Chapter 29: Bearer of Hope

The Nohrian Military Camp, The Kingdom of Nohr, Moirai

Year 625

Alm struck another whetstone against Falchion's edge. It was a useless endeavor—the divine blade never dulled, no matter how many times he used it in battle—but Alm ground the sword on the stone anyway. He needed to do something, anything.

The wait was becoming unbearable. Waiting for Prince Leo to make a decision about their next move, waiting for the rest of the Nohrian army to arrive, waiting for his missing friends and his missing wife to emerge from the canyon or the Dragon's Gate, even though they were probably—probably—

The whetstone broke in half, sliced clean down the middle by Falchion's infuriatingly sharp edge. Grumbling, Alm tossed it into the pile of all the other stones he had ruined in the past hour.

"I don't think you're using those things correctly," Gray said. He had leaned himself against a tree, arms crossed behind his neck, looking way too relaxed for the situation at hand.

Alm just picked up another stone and got to grinding. Gray frowned at him.

"Something on your mind?"

Alm rolled his eyes and didn't even bother to look up from his sword. "Perceptive as always, Gray. What gave it away?"

"Sarcasm? Snide remarks? Not very kingly of you, Your Majesty. You're lucky Clair isn't here to correct your irreverent behavior."

"Do you even know what 'irreverent' means?"

"Not really, no." Gray shrugged and picked his ear with his forefinger. "But Clair says it a lot, so it probably applies to whatever's going on here."

Alm just sighed and shook his head. Gray pushed off the tree and stood over Alm's crouched body. "Come on, man, you're killing me with all this brooding. What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Alm snapped his eyes up from his handiwork. "Is that supposed to be a serious question? We almost died in that canyon, and Celica and the others are still nowhere to be found! For all we know, they're still stuck down there fighting or imprisoned or worse—"

Another whetstone broke on Falchion's edge. Alm slammed it against the ground, cracking it into several more pieces. The lingering pain in his bicep from the Vallite archer's arrow spiked down his sword arm, but he didn't care.

"And we've just been sitting here twiddling our thumbs, waiting around all day for something to happen when we could be out looking for them!" Alm twisted a hand into his hair and stifled a frustrated groan. "We should at least fly back down and check—"

"And get our asses handed to us again?" Gray plopped down next to Alm, leaning back on his hands. "We barely managed to escape with our lives the first time. I don't see a second attempt going any differently, especially now that we're missing more than half our group." He nudged Alm with his knee. "Besides, didn't Celica already chew you out for jumping through a weird magic portal without the proper back up? She wouldn't want you—or any of us—risking our lives by going back there. Not until we're ready."

"I know, but…" Alm slumped forward, elbows digging into his crossed legs. "I don't see how doing nothing is any better."

An indignant scoff sounded at their backs, followed by a shadow falling over their heads. "Gathering information and carefully preparing for the greater battles to come is hardly what I'd consider 'doing nothing'."

Alm craned his neck up to find Leo frowning down at them. He had a thick, weathered book tucked under his arm, and a sword forged in bronze and gold fixed to his hip.

"Prince Leo!" Alm sprung to his feet and wiped the dirt off his hands with his uniform. "Welcome back. What have you got for us?"

"Not much, I'm afraid." Leo's frown tightened. "None of the historical records I consulted make mention of the Bottomless Canyon being anything but…well, a canyon." He flipped through the book, brows knitting closer together with every page he turned. "And while there are some stories about the First Dragons—the beings that ruled over Moirai before the founding of Nohr and Hoshido—there's nothing that references any of the vague details you described to us. Just that the First Dragons were constantly at war with each other and had a callous disregard for human life, considering humans nothing more than pawns to be used and sacrificed for their own personal gain."

"Sounds familiar," Alm muttered. Duma had treated the people of Rigel the same way. In fact, many of the dragons of Archanean legend he had heard about as a child, like the Shadow Dragon, fell into a similar pattern: unstable, chaotic creatures susceptible to madness, most of whom had no qualms about trampling over human life as though they were nothing more than weeds in a garden bed.

Were there any worlds out there where dragons weren't causing problems for humanity?

