by Jun Eishima
“Do you spend every waking moment thinking about daemons?” he asked the man.
Ardyn had meant it as a jab, but Verstael responded with a broad smile and deep nod. “Aren’t they wondrous creatures? I adore their strength! So utterly does a daemonified entity surpass the pitiful constraints of a human. I envy you.”
“You envy me?” Ardyn asked.
“A human life is too short to truly understand all there is to know about the world. If my time on this star spanned millennia like yours, oh, the things I would do!”
Ardyn would have gladly handed over the burden of eternity if he could. But scarcely had the thought formed in his mind before it was disrupted by a crashing sound and the sudden sight of several black shapes dropping to the ground. The intruders rose, and Ardyn knew them for what they were: the same forces that had attempted to intercept his extraction from Angelgard. The Lucian Royal Guard. Soon more were arriving in the hangar, warping in one by one from somewhere outside.
“Lucians! But how?!” Verstael spat, face twisted with malice, but the soldiers ignored him.
They moved quickly, surrounding Ardyn.
“So you’ve come to kill me, have you?” he asked. It was a question that hardly needed an answer; he remembered the words of those he’d encountered on the island. Get it back in the cage―no matter what.
“Or die trying,” a woman’s voice answered all the same. Her features were obscured, and she resembled Somnus not in the slightest, yet suddenly Ardyn found himself staring at Somnus’s face.
Maybe the association was logical. She was, after all, a Lucian―a subject of the kingdom established by Somnus and watched over by his successors.
But it was more than that. Though the weapon she brandished was a far cry from a longsword, her movements were strangely familiar. When she rushed in to strike, he saw his brother’s footwork. His brother’s hands. Why? Why did she seem like . . . ?
“Because it is me, Brother. I’m here, come to kill you.”
It was Somnus’s voice. Again. The same voice that had taunted and tortured him in the depths of Angelgard.
“Just as you would kill me. Right, Brother? Well, I’m afraid to say you’ll never know the satisfaction of taking my life.”
“Silence!” Ardyn screamed.
He raised his arm to block the incoming blade. Pain ripped its way through his flesh, but he did not care. The wound would close soon enough.
“I’m already dead, and have been for some time,” Somnus continued.
With a violent shake, Ardyn dislodged the sword from his arm. It went clattering across the floor―along with its black-clad wielder. She still wore Somnus’s face.
“Though I may be gone, my legacy lives on in Lucis!” his brother taunted. “It lives on in the minds and hearts of the soldiers before you.”
“Enough of this! Begone!”
Ardyn’s red blade flashed into his hand, and he slashed at the soldier. From her chest―from Somnus’s chest―came a fountain of blood, and then she lay in a heap on the ground.
Another Somnus rushed him from behind.
“While you were lost in slumber, I was busy building a kingdom! What sort of legacy have you left behind, Brother?”
“Silence! Away with you!”
He matched blows with Somnus after Somnus, blade swung with such ferocity that it lodged in the floor at his feet and gouged chunks from the walls. Still his brother would not disappear. “Where’s that backup?!” a voice shouted, far away and faint.
An explosion roared through the facility. The lights went out, but the darkness was momentary, soon dispelled by the glow of red flames spouting through a great hole in the far wall.
“Blast! The cooling unit!”
Light from the flames flickered across Verstael’s anxious expression. His eyes were wide, and for a moment, Ardyn forgot about the soldiers all wearing his brother’s face. He followed the researcher’s gaze.
There was something unnatural about the flames. Pouring through the gaping rent in the wall, they were now scorching the high ceiling of the hangar. They twisted and writhed as if they possessed a will of their own. The black smoke billowed upward, filling the room, and as the flame and smoke intertwined, they formed the nebulous shape of a giant arm.
There was a splintering noise, and the fire spread farther. The giant arm broke through more of the wall, and a body wreathed in flames passed through, landing on the floor of the hangar. In its other hand it held a giant, fiery sword.
