Part 2: Pax Adrestia, Chapter 4.

Disclaimer: Apart from my OCs, of which I have a few major ones, I own nothing in this work.


Dorothea grimaced when she pushed the heavy duvet off her body, blinking as she tried to push the stench of smoke and ash away from her.

It wasn't until she scrambled out of her bed that Dorothea realized the source of the smell. It was herself. Smoke and ash had covered her clothes over the course of the slaughter at Myrddin, and with Linhardt's disappearance, she had lost the opportunity to bathe.

Slowly, Dorothea slipped out of the bed, rubbing her eyes slowly as she spotted a closed window by her bed, sealed by a single locking bar of wood.

When she raised the small bar, Dorothea yelped in surprise as blinding sunlight poured from the window that suddenly swung open, and she fell into a heap on the floor as she tried to blink the image of the burning sun from her eyes.

"My lady?" a female voice called from behind her, and Dorothea heard the sound of the door slamming against a wall. "Are you alright?"

Dorothea winced as she pushed herself to her feet again, looking away from the window and the blinding light beyond, and settling her eyes on the young maid that stood behind her by the wide open door.

"I'm fine," Dorothea lied with a sweet smile, still blinking the light from her eyes. "Just startled by the sun."

"I understand," the maid replied with a polite curtsy. "Is there anything you want me to do?"

Dorothea paused at the question as she tried to order her thoughts, her mind flashing to the dark forest she had spent the previous night searching. "Has Linhardt been found?"

"General von Hevring?" The maid sounded nervous, her eyes darting from side to side as she replied. "I believe so, but I was not informed on the specifics."

"Where is the Professor?" Dorothea tried a different angle with the hapless maid. "She should know-"

"She left an hour ago," the maid replied, eyes cast down. "We were told that there was a bandit infestation in Varley territory. Generals von Vestra and Leclerc went with her."

Dorothea swallowed at the news as her heart plunged like a stone, her knees shaking as she drew a deep breath, trying to steel her body as her mind tried to process the news. The Professor had gone back into the war without so much as telling her? That was unthinkable, and Dorothea fought a rising wave of panic, For Dorothea realized the rest of the Black Eagles had abandoned her, without so much as a word.

It took what seemed like hours, but Dorothea forced herself to look at the situation she was in, and the cold truth scared her. She was being sidelined, even replaced, cut away from the most important operations of the Black Eagles without even a reason.

But deep down, in the darkest part of her soul, Dorothea knew what the reason was, and the truth scared her.

The rest of the Black Eagles saw her as soft, weak even. Why else would they have abandoned her when battle was to be joined?

And then Dorothea remembered the talented mage units that had brought devastation against their enemies over the last five years.

Already, in her mind, she could see one of them invited into the inner circle, sworn to secrecy by Hubert or Yuri and sent into the field. She knew many were ambitious, ruthless, and willing to do anything asked of them. They would take her place, and she would be right back where she started. On the street in Enbarr, alone.

Or dead, if Hubert or Yuri deemed it necessary.

"Lady Dorothea?" the maid's voice snapped Dorothea out of her line of thought, and she managed a weak smile to the younger girl.

"I'm fine," Dorothea promised the girl, rising to her feet slowly. "Could you draw me a bath and some clean clothing? I need some time alone."

"I understand," the maid said with a quick bow. "It will take some time to draw a bath though."

"No," Dorothea interrupted the girl suddenly when she realized how difficult it would be to bring a full bath to her small quarters, suddenly feeling foolish for even asking the young woman to draw a bath for her. "I will partake in the baths on my own, but see to it that clean clothes are prepared."

The maid nodded and stepped back, leaving Dorothea alone in the small room. For a few shaky moments she tried to picture a life away from Edelgard, the Professor, and all the others, but the thought terrified her.

How many steps away from the Black Eagles would it take for her to fall into irrelevancy? She had already been abandoned in an active field operation twice, and she could see it happen again in the future.

But the path back into their confidence seemed equally as bleak, and soaked in spilled blood and fire.

