(Taking a brief pause while I work on the back half of Part 5. Another Tale of Beowulf in two weeks, and I'll update you on what's to come then.)

Chapter 113: A Need For Answers

There is a moment—just a moment—where it almost overwhelms her.

The Marquis should be dead, but she never saw him die, and after she bites down her first shock and horror at having to fight a foe wearing such a familiar face, he becomes just another enemy before her, and she is a Templar trained and true. Their blades dance together, fierce and fast, with death hanging on the edge of every blow. And when these puppeteered corpses loom around them, she can handle those, too: she has never seen their like before, but has seen things nearly as monstrous in the wilds of Ivalice, and her Breaking Blade brings them down with every strike.

But then the patchwork mockery of an angel soars into the ballroom, and Meliadoul Tengille almost feels her mind break with the weight of its presence, the reality of its horror. That abomination is like nothing Melia has ever seen before: the smell of it, the force of it, the awful truth of it, catches in her mind like something solid in her throat, and threatens to choke her thoughts.

It is a demon, in the truest, deepest sense of the world. Its appearance, its presence, its power, all radiate the kind of malice she's only ever felt in her own nightmares. She believed Ramza, when she heard the Marquis speak, but what strikes her now is more than belief: it is emotional devastation, nearly as profound as her grief for her brother.

And when she remembers Izlude, her mind snaps back to its full strength, and she shoves all her horror and dismay down somewhere deep. There will be time for her to reel later: now there is a demon in front of her, and what should a Templar do, if not kill demons?

She clings to that resolve, as she charges Zalera. She clings to it, as a surging prison of smothering flesh engulfs her, as rot fills her nose and her lungs, and her arms are pinned to her side by ropy, impossible limbs. She is still clinging to it as Zalera's dissolving body sinks into the broken staircase, and Melia goes charging after him. She leaps towards him, Quan's blood-drenched sword in hand, spies the only solid piece of matter in the thick of the skin soup twitching and mewling pitiably beneath her: the jet-black skull, with the violet stars for eyes.

And she cleaves the skull in two, and pours her breaking magic into the breach.

"No!" screams that odd, layered voice, too many voices woven together in one great gasp of pain. Melia's hands are stinging, but she keeps standing over him, standing in him. All the surging gore has gone completely still. For the first time in what feels like hours, the ballroom is empty. The purple light in the skull's sockets flickers violently, like candle flames in the wind.

"No," he repeats, much softer, and the word echoes around her: a deep woman's voice, a high man's, a whimpering child's. "No, I...I was to...to live and..."

The purple light in the skull's sockets spreads out around her, into the remaining morass of flesh. The light is strange, streaked with pockets of shadow that seem to be draining away before Melia's eyes.

"Ajora!"

The violence of the scream spreads to the dark-streaked light of his being, resounds in the voices all around them, and Melia staggers backwards, sword raised to guard herself, she will fight as long as she has to-

"Save me!"

And in a burst of violet light and shadow, all disappears before her, save for the violet Gemini Stone that hovers in the air in front of her for just a moment, before the light in its crystalline depths dims almost to nothing and it drifts to the ground, landing with a heavy thnk!

Melia stares down at the Stone. She looks around for any other threats—any corpses still in motion, or any sign of Zalera's strange body. She nods, just once.

And then she started to vomit.

It felt like every organ in her body was expelling bile, and squeezing her soul dry of emotion with it. She heaved, and felt her mind flinching back to the memories and terrors and furies of the battle: of the prison of flesh on the creature's back, of its terrible twisting and twining as its stolen skin slithered where it willed, of the rot and blood that hung heavy in the air with every nightmare moment, of the terrible faces that had always been visible on those wings, glaring eyes and wide mouths, and of the screams those wings had made, as her blade had cut into them.

A demon. A monster. Her throat burned. Her eyes burned. Her mind burned.

Oh God.

She could barely wrap her mind around it.

Oh God oh God oh God.

She was praying, as the last of the bile dripped from her lips. She was praying, because she didn't know what else to do. Praying, not for guidance, but for relief.

