(Thank you for your patience. We'll be resuming a once-every-two weeks schedule from here, hopefully to the end of Part 6. Next update to come on 11/8/23)

Chapter 146: Strength of Will

It was going to hurt.

She didn't know what, exactly, it was yet. She understood the details Vormav had alluded to—how the creature she would play host to would wield, not just the constituent souls that made up a Lucavi, but every soul within the Maelstrom. Just moving through that storm had hurt her: sometimes she still woke up ready to scream from the nightmares. How much worse it would be, with all those souls inside her? Would there be anything left of her? Did she want there to be anything left of her?

She might escape. Ramza might yet beat their plans. But she herself could do nothing. Every day she'd spent away from Igros and Lesalia, away from the walls and guards and escorts she'd hated all her life, had taught her just how helpless she was. So she was left to wait. For salvation...or for damnation.

Her captors were not unkind. Cletienne babbled at her constantly—about magic, and Ydoran history, and his own thoughts about the nature of the Lucavi. Vormav continued to prepare their food, always deftly. She was not poorly cared for. But Loffrey proved himself the best of the three, when he returned to the cottage one day with a sheaf of papers and a few charcoal pencils.

She stared at them as he set them down at the table. "What-?"

"We were the ones who pulled Ovelia out of Orbonne," Loffrey said, conversationally.

Alma's head jerked up to him. "What?"

Loffrey shrugged. "We did our legwork. Learned all the ins and outs. Learned the guards' habits. Learned everyone's habits." He tapped the sheaf of papers. "You were a fair hand with charcoal, as I recall."

Alma said nothing. It had been...a year? Since she'd last drawn? Orbonne had been the last time she felt like practicing. The speed of events that had unfolded after she'd seen Ramza in Igros (and her resultant frustration) had stymied any artistic impulses. But just now, art seemed like the perfect thing for her.

So she sketched frantically. Midnight's Deep. Her captors. Her memories. For a week, driven by spite, she did several detailed drawings of Izlude. Vormav never reacted.

So she drew other things. Ovelia, as she remembered her. Ovelia, as she might be now, Queen of all Ivalice. The orchard outside the dilapidated Beoulve Estate in Lesalia. Orbonne, from various angles. Father Simon. Dycedarg. Zalbaag. Ramza. Her father. Her mother.

But she could not spend all her time drawing on her memories, and her emotions. She drew the cottage, and the surrounding landscape, and the ocean. Late one afternoon, she and Cletienne pulled chairs up to the side of the cliff, and Cletienne called up various Summons for her to sketch: a feather-limned cyclone he called Sylph, an earthen-skinned gigant he called Titan, and a serpentine shape of sinuous water he called Leviathan.

"It's a spell, like any other," Cletienne explained, as Leviathan spiraled through the air above them, its liquid bulk undulating into new suggestions of shapes.

"But it moves like it's alive!" Alma objected. Her papers were in her lap, forgotten. It was so hard to capture that tidal movement with charcoal.

"Magic is alive," Cletienne said. Leviathan swam in lazy circles just above their heads. The golden afternoon sun shimmered through its watery body, and cast distorted light around them in soothing ripples. "Every spell is a part of your will, a part of your soul, a part of your life. You give it instructions, and send it out into the world."

"Not like this." Alma gestured to Leviathan's serpentine movements around them.

"Well, no," Cletienne chuckled. "I am a rare talent." He waved his staff vaguely: Leviathan moved with it. "A Summon is...more like a Worker. The magic that fuels it can follow more elaborate directions. It can do more than an ordinary spell. With a Worker, you use magitek and machinery to help direct the inner magic. With a Summon, it's just the magic, ordered just so, willed just so. There are things you can do to make it easier—certain structures, certain ingredients. But you still need the right magic. The right will."

Eventually, Cletienne let Leviathan melt back into the sea. They shouldered their chairs and headed back to the cottage.

"There's a theory that there's no such thing as magical ability," Cletienne said. "There's just the matter of how well your soul aligns with your body. How capable you are of bringing your will into the material world."

Alma snorted. "I'm sure you like that theory."

Cletienne shrugged. "Is it any better than simply being born with it?" he asked. "In either case, it was luck. Lucky to be born with the right talent." He gave her a pointed look. "Lucky to be born into the right family."

Lucky. Right. Lucky, be born into a world where her father could never marry her mother. Lucky, that her father had the political capital and the carelessness of consequence to get both her and Ramza naturalized. Lucky, to live her life as a glorified piece of sought-after breeding stock.

Lucky, that all her blood meant nothing, before whatever alignment of soul or will would make her a host to this Bloody Angel. This Ultima.

