September 28th, 845
Commander Erwin,
Your so-called success may have blinded the people, but it has not fooled us. True subjects of the king will not tolerate treason. Traitors to the crown will die.
Erwin read the note once, twice.
Then, as his office door began to creak open, he hurriedly crumpled up the paper. Levi stepped through the doorway, only briefly glancing over as Erwin tossed the note into the corner basket.
"What's that?" Levi asked absentmindedly, walking over to the bookshelf and pulling out a well-worn textbook.
"Nothing," Erwin said. "We're on page seventy-eight, right?"
"Seventy-nine," Levi said, setting the book down on the desk. Erwin pulled his chair out from behind the desk and sat next to Levi, letting his eyes rest for a moment on his father's name scrawled on the top of the first page. Then Levi flipped the book open, covering up the name.
"Go ahead and start at the first heading," Erwin said.
Levi began to read aloud.
October 15th, 845
The day before the next expedition, Erwin took a walk around the grounds. He passed by the training forest, pausing for a moment to watch the sight of smoky flares mingling in the air, to listen to Section Commander Zion's shouted orders. He circled back near Hange's Corner, taking note of—and subsequently ignoring—the unusual shrieks coming from inside the fence. He walked through the stables, stopping to talk briefly with two of the stable hands. He rounded the hill and found himself at the training course, which Levi had, for all intents and purposes, made his personal kingdom.
Erwin stood for a few minutes, watching Levi's squad from the ground. After hauling a few training Titans onto the course, Levi had convinced Hange to rig them so that they would pop out at random intervals—although Hange, naturally, had not taken much convincing.
Instead of watching from the platform, this time Levi was flying out in the midst of the fray along with his squad. Even though Erwin knew that Levi couldn't have picked a more elite team of soldiers, even though this squad represented the best that the Survey Corps had to offer, Erwin found that his eyes were always on their captain. On the ground, Levi was a short, silent, scowling soldier with a bad temper. In the air, he was godlike—swift, graceful, precise, deadly, and impossible not to watch. His squad's skill was undeniable, but Levi?
Levi was like something from another world.
Oruo and Gunther flipped over a bridge and slashed through one of the training Titans. Eld swung halfway across the course to reinforce Dover. After breaking through one of the wooden Titans, Petra scurried down a rope ladder toward a landing where her captain stood waiting for her. The ladder broke off about six feet above the platform. When she came to the end, Levi reached out his hand to steady her as she jumped.
After she landed, his hand lingered on hers—just for a fraction of a second—before letting go.
Erwin frowned.
"Levi!" Erwin called. He watched as Levi shouted the order to halt, gathered his soldiers, gave them a few instructions, and sent them back toward the barracks. He spun around one of the wooden columns that held up the course, careening down toward Erwin, and leaping into a mid-air double flip before landing in front of his commander.
"Show-off," Erwin said.
"Whatever." Levi brushed off his hands. "Is everything ready for tomorrow?"
"It should be." Erwin turned back toward the main headquarters, and Levi fell into step beside him. "We'll leave for Trost at daybreak."
"I still don't understand why William would ask you to set up a supply cache," Levi said. "It's something we need to do anyway—and after what you pulled off in Benien, he should know that this will be easy."
"He's changing tactic." Erwin stared up at the clouds, thinking. "From the bits and pieces that I've been hearing, the success in Benien just made me more popular with the middle faction."
"Maybe he gave up."
"You don't actually think that."
"No," Levi admitted. "But I don't see what else he's doing."
"At any rate, it doesn't really matter what he thinks he's doing. Our tactic hasn't changed. If we keep succeeding, I'll have the middle faction's vote in May."
"Yeah, but what about the year after that? And after that? The annual revote happens indefinitely, doesn't it?"
Erwin stopped and looked down at Levi. "We keep winning. Until all the Titans are dead or William is—we just keep winning."
October 18th, 845
During the three-day expedition to set up a supply cache outside Trost, the Survey Corps had encountered fourteen Titans. The Special Operations Squad had guarded the Scouts who were tasked with setting up the cache. They had single-handedly killed well over half of the Titans that appeared. Seven injuries, two casualties. The mission had been a success.
