Robin watched with horror as Henry—ignoring the perfectly good hole in the platform above them—chose to climb out and around along the spiderweb of rigging. At one point, the ship's-mage's weight was entirely supported by the flexible ropes. Thick enough to aid in the steering of the ship, they suddenly seemed frail, bound to snap at any moment, now that they were the only things keeping a person from short, endless fall to the deck below. It made Robin cling to the rungs of the ladder all the tighter.

He had to force himself to scrabble the last few feet, through the hole and up onto the Bellicose's forecastle fighting top. The wooden platform—roughly the same size and shape as the top of a guard tower back in Ylisstol, and without so much as a perimeter rope for safety—was the smallest of three aboard the ship. Each was positioned amid a nexus of rigging, acting as the lowest juncture for each of the towering masts. It provided a commanding, heart-stopping view of mile after mile of glittering ocean.

Robin shifted so his feet were firmly—as firm as any footing could be amid the constant rolling of the ship—on the platform. But he still couldn't bring himself to slacken his embrace from around the mast. He glowered at where Henry was casually leaning over the side, observing the movement of the crew and Shepherds below.

"You couldn't have just climbed the ladder like a normal person?" Robin grumbled.

Henry gave him a confused grin. "What, and use the Lubber's Hole? That would be embarrassing. I'm already on thin ice with the other tops for being so chummy with you Ylissians."

"So you choose near death over embarrassment?"

Henry strolled over to him, hands in the pockets of his canvas trousers. "If I was going to fall, it would have been back when I was green as grass, like you. I mean, when I was new to sailing. Not the color green. Although, you're that too, at the moment."

Robin finally managed to pry one of his hands free in order to flip up the hood of his coat, cutting off his peripheral vision. It helped—somewhat. "I'm just not a huge fan of heights. Or watching other people make questionable decisions when heights are a factor."

"Seems like a silly thing to be scared of. Either you don't fall, and you're fine, or you do, and then it's very quickly not your problem anymore."

Now that his fingers worked properly, Robin reached for his waterskin, taking a refreshing swig. "It's an irrational fear. It means I'm too terrified to apply logic—if what you just said could even be called logic—to it. I've always been like this."

Henry leaned forward. As had become increasingly obvious, he had a hunger for understanding that rivaled Miriel's. "But I heard that you don't have any memories. Of your past, I mean. How can you have always been afraid of something if you don't have any bad memories of that thing?"

Robin shrugged. "Spiders don't harm anyone. People rarely have specific bad memories of spiders, but they're still scared of them."

"People are scared of spiders?"

"Let's focus, Henry," Robin sighed. He offered the other mage his waterskin, which Henry excepted with a nod of thanks. He traded Robin his spyglass.

"Fine on the starboard bow," Henry directed, after he'd taken a long pull of water. "And a point north. You can just make out those neat red sails they like so much. I've asked the Captain if we could get some purple sails for the Belli. Her response was quite colorful."

Robin had familiarized himself with how the Plegian sailors relayed directions. Nothing on this ship was spared from being assigned some esoteric nickname or shorthand.

It took a few moments of staring through the spyglass at endless blue waves underneath endless blue skies, before he picked out a hazy smudge on the horizon. How anyone could have spotted that—let alone identify it as a Valmese fleet—was beyond him. But he trusted the sailors to know what they were about.

"How long before they'll reach us?" he asked.

Henry handed back the waterskin and took a turn with the spyglass. "Depends on a lot of things. The wind now, the wind later, how many mages they have, whether or not those mages are stupid. It's quite a bit of math, actually."

"A rough estimate, then."

"Sunset," Henry replied brightly.

Robin gave a start. "So soon? But they're—"

"Far away?" the ship's-mage interrupted, chuckling. "Yeah, no. They might not be close, but we're heading towards each other. It could have been sooner, but neither of us have the wind just now."

"What if their ship's-mages have had their magics… enhanced?"

It had been more than a week since they'd departed from Port Ferox. Robin still found himself coughing every now and then. It was like after the first time his lungs had been purged of the Risen miasma. His throat was convinced it was still being scratched by the ashes of the Longhouse District.

And that had only been fire spells. What else could the Valmese do with magic at such a scale?

Henry closed one eye in thought. "Don't think we'll have to worry about that out here." Seeing Robin's skepticism, he continued, "I listened to some Feroxi stories about the invasion. And that really serious guy, Frederick, told me about the fighting to take back the Port.

"You recovered tomes and staffs from the Valmese. So they still cast spells like we do, only bigger. The spell we—I mean, ship's-mages on both continents—use when we've lost the wind only funnels and redirects it back into our sails. It's that wind that moves the ship, not what we produce with magic. So it wouldn't matter how strong the spell was."

"So it wouldn't make them any faster or more maneuverable. But what about during the fight?"

Henry collapsed his spyglass. Skipping over to the edge of the platform, he leaned out perilously to put a hand on a large stone ring the size of a barrel hoop that was suspended amid the rigging. It was one of six that lined the left and right—port and starboard—of the fighting top. No ropes were strung across the ring, creating an unobstructed view out to the ocean.

"You like lightning, right?" Henry asked. "That means you'll probably be up here during the fighting—"

"I think I'd rather be in the water," Robin grumbled.