"It was from the conflict between the First Dragons that legendary weapons like the Yato were created," Leo continued, gesturing to the sword on his belt, "for humans to wield against adversarial dragons. The Yato itself was designed to draw energy from its sister weapons so it could grow powerful enough to kill even a god."

"Azura said something similar," Alm said.

"But that's all I could find on the subject." Leo sighed and slammed the book shut. "Not much more than I knew already, if I'm being honest. Nothing about this new threat we're facing, and nothing about how we're supposed to use the Yato against it."

"What about that Azura lady's son?" Gray asked. "She mentioned he knows a lot about this stuff. If we can find him—"

"I don't know anything about him either," Leo said. "No one does. I asked everyone in camp if she ever mentioned having a child—or even adopting one—before her disappearance, but no one could come up with anything. Not even the soldiers from Hoshido had any ideas." He tapped his knuckles on his chin, his brows so tightly drawn together now that they formed wrinkles on his forehead. "No children, no romantic partners…no one has even heard of a person named Shigure."

Gray scratched the back of his head, humming thoughtfully. "Maybe she had a child in secret? Then gave him to a trusted friend to raise away from the dangers of war?" His eyes flicked over to Alm. "It's happened before."

Alm crossed his arms and looked away. He didn't like being reminded of his complicated family history.

Leo tilted his head up for a moment, contemplative, then said, "It's possible, but not likely. Azura was with us during the whole war between Nohr and Hoshido—well, she was with Corrin the whole time—until she disappeared after the war's end." He heaved a long sigh and shrugged. "I thought maybe she had settled down with someone after she left, but based on your conversation with her…it sounds like her disappearance was the result of her death, so that's not a possibility either."

"So, we're out of luck?" Gray huffed an awkward laugh. "Because it seems like the only person besides Azura who can help us figure out who's supposed to wield that legendary blade—and help us figure out how we're supposed to beat the big bad—doesn't actually exist."

"I wouldn't say we're out of luck," Leo said. "We don't need some mystery child to tell us who's been chosen as the Yato's next wielder. That part, at least, is obvious."

Alm blinked at him. "It is?"

"Of course." Leo arched an eyebrow as Alm and Gray shared a look of uncertainty. "You seriously haven't realized it yet? It's Kana."

"What, that little guy?" Gray chuckled, leaning on Alm's shoulder and jutting his thumb toward the camp training grounds. The boy in question was whacking a wooden sword against a straw training dummy under the supervision of his father, giggling with every hit he landed. "The kid's harmless—well, except for when he turns into a dragon, I guess."

"And he's a child," Alm said. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Kana try to flip the training sword around in his hand and smack himself in the forehead with it. Internally, Alm winced. "Surely we can find someone else to wield it? Perhaps someone who can wield the legendary sister weapons you mentioned?"

Leo's gaze fell to the ground, expression pained. "No, it's him. I wish it weren't, but it is. The blade has made its choice."

"…How can you be so certain?" Alm asked.

"Like I said, it's obvious. You saw how the Yato reacted to his touch once before, and how it reacted to your sword when he held the Yato in his hands." Leo drew the bronze-and-gold blade from his belt, giving it a few test swings. The blade seemed heavy and dull with each stroke. "The only other person the sword has ever done that for is Corrin, his mother. Anyone else who has ever tried to wield it—like so—has found it to be as sharp and effective a weapon as a tree branch."

To emphasize the point, Leo whacked Gray's arm with the Yato edge-first. Gray yelped and jerked away, rubbing the spot where Leo had struck him. No blood had been drawn, no cuts or abrasions marred his skin, but Gray still threw the prince a glare all the same.

"Yeah, yeah, okay!" Gray snapped. "But getting hit by a tree branch still hurts!"

"In the right hands, however," Leo continued on, ignoring Gray's grumbling, "it would be an entirely different story. Here…"

Leo picked up one of the broken whetstone pieces, traced the clean cut left by Falchion with his thumb, then moved toward the training grounds without another word. Sighing, Alm followed suit, dragging a reluctant Gray behind him.

