Edelgard had hoped that Metodey's threat that Cornelia would raze Faerghus was mere bluster, but when she saw smoke rising from the third hamlet in former Charon territory she was forced to concede that Cornelia intended to reduce the Dukedom to ash. The ghoulishness of Remire and Coldtown hadn't yet been repeated, but that was little comfort when staring at children murdered in their beds.

Caspar stood in the ruins of the bedroom. He shook with rage, his skin pale except for two spots of red on his cheeks. "Monsters! They—" He picked up a toy horse and stared at it before throwing it against the wall with a scream. "I thought I'd seen everything, but this is just sick! I want to rip Cornelia to pieces."

For once, she and Caspar were in perfect agreement. "Then we should we join the others and get our orders." He simply stood there, still staring at the horse, so she pulled gently at his hand. "It's the next step to stopping this once and for all."

He exhaled. "I know you're right, but, well sometimes I'm jealous of how you can turn your emotions off like that."

She didn't know how to tell him that it was a skill honed in the dungeons beneath the palace. "Don't be."

He let her lead him outside. The sun bathed the ruined village in a soft glow that was macabre for the juxtaposition. Even the carrion birds that normally would have attended such a massacre were kept away by the dark magic. Cornelia had not merely murdered the villagers, she had drained their life like a leech.

Caspar was pale, his eyes shadowed like a corpse. "Why?"

"Because they are monsters who don't see us as people."

"No, I mean why..." He rounded on her and his mailed fist encircled her wrist with enough force to make he gasp. "Why did you think the church was worse than these guys? I was at Remire! And so were you, Miss Flame Emperor! You knew what they were and you worked with them!"

Edelgard tried to pull back, but his grip was too strong. She had always thought of Caspar as a bit like a puppy: well-meaning, a bit dim, and ultimately harmless. But the man before her was formidable in the way he trembled with rage. He demanded answers, and she had the sickening feeling that trying to encapsulate her manifesto would only end with him breaking her arm or worse. "The church was more powerful. I could never destroy them on my own and I needed something that would put a stop to people thinking Crests are so important that they'll stand by while children are tortured."

He didn't let go. "Yeah? Well, your friends have child-killing down, so that really doesn't help."

"I never thought it would come to this." She had had her war all planned out. Allow Cornelia temporary control over the Dukedom in exchange for disposing of Dimitri, defeat Gautier and Fralderius and any other lords stubborn enough to refuse her fealty, use a mixture of carrot and stick to keep Gloucester in line, take Derdriu, unite the Alliance behind her, and use the combined might of Fódlan to finally rid the world of those who slithered in the dark. Cornelia wouldn't dare try to provoke her with showy atrocities while they needed each other. "I never imagined losing until you took Merceus, and I thought the Agarthans would be destroyed before I was."

He roared and released his grip so suddenly that Edelgard stumbled forward. "That's always been your problem. You get so caught up in your grand plans that you forget the people on the ground. Well, you lost and the Agarthans are still here and conducting crazy experiments and worse. They couldn't have done it without your help. So what are you going to do?"

She looked around at the destruction, the ruins of buildings, the corpses of villagers left where they fell. It wasn't her fault. She hadn't ordered this massacre or any of the others they had seen over the last few days. She had only accepted the use of an agent already in place years before Duscar, chosen the church that had shaped people's thoughts for a thousand years as a greater enemy than even the people who had murdered her family. If she hadn't, there would have been countless more Emille von Bartels and Miklan Gautiers crying out for vengeance down through the generations, asking why she hadn't done something with the power forced upon her.

The thoughts brought no comfort. "This is monstrous. I would have stopped it if I could have."

"I don't care. I asked what you were going to do."

That at least she could answer. "I'm going to kill them."

Byleth looked over Edelgard's shoulder as she finished the emperor's correspondence for the day. "I don't think quartermaster has that many Rs. You've been distracted for days now."

"My apologies Your Maj—Byleth. I'm merely anxious to engage the enemy."

"Caspar told me what happened."

