Remembrance
With love. Forever.
Marth
In four words, Marth had snapped every support beam that had carried Lucina's world. As she rode through the moonfrosted birch forest north of the Glass Fortress, these four words repeated in her head. They staged a performance consisting of only these four words, sometimes spoken with whispered affection, sometimes with the warmth of an embrace, sometimes with the vigor of a war declaration.
But as much as these words confused her through their foreignness, they illuminated the path in front with a clearness she had missed in the past days. Lucina now knew where she wanted to go. Her feet had stepped on this one path from the moment of her birth, but the way had twisted and wound through uncertain waters, leading her astray from time to time.
Not anymore. Now, Lucina knew where she was heading.
And this thought both frightened and exhilarated her.
"I will ask Roy to split Altea from the Empire," she said.
Frederick, who was riding beside her, stopped his horse. They had trotted past the black and white trunks in silence, only accompanied by the occasional cry of a tawny owl, and this sudden announcement hit him unprepared. The wound still tormented his body with pangs whenever a bump in the moss-covered ground reverberated through the saddle and into his waist; on other days, no one, not even Lucina could jump attack him.
He fumbled with his words for a while. "I don't mean to discourage you, but… His Highness has no reason to surrender this land."
"I have to at least try. When I relate the whole story to him, Roy will see reason. He must."
Frederick shifted, and his right hand wandered to his bandage. "He killed Abel."
"I'm aware of that. But he only went to war against Altea because he believed their king held responsibility for his mother's death. Marth's letter proves that he was innocent, and so are the people of Altea as a whole. Roy will listen to me, he promised to always have an open ear for me." Lucina looked up to the pale face of the moon. Spade-shaped leaves obscured the view, but the path was clear. "I will surrender myself to him."
"You can't!" Frederick looked tempted to pull her back by the reins of her horse, but his training forbade him such drastic actions. "Please, consider the importance you have as heir of the Altean crown. You mustn't give yourself into the hands of the enemy."
"Roy isn't my enemy! The conflict between Pherae and Altea is founded on misunderstanding, nothing more. I intend to solve this misunderstanding and reestablish peace. I'm not making an enemy out of the man who offered me a home long before I even knew who my father was."
"But he lied to you about your heritage. Who is to say that he won't deceive you again?"
Lucina bit her lips. This sliver of doubt had nested in the back of her mind for a while, but Frederick had dragged the ugly snake to the forefront. Roy had to have known her identity, yet despite the blood that tied her to the alleged murderer of both his parents, he had taken her in. A chamber on the same floor as his, stuffed with all the playthings a child could ask for, a chair on his table, where they shared roasted pheasant and stories about what wonders and worries the day had brought them. Roy had gifted her with her first sword. When she had scraped her knees on the cobbles of Lycia's inner yard, he had carried her inside to tend her wounds. And when she had asked for permission to train as one of his knights, he had agreed with a heartbroken smile after countless heated arguments.
Roy had erected every support beam that carried Lucina's world. No other person gave her a feeling of security, of home the way he did.
Losing him so soon after finding her real father… no, she wouldn't follow this thought.
The tawny owl shrieked and a mockingbird answered before Lucina resumed speaking. "I'm sure Roy had a good reason for why he kept the truth from me. If I give him the chance to explain himself, there will be no more need for conflict between us. Maybe…"
"I would hope so," Frederick said. But by the sound of his voice, his doubts outweighed his optimism. "King Marth deserves a better legacy to his name than His Highness has allowed him so far."
"How was he? Marth, I mean."
"He was a great man. Everyone in the town and the fortress said so. It seemed the people were not only willing to serve him but happy to do so. He possessed this voice that inspired you to do great things and achieve feats a simpler man would deem impossible. He spoke to me once. A single conversation when I was eleven, but I will never forget his words. I trespassed into the royal stables to admire the knight's horses."
Lucina laughed. "What? You? You went against the rules? I had to drag you by the arm every time we snuck out of the palace, and now this?"
Frederick's miserable expression only deepened her laughter. "I fell victim to too many fallacies as a child. I can call myself fortunate for the chance to redeem myself. It is certainly more than I deserve."
Lucina needed a ridiculous amount of effort to strangle her laughter into a low chuckle. The image of a young Frederick with his hands in the forbidden cookie jar was too priceless. "I didn't mean to affront you. Go on."
