Chapter 38: Binding Ties

Bulgar, The Nation of Sacae, Elibe

Year 1000

A sudden chill rippled up Roy's sword arm. He froze mid-swing, the Binding Blade stopping just short of the neck of the training dummy he had been practicing on for the past hour. The air in Bulgar was warm around him—sweltering, even, with the dense smoke clouds from the burning plains still hanging over the city—but the chill building inside him refused to settle.

…Young…Lion…

A soft, ethereal voice grazed Roy's ears. He twisted away from the dummy, sword snapping up to guard his front, but…

There was no one in the training yard except for Roy himself.

…Time…grows…short…

The chill crept across his chest, clawed down his ribs, sunk into his stomach like a clump of ice plunging into a dark sea. Shakily, Roy sheathed the Binding Blade and lowered himself into a nearby bench, dropping his head into his hands as he waited for the uncomfortable feeling to pass.

The…Dragon's…Gate…

Hot breath lapped at the back of Roy's neck, a clash against the cold sweat breaking over his skin. Images of a golden dragon burning across a stormy sky consumed his vision. Its roar thundered at the edges of his mind, its tremendous, scorching power pulsed with the frozen chill flooding his body. The quintessence of his soul, the energy dwelling inside all living things, stirred under its golden aura.

…Hur…ry…

The voice faded, as did the sudden imagery and sounds that had seized Roy's senses. The chill began to recede, too, and Roy stuttered out a choked breath.

(The air that passed through his teeth, though, was just as cold and discomforting as the ice that had so briefly, but so thoroughly, gripped his soul)

"Roy?"

A gentle, warm hand came to rest on Roy's shoulder. He lifted his head to find Lyn hovering at his side.

"What's wrong?" Lyn asked, joining him on the small wooden bench. "Are your injuries still bothering you? Maybe you should rest for a little while longer, before trying to resume your normal training regimen."

"No, it's…" Roy warmed his hands with the end of his cape. "It's that…that feeling again."

"The same one Ninian used to get?"

Roy nodded. "I felt it back in Bern, too, before Lord Hector and the monsters attacked us." His brows furrowed at the ground, palms clammy. "I think something's happened—or is about to happen, I can't say for sure. It just feels like something has…shifted, somehow."

"I see." A grim frown took hold in Lyn's expression. "I'll reinforce the city watch on the walls and in the streets. We already have several teams in rotation, but we're going to need all the manpower we can muster should they decide to attack again." Lyn folded her arms and tilted back, sighing at the smoke-laden sky. "At the very least, we won't have to deal with Hector again. If we could survive him, we can survive anything else they try to throw at us."

Roy prayed to all the gods that she was right.

"Chieftain!" a Sacaean soldier called out, entering the training grounds with his fist pressed to his chest. Lyn returned the gesture by bumping her own fist over her heart. "Your presence is requested at the front gates."

Lyn uncrossed her arms. "The front gates? For what?"

"A rider from the west has just arrived," the soldier said. "He claims to be the Marquess of Pherae, Chief, but we haven't been able to verify—"

"Eliwood is here? In the condition he's in?" Lyn pushed herself off the bench, her short ponytail whipping against the air as she whirled around to make her leave from the training grounds. "That fool! The letter I sent him wasn't meant to be a summons!"

"Letter?" Roy scrambled off his seat to follow her out into the city streets. "You wrote to my father, Lady Lyndis?"

"Just a short note informing him on the current situation," Lyn said, walking with hurried purpose down the road, "and letting him know that you and Lilina would be safe with us. I told him we would continue to shelter both of you until we could secure a safe route to Pherae, while he worked on fortifying his territory's defenses…"

Lyn slowed her pace as the remains of Bulgar's front gates came into view, frowning at the cloaked figure clopping through the collapsed archway. Unmistakable tufts of red hair peeked out from under the dark hood.

"…But it appears he decided to come to you instead," Lyn sighed.

