A wave of bolts whipped down the sumptuously appointed corridor, burying themselves deep in the interlocked shields of the leading Shepherds. Kellam received the worst of it, his massive great-shield wasn't designed to block such forceful projectiles like Kjelle's was. Lucina watched the big man grit his teeth as his arm spasmed. Blood began to drip down his vambrace where a bolt must have punched through the center of his shield.

Kjelle grunted and swore, angling her own shield as best she could to cover the injured man. But she couldn't risk shifting over more than a few inches, for fear of leaving the Shepherds taking shelter behind her exposed to the deadly missiles.

"What are these things?" Chrom called over the constant spang of shaft meeting steel. He was crouched directly behind Kellum, trying to peek out at the Valmese lines between salvos.

"Crossbows!" Lucina shouted back from her own position in Kjelle's protected shadow. "Slow, but powerful. I didn't think they'd been invented yet. Where did your tactician run off to, father? We can't afford to sit and wait much longer."

Her father cursed as a bolt caught the very top rim of Kellam's shield, sending the quarrel flipping wildly over, the fletched end striking him on the back of the head. "I think you're right. Okay then, plan 'A' it is! You two ready?"

"Yes, sir!" Kjelle hollered over her shoulder. Lucina didn't need to see her face to know she'd be grinning ear to ear.

Kellam only looked back and inclined his head in a nod.

"Alright then." Chrom glanced over to her and flashed an excited smile, readying himself to sprint. "Ready… Steady… Hold! What was that?"

Lucina had felt it too. A shudder ran through the stones at her feet, followed by the sound of shattering glass. Shouts and screams reached them at the same time as the rain of bolts ceased. Lucina peered out from around Kjelle's shield just in time to see the Valmese defensive line waver. The enemy's own great-shields turned to look back at their crossbows, letting her catch a glimpse through their tightly packed bodies.

A whirlwind of black armor and flowing, rosy hair crashed into the Valmese back lines. Those wielding crossbows made the mistake of desperately trying to crank or pull back their weapons' heavy mechanisms. Cherche's battle-axe dispatched two at a time as she danced among them.

"I'd say that's Robin's signal!" Chrom called. "Archers, forward! Mages, be ready!"

Kjelle and Kellam dropped to their knees, turning their shields sideways —which elicited a pained grunt from the latter— providing an unobstructed view down the hallway. Virion and Noire jumped forward and loosed half-a-dozen shafts in quick succession at the enemy. The arrows had little effect on the heavily armored targets, but caused them to mill about, unable to decide which threat they should face.

The two archer ducked down with Chrom and Lucina. Every Shepherd in the hallway covered eyes with hands, arms or cloaks as Miriel, Laurent and Tharja were finally given an opening to channel their spells. Lucina heard a crackling sound and her nose was assailed with the static scent of a thunderstorm. By the time she opened her eyes, the damage had already been done.

She took off running before Chrom could give the order move up. She'd found that the easiest way to protect her father during one of his wild charges was to beat him to the fighting. Vaulting over Kjelle's shoulders, she tore down the hallway, reaching the last survivor of the Valmese shield wall just as they ripped off their helm, gasping for breath.

Lucina shouted one of the few words she'd learned in Valmese. "Yield!"

The soldier, a woman with a thick neck and long, prematurely graying hair, didn't seem to notice her, instead gazing around at the charred remains of her former comrades. Lucina kicked her in the chest, sending her toppling back down, and leveled Falchion directly between her eyes. The woman finally focused, and held both hands out to the sides in submission.

Chrom finally reached her at the head of several other Shepherds. He gestured for Sully to secure Lucina's prisoner with ropes, before the group turned to face the rest of the squad that had been giving them so much trouble. There was nothing left of them.

The narrow corridor opened up into an equally decadent vestibule. On the side opposite them stretched a hallway identical to the one they had just come down, leading deeper into the Glass Keep. To the left was a pair of towering wooden doors, carved into the likeness of wyvern wings. To the right, an empty window —jagged shards of colored glass still wobbling in its frame— looked out over the city of Lazure, curled along the coast of Arcos Lake. The same window that Cherche was now dashing towards.

