"Hello? Your Holiness?" Corrin watched as the young man, who was possibly the most optimistic cavalier in all of the kingdom, knocked on the thick gates of the fortress for what appeared to be the thirtieth time. They had split off, taking one of two main gates of the Sevenfold Sanctuary. They reached the enormous stronghold after several days' ride.
"Silas, he's not going to go to the door himself." Scowling, Corrin hopped off the back of the horse and walked towards the side of the gates. "I mean, there's always the chance that we're not meant to meet him. But there's a reason tha the stories don't mention that he literally opens the gates and lets you in."
"If the doors are locked,"purred Niles, "then all that's left to do is fine wherever the spare key is kept." He paced around, looking upwardsm, likely casing the structure for a place to grapple upwards.
Finding nothing, the three retainers looked back towards the shut gates of the fortress, which by all appearances were smooth slabs of stone sealed shut. No locks, latches or opening mechanisms were in sight.
"I'm afraid this scouting mission isn't bearing much fruit." Corrin commented.
"Be patient. Information doesn't come easily to those that are hastty." The thief wagged a knowing finger at her, shouldered his bow, and peered upwards again.
From the sky dropped a familiar wyvern rider, who shook her head as she landed. "There's a little movement within the gates, but archer towers are stationed close enough that I can't fly too low to the ground." Beruka scratched the side of her face ruefully. "Looks like that's not going to be a way in for me and Lady Camilla."
Most fortresses and sanctuaries atop mountains anticipated flyers with ballistaes. The Sage was no different than any noble that chose a remote spot for their villas.
The hilt of her sword tapped against the gate slightly. There was a sheen to the weapon that glowed a purplish blue, and a faint rumble. Startled, Corrin leapt back as the gates ceased moving.
"Hmm, try touching that sword to the gates again," suggested Niles, all business for once. Following his advice, she drew the blade and, with a flick of her wrist, slashed at the surface of the door. Though the blow glanced off its surface, the rumbling sped up as the gates churned with a rumble. Machinery that was powered by incomphrehensible magics were set in motion even as Corrin sheathed the Yato and peered into the entrance of the sanctuary. Beruka sped off to find the rest of the group.
The room that Corrin looked into was unadorned and untouched, with stairwells leading in two different directions into rooms and halls that she could not map out right away. That was fine. They had time to figure out what they needed as long as the steps were steady and everyone knew where to go.
"At your command." Her words carried the same distance when she protected the Nohrian royals. Xander filed into the entrance hall at the rear of the group, impassively nodding at her. Questions hooked into her as he spoke quietly with Niles and Beruka. Do I need to resign from my duties? When can I speak to you again?
It was silly, she thought. Nothing significant had changed, even if it was a nice little pleasant distraction that had filled a brief moment a few days ago.
The answer, practially speaking, was to do so once she had finished deciphering what everything had meant— the tapestry, the sword, and the songstress. That was important enough to work against her pride. She had been physically wounded before, and knew what to expect. There was no guarantee that indulging in her feelings wouldn't come at a similarly hurtful price.
"Be on alert" Leo guided his horse towards the front of the group. "I hear armored footsteps." Indeed, the sound of weapons and armor clattered up one of the nearby stairwells. In a matter of seconds, three spearmen clad in Hoshido's liveries rushed up the stairs.
"Have they conquiered the Sevenfold Sanctuary?" asked Xander.
"Any nation's kings or knights or peasant has a right to speak to the Sage," Camilla answered. "Well, if he's taken a liking to them." She readied her steel axe and grinned. "What's a few Hoshidans to making sure your quest is completed?"
"Impossible…We've received no reports of Hoshidans attempting the same pilgrimage." Xander insisted.
Leo was observing their movements in silence from a distance. At last, he raised his hand. "Their armor is Hoshidan, but there's something…not quite right about those soldiers. Look at their eyes."
Corrin had fought a great deal of people in numerous occasions where the lives of Xander, Leo, Camilla and Elise were in danger. She had faced down reluctant sellswords and bloodthirsty assassins, but each face that she had seen on a foe had some degree of emotion. The spear-fighters that advanced towards them did so as if only muscle memory propelled their legs forward. Their eyes were identically impassive, as if a great invisible puppetmaster directed them. But with the practiced swing of a halberdier, one approached Niles and swung for the thief's torso.
As the adventurer jumped out of the way, she saw him nock and arrow, a ferocious snarl twisting his features into seriousness. In a matter of seconds, he flicked his wrist towards his quiver, drew an arrow, and sent a wickedly sharp shot into the spear-fighter's chest. But where a normal soldier would have cried out in pain or doubled over, the only reaction it garnered fro the phantom-like soldier was a glance towards where the arrow had lodged and continued to lope towards the group steadily.
Several arrows and a strike from Xander's lance sent the soldier and several of his compatriots to their demises. But even as they lay bleeding out on the tiles of the Sanctuary, they remained inexpressive.
She had never taken pained cries from her enemies as a source of solace. But absolute silence from a foe sent a chill down Corrin's spine.
