Chapter 43: Recollection and Regret
Castle Altea, The Kingdom of Altea, Archanea
Arch. Year 609
The castle was quiet. Far too quiet, Julia felt, for what had been a long-awaited reunion between close allies and old friends. There should have been smiles, hugs, perhaps some lighthearted laughter as they reconnected after so much time spent apart. A brief moment of levity, of hope, to spite the darkness that had tried so hard to separate them.
But instead, Julia's new allies celebrated their return with somber silence. A few of them whispered quietly amongst themselves, catching each other up on what they had seen and learned during their travels, while others sat scattered across the great hall, silently lamenting all the friends—and all the worlds—they had been forced to leave behind. Each person, plagued by worry and regret.
Feelings Julia herself knew all too well.
She picked at the corner of her tome as she paced the stone floors, swallowing against the grief threatening to spill up from her throat. Selfishly, she had hoped to find her brother among the castle's new arrivals, with Lewyn and Ishtar at his side (and perhaps, by some miracle, her father and her uncle, too)… but no such luck. Every face she passed was unfamiliar to her, and every face she passed made her feel all the more lonely.
"How is he, Princess?" a hushed voice whispered to her right. Julia paused in her stride, instinctively perking up at the title.
"Stable, for now," the princess of Castle Altea, Elice, answered softly. She set aside her healing staff and knelt down beside a wooden bench, pressing a gentle hand to the forehead of the young boy sleeping atop the seat's cushions. "He still has a bit of a fever, but a few hours of rest and recovery should see his temperature return to normal. Keep an eye on him, though, and call for me immediately if his breathing begins to stagnate again."
The boy's retainer, a silver-haired swordsman, nodded as he laid a thin blanket over the bench and the sleeping child. "Thank you, my lady," he said, sitting by the boy's feet. "Seriously—on behalf of his father and his family, thank you. I'm not sure he would have survived his injuries without your help." Quietly, more to himself than to the princess, he added, "You're even kinder than the stories claimed."
"Stories?" Elice tilted her head thoughtfully. "Ah, from the future, you mean?"
The swordsman's gaze snapped up from the bench. "How did you—"
"Merric mentioned that some of you originally hail from Archanea, like us, but from two thousand years down the line," Elice said. "I'll be honest: all this discussion of people traveling through time, and traveling across worlds… it's all far beyond my comprehension, really." A hint of a smile played at the edge of her lips. "But it is comforting to know that, despite our recent tragedies, there still exists a future for Archanea. A hopeful future for us to fight and win for."
The swordsman huffed out a short, quiet chuckle. "My friend said something similar, once." He glanced between the Altean princess and the golden shield glimmering atop the pedestal at the end of the great hall. "She's a descendant of your house, so I guess it's only natural she'd bear some resemblance to you."
"A descendant…"
Elice's smile waned. Her eyes flicked up to a family portrait hanging on the wall above the bench, fingers curling into the white silk of her dress.
"I'd love to hear more about her and this future of yours, Sir Laslow," she said, taking her healing staff back into hand with a heavy sigh, "perhaps after I've had the chance to treat the rest of your friends. Do you know if anyone else is in need of healing?"
"Well, Kana's back was burned pretty badly, but…" Laslow frowned and slumped back against the bench. "You won't find him around here. He left for the training grounds as soon as we stepped through the castle gates."
Elice furrowed her brow. "The training grounds? Whatever for?"
"To practice fighting with his mother's sword, if I had to guess."
"At this hour?" Elice pursed her lips at the soft glow of twilight seeping in through the windows, a warning of nightfall's imminent arrival. The castle's protective magic shimmered within the glass, making the sky's last light dance in staggered streams across the floor. "Training is the last thing that child needs, especially if he's injured."
"Would you like me to retrieve him?" Julia asked. A faint blush came to warm her cheeks as both Elice and Laslow startled at the sound of her voice, only now taking notice of Julia's presence behind them.
"Ah, m-my apologies. I don't mean to intrude on your conversation, but… I…" She cleared her throat, resisting the urge to fiddle with her tome or hide her face behind her bangs. Seliph would never have acted so timidly in front of his allies—and now, as Jugdral's sole representative in this world, neither could she.
