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Chapter 86: Sisters
She was scared, and she used that fear. She asked her hesitant questions in a trembling voice, and watched her captors with wide, terrified eyes. She obeyed their commands as soon as they were given (though never perfectly, always forgetting some small detail, then rushing to cover her mistake with breathless apologies as her eyes watered with tears). She played the part of the perfect captive, the noble damsel who had no hope but outside rescue.
They had taken her ring. And even when she'd had the ring, they'd beaten her effortlessly. If she was going to escape, she had to wait for her chance.
Perhaps it was her air of fearful uncertainty, or perhaps it was the fact she was a woman, or the circumstances of her noble birth, or a combination of all of the above; her captors (her terribly young captors, all younger than she was, maybe younger than she'd been when Ramza had first gone to save Teta) treated her with polite disdain, and perhaps the faintest hint of frustration. She was bound, and manhandled, but otherwise treated with relative respect, and relative kindness.
Izlude received no such kindness. And Alma did not have to fake the fear and disgust she felt at the way they treated him.
He was suspended in the same choking stillness that had left Alma gasping (she could see that stillness, his body dim and dark as though fading from this reality), pulled white-faced and choking out of the darkness only to be pummeled, beaten, stabbed, and when they were finished with him he was plunged into the darkness again. Three of his fingers were broken by the time they reached Riovanes Castle, and his breathing wheezed unsteadily where they'd cracked his ribs.
Always the same questions. "What do the Templars want? What is your plan for the Stones? What power do the Stones have? What is the Confessor's next move?"
Izlude never answered, and so his torment continued.
She broke her pretense of fear only once, late one night when the rail-thin girl (Clarice?) leapt skywards to disappear from view, and all her companions slept in their camp. She and Izlude had been tied together against the trunk of a thick grey tree, and his breath whistled arrhythmically beside her.
"Can't you tell them some of what they want to know?" Alma hissed. "Hell, just lie to them!"
Izlude did not speak for awhile. This far north, a cold wind blew across the coastal swamps. They were on the pontoon road of rolled logs that formed the only real path through this part of Fovoham, camped in a little copse of wood on the edge of a fetid marsh. The air was clammy against her skin, the mud squelching beneath her: she felt Izlude shuddering at her side.
"Can't," he grunted at last.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Won't," grunted Izlude. There were tears in his voice, barely suppressed. "My father...my vows..."
She'd heard that mixture of doubt and determination before. How many times had Ramza said something similar? In spite of herself, she closed her eyes, and focused on that spot of warmth behind her solar plexus. Even without a ring, there were a few basic magics she could wield. She tried to exude warmth like a sun, mixed with healing light. Her head swam unsteadily, but beside her, Izlude breathed a little easier.
It was three days since that conversation, and two days since they'd reached the magnificent bulk of Riovanes; two days since she was interned in this guest bedroom, free of chains and bonds. A single guard in the dull maroon of Fovoham's Khamja kept watch outside her door, and plates of hot food were brought to her three times a day. The castle even had indoor plumbing to rival Igros Castle and the Beoulve Manor.
A comfortable cell, no denying it. But still a cell, and Alma was no closer to escaping today than she had been a week ago.
She was still thinking of escape when her door swung open. Rafa and Malak—she had learned the names of all her captors while they kept their watch over her—entered. "Your presence is requested," Malak said, in a thin, dismissive voice. It would have been haughty if it weren't so young and pretentious.
Alma nodded, and rose with her head downcast. "Where are my clothes?" she asked in a small voice. The blue dress she was wearing fit surprisingly well, but she missed the clothes that Ramza and his friends had pulled together for her. They made her feel more confident.
"What does it matter?" Malak spat.
"They're being cleaned," Rafa said, in a consoling voice.
"Rafa-" Malak growled.
"What harm can there possibly be in her knowing that?" Rafa demanded.
Alma glanced up, surprised at the strength in Rafa's voice. In the short time she'd known the other girl, she'd barely spoken a word, and when she had, she had been all unthinking obedience. But Rafa was looking right at her, trying to smile in a reassuring way. "We have to make sure they conceal no secrets. Your brother and his friends are crafty warriors, after all."
"Don't tell the prisoner our secrets," scowled Malak.
"She's barely a prisoner!" Rafa protested. "And after today-"
"Silence!" barked Malak, and Rafa obeyed, with a furtive, guilty look at Alma. "She is still a prisoner!" He turned blazing eyes on her. "Hands." The young voice sounded like a child play-acting.
