A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. -Ezekiel 36:26

The ash rained down on Byleth. Smoke choked her breath and burned her nose. Worse, though, were the screams. Men and women, young and old, begging for mercy, as their village went up in flames. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Jeralt had only left her because the rebellion had been put down. Except the rebels had struck during the night and slaughtered her men. She'd found them mixed in with the villagers with no way to tell who was who.

Byeth never left a job unfinished.

"May eternal torment take you, demon!"

Demon. Byleth looked down at the soot covering her skin. Her throat and eyes burned and her chest felt heavy. Yes, a demon was what she was.

You shouldn't be, said a young girl's voice. You can be better.

Byleth's head whipped around, looking for the madwoman who spoke of salvation, but the only sight was charred timber and billowing smoke.

Edelgard fell to her knees. Pain and cold slid over her. She reached blindly for Aymr and found only a broken wreck of a weapon, cleaved in two by a true Relic. The throne room stank of charred metal and blood. There were so many bodies. Imperial and Alliance soldiers. Dimitri's retainer lay in a crumpled heap next to the remains of a Demonic Beast. And Dorothea, her last, truest friend barely recognizable amid the rubble. Edelgard's eyes burned. She had lost, completely and utterly, her dream of a united Fódlan revealed to be one more impossible thing that she couldn't have. All that remained now was to face the end with some dignity and let the victors claim their prize.

Leather boots forced themselves into her field of vision. She didn't dare look up. Falling by Byleth's hand was a better end than she deserved. Before she had been crowned and the flames had burned everything away, she had been a little infatuated with the mercenary who had so bravely risked her life for a stranger. For a whole year, she had been allowed to be a normal girl going silly over a teacher. Her life ending at that same teacher's hands… well there was a symmetry to that. "I'm glad." She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

Nothing happened. Edelgard frowned. "If I must fall, let it be by your hand. End this war now. If you don't, it will only be senseless violence."

"And we are all tired of that." Byleth's voice was deeper than she remembered, rawer. Her footfalls thudded on the stone. "Look at me, Edelgard."

Edelgard's head rose as if yanked by an invisible rope. Byleth loomed over her, the Sword of the Creator in her hand and poised to whip out at any threat. Her eyes, those brilliant green, unearthly eyes, were unreadable. She held herself in a guard stance, leashed, coiled power that could have made the accomplishments of Nemesis seem but a trifle if she unleashed it. If only she had chosen to teach the Black Eagles, if only Edelgard had found the words to sway her despite that, if only she could have made that one childish dream come true. The one she had never been able to articulate when it had mattered.

There was no harm in it now. "I wanted to walk with you," she murmured.

Byleth's eyebrows knit together. A flicker of light kindled in her eyes. Her free hand reached for Edelgard's cheek, and Edelgard was too shocked to pull away. Her hands were warm even through her gloves as she wiped away a bit of blood. Edelgard's breath hitched. How long had it been since anyone had touched her so gently? She couldn't even remember. This had to be madness. Linhardt had once told her that people on the verge of death hallucinated departed loved ones or other pleasant fantasies to make their passing easier. Even now, the real Byleth was no doubt raising her blade.

The false Byleth held out her hand. "Walk with me now."

If this was some phantom offering her comfort in her last moments, then it was meaningless to refuse. She took the hand. The false Byleth pulled her to her feet. Lancing pain shot through Edelgard's legs and midsection as the world lurched sideways. This wasn't a hallucination. The same Byleth who had methodically dismantled her empire had offered her mercy. And Edelgard had accepted. Her knees buckled.

Byleth drew Edelgard to her side, holding her up. "I've got you."

Two figures picked their way through the corpses. Claude and Lysithea. Claude's armor was stained and ripped. His eyes wore the same pained expression that Edelgard had seen at Gronder as he surveyed the carnage. Lysithea's eyes flashed with barely suppressed fury. The tactician who hid his brilliance behind a smile and whose complete ignorance of how Fódlan worked allowed him to dream impossible dreams and the brilliant mage who had served as proof of concept for the torture Edelgard had endured. She wasn't sure what it meant that they of all people should see her like this, but either way Edelgard was too weak to fight back.

Claude saw them and broke into a sprint. "Teach? I've got to admit that I was a little nervous when the throne room doors closed behind you, but you've rewarded my faith in you once again." He looked at Edelgard, and a smile played at the edge of his lips. "Judging by the lack of battle and the very much alive emperor who has her arms around you, I'd say you've done at least five impossible things today. I'm glad we could save at least one more person."

"It's over?" Lysithea asked. "Edelgard, do you surrender?"

Surrender. She had sworn that she would rather die than give up her ambitions. Her gaze lingered on Dorothea's remains. So many people had died for her dreams of a better world. It felt disrespectful not to join them. The best she could hope for was a gilded cage, if she wasn't put on the headsman's block as a warning to any who would dare to challenge the power of the Goddess.

There was a crash and the shouts of soldiers. The main body of the Alliance forces pounded on the palace gates. Claude raised an eyebrow. "I know we've had our differences, but I don't think any of us want you here right now."

Edelgard nodded. A gilded cage or clean execution was vastly preferable to what she would endure from enemy soldiers who found her in this state. But the only way out...the Goddess was a lie, but it seemed the flames of eternal torment were very real. "There's a hidden switch on the back of the throne. The tunnel below will lead us outside of Enbarr."

Claude did as she asked and the throne slid away to reveal a trapdoor and stairs leading into the darkness. The stench of stale air wafted from the dungeon and a blind, stabbing panic shot through Edelgard as she stiffened in Byleth's grasp. She was a child again and the knives were cutting and her sister was screaming and Solon was laughing...

Byleth gripped her more tightly. "What's down there?"

