Day 46:
She had been uncharacteristically quiet all morning. For the past few days, really. Ever since that nightmare that had set her screaming loud enough to pull half the household from their beds and racing to her room. It hadn't been just that one night, of course. That had only been the start. Nightmare after nightmare seemed to haunt her. So consistent were they that most of the mansion had given up running to offer aid when she screamed in the night. Just one more night terror.
"It's not a dream, you know," she said.
"No?" He wasn't sure what else to say. It was the first she had spoken about them to him.
"It's real. It really happened. Every night it happens. But I'm the only one who remembers."
"What happens?"
"Metal men fall from the sky. They bring fire and guns and all the beautiful trees burn."
"Metal men? Like the imperial Magitek soldiers?"
"I don't know."
Lucis must have seen more Magitek soldiers than anyone else by now, but nowhere she went. King Regis had probably kept them out of it. That was better.
"And you experience this as yourself?" He asked.
"Yes. You're with me. We're in the courtyard."
"Out here?"
"No. Farther over that way."
They walked where she pointed.
"But these trees haven't burned." He didn't say it to be condescending. But maybe if she saw proof that everything was unharmed she would begin to believe it was just a nightmare.
"I know…"
She kept walking. He followed after until she seemed to reach whatever spot she was looking for.
"I stand right here. And you're with me. And I look up—" She looked up.
Ravus did, too. And, through the trees, caught sight of a growing crimson blaze.
Magitek Engines.
"Reina…"
"They're coming. They're coming again." Her voice caught. Tears streaked down her cheeks.
And metal men rained from the sky.
"We need to run." Ravus grabbed her hand and pulled her away.
Every direction he turned there were more soldiers, more guns, more flames. If they could find his mother or King Regis they would be alright. Only she hadn't said how her dream ended.
Pain like he had never known bit through his arm. His knees hit the ground. He grasped his bicep and felt hot blood pouring from a hole that shouldn't have been there.
"Ravus!"
"Run, Reina! Don't look back, just run!"
She disappeared into the smoke. He stared down the barrel of a gun before his view was cut off by his mother, arms thrown wide, shielding him to her last breath. She went up in smoke right in front of him. The stench of burning flesh was not one he would soon forget.
By some impossible stroke of luck, Reina had found King Regis. He carried her on one hip and Noctis on the other. But he was not moving to help Tenebrae.
He was fleeing.
"King Regis! Help us!"
Only Reina looked back. Tears had left clean lines down her dirty face. She stretched out her hand, as if she could reach him. Her mouth moved but no sound came out—at least none he could hear.
And then they were gone.
And Tenebrae was ablaze.
Twelve years had done little to restore the once-lush courtyards of Fenestala. The soil was no longer scorched, but Ravus walked in the open sunlight beneath leafless boughs. What flora had returned would take generations to grow to the same height and majesty as those lost trees.
He dirtied his hands in the earth, hearing screams of a time long past. If only they had listened. What manner of man would he be now, if but one person had believed the little girl who had said metal men were coming to Tenebrae? What manner of woman would she be?
"My lord Ravus? I have the keys to the manor if you'd like to follow me?"
Ravus remained crouched, arms braced on his knees, staring across the kindling life in a long-dead forest. There he had knelt, arm ablaze with a bullet wound, while his mother stepped before him. Did her blood still stain this earth?
"Prince Ravus?"
He pulled himself from his reverie and looked up into a once-familiar face, now merely a shadow on the sidelines.
"Prince no longer." Ravus rose and dusted his hands off. "Take me to the library."
"Of course, my lord—" The steward bowed and led the way up the slope toward Fenestala, but he spoke while he walked. "Begging your pardon, my lord, only I am at a loss for what title to give you. Tenebrae has been under imperial rule for so long it's hard to imagine anything else, but now they say Niflheim is gone."
He paused here, perhaps expecting a response. He waited a minute before accepting that Ravus did not mean to give him one.
"And what with the throne being empty since your mother… well, Princess Lunafreya was always Princess Lunafreya, but you are the oldest by rights."
So. That was where this was going. Not so dissimilar from the conversation Ravus had shared with King Regis some days ago.
"Tenebrae has no king," Ravus said.
"Begging your pardon, my lord, but that's just the problem. There hasn't been a king or a queen on the throne for twelve years, and maybe that was alright when Niflheim was in charge, but they aren't and it isn't. We've got no one to look to."
