The Time Between The Seconds [FF14] Novella (2024)

How does one kill an empire? Trick question. An empire kills itself, as a mountainside kills itself with its own ponderous mass when a few too many specks of dirt fall, dislodged by wind and rain against which it felt unassailable. The job of those who seek an empire's destruction is to remove the pieces, one by one, watching intently all the while for the moment when the centre fails to hold and the chain reaction begins. After that, there is no stopping it. After that, everything else is a formality.

The Garlean Empire was already on the brink. It had stretched too far, too fast, too thin. It had greedily devoured Ilsabard, Corvos, Ala Mhigo, Dalmasca, Doma, yet as it stretched out its hand to Eorzea it found only teeth. The VIIth legion and its legate, gone in the blink of an eye. Their mad plan to unleash cataclysm upon the land from the false moon, undone. Five years later, the XIVth legion and its legate perished in flames along with the greatest imperial stronghold in the region. Emperor Solus zos Galvus died without naming an heir, his grandsons waging bloody civil war for the chance to wear the crown. Still it hungered, for an empire's belly can never be full, and it schemed to claim the island nation of Thavnair. Spies whispered rumours of a power behind the throne, of an unspoken savage who pulled the puppet satrap's strings.

Vrtra of the First Brood, being both a primordial dragon and the true satrap of Thavnair, could not allow these rumours to be proven true. For the sake of his beloved new home and its people he ordered his spymaster to cross the sea with an impossible task. A task that, if successful, could mean the death of an empire - kill the viceroy of Ala Mhigo and Emperor Varis' only son, crown prince Zenos yae Galvus.

Rael made first for Eorzea, taking advantage of the chaos left in the wake of the Praetorium's devastation to infiltrate the shattered remnants of the XIVth legion. Would that they could have disguised themself as an auxiliary in the process, but a viera conscript would have been too exotic a sight to pass beneath notice. Instead they located a regular of similar-enough height and slew him in the dead of night - folding their lapine ears down to fit within the helmet and forcing their paws into the plantigrade boots caused much discomfort, but discomfort was a small price to pay for the chance to cross Baelsar's Wall and penetrate Gyr Abania undetected.

Ala Mhigo itself was another story. The city was a fortress, the guard doubled - no, tripled - by the crown prince's presence and the sudden nearness of the savage hordes beyond the wall. True citizenship of the empire was a rare and treasured thing, each recipient registered and filed away as one more small conquest. A mere costume would not see Rael through the main gates, but it would take them as far as the Peregrine Quarter - a misbegotten slum where those beneath Garlemald's grace languished in squalor. There no one would dare look twice at a figure in Garlean garb even as it walked alone in the fading light. There no one dared to report the discarded armour for fear of blame and beatings. There Rael could shed their skin and emerge on the twilit rooftops, dressed for their bloody work.

They were over six fulms tall, perfectly average height for a viera, with deep brown skin and long, silky black hair threaded with midnight blue highlights. Their eyes were sunrise-pink with golden-hued eyeshadow to match, their full lips painted a dark, glossy blue and yet set in a severe, emotionless slash as they concealed them beneath a facemask. They wore a fitted mailshirt sandwiched between layers of black cloth - sleeveless, leaving their arms bare. The dark skin gave way to even darker fur at the elbows just as it did at the knees, near-black and faintly glossy in the light, clawed hands wrapping around the hilts of their daggers as Rael inspected each blade for any sign of flaw or defect. They ran the velvet pawpad of their thumb across the honed edge, and at last seemed satisfied. Only the padded lining of their black trousers armoured their legs, their boots little more than slippers, but their agility would not be hampered and that was good enough. A satchel at their hip and a tightly-bundled parcel of cloth at the small of their back, containing what they would need to accomplish their mission and return. To finish the ensemble, a long midnight blue scarf wrapped twice around their neck, leaving twin tails to billow behind them like pennants in the wind.

It was like a ritual. A reminder of the things Rael could control and the things they could not. They were not nervous, no, far from it. The prospect of discovery and pursuit did not frighten them, did not quicken their heart in their chest. They did not carry the fates of two nations on their shoulders. They were there to kill a man, and they had already fought far worse.

A few inquiries before departure had furnished Rael with a map of the palace drawn up by a former member of King Theodoric's court, fled to Thavnair to escape the very civil unrest that had ultimately damned the city to fall to the XIVth. The years had not left her memories untouched, but it would be enough to see Rael to the king's - now viceroy's - chambers. The rest Rael handled themself, starting with the curtain wall that divided the Peregrine Quarter from the city proper. It was a long, slow, perilous climb but Rael endured it without complaint, without so much as a grunt of effort, slowly creeping from handhold to handhold as the sun set beyond the salt flats and the moon came swiftly after to light their path. A pause atop the battlements - no guards, men were a precious resource but it took a master's hand to guide them where they were most needed, and by all accounts the viceroy's was not that hand.

