"Elysa!"
She sat limply on the dusty road before the palace, as grey clouds began to gather overhead.
"Can you hear me? Elysa?! Gods, damn it all..." Chrom scooped her up in his arms, tossed her across Daisy's saddle, and swung up after her. Elysa felt heavy, as if she could sense her own deadweight on the pegasus's back.
"Milord," Cordelia was wide-eyed and shaken by the rapid progression of events that had just unfolded, but her composure persisted. "Do we turn and fight?"
"No," Chrom tightened his grip around Elysa, wrapping one arm around her and taking up Daisy's reins in his free hand. "Make for the border, as quickly as you can – we shouldn't fight on their turf."
"Chrom, it's nearly an hour's ride to the nearest crossing onto Ylissean land," Sully protested. "Best we don't let these bastards run us—"
"It's not up for debate," Chrom snapped. "Go!"
Elysa lurched in the saddle as Daisy took off, hooves pounding on the road. Her uncertainty with Chrom at the reins made her hesitant to leave the ground, but the lack of responsiveness from her mistress gave her little choice but to move.
The dull, rhythmic thumping of the horses and pegasus sprinting down the road blurred with the sound of Elysa's heartbeat, steadily beating like a drum. With each reverberation, she felt colder and emptier, even as the shadows of the Plegian palace began to diminish into the distance.
It was a hollowness that she knew, one that she had felt before. The overwhelming sense of déjà vu sought its source, and she saw, in a flash of memory, a grassy field under a barely clouded day. The scene was replaced with a rapid sequence of still, obscure images: a battle of some sort, Validar flying through the air, a massive explosion of purple lightning, Chrom's body laying prone on the ground... and then the scent and soft sensation of grass all around her again. Then Grima's voice purred in her mind.
Let me in, my child.
In a massive flood, her memories came back to her. Everything as Tharja had told her of her mother, the journey away from Plegia in her youth – it surged back as if she were breaking through the water's surface to come up for air. She remembered the day Chrom and Lissa had found her, wandering the countryside as she sojourned away from Tharja, seeking her freedom, and encountered the dark figure cloaked in her own visage.
Clever girl. It comes back to you. I have tried once before, to take you under my wings; but you resisted, foolishly. The damages to your mind are of your own doing, don't you see? You would not take my consciousness — our consciousness, so you lost your own...
No, she thought, no, you took it from me. And now you've taken Lucina away from me.
To be empty is to be receptive; impartial. Your destiny is far greater than any mortal bond that you could possibly forge.
"Get out of my head!" she screamed, aloud, without realizing it. She shook herself violently, and Chrom tightened his arm around her, pulling her to his chest.
"I have you," he said firmly, "I have you, and Grima will not take you, you hear me?"
She clung desperately to the sound of his voice, which finally reached her ears. She reached back, taking a fistful of his cloak in her hands, and looked up at him, fighting to stay rooted in reality and peel herself from the shadows.
"She's gone, Chrom... she's gone."
"She's not gone," Chrom swallowed, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. "But she's safe, safer than she could ever be anywhere else." Elysa pressed her face to his chest and stifled her tears.
She looked over his shoulder. There was no force in pursuit – only a lone, dusky grey pegasus. Aversa. She could have easily caught up to them, but lingered a bit back, seeming to trail behind them more than chasing the group.
They proceeded like that until they reached a bridge crossing a great ravine, marking a mile out from the Ylissean border. Aversa suddenly dashed ahead, landing in front of them and blocking their way. She held an ornate grimoire in one hand, and her pegasus's reins in the other. Her face was an expressionless mask.
"It's not too late to turn back, dear," she said patiently. "No one has to die here."
"How can you think that is even a possibility?" Elysa's voice was still hoarse. "Whoever you think I am, I'm not."
"On the contrary," Aversa sighed, "you are not who you think you are."
Clouds of red and black mist began to swirl around them, and from the miasma, haggard figures began to crawl up onto the edges of the bridge.
"It's the Risen," Cordelia twirled her lance. "To arms!"
