Archive of Our Own

Cor only sees the face of his new king after he’s dead.

He's in Tenebrae when he gets the news. Knee deep in daemons with Iris guarding his back, he’s so lost in the heat of battle that he barely notices the sun rising. He slashes out with his katana, cutting through where he knows a daemon had been just moments before, but the impact is barely perceptible, like he’s only killing smoke. There should still be enemies here; he’s never known anything but fighting to protect his people. But the daemons melt away before his eyes, screaming in an unnatural painful discordance.

Iris stumbles and stops beside him, and a yell of effort dies in her throat as her swing catches nothing but the wind. She edges closer to Cor, pressing close to him, and raises her sword to defend them against whatever will surely shatter their moment of tranquility. There is never peace. Not anymore. Not in the Night.

For a moment, they stand there, back to back, panting into the sudden silence. There’s no miasma of Scourge in the air to prove that there had even been daemons in the first place. Cor carefully sheathes his katana again and steps back, turning slowly on his heel. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there.

Why is there nothing there?

It’s just...silent.

There are a few seconds of utter emptiness when all Cor can feel is the frantic beat of his heart calming itself into dormancy, and when all he can feel is the distant chill of the wind blowing in from Niflheim. But there’s something else looming in the back of his consciousness, urging him to notice. There must be some reason why this is happening. There must be some explanation. It’s not warm, and the world is cold and harsh and unforgiving. These are the truths Cor has grown to accept.

In the old days, daemons would only disappear when the sun came up.

But the sun hasn’t risen in years. There are only those few truths that Cor clings to in the darkness of the Night, and this is one. There is no sun anymore, and there is no king to protect. The sun hasn’t risen. The sun hasn’t-

The world is getting brighter.

Cor steps backwards on instinct, flinching away from the horizon. He’s used to the bright, oppressive blue light of daemon-warding lamps. This natural gleaming on the edge of his awareness is as old as memory. As old as time. He knows it, even after all this time. But it can’t be real.

Iris tosses her hair out of her eyes - she never did learn to cut her bangs - and squints out at the horizon. “Is that-”

“The sun,” Cor breathes. “It’s rising.”

Iris gasps. She falls to her knees in the war-torn dirt. Cor has never seen her like this. Not since the Fall, or maybe not even then. Back then, she’d been despairing and miserable; now, though, there’s a conflict in her eyes, mixing hope and misery into a storm.

“They did it,” she whispers, and her voice is almost lost on the wind. “They brought back the sun.”

Cor blinks at the sun, and the realization dawns on him with a mounting dread that counters any joy he might have gotten from the warmth of the sun’s rays. “But that must mean that the king-” He swallows and tries again. Somehow, his throat only feels more raw. “The king.”

He doesn’t bother trying again.

Iris nods. She doesn’t stop staring at the sun. There are tears running down her cheeks, but whether they’re from the light or the emotions is anybody’s guess. “He’s back,” she says.

Cor shakes his head. “No,” he says, with more force than he’s ever mustered. “No.”

The sunlight is warm on his face but everything inside him is cold.

In the darkness, he was allowed to be empty. He was allowed to forget, and he was able to pretend that he was only fighting through the night, away on a mission, and that he’d come home to Insomnia and he’d have a king to welcome him there. Now, though, the sunlight reminds him of a prophecy he’d been told years ago, and what it means. He wishes, desperately, that he’d never known. He wishes that this sunlight was a lie.

“But Noct-”

“No.” He doesn’t mean for his voice to sound so cold. He just feels chilled to the bone and so, so tired. “It doesn’t mean he’s back.”

He turns from the sun.

“It means he was. ”

---

The flight home is silent, for the most part.

The airship - a member of Aranea’s fleet, piloted by one of her most trusted helmsmen and designated to Cor and Iris’s division - carries them across the rippling water. They’re heading back to Lucis for the first time in months.

A few shivering refugees huddle up in a corner, wrapped up in whatever jackets and old coats they’d had to spare. Even after all this time, some people managed to eke out a living in the absence of light. They’ll be safer in Lestallum, though, or perhaps in the Crown City. Now that the sun’s up, they can finally look farther than the borders of their walled-up city on the cliffs of Taelpar. Cor pities them, though. They’re heading straight for Insomnia, and there’s nothing for them there but grief and sunlight. They may be saved, but their rescuers are hardly in the celebratory mood.

He flexes his shoulder, wincing at the pull of skin there. Something must have gotten him; it probably tore through the jacket. That’s just a damn shame. He’s loved this jacket. It’s been his uniform for years, even now. Especially now. He’s a son of Lucis. Now that there might be a Lucis to come back to, he craves that connection more than ever.

Maybe he’ll be able to track down more of his old uniforms in the ruins of Insomnia once they get there. The past times he’s been there, he’d never dared venture out to his apartment, or where it once was. Somehow, the thought of losing his Crownsguard uniforms seems like even more of a tragedy now that he knows what they’ve lost. There’s no crown anymore, so there’s no need for his kind. Every fragment of their history is precious now. Every remnant of who they once were is something Cor wants desperately to cling to. There aren’t many of them left, after all.

Iris is leaning against the half-ajar hatch across the ship, staring out at the world below. The sea below them reflects sunlight up across her face in rippling bursts. She’s biting her lip raw; that much, Cor can tell even from here. She’s trying not to cry again, surely.

Cor walks up behind her and crosses his arms, frowning down at the water. He doesn’t say anything; he knows she’ll notice him. He sees it in the way her eyes narrow just a bit, even from his angle.

“Hard to believe that there’s still life down there,” she says, not looking away from the rolling waves. “After all that’s happened, you’d think that the world would just stop.” She sighs. “Though I guess that it mostly did.”

In the sunlight, out over the open water, it’s hard to remember that the world was choking less than a day ago. There’s no trace of the Scourge’s thick miasma or floating flakes of living poison, and the air is fresh to breathe for once. It’s beautiful, or it would be to someone else. “It’s remarkable,” Cor replies. It’s vague enough that it can cover enough topics. He leaves it to Iris to choose which one he means.

She chooses a more dismal option, despite the light. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

“I can.”

Iris looks sharply over at him. “How can you say that?”

“We can’t have seriously expected everything to go back to normal if he just returned. There were still all of the daemons and whatever lived in Insomnia.” Talcott’s research had given it a face and a name. Cor hates that the name had been familiar. He continues, “There’s always a price. Or a promise, or destiny.”

“You sound like Gladio,” Iris mutters. “He was so insistent that there was something driving all of this. That Noct would come back.”

Cor scratches thoughtfully at his arm. “You didn’t believe him?”

“I wanted to.” Iris’s eyes fix back on the water, glittering a sunlit amber for the first time in ten years. “I did for a while. But he still died.”

“He still died,” Cor echoes, because that’s the only truth they can know.

“Prophecies shouldn’t control everything. There’s always something you can do.”

“Did you really think that, in a world with gods and magic, there wouldn’t be rules?”

Iris turns to look at him - really look at him. He’s never seen her look so sad. “I hoped,” she says. “I hoped.”

Cor shakes his head. “That’s never enough.”

They’re silent the rest of the way to Lucis.

Ravatogh comes into view first, looming into the light as a distant smear of shadow and smoke. They’re not nearly close enough to see the glow of the molten rock in its heart, but even the sight stirs up the memory of warmth.

“Marshal?”

Cor jerks instinctually at the sound, almost reaching for his katana or the extra dagger at his belt, but his mind processes the voice, staying his hand. It’s just one of the crew members. They probably just need orders or something.

He clears his throat and furrows his brow into a familiar grimace. The expression is an easy enough defense to maintain. “Yes?” he asks, and to his relief he sounds like the Immortal.

“We’re approaching Lucis, sir. The weather is picking up; the winds are threatening to push us towards the Rock of Ravatogh. Shall we proceed?”

“Yes,” he replies, voice hard. “We go forward.”

“Towards Ravatogh, sir? It may be unsafe.”

Cor nods. “Towards Ravatogh.”

then

Ravatogh is miserable tonight.

Cor’s not quite sure why they’ve decided to camp all the way up here. Clarus had cited a desire to summit the mountain while he was still young, and of course he’d dragged the rest of them up with him. The exercise had been nice, at least, and Cor wasn’t about to argue with the prince’s Shield. Now that they’re up here, though, it’s hot and disgusting, even on the glowing runes of the haven.

The smoke and ominous red glow of the molten rock create a dark smear against the stars.

Cor sits at the edge of the haven, staring out at the whole of Lucis below him, polishing his katana for the third time today. The thing hasn’t even gotten much use during this journey. In the odd temporary armistice between Lucis and Niflheim, Lucis had been mostly safe to traverse, and their journey to Accordo had been mostly diplomatic. Cor’d be lying if he said that he didn’t wish there was something to fight. He’s young, sure, but he knows he can do it. King Mors sent him with Prince Regis and his retinue for a reason. He’s a Crownsguard for a reason.

Everyone doubts him. They doubt his age and they doubt his skills.

Not for the first time, Cor wishes for a battle.

“Why so solemn?”

Cor looks up, surprised at the sudden voice over the distant low mutter of bubbling rock, and smiles when he recognizes Prince Regis standing just a short distance away. “I’m sorry, I-”

Regis raises a hand to stop him. “When are you going to learn to stop apologizing to me?”

Bold all at once, Cor replies, “How long did it take for me to stop calling you Highness?”

That gives Regis pause. He blinks down at Cor for a moment, and then he grins. He admits, “You have a point.”

And then the prince of Lucis sits down on the bare rocks beside him.

Mortified, Cor stammers, “We don’t have to-”

“No, it’s fine,” Regis says airily, staring out at the wide vista past them. He points down at the valley below them, and to the low rise where a dark round smear looms in the night. “You know, we’re lucky that zu isn’t here. Have you ever seen a zu, Cor?” It’s still so odd to hear a formal Insomnian accent from Regis, even now that they’ve been traveling for some time.

Cor shakes his head, cheeks reddening. “I can’t say I have.”

“Not even in books?”

“Uh. No.” He rubs at the back of his neck. His mother had said that the Crownsguard would give him all the education he could ask for; he’d believed her. He resents her for the lie.

Regis makes a little noise of bemusement but doesn’t say anything else for a little while. Cor doesn’t make any effort to break the silence; the prince’s company is enough. Even during the course of their journey, they’d never had much time to sit and talk. Besides, Cor had been the only one new to the group; Regis had already developed some sort of four-person comraderie with Clarus, Cid, and Weskham, leaving Cor to trail along behind, younger and more inexperienced than any of them. This, though…

This is nice.

Regis is the one to finally speak into the gentle background noise of camping and molten rock. He turns his head, studying Cor for a moment. “What, no hat today?”

“Should I be wearing it?” Cor asks, concerned. He reaches up and rubs tentatively at his hair. It’s slightly overgrown from its usual military cut; it’s not falling into his eyes the way that Clarus’s or Regis’s does, but already it makes him feel more human, and more like he’s fitting in.

Regis shrugs. “No. It’s just unlike you.”

“What am I like, then?”

“I don’t know.” Regis’s gaze flicks to his face to his hair to his sword and back again. “I don’t know enough about you.”

“There’s not much to know.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

Cor shrugs. “It’s the truth. Grew up in Insomnia. Got in enough fights for people to take notice. Joined the Crownsguard.”

“You’re saying that as if it’s not a miracle for you to be as good as you are.”

Cor snorts, “That’s nothing special.”

“You’re the youngest Crownsguard ever, Cor,” Regis says, and he knocks Cor’s shoulder with his knuckles. “That’s pretty special in my book.”

“But it’s not me. That’s not who I am.” That’s just his body.

“Then who are you?” Regis is smiling warmly at him, studying him carefully. “My father keeps telling me that I should get to know my people. You’re my people.”

“A poor representative,” Cor assures him. “I’m not an average Insomnian.”

“Is every Insomnian not a prodigy with a blade, capable of beating three Crownsguard trainers at once?”

Cor blinks.

Regis says, gently, “That was a joke, Cor.”

“I know it was.”

“You’re very resistant to this sort of thing.”

“I’m not one for talking.” Cor scratches at the back of his neck. This is new to him. School wasn’t a social place for him; he’s still getting used to the timbre of Clarus’s laugh and the way that Weskham and Cid trade jibes that only the two of them know. “Sorry.”

“Apologies, Cor.”

“Sorry?”

Regis laughs - actually laughs. “Amazing.”

Cor watches him carefully, watching for any sign of insincerity. But the prince’s smile is wide and easy, and his eyes crinkle into something that Cor recognizes as friendliness. The tension leaves Cor’s shoulders a bit, and he can feel himself relax. “But really. There’s not much to me.”

“You’re quiet,” Regis notes. “That’s something.”

“I guess.”

“And you’re determined.”

“I promised I would protect the king and his family.” Cor taps at the hilt of the Genji blade. “I take promises very seriously.”

“Do you promise me?”

Cor blinks. “Pardon?”

“I want to hear it from you. To me. A promise just for me.” Regis stares at him hard. “Do you promise to stand by my side? To keep me safe?”

Cor hesitates. “What?”

“It’s not a trick question,” Regis assures him, “if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Cor stares into the face of a prince he has only known for scant weeks of war and stealth and diplomacy. He hadn’t expected this when he’d joined the Crownsguard. He hadn’t wanted this fluttery, panicked feeling that lives in his chest now.

And yet-

“I promise,” he finds himself saying, and it feels right.

Regis smiles.

Cor does too, and it surprises him. He’s not one for smiling.

“You’re honest, Cor,” Regis says. “I like that about you.”

“That’s good.”

“That’s good, yeah,” Regis echoes.

He trails off, smile sliding from his face with glacial slowness. He blinks once. Twice. There’s a vacancy blooming in his eyes, and in the lights of the haven they look almost blue.

Like magic.

“Regis?” Cor asks tentatively.

The prince raises a hand slowly, moving in sickeningly slow motion. He makes a fist, as if he’s trying to summon his weapon, but instead his fingers shake and fall limp. He blinks again, eyes wide and glassy.

“Regis?” Cor asks again.

Regis murmurs, “The Wall.”

And then he falls.

The Genji blade clatters to the ground. Cor doesn’t care about it. He doesn’t care; he just made Regis a promise-

Cor gathers up Regis in his arms and does his best to hold him comfortably, picking him up from the warm stone of the haven. He opens his mouth to do something, anything, but his panic is choking him.

Regis is awake again in a heartbeat, eyes flying wide with panic. He gasps and clutches at his chest. He reaches out wildly with his other hand and his fingers curl into the fabric of Cor’s jacket, holding him tightly. Ice crawls from his palm and into the jacket, forcing icicles spiraling against Cor’s skin. They’re close enough to make him feel cold. They’re close enough to draw blood.

“Clarus!” Cor yells, high and panicked. “Cid! Weskham!” Any of them would be better prepared for this than he is. But, damn, he’d forgotten that Weskham and Cid were scouting further along the mountain-

Clarus makes it over to them with incredible speed, stumbling to his knees beside Regis and Cor. “Reg!” he cries, and he pushes at Cor’s shoulder so he can get closer to Regis. “Reg, are you okay?”

Regis’s eyes slide to focus on Clarus. “The Wall,” he rasps.

Clarus looks around them wildly. “The Wall, Reg? It’s out there. We’re safe.”

“No, it’s-” He winces. “They’re doing something to it.”

And then he gasps, and lightning arcs across his fingertips at the same time that the world lights up in blue, and suddenly Cor feels everything shift.

Cor can’t quite describe the feeling of the Wall passing through his body.

He knows the feeling of the prince’s magic. He knows what it’s capable of; he knows the rush of suddenly being allowed to tap into the raw power of the kings.

But the Wall is so much more.

All he knows now, though, is that he knew, for a heartbeat, the full extent of the power of the Crystal.

The Wall doesn’t stop; it retreats at faster and faster speeds, glimmering out into the distance, retreating from the coast and away across Cleigne. It’s beautiful, illuminating the nation in shades of blue even as it dooms them all.

“So,” Clarus says hoarsely as the Wall shimmers into the distance, “that’s what you meant.”

“He moved it,” Regis says faintly. “I can’t believe he moved it.” His brow is shining with sweat in the lights of the haven. He blinks hard, shaking himself out of whatever stupor the Wall’s magic had forced him into. He looks first at Clarus, then back to Cor. “Cor,” he says, and there’s mild horror in his voice. “Cor, are you okay?”

Cor looks down. Regis’s fingers are detangling from his shirt, but there’s blood on one of his fingertips. Cor’s blood. “Oh.” He hadn’t noticed. “I’m fine, Regis. Don’t worry about me.”

“I hurt you.”

“You didn’t mean it,” Clarus assures him, and he tugs an elixir from the armiger to shatter across Regis’s chest. The magic washes across the prince in a spray of blue. “Better?”

Regis nods, but his brows are still furrowed; he still won’t stop looking at Cor.

Cor stares back. “What just happened?” he asks.

In the distance, he can hear the low rumble of airships.

Regis’s attention flickers out towards the coast. “So it didn’t go unnoticed.” His lip curls, shaking slightly even in the wake of the elixir’s power. “They’ve just been waiting for us to do something like this.”

Cor asks again, “What just happened?”

“He left us out here.” Regis fixes him with a too-bright gaze. “He left all of us out here.”

Footsteps come pounding towards them, and Weskham and Cid emerge from the darkness, panting out apologies.

“The Wall-”

“Did you see it-”

“Stop!” Clarus yells. “One at a time!”

“The Wall,” Regis rasps, and he tugs at Cor’s shirt. Cor stares down at him for a second before realizing that he’s asking for help. He stands and offers his arms to Regis to hold onto; Clarus steps up beside him to tug the prince to his feet. “The Wall,” Regis repeats, staring around at all of them, too pale in the lights of the haven. “My father pulled it back.”

“What happened to you?” Cid asks, frowning at Regis. “You look like you got deep fried in the Rock.”

“Too much magic at once,” Regis mutters. “Thanks, Cid. Great vote of confidence.”

“Just being honest, Reg.”

“Thanks.”

“Honestly,” Clarus interrupts, “can we just focus on the fact that we’re at war now?”

He’s right. The air around them is filled with more than just the distant, ominous hum of approaching airships. Niflheim isn’t the only thing that took notice of the Wall’s departure. There are dead things snarling in the darkness around them. They don’t sound like regular beasts.

“Regis,” Weskham says, voice tight. “I know what these are. We have these havens for a reason.”

Regis wipes sweat from his brow with a shaking hand. “What are they?” he asks.

“Daemons,” Weskham mutters, and the word sounds like poison.

Cor shudders against his will.

“Does everybody have their weapons?”

