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Nyx stands on the roof of an airship.
Below him, Insomnia is being torn to rubble by Guardians and demons battling with no care for the homes, families, or pretty city streets. The King’s magic burns through him in a way that feels unfamiliar, it hurts; every warp, every conjure of magic is a sting in his veins, a blade in his chest, fire in his lungs.
Glauca stands opposite him, stoic, clad from head to toe in twisted metal with the blood of their King dried into the grooves of his sword. Nyx’s eyes trace the lines of Glauca’s armour and he wonders if there’s any humanity left in the man hiding underneath.
“Why’d you do it?” Nyx asks, shouting over the roar of the engine under his feet and the deafening howl of the wind.
“Lucis. Niflheim. It isn’t who we fight for, only what,” Glauca growls, voice distorted and hollow. “We fight for our homes. That is where our allegiance lies.”
It’s a shit answer, Nyx thinks, as the second place he’s ever called home falls to ruin.
Because of Glauca. Because of Drautos.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Nyx asks, voice steady as betrayal sits heavy in his chest.
Drautos takes a step forward, grip tightening on his sword, his armour pulsing red at its core.
“Don’t take this personally, Nyx,” he says, patronising and cold.
“How the fuck is this not personal, Titus,” Nyx snarls, spitting his lover’s name from his lips like a poison. He steps back to keep the distance between them. “I trusted you!”
Drautos remains silent, and Nyx’s blood boils.
How could Drautos stand before the Kingsglaive decorated in medals for his service to the Crown, preaching ‘For hearth and home’, whilst he brought cities to their knees under the hand of the Emperor?
How could Drautos stand before him, whispering sweet nothings of a future together, whilst he planned the murder of Nyx's friends and the destruction of everything Nyx held dear?
I gave you everything Nyx thinks bitterly; cursing himself for how blind he must have been to have missed this double life Drautos was living.
He forces the thoughts from his mind and focuses on the task at hand: Keep Drautos away from Luna, keep him away from the ring.
A sword the size of a skyscraper thunders past them, pulling the air in a torrent towards a Diamond Weapon being carried precariously from another airship. A Guardian appears after the sword in an explosion of sparks, sinking its blade into the heart of the demon with a sickening crunch. Cascades of blood-red magic bloom in a vortex around the creature as it howls an ear-piercing screech; magic sparking into fire as the Guardian slices it in two with a blinding flash of red that bleeds into the night sky.
Their airship pitches down abruptly when another Guardian leaps onto it behind Nyx, tearing a hole in the roof and spilling torrents of fire from the hull. Nyx stumbles to regain his footing as the airship reverberates and jerks under his feet; the sudden lurch twists in his stomach, leaving him reeling as Drautos leaps backwards with ease, barely sparing Nyx a glance, and disappears into the smoke. Fuck.
Swallowing through the feeling of sickness, Nyx breaks into a run, feet skidding over the roof as the airship suddenly tips towards the earth. Flames lick through the smoke around him, turning the air thick and suffocating and stinging his eyes with ash. He tosses his Kukri to warp onto the nearest Guardian moments before it rips the ship beneath his feet to scrap, then leaps from the Guardian’s shoulder, using its momentum to throw himself blindly into the chaos after Drautos.
They meet again with a crash of metal, tiny specs dwarfed by the shadows of Guardian and demon. In his armour, Drautos is much stronger and much faster than Nyx, and even with the power of the Kings coursing through him and constantly pushing himself to the brink of stasis, he can barely keep up. The unnatural glow of Drautos' armour ignites a fury in him that pushes him to fight harder, he yearns to tear the metal to shreds and stand face to face with the coward underneath.
The fight is tedious and repetitive: Years of training together has left them too familiar with each other’s fighting style; Drautos is already waiting when Nyx appears after a warp, Nyx already blocking and countering before Drautos has had the chance to swing his sword. Nyx feels his focus start to fray as the King's magic begins to take a toll on his mind and body with every clash of their blades. He takes a kick to the chest that forces every breath from his lungs and the next chance he has to think they’re both falling fast, the freezing wind whipping his skin as the ground rushes up to meet him.
