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Equilibrium

Summary:

The Four Fiends of the Elements left holes in their wake: holes that needed to be filled. If only the act of re-assigning the delicate magic held in check between them wasn't so inherently dangerous.

Notes:

CONTENT WARNING: This fic features conversations regarding past non-consensual sexual situations. Please proceed at your own risk if this could be triggering for you. The non-con is not portrayed as romantic or acceptable, but is vaguely canon-ish. The M rating is to account for this trigger; there are no sexual situations within this fic.

Shout-out to Seventhe, who suffered through me sending her 15k of this and then promptly abandoning it for 10 months. I SUCK lololol.

Turns out, I have a lot of OT5 feelings. And a lot of ace!Rydia feelings. And a lot of feelings about Kain's past in general (we knew this, obviously). Have I now written half the Kain/Edge fics on this site? DEAR GOD, I HAVE. for SHAME (not).

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Edge woke with a start.

That, in itself, wasn't unusual; neither were the nightmares slow to slip from his thoughts. As he rubbed the heel of his palm against his eyes, images of his mother's head being carved from her shoulders and sewn onto the sinewy muscles of the snake fiend remained, no matter how hard he pressed. Spots of crimson blossomed at the sides of his vision, and still, the haunted dreams remained. He'd get no further sleep tonight.

Night was still black and ink outside, and Edge's body sagged as he hauled himself out of the four-poster bed. Cecil and Rosa were kind enough to always ensure that visitors had everything they might need in their rooms, studded with tall tapered candles and old court paintings bolted to the stone walls. Edge couldn't really complain, at least not about the rooms; Baron Castle itself, with ghosts roaming the corridors and spectors at every turn, was another story. If he wasn't going to sleep, the seneschal would appreciate him doing something useful, and so Edge curled into the mahogany desk chair as he guided the bronze wick lighter from one candle to the other, flooding the room with a warm glow.

He'd been over the reports a hundred times already—couldn't hurt to do so again. Blearily, Edge stared down at the swimming strokes on the page, skimming information he'd already memorized. Fires at the base of the mountains, devouring the rice paddies; floods during low tide, when the oyster farmers should be at their safest. A wind storm that pulled whole trees up by their roots and swung their thick trunks through the air. Rumbling beneath the castle floors, splitting the tiles of his throne room floor.

Edge pressed a finger to his bottom lip, puckering the skin as his mother's face, as it had looked at the end with the sick sheen of scales reflecting from her cheekbones, swam into view again. He wished she were here. She'd know better than him, certainly, what needed to be done.

"What the hell is wrong with this place?" Edge asked the paper, the memory of his mother, even the ghost of the person he'd once been, wild and carefree, before the world had caught on fire. Before his parents had been mutilated and ruined. Before...well, before.

But the parchment offered nothing more than bleak words, painting the picture of a planet rapidly waging war on the life within, and Edge stayed for a long time wishing that things could be different. Stable.

Better.


By the time the council convened, Edge had been awake for hours and his body craved nothing more than to slip back beneath the blankets and eke out just a bit more rest. If his boots dragged across the stones on the way to the receiving room, at least none of the Baron servants felt the need to comment on it. Most of the time, the big conventions happened only once a year, for gathering everyone together in one spot proved harder than anyone expected. But now, with everything spinning off its axis, Cecil had summoned them a few months after the last, not even half a year later.

Edge wasn't really sure what the point was. He had fires to put out, floods to handle, people to feed—how were they going to fight against the Blue Planet itself?

Rydia was waiting outside the big double doors of the receiving room, holding a steaming mug of tea between her hands. She didn't offer him any. "You look awful."

"Well, good morning, you're a ray of sunshine yourself," Edge replied.

Rydia frowned. "I just meant you've got dark circles beneath your eyes. Did you have trouble sleeping?"

"You don't?"

"I guess that's fair." One corner of her mouth quirked higher. "Most everyone else is inside already. I don't think anyone can sleep right now, honestly."

"I'm amazed the castle didn't fall down around us during the night."

Rydia reached out and placed a hand against the nearest wall, fingers roaming over the stone and mortar almost reverently. "Baron Castle is old. It's got old magic in its bones. There's a lot here to contend with."

Edge wondered if maybe Baron Castle, then, was at the heart of his renewed nightmares, but he kept that thought to himself. Some things are better kept close to the chest, even with Rydia. He straightened, adjusting his cloak as though it mattered. As if his presentation, his demeanor, mattered in the face of a planet breaking itself apart. "How do I look, aside from the raccoon eyes?"

"Good enough," Rydia said, and smiled.

"It'll have to do, then." Edge sighed. "Let's go; they're probably eager to start."

Rydia made a little noise of affirmation. "They always are."

And they were—nearly all of them, as Rydia had said. To get everyone inside the room, Cecil had put six tables together to create one giant line of chairs, and even then, most advisors and chancellors had to sit back away and behind, a cluster of bodies representing each sovereign kingdom. Edge's seneschal was already seated, looking over the twins to Edge's parchments from last night. Typical. They were both obsessed with everything they couldn't change.

Edge took a seat, accepting the cup of coffee offered. From Damcyan today, and richly bitter, grown beneath the shaded eaves of the region's sprawling farms. It certainly packed a punch.

"You look tired already," the seneschal said, and Edge waved him off. Ass.

At the head of the table, Cecil cleared his throat, still uneasy as the unofficial leader after everything. Humbleness must come as a set with being a holy paladin. "If I may call the meeting to order, we can get right into the reason we're all here. I'm sure we've all noticed the changes happening to the planet around us. Things we can't fight against."

"Is the Blue Planet dying?" Yang asked, and his face was set in stone.

"Is it the loss of one of the moons?" Giott offered. "A change in the pull?"

Edward shook his head, though the action appeared motivated in weariness rather than disagreement. "How could the moon disappearing create this many issues? And at such magnitude?"

"Espers, then?" Giott asked.

"The Espers would never," Rydia said, a bit affronted. "They'd never create such havoc on the surface for the humans."

"Something is going on," Yang said. "A brushfire took out an entire swatch of old forests near us. Some of those trees had been rooted there for centuries."

"An earthquake caused our rivers to run backwards for days," Mina, an epopt of Troia, agreed. "It was ecologically disastrous."

Edward's gaze flickered towards Cecil and Rosa, and then Rydia. "The land itself is fighting against us."

Cecil placed his palms down flat against the table, while next to him Rosa, heavy with child, laced her fingers across the bump in her robes. "I wish I had an answer for you all, I really do. But we're just as lost as everyone else. I don't think we'll ever get an explanation—"

"I do have an explanation," the Elder of Mysidia said, as he rose to his feet, robes tumbling over the edge of the long table.

Cecil looked thrown, fumbling for a response for several moments. "You do?"

"I apologize for not sharing it earlier, but I had to be sure. We checked against every archive that Mysidia has, every legend, every tale. I thought, too, as you are, that the loss of the second moon had irreversibly changed the Blue Planet, but I was wrong. This has nothing to do with the moon."

"I don't understand," Cecil said. "If not the moon, what's causing this?"

The Elder unrolled a large, yellowed scroll, so old the corners were crinkled and flinting off with age. Even from Edge's vantage point across the table, he could see the man draw in a deep breath, shoulders squaring, before exhaling long and slow across the ink strokes. "The Archfiends."

A moment of quiet descended, surprise, before the room erupted in a cacophony of voices. "The Archfiends are gone!"—"Surely you can't be serious?"—"We destroyed them ages ago, more than once!"

The Elder held both hands up, fingers plicking against invisible strings. "Please, please, allow me to explain. These creatures we knew as the Archfiends, they were not always thus. At one point, they were beacons of control and stability, the focal point for the wayward magics that roam the lands. Everything on the Blue Planet must exist in balance; the elements are the same. What we are all seeing: the fires, the floods, the quakes—all this is the result of the loss of that balance. There is no longer a focal point for these elemental spills."

"The Archfiends were evil," Edge said, trying to push thoughts of Lugae and his father's grotesque titan legs out of his mind. "They delighted in carnage and ruin."

"They did, yes, but only after they were thus corrupted by Zemus," the Elder explained.

Edge shook his head. "They were evil long before Zemus and Golbez."

"You underestimate the time Zemus spent channeling his hatred onto the Blue Planet." The Elder's gnarled index finger drew a line across the parchment, from one side to the other. "For centuries, he slept on the moon and polluted our world. Well before Golbez was tapped to carry out his wishes, the Archfiends mutated into something darker and more dangerous. By the time Golbez's mind was overtaken, they had already become what you knew them as."

"And you're saying they used to be different?" Cecil asked, voice low. "And they're necessary?"

The Elder sighed. "They are very necessary. With their vacancies, the elements are spinning out of control, and I fear it will only worsen the longer the gaps remain."

"If they didn't use to be Archfiends," Rydia asked, "what were they?"

The Elder's expression did something strange, a cycle of minute changes Edge couldn't identify until it had softened into an odd, wistful nostalgia. "Paragons."

"You're saying we need new Archfiends," Edward said, and then, as the Elder started to protest, held a hand up and amended, "paragons."

"Yes," the Elder replied. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"How, exactly, do we do this?" Yang asked.

And here, the Elder's demeanor changed. Edge intimately knew the way he drew himself taller, raised his chin higher; the information forthcoming was not welcome, nor positive. He'd seen his mother do the same when delivering judgments to those beneath her rule. Edge sucked in a quick lungful of air, because he could hear the answer before it slipped off the Elder's tongue.

"You need people," Edge said, low, as though perhaps his volume could change the truth of his statement. "You need volunteers."

The Elder of Mysidia's gaze, when it fell on Edge, contained multitudes. "Yes."

"People?" Cecil asked. He was thrown again, wildly so; Edge wondered if he'd ever thought the meeting could twist anymore sideways than it already had. "People have to become the fiends?"

"Paragons," the Elder corrected, though it barely helped. "They won't be evil."

"Not now, anyway," Edward pointed out. "This is wild magic we're talking about—a lot of it. How could anyone withstand that sort of power?"

"It would require individuals of great mental fortitude," the Elder admitted, "and an affinity for the element in question. This sacrifice...this sacrifice cannot be understated, but I don't believe it would destroy the individual. Should they be strong enough to withstand the onslaught of magic, they would create the balance we so desperately need. And, if the Mysidian lore is to be believed, they would continue to live mostly as they were."

"But they wouldn't be human any longer," Rydia said.

Another sigh, as though the Elder carried a great weight upon his shoulders. "Not entirely, no."

"Who would you ask to take up such a mantle?" Yang asked.

"I am the one who discovered the need and the link," the Elder said, "and therefore it is only right that I be one of the four."

Another clamor, quick and loud, as people surged to their feet to shout, to argue, to rail against the very demand placed upon them, and the Elder once again held his hands aloft to summon a wave of quiet. "It's only right! Please, ladies and gentlemen of the court, hear me out. Mysidia has long sat at the crossroads of the magic ley lines, a safe harbor for those with the gifts. We have been the apex of the Water Crystal's tide and the site of the final resting place of the great Lunar Whale. No one else has communed with the sea and planet as we have; I can bear this demand, for it should be Mysidia's to bear. And I would be honored to take up the mantle as the Paragon of Water."

As the grumbles faded away and chairs squeaked across the stones, Cecil looked to Rydia, and one by one, so did all the faces lining the rest of the table. "Well?"

