Interlude 2. The Offer of the Traitor.

AN: Don't own anything apart from the OC characters.


Khalid didn't sleep a wink from the news, and given how Sanya was still dressed in the same clothes from the previous day when he saw her outside his mother's wing in the royal palace, with dark circles under her eyes, he doubted anyone in his mother's inner circle rested well.

"Mother," Khalid bowed upon stepping though the door, even before Sanya had managed to close the door behind him, unwilling to look up at his mother until she had given him her blessing. It was not something he needed to do, but for the sake of protocol, he could dance to that particular tune. "Your son listens."

"Then I have raised him well," Khalid heard his mother say, both amusement and exhaustion in her voice. "You may rise. The rest of you, dismissed."

Khalid rose to his feet slowly, and he watched as his mother's handmaidens, with the notable exception of Sanya, filed out of the room, even turning their backs to his mother, a direct breach of Almyran protocol, which stated that those leaving the Shah and his harem had to treat them with respect.

"Why are you still here?" Khalid turned to the young woman standing next to him. "You heard her."

"If you want me gone I can go," Sanya said with a shrug and a yawn. "It's been a long night and my knees hurt."

"No," Khalid heard his mother sigh from her seat at the long Ottoman at the centre of the bright, airy room. "Sanya, I ask that you… pardon my son's rudeness."

"No sleep then," Sanya sighed, rolling her eyes. "Oh well. So shall it be."

"Khalid," Though his mother had seemingly been joking a moment prior, when Khalid heard the steel in her voice he snapped to attention. "We will have a… private visitor in the coming hours, which is why I summoned you here."

"I see," Khalid muttered. "Is it my bro-"

"No," Tiana replied. "You will see."

"And what about her?" Khalid nodded to his mother's assassin, doing her best innocent schoolgirl impression, though the malicious glint in her eye reminded him far more of Kronya than Annette or Marianne. "Does the next stage of your plan involve more chair-kicking?"

"Very funny," Sanya cut in. "I'm here as security. Everyone around the palace is on edge, and idiots with a lot to lose might be willing to do something very stupid."

"Like what you did?" Khalid didn't even bother to hide the contempt in his voice.

"Her life's work was ruined the moment Milad killed himself," Sanya sighed, as if trying to explain to a child, her head banging against the heavy wooden door. "Without an imbecile to puppet, she could never reach the throne. As for me, I offered her a way out that allowed her some… dignity."

"By kicking the chair out from under her," Khalid replied.

"I saved her legs from being broken," Sanya replied with a small smirk. "Granted, it was by making sure she had a rope around her neck."

"You put up with this nutcase?" Khalid turned to his mother.

"Well," Tiana sighed, rubbing her eyes, but her voice possessed more than a hint of malicious energy. "I suppose Sanya did inherit my sense of humour. Now, tell me, my dear son. When is the marriage ceremony? You two argue as if you've been married for years."

Khalid felt his jaw drop, and he turned over to Sanya in time to catch her jaw also on the ground, her face flushed red.

"How shameless," Tiana sighed, rising to her feet as she pulled a dagger from the folds of her dress. "I'll have you flayed if you've left a baby in her belly and haven't married her yet."

"Now you're just embarrassing me," Khalid muttered, looking over to Sanya for support. "When is-"

"What's this about a wedding I hear?" a quiet voice in Almyran asked from behind Khalid. "Love does not smile in a house of tears, no?"

Khalid turned around, but somehow Sanya had beat him to it. "Vizier Kabir, you grace us with your presence."

Khalid found the words of the assassin to be succinct, but at the same time he knew he had to say something, if only to be polite and hide the fact that a man twice his age had managed to sneak up on him. "Vizier Kabir, it is good to see you well."

"So it is," Kabir said, and Khalid grimaced at the grim tone of his usually quiet but otherwise cheerful voice. "It must be a difficult time for you, Prince Khalid."

Khalid tried his best to put on a sorrowful face, but he had spent the last six years in Fodlan, leading both friends and rivals to what could be counted as success, not by his ambitious step-siblings, who he barely knew regardless.

The thought of friends, real ones, not the nest of vipers and daggers he found himself in, raised up the faces of Leonie and Hilda. The former, if reports could be believed, had been cut down at Myrddin and her head planted on a pike, no doubt a cruel order given by Hubert, almost certainly behind Professor Byleth's back. But the brutality displayed by the Imperial Army left him feeling queasy over Hilda's fate.

"I thank you for your kind words, Vizir." Khalid managed finally, pausing a moment before he found a more subtle way to frame his next request. "But I confess that I was not close with my brother, given my… exile."

"Understandable," Kabir replied. "If there is anything I can do to ease your pain, then I am nothing but grateful to be your humble servant."

Khalid glanced over to his mother, but she gave him no response apart from a slight tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow.

"Vizir Kabir," Khalid said quickly. "What aches my heart and occupies my mind is not the matter of justice for my brother."

