Day 48:
She had to… she had to go back.
They were going to die.
They were all going to die and she would be miles away. Just like last time.
Drautos' sword plunged through her father's back. He didn't look surprised. He didn't even look like it hurt, though that sound he made as the last breath left him said otherwise. He just looked sad as he stared down at his ringing phone.
Ignis lay at her feet, his eyes gone and nothing but fresh burns and paper-white ash in their place. He writhed. He reached out to her, though he didn't know where she was. She couldn't fix this. She couldn't do anything but hold his hand and lie to him. Blood spread from the center of his sternum outward. He choked, gasped, touched her cheek with with a bloody hand.
"I wish… I could see you…"
Noctis sat on the throne with Father's sword through his chest and straight into the back of the chair. He slumped, lifeless, over the hilt. His hands hung limply in his lap while blood dripped onto the picture he held. The picture of Reina and Noctis laying together in the mud, fast asleep and completely unaware of the world. His skin was cold to the touch.
"Reina!"
Someone was shouting at her, but too far away to be properly heard. Through the haze of images and memories, she could almost see a face. The harsh face of the man time had forgotten. Once a healer. Now a hater.
"Little Dreamer, look at me. Look at me."
Her cheeks were wet. It was 756 and none of that had ever happened.
Hadn't it?
Ardyn's hands pressed to her cheeks. "We have been fighting to reach this one moment for months. Years. Millenia, on my part. If you turn your back, the Astrals win. Everyone dies. No one ever gets justice. Is that what you want?"
"No…" Her voice sounded wrong. Too far away.
"No," he said. "So take your blade and my hand. You want to protect your family? Protect them here. Kill the one that would take them from you."
"He already did…" Reina said.
"Then don't let him do it again." He stared at her, watching her expectantly. Waiting.
She took a slow breath. It was 756. She was twenty years old. Insomnia was still standing and Niflheim was in chaos. It didn't sound any more correct the second time around, but she would keep trying until it did.
She took Ardyn's hand.
He took a step back, guiding her toward the patched and repaired airship that they had spent the past few days working on. The balloon was filled and holding. She just hoped it would be enough to get them to Angelgard.
In spite of Cid's brief crash course in the piloting of an airship, she had rather expected that he would be with them when they took flight. She had expected the others would be with them, as well. Under normal circumstances she would have been pleased to leave them behind while she went to fight the Draconian. That was before the coal black stormcloud had eaten up the sky over Insomnia. And now it spread farther.
Ardyn was already onboard. This was what she needed to do. If she wanted to save her father's life, her brother's life, and the lives of every friend she had ever had, she needed to climb aboard the airship and go to face Bahamut. The time for preparation was over.
She took a breath to steady herself and called up the blissful black emptiness that she hid behind when the world—real or imagined—became too sharp. The fear drained away. In its place was cold resignation, which settled in her stomach like a stone.
She followed Ardyn aboard. "Let's go."
He drew his blade and sliced the ties that held them down. No time to untie knots. The Draconian awaited and, if they failed, so did the end of Eos. If Father died, she would let Bahamut win. Never again would she live a lifetime without him. A lifetime of dragging onward for duty and destiny, a lifetime of wishing it would just end already.
But she wasn't going to lose.
Free of its ties, the prototype airship lifted off the ground and rose up—above the garage and the diner, above what few trees littered this part of Leide, above the level of the distant hills. They rose high enough that they could see the coast and, beyond that, their destination. Angelgard. Below, tiny people stopped in their tracks and looked to the sky. Cindy—looking no more than two inches tall—stood in the middle of the parking lot and waved them off.
So high off the ground, the winds buffeted them so that Reina had to fight for control of the ship. She could see Insomnia and the growing storm. Closing on them.
"I have no doubt the Draconian will seek to dissuade us." Ardyn leaned against the hull while Reina wrestled with the helm. "Luckily, he sent all his little friends away to play elsewhere… and I've arranged a little surprise for him."
And he wasn't going to tell her any more than that, even if she asked.
They passed over Galdin: the Quay jutted out into the water below them, pointing toward their destination. Once the glittering glass of the Mother of Pearl fell away, they were over the open ocean. And Reina could see what surprise Ardyn had conjured up for Bahamut.
Flames rose up from the island like a splash of molten fire. The closer they drew, the more of the conflict she could see: Ifrit, face blackened with Starscourge, stood against Bahamut. The Draconian had the advantage of size; given enough time, he could destroy Ifrit utterly. An Astral was one of the few people on Eos who could truly destroy another Astral. But Ifrit's life—such as it was—didn't matter to Ardyn. Only Bahamut's death. Countless thousands could die in pursuit of this justice—so long as Bahamut fell at the end, so long as none who fell were her friends—neither of them would shed a tear.
