Edelgard had heard of funerals where wine flowed as freely as tears, but this may have been the first time water was the drink most in demand. Byleth had given a lovely speech memorializing everyone who had given their lives in the battle in general and Caspar and Ferdinand in particular. The bodies were even now on their way back to Adrestia for a proper burial. It had been as solemn as it should. Now, the common soldier wanted to celebrate living.

Edelgard stood in the darkest corner of the abandoned mansion that served as a command post and barracks, wishing desperately for her cloak and hood to hide her hair. She watched as soldiers sang bawdy songs and passed around mugs of fresh water. One dumped it over his head and his friends laughed, so glad were they all to be off rationing. To have won.

It still felt unreal.

"You don't have to stand here by yourself, you know."

Edelgard turned to see Lysithea glaring at her with her arms crossed and Ashe standing sheepishly at her side. "What she means is may we join you?"

Edelgard's face warmed. Having friends and from among her former enemies also felt unreal, but she wasn't inclined to question her good fortune. Instead she moved so they could huddle together, the three of them in their own private world, away from the glares of those who wished her dead.

"We won! Edelgard, we won!" Lysithea didn't raise her voice, but she took Edelgard's hands and squeezed them. "Cornelia's dead and those rats don't rule anything besides their hole in the ground. Soon they won't have that."

Ashe's eyes went wide, though he was careful to keep his voice down. "You found them?"

"I can't say anything yet."

Which meant they had. Edelgard's legs wobbled and she leaned against the wall to stay upright. Claude had the location of the Agarthans. The nightmares she had lived for half her life would soon be over. No one would suffer as she and Lysithea had and Edelgard's silent oath would be fulfilled. Her siblings would not have died in vain. "It'll be over. We'll be free."

"For whatever time we have." A shadow passed over Lysithea's face. "I only wanted to make the world safe for my parents and let my brothers and sisters and rest in peace. I don't know how to spend a year or two of peace."

"Start by refusing to believe that it will only be a year or two. You aren't dead yet." Edelgard allowed herself a small smile. "You told me once that I wasn't allowed to die yet. Well, neither are you. Promise me that you won't give up. "

"I—I won't. I promised the professor the same thing after Gronder. But still, to have a life of my own after so long...what are you going to do now, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I don't know." Even as emperor she had had a half formed idea that her heart would give out the moment Fódlan was stable enough to hand to her successor. She still expected to meet some fitting end defeating Agartha. The tyrant who had shed so much blood wasn't allowed to spend the rest of her life gorging on sweets.

Ashe cleared his throat. "You could come with me. Both of you. The professor took me aside before the funeral. I'm being made Count Rowe. I'll need all the help I can get."

"You'll be master of Arianrhod?" The Silver Maiden's walls had never been breached, and the city it protected was the second largest in the Kingdom and more beautiful than any city besides Enbarr. With Rodrigue and his family dead, Ashe would be the second-most powerful noble in the former Kingdom and one of the most powerful in a united Fódlan. "Quite the accomplishment. I told you that you would rise high."

"But I don't know anything about being a count. I don't even know how to run Gaspard. All I ever wanted was to be a knight and to...to look after the cat Caspar and I found." His breath hitched and he looked suddenly terribly young and vulnerable. "All I want is him and everyone else in the Blue Lions and Lonato and Cristophe back."

Edelgard still didn't know how to handle those who insisted on grieving by wishing for what they couldn't have. "That will never happen. Honor their memory and try to do what would make them proud."

He exhaled. "Lonato wouldn't want me to abandon the people. And someone has to make sure Mr. Furry is fed. I guess that makes me a aount. So will you come? Rowe has always had a court mage and you ran a whole country. I can't think of anyone better to be my steward."

"Someone who your peasants won't want to hang from the nearest tree, for a start." There was a part of her that wanted to say yes. She wanted a second chance to put all her training to good use after she had squandered it in her desperation. it would be a quiet post, far from bloodshed. Among those who wanted her around. "You know what I did and you would still have me? Either of you?"

Lysithea made a derisive noise in the back of her throat. "Of course we would. You're our friend."

Friends. Like Casper and Ferdinand. Like Bernadetta and Dorothea. Except that they hadn't had to die for her to figure out what they were to her. "Would you do me an honor then? Call me El. It's what my family and dearest friends called me when I was younger."

"You're sure?"

"I can think of only one other person I'd want to call me that."

