A scream echoed through the halls of the castle, caught even by Mark reading in the library. What was it? Thieves, Grimleal or some other assassin? Snapping his book shut, he rose and hurried his way down the hall to where he thought the screaming had come from. As he made his way hurriedly down the hallway, he heard a faint noise coming from a room a few meters ahead of him. Getting closer to the door, he could make out the sound of sobbing and labored breathing from behind the door. With his ear pressed to the door, Mark saw other figures coming from the opposite end of the hallway with weapons drawn. Signaling quietly for the approaching guards to ready themselves for the worst, the tactician opened the door ready for the worst.
What he found was not thief or murderer, but only a single woman sitting upright in her bed. Cordelia was clutching the covers of her bed around her and was gasping for short breaths between tears, a wide expression in her eyes and on her face. Mark breathed a sigh of relief, and motioned for the guards to stand down and return to their posts, before he made his way into Cordelia's room towards her bed. The full upon outside broke through the darkness and shone light upon the woman in bed. "Was it the same nightmare?"
"I…I…yes." The knight managed to blurt out before burying her face in Mark's robes, clutching at his sleeves. Ever since losing her division sisters to the Plegian invasion of the capital 3 months ago, Cordelia had been plagued with nightmares of them. Their voices, their faces, and their blood haunted her most nights. Mark put his arms around the crying woman, and eventually helped her stand up. Following their usual routine, the pair went back to the library that Mark had been researching in before. A fresh pot was put on the fire, and two cups of tea were put out on the table where books weren't laying. Cordelia sat in a large, comfy chair across from Mark, with the blanket from her room still wrapped around her shoulders, and grabbed her cup, breathing in the aroma of the drink. "Thanks, Mark. I'm sorry that I've been troubling you all this time"
"You haven't been trouble." Mark sighed as he took a sip from his cup. "You help me in the mornings, I feel an obligation to help you in the night I guess. Besides, I don't necessarily like seeing friends suffer." Cordelia smiled as she took a drink herself. Mark returned a quill to his left hand, flipping through the textbook on his right and occasionally scratching in a notebook.
"What're you working on?" Cordelia prodded as she stretched her neck out to try and read the tactician's writing.
"I'm doing research on…well on darker magics than the ones I use now." He admitted, passing a different book over to the knight. In candlelight, Cordelia could make out the title Putting Money on the Dark Horse: A Crash Course in the Dark Arts. By Henry Silmonde. "That author seems to be well versed in this kind of magic, even if the language he uses in the book is…harder to digest than others. Seems to be fond of making jokes at the expense of the dead." Wandering over to the window, Mark pulled out his pipe, filled and lit the bowl, and opened the window as he exhaled his first sigh of smoke. "Many of the writings I've found from Sorcerers and Necromancers of lore claim that they found an art that allows them to almost never fear someone else of magical prowess. That is something I would be interested in; to be able to combat powerful magics with ease."
"But isn't diving into the darkness, you know, dangerous?" Cordelia spoke as she rose, mug in hand. She walked over to her friend and looked out the window with him, the moon reflecting on the river that wound around the castle wall and continued its flow west. "I mean…look at Tharja, and the Grimleal. All use it, and none of them are really…sane."
"I don't know. I have a feeling," Mark let out another breath of smoke, "that the two aren't directly connected, but are both potentially spurred from some other…presence."
"Grima?" Cordelia questioned, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. Just the name brought a shudder to her, the weight of the pain and terror that came with it chilling her.
"I don't know…but I find it hard to believe that the magic itself could be evil or malignant to the user." Mark knocked the ash and tobacco out of his pipe on the outer wall, and turned to pack up. "Now, I think, it's time we both try and sleep. Shall we?"
The two went to their rooms. Cordelia returned to sleeping quickly, thankfully no more nightmares plagued her this night. But Mark stayed awake longer, staring at the ceiling and thinking of his studies from the night. Regardless of the apparent dangers, he didn't want those impeding or troubling his research. Like Cordelia had said, he needed to be a strong figure and model for others to follow. Being stronger, being useful to Chrom and the army, was all that he cared about.