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“I’ll be in the garden at sunset, ” the note read. “Please  don’t send your guards after me. -C ”  

A tempting thought, had it been a simpler time.  

The garden was bathed in orange when Lorenz arrived. It was a familiar scene, the sun low on the horizon, it’s fading light dusting the petals of each rose with its warmth. Lorenz’s shadow stretched behind him through his “regular” evening stroll, as if it were tying him to the manor behind him even as he walked towards the sun.  

Claude was there, as he said he’d be. It was amazing how at-home he looked, perched in a chair at the garden table, wearing the Duke’s cape and crest, relaxed with one leg loosely crossed over the other. As if he’d been invited for tea. As if he weren’t currently in the process of trespassing.  

Maybe in another life.  

“You came,” he said as Lorenz approached, disbelief evident in his voice. “Here I was thinking I’d be chased off the property by dogs.” 

“That option is not entirely off the table,” Lorenz said, ignoring the second chair sitting empty next to him. “What are you doing here, Claude.” 

Claude winced. An accusation, not a question. He got right to the point, “They’ll be on our doorstep by the end of the week.” 

“I am aware,” Lorenz said. Cold. Indifferent. 

“It’s not too late to change sides.” 

Lorenz could not meet his eyes. He turned to look southward, as if he were already watching the Imperial Army approach over the horizon. “Yes,” he said, “it is.” 

“Lorenz,” Claude pleaded now, voice thin, “we need you.” 

“It’s not a choice I am at liberty to make, and even if it were, it would be a foolish one,” said Lorenz.  

Claude inhaled sharply and massaged the bridge of his nose with gloved fingers, “Ignatz is already at Myrddin with Judith. Leonie is on her way to provide backup, but we need  more .” 

“I fail to see how that is my problem.” 

“You--!” Claude nearly jumped out of his chair before regaining his composure, a desperate man behind a facade. “Don’t you even feel the  least  amount of obligation to help? They’re our  friends —” 

“As are several of the people marching under the Imperial flag,” Lorenz countered.  

Ferdinand’s face flashed through his mind, bright and sunny, laughing at something Lorenz had said over tea. He’d come to see him just once since the war began, to take his and his father’s pledges of allegiance to Edelgard. His hair had been longer, eyes older. Lorenz was moved by Edelgard’s goals, and his father by the size of her army and its position relative to his territory. But there was one thing Lorenz had struggled to understand.  

“Why did you remain by her side? After what  she did to your father?” he’d asked.   

Ferdinand sipped his tea, “ What terrible rumors have you been hearing, my friend? My father is still very much alive  and well.”  

“Yes, but  stripped of his title  and power ,” Lorenz pressed. “ I would have expected a nobleman such as yourself to take more offense to that.”  

When Ferdinand laughed now, it was  weaker , weighted . “ Believe me, I was at first,” he said. “But  Edelgard   wishes  to create a world where men  who are unworthy of such responsibilities do not come into possession of them simply by being born.  I …  realize now ,  that my father may have been such a man.  And… ”  

Lorenz did not press the silence  that hung off the end of Ferdinand’s sentence .  He watched his friend stare into his teacup, as if  it were whispering secrets to him, brows furrowed.   

“Perhaps it is selfish of me to say it, but I  did not wish t o find my self  in a position where I might have to  take the life of  a dear friend ,” he confessed. “That is why I am so relieved  to be here with you now,  accepting your  support.  I would not want to  be on the opposite side of the battlefield from you, Lorenz.”  

It was admirable, noble, and anything but selfish—what Ferdinand was doing. Fighting for his friends, for justice, even if it might upset his own carefully constructed place in society. And Lorenz couldn’t help but notice that, by joining him, he was doing the exact opposite.     

“Without your help, it’s going to be a slaughter,” Claude said, his voice taking on an unfamiliarly dark tone. “We’re not kids anymore; this isn’t a game or a mock battle. They’re going to  die , Lorenz.” 

“Even  with  my help it would be a slaughter,” said Lorenz. “They have a massive advantage; more troops, those dark mages, not to mention…” 

“…Teach.” 

“You  do  see, then?” he asked . “The odds are on the side of the Empire.  To fight them at all is foolish beyond compare.  It is  asking  to be slaughtered.” 

“Oh, I see alright,” Claude said, “I see I was wrong about you. Behind that faux noble mask you wear, you and your father really are what I’d always heard you were: cowards.” 

Lorenz met Claude with a glare, “It is not  cowardly  to know when to quit before you begin.  If you ask me, it is quite a bit  more  cowardly for  a general to send his so-called  friends  in to fight a battle he knows they cannot win, one he doesn’t even plan on partaking in himself.” 

“And what does that make  you ? Besides a doormat for the Empire?” Claude  asked,  poison dripping  from his lips . “ Oh, Emperor  Edelgard , welcome to  the Leicester Alliance , please feel free to trample  over  me and everyone I  care for with  your  blood-soaked boots. ” 

“Better to live a doormat than to die a  fool ,” Lorenz spat. “Do you ever think that perhaps some things aren’t worth fighting to the death over?” 

Claude shot up, slamming his hands on the garden table and knocking his chair over backwards, “Do you ever think that perhaps some things  are ?” 

The clatter of the chair on the landscaping startled the dogs, whose barks carried over the garden wall from the house. Claude stood firm, unwavering, hands braced on the table as he stared Lorenz down. They stand like that for a long moment, tension thick between them, as if daring the other to break his gaze first.  

It is Claude, finally, who breaks. “Fine,” he says, “I can see there’s no changing your mind.”  

He brushed his hands together, as if touching the Gloucester’s garden furniture has caused them to become dirty. Lorenz watched him go, golden cape flowing behind him. He paused just once, just on the edge of the garden in front of a trellis of flowers, and for a moment Lorenz thought he’d try to convince him one last time. But Claude only exhaled a sigh, looked back over his shoulder, and said, 

“Good luck living with yourself, Lorenz. I know I couldn’t.” 

And then he’s gone. 

-

Two months later, it’s over. The Alliance, or rather, what  used  to be the Alliance, is under Imperial control. For their support, the Gloucester household has been permitted to keep its territory, and to assume control of several others. Ferdinand has been by once more, on their way through to Derdriu, to thank them again for placing their trust in the Empire. Now he is somewhere in Faerghus, the war is on its last legs, and Lorenz is here, picking up its pieces.  

It is then that a package arrives at the manor, addressed to Lorenz. It contains no letter, no return address, only a variety of items—all of them stained or splattered with dried blood. 

A pair of round glasses. 

A geometrical pendant hanging from a thin rope necklace. 

A dark magic tome. 

A pair of hooped earrings.  

All wrapped in a black cape bearing the emblem of the Leicester Alliance. 

Lorenz wraps them back up with shaking hands and tears building in his eyes.  I will not cry , he tells himself,  they all made their choice .  I will not cry for anyone foolish enough to  stand in the way of the Imperial Army. 

And yet, he does.