She was so lost in her own fear, it took her awhile to notice Vormav's.

She should have noticed sooner. She had made a habit of studying her captors and keepers through her life, learning their flaws and foibles and quirks. To be fair, to her, however, she had never had keepers like these before. She never saw any of them sleep. She did see them tired—sometimes they returned from Midnight's Deep with healed wounds or burns, or with bags around their eyes. But they always seemed poised and confident, even when they slept.

So it took her awhile, to notice how terse and taciturn Vormav had become. How his silence seemed less foreboding, and more pensive. How his eyes often drifted out the window. How sometimes the air shimmered faintly around him, as though he were reaching out with magic she didn't understand, for reasons she didn't know.

Until, one day, when Cletienne stood guard upon her, Vormav returned from the Deep without Loffrey. When she asked him why, he didn't answer. And she finally understood what she was seeing: fear of kind she hadn't seen since the day Elmdor had died. It was a quieter fear—it lacked the sharp shock that had broken his self-control. But if she judged him rightly, it was no less deep.

And she remembered, what they'd spoken of weeks ago. About his plan, to feed Ultima. About a trap that would kill the Hokuten and the Nanten both. They had both sensed when Elmdor had died. Was it possible he could feel Ultima's strength? Feel when death fed the Maelstrom?

Could she do the same? Would she want to, if she could?

That was what she thought about, tying the two fears together. She kept her suspicions to herself—she would need to look for her moment, to confirm what she wanted to know—but she suddenly wondered if the connection between her and Ultima could go both ways. If she could somehow use the power of the Maelstrom against the Lucavi. The thought it made her skin crawl and her thoughts churn, brought back all those terrible flashes of soul-deep pain...

And yet. She had spent her life moving to the whim and will of others. In the course of that life, she had learned a little about how to swim in those currents—to choose how she moved, if nothing else. She had lost the knack with these captors, and their schemes. She was more scared than she'd ever been in her life.

But maybe she could beat them at their own game. Maybe she could master Ultima, rather than Ultima mastering her.

And even if she couldn't...well, why was Loffrey gone? Why was Vormav so afraid? It could only be that his trap had failed. It could only be that something—someone—had gotten in his way again.

She didn't know it was Ramza, who'd left Vormav so afraid. But she believed.

She didn't know where to begin reaching out for the Maelstrom. She focused on her magic, and her memories. She asked Cletienne the most innocuous questions she could think of, so he wouldn't suspect her. She tried to imagine her magic like a summon, a sort of messenger bird flying up into the sky, out of the world, into whatever shadow place that red Maelstrom swirled. Sometimes she felt some dim sense of...something. When she had time to focus properly (usually at night), she would feel like she could sense the Maelstrom in the same way you can sense the direction of the sun with your eyes clothed, a brighter kind of darkness.

But she gotten no further than that, when Loffrey's low voice woke her from her sleep some weeks later.

"-cannibalized a Worker." Loffrey's voice was soft. "It's the only reason he's still alive."

"Like the old Soldiers?" Vormav asked. "Impressive."

"He was still in bad shape," Loffrey said. "It took a lot to get a clear answer."

No one spoke again for awhile. Alma's heart fluttered in her chest. But she knew from experience they could sense when she was awake. If she wanted answers, she might as well ask for them.

So she took a deep breath, and sat up, and stared at their shadows in the dark dining room. Neither of them seemed surprised to see her awake.

"Your plan failed," Alma said.

"Yes," Vormav answered.

"Ramza?"

Vormav chuckled. "And Delita, I think."

Alma's heart leapt in her chest. "How?"

"Hard to be sure," Vormav said. She could hear the ire in his voice...and the exhaustion. He wasn't even trying to hide it. "I knew they had defeated Zalera...but their achievements extend far beyond that, too. It appears they uncovered our whole plan. Beat Cardinal Bremondt. And between them..." He shook his head. "Almost no one died at Bethla Garrison. The armies are unbroken...and the war unfought." He looked moodily out the window. "Ultima remains unfed."

She heard the weakness in his voice. She heard the doubt. Now was her moment.

"Let me go."

Loffrey's head snapped towards her. Vormav didn't move. Neither spoke.

Into their silence, Alma pressed, "You called him a spider. You called humans bugs. But look at us. Look at him. Look at them." She leaned forwards on the bed. "They killed the Cardinal. They killed the Marquis. They killed Wiegraf. They stopped a war. They're going to stop you, too." She stood up. "You're not going to get what you want. You're going to get yourself killed. You're going to get them killed. Let me go."