Drautos hits the ground first, groaning and finally starting to tire.
Nyx slices his Kukri through the air after him, appearing in front of Drautos in a flash of sparks and a shock of lightning that sends the other man flying back over the rubble, shards of armour splitting under the pressure. He staggers forward, head spinning with a heaviness behind his eyes that threatens unconsciousness and looks down at Drautos sprawled on the ground.
“How could you serve the Empire!?” Nyx barks, kicking a piece of Drautos’ shattered helmet aside. “After everything they did!”
Drautos shifts on the rubble below him, metal scraping against stone as Nyx waits impatiently for some sort of explanation, a believable excuse, anything.
“I do not fault them for taking what was given,” Drautos says bluntly, stabbing his sword into the ground and hauling himself to his feet.
Now that Nyx can see his face, he feels the sting of betrayal set deep in his bones. No amount of wishful thinking can deny the plain truth standing before him.
“I fault the man who gave it,” Drautos continues, his voice slowly returning to normal. “The man who cowered behind his wall, and abandoned us to save his throne and his son. Give me the ring, Nyx, and our homes will be free again. The Empire has promised it.”
Nyx shakes his head in disbelief.
“Are you fucking high?” he laughs, walking closer to tower over Drautos on a piece of concrete jutting from the ground. “The Empire has done nothing for us. The Empire destroyed my home, the Empire slaughtered my sister, the Empire is burning this city to the ground and you-” He throws his hands up in exasperation “-You sent the Glaive to their deaths - soldiers that have followed you into battle for the better part of their lives, men and women who trusted you - and now you want to preach about promises!”
Drautos looks up at Nyx slowly, face void of emotion. He can see the exhaustion in Nyx’s posture, the way his fingers twitch as new ashy scars spread across his face, a reminder of the price he must pay for the borrowed power that’s tearing him apart. He can see the betrayal written clear as day on his face, and forces down the bubbling feeling of guilt.
“What about the oath you took to protect this city? To protect the King? What about the promises you made to me?” Nyx asks, and Drautos can hear his voice break.
“Weak,” Drautos scoffs. “Always thinking with your heart instead of your head.”
“At least I have a heart,” Nyx sneers, jaw set and shoulders stiff, the pain in his eyes revealing something deeper.
Drautos narrows his eyes. “Don’t tell me you fell in love,” he chides, but the words weigh heavy on his tongue.
“Would that have been so terrible?” Nyx snaps, voice bitter and laced with anger. “I admired you. I trusted you. I was happy with you. You made me feel like I had something to fight for that was real... beyond a half broken dream of returning home.” He laughs, but there’s no humour in it. “Now, you’ve taken that from me too.”
Nyx steps to the end of his plinth, purple coat tails flowing in the wind behind him.
“Yeah, maybe I did love you,” he says. “But it’s your fucking fault, because you made me believe you loved me too.”
Nyx looks away from him, face set in anger. “You really are a fucking asshole.”
The words choke any reply in Drautos’ throat. Nyx towers over him like justice and judgement, the coldness in his eyes a stark contrast to the fires roaring in the city behind him. Nyx flips his Kukri over in his hand slowly and methodically as Drautos has seen him do a thousand times before when deep in thought. He follows Nyx’s glare out to the city, watching as the skyline topples and burns.
With solemn certainty, Drautos regrets this will be how they both die.
Nyx’s expression hardens into a blank mask and Drautos barely has a second before his Kukri is whipping through the air at him again, the glaive slipping past him with savage grace.
Drautos twists away, raising his sword just before Nyx reappears in front of him, hurling a fireball that hits Drautos square in the chest with enough force to bring him to his knees as fire erupts in a blinding wall around him.
Nyx tumbles to the floor, landing hard on the stone and crushing the air from his lungs. His mouth turns dry as he frantically gasps for air, the familiar ringing in his ears building to a scream as her voice, Selena, begins to pull him into the darkness, his vision tunnelling. His heartbeat hammers in his ears as panic consumes him, desperately trying to stand as he’s left defenceless on the ground.
