(Updating every other Wednesday)

Chapter 144: The Black Lion

Ovelia didn't remember the last time she'd felt this terrified. Ovelia didn't remember the last time she'd felt this ecstatic. Her whole body was singing with adrenaline, heart pounding so hard in her chest she thought it might crack her ribs, lightning flickering in her fingertips and crackling behind her eyes.

They were doing it. Her friends were grinding the Nanten to a halt.

To be sure, Delita was doing his part. He gave confusing orders, demanded more information from frightening reports, took time to consult with Viscount Blanche, with Baron Bolminas, with the Bishop, and with the Duke. Huddled in the Balcony Suite, an apartment kept empty for visiting dignitaries to take in the intimidating view of the winding Bethla Pass and the peaks of the Zirekile Mountains, they had watched as the Nanten readied themselves to fight. And they had watched, as flashes of magic, cannonfire, and the distant clamor of battle had reached them from all quarters.

And still, for all their shock and disbelief, nothing had prepared them for the great purple dragon that had surged just past the balcony, then spread its mighty wings as it breathed neon destruction down upon the white stone of the Southern Gate and its moiling collection of Nanten soldiers.

"The Holy Dragon?" The Bishop's voice was high and hysterical.

"The what?" Goltanna demanded, from his place at her side.

The Bishop turned white, turning to face the Duke. "Some pagan demigod. The Ydorans believed it had sacred powers. Cardinal Bremondt has been tracking the beast for quite some time, but..."

He trailed off, frowning suddenly. His eyes flickered towards Delita and Ovelia.

"What is it doing here?" Goltanna growled.

"Perhaps Ramza Beoulve has found some way to command it," Delita said shortly.

Goltanna's head snapped towards Delita. "Are you serious?"

Delita shook his head uncertainly. "I don't know. Dycedarg knew some magic, but...but I combine this with the deeds of the Ebon Eye, the fall of Riovanes and Lionel..." He closed his eyes. "Perhaps Ramza has been working with Dycedarg all along." He turned towards the Duke with weariness in his eyes. "We may have underestimated the plot against you, my lord. Perhaps we should withdraw our forces, and-"

Thunder burst from above them, and the thunder was more than thunder, more than a rumbling that shook your bones, more than the howl of stormwind that makes even castle stones groan in protest. It was titanic: it cracked the ceiling above them, and shook the floor beneath them. Her eyes jerked to Delita, already stumbling back from his place on the Balcony. She started to reach for him-

"What in the Saint's name!" Goltanna cried.

She caught herself in time, and instead flung herself into Goltanna's arms. "Oh, cousin," she murmured. "What's happening?"

Goltanna shook his head fiercely: she felt his drooping mustache moving against her ear, as his arms folded in an embrace around her. "The only thing above us it the Plateau and the dam..."

More shudders reached them, and a great noise like a distant roaring growing steadily closer. Baron Bolminas frowned up at the ceiling and moved uncertainly for the balcony. "What is that?"

Just as he stepped out onto the balcony, she felt Goltanna's head jerked towards him. "Bolminas, no!"

Too late: the roaring mounted, and Bolminas' eyes went wide, and a tide of crashing water and crushing stone smashed down upon him. A curtain of raging forth pounded down upon the balcony: huge chunks of stone moved like ships through these uneven smalls, cracking and crashing against the balcony outside.

Viscount Blanche shouted and staggered back from the balcony. His eyes were wide with disbelief. "No...no, they...they cannot have..."

"They've blown the dam." Delita's face was white, and his mouth pressed into a taut line. Only she could see the ghost of the disbelieving smile he was hiding. And in spite of what she'd seen—in spite of the curtain of obliterating water that had just destroyed Baron Bolminas—Ovelia felt a matching giddiness that she could barely hide. She buried her face in Goltanna's chest, to hide her mad smile.

"How..." She felt Goltanna's voice rumbling in his barrel chest. "How is this possible?"

"The Thundergod's conspiracy must have a much wider reach than we realized," Delita said. "Perhaps if he was working with divers who laid mines on the lake side of the dam..." He trailed off. "My lord, it doesn't matter. It's done."

She managed to gather enough control to peek out from her position against Goltanna's chest as Delita shut the doors to the balcony against the waterfall now flowing down in front of them. Water trickled underneath the closed doors, pooling slowly and spreading towards them.

"It doesn't matter?" The rumbling in Goltanna's chest had deepened somehow—it matched the roar of the water on the balcony. "I disagree, Knight-Commander. I think it matters a great deal."

Cold dread mixed with her elation, sharpened her awareness to a knife's edge: she felt as though she could see every detail on every face in the room, hear every nearby sound. Delita and Goltanna were glaring at each other: Viscount Blanche's eyes flickered between them.