Rael kept to the rooftops as they stole deeper into the capital, leaping over the heads of unsuspecting patrols with nary a whisper. The palace towered over the Ala Mhigan skyline, a corpse of a thing denied its dignity by ugly, angular Garlean magitek installations that clung to the sandstone facade like parasites. The approach seemed impossible, harsh ceruleum floodlights keeping the palace walls and courtyard lit like the noonday sun, but there is no system stronger than its weakest link. Rael flitted between what shadows remained, following pumps and cables back to the ceruleum tanks which powered those burning bulbs. If Thavnair had one pride and joy it was its alchemists, and the obsessive artisans of the Great Work had been all too eager to fulfil Rael's order for a substance that would denature ceruleum. A few drops in each tank, a little patience, and one by one the great lamps sputtered and wheezed their last. Confused voices rose from the light that remained, scattered but converging on the problem lightpoles in question. Rael was long gone by the time an engineer arrived, slithering through the shadows and up over a darkened balcony.

With each layer of security, of safety, that Rael peeled back the satisfaction of a job well done threatened to creep to the fore. The viera was cold and stony of mien but they would not deny the inherent thrill of going unseen and unheard where others thought themselves safe: voyeuristic, perhaps; sad*stic, undoubtedly. But they would not let arrogance jeopardise the mission, not with the prize so close at hand. Slowly, methodically, they teased the secrets from the palace, creeping down the halls and vaulting through windows to crawl across the facade where the floodlights could not quite reach high enough. People are people no matter how wide one roams - they get tired, they get bored, they make conversation, they vent about annoyances - and it did not take long for this truth to provide Rael what they needed.

"He's an absolute monster with those blades. I've heard he collects them from his conquests - is it true they've got savage magicks imbued in them?"

"Keep your voice down. Unless you'd like to rouse the prince?"

Two guardsmen, paused at their meeting-place in the hallway between their patrols. Rael pressed up against the corner just around the prior bend, sensitive ears straining not just for the words, but for the first sign that they had resumed movement.

"I don't mean anything by it. It's only… you should've seen him in the training yard today. He stopped drills on a whim, asked- ordered, more like, the centurion to send his best at him. Wouldn't even let anyone stop to get blunted blades."

"And any man fool enough to rush him was felled in one stroke, you think anyone in the city hasn't heard? He put a dozen men in the infirmary and that was by accident. What do you think he'll do on purpose if he hears about gossip in the halls?"

"Alright, alright. I… never you mind, forget I said anything."

"All too gladly."

Rael remained in place, listening to the two soldiers part ways. One continued down the hall, venturing toward the front of the palace at a steady gait. The other was coming their way, slower, slightly uneven, preoccupied. Rael remained stock-still, and exhaled.

Cold blood. Cold breath. Cold lungs. Cold night. The hum of aether stilled, perceptible only by its absence. The blood stagnated in their veins as their heart ceased to beat. The viera's body slowly seemed to fade out, faint and insubstantial as a shadow cast upon the wall. An empty vessel. A snake waiting in the grass for the right moment to strike.

The man walked past, close enough to brush their ears with a casual swing of his arm. His gait did not change. Rael's eyes opened, and their pulse returned redoubled.

Here they were less viper and more constrictor, for they dare not ruin the man's uniform with their steel fangs. Instead they wrapped an arm around his throat, pinned his sword-arm with the other to keep him from going for his gunblade, and with fits and starts bore him down to the floor. The helmet concealed all but Rael could still easily imagine the man's face going red, going purple, veins swollen and pulsing beneath the flesh as he struggled with every fibre of his being to worm free of their vicelike grip. Rael simply waited as long as it would take, until the man's kicking and thrashing grew weak and scattershot. They only rotated their ears, listening from all possible avenues of approach, as the man succumbed without hope of rescue.

Crunch. A bloodless death, and a uniform for the taking. Rael calmly dragged the dead man through a nearby doorway - a storeroom, filled with rolled-up carpets displaced by 'renovations' elsewhere in the palace not yet given new homes. They tucked the body away out of sight, and shed their skin once more.

The hour was late and only growing later. The kitchens were of course closing up for the night, securing delicacies meant only for the crown prince's lips against vermin and bold soldiers both. Only two remained when there was a knock on the door; an old weather-worn hyur who might have worked the kitchens since the reign of the Mad King, and a miqo'te boy who could have been his grandson. Rael towered over the latter where they stood in the doorway and he shrank back suitably cowed, by their guise if not their stature. They gazed down at him dispassionately, and then over to the elder.

