Chapter Six – Cornered

How long had the Agarthans been manipulating things from behind the scenes? Solon and Kronya couldn't have been the only ones, but they certainly were the ones escalating feelings of disdain and distrust between the Kingdom, Alliance, and Empire. I remembered Edelgard, as the Flame Emperor, saying that she had nothing to do with the events in Remire, but that she was conspiring with Solon. Just how far back did that go?

And how far did they get into their own agenda?

Considering that the Kingdom and the Church of Seiros turned out victorious in the war, it couldn't have gone the way they wanted. Rhea survived, I became the new archbishop, and Edelgard fell. Revenge was unable to be taken on the Church of Seiros and the goddess during the war.

How many others, though, had been hidden in plain sight like Solon as Tomas and Kronya as Monica? I had to imagine there were more of them. Did we kill some of them during the war without knowing it? Is that why they had been silent for the past six years? They just needed to bide their time to recover what they lost, to become the former glory they had been, and now?

But if their aim was to get revenge on Sothis and all those connected to her… why would they let me live?

Unless they didn't mean to… maybe that man who saved me was uninvolved in the work of the Agarthans. Maybe it was a coincidence that we left Hrym when the javelin of light fell. They could have meant to drop it while I was still there, and their timing was just wrong.

Something about this, beyond the obvious, felt off to me.

And where to start? The Agarthans went unnoticed for hundreds of years until they decided on their own terms to make themselves known—and even then, they blended in like the rest of us. The move they made now… it was so we would pay attention.

So, where were they?

Hopefully Seteth's investigation would bring something to light. Still, it was a little nerve-racking. We lost nearly fifty knights in Hrym, a major blow to an organization struggling to begin with. How was I ever going to explain this to the cardinals?

And this damn headache…

I wanted to climb into bed when I got home, to walk past all my obligations and throw my head into my pillow. I realized the futility of this idea, yet all the same, I fantasized all the way back to the mountains of a restful night's sleep.

Our arrival did not go unnoticed. Against my better judgment, I sent Cyril ahead on his wyvern to warn Dimitri of the losses in Hrym. Thus, Felix, Sylvain, and I were greeted by the entirety of the manor's staff and security, with the king himself at the front of the pack with Dedue and Gustave by his side.

Dimitri left barely a moment for me to dismount from my horse before he was beside me. My body went rigid at first when he pulled me against him, a forbidden embrace that surely garnered the attention of everyone around us. But I melted into him as soon as I smelled his familiar scent, and I wrapped my arms under his and buried my head into his chest.

Such affection in public was taboo enough, but he shocked me further by lifting my chin with his fingers and kissing me. It was desperate, hungry, and it took everything in my power to stop myself from letting it evolve into something more passionate. I moved my hands to his chest and pushed him gently away, and he put his forehead against mine with a sigh.

"It could've been you," he whispered. "It could've been you."


It felt wrong to sit at the dinner table and enjoy a meal as a family after all that happened. I picked at my meal with my fork, pushing the meat into the vegetables and knocking one off my plate and onto the floor. Dani, our dog, came scampering over and sniffed the carrot before deciding it wasn't what he wanted from my plate.

We had an explicit rule to avoid discussing politics or religion at the dinner table, especially with the kids around. But all I wanted to do right now was get back into our meetings. We had been discussing strategy all day to no avail. It seemed there wasn't much we could do right now when we knew nothing about our enemy or where they were. All we could do was wait to hear from Seteth.

"Mommy, Uncle Claude taught me how to use a bow," Alexi announced proudly. I mustered a smile for him.

"Really? Are you going to be an archer now?"

"I have to say, he was quite impressive. He's a better shot than I am already," Dimitri told me. Alexi absolutely beamed. To get praise from his father was a treat like no other. "And Claude's wyvern took a liking to him, too. I fear we may lose our son to the Almyrans."

"Uncle Claude said I could go stay with him next moon if you said so." Alexi clasped his hands together and stuck out his lower lip. "And he said Auntie Hilda wants to see Katrina because she hasn't yet, so he said Katrina could come with me."

