Naga's Champion

The red sandstone walls of the anteroom reached wide and tall as if to strive for the vastness of the open sky. Ornate pillars culminated in a vaulted ceiling as grandiose as the aspirations of the one who stood in the center of the room, where all the tile patterns ran together and the lines on the floor found the center of their universe.

Windchimes played a soft tune, intangible but so persuasive at the same time, challenged only by the rustling of fabric as she wrapped a silken cape around her shoulders. Crimson threads dominated the inside while indigo shimmered on the outer layer, a marriage of colors that matched the Altean and Pheraen flags hoisted above the palace. This palace, surrounded by three moats and the walls of Lycia like orbits of planetoids, was also the center of a universe. The heart of the Pheraen Empire, the greatest nation the world had ever known.

And she stood in the center of it all.

At the center of her creation.

A smile twisted her lips as she girded the Divine Sword. The one who had wielded the sword before had paved the path and had won many battles through its steel. But in the end, he had failed, and the Divine Sword had never felt as at home as it did at her side. Even though she could not deny the cold shudder that befell her when her fingers scraped the deadly blade.

But this could hardly diminish the crystalline taste of victory. Through the ajar door of the anteroom travelled voices, the voices of five hundred people, Alteans and Pheraens alike. All of them wore the crest she chose for them. They hammered onto their shields, and all of them shouted her name as their battle cry.

Lucina.

Naga's champion.

Not entirely true, but she relished the shouts regardless. She had waited long enough for all of this to fall back into her hands, this faithful awe brimming in the voices of her followers. A few hurdles remained and a few more uncomplacent individuals who would turn into lose bricks on her path before the end.

But with the winged crown of the Pheraen Empire in her hand, who was to stop her? Her smile grew a little wider as she took the circlet from its cushioned stand and placed it on her head. The ash that had eaten into the gold tainted the picture, but not to the extent that it spoiled her mood. Another hurdle and another lose brick would soon fall. The soldiers outside merely awaited her word.

She followed the roaring of their voices and strode out of the antechamber into a short hallway. The play of windchimes accompanied her. The shouts grew louder.

Lucina.

Naga's champion.

And drawn towards this noise, this noise she had waited so long to hear, she ascended from the dimness of the hallway into the cold light of the winter sky. Frederick, clad in his finest armor, stood aside and offered her a formal hand to climb the low step onto the balcony. She accepted the offer, equally formal.

When the crowd beheld her face, the shouts increased tenfold.

Five hundred imperial soldiers had gathered in the courtyard below, and every last one of them carried a sword with which to fight her war, to protect her creation, and to spill the blood of her enemies.

She savored the cries of their faith for a moment longer before she raised a hand. At an instance, the crowd fell silent in eager anticipation of her voice to ring across the palace.

"Soldiers," she shouted, "you are standing on the threshold of true peace. When you look at the person on your right and your left, you will find not only Pheraens. You will find fighters from Altea and hunters from Sacae next to you, and you will find that all of them, even if their faces may differ, carry the crest of the Pheraen Empire. Never before has a single army included people from all corners of Archanea. And never before has this single army stood on the threshold of true peace."

She paused, and a wave of approval and cheers rolled across the crowd. The noise poured additional molted steel into the forge from which she pulled her words.

"Your faith in me honors me," she continued. "And when I speak of true peace, I mean it. The person to your right and your left, all of you are part of the same empire, the same creation. But, although you stand as one before me, not every part of this empire lives in this same harmony. You have spread my word as you have spread my crest, and still there remain those who refuse to see. You have fought them at Aurelis and you have fought them at the Black Wall. Now you will fight them in Satar. And as before, you will emerge victorious.

"The duke Marcus has refused all negotiation attempts and has since turned the entire city of Satar into his fortress. It pains me to hear that Grima has tempted him, as he has tempted so many great leaders in the past. Two hundred further soldiers have followed his call. But they are not the ones who see the true faith. They are not the ones to cross the threshold."

This time, although she left room for a pause, the crowd did not fill it with cheers. The hunger for her next words had enveloped them too tightly.

