The sun peaked over the horizon, bathing the asters in soft light. More of Edelgard's memories of Faerghus were returning. She had been here before, on one of the rare occasions Arundel—the real Arundel—had allowed her to leave Fhirdiad to go riding with Dimitri and King Lambert. Lambert had towered above her, and Edelgard had been a little frightened no matter how much he smiled or praised her horsemanship. She did take the flowers he let her pick back to her room where they had stayed until Thales had plunged her into the abyss.
She wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and made a contemptuous noise in the back of her throat. It seemed all she had done since crossing the border, since Enbarr, was break and force Byleth to save either her body or her mind. The day she had been freed from the dungeon, she had sworn that she would never be weak or caged again, but she had been nothing but weak, caged by her own mind and memory. Her only reason to live was to end Agartha and the hope that Byleth might fulfill some part of her dreams in her stead, but she was becoming a liability, freezing up like that. It was a miracle she hadn't died in the ravine.
She felt rather than heard Byleth approach. Her Majesty wore a plain black officer's uniform with no sign of rank. If one could ignore the uncanny hair and eyes, she could pass for just another soldier. Edelgard could ignore neither, nor the power swirling around her. Even her healing magic felt different, as if she were creating life and strength anew. Not a goddess, but with the same kind of power as the Children of the Goddess who had been happy to fabricate miracles. Except Byleth made no such claims about herself. If all so-called gods were like you, Fódlan would have been very different.
Byleth stood beside her, staring at the sunrise. "We haven't had a chance to talk since...everything. How are you?"
She had barely slept for the last two days, staring at the magical light Lysithea used while memories of the war haunted her. The phantoms accused her of murder and betrayal for the deaths she had caused and for continuing to live too long. But her madness no longer signified. "Don't concern yourself for me, not while Cornelia still sits on her throne."
"It's too late. I'm concerned." She bowed her head slightly. "That dastard almost murdered you. I should have been faster. I should have done a better job screening the Gaspard knights. I should have protected you."
"It's my duty to protect you, not the other way around. Sometimes I think you hold my life too dearly. When the war turned against me, I thought I would force you to kill me, that it would be a more peaceful victory for you and that I couldn't bear watching Adrestia crumble. I think perhaps that I was partially right."
Byleth spun to her and seized her arm. "Edelgard!" she said with something almost like panic. "Don't speak that way. I forbid it."
"Please, Your Majesty. Byleth. Let me finish." She gently pried Byleth's hand away and Byleth let her. "You endanger the crown you wear by treating me as you do. As much as I don't believe in the Goddess, your people do, and yet you go out of your way to protect and heal the chief heretic. How long until they stop believing that the Goddess chose you and your authority dries up because you won't deliver the justice they demand?"
"Let them believe what they want. I will not have you lynched because someone went mad with the desire for vengeance and can't tell the difference between you and Cornelia. You have killed, I know that, but I can't condemn you without—" She froze and started again. "I promise I will guard your life better. You'll get your chance to heal."
No, Byleth had come so close to solving the mystery for her. She wouldn't let it go. "You can't condemn me without what? A confession? I confess that according to the church, I have spent over five-and-a- half years doing things worthy of death. Why does my continued existence matter so much? No, more than my existence. You treat me like royalty still. You soothe my mad spells. Even when you're cold to me, you seem to call me to some version of myself that hasn't existed for years. Why?"
Byleth closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders as if she were in pain. "I can't answer that question. Suffice it to say that I know the Goddess exists and that I'm not worthy to hold that power. All I can do is use it to heal. So if I can help you heal, then I will."
Edelgard gritted her teeth in frustration. "That's a platitude, not an answer."
"It's not a platitude." She met Edelgard's gaze with effort. "I mean it. You've been through a lot because of me. I'll give you anything you ask, short of the crown."
"Careful making promises like that, Your Majesty." She thought briefly, darkly, of asking for death, but Byleth's terrified expression silenced her. She wanted the Agarthans dead, for no more children to suffer the tyranny of a world that worshiped magic blood. She wanted a way to deal with memories and emotions that had been locked away for years. None of that was in Byleth's power to grant. But perhaps she could banish one nightmare. "I would like to go to Holywell, to the ruins of a farm there. I almost died for what I ordered there. I'd like to see how bad it was."
"You think that will help?"
Edelgard shrugged. "Perhaps. I'd rather see what happened there in the light of day. Maybe I can stop some of the more lurid accusations before you have to intervene." Better to see the scars of war in reality than continue to be haunted by things that never had been and crimes she had never committed.