Eliwood urged his horse toward them with a gentle kick of his heel. Once he was within speaking distance, he slid out of the saddle and pushed back his hood, revealing a mop of messy red hair and a pale, but not completely colorless, complexion. Still a bit sickly, still a bit worn and weary, but looking much better than the bed-ridden man Roy had reluctantly left behind to fight King Zephiel's conquest of Elibe.

Eliwood locked eyes with Roy. Wordlessly, he strode over to the two of them, his frown turning more serious and troubled with every step. Roy felt compelled to straighten his posture, so as to appear strong and, hopefully, mitigate the disappointment his father surely harbored for Roy's tactical blunder in Bern. Lyn had probably written about that in her letter, if Eliwood's expression was anything to go by.

When Eliwood was only a few paces away, Roy cleared the shame from his throat and started, "Father, I—"

Eliwood pulled him into a tight hug.

"My son." Eliwood buried his face into Roy's hair, his voice little more than a quiet choke. "My son."

Roy sucked in a sharp breath. All the months he had spent away at war, worrying about his father's health, fighting in his father's place, trying to live up to his father's name and his grand legacy, came crashing over him all at once.

Roy clung to the curve of Eliwood's back, hiding his wet eyes and quivering lip into his father's warm shoulder.

For the first time in a long time, if even for just a few moments, feeling safe.

Eliwood was the first to pull away. "Are you okay?" he asked, throat thick with heavy emotion. He bent down to better match Roy's height, inspecting every inch of his son's face for the slightest sign of injury. "Roy, are you hurt? Gods, your face is freezing—are you feeling cold? Here, take my cloak."

Eliwood hurried to tug his cloak off his shoulders, but Roy shook his head. "I'm fine, Father," he said, though he was a bit concerned about the comment on his temperature. "I'm feeling better, especially now that you're here with us."

"It's great to see you in good health again, Eliwood," Lyn said. Her stern frown had softened into a more relaxed smile, and Roy couldn't help but smile along with her.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it good." The lighthearted chuckle that passed through his lips stuttered into a short cough, but Eliwood quickly recovered. "But it's not so bad. I'm just thankful to not be confined to my bed anymore. Any longer cooped up in my chambers, and I might have started pulling my hair out."

"Still, you shouldn't push yourself." Lyn's smile slipped. "After everything that's happened, after losing…" She swallowed hard, struggling to produce the words. "Losing Hector…Gods, Hector…"

"…Lyndis…"

Eliwood turned to her, arms open, and she staggered forward to wrap her own around her old friend.

"He blames us for his death," Lyn whispered into Eliwood's shoulder, eyes misty. "He said as much to me, out in the plains. He cursed us for not being there to help him when Bern attacked Araphen, for abandoning him when he needed us most. Perhaps it was just the terrible creature controlling him trying to get to me, but…"

Eliwood forced down a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, Lyndis. I'm so sorry. Illness be damned, I should have been here for you—for all of you. I should have been here to fight by your side so we could face him together, so we could protect your people and my son—"

"Don't." Lyn lowered her arms and stepped back, wiping a stray tear from the corner of her eye. "You couldn't have known. No one could have known that Hector would…return, like that." She raised her chin and patted both Eliwood and Roy on the shoulder. "What matters is that your health is improving, and that your son is safe. Hector's spirit has been returned to the afterlife, so all that's left for us to do now is look forward and protect the people we still have."

Eliwood nodded, exchanging a light fist bump with her. "Spoken like a true chieftain, Lyndis."

"Oh, come now," Lyn huffed. "I think we've been friends for long enough for you to just call me 'Lyn.' Must you always be so formal?"

"Force of habit," Eliwood said, taking the reins of his horse. Then, with a teasing smile and an exaggerated bow, he added, "My lady."

Lyn rolled her eyes. "How fortunate for us, that your illness did not rob you of your incredible wit." She spun around, motioning for both Eliwood and Roy to follow her down the city street.

