Once the boys had sailed off to Altissia, Cor left Cape Caem. He had helped Noctis all he could while he and his friends were in Lucis. Now Cor had to address other things while the prince was away.
The Crownsguard and Kingsglaive were all in disarray after the fall of Insomnia. With the latter, there was apprehension as to who could be trusted. The former captain, now dead, had been a double agent for years, leading the Imperial Army as well as the Kingsglaive. Some had joined him in betraying the Crown. Many had died in the city, but there were still survivors. Now leadership of the Glaives fell to Cor.
Most of the Glaive and Crownsguard operations took place in Lestallum, where most of the refugees had gone. Monica thankfully took over a lot of Cor's Crownsguard duties as she returned to the industrial town. The Kingsglaive was in even worse shape; there were far fewer surviving members, and most of them were young recruits. Cor had also tasked Monica and Dustin with obtaining a roster of the Glaives—they would use that to account for everyone, whether they were alive, dead, or defected. The latter were the ones Cor was most concerned about. Traitors could have escaped the city, and he did not intend for their betrayal to go unpunished.
There was one name in particular that he would look for on the roster: Crowe Altius. All Glaives had been told to report to Lestallum with the Crownsguard, but she appeared to be unaware of the order. Unlike the others, it seemed as if she had specifically sought Cor out, reporting to him in her uniform. He was apprehensive of the encounter: her excuse of being off-duty during Insomnia's fall seemed a little too convenient to him. On the other hand, Crowe appeared to not know anything that had happened to the Glaives, nor of any traitorous plans. There was a lot she wasn't telling Cor, though. He ordered her to report to Lestallum, but according to Monica, a Crowe hadn't reported for duty yet. She was still roaming Lucis. It didn't look good.
There were still yet other things for Cor to address besides a rogue Glaive. While requesting help from the hunters to find royal tombs, he had heard troubling rumors from some of them. In the previous summer, a dark-haired woman had traveled around Lucis healing people infected with Starscourge—something only the Oracle could do. The Oracle was blond, and held captive by the Empire at the time.
Of course, the hunters who told Cor these rumors had heard it through some other person, who knew some other person who had seen it happen or had been infected. The stories changed a little as they made their way through the grapevine. He couldn't quite believe them at face value, but such rumors would lead to bigger problems. They didn't need an Oracle impostor.
No one knew where to find this woman, though. The Crownsguard and Kingsglaive were occupied enough; Cor felt that this was something brewing among the hunters, and therefore should be handled by the hunters. He started by going to Meldacio.
Dave was waiting for him at the general store. "Marshal."
Cor nodded back in greeting, although he didn't step onto the porch. "Let's go someplace quieter."
He didn't want anyone else involved—not just yet. They needed a plan on how to handle it first.
Dave stepped off of the porch and led the way through the outpost. There were less people milling about as they went. They came to the last building, the largest one in the whole outpost. After entering, Dave led the way into a small room that could barely be called an office. There was only a folding table and a filing cabinet.
"What's on your mind?" Dave turned to Cor and crossed his arms once the door was closed behind them.
"I've been hearing some interesting stories from your hunters," Cor started.
The head hunter smirked. "There's a lot of those, but I think I know which ones you're referring to. The dark-haired lady who can heal the Scourge, right?"
Cor nodded again. They had met before, when he had asked the hunters to look for royal tombs. He liked Dave: he was easy to work with, and understood the gravity of the situation.
"Yeah, I've been hearing those rumors too. Don't really believe in them, but I'm curious about how they started. They're dangerous. They'll get out of hand fast."
"They say a hunter was accompanying her. Any clue who that could be?" Cor asked. No one he had spoken to had known the names of the woman nor the hunter.
Dave picked up a very thin folder from the table. "Oh, I know who he is, and I know where we can find him."
The hunter—Ian—was stationed in Alstor Slough. Dave waited for him to return from a hunt at the diner. Cor waited for them both in a nearby shed that the hunters used. When they arrived, the color from the younger man's face drained. There were very few people who didn't know who Cor was.
