It may be easy for you to think of the Astrals so casually, since you've been so blessed by them," Beata said. "Surely you're very familiar with them. To the rest of us, they're as distant as the stars in the night sky. So to see them thus, it's... reassuring. It brings them a little closer to us."

Somnus made a face that was far from kingly. "And that is why I dislike it. The Astrals should be above such things."

"Oh?" Beata asked. She tilted her head, peering at him with a sharp, knowing gaze. "I see it another way, Your Majesty. When humans have sex, it lifts us above our earthly place, and for a brief time, we are as gods ourselves. We share nothing with the Astrals except this: The capability to love and desire."

The sunlight poured in from the window and illuminated the strands of her hair, making them almost seem like fire. Somnus stared, then blinked, turning away from Beata and the memory of flames. The conversation is perhaps one of the strangest he's ever had, and yet, it rang with a familiarity that took him a moment to place.

These had been the sorts of conversations Elpis and Ardyn had shared. They had talked for hours at a time, sometimes, about everything and nothing, and Somnus had envied them their ease with each other.

Was this what it had felt like for them?

"Why do you want to marry me?" Somnus asked abruptly.

Beata took the change of topic in stride. "Most would say it would be a great honor," she noted. "I will be frank with you: I see what Insomnia, what Lucis, can become, and I want a part of it. That part doesn't necessarily have to be as its queen. But I want to leave something of myself in its history somewhere.

"Of course," she finally demurred, and he was disappointed for it, "the decision is ultimately up to you and your advisors. I am certain you already have my lineage thoroughly lined out, what could be recovered of it after Solheim's fall. You will find my blood is quite worthy."

"Of course," he echoed. "You did say this was a business arrangement, and you've handled yourself admirably as a negotiator. I can admit to being impressed."

Beata smiled. "Marriages have been built on less."

Somnus stared at her for a long, drawn out moment, then said, "Do you know of my brother?"

And in that moment, he saw something shift in Beata's eyes. It was subtle, and he almost missed it, but it was there: Calculation. Beata knew of Ardyn, possibly even of Elpis, and knew of what Somnus had done.

In the next breath, she said, "Your brother, Your Majesty? I know my bloodlines well. The Lucis Caelums only had one son: You."

The air left his lungs as if he'd been punched. She said it with such certainty, even he almost doubted his own memory, the facts of his own life. He shook his head. "My brother-"

"Forgive me, Your Majesty," Beata said. "There is only one king of Lucis. You. Your throne does not seat two, but one, and the person meant to sit there is you."

She stepped closer. "You are king. Anything you say is the godspoken truth, and none will ever breathe a word differently."

Somnus made his decision then.

They were married before the year was out.


The nightmares continued, and Insomnia continued to grow, as did Beata's stomach. In the fall, she gave birth to a daughter, one with black hair and the blue eyes of the Lucis Caelums.

Somnus held his daughter and felt Eos shift beneath his feet.

He and Beata had not decided on a name. But he made his choice then, and it was as Beata had said: He was King. Not even she would argue this with him.

"Arden," Somnus said, feeling the soft skull of his daughter, listening to her breath, feeling the warmth of her body. "Arden Lucis Caelum."


Beata's scream tore Somnus from his troubled sleep. He was up before he even fully thought about it, hand reaching for his sword, his will summoning the rest of his weaponry in a spark of blue light. He ran to the nursery next to the king's chambers, prepared to fight a hundred men if that was what awaited him, prepared to even fight the Astrals themselves.

What awaited him was a dark moon lit by the moon and Beata kneeling at the crib that held their daughter. Another scream tore itself from her throat, changing into a wail, and Somnus felt his breath catch in his throat.

Somehow, he knew what waited for him in the crib. Numbly, he stepped forward, until he could see the blue of Arden's mouth, her limp body, the stillness of her tiny chest.

"Bring her back," Beata shrieked, and it took Somnus a moment to realize she was beseeching the gods for intervention. "Give her back, one of you!"

