The wind howled and the storm grew ever closer. She surveyed the cacophony of natural but unnaturally made chaos before her with a critical eye before nodding and raising her trusty weapon.
It had been a long time since she had felt the presence of such powerful magic, so long that at first she felt her instinct was betraying her and her age was finally catching up to her.
She should have known better than to doubt her instincts. To show her gratitude for them, she decided to rectify the situation that had alarmed them so.
The Disciplinarian was raised, magic thrumming from her hand up from its hilt to the top of the riding crop. A purple lighting crackled around the weapon like a wreath, and she breathed calmly to steady her nerves and focus her mind.
Then a purple light shot through the air and into the violent storm that had gotten so close to reaching Vale's coastline, dispersing the clouds with a violent boom.
Only to reveal the ice left behind where an ocean once was. She blinked at the sight, shock breaking her calm façade for only a moment before she collected herself and gripped her riding crop in both hands, gripping it with worry.
This confirmed her gut instinct. A Maiden. The Winter Maiden. A Schnee.
Glynda Goodwitch turned away from the unnatural plain of ice before her and turned south. Ships would no longer be able to travel between Atlas and Vale, meaning the young Queen who likely caused such chaos was out of her reach. She could only hope her allies in Atlas reached young Weiss before any agents of chaos did.
But that did not mean she could not aid the Schnee still in Vale. Winter to be precise, well if she remembered correctly that was.
She mounted the steed that had carried her north so fast and began a second race to the south, towards Emerald Vale.
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Two more traitors had been rooted out in the weeks that had passed since the attack that had left James on death's door and herself devastated in the knowledge she had lost six of her children, children who had been murdered because of an old woman's spite.
No matter what her long deceased great-uncle may or may not have done, hurting Winter and above all her children was completely unjustified. The only thing Winter regretted was not letting Morana live, if only so she could give the old witch a significantly prolonged, painful death.
If she had been a better mother, a more wiser person, then her children would have been alive. If she had been more stringent in interviewing staff, more paranoid and focused on security then she would have been the proud mother of six children.
But she wasn't. She wasn't wise. She wasn't cautious. She wouldn't have even been a good mother. Considering her track record with Morana, she likely would have hired some child lover to be their nanny.
She was a failure. Of a leader. Of a mother. Of a wife.
"Where did it all go wrong James?" She asked her still and worryingly cold husband, curled up next to his familiar frame on the side that had not been burned and maimed by some sort of foul magic. "What did we do wrong?"
James was silent. His heart beat seemed fainter by the day and his weak breathing increasingly more laborious and painful to hear.
"My lady." A soft, kind voice murmured softly, breaking her from her worried and miserable trance. She turned and could barely make out the shape of the healer Arc had hired to tend to James through her bleary eyes. "I apologise for disturbing you but I need to change the Lord's bindings and apply the medicine. I will need space for the procedure."
"Yes." Winter replied automatically, stiffly sitting up and sliding off the bed. "Do what you need to do."
The healer nodded but she hardly paid any attention to the man. Without the comfort that James brought, even in his current state, she felt lost and adrift. She felt alone, which was curious considering Emerald Vale had been mobilised by Nicholas Arc over the past few weeks, meaning there was a never-ending cacophony of noise as the city prepared for war.
The palace itself was full of nobility, the few lords that had whispered about or attempted to incite rebellion having long since been rounded up by Nicholas Arc and his allies. They had been brought to the capital and made examples of, having been stoned to death by a populace stoked to anger over their attempted betrayal.
If Winter cared, she would have worried over Arc's growing power, popularity and above all control over the capital. If Winter cared she would have pushed back rather than ignored his attempts to be officially made Lord Protector by her. If Winter cared she would have done something, anything, to try and prevent a rather obvious attempt to oust herself and James from office.
But she didn't care. James was going to die. The healer's could only prolong his suffering. All of their children were already dead and she had not heard anything from her sister since their parent's funeral. For all she knew Weiss could be dead as well, and Atlas completely occupied by the Mistrali.
The present was a mess. The past was dead and her future filled with no hope and only taunting thoughts of 'What if?'
Winter noticed the guards that tailed her, keeping a close eye on her at a respectful enough distance. They were not her own, or rather not James'. They wore Arc crests that clearly showed who their loyalty belonged to.
Winter didn't care. She didn't know what to do. She just…didn't. She was lost in grief and misery, drowning in it with no hope of rescue.
So instead of trying to do her best to help her husband and sister in preserving Vale in their name, she stalked the halls of the Governor's Palace, the place that had been her home and would've been the home of her children, like a ghost.
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Pyrrha felt like there should have been something.
She didn't know what exactly, but she expected something.