"Are you alright?" Rafa's voice came through the ruin of wood, stone, and carpet to her left. Melia looked up briefly, and realized she was a bit trapped. She couldn't see an easy way out of the broken staricase.

"No," Melia answered, and then remembered the wounds on Rafa's body. "Are you?"

"As well as I can be." The leaning pile of rubble shook briefly, one long timber creaking in complaint. "I don't think I can get to you."

"If I throw down a rope, can you climb it?"

Melia looked up towards his voice, but only saw a silhouette above her. Her eyes were damp with tears, her throat burned with the aftertaste of bile, and her arms and legs felt rubbery with exhaustion. But she saw no other way up. "I think so."

She flung up her sheathed sword, after wiping it down with the hem of her green cloak. She tossed her brother's gauntlets next—she would need every ounce of dexterity she could get, depleted as she was. Last of all, she looked down at the violet Gemini Stone. It no longer burned the way it had...but there was still light roiling in its depths. She hesitated a moment longer, then picked it up by the tips of her fingers, wary for any new display of danger, and quickly secured it in the pouch that had once held Sagittarius.

Climbing the rope was even harder than she expected: the polished wall on which she hoped to brace herself was mostly obscured by broken wood and stone. Twice she almost lost her grip, and only saved herself with frantic effort that left long rope burns down her palms. Her strength was beginning to fail only a few inches from the top, but strong hands closed on her wrists and hauled her the rest of the way up.

"You're alright?" Radia asked. Melia shook her head, sitting heavily down on the damp red carpet. Radia gave a short, sharp, laugh. "Yeah. I know that feeling."

"You've fought two of them?" Melia asked.

"The Cardinal and Wiegraf," Radia said.

"Cuchulainn and Belias," Mustadio corrected her, throwing a rope ladder down over one of the balustrades to the balroom floor

"You didn't fight Belias," Radia scowled.

"Forgive me," Mustadio said dryly. "I was busy fighting my way through an army so I could help rescue you."

"Excuses, excuses..."

While the two of them bantered, their every word ragged with exhaustion, Melia looked to the other end of the room. Alicia and Lavian were tending to Ramza and Malak, both laid out upon the table in front of the stage at the room's far end. Blood and gore coated the ballroom floor, the walls, and the ceilings: one section of balustrade farther down had been reduced to hissing embers, while others had been slashed, crushed, and toppled by the ferocity of their battle. Two of the four runic chandeliers had been destroyed: one lay shattered against the floor, another broken in three jagged pieces on the stage. The light that filled the ballroom now was shadowed and uneven, drawing out the lines on everyone's faces, deepening their exhaustion.

The rope ladder creaked, and within moments Rafa pulled herself up easily over the top of the balustrade, and landed in an awkward crouch in front of them. Her clothes were streaked with blood-lined slashes, but the cuts on her scarred limbs were already scabbed over. "Everyone alright up here?"

"As we can be," Radia answered.

"I am quite well," Mustadio agreed. "As our greatest warrior, even the Lucavi of old pose no threat to me."

"You barely did anything!" Radia objected.

"I think you will find that my efforts marked the turning point of our battle at multiple points," Mustadio said, with a smile. "I am a machinist, after all. I believe one should work smarter, not harder."

"Is that a dig at my intelligence?" Radia asked.

"That would depend on if you are smart enough to recognize it as such."

Radia grinned and punched Mustadio on the shoulder. Mustadio's smile flickered as he looked across the room. "How are they?"

"Idiotic," Radia replied, before Rafa could say anything else. "Didn't need to do that to themselves."

Melia fingered her sheathed sword. Even after its rudimentary cleaning, it was crusty with blood—the blood of the corpses, and the blood of the demon, and Malak's blood, pouring from the wound he'd cut into his own wrist. "It made a difference," she whispered. Something in Malak's blood weakened the magic that twisted the corpses into such monstrous forms, and in that weakness Melia's breaking magic was sharp enough to obliterate the nightmares they had faced. If it had just been her magic, she wasn't sure she could have felled the demon.

