Empire of Ruins
Expansive iron and copper mines had once forged Satar into the greatest town in Pherae. From all across the continent, even as far as the northern colosseums of Renais, merchants had pilgrimed to Satar to buy a piece of famed metal work for themselves. Sword fighting became a sport renowned to no higher degree than here. Every noble in the days of legends had either equipped their army with weapons from Satar, or better yet, had trained that army in the town at the foot of the Copper Mountains, under the watchful eyes of masters who knew the way of the sword from the raw iron ore in the mines to the folded steel in a warrior's hand.
How very fitting that Roy would do the same a millennium later.
His horse, a Lycian thoroughbred from one of the dead rebels in Thria, scraped the ground with its hooves, eager to ride into battle. From here, a rocky hill outside of Satar, Roy overlooked the whole of the city. The stream of barges shipping ore into Satar was remarkably thin. As the blacksmith in Thria had said, Marcus' recent rebellion had all but strangled the region's mining business. But the walls of Satar, remarkable not for any ornate masonry but for their sheer height, still evoked a sense of awe, a sip of those legendary days when mankind had fought dragons. Even if the blue Altean flags above the battlements tainted the picture.
No matter. Roy would set the picture right soon enough.
He wheeled his horse around to face his army. Almost four hundred people, refugees from Tellius next to villagers from Thria and imperial soldiers who had joined Roy from all the struggling towns he had passed on his way here. They looked up to him, a sea of faces. And even without a crown, his reflection in their eyes was a that of a king.
"Satar has resisted the whims of the usurper for nine long months," Roy shouted and unsheathed the Binding Blade. The steel blinded the masses, but they stared all the more. "Let us reward their efforts. Today, we will reunite with our brothers and sisters. Today, we will be the fire that burns their shackles and cleanses Satar of Altea's poison. As our ancestors did a millennium ago on this very ground, we will again refuse to bow. Death to the dragons."
A few voices from the crowd picked up his chant. "Death to the dragons!"
"Death to the usurper."
Soldiers stretched their swords to the sky. "Death to the usurper!"
"Long live Pherae!"
"LONG LIVE PHERAE!"
To reward the chant of the crowd, the Binding Blade erupted in flames and delivered the fire Roy had promised. Sêl's presence manifested into a warm shiver down his arm. She had kept her word and returned to him with news that Shanna mobilized her Pegasus Knights to rendezvous here in Satar. Together with Marcus and his men, Roy would have the means to reclaim the capital and the crown itself. A thousand men and women, united to defy Naga and her champion and win back the land for humankind.
Let history repeat itself.
His horse reeled, and under shouts and the rattle of swords, Roy took the lead. The hill trembled under the boots of his army, mounted soldiers dashed through their ranks, and Satar quivered. Understaffed and poorly maintained, the walls provided no obstacle to Roy's army. One flick of the Binding Blade sufficed to set the gates on fire.
No minute later, Roy's cavalry advanced into the city and heralded the true king's return. The first spectators hurrying out of their doors and onto their balconies learned he had escaped from prison. But soon the news spread, and with each new quarter Roy's army conquered, the story became more fantastical, until every street echoed the call: the king has returned from the dead. And in the eyes of those Roy passed, mounted on the proudest charger and with a flaming sword in hand, maybe he did reach a legendary status.
Imperial soldiers left and right threw their weapons into the copper grime. Skirmishes never lasted long, casualties remained exceptions on both sides. A similar story had played out in the towns Roy had passed before; Lucina had sent no real opposition against him since Thria. Perhaps she concentrated her forces at the capital. A good strategy.
Ultimately it would cause her downfall.
No more than a dozen riders flanked Roy as he reached the final road before the plaza at the foot of Marcus' residence. His soldiers had spread across the city, with Shinon at the lead. They overtook smithies, recruited loyal Pheraens, and refueled the call: the king has returned from the dead.
Roy pulled at the reins and forced his horse into a cautious trot. This was too easy. If Marcus still fought his rebellion with Lucina, twice as many soldiers should roam the streets. Even if she had squashed Marcus' opposition, she could not have deployed her troops elsewhere in such a short amount of time.
