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Byleth set down her quill and rested her head on her hand. The sun had long since sunk below the horizon, and she was still reviewing the equipment list ahead of tomorrow’s departure.
There was never enough money, and there was never enough time.
She closed her eyes and breathed out, trying to calm herself, trying to remember that her students had always made do, and that it wouldn’t have to be any different now.
Well, they weren’t her students anymore. That part was different.
But even though Caspar would enthusiastically wield any axe she handed him--even if it was from the training rack--she felt compelled to do her due diligence.
Seteth was rubbing off on her.
She pressed her fingers into her eyes and tried to focus on the list. Maybe if she just started over…
There was a soft knock on the door frame, and the man himself was standing there, looking about as tired as she felt. “Good evening, Professor.”
“Seteth.” She couldn’t help the small smile. “To what do I owe this unexpected surprise?”
He stepped into the common room and the light flickered off of the metallic piping on his uniform, making him seem almost ethereal in the darkness of the room. “I have one final task for the evening, to end this very long day--a tradition, if you will--and I was hoping…”
Byleth could see a small blush rise on his cheeks, and she knew that she would be agreeing to whatever he was hoping she would do.
“Well, I was hoping...you would like to accompany me.”
The equipment list was going to have to be good enough. She could always rely on Sothis’s power to gloss over her preparatory shortcomings in battle.
She considered that her tendency to gamble in that way perhaps made her very different from Seteth after all.
She set down her quill. “Of course.”
Seteth’s blush intensified, and Byleth wondered what he was planning. Surely, it was too risky for them to--
“You have my thanks, Professor.” His face revealed nothing except the flush, which remained high on his cheeks.
She’d just have to follow and find out.
He offered her his arm, and Byleth accepted, keeping enough space between them so that the connection looked casual--almost polite--to an observer, but still feeling a little heady from the contact.
They departed the common room together, heading down the stairs instead of up to his quarters, and then across the long bridge between the cathedral and other buildings of the monastery.
The wind whipped fiercely over the rampart in the cool dark of the evening, and Byleth was glad for Seteth’s arm. Seeing that they were well and truly alone, she allowed herself to drift closer to him, and when he didn’t protest, she wrapped her arm entirely around his, linking their bodies together.
She didn’t regret the fact that their close proximity reminded her of their more intimate times.
They stepped into the cool dark of the cathedral, and Seteth released her, opening a storage cabinet just inside the entrance. The smell of ritual wafted out, the old wood musky with oils and incense and a strange kind of practiced magic that was utterly unfamiliar to Byleth and thus just a touch magnetic.
He retrieved a folded red cloth, several fresh tallow candles, a flint and a fire stick, and five glass dishes already marked with wax, and then closed the cabinet.
Seteth’s precise manner indicated the routine of this action, and Byleth knew this was a practice that he had undertaken hundreds of times before.
He struck the flint, lighting the first candle, and handed it to Byleth, who used it to illuminate their way as they walked through the dark building to the alcove in the back.
The broken ceiling revealed the stars above, and it was as beautiful as it was cold. Byleth used her hand to shelter the flickering flame of the candle, and she thought that she perhaps loved the cathedral even more now, raw and open to the elements as it was.
There was a marriage of the accomplishment of man and the glory of nature that had been impossible to achieve before, when this building was unmarred by battle, when it was Rhea’s holy sanctum.
She followed him to the saint statues in the back, and watched as he unfurled the red cloth and placed it on the ground in front of the statues of Cichol and Cethleann.
He set the dishes down, one by one, in a long row, and then placed the unlit candles on the outside, leaving the middle dish empty.
“Will you join me, Byleth?”
She kneeled next to him with the candle. “What are we doing, exactly?”
Seteth turned to face her. “Praying for our victory.” Seteth paused, contemplative, and Byleth could sense this was one of those times he was trying to decide exactly how much to disclose. “Where I’m from--”
“Enbarr?”
“No, before that--”
“The Rhodos Coast?”
