Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

WYVERN QUEEN
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“The peasantry we interrogated informed me that we are trespassing lands belonging to Magister Plaekus of Volantis. There are regional authorities we could report to first, but the man who holds authority is nearly three days south from here by foot.” Hubert’s voice remained low and calm, without inflection. Edelgard knew from experience that Hubert only became this quiet when he was truly furious.

But then, that was hardly surprising, given the circumstances.

The purple-black smoke of Solon’s magic, the acrid scent that had flooded the air as he pronounced the words of the spell, the professor’s face as she turned on them in shock… that had been the last any of them had seen of Fodlan.

There had been darkness then, for a moment, and then suddenly they had been dropped here, in a vineyard where the sun bore down upon them like a hammer. From nighttime to daytime. Edelgard did not much like what that might signify. Nearly two hundred souls, with wyverns, spellbooks, horses, and gear had been transported by Solon’s spell. Caspar, Ferdinand, Dorothea… the best and the brightest the Empire had to offer, and dozens of men and women who had been under their command in the fight against Solon.

“Magister,” She repeated, bringing back her mind to the present. “That’s no title I have ever heard of.”

“Not a title of any of our southern neighbors,” Hubert agreed, “But they speak our language, if a strange dialect of it which is both convenient and... deeply disturbing.” Cold water filled her spine. Until now she had merely assumed that they were far, far from home, possibly on a continent of which they had never even heard, but... there were legends of persons transported to the far distant past or future. It seemed impossible, but she had to consider every possibility.

She wanted to curse, to spit, to tear out her hair and lay down and die. But she had a path to walk. She had people depending on her, a whole continent depending on her. And though they might be a thousand miles and a thousand years from anywhere she could recognize on a map, she would find a way to make her vision into a reality.

“Get me a wyvern.” She ordered. “I will see this Magister now. We need to get our bearings, we need time to establish ourselves. If I meet with him perhaps we can avoid conflict for the moment.”

"As your advisor, Lady Edelgard, I must ask you to consider if this is truly the best course of action. Cooperation with the locals has some advantages, but... a more violent approach might be merited as well. It may be in our best interest if the local authorities did not yet know we were here."

"You mean to support ourselves with simple banditry?" She did not allow any judgement to enter her tone. Hubert could be cold-blooded, but failing to consider his advice would be unwise.

"Two hundred men and women, fifty horses, and twenty wyverns. All these need food, lodging, and more." He said simply. "Simply taking what we need will require less time than begging or bartering for it, and will leave us with more time to find our way home."

"Bandits are always ultimately hunted down and killed," Edelgard replied, "And we have no idea of the capability of the locals."

Hubert chuckled darkly. "We are a very elite force, my Lady."

It was true, she knew. The finest the Empire had to offer were here with her now. Looking out over the silent vineyards of the land they found herself in, she found it hard to believe that this land could raise a force that could effectively hunt them. She could see hills in the distance, hills that could hide a skilled group of bandits for decades. It would be a bloody path to carve, a path where they had to kill to survive, over and over, but how different was that from what she had already committed to do? Guilt weighed heavy on her heart, and she shook her head.

"We are elite," she agreed firmly. "And that will make it easy for us to find work as mercenaries." She would walk the bloody path, but not now. Not yet.

“As you command, Lady Edelgard...” He paused a moment. “But you will not go unguarded. A few of our most excellent warriors. Ferdinand, Petra, Caspar... they can all take wyverns of their own and follow you. Shall I send for them?"

“I’ll ask them myself,” Edelgard stated. She could not order anyone, not now. Her rank would mean next to nothing out here in this strange land. If the Black Eagles followed her, it would be because she had won them to her side, not because her father sat the throne of Adrestia. Her heart rose in her throat. She had not expected to test their loyalty so soon.

Ferdinand had taken over a role of leadership among the battalions. He sat proudly on the back of his warhorse, issuing commands with his fine baritone voice. Men and women were cutting banners to pieces, stitching them together into makeshift tents with lances for support. He had ordered them to make camp, Edelgard realized with a pang of horror. Ferdinand had taken command of her army.

“Who told you to make camp?” She kept her tone as light as possible to hide her anger. “I believe I would remember if I had given you such an order.”

“Ah, Edelgard!” Ferdinand’s orange eyes smiled in reply, “You remember correctly. You did not order me to do anything at all! But it is self-evident that making camp is what we must do. Though it is daytime here, it was nighttime when we left Fodlan and we have just come from a battle besides. Surely you cannot mean to say that you intend for us to march from here?”

She paused. Everything Ferdinand had said was correct. Of course it was. Ferdinand Von Aegir had always been monstrously talented. That was why she had to be careful with him. Her own father, the Emperor of Adrestia, had become a prisoner in his own home after underestimating the Von Aegir family, and Edelgard did not intend to repeat her father’s mistakes.

“Of course we should make camp,” Edelgard allowed, “If there’s any local response to our appearance it will not come for a day or two and we should rest while we can. But there’s something else I need you for. Come.”

It was greatly to her satisfaction that Ferdinand followed her without further question. “We’re going to see the lord of these lands,” she explained.

“Ah!” Ferdinand said with a smile. “And you require someone skilled in the art of diplomacy at your side.”

“Not just that. You know how to ride a wyvern and we need to speak to this man immediately. If I merely wanted someone who could be diplomatic, I would be asking Dorothea.”

His smile fractured for the barest of moments, no doubt stinging from the implication that a commoner would be more useful than himself in a diplomatic venture. He rallied a second later, as he always did. “I wish to deny your choice, but you are not incorrect. Her skills in the art of conversation rival my own.”

“Where is Petra? I want to have as many of the Black Eagles there as we can, and I will be glad of her sword arm if we have to fight. The three of us should be able to fight our way out any local lord’s house if we must.”

“She is just over there,” Ferdinand replied, his smile flashing. “But only the three of us? If you wish to have as many of our house present, would there not be a fourth?”

“Caspar knows how to sit a wyvern, but I would rather have him here.” Caspar Bergliez was a short-tempered brawler who compensated for his lack of height by making himself as loud as possible. Edelgard valued him as a friend and as a fighter, but she did not want him anywhere near a diplomatic venture. She felt confident that Caspar would agree with that evaluation.

Ferdinand shook his head, “No, it was Flayn of whom I was thinking. Despite her lack of martial interest, she is a talented aerialist, and we would do well to have such a skilled healer in our party.”

Edelgard paused, her heartbeat quickening. Flayn. A flood of guilt threatened to rise up within her. The girl had joined the Black Eagles just a few months ago, and Edelgard had not yet thought through the implications of her presence here with them. With the exception of Hubert and herself, all the Eagles thought Flayn to be little more than she appeared to be: A sheltered, kind girl of perhaps fifteen, nothing more or less. Edelgard knew the truth. The creature called Flayn was not human, not remotely. The church had placed her in their house for reasons Edelgard could only guess at. Perhaps she was here to be a spy, or as an assassin. She was ancient, centuries-old at least, and every aspect of her human appearance was a carefully calculated lie. Still, as Edelgard saw her, smiling and laughing at one of Caspar’s jokes… she could not help what her foolish heart felt for the girl. Guilt for what she had done to Flayn already. Guilt for what she planned to do in the near future.

“Of course, my mistake,” Edelgard admitted, shaking off her dark mood. She could not allow Flayn or the others to suspect what she knew, especially not now. Edelgard had to assume that the creature would assist them for as long as they were away from Fodlan. “You are correct. Flayn should come with us as well. You see to her, I will get Petra.”

“I am more than happy to oblige.”

She only nodded in reply, allowing Ferdinand to leave. Even amongst a party of two hundred men and women, finding Petra was no challenge. The girl’s straight-backed posture and long purple braid would have identified her anywhere.

“Lady Edelgard,” Petra stated politely, bowing only slightly at her approach.

“Petra. We are going to meet with the local leadership. I would be grateful to have you by my side.”

“I am being grateful that you should ask me,” Petra replied. Fodlan was her second language, and her speech was still stilted and uncertain. “Only... I am confusion, Lady Edelgard. I am not a noble of the Empire.”

“We are very far from home. The people here have never heard of Adrestia or Brigid, so for the moment we must consider ourselves as one people.”

Petra smiled. “One people? I am liking that idea. But I am frustration about the language here. I am hearing that the people of this place are speaking Fodlan. Why should they not be speaking Brigid?”

Edelgard smiled in spite of herself. “That fact concerns me as well. If they were speaking Brigid I would know why I do not recognize the terrain. But come, let us find our wyverns.”

Hubert had gathered the wyverns in the center of the camp, all twenty of them, wings bound and legs chained. Edelgard paused for half a moment before going in to see them.

Petra laughed at her. “This hesitation is not promising, Lady Edelgard.”

Edelgard sighed. Petra was right, of course. A wyvern could be made to accept a rider over time, but they never became tame. Every new rider would have to prove themselves, a process that usually took days if not weeks. None of her classmates had been on wyverns when Solon dropped them here, so they would be borrowing mounts from the enlisted men. That meant that each of them would have to break in a wyvern right here and now on the first attempt, something only done by experts or madmen. Which was she, an expert or a madwoman? Perhaps she was both.

“Thank you for accepting my request, Petra,” Edelgard stated. “You know the dangers and yet you still agreed without question.”

Petra smiled. “I am knowing the dangers. I am also knowing that you need my help now more than ever.”

Edelgard nodded, setting her ax aside as she stepped into the ring. A black-scaled juvenile caught her eye first, and she walked toward it without hesitation, keeping its great yellow eyes firmly locked with her own. You could not truly appreciate how massive a wyvern was until you were close to one, until you could feel the heat of their breath. The juvenile lunged forward suddenly. No time to think. Heat flared in her heart and she leapt straight up, just as the beast’s mouth would have closed on her, slamming her heel into its nose as she fell, pinning it to the ground beneath her. The muscle’s in a wyvern’s neck were weak, and even her own small weight would be enough to hold it down. It writhed uncomfortably for perhaps a moment, and then lay still as an attendant came by to hand her the reigns. Edelgard allowed herself to sigh with relief. Another victory. Another step forward.

“I’ve never seen it done like that before!” Flayn’s cheery voice called out from above, and Edelgard squinted up to see that the green-haired girl was sitting proudly atop a great old brown-skinned wyvern, one of the oldest and crankiest of the lot. “You are so mighty, Edelgard, you move with such power!”

Edelgard sighed, her crests still radiating with energy after their activation moments ago. The power in her blood was addictive, all-consuming. She did not like to depend upon it. “ I did not manage it as cleanly as I would like,” she admitted, “Not as cleanly as you’ve seemed to manage.”

“Oh I’ve always been good with Wyverns, you know,” she reached down to scratch the old monster behind its ears. “My brother is even better.”

And why was that Flayn? Because you and your brother are closer kin to wyverns than to humans? Edelgard did not trust herself to say anything.

“Edelgard, I was speaking with Hubert and,” Flayn paused mid-statement. “He said that the farmers he spoke with were slaves.”

Edelgard frowned. Slavery had been forbidden in Fodlan since time immemorial, as a core teaching of the church of Seiros. Edelgard was no friend of the church, but to some extent she was grateful for their influence on this matter. Slavery was the highest evil, the thing she despised more than any other. Edelgard had not even considered what sort of barbaric hellhole they might have been dropped into. Slavery was common enough in other countries, why should she not expect to find it here?

“There’s nothing we can do about it for now Flayn,” She said the words. She knew it was true. Most of the slaves would not want to be freed, in all likelihood. What would they have to offer them? The life of a bandit? There was nothing they could do about it. That was true. But she wished in her heart it were otherwise. “Once we have our bearings we will talk about what we can do in our time here, but for now I want to get a look at whoever is ruling this area.”

They were in the air within an hour, soaring high on waves of heat rising from the ground. Vineyards and olive groves and fields of wheat passed below them, and the reality of their situation began to sink in for her. Not for the first time, she cursed Solon and his entire species. He had been trying to aim for the Professor, for Byleth, but something had gone wrong with the spell. Fool. She hoped Byleth had killed him.

She identified the residence of Magister Plaekus from miles away, a shining blue-domed pearl in a background of browns and greens. The structure was essentially a cube, with equal length, breadth, and depth, surrounded on all sides by a lush garden. Edelgard wondered how he got all that water up to the top of the hill. She had an uncomfortable feeling the answer involved massive amounts of slave labor.

The descent began, her party of wyverns circling to earth like great vultures, and she had ample opportunity to study the ground below her. The mansion was far larger and more luxurious than she had initially thought, large enough to house several hundred at once, with hundreds more doubtless employed in the stables, warehouses, blacksmiths, and bakeries at the base of the hill. Etching and sculpture decorated every inch of the grounds of the mansion itself, and she could spy the figures of gods and goddesses peeking out from the leafy boughs of the garden.

Until now she had dismissed these locals as barbarians, she realized. Less sophisticated than Almyra or Dagda. After all, what people could call themselves civilized and still allow slavery? She wanted to laugh at herself. Had she not always scorned the people of Fodlan for being so convinced of their own superiority? Yet she had fallen into the same traps. No, slavery was evil, but evil men could be civilized too. She should not treat the rulers of this land so lightly.

Below them, men were scrambling, hurrying to ready themselves for what must look like a raid or an invasion. When they landed in the town square, a small army of men and horses. A tall, olive-skinned man wearing fine silk over scale rode in front, and he raised his hand in greeting. Edelgard pulled up hard on her reins and stood up in the saddle.

“I am Edelgard Von Hresvelg,” She pronounced, stuttering a moment as she remembered none of her titles would mean anything here. She was nothing, she was void, she had nothing but her own talents and abilities to guide her here. “Leader of the Black Eagles mercenary company. We come in peace. The bulk of my company is three days hence, and I have come to ask Magister Plaekus for the right of peaceful passage through his lands.”

And if they will not give peace, Edelgard thought with dread, then I must give them war.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: To Work
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“We’ve found them,” Caspar announced, almost falling off his wyvern in eagerness to tell her the news. “They’re still stopped for resupply on the other side of the island. It’s just as we’d hoped!”

“Are we sure it’s the pirates we’ve been hired to target?” Edelgard had enough blood on her hands without wreaking vengeance on unsuspecting merchants.

“The ships are matching the drawings that we were given,” Petra replied. “The prow of the greatest of them has the carving of a harpy on the front, and the sides of the ships are colored with blackness just as we were told.”

“What are their numbers?”

“There’s like a hundred armed men on the shore, and something like double that number of galley slaves,” Caspar said, “But I couldn’t count them, not without getting close enough that they might have noticed me.”

Edelgard drew in a slight breath. Galley slaves. Their employer counted the galley slaves among the “stolen property” that the Black Eagles were to retrieve. These pirates had been sailors three months ago, freemen and slaves in service to a Volantene Triarch. For whatever reason, they had gone pirate, mutinied against their masters, and taken to raiding the coast. The former owner of the ship had offered a generous bounty, and Edelgard had leaped at the chance. Now, though, she questioned if it was worth it. After all, what would she be doing besides returning freed slaves to their masters?

But these were pirates, she reminded herself. Pirates who murdered and tortured all who passed they could find. Rough, evil men, who would take free crews and sell them into slavery. The galley slaves would be no less free for their involvement. She had never balked at the destruction of such rough persons before, why should she now? If she had been commanded to kill all the galley slaves for their complicit support of the pirates, would she have stopped then?

No. She could not, would not stop. She would not accept the meager pay they received as retainers and try to slowly build up wealth by haggling and economy. Wealth meant freedom in Volantis, it meant power, and without power, she would never find a way home, never be able to protect her own from harm. If that meant taking on unsavory work like retrieving a crew of ‘stolen’ slaves, then she would do it, and do it happily. She had done worse.

“I take it the slaves were left on the ship?” She said.

"Chained to the oars,” Petra replied.

“Good. That will make this easier.”

She had only brought a tithe of her strength to bear for this battle. A small number of imperial mages and two heavily armored pavise battalions. Thirty souls, less than a third the number of the pirates, but they would be more than enough. Transporting more to this island would have cut into their profits, would have required her to pull personnel from other tasks she had taken on as leader of the Black Eagles.

The sun baked them as they marched, roasting them in their armor. The soldiers did not complain, however. These were men of the empire who had trained in the far south near Enbarr, and they were accustomed to such conditions, much more than some of the other mercenaries that had been pulled to this world with them. Edelgard was glad to have brought these with her.

The trees were thick and packed in close as they came down the hillside, and by the time they saw the pirates they were nearly upon them. The three galleys used by the pirates were at anchor in the tiny cove, while most of the crew had come ashore to gather water and food and wood for repairs. There was no order, no system to their camp, just a mass of boxes and men and drink, as though some great sea-beast had vomited them onto the beach.

The enemy was already in motion to receive them, dropping tools and picking up weapons to form a line on the beach. So they had decided to fight. No doubt they hoped to protect their supplies that they had brought onto the beachhead with them. Their mistake. Flight would have served them better, although, in the end, it would not make any difference. Edelgard would destroy them one way or another.

There was no parlay, no attempt at peace. Pirates only negotiated when they had the upper hand when they were holding the threat of torture and death over their enemies. But the pirates knew as well as Edelgard did that surrender would only mean death by hanging in the docks of Volantis. They intended to fight to the last man, and Edelgard intended to oblige them.

“Mages!” She cried, and fire arced into the assembling lines of pirates, exploding and burning a dozen of them before the fight even began. The enemy charged and Edelgard’s force held their ground, heavy pavise shields forming a wall against the enemy’s archers. This was the core of the Imperial war doctrine. Superior artillery to force the enemy to approach, and heavy infantry to weather the enemy assault until the battle was won.

Edelgard met the tip of the enemy’s charge personally, her crests setting her body on fire with power as she threw a full-grown man into the dirt with a single push of her shield. Another tried to get close but she took the blow on her armor and cut him in two with a single blow of her ax. These men had hopes, had dreams, but it could not matter. Her dream was stronger, and it would prevail.

A light-skinned brute managed to get a sword under her guard and stagger her backward, but her crests burned hotter and she threw him back with a single kick. The enemy was breaking already, she realized, running for their ship, trampling their allies in the rush to get away from the invincible wall of shields and spears. Her mages loosed their magic again, burning dozens as they ran.

The first of them were getting to the boats, getting to freedom. They could row out to the galleys, row out to the safety of the ships, find somewhere to rebuild.

No.

Caspar swooped down, low and fast, his black wyvern’s talons crushing one of the boats in a single strike. Petra came right behind, capsizing another boat with a single contemptuous tail-flick before circling and landing on the deck of one of the ships. The mages loosed their magic for a third and final time, and yet another boat went up in flames.

She would prevail, she promised herself. No matter what difficulty presented itself, she would crush all in her path.

****

The colors of the market always delighted Dorothea. A riot of yellows and oranges and greens filled the square, coloring booths filled with fruits and cloth and steel. Outside the great black walls of the inner city, Volantis was a place of light and life and filth and Dorothea loved every minute of it. Whatever terrors this world held, Dorothea at least would enjoy the raw sensation and energy of this place...

...However unpleasant the company was.

“This market does not have fish of an acceptable freshness!” Ferdinand cried. “I am most distressed!”

“Surely we can get some other form of meat, Ferdy. I saw cuts of pork a few shops back.”

“Pork? For wyverns!” Ferdinand laughed, “No, that particular item is not one on which we will be compromising. I am afraid we must search farther afield.”

Dorothea merely nodded. It would do no good to argue with him, not on a matter like this. Ferdinand was a scion of the greatest noble house in the empire and was used to having things his own way. Of course, at the moment he was nothing more than a talented, well-equipped mercenary, but that had done little to shake his annoying confidence.

“I know that you hate me,” Ferdinand said, surprising her from her reverie with a flash of his smile. “But I had thought you would not object to spending more time in the markets.”

Dorothea rolled her eyes. “I was just worried you would drag us out of here before I had a proper chance to browse. I like to shop for more things than provisions and weapons, you know.” She smiled and dropped a coin into the hat of a nearby street performer who played a fascinating little flute the likes of which she had never seen before.

“So long as I have your excellent company, Dorothea, I have no objection to such an endeavor.”

The sun had risen high in the sky by the time they made it down to the wharves where fresher produce was brought in. Compared with the chaotic sensuality of the markets higher uptown, the wharves were relatively clean and plain.

Except for the people, who were even more varied and colorful than further up in the city. It was too much to take in. Squat, bowlegged men with pointed heads mixed with flat-faced, copper-skinned women and tall pale figures who she knew now to be merchants from the city of Qarth. The wares were less exciting, but at least Ferdinand was able to requisition his fish, and afterward he was more than happy to let her explore.

“Ferdy, what do you make of this shawl? I think it would be most helpful to be able to blend in with the locals, and I think this one is most...” her voice trailed off as she realized Ferdinand was ignoring her. She was not mad at him for that, not really, but she was curious. For all his flaws, he had never lacked in attentiveness toward her.

Now his eyes were fixed on a faraway point, an auction block at the far end of the market… Then Dorothea saw it, the men and women they were bringing up to the block to be sold. They were as diverse and colorful as the rest of the people on the wharf, but it was a little brown-haired boy that caught her eye. She averted her gaze to look back at Ferdinand, and with a shock, she realized that her companion was trembling.

“Not here,” she urged, “Not now.”

“I am aware,” Ferdinand replied hotly, “I am aware of our situation. But this is not something I easily bear. It is not in my nature to stand idly by while...”

“I know.”

And she did. She understood. She had something in common with him, with Ferdinand Von Aegir. They had both spent their youth in Enbarr, she as an orphaned street rat, he as the son of the most powerful man in the Empire, but here in another world where nothing was familiar and nearly everyone she talked to was a slave or slaver... Here they might as well be family.

“We cannot do anything, not now. That’s why Edelgard is working us so hard, so that we can get money, get influence, to really make a difference.”

“I could do something now,” Ferdinand’s jaw was set. “I have gold. I could go up there, buy out half the auction block. Make them free, and give them a choice to work for the company. Train them to fight, even.”

