A throne sat in the darkness, with a diminutive figure sat alone atop it. Like silent guardians and loyal servants, ruined pillars and guttering braziers were the throne's only companions. The flames kept the emptiness at bay, a threat that crept ever closer, saving the tiles of the false throne room from whatever fate lay beyond. Time had laid ruin to the room, with brown and dying weeds growing up through cracks, the stone crumbling to bits underneath the layer of rubble covering the floor.

The flames danced in their kilns, the green tongue flickering with flecks of blues, hints of gold, and an outline of red. Sparks and cinders popped and jumped, landing white hot on the tile underneath. The colors danced and fought as though alive, warring for dominance in the bronze pit.

But the flame in its entirety burned low, nearly burning out entirely. The darkness crept in, more and more of the tile lost to the void as the edge of black approached the center of the arrangement.

The figure on the throne shifted in her sleep.

"Get up."

My head pounded in the following silence, the fog of confusion slowly lifting from my brain.

It felt like I'd been on the wrong side of an entire battalion of cavaliers, maybe the underside of their hooves. I was sluggish, dehydrated, hungry, and my mouth tasted of metal and chalk. The back of my head throbbed in a sluggish tempo and my chest felt like it had a block of lead sitting on it.

Also, I'm pretty sure I died.

In short; no. I don't think this corpse will be standing up any time soon, no matter how much bark someone puts into an order.

"I am weak and fading, and you have things to do." The hiss of the voice fought the fog in my mind back, but the confusion remained.

What things? I'm dead. Did the dead have chores too?

...At least I had a lot of practice while I was still breathing. Silver lining.

"You're not dead yet, not for lack of trying," the voice was wavering, suddenly sounding less like an imposing demon and more like an old man, "I don't think I could have picked a worse tool if I had tried. Curled up, beaten black and blue."

I laid still, wishing I could move, but simply unable to. My feet twitched minutely while my hands felt bound, 'Don't remember bein' captured. Remember dyin'.' The thought bounced in my head as a certainty, but I was breathing. Dead people didn't do that.

Ignoring all of that, I was in rough shape.

"Your body is weak, and oh so young," he assessed, clearly a master of observation, "If only you could afford to sleep as well. Your body surely needs it, what with all of those wounds," there was no sympathy in his words, only a cold indifference that reminded me of green hair and green eyes. The statement was not one of comfort, more of a commander assessing his troops.

Or of a demon, judging a sinner.

I bucked against the hold of my tired mind and nausea, my limbs still refusing to respond. The voice continued regardless, "But you do not have the time. Wake, find food, and regain your strength. You'll need it, we've a long road ahead of us."

Long road? How far away could I have ended up from the Monastery in a few hours of rough sleep? I was pretty sure I'd been pinned to the ground by a holy relic. The flashes of light and images, the lined and wrinkled face, and those red eyes overflowing with something… that scared me.

I had no clue what had happened, but I knew that much.

Teleportation, maybe? I'd heard those who'd studied the faith for years could manage it, but-

'Doesn't matter,' I snapped at myself as my mind brought my thoughts to heel, 'Ya need to get up and find out what happened. Find Shamir, find Lady Rhea.'

I pointedly ignored the haunting bark of laughter that echoed around me.

My eyes felt tight and heat was beginning to blossom from the base of my spine, but the voice was beginning to fade, losing all the strength it had with that harsh bark of laughter, even as I felt some energy flood my veins.

Might have been fear, but energy was energy.

"Wake, we have work to do," The gravel in the voice bounced around my skull and his words did little to calm me down, "You are my weapon, my unfortunate host. The chisel to carve my name into history," the voice was as vicious as it was tired, seemingly biting at the air with each word. It continued speaking even as I heard the last of its energy leaving, "The heralds will sing my name and the world will shake with the words! The time for rest is over, so stand you pitiful worm."

My entire being filled with the heat of anger at his words. I took orders from very few, and some demon was certainly not on that list. I jerked against the order, anger spiking as my body finally moved and then-

-the world shook and bucked underneath me, and every part of my body felt like it was twisted in knots. My eyes refused to open, the heat from before disappearing when light hit my eyelids. I gave up on opening my eyes and instead screwed them tighter shut, hurt and disoriented as I was. I snorted blood out of my nose, but nearly choked on it instead when whatever I was laying on hit a bump in the road.