Cid is the first to pull his hammer from the armiger, twirling it in a shower of blue sparks. Weskham’s next; he sets his mouth into a grim line as he loads bullets into his pistol, spinning the chamber absently while he stares out at the world beyond their haven. Clarus steps away from Regis and calls his shining greatsword from the armiger, swinging it at something small that scuttles at the edge of the runes. It screeches and dissolves into inky, smoky blackness, sending eerie echoes against the rocks of the mountain. And finally Regis holds out his hand, and his winged sword appears with a burst of crystal. He rolls his neck a bit, face growing grimmer by the second, and stalks away to the cliffside, staring down at whatever horrors surge below. He doesn’t look like the formal, genial prince Cor has gotten to know. He looks like a warrior. They all do.

This was supposed to be a diplomatic mission. There’s never been a reason to use weapons inside Lucis while they’ve been outside. There was an armistice, they should be safe-

But somehow Cor still smiles as he grabs his katana from the ground where he’d dropped it, clutching it in both hands. Hand on hilt. Hand on sheath. The chain with the Crownsguard sigil at the hilt tangles in his fingers, cool to the touch even on the top of the Rock of Ravatogh.

Clarus grins over at him. “Let’s see what you’re made of, little lion,” he rumbles.

That only makes Cor smile wider, baring his teeth against the night. They’re at war now. He has a prince to protect.

He has a promise to keep.

---

Gilgamesh lets him go.

Cor doesn’t know why, and he can’t find it in himself to care. All he can focus on is the burning pain that radiates across his body. He’s bleeding through his uniform, but he’s not sure exactly where all of the blood is coming from; he settles for everywhere and moves on.

On his way out, the bodies of the dead don’t rise to meet him. He tries not to look at their faces. He recognizes too many of them: comrades or brothers or enemies, maybe, but he’d known them. All of them fallen, and him alive. It’s impossible and unfair, but Cor still clings to the knowledge that he’s still breathing, and he forces himself forward along rickety pathways and arching stone steps. The valley of the Astral War looms around him, and sometimes Cor can almost swear that he can see the firelight of the army’s distant camps. That’s what keeps him going, even when he trips and falls, crying out when the impact jostles his aching ribs.

They’re waiting for him outside.

He hasn’t been in here for too long, he thinks. He’d hardly stopped to rest at all during his reckless rush to the trial chamber. For the first few stretches of the Tempering Grounds, he’d had companions to pass the time. He’d hardly listened to them; they’d all doubted him anyway. Why would they have a reason to trust in the abilities of the little teenager in the group, Prince Regis’s pet soldier?

The bolder ones had gone on ahead, charging through the Crag with all the courage of men who think they’re invincible.

Cor had found them all eventually. Some had made it to the trial chamber, and their blades and sigils had been added to Gilgamesh’s hoard. Most didn’t. Cor had stepped past all of their bodies. Whether he felt vindicated out of spite or pride, he’s not sure.

But they’re gone now, and Cor is alive. He survived.

Do you dare risk all for naught in return?

But Regis is right there at the campsite burning in the distance, his prince and future king. That’s enough. Regis is alive; the king is alive as well. That’s enough of a reward.

He did what Clarus refused.

He’s not sure how long he keeps running, but at some point his muscles scream at him with enough burning force to slow him to a stumble. He braces himself on the cave wall for a moment, trailing blood from his torn-up hands. As he stops, panting, he looks to where he’s grabbed purchase, and he’s immediately faced with the corpse of another Lucian. He coughs out in surprise, wheezing past what must be a cracked rib.

“Sorry,” he rasps, and he staggers onward, chasing the memory of firelight and life.

He makes it out of the Tempering Grounds. He hears the scraping of old armor and weapons against the ground in his wake, but he ignores them. They’ll let him go. He proved his worth, or at least he tried.

I wasn’t strong enough.

But there’s the camp. He’s out. He’s free. Gilgamesh can’t touch him here; out here there’s fire and light and life.

“Cor?”

It’s soft enough that Cor doesn’t register the sound at first. He staggers forward again, wheezing past whatever is crushing his ribs, stepping further into the firelight. After so long surrounded by the eerie blue of the Crag and the whispers of the lost souls, the warmth and sounds of life are the most beautiful things he could hope for. Everything in his mind goes white with relief at the same time as every pain amplifies by a million, reminding him that he’s injured now that he’s made it to safety.

He cries out, but with how exhausted he is, it sounds like nothing more than a whimper.

Someone stands up beside one of the fires, hardly distinguishable against the night in fatigues of Lucian black. But Cor would know his prince anywhere, and that’s Regis, and it’s all feeling worth it. He fixes his eyes on Regis’s face and keeps walking, dragging himself towards the source of the magic in his heart.

“Cor!” Regis yells, and the whole camp stirs to life.

And there’s Clarus, thundering across the camp, moving so quickly that soldiers leap out of his way to let him through.

Regis and Clarus reach him at the same time - always in sync, always united - and crowd into his space, eyes wide and searching. Cor staggers into their shadows, hardly realizing that he’s smiling in some twisted, painful relief.

“Gods, you’re alive,” Regis says, so fiercely that Cor almost fears him. “The others-”

“Dead,” Cor rasps. “They’re all dead.” The realization is still numb within him; he doubts he’ll even be able to remember their names. They’re just bodies now, like all the others.

Clarus, with a voice like rumbling thunder, says, “I tried to tell him-”

“Clarus,” Regis scolds. “He’s alive.” But he steps up to Cor with wide green eyes that glow in the firelight like some sort of lantern. He reaches out carefully, and his hand lands at the juncture of Cor’s neck and shoulder. His fingers curl loosely around the back of Cor’s neck, holding him close or holding him upright; at this point, Cor doesn’t care enough to figure out the difference. “You’re a damn fool, Cor,” Regis breathes. “A damn fool.”

Cor closes his eyes for a second, letting out a shuddering breath. “They’re dead,” he repeats, and he shivers.

Regis’s fingers twitch against his skin and tighten just a bit. “But you’re alive,” he says with a bit more fierceness than Cor thinks is entirely necessary. He turns to the other soldiers who have now huddled around them in a whispering, awestruck circle, and he calls, “He’s alive!”

The brightest, most triumphant smile is on his face.

Cor stumbles a little when Clarus claps him on the back, but he grins nonetheless, tasting his own blood in his mouth. Around them, the soldiers all cheer. There are a few whispers of disbelief, but Cor ignores them all in favor of relishing the warmth of his friends’ pride. Naught in return, he thinks, was a lie. This is enough. This is the reward he needed.

Regis turns back to Cor and studies him again, still holding onto the back of Cor’s neck. His hand is mercifully warm. His eyebrows crease into something like a frown, concerned and confused. “Where’s your sword?”

Cor looks down at his hands. “Lost it.”

Regis barks out a breathless, disbelieving laugh. “Lost it? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

Cor shrugs halfheartedly, wincing at the pain that radiates through his whole body. “Dropped it. I ran.” He can feel the shuddering shock of his blade slicing through a body more ancient than his kingdom, paying for his life with blood. And then he’d run-

“It’ll be in the armiger,” Regis assures him. “It’s yours.”

Dubious, Cor blinks slowly at Regis, trying to process the words. When they make their way through the ringing in his head, he reaches his hand out in front of himself. His fingers are shaking with the effort of holding themselves aloft, threatening to collapse with him, but Regis’s hand steadies him, so he concentrates hard and grabs-

Nothing.

His fist clenches around nothing. There’s no tug of faint pain to signal the blade’s entry to their plane, nor the sound of shattering crystal. The sword just-

It isn’t there.

Why isn’t it there?

And then-

He remembers the eyes. His eyes.

They’d seen his heart; they’d seen his blade, and every move he’d made. Cor had taken Gilgamesh’s arm, sure, but Gilgamesh had ripped his sword from him, using some fragment of his horrible, unnatural magic to lay claim to something bound to the prince’s soul.

He can’t reach it.

“I can’t,” Cor whispers. “Regis, I’m sorry-” He’s failed, he’s failed, and he’s lost the prince’s gift-

Regis ducks to meet his gaze, eyes wide and green and concerned. “It’s okay, Cor. No apologies. We’ll get you a new one.”

“It won’t be the same.” That sword had been his first true possession once he’d joined the Crownsguard. Until then, none of the training swords or daggers had ever felt right. Now, his most prized possession is gone; it seems so insignificant compared to everything they’ve lost today, but Cor recognizes the truth of it. It’s a cruel trade that Gilgamesh has made with him.

“No,” Regis agrees quietly, “it’ll be better. Fit for a true warrior of the Crownsguard. Fit for a deserving bodyguard.”

“Okay,” Cor agrees weakly, but inside his heart still yearns for Regis’s first gift.

“Immortal,” one of the other soldiers murmurs. “The kid’s immortal.” And then, louder, “He’s immortal.”

The word echoes across the camp, spoken from soldier to soldier.

“Cor the Immortal!” someone cries, and for once, it’s not a joke.

Beside him, Regis stares at the soldiers, eyes wide and lips parted in shock. He mouths Immortal and turns back to Cor. Something like a grin dawns across his face. “Do you hear that, Cor?” he asks. “Immortal.”

Cor coughs weakly but offers another bloody smile to Regis. If his body didn’t hurt so much, his heart would be soaring. Finally, finally, they see him as more than just a charity case. It only took the deaths of countless Crownsguard to convince them. But Cor’s alive. He’s alive. He’s immortal.

Clarus wraps an arm carefully around his waist and guides him off towards where their shared tent is. “C’mon, kid. You need rest.”

Cor nods, though he grunts at the touch. He stirs his leaden feet into motion once more, letting Clarus push him towards the tent. “How long-”

“Three days,” Clarus rasps. “We were starting to worry. Reg almost wanted to go in after you.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Cor says with as much force as he can muster, glancing sidelong at Regis. “You would’ve died.” Then it would have all been for nothing. Everything, everything would have been lost in the Crag.

Regis’s fingers brush against his arm, warm and reassuring. “But I’m here,” he promises. “You made it out. You came back to us.”

Cor can only hum out an agreement, nearly tripping over a tent’s rope support, but Clarus’s arms are there to hold him up and keep him moving.

“Almost there,” Clarus promises. “Here, there it is. You see?”

The whispers of Immortal fade out behind them as the tent flap swings shut behind them. Clarus carefully sets him down on his bedroll. Cor gasps at the movement, and Clarus frowns. “Your ribs?” he guesses.

“Of course it’s his ribs,” Regis snaps from over Clarus’s shoulder. He moves around the bulk of his Shield and kneels at Cor’s side. “C’mon, Clarus, let me heal him.”

“Sure, sure.” In a burst of blue sparks, Clarus pulls a curative from the armiger and hands it over to Regis. “I’ll be back. Gotta finish that meeting.”

Regis waves a hand. “Sure, of course. Come back when you can.”

Clarus spares a final look at Cor. “I’m glad you’re safe, little lion,” he says, and then he’s gone, disappearing back into the smoke and firelight.

Faintly, in Clarus’s wake, the soldiers murmur Immortal into the warm air.

Regis presses the elixir against Cor’s chest, letting the magic wash over him. “Cor the Immortal,” he murmurs thoughtfully. “There’s no better name.”

Cor only looks at him through sleep-fogged eyes, already drifting off to sleep. Regis has the greenest eyes, he realizes. He sighs at the relief of the magic spreading across his aching body, and he can’t muster up the strength to say something back.

“Save your strength,” Regis tells him urgently, and then his hand brushes carefully against Cor’s cheekbone, swiping away blood from the skin there. His touch feels like it leaves fire wherever it goes. “You have a promise to keep.”

“Promise,” Cor repeats, rasping along the word. It takes all his effort to say it, but it’s worth it to see the delight in Regis’s eyes.

You owe me your life, Immortal, Gilgamesh whispers in his heart. Make it count.

---

Not even his defeat at Gilgamesh’s hand is enough to temper Cor’s wild boldness. Not for a long time.

He’s seventeen when he decides to make his first move.

They’ve been at war for years now, and King Mors has called their little retinue and their accompanying Crownsguard soldiers back to the Crown City. Too much risk, he’d said.

Cor misses the heat of battle. His hands ache for the hilt of his sword and the satisfaction of victory. He’s never lost; he doesn’t intend to. There’s something about battle that always has him craving more. Maybe it’s the rush he feels when he and Regis execute an attack in perfect harmony, mixing sword and magic to lay waste to their enemies. Maybe it’s the knowledge that he’s been chosen for this above any other Crownsguard twice his age. Maybe it’s the way that he finally, finally feels like he belongs.

He knows, of course, that most people his age would flee from the thought of going to war. Most Insomnians are going off to school or serving in the government, or training to be guards within the Wall. Cor knows that the war is devastating beyond anything most of the people in this city could even imagine.

Somehow, being trapped back in the tranquility of the city is worse.

Days like these, though, make everything a little more bearable.

“I think making an appearance was a good idea,” Regis comments, parking the Regalia in the drive in front of the Citadel. “Maybe being the people’s prince is the way to do things after all. Visiting parks and such.”

“Was the ice show really necessary?” Cor asks quietly, getting out of the Regalia and stretching, savoring the way his back cracks its way into uprightness again. He closes his door and leans against the Regalia, basking in the warmth of the sun after the wind of the car ride.

“Well,” Clarus grumbles, slamming his door shut as he stretches to his full height, “princes will be princes.”

Regis shrugs. “They seemed to like it. Boosts morale.”

Clarus rolls his eyes. “You’re impossible.” He reaches out to punch Cor on the shoulder. “See that he gets home okay, yeah?”

Cor grins. “I’ll try not to lose him on the way inside the Citadel.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Clarus shakes his head one more time and saunters off towards the looming Citadel, whistling a tune as he goes.

Regis comes around to his side of the car, leaning against the doors and turning his face up towards the sun.

“It wasn’t too...ostentatious?” Regis asks quietly. “The ice, I mean.”

Cor raises an eyebrow. “You seem to have already developed an opinion.”

“I suppose so.”

Leaning against the door of the Regalia beside him, Regis is quiet and poised, staring off into the distant city. Cor takes a moment to admire him out of the corner of his eye. Regis has the brightest green eyes, especially in the sunlight, hinting at the magic he hides beneath his skin. And right now, all alone in front of the Citadel, Cor has never seen him look more at peace. The only other time Regis could leave him awestruck like this is in the middle of battle when Regis meets his eyes, feral and graceful and raining death upon their enemies.

But this Regis is wonderful too.

They don’t often get moments like this in the Crown City. They can’t go five feet without encountering another Crownsguard determined to protect the prince in an impenetrable city. Right now, though, it seems like Cor has been deemed guard enough for Regis, out here in the summer sun.

Now or never, he supposes.

He takes Regis’s hand.

It’s warmer than he’d expected, as if Regis had been holding bare flames between his fingers. He wouldn’t doubt it, really. He’s seen it done before.

But Regis tenses beneath his touch.

“Cor,” Regis says gently, and Cor’s heart sinks.

He jerks away from Regis roughly, cheeks burning. “I don’t know what that was,” he mutters, but of course he knows, and Regis does too.

“Cor,” Regis tries again.

Cor shakes his head. “Don’t say it like that,” he orders. It sounds more like begging in his ears.

“This isn’t what you need right now.” Regis stands up completely, stretching to his full height beside Cor.

Cor rises to meet him. “Regis, I-”

Regis places his hands on Cor’s shoulders, firm and unyielding. “Train,” he urges. “Get stronger. Find your place here in the Citadel.”

“My place is with you,” Cor protests, but Regis silences him with a smile.

“I never said you had to leave. I’m here. I’m the prince. We still have so much time to see if things happen, but-” He shakes his head. “Not now, Cor.”

“I’m sorry,” Cor mutters, cheeks hot with his shame.

Regis’s eyes turn soft. “You need to stop apologizing to me, Cor.”

Despite himself, Cor almost apologizes again. He nods, though, quiet and penitent under the gaze of his prince.

“I know you have time,” Regis assures him, “and do you know why I know?”

Cor snorts, anticipating the joke. “Because I’m-”

“The Immortal,” Regis finishes with a lopsided grin.

“Two years, and it’s getting old,” Cor groans.

“You can expect that for the rest of your life,” Regis teases. “Immortal.”

The joke breaks enough of the awkward tension between them that Cor feels comfortable enough to smile.

“He smiles. Wonders never cease,” Regis says, and his smile is more than enough for Cor. “Come on. If we don’t hurry, Clarus will never let us hear the end of it.”

And they walk together towards the Citadel, knocking their shoulders together on the way.

now

Cor hates the Citadel now.

They've kept Noctis in the Citadel. After all, the power is on, and the morgue in the lower levels has been untouched by the ravages of time and war. So that’s where they keep his body until they can manage to hold a funeral.

When they land in the ruined outskirts of Insomnia’s central district, the sun is rising on a new day. The warmth is so unfamiliar after years of the mild chill of smothering night. There are a few people moving around in the city center, from what Cor can see as they approach, but not enough to make a scene. They land unseen and unwelcomed.

Cor doesn’t mind.

He takes one look at Iris and jerks his head towards the direction of the Citadel, raising an eyebrow in invitation. Cor had been the one who’d been formally summoned, but surely Gladio will want his sister right now. The gods only know that Iris might actually want to see her childhood friend too before they put him in some tomb beneath the Citadel.

Iris shakes her head, eyes flashing amber in the new sunlight. And then she’s ducking back inside the dropship and into its shadowed depths.

Cor walks the streets alone.

There’s rubble in his way, and he steps past shattered glass and twisted girders. There are pockmarks where bullets punched their way into the asphalt, and there are shards of something Cor tries not to look too closely at scattered along the streets. The pieces are too white for comfort, bleached by the sun. The storefronts are all broken and decaying around him, groaning in the gentle wind and silence. Cor doesn’t like this new Insomnia, especially not in the daytime. At least in the dark, he could fool himself into thinking the city is sleeping. Now, he’s forced to confront the reality of Insomnia’s demise.

His footsteps echo around him as he makes his way to the massive hulk of the Citadel.

Only one person is there to welcome him.

Ignis Scientia is wearing black.

That in and of itself is hardly a surprise. Lucian black has always found its way easily across Ignis’s shoulders. It’s more the nature of the blackness than anything. In the new sunlight, Ignis still manages to look like half a shadow. It’s not Glaive attire, and it’s not Crownsguard either. Cor recalls, wildly, that Ignis’s prince had worn the glove he sees on Ignis’s long-fingered hand. There are dark daggers strapped at his waist and legs and arms, subtle but dangerous. Everywhere, there’s a blade. It’s so far removed from the purpose Cor always knew him for that it’s jarring.

