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And so it was, that on the long, long ship voyage to the Valerian Isles, did Canopus filch the old man’s cards. He sat atop an overturned barrel, shuffling them and enjoying the look of horror on Mirdyn’s face.
And so it was, that Balthier straddled a reversed chair in the Whitecap tavern, watching a hip-high bangaa split the deck and work it back together, the bird resting atop his head preening, the murmurs of other pirates in harmony with the crashing waves outside.
And so it was, that Ramza worked his knuckles white watching his best friend tapping the deck against the schooldesk, a brace of petulant classmates jingling coins in leather pouches.
And Canopus hated the cabins of ships, his wings aching to feel the chill and the freedom of the clouds; and Balthier hated the complacency of Balfonheim, free men shuttering themselves away like a leper’s colony; and Delita hated walking those halls, the bootprints on the back of his tunic, the stinging wounds on his knuckles. But the Saint-King bade them secret, but Nono needed parts, but a second father’s entreatment did weigh.
They laid out three cards, raised one to the audience, and then their hands began to move, transposing positions.
“Watch the Lady,” said Canopus, said Raz, said Delita, and Gildas was laughing, Balthier was sighing, Ramza was biting his lip and watching the doorway. “Watch the lady, find where she lands.”
***
The walls of The Swan echoed with the sound of falling tears.
Lanselot Tartaros crossed his arms, leaning against the cold stone wall outside her room. His eye was closed; Balxephon could not read his expression.
“You seem disappointed,” he ventured, and that one eye opened slowly to glare.
“She will serve.” Tartaros stood up straighter, shook his head. “For our purposes, this changes little at all.”
“For ours.” Balxephon looked away. “But for yours?”
Tartaros scowled, turned, swung the door open and closed it behind him, regarding the sobbing princess, framed in the light of the moon.
Ovelia Akatscha wiped at a gobby mess with one once-regal sleeve and looked afeared, as though he’d strike her for crying. He eased himself to a crouch, so that he was at eye level with the woman where she was sprawled in the hay mattress.
“It is well enough to feel sorrow,” he spoke from experience, “but better still to feel angry.” She looked so much like Eleanor that he did not care much to look at her. But he did. “Your people have need of you. And though I’ve little use for being a shield, I could well be your sword.”
***
The Dawn Shard grew blurry; it was bleeding Mist into the very air even as she raised the Sword of Kings above her head with both hands.
“It has been roused,” said Fran behind her. “It fears the Sword.”
She started to bring the sword down, but of course there he was again, shimmering in the Mist like a Westersand mirage, imploring silently. At the sight of him, she broke again. At every sight of him she broke anew, smaller and smaller pieces. She wondered how much left of her existed.
The blade struck inches clear of the Shard, and she willed her hand not to reach for his vision.
“The stone is quiet.” Fran nearly whispered it. Her fists clenched, and she could feel wetness beneath her nails.
“This is the sword. The nethicite destroyer.”
“Should it finds its mark,” Balthier drawled angrily, and at that she turned. At that, Catiua Pavel did look away from the vision of her brother, and she pointed the Sword of Kings right across the sky pirate’s neck, motion for motion as Ghis once had done.
“You forget yourself.” Did he wear her pendant beneath that starched tunic of his, or did it nestle in one of the heavy pouches on his belt? If she just struck him down, could she retrieve it without meeting the eyes of anyone else? “You’d have me spurn an advantage to satiate you, Balthier? My few tokens of memory remaining were not enough of a prize? Mayhap I hand you next my crown? How many pounds of flesh must you consume to be satisfied?”
“Hey...” Vaan offered lamely, and she took a long, deep breath before lowering the blade.
Without even looking, she knew Denam stood behind her, arms open for an embrace he could not give.
***
Thunder crashed outside, sending a kaleidoscope of colors through the stained glass of Orbonne. She seethed, hearing Agrias battle the invading force without, mercenaries at her side. To battle, to die in her name, it was not right.
She should be with them, not hiding in the dark. A life of being kept at a remove.
She ran her hand along the width of a pew, trying to calm herself by counting the seconds between thunderclap and flash. And then at pew’s end, a hand wrapped around her wrist.
