Author's Note: Happy early Halloween, everyone! This chapter is a little spooky, just for you all! Enjoy~~
Chapter XXV: Every Rose
Everything's fucked.
Abso-fucking-lutely fucked.
Even with distance and altitude, I can hear the clamor of battle I left behind.
Freya, locked in a hectic marriage of steel and blood. Freya, who I left behind.
I squeeze her bag of pebbles so tightly the stones gnash and grind.
It's not just her, though. They're all my friends. My family. I flick Fury's reins, urging her to fly faster. She whinnies in mild protest, our speed already nearing maximum velocity. I know, girl. I know. But we have to. We can't let them down.
We can't let her down.
Beneath Fury and me, the browns and greens of this inhospitable landscape muddle together like clots of toxic mold. According to Lydia the outlaws' hideout sits between a gnarled section of conifers and a sheer white bluff. Apparently, the whole 'spending the night in a cave' bit wasn't a complete lie; they just use the cave to store all their loot and hostages. Not exactly a world class resort, I'm sure.
Finding the location takes longer than I want. These assholes have tucked it away well, and I don't see the haphazard collection of shacks and tents until we're right above them. Thankfully, no guards or lookouts seem to notice, but I have Fury begin her descent a safe half-mile from the camp. If Naga or whoever's up there had any mercy, Gaia would be waiting on the ground with Emmeryn and Cornelius in tow; no such luck today.
I check the surroundings before dismounting. No Risen. No bandits. No anything or anyone. A little too convenient. Actually, a lot too convenient. Wary, I start looping Fury's reins around a tree trunk and then frown. I shouldn't hitch her. She or any of us might need to escape quickly. Not that Fury can carry four people at once. Cornelius better be here—his pegasus, too.
Fury knickers and tosses her head aggressively, earthen eyes wide and accusatory.
"Hey, girl," I say, patting her snout. "I know, OK? I know. But you have to stay here. Can you do that for me?"
She blinks, and it's a strange moment of clarity. Like she's speaking, like Fury understands entirely how dire the situation is. How much I need her to be ready for anything. Fury lowers her head, eyes level with mine, and bunts our noses together.
It's warm and a little damp, and I smile. "Good. I'll be back before you know it, Fury."
My fingers comb through her mane, delicately untangling a few knots. Fury makes a soft noise, a resigned grunt, then straightens her neck. She'll be fine.
Pine needles crunch under my boots, the ground so littered with them that each step brings a fresh crackle. I move slowly, treading as light as I can, but there's no stretches of grass or path without the brittle bastards. The loudest snaps have me glancing around, breaths quick, expecting an arrow or fireball to come flying from the shadows. I'm hardly rolling nat 20s on stealth here. But I press forward, and only my own rustling footsteps greet me.
The copse of evergreens thins, revealing the encampment. My toes curl inside my boots as I grip the sword I've unsheathed. Bodies. Dead ones.
Corpses lie strewn across the clearing, misshapen pools of drying blood framing their limp forms. I grimace, and it's more from the implication of their presence than the sight. Sword held aloft, I enter the campground, inspecting the bodies. Based on the disembowelments and patchwork burns, I'm willing to call this foul play. Risen? I don't know. All I smell is cedar and iron.
Half these people never even managed to draw their weapons, and the ones who did don't seem to have gotten very far. Gaia didn't do this, right? No. Too much carnage. At least I don't recognize any of the bodies, and their armor looks similar to what the bandits wore at the ambush site. Better them than us. It's a thought I refuse to dwell on more than a few seconds.
At the opposite end, the cave entrance sits unguarded. Or more accurately, the person who used to guard it has three-quarters of their brains splayed against the rocks. Not the most inviting welcome mat.
I ignore the mutilated remains, approaching the cave with as much feline grace as I can muster. Something shuffles just beyond my vision around a jutting stone slab, the sound echoing in the chamber. I press myself close to the wall, leaning barely enough to see whatever it was. A flash of orange. A blade catching the light.
Gaia, her dagger glinting along my throat.
"Naga's sparkly ass," she hisses, "Michael! Where have you been?"
My chest deflates in a relieved sigh, though the knife-edge below my chin tempers the relief a bit. "You mind moving that, first?" I whisper, prodding the hilt.
"Sorry," she murmurs, stowing the weapon within her cloak. "You might have noticed the scene." Gaia sweeps her hand to encompass the several dead bandits outside.
"Yeah. I saw." We both turn, staring at the aftermath. She look back after a few beats, face tight.
Gaia shakes her head. "And you thought to go into the cave past all the dead guys?"
It's a struggle to keep my voice down. "Looking for you," I snap. "What the hell happened here?"
She puts a finger to her lips and glares, lowering it only when I've nodded. "No idea. I was trying to decide what to do when you came tromping through."
"I wouldn't say I tromped," I protest, scowling.
Her fingers march across the palm of her hand, digits taking heavy steps. "You tromped, Feathers."