Kabir said nothing, but there was a flash of surprise in his dark eyes.

"When I left Fodlan," Khalid explained. "One of my most loyal retainers was left at the… tender mercies of the enemy, and I have lost much sleep over the matter of her fate."

"I see," Kabir said, his eyes darting around the room. "Your retainer, did he have a name?"

"She," Khalid corrected. "Her name was Hilda-"

"The lady of Goneril," Kabir guessed, a slow breath escaping him as he leaned against the other side of the heavy wooden door. "That would explain the offer."

"The offer?" Khalid asked. "I do not understand."

Kabir paused for a moment before turning to Khalid's mother, his eyes turned to Sanya. "Lady Tiana, are you certain-"

"I don't get paid enough to hear this," Sanya raised her hands in mock surrender as she yawned, pulling her side of the heavy wooden door open. "I'll be waiting outside-"

"Sanya!" Khalid heard his mother snap. "Enough! You will remain. Kabir, continue."

"Very well," Kabir said, giving both Sanya and Khalid wary glances, as if he expected further objections. "Lady Sanya, has your brother informed you of what has transpired on the front?"

"My brother?" Sanya sounded baffled as she slammed the heavy wooden door once more. "What does that idiot have to do with any of this?"

Khalid wanted to know the answer too, but he remained quiet, waiting for Kabir to continue.

"Nasha serves as my second," Kabir said finally. "He serves as the master to the empire's outermost defenses."

Khalid nodded at Kabir's words, but he felt rather impressed by Nasha. It was a difficult and thankless job, to patrol the long, mountainous border between Fodlan and Almyra, but it was still a vital, highly important one.

"That is interesting to know," Sanya cut in, sharing a glance with Khalid's mother. "But I don't see a reason why-"

"A week ago, a lone rider left the fortress of Fodlan's Locket." Kabir said, his voice grim as he turned to Sanya. "Your brother hunted him down and took him prisoner."

Khalid paused at the sudden shift in language. Vizir Kabir had a masterful command of Fodlan's language, and he seemed as much a native speaker as his mother or Sanya. But the sudden switch indicated to all of them that the information about to be passed was crucial, almost certainly illegal.

"Are you certain you can share this with us?" Khalid asked, glancing back at Sanya and his mother. "Perhaps if-"

"Your brother was the only man I trusted to deliver the offer to our leader," Kabir said, his refusal of using the Shah's many titles revealing to Khalid that he wanted to avoid any mention of the man. "But there is a great incentive for the other soldiers to… let information slip out."

"Bastards," Sanya hissed. "To let information like that slip away is treason."

"Perhaps," Kabir shook his head. "But for many a chance to leave the most thankless outpost along the border for a better post is worth the risk. It will only be a matter of time before the others… have their ambitions stoked. And that is why your father will need to act swiftly."

Khalid nodded at the information, but something still nagged at his mind. "What was the offer?"

"Irresistible madness," Kabir said, shaking his head. "Little offered directly, but there is the promise to double the empire's territory."

"Double?" Khalid heard his mother hiss. "Double? How? To do so…"

"Fodlan's Locket would need to be cut open," Sanya said out loud, sparing Khalid from having to provide the same analysis. "But to overwhelm a fortress like that would attract far too much attention from the surrounding garrison unless..."

"Unless what?" Khalid heard his mother demand. He had suspicions of what Sanya was about to suggest, but the idea was equal parts unthinkable and madness.

"A traitor would need to open the gates," Sanya continued, her voice low and grim, her eyes staring down Kabir. "They would poison the water or food perhaps and allow our forces to flood across the border without anyone the wiser."

"A traitor," Khalid muttered, the thought seeming impossible. "Within Fodlan's Locket?"

"I do not believe this," Sanya said, turning to Khalid's mother, her head shaking furiously. "Never before have I heard of this from a servant of House Goneril."

Khalid, as much as he distrusted his mother's assassin, was tempted to agree. House Goneril was prosperous, and the officers under Holst had served for countless years, a tradition of duty that traced its way from when the first stones of the fortress had been laid down.

"It is not a servant of that house that made the offer," Kabir said softly, pausing for a moment until his eyes met Khalid's own. "It is her master."

"Holst?" Khalid barely recognized the sheer disbelief in his mother's voice, given it made her voice come out in an inhuman hiss. "But why?"

"That is why I have come here with you," Kabir said, turning his eyes to Khalid. "Both to confirm the offer given to us, but also to confirm that the rider is indeed an officer of House Goneril."

"Who?" Khalid hissed, not realizing that he held Kabir's collar in his fist until the word had left his lips.

"His name, he claims," Kabir said, his voice as cold as the empty night. "Is Balthus von Albrecht."


AN: The second interlude is complete. Expect the next part to be significantly shorter than the previous parts.

The next part: Peccatum Mortale (Mortal Sin).

Poll results: Nobody even bothered to check. Eh, whatever. It wasn't all that much of a difference maker regardless.