For a long time Corrin floated beneath the surface of her own thoughts, unaware and unfeeling, not completely unconscious but so swaddled in darkness that she could not pull herself up out of it. She reached up again and again, as far as she could, but something kept dragging her back down, and she was tired, and she slipped into a dreamless state. Awareness was far away, and she needed to rest. She was so tired. Maybe someone would come to wake her up.

Awareness came back to her in a thin line, a single sensation: gravity, inertia, the swaying of her own body as she was moved. Corrin felt as surely as she had not been able to feel before and that let her latch onto the fact of sensation, this sliver of consciousness. She tried to move, and could only shift in the smallest ways. Nothing there, not yet.

Sound came back to her, and she felt awake when it did. Hard heels tapping against stone, two pairs right by her and more in the distance, moving in and out of range of her awareness. She opened her eyes, and saw nothing. Corrin nearly panicked then, but fought the urge down, shoved it into the abyss where it needed to be, focused on what was there as her faculties eased back in. She inhaled, realizing she did not smell the mire anymore; she smelled torches, and in the distance she smelled food, and next to her was the familiar scent of someone who had held her while she slept so many times.

"Camilla?" Her voice came out small, barely audible. Corrin turned her head, felt her cheek brush against the fabric of the mantle Camilla wore over her shoulders and throat. She coughed, tried again. "Camilla, is that you?"

"She's awake," Camilla said without turning her head. As soon as she said that, there was a crackle of energy next to her, then an increase in air pressure that made Corrin's ears pop. The sound of the torches and the distant footsteps and voices died away.

"No one will hear us now," Leo said. "But don't stop walking, and try not to be too obvious. They can still see us, and some might wonder why they can't hear our conversation."

"You don't have to tell me, dear."

Corrin opened her eyes, was met with darkness. She tried to reach up and touch her eyes, but her hands would not move, remaining fixed together in front of her hips.

"I can't see," she said, and she felt her voice rising both in terms of volume and in terms of panic. "I can't move my hands."

"You're blindfolded, darling, and your hands have been bound together and then to your body. Iago insisted on it as a... precaution."

"He wanted you gagged," Leo said, "so that you could not 'poison the air of the capital with Hoshidan propaganda.' I convinced him that this humiliation was unnecessary."

"Leo told the little toad that if he interfered with how the royal siblings would treat their own prisoner, then he would be reduced to a red smear on the castle wall."

"I'm in Windmire?"

"Darling, you're in Castle Krakenburg itself. We've brought you home."

If Corrin had had anything in her stomach she might have shamed herself by vomiting. "When? How did I get here?"

"I carried you, dear. Marzia and I swept in among the Hoshidans, grabbed hold of you, and spirited you away."

The words brought back the memory: sound and chaos, an explosion of earth and water, the beating of mighty wings and the bellowing roar of Camilla's wyvern. "Ryoma and the others—"

"They are fine." Leo spoke in clipped words, now. "The family you left us for suffered no casualties that I am aware of. Beruka and Selena both reported that they did not have time to kill their opponents before retreating, and by the time I fled with Niles and Odin the Hoshidan royals were wounded but not in mortal danger. You can rest assured: your family is not dead unless the swamp consumed them."

"That is enough, Leo," Camilla said, and Leo grunted as if he were going to say something but tapered off into silence. "That's behind us. We've brought Corrin home, and she will stay with us." Camilla shifted Corrin in her arms, hefting her carefully. "We've confiscated your stone and your sword for now, dear, but they will be returned to you in time. When it's determined to be safe for you to have them."

The Yato. Without her sword, Corrin felt more naked and helpless than any other combination of circumstances could have made her feel. It was supposed to be an instrument of fate, it chose her to be its carrier and the actor of that destiny. Without it, she was more than just defenseless: she was lost. It wasn't proof of her righteousness and never had been, but it was an anchor she had used to try to remind herself that, right or wrong, her decisions had been hers to make and the act of making them was its own kind of virtue.

"Put me down," she said. "I can walk on my own to wherever you're taking me."

"But, darling..."