"Okay Edel—El!" Ashe flushed crimson down to his neck. "That'll take some getting used to, but I'm sure I'll have it straight by the time we leave for Arianrhod. "

"I haven't agreed yet." There was a part of her that wanted to, true, but a part of her that resisted. Arianrhod was a week's ride from the monastery, worse when the weather was bad. Edelgard didn't want to be so far away from Byleth. Maybe she should be kinder to those who wanted what they couldn't have. "Give me time. And think about finding someone to serve you who won't damage your reputation."

"There you are!"

Hilda stumbled towards them. Her cheeks were flushed and she smelled of drink. Of course someone would still want the alcohol and of course it would be her. She gestured wildly before settling for clapping Edelgard on the shoulder. "The professor nearly threw Faerghus away over you. The least you can do is join the party."

"Pardon?"

"Well, you're just standing here sulking."

"Not that." Edelgard resisted tapping her foot and was reminded why she had never liked Hilda in school. "The part about Her Majesty nearly throwing Faerghus away."

"Oh that? Well, one of the guards heard her and Margrave Gautier yelling at each other. He said that she could only be his queen if she executed you. She said she wouldn't and got really angry about it."

"Oh." And once again Byleth took a foolish risk to save her life. It didn't mean anything, no matter how much her traitorous heart pounded. This time she had been willing to jeopardize the unification that they all had dreamed of for so long. "Someone should tell her that one life doesn't matter when the continent is at stake. Especially my life."

"I'm not surprised. She was always rushing into battle to save us. I got exhausted just watching her. And for you? Can I tell you a secret? You have to promise not to tell anybody."

Edelgard nodded. The girl was so drunk she would probably tell her that Byleth was actually a pink elephant.

Hilda leaned in and dropped her voice to an exaggerated whisper. "She's been in love with you for years."

Edelgard braced herself against the wall. She could not have heard that correctly. Or it was some kind of twisted joke. She looked at Ashe and Lysithea, and her legs threatened to give out entirely. They didn't have the faces of people hearing a joke. They looked like people hearing something that they had always known.

"From the first moment that she saw you, she said," Hilda said as if she wasn't turning Edelgard's world upside down. "You should have seen her at the ball. We all took bets on whether she would work up the nerve to ask you to dance. I lost a lot of money!"

Edelgard worked her jaw. She wanted to scream at them all that Byleth couldn't be so stupid as to fall in love with someone like her, but her voice wasn't working. Her memory was. Byleth looking sad and almost tender before she offered Edelgard her hand. Byleth nearly drawing her sword against Rhea. Byleth giving her chance after chance and trusting her with her own horrific past. Things that had seemed inexplicable from a pragmatic point of view. But now…

Oh. Oh. Oh.

"What's going on here?" Byleth's voice cut through the air.

They all froze, even Hilda. Edelgard wasn't sure if she wanted to run towards Byleth or disappear through the floor. The emperor-now-queen walked to them, subtle confusion on her face. "Am I interrupting something? You all look like the cat who got the canary."

"Er, no. No canaries here." Ashe ran a finger around his collar. "I've never even seen one."

"All right then." Byleth shifted uncomfortably. "Edelgard? I was wondering if I could have a word in private."

In private? She looked from Byleth to Hilda and back again. She's been in love with you for years. Edelgard swallowed. All the sieges, all the battles she had survived seemed infinitely less terrifying than this moment. "If you like." What else could she say?

"Sure." Hilda grinned at them both. "We'll just make sure that nobody bothers you and you can have your little rendezvous. Come on, it looks like we've got guard duty."

"What is going on with them?" Byleth asked and then shook her head. "Never mind. I'll get it out of Lysithea later. Do you mind following me? This really isn't the place for what I need to say."

Edelgard nodded mutely. Byleth took her by the hand. Heads turned but Edelgard could only focus on the hammering of her heart and the warmth of Byleth's skin. They went down hallways and up flights of stairs, never speaking. Edelgard tried to contain the malestorm of emotions fighting for dominance within. Byleth in love with her. Still. Now. Just as her own feelings had never quite faded. Her cheeks burned. She wished she had known sooner before she had done so much she couldn't take back. She wished Byleth had chosen the Black Eagles. She wished that she had been brave enough to ask Byleth for a dance or to throw herself at her feet after Jeralt's death. And she wished she had some idea what to do with the revelation now.