When Erwin stumbled back inside his office, sleep-deprived but satisfied, he stopped short just inside the door. On his desk sat two folded messages. One had the seal of the Royal Government. The other had a red skull.
Erwin opened the Royal Government document first. It was another commission—this time to conduct a basic recon mission outside Krolva and send back a detailed report of their findings. Premier Zachary had signed the commission.
Next, he broke the skull seal.
Smith,
Resign or die.
Methodically, Erwin tore the note into tiny pieces, turned around, and threw them away. He picked up the commission, re-read it, and pushed his door back open. Maynerd stood on the other side.
"Get me Captain Levi," Erwin ordered.
"It's idiotic."
"Yes, of course it is." Erwin pushed a pile of papers off his desk to make room for a map. "Now help me set up the squad assignments."
"They don't need a report of Titan activity outside of Krolva."
"Obviously not."
"Then why—?"
"Levi," Erwin interrupted, growing a little impatient. "We'll have to travel all the way to the western side of Wall Rose just to launch the expedition. To write a detailed report, we'll have to spend at least four days outside the walls, maybe more. We'll need to send several squads back out again before they've recovered from the last expedition."
"Yeah, I know, but—"
"This is a war of attrition. He's wearing us out." Erwin smoothed out the map over the desk. "Now get a pen and paper. Write all this down."
November 17th, 845
On the third day of the recon mission, the expedition got caught in a rainstorm. Their flares were useless. Erwin sent the Special Operations Squad out through the ranks with an order to halt and take shelter until the rainclouds blew over. Erwin went with them.
Riding ahead toward the vanguard, they caught sight of two Titans to the west. Barely visible in the pouring rain, the Titans posed even more of a threat than usual. Erwin ordered Levi's squad to take care of the Titans before they caught any Scouts off guard. Erwin watched as Levi split his squad, taking Dover, Julia, Gunther, and Eld with him toward the Titans.
He sent Petra and Oruo to the north, where the sky had already begun to clear.
November 28th, 845
When Erwin returned, the next commission was already waiting on his desk. Two small notes with skull seals sat next to the commission.
Erwin threw the notes away without reading them. Then he picked up the document and broke the Royal Government's seal.
According to the commission, there were rumors of three different sightings of the Armored and Colossal Titans near three different sections of Wall Rose: one in the north, one south, one east. Zachary wanted a report confirming or denying the allegations within two weeks.
November 29th, 845
"We'll send two squads each to the north and south sections. You can take the east."
"Erwin," Levi said with absolute sincerity, "tell them to go fuck themselves."
"No," Erwin said. "We win. That's the only way out."
"It's fucking stupid!" Levi burst out. "There are no rumors! If the Colossal or Armored Titans had actually appeared anywhere near Wall Rose, we would have heard long ago!"
"It doesn't matter." Erwin dropped his chin into his hands, staring down at the papers flooding the surface of his desk. "It doesn't matter that the Eli faction drummed up the rumors. It doesn't matter that the commission is pointless. We're going to keep the middle faction happy."
"It's only November," Levi pointed out. "We're going to keep this up for six more months?"
"We have to," Erwin said simply. "So we will."
"Everyone would be better off if he were dead," Levi muttered.
"We don't work that way." Erwin reached for his notebook. "Can you find the squad assignments from the last expedition? They're somewhere in this pile."
Still wearing a murderous expression, Levi obediently started rummaging through the papers.
Early December, 845
The early December expeditions to investigate the rumors outside Wall Rose were as successful as a pointless expedition could be. They lost one Scout to the north, one to the south. Levi's squad ran into an unexpected mass of Titans in the forest just outside the eastern gate of Karanes and returned bloody, bruised, and irritated, but intact.
The mission had been useless, and everyone knew it. Veterans and recruits alike clustered in the hallways, speaking in harsh whispers that stopped abruptly the moment they spotted Erwin rounding the corner. Even the section commanders were growing restless.