“Oh, Ferdy. You know that won’t work. All you’ll be doing is giving those slavers some more business and driving up the prices at the auction. If anything you’d encourage more slavers to get into the business because you’ll have made it more profitable. Something like that just won’t work.”

Ferdinand frowned. “I am aware of these concerns, Dorothea, but you fail to see my true intention. Slavers are terrified of their slaves. That is why so many beat their slaves brutally. It is not to make them work harder, after all, a beating will only injure a slave and make them incapable of work. No, they beat them because they fear what would happen if their slaves realized that they can hold weapons as well as any man. A few former slaves who can fight, who can earn wealth for themselves and know how to read and write? That would undercut everything this rotten city is built on.”

“My, Ferdy, that sounds almost revolutionary of you.”

“It is the duty of nobility to guard the people and watch over them. This… rampant exploitation goes directly after everything I have ever believed.”

“I’m no noble, but I agree well enough with that as a goal. Still, it seems impossible to know what to do. Half the time the people doing the beating are other slaves, and the army is mostly slaves too. Whatever possible thing I think to do, it only seems like it will make things worse.”

“Even so,” said Ferdinand, “I will not stand idle forever.”

****

“How is morale?”

It is a question Edelgard has asked Hubert a thousand times if she has asked him once.

“No defections since you left a week ago,” Hubert chuckled. “Nobody seems eager to try their luck on the streets of Volantis.”

“You know that is not what I mean.”

Hubert sighed and shuffled his paperwork. Dark circles had begun to form under his eyes. Hubert had been stressed and overworked for months before they had come here, and his load had gotten no lighter in the days since. “No serious fights, not while Caspar has been away. But Ferdinand has been getting dangerous. He talks increasingly of expanding our company, of...”

"It might not be the worst idea.”

Hubert sneered. “You damn him with faint praise, Lady Edelgard. Perhaps we could come up with a worse idea if we tried, but Ferdinand's notion would nonetheless lead to all of our deaths. Training slaves and arming them would attract the attention of one of the tetrarchs. This city has not survived this long by tolerating sedition within its midst.”

“We cannot continue as we are, however,” Edelgard said. “Our group is straining, cracking at the seams, and every merchant in this city is trying to force us into bankruptcy so that they can buy our wyverns from us. We’re a profitable venture for now, but that will not last for long.”

Hubert smirked, and it was then that she knew she had been had. He had baited her, tricked her into describing their position so hopelessly. He had intentionally set her up to say those things so that she would accept whatever proposal he had in mind.

“Alright, Hubert, tell me what you have in mind.”

“A long-term, high-risk contract,” Hubert says. “Not in Volantis. Yunkai. To the East. One of the Wise Masters of that fair city reached out to me. They have fears of a conqueror coming from the south, you see, one who has a set of pet dragons. Well, they are called dragons, but from what I gather they are nothing more than fire-breathing wyverns. They have some hopes that we might act as a fitting counter to this ‘Mother of Dragons’ and her pets, and they are willing to pay handsomely up front.”

“That would seem to fix none of our issues except for our monetary ones. Yunkai is by all accounts even worse than Volantis.”

“You are correct as always, Lady Edelgard. But there is one thing I have not told you yet,” Hubert’s smirk widened into his full shark’s smile. “The other title of this young conqueror is the ‘Breaker of Chains’.”

Chapter Text

Edelgard kept her eyes glued to the horizon, determined to ignore the rocking of the ship beneath her. Crossing from Volantis to Yunkai had proved to be a harrowing experience, made worse by Edelgard’s fear of the sea. She had never learned to swim, that was part of it. But another part, she thought, was that the utter darkness of the deep ocean terrified her, reminded her too much of the darkness outside her cell that she had stared into every day for so many years.

“Lady Edelgard, are you well?” Hubert said, appearing at her side. “They say that a storm is approaching.”

“I am well,” Edelgard replied, breathing in slightly as the ship rolled with a particularly large wave. “We will be in Yunkai in a few hours, and this entire voyage will be put behind us.”

“That is true.”

Hubert let the silence hang for a moment. Edelgard knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to say that he had told her so, that he had told her to finish the journey on wyvernback while he managed the voyage. She could have skipped the last week with one day of hard flying, and avoided all this discomfort and trouble. But Edelgard would not abandon her troops. She would suffer everything they suffered. That was the least she could do, given what she asked of them.

“Might I distract you with an amusing anecdote?” Hubert’s voice held that rare note of true amusement and Edelgard smiled. “This place, men in Volantis called it Slaver’s Bay. Did you not think that odd?”

“Not particularly. The Volantenes are insular lackwits who have no notion of anything that goes on outside their own black walls. What do the locals call it?”

“They call it the Bay of Ghis. You see, there was once a great empire here, an empire that rivaled Valyria itself. The Volantenes call it Slaver’s Bay to cover up that proud history, to pretend as if it never happened.”

“Insecurity.”

“Indeed. I stumbled on a particularly interesting text, one that suggested that after winning the war with Old Ghis, Valyria adopted nearly all of their cultures throughout the empire. I wonder if that’s why the Volantenes are so eager to downplay the history of their old rival?” Hubert chuckled. “The idea that the Ghiscari were the ones to civilize Valyria… that’s something they could never allow to be contemplated.”

Edelgard frowned. “Those who always look to the past will soon find that they have no future. The march of history does not wait for men.”

“Yet? Was it too small a thing for you to upend one continent? Must you reforge this continent as well?”

“Are you doubting me?”

Hubert smiled and looked out at the approaching horizon. “Never.”

***

The wharves stank of fish and dung when they landed, men and beasts crowding about at the side of the docks to get a closer view at their approaching vessels and the great scaled beasts that currently rested atop them. The walls and the docks were formed of crumbling yellow stone, replaced with clay or wood wherever the ancient stonework had turned to dust. One young man lost his footing and fell screaming into the water.

Over all the chaos reigned the Harpy, a monstrous statue that loomed above the docks. The beast had the torso and head of a naked woman but had bat wings in place of arms, eagle talons in place of legs, and a scorpion’s tail trailing out behind. Edelgard wondered if such a monster had ever haunted these hills or if it was just a contrivance of heraldry. The only monsters in this place now were the human kind.

A band of armed slaves cleared the area of gawkers as a wide palanquin came forward, born by twelve strong men. Their employer had come to meet them directly, then, or one of his chief officials. Their crew strained and pulled to bring the ship into port.

A silk-dressed slave with a collar of gold stepped down from the palanquin to greet them as they came down the gangplank. “My Wise Master, Yezzan Mo Qaggaz, bids you welcome to the Yellow City, Edelgard of Hresvelg. I am Mekkah, the Honored Seneschal of his wisdom, and I will be your overseer in your time here in the Yellow City.”

She curtsied, slightly, though it went against her every instinct to do so. “I must thank the Wise Master for the opportunity to serve.” She paused. “Please forgive my barbarian’s ways, Seneschal. I am a foreigner to these parts and know little of your customs.”

The Seneschal laughed. “Oh, you need not worry about that, for Wise Yezzan is a great lover of all things foreign and strange, and he has already resolved to spoil you with entertainment and luxury in his pleasure garden. He even grants you the honor of a private audience with him, that you may tell him of yourself and your mercenary company.”

Edelgard allowed her eyebrows to rise in surprise. Their employer had taken a particular interest in them, it seemed. She had not expected such a thing. Yezzan Mo Qaggaz had more gold and larger fleets than any of the other Masters. He was no petty merchant, no trader of cheap goods, and certainly not someone who should be troubling himself with a small band of mercenaries. Hubert sensed the strangeness of it as well. His posture had become tenser, more rigid. Not for the first time, she felt gratitude that her strong left hand remained by her side.

“We are honored,” she replied, sure to not let her uncertainty into her voice. This was an opportunity if she played her cards correctly. She had no intention of seriously working with the slavers against Daenerys Targaryen, the Breaker of Chains, but Yunkai was an enormous, ancient city,. and the more she knew of it the more abley she could betray its masters to this conquering hero.

Unless this Daenerys offered only bondage by a different name. Then Edelgard would have to betray both the Wise Masters and their enemy. She was surprised by how little the prospect of fighting the entire continent scared her.

After a few more pleasantries, the party marched up toward Yezzan’s pleasure palace, drawing stares at every turn, more than they had earned even in Volantis. The wyverns, of course, drew the most interest, and more than once one of the soldiers had to discourage a street urchin from getting too close to them. But it was not only their mounts that drew attention. Even among the diverse streets of Yunkai, two hundred pale-skinned Fodlani stuck out sharply. The Ghiscari themselves were a bronze-skinned people with hair ranging from black to dark red in color, every one of them wearing an iron color. The other races were harder to identify. She knew that the tall, pale men were from Qarth and that the white-haired merchants hailed from Volantis, but the rest were harder to place.

“Lady Edelgard,” Hubert’s voice cut in from the side. “I will never be far from you during your private talks with this Yezzan. Know that you may call on me to move you to safety in the case of an emergency.”

Edelgard knew better than to forbid him from this. Hubert was more than capable of disobeying her orders when he thought it served her best interest.

The pleasure palace itself was a stepped pyramid built of the same yellow stone as the walls but freshly repaired and with intricate carvings and murals placed in the side. As houses went, it was not even half the size of the Imperial Palace in Enbarr, but still, Edelgard could appreciate the wealth of their employer. This was no mere merchant. This man was a Lord of Yunkai in all but name.

The pleasure garden was no less luxurious, with singers and harpists and all manner of entertainment. For her part, Edelgard enjoyed none of it. Slaves, they were all slaves. The grotesques, the bed-warmers, the performers, they all wore collars. Some were of silver, some were of gold, but no servant was without. Did some of them want to be there? Did they smile for joy, or for fear that they would be abused if they dared to be sad in their masters’ presence?

The Seneschal ushered Edelgard into a private garden, where Yezzan Mo Qaggaz awaited her.

The man was yellow. Yellow, and obese beyond reason, stinking strongly of urine and shit. Even the whites of his eyes had been stained until they were nearly the same color as his unhealthy skin. He quivered and sweated in the heat, soaking his rich silks despite the slave attendants who fanned him constantly. Edelgard swallowed the urge to gag in the man’s presence.

“You honor me,” she said with a small bow. “I had not expected to be so distinguished.”

“Please,” the man wheezed, gesturing to a nearby bench. “Take a seat, and do not concern yourself overmuch with decorum... I have no time to be concerned with such things.”

He was dying, she realized, and had been for a long time. “You wanted to hear of my mercenary company?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “You may not think it possible, looking at me now, but I was once a well-traveled man. I have seen wyverns before this, flying off the coast of Sothoryos. I even tried to capture and tame one, but…” He laughed, but the smile did not touch his eyes. “I instead became sick with my current disease. When word of you and your sellswords first came to my ears, I thought that I must bring you over to Yunkai and learn of your methods," He sighed. "That was before this business with the Dragon Queen began."

“The process is not simple,” Edelgard admitted. “The beasts have to be raised from the egg, and magic needs to be skillfully employed to ensure they grow healthy and strong in captivity.”

Yezzan shifted slightly, wincing in pain as though the movement cost him. “Sorcery?” He clicked his tongue. “I should have known this would be required. The beasts of Sothoryos, they are not tamed by mortal means. What manner of magi do you employ? Shadowbinders? Warlocks? Firemages? We here in the East are not so unused to sorcery as the Volantenes.”

The words were unfamiliar to Edelgard, who had been trained to think of magic as white, black, or dark. Would dark magic be shadow magic? But then, perhaps these were merely different schools of magic? She was overthinking her answer. She need not overexert herself in this conversation, “We have sorcerers of many varieties amongst our number, but the potion we use is no deep or secret art. Even so, a wyvern is never tame, not truly.”

“Perhaps because they are so intelligent?”

Edelgard’s mouth opened to speak and then closed again.

The yellow giant chuckled quietly. “You had something to say?”

“I merely thought it odd,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “I would have expected a Wise Master to believe nothing truly untameable, no matter how intelligent.” Her eyes went to the purple-haired servant standing by Yezzan’s side, fanning him loyally.

“Because of my slaves?” He shook his head. “Yes, I suppose that is a fair thing to think. Many of the Masters, they will say as you have said. They view their slaves with fear and beat them and try to crush their spirit. Malazza and Paezhar care only for their soldiers and treat all else with contempt. Grazdan beats his slaves himself, and if none has done wrong he will find one to beat for the sake of his own exercise.”

Yezzan clicked his tongue. “And they call themselves the Wise Masters. Pah! We should call them the Foolish Masters. Men are not tame, and you cannot make them so, not by torture. What man becomes truly loyal to their torturer? This thing, it does not happen. Perhaps, a slave might change their behavior, might do as you wish, but their spirit will always remain free. The lowest slaves will be as lazy as they can be without getting beat, the overseers will rob you blind when you are not watching, and the seneschal will smother you with your pillows.”

“You are rich and can afford largesse. The poorer masters have to take harder measures to hold onto power.”

“And how do you think that is? How is it that I became the richest of all the Masters of Yunkai? Because I starved my slaves and threatened them with death? Ha! I fed them well, I sent healers to them when they were sick, and if I had to trade them, I always sold their families along with them and got them a better position than the one they were leaving. You prove yourself to your wyverns? I prove myself to my slaves, and they serve me well in exchange. Look at me. I am rotting from the inside out and cannot move without twelve strong men to lift me. Could I rule by terror? Yet I rule nonetheless, and those who are mine will not let this Daenerys break their chains so long as they draw breath.”

This conversation had become dangerous. She could feel her hand creeping toward the haft of her ax, her Crests humming with the expectation of a fight. He painted a rosy picture, Edelgard thought. His kindness was an affectation, something done to calm the masses, to prevent them from open revolt. It was an act, a performance, a lie that only worked because of the ever-present threat that if he died his slaves would be sold to worse masters. There were always elements like him in any degenerate society. Lords who were kinder than they had to be and were praised for it. How much better if there was no need for kindness at all?

“I am only a simple sellsword and I know little of the ways of slave keeping,” Edelgard replied. She must end this conversation before she said something she regretted.

“Oh?” Yezzan said, “You do not find our conversation of interest?”

“I only am surprised that my Wise Master would take the time to explain himself to one such as I.”

“One such as you? What do you think you are to me?”

“A mercenary.”

The great Yezzan leaned further into his cushions and sighed. “When I was a young man I dreamed of seeing the wonders of the earth, of seeing Asshai and singing with the shadowbinders, of climbing to the top of the Hightower and pissing in the wind… but now, though I am still not old and my mind has not left me, I find myself dying and incapable of travel. What more can I do, than to bring the wonders of the world to my doorstep, and hope to forget death?” Tears sparkled in his yellow-black eyes. “You have let me see wyverns dancing in the wind again, Edelgard of Volantis, and so I must consider you a friend.”

***

Hubert was well aware of the effect he had upon people. If anything he relied upon it, did his best to accentuate it. He was dark, handsome, tall, and his irises had no pupils. He kept to the outdated fashion of plucking his eyebrows, purely because of how it unsettled people. At the officer’s academy, he had been constantly bemused by the attempts of Dorothea or Ferdinand to counsel him, to advise him on how to charm others, how to make friends. As if he needed such things. Perhaps it was better to be loved than feared, but Hubert had never had the time for it.

“I come seeking the one they call the Titan’s Bastard,” he insisted, leaning over the footman of the Second Sons company. “Inform him that the Black Eagles wish to speak with him.”

The footman scurried off and Hubert found himself smiling. A million miles away from any recognizable landmark they may be, but he still had his power of command. His fingers touched the side of the tome he wore attached to his belt. He had that too if the need arose.

As he waited he considered what he knew of the man he was about to approach. The leader of the Sons was a giant of a man, half a foot taller than Hubert himself, with a great long beard of reddish gold.
The stories Hubert had heard around the city painted an evil picture. The man was a brigand, a braggart, and a fool of the worst description. Mero was his name, though most called him the Titan’s Bastard, or sometimes just ‘The Bastard.’ He had taken the Sons, an ancient and honorable company, and turned them into untrustworthy blackguards.

The Second Sons had not been allowed inside the city, for reasons obvious to anyone who knew of their recent history. The mercenaries had cultivated a reputation of atrocity and treachery. Desperate men hired them to lay waste to the peasantry of their enemies, to commit rape and murder against an entire kingdom.

For Hubert’s purposes, they were essentially perfect.

“The Bastard will see you now,” a footman stated. “He said he’ll have your head if you’re wasting his time.”

“How frightening.”

The tent of the Bastard was a rainbow swirl of a thousand colors. Hubert entered to find Mero completely naked, sitting on the side of a cot where two girls, slaves, were attempting to retain their modesty by wrapping themselves in silken sheets.

“Aw, I was hoping it was that pretty little mistress of yours that was coming,” Mero laughed. “Would have made the negotiations so much more enjoyable.” The giant rose to drink wine from a golden flute.

“Lady Edelgard has greater matters to attend to than negotiations with a coarse brigand,” Hubert replied. “As for me, I have matters to discuss that would best not be overheard by bedslaves.” Bedslaves. The word tasted like sulfur on his tongue. Hubert had long ago consigned his soul to the eternal flames, but he would not consider himself to bear any regrets so long as he was able to pull a few such as these with him.

The Bastard pulled the flute of wine from his lips. “You heard the fucker,” he said to the girls, “Get clear. I’d hoped to share both of you with a pretty Volantene wench, but that will have to wait.”

“You’ve seen the host of the Dragon Queen?” Hubert said. He did not allow himself to watch the women as they left. They were unimportant and he needed his focus. The Bastard had done this on purpose to unsettle him, to make him stare and stammer and blush. But Hubert could easily ignore such things. He had eyes for no man or woman save his Lady.

“Of course I have seen her host,” The Bastard said, laughing. “Ten thousand weak eunuchs wearing the same arms and armor that Ghis fought Valyria with thousands of years ago. They say the Unsullied do not route, but I would wager they still bleed, and bravery alone will not turn back our spears.” The Bastard reclined upon a chair, still naked as the day he was born, beard flowing over his chest like a river of flame.

“Ten thousand is still ten thousand,” Hubert replied, “Between the Sons and the Eagles we have less than a tenth their number, and as for the forces of Yunkai… I cannot imagine that fighting with chained feet makes for effective warriors.”

Three of the Wise Masters deployed their slave soldiers in just such a fashion. Hordes of dirty, chained farmers carrying spears and shields. They would be slaughtered like cattle at the first crush then fall flat on their faces and die. It was a contemptible, cowardly strategy, and a useless one as well. Any competent enemy could simply outflank you with their light cavalry, and the slave soldiers would be worse than useless. Some of the other Wise Masters showed greater intelligence. Yezzan’s soldiers had armor and were trained to fight. Paezhar zo Myraq had a hobby of breeding freaks and had a cohort of men in plate that stood nearly eight feet tall. Mallaza had hired skilled commanders from the whole world around to improve her armies. But even with these, the defenders of Yunkai who could actually stand their ground were less than three thousands.

“I knew you Eagles let yourself be led by a woman,” the Bastard slurred, “but I did not think you were all little girls. Heh. It seems even I can be proved wrong.”

He was drunk, Hubert realized. “I was wrong as well. I came seeking a man and found only a fattened pig. There is no point discussing strategy with beasts, and so I will leave.”

“Go back to hide behind your girl general’s skirts, then,” the Bastard cursed, “Or have her come here and see if she can’t persuade me with that pretty little mouth of hers.” Mero stuck his tongue out and grabbed at his crotch suggestively.

Black rage boiled within him at this filth’s insolence, but he could only smile, and say “I will be sure to convey your regards to Lady Edelgard.”

He took his leave, passing through the camp like a storm. The Sons would have been a fine ally for a time, but they would find a different solution. Already the wheels of Hubert’s mind were turning, considering. He spied Mero’s lieutenant, Ben Plumm, and wondered if the man might be induced to displace his master. He could not imagine that the Bastard’s habits did much to engender loyalty, nor did he think that the Sons would be so eager to fight the famed Unsullied that marched in the Dragon Queen’s army.

The Black Eagles had not been allowed within the Yellow City either, but their camp at least was clean, cleaner than the streets of the City, even. Yezzan had given them a walled plantation house to occupy, a building the locals called a manse. They had food, and soap, and even a small river, though they dared not drink from it or bathe in it, for the river flowed out from the city, and the city was always rife with plague.

Edelgard was speaking with Ferdinand when Hubert returned. Both turned at his approach.

“Ah, I thought I felt a chill breeze about the place,” Ferdinand said with a smile. “But I see it was only my dear friend Hubert.” Ferdinand hated Hubert, and the feeling was mutual.

“Whatever are you wearing such a ghastly smile for?” His Lady was to the point as ever. “I take it the mission to the Second Sons was a failure?”

Hubert bowed, “No. Not precisely. I did not even get so far as to make my offer. The Bastard is a fool, and I will enjoy killing him.”

Ferdinand shook his head and sighed. “You are no diplomat, Hubert. It should have been me who was sent.”
Hubert chuckled darkly. Ferdinand had talent, but he was naive, sheltered, and lacking in composure. Mero would have made a fool out of him or provoked him into something rash. “It matters little. We can find another path forward.”

“Indeed,” His Lady stated. “The important diplomacy begins tonight. Queen Daenerys has sent us an invitation, and I will require both of your services.”

Chapter Text

Dany sipped fermented pomegranate from a silver flute as her servants attended her. She liked to fancy that the court she had formed was unlike any other in the world. Jorah of Bear Island stood to her alongside Grey Worm, Strong Belwas to her right with his elderly squire Arstan Whitebeard, and the free slave Missandei sat by the foot of her great chair. Barbarian, the Masters called her, and perhaps she was, with the pelt of a white lion draped over her bald head in place of hair, and her dragons playing about her shoulders like overlarge cats… but she did not lack for style or elegance.

Grazdan mo Eraz, the Wise Master of Yunkai who had been sent to treat with her had style of a different kind. His hair had been drawn up into a spike that protruded from his forehead like a unicorn’s horn, and his silken robes were lined with opals and sapphires and jade. Daenerys wondered whether she or he would be considered more ridiculous on the streets of Braavos.

