Conquest

"How many casualties?" Lucina asked.

Frederick, who held Lucina's horse by its bridle, avoided her gaze, and his pain-inflicted slouch became even more apparent. "We still have some uncertainties to work around…"

"How many?"

Frederick sighed. "At least twenty-three. Half of the men are wounded, and for some I cannot guarantee that they will be able to partake in a siege against the palace."

"You included?"

Frederick looked downright offended. "A sprained ankle and a handful of bruises will hardly keep me from serving my part in your battle."

Lucina nodded and sunk back onto the piece of rubble which served as a replacement of the chair she so desperately needed. After Galle's death, her rebel forces had repulsed the remaining Pegasus Knights and had afterwards advanced into the Lycia's outer quarter, accompanied by three riders in chains. They had repurposed the street running along the wall as their base of operations, but rather than a strategic key point, the place had more in common with an underequipped field hospital.

The healer from Cordelia's initial party hurried to and fro in an attempt to quiet moans, tend to gashes, and apply bandages to those wounds too severe for her exhausted magic. A shallow film of blood-tainted water covered the cobblestone and ran as a constant rivulet downhill until the rain washed the red mixture into the moat. More than the muffled groans and sobs, the stench of pus and gangrene went to Lucina's head. Even sitting made her dizzy.

They didn't have the time to tarry, Roy's spare forces could march into their camp at any moment, but Lucina couldn't find the energy to climb to her feet. A big, crimson number that read twenty-three handcuffed her to her seat.

"Tell me that more people would have died if I had ridden straight to the palace as planned," Lucina whispered and buried her head in her hands. Her armor seemed to weigh more than yesterday. "Tell me that I made the right choice."

"You defeated Galle and his wyvern," Frederick said. "He would have slain many more of the people around us if you had not stayed to fight. And this time I will include myself in this equation. I owe you my life. Furthermore, your victory over the wyvern rekindled the confidence your soldiers have been missing."

"But when I will look back on this day in a month, maybe in a year, will I tell myself with a clear conscience that it was all worth it? Or will I have to lie?" Lucina folded her hands in her lap and looked up. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking like this."

Frederick flinched. He looked like he wanted to sit down beside her, maybe offer her a hand or even a hug. But in the end, the dutiful knight in him won, and he merely gave her the reins of her horse.

"You should go," he said.

Lucina nodded and prepared to mount when she noticed Ike pushing past the line of wounded rebels to reach her side. Although his expression offered neither kindness nor real enthusiasm, his mere presence reinforced her intention to carry out her mission to the end.

"We have a Pheraen company marching our way from the southern alley," he said. "The remaining forces are gathering at the palace to fortify the walls. If you want to continue with the plan, you better give the order now."

Lucina looked over the wounded; Cherche with her broken arm, the young Lorca archer who pressed his hand on the spear cut in his stomach, and the man she had recruited in Eltrys, who stared into the middle distance, unable to comprehend that his right eye would never see the sun again. If these images came with the kingship, she would rather bury the crown. Even so, she couldn't abandon the mission for their sake. Roy's reign needed to end, today, and by her hands.

Ike regarded Lucina's hesitation with a sideway glance. "You sure you're up to this?"

"I made a promise to you, didn't I?"

Ike ignored her question. "You could at least allow me to tag along."

As much as the thought of Ike's company enticed her, Lucina shook her head. "In the state Tiki is in, she won't be able to transform into a dragon, which means we lost our greatest trump card. I need you to lead the charge against the palace wall while I confront Roy." She gestured at the Altean rebels. "You know these men and women better than I do, you stood beside them in this fight for years. Lead them."

"I'm not a leader. I fight and I kill, and that's what I'm good at."

"And yet these people trust you."

Ike huffed, and his fist tightened. "Trust gets you killed."

Lucina's hand wandered to the spot below her collarbone. But another look at Ike silenced her doubts. "Blind trust has a dangerous side, yes," she said, "but trust is also the foundation on which we built the rebellion. The Alteans trust me to continue my father's work, and the Lorca who answered our call trust in my, no, in our ability to succeed. And although this may be too much to ask, I hope you will trust in me too. Someday."

Ike said nothing.