"A prison. A laboratory." Bile burned her throat. "The one place I hoped I would never have to return to."

"What a wonderful way to describe our only escape route." Claude reached for something in the folds of his robes: a glass sphere no larger than his palm. It shown with a brilliant white light. "I have to hand it to you, Lysithea. These portable torches are going to come in handy. On we go."

Edelgard was limp as Byleth half-dragged, half carried her down the stairs. The domain of those who slithered in the dark was much as she had dreamed of for the last decade. A stone tunnel ran in both directions with heavy doors made from a strange metal placed at irregular intervals. The walls were slick with mold, and Edelgard imagined the stench of her sibling's corpses still haunted this place. She forced herself to look. If she closed her eyes now, she would start to hear the screams, and it would have been better for her to have perished above.

"This does not look like your typical Imperial prison." Claude shone the light at the door. Edelgard could have told them that the metal swallowed rather than reflected light. He took a half step back. "And this is not your typical prison door. The Empire didn't build this place, did it? And the doors here don't all lead to cells?"

"No." She could push on. She would. She had survived too much and done too much to escape to die down here now. She strained to hear Byleth's even breathing, the swish of Lysithea's cloak, anything to remind her of the world beyond the darkness.

The knife cut into her and the mage with the long robes and strange tattoos laughed. "Who would have guessed Ionius' bastard would have such a strong constitution. We may have to use you instead of the crown prince."

It wasn't real. It wasn't real. Solon was dead.

A rat squeaked. Not close by, but it was enough.

There were rats everywhere. Squeaking, gnawing at the hard bread her jailers gave her, looking at her with their beady eyes as if she might be their next meal. Edelgard shivered in the dark. Hans had died last night. Maybe they had given him to the rats. She was the last one left. One darted closer, scurried over her leg, and bit. She was going to die here, too.

The rat's teeth bit into Edelgard's leg and she screamed. Her legs gave way. She was going to die here too, the rats were going to eat her alive. Hard hands gripped her shoulders and a man said something. One of her jailers. Edelgard screamed again and thrashed. She couldn't let them take her. There was something...a friend had given her something to protect herself. She yanked herself away and groped at her belt. The daggar slid into her hand. She wouldn't let Thales or Solon hurt her ever again.

A different stronger hand checked her shoulder. "Edelgard," said a woman's voice. "Shh. We won't hurt you. You're safe."

Edelgard blinked. She was beneath the palace, but not in her cell. Byleth, Lysithea, and Claude stared at her. Byleth held her with one hand and took the dagger from her unresisting grip with the other. Edelgard's face burned. It had been years since she had thought she was somewhere that she wasn't, but she had broken in front of her new captors. She had pulled a knife on them. All reason and sense would demand that they strike her down for their own safety, but they only looked at her with soft, pitying faces.

"Leave me." She tried to snarl, but it came out as a plaintive whine. "A mad emperor is of no use to you."

"No." Lysithea spoke with more force than Edelgard would have given her credit for. "No one deserves to be left in the cold and the dark. You remind me of…Edelgard, you have white hair." Spasms overtook her. "No," she whispered. "I was only one. Can we hurry? I don't want to be here anymore."

"I can make sure Edelgard gets out," Byleth said. "If Rhea is in Enbarr, then she's nearby. Find her."

"You sure you'll be okay down here alone, Teach?" Claude shook his head. "If you're not at the command post in one hour, I am coming back with a search party."

Byleth's lips twitched, and she sheathed the dagger in her own belt. "Deal."

Edelgard lay on the stone floor, panting, as Claude and Lysithea disappeared into the darkness. Tears threatened at the corner of her eyes, and her breath came in dry heaves. She wished they would leave her. She felt three-quarters dead already, wounded by blade and arrow and magic, her limits revealed for her enemies to see. For Byleth to see.

Byleth knelt next to her. "Can you stand?"

"I don't think so."

Byleth muttered something under her breath in a language that Edelgard didn't know, and her hands glowed with golden light. She passed them once, twice, over the length of Edelgard's body. The pain receded into a dull ache, and her breathing became slow and even. She felt light and fuzzy-headed, as if she were standing outside her body and controlling it like a marionette. She tried standing and braced herself against the stone. She didn't fall.

Whatever Byleth had done left her pale and sweaty. Her hair plastered against her scalp. Even in her haze, Edelgard frowned. "You're going to a lot of trouble for someone who tried to kill you half an hour ago."

"There's been enough death in this war." Her lips thinned and there was something in her eyes that Edelgard couldn't read in the darkness. "You of all people I wanted to save. Come. The spell won't last long."

She took Edelgard by the hand and led her through the tunnel. Edelgard's feet carried her forward and up towards the light. Byleth didn't speak again, but her breath grew harsher as they went on as if she were carrying a great weight on her back. Some part of Edelgard realized that this was odd, that she was supposed to be dead, supposed to be curled into a corner as madness overtook her, but every time she tried to think about it, the pleasant haze in her mind grew stronger.

At last, they exited the tunnel. They were a little ways outside the city, on a hill where her father had often taken Edelgard when she was young. The air was sweet, and birdsong filled her ears. The magic keeping her upright ebbed away until she fell against Byleth. Byleth cradled her as if she were a child, and Edelgard lacked the strength to even protest. Byleth smoothed her hair. Edelgard sighed. Maybe this was a hallucination too, a fantasy of being saved and held by her old infatuation cooked up by a fevered mind in the moments before a sword bisected her skull. But if it was, it was still the closest she had been to happy in five years.

Byleth smoothed her hair. "Sleep now. We'll talk later."

The last thing Edelgard saw before exhaustion claimed her was the Crest of Flames banner fluttering over Enbarr.