He doesn’t mention the change.

Ignis leads him inside quietly. He doesn’t speak much when he meets Cor at the front gate of the Citadel; he merely inclines his head with a quiet, rasping murmur of “Marshal” before setting off back towards the Citadel. Cor follows him quietly. He doesn’t bother saying anything. He doesn’t need to.

When Cor steps over Regis’s memorial in the cold stone of the plaza, his heart skips a beat, hiccuping past decade-old grief. Hello, old friend, he murmurs in his heart where nobody can hear him. I hope you can forgive me.

They move on.

Ignis navigates the Citadel’s hallways with unerring certainty. He bypasses the elevator entirely in favor of the stairs, tugging open the door to the stairway and letting Cor catch up. His pace, inexorable and firm, is familiar and all at once unnerving. The utter lack of words bodes even worse. Even during the Night, the two of them had always found some sort of comfort in small talk. The silence is damning.

Cor’s not sure why he feels so guilty here, stepping down into the heart of the Citadel.

The echo of their strides sends a steady beating staccato echoing through the empty stairwell. There’s an unerring precision to the sound once they start their descent in earnest, because if they are able to control anything in this world after kings, it is this. Themselves. Soldiers, the pair of them, struggling to eke out a living in a world where their entire lives have been rendered useless in the wake of Noct’s ascension.

“Why the stairs?” Cor asks, stepping down slowly after Ignis. It is the first real thing he has said in days. His throat feels raw around the words.

Without breaking the melancholy rhythm of his descent, Ignis inclines his head just a bit. It’s the only scrap of emotion he’s shown this whole time. “I can’t go in that elevator,” he says. “Not anymore.”

His ruined voice scrapes from him with none of his usual grace. When he falls silent again, Cor catches a glimpse of his hands shaking.

Cor doesn’t bother replying.

He can imagine enough.

They reach the basement.

Before his blindness, Ignis had never come down here, to the best of Cor’s knowledge. There was no need for the prince’s chamberlain to visit the realm of the dead and cast-off of the Citadel. This cold, clinical maze of corridors and sterility should be foreign to Ignis. He shouldn’t be able to so easily traverse these halls, sidestepping each and every piece of old rubble and debris from the Fall. And yet he does, drawn by instinct to the room where Noctis lies dead.

How many times has he been down here for him to have learned the way to the body of his king?

“He’s inside,” Ignis tells him as they round a final corner. “I won’t be going in with you.” There’s a tremor to the ruined timbre of his voice once more when he says it, giving a palpable edge to his despair. It’s like he’s spent his breath on screaming, though to the gods or to the Lucii or to the corpse of his king, Cor can never guess.

He takes one last look at Ignis. “Thank you,” he says. And then, helplessly, “I’m sorry.”

Ignis stares hard at him from behind his visor. There’s no wryness twisting his lips this time around, and Cor knows that there’ll be no recognition in his gaze, even without the glasses. Ignis used to have green eyes. Green eyes are always ruined.

And he just stares.

Cor nods. He’s not sure what he’d expected. Ignis doesn’t owe him a thing.

Gladio’s standing guard outside the room; he blinks at Cor’s approach.

He doesn’t look like he should. With the way his eyes listlessly register Cor’s presence, he almost could belong with his king. Withered even though he’s all corded muscle and graceful strength, he seems grayer. Older. Fainter.

He looks like Clarus did at the end. Defeated. The resemblance hurts more now that they’ve lost it all, as if the despair is hereditary, and the grief as well.

“You’re back,” is all he says, and the joy is missing from his voice too.

Cor nods.

Gladio steps aside slowly, and his gaze slides back to the wall on the other side of the hallway, empty and cold.

Cor opens his mouth to say something more, but something about the set of Gladio’s jaw stops him.

He goes inside.

The morgue is cold and quiet, immediately feeling more like a tomb than any sort of room for people to work in. But there’s someone in there, hunched and pale against the weight of grief.

Prompto looks up. His sunken eyes possess none of their old light. Even during the Night, there had been hope in his heart, and that had kept the other survivors sane. Lestallum was always a brighter place when he stopped by to lend a hand or give the Glaives a run for their money. Now, even in the bright lights of the morgue, his eyes are a dull, murky blue-violet.

“Cor,” he rasps. “You came back.”

Cor inclines his head. “My duty is to the king, first and foremost.”

Prompto’s eyes flicker to the table and then back up again. He shakes his head, lips pressed tightly together in a bitter mockery of a smile.

“Why is his face covered?” Cor asks quietly.

There’s that flicker of a smile again, but with teeth this time, bared with the full force of Prompto’s grief. “If I start looking-” He cuts himself off with another violent, short shake of his head, and his hair falls down across his face, lank and dull, casting shadows across the darkness below his eyes.

Again, the difference in him is striking. None of them are quite right anymore. Even in his absence, Noctis had held them together. Now, there’s nothing left for them here. Without magic, without Noct, they’re afloat in a world with the sun he died for.

They hadn’t had enough time.

Noctis had the least time of them all.

Prompto tugs the sheet aside.

Cor’s not sure what he’d been expecting, but he still sucks in a breath at the sight of the king. He’s seen enough bodies in his day; hell, he’s made enough of them for it to not bother him. This should be no different.

But it is. It’s Noctis.

What had he expected to see lying in the cold heart of the Citadel?

A prince, maybe. The young man still growing out of teenage petulance. Tousled hair and a sullen set to his expression and a hidden, wiry strength.

Memories, all.

The Noctis he’d known had been a prince in attitude and appearances even after the death of Regis. He’d been flippant and angry and resistant to the idea of a destiny his father had died to protect. When Cor had first seen him after the Fall, all he’d seen had been a young man, inexperienced and delicate and still half a child.

Now, all he sees is Regis.

Gone are the soft lines and curves of Noctis's jaw. Now, he has the face of a king, angular and sharp and unyielding. Impossibly strong and unbearably fragile: such is the fate of a Lucis Caelum, it seems. A dark beard dusts across once-bare skin, and it only strengthens the resemblance. His hair is still raven-black and hardly marred by the weight of the power of the Ring.

Entranced, Cor almost reaches out and traces the angle of the king’s jaw. But this is a different king, and there is no place for love for the dead. Those are thoughts best saved for the cold quiet of royal tombs and empty throne rooms, not the bright impassive lights of the morgue where Regis’s son is lain.

It’s just Noctis. Little Noct, who he’s known since the boy was born. Little Noct, who grew up to be a prince. Little Noct, who never even got a proper coronation. He was never meant to be king. He was never meant to live.

Cor hates that he’d known that.

Another one he’s failed. King Mors, then Regis, and now Noctis, who had ascended and died to save his people. And Cor had done nothing to help any of them. All he did was lose a battle and win a nickname for it.

Immortal still.

Is his purpose to bear witness to the bodies of kings?

then

King Mors’s funeral is somber and silent.

Regis, just barely twenty three, wears the curling silver crown of the monarch of Lucis and the Ring of the Lucii. He’s silent, but his jaw is tense, telling of some greater pain. Part of it is the Ring, Cor suspects. Cor had watched him put it on; he’d heard Regis scream in agony at the raw power of kings. Already, it’s weighing on him. Two days with the Ring have placed deep shadows beneath his eyes, turning them from bright green into a modest, subdued grayish olive. It makes him look infinitely tired and far older than he should be. It’s like the Lucii have taken something more from Regis than just his father.

Cor, eighteen and out of place among these people in gold and black and crowns, looks down on the body of the first king he’s lost. He does not know it, but he will come to lose more.

He shifts in place, breaking his military-perfect stance. After so long in fatigues, this formal suit is stiff and uncomfortable. Clarus, standing quietly beside him, shoots a look his way and raises an eyebrow. Cor just shakes his head and readjusts his position, forcing himself into stillness once more.

The Oracle, visiting from Tenebrae to bid farewell to her king, steps forward. Regis steps back towards Clarus and Cor to allow her space, inclining his head as he goes. There are few that the king of Lucis must bow to, and the beloved of the gods is one of them. She steps up to the bier and places a slender hand on Mors’s pale cold hand. Soft golden light fills the room, turning the unforgiving marble into something exquisite. She murmurs, “Blessed stars of life and light-”

Cor tunes it out. Those kinds of empty platitudes never gave him much. They certainly won’t lift the weight from Regis’s shoulders, and they won’t end the war. Magic like the Oracle’s is for healing physical wounds. It can’t change this. It can’t change how they feel. It can’t change the fact that the king is dead.

“He looks so old,” Regis murmurs.

So do you, Cor wants to reply.

But he remains silent. There is a place for him in this new regime, and it is not for him to speak the truth. Those truths are reserved for the Council members, wrapped up in some sniveling nonsense designed to placate a king more powerful than all of them combined. They’re not for a soldier to say at the funeral of one king to the face of another. Cor knows his place. He knows that Regis needs him to be entirely, wholly devoted right now. Cor’s afraid of what will happen to Regis if he isn’t.

So he stays quiet.

They lower King Mors into a tomb deep below the Citadel.

Regis raises his hand and seals his father into the stone with wild, burning magic, and the Ring glows on his finger.

Cor pretends not to notice the way that tendrils of angry, dangerous red creep up from where the Ring chokes Regis’s finger. He pretends not to hear the unearthly, discordant music of over a hundred voices whispering around their congregation before the tomb of the king. He pretends not to notice how Regis grimaces with more than grief, and how tears fall unheeded along his cheeks. Even if he did, everyone would just say that it’s Regis’s birthright.

So he lets it happen. He lets Regis truly wield the power of his father and all of his ancestors for the first time, and he watches the green light in his eyes fade beneath the weight of the souls he carries.

And then Regis is truly, officially king.

So it begins.

Later, Cor wanders into the throne room. His footsteps echo across the span of the room and up into the soaring ceilings, creating a staccato solo in the form of reverberations.

Regis sits on the throne high above, leaning his chin in one of his hands. He’s sprawled in the throne like he’s trying to occupy all of it and none of it all at once.

Cor studies him for a few moments as he makes his way down the long stretch of flawless black marble towards the throne and its many stairs. Regis is still in his formal wear even though the funeral has been over for several hours and he doesn’t have any audiences today. Cor’d expected to see him in fatigues or even just a more casual form of his usual dark shirts and slacks. Instead, he’s a mass of black and gold up above everything, weighed down by the opulence of his line. It’s still funny to think about, for Cor at least, that the Lucians in Insomnia can manage such elegance in the middle of their nation’s occupation.

“Is everything okay?” he asks quietly, knowing that his voice will carry. It’s the understatement of the century, sure, but he figures that Regis could use the familiarity.

“How can this all be mine?” He’s not looking at Cor. He’s just looking out at the wide expanse of the throne room.

“You’re the king, Regis.”

“King of what?” Regis nearly spits.

“Of Lucis.”

“Of a failing nation.” Regis snorts, drumming his fingers along the edge of the throne. “Niflheim won the moment my father pulled back the Wall. He should have allowed me to bear some of the weight somehow. The Crystal would have allowed it, surely.”

Cor tilts his head to the side; it feels peculiar to not be wearing his uniform cap anymore. “Do you think that would have given us the edge?” he asks, and the words feel clumsy in his mouth. It was so much easier to talk to Regis when he wasn’t on that throne. Now he truly feels his age, eighteen and inexperienced in much other than the art of killing, staring up at the king.

“It would have bought us more time, at least.” Regis makes a soft, irritated noise and runs his fingers through his hair. Cor sees his hand pause at the spot where his crown is nestled behind his ear, as though he’s about to take it out. Regis seems to resist the urge, though, and he continues in his frustrated motion, tugging his carefully brushed hair out of order. “Isn’t that what we need?” he continues, and he finally looks down at Cor. “More time?”

“We always need more time,” Cor replies. He’s not sure if he’s still talking about the war.

Regis hums at that, short and thoughtful. Again he picks at the stone at the handles of the throne, stewing silently over something; Cor can see it in the frustrated set of his brow.

“Something on your mind?” Cor asks. That’s what Clarus usually asks, right?

Regis beckons him with a wave of his hand. “Just come up here. I can’t stand the damn echo.”

Cor’s made this climb enough times in his service to Mors. In his later years, the king had been growing weaker; his eyes had been sunken and pale gray-blue by the end, shining with the light of his ancestors’ power. He would sit listlessly on the throne and hold court to the best of his ability with Clarus’s mother and Cor at his side.

Now, Cor just feels watched. For the first time in a long time, the king of Lucis sees him.

He makes it up past the final steps and onto the dais where Regis waits. He stands to attention at a polite distance, not quite directly in front of the throne so as not to be in the way. Regis’s eyes scan him for a long moment. Cor wants to fidget out of the way and back into the shadows. But he stays, and he finds some sort of comfort in keeping his fists clenched tightly at his sides. There will always be some sort of solace for him in the suggestion of a fight. Still, though, the weight of the king’s gaze is an entirely new sort of unnerving.

This thing between them - whatever Cor wants to call it, if there even is something - is still new, still fragile, and Cor is terrified that he’ll mess it up by being not good enough, not smart enough, not enough for Regis. Now that he’s king, everything has changed.

“You went through Gilgamesh’s trial,” Regis says.

“I did.” He still sees Gilgamesh’s eyes. They’d known. They’d known everything.

“For my father. And still he died.” Regis steeples his fingers together and studies Cor closely. Why does the throne make him seem so unfamiliar? “What do you make of that, Cor?”

Does he blame me?

“Regis,” Cor begins, fighting the urge to rub at the back of his neck.

Regis leans forward and lifts a finger out of place, silencing Cor in an instant. He stares up at Cor with his still-foreign eyes of muted green. “Would you do it again? For me?”

Cor opens his mouth to speak, then shuts it again, thinking for a moment. He wants, instantly, to promise anything to Regis if it will keep him safe. But he recalls the laugh in the Blademaster’s voice, and the sting of his shame and defeat, and he knows that the Tempering Grounds are in his past. Slowly, he replies, “It was always for you.” The longer Mors was alive, the longer he would be king, and the longer it would be until Regis put on that ring. Anything to keep Regis here longer.

Now, with the Ring on his finger, they’re only running out of time.

Sitting back in the throne, Regis separates his hands and frowns out at the throne room for a moment, shoulders tense. In this position, with the afternoon light streaming across his jaw, Cor is reminded of just how beautiful Regis can be. Even now that he’s been claimed by the kings and his destiny, he is still the same man Cor had sworn himself to. There’s still the same pensive furrow to his brow and stony determination in his eyes. The glint of the Ring on his finger and the crown in his hair doesn’t change that.

Regis growls low in his throat and flexes his hand; flames rise across his fingers, whispering a deadly chorus of crackles and dry heat. Cor watches, transfixed. Regis is the only living Lucis Caelum right now; the entirety of the power of kings is contained in him now.

“What do you plan to do?” he asks, voice soft in the echoing throne room.

“With this?” Regis asks, clenching his burning hand into a fist until the flame lick up through the gaps between his fingers. When he opens it again, the fire nearly hisses back into life with a new fury, reflecting in some way the heart of its master. “Or this unwinnable war?”

Cor asks, “Do you really think it’s unwinnable?”

Regis huffs out a breath that might have been a laugh if he didn’t look so sad. “Lucis is on the brink of destruction and occupation. Insomnia is all we have left, Cor.” He waves his hand in the air, and the flames that trail his fingers fade out with the sound of whispers.

“Insomnia is enough.”

“We have no army. Only the Crownsguard.” Regis clenches his hand into a fist. “A force this small stands no chance against the full might of the Niflheim military. You’ve seen those new things they’re making.”

Cor wrinkles his nose. Magitek. They’re unwieldy, unpredictable things, probably more machine than man, if he can guess. He harbors little love for them, and what he does is purely for the enjoyment he gets out of destroying them.

“You still know so little,” Regis murmurs, and again he’s studying Cor, staring right into the heart of him.

“You’re hardly one to talk,” Cor snorts, and it feels so different now to mock Regis when he’s the king now. Everything feels forbidden and wrong coming from his mouth, like even speaking to Regis is a sin of the highest order. He pushes past it and says, “There’s not much time between us.” Gods, how can the two of them be adults in a world that forced them into a war they inherited?

“You may be right,” Regis admits, “though you never did enjoy when I talked about politics or Council meetings.”

“I suspect that’ll continue,” Cor replies. Though, maybe-

If he started learning, maybe he’d be able to talk to Regis in terms that meant more than just casual conversation. He could help Regis through this war and make their loss a little easier. Maybe he can be a prodigy in more than just destruction.

For now, though, his words make a smile cross Regis’s face for the first time in days. His eyes brighten, just a bit, and that’s enough.

---

When they kiss for the first time, it’s unexpected.

They’re standing side by side on one of the balconies overlooking the city, perched on some impossibly high floor of the Citadel. Nobody can see them up here but the birds and the gods and the Wall. It’s the middle of summer, balmy and wonderful, and for a moment, Cor can almost forget that they’re at war. Regis tells him, softly, about the progress they’re making in the Council to bring refugees in from Leide.

Cor has to go to help lead the Crownsguard in their drills. The current Marshal has long since given up trying to train Cor, and now they work side by side. Cor enjoys it, of course, as he enjoys everything that puts a sword in his hand and adrenaline in his veins. He’ll go in a moment, of course. But right now, he wants desperately to stay here in this little shred of paradise. The way that the sunlight catches Regis’s eyes turns them iridescent, and he smiles in a way he hasn’t in ages, and Cor just thinks-

Oh.

“I have to go to training,” Cor tells Regis. His heart thunders out a frantic beat in his chest. The magic between them urges him closer-

Regis frowns. Cor laments the loss of his smile. “So soon?”

“Seems our work is never done,” Cor says, and before he can convince himself otherwise, he buries his fingers in Regis’s dark hair, pulls him close, and kisses him.

It goes surprisingly well, given the circumstances. Regis makes a quiet noise of surprise against Cor’s lips, and he doesn’t pull away. He parts his lips, just a bit, and Cor wants to reel him in closer and learn what it’s like to kiss a king, but really, he’s on a schedule.

He pulls back after a moment, regretting the distance already, and he smiles at the way that Regis’s eyes fly wide to meet his.

“Cor,” Regis stammers, and by the gods, he actually sounds like he was caught off guard for once.

“Your Majesty,” Cor murmurs, dipping into a bow, and then he leaves.

He can’t stop smiling.

---

Regis comes to watch him train sometimes.

He spars with Clarus. He’s the only one that can keep up with him on his own, almost unbeatable were it not for Cor’s speed and strategy. The two of them can create the finest dance seen in the Citadel for years, and enough people can attest to that, but it’s been ages since Clarus was able to make Cor admit any sort of defeat.