"You're saying the Royal Government asked you to do it?" Hange asked one morning, half sitting on the desk in Erwin's office. Behind Erwin, Levi stood leaning against the wall.
"Yes. Do you want to see the commission?"
"That's not how the Survey Corps works!" Hange protested. "We don't operate based on commissions from the interior—our orders are all internal. They come from you."
"You think I don't know that?" Erwin snapped. Seeing Hange's startled expression, he dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes. "Sorry. I'm tired. Since Wall Maria fell, the government has made a few reforms. If we perform well, the structural issues are hopefully temporary."
"We don't—"
"Hange," Erwin interrupted. "The soldiers are irritable enough right now. You're a section commander—I need you to be putting out fires, not feeding them. I promise that if we just keep this up a little longer, things will get better."
But even as he said the words, Erwin wasn't sure he believed them.
Mid-December, 845
The rest of December slipped away like water down a drain. Erwin went with a small band down to the southwest to set up another supply cache. He sent Levi's squad up north for a week to document Abnormal sightings. He conducted another short recon expedition south of Trost and sent the report back to Zachary. As soon as Levi returned, Erwin sent him and his soldiers back out west to quell another rumor of an Armored Titan sighting outside Wall Rose.
And even though he could never quite remember when it happened, somewhere in the rushing current of the last weeks in the year 845, he had the dream for the first time.
He was weightless, floating in a void of pure white. A spirit without a body, he drifted through a peaceful, painless afterlife—but then all at once he knew that he was not floating but flying. He had not lost his body. He was a falcon, flying through thick white clouds, searching for something in the green fields below.
Eventually, he began to spot tiny faceless figures wandering through the tall grass. Slowly, he circled lower and lower, a restless pressure building inside his chest, until he dove—and consumed one of the figures whole.
Every time he had this dream, he always recognized the figure's face just before he crushed and swallowed it. Sometimes it was one of the Scouts who had died at Benien. Sometimes it was Tegan Lewis or Abel Nayeri. Sometimes it was Moses Braun, sometimes it was Moses's mother.
As soon as he felt the human flesh bursting beneath his beak, he woke up.
Every single time.
Late December, 845
On one of the last days of December (Erwin could never remember what day it was anymore), he wandered inside the mess hall to steal a bowl of soup and bring it back to his office. He had reports to finish, and he couldn't afford to waste any time here.
As he entered the room, he slowed down. Levi and his squad were sitting at a table on the far side of the room. Weren't they supposed to be in Krolva still? Erwin counted the days and shook his head. No, this was the right day. They must have made it back earlier that afternoon.
Seeing Levi, Erwin felt something tug inside his chest. The whole month had been a blur, and it had been weeks since he had spoken more than a few words to Levi. He almost walked over, almost made an excuse to pull him away from his squad. He didn't need the help—just the company.
But Levi was sitting next to Petra. They were sitting together so closely that beneath the table, their legs could easily have been touching. When she threw herself halfway across the table to stop Oruo from saying something ridiculous, for a second or two, half of her body was pressed against Levi's.
They've all been through a lot together, Erwin told himself. It doesn't have to mean…
But then Petra said something, and everyone at the table laughed, and Levi glanced over at her, and the corners of his lips had turned upward in a tiny smile.
Erwin slowed, hesitated, then stopped.
"That's what normal people want."
Petra's eyes met Erwin's. She froze—and in the half second between when Petra spotted Erwin and when she scrambled to her feet, Erwin's brain automatically ran through all the calculations.
Levi wasn't permitted to have a relationship with a subordinate. No one in the Royal Military was. Even if it was unstated, even if it was never official, any personal attachment to a comrade-in-arms, especially an inferior, could negatively influence command decisions. This was true for any officer—but for Captain Levi, Erwin's all-too-public right-hand man, it could spell political disaster if the rumors started spreading.
But then Erwin remembered the moment he had first laid eyes on Marie. He remembered the secret dreams he had kept to himself, unspoken anywhere except in the hidden depths of his own heart. He remembered the exact moment when he had given up those dreams—when he had chosen Titans instead.
