(Next update 2/21/24. Thank you for reading.)
Chapter 153: The Weight of a Name: Dycedarg
There is a theology (bordering on heresy) that is quite popular in Goug. It posits that God is essentially a machinist, but one of incredible power and sophistication. He set up the machinery that governs that laws of reality, and then set the machine in motion.
When Dycedarg Beoulve had heard this theory from a daring young scholar at Gariland University, he had felt only a dim surprise at how shocked his classmates seemed. Of course the world and its people were mechanical in nature. That the mechanics were complex did not change that a canny mind could apply the right tools to the right part, and change the whole course of the machine.
Complexity follows from simplicity. A pebble, carelessly kicked on a mountaintop, becomes an avalanche: metal, carefully refined, becomes a swordpoint: a spark of fire, carefully ignited, can burn down a forest. This chain of simplicity to complexity, cause to effect, is how power is wielded. Kick the right pebble in the right place, and an avalanche destroys an enemy army; forge the right weapon, and put it in the right hands, and see a king die; set a man out with a flint, and watch a city burn on your command.
Dycedarg Beoulve had lived his life by these rules. He had moved some troops, and deposed the murderous Queen of Ivalice; he had seized a moment of chaos, and removed her brother; he had helped set Ivalice ablaze, and fanned or banked the flames as it suited him. Now, the war was nearly over, and Dycedarg Beoulve was Acting Regent, and bore a Zodiac Stone.
He reclined behind his desk, watching out the large picture window that framed his study. He had a rare moment to be idle—the papers were signed, troops dispatched on their various missions, Zalbaag on a tour of the frontlines to buoy the spirits of their troops before the final push. He had time to rest. Time to reflect.
The journey to this moment—to the moment when was on the precipice of being king of Ivalice in all but name—had been long, and treacherous, and strange. He had not imagined where it would end, when he had begun his studies as a child. His understanding of the world's complexity had been with him even then—instinctive, intuitive, and deeply frustrating to his more rigid-minded parents.
He asked questions he was not supposed to ask—about God, and the rules of their kingdom, and the nature of the world. His mother would soothe him with words of the Saint's Judgment, and God's mysterious ways; his father would chide him to remember the words of their house, Justice and Service, and the higher code of honor by which all nobles of Ivalice must live, to be worthy of their power and privilege. He took their answers seriously—they were his parents, and he loved and admired them with a child's sincerity and his own natural solemnity—but he always remembered a faint feeling of unease. The answers they gave him didn't really seem to fit the questions he asked.
He had had his first real insight into the nature of the world when he saw Bestrald Larg choking over his cake, white-faced with blood upon his blue-tinged lips, clutching at his throat. When he had shouted for help, shouted that the Prince had been poisoned, and raised what feeble magics he'd learned to try and save him.
He had learned several things in that moment. The first: that the knowledge he worked so hard to acquire had power. With his feeble magic, and his paltry knowledge, he had bought enough time for proper Healers to save young Bestrald. The second, and no less important: that for all his father's talk of honor, there were other ways to move through the world. With a simple poison slipped into a child's birthday cake, someone had almost changed the future of Ivalice. How different would the world have looked, if Bestrald Larg had never grown up?
There was a third lesson, though it had been years until Dycedarg had understood it. He had had to reckon with all the choices that had led up to Bestrald's poisoning, and all the consequences it had. His father's honor and justice had not saved Bestrald Larg. But then, all the cunning and treachery of the Larg cousin who had sought to poison the main family and take their power for himself had gained him nothing but a spot beneath the headman's axe when the desperate baker had confessed his crime. One boy, in the right place at the right time, had managed to bring all those careful plots to ruin, with just a few scraps of knowledge and the right intuition.
The third lesson was this: power and intelligence were not absolutes. The most brilliant plan can be laid low, with the slightest miscalculation. The mightiest warrior can be defeated, with the right piece of treachery. The mightiest army can be beaten, if you hit them just so. This is frightening knowledge, for a man born to power. But knowledge is neither good nor bad: it all depends on how we use it.
And Dycedarg had clung to that knowledge, as his mother died.
His mother, white-faced and wheezing, her lips always flecked with blood (just as Bestrald's had been when he had almost died). His younger brother, so scared as he clung to her hand and stayed by her side, singing to her in a teary voice. The Healers who had saved Bestrald were helpless to do more than ease her pain and help her snatch thin, rasping sleep.
All the power, and privilege, and honor, and justice of the Beoulve name could not save her. All the power, and privilege, and honor, and justice, of Balbanes Beoulve himself, could not change her fate.
There was a war, and his father could never stay at the Manor long. There was a war, and his father tried to be by his dying wife's side every moment he could. But soon enough some urgent message would come—the Hokuten needed him, the Nanten needed him, Baron Larg needed him, King Denamda needed him—and his father would go, with tears in his eyes and promises on his lips.