My gut reaction as a mother was to say no. Alexi, barely five years old, and Katrina, just two, had been without their parents before, but they had never been away from home without us. That was different. I could only imagine the sort of disaster that would unfold. Claude and Hilda had no children, which was all well and good. It was hard for me to imagine them as parents. Hell, it was still hard for me to imagine Dimitri and myself as parents, and we had been for years.

But for those two—especially those two—to take care of my children? I'd sooner leave them with Seteth and let poor Alexi and Katrina be bored to death.

"Well, actually… that might not be a bad idea…" I muttered, and Dimitri raised an eyebrow. I put my fork down and folded my hands together. "Maybe we should get them out of Fódlan for a while. The Agarthans have a problem with the church, and therefore with Fódlan, not with Almyra. They'll be safer there than here."

"You want to leave them with Claude?" Ah, so he was as skeptical of the idea as me. "Dedue could always take them to Duscur," Dimitri offered instead.

Alexi looked back and forth between his father and me, hope still in his eyes. Katrina was oblivious to it all as she played with her doll.

"Dedue is going to want to be here for you if this situation escalates. You know that. If we want to get them out of here, I think Claude is our only option. Our relations aren't good enough with Brigid to send them with someone there. Shamir is the only one we know well enough from Dagda, and we haven't heard from her in years. At least we know we can trust Claude and Hilda, even if we can't always trust their judgment. We need to send them."

Alexi pulled his legs up onto the chair and balanced on his knees. "Is that a yes, Mommy?"

I shot a look at Dimitri. The last time he let one of his family members out of his sight, look what happened. I almost didn't make it back. I knew why he hesitated. But the whole point of this was to keep our kids safe, not to put them into danger.

He nodded, and I turned to smile at Alexi. "Yes, Alexi. You can stay with Uncle Claude. Mommy and Daddy just need to talk to him about when, okay?"

"Tomorrow!" Katrina shouted. I didn't think she had been listening. Katrina was sneaky like that.

"No, not tomorrow. They're going to need time to get things ready," Dimitri told her. She stuck her lower lip out and crossed her arms, but luckily no tears came.

I wondered what my father felt every time he put me into danger. Because the idea of my children getting hurt scared me—terribly. But I grew up living a mercenary's life. I fought my first battle probably before I could remember. I certainly had no memories from before, when he must have left me at camp. My first kill? Probably well before I turned ten, if I had to estimate my age.

So, what did he feel? What was it like for him?

I didn't want to send my children away. It was like some looming darkness over my shoulder and breathing into my ear. What kind of mother was I to send my kids away? What would happen if I went into this battle, if Dimitri went into this battle, and neither of us returned? Was Dimitri's upbringing one he would wish on our own kids?

Suddenly my stomach churned. I grabbed a piece of meat off my plate and dropped it to the floor for Dani to eat.

"Katrina, eat your vegetables," Dimitri told our daughter.

She picked up a carrot and glared at it. "I don't like carrots."

I thought of the woman with the daughter clinging to her leg who gave me the bag of carrots. The bag of carrots that got no use because I gave them back to the villagers. The woman who was murdered, the daughter who could not be much older than my own without a life to live.

Yes, I needed to protect my children, even if that meant not seeing them for quite some time.

"You know what?" I picked up one of the carrots on my plate and held it the same way Katrina did, between my thumb and index finger as though poisonous. "I don't feel like eating my vegetables today either."


Dimitri wrapped his arms around me that night in bed, after a continuation and escalation of that desperate kiss from this morning, and held me so tightly that I feared my ribs might crack. It was comforting having him here with me, though. Something still felt… off. Me, this situation, all of it.

For once, Dimitri fell fast asleep long before me. I snuck out of his arms without him noticing, threw on some clothes, and crept past the dog. No one disturbed me in the hall this time as I took a peek into the rooms of Alexi and Katrina. I continued walking in bare feet all the way outside where the crisp fall air nipped at my exposed skin.

There was no one in the manor knights' hall at this hour, but Dimitri would know where to find me if he awoke to find me gone. For the first few minutes of my presence there, I did nothing but rub dirt into my hands, despite having been satisfied with the feeling within thirty seconds. It helped the calluses, especially the ones that reopened this past month.