"Come on, I'll catch you up on our defensive plan while we get your horse settled in with the stablehands. Mark and I would appreciate your input. Oh, and then there's the matter of…"

Eliwood patted his horse's neck and tugged on the reins. "We had better do as she says, Roy," he said, playfully ruffling Roy's hair as he and his steed moved to follow Lyn's trail. "When Lyndis sets her mind to something, there's no stopping her until she sees the task complete."

Roy took a quick survey of the surrounding cityscape, checking for flickering shadows and hidden monsters, listening for that soft, mysterious voice, but all he found were the Sacaean troops patrolling the area with the tightest security an army could enforce. If anywhere in the world would be prepared to fend off another attack, it would be here in Bulgar under Lyn and Mark's adept leadership.

Relaxing his shoulders, Roy hurried to catch up with his father's long strides. Walking side-by-side with him again, reunited after a long, terrible war…it was all Roy had hoped for ever since he had left home, terrified and in over his head, so many months ago.

It was almost enough to make him forget about the remnants of that ominous chill still lingering, just barely, in the recesses of his mind.

—

"Uncle Eliwood!"

Lilina bounded through the stable doors and all but jumped into Eliwood's arms, squeezing him with the tightest, warmest hug she could muster. Eliwood coughed at the sudden pressure around his midsection, but his face was all smiles.

"You're here!" Lilina said. "You're okay!"

"It's good to see you too, Lilina." Eliwood's cough settled into a soft chuckle. "That's quite the grip you have there."

"Ah, sorry!" Lilina snapped her arms away. "That was thoughtless of me. I just, I didn't realize you were coming, and we've all been so worried about you ever since you had taken ill…"

Eliwood waved off her concern and returned to hitching his horse to the stable post. "Think nothing of it. I may be moving past my prime, but I'm not a frail old man just yet."

"Maybe not," Lyn said, lifting the handle of the stable's water pump to redirect the flow into his horse's personal water trough, "but you do still need to be careful and watch your health. You may be feeling better now, but if you push yourself too hard too quickly, you'll only make yourself more susceptible to further illness or injury down the line."

"She told me the same thing," Roy whispered not-so-quietly to his father. Eliwood gave a soft laugh and nodded along, finishing the last loop around the hitching post.

"Because both of you have a tendency to neglect yourselves for the sake of other people." Lyn swirled her hand around the water in the trough, testing its temperature, then splashed them both with a playful smile. "Someone has to look out for the two knuckleheads of Pherae, lest they work themselves into the ground."

Eliwood shrugged at her and hummed, "I'll slow down when you slow down, Lyndis."

Lyn just shook her head and sighed, tapping the edge of the trough to encourage the horse to drink up the cool, fresh water. The horse lowered her muzzle, sniffed the water's surface, then snorted out a puff of hot air from her nostrils. She stomped her hooves, shuffling as far back from the trough as the hitching post would allow.

"Not thirsty, girl?" Roy reached up to pet the horse's neck, to scratch along all the areas he knew the sturdy animal loved, but the moment his fingers grazed the white fur…

The horse whined and flinched away from his touch, swishing her tail at him like she was swatting away flies. Roy stepped back and frowned at his hand. Had he done something to startle her?

…Were his hands really that cold?

"She must be tired from the long ride," Eliwood said, scratching along the horse's back to soothe her much more successfully than Roy had. "She'll get around to the water and her feed once she's had some time to rest."

"I suppose." Roy pulled his gloves further over his fingers and rubbed his hands together, doing what he could to warm them up. "We should find somewhere for you to rest your feet for a while, too, Fa—"

A sharp, high-pitched squeal cut him off. At first, Roy feared it was the horse again, agitated by his close proximity, but he quickly realized that the sound had come from behind him. From a person.

From their new friend, Odin.

"By the red hair of Eliwood," Odin whispered, eyes wide and starstruck as he peered into the stable. Petra stood behind him, watching the mage with as much confusion as the rest of them. "It's…it's…" Odin's voice tightened into a breathless gasp. "Eliwood."