“No, before even that.” He placed his hand on Byleth’s knee, silencing her. “Please, just listen.”
She nodded, dropping her eyes to the candle that still warmed her hands.
“Where I’m from, it was a tradition that the departing warriors would pray to the goddess for victory by lighting a candle the night before they left for battle, illuminating their safe pathway home. The idea was that as long as the path forward was brightened by the candle, they would be able to see the so-called ‘right’ action, keeping themselves safe, dispatching their enemies, and allowing them to return intact to their loved ones.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“Every last night, before every battle, since I was a much younger man, I have lit candles for the safe return of myself and my loved ones.” He closed his eyes, and a mask of grief shadowed his face. “Every battle, save one.”
Byleth reached out, wrapping her fingers around his palm. “Your wife.”
“Precisely.” He met her eyes. “I was hoping you would light these candles with me tonight. I have long lit a candle for you, but...before, well…” He swallowed. “This used to be a tradition and a ritual I shared with my wife, and for many years, I have tended to it alone. Tonight, I thought…”
He trailed off and this time he did not continue, and Byleth filled the silence for him. “I will participate. I can’t say I know how to pray, but…if you tell me what to do, I will follow.”
He smiled, shaking his head. “To think you have been among church leadership and yet you do not know how to pray. I no longer regret Rhea’s decision to appoint you professor, but I still cannot fathom what she was thinking.”
Byleth, by now used to his unintentional slights, just shrugged. “I could just pretend I am talking to Sothis again.”
Seteth inspected her face, his eyes holding an almost-familiar awe. “I suppose you have suffered from an overabundance of faith, not a crisis of it.” He shook his head again. “That should be adequate.”
She settled in next to Seteth and watched him as he bowed low to the statues from a seated position. He remained still, and she could hear him speaking softly in a language that was unfamiliar to her ears.
It was musical and lilting and thick on his tongue, and she forgot to pray at all she was so entranced by the sound and the spectacle of it. Even with just the two of them, the intensity of Seteth’s devotion was impactful.
He returned to an upright position and looked at Byleth. “Would you please place the candle on the center tray?”
She did as she was bid.
He spoke, sounding very much the professor himself as he explained his actions and their significance.
“The center candle is lit for Fodlan itself. I pray that we are able to find a way through our present drama, to become strong and united, to destroy all that no longer serves us in righteousness, and to protect all that is beautiful at the core of this place that is our home.”
He picked up the stick and held it in the flame of the first candle until it ignited.
He turned towards the statue of Cethleann. “Next, I light the candle for Flayn.” He sighed. “I have long wished that this was unnecessary, that I would not live in a world where I had to light a candle for my own daughter’s safety in war.” He lit the candle. “But this is the world we live in, and…”
“And Flayn is everything to you, so you light the candle.”
“Yes.”
He lit the final candle on the same side. “This candle was often for Rhea. But now that she no longer fights beside me, I light this candle to represent our former students and the rest of the soldiers. I ask Cethleann and Sothis both to watch over them, to heal them, and to keep them safe.”
“I very much want that as well.” Byleth allowed herself to feel the fear deep in her belly, the familiar sensation of not being able to abide the possibility that she might be responsible for their deaths.
Please, let me also protect them, she thought. Let them be safe.
He shifted his body to face the other side of the cloth, the two unlit candles that remained at St. Cichol’s feet. “The next one, I light for you, Byleth. I chose this one because it allows me to shelter you from the outside, to represent my desire to protect you and keep you safe.”
Byleth felt her heart lift when Seteth’s hand touched the long stick to the wick of her candle and it lit into brilliant flame.
I will always return to you, she thought. I don’t even need to pray to Sothis to know that.
She pressed her hand onto the top of his thigh, feeling the warmth and strength there, and promising in her heart that she would never again be the cause of his grief.
You have suffered enough, Seteth.
She spoke. “Thank you. I…” A thought struck her. “When did you start lighting a candle for me?” she asked. “Certainly not from the beginning.”