My brows rise. "Feathers?"
Gaia grins slightly. "You have a pegasus. They have feathers." She points at me. "Feathers."
"Thanks," I say dryly. "I hate it. Now, more importantly, shouldn't we find Emmeryn?"
"About that," she mumbles, ushering us away from the cave so she can lean herself against the cliff face. "I can't know for sure without exploring this creepy-ass cave, but I don't think she's here. Not anymore, anyways."
A disbelieving fount of agitation wells up from my stomach. Gaia never struck me as the most scrupulous individual—and I don't have a lot of room to judge anyone—but reaching that conclusion before we've even exhausted our options? Before she's even gone inside the cave? What has she been doing all morning? Loitering here and wasting time? Goddammit, Freya is counting on us. They're all counting on us!
My fists curl at my sides. "So you're ready to give up, then?" I grind out.
Her palms shoot forward, like she's pressing down the air. "Quiet," she growls. "And we're not quitting. We're just… re-evaluating. Come over here and have a look."
I feel my lips twitch in remarkably Freya-esque fashion as Gaia beckons me over to a flattened section of brambles ringing the camp's perimeter. She kneels beside the fractured twigs and crushed leaves, jabbing one gloved finger at the mess.
"See that?" she prompts, finger drawing a circle around what could be half a boot-print or just a scrape in the dirt. "Someone was dragged through here. Out of the camp." Her mellow green gaze turns shrewd, investigative.
Gaia's dubious survivalist intuition aside, I'm not sure why this proves anything by itself. I say as much to her, and Gaia sucks in a tsk between her teeth. My lip twitch intensifies.
"Feathers, you gotta use your brain," Gaia chides, like I'm the class moron screwing up another equation. "Who would bother hauling someone out of here when they left all these other dead fellas right where they died? Also. There's this."
From the presumably endless folds and pockets of her ensemble, Gaia produces a ring, shoving it in front of my eyes. As rings go, it's a nice one. Silver band threaded with gold lines, arcing and twirling in a sunset yellow wreath. Runes or some sort of script I can't decipher runs along the inner band, the inscription ending at the centerpiece of the ring. A sapphire, rounded and prominent, but not ostentatious. And in the middle, almost shimmering, as if cast in filtered light, is a brand. The brand of the Exalt.
"The people who did all this," she says, "they took Her Graceliness with them. Found her ring right here. I'm thinking somebody had the same idea we did."
Inhale. Exhale. One. Two. "Maybe lead with the best evidence next time."
She shrugs, an infuriatingly blasé motion. "I have a process," Gaia tuts. "Can't rush genius, Feathers."
On another day, or even another lifetime, I might be amused by Gaia. Well, not today. Not while Freya and the others are fighting for their lives.
"Gaia, I appreciate the detective work, but we need to figure out where Emmeryn is. Now."
The mischievous gleam her eyes always seem to hold dims. "I feel like I'm missing something," she says, tilting her head. "Er, besides this crap."
Right. I'm fucking stupid. Gaia doesn't know about the Risen shitshow that went down back there. Pull it together, Mike. They're trusting you. She's trusting you.
I explain the battle with the ambushers, how everything fell apart once those two dickwads summoned the Risen. For once, Gaia has no quips or witticisms. She listens. She listens, and she nods. To her credit, Gaia doesn't panic or suggest we bail, cutting our losses. When I've finished the story, there's a lull, contemplative, and I realize Gaia's a lot smarter than I'd thought. Not just cunning or crafty. Smart.
She rifles through one of her many pockets and pulls out a small, bright pink sphere attached to a stick. Gaia pops the thing in her mouth, rolling it cheek to cheek, looking like a mercurial chipmunk. Candy. A fucking lollipop.
"Helps me think," she says at my incredulous stare, voice garbled. Gaia savors the treat a while longer before plucking it free. "Alrighty. Plan C it is."
"And Plan C is what, exactly?" I ask, trying and definitely failing not to sound irritated.
The lollipop breaks between her teeth, Gaia chewing on the sugary chunks while the stick hangs from the corner of her mouth like a cigarette that causes cavities and diabetes rather than cancer. "Plan C," Gaia says through mouthfuls, "is check out whatever's in the cave, don't get killed, and then report back to the Shepherds."
"What about Emmeryn?"
"If she's not in there and we don't find any clues," she says, removing the brutalized lollipop stick, "then we're sure as Naga's puckered bumhole not chasing after whoever took care of this lot. Not just the two of us."
Despite my involuntary aversion to the idea, Gaia's not wrong. I'm a mediocre fighter at best, and while she's capable, I don't think even together we'd stand a chance against the person or persons who made such easy work of the bandits.
And so, begrudgingly, I nod. "Let's go, then," I say, thumbing at the cave.