Lucina sighed and swung herself into the saddle. Soren and Gregor, who had waited at a respectful distance, ordered their horses into a trot to flank her. From the far end of the street, the sound of a hundred, maybe two hundred armored boots marching in unison rang towards them. The war horn boomed. Not long now.

Lucina wheeled her horse sharply to face the two inner moats and the red sandstone towers of the palace beyond. She clicked her tongue to set her stallion in motion when Ike called her back.

"I do trust you," he said. The sincerity in his voice warmed and spurred and dizzied her more than any liquor could, a feeling so intoxicating she pined for it like a child for the love of its parents.

"So, when you face the king, don't mess up," Ike added.

Lucina smiled. "I won't."

She flicked the reins, and accompanied by Soren and Gregor, she galloped through the abandoned great alley of her childhood, past the adolescent poplar trees and vendor shops with their white awnings, and towards the palace in the distance.

Towards Roy.

The rest of her troop, or rather those who could still stand, trudged after them, but the mounted trio at the front was gaining ground, and their paths split behind the second moat. The stretch of water separating Lycia's outer and inner quarters lacked any sort of military presence, but Lucina had expected as much. Roy still had the numerical advantage on his side. Rather than an elongated skirmish on the streets, he could lure the invaders to his doorsteps and crush them between his palm and the palace walls.

Lucina urged her escort to hurry. Ragnell and its blue flames or not, Ike wouldn't last long against the palace guards. A member of the Twelve always occupied the capital, and who knew how many more wyverns and Pegasi pawed the cobblestone of the palace's inner yards, waiting for the call that unleashed them onto the unsuspecting rebels.

The only way to avoid further bloodshed was to relieve the eagle of its head.

In the weeks since Lucina's departure, little had changed in the capital. The citizens had fled into their cellars and back rooms the moment the alarm horn had rung from the northern gate, and thus the avenues lacked the usual midday commotion. But the design and layout of the city had stayed the same. Roy hadn't thought to rebuild the walls.

At a point several hundred yards away from the palace gate, Lucina stopped at the bank of the innermost moat and dismounted. Here, the water took a sharp turn southeast, and the gentle hill on which the palace sat enthroned dropped away to a steep cliff adjoining the moat. Only a small patch of grass in the wall's shadow provided a space for dry feet.

On the surface, this spot appeared to offer the worst conditions for a trio of rebels seeking to scale the walls. Which was why the guards never included this part of the battlements in their patrols. Because of the sharp riverbend, the wall described an outward kink, and to best accommodate for the cliff, the palace's architect had used smaller stones instead of the massive blocks utilized elsewhere.

For a ten-year-old Lucina, this fact had come in handy many a times. Whenever political reasons had bound Roy to his office and the library had seemed cramped and stuffy rather than enticing, Lucina had dragged Frederick to this particular part of the wall where neither his sword master nor her various tutors ever found them. The first few times she had been satisfied with tossing pebbles across the water, but then she had discovered that many of the stones here sat loosely in the wall. A little pulling and grinding, and a brick protruded. From that point onward, nothing had stopped her until she and Frederick had created a ladder of crosswise stones. Their secret passage out of the palace.

Lucina banned the smile of reminiscence from her face and waded through the moat, which only reached to her hips. The last time she had treaded these grounds, the water had sloshed around her shoulders.

The bricks still jutted out of the wall. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Gregor and Soren followed her before she pressed her body against the wall and climbed, one narrow ledge at a time.

"I admit, when you mentioned a secret passage into the palace, my mind conjured an image quite different from this," Soren said and followed Lucina with a surefootedness that negated the unwieldy nature of his long robes.

Lucina vaulted the merlon at the top and gave the battlements around her a quick look-over to make sure no one had noticed her intrusion.

"Roy grew up in these walls just like I did," she said and extended a hand towards Soren. "He knows all the other passageways into and out of the palace. And since he's expecting me, he will have stationed soldiers in the tunnels and catacombs."

Soren accepted her offer and stepped onto the battlement next to Lucina. "A reasonable hypothesis. Considering the king's reputation, however, I think it likely that he took measures for the case that you should gain entrance to the palace in a way he has not foreseen. We will surely meet opposition on our way to the throne room, perhaps of greater force than we can handle."