Cor ends up cornering Clarus this time, slowly edging him towards a set of obstacles in a series of elaborate dodges and swings. He gives ground even as he takes it, letting Clarus think that the fight is still even. But slowly, surely, he edges his way towards winning. Clarus’s eyes dart to his leg - he’s stepped wrong, and he’s left an opening - and he summons his sword in a burst of sparks.

Cor beats him to it, effortlessly shifting his foot back into place and sending his katana up in a single arc, ripping it from its sheath with the speed of one who has always known what the plan was.

He presses his blade to Clarus’s throat. “Checkmate?” he offers breathlessly.

Cor can feel Regis watching him.

Clarus laughs and banishes his greatsword back to the armiger. “You’ve still got your touch, little lion.”

“Never lost it.” Cor sheathes his katana, grinning.

Clarus punches him on the shoulder. “You’ve embarrassed me again,” he laments, grinning, sauntering towards the door, “and in front of His Extravagance, no less!” His gaze ticks over past Cor to where Cor can feel the source of the burning gaze. “He’s all yours, Reg.”

The second that the door clicks shut behind Clarus, Regis is already halfway to Cor, stalking towards him with a unique sense of purpose. Cor lets him, welcoming him into his space and letting Regis back him up against the nearest wall. This already is making his heart beat faster than the fighting ever did, lurching and stuttering in anticipation of something he knows he can’t predict.

“Did you see?” Cor asks.

Regis takes the katana from Cor’s hand and clenches his fist around it, shattering it into crystal. There’s a peculiar cast to his eyes today, dark and powerful and hungry. “I saw.”

Softly, Cor asks, past the rushing of blood in his ears, “Were you impressed, Regis?”

“You’re beautiful,” Regis half-growls, burying his face in Cor’s neck. He presses a kiss to Cor’s pulse, then moves up to his jaw, then his cheek, and then to his lips.

Cor tries to squirm out of the way. “Regis, I’m such a mess-”

“Doesn’t change anything,” Regis retorts, but he steps back anyway, eyes wide and blazing. “Gods, Cor, did you see yourself?”

“Hard to, when you’re fighting.”

That pulls a chuckle from Regis, still predatory. “You’re a menace,” he tells Cor with no lack of affection.

“Why don’t you ever spar with me, Regis?”

Regis grins wickedly. “I don’t think you’d be ready for that.”

“You underestimate me.”

“Never that, Cor.”

Cor laughs and reaches out to Regis, curling his hand around the elegant curve of Regis’s neck. He pulls him closer, because honestly, Regis already was all over him, and they can have a shower later if they both end up smelling like steel and sweat. Besides, Regis could do with a break from the miserable court etiquette, and Cor’s always loved taking him apart. “One day,” he promises, “you and I will have a proper fight.”

“I look forward to it,” Regis drawls, and he closes the distance between them, and Cor lets the king kiss him senseless.

---

Two years into Regis’s reign, things start to go wrong.

The war isn’t going as planned. The Council hardly has any clue of what to do to protect what little of Lucis they still have. Everything in their grasp, save for Insomnia and Galahd and a few other scant holdings, is theirs only in name. Niflheim has taken up residence in too many of their old towns and ancient forts.

They’re losing.

Regis has summoned Cor to the throne room. He didn’t say why. He never does.

When Cor gets to the throne room, diverted from his trek to the training rooms by one of Regis’s frantic messengers, the king is waiting for him up above. He’s got fire crackling along his fingers again. The light of it turns the gold of the throne nearly molten, surrounding its king in a halo of precious metal.

Cor steps towards the bottom of the stairs. He doesn’t ascend just yet.

“Your Majesty?” he asks. In the throne room, just Regis doesn’t feel right, even to him.

Regis’s gaze slides to him slowly, almost lazily. In the firelight, his eyes are inscrutable, cast into stark shadow by the elegant curves of his fingers against flame. He’s silent for a few long moments. Then he blinks and says, “The next Oracle was born today. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t,” Cor replies. “That’s good, though.”

“It is.” Regis stares at his flaming hand, turning it slightly. It’d be playful, maybe, if there weren’t such a dangerous cast to his face. “She comes into a world plagued by war.”

“Tenebrae is safe, I thought. Niflheim wouldn’t dare challenge the gods.”

“Wouldn’t they?” Regis clenches his fist around the flames, choking them into nothingness in his grasp. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought themselves powerful enough to subjugate the Six themselves.”

Cor frowns. “Has something happened?”

“The Messengers are moving to Tenebrae.” Regis drops his hand and stares down at Cor. “Some of them, at least. The High Messenger herself is reported to be at the child’s side.”

“Already?” They rarely get Messengers in Insomnia, and if they do, it’s only for fleeting moments of revelation, or when they are at the Oracle’s side, or maybe they never notice them at all.

“The Messengers know things we know not. But that child is important, Cor.”

“I don’t see the problem with that, Regis. She’s the Oracle.”

Regis glances away. “The problem goes deeper than just that. You know that Aulea and I are to be wed soon.”

Cor tilts his head to the side. “Yes. For an heir.” Or love. Cor doesn’t mind. He loves Aulea dearly, anyway.

“There is a prophecy, Cor. A child of our line is destined for something incredible. It has implications beyond the Six. Beyond the Lucii.”

“An end to the war?” Cor asks.

“An end to everything that plagues us, I hope.” Regis flexes his fingers into a fist. “But at the cost of much good. I fear-” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

“Regis-”

“No.” Regis cuts him off swiftly. “Best not to dwell on it.”

Cor raises an eyebrow. “But you’re dwelling on it.”

“Come here,” Regis orders.

Cor would never disobey his king.

He ascends the stairs slowly, keeping his eyes on Regis the whole way. Regis watches him approach with eyes cast in shadow. Cor’s skin crawls with the weight of his gaze, but he keeps his pace, drawing closer and closer. Regis’s fire may be out, but he still radiates a power that thrums through the armiger between them.

Regis taps at the arm of the throne, rapping out a faint rhythm with his fingernail on the stone. The Ring hits the stone as well, striking with the light peal of a bell. “I’m glad I have you here, Cor.”

“You always do.”

“The Council is impossible. They don’t understand. They think they’re better off smothering me in compliments than actually helping me run my damn nation. They don’t know war. They’ve never been outside the Wall.”

“Get a new Council.”

Regis looks up at him sharply. “I can’t just do that.”

“Can’t you?”

That almost makes Regis laugh. He studies Cor closely with wide, disbelieving eyes. “You’re incredible, Cor. Did you know that?”

“You’ve mentioned it on a few occasions.”

The half-smile drops slowly from Regis’s lips, leaving him contemplative and stern again. Cor waits.

“Come closer,” Regis orders quietly.

Cor approaches.

Regis grabs him by the collar and drags him close, bringing their foreheads together to touch, sharing the heat of fire and magic and life. For a few ragged heartbeats, he doesn’t say anything. He just holds Cor there, exerting complete control with just the curl of his fingers in Cor’s uniform.

And Cor lets him.

“It never ceases to amaze me,” Regis murmurs, and his other hand raises to trace too-hot fingers along Cor’s jawbone. “There is such power in you. You could kill me if you wanted to.”

“I would never,” Cor swears.

“I didn’t say you could talk.” He says it so calmly, so casually, that Cor’s mouth falls open a bit, transfixed by him. Regis’s eyes flick up to search his; a dark eyebrow quirks up in a question. “Surprised?”

Cor draws in a breath to reply, but he remembers himself and keeps silent, blinking at Regis instead.

Regis almost smiles. “Clever. You always did catch on quickly.” The hand at Cor’s jaw drops to his waist, and the combined force of his grip on Cor’s shirt and waist tug Cor off balance and onto the throne.

Cor nearly laughs, breathless and surprised.

“Remind me again, Cor,” Regis says, and it could almost be a regular conversation if not for the fact that Cor is half-sprawled on his lap in the throne of the kings. “Who am I?”

“You are the king,” Cor tells him quietly. “My king.”

“That’s right,” Regis murmurs, and he untangles his fingers from Cor’s uniform. Despite it, Cor stays poised mere inches from Regis’s face, staring down at him. Regis rewards him for his control with a hand at his cheek, running a thumb along the parted lines of Cor’s lips. “Cor, what would I do without you?”

“People could see,” Cor hisses instead of answering. This is the throne room. This is the most sacred sanctum of Lucian power short of the Crystal chamber itself. That Regis would just throw it away-

“Let them see,” Regis growls. “I don’t care. I don’t care what they think anymore.”

“You do,” Cor insists, but still he tilts his head back when Regis tugs at the overgrown strands of his hair, sucking in a breath at the little thrill of pain he gets from it. Regis’s fingernails scrape against his head, stubbornly finding purchase in hair scarcely longer than a military cut. Regis ducks his head and kisses his neck, pressing his lips over the line of Cor’s pulse. Cor wants to pull away and bring them to somewhere that doesn’t make every instinct of his scream at him for his foolishness.

But Regis is still young and brash and growing out of his princehood, barely two years a king, and he has always gotten what he wants.

Cor lets his eyes fall shut and sighs.

“There you are,” Regis murmurs. “Cor.” There’s a warm triumph in his voice, and he smiles against Cor’s throat.

“Regis,” Cor sighs, but it’s less of a reprimand and more of an invitation.

“Immortal,” Regis breathes, mouthing fire along Cor’s jaw. “Immortal, wild thing. Guard to the king. How did I get so lucky? What did I do to deserve you?”

In lieu of an answer, Cor reaches up and grabs Regis’s jaw between his fingers, holding him still while he ducks his head to kiss him. Regis’s lips are warm and wet already, and he hums into the kiss, pliant to Cor’s whims despite his earlier commands.

He’ll cherish this moment. Here, on the throne, there’s nobody more powerful. It’s just the two of them, more dangerous together than they’d ever be apart, in a city they have waged wars to protect. The carnage outside the Wall can wait; they’ve done enough for now. Today, now, they’re not worrying about the actions of the gods or the threat of ancient prophecies. It’s just Regis on the throne, and his hands on Cor’s waist, and the magic thrumming between them.

---

It’s not enough.

They still lose.

Cor misses Aulea in the same way that he misses the smile in Regis’s eyes.

It’s an aching grief, and a growing one, as he feels the absence of something he’s so long taken for granted.

Out here, up on the balcony outside of Regis’s bedroom, the loss bites along with the wind. The silence hurts even more, heavy and miserable between them. There’s only so much they can say that isn’t some empty cliche. There’s only the loss, and the void between them where Aulea was too.

Regis’s son is sleeping inside. He’s only a week old. He only had a mother for a week. He’s half an orphan already, and Regis has named him Noctis.

Cor pities the boy. He wouldn’t wish the kingship on that child.

“Why do we keep losing so many people?” Regis asks lowly, staring out at the glittering lights of Insomnia below.

Cor wants to say something comforting, but he’s not sure what Regis even needs right now. He can’t find it in himself to put himself in Regis’s shoes and figure out how he’s dealing with this sort of grief. It’s always been hard. Death should affect him more. He should be feeling something. Though he misses Aulea, it’s in the same detached way he looks at war. She’s gone, and he’ll never see her again, but there are so many others he has lost. Soldiers, brothers, students-

It’s just so hard to grieve for all of them.

He doesn’t know if he has room in his heart to notice all of the people he’s missing.

“I don’t know,” Cor says. “It’s not fair.”

Regis’s voice hisses out like poison. “Platitudes.” He throws his fist out over the edge of the balcony, and then the air shatters around them, and his winged sword comes into being, held aloft above the entire city of Insomnia. The glimmering shielding light of the Wall high above finds its way into the darkened steel.

Cor looks sharply from the blade to the gleam of steel in Regis’s eyes. “Regis?”

“Just once,” Regis mutters. “Just once, I’d like a moment of peace.”

“What are you intending to do?”

Regis glances over at him, eyes all at once blazing and dull. He just looks drained. “What do you think me capable of?”

“Too much.” He can’t lie around the frantic fear pounding in his heart.

“I thought of a name for this thing,” Regis says, smiling mirthlessly at the shining blade. “They can call me the Father.”

“You’re more than that,” Cor insists quietly.

Regis shakes his head, and his knuckles go white around the hilt of his sword. “Noct’s all that matters now.” His grip tightens even more, and just when Cor fears he’ll hurt himself, the sword bursts back into the armiger in a spray of light.

“Not all, Regis.”

“Enough.” Regis smiles thinly. “They can’t just call me the King. That’d be redundant.”

“Regis.”

“And they certainly can’t call me the Husband,” Regis nearly spits. “Not anymore.”

Quietly, desperately, Cor says, “Regis.”

“He’s got Aulea’s eyes,” Regis tells him, changing the subject with all the deftness of a monarch. Despite the sadness in his eyes, his tone gains something like fondness. “I know you haven’t seen his eyes yet, and I know that sometimes children’s eyes change with time-”

“No,” Cor interrupts. “No, it’s fine.” He smiles thinly. “I’m glad. It means she’s still here.”

That sounds like the thing to say.

Regis’s eyes soften, and that makes it worth it. “Yes.” He looks back out at Insomnia. “I miss her,” he admits.

“I miss her too.”

“Everyone keeps dying, Cor. Everyone keeps leaving.”

“Clarus is still here.” Cor steps closer. “I’m still here.”

“But you’re leaving,” Regis mutters.

Cor turns his head to the side, frowning out at the city. “Says who?”

Regis snorts. “Don’t play coy, Cor. I’m the king. I know you’re due out on assignment.”

Of course he knows. Cor scratches at his ear, refusing to meet Regis’s eyes. Instead, he casts his gaze out at the lights below them, and the shimmering patchwork of the Wall high above. So he’s leaving. So he might have requested to go out on assignment. So he’s getting away from the Crown City for the first time in ages.

He needs this.

He can only stay and spar and train for so long. He’s itching for something more than just the day to day of managing the protection of Insomnia. His office is shrinking by the day, becoming claustrophobic with every moment Cor spends inside its cloyingly perfect walls. This city isn’t made for him.

Cor takes in a steady breath. “The war effort needs me.”

“You’re staying here.” Electricity crackles across his fingertips, casting Regis’s face into stark blue relief. The command sounds like a thunderclap, short and low and absolute.

“Regis-”

“I will not lose you too,” Regis tells him quietly, but there’s steel in his tone. “You made me a promise. You can fulfill that here in the Crown City.”

Cor shakes his head. “My duty-”

“Is to king and country,” Regis insists. “Hearth and home.”

“Hearth and home,” Cor echoes, and he shakes his head. “Just came up with that, did you?”

“Stay,” Regis begs, composure cracking around his grief and desperation. “Cor, please.”

“Regis,” he murmurs again.

“Noctis needs you, Cor.” Regis reaches out and catches the back of Cor’s neck with elegant fingers that send static shivering down his spine. And he breathes, “I need you now, more than ever.”

Cor blinks. He’s trying so hard to say no.

He is.

And then he breaks.

He presses his forehead to Regis’s, breathing in the warm summer air around them. The scent of Regis has always been intoxicating: spice and steel and storm. More than that, he can feel the power rolling off of Regis in waves, loosed by the force of emotion. They’re touching, skin to skin, but Cor still feels the magnetic pull where the armiger holds them together, begging them to get closer, closer-

Cor craves battle. He wants more than just leading the guards of a city that can’t fall as long as its king lives. He wants to get out of this prison of steel and magic and peace.

Gods, but he wants this more.

“I’ll stay,” he agrees, though his bones are aching for a fight.

He can’t leave Regis alone now.

They haven’t heard from Weskham in years. Cid hasn’t shown his face in Insomnia since before Regis became king, and his letters are infrequent at best. Now it’s just the two of them and Clarus, and the children they have gathered in the wake of all that they’ve lost.

Regis breathes out a long, shuddering sigh. “Thank you,” he says, swiping his thumb along the curve of Cor’s neck. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Cor murmurs, and Regis makes a quiet sound before kissing him softly, desperately, like Cor really is about to leave him forever. Cor lets him, of course. Moments like these are few and far between, and Regis is right here, and nobody can see them up here but the gods.

For a few minutes, it’s perfect. They’re miserable and they’re mourning, but they’re holding each other up; holding each other together. Cor kisses Regis under the light of the Wall and the stars and forgets why he ever wanted to leave.

It’s not forever. Nothing perfect ever is.

Noctis cries out from inside the room. Prince Noctis. Cor has to start getting used to calling someone a prince now. It’s been years; he’s only ever known one prince.

Regis seems to simultaneously slump and jump at the sound, disappointed but  immediately alert. He’s already straightening, turning his gaze towards the bedroom, and running a hand through his unkempt dark hair. Maybe it’s instinct, but his lips part around a murmur of “Noct.”

“I should go,” Cor murmurs, but Regis catches his wrist as he turns, staring at him with plaintive eyes. Static shivers its way along Cor’s arm from where Regis is holding him, forcing his hair on end.

“Stay the night?” he asks quietly. For once, it’s not an order. It’s just Regis.

Cor really should leave. There’s work he left on his desk back home that he should be reading. He should go back to his miserable Crownsguard apartment just blocks from the Citadel and he should go to sleep in a bed paid for by years of service to the crown. He should know his place, and he should try to distance himself from this monarchy and this grief and this relationship that somehow has always felt doomed.

Instead, he just says, “Of course.”

And Regis smiles, and that makes it worth it.

Later, with his cheek pressed to Regis’s chest and Noctis sleeping soundly in his bassinet across the room, Cor can’t help but feel, for a little bit, at peace.

---

“Catch me, Cor!”

Cor jogs after the giggling blur of black that streaks across the courtyard, and he can’t help but smile when his quarry screeches with laughter. The weather had been nice enough this week to allow them to spend much of the time outside.

“I’ve got you, Your Highness,” Cor growls, and he gives a monstrous mock roar as he grabs Noctis by his sides, tickling him a bit.

“Cor!” Noctis squeals, and he squirms away from Cor’s hands, skipping a few feet away and grinning toothily up at him. “Can’t catch me!” he taunts.

“Oh, can’t I?” Cor growls again, and he darts forward to catch Noctis again, laughing when Noct gives a mock wail of pain. Breathless and smiling, he glances over his shoulder.

Regis watches from the edge of the grass, leaning against a pillar. His eyes are newly lined by the weight of his grief for a son he has not yet lost. He doesn’t say anything, but Cor can feel his gaze while his back is turned. He tries to ignore it and scoops little Noctis up in his arms, swinging him through the air with little effort.