Henry shook his head. "Afraid of heights but not of drowning? I really don't get you people. Anyway, combat mages fire lightning through these ports, so they don't accidentally singe the rigging." He pointed down. "See those runners along the sides of the deck? Those who prefer fire are stationed there, well below anything of ours they might burn. And they're usually accompanied by some of the fire brigade to stamp out any stray cinders.

"Ships are just floating tinder boxes. Fire is dangerous out here; almost too dangerous to be used as a weapon. We rely on control and precision. From the sound of it, that's not exactly something the Valmese's fancy new magic is particularly good at."

It was decent enough reasoning, but Robin couldn't help but feel a twinge of worry. How could anybody be so comfortable about naval combat? They were all sitting in a wooden box, throwing fire at another wooden box. Completely exposed. He felt worse for Chrom and the other conventional fighters. They wouldn't be able to do much more than watch the lights. Left to guess which might herald the end of them all.

He beckoned Henry to step away from the edge. "How do you think we'll fare against them?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'we.' The Bellicose should be fine. Barring the Valmese doing something very stupid, with the Shepherds, we've got more than enough mages to put up a good defense. The rest of the fleet… well… From what I've seen of the Feroxi shamans and the Ylissian Magic Corps, it'll probably be evenly matched. And the skies will be… busy."

Robin sighed. He couldn't afford to worry about the other ships, too. The Bellicose carried every last Shepherd. This was the only ship that mattered.

Despite himself, he looked down to the deck far below. Plegian sailors were never still. Always going about some task or another: fixing ropes, scrubbing decks, fletching arrows. They had to grudgingly operate around the lounging Shepherds, flowing past them like a river around so many boulders.

Virion and Maribelle sat on stools on the foredeck. They'd produced a folding table from somewhere, and were chatting and having tea while they watched Nowi running back and forth with a kite Donnel had made for her, as he called encouragement from one side. Libra was near by, in conversation with half-a-dozen sailors and officers. Apparently, the Bellicose housed more than a few worshipers of the Divine Dragon.

Chrom stood on the upper deck, next to the big ship's wheel, laughing with the rakish Captain Farah. His attention was spilt, however, between keeping an eye on a gaggle of young midship officers—boys and girls training to serve as full naval officers—who were passing Falchion around, marveling at the blade's strangeness, and his wife up in the masts.

Sumia, Cordelia and Cherche were prancing about on the mainsail's upper yard—the large wooden beam that the Bellicose's square sails hung from. They looked to be taking turns trying to see which of them could balance the longest on the narrow beam. Cordelia appeared to be winning, strutting all the way out to the yardarm and back as easily as pacing a solid wall top. It would have made Robin queasy just to look at, if not for the sheer absurdity of the Queen of Ylisse, the most decorated Pegasus Knight in the Halidom, and the Hero of Port Ferox giggling and playing like schoolchildren. Minerva was coiled up below them on the central fighting top, lazily watching. At least if they fell, there was someone there to catch them.

On the main deck, Miriel had borrowed Henry's lyric forge. The entire thing was set in a large metal box, to prevent so much as a stray spark from escaping. The top was pried up slightly, and she was directing her apprentice on the finer points of forming a spellwork. She looked to be working from the schematics of the wind funnel spell Henry had also leant them.

Robin couldn't help but feel sorry for Ricken. Just in the time he'd been watching, the boy had twice jerked his hand away from the forge's heat. Even with thick blacksmith's gloves, bending the softened lyric always seemed to burn you if you weren't paying attention. And Ricken was hopelessly distracted.

A boy he might still be in Robin's eyes, but the young mage was in the painfully awkward throes of growing up. This was his third new set of apprentice robes, and his ankles were already visible again. It seemed you couldn't take your eyes off of him, or else you'd risk missing him grow a few feet while you weren't looking. His voice was also cracking and becoming deeper, much to his embarrassment. It almost made Robin thankful that he couldn't remember what he was like at that age. Almost.

Most unfortunate of all, it meant that—even while working with red-hot metal—Ricken couldn't keep himself from stealing blushing glances at the two other women who were seated around the forge. Tharja was just as fascinated by Henry's schematic as Miriel, but was affecting her usual air of disinterest, spoiled somewhat as she bobbed her head to Olivia's music. Sitting on the same bench, but far enough away to respect Tharja's space, the bard strummed away on her lute.

The other Shepherds were all below decks, save for the newest "recruits."

Marth and her little group of impossibilities were gathered at the prow of the ship. Their story had been ridiculous. Shepherds from a dying world? The children of the people he'd known for as long as he could remember? It was madness—laughably so. And yet…

As much as he hated to admit it, Robin found that he could pick out similarities between them and their alleged parents.

Besides the obvious hair, Severa had the same catlike walk as Cordelia. Noire had Tharja's eyes, and they shared a kind of furtiveness; although where one covered it with brusque anger, the other was painfully nervous. Laurent couldn't have looked like Miriel or Vaike, but with his glasses, and what was quite literally his mother's pointy hat—worn and patched, but identical in every way—it was impossible not to see them as family. And Kjelle evidently shared Sully's sense of modesty. She was sprawled across the bowsprit, sunning herself, wearing little more than her smallclothes. Luckily, she wasn't at an angle where Ricken could see her. The boy was already burned enough.

And then there was Marth.