Deftly avoiding the bodies of slain soldiers and the rest of the stained-glass window strewn across the polished stones, she shot past the other Shepherds. Without slowing, she turned and blew them a kiss before hurling herself out of the window.

Lucina and Chrom sprinted after her in time to see her land expertly on the back of Minerva, the wyvern having torn herself clawholds on the vertical wall just below the window. Cherche gave her drake an affection scratch in between the plated steel of her neck armor before they both fell away from the keep. Minerva seemed to wait until the exact moment before they would have struck the cobblestones below to open her leathery wings and sore off to where the aerial combat was the thickest.

"She's insane!" laughed Chrom, at the same time as Lucina whispered, "she's incredible."

"I think you're both right," panted a voice from behind them. They turned to see Robin doubled over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

Chrom gave him a cheerful nod. "Nice of you to join us. My daughter was just starting to lose faith in your—"

Her father's teasing was cut off as the tactician was grabbed by his coat and spun roughly around. "That was your plan!" bellowed Virion. "To send her in alone! How many soldiers were here? What if there were reinforcements just down that corridor that we hadn't seen? You could have been sending her to her death!"

Lucina moved to put a hand on Virion's shoulder as her father tried to extricate Robin from his grip. Robin waved them off and held his hands up. "That wasn't may plan." He spoke gently, but firmly. "My plan was to ask Cordelia to take Henry around so he could rain fire down on those mechanical bows through that window. Cherche overheard me and had her own idea. I didn't ask her to do that. I wouldn't."

Virion glared at Robin for a moment longer before pushing him away and stalking over to help Lissa and Kjelle guide Kellam to a corner of the vestibule, where they began attending to his wounds. The tactician didn't seem hurt by the sudden outburst, he only exchanged a worried look with Chrom as he straightened his rumpled collar.

"Faster we get this done, the faster we get him back to normal," her father muttered as the three of them, joined by Noire, stepped up to the wyvern wing doors.

Robin went to one side, running fingers along the dark wood underneath where the carved wings extended beyond the door's frame. He looked back to them. "Looks like it opens inward."

"Any enchantments?" Chrom asked to no one in particular.

Tharja, standing by the window, held up her wrist, where an assortment of lyric bands and bangles hung motionless. "Nothing I can detect."

"That's Mila wood," came Miriel's clipped, no-nonsense voice. "It rejects any enchantments that are placed on it."

"What about regular magic?" Robin asked. "Is it resistant to that too?"

The bespectacled woman tugged at her pointed hat in a thoughtful way so reminiscent of her son that Lucina had to turn to hide a smile. "No more than any other material," Miriel conceded. "Although, it is considered blasphemy to cast magic while near the tree this wood originated from. However, I don't think that applies in this instance."

All eyes turned to Libra, who had just joined Lissa at Kellam's side. "What?" he said without looking up from his patient. "Shall we pause the fighting so I might go consult the heavens? The Goddess teaches that it is the land, not what comes from it, that is sacred. The craftsmanship is beautiful, and no doubt that much wood was a truly awe inspiring gift from the Voice, but hurry and do what you must. This country has bled for too long, it is time to begin healing it."

Tharja cackled as Robin turned to Chrom and shrugged. "Cut through any bars on the other side with Falchion and blast them open with wind? It might not damage them too badly. Libra's right, they are masterfully made."

Just as Chrom stepped forward, raising his Falchion so that its blade was aligned with where the two doors met, Lucina noticed a faint glow flicker to life in the space between the bottom of the door and the floor. It rapidly grew brighter.

"Get away!" she shouted, and tackled her father off to the side.

The ornate doors were blasted off of their hinges, sending them cartwheeling out into the vestibule. A wave of heat scorched Lucina's back, setting her cape aflame. At the last possible moment, she saw the flash of a spell and was sent rolling into the wall by a torrent of wind from Tharja. The two doors were knocked out of the air mere inches from where the healers were administering to Kellam. The inferno was pushed back into the royal Rosannian throne room.

Tharja was nearly thrown out of the shattered window by the force of the two spells meeting, but was snatched in mid fall by Sully, who, with a mighty pull, hauled her back to solid ground. The knight immediately released her, apologizing for touching the mage and asking if she was alright in alternating breaths.

