Through the Valley

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(Author's Note: I don't like to ramble much, so I'll be brief. This story is an answer to the question "What if Valter had killed Seth at the beginning of the game?"

Although most of it is contained in the first two chapters of this story, be warned of a few disturbing scenes, language, and plentiful sensuality throughout.

…so now that I've got your attention, enjoy the story!)

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Big thanks to Meelu the Bold for beta reading this chapter.

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Prologue: the shadow of death

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In the light of the mid-afternoon sun, Eirika's eyes flickered with fear. The princess of Renais fled her homeland, clinging tightly to the back of her guardian's vest as he rode. Her guardian wanted to assuage his liege lady's fears, but could find no suitable words.

General Seth, his youthful face as inscrutable as stone, charged through the castle gates and down the town's Main Road towards the open plain. Roofs of houses and storefront signs were consumed by flame. Soldiers of Grado with spears and shields poured into the castle city colored purple and gray, their greaves clanking against the cobblestone road. They made a hollow sound like the bones of birds being snapped underfoot.

Soldiers with the emblem of Renais emblazoned on their chest lay lifeless. Their corpses were scattered haphazardly, arms flopped over comically, like marionettes with strings severed by singing swords. Turquoise and green banners waved with burning hands and bid goodbye to the men who drew their last breaths beneath them.

On horseback, it was easy for Seth and the princess to ride past the chaos and the enemy forces pouring into the castle city. The Main Road ran direct from the castle gates to the city gates. The plain, with open space for horses and wyverns to roam and strike, would be infinitely more dangerous. Seth knew that if they made it to the mountain pass to the west, they would be safe enough. From there, it was not a long ride to the Frelian border at Fort Mulan. There would be plenty of time to regroup and catch their breath later. He had already sent Franz ahead to inform the border guard of their arrival.

"Hold on tightly," the general yelled, as Princess Eirika wrapped her arms around his torso, clutching clothes. Seth pushed his horse forward past the city streets, faster as they reached the green plains and started riding west into the wind. The general briefly looked back at the castle and the enemy soldiers cascading through the gates he lived to defend. Those people, that land—they were his life, his dedication, and his well-being. He was seized at once by sorrow and guilt. His duty was to his princess, but his place was at the gates.

Eirika's bracelet still rested on her arm, and Seth's hand felt for the rapier at his side to ensure he hadn't dropped it. He planned to hand the princess her familiar foil when they had eluded their pursuers.

Seth rode on and Eirika tapped on his shoulder, her face pressed against the back of his vest. She swallowed away her fright and said, "Seth, in the sky!"

Seth looked up. A gray-green figure soared towards them through the sky, knifing sharply downward. At the last possible moment, the general tugged on the reins of his horse as a wyvern and its master landed before them, clawing into the earth with two darkly-scaled limbs, rending the dirt with its blackened talons. The bastard-dragon shrieked and Seth's horse recoiled. Eirika clung tightly to Seth's back, holding her breath in fearful silence, hiding in her retainer's shadow.

The knight may well have walked out of the back pages of a storybook. His dark armor, plated and heavy, was stained rust red with blood. In his left hand, he held a metal chain, looped around his wrist and back around his mount's neck to control it as it thrashed about. In his right hand, he clutched a serrated spear, clearly a weapon meant to murder. The rider was an utter mess of humanity, something horrible with disheveled teal hair and a bloodstained smile—a brutal, carrion-feeding corpse of a man on a half-dead wyvern. He cackled and Seth shuddered violently.

"Stand aside!" Seth shouted, hand on his sword.

"Brave little lion of Renais," the wyvern knight said in a deep voice tainted by a dry rasp. He tilted his head and looked down on the Seth and the princess. "Nothing that enters my snare escapes. Are you trying to escape like a little mouse, general? Maybe you think you can elude Grado's forces with the wayward princess in tow?"

"I will not yield to you," Seth said, drawing his sword. The blade caught the light, and he pointed it at the plated chest of the dark knight. The sight filled Princess Eirika with hope: Seth was the white knight with the shining sword, fated to vanquish the evil, monstrous black knight. Seth's blade had been blessed by divinity, and although the princess did not seriously believe the bed-time tales or fairy-stories her father told her, the thought gave her strength.

The wyvern shrieked again and Seth urged Eirika to stay still behind him. Seth stared down the wyvern's rider, watched as he in turn surveyed him, vulture-eyed, trying to judge his strength by how ornate his breastplate was.

