Chapter Twenty-Seven – Of the Soul

We ran as fast as we could. Dedue, carrying Hanneman, stumbled a few times over the rocky terrain leading up to the monastery, and I had to pause against trees twice to catch my breath. Dimitri kept telling me that I shouldn't be running like this, should just try to relax and hope for the best because it wasn't good for the baby to be as frazzled as I was now. But his voice betrayed his panic, too. Felix was one of his best and longest friends, after all, even if the friendship was strained every now and again.

I noticed my heart now more than ever, pounding feverishly against my chest with both the gift of adrenaline and scourge of panic. But it was the emotions within me that gave me the most trouble. I noticed it briefly over the last few days since the removal of my Crest. Little things struck bigger reactions. Hearing Katrina refuse to listen woke annoyance and anger within me; likewise, hearing her speak softly with her brother nearly brought tears to my eyes.

This was not a consequence Hanneman mentioned, but it was one that made sense. Sothis's heart, the Crest of Flames, was not unlike a locked box, within which rested my own heart. While she masked my emotions and kept them muted, save only for her greater reactions, freeing myself from that box opened a world of emotions with which I had never grappled.

And now, a flurry of all those terrible burdens weighed within me now that the box had been unlocked. Panic that we wouldn't make it in time to my friends, anger that I had been tricked yet again when I promised I wouldn't be, hope that Claude's arrow pierced Theron's heart back there. I could not control them all.

"Wait."

Dedue's voice broke through the cacophony of my heart and soul at odds with each other, and I stopped. He had dropped to his knees and leaned Hanneman up against a tree. The old man's head was slumped down onto his chest still, but I could no longer see the rise and fall of his chest.

"What's wrong?" Claude asked as the remaining three of us gathered around.

Dedue was peeling off Hanneman's overcoat now, and Dimitri dropped to his knees to help. "Something is wrong," he explained as they now lifted Hanneman up to get the overcoat off his arms. The two worked on his sweater next, and when they lifted it, they revealed a deep purple abdomen, swollen and speckled. His ribs were broken in multiple places, perhaps completely shattered.

"Goddess…" Claude whispered.

I dropped to the ground next and grabbed Hanneman's wrist, counting in my head as the pulses weakly made their way to my fingertips. Closer now, I could see the shallow breaths he took, a shudder in his battered chest. Both his pulse and breaths were slow and weak, his skin icy compared to my own.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"I…" Dedue hesitated. It was unlike him.

Dimitri stood again and grasped Areadbhar so tightly that his knuckles turned white. And then he flipped it over so that the boned coronal was hooked down towards the retired professor.

I looked back at Hanneman, gaze traveling over his bloodied body up to his swollen face, taking in his labored breaths. He would never make it back to the monastery, and without my faith magic, none of us could heal him.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out his monocle, the glass sparkling like shattered stars in a crystal-clear sky. Though broken, it remained whole.

We didn't have the time to leisurely think this through. I nodded at Dimitri, and Dedue dressed Hanneman once more. I clipped the monocle to his sweater and tilted his head back. The monocle perched perfectly atop his right swollen cheek.

Dedue and I took a step back, and Claude reached over and took my hand. Such a gesture seemed unlike him, but then I realized tears were dripping off my chin.

We all watched as Dimitri ended Hanneman's pain. I didn't wince at the sound of Areadbhar piercing skin. It was a sound with which I was all too familiar.

"They lied."

Dimitri turned back to look at me while he cleaned the blood off Areadbhar. "Byleth?"

Something burned. Something within my soul called out like a raging storm. The tears stopped falling, and instead by eyes turned to fire. My heart was ablaze, ready to rampage, to travel across the winds and destroy everything in its path.

"They said he would live." My voice shook.

"By, look at me." Dimitri handed his lance over to Dedue and stepped closer to me, placing both hands on my shoulders. Claude still held my hand, and he stroked it now with his thumb. "What you're feeling now… you can control it. We will get them back, but we'll do it the respectable way, like you made me. Do not ignore your feelings but address them. Accept them."

If Felix and Mercedes were…

I ripped my hand out of Claude's grip and shook Dimitri's hands off my shoulders. "Let's go."

First Ashe… sweet Ashe. Now Hanneman—who had nothing to do with this, who I dragged into this seemingly pointlessly now that the Agarthans had my son's Crest anyway—fell to them. And not just fell… he suffered. He had information beaten out of him. Information I would have given freely if I could have saved either one of them.

Something erupted from within me as I started running again, a growl or something deeper. I wouldn't let anyone else die.