"It's a good choice," Rydia admitted, though the statement looked to cost her something. "The Elder is right: Mysidia is a place of great ability and control. He has long held the magic lines of the world in balance. I can't think of anyone more suited to taking the level of power we're talking about here."

The Elder bowed his head. "I'm honored to receive your praise and belief."

"You need three more," Mina said.

Rosa's fingers tightened together on her belly. "Fire, earth, and wind."

"Then let me be one," Mina offered. "Let me be the Paragon of Earth. Troia has always benefited from the Earth crystal's magic, and our principles of nonviolence and peace would only help such a cause. There are seven other epopts. Surely this offers enough stability should something go wrong."

Again, Cecil looked to Rydia, who nodded.

King Giott stood, his shoulders barely level with the tabletop. "And I, for the Paragon of Fire."

"You?" Cecil asked. Edge had lost count of how often the man looked completely floored throughout the meeting. Cecil was going to require a large goblet of water following the dissolving of the council. "But the Dwarves don't even possess magic."

"Yet we've lived on the edge of the Underworld's magma for centuries," Giott said. "We have grown strong and hard in the hot flames of the Blue Planet's core. Can you think of anyone more suited for such a task than one of us?"

"I...no," Rydia said, sitting back a bit. She chewed on her bottom lip before continuing. "I'd never have suggested such a thing, but it's quite a good fit. And having a Paragon below the surface would help to stabilize things."

"Even Rubicante was often below ground," Yang pointed out, "where the base of the Tower spiraled from."

"Are you sure, as king?" Cecil asked.

Giott's golden eyes, so difficult to pin down, held Cecil's gaze with a steady confidence. "There are many who would take my place if something should go wrong, and in time, Luca will take the crown. My kingdom will persist, even if I fail to survive."

Calm descended on the table. But Rosa shook her head, blonde curls tumbling over one shoulder. "There's one left. Who will take up Wind?"

"I will," Rydia said.

"Ryds," Edge choked out, lungs seizing. "You can't."

"Of course I can!" she replied, eyes ablaze. "I've got the magic, and the control; you know I'd be able to control it. We need all four, don't we? For the balance?"

The Elder of Mysidia nodded gravely, and Rydia crossed her arms over her chest, defiant. "Then it ought to be me. I can withstand the power."

"But you'll lose your abilities," Rosa said. A pause, and then she added, "Won't you?"

"I... yes," Rydia replied.

Edward's face contorted in alarm. "What? That can't be right."

"You have to be human to Summon," the Elder of Mysidia agreed. "It's the only way the magic bond will take."

"No," Cecil said, forceful, with all the weight of the crown he bore. "You can't give that up. You can't give up your Summoning."

"It's my choice!" Rydia exclaimed.

But it wasn't, really, ever—not with who they were. "We need you," Cecil said, gently. "We need you to carry on what was almost lost, to teach others in Mist the abilities the world must retain. If you lose them, who could continue? Who would commune with the Espers and share their wisdom?"

Rydia's cheeks paled. "I... but..."

"They're your family, Rydia," Rosa offered. "We could never ask such a thing of you. It's too great a loss."

Yang shook his head. The crow's feet at the corners of his eyes seemed deeper than they had only yesterday, cracked deep like the Blue Planet's trembling earth. "Then who can take up the last spot?"

"Wind," Edward echoed, a sigh.

"If I may... I have an idea," Edge said, slow, drawing the syllables out. He hated himself. The table looked to him in question, and behind him, he felt the seneschal tense, as though expecting the worst.

Edge met Cecil's gaze. Perhaps the other man had already made the connection. Perhaps the other man had, and then subsequently rejected it. Cecil was loyal like that. But what other choice did they have? Edge was a practical person. Eblan couldn't withstand more of the planet fighting against them. Something had to be done, didn't it?

Cecil's whole body collapsed, going slack. "No."

Edge shook his head. "I didn't say you were going to like it."


Standing at the base of Mt. Ordeals and gazing up at the peak, lost within the clouds, Edge's insides twisted a bit in regret.

"This is wrong," Rydia said, arms wrapped around her chest. "We can't ask this."

"Why not?" Edge countered. "It's just a question. What's wrong with asking a question?"

Rydia glared at him, nose pinked at the end. "It's wrong to ask a question you know can't be refused."

"No one's holding a knife to his throat," Edge said. "This is a choice."

"It's not, and you know it," came the reply, and then Rydia fell sullenly silent, sinking down with her thoughts. Edge wondered if he ought to try and apologize, though he couldn't even pinpoint what he ought to be apologizing for. Things were different when one was a ruler; he had a responsibility. Rydia didn't have fish farmers drowning on the banks of Eblan's shores like he did, hadn't heard the wails of families displaced from their houses due to the ravaging storms. Rydia could still fall back on mercy in a way Edge had long since given up on.

Cecil came up behind them, rocks cracking beneath the mythril of his boots. "Let's go. I very much wish to spend as little time on Ordeals as possible."

"Same," Rydia grumbled, and pushed her gloves up to her elbows before stalking up towards the winding path, the switchbacks that looped up the mountain's steep sides until they disappeared behind jagged outcroppings of stone. Edge and Cecil followed, weapons drawn, though they encountered nothing in the first hour or two as they climbed. The air beyond, heavy around Edge's shoulders, grew thinner almost immediately; Ordeals carried with it an aura of power, of something almost magnetic, summoning the taste of copper on the back of Edge's tongue.

He'd never encountered anything like it before, and doubted he would again after. Cecil knew the path already, and his footsteps were sure, and Rydia—she tackled the incline with the ferocity of an Esper, angry and sparking. Edge was left to man the rear, to keep an eye out on the pools of shadow gathered near the corners.

The first wave of zombies found them near the entrance to the second ascent. Their arms hung uselessly at their sides, flesh rotting and fleeing their bones. They stunk to high heavens, the sort of decay that lingered even after they'd dispatched their corpses and started up the trek again, even after Edge rubbed at his nose.

"Was it always like this?" he asked Cecil, who spared him the quickest of glances before his mouth set into a firm line.

"Yes." Cecil offered nothing more, not even after the next set, nor the next, when Edge's left arm was covered in bile and muscle remnants and he choked back his own vomit at the sight.

"You're angry at me for suggesting this," Edge said. To Cecil, since he already knew that was true for Rydia; she stilled, though, slowing and listening in to the conversation over her shoulder.

"I think so," Cecil finally responded, after a long pause. At least he gave the truth; Edge was grateful for small favors. "I shouldn't be, and I know that, but..."

"No, no, might as well be honest with yourself. This is my fault. I'm the one who proposed the idea."

Cecil shrugged. "Someone else eventually would have, if you hadn't. I suppose it's better this way."

"Why, because we don't get along?" Edge asked.

"Because we went through the end together," Cecil said. When he looked to Edge again, his features were pulled tight in an expression Edge couldn't wholly read. Something was lost in there, something untouchable—years and childhood memories, maybe, the sort of thing that wraps itself around your heart and refuses to let go. "Because that bonds us together."

"By 'us', do you mean you and him, or me and him?"

Another shrug. "Both, I think."

"You think?"

Cecil shook his head. "I honestly don't know what to think anymore."

Me neither, but weakness would get one gobbled up by others, would let Eblan crumble and fall beneath his rule. Edge couldn't allow his parents' legacy to be tarnished because he refused to make the hard decisions. His parents had already made the worst; his, it seemed, would be focused outward.

"Stop talking," Rydia snapped. "There's more incoming."

There were always more zombies coming. The hordes descended upon them again and again, even as they dragged their weapons across the rock and Rydia summoned crackling flames to her palms. Edge's energy slowly dwindled to nothing as he gulped in the thin, cool mountain air. They climbed, until his arms shook and his thighs burned, and still continued to climb. He didn't know how Cecil had done this with two children and an old man.

The summit, when it finally appeared in a break in the cottony clouds, loomed so much smaller than Edge had imagined. In his mind, he'd worked the holy mountain into some sort of massive temple, with statues and the tingle of magic skipping across his skin. The reality sat cold and almost empty, sporting a single cave near the back between large blocks of stone, and a lone figure seated on one of the larger boulders littering the ground.

Cecil stopped, paused, and sheathed his weapon in that order. Edge wondered if it meant something. "Kain."

The figure stood. Without his helmet, the narrowing of his eyes was clearly visible. "What are you doing here?"

"It's good to see you yet live, old friend," Cecil said.

Kain shook his head. "I...why have you come here? I told you that I'd remain here until I found my absolution. I asked for only one thing, Cecil."

"And we wouldn't have come if there were any other choice." Cecil sighed.

He moved towards Kain, leaving Rydia and Edge behind. This conversation was better suited for the two of them. Ordeals could offer that much, a modicum of privacy. Rydia still glared down at the ground without looking in Edge's direction.

"Look, I'm sorry," Edge offered.

"It's not really your fault," Rydia finally hedged. "I just can't find anyone to be angry with."

"The world, maybe? It doesn't help, but...I had to do something. I have people to protect."

Rydia sighed heavily, blowing hair off her forehead. "I know."

"You don't sound like you know. You still sound angry."

"I am, you know?" she said. "I don't...I don't have anywhere to channel it."

Edge shrugged. "You've got magic; burn all of that anger out."

"It doesn't work like that," Rydia told him. She paused, going silent, and finally, finally, her gaze moved to his face. She seemed to catalog all the bits of his emotions on display there. Edge wondered what she saw. "I know you mean well. As much as you ever can, anyway."

"Anger's always been a boon to me, honestly."

"The only result it's offered me is pain," Rydia admitted.

Cecil and Kain, who had been speaking in hushed tones between bowed heads, both stood. Kain took three steps back before bending down to pick up his spear. Without his helmet, he looked younger, softer; less of a threat. Edge didn't like the look of those blurred edges. He needed the lines to keep everything neatly in its place. Cecil remained where he was, but Kain stalked towards Edge and Rydia's position.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Ready for what?" Edge shot back.

"The return to Baron."

Rydia's mouth turned down. "So you're coming with us, then? Kain, you don't have to do this."

"Don't I?" he asked. His voice sounded harsh. Maybe he hadn't used it in awhile, and Edge's stomach flipped again. He'd done this, hadn't he? He'd set this one in motion.

"You don't," Rydia said. She looked as though she thought of reaching towards him and abruptly changed her mind, fingers stalling in mid-air. "You don't have to accept this. It's a huge burden."

"This is penance," Kain replied. He didn't look at Edge at all, and Edge hated that. "This is my absolution."

This will be your death, but that wasn't useful, was it? They all knew it, in the back of their minds. Kain had to know.

Kain had to know.

Cecil slipped back to Edge's side, hand tightly curled around the hilt of his sword, a lifeline. "Let's go."

For some reason, Edge had thought there would be more of a fight, more of an argument. He'd anticipated them offering all the reasons Kain needed to help, sorting through the elements running wild and free and plaguing them all. He'd even prepared some lines, and swallowed them all back down, because Kain was following behind them without a fuss. His head hung low, his shoulders slumped; he was a man walking willingly into his own demise, his doom, and they hadn't even needed to explain the risks to him.

He'd planned on a much longer pause to the whole thing, and instead, found himself traipsing back down the zombie-strewn path with a heavy heart. They'd once gone to the moon together, riding in a mythical ship of legend to save the world.

