Leo stargazes. Corrin faces another challenge.

Leo wasn't sure exactly how he and Corrin had ended up sprawled in the courtyard with the cold stars winking high above them. They'd met for their weekly discussion, him reporting the progress he'd made in investigating the wards, which was none, and her detailing the advances she'd made towards controlling her power, which were numerous, but it had ended quickly and now they were here bracing the wind and the chill to stare up into the night sky. If he squinted, he could almost imagine they were back at the Northern Fortress, having snuck past the guards and Gunter to marvel up at the stars.

"That one's called the Maiden," he said. Each constellation he named, he pointed out with his index finger, giving the glowing figures their form. Corrin cooed as he traced a cluster of seven stars peeking out from the spire atop the fortress.

"And there's the Leviathan."

He pointed to wide swath of stars, twenty-four of them in total, that curled together to form the mythical beast. Her lack of response turned his head. She stared up, but her nose was scrunched in gentle distaste. She turned to him. The tip of her long ear brushed against the dirt.

"That one's kinda ugly," she said.

"You're kinda ugly," he retorted. They were both thirteen. Harsh insults were their deepest form of affection.

She snickered.

"You look like the Troll!" she said, tracing a rough outline of the constellation and then bursting into rambunctious laughter. Leo shushed her, but he was giggling so it came out like a wheeze.

A window near them suddenly blazed. Leo squashed his hands over his mouth. Corrin bit down on her fist. Both their shoulders shook with silent laughter. Leo's belly hurt. His face was streaked with tears. He never wanted to leave her side or forget the laughs and the fun he had only with her.

But the stars were different here. The Maiden and the Leviathan and the Troll were nowhere to be seen in the inky expanse. Sometimes, he'd look into the night and his eye would trick him into seeing the Exalt or the Ranger but, after he'd blinked, they were always just inscrutable formations. He had always taken the constellations he'd known for granted. Now that they were gone, he was untethered.

They were the one thing that convinced me of mother's humanity, he thought and then, Maybe that's why I miss them so much.

He was six when they'd dragged his mother to the gallows. Sedition was the charge. He'd been too young to understand the things she'd done, the children she'd murdered. She was relentlessly cold and unnecessarily harsh, but she'd taught him to make shapes of the stars.

I still loved her when she was executed.

Leo turned to stare at Corrin rather than dwell in the past. She bore little resemblance to the stout girl who frequented his memories. Her face, once so chubby and rotund, had waned to a scaffolding of delicate curves. The mess of tangles and snarls that had cost her many lectures from Camilla was now a river of silver stretching out from her scalp. Her lips had once seemed too small within the scope of her plump face, but now were full and bowed.

We're not thirteen anymore, Leo thought but then he was saying, "You know, I heard they modelled the Crone after you."

He watched her eyes flash in indignation. He snickered. Lazy recollection drifted across her face. Then, her features sharpened. She chuckled, saying, "Prick."

The moon was only a crescent overhead. He didn't know if that meant anything important. He knew that new moons represented rebirth, but that was the extent of his lunar knowledge. Camilla was into star signs and lunar phases, but he couldn't stand to listen to her ramble about it. When he told her as much, she would tsk, "Such a Cancer!"

He turned his head in the brown grass to stare at the winking lights from the windows of the fortress. The entire stone façade had been bright with dazzling candlelight when they'd first ventured out into the elements, but now only a few windows boasted the glamour of artificial yellow and orange. It was quiet.

A month had passed since the dragon had ravaged the camp. Corrin had begged him to say it had broken through the wards, but it hadn't. It had come from within, Leo was certain it had, but she wouldn't say why she was defending it or who it was.

And I didn't press her, Leo thought. I trust her.

He glanced at the icy breath crackling in the sky above her and then amended, I think.

Corrin met his eye and then shifted in the brittle grass. She brought her palms hard and fast over her arms. She shivered.

"Do you want to go inside?" he asked. It wasn't the first time he'd asked. She shook her head.

He had a theory about why she wanted to stay in the cold, but it was another theory of his that had driven them out into the cold to begin with.

It was a rough theory, borne of late nights and dubious research, but it wasn't a bad theory. He had formulated it in only a few hours after translating a passage from a book that'd he'd found collecting cobwebs atop one of the shelves in the archives.

As he sped to his room, clutching the book in one hand and his notes in the other, he exuded untampered eagerness. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so accomplished.

Probably when I used Brynhildr for the first time with vomiting, he thought as he banked around the final corner before his bedroom. He glanced at the setting sun and then hastened his pace.