Edelgard lost control of her quill and left a trail of ink across the parchment. "What?" She inhaled and exhaled, willing her racing heart to slow. Byleth had seen the mountain of corpses that the Agarthans had amassed and it was she who had knocked the Flame Emperor's mask from Edelgard's face. If she thought her responsible for these crimes, Edelgard would have already been struck down. "It was a difficult thing to see."

"Difficult to see what your handiwork led to?"

Edelgard turned in her chair, but Byleth wore the same inscrutable expression as always. "If you blame me, say so."

"Mostly I blame Cornelia, Solon, and all the rest of them." She sighed. "I was so angry with you, with the Flame Emperor I mean, when I saw what had happened in Remire. All that talk about how you weren't the same as Solon sounded like so many excuses."

"And now?" Byleth's fury had been palpable that day, a shock after over half a year with a stoic professor. It had hurt, not only in knowing that the wielder of the Sword of the Creator would not be her ally, but also the pain of a silly, infatuated teenager who knew that the woman who filled so many of her daydreams would likely kill her without a second thought if she knew the truth. "You must not hate me now."

"No. I don't hate you. I think that you thought this was the best way. Since I'm happy to make use of all your work conquering the continent, it seems foolish to argue." Her eyes hardened a bit. "It doesn't mean I don't think you miscalculated horribly, but I leave your conscience to decide your guilt."

Her conscience. It wasn't an organ she had considered much in recent years. Once she had decided that the least bloody path was that of burning the corrupt system to the ground, then doing whatever it took to end her necessary war became the only moral law. "Is my conscience another thing you think I haven't managed to burn away?"

"I think that if you had, you wouldn't care so much what I think."

"I've always cared what you think." Fire spread across Edelgard's face. She hadn't meant to say it aloud, but the tumult of the last few days had weakened her self-control. She wished desperately that Byleth would show more emotion or, failing that, that the ground would swallow her whole. Byleth had a knack for discovering the chinks in her armor and slipping through the gaps like a sword. "I—well, I imagine that Claude would say the same. If I have a conscience still, it demands I kill my former allies. So I suppose nothing has changed."

Ingrid entered the tent, sparing her from Byleth's response. Her face was red from exertion and she sketched only the most perfunctory bow. "Scouts have spotted soldiers in Dukedom colors spotted near Traitor's Gap, making straight for the village of Holywell. We have to stop them."

"I know the place." When she had decided to personally force Charon to submit, she had destroyed farms and ordered her men to confiscate as many goods from the villagers as they could carry to force him into battle. In the process she had become much more familiar than she wanted with every thicket and cliff. "It's an easy place to hide from aerial corps until you get to the Gap. You'll need a ground complement." Her hand went to the place Metodey had struck. "I volunteer."

Ingrid stared, then spluttered. "You? You can't be serious."

"I am extremely serious. None of us want this campaign of slaughter to continue." She glanced at Byleth. "I am your sword as well as your shield. Allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience."

That earned her a half-smile. "Well, when you put it that way…"

"You trust her with command? Here of all places? It's a miracle anything in this part of Faerghus is still standing after what she did to it."

Edelgard stood perfectly erect. It was one thing to be forced to lay her insecurities bare in front of Byleth or even Lysithea and quite another for this knightling to keep questioning her. "I have shed blood for Her Majesty. If I remember my tales of chivalry correctly, there is no greater proof of loyalty. I would offer to compare scars, but mine may shock you."

"Enough. I trust you both to cooperate as long as you have a common enemy and a common goal in stopping these atrocities. And I trust you both to rein in your tongues. I created the Flame Corps to unify this army, so you will work together in corralling these soldiers. Do I make myself clear?"

They nodded. At least Ingrid looked as much like a scolded student as Edelgard felt.

"Good. You'll each be taking a battalion. Ingrid, you and the soldiers from Galatea will scout by air. Edelgard, you and Ashe will take the Gaspard knights by land." She tapped her teeth with her fingers. "And I'll bring up the rear with the Imperial Guard. You aren't the only ones looking for a little payback."

Ingrid bowed. "I trust you, Professor."

"Good. I promise this is for the best. Go tell Ashe he's being deployed. Edelgard, a moment?"