"Stay," Chrom said to Elysa firmly, and swung himself off the saddle. "You leave the fighting to us for now." Before she could offer her assent, he had already drawn Falchion and turned to cut down the nearest Risen.
Elysa sat limply and obsequiently in the saddle, slightly hunched over as the Shepherds locked into combat with Aversa's reinforcements. She saw Kellam knock one with the back of his lance, toppling it over into the ravine below, as it screeched out an ungodly scream.
The sound of wing-beats drawing near over the din of battle turned Elysa's attention to the sky, where Aversa had swept over the Shepherds to hover nearby. Chrom immediately dashed back to Elysa's side, leveling Falchion with the grey pegasus.
"Come down here, and I'll kill you," he threatened.
Aversa looked over her pegasus's wings. "Elysa," she said, just loudly enough to be audible over the battle. "Do you not see that Grima's truth is the only truth? He will purge the world of all other evils, save—"
"He is the One Evil," Chrom interrupted harshly.
"I will not be the one responsible for trading thousands of innocent lives for the 'redemption' of this land," Elysa shook her head. "And I could never come back to your side after you just let them take Lucina like that... and to think that you knew what would happen all along, while you were with us in Valm, and said nothing; you're nothing but a cold-blooded liar."
A look of sadness crossed Aversa's face. "I didn't know what he had planned. Validar sent me to you with the missives, that was all... believe me or not as you will." Elysa looked up at her with empty eyes. "I apologise, love... Validar is not just a father to me, but he is my lord; his bidding is my sworn duty."
She swept down, and a gale of dark magic shoved Chrom backwards. Two Risen descended upon him.
"Chrom!" Elysa cried out, sliding off of the saddle and reaching for her tome. The dark wall of magic pulsed between them, and she saw him throw the decrepit forms off as he struggled to his feet, taking a glancing blow across the chest from one's axe as he stood. He clutched at the wound as blood began to stain his jerkin.
Aversa's grey pegasus dove at Daisy, who reared up to meet it, but the momentum from the dive was enough to topple the defending pegasus to the ground. The grey pegasus lifted its hooves and came down hard, crippling one of Daisy's wings. Elysa felt her pain as she brayed in agony, taking another painful kick to the flank.
"Stop it," Elysa pleaded, the fight drained from her. "Please, if you're here to kill me, then do it, and leave them be."
Aversa looked over her shoulder, and pulled her mount away from Elysa's fallen pegasus. "I do wish it didn't have to be so, Elysa..." she whispered.
Elysa's hand trembled as she let her tome slip from her fingers, and it tumbled onto the bridge, its pages fluttering weakly. The void in her heart threatened to swallow her up, and even as Aversa's hand began to pass over the grimoire, she felt no dread at the thought of death.
"There's nothing I can do to you that Master Grima cannot reverse in his vessel... but I will try to be quick about it."
Elysa locked eyes with her "sister." She stared the other woman down silently, and Aversa made another tch. "Your stubbornness is legendary." At that, she cast the spell, and a black spear of shadow flew forwards, burying itself in Elysa's heart.
"Mother!"
She staggered back from the impact, but couldn't close her hands around the spear's intangible form. Her vision clouded as the figure who had shouted leapt from the railing of the bridge, tackling Aversa off of her pegasus, rolling with her onto the bridge. Too late, Elysa thought, dimly aware of the dark barrier dissipating around them. She watched, dazed, as Aversa stood, shoving a blue-cloaked woman away from her. The woman landed on her feet, and lunged forwards, burying Falchion in Aversa's stomach, pinning her against the railing. She hissed in Aversa's face, and tipped her off of the bridge. The grey pegasus whinnied in terror, and took off after its mistress's plummeting body.
Elysa dropped to her knees, and the woman turned, sprinting towards her. As she slumped to the ground, the woman reached her, and gathered Elysa in her arms, shouting inaudibly. Her mind rapidly fading from consciousness, Elysa reached up, touched the familiar face, and smiled at the hazy image of the Brand of the Exalt in the wide blue eyes looking down at her.
"Luci, you came for me," she whispered, and let herself slip into darkness.