Dave blocked the door, but the young hunter didn't make to bolt. He did glance back to the head hunter, who only crossed his arms. The camaraderie was gone.
"We just wanna talk," Dave told him. "You're not in any trouble."
"I don't know where Andromeda is," Ian stated.
He was smart enough to know why he was being cornered. Cor frowned. He recognized that name. That woman had a lot of nerve.
"Where did you last see her?" He asked.
"Old Lestallum. It was just after Insomnia fell," Ian explained. "I drove her and her friends there. She was meeting up with some family."
"There's a lot of rumors going around about her," Dave broached. "Care to explain those?"
"They're true," Ian didn't hesitate. "I don't know how she can do it, but she saved my life years ago. So when she came back to Lucis, I offered to take her around to heal others. It didn't always work out. The Nifs started to come after us, so she had to stop and we split up. But last we talked, she said she took care of the Imperial problem. I don't know what she meant by that. She said she could do more than heal Starscourge, but she never really explained that, either."
It sounded like the same Andromeda Cor knew. He had heard of the other power she had, but this was the first he was hearing that she could heal Starscourge. That was a bit more important than her chaotic power; it had more implications, but only Regis would have been able to think of what those could be. Still, Cor had his doubts about it. Only the Oracle could heal Starscourge.
"Who are her friends?" He asked.
"One's an older lady. Dark hair, really polite. Talks kinda proper for these parts. She has a scar on the side of her head, but it's mostly covered by her hair. I think her name was Layla," Ian thought back on it. "The other woman was around my age. She had dark hair too. She didn't seem to be from Lucis at all, but I can't figure out where she was from. Her name was Crowe. Weird name."
There was a connection between the two mysteries Cor was faced with. Crowe hadn't mentioned any traveling companions. He was right to assume she hadn't been honest when checking in with him. Andromeda's activities should have been reported by Crowe. Cor realized that she was probably somehow involved in them. It was now even more important to get information on the Glaive.
"How do you know Andromeda?" He questioned. He didn't really see anything unique about Ian that would make her pick him out.
"We were farmhands in high school. It's not too far from here," Ian shrugged.
"Do you know where they were heading after you left them?"
"The last I heard, they were taking her family to Lestallum to settle with all the other refugees. They were in Insomnia when it fell. Andromeda said she had helped them escape. I doubt she's there now. She doesn't stay in one place for long," He replied.
Lestallum was still a good place to check next if Andromeda left someone behind. The farm was also someplace to look into. Cor glanced at Dave. He hadn't wanted the head hunter to hear so much, but he wasn't the worst one to have heard these things. Strange things had been happening all summer. Stranger things were yet to come.
"Where's this farm?" Cor asked one final question.
The farm was closer to Alstor Slough than Lestallum was, so Cor went there first. The couple that lived there had been working in a garden when he arrived. He had to say little of the purpose of his visit before the wife, Sheila, solemnly invited him into the kitchen. She prepared tea while her husband, Trevor, lingered in the doorway, slightly guarded.
"It's about Andrea, isn't it?" Sheila asked once she served Cor tea and took a seat at the kitchen table. "It's not the first time someone from the city has come out here to ask about her. She's a good kid. Is she in trouble?"
Cor wasn't familiar with the name, but he recalled that Andromeda had gone by a fake name years ago, when she was residing in Lucis illegally. It had to be Andrea, and she had made use of the name.
"She's not," Cor replied. He still had to assess the damage, then determine whether Andromeda was in any trouble or not. "I'm just looking to speak with her, if you know where she is."
The older woman gave a shrug. "You just missed her, actually. She and two of her friends stayed here during the Fulgarian's storms."
"Who are her two friends?"
"Layla and Crowe. They were nice. I'm glad Andrea found good company after everything she's gone through," Sheila mused. "I know she's been in trouble in Lucis for years now. I was with her when the Kingsglaive came to town and ran her off. I saw what she could do."
