(Thanks for reading. Next chapter 10/2/24)

Chapter 161: The Revolutionary

It's so close now that Val can almost taste it.

She tries not to show her glee—she's used to keeping her mask firmly in place. Years since she stumbled up the hill to her grandma's house, and saw Templars standing outside the door. Years since she turned, and started walking from Bervenia, walking and walking, until her legs ached. Years since she stumbled to Sal Ghidos on bloody feet, to wait for Faris in the Amfra orphanage. Years since she first hatched the plan that is now so, so close to being realized.

"You have to understand, we can't make any promises," Olan is saying, and Valerie nods, though she is not really paying attention to Larsa Weiss.

Larsa nodded, his lips pressed into a thin and bloodless line. "I do."

"The main Blanche line is ended, but yours is not the only one with a claim to his lands and titles," Olan continued. "And until matters of royal succession are decided, and a formal peace made between Hokuten and Nanten...any guarantees we make would be premature."

Larsa nodded again. "I understand." He paused. "I would...investigate other claims carefully, however."

Olan arched his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Larsa nodded once more. "Some of the other claimants were closer to the late Viscount and his son than I was. And, ah...they talk of conspiracies at Bethla Garrison. A plot to usurp our rightful lands, and the rightful order of Ivalice."

"Do you share these concerns?" Olan asked.

Larsa shook his head. "It was war. Things happen in war. Now we are close to peace. To a new dawn for Ivalice. I do not wish to see that peace delayed or betrayed by those unable or unwilling to see the Visount's death for the simple misfortune that it is."

Olan nodded. "You are a wise man." He stood up. Valerie followed suit. "The Black Sheep are still well-regarded well here, no? Given the help they gave to the late Viscount."

Larsa nodded one final time. Olan smiled. "You'll be happy to know a small detachment of the reformed Black Sheep is available. To help secure your lands against...any threats." He extended a hand to Larsa. "Ovelia, Queen of Ivalice, protects those who protect her."

Larsa stood up, and took Olan's hand. Valerie fought the urge to smile.

The Black Sheep were not so strong as they had been mere months before—in the wake of Bethla Garrison, a civil war in miniature had raged among them, as the members of the Sheep loyal to her and Delita purged the Church loyalists from their ranks. But that war had been much less costly then it might have been, thanks to Olan Durai. The larger Nanten spy network had been subverted in many places, but the smaller group of trusted agents he'd built had survived nearly intact, and had already been well on their way to identifying the Church's agents before Bethla Garrison. Together, his loyalists and the true Black Sheep had purged the Church faction from their rank, and were well on their way to becoming the power behind the throne among the Nanten.

There was little risk of further war—not with Larg and Dycedarg both dead. But Hokuten and Nanten alike were spread thin protecting their territories. Delita and Ovelia were in Lesalia at this moment, negotiating with the patchwork council of lesser men struggling to hold the Hokuten together after the burning of the Beoulve Manor. With Queen Louveria dead, the chances of a lasting peace were good...no long as Valerie, Olan, and their Black Sheep could secure their territory, including the lands of the late Viscount Blanche.

"You know him?" Valerie asked, as they strolled away from the stout castle on its gentle hill, overlooking Port Isolde.

"Only a little," Olan answered. "He was Blanche's third cousin, twice removed...or was it second cousin, three times removed...?" He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "One of Blanche's distant aunts married an Atkascha bastard. Royal decree and Blanche family influence had them raised to minor nobles here."

"He's got the best claim?"

Olan laughed shortly and shook his head. "No. But since Blanche died without an heir, no one has a good claim...and we can use that Atkascha blood."

Right. The royalist narrative. Portray the chaos of the last few years as the result of Ivalice lacking the right royal hands on the rudder. It disgusted her, but Delita was right: it was their best path forwards, to counter the Church's crumbling Braves plot, to lay the foundation for what would be the Republic of Ivalice.

Besides, her life had been lived in disgust—in muck, and mire, and misery. It had not stopped her in her childhood, as the fire in her soles had turned to numb lightning. It had not stopped her practicing every scrap of magic she could find, to boost her profile and draw the eyes of the Templar recruiters who so often pulled their rank-and-file from the orphanages, to better mold young minds into their Church's lies. It would not stop her now.