“He’s awakened!”
Ardyn finally understood the reason for Verstael’s panic. The explosion must have been the sound of the cooling unit rupturing. With the ice melted, there was nothing left to restrain the Infernian.
“We must stop him before he destroys everything!” Verstael yelped.
There’s little chance of that, thought Ardyn. This was a god. Verstael and the others were now dealing with something quite apart from a once-human monster.
The Pyreburner spoke, his words strange and haunting. The language was impossible to parse, but the god’s tone was clearly not a friendly one. His giant blade came smashing down, engulfing the floor of the hangar in a sea of flames. In an instant, the Lucians in their black garb were naught but ash.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ardyn saw Verstael bolting away, a shrill shriek escaping his lungs as he fled. The fact that he was running at all was a testament to the malevolent man’s luck.
Ardyn stared up at the Infernian, making to neither flee nor fight. Verstael’s earlier words floated to the forefront of his mind.
Do you think you could turn him? Just think. You could exact sweet revenge through divine retribution!
With the passing of two millennia, Ardyn had thought his lust for revenge long withered. Somnus was dead. Killing his descendants seemed to serve little purpose.
But his mind and heart were at odds. The anger and hatred had never left him; still they smoldered deep in his breast. That was why the Somnus of his mind―the illusion that had taunted him―said the things it did. My legacy lives on in Lucis. It lives on in the minds and hearts of the soldiers before you. Somewhere deep inside him, Ardyn longed to see an end to the Lucian line.
He was so wrapped up in these thoughts that he failed to notice the motion of the god’s flaming hand. It was too late to run. Soon he was in the grip of a fist that could crush a man with no effort. There would be no escape. No matter how much he struggled, he would not break free of this grasp. Ardyn had only one means to resist.
“Power . . . ”
He funneled the darkness―the rage―into the palm of his hand.
“O Infernian, grant me the power to take Somnus, his people, and his cursed kingdom . . . ”
The same sensation he felt when he’d turned those soldiers into daemons surged through his arm. The Pyreburner’s great frame shook. Soon Ardyn felt his own body ablaze, ignited by the Astral’s unquenchable heat. Yet Ardyn’s hold did not slacken. His fingers dug into the deity’s arm.
“ . . . and burn them all to the ground!”
The Infernian fell to his knees. “Fool!”
The cryptic sounds coming from the Astral’s mouth began to convey meaning. The words of the gods were no longer a mystery to Ardyn.
The hand clutching him slackened, and he was cast to the floor. No doubt the process would take far more time with a god than it would with a man, but the scourge was beginning to take hold.
“You dare to subjugate the divine?!”
Ifrit’s memories flowed into Ardyn’s mind. He witnessed the moment when man was given fire, and the days when civilization enjoyed the Infernian’s patronage. Solheim dawned and flourished, its technology ascendant. Man grew arrogant. Then betrayal. Rage. The Great War of Old. The Six subsiding into slumber.
Beyond that, there were memories of the Crystal. Ar
dyn was fascinated to learn that it not only relayed the words of the gods to the Oracle, but also served as means for the sleeping gods to observe the human world. The realization came in bits and pieces, as he observed faint images that could not have been lived by the Infernian himself.
He saw Aera, kneeling before the Crystal. She wore an expression unlike any he’d known in his countless imaginings at Angelgard. It bothered him that there was any side to her he didn’t know.
“Aera!” he called, though she could not hear.
The head bowed in prayer tipped back suddenly, as if with a gasp. Her face seemed to radiate joy. Her eyes were wide, and her cheeks were flushed pink.
When Ardyn caught the image reflected in her pupils, he was stunned.
“No . . . How could that be?”
It was his own face swimming in her eyes. There could be no doubt. Aera was seeing his image in the Crystal. The meaning was clear.
“I was the one chosen to be king . . . ?”
The gods had not selected Somnus.
“Why . . . ?”