"I believe I can be of some assistance to you," she said, burying her nerves. "For healing the wounded, I mean. My mother trained me in the ways of white magic, so if you need an extra hand, I would be more than willing to offer mine."
The grim frown lining Elice's lips softened into a slight, gentle smile. "That is very kind of you, Princess. Perhaps you could check on Kana for us, then, while I focus on—"
"I think Kana needs some time alone first," Laslow said quietly, "to vent and to grieve. The battle we escaped from was particularly difficult for him, both physically and emotionally. The enemy was targeting him and—I suspect—the special sword he wields, trying to draw him out of our camp by attacking him, attacking our troops, and…" He tapped the shoe of the boy sleeping beside him on the bench. "Attacking his family. And he couldn't do anything to stop them."
"Stooping so low as to harm and traumatize children?" Elice muttered. "How cruel can they be?"
"As cruel as their master needs them to be. Ruthless violence, emotional manipulation, that's how the invisible soldiers have always operated. " Laslow frowned down at the stone floor. "I can only hope the people we had to leave behind have found a way to drive them back… and that Kana doesn't blame himself too much for the casualties."
Another swell of grief gripped Julia's chest. Her fingernails bit into the golden cover of her tome—a book said to be imbued with the very essence of Naga's spirit, a weapon with the power to cripple entire armies and bring the darkest of magic to heel. But when she had called upon that power to save her friends and family, to finally prove herself a hero worthy of her lineage and her brother's trust…
It had forced her to abandon them instead. Leaving her as the same weak, powerless princess she had been since the day her mother died.
"I understand how he feels," Julia whispered, more bitter than she had intended to let slip. "Exactly how he feels."
Elice sighed, long and slow. "Many of us do, I'm afraid." Her despondent gaze once again slid to the portrait on the wall, to the painting of two children—a girl who resembled Elice herself, and a younger boy sporting the same shade of blue hair—sitting atop a crowned man's lap. "When my country was under siege, I was trapped in captivity and could do little to help. We lost so many friends and allies, my brother among them."
Laslow craned his neck back to look at the picture himself. "The Hero-King?"
Elice gave a solemn nod. "Even after I was freed, even after I had the power of the Aum Staff back in my hands, I couldn't do anything for him. For any of them." She laced her fingers together over her skirts, eyes closed and mouth pressed into a thin line. "The invisible soldiers stole them from us, body and mind, before I could even attempt to revive anyone."
"I-I had no idea," Julia said. She bit down on her lip and turned away from the painting, unable to look upon the smiling family any longer (the boy reminded her too much of her own brother). "I'm so sorry, Princess."
"There is nothing to apologize for," Elice said. A single tear trailed down her cheek, but she allowed herself no more than the one. "All of us know well the pain of loss, but we cannot afford to wallow in our grief forever. We must focus our energy on protecting the people we still have here with us—" she looked to Laslow with her chin held high "—and ensuring this future of yours comes to pass."
Laslow managed another quiet laugh. "You really do sound just like her."
"A compliment of the highest regard." With all the grace and poise of a practiced princess, Elice lifted her skirts and lowered herself into a small curtsy. "We will talk more later. For now, I really must go check up on the rest of our friends, and make sure no one else is in need of immediate medical attention." She turned her friendly smile onto Julia. "Give Kana some time to vent his frustrations, then encourage him to join us here in the great hall to sit down for some healing magic."
Julia would have offered the princess her own curtsy in return, but given that she was still wearing the trousers of Grannvale's imperial army uniform, she settled for a simple nod instead. "As you command, my lady."
"Once everyone has had the chance to recover," Elice said, "we will reconvene here as a group to discuss our next steps, as well as any potential new leads you all might have gathered during your travels."
"Leads?" Julia asked. "For what?"
"For how we can best combat the army of the dead," Elice said, "and put a permanent end to the one controlling them. I'm told Kana's sword has the power to do so with the aid of other divine weapons—like the Valentian Falchion and your tome, Julia—but there may be other ways to fight them we haven't considered yet, especially for those of us who don't wield holy weapons ourselves."
"Oh, well, I might have something of a lead… maybe…" Julia dug through her uniform, pulling out the charcoal sketch she had kept tucked away in her pocket. The parchment was torn and wrinkled along the edges, the black lines smudged from all the time she had spent out in the rain, but the drawings of Naga and the bloody six-eyed symbol were mostly still intact.
