POV: Hubert
"Speak up, Ferdinand. It is unlike you to trap your needless blathering in your throat."
I keep my voice to a minimum as to not disturb Lady Edelgard. Screaming herself hoarse has taken its toll on her frail body, resulting in her spending most of her waking hours lost in the country of sleep. Of course, I must feel for the occasional pulse or breath. I cannot have her follow in the footsteps of her sixth brother—late brother, my apologies.
"What was that Ferdinand? You don't feel well?"
To keep our minds from withering (and our flesh from rotting), Kronya had dumped "toys" into our cage. These bones which I have meticulously arranged into a caricature of that spoiled brat belonged to the fingers of the second sister. Knob-like vessels of fortified calcium, tissue and sinew stripped clean by a ravenous tongue. After the second sister violently passed away, Kronya ate the remains right in front of us. Lady Edelgard screamed herself into unconsciousness.
Presently, these bones are silent. So I scoop them into my palm and hurl them through the bars. They spray out like ash in the wind.
Heavy footfalls scrape the slimy dungeon floor. Squish. Squelch. Boots trample over a deflated liver, sending chalky blood spurting out like a clogged faucet.
"A shame your fathers left you two in the dark," Lord Arundel says. "I'll let you in on a secret: history is being remade at this very moment."
"Don't worry," Ferdinand mumbles after our captors are gone. "My father… will rescue us. He's very close. He's very…"
Once upon a time, Ferdinand von Aegir had the face of a chipmunk with cheeks bursting with acorns. Only until recently did I realize that he has cheekbones like the rest of our kind. They poke out of his sunlight-depleted skin. They make him look unfamiliar.
Ferdinand is trying to finish his sentence but keeps running out of breath. His forehead is flushed with chilled sweat.
"Don't close your eyes!" I bark.
Behind me, Lady Edelgard twitches. A rat the size of a small boat scurries across her hip. Her eyes snap open, mouth ripping into a soundless scream. Fortunately, she slips back into her world of numbness.
"Edel… Edelgard…"
"Eat," I say firmly.
"Disgusting."
I do not know what frightens me more: his sudden preference for monosyllabic speech or his depleting will to chew my ears off.
"Eat!"
"Why…are you screaming at me?"
"WHY WOULD I WASTE MY BREATH ON YOU?"
Ultimately, he agrees to eat. The food we are given lack color and flavor and any semblance to anything edible. But we are not dead. Yet.
Before finishing his measly portion, Ferdinand turns and heaves out his stomach. Not much comes out. The smell, however, is so thick that it creates a miasma around our cage.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"I am tired, Hubert."
"You cannot close your eyes!"
"You let… Edelgard… rest…"
I shake him like a rag doll. By the false goddess, I refuse to address the voices of Her Majesty's departed siblings! I will not return their gazes! So help me, I will retain my sanity until we escape this hellhole!
When the Agarthans come for the seventh sister, she was already dead. We had to listen as she bashed her skull on the stone wall. Again and again, splat and splat. Now, she lies in a pool of her waste and tears, her head reduced to a soft, bruised fruit.
With her gone, only Lady Edelgard remains of the Imperial bloodline.
I think Lady Edelgard suffers more when she is not sleeping. She screams when she is awake. I attempt to console her, but she does not even notice me.
What does she see when she looks at me? Who is wearing my face?
Her siblings watch us from beyond the metal bars. They never speak. Yet they never shut up. I insist that Ferdinand stir up some boisterous nonsense to drown out the noise, but he just takes my hands and squeezes them.
Since when did he have knuckles?
"Hubert. No one's here but us. You're scaring me."
"Hubert, we'll be okay. My father is coming. He's coming right now!"
"Hubert, I… I don't feel well…"
Kronya hatches the brilliant idea of taking me out of the cage because, according to her, my flesh won't be supple if I don't nourish my body. It has been a while since I've last stood on my legs. She has to drag me around by my iron collar.
Lord Arundel interjects that if I must be let out of let cage, I should at least accompany my dearly beloved friend. So they haul me to the torture chamber.
Given how long that I've been confined down here, this is my first time venturing into the laboratory. Harvested organs embalmed by a glowing green fluid sit in jars. Sinister devices decorate the ceiling and walls, ranging from horns to saws to many imaginative forms of bastardized medical equipment.
A ring of dark blood surrounds a long operating table. This place reeks of blood shed since time immemorial.
Ferdinand fails to notice my presence. I lack the strength to call his name.
We have an audience. Lady Edelgard's siblings peek out from the shadows. How can they see with their eyes gouged out like that?
While Lord Arundel tightens his grip over my hair, Solon pulls out a long, slender syringe with a serrated needle. Odious yellow fluid the color of piss both old and new fill the barrel. When he rips off the tattered fibres sticking to Ferdinand's chest, I catch a full glimpse of the network of crimson welts scrawled across his skin. Like Lady Edelgard's own.
Solon jams the needle into Ferdinand's left chest cavity. Twists it. The scream that rips from that fool's throat scares Her Majesty's siblings into hiding. The second scream tears my stomach into bloody tatters. Solon is pushing the plunger, but it holds rigid, as if experiencing significant resistance from Ferdinand's body.
The Minor Crest of Cichol crackles and sizzles as though it is being burned alive. Flashing erratically, the Crest falls apart, puts itself together, trembles, and repeats this agonizing cycle over and over and ever on and on.
