A/N: Hi, this is Elly3981! I want to apologize for the wait since both my co-writer have been so busy with work and planning on how we want to continue this fic but rest assured, it won't be one of those countless abandoned fics! ;) We want to thank all our loyal readers who have been following our story since we started it as well as the prequel I wrote before it. We also welcome new readers and hope you all enjoy and review what we've got! ;)
Interlude 3, Part 2: Horrors from Beyond the Grave
Algus Sadalfas, blonde and blue-blooded, scion of House Sadalfas, long since fallen into ignominy after the family's patriarch had purchased his freedom from Ordalia through a traitorous bargain, his part of which he'd paid with the lives of his friends. Resentful of his family's ongoing misfortunes, and yet as haughty as if his wealth outstripped even that of kings, Algus had sought to blaze his way to a future that matched his towering pride by earning a knight's sword and carving a reputation from the hides of whatever worthy foes he might find. Much like the strange dichotomy between his demeanor and his circumstances, he'd fought his battles with the self-assurance of one who believed his victory preordained and yet with the desperate vigor of one who feared that his first defeat would be his last.
He hadn't changed much from that fateful day at Fort Zeikden.
His aristocratic air was still in evidence, as was the mingled smugness and condescension writ large across a face that had rarely let aught else cross it. He still wore the uniform of a humble squire of Limberry's Aegis Knights, made all the humbler given the shabby patchwork, likely by Algus or some family member given that servants desert the scions of traitors as readily as do bannermen. His blonde locks, arranged simply but groomed with great care, still shone like burnished gold and his eyes were still as blue as the waters of Finnath Creek, and just as frigid.
The biggest difference was the pair of hand shaped bruises which covered his neck, livid masses of black and purple so swollen that any who saw Algus might wonder as his ability to draw breath, let alone speak.
Delita knew those marks very well.
After all, he'd been the one to put them there.
After Algus had shot Teta, firing a crossbow quarrel into her chest as easily and as callously as if she'd been a deer he'd been hunting – or, given this was Algus, some far less dignified creature – Delita had promptly decided that the Limberry squire did not deserve the clean death by the sword that was the wont of a knight. Instead, Delita had overpowered him, grasped his throat, and, the pounding in his ears drowning out any pleas for mercy, had squeezed tighter and tighter until the hated Algus had fallen limp and silent.
Delita had never forgotten that day, where he'd shed his borrowed raiment of a Hokuten squire and buried his beloved sister.
Apparently, Algus hadn't either.
"It's almost worth dying, to see the man who killed me reduced to this!" he sneered, haughty amusement ringing loudly in his tone. "The Peasant King! the Diamond in the Rough! The Man who Tamed Two Lions! Oh, yes, you've spun quite the self-aggrandizing yarn since we last saw one another. But, I wonder how much your adoring public really knows about you. Probably not much, since you've very nearly forgotten. But, no matter. I'll reveal the truth from which you run!"
And, indeed, there was a preponderance of truth, and there was nowhere to run.
The most immediate and stinging of these truths was that, indeed, reduced Delita was.
Ever since that night in his bedchambers with Ovelia – the naïve and unwitting imposter for a princess long dead, the desperate and impressionable girl he'd first sought to use as a pawn with which to realize his own ambitions, and the prisoner who'd become the jailer when his budding affection for her had flowered – Delita had fallen far from the image of the strong and yet compassionate monarch which he'd so carefully cultivated long before the crown had landed upon his brow.
Where he had once been courteous and considerate, to both the very highest and the very humblest, as he'd actively sought to reaffirm that the future he was ushering in was for all Ivalicians, he had now become steadily more withdrawn and ever more deeply beset by a melancholy whose source remained enigmatic to those around him.
Where he had once taken up dulled blade and did battle in the training arena with aspiring knights seeking to join his newly formed Order of the Chimera, flouting convention by winning handily without anyone needing to check their blade, he had caused more perplexity than pride in his opponents first by suffering repeated defeats and then ceasing to come to the arena all together.
Where he had once shared with Queen Ovelia a marriage as much drawn from a children's bedtime story as his rise from a farmer's cottage to the throne room of Lesalia Castle, a strange distance had suddenly yawned wide between them and the couple sleeping separately, once a thing unthinkable, had become alarmingly commonplace.
Though tongues wagged in discreet corners as to the cause of all this, and no small amount of fearful speculation was bandied about, the truth, as always, was more complicated.
And, this was especially true whenever Delita Hyral was involved.
There had been many who were aware of just how much fraudulence was interwoven in Delita's tale, though few of these yet lived and these had elected that the kingdom's best interests, or their own survival, were best served by keeping such secrets unto the grave.
The most recent amongst those to discover just how much tarnish marred Delita's legend, however, was Delita himself.
Following Teta's murder, the callous snuffing out of a promising young life who'd had the misfortune to be born to lowly sires, Delita had meticulously plotted not only how he would avenge himself and his sister, as well as all those whose birth had become shackles confining them to lives of thankless drudgery, but also meticulously studied the weapon that had seen Delita not even notice the strong length of chain he'd worn even as the adopted son of Lord Balbanes Beoulve.
That weapon was the ability to manipulate. To play upon one's wishes and fears in order to chivvy them onto a course of the sibilant speaker's choosing…and ultimately into a corner wherein the manipulator's blade would find easy access to the dupe's back.
