Chapter Twenty-Five: War Approaches

(Omofrisit's POV)

It was somehow strange to see Validar bowing before me and saying 'Yes, your majesty'. I could tell just by looking at him that he hated my guts, but for some reason, he still put up with me being the new king.

I had ordered Validar to organize a search party to look for Hershel, but so far, they hadn't found even a trace of him. I had to wonder how Gangrel could have hidden him so well without even Validar knowing where to look. We had searched the dungeons, the palace, the surrounding villages, and we had even begun searching the surrounding countries. Normally, I wouldn't go so far for one person, but Hershel was the key to my plan, and as such, I couldn't just let him die. But with how hard it was to find him, my best guess was that Gangrel had just killed him and thrown him in a ditch.

It was getting to the point that my advisers were urging me to stop the search on account of the fact that we had a war coming our way from Ylisse, but I needed Hershel.

Frey, Colm and Cogan were overseeing the palace defenses, but they were having a hard time organizing enough people to man all the posts due to the fact that I had the majority of the soldiers out searching for Hershel. And besides that, there were many that didn't accept me as the king and left for other lands.

The weight of everything was starting to come crashing down on me, and it was getting tough to refuse the adviser's petitions to stop the search and focus on the war.

I don't know what to do anymore. I shouldn't have let Hershel out of my sight for even a second.

"My lord!"

I looked up to find Validar standing before me once more.

"What is it?" I asked rather glumly.

"It's time you called of the search, we've been looking for days now and we still haven't found a single clue as to where he went. Don't you think it's possible that he left of his own accord?"

"That's preposterous. Hershel wouldn't have just up and left without telling anyone." I said.

Validar raised his hands in surrender. "It was just a suggestion, but either way, we have a full fledged war coming our way right now. We need to put all of our resources into repelling the attack."

…Maybe he's right, I suppose we could always keep looking for him afterwards, but if we don't win this war, we won't get that chance…

"…Very well. Call the search parties back and have them take whatever posts you think need extra soldiers."

"Yes, milord." Validar said with a bow.

I only saw for a second so I couldn't be sure, but I thought I saw Validar smiling. That didn't bode well for the rest of us.

(Frey's POV)

I wasn't entirely sure why, but Omofrisit seemed to think it was a good idea to put me in charge of an entire squad of soldiers, and to add to that, my soldiers were in charge of defending the ramparts. I could tell that some of the soldiers thought I wasn't fit for the job, while others followed my every order with exactness, probably only due to the fact that I was appointed to be their leader and thus they felt obligated to follow.

Cogan and Colm had been put in charge of their own squads, and between the three of us, Cogan was the only one that was able to command the full respect of his squad.

Other than us, there were a few others who I assumed were already commanders before we got here. There was a large, bald man named Mustafa. A woman who looked much too young to be a commander. She had a somewhat dark complexion, blue eyes, and purple hair. She had light blue armor and gauntlets over a white tunic and brown pants, with silver boots to top it all off. She had an expression on her face that just screamed 'Stay out of my way', and because of that, everyone did stay out of her way. Come to think of it, I didn't even know what her name was, but I wasn't about to approach her over something like that. I decided it would be best to just avoid her overall. And lastly, there was a sorcerer in a heavy cloak who never spoke, and yet somehow managed to command his soldiers without speaking to them. No one even knew his name, most just referred to him simply as "The Sorcerer".

I looked back out over the ramparts and saw some of our soldiers coming back to the palace. I sighed.

Seems Omofrisit called off the search. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing though.

I decided to go see if Omofrisit had a plan for beating Chrom. I ordered my soldiers to stay put and headed to the throne room.

As I walked down the hallways of the palace, I couldn't help but wonder where Hershel was at, or if he was even alive at all. I felt like he was alive, but given the circumstances, logic told me he was dead, but I couldn't lose hope. After this war I'll start searching for him again, and hopefully Omofrisit will do the same.

I reached the throne room and opened the doors without hesitation. Omofrisit was sitting on his throne with a look of frustration on his face. Without even looking at me, Omofrisit started speaking.

"Do you think I did the right thing?" He asked.

"About what?"

"Calling off the search for Hershel." He explained

"Look, I want to find him too. But right now, we're fighting a war, and besides that, our army is divided between those who have accepted you as the king and those who have not. For the time being, both halves of our army are cooperating but before long, the disgruntled half is going to rebel and if that happens while we're fighting Ylisse, there's no way we can win. So right now I suggest you concentrate on the war, and we'll worry about Hershel afterwards, okay?"

Omofrisit mulled over my words for a while before addressing me once again.

"I…suppose you're right." He said, still not looking at me.

He turned his head towards me and looked me dead in the eye. I was shocked to see a mixture of anger and hatred in his eyes, I had no idea who it was directed towards, but it was frightening to see.

"Frey, I'm going to ask something of you that might seem cowardly."