They were still going to save the world, weren't they? Just in a different way.

Edge craned his head over his shoulder, trying to catch Kain's eye, but the man stubbornly wouldn't raise his face. They marched off Ordeals to the awaiting airship, and Edge wished the sick feeling in his stomach would dissipate.

It never did.


Edge had thought things would move quickly after they found the four, but he'd been wrong.

"We need the crystals and scrolls from Mysidia that explain how to move forward with the ritual," the Elder of Mysidia said, when they arrived back in Baron and Kain had inquired immediately as to the timing. The Elder, it seemed, was apologetic. "We also need a contingency plan."

"What kind of contingency plan?" Cecil asked.

The Elder's expression morphed further into contrition. "In case the worst happens."

"What's the worst?" Edge asked.

"One of us lacks the mental fortitude to accept the magic. We may not be able to control all the power. In that case..."

Cecil huffs out a very unhappy laugh. "In that case, we need to kill the person before they destroy the entire planet."

"In the crudest terms, yes."

Kain turned to Cecil without batting an eye. "Be ready to do it, then."

Cecil balked. "You can't ask me to do that."

"You asked this of me, no? Then I can, and I will; someone has to be there to wield the sword if things go wrong."

"Maybe things will be fine," Edge said.

Kain's gaze swiveled to him, full of scorn. "Mental fortitude, he said, right?"

Edge shifted back as Rydia's arms curled around her chest once more. "Stop," she moaned.

"Get the supplies," Cecil told the Elder, and made no further mention of the agreement.

Edge, with no crystal to transport, remained in Baron. It didn't make sense to go back home; they'd all be needed for the rituals. But he hated the way Baron Castle settled beneath his skin, especially now that Kain was there as well, a strange and eerily willing sacrifice.

Edge had hoped to avoid the nightmares, but in the darkness, when all the candles had gone out, he awoke with blood on his tongue and his mother's ghastly howl echoing through his skull. He'd dreamt of Lugae sawing through her legs with a poorly kept knife, preparing to sew monster flesh onto the stumps of her humanity. He lunged out of the bed and retched into the vase in the corner; he'd need to apologize to the servants in the morning, clean it out on his own. He'd never get back to sleep.

But neither could he remain in his room, where the nightmares congealed thickest. He took to the hallways without bothering to disguise his footsteps. He'd never been in the towers, so he took the corridors slowly, drinking in the paintings of old kings and queens, the tapestries hanging from the rafters, and the heirlooms sitting in corners on three-legged tables. Baron Castle, for all its ghosts, had a storied past, and history was laid out for all to see who visited.

When he circled through the western tower, one of the doors opened, revealing Kain, who also seemed to lack the fortitude to sleep.

"Oh," the other man said, as though readying to close the door in Edge's face. "Just you."

"Just me," Edge echoed. "Why are you awake? It's the middle of the night."

Kain shrugged. "Memories. Why are you here? I could say the same."

"Memories," Edge repeated. "Not mine."

"This place has a lot of those."

The air hung awkward between them; Edge wished Kain would just ask the obvious question. But he didn't, because he refused to do what Edge expected him to. Instead, he stepped back and opened the door wider to allow Edge enough space to gaze inside where a board sat covered with black and white pieces. "Do you play?"

"What?"

"Chess. Do you play?"

"Why are you asking?" Edge asked.

Kain rolled his eyes. “Because I love learning random things about others in the middle of the night.”

“Cute.”

"Because playing by yourself gets very old."

Edge narrowed his eyes, but his mouth made the decision for him. "Yeah, I play."

"Come on, then."

It wasn't an invitation, but it also wasn't...anything. Edge let the door swing shut behind him before taking a seat in the wooden chair opposite Kain. The board sat half-filled, pieces on various squares, as though a game had been abandoned halfway through.

Kain reset everything, giving Edge white. There might have been a coded message in there.

They got through seven moves each before Kain sighed.

"Go ahead," Edge said. "Ask. I know you want to."

"Cecil said it was your idea to find me."

Edge pushed his Bishop diagonally across two squares with his index finger and pulled one of Kain's pawns free from the board. "It was."

"Why me?"

"Isn't it obvious? I don't know anyone else with such affinity for the wind. You seemed an exceedingly obvious choice."

"I don't have any magic."

Edge's eyes stayed on Kain's hand as the man nudged another pawn forward. "Neither does Giott. I don't think that matters so much here."

"But why me?" Kain asked again. "I'm a liability. I'm a traitor."

"Yes," Edge replied, and looked up, meeting the other man's gaze head-on. "You are. You're also our best bet."

"That speaks to a very sad state of things."

Edge huffed. "Can't think of a better way to describe where we are right now. Haven't you seen what's going on in the world? Surely Ordeals offered you some kind of view."

"I felt the earth move beneath me a few times, if that's what you mean."

"I'm losing farmers to uncontrollable storms. We're losing land and livestock to the land splitting in two. Two weeks ago, a wave larger than my castle took out three warehouses near the shoreline. The Blue Planet is rebelling. This seems to be the only way to fight back."

Kain was silent for a few more turns, until Edge lost his first Knight. Then he sat back, crossing his arms unhappily. "You're something of a surprise, sounding so much like a king. You were a spoiled brat when we first met in those caves."

"Watch yourself; I'm older than you, you know."

"Doesn't make the statement less true."

Edge's tongue went sour between his teeth. "And you're an obsessive husk of a man willing to spend the rest of his life waiting for others to offer forgiveness."

"Isn't that what we all want, in the end?" Kain asked, watching Edge curiously.

"I don't need forgiveness."

"Then why were you skulking outside my room in the middle of the night? You told me to ask; you were waiting for it."

"I don't need your forgiveness," Edge said. He hopped his last Knight ahead. "I did what I had to do, and so will you. Checkmate."

Kain remained quiet for a long while, before finally knocking over his King with one finger. They both watched the piece roll across the board before dropping down to the ground, disappearing beneath the shadows of the table. "I guess I will."


Baron Castle remained quiet the next day as those returned home spent the time preparing for a longer stay away and put affairs in order. Edge spent an hour in the morning on the practice grounds, ensuring his muscles didn't have the time to go lax and soft, and then walked the grounds on the high stone overlooks. The air in Baron was different: heavier, in a way, and less prone to bouts of sticky humidity. But even his adventures grew tiring as his mind fluttered restlessly, so in the afternoon, he went looking for the others.

He found them within the royal chambers, pointed towards the doors by an obliging castle guard. Not just Cecil and Rosa, who undoubtedly spent much of their time within as Rosa's due date approached, but also Kain, sitting stiff-backed on one of the plush loveseats, and Rydia, who had adopted a more relaxed pose on a wide chair. Edge entered after rapping his knuckles against the wood and shut the door behind him. A moment gazing at the four faces within, and something loosened within his chest. Here, it was merely the five of them again, the comrades he'd trusted in the deepest shadows of the Lunar Palace, the bodies he'd slept between in small tents barely large enough to fit inside the magic field.

He barked out a half-laugh, because the sheer overload of relief nearly knocked his knees apart, sliding against the door a bit to keep his balance. And the others, too, relaxed at the same time, wound muscles loosening from the knots they'd formed.

Cecil rubbed a weary hand across his forehead, fingers tangling with Rosa's from their shared position on the longest bench. "Gods above, I honestly thought all this would be over. I thought we'd come back and things would just..."

"Work out," Rosa finished.

"And they haven't," Cecil said, tongue curling up to tap against his lip. "I just...did I expect too much? I'm so, so tired. It feels like everything already lasted for a lifetime."

Rydia put her hands up in the air, palms towards the ceiling. "And for some of us, it really did."

"I don't know how to relate to people anymore," Edge admitted. He moved closer in, drawn to the promise of familiar security the semi-circle of their figures formed. "It's like, okay, sure, your least favorite uncle is propositioning the court to gain control of the family estate, but, like, I went to the fucking moon? I don't... I don't care."

Rosa's twinkling laugh was reward enough. She pressed her hands against her cheeks, then slid them back to the nape of her neck. "And everything feels so awful when you compare it to the ultimate evil. Yet these things, these are the parts that people care about. The rest was beyond them; it was too big. It's so abstract they can't possibly use it as a point of reference."

Edge's shoulders unwound, sinew by sinew, until finally, for the first time in days, weeks, maybe, he rolled his shoulders back and exhaled. "This just feels like one more fucking thing. On top of everything else."

"We thought we'd done the right thing," Rydia offered. "We truly thought we'd spared the world misery and pain."

"And instead, we just brought more." Cecil shook his head again. "Every action we took ended up with a consequence we couldn't possibly have foreseen."

"You can't blame yourself for this," Rydia said. She gave Cecil a sweet, sad smile. "Even the Elder kept this one close."

"Is this how it's always going to be, then?" he asked.

Rosa's hand squeezed tighter around his, bunching the fabric of her sleeve. "We'll have to learn to be more open about things."

"That's just the thing, isn't it?" Edge said. "There wasn't any communication, not before us. I don't remember my parents ever speaking about other rulers, other kingdoms. We went about our business and sent off exports via airship, and that was it. This council is the first time everyone has been together like this, for better or for worse."

"Then we do it right." Cecil's expression was set, pursed and grim. He surveyed the room, one at a time, ending on Kain—Kain, who would bear the weight of the decision, of the ripple effect they'd unwittingly set into motion so long ago. "We have to fix things."

"We already are," Rydia said. "We're here; we're going to make things right again."

Kain's eyes didn't quite land on Edge, but he looked to the others, for courage, perhaps; steadiness, certainly. "What if there's just more? Another thing, a year from now. Another issue, another problem. What if all we're doing is perpetuating the cycle?"

"We'll tackle those, too," Rosa told him.

Edge held up his index finger, making a quick circle in the air. "Yeah, remember? Us. The fucking moon. Big evil bad man went boom."

"Eloquent," Rydia laughed.

"Yet correct," Cecil added.

Rosa turned her beautiful smile towards the center. "Can we do this more often? The five of us here like this, just...being. Together. I know it's not always possible, but right now, I think I desperately want to know you're all nearby."

"Why couldn't it be possible?" Edge asked.

"Maybe we won't all be the same anymore," Kain replied, dry and humorless, a brittle icicle mid-winter.

"Don't," Rydia said. She shivered, drawing her knees up close to her chest. "Even if it might be true, don't. Not yet."

"We won't let that happen," Edge told him. Or told himself. The room, the others; everyone.

One of Kain's eyebrows rose, a clear disagreement, though he said nothing. If he stayed his tongue for Rosa's sake, then Edge thought better of him. And even Cecil, who knew, who'd promised—he couldn't see it either, not through the clouds. They'd saved the world, but the world was still burning. Somehow, Edge didn't find the irony amusing.

"Do you think this will be the last time?" Edge asked, quieter. "Or will there be something else. One disaster after another."

"That's what we're trying to avoid," Cecil said. "Open communication."

Rydia hummed a bit, in agreement. "And this time, we all know each other."

"Makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Rosa asked.

"Like a god damn fire ant beneath the sun." Edge sighed. But he knew these people. He'd trusted these people to have his back during the fights when his attention was elsewhere, to heal him when the blood soaked through his cloak. He'd trusted every single one of these comrades not to knife him in the night, even Kain; and that, beneath everything else, was the piece he'd forgotten about.