“Take the gold, whore, and leave Yunkai be. Why should you break your armies upon the yellow walls of our great city, when you might be rich and have peace?”

Grazdan mo Eraz was a man who thought he could buy everything. No doubt he had bought and sold so many persons that he thought he could buy peace as well. But Daenerys had been bought once and she did not intend to be bought again.

“Your gold is mine,” Daenerys replied, her voice even. “Your pyramids and your wines and your temples are mine. You offer me nothing I cannot take from you, Grazdan mo Eraz, and then ask me to leave without offering me the one thing I desire. Free your slaves, Grazdan mo Eraz. Free them all and break their chains within the next three days and we will have peace.”

The Wise Master spat on the ground. “We will see how proud you are when your armies and destroyed and your court of bandits are made into slaves.”

“I am but a young girl and know little of the ways of war,” Daenerys replied, “But two thousand slaves of indifferent ability set against ten thousand unsullied seems to make for poor odds. I suppose we shall see the truth of it three days hence.”

“Astapor you took through deception,” Grazdan mo Eraz replied, “but you will not find Yunkai to be such easy prey. Or did you never consider that Astapor long-held forces as numerous as yours, and never succeeded in breaching our walls? We built our walls tall and we built them strong, whore. How will you breach them? Will you fly on the back of your paltry little pets?” He laughed aloud.

“Dracarys.”

Drogon belched forth a gout of flame near fifteen feet in length and the Master screamed. Not in pain, for he was not so near as to be burned, but in pure shock.

“You should not laugh at live dragons,” Daenerys said, rising from her seat and walking toward him. The Master pushed himself away from the flames that still played on the floor, before finally standing and attempting to regain some semblance of dignity. His efforts were wasted, as it was altogether too clear that he had soiled his robes. “Neither should you trifle with me, Grazdan mo Eraz. I am Daenerys Stormborn, the Breaker of Chains, and I have come to break you and yours.”

After such a statement, no agreement could be reached, and Grazdan mo Eraz retreated without another word. The Wise Masters had proved even more foolish than the Good Masters of Astapor, and Daenerys would be happy to put their tyranny to an end.

“My queen,” Jorah began, his voice uneasy, “We should have at least considered the Wise Master’s offer. Fifty thousand marks of gold is a kingly sum, a sum that could buy us ships, ships that could see you restored to your kingdom!”

“And what of those who follow us? Are you going to suggest we leave them behind? Are you going to call them ‘mouths with feet’ again in my presence?”

Jorah looked down, his eyes dark and angry. Three times he had raised this issue, and she had flatly refused him each time. Thousands of poor and beggared slaves had followed her from Astapor. Mother, they called her, and so Daenerys had become. She would never bear children of her own body again, she knew that for a truth, but she could at least live up to the trust that these people had placed in her.

“What of the others,” Daenerys questioned. “What of Mero and the Second Sons? What of the Black Eagles? Have they responded to our requests for parley?”

“It would be too soon to expect anything of the sort, My Queen,” Arstan replied. “Our runners will have only arrive at the enemy camp an hour ago.”

“They say that this Edelgard of Volantis rides a wyvern,” Daenerys said idly, “I had thought she might have arrived early. I would like to see the wyverns.”

Her courtiers chuckled warmly, and Daenerys felt ashamed. They were laughing at her for being a young girl who wanted to see the wyverns. That would not do. She was happy to play the foolish young girl for the benefit of the Ghiscari, but in front of her court should see her as strong and immovable. Her dragons curled around her neck, wings unfurled as if to hide her from laughing eyes.

“Strong Belwas is eager to be seeing these wyvern riders himself!” Belwas near-shouted. “He has seen beasts of every sort from every corner of the world, but never has he seen a man crazy enough to ride a wyvern!”

Arstan smiled indulgently. “Certainly, I am eager to see them as well, and not only for the spectacle of it. I am confident we can find victory against the slave soldiers of Yunkai, but these Black Eagles make me nervous. A group of their… nature should have a reputation, should have a history, but this Edelgard seems to have spawned from the streets of Volantis itself with gold and wyverns and soldiers complete.”

“Have you ever seen the Black Walls?” Jorah asked, his voice sharper than his question required. “Do you know what sort of city it is? It could hold twenty Edelgards and a thousand wyverns without it being anything of note.”

Not for the first time that evening, Dany felt her brow crease. The standing feud between Arstan and Jorah had become tiresome to her. Was it not enough for Jorah to have her ear, to know that she heeded his advice? But increasingly she felt as though he would tolerate her taking advice from no man except himself.

Sounds came from the antechamber. A disagreement. A fight? Every guard in Dany’s presence readied their weapon and looked between each other in confusion.

Finally, Irri entered, her face flush and angry. “There is another to see you here,” she stated hotly. “She claims to be the Volantene, the leader of the Black Eagles, and she says.”

A woman entered, mere moments behind Irri, and Daenerys’ heart lurched in her chest. Lilac eyes and whitened hair… she could have been Daenerys’ sister! But no. Daenerys’ skin had turned bronze in the Ghiscari sun, and her hair had never been that white. Edelgard (for who else could this be?) was a ghost by contrast, pale and drained of color. Thick plates of steel encased her entirely, and Daenerys found it to be a wonder the woman could move at all.

“I am Edelgard Von Hresvelg,” she stated the obvious, seemingly oblivious to the guards who had drawn their weapons around her.

“We guessed at that much,” Jorah growled, his anger obvious. “What I want to know is what makes you think you can come in here, unannounced and bearing arms?”

“What makes you think you can stop me?” The woman replied as if daring Jorah to strike her. Daenerys sat upright in her seat. Edelgard barely came up to the bear knight’s chest. Could she even wield that ax she wore on her back? The idea seemed laughable, and yet…

“Peace, Jorah,” Daenerys said. Jorah scowled and paced back to her side. She found herself immediately wishing that she could have seen them fight. But such amusements would keep for later. “Lady Edelgard was invited here with a promise of safe-conduct. We should be grateful that she has come so quickly.”

The tension in the room slackened a hairsbreadth. Edelgard did not step back or even bow, but she did give a slight nod. “I came quickly and came in secret. I have no interest in allowing my current employers to know that I am meeting with you.”

Her current employers. Daenerys smiled. She had expected that threats and promises would have to be made before any of the mercenaries switched sides but it seemed Edelgard was already aware that her arrangement would be temporary. Good.

“Then you are already aware of what I offer you?” Daenerys asked. “I mean to offer you a place in our army. Not because we need your aid to take Yunkai, after all, we outnumber the forces of the Yellow City five to one. I am a but a young girl and know little of the ways of war, but these seem like good odds to me, with or without your help.”

“But you don’t intend to stop at Yunkai, do you? You can’t mean to break the chains of Astapor and Yunkai and not go onto Mereen, and against them, you will need a much larger army than you currently field… and besides that, you’re a claimant to that distant western kingdom, aren’t you?”

Daenerys smiled. “You show more understanding than Grazdan mo Eraz did. If you would follow me as far as my throne in Westeros, I would see you and yours raised to positions of power in the Seven Kingdoms with Lordships and high honors.”

“I have no interest in titles.”

“Then what would you ask in exchange for your service.”

“I would ask you for an answer to a question that’s been troubling me for some time. I heard that you killed even the children of the Masters of Astapor, as young as ten years old. I heard that you spread their corpses over the wall for the sport of crows.” Edelgard paused. “Why did you do this?”

Her question surprised Daenerys, threatened to break her composure. She had not expected a mercenary to ask her about such a thing. The breaking of the chains at Astapor had been a glorious and great thing and she did not regret it even for a moment… but in the chaos of the slave rebellion, the Unsullied and others had taken her commands more literally than she had intended. In Astapor, as in Yunkai, every person of wealth owned slaves, and by necessity, some of them had been children. But she would acknowledge no weakness, show no doubt. Daenerys had promised that to herself long ago.

“These slavers have thick heads, and I cannot make them see reason without violence,” Daenerys said, “Even now when I am at their gates with ten thousand Unsullied, they mock me, seek to buy me off with chests of gold. They call me a whore, they call me as if I were a bedslave and not a Khaleesi. I was not lenient in Astapor, in hope that I might be merciful in Yunkai, and in Mereen, and in all of the places I go to next.”

“What it sounded like was that the situation got out of hand,” Edelgard replied. “I am willing to support your cause to an extent, but not if your goals remain so openly bloodthirsty.”

“Things are different now. I have an army, and so I may choose to show mercy.” Daenerys said, “I will take Yunkai and I will force the masters to release their slaves, but I will not slaughter them to the last man as I did in Astapor. I have shown myself to be ruthless when tested, now I will show that I can be merciful in victory as well.”

“My Queen,” Jorah urged, his voice low and harsh, “This woman is from Volantis, which is nearly as much the heart of slavery as this place, and she looks to be of the Old Blood. I promise you that slaves have waited on her hand and foot since the day she was born. Do not trust her.”

Daenerys nodded as if in agreement, but in her heart she had already resolved to trust the mercenary. The woman was strong, she could feel that. Strong and refined and intelligent. If she was loyal, she would stand with Jorah and Belwas and Arstan and Missandei around her throne. Jorah always counseled her against trust, but she needed allies.

“If your retainer has anything he wishes to ask me,” Edelgard stated, “He can ask me himself.”

“We have heard you are of Volantis,” Daenerys asked. “Is this true? You must understand that as far as we know you and your entire mercenary company seem to have sprung from a hole in the earth. We are curious as to who you are and why you seem so eager to join us.”

Edelgard’s eyebrows rose. “I could say much the same to you. The last scion of a failed dynasty, coming into an army of ten thousand and hatching eggs of creatures that have never been seen before in a hundred years? That’s the sort of thing that… that people write songs about.”

“But since you asked, I will answer: I am not of Volantis. Any resemblance I bear to the people of that region is purely coincidental. I found myself near Volantis by accident several moons ago but you would not recognize the name of the nation from which I hail. My story is a long one, and I have journeyed far. For the moment it is sufficient to say that I despise slavery and that I have come this far only because I believe in your ambition.”

“And this is where she lists her demands,” Jorah muttered, just loud enough for Daenerys to hear him. “The talk of high ideals always comes just be-”

“What would you ask of me, in return?” Daenerys stated, interrupting Jorah before he could say more.

“Yunkai.” She stated flatly.

Arstan, Jorah, and Belwas all shared a hearty chuckle.

“Just that?” Jorah asked, “You ask only for the city of Yunkai as your personal fiefdom?”

Belwas slapped his belly as he laughed, “Strong Belwas should have been bolder when negotiating for his pay!”

Edelgard seemed little perturbed by their laughter, her lilac eyes bearing down on them with the force of a battering ram. One by one Daenerys’ court ceased their mockery, and then she spoke.

“When you take the city, you will make them give up their slaves. You will break the chains… and then what? What follows? You will leave this place and go onto Mereen, go on to that Western Kingdom you claim to be rightfully yours... and these Wise Masters will still be wealthy, they will still be powerful. They will still have the gold and the steel, and the loyalties of their slave soldiers. They will swiftly seize power again and forge new chains. When all is done, nothing will be any different than it was before you came.”

“I can change that. The Black Eagles can change that. We can stay in the city, and keep the chains broken, keep Yunkai free of oppression and slavery.”

Jorah scoffed. “You are a sellsword. Do not act as though you would rule Yunkai out of some sense of benevolence. And even if we did believe you, your company numbers only a few hundred. Do you take us for fools? A force your size could never hold the Yellow City!”

“My force is capable of taking and holding Yunkai,” said Edelgard, “If you will give me only a little support I can prove it to you.”

Daenerys leaned forward. “How?”

“Defeat the enemy in front of the walls, and I will bring the Wise Masters out through the gate to stand judgment before you.”

Chapter Text

“Is everything prepared?”

Hubert nodded. He was not smiling now. He seemed at ease and calm. That was a good sign. Hubert had always been her strong left hand, her stalwart retainer, willing to do anything and everything to help her achieve her ambitions. If he felt at ease on this, the night of battle, it was a sign that every possible problem had been accounted for.

They were standing on the great pyramid of Yezzan, looking over the city as the fires from a thousand houses twinkled in the light, a warm reflection of the cold stars overhead. The Yellow City was beautiful at night when shadows hid the blood and refuse that flowed freely in the streets. It was enough to make Edelgard homesick, if only for a moment

“I like to think of this as a practice run,” Hubert said, his voice excited and energetic despite the late hour. “When we return, we will have to deal with my father and Duke Aegir. By comparison, this petty empire won’t be much of a challenge, but still, it should prove most instructive.”

Edelgard sighed. Every thought of home filled her with worry. Her father might be dead by now. Arundel might have made his move without her. The Professor might be… She scowled and sealed away that thought from her mind. “Everyone knows their duty?”

“We only await the dragon queen’s signal.”

Edelgard took a moment to center herself. The hours since her interview with the dragon queen had been filled with activity and struggle and it would be many hours more until she could safely rest. Was it morning yet, or did this still qualify as night? She could not say.

The dragon queen had been different from what she had expected. She had expected a bloody-handed tyrant, a slave who had crawled up from the gutter and forged a loyal army of brave companions through her own will and charisma. Edelgard had expected a figure like Wilhelm von Hresvelg or Loog or… or herself she supposed. Instead she had found a pampered, naive princess, who put on airs and filled her court with lickspittles.

I should not dismiss her so quickly, she reminded herself. The Breaker of Chains had seen her people through terrible times, and come out intact. The stories of her, of how she had burned the sorcerers of Qarth, of how she had survived crossing the Red Wastes… all of it was true, and that only made her seeming lack of conviction all the stranger. From what well of strength did the girl pull her power?

Her advisors? Edelgard dismissed that notion immediately. Her advisors had scarcely spoken during their counsel, except for that oaf Jorah Mormont. Most of them had not even been with her in the trek across the red waste. They were glorified bodyguards, brutes that had little utility beyond violence. Edelgard’s thoughts on the matter refused to clarify, refused to settle on any one explanation. For the moment Daenerys would remain a mystery.

A star rose from the distant camp of the Unsullied, a fiery comet springing from the ground to signal the advance of the Dragon Queen. The Queen’s plan was both simple and effective. She had delivered an ultimatum to the Yunkish Masters, that she would attack if they did not free their slaves in three days, but the offer was a farce. She would attack at dawn on the first day, and crush them when they least expected it.

This made things easier for Edelgard as well, as no one would question why so many of her troops were in the city when the attack began. Rather, they would not question why until it was too late.

Hubert and she both sprang into action the moment the flare rose into the sky. The heavy pavise troop filed in behind them as they walked. Chaos ruled the moment in the pyramid of Qaggaz, with servants running in every direction bearing food and weapons and barrels of oil. No one minded them or stopped them until they were almost to the palace itself.

Yezzan mo Qaggaz’s palace at the top of the pyramid was the height of decadence. A building of nine sides that had stood for five hundred years with a bronze harpy perched upon the peak of every one of the hundreds of windows, and a golden harpy on every gable.

“Halt!” A line of five guards blocked the entrance to the house, armored in plates of etched steel and armed with halberds and curved swords. These men were slave soldiers, but paid and fed like royalty and raised from birth to defend their master with their lives. ‘My immortals,’ Yezzan had called them, and in the few days that Edelgard had been able to observe them, she had acquired begrudging respect for their fervor and skill at arms.

There was nothing she hated more than human virtue bound in dominion to an evil cause.

“Halt!” the Immortal captain repeated. “You are not permitted into the great Yezzan’s quarters, mercenary.”

“I am no slave, immortal. I go where I will.”

“You go no further than this.” The Immortals brandished their halberds and formed a half-circle around the door, light from the torches glinting off the gilding on their weapons and armor. For five hundred years immortals like these had guarded the palace door atop the pyramid. For five hundred years new baby boys had been purchased, branded, chained, and trained at arms until they were the envy of Ghis.

Hubert ended their legacy with a gesture.

Black smoke rose from between the flagstones of the entryway, forming into shadowy claws that clutched at the Immortals’ lungs and forced them, choking, to the earth. They lay, convulsing on the ground as their flesh melted away. “Sorcery!” the servants cried, “Shadowbinder!” All fled from them as they walked over the bodies of the Immortals and into the palace itself. Other guards were rallying now, forming up just past the doorway. Twenty or thirty men, lightly armed and armored, likely stirred from their beds to fight against the dragon queen in the field.

Edelgard and the pavise company pushed through them without slowing. Light swords and spears bounced off her armor as she advanced. She pushed a man onto his back with her shield and then crushed his chest with her armored boot. Her crests were burning, signing within the heat of battle, and she felt truly invincible.

The slaves broke before she had pushed through even half their number. Yezzan slept on the main floor of the palace, and Edelgard had intentionally memorized the route to his quarters. Two more immortals awaited them at the entrance to his chambers, and Hubert ended them with little ceremony.

The door was a great oaken thing with carved panels that depicted the glorious history of the Qaggaz line. Edelgard’s armored foot reduced it to splinters with a single kick.

A crossbow bolt pinged off her armor, clattering in the hallway behind her. A slim purple-haired youth held the crossbow, and their face fell in dismay as they realized that their one shot had been wasted.

“Sweets,” Edelgard stated, remembering the slave’s name. “Stand down. I have no intention of killing you or your master.” Not yet, at any rate.

“I am happy to hear that,” Yezzan’s voice came from just beyond the antechamber. Edelgard and Hubert pressed forward to find him lounging amidst a great pile of pillows, covered only by a thin silk sheet that was soaked with sweat.

“You betrayed the terms of our arrangement,” Yezzan said, his voice full of hurt and betrayal. Edelgard rolled her eyes.

“It’s your city’s own fault for relying on mercenaries as the bulk of your military force. Anyway, you should be glad that I turned my coat. I negotiated terms with the dragon queen that will allow you to live through the night.”

Yezzan sighed. “She destroys my city and prolongs my suffering and asks me to thank her.”

Edelgard turned on her heel and walked out to the ante-chamber, into the hallway and beyond, to the reception hall of the palace itself. Servants ran from her as she passed among them, but for the most part, she paid them no mind. Her pavise company had already spread throughout the building, covering each of the exits that they had mapped out ahead of time, so she had no fear of Yezzan’s wealth being looted by unfaithful servants

...other than herself, of course.

The Courtyard outside the palace was teeming with life, nearly a hundred men and women gathered on top of the great pyramid of Qaggaz, armed with spears and knives and staves. There was a man among them attempting to rally them, to organize them.

“Am I a dog that you have come here to chase me off with sticks and stones?” She called aloud, her crests burning again as they increased the power in her lungs. “Lay down your feeble weapons and you will be spared.”

The leader turned to face her. He stood only a little taller than Edelgard herself, thin and sharp like a folding knife, with the red-black hair distinctive to the Ghiscari and a carefully trimmed beard bound up in golden wire.

“We have three hundred here!” He spat. “You cannot hold against us! Deliver Yezzan to his people!”

“You have rabble,” Edelgard countered, “And after the first fifty die trying to break through our armor with sticks, perhaps they will reconsider how much they truly love their Wise Master.”

“Yezzan is a great man. These and more will happily die for him.”

“Will they kill him too? For the moment Yezzan lives, and I have no intention of killing him. That may change depending on what you choose next.”

The crowd wavered. These were not soldiers, were not even particularly well-off slaves, for the most part. These were servants, for whom praising Yezzan’s greatness had become as natural and necessary as breathing. They had never expected to die for their master, not in this way… and perhaps even such blinkered rabble as these could sense that the winds had shifted.

“The past is dead,” Edelgard continued, her voice growing more powerful with each passing moment. “The past is dead and I have killed it. Already the Dragon Queen’s forces are at the gates, and before long they will be allowed in, ten thousand Unsullied who fight as free men, not as slaves. Break off your chains and rejoice that you live in such times as these! Rejoice that your children will grow old in a city without chains!”

The leader’s eyes grew wide with horror as he realized that her words had found purchase in the crowd around him. “B-but what of Yezzan?” he cried, “What assurances of his continued health and life-”

Hubert appeared from behind her, dragging the purple-haired Sweets with him. “Tell them,” Hubert commanded, his voice low and dark.

Sweets swallowed and nodded, “The Great Yezzan is as well as he can be, though… in great distress.”

The leader of the group deflated, and opened his mouth to speak…

But before any words came out, a great rush of wind interrupted him as Ferdinand Von Aegir descended from above on Wyvernback. He leapt to the ground before his beast had even landed, and with some chagrin, Edelgard realized that he had flown in on the wyvern she had tamed herself. Damn that bastard and his smug grin, she thought, he did that on purpose.

“Hold them here,” she ordered Hubert, and gestured for Ferdinand to follow her indoors.

“Well?” She demanded, as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I have succeeded completely in the mission you laid out for me, as expected,” Ferdinand began. “However, a complication has arisen, which...”

“Get to the point.”

“Mero and a loyal band of Second Sons captains seized the gatehouse,” Ferdinand stated, deflating as he said it.

“So go in and kill him.”

“I would do that happily, but he has something like thirty servants in there with him. Women and… and children. He’s holding them hostage. I attempted to challenge him to single combat, but...” Ferdinand’s expression grew dark and angry, “He demanded to fight with the leader of the company only. I weighed my options and determined it would be swiftest to send for you.”

Edelgard rubbed the side of her temple with the palm of her mailed gauntlet. “This is the Fish Gate, I assume? The one gate we need to let Daenerys in the city?”

“Just the one, Edelgard.”

“Give me the wyvern. You’re in charge here.”

“With Hubert?” Ferdinand sputtered, and Edelgard checked herself. He had a point. Ferdinand and Hubert hated each other and fought constantly. Leaving both of them in charge of a key location like this was folly in the extreme. Yet she could not back down from her standing order.

“Hubert will come with me,” she said, walking out into the courtyard again. “Hubert, there’s a situation at the gate, and I need you there with me.”

“Flying.” Hubert smiled tightly. “Joy.”

