CHAPTER 17: A CRACK IN THE GLASS

Historia Riess

Nile's "safe place" turned out to be an abandoned tenement building. The place reminded Historia of an old sock she'd discovered while cleaning between the wall and her bunk at the training corps dormitories. Threadbare, stinky, and hanging on by literal threads.

The tenement was much the same, forgotten in it's squished space between an abandoned storage building and a used clothing shop. A gaping hole opened up like a mouth where a front door should be, revealing the gloomy interior to any passerby. Inside, boards and debris stuck to every surface like leaves in the fall.

Nile pointed them straight to the top floor. Carrying Levi between the two of them, they carefully made their way up landing after landing, over obstacles and through the broken frames of the building until they reached it. They let the shadows swallow them, choosing to join their dark ranks.

Historia let out an involuntary shiver at the dim light coming through the upper floor windows. As they laid Levi down, she worried it might be enough to give them away, that they would be found. Any second someone could alert Burns to their location and they would die.

I hate this.

The room itself was a testament to better times. A rotted wood bunk bed was pushed to the far side, along with a few chairs. A table leaned against them on its side. Old shredded clothes decorated the floor like confetti, as if a cat had gone feral in a laundry room.

The base layer of the floor was completely missing leaving only the wooden framework to cover the open expanse. Historia suspected a skilled trapeze artist would struggle to brave the skinny boards covering the hole.

Rodents scratched around in the walls, occasionally scurrying out into the open before flicking back to their hiding spots.

In all honesty, the scene before her looked more like the aftermath of a titan attack than anything this close to the capital had the right to be.

At least it's better than the Island. She shivered again.

"You okay?" Nile asked as he rummaged through his pack.

"Yeah." She lied. "It's just cold."

"It's as cold as hell." He agreed without looking up. "I remember coming underground for patrol every once in a while, especially before I got promoted, and every time I got back to the surface I couldn't shake the chills for a week." He shook his head, lost in thought.

Historia frowned. Returning to the surface? Back to sun and city. Returning to luxury and life. Guards to wait on her and food stockpiled to last for years.

That life was so foreign now...

"Sounds rough." She offered.

Nile sniffed in approval, pulling several items from his pack while Levi stirred on the floor in between them. Historia regretted not looking for a cleaner place to lay him down on, but the state of the place was atrocious. She didn't even have anything to cushion his head from the filthy floor. He would have hated it, but he'd been unconscious since...well since he'd shot Zane and collapsed.

Nile had said it was because of shock. But looking at the flushed face of the Captain again, Historia couldn't chase away the doubt crawling in her mind.

"Are you sure he's going to be okay?" She asked softly, stomach feeling sick at the sight before her. The memory of Levi standing with the gun and then collapsing looped obsessively in her mind.

Nile glanced at her, working a knife through several larger chunks of wood. "Levi?" He asked with a hint of surprise. "Of course! Trust me princess, he's been through a whole lot more than this. Hell, if shooting him was all it took to stop him, my early policing days would have been a breeze." He chuckled. "I think he's going to wake up, grumpy as ever, and curse how shitty of a shot the police are. He's actually going to complain about it! I can hear it now, why didn't those shit-faces aim a little higher and blow out my intestines? Then I could die in peace."

Historia let a small smile grace her lips. "That's a good impression of him."

He smiled wryly back. "You should hear Zackley's. The man can imitate anyone."

"Zackley? Really?"

"Swear to god!" Nile held a hand up. "He's got such an interesting sense of humor, as I'm sure you've started to pick up on."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh my god, he does. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed."

"Not at all. There's a whole network of us that like to chat about the upper military officials. Everyone from Keith Shadis all the way to our little pal Levi here. We go out for drinks every now and then, I'll have to invite you next time."

Historia pictured herself sitting around a tavern, much like Patrik's, but instead of dark and gloomy this one was filled with white light from outside and torches from within. It was warm and smelled of expensive alcohol and fresh meat cooking. She saw herself, Nile and his wife, surrounded by several other military police officers. They were talking and laughing and making fools of themselves. Not a soul worried about unseen dangers.

It was enough to make her heart swell.

"I'd like that." She smiled.

"It's a deal then." He smirked, standing up. "Now, we need to cauterize Levi's injury, or he's going to run the risk of infection, and to do that we've got to make a fire."

He strode across the room to a pile of bricks and wooden planks. Maneuvering to the side of one plank, he pushed over a meter or two, revealing a small fireplace behind.

"Did you know that was there?" Historia asked, impressed.

"Sure did." He grunted. "I used this place way too many times while I was on patrol. It's good to have somewhere you can warm your feet."