"You would fight me?" the wyvern knight said, thoroughly amused. "I, the most feared general in the Grado Empire? I, Valter, the Moonstone?"

"Move aside," Seth said. He did not flinch.

"As I thought. If you think you can get away, go. I'll give you a running start. Let's see how fast the living dead can run." The wyvern knight pulled on his reins and jerked his beast's neck upward until it pushed off the ground, slicing up into the air high above them. It twisted in mid-air and flew in the direction of the mountain pass, directly above Seth's intended path. Seth tightened the grip on his reins.

"Hold on," he said. With a tug, he spurred his horse forward and streaked as fast as possible across the field. The wind whistled and whirled past his face.

The wyvern in the distance started to turn, wings cutting a half-circle in the sky. As Seth approached, the beast slowly descended through the sky. It was brutally clear: the rider was out for blood. Seth prepared himself. The riders converged at an alarming rate, the wyvern barreling in, shrieking horribly, its dark rider aiming the point of his spear at Seth's heart.

"Princess," Seth yelled through the wind. "Do not let go!"

"I won't!" Eirika promised. She grabbed fistfuls of Seth's clothing and, morbidly curious, peered over his shoulder at the beast on a collision course with them. "I won't let go!"

Seth raised his sword as the wyvern closed in. At the very last moment, he saw the rider sneer. The image of his sallow, sunken smile put a dagger in Seth's heart.

It seemed as though the dark knight's spear were spinning in midair. Time slowed and strangled General Seth.

The serrated edge of the rider's spear caught the light and his wyvern darted with frightening grace. Seth had only begun to swing his sword when the lance pierced his lung like a lightning bolt. It was as if his mail and leathers were not even there. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt. He cried out. Seth knew immediately that he was going to die.

The wyvern flew past, its rider cackling, holding only the broken shaft of his spear. His laugh seemed to echo on the winds. Eirika screamed.

The lance thrust had knocked the general backwards, his sword flying from his fist; his left hand's death-grip on the reins was the only reason he avoided being thrown off immediately. He'd been a talented jouster in life. He lurched forward, groaning, struggling for even the shallowest of breaths. His horse took a few more steps before rearing up, whinnying in fear, hurling him and the princess against the grass roughly before galloping away towards the bright horizon.

Seconds before everything became a blur, Seth thought, Run.

"Ru—" Seth opened his mouth and gurgled. His right hand clutched the splintered head of the lance tightly, as though he could close the wound if he held on just a few precious moments more. Blood spilled out between his fingers. His left hand fumbled fruitlessly for the rapier at his side. "—n."

As soon as she had caught her breath, Eirika crawled towards her retainer and looked into his eyes as they started to roll back in his head. When she pulled away his tattered doublet, she had to avert her eyes. Underneath his chainmail, the entire front of his undershirt was stained crimson. She clenched onto his arm and gently shook him. The fall had twisted his neck awkwardly; when he tried to move it, he could not.

"Seth! Seth!" Eirika cried as she knelt beside him, knees burrowing into the earthy grass. Her stockings tore and inched down her legs. "No—no, you can't—this is—"

"Bra...ce…" Seth gurgled and rolled onto his side, arms and fists falling limp. His eyes met hers, and without any more sound, he wept. Eirika had never seen him weep. He coughed, blood dribbling down his chin, and shortly after, he was dead.

It had come too fast. There were so many things Eirika wanted to say to him, so many silly things she wanted to talk about, little things she wanted to apologize for. She would have settled for simply hearing him say her name. In her bedtime stories, the dying hero always said goodbyes to his loved ones. Eirika was a few years too old and a league too far away for those stories.

Her hands shaking and her body wracked by sobs, Eirika took the rapier and its scabbard out of Seth's hand, prying his lukewarm fingers off the handle one by one. Her fingers bled; several of her red nails had been ripped off by the force of her fall, and dirt and grass embedded in those that remained. Her palm was thick with her guardian's blood. After she had attached the sword to her belt, she leaned forward and retched. She drew herself up to her knees, hair scattering haphazardly across her face.

Still coughing, she looked at her retainer, turning him over onto his back, touching his cheek, feeling his hair, trying to shake her own out of her eyes. She had a strange feeling, as though someone somewhere was staring at her and laughing behind her back. Her head spun. The world spun. Dizzy, she leaned to the side, staggered, and vomited again. When she had wiped her mouth and wiped her eyes, Eirika took Seth's lifeless left hand in hers and shook her head. It didn't seem real.

She heard a gleeful, raspy voice behind her.