"Now is not the time to turn on each other-" the Bishop began, starting to move between them.

"Is it not?" Goltanna's voice had taken on a sardonic edge. "One Knight-Commander thought this moment appropriate. Why not another?"

Delita arched his eyebrows. "So I am a traitor, as well?"

"You were so confident in your ability to turn Count Orlandeau's conspiracy in our favor," Goltanna growled. "Now you name that same conspiracy as the reason for this disaster. Suspicious, is it not?" Ovelia pulled a little away from him, took in the wild look of his eyes, the quite pulses of stress in his temples and brow. "But less suspicious if it was not the Thundergod's conspiracy, after all. If it was yours, all along."

Ovelia's eyes flickered to the door. The four soldiers of Goltanna's personal guard stood ready, their hands already upon their sword hilts. Rowland's eyes were narrowed above the faded bruise on his cheek.

Delita smiled. It was a cold smile—the smile of her captor, carrying her from the safety of her friends to purposes unknown. "It's funny, my lord," Delita said. "You blame the Thundergod for wanting peace...you blame me for a disaster I could have no hand in making, since I am so newly come to my land and title. Who do you blame for the disaster of the last year? Who do you blame for the disasters of the war against the Ordallians?"

The wildness in Goltanna's face was like a wildfire, flaming higher and higher with every passing moment. Ovelia reached for her magic, for her will, gathered it tight around her ring.

"You forget yourself, Knight-Commander." The Bishop's voice was a pleading whisper.

"You have presided over so many disasters," Delita said, without looking at the Bishop. "You have presided over so many defeats. And each time, you find an excuse to look elsewhere. You blame the Hokuten. You blame Prince Larg. You blame Count Orlandeau. You blame me." He cocked his head. "You blame anyone you can, so you don't have to blame yourself."

Delita's hand was resting on Excaligard, sheathed at his side. The water beneath the door kept spreading. Everyone inside the room was utterly still.

Thunderous knocking on the door broke the silence. "My lords!" Val cried. "The Thundergod has escaped!"

Goltanna's head swiveled towards the door. The fire in his eyes gave way to fear. "What?"

But it was too late for Goltanna. Too late for everyone. News of the Thundergod's escape was the signal they'd been waiting for.

Delita drew his sword, and buried it in the Bishop's back.

The Bishop staggered, pulled himself off the blade, started to turn in disbelief towards Delita and instead fell to his knees.

"What are you-?!" Viscount Blanche stumbled backwards, tripped against a chair and sprawled to the floor. "No, no, no, no-!"

His last no was choked by a gurgle, as Delita buried his sword in his throat.

Goltanna's guard had not waited for orders. Goltanna's guard had drawn their swords, and started to charge at Delita. And Goltanna's guards, with Rowland at their head, crashed headlong into a wall of shimmering golden light. The ring on Ovelia's finger was of much finer make than the ones she'd once worn, and she'd practiced with theses barriers, over and over. She barely felt their impact. But she could see their disbelieving stares, flickering between the barrier and Ovelia.

"VAL!" Ovelia shouted, and the door behind them exploded off its hinges. The force of the spell pinned all four soldiers against her barrier with crushing force (she felt that force, felt the raw power of it and the magic of it, too, and somehow those magics were joined together because their wills were as one, Valerie Amfra and Ovelia Atkascha), and Ovelia gathered the last of her strength and flung the barrier forwards, shoving the soldiers with it. Two of them smashed against the stone walls as the shimmering light faded: the other two tumbled through the open door, and Val was upon them with a long dagger in one hand and magic crackling in the other.

Movement, from the corner of her eye. Ovelia turned, gasped and ducked just as Goltanna lashed at her with powerful hands. "You-!" he snarled.

But Delita was closing in behind him. Ovelia snapped her hands up again, conjured another barrier just as Goltanna punched at her once more. His fists rebounded backwards: her jerked back, crying out in pain-

And Delita's sword drove through his back, and out through his chest.

Goltanna's eyes went wide with disbelief. He looked down at the swordpoint, slick with his own blood, protruding from his sternum. He raised fumbling hands towards it, just as Delita twisted backwards, pulling the sword loose. Even then, he didn't fall. He just stood there, staring at the bloody wound.

Ovelia stared at it, too. Her magic flickered out. Still, she could not fight her strange elation. Still, she felt so terribly alive.

"This..." He started. "This is not...how a lord should...how a king should..."

He put his hands to the edge of the bloody wound. He closed his eyes, as though in thought. And then he fell, face first, like a falling tree, and smashed lifeless to the ground in a spray of water and blood.

Ovelia stared down at the man who had protected her. The man who had thought to marry her. The man she had helped kill. The sharp tang of blood was quieter in this room than it had been in Araguay Woods: the water pouring in from outside muted it, somehow. But in Araguay, she hadn't helped killed anyone. Now...