"I have visions, on occasion," she said. "Images shown to me by the Divine Dragon Naga—"
"Naga exists in your world, too?" Laslow asked.
Julia nodded. "She shared her holy blood with one of my ancestors long ago during a time of crisis, granting some in my family the ability to draw power from her tome and, at times, see her in our dreams." She flipped the water-stained paper around for them to see, careful not to disturb the smudged charcoal any further. "This is what I remember from the last vision she showed me, but I have no idea what it's supposed to—"
"That's the Mark of Grima," Laslow whispered, eyes wide and stamped with sudden fear. He snapped out of his seat, face paling at the six-eyed symbol staring up at them from the parchment. "Why—why would you—"
"You recognize it?" Julia would have been relieved, if not for Laslow's unexpected reaction. "What… what's wrong? What does it mean?"
"It's the sigil used by the Grimleal," Laslow said warily. "Worshipers—no, fanatics—of the Fell Dragon, Grima: the embodiment of malice and despair, a scourge whose only goal is the complete and utter annihilation of humanity." A thick tension coiled around his shoulders. "The monster who murdered my parents and destroyed my homeland."
Julia's mouth fell open. "Oh."
Elice leaned in to inspect the picture more closely, then muttered, "I know this symbol, too, but it doesn't represent a dragon or anything nearly as… dreadful… as what you've described, Sir Laslow. At least, not here in Altea."
Laslow frowned at her. "It existed before Grima, then?"
"I'm not familiar with that name," Elice said, "so I can't say for sure, but I do know that the symbol itself is several centuries old, once belonging to a Thabean alchemist named Forneus." She folded her arms, contemplative. "The legends say that he was obsessed with death, spending most of his career experimenting with necromancy and blood magic in the hopes of raising what he considered to be the perfect life form: a creature known simply as the 'Creation'."
The golden light emanating off the Book of Naga shuddered against Julia's arms, as though the spirit within was recoiling in disgust.
"His unethical research practices drew the ire of the Thabean Senate," Elice continued, "and they demanded he cease his dangerous experimentation. When he refused, the Senate sealed him and his Creation within the deepest recesses of the Thabes Labyrinth, never to be seen or heard from again." She shook her head, sighing. "Eventually, the city of Thabes fell into ruin, swallowed by the sweltering sands of the Mamorthod Desert—and whatever remained of Forneus, his Creation, and their labyrinthine prison was buried along with it."
Labyrinth… the word stuck out in Julia's mind, though she couldn't exactly remember why.
"It's more of a cautionary tale than anything else," Elice said. "One that has been passed down through generations of Archanean mages to warn against the dangers of dark magic and reckless experimentation." She traced around the border of the six-eyed pattern with her forefinger. "We look to this symbol as a reminder of that."
"Why would Naga show it to me, then?" Julia asked, running her thumb along the edge of the parchment. "I don't know any dark magic, so I'm not sure why she would feel the need to caution me against using it."
"She's not worried about you," Laslow said. "This is a warning about Grima, it has to be. In my time—in the future—my friends and I managed to strike the Fell Dragon down for good. But here? At this point in Archanean history, before even the time of the first Exalt?" Somehow, his face grew even paler. "Gods. He's alive, isn't he?"
Julia sucked in a sharp breath, gripping the paper so tightly that she nearly tore the drawing in two. If this Grima creature was anything like Loptous—and by the sounds of it, he was—then that meant…
Well, she wasn't sure exactly. But she knew it couldn't mean anything good.
"Do you mean to suggest, then, that there's a connection between this 'Fell Dragon' and Forneus's Creation?" Elice asked.
"How can there not be?" Laslow ran a hand through his silver hair, a nervous sweat breaking out beneath the shadow of his bangs. "They use the same damned sigil. They're both associated with necromancy and dark magic: this 'Creation' was born from it, and in my time, Grima and his puppets specialized in it. That can't be a coincidence."
