"The rebellion is over. Lucina has made herself queen of the Pheraen Empire. Amidst assassins, political setbacks, and the crumbling loyalty of her former companions, Lucina has to realize that winning a crown is far easier than holding onto it. Her father's legacy moves ever further out of reach. And the flame of past king Roy is far from burned out."

Notes: I'm back! This took a little longer than I anticipated, and I'm shocked to see it's been four months since I concluded Book I. Goodness, time flies. But the extra hours of rewrites should benefit the final result. Yes, Book II "Fire over Pherae" is finally starting. I welcome everyone back who read and enjoyed "Ashes of Altea". And thank you for your patience. Hopefully the wait will have paid off for you, and as always, reviews are the little lights that make my day brighter. So, new book, new cover art, and without further ado, please enjoy.


A Flicker in the Dark

Then:

Fire burns all men the same – even kings.

The towers of Lycia lean inwards to a lonely torchlight in the yard as if they are yearning for the warmth. Their crowns with the banner of Pherae on the proud flagpoles lose themselves in the shadows of the night. All the golden eagles have flown out of sight, and what remains is the cold sandstone carcass of the palace, mourning the death of the king.

In the corners of the yard shuffle the lords and knights and barons of Pherae, dark figures in darker robes. They offer no sounds of sorrow to the night, and only the wind sighs now and again when it catches hold of the hem of an immaculate silk robe. It is hardly love that draws them here, and even the respect they carry in cape brooches with the king's emblem is a twisted creature, gold-painted to conceal the schemes within. Still, the assembly leans towards this lonely torchlight and the one who carries it.

Roy, prince of Pherae, first of his name and heir to the cobblestone they are all standing on, steps forward to burn the body of his father.

The pyre at the center of the yard is waiting for him, and the logs hunger for the heat of the torch. Roy barely feels the warmth on his face, even though sparks flutter about him like greedy insects. His eyes are on the face of his father.

The pride of Pherae hasn't left Eliwood. Instead, the angular features still convince an onlooker to shiver with awe, perhaps a little fear. A winged crown of gold encircles Eliwood's forehead and shimmers with each twitch of the torchlight. So does the priceless war armor that confines him. A venerable picture through and through. Divine. He lies enthroned on a heap of crude oak wood, and still he does honor to the term majesty.

Roy shivers.

All around him, the lords and knights and barons of his father wait for him to drop the flame and thus burn the remains of the old world, a world plagued by war. The kingdom to the south is defeated, and the golden eagle of Pherae spreads its wings above Altea's spires. Their goddess is a crumbling relic now. Peace has never been this close, Roy feels it in the silken fabric around his shoulders where breastplate straps used to sit, he tastes it in the wind drifting along the yard and in the traces of orange blossoms from the nearby garden. Peace for all of Archanea. All it took was for two kings to die.

With a last look at the face of his father, Roy drops the torch, and the pyre comes alight.

He watches while the flames strike higher. The wood cracks and moans; the sounds of sorrow finally accompany this funereal. At least this is what Roy tricks himself into believing while he watches. The stench of burnt flesh itches his nose. Soon the venerable picture has gone up in smoke, and the king shrivels to ashes. Such is Pheraen tradition.

Such a fate awaits Roy too, someday. And he wonders whether the same silence will hang about the yard then, and whether his ashes will sting in the eyes of someone close-by. Who will light his pyre?

The biggest logs have snapped, and as the fire dies down, the first people leave the gathering. A few others walk up to Roy and dare to disturb the silence with words, reminding him of the great king Eliwood used to be. He needs no reminder. He continues to stare into the sparks as they tumble, and soon the people go to enjoy their newly acquired peace.

Shanna tries to catch his eyes from the crowd. The formal mourning gown doesn't suit her, and without high riding boots and the bridle of her Pegasus to hold, her movements reek of stiffness. For once she cannot muster a smile to cheer him up, and the familiar words of dumb yet lovable optimism remain stuck in her throat.

The following years will demand her strength too. As one of the Twelve Knights, she will defend the peace Roy has paid so dearly for. That is all he can give her: a medal and her home island Talys, now free from the clutches of Altea.

The warmth from the fire is fading, and so is the fist in which Eliwood used to hold this palace. Sometimes the fist softened to place a training sword into his son's hand. Sometimes it squeezed his shoulder.

Never again.

This is the price Roy paid for peace. A small sacrifice, right?