Kana was rubbing the sore spot on his forehead when they stepped into the small yard of dirt and stone; Silas hovered at his side with a vulnerary at the ready. When the boy caught sight of their approach, he dropped his hands and beamed.

"Uncle Leo! Mr. Alm and Mr. Gray! Are you here…to…" His eyes drifted to the blade in Leo's hand. "What are you doing with Mama's sword? Are you gonna practice fighting with it?" The grin grew to his ears. "Can I watch? I'd like to see—"

"Actually," Leo said, patting the boy's shoulder, "I was going to ask if you would like to practice with it, Kana."

Somehow, the boy's smile grew even brighter. "Really?"

"Really?" Silas repeated, his tone much lower and much more hesitant than his son's.

"Yes, but be very careful." Leo held the Yato out to Kana handle-first. "No fancy tricks or flips with the sword until we've trained with it a bit, okay?"

Kana nodded and eagerly took the sword into his hands. As soon as his fingers curled around the handle, the blade sharpened and began to radiate a soft, purple light, one that soon encompassed Alm's sword as well. The light shining along both blades flashed once in tandem, as it had when Alm and Byleth had first seen Kana hold the Yato…

But this time, only one of the four empty slots engraved into the Yato's blade lit up. Not two, like Alm had seen before.

"Just as I thought," Leo murmured. Then, after clearing his throat, said, "Try to strike the straw dummy. Be careful not to overextend—"

"Got it!"

Kana swung at the dummy with all his strength, slicing through his target as though he were simply cutting air. The power behind the blow sent the top half of the dummy soaring across the training grounds in an explosion of ripped cloth and scattered straw.

"Now this."

Leo tossed the broken whetstone into the air; the Yato split clean through the stone in a blur of golden steel and purple lights. The two halves went flying in opposite directions, one striking the camp's magical fence and shattering into a dozen pieces, the other ripping through the flap of a nearby weapon's tent.

Somewhere in the distance, Sophie whooped and cheered at her brother's display.

Panting, Kana looked back to them, eyes wide and expectant. "How was that? Did I do a good job?"

"Uh…yeah," Alm said, glancing between the boy and the bisected training dummy. "I'd say so."

Leo nodded in agreement and added, "Though you need to work on controlling your strength. You'll tire yourself out quickly if you swing your sword like that every time you attack."

"Right, right…"

"So, how about it?" Leo asked, turning to Alm and Gray. "Still have any doubts about who's been chosen to wield it?"

"I…suppose not." Alm frowned at Falchion and lifted it to eye level to better inspect the strange purple glow it shared with the Yato. "But why are the swords…connecting like this? It looks a little different than before."

"The Yato changes color and shape based on what it is drawing power from," Leo said, raising a single finger. "One legendary weapon gives you what you see now: purple light, and a slightly modified crossguard. That's how it looked when I fought at Corrin's side during the war, with her wielding the Yato and I, the tome Brynhildr." Another finger was added to the count. "Two weapons give you a more vibrant, red-violet light, and the blade becomes sharper and more powerful, as you witnessed when both you and your stoic friend were in the Yato's presence before the debacle in the canyon."

"So, Mr. Alm's and Mr. Byleth's swords can make Mama's sword even stronger?" Kana grinned and raised the Yato high above his head. "So cool!"

"I thought the Yato's power could only be unlocked with the sacred weapons of this world," Silas said, rubbing his chin and squinting at the sword waving around in his son's hands, "so when we lost Brynhildr and Siegfried—and Corrin—to the invisible soldiers, it seemed like we would never be able to restore it…but if it's compatible with weapons that hail from other worlds…"

"Then there's still hope left for us yet," Alm finished for him. He ran his hand over Falchion's hilt, watching as the purple light particles parted around his fingers. "We just need to find some other legendary weapons that the Yato considers powerful enough, right?"

"Right," Leo agreed, "but that therein lies the problem: how and where do we get these weapons? Or, at the very least, recruit the people with the ability to wield them?" He motioned for Kana to lower the sword, then pointed to the three empty slots embedded in the blade. "It seems like the Yato requires at least four weapons to unlock its full potential. Your sword, Alm, satisfies the first—as indicated by the single glowing notch here—but we still need three more."