"This isn't a good idea. This isn't remotely a good idea." Her voice softened. "If you feel guilty, there are better ways—"
"Guilt? I haven't felt guilt for years." She was starting to see why Byleth busied herself so much with the counseling box. The urge to tell other people what they were feeling was universal, it seemed. "You promised."
"So I did." She sighed. "If you promise to take someone with you and to be back by nightfall, then you may go."
"I can do it with a fast horse." As for the other stipulation, surely one of Byleth's former students would accompany her?
"I have a scouting mission."
"I'm on healer duty. "
"I ate some bad fish. Have you seen a bucket?"
An hour later, Edelgard stalked through camp. Fate was being its usual self to her. Even the slightest attempt to quiet the voices in her head was being stymied. Maybe she should just confess to every atrocity under the sun. It would save time. Never mind defending herself. She should clearly take after Dimitri and self-flagellate over things she had never done.
"Ugh. Why does being a lord have to involve so many numbers?"
Ashe sat on a log, balancing a heavy tome on his knees. Edelgard smiled despite herself. She had few clear memories of him from their Academy days, but what she did have were of an even smaller boy tackling even larger books. He was having some difficulty from the looks of it. She had always been good with numbers. Perhaps fate was smiling on her after all.
He looked up as she approached. "Edelgard! I'm so, so sorry. Are you okay?"
Once his concern would have seemed unbearably naïve or condescending, but care that was exactly what it seemed was a rare and precious commodity these days. "You have nothing to apologize for." She gestured towards the book. "Having trouble?"
"Oh yes. Gaspard accounts are a real mess, and our lands are in bad need of improvements. Even after reading every book I can find, I still feel like I'm stumbling in the dark."
Here was a chance to get what she wanted and to strike some small blow for merit over blood. "I can explain it to you, if you like. I just need you to do me a small favor in return."
"What kind of favor?"
"I want to go back to Holywell. I want to see the place that I was almost killed for." She braced herself for the same argument Byleth had given her.
But Ashe nodded slowly and solemnly. "Lonato told me that knights had to do terrible things sometimes and that we should make a point of looking at the aftermath. If we couldn't bear to look, maybe it wasn't necessary."
"Hmph." It was the quaintly chivalrous notion of a quaintly chivalrous man of from quaintly chivalrous nation. And it's true. You doubt now, You wish to see if you are the monster they claimed.
They saddled their horses and rode along the same paths they had traveled with the knights a few days prior. There was an eerie stillness in the land by daylight, as if Cornelia had managed to work her dark magic without her minions. Had it been like this when Edelgard had put down the rebellion? She searched her memory and found nothing. It was not that trauma had made her forget, but simply that one farming hamlet was much like another and there was so much death in war.
Perhaps an hour later and with the village itself in sight, they came to what had once been a farm. The fields were half-wild with weeds, felled trees left where they lay in the orchard, pastures grown over and fences broken. There were such scenes all across the length and breadth of Fódlan because the fastest way to force a troublesome noble to surrender was to pauper him and prove him incapable of protecting his subjects. If you were fortunate, you could win without so much as open battle.
But still, it was a terrible thing.
They tied their horses to two of the few remaining trees, and Edelgard drifted toward the ruins of the farmhouse. The roof was half-gone and she imagined she could still smell the smoke. Her men had been thorough. Any surviving furniture had been carted away to use as kindling or raw materials. And yet, there were signs of the people who had lived here: a yellowed prayer book, the pages dog-eared, a silver-plated chain that would still have cost a minor knight a month's salary. Her breath caught. Entirely unremarkable people who had only been attacked because they had been born here and not Adrestia or Gloucester. Unfortunate. Yes, that was the word. Unfortunate.
No it isn't.
She entered the smaller of two rooms on the second floor. The soldiers had either been pressed for time or sloppy because the bed that dominated the center of the room was mostly intact. It was a terribly small bed, too small for an adult. A child's bedroom? Her gaze landed on a toy horse lying forgotten in a corner. She picked it up as if it were made of glass and would shatter into her hand. A child's toy. A child had lived here and died here and his father had tried to kill her because of it.
Children died in war. It was tragic, but it was inevitable. She had accepted that implicitly when she declared war on the church. Her ends had justified the means.
A different toy horse from not so long ago flashed across her mind. "Well, your friends have child-killing down, so that really doesn't help." It wasn't the same. She had been fighting for justice, not out of sadism. All the generations hence that she would save were more important.