With a triumphant growl, Solon finally depresses the syringe. The Crest vanishes like smoke. Ferdinand lets one last strangled howl before falling deep into the cold embrace of unconsciousness.
"His blood was compatible?" Kronya gasps.
"We'll need to run more tests, but at this point, we have succeeded in making his blood compatible," says Solon.
Lord Arundel looms over Ferdinand's motionless body. Those white eyes gleam like daggers dipped in poisoned moonlight.
"What do you mean, I can't eat that brat? You promised I would get all the failures!"
"Behave yourself, Kronya. This one is… special."
Those Agarthans stop outside our cage. But instead of returning Ferdinand, they toss him into the cell opposite of mine. Of ours.
"Ferdinand?" I croak. "Why are you so far away?"
"Hubert."
Lady Edelgard! How long has it been since she had uttered my name? When she had spoken anything beyond a scream?
"I want to die," she whispers.
"No! You must become our next Emperor!"
"They're all dead."
"They are still here, My Lady. They are watching over us right now."
Lady Edelgard pushes me away.
"What madness are you spouting, Hubert? There is no one here but us."
I gesture grandly to the people in the shadows. To the voices in the walls. To the disembodied faces in the air.
"Where's Ferdinand?" Her voice is rising, nearly shrill.
"Next to your eldest sister. She is stroking his hair."
And in response, Lady Edelgard shoves her palms into her ears and squeezes her eyes shut.
It is very quiet in here. The Agarthans have yet to return Ferdinand. They took him some moons ago.
Lady Edelgard is not in the mood to talk. She keeps to herself, suddenly withdrawn from the world. From me.
The only beings who heed my presence are her siblings. They do not pretend that I do not exist.
At last, when the Agarthans arrive, they are empty-handed.
"We have succeeded where humankind failed. Unfortunately, this specimens' blood has been tainted beyond repair. However, with our current results, we will easily transfer our procedures onto other fresh subjects."
"I heard the Empire has procured new toys from House Ordelia."
"That is where we are headed next."
"What about these three?"
"They are obsolete. Dispose of them, Kronya."
"Are you kidding? They'll leave a bad taste in my mouth!"
"Dispose of them, Kronya."
"Y-Yes, Thales."
Lord Arundel turns to me.
"Marquis Vestra won't be too troubled with losing a good-for-nothing son. Duke Aegir is preoccupied with his newfound political prowess. And Emperor Ionius… is no longer in any position to take action on his own."
With that and a low chuckle, Lord Arundel dissipates into the shadows, followed by Solon. A grumbling Kronya showers the dungeon with a pungently sweet, dark liquid. She lights a torch, holds it up high for all to see, and dashes it across the wet floor.
"Ta-ta, rats! Have fun cooking!"
In the twinkling of time, the flames grow to a howling inferno. The very fabric of reality distorts, quavering like the surface of the sea during a lunar eclipse.
It's cold. Shouldn't fire be hot?
"Lady Edelgard!" I screech. Is she breathing? Why is she not responding to my touch? I beg her gawking siblings to help, but they merely melt into the flames.
There are no windows down here. The locks are welded shut. If the goddess truly does exist, shouldn't she extend her hand by now? Or are you telling me that her hand is unkind like Father's and Lord Arundel's?
"Mother!" I scream.
Suddenly, as though my cry was heard from across the world, a great crash resounds, instantly accompanied by yelling and heavy boots. Blurs of blue and silver dash between the dancing embers, engaging in a sort of bizarre dance.
"Rodrigue, over there!"
You are not Mother.
Who is that man?
"By the goddess, how long have these children been locked down here? Stay back, Your Highness!"
The lock explodes in a gleam of harsh light. Blasting apart the cage door, the man swoops us into his arms.
"El!" cries the Faerghus princess.
"That looks to be the last of the survivors. Everyone, prepare to move out!"
Survivors? We are all alive. What is that man babbling on about—
Ferdinand.
I wrestle myself out of his arms. The Faerghus princess pulls me back. Spurred by bestial rage, I rip her terrifying grip away.
"Ferdinand's still in there!" I snap.
"It's too dangerous!" the man roars.
"Hubert, wait, let me go with you—"
"That is enough, Dimitri!"
My feet are already moving. Glass and debris plunge gleefully into my bare soles, but I feel nothing. I don't feel the embers licking my legs. I don't feel the wooden beam's weight on my torso. I simply keep running.
"Ferdinand von Aegir!"
One by one, the siblings crawl out from under the ashes and usher me down the correct path.
Once I locate him, I free Ferdinand from his restraints. He falls forward into my open arms, his ribcage digging into my own. As I hoist him over my back, his head lolls into my chest, spraying grimy hair into my face.
Oh? His hair…
No, focus, Hubert. Lady Edelgard awaits our reunion.
No one awaits us back at the cages. The Faerghus princess is gone. And so is Her Majesty.
What else can I do except continue to run?
I emerge into a world that is falling apart. The land is ablaze. Civilians, nobles and commoners alike, stream down the crumbling streets. Pushing. Yelling. Weeping. Billowing in the rain of falling cinders, the flag of the Black Eagle resembles a war-battered banner.
I trip over my own unsteady feet. The crowd almost runs me over.
"Lady Edelgard!"
My voice is lost in a cacophony of discord.
Memory flashes by: a tunnel of red, a splash of white, and a rolling curtain of black. Movement sweeping past my cheeks. Galloping hooves. Voices receding into the clouds.
The last thing I recall is Ferdinand's hands, cold and limp in my own.
Then all unravels into nothing.