When the last embers glimmer, Lyn joins Roy's side. She moves with the quiet fierceness of the winds that whip the grasslands of her home, Sacae. Only the threaded girdles and thin metal plates hanging from her waist tinkle, badges of her victories in battle. No Lorca has collected as many badges as Lyn, history says. Roy used to beg her for stories about her, Hector, and Eliwood, about the adventures they rode into and the wars they fought. Now he is sick of the stories. The taste of ash and blood from the legendary battlefields has become reality. Their echo clings to his tongue even now.

"I should have been with him," Lyn says. "First Hector and now he…"

Roy stares into the embers. They flicker, all but dead. "It wasn't your war. Either way, it's over now."

"After much bloodshed."

"Marth is dead and so is his faith. I've won. I alone."

"So it would seem. But your face isn't that of a victor." Lyn reaches out to put a hand under Roy's head. "Keep your chin up. Your parents wouldn't want to see you downcast like this."

"It's only for this evening. Tomorrow, I will do better."

"That's not what I meant." Lyn's face shows the support Roy is craving, and for a moment, he is tempted to lean closer. "Roy, whatever comes next, you won't be alone. No one will sit on the throne with you, that is true. And your people will look to you to protect this peace. But whatever happens, I will be there to lend my bow and my shoulder to you. That is the least I owe your father."

Roy swallows. Finally, he meets Lyn's eyes. "Do you swear it?"

"Yes, I swear it, even on the blood oath saber if you want."

"And if you die too?"

"I have no plans to die. The peace we strove for, I want to see it with my own eyes and feel it as a free wind across Sacae's grassland. Of course, I would have wanted Hector and Eliwood to see it too. But now I will savor the peace for the three of us together. You should see it this way too."

Night conquers the yard as the last embers succumb. Only a handful of candles spare their light from the inner windowsills of the palace.

"I will make sure of it," Roy says. "I will build an empire that will last and a bulwark that will protect against the Black Knight and the whims of gods. Pherae, Sacae, and Altea will prosper under one flag."

"You are dreaming an ambitious dream."

"So be it. I will make it reality no matter what defenses I have to crush. I'm no longer afraid of loss. This is what my father raised me to do."

Lyn gives a small smile. "When did the boy who used to run after me and beg for stories grow to become a man?" She pauses to look over Roy's face, and maybe she finds there the unmistakable likeness to Eliwood, a younger ghost of her past returned. "He would be proud of you."

Roy looks away. Proud – the heap of ash before him guarded his words of praise with the adamantine will of a warrior. A legend can hardly find a sense of pride in the stick fights of a boy. But the fire did not stop in the face of the legend, and all Roy can do to imagine the hand on his shoulder is to continue his father's legacy. Even if he has to burn another man's legacy in the process.

Lyn strokes Roy's cheek one last time before she turns to go. "Call on me whenever you need aid. I will ride to your side faster than the wind with a hundred Lorca archers in my wake."

"Is there no way to convince you to join the Twelve Knights?"

"You truly dream ambitious dreams," she says with another smile. "I will think about it."

Lyn's riding boots make no sound as she heads for the gates where her horse is waiting. Even in the dead of night, her expertise is a sight to behold as she swings herself into the saddle. And when she whirls her steed for the faraway camp of her people, the last legend rides off and leaves the yard a little darker still.

Lyn pauses to call over her shoulder for a mere moment. "I hope we will meet again soon, heir to Eliwood."

They never do.

All warmth of people and fire has vanished by now, and aside from Roy, only two other breaths stir the peaceful air. The maid stands still and silent as he ordered in the shadow of a doorframe. The shape of her face betrays her Altean heritage, and for a moment he wishes to burn her as he burned the towers of the Glass Fortress. Yet this thought flees as soon as it rears its ugly head.

Roy reaches for the bundle the maid is cradling. "May I?"

A reflection of his hatred flickers in her eyes, and she clutches the bundle closer. The foretaste of the Altean defiance Roy will confront and crush later, perhaps. But the fight lasts only for a moment before she obeys.

"You may leave," Roy says, and with a last worried look at the bundle, the maid hurries inside for the warmth the yard is missing.

With careful movements, Roy unwraps the indigo velvet to look at the other offspring of a king this war has orphaned.

Lucina is sleeping. Despite the smoke of the funeral, she has found the peace of mind to close out the world. Something, maybe a twist in her dream, makes her stir, and she presses her face closer to where she can hear Roy's heartbeat. A picture of the peace he desires. The peace he will achieve at all costs.

He holds her tight.

