Day 41:

Almost thirty years since the last time he had been outside the Crown City. The Kingsglaive left Insomnia now and then, but the Crownsguard was strictly inside the wall—usually in the Citadel. Except when the whole city fell to pieces and they needed extra boots on the streets.

He remembered a little bit. Not much, but enough to get him where he needed to go.

Hopefully.

Noctis had just come back from the Outlands with a brand new set of spectral glaives. Cor was banking on Reina wanting every possible means to protect people. It was a guess, plain and simple. The best guess he had for now.

A few of the royal family had been entombed on the surface. Convenient. Easily accessible. Really he couldn't think why they all hadn't. To make the next generations suffer, probably. Either she would go to the quickest tombs first and work her way back through the deeper down tombs, or she would go to the closest and work her way to the farthest.

Or else she wasn't after the royal arms at all. In which case he was out of guesses.

Trying to follow her trail was stupid. She had several hours head start on him and she didn't seem constrained by normal methods of transportation. He had a slim chance of catching her if he cut across Lucis and tried to head her off at a later tomb. Luckily, the only one he remembered a location for was on the opposite side of Lucis. Or unluckily, depending how the clocks played out.

At least he had the added benefit of a custom made sports car that could have left the Crownsguard cars sitting in the dust. Law enforcement was pretty scarce outside the wall or he would have been worried about attracting attention. A Caelum car wasn't a well-known symbol out here. Neither was a Crownsguard badge. He couldn't afford to stop and explain either.

It was what Clarus and Regis would have called reckless driving. He pulled the corners tight and passed cars by driving on the wrong side of the road. It still took too long to reach the Rock of Ravatogh. By the time he pulled off the road at the bottom of the mountain it was already afternoon.

Gods he hoped she hadn't been up there and left already. Sprinting up a volcano for no reason wasn't on his list of fun ways to spend an afternoon. Only one way to find out.

He tightened his bootlaces and set off, hopping the guardrail and following the faint path that led up toward the base of the volcano. Black dust puffed up with each footfall. It was like the whole damn mountain was sitting on a pile of ash. Probably was.

By the time he hit the rocky base, he had sprinted past half a dozen bestial pests and had yet to see a single person. More beasts than people in the Outlands. Or maybe an active volcano wasn't most people's idea of a tourist destination.

His boots hit stone and he picked up the pace. Easier to run on firm ground. In a few steps the excess ash had all been jarred from from his boots. Something told him he was still going to be covered in the stuff by the time he got to the top.

Cor counted the minutes first. When those grew too plentiful, he counted the hours. He couldn't tell how much progress he had made; it was hard to see the top, least of all remember exactly where the tomb had been. Hopefully he was going in the right direction. Hopefully she hadn't already beat him there.

More beasts lurked on the path up. He dodged past them, avoiding a fight whenever he could. Eventually he hit a point where sprinting was no longer a valid form of transportation. Just as well. His lungs were burning and he had so many stitches in his sides he might as well have been sewn up.

The path continued up. Steep. When he was standing upright he could reach out a hand and touch the ground in front of him. It was ashy, too. Easy to slip and easier to fall. It grated on his nerves to slow his pace to a crawl but that was the only way he was getting up. A false step on this ground meant sliding all the way back down. Or worse: sliding off the edge.

In spite of the growing protest of his muscles, the pounding of his heart in his chest, the endless pursuit for air, he never stopped for a break. He couldn't afford that.

It seemed an hour before his feet were back on solid rock and the climb leveled out. At least in patches. The path took him across a narrow ledge where every step pushed pebbles over the side and warned him what would happen at the first misstep.

Somewhere between the base and the crest, lost in smoking, oozing pools of lava, and halfway up a vertical climb, he began to wonder if the tomb was even at the top of the volcano. He remembered going up this with Regis and the others. Not the path but the heat and the struggle and the ache. They must have gone all the way up. If you were going to put your tomb in a volcano, why not at the top?

He pressed on. The sun was setting by the time he dropped down into the crater at the top of the mountain. He switched on his light and searched for some continuation of the path up. A hollow lava tube led back down but he wasn't willing to gamble that it would go up after. He found another ledge that climbed around one side and took that instead.

He had wasted too much time. Four hours across Lucis going twice the speed limit and close to four on the mountain already. Unless Reina had visited every single tomb in Lucis before this one—and taken her sweet time all the while—he wasn't going to catch her. But hell if he was giving up now.

The path was too narrow to run down. He did it anyway.

In the growing dark with a wobbling flashlight as his only source of light, it was hard to see the rocks. His foot came down on one and he lost his balance. His feet slipped out. The little pebbles and sandy dirt made his path a slide all the way down. He scrambled for purchase. Rocks bit his hands when he reached out; hurt like hell and didn't even slow his slide. It would hurt more if he slid off the ledge. And he was picking up speed. He slammed his heels into the rock, wedging himself closer to the wall. His back dragged against it. More friction was good. Never mind the pain.

Slowly, bit by bit, he scraped to a halt. His heels caught a crack and he tumbled head over to land on a flat space.

He lay on his stomach against the hot stone for a long time. His hands were still attached. His fingers may have been a little shorter, but he didn't need that last inch anyway. He could feel the burn on his back, though. A stinging, spreading pain that dug in sharp when the hot wind picked up.

One good thing had come of it—besides still being alive. The royal tomb was here on the flat. He stared straight at the door while he lay on the ground catching his breath.

He pushed himself upright with his elbows, biting back a groan of pain. A quick inspection of his hands said they were cut and scraped to hell. He was leaving drops next to the bloody handprints on the ground.

That was what he got for reckless pursuit.

The tomb was still shut. Either she hadn't been this way or she had closed it after. If the former she might not even have been after the royal arms. If the latter, he had no way of knowing.

He took a few staggering steps to the stone doors and left a streak of bloody handprints down to the ground. It was easier to sit. Actually, sitting was hell. Either he tried to sit straight up to spare touching his back to anything or he gave in to the exhaustion and leaned back against the doors.

No one knew where he was. If he didn't come back they weren't coming after him unless he got word out. He pulled his phone from his pocket, smearing bloody streaks all over.

He managed to light up the screen, wincing at the press of buttons against raw fingers.

No reception.

Shit.

He dropped his phone and slumped back against the doors, accepting the sharp pain that struck across his back as the lesser of two evils.

The adrenaline that had carried him through a four hour sprint up the volcano was waning. He was not making it back down tonight. If he survived until morning it would still take a miracle to climb back down with shredded hands and back.

So this was where it ended. In pursuit of his princess, on top of a volcano, in the middle of the night.

He would have liked to say he had died doing something worthwhile.