Gregor, who scaled the wall behind Soren, ignored Lucina's outstretched hand. "You should have a little more faith in our leader. And in Naga."

"Naga may have an interest in the success of this operation, but does this extend towards all our survival?" Soren asked. "I'm afraid blind faith alone won't win us this fight. Especially if Lucina rushes into the fray without us another time."

Lucina took the jab without flinching. "I needed to make sure Frederick was safe. There won't be any further distractions."

Soren bowed his head. "Your decisions are yours alone. But bear in mind the men and women at the palace gate who are fighting for your sake."

"I will."

Lucina pushed past her company towards the nearest tower and the wooden door that would lead her inside the halls of the place she once called home. The distant rattle of swords from the gate accompanied her steps. How could she forget the rebels that were fighting for her sake? Those who had died and those who still would die before she ripped the Pheraen eagle banner from the wall behind Roy's throne. All their eyes rested on her. Always.

And followed by these eyes, Lucina marched through the palace. The rain hammered against the stained windows as though it begged to enter. Yet the sound failed to distract Lucina from the small alcove in the hallway where Roy had once rocked her on his knees, or the ceremonial claymore displayed above the fireplace over there, with which she had dueled Frederick for fun. Her feet knew the patterns in the carpet, the little bumps in the sandstone tiles, and which step on the wide stairway to the throne room was the most slippery.

All of this welcomed Lucina as though she had never left.

And yet she had gone to war against this building as well as its owner.

She had gone to war against Pherae itself.

Kill the king. Return freedom to Altea. Repel the growing forces of Grima. Back when Lucina had spoken to Naga, these orders had sounded so simple. But Naga had kept quiet about the civilians of Eltrys who believed in their king, or the soldiers across the Empire who needed a leader, or the merchants here in Lycia who depended on the stability of the crown.

Lucina had gone to war against all these people.

Her father's letter in her tunic disgusted her all of a sudden, and she fantasized about dropping to her knees in front of Roy to beg for his forgiveness.

But the moment of weakness passed when the shouts at the gate grew louder, and their echoes filled the vast, empty hallway. Instead, Lucina quickened her pace. She ignored the many crossroads that would lead deeper into the palace, her eyes set on the ornamented double doors at the end of the corridor. Less than a hundred yards separated her from the throne room. She had promised Ike not to falter.

Before she could put her hands on the handles, a figure stepped out of the shadow of the final pillar to the right. The Pheraen eagle crest gleamed on their armor. Although nowhere near as tall or imposing as Galle, the knight's youthful green eyes showed the same devotion to the crown.

Lucina's hopes sank.

The man standing between her and Roy was none other than Wolt. One of the Twelve.

He hesitated to draw his bow, and across his face flashed genuine betrayal.

"Lucina… why did you come?" he asked.

Gregor stepped forward. The light reflected from his sword painted silver stripes onto the marble floor. "Go, Lucina. We can handle this one."

Lucina held him back. "Not if we can avoid a fight. I don't want to make more Pheraen enemies than I already did."

"Why did you come?" Wolt repeated.

"Because I finally saw the tyrant in Roy. What he did to Altea and Tellius, what he is still doing, cannot remain unpunished. Step aside."

Wolt shook his head. "I could never. Roy has granted these lands a peace they hadn't seen in centuries. He is the only survivor of the royal Pheraen bloodline. But more importantly, he has always treated those under his command with a supportive hand. You enjoyed this same kindness! He took you in as his own! Have you forgotten all of that so quickly?"

Lucina took a step back. The hand resting on Falchion's pommel trembled. "Roy's peace is built on the suffering of thousands. I see that now. And I cannot go back. Even if a part of me wishes to return to a time before I learned the truth."

"The truth is that you are a traitor of the realm," Wolt said. "And if you take one more step towards these doors, may Naga have mercy on you. Because I won't be able to guarantee you any."

"I know you're not without reason, Wolt. You believe in Naga, don't you? In her and the eternal paradise. You have put your faith in the wrong person, but it's not too late to see the errors in Roy's judgement." Lucina extended a hand towards Wolt. "Join me. I promise that I will do everything I can to create a peace that truly will last."

"I will never betray him. It sickens me to see what has become of you."

Wolt picked an arrow from his quiver.

"Don't…" Lucina said.

