Chapter Text
The blade hung above Focalors with the stillness of something that had already made its decision. Inside the Oratrice, there was none of the noise that usually accompanied judgment in Fontaine. No spectators shifted in their seats, no whispers moved through the galleries and no theatrical murmur rose beneath the vaulted ceiling of the Opera Epiclese. Here, in the hidden heart of the machine, there was only the pale light of its mechanisms, the quiet pulse of accumulated Indemnitium and the woman who had spent centuries arranging the circumstances of her own death.
Neuvillette stood before her in silence, listening as she completed the explanation that had stripped away the last remnants of everything he had believed he understood about Fontaine.
The prophecy had never been ignored. Furina had never possessed the divine power she had so desperately pretended to wield. The Hydro Archon before him had divided herself, placing her divinity within the Oratrice while leaving behind a human counterpart whose task had been both astonishingly simple and impossibly cruel: she had been expected to stand before an entire nation and perform godhood for as long as necessary, without knowing when the performance would end or whether salvation would ever come.
Five hundred years.
Neuvillette had known Furina for much of that time, and yet the knowledge now settling over him made those centuries feel strangely distorted. He remembered her excesses, her dramatics, her constant need to control the atmosphere of a room before anyone else could do so, and beneath all of those memories he could suddenly recognize things he had once dismissed as peculiarities of temperament: the carefully timed laughter, the overconfident declarations, the way she could turn even discomfort into spectacle before anyone had the chance to look too closely.
She had been acting.
Not for amusement, vanity or praise, but because stopping had never been permitted.
Focalors watched him quietly, and although her expression remained composed, there was a gentleness in it that felt painfully out of place beside the instrument suspended above her.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said.
Neuvillette’s gaze remained fixed upon her. “Do you?”
“I imagine you are deciding whether to be angry with me.”
There were several answers he might have given, yet none of them seemed sufficient. Anger was certainly present, though it had become difficult to distinguish from disbelief, grief and the disquieting realization that every person involved in this plan had been made to bear a burden without ever being allowed the whole truth.
“You used her,” he said at last.
Focalors did not recoil from the accusation.
“Yes.”
The simplicity of the answer unsettled him more than an excuse would have.
“I had no kinder path available to me.”
Neuvillette lowered his eyes for a moment, and the image of Furina in the courtroom returned with unwelcome clarity. She had stood beneath the weight of accusations that would have broken most people long before the verdict, still attempting to preserve the role that had defined her existence even when it was obvious that no one in the room believed her anymore. There had been something almost unbearable in the way her confidence had collapsed without ever quite becoming honesty, as though even at the very end she had remained unable to permit herself the mercy of confession.
Focalors seemed to read some fragment of that thought from his expression.
“She did everything I asked of her,” she said, her voice softer now. “Far more than I had any right to ask.”
The Oratrice continued its quiet hum around them, indifferent to the intimacy of the conversation taking place within it.
“After this, she will have nothing.”
Neuvillette looked back at her.
“Her title will be gone. The role that defined her will be gone. The truth she protected will finally be known, but knowing it will not return what she gave up.”
For several moments, Focalors said nothing more, and when she finally spoke again, the formal certainty she had maintained throughout their conversation weakened just enough for something deeply personal to emerge beneath it.
“Please look after her.”
Neuvillette felt the request settle between them with a weight greater than he expected.
Focalors had prepared her own execution. She had manipulated the Oratrice, deceived the Heavenly Principles and arranged the destruction of the Hydro Archon’s throne in order to return a stolen authority to its original owner, yet in the final moments before her death, her concern had narrowed to one woman who had spent centuries living inside a lie she had never chosen.
“She will not know what to do with freedom,” Focalors continued. “I do not know whether she will even understand that she has it.”
A faint smile touched her face, though there was little happiness in it.
“Furina has lived so long for everyone else that I fear she may have forgotten how to live for herself.”
Neuvillette had no immediate response.