I made it back to the monastery first, with Dimitri at my heels. Claude and Dedue fell far behind, taking care of Hanneman together, so when I looked back at the woods, I couldn't even see them anymore. But the feeling, the pain, it was still there. The color purple, the sparkling of splintered glass, the haunting pulse of a man left for dead.

"Byleth."

I ignored Dimitri and continued towards the cathedral. Seteth and Sylvain addressed me briefly, too, but I moved past them. If those two were okay, it meant that the Agarthans hadn't bothered wasting their time around the monastery; they went directly to the Holy Tomb. No more games, no more playing human, it seemed.

The doors to the Holy Tomb groaned with their own weight upon being pushed open. By this point, adrenaline alone kept me going. My stamina had been extinguished, and I leaned against the door for a moment to catch my breath.

"Byleth, stop."

"They're right there. They have to be right there," I said, pushing myself up off the door and steadying myself. I took a step towards the stairs, but Dimitri took hold of my wrist and stood firm.

"And if they are not?" he asked, his eye looking beyond me into the darkness that awaited us down those stairs to the Holy Tomb. "We go together."

Somehow, the anger subdued with those three words. I might very well be sick to my stomach now, but I remembered Dimitri's face down here all those years ago and wondered if my expression matched his. The only way to cure myself of this, the only way Dimitri's hatred relaxed, was to go together with the one who understood me best.

I nodded, and Dimitri took the first step down. I held one hand against the wall to stable myself as I followed, the other now on Dimitri's back as if to make sure he was still there. Sylvain and Seteth had followed us, too, but kept some distance behind me. At the base of the steps, past the darkness of the unknown, the flicker of candlelight from within the tomb illuminated the expansive space hidden beneath the monastery.

I saw Mercedes first, perched up against the rubble of a destroyed pillar. She reminded me of Hanneman at first, with her chin touching her chest, and my fingers curled against Dimitri's back. But then Mercedes looked up and forced a smile.

"Professor. Dimitri. Oh, and Sylvain and Seteth, too."

I let go of Dimitri and ran towards her. "You're okay?"

Mercedes leaned her head back against the broken pillar. "I am. But Felix…"

My gaze followed Mercedes's hand as she pointed across the room. Sylvain had darted over to his best friend's side but hadn't touched him, instead kneeling and examining the damage.

I stood to join him but stopped when Mercedes tapped my hand. "I cast a blessing on him right before the Agarthans attacked him," she told me. "He needs medical attention, more than what I can provide right now, but the blessing worked. He'll be fine."

"Mercedes…" I leaned back down and wrapped my arms around her. "Let's get you fixed up, too, all right?"

The last time I hid like this to avoid facing the world around me was when my father died. I kept myself cooped up either in his office, where I passed hours reading his diary and tracing his handwriting with my fingertips, or in my bedroom, curled under the covers of my bed far longer than was acceptable for a woman my age.

Now, it wasn't as easy to hide, given that no one would let me alone. Alexi and Katrina still needed attention from their mother, after all, and Dimitri wouldn't leave the bed until I told him I would, too. When I did get up, Sylvain followed me around like a shadow. The good news was that Sylvain was being less nosy than Dimitri and would leave me mostly alone, except to provide me updates on Felix's condition.

My heart ached when he spoke to me about Felix. I had yet to visit the infirmary where he and Mercedes were recovering, and I was sure that was why Sylvain spoke of him so often. He knew I was avoiding going there, but at the same time, I didn't think he was speaking out of malice. He wanted me to know our friends were okay. That was all.

I almost made it there several times in the week that followed. Yet each time I walked past while my mind begged me to enter that room, heading instead to the library beyond it. I sat in there for hours flipping through texts without comprehending a word. I wiped my eyes dry any time someone entered, usually a student, and Sylvain made no mention of my red eyes when I left.

Sylvain made excuse after excuse for me when others came looking. Annette tried to bring me fresh-baked rolls once, and Sylvain accepted them with a smile and steered her away to go visit Felix, even though she assured him she had just been to the infirmary chatting with Mercedes. Seteth wanted to know the next steps, now that the Agarthans had everything they wanted and would surely be ready to end this soon, and Sylvain distracted him by talking about Flayn. Claude even came by to try to speak with me—as a friend, he assured Sylvain, not as a tactician—but Sylvain whispered something that I couldn't hear, and Claude left.

The only ones Sylvain let into the library to see me as I hid were my children. Alexi was perceptive enough to know something was wrong, and he sat in my lap reading a picture book without saying a word to me. Katrina was singing the alphabet at the top of her lungs and following students around when they came in to work on homework.