"The viceroy desires refreshment. Shaved ice or sweetmeats are to be delivered to his chambers at once." Rael's voice was flat and without affect, made hollow and inhuman by the confines of their helmet. They were long practiced in erasing their accent, and so the words betrayed nothing.

"He barely touched his dinner to begin with, now he wants dessert?" the old hand grumbled - careless, to let a young prince's fickle whims bring out the grandfather in him. Doubly so for a 'savage'.

Rael took two strides into the kitchens and struck him. It was a lazy blow, without their usual artistry, but a Garlean soldier would have spared no more thought for an upstart servant in their place. Their gauntlet connected with a heavy thud and the man's legs buckled, a white-knuckle grip on the centre island all that kept him upright. The miqo'te cried out in alarm and rushed to his side, taking the white-haired cook's weight.

"Bring the requested items to the viceroy's chambers," Rael repeated. "Or he will ask in his own words."

They did not waste any more time. In mere moments the cold, cruel soldier who had relayed an order from no one had ceased to be, the armour discarded in a neat pile atop the dead man who had once owned it. Rael slipped back into their own guise and crept from the storeroom - a twitch of the ears, a slow exhale to empty their mind of distraction and focus their senses, and the pitter-patter of the young miqo'te's gait swam to the forefront. The boy's pounding heart was almost as loud, his hot blood coursing swift with fear through his veins, his breathing laboured and irregular. His sandy blonde tail hung low, feline ears flattened against his skull. He might as well have been sent to die, made into the very morsel he was sent to deliver as one might offer a mouse to a cat. His pace slowed and slower yet further as he rounded the final corner and came face to face with the great double doors of the royal chambers, the den of the monster that now squatted upon the bones of Ala Mhigo. There were no guards standing ready, perhaps deemed unnecessary with the other layers of defence in and around the city, perhaps dismissed in a fit of arrogance. The miqo'te boy swallowed loudly as he shuffled to a stop before the barred doors.

Rap-rap… rap…

The boy's knuckles barely made a sound. He didn't dare strike the doors any harder. He was trembling by then, shivering from head to toe. He gingerly pressed on the door with his fingertips alone, testing against all probability to see if the crown prince had simply left it ajar. He withdrew his hand just as quickly, for fear of his small claws leaving even the slightest mark on the varnished surface.

"(S… s-sir…?)" he said in a small, shaking voice. "(Your… what you r-requested…)"

The silence was cavernous. Dizzying in its black depths. The kitchen boy must have felt as if that silence could swallow him whole, spirit him away without a trace. Rael endured it without complaint, their heartbeat as regular as clockwork. The miqo'te's raced like war drums.

"(I-I'll… I'll leave it… just here, sir…)"

He slowly sank into a deep squat, unable to tear his eyes from the door. The luxurious, glazed bowl of shaved ice rattled and clattered as it gamely fought to keep its balance upon the tray in the boy's hands. CLA-CLACK it went as it slipped from his grip with a hiss and a curse and fell the final ilm to the hard, unyielding floor. The boy flinched, tail whipping fully between his legs, frozen awaiting the telltale sound of footsteps approaching the door. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. The beast did not stir in its den.

The boy ran back to the kitchen as fast as his feet could carry him, and Rael spared for him not a thought more. Instead they watched the door, ears rotated forward, tuning out the fading drumbeat of the miqo'te's retreat to strain for any sign of movement in the prince's chambers. One minute passed. Even two. The ice melted steadily, becoming little more than a watery stew of flavoured syrup. Still there was no sound from within. The prince still slept.

Ala Mhigo was built on the edge of a cliff face and the palace directly abutted it, naught save a sheer cliff face and a dizzying, lethal drop into a thick sea of clouds beneath the broad balcony that extended from the king's chambers. Bright moonlight that should have dyed the sandstone silver was instead muted, half blotted out by the dizzying grandeur of the Royal Menagerie as it stretched proudly across that abyss. It provided Rael the cover they desired as they inched around the wall, a howling updraft plucking at their back and their scarf as it threatened to tear them free of their perch and cast them into the depths far below. Once on solid ground they paused only briefly, dropping into a crouch and slowly drawing their daggers.

The royal chambers were dark and quiet, silken drapes dancing freely in the breeze at Rael's flanks as they stalked through the balcony doorway. The wind's mournful moan was their only companion beneath the heavy silence that blanketed the room, the shadowed shape of the prince's armour stand looming from the corner of the room like a silent watchman. Rael spared it naught but a glance. A Garlean warrior and his magitek armour were a force to be reckoned with when united. Apart, they were trifling things.