Something to mark her failure. To mark her turn from good person to monster. From innocent to murderer.
She had given the order. She had heard the screams and panic. She was responsible for their deaths.
Soldiers. Slaves. Civilians. All of them. All her fault.
An entire army. Tens of thousands. Either dead or stranded in a hellscape continent with no hope of returning home. All of that on top of her brother's betrayal.
Pyrrha would be the first to admit that she and Alexander hadn't had the best of relationships. She had been born before him, and despite his birth her mother had insisted Pyrrha, not her brother, would succeed her.
That had always been something that had driven a deep wedge between them. Pyrrha had no real lust for power, but at the same time she was not one to shirk from the responsibility given to her. She would have been fine succeeding the throne to her brother in a few years time, knowing that she was better suited to be a general rather than a statesman. Perhaps if she had just articulated this to him then all of this would have changed? Maybe she would still have some semblance of a family.
No. That was her desperation talking. Her self hatred and pity. She would not be so stupid as to label her little brother as anything other than what he was.
A selfish, power-hungry fool who could've been a great man if not for his ambition and lack of patience.
But that was neither her nor there. If she survived she would have to crush her little brother's, Alexander's, uprising and make an example of him.
If he had rebelled at any other time she would have likely spared him. He could have been put under house arrest and given enough freedom to not feel stifled. Perhaps she could have visited him and rebuilt their long since destroyed relationship, to make it clear he could succeed her so long she would not be sold off to some noble.
She shook her head to stop herself daydreaming about a potential future that never would, and likely never would have, come to pass. Her reign was fragile after having just started a war and promptly losing it, so she could not tolerate a usurper with a legitimate claim, especially not if she was defeated once more abroad and he had been left to claw his influence at home, to build up support to his claim over hers.
Alexander would have to die. Just like all those people she had ordered to be murdered had to die.
What had gone wrong? How had she fallen so far? She genuinely believed she cared about the people she ruled, yet that was entirely thrown into question by the great lengths she was going to in order to just survive. A good leader would have rallied morale and led the majority of them back to Mistral. Instead she had ordered for them all to be killed.
Instead she had ordered her guards to kill them. She had been too much of a coward to even watch, or carry out her own orders alongside them.
"Order no man to do what you yourself are unwilling to do." Pyrrha murmured to herself, voice lost in the endless jangling of armour and weapons that echoed across the sterile, lifeless ice plain around them.
"Your Imperial Majesty?" Seventy-Seven asked, having heard her say something. He was always near her now, he and Richard having become her unofficial guards for the last week or so they had spent traversing the once-ocean in a southward direction that would hopefully take them to Mistral.
"It's nothing." Pyrrha replied quickly, smiling reassuringly to solidify the lie as truth. "Just tired of all this endless ice."
"I wonder why you wanted to conquer Atlas then." Richard snarked, voice firmer than the week earlier but still tinged with a sick raspy tone. "All we have is ice, more ice and a smattering of snow."
Pyrrha didn't say anything else, though she appreciated his attempt to make the atmosphere less suffocating, especially when a few of the men around him chuckled lightly. If it was anyone else, she would have been suspicious of his wording, believing he was searching for information.
The short amount of time she had spent with him told her otherwise. If only she had met him sooner, then maybe she would have had some wise counsel telling her that invading another kingdom for its resources was a bad idea.
Maybe if she had met him sooner, she would not feel so lonely. She felt he was a good person and an entertaining one at that. His companionship would've been welcome when she was a child and alone, surrounded by snakes at court and a brother that envied her for the title she had.
"We should make camp." She noted, stopping suddenly. "It will be dark soon."
"A wise decision Your Imperial Majesty." Seventy-Seven bowed, and Richard nodded at her before turning around.
"You heard our Queen. Let's set up camp." He ordered, and the long column quickly spread out in a circular shape, with the wagons filled with food, water and other supplies being in the middle and a ring of her elite soldiers guarding the supplies. It was unlikely they'd be attacked so far out in the middle of what should be nowhere but she wasn't willing to risk their only supplies on the chance of being proven wrong.
After recent events, she wasn't willing to tempt the Goddess to give her ruination and another disaster.
So instead she did her part setting up the camp for the night, lifting up tents of hide and fur, contenting herself to watch Richard as he made his way around the camp, doing the same and interacting with her guards. It was amusing to see, especially considering his weak knowledge and practice of the Mistrali tongue.
A harsh howl kicked up the furs in front of her, breaking her from her reverie. A chill ran up her spine and she spun around to survey the blankness around them, seeing nothing but unable to withhold the dark feeling she was being watched.