Robin had held little Lucina a few times. She'd screamed enough to wake the dead. This woman held him in similar regard. Although, instead of tears and squirming, she let her disdain show through cold glares whenever he was within a certain radius. But she had the Brand of the Exalt. And in the same place as Chrom and Sumia's daughter, too. And dammit if there wasn't a bit of Sumia in how she spoke, and a bit of Chrom in how she fought.

And all of Robin's worry and mistrust accounted for exactly zero. Because, at the end of the day, the other Shepherds were beginning to believe Marth's story.

Something that she'd said to Chrom and Sumia on that bridge had—if not entirely persuaded them—planted a kernel of possibility. Tharja was totally convinced, and for some reason terrified of Noire. Despite only having just met, Cordelia and Severa argued as only family could. Miriel and Vaike would still slip away when they thought no one was looking to cry into each other's arms, overwhelmed by being faced with a part of their life they'd convinced themselves was unattainable. At least Stahl and Sully were—like with most things—taking it all in stride.

"You Shepherds sure are an interesting bunch," Henry observed, following Robin's gaze.

Robin noticed Noire shooting a concerned look up to where he and Henry were watching the Valmese. Seeing she was caught, she quickly ducked her head and vanished into the hold. He made a note of that before turning back to their conversation.

"You'd better get used to it," he said. "I think just enough Shepherds like you that we'll probably keep you."

Henry's confused, too-wide grin returned. "Is that… how it works with you guys?"

Robin chuckled. "Pretty much. That's how I ended up here."

"Neat. Does this mean I'll get one of those future kids, too? I hear there are more of them where we're headed."

"Alleged future children," Robin corrected, perhaps letting a bit too much of his annoyance seep into his words. "Nothing they've shown us proves their story. Hair can be dyed. Swords can be forged to mimic other swords. I've even seen some Feroxi with iris tattoos."

"And that Taguel's ears? Oh, or when we all watched him turn back into a person from that giant rabbit?"

Robin shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. "That…" he sighed. "Is something I'm still working on."

Panne and the other Taguel, Yarne, had remained below decks since the anchor was raised. They'd both found separate out-of-the way nooks to curl up and be miserable in. Sailing was apparently not something that leant itself to Taguel biology. Gaius hadn't left Panne's side, and it looked like Noire was regularly checking in on Yarne—the two seemed close. Lissa was spending most of her days running between them, trying to find a seasickness medicine that would work with their physiology.

Robin hadn't been able to ask how Panne felt about the whole affair. Miriel had been the only one to speak with her about it, and she'd warned the other Shepherds off of bringing it up just yet. After how she'd… greeted Yarne, everyone had thought that wise. But Panne hadn't uttered a single word of skepticism against him being her son. Even she believed.

Henry's grin dimmed somewhat. "It's a nice offer—to join the Shepherds, I mean. It would certainly be more interesting than being a ship's-mage. But… Your healers don't like me, and that desert girl keeps looking at me like she wants to turn me inside out."

"Our healers don't like that you use dark magic. They think it's a perversion of a gemstone that should be used to heal, not hurt." Robin held up a hand to forestall Henry's response. "Yes, we all see the hypocrisy in that. No, you shouldn't bring it up to them. It's something they struggle with whenever they use their staffs.

"And Tharja might be less hostile if you didn't call her 'desert girl.' You might think it's silly, like my fear of heights, but you freaked her out when you got too close to her back on Carrion Isle. She's worried you might do it again."

"It is silly. But why would I do it again? You told me a shouldn't, so I won't."

"But you can be… eccentric. You might forget."

"But is she really so against people touching her?" Henry asked. "I mean, didn't the two of you have some kind of relationship?"

Robin gritted his teeth. "And just who told you that?"

Perhaps sensing his anger, Henry let out a casual shrug. "There are a lot of you Shepherds. I don't know everyone's names. It was just something I heard."

On one hand, the fact that Henry was so quick to lie for the other Shepherds was a good sign that Chrom was right to consider recruiting him. On the other hand, Robin was going to murder Vaike or Sully. Maybe he'd tell Tharja about it. She'd happily help him hide the body.

"You heard wrong, Henry. Tharja and myself have only ever been friends. When we first met, my coat led to a… misunderstanding. She hadn't so much as seen another member of a desert tribe in years. She thought I was one of her people. Her excitement briefly got the better of her."

Robin didn't think he needed to add that it wouldn't have mattered regardless. If someone asked you not to touch them, you didn't touch them. But these questions weren't Henry trying to pry or somehow prove Tharja's reaction to him insincere due to past actions. He was just trying to understand. Robin could empathize with that. Naga knew, he had gotten himself in more than enough trouble asking questions that were somehow 'wrong.'

Henry closed one eye again. "Oh. That's too bad for you, then."

"Umm, what? Why?"

"Because Noire's so neat! Have you talked to her? I've never met someone who couldn't use magic but still knows so much about it. Even the crows like her! If you and the desert… I mean, Tharja, aren't romantically involved, that means Noire probably isn't your daughter. Which is unfortunate, because who wouldn't want a daughter like that, right?

Robin narrowed his eye, trying to picture Henry and Marth's archer standing side by side. Of course, he didn't believe their story. It was insane. Still…

Just then, as if summoned by Henry mentioning them, two large crows flitted down from above to perch together in one of the stone rings. They let out shrill, plaintive caws.

Henry skipped over to them, smiling. "Hello, you two!" Then, to Robin, "Sorry, they're just hungry. It'll only be a moment."