You haven't saved anyone.
Edelgard trembled. She had never imagined surviving failure, had never imagined looking at the wreckage except through the lens of her hard-won meritocracy. Certainly, there would be no one to hold her to account. No reason to doubt her own righteousness.
Except she had no new world to offer her victims as recompense. This child, Dimitri, Bernadetta, they had died for nothing. She had regretted all the good she would never do, but she had shied away from one unmistakable truth. Failure meant that the scales could not be balanced. She was not a revolutionary. She was a tyrant. A murderer.
Edelgard fell to her knees as vomit rose in her throat. Murderer. Murderer. She clawed at the wood as tremors became spasms. Murderer. Monster. Her breath came in broken gasps. Murderer. Monster. Demon. A small, pitiful sound escaped her throat. As if the Flame Emperor deserve to be pitied. Her lungs burned in her chest as if they knew they should have stopped working long ago.
"Edelgard? Edelgard!" Gentle hands pulled back her hair. Edelgard flinched away. She had lost the right to gentleness, to anything but the axe or the noose. The hands held her all the same. "Edelgard, you're scaring me."
"Ashe?" she whispered. She had forgotten about him but here he was, watching her break. "You should leave. Come back with guards."
"Guards?"
"For me. I killed the people here."
"I thought the Imperial Army came through?" His hands moved to her shoulders and he tried to pull her to her feet. "Come on. We should be heading back. Byleth will be worried about you. I'm worried about you."
Edelgard laughed, and her breath stank of nausea. "Aren't you listening to me? I ordered their deaths and enslaved your country for no good reason. You should be spitting on me."
"No. No one deserves to be spat on." He pulled her to her feet with surprising strength for someone so lithe. "I know what you did, but I've known it for a long time now. It's not my place to condemn you."
"Aren't you listening to me? I'm responsible for Cornelia."
"And I served a man who served her." His voice was barely audible. "Before that, I was a thief. I would still be a thief and probably worse than that if fate hadn't sent Lonato my way."
"Don't compare us." Edelgard shivered again. He was as pure as driven snow for all his self-doubt, but Ashe did have a point. She should return to Byleth. As protective as she had been of Edelgard, she had been disgusted by her plans to take the harvest. She had wanted Edelgard feel guilt. Well, she did. Byleth was supposed to wield the power of the Goddess. Let her earn her accolades for once and sit in judgment.
Somehow, she stayed on her horse as they made their way back to the camp. Byleth was waiting for them, the barest hint of relief on her face. "You're back." Her gaze landed on Edelgard, and her color drained. "What happened?"
"She saw a burned down farmhouse. I think it broke her. "
Byleth strode toward them and drew Edelgard unresisting from her horse. "You're shivering." She unfastened her cloak and threw it over Edelgard, pulling her close so that Edelgard could lean on her. Soldiers stared at them as they passed, but Byleth seemed entirely indifferent and Edelgard's mind raced without going anywhere, horror and shame drowning out all else. Byleth led her to the Imperial tent and sat her in a chair. "I'll make tea."
Tea? After all this? "No. You don't understand. I saw what I did to those people. My war was supposed to create a better world, but it didn't. I'm just another warlord. A murderer." Her breath hitched. "I accept whatever punishment you deem fitting."
She had enough pride left to keep her gaze on Byleth. Byleth took a deep breath, but her inscrutable expression never wavered. No hatred. No disgust. No anything. "I suppose you could clean out the stables. No one likes doing that."
Edelgard gaped. "I am admitting that I'm the monster Rhea paints me as and you wish to treat me as if I spoke out of turn in class. Fódlan ran red with blood because of me."
Byleth tilted her head to one side. "Yes? That's why we had to fight a war to stop you. I couldn't very well let you take over the Alliance, and I shudder to think what you would have done to the faithful if you been allowed to. But you have been stopped, I find it extremely doubtful that anyone will take up your mantle anytime soon, so I see no need for further action on the matter."
Her even, slightly confused tone undid Edelgard almost more than condemnation would. "But I admit it. There's no longer any excuse to coddle me. You know what I am."
"I always did. You were the woman who started a war for a good reason, who assisted with desecrating the dead, and who provided aid and comfort to the people who murdered my father and who tortured the woman who is the nearest thing I ever had to a mother. That is what you are just now realizing?"
Edelgard nodded weakly.