Bismarck's Whistle was a run-down harbor tavern that not even the sailors tended to frequent—the drinks and food were slightly too expensive, and there were no whores to be had. That was by design. When Val slipped inside with Olan behind her, there was no one at any of the tables. Val approached the bar, spoke in an undertone to the tall barkeep, and shook her hand. The magic ring she palmed into the barkeep's grip could have bought a family a month's worth of food.

"You have friends everywhere," Olan remarked, as she slid into the seat across the table.

"How do you think we got this far?" Valerie asked.

It was not Valerie Amra who had found Ysayle Winters, however, but Aunt Faris. In her travels to Ivalice's various ports and to other places across the sea, Faris had built an impressive web of contacts. That had been the plan they'd hatched together ten years ago, when Val had taken one of her nightly excursions to the Sal Ghidos docks, and finally found Faris' ship in port. It was three months since the Inquisitors had taken Grandma.

Faris could not take Val with her—their only protection from the Inquisition was their distance from Great Grandma Farron. Faris was protected by her growing reputation and her discovery of herself as a woman: Val was protected by being one of the numberless Orphans filling Ivalice. Faris' journeys to the ports of Ivalice and across the seas would let her build one kind of network: Valerie of the Amfra orphanage would build another.

Among the orphans of Amfra, and among the students at Gariland, and in every town where her studies and missions had taken her through the years, Valerie had stayed quiet, and kept her ears open. And where she found what she was looking for—someone wronged by injustice, someone who asked the wrong questions of Ivalician orthodoxy, someone with the right combination of intellect and indignation—she would talk to them, and offer her a place in their plans.

It was slow, painful going—if Grandma had been caught, then anyone could be caught. It took months for Valerie to gather her courage, and begin to act. She had been shuddering under a ragged blanket as the wet Limberry cold drowned the Amfra orphanage, and looked over to Hilda—Hilda, pale and silent, her merchant family slaughtered in an "Ordallian" attack that even to Val's young ears sounded like some Nanten cover-up. She had crawled into Hilda's bed, and held her shivering friend, and the shivers had turned to sobs. And Val had whispered of building a better world.

Hilda had been the first. She would not be the last. It was risky, yes. But the risk was worth it. To build a world without Templars, and Inquisitors, yes...but she wanted more than that. She wanted to build a world where they would be nothing like the Templars. Nothing like the Inquisitors.

"So many soldiers of peace, all over Ivalice," Olan chuckled, nursing the drink Ysayle had brought them.

"I resent that term," Val said softly. "Peace isn't what I'm after."

Olan arched his eyebrows. "And how does that make you better than the Church?"

"I don't torture people."

Olan pursed his lips thoughtfully. "A fair point." He sipped his drink. "Still, you're not above killing them and lying to them."

"Neither are you."

He laughed. "No. Neither am I." He took another sip at his drink. "And you really think it can work? A Republic?"

"Why not?" Val asked.

"It hasn't worked yet."

"That's what the lying and murdering is for."

Olan chuckled. Val smiled grimly. Truth be told, she did worry—she had found no records of functional democracies, functional republics. But then, the powers of Ivalice would hardly want to advertise such a thing was possible, jealous as they were of their power. And even if the histories were true—even if there had never been a functional republic—who was to say she couldn't build the first?

That had not been the plan when she left her grandmother behind, and went looking for safety in an unsafe world. As she first hid from the Church, then started to plot their downfall, she had been struck by the failure of the Death Corps. If a popular movement with military knowledge and widespread support could barely disrupt Gallione, how could she hope to disrupt the Church?

The answer, of course, was that she couldn't. The Church was so powerful precisely because it was woven into the nasty fabric of Ivalice—a pyramid built on the backs of Ivalice's impoverished many, each ascending layer representing some echelon (the knights, the local lords, the liege lords, the royal family), and the Church woven through everyone of those layers, taking and giving to sustain itself. To destroy the Church, you had to destroy the pyramid of which it was a part.