Dorothea didn't want that either. She thought of Myrddin and the civilians that must have been caught in the crossfire. She had been the first to leave the battlefield with their wounded during the war, but now she wondered what happened to the enemies left on the battlefield, and if they spent their final hours in the black heart of Abyss.

To be cast aside or to become a monster, Dorothea reflected quietly. It would be such a play to act out on stage, if only she wasn't living within it.


The bath that made Dorothea clean had been rather simple, as all things after the war had been. Gone were the myriad soaps and perfumes Dorothea had enjoyed in the Opera, but instead she had to made do with a simple bar of soap made at Garreg Mach that was faint with the smell of lavender.

And yet she wouldn't change it for the world. The soap, however crude, had washed away the grime and smoke that Dorothea feared would never wash out, and the warm water brought a sense of relief to her that had been missing ever since the Myrddin expedition.

When she stepped out of the bath, Dorothea almost laughed at the neat display of clothing on the ground next to her. It was the Officer's Academy uniform, one she hadn't worn since the war began five years prior.

"Is it to your satisfaction?" Dorothea heard the voice of a nervous looking maid, this one even younger than the first.

"I would prefer something else," Dorothea admitted. "But if there's nothing else then…"

"The laundry is quite overworked at the moment," the maid explained sheepishly, her eyes cast down at her shoes. "It's about the armies headed-"

"To Fhirdiad," Dorothea finished the woman's sentence. "I understand. I can make do until the time is right."

The maid nodded with a feeble smile. "I'll leave you to change then, General."

Dorothea watched the young woman slip out of the baths before she let the towel drop to the ground, fitting on her underwear before she tossed the top over her shoulders. To her surprise, the uniform still fit well, though she was sure her navel would be visible unless she wore an undershirt, but that would have to wait.

As Dorothea pulled on her skirt, she heard the voice of the maid shouting, though through the door of the baths she couldn't hear exactly what, and she hurried on with her boots, barely getting them on in time before a heavily armoured soldier burst through the door.

Dorothea did the only thing she could, and she threw a bathing sponge against the intruder.

"Out!" she screamed, an angry finger extending toward the soldier's faceplate. "Now!"

"Gen-" the man tried to say as Dorothea shoved him.

"I said now!" Dorothea repeated, rage filling her veins as she searched for something heavier to throw at the intruder. "And Goddess help me when I find your commander!"

The soldier stumbled back and the door slammed shut a moment later, allowing Dorothea to take a raspy, exhausted breath before she quickly brushed her hair into a presentable state.

When she stepped out of the bath, Dorothea glared at the soldier but waved for him to follow her.

"Who is your commander?" Dorothea barked when they left the bathing area, her face still red from a mixture of humiliation and rage, and her mind fantasizing of violent arcane retribution.

"Captain Fairchild," the man muttered weakly, his helmet looking down, unable to meet her eyes. "We had discovered something to the south."

"Which is?" Dorothea asked, her voice calmer now. She was still furious at the soldier for barging in on the baths, but the more pressing matter pushed her concerns aside.

"A body," the soldier said. "Well, two, but they're both burned beyond recognition."

"Show me," Dorothea said after a moment of silence, her concern for the situation temporarily overwhelming her anger. A petty punishment could wait.

"It's not a good scene," the soldier stuttered. "It smells-"

Dorothea silenced the man with a glare. "I will see what evidence can be found, and I will ensure the rest of the Black Eagles Strike Force is notified."

They walked in silence for a time as Dorothea followed the man into the back field, now largely abandoned despite the riotous celebration that had happened just days prior.

But from the moment Dorothea smelled the awful stench of burned flesh mixed with rot, just as she passed through the doorway, she knew something was wrong, dangerously so.

There was a unit of soldiers, all of them in heavy plate, standing around something on the ground, where Dorothea suspected the dead had been laid out.

"Captain Fairchild?" Dorothea called over to the group of soldiers, noting that the unit snapped to attention quickly, and one figure with a red ribbon over their right shoulder-plate took a step forward and saluted as she approached.

