Day 40:
"Do you think my brother will ever walk again?"
Ravus looked down at the little girl holding one of his hands in both of hers as they walked together. They had come a long way from the day she wouldn't even admit to being cold or homesick.
"I'm certain of it," Ravus said. "My mother can heal anything. She knows a great many things, you know."
"Just like my dad."
"Just like your dad."
He didn't see much of King Regis, except from afar and sometimes during dinner. Often he was with Ravus' mother or else closed up in his rooms with those other Lucians he had brought with him. Ravus could guess from scraps of conversation that he was still doing a fair job of ruling his kingdom from across the seas. Ravus' mother said King Regis was a wise man. And Ravus' mother knew everything.
"So does Luna," Reina said.
"That is also true. Mother speaks with her often to tell her all the important things she must remember."
"She told Noctis that he was The Chosen King Anointed by the Crystal." She said this as if reading from a card.
"He is," Ravus said. But the mere fact that she had brought it to attention gave him pause. "Did you and your brother not know that?"
"No. Noctis is Crown Prince, which means that he will be king someday. But Father never mentioned anything about a prophecy or the darkness that the King of Light would chase away or anything."
And Lunafreya had been too caught up in explaining all those things she had learned to pick up any sign that perhaps she should not have been giving him this information. Oh dear.
They were only eight. Mother had been telling Lunafreya about her destiny since before she was old enough to understand what that meant, but King Regis, it seemed, had been taking a different approach. Perhaps there was wisdom in that. Two children raised side-by-side, one of whom had been chosen, were better off thinking themselves equal. Or more equal, at least.
"Do I have a destiny?" She asked.
He suspected that was much the question King Regis had been avoiding.
He settled for the truth. It might not have been diplomatic and probably King Regis could have come up with a better solution, but it was the best Ravus could offer.
"I don't know. Sometimes no one knows what we're meant for until it happens."
"Do you have a destiny?" She asked.
"Not that anyone has bothered to tell me about. Since they've all been highly remiss, I decided to make one up for myself."
"You can do that?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Why not? Better to choose your destiny then get stuck with something you'll hate forever."
She smiled at that. "What did you choose?"
"If it is Lunafreya's duty to guide the Chosen King then I will make it my duty to protect her." He shot her a crooked smile. "I was going to do it anyway. Might as well make it sound important."
Her smile deepened. Some of that self-doubt drained away.
"Can I choose my destiny, too?"
"Absolutely. If no one is around to tell you what to do, it's up to you to make that decision. Just make it a good one."
A heavy rapping on the door awakened him. Ravus lurched upright, reaching for his sword before recalling where he was. He rolled out of bed and picked up his sword regardless. He pulled the door open, half-dressed but armed.
A servant stood outside, unperturbed by both these things. "His Majesty requests your presence in his study this morning."
"I see." Ravus bit back a sneer. "And did His Majesty give a reason for this meeting?"
"No, my lord. Only that he wants to see you."
What did it mean for him to be allies with the King of Lucis? He had been prepared to bare blades alongside Reina—and he would still have done so—but he had never expected to come to any sort of genial arrangement with King Regis. A man whose priorities were so vastly different from his own that they could hardly exchange three words before disagreeing.
Or so he had thought.
"You may tell the king I will be there shortly." Ravus shut the door in the servant's face and turned to clothe himself fully.
Regis had chosen to protect his own family over all else. The decision itself Ravus could relate to: it was a motivation he, himself, subscribed to. But Lunafreya had always insisted on painting it honorably. By leaving them behind, King Regis had protected the future, she said. He had preserved the lives of all of Eos by fleeing Niflheim and leaving Tenebrae to the flames.
Fool. Did she truly believe that was why he had done it? What father justified the protection of his children with the lives of others? What father needed justification to protect his children?
And yet for years Ravus had believed as she did. That King Regis had acted for the greater good of all of Eos. A greater good that did not include the life of Ravus' mother or the preservation of Tenebrae. The Gods' fate decreed that the King of Light would survive, but not Tenebrae?
Perhaps it was the Gods he should curse.
Lunafreya caught him on the way out. "Where are you going?"
The Gods and his fool sister. Yet he would still spend everything to protect her. Just as King Regis would spend everything to protect his children.
He turned away from her without a word, wrenching the hall door open and leaving her locked within on the king's orders. She cared not an inch for the arrangement, but she would never speak a word of objection. She would simply sit in stoic silence and pester him whenever they crossed paths.
This time when he arrived at the king's study, he was admitted immediately. He had expected, upon entering, to be faced with King Regis as he had known him these past weeks: an old man who struggled to walk but pretended he didn't. Instead he found King Regis as he had known him in Tenebrae. Or very nearly.
A younger man stood by the extravagant landscape windows in the back of the king's office. He wore the king's clothes. He spoke in the king's voice. He held the king's authority. And he turned to face Ravus and fix him with the penetrating gaze that Ravus had seen on the King's face but a week ago.