"Just what are these men…?" Turning from where she had fended off a scroll-wielding diviner, Corrin knelt down to examine a fallen soldier. Their shapes were human enough, but lacked something crucial that kept them human. As they fell from battle, they landed like dolls without joints, collapsing to the floor as if a spell powering them simply ran out.
"Human or not, I will protect Lord Leo from these fiends!" Odin puffed out his chest, visibly excited about the Sorcerer's cloak that he had been awarded by the magical academy that winter. He had sent lightning hurtling towards a sword-wielding samurai with the same energitic eagerness he had always carried himself with.
A Malig Knight awaited them in the next hall, her face hidden by her helmet. She and several knights surrounded the next staircase and a small chest of finely-carved wood and gilt.
"That's a Nohrian soldier, isn't it? Do you recognize her?" Corrin turned to Camilla. The other woman shook her head grimly. Defections from the army weren't an impossible occurrence, but like the spear-fighters and diviners, their movements were mechanical and almost automatic. As soon as they caught sight of the advancing group, the phantom soldiers moved moved without hesitation, weapons drawn.
"Alright, then." Pulling the Yato free from its sheath, Corrin charged forward, feeling her body tense as it got accustomed to cutting down someone whose uniform sigil matched her very own. Adrenaline lightened her step as she leapt upwards, driving the point of the blade towards the wyvern's neck. It cut deep into the creature's side, sending it toppling to the side with an anguished shriek, alive in ways that the woman that it held its reins couldn't be.
To her right, she saw a knight, weakened by several of Jakob's daggers to its front, topple over from the strike of a Hammer, a blunt axe meant to paralyze the bones of armor-clad fighters. Even Beruka, the seasoned assassin among them, wore a grimace as she set her wyvern into a descent, landing without so much as a snap of her mount's wings.
Before Corrin had a chance to catch her breath properly, she saw a brief wave from Niles, who was knelt over the small chest at the rear of the room. "Well, that's no good. Lords, Ladies, you're going to want to take a look at this. "
The discovery must have been important, thought Corrin, if it had made Niles recall that he was advised to use titles when addressing anyone but Leo. With caution tightening her steps, Corrin approached.
Inside the chest was a key that, from its design, appeared to be made of the same material as the stone gates. That wasn't the problem, though.
Around it, someone had tied a bright red ribbon. The certainty of danger seized Corrin suddenly. Springing to her feet and snatching the key out of Niles' grasp, she ran over and brandished it at Xander.
"We have to leave." She said. "It was a trap. There's no telling what the bandit's done to the Sanctuary—"
Both of them turned as something deeper within the fortress let out a deafening roar. With a thundering boom, something large and solid sailed across the sky to land on the staircase they had just taken. A boulder had sealed off the way that they had taken into the Sevenfold Sanctuary.
"That's the cry of a Stoneborn. A cousin of the Faceless," Leo frowned. "Iago conjured one to guard one of Nohr's borders, but I've never liked the idea of deploying them."
"I pity whatever guard gets stuck on guard duty with that."
"A ballista that is tireless and devastating." The young prince commented bitterly. "I suppose if one must wage war, one readies the deadliest weapons that magic can devise." He looked down at the key in her hand. "Lord Brother, what do you make of this?"
Corrin handed the key over, meeting his gaze briefly. The battles with the Sage's soldiers had done nothing to him, but the same ribbon had spelled out danger towards his family countless times. A heavy silence blanketed the expedition group, as knights and retainers alike waited for his next words.
She saw a glimpse of Xander's uneasiness and uncertainty. Where others might have seen the same withdrawn prince that thought strategies through before making his choice, she recognized that inside he weighed whether or not his soldiers would make it out of danger, whether Nohr's honor would be sullied by what he could and could not do. At last he spoke up, his voice far steadier than that of a paladin that had just fought off two skirmishes.
"If the bandit or a lieutenant of theirs is here, we attack, and send a clear message." He looked ahead, his gaze as piercing as a young hawk's path of flight. "Nohr cannot run from that which threatens it. If we are to face this foe, we do so on our terms." At his side, there was a crackling noise as the blade of Siegfried hummed. As if it was second nature, he unsheathed it, raised it high, and swung it out at the boulder. The weapon glowed a grim shade of scarlet as a black bolt of energy shot towards the giant stone. Corrin heard the give of stone as it was cleaved in two, its pieces crumbling apart like enormous crumbs of clay and rubble.
"If any choose to turn back, I will allow it. This mission is dangerous. But I would rather have you fight alongside me, knights and soldiers. This bandit threatens the royal House, and must be stopped." Raising Siegfried once more, Xander pointed forward.
Not a single knight peeled from the group. With newfound determination, Corrin leapt onto the saddle of the nearest cavalier and sped off upwards into the Sanctuary's next chamber. It had taken the words of a king ready to lead to wield Siegfried, and there were a great many things she had wanted to say to him. The pieces for whatever game, whatever series of events that had the potential to devastate or end in triumph, had been set in motion. Whether they would both end the game still standing was up to what she would do next.