"What would that be?" Cor already knew—he had seen the reports that came out of Galahd. He had been against bringing Andromeda into Insomnia because of those. Regis insisted on it, though. Nothing too terrible had happened, and none of it turned out to be her fault.
Sheila sighed. "I'm not sure how to explain it. It was like a dark and violent windstorm that came out of nowhere whenever she was upset. Sending thugs after her certainly didn't help," She sipped her tea before going on. "It was a secret between the two of us. She had little hiccups with it every now and then. I would just clean up afterwards and make some excuse for it, so the men wouldn't suspect anything. If it was ever really bad, Andrea would run out into the woods until it stopped. She always came back by nightfall. I always covered for her."
Trevor stood a little straighter. "Is that what all the hushed talk was about between you two?"
She blinked at him. "Yes. We never had as big of a rat problem as I kept telling you about."
"I always thought it was women problems," He grunted, retreating from the conversation again.
"I miss those hiccups," Sheila went on. "It meant Andrea was home, and safe."
Cor spoke again before she could go off on a tangent and get them too off-topic. "Does she often stop in here?"
"No. When she and her friends came here a few weeks ago, it was the first we've seen Andrea since she was taken away four years ago," She explained. "They're wrapped up in something more serious than they let on. I won't be seeing her again for a long time."
It wasn't what Cor was hoping for; he had hoped that Andromeda visited frequently. It would have been an easy way to track her down if she was connected to a place. The farm seemed like a nice place grow up at, with good, well-meaning people looking after her.
"Do you know why she was sent to stay with you?" He asked. Much of this conversation went beyond what he knew of the situation, as well as what he needed from it. He wasn't finished with his tea yet. There was still more information to gain from the old couple.
"Not right away, but I found out soon enough," Sheila answered. "And I handled it, but Andrea still found trouble with Niflheim. One of the boys here took her near a base to cause mischief. I guess she panicked and that power came out. No one could convince the general to let her go after that. We thought she was gone forever. I didn't want to put faith in the rumors last year that she was back, but then she showed up on our doorstep one day. The poor girl's been running ragged. She's so tired. But she told me that she's been having fewer incidents and things are better for her—not that I'm really sure what she meant by that."
"Did she ever mention if they were going anywhere?" Cor was finding it incredibly easy to get information out of the locals. Interviews like this in Insomnia usually had required more incentives. Country folk liked to talk.
Sheila shook her head. "They went north after leaving here. They never mentioned where they were going. We don't know where they could be now. We just gave them supplies."
It was the last bit of information Cor needed. He wanted to know what else she had known about Andromeda—whether she knew about the rumors that she could heal Starscourge. Yet he could not think of a way to broach the topic. He certainly didn't want to further spread the rumor any more than it had already gone. It was reasonable to guess that if the two women had been so close, Andromeda would have admitted it to Sheila. If Sheila was aware of it, though, she would have brought it up—as she had done with most things in this conversation. Considering all she had provided, and how long she had been in this home, Sheila was being completely truthful.
Cor's teacup was empty. He had a direction to start in, although it would just take him back to Alstor Slough. It was a dead-end. That left only Lestallum to visit. He needed to check in with Monica to learn what she had found.
"One last thing: she has an aunt that I need to contact. Would you happen to have her number?" Cor asked. Most refugees still had their cellphones, as it was common for people to keep them very close at hand in their pockets. He hoped the aunt was the same way—tracking her down otherwise would take much longer.
Sheila stood and went over to the phone. A small book laid next to it. "I do. We keep in touch. I don't know if she'll be able to help you much. Andrea never spoke with her once she came here. But she said they're starting to talk again."
She flipped through the book, then wrote something down on the notepad next to it. She pulled the paper off of the pad, then handed it to Cor as she sat back down at the table. One glance at the name and number suggested that it was legit. He put it in his pocket, next to his phone. That would save him a lot of time.