But watching him go, Dycedarg had seen something else in his father's eyes. He had seen relief, that he did not have to remain, and bear the unbearable fact of his own powerlessness in the face of the disease that was killing Claudia Beoulve.
Knowledge is neither good nor bad. Balbanes, confronted with the fact that there were things all his power and skill could not stop, welcomed the chance to flee from that knowledge. Dycedarg learned another lesson, watching his father. That the mightiest, bravest men were still men, flawed and fallible, with limits to that strength. Power of the mind, power of the arm, power of the spirit...all were contextual. All had limits.
Dycedarg Beoulve did not blame his father. But he had learned another lesson, as they interred her in the Beoulve graveyard, and Balbanes had held a sobbing Zalbaag with tears streaming down his weary face. There were other kinds of power than his father's. Other ways of living. Other ways of being. It was not Dycedarg's path to take his father's place. It was Dycedarg's path to complement it—to use his knowledge, his talents, his insight, to do what his father could not.
If Balbanes Beoulve still lived, would the Beoulve family sit so close to the throne of Ivalice? Dycedarg didn't think so. Dycedarg's plans, Dycedarg's deeds, Dycedarg's power, Dycedarg's will and spirit, had brought them to this place. They stood at the very apex of Ivalice. And here, they might rule for all-
Shouting.
He frowned, cocked his head. Many voices—some thin and pleading, some desperate, some confused. With every moment, the distant clamor grew louder. A slight trickle of ice down his spine: a phantom pain flitted across the long-healed scar upon his chest. He grabbed Service from its place beside him, fingering its sheathe as he eyed the door. He would not be caught off-guard again, the way he had by the Death Corps three years ago.
So thin and frail these years had been! After his time in Gariland, after assuming more and more of the responsibilities of both the head of the Beoulve family and as chief of staff of the Hokuten and Chancellor to the Largs! He had managed to snatch more and more power and prestige from the teeth of war and struggle, but he had not always managed to go unbitten. The Death Corps, and their attack upon the Beoulve Manor, was one bite. Ovelia's survival was another. Delita's position across the table from him was a third, and one he could never have imagined.
Delita Heiral, Knight-Commander of the Nanten...he'd always suspected the man was brighter than Ramza. But see how he proved Dycedarg's central theory! Power is always relative. Starting from nearly nothing, the common-born one-time ward of House Beoulve now stood nearly as high as Dycedarg himself.
There was a part of him, foolish and sentimental, that wondered if they could find a way to share power. His threat to Vormav, of an alliance between Hokuten and Nanten against the machinations of the Church, had not been empty. The things Delita Heiral must have done, to rise so high in just three years...yes, Dycedarg was sure that he would be willing to entertain an alliance.
But it would only ever be an alliance of convenience. They would always be looking to stick the knife in one another's back. And the very speed of Delita's meteoric ascent meant he was too dangerous to be trusted for any amount of time. The risk was worth it, with the Church as a potential enemy. Now, the Church was a near-certain ally. They would not have trusted him with a Zodiac Stone otherwise.
He glanced away from the door for a moment, and ran a finger along the Stone's smooth blue-green surface. It brightened at his touch: he marveled at that deep, luxuriant light, like a stormy sky glowing with hidden sunlight. What little faith he'd ever had in the Church was long behind him, but looking at the Stone almost made him want to believe in the Saint, and his miracles.
There were Ramza's accusations to think of, of course—of demons, set loose by the Stones. Dycedarg's lips pursed as he thought of his baffling little brother. Zalbaag made sense to him. Alma made sense to him. Ramza never had. Why had he refused to return to the Beoulves? Why did he cling to his feud with the Church, even as they denounced him in every corner of Ivalice? What exactly had he done at Bethla Garrison, and why had he done it?
The shouting in the Manor grew louder, and closer. Dycedarg hesitated a moment, then rose to meet it. No sounds of battle just yet—just anger and confusion. After another moment's hesitation, he picked the Zodiac Stone from its place upon his desk, and slipped it into a fold of his robes. Its weight was comforting against his chest.
He opened the door, nodded to Chloe standing guard by his door, and headed down the hall with her in tow. The entrance hall with its grand staircase was just visible at the end of the hallway when a white-faced Hokuten (Aldebrand, he thought: his guard was all hand-picked, well-paid and from low families) stumbled into view. "My lord!" he gasped. "Your brothers-"
The door to the halls burst open. Dycedarg glanced past him, and the ice froze in his veins.
At the head of a knot of Hokuten, all as baffled and frightened as Aldebrand, stood Zalbaag Beoulve. The rage in his blue eyes was so bright it stunned Dycedarg where he stood. He had seen such a look on his brother's face only once before—on the day the Death Corps had stormed the Manor, and nearly killed him. And just behind him, armed to the teeth, was Ramza.