"General Arnault," the man said, his voice rich and heavy. "We recovered a number of sus-"

"I am aware," Dorothea said with a polite nod, walking around the group of soldiers to the one opening in the circle she could see.

Up close, Dorothea felt the stench waft through her nose and gagged, though she steeled herself and forced her eyes down at the scene.

The dead were two men, that much she could still tell from what little was left of their genitalia, though their bodies had contorted violently, reminding Dorothea more of burned effigies or gnarly trees instead of men.

But even so, it wasn't difficult to find evidence, despite the extensive burns.

"Here, my lady." The captain said as he pointed a silver gauntlet at one of the bodies. "Slashed throat."

"The other one had some sort of stab wound," another soldier added."

Dorothea frowned and looked over the body, though she couldn't see what the man was talking about.

"Here," the voice of the captain said, jabbing the butt of a spear into a gaping hole on the side of the dead man's neck. "Some bugs and vermin got to the wound before us, but that sort of wound is hard to cover up."

Dorothea nodded at the information as she stood up, taking a few steps back to avoid the smell of the fire. "Captain, what's your opinion on this?"

The soldier paused for a moment as he stepped back from the body as well. "Someone took a lot of care to destroy the body. No clothes, no facial features, body dumped in a hidden place."

"They did," Dorothea agreed, pausing for a moment. "Did you find any sort of fuel?"

"Fuel?"

Dorothea thought of the fires she had known of. Candles used some form of wax to burn, while the campfires the Imperial army used to cook food used dried leaves and sticks as kindling, and Olivia had used the extremely dry forest around her as fuel, though she had also put a large amount of arcane fire into effect, from what she could tell.

"Sticks or twigs," Dorothea explained. "Wax perhaps. It would be difficult to start a enduring fire otherwise."

"Nothing," the captain replied even before Dorothea could finish. "Our unit tried to find those things, but no luck."

Dorothea grimaced at the news as several options were mentally crossed out. Only one answer remained, and she didn't like it.

A mage was behind the attack, Dorothea realized, and a nagging feeling hit her that she knew exactly who.

The Verrat, Hubert had explained, was a master of fire magic, and his forces had intervened at Myrddin just days before, the same day Cornelia Armin had disappeared from Abyss.

Deep down, Dorothea knew that the escape and the bodies were connected, but she could not prove it.

"See that the bodies are preserved as well as we can," Dorothea ordered the soldiers. "Once the rest of the Black Eagles return we can continue an investigation, but until then we'll have to wait."

"I understand," the captain replied with a smart salute. "We'll clean up here. I believe the Emperor would be interested in this report, if you think it's serious?"

"Edie- Edelgard?" Dorothea stammered in surprise. "Did she not go south with the-"

"No," the captain replied, his voice lower as he stepped close to Dorothea, the other soldiers wisely stepping back to give them privacy. "General von Vestra informed us before the assault that the Emperor is unwell at the moment."

"I see," Dorothea said, nodding as she turned away from the soldier. "I'll let her know."

"And Captain Fairchild?" Dorothea called over her shoulder, just as she was about to leave, suddenly remembering another matter that needed to be resolved.

"Yes, General Arnault?"

"See to it that your soldiers learn to not barge into baths next time," Dorothea replied, glaring down at the soldier who had led her to the unit. "The next group may not be so understanding."


The Officer's Academy was quiet when Dorothea hurried up the stairs, even more so than she had ever remembered, even on the darkest days during the war. It reminded her of the year she had attended school, in a way, but only in the sense that she hadn't seen so few soldiers around every doorway for years now.

Dorothea was relaxed as she crossed the final doorway that led to the infirmary. The sun was warm from every window, and she hoped Edelgard was alright.

There were two men at the doorway, each dressed in a standard guard uniform, and they politely gave Dorothea nods of greeting as they let her pass.

But Dorothea gasped in surprise the moment she scanned the room, for apart from a few empty beds and several hidden beyond heavy linens, there was something inhuman sprawled on one of the beds toward the back of the room.

It was a massive, huddled thing, with matted white fur and large, mangled claws that reminded Dorothea of swords, but they were thinner, like long, slender knives.