The little prince has been getting bigger. Ever since his fifth birthday just a month ago, he’s gotten livelier and even a little taller, as if his rumored meeting with the Lucii in the Crystal has given him some new vitality. Cor doesn’t doubt that that’s a possibility. Regis has told him that the rumors are true, and that Noctis has been chosen by the Lucii and by Bahamut. It’s only natural that the old kings would give him some fraction of their mystical strength.

But it’s hard to look into the bright blue eyes of the prince and see a king who will save the world. Instead, it’s just little Noct, giggling and squealing in his arms.

The Crownsguard will need Cor soon, but they can wait. They have backup now anyway in the form of Regis’s brand new squad of attack dogs, the Kingsglaive. For hearth and home, they proclaim. It seems almost like a joke to Cor, thinking about it. He still remembers how those words had sounded in Regis’s voice, lined with grief and desperation.

Yes, the Kingsglaive can pick up his slack for once.

For now, Cor’s content to stay in the courtyard and ignore the weight of his duty. It can just be him and Noct and Regis, hiding from fate.

He glances over his shoulder at Regis again. The king has barely moved, but his stance is a little more casual. He’s still watching them.

Like this, it almost feels like they’re a family. Just the three of them.

In another world, if Regis hadn’t known - if Noctis hadn’t been chosen - maybe it would be different. Maybe there wouldn’t be such urgency hanging over everything they do now, and maybe grief wouldn’t weigh Regis down more than the Ring ever did.

But it’s just not right to dwell on things like this.

“Down!” Noctis orders, high and reedy and already commanding.

Knocked out of his thoughts, Cor grins at the prince and swings him one more time. “You haven’t fought the daemon, Your Highness,” he reminds him.

Noctis pouts for a second, eyes wide and defeated. Then he steals a glance over at his father and grins with what must be the triumph of a brand new idea. He claps his hands in front of Cor’s eyes and yells, “Fire!”

For half a second, Cor’s actually worried that Noctis will do it. He’s Crystal-bound now, after all. But no, the kid’s still half a toddler anyway, and no flames spark to life on his fingers, so Cor breathes a sigh of relief before mock-bellowing, “It burns!” as he lowers Noct to the ground. He’s never been quite so happy to be defeated.

“Dad!” Noctis calls. He bounds up to Regis and grins up at him, tossing overgrown dark hair out of his eyes. He refuses to get it cut.

Regis drops into a crouch immediately, and some of the lines in his face smooth out into a soft, indulgent smile. “Your Highness?” he asks, face to face with Noctis.

“Dad,” Noctis whines, and Regis’s eyes crease further into a smile.

“Noct,” he amends with a voice so fond that he hardly sounds like a warrior king. “Enjoying your time outside?”

“Did you see my magic?” Noctis asks, and he nearly clambers up onto Regis, reaching out for the lapels of his suit.

Cor, making his way over at a far more sedate pace than Noct, calls, “It was a mighty blow, Your Majesty.”

Regis raises an eyebrow at Cor and widens his eyes down at Noctis. “The fire was a good choice,” he says sagely. “Cor’s afraid of fire.”

It’s meant to be a joke, of course, but Cor winces all the same. It’s a little lie, sure, but somehow the thought of fire and fear brings up memories of the place below Taelpar Crag, and the eyes of Gilgamesh.

Noctis giggles, “I knew it!”

“I’m very proud,” Regis informs him, and he messes with the top of Noct’s already unruly dark hair, unyielding even when Noct ducks out of the way, squealing. “You’ll be warping in no time at all.”

“You think so?” Noctis breathes, blinking up at Regis with undisguised awe.

Regis smiles. “I know so.” He ruffles at Noct’s hair again. “Go on, then,” he urges. “A king needs his practice.”

Noct goes bounding off again, but Cor stays for the moment. He looks away from the prince to see Regis stand up; he doesn’t miss the way that Regis’s lips thin out into a grimace as he does so.

“Your knee?” Cor asks, because he may be a soldier but he’s never quite learned how to hold his tongue.

Regis glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s nothing,” he mutters sullenly.

“You’re a liar, Regis,” Cor tells him softly. “I’m telling Clarus to go easy on you when you spar from now on.”
“Sparring helps keep me ready for anything,” Regis retorts, but there’s still that petulant edge to his tone.

Cor raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything else. Regis has plenty of people to fight his battles for him, and though he’s never fallen completely out of fighting shape, Cor knows that he’s far from ready to defend the kingdom alone. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d even seen Regis warp.

There’s a little call of “Noct!” and suddenly another figure in black and white comes streaking out from a door across the courtyard.

Noct spins from where he’s been swinging a stick around like a sword. His face splits into a smile. “Ignis!” he cries, and he promptly throws the stick.

Cor winces.

It misses Ignis, thankfully, but as it lands, Noctis sprints full tilt towards Ignis and intercepts him halfway across the courtyard, laughing. “You took forever!” he whines.

Giggling, the Scientia boy clutches at Noct’s shoulders. “I had class, Noct,” he tells him. “You know that.” He grabs one of Noctis’s hands and starts tugging Noctis towards Regis and Cor. “We have to say hello to the king.”

“No we don’t,” Noctis whines, but he lets Ignis drag him along anyway.

Ignis pushes his glasses up his nose as he skids up to them, Noctis in tow. He drops into a little bow, back straight and controlled. The motion looks so out of place on a child that small. “Your Majesty,” he says, and then he glances over at Cor. His brow furrows for a second, as if in thought, and then his eyes brighten and he says, “Marshal.”

Regis’s indulgent smile returns. “Ignis. Done with your studies for the day?”

Ignis nods, straightening back up. “Yes, sir. I’m here to play with Noct now.”

“You make it sound like a chore,” Cor tells him.

Ignis frowns, and his eyes go a little wide behind his glasses. He shakes his head vehemently, and tells Cor, “Never, sir.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Cor warns.

A mischievous smile curves at the worried edges of Ignis Scientia’s lips.  “I hope so,” he says. “Sir.”

He bows again, and then he’s letting Noct tug him away towards a bush that’s apparently crawling with bugs.

Cor watches him go. He huffs out a little laugh and shakes his head. He’s certainly never seen a kid like that before. “How old is he?”

“Seven.” Regis’s lips twitch upwards. “I think it was a good choice.”

“Did you have an accent like that when you were young?”

Regis glances sidelong at him. “Depends on what you’re about to say next.”

Cor snorts. “You’re impossible.” But he leans towards Regis, pressing their shoulders together for a moment before swaying away again in a single flowing movement.  “It’s not a bad accent. I hear it all the time from you and the Council. It’s just odd to hear it from a kid.”

“I really do wonder how Noct’s managed to avoid picking it up, especially with Ignis always being around.”

“He’s inquisitive. He talks to people. He’s picking up the common accent.” Cor watches Ignis and Noctis sprint out of sight between some trees; their giggles fade into the background, replaced by gentle birdsong. “He’s going to be a handful.”

“He will,” Regis agrees, and for a few long moments his face is nothing but calm. The breeze is balmy against their faces, not quite cold enough to hint at the coming winter and the falling of the leaves. The silence between them feels, for once, like they’re not just at a loss for words. And there’s that feeling again: like family. Like normalcy. Like tranquility. Like there isn’t a war outside their walls and like there isn’t a countdown holding the Lucis Caelums by their throats.

“Will you take care of him?” Regis asks into their silence. “When I’m gone.”

“Of course,” Cor swears automatically with a speed matched only by his sincerity. He would never promise Regis something he couldn’t do. “But you’ll still be king for a while yet.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but his voice still lilts up with a child’s panicked curiosity.

“Yes,” Regis says, but his voice is distant.

Cor frowns and tilts his head, studying Regis for a moment. He’s hoping that he’ll say something else, but Regis’s eyes never move from where Noctis last was in sight.

“Regis,” he says.

“Yes?”

“There’s still time, right?”

“As much time as we can give him.”

Cor frowns. “But what about you?”

Regis places a hand to his cheek, cradling Cor’s face with incredible gentleness. Cor turns his face into the touch. They have so little time for things like this now, but it’s not like they ever did to begin with. Everything between them has been about stolen time and borrowed peace. Nothing’s ever permanent for soldiers or kings.

There’s something cold between his skin and Cor’s, though: the Ring, certainly, with its heart full of kings and queens and light.

“I’ll be fine,” Regis promises him. “We still have time.” The sunlight breaks through the clouds, and for half a heartbeat Regis’s eyes gleam bright green again.

Like it used to be.

And then the clouds shift, and the king’s gaze darkens, and the Ring is still cold against Cor’s cheek.

Cor doesn’t look away.

The children come sprinting out from the little copse of trees, squealing out challenges to each other. The Scientia boy has the beginning of a grass stain on one of his perfectly pressed white sleeves, and he’s halfheartedly complaining about it even as he chases down Noctis, still holding something clasped between his hands. When he catches up to Noctis, he opens his hands, and the two of them chatter loudly at what must be a bug in his palm.

Regis slowly lowers his hand, eyebrows creasing apologetically. “This isn’t the place,” he mutters, ducking his head out of the way.

“Is it ever?” Cor sighs, folding his arms and leaning against the pillar.

“There’ll be time for that. Destiny and prophecies and…” Regis waves a hand slowly, clenching his fingers around nothing. “And everything else. For now, though, I’m content to enjoy my peace.”

Cor agrees quietly.

He puts the prophecy out of his mind for now. Those things are a million years ahead, and right now he’s determined to savor every moment he has here and now. Noctis as king means that Regis isn’t , and Cor isn’t looking forward to that any time soon.

They still have time.

---

Years pass, and Noctis stops laughing.

After the Marilith and Tenebrae, he comes home sad and cold and distant. He never runs in the courtyards anymore unless the Scientia boy is there to show him something he’s thought might pique the prince’s interest. Even then, he just nods listlessly, patiently listening to his little chamberlain. It’s like day and night with him; he seems to shrink into his Lucian black clothing with every passing day.

He’s hardly the child Cor had known.

Cor asks Regis about it one day when they’re in the king’s office. Regis is working through reports from Cleigne, frowning at what must be news on a base the Nifs are building out there.

“It changed him, Cor.” Regis taps his pen against the wood of his desk. He banishes the pen to the armiger and calls it back again in little bursts of sparks and glass in the air. Cor feels him do it, recognizing the tug at the center of his chest where Regis’s magic lives.

He folds his arms against the feeling, hugging himself around the chest. “But how?” he asks.

“He’s quieter. Sadder.” Seemingly satisfied with stating the obvious, Regis returns to his work.

Definitely dissatisfied, Cor presses further, “He doesn’t laugh anymore, Regis. I don’t remember the last time he smiled.”

Regis marks an annotation on his report. “The Empire’s new base is expanding,” he mutters. “They’re calling it Fort Vaullery.”

Cor leans forward towards Regis’s desk. “Tenebrae was a disaster. The Marilith was a disaster.” He taps at the desk, just once, with his fingernail. “You can’t just run from it.”

Something twitches at Regis’s jaw. “They’re encroaching on Old Lestallum.”

Cor pushes his luck. “I hear you summoned the whole armiger.”

Regis raises an eyebrow at that, pausing in his annotations to twirl his pen thoughtfully between his fingers. “I did,” he admits. “It’s been a while.” He must think he’s being subtle, but Cor doesn’t miss the way his ring finger twitches just a bit. The skin there has a faint gray tint to it where the Ring chokes it. It’s evidence of just how drained this attack has left him.

“I should have been there,” he tells Regis quietly. “I would have-”

“You might have died,” Regis interrupts softly. “You and Noct could have-” It’s his turn now to stop short, and he hangs his head. There’s already silver streaking into his hair, turning his temples the color of steel. He’s not even forty, and already the Lucii have aged him. Slowly, the powers of gods and kings are fashioning him into another glaive for a different king to wield.

“I would have, if I’d had to.”

“Cor.”

“For either of you,” Cor insists. “In a heartbeat.”

Cor Leonis has only ever known a life in the service of kings. He will live and die for them in one way or another. That’s always been the plan; that’s been his promise. To Regis and to the spirit of Gilgamesh in Taelpar Crag, he’s made promises. His life is forfeit, one way or another.

Regis’s lips thin into a wan, resigned expression.  His eyes, for a brief moment, flicker bright green. “I knew you’d say that,” he says, “but I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I would. You’re my king. You’re you. And Noct has a destiny to protect.” Cor shrugs. “Means I’m there to protect him through it all.”

Something shutters in Regis’s expression, carefully storing away an emotion that Cor can’t name. He says, slowly, “His destiny.”

“Do you think they knew?”

“Who?”

“Niflheim. About who he is. What he’s meant for.”

Regis scrubs wearily at his face. “Now that they have Tenebrae? Perhaps.”

“The Oracle knew, I presume.”

“She did. But I don’t think that’s what motivated the attack. Likely, they just wanted us dead.” Regis’s jaw shifts and sets into something more pensive and bitter. “Now, they have even more reason to try to put my son in a grave.”

Cor shakes his head, disgusted. “That prophecy. The gods. To put that on a child…”

Regis sighs. “He won’t be a child forever. The world won’t wait.”

“Will you ever tell him?”

“It’ll ruin him, Cor.” Regis places his hands on the edge of his desk and leans his weight on them, hunched over like a man defeated. His head hangs there for a moment, letting his crown cast dull refractions across the room. “If this is what he’s like after what he’s already been through, how can I give him the burden of his own death?” He looks up at Cor, eyes unerringly finding his in a heartbeat. “How can I raise my son when we both know that the gods have doomed him?”

“You’d prefer if only you knew?” Cor replies.

For a long moment, the edges of the desk frost over. Regis blinks at him. “The alternative is so much worse. The death sentence of the Ring is bad enough. This fate - I can’t do that to him.”

“You’d leave him unaware? The little Oracle already knows-”

“She’s not Oracle yet, Cor; her mother is dead-”

“-and I know the truth, Regis, and who else besides? Clarus?” Cor turns from Regis and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Will you have him tell Gladiolus? Will you tell Ignis? Their fates are tied to Noct’s. How many will you keep in the dark, and how many of us will need to pretend that your son will be king one day?”

A hand grabs his wrist without warning. It’s ice cold, and the grip is strong enough to catch him off guard. Cor almost, almost lashes out with all the ferocity of the weapon he’s become, but the force of the grip reminds him that he is still part of the king’s arsenal. He lets the hand spin him in place until he’s face to face with Regis, taking in the sight of pure, unbound anger in his face.

“It is my secret to keep,” Regis tells him. “He is my son, and he deserves to know happiness. He deserves the peace I have built for him.”

“I love that boy, Regis,” Cor growls, “and I swore an oath to your family. I made you a promise, but that promise is to Noctis as well. How can he become who he needs to be if he doesn’t even know?”

“He will learn in time.” Regis glares at him. “But for now, he can be happy.”

“And who will pick up the pieces when he must come into his birthright?” Cor barrels onward, stopping Regis even as the king opens his mouth, “Not you, Regis. We both know the price of his kingship.”

“I’d hoped you’d be the one to help him,” Regis mutters, “but now I’m not so sure.”

Cor barks out a laugh. “Who else would you recruit for that? His friends? Will you be the one to tell a ten year old that his only friend is destined to die? Will you place that burden on another child?”

“I’m trying to protect him, Cor!” Regis yells, finally loud. Finally angry.

“So am I!” Cor bellows back.

They’re nose to nose in the middle of Regis’s office. Surely someone has heard their voices. Cor doesn’t care. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s right here, in Regis’s space, and he can feel the armiger shifting in the space that holds them together. Even now, it calls him to war, calls him to get closer, to close the gap between them. But he doesn’t; instead, he just stares into the face of his furious king. Some part of him is pleased to see some emotion other than careful neutrality.

“I love my son, Cor,” Regis tells him, and there is so much feeling in his voice that Cor nearly trembles with the force of it.

Cor nods; retreats to the door.  “Loving him is the most dangerous part, Regis,” he replies quietly.

He leaves.

Maybe Regis calls after him. Maybe he doesn’t. Cor won’t hear it, either way.

It’s true, what he’s said. He knows Regis, and he knows how he thinks. Regis would do anything for someone he loves. He would condemn the rest of his nation for the sake of one prince’s safety and comfort in their city. He would keep the truth of the prophecy from his son, withholding the most crucial part that mentions that Noctis must die. He would let the world burn if it meant that he could let his son live in bliss for just a little while longer.

Cor shakes his head, slamming a button on an elevator he didn’t even realize he’s reached. It’s all too familiar. He rubs at the spot on his wrist where Regis had held him, still thawing from the force of its chill. He doesn’t blame him, not really.

It’s all too familiar.

Regis’s death looms over them both. Cor knows that the fate of the Lucian kings is to die well before their time. Regis knows that his own doom only hastens his son’s demise.

And they’ll both do anything, anything, to stave that day off just a little while longer.

---

Years pass, and Regis doesn’t call him to the throne room anymore.

It’s not like Cor never sees him anymore. The war has just been picking up, and Regis holds more and more audiences with dignitaries and the Council. Cor understands, of course, that the throne room was never just theirs.

Still, he misses their moments of communion. The throne had held so much for them. It’d been their rebellion and their show of power. Cor knows that Regis has always loved the rush of adrenaline that comes with keeping Cor in his grasp when both of them know that Cor is dangerous in ways neither of them can describe.

Cor understands, of course. He knows the weight of the crown and the monarchy, and how the Ring is draining Regis away. His fingers don’t crackle with elemental energy anymore. When he touches Cor’s jaw, there is no electric hum of barely contained lightning. He’s given so much of himself to his Glaives and to the Wall and to Lucis that there’s scarcely any of him left to spare. He can’t waste it on his stolen moments with Cor.

They still have their moments, though.

Regis still watches Cor train sometimes under the pretense of checking on the Crownsguard recruits. No matter what he’s doing, no matter how intensely he’s sparring, Cor can always feel the weight of Regis’s gaze.

He still whispers I love you in Cor’s ear after they’ve both had miserable days defending their nation.

He even lets Cor go out on recon missions beyond the Wall, and on rare occasions, he sends him out on battle assignment. On those missions, Cor feels more alive than ever, and it’s always worth it to see the relief in Regis’s eyes when he returns, and to embrace him after long weeks spent apart.

And Cor cherishes every moment. He does.

It just never feels like it used to.

---

Years pass, and Regis isn’t letting him stay in the Citadel for the signing.

He has always welcomed Cor at his side. This should be no different. This time, of all times, should be the one where he keeps Cor the closest.

And yet.

“I made you a promise,” he hisses, curling his fingers around the edge of Regis’s desk and struggling not to yell. This is still his king, after all.