Ingrid looked at her questioningly, but left and Edelgard could only stand silent and wait. The silence stretched and grew heavy and awkward. "Thank you for trusting me with this," Edelgard said at last.

"I am trusting you with this, aren't I?" she said as if realizing it for the first time. "Remember that the rest of the army will be watching you, judging whether or not I was a fool to treat you as an ally instead of a prisoner. Give them something to kill their suspicions forever." She winced. "I probably shouldn't have said that. You'll throw yourself in front of a sword again."

She stepped around the table until she and Edelgard stood face-to-face, close enough that Edelgard could hear her soft breaths. Her hand hovered over Edelgard's chest and her latest scar. "Keep yourself safe. I expect us both to return to Garreg Mach and your funeral would completely ruin the victory celebration." Her light, teasing voice cracked a bit. "Please. For my sake."

Edelgard was no closer after all these months to figuring out why her continued survival mattered so much to Byleth or why the coldness had thawed again, but it made her want to promise whatever foolish thing Byleth asked. "I will try," she said and left to find the knights.

Ingrid must have found Ashe already because he and the men of Gaspard were already saddled and prepared to leave. Ashe was thoughtful, but he smiled and nodded when he saw her. The rest of them stared at her coldly from behind their visors. That was fine. She could deal with cold. "I assume that you've been told your mission? Let's go."

"The woman who sacked Holywell now rushes to save it," one of the knights muttered. "The Goddess must have a sense of humor."

Ashe turned back to glare at him. "As if we were any better when we served Rowe."

The land was much as she remembered. Steep hills cut across and hardwood forests that housed enough game for the populace to scrape by when the harvest failed. The trees were all the stronger for Faerghus' harsh winters. This would have been the timber capital of Fódlan if more dared to make the trip, if the glut of scheming nobles concerned only with their own privilege didn't scare off every possible merchant. Another improvement that she would suggest.

Ashe brought his horse alongside her and glanced at the treeline. "The forest seems almost alive here."

"It is a good place for ambushes. Keep your eyes peeled."

"No, I mean that the trees seem alive." He shivered and suddenly seemed much younger than almost twenty-two. "Loog was betrayed here by his own generals. That's how Traitor's Gap got the name. I can almost feel his honor guard looking at me."

"Tricks of light and the mind that Cornelia won't hesitate to use against you. Calm down." Fog swirled around the tree roots, as if nature supported the ghost story. Wind whistled through the branches and bit through her cloak. It was all too easy to conjure images of phantom soldiers in blue, led by a man with wild blonde hair and furs that made him almost leonic. Of archers in black and scarlet surrounded by flame.

No. She would not let shades torment her when there was work to be done.

"Yeah, you're right." He bowed his head. "A grown man scared of ghosts. I'm going to be a lord and there's still so much I don't know. It's got to be easier, being born to ruling and warfare."

"No, mostly it makes us arrogant. Most nobles think they're entitled to rule because of a bit of magic blood." Meanwhile people like Byleth and Ashe himself were left ignorant and untrained, their potential squandered. "Far better to look for the temperament and will to rule and them train them. If I had gotten my way, you would have risen high in the new world. I don't suppose that's a comfort."

"Not really. I still don't understand taxes and duties."

It was a relief when they exited the woods and Edelgard saw flat open land below them. Better than that. Men and women in Dukedom colors were spread before them, racing north. Edelgard looked up and could just make out the dark shadow of a pegasus. She was about to find out whether these knights of Faerghus would obey her command. "Ashe, archers, loose! The rest of you, charge!"

A rain of arrow fell down as she and the knights surged forward. Shouts rang through the air, horses whinnied as their riders were shot out from under them. Edelgard raised her axe. The companies surged together, mixing like paint in the water, elegant formations surrendering to the chaos of battle. They were committed now, both sides, and it would be impossible for either to retreat in good order.

Not that she particularly wanted them to retreat. Cornelia had taken Edelgard's dream of conquest and order and transformed it to cruelty out of spite, and her servants would answer for the atrocities they had carried out. Sweat and dirt caked her face. Her arm burned as she heaved her axe, but she didn't stop. She would not stop until it was Cornelia and Thales' heads at her feet.