She nodded, watching him work.

In a matter of minutes, he had struck stone against flint, sending a spark into a teepee of sticks in the fireplace. A small orange glow now emanated from the hearth.

Historia scooted herself closer, watching as Nile stirred the coals with a poker. He took the knife he'd been cutting wood with earlier and set it in the coals.

The two sat together like that for a few moments. The only sounds were that of the fire crackling to life and Levi's faint snoring.

"Nile?" She asked, finally breaking the silence.

"Yeah?"

"We have to go back...don't we?"

He didn't answer, nor did the faint orange glow on his face reveal anything. The crackling of flames popped in her ear. A comforting sound. It reminded her of the fires she and her friends used to sit around after long, hot days of training. She wished she had a full belly and comfortable blanket to wrap herself in now like she had then.

Nile's posture slumped as he sighed an answer. "Yeah, we do."

The acknowledgement of the statement made it that much more real. Against her will, her eyes began to fill with tears.

He sat back, turning to face her. "Realistically, we can't get out of the underground until we stop Burns. He knows our safe houses, god, he even recommended a few. He has patrols roaming the streets. By some miracle, if we actually made it to the stairs without something else going wrong, we'd never be allowed passage. He'd have people watching for us. Any other way out would require ODM gear which we obviously don't have..."

She listened, not having anything to add to the bleak summary.

"And blast it all," He cursed. "He set everything up perfectly around our plan. He knew when to attack. He set us up with passage through the Lovof stairs, he hired people who knew the streets. I can't believe I didn't see it sooner." He scoffed.

Lovof...

"Wait a minute…" She said, heart thudding as she made a realization. "We totally missed something."

"Missed what?"

"Levi said Burns was wearing the Lovof family crest on his ring." She explained with wide eyes. "Zane too. They are part of the Lovof family. That has to have something to do with all this...right?"

Nile paused, running a hand through his spiky hair. "God...if that's true...then this is starting to make a lot more sense."

"What do you mean?"

He swallowed, glancing upwards. "Let me just start off by saying that politics is messy business." He sighed. "Several years ago, the Scouting Legion was instrumental in the arrest of a man for siphoning funds from them. That man was Nicholos Lovof, and he is the man who owns the stairs we came down on."

"Okay…"

"Lovof was corrupt, but—and I say this nicely—no one gave a damn about the Scouts so nothing was done about it. Even Shadis hardly said a word about it, the poor sap. That job really ate away at him, but it put Erwin in a perfect position to come in and run a private operation against Lovof."

"A very Erwin thing to do." She noted.

"Extremely." He agreed. "And being classic Erwin, he set up a gamble. He heard that Lovof hired a couple of thugs from the underground to kill him, so he turned right around and offered them positions in the Scouting Legion too."

"He didn't!"

"Oh he did!"

"Did they take the offer?"

Nile gestured back to Levi. "Why don't you ask him."

Historia's jaw dropped. "It was Levi? Levi was hired to kill Erwin?"

Nile chuckled. "Listen, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw him in the uniform either. I mean, imagine you've been hunting a criminal for three years and then he shows up at your job with a higher rank than you. God bless, Marie, but I was in a storming rage for days after I found out."

"That sounds frustrating." She agreed. "But still, I'm surprised Erwin is alive if Levi was supposed to kill him."

"Oh right, well his gamble paid off. Levi and his friends were the bate and Lovof fell right into the trap. Levi got lucky and Lovof ended up with a life sentence on his ass."

"Was Furlan one of his friends?" She asked.

"I don't know any Furlan, and I really don't have any idea who his friends were. But I did hear something about him being the only survivor from his squad on his first mission outside the walls." Nile shrugged. "Since then, he and Erwin have been practically inseparable. Anything Erwin does, Levi goes along with. You'd think the man doesn't have a mind of his own, but then he opens his mouth and you quickly find out you don't want to be on his bad side." He thought for a moment. "Or any side."

Historia smiled. "He's not that bad."

Nile scoffed. "Honey, believe me. He is."

They waited a few more moments, watching as the flames licked at the knife. Nile wrapped his hand in a scrap of cloth before reaching in and pulling the blade from the embers. He examined the hot metal, glowing slightly in the darkness, and waved a hand close to it to test its heat.

"Okay I think we're ready but...uh...this will be tricky. We'll both need to hold him down so he doesn't hurt himself. Or us." He looked at her, reading the uncertainty on her face. "Why don't you take his arms and I'll hold down his other leg?"

"Yeah, sure...uh…" She stuttered back, scrambling to her feet. "Should we wake him up?"

"Unfortunately for him, we will need to."

"Right." She nodded, as they moved back to Levi.