He thought again of the courtroom, of Furina’s trembling hands and the frightened disbelief in her eyes when the role she had defended for centuries was finally torn away from her. There had been resentment between them at times, impatience and confusion, but there had also been familiarity, and with the truth now laid bare before him, that familiarity demanded a different interpretation.
“I will protect her,” he said.
Focalors studied him carefully, as though weighing not only the words themselves but the intention behind them.
“Do you promise?”
Neuvillette held her gaze.
“I do.”
Something in her expression eased.
“Thank you.”
The mechanism above them moved.
There was no great declaration accompanying it, no final plea addressed to the heavens and no attempt to prolong a moment that had been approaching for five centuries. The blade began its descent with terrible inevitability while Focalors remained where she stood, peaceful in a way that Neuvillette could not decide whether to admire or resent.
He watched until the end.
When the blade fell, the space before him erupted into light.
The sensation that followed was immediate and overwhelming, though not because it felt foreign.
Quite the opposite.
Power surged through him with the unmistakable familiarity of something returning home.
Neuvillette drew in a slow breath as the hidden architecture of Hydro opened itself to him in a way it never had before. The water surrounding Fontaine, the rain descending from the darkened sky above the city and even the deeper currents that moved beneath the nation seemed suddenly closer, no longer distant phenomena perceived through imperfect senses but extensions of an authority that recognized him without hesitation.
The throne of the Hydro Archon had been destroyed.
With it, the structure that had separated him from the power once taken from the ancient dragons had vanished as well.
For thousands of years, that authority had existed beyond his reach, inherited through a system built upon theft so ancient that most of the world no longer remembered it as theft at all. Focalors had destroyed that system in a single act and, in doing so, had returned to him something that should never have belonged to another.
The realization should have been accompanied only by grief.
Focalors had just died before him, and whatever anger he had felt toward her could not erase the magnitude of what she had sacrificed. Somewhere beyond the Oratrice, Furina was still standing amid the ruins of the identity that had sustained her for five centuries, unaware that the person who had created her suffering had now vanished forever.
Neuvillette remembered his promise.
He would protect her.
The thought remained clear enough, yet it no longer occupied the whole of his attention.
As Hydro answered him with effortless obedience, another feeling began to take shape beneath the sorrow, subtle at first and almost easy to mistake for simple relief. It was deeper than relief, however, rooted in something ancient enough to feel instinctive. For all the tragedy surrounding the moment, there was an undeniable rightness in the return of his authority, a sense that a distortion maintained for ages had finally been corrected.
His gaze lowered to his own hand as water gathered around his fingers in a delicate spiral, responding to the smallest movement with an ease he had never known.
There was no struggle in it.
No resistance.
Nothing stood between his will and the element that had once belonged wholly to his kind.
The corners of his expression did not rise into anything that could truly be called a smile, yet something colder settled into his features as the meaning of the moment became impossible to ignore.
Focalors was gone.
The Hydro Archon’s throne no longer existed.
The power that had been stolen from the dragons had returned to him.
And within the pale light of the Oratrice, where no one remained to witness the change, a dangerous glint appeared in Neuvillette’s eyes as he understood that Fontaine had just entered an age in which there would be no Archon standing above him.
The rain had not yet stopped when Neuvillette stepped back into Fontaine. The city was still wounded.
Water clung to the streets in shallow, trembling pools, reflecting broken lantern light and the restless movement of people who had only just begun to understand that they were still alive. Voices carried between the buildings in confused waves, mingling relief with grief, disbelief and the stunned silence of those who had watched the prophecy unfold before them and somehow survived its conclusion. The nation had come within moments of annihilation, and yet the waters had receded, the Primordial Sea no longer threatened to dissolve its people, and Fontaine endured.
Neuvillette could feel the change more clearly than anyone else.
Hydro moved through the nation with a familiarity that had been absent for as long as he could remember. It no longer felt like something filtered through another authority or restrained by an order imposed upon the world long before his time. The power answered him as naturally as thought, and with every step he took through the soaked streets, the awareness of what had been restored settled more deeply within him.