"I have more pressing matters to attend to," Ravus said.
Like the matter of this prophecy hanging in the balance. Of the Starscourge: product of the Gods.
"Of course, my lord." The steward bowed and fumbled with his ring of keys. "Here we are, my lord, the library, as requested. Shall I leave these with you?"
He offered the heavy ring of silver keys, tarnished with age and disuse. The keys to Fenestala manor.
"Keep them." Ravus turned away, shutting the library door behind him.
Here he had sat with a young Reina, exchanging books and stories to their hearts' content in those peaceful days before the fall. The last time he had set foot here, it had been with her. By now the library was dusty and forgotten. Left alone and untouched for nearly as long.
He walked among the silent shelves and puffs of dust rose around his boots. His fingers trailed over spines, leaving lines in the dust, until he found what he searched for. The old tomes, passed down from generation to generation of Oracle. Nowhere else on Eos could this knowledge be found. Much of it had fallen out of living memory. It was doubtful if even Lunafreya knew any of this information.
He took as many of the tomes as he could carry, loaded his arms until his sleeves were streaked with dust. He cleared a space on one untouched table and sat. For hours he sat, embroiled in lore and pouring over books that had lain ignored on a shelf for more generations than he could count.
Had he doubted Reina's words when he had heard them, the half-forgotten tomes of Tenebrae would have been enough to sway his mind. All was written here, much as Reina had recounted it, although the truth was mired in elaborate language, which had doubtless allowed it to be lost as generations passed.
The Astrals had created the Starscourge. The True King had been turned aside for his lesser brother, after a sacrifice of his own lifeblood had turned him into a monster to be feared.
Ravus sat staring at the pages long past the time when he could gather anything else of use from them. Every motion in this disused place sent little clouds of dust rising up. The light shifted from silver to gold to grey. The dusty library grew cold.
His eyes flicked toward his phone, sitting on the table beside him. Too many people had been present during his call the day before. Too many conversations going on. He'd hardly had a moment to speak to Reina among all that mess. Now that the words of his own family joined hers in his mind, he wondered if he shouldn't have tried harder. He had always believed in her premonitions. At least, after Tenebrae, he had been adamant that none were to be disregarded again.
He reached for his phone and found her number. The line rang, clicked.
"Ravus." Surprise tinged her voice.
"Reina. If you would grant me some few minutes, I would speak with you. Alone."
A moment passed. Distant voices exchanged half-audible words before Reina returned to the line.
"What can I do for you, Ravus?"
"I would have you know that, whatever my sister may believe, your tale leaves no doubts in my mind. But there shall be no doubt lingering on Eos. Much of this history has been recorded in Tenebrae, lost until now."
A pause.
"Thank you, Ravus. I confess, I did not fear you, of all people, would disbelieve me."
It was a compliment, of sorts. A recognition of their similarities.
"You're in Tenebrae?"
"I am."
"How is it? Being home."
Ravus rose from his seat at the table and paced the line of the library. "I'm uncertain I am home."
"I understand. It's such a distant concept to me now, I hardly remember what it felt like when I had one."
"And what does home feel like?"
"Warm, but not in temperature. Safe. Free from worries or cares. It's not really a place. The Citadel isn't home, just a place where I lay my head and hang my clothes. Home is a little sliver of peace in the chaos of the world. It's the moments when everything else falls away and there's just serenity. Contentment. Even happiness."
"Home isn't a place," Ravus repeated slowly.
His had burned so long ago. Even though Fenestala Manor stood, everything that had made it his home was gone.
"It's where the people we love are," she said.
"Then my home is Insomnia," he said.
"I'm sure Luna won't stay here forever. I don't know what will happen with her and Noctis, but she doesn't seem like the sort of person who could ever sit and watch the world turn."
"And you? Will you stay there forever?"
"Yes. Once Bahamut is dead I will return to Insomnia. Where my family is. My friends." Her voice cracked at the last word.
"Then I will always have a home in Insomnia."
"Ravus…"
"Those few weeks you stayed in Tenebrae are the only untainted memories I have left to me," he said.
She was silent for a long time.
"You could rebuild if you wanted," she said finally. "Niflheim is gone. I've made sure of that. Tenebrae could belong to the Nox Fleurets again."
"Perhaps," he said. "If I had some reason to call it home again."