"It doesn't meant it wasn't' stupid," Rafa said gruffly, though she shot her brother a concerned look. "On both their parts."

"It seemed to work," Mustadio observed.

"Just because it worked doesn't mean it wasn't stupid," Radia grunted, shooting a look across the room that was almost a mirror of Rafa's.

"But anything they did pales before what you did," Agrias said, striding through the open doors. She was caked in blood, limping as she hauled a sack over one shoulder.

"Idiot," Radia scoffed, hurrying over to her. "You're hurt almost as bad as they are."

"But I am made of stronger stuff." In spite of her words, she dropped the bag into Radia's arms, and turned towards Melia. Her face was solemn. "By this point, I am quite used to having my distrust disproven." She glanced after Radia, now clambering down the ladder, and beyond her, to where Ramza lay. "And I have been blessed thus far, to distrust such generous and worthy souls." She looked back at Melia, and bowed. "Thank you."

Melia shook her head. "In your defense, I did try to kill you when we first met." She paused, then shook her head again. "You were...right. Not to trust me. I didn't believe until I saw..." She looked over her shoulder, to the ruined staircase she'd just climbed out of, where she had finally killed the ruin of the Marquis.

"If I had not seen such things myself," Agrias murmured. "I might never have believed in them."

Melia nodded. With a great effort, she rose to her feet, scooping up her brother's gauntlets in the same motion, and headed for the rope ladder.

Getting down the ladder was hard (though not so hard as climbing out of the broken staircase had been). She crossed the gore-splattered ballroom as though in a dream (though wincing a little at what squished under her feet). Lavian looked up from where was tending to Malak, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Do I need to treat you?"

Melia shook her head. She ached all over, and would be a mess of a bruises for the next few days. But as far as she could tell, she had no serious wounds, and nothing had been broken. "How are they?"

Lavian shook her head in turn. "Lucky," she said. "If he had lost any more blood...even as it is, it's going to be touch and go." Malak frowned and muttered something, but his eyes were closed, and Melia couldn't tell if he was conscious. "Ramza's wounds were clean through-and-throughs...but he'll be limping for awhile."

"My luck had to run out eventually," Ramza said.

Melia nodded, and rested a gentle hand on Malak's shoulder. His dark skin was much paler than usual, and his lips and eyes twitched frantically. "We wouldn't have won without him."

"We wouldn't have won without you," Ramza said.

Melia looked back up at him. He, like Malak, was stretched out on the table, so his legs could be treated and bandaged, but he had propped himself up on his elbows to look at them.

"You should be lying flat," Alicia muttered. She was sitting in a chair, looking drowsy, with a faded bruise across one temple.

"You're not allowed to sleep," Lavian scolded her, crossing to Alicia.

"I know, I know..."

"Thank you, Meliadoul," Ramza said. "Thank you for..."

Melia could see the pain in him: in the slight tightness in the corners of his eyes, the faint clench of his jaw with every movement. But he was so determined to thank her, to live up to some unspoken code, and her grief came roaring back to her all at once: he looked so much like Izlude, pretending he hadn't twisted his ankle or broken a rib so he wouldn't let anyone down.

"You could've killed me," Melia said. "I gave you every reason to. But you let me live. Helped clear the clouds from my eyes. Helped me get closer to..."

Her throat closed tight. She remembered what Malak and Rafa had told her: about the only possible culprits for her brother's death. She had asked the Lucavi, in that brief lull between battles. About who had killed Izlude. The Marquis said he had not killed Izlude. She had no reason to doubt him. Which left...

"You fought Wiegraf, when he turned into a demon," Melia said, shrinking back from that bleak thought. "Is it possible he...that he'd already killed my..."

Ramza shook his head very slightly. His jaw clenched against a fresh wave of pain, just for a moment. She pretended not to notice. "I don't know," he managed.