Lucina, even if she crumbled with fear for her rebel friends, would not hand Satar to Roy on its steel platter. He had taught her too well.
The crooked road lay deserted before Roy, twisting with the hidden currents of the rock below, much like the rest of Satar. Every bend was another blind spot. If Lucina had set up a desperate line of defense, she would have done so in front of Marcus' residence. She knew he would head there.
With clipped military gestures, Roy ordered his entourage to secure the side alleys. The clacking of hooves rung from the cobble, loud enough to obscure enemy movement. Sêl sent a burst of warmth through the Binding Blade, biting into Roy's hand. Nothing from the alleys left and right, and the open plaza came closer and closer. If an ambush team sat in waiting behind the arrow-slit windows or between the narrow stairways leading above and below, they would have to strike now.
Three more paces. The first rider broke out of the alley's shade, and still the doorways left and right didn't stir with movement. Roy blinked against the brightness of the plaza, where snow puddles reflected the sun. Maybe he had overestimated Lucina after all.
The attack didn't come from left or right.
It came from above.
A bone-shattering shriek filled the plaza; icicles rattled and shattered on the cobblestone, and a sudden squall hit Roy in the face. Horses shied and broke formation, Roy's grip on the reins slipped. A massive shadow enveloped the riders. All eyes turned skywards, where the legends from a millennia ago had become alive to block the sun.
A dragon.
The creature shrieked, and a beat of its leathery wings plucked a rider out of the saddle, his scream drowned by the dragon's cry.
Except, this was no dragon. It was too small; its partners, an archer and an axe wielder, barely fitted onto its back. The white dragon Lucina had sent into the field against Roy at the capital could squish this one between its claws. No, the winged creature above was a common wyvern.
A small consolation as an arrow punctured Roy's chest.
He dropped from his horse, and his head collided with the cobblestone. Light and dark alternated in drowning his field of vision, a fire erupted close by, and Sêl shouted his name. Each breath rattled with pain. He clung to the Binding Blade all the more.
The arrow had nicked his ribs but had failed to break through; a flesh-wound, problematic but not deadly.
With tremendous effort, Roy pushed himself to his elbows, and almost slumped back down when the arrowhead scraped across his ribs.
Chaos controlled the plaza. His riders scrambled for cover, cover that did not exist amidst the barren cobblestone square. They were helpless appetizers on the wyvern's buffet. The creature stooped, meltwater sprayed, and a horse snapped in two, its rider's head crunched by the wyvern's jaws. Blood repainted the puddles.
Roy swallowed his nausea and struggled to his feet.
The wyvern pivoted for its next meal. The squalls tore into Roy's tunic, hot and foul with horse blood.
"Didn't you get him?" a female voice shouted above the roaring of wings.
The whirring of a bowstring, the thump of a lifeless body, and then the answer of her partner: "I would have gotten him if Minerva had not performed her most magnificent airborne dance in her efforts to reacquaint me with the ground below."
"Next time, I'm just gonna handle the bow myself."
"Bearing witness to that would make me the most blessed man in all of Archanea."
"Not now, Virion!"
Roy allowed himself a humorless grin. Virion, then. Their encounter in Thria's inn had not convinced him to abandon Lucina's cause, it seemed. And now, his arrows tore through Roy's riders with deadly precision.
Barely able to stand upright, Roy summoned a burst of fire through the Binding Blade. The arrow headed for his throat crumbled to ash. Wyvern fangs sliced into arms, necks, and soft bellies, and guts sputtered into the dirt like worms, insignificant worms in the wyvern's path.
The last of Roy's soldiers thrust his spear through one of the leathery wings. The wyvern shrieked, and its female rider answered. A swipe of her axe sent a helmeted head flying from its shoulders.
Only Sêl remained. Her light captured the enemy's attention.
A fireball blossomed in her hands and shot skyward. The small sun exploded, the heatwave vaporized icicles from nearby roof edges and knocked the wyvern out of the air. In a wrangle of wings, it crashed.
But the fall had killed neither the creature nor its two riders. They cowered and licked their wounds for a mere moment. Roy stood too far away to reach them.