Edelgard climbed into the saddle and offered him a hand up. “I’ll do the flying, all you have to do is not fall off.”

Hubert climbed uneasily in behind her and wrapped his arms in a death grip about her waist. With effort, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Honestly. The most dangerous man in Adrestia and yet he can’t stomach a trivially short flight? Edelgard snapped the reins and the wyvern leapt into the night sky.

She picked up speed, arcing the wyvern down the side of the pyramid, so close the beast’s talons nearly scraped against the stonework, pulling up just before they crashed into the streets at the base. Sometimes Edelgard thought that she was never truly alive except when in flight, with cool air rushing over her, draining away the excess heat of her crests. Her crests… She was one of the few that knew their true origin, the source of their power. Crests were the imprint left by draconic blood on a human body. Was that why she adored flight so much? Some draconic instinct coming to the fore?

The city below her had fallen to chaos. Looting, warfare, and fire ruled the night as every man laid hold of what he could before the fall of the city. Men and women and children were crying in fear or rage, and Edelgard could not tell the difference. It mattered little in the end. This time of trial was just the ebb and flow of history, the changing of the tides. It would hurt for many in the present, but she would see to it that the future would make it worthwhile. Better to die in an inferno than a cage. She knew enough of flames and cages to know that much to be true.

She landed at the Fish Gate like a meteor fallen from heaven, crashing to a halt amidst her Eagles on the inward side of the gate and vaulting over the wyvern’s head as she landed. Someone - it was Dorothea - tried to speak with her but Edelgard did not pause or look to the side.

“MERO!” She screamed, her crests still running hot and pulsing with power. “MERO! Come out and die, you coward! Come out and face me or die hiding behind a child!”

The Titan’s Bastard appeared at the balcony, his eyes fierce and his beard practically aflame in the torchlight. He wore a suit of plated mail of a sort Edelgard had never seen, blackened steel with silver panels.

“Ha! There is the whore of Volantis! Come to have a taste of my sword, have you?” he rushed down the stairs, cutting the air with a long thin blade. “Come now! What do I get if I win, eh? Mayhap I’ll get your head mounted and stuffed to show to the whores I take to bed, eh?”

“I won’t be the one losing my head here today,” Edelgard stated.

Mero feinted left and struck from the right, cutting in around her guard and taking advantage of his superior reach. She sidestepped the blow and pushed into him with her shield in an attempt to force him off his feet. Instead, he simply stepped back and circled her, leering and twirling his sword in the air. Edelgard’s Black Eagles were gathered around her in a circle, but Edelgard ignored them. She could not lead them if she did not take the front in every battle. No matter what, she had to win this without their aid.

She pushed in, he circled her, light on his feet. He taunted her, jeered at her, called her by every cursed name she had ever heard and then some. Whore. Bitch. Cunt. The words washed over her like wind. I will be called worse than that by better men than you, she thought, and leapt forward, throwing her greatshield in his face.

He stepped back, and dodged to the side, thrusting at her with his full weight behind it. The blade cut through the joint between her shoulder and chest where the armor was weaker, cutting deep into her body. Mero howled with glee as the blade struck true, bright white teeth flashing amidst the roaring flame of his beard.

She knocked every tooth from his head with a single blow of her mailed gauntlet. Then she crushed his knee with a kick. The Titan fell, a bloody mess amidst the cobblestones. “Wah...” he said, “Whah ahr oo?”

The fire of her crests burned to a fever pitch and she found herself screaming, putting both of her hands to the haft of her ax and bringing it down upon the man’s helm with such fury that she split him from head to groin.

Silence reigned. Edelgard grabbed the hilt of the sword still stuck in her chest and pulled it free from her body with a grunt of pain. The theatrics of taking the enemy sword could have been avoided, she knew. She could have exhausted him, or crushed him with her wyvern, or simply asked her mages to kill him. But tiring him out would have taken time she did not have, and allowing another to kill him would have shown weakness she could not afford to show. In the end, as in the beginning, there had only been one path for her to take.

Healers rushed to her side, Dorothea and Flayn among them, but they were unnecessary. Already the Crest of Flames was healing her, closing the wound and restoring the lost blood. Tomorrow there would be no sign of where the blade had torn through her lung. The rend in the armor would prove a greater difficulty than the cut in her flesh.

“Take the gate,” she rasped, blood filling her mouth as she talked. “Take the gate and let the Queen enter the city.”

Dorothea nodded and left without a word, taking Flayn with her, and finally Edelgard allowed herself to slump.

“You take too many risks, my Lady.” Hubert wore his tight smile still, the smile reserved for when he was truly furious.

“I didn’t get stabbed in the chest to have this argument with you again.”

“If you will not take steps to safeguard yourself, then I will,” Hubert replied, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“What steps would those be? Do you mean to lock me in a tower?” She replied, her voice icy. Hubert’s father and Ferdinand’s had done just that to her whole family. Well, not a tower. More like a cage in the dungeon from which only Edelgard had survived of all her siblings.

Hubert said nothing, only breathed in and then out again. When he opened his eyes his face was calm and relaxed, no hint of his corpse smile. “I only mean that I would have intervened in your duel, Lady Edelgard. I believe your insistence on fighting on the front lines is foolhardy, but I cannot prevent it.”

Edelgard sighed. The power of the crests was flowing away from her now, receding like the tide and leaving only weariness in its place. She had grown tired, and yet the work of the day had only just begun. “I am sorry, Hubert. I should not have said that.”

Hubert only looked away toward the now-opening gate. The ancient doors had been built of heavy timber and bronze in some distant century, and they creaked unwillingly as they prepared to welcome their conqueror.

“Linhardt notified me of his success,” Hubert said suddenly. “He is bringing Ghazdor zo Ahlaq and Grazdan mo Eraz to us.”

“And Caspar?”

“No word, but I expect success.”

Edelgard ran a mental tally. Qaggaz, Eraz, Ahlaq, Yunzak, and Faez would all be captured then. Melazza and Myraq and Rhaezn had been with the army and Daenerys would capture them. All in all, it was more than half the Wise Masters of the city captured, along with their pyramids and all their treasure. Would it be enough? She looked out to the approaching ranks of Unsullied.

It would have to be.

Chapter Text

Daenerys Targaryen Stormborn, the Breaker of Chains, held court amidst the plaza atop the Great Pyramid of Yunzak in the city of Yunkai. From here she could see all the city below, spread about below her like a table set for a feast. The Yellow City, Yunkai was called. The Queen of Cities. Braavos had been called that too, though it seemed almost ridiculous to compare the two. If Yunkai was a queen, she was an old and withered Queen Dowager, a city that had seen its prime a thousand years ago and had nothing but regret and crumbling yellow stones to show for it. Try as the Wise Masters might to paint and whitewash their pyramids, they could no more hide the decay than face powder could undo old age.

“My Queen,” Jorah stated, his manner uneasy. “My queen, we must speak of what is to be done with this city, we must-”

“I have already spoken of these things, Ser Jorah. We will leave the city in the care of the Black Eagles.”

“My Queen,” Jorah repeated, “This woman, she is a sellsword. A sellsword of Volantis who claims to be from some distant unheard-of land. What she says of slavery and of your ideals, and of believing in you, these are all lies.”

“And who else should I leave in charge of this city?” Daenerys asked. “You?”

Jorah bowed his head. “My place is by your side, my queen, for as long as you will have me. But my advice remains unchanged. Leave this entire conquest behind you. Take what gold you can and buy ships to take us home.”

“And my answer to you remains the same. Until we can provide for all these former slaves, all these who call me mother and depend upon me, we will not leave Slaver’s Bay.”

“My Queen, I...”

His voice trailed off as Edelgard stepped out from behind a column. The sellsword wore black and gold plate armor with a cape of red streaming behind. The armor consisted of interlocking plates after the fashion of Westerosi armor but had been formed to match a woman’s shape. Daenerys wondered if she might commission such a set for herself, once they had arrived in Mereen.

“Speaking ill of me to the Queen again, Jorah?”

Jorah’s expression turned so sour that Daenerys wanted to laugh, but she restrained herself and instead said, “Ser Jorah is my most trusted advisor, Edelgard. He has my permission to speak his council frankly… permission I also extend now to you, as Captain-General of the Black Eagles.”

“Queen Daenerys,” Edelgard stated, bowing her head slightly. “As you know, I and my Eagles have not slept since we took the city yesterday. I can happily report that the city is wholly yours.” She produced a satchel from her side and spilled the contents onto the floor below, a rain of golden brooches, each shaped into the form of a hawk’s talons. “The commanders of the Yunkish army call themselves the Honored Hawks, and before yesterday each of them bore a brooch like one of these. Other than the five Hawks who fled with Grazdan, every commander has surrendered his brooch or had it taken from him. The gates are yours, the pyramids are yours, and the Second Sons are yours as well.”

“You give us brooches and say you have accounted for the officers,” Jorah replied hotly, “But what of the Wise Masters themselves? We executed a score of the Masters yesterday, but there are others you are hiding. Where is Yezzan, where is Mallazza? Where is Paezhar?”

“In custody.”

“‘In custody in their palaces, surrounded by all their comforts?” Jorah laughed and turned back to Daenerys, “My Queen, consider: These Wise Masters, they are not allies except of convenience. They hate each other, as much or more than they hate you. This sellsword means to keep her favorites among the Masters alive while we kill all their rivals, and then when they are gone, she will put them back into their lofty positions and enslave all those you have freed.”

“If the Queen wishes to execute Yezzan or any of the others,” Edelgard said, her lips curling into a slight frown, “I have no opposition to the notion. They’re relics of an outdated way of life. I merely thought they would be more useful alive than dead, on account of how easy they are to control. Malazza is a young, brash fool, Paezhar is proud and stupid, and Yezzan cannot move from his rooms without twelve strong men to carry him.”

“And how do you find these Masters ‘useful’?” Jorah was pacing now, circling the sellsword like a cat circling a mouse. “What would you do if the Queen were to call these Masters for execution now?”

“My Queen, is there anything you require of me?” Edelgard said, staring straight ahead as though Jorah did not exist. “My forces and I are tired.”

“You have done well,” said Daenerys, smiling despite herself. “And justly deserve your promised reward.” Jorah bristled at that, but Daenerys ignored him. Edelgard had upheld her end of the bargain handsomely. Who could argue otherwise? But beyond considerations of payment and service… the woman intrigued Daenerys. Given control over a great city, what would she do? What could she accomplish?

“Is there anything more you would wish to ask of me?” Dany tried to appear aloof, disinterested, but in her heart, she knew that she would answer almost any request in the affirmative. Jorah’s eyes looked up to judge her.

“I ask for no favors,” Edelgard said, sighing. “I have everything I want. If there are concerns as to my loyalty to your cause... A few hundred of your Unsullied would help me hold the city, and you could put them under the command of someone you trust. I could send a few of my captains with you to assist you, and also to act as… well, as hostages if we are being completely blunt.”

Grey Worm had been standing quietly to the side for now but at the mention of his forces, his eyes rose to meet hers. A moment of understanding passed between them and then he nodded slightly in acquiescence.

“But of course,” Daenerys said, looking back to Edelgard. “Yunkai must not fall back into the hands of the Wise Masters.”

She had no desire to repeat the mistakes she made in Astapor. News from the Red City had followed them to the Yellow City, and little of it had been good. The Council she had placed in charge of the city had proved weak and easily divided. The city had already fallen. Cleon ruled the city now, claiming that the priest, healer, and scholar Daenerys had left in charge had meant to turn the city over to the Good Masters. This message confounded her, as she had thought that she had killed every last one of the Good Masters.

Regardless, Yunkai would be different.

She had to believe that.
---

The Grand Archives of Qaggaz lay in the bowels of a lesser pyramid. The chambers were long and low and sunless, lit dimly by candles set upon the reading tables. Scribe slaves toiled endlessly here in the gloom, writing missives, copying letters, and cataloging the flow of goods. Flayn resisted the urge to yawn. They had been pushing hard for more than a full day at this point, and now Hubert wanted them to tour the Archives? Some part of Flayn felt resentment at that. Some part of her wished she could lay down and sleep... but another part of her felt the urgency, the need to set the city in order as much as possible. Everyone was doing their best, and she was determined not to be left behind.

She had Linhardt with her at least, and he had an uncharacteristically happy and energetic demeanor. If that was because he was in a new library, or because he had been secretly napping throughout the whole day previous, she could not tell. Either way, she was glad to have him by her side.

Her other companion, she appreciated less. He had introduced himself as Tekl, the Humble Hand of Qaggaz, and Flayn had the disturbing impression that the man had not been outside in the sun for years, possibly decades. He had a long, sallow face framed by hair that had gone white ages ago. Flayn had been given to understand that he was the most senior of the slave-scribes, a sort of senior archivist.

“This is the Great Chamber,” he stated, his voice dead and without enthusiasm. “Qaggaz controls the docks, and as we serve…” He sighed. “As we serve Captain-General Edelgard, who rules from the Great Pyramid of Qaggaz, we keep track of all that comes in and out of the city. Wine, spice, silk, dyes, grain… every pound of every good worth tracking is tracked here.”

Flayn and Linhardt had led a force to secure the Archives on the night they took the city. Hubert had stressed that the records here would be critical to keeping and running the city efficiently. Flayn had not known why the records were so critical, but she had no desire to question Hubert’s strategy, so she and Linhardt had taken it. It had honestly been a simple task. The scribes resented their presence, but they had not resisted actively.

But still, Tekl and his slave-scribes resented their intrusion. Flayn could feel their eyes on her, eyes filled with anger and fear. Guards had been posted at every corner of the great chamber,

“But this is not merely a place of business, correct?” Linhardt asked. “There are other records here? Rare tomes? Excerpts of old lore?”

Their guide sighed. “Lower down. I imagine you are looking for goods you can sell? Even our rarer books will sell for little, I am afraid. Many of the oldest are also the least valuable. Books of sorcery that never yielded any use to those who attempted them. Histories neither true nor entertaining… We can-”

“I have no intention of selling any books,” Linhardt replied, his tone almost offended. “I wish to read them. Or have them read to me if I do not know the language.”

Tekl turned and regarded Linhardt with a raised brow. “You fancy yourself a sorcerer, Captain?”

Flayn almost laughed. Throughout the day men had been running and shrieking in terror from the simplest of magic, but somehow the story had not spread to this sheltered clerk. It was not funny, not really, but she laughed anyway.

“Well,” Linhardt began, “I am not familiar with your terminology. I am a student of-”

Flayn interrupted him by drawing forth a spell. Only a touch, only the smallest fraction of her power, but in the dim light of the archive-room, the glow of her weakest spell might as well have been a flare, turning the whole of the chamber green and casting shadows across every wall.

All movement on the floor of the Grand Chamber halted, and Flayn felt every slave-scribe turned to gawk at her.

Tekl staggered back. “You… you both are… what are you?” Flayn laughed. She could not help herself.

“We are both mages,” Linhardt sighed, dispelling Flayn’s spell. “Or sorcerers. Whichever you prefer. As I stated earlier, Captain-General Edelgard is aware of the importance of what you do and would like your work to continue smoothly. We will be overseeing your work, but we are also here to further our studies.”

Unstated was the hope that they would uncover some explanation for the terrible magic that had brought them here in the first place, some explanation for how they might go back. If she were honest, it was a fool’s hope, and Flayn feared that they would not achieve it within any of her friends’ lifetimes… but she would help them as best she could for as long as they or their children lived.

Tekl bowed deeply. “My apologies, Maegi. I had not… understood. You will require us to…” a tight, pained smile stretched across his face. “You will require us to assist in your research?”

“Naturally. We don’t wish to disrupt your normal activities, but we will require ink, paper, and access to your scrolls. And beyond material needs, we’ll also need assistants, translators...”

“Blood?” Tekl asked.

Linhardt’s eyebrows shot up. “No! But it’s extremely interesting that you would expect us to ask for such a thing!”

---

Yezzan Mo Qaggaz sat in his quarters, slowly sweating to death. The Wise Master of Yunkai looked like a bloated corpse on a good day, but today was not a good day. With less than a third his usual retinue of servants, he had been left to sit in his filth, sweat, and piss soaking into the cushions he reclined upon. He must have been a massive man in his youth, she realized. Even now, reclining on his cushions he did not need to look up to meet her gaze.

The purple-haired servant from earlier, the one named Sweets, remained by Yezzan’s side as Edelgard entered, dark-circled eyes glaring down at her with naked hate. There would be many like this one, she realized. Slaves who had profited from the old system as much as their masters had. She understood their loyalty, even respected it to an extent, but the old way had to go, had to be burned away so that the new could flourish.

“Have you come to kill me?” Yezzan asked, almost without interest.

“I’ve come to make you an offer.”.

“An offer?” Yezzan laughed without mirth. “What can you offer a dying man? What do I care if I live or die?”

“I do not mean to threaten you with death. You are more useful alive. Many of your former slaves remain loyal to an extent, and so long as you live as my captive, that loyalty is mine to command. But I have come to offer you a more active role. As you know, the Dragon Queen intends to leave me as Governor of Yunkai, and there are some matters on which I could use your advice.”

The words felt like blasphemy on her lips. By rights the entirety of the old caste should have been swept away, made to beg on the streets with those they despised. But Yunkai was too large, too expansive for any one person to command. She had always known she would have to make compromises, and she had worked with worse than the Wise Masters. For her purposes, Yezzan was essentially perfect. Of all the Wise Masters, he was the most capable and the easiest to control. Even better, if the obese man seized a measure of power back to himself, he would not live for long and he had no clear successor.

Yezzan regarded her with suspicion. “You want me to explain the politics of my city, to tell you where the richest treasures are stored, what treaties we have with our neighbors...”

“I can rule without you, but the people will suffer less if the transition is smooth, and I can make your days pass more comfortably than they otherwise would.”

Yezzan’s great yellow eyes sparked with something then, something like defiance. “Do you think me soft? I have been dying for as long as you have been living, enduring great pain every day of my life in hopes that the morrow would bring some new, wonderful thing… but should I live longer, all I should see is Yunkai’s end. There is no pain that would be worse to me, than being a part of the destruction of my city.

“I was not always so large, so pathetic. You are destroying everything I worked to uphold, and I will not be a part of it.”

Edelgard laughed. “You are viler than I had thought! I destroy nothing but the chains that hold back your people.”

“Phah! It is like reasoning with a child. Chains do not hold us back. They hold us together, hold us up. Slavery, I do not care for this thing in and of itself. It is nothing to me. But why is it that you think slavery persisted here in the bay of Ghis? It is because men require order, require direction, to survive. Valar Doheris, they said in Valyria. All men must serve. You and your Queen, you claim to be heroes, saviors, but all I see are tyrants who seek to lead my sheep astray with false promises of freedom.”

Edelgard closed her eyes, willing herself to be calm. The day had been long and she was too tired to deal with ignorant, close-minded, fools. But what else had she expected? Yezzan the Great had been born to luxury in the Bay of the Slavers, raised to believe his rightful place was at the pinnacle of creation. He claimed to be a man of many travels, but how far had he gone? Volantis? Lys? He might have traveled a thousand miles and never seen a kingdom of free men. She wished she could show him Enbarr or even Fhirdiad. Show him the clean streets, the frescoes, the Cathedral of Seiros...

No. She would show him a people without chains.

She met his eyes with her own. “To hell with your chains,” she said, “Humans do not need them. They are not sheep, are not cattle. Look around you. Do you consider your city wealthy? Prosperous? You ask me why slavery has persisted so long here? I might ask you the same question, as the buildings of the city crumble into ruin around you. Yunkai is as much a corpse as you are, and nothing but the most drastic of changes can save it.”

Yezzan blinked, his mouth opening slightly. “You truly believe this,” he said, his voice uncertain.

A snarl of anger raged through her. “Did you think me a liar? I will drag this sorry excuse for a city into a golden age and I will make you live to see it. I won’t let you die until you admit the idiocy of the outdated system that you have profited from for so many years now.”

Yezzan’s great mouth closed, and he blinked again. “If that is truly your goal,” he said, his voice hoarse, “then I should love to see it.”

Chapter Text

“Make Way! Make way for the Captain General! Make way for High Governor Hresvelg!”

Tens of thousands called Yunkai home, and if this city had been in Fodlan it would be among the largest on the continent. But Edelgard could not find it in herself to compare Yunkai to Fhirdiad or Enbarr or Derdriu. There were no wide plazas, no canals, no aqueducts... only narrow streets and dirty markets huddled in the shadows of great pyramids that towered over everything and hid away the sun. The setting sun turned the yellow city into a city of reds and oranges and blacks, defined as much by shadow as by the light.

“I am finding this city beautiful,” Petra stated from where she rode beside Edelgard. “I was not realizing this until very recently.”

Edelgard blinked, realizing with surprise that she agreed with Petra. The city stank, shit ran in the streets, and every open space was cramped and archaic… but still, life persisted here. So much life, and all of it wonderful. Old men selling silks, dyers bargaining for seashells, a wineseller calling aloud for men to sample his wares…. So much decay, and so much beauty, like flowers blooming in rotted wood.

“The city has grown on me,” Edelgard admitted, “But every time I look, I see only more work, only more change that needs to be wrought. Who built that wall? What purpose does it serve? Why are its gates so narrow? I can’t look anywhere in this city without seeing something broken and old-fashioned.”

She could not wait for Hubert to return from his diplomatic mission with their nominal ‘Queen.’ With him gone she felt as though her left arm had been severed… But nobody else was suitable for the task. Ferdinand was too dangerous to leave so far from her reach, Caspar was too simple, Bernadetta was hopeless, Dorothea was… perfect for the task, but Edelgard did not trust her enough. Not yet.

“There are many things which could be better,” Petra agreed, “But we must be ignoring them. We will be going home too soon.”

Edelgard’s lips parted slightly. Yes, they would be going home. She had to believe that. But where would that leave Yunkai? She supposed she would need to do as she planned in the empire. She needed to create a state with strong enough institutions that it could select a new ruler without bloodshed or birthright. Not for the first time, she felt the enormity of the task ahead of her. Even here in Yunkai, would such a thing be possible? And Yunkai was but one city. How could she think of doing such a thing in the great and storied Adrestian Empire?

