I am five years old in the year 1167.

My siblings and I stand in the throne room, arrayed from tallest to shortest. It's actually in order of age, but currently both coincide. All except for the youngest of us, swaddled in a blanket and held by my oldest sister.

Father stands at the base of the throne, looking out over the audience. It's not just us there—an entire host of nobles and people who are important crowded to see the sight of the Emperor. I remember my siblings, but the crowd is a blur.

My eldest brother kneels in front of our father, Ionius. Father's yet to succumb to his back pain and actually stands up straight. In a way, he actually looks powerful, the man who attempted to wrest control of his own nation back into his hands.

But that is neither here nor there, now. Father will be dead by my hand in fourteen years.

"Antonius von Hresvelg," Ionius' voice boomed. "Rise, heir apparent of Adrestia."

I don't understand what the point of it all is at the time. A grand display of power, no doubt. My brother was best of us, the scion that Adrestia hoped for. Mediator, charismatic, if anyone were to bridge the gap between the nobles of Adrestia, it'd be him.

Antonius rose, and the crowd cheered. Not that there'd ever been doubt that he'd be the one of us to win the crown. Some of my siblings looked on with jealous expressions—that I see in hindsight—but no one tried to dispute the event. Perhaps, even they, knew he was best suited.

Antonius looked over at us with a measured smile. He was a good older brother, the best I could have ever asked for. So in that moment, even as young as I was and not understanding it all, I felt pride in my brother.

He was a good man.

I am seven years old now.

I linger in the wings of one of the meeting rooms, having been looking for Antonius. I peek in and see him arguing with father.

Goddess, did he look every bit of a king then as I remember. Antonius always wore subtle finery, in tune with fashion but not flaunting wealth. He sported an undercut, the sides of his head shaved. Between that and the easy smile that drew you in, Antonius turned heads.

But that smile was absent as his voice begins to carry. I flinch at the words, still waiting in the doorway for Antonius. He said he'd play with me, you see. Would that I could go back to those days, where my greatest concern was who I could have a tea party with.

"…let them in? You give access to a group we know nothing about, all for the promise of power? Father, do not trust this Myson."

"And let Aegir continue to sweep out legs from under us? Goddess, don't be a fool, boy. We've a need for such people to help us bring our power back to us. Hresvelg used to be a powerful name. A feared name! I would make it so again."

"And you think Myson is the solution? Have you listened to what he proposes? It's idiotic—"

It takes me years to really understand what any of it means. By then, I've gone the route of my father. Certainly, my brother seems the smarter, no? At one point, I'd have agreed. But ruling means getting your hands dirty. Perhaps Antonius wasn't prepared for that.

I know I wasn't.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and look up to see my eldest sister, Lorelei. She stares long and hard through the door that I stand in, watching brother fight with father. In the end, she looks down at me. "Here, let's go play, El."

I go with her, not needing much encouragement. I don't like yelling. I still don't, to this day.

I'm nine when Volkhard spirits me away to Faerghus.

I don't particularly understand what is going on, or what the Insurrection means at that point. I know I miss my siblings.

I spend days with Dimitri. We get along well. When I got word of his death, I'll admit I mourned him. Once, we were friends.

I miss those days. I yearn for a time that I was not Emperor or destined for a throne.

But life isn't kind.

I'm twelve when it happens.

The Insurrection is resolved and I come home. Days after I return and I'm in a cell.

I don't know why I'm in the dungeons. Even to this day, I'm not sure what caused this all to happen, what could have been the trigger to what would dictate my future.

But I know who it is. Myson and his ilk are the ones to do so. I know not where my father is, only that all eleven of us are locked away down here.

For days I curl in a corner and cry, scared as I see rats watching me from corners. I just want my brothers and sisters; I just want to go home. I plead with my captors for hours only to find them unflinching.

I think it's then I learned just how useless talk is. You have to act to get something.

To this day, I don't know why they brought my brother into my cell. He was thrown in through the door unceremoniously. I was at his side a second later, turning him over.