The axe wielder growled, and her long hair whipped as she pursued Sêl. Virion was faster. Arrow after arrow sliced through Sêl, she flickered like a dying candle, and every time she reappeared, her light dimmed a little.
Roy knew the arrows couldn't kill her, even if Virion pierced her with three hundred projectiles at once. He knew he would never get a better opportunity to flee; both Virion and his partner had their eyes set on their target, this small beacon amidst the bloodstained plaza. He could stumble into an alleyway and disappear long before they noticed his survival.
Roy knew all that. Sêl's flames trembled.
And he staggered towards her anyway.
"Sêl!" he shouted.
If he reached her, they could channel both their powers through the Binding Blade and hold off the attackers until reinforcements arrived. Shanna's Pegasus Knights could swoop from the southern sky at any moment. If he only reached Sêl…
Roy didn't even make it halfway.
The angry beating of wings exploded in his ears a second before the wyvern tackled him. A scaled paw pressed him down, squeezed his torso, and bloody meltwater flooded his mouth. The Binding Blade escaped his grasp. Roy struggled, but it was no use, the wyvern's hot breath gnawed at his neck, a stench of blood and death.
Well played, Lucina. She had let him advance through Pherae, undisturbed, until his goal had lain at arm's reach. What an ambitious dream he had dreamed. Marcus and Shanna and with them half of the Empire united to stand against Lucina and her goddess, so close to matching the old legends.
The wyvern increased the pressure, and Roy winced.
"Stop!" Sêl's voice trembled, but the fire within burned with twice the determination.
She had raised her hands, and a fire pillar raged a mere armlength away from Virion. One gesture of hers would set him on fire. But all her focus was with Roy.
"This has to stop," she said.
The axe wielder raised her weapon and made a suggestive step in Roy's direction. "With his death, I agree."
"Cherche, dear," Virion said, "may I be so bold as to remind you what Rath told us?"
"Don't focus on Roy, get the Binding Blade instead – to the five hells with that! The easiest way to get the sword is to rip it out of his cold, dead fingers."
"You make an excellent point, as always. I merely fear the fire spirit will end this scene here with a rather fiery finale if we go through with your strategy."
Roy struggled against the wyvern's grip, helpless. Sêl met his eyes. Sorrow, genuine, human sorrow, swirled across her face. But her determination did not waver.
"You have no reason to kill him," she said. "Once the Binding Blade is in your possession, I will obey you. To the fullest."
"And why should we believe you?" the axe wielder, Cherche, asked.
Roy clawed at the cobblestone, unable to reach anything. "Sêl, don't!"
She broke eye contact. "I am a tool. Nothing more."
"No!"
Cherche debated. The fire roared, and Virion drew another arrow, darting from Roy to Sêl.
"All I ask," Sêl said, "is for you to spare his life."
Roy coughed for air, he kicked and writhed in the wyvern's grip, but nothing he did prevented Cherche from crossing the last yards towards the Binding Blade. She reached down. Her fingers violated the hilt, and Roy could only watch as she raised the sword.
In an instance, the fires faded into sparks, drifting specters tumbling helplessly, until they too faded into a lost brightness burned into Roy's retinas. Satar fell silent. The rattle of spears and the flapping of wings was nothing but a distant whisper. Sêl gave Roy a last look and vanished. And when she reappeared, she stood next to Cherche.
Roy tasted ice crystals on his tongue.
His world, five steps in every direction, was cold.
"I say we spare Lucina the trouble and finish the war now." Cherche pointed the Binding Blade at Roy's throat. "This one's for Ike."
The flapping of wings grew louder, became impossible to ignore, and soon the neighing of horses joined. Before Cherche reached Roy, the first spears struck the ground, thrown from up high. One of them sliced through the wyvern's wings, and a blood-curling shriek answered the sounds of splintering stone. The pressure on Roy's chest lifted, and he craned his neck just far enough to look above Satar's southern rooftops.
The Pegasus Knights of Talys had arrived. And at the front of the line rode Shanna.
Virion saved Cherche from an oncoming spear. "Oh my. I must say, the enemy has an impeccable sense of timing."