“I worry,” she said eventually. “The roots of oppression run deep in this land. Not just in the people’s hearts, but in the architecture, the layout of the roads… There are plantations to the west of the city, great farms with rows of cells where men and women are kept like beasts. I have broken their chains, but they remain slaves in all but name. And what if I should truly free them? Could those plantations still function? Could I feed this city if they fail? Could I pay for the new army Ferdinand is training, or for the improvements to the city? It would be simpler to burn it all to the ground and start anew.”

...But she could not find it in her heart to do that. The city was beautiful, despite it all. The former slaves milled about happily, some still wearing their old collars in a show of defiance. Some were brass, some were lined with gold. Some had beautiful etchings in their rim or even precious stones. Qaggaz had explained this to her, that slaves were only permitted to wear ornamentation if it was upon their collars, to symbolize that all their wealth belonged to their masters, and some of these slaves were wealthy indeed. The Ghiscari were a proud people, and it filled her with equal parts of rage and despair to see them so stubbornly clinging to the old ways. Things seemed so simple when she sat atop the great pyramid and contemplated what changes she should make, but down here, down amongst the people she was intending to help…

“You cannot seek to be changing everything,” Petra said. “There was a governor from Adrestia who was sent to Brigid. He sought to civilize our people, bring in roads, laws, priests...”

“Davyd Gerth,” Edelgard replied, a smile tugging at her lips. “Do you truly wish to compare me to that fool?”

“What I mean to say, Edelgard, is that you must be having humility. This city is enormous, and it is not Fodlan. They do not know the faith of Fodlan’s goddess, they do not eat the same foods, or live under the same sun. You cannot have every answer for them.”

“If not me, then who?”

“There are people of this city who are wanting change as much as you are, and they will be- they will have answers where you do not. If you rely upon them, it will be easier for you and better for all.”

“Which people are those? The chief servants? Yezzan? Everyone capable is too invested in the old way to be trusted.”

“Malazza? ”

Edelgard laughed. “Whatever else she may be, she is not invested in the old way, that’s true enough.” The girl was an heiress of no great lineage, born of two wealthy merchants who both died prematurely and despite lacking any particular talent had come to think of herself as some kind of enlightened strategist. She had a sort of naive charisma about her, though, and Edelgard could respect her determination. Perhaps… perhaps Petra was right. Perhaps with guidance, Malazza could continue the work they had started.

A scream tore her from her thoughts. “Assassins!” her guard cried, and then she saw them. Forty men in tiger masks, armed with curved swords and bucklers. In the press of the crowd they had been almost invisible, and now they were cutting into her guard, but a few paces from where she sat. She swept a javelin out of the air with a contemptuous flick of her ax.

“I will remove them!” Petra yelled, ramming her blade through the eyeslit of one of the masks. She charged forward, cutting freely as the men’s weapons danced harmlessly off her armor.

The flat of Edelgard’s ax slammed into the side of another man’s head, dropping him senseless to the ground. “Hold fast! Try to take them alive if you can!”

The masses panicked and ran, clearing away from the deadly melee. No doubt they were well-used to fights between the Wise Masters and knew better than to intervene. The masked men in the back used this new-found space to circle Edelgard’s party in an attempt to cut them off, keep them surrounded.

Fools.

“Charge!” Edelgard called, and as one her mounted entourage surged forward, breaking through the thin line of masked men completely. You failed when you did not kill me in the first second, Edelgard thought with complete confidence. They did not have enough men to surround her guards, not enough to constrain mounted heavy cavalry. Her guard turned on the men again, horses rearing and kicking.

The whole fight was over in seconds, all the men running or dead or beaten down. “Pathetic,” Edelgard said, “I would expect even the Masters to make a better attempt than this.” She rolled one of the breathing men over with her boot. “Which house do you serve, wretch?”

The man opened his mouth and Edelgard looked away in disgust. The man’s tongue had been removed, cut off, and then seared at the roots.

“Their brands have been removed by scarring them with acid,” Petra stated, inspecting the shoulder of one of the dead men.

Edelgard clicked her tongue in annoyance. The Masters would have to do better than forty men, scarcely armed or armored, but she needed to know who was behind these attacks and know soon. Not for the first time she missed Hubert.

“There’s nothing to be done at present,” she managed eventually. “We need to push onto the garrison.”

And without another word, they gathered the captives and moved on. When had death become so routine? But there was no use in dwelling one the past, and so she pushed on, on and through the city until she came to the garrison. The building itself was a long and low structure, a sort of fortified mansion that had previously belonged to House Ahlaq. They had used it to control trade coming into the city up the red road from Astapo, and now Ferdinand used it for the same purpose, with his garrison of Unsullied and informal militia.

They were training in the yard as Edelgard and her retinue entered the front gate, nearly a hundred men and women training with spears and shields. The militia wore armor of cloth dyed red and yellow, with plates sewn in as an extra layer of protection. Unsullied were among them, leading the drill and participating in it…. And in the midst of them rode Ferdinand, riding between their ranks on his proud Astral Charger, flowing red cape furling out behind him.

In truth, Edelgard had little attended to Ferdinand’s efforts with the militia up until now, happy to assume he would be busy and useful while she played politics at the city level… But she had to give her rival some begrudging credit. The movements of the militia were basic, but still impressive for a host of former slaves who had never held a spear until a month ago. How many were there in the courtyard? Three hundred? Four? She dimly remembered Ferdinand outlining his whole scheme for the defense of the city to her. He had taken a hundred from each district and meant to use them to establish a core garrison for a series of fortified houses throughout the city. Places where freed slaves could train themselves at arms. To her shame, she could not remember most of the particulars, but she trusted his competence, if not his loyalty.

Ferdinand caught sight of them and blew a horn, signaling the end of the exercise. He rode over to them with eagerness, that insufferable smile of his as bright as ever. “Greetings, Edelgard! What do you think of my Freemen Militia?”

“You’ve done well, given the constraints of time and resources. Where did you get the armor?”

“The weaving houses saw a disruption in their ability to sell their wares, due to the war and the occupation so naturally they were willing to sell their services at a reduced price. Of course, that first meant that I had to determine a scheme for distributing the pay amongst the workers, but… no matter.”

“What is our strength at arms?”

“Five hundred Unsullied left as a garrison by the Queen. With the armor surrendered to us by the Wise Masters we could field perhaps five thousand in defense of the city, but the bulk of those would be untrained tradesmen who would not willingly follow us to war.”

“How many could we take on campaign?”

Ferdinand’s eyes widened. “Why should we do that?”

“I asked you a question.”

“Two thousand,” he said, simply. “If we empty the city entirely of our forces, we could field a thousand militia, alongside the unsullied, the imperial soldiers, and a few of the Second Sons who remain in the city with us.”

“Excellent,” Edelgard replied. “I want you to increase that number to four thousand by the end of the month.”

Ferdinand blinked. “You want me to triple the number of the militia in a single month? ”

“Astapor, our neighbor to the south, has been eating itself alive this past month. The Dragon Queen’s council has been killed and a butcher named Cleon has risen in their place. He has all the hallmarks of being a truly terrible tyrant. I shouldn’t have to tell you the consequence of such chaos in our nearest neighbor.“

Ferdinand frowned. “Refugees, rebels, and bandits spilling over the border into our territory. You fear that we will have to deploy forces to police the outlying lands and prevent bandit attacks?”

“Just so. The city is nearly starving as it is. If the roads were to become unsafe because of banditry...” She shook her head. “Besides this, there’s New Ghis to consider. The word is that they’ve called most of their legions back to the capital. If they sail out in force we will need a large and strong force to meet them.”

“Yes, yes, I see the need… however, the numbers you’re requesting...”

Edelgard felt heat well up in her chest. “Are you saying that you are not up to the task?”

Ferdinand stood tall and puffed out his chest indignantly. “Of course not! I only mean to say that… steps will have to be taken. We have arms and armor and willing volunteers, but we have almost no officers, no experienced soldiers to act as commanders.”

“So hire mercenaries.”

“I’ve tried. There are mercenaries to be had, but no ships to carry them. Yezzan’s fleets went rogue before the city fell, and as to the fleets of our neighbors, they will not so much as respond to my letters. The only mercenaries I’ve been able to find are those three.”

He pointed to a trio of men sharing drinks near the back, their olive skin and brown hair standing out starkly amidst the sea of Ghiscari. “I found those three on the docks,” Ferdinand explained. “They managed to come over under the guise of being wine merchants and applied to me for work. No more than these have come.”

The shortest of the three looked up suddenly and caught Edelgard’s gaze momentarily, before looking away in fear almost instantly.

“They don’t look like much.”

“All three are reasonable fighters, but… yes, I have concerns about their loyalties as well. They are continually asking to hear of Queen Daenerys’ movements. But this is the world in which we have come to be,” he said helplessly. "The vast majority of this new world is opposed to us."

Ferdinand sighed, and at that moment something like understanding passed between them. However much they had clashed in the past, however much they disagree on matters of political theory… here, in this strange land, they were allies, and they would trust each other no matter what.

Chapter Text

Hubert stalked amidst the seediest part of the camp, a region populated by sellswords and whores and predatory merchants, all waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting mark. Hubert supposed he must have presented a tempting target, with his silk robes, silver jewelry, and shirt of samite. He caught the gaze of a man who was eyeing his ring and smiled as the man wilted away. Being frightening had its advantages.

He had always been considered disturbing by his peers, by his own mother even. ‘Why don’t you go outside to play?’ ‘Why don’t you smile?’ ‘Oh Goddess, why are you smiling, what have you done?’ Those memories had not been so pleasant, especially now that his mother had passed on. But that was all in the past, he could not allow it to matter any longer.

He stooped as he entered the tent, a white tavern of sorts that had been set up in the camp of the dragon queen as the siege of Mereen dragged on. He had been here before. The wine was of mixed quality, either cheap swill imported en masse by some profiteer or else excellent dusty bottles liberated from the cellar of a wealthy magister.

He doubted either would matter to the man he had come to meet today.

“You came,” Jorah Mormont said, his slight slur showing that he had already been drinking for some time. “I was not sure if you truly meant to come.”

Hubert sat down across from him at the table and leaned in. “You’re a man of consequence, Jorah, and you have the Queen’s ear. Why should I turn down an invitation?”

Jorah sniffed and fed himself a stab of beef. “Because you hate me.”

Hubert smiled, “True. But I’ve worked with worse than you.”

“Pah. Judge me all you like. I’m here to learn your true intentions.”

“You do not believe that Lady Edelgard is sincere in her attempts to reform Yunkai in the good Queen’s name?”

“Your Lady is a nobody from nowhere. How could I possibly trust either of you?”

Hubert frowned. “I do not wish for us to be adversaries, Mormont.” The man was a dullard, but he had the Queen’s ear, moreso than any other advisor. “I am sure that as two men of resources, we can come to an understanding.”

“No,” Jorah said. “I’ll not be bribed. Not against my Queen’s protection, and not by you.”

Hubert’s eyes tightened. The man was truly loyal then, a true follower of Daenerys, but… how? When he so clearly did not follow the young queen’s vision and had only been with her a year? Had she promised him something truly precious? Did she have blackmail?

A thought occurred to him. He smiled. “I confess, you leave me in a difficult position. We have told the truth as best we are able-”

“Sorcery gone awry, leaving you in a strange land.” Jorah scoffed.

“-and I hardly know what to say. If you will not believe the truth, am I to lie? Our land has many sorcerers who are capable of great feats. You have already seen what I and Linhardt and Flayn and Dorothea are capable of. Can you truly say it is impossible?”

“Even if it is true, what then? Who are you, really?”

Hubert chuckled. “Are you asking to get to know me better?”

Jorah quaffed his wine. “What of it? We’re in a tavern aren’t we?”

Ah, now the conversation turned. The man doubtless sensed the growing friendship between the Queen and Lady, sensed that Daenerys had begun heeding Edelgard as much as himself. Jorah was adjusting his position, to retain his influence in the Queen’s court. He wanted them for an ally rather than an enemy.

Hubert swilled the wine the waiter had poured for him. Dark red, almost black. Wine from Astapor, taken as spoils, nearly a century in the bottle. The flavor tasted of smoke and felt like velvet as it trailed down his throat. He savored the sensation a moment, then returned to eye contact with the man across the table.

“Let me tell you who I am. I am the son of the manager of the imperial household, a man you might call a majordomo or castellan. When I was seven my father told me I was to protect and serve Edelgard with my heart, mind, and soul…” His voice trailed off.

“And?”

“...And so I have, and so I always will,” he said simply. “There’s nothing more to say. I am nothing beyond that.”

Jorah leaned in, his breath hot with alcohol. “I think we understand each other then. It is the same for me. With Daenerys. I will follow her through all seven of the hells and then run myself through with a sword if she demands it.”

And you respect her wishes so well that you oppose her at every turn and treat all the other advisors with contempt. You do not obey your queen, you seek to rule her.

“It would be best,” Jorah continued, “if we could see eye-to-eye in the future. The Queen has enough enemies outside without facing fights within.”

“We have not sought to antagonize you.”

Jorah waved his hand dismissively. “I have only offered wise counsel to the Queen, nothing more. You cannot begrudge my mistrust of you and your Lady. I only ask that you come to me before speaking to the Queen, so that we can truly understand each other. I have the Queen’s ear, and you would rather have me as your friend than as your enemy.”

Hubert resisted the urge to laugh. The knight’s intention was clear: He wanted to force Lady Edelgard to go through him to get to Daenerys. He wanted to close her off from Daenerys’ throne, to make her a lesser partner within his own faction. Ridiculous. The very idea was insulting. Lady Edelgard would serve Daenerys while she was in this foreign land, while it suited her own purposes, but she would not be made subservient to some roughspun country hick with only the most basic understanding of politics.

“I am sure,” Hubert said, “that as the Queen’s loyal servants, there cannot be any true bad blood between us. So long as we are united in supporting her goals.”

“Your Lady claims to have a noble vision,” Jorah continued. “But what is her real purpose here?”

“Back at that again? Do you think it so impossible that someone would share your Queen’s goals?”

Jorah’s face reddened with heat. “I cannot believe you outright, not yet. No one is as good or as generous as my Queen. No one.”

“Certainly not you.”

A vein pulsed in Jorah’s forehead. “Good people get taken advantage of, get thrown to the gutter after being despoiled by lesser folk. I need to be there, to keep her alive, to guard her, to protect her from false advisors….”

“Who of her advisors are false? Me?”

“You-”

“I am an evil bastard, yes, but by your own admission so are you. Come on now, let us be honest with one another. You want to retain your position. You want me to agree to come to you before I come to the Queen. You want the Queen to trust you and only you.”

“I am the only one who can be trusted!” Jorah’s voice was hardly above a whisper but it was as panicked as a scream. Something flickered in the man’s eyes, something that Hubert could not entirely place. Guilt? Shame? Pride?

“The Queen disagrees,” Hubert said simply. “We don’t need your support, Mormont. My Lady shares Daenerys’ vision, supports her in it, and unlikely you, I obey my Lady. You need to consider that perhaps this queen who you so claim to love is your queen and is deadly serious about the business of chain-breaking. She will not love you forever if you continue to oppose her in this...” Hubert chuckled into his wine. “...If you continue to oppose us in this. Whatever misplaced affection she has for you will run out eventually, and then you will be left out in the cold.”

Jorah’s face twisted in anger, and Hubert half-expected him to lunge across the table and attack him. His left hand hovered above his knee, pulsing with dark magic…. But Jorah did not attack. He merely sat there, seething.

“I thank you for the wine,” Hubert said simply, emptying his cup. He arose and left the tent, a broad smile creeping over his face as he left.

***

“I’m not so naive as to suggest that what Solon did to us was impossible,” Linhardt stated as they climbed down the stairs of the Great Pyramid of Qaggaz. “But there’s no basis or precedence for it! The power of the spell signifies that Dark magic was employ. That much, I understand. The dark is visceral and powerful and dangerous. I understand the appeal of such arts to those as unscrupulous as Solon, but using it to move a body through the higher dimensions, as we were? Ridiculous. All modern theory holds that such an effect can only be achieved through white magic, the polar opposite discipline.”

Flayn listened as best she could. Linhardt had been rambling on this topic ceaselessly for days now, and though it was interesting... She was thinking more of the audible *crunch* that had sounded as Solon finished the incantation, his hand deep inside the chest of his subordinate. He had… crushed something. Something brittle and breakable. The spine? Or the heart? She felt tightness in her chest, as though hands were closing around her heart. She and her father and all her uncles and aunts all had hearts of stone, hearts that would make… that sound if they were to break under pressure. All her family had been killed, except for her father and a few others. All of them had… had been taken. Butchered and used for parts. Many had been accounted for over the years, but many more remained lost.

Had one of the crest stones, the hearts been found by Solon and Kronya? Had Kronya embedded a crest stone in her chest by some foul process? Had Solon destroyed it to gain the power he needed to cast that awful spell? Would her friends require another crest stone to get back? Would… would they require hers? The thought was most distressing!

“So you see my issue!” Linhardt continued. “It’s completely unprecedented, my study materials use an entirely different foundation of magic, and I’m not even particularly adept with Dark Magic. I would ask Hubert for assistance, but he’s too busy with diplomacy.” Flayn smiled. Linhardt said that word like it was a curse.

“I’m sorry that you have to suffer in this way,” Flayn said. “But perhaps this is a cause for joy as well! I do not think you would be grateful for Hubert’s presence if he were here.”

“Perhaps not.”

They had come at last to the pyramid’s base, where the stairs widened and then gave way to a great plaza with pillars on each of the corners. No merchants or tradesmen gathered here, only the lame and the blind, beggars and orphans, nearly five hundred souls. The imperial soldiers had attempted to corral them, keep them away from the stairs and from the main path through the plaza into the city, but they were too few and the seething mass of unwashed humanity. Flayn had walked through this plaza a dozen times by now and the numbers grew with each passing day.

“Don’t worry milords,” one of the guards said, “We’ll keep them off you. You’ll pass through without any greater inconvenience than the smell.”

“No, wait,” Flayn said, stepping forward toward the crowd. “I am Flayn,” She said, trying to speak as loudly and forcefully as she could. “I am an advisor to the Captain-General and keeper of the archives. If you all have a request to make of the Captain-General, I will hear it now.”

A man whose legs had been cut off beyond the knees hobbled forward, prostrating himself before the steps. “Wise Mistress,” he said, his force raspy and dry. “In times past we would come here to partake of the generosity of the great Yezzan, to eat his bread and drink his water. He would send… nurses among us, caretakers… but with the fall of the city…”

The man stopped, but Flayn could fill in the rest. Throughout the past month, Edelgard had been consolidating her power in the city, setting those loyal to her over important institutions. Flayn and Linhardt managed the scribes of the city, Ferdinand was given charge over policing the city and training the militia, Edelgard herself had taken charge over a court of half a dozen of the least objectionable Wise Masters…. But in the end, there were a thousand things that needed doing and only nine Black Eagles. Beggars, even five hundred of them, could fall through the cracks… so, so easily.

“I will speak to the Captain-General,” she promised, “Food is scarce in the city, but we will do all we can.”

“Wise Mistress, we are but humble worms in the light of your generosity,” the beggar paused uncertainly, “But we also have others among us. Some are sick, others were injured in the fight, in the riots. We do not only need food, but we also need medicine, we need healers… We are only worms, Wise one, but still...”

Flayn nodded. “Linhardt, could you go on without me? I think that I may be here a while.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t get much done without you. Besides, if you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do I would just as soon watch.”

Flayn smiled, then turned back to the gathered crowd. “People of Yunkai!” She yelled, her voice sounding tinny and weak in the wind. “I bring to you the gifts of the Goddess in the name of the Saints Seiros and Cethleann!”

With these last words, she raised her hands toward the sky. Goddess, she breathed, Mother, hear my prayer and visit these, the most unfortunate, with your power. She stood there a moment, in deep concentration, and then…. The answer. Power. Radiance. Her heart felt light in her chest, light and bright as the sun. She was open, she was empty, a conduit for the power of the Progenitor, which washed through her and over her without stopping or slowing, rushing out to the masses before her like a sparkling wave.

The effects were immediate. Gaping sores closed over instantly, lame men stood on previously-weakened legs… all around the plaza, tiny miracles of healing took place as the light of the Goddess washed over them.

Flayn sustained the power, sustained the magic. So many at once… but this was nothing. She had done this before, in the old war, and those injuries had been more severe than any of these. She was not so strong as she was then, the fire within her had diminished considerably, but she could do at least this much.

The magic faded at last.

“It truly is astounding,” Linhardt said, “the difference between you and me, in terms of raw power. At first, I thought it might be because you had a major crest of Cethleann compared with my minor crest but… I have seen others with major crests of Cethlean, and they would not be capable of something like this.”

Flayn giggled. She did not bear a crest of Cethleann, she was Cethleann, and all those who bore her crest, Linhardt included, only shared in the smallest fraction of her power. “Perhaps my crest is even more major than theirs.”

“Ridiculous,” Linhardt replied, smiling, “Such a thing has only been proposed as a hypothetical. But I suppose you have piqued my curiosity, I...” he paused. “...Oh dear.”

The denizens of the plaza had prostrated themselves as one before Flayn. She felt lightheaded, she did not know what to say. Seiros, no… Rhea would know what to say. Father would know what to say, but Flayn had been raised away from the church that Seiros had built, and she had only a layman’s understanding of their liturgy, their doctrine. She knew the ways of the goddess, but not how to articulate it, how to express it.

“Do not bow to us,” Linhardt stated, stepping forward. “We are but the Goddesses' messengers, empty vessels who purvey her light. Pray not to us, but Sothis, the Progenitor.”