"Uh…" Eliwood blinked at him. "Well met, sir. Is there something I can help you with?"

Somehow, Odin's eyes grew even wider. "Eliwood—the Eliwood—called me 'sir'? Am I dreaming? Have the dark, almighty eyes of eternity finally seen fit for me to join the legends of great?!"

"The dark what now?"

"Ooh, it's truly an honor to be in your presence, milord! Or would you prefer: the Noble, Illustrious Marquess? No, that's not quite right." Odin snapped his fingers. "I've got it! The Blazing Knight. The Wielder of the Sword of Sacred Fire—"

"Eliwood will do just fine, thank you." Eliwood scratched the back of his head. "And you are…?"

"Wh-who am I, he asks?" Odin cleared his throat and puffed out his chest. "The foreboding abyss has bestowed a great many monikers upon my mystical visage, but the mortal realm has come to know this dark sorcerer as—"

"His name is Odin," Lilina said, stepping in between the two. "And this is Petra. They're the ones who helped me and Roy out in the plains. Without them, we never would have made it to Bulgar."

"They're the two from another world I mentioned in the letter," Lyn added.

"Is that so?" Eliwood's baffled expression relaxed into a warm, gentle smile. "Then I suppose it is I who should be praising you, good sir"—he tipped his head to Petra—"and you, good lady, for protecting Roy and Lilina in my absence. Both Pherae and Ostia are forever in your debt."

Odin beamed, his grin stretching out so wide it almost looked like it hurt.

"If there is anything I can do to repay you—"

"Could you sign my sword?"

"I—" The soft wrinkles over Eliwood's brow deepened. "A sword? Aren't you a mage?"

The metallic shing of Odin's sword being drawn from its scabbard sung throughout the stable. "I was a swordsman long before I immersed myself in the mystic arts, Sir Lordship! The great tales of your adventures as a gallant knight and paragon of virtue inspired me as a young hero-in-training to take up the blade and—"

"I would be more than happy to—er—sign your sword," Eliwood said, "and hear more about your heroic deeds, after I've had a chance to settle in."

Odin pumped his fist and whispered, "Yes!"

"We are also needing a way home," Petra said, taking her chance to speak as Odin muttered excitedly to himself. "We have been separated from our worlds and our friends for a very long time. We must be finding a way back to them soon, if that is something you have knowledge of?"

"You can't use the same method of transport you used to get here?" Roy asked.

Petra shook her head. "It is…very complicated. We fell into a magical canyon, and it brought us to Elibe, but I am thinking that canyon does not exist here."

"I can't say I've ever heard of such a thing," Eliwood said. "And our capacity for quick inter-world travel is…" He scratched at his chin. "Well, frankly, it's nonexistent, as far as I'm aware. The only connection we have to another world is—"

Eliwood's fingers froze along his face. He pressed his lips together into a tight line and dropped his gaze to the ground.

"You're thinking about Valor," Lyn said, sharing in his frown, "and the Dragon's Gate, aren't you?"

The Dragon's Gate.

Roy shivered. Another frozen chill rippled down his spine, and what felt like clumps of frost tightened at the base of his throat. He gripped the edge of the water trough to keep himself steady. That name again…the one that voice had spoken…

He released a short, stuttered breath as he urged the uncomfortable chill to subside. His father's horse swatted him with her tail again, snorting at the trough and kicking up dirt with her back hoof.

"The Dragon's Gate?" Odin shook himself out of his starstruck revelry. "You have one of those, too?"

"On the island of Valor," Lyn said, "or the Dread Isle, as some call it. It's a gateway that was created by the dragons of Elibe to escape to a world beyond our own, to a place where they could live freely away from mankind. Roy's mother and her brother called that world home, before they were lured into Elibe through the Dragon's Gate by a mad sorcerer looking to harvest their quintessence. I thought it was one of a kind, but…" She tilted her head at Odin and Petra. "Your world has something similar?"