"I can still get him," Cherche shouted.
"I would be heartbroken to trade your beautiful head for his. We can lose the unwelcome guests between the houses but only if we hurry. And as much as I am enamored with the sound of your voice, I will not argue this with you."
"Minerva…"
"I guarantee she will arrive at the rendezvous point before we do."
The hailstorm of spears became more vicious. With a hiss, the wyvern rose higher, chased by two Pegasus Knights. Cherche and Virion hesitated only a moment longer before they fled into the safety of the nearest alleyway. They took the Binding Blade with them. And also…
"SÊL!"
Roy climbed to his feet, dizzy, cold, but it didn't matter. His ribs ached, the arrow wound throbbed with a pain that threatened to envelope the whole of his chest, but that didn't matter either.
A squall from Pegasus wings tore through his tunic, and a moment later Shanna emerged behind the feathers of her mount. She rushed to his side, her arms outstretched to stabilize him.
"Roy!" she cried. "Heaven, Roy, what happened?"
He hadn't seen her face in over a year, but he didn't waste more than a glance on her. Another uneven step brought him closer to the alley where Cherche and Virion had vanished.
"You can rest now," Shanna said. "We've secured the battlements and the smithies. The Altean forces are done for, the last of them are running for the hills. Here, rest yourself for a moment."
Roy shoved her arm away. "Don't waste my time! I need a sword, and fast!"
"Roy, you're injured…"
"I know that! It's nothing to what they will be doing to Sêl."
"Firstly, you should be thinking about yourself. We've come here for your sake, everyone has. You have no right to put yourself in any more danger than necessary."
Roy took a deep breath, heavy with guts and icicles, and straightened. He was the king. Even while he felt the small flame inside him wither against an omnipresent cold, Shanna and her troop expected orders from him, not madness. He would savor the madness for the right moment, feed the fire and unleash it against his enemies.
"Close the gates and secure the skies," Roy said, his voice the epitome of calm. "If anyone tries to flee the city, I want to know about it immediately. Should anyone resist, you have my permission to kill them. No second warnings. And find me Marcus. When I'm done with the rebels, I want to talk to him."
Shanna stepped aside and assumed a pose more befitting for a knight in the face of their king. "I will organize search parties. If the rebels are still hiding in the city, we will find them."
Roy took the bloodstained sword of one of his dead riders. "Waste of time. I know where they are hiding. Where they are always hiding."
Under the watchful eyes of their goddess. As though the arms of Naga's statues and murals could shield them from Roy's wrath.
He broke the arrow shaft from his chest but left the metal head be for the moment. An open wound would only hinder him. Without another moment wasted, he began the hunt.
Alone, he hurried through Satar's alleyways. The maze of stairs and passages, twisting and turning like vines grown over the course of a millennium, didn't deter him. His chest ached, and the risk of a heart failure became greater and greater as he pushed past the limitations of his body. His legs so heavy, his hand around the subpar sword hilt so cold, but Roy ran all the same.
Satar housed only one site of Nagaism, an ancient temple where Hartmut was said to have received a blessing to defeat the dragons. Now Roy knew it had been the Binding Blade. Virion and Cherche could only be hiding there.
Twilight controlled Satar's sky by the time Roy reached the temple. The square building with its domed roof hunched between the houses and archways, its stone dark and porous with age. The dusty smell of history wafted in the air. Roy didn't pause to absorb it.
He flung himself against the temple gate and entered when the slab of wood gave in. Few fanatics had risked their skin to maintain the temple in the years of Roy's reign. Plaster peeled from the overhangs at the dome's base, and many a mosaic had crumbled into colorful dust under Roy's boots. No one had dared to breathe this air in years. A windchime rung, but a turn of his head chased the illusion away. Roy crept forward until, in the murkiness of the temple, he made out the altar at the front. Time had failed to sink its teeth into the mosaic there. It depicted a shield of sorts, emblazoned with five gemstones of different color. The red one struck Roy as all too familiar.
But he had no time to waste on the mosaic. At its foot stood Cherche and Virion, weapons at the ready. The Binding Blade lay on the altar before them. Its fire had all but died.