Now for the coup de grace. Fire flashed in her hand, bright enough to illuminate the sea of humanity swirling around her. Bright enough for waiting pegasus knights to join the fray. The knights of Galatea rained down, polished silver lances gleaming in the starlight. At their head was Ingrid as Edelgard had never seen her. She was utterly silent as she thrust Luìn again and again. The land glowed red with dark power, as if it were drinking in the blood spilled. Her gaze landed on Edelgard and the lance grew brighter as she gave a hapless sergeant a particularly savage thrust.

Bugles sounded to restore order but it was useless as the Dukedom men turned and fled. Edelgard and the Gaspard knights gave chase and turned their axes, swords, and lances on their retreating foes. Some screamed, half formed pleas for mercy dying on their lips as they were cut down. Their supplies lay strewn across the grass, splattered with blood. Not a chivalrous battle perhaps, but there was no such thing as a storybook war.

Edelgard called for a halt. Her breath came in ragged gasps as sweat poured down her face and neck. Traitor's Gap loomed a short distance away. She frowned. The ravine was narrow and the lose stone's scattering the ground begged for horses to throw their shoes in the darkness. "Better to go in on foot, if they even went this way."

"They did," Ingrid said from behind her. "Five of them at any—ah!"

Edelgard turned. Ingrid was paler than when the battle began, her teeth clenched. A slash cut across her left hand, not life-threatening but deep enough to draw blood. "You should get that looked at."

"It's not a grave injury. It can afford to wait until we're back at camp."

"Not if it gets infected," she said in the tone she had used to terrify recalctriant courtiers. "Her Majesty would have both our heads. At least let me bandage it." She retrieved a pack of bandage cloth from her saddlebag before Ingrid could protest.

Ingrid sighed but followed her a little distance away from their soldiers to give them some privacy. Edelgard's skin prickled. It was the first time she had been alone with a Kingdom soldier other than Ashe. She didn't think Ingrid would kill her—if she had wanted to avenge Dimitri's honor she would have done it already as befitting a true knight—but it still made her uneasy. "Thank you for your help," she said to quell the roiling in her stomach is much as anything. "Your skill with a lance is exceptional. To think your father could think of nothing higher for you than to be traded for gold."

"Don't." Ingrid hissed and Edelgard didn't know if it was in pain or anger. "Don't say that I was exactly the kind of person you were fighting for. My Crest made it harder for me to become a knight, but a knight is all I ever wanted to be. A knight of Faerghus, the land you ravaged and whose king you murdered. I should execute you where you stand."

Her good hand went to her sword, and Edelgard dropped into a fighting stance. Ingrid made a sound low in her throat. "But I won't because I gave my word to Byleth. If you ever make the slightest move against her, I will remember my oaths to Dimitri."

"I see." Edelgard forced her body to relax. "Now that you've gotten that off your chest, give me your hand." She studied her hand in the light of the stars and moon, judging the size of bandage she would need before she opened the pack, drew her dagger and began cutting strips.

Ingrid gasped, forcing Edelgard to look up. What color she possessed had drained from her face as she stared, shivering at the dagger. "You?" she whispered.

"Not you too. I didn't steal it from the body of some noble if that's what you're accusing me of. It was given to me long ago by someone I cared for."

"'Someone you cared for?'" Ingrid repeated incredulously. "You and your soldiers murdered Dimitri, and you don't even have the decency to use his name. We all teased him about giving a girl his favorite dagger, but I never imagined it would be you. Murdering someone who held you so dear? Your depravity knows no bounds."

Edelgard doubled over and his breath left her lungs. Her mind seemed to collapse in on itself as memories that her time beneath the palace clawed to the surface as sharply as if they had happened yesterday.

She and Dimitri stood in the courtyard. His eyes were large and sad. Both of them were too old to cry, but tears formed at the corners of his eyes and she felt the same in hers. "Is it really true that you're going away, El?"