Some part of me hoped and waited for Dimitri to wake up and come to me. Maybe that was why I stood there rubbing my hands back and forth. I caught myself glancing back at the door a couple of times, so perhaps it was time to admit it.

Finally, I grabbed a sword from the rack of dull training weapons and got to work. The movements, which took some practice to get back into, came naturally to me now. I decapitated several dummies before working on their torsos.

My father always told me that it was dangerous to picture someone's face on those training dummies, which seemed contrary to the training of some of my students. Picturing someone encouraged feelings—which could go one of two ways. Emotions could lead to bursts of energy and adrenaline, increasing power but decreasing accuracy. I knew that all those years ago Dimitri used to picture Edelgard's head on those dummies. And what did that get him? He was wild, reckless.

No, the solution was to accept the dummies as they were, to not attach a soul to a lifeless doll. It meant control. In all situations, I maintained that control and viewed all my enemies as mere dummies—all just someone to cut down, never someone to eliminate for personal vendettas.

It worked here, anyway. I knew not who to picture, even if I could. Solon? Kronya? Those fiends were long dead. I had nothing against them now.

It was just as I thought this that I felt a chill run down my spine. I turned, sword clenched in my hands in front of me, though hope surged through me momentarily that it was Dimitri.

The man who saved me in Hrym sat, legs crossed, elbow propped on his knees, on top of the wooden weapon rack, perched as if he bore no weight at all. At least I thought it was the same man. The light was better here than in the flames of the burning village. His skin still looked weird, but I could see his eyes now, though they differed only slightly from midnight. Despite his sickly demeanor and exterior, he gave the impression he was just a young adult.

"Such a pity, what happened to Hrym." His voice, I noticed this time, was husky but eerily calm. It was the same voice from Hrym, I knew it, yet it sounded so different. "So many lives lost. And for what?"

Indeed, I thought too, but I said nothing. It seemed better not to engage right now. I could only grip my training sword, this nearly useless thing, and hope that he made no move.

I ought to question how he got here or how he knew I would be here, but I had an idea without needing to ask. How long had he been following me, I wondered?

"I did not come to fight you. You can put that down." He nodded his head towards the sword I held, but that only made me more suspicious. "You do realize that I saved your life in Hrym, do you not? You should show more respect to your savior."

"Apologies, but I'm a little on edge right now given all that happened," I retorted.

The man's lips flickered, as if about to smile, but he managed to remain stoic. "I told you. We need you alive."

"So, you are part of the people responsible for what happened." I lifted the sword so that the tip was eye-level with the man. "The Agarthans?"

He reached out and pushed the sword away. Even as I tried to hold it firm, it made no impact of him. The blade was too dull for that, and he knew it.

"I'm surprised you've heard of us. The remaining Nabateans have been long fond of their secrets and rewriting history to suit their needs." He jumped down from his perch on top of the weapon rack and pushed my sword all the way down. "You realize that almost the entirety of the church is built on lies? Seiros may have thought she fooled us, but we've been watching and biding our time."

"You killed innocent people. Thousands of them. You manipulated the events behind the war. Edelgard wasn't involved in the events in Remire, was she?" I remembered what she said while disguised as the Flame Emperor. "She said she wasn't, and we didn't believe her. But she and the Agarthans were just using each other, isn't that true? You to destroy the church and to hold your experiments like in Remire, and she for the Empire."

"You make it sound so awful."

The man turned away from me and began walking, a sure sign that he doubted that I would hurt him. And if it had been anyone else, I might have fallen for that. But I dropped my sword and summoned a ball of fire to launch at him. But when it reached the spot he should have been, he was gone.

He reappeared behind me this time, grabbing and twisting my arms behind my back. He kicked his foot into the hollow behind my knee, and I buckled to the floor.

Still, I could use this to my advantage. He thought he had me, and I would let him think that for a moment.

"Allow me to set the record straight, Sothis," he whispered in my ear. "You are alive at this very second because we need you alive. Had the war gone differently, you would be dead without so much as a thought. We had to repair all that you damaged, recover from the losses of our leaders. But we are ready again. Fódlan, as you know it, will crumble."