Regis blinks up at him, impassive and regal. He’s always been good at this sort of thing: blocking people out, making them squirm; waiting out the storm for his moment to win. Cor had never imagined that Regis would ever turn that sort of gaze on him. “I’m not asking you to break that promise,” he tells Cor calmly. “You’ll be protecting the city and its people.”

“I should be with you. Tell me to stay, and I’ll stay.”

Regis’s eyes are lined with a grief that feels ancient, but maybe there’s something fresh in there too. “Cor,” he says, and even the sound of his name hurts him, “you know I can’t tell you to do that.”

“Why not? I’m a soldier, Regis. Your bodyguard. That’s my job.”

“It won’t be safe in the Citadel.”

“It won’t be safe anywhere,” Cor insists, and he stops. He blinks at Regis. And he realizes what Regis meant. “You know something I don’t,” he accuses.

Regis says nothing, because Regis has never lied to him. He just watches Cor, inscrutable as always. There had been a time when Cor had been able to read his face. Not today. Not anymore.

Cor leans closer, scratching at the underside of Regis’s desk. He says, “You’re going to need someone in your corner during that signing.”

“I have plenty of people already. The Council. My Glaives.”

Glaives. Cor nearly snorts. Those people deemed fit to guard Regis just because of their ability to wield Regis’s wild magic. Those people who are draining the king every day. “I don’t trust them with your life, Regis.” He raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“The city needs you,” is all Regis says, a little brusquely, and he stands.

Out of habit, Cor snaps to attention, fighting the urge to salute. He curses his instincts and instead sets his brows further into a frown. “I think you might need me too,” he retorts.

Regis’s eyes flash for a moment with an emotion that might be anger. “I’ll have Clarus. He’ll keep me safe if anything happens. He’s my Shield.”

“He’s not me.”

They both know it’s true. Cor would never usually dare to be so bold, but they both know that Cor is dangerous in ways that Clarus can never achieve.

Regis closes his eyes for a moment, collecting himself. Calmly, coolly, he insists, “Your skills are invaluable, Cor, but they won’t be needed in the Citadel.”

“I may not be your Shield, but I’m still sworn to you.”

It has always been for Regis. He never would have become Mors’s bodyguard if not for the kindness of the king’s young son. After all these years, and onward past whatever end Regis plans for himself, it will still be for him. In the end, it’s just Regis, older and grayer but still undeniably the same man Cor had sworn himself to. Still the man whose side Cor has stood by for thirty years.

The man who’s sending him away.

“You will be stationed on external patrol,” Regis tells him, voice low and hard and unyielding. “You will protect the citizens.”

“Regis.”

“You will bring my son to the edge of the city and send him on his way.”

“Regis.” He can’t stand the stoniness in his tone. The resignation.

“You will tell him,” Regis says, and it’s not a question. It’s an order. “You’ll tell him that this kingdom needs him. You’ll tell him that I was a poor excuse for a father, and not much better at being king, but that I’m trying to fix that while I can.”

“I won’t tell him lies,” Cor snaps.

“Cor,” Regis begins wearily.

“You were always my king,” Cor snarls. “Everything has been for you. Everything. I will not have you throw that away just because you know you’re running out of things to live for.”

That’s when Regis’s face crumples, just a bit, and the mask of the king disappears by fractions. It’s there in his eyes now, and in the way his brows twitch towards an expression of misery and guilt. “There are so many things to live for, Cor,” he says softly, “but there are more important things worth dying for.”

“Like what?” Cor asks, nearly a whisper. His throat feels tight; he’s not sure if it’s misery or rage.

“My son. The kingdom. The fate of the world.” His breath leaves him with a soft whispering across the air between them, drawn out into a resigned, miserable sigh. And then, simply, “You.”

“I’ll be fine,” Cor rasps, because he cannot listen to Regis say that he’s walking to his death to keep him safe. “I’m the Immortal, remember?”

A ghost of a smile tugs at Regis’s lips, lopsided and sad. “You hate that name.”

“I hate a lot of things.” Cor closes the distance between them, standing close enough to touch, if he wishes it. “I hate that you have kept me in here to protect you, but that now you refuse to let me do what I do best. That you have always kept me from the fight ever since you became king.” He bites back his bitterness before it takes over his senses. There are other, more dangerous things he can say.

Regis’s smile turns wry and nearly concerned. “You make it sound like you hate me, Cor.” His voice, still calm, still light, nearly falters. Is that a trace of vulnerability in there?

Cor shakes his head; he could almost laugh if he weren’t so miserable. “I could never hate you.” It’s the truth. “I hate that you’re walking to your death like this.”

Regis raises an eyebrow. It’s so casual a gesture for a time this dire. Doesn’t he realize what will happen if he does this? “You know, then?” he asks. “About what’ll happen?”

“I know enough.” Cor does laugh then, low and hollow. “Don’t think that I haven’t learned, staying here in the Citadel. Being with you. This treaty is dangerous, Regis. You would never put Insomnia in danger unless you had a plan.”

“There’s so little that you understand, Cor-”

“The prophecy, Regis!” Cor interrupts, throwing aside decorum and letting the fight in him flare up after being bound by duty for so long. “I know enough. I’ve learned, Regis. I’m not just your kept weapon anymore.”

Regis steps back and narrows his eyes. “You were always more-”

“But still you doubt me,” Cor snaps. “Five years and a crown, Regis. That’s all there is to set us apart.”

Regis’s eyes flare electric, suddenly a bright, defiant green. “Tell me then, Marshal,” he challenges quietly. Even now, his voice is low and even and precise. Cor’s title on his lips sounds like poison. “What have you learned?”

“You’re bringing his betrothed here but sending him away. If that doesn’t mean that you mean to keep him safe for his destiny, then I don’t know what does.” He sneers his way over the words.

“Clever,” Regis replies, perfectly articulate.

Cor tilts his head just a degree to the side. “Do you regret telling me your son’s prophecy, Regis?” he asks quietly. For the first time in a long time, he feels like a warrior again. He can see the truth of it in Regis’s eyes: the fear and the guilt and the anger. Cor learned a thing or two from Gilgamesh; he knows his opponents’ weaknesses from the flickers in their gaze.

Regis, to his credit, holds his stare. He’s still a king, after all, and he has the Lucii in his eyes. “I regret many things,” he says, “but never you.”

The fight drains out of Cor like it was never there at all, stolen from him like magic from the earth. He sighs and looks at Regis, really looking at him, and all he feels is an immeasurable sadness. “Look at the pair of us,” he mutters, and he laughs. It’s hollow, though, and brittle. “The Immortal and the doomed.”

Regis makes a quiet, frustrated noise, and he sweeps away towards the windows, staring out at Insomnia. When Cor looks at him, he catches the way that the silhouette of Regis’s hand clasps around thin air, reaching out for the possibility of his weapon. What was it he’d wanted to call it? The Sword of the Father? Cor supposes it makes sense now that he’s giving up the life of his nation for the sake of his son.

Cor steps just a bit closer, but still he keeps his distance. Something’s crackling in the air like lightning or steel. He’s lucky there aren’t flames on Regis’s fingertips. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t.”

There’s a knock on the door.

Regis hangs his head; he sighs. “Enter,” he orders roughly.

Cor stalks to the other end of the room; he knows when he’s being dismissed. He knows, somehow, that he’s lost this battle. Whoever this is has shattered whatever chance he might’ve had of changing Regis’s mind or saving his life or maybe both.

It’s Clarus. Of course it’s Clarus. He walks in, dressed in his Council robes, and his pale gaze flickers from Cor to Regis and back again. There’s something in the way that his face falls that lets Cor know that Clarus is perfectly aware of the situation.

“It’s time to see him off,” Clarus says to Regis. He doesn’t meet Cor’s eyes.

Regis nods and turns from the window. He looks down at himself and tugs at his cape, straightening it where it’s fallen out of place. “Are his companions with him?” he asks in a too-formal, too-prepared voice. The veneer on his regal mask is painfully thin.

“They’re all waiting outside the throne room. They put their bags in Cor’s car.”

Cor winces at the mention of his name and his complicity in this whole affair.

“Good,” Regis says, and he fetches his cane where it leans against his desk. He’s moving even more slowly now than the last time Cor saw him. It’s painful to see him like this.

“Clarus,” Cor calls lowly. “Does your son know?”

Clarus finally looks him in the eye. He shakes his head. “He’d never leave if he knew.”

“And your daughter?”

Clarus frowns. “I’ve provided for her. She’ll be safe.”

“And you’re okay with this?”

“I have to be.”

“You have to be,” Cor repeats, and he finds himself sneering around the words. “Gods, Clarus, I thought you’d at least try and fight this.”

“Cor-”

“No, Clarus!” Cor snaps. “I won’t hear it.”

“Cor.” It’s Regis this time, softly.

Cor shakes his head. “I won’t,” he insists, quieter this time. He walks to the door, shouldering past Clarus. He doesn’t find any comfort in his friend’s imposing bulk anymore.

Regis just stares. He looks so miserable. Cor’s glad. He’s glad that this weighs on Regis. Just shows he’s not heartless; it almost makes it worse.

“Good luck trying to protect the greater good,” Cor tells them. “I hope it’s worth it.”

“Cor,” Clarus protests, but Cor is gone, gone, he has always been gone-

He never belonged here. He never should have stayed. He never should have come here at all.

It would have been easier.

Leaving Regis’s office hurts somehow, deep down, like Cor knows he’ll never go back there.

He stews in his fury the whole time he walks the hallways of the Citadel, hardly thinking of his destination. He’ll find his way to where he needs to go eventually, he supposes. He has to drive the prince out of Insomnia. He needs to look Noctis in the eye and lie to him.

He finds himself in his office, staring at the blank, ugly austerity of it all. The curtains are black, and so are the decorations, and the uniform he wears every day. Everything is black. Everything belongs to Regis.

He stares at the pale, innocently empty wall beside the door, decorated only with military accolades. Service to Lucis. Valor on the battlefield. Defense of the people. Everything he’s ever done for his nation, and it’s all a lie.

He punches the wall with a low yell that tears itself from the most visceral part of his chest.

Gods, it hurts.

It’s like battle in his bones for a moment, aching and fierce and scarlet. It’s nothing like fighting fate, and it never will be, but Cor holds on to the delusion for as long as he can, clinging to the stinging sensation of his bone vibrating around the force of impact.

Grimacing, Cor shakes his hand out, scattering blood across the floor and the pale walls. It paints a pretty picture, at least. Adds some color.

It doesn’t matter. This place will be rubble soon, for all he knows.

He has to go. He has a prince he needs to take away from the Citadel. He has a city to condemn.

Cor forgoes any attempts to cover up the wound. At first, he considers pulling out a potion just to concern Regis with the idea of an injury, but he figures that his bloodied, torn knuckles will be enough of a statement. Besides, he welcomes the pain; it’s not half as much of a punishment as he deserves, but it’s what he’ll get.

The Citadel is abuzz around him as he stalks towards the ground floor. The preparations for the signing are well under way. His face must seem uninviting enough, because servants hop out of his way with muttered apologies. Cor takes solace in the fierce rhythm his boots make on the marble floors, echoing his approach long before he arrives and long after he’s gone. The sounds match the storm in his head; he wonders if his fingers are dripping blood in his wake, spreading red where the scarlet soles of his boots have stepped.

When he makes it out into the sunlight, he hardly makes it down to the waiting car before Prince Noctis and his retainers emerge.

There they are, trotting down the stairs with the laid-back, easy grace of children going off on vacation. That’s what they think this is, after all. It’s so achingly akin to the journey of thirty years ago, and of Cor’s naïveté in thinking that a diplomatic mission would be simple. Cor hopes that these boys will find some sort of comfort in the company of those outside the Wall. Cid’ll know what to do, or Weskham. They’ll be able to guide this group in ways that the people within the Wall never could.

Cor misses them. Now, in this hostile city, with Regis and Clarus locked behind myriad lies, Cor needs them more than ever.

There’s Regis, cresting over the steps towards the prince with Drautos not far behind. The sight of a Glaive at Regis’s side has Cor’s jaw clenching around anger and envy. He would’ve preferred Clarus to be there, if anyone. If it can’t be Cor, it shouldn’t be one of Regis’s pet soldiers.

He hopes that Drautos can feel the force of his glare.

Regis catches up with Noctis and takes him by the shoulder, eyes bright and intense even from this distance. He’s imparting some wisdom to Noctis, surely, skirting around the truth in favor of being sentimental. Cor can barely hear it over the distant rumble of the city outside of their little enclave.

Platitudes, he finds himself thinking. Funny that Regis would lean on them now, saying goodbye to his son even as he dooms him.

The other three young men slip past him and into the car, murmuring polite greetings as they go. Cor nods absently to them and turns to the car as soon as Noctis begins descending the stairs once more.

He can feel Regis’s eyes on him. He ignores them.

He drives the prince and his retainers to the city gates in silence. Gladio’s stretched out in the passenger seat beside him, engrossed in some book or another. The other three are in the back; Cor admires the patience of Ignis, who is constantly being elbowed by Prompto. He envies their naivete right now, even though he wants to urge them to look out the windows and take in their final looks at Insomnia. Beautiful Insomnia, exquisite and doomed - Cor’s not sure if it’ll ever look the same.

But he doesn’t tell them. He submits instead to the rules of whatever Regis is planning and he stays silent; stays obedient. He parks behind the shining, beautiful Regalia and he lets them pack their supplies in, listening to them bicker about who’s sitting where.

When they’ve settled themselves in Regis’s prized car, Cor decides to finally get out of the driver’ seat of his own car and bid them farewell. It wouldn’t do for the prince to leave the confines of the Wall without some sort of formal send-off. Regis’s son deserves more than furtive dealings and secret escapes that not even he understands.

“You should be able to make it to Galdin Quay without any trouble,” he tells them, wrapping his fingers around the edge of the Regalia’s door, meeting each of their gazes. “Get on the first boat you can.”

“Any rush?” Gladiolus asks, raising an eyebrow.

Cor shakes his head. “No, but the sooner this peace goes through, the better.”

“Your hand, Marshal,” Ignis points out quietly. “Is it alright?”

Cor looks down at the ragged cuts along his knuckles. “Training,” he says roughly, and he hides his hand from view.

Ignis frowns, but he has the same prim training of every Council member, and he holds his tongue. He doesn’t quite have the control to hide the concern in his eyes, though. Even behind his glasses, they betray him. Cor almost appreciates it. “Marshal,” Ignis says with a curt nod, and it’s a fine enough farewell. It’s easier when they’re both wearing Crownsguard masks. It’s easier than looking at him and seeing the prince’s playmate, precocious and devoted and too smart for his age.

Cor sees him anyway.

“Ignis,” he replies, nodding back. “Safe travels.”

“Of course, sir.” There’s that prim perfection. It’s comforting, in a way, to know that Noctis is taking a portion of the Crown City out into Lucis with him, preserved in the easy lilt of Ignis’s accent.

Cor nods and steps back. He catches Gladiolus’s eye and hopes that Clarus’s son doesn’t have the same perceptive stubbornness as his father. Gladiolus frowns at him in mild concern, but then his gaze slides right past Cor, focusing on a book he’s tugged from a bag or the armiger or some hidden pocket in his leather fatigues. He’s entirely unconcerned, and totally at peace.

They’ll be okay. They’ll be okay.

He looks back at the Regalia.

There’s Ignis in the passenger seat, and Gladiolus in the back, and excitable, half-civilian Prompto at the wheel of Regis’s car.

And Noctis.

Cor can’t just let him go like this.

“Noctis,” he says suddenly, reaching out and holding on tightly to the edge of the Regalia’s door.

The prince blinks his eyes open, squinting against the sun. He just looks mildly inconvenienced. He has no idea. How can he have no idea? “Cor?” he asks.

Cor opens his mouth, but no words come out. He’s not even sure what he would have said if he’d had a plan.

“Everything okay?” Noctis asks, leaning towards Cor a bit.

And Cor almost tells him. He almost blurts the entire ugly truth. He almost begs Noctis to stay and fight or run far, far away from whatever Regis has set in motion.

But he can’t. So instead-

“Your father loves you,” he says. “So much.”

Noctis stares at him, and his eyes are storm-steel-blue and Cor cannot see Regis in them. “I know,” he tells him, low and lazy and so, so unaware of the kingship he is about to inherit.

And the Regalia starts with a roar, and Cor steps back from the car, and he bids farewell to the child he’d known once.

And then he’s just-

Gone.

Out of Insomnia. Beyond the Wall. Now he’s somewhere not even Cor can follow him to. Not until the signing. Not until whatever Regis is planning. Until then, Noctis is on his own.

He’s the last remnant that Cor will have of Regis. If what Cor suspects ends up coming to pass, soon there will be only one Caelum to protect. It hurts, deep in his heart, to know that Regis’s fate is hurtling towards both of them faster than any of them can want. It hurts more to know that Regis isn’t telling him; isn’t telling his son. Even if Regis won’t trust him with the truth, Cor will do what he needs to in order to keep the prince safe. Lucis can burn if it means he can keep Regis’s legacy alive.

He can’t lose another king.

—

The day of the signing, there isn’t much time.

Cor doesn’t bother seeking anyone else out in the time after he lets Noctis go. Instead, he wanders the city under cover of darkness, taking in the sights of the only home he’s known. Every time he’s left Insomnia, he’s been surrounded by war and death; Insomnia was an escape from that. Insomnia was safe. He looks at the people he passes, seeing excitement and hope in their eyes as they watch the news for information on the signing, and he pities them. These people aren’t ready for war. He hopes they’ll cherish their last night of peace.

Today, though, he stares at his reflection, studying how his silver and black uniform looks in the morning light.

He needs to go on duty. He needs to guard the people. He needs to let Regis walk into this trap.

His uniform cap sits on the top corner of the mirror, slung over it in preparation for some formal ceremony or another. Faintly, Cor remembers the Rock of Ravatogh.

On a whim, he picks up the hat and puts it on. It still fits, surprisingly. Years ago, he would have been relieved to feel its weight on his head again, but it’s been years since he stopped being that little Crownsguard recruit with too much respect for the authority of the crown. All the same, it’s not an unwelcome feeling. The uniform, whole once more, reminds him of his purpose, of his calling, and of what he is to Lucis. He is a weapon, a soldier; a symbol. Immortal.

And he’s leading Insomnia into a trap.

He frowns at himself in the mirror. If he lies hard enough to himself, he’s almost convinced that he’s fifteen and bold again, and that he’s capable of saving Lucis. But underneath the brim of the cap, Cor knows his own eyes.

He leaves before he can get too disgusted with himself.

The Citadel is cold around him.

Of course his path and Regis’s cross.