It was the word she’d spoken during that final confrontation in the castle. It had played back endlessly in his mind, a swirling uncertainty that finally made sense. Her final, soft utterance as her life slipped away. The question she’d asked when the Crystal rejected Ardyn’s outstretched hand.
This was what she’d not been able to understand. Why had the Crystal turned away the man chosen to be the Founder King?
Two thousand years’ pondering had bestowed on him some clues. Clearly the gods had, at one time, settled on the man who cared for his suffering people. They’d seen him most fit to serve as king. But as he absorbed more and more of the scourge into his body, he became something other than a man. He acquired strength not meant for mortals, a power so unnatural that it offended the Crystal. Or perhaps it was the scourge itself that the Crystal could not suffer.
In any case, the choice of the gods and approval of the Crystal were in contest. Perhaps it was an oversight on the gods’ part; perhaps they cared so little for man that the error slipped by unnoticed.
It was a development not likely foreseen by Somnus either. To him, it must have appeared as a great stroke of fortune. Surely the people assembled there saw what transpired and deduced that Ardyn had not been chosen. All that would have remained for Somnus was to silence the only other voice aware of the truth. With the Oracle gone, there would be no one left to convey the knowledge that Somnus had never been granted the gods’ favor.
The Crystal faded from view, and Ardyn found himself standing amid a vast expanse of flame. If what he’d witnessed was the truth, then that meant . . .
“It was Somnus’s lie that killed you!”
Aera floated before his eyes once more. At some point in his cell on Angelgard, he’d lost the ability to envision her smiling. Now, too, her face was clouded with sadness.
“Forgive me.”
Why do you apologize? It was all a trap laid by Somnus.
“I defied the will of the gods and revealed to Somnus you had been chosen to be king.”
No. It was Somnus’s cunning. His scheming pried the revelation from your lips.
“It’s my fault. I’m the one who ruined your future!”
You were deceived! That is all! You’ve no sins to atone for!
But no matter how strongly he objected, she refused to acknowledge his protests, as if even now, in death, she remained entangled in Somnus’s wiles.
“In the names of the gods above . . . fulfill your calling, Ardyn, and punish me for my sins! Kill me!”
Why was she the one to suffer pangs of guilt? The one who must pay was Somnus, not Aera. Somnus was the one who deserved death!
“Too bad,” his brother announced. “I’m already dead, and have been for some time.”
Another Somnus appeared before his eyes. Another trick of the mind he could neither kill nor send away. This was the man who had deceived everyone, who had killed Aera and usurped the throne. No number of deaths dealt to him could ever be enough to see justice served. Yet he would never die at Ardyn’s hands. How could such a travesty be allowed to stand?
“This monster may not be able to destroy you, but I’ll see to it that I destroy everything you built!”
The nation. The bloodline. He’d destroy it all. Just as the name Ardyn Lucis Caelum had been expunged from history, he’d see to it that Somnus Lucis Caelum and everything connected to him was eradicated.
In an age past, Ardyn had believed himself called upon by the gods to save the people. Now, he’d have to kill them.
“Hear me, gods above! No longer shall I supplicate you for pardon.”
Gone was the obligation to obey the gods who failed to see through Somnus’s deception.
It was the gods who had allowed Lucis to flourish, who brought no punishment down upon it.
“No longer shall I sojourn toward the light. Nay . . . the path I intend to tread is paved with blood and darkness.”
His faith had been unwavering. He’d lived for the people. Now he saw what a fool he’d been. His faith belonged with no one else. He’d seek strength only for himself, labor to see only his own desires filled.
And the only desire he had was for revenge.
He would agree to Verstael’s proposition and aid the man with whatever he desired. It would be a means to see the end of the Caelum bloodline and the destruction of the Kingdom of Lucis.
“No longer shall I seek your guidance. This path is mine to tread alone.”
