9. Training (II)

Over the next few days, as Nina mulled over the conversation she'd had with the captain, she found that the grateful, almost warm feelings she had experienced in the parlor evaporated, leaving behind embarrassment and something that she eventually identified as fear. To have somebody who knew Nina tell her that they thought she had it in her to rule a country one day – especially somebody as accomplished as Captain Cordelia – wasn't reassuring; it was downright terrifying. For now, Nina would worry about disappointing not only her parents or herself, but also the captain, even when she was off the training field.

For a short while after that conversation, Nina even had the sneaking suspicion that her parents had asked the captain to keep tabs on how often she was away at the barracks. But she became fairly certain that they hadn't by the next time court convened, because if they had, the captain would have probably told Nina to put away her practice lance and go to court, thus saving her from having to explain herself to her mother afterwards.

"I'm sorry," she sputtered, after the last of the councilors left and the secretary handed over the minutes to Mother, leaving her alone with her parents in the meeting hall. She had shown up a full half-hour late.

"What kept you?" asked Father, his face concerned.

Nina closed her eyes. "I forgot. I have no excuse."

Mother finished adding a note of her own to the minutes and gathered the papers in a small stack before her. "We reminded you as recently as this morning, Nina."

That was probably true, though Nina didn't remember that, either. "Yes," she said. "I know."

Mother stopped shuffling the papers.

"I won't make the same mistake again," said Nina.

"No, you won't," said Mother. "Next time, somebody will go to the barracks to pick you up if you're not present an hour before court. Would you like me to ask the guards to do this, or would you like to arrange it yourself?"

"That's a good idea." Father turned towards her and shrugged. "Between your mother and Frederick, I can hardly stay in the bathroom a minute too long, much less miss a state meeting."

Nina smiled slightly at that, despite everything. "I'll ask somebody myself," she replied.

"All right, then," said Mother with a nod. "I'd like it if you came and told us when you have that arranged." She stood, and Father followed. "Come with us to the study to discuss today's session."

Father stopped. "She was present for most of it."

"Yes," said Mother. "I'd like to hear what she thought, and catch her up on what she missed."

"She shouldn't sit in on a few full sessions first?"

"What good is it if she sits in without going over the information later?"

"She'll understand how the proceedings go before tackling the actual politics." He paused. "It's how I was brought in."

"But were you being actively trained for the throne?"

"Well, not at the time."

"There you go. I think we should let her in on our discussions as early as possible. This is the part she'll actually have to learn, after all."

Father turned to her. "Nina, you're up for it?"

"Of course I am," said Nina, who earnestly wished to make up for her lapse, if mainly so that Mother would stop being sharp with her.

So Nina followed her parents to the study. She knew she wasn't expected to contribute much to her parents' discussion, and for the most part, they only directly spoke to her to ask if she'd understood some point. But every so often Mother would ask her thoughts on a specific issue – be it whether they were approving too many new shipping companies, or how to best pay for the new bridge to Perathi, or who among the candidates should be appointed the new diplomat to Valm – and no matter what Nina said, it would be followed by a "Perhaps, but..." before her mother went on to give an opinion that had nothing to do with Nina's at all. Even Father seemed to have trouble responding to her. She was left with the impression that whatever her ideas were, they were completely and utterly wrong.

Eventually, they let her go. "I know it's tough being thrown into this," said Father. "Everything will make more sense next time."

"I hope so," said Nina, which was the truth. She left to go to her room before heading back to the barracks. As she reached the top of the stairs, she remembered that she'd left her cloak in the study, so she turned back to get it.

When she reached the study again, the door was closed. Nina raised her hand to knock.

"I think you're moving too fast with her," said Father from the other side of the door. Nina froze.

"I want her to try," said Mother.

"I think she is. You're expecting her to pick up on things as fast as you, say, or Morgan. Nina's not that kind of person." They sounded close to the door. They must have been on the couches.

"It has nothing to do with that. I don't expect her to understand half of this yet – gods know I have to work to get Lucina to understand some of the finer points of politics. I just can't believe that she was late, Chrom. Do you remember her being late for anything else in her life?"

"Once doesn't make a pattern. I believe her when she says she forgot."

There was silence. "What if she truly wants nothing to do with this?"

"Well, what if that?" said Father. "Or if, ultimately, she seems to be truly unsuited for it? I know you've brought up before how you believe succession needn't be absolute."

"Yes," said Mother slowly, "I have. But this is not Ferox. You are Exalt because of the Mark on your shoulder –"

"That's going too far. I'm saying – this is premature, but if the worst comes to happen, who says the heir couldn't be Abel, or Fiora, or Imogen? I know it's easiest to educate our own children, but they're not even the only option."