The old structure was gone.
There would be no Hydro Archon standing above Fontaine now, no throne built upon authority taken from a dragon and handed to a human god by those who had claimed dominion over Teyvat. The system maintained by the Usurpers had finally fractured here, and for once the world seemed to be moving closer to the order it should always have possessed.
A dragon had been made whole again.
There was a quiet satisfaction in that realization, one he did not bother denying to himself.
Focalors had chosen her ending, and in doing so she had returned what had never truly belonged to her. Whatever grief he carried for her death existed alongside another feeling that was far more ancient and far more difficult to dismiss: the sense that something unnatural had finally been corrected.
Fontaine would no longer be governed beneath a stolen throne.
It would be governed by him.
The thought did not strike Neuvillette as arrogance. If anything, it seemed almost self-evident.
He had served Fontaine for centuries. He had watched its institutions grow, corrected its laws, presided over its trials and carried responsibilities that few citizens ever fully understood. The Palais Mermonia had become as familiar to him as the currents beneath the city, and much of what modern Fontaine had become had taken shape during the years in which he had quietly maintained its order while Furina performed the visible role of divinity.
Now there would be no need for that division.
The nation would finally be led by the one who had actually upheld it.
Before any greater changes could be considered, however, Fontaine still required protection. Its people were frightened, its faith had been shaken and the revelation surrounding their former Archon had left an instability that could easily become dangerous if allowed to spread unchecked. The city had survived the prophecy, but surviving catastrophe was not the same as recovering from it.
Neuvillette continued through the streets, observing the damage with a measured eye and already considering what would need to be done in the coming days.
Then he heard shouting.
It was not the frightened shouting of people searching for family members or the relieved cries that had followed the retreating waters. There was anger in these voices, sharpened by the particular cruelty that emerged when fear finally found a target.
Neuvillette followed the sound. He saw Furina before she noticed him.
She stood near the edge of a gathered crowd, looking so diminished that for a moment she barely resembled the figure who had occupied the highest seat in Fontaine for centuries. Her clothes were still damp, her posture rigid in the way of someone trying desperately not to collapse in public, and the expression on her face carried none of the exaggerated confidence that had once seemed inseparable from her.
People surrounded her at a cautious distance. No one touched her, though several appeared eager to.
“Liar.”
The word cut through the crowd. Another voice followed quickly.
“People died in Poisson because of you.”
Furina flinched. Someone laughed bitterly.
“Our Archon. What a joke.”
The title had become an insult. Still, Neuvillette remained where he was.
Furina lowered her gaze, and whatever response might once have risen instinctively to her lips never came. There was no theatrical indignation, no dramatic denial and no attempt to seize control of the scene through volume or spectacle. She simply stood there while the accusations continued to fall upon her.
For several moments, Neuvillette observed without intervening. His promise to Focalors returned to him.
Protect her.
It was an inconvenient promise now. Not because he intended to break it, but because protecting Furina had become considerably more complicated than Focalors had perhaps imagined.
If Furina remained in Fontaine, the legal consequences of what had been revealed could not simply be ignored. She had publicly represented herself as the Hydro Archon for five centuries, exercised authority under that identity and participated in the maintenance of a deception that had shaped the political and religious structure of the entire nation. Even if the circumstances behind that deception were considered, there would still be demands for accountability, especially after Poisson.
A second trial would be almost unavoidable. Neuvillette could already imagine the charges that would be brought forward, the arguments from the public and the pressure placed upon the Palais Mermonia to demonstrate that no one stood above the law. In the most merciful outcome, Furina might spend the remainder of her life in the Fortress of Meropide. The less merciful possibilities were not difficult to imagine.
The people of Poisson had lost family, friends and entire homes, and grief rarely cared for legal nuance. To them, Furina had been the god who claimed for centuries that Fontaine was safe and who had then stood helpless while their neighbors dissolved into water. The truth concerning Focalors would not erase what they had seen, and even if Neuvillette attempted to explain the full circumstances, there would always be those who refused to accept them.