"Please, Camilla." The tapping of hard heels on stone flooring came to a stop, and so did the swaying motion of being in Camilla's arms. Camilla lowered her until her feet touched the ground, then supported her by the shoulders until she pushed herself up to her feet. Her knees felt shaky, her calves and thighs were like water, but she took one tentative step and did not fall. "It's all right. I can walk, but I might have to go slowly for a few minutes."

"We may not have that opportunity. Camilla, eyes up!" There was another pop, and the sound of torches burning and people gossiping came flooding back. Camilla kept one hand on her left shoulder, but the fingers there had tensed, and if she had closed her grip then she might have broken the bone there. One pair of footsteps in particular was drawing near to them, heavy but dull, a huge person in soft-soled boots.

"Lady Camilla, Lord Leo." Corrin recognized Hans's voice and suddenly wished very desperately that she had the Yato in her hands, or any sword at all. The man had tried to kill her once already, and that he was here now meant things were as bad as they could be. "I see our prisoner's up and about."

"Our prisoner, Hans?" Camilla's tones were so sweet, practically dripping in congeniality, that Corrin could see the particular smile she was using: eyes closed, head tilted, inviting a response that anyone who knew her would instantly know to keep to themselves. "You must be confused. Sweet little Corrin is my prisoner, and Leo is helping me escort her. I do not believe you share in this arrangement?"

"That, ah, hrm." Hans coughed. "Yes. I see your prisoner's up and about. Regardless, His Majesty has commanded that the traitor be brought before him immediately." Corrin had to fight down the urge to retch. If she was being brought before Garon himself, then she wouldn't survive the hour. Her adoptive father had ordered Hans to try to kill her, had turned Corrin herself into a suicidal weapon to strike at the heart of Hoshido, and had never been one to shy away from executing prisoners of war.

"That is why we are escorting her," Leo said. "Now that her injuries have been tended to, we are bringing her before our father to seek his judgement. You can see that we are doing so."

"Y...yes, my lord." Then Hans cleared his throat and his feet shuffled, and Corrin could see him spreading his feet to widen his stance, give him greater balance, and she hated him for presenting an image of courage in the face of Leo and Camilla that she could sympathize with. "Be that as it may, His Majesty has commanded that I bring the prisoner to him personally. So I'll be taking her now."

"Oh, dear," Camilla said, and she let go of Corrin's shoulder and Corrin listened to the sound of her heels ringing against the stone flooring. "Hans, were you not listening to my little brother just now? We are escorting Corrin this very moment. Do not worry yourself over such trifling matters. Your services are not required."

"Lady Camilla, I have to insist." He was bold now. "By order of the king I will be taking custody of the prisoner, whether you like it or—"

There was a cracking sound so loud that Corrin jumped, nearly fell. As the echo died away she heard something small and wet hit the floor.

"Aaagh! Are you out of your mind? You think you can just strike someone acting on order from—"

The next crack was much louder and sharper. When Camilla spoke, her voice was perfectly even, perfectly neutral.

"Your."

Another crack, another scream, cut off by a choke.

"Services."

A heavier impact, a fist rather than an open hand.

"Are."

A heavier one still, a wet sound beneath it, and someone fell to their knees.

"Not."

Bones crunched under a mailed fist, blood flowing in torrents and dripping onto the stone floor.

"Required!" This last was almost a happy chirp, and no impact followed it save the sound of a body hitting the floor listlessly. "Oh dear! Somebody hurry and clean this poor man up before he stains the carpets. Now." Camilla's hand was on her shoulder again and at her gentle push Corrin began to walk down the hallway. "Carefully, darling, but not too slowly. I will not let you trip on anything."

"You shouldn't have done that," Leo said. "Hans is a small, petty man, but he holds grudges and he has our father's favor."

"It will be fine," Camilla laughed. "It's not as if I killed him, is it? He may need to replace a few of his teeth, but if that is his only punishment for speaking so coarsely to a princess of Nohr then I think father will forgive me for disciplining him." Corrin didn't know if that was true, but she did not hear anyone else around them; Leo had not put up his magic again, which meant that others had seen Camilla's display and were avoiding her to try to duck her wrath. Probably wise of them, and it meant that they were free to talk, which meant that Corrin could feel the enormity and the lethality of her situation. She was trying desperately not to panic, but it was hard.