Much to his surprise, when Delita had committed himself to learning the use of this new weapon, he'd discovered that he could wield it with impeccable skill, that he could enthrall, beguile, and fool those around him deftly…
…he'd even managed to fool himself.
How many times had he watched Goltana raise taxes to ruinous heights and upend or ruin tens of thousands of lives, all so the deluded duke could dig himself a deep enough grave that Delita could topple him into it?
How many times had Delita allowed, or caused, other commanders to suffer disgrace and death so that Goltana would draw Delita deeper into his inner circle until he'd become Goltana's confidant, and then becamehis executioner?
How many times had Delita dangled Ramza, a man to whom he'd professed to love as a brother, before the jaws of church and state alike so that those he sought to destroy would have their eyes turned away from the true threat?
And, most tellingly of all, how many times had Delita told himself it was all for the greater good before he'd no longer needed to, accepting it all as the price of the better future he'd sought to create?
All the treachery, all the lies, all the deception, all the manipulation, all the lives callously discarded like so many pawns on a chessboard.
When had he muzzled his conscience so effectively that, ultimately, all that hadn't even bothered him anymore?
He could not say. He feared to say. But, it mattered little, for his conscience could not remain muzzled forever.
Through falling in love with Ovelia could not have been further removed from his original plan, he'd done nothing to uproot the affection which had blossomed in him during their time together. If anything, he'd allowed it to grow and flourish, enchanted by her charm and innocence to the point where, at times, the crown seemed a fringe benefit by comparison. And yet, the combined ambitions of winning Ovelia's love and Ivalice's crown had, over time, built and fortified a wall between his emotions and the sheer breadth, depth, and gravity of what he'd done.
And then, one fateful evening, he'd realized that Ovelia, the woman he loved above all else, the woman at whose side he wished to bring to fruition a kingdom where their mutual tragedies would never be repeated, the woman he desired to bear his children and to grow old with, was terrified of him.
Though she'd left it unspoken, she'd clearly carried the fear that, sooner or later, her usefulness to him would end, and his blade would find her heart as had been the case with so many others over Delita's sordid journey.
And, worst of all, some part of him, deep and dark and yet so horrifically familiar, had considered doing precisely that then and there, even deciding how best to disguise the deed as a tragic accident.
That series of blows had caused that wall within his mind to quaver, to split. And then, it had all come crashing down upon him at once, letting loose upon his shaken mind truths so sharp that they stabbed and so intense that they seared.
After the first onset of these terrible revelations had, literally, taken Deltia's feet out from beneath him, he had struggled to press forward. After all, he still had a kingdom in desperate need of better leadership. He still had seven provinces he needed to forge back into a single nation. He still had vital infrastructure to rebuild, such as Fort Besselat and its sluice, the farmlands in Gallione and Limberry, the markets of Dorter and the trade routes that supplied them, and even the Lesalia City Gates that he'd so often shuffled to the bottom of the pile. He still had his new system of schools to build, so that those of lower birth would not be consigned to lives of thankless drudgery. He still had his supposed overseers from the Church who needed to be kept in their place.
And, he still had his role to play in finding a husband for "Catherine Seymour".
He did not include saving his marriage on that list, however. He feared that particular ship had already been sunk.
Yet, though he tried to find solace in the duties that came with his newfound crown, this availed him but briefly.
The myriad conferences he held, by which those of high birth and low were ushered to the negotiating table, the intricacies of newly devised economic policies by which goods and coin might flow more freely rather than be stifled by tariffs predating his throne, seeking new blood to replace the conspicuous vacancies in both his knights and his administration.
Gradually, each and all became crowded out by recollections of the people whose lives had been cut short, by his actions and inactions alike, until it all seemed a buzzing in his ears, a sad mockery of noble intent hopelessly despoiled by innocent blood.
And, though he'd screened "Catherine's" would be suitors with great care, and kept secret the true reason why she was being married off so soon, he could not face either the man or woman who, underneath their disguises, had been as much family to him as Teta.
He had tried to greet them when they'd arrived, and yet something held him back. Perhaps it was the recollection of how downcast Ramza, now more commonly known as "Drake Seymour", had looked when Delita had informed him that he'd not hesitate to kill him if his ambitions demanded it. Maybe it was recalling the venom in Ramza's words when the two had met again on the night "Drake" had been born and gifted with the home – or, rather, prison – of Lionel Castle. It might've been the bitter twinge of jealousy he felt when he saw Ramza and Agrias, happily married despite their wrongheaded courtship, and knowing that he'd thrown aside his chance at the same in his pursuit of power.
It could've also been the unanswerable, yet ever more insistent question of whether Delita might've been able to bear the sight of his own reflection if he'd joined Ramza's damn fool idealistic crusade when he'd had the chance.
Whatever the reason, Delita could not face his old friend.
Gradually, the melancholy had become worse, growing from a distraction to a torment as sorrows, and the recollections of those whose lives he'd cut short or ruined, came not as lone spies but in battalions.
Slowly, they began to flitter into the chamber in which he now huddled.
He could see the agents Dycedarg had dispatched, in the guise of the Nanten, to assassinate then-Princess Ovelia. Given that they were attacking an isolated and practically unguarded monastery, the eldest son of House Beoulve had sent men better suited to deception and assassination rather than true combat.
So, when Delita, garbed as they were and already well practiced in both their sordid crafts, had joined them, they'd believed his claim that he'd been sent to aid in their nefarious aims…right until he'd decapitated two of them and set upon the rest before they could react.