Maybe Kain was remembering it, too. The other man's gaze held Edge's, steady. He'd turned on them when the whispers filled his mind, but he'd still slept at the bottom of Edge's bedroll later, curled up with his hands balled beneath his chin. Edge could still time his Jumps, plan a coordinated attack with the wheezing breaths from his lungs.

Things had gotten lost in the weeds, in the fires and the floods and the deaths of his people. It was easier here to see that. If Edge could just keep these four with him, he'd make it through anything.

Probably.

"They'll be back tomorrow," he said, and met Kain's stare, nodding. He hoped the other took it for the offering it was.

Kain's jaw worked a jerky circle. "Yeah."

"This will work," Rydia told them, a promise, the sort of certainty she couldn't possibly offer but oh, they all sorely, desperately needed. Then she held her hand out to Edge, palm up, and after he'd slotted his fingers in-between hers, curled her hand back around. Her heartbeat pulsed against his skin. "We'll make it work."

Cecil reached over to grasp Kain's wrist, and Rosa twisted her arm further around Cecil's, and they stayed there for a moment, hovering above the future. Cecil nodded, firm and proper. A king. "We'll make it work."

But even the warmth that remained in Edge's chest couldn't dispel the nightmares that night. He woke, clockwork, spitting ash and brittle bone shards out from his teeth. It'd been his father this time, roaring with a monster's lungs. Edge didn't bother to try and distract his mind with the parchment rolls on the desk; he padded over to the door and shoved his feet in his boots, taking to the western tower.

He wasn't surprised when Kain answered the door immediately, wide-eyed and clear.

"Let's play," Edge said, and slipped in, his shoulder brushing the other's.

They both stayed quiet through the first moves, the quick motions to set the board up for future traps. Then Kain slid his fingers across his chin, curling his lips as though something itched beneath his nose. "I want you to be the one to do it, if things go wrong."

"What about Cecil?"

Kain shrugged. "We both know he's too good. He'll struggle with it, at the end. He'll want to see the best."

"Are you saying I won't?"

Kain's mouth twitched up. "I'm saying you won't hesitate to do what has to be done for the good of the many."

"That's noble of me," Edge commented, tone light. He pushed his Bishop forward, and then regretted it. "Probably more noble than you ought to give me credit for."

Silence. Two more moves, and Edge lost one of his pawns. He'd left it open. Normally, sacrificing the weaker pieces didn't bother him, but this time, it lingered, disquieting. He preferred not to think about why that might be.

"You think it'll go poorly," he said. He lifted his eyes, meeting Kain's gaze. "That's why you're making sure I'll agree to be there with my blade drawn."

"Mental fortitude." Kain's eyes dropped back down to the board. He nudged his Knight ahead. "Haven't you heard? It takes a strong mind to withstand the power required. Too many cracks, and the mind can't withstand the pull."

"I think you're catastrophizing before you need to."

Kain huffed. "I know who I am, even if others don't. Envy is a character flaw."

"So is wrath." He waited until Kain lifted his chin once more, blue eyes full of storms.

Kain breathed in long and languid, before saying, "Hold onto that one. You might need it soon."

Three more moves; Kain lost his Bishop, and Edge a Knight. He moved his Queen forward to push Kain towards the far row, near the edge, where it was easy to get stuck. Then, Edge asked, "What was it like? When Zemus wormed into your mind?"

Maybe earlier, the man would have bristled at the impudence the question brought with it, but now, Kain remained as he was, bent over the board. "Like whispers that mirrored back my own thoughts, my darkest fears. My deepest desires. Over and over, until I couldn't tell which thoughts were real and which weren't. Eventually, they overtook my own. I was still there, but as an observer. I didn't have control over the thoughts in my head any longer, he did."

"When we were in the Sealed Cave, you knew it was coming." It wasn't a question; Edge had long suspected.

Kain sighed, a confirmation. "Yes."

"Why didn't you warn us ahead of time, try to get away? Sneak out during the night so it never came down to what it did?"

"Because there was only one way out."

Edge didn't think he was speaking purely literally. He took one of Kain's remaining pawns, tapping his fingers against the table. "Check."

Kain slipped his King out of harm's way. "Do you still hate me for that? The betrayal?"

"No." That was the truth, at least. "I think, honestly, it could have been any of us. He could have gotten his claws into any of us to get that crystal. It just happened to be you."

Three more turns. Kain moved his King twice. "Thank you," he said, finally, voice low.

"Thank me by not making me kill you," Edge replied.

"You think I can? Become this Paragon of Wind?"

Edge frowned at the pieces. He couldn't find his way forward. "If anyone can, it'd be you."

"That didn't really answer my question."

"I think you're the only one who can answer it," Edge said.

Kain's fingers played with his lip, pulling at the skin. Then, he straightened, hands falling to the table. "What do you see in your nightmares?"

"My parents." Edge lifted his chin. "What about you?"

"Myself."

Another truth. The space between them lay bare and exposed, vulnerable. Edge tapped his Queen to the edge. "Checkmate."


When the crystals, and their bearers, returned, the castle's activity level kept a constant buzz in Edge's ears. As grateful as he was for the process moving forward, he mourned the quiet day they'd had before that had allowed him to set his thoughts in order. Now, as he returned to the receiving room following Cecil's summons, the decisions weighed heavier than they had earlier. He'd pushed the crux of the matter in motion. For all Kain's bluster, the unknown waiting at the end of everything was unsettling them all.

The Elder of Mysidia sat at the head of the table with Cecil and Rosa; Edge appreciated the man taking charge of the meeting.

"If everyone has brought the crystals, we can begin preparations for the rituals in question," he said, with more parchment unrolled and crinkling in front of him. "I've gathered all the notes available in Mysidia regarding this event, and things will be...more difficult than I previously imagined."

Cecil narrowed his eyes, though his gaze never faltered. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"The transfer of power will be...how shall I put this delicately? Challenged."

"By who?" Yang asked.

The Elder tipped his head to the side, beard catching in the folds of his heavy robe. "By those who came before us in these positions."

"The Archfiends?" Edge asked, surprise coloring his tone. "The very dead, very gone Archfiends are going to challenge the new focal points?"

"I believe so, yes," the Elder replied. "There is a significant amount of energy associated with the elements, and a portion of the last bearer would remain there to intermingle. Because of the corruption the Archfiends encountered, and eventually embraced, such energy is tainted. It will not react as smoothly as it would otherwise."

"Even dead, they don't want to give up their power," Rydia said.

"Hopefully it will not create a large barrier," the Elder said. "According to the scrolls, the lack of contact between the original paragon and the new one should assist in making the transition smoother. They, for the most part, do not know the new individuals chosen, and there should be few threads there to necessitate a break."

Conversation sprung up in low murmurs, heads bent together. Maybe everyone was questioning the decision now, with the new wrench; at any rate, they regarded the Elder with a healthy dose of belief and concern. Edge, however, looked to Kain, who had taken a seat near the corner of the room, as far away from the elongated table as he could manage. Something had darkened in the man's expression as the conversation continued. Lines played at the corners of his eyes as his mouth twisted, just a bit, just enough, into an unhappy curve.

Edge filed that away for the future.

"It will take some time to prepare everything," the Elder continued, and slowly, the rest of the mumblings died away. "I wish to start with the water crystal, and myself. The Archfiend of Water, Cagnazzo, was originally defeated here in Baron Castle. I believe that connection will assist us in a smoother transfer of power."

Rydia shivered a bit next to Edge, and he reached over to press his palm against her bicep in comfort. "His spirit lingers here, I think, like so many others. The Castle invites them to remain. The halls are thick with all the bits left behind."

"Spooky," Edge said under his breath.

"We will need individuals ready to fight, should it come to that," the Elder addressed the table.

Cecil straightened. "I will join, of course. With my comrades."

Edge assumed Cecil meant the group from the moon voyage, but also Yang, likely, and perhaps Edward. Rosa might excuse herself out of concern for her unborn child. Beneath the table, his hand tightened into a fist. He'd destroy a thousand Cagnazzos to fix the Blue Planet if it came down to that.

"Please give us a day to prepare," the Elder said.

"But if you go first, taking on this...power," Yang said, deliberate and slow, "what happens if things do go wrong and we can't move forward with the rest?"

The nod the Elder gave him was heavy with approval. "I've prepared my staff to take over should that come to pass. We have created a plan to move forward with the rest, even without my involvement. I trust my mages to cover the necessary spaces."

"Tomorrow, then?" Cecil offered. "What all would you need from us?"

"Adequate space, to deal with the power transfer, devoid of anyone who might get caught in the lurch."

"Beneath the castle," Rosa said, turning to Cecil. "The old waterways. Given the magic we're talking of, the aqueducts would be perfect to absorb anything summoned by the ritual itself."

"And no one would be around to be injured in the crossfire," Cecil said. "We'll plan on that, then. Anything else?"

The Elder sighed, flattening his hands against the paper. He appeared to shrink a bit, an infinitesimal shift that showed his age and the weight of the approaching sacrifice. For the first time, Edge thought the man wasn't completely in control; or at least, the world was tilting around him, and he had only just been able to retain his footing.

"Elder?" Cecil tried again.

"Prayers," came the answer. "All the prayers this council can muster."


Outside the receiving room, Rydia waited by the flickering light of the nearest torch. It threw gold across her hair and face, warming the hues tinged pink in her skin; she looked older in the glow, wiser, as though she'd fought a thousand battles on her own already.

"Do you think this will work?" she asked, quietly, as the last of the others disappeared around the corner of the hallway towards the dining chambers where lunch was served. "Creating new Archfiends?"

"I thought we were supposed to call them paragons now," Edge said.

Rydia shrugged, flicking a piece of invisible lint from her shoulder. "Whatever they are, I'm worried this won't work. That this will somehow make everything worse."

A pause, and then she sighed. "It should have been me, you know, not Kain."

"I don't think that's necessarily right. You'd lose everything."

Her gaze was sharp. "So could he."

"But if this works, he won't lose a part of who he is. Not like you would. You'd be cut off from the eidolons completely."

She went quiet, staring at the far wall where the shadows from the torch danced across the lines of mortar. Then, "You said yesterday that you can't relate to people anymore."

"Everything is very isolating," Edge agreed. "I wish....well, I often wish I could have what Cecil and Rosa do. Someone there who understands, who saw the same, who fought the same. Who won't try and convince me that missing a favorite meal or having an argument with an advisor is the end of the world."

When Rydia's mouth went a bit sideways, he had to reevaluate. "Don't you want the same? Like they have?"

"No," she said. "Not in the way you're talking about, I don't think."

"You don't crave someone else to just...offer warmth?"

Rydia shook her head. "No." Her eyes slid to his face, roving over whatever sat there. Edge had long since stopped trying to hide expressions from her; she saw through them all. "But you do?"

"I'm so fucking lonely." He barked out a laugh, expelled forcefully from his aching lungs. "Holy twin moons, I'm absolutely desperate for someone to just touch me."

With a little smile, Rydia reached out to grab his hand, her fingers curling warm and strong around his wrist. "I know it's not the same, but maybe it can help a little bit."

"It does," he said, and didn't have to lie. "I guess I thought this would be different. That we'd be heroes. That people would throw themselves at our feet."

"And?"

"And instead, I'm so isolated I can't remember the time I had a normal conversation with anyone."

