(Hey, everyone. It's been a crazy few months, so I'll be taking a longer-than-usual break to get my ducks in a row. I'll start the second half of Part 6 on 10/25/23, and let you guys know the new update schedule then. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you've enjoyed the story so far)

Chapter 145: The White Lion

Bestrald Larg was dying again.

He felt the tightness in his throat, the heat in his cheeks and the embers burning behind his eyes. His heart was lurching in his chest, his ragged pulse drumming in his fingers, his ankles, his ears. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe.

He was not in the plush salon of Igros Castle. He could not hear the frantic gasps of his attendants, his parents, and his sister. He could not feel Dycedarg Beoulve's steady hands upon his shoulders, or hear his curt shouts for aid.

Bestrald blinked tears from his eyes, and stared up into a green-clouded sky, and up at sheer rock walls, and remembered. This was not his tenth birthday party. This was Bethla were these green clouds that choked the air? Where had it all gone wrong? Where was Dycedarg?

Dycedarg had promised him victory. And when Dycedarg Beoulve promised victory, he delivered it. That was a lesson Prince Bestrald Larg had learned many times in the 30 years since he'd almost died, choking on poison from the Ordallian assassin in his father's kitchen, aiming to wipe out the Hokuten leadership with one poisoned cake. Dycedarg Beoulve had saved him then, as Dycedarg promised to save his sister now. Promised to redeem them both from the failures of the last year of fighting. Promised to finally ensure the Largs' hold on the throne of Ivalice.

It had been going so well. Even dying in the dirt of Bethla Pass, Larg felt affronted by how quickly everything had gone wrong. Dycedarg's network of spies had given them the exact layout of the defenses in Bethla Pass. He had hired a coterie of unusual mercenaries—men who had worked with the late Geoffrey Gaffgarion—to travel through the mountains over the last few weeks, and take out those defenses. When 50,000 men of the Hokuten had begun their march into Bethla Pass, not one cannon had fired, and not one bowstring had thrummed.

And Dycedarg promises still greater victories ahead. He promised that the names of Bestrald Larg and Dycedarg Beoulve would be added to those of Rufus Goltanna and Seymour Elmdor as men who had laid Bethla Garrison low. So Bestrald Larg had ridden in the Hokuten vanguard, to be there when his men claimed victory over the Nanten. Because Dycedarg had promised.

Dycedarg had promised. And now Bestrald was dying.

"Dyce-!" he choked. He tried to lever himself upright, and failed. The poison of his youth had given him the kind of apoplexy usually found only in the old and the infirm. He had mostly recovered, in the months that followed, but his left leg had always troubled him. Now, it felt like it was barely moving, so much limp and useless meat dragging his tired body down.

He tried again, managed to get his right knee under him. His breathing whistled in and out of his throat, and he turned his dizzy head from side to side. His nostrils burned with a musty, cloying smell, and the green fog tinged everything he saw. Behind him, his chocobo lay where it had tumbled down minutes ago. He saw other men and women crawling around him—hundreds of them, sprawling in the dust, gasping and moaning and pleading.

Dycedarg. Where was Dycedarg?

Whoosh.

Larg's head swiveled towards the sound of rushing wind behind him. In the distance, dark shadows moved through green fog. With every whoosh of air, there was a flash of white light, like lightning crackling against a summer horizon. The shadows came closer, closer, closer...!

Another flash of light. Another whoosh of air. The green fog billowed to one side, and Zalbaag Beoulve strode forwards, magic shimmering along Justice's steel edge.

"Zal-!" Larg lost his balance, and fell hard into the dirt.

"Your Highness!" Zal was at his side in an instant. "Try not to move." Zalbaag was pale, and breathing hard, but did not seem nearly as weakened as the rest of them. Had he avoided the first wave of poison? Was his Mage Knight training somehow strengthening him against its effects?

"What is..." Larg's words caught in his throat, and he trailed off, trying not to cough.

"We're not sure yet the nature of the attack," Zalbaag said grimly. "Some kind of poison bombs, buried in the ground and hidden among the cliffs."

"And the..." Larg's voice was an uneven rasp. "The Nan...?"

"Our scouts report fighting by the the south gate."

Fighting? But who?

"Your Highness," Zal said. "My brother?"

Larg shook his head. "Everyone...fell. Can't...find..."

Zal's eyes flickered away from Larg, searching the sprawled disorder of the Hokuten. "Stay here, Your Highness. I will fetch Healers for you-"

"No." Larg tried to force all his authority into his voice, to mask his terror. He could not be left alone again. He could not feel like the ten year-old who had almost died at his birthday party. "We must...find Dyce. Take me...with you."

Zal hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Lean on me, Your Highness."

Larg nodded weakly, and struggled to keep a grip on Zalbaag's shoulders as the other man lifted him to his feet. Slowly, unsteadily, they began making their way back down the Pass. Every few steps, Zalbaag swung Justice again, so magic thrummed off the sword and dispelled the ambient clouds of poison. And with every step, Larg struggled not to curse.

His left leg still felt horribly numb, horribly weak, horribly useless. So hard to hold himself upright. So hard to look like the lord he was supposed to be, the Regent of Ivalice whose gaze reached farther than the common man. Always so hard, and the poison that had weakened his lungs and crippled his leg had done him no favors. Goltanna, that arrogant, preening rooster, chest puffed up as though he ruled whatever he gazed upon, had looked down on him. Goltanna had led his Nanten in battle for over thirty years.

