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She’s woken by the tapping: arrhythmic, strangely echoing, like pebbles thrown from afar. Byleth sleeps deeply next to her as she untangles herself from the blankets and slowly reaches under her pillow for the dagger. She keeps her footsteps light on her way to the balcony door, pulling the curtain aside without a sound and nudges open the door only slightly, cold wind hitting her face through the gap.
There’s a huge white wyvern in her courtyard, and Claude von Riegan is sitting on her balcony chair.
“Peace looks good on you, Your Highness,” he says.
Edelgard assesses her surroundings. Claude’s Immortal Corps and the Goneril woman are nowhere to be seen, but Edelgard knows better than to relax. Her dagger is hidden behind her skirts, though she has no doubt Claude knows it’s there, just as she knows he has eyes trained on her every move. They are in the heart of Enbarr - Imperial land, as much as all of Fodlan is now - in the royal palace: his presence defies logic, and yet here Claude sits, on her balcony.
“You’re back,” says Edelgard. She keeps her tone as neutral as she can; if Claude wanted a diplomatic discussion, he would’ve used the front door. This is another one of his games, and she is careful to reveal as little as possible.
“I thought I’d check in on how your Imperial campaign is going,” Claude says breezily, stretching his arms behind his head.
“What are you here for, Claude?” Edelgard says. “To pay your debts?”
“To congratulate an old friend,” Claude says, holding her gaze. “I have nothing to gain from opposing you now, Edelgard. Revenge seems like it was more his thing.”
Edelgard barely contains her flinch, and can’t help but feel the phantom splash of rain against her skin. Claude stands up, and with a gesture she doesn’t catch, his wyvern spreads its wings and lifts itself off the ground, shockingly silent for a beast so imposing.
“Say hello to Teach for me,” Claude says before he leaves. Edelgard watches him disappear into the night, until his wyvern is hardly discernible from another star in the sky. Her fingers are frozen around the hilt of the dagger; her skin peels and bleeds when she pries them off.
In the morning Byleth does not wake easily. To Edelgard’s amusement, she stumbles through their morning routines, complaining of the cold and squinting several times at her reflection before collecting herself.
“How do you feel?” Edelgard asks. It’s a little game they’ve created, between the two of them, since Byleth’s hair and eyes returned to their deep blue and she’d whispered about goddesses and emotions and a lifetime of muddled memories. I feel reluctant, Byleth would respond sometimes, or I feel indignant, or I feel interested, but only a little, and Edelgard would say, apprehensive? and Byleth would say, yes, that’s right.
Today, Byleth shakes her head and says, “I don’t know.”
Edelgard leans against the bed. “Last night a bird fell into our window and woke me at some unearthly hour.”
“I didn’t hear it,” says Byleth. She looks at Edelgard blankly for a beat, then seems to remember how to smile. “You sleep light.”
It’s a result of years of habit that are hard to break. Years spent in dark places listening to the crawling of rats and the scuttling of cockroaches, then the crying of her siblings, alternating every night then fading into silence. Years where Hubert was her only ally, where she could catch moments of rest as he kept a silent vigil at her door. Years at war, where she was kept up by death after death and blood on her red gloves and red armor.
For an ex-mercenary Byleth sleeps surprisingly deeply. Yet it’s something Edelgard’s grateful for: her favorite part of the day is laying her head on Byleth’s chest and watching her wake up, the first movement, then the opening of her eyes. It’s a moment of hope – a reminder of another time, Byleth awakening in her arms, heart beating, as the heat of the flames around them nearly swallow them alive.
Mornings are calm and a moment of reprieve, before the colossal task of overhauling the country’s ministries inevitably falls upon them. Before they leave, Edelgard casts a glance behind her shoulder, towards the balcony. The chair is perfectly undisturbed, the window unmarked: the grass in the courtyard hardly even looks disturbed by the wind. The chill in the air is gone, chased away by the warmth of the sun.
The tap-tap-tap against her window wakes her again, and she stays in bed for a moment, clearing away her thoughts, before sitting up. This time she leaves her dagger behind, and swiftly crosses over to her balcony. Claude’s leaning back against the chair, lounging like a King on his throne, and the sight irritates her more than she expects.
“Your Almyran retainer tried to breach Fodlan’s Locket,” she says. “Duke Holst took ill. Our intervention was required.” She wraps her cloak around her tightly, and steps forward to meet Claude’s eye.
He sighs. “Nader. He never knew when to cede defeat.” Claude gazes down at the courtyard, moonlight leaving half his face in shadow. “Did Cyril stand with the Archbishop until the end?”
Cyril, the apprentice. “He was devoted. It was a shame.” More blood on her hands, until her skin became as stained as her armor and her axe’s golden glow hardly visible under the viscera. Aymr, twitching and covered in blood, looked alive: flesh reunited with heart and bone.
“Was mercy ever an option, as long as they opposed you?” Claude muses. His smile belongs in a painting: coldly perfect and detached.
“Did you ever consider sparing me?” If they had fought in Enbarr, if Byleth had pointed her sword at Edelgard that day, years ago, deep underground and under the scorn of the goddess' children.
Claude laughs; the sound is carried away by the wind. “No, I suppose not.”
Hours later Edelgard stands again on the balcony and looks at the chair under the light of the rising sun. A fine layer of dust has already settled on the seat. She brushes it away with the edge of her dress and leaves.
In the evening she returns to find Byleth, quill in hand, poring over parchment and candle.
“Hubert’s reports,” Byleth says. “Activity in House Goneril territory.” She doesn’t look up, and Edelgard hovers for a moment, caught in her own indecisiveness.
“Byleth,” she says, “in Derdriu, against the Alliance army.”
Byleth doesn’t ask her to elaborate, just waits in silence.
“I mean,” Edelgard starts. There are words caught in her throat.
Byleth stops writing. “I had considered asking you to spare him,” she says, then dips her quill in ink and starts again.
Edelgard thinks perhaps if she listens closely she can hear the thumping of her own heart, the blood through her veins. She can barely pick up on the rhythm of Byleth’s breathing, so faint it feels like an illusion.
“But in the end, you were right,” Byleth continues. “If we had let Claude live, the Alliance would have continued to oppose us.”
“Yes,” says Edelgard. In the corner of her eye she can see dark shadows moving, writhing, crying, on the floor. She doesn’t look, she stops listening. Byleth keeps writing, line after line, page by page. Only her hand is moving; the rest of her is like stone.
In the night, like clockwork, the tapping starts again. Edelgard lies awake and stares at the darkness of the ceiling and counts the sounds, one by one, until they cut off sharply and suddenly. Byleth lies next to her, fast asleep like always, and Edelgard wants to touch her, but she doesn’t dare. If she moves her hand even slightly, she can almost brush against Byleth’s back, can feel her hair across her wrist. But despite the warmth of the blankets and despite how close they are, the air feels stagnant, and the bed remains still and so, so cold.