I slot in behind Gaia, copying her movements. We slink along the margins of the limestone, never fully outside the shaded camouflage it provides. Sunlight only stretches a few yards into the cave opening, leaving deepening darkness ahead. Gaia puts out a hand to stop me. She fiddles with her belt and detaches a golf ball-sized orb cradled in crisscrossed leather strips. Whispering an unintelligible incantation, Gaia extends her arm, letting the thing hang like a lantern. Which, considering the pale yellow glow it's emitting, it appears to be. Functionally at any rate.
We inch forward. Gaia's magical lamp illuminates a winding, uneven cavern trail. Scattered debris peppers the ground—spent torches and cloth scraps, discarded weapons of all kinds, the odd coin or broken bottle. That wet, musty smell of cellars and unfinished basements permeates the air. A stagnant, cloying smell. No bodies. Yet.
The narrow passageway expands, becoming a spacious, natural vault. It's too wide and tall for Gaia's light to spread across the entire space, but the room contains numerous stacks of crates and boxes, armor and weapon racks, barrels of dried foodstuffs. Storage. Supplies.
Also loot. Fuckloads of loot.
Piles and piles of stolen goods fill the area, some of the mounds higher than we can see in the faint light. Jeweled goblets, coins, antique and ornate furniture, polished armor, every manner of valuable. How long were these assholes robbing people traveling through here? Something tells me they didn't just let their victims walk free either.
A quiet whistle escapes Gaia's lips. "Guess they only wanted the Exalt," she says. "This is quite a stash to pass up."
Yeah.
Yeah.
What the hell? If I was kidnapping the Exalt—you know, for nefarious purposes—I'd make off with as much of this as I could carry. In fact, I'm pretty positive the Shepherds would benefit from most of the stuff these bandits hoarded. Anyone would.
Somewhat idly, Gaia rummages through the pilfered objects, and I'm about to tell her to save the kleptomania for later date when she spins, an ebony breastplate in hand.
"Recognize this?" Gaia asks, clearly rhetorical. "Plegian standard issue. Looks like our highwaymen buddies were equal opportunity leeches."
I have to peel my tongue from the dry roof of my mouth to speak. "Good for them," I say, ice shooting up my spine. "It bothers me more that this means there's Plegians nearby. Or were."
The stewed silence following that inference swirls around us as leaden unease. Gaia replaces the cuirass where she found it, and I see her start munching on another candy. Neither of us addresses the unpleasant question: are the Plegians responsible for snatching Emmeryn away before we arrived? Though I'm not sure why these bandits would raid the people they were hoping to sell the Exalt to. Guess bandits aren't really known for their undying loyalty.
Clattering. Muffled whispers. Gaia's dagger materializes from her sleeve, and I draw my sword. Wordlessly, she signals she's going around the right side of the treasure heap; I take the left route. More whispers and a second rattling as something slides down the slopes of this silver and steel mountain.
"Richelle, be still!" a voice snaps, thick with panic.
There's a high-pitched, girlish shriek and resounding thud. Gaia's enchanted flashlight shines from the other end of the pile, washing three figures in its halo: at the very top of the loot mound is a wincing man with swept-back crimson hair and a jawline hewn from marble. A splint runs up his right leg, keeping it ramrod straight at the knee. Slightly lower, a second man clings to a protruding chair, feet flailing for purchase. I nearly can't place why he seems so familiar, what with his disheveled blond curls and drab brown trousers. Last and only time I saw him, he was stomping up a flight of stairs while fuming over Vaiva's 'repugnant indecency.' Marius.
The third person lies spread-eagle on the ground, lower body covered in an avalanche of assorted war spoils. Tufts of ruddy hair poke out from a massive, witch-y hat that seems to have just landed on their face, comically large on this person's petite frame.
I lock eyes with Marius.
"What the fuck?"
These Plegian dogs would regret the day they laid waste to Themis, of that much Marius was sure.
Father… was not an especially loving man, but he died defending their home, a sacrifice Marius did not intend to forget as long as he walked this earth. A sacrifice he did intend to avenge.
And Mother. Gods above, Mother. Marius chose not to linger on her memory. The nightmares would bring her back to him soon enough anyhow. There was little else to do but sleep and ponder what mechanism of wrath he would bring down upon the Plegians once free from the cursed shackles that bound his hands and feet.
The carriage bounced abruptly, and Marius bit his tongue to endure the searing pain of the manacles slicing along his raw, ragged flesh. How many days had passed? It was hard to know when so little light entered his mobile prison cell. From conversations among the guards, Marius pieced together that Ylisstol had fallen not long after Themis. He prayed that Her Grace had not suffered the same fate as his parents. Or dear Liston. Or Chrom. Or any of his comrades. Even that incorrigible slob Vaiva.
Even if they were all well and in perfect health, Marius did not expect a rescue. If they'd heard news of Themis, then his friends certainly thought him dead. And if they'd any sense at all, they would not spare a moment of grief for him. All that mattered was striking back, winning, ensuring that the Plegians shall not long enjoy their triumphs. Marius believed he yet lived for a reason, and that reason was to join them in utterly annihilating those who in their hubris assumed Ylisse to be a nation of guileless farmers and decadent nobility.