So maybe there was something wrong with her, deep down, and her parents could tell. Something they could tell from her speech or habits that made them suspect she was unfit to rule.

"It's...remarkable how many Marked there are in this generation," Father continued. "Had my father siblings, had we any cousins older than us, the crown could have very well passed to somebody besides Emmeryn. I can't help but wonder how that would have turned out."

A long silence. "She would not have done half as much good," said Mother.

"She would have still had influence, and as a distant princess, she might have lived long enough to make up the difference." Father paused. "But Nina will have different challenges in her rule. And I think it's far too early to act as though it won't be her." One of the couches groaned. "She came today as early as she remembered. She is trying."

"I know. But I don't want to push her so hard she'll break, if there's somebody else who will take more easily to it." The couch made a sound again as a second person sat on it. Mother's voice grew softer. "We should make all of them as capable as we can. It's what they've been born into, for better or worse."

"Do you want Abel sitting in on court?" Father murmured.

"I want him to leave the castle at least once before he's twenty."

"He's your fault, you know."

"And Nina is yours," said Mother. "We're even."

"Is that so? Who are we blaming Emma on?"

Nina sensed that the interesting part of the conversation had passed, and stepped away, a bit ashamed to have listened in for so long. Only a bit.

Abandoning her cloak, she turned on her heel and went back to her room. Nina didn't intend to go to the barracks anymore. She poked around her bookshelf until she found the old journal she had managed to keep as a child for exactly three days straight.

Sitting down and turning to the first clean page, she did her best to summarize the court session. Next, with more concentration, she replayed the discussion between her and her parents after the proceedings, and committed that to paper as well. Already there were gaps, but she was surprised by how quickly she was able to draw borders around them and then jot down follow-up questions to ask one of her parents later.

For the discussion that she had eavesdropped in on was nagging at her: specifically, what she perceived as the assertion that Lucina doesn't understand this level of politics.

Well, good for them, she thought, because I'm not Lucina.

And while Father would surely claim that the heir to the throne was allowed to make mistakes every once in a while, that kind of thinking had never been enough for Nina. She needed to be sure that she made fewer.

Making fewer mistakes meant spending entire weekdays at the castle – giving up training in order to review Ylisse's geography with Mother, or in order to sit in on a meeting with Valmese diplomats alongside Father. It meant standing around and watching a lot of things her parents did, to the point where she would ask Marie if her family could take care of Lehran for a few days when she knew she would be particularly busy. To the point where, when she found the time to return to the barracks, she caught herself slipping in drills. She started making more use of the castle court late at night in order to keep her skills sharp. It was better than slipping further.

She vowed to not be late for court the next month, and wrote down the exact dates for the next two in her journal. As per her promise to Mother, she asked a couple of the guards if they wouldn't mind going to the barracks to remind her if she were ever late anyway, and said she would give them each of the dates a week before. She then asked Abel to bother her about it should she forget this, also; but soon regretted it when he took the opportunity to remind her every evening, regardless of how far away the appointed week was. After this, she decided to keep track of the reminder herself.

Being at the castle meant that Nina witnessed the flow of affairs in the country in a way that had largely passed her by when she'd been training full-time, especially since she was now expected to pay attention and report something intelligent-sounding to her parents afterwards. But the opportunities to make up for that first court session dwindled as her parents spent less and less time on what might be termed regular policy, and more discussing what to do with Lucina. These conversations, and the adjacent ones about Plegia, seemed to Nina far too serious for her to have any business taking part in.

In the first troubling letter, Lucina recounted how it had finally spread in Istra during her absence that she, though known to be Ylissean by birth, was also a daughter, or niece, or some relative of the Exalt. Perhaps somebody had placed the easily-missed Mark in her eye, or caught a glimpse of Fiora's. Perhaps someone in the city had a sibling near the border who learned the Ylissean version of Lucina's cover when she headed to the capital. Whatever the source, it was unfortunate that it had disseminated before Lucina could return and tell them herself, because now the city council was left feeling deceived.

There had been a tense meeting among the council, she wrote, regarding not only the omission, but also Lucina and Inigo's right to have any say in Istra. Lucina did not say that anything had happened with her militia, but Inigo had agreed to give up his own spot on the council. To be cautious, she said.

Father and Mother, sitting across from Nina in the study, had looked at each other with pained expressions. They ultimately agreed that, while it was unfortunate and perhaps ungrateful that the council had pressured Inigo to resign, there wasn't anything illegal about it. And since they were still very conscious about keeping a light hand in Plegia, there was really nothing they could do other than let Lucina and Inigo manage it on their own.

"We're probably concerned about it for nothing," said Father. "They'll come around. The city loves Lucina."