Robin inspected the two birds. One was lively, pecking at the handful of crumbs Henry produced from one of the pockets the high-collared cloak he favored. The other was… less so.

"I've been meaning to ask," he said to Henry's back. "That tiny basket way up at the top of the mast is called the Crow's Nest, right?"

"Complete coincidence!" Henry chuckled. "Although, I don't think the other tops quite appreciate the irony. The cities use them as messenger birds, like those little pigeons you Ylissians have. I got this murder from a rooker who hadn't trained them properly. His loss, they're great company."

"Crows as messengers," Robin shook his head, smiling. "That's got to be the most Plegian thing I've ever heard." The first bird had eaten their fill, and flapped away. The second remained. Their eyes were glassy and unfocused. They hadn't so much as acknowledged the food. "Henry… not all of these crows are alive, are they?"

For the first time, the ship's-mage's demeanor stiffened. He turned, putting himself between Robin and the bird. His smile seemed forced. "What? Oh, no! Some of them just have some injuries, that's all."

Robin shook his head. "Look. You're probably right to to keep it a secret. The other sailors seem pretty superstitious, not the types to be comfortable with necromancy. And the Ylissians on board—the healers specifically—will definitely have some issues with it—"

"But why should they?" Henry looked genuinely unhappy. He reached out and touched the undead crow. They seemed to perk up, like the other had when being fed. "You say the healers don't like when gemstones are used for harm. This little one can keep flying because of a gemstone. How is that any different than what they do?"

Robin held out a placating hand. "It's complicated, Henry. But you know I'm right, or else you wouldn't be so protective of your birds. I'm not condemning you. I don't love the idea of necromancy, but my feelings on the topic don't matter. And I'm not going to tell the others about it. Just as long as you know to keep the dead ones away from the healers, to avoid any trouble."

The crow gave Henry's hand an affectionate nip, before flapping off back to join the others at the top of the mast. He still looked agitated. "Guess it disqualifies me from joining your Shepherds."

"Not really."

"But you said—"

Robin grinned, gesturing down to the deck. "I said some of us don't like dark magic. But look, the Shepherds' best doctor just brought our resident dark mage a cup of tea. If you join us, everyone will know about the crows eventually. Secrets don't last long in our group. And yes, there will be arguments. I can still remember Tharja and Maribelle going at it. And they still do, sometimes."

"You really are a weird bunch."

Robin shrugged. There wasn't much he could say to deny that. As he looked down, he finally felt the creeping sensation of his vertigo beginning to grow out of control. He stepped back, making for the ladder that would put him on—relatively—solid ground again. He stopped with one foot hooked around the first rung.

Henry was obviously still uncomfortable. He'd wrapped his cloak tighter around himself, and was casting worried glances up to the Crow's Nest. He would fit nicely among the Shepherds.

And if Marth's band really was from the future—not that Robin believed it for a second, but if it was—perhaps Noire's existence was proof that the ship's-mage did much more than just fit in.

"I'm heading down," Robin called. Henry gave him a distracted wave. "You should show the crows to Tharja. Discreetly, of course."

That brought Henry's attention back. "But… what if she tries to take them away from me?"

"You have my word no Shepherd would do that, least of all Tharja. In fact, I think it'll give her an excuse to bury her grudge against you. She's quite fond of the morbid. I think undead crows fit in that category. Anyway, think about it. Who knows, it might lead to some interesting conversations."

As the Valmese and Plegian fleets met, every one of Henry's predictions appeared prophetic.

He had been right that the first salvos of fire and lightning were exchanged just as the sky was cast in brilliant orange and purple as the disc of the sun descended upon the horizon. Ignoring the wind gauge, the ships—guided by mages—became locked onto converging paths, which gave them ample opportunity to annihilate each other with barrage after vicious barrage of spells.

He had been right that the Valmese would refrain from unleashing their more powerful magics in a ship to ship fight. Fireballs of equal strength were hurled across the waves, mostly to be batted aside by great barriers of wind conjured by defensive mages. Lighting flashed in such profusion as to rival only the most awesome storms.

Robin found that the bolts themselves had little effect overall. At such distances, it was impossible to intentionally strike an individual sailor, and secondary ignition from the lightning hitting sails or rigging wasn't as effective as he'd thought. The ocean itself completely nullified any attempt to blast a hole below the waterline—except for in the exact moment a wave rocked a ship to one side or the other, exposing the hull. The best use for lightning was to aim for masts or gunwales. Bringing down a mast would cripple a ship, but, barring that, striking wooden fixtures aboard would result in a hail of deadly splinters tearing across the deck.

Henry had been right about the battle above the fleets. For the first time in the history of the organization, the Ylissian Pegasus Knights had come up against a foe that matched, if not surpassed, their superiority in the air. Used to negligible aerial forces from the Plegians and Feroxi, they had been caught woefully unprepared in the face of the veteran Imperial Air Wing. The Knights' brutal defeat in the skies above Port Ferox was still fresh in every woman's mind.

But the shock and awe of that loss had been left in the past. The Pegasus Knights had rallied, and were ready for a second round.