That was the work of her years, finding like-minded friends in Goug, in Bervenia, in Sal Ghidos, in Mullonde, in Zeltennia, in Gallione, in Limberry, and far more besides. She knew she had to destroy Ivalice to destroy the Church. But she wanted to build something better from the rubble. A world where nothing like the Church would exist. Where people like her great grandmother would not be punished for the supposed crime of keeping the wrong book in their house.

"What about you?" Val asked.

"What about me?" Olan answered.

"What do you lie for? What do you kill for?"

Olan's mouth twisted to one side, and he rocked back in his chair so it was balanced only on two legs. "A better world, same as you."

"You've been fighting for a Republic, all this time?" Val asked.

Olan smiled and shook his head. "No, I guess not. I'm a noble's son twice over...I doubt building a Republic would ever have occurred to me, especially given what happened to Dhalmekia and Junon."

Val knew the names—the Dhalmekian Republic had been swallowed by the Romandan Empire four hundred years ago, and the Ydoran Empire had destroyed the nascent Junon Republic far to its south. She had read everything about these two long-dead nations she could get her hands on, in her own planning.

"I suppose..." Olan stared down at his half-empty drink. "I suppose...I wanted a world...like the one my father believes in."

"And what's that world look like?" Val asked.

Olan smiled wanly. "That's a good question." His thumb braced the side of his nose, while his pointer finger tapped upon his forehead. "It's something like...like what the Beoulves are supposed to believe in. Every part of the nation looks to serve each other. Each holds the other to account for its crimes. Justice. Service."

"Are those the words of House Orlandeau?" Val asked.

Olan shook his head. "No. The words of House Orlandeau are an old joke." His smile widened. "In All Things, Balance." His smile faded a little. "Though...perhaps they're not at odds. Power must be balanced with service. With justice."

He looked thoughtfully at his drink. "But likewise...you cannot achieve justice...you cannot serve people...without power. And you cannot seize power, hold it, maintain it, expand it...without..." He closed his eyes, and took another drink. "People who can lie, and murder. People like you. People like Delita. People like me."

He set his drink down. His eyes were still closed. "I became...what I am...because I saw the world my father wanted to build...and I knew he needed someone like me to build it." He sighed, then opened his eyes and looked at her. "What about you?"

Val studied him a moment. Then she laughed, not unkindly. "You are a noble's son."

Olan arched his eyebrows. "I know. I said it."

"And didn't understand it." She spread her arms around them. "You're born to power and privilege. You get to choose what you become." She leaned forwards. Her hands fingered the mug of warm ale in front of her, though she did not drink. "You think I had a choice?"

"Yeah," Olan said. "I do."

Val scowled at him. "Like I said-"

"A noble's son," Olan agreed. "But look at yourself, Val. How many other people had loved ones taken by the Templars, tortured for heresy? How many other people saw the rot in Ivalice firsthand? And how many of them spent ten years building their own spy network for a fucking revolution?" Olan's smile turned sardonic "Yeah, I'm a noble's son. I had more choice than you did. But you still had a choice, Val. What made you choose this?"

Val shook her head. He didn't understand—probably couldn't understand. But she found she wanted to try and make him. It had been so long since she'd had a chance to talk openly. And there were few safer places than here, in the emptiness of Bismarck's Whistle, with Ysayle Winters tending bar as they waited for Faris and word of Ramza.

"A noble's son." Val repeated. "But I don't think you really understand what that means, Olan. It's not just about more choice. It's about..." She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "It's about the kinds of choice."

Olan's brow furrowed. "How do you mean?"

Val thought for a moment, tapping the side of her drink. "I know the point you're trying to make," she said. "If Delita and I had no choice in what we became, why isn't Ivalice full of people like us? Liars and murderers willing to do what it takes to build the world we want?" She smiled. "The easy answer is that Ivalice is fully of such people. We're sitting in one of their bars now."

She glanced over to Ysayle, now wiping down the bartop, then back to Olan. "But that's an easy answer, and it's not the one I want to give you." She held up her left hand—there were rings on all five fingers, though it was hard for her to think of the rune-etched finger armor on her thumb as a ring. "I'm a mage of no small ability. This ring-" she wiggled her pinky. "I made myself."