"You are taking me to my death," she said, her voice low because she couldn't raise it.

"Oh, no. Darling, no, you can't think that."

"Do you think Garon is going to let me live? He sent Hans to kill me at the Bottomless Canyon, and would have let me die in the explosion he set off in the Hoshidan capital. Leo, weren't you given orders to kill me on sight in the swamp?"

"Orders for your death," Leo said, "were predicated on your betrayal. On your choosing your other family over ours, on choosing the land of your birth over the land that raised you. But that never happened, did it? In your heart you were loyal to us all along."

"What?" Corrin was shaking now, fear and frustration coming together into a storm in her chest. "Leo, this is not the time to mock me."

"It has been suggested," Camilla said, her voice low, "that you were ensorcelled by the Hoshidan mages, your thoughts turned against us by deceptive magic. And so that is what happened: I believe it. Xander believes it. You must believe it too."

"But I wasn't—I can't—you're asking me to lie? To denounce the choices I've made, my loyalties, my family? You're asking me to throw away everything I've done, after all the lives I've taken?"

"We are asking you to live," Leo said. "As a prisoner, perhaps for many years, but we are asking you to live. Do you understand? Everything else is secondary to this. Your thoughts have not been your own since you were captured by Hoshido. You were tortured, forced into servitude, and in every moment you rebelled against their control. That we were able to capture you, that you are here now, that you will submit so completely to Father's mercy, all of it is proof that the story is true and that their hold on your thoughts was never total. Tell this story to our father, Corrin. Please."

"You think Garon is going to let me live? You think that after all the damage I've done, no matter what story I tell, that he won't have me executed on the spot? I won't give up on everything I believe in just to be killed anyway!"

"Enough." Camilla's voice was very soft, and she pulled lightly on Corrin's shoulder so that they all came to a stop. "We're here. Listen to me, my darling: do not betray your principles if you don't think you can. But let us do it for you. We will bear the burden of the story, and we will sell it as best we are able."

Leo was soft too, now: "If you cannot tell the lie, then keep your silence. Keep it no matter what. Keep it as if you do not know what is happening or where you are. We will protect you."

"Leo, Camilla. I don't..." She felt them near to her, and realized she was crying, and the shame was like a caul that would not let her breathe. They were so close, acting to protect her even now, after they had called her traitor, after she had broken their hearts, and she wanted nothing more than to hold her brother and sister. She tried to move her arms, but could not. She did not try speaking again.

"Hush." Camilla put her arms around her, pulling her close in an embrace that was firm, not crushing. Another hand—Leo's—slipped into hers, and held tight there. In spite of everything she felt safe, protected, as she had not felt since leaving the Northern Fortress. She leaned into the embrace, gripped Leo's hand as hard as she could. "It is all right. We are here for you. No matter what happens." Camilla lowered her head and kissed her like she had when Corrin was very small. "Remember we love you."

After a long time Camilla let her go and the doors were opened. They walked into the throne room together.

Corrin was on her knees, Camilla and Leo standing to either side of her. She did not know who else was in the room; surely not Iago, who would have gloated by now if he had seen her in this state. She did not know why she was focusing on so small a detail as who was there to witness her execution, but she was, and clung to the act of blindly surveying the room as if it would keep her afloat in a sea of darkness.

"This is not as I had commanded," King Garon said, his voice filling the vastness of the chamber so that he seemed to be speaking from everywhere at once. Corrin knew he was in front of her, up the steps and seated on the throne, but he might as well have been next to her. "Where is Hans? He was supposed to have killed this traitor and returned to me by now."

"Was he?" Camilla sounded confused. "How terrible! To think that he would lie about such a thing—about an order from his king!"

"Hans informed us that he was to escort Corrin, alive, in your presence." Leo offered no opinion on Hans's deception; that was Camilla's purview, not his.

"I am not concerned with whether or not he saw fit to relay my commands perfectly to those to whom they did not apply! Where is he?"