He imagined it daily. Well, what he presumed was daily. The dream kept him sane, kept him whole, kept him from losing hope. Liston would embrace him, tearfully, as Marius rode into the fray at the Shepherds' greatest hour of need. The fact hugging was likely not possible whilst Liston stood on the ground with Marius astride his horse was naturally inconsequential to the fantasy. "You're alive!" his closest companion would say through the sobs, to which Marius would reply with a solemn, "Of course I am, my dear Liston." So dotingly sentimental. The make of poems and ballads and epic operas.
Somewhere, in the part of his mind not blackened by rage or sorrow, Marius knew that to do anything, he must first escape. But how? They opened the doors only to feed him or beat him for information he refused to ever share—not that he knew where the Fire Emblem was to begin with. In any case, he saw no leeway in their management of him, no exploitable weaknesses or chances he might seize.
Intending to avenge Father and Mother is all well and good, he thought, an acrid bile in his throat. But intention alone does not sever chains.
And neither did lamenting his present circumstance.
Marius tugged against his bonds, straining and groaning through the agony coursing up his limbs. Impervious. Impossible.
If only he'd a pin or sliver of… anything. Anything to jam into the locks and unclasp these blasted things. If only he had access to his belongings, the staff or tome with which he'd been practicing spells. If only he had a plan.
If only, if only, if only.
The reinforced door to the wagon swung wide, banging into the wood wall. Marius squinted at the sudden bright rays streaming into the cell, tears budding in the corners of his eyes. One of his jailers stooped under the door frame, the silhouette broad and jagged. As Marius's eyes adjusted to the light, the man's snide face came into focus.
"Good morning, Duke Themis," he said, and the tone was nothing but an affront to noble politeness. "I trust you slept well?"
Marius tilted back his head, channeling defiance. "I am not Duke Themis."
An ugly chuckle. The man tapped his chin and smiled, rakishly thin mustache bracketing his lips. "Ah, but you are. What with the dreadful passing of your late father."
Nothing. Marius said nothing. He would not give this pathetic swine of a human being the satisfaction.
The man sighed. "Duke Themis," he said. "Do you know what has become of your country?"
Yes. This cretin already knew that. Marius glared.
"I shall take your silence as affirmation." A smirking smugness slithered across the man's features. "So, you must also know that your sole salvation in your blighted little world is me."
He'd performed this speech before, not verbatim but the same in essence. "I will never betray Ylisse, Orton," Marius spat, attempting venom and hitting a hoarse snarl.
Orton paced the cramped length of the carriage, hands clasped neatly behind his back. "Indeed," he said, and Marius did not like the predatory way his gaze shifted. "Therefore, I've improved my offer."
He snapped his fingers, and a pair of guards hoisted a lithe, wispy waif of a woman into view. The woman seemed barely conscious, upright only due to the men propping her onto her knees. One of them yanked back her lank blonde hair, revealing a bruised and sallow face. A face Marius saw nightly, etched along the ridges of his anguished mind.
"Mother?" Marius croaked. "Mother! How?! I saw… I saw them…" He choked on the remainder, lost in the cruelty of the last moment he'd laid eyes upon her.
His mother made a gurgling noise, as if words drowned on the way up from her lungs, and the men who brought her inside let her collapse on the floor. Orton glanced down at her, sneering, teeth far too white and far too canine.
"Woman survived her wounds," he explained flippantly. "I thought she might be more useful alive and impart some secrets, but it seems like you and your mother have tenacity in common."
Marius writhed in place, a futile effort. More a lapse of unadulterated hate than anything else. "Let her go!"
Orton's barking laughter was sandpaper made ethereal. "Now, why would I do that?" He grinned, tongue dashing across his lower lip. "If I let her go, who am I going to kill if you keep refusing to talk?"
The gods were deplorable indeed if this was their will. To force him to choose between his mother's life and Ylisse? Marius felt the blood pump in his ears, the red-roiled helplessness that pounded between his ribs.
"Don't," Marius pleaded, and, Naga, it was meek. "Don't harm my mother."
"Give me a reason not to." Orton's fingers drummed a jaunty rhythm on his axe haft.
Desperation reared up and spilled as heaving hyperventilation. "I know nothing of the Fire Emblem!" Marius swallowed, voice splintering from disuse. "That is the truth. I swear it."
Lackadaisical, like a man out for a stroll, Orton lifted his axe and raised Marius's mother's head by the chin using the flat of the axe blade. "Tell. Me. What. You. Know," he said, punctuating each word with a slight bounce of the axe.
"I do not know anything! The Fire Emblem is sacred to the Exalted family! I am not privy to such things! Please!"