He shook his head. “No. Not from the beginning. But every time you went to battle, after Flayn...after you rescued Flayn.” He met her eyes. “Since then. That was when I realized--”
Byleth was surprised. “All that time? Surely, I thought...well, after Rhodos Coast. After you told me you were her father. That was when…”
Seteth extinguished the stick, which was growing short as they spoke. “That was when...what?” he prompted.
“When I realized that my feelings about you had changed. When you told me the truth there, and I watched you standing with Flayn in the water, I realized that something had shifted within me, and you weren’t just...well, some overbearing prick.”
“Ah. I...I am also that. Sometimes.” He looked at her. “Not all of my prudishness was performed for the sake of my position.”
“No, but I have since learned that it’s often the way you accommodate your fear. And, well, I can’t fault you for that.”
He nodded. “I thank you for your...tolerance of some of my more questionable traits.”
She reached over to take the stick from his hand. “None among us are perfect, Seteth. Least of all me.”
He smiled, and the candlelight touched his face, softening his features. She reached out to brush his hair off his face, and her fingers lingered on his ear.
He allowed her to tuck his hair behind it, revealing the softly pointed end, and she felt a thrill-- she was the one who knew this man’s secrets.
She was the one who was allowed to see Seteth, revealed.
She reached forward, igniting the fire stick a final time. She moved the lit end to the final unlit candle, crossing through Seteth’s space to do so, feeling his warmth as she did.
“Tonight, I will light this candle for you, my dear. May it guide you safely home to me, tomorrow and always.”
Seteth made a small sound in the back of his throat, and she shook out the stick, allowing the smoke from the ember on the end to fill the space with its haze.
Facing him, she could see the power of her participation reflected in his eyes. He captured her face with his hands, kissing her forehead once, thickly and with love, and then kissing her mouth.
She could feel the intensity of his feelings for her in the connection of their lips...even if the kiss itself was more chaste than she would have otherwise preferred. They were in the cathedral, after all.
He broke away. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
“Thank you for asking me.” She pulled back so she could see his face. “What happens now?”
“I leave the candles to burn down overnight, and before morning breaks, I will return to put everything away.”
Byleth nodded and looked up at the statue of St. Cichol, which looked nothing at all like the man beside her, even in the flickering light of the candles set at his feet.
She had deduced, although Seteth had not confirmed, that Cichol and Cethleann still walked among them; that Seiros’s grave was empty because she hadn’t yet perished, at least to their knowledge; and that Seteth himself was a child of the goddess.
At least, that was her best explanation for his ears. She would wait for him to feel ready to tell her the whole truth, but there was one question she must ask.
“Seteth, you share the crest of Cichol. Indech, Cethleann, and Macuil are lauded for their impressive actions, but the only note on this plaque is a mention of Cichol’s faith. Why is that?”
Byleth sensed Seteth’s breath catch, and he was still for a moment, again deciding what to say.
“In the ancient times, as now, someone needed to be responsible for the paperwork. In battle, much depends on individual bravery, of course, but armies can also overcome unbeatable odds when everyone is well-equipped and well-fed. There are many different names for that kind of devotion.”
He met her eyes. “Miracles of faith are sometimes achieved through hard work alone.”
He smiled, and Byleth pulled him close, accepting his answer and choosing not to press the point. “At the very least, you no longer have to perform your acts of faith in solitude.”
“Indeed. And for that, I thank you.”
As the candles burned low, Byleth leaned into Seteth, entranced by her own thoughts as he continued to pray silently for their protection.
She knew already that the power of his faith in her and in Fodlan’s brighter future had revealed her own pathway home from whatever void had engulfed her five years ago. And she was already looking forward to the next time they would slip away to continue this tradition, together.
But even more than that, more than candles and sacred words and the flickering of the candlelight on the quiet cold walls of the cathedral, more than she loved and longed for the companionable silence of the man who still prayed by her side, more than any of that combined...
She wished for peace. For Fodlan. And for everyone they loved.