"A visit from the former king," Virion said and tensed his bowstring. "Under different circumstances, I would be honored. Although, after spending a horribly long month in one of your prisons, I'm afraid my respect for you has taken a fatal blow."
Roy raised his sword. "Don't you speak of prisons to me."
"I don't know what sort of mad-king-spice you're on to still be standing, but you'll regret it." Cherche swung her axe and chipped an edge of the stone altar. "Without your fancy sword, you're just a man who forgot to bring his army. Those are easy enough to defeat."
"We shall see."
Roy dashed to the nearest pillar, and Virion's arrow struck the marble. Cherche gave him no time to pause; her blow severed the pillar and almost his head. Another arrow split the air, perfectly timed with Cherche's attack pattern, and Roy flinched when steel grazed his arm.
But even with his injuries, his technique had lost nothing of its precision. Lucina and Ike had been far more formidable as opponents. Cherche's hits came heavy but with no finesse. A series of sidesteps, a turn here and a drop there, and the arrows shot harmlessly past Roy.
Until Virion had none left.
Cherche's arms quivered, but her expression was firm when she hammered her axe against Roy's defense.
"Use the sword!" she shouted. Her boots slipped on mosaic dust.
"I am no master of such a crude weapon," Virion said.
Roy cut through a lock of Cherche's hair, and she retreated, breath heavy.
"You heard what that fire spirit said," she pressed out. "As long as you have the sword, she'll do whatever you want. A fireball—" Sword and axe collided, and Cherche groaned. "—would be nice right about now."
Roy shoved past Cherche towards Virion. He wouldn't dare.
But he did.
Virion closed his hands around the Binding Blade. For one second, two seconds, nothing happened, and only one more pace separated Roy from the altar.
Then a burst of fire erupted in his face.
His shoulder collided with a pillar; he tasted dust and ash and the burnt linen of his sleeve. But the heat hadn't cooked his lungs, and the fire had died as soon as it had appeared. Either Virion didn't know how to use the Binding Blade… or Sêl resisted his control.
Roy climbed to his feet, just in time to block a swing from Cherche. The steel squealed in his hand.
When she found no opening to wound him, Cherche retreated. Again, Virion raised the Binding Blade.
"Sêl, you are not a tool!" Roy shouted. Maybe she couldn't hear him. He continued anyway. "Neither they nor Naga control you. The fire is only yours."
Cherche's axe pushed against Roy, shoved him out into the open.
Roy's eyes never left the Binding Blade. "Remember what you told me on the hill outside Thria about your wish? If it was the truth, then I beg you, fight back. Sêl, free yourself!"
Roy stood before Virion without cover. The next attack could kill him, light his pyre, and plunge Pherae back into Naga's poisonous grasp.
He took a last breath.
Flames danced around the Binding Blade. But instead of heading for Roy, the fire grew and twisted, the red stone glowed, and out of its depths emerged Sêl.
Virion gasped, then screamed and tossed the burning sword from him. It sailed through the temple, a beautiful arc, until the hilt landed in Roy's hand. He held tight.
Sêl walked towards him, and her deep ruby eyes shimmered, brighter than any star the gods could have painted onto the sky.
"I didn't dare to think you would come for me," she said.
"Always."
"You asked whether I remember my wish." Sêl smiled. "I do. It's the same as on the hill."
She reached out. And when their hands met around the Binding Blade, the temple exploded into fire.
The walls and pillars that had survived uncounted kings and coronations went up in flames. Sparks fountained high like specters on their way to escape the shackles of men. The shield emblem at the altar crumbled, scorched mosaic dust swirling. Roy and Sêl stood amidst the inferno and tasted the boundless night air as the vaulted roof broke asunder. Naga's strings reached neither of them now.
Virion cried out, part of his face swallowed by fire. Cherche called his name, barely audible amidst the flaming torrents, and dragged him towards the gate, itself about to become ashes. The rebels were fleeing. But Roy wasted no more than a glance at them.