He turned aside to her, smiling that lazy smile of his. “Surprised I could remember the liturgy? I didn’t sit through all those services for nothing.” He paused to yawn. “We really should be going. They still need food and water and more dedicated treatment.” He paused. “This relates to what I observed earlier. The people of this city have no conception of white magic. It’s not even different in the way that the white mages of Brigid or Almyra are different, it's just… not present. From what I hear they think that Edelgard is some sort of deity because her crests heal her as she fights. It’s bizarre.”

Flayn nodded silently and followed him through the crowd. The people were all around them, touching them, pushing in against the guards who surrounded them… but Flayn did not mind that so much. She only wished she could do more. “The Goddess bless you,” she said, as one man bowed to her. “The Goddess watch over you,” she said to another.

But as she left, a thought formed in her head, a thought that would not lie still, but grew and grew and bothered her more and more.

“Linhardt,” she said, “Did you say that Edelgard’s crest healed her?”

“Yes. Dozens saw it at the fight by the gate including many of our own. She did not have any magical items or assistance so it must have been the crest. It’s most remarkable because-”

“-because her crest of Seiros doesn’t heal!” Flayn replied, finishing his thought. The crest of Seiros, which had been in Edelgard’s family for a thousand years, granted strength, resistance, personal energy… but not healing. Did Edelgard possess a different crest? Had some sort of magical ability been given to her?

Flayn felt almost giddy! So many new experiences in this new world!

Chapter Text

Edelgard had not spent much time in her father’s court. Her imprisonment by the conspiracy of seven had deprived her of much of the experience a ruler like herself would require. She supposed that had been the conspiracy’s objective. They had wanted her to be physically powerful, to have a strong, legitimate claim but to be otherwise useless, isolated from any political allies and without any knowledge of political apparatus.

These gaps in her knowledge disturbed her endlessly, kept her awake at night when the nightmares did not. But she could not let her subordinates know that. She could not let them realize how much she missed Hubert, how she would give up her left arm to have him sit in on her councils now. Sending him away to treat with Daenerys had been a test, a test of her ability to work without him. She was resolved not to fail it, but the passing had proved most painful.

Almost twenty people gathered with her in the grand councilroom of the Pyramid of Qaggaz. The former lord of the pyramid was among them, lounging on his sweaty cushions and sighing heavily at every turn. Odious man, Edelgard thought to herself, but he had his uses still. Malazza and Paezhar and all the Black Eagles were present as well, all persons of influence accounted for, save one.

“Where is Flayn?” Edelgard asked, glowering over the table at Linhardt.

“She is busy with the people,” Linhardt replied. “I sent a messenger to inform her of your summons, but it appears that my message must have gone awry.”

Edelgard pressed her lips together, intentionally refraining from what she wished to say. Flayn… no, that creature had been preaching the Faith of Seiros among the masses of the city, healing them and performing other ‘miracles’ of white magic for weeks now. She even had acolytes of her own, students who learned the ways of the goddess and of white magic. Edelgard felt almost sick thinking of it, thinking that the banners of Seiros would fly in this world as well… But she could not take a stand against its spread. Not now. Not when so many things were being pushed to the breaking point. So far things had gone well, but Edelgard knew that the illusion of stability only required a single famine, a single plague to shatter it irreversibly. The teachings of Seiros did at least condemn slavery, and white magic would alleviate many of the city’s worst problems.

“Very well. We will hold this council without her then,” She tightened her jaw and nodded to Ferdinand, who stood not far away with that ever-enraging smile of his. “Report.”

“The training of the militia progresses ahead of schedule,” he said, oozing with arrogance. “Soon we will have a standing army of four and a half thousand, armed and armored in a manner befitting the Dragon Queen.”

The Dragon Queen. His acknowledgment of Daenerys as their overlord was intentional. He meant to insinuate that she and he were, as vassals of the Dragon Queen, something like equals. Insufferable.

“I hope that you are prepared to put your words to the test,” Edelgard replied, perhaps putting too much emphasis on that last word. “Petra, report.”

“We are having reports of bandits along the southern road going down to Astapor,” she said evenly. “Hundreds of them, in pockets of perhaps fifty or so. The word is that they are fleeing Astapor and have much desperation in them. They are raiding our fields and herdsmen on the southern border.”

Ferdinand’s eyes widened. “Then I will go against them!” He said, his voice hot. “I will take all our light cavalry and-”

“Temper yourself,” Edelgard said. “We cannot empty our city of forces entirely. You will not need more than half the light cavalry, and we need to keep the base of our power nearer to home so that the training can continue.”

Ferdinand paused, collecting himself. “You do speak truly,” he allowed, “But when word of such violence and chaos comes to my ears I cannot help but be filled with anger.”

Edelgard breathed a sigh of relief. The coming of these bandits would prove a fortunate happenstance. Getting Ferdinand away from her base of power, away from her… She needed time and space. He would be away from the city for most of a month at least, long enough that she could collect herself and solidify her position without him undercutting her constantly.

“There are being threats from other quarters as well,” Petra said, “We are sending out wyverns on scouting missions nearly every day now. New Ghis has many ships at port, we think that they have readiness for battle.”

“New Ghis is adopting a defensive posture,” Yezzan said from his couch. “They fear you, and rightly so, so they call their ships together in fear that you should strike out against them.”

“We have no fleet,” Edelgard replied testily, “New Ghis is an island. What could they possibly fear that we would do to them?”

“You do not have a fleet now,” Yezzan replied, pausing slightly to wheeze uncomfortably. “This situation could change rapidly, particularly if your queen is successful in keeping the fleets of Mereen loyal to her.”

Keep them loyal as I was unable to do here in Yunkai, Edelgard thought with some remorse. Ultimately it mattered little whether New Ghis was preparing to attack or be attacked. Yunkai needed a fleet and needed one soon. Ships came to sell goods, but only at the most usurious of prices, and piracy plagued them all up and down the coast. No doubt many of these pirates were captains of Yezzan’s former fleet.

“If you want a fleet, why not buy one?” Malazza said, speaking up for the first time. She was young, younger than any of the Black Eagles, but built like a rock with a flat face, thick arms, and a full chest. The girl had more ambition than sense. “There are many free captains who could be persuaded to work for you if they were given some gold as an incentive.”

“And why should they sail for us? These captains crew their ships with slaves, and you cannot keep a city free while the armies are in chains.”

“Do you think there are only enslaved crews in the bay of Ghis?” Malazza scoffed. “There are free ships as well. Captains from the Summer islands or Braavos, freedmen of Qarth or Volantis or the Iron Islands… All sorts of men can be found here in the center of the world. I have family in every port from Qarth to Volantis. Give me gold and give me a ship this task will be easily accomplished.”

Edelgard did not doubt that what the girl said was true. Malazza had been born of a mighty house of Ghiscari merchants. The Wise Masters had never counted her among their number, but Malazza’s parents had gone to war with the Yunkai’i, bringing money and influence against the Yellow City’s walls until they were the equal of any of the ancient families within. Both of them had died in a plague, leaving Malazza, a girl of twelve as their sole heir, ignorant as a babe and powerful as a king.

“You will sail to these ports and hire sellsails for us,” Edelgard said. “When the contract is underway, Petra will bring any required payment on wyvernback.”

Malazza bit her lip. Did you think I would send you alone without supervision? But no matter. If she could make use of Malazza, she would. As much as Edelgard wished it otherwise her strength alone would not be enough to hold the city… and Malazza was too ignorant to pose a threat.

“Bernadetta,” she said, glancing over to the corner where the girl cowered. Bernadetta had taken their arrival… poorly, truth be told, and without the professor to reign in her more eccentric qualities she had become even worse. But despite all this she remained a talented individual and… and Edelgard trusted her, after a fashion.

“W-well we’re no closer to discovering who’s behind your would-be assassins,” Bernadetta stammered. “The Unsullied aren’t exactly trained detectives and it isn’t as though we learn much by talking to the people on the streets.”

Edelgard nodded. She had never expected the Unsullied to produce real results in this matter. Whoever plotted her death had made three attempts now, and there were other, lesser acts of violence against her enforcers and supporters in the city. Paezhar had been attacked as well, nearly killed. She could ill afford challenges to her authority like this, but her enemy could be none other than one of her own supporters. She suspected the Wise Masters the most, of course. Yezzan and Paezhar and Malazza… one of them was the most likely suspect. But she could not rule out the others. Daenerys’ court had been most opposed to her presence in the city, and even her own Black Eagles were far from trustworthy. Ferdinand at least would overthrow her happily, even if she doubted he would try something so underhanded. Flayn worried Edelgard more.

Too many enemies.

An hour of tedious discussion passed. Malazza tried to bargain for more gold, Paezhar cried about the seizure of ‘his’ property, and Ferdinand discussed geography with Yezzan. Dull work but necessary, and as dangerous as fighting in a battle. One misstep now would see her kingdom falling to pieces.

“Enough,” she said at last. “We all have work to which we must attend, and I will not delay longer with discussion.” All the assembled courtiers turned to gather their things and leave, but Edelgard caught Melazza by the arm. “I would speak with you,” she said. “Privately.”

Malazza’s eyes sparked with something then, whether fear or greed or lust Edelgard could not say, but she nodded all the same.

In the end, it was only her and Edelgard seated across from the table.

“All things considered,” Malazza said, a cocky smirk riding on her features. “I am surprised that you meet me alone like this. What if I had smuggled a dagger down my bodice?”

“Then I would take it from you and beat you to death with my own fists,” Edelgard replied evenly.

Malazza laughed. “It’s a good thing I didn’t bring any weapons then.”

Edelgard paused a moment, allowing the silence to become awkward before saying: “Malazza, do you know why I single you out from among all your peers?”

“Because we are the same,” Malazza said. “We are women of ambition who do not accept what our forebears tell us. A man tells me ‘this thing cannot be done,’ and I feel I must do it. You are the same way, I feel.”

We are not the same, Edelgard thought, but the snarl died in her throat. Instead, she simply said, “Perhaps,” and readjusted a map on the table slightly. “But I hunger for more than just power.”

“You want to kill all that this city stands for and build it anew in your image,” Malazza said. “A year ago I should not have believed a man who told me that people like you and the Dragon Queen existed in the world.”

Edelgard fixed her gaze on the maps, staring at nothing. “Do you doubt my conviction now?”

Malazza laughed again, her brown eyes sparkling. “Half the masters of the city executed in a single day and she asks me if I doubt her conviction? Everyone from the Shadow to the Citadel must know you for a woman of passion.”

Edelgard raised her eyes to meet Malazza’s. “And what else do you think they say of me?”

“All the usual things. You’re a whore, you’re a bitch, you’ve doomed us all.”

“Who says these things?” Edelgard asked.

Malazza clicked her tongue. “They all do. Yezzan in particular. He is an old fool, a tumor, a pustule. A man who is so weighed down by the past he cannot look forward to the future. You should have him killed, Wyvern Queen. He will turn on you sooner rather than later.”

Edelgard wanted to sigh. Was this what she sounded like to her father? To the professor? “Yezzan has his uses for now. Many slaves and persons of power are still loyal to him, and he knows that he would be the first to die if my regime in Yunkai fails.”

“He is dying anyway, and riddance. He is the one who is sending these assassins, I am all but sure of it.”

“Do you know something of these assassins?”

“Other than what you have told us? No. But if a river is full of shit, it’s easy enough to guess what’s upstream.”

“You know more,” Edelgard asserted.

“What, do you think it was I who sent them?”

“I think that you have a good idea who did. I think you know more than you have said.”

“Why should I? I was never loved by the old men of this city. Whatever they call you in secret they have been openly calling me for years. Whatever plans they have concocted, I am ignorant of them.”

“They have told you, though,” Edelgard insisted. “You’ve been approached. You’re entertaining offers even now.”

“I know nothing of this,” Malazza said, her voice uncertain. Edelgard’s accusation had been a guess, a stab in the dark, but already she could see Malazza’s composure fracturing. She knows.

“You know,” Edelgard said. “You attend my councils, you are young, you present less of a risk to the masters that remain than Yezzan or Paezhar would… I can see it now, a gift from an old family friend...”

Malazza’s smile had gone, as had the laughter in her eyes. “I know nothing of this.”

Edelgard paused again. Malazza fidgeted, and Edelgard leaned forward. “Do you know why it is that I asked you here? You, and not Paezhar or Yezzan?”

Malazza only swallowed.

“Yezzan is already dying, I cannot threaten him. Paezhar is too much a coward, he will close up like a clam if I so much as look at him. But you are young and ambitious. You have plans, things you want to achieve, and you know that I have the capacity to end you.”

Edelgard rose from her chair and circled the table, fingers trailing along it mindlessly. The craftsmanship of this piece was simply remarkable, lacquered ironwood with minutely carved panels on every exposed inch. She wondered how much it had cost. She wondered if she was drawing this conversation on too long, or if she had allowed Malazza to marinate long enough. She did not have Hubert’s knack for timing.

“I don’t only mean to threaten you,” Edelgard said, stopping by a window and looking out over the city. “You may not believe me but I do respect your tenacity, and I do think you will have a place in my regime… if we can only learn to trust one another.”

“You can trust me,” Malazza stated, almost as though she were trying to convince herself. “You can trust me.”

“If that is so,” Edelgard said, turning to face her, “I would hear everything you know of these assassins.”

Malazza told her.

***

“...This Arstan Whitebeard is none other than Barristan the Turncoat, who broke faith with your brother and served the Usurper for the last fifteen years!” Spit flew from Jorah’s mouth as he yelled.

Arstan, no… Barristan’s face was the soul of contrition. “...I did join him for a time, may the gods forgive me, but I have come here now in good faith! Meanwhile, do you know how I heard of you while I was in the Usurper’s court? Do you know how I knew where to find you?”

Jorah’s face lost all color, “No… no...”

“It was because of the work of Varys’ spy, none other than Jorah Mormont himself!”

Hubert could scarce contain his amusement. Daenerys’ court had exploded into infighting mere seconds after stepping into Mereen. Barristan was a weathervane seeking employment, Jorah had been taking bribes against his Queen. Oh but he stopped taking bribes eventually, is that truly the argument he’s making? Hubert indulged himself with a dry chuckle.

This was good, very good. None of these fools had ever deserved the trust and power Daenerys had afforded them, and the Bay of Ghis would be better for their leaving it, one way or another. Hubert idly wondered how she would dispose of them. Would she have the fat Eunuch execute them? Or perhaps she would have them burned with dragonfire. He felt the dark of his magic creeping up around his soul, eager to lash out and destroy.

What a victory this was for his lady. Of all Daenerys’ court, these two had been the most opposed to Edelgard, and now they would both get each other killed in the space of an afternoon. The balance of power would shift, it would have to shift. Grey Worm would shoulder even more of the leadership of the army… and so would Caspar. Daenerys would require his advice even more than before, and there would be no voice to oppose him. When all the dust settled and both Mereen and Yunkai were set to rights, Daenerys’ faction would be Edelgard’s in all but name, and she would thank them for it.

Not that Hubert intended to betray Daenerys. She was an admirable enough person after her own fashion and he wholly supported her goals here in the Bay of Ghis, even as Edelgard herself did. They would lend her all their strength for as long as they all remained here... But it was just and right that Edelgard-

"-You are banished, ser,” Daenerys said, “Go back to your masters in King's Landing and collect your pardon if you can. Or to Astapor. No doubt the butcher king needs knights."

Hubert’s train of thought lost focus. Exile? Exile? What was Daenerys thinking? Keep the weathervane if you find him useful but kill the spy. Jorah knew too much of their counsels, had too many connections amongst the Dothraki, he-”

"No. No." Jorah reached for her face, "Daenerys, please, hear me . . ."

Hubert’s fingers snapped forward, dark miasma pouring through him and over him, crashing into Jorah like a wave and crushing him to the floor where he lay thrashing and screaming in pain. A dozen swords were drawn in an instant, as Barristan and Grey Worm and Belwas all prepared for violence. Hubert disregarded them. “The proper form of address for her majesty is ‘Your Grace,’ ser,” He stated imperiously “Her given name is not to be sullied by dogs like you, nor are you fit to touch her without her permission.”

“Peace,” Daenerys ordered, and the swords lowered. “I was in no danger, Master Hubert, but your… concern for my safety is commendable.” Her eyes flitted to Jorah uneasily, “Is he-”

“He lives for now, your Grace, but that can be amended.” Jorah cried out again and Hubert could only chuckle. He had felt the brunt of that particular spell himself so many years ago when he had fought Edelgard’s captors in the woods outside the Vrestra estate… Jorah was not dead, but he likely wished that he was.

Daenerys’ face colored. “Leave him alive. Leave him alive and have him put in chains. I doubt he can leave here in this state.”

Discussion proved unproductive after that point, and Hubert found himself only half-attending the meeting. There were a thousand very interesting matters of state that were being discussed, and he a thousand times more capable of discussing them than anyone else present, but his mind was elsewhere. Why had Daenerys been close enough for Jorah to touch her? Edelgard had been possessed of a similar inclination, to fraternize with her subordinates and encourage familiarity, but Edelgard had never pretended to a throne on anything other than her own merits. She had always been capable of proving her own power if any challenged her.

Daenerys did not have that luxury. She was a weak thing, a child who had a name and some sort of strange magical gift. The luxuries of court and the symbols of status were all that elevated her above a common prostitute and yet… She eschewed them. She deliberately avoided the high seat at the top of the steps, preferring to sit at the base of the steps amidst her advisors.

Hubert went to her that evening, long after the council had ended. She lay upon her couch in a thin silk gown of purple, eating goat cheese and black figs from a tray. She gestured for him to sit on the couch across from her and partake, but Hubert only bowed awkwardly and remained standing.

“My Queen,” he said, “I came to speak to you about the matter of the traitor Jorah Mormont.”

“I assumed so,” Daenerys replied, popping a date into her mouth and eating it. “You’ve been opposed to him since the very beginning.”

“That was not my doing.”

“True. But am I wrong? You have come here to tell me that I must kill him, have you not?”

“I would not presume to tell you what to do,” He said, “But yes, that would be my counsel if you should ask for it.”

“Jorah betrayed me,” Daenerys said, her face impassive and cold. “But only at the start. Afterward, he was loyal to me, far more loyal than anyone else should have been. He followed me into the Red Wastes, into certain death when any sane man would have turned aside.”

“I know of service, and of loyalty. If Lady Edelgard were to order me to slit my neck I would do it without hesitation. Jorah is not loyal and never was. He was persistent in his desire for you, his desire to control you, but that is not the same thing, and now that you have thoroughly spurned him his desires will turn into something darker and uglier. It will be no mercy to let him live.”

“Perhaps,” Daenerys said, noncommittally.

Hubert breathed in, restraining himself from saying more. He had said his piece, to say more would be a breach of protocol. She had not told him to stop outright, but her tone forbade any more speech on the matter. For all her youth and familiarity this one knew how to use the conventions of society. She ate another fig idly.

“I did have one other matter I wished to bring to your Majesty’s attention,” Hubert stated. “Or rather, I had a question, if you would be willing to humor me.”

Daenerys smiled and shifted into a more upright position. “Yes?”

“Why do you not sit in the high seat at the top of the steps?”

“Because I do not want to,” Daenerys said simply, as though that explained everything. “It is too high, too unapproachable and distant. I would rather my supporters know me and know me as a person. When my subjects come to visit me, I would rather they see me as a loving mother rather than some imperious overlord.”

“How curious. Most would say that you are a tyrant by definition, your Grace. To conquer a nation over which you have no claim, to violate a banner of peace made with the Kind Masters of Astapor-”

“I had little other choice,” Daenerys said.

Hubert smiled, “Perhaps not. And I of all people would be the last to fault you. But you understand how your familiarity with your court, with your common subjects… it makes you open to attack, to scorn, to ridicule.”

“There is strength is showing weakness, I think. The weak fear everything and try desperately to conceal themselves, but the strong fear nothing.”

But you are weak, he wanted to say. You are a child playing at being Queen, and I could topple you in an instant. Instead he merely smiled again and bowed. “Ah, I see. That answers my question. Thank you for indulging me with this answer, your Grace.”

A knocking came at the door, and moments later a courier burst into the room, Breathless.

“Your Grace!” he said in between gasps for air, “Your Grace, the prisoner, Ser Jorah! He has hanged himself!”

Daenerys rose from her couch, startled. “When was this discovered?”

“Not five minutes ago your Grace, I came straight from the dungeons.”

Daenerys turned to Hubert, “Leave us,” she ordered. He obeyed.

The cool of the night’s wind whipped about him as he descended the Pyramid. Finally alone, he could not resist the urge to laugh. So simple, it had all been so simple.

“Could you not do that?” A high, nasally voice called out from the dark of the stairs below him. “It's really creepy.” Caspar emerged from the shadows, a great black cloak draped over him, his bright blue hair poking out at every angle.

“As if I didn’t already know that,” Hubert replied easily, continuing forward. Caspar joined him walking downwards and they walked in silence for a moment. “I take it you had no trouble?”

“Nah,” Caspar replied, in a voice that signaled something had gone wrong. “The Jailor was away like you said he’d be.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“He was already drunk when I got there, so it wasn’t a fair fight.” Hubert smiled. Good to hear that the jailor had left Jorah a skin of strongwine as he had been paid to do.

Caspar’s eyes cast down further. “I didn’t like making it look like he killed himself either.”

“You don’t regret killing him though.”

Caspar looked up, confused, “Why would I regret that? He was a bad guy, he bought and sold kids and slaves and he was a traitor besides! He probably would’ve hurt a whole lot of people if we’d let him go free.”

Hubert chuckled again and shook his head. The boy might as well be repeating what Hubert had told him before giving him this mission. “Caspar, if you did not exist I think I would have to invent you.”

Chapter Text

Bandits were chasing him. Nearly fifty of them, mounted, wielding spears and bows. He did not have to see the bandits to know that they were there. He could hear the galloping of their horses’ hooves even above the sound of his own. He did not look back, he did not look to the side, only forward. This chase had been going on for nearly an hour now, though it seemed like it had been a year.