"Oh, Father, I'm so sorry. After telling that horrible lie about his orders, he... spoke out of turn to me. The things he said, I won't repeat." Her tone shifted then, hard and cold. "I'm afraid I had to punish him for it."

"Hans is in the infirmary, Father. He will recuperate." Leo sniffed. "I would have stepped in, but Camilla pointed out that an insult to one of the royal children is an insult to the crown, and so his punishment stood."

"I... see." One could hear the gears in Garon's head turning, possibilities and conjecture whirling all at once. Corrin knew him to be a shrewd man, ruthlessly clever, but she also knew that there was protection for her siblings in the need for appearances. Not much, but apparently enough. "If he did insult you, my daughter, then you acted appropriately in punishing him. You are forgiven your transgression."

"You are ever gracious," Camilla said.

"Gracious," and Corrin bit the inside of her cheeks at the sound of Iago's voice, "but not so forgiving that justice can be left by the wayside. You have the traitor here before you now, Your Majesty! That she remains alive is a greater transgression still!"

"That is so. Leo, I commanded that my former daughter's treasonous actions had earned her a swift and summary execution. Can you explain to me," and Garon's tone suggested that one could not, "why she is still breathing?"

"Lord Father, I have determined—"

"Your Majesty, surely you have grown tired of the conjecture about Corrin not being responsible for her reprehensible betrayals. Why would you entertain such thoughts from anyone? That Lord Leo would even begin to espouse such drivel, why, it's almost enough to call his loyalty into question."

The air shifted, the pressure increasing, and Corrin could feel the heat of Leo's magic rolling off of him in waves.

"Iago, if you speak once more to question my loyalty to the crown and to Nohr, they will be the last words to ever leave your liar's mouth."

Iago sputtered, and in any other situation would have quailed, but his proximity to Garon must have made him bold. "How dare you speak to me that way! I am the king's adviser! You can't just threaten my life and expect no repercussions!"

"There is always another upstart dog willing to beg scraps at my father's table," Leo said, and Corrin had to fight the urge to try to look at him, even blindfolded. "Your replacement could hardly be less advantageous for the kingdom."

"ENOUGH!" Garon's voice shook the room, shook Corrin's teeth in her head, but she felt Camilla and Leo's legs brush against her shoulders and drew strength from their presence. "Iago, if you speak out of turn once more then I will let my son make good on his promise. Leo, you are my child and a valued commander, but if you do not answer my question then the same fate will be visited on you. Now: why is Corrin alive?"

Leo stepped forward, addressing the crown directly, and Corrin's heart followed him out there.

"Your Majesty is familiar with the various sundry magics that the Hoshidans can employ, and the forms that those can take. You are also aware that my sister did not enter Hoshido of her own volition—she was captured by an enemy combatant, in sight of one of our troops, after Hans fled the scene in derelict of his duty to protect her." Garon's voice rose in a growl, but Leo continued. "You are also aware that blood is a powerful source and conduit for magic; it is what allows our family to manipulate the dragon veins, and one of the sources of our strength. During my confrontation with Corrin I determined that, in keeping with a theory put forth before, she was not acting of her own will. As near as I can tell, the blood she shares with the Hoshidans allowed them to influence her thoughts and set her against us, her true family, contravening what would be her own wishes if she had command of herself."

"And this is the conclusion you have arrived at." Garon's voice was soft, a serpent's scales coiling in on themselves, with just as much promise of violence and death. Corrin could hear the venom dripping. "It is simply... not her fault."

"Yes, my king."

"And I concur with his findings," Camilla said, stepping forward, leaving Corrin alone on the floor. "No one knows my sister better than I do, Father. You know that. When we fought, she was not herself, and every action saw the struggle written plainly on her face."

"My children. My children, who cling so fiercely to one another." The hint of affection there was a veneer, leaning into something else. "How adamantly you protect one another. Of course you know that if you seek to protect Corrin now for her sake, rather than the kingdom's, because you love her and not because your story is true, that you are as traitorous as she? That in sharing her treason, you will share her punishment?"

"Of course, Father." She could hear Camilla's smile in the dark, and wanted to reach out to her.