But Levi—Levi still had a chance. If Erwin turned a blind eye, if he pretended not to see what he had seen, not to know what he knew…
Petra leapt out of her chair, and when the rest of the squad followed her gaze and caught sight of Erwin, they all jumped up and saluted.
"Commander!" they said together.
Levi stood but didn't salute.
"Erwin," he said. "Is everything—"
"Captain," Erwin said stiffly. "At ease," he added to the rest of the squad.
The odds of a Scout surviving to retirement were slim to none. Practically every soldier quit, was incapacitated, or died.
Erwin nodded at Levi, then turned to leave. Halfway to the door, Levi caught up with him.
"How was the recon mission?" he asked. Erwin kept walking. "Have we heard from William? You look like—"
"Everything's fine," Erwin said, a little curtly.
If Levi chose Petra—if he wanted that life—she might leave the Survey Corps. He might leave with her.
"Go back to your squad," Erwin continued, still striding toward the door. "I have paperwork to do."
Levi yanked on Erwin's arm, forcing him to stop.
"Asshole," he said just under his breath. "What's wrong?"
He couldn't do this without Levi.
"Nothing's wrong," Erwin snapped. With wide eyes, Levi's soldiers glanced over, then quickly looked away when Erwin made eye contact with one or two of them. A frustrated sigh hissed out through Erwin's teeth. "And it isn't your place to ask. I have work to do. Go back to your squad."
"I'm coming up to your office later."
"Don't—"
"You know Maynerd can't keep me out. I'll see you later, and between now and then, you'd better figure out how not to treat me like a fucking peon."
Without responding, Erwin spun around and left the room. He strode through the hallways and up the stairs to his office. He didn't have time to deal with Levi's love life on top of everything else. He had to finish these reports and make plans for the next commission and write to the suppliers and meet with Bradley about training and—
He threw his office door open, hitting the wall with a bang.
"Sir!" Maynerd called from outside. "Is everything—"
Erwin slammed the door closed. The piles of papers on his desk had been pushed aside to make room for three folded documents. One bore the seal of the Royal Government, the second a familiar red skull. The third had a light blue seal that Erwin had only seen once or twice before.
Even so, he would know it anywhere.
Erwin threw the skull document away without even bothering to crumple it up. He reached for the commission, and then stopped, eyeing the light blue seal. He set the commission back down and picked up the third document, breaking the seal and beginning to read.
My dear Erwin,
I hope you are well! I know this is a very busy time for you, but I pray that you have been eating well and sleeping enough in spite of all the excitement. I have been so pleased to hear of all your many successes this past fall. Congratulations on an absolutely precedent-shattering first few months as commander. All my acquaintances on the Regiment Council are simply in awe of your accomplishments.
I'm writing to let you know of a development here in Mitras. I know you will hear of it through other channels, but it is a difficult subject, and I thought you might want to hear it from a friend first.
Conditions in the interior are very bad for the people. Of course, you have been to the Capitol since the fall of Wall Maria. You already know this. You have seen for yourself how crowded the streets are, how little food there is to go around. Men, women, and children are starving in the streets. In the last several weeks, an influenza epidemic has started to spread, robbing even more lives, all because sufficient hygiene is impossible with the overcrowding. Put simply, there are just too many people. The sheer numbers pose a significant threat to the stability of the walls as a whole.
After much difficult and heartbreaking deliberation, my friends and I on the Regiment Council developed a plan, which we presented to Premier Zachary. In consultation with Premier Zachary, the Royal Government has approved this plan.
We will send 250,000 soldiers and civilians back into the territory behind Wall Maria in an effort to reclaim the lost land back from the Titans. Given the sheer numbers and consequent physical strength of this force, we have high hopes for their success. Should they succeed in reclaiming the lost territory, the difficult conditions within the interior would be alleviated—and they will, of course, be alleviated anyway in the meantime, since twenty percent of the walls' population will be outside Wall Rose.
