“The Draconian. Does he again seek to reap us like flowers from a field?”
“Having failed once, the Bladekeeper will not fail again. The spell shall be charged with power overwhelming, that the disease of the field cannot spread again.”
“And that is why the power to harvest the scourge was bestowed unto me, the Oracle?”
Gentiana nodded.
“But that’s . . . ” Lunafreya trailed off. She looked at her hands. The hands now intended by the God of War to help bring an end to Eos. “All this time, it has been the Draconian standing against us.”
She remembered Ardyn, screaming his curses at the gods. Millennia ago, the man had placed all his faith in a presumed calling. He had given of his life only to be betrayed, then vowed to kill the god behind that treachery.
“We must convince the Draconian to abandon his plan,” Luna proclaimed. “But how are we to sway him?”
“The will of a god is not easily bent.”
Of course not. To Bahamut, they were merely flowers, riddled with pests and needing to be cut down.
“Do we have no choice but to defy him? If he cannot be swayed, our only other option is to stop him.”
“Nor is the hand of a god easily stayed. The Bladekeeper exists twice over: once in this world, and once beyond. Though one should fall, return it shall, as long as the other remains.”
“So he cannot be killed?”
Gentiana’s voice grew even more hurried. “Hear me, Lady Lunafreya. The spell of the Bladekeeper requires strength immense. Stave off the first blow, and no more shall come. Strength sapped leads to slumber deep. The Star and its people may yet live on, even if the God of War cannot be defeated.”
“The same as happened in the war so long ago?”
The outlines of Gentiana’s form began to grow indistinct.
“The Messenger is discovered. There is no more . . . ”
“Wait! Gentiana!”
The Messenger was fading, the deep haze beyond shimmering through her form. “The Oracle must choose her own future.”
And then both words and form were gone. Lunafreya opened her eyes, and she was in the hotel at Lestallum, her hands and feet bound tight, body still limp and unresponsive. All as it was from the moment she fell asleep.
“The Draconian would destroy us,” she murmured to herself.
It was beyond comprehension. The gods were committed to safeguarding Eos and all its inhabitants. Never once had she doubted that, not even when Gentiana had spoken of Bahamut’s place as being above and distant from all, less attuned to mortal existence.
Long ago, the Draconian had bestowed upon Ardyn the power to act as a savior. Then he’d allowed the same man to be struck down, reviled by his kind as a terrible monster. The Bladekeeper did not hesitate to employ cruelty and cunning to see his will through. And now he was attempting to do the same to Lunafreya.
She and Ardyn were not unalike. They were both pious, dedicated in their faith to the gods, and blind to the plots that dictated the courses of their lives. They were both marionettes, made to dance as divine hands pleased, then cast aside when the play was over.
“It is unforgivable,” she whispered to herself, new anger boiling to the surface. But she did not yet know how to proceed. She stared at the ceiling, scouring her mind for ideas.
It took Sol more time than she’d expected to locate Luna’s makeshift holding cell. She’d assumed the room would be guarded, so she’d been on the lookout for manned doors. In the end, that hadn’t provided much of a clue, since way too many of the hotel room doors had posted guards. Not that this was the result of some plan to throw off anyone intent on breaking the Oracle free―there were simply a lot of people and items that merited guarding. Which made sense, when she bothered to think about it. The hotel was the current HQ for all Hunter operational strategy, located at the very center of humanity’s stronghold, the only source of order left on Eos.
“Rookie mistake.” She shook her head, frustrated by her own naivety.
“And what mistake would that be?”
The sudden voice from behind her nearly launched Sol into the air.
“Mom?! What are you doing here? What about the meeting?”
The discussion hadn’t exactly been going smoothly. Sol had figured both Aranea and the representatives from the Kingsglaive would still be holed up in their room for some time yet. That, too, was part of her plan, to make her move while the real threats were preoccupied. Some lowly sentry posted outside of Luna’s door would be easily pickings.
She hadn’t accounted for the possibility of running into her mother. This went way beyond a worst-case scenario.
“Kicked over a chair and got ‘excused’ from the rest of the debate,” Aranea winked. “They sent me off to cool my head. Which gave me the opportunity I needed to come track down a certain little troublemaker. I had a feeling you’d be sneaking around by now.”
“Please, you have to let us go. Luna’s my friend. She needs my help,” Sol begged.
My friend. The moment she said the words, there was a pain like a dagger wound deep in her heart. Sol finally understood. It wasn’t because she owed Luna. It wasn’t because of the things Luna had done for her. The reason she wanted to help was because Luna was important to her. Their time together had been short, but they were companions of the road now. They were friends.
“You’re putting me in a tight spot here, y’know that?” Aranea said.
Then, “Hey. Don’t start crying on me.”
Aranea shoved a handkerchief up against Sol’s nose. Sol realized tears were streaming down her face. Once more, she felt like a child.
“But, Mom, I . . . ”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”
Aranea’s hand was warm on her head.
“Come with me.”
Sol wiped the tears away with the handkerchief and followed. Once upon a time, she’d had to tilt her head back to see her mother’s shoulders when she walked behind her. Now those shoulders were at eye level, and yet somehow Aranea still seemed so incredibly far above her. Once a mother, always a mother.
They stopped in front of an unguarded door. Sol was bursting with questions, but Aranea put an index finger to her lips.
Aranea knocked four times, then announced, “Good work in there.” The pattern of knocks and the words seemed to be some manner of passphrase. The door swung open, and Sol saw that the guard was posted not outside in the hallway, but inside the room itself. He was a young man whom Sol didn’t recognize, almost certainly at the bottom of the food chain around here.