"O-okay." I said with my eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Before Chrom and his armies reach the palace, I need you to build a secret exit out of the palace so that if things get bad then you, me and the others can get out without being captured or killed." He said.

He was right, that did seem cowardly. Maybe he just wasn't used to the role of being a king yet, but a king was supposed to fight till the bitter end to defend his land and his people. I was about to get mad and tell him exactly that, but then I saw that same look in his eyes; Nothing but anger and hatred. I muttered a quiet 'okay' under my breath and left the throne room.

Even after I broke my eyes away from his, that look in his eye haunted me, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed unnatural, almost otherworldly. I figured it would be best to steer clear of him for a while.

(Hershel's POV)

I sat….and sat...and sat some more. It was all I could do. I had no energy left to practice my magic, or to try escaping this cell. I was getting thirsty, and at this point, no amount of rat blood was going to quench my thirst. A few days ago, I could feel death hanging over me, just waiting for the right time to swoop down and collect me. But now it felt like death was an old friend, beckoning me to join it somewhere peaceful and pleasant…and I was about to give in. The only thing that kept me from giving up entirely was the sounds, I could occasionally hear noises up above, I couldn't tell what was making the noise, but sounds meant something was moving and that meant that regardless of what was moving, people couldn't be too far away. But even the hope that that gave me was starting to fade.

I wondered, for the thousandth time, if Omofrisit and Frey were looking for me, or if they even cared that I was gone. Maybe they were better off without me, all I did was cause trouble after all.

Gah! Hunger and thirst were starting to consume me, I had to find some way out of here no matter how weak I was. The only problem with that plan was that I had tried everything to get out of here. Presumably, the only way out was the stone that Gangrel had pushed to open the door, but the wall was seamless and I had no way of pushing the button…unless…

I jumped up with strength I didn't think I had before pull a particular book off the shelf. In my hands I held an Elwind tome. My plan was to pull wind through the dungeon hall outside my cell with enough force to push the brick into the wall and activate the door mechanism.

This plan had to work, if it didn't, I would most likely cry and I would probably abandon all hope.

I stood next to the wall where I knew the door was and started reading from the tome. I could hear the air starting to stir outside my cell, encouraging me to chant faster. The wind picked up and I could hear it rolling some pebbles around. This could actually work. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I had hope that I'd be able to make it out of here. I concentrated even harder on casting my spell. The wind was howling through the dungeon corridor outside and I wondered how nobody had heard it yet.

I continued the spell, but I could feel myself weakening. The adrenaline rush from before was gone and I could hardly stay standing anymore, I tried to keep it up, but I couldn't do it anymore, I collapsed. I watched the wall for a moment, expecting the loud mechanism to start up and for the door to open…but nothing happened.

I could feel my eyes starting to tear up, which was strange because I didn't feel anything. No sadness, no anger, no frustration, just emptiness and loneliness. But my eyes continued to release tears to the point where I could no longer see anything.

I just layed there…and layed…and layed some more. It was all I could do at this point.

(Robin's POV)

This war was foolish. There was no reason for this war other than Chrom's personal vendetta against Hershel. Innocent people were going to die because Chrom couldn't put the past behind him. I agreed with Chrom on the point that Emmeryn's death couldn't go unpunished, but this was the wrong way to go about punishing Hershel, for all we knew, Hershel might not even be there, and then it would be the innocent people that would be punished for Hershel's crime.

I had tried arguing Chrom out of this war too many times to count, but he was dead set on carrying it out. I still couldn't understand how Chrom could have changed so much. His sister had died and that had to be traumatic, but Chrom was strong and I hadn't expected it to affect him this much. There had to be something more to this than we thought, he wasn't even treating the rest of us like he used to, he was acting like we were merely tools to be used for his revenge, and anyone who knew Chrom knew that he would never treat people that way.

At this point, we were on our way to Plegia to begin the war. Chrom had already laid out a plan, with grudging help from myself, and he was prepared to decimate the entire nation if need be. Needless to say, none of us were too thrilled about that prospect. Some of us had even begun planning some way to detain Chrom, by force if necessary. Frederick was on our side, but he couldn't do anything directly due to his title and rank, but he was able to keep our planning on the down low.

All I could think about right now was how we could stop this war before it was too late. Trying to talk Chrom out of it wasn't going to happen, so the only other option was to try and talk to Gangrel and have him hand over Hershel. But this was Gangrel we were talking about, if there was a war, Gangrel was more than happy to participate. So what could I do? Nothing…absolutely nothing. I could only hope Plegia had a plan to end the war quickly.

A/N: WOOOOO! I finally updated! Aren't you guys proud of me?! But in all seriousness, there have been more than a few reasons for the delay. College, mental issues, physical issues. Y'know, the usual. But all that is beside the point.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Tell me what you thought of this chapter through either review or PM. And if you're going to criticize, at least give me constructive criticism.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, for those of you who celebrate it, and I hope you have an awesome Christmas season if you celebrate that.