Some would want revenge. Others already did. His gaze returned to Furina. She looked exhausted.
For five hundred years, she had filled every room she entered with unnecessary drama, exaggerated emotion and the exhausting confidence of someone who seemed incapable of behaving with restraint. Neuvillette had tolerated it because it had been part of the role she occupied, and because until now there had always been a reason to maintain the appearance of harmony between Fontaine’s Archon and its Chief Justice. That reason no longer existed.
Now that he knew the truth, some of her behavior was easier to understand, but understanding did not make it less tiring. If anything, the knowledge sharpened a private irritation he had carried for longer than he cared to admit.
Furina had been petulant, demanding, theatrical to the point of absurdity and frequently childish in ways that had made serious governance more difficult than necessary. There had always been some performance to maintain, some dramatic reaction to endure, some fragile pride requiring careful navigation.
And now the performance was over. The old order had collapsed with Focalors. Perhaps it was better if everything associated with it disappeared as well. The thought came to him with surprising ease.
Fontaine had an opportunity to begin again beneath a structure that was cleaner, more honest and more natural than the one that had existed before. No false Archon. No divided authority. No fragile human pretending to possess power she did not understand. Only the restored Sovereign and the nation he had spent centuries helping to build.
If Furina left Fontaine, several problems would resolve themselves at once. She would be spared another trial and protected from those who might seek vengeance against her. The Palais Mermonia would avoid the impossible task of prosecuting a former Archon while attempting to restore public confidence in the legal system. The transition into a new era would proceed without the constant presence of a living symbol of the old deception.
It would satisfy his promise to Focalors. It would protect Furina. And if Neuvillette admitted the truth to himself, it would also bring him a measure of relief.
He watched the crowd for a little longer. There was no immediate danger. Most of the anger remained verbal, and interfering too quickly might only intensify it. Furina would survive a few insults, particularly after surviving everything else that day, and perhaps allowing the people to exhaust some portion of their anger would make what came next easier.
Eventually the shouting lost some of its force. A few people left first, pulled away by family members or by the realization that there were more urgent matters to attend to in a city still recovering from disaster. Others remained long enough to throw one final accusation in Furina’s direction before drifting away.
When the space around her had finally begun to clear, Neuvillette stepped forward. Furina did not notice him until his shadow fell across the wet stone before her.
She lifted her head slowly.
For a brief moment, something almost hopeful appeared in her eyes.
Neuvillette looked down at her and wondered how best to explain that there was no longer any place for her in Fontaine.
He did not begin with an accusation. Perhaps that was what made the conversation so easy for Furina to follow.
First he waited until the last remnants of the crowd had drifted away, then guided her from the open street toward a quieter passage where the noise of the city softened into a distant murmur. Fontaine was still wet from the receding waters, and everywhere around them people were searching for relatives, carrying belongings from damaged homes or simply standing in stunned silence beneath a sky that had not yet decided whether the disaster was truly over. Furina moved beside him without protest, her steps uncertain and strangely obedient, as though the collapse of everything she had known had left her incapable of resisting even the smallest direction. Neuvillette noticed this and found it useful.
“You cannot remain here,” he said.
Furina looked at him immediately. For a moment, she seemed not to understand the words themselves.
“What?”
His tone remained calm, measured and almost gentle, though there was very little warmth in it.
“The situation in Fontaine is unstable, and your position is far more dangerous than you seem to realize. What happened today has changed the way the people see you, and it will not be corrected simply because the prophecy has been fulfilled.”
Furina stared at him, her face pale beneath the damp strands of hair that had fallen loose around it.
“I know they are angry.”
“They are more than angry.”
Neuvillette allowed the silence that followed to remain just long enough for the implication to settle.
“Poisson has not been forgotten, and after what was revealed in the Opera Epiclese, many people will believe that you deceived them for centuries while knowing that Fontaine was in danger. Whether that interpretation is entirely fair is no longer the most important question.”