I'm going to be late.

He arrived at his room moments later to discover that he had been beaten there. The door was cracked. He nudged it open.

Corrin stood before the window, staring out into the courtyard and flexing her arms. Platerd armor appeared and disappeared across her hands and forearms as she did so. Leo froze in the doorway, marveling at her control.

She'll have it mastered soon, he thought.

"Corrin," he greeted, but she did not turn. He said her name again. Still, she ignored him. His eagerness flushed into wickedness. He crushed his notes in his hand. Then, he lobbed the crumpled paper.

It hit her in the back of her head. She whirled around, burying one scaly hand into her hair to touch where the paper had hit. As she glared at him, he announced, "The Vallites practiced necromancy."

Corrin stared. There was no trace of armor on her arms.

Leo moved to his desk in the corner of his room. He slammed the book onto the table and then flipped to the pages he'd dogeared and scribbled on. Corrin came to his side. She laid the crumpled paper beside the open book.

"I can't read that," she admitted. She was biting her lip again. She bit it so often now that the skin beneath it was constantly pink. Leo couldn't fault her for it. His nails were practically nonexistent.

"That's fine," Leo said. Then, he shut the book with a bang. He grabbed the paper ball and then smoothed it out so that it was wrinkly but flat. She leaned around his shoulder to peer at the note. He watched her face crinkle.

"Do you know anything about necromancy?" he asked.

"Um, I know that it's bad."

He nodded enthusiastically and then said, "Yeah, it's really dark stuff. Iago tampered with it to create the Faceless, but that was more of a transference than a resurrection and—"

He could tell that he'd lost her. She pretended to understand, but she always scratched at the back of her hand when she was confused. She'd done it ever since they were children. He backtracked.

"Okay, so that passage I just showed you discusses the failure on the part of ancient Nohrian sorcerers to mimic what they called 'revival rituals' but revival can also be translated as resurrection depending on the inflection on the—"

Corrin's eyes were squinted. Her nails scritch-scratched across the thin skin beneath her knuckles.

Focus!

"Anyway, this says that because of the sorcerer's strong religious convictions, they failed to resurrect the only heir to the throne."

"Religious convictions?" Corrin intoned. Leo nodded and then he said, "This postulates that those performing the ritual have to invoke the silent god."

"Anankos," Corrin breathed. The back of her hand was red with thin, crisscrossing scratches.

"Yes. It stands to reason that the thralls we face now are a result of Anankos' degradation and a bastardization of his most sacred power."

Leo tapped at his notes where he'd written "thralls equal degradation" several times over and then circled multiple times in a fit of realization. He turned to Corrin. She stared through the wall before them. She asked, "The Dawn and Dusk Dragons… they couldn't raise the dead?"

He shook his head.

"No. They had their respective powers, but neither could reach across the veil."

Corrin was silent for a long while. Leo opened the book. There was a passage that articulated the limitations of the Dawn and Dusk Dragons much better than he could. He scoured his hastily scrawled marginal notes for the translation, but Corrin spoke before he could locate it.

"So, is Anankos responsible for me?"

"For you?"

"For me still being alive."

He stared at her. He hadn't meant to lead them down this path. He hadn't done enough research to make a conclusion.

But she deserves to know what I do.

He admitted, "I'm not… I'm not sure. It's possible, all the elements are there."

"Elements?"

"According to this—"

He laid his hand flat against the book's yellowing pages. They were brittle, resisting his touch.

"The ritual could only be performed in very specific scenarios and, well, you were resurrected at dusk, your, uh, death had been unjust, you had been dead for less than twenty-four hours, Lilith loved you selflessly—"

"Lilith?" Corrin interrupted. Her voice was thunderstruck.

Leo shrugged, but immediately regretted it. He knew Lilith's death had been hard for Corrin, even if she'd only mentioned it in passing. Leo swallowed his blunder and then explained, "She died under mysterious circumstances and, out of everyone, she's the only one I'd say even knew it was possible."

Corrin had been silent for a long while after that. It had been his idea to venture beneath the stars, wanting to give her space to process everything he'd dumped on her, but not wanting to leave her side. He had never been good with the emotions of others. He'd locked his down so deep that he seldom acknowledged them.

Beside him, Corrin jolted upright. He startled and then he heard the crunching grass and the encroaching footsteps. He sat up.

Silas walked towards them. His slicked cowlick glinted in the moonlight. While he drew nearer, Leo watched as Corrin, who had previously been a solemn statue of sullenness, contorted her face into a demure smile. Leo scowled. Silas stopped just before Corrin's outstretched legs.