He could see Baron Grimms, the former commander of the Blackram Knights, the modest knighthood which had gone from a glorified auxiliary unit to the fighting force that had bested Zalbag Beoulve and the Hokuten under Delita's leadership. The tale of how the baron, catching wind of Ovelia's abduction and dispatching his best lieutenant to rescue her, as well as how Delita had humbly assumed the mantle of leadership after his commander's death in battle against the Order of the Ebon Eye, had been an essential ingredient of the aspiring king's tale…
…which is precisely why he'd taken certain steps to ensure that he'd controlled how it had unfolded and that no witnesses could contradict him.
Baron Grimms had, indeed, been killed in a battle against the Order of the Ebon Eye, but he had not been killed by the Order of the Ebon Eye.
While fighting back-to-back against a ring of foes, whom Delita could easily dispatch once he needn't fear troublesome eyes witnessing the fullness of his abilities, he had reversed his blade and thrust it deep into the baron's back.
Perhaps the baron had not realized that his deathblow came from a supposed friend rather than an enemy. Or, maybe he had. His final words, as was characteristic of the War of the Lions, simply added another patch of gray to the pall that soon hung over all of Ivalice.
"How did it come to this?"
Such poetic waxing aside, Delita did know how it had come to pass. The humble lieutenant of the Blackram Knights had to, seemingly, rise from nowhere in the wake of one of history's tragic coincidences, reluctantly leaving his unit to save the abducted princess just before his compatriots and friends gave their lives in battle to ensure that his gallant rescue went unhindered.
It added the perfect spice of tragedy to an already gripping story, lending a melancholy weight to Delita's every word as he humbly recounted his tale to Duke Goltana and his inner circle, whom he would also "lose" as the burden of loss, and of command, grew ever larger upon his humble shoulders.
The decimation of the Blackram Knights had, indeed, been many things…but, "coincidental" was not one of them.
Since the Blackrams were engaged in a campaign against the Eye for several weeks prior to Delita's departure, most had assumed they'd chanced upon forces beyond their strength and had been crushed. But, though was certainly plausible enough for most ears, and the Blackrams had, indeed, been overwhelmed by a greater force, the truth was, characteristically, more complicated.
And, as was truth's wont in those days, and even beyond, it was also characteristically colder, darker, and uglier than most would consider, let alone believe.
The Church of Glabados' long arms had allowed them to sow contacts amongst the masses, discontent with the crown and the nobility, and the Eye had been but one of many arrows in a vast store of munitions with which they sought to bombard the old order of Ivalice until it crumbled. All that was needed was for a message to be dispatched, a time and date decided, a battleground chosen and prepared, and a signal sent.
This was done and, at once, the Blackrams were assailed.
As was the case of many who'd held much ire towards the crown, the Eye was comprised of war weary veterans, without work and penniless after an ungrateful, and destitute, monarchy had summarily discharged them following the Fifty Years War. Either willingly or by necessity, these former knights had taken to banditry and, whether owing to the indignity of it all or the slim pickings which could be found amongst the honest folk of Ivalice who were little better off, it had been simplicity itself to convince them to attack a unit of lesser warriors.
Whether they did so out of revolutionary fervor, a lust for coin, or hunger for revenge, none could say.
But, then again, it mattered little.
For the same people who'd enabled the Eye to launch their assault had also ensured that none of them would survive it.
Unaware that this many fold betrayal had been laid out and planned long before, the Eye had eagerly answered the signal.
It had been Delita who'd sent that signal, signing the death warrants of attackers and defenders alike.
That had been the first time he had appointed himself as judge, jury, and executioner. But, it had not been the last.
It might've been the last time he'd had qualms about it, though. Back then, he had rationalized it, weighing the blood of several dozen who would die against the hundreds of thousands who would live in a better world.
By the time he'd killed Goltana, he'd no longer rationalized passing sentence on whomever might imperil his designs.
By the time he'd spitted the Duke of Zeltennia on his blade, he'd gone from rationalizing it to enjoying it.
He probably could've saved many lives by contriving some other way to leave his unit without first needing to arrange their massacre, or by using his newfound abilities to turn the tables on the attackers and force them to surrender or retreat.
Of course, that would've raised a whole host of awkward questions and surely cause him to miss intercepting Ovelia's would-be assassins.
"Do you really think so?" the specter of Algus asked mockingly. "You couldn't have spun some fanciful tale to explain how a humble lieutenant could harness the power of the Holy Sword? We both know you're well practiced at deceiving others. You could've just mounted and fled, for they would've been in no shape to pursue. Or, it is because you enjoyed it all?"
Algus's smile spread wide then, so much so that Delita could swear that blood began to seep from his overtaxed lips.
"Watching the dilettante sons of foppish nobles be hacked to pieces?" the specter pressed. "Just like me, you thought they were…except easier to kill, of course. At least I put up a good fight. But, then again, their helplessness likely delighted you. And, the Eye? Surely their surprise at seeing your real skill and power must've shaken them. Did that please you, the way their eyes popped out of their sockets when they saw you use your Holy Sword skills? The way they blanched when you killed four of their number in two heartbeats? Being able to lord over them like that must've brought you true pleasure. I should know, I experienced it myself when I fought alongside you and Ramza in the Sand Rat Cellar."
The comparison was obvious enough; indeed, it sent Delita's stomach lurching until he collapsed in a spasm of dry heaving.