Trying to stifle her suicidal urge to laugh, Alma extended her hands, as Malak quickly and competently bound them with complex knots. Her mind was racing, however; what did Rafa mean, "after today"? Were they going to set her free? Why would they?
There was a plan for her. A purpose. And she knew exactly who such purpose must have come from.
She allowed them to lead her out of her room, down the stone hallway. The farther they walked, the more luxurious were the accommodations. From bare stone floors to simple rugs, from simple rugs to luxurious carpets, tapestries, and mosaics, to...my god, she even saw one of the old Ydoran pictures, a fluid form that seemed like a window into another world, of chocobos racing up a green hillside.
"How..." Alma managed, staring in disbelief. She had seen only one such window in her life—at the very heart of Mullonde, an image of airships flying above the Ydororan capital, of air limned with light and glory.
"You'll know soon enough," said Rafa.
But Alma did not need Rafa to give her answers. She had learned well enough from her brothers and teachers: if there is something you wish to know, you must rely upon yourself. She had heard rumors of Barinten's power, his reach, his fascination with arts both foreign and Ydoran. The windows above had been rare in the heyday of the empire, rarer still in the hands of the people picking at its ruins. Barinten was a collector of the rare and powerful.
Am I to be a part of his collection? Alma asked herself.
Are you calling yourself rare and powerful? she answered.
It took every ounce of self-control she had not to giggle at her own joke. She maintained her half-pretense of fear and subservience until she was led up a stairwell to what she guessed was the salon of the Duke's personal apartment.
He was a fat man with a bald pate that gleamed in the runelight, his luxurious green robes clinging to the folds of his flesh. Eight of his ten thick fingers wore rings of power: a dagger of Ydoran metal was on his right hip, and a pistol of Ydoran metal on his left. He was facing the enormous window when she entered, silhouetted against a backdrop of grey skies and thick forests turned to green froth by gathering stormwinds. He turned, slow and stately, to face her.
The moment he turned, she made her decision. She maintained her cowed position as he spoke in half-heard words to Malak and Rafa, dismissing them from the room. But when they closed the door behind them, she sloughed off her fearful manner, and stood ramrod straight.
"Duke Barinten," Alma said, with mocking courtesy. She gestured vaguely down at her tied hands. "I would curtsy, but..."
The Duke arched one thin eyebrow. "Have we met before, Lady Beoulve?"
"I don't think so," Alma replied. "Beoulves rarely meet with minor officials."
Both of the Grand Duke's eyebrows arched now. "Rather bold, aren't we?" the Grand Duke asked. "Especially for a prisoner."
Alma shrugged. "I doubt I have any information you want," Alma said. "Otherwise I'd have been tortured already." Her voice hardened. "I've seen the treatment you gave Izlude."
The Duke's lips twitched in the suggestion of a smile. "No. You haven't."
Alma knew. This latest pretense of poise and power was as much a fiction as her last of terrible, unthinking fear and obedience. Looking at the children, she had judged that only playing the victim would buy her space. But when the Duke had turned, she had seen the hunting look in his cornflower blue eyes, and understood at once that he was a more cagey man by far. She had already understood some of this by looking at the luxury, wealth, and power of his soldiers and castle (this place outstripped the Beoulve Manor, Orbonne, Igros, and perhaps even Lesalia itself), but his eyes had told her the rest.
There was nothing proud in those eyes. There was nothing forgiving. There was barely anything human. When those eyes looked at her, she saw a predator. It was looking for prey or challengers, and it would brook neither. Her best chance (and it was a thin chance, and Alma's heart was beating wildly in her chest and it took every ounce of control she had not to shiver and shake before him) was to play the role, not of a victim (ripe meat for the predator), nor of a brilliant noble (a challenger to be broken), but of a spoiled girl who does not understand the danger she is in.
Because when the man had turned to look at her, Alma understood with perfect clarity. If she did not sell this man the right fiction, he would break her with every tool at his considerable disposal.
"Funny," Barinten said. "Malak and Rafa told me you were rather demure."
Alma was not shaken. She had anticipated this. She sneered and scoffed, "When you employ savage children, how can I know whether they will behave with any propriety?" She strode towards Barinten, glaring into those terrible eyes. "You know who my brothers are. You will release me."
Barinten pretended at a smile. Alma thought she detected a hint of boredom in his eyes, and was glad. "I know your brothers," he conceded. "An advisor to a traitor. A general in a traitor's army. A heretic hunted by the Church." He cocked his head. "You were with the heretic, were you not?"
Ovelia scowled at him. "The Church is wrong," Alma said. "That's why I took him to Orbonne. He had to meet with Simon, so Simon could talk to the High Priest."