Whatever bag I was sitting on slid out from under my ass and I found myself unceremoniously tossed to the ground. Groaning and one with the dirt, painfully aware of the assault of footsteps on my ringing ears, I came to a decision.

I'd rather stay with that old man from before. At least it was quiet. The memories of his laugh echoed once more and I grimaced.

Relatively. It was relatively quiet.

I wrenched my eyes open as I rolled over and pushed myself up, noticing now that my hands were tied with rough hemp in front of me. Every sensation was too much, every rock on skin slicing, every sound pounding, and every sight blinding-

Until everything fell back down to the levels of sensation I was used to. I ignored the sharp pain in my back as I stared out at the rocky field that surrounded me. The greens and browns, the sounds of troops moving, and the smell of a fresh breeze.

'This ain't the Monastery,' I thought groggily as the dull pain turned into a gauntlet-clad hand grabbing the back of my shirt. I went with the motion as I was essentially thrown back towards the cart I'd just fallen off of.

"Hurry up, Almyran," rasped the man behind me as he held the spear point out, "Back on 'he car', we ain' gah' all day." I shot a confused look back at him, seeing someone not a day over sixteen wearing badly fit armor. The more important parts were the fact that it was crowned in Leicester Gold and the fact that half of his helmet seemed to be holding in bandages.

Maybe Leicester had sent reinforcements to pick up the survivors?

...Then why were my hands tied?

I looked around, seeing a small group of similarly armored men and women, all corralling a single cart carrying well-worn captives, with a few of the healthier men trailing behind with hands shackled behind them.

All wearing familiar furs and leather, not the cloth and steel of the monastery.

I narrowed my eyes at that, the image strikingly familiar to me, and decided that no, they weren't here to help. And if what I was seeing was right, 'not a guarantee in my state,' they hadn't pulled me out of the wrecked Monastery.

A look ahead of us on the trail confirmed the spruce forest ahead, and I knew that there was a village nearly half a day's march down the road. I saw the slowly turning blades of a windmill cutting through the forest in the distance, a wheat farm. The plain of dry grass and brown shrubs that surrounded the trail bent and shook in the wind, revealing the orange clay underneath in their dance.

I stumbled forward, sending an eye up to the annoyingly cloudless sky, before throwing one last glance over my shoulder. I didn't need to follow the dirt trail to find the massive fortress wall crowning the slight dip in the mountain range, because the smoke trail in the sky worked well enough.

The battle hadn't been too deadly though, no smell of iron and death on the wind.

Just a bit of ash.

A single blink more before nodding and complying, trotting to catch up with the handful of other soldiers that had been captured in the assault on Fódlan's Locket. Captured after somehow surviving the last bloody border skirmish of a newly blooded chief trying to prove himself.

Trying and failing, as he'd gone down pretty early on to an arrow to the neck. Not that I could say much on that front. It's not like I'd fared much better, considering the restraints.

I fell in step with the other prisoners and decided to just watch and listen, still wondering if this was what had been waiting for me in the afterlife, or if I'd been hit that hard when they were capturing me.

Then a storm of memories and emotion and faces I shouldn't have seen yet slammed full force into place in my head. Maybe questions weren't my strong suit.

"Ge' in 'he car'," the soldier behind me pushed again as he took the time to spit out a glob of spit and blood. This hadn't happened before, mostly because I hadn't fallen off the cart the first time around. I'd woken up, and had simply watched from the relative comfort of the cart as the other prisoners had to walk. I'd also had to deal with-

"What's the hold up?" the bellow played hell on my ears, and I grimaced as another piece fell into place. Now I was damn near appreciative that I'd fallen off.

"Kid fell off the car', Sergean'," the soldier behind me slurred, shoving me again as he answered, but I ignored him as I looked around. I don't know how, but I knew when and where. Three years ago, and on my way to a small village on the border of Leicester and Almyra.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Instead of dwelling on everything I probably should be, I decided to ignore it and focus on my new (old?) body. That voice, not even sure the thing was real, had said to 'regain my strength'.

'What strength?' I couldn't help but snark to myself. 'Maybe I used it all up in the explosion, definitely didn't die because I was a child or anything.'

A great place to start was my limbs, and figuring out how they held up in comparison to how I was less than a few hours ago (Three years from now?).

