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“I wanted... to walk with you…”
Edelgard waited for the lacerating pain of the Sword of the Creator on her neck at any moment. It meant she lost. It meant she was not going to see the world she envisioned and fought for until the very end.
It meant the one about to kill her was her teacher.
Yet, liberating the words that she thought had died on her throat on the confrontation at the Holy Tomb made her feel light. As if her heavy Emperor armor weighed nothing at all and she was not heated up and drained from their battle.
And albeit she believed of having heard the air being ripped apart and having felt a ghost of a touch at the back of her neck, her head was still attached to her body.
Hesitatingly she opened her lilac eyes. The blurred red of her gloves was supposed to be touching and confounding itself with the dirty and bloody ground of her throne room, but all she saw was a black nothingness under her. Elevating her head, her teacher was there no more. There was still a throne there, however, hers was supposed to be behind her and there was not supposed to be a little girl with green hair slouched on it.
The defeated Emperor leaned on a knee to stand. Slowly, for there was always the fear she would lose the inexistent ground below her feet. The unending oblivion surrounding this throne room had flimsy green lights hung in the air, encircling the throne to illuminate the person sleeping there. It offered her an angelically ethereal aura that painters would die to achieve in their works to the Church.
The girl started to move and mumble. She rubbed away the sleep from her eyes and yawned before noticing Edelgard’s presence. Her eyes got tinier with a frown, then widened with realization and she sat up straight at the throne. After staring at her for some seconds, she crossed her legs.
She blinked, and Edelgard blinked back
“Oh my. I expected a visitor, but not you. Actually, anyone beside that child.”
The woman clad in crimson was yet to comprehend what was that. A dream? It certainly felt like so. Then, her battle with Byleth did not occur?
“If I am not mistaken, right now it should be… Oh yes. It makes sense in a way. But this is the first time it is happening. I wonder why,” she talked to herself looking up.
Edelgard observed her own hands. She moved each finger, then her wrists and elbows. Her body was light and there was no place she felt aching. Eyeing the lower part of her form, her armor was immaculately shining like when she first wore it. No scars, no craters, no missing pieces.
There was no evidence of her fighting until seconds ago.
“Is your face ever this somber since you became Emperor?” the girl leaned on her right hand; elbow supported by the throne’s arm. “I mean, from Adestria. Not since the time you were the Flame Emperor. You used a mask after all.”
And who was this little girl in the end?
“I was shocked to learn it was you in the very first time. Still, it made sense; your topics of conversation were peculiar and well too timely. You also vanished during important times. But that one gets certainly shaken, every time. As much as that blank face can muster,” she laughed lightly.
And why did she talk as if they knew each other?
After changing her crossed legs, the girl adjusted the hair – colored in a particular shade of green which made Edelgard’s blood boil inside – on her left shoulder with a movement of her free hand and offered a knowingly and amused smile. “You have no idea of who I am, do you?”
She tightened the grip on her hands. If her nails were not covered by her glove, she would be carving them deeply into her own skin, as she did in a distant past she did not wish to remember. Edelgard remembered even so and felt a sickening sensation burning inside her, following all the way up to her head.
Perhaps her blood boiled indeed.
The unpolished stone with stylized teardrop as details at its center. That huge throne held familiarity to one on her most bittersweet memories, she realized after paying attention to its details. What happened at the Holy Tomb almost six years ago was fast, but she still begrudgingly followed Byleth with her eyes, from receiving instructions from Rhea to going up the stone stairs and sitting on such throne. Edelgard relished as much she still could look at her teacher without betrayal and sorrow tainting their connection. The last moments before the Professor could receive the Goddess’s revelation and become her greatest obstacle were when the Emperor admitted to herself their paths were fated to cross, not to run parallelly each other.
And that damned shade of green.
She knew who that one was, way too well.
“The Goddess… Sothis.”