Larg never had. Larg never could. He was always clinging to the strength of others.

He forced authority into his gaze. With every lurching, uneven step, he swept his gaze here and there across the poison-choked pass, trying to look as steely and resolute as a lord should look. But his facade melted away when he caught a shimmer of magic against one of the high cliff walls.

"There!" He jabbed one hand towards the shimmer, and almost lost his balance.

Zal said nothing, but quickened their pace, until he was half-carrying Larg from step to staggering them. His eyes flickered down to the dead and dying Hokuten soldiers all around them, but he did not slow his steady stride. Not until he reached Dycedarg, where he sat slumped against the worn stone of the cliff. He had Service pressed against his forehead, magic thrumming off the blade and surrounding him in a translucent cocoon.

"Dyce!" Zal's voice was hoarse and ragged.

"Dyce..." The word barely escaped Larg's choked throat.

Zal leaned Larg against the wall besides Dyce. He had not moved: the magic pulsed and shimmered in slow waves against his skin, radiating from the rune-etched silver of his sword. Zal knelt in front of his brother, and slowly extended his own sword, until its tip touched his brother's blade.

Dyce's eyes snapped open. He was pale, and his lips nearly white. "Zal." He looked around them. "The Nanten-"

Explosions in the distance—farther down the Pass. Thin echoes of alarm reached them, barely audible through the sound of violence.

"They're...occupied," Zalbaag managed. "I don't know by what."

Dyce nodded slowly. "We need Healers. For us..." He waved his sword vaguely. "And for...anyone else who might..."

"Go," Larg said at once.

Zal looked briefly between them.

"Go," Dyce said. He wrapped one arm around Larg, pulling him close. The magic from his sword spread outwards, warmth like sunlight on the inside of his skin, relief like a cool breeze against a sunburn. His breathing eased, and the tightness in his chest and throat loosened. Larg almost wept with gratitude. "I'll...keep us both...safe."

Zal stood at once, and strode away from them—away from the sounds of battle, towards the larger Hokuten war camp near the entrance to the Pass. As he marched, he swung Justice in great sweeping arcs, buying them a little more breathing room by lasting away the poison all around them.

"What's...happening?" Larg managed.

"I don't...know." Dycedarg was glaring down the Pass, as magic pulsed from his sword and surrounded the two of them. "My spies should have told me...this shouldn't have..." He shook his head. "This trap was...for us."

Larg nodded grimly. "Not like you...to..."

"I know." There was bitter guilt in Dycedarg's voice, to match that of his self-recriminations after Louveria had been taken by the Nanten. One year later, and Larg had really hoped things would be different. One year later...

But the Nanten were occupied by some unknown danger, and Larg's breathing was getting easier with every passing moment. He was not going to die today. Whatever trap they'd stumbled into, they were going to walk out of it. They would have their chance at Goltanna again. They would have their chance to save Louveria. They would have their chance to claim Ivalice for centuries to come.

Larg was alive. And so was Dycedarg. That was all that mattered.

"I'm glad...you're safe," Larg said.

"Was...lucky," Dyce managed. "I know this...poison. Had...the antidote."

Larg stared at him in disbelief. "What?"

Dyce nodded again. "Mosfungus." He chuckled grimly. "How's that...for irony...Your Highness?"

Larg almost laughed, and started to cough instead. "Almost...killed...three...Beoulves."

Dycedarg nodded. He fumbled at his waist, then pulled out a small, cloudy vial. "I...have some left...Your Highness. I was...saving it...for you."

Larg's eyes had felt raw and hot since the poison had started to choke them: now, real tears of gratitude burned them anew. "Oh, Dyce..."

Saving him again. Saving him now, just as he'd saved him on his tenth birthday. Dycedarg Beoulve, the sharpest mind in all of Ivalice. Cruel and callous to some, yes...but a worthy ally, all of Larg's life.

"Hold still, Your Highness."

Dyce leaned towards him, and-

Lost his balance? Larg didn't understand. Somehow Dycedarg's whole weight had fallen against him, and Larg gasped and struggled to help his friend upright, maybe he was wrong about the poison, maybe it was worse than he'd thought, and Dyce was flailing, struggling, fighting against Larg's hands, shoving them aside and closing upon his mouth, closing upon his mouth and throat-

Dycedarg hadn't fallen. Dycedarg was smothering him.

"Your Highness?" There was a note of disbelief in Dycedarg's voice. "Your Highness, no!"

Larg flailed in his grasp, but couldn't get away. The grip on his throat and mouth was so tight, so strong. Pressure throbbed against his temples: black bands slowly eclipsed the edges of his vision, narrowing down to blurry nothingness.

"Someone, help!" Dycedarg cried, casting his head wildly from side to side, not even looking at Larg. "The Regent needs help!"

Dycedarg Beoulve, sharpest mind in Ivalice. Dycedarg Beoulve, surrounded by dead men, strangling the life out of his liege lord, and shouting for help as he did it. There was no one living to see what he had done.

How long had he been waiting for his chance? But Larg should have known the kind of man he had been working for him. If a man would kill his own father, who wouldn't he kill?

Darkness blurred, and leaked away. Bestrald Larg, Regent of Ivalice, leaked away with it.