“Allow me to take care of this,” Lunafreya said.
Her legs had been so weak she thought she might not walk again for some time, but resolve brought new strength. Lunafreya stood and headed toward the daemon Aranea.
She heard a faint rasping voice as she drew near. “Stay away.”
It seemed the woman still retained some portion of her conscience.
“What do you mean, you’ll take care of it?” Sol asked, voice trembling.
“I’ll draw out the scourge. It’s not too late. Once she’s rid of the disease, she’ll be back to normal.”
Sol’s eyes widened. For Lunafreya, too, it was a use of her new powers she hadn’t considered before their arrival in this place. But there, before the statue of the first Oracle, Lunafreya had witnessed Ardyn’s past. The man had once been hailed as a savior. With the same power that Lunafreya held now, he’d healed countless people.
“But you’re weak,” Sol protested. “You’ve already just drawn in all that―”
“I will be fine,” Lunafreya cut her off. “After all, I am meant to save the world.”
She turned to Sol’s tear-streaked face and gave a smile. Ten years ago, the gods had failed to respond to this girl’s fervent prayers. Sol had demanded to know whether they even heard or cared to answer. It was finally time to give her the answer she deserved.
“Luna, I’m sorry to ask you to do this for me,” Sol sobbed. “But please . . . Please save her. She raised me. She’s my only mother in this world!”
Lunafreya nodded. She turned back to face the daemon Aranea and stretched both arms wide in an embrace. She drew in the scourge―every part of her body absorbing it this time. She felt her breath catch in her throat. The tiny creatures already swarming in her body all began to thrash about at once. Lunafreya’s shriek of pain came out as a guttural, beastly cry, and she clenched her teeth together.
Ardyn saved hundreds upon hundreds of lives. What about me? I still haven’t saved a single one. If I manage nothing else with this life, let me at least save this one person so dear to Sol.
The scourge was flowing in even faster than before. The power was amplified to new heights, beyond Lunafreya’s control. Darkness crept over her vision. Soon the world was painted black, and the only thing to penetrate her senses came with a strange clarity: a high-pitched cry of “Mom!”
Aranea’s body was pulled away. That action, too, seemed to come from somewhere else. Lunafreya had not released her; though she willed her limbs to move, they remained still. But the scourge had all been drawn out. Of that, at least, she was certain.
“Sol? Where . . . ? What happened to me?”
This was a new voice, one Lunafreya did not know. She wanted to turn toward it, to confirm it was that of the person she hoped, but her neck was as stiff and unresponsive as her limbs.
The Oracle’s body was no longer her own. But her vision slowly returned, and she looked as far as her unmoving eyes would allow, discovering patches of black-stained, disgustingly swollen skin. Her skin. Despair and regret snaked through her chest. She wished she had not seen.
“It was Luna! She saved you!” she heard Sol exclaim.
No, she wanted to scream, don’t look. But her throat was frozen, too. She wanted to run, to leave this place and hide. She cursed her rigid arms and legs.
“Who’s Luna?”
Aranea turned around, and Luna could see her face. She watched as the woman’s expression shifted, filled half with fear and half with loathing.
Sol seemed to sense it, too.
“No! Mom! Stop!” she called, but Aranea was already brushing her daughter aside, one hand reaching for the lance at her back.
“Get the hell away from my daughter, you monster.”
Blue sparks arced across Lunafreya’s single frozen pane of vision. There was a horrible noise, together with the shock of impact.
And then there was nothing.
“The thing’s a daemon, for gods’ sake!”
Sol stood with her ear pressed against the hotel room door. Apparently, years ago the old Leville had been the lodgings of choice for Prince Noctis and his retinue whenever they passed through Lestallum. Now the building served as headquarters for the Kingsglaive and Hunters. Sol wondered how the prince―or rather, the king―might feel if he knew of the discussion happening in the building now, one meant to decide the fate of his long-lost fiancée.
“I think she’s the real deal. Daemon-form or whatever, that’s the Oracle in there.”
Now Aranea was speaking. It was nice to hear her defending Luna, but Sol still thought bitterly of how things might have been different. If only her mother hadn’t jumped to the conclusion that the woman she’d faced in the cavern was a monster.
No, Sol thought. It was my fault. I didn’t explain the situation well enough. She should have begun by immediately telling her mother what had happened: Luna had drawn out the scourge. She’d saved Aranea. Or maybe this outcome could have been avoided if Sol had referred to her as “Lady Lunafreya, the Oracle,” instead of by nickname alone.
At any rate, she’d failed to convey to her mother that Luna was a friend and ally. As a child, Aranea had lost her family to daemons, and her hatred of them was old and deep. When she saw what looked to be a daemon near Sol, she’d acted instinctively to protect her daughter. And who could blame her?
Once Sol realized what was happening, she’d raced to stop it and explain the situation. Sol’s pained expression as she watched the scene unfold, along with the fact that Luna remained motionless, taking the full brunt of the Stoss Spear’s first and only blow, seemed to make Aranea realize there had been a mistake, but it was too little too late.
Worse, Aranea’s initial shouts had brought Glaives and hunters running. Once other people were involved, no amount of explanation or pleading was going to suffice.
After all, what they encountered on arrival was just some vaguely human-shaped thing wrapped entirely in pitch-black miasma. Lunafreya had been unable to speak or even stand by that point. The only reason she wasn’t dispatched on sight was because Aranea had stepped in. “Sol claims this woman is the Oracle, and I can’t say for certain that she’s not,” her mother had said. “This is a call we need to leave up to the brass.” And so she’d urged them all to head back to Lestallum, where they’d settle the matter.