I shook the thoughts off, because they weren't really important. If this was what had been waiting for me after I died, then it was a cruel glimpse of hope. If I had somehow dreamt up the last -next- three years, then that really didn't matter too much either.

But if I hadn't? And all of that was coming down the line?

A series of faces flashed in my head as my eyes tightened, and I came to a decision.

'I need to do… something,' the words weren't comforting even in my head, 'but what in the world should I do? What can I do?' I paused before immediately taking stock of what condition I was in.

My legs felt heavy, and my arms felt short. I needed to relearn how to move 'em, and the best way to learn- "I can walk," I stated out loud before the soldier and the sergeant could keep yelling.

But my legs weren't broken, and my arm wasn't half-melted to a tile floor, so it was more than enough. The best way to figure anything out is to do.

The soldier snarled at me, probably not looking forward to babysitting, but the sergeant cut in first, "If he says he can walk, then let it be! If he slows us down, smack the shit out of 'im!"

The bandaged soldier gave me the side eye as a few of the other soldiers tried not to look like they were relieved with the small break, barking a sharp, "Sir!" Before skulking off to reclaim his position in the loose circle of spearmen surrounding the prisoners.

I immediately ignored them, trying to stretch out my legs, but the cart started moving without so much as a snap of the reins. I let myself fall into the motion, losing myself in the simplicity of my task. The questions, and the pain, fell to the back of my mind as I focused only on my feet, the cart in front of me, and anything else around me.

Everything and anything that wasn't in my head.

I waited for that barking laugh to fill the silence in my head as I walked, certain that he was still there, but no new demands came. With no new interruptions from my own personal demon, I walked on in silence. After a few minutes I simply did what I usually did when I was doing a chore; focused.

My body was slower and even weaker than it had been before, which I hadn't thought possible, so I needed my mind as sharp as I could get it.

Might as well get as much practice using it as I could.

I focused on my steps and relearning the length of them. I moved my arms carefully, getting used to the weight and reach once again. I focused on the way that the people around me moved, counting them as their boots scuffed the dirt. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw the exhaustion and pain in their movements.

At least I wasn't alone in that.

'One step.'

Nine Almyrans, eighteen from Leicester, and not one that was uninjured. The healthiest one out of all of us was the mule pulling the cart.

'Two.'

Lastly I focused on the path we were walking on. The green and yellows of the leaves that moved in the wind, and the orange-red of the clay underneath our feet. The smell of the sun baked dirt that kicked up as we moved. The sounds of birdsong in the forest, of dirt being kicked up by feet, hooves, and wheels. The path of the Sun as it moved in the sky over us.

'Three steps.'

Anything and everything to distract me from -what is going on what am I supposed to do what's coming- the thoughts bubbling under the surface.

'Four.'

Just need to focus.

I was pulled from my thoughts as the procession was called to a halt just as the sun began to dip below the horizon. Around me prisoners dropped to their knees or laid in the dirt, but I stayed standing, not nearly as ready to believe we'd been given a chance to rest. I heard the soldiers grumbling amongst themselves, but ignored it in favor of the clopping of horse hooves on the path ahead. I heard the sergeant jump down from the carriage and make his way to meet the group moving towards us.

I scowled as I realized that I didn't remember this happening the last time I'd been brought through here. We'd just been marched into a sleepy little town, told to work the fields, and thrown in a barn to sleep.

Maybe I'd slept through it on the cart.

"Baron Marigny," the voice of the sergeant carried in the silent forest, even spoken at normal volume, and the soldiers around us tensed in alarm. They began motioning for the rest of the prisoners to stand, roughly hauling those that didn't immediately move to their feet.

"What are they doing?" the voice returned with a croak, whispering softly, hoarsely.

I ignored him as I took my place at the end of the line, wincing as a man was cracked in the back of the head for leaning on the cart behind us. A finely clothed man made his way to us, strolling leisurely down the road. The sergeant stood behind him to his right as he moved, answering whatever questions the noble had. He asked how they'd been captured, how much they'd been injured, and how well they'd taken the march to town. Out of the nine, he'd only asked a direct question to a prisoner once, and it was a question of leadership, one that the man hadn't answered.

He'd simply spat at him.

The noble hadn't looked too thrilled about that, and simply wiped the glob off his expensive shirt with a disgusted look as he moved away. He had waved his hand in an unconcerned kinda way, and the sergeant had driven an armored fist into his gut. The noble had then thrown over his shoulder an airy, "Respect your betters." I could see the hitching of shoulders amongst the other prisoners as they watched him get smacked around a bit.