The winds picked up near Angelgard. Below, tumultuous waters crashed on jagged rocks lurking just below the surface. A few rotted remains of old sailing vessels clung to them, a silent reminder of what happened to those who tried to sail to Angelgard. But most had never tried flying there. And it seemed the waves came with a wind of their own. Leviathan's wrath protected the seas and Ramuh protected the skies. The wind swept into them, throwing them off course and sending the airship lurching uncomfortably.
"So much for flying straight over," Reina said.
"Yes…"Ardyn held onto his hat as he looked down into the white capped waves.
They rounded Angelgard, thrown along by the winds. It took them closer to Bahamut and Ifrit, but no nearer to their goal of landing. It was as if a wall of wind wrapped around Angelgard, cutting it off from the outside world. She should have guessed it would be there.
"If you're thinking of suggesting we drop, the answer is no," Reina said.
He flashed her a smile. "You know me so well, Little Dreamer."
"Perhaps too well," she said. "Think of another way in."
She struggled to keep hold of the helm. If the winds dragged them a little lower they would fly straight into the jagged wall of rock that surrounded the island. While that was, strictly speaking, closer to where they wanted to be, she wasn't willing to gamble that she would survive the impact.
Ardyn leaned over the edge, holding his hat in place. The winds whipped at his coat and hair, threatening to drag his hat away regardless.
"Oh, Infernian!" He shouted. "Be a good pet and give us a hand."
Ifrit turned. His whole face was marked with the black web of tainted veins indicative of the Starscourge. His eyes were yellowed and hollow. Half his body was blackened entirely—no longer flesh, but pure corruption. Just as any daemon would respond to an order from their master, he came.
Bahamut took the opportunity for what it was. His sword cut cleanly across Ifrit's back and a howl of red rage went up. Ifrit rounded, swinging his blade and catching Bahamut's armored arm. Flames burst between them. Bahamut recoiled, waving soot and smoke from his vision, while Ifrit turned back toward the edge of the island and climbed the jagged wall of stone, reaching one hand out toward them. He wrapped his fingers around the body of the airship, which smoked and smoldered at his touch, and began to drag them through the wall of wind. By then Bahamut had recovered. He caught up with Ifrit and his sword came down again. This time it cut through the soft muscle between shoulder and neck, cleaving through Ifrit.
But it was too late for the Draconian. Even as Ifrit rounded, roaring in daemonic fury, he jerked the airship inside the barrier of wind. They were thrown up against one side. Ardyn grabbed Reina with one arm and one of the ropes that kept the balloon in place with the other.
"Hold tight, Little Dreamer," he said. "Our entrance may be rather less graceful than intended."
"But no less dramatic," Reina said.
He grinned at her. "Little Dreamer, you wound me. I? Make a subtle entrance? Never."
She had no chance to respond. The airship jerked again. This time they came tumbling out of Ifrit's hand altogether and dropped straight for the level stone of the arena. Ardyn's arm tightened around her waist. She took his advice, turning toward him and holding as tight as she could.
Impact.
Up and down, left and right, all directions lost meaning. There was only stone and an absence thereof. She impacted more than once. She lost hold of Ardyn as she rolled across the ground, struggling to halt her movement and make some sense of where she was.
The world stopped rolling. The sky spun overhead and when she managed to hold one hand up she saw two of it.
Ardyn appeared above her. He had three heads. "More murder, less napping."
He held out a hand or three. It took her a couple tries to find the one that was actually solid. When she did, he hoisted her to her feet and forced her brain to rethink its definition of up and down more rapidly than it was prepared to. She stumbled. He caught her and held her in place until the world stopped lurching underneath her feet.
An inhuman roar called her attention back to the here and now. Bahamut still struggled with Ifrit, but not for much longer. Ifrit had lost his sword; the weapon did him very little good after he had nearly lost his sword arm. It hung limp, free from neck and shoulder in a wound that would have been instantly fatal to any other creature. But he was a daemon and an Astral. He clung to life with everything he had, wreathing both of them in flames until Bahamut's armor glowed red hot in the center of the inferno. It wasn't enough. Bahamut's sword plunged through Ifrit's chest and came out the other side. The flames flickered and died around them, leaving only a blackened scorch mark at their feet to suggest it had ever been there at all.
:Infernian. I release thee from this cursèd existence. Breathe no more.:
Ifrit's body went limp, held upright only by Bahamut's sword. He pulled his blade free. Before Ifrit could even hit the ground, his body was ash on the window, swept up and cast away.
And the Infernian's gift drained from Caelum blood. From the look Ardyn gave her, she knew he could sense the same thing. Father and Noctis would have felt it, wherever they were. For every Astral destroyed, their power would diminish further.
But she couldn't even spare more than this brief thought for her family. Any more than that was dangerous—not just for her but for everyone Bahamut would destroy if she failed. Noct and Father would be fine. They had to be, because no one else was coming to help.