"Corrin, there's a situation that requires your attention," Silas said. Then, he turned to Leo, looked him over once, and then announced, "You should come too. It's not good."

As Silas led her and Leo across the courtyard, the night air was especially harsh on Corrin's skin. The temperature had been steadily dropping all week, but it still hadn't prepared her for the bitter cold that it heralded. Every inch of her was numb. She shivered incessantly as she walked, but it did little to warm her.

"One of the soldiers attacked the others in her patrol," Silas announced. "Then she walked into the barracks and confessed."

Leo cursed. Corrin swallowed thickly and then asked, "Where is she now?"

Silas pointed ahead of them to the squat, black building.

"Chained up in the jail."

"And the soldiers she attacked?"

"Three of them died from their wounds, but one of them in in the infirmary right now. The healers said it doesn't look like they'll pull through."

"Gods," Corrin breathed. Frosted grass crunched beneath the soles of her boots. They pinched her toes together, forced her into an uneven gait, and muted the feel of the earth underfoot, but Jakob had made too many good points about the dangers of frostbite for her to forsake them.

And they make me taller, she thought. So they can't be all that bad.

"Why did she confess?" Leo asked from beside her. His words were directed for Silas, who stood on the opposite side of her, so he shouted them across her.

"I don't know, but there's something… off about her," Silas said. "It's best if I just let you see for yourself."

Corrin brought her hands together and then raised them to her mouth, spewing a cloud of hazy vapor over them. It made no difference. Her fingers were brittle icicles that crept their cold up into her arms.

Silas nudged her with his elbow and then offered his gloves to her. She shook her head. They were almost to the jail. Leo kept glancing at her like he expected her to burst into tears. His eyebrows were drawn together and his face was grooved with worry lines. She ignored him. He'd been doing it all night since they'd set out to stargaze.

Corrin didn't know what to do with the information Leo had given her so she didn't do anything with it. It sat in the epicenter of her thoughts, anchoring the swirling mess of her consciousness to a pulsating, rattling unknown. If there was anything she knew for certain, it was that Lilith deserved better.

There's always something.

Tranquility seemed a foreign concept to Corrin. Her days were plagued with constant stress ever since Kana's untimely transformation. She feared he'd be outed as a freak or she'd be discovered obscuring the truth or another dragon would make an appearance. Every passing hour, the truth seemed harder to conceal.

Kana clung to her relentlessly despite her attempts to shoo him away. Even now, shrouded in the dark and cold, Corrin half expected him to come flying out of the trees, waving his hand-me-down dragonstone aloft for everyone to see. She had pressed Siegbert, who she had pegged as the leader of the bunch, for the truth about Kana's origins and, when that inquiry had proved fruitless, she had proceeded to question the other three, but their stories were all the same and all too rehearsed. She had long doubted their stories, but had foolishly let it slide. Now that it mattered, all the idiosyncrasies seemed all the more sinister. Their forged weapons, their extensive training, and the high-borne language they all, except notably Shiro, used had all seemed odd quirks until Siegbert and Shiro had tried to corral a rampaging dragon without concern for their own wellbeing.

They know he has the same ability I have, Corrin thought. And they know I know.

Corrin always felt like she was treading water but her legs were tiring and her head kept bobbing beneath the waves. Every new problem that arouse threatened to submerge her entirely.

Maybe this will be the thing that sinks me, Corrin thought as she nodded to the guards keeping watch outside the jail. They stepped away from the doors and then Silas opened the door, holding it for her. She muttered her thanks as she entered into the warmth. He smiled at her, but she nearly missed it as the thaw set into her fingers.

The entryway of the jail was empty besides Gunter and Ryoma. Ryoma leaned against the wall with his head hung low. Gunter stood rigidly beside him. They both stared at her.

"It's about time you found her," Gunter said. Corrin watched Silas' eyes slant, but he inclined his head, saying, "Apologies, sir."

"Has she given any reason?" Corrin asked. Gunter shook his head.

"She's said nothing beyond demanding to speak with you."

Corrin scowled and then curved her neck to peer down the hallway lined with iron bars. She stiffened her fingers while her blood grew thick with dread and unease as the soundlessness persisted. She turned to her brother.

Why is he here?

Ryoma caught her questioning eye. He said, "She was one of mine. As were the others she attacked."

Processing his answer, Corrin watched Leo thrum his fingers against his crossed arms. The sound of it was dull and muted.

"Why does she want to speak with me?" she asked, crossing her own arms.

"She seems to be under the influence of something," Gunter announced.