The Captain looked about the same as he had all day, which was both good and bad. Good because he didn't appear any worse than before, but bad because his skin was still ghostly pale with flushed red cheeks manifesting his burning fever. He hadn't shifted at all from when they'd laid him down.

Historia reached a tentative hand and jostled his shoulder. "Hey, Captain? Levi? Can you hear me?"

He immediately flinched at the contact, eyes fluttering open, though they looked glazed and unfocused.

"...mmhh…" He breathed. His eyes drooped shut, only to slowly blink open again, as if they were caked with wet glue.

Historia looked helplessly at Nile. "What should I tell him?"

"Uh…" Nile looked as flustered as she, but he dug into his pocket in the lapse. Pulling out a leather pouch, he held it to her. "He can bite down on this in a second. We need to clean off his wound first."

He set the cloth and knife and untied the cloth around Levi's leg, careful to jot jostle the man. Dried blood caked around the bullet hole, and he twisted the cap of his water skin, pouring precious drops around it.

Levi flinched, but otherwise didn't react.

"Okay, have him bit down on it now." Nile directed.

Levi's eyes were closed again so she gave him another small shake. "We need you to bite down on this. Can you do that? Levi?"

She didn't wait for a response, but he put up no resistance as she pushed it between his teeth.

"Okay, it's...uh...mostly in the right place." She reported, her hands hovering awkwardly, feeling too big and too small simultaneously.

"Good enough." Nile said. "Go ahead and hold his arms down."

Levi's hands were limp and warm as she held them to the ground on either side of his face, and she had the ridiculous image of cooked pasta flash through her mind.

Nile positioned one knee on Levi's uninjured leg, picking the hot blade back up. "We have to cauterize both sides of his leg, so on three I'll do the top. We'll give it a few seconds and then I'll lift the leg and repeat the process. Got it?"

"S—sure?"

"Perfect." He nodded. "One...two...three!"

Nile pressed the blade down flat right over the bullet hole.

For a split second, the horrible sound of sizzling flesh was all that existed. Then a terrible scream ripped from Levi's throat as his whole body jerked against both their grips. He pushed against them with incredible force, nearly knocked her hands away.

After what felt like a full minute, Nile pulled the knife off and the resistance vanished.

Historia sucked in a huge breath, falling back. She let herself clump into a heap, her breath escaping shakily.

"One done. One to go." Nile panted, wiping an arm across his brow.

Levi let out a groan despite his teeth clenching around the pouch.

Nile looked at him with pity, lifting the man's leg to expose the exit wound. "Sorry pal. Ready for two?"

Historia nodded, her arms shaking as she pressed Levi's arms back down. They just needed to get this over with.

"One...two...three!"

The second time was worse. Levi's scream felt more raw, more wrenching. Historia wanted to let go of him, knowing that he was in such horrible pain. Pain she couldn't even imagine. Pain she didn't want to imagine...

Three seconds later Nile pulled the knife off and moved away from Levi. "There." He said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Historia dropped Levi's arms like they were covered in acid and watched as they fell limply to the ground. His eyelids fluttered, and for a horrible moment she worried he might have been fully conscious for the ordeal. But as his head rolled to the side, his eyes closed for good.

"Captain..?" She breathed.

He made no motion to answer, so she quickly pulled the pouch out of his mouth. However, he remained motionless, breaths coming in quick, short inhales.

Nile grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, using the knife to carefully cut half of it off. He tore it into several long strips. Bandages.

Careful hands tied the clean cloth around Levi's injury, checking to make sure they weren't too tight, but that they would protect against infection.

"He'll probably be out for a while, princess." He observed. "Best to let him sleep while we figure out our next steps."

But Historia kept staring at the unconscious Captain. Her eyes were moist.

"...He's in so much pain…" She said.

Nile glanced at her, noticing her expression. He finished, sitting back and pushing up the remainder of his sleeves.

"He's going to be okay." The man told her flatly. "Like I said, he's been through worse."

"I know...It's just that...I feel horrible." She trailed off, the sick feeling returning to her stomach. "It's like, he saved us earlier when he could barely stand up, and all I could do was sit there and feel useless."

Nile's pale eyes gleamed in the low firelight.

"And—and, I just keep seeing him collapsing in my—in my head. He—I thought he was...that he was dead. And he did it for me, he's saved me so many times and he's suffering for it all when it's my fault."

She sniffed back tears.

Nile didn't say anything for a moment, and Historia felt despair fill her.

He thinks it's my fault too. He's going to leave us and go back to his family...people who are actually important to him.

"Princess, none of this is your fault." Nile said softly. "If any of us have anyone to blame it's Burns."