"Thank you for the hospitality," Cor acknowledged as he stood from the table. Trevor's presence hadn't quite felt hospitable, but it was not a threat. "I need to get going before it gets too late."
The couple seemed relieved that he was leaving. Sheila remained seated, although her tea was also gone.
"Andrea's not a bad kid," She repeated. "She's just caught up in some things."
Cor wasn't certain about that, but he couldn't be sure until he knew more. Trevor showed him out of the house without much to say on it. Overall, Cor had gotten very little useful information out of the conversation. He felt more confident that he would find more answers in Lestallum.
Imperial flags hung just about everywhere he looked in town. They had ever since Caligo came through, and killed Jared in the streets in his quest to find Noctis. Cor hadn't been there to stop it; Monica and Dustin had been just as powerless. The Crownsguard and Kingsglaive was too few and too disassembled to take a stand and defend the town. They had brought so many refugees to Lestallum—they couldn't subject them to more warfare. It wouldn't be much of a fight.
It was some consolation that Noctis and his friends pursued Caligo at his own base. Cor would have killed the general, but understandably there were more important things than one Imperial. Besides, once the Empire hung its flags around Cleigne, they left the towns alone again. They also had more important business elsewhere in the world. The Crownsguard still hid its operations within Lestallum.
Cor had a hunch that whatever Monica had to report would need a considerable amount of time. He chose instead to call the phone number Sheila had given him. Linda seemed to be busy working with other refugees, but she agreed to step away for a talk over coffee.
She was vaguely familiar to Cor, at least. He had last seen Andromeda over a year ago, and could see how the two women were related. They both shared the same apprehensive expression.
They sat at one of the tables at the bakery after ordering their coffees. Linda was far less willing to start the conversation than Sheila had been. At least it meant Cor wouldn't get anything more than was necessary out of her.
"I'm glad you and your family managed to get out of Insomnia," He began, as a formality.
Many people hadn't been so lucky: he and the other Crownsguard had snuck as many people out as they could immediately after the fall while the Imperial forces were still in disarray. Within a couple of days, though, they closed up the borders, trapping many people inside. There had been too many other things for Cor to take care of; he hadn't been able to observe what the Empire was doing in Insomnia now.
Linda gave a shrug. "Andromeda helped us escape. I never thought she'd come back to Insomnia. She had a couple of friends with her."
"What happened?" He asked. It was surprising that Andromeda would go somewhere that was crawling with Imperials—she could have gotten recaptured. She was reckless and inconsistent.
"My husband and I were in one of the camps the Imperials set up for people," Linda explained. "She showed up with an older woman named Layla. They both led us out of the camp. Then they had another friend... Harper—she had been captured and we were stopped by the troop. Andromeda and Layla both used magic to rescue her. They stayed behind to deal with another troop while Harper took my family and me out of the city on an airship. I thought that would be the last time we saw each other, but she showed up again a couple of days later with another friend. Her name was Crowe. Harper disappeared and Andromeda and the other two brought us here to Lestallum. They've stopped in once in awhile since then. They last came a couple of weeks ago with an injured hunter."
Cor had wondered how Layla fit in to all of this. If she could also use magic, then it must have meant that she was similar to Andromeda. They had most likely met after the younger woman was escorted out of Insomnia. They must have encountered Crowe within the city—meaning that she had been there for the fall. That she had lied about being away off-duty only made her more suspect.
"What do you know about these friends of hers?" Cor pressed on. They were just as concerning as Andromeda was.
"Not much." Linda said after a sip of her coffee. "Layla's the oldest. She adores my son—they all do. He's a charmer. Harper's older too, but I haven't seen her since we left Old Lestallum. It's always been Layla, Crowe, and Andromeda. I don't know what they're up to, but they insist that they have to keep traveling. They never say why they can't stay in one place for long. I guess it has to do with the Empire."