The last flames have died, and Roy runs a hand across the melted clumps that used to be his father's armor. The hot metal bites his skin, but he endures. His search stops when his fingers find the winged crown amidst the ash. Black coats the gold embellishments, and one of the wings has shrunken to a deformed stump. He follows the bumps and grooves of his heirloom, the object that used to inspire awe in him when he saw it on his father's head.

Lucina gurgles in her sleep, and he gently rocks her in his arm.

"What terrible suffering the gods have made you endure already." Roy strokes her cheek. "One hardly dares to imagine what else they have planned for you."

Lucina clenches her tiny fist.

"This is all I can do for you: prolong your peace for a little while. Stay with me from now on, will you?"

Roy, prince of Pherae, first of his name, puts on the ashen crown of his newborn empire.


Now:

Cold and darkness made up Roy's world. A world five steps large in every direction. Not that he would know the nearness of the next wall until he pressed his hands against the icy surface; the eternal darkness of Johtran's glacier offered him no light to see. The illusory flicker of a pyre stemmed from his memories alone. The images left an acerbic taste in his mouth, but he didn't dare to run his tongue across his chapped lips. The last time he had, the salvia had frozen until numbness had covered the whole of his face.

With tremendous effort, he pulled his stiff hands under his chest where he lay, but he found no warmth there either. Even breathing hurt. He dragged icicles into his lungs each time, and he only gained another heart flutter and a cloud of misted air that granted his face a spark of warmth. Until that too vanished, swallowed by the merciless maw of Johtran.

The prison had belonged to Roy, like every stone and every wheat head in Pherae had belonged to him. But with her final dagger of twisted irony, Lucina had banished him here of all places, deep underneath the Copper Mountains where neither men nor gods could hope to find him.

She won't let him die here, oh no. That would go against the pretty morals she had picked up while peacocking with her rebel friends in their efforts to destroy everything Roy had built. The guards tossed food into his cell every so often, and the ground was only cold enough to immobilize both him and every thought of flight. Not cold enough to kill him. Yet.

Sometime ago, Roy's muscles had trembled to fend off the freezing temperature.

A longer time ago, he had thrown himself at the prison bars until rime had covered his fingers and he could not have stuttered his own name if he had tried.

And an even longer time ago, so long he could hardly remember, he had believed Lucina would realize her errors and deliver him from this icy hell. Like a fool, he had held onto memories, onto the times she had robbed on the carpet of his study room, the countless scraped knees he had patched up, and the training duels they had fought in Lycia's sunlit yard.

And like a fool, Roy was clawing at his chest for a warmth he didn't have, half-dead and long forgotten.

How much of his empire had Lucina driven into ruin by now? How many skirmishes had she fought against his lords and knights and barons, and how many Pheraen people had she doomed in the process?

Perhaps she was sitting on Roy's throne at this moment. Perhaps she weighed his Binding Blade on her lap. Or perhaps she had already lost his crown to the claws of Renais' armies or the Black Knight or Naga. Naga, her precious goddess – Roy remembered all too well how Lucina had hurled her name at him as though the word embellished her sword with divine justification. Perhaps she would see the truth when Lycia crumbled.

A different man might have smiled at the thought of his enemy amidst the ruins of their hubris. A different man might have laughed at the irony of Marth's daughter stumbling into the same blind faith that had brought about his undoing. But Roy merely choked on a faint disgust. This taste of blood and ash, that had so rarely left him since he took up the crown, came back to the forefront and for a moment overpowered the ice crystals on his tongue.

She had taken everything from him. Everything except this cold, dark world of five steps in every direction with walls that leaned in as if they hungered for the little bit of warmth Roy still held in his chest.

And if he could, he would use this last glimmer to light a fire that burned down Lucina's empire of ruins.

But those thoughts were fantasies. Roy had neither sword nor armor, nor even the strength to raise his hands and hide his face from the biting air. Breathing hurt. Yet this pain was slowly fleeting too, like the images of a pyre from nineteen long years ago.

Roy's eyelids grew heavy.

For one sweet moment, he imagined the comforting weight of the Binding Blade in his hand, the leather-wrapped hilt so familiar against his fingertips, the gold decorations so wonderful to his sun-starved eyes, and the red stone within the cross guard, burning with a fire undefeated.

He held tight. Another breath, another wave of icicles to freeze him from the inside. And then the darkness of his world grew a little darker still.