I ignored that too.

The noble, a thin and tall man with wispy red hair slicked back, made his way to the woman standing next to me, looking her over with the critical eye of a horse trainer. Rather suddenly he reached out and gripped her wrist, she moved to smack him away but stopped just as suddenly.

Hands tightened around spears and the sergeant gave her a harsh stare. A harsh reminder that she was in enemy territory. The Baron gave her an expectant look, as though asking her politely to continue. She looked over at the man being roughly hauled to his feet to our right and snarled.

She didn't hit him though, simply let her hand drop as he nodded in a distant way. He then returned to his inspection, turning over her hand and stared at the thick calluses on the pads of her hands before dropping them disdainfully. "With hands like that, it would seem this one's not exactly a maid. How was this one captured, Rhoam?" His voice was cold and clipped, and the noble stared down his nose at the woman in front of him, easily standing a head taller and taking advantage of it to command respect from the still angry prisoner.

"She would still win," came the croaking voice in the back of my head, "He may have been checking her hands, but I still saw his. Smooth as a newborn's." The hoarse laugh was mocking and sharp, and I'm glad I was the only one who could hear it.

The mule might've bolted otherwise.

"Her and the kid were rear guard," The old soldier stomped over, obviously favoring his right leg over his left. The noble narrowed his eyes at her as she stood straighter under his gaze, prickling at some unspoken challenge, as the sergeant continued, "Cavalry managed to break their lines and get behind 'em, but like usual those that held the rear fought to the last. Unfortunately for her, her weapon broke on her. She nearly got away."

"Nearly," The voice parrotted once more with a coughing laugh.

The noble simply continued to stare steadily at her as he listened, before deciding more words were necessary to get his point across. "You have been captured, Almyran. Defeated," he spat the word at her like a curse, and she reacted in kind. Baring her teeth at him with a growl, "I could have you beaten, like the dog you are, or you could back down and save your hide for later."

She grimaced as she darted her eyes to the still recovering man to her left, and I could see when she decided it wasn't worth it. The noble simply nodded with a look of distaste on his face, "Good. Another pair of hands," before raising his voice to address the rest of the prisoners, "You have been detained and sent here because we lack the manpower to see this miserable backwoods pigsty prosper. We have little water, little food, and even less patience."

His hard gaze was a touch feral as he looked over the prisoners before him, and the guards surrounding us kept firm hands on their weapons. Now that I looked, the signs of hard nights were visible on him, evident in the state of his clothes; while they were certainly the trappings of a noble, they were worn thin and the dark dyes had lightened from seeing the sun. Traveling cloak tattered at the edges. At this distance I could see the attempts to cover bags under his eyes and crows feet beginning to make an appearance. All in all, a man trying to save face and brought low by the world. If I remembered anything correctly, then it was his incredibly short fuse.

If the reactions of our guards to his outburst were any indicator, then this was still true. I could hear the clank of their armor as they shifted nervously, just as out of their depth as the prisoners they kept. Glad to see something of a confirmation that I knew something useful.

"And as we are so low on resources, do not think we are desperate for more mouths to feed. If you give me a reason, I will gladly have one less." The words hung in the air as the clearing went dead quiet in their passing.

"How cute," The whisper hissed back into existence, and I only barely managed to not jump in place, "Watching a wild mutt bark and snarl, knowing damn well he's too weak to fight."

Physically weak he might be, the nobleman could still make my life miserable. So instead I kept my eyes down and waited for him to finish, unsurprised he hadn't even decided to question his sergeant about me.

Instead he turned his eyes to the man standing beside him and with barely a sign of recognition, stalked off towards his horse with his personal guards following behind. I simply prepared for the night and tried not to rub my wrists raw on the rough rope.

A few hours later our entire procession walked into the small town, dirty and run ragged. The Baron and his guards had walked us the entire night, determined to return to the village as fast as possible, using the light of the full moon to move through the forest on the well worn path. I stood, the ache in my side intensifying as I finally came to a slow stop with the rest of the prisoners.