Lucina leapt up, unhooking her smoldering cape and tossing it aside, she desperately searched the ruined entranceway. Noire had been standing right in the middle when the…

Robin staggered to his feet on the side of the doorway opposite to her. Pulling apart his still-smoking coat, he revealed a wide-eyed, but uninjured Noire clinging tightly to his chest. Lucina fell to her knees in relief, just as her father sat up, coughing and dabbing at a cut on his forehead.

Virion dashed over to them, appearing to have been spared the worst of the blast, slid out and loosed an arrow into the throne room, before diving back into cover. Half-a-dozen crossbow bolts cracked into the floor where he had been standing.

"There's troops around the throne, but more of these handheld ballistas up in the back galleries," he panted, the anger rising in his voice. "I saw General Ursa, she had a spellbook."

"How do we get up to the galleries?" Robin called as Noire let go of him and bent to scoop up her bow.

Virion pointed down the other corridor leading off of the vestibule. "Through there and to the left. There's a stairway leading to the second level. The other way up is from behind the throne."

"Unfortunately, that is the only way now, Lord Virion." The voice came from behind them, and Lucina spun to see Lady Say'ri, flanked by two other Shepherds, trotting up from the direction Virion had indicated. "The stairs have been demolished and blocked off. We heard the explosion. Are you all uninjured?"

Lissa waved from where she hadn't so much as flinched when the doors almost squashed her. "Kellam's wound is worse than it looks. I need help getting him out of here and back to Maribelle."

Donnel and Lon'qu broke away from Say'ri and —careful to avoid passing directly in front of the doorway— began helping the injured man to his feet. Kellum protested quietly about not needing to waste fighters on him the entire way back down the hallway they had fought for, Lissa at their heels.

Chrom slowly got to his feet, then offered a hand to help Lucina up. When she was standing, he began turning her this way and that, touching at her head and back. "You're not injured, are you? What about your cape, did it burn you?"

She reveled in the affection for a moment, pointedly ignoring the chuckles and smiles from both her own Shepherds and the old ones.

"I'm fine, father," she finally relented as it became clear that he wouldn't stop worrying over her until she spoke up, "We need to get in there. How do we charge into something like that?"

Of course, it was Robin who had a ready answer.

Just inside the throne room was a shallow depression in the shape of a semicircle, large enough for the doors to have opened smoothly inwards. Running up from the entrance was a short ring of six stone steps that led to the main level: a rectangular hall lined with spiraling marble columns every few feet. To either side, running the length of the room were a closed off section of long wooden benches, with a second level of similar seating directly above them. At the end of the room, under the shredded remains of a once-massive tapestry, an ornate chair lay toppled.

Assembled around the throne was a phalanx of Valmese spearmen, surrounding a towering woman in heavy plate armor, she held her hand poised over an open tome. The triumphant grin just visible under her golden helm suddenly collapsed into shock as one of the wyvern wing doors came whirling in from the vestibule. She had to drop in an undignified heap in order to avoid being decapitated by the slab of wood. Several of the soldiers with her weren't so lucky.

Kjelle, Sully, Chrom and Libra heaved with all their might, charging up the steps with the second door held up as a shield in front of them. Bolts crunched into the thick wood, but were no threat to the rest of the Shepherds who used the cover to sprint out and take shelter behind the first row of pillars.

Robin was the last to come through the entranceway, sliding along the marbled floor to come to a rest behind the same column as Lucina. "She's back up!" he shouted. "Get out of there!"

The four holding the door dropped it with an echoing boom, scrambling behind more solid cover just as flames engulfed the room. Magic far more powerful than a human should be able to produce bathed their side of the throne room, igniting the fallen door as well as the galleries to either side of them. The pillars protected them from the worst of it, but Lucina could still hear stones cracking under the heat.

Chrom, who had made it to a neighboring column, waited until the spell had ended before shouting, "Virion, Noire, take those crossbows down!"

The archers hopped backwards and sent a return salvo into the upper galleries down by the throne. Lucina peeked her head out just enough to watch the shafts fall among the enemy troops. Except they didn't fall.

One of Noire's shots flew wide of its target, but the rest had been stopped in mid air, frozen, as if attached to the ceiling by thin wires, like some strange ornaments. One by one, the arrows dropped harmlessly to clatter on the benches below.