A full week passed like this, with me flitting back and forth between my room and the library almost exclusively, before Sylvain let someone else in to see me. I didn't turn around to look, instead jumping when something poked me in the back of the head.

"Get up."

I shifted, looking over my shoulder with one hand rubbing my head. Felix was balancing on one wooden crutch, the other lifted towards my face. He was avoiding pressure on his left leg, which was bandaged spectacularly from knee to ankle. Sylvain told me he also suffered damage to almost his entire abdomen from the dark magic cast by the Agarthans. I pictured purple rotting flesh in my mind and winced away from Felix.

"Hey. I said to get up." He nudged me in the shoulder this time with his crutch.

"You need to go back to the infirmary," I said, looking down at the book I was pretending to read. "You shouldn't be up yet."

"How would you know?" Felix snapped. The wooden floor groaned under his weight as he wobbled to my side where I could not avoid him unless I completely turned away from him. "Listen, I get it. You feel guilty. I know what that's like. But you need to pull it together and prepare for what's coming next."

"The only reason you're alive is because of Mercedes's quick thinking." I slammed my book shut and looked him in the eye now. "You all told me not to go meet with Theron, and I thought I knew better. I thought I could outsmart him when I have yet to do so this entire time. Ashe is dead because of me, Hanneman is dead because of me, a dozen or so students who had nothing to do with this, hundreds of innocent soldiers, and thousands of commoners."

"Professor…" Sylvain joined us now, and he crouched down to be eye level with me. "We are here because we know the risks and want to help. You of all people should understand that—as a survivor and as a mercenary. Hell, as Dimitri's wife."

I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. "I know, I just…"

"No excuses. Pull it together. I can't deal with two boars." Felix lifted one of his crutches again, and I held up my hands in defeat. "Whatever getting rid of the goddess did to you, you need to overcome it. Fewer excuses, more action."

"Fewer excuses, more action…" I repeated.

"It's what I've always liked about you. You don't beat around the bush. You're someone I can trust to make decisions rooted in reason and logic, not emotion," Felix continued. "I'm not telling you that you aren't allowed to feel guilty or upset. I just want you to know that you have never let that stop you in the past, so don't let it stop you now."

When did Felix get to sound so much like Rodrigue? He would deny it, adamantly so, but then again, I thought he might be proud to know, too. Even so, I kept my silence.

Sylvain, still crouching beside me, held out his hand. I had met his father just once at my wedding to Dimitri, before the Margrave passed the title on, and I admitted that my view was slightly clouded knowing what I did about Miklan. The man was polite and had helped us tremendously during the war, but still I knew that Sylvain would do the family one better.

I slipped my hand into his, and he helped me to my feet. He put a hand on my head and messed up my hair like he would do with Alexi, and I punched his arm to make him stop. But when he smiled at me, I managed a smile back.

I turned to Felix and sized him up. He appeared more fragile than I had ever seen, but I knew that even now he would take up his sword if it meant protecting me or his friends. And as his friend, I couldn't let that happen.

"Thank you," I said quietly to him.

"Yeah, whatever." I could have sworn I saw a blush creep onto Felix's cheeks. "Now you should go talk to that husband of yours. He's driving me crazy."

"Oh?"

"He's in the infirmary every other hour asking me or Mercedes what he should do, as if I care," Felix explained. "Should he give you space and let you work it out on your own or should he be by your side to help you work it through? If I have to hear him talk about that one more time, I will run him through."

Sylvain laughed. "That's mostly why Felix is here right now. Please, Professor, save him from such torment."

"I have been giving him the cold shoulder a bit," I admitted.

"Then we best warm it up." Sylvain held his arm out toward me, and I looped mine around it. "For His Majesty's sake and Felix's."

Now that the conflict was reaching its climax, with what we expected to be the culmination of everything the Agarthans had been working towards coming up as soon as they figured out what to do with the Crest, Seteth made the order that everyone at the monastery had to travel in groups of two or more. There was nothing stopping the Agarthans from teleporting into the campus and slaughtering me in my sleep now that they had what they wanted, and that went for anyone close to me, too. So, to be better safe than sorry, we were best off playing it safe, students included.

Once Sylvain escorted me to the library, I didn't really have any idea what Dimitri did all day. I knew there were meetings happening without me about what our next strategy would be, but those were not all-day affairs. Clearly he also visited Felix and Mercedes. When he wasn't in one of those two places? The training grounds, perhaps, with Dedue?

But Sylvain and I found only students in the training grounds now, and the knights' hall, too, was filled only with a knight and a couple of students.