The rage in Zalbaag's eyes was one thing—to see such a terrifying look on such a familiar face. But Ramza's narrowed gaze was somehow worse. In Ramza's gaze, Dycedarg did not see only rage—he saw precise calculation, focused fury. The anger in Ramza's eyes was whetted with intelligence. It looked sharp, and deadly.
The brother's gazes locked upon each other. Dycedarg felt his skin shriveling, from his scalp to his balls. His throat felt too dry to speak.
"Hokuten!" Zalbaag bellowed. "Place Dycedarg Beoulve under arrest for patricide!"
The cold in his veins widened into an icy void. Dycedarg's heart plummeted into that abyss, and his mind fell with it.
Patricide. Patricide? How could he know? No one knew, not even the Church. Dycedarg had hidden his deed too well. It had been the labor of years.
The seed of the idea had been planted with Bestrald's near-death. Dycedarg had not known the seed was there: not as he labored at Gariland, studying at its university and his academies, making himself into the perfect complement for his father. But he was not merely his father's complement: he was Bestrald's, too. And Louveria's.
The two boys had not been particularly close before Bestrald was poisoned: Dycedarg's invitation to the birthday party had been a mere formality, the son of the Hokuten's hereditary commander inviting the son of the Knight-Commander. Afterwards, they had been nearly inseparable. As a Prince (even one who could never inherit the throne), Bestrald could not attend the university or the academy: he was sequestered with royal tutors, particularly after his poisoning. But they saw each other whenever circumstances allowed, particularly on holidays.
It was on one such holiday from Gariland playing board games in Igros Castle as the rain pounded down outside, that Louveria had allowed him to see beneath her mask. The demure, soft-spoken girl sharper than her brother; she won nearly as many of their games as he did. And that was not the only sharp thing about her: she and Bestrald both saw the world so differently from his father. For them, the moral dimensions of the world were almost irrelevant. They saw things in terms of power—who had it, who wanted it, who used it, and how. They cared nothing for honor, or for faith. In them, Dycedarg found answer to the instinct that had been with him all his life. They were irreverent. They were brilliant. Dycedarg wanted to be like them.
They shared their first drinks together in the orchards at the decaying Beoulve Estate. When they were older, they explored the seedy underbelly of Lesalia. They made jokes about the Saint, and the Church, and the fools who held the reins of power all over Ivalice. The cowardly Grand Duke Barinten. The blustering fool Goltanna.
In the company of Bestrald and Louveria, Dycedarg had at last seen the fantasies and follies of his family for what they were. The fictions that Zalbaag, Father, and Mother clung to blinded them to their own power, and to the reality of the kingdom in which they lived. Bestrald and Louveria saw much more clearly. Born to even higher power and prestige than him, they understood what it meant, to use power. They understood how the world worked. And how dangerous it was.
The first time Louveria had slipped her arms around him in the dark of the Beoulve orchards outside Lesalia, some dim remnant of his father's foolish honor had made him hesitate to kiss her. "You're engaged-" he'd started.
"And?" she asked, with an imperious flick of her head that set her golden hair dancing around her face, and that was enough: he kissed her, and everything melted into clawing, lustful heat.
During his years in Gariland, he had only seen them in such rare holiday interludes. Any time without them left him half-mad. He would pace the Beoulve Estate like a caged panther, snapping at poor Zalbaag, who still believed their parents' lies. He could see the world so much more clearly now. Why couldn't anyone else?
But he had still been shocked when they had finally brought him into their plans. He was 17, just graduated from Gariland: Bestrald had already asked him to join his staff, as Bestrald himself prepared to inherit his ailing father's place as liege lord of Gallione. Again, they found their way to the Beoulve Estate outside Lesalia, more decrepit every time Dycedarg visited.
In the dusty dining room, Bestrald and Louveria sat across from him. Bestrald was pale: Louveria's brown eyes were hard as baked earth.
"You knew about poisons, years ago," Bestrald said. "I...assume you know more, now."
Dycedarg nodded. He had learned how to combat various poisons with magic, at Gariland's Magic Academy. And he had continued his own research, with visiting machinists and alchemists, in libraries in Lesalia, and Gallione, and Gariland, and a dozen other places besides.
"Is there a poison that looks like the Choking Plague?" Louveria asked.
Dycedarg's eyes flickered towards here. There was fire in those brown eyes now, like heat shimmering off the ground on a hot summer's day. "Why?"
"Why do you think?" she asked.
At that moment, the seed that Dycedarg had not known was planted in him had started to sprout. At that moment, he followed the lessons he'd learned these last few years to their natural conclusion. If the world was defined by power, then binding yourself with honor and morality was the same as trying to fight a battle with your limbs bound in chains. He had once heard a philosophical debate at Gariland University, about whether the ends justified the means. That was a pointless question. What matter your means, if they did not achieve the end you desired?