Some part of him, but one that was being ever more encroached upon by corrosive despair, grasped and flailed for some handhold or rung by which to climb free of the caustic void into which he was rapidly sinking, and yet there was none.
Maybe there had been an alternative to chivvying the Blackrams and the Eye to their deaths just to sweeten his tale, but he hadn't found it.
Indeed, he hadn't even bothered to look.
Instead, he had decided that nothing mattered more than his designs, to topple the old order, and thwart the Church's plot to rebuild it as their puppet, so that he might snatch the helm of Ivalice and steer her on a course of his own choosing.
The methods hadn't mattered, the lies hadn't mattered, the manipulations hadn't mattered, the deaths caused by his inactions hadn't mattered, the murders he'd committed hadn't mattered.
Only the ends had mattered, and they would eclipse whatever means had been necessary to achieve them.
That had been enough…
…until now.
And so, he'd carried out his plan as it had been penned, letting the Blackram Knights fall until, with only a handful of the Order of the Ebon Eye left to bar his way, he had unleashed his true power, repaying their underhanded assault in kind and leaving no survivors. Once there were none left to wonder just how a humble lieutenant could use the powers of the Judgement Blade, Hallowed Bolt, and Divine Ruination, Delita had left to pen the next chapter of his legend, his passage witnessed only by unseeing eyes soon to feed the carrion eaters.
Though their carcasses had surely been picked clean or buried, he knew not which, he could see many of them now crowding around him. Some wore the curving horns of the Blackrams and others the obsidian orb of the Eye, shedding tears of glossy black. And, none of the specters were whole.
One held his head in his hand while another's torso had been laid open so that one could stare right through his chest and see the far wall. And, all glowered at the pitiable state of their executioner.
Baron Grimms had ever cut a formidable and intimidating figure, and this was not diminished by the gaping rent that allowed torchlight to be clearly seen through what used to be his heart.
Something in Delita writhed and twisted in him, wanting, desperately, to speak to these apparitions. To explain, to beg forgiveness, to justify his actions with how their deaths, wrongful or no, had bought a better future for the land that knights and rebels alike had loved.
Yet, the words would not come.
All at once, they seemed to get stuck in his throat, to become indistinct in his mind, and to grow bitter on his tongue. Instead, he saw, with sickening clarity, Goltana justify his decision to tax his people beyond their means so that, by their sacrifices, the crown that cumbered the people with its every act might come to rest upon a worthier brow.
When had he and Goltana begun to sound so much like?
He could not say.
Algus, by contrast, could not seem to voice his thoughts fast enough.
"Truly an elegant irony, isn't it?" he asked. Then, as if to underscore his words, his handsome face seemed to putrefy before Delita's eyes. His striking features suddenly, and with nauseating rapidity, became sallow and tugged tightly against his prominent cheekbones while his hair, thinning and drying, suddenly grew to tease at his shoulders in limp tendrils of tarnished gold while his fingernails lengthened until they more resembled claws.
His blue eyes fogged and shriveled like grapes, one of them popping free of its socket to dangle by a thick length of optic nerve, while a mouth full of blackened gums and teeth that fell away to scatter on the floor spread in a horrifying smile across the face of Algus.
Dead might be the last son of the disgraced House Sadalfas, but the sight of Delita's downfall had apparently brought him much joy from beyond the grave.
Then, with a suddenness that jolted both the living and the dead, Algus' grin suddenly vanished. His throat, the bruises from his strangulation still vivid against the cadaverous flesh of his neck, began to pulse, tearing and flaking away. Then, with a wet heave, the undead Sadalfas vomited forth a gout of blood. It hit Delita square in the chest, unnaturally vivid in color and so hot that he could feel its sickening warmth right through his armor.
And, to his horror, the blood seemed to take on a life of its own. Even as he watched, the blood roiled like a stormy sea, waves of sticky crimson rising, contorting into hundreds of tiny skulls and letting out shrieks of agony before melting back into the tiny red sea.
In revulsion and despair, Delita clapped his hands over his ears to block out the sickening howls, only to be sickened all the more when his hands, sticky with blood he did not recall landing upon them, gummed his hands to his ears. He tore them away, painfully, and his shriek of pain blended perfectly with the chorus of lost souls crooning upon his breast.
Yet, though this onslaught had jolted the already anguished monarch, ripping open forgotten wounds and rubbing in enough salt to render the realm itself fallow, it was but the first salvo of what the rotten carcass of his rival doubtless intended to be a lengthy assault.
How could it be otherwise, when he had all of Delita's victims to use as his ammunition?
"Does it grieve you to see the depths of your own weaknesses laid bare?" Algus asked, laughing in maniacally as Delita blanched at the spectral host. "Oh, you'd be astonished how many restless souls have joined me on this most auspicious day, eager to punish the man who cut short their lives. Oh, but you need not take my word for it. I'm sure their stories speak for themselves!"
The next specters to appear had been Chancellor Glevanne who, unlike the spineless, sycophantic toadies that were so abundant in Goltana's inner circle, was a clever and conniving man with the uncommon ability to think for himself. So, it came as no surprise when the Church's intelligence indicated that he was secretly supporting Larg and Dycedarg's efforts to assassinate Ovelia and pin the deed on Goltana. Once Ovelia was safely in Goltana's keeping, it hadn't taken long to notice the way Glevanne's hands wrung and his eyes darted fervently towards the exit. And, when Delita's "prisoner" had been dragged into the room, he could practically hear the chancellor's stomach drop.