"Well, aren't we in a spot of trouble?"

She refused to turn around. A wyvern cried out and flapped its wings. Nothing could have made her turn her head. She refused to even look towards the distant sun. Eirika clutched Seth's bloody wrist and found it cold and silent. As hard as she squeezed, his wrist remained silent.

"Good night, princess."

Eirika felt a quick, hard strike to the back of her neck and she blacked out.

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Chapter 1: Fear

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The next thing Eirika remembered was opening her eyes to the sight of dark gray stone and the scent of decay. She looked around. The room seemed to be a prison cell, dimly lit by two torches hanging a distance away outside, near a stairway. The walls were close together on all sides, and the bars on the door were spaced uncomfortably close together, as if some dwarf contortionist had previously escaped and forced the jailer to make concessions. She could see the ceiling even through the deadening blackness. She feared that if she stood up, her scalp would scrape the stone. The cell was cold, nearly cold enough to see the rime gather on the bars.

Eirika started to sit forward when she felt a sharp tug on her neck and she was yanked backwards. She grasped at her neck, breathing heavily, and felt cold metal—a ring around her throat and a linked chain at the back—under her fingertips. Groaning and trying to writhe away from the rusting collar, Eirika reached out and felt something cold—rusted manacles—tort her wrists backwards and pull her arms back towards the wall. The chains binding her to the stone behind her were just long enough to allow her to check herself for injury and nothing more. She couldn't even touch the bars with the reach she was allowed.

After the shock of her threefold imprisonment wore off, Eirika wiped her face and checked her hands for blood. She massaged her neck absentmindedly, not caring to know if it looked as chafed as it felt. She felt her ears and found her earrings. Only when her hands moved to her breasts and felt skin did she regain her wits. She felt down her torso, down her hips and her legs to the tips of her feet. Eirika took a long, long, labored breath to steady herself. She realized why she felt so numbingly cold: save for her panties, she was completely naked.

Why was I left only these? My earrings and—why this?

When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the princess of Renais looked around and knew without knowing that she was no longer in her motherland. She moved her hands and arms around, leaned forward and back with her neck, to see exactly how much movement she had been allowed. She had little room to spare.

Eirika regulated her breathing to quell her panic, but the fear gnawing at her stomach remained, and grew worse with every moment of silence. The princess told herself that it was useless to fear, that fear is man's birthright, one that must be tamed and conquered, so had said her brother Ephraim. Had it been that way with him as well, Eirika wondered, finding the fear of the uncertain most troubling of all?

The waiting was the most difficult part. Eirika waited and hoped that maybe she would see the light of a lantern from across the room and her jailer would show himself, perhaps give her a blanket to stop the cold from creeping up her bare legs. Her captor had left her underwear, at least, and she prayed he would show her more mercy.

The darkness and the quiet allowed her time to think. Eirika sat back against the wall, closed her eyes and tried to piece together the memories with the real.

Seth. Seth. Where are—you?

It felt like a dream. A dream, angry and alive, filled with passion and ambition, ambition, ambition rising into the sky. The sky—it was a wyvern, a man with dark, sunken eyes and hair like the bastard of the west wind and a common crow. And the ground, the ground, it had seemingly moved to catch her and strike her as she fell from her guardian's steed.

Yes, her guardian. The lance, the broken tip lodged in his chest. The sight of a heartless smile, the sound of a corpse laughing. It felt like a dream, a sick, sick nightmare, like the ones she had suffered as a young girl that sent her shrieking and sobbing into her father's arms.

As her castle burned, she had ridden onward with her guard and he had spoken to her the last coherent words that left his lips. 'Princess, don't let go.'

Seth, Seth. Oh goddess, oh goddess…

It wasn't a dream. He had toppled from his horse, she had screamed, he had directed her to her sword, he had rolled onto his side and died, it wasn't a dream, it wasn't a dream, it wasn't a dream. She closed her eyes as tightly as she could, and when she opened them, she was still cold, and she was still there, a prisoner. It was real.

Seth, your eyes…Seth…

She had dreamt—though she wasn't certain it was a dream—that she saw Seth's eyes, that she had sat and stared into his eyes, waiting for him to assure her that all would be well as he always did. He was still and quiet and calm. The moment he was about to speak, his eyes began to dance with fire and his mouth gaped open, tongue lolling indolently down his chin. At that moment, she had been afraid of a friend. That had been worst of all; dream or reality, that had been worst of all.

'Princess, don't let go.'