Absently, he wondered if this would prove too much for him. Edelgard had tasked him with protecting refugees and dealing with incursions, but when so many hundreds of refugees came across the border from Yunkai, carrying injured and sick and tales of the horrors of the bandits who occupied the Red Hills... he had not been able to restrain himself.

Overdoing it. He would never publicly admit to it, but he knew that he could be too bold by half at times. Was that not how he now found himself alone, racing down a narrow canyon, pursued by one-hundred and sixty-three bandits? An arrow glanced off the rocks beside him, but he held steady and rode on. They were not within range yet, not yet. Their numbers gave them many advantages but Ferdinand’s horse Assala was of the blood of the Astral Chargers, a legendary line that stretched back nearly a thousand years. Half the bandits were on Dothraki horses, and those might keep pace with him for an hour yet, but the old farm nags that the rest had would tire soon enough if they had not already.

It has not gone wrong, not yet, he reminded himself, and rode harder.

So long as he lived and moved he had purpose. Those weeks in Volantis had been like a kind of death. Cloistered, stagnant, unable to help the downtrodden, hands tied by an evil society. Here they were free, and every day was filled with purpose, was filled with excitement. Every day he could hold his head high knowing that he had given his all for the sake of the people under his command. This new world would be as much a school to him as Garreg Mach had been, and better, there was glory to be had here. Glory and noble purpose.

But ‘till now the victory had all been Edelgard’s. That thought had been a thorn in his side since they had first come to Yunkai. His taking of the gates, his reorganization of the textiles industry, his training of the militia, his management of the refugees from Yunkai, all had only served to further Edelgard's goals, to underline her glory. Once, he would have hated himself for allowing himself to be so suborned, but did he feel that way now? Surely, it did not matter so long as slaves were freed and the social order was advanced? He frowned. The taste was still bitter in his mouth, he could not avoid it.

This fighting in the hills had been brutal. New bandits appeared every week, slave soldiers and officers of Old Astapor, new soldiers who had been loyal to the Council, and even reavers sent by King Cleon himself. Ferdinand’s hundred horse were heroes, and every day his heart filled with pride as they brought news of protected villages and broken bandits. They had been farmhands and fishermen a month ago, as green as grass, but now they had defeated three times their number in skirmishes all up and down the Astapori border. But this had not been enough. Holding the line would not do for Ferdinand von Aegir. He needed more.

And so he found himself here, riding for his life in a miles-long chase. These bandits had been the greatest and most successful of the Astapori. Other bandits took everything they could carry and burned the rest, but the riders of One-Eyed Shahska were wiser. They took only what the villages could give and offered protection in return. They did not kill their rivals but made them into friends. In this way, One-Eyed Shahska had become something like a king in these hills, and Ferdinand could not help but admire him.

A bandit or a king? A King of Bandits or a true noble? What is the difference in the end?

All at once, his horse’s pace slackened. The canyon rose around him hedging him in on every side. He cursed and turned, the spear of Assal glimmering in his hand. The bandits rode near and stopped, encircling him like a pack of wolves around the edge of a campfire. Hungry, savage, and intelligent.

Their leader rode out from among them, a tall man with a sharp red-black beard carefully trimmed and one eye covered with an eyepatch. He had a belt of gold and a silvered arakh. Shahska. They had said he had been a slave of the Dothraki in his youth, only to kill his master and flee to Astapor where they had made him a captain of the riders. He had cut free when the Dragon Queen sacked Astapor and had been riding in these hills ever since. He smiled now, white teeth flashing against his dark skin.

“You gave us a good chase, Sunsetlander,” the man said with a chuckle. “But these hills, they are my sisters. This canyon? It is like my mother. They will not hide you from me. I can admire your desire to scout these lands for yourself, but you do not know them as me and my men do.”

“You haven’t taken me yet,” Ferdinand snarled, brandishing the sacred spear. How many could he take, he wondered. Five? Ten? The Crest of Cichol granted him precision, alacrity, tenacity, and speed. The spear of Assal gave him all of these and more, it could heal him from any non-fatal injury… but none of these made him invincible. He could kill perhaps a third of the bandits in front of him before he finally died, but no more. Ferdinand was not so proud as to think that.

“I’ll fight to my last breath.” He said, smiling.

Shahska chuckled again, “Perhaps, perhaps, but why must that be today? Why must we spill blood upon the dirt? What loyalty do men such as us have for kings or queens? You command two hundred horse, the stories say, and you have the loyalty of the commonfolk. I have half again that number, and many call me king... But I have no son. Join your forces with me, marry my daughter and become one with my house. Between us, we shall have a strong kingdom. Let us set this land to rights, and if we must swear to Cleon or Daenerys or Edelgard, let that come later. We keep no slaves and they do not have the reach to grasp these hills, not yet.”

Ferdinand smiled. The man was of a different breed from the people of Fodlan, but Ferdinand felt sure that the man must have been born of some noble and ancient line. The man’s idea was a sound one, a safe one. A few hundred light horse could hold the entire region with ease, collecting the fat of the land while giving wealth and security to thousands. It was an admirable idea, and Ferdinand would have been lying if the thought of getting out from Edelgard’s thumb did not appeal to him.

“Edelgard and Daenerys may let you be,” Ferdinand allowed, “but Cleon worries me more. The man is a mad dog and his city is starving. Soon he will have finished butchering his people and will be looking further afield. They say he has ten thousand spearmen in the city.”

“Ten thousand braying dogs,” Shahska said, spitting to the side. “Come now, tell me what you make of my offer? I will not wait all day under the noonday sun. Join me or I shall have my men fill you with arrows.”

Ferdinand raised his eyes to look upon the hills surrounding him. Even the badlands were beautiful, in a wild, bleak fashion. It was easy to believe that such a place had bred a man like Shahska. He smiled.

“Alas, Shahska. Would that I could join you. But things are not so easy.”

An arrow whistled through the air and landed a few feet in front of Shahska. Shapes emerged from the brush, men in plain robes stained red with dirt carrying longbows and fistfuls of arrows. They were men of the light cavalry, hunters from the plains, and others he had trained since coming to the hills. Nearly a hundred in number that had waited like cats in this box canyon, waited until Ferdinand to lead the enemy here into an ambush.

Shahska whirled, his arakh out and ready for a fight… A nervous bowman of Shahska’s loosed an arrow at Ferdinand and he swept it aside contemptuously.

“My good Shahska!” Ferdinand called, “I have not introduced myself properly. I am Ferdinand Von Aegir, and if these hills are your family, it appears you trusted them too much.”

Shahska turned to Ferdinand, his face cold and neutral. “I see. You lured me out to chase you down myself and then you ambushed me. Well done, young one. You may consider me impressed.” He bowed slightly. “You mean to kill me now?”

“No,” Ferdinand replied, his grin stretching wider by the minute. “No my good Shahska, I think your notion of an alliance is a fine thing. Had I known you were so amiable, I should never have bothered with this bit of theatre. My only goal was to join your forces with mine!”

Shahska laughed. “A Kingdom of the hills then?”

“No,” said Ferdinand, “Why should we limit ourselves so? You said it yourself, Shahska. Cleon’s Astapor is a city full of braying dogs. So long as he stays in power, that city will spew forth trouble. His dogs will come to the hills to raid, his generals will flee from his tyranny, and the poor will come begging for bread. So long as we stand here we will fight for forever. Why fight a war we cannot win when the city is ripe for the taking?”

Shahska’s one eye gleamed. “You would take the Red City with five hundred men?”

“That is exactly what I mean to do.”

Shahska laughed. “Madness. But not the greatest madness I have heard today. But what of your Daenerys, your Edelgard?”

“When we have the city in hand, we will settle with them.”

When the history books wrote of Ferdinand Von Aegir, he decided, they would not list him as Edelgard’s second.

--

Daenerys sipped pomegranate wine from a flute as she rested herself atop her throne. Mereen was a magnificent city, nearly triple the size of Yunkai or Astapor, and from atop the Great Pyramid, she could see it all, the temples, the gardens, the wharves, the great pit… all of it was hers, liberated from the hold of the Great Masters. The sun shone strongly today, and the heat made her skin dance with joy. She relished the heat, it made her feel alive, feel strong.

“My queen,” Hubert intoned next to her, his voice low and urgent. “I beg you to reconsider this course of action.” The man was suffering in the heat, his dark hair a mop of sweat. He dressed in loose-fitting robes that let the breeze cool them, he drank chilled wine, had servants constantly fan him, but it was never enough. Her advisor seemed more comfortable in the night than in the heat of the day.

“You have already expressed your concerns.” The business of the day was execution. The Great Masters had killed one-hundred and sixty-three slaves and nailed them to boards on the road to Mereen, and now that their city was hers, she had demanded that they turn over one-hundred and sixty-three of their own number for death as a recompense.

“Do you mean to ignore my advice?” Hubert’s voice carried the hint of a threat.

“Do you mean to threaten me?” She kept her voice calm and easy. She would not have him think her afraid.

“No,” Hubert, scowling and wiping his brow. “No, I do not threaten you, my queen, I only warn you of the danger of what you are about to do. These one-hundred and sixty-three who have been turned over to you, they are not the ones who are most guilty. I can guarantee that. These Masters, they would not give up their most beloved, their most cherished leaders. You have done nothing but given them an opportunity to purge their ranks of incompetence and discontent.”

“Your words have been heard, and there is wisdom in them,” she replied neutrally, “But the decision remains my own. I have committed to this course of action and I will see it through.”

Hubert’s eyes gleamed with something, but he bowed and retreated.

“That one is not to be trusted,” Barristan said from her other side. “He is an obsequious snake and a sorcerer. No doubt Captain-General Edelgard sought to keep him far away from herself.”

“I have nothing to fear so long as you are beside me,” Dany replied, her tone light and easy.

The old knight grimaced. “I am as fine a sword as any man in the world, your Grace, but sorcery is a sword I never learned to handle. I have never seen it so wielded in all my years as it is wielded by that man.”

“All the better then, that he wields it in my service.”

Barristan nodded. “As you say, my queen. It is not my place to judge your actions. I only ask that you be cautious.”

“I will,” she promised easily. “I have given him a test, by defying his counsel today, and when I see how he bears it I will better have a measure of him.”

Barristan said nothing in reply, and Dany took that for judgment. These men had vowed to serve her loyally but they still saw her as a little girl, a younger sister, a child daughter. A part of her bristled at that. She was their queen. But they would see that soon, she reminded herself. She looked to the plaza atop the pyramid where the one-hundred and sixty-three Masters were being marched toward her and steadied her breath. All of Mereen would see that she was no child today.

Hundreds had gathered atop the pyramid to watch the executions. Unwashed masses of every color and description. Rich men and poor. Aged women and young boys. Dothraki, Braavosi, Volantene. Every sort of person on the earth that existed, existed in the crowd beneath her. Every sort of person... except for slaves. Of those there were none. A few loyal slaves had continued wearing their collars bedecked with jewels as a matter of defiance, but Daenerys paid them no mind. Open defiance was preferable to lies and subversion.

She rose from her throne, and the crowd cheered, raw noise and excitement surging up to meet her as she descended the steps of her great throne. Drogon and Rhaegal and Viserion circled above her, their shadows flitting over the crowd below. Twenty steps it was from the top of the dais to the plaza, and then she was among them. The crowd roared with joy and some tried to break through to touch her, but the guards restrained them. She laughed and walked forward to where the doomed masters rest.

Every one of them looked miserable, dejected. They had been held in the cells beneath the pyramid for three days now, and she had afforded them every possible comfort, but still the isolation and fear of death had weighed heavily upon them. Heavy shadows lay under their eyes. Some stared at the ground, others wept, still others looked up at her without hope. One of them moved as if to plead with her, only to be forced to kneel again by the boot of an Unsullied guard.

Not all the masters were bound. A few of the greatest of their number had come as well as representatives of the living Masters, the Masters who were supposed to be offering up their kind as penance for their crimes. A dozen of these stood nearby accompanied by ‘servants’ who had been their slaves a week before. Great Masters of the houses Pahl and Myraq and Loraq, trying their best to look diffident and proud. They will use my rule as an excuse to purge the traitors in their ranks. They will obey my rule under the sun but by night live as though I had never existed.

Daenerys looked back up to the throne. Hubert stood by its side, his face a neutral mask. Did he hate her? Did he judge her? Did it matter? She turned away to face the Masters.

Zoraq of house Pahl came forward, descending from his palanquin and prostrating himself. “We offer these one-hundred and sixty-three of our number to you today, as a sign of contrition and humility, Great One. The lives of one-hundred and sixty-three masters are offered to you as recompense.” If he was truly repentant, his eyes did not show it.

Daenerys smiled. She had been very exact in her terms to the Masters. One-hundred and sixty-three lives. “I accept your contrition. Life for life.”

The Great Master bowed and retreated. The crowd had gone utterly quiet, every ear intent on hearing her give the order. One-hundred and sixty-three Unsullied lands their hands upon the hilts of their swords, eyes watching her intently. Blood. That was what all these had come here to see, had they not? A proud conqueror inflicting death on the conquered?

She walked to the nearest of the kneeling Masters, the nearest of those slated for execution, and touched him on his chin, bidding him raise his head. Her guards tensed expectantly, almost as though they wished to restrain her, but she was queen. The man looked up into her eyes hopelessly, and she smiled.

“Tell me your name.”

“Derrago of Myrran,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Fifth son of the Great Myrran.”

The ‘Great’ Myrran was the least of the masters of the city. It was as Hubert had said, these were not the rulers who had ordered the deaths of children. These were simple merchants at best, footsoldiers in the slave trade rather than generals. The real killers were the Masters who had come to spectate, whose lips lied and expressed contrition. Outright defiance would be better. Her lip curled at the thought. The eyes of one-hundred and sixty-three dead children stared down at her in judgment. She must give justice.

“Derrago,” she said, her voice quiet, “You were not responsible for the deaths of those children.”

“No,” he said, his voice breaking, “N-no, your greatness.” Dany believed him. At least, she believed that he was guiltless of the deaths of those one-hundred and sixty-three.

“I have the power to spare you. A life for a life. Would you live for me in the place of those that were killed?”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes filling suddenly with tears, “Yes, anything, I’ll do anything.”

Anything. She wondered how much his word would be worth when she did not have him kneeling on the stones with a blade to his neck. Would he turn on his own? Would he obey her every word? But it would have to be enough. She moved down the row of men and women, stopping at every third or fourth Master and asking them the same questions, never promising anything, always moving on as soon as their offers of loyalty were given. The crown murmured anxiously, suddenly uncertain what they had come here to see.

The sun passed overhead, shining down and baking the people gathered. An hour passed, perhaps more, and then Daenerys had completed her circuit. She had asked every single one of them the same questions, and she had made an effort to remember every single one of them their name. She caught the eye of the Masters who had come to observe and smiled at their confusion.

“One-hundred and sixty-three lives for one-hundred and sixty-three lives!” She exclaimed, whirling toward the crowd, “All these gathered here are mine, and yours. Not masters but servants, humble servants, pledged to the city of Mereen, servants who will serve us all!”

She nodded to the unsullied and the prisoners were escorted from the pyramid again. The Masters who had come to observe came to speak with her, but she ignored them, letting the swarm of the crowd divide them.

“You have a taste for the theatric.” Hubert had somehow come near to her. His low voice carried a different undercurrent from before. Respect? Anger? She could not say. “You had this planned all along, I assume?”

“Are you angry that I misled you?” She asked evenly. “Your advice was good, but I was curious to see what you would do if you thought I had ignored it.”

Hubert smiled that thin, insidious smile of his. “Did you think I would rebel over the lives of one-hundred and sixty-three slavers?”

“It is difficult to know who I can trust.”

Hubert looked to the forms of the prisoners being escorted from the pyramid. “Not them, certainly.”

“No,” Daenerys acknowledged. “But they were given up by their comrades for dead, I can’t imagine most of them have strong notions of familial loyalty at the moment. And I will test them too. I will make them scrub and scrape and clean for a week at least, and have them observed closely. The unsullied are not spies, but neither are they made of stone, and they will tell me what sorts of words pass between them. If any still seem reliable, I will put them over their kin and have them be my tyrants.”

Hubert nodded quietly. “No one rules alone,” he said at last. “This is the first lesson any ruler must learn.”

Chapter Text

Five hundreds. That had been the number he had begun with, but already he had three times that. Defeating bandits had become routine, folding them into his numbers even more routine. They were a rough, irregular army, undisciplined and wild and cruel, but strong, and growing more disciplined every day. Ferdinand drilled them whenever he could, but Shahksa’s training proved even more productive. Their light horse was deadly, fast, and Ferdinand would have pitted them with confidence against even the Almyran light horse. Already they controlled a wide swathe of land, the border of which was only a day’s ride from Astapor. Cleon had sent raiders out against them at first, but now he seemed more focused on internal troubles. All the better.

“Grezna House,” Shahksa said, pointing to a location on the map they’d spread out in Ferdinand’s tent. “It’s a plantation ten miles outside the city, with a hundred acres of grain and wheat. If we take it, Cleon won’t be able to feed the city and his rule will fall apart in a month.”

“He’ll respond in force,” Ferdinand said, “and even if we win, we’ll be taking over a starving city. and we’ll inherit all his problems.”

Shahksa nodded quietly. They had been going back and forth like this for three hours now, trying to determine the best way to crack the nut that was the Red City. Astapor was not so large as Meereen or even Yunkia, but its walls were taller and thicker, and its slave soldiers more fierce and more disciplined. Ferdinand glanced to where Shahksa’s daughter Melleezia was standing. She was a tall woman perhaps two years older than him, strong, broad-shouldered and dressed in a painted coat after the manner of the Dothraki women. Ferdinand had grown to consider her a friend of sorts. She and he had shared many jokes about Shahksa’s initial proposal to marry them together.

“Lady Melleezia, how would you take Astapor?”

Melleezia frowned. She was not by nature given much to talking, and she hated putting herself forward in meetings like this, but after a moment she simply said, “Why not just challenge the bastard to a duel?”

Ferdinand smiled and shook his head. “As if the ruler of a powerful city-state would agree to fight me or Shahska in single combat. He is a meer butcher, he would never -”

“No,” Shahksa said, “She has a mote of inspiration I think. Cleon’s rule is failing, he’s a dead man within months if nothing changes and he must know that. Refusing a challenge from one of us will only make him look weaker, will only make him fall sooner. Does he wish to duel one of us? Phah, I think not. But desperation makes a man bold. ”

Melleezia nodded. “He is a brute, tall and strong and simple. Men like him, they always trust to size, and it often works for them for a time. He has clawed his way to the top with the strength of his arms, and he will think he can stay there the same way.”

Shahska smiled quietly. “It is a good plan, my love, but it is a gamble for us as well. Who among us is so capable a warrior that they could be sure of victory?”

Ferdinand’s mouth half-opened, hot words on the tip of his tongue. But then he caught their smiles and his mouth closed. He crossed his arms in annoyance. “You are mocking me.”

Now Shahksa laughed outright and Mellezia’s small smile widened just a hair. “It is only a jape, Lord Ferdinand Von Aegir. You will slay this Cleon and cleave his head from his shoulders, yes? I have no doubt you will succeed. Only be mindful that he will fight like a cornered rat. This will be no fair and honest fight between men of action.”

Ferdinand filled his chest with air and smiled. “I have no fear of back-alley tricks. I hope he uses them to the fullest so that my victory can be even more complete!”

---

“Flayn, we need you to come out here,”

Flayn looked up from her task. She was feeding a sickly man soup in the shelter she had put up for the most unfortunate in the city. She had hardly slept in days and her head ached like it had been hit with a hammer, but she still had so many people to save. The city had not been hit by a broad plague, not yet, but there were so many sick, so many suffering... Linhardt stood above her, halfway through the tent flap, his languid eyes full of concern.

“What is it?” She said, looking up to him in weariness.

“It’s the Graces,” he sighed, “There’s a red priest out here too.”

Flayn sucked in a deep breath. Either of those would have spelled trouble, but both at once? The Graces were an ancient priestly order of the Ghiscarii, the Red Priests a new order preaching to the unwashed masses. Both saw her as a rival. Of course, they would come to challenge her now, when she was at her weakest. Of course, they waited outside. They were too holy to trouble themselves with the sick. That is ungenerous of you. The Red Priests and the Blue Graces did try to help the downtrodden where they could, but none of them were immune to disease like Flayn was. She should not judge them for knowing their own limitations.

She sighed, finished feeding the man, and then rose up. “I will see them,” she said simply.

The shelter had been constructed in a narrow plaza on the south side of the fish gate, a mean, narrow market that was a third as large as it needed to be to house all the greengrocers and fishermen and spice sellers who used it. Still, the people had made space for the spectacle that was about to occur, packing themselves tightly around the edges of the plaza, whispering to one another and pointing.

Three Graces stood to the left, completely concealed in colored silk. Two in blue and one in pink. The Pink Grace inclined her head slightly and said, “We are Iszha, the Pink Grace of the third half-moon. These with us are Qorro and Irra, Blue Graces of our moon.”

A Red Priest stood near as well, a man in a tunic as bright as the sun, with long black-red hair that fell over his dark skin like lava pouring forth from a volcano. He bowed in his turn. “I am Moq of Volantis,” He said, his manners easy and assured. “And you are Flayn and Linhardt of the Saint Seiros, yes? This city is in chaos, and the people need to know which of our gods is the greatest, so we mean to challenge you to a contest. Your Seiros, your Sothis, your Cethleann, against our R’hllor and the Green Grace. Come and sit with us, that we may reason together.” He motioned and several bystanders brought forward carpets for them to sit upon.

She sighed. This was most vexing. Seiros was her aunt, Sothis her grandmother, and Cethleann herself. She thought that any god or goddess that could tolerate what was going on in this city could be better than the goddess herself, but then what did she know? She had never even met the goddess.

Her father would be better suited to this task. She remembered him and mother preaching to the pagans who lived near the Rhodos coast, bringing fish and healing along with kind words and evangelism. She wished she had paid better attention to what they had said, but she had been so very very young then. What was she to say now? Despite her uncertainty, she and Linhardt joined the other priests, sitting in their narrow circle in the sun.