So. Maybe her brother's killer was already dead. Maybe justice had already been served. But if not, that left only two possible culprits: Loffrey, who had sat beside her and lied to her scant weeks ago. And...and...

Her father.

She swallowed, though it did nothing to ease the tightness in her throat. Her eyes burned, but she could not allow herself to cry.

"These don't quite fit me," Melia said, and put her brother's gauntlets next to Ramza. "But I think they might fit you."

Ramza's eyes widened. He opened his mouth, then closed it. And that surprise that someone might think him worthy was terribly familiar, too.

"I'm sorry about your sister," Melia said, and put a hand on Ramza's forearm.

Ramza shook his head. "Don't be. She's alive."

Melia stared at him, and fought the urge to look back over her shoulder to where the corpse had been obliterated. "Ramza-"

"Argus," Ramza said. "The man with the bow? He told me. That was a fake they prepared, to trick me. They need her for...something." His brow furrowed, and he looked away.

"Who was he?" Melia asked.

"Argus Thadolfas."

Melia's brow furrowed in turn. "Argus Thadolfas died at Zeakden."

"I know. I'm the one who killed him."

Her frown deepened for a moment. "But..." Then her eyes widened. "They brought him back?"

"And burned him to death the moment he stepped out of line." Now the pain alloyed with anger, and Ramza Beoulve looked more fearsome than she had imagined he could. "For telling me the truth, and warning me."

"Warning you of what?"

"Of the Lucavi's plan." He was quiet for a moment. "To bring Hell to Earth."

Melia stared at him. Her mouth opened, then closed. She remembered the vertigo horror she had felt, staring up at Zalera as her mind had reeled with shock and disbelief. She felt something like that now: as though she were an ant, suddenly dimly aware of the giants moving above her.

"What the hell happened here?"

An unfamiliar voice rang across the ball room, resonant in the ruin. Melia and the others all looked towards its source, and found the blonde woman standing on the balcony to the left of the stage. Her baggy clothes did not quite obscure her lithe figure, and her fingers glittered with myriad shimmering rings. She looked faintly familiar.

"Val?" Lavian's voice was rife with disbelief. "Is that you?"

The woman with the blonde ponytail raised one hand in greeting. "Hey there, Lav."

But the name tickled something in Melia's memory, and a moment later she had it. "Valerie Amfra?" she repeated, looking between the blonde woman and Lavian. Years ago, she had met the girl in passing, though she had not made much impression. Since then, however, Melia had heard her name whispered in the halls of Mullonde more than once. She had been recruited by the Templars while she was still at the Gariland Magic Academy, to serve their interests covertly. She had briefly become a member of the Black Sheep, only to reappear at Bethla Garrison with Delita Heiral on the eve of war. Now she served as the Bishop Canne-Beurich's attache in Zeltennia...but her true mission was the same as Delita's. To fan the flames of war, and prepare the way for the Confessor and his Braves.

"The same," Val said, looking at Melia askance. "Though I'm rather surprised to see you here, Meliadoul Tengille."

Melia's jaw clenched. "I came hunting my brother's killer."

"Have you found them?"

Her jaw clenched tighter. "I'm closer now than I was before."

Val's eyebrows arched. "I see." She looked around the ballroom once more. "So you know about the Lucavi."

Silence in the ballroom. Melia and the others stared at Val.

"You..." Melia started. "You know about..."

"Your father's work is subtle, I'll admit," Valerie said. "But he's not the only one who can be sneaky." Her eyebrows arched. "Not going to report me to him, are you?"

"I don't think I'm going back," Melia said, and looked at Ramza. "Assuming you'll have me."

"If you're not going back," Val interrupted, before Ramza could say anything. "You should come with us."

"Come with you?" Lavian repeated. "Come with you where?"

"Oh, where are my manners!" Val stood ramrod straight, one hand across her stomach, the other stiff at her side. "I am here on behalf of Her Majesty, Queen Ovelia Atkascha." She sketched an elegant bow, then looked up with an impudent smirk. "She requests the pleasure of your company at the royal retreat in the Neveleska Archipelago."