"Drugs?" Corrin asked at the same time Leo's face flashed with a spark of something wild. She expected him to air his concerns, but he said nothing. He only turned to stare down the foreboding hallway with a grimace.

"All my years on patrol through the Midnight Quarter, I never saw anybody act the way she did when we brought her in," Silas said with a shake of his head.

You worked in the Midnight Quarter? Corrin nearly asked, intrigued that he had never thought to mention his years patrolling the most dangerous and deadliest section of Windmire, but thought better of it. She looked at him and she thought, What else don't I know about you?

Silas mistook her intrigue for concern. He smiled at her, seeming to assure with his sparkling eyes, Don't worry. It wasn't as bad as you think.

Behind her, the door inched open, ushering in a swell of frigid air. Then, Sakura peeked through the opening. Sweat-slicked wisps of hair stuck to her forehead. She smelled of antiseptic and iron.

"Haruno's dead," Sakura announced to them all. Then, she lowered her head and murmured, "I'm sorry, brother."

Ryoma's expression darkened, and then he cursed, peeling himself from the wall and then moving for the door. As he walked past her, he said, "Forgive me, I need to tell the family."

Then he was gone. Sakura turned to follow with a squeak of, "I should return to the infirmary," but Leo commanded, "No. Stay."

Sakura startled mid-step, her shoulders jerking up by her ears, and then she fell still. Her face was placid, but a faint blush rose from her throat, creeping into her cheeks. She bowed to Leo, acknowledging his command, but it was obvious to Corrin that his tone had made her highly uncomfortable.

"Well, let's go see what this is all about," Corrin announced, injecting false cheer and pep into her voice.

"I'll stay behind to keep the rabble away," Gunter said with a gruff nod to the closed doors. The others gave no similar objections, breaking apart to allow her to lead the way. She took charge without thought. The burden of leadership had long worn its groove into the slope of her shoulders. She was beginning to grow accustomed to its weight.

She passed the first cell without incident, but then, there came a ripping, metallic jangle from the end of the corridor. It echoed as she stilled, but it hesitated to restate itself. Silas swore. She turned to find him steadying himself against the wall, a hand splayed across his chest.

"Sorry," he said with a sheepish grin. She returned his smile, but failed to say anything as another crash sounded. She jerked towards the sound even as it stung at her ears. Each step she took nearer increased its tempo to a steady, pulsating rattle that haunted the corridor. The other inmates joined in, shouting and assailing the bars of their cells with their hands and feet until the noise swelled into a continuous, clanging clamor. Corrin knew there were only six inmates, including the scout, but the eruption of sound and fury belonged to an army ten-thousand strong.

"Quiet!" Gunter barked from the entryway. The cacophony faded. The inmates retreated to their cots. Only the initial ominous crashing persisted.

Corrin held her head high as she passed the occupied cells. None of the inmates said a word to her, but their stares were foul and wrathful. They all deserved to be there, three rapists and two would-be murderers, but they had each resented their sentence. Their crimes were aberrations in the general behavior within the fortress and, though heinous, were isolated incidents.

The scout had been locked up in the cell farthest from the entrance where the light stretched and thinned. Corrin stopped at its center, peering through the bars at the person imprisoned within.

A woman sat against the back wall. Heavy shackles encircled her wrists, binding her in place to the floor. With a heave of her arms, she brought the chains against the ground. Explosive sound clanged out through the bars. Then, she stopped, dropping the chains in one final heave. She looked up, craning her head and squinting in the shadows.

I don't recognize her, Corrin thought, taking in the fine Hoshidian features and the strip of long, black hair that hung over her shoulder and down her chest. She couldn't make out much else in the poor light.

"I knew you'd come," the scout said. Her voice was amicable, friendly even. "He told me you would."

"He?"

"The voice."

Great, so we're just starting off crazy, Corrin thought as she crossed her arms. She shot a glance back at Silas. He shrugged.

"What else does the voice tell you?" Leo prompted. The scout twisted in the dark, looking Leo up and down with slow deliberation. Then, she shifted to stare at Corrin again. Corrin looked to Leo, raising her eyebrows at him, but he ignored her, fixated on the scout. He stood inches from the bars, much closer than she dared to.

"Ask her why she did it," Silas said, nudging Corrin's shoulder. She nodded.

"Why did you attack your own party?"

"I hated them," the scout said. "But they hated me first."

"Why?"

"It doesn't matter why."

Corrin scowled.

"All that matters is that he gave me the power to do it and, in return, he wants me to show you all you can be," the scout said. The shadows cavorted around her. Corrin thought she saw wisps of smoke, but chalked it up to a trick of the light.