The phrasing was deliberate. He did not tell her that it was wrong or explain that she had spent five hundred years preserving the very plan that had saved them. He merely acknowledged that there might be another interpretation and moved on before she could take comfort from it.
Furina lowered her gaze and Neuvillette continued.
“The law will not simply cease to exist because the Hydro Archon’s throne is gone. There will be demands for another trial, and there will be questions regarding the authority you exercised under a false identity.”
Her fingers tightened around the fabric of her sleeves.
“I did what I was told to do.”
“I know.”
The answer came quickly, but without tenderness.
“That does not mean everyone else will accept it.”
Furina looked at him again, and something fragile in her expression made it obvious that she was waiting for more. Reassurance, some kind of defense, perhaps some indication that the person who had stood beside her for centuries would now stand between her and the consequences she had never chosen.
Yet Neuvillette offered none.
“I really want to help you but I can'y. In the most favorable circumstances, you may be imprisoned for the remainder of your life. The Fortress of Meropide would at least offer protection from the public, but I cannot guarantee that the court would consider such a sentence sufficient, particularly once pressure from Poisson begins to build.”
The blood seemed to drain further from Furina’s face.
“You think they would…”
She could not finish the sentence. Neuvillette did not help her. Instead, he turned his attention briefly toward the city beyond the narrow passage, where voices still rose from the damaged streets.
“There are already people calling for punishment. Some of them have lost everything. Grief can become dangerous very quickly when it is given a name to blame.”
Furina swallowed. For centuries, she had feared discovery more than death itself. Now discovery had come, and somehow it had not brought relief. It had merely replaced one impossible role with a new terror she had never prepared for.
“What am I supposed to do?”
The question was so quiet that it barely sounded like her. Neuvillette looked at her carefully. This was the moment that mattered.
“You should leave Fontaine.”
Furina went still. The reaction was not dramatic. There was no gasp, raised voice and theatrical disbelief. Her entire expression simply emptied. Neuvillette went on before she could gather enough strength to object.
“You should leave while you still can, before anyone decides that you must be watched and before the Palais Mermonia is forced to place restrictions on your movement. Once formal proceedings begin, I may no longer have the authority to let you go.”
That last part was not entirely true, but it was close enough to the truth that he saw no reason to distinguish between the two. Furina’s eyes moved toward the distant rooftops.
Leave Fontaine.
The idea seemed too large for her to comprehend. She had never imagined a life outside it.
Even during the worst moments of those five centuries, during the nights when she had wondered whether she would eventually break beneath the weight of the performance, there had always been Fontaine around her. The city had been her prison, her responsibility and the only home she had ever truly known. Neuvillette watched the realization work its way through her.
“If you care about this nation as much as you always claimed to,” he said, “then you must understand what your continued presence could do to it.”
The sentence was crueler than it sounded. Furina flinched almost imperceptibly. Neuvillette softened his voice by a fraction.
“The people need stability now. They need to believe that the institutions of Fontaine still function and that the law applies equally to everyone. If I were to intervene openly on your behalf, it would create exactly the kind of division the nation cannot afford.”
He paused, then added with carefully restrained concern,
“I am trying to prevent that.”
Furina’s lips parted, but no words came.
There was logic in everything he said. That was the worst part. She could see the shape of it. The anger in the streets. The accusations. The law. Poisson. Another trial. The possibility of imprisonment, or something worse.
And beneath all of it, the idea that staying might damage the nation she had spent five hundred years trying to save. Her thoughts were too exhausted to fight through the implications. She wanted someone else to decide.
She wanted someone to tell her what to do, because making even the smallest choice suddenly felt impossible. For centuries, whenever responsibility became too heavy or the machinery of Fontaine too complicated, Neuvillette had been there. He had handled the laws she did not understand, corrected problems before they reached her. He had been patient when she was dramatic, distant when she was unreasonable and dependable in a way that had become so familiar she had stopped noticing how deeply she relied upon it. Following his judgment now required almost no effort at all.
