Day 44:
"Cor!" Ignis pounded on the door. "Trouble is brewing."
Cor was upright and pulling the door open before he was awake. He opened his eyes to find Ignis outside, hand still raised to knock on the door.
"What?" He managed.
"Ardyn is dropping hints that Reina intends to attempt another flight. I would give it little weight, but she is distant and aloof. If nothing else, it warrants attention."
He hadn't really needed an explanation. Ignis could have said 'Reina' and Cor would have been out the door. Something had made Ignis uncomfortable enough that he had woken Cor. That was all he needed.
He pushed past Ignis, pulling a shirt on over his head and taking the stairs down to the dining room two at a time. He stepped over the hole in the rotting porch and landed in the dirt.
"Where is she?" He asked.
Ignis glanced around. "She was here a moment ago."
"And you left her alone?"
"No, I left her with Iris."
Small improvement. If she was gone again…
He turned up the hill and made for the lighthouse. She didn't need transportation to get out of Caem. She could leave them high and dry here. They didn't even know where she was going next. Niflheim, she'd said. Last time Cor had looked at a map, Niflheim had been a damn big place.
"Marshal!"
Cor stopped short at Ignis' call and turned back to see him pointing off the path, where the cliff cut away into the ocean. Between the trees, two people were visible standing on the edge. When the relief had passed he found space in his mind to wonder what he would even say to her.
He made his way in that direction anyway. Better if he didn't say anything at all, but she should know he was there. If they were having a conversation they didn't want interrupted then tough shit.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Good. You're here."
Not a private conversation, then.
"You wanted me?"
"I know you'll be angry with me either way, but it would be worse if I went behind your back," she said. "Take care of Father, will you? I know he doesn't need it anymore, but I'd feel better knowing you were with him."
"The hell are you talking about?"
She turned to Ignis. "And you should be back with Noctis. He needs you. Give him a punch for me and tell him I'll see him real soon."
"Don't you dare." Cor stepped forward. Too late. Shadows grew around her, covering her like a cloak until she was nothing but a silhouette against the sky. Then she was a cloud of black mist.
What the hell was that?
He had seen Ardyn do that before. Ardyn. Some daemon shit, he had thought. But now Reina…
"Reina!" His arms passed through the black cloud as it dissipated. He stumbled one step too far, thrown off balance by the lack of resistance. Iris caught his arm and dragged him back from the edge. Amazing she'd had enough leverage.
"We have to go after her!" Iris said.
Someone had to know where the royal tomb in Niflheim was. Regis, maybe, though they had never gone that far when they were boys. It had to have been in one of the books somewhere in the Citadel. People recorded everything the royals did from birth to death. They had to have records of where all the kings were buried.
But how long would it take to get that information? How many people would he need combing through the library to find one single tomb?
Cor turned on his heel; he cut across straight to the lighthouse without bothering to return to the path.
"Marshal?" Ignis jogged to keep up with him. "We have no notion of where she might be going."
"You think I don't know that?"
Ignis fell silent. They reached the lighthouse, the three of them together; the doors opened before Cor could lay hands on them.
"Ah, and here they are!" Ardyn threw the double doors wide and stood in the doorway, arms spread. "How punctual. Your boat awaits, Lion."
Cor lunged forward and grabbed the front of Ardyn's shirt. "You knew she would do this."
"Of course I did," he said. "So did you."
"Then what the hell are you doing here, still?"
"You'll pardon my presumptuousness, I'm sure, but I had thought you might like to know where she was going."
He had—
What?
He had stayed behind to tell them where she was going?
"If I was wrong, say the word and I'll be gone," Ardyn said.
Cor released him and took a step back. It didn't make any sense. He could have gone with her without saying a word to them. He could have helped her slip away himself, but here he was helping them instead.
"The engine is running, lady and gentlemen." Ardyn stepped aside and motioned toward the stairs.
Sure enough, down below in the harbor the boat was ready and running with Cid at the helm.
"You kids gonna stand there all day gawking? Thought we had somewhere important to be!"
No time to pack. He had a sword and that was all that mattered. Cor leapt onto the deck and turned to give Iris a hand up, then Ignis. Ardyn stood on the dock and held his hand out hopefully. Cor walked away.
"The manners in this retinue leave something to be desired." Ardyn climbed aboard on his own.
Once all four of them were on deck, the rumbling of the engine grew into a whine and the dock seemed to drift away behind the boat. In minutes they were in the open ocean. Or near enough.
"Well?" Cor rounded on Ardyn.
Ardyn dropped onto one of the sofas in the center of the deck and inspected his nails critically. "It will be hours before we are close enough to worry about where to go next. For now, Niflheim will do."
"You will give me the name of where we're going now—because I don't trust you not to disappear before we get there," Cor said.
"Oh, Lion. You really are very cute. If I had wanted to leave you drifting on the ocean or bumbling pointlessly through Niflheim, I would have been gone long before now." He looked up and fixed Cor with his unsettling yellow eyes. "But you're right not to trust me."
Cor folded his arms over his chest, meeting Ardyn's gaze. He said that as often as Reina said 'I'm fine.'
Ardyn sighed. "Cartanica. The next royal is entombed within Fodina Caestino—an abandoned quarry."
"Why should we trust you?" Ignis had come to stand beside Cor.
"Come now, Toasty, we had this conversation not more than an hour ago."
"You could well be leading us off course," Ignis said.
"I certainly could be."
"Why?" Iris leaned over the back of the sofa. "Why are you helping us?"
"Because you're all so amusing when you're confused. Look at you! Glowering and growling like you can threaten the truth out of me. Don't be ridiculous. We all know I do precisely what I wish to do." He crossed his legs and jingled his foot as if to some unheard tune.
He said they couldn't trust him. He said it so often that Cor had begun to wonder if he could trust that he couldn't trust Ardyn. In the few days since Cor had met them on Ravatogh, he had come to a conclusion. When he said they couldn't trust him it didn't mean everything he said was a lie and every action was insincere. It meant for everything he said, everything he did, there were equal chances that it was a lie or the truth.
If he had just been a liar that would have been simple. But he had just told the truth: he did do whatever the hell he wanted. It didn't matter what that did to other people. He didn't care about other people.
But he did care about Reina. He had helped her already. He could claim he was just helping himself—say he wanted her alive so she could help him kill Bahamut. But that part would have been a lie.
So this was a lie, too. Maybe he was enjoying himself, but that wasn't why he had stayed.
No. Against all odds, against anything that should have been physically possible from a psychopath like him, he actually wanted to help Reina.