The prince's four-poster bed was massive, decadently luxurious, festooned with sheer curtains to guard him from heat and pests in equal measure where he lay his head. The shape within was obscured, indistinct. Rael took one step onto the raised dais, slowly raising a dagger into position. They dared not make a noise, for if Zenos were a light sleeper then surely…

The hairs stood up on the back of their neck. They froze.

They did not hear breathing from the bed, but from behind-

Rael whirled and crossed their daggers. The blow that would have cleaved them in two stopped at the joining-point - and the landslide's worth of force remaining threatened to jerk their arms free of their sockets, all but drove Rael to their knees. The breath left them in a gasp, not only of effort but of surprise.

There stood Zenos in all his finery, the three-eyed mask of his horned helm looming skull-like from the shadows. He dwarfed Rael in a way that even roegadyn and hrothgar could not, a giant coated in steel, the long loose strands of strawberry blonde hair which fell from the seam between helm and gorget the only proof that there was anything human beneath. That he wielded a katana rather than a straight Garlean gunblade was no more than a curiosity - it was that he wielded it one-handed. With but one arm's strength he had threatened to overwhelm Rael's entire.

"Pitiable creature," the prince drawled, his voice hollow and dull trapped by the helm's confines. "I have bested blades in the dark since I was a mere babe - and they have never been sharp enough."

A jerk of his arm sent Rael's guard lurching down, freeing his blade for a swift lateral chop. Rael ducked and weaved aside, the air singing as Zenos instead felled the arm-thick posters at the foot of his bed like no more than slender branches. Rael slashed and stabbed at him on pure thoughtless reflex, aiming for the vitals at the thigh and under the arm - turned by the armour, fouled up by the great rotating assembly he wore at his hip that housed two more blades in their sheaths. Zenos' left hand rested casually upon it, and though an artless backfist strike would have borne the strength to shatter bone he refused to lift it from its place. Instead he turned, and plunged the tip of his sword into the floor.

It was like the howl of a nightmare through a crack in its cage, a rolling black thunderhead billowing from the point of contact. The wave of force scooped Rael off their feet and hurled them out through the doors, skidding across the balcony. Their ears rang, their head swam, and in the surreal moment of quiet that came with their addled senses the facts at last had a chance to sink in.

The prince had been in his chambers as silent as the grave. He could only have suspected foul play when his 'request' arrived at the door. Yet rather than raise the alarum, call the guards, flee, he had donned his armour and waited motionless for almost a full bell until Rael made the climb into his chambers. And now here he stood, slowly striding out into the wind and the cold moonlight, wielding strength the likes of which no ordinary Garlean could possibly possess.

Zenos held his arm out and away from his body, presenting the point of his sword straight down. His left hand remained upon his sheaths. His stance could not be more open, more vulnerable, and yet there was an unshakeable confidence in him that would have given Rael pause even had they not witnessed his might firsthand. His loose hair, the red and gold skirts and sashes that adorned his armour, may have rippled and swayed in the rekindled wind but he was as unmoving and unyielding as an ancient mountain peak. Was it even right to call him human?

"Run, beast," Zenos said as Rael rose, steadying themself on the worn-smooth stone railing. "Throw yourself to the clouds' embrace and beg their mercy. Amuse me in your final moments and perhaps your life shall hold some shred of meaning as its flame is snuffed out."

Rael considered the possibilities of escape. The very same barred door that had prevented easy ingress now served to block their egress as well. Returning the way they came would leave them achingly vulnerable, and armour worthy of his station doubtless concealed weapons capable of shooting them down. To go up would place them in the Queen's Garden, unfamiliar territory exposed to whatever guards were posted there, and with the strength to fight as he did surely Zenos would follow in a single bound.

More importantly, they had a mission that had not yet been fulfilled. Rael took a long, slow breath, remained exactly where they were, and settled into a fighting stance. Their pink eyes gazed into the blacked-out hollows of Zenos' mask, and did not blink.

The prince stopped. "Hm." His head shifted slightly, his gaze wandering as if evaluating the artistry of his battle's surroundings. It did not linger on the clouds, the stars or the moon, perhaps on the Royal Menagerie but only by a hair. His gaze returned to Rael, and a hollow sigh of boredom escaped the helm.

"May you provide some small measure of sport, then."

With Zeno's strength proven Rael would not underestimate it again, and they brought all of theirs to bear against him. With a blur of movement they crossed the balcony, knives like flashing silver arcs of moonlight. They twisted and coiled around Zenos as sinuous and unpredictable as a serpent, bright sparks flying into the night everywhere their blades touched the prince's armour. Zenos did not stand idle, his katana easily turning aside their daggers where they approached true harm - not only skilled with a blade, but fast and perceptive enough to pick and choose which blows he could ignore. Worse, his incredible strength and superior reach made approaching him a nightmarish prospect even with Rael's far greater speed. Would that they were armed with longer blades - but they had prepared to kill a man, not a monster.