"They must," said Mother ponderously.

"Inigo will be back on the council by fall. I'll swear it." Father made himself wipe the worry from his eyes, and smiled as he reassured her. "Surely this news should just go to show that they've had our support from the start, shouldn't it?"

The next letter, a few weeks later, said that the university had begun to mistrust Inigo as well. The scholars were unhappy with how he had stepped away from his position there in order to fight Risen and cultists in the desert. They reached back in their memory and recalled how one of his first administrative acts had been to install a personal friend of his, Laurent, as an administrator as well, even though Laurent was now long gone.

"They can't do this," said Mother.

Father turned to her. "All right. Tell me."

Mother shook her head. "I don't mean legally. It's just...I can't believe they would do this, after all she did for Istra. For Plegia."

"It's Inigo they're going after. Perhaps there's another aspect to this, something that Lucina doesn't know or won't put across in letters –"

"They can't go straight after Lucina, is all. Not while she holds the loyalty of the militia." Mother's eyes fell. "They're looking for an opportunity to take that away."

"And are they anywhere close to one?"

"I...don't know," Mother admitted. "She's said little about the council previously. All the members I've met, I regarded as her allies." She straightened her shoulders, and her next words came closer to her usual brisk tone. "Legally, of course they can depose her; but I'm not sure they could pull it off without a riot. But that's only if she has as much support as she did...before this all came to light."

"We'll ask that, then," said Father. "Lucina knows how the townspeople feel towards her. We'll ask, and then make a decision."

But they were never able to make that particular decision, because in the next letter, Lucina wrote how the council had discussed the fate of the militia, and weighed their options. They were incredibly grateful to her for ensuring the safety of the city in past years, they said. Certainly, they wished to see her continue to take part in the militia's activities so long as she resided there. However, they had decided – considering recent events surrounding Lucina's family – that it would be best for the municipality and the local people of Istra that a new leader be appointed by the council.

Nina was not present for the discussion following that letter. Her parents had relayed the information to her the next day and said, very matter-of-factly, that their main focus for the moment was devising the best way for Lucina and her family to leave Istra should it prove necessary. They emphasized that it was not currently necessary. And that marked the end of the matter for some time.

Throughout this, Mother's behavior changed. She had resumed walking the castle at odd hours, as she had when Nina was young, complete with with her head down and distance in her eyes. Oddly enough, she was less critical and more patient during Nina's lessons – except for when she, now, was the one to forget them. Twice, when Nina was in a noble enough mood to remind her, Mother turned back Nina's notes and suggested she see if Father needed anything instead.

It was shortly after the last letter from Istra that Nina flew back from the barracks one Saturday to spot her mother at the field by the castle stables. She was leaning forward on the fence, resting her elbows on the top beam and handing browned apple slices to one of the geldings.

Hearing the approach of wings, Mother turned around as Nina landed, but then looked back into the field once she was saw who it was.

Nina dismounted and held Lehran still. "Mother."

"Hello, Nina."

Now was as good a time as any to ask.

"I think I used to ride this one," said Mother, just as Nina opened her mouth. "In the war, that is. I'm not certain."

"That's Oscar," said Nina, recognizing the white strands in his mane. "I'm not sure he's any older than I am."

"Ah, maybe not, then." Mother held the last apple slice to him on her palm. Oscar took it, and continued to look at her expectantly, but she folded her arms against her chest.

Nina swallowed. "Mother, if I may..."

"Yes?"

"Ever since those letters started coming from Lucina," said Nina, "you've been uneasy. Is there anything to the matter beyond what I've heard you and Father discuss? I'm worried for her, and I would like to know if there is."

Mother pulled her coat more securely over her shoulders, a dark green thing she had brought with her from Plegia with sleeves so large they drowned her. "Is there anything else? Possibly. I don't know yet." She closed her eyes. "After all this time, I still dislike not knowing."

"Not knowing what?"

"Anything. The full details of a situation. Needing to chart the best course from what you know, praying you've caught all the worst possibilities." She paused. "Sometimes, that's really all you can do. There's no such thing as a perfect call. I'm fairly confident in my judgments, but the thread of doubt remains."

She suddenly turned to Nina with a harsh look in her eyes. "Listen to me, Nina. When you make a decision, know that the only constant in whatever's going to happen will be you. Your resolve, and everything you've honed in yourself until then. Do you understand?"

Nina nodded, somewhat taken aback. Even out here, Mother found some way to work in a lesson. Next to her, Lehran hoofed at the ground, clearly bored.

"Good," said Mother, her expression easing. "I tell this to your brother, and he tries to argue me, saying he's not sure he's even a constant." She looked up. "By the way, did you know he's to be married?"