It was years since the Regalia had been thus populated and freed from the confines of the Crown City. Indeed, it was nearly as many since Regis had left Insomnia to drive across Lucis. The past two times he had departed for Tenebrae and they had spent little time in Lucis beyond the capital city. Now they left through the main gates and sped out into the vast stretches of Lucis beyond.

The kingdom was in shambles.

It had been only a few weeks since the rains and floods had ceased—too little time to rebuild what had been washed away and repair what had been swept up in landslides. All along the road they encountered proof that repairs were well under way—work crews gathered with shovels and picks, shifting mud and rocks from the road. In several places the road was wide enough for only one car to pass through. In others it was gone altogether. More than once they were forced to backtrack and find a way around, cutting across the rocky soil of Leide to find a path back to the road. If not for Weskham's patient hands on the wheel, Regis would have gone mad with the inefficiency of it all.

They had just crossed into Duscae and were beginning to trade rocky washouts for fallen trees when a sharp pain shot through Regis' head, as if someone had driven a spike through his skull.

He gasped, clutching his head and squeezing his eyes shut against the blinding pain. For an immeasurable time there was nothing but the pain—too thick even to force thoughts around. When his mind came to terms with the sensation and he was capable of more thought than simply alarm, he traced it. The white hot pain was a blade thrust through him from the crystal itself.

No. Not the crystal. But the consciousness behind it.

The Draconian.

Thou hast defied me for the last time, O Father King. Thou cannot be suffered to live.

Regis gritted his teeth through the pain and forced thoughts into coherent words. You need me. If ever you wish this darkness to end, you need me.

The child thou hast fathered is all I require. Thou art expendable. Thou art a liability.

The pain flared, as if Bahamut stood above him and thrust a blade—torturously slowly—through Regis' skull between his eyes.

Do you think my son will bow before you, after you killed his father? Regis asked. He will defy you as I have. Never again will you convince the Caelums to bend a knee with brute force. You will end this world by your own hubris, and be left to rot in the darkness.

Then I shalt cleanse Eos myself. Thy bloodline was never necessary. Merely a mercy granted to mankind.

And for a moment Regis was granted horrifying insight into the Draconian's plans: a blinding light that washed over all of Eos, so scorchingly bright that it shrivelled all it touched—the Starscourge vanished before it, but so too did all life whither. Humans—burned and vaporized—were transformed to sparkling clean piles of bone. Crops withered and turned to ash, which blew away on the wind. Beasts—animals and daemons alike—fared no better than mankind.

And in the wake of Bahamut's cleansing light, Eos was left sterile.

Not a breath of life stirred. Not a blade of grass.

The darkness was gone, and so too was everything else.

You would destroy all life on Eos, merely to erase your own sin? If he could have shouted the words, he would have. Instead he sharpened his thoughts to a knife point and flung them at Bahamut.

It did no good. The blinding pain grew stronger by the second.

Regis stretched out, reaching for any shred of power that would allow him to break free, to sever the bond that held him bound to Bahamut. The other Astrals, perhaps—if they would stand against Bahamut, now was the time.

Before he could gather up the strings that tied him to Ramuh and Leviathan, however, another consciousness caught his—like a hand grasping his flailing arm.

A familiar voice drifted through his mind. Do you tire of this too-bright world? Long for a place to shut your eyes and block out the scorching goodness of it all? Well then I have just the thing!

Ardyn. He was manifest as a great seeping shadow—the black mist that accompanied both him and the daemons—and he wrapped around Regis, pressing in against the blinding pain of Bahamut's blade.

In contrast, Bahamut was an armored figure holding a blade of pure light against Regis' head. Thou hast allied thyself with the one true enemy. Thou art irredeemable, Regis Lucis Caelum. Thy throne and thy power fall instead to—

Yes, yes, we've heard it all before. Ardyn cut him off as darkness seeped up the blade, corrupting light with dark. Starscourge.

The blackness crept up the blade, blotting out the light until Regis could see again. He could see the heart of the star—the crystal, and the ties that bound him to it. Through this, Bahamut had assaulted him. And through this, now, crept the Starscourge. Creeping, corrupting, darkening, and reaching for the Heart of Eos.

The bond snapped.

Without it, Regis tumbled into nothingness, adrift and lost in a world with no sensation and only one thought in his mind:

His magic was gone.

He, like his daughter, had been severed from the crystal. Deemed unfit to wear the crown and rule the kingdom.

Hands grasped him and heaved him onto solid ground. And Regis stood in the inky blackness of the In Between, staring at a pair of familiar shoes.

"Didn't I warn you?" Ardyn asked, with a tone that suggested a parent scolding a child for touching the hot stove. "Kill him before he kills you. And the rest of your kind."

"I cannot face him yet." If anything, this encounter was only proof of that.

Ardyn tsked. "More friends? Aren't I enough for you?"

"With friends like you…" Regis stopped himself from finishing the comment.

"I'm wounded," Ardyn said, and almost sounded it. "If you had wanted to collect Astrals, you should have let me know. I have one already."

And without bothering to elaborate on that point, he turned on his heel and vanished into the darkness, leaving Regis to grope his way back to consciousness.