Victory was his. The euphoric burning in his chest, however, didn't originate from the knowledge that Satar again stood under his rulership or the arrival of Shanna's Pegasus Knights or the hope to unite his and Marcus' troops soon.
No, the warmth to melt Johtran's glacier came from two hands folded around the Binding Blade. One mortal, human hand. And one of eternal fire, no less human.
When the fires faded, and the sun rose to light the copper grime on Satar's walls instead, the busy hammering of countless blacksmiths greeted the new day. They worked to mold swords and sharpen spearheads, and the smell of molten steel replaced all traces of spilled blood. The blacksmiths hadn't returned to their forges because Roy had given the order. It was the chant, "The king has returned from the dead," that spurred them. And why should they not celebrate a return to normalcy? Yesterday's battle had seen minimal casualties and only one destroyed building; neither the fleeing rebels nor Naga's temple were missed.
To perfect this victory, Roy only needed to regain Marcus' loyalty. After all, no one trained better knights than Marcus.
But to Roy's surprise, Lucina had taken care of this risk factor.
When he arrived at Marcus' residence, followed by Shinon and an escort of enthusiastic locals, he found it in ruin. Wooden struts, half broken and coated in ash, reached like accusing fingers into the air. Slag from half-melted swords glazed the ground, as though someone had hoped to repurpose Marcus' weapon collection into a tasteless carpet.
"I suppose this means Marcus will not join our fight," Roy said.
Shinon spat out. "I heard the talk from the locals. The fire ravaged the residence just after that Altean princess left. This is what awaits us with her at the helm. Prayers and double-crosses." He almost choked on his spite. "It's good to have a Pheraen back in charge. And with that fire sword in action, no one can deny you earned it. One stroke, and the gates burn brighter than the best pyre. That's how you make a mark."
"A mark, yes…"
Roy gave the ruins a closer look. The stench of ash still swept through the rubble whenever a gust stirred the crime scene. When does a mark become a scar, he wondered.
"This isn't Lucina's style," Roy said. "Unless the crown changed her more than I thought."
"She will get what's coming for her. You returned from the dead when most of Pherae had given you up. It's a sign that the days of the Altean double-crosser are numbered. A higher justice after the months of decay."
"My return has nothing to do with divine interference or higher justice."
"Of course not." A grin invaded Shinon's frown. "But the mob will like the story anyway. Especially the Altean side. All that blabber about the eternal paradise, and now their greatest enemy cheats death long before they do."
Roy raised his brow in earnest surprise. After spending nine long months with Alteans in the new military, Shinon knew what made them tick. More importantly, he could use that knowledge to turn the Altean philosophy against them. Arrogant though he may be, perhaps Shinon would prove more valuable than Roy had thought. He might even fit into a mantle of the Twelve one day.
"Perhaps the story of a king returned from the dead is worth telling then," Roy said and gestured at the crowd of locals. "And I'm certain these people would appreciate you adding your own story to the mix."
Shinon licked his lips. "Why stop there? All of Satar has a reason to celebrate, and I could go for a few drinks. How would a feast in honor of your return please Your Highness?"
Roy smiled. "I will leave everything to you. Make your mark."
After all, overblown festivities had their uses, even if Roy rarely attended them himself. The common folk loved pomp and dance and an excess of liquor; they found reasons to celebrate even in the passing of seasons. And a happy citizen was a citizen free of rebellious thought. Which was why Roy had ordered celebrations of the Empire's anniversary in every corner of Altea. He had merely underestimated the extent to which devotion to Naga chained the Altean people.
Now, their devotion had found a more tangible target.
Yes, people might find comfort in the existence of a shapeless hand from heaven. But they only loved what they could see and what they could touch. Unfortunately for Lucina, what could be seen and touched also fell victim to human flaws. And with his victory in Satar, Roy had chipped away another piece of her divine mantle until everyone in the Empire would realize what she truly was: an Altean girl wrapped up in the strings of her goddess.
Marcus' loss was unfortunate, but Talys' Pegasus Knights provided Roy with everything he needed to win. As long as he had Sêl by his side, he could not fail.