Drautos leaps from the flames as Nyx scrambles to regain control, flinging the glaive onto his back and pinning him to the floor. Drautos slams his sword down into Nyx’s left arm with all the strength he can muster, dragging a ragged scream from the glaive's throat. The shock of white-hot pain pulls Nyx from his memories with burning clarity, the weight of Drautos’ armour over his thighs grounding him back in this world.
Flames explode along his arm under the edge of the sword, searing the blood in his veins and melting through the leather of his sleeve instantly, leaving only broken ashy skin underneath. Nyx chokes out a broken sound of pain as Drautos hoists him up by his collar roughly, his attention fixed on Nyx’s arm where his sword presses forcefully, somehow unable to break the skin. Nyx steals the seconds while Drautos is distracted to warp away from him, tumbling onto his side in the dirt, curling in on himself as pain shocks through him.
Smoke pours off Nyx’s body and the smell of burnt leather hangs heavy and in the air. He clutches at his arm, glancing at the veins of fiery amber that thread across the ashy skin. It feels foreign under his fingertips and he grimaces, stomach twisting with a flutter of panic as the flesh begins to flake away in his grip.
The sound of heavy boots approaching forces him to look up and see Drautos looming over him.
Drautos drags the tip of his sword to press against Nyx’s throat and Nyx stills under the cold bite of metal and the stench of blood stinging his nose. He glares; eyes following up the sword, past where it’s burnt black from pressing against his arm, to meet Drautos’ cold stare.
“That’s it then?” Nyx laughs bitterly. “Did none of this mean anything to you?” he asks, gesturing weakly between them. Did I mean anything to you?
“This is bigger than you and me, Nyx, surely you’re smart enough to realise that,” Drautos deadpans.
Nyx screws his eyes shut as his head spins. Of course he knows. None of this has ever been about them, merely pawns ready to be sacrificed when needed, but it doesn't stop him wondering if this could have played out differently.
“You had time…” Nyx pants, wincing as Drautos’ blade nicks his skin. “To tell me... to... to convince me,”
“Convince you?” Drautos frowns, sword moving back to his side. He puts a heavy boot on Nyx’s chest and forces him onto his back, keeping him pinned down. Nyx chokes under the pressure, reaching feebly for his blade, lying just out of reach.
“I asked you this morning what you thought of this ‘peace’,” Drautos grunts, shaking his head, exhaustion creeping into his worn features. “You're loyal to a fault, unable to see the bigger picture. We would never see eye to eye.”
Drautos holds him there for a while longer while Nyx struggles under him. He leans on a little more pressure, drawing a pained whine from the glaive and watching for the tell-tale signs of asphyxiation.
“Do yourself a favour, Ulric, and stay here,” he says, dryly. “I don’t want to have to kill you too.”
Nyx shoots him a glare from the ground, wheezing as his vision starts to blur from the lack of oxygen. “I-isn’t it a bit late f-for that, sir?”
Drautos removes his foot from Nyx’s chest when he’s satisfied the other man can’t leap to his feet and follow him. He turns briskly, heading back into the city, leaving Nyx spluttering and choking in a cloud of dust.
Nyx watches him go, panting through the overwhelming feeling of defeat. He's outmatched and exhausted.
Sparing a moment to catch his breath, Nyx pulls himself to his feet and starts to run. His limbs ache, his chest burns, and his arm flares with a scorching pain that seeps to his core. His body begs for rest but with dawn fast approaching, he knows he doesn't have the luxury of rest. He must keep Luna safe and keep the ring out of Drautos’ hands for there to be any hope left for the future.
He warps between the remnants of buildings, flitting through the city he knows like the back of his hand. Already Insomnia is disfigured and broken, and the sight through the smoke pulls like a weight on his heart.
A blast of warp magic draws Nyx’s attention to a Guardian in pursuit of a car speeding along the bypass out of the city. Drautos is on the car, and the passenger’s side door is ripped off and scattering across the road a moment later.
Nyx skids to a halt atop a building: Below him Libertus stabs his kukri into Drautos’ shoulder and Nyx’s heart hammers in his throat as he watches them grapple over the roof of the vehicle. He dives off the building, tumbling through acrid smoke before warping to the Guardian’s shoulder as it slices through the road and bats Drautos away from the car like a rag doll.