"As I should have anticipated, my unauthorized visit was found out. I stumbled into King Marth after no more than twenty paces. But instead of a well-justified scolding, I instead received the offer to pet the king's very own horse. When I admitted to him that I wanted to become a knight even though I had no lineage to speak of, he encouraged me. He said that, as long as I have faith in Naga and put my best efforts into reaching my dream, I would succeed. The way he said this, I found it impossible to distrust him."
"He sounds like a good person." Lucina's hand wandered to the letter hidden in a fold of her tunic above her chest. With love. Forever. "I wish I could remember him."
The soft clacking of hooves on the moss-infested ground filled the quiet following Lucina's words. The tawny owl sounded its cry a handful of yards behind them, as though it shadowed them at a respectful but steady distance. Once again, the mockingbird answered from somewhere to Frederick's right. But the song appeared off, too precise to be natural.
Lucina straightened in her saddle. Her eyes searched the ghostly tree trunks in vain.
Frederick noticed her behavior, and he reached into the pocket of his belt. Out emerged the glass shard he had picked from the tomb. For a moment, the icy moonlight sparked on the edges, and the shadows out of view shifted deeper into their hiding spots.
When Frederick dropped the shard, it reflected the light in such a way to make one think a second moon had entered the forest. Pale faces flashed amidst the shadows. A twig broke behind them. An explosion of thunder magic could not have rung louder through the night.
Suddenly betrayed, the shadows jumped forward.
"Fly, now!" Frederick shouted and slapped the backside of Lucina's horse.
The animal ran for dear life, and Lucina buried her heels into its flank. Frederick followed close behind, Lucina could hear the rattling breath of his horse against the shouts erupting from all sides.
An ambush.
Had they been followed since the Glass Fortress? Since Terra? Klein had to have caught up with them. And Lucina hadn't even thought to lower her voice throughout their journey, so used to her status as a Pheraen knight and the safety that came with such a position. From the moment she had abandoned Roy's side in Terra, she had turned from predator to prey.
And oh, what a naïve prey she was.
The stench of sweat mingled with the earthy scents of the forest into a devilish cocktail as Lucina galloped onward. Shouts and the hammering of footsteps bombarded her ears and disabled her thoughts until nothing but the necessity to spur her horse existed. The whys and the hows vanished, only the next cluster of roots in her path mattered.
Labored breaths, a rolling army of shadows left and right, and then, a hundred strides ahead, an end to the labyrinth of trees. On open field, she would offer the ideal target for Klein's arrows. He had betrayed her trust once, he had no reason to go easy on her when the chance to wipe her out presented itself with such tempting allure.
But on open field and without roots and trunks to block their path, the horses would reach their highest speed.
The range of Klein's bow extended maybe a thousand feet. Lucina could make it.
Provided he missed twice.
The decision was ripped out of her hands before she reached the tree line. Shadows jumped in her path, a wall of cloaked figures with a suicidal desire to prevent her escape. Her horse reared, and Lucina lost her grip on the reins. The silver glistering of a spear and a wave of currant-colored hair caught her eye during her desperate struggle to reclaim her balance. Had Klein sent someone else to do the dirty work for him?
And then the shadow at the front spoke. "Well, if it isn't the hero of Gran. You and your friend make a noise not even an aging hermit with both his ears clogged with herbs could overhear."
Lucina recognized the voice. And unless Klein had perfected the hunter's ability to mimic the calls of his prey to a concerning degree, he was not the one who had tracked them down. Quite the opposite.
"Cordelia?!" Lucina asked in utter disbelief. The antics of her horse still threw her off-balance, and the identity of her pursuers added a level of unexpected absurdity to her predicament that a rather noisy part of her refused to comprehend.
Cordelia spun the spear in her hand and sent Lucina a sly grin. "Good guess. How about you come down from that high horse of yours so we can talk. Slowly."
The request contained enough steel to pose as a threat. And although the line of rebels behind Cordelia had thinned since Gran, they outnumbered Lucina one to ten. If a fight broke out, she would lose; no matter how many of them she would take with her, in the end, she would trade Frederick's and her own life for nothing. So, Lucina obeyed and freed her boots from the stirrups.
Frederick, who had stopped his horse a few paces behind her, reached for his axe, ready to jump to her aid.
A mistake.
Three shadows dashed forward in an instance, and in a collective effort, they tore Frederick from the back of his horse. His armor clattered when he crashed to the ground. In spite of the rebels twisting his arms, he swung his axe with blind determination, until a brutal kick to his injured side immobilized him.