Eirika felt the ground, trying to acquaint her hands with the cold floor as she began acclimating to the sour smell of the dungeon. She licked her bone-dry lips and fell to her hands and knees. Her wrists and neck burned with chill fire. Tears began to well up in the princess' eyes, sliding wordlessly down her cheeks, and the taste of saline joined the bitter taste of vomit on her tongue. The sound of silence had become deafening.

Seth, I need you, tell me where I am, please. Just tell me where I am, where have they taken me? Seth, answer me, please. Just tell me where I am, please, just this, only once, please…

Lost in recollection and reconciliation, Eirika couldn't hear the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer.

Still on all fours, Eirika raised her head just slightly and felt something hard and blunt poke her on her cheeks and then her forehead and then between her eyes. She yelped and her heart surged. As if by magic, a fire sprung from the air just outside her cell and Eirika saw a man holding a small oil lantern in one hand and a long, gnarled, blackened staff in the other. The visitor squatted down and prodded roughly at his prey.

"You're awake now?" he said. In the light, Eirika could see that he was the same man from before, his dark eyes and wild smile unchanged. His cackles bit into her.

"Good! The early bird sings loudest. It would be so pitiful for you to sleep the rest of your life away. Did you know you slept for nearly two days?"

Her curiosity at her fate overcame her fear of opening her mouth. "W-what are you going to do to me?" She was surprised how meek and raspy her voice sounded.

Her captor didn't answer immediately. Instead, he beckoned her to approach him, using one crooked finger as one would use to call a dog. She started to move forward and her chains forced her back. Of course, the chains. Her face grew hot with embarrassment as he cackled, and she wished she had something to hide behind.

"Wouldn't it be more fun," he said at last, "if I were to hold you in suspense?"

It wasn't until she saw him staring, sizing her up as he had Seth, that Eirika remembered her immodesty. She turned to the side and crossed her arms over her chest, although she knew it would do little good. He was leering, and there was nowhere to hide, nothing he could not see in the piercing light of his lantern.

"Are you afraid? Are you afraid of me, princess?"

When a few moments passed silently, she wondered if he was waiting for an answer.

"I—I'm not…" She was nearly too scared to say. "Not afraid."

The man shivered and jabbed at her again with his stick, prodding her arms until she dropped them to her sides, and then he poked at her small, icy nipples, one after the other. She whimpered weakly and he groaned, shuddering with pleasure.

"What a sad sight," he said, smiling. He sounded nearly out of breath, almost to the point of pain.

"Well," he said, and stood up. "I should at least let you know where you are. You're in my homeland, the great Empire of Grado. Soon Emperor Vigarde will be the ruler of all Magvel…and until then, we'll slaughter and kill indiscriminately. None can oppose our might!"

"I-I'm in Grado?" Discarding her modesty, Eirika leaned forward and clasped her hands. "Lyon! Where is Prince Lyon?"

"Where are your manners, princess? Shouldn't you first concern yourself with your host before worrying about others?"

"Is this Grado Keep?" Eirika asked, and the jailer laughed.

"Grado Keep? This little dungeon? Hah hah. No, no, this isn't the emperor's castle. In fact, we're quite a distance from there. The emperor ordered me to bring you to him, but…what fun would that be?"

He smirked.

"This is my personal little fortress. My world. I'll bring you to him in due time, don't you worry. He doesn't need to know why there was such a delay in summoning you. Surely he's too busy savoring the subjugation of your second-class homeland to notice."

Eirika gasped. The memories came flooding back all at once. The burning banners, the dead soldiers in teal armor, the rolling heads. She wrestled with the very real possibility that her ancestral home had been burnt to cinders, or at the very least occupied by the gray and purple of Grado.

"Without your father, I daresay you'll need some companionship."

Father!

The realizations were beginning to deaden her senses. Her father had been surrounded, the Royal Guard outnumbered by soldiers with superior weaponry. And surely now her father was dead. Eirika quickly resigned herself to this fact. She was three-quarters naked in a dark cell far from home. Hope and optimism were too painful to consider. She couldn't cry. The tears wouldn't come on command.

The jailer poked her again with his staff absentmindedly. She tried not to look at him.

"You know, we've never been properly introduced, have we? You should know the name of your master, princess. I am Valter, the greatest general in service of the Grado Empire! And you are my prey."

Brother…have you been captured as well? Oh, Ephraim, please be safe. Please, brother!

"Aren't you going to introduce yourself to me?"

Eirika said nothing.