Pegasus and wyverns played a dangerous game of attack and defend. Some would be sent out, transporting mages to get close and—dodging magic and arrows—deliver devastating damage to the enemy ships, while others would be in charge of keeping the same from happening to their own navy. It was as if two great swarms of bees had gone to war. Each had to master the ever-changing calculus of how many stingers to unleash on the other hive without risking not having enough to protect their queen.

And while the Pegasus Knights crushed the Imperial Air Wing with a level of sheer, deadly determination that sent a chill down Robin's spine, no three women could so much as hold a candle to the devastation wrought by Cherche and Minerva.

During the invasion of Port Ferox, it had been enough for Cherche to have her wyvern shred the Valmese uniform she'd pretended to be loyal to, fighting in only her black armor. She apparently thought that the first true strike back against the Empire demanded something more… personal.

Minerva carved a bloody swathe overhead, speckling numerous vessels and the ocean around them with the blood of her prey. She was easy to spot, as the simple plate armor she usually wore into battle was draped over with a light blue caparison rippling in the wind. Cherche had traded her battle axe for a long pike, a pennant emblazoned with a crescent moon streaming from below its head. For the first time in seven long years, Rosanne—even if only a tiny piece of it—flew in open defiance against the Empire.

And the last thing Henry had been right about was that it would take the Valmese doing something very, very stupid in order to challenge the Bellicose.

Even without much knowledge in art of naval warfare, Robin recognized the moment the Empire's fleet lost the battle. The scales tipped suddenly. One minute, it seemed that the number of sinking wrecks were equal on both sides, then three Valmese ships went up in rapid succession. Two after being outmatched by the Plegian vessels they were dueling with, one just off the Bellicose's port side. A singularly awe inspiring shot from Noire had struck an enemy mage at the exact moment they were unleashing a spell. The shaft spun them around, where they loosed a globule of fire directly onto their own main deck. Valmese we're now in the water, fleeing the inferno of their erstwhile ship.

The Plegian Navy had apparently had quite a few run-ins with the Valmese over the years. Some meetings friendly, others not so much. They were frequent enough for the Bellicose's Captain Farah to recognize the lead Imperial ship the moment she'd seen it through a spyglass. The Lord Between Stone and Sorrow, commanded by one General Ignatius.

It appeared that the General had seen his looming defeat as well. And he thought that now would be the time for a single, bold act to galvanize his flagging troops. The Plegian flagship was the natural choice as a target.

Robin spotted a change in the movements out on the water from his position on the fighting top. He grabbed the other mage he was stationed with—the Bellicose's second ship's-mage, a jolly woman named Yara—spinning her around to point out the Lord's new heading.

Yara's eyes went wide and she shoved him back towards the mast and the ladder down. She let out a panicked string of Plegian that Robin only half understood. But the Plegian words for 'run' and 'now,' followed by some of the language's more colorful curses, confirmed his creeping suspicion. It became all but a certainty when, after releasing one last dazzling bolt at a Valmese pegasus rider, she leapt from the platform. Dropping her tome so it dangled from a cord looped around her wrist, she snagged the rigging and began scooting down towards the deck.

Robin turned to watch as Miriel, Tharja and Laurent hammered the bow of the Lord with a broadside of crackling flames. The jib and foremast of the Valmese ship burst alight, showering the soldiers assembling on its deck with cinders and smoldering bits of rigging. But it did little to interrupt the vessel's trajectory.

A bell somewhere up by the Bellicose's wheel began to clang out an alarm. Robin hadn't been told what that particular rhythm was meant to convey, but he had a pretty good idea. He was two-thirds of the way to the safety of the main deck when his ears picked out the merry whooshing of flames over the sounds of battle. He was just barely able to hook his arms up in between the rungs of the ladder and the mast, before the Lord crunched into the Bellicose's starboard amidships.

The entire world jerked out from under Robin. His arms screamed in protest as the rest of him tried to stay still while the foremast jumped to a crazy angle, yanking him along with it. His body went nearly horizontal for a brief moment, like a flag in a windstorm, before he crashed back into the mast, smashing his forehead against the ladder. He blacked out for a second, and awoke in time to relive his nightmares.

He was falling.

Mercifully, the deck was kind enough to reach him before true panic took hold. He landed on his back with enough force to knock the wind out of him, but not much more. Dazed, he jumped as a figure appeared in his vision.

"That looked like it hurt. Did it bring any memories back?" Chrom said with a grin. He held out a hand to help Robin up. "You know, there are better places—"

"Don't. You. Dare."

Robin excepted the hand. As he got to his feet, they were both nearly blown back down by a sudden torrent of wind.

The prow of the Lord, still engulfed in flames, rose up over there heads. When the two vessels had collided, the Bellicose had just begun to drop on a downward swell. The front third of the Valmese command ship was now propped out of the water like a beached whale, resting at an angle atop—and buried in—the Bellicose's main deck. Robin prayed the damage didn't reach all the way below the waterline.

Nearly every Coalition mage aboard—even Ricken, who had disobeyed the order that he was to stay in the hold with Nowi, and was now donning an unconvincing disguise as a cloaked sailor—was channeling wind at the Lord. Not to push it away, Robin didn't know if that was possible, but to keep the roaring inferno from spreading to the Bellicose. Even with their combined magic, they were fighting a losing battle.

Movement on the Lord's prow gave Robin only a moment's warning.

"Archers!" he shouted to anyone within earshot, then swung out his coat to cover Chrom.