I rolled forward while he still held my arms, pulling the man over me and pinning him below me. He pulled a dagger from his sleeve, and I hopped off him and triggered a Bolganone spell. The floor around us splintered, and fire poured up from the cracks, surrounding him and separating him from me.

My magic was not infinite and not nearly as powerful as Lysithea's. I could hold him off temporarily, but without a decent weapon, this was futile. I shot all the magic I knew, but he waved off each attack as if all I did was send a little breeze his way.

The only advantage I had in this fight was that I knew he needed me alive. He couldn't attack me back. So, if I could at least wear him out and capture him…

"What is going on in here?" a voice called from outside.

And just like that, the man vanished. I knew he wasn't far away. He needed me for something—not just needed me alive but needed me. I didn't know what he wanted exactly, but it was clear that I played a role in the grand plan of the Agarthans. And considering their experiments in Remire, I didn't like the sound of that.

"Professor?"

A familiar face opened the door and looked inside. Ingrid, another former student of mine and now personal knight to the king, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Because of the peace we enjoyed, her role became more or less that of a security guard. But it should have been no surprise to me that she was on edge now, given the events in Hrym.

"What was all that flashing?"

But then again, that fight gave me a hint, too. Because it reminded me of someone I hadn't seen—or, admittedly, thought of—in the past few years. Someone who once told me of the strange mages who performed rituals on her family until she was the only one left—during the time that her household was under the influence of the Empire. It could be no coincidence.

It was true. My magic was not as powerful as Lysithea's. But what if my blood was?

"They were here. Or, one of them was. He might still be." I fell back to my knees on the floor, all the terrible things I knew could pass flashing through my mind. I could not turn back time enough to prevent all this from happening, so what happened now… I would need to watch carefully.

"Who, Professor? The Agarthans?" Ingrid demanded incredulously, as if she could not fathom how they snuck past her. She was hard on herself. She was probably questioning her worth as a knight right about now.

I nodded, placing my hands on my knees. My hands were red and raw. That happened sometimes when I used too much fire magic; the heat from the magic burned my skin.

"They need me alive, but at the same time they want me gone. They need me for something—probably my blood, if I had to guess." I looked Ingrid in the eye as she stood over me. She looked like she was pitying me.

"Then why would they let you go?"

Twice, in fact. He let me walk away in Hrym. He let me walk away now. If he really needed me, if the Agarthans needed me, why was I still here?

"Because… they want me to come to them willingly…" I thought aloud. My hands curled into fists, burning skin stinging, and I pushed myself to my feet. "I want my family evacuated. They're going to hurt them. They know I'll go with them if they have the right leverage."

Ingrid's eyebrows furrowed until my words sunk in, and then her face lit up with realization. "I won't let anything happen to them," she guaranteed, though I knew words were cheap.

She turned on her heel and started to move, but I held her back: "Wait."

"Professor?" She looked over her shoulder at me. She was all business now, serious as ever and ready to work.

"Do you remember Lysithea?"

Her hard gaze softened. "Of course I do."

"They had the right leverage on her, too. I wish her life could have turned out differently. So many unnecessary lives lost at the Battle of Gronder Field…" I couldn't remember who was responsible for her death. Who had I ordered to strike her down? All I knew was that her life had been cut shorter than it already was. "If she was here, do you think she would know what to do?"

Ingrid appeared confused. And why shouldn't she, I supposed. Few of us knew about Lysithea's past or her two Crests.

"Why would she, Professor?"

I nodded. "Right. Sorry."

"Excuse me, Professor. Your family will be in safe hands." Ingrid bowed and exited the room, leaving me alone. And yet—was I?

I knew not where to start. But the one thing I was certain of was that I didn't need to chase the Agarthans down. They would come to me. Which meant that, if I wanted to defeat them before they hurt anyone else, I needed just one thing.

A scheme.


Author's Note: A couple of you suggested Lysithea would be the optimal choice for targeting TWSITD. But she was one of the casualties from the Battle of Gronder Field. Luckily, though, she still kinda plays a role here, helping Byleth realize what TWSITD might be up to!