"Do you want to be free, Princess Eirika of Renais?"

Eirika looked up.

"I don't want to keep you captive here forever. At some point I want you to escape." Valter played with his wrinkled, pallid gray fingers in the light of the lantern, mumbled 'yes, yes indeed' to himself on the side. "After all," he said, "what fun would it be if it were too simple? You're far too frail and weak to give me any sport fighting you. But surely you know how to run? A claw-less kitten like you must know to run fast. After all, how else would you be able to survive in the cold, cold world? Am I right?"

"You like to hear yourself talk," Eirika said, and immediately regretted it. With a disgusted grunt, Valter thrust his stick as hard as he could into her left eye. She shrieked.

"Apparently," he said, trembling with anger, smiling, "so do you, princess. Oh, devil, devil, devil. You've got some fight in you, bitch. Didn't your dead daddy teach you any manners? You should thank your gracious host for his hospitality."

After a second of silence, he jabbed her in the stomach and she doubled over, her chains clinking. Each of Eirika's pained squirms pleased him further.

"I believe I'm owed thanks, princess. I left you your earrings and your underwear. That's more than a stray cat like you deserves. You're in my debt."

What can I do? I can barely move an inch. What do I do? Oh, Father…

"And, to show you just how generous I can be, I'll even follow you all the way to the emperor's keep and give you a proper trial, adjudicated by ten thousand loveless Gradan soldiers. Yes, they'll pass along their judgment, one by one, until everyone has had their piece. Certainly that will be enough to please you, and then you will be doubly in my debt. If it be pleasin' you, of course," Valter added. He bowed.

Where is Lyon? If I could speak with him, maybe I could find out what's happening. But why? Why is this—why all—

"Why?" she wondered aloud, struggling even to stay on all fours. Her hand covered her eye.

"Well, if you'll excuse me," Valter said. He rammed Eirika in the navel with the stick again, and turned around casually. "I have some business to take care of at the fortress in Renvall. I should be back around nightfall. Then we'll play!"

When he had disappeared up the stairs, Eirika leaned back against the wall. There were so many things to mull over: The death of General Seth, her father's fate, Grado's justification for invading Renais, her brother, the whereabouts of Lyon, and maybe even her own fate. Instead, when she closed her eyes, she slumped over and almost immediately fell asleep.

Prince Ephraim ran swiftly through the forest, his boots pounding a steady heartbeat against the leaf-strewn ground. To his left rode Kyle, and on his right rode Forde, both moving at a steady gallop in-between the trees. Kyle, stalwart and as green-haired as the grove's canopy, watched their flanks, and Forde, his blonde ponytail dirtied in their previous battle, watched their backs.

"Milord, I can't see them anymore," Forde said. "Those soldiers were pretty well-armored, so they'd have trouble moving quickly through the forest."

"Just a bit longer," Ephraim said, weaving around an elder oak, leaping over a gnarled root. "We need to keep going."

Forde nodded. "Right."

The prince and his men ran southwest. A day ago, along with veteran knight Orson, they had successfully stormed and promptly abandoned the stronghold at Renvall in northern Grado. Somewhere on their path, Orson had fallen behind, and with a host of reinforcements pursuing them, they had little choice but to leave him.

Be safe, General, Forde had prayed. Orson had recently lost his wife, and by the empty look in his eyes, it was obvious he still hadn't gotten over it.

When they had run far enough, and the mid-day sun had begun its assault, Ephraim waved to a small clearing and the group stopped to rest. Forde and Kyle tethered their horses to nearby trees, and they each sat cross-legged on a small patch of leaves and dirt.

"I've got to get some sleep," Forde said, grinning like a madman. He fell on his back, sighing contentedly. Kyle scoffed, but the prince remained silent, clasping his hands together under his chin.

"This isn't the time to be napping, Forde," Kyle said. "We shouldn't waste more than ten minutes here."

"I know, I know," Forde said, chuckling. He sat up, leaves stuck to his back. "I'm just trying to lighten the mood. Hang in there, Prince Ephraim."

Despite their decisive and unlikely victory at Renvall, and their escape from a menacing knight on wyvernback, the day prior had been grim. Upon hearing the news that their homeland of Renais had been invaded by Gradan troops, the three remaining men had intended to return, regroup, and flee for the safety of neighboring Frelia if necessary. Then they had heard the rumor. All three knew enough not to believe everything birthed by an unseen person's mouth. This rumor was a bit different.

"Princess Eirika has been kidnapped and taken to the abandoned Castle Genevese."