"Loyalty or death." And Wolt pulled back the bowstring.

Lucina stepped forward, desperate to believe that if she could convince this one Pheraen knight to change allegiance, that this would justify her march on Lycia and everything she had done until this point. Wolt harbored no evil intentions, Grima certainly hadn't poisoned his mind, instead he had always treated Lucina with a smile or a cube of the hard candy he favored so much.

Soren yanked Lucina by her sleeve, a sudden gust tore at the rich tapestries, and Wolt's first arrow pierced the wall someplace behind them.

"There is no point arguing with him," Soren said and pushed Lucina towards the throne room. "Go ahead and fulfill the mission. We will hold him off."

"Remember that we trust in you," Gregor said. "This is what the rebellion's all about, isn't it?"

"But you might—"

"Not the fear is in control. You are." He gave her an encouraging nod. "Count to ten and breathe."

With these words, he rushed to engage Wolt in a close-quarters fight that would give him the advantage. Sparks flew as arrow after arrow grazed his sword.

Lucina hesitated. If she left, one of the three men was sure to die. And would that not confirm Roy's belief that a few people needed to die to ensure peace for the rest of them? Let one of them be the sacrifice on which to build a conflict-free tomorrow.

Naga had claimed that a world free from Grima's evil warranted every sacrifice. Without her guidance, Lucina would have never obtained Falchion, the enabler of her successes since Seliora. Surely the goddess who created the world knew better than to cling to every little thing that had once struck her eye the way Lucina still did.

Yes, with childlike defiance she had clung to her friends and her tools and her toys, fighting to keep them all. But Roy had taught the child otherwise on the balcony above Terra's bay.

Lucina couldn't have Roy and a free Altea. And she likewise couldn't have the victory she needed without giving up on a few of her chess pieces first.

So, she forced her eyes away from the fight. The rattle of swords and the buzzing of arrows on the battlements outside mingled with the clatter inside, but Lucina banned the noise from her head to only listen to the faint jingle of windchimes. A magical gust ruffled her hair, but she ignored that too, and placed her hands on the door.

With a loud creak, the oak wood gave way, and Lucina stepped into the gravitational center of her home.

Tall pillars and a vaulted ceiling furnished the hall with the aura of grandeur befitting a throne room, and long crimson banners billowed on the right side, emblem-less, with the exception of the royal eagle hoisted at the far end. The low balcony windows to the left stood open and allowed for drizzle and the sounds of war to enter.

But all these impressions paled in comparison to the single silhouette standing in the vastness before the balcony.

Roy.

He turned towards Lucina. Raindrops glistered on his face and on the ashen winged crown on his forehead. Concern or anger had dug new wrinkles between his eyebrows. Or perhaps they had always been there and Lucina had only failed to notice.

"Why did you come?" Roy asked. He used the same words as Wolt, but his carried twice the reproach, and the absence of the familiar warmth stung in Lucina's chest like a physical blow.

She did her best to rein in the emotions that were no doubt leaking from her face. "You know why. I told you I can't unsee the injustice you bring to the people of Altea. My people."

"You speak of injustice?!" Roy's features hardened. "And the destruction and the dead you have left in your wake? I have built and nurtured this peace for eighteen years, and all you did was trample over my achievements. Don't speak to me of injustice. It wasn't enough to betray me, you had to bring terror to the capital as well."

"You never created peace. Only oppression."

"To win the war requires sacrifices. Is this not the lesson your father taught you when he gave his life in the futile attempt to secure your future?" Roy smiled without humor. "And I bought into his trap. Raised the heir of the enemy as my own – until she followed in her father's footsteps. Ironic, isn't it?"

"I never wanted to be your enemy. If you had listened to me in Terra, all this could have been avoided."

"Because you know the right path and everyone else is a blind sheep before your wisdom?"

"Don't mock me! I met Naga, and she opened my eyes to the evil that infests the very core of your Empire. But you can't see it because Grima has already possessed you!"

"Grima, Naga – the fairytales a child uses to justify its actions. A child…"

Roy faltered. A part of his rage fled his face while he looked Lucina up and down as though he searched for something he had lost without noticing. The armor in Altean colors, the sword of her father, her hardened expression – one or all of these struck him when he looked at her.

"I'm not a child anymore," Lucina said.