The name came dry and foul in her mouth. Except for Rhea and Thales, for whom her hatred was beyond imagination, that was the one being she despised the most. The one the Church worshiped; the one nobles claimed to have gifted them with crests and power; the one believers put so much faith on that they let society fall into that horror show for centuries.
Had she any weapon on her grasp, there would be no hesitation in darting forward and cutting that girl in two. Edelgard contemplated what were her chances with her bare hands. In terms of physical strength, she most likely held the upper hand, but mystical beings were not famous for using sheer force. Except maybe for Rhea when she took her true form.
“Oh, so you do know,” her eyes beamed, a new smile playing on her lips. “Then, Edelgard von Hresvelg, tell me: do you know why you are here?” asked the Goddess with a solemn tone alien to her pleased mask.
Her back straightened before she could think of it. Her hot blood cooled down to a chilling fluid running in her chest, against what she desired to feel. If she was about to confront the Goddess as she pictured on her wildest fantasies, she should do it with dignity, not fear.
It would be a lie if Edelgard denied having imagined her judgment when she was to perish. If there was a Goddess to this world, no matter if Sothis or any other, the Emperor held no erroneous idea of her destiny.
Fingers relaxed with her slow expiration, and Edelgard lifted her chin.
“If this is purgatory and you are here to judge me for my crimes and sins, then let’s make it short; I have no mind to idle about it,” she crossed her arms. “I declare myself guilty of pointing my blade to the heavens, attacking the Church and cursing in my head every time I heard your name or title. Of trying to end through war the hierarchy you imposed when gifting crests to the nobles.”
She made a great swing with her right arm, the same when she gave speeches to her people and got into the most powerful passages. “I knew from the start that hell would be my ending if it existed at all. Therefore, do not make me wait, Goddess ,” Edelgard pronounced with spite.
Her limb fell flat at her side with the same strength she used to swing it. Her neck wanted to do the same, to stop glaring the one with the power to decide her destiny, but her pride was stronger. There was certain wicked poetry on facing head-on the bringer of calamity moments before it comes.
“Just send me to the place I rightfully deserve,” her voice betrayed her and lost its power, nearing itself to a mutter.
“You are not afraid of hell,” the Goddess spoke at last, with a… compassionate tone? Her smirk was nowhere to be seen anymore. “It suits you, the mighty Emperor image,” she held her gaze on the guilty woman, inspecting her demeanor. “I wonder how broken your soul is to live up to it? How much of yourself you left behind?”
Sothis fixed her posture and held both the throne’s arms while meeting Edelgard’s widened eyes. Was she frowning? Why did she look so sad?
“Poor child, you have suffered quite a share, have you not?”
Her teeth gritted and her fingers found once again their place trying to pierce the gloves to access bare skin of her palm. The Goddess’s image became muddled as Edelgard could not stop the barrage of hot tears that tingled her eyelids. They were certainly rage tears; she had no doubt. For this is the emotion she should be feeling.
“I do not want… your pity,” her voice came muffled through her teeth.
Once upon a time, Edelgard von Hresvelg thought about the Goddess every day. Before the nightmares began, her recurrent dream was meeting her and asking one question and only:
“Why didn’t you come to save us?” her accusatory voice trembled with her body doing the same. “Save me?”
The Emperor, turned back into the crying girl of her past, found herself slowly into the same position she opened her eyes at that place: knees and hands on the invisible ground.
“I prayed… every night. Every night! For your mercy, for your salvation! I wondered why had you abandoned us, abandoned me , bearer of your most prominent daughter’s crest, Seiros herself!” she hammered the nothingness under her. “That’s when I realized: crests were only a symbol people used to gain power. There was no way it was a gift if you let us suffer like that; if you let us pass through that living hell!” another chill traveled her body when her next words were found inside her head. “If a new one is was what I obtained on that agonizing dungeon.”
As much as she tried to control it, hiccups mingled with her heavy breath. Losing her strong façade in front of the Progenitor God was not how she pictured her defeat. Much less crying all the tears she swallowed since her resolution of destroying that broke system in which Fódlan was immersed.