"What is that-" Dorothea turned to one of the guards behind her.

The men behind her stood silently, as if they did not hear her, their eyes still staring at the far wall.

"Dorothea," Edelgard's voice came from behind a nearby bed, one protected from the rest of the room by long, heavy sheets. "Come."

Dorothea glanced over at the monster before she slipped past the heavy sheet that separated her from Edelgard, and she gave Edelgard a weak smile as she came close.

"Hey Edie," Dorothea said, brushing a lock of hair away from her face as she smiled down at Edelgard. "How are you feeling?"

Edelgard replied with a faint, weak smile as Dorothea suddenly noticed how pale and sickly Edelgard looked, her skin lined with sweat and looking immensely pale.

"I heard you out there," Edelgard replied before she coughed heavily. "With Lysithea."

"Lysithea?" Dorothea whispered the name before an idea struck her. "That-"

"Something happened to her," Edelgard said as Dorothea watched her pull herself up, her face a mask of pain. "Cornelia."

"No," Dorothea whispered, anger clouding her vision. Just the idea of attacking Lysithea disgusted her. much less what Cornelia did. "Have we found her?"

Edelgard shook her head, but when she opened her mouth a hacking cough came out, and Dorothea looked around the isolated bed for water.

"I'll go get water," Dorothea said as she turned around, away from the bed and out of the heavy sheets around it. Almost immediately, she saw a jug of water on a nearby cabinet.

Quickly, Dorothea walked over and picked up the surprisingly heavy jug over, careful not to spill a single drop of the water, but she frowned when she realized that the water was quite warm, as if it had been meant for preparing medical towels rather than drinking.

"Guard?" Dorothea called to the two men at the door. "Could one of you fetch a pot of something cool?"

"Understood," one of the guards called back as Dorothea glanced down at the jug of water. For a moment she considered giving Edelgard a drink, but she decided against it, especially when she realized there were no drinking cups around the room.

"Hey Edie," Dorothea said as she slipped back under the heavy sheet, hoping to sound friendly as her mind slipped back into thinking of Lysithea. "We'll get something soon."

Edelgard said nothing to that, but Dorothea noticed she was trying to sit up, exposing what Dorothea noticed were heavy bandages under her loose dress.

"Edie?" Dorothea whispered as she reached out, trying to touch the bandages she saw. "What happened?"

But to Dorothea's surprise, Edelgard flinched back when her hand came close to the bandage around her shoulder, and Dorothea grimaced as Edelgard shook her head furiously.

Dorothea paused for a moment as she tried to collect her thoughts, to come up with an answer that was logical, but she felt a pit of dread building within her when she looked over in the direction where the monster was.

"Did…" Dorothea paused to phrase the question. "Did she attack you?"

"It wasn't her," Edelgard's voice was weak and pained, and Dorothea cringed when she heard Edelgard fall into a coughing fit. "Something…"

"Changed her," Dorothea said, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach as a cold shiver of fear ran down her back. "And she attacked you."

"She's under control now," Edelgard managed, her lips pressed together, as if in pain.

Dorothea glanced at the thick cloth that protected Edelgard from the sun, but even without being able to see Lysithea, the image of the changed Lysithea was still burned into her mind.

"Do we have a cure?" Dorothea asked. "Maybe something to make her comfortable?"

Edelgard swallowed heavily, and Dorothea knew the answer even without a word, and she let her eyes drift, unwilling to meet Edelgard's eyes.

"What do we do now?" Dorothea asked after a long moment of staring down at the toes of her boots. "Do we wait-"

"Lady Dorothea?" a female voice outside of the isolated bed called out. "Your drink is ready."

"I'll get that for you," Dorothea said quickly, fleeing Edelgard's bedside and slipping under the heavy sheet that protected her from the sun.

To her relief, Dorothea found two tall glasses of cold drinks on top of a silver tray in the hands of the young maid who had come, and she thanked the woman quickly before she took the two glasses back to Edelgard.

"Here Edie," Dorothea said as she helped Edelgard to the first drink, leaving her own drink on the floor by Edelgard's bedside. Despite the fact that she was also thirsty, Dorothea wanted answers more, at least for Lysithea.