"I see. But when did you grow into the fanatic you are now, I wonder."

"You should have seen this coming when you tried to kill me. When you slaughtered Abel in front of me and when you murdered my father."

Roy didn't seem to listen. His eyes skipped from her to the golden throne at the end of the hall and to his own crowned reflection in the window glass.

"I never wasted time thinking about an heir," he said. "You were the only daughter I thought I would need. The crown, my father's sword, the Empire itself, everything I own… If only you had waited a few years, if you had stayed loyal, I would have given all this to you."

Lucina swallowed, almost indulged in the idea of stretching out a hand towards Roy as she had done with Wolt. Never before had Roy addressed her with such a familiar word as daughter. A year, no, a month ago, this confession would have swelled her chest and she would have looked up to him with a tear in her eyes.

But not anymore.

"I don't want to be the head of an empire if it is as rotten as yours," Lucina said and drenched her words in venom to mask the slight tremor in her voice.

"Then you are even more foolish than I thought. You seek to remove me from my throne, but what will happen once you achieve your goal? Pherae, Altea, and Sacae cannot exist without a hand to rule them. Without a leader sitting on this throne, they will cannibalize each other, ravage each other's villages, and steal their neighbor's last coin. That is the terror you will bring upon Archanea."

Lucina couldn't fake a calm façade for longer and unsheathed Falchion. "I won't give you the satisfaction of your words twisting my thoughts again. Your reign ends today."

Roy opened the clasp of his royal cape, and the fine silk dropped to the ground in a heap of indigo and crimson. At his side hung Lucina's old sword, and the sight startled her for a moment before she resumed the standard stance that had preceded hundreds of her duels on Lycia's fencing ground.

Roy raised Lucina's sword. "I will hate to kill you, little one."

But neither his words nor the grimness in his face held back his hand as he assailed Lucina with his opening chain of thrusts.

She had fought a few duels with him, had even won the last time their blades had clashed in the shadow of the fencing yard's plane trees, surrounded by the air of good fun. Lucina knew Roy's favorite feigns and parades and had studied the combinations with which he directed his weapon in hopes of applying his techniques herself. More importantly, she knew the sword Roy was leading. And although she didn't dare to hope that he had related all his tricks to her, she parried his attacks with a sureness that surprised the both of them.

They swept across the tiles, interlaced in a performance they had both mastered. Lucina's former fencing master would have shed a tear at the display of their swordplay and the perfect coordination that stemmed from knowing the other combatant too well.

The blows came harder, faster.

Roy's sword bent under the pressure, and his sidesteps spoke of urgency. Lucina chased after him, driven by the war cries outside; an abhorrent background music for their duel. The longer the fight continued, the more of her rebels would fall at the gate. Ike or Frederick might cough their final breath on the moat bank already.

Stone shards splintered from one of the pillars under Falchion's force. Roy and Lucina sliced through the banners, and the fabric sailed down to form a treacherous crimson sea around their feet. A stroke grazed Lucina's arm above the bracer; the slippery blood irritated her skin.

But she didn't relent.

And slowly, with each slash and every step, she was gaining ground.

Roy miscalculated his sword's weight too often, his blows ran empty, and the momentum post-strike delayed his next counter.

The concentration carved deep furrows around his eyes, but somewhere in the glacier blue Lucina spotted something else, a primal instinct that guided Roy's hand: fear. Once, in a different throne room eighteen years ago, the odds had all aligned in his favor, and the battle that would decide the course of fate had been his to decide.

But now he was the one retreating.

Lucina gave him no time to breathe, pushed past her own exhaustion, and cornered him at the throne. Nicks disfigured the edges of Roy's sword where he had warded off her blows. With one final effort, Lucina aimed for the steel near the cross guard, and although Roy shielded himself, the force knocked the hilt out of his hand.

He stumbled to one knee. Defenseless, he clutched the throne's armrest and glared at Lucina. So much hatred raged in the familiar features.

So many memories.

So much of what they both had lost.


Notes: I hate to leave you on this sort-of cliffhanger, but the entirety of the duel just wouldn't fit into one chapter. It's been a while since Lucina and Roy crossed paths, but I think the result turned out pretty good. The conclusion to their battle comes next week, so stay tuned for that!