Until heat washed against Roy's face. It tickled his skin like a tender hand stroking his cheek. Surely he was dying. Or he had died already, and someone was lighting his pyre the way Pheraen tradition demanded. But the heat was so wonderful on his face…

"Open your eyes, Roy. Open your eyes and live."

And he did.

And the world once made up of cold and darkness bore fire instead.

A female figure stood before Roy. Flames enveloped her body and waved around her like a dress of burning satin. In her presence, brooks of water streamed down the prison walls that had stood erect for centuries, and a feeling returned to Roy's muscles he hadn't thought still existed.

For a heartbeat, he mistook the figure for Naga. The goddess had come to take revenge for the many Altean believers he had executed. A ghastly reminder of the goddess' statue he had burned down in Terra. But something about the figure struck him as familiar. Not the likeness to any of Naga's images plastered around Altea. No, something else resided in her bright ruby eyes, the memory of a lost friend almost.

Roy climbed to his knees.

"Who are you?" He hadn't used his vocal cords for so long, the words only came out as a cough.

But the figure understood him regardless. "My name is Sêl. I am the spirit of the Binding Blade."

Roy tensed. "Then you are a goddess?"

Her appearance left no other conclusion. Only a creature beyond the limitations of humans could burn in flames without succumbing to their destructive force. Perhaps the gods, in whatever form they might exist, had sent one of their own to free this world from Roy where Lucina lacked the commitment to do so.

"A goddess?" Sêl repeated. "No… I am a tool, nothing more. A blade for someone else to wield."

"But you are tied to the Binding Blade. My blade."

"That I am."

"Why didn't you show yourself before?"

Sêl lowered her gaze. "I was unsure… unsure whether you were a worthy master to the sword. But I have no choice now. They threw me into a river to be forgotten. I can feel the cold swirling around me day after day."

"Then alter the world to your liking. Is that not what gods do?"

The flames across Sêl's face dimmed, and the glacier's cold recaptured the edges of the cell, looming. "They do."

"Then give me a reason to trust you."

"I can be of use to you. I can free you from this prison."

"But you aren't acting out of pure benevolence, are you? I'm the only one who can retrieve the Binding Blade from the river. You need me."

Sêl flinched; a human reaction, ill-fitting for a goddess. "Yes."

Roy buried a stiff hand into his pockets. Ah, what a well-designed ploy this spirit had conjured for him. She had waited long enough for all hopes of rescue and escape to flee him, long enough for the weeks and months to sink their icy teeth into his flesh, until at last he would even cling to a goddess for deliverance. Her appearance, even these small human gestures like her flinching, were designed to charm him. When she lowered her gaze, he lowered his guard. Perhaps Naga had enwrapped Marth in a similar fashion.

And yet, Sêl might prove useful. Her magic could break him a way out of Johtran, her fire the edge Roy needed to triumph over Lucina and reforge his peace. The Binding Blade would legitimize him in the eyes of Pherae, and they would realize the true extent of Lucina's deceit. Just as Roy had.

He would not fall for the tricks of a goddess. Her tantalizing fire would neither swallow his body nor control his thoughts. But unbeknownst to her, he might control the flames if he held tight.

"The circumstances might be different," Roy said, "but we share a prison. Lucina won't release me, and my knights won't storm Johtran to free me either. Assuming any of them have remained loyal to me. It seems less and less likely to me with every day that passes." Roy looked into Sêl's eyes, and he thought to find a reflection of the Binding Blade's red stone in there. "But you… you came."

"Yes. If you still accept me, I will do what I should have done years ago. I will stand beside you in this war."

"And I will repay the debt. If you guide me, I will retrieve the Binding Blade for you."

"Do you promise?"

"On my life."

Sêl reached out a hand. Tangible warmth radiated from her fingertips and melted the ice crystals dancing about. But the flames were not of such nature that they consumed. Rather, they contained all the warmth of life itself.

Roy took Sêl's hand, and she pulled him to his feet.

And as she did, the wall behind her exploded into a thousand icy shrapnel before they melted into a rainsquall, wonderful warm and real on Roy's face like spring drizzle. Sêl vanished in the burst of heat, but the echo of her presence still prickled on his skin. All the times he had dreamed up his escape from Johtran had proven frost-induced illusions, but she was not. The path stood open. A gust of freedom hurrying down the corridor, right there for him to seize.

He hesitated on the threshold for a moment. But then he strode out of the cold and dark confines of his old world into the new one. The reek of distant torches failed to deter his steps as guards scrambled to meet the escaped prisoner.

Roy followed their panic-stricken cries. He had an usurper to fell.