And she needed to replace it too—it had been her thesis project at the Magic Academy, demonstrating that you could use certain rune structures to compensate for a lack of adequate materials, and she suspected that it had been the work that finally led her to her recruitment into the Templars. But it was five years old now, the work of an amateur, and it did not always work well with the spells she used. Still, she could not bring herself to replace it.

"This one was a gift from the Church when they gave me my mission-" she flicked out the finger most people called their ring finger, which she insistently called the annulary. "-and this one was a gift from Faris when the Church recruited me." She wagged her index finger at Olan as though she were telling him off.

"And I already know about the one on your middle," Olan said.

Val took a moment to admire that handsome golden ring, laden with gems of many colors that gleamed like stars, all united by elegant lines of microrunes. This had been Ovelia's gift to her: one of a pair of rings from the Atkascha side of the Goltanna family, taken from the treasury at Bethla Garrison. It was designed to channel magic from the other three rings, amplifying any spells still further: when she cast with it, the gems flashed together in a prismatic whorl. She had never worn anything so fine in all her life.

"I feel like you were building to a point?" Olan prompted her.

Val nodded, still studying the gorgeous ring on her finger. "I didn't get here all on my own—no one ever does. But of the five rings I wear, only one was a gift. Every other one—even this one-" she waved at Olan with her middle finger. "-I had to earn."

Olan nodded. "And I didn't."

"Did you?"

Olan shook his head. "No. My father funded my magical studies. And funded me in crafting and refurbishing my stars."

"Tens of thousands of gil, no?" Val asked. Olan nodded again, and Val continued, "You're one of...what, three Astrologians in Ivalice? Urianger Desands at the Magic Academy and Inquisitor Rufin?"

Olan nodded once more. "Professor Desands taught me the basics."

"He and Rufin trained together," Val said. "But in the decades since they learned their art, you're his first successful student." Val leaned forwards. "Your choices mattered. They brought you here. They made you...what, probably the foremost Astrologian in a hundred years? But the money, the opportunity, the support...talented as I am, Olan, and I'm damn talented-"

"You could never have been an Astrologian," Olan said quietly.

She felt a flicker of annoyance. "Maybe I could have," Val said. "Stranger things have happened. But my chances weren't good. Because I'm not a noble's son."

Finally, she took a sip from her drink, and nearly blanched at the taste. Saint, but she hated ale.

"I think you see us as...as pilgrims, walking the same road," Val said. "We didn't all start out from the same place, we didn't all start out with the same gear, but we're all heading to the same destination. But that's...not quite right." She sighed into her drink. "It's not a road, so much as it's a river. You came sailing down, and joined me and Delita on our own boat, and you think we're all the same. But for you, the journey was always a choice. You were born on the shore, you got to build the kind of boat you wanted to make, you got to sail down the river when you wanted, how you wanted." She held up a forestalling hand at the annoyance in Olan's red/brown eyes. "Which is not to say you've had it all your own way, as anyone who sails a boat down a river knows. You can't control how high or fast the water, or the weather you're sailing in. But me and Delita?" She set her glass down. "We didn't choose to go sailing. We were thrown into the river. And our choices were to either drown, or learn to swim, and find a way to survive." She watched Olan over her glass. "How many years have you spent truly afraid you were gonna die, Olan Durai? And how many of those were by choice?"

Olan frowned at her, then looked away. Valerie shrugged. "Like I said. Quality and quantity. We might both encounter the same rough waters, the same bad weather...but odds are, your journey down the river's been a lot easier than ours, even when it's hard."

Olan took a sip from his drink, still not looking at her. "And you think making Ivalice a republic fixes that?"

Val managed a short bark of laughter. "Fixes it? No. But changes the odds a little. The people ruling us will start out mostly as noble's sons...and hopefully noble's daughters, too. But it won't stay that way forever. We'll get more people like me, like Faris, like Ysayle, like Delita, in places where they can do some good. We'll change the systems that govern Ivalice, to give more and more people more and more options. Change the quality and quantity of choices for everyone."

Olan's eyes drifted back to her, and he offered her a sheepish smile. "It's a lot bigger than I ever dreamed."

