Day 6:

Silver light filtered through the boughs above: a tree canopy so high overhead it was hardly even green anymore. The winter snows had melted, leaving the streams full to gushing. The chill lingered. It wasn't a day he would have wanted to walk around in, say, a dress. Like Princess Reina was.

She climbed a boulder twice her height at the edge of the stream. After a few rough starts she managed to pull herself up to the top, where she stood looking around with distant wonder. Was Lucis so different that Tenebrae brought her such puzzlement? It must have been a cold place, what with how stoically she faced the chilly spring morning.

She shivered.

Ravus smiled. Or perhaps she was just a good actor.

"Cold? It can get chilly out here this time of year."

She spun about, eyes wide, and lost her balance on the boulder.

"Careful!"

Drat. He should have known better than to sneak up on her and say something out of nowhere. He pushed away from his tree and managed to reach her before her footing slipped further. He caught her shoulders; she very nearly fell into his arms but he had her back on her feet in a moment.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," he said.

"I wasn't scared. Just surprised."

Stoic to a fault, it seemed.

"Well I didn't mean to surprise you, either." He smiled. "Are you cold?"

"No. It gets colder than this at home." She folded her arms over her chest, perhaps to hide the goosebumps rising all over. "Don't you miss hearing the cars?"

"Cars?"

"Don't you have cars?"

"Of course. We have several at the palace. But the roads are a long way off from here, and cars aren't all that frequent on them. You can hear the train when it comes, though."

"Trains are alright. But I miss the cars."

What a peculiar little girl. He could honestly say he had never met anyone quite like her.

"You like the sound of cars?" He asked.

"I suppose so." She didn't sound certain. But maybe cars were just a mark of home and she missed home.

"My mother said I should show you Tenebrae," he said. "She said you might be lonely."

"Oh, I'm not lonely. Just… alone. You don't have to. Not if you don't want."

"But I do want," he said and it wasn't a lie. Odd she may have been, but it was a unique sort of oddity that only made him want to see more. "How would it be if I showed you our cars—and anything else you would like to see—and maybe you could tell me some about Lucis."

Reina brightened. It was the first smile he had seen from her since she and her family had arrived a few days before. Hopefully there would be more to come.

"I think I would like that, Prince Ravus."

How formal! Her brother was laying in the flowerbeds with Lunafreya, already calling her Luna. Ravus had seen little of them but from a distance, but it was growing ever clearer that she was her brother's twin only in name.

"Then allow me to escort you, Princess Reina." He held his arm out to her as if he were asking her to dance at a ball. Perhaps someday she would regard him as a friend instead of some distant guide.

Ravus woke suddenly and without apparent cause. He reached for his sword automatically, but the room was still and quiet around him. No cause for alarm was all the more reason to suspect. Nevertheless, he found himself lying back, arm still dangling over one edge of the bed, as his eyes drifted to the window.

The light in Insomnia was more gold than silver. And the forests here were all steel and concrete. It had a beauty to it and, though his heart would always belong in Tenebrae, there were reasons to breed familiarity with Lucis.

He climbed from bed, dressed, and went to seek those reasons. Since Reina had woken—in spite of his sister's missteps—he and Lunafreya had somehow passed beneath notice of the royal family. That was all fine and well up until someone remembered they were still in the Citadel and declared the Nox Fleurets an enemy to the throne. Solutions came to those who sought them.

Prince Noctis seemed to be in charge of a great many things these days. He was always about with a small cluster of followers shoving papers under his nose. King Regis was also in the public eye, doing—so far as Ravus could tell—much the same thing. But while he might have gotten answers from either of them, if they had been so inclined to speak with him, the one person he knew could tell him what he wanted to hear was nowhere to be found.

Reina was conspicuous in her absence. It took Ravus the better part of the day to track her down. After scouring every corner of the Citadel, interrogating every servant he passed, and nearly giving up in frustration more than once, he resolved to simply ask King Regis. If he did not have the answers Ravus sought, at least he could point him toward Reina. Surely he would know that much.

King Regis was simple to find. Everyone knew the king's location at any given moment. All Ravus had to do was swallow his pride and ask questions of a man he had long since condemned as worthless… and recently been given cause to doubt his beliefs about. He stepped into a darkened alcove out of sight to contemplate his options.

And he collided with Reina.

"Reina—" He was too shocked to be irritated that he had found her skulking about in the shadows after he had spent hours searching for her.

She held a finger to her lips and motioned toward the hall. He peered around the edge of the alcove; King Regis and his ever-present cloud of advisers were making their way down the hall. He had only a glimpse before Reina grabbed his coat and pushed him as far back in the alcove as he could be. She stepped in front of him.

White was, admittedly, not the best color to wear while hiding in shadows.

He held his breath. The voices grew closer. King Regis passed within a few feet of them and walked by without even glancing their direction. His company did much the same.

Once they had passed, Reina released Ravus and looked around the corner after them. Ravus joined her; it was simple enough to do, given that he could see over her head.