She could not see him: he was a shadow lined in red and gold, rising from nothing, and she felt his arm pull, pressing the advantage. She cried out, and curse her surprise, but she’d have Agrias know she was being attacked. And then she shifted her weight, pulling his arm taut over her shoulder, and flipped him over into the pew.
He crashed hard, splintering wood into pieces; Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca did not give him time to recover, jumping onto his chest with all the force she could muster in a gown, hoping to knock the wind from him. It was not enough; his arm got around her throat, his gauntlet pressing in, cutting off her air. But she’d kept him from standing, and it was angle enough to draw his sword from its sheath.
The man rolled aside before she could stab backwards into him, and she raised the weapon before her. He held up his hands.
“I...” He gulped at air. “I come to save you; the attack outside, a feint...”
“I’ll save myself,” she said in exchange, and ran Delita Heiral through with her sword.
***
Watch the Lady, find where she lands.
***
It was Martym that sealed it; a careless joke, not seeing her around a corner in Phidoch’s long lonely halls. That you-know-who could barely remember his own name, after what they’d done to him.
And on bare feet she’d stolen away, down those stairs, pressing her face against the inches-high port in the door, peering into the darkness, seeing the familiar color of Hamilton’s hair, sagging, hearing the damp sounds of coughed blood.
And when he’d come to her next, on the parapets, he bore a bouquet.
“They tell me that today is your birthday, Ovelia. Your true one.” Tartaros stepped closer. “We shall all dine well in celeb--” and her hands were both on the dagger, pushing and pushing and pushing. Lanselot reared back, and in a single motion it was buried to the hilt in her own breast instead, white gown blooming in roses of its own, and she fell back to watch him sink again to a knee, his one good eye shocked as it hadn’t been in a decade or more.
Volaq mounted the steps in urgency. “Lanselot! Ozma has brought them here! We must...” And then he saw them both, Lanselot struggling to stay upright, Ovelia making that same damp sound, and then she felt the world upend as she tipped backwards and over the side.
***
“Attain to your birthright,” had said Gerun of the Occuria, and the Treaty-Blade fell heavy in her hands. And now, in the whirling storm atop the Pharos, she stood with it in one hand, Sword of Kings in the other, and looked upon her brother’s face anew.
“You would have me destroy the Empire? Is this my duty, is this what you want?” Catiua’s tears had left streaks of black like scars across her cheeks. She searched his face, praying to understand: would Denam, her Denam, call for the deaths of the innocent and the guilty alike? Would his justice contain such horror?
She would do anything for him. She would even do that, kill them all. She needed only a sign. He only held out his hands again.
“Princess...” Basch said after so many breaths, but it was too late. The ringing of metal on stone announced him before he spoke, avatar of death, Judge Magister, dog of the Empire.
She dropped the Sword of Kings and raised her Treaty-Blade to fight.
If it was war he sought, that Vayne sought, she’d give him war to spare, and all Hell would follow her. If the Occuria would make of her an Ogre, then Ogre she’d be, and beneath her burning footsteps would all of Archades bow.
***
She stood at the threshold of the Necrohol, and her band did watch her hesitate, grip tighter a sword that had slain Templar and priest, knight and bandit and revolutionary.
She would save Alma Beoulve. Another woman hung from strings and made to dance. She would be better than the woman she’d been. She would make herself worthy of those who had followed her into the valley of death.
And when Folmarv tore himself inside out, when the Savior arose in the skin of the innocent, it was only empathy which moved her hand. And when the High Seraph’s last flare tore apart decking and mast alike, when she was lifted in its light and tossed back in the abyss, she had time only to admit to herself that the world without was too late to save.
That to save this one girl would not save her from her sins. That Ivalice’s well was poisoned, even without the plague’s cause. Besselat stood astride a field of a hundred thousand corpses. And with the fall of two Skies, her starving Ivalice had nothing left to live on but hate. For a righteous cause was nothing if not in service of her people. And they were hers no longer.
She fell into the history of an age twelve hundred years past, an age of stones and Mist she’d never known. And though she’d yet live, she and Alma both, something of her died in Mullonde, something she’d not bring back with her into the land of the struggling to live.
***
Watch the Lady, find where she lands. Never where she’s meant to be. But when you shuffle the Tarot, the Lady is everywhere. High Priestess and Empress, Strength and Star and Temperance, Justice and Lover and Judgment, she stands astride the Wheel of Fortune, she is the World.
She is the World.