I know, of course, that you will join with me in keeping your thoughts with this force. They will set out in approximately three weeks, nearing the end of January. With any luck, that territory will soon be ours once again.
Take care of yourself, Erwin. And please do write to me. I know that you are swamped with work these days, but it is always important to take a little time for your friends.
Best wishes,
Eli William
A tear splashed onto the paper, blurring the looping cursive script. Then another. And another.
250,000 people. Civilians without any kind of training. Men, women, and children who wouldn't be able to use ODM gear even if there was enough to go around. Teenagers armed with rusty swords. Old men who had never even seen a Titan. Families who would either die together or be torn apart forever.
Whatever anger had been coursing through Erwin a minute ago was now gone, replaced by a ringing numbness. His chest was empty. He couldn't feel a thing.
But if he wasn't feeling anything, why were tears still staining the letter in his hands?
Before he could wipe the tears away, before he could gather himself, his office door came flying open. There in the doorway stood Levi, gripping the collar of an unconscious man with a face that had been bruised and bloodied beyond recognition.
"Sir!" Maynerd cried, looking distressed over Levi's shoulder. "I tried to tell him—"
"Get out," Levi growled. Maynerd squeaked and scurried away. Levi turned back to Erwin.
"Do you want to explain," he said in a low voice, "why I found this armed bastard climbing up to your office window?"
Erwin stood, staring down at the black-clothed body. A chilling realization crept through him. "He's not a Scout, is he?"
"Nope. Never seen him before in my life." Levi dropped the unconscious body on the floor, swung the office door shut, and took a step toward Erwin. "Is there something you—"
He stopped in the middle of his sentence, eyes fixed on something in the corner of the room. Erwin followed his gaze to the basket where the note with the red skull lay, completely intact.
"That isn't—" Erwin began, but Levi had already snatched the note, torn the seal, and opened the paper. His eyes narrowed until they were barely visible.
"How long?" he asked.
Erwin took a deep breath. In, out. "Since we came back from Benien."
"You've been getting death threats for four months?" Levi's hands clenched into fists, and Erwin almost ducked behind his desk.
"I had more important things to worry about," he said. "And they were just empty threats."
"Well, clearly not." With a sudden, startling viciousness, Levi kicked the unconscious man in the ribs. "This asshole had a mask. He had a knife. Why the hell didn't you—" But Levi looked up at Erwin's face for the first time, and immediately cut himself short.
"Are you…?" he began, then looked away. Erwin reached up to touch his face. His cheeks were still wet with tears.
Wordlessly, Erwin held out the letter. Levi reached out and took it. His eyes scanned over the page, his lips moving noiselessly as he worked to sound out some of the longer words.
When he had finished, he let the letter fall from his hands. It drifted gently down to the floor. He stared back up at Erwin.
"They're all going to die," he said.
"Yes."
"The Royal Government knows it."
"Yes."
"It's extermination," Levi said. "It's a culling."
"It is."
"Then what are we…" Levi sat down in the chair across from Erwin's desk. He ran a hand through his hair. He stood back up again. "We can go with them. The Survey Corps can go."
"No," Erwin said. "We can't."
"Then send my squad. Or just send me. Let me go."
"I can't…I need you here."
"Then let me go back to Mitras and kill William." Levi's eyes were murderous—and absolutely serious.
"No." Erwin fell into his chair. "We can't murder our political enemies because we're angry."
"He's the murderer. Not us."
"What good would it do, Levi?" Erwin leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "It's already done. There's no one we can save by killing him."
"We could save ourselves. We could stop this stupid fucking game!" Levi slammed his palm on the desk. "You think he doesn't deserve to die?"
"I think I get to decide whether a lot of different people live or die, but not everyone, and the day I cross that line is the day I become no better than a tyrant."
"Well, I think you're a coward," Levi shot back. In two steps, he had left the office, slamming the door behind him.
For a few minutes, Erwin sat staring at the desk. All he wanted was to lay his head down, to fall asleep, to forget any of this was happening—but he knew that as soon as he fell asleep, he would be the falcon again, circling his prey, diving and crushing human heads between his powerful mandibles.