The pair was pelted with a volley of shafts from the impromptu rampart the Lord's prow had created for the Valmese. The arrows didn't penetrate Robin's coat, but of all the enchantments on the garment, softening impacts wasn't one of them. It felt as if a blacksmith had brought their hammer down in almost a dozen places on his back and arms simultaneously.

While Robin shielded them with his coat, Chrom practically dragged him into the shelter of the foremast.

"This Valmese General is nuts!" Chrom shouted into his ear so he could be heard over the cacophony. "What do you say we all just go overboard? We've won the battle, we can just let these fanatics go down when both the ships sink. I could use a wash, and I bet Nowi would have a lot of fun fishing us out of the water."

Robin rolled his eyes. "Tharja can't swim. And I'm not sure Virion would go; he hates when his shirts get ruined. Oh, and there's the small matter that the Plegians would string you up for abandoning their pride and joy to the fishes."

"You're right, not my best plan. If only I paid someone to come up with better ones."

Robin peeked out and tried to take in as much of the battlefield as he could before a cloud of arrows made him pull back into the safety of the mast.

"We need to get to Henry," he said, pointing to where the Shepherd mages were using benches, barrels and boxes as cover, while they tried to fight the encroaching fire and dodge arrows at the same time.

Chrom grinned. "After you."

They waited until it seemed the Valmese had forgotten about them to focus on the mages. Robin sprinted out, Chrom on his heels, as they made a mad dash for the other Shepherds. The archers spotted them too late, loosing a volley only after they'd made it into buffeting wind of half-a-dozen overlapping spells.

The chaotic zephyrs sent most of the shafts off on wild trajectories, but two were lucky enough to stay on target. Chrom spun around, knocking one out of the air with Falchion. A blur of long blue hair streaked out from behind a crate to swat away the remaining arrow with similar skill. Marth pulled them both into the shelter of her crate.

Chrom let out a bark of laughter and pulled the woman into a hug. She looked helplessly around, unsure of how to respond.

"See that, Robin!" Chrom crowed, a silly grin on his lips. "Still doubt Lucina's got my blood in her veins? Who else do you know that could stop arrows with that kind of style?"

In a habit that he'd noticed even before she'd lost her mask, Marth appeared at a bit of a loss whenever Chrom or Sumia touched her. She tensed, as if she were going to pull away, but then wavered. Whoever she was, she genuinely didn't know how to react to their affection, which was becoming more and more regular.

This time, however, upon hearing Chrom's words, she ducked her head so her hair fell in front of her face. "I learned it from you," she mumbled, embarrassed.

Robin sighed, waving to get Henry's attention. "That doesn't prove anything," he said to Chrom. "You're not the only person who can parry arrows. I've seen Lon'qu do it."

The swordsman was also taking shelter with them, sitting cross-legged with his back straight against the crate. He was patiently rewinding the cloth grip that he wrapped around the hilt of his single-edged sword. He looked as if he were meditating in some quiet garden or room, not reacting in any way to the sounds of battle around him.

He didn't look up at them as he answered, "I do not waste so much movement on a pointless backswing when I parry. The two of them do. If I did not know better, I would have said they trained under the same master. I won't, because they have not, and I am worried Vaike might overhear and think it a compliment."

Robin was treated to a smug smile from Chrom, and a triumphant, entirely-too-pleased-with-herself grin from Marth. He was saved from any more comments by the arrival of Henry.

"Well," the ship's-mage said cheerfully. "If this situation wasn't so terrible, I'd say it was pretty neat."

Robin focused, ignoring father and so-called daughter. "How do we separate the ships?"

Henry pointed up. "With a lot of difficulty and damage."

They all followed his finger to where the incomprehensible mess of rigging that acted as the muscles and tendons of the masts and sails had been thrown into even more chaos—if such a thing was possible. The foremast of the Lord—still smoldering from the barrage it had sustained in the ramming—and great swathes of surviving ropes were now hopelessly tangled with the Bellicose's rigging.

"It would be hard enough to shift this Valmese ship," he continued. "But it's not going anywhere tied to us like this. It'll take days to cut out all of that junk."

"What if we break off the Lord's mast?" Robin asked. "And sever the ropes connecting it to the rest of the Valmese ship?"

"I mean, sure, maybe. If that happened, then a wind spell against both sails might—might—be enough to dislodge us. But I think you're forgetting the Valmese between us and that mast."

Robin shook his head. "Not if we go through the hold. Henry, spread the word. Tell the others I want Laurent, Ricken, Tharja and Yara keeping that fire back. And I want you and Miriel to target—" He looked around, spotting one of Virion's arrows fletched with swan feathers sticking out of the Lord's prow at about head height. "—there with lightning on my mark. Got it?"

Henry scampered off with a bemused expression on his face. Robin opened his tome. The three spellworks he'd decided to use for this battle were a long ranged lightning for the ship to ship fighting, a shorter ranged bolt for any pegasus or wyverns that got too close and a fire spell just in case. He quickly popped free two sections from the first spellwork, replacing the pieces that lengthened effective range with lyric that would provide much more punch to the strikes.

He exchanged a nod with Chrom. "Alright. Do you think you, Lon'qu and the princess can get me through to that mast?"

Chrom winked and clapped him on the back, hefting Falchion. Lon'qu rose, nodding to himself in approval as he ran his fingers along the newly bound hilt of his blade. Marth scowled, but seemed pleased to be going along.