"I think I've heard enough," Corrin announced, turning to the others to herald their departure. Sakura and Silas nodded in slow agreement and then turned down the corridor, one after the other. Leo didn't budge. He continued to stare at the scout. Corrin sighed, waving for Sakura and Silas to continue, and then moved to his side, asking, "What's wrong?"

He jumped at her question, tearing his gaze from the coalescing darkness to stare at her through wide eyes. He stepped away from the cell.

"There's dark magic at work here," Leo said. "It's muted, somehow, but I can sense it…"

His voice was low. He kept an eye on the scout as he spoke. A cold chill broke across the back of her neck. She shivered.

"I can't determine it's source. It feels like the kind of eldritch magic Iago dabbled in to create the Faceless and I—"

There was a sound like ripping paper and then Leo shouted, "Corrin!" as a hand latched onto her forearm. Corrin lurched away in shock.

The grip didn't lessen. Her head whipped towards her assailant. The scout stood on the other side of the bars, free of her chains. Purple smoke wreathed the scout's head. It billowed from her mouth and seeped from her eyes. It drifted past Corrin and then dissipated into the corridor. The scent of it was heady in the stale air. Corrin tensed. The dragonstone flared against the hollow of her throat. Silver plating flashed across her body, leaving only her head exposed.

"The shrieking longs for you," the scout said. "Can you hear it?"

As her grip tightened, Corrin's skin grew hot and then purple lightning coursed between the junctures of her scales. Her thoughts came faster. Her eyes saw more. Then, the poison of the scout's touch sank into her bloodstream, blazing out into the surrounding sinew and bone. The world smeared into viscous sound.

She could hear laughing women and running footsteps and creaking bedsprings and gentle snoring and whispering prayers and crackling candlelight and soft breaths and coursing blood and pulsing heartbeats. She became untethered within it, seeing everything, everything, without seeing. The world was colored in a wash of furious, uproarious sound and all she wanted was for it to be quiet again.

Give yourself to Anankos.

It was her voice, but it wasn't her thought. It roared above the bursting, colliding sound in her skull. It bid her to shatter her defenses, to embrace the ancient horror encircling her mind, to become more than she had ever imagined being.

Then, her head snapped back and she opened her eyes to the world she knew. The only sound she heard was her own wet breaths, thundering across her senses. The scout's open palm hovered just above her wrist. Her armor plating had receded, leaving only the soft leather of her overcoat.

Smoke still emanated from the scout, but it had been reduced to thin whorls. The scout's eyelids drooped and the eyes beneath were hard and glossy. Her skin was translucent. The capillaries beneath were webs of inky, black lines.

"Lilith didn't have to die," the scout whispered. "If only you had accepted what you're meant to be."

The scout reached for her again, but Yato was in her hand and then through the scout's chest. Foul steam burst from the scout's mouth and eyes with a horrible screeching. Then, the scout was dead weight on Yato's hilt. Corrin drew the blade free. She tottered back, staring at the mess of flesh that had once been a woman.

Sakura called her name, but Corrin's tongue had swelled to stop her voice. She turned to Leo. His arms came around her, but she shook them off. She stumbled into the bars. They dug into her back and knocked against her head and then her eyes found Silas'. He stared at her, open mouthed. There was blood on her hands, black and vile.

Then, she was running because she had to get away from the stink of death and the horror in his eyes.

She burst through the doors despite Gunter's questioning shouts and then she was collapsing beside a copse of trees, exhaling sick and bile and tears until there was nothing left but an unrelenting dizziness. The wind ripped through her hair and froze the sweat to her skin.

It's over. I'm okay, she thought, steadying herself against a tree's trunk. The door to the jail opened. Hazy firelight cut a wide swath through the night. Two figures emerged.

"Corrin?"

"I'm here," she called. Her voice was weak. Her mouth tasted like acid.

Sakura and Silas came into view. Sakura laid a hand against Corrin's back, but she shrugged away. Even the minute touch overwhelmed her. Each of her senses were frayed and broken.

"Are you alright?" Silas asked. She made herself nod despite the wave of nausea that crashed in her stomach. She drew herself up to her full height, staring past him, unable to confront the residual fear she knew she'd find in his eyes, and then commanded, "Summon the war council."

A/N: Hiii. I don't really have that much to say for this chapter. Its lots of stage-setting for upcoming developments and its probably the chapter that's caused me the most grief thus far. Even in my final revisions, I was changing things beyond little line edits lol.