Granted, like so much else in those days, the "prisoner" hadn't been what he'd seemed. Granted, he had served in the Hokuten during the apex of the Fifty Years War, but he had been summarily discharged well before he'd been allegedly "ordered" to reduce the number of heirs to the throne. With no work, little money, and his scruples having been yet another casualty of that terrible conflict, it had taken only a small offering of coin to convince him to play a part, along with the promise of many times that sum as reward afterwards. This had been more than enough to secure his "testimony" against Glevanne.
Both Delita, and the Church, could afford to be lavish with their promise of reward. After all, their pawns would not live long enough to receive it.
Heady with his ambition of being king in all but name, Goltana had scarce questioned the validity of such grave allegations against a longtime aide, nor raised any objections when Delita had executed the chancellor on the spot with neither trial nor even a chance to plead his case. And, when the witness to their treachery was found dead soon after, Goltana had scarcely questioned the notion that another agent of Larg had been responsible.
Both Glevanne, and the man who'd falsely testified against him, whose name Delita hadn't bothered to learn, leered at him even now.
Their frowning faces contrasted quite vividly against the broad grins where their jugulars used to be.
These particular murders had not bothered Delita nearly as much as some of the others he'd committed. Indeed, that a bit of gold could buy their word and their loyalty had added a spice of self-righteous indignation to the act of killing them.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd recalled the lessons of Balbanes, his adoptive father. Likely the last true practitioner of chivalry, his righteous and idealistic son notwithstanding, Balbanes had made no secret of his disdain for those whose loyalty was for sale and who'd break a solemn vow for any sum of gil.
Had that recollection, and the knowledge of how far Ivalice had fallen from the times when Balbanes' honor was a common trait, been what had firmed Delita's sword arm when he'd killed Glevanne and his anonymous accuser?
And, if so, why hadn't that same recollection informed Delita that Balbanes would never have condoned an execution without a proper trial? Or pointed out to Delita the thick layer of blood he was painting over his heart by matching their corruption with his own?
Had he forgotten amidst the thrill of the intrigue and the gratification of realizing his vision?
Or, had he simply stopped caring about how far he had fallen from the ideals of knightly virtue which he'd once held so dear and which Teta had been so proud of him for pursuing?
Unable to answer his own questions, and dreading just what the answers might be, he let out a long wail of hopeless agony which, though it shook the chamber to its foundations, fell only on the ears of his spectral tormentors.
Delita was stumbling about the side rooms of the war council chamber, his faltering feet sending incongruously expensive rugs askew and knocking over racks of weapons and armor.
Some of these he picked up and hurled at the horde of spirits that dogged his heels, but all whistled through the press of vaporous forms, clattering in the distance, as the vengeful phantoms marched ever nearer.
And, ever at their head was Algus.
As the unspoken ringleader of Delita's victims continued to summon more and more specters from his host, his face continued to change. At times, it would putrefy more and more, maggots bursting free of rotten flesh to writhe upon the floor. Yet, seemingly at timed intervals, his face would become like that of a living man again, sometimes even more comely than he'd been in life.
As he introduced several ghosts from the Corpse Brigade that the young king had killed at the onetime Brigand's Den, Algus had, for a moment, been so fair as to parch Delita's throat…
…then, in the middle of a sentence, those dazzling blue eyes were dangling by their optic nerves again, a hail of rotten teeth setting them to swaying as they fell.
"Oh, do let me guess," he said mockingly, his words slightly distorted by the decrepit condition of his mouth. "You were just following orders? What a coincidence! So was I that day at Fort Zeakden!"
As if the name had been the incantation which invoked some fell magic, which might not have been far from the truth, Delita could swear he was back in the snows again, watching as Golagros, the Corpse Brigade Knight who'd fallen so far from chivalry as to put a woman between himself and the Hokuten's blades, held Teta before him as a shield.
For a long moment, Delita simply stared at her, wishing to carve her very memory into his heart, as he recalled both what would happen next and how her remains would be savaged by the impending explosion. Yet, almost against his will, his gaze swerved in a different direction…the direction from which the fatal shot would surely come.
Sure enough, Algus stood there at Zalbag's side, as haughty of mien as ever he was and the crossbow at the ready.
Once again, it all came back to Delita. He recalled how Dycedarg had sworn that Teta's rescue would take precedence, even as the final redoubt of the Corpse Brigade lay besieged. He recalled the desperate hope mingled with terrible dread as he saw Teta, so near to rescue by men whom Delita had longed to call his brothers-in-arms, and yet still in such dire peril.
At her fore was a bevy of armed knights who, through an errant stroke of the blade, might see her rescue become a funeral.
At her back was the blade of a man who'd made repeated threats to see her dead were he not permitted to go free. And, at his back was a store of gunpowder that could turn the whole tundra into a crater…
…which, any minute now, it would.
Even as he remembered how he had fervently believed in Zalbag – and, by extension, Dycedarg – until the last, and even as his eyes darted between Zalbag and Teta, wanting to call out something that would avert the coming tragedy and yet fearing the sudden sound might act as the spark to ignite this quite literal powder keg, he noticed something else.
Something that had eluded his eye even after revisiting this scene a thousand times in his nightmares.
Algus's face, just as he released that quarrel.