Regis is at the end of the hallway, for once not surrounded by his advisors and Glaives. It’s just Regis, moving from one spot to the next, brought into Cor’s path by coincidence or fate. He stops before Cor can even say a word, and he stares. He’s in his court best, all black and gold and silver, bearing his cane and the Ring as proof of the power of the Lucii. He walks towards Cor, intent and focused.

Cor’d been wishing that he wouldn’t see Regis again. Maybe he’d thought it would make things easier if he hated Regis as he died. Maybe he could have turned his grief into more rage, and more, and finally become the weapon he needed to be for Lucis.

But seeing Regis here, knowing that this is the end, is more than he can take.

He turns away.

“Cor,” Regis calls.

Cor stops. He turns. He stares at him.

“Regis,” he says.

“I didn’t know you kept that,” Regis says, quietly bemused. If he’s hurting, he hides it well. “The hat, I mean.”

Cor shrugs, fighting the bitterness that threatens to curl his lips into a sneer. He quells the voice in his heart that urges him to spit poison back at Regis, to make him regret ever refusing him. “Of course I did,” he replies. “It’s part of the uniform.”

“You’ve a penchant for breaking the rules. Uniforms are no exception.”

“I’m obedient when I need to be.” Cor lifts his chin just a bit. “When my king commands.”

Regis almost winces. “Your hat, Cor-”

The sound of his name in Regis’s defeated voice is enough to give Cor pause. He meets Regis’s eyes, and that’s his greatest mistake: he’s never been able to ignore the sheer weight of feeling in Regis’s gaze. “Regis,” he murmurs. And then, impulsively, “Here.” He takes the hat from his head and holds it out towards Regis.

Regis shakes his head. He places his hands over Cor’s and gently pushes his hands back towards his chest, forcing the hat towards Cor. “That’s not for me. Keep it safe.”

“So you can have something,” Cor insists, trying his best to ignore how childish it sounds. So maybe some part of him will be with Regis, in the end.

“Cor.” Regis blinks at him; his eyebrows crease into a frown. He doesn’t move his hands from Cor’s. “We both know-”

Cor sighs. “I know.” Platitudes. They don’t need these sorts of physical reminders or keepsakes. The armiger is always there, of course. Even now, it urges him closer, but it can’t be obeyed. Cor’s not sure why he’s choosing to do something like this.

He’s not sure why he feels like this.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, and he’s not sure what he’s talking about. Everything, maybe. Or at least, everything that has ever mattered.

“Insomnia needs its Marshal, and it needs him at his best.”

“And it needs its monarch.”

Regis murmurs, “I should go.”

“You should,” Cor agrees.

Neither of them lets go.

Regis drops his gaze to their fingers. “I-”

“You need to go,” Cor finishes. “I know. The king’s work is never done.”

“Neither is the Marshal’s.”

“I know.”

Regis’s fingers tighten around his for just a moment, swift enough to be taken for a mistake, and he lets go. In the wake of his touch, Cor only feels lonely. There isn’t any feral magic between them this time. The armiger yearns for communion, but neither of them obey its miserable calls for them to get closer-

Cor puts on the hat, straightening it carefully. He’s a soldier, and he would not dare mess this up. Not now.

He salutes Regis for the last time.

It’s the wrong way. Backwards. Fist to chest, as always, but this time he uses his right arm, and his fist strikes home over his heart.

Regis’s gaze gleams for a second, and the haze of the Lucii’s power fades from them, and suddenly it’s not the monarch standing there. It’s just Regis, Cor’s king and prince and- “Cor-”

“No,” Cor interrupts. “Just…Regis. I made you a promise.”

“You keep your promises,” Regis murmurs on the tail end of a sigh. “Cor, I’m-”

Cor shakes his head. “No apologies, remember?”

Regis presses his lips together and nods. He looks like he’s about to say something more, though, but there’s only sadness in his eyes. “Take care,” is all he says, but it’s enough.

Cor blinks, hard, and he finds that there’s something rising in the back of his throat, threatening to strangle him with an emotion he cares not to name. “Goodbye, Regis,” he says.

And he leaves.

---

Insomnia falls in the night.

And Cor rages.

Never in his life has his katana felt more like part of him, lashing out at anything that dares lay a hand on anything in his nation. This all belongs to them, to Lucis, to Regis, and he will not let them have it. He will not let Niflheim take this away from him.

He bares his teeth, tasting blood from some wound or another, and he does not care. He lays waste to the city streets around him in his efforts to rend the Niflheim troops apart in every way he knows, and he does not care. There is only the battle, and the night, and the knowledge that he will have a new king come dawn.

Daemons run in his streets, and he destroys them. He makes massacres of entire squadrons, scattering scrap metal and Niflheim flags in the streets of Insomnia. He gets the civilians out. Because he has always been a soldier, and soldiers follow orders.

And all he can think, through the hate and the tears and the blood-

I made you a promise.

---

There is no funeral for Regis.

There is just Cor, sneaking back into the ruins of Insomnia using long-remembered instincts from his days before the Crownsguard. Before he’d been found, he’d been scrappy and sullen and swift, and he’d known how to work his way around the law enforcement patrolling the Crown City. Compared to the militant vigilance of Lucian Crownsguard soldiers, the magitek troopers are nothing. If anything, they’re an insult to his city.

The Nifs haven’t had time to set up a proper perimeter yet. Cor doubts they would be able to anyway. Nothing can keep him out if Regis is still in there.

He follows the tug in his chest where the armiger sits, finally giving in to its quiet demands to go closer-

He tries to ignore how hollow the armiger feels.

The Citadel is simultaneously busy and hauntingly empty as he stalks through its shattered corridors. Robots, no matter their numbers, will never make their castle feel like their home. A few times, Cor almost stumbles upon wandering troopers in groups of five or six, marching with eerie precision through Lucian halls, but he presses himself into the nearest hiding place or slips into an adjacent room, avoiding the fight he craves in favor of searching out his king.

Eventually, the magic of the armiger gives way to instinct, and Cor comes bursting into one of the more beautiful rooms of the Citadel, and he sees him.

Regis.

Cor would know the robes anywhere; he knows the cane on the floor, and he knows the feeling of old magic crackling in the air. Everything in this room feels like Regis, and Cor would know his king in any way. He’s ingrained so deeply in Cor that he’d know him by the ache in his bones. The ache in his heart is telling enough.

It’s Regis.

He’s dead.

He died like a warrior. He died like a king.

And they just left him here.

Cor stumbles and falls to his knees. He ignores the blood that seeps into his uniform. He’s covered in it anyway, and in far worse things. King’s blood is the least of his worries.

“Regis,” he breathes. “Oh, Regis.”

There’s no question about how Regis died. With a gaping wound tearing through his kingly raiment, Cor can only wonder who did this to him. He carefully, gently lifts Regis up, pulling his torso into his lap. He traces the familiar, freezing lines of Regis’s face, sliding his eyes closed with a single gentle motion. He’s done this so many times with so many bodies. He’s laid so many soldiers to rest. But this time it hurts, it hurts-

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Regis’s silver hair, pressing his lips to the crown. Regis would tell him that there are no apologies; that he says sorry too much. But it’s the only thing he could possibly hope to say now. Maybe things would have been different if he’d only disobeyed for once. “I should have been here. I should have been at your side.”

Platitudes, he can hear Regis say. Cor knows the truth of it: there is no room for empty sentiments in war or in love. Not here. Not for them.

He would bury him somewhere beautiful, if he could. Regis deserves to be laid to rest in the tomb of a great king, interred in some place where every Lucian who saw it would know that their king died to buy them time. There’s no time to build a tomb, though, and there’s no way he’ll gain access to the kings’ mausoleum below the Citadel.

But he can’t just leave him in Insomnia, where the Nifs will lord over him and find his body and make a trophy of him. No matter how he died, Regis was still a king. Is still a king.

He gathers Regis up in his arms, cradling him with all the strength the armiger affords him.

Why does he feel so fragile?

Cor knows all of the secret passages in the Citadel’s heart. He descends into them with practiced ease, racing through them to take Regis to safety.

Regis’s study probably must have been ransacked by now, but nobody cares about the office of a soldier. Cor makes it to his office without alerting anybody, trusting the priorities of the magitek infantry to ignore the administrative quarters. He slips inside and closes the door with as much care as he can muster while still holding on tightly to Regis.

In the relative safety of the office, Cor sags against the wall, heaving out a breath that threatens to become a sob if he dares to let it be so. He looks around at this little haven he has in the middle of his burning city. It’s the same miserable office, Lucian to the very core. His blood is still spattered across the wall where he punched it. He never did clean it up between punching it and the signing ceremony.

He needs to get Regis out of here, but he can’t just bring the body of the king out of Insomnia without drawing the wrath of every Nif in the city. Cor would hold him in the armiger if he could, close to his heart, but he knows that the magic of the Crystal would reject such an idea. No, he needs to hide him in plain sight.

His office’s curtains will have to do.

It feels wrong to wrap Regis up and hide him behind thick dark fabric, but it’s necessary if there’s any hope of getting him out of here. So Cor does it as tenderly as he can, folding his king into a cocoon of black, royal and anonymous all at once. If he tucks his uniform cap in as well, clasped beneath Regis’s fingers, nobody will know.

“Forgive me,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead to Regis’s through the wrappings. “I’m doing this for you. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

There’s no answer. Of course there isn’t. That doesn’t do anything to alleviate the ache in his chest when Regis’s lilting accent doesn’t sound in reply.

Insomnia is burning in his wake when Cor emerges on the outskirts of the city, nearly staggering under the strain of carrying Regis. Around him, other refugees stumble through the streets, carrying what they can out of the ruins of their precious city.

The gates of Insomnia are even more congested than the streets when Cor approaches. There are Niflheim flags hastily erected in lieu of the dark reaper and skulls of Lucis. Cor tries to hide his grimace at the sight. He keeps his head down, partly to avoid seeing his city’s shame, and partly to hide his face. He’s not sure how anyone here will react to the sight of the Immortal.

Someone jostles him in their haste to get out of the city. Cor doesn’t lose his grip on Regis - he never would - but he falters all the same.

“You,” calls a border guard, and Cor’s heart sinks. He’d had no idea that there would be humans here.

He stops just below a guard station, pointedly not looking up. He’s almost through. He’s almost free. There can be no mistakes now. He holds still, holding Regis’s body just a little tighter, and he waits.

The voice comes down to him again, sharp and imperious. “What do you have there?”

Cor stares up at the guard.

The fact that he’s human, Cor thinks, makes this occupation worse. It was easier to come to terms with machines destroying his city. That a human would massacre civilians has him clenching his jaw around his rage as he squints up at the guard. This one’s young-looking for an officer. He has freckles speckled across his cheeks and bright, gleaming blue eyes. Another guard peeks out from behind him, and his frown draws creases in his freckled forehead.

They all look like that. All of them, beneath their helmets, are all angles and painful similarity. They’re not identical by any means, but Cor sees something in these guards that he can’t quite name. There’s something glinting red in all of their eyes, making them gleam violet in the shadows of their uniforms. There’s something there. He doesn’t trust it. He doesn’t trust anything out of Niflheim.

“A body,” he growls. They don’t need to know anything more.

“A body,” the guard repeats. He squints down at Cor’s face for a moment, but there’s no flicker of recognition in his unsettling violet-blue eyes. It’s a wonder they don’t know his face. It seems that not every enemy has heard of the Immortal after all. He’s been kept for too long behind a Wall of magic and safety and deceit, guarding the throne of a king who forgot him in the armiger.

“That’s right.”

The guard wrinkles his nose; the other one who was behind him hops down from the guard station and stalks towards Cor. “Submit yourself for inspection,” he orders. “You could be smuggling weapons in there.”

There aren’t any weapons in this bundle - not anymore, especially with the Ring sheared from Regis’s hand - but these guards have no idea of the size of the armory beneath Cor’s skin. He’s tempted to draw his blade and strike the heads from these usurpers’ skinny shoulders. He wants to; his hands are aching for violence, and his heart roars for revenge. He doesn’t, though. He is a soldier, and he knows when he’s lost. He stares up at the guard in the booth.  “Don’t take him from me,” he says quietly.

“Cooperate, and we won’t have to.”

“This would have been safer in the city,” the guard on the ground sniffs, stalking towards Cor with stiff military strides. “The people leaving the city do not need to bring corpses.”

Cor adjusts his grip; his thumb slides along the curve of Regis’s shoulder. “I do.”

“It’s a contagion risk; it’ll breed disease-”

“It’s his body, and I-I couldn’t leave him-”

The tears spring unbidden to his eyes, but they’re helpful enough for the ruse. Cor hates that they aren’t as fake as he wants them to be.

“I loved him-”

His first time admitting it to someone other than Regis, some time other than the cover of night where they’d thought they were safe-

“I loved him,” he repeats, and he holds Regis’s body closer.

It works. The guard nods to his companion, who reaches out towards the bundle in Cor’s arms that hides the body of a king. “Let us inspect-”

Cor jerks backwards with violent force. They can’t touch him. They don’t deserve to lay their hands on a king, on Regis-

“Don’t,” he snarls, low and rough and furious. “Haven’t you taken enough?”

For a second, the guard beside him lifts his hand as if he’s tempted to strike. All around them, the other citizens of Insomnia stream out of the city, desperate for safety. Some spare him a frightened, sympathetic look. Most don’t.

Cor wishes again, desperately, that he could draw his katana right now.

“That’s enough. Move along.”

For a moment, Cor stands still, nearly quivering. He blinks hard against the sting of his tears. He wants nothing more than to turn his rage on these invaders and take out his fury on their flesh. They don’t deserve to live if Regis is dead. They don’t deserve the city he and Regis tried so hard to protect. Lucians died for the peace they built, and Niflheim has shattered everything in the span of a night.

“Move,” the guard snarls, “before I change my mind.”

Cor keeps moving.

Someone catches his eye; they blink at him, then at the heavy bundle in his arms, and back to his face. They open their mouth, as if they’re about to call his name. There’s so much shock in their face, and such hope. Do they think he can save them all?

He shakes his head at them slowly, hoping that his eyes convey enough of a warning. It’s enough: the refugee’s mouth slowly falls closed, and they nod quickly, face falling back into despair. Cor ducks his head. He can feel eyes on him regardless. They know him, and they suspect enough. Some people place hands on his shoulder as they pass him. Some spit at his feet.

Nobody touches the king.

It’s a long walk to Hammerhead.

---

Cid knows what to do. Cid always knows.

Cor had never been one for magic, but he knows that Regis stored some away for him at some point; the ice spells help in the brutal heat of Leide. When Cor staggers into Hammerhead, dusty and exhausted and holding the body of a king, Cid orders Cindy to watch the shop, and he takes Cor deeper into the garage, locking them in his miserable little office.

They sit and stare at the curtains. Neither of them is willing to unwrap what’s inside.

“I heard the radio,” Cid mutters. “Didn’t think it was true. Nif lies.”

“Not this time.”

Cid shakes his head, gripping at the brim of his hat. “What was it?” he asks.

“A sword, probably.” Cor stares over at the bundle of black curtains. “To the back.”

Cid makes a disgusted little sound. “He deserved better than that. He was a king.”

“Clarus-”

“He survived?” There’s not even a shred of hope in Cid’s eyes. It’s just a reflex.

“I’m not sure where he is.” Cor rubs at the bridge of his nose. “But knowing Clarus-”

“He wouldn’t have gone down without a fight,” Cid finishes. “They’re too young for that. Old man like me outlives those two, and you know something’s wrong.” He heaves out a long sigh. “Something’s wrong with this world.”

Cor nods. He doesn’t have it in him to protest. “We can make it right.”

Cid fixes him with a hard, inscrutable stare. “We can try, Cor.”

They bury Regis together out in the shifting dust and scrub brush around Hammerhead. There’s no coffin, no prayers; no ceremony. No Oracle blesses his bones. Cor’s not sure where his soul will go now that he’s gone. His sword, maybe, wherever it may be, or the Ring they took from him by force. It’s not here. It wouldn’t stay in this broken body they’re burying beneath the earth.

There can be no grave marker for him. They can’t risk anybody finding the body of their king. It’ll just be their memories from now on, reminding them of where they’ve left him to rest. Until the time comes for them to give him the burial he deserves.

“Too damn early,” Cid mutters.

“He was a fool to do it,” Cor says, and he tries to force venom into it; tries to force hate, but it won’t come out. It’s not there anymore. There’s just the sadness, and the anger at whoever it was that took Regis from the world. Whoever took Regis from him. He’s vibrating with the force of it. No, wait, that’s something actually vibrating, what is that-

Someone’s calling.

Cor digs his phone out of his pocket and stares at the screen. It’s a wonder that their phones even work now that Insomnia has fallen, but here he is, staring at Prince Noctis’s name. He blinks down at it dumbly.

“You answer that phone, Cor,” Cid orders.

“It could be a ruse. They could have caught him.” He’s staring at it. It’s ringing.

Cid smacks him. “That’s a damn lie and you know it. That’s Reggie’s boy.” He fixes Cor with a withering, desperate glare. “You answer that phone for him. For Reggie.”

Cor answers the phone.

For a heartbeat, there’s only silence. Cor almost despairs. And then-

“H-hello? Cor?”

It’s him. It’s real.

Cor reaches out and steadies himself on Cid’s shoulder. All of this, and Noctis is alive. “So,” he says, trying to keep his voice in line, “you made it.”

“The hell’s going on?” There’s no such control in Noct’s voice. He never did quite learn that skill from Regis.

“Where are you?” They don’t have time for explanations. Not now.

“Outside the city, with no way back in.”

Cor rubs at the bridge of his nose. At least they’re safely outside. “Makes sense.”

Noctis hisses, “‘Makes sense’? Are you serious? What about any of this makes sense? The news just told me I’m dead—along with my father and Luna.”

“Listen. I’m heading out to Hammerhead.” The lie is simple enough. The truth is harder, but it falls from his lips just the same. “About the king…it’s true.”

The sound that Noctis makes is one that Cor doesn’t think he’ll forget. Cor’s just glad he can’t see his face. Or his eyes.

“If you’re looking for the whole truth, you know where to find me. Get moving.” He can’t be anything more to Noct than a motivation. Noct doesn’t need the Cor of his childhood. He needs the Immortal. Cor can be that for him.

Noct is silent for a moment. “Right,” he says, breathless and miserable.

Cor hangs up before he says something he’ll regret.

“That boy’s our kingdom’s last hope,” Cid says roughly, frowning down at Regis’s grave.

“He’s everyone’s last hope,” Cor replies, and he turns to leave. “You know where to find me,” he says. “I can’t stay in Hammerhead. Tell him where I’ve gone.”