From where we were I could see the faint lights of lanterns in the windows of homes nestled in between trees. The entire place seemed tightly packed and crudely planned, if planned at all, and the path that we'd been following didn't change once it reached the village, neither widening nor changing from tightly packed clay torn up by hoofprints. Further in I knew there was a few larger buildings, but the only building I could recognize was the relatively lively inn that still had its light on and people moving around the front of it.

We were marched down a path that curved off from the main road well before the inn. This path was less maintained, overgrown with grass, and led through a dense forest. I could hear the men and women around me begin to get restless as we obviously approached our destination.

The first sign of it was the high wooden wall made of crudely shaped logs stuck into the ground with an equally massive wooden door set into it. I watched as the Baron exchanged words with the soldier on duty and he was admitted entrance. The inside of the compound was sparsely furnished, with few soldiers standing guard as we were paraded further in.

We passed a stone building set into the center of the compound, simultaneously the main hall and the barracks in one structure. Behind it I could see the smoke of the cooling forge and a large stack of charcoal fuel. To my left was the mess hall and the smell of food. I could tell everyone in the convoy, prisoner and guard alike, were drawn to the building, but we were pushed past.

Finally we came to an even smaller yard sectioned off with a wall. Inside only a poorly tilled field and a barn half the size of the main hall met our procession, with a gate that allowed access to a much larger field. There was sparse lighting behind us as the guards of the makeshift prison watched us being corralled into our cage, and very little in the way of distractions from the poorly maintained field.

It was also my home for the foreseeable future.

I had never, and would never, miss this cramped and smelly pile of wood they called a barn.

I took in a deep breath as we were led further, steadying my mind and focusing on what I knew and what little I'd planned out. I needed off this cramped farm and get back to the Monastery. I needed to warn them-

A bark of laughter echoed in my mind and broke my train of thought, and I scowled in response.

And I had something to deal with before all of that.

The dull black brick of the room did little to ease the tension. Her back stayed ramrod straight in her seat, admittedly not as regal as her father's throne but it made up for it in power. The imperial advisors shuffled from the war room, leaving maps and documents on the table.

She would pour over and memorize them later.

No one had even asked where her father was today, a small detail to most, but to her it was a sign of victory. Count Bergliez had challenged a few of her more… sacrificial plans on the grounds of replenishment and retraining, but she liked to think that she'd won out in the end. But the resistance was still worrying…

"Hubert," her voice broke the silence of the nearly deserted room, a room that would be abandoned in coming days to avoid surveillance. The only response she received was the light rustle of cloth signaling her servant's arrival.

A formality only, as she knew. Much like she would never be free, she'd at the very least never be alone. He'd been watching her vassals just as closely as she had, without a doubt.

"Your highness," his voice had changed, now much deeper than before, but his loyalty had stayed the same. A small comfort, but one she clung to nonetheless.

Her fingers drumming against the arm of her chair were the only sound in the room. Had anyone else been there, she never would have allowed the signal to let her thoughts show.

She regretted now her lack of attention to the imperial tutors in her younger days, but she'd never could have guessed she'd be the Hresvelg heir. She sighed internally and noted another thing for her to work on.

"Count Bergliez was awfully outspoken today," she squinted at the map spread out in front of her, eyeing his proposed changes marked in his haphazard scrawl.

The young man hummed into the darkness, thankfully catching her meaning. He was better at that than her, seeing what was hidden and all that. "Did you know he has a son? And coming into the army as a commander at such a young age as well," The tone was conversational, but she began to file away the information as he spoke, "And another son coming of age soon as well. Such a precarious position, that of a father." She stifled the snort at the thought of that man being a devoted father.

Vainglorious fool.

She had no idea how he got his information, but the secrets of the Vestra had never steered her wrong. "Not to mention how much his land suffered after the rebellion."

"He may well be near a revolt if a few families lost their favored sons," the cruel smile was audible in his voice, but she was lost in her own thoughts.

She had been absent too long, her information out of date. The seven had continued on after her fathers political castration, she knew, but she had no specifics. She needed to see for herself, gauge the people.

To say how much she believed the minister's reports is to assume she believed them at all. She scoffed at the thought that they had been written down at all, might as well have been empty parchment for the good they did her.

At least Aegir had been unable to attend, much to her disappointment.

But the throne did not rest. "And how did Varley fare? He seemed to be in good health." The throne demanded she be informed, aware of her domain. Hubert would tell her what she needed, until she could escape the brick fortress of the capital. Her land could wait, for now.