"I suspect you may be right." Elice tapped her chin, frowning. "But as I said, the Creation was buried beneath the northern sands hundreds of years ago, far away from here. Mamorthod is as barren and inhospitable as deserts come: no food, no water, nothing but the scorching sun and the bones of an ancient city for miles on end. I'm not sure anything—not even a dark dragon like the one you fear—could survive for long under such conditions."
"You don't know Grima," Laslow muttered.
"Even so," Elice sighed, "the invisible soldiers have been targeting the dragonkin, correct? If Forneus's Creation and your Fell Dragon are truly one-in-the-same, and if it has, somehow, managed to survive all these years trapped beneath a desert wasteland…" She glanced to the window, eyes narrowed as she surveyed the open fields stretching out beyond the castle walls. "Perhaps they will take care of the problem for us, so to speak. The same way they dealt with Medeus."
Laslow crossed his arms and sank back down into his seat, lips drawn into a thin, white line. "I hope you're right, my lady. Because if Grima is somehow involved with them, with him…"
His hand curled into a fist over the bench's armrest.
"Gods help us all."
Julia's stomach twisted into knots. Not one, but two evil dragons working against them? The prospect alone was downright terrifying.
(And yet… deep down, for reasons she couldn't explain…
It didn't feel like the right answer)
She frowned down at the smudged sketches once more before hastily stuffing the paper back into her pocket, putting the six-eyed symbol out of sight.
"It seems like we have a lot more to think about than I initially thought," Elice said, her voice little more than a mumble. "We can revisit this discussion later at the group meeting, after we…" She tightened her grip around her healing staff. "After we have had some time to process this."
All Julia could do was nod.
After another short curtsy, Elice bid her a quiet farewell and moved further into the great hall, searching for more wounds in need of healing. Julia hugged the Book of Naga close to her chest and breathed out a short, shaky sigh.
"Princess Julia?" Julia looked over her shoulder to find Ashe a few paces from her back, watching her and Laslow through a cautious frown. "Is everything all right?" he asked. "You all look like you've seen a ghost."
"I wish," Laslow muttered.
"No ghosts," Julia said. Only the threat of demonic dragons hanging over us. "We were theorizing about the pictures I drew from my visions. We still aren't sure what exactly they're supposed to mean." She hugged her tome even tighter. "What we do know, though… doesn't seem good."
Ashe sighed and rubbed the skin beneath his eyes. "Can't say that's a surprise."
Julia did not miss the faint glisten of water on his fingertips as his hand fell from his face, nor the quiet hitch straining the edge of his voice. Her gaze drifted past his shoulders, settling on the couple sitting not too far behind him. Felix and their orange-haired friend, Julia recognized; Felix had his arm around the woman, holding her close, comforting her as she cried into a worn handkerchief.
"What happened?" Julia asked in a soft whisper. It quickly dawned on her that the question was rather silly, given the circumstances, but Ashe answered regardless.
"We told her about our professor," he said, releasing a slow, staggered breath. "The invisible soldiers had ambushed us in… that place… and Professor Byleth was injured. Badly injured. Felix and I stayed behind to try to help him while the others, like Annette, fled to safety. But…" His frown slid to the crying woman. "We failed. Byleth gave himself up to the enemy so the two of us could escape, and now… now they're doing Goddess knows what to him."
Julia's heart sank into the floor. Those feelings were stirring again, about Seliph, about her father, about Lewyn, Ishtar, Azelle… even Julius, despite all he had done. So much worry and regret, drowning her from the inside out.
"I'm sorry," was all she could find the strength to say.
"We'll find a way to save him," Ashe mumbled. "To save everyone. I have to believe that. But for now…"
An air of eerie silence fell over the great hall, disturbed only by Annette's quiet sobs and the soft snores of the child sleeping by Laslow's side.
"…we can only pray that he's not being forced to suffer."
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garreg? mach? monastery?, ?, fódlan?
imperial year ?
There was nothing quite like fishing at the break of dawn.
The first light of sunrise sparkling off the pond's clear waters. The gentle breeze brushing through the trees, bidding the moon and the stars farewell. The crisp, briny tang of fresh fish piled high in a basket, waiting to be scaled and seasoned to delectable perfection.
For Byleth, there was no greater peace.
Smiling, Byleth unhooked a fat silverfish from the end of his line and tossed it in with the rest of the morning's catch. Salmon, trout, herring… his students would eat well today. Perhaps for the rest of the week, if Flayn didn't get to the basket first.