Forde had hardly believed the words when he spoke them aloud. But the prince and his men had quickly passed through two small villages and the rumor was the same on every tongue. That evening, before they had made camp, a falcon had come to Prince Ephraim with a scroll bearing the emblem of Renais tied to a talon. It read: "General Seth has been slain. Princess Eirika has been abducted by an unknown wyvern knight. It is not safe to return to Renais."

The decision was not difficult to make. As soon as Prince Ephraim had stood and said, "We must look for my sister," his retainers had risen with him, each knowing full well that the rumor might have been a trap, that they might well have been rushing headlong to their deaths. That was a risk they were each willing to take.

The following day had come, and at first light the prince and his men had fled southwest, in time to avoid another wave of pursuers. The entire southwest was touched with the largest forest in Grado, fittingly known as the Great Forest, a place where the trees often grew as wide as a big city's watchtower and stretched to twice the height of Grado Keep. Needing a path onward and a place to elude an armored battalion, they had raced into the forest and marched as far as they could. There they sat, in a small clearing deep within the bowels of the forest, one of the few places in the sea of trees where the sky made itself known to travelers below.

As they sat, each deep in thought, the prince and his men did not as much as speak General Seth's name; it was an unspoken pledge between them, that first things were first, and everything else came after. It had almost been an afterthought, the one line of hurried script informing them of his death. Forde spoke a few kind words in his mind to General Seth and hoped that somewhere out there he was listening.

After brushing the leaves off his back, Forde hopped up. "Well, are you guys ready? Come on, let's get going. We've still a few leagues more to walk, right? Er, whenever you're ready, of course, milord," Forde added, turning to the prince.

Ephraim stood. "Yes. Let's get going. Perhaps by nightfall we'll be in sight of the forest's end."

The two cavaliers untied their horses and mounted to ride. From astride his stallion, Forde called out, "Would you like to ride, Prince Ephraim? We might make better time that way."

The prince shook his head. "No, that is fine. We'll be best served if I remain on foot. If we're all on horseback, we might be tempted to charge ahead, and that certainly wouldn't be prudent in such a dense forest. We will move ahead slowly but steadily."

"It is as you say, milord," Forde said.

From then, they continued without stopping once. The Great Forest was an ominous place, so said the townsfolk of Grado, but a few stories heard in hurried passing did it no justice. The nights were said to be ill omens themselves, but in the afternoon there were obstacles enough: roots crawling from the moist sod like worms with gnarled backs, thorny bushes with purple-green flowers, trees of many sizes hunting in packs, threatening travelers walking in their shadows. In places the trees were so large, their leaves so myriad overhead, that even the sun could shine down only in needle-sized rays, thin columns of light in the artificial evening.

The forest was monstrous. Not only in size, but in mettle. The forest was stout. There were almost no stumps, Forde noticed, nor any deadened trees in their path. The forest floor was covered in wet earth and fallen leaves and pine needles, and the sound of greaves clomping against live earth was satisfying. Overhead, birds of different sizes and different colors sung in different keys. The forest was alive, yes, and as old as Grado itself, since back to the days of lore and legend, when the Demon King of nightmares lived to torment Magvel. Forde had read one of his late father's books on the history of Grado, and he tried to remember what it had told him about the Great Forest.

Not a haunted wood, but a spirit wood. Let's see, what was it? The nature spirits, wasn't it? Anima mages came here to meditate and commune with the spirits of the earth…

Forde looked ahead, and when they had passed to the side of an inordinately huge tree, he remembered more.

Trees as tall as a castle's spires, as sturdy as any wall built of stone and mortar. This place has lasted a long time, so it's no wonder there are so many huge trees around. It doesn't look like anybody has been in the forest this deep for…centuries!

Forde sighed.

This would be a really interesting scene to paint…I almost wish I had more time to spend here. Oh well.

They walked for a few hours more until the sun began to set off in the distance. Forde cocked his head to the right to watch as he rode along. The setting sun was a beautiful watercolor of warm tones, pinks and reds and oranges blending together. The canvas was the darkening sky, imperfect with tints of purple and dull gray, a distant menagerie of colors too untamed to touch. Again Forde thought of his paints, and again he sighed, chastising himself for letting his mind wander too far off. When he turned his eyes back to the path, weaving between trees, he saw curtains of evening fall.

It's getting dark quickly.

"Kyle," Ephraim said at some point.

"Yes, my lord?"

"What do you know about Castle Genevese?"