"Do you see that man with the white hair?" She whispered.

Presumably she was not referring to her father. "Yes."

"He has a network of informants across Lucis—perhaps farther—that Father knows nothing about. He is a spider in the center of a web. Were my father a slightly less shrewd man I have no doubt he would have long since become a piece of it. The woman on Father's left has a daughter about my age. She's been grinning like the cat that ate the canary ever since Noct and Luna's wedding was cancelled. The bald man has been taking bribes from various corporations across Insomnia for years—likely decades—to lobby for their businesses. The man with the glasses is of imperial decent. I haven't found firm evidence of collusion, but he has been looking pale recently."

"Why do you allow these snakes in your government?" Ravus asked.

"I never knew. I used to believe in good and see it everywhere I looked."

"And now?"

"Everyone is rotten deep down if you find the right spot. Every face we see is a facade. Nothing more. It's worse the higher up you go. The people surrounding Father are both corrupt and powerful. The servants, the Crownsguard, the people who live in the city… they are parasites, fed by the crown and the city and never thinking for a moment about anything larger than their trite little lives. They consume and consume, growing fat and greedy off the pleasures of prosperity. They don't care what happens higher up or lower down, so long as they can continue as they always have. If Niflheim controlled Lucis they wouldn't care, provided nothing changed. All they want is a smiling face to wave at the camera and tell them they can keep on consuming without thinking until the day they die."

"That is the way of people," Ravus said.

"It's disgusting."

"It is what it is. What would you do? You cannot change it."

"I could kill them all," she said flatly.

"A viable solution," he said, "If not for the fact that someone you love would object."

"More than one of them, I expect." She crossed her arms over her chest. "So I sit in the shadows and watch. When they pull a dagger on Father, they will find their throat cut before they can move a muscle."

"Noble," he said.

"No," she said. "Cold, ruthless, unfeeling, perhaps. But not noble."

The king and his retinue had long since rounded the corner down the hall. Reina slipped out of the alcove and followed. She kept near the wall and the shadows that had hardly been there before seemed to cling to her. He followed. If he took his eyes off her for too long he began to wonder if she wasn't just a shadow, herself.

She moved slowly, steadily. They rounded the corner and nearly caught up with the king. Those servants they walked past glanced at Ravus, but when their eyes moved to Reina's dark corner of the hall they seemed to slide off without sticking. She stepped into another alcove and Ravus followed.

"Have you been here all day?" He asked.

"No. I was nearer to Noctis this morning. And the gardens offer a suitable view of multiple Citadel entrances, as well as the Crownsguard headquarters and the infirmary."

Why either of the last two were important he could only guess. But if he had been the gambling sort he would have put money on someone she cared for being in both the infirmary and the Crownsguard headquarters.

"But you have been nearby the entire time I was searching for you," he said.

"Yes. You walked right past me several times."

Ravus made a sound of frustration. She held her finger to her lips.

"I was content to know where you were," she said, as if this explained everything. "Did you need me?"

"I wished to ask what you intend to do with us."

"Why should I do anything?"

"My sister has openly denounced your words and all but set herself against Lucis' royal family. You cannot expect me to believe you will let that go."

"If I had plans, perhaps she could foil them," she said. "But I don't. And I'm not in charge of Lucis."

"No? That is not what you told me at the reception dinner."

"My memory of those few days is admittedly hazy, but when we danced I was in charge of Lucis. Now it is safe and back in the hands of its rightful rulers." She shook her head. "Luna's fate doesn't concern me."

"Unless she directly threatens your family."

"In which case she will likely die before anyone can worry about what is to be done with her."

All the more reason not to allow Luna to make any stupid decisions.

"But for now I am to understand that we are entirely free?"

"Of course."

"And are permitted to leave at any time?"

"If you like," she said, unconcerned. "Though I don't know where you will go."

Niflheim's government was likely in shambles. History was being made here in Lucis. And there was one more thing…

"I believe I have pledged my service to you," he said.

"I would consider your service paid in full after that night," she said.

"I do not recall putting a price on my service," he said.

She held the future in her hands. He was high commander of an empire that likely would not exist for much longer. If he was to pay fealty to anyone, it might as well be the winning side.

Provided that side was led by Reina.

"I won't stop you, if you want to stay," she said.

"Then I stay."

It was the last time they spoke for several days. In those weeks that came after, as he carved for himself his own space in the Citadel in deference to the royal family, news flitted by his ears and stuck in his mind:

A man called Master Hamon was found dead in his study with no marks on his body. The serving staff whispered of poison and afterward it was considerably more difficult to gain access to the kitchens.

Someone on the king's ruling council was hospitalized with a strange and rapidly progressing disease. He wasted away within a week. Only after did people begin to whisper it was the Starscourge.

A great ruckus in the Citadel ensued when a former imperial informer was discovered and found fled from his dwellings. A few days later, rumors spread that he had been found halfway to Galdin Quay with his head cut off.