Noire and Virion jumped back into cover as a second wave of fire crashed into them.

"It didn't work," she shouted to Robin over the rushing of the flames. "I think there's a magician up there protecting them."

As the magic receded once more, her father darted over to their pillar, one bolt barely missing him. "What do we do now?"

"Have the mages target the gallery?" Lucina suggested. "Hit the supports and collapse it, or just light the whole thing on fire."

Robin shook his head. "It's the same problem as the hallway. Tomes are too slow, anyone would get hit with bolts before they could get an angle and channel a spell. What about redirecting the archers to target the general directly?"

More flames swamped their position. "Those soldiers are packed tight, and that armor doesn't look like it has many weak points," Chrom grunted. "It would have to be a very lucky shot to even graze her."

An idea wreathed in a rather thrilling memory came to Lucina and she shifted positions, looking around the hall until she spotted Laurent. To Robin, she asked, "I've never seen a spell that could stop arrows. How does it work?"

The tactician raised an eyebrow at her curious tone, but answered anyway. "They're pretty rare, requires a special gemstone to work. The spell acts as a field or barrier that stops any projectiles that would have injured someone inside its radius."

"What about a sword swing?"

"No, that requires a completely different kind of spell, and if the sword you're asking about is Falchion, I don't think any magic could stop it. What did you have in mind, princess?"

A shrill voice, speaking precise Ylissian, suddenly cut across the throne room.

"I see an arrow topped with swan feathers that has missed its target. The hallmark of the oh-so-great Lord Virion, if I'm not mistaken."

He had been expecting it, waiting for it. In his darkest times, in the vengeance filled dreams he would take to his grave, he even longed to hear that voice again. Because, if he did, he'd know he was home, and that it would all be over soon.

Virion, the last his house, the last of his family. Lord Virion, the good-for-nothing. Lord Virion, the coward, felt his knuckles go white around his bow. "Your armies are surrendering, guard captain," he shouted at the woman who had taken everything from him. "I said I'd return to see you hanged. Well, here I am."

Another wave of fire didn't come as the general laughed. "Yes, the towns and villages still speak of that promise as if it were myth. That you would come striding through the country one day to liberate them from full bellies and the safety of the Empire is a popular story in many an inn. That story goes somewhat differently here in Lazure, did you know?"

Sensing an opportunity, Lucina waved to get Laurent's attention, then said in a voice just loud enough for the other Shepherds to hear, "Remember the Arum?"

Kjelle burst out into stifled laughter from her position somewhere to Lucina's right, and Laurent gaped at her. "No, absolutely not," he hissed across at her. "Do you not remember how that went?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Chrom, looking from her to Laurent.

"I needed to cross a river," she explained quickly. "And we didn't have any pegasus or wyverns. So, Laurent… helped me across with some wind magic."

As expected, her father's eyes lit up with excitement and his mouth curved into a predatory grin. "I bet you could get me up there, Robin."

The Shepherds were talking around him, but for the life of him, Virion couldn't understand what they were say. And he couldn't care, either. Only one voice mattered. "I know perfectly well how they speak of me in these streets," he called.

"Do you?" purred General Ursa. "Do you really? Because you aren't the first Virion I've seen since you ran away, oh no. There have been three others, all overdressed dandies who thought they could use your name to rally the people and claim the throne."

"No doubt their bones are somewhere in the dungeons below us," he shot back.

The laugh came again, cloying and gleeful. "They never made it to the dungeons. The fair people of this city tore them apart as soon as they came through the front gates. The countyfolk might have their legends, but here, you are nothing but the lord who abandoned them. The lord who fled to save his own skin, stopping only to pick a few of your favorite flowers as you ran."

Lucina and Robin exchanged glances at Chrom's words. "No," they both said in unison.

Her father's expression flipped into a frown. "Months of being at each other's throats and now you decide to agree on something?"

"I don't weigh as much as you, and I've done this before," Lucina said. "I'll go."

"No!" Chrom and Robin said together.

Her father put a hand on her shoulder. "I know you've been conflicted about us, our family, your mother and me, but Naga take you if you think I'm going to let my daughter risk herself like this, no matter what world she's from."