"STOP!" Lucina's voice cut through the assembly of rebels, and every last one of them froze. "He is injured and stands under my protection. I mean you no harm, that hasn't changed since Gran. But if you dare to hurt Frederick in any way, I will consider each of you my enemy."
Cordelia rolled her shoulders and tested Lucina's resolve with a probing glare. Then, she called her fellows to step back. Frederick struggled to stand even without the arms and knees pinning him down, but for Lucina's sake, he climbed to his feet.
Lucina gestured him to stay put and dismounted.
"How long have you been following us?" she asked.
Cordelia kept a hand on her spear, but she did lower the tip. "Since the Glass Fortress. Gregor here thought you might show up after you spoke with Abel. I hate to admit it, but I guess he was right."
Gregor abandoned the line of rebels and bowed to Lucina. "Good to see you in good health. You found out the truth about your father?"
Lucina nodded.
"Wonderful! What was set wrong will be set right. We've waited for a sign from Naga for a long time. But finally she sent us a leader to carry our banner and fulfill our mission."
Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Gregor, you talk too much. Does she look capable or even willing to go to war against the Pheraen Empire? Heir of Altea or not, we can't count on an outsider. Who's to say she even is the daughter of King Marth?"
"I am his daughter." Lucina pulled the letter from her tunic. "This message was written by Marth and deposited in the catacombs under the Glass Fortress for me to find."
"An old parchment doesn't prove anything," Cordelia said. "Even if you happen to speak the truth, we have no reason to trust your willingness to join our cause. Roy might have sent you as a spy to infiltrate us."
Frederick took a shaky step forward, but his words were firm. "She saved your life in Gran!"
"All the more reason to doubt her! That was the perfect way to gain our trust. I bet she hopes to find the rest of our men through us."
"Cordelia! Remember who you are talking to."
Lucina raised a hand to calm Gregor, crossed the distance between them, and brought her face mere inches away from Cordelia. "I can speak for myself. Cordelia, I've seen your skill in battle as well as your ability to assess a situation with minimal error. When we fought in Gran, I bested you. You knew I could have taken your life. But when I refrained from the killing blow, a feeling sparked in you, a feeling unlike anything you experienced during your life as a rebel fighter. You recognized me. You recognized me from the stories Gregor and the elders of Altea told you about King Marth and his heir. That's why you led Gregor to me after the battle. You wanted to believe the stories. Do you remember this feeling?"
Cordelia's wide eyes shone like moonlit rubies in the dark. Her gaze flickered, darted across Lucina's face, almost afraid to rediscover the spark she had first felt when she stood in front of the heir of Altea. Her reserves fissured, only a little, but soon her walls would crumble, and Lucina knew she had swayed her.
"I remember." A glimmer of her previous awe flashed across Cordelia's face. Her voice sounded hoarse. "But I saw no reason to get my hopes up. I still don't."
Lucina reestablished distance to give Cordelia a chance to catch herself. "Perhaps you and your comrades will have a reason to trust me if I tell you that I plan to demand the sovereignty of Altea from Roy."
Frederick let out a pained whine. The rebels looked more shocked than anything. For a few moments, none of them dared to speak, and the wind rustled the leaves overhead in a sort of chilling applause to Lucina's declaration.
"You really have this power over him?" Gregor asked.
Cordelia reclaimed her snark and huffed a humorless laugh. "Of course she doesn't. Our prophesized savior has a death wish, that's all. The king won't hand over his treasured plaything because you ask nicely."
"Nevertheless, I will try," Lucina said.
The constant antagonizing claims thrown against Roy were staining her nerves. A dangerous soft spot. She needed her full concentration to maintain control over the rebels. And although Cordelia and Gregor served as the group's spokespeople, one of the cloaked shadows might at any moment give into the temptation of ending Lucina's life with a slash of a dagger if he deemed her story unconvincing. In the crowded space between the tree trunks, Lucina had little hopes of detecting an attack before it happened.
She had to win the favors of the entire group. And maybe this required a reevaluation of her strategy.
"His knights won't even let you through with that request," Cordelia said.
Gregor nodded. "You need a symbol of your position, something to confirm that you speak for all of Altea. Gold won't do here. But it's their rules that the Pheraens can't turn down an ambassador with an official diplomatic request."
"The Pheraens haven't exactly stuck to any rules lately," Cordelia reminded with a dry tone.
Lucina brushed her thumb across the rough parchment of Marth's letter. How to convince not just the rebels gathered here but also Roy of the validity of her claims? She was Marth's daughter, and she sought to return Altea the freedom it had known under his kingship. But would that be enough?