"Soldiers! You are standing on the threshold of true peace. Cast off your doubts, abandon your hesitation, and make the final step. For the Empire!"

"FOR THE EMPIRE!"

And as one united part of her creation, the soldiers raised their fists towards the sky. The smile she had locked inside for the duration of her speech played about her lips. It remained there while the soldiers marched through the palace gates and flooded the streets beyond to carry her war to the southern city of Satar. With the choir of their boots faded the jingle of windchimes.

When the last unit had crossed the moat, the gate wings slammed close.

And Lucina jolted in her skin as if from a dream.


A constant murmur rustled between the house fronts as the mass of spectators streamed towards Lycia's east gate. The wide avenue with its bare poplar trees gave no hint as to the battle that had taken place here nine months ago and neither did the gateway of the city's outer wall. The battlements challenged any thought of invasion once more, manned with a small but nonetheless reliable brigade of soldiers, and all shingles and lose bricks had been cleared away long since. When the crowd flowed past, only a few faces turned upwards to where, not too long ago, holes had gaped in the houses and chimneys had rained from the roofs when a dragon had swept past.

Lucina did turn her face upwards. But she denied the bitter taste to linger in her throat for long. The battle from nine months ago had ended Roy's tyranny, and although victory had come at a cost, she would not regret those sacrifices. She owed it to the dead to look forward.

After all, today was no day for the dead. It was for the victorious.

Without the ashen winged crown on her head, Lucina almost blended in with the crowd, and she could study the individual people ambling along or pushing ahead of the steady pace without fear of recognition. For once, no one had their eyes on her. The titles of Naga's champion and queen of the Pheraen Empire concerned someone else now, some illusive figure who watched the people from a balcony at the palace. Not someone who strolled alongside the people.

The only reason a passerby might give Lucina a second look lay with the silver spear her companion carried on her back. Other people in the crowd carried tokens of their faith or five-story candles to illuminate this procession; accordingly, Cordelia's weapon of choice stuck out like a chunk of silver in an uninspired rockface.

Lucina had protested, but Frederick had refused to let her leave the palace without at least one armed protector. As though he feared she had forgotten how to wield a sword.

Falchion, her father's sword, remained hidden in the folds of Lucina's cape, and although she had no intention to draw it from its scabbard, she could win a duel even against the best sword masters of Pherae if need be. After all, she had defeated Roy in the same fashion.

Lucina shook her head, and this particular ghost fled from her thoughts before it had a chance to haunt her. Prison bars, a glacier, and half a kingdom separated them. Perhaps she would gather the nerve to visit Roy's cell in a year, when the Empire had truly reached peace. But not today.

Next to Lucina, Cordelia pushed a currant-colored strand out of her face and huffed as the crowd slowed to a crawl in front of the gates. She didn't bother with an apology to the people on whose feet she trampled in her efforts to peek above the sea of heads.

"What a crush," Cordelia said. "You could think someone was handing out lord titles and the respective mansions for free."

Lucina sidestepped a family with three raucous children. "It's a good sign. All these people weren't able to freely show their faith under Roy. The new shrine gives them a place to do so."

"Or they're just here for the spectacle. I mean, how often do you get to hear Naga's Voice in person?"

Lucina smiled. "It's been less than ten minutes since you talked to her."

"Since she talked my ear off, you mean," Cordelia said with a glare ahead.

A few steps away, Tiki hopped across the cobblestone, landing on only one foot every handful of jumps with no discernable pattern. Her hair bounced after her, and she hummed in sync with her strange dance. Lucina knew the melody but couldn't figure out where she had heard it before. To the majority in the crowd, Tiki appeared as nothing more than a curious child; few people noticed her pointy ears or the elfin features reminiscent of their goddess. Otherwise they might have stopped to make way for Naga's Voice.

Tiki twirled on her heels and waved Lucina before she dove into the crowd in pursuit of a new scent that thrilled her nose.

Lucina and Cordelia, meanwhile, took a little longer to pass underneath the gateway. Cordelia sent out more than one death glare to those individuals unfortunate enough to bump into her in this pushing and shoving. The rows only thinned after they had crossed the bridge spanning the outer moat, where the path widened to the barren plain outside Lycia. Here too, Lucina and the rebels under her command had fought to overthrow Roy's tyranny.