"It is the only way things should be." Leo's surety and confidence was so total, so absolute, and so false that she could not bear the sound of it. Corrin lifted her head, her mind all a storm, to tell her siblings that they did not have to do this, that they should ever share in her punishment, that she had never betrayed them, she had to tell them she loved them—

But her jaw would not move, as if her molars were fused together. She pulled, strained, but could do no more than hiss between her teeth. Some magic was holding her silent.

Leo. Oh, Leo, please, no...

"As it should be," Garon repeated. "Suppose I allow the possibility that this... theory may be true. I would have some greater proof of it. Corrin. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

Defense was not her intent; with her death she would exonerate them, offer herself up to Garon's mercies. She would let Iago kill her, would let Hans have his way, if that would be payment enough to spare Camilla and Leo. She could feel the scales tilting beneath her, her life weighed against theirs, and that the balance was so precarious was like knives in her belly. She would die to protect them, she had only to say the words, she would lie and throw her choices into the shadows but she could not let them die for her. She tried to speak, tried to tell the lie, but all that came out was a pained groan and a long hiss.

"She has been like this since we captured her," Leo said, and his voice did not betray anything. "I believe that her ability to speak will return over time."

"She will speak now," Garon said, and his boots were heavy as he descended the steps. "Enchantment or not, I would hear an explanation from her own mouth. I would hear how she is a victim of the Hoshidans, how their betrayal of her was an attack on us, and that she is not to blame for the Nohrian lives she has stolen. Speak, Corrin. SPEAK!"

But she could not.

He must have struck her then. The impact was absolute and world-shattering, divesting her of her senses so that she could not cry out even as Leo's magic vanished. The entire world was roaring, and there was no up or down, and the only thing she was sure of was the feel of the stone cool against her cheek. She was bleeding, but did not know from where. The sound was like an ocean crashing against the inside of her eardrums.

Voices then, far away, inaudible over the roar in her ears. Camilla's shock, Leo careful and terse, Garon speaking a command, Iago laughing and laughing and laughing. And someone else, a new presence, who walked with steps so heavy that the floor shook beneath them.

Powerful hands grabbed hold of her and hauled her to her feet, keeping her upright when her legs tried to collapse. Garon was talking, and she could not catch what he was saying, but she strained and strained through the agony in her skull and heard the end:

"...and you will determine if she has been under the influence of Hoshidan magic. If she has not, you will execute her on the spot. If she has, then she is compromised by the fact of her blood, and you will execute her on the spot! Do not fail me in this! Begone!"

A shove, and she nearly tripped, but the hand at her back grabbed her by her armor and would not let her fall, so she stumbled and pitched forward but never hit the ground. The act of walking was beyond her now, the awareness of walking was all she had left. She slipped in and out of consciousness as she moved, unable to pick out what was happening around her and to her. Camilla was gone. Leo was gone. She was alone now save for her new captor, walking down a corridor she couldn't pick out, stumbling, still walking.

Silent, she thought to herself, stay silent for them, do not speak. Scream if you have to, scream until your voice tears, but do not speak, do not let them die for you. If you meet your end here then end well, Corrin, and let them keep going. Oh Camilla, Leo, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...

On and on she went through the dark, until she was brought to a chamber. She was made to halt, and the door opened before her, and she was pushed roughly into the room. She fell, unable to catch herself, and had to push herself up onto her knees.

"I prayed it wouldn't come to this." Corrin's heart seized in her chest. No. "Every day I prayed you would come home to us. To me. I would have protected you, no matter what it took." Please no, anything but this, anyone but him. "I waited for you for so long, thinking the strength of your heart would bring you back... But not like this."

Powerful hands—gentler now, so much gentler—lifted her into a sitting position, reached around her head, and pulled her blindfold away. Now tears were running freely down her face, and pain and shame had twisted together to form some new thing in her chest that she couldn't put a name to. The light was blinding after so long in darkness, but she blinked through the pain, trying so hard to see, so ashamed and so afraid but still needing to see, needing to know.

And he was looking down at her, and she had never seen such sorrow in anyone's face before.

"Welcome home, little princess."