Breach

Roy stepped forward with a calm Lucina didn't feel. A smile played about his lips. She didn't know whether she should run towards him or stagger back into the darkness of the house. Never before had the omnipresent Pherean eagle looked down at her with such menace, its beak opened as though to squish her as soon as its talons grabbed hold of her.

Frederick abandoned the cover of the doorway, and Abel followed in his shadow.

Roy noticed his presence regardless. His eyes travelled towards the old Altean knight before they came to rest on Lucina once more.

"Congratulations," he said, and this single word carried the same effect as a gentle hand on Lucina's shoulder. Her muscles resumed their tremor. "You have not only taken care of the rebels in Gran for me, you have furthermore tracked down an enemy of the crown I have been trying to find for years. He performed a miracle in disappearing from the map after Persis. But now it is time to remedy what was set wrong."

Lucina swallowed three times before she could produce words. "Roy, I—"

"No worries, little one. I know the rebel has clouded your mind. Lies are the goods they trade in, and they have mastered their craft. I too have fallen for their feigned words of friendship once. But this will end today."

Somewhere deep within, Lucina found the strength necessary to step between Roy and Abel. The warm supportiveness in Roy's eyes was a drug that inhibited her thinking and turned her back into a helpless child that clung to his legs for support.

"Please, don't," she said. "I need him alive. I still have so many questions to ask him."

Roy placed a hand on Lucina's cheek. "There's nothing of value this man could tell you. Deception is his second nature. A quality he learned from his dead king, I presume."

"My father…"

"We will sort this out later. I promised you that we would talk after your mission, didn't I?"

But was this promise enough? Perhaps Roy did plan to tell Lucina everything, perhaps the story Abel had told her had been a part of his deceptive game. Perhaps Frederick had worked this trap to destabilize her all along.

A voice in Lucina's head that increased in volume branded this possibility as childish fantasy, born form a desire to avoid change. Roy had offered her a way out of her predicament: all she needed to do was cast away her doubts and step aside. Let everything return to the simplicity of days past, where nothing graver haunted her thoughts than the question of how to convince Roy into assigning her to more missions. Let the daughter of Marth die.

And live with the burning question of what if.

"Please Roy, for me." Lucina kissed his hand. "Spare his life."

"You are confused, little one. Let me take this burden from you."

Roy pushed past Lucina and zeroed in on his prey when Frederick's large frame blocked his path. Frederick's hand rested on his battle axe, but he hesitated to put the sharpness of the steel to use.

Roy sighed. "Unfortunate. And here I had hoped you could put your Altean roots aside."

Frederick raised his axe, but Roy reacted in a fraction of the time. The sword at his side came to life, struck forward with the speed of a deadly viper. Roy duck under Frederick's half-hearted swing, spun sideways. His blade found the opening between Frederick's torso plates.

Frederick stumbled, blood sprayed out of the wound at his side, dirtied the puddles between the cobblestones with crimson. While he was fighting for balance, Roy applied a precise kick to the back of his opponent's knee.

Frederick crashed to the ground. His breath still rattled, he still held onto life. The duel had lasted less than five seconds.

Lucina heard herself scream, but whether she called out to Frederick or Roy, she couldn't tell. The ravine between the cobblestones turned into a bloody river, and the flow would not stop, would not run thin, refused to show mercy. Lucina dropped to her knees beside Frederick and pressed her hands on the torn flesh. Her cape soaked in the red liquid. The wound wasn't deep, wasn't lethal, Frederick would survive if she brought him to a healer or if one of the assembled knights used a sprinkle of healing magic.

None of them budged.

Roy tore his eyes from Lucina and faced the last enemy standing. With his posture alone, he rendered Abel's height advantage obsolete. Blood dripped from the ridge of the Binding Blade, the very sword Lucina had once admired in Roy's chambers, when her arms had been too short to reach to the mantelpiece. The ghost of fear widened Abel's eyes, but he didn't back down. He faced his undoing unarmed but on his feet.