She looked to Robin, the one person she thought she could count on to be happy to send her into danger, but, to her frustration, saw him shaking his head. "What I said to Virion wasn't a lie. I won't ask a Shepherd to fight alone."

Lucina's patience snapped and she pushed her father's hand away, rounding on them both. "And do you have a plan 'Master Tactician?' Because that loud mouth will only be distracted by Sir Virion for a few more moments, so you'd better think quickly." She took some satisfaction in the anger in Robin's face, and even more as he shook his head. She turned to Chrom. "And I jumped through a hole in reality to come back to you and mother, you don't get to tell me what is and isn't a risk I can take."

She whirled back to glare at Laurent. "Will you help me, yes or no?"

The mage reached up to straighten his glasses, then looked down at his tome, then around to the gallery, then back to his tome. Finally, he met her eyes. "I'm at the wrong angle to get you there alone. We'd need Sir Robin to give you the initial push, then myself and my mother can… adjust your course."

Lucina turned to the tactician expectantly. "Did you come up with a better plan yet?"

Robin muttered something under his breath, but reached down to open his spellbook.

Virion remembered the roses. He remembered as they tumbled from Cherche's hair as she yanked him along a seemingly endless corridor. Her dress, so beautiful only moments ago, was a ragged ruin, spattered with blood. She'd insisted on wearing it that night because, as she had teased, "It would be far easier to be your bodyguard if I was out there on your arm, dancing with you." And how they had danced.

He remembered the screams and the soldiers, the dismissive laughs that turned to death gurgles as one of the Valmese tried to get through Cherche to reach him. She'd killed him with his own sword, and they had ran.

He remembered the garden. The real roses. They grew in pairs, always. One for him, one for her. A promise understood, he had thought. But, of course, she'd had her own ideas. The soldiers were on them, and Minerva was so small back then.

He didn't remember her punch, didn't even see it. But he remembered waking up alone, flying away. Two roses in his pocket.

Virion's fingernails cracked against the handle of his bow, sending blood dripping down the wood and onto the fire-blackened floor. He could do it. He could make this one last shot. One arrow for one traitor. And if he missed? Well, what more could be expected from the man who was happy to never amount to anything.

He readied himself, wondering if he'd have the satisfaction of seeing his arrow land before those uncouth mechanical bows found him. Then something bounced off his shoulder.

A pebble clacked onto the floor, followed by a second. Virion looked over to see Chrom staring directly at him, ready to throw a third. There was a moment of understanding. The Exalt saw his eyes, his blood, but instead of judgment or sorrow, Chrom grinned at him. Virion knew that grin, and it made him look around.

Robin was scowling in that way he did when he was forced to go along with something he didn't like. Lucina was bouncing on the balls of her feet —so like her father. Sully, when she thought no one was looking, touched the spot in the center of her chest where her mother's amulet hung under her armor. Say'ri held the hilt of her blade to her forehead, sending a quick prayer to Naga. Tharja closed her eyes and breathed deep, as if looking for the calm before a storm. The Shepherds were all moving, preparing. They had a plan.

He looked back to Chrom, who's smile hadn't changed. He pointed at Virion, then rolled his finger in the air, mouthing, "Keep her talking."

"Do you believe someone is coming to help, Ursa?" he shouted across to her. "Someone is coming to save you? You turned on the very people who took you in. You gave yourself to an Emperor who will let you die here. Tell me, what stories will the people of Lazure tell each other after you're gone?"

Lucina breathed, trying not to let herself be too overcome by the thrill of excitement. Miriel had slipped to a different column further into the room, and she and Laurent were quickly flipping through their tomes. Laurent had to switch to the second spellbook on his belt, while his mother extracted her's from one of the four she kept in a specially made pack on her back. Both shot reproving glances at Robin.

The tactician used a Feroxi tome. Instead of the Ylissian six or even the Plegian four, his tome only held three spells at a time. However, as he found the spell he was looking for, Robin reached behind the page and with a click popped free an entire section of the spellwork.

Each spell was broken up into several tiles of lyric, attached to the page and each other by a series of pegs and holes. The Feroxi always did like flexibility. He pocketed the piece he had taken off and switched it with a different one he produced from the folds of his coat. After two more such adjustments, he nodded to her.