She nodded. Her uncle had come down to breakfast this morning and told her. She had always hated him for taking her away from her father, but his eyes had had a new hardness and, for the first time, she had been afraid of him. "It's all happening so fast. We're leaving right now. I'm supposed already be at the carriage."

"Then..." He unclasped the sheathed dagger at his belt and handed it to her. "I want you to take this. Promise me that you'll use it to cut your own path, El. That you won't lose heart."

Edelgard stared. A dagger, not flowers or a stuffed animal? Dimitri was a strange boy. But he had been her only friend in an even stranger country, kind and gentle even if it had taken him forever to learn how to dance. Hubert was nice, but Dimitri was the first person her own age who had treated her like a normal person.

"Edelgard," her uncle called, "the carriage is waiting."

Edelgard took the dagger. She should say something, do something, but if she did she would cry and try to find King Lambert and beg him to let her stay. So she walked away, swearing she would never forget the boy with the long hair and large eyes.

Her mind threw her back to the present without warning. She had fallen to her hands and knees during the memory, and the ground was hard beneath her. Wind bit through her, even colder than before. There was an unfamiliar coldness near the corners of her eyes. Tears? She hadn't truly cried in years. That part of her had died along with her siblings. The wetness trickled down despite that. She had watched as her bodyguards had stabbed Dimitri and felt nothing but a twinge of emptiness. He hadn't been the stepbrother she had never known, just another tragic victim of Thales and Cornelia. He had been her dearest friend and first love. Now he was dead.

She forced herself to her feet. Ingrid stared at her in shock and horror. Away. She had to get away. She couldn't be seen like this. Couldn't afford to be weak. She staggered forward, but didn't fall. She had to get away from here. Back to the knights she commanded, back to when she was strong. Her legs carried her on as memories of her academy days flashed across her mind. Nodding coldly behind her mask, knowing it was easier if Claude and Dimitri died now. Wondering dryly what punishment the church prescribed for fratricide. Being stupidly relieved when Kostas failed. Barely suppressing a groan when Dimitri told her to be careful before a mission. The shock of seeing him almost feral in the battle for the monastery, and knowing that it was far too late to explain the truth of who he should hate.

The knights stared at her as she returned. Edelgard willed her spine to straighten. She could show no weakness to those so recently enemies. "A handful of stragglers are hiding in Traitor's Gap. I refuse to let them return to Cornelia. I ask for volunteers to help me track them." Depriving one of the authors of Duscar of minions would soothe her wounded mind.

The knights looked at each other. "Are you certain? You look sick," one said.

She made a dismissive gesture. "I am well enough to hunt vermin. Volunteers?"

Four stepped forward, though not the one who had questioned her health, It would do. "Follow me, then," she said with more authority than she felt. "The rest of you, await Her Majesty."

Traitor's Gap reminded Edelgard of Zanado. Even in daylight its grey stone and uneven ground were a hazard to the unwary. The ghosts of memory had followed her here as well. Bernadetta, Dimitri, Dorothea, soldiers in scarlet and black and blue and silver swirled around her. You killed us. We died for you and now nothing is left.

"Silence!" she rasped. "It was war. You knew what you were getting into. I did the best that I could. "

"The best you could?" said a harsh voice that didn't sound at all like the phantoms that haunted her mind. "You have destroyed my country. You murdered my family. Turn and face me, monster!"

Edelgard did turn. One of the men of Gaspard stood before her, his fellows nowhere in sight. His sword gleamed in the light. So at last someone had come for revenge. She felt suddenly very tired. Tired of the blood, tired of memories that she didn't know how to bear, tired of feeling that she had no place in this world. "If you're going to murder me, have the sense to wait until after we liberate Faerghus."

"The blood you shed has been crying out for retribution for years! My wife, my children, my farm! You and the usurper are two of a kind."

Edelgard straightened. She had long ago resigned herself to being hated, but that accusation pierced through enough to wound. Let her be hated for something she had done for once and not for a massacre she had only committed in a delusional dream. "We should be battling Cornelia, not each other. I've never even been to Gaspard."