"I have waited too many years for this." Roy pointed the tip of his sword at Abel's defenseless chest. "For treason against the Pheraen Empire, for the attack against Persis, for spreading lies, and for conspiring with rebels, I sentence you to death. Send Cain my regards."

And with these words, Roy drove his sword into Abel's chest. The Altean coughed. His body slumped further down the blade, deepened the wound that would claim his life within the next minute. Roy convinced himself of the depleting life energy of his enemy before he drew the sword out. Red smears dotted the blue of Abel's door.

Roy cleansed his blade of the crimson remains of his deed and sheathed the weapon at his side. Absolute calm controlled his steps. Not once did he show a hint of remorse over the life he had just cut short.

One sword stroke and silence. Efficient.

"Clear the area," Roy addressed his men. "If Abel has been sitting on a hideout for regime traitors, make sure they share his fate. As for Frederick, a few days in a cell might help him remember to whom he swore his loyalty." Then he turned towards Lucina. Nothing in his features suggested he had killed a defenseless man less than a minute ago. Only warmth reflected in his eyes. "I hope you don't plan to resist an invitation to return to the garrison immediately. I wouldn't want to phrase this as an order."

Lucina flinched. She failed to look at the kind, familiar features for longer. Her mind betrayed her by picturing these same features highlighted by the glow of the Glass Fortress as Roy cut through Marth.

Her father.

She refused to believe this had happened. Some other truth had to lie behind the war and the attack on Altea, a part of the puzzle she had yet to find.

Frederick twitched under her hands and attempted to sit up before Lucina could target Roy with a single one of her questions. Still she hesitated to take Roy's spotless hand with her blood-covered one.

In the moment of choice, a flash of light came from Abel and blinded both Lucina and the party surrounding Roy. The knights staggered backwards as a single unit and threw up their arms to shield their eyes from the sudden brightness. Sparks obscured the scenery, aftereffects of the unknown magic spell. And as soon as they touched the tar-covered ground, flames sprouted. The heat assaulted Lucina's skin as the fire grew larger than what should be possible under normal circumstances, until a wildfire roared between her and the Pheraen knights.

Roy's shouts rose above the crackling. "Retreat! There's magic at play here!"

Lucina averted her eyes from the inferno to look for its cause. By some trickery of Naga, Abel was still alive. Blood poured out of the hole in his torso, and he kneeled more than he stood, but the remains of his fighting spirit had yet to die out. He kept his trembling right hand suspended with his left, and red lines wavered between his fingertips.

Magic. A simple and unrefined technique but magic nonetheless.

Lucina debated for a heartbeat before she abandoned Frederick's side and rushed over to Abel. As soon as her arms offered a minimum of stability, Abel collapsed, and as he did, a red-goldish object the size of a playing card slipped out of his limp fingers. His head rolled sideways. A thin rivulet of blood escaped his lips when he tried to form words. Not even the hand of a healing mage would save him now.

"Spectre Card," he whispered. A wave of heavy coughs shook him. Lucina could only increase her grip around his shoulders, a futile attempt at preventing him from slipping away. "Works even with my pathetic magic skills." He choked on blood. "Didn't think I'd get another chance… to use… one."

Lucina clawed a blood-stained hand into his tunic. "Abel, stay focused. You have to stay awake, understand?"

"Yes, my lady." His words blended into one another. "As you… wish."

"Stay awake! There's so much I still don't know."

"Ike… find him. They need you."

Histeria seared Lucina's throat. Or maybe the suppressed tears took their toll in the form of her shrill pleas. "Who is Ike? I don't understand! What should I do?"

Abel didn't answer. His whispers addressed distant spirits, long dead people.

Lucina needed to fight the urge to shake him out of his trance. She wouldn't succeed. Blood-loss had its claws gripped around his mind, and soon the fangs would sink in and leave nothing living behind.

"The back door, take the back door… Cain… are you happy now?"

Abel's pulse flickered one last time. Then it went silent.