She looked to her father. "Give me a boost?"

Chrom grinned and winked. He put his back to their pillar and squared his shoulder. Interlacing his fingers together to form a step and crouching slightly, he gave her a nod.

"Ready?" she whispered. She got a thumbs up from Kjelle and a worried look from Laurent. She smiled nervously at her father. "Maybe don't tell mom about this one?"

She backed away from Chrom, positioning herself as far away as she could while still being concealed from the crossbows. Robin stood just behind and to the right of her.

They glared at each other for a moment. "After this," he grumbled. "People are going to tell you that this is exactly the kind of thing that Chrom's daughter would do. They're wrong. Your mother is this crazy, too. She deserves some credit."

She didn't dignify the comment with a response. But, as she turned, she let the tiniest stab of pride break through the adrenaline.

General Ursa's voice went up several octaves as something Virion said must have hit a nerve, and Lucina was off.

She shot forward like an arrow from a bow. Jumping, she placed one booted foot in her father's hands as he heaved, tossing her up and to the side, out of the cover of the column. She hung for a moment, gravity arresting her momentum and beginning to tug her back down. Then, Robin's spell surrounded her.

As soon as she leapt, Kjelle feinted to the left, then dashed out into the open on the right. A chain of bolts, one after the other, smashed into her, causing her to slide backwards as she put all of her weight behind her shield. Lucina was hurled forward on Robin's wind, directly at the throne, then two gust from Laurent and Miriel adjusted her trajectory just far enough to put her down on the second floor galleries. She couldn't help but laugh as her hair streamed behind her. For a brief time, she soared.

"Such insolence!" screamed Ursa. "What stories, you ask? I am the one who stayed, Virion! The one who led them when all the spoiled nobles chose their gold over their people. Emperor Walhart need not save me. He's already liberated this country from swine like you. The people will not go back!"

Virion saw her move, reach a hand down into a pouch at her waist. She held up a slim glass vile, corked at the top and filled with a clear liquid. Then, a cerulean blur shot over her head and crashed down amid the soldiers on the gallery. The General screeched a curse, the little vile dropped from her grip, forgotten. It rolled and bounced away as she began madly flipping through her tome.

Virion smiled to himself, then drew back his bow. The world around him faded as he waited for the perfect shot.

Lucina saw that she was going to make it. The soldiers below her shouted and pointed, desperately trying to reload their crossbows before she reached them. She thought they were too slow, that —like with Cherche— they couldn't operate the heavy mechanisms fast enough. She was wrong.

Her right shoulder exploded in agony as a bolt crunched into her mid-flight. The momentum of the shaft spun her around at the exact moment the wooden benches rushed up to meet her. She hit, fell, and tumbled for a single, long, transcendently painful moment. The back of the bolt smacked something as she rolled, driving it further into her shoulder, causing her to scream as her vision flickered.

When her eyes refocused, she was looking directly into the unshaven face of a Valmese soldier, an empty crossbow in one hand, a new bolt frozen half way to the nock in his other. She kicked out, the movement causing fresh spasms of pain along her arm and shoulder, and took out the man's legs. He fell, both weapon and bolt skittering away down the rows of benches. He tried to reach out and grab her foot, but she brought her other heel down, striking his temple.

She climbed to her feet. Five other archers stared at her with a combination of shock and horror. Behind them, a woman in a black and red robes hugged a truly gaudy staff to her chest, eyes wide. There was a glowing gemstone set in a cradle of lyric at its head.

The closest of the Valmese to Lucina reacted first, raising his reloaded crossbow. She reached across her body with her good hand and yanked out the dagger she kept hidden in her right sleeve, sheath and all. The movement jostled her arm, sending stars cascading across her vision. She ignored them and hurled the whole thing at the man. It stopped in mid air, just like Virion and Noire's arrows had. The soldier flinched anyways.

She pounced forward, tearing Falchion free with her off hand. She cleaved through the front of the the crossbow and into the man's chest. The bowstring sliced cleanly and snapped backwards with a whip crack, the bolt hit the floor at the same time as the weapon's owner.