Wait; no, he'd spoken with Kain just the night before over chess, and it had been easy. Comfortable. Familiar in a way that meant Edge didn't have to be anything more than he was, meet any expectations. They'd slipped so quickly into camaraderie he'd barely noticed the shift.

Rydia's grip on his skin tightened. It really did help stave off the worst of things. "Eventually, things will work out for all of us."

"Will they?" Edge asked.

"I have to believe they will."

Edge sighed. "Yeah. Me too."


That night, he didn't even bother to go to sleep. The nightmares would find him, one way or another, and maybe he'd finally get out ahead of them. If Baron Castle promised nothing but old ghosts, he'd simply stay awake so they couldn't find him. Edge walked the familiar pathway to the tower, wondering when the offered companionship had grown so necessary.

They played, but Kain's hands trembled the whole time. He moved his pawn forward with shaking fingers, and even when it was Edge's turn and Edge spent minutes trying to map out the next possible moves on the board, Kain's hands rattled together in his lap.

Edge nudged a piece ahead. "I'm going to ask you a question, and you don't have to answer if you don't want to. And if you want to ignore that the words even came out of my mouth, just keep playing. Don't respond."

"O—kay," Kain said. His expression got warier, tensed; primed for attack.

Edge drew in a deep breath. "What happened with Barbariccia?"

A long stretch of quiet hummed between them. Edge had anticipated Kain immediately withdrawing, but the other barely flinched. Then he expected the question would go entirely ignored.

He was surprised when Kain tilted his head a bit, contemplative, before taking Edge's pawn with his Rook. "She was there, in the Tower. When I was. She...took an interest in me."

"Define 'interest'."

"I...I was still there, you know, inside my head, even with the whispers. I could still see myself, almost from above. I wasn't gone. I..." He went still, silent, and then exhaled a stuttered, shaky lungful. "I let things happen."

"What kind of things?"

Kain's eyes blazed, shimmering in the candlelight. "All kinds of things."

Edge swallowed hard, and it hurt. "Kain."

"It doesn't...it doesn't matter. I was aware, at the time."

Without really thinking, Edge reached out and put his hand over Kain's, which remained trembling against his Bishop. "Kain. That's not consent."

"Isn't it?" Kain whispered. His voice came out garbled.

"No. You were being controlled."

"I could see myself. I was still in my thoughts."

"Doesn't matter."

For an achingly long time, neither of them moved. Edge, suddenly aware that he'd done the same thing they were speaking of by touching the other without asking first, panicked, aiming to remove his fingers; just before he snatched his hand away, Kain's arm twisted around so their palms were pressed together. His fingers curled, loose at first, and then painfully tight, gripping Edge's own so hard he felt his heartbeat reverberating through his shoulder.

Kain's eyes fluttered closed as his chest went concave, all tension drained clean out. "Thank you," he breathed, barely a brush of air in the still room.

"Do you think this will affect the way the ritual plays out?"

One eye opened, gazing across the board at him. "Do you?"

"I don't know. I'm no magic scholar."

Kain shuddered. "Don't...don't tell the others."

"I won't," Edge promised. Shards of regret had wormed their way up into his throat; he should have suspected. He should have guessed earlier. He might have been kinder, less barbed. He might have tread with far more caution.

"I'm not...I'm not proud of it."

"This doesn't change who you are."

"And who, exactly, am I?"

Edge knew what Kain wanted him to say—or, at least, what Kain would have said to describe himself. But none of those words lined up anymore. "You're a Dragoon, trained into a dying art. You're a hero who saved the Blue Planet from certain ruin. You're a soldier of Baron. You're a quick mind and a sharp tongue."

"There has to be more to life than those things."

Edge squeezed his hand, tight, tight enough to burn up to his elbow. "You're my friend. Isn't that enough?"

Kain's features, when they looked at Edge, hung open and exposed. He said nothing. Maybe those things were enough. Maybe the thread between them, forged in blood and moonlight, held strong and steady. Edge had overlooked it, given into the worst assumptions once they'd gone their separate ways.

"You said you dream about your parents," Kain said, quiet. "What do you see?"

He was searching for common ground, something to level the field between them. Edge couldn't fault him for that. "They were monsters at the end. I see them, half-human, tortured and mindless. I see them as I deal the final blow, over and over."

"It wasn't your fault what happened to them."

"And it wasn't your fault what happened to you."

He was so touch-starved that it took far too long to realize they were still joined, fingers locked together across the chessboard, and if he was being honest with himself, he didn't want to let go. Having the pulse of someone else beneath his touch was intoxicating; settling, in a way Edge had only peripherally realized he needed.

Then Kain laughed, a harsh sound that still managed to loosen some of what had congealed within Edge's chest. "I thought you were an ass."

"Still am, really."

"No argument here," but Kain smiled, the type of expression that blossomed down through Edge's toes. "Keep playing, then?"

"Maybe you'll finally win," Edge offered. Their hands fell apart, leaving Edge oddly bereft. His fingers rang empty.

Kain's smile remained where it hung on his face, a bit out of place amidst his usual frown. "Maybe."


They gathered in the waterways beneath Baron Castle the next day, while Edge's bones threatened to vibrate clean out of his skin. It wasn't that he didn't like the crystals: they provided a great deal of aid to the kingdoms housing them, and he wasn't quite selfish enough to deny them the power they'd long since grown reliant on. But now, the soft hum of their glow dug down into his memories, dredging up skeletal dragons and behemoths made of pure muscle. It itched, in his limbs, nostalgia he couldn't scratch free. He didn't trust them, not wholly, not entirely, and he thought, at the end, that was fair.

The Elder of Mysidia held a great deal of belief that his ritual would go as planned, but the mages he brought with him looked nervous. Somehow, that made Edge feel a bit better. The Water crystal might be a known entity for them, but this? This was maddening. This was inviting chaos.

He lingered near Cecil and the others, watching as the mages did something he couldn't discern. They wove their hands in the air, as though threads needed to be knotted and coiled together.

"Can you see that?" he whispered to Rydia, on his left. "Are they weaving magic or something?"

"Yes," she said, and her eyes never left the scene in front of them. "That's exactly what they're doing."

Without being able to see the magic in question, the preparations looked more like an intricate dance. Step by step, the mages' hands created that Edge assumed was a cocoon; in the middle, the Elder stood with both the crystal and a glimmering knife, translucent and sharp as hell: diamond. The only thing strong enough to sink into the crystal's smooth exterior.

He took a step back, unconsciously. "They're going to cut the crystal. They're going to...damage it. Isn't that bad?"

"It has to have been done before, if the paragons existed in the past," Rosa offered, but she, too, appeared troubled. Maybe she should have stayed above in the castle after all, to protect the baby.

Rydia shook her head. She was mesmerized. "The crystals can heal themselves from small nicks and scratches; that's part of the magic within. They'd be useless if they could be easily broken or destroyed. This will leech out only enough of the magic to start the transfer. From there, the power will be drawn from outside, not in."

"The elements," Edge said. "The ones going nuts all over the place."

"Yes, those. This should still the issues we're having with sea and floods."

Cecil glanced at Rosa. He'd gone down the same thought process that Edge had. "That's a lot of magic to take in all at once. The sea's been spilling over at every shore for months now."

"He'll be fine," Kain offered. "He's a strong mage."

He was nervous, then, bringing up the magic abilities the Elder possessed. Edge slid in so their shoulders brushed together, because the contact helped settle his own nerves, too. Kain didn't pull away, so they stood with their sleeves bunched together while the mages finished their preparations. The air in front of the Elder shimmered, reflecting the torches they'd carried down with them.

Cecil put a hand on the hilt of his sword, ready.

"It is time," the Elder said. He held the crystal aloft, fingers tight around the ridges. "I will rely on you to step in should something go wrong."

"How will we know?" Cecil asked.

The Elder shifted so the knife was pressed against the crystal's gleaming side, his mouth a grim line. "You'll know."

"Gods help us if this brings the castle down around our heads," Edge mumbled.

And then the Elder dug the diamond knife into the Water crystal, and the waterway roared to life.

Honestly, as Edge threw his hands out in front of his face to stop the spray, he thought the whole wave racing towards them was real. It felt real as the water beaded and misted against his skin, only when he peeked out from between splayed fingers, he couldn't see anything at all. Magic, all of it, a tidal wave of power mimicking water so closely he'd nearly hallucinated its presence. His ears registered nothing but the scream of water against stone, sloshing up against the pathway and threatening to take the whole stairwell out.

The Elder screamed, though the sound was mostly swallowed by the summoned storm, and then, in tandem, a furious howl more monster than man. Cagnazzo. Materializing on the magic soaking through their clothing, chilling them down to the bones: the Drowned King, come to fight for his power and control.

When Edge stared blearily into the vortex of water, waves, and sickly vibrations, he could see the Archfiend within. Blue scales curved down over a wicked shell and claws outstretched towards the Elder and the crystal he held. Edge tried to yell, because they were supposed to do something, supposed to fight this very trap; he never needed to grab for his katana. The Elder of Mysidia gathered the storm within his palm and aimed it at the warbling image of the Fiend. Edge closed his eyes, and then, when he reopened them, Cagnazzo was gone.

So was the sheen of water magic. Only the Elder remained standing at the apex of it all, still holding the crystal, but he was...different. Something within him glowed, a radiant blue light that stripped the torches of any warmth they offered. A minute, likely less, and the entire thing was complete. It was easy; too easy.

But the Elder sighed, working his neck around in a circle while his beard tugged along his robe. "It is done."

"That was it?" Edge asked, because it couldn't be.

"For you, it appeared to be nothing," the Elder said, "but for me—"

"It wasn't nothing," Rydia whispered. Her fingers were at her neck, pulling down on the curls of her hair. Her eyes were wide, glistening; tears had spilled out at some point onto her cheeks, and the rivulets reflected the Elder's new glow. "It was...it was amazing."

Envy twisted in Edge's gut. He would have liked to have seen whatever caused Rydia such a display of emotion. "I retract my statement, then."

"But it worked?" Cecil asked, stepping forward. "You're the Paragon of Water?"

"Let us go out to the shore and see," the Elder said.

They did, their boots littering the sands past Baron's nestled town, where the weeds grew tall and the trees thin. The Elder gave the crystal to one of the other mages, who seemed more at ease once it was replaced in the fur-lined bag they'd transported it in. Remnants of the earlier high tides, strange and wrong for Baron's climate, littered the area. A few white-barked trees had splintered completely, cracked in half and pressed flush against the sand.

The Elder of Mysidia stood nearest the water lapping against the surf, and raised his hands into the air.

The sea raised up with him, a wall of blue-green water curling at the top like the fiercest typhoon.

"Gods," Rosa whispered, hand at her mouth. "He's done it. He's truly done it."

The Elder pushed both arms forward, and the sea retreated back against the rocks, revealing seaweed and clamshells clinging to slick black rocks. The show of might was impressive. If Edge couldn't still remember the salt burning up through his sinuses after Cagnazzo's furious tsunami, he might be more at ease. He took a step back, bumping into Kain once more. The other man slipped his arm through Edge's elbow as though offering stability.

Cecil, though, appeared relieved. "If that was all the ritual demanded, we will get off easy with this."

"But he feels it," Rydia said. "The Elder can feel every pound of the waves, every pull of the tide. He'll always have it in his mind, now, even when he's sleeping. He is part of the magic, and the magic is in his blood."