Forde looked over at Kyle, whose brow was furrowed. "Aside from that it's been abandoned, not much, I'm afraid. Forgive me, I should know more, but—"

"That's all right, Kyle," Ephraim said. "I also know little. I studied history with Lyon in Grado, but admittedly, I don't remember much of what I learned."

"Ah, who wants to hear about the history of Grado anyway?" Forde said, earning him a fear-inspiring reproachful glance from Kyle.

"All I know," continued Ephraim, "is that House Genevese was once one of the strongest and most respected houses in all Grado, and that one of the old Lords Genevese was the closest adviser of one of the old Emperors of Grado as well as the governor of one of the smaller provinces. I don't remember exactly when, but it was some hundred years ago, and since then, House Genevese has fallen into shame. Their lands were seized, their manors taken, and they were left only a small castle as theirs. And now that has been abandoned, and apparently for some time."

"Wow," Forde said, nodding. He maneuvered his horse around a fallen tree branch. "For someone who says he remembered very little of his lessons, you seem quite knowledgeable to me, milord!"

"You needn't flatter me, Forde. That information helps us very little."

"What I want to know is, if the rumor is tr—" Kyle stopped mid-sentence. The rumor need be true, or else they were in a lot of trouble. "That is, why would someone take Princess Eirika to an abandoned castle many leagues from Grado Keep? If they meant to seize her, why not put her in a dungeon in the castle city, under the watch of their generals?"

Ephraim sighed vigorously and walked faster onward. The mounted knights rode quickly forward and flanked him.

"I don't know," Ephraim said. The fading sun had almost faded completely, and the curtains of evening were closing. "All I have is a…damnable sense, a…fool brother's intuition." He stopped at a place open enough to camp in.

Kyle and Forde silently dismounted their horses and tethered them. They sat together on the moist earth, each facing inward, watching each other closely. Forde studied the face of his prince. Ephraim had been stoic during their raid of Renvall, quiet and powerful. Now Forde watched him, and for the first time in days, Prince Ephraim seemed human. The shadows under his eyes were long, and his brows and his lip were clenched tightly. The sun had disappeared, the world was boundless dark, and there was no end to the forest in sight. Ephraim spoke two words.

"I fear."

- O -

Eirika dreamt again. Again she had seen Seth's face. Again she had looked into his eyes and waited for his comforting words, waited for him to train his empty eyes on hers and reassure her. Again he was just about to speak. Again he had almost spoken. This time, instead of his eyes lighting with fire, his eyes collapsed and turned to dust, replaced by spiders, spiders, hundreds of them, pouring out of his empty sockets. Then his mouth had spoken without moving.

"Rise and shine…princess."

Eirika woke up, clenching painfully onto a scream, trying not to shout out or vomit. She would not give Valter the satisfaction of seeing her give in. The damp, rancid air of her cell seemed colder than before. Her left eye still ached.

"Good morning, princess; or should I say 'good evening'? Since you've been alone for a while, I figured you might enjoy some company."

Eirika opened her eyes and squinted at the light. Valter was squatting down, holding the lantern in front of his face and his eyes were dancing with flames. He pressed his face against the bars and she leaned forward as far as she could. It was difficult to see; her left eye still ached, her sight a blur of shapeless color and dark. A few seconds later, her good eye could see his face clearly enough.

It wasn't Valter's face.

The face was gray and cast a pale silhouette in the lantern's light. It had no eyes, only empty sockets, caverns that seemed to catch the fire and stoke it. A spider crawled out of the left one. Its mouth hung down unnaturally.

Eirika gasped and froze. Valter groaned lustfully at the sound of her despair.

"Why are you so afraid, princess? It's only a head. It's only…a head."

It was a head. It was only a head.

"Don't you recognize your friend?"

Valter held the head in one hand, clutching it by its fire-red hair. It was only a head. Seth's head.

She recoiled in horror and pressed herself as hard as she could against the cell wall. Her mouth acted on its own volition and she screamed. Her whole body shook uncontrollably. The soundless darkness seemed to press against her harder, the smell of decay seemed to magnify. She wanted to run, run, get as far away from the eyes, the terrible, lifeless eyes, but she couldn't get away. Her chains strangled her like lecherous hands as she tried to get away, her collar throttled her and made her choke. Her stomach tumbled and churned and she retched violently. Blue-green hair fell into her eyes, over her face. She choked on stomach acids and sobs. She grabbed the floor and held on as it spun and tried to throw her off, over the edge.