She looked around the room. Val, out of breath, was slowly standing up from her place straddling Rowland, her dagger dripping blood. Delita stood behind the dead Duke, with three corpses sprawled around him, and Count Orlandeau's bloodstained sword in his hand.

Boom

A burst of sharp, terrible sound. Ovelia gasped, spun towards it as the air rushed around her. There, in the doorway, stood Count Orlandeau, with Delita's golden blade in his hand. Val was sprawled on the ground beside him.

His eyes moved slowly around the room. They looked at Ovelia, and Ovelia felt her legs go weak. She had never seen anything but calm understanding in Cid's eyes before. Now, she saw steel.

Boom

Clang

Another rush of air, another blur of movement, and Ovelia whirled to follow it. Delita and Cid stood above Goltanna's corpse, blades locked together.

Movement from the corner of her eye: Ovelia's eyes flickered back to the door, though she could not quite bear to look away from Delita and Cid. Val was already staggering to her feet, blood trickling down her face from a cut in her forehead. Her eyes were glassy and dazed.

"This is why you asked me to escape?" Cid asked, and there were tears in his voice. Ovelia spun back around to stare at them. "So you have someone to blame for your crimes?"

Delita shrugged. "Lies and truth, Cid. You know how I operate."

Cid's eyes flashed.

Boom-Clang

Boom-Clang

Boom-Clang

The thunder sounded in rapid succession, more like cannonfire than thunder, and with each boom a gust of wind shook the room, and with each boom Cid blurred, moved horribly fast. But Delita held him back in a flurry of slashes and parries, driven across the room but keeping that lethal sword at bay.

But he couldn't last forever. Strong as he was, sharp as he was, Cid was as good as the legends said.

"Count Orlandeau!" she cried. "Stay your blade!"

They lurched into stillness once more. Delita was white-faced and panting, holding bloody Excaligard en guarde before him. Cid held Delita's gold-bladed sword above his shoulder, shimmering with power.

"It seems to me you are just as much a traitor as he," Cid growled.

Ovelia drew herself to her full height. "And what of it?"

Cid's eyes flickered towards her. "What?"

"What of it?" she asked again. "How many many did my cousin sacrifice for his ambition?" She looked down at Goltanna's corpse, and swallowed down the guilt. "So I sacrificed him for mine. For ours. For..." She looked past Cid, to Delita. "For a better world." Then she looked back at Cid. "We didn't want to sacrifice you, too."

Stone rumbled behind him. With another boom, Cid had snapped around, already lunging towards the wall as it slipped open, revealing the secret passage behind it. And revealing Olan Durai, as he stumbled inside the Balcony Suite.

Olan and Cid stopped, stared at each other for a moment. All the anger, all the focus, left their faces. All that was left was relief, and love so deep it bordered on sorrow. A moment later, and they had folded into each other's embrace. Ovelia thought of Simon, and swallowed down her tears.

"We don't have much time," Olan said, pulling away and smiling up at his father. "As much chaos as we've caused, someone will come for orders."

Delita nodded. He had sheathed his sword, and unbuckled the sheathe from his waist. "I trust you know the way?" he asked, hurrying towards them.

"We've marked out a few possible rendezvous points," Olan said, holding up a crumpled piece of paper.

"And my friends?" Ovelia asked.

Olan gave her a wan smile. "I only saw a handful of them, but it looks to me like everyone played their parts. And I've reason to believe that all lived."

Another strange thrill. Surrounded by all this blood and death, but her friends were alive. It was all going to work out.

"I can't believe you blew the dam," Delita said, shaking his head. "And I can't believe it worked."

"Beoulves and Orlandeaus together?" Olan asked, and laughed. "There's no limit to what we can do."

"Olan..." Cid shook his head. "Look at what he's done."

Olan looked absently around the room. "Forgive me, father, but I swore my oath of service to you, and to the Nanten. Not to him." He gave Goltanna's corpse a brief, pitying look, then looked back up to his father. "I will sleep easy enough tonight."

"Not if you don't get out of here," Delita grunted.

"And why would I do that?" Olan asked.

Delita blinked. "You're a wanted traitor."

"Haven't you heard?" Olan asked. "When I rode to the north gate, I offered my surrender, and warned them of Ramza Beoulve's attack, and the plot it was a part of. I even saved Captain Hylas from a dragon attack. I think you will find no shortage of witnesses to the deeds I've done...especially since Ramza and his friends worked so hard to kill as few people as possible."

"Are you...serious?" Val's voice was an unsteady rasp.