But neither this historic context nor the hoar-frosted ground or even the biting winds outside the city walls deterred the masses as they pushed onward.

The construct on a small hill a little further ahead marked the reason for their coming: Naga's new shrine. Five wide steps led to a circle of archways, vast enough to fit five hundred people. Only the shrines in Terra with their layout in likeness to amphitheaters and the underground cathedral of Seliora surpassed this monument. Veins of glass ran along the pillars, and windchimes joined the murmur of the crowd.

Lucina had done her best to recreate the transparent palace in which she had first talked to Naga, and after months of delays, from stagnant supply lines to outright sabotage, the shrine finally stood ready to welcome the followers of Naga. And how large the audience that hurried over to attend the opening ceremony… All of these people had practiced their faith in hiding, had feared oppression and death under Roy's reign. But now, they spoke Lucina's name with voices full of love.

With this sound in her ears, how could she possibly regret the moment she took the winged crown from Roy?

Cordelia used the opening in the crowd to whip the spear from her back. With the weapon at the ready, her steps gained a light bounce that could not quite hide the tautness of her muscles; reflexes born from strict military training. A training anchored far deeper into flesh and bone than Lucina's.

She shook her head. She was once more analyzing the people around her like a chess player reevaluated the potential of their pieces on the board mid-game. Reach and control, cover and worth for the next ten rounds that followed until the enemy king dropped over – a nasty habit.

Cordelia paused when they walked past an Altean merchant selling five-story candles to the masses. The scent of wax hung like a thick carpet in the winter air.

"They say Naga hears your wishes when you light one of those candles," Cordelia said. "And if you have faith, she makes that dream a reality. Does it really work?"

"I don't know," Lucina said. "But a lot of Alteans must have prayed for Roy's oppression to end. Hundreds if not thousands of candles were lit with that dream in mind, and it still took eighteen years."

"But what about you? Did it ever work for you?"

"I've never tried it before. If I had, maybe the shrine would have welcomed Naga's followers earlier. At least we managed in time for Scouring's End."

Cordelia frowned. "Some Altean holiday?"

"The most important one. On this day, a little over a millennium ago, Naga's blessing ended the war with the dragons."

"I thought the hero Hartmut won the war for the humans."

"That's Pheraen propaganda," Tiki said. She had reemerged from the crowd and pranced around Lucina's heels. "It's only thanks to a generous gift from Naga that the evil dragons were defeated. If I had been around at the time, I would have scared those dumb imposter Manaketes back in line."

Lucina chuckled. "You're the scariest dragon of them all."

"Manakete!"

Cordelia didn't join their laughter. Her focus had returned to the candle merchant. Lost in thought, she stroked the white feather dangling from her spear. "Maybe I should buy one of those candles and ask for Talys' freedom."

"You should rather light a candle for Lucina," Tiki said. "She is the only one who can win this war for you."

Lucina flinched. "Don't call it a war. We are negotiating. The representative from Talys is scheduled to reach the capital in a week."

"Not sure how the people on the sunken ships in front of the island feel about this not being a war," Cordelia said. "Or the Pegasus novices who are being herded into the training camps like mindless animals."

"To you, I must seem painfully incapable of freeing Talys."

Cordelia squirmed. "That's not... I wasn't implying that. Forget what I said. I mean, you led the Altean rebellion to victory. And you made it look so easy too."

"Please, don't lie to me," Lucina said. "You have no need. I understand that these last months were long. For both of us. But my promise to you remains the same: you will walk along the beaches of Talys as a reformed member of your people, and you will hear the flapping of Pegasus wings as if you never left. Is there a better reason for me to hold onto the crown? I cannot think of one. But in the meantime, I need you beside me. Can I ask that of you?"

Cordelia tilted her head, and a hesitant smile flashed on her face. "Sure. I don't plan to go anywhere else."

"I'm staying with you too!" Tiki grabbed Lucina's hand and beamed. "I never dreamed of finding such an adventure, not even with Mar-Mar. An adventure with friends who don't lock me up for being a Manakete. And when all this is over and everyone is united under Naga's five credos, I will fly to Johtran and burn the entire glacier to the ground!"