Guards ran into the nursery then, followed by servants, and everything passed in a blur until Somnus found himself standing in the nursery alone, the crib empty.

Or not alone.

He became aware of another presence then, as a figure moved like fluid from the deepest shadows of the room. Long, bright red hair fell down to narrow thighs, and bright green eyes reflected the dim light. The skirt of the person's whispered quietly along the marble floor.

"Don't worry, little king," the person purred, voice like the crack of embers, "I made sure it was painless. Which is more than you did, once upon a time."

Somnus swallowed, reaching for his Armiger once more. All he could say was, "Why?"

The person lifted a hand and ran their long nails down Somnus' cheek almost tenderly. "Because you killed someone I love," they said. "And because the name Ardyn must never be uttered on the soil of Lucis until the end."

In between one blink and the next, they were gone, leaving behind only a scent of burning brush.


Somehow, he and Beata continued to live. Or what passed for life after the death of a child.

Insomnia mourned its princess, then continued on.

Somnus' hair began to grey at the temples, the lines around Beata's mouth began to grow deeper, and life continued on.

And then the darkness returned.


Somnus watched the pyre grow until it looked as if it could touch the night sky.

Fifteen people in a small town had had the Scourge. Tomorrow, Somnus knew, he would find more. Soon, maybe entire cities would be full of the afflicted once again. And this time, there was no Ardyn to save them.

In the palace, Beata suffered through a painful pregnancy, one the midwives whispered she may not live through. And Somnus could not be there for her, could not stay by her side, because the darkness had returned, and he was the King of Lucis, and it was his duty to protect his people from its blight.

When a messenger arrived with news of Beata's death and the birth of a healthy daughter, Somnus read the note without a trace of emotion before consigning the parchment to the flames. He left the encampment his men had set up on their journey towards Tenebrae, towards someone he prayed would be able to help, and after walking until his feet bled, found himself in the ruins of Solheim.

It was long abandoned and the forest was reclaiming it, slowly but surely. Yet still Somnus found the shrine the people here had once built to the Astrals and to Ardyn and Elpis. He picked up a figure of Bahamut, its features smoothed away by thousands of fingers. He ran his own thumb over the Draconian's face before pulling his arm back and flinging the figure against the rock of the shrine, where it cracked in two and fell to the ground with soft thumps.

"Why?" Somnus rasped, the sound coming from his very being. "Is this a punishment, o gods? Is this my punishment for what I did to Ardyn and Elpis? What I was ordered to do by the same Crystal with which you rule? Am I to lose everything I have ever loved? Is it because I love them that I am to lose them?"

Silence greeted him. Rage, unlike any Somnus had known before, filled him, and he screamed into the sky. "Answer me!"

And, unknown to everyone, they did.

When Somnus stumbled back to the encampment, he was not surprised to find he'd been gone for three days and nights. He did not speak of where he'd been or what he had done or why his feet were shredded and caked with blood.

He spoke only of destiny, of prophecy, and of fire.

"I will not," Somnus said to himself as he stared into the flames of the hearth, "I will not allow them to do this. Not this. Not to him."

Somnus was not blessed with Ardyn's healing gifts. But fire could cleanse just as well as anything else.

"If I have to burn the whole of Eos to save my brother," Somnus whispered, "I will. I will burn this plague to ash."


Charis bit her lip as she eyed the dark smoke on the horizon. It was so thick, it almost blocked out the sun itself, and hung heavy in the desert sky.

"The Lucian King wanders too close," her daughter, Elpida, noted. "Should we prepare our warriors to deliver a warning if he strays any closer?"

Charis remembered the boy she had met so long before, the strict one who had seemed so dark next to Ardyn's light, and felt only sadness for him.

"No," Charis said. "He will not come here. Of this, above all, I am certain."

Ignoring Elpida's somewhat confused look, Charis went to her tent and sat before a small desk. After a moment of consideration, of remembering the sister she'd once had, Charis set her quill to parchment.

The king has gone mad.