While the noise of Shinon's feast echoed through Satar, Roy awaited Shanna as a red-caped spot in the middle of the destroyed residence. A fitting location. After all, from Lucina's empire of ruins, Roy aimed to build the palace of a true peace.
Sêl hovered half a foot above the ashen ground next to him, no longer confined by the red stone of the Binding Blade. Roy was done hiding her. And if her flaming appearance earned him distrust from those who harbored rightful reservations against miracles, so be it.
Roy tore his eyes from Sêl's profile as the flap-flap of wings demanded his full attention. With the endless energy of a teen at heart, regardless of her twenty years of war experience, and with a grin on her face, Shanna jumped from her Pegasus.
"I knew you wouldn't simply surrender," she said. The respectful bow of her head came a little belated. "It's good to see you alive. And under better circumstances than yesterday."
Roy ignored both the absence of a formal form of address and Shanna's frivolous tone. "Then I understand my message reached you well?"
"I prepared the troops as soon as I saw your ring. Although I was a little surprised to see it in the hands of…" Shanna gestured at Sêl. "Well, whatever she is."
"Sêl enjoys my complete trust. That is all you need to know."
"Sure. Last time you said that, the object of your trust stole the crown from your head."
"Perhaps I am better advised then to suspect in your quick arrival a plot to remove me from the face of the Empire for good."
Shanna had the decency to lower her gaze. "You know I would rather die. I never stopped living by the code loyalty or death, and neither did Marcus. That's why Lucina got rid of him, I guess."
"Perhaps. I do owe you my gratitude for your help against the wyvern yesterday. Sêl told me you were planning a war against Lucina?"
"I couldn't give her the satisfaction of crushing Talys under her thumb too. I governed the island and the Pegasus Knights just like you ordered me to do all those years ago. Even when I thought the Altean cuckoo had killed you."
"You did well. Can I count on your loyalty going forward too?"
"Of course."
Shanna possessed the miraculous talent to recreate the expression with which she had looked up to Roy almost twenty years ago; this honest gleam that, although it lacked gravity, invited her opposite to smile.
But Roy needed her army, not her friendship, and to pretend anything else would have been unfair towards her.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Shanna said when Roy didn't return her smile. Gold flashed when her fingers reemerged out of her saddlebag. "Your ring. I'm just going to assume you didn't mean it as a fifteen-year overdue proposal."
Roy took the ring and sunk it in his pockets. If Shanna was disappointed, she did not show it.
"Walk with me for a bit," Roy said.
He was not entirely sure to whom he spoke, but both Sêl and Shanna followed. Crumps of ashen furniture became dust under their feet. A half-molten sword stuck out of the rubble here or there, each a symbol of Marcus' talents on both the battlefield and the fencing ground. Marcus, who had placed the first real sword in Roy's hand in exchange for his wooden stick. Marcus, who Roy had dragged out of retirement to teach Lucina the same techniques.
And of his legacy, only rust remained.
Whether Lucina had given the order or not mattered little. She had allowed this to happen, and the ruins all bore her signature. Once again, like a child trampling through other people's sandcastles, she destroyed what Roy and the Pheraen leaders before him had built. Until nothing of value remained. A ruinous plain for Naga to reshape to her heart's content.
On his way through Lucina's ruins, Roy tossed Ninian's ring around in his pocket. In circles as senseless as the destruction around, he spun the ring between his fingers. Shanna noticed. But she failed to guess the correct reason.
"Once we cut off Lucina's head, your mother will truly be avenged," she said. "Marth's traitorous bloodline will be wiped away. A couple years too late if you ask me, but hey, you're the one who didn't want to end it at the Glass Fortress."
"I no longer think it was Marth who ordered Ninian's death. At least… not truly."
Shanna frowned. "Because that's the story Lucina hurled at you? Please tell me you're joking."
"Marth was a devoted follower of Naga," Sêl said.
Roy nodded. "Precisely. My imprisonment in Johtran gave me plenty of time to rethink past events. I remember how Marth talked of her; not yet blinded by faith, but the seed was there. If he did give the order, it was on behalf of Naga. But even about the existence of such an order I'm no longer sure of."
"And?" Shanna asked. "That changes nothing."