Barinten's eyebrows arched still higher. "Oh?"
Alma nodded and continued, "Simon used to be an Inquisitor before he retired. He knows what a heretic looks like. He would know Ramza isn't one. And he could convince the others!" She looked around conspiratorially, then leaned close to Barinten. "And my brother says the Stones make Lucavi, and...and Simon had one!"
"So he did," Barinten agreed. "This one, yes?"
He pulled from his robe the scarlet stone, dull and unremarkable save for the faint gleaming of the Virgo sign carved into its front. Alma's face contorted into a glare. "That boy stole it!" she shouted.
"So he did," Barinten agreed. "And it is my intention to return it to the care of the Church."
Alma stared at Barinten for a long time. She wore her emotions nakedly—first confusion, than hope, than fear. None were out of place. "So...so why..." She raised her bound hands mutely.
"Oh, quite right, quite right," Barinten murmured. He pulled the Ydoran dagger from his side, and knifed through her bonds with surprising dexterity (in her head she imagined that knife slicing one way or another, tearing through flesh, and concealed her fear with difficulty). He helped her pull the ropes from her hands (and again she had to conceal her disgust at the knowing, lingering way those stubby fingers lingered on her skin) and dropped them to one side. "I apologize for that," he remarked. "But my agents report you faced an Inquisitor and broke his spell."
"He was hurting my brother!" Alma exclaimed hotly. "He was trying to arrest a Beoulve!"
"He is an Inquisitor," Barinten said, studying her closely. "It is his right."
"His right!" she scoffed. "Inquisitors are like Simon, meager men who study history. This man was clearly a buffoon."
Barinten chuckled. "You might be surprised what your dear Simon got up to in his Inquisition days."
Alma knew well enough—she'd read the reports in Orbonne. But it was not hard to thick of Wiegraf's sword spearing through Simon's flesh, and that buried pain gave her the raw, scared edge to say with conviction, "What do you mean?"
Barinten chuckled again. If his eyes had not already given him away, his laughter would have told her all she needed to know about him. The humor in his voice was a pretense of his malice and cruelty. He pretended to be kind, humoring the ignorant girl, so he did not reveal how much he relished having a stupid child in his power.
"Perhaps I will tell you," Barinten said. "It will be quite some time before your brother arrives."
Alma's heart thrilled. "My brother?" she said, letting her excitement show through.
He nodded. "The heretic."
Cold stole into her heart. "They tried to kill him," she said. "And Ovelia."
"Ovelia?" He blinked as though confused. "Ah, yes. You were students together at Orbonne, weren't you? You support her claim?" His voice took on a wry twist. "Perhaps you are more a traitor than your brothers."
"She...that's not...!"
Barinten sighed. "Lady Beoulve, you're in quite a precarious position. You declare support for a Princess who may well be a traitor. If she wins her war, your brothers will be the traitors. And you do all this while traveling with a known murderer and heretic. He will get the justice he deserves. Will you?"
Alma let her voice tremble. "You're...you're not going to..."
"He killed the Cardinal," Barinten answered. "And peddled lies about demons to cover his sins. Blasphemy and heresy...I'm afraid the Church is quite clear how we must treat such monsters."
"He's...not a..." The tremor in her voice increased, barely biting back tears. Careful now, careful, feed his appetites without rousing his passion...
"You've been raised by the Church," Barinten said, his eyes gleaming. "Surely you do not doubt their wisdom?"
"Your..." Alma tried to speak, swallowed. Tried again. "The girl said..."
"Rafa?" Barinten's eyebrows arched again, and the hunger in those blue eyes sharpened. "What did she say?"
"She said...she said I might..." Alma was shaking, and did not have to fake the tears in her eyes. But Rafa had said nothing of the sort. No promise of freedom. Only a suggestion that her prison was so secure they would have no need for caution.
"She implied you might go free?" Barinten asked. "Well, you may at that. You are the bait to lure your heretic brother out of hiding. Once his treasures are in our hands, we will bargain with your brothers and the Church, and we may all go to our homes, happy and healthy. But I do not think the Church will look kindly on the heresy of any man. Even a Beoulve."
Barinten was smiling. Alma had not doubted Ramza's tale, exactly, but she found in that smile that she did believe in demons.
"He's not..." Alma whispered again.
"That will be for the Church to decide." He patted her hand (again, that faint, knowing linger, and Alma dared not shuddered). "I did not mean to scare you, Lady Beoulve-" (oh how his eyes gleamed here, he meant to scare her, he thrived off her fear) "-only to make sure you fully appreciated your circumstances. I will do my best to make sure your brother need not die. I will do my best to make sure everyone gets the happiest ending they can. But I may need your cooperation...to prevent any unnecessary tragedies."