Marius almost felt as if he hovered above his own body, a spectator to this sham of a negotiation. The words torn from his lips were both his and not his, truth and untruth. He could not express more emphatically that the Fire Emblem was beyond his kin, and yet… Would it be so terrible to lie? To tell Orton what he wished to hear even if it led the cur no closer to Ylisse's crown jewel? His mother would live. Marius could save her with a simple, tempting falsehood.
The axe cut into his mother's throat, painting a scarlet thread. "Then she dies," Orton drawled. "Unless you do know something?"
Lady Themis caught her son's eye, a meeting of red-violets. She knew as well as Marius that he had nothing of import to give Orton. But her eyes were not imploring, not the eyes of a woman thrashing against impending death. Never cooperate, they seemed to say. Not with them.
And then a mother spared her child the decision.
She jerked her head, opening a gash along her neck. Blood poured as a wine-colored curtain. It stained the front of his mother's tattered gown and dripped from the hem in bending rivulets. She moved her lips in something unspoken, something Marius could not read—whatever his mother had said to him, that unknowable final message, would haunt Marius for years upon years until one night in a distant future, the words would coalesce, become whole. Become cathartic fact.
I love you.
"NO!" Marius screamed, lurching forward only to be rooted by his shackles.
Orton recoiled, wrenching the axe away from Lady Themis, but the deed was done. Her hair fanned around the bloody puddle beneath her body, individual strands sticky and slick with the viscous liquid. The first time Marius had seen her die, he'd lost a part of himself, a part once integral that he could remember no more. The second time was not twice as worse; it was infinitely so, for loss is not measured in numerals but in how it shears the veil one wears to facilitate the lie that the person one becomes in the wake of grief is somehow not the person one has been all along.
The thirst—the ravenous hunger—for revenge borne in Marius as he watched the humanity leave his mother's eyes was not a new desire. It had festered within him since Themis, since the Plegians robbed him of his family and home. But before this, vengeance had been an aspiration, a formless idea.
Not anymore. Marius would kill Orton. He would kill him and admit to no soul that those principles of justice Marius valued so dearly were furthest from his mind. Because it was not justice Marius sought but rather the joy he'd experience snuffing out the existence of this depraved, worthless, and vile insect.
"Shit," Orton cursed, and it was the first dent in the debonair facade he'd crafted. Marius had never been fooled; the man was a wretch through and through, as base-born and common as they come. Orton nudged Lady Themis's limp arm with the toe of his boot, running an aggravated hand along the back of his neck.
He scowled at Marius, all traces of the suave character replaced with crass enmity. "I'll make you talk. Dead mother or not, you'll tell me every last fucking thing in that prissy little skull of yours."
"I will die before I aid Plegia's cause." And Marius meant that, just also not until after he'd reduced Orton to detritus and ash.
Lacking any threat Marius had not already heard, Orton spat on Lady Themis and pivoted on his heel. The guards moved to carry her corpse from the carriage, but Orton shooed them away. "No," he said. "Let her rot for a while. Perhaps the stench shall loosen the lord's tongue."
When the door closed, blackness shrouded the prison, and Marius was once again left sightless. He didn't need any light, though, to know exactly where his mother's body lay. She had died for him, died so that Orton could not wield her against Marius. Died because of you, a spiteful demon within reminded him.
Marius thought of nothing else for days, even as filth and decay overtook Lady Themis.
He very nearly did not hear the clanking outside his cell, so consumed was he by the self-loathing, anguished punishment Marius had created for himself.
No sunbeams shone through as it creaked ajar. Cool air blew into the wagon, the songs of crickets and starlight creatures bundled on the breeze. A helmet squeezed inside, followed by the rest of the soldier. Not Orton, Marius decided. Orton only came during the day, as if the business of torture was somehow more palatable in the waking hours.
The soldier stepped fully into the carriage, door halfway open behind them. Their helmed face stared at Lady Themis, crook of an elbow brought up to where their nose must be. Marius could not smell her. He could not smell anything.
"Marius?" the soldier said, looking up and scooting further from the rancid body.
Their voice was… Marius felt he knew it once, in a time both long ago and recent. But he did not respond.
"Thank Naga," they breathed, "it is you. Gods, what have the Plegians done to you?"
The Plegians? Like this soldier was not one of their foul company? "Who are you?" Marius asked, risking the question.
They jumped slightly, bustling towards Marius. "Oh! Right. The armor." A russet tidal wave of voluminous hair fell to their waist as the soldier removed the helmet. "It's me! Ricki!"
Surely, this was some new hallucination. "Richelle?" Marius rasped, weariness unable to entirely smother his shock.
Tiny wrinkles formed beneath the girl's eyes as she frowned. "Ricki," Richelle corrected, "You know I think 'Richelle' is too stuffy." She inhaled, centering herself. "Never mind that, though. I'm here to break you out."
Marius laughed, more of a wheeze really, but it was as much a laugh as he could manage. What was this? A jest? After everything, after all the delirious days and nights, it came to this? To Richelle—hardly on the cusp of womanhood—dressed as a Plegian knight?