"Two more, if Byleth finds his way back to us," Alm said. Or, if we set out to find him, he added silently.

"Oh! Oh!" Gray snapped his fingers and shook Alm by the shoulder. "What about that giant-bone-hammer thing Annette has? Or Merric's wind tome? Those seem pretty special. Dare I say… legendary?"

"Doesn't hurt to check."

Alm scanned the rest of the camp, waving both mages over to the training grounds. Merric was the first to answer the call, sharing a quick farewell with an enormous creature covered in black and white fur—some kind of cross between wolf and man that, despite the sharp fangs and claws, seemed to be relatively friendly—before jogging over to Alm's side. Annette was a bit slower to join them, weighed down by two young girls clinging to her dress on the way over.

Laslow scooped them both up into his arms to give Annette some space.

"Something wrong?" Merric asked. Annette smoothed out her skirts, listening with an attentive tilt of the head.

"Not exactly," Alm said. "We just want to try something out. Can we see Excalibur, Merric? And your Relic, Annette?"

"Of course."

"Sure!"

Merric rustled under his robes and pulled the ancient green tome off his belt. Annette simply tugged her hammer off her back, sticking its spikey-boned head into the ground and leaning forward on its handle.

A few beats of silence passed over them. Alm kept a close eye on the Yato, waiting for its ethereal light to change colors or resonate with the two new weapons in its presence…

…But there was no reaction.

"Um…" Annette fidgeted in place. "Do you want us to do something with these, or…?"

Leo pursed his lips and shook his head. "No need. We have our answer: the Yato won't accept just any weapon with the potential for great power. It needs more than that."

"Something on par with Falchion, then?" Alm scratched his head. There weren't many weapons he knew of that were on the same level as Valentia's Falchion, besides Byleth's whip-sword—which was conveniently missing—or Archanea's Falchion—which was conveniently in the hands of the enemy.

Or, maybe, that's exactly what Anankos intended, Alm thought bitterly.

"Oh, you need someone who can wield Falchion?" Laslow asked, still trying to wrangle the children in his arms. "I know two of them."

"What?" Alm nearly dropped his sword at that. Just how many Falchions were there? "You do?"

"Back in my home world—"

"Where Grandma and Grandpa live!" the pink-haired girl hanging off his shoulders giggled. Her friend, a child with messy blonde hair, added, "Mine, too!"

"—yes, love, where Grandma and Grandpa live, two close friends of mine each have a Falchion of their own. Similar to the one you wield now, milord."

"That sounds like exactly what we need." Alm sheathed his Falchion, though the purple glow around both divine swords still remained. "Is there a way we can contact them? Or better yet, is there a way we can get to them ourselves?"

"I…do have a way we can reach my home world, but…" Laslow dug through his pocket and scooped out a small, clear crystal. "It's a one-way trip. If we use it now, we might not be able to return."

Leo regarded him with a raised, curious brow. "A transport crystal? Where did you get something like that?"

"It was a gift from…the person who brought me, Selena, and Odin here," Laslow said, "in exchange for our help. They should still have theirs too, granted they haven't used them in their absence. They can only be used once before they break."

"…I see…" Leo folded his arms behind his back. "Then we shouldn't use it just yet. I'll see if there's another way for us to travel to your home world, one that would allow us to safely travel back and forth between there and here. We don't want to get stuck somewhere without a reliable way out." His face once again slipped into a hardened frown. "We're not making that mistake again."

"While you investigate that," Alm said, "I can lead a small group of us to search for—"

"And risk losing the only person we have right now who can help empower the Yato? Not a chance." Leo spun on his heel, arms still firmly set behind his back, then gave his final order. "Stay put for now. My siblings will be arriving with reinforcements within the next few days. By then, we'll have a better idea of what our next steps should be."

Alm ground his teeth. Great, more waiting? That was the last thing he wanted to do. "But we don't know how much time we—"

"My camp," Leo said without turning around, "my rules. No one leaves the safety of the barrier until we have a solid plan." More quietly, he muttered, "I won't allow us to lose anyone else."

Alm crossed his arms and huffed. A sign that Leo seemed to take as an acceptance of his terms, albeit a reluctant one. So, with his chin held high, he left the training grounds.

