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“If thou canst forgive my deception,” Urianger said, head bowed low before the Warrior of Light, “or, failing that, set aside thy displeasure for a time, I do beg leave to follow thee. What strength and wisdom I possess are yours to command.”
Alphinaud looked over at Urianger. Even kneeling, the man was nearly of a height with M’ren, who was watching him with a flat look. M’ren looked wan, almost stretched thin, as though his barely-prevented transformation into a sin eater was pulling him apart at the seams. His mismatched eyes were clear, though, and hard as flint.
“No more lies,” he said in a soft tone.
Urianger looked up. “Pray believe me,” he began, voice pitched to be as inoffensive as possible, “when I say that I took no pleasure in deceiving thee. Indeed, I curse the circumstances which compelled me to do so… But no further secrets lie between us, I swear it.”
M’ren looked into Urianger’s eyes for a long moment, which Alphinaud used to check in with the others. Alisaie was glaring at the ground, which was not surprising, nor was Y’shtola’s carefully detached visage. Thancred looking at Ryne was to be expected; the look of determination on the newest Scion’s face, though, came as something of a shock.
Ryne’s determination crested, and she gave M’ren a fierce look. “I’m sorry, but I—”
“Get up.”
Still unwilling to push back against a friend, Ryne’s mouth immediately clapped closed. But M’ren wasn’t talking to her. He was looking at Urianger and he was smiling. Perhaps, Alphinaud thought, M’ren had found the grace in him once more to forgive.
“Get up, Urianger,” M’ren went on, still smiling. “I won’t have you on your knees while I excoriate you.”
Oh. Perhaps not.
“M’ren—” he began, but the Warrior of Light threw out a hand and didn’t even look his way.
Slowly, Urianger got to his feet. Now a full head and shoulders taller than M’ren, he already looked cowed by whatever remonstration was coming.
M’ren cocked his head to the side. “You say no more secrets, Urianger? No more lies?” Urianger did not respond; perhaps he saw that there was no need to. “I believe that to be the case for now. But what about the next time your machinations require you to keep something from me? From all of us? You will do it without blinking. You will do it without hesitation. You’ll bemoan the circumstances and you’ll perform your penitence when we find you out and then you will do it again, because that is what you do. You lie.”
Urianger stared morosely at the ground, having switched expressions with Alisaie, who was the one now watching M’ren intently. “Thou hast every reason to doubt me. I can but hope—”
“You hope,” M’ren said, smile stitching wider, “you pray, and then you’ll do it anyway. I remember this speech, Urianger, from the first time your designs cost me a dear friend. I remember it perfectly, because I held onto the hope that you were right, that it was what Minfilia wanted, that I had not lost the chance to ever see her again because you felt her sacrifice necessary.”
Although he was quite unwilling to look away, Alphinaud chanced a glance over at the others. Thancred had a hollow stare, while Ryne looked as though she’d been slapped. Y’shtola, who was perhaps the only one possessed of enough power of will to speak over the Warrior of Light, was now watching the exchange with interest. Of course she was. She openly doubted and detested Urianger’s secrets; this was likely very cathartic for her. Alphinaud resolved to speak up, as he appeared to be the only one willing.
“I don’t think—”
“And here I am again,” M’ren said, loud enough to stop Alphinaud in his tracks, “where I have lost a dear friend because you felt it was worth the loss, Urianger.” M’ren’s smile wasn’t much of a smile anymore—more of a predator’s snarl: wide and wild and warning. His eyes had lit up with the fire Alphinaud knew so intimately, but had never seen directed at a friend. “And I don’t even get a say! I don’t even get to be part of the conversation! You weighed my life against another’s and you didn’t have the shred of decency required to tell me.”
“Thou art the Warrior of Light,” Urianger murmured (although, to Alphinaud’s ear, somewhat mulishly?). “There yet be none alive who canst accomplish what you do.”
M’ren laughed. Cackled, really, drawing Urianger’s eyes up to his face. “So who will it be next, Urianger? Who will you sacrifice next on the altar of the ends that justify your means? Y’shtola?” She blinked. “Thancred?” He flinched. “Alisaie?!”