No, what he needed was to find Levi. Slowly, he pushed himself up out of his chair. First, he went back to the mess hall, but Petra and the rest of the squad were gone. He went back to Levi's room, but he wasn't there. He wandered out to the barracks and asked around for Captain Levi, but nobody had seen him.
But as he walked back toward the main headquarters, eyes trained on the ground, he happened to glance up. His eyes passed over the building until they fell on the roof, where a small figure sat silhouetted against the sky.
Of course.
He climbed out onto the roof and walked over to the ledge where Levi sat. Levi didn't acknowledge him—but didn't tell him to leave either, and Erwin considered that a victory. Erwin stood for a few minutes, arms crossed, staring out at the cloudy night sky. The clouds covered the crescent moon, casting the grounds in shadow. Grayscale patterns of light and dark played across the horizon.
Eventually, Erwin sat down next to Levi. He remained silent. He knew how to wait.
He waited for a long time before his companion finally broke the silence.
"I watched my mother die," he said.
Erwin held his breath. It was as if after months of waiting, a wild bird had landed on his outstretched hand, and he knew instinctively that unless he remained perfectly still, he might still scare it away.
"I don't know why I'm telling you that." Levi wrapped his arms around his knees. "It doesn't have anything to do with the culling." He drew in a deep breath. "Or maybe it does. Hell if I know."
Erwin remained silent.
"She was a prostitute," Levi said. His voice was so low that it was almost a whisper. "I didn't know until after she died though. She got pregnant and had me. I'm sure she didn't mean to."
A light wind blew over the roof, ruffling Levi's hair.
"I think it probably killed her. Having me, I mean." He paused, staring out at the clouds. Erwin's eyes had not left Levi's face. "She didn't have the money to take care of both of us. She took too many customers. She didn't eat enough and when she got sick, she couldn't fight it for very long."
Eyes on the sky, Levi fiddled absentmindedly with his fingers.
"She could have left me in the trash somewhere. She could have dropped me out the window, and I think she'd still be alive if she had. But she didn't. She saved me. And I couldn't…" He shook his head. A few minutes passed before he continued. "She was holding me when she died. I was six years old. She was breathing, and then she wasn't, and I just…stayed there."
The clouds covering the moon drifted past, painting mottled gray patterns on Levi's face.
"Whenever she used to leave me—for customers—she'd always promise to come back soon. So I waited. I thought this was the same thing. I thought she would come back soon. I stayed there—in her arms—until…until she got cold. But I think maybe I knew even before then."
A second, stronger wind rushed by. It gathered a few old, dead leaves off the roof and sent them ricocheting out into the night.
"What happened?" Erwin asked.
"Kenny," Levi said quietly. "Kenny happened."
"Who was—?"
"No," Levi interrupted. "Don't ask."
Erwin shook his head. "What did he do to you?"
"It's not what he did to me," Levi said. "It's what I did for him."
Erwin opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. He didn't know what to say.
"Listen." Levi stared down at his hands. "I'm not…like you, Erwin."
"What do you mean?"
"You're…" Levi's eyes flitted back up to the sky, as if searching for the right words somewhere in the clouds. "You're good. And before I met you, I didn't think that was something a person could be."
"What about your friends? Furlan and Isabel?"
"I loved them." Levi drew in a sharp breath, as if shocked by his own admission. "But that's not what I…"
But the end of Levi's sentence faded into the evening air, lost along with the leaves. And as they sat side by side, staring out into the night, Erwin nearly said a hundred different things—but every time, he stopped himself. He almost said that if he could go back to that night in the storm, he wouldn't hesitate for even a second before carrying Levi back through the driving snow. He almost said that whatever Furlan and Isabel had been to Levi, Levi now was to Erwin. He almost said that Levi could tell him the whole truth because nothing, nothing, would make Erwin regret the choice he had made nearly a year and a half ago.
But he didn't say any of these things. He didn't say them because he was afraid, and because until this moment, he hadn't even realized that they were true.