And there was such a poison. Mosfungus spores, sparingly applied, would build up in the bodies of those who ingested it. Done just right, the symptoms would be nigh-indistinguishable from Choking Plague.
Not long after Louveria's wedding, King Denamda IV died of Choking Plague. Other accidents had already claimed his other sons—other poisons, from Dycedarg's hands to Louveria's, from Louveria's hands to royal cups. The Larg dynasty would replace the Atkascha, as soon as Louveria bore a child.
But that was later. That first night, when they had brought him into their plans, Dycedarg had stared at Louveria from her place curled against him in the orchard. "You'll...poison him," he said. "After you...sleep with him."
That same heat in her eyes, bestial and dangerous and delicious. Dycedarg felt himself growing hard looking at her. "And?" she asked.
"It doesn't bother you." It wasn't a question.
"Why would it?" she asked. "My father sold me off to secure us a higher place. I was worth selling, because the Atkaschas needed Hokuten loyalty to hold off the Empire." She laughed. "You know the Council of Lords wanted to broker peace with the Ordallians. Give them Zelmonia again. But the Atkascha's couldn't have that. Because then all Ivalice would turn their rage upon them. How much gil spent, how much blood spilled, because one king wanted to build an empire?" She shrugged, and her eyes cooled. "And besides...he'll be my son. My family." Her fingernails traced a path up Dycedarg's thigh. "That's a rare thing."
And so Dycedarg had learned another lesson—both from what Louveria had said, and what she had not said. The shy, demure girl he'd known before he saved Bestrald's life had only ever been a disguise for this creature beneath—passionate, brilliant, powerful. And that disguise had been necessary. Because now, when the royal line fell to her, and the throne of Ivalice with it...no one would know the danger, until it was too late.
But what she'd said was true, too. There were things worth cherishing, and protecting, as much as you could. The fictions his father and brother believed in had their kernel of truth. Understanding that truth might help you better build your mask, so you could do what needed doing, and reach the end you sought.
So Dycedarg had mostly put aside his irreverent self, playing it off as a phase of arrogance in his youth. He found it useful to maintain some part of that self—the more cynical, sardonic, calculating chancellor to his father's steadfast, straightforward commander—but it was always couched as being another aspect of the Beoulves. Another aspect of honor and loyalty. So no one would know, when he began to plot for himself. How to put the Beoulves on the throne of Ivalice. How to put himself on the throne of Ivalice.
So close. So close. And now his idiot brothers stood before him, threatening to put his plans to ruin.
Dycedarg took a deep breath, as the dryness in his throat faded. He stepped into the entrance hall, gesturing for Chloe to remain behind him. "Brothers-" he started.
"Don't." Zalbaag's voice shook with rage. "Don't you dare."
Dycedarg looked slowly around the room. The Hokuten stared between the three Beoulves in disbelief and horror. Zalbaag was trembling. Ramza was not. Ramza was watching him with that same strange gaze.
Was this really the boy who had fretted so about the need to kill? Was this really the child Dycedarg had dreamed might need protecting? No, Dycedarg had not always thought of him as such: when his father had sent letter announcing the birth of his bastard half-brother, rage and fear had filled Dycedarg like liquor, blacking out all other thoughts, all other feelings. Fresh from slipping poison into the hands of the Largs, and his father brought home a bastard who might threaten their claim. Who knew what ruin such a bastard could bring?
But ten years on, he had met the boy and his sister. Ten years on, he had seen a child so out-of-his-depth that Dycedarg could not help but pity him. And he had seen the loss in his eyes, too: the loss Dycedarg had felt, when his own mother had died.
But it was Alma Beoulve who truly changed things. Especially after Orinus Atkascha had been born. Alma Beoulve, and another lesson Dycedarg hadn't known he'd learned. A lesson Louveria had brought home, the last time he'd seen her.
The war was going badly. The Ordallians were resurgent: they had almost finished retaking Zelmonia, and threatened to march into Ivalice proper. King Ondoria was a fool, more out-of-his-depth even than young Ramza. And the years of fighting and plague had taken their toll: no army had the manpower or the supplies to stand up to the Ordallians for long.
They needed to push for peace. At the very least, they needed a ceasefire, to buy themselves time to reorder their forces. And Dycedarg had been hard at work with the diplomatic corps when words came to him that King Ondoria had fallen ill. The Healers feared it was Choking Plague.
So Dycedarg had gone to the Lion's Den, with papers only the King could sign, crucial troop dispositions for the Nanten and the Hokuten, crucial treasury documents to move needed gil to buy more supplies. In between his urgent errands, he had found an excuse to visit Louveria, and coo over newborn Orinus.
"He has your face," Dycedarg murmurred, staring down at the sleeping Crown Prince.
"He has my everything," Louveria answered. The look on her face was one he'd never seen before—so tender, so kind, so honest.
"Strange, how the Plague takes some, and leaves others untouched," Dycedarg mused. "Strange his father should fall ill-"
"The Lord works in mysterious ways," Louveria answered.