Val smiled back. "We're still glad to have you."

Olan sketched a mocking half-bow. "I'm happy to help in my own humble way."

"Olan Durai is known for nothing if not his humility."

Olan's smile widened for a moment, then softened again, turning wistful. "And what about Ramza?"

Val cocked her head. "What about Ramza?"

"In your story of choices, rivers, and boats...how do you see him?"

Val shrugged. "He doesn't matter to me like he matters to you and Del."

"Yet you're here waiting on him, same as me."

"You're waiting on him," Val retorted. "I'm waiting on my aunt."

"Seems like you're splitting hairs."

Val grimaced at him. Truth be told, she was worried: Aunt Faris was supposed to be staying out of things since she'd stolen the Invincible. She wanted to be surprised when she got the message in Zeltennia—the message that Faris and her crew would be helping Ramza journey to Mullonde—but Faris had always been more bold and more daring than she, acting in the open while Val kept to the shadows.

And, to be fair...if what Delita and Ramza said about Lucavi were true...

Val's grimace deepened. There was a part of her that didn't want to believe in the Lucavi. From her earliest conversations with her Grandma, and their brief discussions about the Germonique Gospel, she knew how the Church and the nobles cloaked themselves in tales of God and demons to soften their cruelty, their tyranny.

But she also knew that part of her that wanted to deny the Lucavi was acting more out of fear than out of wisdom. She had spent her years planning around men and their agendas: they were monstrous enough, but she understood them, and she had bested them, and she now stood close to victory. But the Lucavi (and she did believe there were Lucavi afoot in Ivalice: she'd been mostly convinced by the reports of the battle of Lionel, and after hearing about Riovanes and the Beoulve Manor, and seeing the ballroom of Limberry Castle, she could not deny it) had their own powers, their own agenda. The victory that was so close now—the royal restoration that would lead to the Republic of Ivalice—might not stand against the larger storm that threatened to follow after them.

And against that plan, Ramza Beoulve seemed their best hope. Though she couldn't help but feel dread at the thought of Aunt Faris following him into danger again.

"Do you know why you and Del like him so much?" Val asked.

"Because he's a good man," Olan said.

Val cocked her head again. "What does that mean, anyways? A good man?"

Olan frowned at her. "Are you serious?" When Val didn't answer, Olan pressed, "He tried to fight a war without killing. He protected Princess Ovelia when half the Hokuten wanted her dead. Now all of Ivalice wants him dead, and he's still working to save it. To save us. If he's not a good man, no one is."

Val studied Olan for a moment. "Did you ever go to the Shrine of Atonement?" Val asked. "Before the Ebon Eye destroyed it?"

"Before the Ebon Eye destroyed it?" Olan asked. "Or the Church?"

Val shook her head. "The Church only dropped some hints to interested parties. The Ebon Eye was real. So was the threat they posed."

Olan studied her in turn. "And you were really there?"

"Oh, yes." Val remembered it well: a sunken stone abbey, buried within dense woods not far from Zeltennia's northern coast...and protected by a long-derelict statue in the shape of a tree, crawling with powerful spells a canny wielder could turn against any would-be enemies. "Before the Glabados Conclave established the Church as we know it, the Order of Atonement was one of the great Saintly orders. They, like all the others, believed the Saint judged all men guilty of the sins of the Empire. And they thought they could atone for their sins by torturing themselves, as the Saint was tortured."

They had been absorbed into the Church, as so many things had been. She suspected the arts they'd spent so long devoting to their own pain had eventually become tools of the Inquisition. But one way or another, the abbey had been abandoned, in part because the Tree that had once defended it was thought to have gone dead, and not merely quiescent.

But Valerie had seen otherwise: the crystalline structure buried beneath its "roots" had merely been disconnected from the Tree that allowed its power to be fed into spells. The Church thought it was their plan: using the Tree as a goad to keep increasing tension across Ivalice. The Academy expedition had thought it was their plan (though given that the gil Professor Hollander had taken from Barinten far exceeded his Academy pay, it was probably more accurate to call it a Khamja expedition). The Cult of the Ebon Eye (mere bandits pretending to worship an old Zeltennian god to thumb their noses at authority) had thought themselves wise for discovering it. And Grimms' Black Sheep thought their own contacts had put them on the trail...never knowing it was Val's contacts who fed them their information.