The Edelgard who cried had died; thus, it could only mean she was dead indeed.
If not by her sobs, silence would fittingly fill that place where it looked like time halted. Was the Goddess smirking again, after her little tantrum? She should. That is what Edelgard expected from the one Rhea prayed for: a monster suitable for the Immaculate One. Yet, she did not perceive any sign Sothis was enjoying her outburst. Not even a chuckle.
“I must apologize to you.”
Those words startled the crying Emperor. First because of its content; then, because the Goddess’s voice was closer than it should. When she lifted her head, Sothis was right in front of her, crouched while hugging her knees. Her light green eyes, which painfully reminded her of Byleth’s after her transformation, tried to say the same message she spoke moments before.
“My powers… Since long they are not as powerful as Rhea made it look like. They were sealed within me in my slumber and only recently have they been awakened. Even so, they could not match the magnitude they once had. All that was left was the power over time.”
Edelgard found herself entranced by the green-haired girl. “What… do you mean by that?”
Sothis’ frown deepened as she looked away from the other’s questioning and desperate glance.
“Are you saying… you could not save us?”
She thought of every faithful person she met. How much they invested their time in prayers to appease the Goddess and to have a pleasant life, blessed by Her. How the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus stood proud, sure of the Goddess’s protection. And she thought of her elder sister when she taught her how to pray. Yes, she was the one who implanted that small seed of hope within her soul, before she imagined it would be needed to survive.
The Goddess beheld her again, her grimace never leaving her delicate features. “Yes, that is right.”
“Then, why are you apologizing?” she could not contain the humorless chuckle.
“I was still your only hope, was not I?” Sothis answered with a self-depreciative smile as if having read her frenzy mind. She stood up, her sad eyes never leaving Edelgard. It only served to deepen the pit on her stomach. “Taken by force from your family, watching as each of your siblings succumbed to pain or madness, knowing how powerless your father was to stop it all; you had only the Goddess to believe. And she also let you down.”
The Goddess sighed and looked to her side, even with nothing else besides the two there. Her fists trembled.
“I may not be the same from the time I decided to use all I had to save Fódlan from destruction, but… The feeling that moved me to do so is within me all the same. I did it to stop all suffering. But I failed.”
For a second, Edelgard thought she could still believe in the Goddess without the Church in the middle. If that unadulterated benevolence was the reason Rhea raised the creed, she could understand to a certain degree. It was not pity; Sothis was torn for bearing the responsibility in her name and not being able to help her and any others in need.
No words came to the platinum-haired girl as she sat on her feet admiring the Goddess. An anxious surprise drenched her when Sothis caressed her face. Albeit with a childlike appearance, her gentle touch and concerned eyes were of a loving mother.
How long had it been since someone looked at Edelgard like that?
“Edelgard von Hresvelg. I will not send you to hell,” as the Goddess spoke, Edelgard stopped breathing. “You have been there already.”
Was it fair? To receive such judgment from the very idea she despised? From the creature showing compassion in response to her hatred? New tears adorned her tired face when she exhaled, but Edelgard did not know which feeling triggered them. Or rather, she could not recognize. It felt far away and unreachable until this moment.
“Now, tell me: could you go back in time, what would you do differently?”
If her circumstances were not dire, Edelgard would laugh off the joke. But there was no witticism on Sothis’s expression. That holy creature left her perplexed with every act far from what she believed the Goddess to be. She was supposed to be good, however she took the devotion evoked by that and certainty of this fact as simply parroting the Archbishop’s mind wash of humanity. There was no formal plan on her mind for the possibility that the Goddess was indeed good.
And there was no shade of doubt of the answer she had to give.
“I would save my siblings,” she replied with a soft voice.
She had no way to tell how much time passed until Sothis let go of her face. Edelgard missed her warmth on her cheek when tears finally had no obstacle to fall all the way. The Goddess turned away. She was not sure, but Edelgard believed of having seen a pained stance on her look. The little body’s shoulders ascended briefly with a new sigh.