It seemed an unlikely hour for lunch, but we headed to the dining hall next anyway. Sure enough, my husband, kids, and Claude were there, each one with a piece of parchment in front of them and a pile of pastels between them.

"Ah, if only Ignatz were here to memorialize this moment with his paints," Sylvain quipped as we approached the table where they sat. Alexi tugged on Sylvain's hand to show his drawing. "Ah, that must be Claude's wyvern. Very nice… goddess, it's a lot better than Uncle Claude's drawing, Holy Macuil…"

Alexi beamed at Sylvain's praise and then continued to draw, while Claude furrowed his brow at his own drawing.

It had not escaped my notice that Dimitri tried to hide his parchment when he noticed me standing beside Sylvain. "Have you eaten lunch yet? I think there are still some leftovers," he said to me, as if trying to pull my attention elsewhere.

"I'm fine. Can we talk?" I asked.

He nodded and stood, trying his best to leave his drawing behind. But I grabbed it when he thought I wasn't looking anymore. I started to peek at it when Dimitri made a move to take it back, and we each had one hand locked on the fragile parchment now. If either one of us pulled, it might very well rip—which could be exactly what he wanted.

I let go, and Dimitri rolled the parchment and held it against his chest. "Sneaky," he muttered.

We started to walk away, awkwardly distanced and slowly shuffling our feet. Finally, Dimitri cleared his throat and handed me the parchment he wanted to protect.

"I was going to steal it at some point anyway," I told him, and he smiled.

"I know."

I unraveled the roll and flipped the parchment right-side up. I touched the oily pastels on the sheet and took in the sight of my own face staring up at me. The woman on the page smiled up at me with parted lips, like someone had just said something to make her laugh. I wondered if I had ever actually made that face in my life.

"You're talented," I whispered.

"Well, royalty gets educated in all the fine arts. It is against tradition that Alexi has not yet started his formal lessons on the art history of Faerghus." Dimitri stood behind me and leaned down to rest his chin on my shoulder. "This is embarrassing for me, you know."

"As it is for me," I agreed. "Have you ever seen me smile like this?"

"Just last week, in fact, when Alexi was teaching Katrina how to read." He wrapped his arms around me and folded his hands together, resting his palms on my protruding stomach. We were alone outside the dining hall, but there was certainly nothing stopping anyone from walking in on us. Even still, he pressed a kiss to my neck. "And I am looking forward to it again." Another kiss. "And again."

I remained still against his touch even as my body begged to melt to his touch. "Why?"

"Sothis held your emotions under lock and key, did she not? Now you are free to experience them as they come. That means you have to learn how to deal with all the extremes that you have never felt before—the anger and betrayal you feel, of course, when bad things happen." Dimitri released one of his hands to brush some of my hair to the other side of my neck. "But also the happiness and hope of the good things."

"But I've felt anger before. I've felt happy. Why does this feel so wrong now?" I asked.

"I didn't understand either. Not until you." His breath as he spoke tickled my ear. "We experience layers of emotion. For so long, the only thing I felt was anger. Such a superficial thing. But you made me realize it was so much more complex than that. It was not just anger, but aggression and distance. Not just aggression but hostility. Not just distance but withdrawal."

I pulled away from him and turned to face him now. "What if that makes me different? And not in a good way?"

He smiled at me. "You loved me even when I was struggling, didn't you?" When I was different, a silent addendum. "Besides, you're not different. You're just experiencing more depth than before. It's something you have to get used to, and you will. We will. Together."

My heart still ached, my mind still reeled. I wanted revenge.

And I realized, in me, Dimitri saw himself. That was the very reason why we would be able to do this together—because we already had.

I glanced down once more at the drawing before rolling it up. "Have I told you lately that I love you? Desperately and unconditionally so?"

"You could mention it more often," my husband—my dear, beloved husband—joked. He still didn't have the greatest sense of humor, but oh, how he tried. "But then again, so could I."

"Do you think Claude and Sylvain would mind watching the kids for a little longer?" I slipped my hand into his and took a step back, prepared to lead him away from this place to somewhere with a little more privacy. I could get used to some of this depth to which my husband referred.

Dimitri followed, increasing his gait to walk side-by-side, hand-in-hand with me. "They might," he admitted, "but I'm not giving them a choice."

Author's Note: So, as you can see, I did not have time to update before my classes began. The good news is that they aren't too bad. You know, I'm feeling pretty darn positive about finishing this story soon.

I say that. But of course. I'm me. With no rhyme or reason to my updating. Classic.

Also, thank you for the birthday wishes last time! Much appreciated.