Urianger’s head jerked up, his expression aghast. “I woudst never allow—”
“Wouldns’t you?!” M’ren snapped, his expression by now quite manic. “The only reason Alisaie is here at all is because one of the agents of your last little connivance shot her. Do you remember that, Urianger? Do you remember her bleeding out in an Ishgardian sickbay? Do you remember saying to our faces that you would never do this again? And yet here we are!”
That had defeated Urianger (not that there was much to defeat). He slumped back down to his knees, face ashen. Ryne immediately rushed over to lay a hand on his shoulder, but he did not look up at her. Thancred still had that stone set to his jaw, while Y’shtola kept watching with naked interest.
“Y’shtola, please,” Alphinaud said, which drew her white eyes to him.
“I will not say anything to Urianger’s defence. I have yet to hear a single statement with which I disagree.”
“Y’shtola!”
But it was not Y’shtola who came to Urianger’s aid—it was Alisaie. Alphinaud’s sister stepped up to M’ren, whose chest was heaving with fury, and raised her hands placatingly before him. Her face was wet with tears, making Alphinaud (who had very intentionally been ignoring his own feelings the entire conversation) realize his cheeks were covered with them as well.
“M’ren, please,” she whispered, “please. Don’t do this here. Not now. You have so little time, and none of us—” She clasped her hands to her chest and choked back a gasp. “None of us could find anything to reverse the process. We searched and searched and found nothing and every second we waste is a second closer to your…” A rattling sound escaped her lungs, leading her to place her hands on M’ren’s shoulders and hide her face in his chest. “Do this later. Hate him later. You have every right to. But I don’t want you to die.”
M’ren wrapped his arms around Alisaie and held her tight, making Alphinaud notice for the first time that the Warrior of Light was crying too. He felt a brief pang of jealousy that his sister and his idol would be so close as to find comfort with each other, but then they had basically spent the last stages of the Ala Mhigan campaign alone together. He was sure the envy would subside.
“I am prepared to die,” M’ren said, softly at first but then stronger. “I am prepared to die. I’ve been prepared since I walked into the castrum to rescue Minfilia and the others. That is a choice I make every time I walk out onto the battlefield, and I had made my peace with it here in Norvrandt.” He let go of one of Alisaie’s shoulders and pointed down at Urianger. “But you took it away from me.” He released Alisaie’s other shoulder and stepped around her. “Because I am not a person to you, Urianger Augurelt, I am a tool.”
“M’ren, no!” Alisaie gasped, but he didn’t heed her a second time.
“I am an idea,” M’ren hissed, “a weapon, to be pointed at foes of the realm and manoeuvred and manipulated into following your carefully-laid plans. My choices do not matter. I do not matter. You do not respect me, and so you no longer have my respect.” He turned his back on the lot of them, but Alphinaud caught sight of his hand coming up to wipe at his hidden eyes. “Come with me to the Tempest or don’t, I don’t care. I am going to rescue G’raha Tia and then I am going to turn Emet-Selch into a fine paste. Your skills will, as ever, prove useful. But never ask me to trust you again.”
“I understand,” Urianger replied.
“I’m sure you do,” M’ren said waspishly. “Now get up, we’re wasting daylight.” He turned to the amarokeeps, who’d been watching the entire exchange with increasingly uncomfortable looks on their reptilian faces. “We need seven for the Tempest, please. Do you happen to have a map I could use?”
“Maybe we can help!” came a voice, and then they were surrounded by the entire populace of the Crystarium.
“Halone help me,” M’ren growled under his breath, but then that winning smile was back and bright and he was walking over to Bragi with open arms.
Alphinaud frowned. He found the sudden shift very off-putting. “I’m worried about him,” he said to Alisaie, who was standing next to him with a matching frown.
“We’re all worried about him,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “What we need now is to support him and find a way to save his life. Hells take the rest.”
“Hells take the rest,” Alphinaud agreed, but he wasn’t quite sure he actually agreed at all.