"I believe he will make a recovery," Dycedarg replied. In fact, he knew it: he had slipped one of Mosfungus' few treatments into the tea he had helped the king sip in his sicked.
He saw the old heat in Louveria's eyes, even as she tried to look somber. "We can but hope. But so many have been lost."
Dycedarg nodded. "Too true." He looked around the lushly appointed nursery, with its soft carpets and elaborate murals. When he was sure no one was in sight, he turned back to her, still smiling, and said in a cheerful voice, "I never took you for a fool."
Fire in her eyes. She smiled as though he'd told a joke. "You are talking to your Queen."
"And if your husband dies so soon after his family, you will be declared a regicide." He smiled fondly down at Orinus. "What becomes of all your plans then?"
"I have spent years waiting for this moment," Louveria said, looking down at her son. "I have planned, and labored, and sacrificed more than you can imagine. Remember who I am, Dyce." Her eyes flicked back up to him, and she put a hand on his shoulder. "Or maybe you will find the finger points at you, if anyone asks too many questions about Ondoria's health."
Dyce bowed. "Of course, Your Majesty."
He had left the room, smiling fondly. He had felt no fear—he was scrupulous about making sure his own drinks were free of poison, and Louveria could not accuse him without implicating herself. He felt sad, more than anything—sad that a friend he loved would risk so much, so carelessly. But it had helped him make up his mind, about what he had to do.
Louveria had risen high enough that she thought she could discard her mask. But that was a mistake of youth—a mistake that should be behind them. The mask mattered. The lie mattered. Balbanes Beoulve, Messam Elmdor, Cidolfas Orlandeau, Wiegraf Folles...their names became the stuff of legend, because of the fictions they lived by. The ends mattered more than the means, yes...but the means determined what ends you could reach.
So he let her dig her grave. Let her take more and more control of Lesalia, and the government of Ivalice. Did less and less to quiet the mumbling and grumbling of the Council of Lords. Chaos spread slowly from the capital, as the old structures and strictures were paralyzed by infighting. And in the east, the Ordallians advanced, slowly but surely.
A sword cannot be reforged without first being melted down. A foundation cannot be rebuilt without first tearing apart the house which stands upon it. They had had a chance to do things more peacefully, more constructively. But that chance was behind them now. Now it would be chaos, and destruction, with the hope of building something better when they were done.
So Dycedarg bided his time. Until the day they'd spent in Lesalia with Ramza, Alma, Delita, and Teta. A day spent in drinking, and eating, and playing. A day of rare ease, bought only because the Ordallians had paused their advance to gather their forces for a new offensive. As Zalbaag dueled Delita and Ramza, laughing as he effortlessly deflected their best attacks, Dycedarg and Balbanes slipped inside to find more wine.
"You spoke with Ambassador Lennario?" Dycedarg said, as he looked for the wine he'd set aside.
His father nodded. "For all the good it did." He sighed. "The Ordallians sense our weakness."
"They're not the only ones," Dycedarg answered, as he uncorked the bottle and poured them each a glass.
His father laughed shortly. "No. I suppose you're right."
Dycedarg handed his father his glass. His father drained half the glass in one swig. "I'm afraid, Dyce." He looked up. His father looked as weary as he had the days when Dyce's mother lay dying. "We can drive them back, but...how many people will die to see it so?"
This was the moment Dycedarg had been waiting for. He set his own glass down, untouched, and said, "We may have some say in that."
His father smiled ruefully. "Not as much as I would like."
"You have more say than most," Dycedarg insisted. "When Balbanes Beoulve speaks, people listen. If you point out the reason for our ruin..."
The weariness in his father's face changed, deepened. His green eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." Dycedarg leaned towards his father. "For the past fifty years, the fate of Ivalice has rested with the man who sits upon its throne. Our fortunes changed when one King Denamda died. When the second passed..." He paused, considering his father. "Before his time. Just like his sons."
An unfamiliar look in his father's eyes. Deadly. Focused. Dycedarg liked that look. Dycedarg saw hope in that look.
"What are you saying?" his father asked.
Dyced took his father's hand. "It's hard, father. Looking at you. Look at Zal. Watching you kill yourselves to keep our kingdom safe. And for what?" Now was the moment: "For a king who-"
"Don't." His father's voice was ragged.
"-who rises to power through poison and treachery!" Dycedarg pressed.
His father shook his head. "That's treason, Dyce."
"It's treason to speak the truth?" Dycedarg asked.
"The plague took so many-"
"And you don't think it's suspicious that it took all of King Denamda's other children?" Dycedarg asked. "So soon before it took Denamda himself?"
His father looked terribly pale. His lips were compressed into a thin, bloodless line.