Edge glanced at Kain out of the corner of his vision, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. "It'll be fine."

"Are you speaking to him or me?" Kain asked, too low for the others to overhear.

Edge didn't answer, but only because he didn't know. Bile pulsed up to the back of his tongue. Kain was worried, and he had every right to be, and Edge wanted to retch onto the sands the regret boiling in his blood. He was the reason Kain would have to do the same, invite in the same power. He'd been the one to suggest the match, and to retrieve the man from Ordeals.

The air left his lungs in a painful rush. "I'm sorry."

"No." Kain's fingers curled into Edge's elbow, poking at the tender flesh there. "Don't be. It's what needs to be done."

Standing on Baron's shores while the others celebrated, faces splitting into wide grins, Edge had never felt further from himself.


Even by evening, when the stars came out to twinkle in the light of the waxing moon, Edge couldn't shake the feel of the water magic skimming across his skin. He went down to the Baron training grounds to try and force the sensation free and accomplished only a sheen of sweat and a pounding in his temples. His second attempt was to wash himself in the tub located behind a narrow door in his chambers. Cecil and Rosa kept the baths in the castle pleasantly warm; as Edge stood from the water, he stared at the rivulets running down his arms and legs, wondering if they, too, had fallen under the command of the Elder of Mysidia. The thought chilled him.

Unable and unwilling to attempt sleep, Edge made his way down to Cecil and Rosa's rooms. Honestly, he half-expected to turn right around upon discovering them both sound asleep and instead found the door slightly ajar and voices floating out from within. He rapped his knuckles against the wood. "It's me."

"Oh, good," came Rydia's voice from within, and Edge pushed through the portal.

He had only just dropped onto the loveseat when Rydia plopped down next to him and curled up against his shoulder. Her warmth, impossibly different from the water-slick aftertaste of the day's magic, helped settle some of the revolt in his stomach. He set his chin upon the crown of her head, sighing.

"I know this is all going to help," Cecil said, voice low, from across the sitting space on the larger, wider bench, "but I have to admit, I don't like any of it."

"So much of this lies beyond our understanding," Rosa added.

Edge blew out a lungful of air, causing strands of Rydia's curls to lift from her head. "Are you saying without understanding it, we can't possibly hope to control it?"

"There's no hope for us to control it," Rydia said, half-muffled from Edge's shirt. "This is...big. Huge. This is the whole planet."

Edge rather thought they'd already dealt with huge, planet-shaking problems and come out the victors—that they had to do it all over again rang decidedly unfair. The room fell silent. Edge wondered if the others were also reliving their unending days beneath the surface of the moon, where no light reached the bowels of the lunar castle and time bled together. Gods, he hated the moon.

The door creaked, and Kain walked in. His gaze skipped over the bench and then settled on Edge and Rydia, who had pressed her nose so far against Edge's collarbone she likely couldn't see the rest of the room at all. Something flashed over Kain's features, a twist of emotion Edge couldn't identify.

He stretched his other elbow straight in an invitation subtle enough that should Kain refuse it, the others might not even notice.

Maybe he expected the other man to turn away; Kain didn't. He rounded the side of the room and sat, gingerly, almost as though he anticipated something to surprise him. Then, after a moment, he leaned back against Edge's arm. When Edge curled his hand down, rounding his elbow, Kain's exhale rattled all the way up Edge's shoulder.

Tendon by tendon, Kain relaxed into Edge's form until the tension from his muscles had disappeared entirely. And then, as if she, too, could feel the unwinding, Rydia reached out and laced her fingers through Kain's with their palms connected against Edge's stomach, a lopsided circle.

Finally, finally, Edge felt at peace. Was this what Cecil and Rosa felt every day, secure with the bond between them? But that wasn't the same, not really: Edge needed them all, the four of them, to complete the facets of the puzzle his soul had scattered across the plains, with all the different ways their companionship was offered. This, them, the five-pointed star, was what he'd been missing for all the months the floods ravaged Eblan's shores and drought pushed their fields to dust.

"Tomorrow is Giott's turn," Rydia murmured.

"Will it be different, given he isn't a mage?" Cecil asked.

Rydia shrugged, her shoulder jutting up against Edge's bicep. "I can't say. I believe he's a good choice, though, and the steadiness he offers will be welcomed. But Rubicante was the strongest of the Archfiends. It's unlikely he'll give it all up without a fight."

"I'll kill him," Edge promised, "all over again. What's more dead than dead?"

Kain huffed out a laugh. Two of his fingers curled against Edge's hip, a whisper against the cotton separating their skin. "He might take one look at you and give up completely, just to avoid the whole thing."

"I would hope so. I'm quite intimidating."

Another laugh, low and barely audible. It sent a shiver down Edge's spine, the warm and welcome kind. And then he remembered that after Giott would come Mina of Troia, and after Mina would come Kain, and the wild, raging magic of Barbariccia would hollow out the man curled up against him and deposit something new inside.

Fear sobered him, curdling the pleased blooms that had been licking up through his chest.

From the bench, Rosa gave a deep sigh, hands caressing her belly. "I wish this was all over. I do, and I don't at the same time."

"You don't?" Rydia asked.

"You'll all leave once it's complete," Rosa admitted. She turned her face away, towards the wall, and the candles warmed her pale cheeks with orange. "I don't want you to leave again."

They would; Edge would return to Eblan and pick up the duties of the crown again, heavy against his forehead. He'd sit alone at night looking out the tower windows at the single moon sky and dream about the hours they had together stretched too thin, loneliness settling within to take root like a towering oak. He didn't have a way to keep the others with him, not really. Life, and the burden of ruling, took precedence.

"I don't, either," Cecil said.

"We'll come back," Rydia promised. She shifted, sitting up and pulling away from Edge's arm. "We'll all come back when the baby is born."

Only if we're all alive, Edge's mind helpfully supplied. He sucked in a deep breath, holding it until his chest ached.

Maybe the promise was enough. Rosa looked happier when they departed the room, and outside in the hall, Rydia hugged Edge with a fierce squeeze.

"Things will all work out," she said, another pledge, another vow Edge would hold tightly between his fingers to prevent the future from slipping out like fine grains of sand. "You'll see."

She embraced Kain as well, and then left, a faint breeze of jasmine in her wake. Edge stared at the corner she disappeared around long after she'd gone.

"Will you ask her to go with you?" Kain asked, startling Edge from his thoughts.

Edge blinked. "With me?"

Kain shrugged, looking embarrassed. "To Eblan. You could; she isn't bound anywhere else like Cecil and Rosa are. You could give her a place there with you."

Edge heard the unspoken bits, the undercurrent, an echo of the waterways they'd stood in hours earlier beneath Baron's stone floors. You could give her a crown. "It's not like that with Ryds. Not the way you're thinking."

"Oh," was all Kain said, but his shoulder seemed lighter. Straighter.

The corner of Edge's mouth twitched up, even as he lifted his gaze to where the ceiling met the walls. "Wanna play?"

"Yes," Kain replied, a laugh and a sigh at the same time.


The Elder of Mysidia requested that Giott's initiation the next day take place on the edge of Baron's lands, where the desert met the grass, and the sun beat down on the rolling hills. Damcyan would have been preferable, but with the lack of transportation, the group made their way out to the open plains with King Edward holding the fire crystal as though unwilling to give it up for even the day.

Edge's nerves from the night before hadn't settled. Sleep had not come easily to him last night; over and over nightmares plagued him. He saw his mother, his father, and all the faces of the monsters they'd killed on the moon. When he woke, he found himself rattled and unsteady, unable to discern up from down, and unwilling to test the nightmares' strength by going back to sleep.

Maybe it was the fact that Giott wasn't a mage. The magic, the wild, unsteady and unknowable magic they sought to harness, would find itself in a host who, up until that moment, didn't know how to wield it at all. In truth, the day offered a taste of how the future would go; if the transfer went poorly, so too would their future prospects.

Honestly, Edge was far more worried about Kain.

The day was hot. Overhead, the sun had reached its zenith, a brilliant orb in the clear blue sky. Edge wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his arm, and waited in the small group of gathered people for the ritual to begin. Next to him, Rydia shifted between her feet, bouncing her weight from side to side.

"Are you worried?" Edge asked.

"Yes," she said. Then she paused, tilting her head to one side. "Aren't you?"

"Of course I am. I just don't know what to do about it."

"This will solve things," she said. And Edge certainly hoped it would. Without the rituals, and the new magic, they'd never be able to stop the floods and fires that were ravaging the world. Eblan would fall, and so would Baron, and then the rest of the kingdoms like dominoes behind them. Wonderful. A hopeless problem, and an even more hopeless solution.

But how much would they have to sacrifice to get where they needed to be?

"What if it doesn't work?" Edge asked. An ich traveled up his spine, settling between his shoulders in the exact spot he couldn't reach. "We don't have another plan."

Rydia shrugged. "We don't need one."

"That's wildly optimistic."

"Sometimes, you have to be optimistic."

Edge rather thought the only people who could afford to be so optimistic were the people who had nothing left to lose. He had far too much to lose, and he'd already lost so much.

He wanted to say more, but that was when Kain arrived, and the last thing that Edge wanted to do was scare the man more than he already was. So he bit his tongue, and watched the Elder of Mysidia prepare for the ritual with the mages and Giott, who didn't appear nervous at all. Typical. The man had a face of steel, and it would serve him well in the coming hours.

Kane looked sideways at Edge, out of the corner of his eyes. His face betrayed nothing. "Is everything ready?"

"Ready as things will ever be."

"Try to stay positive," Rydia said. "Fear doesn't do you any favors."

"Easy for you to say," Edge grumbled, and Kain shifted closer, as though he agreed.

When the ritual started, the same burst of magic hit Edge square between the eyes. It was hot, instead of cold, like the water had been; at its heart, the sensation was very much the same. Sound roared against his ears, a force he couldn't see and couldn't hope to understand, and he was trapped in the swell waiting for it to finally dissipate.

Giott screamed, and then, from behind him, another noise: a laugh. Edge knew that laugh.

While Cagnazzo had been a roar of anger, Rubicante was a cackle of delight. Of malice. They'd all known the Archfiend of fire wouldn't give up his power so easily, but Edge hadn't wanted to actually see the creature himself. From the flames, a column rose up to the sky, tendrils licking and hissing against the air.

Edge reached for his sword. If the fiend wasn't physically present, he didn't know how they would be able to defeat him, but there had to be a way. Rubicante killed his parents. Rubicante destroyed Eblan.

Edge gasped. Rubicante couldn't be alive.

Beside him, Rydia shrieked. A renewed blast of magic pushed him backwards, sending him flying head over heels and tumbling several times before coming to rest in the dirt. His hands clawed uselessly at bits of stone & grass. He choked, spitting out debris, and when he tried to lift his head to look at what was happening, his eyes burned as though the fire was real.

Whatever was happening, it wasn't going as well as the last attempt had. Giott struggled with the new magic, and the lack of control that came with it. Cecil was on his feet, ready to charge in should someone have to end the transfer, and Rydia screamed again, her head in her hands, as though the magic whipping around them had leased itself beneath her skin. Edge wanted to go to her, but he found he couldn't move. An arm wrapped around his shoulders, protection. Kain.