Loffrey was still staring at her. Vormav was not. Vormav was not looking at anyone. Vormav was glowing. Vormav was darkening. Vormav's shadow hung over the table. Vormav was like a golden sun blazing in a midnight sky. Vormav was monstrous and magnificent, and in every flash of his power she caught a hint of the Maelstrom. She felt that light burning behind her eyes; she felt the shadows clinging to her bones.

"You still do not understand." His voice rippled in the light, and thundered in the dark. "I hoped to find an easy solution, to the ants that swarm within my master's house. I hoped to find a clever one, when no one easy ones appeared. But now?" The light was so terrible that she was forced to shut her eyes, but still she saw the light, blazing past her eyelids, blazing inside her mind, and still she felt the darkness, sinking through her like cold, and they were shaping each other now, shaping each other into the lion demon and something more than the lion demon, as though she had looked at only a painting of him before and could now see the real thing, feel the real thing.

"Now? I will have to crush them all myself."

The light and the darkness receded like the tide. Her unsteady legs shook beneath her: she sank back onto the bed, trembling. Vormav, now a mere shadow in the dark, glanced at Loffrey. "Rest," he ordered.

Loffrey nodded, and lowered his head, and seemed to go to sleep at once.

But Alma couldn't sleep. Alma was too full of the echoes of the darkness, and the light. Too full of the awful presence of Hashmalum. He was a lesser thing, than the thing he intended to pour into her. And lesser though he was, the weight of him still stunned her. Again, she had that awful sensation of enormous forces moving beyond her ability to see them—like distant ripples in the water, like the thickening of the air before a storm.

She could not command such forces. She could not control them, counter them, commandeer them. It was going to hurt. It was going to happen. She couldn't imagine stopping it.

And yet...yet Ramza had stopped it. Stopped them. Over and over again. She had always imagined she was her brothers' equal, consigned to restless ignominy by her father's blindness and her brothers' refusal to go their own ways. If she was really their equal, shouldn't she have some way forwards? Shouldn't she be able to do something?

She did not sleep. Neither did Vormav. He sat, still and silent, at the table. She sat, still and silent, on the bed. Her thoughts turned on themselves, over and over, until the door creaked open. Cletienne staggered inside, hazy in the pre-dawn light.

"I've mapped most of the upper level!" Cletienne crowed. "It's not a one-for-one match with your memories or the old blueprints, but there's enough left to be navigable. I'd say we..." He trailed off, as he noticed the atmosphere in the room. "What, uh..."

"Bethla Garrison still stands," Vormav answered. "As do the Hokuten. As do the Nanten."

Cletienne stared at him in disbelief. "How-?"

Vormav shrugged. "The how is irrelevant."

"Like hell it is," Alma whispered. She was tired, and frightened. That didn't mean she couldn't speak her mind.

Vormav did not look at her. Cletienne did. "Ah. Her brother." Vormav did not answer, and Cletienne looked back at him. "He's quite a problem for us."

"He's not the only one," Vormav said. "Delita did not kill Ovelia."

"You were going to kill Ovelia?" Alma demanded.

Vormav still did not look at her. "He proclaims her the rightful queen, with him as her loyal champion. Larg is dead, but Dycedarg survives-"

"And Dyce?" Alma cried.

"-and is reorganizing his forces." Vormav's voice had not wavered. "Neither risks open war."

Cletienne shook his head. "So...so what now?"

"So we will make open war."

Cletienne frowned. "Meaning what?"

Vormav stood up. "How long will it take you to feel at full-strength? And I want an honest answer."

Cletienne considered. "If someone else handles guard duty...two days."

"Good." Vormav looked at Loffrey. "And you?"

Loffrey's head was still bowed, and his eyes closed: he nodded, ever so slightly.

"Good." There was a low growl in Vormav's voice now. "When we are ready, Loffrey and I will begin making preparations. I will see if I cannot stir this war back into motion...or at the very least, recruit some allies. I imagine the Confessor feels as furious as I do. That should give us some leeway."

"And me?" Cletienne asked.

"You will be going to Pandemonium," Vormav answered. "And you will be taking her with you."

Cletienne gaped at him. "You can't be serious."

Vormav laughed. "I have been accused of many things in my lifetimes, Cletienne. Being unserious is not among them."

"But..." Cletienne shook his head. "I am not sure I can protect her."

"Then she will have to protect herself." Finally, Vormav looked at her. His eyes were distant and dismissive as a man regarding a bug upon his windowsill. "She is so confident in her worth. Surely she can manage that much."

Alma locked eyes with him, and refused to look away. Scared as she was, she would not be cowed.

"You're going to meet a legend, Alma Beoulve," Vormav said. "You're going to meet Elidibus."