Once Leo was out of earshot, Gray whispered to Alm, "I think someone should call for a cleric, because that guy has a serious case of stick up his—"

"Uncle Leo has a stick up where?" Kana asked.

"A-ah, aha…" Gray laughed it off with a wave of his hand, casting a nervous glance to the boy's father…a knight of the royal family. "It's nothing, little guy. Don't worry about it."

Kana bristled at being called "little."

"Is there something you need from us, Kana?" Alm asked. The boy nodded, wringing his hands around the handle of the Yato.

"Yeah, I just…um…wanted to see if…" The tips of his pointed ears twitched nervously. "If you could teach me…how to fight with a sword? You guys seem really good at it." He kicked his feet and bit down on his bottom lip. "I wanna use Mama's sword right so I can be helpful, too, but I don't really know how to do anything except hit things really hard…"

"…I suppose we could show you a thing or two," Alm said. That sounded like a more productive use of his time compared to breaking whetstones with his sword. "If it's okay with your dad?"

Silas pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "We don't really have a choice now, do we?"

Alm grimly nodded. That was the unfortunate truth: if they wanted to defeat Anankos and his army of invisible soldiers, they needed someone to wield the Yato against him. And if Kana was the only candidate…

Well, Alm would do whatever he could to help him prepare for the burden the world was about to thrust upon his shoulders, just like Mycen had done for him so long ago.

He wouldn't let Kana bear the hope for humanity's survival alone.

Alm picked up a wooden training sword and gestured for Kana to do the same. "Then let's start with some basic techniques, so you can get a feel for how to move with a sword in your hand. Just, uh…" He waved to the broken training dummy and gave a lighthearted chuckle. "Don't hit me too hard, okay?"

"Yes, sir!"

As Kana scrambled over to the weapons rack, Alm glanced up to the cloudy sky overhead, determination set deep in his face.

Wherever you are, Celica, just hang on a little longer. There's someone here I need to help first.

I'll find you soon. I promise.

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The border of Daein and Begnion, Tellius

Year 648

Celica was lost in a field of frozen faces.

Thousands upon thousands of gray statues stood rigid and motionless in every direction around her for as far as the eye could see. Statues of soldiers with their weapons drawn, their faces twisted with anger, fear, and pain; statues of lions and giant cats barring their claws and fangs, all prepared to eviscerate any unfortunate soul who dared to approach them; statues of massive hawks and ravens, some pecking at the exposed, gray-speckled skin of the human soldiers, others laying lopsided on the ground as though they had been turned to stone mid-flight.

All of them were too lifelike, too numerous, and frankly too frightening, to be the work of even the most talented of sculptors.

Shivering, Celica hugged her arms closer to her body. A light snow fell over her head and caught on her lashes, making it even more difficult for her to find her way through a battlefield frozen in more ways than one. Even the ball of fire she had summoned for extra light and warmth did little to chase away the cold.

She sighed, watching the breath curl around her face, and—

A heavy set of footsteps shook the earth beneath her boots. Celica startled, stifling a gasp and reaching out to steady herself on one of the statues as the footsteps grew closer, and louder, and closer, and louder…

Heart racing, she whispered a quick prayer to the Earth Mother and swiveled around on her heels, hand hovering over the hilt of her sword.

But whatever she had been prepared to face, it wasn't this.

A man nearly twice her height, dressed from head to toe in heavy, black armor plate, wielding a silver sword almost as long as her entire body. His face was hidden beneath a tall metal mask; only the breath venting through the metal's thin slits gave any indication that there was actually a person buried under all that armor.

For a moment, they simply watched each other. Silence reigned the space between them, its rule only disturbed by the man's thick, red cape flapping against the frigid air.

Then, the man spoke. His voice was slow, deep, carrying an eerie reverberation as it passed through his mask. A sound that sent chills crawling up Celica's spine.

"You're not supposed to be here."

Character Bios:

Nothing to report (yet).

Spoilers for both Path of Radiance (FE9) and Radiant Dawn (FE10) ahead.

Next chapter: A reluctant reunion.