Alma managed a jerking nod.
"Good, good." His voice was soothing now, and the malice in his eyes had faded. "We'll return you to your room. I hope you'll accept an invitation to dine with me at a more convenient hour?"
Alma didn't bother to nod, and Barinten didn't seem to notice or care. He raised his voice. "Malak! Please escort our guest back to her chambers!"
There was a moment of silence, and the door to the salon creaked open. "Apologies, my liege," Rafa said. "Malak stepped away to begin preparations-"
"Of course, of course," murmured Barinten. "My mistake. Rafa, would you-"
"At once, my liege." Rafa beckoned for Alma to follow her. Alma stumbled after.
She did not have to fake much of her current feeling. The Hand and their strange magic had been terrible enough, but Barinten was more terrible still. Smart, sharp, and monstrous. And in spite of what he said, Alma knew: he had no intention of letting her see Ramza ever again.
"Are you alright?" Rafa asked.
Alma blinked back to attention. They had already passed the Ydoran picture and were back to the more luxurious part of the guest quarters, with occasional paintings on the walls. Rafa stood a little ways in front of her, and was studying her with genuine concern.
"I'm..." Alma didn't know what to say. "No."
Rafa nodded. "I'm sorry. This isn't..." She shook her head. "I wish this wasn't necessary."
Alma studied the younger woman. In battle, and in tormenting Izlude, she had been terrifying, but always with that hint of hesitation, of doubt and deference, never acting without the command of her brother. Now, there was genuine regret and distaste in her voice.
"Why...why is it necessary?" Alma asked.
Rafa shrugged, and gestured for Alma to follow. When Alma hesitantly began to move once more, Rafa answered, "You've traveled with your brother. You don't know?"
"Know what?" Alma asked.
Rafa looked over her shoulder. Her dark eyes were solemn in her serious face. "Your brother told you why he killed the Cardinal," Rafa said. "And why he left you."
Alma's lips tightened. How much did they know? How deep a game were they playing with her?
"It's a mistake," she said. "I took him to Orbonne to prove it."
"To steal a Stone, you mean," Rafa said.
"The Stones make demons," Alma retorted. She glanced fearfully over her shoulder. "And now the Grand Duke has one..."
"Have you ever seen a demon, Lady Beoulve?" Rafa asked.
Alma hesitated. "That's...Ramza said..."
"He's lied to you before, hasn't he?"
Ice stole straight up Alma's spine. She stopped moving, glaring at Rafa. "And your brother hasn't lied to you?"
Rafa stared steadily back. "No. He hasn't."
Another cold pang, this one of jealousy. This warrior child, confident and fierce, a trusted partner to her brother. Enslaved to the will of a man like Barinten, but that still seemed infinitely better than the peripheral life Alma had led for 18 years.
"He wasn't lying about this," Alma said, her voice much softer than it had been before.
Rafa studied her for a moment. "Do you believe that the Stones pose a danger to my liege?"
Alma studied the other girl in turn. Her tone had changed slightly, flat and restrained. What did that mean?
"I don't know," Alma said. "I...find it hard to believe that the Cardinal could always have been a Lucavi. But was he killed and replaced? Or was he possessed? Or..." She shook her head. "We hoped we'd learned more at Orbonne, but Simon..."
Rafa's face softened. "I'm sorry about Father Simon."
Alma closed her eyes against sudden tears, remembering the sword stabbing through the priest's belly. "Thank you."
After a moment, Rafa cleared her throat. Alma opened her eyes, and Rafa beckoned for her to follow. Between Barinten and Rafa, she felt woefully out of her depth, hammered by powerlessness. They could do to Ramza what they'd done to Izlude. They could do it to her.
There were no soldiers waiting outside the door to her room. Rafa opened the door for her, but as soon as Alma had stepped in, she shut the door, and her voice changed. "Lady Beoulve," she said. "I do not think it will surprise you to learn that the Hand has been ordered to capture and interrogate your brother."
Alma did not respond, studying the other girl again. Was this a trick?
"You won't succeed," Alma said.
"We will," Rafa said. "But we don't have to."
An electric thrill across her heart. Alma struggled to keep her face neutral. "You'd betray Barinten?"
Another of those strange looks on Rafa's face, barely perceptible: just the faintest stillness, as though the girl was trying to keep from flinching. "Never," she said, and her face was animated again. "But we do not need to be enemies."
