"We have tried introducing Celes and Terra to one another," Gestahl said. "They seem to get along."

"Pity," General Kefka said, and laughed his serrated laugh. "I was hoping to get a final conclusion as to which is stronger, fire or ice."

"They're children," Leo said, his voice both fierce and horrified.

Kefka shrugged.

The Emperor roused himself, his eyes sharp as chips of ice. "Celes has proved extremely loyal," he said. "Of course, we raised her, so we have relatively little concern there."

"She's very loyal," Cid said, and Kefka couldn't tell whether that was truth or simply defense.

"But Terra . . . there's more to her than what we put in her."

"That makes her dangerous," Kefka said.

"She's a child," Leo repeated, his face hatchet-sharp, shield-closed.

"I think you should give her to my care," Kefka said.

What do you plan to do with her? asked the echo of Cait Sith.

"What I want," Kefka murmured, because by now there was no one who questioned when he spoke to himself.


Though he was not tall himself, as a child Terra was still smaller than Kefka. Her eyes were wide and serious and frightened; her hair was the same color as the underside of an oak leaf.

Unlike Celes, she had not been injected. He didn't know how to predict her.

"Terra," he asked, as gently as he could. He could see her looking not at his eyes but at the marking around his eyes . Well. She'd learn about blood soon enough.

It's not blood, said Cait Sith's echo, the shudder of the cat. You're not a predator, you're just insane.

"Terra," Kefka repeated, ignoring the Stray Cat. "You can light things on fire. Why is that?"

"I don't know," Terra said. She wrung her hands, small fingers moving over small fingers. "I just, I always could."

"What esper is inside you that you can do that?"

Terra lowered her eyes. "I don't . . . I don't know what you mean."

"Is it Ifrit?" Kefka kept his voice as soft as he could.

"I don't know who that is."

"Is it Maduin, perhaps?"

And then, then, there, a flick of comprehension that filled him with hope. But what she said was, "You mean Daddy?"

I was a liar, despite myself, Cait Sith said. She will always be greater than you. She is Terra of Two Worlds, and she will always be better than you. And even though the cat was just an echo his voice rang with conviction and hope.

Kefka's response was immediate and total: he slapped Terra, hard, across the face.

His blow snapped her head back and knocked her small body back. She gasped at him, her eyes wide, uncomprehending. "I'm sorry!" she said. "I'm sorry! What did I say?"

"Nothing," he said, and caressed the side of her cheek, the place that was rushing with blood where his blow had landed. She flinched. That wouldn't do at all. "Nothing at all, dear Terra. You just confirmed something that I believed, and I was startled."

"You hit me because you were startled?" Her eyes had gone wide and suspicious.

"Oh, people will do a great deal worse to you out of surprise," Kefka said. "But not me. I have your best interests in mind, even when I hurt you."

If I could betray you, said Cait Sith's fragment, I would.

"You made me a madman," Kefka whispered.

And don't I regret it. Maduin forgive me, Maduin's daughter forgive me—

"Shut up," Kefka whispered, and he opened the box that the Emperor had given him.


The Slave Crown suited Terra. The dull, darkmetal ring made her new-leaf hair stand out; the total blankness brought out the color in her eyes.

Without her ethics, her powers were incredible. Cait Sith had been right about that.

Kefka watched her stand at one end of the room, her eyes empty and fixed. By now the "volunteers" from the conscripts had to be dragged in, fighting, to face her. To face the "witch," so they said.

"Terra," he said. "Kill them."

She stood still, her head cocked to one side so that the tail of her green hair fell over one shoulder. The soldiers on the other side of the room scrambled, cursed, shouted.

"With fire," Kefka said.

Terra spoke, the sleek words of magic falling from her lips even more easily than they did from Kefka's or Celes's. Once Kefka would have been jealous; not now. Not when he was the master of the Slave Crown.

Watching a human burn to death was a horrible thing. Kefka stayed for the whole of it, until the twitching ended and the room filled with the smell of barbecue.


Celes at eighteen had the eyes of a thirty-year veteran, and maybe that was why she was a General despite being younger than most of the men she commanded. And behind those old eyes was the color of frost, the color of the sky before snow.

Leo at thirty had the eyes of a father who had seen his children die, and Kefka didn't know why. Celes was his, and Celes was alive. Terra was alive, too. Technically.

Terra at eighteen was an empty vessel, as beautiful as a vase before it was filled with flowers, as potent as a sword before it was drawn from its sheath.

Kefka . . . .

What eyes do you have? the echo of Cait Sith asked, as it clawed at him from within, as it filled him with its faerie madness.

"I made them bloody myself," Kefka said, and dragged his fingers down through the carmine, lengthening the shape of the long red tears, and he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. "You can't take credit for that, cat."