Robin hopped out from behind the cover, spying a contingent of Valmese troops jumping down from the Lord's deck, closest to where the two ships met and the drop was the shortest. The barrier of wind allowed him the time it took to channel his lightning without fear of being hit by arrows. As one, three bolts crashed into the front of the Lord, blasting a hole in the hull that would have sunk any vessel under normal circumstances. In this moment, it created a sizable entrance into the bowels of the enemy ship.

The four of them charged, reaching the prow before the Valmese soldiers could intercept them or the archers could recover from the explosion. Robin went down on one knee, squaring his shoulders. Chrom used him as a stepping stool to hop up and into the breach they'd made. Robin was about to stand and loose a spell at some soldiers who were getting too close, but was nearly knocked over as Marth clambered up him in a similar fashion, following the Exalt.

Lon'qu dispatched two Valmese who'd made the mistake of coming within his reach, and Robin was finally able to cast a spell that earned them some breathing room. They both leapt up to grab at the edge of the hole. Chrom pulled Lon'qu up, while Marth—after only the tiniest hesitation—grabbed Robin's hand, hauling him the rest of the way.

They stood in a dark room filled with gently swaying hammocks. Robin spared a glance back out to the Bellicose's deck. Shepherds and Plegian sailors joined to rebuff the Valmese boarding party, while the mages and Virion and Noire did their best to keep the enemy archers' heads down.

Chrom led the way through the claustrophobic lower decks of the Lord Between Stone and Sorrow. The ceiling was so low that the three men had to half-crouch as they moved in order to avoid hitting their heads. Marth was the only one of them who could move around unhindered. It might have been an issue in a fight, but the halls and passages were completely devoid of anyone but them.

The makeup of the various rooms were almost identical to those found aboard the Bellicose: sleeping quarters, latrines, kitchen, workshops, cargo spaces, armory. All things that must have had nonsensical nautical names. With the only difference here being the layout of the ship itself.

Different though it might be, it didn't take them long to find the stairs leading up and onto the main deck. Robin, Marth and Chrom poked their heads out just enough to survey the deck. Lon'qu—as always—didn't bother, waiting patiently for them to explain the situation.

Bunched up by the prow was what must have been the entirety of the Lord's crew complement. The front row of archers was getting thinner and thinner, as Virion and Noire sewed death among them. Most of the rest of the Valmese—both sailors armed with boarding axes and belaying pins, and properly uniformed and outfitted soldiers—were gathered to one side, disappearing over and onto the Bellicose as quickly as they could.

"How close do you have to get?" whispered Chrom.

Robin judged the distance to the still-burning foremast. "The closer the better. I'd like to be able to snap the whole thing off with one spell. Then I can burn the rigging as we retreat." He pointed to where a tall figure surrounded by eight guards stood at the back of the Valmese. "Around where that fellow is standing would be good."

Identical predatory grins lit up the faces to either side of him. Damn. He needed to avoid spending time with Chrom and Marth when they were together, or he'd start believing all this future daughter nonsense, too.

Chrom waved Lon'qu up to join them. "Well, let's get Robin to where he needs to go, shall we. And we can have a word with General Ignatius while we're at it."

The General's guards were too busy watching the battle aboard the Bellicose to notice the four Shepherds until Chrom and Lon'qu carved into their flank. Marth shot straight through the Valmese as the milled about in confusion, making directly for the General. She swung her sword—an almost mirror image of Falchion—seeking to fell the commander in a single blow.

Ignatius was barely quick enough to block the strike with his spear. He even did a passable job at suppressing his surprise as Marth's enchanted blade sheered clean through the spear haft, causing the tip to drop to the deck, sticking point-first in the wood. He recovered almost immediately and swung the spear like the quarterstaff it had just become; aiming for Marth's head, but clubbing only empty air.

Robin shuddered involuntarily at Marth's display of speed, as he skirted around the starboard side of the fight. The only thing he'd ever seen faster than her was the Scourge she and Chrom had fought on Carrion Isle. What would he do if those venomous glares that she reserved for him ever boiled over into action? He'd hate to run into her down some dark alley.

The Valmese at the fore of the Lord were too absorbed in the combat in front of them to notice their General was being attacked. It also meant that Robin was able to steal up within a stone's throw of the ship's forward mast. The towering beam of wood was bowed, bent—but remarkably unbroken—under the strain of holding the two ships together.

He opened his tome, but quickly flipped to his second lightning spell when he noticed a Valmese mage standing among the line of archers. The black and red robed figure had their own spellbook in hand, focused entirely on the deck of the Bellicose below, and was just beginning to pour flames into the spellwork. Robin hurled a bolt, smiting the spellcaster in the back. He didn't wait to see if he'd killed the mage, frantically flipping back to the first spell in his tome.

He fed the lyric a shower of manifested electricity from his hand. There were shouts from the archers, and several turned around, noticing the fallen mage, then their beleaguered General, then Robin—a foreign mage—standing alone and out in the open. It suddenly became a race: which of them could loose an arrow at him before his spell finished building. It was a race Robin just barely won.

Fractions of a second before the fastest of the archers reached a full draw with their bow, his tome returned the spell to his hand in the form of a single, ropy line of pure lightning. He was already pointing his arm, not at the soldier, but the thick base of the foremast they were gathered around. The spell jumped the gap between them faster than so much as a feather's weight of pressure could be applied to the bowstrings aimed at him.