No no, goddess oh goddess no no goddess no please, it isn't oh goddess oh goddess—

"Don't let go!" she cried between breathless sobs, thrashing. "Don't let go! Don't let go…"

Valter watched as Eirika writhed, fighting her chains. "Devil…devil it feels…feels…" He breathed heavily, grunting against his hand. "So good to see you squirm."

He spoke, punctuated by ecstatic gasps. "Squirm, squirm, move. Yes. Yes, yes. Be afraid." The man clutched onto his arm and dug his fingernails into his skin. With his free hand he pulled his hair. "When you crawl like that, I feel like I'm on fire. I'm burning! Oh, devil. Devil, it feels good!"

Valter fell back against the wall, grasping his scalp tighter, groaning, clenching his teeth, mashing his legs together, his voice cutting out. He shuddered and moaned.

Eirika tried not to pay attention. She closed her eyes and tried to disappear. She cried loudly, uncontrollably, but still she could hear the sound of a fist pounding a wall, the sound of labored breaths, the sound of a man with half the pleasure of heaven and half the pain of hell.

She tried not to cry. She tried. Eirika tried to think of her home, about her brother and how they used to play and how he used to touch her cheek and they pretended his wooden knights were proposing to her dollies. That seemed like it was in another world, another time, another life. It was faraway, something unattainable by someone rotting in a dark cell at the bottom of the world. Her dollies were in the castle. Her dollies were probably dead too.

She tried not to cry, Latona could attest to that. For her brother, for her father, for everyone who died, she tried, tried not to cry, not for the sake of her own fear. The brave soldiers who lived and died for her country wouldn't cry for fear. Her brother would not cry for fear.

Eirika cried. Her father and her brother were not the type to chastise her for crying, and Eirika had never been the type to cry over an unappetizing green or a broken toy. When they both were children, Ephraim would come to her and hold her when she wept, but that was in another world. In this world, only the chains and the earth cradled her. She cried for what seemed like eternity.

At some point, she heard Valter speak but couldn't make out what he was saying. Eirika closed her eyes, leaned back, and took a deep breath, then another. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and rubbed her eyes—

"LISTEN TO ME!"

The sudden shout startled Eirika out of her introspection. Her head jerked back and hit the wall with a heavy thump. In considerable pain, she watched as the man on the other side of the door crawled towards her, fisting the iron bars standing between them, trying to fit his skull through the narrow spaces. The lantern sat on the floor and cast an eerie light on his scowl. Now with a clear look at his features, Eirika marveled at how dark and sleepless his eyes looked. His hair was wild, glistening with oil. His armor was bloodstained and imposing. His lips had turned gray. Eirika thanked the sun, the moon, and the angels that the prison held her in and him out.

"Maybe you grew up in a beautiful world," Valter said, struggling to catch his breath. He spoke boldly, crisply, a man thoroughly sated. "Maybe you have beautiful bone-white skin and soft hair, yes, but that's all meaningless. You're ugly inside. Ugly. When I scrape you down to the bone, you'll see. You're as ugly as I am. We all have dark hearts waiting to break free. We all want to be punished. Or don't you know that good conduct is always well chastised, princess?" The word sounded like acid.

Eirika sat forward. Her neck burned raw and her wrists throbbed and beat like a heart.

Valter laughed, but it wasn't like before; it was humorless and angry. "Pain and pleasure are one and the same. The hunter, the hunt. The fang, the claw, the bite. To be bitten, to be hurt, to bleed. To run, to hide, to catch, to kill. To feel! Pain is the only pleasure."

Silently, Eirika wondered where her brother was. She had a sisterly feeling that he was alive, that he was still in Grado somewhere, traveling with his men. In silence or otherwise, she could wait for him to come. She would wait for him to come. She repeated it like a mantra in her mind.

I will wait for you, brother. I will wait for you. I will wait.

It was all she could do. In the libraries, she could read and learn the secrets of the world, and in the courtyards of her castle, Ephraim could tutor her in the arts of the sword, but here she could do nothing but wait. A little voice in her head told her "I can't take much more!" and it made her shiver.

"Your eyes and your little green-stained knees mean nothing here," Valter said. "You may roll in the grass like a tramp your spare moments, but in my world you lie still when I command and walk like a man when I command. No one can help you here, princess. No one! Here, I am god, I am maker and un-maker. I am your master, I am your hunter. I do not need to break your legs or snap off your fingers; I have the power to break your soul. You go against me, little bird, and…"

Valter smiled. He looked happy. Genuinely happy.