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "There she goes again…"

Lucina chuckled. "I don't think that a molten glacier is very in keeping with the second credo."

"Yeah, yeah, to live in harmony with your surrounding world," Cordelia said. "I think I've heard that five times today when I accidentally knocked into to someone in this crush. I hope you aren't going to repeat that in your speech."

Tiki paled. "My speech! I still haven't asked Naga for the right words!"

And with that, she rushed ahead through the crowd, a wave of green hair on its way towards the shrine's centerpiece.

"Maybe you should give the speech instead," Cordelia said. "Two a day might be pushing it a bit, but looking at the soldiers back at the courtyard, they didn't seem tired of your words in the slightest. They were almost ecstatic to make for Satar."

"They were?" Lucina asked. "I can't remember what I said…"

"Unsurprising. You've been giving so many speeches, I'm shocked you haven't run out of words yet." Cordelia grinned. "You know, with that overworked look on your face, you could almost pass for a normal human."

Lucina didn't know what to reply. Her thoughts were strangely fuzzy; battleplans for all the skirmishes across the Empire swirled around and melted into one another, a mess she never seemed able to solve, regardless of the passing months. No matter her precautions, the true weight of the crown even found her amidst this wrangle of people.

She could remind herself that no one in this crowd would recognize her all she wanted. A chill still chased down her neck from the eyes on her, the eyes that would never leave and only waited for a sign of weakness in an overworked look or a restless fiddling with the hem of her cape. Wasn't the group of Lorca by the candle merchant staring at her right now? And hadn't they already noticed the brief stumble in Lucina's walk? The strangely familiar man with eyes as deep and dark as a yawning cave had surely read all her secrets from the dryness of her lips, hadn't he?

The approaching shrine offered her diversion, and although Lucina still searched the throng for hidden daggers that did not exist, she climbed the oncoming steps in an entirely controlled fashion. A behavior more fitting for Naga's champion.

At the center of the circular archways towered the shrine's main attraction. For now, a blanket hid the centerpiece, but whenever the wind caught hold of the white fabric, a glass ancle flashed above the heads of the crowd. The artist responsible for the statue stood beside his creation with an air of pride and regarded the many people streaming forward to watch its unveiling with an occasional satisfied nod. A few believers had already placed candles or bunches of white snapdragons at the statue's feet.

Although the crowd offered little room to maneuver at this point, Lucina picked up a stray flower from the steps and turned it in her hand.

"Caeda would love those," Cordelia said.

Lucina startled. "You knew my mother?"

"Not really. I was too young when she left Talys to marry the king of Altea. But we had a statue of her Roy had the decency not to destroy when he conquered the island. Every girl wanted to become a Pegasus Knight like Caeda one day. At least until they realized what being an imperial Pegasus Knight meant. Still, even in the year I left, people still placed snapdragons at her statue. They say those were her favorite flowers. You can find them all over the rocky highlands of Talys."

"The people really loved her, didn't they?"

"I heard she charmed everyone she met. Even as a young princess, she did so much for Talys, she became a symbol for Pegasus Knights; courageous, kind, unmatched with a spear, and all that."

A leader, a true source of inspiration, a gravitational center for her people's love – Caeda had been all that. Lucina shuddered.

"Did you want to become like her too?" she asked.

"Matching her was the ultimate competition in the training camps," Cordelia said. Her gaze became a little unfocused as she dived back into the hell that had been the Talys of her youth.

When she didn't elaborate, Lucina jumped in. "I well remember my own sword training here in Lycia. Some of my tutors had more in common with dragons than actual people. One of them thought it was a good idea to put iron shackles around my ankles to improve my footwork. You can imagine how often I landed face-first in the sand of the training yard."

A hesitant grin played about Cordelia's lips. "Wish I had seen it."

"You would have squirmed with second-hand embarrassment. With that sort of performance, I didn't come close to matching any legendary hero, Caeda or otherwise."