With her back to Edelgard, Sothis replied monotonously. “It is not possible. Their gruesome fate cannot be changed. You were too young to do anything, and would still be.”
She strolled back to her throne, in slow but firm steps, and Edelgard was left digesting her answer while watching her extend their distance. Calling up an opportunity of undoing what haunted her the most and then telling it could not be undone in the end was like caressing a scar before tearing it apart again. The remorse and hatred she sowed for five years before putting her plans into action found their way back into her blackened heart, scorched by flames anew.
The Emperor stood as well, less gracefully and with a bit of haste, and took a handful of steps forward. Sothis was already on her throne, her semblance much more dignified than her first appearance there.
“If that is so, I would not do a single thing in another way,” she said with a resolute tone, usual to her common self. Edelgard stopped by the tiny stone stair before the throne, looking up to the almighty being. “I would carve the same path.”
Tears no longer traveled through her cheeks, and she was once again the Edelgard who swore to change the world, even if it costed her life. The Goddess answered her determined eyes with a neutral mask which brought back briefly Byleth’s face to her mind. A third sigh escaped her lips, this time with evident disappointment.
“Really? For someone regarded as her class’s best student, you are quite stubborn and nearsighted,” she crossed her legs and leaned on her right hand out of habit. “If you follow the same track, you will forever go back to the same place. It is not much bright of a plan if you ask me.”
The Emperor’s lips formed a scowl. “I would rather meet the same fate again and again than run away from what I believe it’s right.”
“I know you do. I see it every cycle,” Sothis bitterly remarked. “However, I am not telling you to run.”
Edelgard scrutinized the Goddess with her doubtful lilac eyes, tired of seeing green wherever she looked. Her wariness fought with the logical conclusion Sothis’s sentences brought about. She said it herself: the only fraction of power that remained was the one over time itself. The proposition was tempting and fit the kindness the Goddess was displaying to the fallen Emperor. Yet, her old habits were still sharper than never, as it was what made her survive co-existence with those who slither.
“Why would you do it? Give another chance to the bringer of war and destruction to the land you forfeited your all to save?”
“Why indeed,” a tiny smile dared to appear briefly, contrasting to her unfocused glance. “It may be because you were deceived and used and fought for a false truth with all your devotion. Or rather, because the crest implanted on you, The Crest of Flames, is my own, forging a lost connection we managed to reclaim when facing each other as we are, for the first time.”
With each reason, Edelgard’s mind was sent to a spiral of questions. False truth? The Crest of Flames was the Goddess’s?
“But, most likely…” she chuckled with amusement and the smile did not shy away from spreading when their eyes met once again. “It is because of the fondness that one holds for you on our shared unbeating heart. You brought upon her such affection that I cannot muster to feel anything too distant from it. It is not the same, I cannot even compare; still, it contaminates my judgment nonetheless.”
And now this.
“What… who… are you talking about?” Edelgard answered with her brow aching from its frown.
“Of your dear Professor, of course!” Sothis beamed and her hands clapped. “That petulant child holds within her my crest stone,” her energy dropped as her face became sorrowful again. “And because of such, she could barely feel anything. That is, until you.”
“No, it can’t… You cannot be telling the truth,” she embraced herself, with regret creeping up her spine and her tight chest. “We can only hold hatred for each other since we separated ways.”
“You betray your words. However, I understand it. It is easier to think about what has come to pass if you paint it with negative feelings. If not, guilt takes over.”
The Emperor focused on her breath. Her head was spinning and her damned heart could not keep quiet at all. Even in purgatory, would she be granted another blame to carry on her back?
Was it the true twist? The Goddess would not send her to hell but torture Edelgard herself?