The Guardian moves between Drautos and the car, Nyx standing on its shoulder, and stretches out it’s sword in obvious threat. The screech of tyres announces the vehicles escape behind them, and Nyx huffs a breath of relief.
“Come on then, old man!” he shouts, leaning from his perch to glare down at the metallic spec on the road. He falls to a crouch, his vision swirling and legs shaking under the cloying pressure of the magic in his veins, and hangs his head for a moment, feeling a bead of sweat drip down from his forehead to fizzle on the armour of his Guardian.
Drautos leaps up, taking his place on the shoulder of the remaining Diamond Weapon as it squares up to Nyx’s Guardian. Nyx staggers back to his feet, his face set in determination.
“What of your King’s power now?” Drautos shouts. “They’ve given you a burden you cannot hope to bear.”
Nyx glares at him defiantly. “If I can keep you away from the princess until dawn,” he nods, “Then my duty is done, and the burden worth the cost.”
But it’s not your price to pay, Drautos thinks, bracing himself as the giants begin to move, setting the playing field under their feet. He leaps to meet Nyx in the air, following the same rhythmic pattern as before, but now every clash of metal and shock of lightning that hits him wears him to his bones. His armour is taking longer to regenerate, drawing magic and energy from him to sustain itself. Parasite.
They’re both at breaking point: One too many times Drautos feels the lick of Nyx’s blades too close to his skin and one too many times he feels Nyx buckle under the weight of his attacks. The fight drags on, as relentless as it is hopeless. When Nyx throws himself at Drautos, stabbing his blade deep into Drautos’ chest and sending them both tumbling into the abyss, Drautos hopes the fall kills them both.
It doesn’t, of course; his armour is far too advanced not to save him from a fall, and Nyx is far too stubborn to let something like gravity kill him, but the impact has finished them both. He pulls Nyx’s Kukri from his chest slowly; feeling the warmth of blood spread against his skin and hauls himself to his feet one last time. He tosses the blade to the side and it clatters across the rubble.
Nyx is sprawled on the concrete a short distance away, coughing and struggling to stand. Blood drips from his nose and runs down his forehead, only to fizzle where it drops onto the stone below him, as if his blood itself is boiling. Drautos can see the magic burning underneath his skin now, pulsing through him like liquid fire in time with his heartbeat.
It’s almost beautiful.
He walks towards Nyx in slow measured steps. “For the honour of my home, I fought and killed under a King I loathed. And still he betrayed me,” Drautos says, a thread of desperation lacing his words. “He betrayed us all.”
“We fought for the same thing, all of us,” Nyx replies, each word a strain as he forces himself onto his hands and knees, wiping the blood from his nose with his arm carelessly. He looks up at Drautos as the other man approaches, glancing to his discarded blade as if considering warping to it. Instead, he hangs his head and sighs. “But you’ve lived too long in the past… you’re blind to the future.”
Drautos moves to Nyx’s side, and drops to his knees. “I’ve been fighting this war for thirty years, Nyx,” he sighs. “I’m old, and I’m tired. At least now the fighting will stop, at least now there’s a chance for our homes.”
“This was my home,” Nyx mutters bitterly, sitting back on his heels and giving Drautos a solemn smile. “It was your home too. And home to millions of others.” He looks at the blood smeared on his arm and shakes his head sadly. “No promised freedom is worth the loss of all the lives in Insomnia.”
Drautos allows the weight of the statement to settle in his chest.
Nyx shifts to face him, looking over him briefly in resignation before reaching out to touch the armour forged around him like a second skin. Drautos allows it, and Nyx is surprised to find the metal smooth and cool under his touch. He runs his fingertips along the jawline of the helmet, feeling the broken edges as they catch on his skin.
“How long?” he asks, softly. “Were you working for them the whole time?”
Drautos looks up at him, exhaustion written plain on his face. “Yes.”