CLANG. A clash of steel split the night. Strength was one thing, leverage was another, and Rael's lips drew tight against their teeth as they watched one dagger spiral over the railing and into the depths below. They skidded to a stop, steadied once more by the balcony railing. Zenos loomed in the shadowed doorway to his chambers, and beyond muffled voices cried out, entreating the prince to let them know he was safe. He ignored them, even as the dull thud of bodies driving into the barred door beat a steady drumbeat to their clash.

"I shall give you this, savage. You pique my curiosity. You've not the character of the blades sent by my first cousin and his supporters, nor the foolhardy flame of this land's conquered wretches, so trivially severed at the wick. If 'tis not coin nor country that drives you then perhaps there is a grander prize yet that stokes the fire inside."

Rael didn't pay attention to his words. Their pink eyes narrowed, straining in the silver-hued gloom to pick out every line and detail of Zenos' armour. Scratches, dents, and deeper gouges too - magitek armour was a terrible marvel of engineering but it was not invulnerable. Metal could yield as easily as flesh, given the proper circ*mstances. Flesh could endure and destroy as easily as metal, given the proper training. Rael pressed the palm of their now empty hand to the pommel of their remaining dagger, sucked in a deep breath, and focused. Where their aether had guttered low, all the easier to snuff it out, now they stoked its fire and set it coursing through their body, igniting their chakras one by one.

In their wanderings they had encountered refugees of the Fist of Rhalgr school, learned all they could to cultivate its strength. The Ala Mhigan diaspora had permitted such a thing out of pure desperation, trading sacred cultural knowledge for a stranger's service in the hopes it would live on. An amusing irony to call upon it now, against he who sat the stolen throne.

Zenos approached in one long, lazy stride, and brought his blade down with enough force to hew through the very stone Rael stood upon.

They caught it.

The dull boom of the airburst set Rael's ears ringing, blasted dust and debris from the stone underfoot in every direction. Their open hand was pressed against the flat of the blade, pinning it against their dagger, and though their arms shook with the strain they had achieved what moments ago seemed all but impossible. Zenos gave a single grunt of surprise, confusion, or perhaps only faint annoyance. His arm flexed, his weight shifting, threatening to crush Rael flat beneath his redoubled fury.

Rael let go, jerking left as the descending blade buried itself in stone, and punched Zenos in the face. Another grunt of surprise, another moment of weakness, and Rael took it. One foot on the hilt of his sword, the other on his forearm, perching upon the prince as they hammered their fist into his face. THUNK, THUNK, THUNK, the rapid blows rained down upon the steel mask. He lunged for them, a spark of anger in him at last, his grasping gauntlet seeking Rael and finding only a swift rabbit's kick to deflect it. Zenos stumbled back, straightening, unwilling or not thinking to simply release his grip on his sword and use both hands. Rael seized his helm by one horn, wormed the tip of their dagger beneath the edge and up toward the soft-

Too slow, by the thinnest margins between heartbeats. The tip pierced flesh and halted, Zenos' left hand around their wrist, the bones threatening to bend and snap. Little by little, by vice-like grip their knife-hand was dragged from the prince's throat. For the briefest moments they hung there in a strange kind of intimacy, masked face ilms from the prince's helm, close enough for their breath to fog against the metal.

Rael swung their body upward and drove their knee into his face with an echoing CRACK like a gunshot. Here, at last, the prince showed he was not made of stone. His head snapped back with a grunt of pain and he staggered another step, twisting off to one side as his balance failed him. His grip on Rael's wrist slackened for only an instant, but an instant was enough. They slithered free, twisting up and around and over the prince's head, perched upon his shoulders with uncanny grace. There was a crack, a weakness in the helm widened into an ugly scar. They drove the tip of their dagger in and hammered the pommel with their palm like a great nail, driving it yet deeper with a crack and a squeal.

Not deep enough. Not enough to drive it through the weak point at his temple and pierce the monster's brain. Rael dragged the blade free and kicked off Zenos' shoulders, sailing to safety at the far end of the balcony. Shing, the katana sliced the air in a great silver arc, exactly where Rael's throat lay mere moments before. Zenos exhaled, long and low with the very faintest of ragged edges - the growl of a great cat, beastlike in his own right. He straightened, bringing his sword to bear once more, only to pause. In the silence that followed Rael heard only their own breath, their own heartbeat, and the faint cries of the guards to find something to batter down the doors with.