Richelle's brows contracted. Marius supposed it was rather odd to laugh at such a declaration. "We don't have long," she whispered, beginning to tamper with Marius's manacles. "The guard will be back soon." A sideways glance at Lady Themis. "Who is that? I can't believe they just left her like this."
"My mother," Marius said, and it tasted something like wilted lilacs.
The lockpick Richelle held pinged on the ground. "What?" In the murk her eyes reflected little of anything alive. "Marius… I… She was always kind to me. I am so sorry."
Her condolences were not unauthentic, but served no purpose other than to fill the space where such platitudes are traditionally offered. Richelle could not fix it or reset the hands of time. Marius would not remember Richelle's apology anyways; no, what carved itself into memory was her pity, her revulsion, and the subtle way her gaze never quite flitted over Lady Themis again.
It was not until after she'd freed Marius and slung one of his arms around her shoulder to support his weight that Richelle said anything else. "Should we… do something with her?" she asked. "Your mother deserves better than this."
Ylissean noble customs mandated a meticulously ordered funeral, attended by all the cadet branches of the house and prominent members of other aristocratic families. Following the funeral, for two weeks house Themis would shun all regalia and insignia, dressing in black or deep navy blue. A tree would then be planted in Lady Themis's honor, so that life might flourish even in her absence.
But they had no means to accomplish any of that. They could not bury her nor assemble a pyre. Days later, and the Plegians continued to deny his mother the barest dignity in death.
"She is gone," Marius said, extracting the words from a desolate and numb place. "My mother would not see us recaptured in the adherence to misguided propriety. Let us retrieve my things and be off."
The austerity of his voice must have dissuaded Richelle from arguing, who instead furrowed her brows and kneaded her bottom lip between her teeth. Marius leaned against her as they hobbled out of the carriage, turning back only once to murmur a private goodbye to the woman that raised him—and did so up until the very end.
Moonlight bathed the pair; it did not feel like freedom or a loving caress for a man returned from faraway horrors. It merely felt like moonlight, and to Marius, that was enough.
"Where are we?" Marius surveyed the horizon, searching for any familiar landmarks. Sharp, snowy peaks grazed the sky as icy triangles. Near the Feroxi border, if he was to hazard a guess.
"Somewhere in the north-west region of the halidom," Richelle said, looking at the same mountains. "I tracked the Plegians from Ylisstol when I heard about Themis. This battalion probably has a mission out here, but I don't know what it is."
Related to the Fire Emblem? Or a more strategic purpose? Marius wondered. They'd brought him to a barren wilderness for no agenda at all? He thought not. It would have been much more prudent to imprison him within the dungeons of Ylisstol.
Adjusting his weight to relieve pressure from his weaker left leg, Marius regarded Richelle carefully. "You trekked into the heart of this frigid waste solely for my sake?"
Richelle fidgeted, expression a jittery assortment of sheepish frowns and puffed cheeks. "Not just you," she replied hastily. "The Shepherds too. I wasn't able to regroup with them when the capital fell, but I know they're headed for Regna Ferox. They'll need us both soon. What would they say if I showed up without you?"
As rambling excuses go, this one erred on the charmingly earnest side. Marius knew Richelle and her family well, or did at one time. Not a prestigious house and in quite dire straits if sordid rumors were to be believed, but the truest of noble virtues was to risk oneself for another and expect nothing in recompense. Richelle could call a dank ruin on the outskirts of a godsforsaken hellscape her home and be no less noble for it.
"Thank you, Richelle," Marius whispered, bowing as best he could. "I am forever in your debt."
"I didn't save your mom." Her bereft glare drilled a hole into the bleached ground. "Don't thank me."
Marius closed his eyes. "You did not, that is true," he said, Richelle flinching. "However… Neither did I. You are not to blame. Orton is." The name fled his lips like a poison.
"Orton?"
"The commander of this force. I am sure you know his face after chasing them for so long."
Comprehension and disgust filled her brown eyes. "Yeah. The one with the creepy mustache." She shivered as if to dispel the image. "His tent is probably where your stuff's at."
"I see."
"It might be better to just—"
"Show me," Marius said, an undercurrent of authority in his tone. "If that is where we shall reclaim my personal effects, then so be it.
Self-preservation might dictate that Marius forgo the dangers such a reckless idea presented, but there was more Marius wanted than his material possessions in that tent. Richelle waffled for a scant moment, studying Marius with a tentative stare. She breathed through her nose and inclined her head towards the central area of the convoy. "Fine. We won't get far with your leg busted up anyways. Might as well steal a horse too."
Or perhaps not steal. "Themis had many prized horses on our estate. The Plegians, brutes that they are, still likely saw their value. If they have kept any here, I suggest we liberate one."
