Months in Ishgard, and she still found their honorifics awkward, but before she could wrangle her tongue into uttering one for Edmont, he was guiding her from the center of the plaza. They had passed through the gates and reached the foot of the stairs which lead up in the direction of Fortemps manor before they stopped or spoke.

“My apologies,” he said quickly, loosening his grip on her arm. “I’m afraid that…” He trailed off, distracted, and rather than release her arm, he slid his hand to her wrist and lifted it. He’d noticed the ring on her third finger. “You carried him with you into battle, I see.”

Daryl had wondered who had left the ring in her room after they’d returned from the Vault; that Edmont recognized it was as good an answer as any.

“He’d have been with me with or without it,” she said softly.

He gave a short, half-laugh. “Ah, of course, of course…” He finally let her hand go, but was hesitant to reestablish eye contact. “But I’ve digressed.”

Daryl frowned. “Did somethin’ happen while we were gone?”

“While you were gone, yes, but some days before you set out for Azys Lla.”

Daryl scowled and opened her mouth to question the delay, but he’d expected that and held up a hand to silence her before she even made a sound.

“We weren’t sure what to make of it, and we did not want to burden you with it until we more certain.” He sighed, his expression making him look as though he’d aged ten years. “Yet we know hardly any more today than we did when it began. But now that you’ve finished your business in Azys Lla, I have no more reason to keep it from you.”

The more Edmont said without actually explaining anything, the tighter the knot forming in Daryl’s stomach became. They’d already fallen out of one crisis and into another when Nidhogg took Estinian--could they not, for once, only have one problem to deal with at a time?

“Shouldn’t we get the others?” she asked, half turning back the way they’d come. “If it’s that bad--”

Edmont caught her by the shoulder. “Not yet. You...I think you deserve to know, first.”

Daryl gaped at him. She liked to think herself good at reading people, but...what could have Edmont so distressed that she, of all people, would need to know before anyone else?

Never in a thousand lifetimes would she have guessed the answer she got.

Daryl twitched when the door clicked shut behind her, and she gave a quick glance over her shoulder. She’d expected Edmont to at least stand at the doorway, not close the door the second she’d wandered far enough into the room to not be struck by it. But the glance confirmed it; he’d left her alone.

The room was lit only by the fire burning low in the fireplace and a sliver of sunlight peeking through the curtains. While her eyes adjusted, the furniture blurred into the floor and the walls, but Daryl knew this room. She’d navigated it in near darkness enough times to know she could do it now--if she wanted to. But the chill of fear and apprehension lodged in her chest kept her on the spot until the outline of the bed and the shape upon it materialized.

Her breath caught as she approached the bed. She knew what to expect, but it wasn’t until she saw his features outlined in the filtered sunlight for herself that she could even begin to really believe. His face was different than when she’d last seen it; the blood had been properly cleaned from his chin, his lips no longer carried the gentle curve of the smile he’d worn...

“The undertaker was preparing him to be interred in the family crypt…and he began to breath.”

She dropped heavily onto the edge of the bed, watching his chest rise and fall. Her hand shook as she reached out, finding its way not to his pulse, but inside his shirt, palm pressed against hot skin, the unmistakable beat of his heart thumping beneath it.

Daryl ripped her hand back, letting out a strangled noise in her distress. He bore all the physical signs of being alive, though Edmont said he’d not yet been conscious. But how? It possible. She’d seen him die, and he’d been that way for two days before...whatever this was.

“The chirurgen believes he heard him mutter in his sleep, once. ‘Lady Fury,’ he said.”

Halone...Halone...Was this the work of the divine? Or was it something more sinister? They wouldn’t know until he woke...if he woke.

Haurchefant’s arms rested atop the blankets. She closed her hands around one of his and pressed her forehead against his knuckles, eyes screwed shut. For more than a sennight, she’d believed him gone. And now...once again, he disrupts her every instinct.