Eventually, Levi stood. He held out a hand to help Erwin up.
"We should go," he said. "I'll help you finish the paperwork."
Erwin stood, and they left the rooftop together, and even though Erwin had sworn never to regret anything, as he and Levi descended the stairs, he had already begun to wish he could go back and say one or two of the things he had left unsaid.
Winter, 846
January came and it went. 250,000 people went to the Titans like lambs to the slaughter. Only two hundred returned.
The strangest part was that no one, not even Erwin, stopped to mourn the deaths of 249,000 innocent souls. Erwin kept working. Hange kept experimenting. The Scouts kept training.
And the commissions kept coming. They didn't slow down. The Capitol bureaucrats didn't even have the decency to send them one at a time anymore. They piled on top of one another, order after order. Recon mission to the southwest. Abnormal documentation to the northeast. Fixing a thin crack in Wall Rose near Utopia. Clarifying a cartographer's measurements from outside Trost. Setting up another supply cache, then another.
In the early weeks of the year 846, only one thing really changed. After discovering the would-be assassin outside Erwin's window, Levi followed him everywhere—and in the blur of waking hours and dream-haunted sleep, in this endless cycle of light and dark, Erwin came to rely on Levi's presence as the only solid, unmovable fixture in his hazy, drifting existence.
Every day, Levi would sit in the corner of Erwin's office while his commander sorted through endless papers and reports. Every evening at seven o'clock, he would stand, walk over, and take away whatever papers were in Erwin's hands.
"You're going to eat now," he would say. And he would walk with Erwin down to the mess hall, and sit across from him while Erwin ate a potato and half a loaf of bread, and when Erwin tried to get up and leave before he had finished, Levi would calmly push him back down into his chair.
When Erwin fell asleep at his desk, he would wake up with a cloak draped over his shoulders, and he would know it was Levi's. Without even looking up, he would ask what time it was, and Levi's voice in the dark would answer. Sometimes Erwin would light another candle and return to his work—and sometimes Levi would take his arm firmly, pull him up from his chair, and walk him back to his room.
But even the line between waking and sleeping had begun to blur. He would fall asleep and send more Scouts out to die. He would wake and devour humans whole. The sun kept rising and setting, the stars kept burning and burning out, but Erwin had lost all track of time, and he could never be sure when he was a man and when he was the falcon.
Right now, he was the falcon—flying, circling lower and lower, hunting for his prey, searching for a victim. His eyes locked onto one of the faceless figures. And when he dove down through the hazy sky, just before he crushed the head, he knew who it was.
There was a loud cry, and Erwin was sitting upright in the dark. He was the falcon. Where was he? Was this his bed? He didn't remember ever going to bed. He was the falcon. Was it day or night? He couldn't see anything in the murky darkness. He was the falcon.
"Erwin. It's okay. You're okay." Someone struck a match, and a candle illuminated the face of Levi sitting next to him.
"It was your face," Erwin said. He suddenly knew that tears were streaming down his cheeks. "I ate you."
"You didn't eat me," Levi said. "I'm right here. I'm fine."
"I'm the falcon."
"You're Erwin Smith," Levi said. Erwin felt a hand on his forehead. "And I think you have a fever."
He flew through the white clouds, but there was no field below, and he could hear Levi talking quickly somewhere in the fog.
"I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Isn't there some kind of medicine or something?"
"Levi, why won't you just let me get a medic?" Now it was Hange's voice drifting through the smoke.
"It'll get back to the Capitol. Nobody in Mitras can know. You can't tell anyone. Just talk to a medic—lie—say it's for Moblit."
Erwin slept fitfully. Now and then, he half-surfaced into the waking world when Levi made him sit up and drink something. Sometimes he caught sight of Hange's face too, peering over Levi with a worried expression. Then he slipped back into the dreams, to the clouds, to the circling, to the diving.
The face was always Levi now. Splitting under his beak or checking his temperature, breaking in half or holding a glass up to his lips—it was always, always Levi.