And none of them knowing there was a reason that the Tree had been disconnected from its power source. None of them knowing that, the more the Tree was used, the more volatile it became, building up to destructive pitch that would annihilate all nearby.

It was a damn pity: the Tree had been a wonder, and the Abbey it guarded not much less so. But you couldn't rebuild something without tearing pieces of it apart, as you couldn't properly mend a broken bone without first setting it. And Val would suffer the lose of far more wondrous things, to reach a far more wondrous future.

"He's how you torture yourselves," Val said idly, as her mind flicked back over the months of work that had gone into proving herself as a worthwhile Church agent, worming her way into so many confidences. "He's how you punish yourselves for all your lying and murdering. And how you justify it to yourselves. That you need to be what you are, so men like him..." She shot Olan a withering smile. "And men like your father...can be what they are. They're your atonement."

Olan looked at her for a moment, then closed his eyes and finished his drink. When he set the empty mug down, his eyes were still closed tight.

"And do you know why you have to pretend you don't like him?" Olan asked.

Val cocked her head, pretending not to feel the guilty chill against her heart.

"Your parable of rivers, of choices in their qualities and quantities," Olan said. "He doesn't fit into it. He is a noble's son, the same as me. And he's spent his life willingly swimming in that river, rather than keeping to the easier ship he was born on. Proving he's strong enough to swim against its currents, and go where he wants to go." He opened his eyes. "If you admitted he was a good man, you'd have to admit you're not one. And that it's no one's fault but yours."

Val considered him for a moment, and considered his words too. She felt that guilt in her own heart, and was wise enough to admit there was some truth to what Olan was saying, as she was wise enough to recognize her denial in not honestly reckoning with the Lucavi. "You're not entirely wrong," she admitted. "But you're still missing the mark." She started to take a drink, then wrinkled her nose against the acrid smell of ale and set her mug back down. "I'm not like you. I know what I'm doing, and I know why I'm doing it."

There was no one she wouldn't hurt, no one she wouldn't betray, no one she wouldn't lie to, if it would bring down the Church, and the whole rotten structure of which it was a part. She did not need to believe in the good people of today to keep to her work. She did not need an Ovelia, an Orlandeau, a Ramza Beoulve, to believe the world was worth fighting for.

But it was also important to remember: not everyone had to be hurt. Not everyone had to be lied to. Not everyone had to be betrayed. She would pay whatever costs needed paying. But if she didn't want to be like the Church, she should also keep her eye on what exactly she was paying for. And make sure she didn't pay too much. She didn't need to punish herself with the thought of people like Ovelia. People like Ramza. People like Faris. But that didn't mean they weren't worth protecting.

"A better world," Olan said quietly.

Val nodded. "A better world."

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. For a few minutes, the quiet of Bismarck's Whistle was absolute. And because it was so quiet inside, it was easy to hear the distant shouts outside.

Olan and Val's heads snapped up, then to each other. Val swallowed, then looked to Ysayle at the bar, already watching the door. With a quick nod, Ysayle slipped outside. Val and Olan tried not to stare too long at the door, as more shouts came from outside.

After another few minutes, Ysayle slipped back inside, and resumed tending bar, as though nothing had happened. A minute later, and she brought a pair of drinks to Olan and Val. In the weak light of the lamps, the scars on her throat were barely visible under her high collar. Val took a drink, fighting not to blanch at the taste of ale, and quietly palmed the hastily-scribbled note Ysayle had slipped beneath the glass. She read it, swallowed against the dryness of her throat, and took another drink.

"We've talked enough," Val said, resting a hand atop Olan's to let the note slip into his grip. "I think it's time for us to get back to work."

Olan nodded, taking his own drink, reading the note without ever once seeming to look down at it. He was good, no doubt about it. And they would need every scrap of their intelligence, every scrap of their ability, every scrap of their talent, in the days to come, if what the note said was true.

Mullonde is burning.

They say it was the heretic Beoulve.