Rudimentary plan devised, Marius and Richelle wove through the camp, avoiding guard postings and their torchlight junctions. Marius stumbled frequently, and upon reaching Orton's tent, a veneer of sweat coated his brow and neck.
"Stay here, Richelle," Marius ordered, limping to the tent's opening flap.
"Marius…" She let the syllables mist into tenuous vapor at his non-negotiable severity. "I'll keep watch, then. Don't take too long."
He would take as long as it took.
Orton's quarters were much like the man himself: sophisticated at a glance and tacky imitations of genuine articles under scrutiny. Faux-gold gilded chests lined one wall, their decorative flourishes only painted bronze. A segmented sheet of thick embroidered linens separated where he slept from the chests and a gaudy pastiche of noble tapestries. Garish fur cloaks of clashing hues hung on racks, and Orton had apparently dined at a table left still plated incorrectly, polished silver utensils made dull by a man who knew nothing of their proper positions.
A simpering wealth infected the place, as if the storybook facsimile of ivory tower interiors was designed from the incomplete recollections of a man who'd stepped into the parlor of a grand mansion once upon a time as a boy.
Marius tested the chests and trunks gingerly, lifting up the lids and sorting through their disorganized contents. He skipped the padlocked ones, hoping he'd not regret never learning any clandestine skills. Unfortunately, the unlocked chests held none of his belongings. Plenty of items undoubtedly filched from other victims of the invasion but no staff, no signet ring, no tome.
Of course, he found no key either. That would have been too easy. Marius stood, steeling himself to enter Orton's makeshift bedroom. He had expected to have his spellbook for this part. Or a weapon at all, really. Well, it was inconsequential now. He slipped between the linens.
And caught a gasp in his throat.
Though the darkness hid devilish details, he saw them. Marius saw them, every shrunken, leathery face. Nobles. Some he knew—the baron of Sienn, the earls of Dupont and Vestemach—and some he did not. They were… preserved somehow, shriveled into grotesque caricatures of the men they had once been. Each wore the colors of their lineage, their finest silks, and sat arranged in an oval around Orton's bed. At the foot of the mattress, posed in eternal supplication, was Marius's father, the macabre centerpiece to a scene which defied rational explanation.
Rage. It ignited in his veins with such an intense ferocity that the sight of the naked, emaciated husk of a noblewoman Orton slept beside struck Marius as only a passingly acknowledged degeneracy.
But that rage manifested not as a scream or unholy yowl—violent emotion ruptured as gagging sobs. Marius wept.
Finally, he wept.
"Who the fuck—" Orton shot out of his bed, the desiccated carcass next to him flopping onto the packed dirt floor. A diamond ring slid off her skeletal finger and rolled past her unseeing emerald glass eyes. Whether it was Orton's nauseating addition or a relic of the promise she'd made to a different man, Marius did not want to know.
Nigh manic-eyed and disentangling himself from his duvet, Orton gaped at Marius. "What… You can't… How did you get out?"
Tears burned against Marius's skin. "You are a monster."
Orton grew more alert, blinking sleep away and ushering in his signature disdain. "Whatever. Doesn't matter how you escaped," he said. "You were stupid enough to come here. Trying to kill me?"
"These people," Marius said, shaking. "My father… Why?"
A guttural snarl thrummed in Orton's throat as he shoved Marius backwards through the linen divider. Marius lost his balance, injured ankle buckling beneath him, cracking. He strangled his budding outcry of pain; Richelle would hear. The Plegians might hear. No interference.
"Ylissean scum like you don't understand what it was like for us. For me." Flecks of spittle flew from Orton's mouth as he loomed over Marius. "What we did to Themis, the last Exalt did to my home as well."
Marius scrambled away, pushing himself along his knees, but Orton grabbed him by the collar and dragged Marius to the dinner table. "Nobles, though," Orton seethed, face inches from Marius, "they made deals. They kept their money and chateaus while us regular folk ate rats to survive."
"None of that justifies what you have done." Even if Marius was not in a frail, half-starved state, Orton could overpower him. He had little defense against these sorts of men. But these sorts of men also underestimated Marius.
"Your kind are all the same," Orton said, moving his hands to grasp Marius by the throat. "Your father and his noble friends led armies for the Exalt. And yet here you are, claiming innocence."
Air trickled into Marius's lungs in labored breaths, constricted. One hand tugged futilely at Orton's arm while the other sought the slender silver of his only chance. "My father… was just."
Coal-black eyes scoured Marius's own, as if seeking the moment the light would go out. "Lies." Orton softened, a disturbing smile forming. "You will look nice beside him, Lord Themis. If you cannot give me the Fire Emblem, I shall enjoy adding you to my garden." He paused, a delighted glimmer in his eyes. "The rose. Yes, you shall be the rose, Lord Themis."
Metal. Marius's fingertips clawed at the silverware. "Roses… have thorns," he rasped and wrapped his fingers around the cutlery. Orton's hands slackened and then convulsed, clamping on the fork buried in his windpipe. He fell to the floor, gurgling, eyes bulging and darting erratically. Marius sank too, watching.