She shook her head. "But it was my idea to come down here in the first place. Mine! Levi didn't want to come. You didn't want to come here. We would all be safe if I hadn't done anything."

"Are you saying that you think our lives are more important than the kids down here?"

What?

The question hit her like a slap to the face.

"Tell me honestly Princess," He spoke again. "Do you think you are more important than anyone down here?"

"Of course not."

"Am I?"

"No—"

"Is Levi?"

She paused.

"No one is more important than anyone else. We all deserve to live."

Nile smirked a little as he nodded. "Then tell me why you want to go back? Why do you want to confront Burns?"

Historia frowned. "Because he's threatening a lot of people."

He nodded again. "Yeah, he's threatening everyone. Not just the people down here, but everyone in the walls. If he wins, everyone loses."

"And we can't let him win."

"We certainly can't."

"But I don't understand how that makes it not my fault that we're here."

Nile sighed, crossing his legs.

"What I don't think you understand is that we all have your back. 100%. I do, Levi does, the council does, though they have a poor way of showing it. We all want you to succeed as queen. Hell, we need you to! But we all chose to follow your lead on this. You may have ordered us to, but we all know it's for the greater good. We didn't know initially that Burns was corrupt, but knowing that doesn't pull our support from you away. If anything, we only want to keep you in the throne more."

"But why?" She said, silent tears falling freely.

"Because you care." He smiled wryly. "You care so damn much that you were willing to go to a place that literally no one wanted to go to just so that you could help the people who were most in need. Tell me someone else who would have done that?"

Historia scrounged through her mind, trying to think of someone to prove him wrong.

He lifted his eyebrows expectantly, emphasizing his point.

"I'm sure someone would have." She mumbled.

"But you're the first person in a hundred years who did. That's pretty significant if you ask me, which you kind of did." He winked. "What I'm trying to get at Historia is that you have the potential to make a massive difference to humanity, and we all believe in that. People are willing to sacrifice for what they believe in, and that's what me and Levi and everyone else is doing for you. You just have to make sure you're something worth believing in."

Historia sat there, letting the words sink in. The low heat from the fire wafted by her, tickling at her cheeks and fingers. It all seemed like so much, that the expectations were too high, but something in her heart tugged at her.

He's right you idiot. The words echoed through her mind in Yimir's voice. Get out of your own head and listen to someone else for once, eh?

She almost rolled her eyes at the sarcasm.

"I can do my best." She said to Nile.

"That's all we need kiddo." He smiled. "But like you said, we have to go back to the Military Police outpost because I sure as hell ain't staying in the underground for another week. Our best shot is striking right at Burns, and I think I've got the beginnings of an idea."

He rose from the ground, winking at her. Moving to the fire, he threw a few more sticks and some old cloth on the embers to keep them alive. She felt the renewed heat flare across her exposed cheeks.

"Come sit over here with me." He looked back at her, gesturing at the space by the fire. "With my brilliant military tactics and your experience I bet we can come up with a plan that will impress even Levi when he wakes up. What do you say?"

"Alright." She smiled, moving over to him.

Zane Randor was dead.

The fact danced in his mind like a plague, resounding, repetitive, and threatening.

His too pale skin, always so white, but even more so as it was silhouetted against the dark earth of the underground roadway looked too much like a skeleton and not enough like his beloved cousin. It shot a dark bullet hole through his heart.

The loss, emotions aside, was a terrible setback as it led to the loss of his quarry and one of his most trusted friends.

But emotionally?

Damion's entire world threatened to collapse on him. To stop his heart from beating and leave him motionless on the road, abandoned by life just like Zane had been.

The loss echoed down the dark well of trauma Burns never delved into. Only now the well spilled over in angry waves, splashing against the joy in his mind. Erasing it from sight.

Levi had done this. Historia had done this. But Nile...he had disappeared and Damion could only guess that he was with them.

The added betrayal, even if unintentional, from his former friend stung deeply, only adding to his firm belief that family were the only people he could trust.

It was time for this to be over. Historia needed to die.

He sighed, wiping a hand over his face to hide his emotions.

"Take the body to the outpost. We'll give him a proper burial when we return to the surface." He directed a nearby guard.

"Sir." The man moved to follow the orders.

Burns turned back towards the outpost, unable to bear the sight of Zane's sightless eyes.

He'd known this wouldn't be easy, but the toll his objective was taking was getting far too steep. How many more needed to die before justice was served?

"Two." He whispered to himself. "Just two more."

Historia. She would die. She would die terribly. Tragically.

And Levi.

He cringed at the thought of the man.

Levi would regret ever stepping food on the surface.