Zenos removed his scarred helm. Cla-clanggg it went, bouncing once, rolling to the wayside, forgotten. He touched the side of his head, the bright scarlet that wet his gauntlet confirming what Rael could already see plainly. They had opened a flesh wound on the side of his face, flowing fast for the mere scratch it was. His hair grew increasingly matted with blood with every passing moment, red rivulets slowly stretching down toward his jaw. A second river of blood painted his throat low on the left side, starting from the needle-like mark below his jaw and steadily soaking the underpadding of his armour. He was a youthful, soft-featured man, a far cry from the terrible facade his armour presented. Dark eyeshadow brought vibrancy to his blue eyes, and the pearl-like stone that was his Garlean third eye proudly crowned his forehead. The helm had spared him the worst of blows that should have concussed him at best, shattered his skull at worst, yet here and there bruises were forming, red welts slowly darkening and swelling to mar his perfect pale complexion. None of the wounds troubled him.

Zenos chuckled. "You are a different breed, beast. Exotic prey, delivered unto me in the weariest depths of my doldrums. A rare gift indeed, and a hunt I intend to savour to your last drop of lifesblood. Now… let us put you to the proof."

Rael was growing weary of the prince's soliloquies. They rushed him again with renewed vigour, hunched low, dagger in one hand and claws bared with the other. They were prepared for almost anything. Zenos plunged his sword into the floor once more, and Rael was prepared for it almost too late.

Was it a function of his armour, or some almost magical expression of his inhuman might? It mattered little. Zenos stabbed the floor and it was as if he had conjured an earthquake, a cataclysmic burst of air and raw force that threatened to sweep Rael off their feet and hurl them bodily into the night, into the dizzying depths of the cloud sea beyond. Their aether surged as they hunched in low and rooted their stance, crossing their arms before their face as if to shield themself from a hammerblow. They skidded backwards slowly, dangerously, even as beyond the railings of carven stone shattered spectacularly. The fur on their forearms slowly matted with blood, lacerated by the shredding shockwave, but the burn of it faded from Rael's mind. They scarcely even blinked, watching as Zenos sheathed his sword, and at last the scabbard array on his hip began to spin.

"Rend," he snarled, and proved the rumours true. Aether surged impossibly around him, a rising tide of lightning that split the night air and cut the stench of blood and sweat with the scent of a coming storm as it swirled around him. Even as he prepared one blow another followed, a ghostly blade falling from the heavens to embed itself in the near corner of the balcony. Emerald zephyrs swelled and danced around it, as if the blade were drinking deep of the very wind that surrounded them. Rael's eyes widened, and they rushed forward.

The ghostly green blade released a hurricane, catching Rael across the back and shunting them clear across the balcony. One wrong move and surely it would have hurled them into the abyss, never to rise again - a cold comfort as the wind instead thrust them into the storm, and as Zenos drew the levin katana every muscle in Rael's body seized with blinding agony. A jerking, artless motion sent them leaping away from Zenos, denying him the pleasure of carving them in twain as lightning coursed through their nerves like a paralytic poison.

Garleans could not manipulate aether as all other creatures could. Denied such a fundamental right they instead extracted it by force, tapping it where it welled up like vivid blue blood from deep beneath the earth. The bounty extracted from the ceruleum fields of Shaaloani were nothing compared to the empire's voracious appetite, the gluttony with which magitek armour and machina devoured it to fuel its war machine. But metal could hold aether as surely as flesh and blood - and a blade need only find a skilled hand to wield it.

"Don't stop now, beast. We've only just begun."

Zenos had seized the momentum and they both knew it. He advanced at an even, almost leisurely pace, and in their moment of weakness Rael could only cede ground and defend themself. Parry after parry sent bone-shivering impacts up their arms, jarred their fingers almost numb, close shaves and near-misses slowly accumulating bleeding gashes across their arms and through their mail. The scabbard array began to revolve anew as if to wring the very aether from the blades housed within, phantasmal katanas raining down across the balcony to surge anew with storm and squall, and all the while the plain blade threatened to sever Rael like a stalk of wheat. The great waves of aether left them so little room to recover, so little time to seize back control, their lips slowly peeling back from their teeth beneath the mask as the strain only grew greater.

They had fought greater monsters than a prince. They would not fall to him.

They dodged a wide slash, stepping inside his swing before he could recover. He raised his free arm to defend his head. Expected. They swung low. Crack-crack, CRACK, each blow should have shattered their knuckles yet aether hardened their fists like stone. His breastplate began to buckle, just a little, where the dagger-blows had wounded it first.

Zenos' fist descended and only their opened chakras kept him from reducing their skull to pulp. CRACKK. Blinding white light shone before Rael, just for an instant. Conscious thought vanished like mist. His sword surged to the fore. The muscles remembered in the mind's stead. Rael's body twisted beyond the blade's path and into a scything, aether-burning kick that could have cored out a man's chest. CRUNCH.