Cordelia paused, but Lucina's story had given her enough confidence to continue. "Guess the philosophy was different for Pegasus novices. They used our own idols against us, and I didn't even realize it. Instructors would call outstanding novices 'the next Caeda'. I was called like that a few times. For beating everyone else in my class."

"You never told me."

Cordelia tightened the grip on her spear. "It's not my proudest title."

Lucina studied Cordelia's profile; there was more to this story, details Cordelia had buried deep within that would never stop shaping her path going forward. And Lucina hungered for this story as she had hungered for the stories of her fellow rebels, back when one crown and one title less had separated them.

What a foolish thought. The Empire incorporated countless individuals with countless stories, and none of them weighed less than the other. Naga hadn't singled out specific prayers in the hundreds if not thousands of candles lit for her.

Neither should her champion.

People occupied every inch of the shrine now, and many more craned their necks outside the circle of archways to catch a glimpse of the covered statue. Cordelia fended off the throng with the butt of her spear for a small corner near the front, which earned her more than one grumbled reminder of the second credo.

Falchion's weight tugged at Lucina's hips. Once more her gaze swept the crowd. The murmur of a multitude of voices, raspy coughs from old men and bell-like laughter of children and everything in between should give her no reason for concern. Altean farmer accents mingled with the harsher tone of Pheraen nobility and those who tried to mimic them. But Lucina couldn't shake the illusion of a particular kind of voice missing; an absence that stung in her gut. As though someone out of sight communicated with military hand gestures, plotting in silence.

Her fingers wandered to her collarbone by itself until she forced both hands down. Roy was in Johtran. He couldn't hurt her.

She swallowed her paranoia, and in that moment, Tiki stepped onto the stage. A murmur went through the rows of the faithful. Most of them had never seen Naga's Voice in the flesh. Maybe Tiki's youthful appearance irritated them, but she only needed a few words to rekindle their interest. What she said mattered little compared to how she said it.

Lucina talked with Tiki on an almost daily basis, but the way the Manakete spoke now differed from their usual conversations like the moon differed from the sun. Both drew their energy from the same source, but one held infinitely more power in the pull it awakened in the people. Truly, this was Naga's Voice as the stories reported, a voice with the might to sway an army. Even Cordelia, who held not particular love for Nagaism, hung at Tiki's lips.

Windchimes rung in Lucina's ears.

The magic only faded when Tiki stopped and turned to the statue behind her. She grabbed the blanket, and with one yank at the fabric, she revealed the statue underneath.

A glass recreation of Naga looked down at the crowd, taller even than the counterpart in Terra Roy had destroyed. Applause roared from all sides as the winter sun fractured in the statue's transparent features to cast rainbows over the pillars.

"That's Naga?" Cordelia asked. "Looks a bit like you to be honest."

Lucina looked at the artist, who collected the applause for his statue with a satisfied smile. "I gave him the best description of her appearance I could."

Cordelia grinned. "And he probably couldn't take his eyes off you while you gave that description. It's a common disease these days. I'm pretty sure half the army has it."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Sure. And when Frederick or Ike come running as soon as you do as little as blink, that's just my imagination."

A tinge of bitterness invaded Cordelia's voice at the mention of Ike, but the resumption of Tiki's speech gave Lucina no time to dwell. Tiki's words lacked the gravity from before, and parts of her speech went under as the crowd shifted to admire Naga's statue. Long, dark hair rushed by, and someone jostled Lucina from behind. The open space Cordelia had created vanished under a mass of feet.

Lucina's nose tingled from the scent of horse and dry grass. But no Lorca had any reason to visit a shrine for Naga…

Tiki shifted the focus of her speech and thanked Naga's champion for enabling the creation of this shrine. And as she did, her eyes fell on Lucina.

She might as well have directed a ray of sunlight at her.

Several heads nearby turned as they followed the line of Tiki's sight. Recognition sparked in their eyes, surprised gasps travelled through the rows. Steel flashed in Lucina's periphery. She stood motionless.

Boots hammered on the steps, patterned shawls rustled, someone stumbled. There, a man with stone-carved features pushed through the crowd. His eyes, eyes as deep and dark as a cave, had locked onto his target.