There was a twang and Lucina flinched, hugging Falchion vertically to her, pressing the flat of the blade against her chest. A bolt cracked into it and deflected off of the steel. She stumbled backwards and yelped as the vibrations of the impact caused her to drop the sword. The soldier opened his mouth in amazement, looking from her to the empty crossbow in his hands. She smiled at him, hooked a foot under Falchion, and kicked the sword at his face. True to Robin's word, the legendary sword wasn't arrested by the barrier spell like her knife had been. No magic could effect it, no matter how clumsily it was being used.

The soldier fumbled, dropping his crossbow so it dangled on the thin cord that connected him to the weapon's stock. Still in shock from how Lucina had blocked his bolt, he was even more confused as he caught the sword by the blade without so much as a scratch. Falchion had gone dull in his hands. Until she dove at him and grabbed the hilt, taking off several of his fingers as she slashed through his throat.

She took two steps and stumbled, slipping on her own blood. She looked up to see three crossbows pointed at her head. The soldiers didn't hesitate, but their bolts did.

Lucina reached out with Falchion and slapped at one of the shafts, frozen in the air an arm's length away from her. The Valmese mage dropped her staff in horror, breaking the spell and causing the bolts fall to the floor.

Lucina wondered what she must look like to them. Covered in blood, hair unkempt and wild, a bolt sticking out of her mangled shoulder, and still she was killing them. She took a step forward, then another.

"Yield?" she asked politely in their language.

As one, they turned and fled.

Dimly, Virion recognize Noire's arrows now falling among the Valmese around the throne. One struck a hair's breadth from Ursa's unprotected jaw, sparking across her helm. Tharja's girl was good, very good. Better than he was at that age, by a mile. But, then again, he wasn't good at much at that age.

Ursa roared. Finding the spell she was looking for, the General began to channel. Virion let out a mirthless chuckle. All her talk of holier-than-thou nobles and her bond with the common folk was little more than self-indulgent justification. Any strike against her person would be the gravest offense to her, because she was so obviously above it all.

The spell began building, crackling electricity jumped not only to her hand, but arced to the helmets and spear points of the surrounding soldiers. Whatever she was about to release, the pillars might not be strong enough to protect them.

A flash from the upper galleries, and something pinged loudly against her broad back. Ursa whirled around, holding the tome aloft, she pointed, aiming her spell up to where a crossbow dropped from Lucina's hands. The princess slumped forward against the wooden railing.

Virion breathed out.

An arrow fletched with swan feathers buried itself through the center of General Ursa's tome just as she fire off her spell. Every mage in the room turned away. He saw Miriel drop her own spellbook, squeezing her eyes closed and clapping both hands to her ears to block out the sickening pop. He'd have to apologize to her later.

The Shepherds charges. Chrom and Libra skirted the fight, dashing for the stairs that led up to where Lucina lay unmoving. Say'ri glided forward, meeting what remained of Ursa's soldiers. She moved without excess, no wasted movements. Each strike of her single-edged sword marked a fallen enemy.

Kjelle and Sully flanked her, mother and daughter a whirlwind compared to Say'ri's precision. Lance and axe bit into the Valmese ranks, scattering them. Any lone stragglers fell to a shower of arrows from Noire.

Virion walked to the throne. Nobody paid him any mind. He stopped where the stone flooring buckled down into a crater. Only Ursa's lower half remained, smoking at the center of the destruction. The misfired spell had shredded the dozen-or-so soldiers who had been standing around her as well.

He looked away from the carnage he had caused and gazed at the throne. It had been knocked over to the wall by the release of magic. Funny, it looked smaller than he remembered, less ostentatious. Just another chair. He'd always been afraid of it growing up, afraid of the responsibility it promised. He let himself smile. It was not something he'd have to worry about now.

Something caught his eye, sheltered underneath the throne. He bent down and picked up a glass vile, unbroken, still filled with clear liquid. He sloshed it around thoughtfully before pocketing it.

Pounding footsteps heralded Chrom's return. He cradled Lucina, bloodied but alive in his arms. The poor girl was thrashing, delirious from pain and blood loss. Virion ran over to his Exalt, helping him carry his daughter to safety. That, at least, he could do.