Byleth smiled her sad, weary smile and took a half step forward. "Edelgard, if I thought you deserved to die for any of that, I would have split your skull open in Enbarr and Rhea and Seteth would have thanked me for it. But I never wanted you dead. I don't even want you to feel pain."
Fire burned in her chest, and Edelgard wished the tears had not been cut out of her so long ago. She had never liked debt and crimes could not go unpunished, especially not crimes so grave and public. "Why? Why do you refuse to condemn me?" Byleth said nothing, and Edelgard reached for her hand. "Why do you treat me as someone to save and protect if you know what I am?"
They stared at each other, the only sound Edelgard's harsh breathing. Byleth closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, the power was gone. She was no longer the hope of a religion, but a mercenary scarcely older than Edelgard. "Because if someone like you who had the best intentions can't be saved…" Even her voice sounded younger and weaker. "...then what hope is there for me?"
Edelgard could only watch as Byleth buried her face in her hands. "You know that I was a renowned mercenary. You may even know that I was called it the Ashen Demon. But do you know why?" And slowly, in a monotone, she told the story of her company being set upon by a group of rebels. Of tracking them down and of burning down their village and hearing the civilians scream. "I told myself that I was simply doing the most efficient thing to counter a threat, but looking back I think I was feeling my first emotion: the desire for revenge. I would have stayed that way if I hadn't stumbled on you in Remire. If I'm a good person now, it's only by miracle. And because of you."
"Byleth." She could think of nothing else to say. She reached for Byleth's hand and found it this time, cold, clammy and shaking as they both were. Byleth shivered, but she didn't pull away. This was the woman she had fantasized about for a year and the woman who had defeated her. She had always seemed so unflappable, so powerful that Edelgard couldn't even dent her. But she was only a woman, with scars and guilt and regrets the same as anyone. Someone who could be hurt and who needed protecting as much as Edelgard did.
"So that's why. I've never seen someone as remarkable as you, and I don't mean your Crests. Your charisma, your strength, your courage. We are monsters, you and I, and the blood will never come off our hands. Maybe we deserve to die, but I somehow got the powers of a progenitor god instead. So I think we should use our unnatural luck to make the world better." She swallowed. "Or I suppose you could tell the world what I've done and knock the crown from my head. They wouldn't follow me if they knew what I was."
Edelgard shook her head and looked down at their intertwined hands. She had always felt a pull toward Byleth that even infatuation couldn't explain and in her more cynical moments, she had chalked it up to another way that Crests had taken a choice from her. But it was not magical blood or destiny that bound them together. It was like recognizing like. The emperor who wanted to change the world and had become a monster and the monster who became emperor and wanted to change the world. "I'll follow you. And I will try to make use of the life you spared to help you build that better world."
She wasn't sure which of the moved first, but the next thing Edelgard knew, she and Byleth were holding each other. She buried herself in the warmth of Byleth's neck and raked her nails over the planes of her shoulders. She and Byleth were broken, scarred mortals. But there was more comfort and strength in her than in all the plaster saints the world demanded. And this? It wasn't her childish fantasy, with love notes and white garlands. But this, this was what she had wanted even when she had had no name for it. To be held like this and feel safe, for someone to see all the ugly parts of her, even the parts she wouldn't acknowledge, and not turn away. To have one person who was her equal. And now, broken and diminished as she was, she had found her.
And she had no idea what to do next.
But Byleth pulled back, smiling again. "Thank you. Just...thank you, Edelgard."
"Whatever for?"
Byleth tucked an errant strand of hair behind Edelgard's hair by way of answer. "You've had a long day. Tomorrow, perhaps you and I can figure out our first steps together?"
She looked almost shy and Edelgard could do nothing but nod, bewildered. She exited the tent and blinked against the sudden light. Redemption was an even quainter notion than chivalry. Byleth was right. There was no washing the blood from their hands. Some day the bill would come due for all the lives Edelgard had taken. She knew with more certainty than ever that the battle against Agartha would mean her death. But until she was called upon to give her life, she would do what she could to improve the world. Not as a crusader, but by using her gifts in service of those she had meant to raise up.
Ashe sat on the same log, still studying the same book. She had promised to explain estate accounting to him, hadn't she? It wasn't fair restitution for all she had done, but there was no fair restitution. She cleared her throat.
He jumped up as if she were a ghost. "Edelgard. Are you...better?"
"As close as anyone gets." She sat beside him and looked over at his shoulder at the rows of numbers. "I believe I promised you a lesson."