The man next to the candle vendor. Lucina had looked directly at him, she had seen the Lorca tunic. But only now that the saber slid out of the sheath at his side did she recognize him.

Navarre.

Today, no laws of Lorca hospitality stood between him and the fulfillment of his blood oath.

Navarre shoved a young man out of his path. He fell, his head struck a step edge below, and under the gasps of the crowd, blood sprouted.

Lucina reached for Falchion, but she wouldn't lift the sword in time, she knew that. And Navarre knew too. His eyes drowned in the same cold hatred as when she had sentenced him to live, unfazed by the nine months since.

His blood oath saber gleamed.

Someone yanked Lucina by the cape, and the stroke that would have split her chest open grazed her arm. She bit her lip as she stumbled, blood splashed on the ground, a silver spear darted forward, driven by the cruelest of military training.

Navarre screamed, and his saber clattered on the steps. Something wet landed on the stone with a splat. Cordelia shifted to cover Lucina. The severed joints of three of Navarre's fingers twitched on the steps.

He clutched the remains of his bleeding right hand, the people around shoved their neighbors for cover under screams, but Navarre's fellow assassins still remained.

"You okay?" Cordelia asked.

"Thanks to you," Lucina pressed out between two labored breaths.

She tested the capabilities of her right hand; the arm hurt, and the sleeve of her tunic irritated the torn skin with every movement, but she could still wield Falchion. Back to back with Cordelia and with a hundred eyes from the stunned crowd on her, she awaited the next wave.

She didn't have to wait long.

Three Lorca dashed out of the anonymity of the crowd from different sides. Sabers flashed. Cordelia engaged the first one, and in two thrusts she sent the man to the ground where he breathed his last. The next assassin met the same fate mere heartbeats later.

Lucina evaded the third Lorca; he made the mistake to aim for her wounded arm instead of her throat. Falchion hammered against his saber, the steel fissured, and with a final spin, she cut into his leg.

The assassin dropped close to Navarre, wounded but alive.

Lucina's breath rattled in her chest, and the fingers of her right hand tingled with a faint numbness. But no one else stepped forward to take advantage of her weakness. The battle was over. And against the odds, perhaps through the workings of Naga, Lucina had survived yet again.

She threw a glance at the statue's glass features and sent a silent prayer of thanks.

Cordelia marched to Navarre and pointed her spear at his throat. "Any more of your friends around I should know about? If you play along, maybe you get to keep the other fingers."

Navarre glared at her.

"It's your choice. So don't cry about it."

The look on Cordelia's face as she twirled her spear chilled Lucina to her core. Those were the eyes of a woman who had crippled and who had killed. More than once.

Against her hesitance, Lucina gripped Cordelia's shoulder; both a supportive and a restraining gesture.

"Don't," Lucina said. "He is already defeated."

"The lesson won't stick if he can still pick up his weapon with his left."

"He will not attack again. You can see it as well as I do." Lucina softened her voice. "I'm glad I have you to do what's necessary, even when I can't realize the threat in time. It's why I want you by my side. But let me take over Navarre from here."

Cordelia stepped back. A heartbeat later, the grin returned to her face. "Then I'll just save my energy for the next threat."

Lucina gave a thankful nod before she turned to Navarre. Blood dripped down his arm where he clutched the stumps of his fingers. But his glare had lost nothing of its intensity.

"Is this all you intend to do with your life after I spared it?" Lucina asked. "Assassination is not the way of the Lorca, is it?"

Navarre remained silent. His surviving partner groaned.

Lucina looked sideways, knowing Navarre would follow her line of sight. Someone bent over the fallen young man in Navarre's path. Blood still ran from his head, but the stream was thinning. For him, all help would arrive too late.

"Senseless murder is not the way of the Lorca either," Lucina said. Her voice could cut through steel.

Navarre didn't flinch.

"Then I assume you severed all ties to your people," Lucina continued. "And you traded them for what, assassins? Or merely the cold gold they promise? The bounty Roy put on my head was withdrawn months ago; you have nothing to gain from killing me. Rather, you must have realized that this attack on the shrine could have only ended in your death. Even if you had succeeded."