"Similar," Odin nodded, humming quietly to himself, "or, perhaps, exactly the same…"

"What is your meaning?" Petra asked.

Odin grinned and curled his hand over his face. "You wish for me to impart the secrets of our dragon brethren? Well, allow me to regale you with the story of—"

"The short version, please," Lyn said.

"…Right." Odin's arm fell to his side. "Our Dragon's Gate can create portals to other worlds, too. It's connected to several different worlds scattered across the astral plane—in fact, the Gate is how I met Petra and her allies. They walked through it from their world to the one I've been living in."

Lyn nodded thoughtfully. "And you think your Dragon's Gate could be connected to our world, as well?"

"It's possible." Odin shrugged. "But I'd have to see it to—"

"No."

All eyes turned to Eliwood, everyone startled by the hard edge that had accompanied his voice.

"The Dragon's Gate is too far away," Eliwood said, "and the trip is too dangerous. Valor is known as the 'Dread Isle' for a reason: it's cursed with dark magic, and the ocean around it swallows anyone foolish enough to try sailing its waters."

"But, Father," Roy started, throat rough and tight from the chill still lodged in his chest, "i-if the Dragon's Gate can connect us to other worlds, and other potential allies, we should at least consider—"

"Lyn, Hector, and I risked our lives to keep the Dragon's Gate closed," Eliwood said, jaw prominent and stiff. "Your grandfather was killed at the Dragon's Gate, Roy, and your mother—" He choked on the words and coughed into his elbow before continuing, "So much of the pain suffered by your mother and your Uncle Nils was because someone wanted to open that damned gate. We have to find another way."

Roy's stomach twisted in alarm. "But—"

"Eliwood is right," Lyn said. "It's good to know that a potential waypoint exists between our worlds, but we cannot in good conscience try to send you two home through the Dragon's Gate. For one thing, you would need a dragon with you to operate it, and for another, the trip to get there would probably kill you before you ever even reached the Gate." She crossed her arms and frowned at the dirt. "We only made it there all those years ago because of the courage and voyaging skills of a very generous pirate."

Something inside of Roy was screaming at him to protest, but he struggled to give voice to it. If Lyn and his father agreed that traveling to the Dragon's Gate would be too dangerous a risk, why should he argue against their judgment? Because some strange voice he didn't recognize wanted him to go there?

"We have understanding," Petra sighed, rubbing her forehead. "We will be searching for a different path of return. There must be something…"

"Uh…well…" Odin fiddled with the flap of one of his pockets. "There is definitely something we can use, it's just…meant to be used as a last resort…"

Roy couldn't follow the rest of the conversation. The ache in his chest was too heavy, the chill in his bones too cold and discomforting for him to focus on anything else.

He silently gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the water trough. Eliwood attempted to comfort him with a gentle pat on the back, but the extra sensation only aggravated his growing sense of unease.

The horse's snorting and swishing were not helping, either.

"What's wrong?" Eliwood asked, keeping his voice hushed as the others kept to their own conversation. When Roy didn't immediately answer, Eliwood pressed a hand to his forehead then snapped it away like his fingers had been bitten. "Gods, you're even colder than before. Are you sure you don't want my cloak?"

"I…I don't…" Roy shrugged away from his father's touch. Every word he tried to speak seemed to tighten his throat and drag down his tongue. "We need…need to go…"

"Go where?" Eliwood pushed Roy's hair back, feeling around his son's face. "What's going on, Roy?"

Roy didn't even know. To the Dragon's Gate, out of the stables, it didn't matter. They just needed to get away from here.

"This is just like—" Eliwood gasped in some realization that was lost on Roy. "Ninian's warnings. You're right, my son, we need to go. We're going." He took Roy's arm and turned to Lyn. "We need to secure the area right now."