Delita had seen the Limberry squire take an almost feral delight in dealing out pain, from how he'd left Corpse Brigadiers gargling on their own blood in the slums of Dorter to how he'd, literally, beaten the information about the abducted Marquis Elmdor out of a prisoner. He remembered how Algus's comely face became so warped with a vicious self-righteousness as he'd assailed his foes, sometimes getting so heady with his pride and sense of vindication that he had to be forcibly rescued when he'd unwittingly ventured into the grasp of foes beyond his strength.
Yet, rather than salivating at the prospect of adding yet another lowborn to his list of kills – and one being kin to the peasant who'd become his foil, no less – Algus instead seemed calm. In place of what Delita had initially taken to be Algus's customarily haughty aristocratic mien was instead a cool and collected expression that seemed almost foreign on his often-livid features. Though Delita had never witnessed this scene in his nightmares without the all too familiar dread of what was to come and the anguish at knowing he could do nothing to stop it, perplexity now began to slither its way into the otherwise horribly familiar scene. Where was the leering anticipation of the kill, which was as much a part of Algus's features as either his golden locks and blue orbs?
Where was the smug satisfaction of seeing a peasant maid, who'd masqueraded as a lord's daughter, laying cold and dead at the feet of her betters?
For that matter, where was the look of relief on Zalbag's face, now that the sole impediment to the Corpse Brigade's extermination was gone and the unwanted peasant marring his sister's social standing removed, likely assuring her equally unwanted brother would depart as well?
Why was he instead inclining his head, closing his eyes, and letting words beyond Delita's hearing writhe upon his lips?
Then, the answer came to him in a flash of clarity, throwing into sharp relief a final grain of truth that sent the over-weighted scales within Delita's mind toppling over, the reverberating impact causing the few remaining pillars of his life to crash down around him.
For so long, he had nursed his plots and schemes based on the callousness with which his sister's life had been taken. He had envisioned the customary sneer of malice on Algus's face, along with the barely visible twinge of relief and approval on Zalbag's features as the lowborn wench who'd dragged down his sister's social standing was removed. Delita had envisioned this, seemingly thousands of times, adding color and detail to the image as might an artist would to a creation towards which he'd dedicated his life. And, for so long, it had been his vision, as though shared from the heavens, that he had to but glance upon whenever he needed to renew his sense of purpose.
And yet, seen in this strange, new light, he realized that this "vision" had been every bit as flawed and despoiled as what he'd done with it.
Zalbag was not sighing in relief to have one less peasant step-sibling in his household.
He had been praying; both for Teta's soul, which would be sent to the heavens prematurely, and his own for having ordered that the grim deed be done.
And, Algus had not been eyeing Teta as a hunter might an eighteen-point buck, nor had the customary pleasure of the kill been upon his features.
Instead, Delita realized to his horror, that Algus had done precisely as he'd said.
He had simply been following orders.
Some might call that a paltry distinction, especially when weighed against the death of an innocent girl which resulted from those orders being followed. But, for Delita, a man who'd never allowed one detail to go unobserved, or unexploited, this singular discrepancy was as good as an unsound foundation upon which had been built a castle.
The cracks grew and spread, joining with others of his creation and otherwise, connecting to form a new and twisted picture which soon engulfed and overshadowed that which had long been his star of destiny.
Algus must've noticed his dismay, for his once more exquisite face smiled beamingly.
"Did you really think me shooting Teta was to settle some grudge I had with you?" he asked, almost amused by the notion. "Don't be so vain. We both know I never considered you nearly that important. Hell, I wasn't even sure she was the same woman until you had your grubby mitts around my throat!"
With each word, Algus's face began to decay again, though no amount of putrefaction could obscure the rage in his expression.
"You know, Zalbag didn't even want to me shoot her," he went on, confirming Delita's earlier supposition. "He'd actually hoped to be upon those rogues too soon for them to react, let alone hide behind their mongrel hostage. He even rebuked me when I suggested that Teta's – yes, I bothered to learn her name, uncharacteristic though it was – life would be a small price to pay for destroying the Corpse Brigade. Backhanded me rather fiercely, he did."
As though the words had been a summons, a livid bruise suddenly darkened one of Algus's cheeks, which had remained unaffected even as the rest of him rotted.
"Still, being at the vanguard of the host that finally crushed the Corpse Brigade and dragged Weigraf to Lesalia in chains? I knew it was too good an opportunity to miss," Algus continued as patches of his flesh became fair while others turned foul, only for these to reverse seemingly with every breath. "Yet, I also knew that raising Zalbag's ire could see me kept from the fray, and from the glory that would've seen my House rise from ignominy to greatness. So, I used what I knew of the man, and what I'd seen of the Brigade, to craft my words. Zalbag had always loathed seeing innocents in peril, even the rabble, and he was most disgusted when Gustav's resorting to abduction turned out not to be a mere aberration. I saw the picture with clearer eyes, of course, but I'd already learned that being…overly candid would not avail me. So, I chose the time and place, and the words, with care. I told him how he already had proof that whatever the Corpse Brigade was, it was now degenerating into a pack of brigands who, if left to their own devices, would surely sow more misery and terror upon the very people they claimed to be fighting for, and who Zalbag had been fighting for his whole life. Weigraf was losing control of the brigade, I said. Ramza had testified to this, reporting how Wiegraf had killed Gustav when we'd found Marquis Elmdor, abducted against orders, I said. Naturally, this begged the question; if the Corpse Brigade's supposed code had been broken twice, who's to say when, or how, the next aberration might occur? And, how many lives it would cost? Surely, one life was a small price to pay in order to prevent a hundred tragedies? It took some time, and much care, but I managed to sway him to my line of thinking."