"So it will happen," Navarre spat out.

"Someone wants my head, and they are willing to offer a sum large enough for you to throw your life away. Who hired you?"

"You are blind, heir to Marth."

"Am I? Then tell me where I'm wrong. Who are you working for?"

"My loyalty was always with the Lorca."

"The people of your clan are part of my empire. Your brothers and sisters joined my army for the attack on Lycia, and they still stand with me."

"I told you months ago that you will lead the Lorca to fire and death. And so it has happened."

"I have freed them from Roy's tyranny."

"Yet the eagle flag continues to billow over Sacae. With this flag, you sent out Lorca to die. Or were you blind to the masses that streamed out of the palace this morning, heir to Marth?"

"Do not try to justify your actions through twisted morality."

"Of the Lorca who rode with you to the eagle capital, none have returned to our camp! No one is left to hunt antelopes. No one is left to defend the tents against the Taliver. The Lorca do not ride and die with you. They ride and die for you."

"I'm not the one who shamed the traditions of their clan by becoming an assassin," Lucina said. "If you refuse to reveal the identity of your client, I don't see why I should listen to you any longer."

Falchion's hilt hugged Lucina's palm, the unmatched steel reflected the light filtering through Naga's statue. One step and one turn of her arm would end Navarra. He would be free of Grima's evil influence. She had given him the chance to live and better himself once before, what stopped her from punishing him this time? He refused to accept her as queen of the Pheraen Empire; a dangerous mindset present all across the land, in Satar, in Talys, even here in the capital.

Should Lucina not make an example of Navarre to prove herself? Was this not what Naga wanted, justice for one of her followers who lay dead on the steps only a few yards away?

Silence had overwhelmed the crowd, the soundless tension in the air before the storm, but Lucina felt their eyes on her. The glass statue and even Tiki no longer captured their attention. She did. All while in her hand rested the power to take a life. They waited breathlessly for the stroke, for Navarre's blood to turn into the crimson sacrifice at the steps of their altar. But could this be what Naga wanted?

Lucina could not deny the small voice in her head urging her to raise the Divine Sword. A quick death for Navarre, the same as he had planned for her, a movement of her sword hand so easy.

So wrong.

"I have toppled Roy's empire without killing him," Lucina said and sheathed Falchion. "I won't betray that victory by killing you. You and your accomplice will share his future. In prison."

The silence of the crowd grew deeper still. Even those people too far away to hear Lucina's words had seen how she had lowered her sword, and they wondered why the man who had tried to assassinate their champion still breathed. No more blood would stain their shrine today.

Until a man from the crowd escaped the silence. "She is merciful!" he cried. "The queen is merciful!"

"She spared the assassin!" a different voice said.

"It is the second credo, to live in harmony. Naga's champion is merciful!"

This shout rolled through the crowd, down the steps, and into the cluster of believers where they repeated the phrase until the word 'merciful' drowned out the jingle of windchimes. And Lucina, when she looked around, met a sea of faces alight with awe. Alight with love.

She smiled. When Caeda had stood before the people of Talys, had the same joy swirled in her chest?

A handful of imperial soldiers pushed through the crowd to take Navarre into custody according to Lucina's orders. His partner was too stricken with the agony of his wounded leg to resist, but Navarre struggled even after a soldier handcuffed his bloodstained arms behind his back.

"The Lorca take no prisoners," he said. "I ask for death."

Lucina met his glare, unfazed and with a choir of believers on her side. "I won't judge you by Lorca standards. You are an assassin, nothing more."

"You banish me from the grassland and into your imperial machine like you do with all Lorca. It is a fate worse than death. No prisoners!"

The soldier behind Navarre rammed his elbow into the prisoner's back. His tirade came to an abrupt stop.

Navarre's saber still lay on the steps where he had dropped it. A few specks of Lucina's blood stained the steel and mirrored the color of the ridge. Like Falchion had once shone in her father's hand, so had this weapon once belonged to Navarre's father. But the vow of this heirloom had only led Navarre down the path of a murderer. Whereas Lucina… she had escaped this fate for another day.

She took the saber and studied her reflection for a moment before she attached the weapon to her belt next to her own sword.