“What would happen if I stayed?” she asked.
Neuvillette looked at her for a long moment.
“I cannot promise that I could protect you.”
The words struck exactly where he intended them to. Furina looked away. Neuvillette allowed another silence to pass before continuing.
“If you leave now, quietly, there is still time. The borders are confused after the disaster, and no one is watching you closely yet. You could disappear before the public decides what they want done with you.”
She seemed very small then. Not physically, but in the way she held herself, as though some internal structure had finally collapsed and left nothing behind to keep her upright.
“Where would I go?”
“I cannot answer that for you.”
Again, the truth. In his voice there was no mercy. Furina nodded slowly and her eyes had become distant. Neuvillette recognized the moment she stopped resisting the idea. He did not feel triumph, at least that was not the word he would have chosen.
Relief was more appropriate. This was cleaner, safer, better for Fontaine. Better for her. Better for him. Yes. It was best option for everybody.
“I will arrange a few things,” he said.
Furina looked at him as though she had already forgotten what she had agreed to. There was little to arrange. Neuvillette moved quickly, precisely because delay would only create complications. He provided her with a small travel bag containing a change of clothes, enough food for several days and a modest amount of Mora that would not attract attention. There were no formal documents announcing her departure and no attempt to preserve anything resembling her former dignity. That would have defeated the purpose.
Furina accepted the bag without examining it. She followed him through quieter streets, then beyond the more heavily occupied districts, where fewer people recognized her in the fading light. Neuvillette chose the route carefully, avoiding the places most likely to be crowded and keeping their pace steady enough that Furina had little opportunity to stop and think about what was happening.
They barely spoke. At one point, she asked whether she would ever be allowed to return. Neuvillette did not answer immediately.
“When the situation is safer,” he said at last.
It was vague enough to comfort her and meaningless enough not to bind him but Furina seemed to accept it. By the time they reached the outer edge of Fontaine, night had settled over the landscape. The city lights behind them shimmered against wet stone and distant water, beautiful enough that Furina turned to look back more than once.
Neuvillette did not hurry her, though neither did he offer any reason to stay. At the final crossing, he stopped. Beyond it lay the road leading away from Fontaine. No guards stood nearby. He checked that no citizens had followed them. The confusion left by the disaster had given them exactly the anonymity he wanted.
“This is as far as I can accompany you,” he said.
Furina looked at him. For a moment, she seemed almost frightened by the statement.
“You are going back?”
“Fontaine needs me.”
The answer was immediate. Of course it did. That, too, made sense. Everything made sense. Furina lowered her eyes to the small bag in her hands.
“I see.”
Neuvillette studied her face, searching briefly for some indication that she might change her mind. There was none. She looked too exhausted even for fear now.
“You should keep moving tonight,” he told her. “The farther you are from the border before morning, the less likely anyone will be able to follow you.”
Furina nodded. Then, after a hesitation that seemed to cost her more than it should have, she looked up at him.
“Thank you.”
Neuvillette said nothing. Perhaps she meant for helping her escape.Perhaps she meant for everything that had come before. Or maybe she simply needed to believe that someone had done one kind thing for her before she left the only home she had ever known.
He watched her turn away. Furina walked several steps before looking back. Neuvillette was still there. She continued. When she glanced behind her again, he had already begun the journey back toward Fontaine. The distance between them grew quickly. Within minutes, the city lights had become faint behind her, and the familiar silhouette of Fontaine was fading into the darkness.
Furina kept walking because Neuvillette had told her to. She did not know where the road led. She did not know where she would sleep the following night, what she would do when the food in her bag ran out or whether there was anyone beyond Fontaine who would recognize her name without despising it.
Only when the last lights disappeared behind the hills did the full meaning of what had happened begin to settle over her. Focalors was gone. Her throne was gone. Her people hated her. Fontaine was behind her. And somewhere between one exhausted step and the next, Furina finally realized that there was no one walking beside her anymore.