In the end, Crescentia reflected, it was a relief for her father to finally pass.

Somnus Lucis Caelum, the first king of Lucis, founder of Insomnia, had lived past his one hundredth year. After his long journey to banish the darkness from Eos, he had returned to Insomnia to find Crescentia well into her tenth year. She had been so nervous of him, this man everyone called her father but whom she'd never met. His portraits had made him seem serious and dour and frightening.

The reality was not much different.

Gods, she had tried to earn his love, but Somnus had always held her at arm's length. He had never been outright cruel, never, but neither had he been loving. In the end, Crescentia had given up and accepted whatever he gave her.

In his final days, while he was still somewhat lucid, he had called Crescentia to his side. Surprised, she had done so, ever the dutiful daughter, and still the ten year old girl who secretly, desperately hoped for her father's love.

He'd grabbed her hand with surprising strength and his blue eyes had bored into her own. "Father?" Crescentia asked, somewhat nervous. "What is it?"

"The prophecy," Somnus said, voice hoarse and thin, "it mustn't... come to pass."

Crescentia considered his words. She knew of a prophecy, shared only between the Lucis Caelums and the Fleurets of Tenebrae: Of a King of Lucis who would one day banish the darkness for good. The prophecy her father had tried to fulfill by burning every bit of the Scourge he found.

"I don't understand," Crescentia said. "Father, we have to banish the darkness."

Somnus had closed his eyes then, and for a terrifying moment, Crescentia thought he was going to die on her right then and there. Then he opened them again, letting out a long breath, before speaking.

"I've failed," he said. "I've failed you, and our people, and... and Ardyn."

Puzzled, Crescentia shook her head. "I don't-Father, you're speaking nonsense. Let me call the physician and he can give you more of the draught to help you sleep."

"I realize now, though," Somnus continued as if she hadn't said anything, "I was wrong. I had faith in the wrong things. The wrong gods."

Swallowing hard, Crescentia said, "Oh."

He smiled, just slightly. "But I think-I think that will be what decides it. Faith. Faith can remake the world."

His mouth moved as if to make another sound, but a racking cough took over, and Crescentia managed to pull her hand free to send for the physician. Her father never again brought up the prophecy, or the name Ardyn.

Days later, he finally passed in his sleep.

A good death, Crescentia thought as they took her father's body to be buried. A kind, merciful death from the Astrals. We should all be so lucky.

And it was a relief to not see him suffer any longer.

And so it came to pass that Crescentia Lucis Caelum, first of her name, became Queen of Lucis. And so she learned of the monster lurking in the shadows of Angelgard, the one her family must always keep in its chains, lest the world fall.

And so life continued on.

And so did the world hold its breath, waiting, waiting for the birth of the One True King.

It did not notice a soul returning to Eos, torn from the beyond and remade with flame. After all, the heretic's part in the tale was done.

What else was there to write for Elpis Maelen?


AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know I'm taking a huge liberty with the canon in this chapter. It was important for me to show that Somnus actually wasn't blessed in the end at all. He eventually loses everyone he loves until he can't bring himself to love his living daughter, and he dies with the knowledge that he's failed to sway the prophecy. I did take the bit of him burning people from the Episode Ardyn Prologue and just twisted it a bit. This story isn't mean to exactly match what the canon says. It's meant to rhyme and echo.

Ardyn likely imagined Somnus got everything he ever wanted, a happily ever after, and it would have been easy to write it that way. It also would have validated him a bit. I didn't want to do the easy path, because that isn't the theme of this story.

I feel like I always apologize for the long wait between chapters, so I'll try not to repeat myself here and just say I hope to get the next one out sooner. We're in the endgame now. (What up, Avengers reference!) I listened to ADONA's cover of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" from the Birds of Prey soundtrack a bit while editing this, as it has an appropriately epic, going-into-the-finale feel. (And the movie was awesome, so I definitely recommend checking it out if it seems up your alley.)

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves in this unnerving time. Wishing you all the best.