The bottom swathe of the mast's trunk—roughly the same height as the distance he'd fallen from the Bellicose's foremast—was instantly transmuted into a fatal cloud of splinters. It shredding those surrounding soldiers who hadn't been thrown backwards by the explosive impact of his spell. The upper part of the mast was jerked up and away, leaving only a decapitated stump behind. Remaining ropes were pulled taught, halting the mast's momentum and leaving it suspended in the air, caught among the rigging in between the two ships.

As soon as the mast was no longer anchoring the Lord to the Bellicose, the deck slid out from under Robin's feet, as the entire ship was dragged backwards by its own weight. Nobody was able to maintain their footing, sending archers, soldiers, sailors, generals and Shepherds tumbling to their knees. Unfortunately, the ship came to a grinding, wood-splintering halt before it could be completely dislodged.

Looking up from where he'd been sent sprawling onto his back again, Robin saw a few dozen lines of rigging, holding on for dear life, as they were the only things keeping the severed mast connected to the rest of the ship.

He levered himself up, opening his tome to the fire spell he'd prepared. With practiced ease, he took the spellwork apart. Rigging had always looked so tightly interlaced, like a bird's nest. He'd thought the spell—a ball of fire like those used in the ship to ship fighting—would have been enough to destroy any last tangles. But what was left was spaced out too far to be severed by a spell with such an intentionally narrow effect.

As everyone else was beginning to climb to their feet, he clicked into place the last tiles of lyric that would transform a fireball into the one kind of magic you weren't supposed to use on a ship. Wild, uncontrolled flames.

He jumped up, dashing back towards the stairs they had come up from. Raising his hand above his head, Robin unleashed a spray of fire into the rigging, heedless of stray cinders or even aiming properly.

Ropes overhead split apart with sounds like whip cracks, each one heralding another tiny shift of the Lord back into the sea. Robin reached where Chrom and the others were already beginning to retreat back the way they had come. Half of the guards had been slain, but General Ignatius was still alive—with a sizable gash in his cheek—and was trying to galvanize his force into pushing forward.

Robin was too distracted looking to see if Lon'qu and Marth were uninjured, that he didn't notice the blade of an axe swinging towards his head until the last moment. He blocked with the only thing he had to hand, his tome. Lyric was soft, but three layers of it was enough to turn away the killing blow. However, he was left complete defenseless as the guard—a woman among those in the General's retinue that he'd seen lying on the deck, and mistook for dead—yanked back on the axe, wrenching the spellbook from his grip. The tome went skittering away across the deck.

He reached for the dagger in his boot, his only other weapon. The guard was quicker. Spinning, she brought the butt of her axe handle into his stomach, dropping him. She was a professional soldier. Pulling her weapon back, she wasted no time bringing it up, then slamming it back down, seeking Robin's skull.

He was out of options. He only had his own, weak manifestation left. It was too late for blinding sparks; they would do nothing to halt the falling blade. A puny flame would do little more than warm his executioner before she crushed his head. Wind… Wind might have done the trick.

In the moment–made endless by terror and adrenaline—he knew he'd need nothing short of a hurricane to fix this mess.

Chrom and Lon'qu were in the middle of a fighting retreat, too busy with their own opponents to notice him. Marth had, and she was running headlong to reach him. She was fast, but not fast enough to cross the distance between them in the time it took an axe to fall.

The last of the rigging tying the two ships together had burned away. But the Lord hadn't slid any further. Henry had been right. They'd need wind pushing both ships in opposite directions to maybe pull them free. And the fire was still spreading.

They needed a gale—a storm. But his tome was gone. His luck had run out, and he wouldn't even be able to die knowing the Shepherds were safe. If he could just reach the wind…

Something shifted inside of him. A stress that he hadn't even known was building suddenly pounded through his head and heart. Then something burst. Like a hole in a damn, something gushed out. Something vast. Something frightening.

Something he could use.

The manifestation tore through him. It was as if—lacking the lyric of a spellwork—the magic chose instead to use his blood and bones and organs to focus and mold the spell. It came in contact with the strange, wonderful energy that was boiling at his core, and gained a rushing momentum. With the blade of the axe still halfway to his temple, wind exploded out of a hand that had moments ago been raised in a final, unconscious bid to stay his execution.

The soldier was hurled away, but the spell didn't stop there. Henry had showed him how to use the time-honored navigation spells of a ship's-mage. How to funnel and shape the wind, at last directing it into billowing sails. Robin released the magic in full.

The sails of the Bellicose ballooned taught in the tempest, while the Lord's yards swung crazily to catch the wind going the opposite direction. The sound of boards cracking and ropes snapping was almost drowned out as the bestial groan of the hull flexing filled the air. Then they were falling back into the sea.

Marth reached him just as a last wave helped end the two ships' embrace. The impact with the ocean caused the deck to buck under their feet. Robin was thrown backwards, as Marth lost her footing and stumbled.

They both grabbed for one another, each in an attempt to catch the other. Their hands met, and for a moment, Robin thought the worst was over.

Then the Lord Between Stone and Sorrow slewed hard to starboard, still under the effects of the Robin's wind. There was suddenly nothing below them but empty air and churning waves.

They fell together. Robin was again reminded of his nightmare.