"Ivalice bleeds, father," Dycedarg said. "It bleeds from predators without, and parasites within. I would not expect Ondoria to long survive, now that Louveria has a son. The kingdom will sit in thrall to a queen guilty of mariticide, fratricide, patricide, and regicide."
His father closed his eyes. "You have proof?"
"If I did, would you act?"
"And what exactly would you have me do?" Balbanes' asked.
"The parents' sins need not fall to their children," Dycedarg said. "Lead the Hokuten to arrest Louveria. Serve as her child's regent. The royal line will continue unbroken. And we can guide Ivalice aright."
The die was cast. If his father acted now, they could repair the kingdom. His father as regent, Dycedarg as his chancellor, Zalbaag in command of the Hokuten. Count Orlandeau would quiet any grumbling among the Nanten. Without Louveria sowing chaos in the capital, they could rally the nobles, and strengthen the frontlines. They would win the 50 Years' War. And the Beoulves would lead Ivalice properly—with honor and justice, from his father and brother, and with Dycedarg managing the brutal realities. Ivalice as it should be.
And then his father shook his head, and the hope in Dycedarg's chest went out.
"I lead the Hokuten only by grace of the Largs-" his father began, and that was too much for Dycedarg: finally, he snapped.
"You lead the Hokuten by virtue of your strength, and skill, and courage!" Dycedarg shouted, jerking his hand away from his father "And you would let it and the kingdom you claim to love languish in the care of those who would let it bleed just so they can feast on its corpse!" He caught himself, took a steadying breath. "People believe in you, Father. With your word, we can bring justice those on high, in service to the kingdom. Please...!"
His father closed his eyes for a moment. He set the wineglass down on the table. The lines on his face seemed deeper than Dycedarg had ever seen them. "What would happen if I did, Dyce?" he asked.
Dycedarg blinked. "What?"
"I do as you ask," Balbanes said. "I betray my liege lord-"
"Father-"
"I betray my king-"
"For justice!"
Balbanes shook his head. "What justice is it, to depose the men to whom I have sworn oaths of loyalty without proof of their malfeasance? But forget that for a moment, Dyce: forget how you would have me bring dishonor to myself, and to the Beoulve name-"
"That's not-"
"What is to stop us from tearing each other apart?" Balbanes asked.
"We're tearing each other apart now!"
"We are fighting a war!"
"You're fighting a war!" Dyce cried. "And while brave men like you kill and die, the men you swear your loyalty to kill each other for a chance at power-"
"And you would have me join such dishonor?" His father rose to his feet. He was still powerfully-built—his shoulders as broad as his forehead, his green eyes flashing with fire. Dycedarg, ilms taller than him now for years, fought the urge to step back from him. "You would have me show the kingdom that all one needs is strength of arm to take what you want? What kind of kingdom would be left, if I did such a thing? What kind of world?"
Quiet footsteps by the door. Dycedarg did not need to look back to know Zalbaag had heard them fighting.
"What kind of world do we live in now?" Dycedarg whispered, and swept out of the room before his father could see the tears in his eyes.
Fool to the last. Clinging to his delusions like they could save him. God hadn't saved Claudia Beoulve as she lay dying. Loyalty wouldn't save Ivalice, as the people you swore your oaths to plotted and killed and burned the lives of their subordinates away for a fleeting chance at greater glory. Justice and service would not protect Ivalice. They couldn't even protect Balbanes Beoulve.
He had slipped the first bit of Mosfungus into his father's drink months ago. The wine he'd taken tonight contained more. The first signs would be mistaken for age and the weariness of war. When things reached their tipping point, it would look like Choking Plague.
Dycedarg was not Louveria. He did not act now simply because he could: because he was tired of wearing masks, eager for naked power. Naked power was a lie. Power was always relative. The Beoulves could use their power to climb higher, and build a worthy Ivalice...but only if they stopped clinging to fantasies and delusions. His father would not put aside his fantasies, so he had to be removed.
It was regrettable. It was necessary. And Dycedarg Beoulve would not pretend a thing wasn't true, just to flatter some fantasy of honor.
So he had taken the reins of the Beoulve family. So he had made a rough peace with Louveria, while allowing her to create more and more enemies for herself. Assassinating Ovelia had been part of that plan: Goltanna would take the blame, but Louveria would upset still more of the kingdom as she tried to execute him, and by the time the dust had settled, he would be poised to take the throne.
Then the Church had offered him a far firmer chance at glory. Once Alma was betrothed to Orinus, Dycedarg would no longer be acting regent. And once Alma bore Orinus a child...well. His family history of illness was well-documented. And the Beoulves would be part of Ivalice's ruling dynasty for all time.
So close now. So close. And here stood Zalbaag, and here stood Ramza, with heat and hate in their eyes. They would care nothing for what was lost. They would cling to childish fantasies, and bring ruin to their family, and to their kingdom.