Their travel patterns made sense. The Empire would only be more zealous if they knew there was another like Andromeda. There were only so many places to travel to in Lucis, before one began going back to the same places. Cor drank some of his coffee. "You said they come by once in awhile?"
Linda nodded. "They never say when they'll come back. They just show up. Andromeda keeps promising that she'll come back every time she leaves now," She paused. "She was really happy outside of the city. She's never told me what happened in Niflheim, but it changed her. Or maybe she's just grown up now."
Cor took out a pen and wrote his phone number down on a napkin. He hated to give it out—much less to a civilian—but this was too important. It would likely be the only way he would pin these three women down. He passed the napkin across the table.
"Let me know when they come to town again. I want a word with them, that's all," Cor assured. He recalled that Linda had been vital to the initial investigation behind Andromeda, years ago in Insomnia. It hadn't quite worked out then, but she had been given citizenship for her help regardless. This time, though, he wasn't sure Linda could be counted on. There was no incentive to give her.
She took the napkin carefully. "I will. As soon as I see them."
Cor didn't ask about what Andromeda could do. Again, if Linda knew more about her magic, she would have said something. She knew less about that topic than Sheila had, and the older woman probably knew less than she realized.
"That's all I need. Thank you," He stood.
Linda also stood from the table, more thankful that their talk was over. "I should get back to work. I'll call you when I see them."
He wasn't certain that she would, yet he still wanted to put a little faith in her. Knowing that the three women sometimes came back to Lestallum, he decided that he would stay close by. He'd order the Crownsguard to keep an eye out for them. He began walking in search of Monica and Dustin.
The Crownsguard had taken over one small room in Lestallum for their command center. It was hardly worth calling a command center: they had converted it from a studio apartment to an office space with a kitchenette. They had filing cabinets with information on people that had come out of Insomnia: civilians, Crownsguard, and Glaives all alike. Immediately after arriving in Lestallum, Crownsguard had submitted paperwork on people ad hoc. Though there were far less submissions now after a couple of months, papers were scattered everywhere in the office. With Noctis and his friends away in Altissia, Monica and Dustin returned to Lestallum to continue to sort out the mess.
The office looked slightly better than when Cor had first seen it. His two subordinates stood at attention as he closed the door.
"Any progress?" He asked.
"Little by little every day, sir," Dustin responded.
"What about the new roster for Glaives?"
The original would have been preferable, but it was in the Citadel. They couldn't afford to fight the Empire to retrieve it. Niflheim had probably already accessed all of the information in the computer systems as well; they could have taken such files somewhere else for their own uses.
In place of the original one, Monica and Dustin were putting together a new roster, keeping it separate from the Crownsguard. The two organizations had to be handled differently. They had no computer system to make organizing files easier this time. It just made the job harder, and it was already below the station of these two. Yet Cor was uncertain of who else he could trust with it.
"Few Glaives have reported for duty so far," Monica explained. "Just as we said before, most of them are younger recruits, sir."
"We've been thoroughly vetting each one, sir," Dustin added. "We take down their name and station. We've also been collecting information on any other Glaives they can recall: names, stations, and their current status—alive, deceased, or rogue. So far, none have admitted to betraying the Crown. Any that have been reported were claimed to have died in Insomnia."
Cor nodded. He was pleased with their work, but depending on how many Glaives had come forward so far, he considered speaking with them himself to test their loyalty. Drautos had led the Glaives for ten years before showing his true allegiances one fateful night.
There was one name specifically that Cor was looking for. "Has Crowe Altius reported in yet? Or has anyone brought in information about her?"
Monica frowned. "That one has been a little troubling, sir. She hasn't reported in yet herself. Some of the more senior recruits have mentioned her. They all mostly agree on the information they've given us. Some have boasted that she was the strongest mage in the Glaive. Their descriptions have matched what you told me."
It was a good lead—better than what Cor had to go off of so far. "What unit was she in?"