"The others are heading south," Edelgard said when she finished a long sip of the glass, her voice clearer and in noticeably less pain than before. "Cornelia is out there somewhere, and Hubert says she's likely to be in Varley territory."

Dorothea nodded slowly as she looked back up at Edelgard. "I understand. Is- is Linhardt alright?"

Edelgard shook her head. "He's… he hasn't woken up yet. From what the man who rescued him said, he had lost a lot of blood."

Dorothea grimaced at the words as she picked up the glass she left by Edelgard's bedside, taking a slow, deliberate sip as she realized she was staring at a dead end.

"Edie?" Dorothea asked after a long moment of awkward silence.

"Yes?" Edelgard asked as she took a sip of her own drink. "What is it?"

"Why wasn't I… brought with the attack?" Dorothea asked finally. "Against Varley, I mean."

Edelgard paused for a moment. "Hubert filled me in before they left. He said that time was short as it was, and you needed your rest."

Dorothea accepted the words slowly, and she took another sip of the cold drink in the process, trying to figure out through Edelgard's blank face and guarded eyes if she was telling the truth, but finding no answers with either. "Edie, could I ask something of you?"

"Yes?" Edelgard asked, her tone serious as she looked back up at Dorothea.

"Am I…" Dorothea paused as she tried to figure out the words she wanted to say. "Back at Myrddin…"

"What of it?" Edelgard's voice was hard.

"Hubert had me left behind," Dorothea said finally, unable to phrase her question in the short moments she had been given.

"Someone had to rally reinforcements," Edelgard replied a second later, suddenly making Dorothea feel foolish, though a hint of paranoia dragged her heart low. Edelgard had lied to them for a year as the Flame Emperor, and her words seemed all too convenient.

"I…see," Dorothea managed with a weak smile, trying to fight the tendril of darkness in her heart. "It's just that…"

"You feel…" Edelgard continued for her. "Left out."

"Yes," Dorothea said, frowning. "I… Olivia too."

From the edge of her face, Dorothea could see confusion flash across Edelgard's face. "I… I'm not sure I understand."

Dorothea took a deep breath before she continued. "In the forest. You had her guarding The Professor."

"You had collapsed from exhaustion," Edelgard said firmly, in a tone that did nothing to expunge Dorothea's fear, but instead strengthening the dark tendril that strangled her heart. "Despite the battle that had taken place, she still had strength, and more importantly, awareness."

Dorothea nodded at that as the breath left her lungs, hiding her eyes from Edelgard as she tried to fight the fear wrapped around her heart. "It's… I was thinking the other day."

"Go on," Edelgard replied with a nod.

"Olivia, she lived a hard life," Dorothea said quietly, her hands idly tracing words onto the bed sheets. "In another life, maybe I would have become her. And it seems like everyone has forgotten her, like she had never existed."

"And you feel guilty for that," Edelgard said, a flash of what Dorothea thought might have been sympathy crossing her eyes.

Dorothea nodded slowly. "She once said that I was lucky to have been born with a beautiful voice and…"

Edelgard said nothing, but Dorothea felt unclean just talking about what Gerald had said, but it was too late for her to stop now.

"One of the other Mittlefrank guards said that Olivia had almost been killed when she was younger," Dorothea said quietly, trying to purge the nightmares her own mind had created. "And… something inside of her broke."

Edelgard swallowed at that, a flash of discomfort darting across her eyes.

"He said that she killed the man who did it," Dorothea said, pausing when the words repeated themselves in her mind. "No, that's not the right word. She tortured him, made an example out of him, did... unspeakable things to him."

Edelgard grimaced. "That's…"

"Edie," Dorothea whispered. "I just… I just thought of Hubert and… I just thought that Olivia was his kind of soldier."

Edelgard nodded slowly. "Hubert deals with the darkness, yes."

"She saved all our lives," Dorothea said quietly. "And yet… she's just been forgotten."