As Ardyn thought of Lucis and all the many ways it would be brought to ruin, a great burst of laughter welled forth from deep within him. It was some time before the laughter stopped.
“Verstael, this is the man of whom you spoke?”
“Yes. Ardyn Izunia, Your Radiance. He has proven to be of vital importance to our technological progress.”
Ardyn kneeled respectfully, his head bowed. An audience with Iedolas Aldercapt, emperor of Niflheim, was not a thing granted lightly. Yet the emperor’s gaze wandered aimlessly. He seemed to have little interest in his visitors or their news.
Just a short time ago, the response would have undoubtedly been quite different. House Aldercapt had long aspired to see the glories of Solheim restored to the world, and of all its members who had sat the throne, Iedolas was the most ardent proponent of magitek development. Merely a hint of a plan to speed production of their prized new infantry should have been enough to secure his rapt attention.
The lukewarm response was likely tied to tragedy: his empress had passed, freed now from the burden of her mortal coil but leaving her husband alone and despondent. They’d had only one child between them―a boy not yet a year in age, and thus much too young to soothe his father’s sorrow.
Still, in a sense, Iedolas’s despair was quite fortunate for Ardyn. The man was beloved by his people as being both wise and just―perhaps more the former than the latter. He endeavored to rule over the people fairly, but his real talent lay in shrewdly guiding the growth and development of his nation. In other words, he was calm and his decisions were rational. It was a fact that, until now, had been a slight inconvenience to Ardyn.
But when a man has lost something that cannot be replaced, his judgment tends to suffer. Reason knows no greater enemy than a sense of loss.
Ardyn wanted desperately for Iedolas to covet more, to greedily grasp for things beyond his means. On that point, he and Verstael were in full accord. The researcher was eager to see more of the empire’s budget dedicated to military expansion, and Ardyn wished the emperor to grow more bold in his conquests―and thereby hasten the downfall of Lucis.
“The studies we conduct on the daemons bring us great advances in development, Your Radiance. But we are equally indebted to this man for the materials and information he provides.”
At Verstael’s grand
introduction, Iedolas finally deigned to look Ardyn over. However, in all likelihood, he felt less interest in someone of Verstael’s recommendation than annoyance with the researcher’s incessant talk.
“Your Majesty.” Ardyn stood, interrupting Verstael before he could launch into further address.
The scientist shot him an irritated look. This is not, he seemed to say, what we agreed upon.
“Pardon my candor, but I wonder if perhaps Your Majesty might have interest in a way to stave off death?”
Ardyn was taking a chance by disposing with formality, but he’d decided it was the best way to pique the emperor’s interest. Since his wife’s death, the man had undoubtedly been addressed with the utmost delicacy by all who approached him.
“Stave off death, you say?” Iedolas raised an eyebrow.
Hook, line, and sinker. There was nothing more effective than the loss of a loved one to kindle a hatred of death and the desire to cheat it somehow. Wise and just Iedolas might be, but in the end, he was still a man. His loss and yearning would drive him to take action, no matter how rash.
“Yes, Your Majesty. In truth, study of the daemons and the scourge will open the door to more than just might. It is a key element to discovering the secret to immortality.”
Ardyn peered into the emperor’s face. He’d dispensed with protocol altogether.
“Just think,” he continued. “A body that cannot perish. The means to reign for time everlasting. Doesn’t that sound magnificent?”
In Iedolas’s eyes, until then dull and lifeless, a fire began to burn.
M.E. 725
With the prospect of immortality dangled before his eyes, Iedolas agreed to most everything that was proposed. Ardyn found it an almost trivial matter to lead the man around as he wished.
Ardyn provided the daemons and Verstael conducted the research. The discoveries and inventions were progressing more rapidly than ever before, and soon they were creating myriad new machines of war. Never for a moment did Iedolas doubt that the techniques used to fashion weaponry would one day also pave the way to his fountain of youth. So the money kept flowing, copious, to keep the research moving forward.