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Weiss resisted the urge to sigh as she watched the latest batch of refugees pass by the gates of Nördliche Burg, this time having come from the southern coast, which had been ravaged by war and the magic she had unleashed upon it.
How they had managed to survive Weiss had no idea, but she was glad they had and that they could at least rest at the growing camp spreading around Nördliche Burg's walls.
The guilt she felt at inflicting such misery and turmoil upon her people grew by the day and with every tale told by freezing people clutching at bowls of warm soup, eyes sunken and distant as they recounted horrors of frozen limbs, hunger, death and misery.
All because of her. How could she do such a thing to the people she had sworn to rule justly?
She had no answer. Weiss hadn't meant to do what she did, but that didn't excuse her for it. She had to rectify her mistakes.
Except she had no idea how. No matter how hard she tried, no potions she cooked up using Bragrim's book, nothing gave her the connection she felt she had. She didn't feel powerful anymore, didn't feel the rush of magic that had made her feel invincible. It was as if she had lost her connection to her magic entirely.
That terrified Weiss. The thought of not being able to reach her magic again. Winter was not looming anymore, it had been brought forward by herself, but spring would come eventually and summer would follow. The snow and ice would melt into water and the world could become drowned.
And it would be all her fault.
Her duties as a monarch kept her from truly meditating and trying to reach her magic. She would spend an hour or two at the end of every day but she would be too exhausted and whenever she reached the strange abyss her mind was brought to she was driven away by the ominous, almost alive darkness that had tried attacking her.
What if the abyss was hiding the magic from her?
That thought was just as terrifying as the thought of the coming floods. If she could reach her power but couldn't because…something was trying to hide it from her made her feel so frustratingly angry and nerve-racking terrified at the same time.
Weiss stumbling on Nördliche Burg's paved road broke her from her trailing thoughts. She would've toppled over if not for Sergeant Nightingale, who caught her before she could embarrass herself further.
She felt her face flush with embarrassment and she thanked the man weakly, looking away from the prying looks of the people that lined the overfilled street. She was grateful that most seemed worried rather than mocking, but the thought only made her guilt and self-hatred flare.
They were only there because of her. They had lost their homes, friends and family, livelihoods and futures all because of her yet they worried about her? They respected her enough as a leader to care?
She swallowed down her guilt, straightened her spine and strode on to towards her keep to meet with her advisors over finding a way to supply themselves over the coming months with growing over-population and cut off supply lines to Vale.
If they thought she was a good Queen, rather than the monster she really was, then at least she could act like it.
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Her mind was made. No more cowering. No more weakness. James was going to die. She was going to be left alone. The least she could do was preserve his power and do something worthy of his memory to honour him. She'd failed as a wife and a mother. She would not fail as the protector and inheritor of his legacy.
"Arc." Winter greeted dully as Nicholas Arc stepped into her office, dressed in plate armour rather than his usual noble clothing. He gave her a low, respectful bow that managed to feel mocking somehow.
"My Lady." Arc replied, gesturing to the empty seat in front of her. "Can I sit?"
Winter nodded and put down the quill she had been using to absently sign a piece of paper on her desk. She wasn't even sure what it was for, let alone whether it was an official document or not.
"I intend to lead the army that has mustered her to strike the Vacuoans before they can attack, just like her husband wanted." Arc said, eyes staring into hers. Her eyes narrowed at his mention of James, not needing the reminder of how shattered, tattered and broken her life now was. "But I cannot do that without his or yours permission. As James can't do that as of right now, I'm asking you to put me in command of the army and to attack the Vacuoans."
"So you don't want to be named Lord Protector instead of me?" Winter replied snappishly. Arc raised a brow.
"Not at all. That title belongs to James and to you only." He said calmly, almost honestly. Winter knew better than to trust strangers now.
"Of course it does." She said, not blinking or looking away from his calm gaze for a minute. "But there are some who are questioning my leadership during this time of crisis. I need something to prove your loyalty before I can give you any more power than you already wield."
"Like rooting out traitors? Gathering an army for you? Shoring up our defences and putting down insurrections?" Arc retorted and Winter made a show of leaning back and nodding her head in agreement.
"I know that you've done more than enough to be trusted by me." Winter lied poorly, watching Arc's eyes narrow as she did so. She didn't care for a minute. "But others don't."
"What is it you want exactly?" Arc asked dryly, face hard and carved out of stone.
"A public oath of loyalty to myself and James." Winter answered. "An oath sworn on the Crown of Vale itself."
"That is an outrageous demand!" Arc barked. "You would be suggesting that you have equal authority to the monarch of Vale, who may be your sister but you were not crowned or coronated. What you suggest is treason and I will not be part of it!."