"Quite so," Olan said. "If we weave our stories right, we can create quite the compelling narrative—of a conspiracy Delita Heiral and Valerie Amfra started to uncover, involving the same sinister forces that put paid to the Black Sheep. But you didn't see the full extent of the conspiracy. Olan Durai did. And he was so loyal to the Nanten that he returned, hunted and harried, to foil his own father's sinister plot."

Delita stared at him in disbelief. Olan smirked, then turned to his father. "He's trying to save your life, father. I believe him. Ramza didn't have time to tell me much, but the scale of this thing they're trying to stop...they could use your help." He looked at Delita again. "But he also wants us out of the way, so he can reshape the Nanten as he pleases." He glanced at Ovelia. "I think our Queen would restrain his worst impulses...but I think I can do better than that."

Cid stared down at the sword in his hand. He looked helplessly at his son. "This isn't...none of this is..."

"I know." Olan squeezed his father's shoulder with oen hand, and shoved the crumpled piece of paper against his chest with the other. "I wish we had more time..." He jerked his head towards Delita, standing closer to them, with the sheathed Excaligard in his hand. "But we're still on the battlefield, father. And I believe Knight-Commander Heiral has something for you."

Delita stared at Olan for a moment, then started, and looked back at Cid. "I would like to trade you back, Count Orlandeau," he said stiffly. "You sword for Wiegraf's."

Cid stared at the sword as though he couldn't see it.

"I've already begun working on the story we will tell," Olan said, as though talking about the weather. "The plot we uncovered. Ramza's attack on the fortress was an elaborate ruse, to allow his co-conspirators a chance to take out the leaders of the Hokuten and Nanten alike, and throw all Ivalice into chaos. Cidolfas Orlandeau, traitorous ally of the traitorous Beoulves, seized his chance during the battle, to try and kill his liege lord. His heroic son, Olan Durai, rushed to stop him. He was too late to save the Bishop of Canne-Beurich. Too late to save Viscount Blanche. Too late to save even Duke Goltanna. But thanks to the heroic efforts of Knight-Commander Delita Heiral, he and Valerie arrived just in time to save Queen Ovelia Atkascha. Harried by those three proud heroes, the Thundergod plunged out over the Balcony Suite. It was a fall no man could survive...but his body was never found, and rumors say he's been spotted, here and there, all over Ivalice." He paused. "Of course, Delita Herial took a grievous wound in his heroic effort to save his Queen."

Delita started. "What?"

Boom

In another blur of motion, Cid slashed down across Delita's chest. His armor tore with a terrific squeal of metal. As Delita fell to his knees, his hands were empty: the sword he'd offered to Cid was already in Cid's free hand.

Ovelia stared at Delita in shock. The blood soaked the doublet beneath his broken armor. She stumbled towards him, magic already gathering in her hands.

"Shallow wound," grunted Cid. "You'll live." He threw the golden sword down by Delita's knees, hugged his son, then disappeared down the passageway. Olan slid the stone closed behind him, leaving a seamless wall in its place.

Ovelia fell to her knees besides Wiegraf's sword, the ilm-high water on the floor cold against her skin. She pressed her hands to Delita's chest, gathered her magic even as her head swam with exertion. Golden light shimmered over his wound.

"Good, good," Olan said cheerfully, as he hurried to the closed balcony doors. He flared out his hands, and the stars under his cloak exploded outwards, shattering one of the doors and letting a fresh wave of water flow into the room. "Have to make it all look right." He clapped his hands together, smiling grimly at each of them. "We've got a lot of work to do. A whole kingdom to save."

Ovelia stared at him, then looked to Valerie, leaning heavily against the wall behind her with dead knights all around her. Finally, she looked back to Delita, pale and shaking. He managed to smile as she looked at him, though.

"It's a small enough price, Your Majesty," he said.

Ovelia nodded. The world felt...strange, surreal, as though she were moving through a dream. Past Olan, the curtain of water kept pounding down, fierce as Zirekile Falls, though it so longer carried its freight of stone. Corpses were stretched all around them—men of power and influence, dead in part thanks to her schemes, her actions. The man she loved, who had murdered most of them, was bleeding under her hands.

But every strike of his sword had cut another string from her. Now there was no lord she needed to cling to for protection. Now there was no church official standing ready to reveal her for a puppet. Now, the throne was hers. Now, she was Queen of Ivalice.

And best of all...all the people she loved were alive.

"A small enough price," she agreed. Her head was swimming with euphoria, with guilt, with disbelief, with the effort of her barriers and of healing him. Her knees were wet with the broken dam far above them, flooding the mighty fortress around them. Even through the moisture in the air, she could smell the blood of the dead, and fell the blood of the man she loved beneath her hands.

Alive. Gloriously alive. And gloriously free.

So she leaned forwards, and kissed Delita, careless of who might see her.