A passage from the letter came to her mind then, and she had to stifle a triumphant outcry.
"In that case, I will use Falchion," Lucina said, and the eyes of everyone around weighed on her. The name had a reputation among their ranks, the whispered echoes passing through the cloaked figures proved as much. "My father's sword should prove beyond doubt my allegiance to Altea."
Gregor gawked, stumbled over his feet and over his tongue as he scrutinized Lucina for the glistering traces of the legendary weapon. "Falchion… yes, the Pheraens never destroyed it. Otherwise they would have waved the broken pieces in front of every last Altean villager. A sign from Naga… you carry the sword with you?"
"No." Lucina held up the letter. "But I know where to search. Marth ordered to hide it for me in Seliora."
Gregor straightened. "Then we go there immediately. With that sword in your hand, you can do so much more than win Altea's freedom. This changes everything! The people will rally behind you in every street of the land, and finally the spark will catch on and grow into a fire they can no longer—"
"I will have to stop you there before you choke on your enthusiasm," Cordelia said. If her narrowed eyes were any indicator, she shared little of her partner's fervor. "Seliora has a Pheraen garrison close by in case you forgot. The chances of getting there unseen are slim at best and nonexistent if we're honest."
Lucina fixated Cordelia's eyes with hers. "I have no intention to provoke a skirmish with the soldiers there. Frederick and I have escaped their clutches on our journey so far, and we will continue to do so. Of course, I can't offer you guarantees. Will you fight for me if the worst happens?"
"I have no reason to—"
"Will you fight for Altea?"
Cordelia closed her mouth. All the angry retorts she had prepared vanished with a breeze in the night. It was almost too easy to see through her way of thinking, to tug at the right string, and direct her into the direction Lucina needed her to go. Klein had resisted her pulls and pushes, but against Cordelia and the majority of rebels, Lucina had a tangible leverage: her status as Marth's daughter. As long as she played to strengthen this inherent sense of loyalty in them, she could overpower the most resilient of them.
Including Cordelia.
The spear wielder took a deep breath and surrendered with a dip of her head. "I will. Always."
Now, to rebuild Cordelia's confidence. Her defeat should not linger on her mind for long. Lucina had seen the same lesson take shape in the way Roy handled a frustrated knight with an expertise beyond his age.
She placed a hand on Cordelia's shoulder. "I'm glad we can count on you. At the arrival of dawn, I suggest we follow the path to Seliora. Until then, we can all use some rest. Can you introduce me to the healer of your party? With your permission, I would like to ask them to help Frederick with his injuries. Would that be possible?"
Cordelia struggled to keep up with the sudden shift in tone but caught herself soon enough. "Yeah, sure. That won't be a problem."
While the rebels set up camp in the secure hollows between the birch roots and a cleric, who exposed a concerning amount of skin to the chills of the night, patched up Frederick, Lucina took the time to ponder. The moon arced across the dark canvas above, a blue in the shade of Altea's flag, and she failed to stop her hands from opening and folding Marth's letter until the crease edges were carved into the paper.
The urge to confront Roy grew louder.
Lucina needed to hear the truth from his mouth, she yearned for his reassurances, his explanations and apologies, anything to confirm that the bond between them hadn't been knitted out of lies. Roy's blue eyes seemed to pierce her from every shadow between the tree trunks.
But his soft voice never whispered a word into her ear. The bark of the tree against which she leaned emitted a cold that seeped through her cape and her tunic.
A cold devoid of his presence.
She had to remain patient, no matter how little she enjoyed the thought. Roy knew patience, and in the chess games they had played in his office, where a sycamore tree spread its twigs up to the windowsill, he had taught her to adapt this same strength to her strategies.
After Seliora, she would see him again.
Yes, after Seliora, Cordelia and the other rebels would put their unconditional faith in her, and Lucina would meet him strengthened by their loyalty and the prayers of all of Altea. Then, he would have no choice but to listen. Listen and scatter her doubts.
No doubts between them.
With love. Forever.
These words repeated in Lucina's head as she drifted to sleep. But the voice who whispered them belonged to Roy.
Notes: Unrelated, but I completed the NaNoWriMo challenge. 50k words in a month. Go me! So the result of that will see the light of the outside world sometime in the future, whenever I get around to edit it. And boy, does this creature need editing. But that shouldn't have any negative impacts on this fic, I still plan with weekly uploads. The next chapter is an interesting one. My beta had a lot of good things to say about the key scene there, so please look forward to it. Till then!