As Orton died choking on his own blood, Marius thought about roses. About how apt the comparison had been. Roses are not meant to be plucked, he decided. Marius was the rose, and the rose was Orton's undoing.
Marius would plant droves of them in Themis. People might laud their beauty or the sweet fragrance of their blossoms, but Marius knew what he'd see in the rich vermilion flowers—vengeance and a man who forgot the nature of a rose.
When Marius left the tent, having not found his staff or anything else material, Richelle did not ask a single question. She did not need to.
Hours after they'd fled the Plegian camp, her lone remark was a downy, hesitant palm between his shoulder blades.
Marius tells Michael—an acquaintance at best—and Gaia—a scoundrel and liar—none of these intimate details. He keeps to the bland facts, that Richelle rescued him, recovered a steed taken from Themis by the Plegians, and they rode through the night until witnessing Her Grace beset upon by ruffians.
By the time they'd found where she was taken, only poor Cornelius and his shattered leg remained here. Without Marius's staff, they couldn't even heal him, let alone do anything more. They knew less than Michael or Gaia did about what happened. Gaia couldn't have arrived more than five minutes after they had. Quite the convergence of fate.
And so the four of them turn to the wounded pegasus knight, whose eyes become fiery slits.
"Are we done telling stories?" he says brusquely. "Because we need to ask your tactician some questions." Michael and Gaia share a bewildered glance. "The one who did all this looked just like her."
"I repeat," I say, working my jaw in an attempt to generate an adequate response. "What the fuck?"
Author's Note: Well! That was certainly a little spookier than I originally sought out to make it! But it's nearing Halloween time, and what better way to celebrate than with a mildly disturbing chapter of fanfiction, am I right? Though, in all seriousness, I've been looking forward to this part of the story for a long while now. Marius is finally back, and we've been formally introduced to both F!Ricken and M!Cordelia. Next chapter will have more Cornelius especially, but you all can count on Mike spending some time with Richelle and Marius as well.
If you're wondering why so much of this chapter is dedicated to Marius's POV (and in third person past tense, new for AOA!), it's partly because he has, in fact, been gone for so many chapters. More than just that, however, I decided it would be incredibly boring and tedious to have a super enormous conversation where Marius and Richelle tell the story. This way, the reader still gets to experience all the things that happened while Marius was captured but doesn't have to sit through pages and pages of retelling. Also, why would Marius tell Mike and Gaia all that anyways? He doesn't really know Mike and actively dislikes Gaia. Just felt right to me, switching to his POV and then smash cutting back to the present. Let me know what you thought of the chapter (and how darn unsettling Orton turned out to be!).
Once again, thank you so much for reading! If you've come this far, consider following or leaving a review! It makes my day when people do that.
And of course I need to shoutout Mixed Valence and ThreeDollarBratwurst once more for helping with their input and in general being great company while thinking through my two stories. Read their stuff, if you haven't already. And if you haven't, really, what have you been doing?
Join the three of us on the SI Wars Discord server: 3mdunvc or come hang out at the Fanfiction Treehouse: 9XG3U7a
Or both!
Now, review responses!
Udtimburrhog- I believe I replied to you on the Discord, but I'd like to say again thank you for the insightful comments! I'm really curious what you have to say about this business with Marius and the little bomb dropped at the end!
Guest- Alas, explosives are hard to come by in ye olde fantasy land.
Poharan- Glad to be back with another update! It feels good to be in the swing of things again!
Call Brig On Over- RIP Phila. Maybe I'll write something someday where she doesn't die. Could be fun, a little Phila-centric novella or whatnot. I think your question about how the bandits got the Risen summoning device will be answered next chapter, though!
Caellach Tiger Eye- I'm really glad you mentioned the Lady's Favor trope! Freya giving him the bag of pebbles was kind of a direct subversion of the trope on my part. Since Freya and Mike have largely reversed roles in the story as far as gender stereotypes are concerned, I thought it would be interesting to play with the dynamic. His life is in danger as well many times throughout the narrative, but it's generally Freya who throws herself into the line of fire, so to speak. I'm eager to continue tinkering with all these tropes reader expectations as the story continues! Also, I hear you about the difficulty some fics face when ramping up the stakes chapter after chapter. Right now we're in a bit of tough situation, but I'd say by the chapter after next the Shepherds may have a moment of respite. In the meantime, I hope I am managing the drama well!
The Black Kraven- I'm happy you enjoyed the Freya POV! I didn't really plan in my outline for so much of this chapter to be Marius, but I think it still worked. Thank you for reading!
Cavik- A round of Fs in the chat for Phila. And Orton I guess. Fuck that guy, though.
Sigmatic- Frike is life. Only tangential Frike in this chapter, but hey, we got lots of Marius and Richelle!
Scoolio- *Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On plays*