For a moment Ravus wondered if his dream of Tenebrae hadn't bled out into reality.
"Ah." King Regis glanced down at himself. "You are surprised by my appearance. I fear my daughter grew overzealous in her quest to protect all she loves."
It didn't answer any of the myriad questions Ravus had.
"I have invited you here because Prince Noctis is due back from the Outlands any minute, and I surmise you might be of assistance to us."
"I?"
"And we to you. As we have discussed, many of our interests align," King Regis said.
Ravus waited for the punchline.
"We would undo the prophecy that calls for the death of my son and—in conjunction with that—your sister."
"The prophecy says nothing of the death of my sister," Ravus said. He would know. He had heard it often enough growing up.
"Perhaps not directly. But it does imply that the King of Light will form covenants with each of the Astrals and that the Oracle's fate is tied to his. Who do you believe will awaken and harness the Astrals, if not Lunafreya?"
Ravus said nothing.
"The magic she would need to invoke is dangerous and highly draining. It is all but assured that she would not survive the process."
The words of the prophecy had been repeated countless times, first by his mother, then by Luna, until he knew them backward and forward. But never had he truly considered them. Not beyond the words themselves.
A knock came to the door. "Your Majesty, Prince Noctis has arrived."
"Show him in."
The doors swung open fully to reveal Noctis. He stopped with one foot in the room to give Ravus a critical look.
"Ookay…" Noctis glanced from Ravus to King Regis and his confusion only grew. "Dad? What the hell happened to you?"
"A long story." King Regis motioned him in. "One I will tell in due time."
Once Noctis was fully inside the room, the doors closed behind him.
"I have invited Ravus to this meeting because I hope he may be able to aid our cause," King Regis said.
"Though you have yet to tell me how," Ravus said.
"You are of the Oracle's bloodline," he said. "It is just possible that you have information that has otherwise been lost to us. Your family is more than the bearer of the one who will speak with the Astrals. You are lorekeepers as well."
"You don't think I would have told you if I knew how to subvert the prophecy?" Ravus asked.
"Have you, prior to this moment, considered the possibility of the prophecy going unfulfilled?" King Regis asked.
"No," Ravus admitted. "But I don't see how this is relevant. What I learned from my mother in my childhood was that the prophecy would be fulfilled, by its mere nature, and that Lunafreya would be the one who saw the words through to fruition."
"Do you believe what Princess Reina has said of her Dream?"
The apparent change of topic caught him off-guard.
"I believe that Princess Reina sees the future," Ravus said. "And that one would be a fool to disregard her premonitions."
"Then we are in accord," King Regis said. "Though she has not publicly revealed much of her Dream, I do know that Noctis did not die in the future she experienced. And thus the prophecy was never fulfilled."
"And so? Darkness reigned eternal?"
"No." Noctis stepped into the conversation, breaking his silence. "No, she said that at the end of ten years, she would take my place. She died and we had dawn."
The King of Light survived to see the dawn. The darkness was pushed back on another's life. Could it be possible that it was so simple to circumvent the prophecy and solve the problem on their own terms?
Pah. Simple.
"Exchanging Reina's life for Noctis' is an unsuitable solution," Ravus said.
"How fortunate you agree," King Regis said mildly. "And so we come to the present: we know that the darkness can be destroyed without fulfilling the prophecy. With this knowledge, what must we do to prevent the death of either of my children in this war?"
"And Lunafreya."
"And Lunafreya as well," King Regis agreed.
"You, too." Noctis crossed his arms and looked pointedly up at King Regis.
"In order to destroy this darkness, we must destroy its heart," Ravus said.
"Ardyn," Noctis said.
"Otherwise it will only return. The prophecy would send The King of Light to the Beyond, in an Ascension, to destroy the Usurper," Ravus continued. "The prophecy fixates on how to force his soul into the Beyond. We must focus on why he is bound here in the first place."
"We know next to nothing about this man, save that he calls himself Ardyn Izunia and was once the chancellor of Niflheim. Your sister calls him Adagium, but I find any connection with such a tale highly unlikely," King Regis said.
"Fairytales and horror stories." Ravus scoffed. "He was known in Niflheim, but he was never imperial—of that I have no doubt. I can gain access to the imperial files on him. If there is any remaining record of where they found him, they will be in Gralea. I will need passage."
"A seaworthy vessel can be arranged, but will you be safe walking into the imperial capital?" King Regis asked.
"By all regards I am still imperial. In fact, if my surmise is correct, I am the highest ranking imperial official still alive, excepting Ardyn. I won't be harmed. But I may be harried for guidance."
Niflheim would be in chaos. The emperor, the chancellor, and all three generals who had been dispatched to Insomnia for the signing had never returned. Half were dead. If the reports Ravus had heard were true, Tummelt and Besithia had been found in the wreckage of the Magitek engines brought down over Cavaugh some few weeks ago.
"It is your decision to make," King Regis said. "But we will be indebted to you for whatever information you might uncover."
"Then have the ship prepared. I will leave immediately."