Zenos went skidding back. There was a pregnant pause. His shoulders sagged as a pained, wheezing cough escaped the indomitable prince. Rael stood hunched, aching, ears ringing, fighting to gather their wits as weakness threatened to claim them. But they did not fall. Did not so much as take a knee. Something gleamed over the mask from their pink eyes, and its light was reflected in the blue.

The door to Zenos' bedchambers burst inward, shattered to splinters by some kind of magitek ram, and Garlean regulars poured in like ceruleum from a burst pipe.

"Assassin!" the cry went up. "To arms! Protect the prince! Sound the alarum!"

Zenos had never moved faster. He was a blur, a mere impression of motion. Rael jerked away but did not know if they had truly been fast enough, could have defended themself had the prince pressed the attack. But he did not.

The nearest regular came apart at the waist, the rancid stench of gore washing away even the copper tang of blood in a torrential flood. The dead man fell lifeless, faceless, and somewhere within the mass of men there was a scream of horror. One by one his own men shrank back from the bloodied, wild-eyed butcher-prince.

"Begone," he snarled in guttural fury. The only command he deigned give.

By the time he turned Rael was gone, but if panic or anger surged anew as he rushed back into the open air it was swift to fade. The prince's upturned eyes found his quarry. Rael stood at the edge of the rooftop, just beyond the railing that encircled the gardens.

Their eyes met. Rael did not run. Zenos smiled from ear to ear.

They backed away slowly. They breathed deep, even. Purging their body and mind of weakness, distraction, the sensation of pain dulled to nothing. Their feet were light. Their hands remembered their strength. Their eye was beginning to swell from the punch, threatening to shut - they slit the skin in two places with a thumb-claw, letting the blood drain down their cheek. They peeled down their facemask, the ache of cold air in their throat revitalising.

It was a beautiful night. A beautiful setting. The full moon hung almost overhead, turning the shallow causeways of water that ringed the Queen's Gardens to liquid silver. Neatly-paved paths wound their way through the greenery, sectioned off the tended garden beds. Such decadence in the heart of the desert. Such waste. Every green leaf that the trees bore, every silken petal in gold and pink and scarlet and white, had been bought with water as precious as gold.

Rael liked it.

Zenos leaped, and descended like a comet. Green shoots and delicate flowers in every hue were crushed beneath his heel. He strode through the garden without care, without restraint, unaffected by the lush oasis that surrounded him for he only saw beauty in one thing. He levelled his katana at Rael as he advanced, and the viera assumed their fighting stance anew.

"Give me something to remember."

Petals danced in the air as they clashed anew, red as blood and white as snow. A storm raged over the palace of Ala Mhigo and they battled in its eye. Zenos' scabbard array churned the aether, his captured blades burning aeolian green and levin violet even shuttered in their sheaths. His plain blade was chipped, scarred by a battle longer and closer than any other it had seen. Sirens sounded, floodlights flashed and swayed, all of Ala Mhigo had been awakened by the daring attack upon the viceroy but until the men and machina lumbered their way up to the gardens it was only them. Only the two of them, locked in a battle the likes of which neither could have possibly expected.

"You believe your silence does not betray you?" Ceruleum coursed through his armour, burned within hardened reservoirs, and four phantasmal copies of him scattered to the corners of the garden. The green blade surged to life as the array began to spin again, the prince sinking into a quick-draw stance. "Your actions, your savagery, they sing to me, beast!"

A ring of green blades fell to cage the two warriors in the storm's eye. A spark danced from the levin katana. Rael twisted to one side, abandoning the offensive.

Zenos drew, and a great wall of wind hurled Rael aside like a catapult-stone. Bruised, battered, bloodied arms shielded them from the worst of it as they skidded between and past two of the four mirages. The four false princes contemptuously thrust their blades into the earth, perfect replicas of his own 'technique', and though the beautiful garden buckled and ruptured like torn flesh at each cardinal of the compass the would-be assassin was unharmed. Zenos was not idle. He had already swapped blades, lightning surging around him anew as the cylinder whirred and whined.

"You crave it too! The thrill of the clash, the joy of domination, the time between seconds where the blood sings with life's fragility! You mean to take my head even if it should cost you everything, for there is no meaning save this!"

There was little time left. Too much strength already spent. The noose was tightening.

But he was right. Rael wished to take his head like they had not wished for anything in a long, long time.

The storm's eye constricted. Thunder roared. Lightning clawed at the hilt of Zenos' next sword. His eyes shone like stars.

"You talk too much," said Rael.