So much silence. A cruel, lifeless silence, and it all served to remind Lucina of how little she understood. Her best source of information, her window into the past had collapsed under her hands, while she had failed to even delay the outcome. Roy held all the cards in his hands. And Lucina had given into the hope that he would allow her to take a glimpse.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and when she whirled around, half-expecting to feel the cold steel of a sword pierce her stomach, Frederick met her eyes. Agony etched deep furrows into his ashen face, and he held his side, but he was standing. He was still here.

Lucina wrapped her arms around him in search for stability, some remnant of the simplicity from before, a piece of the childhood that she had lost when Abel had branded her the sole heir of a lost cause and a dead kingdom. The seed of doubt he had sown spread its roots with every passing second and compromised Lucina's thoughts. And as the roots continued their invasion, Roy was slipping away from her. Now, a wall of fire separated them. But how much wider would the rift grow if she allowed the story about Marth to bear fruit? She needed to at least hold onto Frederick. She couldn't let him slip away too.

"We have to go," Frederick said, and a pain-induced tremor ran through his body. "Leave Terra as far behind as we can."

"No." Even in Lucina's head, her voice sounded weak. "I don't know what to do."

"You will only be able to go back if you forget everything you heard today."

"I have to give Roy a chance to explain himself."

Lucina's gaze jumped towards the firewall that divided the rotunda. Even after the spellcaster's death, the flames reached for anyone who dared to come close. Behind the orange barrier, the shadows of Klein and Roy wavered, spectral hunters on a quest to spill the blood of Altean rebels.

Frederick gave up on stopping the blood flow of his wound to squeeze both her shoulders. "Whatever you decide, I will follow you. But if you ever want to consider my advice, please listen now: Abel died for his choice to tell you the truth. You have to at least follow this truth all the way to the end."

"I don't know where to start. He left so much unsaid. About Marth and his plans, about Falchion and the Altean resistance. If I don't go back to Roy, where else can I go?"

"I can only offer you a place to start searching. The Glass Fortress."

Lucina gave no reply. The warzone in her head refused to lift the curtain of smokescreens while her battling loyalties fought for dominance under threats and screams. In an attempt to calm herself, Lucina ripped a piece of fabric from her cape and wrapped the makeshift bandage around Frederick's midriff. He hissed, but Lucina had no water to wash out the wound first, not to speak of an ointment to treat the irritated flesh.

When she finished, her eyes snapped back towards the firewall and what waited beyond.

Or rather who.

In all likelihood, the knights were scrambling for a magic user to put out the flames, but their search required precious time. The fifth terrace and the garrison were far away. And if they didn't intervene soon, the blaze would eat the entire block and its inhabitants whole. The greedy tips already licked at the closest wooden doorframe.

Lucina could wait out the storm. Forget everything she had heard today as Frederick suggested. Pretend she did not care.

But Lucina made no sound to object when Frederick directed her away from Roy and back into the dimness of Abel's home. The empty mug still cowered on the tabletop, the only memento to tell that a person had lived in this spartan room.

Frederick pushed further into the dimness, through a door in the back of the room, past the course-crafted bed and a shelf that displayed nothing but dust. A final door blocked their path, but Frederick lacked the strength to annul the barrier or even maintain a solid grip on the handle. He stumbled. Lucina cursed her tiny frame as she pushed against his mass in a desperate attempt to keep both of them upright. With no use. They crashed against the door, and the rusty lock surrendered in the face of their weight.

All air escaped Lucina's lungs as her shoulder made the acquaintance of the road on the other side. Only through curling and uncurling her fists did she overpower the urge to roll into a tiny ball and never get up again. She climbed to her feet, and through a combination of pushing and pulling, she managed to lift Frederick into a somewhat stable position where he could make the next few steps as long as Lucina's shoulder kept him suspended.

Clouds obscured the first stars; the sky an endless dark blue to match the old Altean flag.

Lucina only looked back once. But in the endless row of houses crouching on the wayside of the road, Abel's home had disappeared. Fine wafts of smoke fizzled into the night from beyond the washed-out shingles.

Frederick guided her forward, or maybe Lucina was the one dragging him.

Further and further.

Notes: A shorter chapter this time, but a crucial one. What do you think about my characterization of Roy so far? I was never quite sure whether I made him too villainous or too sympathetic...