“That one was not used to having strong feelings. It started to change when she met you little ones. She was overflown with possibilities and, most of all, with caring. She learned a lot living at Garreg Mach,” Sothis reminisced with tenderness. Yet, as much bittersweet this topic was for Edelgard, it looked to be the same to the Goddess. “But there is only as much you can achieve when your feelings are sealed with sacred power. The cost of her own life. Even so, she has a talent for defying the odds, does not she?” she laughed dryly. “There, she changed; however, her strongest feeling of all was still sorrow. That is how I know how much time has passed out there. We are connected, and I feel each wave from her.”
Her eyes locked with Edelgard’s, mirth and pain too mingled to be distinguished.
“Twice is when she reaches the peak of sorrow. The first time is when Jeralt dies. She was lost and could not even understand herself. At least, my material form is with her when it happens to help with her mourning and urging her to cry. The second time… is when she defeats you and fulfills her task. When she dislodges your head from your neck, she feels her chest aching again. She can barely breathe. When her tears start… It is when she understands what is this agony. But this time, she is alone.”
Edelgard felt her chest shrinking more and more with the Goddess narrative. If it was true, then that itch at the back of her head whenever she and Byleth were close might not have been a mistake. Then there was hesitation from both parties, and not hers alone, when their blades touched. Then those light green eyes were moist from tears, not sweat seconds before she bowed to be beheaded.
“If that is truth… Why?” the former student could hear her voice failing, growing desperation on it. This time, she would not try to control it. There was no point anymore. “Why would she choose to fight me rather than with me? Did she hate my ideas that much? Or her devotion to the Church was simply greater?”
The girl could not say “than her feelings for me”. It sounded presumptuous even with Sothis’s insinuation.
“I thought you understood,” her voice made clear her disenchant. “Byleth was raised in a world of having a purpose. There was always a duty paying gold for their survival. She was a hired blade and then a hired Professor. Following her duty, what she was expected to do, sounded as her only option. Having a choice… it was never on her mind. And when she actually did, there was no one to urge her to make a choice of her own. To tell her it would be alright to follow her wish.”
The Goddess sat straight on her throne, expressionless.
“Jeralt was dead. I was silent from our fusion. The weight of duty on her shoulders was as great as her sorrow. She wanted to turn back time, but she doesn’t until the end of the cycle. She learned fate cannot be undone with Jeralt’s death. I believe she did not want to risk turning back the hands of time and being obliged to watch you being killed one more time, if not by her hands again, by another blade. And that is what happens every cycle that repeats.
“But there is another thing as well… You did not properly give her a choice at all, did you?” she points daggers to Edelgard with her eyes. “You assumed that she could not, would not follow you. How can you resent her when you gave up on her yourself?”
Yes, here it came. The Goddess’s judgment.
Edelgard instinctively gave a step backward. She had no answer to that. Her grip on herself was trembling for countless reasons. She was afraid and angered and regretful and proud and hurt and so, so confused.
This time, she ran from the other’s piercing stare with the easiest solution: she closed her eyes.
The darkness which once had her skin crawling was the solace from Sothis’s cruel questioning. Her tears were now cold and freezing each inch of her face.
She heard again a tired sigh, its owner the only other being in that insufferable black hole.
“It might have been harsh of me. You can resent me all you like. Just promise me you will use it wisely.”
“The resentment? My self-hatred?” Edelgard probed desperately.
“No. Your second chance.”
The broken girl mustered the rest of her courage to look up at the Goddess. Biting her lower lip with apprehension, the reality exposed gnawed her.
“If Professor Byleth keeps repeating the cycle, what difference would it make for me to go back in time?”
Unsaid words hang in the air with the green lights: me, who doesn’t hold the power of a Goddess? Me, who goes against the whole continent? Me, who had no courage to grasp the only person that broke through my icy walls?
On other hand, Byleth was her opposite. She enchanted people to follow her, even without much of expression on her face. She protected those who did so. She fulfilled her task, even against her supposed feelings for the Emperor.
The flawless hero for the tale, whilst Edelgard was the picture-perfect villain.