Here, Algus paused for grand effect, rotten teeth falling away as pristine incisors sprouted to replace them a heartbeat later.
"Sound familiar?" he asked rhetorically. "It seems Dycedarg wasn't your only teacher. In fact, we're far more alike than you know. You seethed at how being born to chattel meant that Balbanes's charity was the only reason you could even become squire, let alone a knight. You resented those who'd never accepted you, even though you'd proven yourself their equal in skill and courage, if not their superior, time and again. I seethed at how I'd been born the scion of a traitor, impoverished when I should've been wealthy and scorned where I should've been lauded. I outshone my fellows effortlessly, but I was passed over for knighthood again and again, shunned by comrade and superior alike, and all for a crime I didn't even commit!"
The correlation which Algus was drawing was becoming clearer and clearer to Delita. It was equal parts ingenious in its simplicity and diabolical in its intricacy. And, he still wasn't done.
"How often did you want a better life for your sister after you'd gleaned how she'd been treated at that school?" Algus asked, posing yet another question where the answer was a formality. "About as often as I did for mine, I suspect. Oh, that surprises you, I see? Well, I never said, and you never asked. Besides, what was there to say? You already knew much of my misfortunes and you could guess the rest. Surely, you can imagine how much worse it was for my sister?"
And, indeed, Delita could. Though the daughters of lordly houses joining their brothers in the knighthood was an emergent phenomenon, those who were expected to instead elevate their House's status and fortunes through advantageous marriages were still prevalent. And, though few such marriages were loving, they offered many a rung by which social climbers could reach new heights and, by extension, a way for noble houses fallen on hard times to reverse what might otherwise prove a long, terminal slide into destitution.
Undoubtedly, whatever was left of House Sadalfas, which was likely very little, staked their very future on Algus becoming a great knight and his sister marrying well, presumably after Algus's triumph over his grandfather's ignominious legacy had induced potential suitors to come knocking.
"And, what do you think happened to her after I died?" Algus asked, as though reading Delita's very thoughts.
Delita didn't answer, and he didn't have to. A destitute young noblewoman whose name was tarnished by the crimes of her forbearer and who had no one left to counter such old ignominy with valor shown in the here and now? His fertile imagination could devise a hundred likely endings for such a girl.
And, none of those endings were happy ones.
Most destitute noblewomen, bereft of coin and land and with no possibility of advantageous marriage by which to extricate themselves from the gutter, fared little better than their humbly born counterparts, especially in war. Like as not, the unnamed daughter of House Sadalfas had been lost amongst the teeming masses displaced by the conflict, washes away amidst a veritable ocean of those ravaged by hunger, disease and despair.
Starvation or prostitution, or both, were likely fates. And, in either case, a quick death, though still tragic, would likely be kinder by comparison.
And yet, Delita had no idea of her fate. Not her whereabouts, not how she fared, not even her name.
Indeed, he didn't even have any proof that this supposed daughter of House Sadalfas existed, save for the word of the revenant who was once her older brother.
And, considering that Delita was taking this "source" seriously, he could not say whether this bespoke of the weight of his crimes or depths of his madness.
Yet, given just how complete and incontrovertible both were, what did it matter?
Again, Algus's face became breathtakingly fair and, for once, his normally haughty features instead betrayed deep sadness but which was edged with grim satisfaction.
"We're quite a pair, aren't we?" Algus asked, his haughtiness replaced with solemnity. "Both of us, nearly alone in the world save for our sisters. The blameless maidens we'd do anything for."
Again, Algus paused and the putrefaction overtook his face to such a degree that Delita retched at the sight of it.
"Anything at all," he gargled through a mouthful of congealed blood and phlegm. "Deceive, lie, betray, murder. After all, wasn't that why we did it all? Making sure the other Tetas of the world didn't share that same fate, thrown aside like a piece of rubbish because she was "inconvenient" to those of higher station. Wasn't that the reason you strung along the woman you claim to love and then blackmailed her into staying with you after she learned what you'd done to build "her" kingdom? Wasn't that the reason you arranged for the Blackrams and the Eye, one group who trusted you as a brother-in-arms and the other a group who believed you a kindred spirit, to meet and kill each other? Wasn't that the reason you participated in providing false testimony against Orlandu and, when Goltana trusted you as he might a son, repaid his faith with a blade through the chest? Wasn't that the reason you dangled Ramza, a man you professed to love like a brother, before the jaws of church and lions time and again?"
With each word, Algus seemed to rot a little more, tufts of limp hair and pieces of festering skin cascading to the cold stone. And, just as surely as the decay continued to rain down, bit by bit until little more than sinew and bare bones remained, so too did an illusion so well hidden that even Delita had been ignorant of its very existence.
"Wasn't that why I killed many who'd done me no wrong?" Algus went on. "Wasn't that the reason I played upon the conscience of a man I respected and admired, and then shot a complete stranger while she was bound and unarmed? Wasn't it so that my sister might not live and die as our parents had, loathed by all for a crime committed before she'd even drawn her first breath? Oh, how easy it was to use our poor, defenseless sisters to justify our sordid deeds. So long as it was to safeguard their futures, or to avenge them, what was truly forbidden?"
Delita, though nearly insensible with grief, had a terrible presentiment about where this was going and, sure enough, confirmation came with the surety of the setting sun…right down to how it left cold darkness in its wake.