“Stay,” Cid urges. “For just a little while longer. For old times’ sake.”

“I need to go,” he tells Cid. He can’t keep stopping himself in his tracks for Regis. Not even now. There are things he still needs to do, and promises he needs to keep.

“I’ll stay here,” Cid promises. “I left Insomnia to come to Hammerhead, and I’m not intending to leave anytime soon. Reggie’ll be safe with me.”

“Cid-”

“I’ve got time left in me yet.” Cid fixes him with a hard stare. “I’d die before leaving Reggie alone.”

“Cid.” He’s not sure if he’s about to apologize or tell Cid that his life is worth more than the bones of a king, but Cid stops him.

“I took too long to come back,” he says, voice rough and weary and worn by more than just time. “Now Reggie’s gone and left me out here.” He coughs out something that might’ve passed as a laugh if Cor didn’t know him well enough to recognize the sob.

Cor wants to reply, to comfort Cid in some way, but he knows he’s never been good at that. Besides, there’s something rising in his throat that is suspiciously akin to tears. To grief. He clears his throat to dispel the feeling, but it remains, persistent and growing with every moment he stands above the freshly packed earth. He hates this new sensation - this grief. He’s been able to push aside the pain of everything else. Everyone he’s lost since the eerie desperation in the Tempering Grounds, every soldier, every student, every colleague and friend, Aulea - he’s been numb to them all.

Except this. Except Regis.

“I have to go,” he says roughly, and he turns away. “Take care of him for me.”

Cid doesn’t reply. Cor can hear the way his breaths are shaking around his silent weeping, and he tries to ignore the wet tracks burning down his own cheeks. Soldiers don’t cry. Soldiers don’t cry.

Not for kings. Not for anyone.

When Cor’s far enough away that his desperate lungs allow him to breathe, he turns back.

Cid stands at the grave, motionless and silhouetted by the sun. Head bowed, hands in his pockets, he looks almost statuesque above Regis’s resting place. Finally reunited with his old friend.

It’d be beautiful if it didn’t hurt so much.

---

Noctis meets him in Keycatrich, not knowing that his father has been lain to rest in the place he has just left. Cor doesn’t tell him. There are some secrets he will keep where nobody can find them. It has been so long since he’s kept something for himself.

There’s an unearthly air to Noctis. Magic radiates from him in rippling waves. Cor was around Regis enough in their youth to know this feeling, but he can see the way that the prince’s instability weighs on his retainers. All of them have dark circles beneath their too-bright eyes, proof of their connection to the live wire that is their prince. If this is him now, inheriting the magic of his line, Cor can’t imagine how powerful he will be when he has the Ring. When he becomes the Chosen King in more than just name.

-king of what, noctis spits, and he almost sounds like regis-

-noctis slams his hands onto the king’s altar, but even then his fingers don’t crackle with sparks-

When he leaves them at the entrance to Keycatrich’s underground bunker, he can’t help but feel relieved somehow.

Cor crouches to the ground back in Hammerhead after they’ve gone, splaying his fingers across the newly packed earth. He prays that nobody will find him. This is no place for a king, but he can only hope that Regis will rest easily here by the home of a friend.

“I’ll come back for you,” he whispers.

He made a promise.

---

When they take down Loqi at the Norduscaen Blockade, Cor tries to imagine that it’s thirty years ago. He’s allowed to indulge in his own wishful thinking sometimes.

It’s easy enough to see Clarus in the lines of black ink on Gladiolus’s arms. A Shield just like his father, Gladio covers massive distances in the span of heartbeats if it means he can be at his prince’s side. He yells commands to the others even as he tears into the armor of some unfortunate axeman, focused on everything at once. He looks untouchable.

Cor wonders if he’s allowed himself to mourn for his father yet.

Noctis warps across the battlefield, yelling a challenge. He leaves blue shadows in his wake, gleaming temptingly and drawing fire from confused snipers before they fade into crystal and light. A vision in black and blue and steel, Noctis could almost pass for Regis, always in motion and always, always lethal.

The others are different. It’s harder to fit them into his memories of how things used to be.

The gunman doesn’t have half of Weskham’s polished composure with a pistol, but he makes up for it in raw talent, stumbling over his own feet even as he makes headshots on the snipers far across the battlefield. That kind of talent is uncanny. Cor sees the violet cast in the Argentum boy’s eyes, and the way his hair falls blonde and bright against the freckles on his cheeks. He thinks of Loqi in the mech, and the way he’d looked golden in his armor against the setting sun.

He thinks of the gates of Insomnia, and of soldiers that tried to take his king from him.

But he watches Prompto dash over to where Noctis has knocked himself into stasis again, and he sees the little gunman tug an ether from the armiger and shatter it onto Noct’s chest, whispering encouragement that Cor couldn’t dream of hearing over the roar of the battle.

And that makes it easier, Cor thinks, to forgive him for crimes he hasn’t even committed.

Ignis, however, is incomparable to anyone from Cor’s memory. He’s all daggers and lances and leaps through the air, elegant in every movement.

It’s the magic, Cor thinks. The magic is what sets him apart, and the grace. Noct casts magic from flasks he pulls from the armiger. He doesn’t have half of the control over his abilities that Regis did at his age. Ignis calls fire to his hands when Noctis orders him to, though, lighting his palms and knives afire for a burst of destruction. He’s got a talent for it that transcends anything the prince is doing. When he pushes his glasses up his nose with gloves still half-aflame, his gaze catches Cor’s in the heat of battle.

He’s got green eyes.

Yes, Cor thinks. It’s the magic. It’s in his eyes.

“Marshal!” Noctis barks, and he points with commanding certainty at Loqi’s magitek armor.

Yes, this he can do. This is familiar. He leaps into motion - hand on hilt, hand on sheath - and draws his katana with a yell, sending the force of the king’s magic into the slash. The shock wave cripples the unwieldy legs of the armor, and the entire mechanism stumbles. Loqi curses roughly at him over the intercom, and he unleashes a barrage of missiles in Cor’s direction. Cor avoids those too, rolling out of the way with practiced ease.

Noct yells in triumph and warps towards the weak spot, engine blade shining in the air in the heartbeats where he does not exist in their world. He bursts back into being right as his blade strikes home in steel, an unreal creature of blue and black and magic. Cor takes the cue and strikes as well, and the magitek armor creaks and crumples beneath their combined assault. And for a moment, it feels natural. It feels beautiful.

He can’t help noticing, though, that Noctis called him by his title and not his name.

They win. Of course they do. With the prince on their side, there’s nothing they can’t do. Cor knows these commands like his own name, honed over thirty years of war and practice. He knows he will always respond when Reg-

No.

Noctis. This is Noctis.

Cor tries to remind himself of that.

The prince - Noctis, Prince Noctis, King Noctis - approaches, swinging his sword in his hand before lazily banishing it back to the armiger. He tosses his dark hair out of his eyes - blue still, and cold as steel now that he has lost his kingdom - and frowns at Cor. The expression is familiar even if the face isn’t; on a different prince, years ago, that look might have made Cor smile.

Instead, he just nods to Noctis, and to his retainers. “Impressive. Seeing you in action puts my mind at ease. It’s clear I don’t need to worry anymore.” Another lie. He’ll add it to the list of his sins in the service of king and country. He will always, always worry. “I’ll return to watching the Nifs. ‘Til next time, take care.”

He turns his back on Noctis before he loses his resolve.

He leaves.

---

When he takes Gladio to Taelpar, he doesn’t want to.

It’s too familiar. Clarus had refused this so long ago. Cor almost wishes that he’d been convinced to stay back while all of the other men ran to their deaths. It would have been kinder, he thinks. It would have made things so much easier.

He never would have been immortal.

The bodies of the dead and damned stir and creak to life all around them. Some attack; some don’t. Their eyes are watching them, he knows. Watching him. He knows some of these bodies, if he cares enough to look. He doesn’t know if he’d ever known them well enough to bother learning their names. They’d all been brave, and they’d all been foolish, and they’d all died.

He slices through the decaying armor of one of the dead, gritting his teeth against the recognition of the Lucian crest. This man probably mocked him once. This man had thrown himself in here in the pursuit of glory and the protection of king and country. This man had died like all the others, and Cor had watched.

Gladiolus doesn’t mention it, and for that, Cor is thankful.

Later, by the campfire, Gladiolus steps away to the edge of their cliff, looking out over the shining blue spires of Taelpar Crag. Silhouetted against the fading, rage-red light of the setting sun, he looks like he could be a warrior.

Cor pities him.

You failed, Gilgamesh whispers in his mind. You have failed your king. Your life is forfeit.

“Which king?” he whispers into the firelight, trying desperately to look at the flames and remember Regis’s face. He prays that Gladio will not hear him over the crackling of the flames.

It matters not. You have failed them all.

He protests, “Noctis lives still.”

Fate drives him forward.

Fate. He wishes he’d never learned of Noct’s fate.

He stands abruptly, sending stones tumbling into the fire. “Gladio,” he calls, voice steel-strong and undoubtedly the voice of the Marshal, of the Immortal, of Regis’s weapon. “Come on. We keep moving.”

Gladio turns from the cliff, eyes gleaming amber in the firelight and the setting sun. He frowns. “What’s the rush?”

Cor is already halfway up the next walkway, dragging himself closer to Gilgamesh. “He’s waiting for you,” he growls.

Fate is driving them all, after all.

A few times, he almost asks Gladio why he’s done this. Why he’s really done this. There’s an absent, wild hope in his heart that wonders if someone might understand. But Gladio is driven to the Tempering Grounds by his feelings of inadequacy more than pride, and by friendship rather than admiration. He’s a Shield, after all.

Cor was only ever a bodyguard. A weapon. A sword in hand, sheathed and kept by the king, only drawn when the king wished to bare his teeth. Bound by honor, by duty, by love-

A fool’s errand, Gilgamesh had told him when he was fifteen and stupid and desperate to prove himself to king and country and prince. Cor hadn’t understood; he hadn't listened. He hadn’t known.

Would that he had. It would have been easier.

When they get to the trial chamber, Cor knows what he has to do. He sets his feet in the bloodstained earth and draws his blade, just a bit, baring the steel to this horrible, cursed place. He almost shows his teeth along with it, wanting so badly to snarl out his rage at the Blademaster. But that isn’t what he’s here for now. He’s not here to take the trial. He’s not here to fight.

He feels Gilgamesh’s grim satisfaction, though, and when the passage to the bridge opens, Cor flinches under a sudden weight.

His gaze. Those eyes.

Gladio goes into the trial chamber.

Cor tries not to mourn him.

Outside the trial chamber, Cor can only hear the faint clang of steel on steel. He wanders out to the cliff side, blinking into the eerie blue light of the Crag, and he watches the battle from afar. There are flashes of familiar, dreadful red light, proof of Gilgamesh’s undying power. But every flash means that Gladio’s still alive, and that he’s still fighting. Cor takes solace in these small assurances of his survival.

Gilgamesh spares him a glance once, and Cor knows the moment that his eyes fall on him. It feels like judgment. It feels like triumph.

But Gladio wins.

Gladio approaches, and he’s bleeding from his head and chest, but his eyes gleam bright, proud amber. For a moment, he reminds Cor so much of Clarus that it hurts to look at him.

He sees the katana in Gladio’s hand, and for a moment, all he can do is stare. And then the light catches the metal of the chain wrapped between Gladio’s fingers, and at the end gleams a pristine Crownsguard sigil.

See, gloats Gilgamesh, and Cor’s heart sinks, there can always be another.

—

Caem feels like more than just a farewell.

Noctis looks better than he had back at the blockade. His eyes are brighter; maybe it’s the promise of his betrothed on the other side of the sea, or maybe he’s finally growing into his power. He doesn’t feel like he’s always at risk of loosing the armiger on them all anymore, at least. Instead, there’s an air to him of near-inhumanity, evidence of the covenants he’s forged with two of the Six. It’s terrifying. Cor supposes he’ll take that as a victory.

Gladio meets his gaze steadily; there’s no hint of recognition in his face. He’s like his father in that way, hiding his emotions and what he knows. He’s Clarus brought back to life, and that alone has his throat going dry with old grief.

He swallows his pride and smothers his fear and he speaks.

“Something I gotta get off my chest.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m sorry. Sorry I wasn’t there for your father. I swore an oath to protect the king, but I wasn’t strong enough to uphold it.”

I made him a promise.

Cid spares him any further torment with his words of encouragement. And maybe Noctis forgives him, if not with words. It’s there in his eyes, and in the way he looks from Cid to Cor to their old photo, and the way that his face falls into something like grief.

Cor sees him off. Cid is driving the boat, bringing them away to Altissia and to Weskham. It’ll be four of them together again: Cid and Weskham and the prince and his Shield.

And Cor won’t be there for it.

Long after the boat disappears against the horizon, Cor stands atop the lighthouse, and he wishes for a storm.

---

Noctis doesn’t come back from Altissia.

Gladio gives him status updates when he can, but they’re terse and short and devoid of any familiarity. The joy fades from the world as surely as the sunlight does.

Ignis is blind.

Noctis won’t wear the Ring.

Cor remembers a tomb Regis told him about once. A king who lost his love. A warrior, a conqueror, far from home and across the sea. He tells them. Maybe Noctis will find some sort of solace in the old king’s glaive.

Prompto is lost.

The three that remain push onwards to Gralea. Cor loses touch with them when they make it into the frigid wastes beyond Tenebrae.

Three of them come back from Gralea as the sun disappears.

Noctis isn’t one of them.

---

Once the night has fallen, everything just feels worse.

Cor hates the Glaives. He hates their magic, he hates their traitorous pasts, and he hates that they are truly unkillable. Truly immortal. But they have their uses, and though Cor can feel his own connection to Regis’s magic fading, he still holds tightly to it; he uses it with pride. He was the one who was always loyal. He was the one who remembered the value of an oath. He works with the Glaives, sure. He’s polite.

But he doesn’t forgive.

Cid, in his despair, wants to be buried beneath Hammerhead. Cor catches him staring at his old weapons sometimes, as if he’s contemplating something that Cor does not want to name. But Cor stays in Hammerhead in those times, and he keeps Cid safe from himself. Besides, it keeps them close to Regis.

Cindy wants to take Cid to Lestallum permanently, where she says he’ll be safe. Cor insists on one last excursion with him before she takes him away from Hammerhead for good.

They have a promise to keep.

They go to Insomnia.

They bring tools.

They bring weapons.

They bring Regis.

They brave the daemons. Cid may be older than he used to be, but he’s still one of Regis’s chosen, even now. Regis only ever chose the ones who he knew could keep their promises.

He and Cid make a memorial for Regis, hammering it out in the stone of the plaza. The daemons prowl around them as Cid does his work, but he doesn’t rush for the sake of their safety. He’s determined to see this through. His hammer strikes true on the chisel, ringing out a challenge to the daemons with every bit of progress he makes towards etching Regis’s name into Insomnia forever.

Cor defends him through it all, stalking around the perimeter of the plaza, putting his body between the daemons and Cid. This is familiar. Order. Control. He can be a weapon again. He can defend his king again.

Proud of me, Regis? he almost asks as he slices the head off of a twisted, snarling coeurl that drips black and red poison from its teeth. There’s no answer - there never is - but Cor pretends that there is one, and that Regis calls him beautiful.

They stay there for five days, taking shelter in the guard booths at the Citadel gates. They catch fitful sleep when they can, but they can never quite settle down for proper sleep. The darkness below their eyes grows with every passing hour, but at least the blackness of the eternal night is oppressive enough to hide that. They don’t dare go into the Citadel proper; the lights are terrifying in their own way. Something malevolent is watching them from their old home.

When they lower Regis’s body beneath the stones of the Crown City, Cor can feel the eyes of something cruel watching him. The gaze doesn’t burn like Gilgamesh’s had; instead, it crawls across his skin, inspecting him in the crudest and most predatory way, like a thousand eyes and one. But there is nobody in the shadows. There is only Regis, wrapped in black, with his crown gleaming in the torchlight where Cor has used it to fasten the folds.

“Goodbye, Regis,” Cor whispers, and this time it truly feels like farewell.

They slide the stone back into place, bit by bit. Cor expends some of his precious magic on it, pouring the Crystal’s power into his determination to protect its source. He’s giving it back to Regis, he tells himself, calling on the armiger to slide ice beneath the stone slab and ease its passage back into place in the middle of the plaza.

“Never seen that magic out of you,” Cid tells him. “Like Reggie himself was back again.”

Cor grimaces. “If only.”

The stone sets into the plaza with a dull, scraping thud, sealing Regis away where nobody will be able to get to him. Cor stares down at the engraving.

Regis Lucis Caelum
REX CXIII

Surrounded by fine, intricate scrollwork, the words sit at the bottom of the slab, mirrored at the top by a circular crest. The stone gleams brightly under the lights they’ve brought with them, white against the speckled black of the ruined Citadel plaza. But this, finally, seems like the place to lay a king to rest.

“It’s wonderful, Cid,” he says, and his voice scrapes past old tears. “He’d like it.”

“He’d better,” Cid huffs, but there’s that old affection in his tone too.

Cor looks back at the Citadel. Lit in gold, it almost seems familiar. It’s almost just another night under the protection of the Wall. But no, Cor can feel the weight of someone’s gaze, old as the Blademaster and just as eternal, just as inevitable.

Something cold and vicious creeps up in the back of his mind, and it whispers, Thank you for bringing him to me.

On the drive back to Hammerhead, he falls asleep in the passenger seat and dreams of chains.

now

Years pass, and Cor stares down at the face of another king.

“Noct,” he breathes, scarcely louder than a whisper. “Noct.”

They could have been a family, if there had been time. If Regis had opened his heart and Cor had turned from duty, maybe they could have had some sort of happiness. Maybe they could have told him about the prophecy, and maybe they could have tried to share the burden.

Noctis could have been happy.

Looking down at Noct as he is, though, is another sort of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he forces himself to look. “I’m so sorry.”

He thinks of Regis in the burning ruins of Insomnia, beautiful and graceful and dead.

And he looks back at Noctis, king for ten years and not at all.

He’s served the crown for a lifetime. He’s given every part of himself to the cause; to the kings. Cor has always known his duty, and he has always fought to keep the legacy of the Lucis Caelums alive.

And this is where it’s gotten us. The Immortal and the dead.

Immortal. Immortal.

It’s an ugly name.

Stronger than the rulers he has devoted his entire life to. Longer-lived than so many who deserved life more than ever had or ever will. Outliving a child he’d played with in the Citadel courtyards.

I made you a promise.

Cor hardly remembers what it was anymore.

Immortal.

It’s a cruel joke.