"Not there. Not there," he muttered. "Here. Count Rowe told us that it was the rebels who burned down Holywell, but I knew he was lying. I just couldn't do anything about it. I was too cowardly."

Holywell. Yes, she had sacked the village. One among many.

"But not anymore. Tonight, the last Emperor of Adrestia dies."

He charged her with a scream that didn't sound human. Just as Kostas had so many years ago. Edelgard's hand closed around the dagger almost of its own accord. She would die in this war, without a doubt, but not some meaningless death at the hands of someone who couldn't tell the difference between her and Cornelia. She waited until he was almost on her then twisted around to jam the dagger between his chest and shoulder. He screamed and roared and staggered back, blood pouring from the wound and on to Edelgard's hand.

Another roar. "I'll kill...kill..."

"No, you won't," Ingrid said from somewhere above her as wings beat. She held her sword in her good hand, the other crudely and hastily bandaged.

"Traitor!"

Boots thudded on the rocks as Byleth and the Imperial Guard appeared. Her eyes were bright even in the darkness as her gaze flew to the dagger and to Edelgard's bloody hand. "What happened? And don't rip the blade from his shoulder. You'll be as likely to kill him as not." Golden light swallowed her hand before drifting off toward the wound. The hole closed as if Edelgard had never struck him and both the knight and the dagger fell to the ground. "I repeat: what happened here?"

Edelgard stood rooted to the spot. The burst of energy had disappeared with the immediate threat, and her legs trembled with the effort of staying on her feet. Memories—Dimitri holding her tightly, the clang of steel on steel—overwhelmed her until she was no longer sure whether she was in the past or present. And she no longer had the energy to fight back.

Byleth took a step forward. "Edelgard?"

That voice had grounded her so many times, but now it wasn't enough. She had remembered too much, seeing too much carnage these last few weeks. Her teeth chattered but no words came out.

The knight stood. "She tried to kill me. She sent the others on ahead, then drew her dagger on me. Said she would finish what she began."

Defend yourself! said some still-functioning part of her mind.

And then, a small quiet voice that sounded suspiciously like Dimitri. Not the Dimitri that had demanded her head but the boy whose shoulder she had cried into and confessed that she just wanted to go home to her father. But what if he's right? What if you killed his family? What then?

"You disgrace yourself," Ingrid said quietly. "You ambushed and tried to murder your commanding officer when you were supposed to be pursuing the enemy. I was worried that Edelgard had gone mad and might endanger her troops, so I followed her. I'm glad I did."

"I see." There was the slightest hint of something in Byleth's voice, the same tone she had used at Remire. "You tried to kill your commanding officer, my agent. You needlessly endangered your mission in the lives of your fellow knights. And for what?"

The knight drew himself to his full height. "There's no point in further deception, then. I did it because this woman is an enemy of Faerghus. She murdered my son, just a boy of six." His voice cracked for the first time. "I did my duty as a father."

"I'm sorry," Byleth said softly. "Truly. But her life isn't yours to take." Her voice and posture changed, no longer Byleth but the Emperor. "By your own confession, I find you guilty of attempted murder, insubordination, endangerment of troops, and assaulting an official. By the customs held throughout Fódlan since time immemorial, I exercise my duty as commanding officer and sentence you to death."

Two of the guardsmen seized him by the arms and dragged him forward as Byleth drew her own steel sword. "Have you anything to say before the sentence is carried out?"

The knight stilled and fixed his gaze on Byleth. "I only tried to do what you should have done. You are no servant of the Goddess because the Goddess rewards justice."

It was over quickly, one thrust and he crumpled to the ground. "Take him away and give him a decent burial. The rest of you, try to find the stragglers. I'll see that Edelgard and Ingrid get the attention they need."

The soldiers left one by one, two of the guardsmen carrying the body out. When the last one left, Edelgard's strength finally failed her and she collapsed against the wall of the ravine. Her breath came in harsh, shuddering pants.

Byleth took Edelgard in her arms. She was warm and solid. "How can I help?"

"Stay," Edelgard choked out, "until I can walk."

And so they clung to each other in the dark as the wind howled through the ravine, carrying echoes of the dead.