Alma laughed without much humor. "This from the girl who kidnapped me!"
"Duke Barinten has no wish to make an enemy of the Church," Rafa answered. "But the situation has changed. Ramza does not have to be our enemy. Neither do you."
Alma laughed. "They've named him a heretic."
"To cover their conspiracy," Rafa said. "You're not stupid. Ramza had to be discredited as a heretic before he revealed their plans to the world. But Duke Barinten is strong enough to bargain with them, especially with the Stones in hand and whatever information your brother can provide." She paused. "You know what we'll have to do, to get him to talk."
Alma glared at Rafa to hide her fear. "He won't talk."
"He might not," Rafa said. "He seemed strong enough when we fought. But he'll wish he had." That same odd hint of emotion on Rafa's face. "We've gone easy on Izlude, Lady Beoulve. You have no idea what tools we can bring to bear on your brother."
It was more than a hint of emotion now. There was a depth of cold and pain and fear in Rafa's voice that chilled Alma's bones.
"He won't surrender to you," Alma whispered.
"He doesn't have to," Rafa said. "Not if he comes with us as a guest instead of a captive."
Alma laughed: it sounded as cold as she felt. "Oh? Like I'm a guest?"
"More a guest than Izlude," Rafa answered. "Please, Alma. Tell me what to say to him. Tell me how to convince him we don't have to fight."
Alma stared at the younger girl, fighting against the cold dread, forcing her thoughts to move. Barinten could not be trusted, but Rafa was not Barinten, and she seemed to have taken pains to discuss this with Alma privately. And the skill and ferocity with which she and her allies fought...even after seeing how dangerous Ramza could be, even knowing that he had faced a Lucavi of legend, she wasn't sure he could beat them?
And what if he lost? What if he was captured, like poor Izlude? What if her brother was beaten and tortured? She was not entirely sure she trusted Rafa, but she did believe her when she talked about the torture Ramza would face. Her brief meeting with Barinten had told her all she needed to know about what that man would do for power.
"He wasn't lying about the Lucavi," Alma said.
Rafa shook her head. "If there were demons at large in Ivalice, I think we'd know it."
"Not if they could be like the Cardinal," Alma said. "Not if they could wear a man's face, until it was time to show their true nature." The cold dread inside her deepened. How could you ever tell a man from a demon? The Cardinal had seemed ordinary enough, according to Ramza's tale.
Was there a hint of doubt in Rafa's eyes, to match Alma's dread? The other girl hadn't spoken yet, so Alma continued, "He fears the Church more for the possibility of Lucavi among them then for...any other reason." She still wasn't sure how much she was supposed to know. She was risking a lot lowering her pretense of naivete around Rafa, but if it could help Ramza...
She lowered her voice. "That's the reason we went to Orbonne," she said. "Simon was an Inquisitor. If there was anyone who could help us figure out how to track the Lucavi...how to expose them to the Church..."
Rafa shook her head slightly. "Even if we told Ramza that...do you think he'd believe us?"
"No one else has offered," Alma said. "No one else has listened."
Rafa nodded slowly. "I will speak with Duke Barinten," she said, and again that nameless something, barely perceptible, in her face and in her voice. "He does not credit your brother's stories, but perhaps...perhaps he can be convinced."
The hesitation in her voice was stronger now, and in a flash of insight Alma though she understood. When Barinten had spoken of potential tortures, he had spoken with relish. When Rafa spoke of them, she spoke with pain and understanding. The connection seemed to obvious that Alma could have slapped herself. Instead, when Rafa turned to go, she threw caution to the wind and asked, in an undertone. "What does he do to you?"
Rafa froze. The muscles of her back bunched with sinuous strength, and a strange light flashed about her, like reflected noonday sunlight on a clear pool of water.
"What?" Rafa sounded as though someone was strangling her.
"You heard me," Alma said, her heart pounding in her chest.
"I...I don't know what you mean," Rafa said, but the thickness in her voice was clearer now, fear and pain so wild that Alma didn't know how she'd mistaken it for anything else.
"My brother killed the Cardinal," Alma said. "And if he escaped Orbonne, he killed Templars too. He's strong enough to help you." One final roll of the dice. "You and your brother."
Rafa did not look back. Her back, taut as an bowstring drawn to release, did not relax. She stepped from the room, and closed the door gently behind her. Only the faintest crack around the doorhandle suggested how much effort it took to contain herself. And Alma was left, trapped in the castle of perhaps the most evil man she'd ever met, uncertain whether she'd saved Ramza or damned him.