"I am not trying to fashion myself as Vale's Queen." Winter explained, having expected his anger and knowing for definite she could not trust the man now. He did not wish to swear such an heavy oath publicly as it would hinder any future advance for higher office on his part. He could still make a move for James' position of course, but it would be tainted with the knowledge of him now being an oathbreaker. "However I am expanding the emergency powers James put in place. The Crown will be used as symbolism of this. Weiss would give me permission to do so if she could."
"Would she?" Arc retorted. "It is public knowledge how she virtually disowned you after the Cranmer Rebellion. It is all well and good saying our Queen would do something when she cannot confirm it, but when she can and if it is the opposite of what you thought she would do then all our heads would be on the chopping block."
Winter felt her hands curl up and anger shoot through her. The Cranmer Rebellion had been a messy affair a few years back before everything fell apart when a Valean lord refused to pay his taxes and killed the tax collectors set to his fiefdom. A three month uprising ensued with Lord Cranmer using cowardly hit and run tactics to try and bleed out the army James led to put down his little rebellion. Ultimately the man failed and his forces were crushed by James at the siege of his keep, and both she and James agreed he was too dangerous to be kept alive or killed.
They had thrown him into the dungeon and disinherited his family. When the peasants in the man's fief rose up in protest they had been brutally massacred before James could regain control of his army.
Weiss had been publicly displeased with their handling of the rebellion, and hadn't written to Winter since. The last thing she had needed now was a reminder of the simmering tension between herself and her sister.
"Are you refusing to swear loyalty Lord Arc?" Winter asked softly.
"I am refusing to swear loyalty to Vale's Crown. I am willing to swear loyalty to you and James." His face softened and he almost seemed to plead with her. "Any other public oath I will give, I swear it on my honour as an Arc, but I cannot and will not swear loyalty to Vale's Crown. I'm an Arc, considering our history it could be twisted by those with less than good intentions if I were to swear an oath to the Crown of Vale rather than the Lord Protector or monarch of Atlas and Vale."
Winter didn't believe his excuses for a second. She had learned from her mistakes. She wouldn't repeat them.
"Then I will not give you permission to lead Vale's army into battle." Winter told him, and an exasperated sigh left him.
"Then who will?" Arc asked. "You cannot refuse to let Vale defend itself out of spite and I cannot name a single person present in the capital who worked alongside your husband and learned how to lead with him."
How dare he try and invoke her husband to try and sway her. The sheer gall of it made her seethe with rage.
"That is none of your concern. You will be busy guarding our coast from the Mistrali." Winter told him coldly. "You will take your men and depart from Emerald Vale today. You will only return to swear an oath on Vale's Crown. Now leave my office."
Arc said nothing, looking stunned for a few moments before he narrowed his eyes and curtly left the room. With peace and quiet secured once more, Winter looked down at the paper she had been signing and reading it through, reminding herself of what it was.
She smiled when it was done and put on the pile of letters next to her that were marked to be sent off urgently. Arc would return to Emerald Vale eventually, though it wouldn't be to swear loyalty but rather to usurp. Currently Winter had nothing to oppose his military power.
That would soon change.
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Glynda Goodwitch was not a happy woman.
She was sore, tired and entirely done with the world's shit. Her journey south had been swift and painful, with her thighs feeling broken, her rear end numb and her back feeling like she'd been dropped from the highest peak on Remnant.
At least she had been making progress, but on the last leg of her journey the road had been filled with marching men, flying banners and clanging armour.
She recognized the Arc crescent leading them. She saw the stormy look on the blonde haired, blue-eyed man who was most likely Nicholas Arc and the mutterings of the soldiers. Mutterings of madness, betrayal and conflict.
Of civil war.
She'd thrown aside her worry for a brief, wonderful moment. But as more and more men passed and more and more rumours she heard and more and more banners flocked after the Arc crescent it became clear to her something had gone wrong in Emerald Vale. Someone had done or said the wrong thing and tensions were inflamed.
The situation wasn't helped by the fact it was supposedly Winter Schnee, the woman she was coming down to help, who had caused this. The situation definitely wasn't helped with the new knowledge of a fresh war with Mistral and attempted assassination of James Ironwood who hadn't been seen since.
War, awakening maidens, conflict, division, bloodshed. It was all starting to sound worryingly familiar.
Ignoring the protests of the marching soldiers, Glynda Goodwitch galloped on towards Emerald Vale.
A/N: Minor change to the usual update schedule for October. Instead of updates on the 5th, 15th and 25th I'll instead be uploading on the 15th, 25th and 31st. I have some work stuff I need to work on and won't be able to write as much as usual so things are getting pushed back a little. Sorry to the people who actually enjoy the fic and sorry for wasting the time of anyone not all that much interested in this.