The world around them was going to burn, and the stupid idiot thought Edge was worth protecting. Edge didn't even have the strength to push the other man away. He just curled against the ground and shook, shook, trembling like a leaf, while Kain's reassuring warmth next to him sent pinpricks of electricity across his skin.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. The world went quiet once more.

It was over.

Giott was alive.

And every damn muscle in Edge's body ached. He wiped his face, and his sleeve came away dirty. "Was that it?"

"That was it," Rydia said.

"He made it," Kain said, though his tone wavered a little bit. "He really made it."

And so will you. "Looks that way."

The dwarf king stretched his arms over his head. He didn't look any different, but something must have changed within that Edge couldn't feel: a pulse, or glow, that only those blessed with magic would be able to pick up. Not for the first time, he wondered if slowly, bit by bit, the new Paragons' outside appearances would begin to shift towards their new elemental affinities. Perhaps they, too, would begin to look like their predecessors, and take on the characteristics of the magic they held within. The idea was not a pleasant one. Of all the things the Archfiends had been, monstrous was the first word that came to mind.

He swallowed hard, but didn't let the words loose. The idea would only incite fear in the others, and in this, Edge would worry alone.

But finally, Kain looked at him, and something shimmered in his eyes that Edge couldn't put a word to. Maybe the other man had caught the same trail of thought. Maybe Kain also worried about the monster he might become.

Edge wanted to say something reassuring.

Nothing came out.


That night, Kain didn't speak for so long Edge worried the other had lost the ability completely. The played half a game in silence while Edge grew antsy, kicking his foot at the leg of the table and tapping his fingers against the board. Disquiet filled the corners of the room until the atmosphere swelled with it.

"Gods, alright, I can't do this anymore," Edge finally exclaimed, jerking so violently that he knocked three of his own pieces off the squares and had to retrieve them from the floor. "Please say something."

"What should I say?" Kain asked without raising his eyes.

Edge stared at the crown of his head. "Um, anything? Quite literally anything. This is...I'm dying here. There has to be some sort of thought in your head."

"You think I don't have any thoughts in my head?"

"Now you're making me sound like an ass," Edge said.

Kain kept his head down, but the crinkles around his mouth were visible anyway. "Is that hard to do?"

"Hey."

"You admitted to being as much a few days ago, anyway."

"Okay, now you're deflecting."

Kain sighed. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, working his jaw for a long time. "There are a thousand thoughts in my head."

"Care to share with the class, then?"

"No," Kain said, and then, "not really."

"Ouch." Why did that hurt so much? Edge slid his eyes away towards something safer. "I thought we'd moved past all that."

"No, it's not..." Kain's voice trailed off. "It's just that putting the thoughts to words makes them feel more real. Unavoidable. And that's... a lot."

That Edge understood. He tapped one of his pawns forward in a half-hearted move he'd only vaguely thought through. "I'm not going to tell you I don't get that. But sometimes it can help, just to have someone else know what you're going through."

"Yes?" Kain asked. "Is that why you were so quiet today?"

Edge huffed, the bubble of the joyless laugh catching in his throat. "You know, I think I liked you a lot better when I thought you were incredibly unperceptive."

"You thought I was unperceptive?"

"I thought you were a lot of things."

Kain went silent, but his eyes never left Edge's face. Finally, he asked, "And what do you think now?"

Two more moves. Kain lost his Rook; Edge, his Bishop. "I think I don't want you to die."

"Might not be avoidable," Kain replied. "Might be by your own hand, really."

"Yeah, I'm aware, thanks."

Kain eyed him. "I need you to promise me you'll still be able to do it, should the worst happen."

"I said I would, didn't it?" Edge hated this entire topic of conversation. Kain had an amazing ability to needle his way underneath Edge's skin, simmering there. "You don't have to keep asking."

"Things change."

"What changed?" Edge shot back.

Silence. Neither of them moved, not even to lean forward to shift one of their pieces. After a long while, Kain sighed again. His features suddenly appeared impossibly weary. "I don't want to die either, you know."

"So pick something to live for."

Kain shook his head. "Like what?"

"Something that's worth staying alive for. Something you can hold onto."

Was Edge asking for what he thought he was asking for? Yes. No. Maybe; fuck, the whole thing was a colossal mess. He needed more time; they needed more time, and they weren't going to get it. A thousand things lay unsaid between them and the ones they always went for were the sharpest. And maybe he was so lonely that he couldn't see reality for what it was. Maybe he was optimistic, absurdly so, in a way he couldn't ever remember being before.

And he couldn't put any of it into words. Ironic, considering what he'd told Kain just a few minutes before.

He raised his eyes, held the other man's gaze. Didn't look away.

Slowly, Kain nodded: up and down. "All right."

They scrapped the game to start again when they realized they'd both played themselves into the corner, but even the second attempt didn't go any better. Edge's heart wasn't in it.


Edge woke early the next day and made his way down to the flower fields just beyond the castle. The whole garden was new: a gift from Cecil to Rosa, the sort of lasting thing that would bear the queen’s name for generations to come. It was also practical—a place where Rosa could retreat in the last months of her pregnancy or the first months of the baby’s life to get away, surrounded by flowers and the sweet smell of nectar and the soft buzzing of worker bees. All in all, it was a ridiculously perfect gift from Cecil to his bride, and Edge rather hated that while at the same time enjoying his time within the walls for the peace of mind it offered.

It was also, as luck would have it, the best place to enact the ritual to create the Paragon of Earth.

He found Rydia already there, speaking in low tones with Mina and the Mysidian mages.

“You’re up early,” he said, when she broke away and crossed the space to meet him.

“This is the one I’m most interested in,” she admitted. Then she looked vaguely guilty. “Don’t tell Kain. It’s not as if I don’t care about him, but this one is different.”

“Why?” Edge asked.

She frowned, folding her lower lip beneath her teeth. “It’s probably not something others have really noticed, but Scarmiglione…he changed the magic over time. Life and death are two sides of the natural order, of course. Nothing about either of them is inherently good or evil. But the Archfiend of Earth corrupted the magic to achieve the victory over death. It required a mutation to achieve, and the effects…well. I think we’re seeing the effects now.”

“Corrupted the magic?” Edge thought for a minute while a small hummingbird flit between the branches of the small ornamental pear tree. “Hadn’t everyone talked about how strange it was that the monsters of the Blue Planet were growing so fierce? How unnatural?”

“Yes, that’s something I suspect is connected to Earth magic.” Rydia sounded surprised. She regarded him slowly, carefully, before smiling. “You surprise me sometimes.”

“Yes, I shock and awe the world when I display a show of the most minute cognitive ability.”

Rydia laughed, delighted. “A week ago, you were too sour to even think about joking! I’m happy to see this back on you. It suits you much better.”

Edge nodded towards Mina, who stood amidst the flowers and the tall weeds that scraped up against the hem of her skirt. “You think she can change it back to the way it used to be?”

“She’s a White Mage,” Rydia said. “All of Troia’s epopts are trained in magic. Half in white, half in black. It keeps the balance. Having a white mage become the Paragon of Earth is likely exactly what’s needed to heal the rift left behind.”

“I guess I’d never thought about it like that. I certainly hope she can.”

“Mina is strong, and wise,” Rydia told him. They both watched her as she moved slowly between the fields; if Mina’s senses prickled from the attention, she didn’t show it. “She’s neither the eldest of the epopts, nor the youngest. I think it’s the best option we could have gotten.”

Edge squinted as the sun hit his eyes. “Could Rosa have done it? Done the same thing and healed the magic?”

“Probably. Rosa’s very strong. But I think her loyalty is less to the crystals and the Blue Planet than it is to Cecil and Baron.”

“Whereas Mina’s loyalty is to…”

Rydia shrugged. “Order. Balance. Peace.”

“You think Mina will be fine,” Edge said.

“I do.”

Neither of them dared to speak the caveat aloud. It remained at the back of Edge’s thoughts as the others arrived and the mages began their preparations. It pushed forward a bit when Mina used the diamond knife to cut through the Earth crystal’s glimmering facet. He let it swell when the magic rush arrived, even though by this point, he knew to expect it. Scarmiglione arrived in a roar of putrid decay and disappeared just as quickly; Rydia had been right. Mina never hesitated, and never flinched, an unwavering display of strength.

Edge couldn’t feel anything with the magic when the whole thing settled back down and the mages of Mysidia wiped tears from their cheeks, but beneath his boots, the ground pulsed a bit. He crouched down and pressed his fingertips against the dirt. He wasn’t a mage, but ninjutsu connected into the same energy the Blue Planet provided. The heart beat of the world beneath them sighed and slowed, lulled into its original rhythm as the corrupted currents faded away. That, at least, Edge could discern, if nothing else.

As the gathered crowd languidly left the gardens, Edge finally spotted Kain near the far wall, his back pressed against Baron’s high stones.

“Everyone’s done very well,” Kain said, maddeningly neutral.

Edge nodded towards the sloping bank of the moat. “The Elder of Mysidia and Giott were here, though. I think they were ready in case they needed to do something.”

“They said it will be better when the four are named again.” Kain didn’t meet Edge’s gaze. “Apparently, that’s when things should slip back into place. Until that point, though, things are a bit off. The transition period can be jarring if not done in quick succession.”

Edge turned and pushed back against the wall to mimic Kain’s posture. “Did they say when the Archfiends were first made?”

“No. I’m not sure anyone knows anymore.”

“But someone had to wear the mantle before them,” Edge pointed out. “People, not monsters. Back when these posts were called Paragons. Don’t you wonder who they were?”

Kain was quiet for a long while. “I suppose I do.”

“Do the memories transfer?”

The other sucked in a long, slow breath. “The Elder said the most recent ones can.”

“Oh,” Edge said, and couldn’t think of anything more. Certainly Kain worried about seeing himself in Barbariccia’s memories, and Edge couldn’t blame him. He’d die before wanting to see his own worst mistakes mirrored back at him like a sick carousel, a point of view warped and twisted. His mother, certainly, and his father. The Ninja who died as he barrelled heedlessly into the caves after Rubicante. Rydia, maybe, when he’d told her to get off the Lunar Whale for her own safety as though he’d ever had a say in such a thing.

He wanted to reach out in solidarity, but Kain pushed away from the bricks before he got the chance.

“If you see Cecil and Rosa,” the man said, already moving towards the back castle gate, “tell them I need some time to prepare.”

“Kain,” Edge tried.

“I need to put my thoughts in order.”

Edge’s lungs caught. “Kain!”

But Kain never looked back.


Of all things, Edge wasn't about to let the man wallow in nervous anxiety the night before such an important event. He took the corridors with speed and rapped his knuckles against the now familiar door, and, when he failed to get a response, knocked harder. Still no answer. Edge waffled, at a loss; where would Kain go if not in his room?

He searched the common areas first: the dining hall, the tavern beyond the castle walls, and the training pitches, and then, after he still came up empty, he thought he ought to expand wider. He climbed one of the sprawling, spiraling staircases to the upper ramparts and finally spotted Kain's blond hair back-lit by one of the guards' torches.

Jogging to the other side revealed Kain hunched over the waist-high railing of stone. "Kain."

The man didn't so much as move, as still as a statue. His expression had been carved out of the same rock he held his weight against. "You should get some rest."

"No, you should get some rest," Edge said. "What are you doing out here? You should be–"

"You have to be ready for tomorrow."