Lyn regarded them with a concerned frown. "The weird feeling again? Mark has already rallied our reserve troops to prepare for—"

The horse shrieked and reared back, violently jerking against the hitching post. With a powerful spin that nearly knocked both Eliwood and Roy off their feet, she kicked at the trough with her hind legs and dented the metallic tank. Water sloshed over the rim as the horse rammed her hooves into the trough once more, but before the water inside could even begin to settle—

A gauntleted hand shot out of the trough and seized Roy's wrist. Another hand twisted into his cape. Before Roy could even blink, he was ripped from his father's arms and dragged head-first into the depths of the trough.

"Roy!"

Cold water flooded Roy's lungs. It rushed up his nose, drowned his ears, sank into the pores of his skin. He clawed desperately at the trough's edge with his free hand, fighting to pull himself out. Fighting to break free from the steel grip trapping him under the water's surface, a grip so tight, so crushing, all the bones in Roy's wrist were threatening to snap.

More hands were on him. Wrapping around his waist, pulling on his legs, struggling against his captor's strength with all their might. A pair of soulless, pink eyes flickered through the thick bubbles and ice crystals streaming from Roy's mouth. Then a hardened face, a full, blue beard, dented armor plate—

"No one… uses… the Dragon's Gate. No one… goes… anywhere." Hector's furious visage flashed next to Roy's head, becoming more defined, more tangible by the second. "They must know… what it's like… to lose."

His gauntleted hand captured Roy's throat, aiming to strangle the last puff of air left in the boy's lungs—

Something slammed hard into the side of the trough, knocking the tank flat on its side—and Roy along with it. Water washed over the stable floor and soaked into the dirt. Roy sputtered and coughed and retched all at once, scrambling to force out all the water he had swallowed, to suck in as much precious air as he could fit in his lungs.

Lilina's fire magic swept across the floor, evaporating all traces of the water before anything else could emerge from the scattered puddles. Roy couldn't find Hector anywhere—no sign of the hands that had tried to drown him, nor the dead face that had been in the process of forming within the water's depths—but that only heightened Roy's panic. Where had he gone? Why had he tried to kill him again? How had he survived the—

His father dropped to his knees, panting hard, and pulled Roy into his arms.

"I've got you," Eliwood whispered. Then, louder, "Lyndis, forget the street patrols. We need soldiers stationed around the city's major stores of water: cisterns, aqueducts, fountains, wells, bathhouses, anything that contains enough water to hold or hide a person. He's using the water to move around—we need to block off as many of his potential entry points as possible, before he or any of his 'friends' hurt anyone else."

"Winds!" Lyn cursed under her breath. "Of course he is! You've always been a stubborn mule, Hector!"

She whirled around on her heels, and in less than a second she was sprinting out of the stable, calling for Mark and her captains.

Roy coughed up the last stream of water burning his throat. Eliwood tried to dry him off, tried to check over his injuries, but Roy just shook his head and nudged his father's hands away. There wasn't time for coddling. There wasn't time for rest. Sheltering themselves in Bulgar wouldn't be an option for much longer.

The mysterious voice had been right. The chill had been right.

They needed to get to the Dragon's Gate.

Character Bios:

Eliwood: Knight Lord

—Marquess of Pherae. A kind, charismatic man who once journeyed across Elibe with Hector and Lyn to stop Nergal from stealing the quintessence from people and dragons alike. After his father's tragic death at the Dread Isle, he inherited the title of Marquess Pherae and ruled peacefully for many years, marrying the half-dragon Ninian after rescuing her from Nergal's scheming. When the Kingdom of Bern began its conquest of Elibe, however, the Marquess caught a debilitating illness that left him unfit to defend against the invasion, and thus was forced to entrust his dear son with command of Pherae's army instead.

—Former wielder of Durandal

—Relations: Son of Elbert and Eleanora (both deceased). Father of Roy. Husband of Ninian (deceased). Best friend of Hector (deceased) and Lyn

I can't believe Toothpaste-Chan is real lol

Odin/Owain's "by the red hair of Eliwood" is a direct quote from Awakening. What a dork–I love him.

Next chapter: The Dragon's Gate.