"The top one, sir, directly under Captain Drautos," Monica answered, just as troubled by it as Cor was. That was the same unit the traitors had come from, following their leader. "What's most concerning is that the Glaives that were aware of her status all said that she's deceased. They said she died on a mission outside of the city a couple of days before the peace treaty ceremony. It's how so many of them remember her name: from the announcement of her death and the announcement of an investigation. No one knows what the mission had been."
Cor had not been aware of an ongoing investigation within the Glaives. It probably hadn't even started with the peace treaty being worked out. None of it lined up with what Crowe had actually told Cor. He suspected that the word of several Glaives was more truthful than the one specific Glaive herself had been. That no one knew anything about the mission, and she had been directly under Drautos, only suggested more that she had been working on orders from her captain. He was dead now, and Insomnia had fallen, so what was she up to now? It was still likely that she was one of the traitors, but Cor understood that there might be more to the story than he knew—and he needed to find out what it was.
"Crowe is traveling with two other women, Andromeda and Layla. Have the Crownsguard on the lookout for them. If they come back to Lestallum, detain them and notify me," Cor instructed. "We need to find out what that situation is once and for all."
"Yes, sir." Monica and Dustin bowed their heads towards him.
"Now, what about the other Glaives that have come forward so far?"
Interviewing each Glaive took a considerable amount of time. In the end, it was as Monica had reported: those that had reported in so far were younger recruits. They hadn't known anything about plans to betray the Crown, and had aided the Crownsguard in getting people out of the city. If any of them had taken too long to report in, it was due to the lack of communication, and no clear directions of where to go. They were not at fault for anything.
It was another week after interviewing the Glaives that Cor got a call from Dave. The head hunter had been tipped off that Andromeda was on her way to Meldacio. He planned to stay right there and wait for her; Cor likewise decided to stay in Lestallum, knowing that she would stop in town to visit her family on the way. A visit was due.
He waited for a call from Linda, but it never came. The Crownsguard were alerted, and it was yet another week before they reported in sightings of three women—two matching the descriptions, and a third one that looked to be new. The new woman kept herself covered, so no one could provide a good description of her.
Cor ordered the Crownsguard to track the women, to see what they were up to and where they were going. He knew which one was missing from the group. Soon after the reports started, he finally received a phone call.
"It's um... Linda," She sounded reluctant. "Andromeda's been here. She just left."
"Was she alone?" Cor already knew the answer, but needed confirmation.
"Yes. She said her friends were at the market," Linda sighed. "She came by last week, too. She convinced me to tell her how to get to Niflheim—the way we came to Lucis years ago. I tried to talk her out of it, and I hoped the price would scare her off of it. She said they're leaving tonight. She said they'll come back, but I think they're going to get themselves killed."
"We'll stop them. How are they getting there?"
Another voice sounded in the earpiece in his other ear. "Sir, another woman has joined them. They're leaving the market now and going east."
"There's this broker on the south side of town. He works out of one of those narrow alleyways. His light only turns on late at night, and his door is guarded," Linda explained. "It's the only way I know it, sorry."
"Thanks," Cor hung up the phone, hurrying to join the Crownsguard as they pursued the women. He pressed the earpiece. "Stop them before they get too far."
The crowds in Lestallum were thick at all hours now thanks to the recent influx of refugees. It slowed Cor down as he proceeded to the south end of town. He spotted several other Crownsguard closing in on the area as well, proving that he was going in the right direction.
Unfamiliar with the town, one alleyway looked the same as another to him. Yet there was only one where a group of people were frantically moving in the dim light of one single lamp. Four women climbed into the covered bed of a truck. Its engine was started, the loud roar echoing against the walls of the narrow alleyway.
"Stop!" Cor ordered, running to the scene.
A fearful face peered out from within the back of the truck. He only was able to get a brief glimpse of it before the tires squealed against the cobblestones, and the truck sped off to the other end of the alleyway and beyond.