Though Antonius was so close, he would not utter a word to me as I watched him die. Blood burned through his skin like flame, dissolving veins and pooling onto the ground around us. I think he was incapable of speech by time he got to me. His eyes stayed on me until the end as his face wracked with pain.

Antonius died in my arms, the first of us to be killed for others' ambition.

I'm thirteen when I overhear that my youngest sister is dead.

Voices I now know to be Myson and Ambrose von Aegir trickle through the window on the door. I press an ear up against it and hear them speak of Amelie.

I haven't seen my sister in over a year and I never will again. It hurts, and I wonder how many of my siblings were still alive. How many met a fate like Antonius?

Whatever they're doing to us, they start on me the next day. A man named Alister begins to inject liquid into my arms. He has a kind smile, reassuring me that everything will be fine. I believe him, desperate for something to hold onto.

My blood burns that night, but I do not die. Sometimes I wonder if I should have that night. Maybe things would have been better if another of us lived instead of I.

I'm fourteen when they move me to a new cell.

It's a bigger room with two beds. I hug my sister, Lorelei, for the first time in years.

I can't figure out why they put us together. I suspect that something went wrong with another of my siblings in their experiments that caused them to try and keep us a little happy. Or maybe they were trying something with Lorelei, the eldest left of us.

Whatever it was, I'm grateful that I got to be with her. I fear I'd have taken my life were I not to have had her by my side.

I'd forgotten what fresh air felt like. Or what the smell of rain was. Or what eating something warm was like.

The tests continued. Myson, Alister, Cornelia, it mattered not who administered them. They persisted.

I'm fifteen when there's only three of us left.

Conrad, my brother but a year older than I, screams constantly. His mind is gone, according to a conversation Lorelei overheard. It takes time, but we eventually grow numb to the screams from our brother.

Until we notice they stop. We don't actually notice the exact moment, just that eventually they've ceased. Neither of us need to say it aloud, we know he's dead.

Lorelei's hair is now white, though neither of us know what it means. She shakes almost constantly, and I hold her close. I think she'd have gone the route of Conrad, were it not for me. There's comfort in that, that I made the end a bit more palatable.

It's a cold hell we sit in, these cells. I cry most nights, somehow still able to shed tears. But that doesn't last long. I can't remember crying since those days, as if I'd shed all the tears my body ever could.

I am sixteen when Lorelei is taken from me.

Much like Antonius, she lays dying at my feet. I stroke her hair, singing softly any old lullabies I can recollect. Tears freely pour from her eyes, mixed with blood.

"Promise me, El," she whispered shakily between gasps of pain. "Promise me you'll make them pay."

"I promise," I say. My hair is white like hers, and I can't help wondering if this will be my fate too. Though none of my siblings will be there to bear witness to my death. I struggle to decide if that's good or not.

I cry for Lorelei, the last tears I'd ever shed. She reached a hand up, brushing my cheek. "Walk tall, sister," she whispers.

She dies shortly after. I cling to her body until the take it away.

By time I'm seventeen, I'm free.

Freedom isn't free, and invisible chains of my Agarthan tormentors are at my back. Tear down the Church, they whisper. Annihilate the Goddess. Break the system. Destroy Crests.

There's a fervor in my stomach, one that exists to this day. I want to wipe them out. I want them to hurt. But the Insurrection destroyed the Emperor's power, and I would have no authority to do so. Not while the Agarthans were cozy with Duke Aegir.

I bide my time. I amass allies, alliances. I speak to the discontent and find companions in them. I forge a vision from my pain, one that will see justice for Lorelei, Antonius, all of them.

Though my hands are tied, I will not succumb to death until I purge the world of Agarthans. Let them use me for this new world order of theirs, I care not. If it gives me the window to turn on them, I'll take it.

Let the history books paint me a devil. Let my old friends call me warmonger. Let them all hate me.

For I will have justice for my family and right this world.

Author Notes: This is our penultimate intermezzo. I have plans for one more, though this one certainly takes the cake for maybe the most unexpected character. It's fun to look back and see that we've had, (in order) the Golden Deer, Byleth, Judith, Dimitri, Petra, and now Edelgard. Quite an odd lot.

Editing Notes:
2/18/2022: Minor grammatical adjustments.