And then Erwin woke, and something was different. Sunlight was streaming in through the curtains. He knew this was his bed. He knew this was his room. The wallpaper, the desk, the blankets—all of it had snapped back into focus.
Levi was sitting in a chair with his arms crossed, head leaning forward on his chest. Fast asleep.
"Levi?" Erwin said. Levi's head jolted upright. The moment he made eye contact with Erwin, an obvious relief washed over his face.
"Hey," he said. "How do you feel?"
"Like shit," Erwin admitted.
"Yeah, well, you look a lot less like shit now."
"Thanks," Erwin said. "What day is it?"
"Tuesday." Levi touched Erwin's forehead with the back of his hand and nodded, satisfied. "The fifteenth of February."
"The commissions," Erwin said. He threw off the blankets, hurled himself out of bed, took two steps, and fell over. Levi knelt next to him and helped him stand back up.
"Move slowly," he said. "It's been about five days, give or take a few hours."
"What about the—?"
"Don't worry," Levi interrupted. "Hange's been taking care of everything while you've been out."
"And you've been…?"
"Here." Levi gently pushed Erwin back onto the bed. He poured a glass of water, handed it to Erwin, and sat down beside him.
"Nobody knows what happened?"
"No."
They fell into silence.
"Levi," Erwin said suddenly. "If you wanted to leave the Survey Corps, I wouldn't stop you."
"What?" Levi looked up, his forehead furrowing in confusion. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I'd get you an honorable discharge. Petra too."
"Petra…" Levi's face cleared. "Oh."
"I mean it."
"Shut up," Levi said. "The day you leave the Survey Corps is the day I leave."
"But Petra…"
"I haven't even seen Petra in weeks," Levi pointed out. "I've been here. And until I know for sure that you aren't going to get murdered in your sleep, I'll stay here. So you don't need to worry."
Erwin stared down at his hands.
"Tell me you don't have feelings for her," he said. "Say there's nothing between you."
For a minute or two, Levi said nothing. It was as if he had not heard Erwin.
"Why?" he finally asked.
"Call it plausible deniability."
"You made me promise not to lie to you."
"I'm giving you an order. Say it." He looked back up at Levi. "And then go back to keeping your promise."
"I don't have feelings for Petra Ral," Levi said. "There's nothing between us."
"Thank you," Erwin said.
"Not that I don't absolutely love this topic of conversation, but if I'm allowed to move on, there's something else we need to talk about." Levi stood and walked back over to his chair. He reached down, retrieving a folded paper from the floor.
Erwin recognized the broken seal of the Royal Government immediately.
"I thought you said Hange was handling the commissions," he said. A tiny, burning coal of anxiety had taken root in the pit of his stomach.
"She is," Levi said. "But this one came in two days ago. There hasn't been another one since. We thought…" He stopped in front of Erwin, gripping the document as if hesitant to hand it over. "We thought you should see it."
Erwin held out his hand. Levi did not give him the commission.
"We can wait another day," he said. "You're still recovering."
"Give it to me," Erwin said. Reluctantly, Levi handed over the document. Erwin unfolded the paper and began to read.
Commander Erwin,
When humanity retreated behind Walls Rose and Sina after the fall of Wall Maria, we were forced to leave behind several hundred herds of livestock. By our estimations, even a quarter of the livestock left behind Wall Maria would feed the remaining refugees for six months or more.
The Survey Corps is tasked with entering the territory between Trost and Krolva and retrieving all herds. This is an urgent matter, and therefore we are instituting a deadline of March 1st—that is, three weeks from today.
Signed,
Premier Zachary
When he had finished reading, Erwin stared up at Levi.
"A quarter of the territory," he said. "Less than three weeks."
"Yeah."
They would have to split up the long-range formation. They didn't have enough squads to split up the formation. They had no way of knowing where the herds would be. They didn't have enough time to spend weeks looking for hundreds of herds of livestock. They had no idea how to herd livestock on horseback. Even if they did, they couldn't herd cattle while fighting Titans. It was impossible.
"I'm going to my office," Erwin said flatly.
He stood up, bent over, and vomited all over the floor.