Dycedarg nodded, and waved a hand around the room. "Stand down," he said. "I will go peacefully." He started to lower his sheathed sword to the ground, then paused. "You'll want the Stone, as well." He gestured towards his chest. Ramza and Zalbaag exchanged sidelong-glances.
Now.
He reached for the Stone. At the same moment, he stepped forward, so the tip of one foot rested on the tip of the sheathe. A flick of his left thumb, and he had drawn Service and the Capricorn Stone in the same smooth motion. He thrust the blade at his brother willed: golden light unfurled like wings, and swept towards Ramza and Zalbaag. With his other hand, he thrust the blue-green Stone towards the sky.
"The Church warned me of this!" he cried. "Ramza consorts with the Lucavi of old! The Church has been raising Braves to fight him! He's corrupted Zal-"
He broke off, gasping, feeling the magic draining from him as the golden light swirled in front of him like water down a drain. When it was gone, Ramza was pounding towards him, a long katana in his gauntleted hand. The hate in his green eyes was stunning.
Ramza swung his sword. It met Chloe's blade, as she stepped in front of him.
"Protect Lord Beoulve!" she cried, and Hokuten soldiers drew their weapons and hurtled forwards.
"Get back!" Behind Ramza and Chloe, Zalbaag was swinging Justice: bursts of shimmering force radiated out from the sword, knocking Hokuten backwards, flinging them through the air, throwing them against walls. But there at least a dozen Hokuten in the foyer, and more around the mansion, racing towards the sounds of battle. Twenty-two men, a stronger honor guard to resist any chance raids, even Ramza and Zalbaag couldn't-
Thkt, and as a blade cut through flesh and leather and steel warm blood flecked against Dycedar'gs face, and Chloe tumbled down in front of him as Ramza lunged over her body, the shining katana in his hand, his eyes blazing.
Ramza, cutting down a Hokuten soldier with such careless ease. Ramza, the hopeless boy who had been more deluded with fantasies of honor than any of them, because they were all he understood of what it meant to be a Beoulve. Ramza, his little brother, who he had wanted so badly to protect, and so badly to teach. Ramza, lunging towards him for the kill.
"Back, demon!" Dycedarg cried, slashing towards him in turn, and the slash was a crescent of fire. But Ramza cut through the fire as thought it were so much fabric, flame swirling down into him just the way the light had. That was the Draining Blade. Gaffgarion's art.
Dycedarg fell back from him as Hokuten soldiers closed around him, jabbing with his sword to fling clouds of shadow at his little brother. Ramza darted between two clouds, cut through another, rolled away from a Hokuten soldier closing upon him. When he came to his feet, his hand was on his wrist, and-
Dycedarg snapped his sword up, just in time: his wall of wavering gold met the bolt of lightning Ramza flung against him in an explosion of shimmering sparks.
Dycedarg stared in disbelief at Ramza. Only three years since they'd last laid eyes on each other. How could he have learned such magic? How could he have learned such skill?
But the questions were mere embers against the darkness closing in around his thoughts. Ramza's green eyes stared into his, cold and steady and dangerous. He was reaching for the bow slung across his back.
Dycedarg twisted, jabbed his sword to the ceiling with pure kinetic force. Pieces of debris rained down around Ramza:Ramza simply raised one hand, and answered with force of his own, a blast that scattered the falling rubble in all directions.
But Dycedarg was already moving. Had to get away from those eyes. From that strength. This felt like a nightmare: nothing quite made sense, even as the horror and danger swam steadily closer.
"DYCE!"
Dyce turned, as Zalbaag charged: A Hokuten soldier stepped into his path: with a blast of force from Justice's edge, the soldier's charred body crashed over the staircase railing. Still, Zalbaag kept coming. Zalbaag, so capable and so narrow, a sword that knew nothing but how to cut, because he was so polluted with their parent's foolishness that he could not envision another kind of world. Zalbaag, ripping towards him with his shining sword in hand.
Dyce raised his sword in a clumsy parry, and realized his mistake too late. As Justice slashed down upon him like a falcon diving from on high, it was not just shining, but burning. Burning with all the bright brutality of the Bursting Blade.
Time slowed. The darkness shrouded Dycedarg's every thought. His two foolish brothers were going to kill him. Vaguely, behind Zalbaag, Dyce could see a world of ruin—soldiers smashed and wounded and scattered. A dozen men, defeated in scant seconds. It didn't matter if the other soldiers got here in time. They couldn't stop this. Nothing could stop this.
He met his brother's blade as best he could. He bent the magic as best he could. But it was a long time since Dycedarg Beoulve had had to fight for his life, and Zalbaag Beoulve was a legend for a reason. It was all he could do to defray the worst of the explosion—a roar of bone-breaking thunder that shattered the staircase around them. The heat of it seared his skin: he felt his clothes melting at the force of it.
He was going to die. Zalbaag was going to kill him. It was all going to be for nothing.