Siding with worrisome people for the sake of having power, she held the image of a ruthless conqueror trying to destroy everything people believed and held dear, no matter the cost. Sad thing was that she lived up to it way too well, as conflicting as were her true intentions to her persona. The fact that she was doing what it takes to make a better world did not matter. No one would credit good intentions to whom started a war.
How could she think Edelgard had what it takes to do the task theoretically Byleth failed to?
“Because I will grant you what I never allowed her,” the Goddess’s answered gently. “I will allow you to remember.”
The pieces joined and the full portrait finally made sense. Sothis’s guilty was now palpable, no matter how much she tried to disguise it as holy tenderness. Her calling out to Edelgard now felt more like a moment of self-judgment.
She had known for some time holy beings were as faulty as humans. The notion escaped briefly with her appreciation of the Goddess, but came back with her senses.
“If you follow the same track,” Edelgard repeated her words, obtaining the courage to stand up to the Progenitor God. “You will forever go back to the same place. You said it yourself, but you have been watching her eternal trial and error without allowing a change?”
Sothis could not keep their new staring contest. Supporting her chin on her joined hands, a funny image because it looked like she was praying, she looked down to her feet.
“Believe me when I say it was out of love and over protection,” she stated, trying to convince both of them. “It would crush her to remember her past cycles. Or so I told myself,” her lips scowled and her eyes met Edelgard’s again. “But… it was also out of selfishness. Self-preservation.”
Their roles were ironically reversed, and it gave Edelgard assurance to keep pressuring. “Please, enlighten me.”
Sothis scoffed, conscious of what was happening, before mellow hesitation ornated her face.
“If she chooses you and you both kill Rhea… The crest stone breaks. Byleth will have her heart for herself again and be able to learn how to feel. To learn what love is when she looks at you,” her genuine and yet self-depreciative smile appeared again. “But when the crest stone breaks, so does our connection. There will be no more repeating, no turning back the hands of time, and the Goddess Sothis will no longer come back to this world.”
She rose and Edelgard found herself admiring the Goddess again. A petit stature none would guess how much power it held, bearing wisdom and mercy far from her looks.
No painting or statue made her justice.
“I delayed it for too long. Each time she comes devastated from the cycle, I feel remorseful for not stopping it. Maybe this is why you ended up here. So we can end it once and for all.”
Sothis walked down the stepping stones until her height was par to Edelgard’s. If the Emperor was wrecked before, wallowing in guilty and sorrow, the Goddess could not see it anymore, for now she stood her ground graciously. There was still fear and challenge on her posture, but a cautious resolve is what prevailed.
Was this beautiful messy mix of pride and pain, a glorious disaster, at first glance similar but in the end grossly divergent from Byleth, that caught the mercenary’s interest unknowingly?
Not even the Goddess could tell.
“Fear not, child, for I know you can do what it takes to lead Fódlan to a new dawn. A new future. I entrust you with this task. This and another one.”
She caresses her cheeks and shows a new loving smile. The embrace Edelgard tried to protect herself in gradually breaks.
“Promise me. That you will find the truth and carve your real path from it. And that you will make Byleth happy.”
Inhale. Exhale. Her mouth is dry, even though her lips are moist and salty from her tears.
“I will… do my best.”
The Goddess grins. “That will suffice. I know how stubborn you can be. On this point, I grant you and that fool one are quite similar.”
White suddenly starts to take over darkness, blinding Edelgard’s vision, which had gotten used to the green dimness. She feels Sothis let go of her face. With her hand trying to protect her eyes, she opens them and watches the Goddess take a step back.
Seeing her disappearing image, Edelgard attempts a step forward. There was a myriad of questioning she still wanted to make to the Goddess. But on her lack of time to elaborate them, one prevailed to still reach her. “Goddess…! Will I see you again?”
Her head tilts to the side with a generous expression before shaking it.
“I do not think so. But I will be with her one last time. You will know.”
The parting gift The Goddess leaves the Emperor with is a bow and words that fly through air to reach her ears discreetly.
