"Rather than follow this flotsam and float away to a watery grave, why not come with me?"
The man they thought of as Chancellor Izunia leans to Ignis and offers his hand with courtly grace. Ignis stares up at him, blinks the rainwater out of his eyes, can't believe they've ever thought him anything as simple as human. The lips are smiling and the face is almost gentle, but now, now that Ignis can see - see how Ardyn is wearing his body like ill-suited clothes. There's ancient, enraged malice barely hiding under the mockery, imperfectly leashed, seething and hungry. Perhaps there were other plans in motion, bigger plans, but right now, looking into Ardyn's eyes, Ignis knows that if he doesn't do something, Ardyn won't be able to help himself - and Noct will die.
(Noct will die, Noct will die on the throne, Noct will die with his father's sword in his chest, Noct will...)
This is untenable. The Ring is hidden in Ignis' palm, calling to him, but there's no guarantee it wouldn't devour him in place as it did with Ulric, that Ignis will make a better bargain with the Kings of Yore, one good enough to save Noct's life. A wasted sacrifice is worse than nothing. He needs to think of a better way, no matter the agony of his battered body, no matter the merciless metal digging into his back, twisting his arm up to the point of breaking.
Ardyn stares at him, patient, cruelly curious, smiling, a cat over an exhausted mouse. Ignis' ribs still ache from the imprint of his heavy boot. It's like he can't himself, Ignis thinks, can't stop himself from being distracted by smaller cruelty, smaller victory. As if he wants -
Ignis licks his lips, makes genuine fear and defiance mix within his voice in just the right amount, looks up at Ardyn through his eyelashes. Uncurls the fingers of his free hand, and lets go of the Ring.
"I agree," he says, and doesn't flinch when the expected blow comes down and carries him under.
Ignis wakes. He fully expects to find himself restrained - chained up, stretched out on a torture rack, held by the same merciless metal whose imprint he can still feel on his abused flesh - but he's alone, and his hands are free. The Armiger refuses to open to him, the space where it should be filled with a dull, hopeless ache that makes him miss Noct and Gladio and Prompto so badly his eyes sting. The bare steel walls around him likely mean Gralea. Ardyn is not around. He reaches out for his daggers, and grasps at emptiness.
The mouse, it seems, needs to find the cat. So be it, Ignis decides, and sets out to find his enemy.
The corridors are ominously empty. He tries to match the layout with what he remembers from Cor's briefings on the Empire, and comes to the conclusion that this must be Zegnatus Keep, a stronghold in the heart of Gralea, and grows steadily more confused. It's a military base, one of the key ones; even assuming Ardyn gave orders not to interfere with him, there should be soldiers and MTs rushing back and forth, guards stationed in the key intersections. But there's only silence, broken up by his own uneven, exhausted gait, ringing with echoes. Silence and a quiet, creeping smell of mold and rot and copper, a smell familiar from hundreds of daemon-infested dungeons.
The puzzle nags at him, but he sweeps it away. Without the Ring, without his weapons, it's unlikely he's going to leave the Keep alive. But he can occupy Ardyn for that much longer, with his demise if with nothing else. Long enough, Ignis hopes, for Noct to be found, to recover, to plan his next steps. Enough to come and meet Ardyn with the full power of the Gods behind him - and then. And then?
His nerves shriek at him, pulled tighter and tighter by the bland safety of his surroundings. Some doors slide open at his approach and some stay stubbornly closed; he's being herded, Ignis thinks, and allows himself to be led. The vision he saw rings inside his head, and he grits his teeth, presses his nails into the flesh of his palms. All of their travels, to come to this? The fate of the world, to come to this, to Noct slaughtered by his own ancestors, offered to the darkness like a sacrificial lamb?
It's out of his hands. It's out of his hands. It's out of his...
The corridor spills him into a vast, cavernous emptiness crossed with walkways. and at the heart - Ignis stares. He's seen the Crystal only once before, when he was sixteen, in the ceremony that tied him to Noct's magic. A lifetime ago, and he stares at it, remembering the searing pain and unbearable elation of that day, the burning awe and joy of it - the moment he took Noct's hand and the light of gods swept over them, pulling him into what he already knew his destiny to be, the moment he felt the echoing, immense weight of Noct's power and duty, and was allowed to share in it. The confirmation, the culmination.
He takes a step towards the Crystal, and then another, pulled forward, torn between the confused desires to kneel in submission and to rail in fury - at the Gods who required a sacrifice so much more merciless, so much more finite than he imagined, back on that summer day. His blood sings; the Crystal pulses with light.
Something grand and horrendous swells behind him, a miasma of rage and darkness. He swirls around to see Ardyn walk into the hall, sees the Councillor's sneering face run with black ichor, melt like a wax candle, and his breath catches in horror.
"Ardyn Izunia," the thing that he had thought to be human says, and tips his hat at him. "Enjoying the view, Ignis?"
He takes a step back, then another; the air itself seems slow, charged with the clashing powers that hum behind and in front of him. Ardyn - Izunia, the boogieman from the oldest, carefully forgotten texts, impossibly alive - raves and rants, decrying the Gods, lamenting his brother's grand betrayal, and all Ignis thinks is Noct and Noct and Noct, helplessly, a stuck record. His prince, caught in a war millennia too old, not of his making. His Noct, a last stake tossed on the table. A cruel joke.
"I've never been called 'Your Majesty' before. Will you do me the honor?"
It's a relief, in a way, to know his answer so clearly.
Ardyn's weapons slam into him, leaving his body intact and yet tearing him apart; something inside of him shatters, splinters, irreparably damaged. The Crystal sings. This is the end, and he puts all his power into not going down on his knees. To deny his enemy the smallest possible bit of victory; how small his contribution ended up being, in the grand scheme of things.
He ends up on his back, staring at the gray steel of Gralea, steps away from the fractured purple light, unable to catch his breath. His vision is pulsing in and out. He hears Ardyn's leisurely, heavy steps, and tries to goad his body into enough coordination to at least spit in the face of his enemy.
Ardyn leans down to him, the face almost human again - smiling - almost kind. His hand, so cold Ignis feels it even through the mortal frost stealing his body, closes on Ignis' throat gently like a caress.
"So loyal," Ardyn murmurs. "So useless."
His fingers clench; he hoists Ignis up in the air with no visible effort, and Ignis' scrabbling hands slide uselessly off his ornate sleeves.
"I wanted to leave you as a little gift to dear Noctis," Ardyn says, thoughtfully. "You know, just to welcome him here - but perhaps there's a more aesthetically pleasing option?"
There's no time - and no air, and no breath - for Ignis to understand what he means, before Ardyn, whip-quick, slams him, back first, into the forbidden jagged heart of the Crystal.
It's shockingly mundane for a moment, when Ardyn takes his crushing hand from Ignis' throat - just the jarring pain of the impact, and Ignis' desperate attempts to heave air in. And then the Crystal roars to life - sacrilege, Ignis' mind chants, unmoored, sacrilege, sacrilege, sacrilege - and Ignis burns.