Navarre struggled against the grip of the soldier all the harder. "You have no right to hold it!" he shouted. "The blood oath saber must return to the family of its wielder if he dies. Even thieves know that."

"But you won't die. Not as long as I can avoid it."

Navarre was not the type of man to howl or curse. He didn't need to; the look he threw Lucina chilled her more than any accusation. A look of pure hatred.

But as the soldiers dragged him and his fellow assassin down the stairs and towards the catacombs of cold palace stone that awaited them, and as the crowd shifted to place their flowers and candles at Naga's statue, all thoughts regarding Navarre's expression fled Lucina. The blood oath saber weighed less at her side.

Another shift in the crowd, and she couldn't make out the dead young man anymore, nor the place where his blood still stained the stone.

Tiki hopped from her stage and threw herself at Lucina's midsection.

"You are okay," she said with a teary-eyed hiccup. "I don't know where to look for a human pulse, but I think you are okay. Tell me you're okay, yeah? I was so worried."

Lucina, a little overwhelmed, patted Tiki's back. "I'm alright. Thanks to Cordelia."

"Payback for Gran," Cordelia said. "I've been running around with a life dept to you ever since that dumb village. It was about time I evened the scales a little."

Tiki sniffled. "This needs to stop. You can't continue to put yourself in danger."

"I have barely stepped out of the palace in the last months," Lucina said.

"Navarre probably just waited for the moment you left the walls," Cordelia said. "And I doubt he's the only one who wants to put your head on a spike."

Lucina frowned. "I was negligent. The next assassin won't come as close."

"You don't know who hired that Lorca viper. Who knows what that person's capable of."

"You were attacked by assassins three times now," Tiki said. "Three times! And if you don't bite off the head of the enemy, they will come at you again."

"Not you too…"

"You are Naga's champion! You are too important to die. I will ask Naga for a blessing. Something to protect you against the next assassin."

"I would of course be honored to carry her blessing," Lucina said. "But I don't think it's necessary."

"You know," Cordelia said, "if you really want to go out with the crowd, try a mask or something. For a simple Altean peasant girl, you don't really look the part."

Tiki nodded. "Every true believer knows the face of Naga's champion. But a blessing will keep you safe. Will you carry it with you when it's ready? Promise me, will you?"

Lucina couldn't deny Tiki. Not when the Manakete had done so much for her, and especially not when her tiny arms squeezed her waist as though Lucina were the most important person in the universe.

"I promise," Lucina said with a smile.

Tiki beamed. "You won't regret it. And I will find whoever wants you dead and let it rain fire over them. Oh, but first we have to treat your arm! Is it very bad? You aren't going to pass out, are you? What amount of blood loss is lethal for a human, I can never remember!"

Caught in her ramblings, Tiki dragged Lucina by her uninjured arm towards the capital. Lucina played along with a small smile. Any thoughts regarding Navarre or the other people across the Empire who wanted her head failed to trip her as she collected respectful nods from the crowd. Cordelia's light steps next to her gave her comfort. How strange to feel so invincible with the saber of an assassin at her side…

Lycia's battlements waved them forward, as invincible as Lucina herself. The throngs of people lay behind them, and the trampled snow mud squished under Lucina's boots when she turned towards Cordelia.

"I'm sorry, I almost forgot," Lucina said, "Didn't you want to light a candle for Talys?"

Cordelia looked sideways. "Maybe some other time. It's as Tiki said: You are Naga's champion. And the queen of the Pheraen Empire to boot. Imagine the look on Frederick's face if you get an infection on that arm. We can't go trading some small island for a crown, right?"

"Maybe in some moments we should."

"Maybe…"

The conversation fizzled out. And the impenetrable sandstone walls of Lycia welcomed Naga's champion back in its dark embrace.


Notes: Let's just say the last nine months left their marks on Lucina. I'm experimenting a bit here, so I hope you liked this chapter. It admittedly took a while for the story's protagonist to make her appearance in this book, but that was by design. Lucina will have plenty more to struggle with and plenty more inner debates to work her way through, don't you worry. Next time though, Ike has a peculiar encounter.