Edge gaped at him. "What are you talking about? You have to be ready for tomorrow!"

"You need to be prepared for what you have to do," Kain said. His eyes were blank, lifeless. Horrible. And all at once, Edge understood why the man had insisted on being alone, had locked himself away.

"You've already given up," Edge accused, and if his voice broke, so what. "You've already accepted your death."

"That's the most likely outcome," Kain agreed.

Edge surged forward, hands balled into fists. "Fuck that. What are you doing? You can't just give up!"

"You said you would do what needed to be done!"

"Not…not before it happened!"

Kain shook his head. Edge had only ever see the man's expression so bleak once before: when he had come back from being possessed, when he had assumed the others would condemn him. And Edge had. Edge had dismissed him without a second thought, never bordering to dig in deeper and unearth everything vulnerable hidden carefully within. Kain had always had his weaknesses bared for all the see, to exploit, and it had never been his decision to share them.

Edge was furious. "Don't you dare."

"You can't stop what's going to happen," Kain said, still flat. He leaned back over the railing once, almost as if taking in the scenery one last time. Edge wanted to punch an emotion onto his features, even if it ended up being rage. After all this time, after so much time–and the man had given up without a fight. "You were the one to ask for me. You told them to come to me."

"I…I didn't…"

Kain pushed away from the stones, his hands dropping to hang limply at his sides. "Just bring your sword tomorrow. You promised."

"Kain!"

It was the second time that the man had walked away from him, and perhaps the first time that Edge's heart skipped out an angry staccato rhythm, desperate to stop the future barreling down upon them all.

Only he didn't think he could stop it, any more than he could stop the moon rising each night in the sky, and the knowledge sat heavy and damning in his stomach.


The next morning came, despite his pleas for it to remain a nameless thought, and Edge pulled himself to the hill beyond Baron Castle’s walls that had been chosen due to the wind always shrieking strong and sharp over the grass. He hadn’t slept, and he still wasn’t first; the others had already gathered, and he wondered, feared, that they, too, assumed the morning would go as poorly as possible. And then he was angry not to find courage and belief amongst them, angry that they had written Kain off just as easily as the man had dismissed himself.

Kain spoke to none of them as the ritual started. He wouldn’t even look at them, which was the worst part of all. If he aimed to give himself over to the magic, he clearly didn’t wish to see any friendly faces in the crowd that might give him pause. Edge thought of the nights they’d spent hunched over the chess board and the evenings in Cecil and Rosa’s rooms. He thought of the time passing on the Lunar Whale and their journey through the foreign, hostile subterrain.

His stomach churned, bubbling. This couldn’t be the last time he saw Kain alive…or at least himself, and that was worse than the first thought was. There was too much more. Edge had found the thread between them, waiting to be pulled taut, and yes, he’d ignored it in the first place for far too long. Hadn’t they always said that vengeance was his weakness, anger his fatal flaw?

He would pay for it. The seneschal would be smug to be right after all those years.

Rydia stood beside him with her hands clasped in front of her belly, but her presence did nothing to settle Edge’s nerves. And as the Elder of Mysidia began the ritual and the winds picked up, nearly bowing them sideways, Edge couldn’t take it any longer. “Stop,” he gasped.

“What?” Rydia stared at him, the magic twirling her hair around her head, the curls catching in the corners of her mouth. “What do you mean?”

“We have to stop this,” Edge said. “Right now.”

“Edge, we can’t stop this, it’s already started.”

“No.” Edge twisted, trying to find the source of the magic. She had to have shown up already, drawn to Kain like a moth to a flame—only Kain had always been the moth, magnetically pulled to the things most likely to burn him alive. He found her in the middle of the magic, where the winds had begun to congeal together.

Barbariccia.

“Stop!” Edge shouted, but the wind swallowed his cries whole. Kain, standing on the highest hill, prone and vulnerable, began to curl in on himself. He was losing; he was falling.

Edge’s fingers grabbed the hilt of his katana out of instinct.

“Get ready,” the Elder barked, his tone sharp. He knew. The others all knew, and they would cut Kain down where he stood to avoid Barbariccia gain control of her senses once more. Without thinking, Edge took off in a run to stand between Kain and the others, his arms held out to either side. A fierce gust of wind nearly stole his cloak from his shoulders, the fabric knotting around his arm. Edge heard her laugh in the maelstrom, high and bright, nails on glass.

“No!” he shouted.

“Edge, this isn’t going to work,” Cecil tried. “It wasn’t…he can’t hold it. She’ll win!”

“She won’t,” Edge argued, even though it fell flat.

Cecil shook his head. He’d pulled his sword from its sheath. He was going to advance on Kain, on his friend, on his brother, even after everything they’d been through, everything they’d won. “I can’t let her come back. Not even for this, not even for him.”

“Cecil!”

“Move, Edge,” Cecil commanded, the voice of a king.

“No.” Edge planted his feet down. “I told him—I told him I’d do it. I promised.”

“Move!” the Elder of Mysidia exclaimed, and Edge had the sinking feeling if he did not pick his feet up immediately, they would be plucked into the air for him. Barbariccia’s fingers, sharp like knives, razors on the gusts, tickled across the back of his neck. She laughed again. She would only laugh if she was winning.

Edge’s lungs seized. “No. I promised. I promised!”

Rosa was crying, and the storm picked the droplets of tears off her cheeks. “Edge, please!”

Would it destroy them, when they wrapped his body in silk for the Baron death rites? Would they cry over his chest and wish they’d chosen differently? Would their love for Kain curl around their hearts and ache, over and over, until they were consumed by it? Edge knew grief, knew the sharp blade it wielded. He already knew the taste of regret on the back of his tongue, ashy and bitter; he couldn’t stand another dose.

Not here. Not Kain. Not this.

Edge pulled his katana free and held it out, daring them to stop him. “I’ll do it. I promised I would.”

Go, Edge,” Rydia cried. “Before she finds her way in.”

The winds parted for Edge, enough for him to push through to where Kain knelt. His head was in his hands, fingers tearing at his hair. His mouth parted in a soundless scream. This may not have been where everything started, but this, this moment, this crime was the second that Kain had decided he was worthy of nothing.

He’d already given up. He’d already resigned himself to his fate.

Edge’s katana shook, trembling.

When he collapsed onto his knees in front of the other, Kain jerked his chin up. His eyes were blank, spilling over with tears. “Do it.”

Barbariccia’s hands clutched at Edge’s shoulders. He was standing in the way of her prize.

“I’m sorry,” Edge whispered. Could Kain even hear him above the roar? Edge held his gaze and stared, stared.

“Kain,” Barbariccia’s voice purred.

Kain squeezed his eyes shut, body shuddering. “Do it!”

Edge dropped his katana and grabbed the sides of Kain’s face. “I’m so sorry.”

And he kissed him.

Desperate, really, and absolutely unhinged, and Edge was banking on being right about the wound festering deepest within Kain’s self-hatred. Kain had always wanted to believe, so badly wanted to believe, that he was worth saving, worth having, worth loving. He’d only ever needed someone else to prove it. Edge would prove it, as many times as he needed to.

Kain’s eyes flew open, his form growing slack with shock. Edge broke them apart, pulled back. His grip on Kain’s face tightened.

“Eat her alive,” he growled.

Kain stared at him. Then his hands flew up to grab Edge’s shoulders tight enough to leave bruises across his skin. His eyes went dark, black as the interior of a stormcell.

He threw his head back and howled.

Barbariccia shrieked, sputtered. Her fingers clawed at Edge’s face, his arms, Kain’s hair, but it was too late. Her magic fled her reach as the transfer completed. It was only due to their hold on each other that Edge could feel the way it shifted and moved beneath Kain’s skin, the sensation of the wind skipping through his veins as the rest of the gusts around them tapered off with little more than a sigh.

When it all shook down, it was just the two of them kneeling on that hill, and the others somewhere beyond—there, but not really. Untouchable.

Kain opened his eyes again, blue as the summer sky.

“I knew you could do it,” Edge said. “You just needed the push.”

“You did?” Kain asked.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask for permission first,” Edge told him, for that would linger for awhile, the sort of betrayal Edge hoped he’d eventually be forgiven for. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask for consent.”

Kain’s mouth curled slowly up at the corners as his hands slid flat against Edge’s shoulders. “You already had it.”

Edge sucked in a deep breath. His chest ached. “This is a thing now, isn’t it? Between us.”

“What do you want it to be?” Kain asked.

“Everything,” Edge replied.

Kain’s grin grew wider. “I think that can be arranged.”


It ended, as it should have, with the five of them back in Cecil and Rosa’s chambers. Edge is glad the situation didn’t complicate Rosa’s already difficult pregnancy. The king and queen of Baron sit together on the loveseat, Cecil’s arm around Rosa’s shoulders. Out of habit, perhaps, they’ve laced their fingers together across the swell of her belly.

Rydia sat down on one of the wicker chairs, her arms looped over her knees. Edge took the longest bench as usual, if only for a place to splay his legs out straight.

“Where do we go from here?” Cecil asked. “What happens next?”

“Aren’t we supposed to know?” Edge fired back.

Rydia shifted, adjusting her sleeve. “Things should go back to normal. The elements will settle, and the disasters will stop. The Blue Planet can breathe a sigh of relief that things have been put right.”

The door opened, and then closed. Edge didn’t jump when the arms looped around his shoulders, for he’d been expecting it. A lesser man might admit he’d been waiting for it, but Edge was a king; he had to maintain some sense of decorum, or the whole thing was a wash.

“What does it feel like?” Rydia asked, eyes wide and eager.

“Like everything I’ve ever known of being a Dragoon was merely a drop in the bucket,” Kain replied. “Like I could spin the planet with an exhale.”

“Maybe don’t start with that,” Cecil said, but he was smiling. Edge thought maybe they were all smiling, unable to stop the relief from showing.

He slipped his hand around Kain’s wrist, thumbing the knot of bone on the side. “Where will you go, then? You’re a Paragon now.”

“Mm.” Kain’s nose slid against Edge’s neck, impossibly warm. He sighed. “I think I can go anywhere, as long as the wind is controlled and the magic has a place.” Edge felt his mouth pull. “Eblan sounds nice.”

“To be honest, it’s not looking its best at present. We’ve had a lot of disasters recently. Maybe you ought to try back later, after we’ve had some time to rebuild.”

Kain growled, just low enough to rattle down through Edge’s bones, and Edge threw his head back, laughing. “I’m joking, of course, I’m joking. You’re coming with me, like it or not.”

“I still have to win at chess a few more times to call it even,” Kain offered.

“You’ll come back when the baby is born, right?” Rosa asked, tentative.

Edge smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”


“Ready?” Kain asked the next day, on the starboard side of Edge’s airship as the clouds whipped across the deck.

“No,” Edge replied. “To what, plummet to my death? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“We’ll ride the wind.”

“We’ll die, or at least I will; you’ve got all this magic now!”

“I won’t let you fall,” Kain promised, a wicked curve to his lips.

He took a step forward, and Edge squawked, hopping back. “Wait, wait! I thought you liked me now! I’m too young and pretty to—!”

Kain looped his arm around Edge’s middle, and they were airborne. And if he was being honest, which Edge thought maybe he ought to try to be more often now, all things considered, the wind whipping at his cheeks as they sailed through the air felt an awful lot like hope.