"We won't forget her," Edelgard said, her voice firm. "It's just that we have other-"

An explosion drowned out Edelgard's sentence as Dorothea flinched, the half empty glass in her hand shattering to the ground as the building seemed to shake.

For a moment Dorothea froze in place as her mind went blank, but the sight of Edelgard trying to push herself from the bed forced Dorothea into action.

She placed a finger on her lips and pushed Edelgard back into the bed gently before she tore herself free of the linen wall.

The first thing she saw beyond the sheets was one of the soldiers who had been guarding the door, now sprawled on the ground, unmoving, his posture and the look of surprise on his face suggesting he hadn't even seen the attack that killed him, but there was no sign of the other man apart from a voice shouting from the corridor outside of the hospital.

Without thinking, Dorothea tore the dead guard's spear from his lifeless hand and fell into a crouched ambush position by the door. It wasn't a move she was familiar with often, but she had seen Yuri and Shamir leap out from similar positions in mere seconds, and she felt confident she would at least have the element of surprise.

Outside the room however, Dorothea heard a wail she recognized from the other guard, a sound she knew from years of combat experience was fatal, and she gripped her spear tightly as she pushed herself against the wall as hard as she could.

For a moment Dorothea couldn't hear anything, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of pale skin moving through the doorway, and instinct took over from there.

She was rewarded with a shriek of agony as the spear rammed into the side of the woman who had entered, and Dorothea felt both relief and panic as she recognized the pained face of Cornelia Armin, now glaring back at her.

Dorothea tugged the spear heavily, but a second later she felt a sudden blast of pain blowing her off her feet, followed by a heavy blow to the back of her head as she saw stars, the breath completely blown from her body.

For a moment Dorothea was completely blind, her mind dazed and confused as she desperately tried to piece her thoughts back together, but none came, not until Dorothea felt all too strong hands wrapped around her throat.

With the hands gripping her throat, something primitive, almost animalistic came over Dorothea, and she fought and kicked against the hands, though her vision continued to darken as the hands tightened evermore.

But then there was sudden relief in a cry of pain and the sound of shattering glass, and Dorothea felt weary as she fell aside, landing hard on her side as she tried to gather her broken thoughts, taking raspy, feeble gasps of air as she tried to gather her bearings and make sense of the sight before her.

Despite her fading vision, Dorothea saw Edelgard and Cornelia, each trying to tear the dead guard's spear from the other woman's hands. But even with her memories just coming back, Dorothea felt an oily panic rush through her belly as Cornelia suddenly shoved Edelgard back before unleashing a ball of magic that tore Edelgard through the heavy bed sheets that once protected her bed from prying eyes.

And suddenly, far too late, Dorothea realized she was alone, and she saw the orb of magic in Cornelia's hands grow into a size that would consume her.

Had Dorothea been at her peak, rested and having prepared herself into battle, she would have leapt into action. A counterspell to the other sorceress aimed at the bloody wound at the side of her head, perhaps a dive away from the attack.

But Dorothea was tired, and she could hardly string together three words, far too few to create even the simplest defensive barrier, and deep down, she knew it was the end.

Understanding was both a blessing and a curse, for coherent thoughts formed as her mind was overwhelmed by a life of unleashed emotions, but all of them were the dying regrets of a failed life. She would never fix her relationship with Ferdinand, never raise children of her own, never see her friends again.

But then Dorothea remembered something beautiful, a long afternoon spent with Ferdinand, before she had left him alone in the ruins of Fhirdiad, and she clung to it, choosing to ignore the darkness of her regrets. If she was to die, then she would at least pretend that Ferdinand's arms were the darkness that coddled her to a peaceful sleep.

And then the beautiful illusion was shattered as Dorothea was deafened by a terrible, inhuman shriek that echoed from the walls, and she fell hard, landing onto the cold floor, with the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth as she heard another monstrous scream, this one louder and closer than the one before. In her mind, Ferdinand was gone, replaced with a blackened abyss that suffocated her, one where all that she could do was scream.

Dorothea opened her eyes again to be free of the nightmare, and to her surprise, despite the monstrous din that ringed in her ears, she was still amongst the living, and a scene was playing out before her.