"It would mean that my father went to war against the wrong man." Roy placed a hand on the Binding Blade's pommel, the sound of shattering glass in his ears. "It would mean that I drove this sword into the wrong heart."
Sêl shifted closer to Roy, and a burst of heat rushed up his arm. "You are not to blame. If Naga hadn't forbidden me to act, I would have awakened for you back then."
"I don't see why we should suddenly feel sorry for Marth." Shanna, said. "Either way he's dead, and without his death, the Pheraen Empire would have been nothing but a dream. And so would have been the eighteen years of peace we enjoyed before the Altean cuckoo snatched it away."
Ash swirled under Roy's steps. He brushed across a strut that might have once belonged to the residence's great stairway. The structure crumpled under his touch.
"Peace and unity." Roy tightened his grip on the stone. "That was what Marth strove for, if his words amount to anything. He never had the chance to see those things realized himself. Isn't it ironic that his death brought Archanea peace? His life amounted to little but his death to so much… I wonder if that is what Naga's followers consider higher justice."
"You will be different," Sêl said. "They will remember your deeds, not your death. And so will I."
Shanna kicked a pebble, and it hopped through the scorched remains of a table. "So what? You aren't going to face Lucina because you have regrets about killing her father? Because maybe some goddess has her hands in this?"
The strained banister snapped under Roy's grip. "I will face her. I have more reasons to do so than ever."
"Good to know that more than just your handsome face made it out of Johtran. And hey, if you don't want to engage Lucina, I'm just waiting my turn to cut out these baby-blue eyes. The capital's walls will be no match for my Pegasus Knights."
"I appreciate your enthusiasm. But I need you elsewhere."
Shanna crossed her arms; a dangerously defiant gesture in front of her king. "Nonsense, I'm riding with you against the capital. That's why you called me, isn't it?"
"If Marcus had been alive to join our cause, then yes, you would have accompanied me. But this—" Roy gestured at the destruction. "—forces my hand."
"Virion's and Cherche's attack here involved too few fighters to promise success," Sêl said, and her expression darkened. "Although they came close. Lucina will have concentrated her best forces at the capital."
"And the people of Altea stand behind her," Roy said. "Both for her bloodline and for her ties to their precious Naga. They do not yet see her failure like the citizens of Satar do. But we will make them see. When the center of their spirituality burns down, so will the people's faith in her."
Shanna's eyes widened. "Terra?"
"Precisely. If Lucina sends soldiers to defend the city, she will spread her forces thinner still and leave the capital unguarded. If she does nothing, Altea will turn against her."
"Thus robbing her of the last support she has," Shanna concluded. But her grin soon faded. "Still, I feel like I should be with you. I wasn't there last time you fought her, but this time I can make up for it."
"You are of more use to me in the south."
"That's what you said last time. And look where it led us." Shanna sighed. "Fine, I'll go to Terra. But as soon as I'm done, I'm flying back to you. The Altean cuckoo must fall silent. So don't go listening to her song about her father's innocence in the meantime."
Roy nodded. The gesture appeased Shanna but also drew a line under this discussion. He knew well enough that every word out of Lucina's mouth was long poisoned by her faith.
Shanna relaxed, and her focus wandered towards Sêl. "Hey, while I'm gone, make sure to defend the king's flank, okay?"
Sêl bowed her head. "Naturally."
Shanna took a step back, and for the first time during this conversation, the air of seriousness captured her body as she curtseyed for Roy. He took it as the first sign of his returning reign; Roy the disowned became Roy the king of the greatest nation Archanea had ever seen once more.
"Your Highness," Shanna said, "please, await my triumphant return."
Roy dismissed her with a wave of his hand, and she stalked to her Pegasus' side. The audience had hardly lasted an hour, but it would determine the fate of the Pheraen Empire going forward.
While white feathers scattered and Shanna's Pegasus took flight, Roy walked through Lucina's empire of ruins and wondered if blind faith made her blind to ash-coated sights like this.
Notes: All I will say is that NaNoWriMo doesn't write itself. My apologies if chapters arrive a little belated, but editing this while writing something else at the same time is weird.