“Thank you.”
Edelgard woke up on the day and moment she and the other house leaders were “attacked” by bandits. Had her not predicted Claude’s decision to flee and each words Dimitri used when asking for help, the Princess of Adestria would take her meeting with the Goddess as an unusual nightmare amongst her horrific ones. After all, receiving a task from a being you not only barely believed in, but also held a great grudge to, could be described only as a nightmare. However, when Jeralt’s annoyed countenance appeared from the oddly familiar cabin, she bit her lower lip to prevent herself from shouting in disbelief.
She had travelled back in time. The cornflower blue on deep expressionless eyes that caught her unalarmed even knowing they would appear did not let her think otherwise.
Being led by her former (but now future, she hoped) Professor on battle felt like dancing an old waltz with no tune to follow: she knew it by heart and missed more than she could admit. Her quick but precise decisions, clear directions not only to attacking but also retreat, fair division of tasks during the battle… Byleth had a type of tactical vision Edelgard could only hope to get close to when she found herself leading a whole Empire to countless clashes of war.
And to see such genius throwing herself to death to save her skin when they barely met, then watch time as it reversed, permitting Byleth to parry the bandit’s attack instead of dying from it, was a sight Edelgard could never get used to, in a bad way.
‘You will know’, Sothis had said. The future Emperor was not ready, however, for how promptly it would be.
Albeit dizzy from the time turning and the implications of it all, the Adestrian heir played her part as much as she recalled doing the first time it all transpired. Even the desperate invitation she and Dimitri offered to the capable stranger was repeated word by word. With sudden expectation of three future leaders, back then Edelgard expected the mercenary to act apprehensively to their demand of knowing to which land Byleth held loyalty. Acting it all again, however, made Edelgard admit how absurd it was of them to beseech such answer of the roaming woman.
Hearing again her loyalty was to the Empire left its young princess oddly satisfied, though a bit convoluted on her stomach. It held no strong meaning, there was no doubt. But remembering how this loyalty was broken after it was truly established still hurt her.
Edelgard had never been as relieved for arriving at Garreg Mach as she was on that moment. It was nice being around Byleth without their blades trying to crash each other. But no matter how much she told herself only she remembered their past life, it was still hard to act as though she did not grieve for their shattered bond in the past six years.
“Lady Edelgard,” she gladly heard Hubert call to her after knocking her door. His younger self stood in his typical stance in front of her room. “I am glad to know you are back and safe. I heard some… troublesome information that you were almost hurt from a rogue’s attack.”
She moved so he could enter and went back to sit on her bed. He closed the door solemnly behind him, first verifying if there was anyone else on the hall.
“It is ludicrous that they not only missed their true targets but also put you in danger. Hiring petty bandits is certainly something we should refrain from repeating,” he whispered, distaste clear with each word.
His liege simply nodded. Yes, back then they had talked strategy and decided to let go of the assassination plan of the other heirs, for it was made clear to be more dangerous than predicted and attempting again would raise suspicion. This was also when Edelgard would intel him of the peculiar mercenaries they stumbled upon. The possibility of Jeralt the Blade Breaker returning to the Knights of Seiros was upsetting, as it was if his talented unknown daughter would be joining as well.
This conversation was not one Edelgard perceived to repeat, however. If the Goddess had her way, Edelgard not starting a war was a prospect in sight. As she battled inside her mind on what to say, the girl caught Hubert attentively waiting her statement on the matter, a concerned eyebrow elevated.
“Hubert… if I told you I met the Goddess, would you believe me?”
His frowning answered before his mouth. “I would find it quite troubling and wonder if you ate something poisoned on your way back, Lady Edelgard.”
She snickered with his remark, but it was shortly replaced by a serenely grave face.
“And what if I told you,” Edelgard raised from her bed and walked towards the big window of her room. Touching the glass with her right gloved hand – pristine clear white, not dirtied crimson, she delightedly noticed –, she proceeded with her sharing with her trustworthy retainer. “That I have already lived our next six years and passed through the war we are going to start?”