Byleth forced open a trapdoor and led Edelgard onto the roof. Cold wind brushed her cheeks and played across loose strands of hair. The previous owners had installed a rooftop garden, and there were a few dead or dying flowers still visible, but the thing that made Edelgard's breath catch in her throat was the view. Thousands upon thousands of stars shined over the dark streets of the city and silvered Byleth's skin as she walked towards the open space in the center. She looked older, wistful, like a painting of a goddess. Not the tripe that the church commissioned, but something older and more powerful, tinged with loss.

The silence stretched on. "It was a fine eulogy," Edelgard said because it was true and because it was safe.

Byleth bowed her head. "I lost them. They were my students and my responsibility, and I lost them."

"Blame Cornelia. Blame me if you must. They died protecting me."

"Ah, Edelgard. I could never blame you for anything." She raised her head and turned to her. "I thought I had lost you too, and it almost broke me. There are things I have to tell you, things I should have told to long before now."

Her voice was so raw, so very earnest, the perfect knight pledging herself to her ladylove. "Don't," Edelgard whispered. "Don't say you're in love with me. A queen can't love a monster."

"But I do. And I'm a monster too." Her footsteps sounded on the stones. She put two fingers under Edelgard's chin and lifted her head to meet her gaze. Those brilliant green eyes were soft, pleading, as if it was Edelgard who had the power to break her. "I thought I fell in love with you when you came barreling out of the woods, but now the truth is that I think I fell in love with you bit by bit from that day in Enbarr. I love you, Edelgard von Hresvelg, exactly as you are now. And, Goddess, please say something."

"But I, the people would never accept it."

"I'm not asking them. If you don't feel the same way, tell me and I'll never mention it again. But if you're only afraid…" Her hands trailed down Edelgard's arms to lace their fingers together. "I want something just for me in all this suffering. You. And there's nothing I won't face if it means I can keep you."

She ought to lie. Byleth deserved someone sweeter and with no sharp edges or complications. Even as emperor, Edelgard couldn't have offered her that. It would be selfish, so unaccountably selfish, to put her desires first. But the words stuck in her throat and instead she threw herself at Byleth. Strong arms came around her and held her close as Edelgard shuddered with silent cries.

"Shh. Shhh. I'll keep you safe," Byleth murmured as she stroked Edelgard's hair. "You don't know how long I've wanted to hold you like this."

"I like it." Edelgard burrowed closer. Maybe this was all a fever dream and she would wake to find the real Byleth had killed her. But... "If this is a dream, I hope that I never wake."

"Me neither. But it's real. I'll show you." She eased back and brought Edelgard's head up once more. Her lips brushed against her. It was almost painfully chaste, and her lips were cracked and cold. Byleth didn't seem to know what to do with her hands, moving them almost desperately from her cheeks to her arms to her back. Still Edelgard trembled.

Byleth pulled back, flushing in the moonlight. "Was it all right? I've never kissed anyone before. "

"It was fine, my darling. More than fine." She braced herself against Byleth's shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss her herself. She was keenly aware of her own relative inexperience and the overpowering need to make this good for Byleth. She slid her mouth gently over hers, taking the time learning the outline of her mouth. Byleth gasped and let her in. Edelgard pushed down the surge of wildness that threatened to spiral through her. She would not rush this. They had dreamed of this for years. She could afford to luxuriate.

She wasn't sure how long they spent like that just kissing, pausing for breath only to begin again. But at last, they were sated for the moment. Byleth's hair was a mess and her lips were slightly swollen. It was a sight Edelgard would treasure until the day she died. She pillowed her head on Byleth's shoulder and enjoyed her stroking everything that she could reach. "You're so warm."

"A goddess, an Emperor, a queen. Now I'm a heater. I must be multitalented."

Edelgard stiffened. She had almost forgotten why she had resisted. This was a beautiful idyll, but the real world with all its politics awaited below. "This won't be easy. Even the people who don't care that you're in love with the Flame Emperor would happily use it against you."

"Then we'll be discreet. If that's what you want. I can blame you if you'd rather have someone who can acknowledge you."

Edelgard laughed despite herself. If there was one thing she was prepared for, it was life where love had to be subordinate to the state. She had spent her life as Imperial Princess and Emperor knowing that her marriage would be as cold and loveless as her father's to his empress. Being the mistress, following in her parents footsteps, didn't sound so bad. "I can bear it if you can. But could you do one thing for me?"

"Anything."

"Call me El."

"El," Byleth whispered as if her name were a prayer. She peppered Edelgard's face with kisses until she was left gasping and desperate. "El. El. El. My El. My love."