Prologue

An Apartment above Kaff Terrace - Bhujerba

Balthier lay in bed, a glass of wine on the bedside table and a fountain pen in his hand. Fran was out at the market, and to pass the time while waiting for her to return, he had unrolled a map of the Lhusu mines over the counterpane.

In the far northwestern corner of the map was a circle, marking the widely-rumored location of a skystone that had been confiscated from the Ondore family treasury in the last century. Balthier had scratched out the indicated spot – The pirate Dolas had gone scouting the previous year with this map and found an empty coffer. Now Balthier was mapping the way East from the spot, playing a logic game with himself as he went. There was a vein of rare Jagd-proof skystone somewhere in the eastern dig, and he had only to find it. His handwritten notes in the margin of the map were copious but clipped, abbreviated in horribly sloppy handwriting that only he and Fran would be able to decipher.

Mgct mn brdg 2: Und. (Fran: Rs Mg?)

He would have a fresh skystone for the Strahl, come Heth or Haldanas.

Fran's voice woke him from his concentration, a low velvet tone that trilled with the consonance of her native tongue.

"Bal'thjr, a fo'e, kaseht n'qwe bat Nabudis de k'ret fjrn bes. Ne'quos nin danec."

Balthier looked up from the map of Lhusu spread over the bed and smirked faintly in greeting, distracted.

"Not a single lock to pick... that skystone's good as ours. What was that about Nabudis?"

Fran set her paper parcel of foodstuffs on the table by the door and moved toward the bed, shaking her silver-white hair out of her eyes.

"Your confidence in our success is heartening, but perhaps you had best lay aside your pen and read this."

Balthier looked down at the map again, chewing the inside of his lip thoughtfully as he made yet another note in the corner of the parchment. "Can it wait?"

Fran sat on the bed beside her pirate lover and laid one slender finger on the end of his pen, a gentle request for him to still its flitting over the parchment.

"I am afraid it cannot."

Her voice was grave, and held a tone he'd not heard in some time. She was worried. When he looked up from the map at last, she twitched her nose in halfhearted satisfaction and threw a little parchment periodical onto the bed between them.

* * *

THE BHUJERBA CHRONICLE

17 TERRAMOON, 705

ARCHADIAN ATTACK ON NABRADIA

Nabudis Destroyed – Estimated 2 Million Dead

An explosion over Verdpale Palace has decimated the city of Nabudis.

Archadian military airships were seen flying over the city two hours before it went up in flames. Refugees from the outskirts of the royal city report seeing a flash of blue and gold light over the city before it ignited. In the aftermath of the fire, Nabradian militia were unable to enter the city to search for survivors, due to a mist storm more intense than any in written Galtean history. It is assumed that in the 60 kilometer radius of the inferno, there are no survivors.

It is widely agreed among refugees that the flagship of the attack unit was the origin of the explosion. The captain of Archadia's Sixth fleet and the man believed responsible for the explosion, Judge Magister Zecht, has been reported missing and is presumed dead. Subsequently Judge Magister Ghis, Archadia's diplomatic contingent to Dorstonis, has announced the closure of Archadia's borders, for security reasons.

As refugees from Nabradia arrive in Bhujerba by the hundreds, His Excellency Mqs. Ondore IV is currently in negotiations with His Honor Ghis to declare the citizenship of the newly displaced Nabradians as Bhujerbans. His Royal Highness Rasler Heios Nabradia, Commandant of Nabradia's Greenwing Armada, will be coronated in his late father's stead at a ceremony pending upon the re-allotment of the land between Dalmasca and Archadia.

* * *

Balthier closed his eyes and cursed. "That great, stupid lot of bloody buggering bastards." The thought of innocent Nabradians burned in their beds made him ill, and he couldn't bear to linger on the thought of thousands – no, millions – of civilian casualties in such a raid. Fran twitched her nose at the scent of Balthier's anger. After a pause she flicked one of her velvet-soft, black tipped ears, and pointed a long shell-pink fingernail at the end of the first paragraph of the article he had just read.

"What would cause a mist storm so strong that a mage could not cast a paling shield against it?"

Balthier chewed his cheek, sobered by the question. It was not something he cared to think about; he had left behind the thorny paradoxes of military engineering when he left home. But then, through the murk of his reluctance, Balthier remembered a flash of blue and gold, small and violent like an electrical shortage in a jar, and in his mind's ear he heard a low, dark chuckle of delight. "What glories a man can find hidden in the depths of the merest of stones... How wonderfully fascinating."

"I believe the question is not what, but whom, my heart," Balthier muttered.

Fran nodded once with a resolute blink of her eyes. He put down his pen and leaned toward her.

"You've already deduced what I'm thinking, haven't you?"

Fran flicked one ear toward the window of their apartment, indicating the market below. "Vieran refugees from the Nabradian crisis zone are arriving in droves, and many of them are quite ill. The only thing that could disable a Viera to the point that I have seen in the market today is mist sickness. And the only cause for mist sickness is over-concentration..."

"Which can only mean Nethicite. He's done it, the bastard."

Fran nodded again, and her eyes darkened with a shade of wine-red that spoke of foreboding.

"Ka'gre mec?"

We are ready?

Balthier didn't reply for a moment. His eyes darkened. "When is anyone ready for Cidolphus Demen Bunansa? But then, Father's machinations never were transparent to anyone but myself. I suppose it falls to me to put and end to this nonsense... If that is indeed what you're suggesting."

"I am," she said. "Now is the time, if ever there were such."

"Hn," he grunted, and turned his eyes back to the map unrolled over the bed. Perhaps it was time to plan a different sort of heist...