The sunshine of the middle afternoon made Hubert’s reflex on the window’s glass thin and blurred, still Edelgard saw perfectly as he creased deeper his brow and inhaled sharply.
“Then I would urge that we should visit the infirmary at once, for your state of mind would be concerning, I am sorry to admit. It might be a sort of spell, and Professor Manuela knowledge on both medicine and magic would be able to give a proper diagnosis on what had come to pass with you.”
She watched his restless legs move and stay on the same place. This time, she refrained from reacting with humor; it was painfully far from a laughing matter.
“It is true, I am afraid, Hubert. I have lived it all, saw all suffering we caused while trying to make good, and was defeated on my throne room,” she decided on not revealing her executor’s identity. “Then I opened up my eyes to see a tiny girl with long green hair and great sense of self-importance laying unceremoniously on an antique throne. The Goddess Sothis herself.”
When she turned, Hubert greeted her with an understandable skeptic glance. If it was her on his shoes, Edelgard was sure she would be mimicking his eyes. She felt the absurdity on her words, but she could not run from the truth.
Her grip tightened on both hands. “Instead of condemning me to eternal misery on hell, she looked earnestly at me and said she would give me a second chance, with a task attached to it. I should find out the truth and carve my real path through it.”
“And what truth would it be?”
“She was as cryptical as unexpectedly kind to me. All she offered me was the fact that I was deceived and used and fought for a false truth with all my devotion,” she grimaced with the repeated words. Her left hand rested on her hip. “It is still hard to even believe myself, Hubert. But you know I would not jest with something like it. You may not accept for now, and I understand. You will see it with time.”
Edelgard walked back to her bed to sit down on it again. Looking up to nothing, a gesture the Goddess repeatedly showed her, she continued on her attempt to convince her retainer.
“The Blade Breaker’s daughter, Byleth, will be appointed as a new professor on the Officer’s Academy, quite an abrupt decision from the Archbishop’s part considering her shady record. The reason for it probably lies on the fact the mercenary contains an important object with her. Or should I say, within her. She has a crest stone on her heart, which grants her an interesting crest. The Crest of Flames.”
Hubert finally looked like believing on her when he got surprised by her report.
“But… it was supposed to be…”
“Lost in time. And I should be the only one to bear it. But not only she has it, as well as she is capable of bearing the Sword of the Creator, Nemesis old weapon.
“Another point is that such crest stone also gifts her another fearsome power. The power of the Goddess. And this powerful individual, while being watched by the Church, will choose our house to lead e teach. Last time, I hesitated and did not try to sway her to our side. But now I know better than to leave her to her own devices.”
Against her desire, Edelgard let a huff scape from her nose. When she heard herself talking like that, she sounded quite professional and not a bit affected emotionally by this new piece on their table.
Except she very much was.
And her oldest friend should absolutely not know.
“We shall look for the truth, Hubert. If there is another reason for us, for me to move on and do it must be done, I ought to know. For myself, and for the Goddess.”
“And what about our troublesome allies? Would they accept such terms?”
“They cannot know. We will have to dance around the topic and distract them as much as possible while still looking like we are maintaining the plan.”
The retainer inspected his Princess, his opinion clearly fighting with his duty on his golden eyes. Still, in the end of the day, the girl had no doubt of what he would do.
“As you wish, Lady Edelgard. We shall do as it suits you… or the Goddess, for that matter.”
He bowed before leaving her room soundless. She knew he would take some time, but the task in her hands would soon become his as well. Edelgard watched her window again, the light provided by the sun gradually dimming to set itself.
When the next day comes, bringing a new dawn after a long dark night, her teacher will surely choose her one more time. But this time, Edelgard will make sure she does not falter on choosing her side again when it mattered.
Even if she had to appeal to their mutual feelings.
She had the Goddess’s blessing on her side.