They plunged deep within themself. Deeper than muscle, than breath, than chakras. The well of their aether was a cenote, small and unassuming on the surface, yet dizzying in its depths. They reached into the blackest fathoms, sifting through long-settled sediment, and found an old friend.

Rael burned blue.

Their clash was a storm of indigo and violet thunderbolts, azure and cerulean flame. Blades flashed and flickered too fast for the naked eye. It was as if Rael could weave between the arcs and cuts, disappearing from one place and reappearing in another before their racing hearts could beat even once. Billowing tongues of brilliant blue fire followed them, engulfed them, as if their very flesh had been doused in ceruleum and set alight. Their fire eclipsed that which fuelled Zenos' armour, driving him back and back and yet further back even as its engine began to grind and choke with the strain.

Their afterimages burned in the eye like magnesium flares. The motions could be tracked only by the tongues of flame left in their wake, slicing through the air like swordstrokes. Eightfold blows broke Zenos' stance, and when the ninth descended it was as if Rael had never lost their other dagger - for the twin fangs of a colossal viper closed upon his sword-arm, and the plain blade shattered.

Rael had not escaped unscathed. When the smoke cleared and the flames flickered out, they bore fresh burns from the wave of lightning aether Zenos' sword had unleashed. The prince's magitek armour was a mess, half slagged, red-hot with Rael's fury. Yet still it functioned, if only just. The prince's equipment was of the finest quality, and refused to give in while his own will still burned so bright.

Rael grimaced. Displeasure coiled nauseatingly in their stomach. If only they'd the proper weapons they could have ended it then and there. Instead Zenos still breathed, laughing madly. Once immaculate, filthy with soot and sweat and grime, streaked with blood, yet still laughing. That light in his eyes had not yet fled. Rael met his gaze and did not turn away, did not blink.

Rael's ears twitched. Shouts. Sirens. The heavy, stomping footfalls of magitek armours and colossi over the steady drumming of many more armoured boots. The regulars had found them, swarmed up the stairs to the gardens even now. Zenos did not yet hear them, only reaching for another of his blades to continue the battle.

Displeasure curdled into revulsion. Rael's hand tightened around their dagger. They lingered, longer than they had any rational reason to. The image of tearing Zenos' smiling head from his shoulders and snuffing the mad light in those eyes was so vivid in their mind's eye, so close at hand, that to admit their chance had been wasted was simply…

Their other hand curled into a tight fist. Their claws dug into their palm, and the reawakened sensation of pain grounded them. Their whirling thoughts began to still, and at last they blinked.

Then turned and hurled themself into the abyss.

"No-!" Zenos cried out after them, rushing forward as if in hopes of saving them. But Rael was too fast, and the distance between them too great. He trudged to the side and watched the viera's silhouette fall, plummeting ever faster towards the endless clouds east of the city.

"My prince! Fortunes be praised you are safe!" exclaimed a decurion. He made as if to rush to the prince's side, only to stop short upon realising just how badly wounded he was - how badly he had been allowed to be wounded on his watch. The man twisted around and gestured urgently at a subordinate. "Fetch a chirugeon! Lord Zenos is wounded!"

Zenos did not acknowledge the soldiers' arrival. Did not reply. He tasted blood, harsh and warm and metallic. It welled up from within just as much as without, his tongue red with it as darted past his lips. He stared down at the sea of clouds and watched a single black blossom of silk sprout above the silver sea, slowly drifting westward toward the cliffs.

"Live, my beast," he murmured. "Sharpen your claws. I await the true hunt."

The parachute gave Rael their opening to escape, but that was only the beginning of their trials. The relative tranquility of the glide gave way to a long, treacherous climb up the cliffside, accompanied each arm's length by the stamina-sucking agony of their every wound surging to the fore at long last. Dawn was breaking by the time they clawed their way up over the edge, could at last lie limp in the sand and gaze up at the golden-pink sunrise.

Their mission had failed. The opportunity was gone. Zenos would be on guard now if not actively hunting for them. The guard would double, perhaps triple. The vulnerabilities they used to steal inside would be closed. All that lay before them now was the long, arduous journey back across Baelsar's Wall and to Radz-at-Han, to report their failure to their master. They expected him to understand. It did not help. The thought of it made their jaw tighten and their fist clench.

Vrtra would not dare risk their life like that again. They disliked that. That sickly, discomforting feeling returned. They could not describe it. Words failed.

They thought of battle. Of how it felt to match him, to rise to his every new height of power, to endure and return and hurt him again and again.

Of how it felt that he enjoyed it. That he, of all people, saw what lay within them where others were blind. That he, of all people, adored it where others averted their eyes.

They could not describe it. Words failed.