He screamed, and his scream was all his desperate fury, and the explosion burst outwards in all directions. It flung Dycedarg backwards up the breaking stairs as it flung Zalbaag back down them. He crashed against the wall at the top of the staircase, already staggering down the hall with tears pouring from hims half-blind eyes, too-warm against his burned cheeks.
With every step, the shock wore off. With every step, he felt his injuries more keenly. His chest felt tight and sharp where his ribs had broken: Service dropped from numb fingers, as steady waves of electric pain throbbed up from a break in his wrist. Still, he stumbled on. He could escape. He could...
A sound from behind him—a faint thoom, like the swing of a Mag Knight's sword. Someone was after him. Someone was coming. His brothers, coming to kill him. His brothers, bringing ruin to their house.
He clutched the Capricorn Stone tight against his chest with his right hand, and shouldered his way through another door. He blinked tears from his sunspotted eyes, and only then realized where he'd found himself. There was no dust here—the staff kept it clean, though no one had used it since the Marquis had rested here. His parents' bedroom.
How many lessons had Dycedarg learned in this room? The lesson he'd learned, watching his mother die: the lesson he'd learned, studying the Marquis who had lived because of Ramza and Zalbaag's deluded folly; the lesson he'd learned, when his father had brought him in to speak of how he'd saved Bestrald.
It was late at night—the day had been a rabid, rapid mess, as soldiers and diplomats and notables hurried to and fro, Healers joining their magic together over the young Prince, his parents full of fear. Dycedarg had answered their questions precisely, over and over, as the numbness spread across his thoughts. Finally his mother and father had taken him home. His mother had doted on him, running a hand across his forehead (he remembered that hand now, so soft and warm, its gentleness reaching him even through the spreading numbness). After a little while, she had stood up, and left the room, and Balbanes had knelt in front of him. His hair was still as blonde as Dycedarg's then, only just beginning to silver at the edges. His blue eyes had been so terribly kind.
"My son," he said softly. "Oh, my son." He squeezed Dycedarg's knees. Dycedarg had always loved the feel of his father's hands—they same gentleness as his mother's, but the gentleness was cautious, deliberate. You could feel the strength behind those hands, held at bay for your sake.
"I want to tell you that you are much too young, to do as you have done," his father whispered. "But if that were true, Prince Larg would be dead." His calloused fingers traced a soothing path through Dycedarg's neat blonde hair. "We cannot look away, from the world that contains such horrors. We can only use our gifts to face those horrors, and to make this world a better place. And you, Dycedarg Beoulve..." He smiled, though there were tears in his eyes. "Young as you are...you have already changed the fate of the kingdom. It will not be the last time." He cupped his son's cheek in his calloused hand. "I'm so proud of you."
The numbness gave way like breaking ice, and all Dycedarg's feelings had come flooding back: with one wild sob, he had buried his face his father's broad chest, and wept as his father murmured soothing words.
Now, thirty years afterwards, Dycedarg stood in his parents' bedroom, alone. The pain was flooding in. So was the fear. His father was dead. So was his mother. No one could save him.
And there was light.
It was as though someone had drawn back the curtains, but the curtain was not merely physical: it was fundamental. The sea light that filled the room, filled his soul, was so bright, so deep, so complex, that it trickled beneath the skin of things—his skin, and the skin of the world. He saw it radaite from the fabric of his parents' bed, swirl in ripples and eddies within the carpeted floor. He felt it soothing the worst of his hurts. He felt it building in him, buoying him. It was as though the strongest spells he'd ever cast were surging together in that light, such power and potential as he had not felt since he was 17 on the streets of Lesalia, capable of anything.
He looked down to the source of the light. He looked down to the Capricorn Stone, its surface wet with his blood. And he remembered the rumors that shrouded Ramza Beoulve, and his deeds. The rumors of what the Cardinal had become. What had befallen Riovanes. Even before he heard the voices all around, all throughout him, he understood.
"What power...you have...to give..." he whispered. "Give...to me. I will pay...any...price."
Thy will be done.
It was one voice that was many voices: it was layered, woven together like a chorus singing one song, but the single will beneath that song was beyond doubt. That will was already inside him, strengthening him: he reached for it, and it reached for him.
Pain was extinguished, as though it had never been. So was weakness. So was fear. As those voices (those souls) joined his, fused with his, the power mounted like a fever, orgasmic in its all-consuming intensity. His mind accelerated, faster and faster and faster, as memories of lives he'd never lived filled him like rivers pouring into the sea, and he was that sea, he was power incarnate, his will would be done however her willed it.
"OUR will be done!" Dycedarg laughed. And that laughter was power, that laughter was impunity, that laughter was will. But more than anything, that laughter was fury. Fury at a world that had always refused to be what it could be. Fury at a world that had refused to let strong hands and stronger minds show it the way, clinging instead to fantasies and lies.
Andrammelech the Wroth would show the human race their folly. Starting with his brothers.