A low whistle cut through the serenity of the morning, followed by heavy footsteps creaking along the dock behind him. Footsteps Byleth knew well.
"That's one hell of a catch, kid," Jeralt said. From the sound of his voice alone, Byleth could tell his father was grinning. "You know, if this professorship doesn't work out, I think you could make it as a full-time fisherman."
Byleth set aside his pole, huffing out a short laugh. "Is that your way of asking me to quit?"
"With the salary Rhea pays you? I'd never dream of it." Jeralt lifted the basket of fish, hoisting it onto his shoulder. "I just want to make sure you're happy here, is all. Transitioning from the simplicity of mercenary life to teaching at the Officer's Academy, training up the next generation of Fódlan's finest… I doubt it's been easy."
"It hasn't been," Byleth admitted. As he packed away his fishing gear, he caught a glimpse of the first wave of students leaving the dormitories, yawning and chatting amongst themselves as they prepared to meet the day. "But it's been rewarding all the same. Seeing how much my students have improved since our first lessons, seeing their faces light up whenever they spot me in the halls…" Byleth smiled again. "I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Jeralt chuckled and clapped him on the back with his free hand. "Glad to hear it, kid. Glad to hear it." He secured his hold on the fish basket, turning away from Byleth and the pond. "Now, let's get these to the—"
"Boys! Hurry up!" Byleth's mother called down from the upper floors of the monastery. She leaned her arms over the railing, tapping the stone with the tip of a whisk. "Breakfast isn't going to eat itself!"
"Coming, Sitri!" Jeralt nudged Byleth with his elbow and whispered, "Come on, we'd better get going. It's never a good idea to keep your mother waiting."
Byleth nodded, bending down to gather the rest of his fishing equipment from the edge of the dock. "I'll be right behind—"
Byleth froze.
A young girl stared up at him through the water in place of his own reflection. Thick green hair like fresh pine, ears sharpened to an impossible point, a headdress reminiscent of the Archbishop's. When Byleth blinked, she blinked. When Byleth tilted his head, she copied the motion like she was little more than a shadow rippling over the pond's surface.
So strange, and yet… so…
Familiar.
You, her voice echoed in his mind. How long do you intend to sleep?
Byleth blinked again. "What?" Sleep? Who was sleeping? Byleth had been awake since well before dawn, fishing to his heart's content.
How long do you intend to sleep? The girl repeated. Your body is awake. Your eyes must open now, and you must find the strength to stand upon those legs of yours.
A sharp phantom pain hammered through Byleth's skull. He sucked in a harsh breath through his teeth, wincing as the pain crept down his face, down his throat, down into his chest. The words, the girl's voice, it was all so familiar… but he couldn't… he couldn't he couldn't he couldn't—
"Byleth?" Jeralt's hand came to rest on his shoulder, loving but firm. "Is something wrong?"
Byleth's tongue sat dry and heavy in his mouth. His throat tightened, his heart burned and ached, his eyes struggled to keep his father in focus. One moment, Jeralt was standing there at his side, holding up the basket of fish; the next, he was sprawled across the deck with a dagger in his back, his blood seeping through the wooden planks and staining the pond red. Byleth blinked, and there his father stood again, no blood or daggers in sight.
Byleth, the girl's voice echoed. I know it hurts, but you have to remember. She stretched her hand up toward him, her fingers so close to breaching the water's surface. Remember—
"Come on, kid." Jeralt tugged on Byleth's arm, ushering him away from the pond. Away from the girl's reflection. "I think you need something to eat. Let's go deliver this fish to the dining hall, then try out your mother's breakfast, okay?" He threw a hearty grin behind him. "Don't want to be teaching on an empty stomach."
"…R-right…" Byleth mumbled.
The pain throbbing through his head began to fade as Jeralt pulled him along, growing fainter and fainter with every step. Once the pond was out of sight, the pain disappeared completely, and he quickly forgot the girl had ever been there.
He looked up to the sky, to the beautiful oranges and pinks heralding the start of a wonderful new day. The smile returned to his face.
Everything was right in the world.
Character Bios:
Nothing to report.
Next chapter: the world as it should be