"Both of us were so furious at the world, at the cruel tricks of fate that were played on us before we even saw our first sun, that we sought to wash it away with the blood of those we blamed for our troubles," Algus declared, a faint octave of sadness echoing through the veritable symphony of derision in his tone. "And, whenever anyone asked, even ourselves, all we had to say was that we were doing it for those blameless and yet so misfortunate maidens who'd been likewise born and yet soldiered on. Our sisters. They were why we lied, deceived, manipulated, and murdered. It was also why we, both of us, took the purest things in our lives…and corrupted them."
Had the chill of the Romandan tundra been coalesced into an ice dagger and thrust into Delita's back, his blood could not have runner colder than it did at this final blow.
Seeing Teta in his mind's eye was a frequent occurrence after her death, for her memory, and how much happier her life would've been had she been born in the kingdom Delita sought to create, had been another star of destiny by which he'd plotted his course and whose radiance refused to be snuffed out by danger or adversity.
Yet, in using Teta's memory as he might a banner to rally his troops or a sword with which to cut down his foes, he had forgotten something truly vital about the woman whose name he'd invoked as he'd blazed his trail of deceit and murder.
He'd forgotten who Teta was.
He'd forgotten how she'd endured the deaths of their parents and her mistreatment at the hands of the spoiled daughters of nobles at that school without complaint. He'd forgotten how she'd treasured Alma's friendship, and Ramza's by extension.
He'd forgotten that she would never have condoned bloodshed over a few cruel words, which she'd viewed as paltry compared to the new home and surrogate father and siblings she'd gained when Balbanes had taken in her and Delita. He'd forgotten that she treasured Alma's friendship and the nigh-sisterly love they'd shared, and how she would never have deliberately endangered her and Ramza, nor exploited them in their hour of need.
He'd forgotten that, in avenging Teta's death, he had dragged her life through the mud, again and again, until, much like his marriage to Ovelia or his friendship with Ramza, it had become so warped beyond recognition that gazing upon it filled his very soul with anguish.
As he sank to the cold stone, his reddened eyes awash with tears of despair, he saw Algus standing above him. And, in that countenance of hideous dualities, of corruption and malice, of pride wounded and haughty alike, Delita saw himself.
He saw how far he'd fallen, and how late was the hour. He saw the sheer depth and breadth of what he had done, and the many layers of blood on his hands. He saw how that blood had gotten there, through his actions and inactions alike. He saw how those he professed to care for had been lied to, manipulated, and betrayed again and again, all so he could get…what?
Vengeance for Teta, who would've been horrified at what he'd done in her name?
The addition to his legend of a marriage to a princess, whom he loved and yet had shown her that his heart was one of ice?
The approval of the man who'd been his best friend, and whom Delita had dangled before the jaws of death and had now made a virtual prisoner in the bleak fastness of Lionel Castle?
A kingdom that was enamored with him in their ignorance of his true self while, in ways subtle and not, he had been keeping the realm's wounds green and propounding warnings that any attempt to upset his chosen course might send the ship of state floundering?
Had all that been worth it – could anything have been worth it – when the price was becoming a monster that greatly outshone the malevolent specter before him?
Whether it was minutes or weeks, Delita could not say. But, at some point, a spark had kindled in his breastbone. Something began to smolder in his unbalanced mind, turning his tears to rage. Rage not just at Algus, nor even at himself, but at everything.
This life he had been born to, an orphan in one world and a play-actor in another. This kingdom he had built upon a foundation of treachery and mortared together with blood, while unwittingly tearing down what truly mattered to him. This kingly image he had crafted for himself through luring all around him into dancing upon strings like so many puppets, ignorant of the crimson that so stained the puppet master's hands.
And, most of all, he raged at his own blindness. At how often he'd told himself that his dealing death, whether with dispassionate callousness or perverse delight, would all be worth it if a better Ivalice rose from the ashes, at how often he'd told himself he was doing it all for Teta, for Ovelia, for the common people who deserved a brighter future which would not come unless the present was overthrown, when, in truth, that had been an illusion he'd created for himself.
Because, he finally realized, he'd instead been thinking about himself.
Of vindication, of retribution, of the people who'd once looked down their noses upon him having to bend knee before him or end up on the streets, of the people who'd been born humbly seeing him as the first and greatest proof that their station would not be their life and death. Of making sure no sign of the brightening future went without being stamped as his brainchild, of the swooning women and the adoring children, of the lonely graves of the unlamented souls he'd killed so that he'd never see another Teta, a young life cruelly and senselessly snuffed out.
His legacy. His kingdom. His ego. His pride.
Himself.
And now, the long road he had paved, stone by stone, and embarked upon, step by step, had reached its end and he saw the final trap snap shut upon him. For now, himself was all he would ever have.
With the improbable mix of a man walking to his own execution with grim determination and the nigh feral rage of a man ready to kill a dozen with his bare hands, he rose. Some taunts passed Algus's ever-changing mouth, but they were drowned out by the blood pounding in Delita's ears. Instead, he snatched up a sword that he'd knocked over earlier and, with a roar like that of the lions under whose banner he'd marched, he charged.
He would kill the revenant of Algus, or he'd be killed by him.
Frankly, he didn't care which.
He just wanted it to be over, and was past caring how, or by whose hand, that end came.
And, if Algus proved as lacking a foe in death as he did in life, it mattered little.
After all, manipulating the outcome was what Delita did best.