There was a monster before her, one that was no Cornelia Armin, but no less terrible than the cruel sorceress, and despite her mind weakening with every second of the scene of carnage, Dorothea could still see a second, much smaller form under the beast, of which the monster was raising two mangled arms, as if seeking to crush a hated pest.

There was a splash of deep red blood, as if the monster had jumped into a deep puddle, and the long, pale leg at edge of Dorothea's vision stopped moving.

Dorothea trembled as she tried to use her limbs. They felt distant, as if she was trying to move them against a heavy current underwater or if she was dreaming, but slowly, she collected her legs and propped herself on one of her elbows, trying and failing to get her legs working.

But then a figure crossed her vision, and Dorothea found a slender, pale face looking at her, though she could not hear what the man's moving lips were saying, for the ringing in her ears was a ceaseless assault on her fading senses.

To her surprise, Dorothea felt strong, slender arms sliding across her back and knees, and she felt a jerking, halting pain across the back of her neck as she felt her head fall back.

Despite the upside down world her eyes showed her, one still blurry and distant with no clear shapes, Dorothea saw something in the distance hoist another object, this one a long, blurry pale length up high.

But her vision was fading again, as the ringing in her ears drew to a pounding crescendo.


Dorothea found the room dark when she woke, her throat parched and her head in pain.

"You're awake," a voice said from somewhere in the darkness.

Dorothea grimaced as she tried to look over to the voice, but she found nothing, not until a man stepped into her field of vision. She recognized him immediately.

"Gerald?" Dorothea recalled the man's name. He was a reliable, open survivor of Enbarr's streets, and someone she was curious about.

"You shouldn't be talking," the tall man said, shaking his head slowly. "You hit your head in the infirmary."

"What?" Dorothea asked, her mind slow as she tried to summon the memories of what had happened. It was all so sudden, and flashes of light and fire danced in her mind's eye, though without rhyme or reason.

"Your leader says this… Cornelia attempted to kill you," Gerald replied. "But was stopped by the… monster."

At the mercenary's words, Dorothea hissed a defiant reply to the unwitting insult. "Her name is Lysithea. She's one of us."

"Perhaps," Gerald said, his head tilting to the side as his face became inquisitive, as if he was trying to debate something within his own mind. "But the scale of destruction she has caused rivals any monster I have seen."

"Destruction?" Dorothea whispered, a sense of dread filling her heart as options ran through her mind. What was Gerald saying?

"It is better if I show you for yourself," the mercenary said, his hand gentle against her own. "But I must warn you, the news is grim."

Dorothea winced as she allowed herself to be pulled upright, and she extended her legs slowly as the mercenary helped her put on her long boots, her head trying to both fight the ringing in her ears and understand the information he had presented.

It was a slow, painful process outdoors, and Dorothea cried out when she saw bright daylight again, using her arms in a feeble attempt to shade herself, but to little avail.

It was only when she let her arms fall did Dorothea see the sight in the distance, and her knees collapse, though the mercenary kept a firm arm around her shoulders to keep her standing, to force her eyes to stare unflinching into the sight.

Garreg Mach, the distant monastery atop the Oghma Mountains, burned with a fierce light that reminded her all too much of Fhirdiad's final hours, the walls and battlements shattered by some inhuman assault, an assault she knew that only one individual could have been behind.

"We ordered an evacuation," Gerald said finally, his voice grim. "But I cannot tell you how many were able to flee the town in time."

"No," Dorothea whispered.

"The garrison did what it could during the evacuation," the mercenary said. "But perhaps one in three soldiers still live, and of those few still have the will to fight."

"What of The Professor's army?" Dorothea asked.

"We have not heard from them yet," Gerald replied, his eyes on the burning town in the distance. "But they are our only hope in this hour."


AN: Chapter 2-4 is complete! Read, review, whatever.

As promised in the last chapter, there will be a split path in the story. While I don't intend for this to be a major decision in the plot, I'm still interested in the opinions of my readers as to which path should be taken. This, in turn, will lead into the third story arc: Peccatum Mortale (Mortal Sin).