Nyx nods slowly, avoiding eye contact and chewing through the information. He hooks his fingertips under the jaw of Drautos’ helmet and gives it an experimental tug. “Take off your helmet. If we’re going to die here at least let me see your face.”
After a moment of consideration, Drautos nods, slowly reaching to detach the helmet and revealing the other half of his face.
He drops the helmet and it clatters to the ground between them. A thousand thoughts chase through his mind, words muddled in a mess of emotions as an overwhelming sense of emptiness settles over him.
Nyx reaches to pick up the helmet and Drautos watches him turn it over in his hands.
“Nyx, I…”
Nyx holds up his hand and shakes his head. “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” he says, so Drautos falls silent.
Nyx slowly traces his fingers over the lines carved into the helmet, briefly looking past Drautos to the horizon as the first glow of dawn breaks over the shattered skyline of the city. He can feel the magic pulsing under his touch, how the metal calls to him like invisible ties threading under his skin; familiar and yet so foreign and cold.
He places the helmet down gently and turns his attention back to Drautos. “I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”
I’m not sure I know myself, Drautos thinks and he slumps back onto the rubble, black pinpricks skimming across his vision. The pressure grows heavier on his lungs, sharper with every breath that sticks like tar in his chest.
Pinks and oranges of an imminent sunrise glide across the sky, and Nyx knows his time is limited.
They sit in a tense silence, a lifetime of words left unspoken on their tongues.
Drautos shifts on the rubble in front of him, breathing ragged, eyes fluttering shut against the pain when light finally spills across their concrete grave, casting long shadows between them.
Nyx turns his face to the sun, feeling the warm rays of light brush against him in welcome. His pain ebbs away slowly under the kiss of sunlight, and he’s grateful for the reprieve, but it leaves him feeling hollow.
After a while, Drautos speaks.
“What we had…It didn’t mean nothing,” he says, voice strained but soft. He looks over to Nyx, sees the flakes of ash peeling away from his skin as the kings reach from the heavens to claim his life, and wills Nyx to at least look at him in their last moments.
“I was selfish for you,” he rasps, feeling the blood pooling under his armour grow sticky and cold, “I took what you were willing to give… all the while knowing it would never last.”
Drautos laughs, a low rumble that pulls at Nyx’s heartstrings.
“I wanted to end the war... any way I could. I didn’t stop to think.” He coughs, blood painting the edges of his shattered armour where it falls from his lips. "I never wanted to hurt you."
Nyx sighs and turns to him, the sun beaming over him like molten gold, more regal than any king by blood. A king worth fighting for Drautos thinks, as regret twists in his gut. Nyx shifts closer, crawling across the rubble to lean down over Drautos and gently touch their foreheads together. It’s an intimacy Drautos doesn’t deserve, but he relishes the closeness on the cusp of his death.
“You’re an idiot,” Nyx whispers, face scrunched in pain, placing his hands either side of Drautos’ face.
“I know,” Drautos says, closing his eyes to focus on the feeling of Nyx’s hands on his skin and his breath on his lips as his grip on reality starts to slip. “I know.”
The rush of adrenaline leaves him suddenly and Nyx is left cold and shaking.
When Drautos’ breathing finally stops, Nyx allows himself to slump back onto the floor, letting out an unsteady breath as tears sting his eyes.
He lies on his back beside Drautos and looks up to the sky as it slowly fades through the pastels of dawn.
Nyx waits for death for what feels like an eternity.
He watches the soft wispy clouds drift across the sky, obscured occasionally by billowing black smoke. He feels the warm breath of sun on his face as his body turns numb. He listens to his breathing as it becomes irregular and strained.
Ash from the city begins to float down around him, small flakes streaking his skin with grey. He closes his eyes then, and imagines the snow in Galahd falling over him instead.
The silence of the city is eerie, pulling him into a contemplative calm.
He thinks of the dead; his friends, the poor in the slums, families and children lost to the senseless chaos of war. He thinks of the prince, on his way to Altissia with no knowledge of the destruction he's left behind. He thinks of his mother, forever waiting for him back in Galahd, and he hopes that she would be proud.
Finally, he thinks of Luna, and prays with his last breath that she made it out of the city alive.