“I think that first, we would have to define terms,” Linhardt said, “What makes a god or goddess great? No challenge can be set until such a question is resolved.”

Not for the first time, Flynn sent a prayer to the goddess thanking her for Linhardt. Sometimes it almost felt like his ancestor Bartholemoi was here with her again. So steadfast, so dependable… She sighed. How ridiculous of her it was, to compare the two. Linhardt was tall, languid, and well-read where Batholemoi was short, diligent, and somewhat ignorant. Both of them would assuredly hate each other if they ever met. But still, they were both dear friends, and perhaps that was what made her compare them.

“What makes a god great?” Moq asked, white teeth flashing. “An excellent question, but one with an easy answer I think. The Captain-General is mighty and good, and she worships the Saint Seiros, but she is a lesser to the Queen Daenerys, who worships the great R’hllor.”

“R’hllor, and every other god,” Izsha replied. “You may as well claim that the Great Stallion is the equal of your R’hllor.”

“A contest of power then,” Linhardt said. “That is the simplest way, I think. It is in this way that Seiros challenged those who did not worship the goddess, in her time upon the earth.”

“And will you bring your shadowbinder as proof of your goddess's power?” Iszha laughed, “Magic and miracles you have, but who knows from what spring the waters flow?”

“You speak truly,” Flayn replied, cutting Linhardt off before he could reply. “I can teach anyone to do what I do. The power I have flows from myself and my faith in the goddess, but not from the goddess herself.” The goddess herself had died, at least physically, and no part of her remained in this new world. Bishops and priests had been common even among the followers of Nemesis.

“Very well,” said Moq, lighting a pipe and taking a puff from it before continuing. “Then what do you say of this? The Lord of Light is worshipped from Oldtown to Asshai, and all who worship him claim him as their only god, the only god worthy of worship. Which of you can claim such a lofty name? What say you to this choir of witnesses?”

“Is a god a Triarch, that we are to put the matter to a vote?” Izsha replied. “The Graces give tangible gifts to their followers. Healing, music, counsel, inspiration, all these and more we provide. All the promises of your faith lie in the distant uncertain future.”

Moq shook his head. “Ah, but the stakes, good grace, they are too high to ignore. It is the very fate of the world that hangs in the balance. Could there be a holier cause to which one could give oneself?” Flayn could sense the conversation running away from her. These two had no doubt debated this topic a thousand times before. Anything she could think to say would seem naive and foolish next to their worldly philosophy. Despite her great age she had still seen so little of the world. She bit her lip to prevent herself from saying something foolish.

“I have a theological query,” Linhardt said, interjecting himself into the conversation, “But the Red Priests claim that R’hllor is but one of two greater gods, correct?”

“We do not speak the name of the other god,” Moq said cheerily. “But you are correct. Every soul, every rock and tree is a battleground between them, with the good and the bad waging against each other in equal parts. R’hllor is the lord of all that is good and the enemy of all that is evil. There can be none greater or better than him.”

Linhardt leaned forward, his half-lidded eyes smiling brightly. It occurred to Flayn that of all their party, he had adapted to life in this new world the best. He had swapped his Foldan dress for loose-fitting green robes, his shoes for sandals, and had even begun growing a well-trimmed beard. Even now he seemed to be perfectly in his element.

“But if I am equal parts good and evil,” said Linhardt, “then these forces are balanced within me, and my choice will never be one or the other. Does this not make every worshipper a heretic? How can R’hllor be worshipped by humans, if humans are so perfectly divided?”

Moq took another drag on his pipe. “A man’s soul dances on the edge of the knife, choosing either the Lord or the Other, and becomes wholly filled with light or darkness.”

Linhardt shook his head. “Either the forces wage war in equal parts or they do not, you cannot have it both ways.”

Flayn struggled to focus. Days of work had left her tired and anxious, and she would much prefer to go to her cot in the shelter and sleep… but a part of her felt determined to see this through, to defend the goddess against these others. She felt loyalty to her family, to Rhea and to Father, to the faith their bore their divine mother. Am not I also the blood of the goddess? Should I not also seek to spread her word as they did? She struggled to find chances to speak, to find the word to say, but the conversation rambled on without her, like a great ocean current. She could not swim in the sea of words like Linhardt, so instead, she floated, barely listening, thinking mostly to herself. Why is the goddess good? Why do my father and his family love her so?

Startled, she realized that all three of the others had stopped. Izsha lounged on her side now, and both her attendants had left a while ago. Moq sucked on his pipe and Linhardt stroked the stubble that had been growing on his face lately. Were they all tired? Or were they all considering some particularly difficult question? No, but this was her chance!

“Moq,” she said suddenly, “You Red Priests, you claim that Daenerys is your savior, yes? Your... Azor Ahai?”

Moq took his pipe from his mouth and breathed smoke, “I and many of my order believe so, yes.”

“And then is her breaking of chains not a great stroke for the Lord of Light? Was this not a case of Light triumphing over darkness?”

Moq faltered, uncertain for a moment, “Yes, I believe it is.”

“Well, it seems to me like you’re a bunch of failures then. You keep so many slaves yourselves and when your savior shows up you’re one of the people she has to bring in line? You’ve had hundreds of years to prepare for this!” She turned to Iszha. She could feel the blush on her cheeks. She was angry now. “It’s no different for you! You’ve been going on and on about the betterment of humanity and the responsibility to heal and soothe, but what have you ever done about all the masses of the poor in this city? You’ve done nothing for almost a thousand years but take the Masters’ coin! ”

Both Moq and Iszha looked up at her, astonished. Flayn’s temper cooled and she mastered herself. “I go to attend to the sick and the needy again,” she said, smiling. “You have kept me from them for too long.”

---

High above the city, Edelgard soared. Wyvernback was always the best place to think, she found. Up here in the sky, the problems seemed simple and rational and solvable. Up here, she could trust to cold reason. The city spread out underneath her like a map, with the various quarters of the city easily distinguishable. Each of the great houses of Yunkai controlled their own district, walled off from the others, each essentially a kingdom unto itself. This was the source of much of their trouble. There was no rule of law, no centralized authority she could co-opt. Even if she killed every one of the Wise Masters, she would need to appoint a regional mayor, a governor who would be like one of the masters in all but name. Those walls bind the people as much as the chains, she decided. But even as the thought entered her head a million other problems presented themselves...

She put them aside. What came next would be simple enough, in any case.

She dived, and five wyverns dived with her, wind rushing and tearing at them as they flew, spiraling ever downward toward the Pyramid of Ahlaq. Ahlaq had been allowed to retain some of its power and property within the city. Edelgard had turned their walls against them and made their petty kingdom into a prison. She allowed them to exist because she could control them indirectly and fixate her limited resources elsewhere. Now she had cause to regret that compromise on her part. They had grown too bold. As she descended she could see their servants, slaves in all but name, running in terror.

They have learned to fear the skies, at least.

Edelgard landed atop the pyramid with her flight of wyverns like a gale. Members of the household assembled to greet them, wearing fine silk robes and gold belts. They strutted and postured like a brace of prized peacocks. Edelgard scowled. Did they think to impress her with the paltry wealth she had allowed them to keep? Pathetic. There were others present, too, members of other houses who must have been visiting with them. She spied Paezhar zo Myraq and Qaren zo Qaggaz amongst them and wondered if she might have stumbled upon a conspiracy. All the better if that were true.

Lady Pazzo zo Ahlaq stepped forward and prostrated herself. She was a heavyset woman who had borne her many years poorly but tried to compensate with powders and oils and fine clothing. “Virtuous ruler of the heavens, to what do we owe the honor of your visitation?”

Edelgard urged her wyvern to walk forward, using its wings as forelegs. “I am but returning the visit paid to me by men sworn to your house,” Edelgard stated, her voice sour. She threw a bundle from her saddle to the stone where it clattered, spilling knives and arakhs and cutlasses all about. “Three times now, men have attacked me, their slave brands marred by acid. Three times have I defeated them, but my patience has grown thin. These men were men of house Ahlaq. They were yours. I have confirmed it. The weave of their tunics was the work of your weavers, the leather of their belts bore the symbol of your master tanners, and when I put them to the question, all named you as their lord.” The would-be assassins’ tongues had been removed as a precaution, but that had only proved a minor setback. Even the mute could speak if you gave them pen and paper.

Lady Pazzo’s eyes widened with horror. “You must know that your servants would never do such a thing when my husband the wise Ghazdor is still in your custody. We are your humbled servants and we retain our position only by your overflowing mercy. There are many houses that have lost their position, who envy and hate us for our collaboration. No doubt this is their work, the work of your enemies and ours, seeking to cause strife between us.”

“A fanciful tale,” Edelgard replied, descending from her wyvern to walk toward the prostrate Pazzo. “Do you mean to tell me that some enemies of ours went into your domain, purchased weapons, belts, clothes, and armor, and then charged their slaves with killing me? But I’m afraid even that ridiculous story fails to explain the situation. Why should they name you as their master, if it were someone else they served? These men were people of your house, raised as guards for your own family, of that there is no doubt.”

Pazzo did her best to flatten herself into the stones of the pyramid. “Wise Captain… Esteemed General… Surely you must…” Her voice was high and whining now, almost pitiful.

“Do not tell me what I must or must not do,” Edelgard snarled and raised her ax. Lady Pazzo screamed… but the blow never fell. The woman crawled to her knees and looked up with terror in her eyes.

“I do not believe that it was you who did this.” Edelgard did trust Pazzo, if only because the woman had no chance of rebelling against Edelgard without destroying her position. The Ahlaq’s wealth was derived from the great weaving houses that lay within their district, but these houses could not make anything without dye or cotton or wool, and cotton and wool would have to be brought in through the ports or the gates. In the old days, Qaggaz had controlled the ports and Myraq had controlled the gates to the south, and so Ahlaq had been able to play them off against each other. But now Edelgard controlled all and Ahlaq had no choice but to do her bidding.

“I do not believe that it was you who did this,” Edelgard repeated, “But I do believe it was a member of your house.”

All at once, the assembled members of house Ahlaq began muttering, looking at one another with eyes full of fear and suspicion. Good. Let them see this as a problem within their ranks, not as a problem caused by a foreign oppressor.

“My Captain… we will find this traitor within our ranks, we will...”

“Be at peace, wise Lady Pazzo,” Edelgard said, holding out a hand to steady her. “For I have already determined the name of the traitor, and he is here among you. Master Tanqlo-”
The man had been backing to the rear of the party since the start of the confrontation, and now he ran outright, stumbling and tripping over his silken robes. A Wyvern dropped from the sky in front of him, knocking him to the ground with the force of its wings. He pushed himself away from the creature, scrambling backward without daring to turn his face from the beast. The wyvern and its rider slowly stalked forward, pushing him ever backward as the crowd parted for them. “No,” he pleaded, “No, no, no…”

Edelgard stopped him with her boot. “Mercy,” he cried.

“I already gave you that once,” Edelgard said, and brought her ax down upon his neck.

Chapter Text

As ever, Daenerys held court in the smaller chamber. The Great Masters of Meereen had favored the larger chamber, with all its rich frescoes and gold and bronze statuary. But the small chamber was more comfortable, more accessible to the common folk, and Daenerys needed no great ornamentation to signal her power. Her dragons were enough.

Drogon lounged around the throne, huge black wings curled over his body like a great blanket, head resting calmly by her side. To the untrained eye, he might have appeared to be asleep, or even dead, but Daenerys knew his moods well enough to know that he was simply content and calm. They had fed him an ox for breakfast and they would be feeding him a goat in a few hours. He flew for exercise, for enjoyment, but not to hunt, and for all his energy and power he was calmer and more tolerant of people than his siblings.

She had grown accustomed to the dragons and allowed them to fly about the city freely. Her children did not harm the people of the city, and so she did not see why she should worry. Few of her courtiers felt the same. It was not hard to see Barristan’s unease around the beasts, even now, and Hizdahr and Shakaz were even more uneasy. Well, she could not fault him for that. Drogon was almost thirty feet from nose to tail, perhaps more, and his scales were hard as steel. Of all her servants, only Hubert remained unfazed by them, his cold, snakelike eyes scarcely taking note of them. She supposed that Drogon was not much larger than any of the wyverns Edelgard employed, and if anything he was far tamer.

But his scales are harder and his breath is fire, she thought with a measure of pride.

A trumpet sounded at the entrance, heralding a group of twenty richly dressed men. Some wore brightly dyed Tokars with jewel-studded belts, others wore etched steel and capes of feathers. She sat up straight. These were not Masters of Meereen, these were… what?

“Your Grace,” the man in the lead of the party said, doffing his plumed helm and bowing low. “I am Zidvarh of New Ghis and these here before you are representatives of New Ghis, Qarth, Tolos, and Mantarys. We come in peace, but with an ultimatum. You have conquered the cities of Yunkai and Astapor and Meereen, and you have done well. All tongues praise you for your ambition and skill. But we mean to inform you that your ambition will go no farther. We have prepared terms...”

Shipping rights, control of key forts. She listened attentively for some time, but as the list of demands grew longer and longer her mind drifted. Their intent was clear, the particulars mattered little. They meant to strangle her kingdom in the cradle and call it peace.

“Your Grace,” Hubert murmured. “We cannot accept this offer. Your people will starve and your rule will fail if these terms are agreed to.”

She looked to Barristan, who nodded slightly in turn. Daenerys sighed.

“Zidvarh, you come to threaten me,” She said, “but with what armies, what fleets? I have ten thousand Unsullied, three dragons, and a flight of tamed wyverns, besides the armies of freemen that are even now being trained. You cannot think that your cities truly fill me with fear. Will you march sellswords against my unsullied? Will you send ships to be burned by my dragons and my wyverns?”

As if to punctuate this last point Drogon rose and stretched and rose up on his legs, head rearing all the way to the top of the chamber.

Zidvarh smiled uneasily. “Peace, peace your Grace, you should not hold your peers in such contempt. We are not dogs who will be beaten away with a few sticks. The lockstep legions of New Ghis will trample your Unsullied under their boots, and the fleets of our league are vast beyond your wildest imaginings. In addition to all this, we have hired sellsails from distant Westeros who possess powerful sorceries with which we shall force your dragons to drown themselves into the sea.”

Daenerys sighed. What was to be made of such claims? Could they fight her? She doubted it. Yet even victory might ruin her. Hubert and Barristan had both made it clear how precarious her position was. Meereen and Yunkai had been decaying hives since before she had come to the Bay, and war and bloodshed had only increased the suffering. She believed that with time they could create a better world, but time, time was always running out. If they came under siege, the assassins in the dark that Hubert had been hunting would walk in the daylight and she would be able to go nowhere without fear.

She sighed. “Come to us again tomorrow and we will discuss this further,” she said, her voice tired. “I am sure that terms can be arrived at.”

“We cannot yield to them,” Hubert hissed, almost before the envoys had left the room, “Their terms amount to capitulation, if not now, then ten, twenty years down the line.”

“I know that,” she said. Ten, twenty years. How long was she planning to stay in the Bay? Did she not have a duty to rescue Westeros from the tyranny of the usurper? “I know that we cannot surrender, but if we can buy ourselves some time, we can send word to Edelgard and… Cleon. New Ghis and Qarth lie to the south, and it is from there that the greatest threat will be. We will need to rally our forces, and every day until we fight will be precious.”

Daenerys looked to the south. She would enjoy seeing Edelgard again. She hoped Edelgard felt the same.

“Your Grace,” Barristan said coughing slightly. “Shall I prepare your harness?”

“Yes,” Daenerys said with certainty. “I will have these slavers learn to fear the skies.”

---

Half the city had come out to watch. There were crowds at the edge of the arena, crowds on the walls, crowds on the roofs of houses. How many? Hundreds? Thousands? Ferdinand laughed and twirled the Spear of Assal contemptuously. He would give them all a fine show. Shahksa and Melleezia were near at hand, watching with stoic confidence. All depended on him. He laughed. The sun was high and the air was hot and he felt ready to win and settle things with the Butcher once and for all.

Douqour’s pit was round and filled with sand, built a mile outside the city proper. Ferdinand understood that the old fighting pit had been in the city, but that it had been removed after a revolt by the prizefighters had threatened one of the great pyramids. Well, today the prize was Astapor itself.

A servant of the place came near with a cup of wine. “For your health, good sir,” the servant said, and Ferdinand took the cup gladly. His armor had been designed for use in the heat, but even so, the cloth padding made a man hot and sweaty. The wine had a bitter flavor, but it cooled his tongue and he handed the empty cup back to the servant with a word of thanks.

“We all wish you to win,” the servant said, quietly. “We all wish to be free of Cleon, who killed the healers that the Breaker of Chains made to rule.”

“Have no fear,” He replied, “I will do my duty.”

Cleon had entered the ring at last. He was a massive man, closer to seven feet than six, with a lance of pure iron and a great wide shield. His armor had been enameled with red, and he kicked up dust with every step. Shahksa and Melleezia had checked him for illegal weapons and tricks, much as Cleon’s man had checked Ferdinand. This would be a clean fight.

Overseeing the battle was the Green Grace of Astapor, the leader of the temple of the Graces. Though perhaps she was not so respected or neutral as she should have been considering that Cleon murdered her predecessor. But does she favor Cleon or me? Ferdinand wondered. In the end, it did not matter much. Cleon needed to win and win fairly if he wanted to save face in front of his men.

The Green Grace stood to give a speech. Ferdinand could only hear every third or fourth word. The heat truly had become insufferable under the cloth of his armor, and he had no focus to spare. Every aspect of his mind was fixated on the man before him and the death that he would be inflicting. Ferdinand had never shied from death-dealing. It was part of his duty, and if there were ever a man who deserved death…

“Begin!” The Grace called, and Ferdinand advanced, spear in hand. The Spear of Assal came alive in his hand, shedding mist wherever he moved it. Its tip was a long blade made of white steel, sharp enough to cut through any armor if wielded with enough skill. His hand felt cool and strong in and in control, even as the rest of him suffered from the heat.

Cleon advanced cautiously, shield held carefully, yielding no opening. He must be a wretched coward, to come so heavily armored and to bear a shield as well! But that was no issue for Ferdinand. His crest burned with light. He feinted left and struck right, spear lashing out once, twice. Cleon’s heavy shield took both blows, but Cleon himself stumbled back under the raw force, and the spear of Assal left great scores on the surface of the shield itself. Ferdinand laughed. The man had probably never fought a man stronger than him. He circled Cleon for a moment, then struck at random. The shield was slower this time, and the spear found its mark on Cleon himself.

Attack, circle, attack. Never scoring a mortal wound, but tiring his opponent, wearing him down. The man’s armor and shield dictated such caution. Ferdinand was not a man to overextend himself, not even in the heat of battle, and his crest made him quicker than he had any right to be.

He only wished he could remove his helmet to feel the breeze on his face. The heat, the heat was unbearable, and he felt his vision narrow as he fought. How was it that he had become so tired? He was younger and lighter and more lightly armed than Cleon, he should be the one who was tiring last… Was Cleon truly such a powerful man?

He struck out again and scored a deep stroke, cleaving straight through Cleon’s armor to the skin beneath. He dashed back again, only… only to stumble.

He was Ferdinand Von Aegir, and he did not stumble.

Cleon surged forward suddenly, whipping his spear like it was a hard rod. Ferdinand’s crest sang, and he flipped over the spear on pure instinct, cutting Cleon deeply again. and cut Cleon again.

“Feeling tired sunsetlander?” Cleon’s voice called, taunting. “Feeling weak? Feeling as though it is all too much?” The big man was bleeding from a dozen wounds of varying severity, but he seemed to think himself winning, it was almost as though...

The wine, Ferdinand thought with a scowl. The wine was laced with poison.

His vision blurred, his thoughts came hard and slow. He retreated clumsily from Cleon’s advance, dodging blow after blow. He could not move as he liked, even with the assistance of his crest. Cleon was a beast, an amateur, but that only made him more dangerous. The man rushed headlong forward without fear of a counterstrike, and Ferdinand did not have the alacrity to punish him for it.

“Lost your nerve?” Cleon roared, sweeping with his glaive again. Ferdinand dodged inexpertly, only to be sent sprawling by a bash of the giant’s shield. Ferdinand rolled with the blow, deflected each of the three blows that came for him after, took a fourth blow on his armor….

Finally, he righted himself, managed to stand. They were both of them panting, both of them bloodied. I will not fall here, Ferdinand vowed, I will not fall here. He surged forward, nobility forgotten, only raw rage behind his attacks. Cleon took a blow on the shield, he took two, took three. Someone started screaming. Spots dotted his vision but he fought on, without thought, without style. Cleon stumbled back. Ferdinand leaped to close, his blood singing, and kicked the man in the chest. Cleon swung wildly, but Ferdinand took the hit on his armor and kept coming. He stabbed him in the shoulder, stabbed him in the chest, stabbed him in the groin. Cleon fell, and Ferdinand cut his head off with a single stroke.

He stood there in the sun, he did not know how long, panting and blinking and staring down at the bloody mess that had been Cleon the Butcher. He had won, he realized at last, but it almost felt like something that someone else had done a long time ago.

He leaned on the spear, he felt the cool of its haft fill him with calm. He closed his eyes. The Spear of Assal was a sacred weapon, a weapon that had been created specifically for someone of his line, someone who bore the blood of Saint Cichol. He did not know what sort of poison they had fed him, but the spear could heal. He had to trust in that. Inch by inch his mind cleared, and then he heard it.

The roar of the crowd screaming his name.

--

“No, no, no like that,” Flayn pushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. “You can feel the power, I know you can, but you need to move it down from your spine to your arms, your hands. If you visualize it as a stream...”

The girl she was helping was a white grace, a priestess in training who hoped to one day gain the blue silk of the holy healers. She was one of almost a hundred who came for lessons. Flayn could see why the professor adored teaching so much! To see the wonderment on the faces of the young and old who sought to master their art… it was a grand thing. Better yet, her most advanced students had become her assistants, assistants who knew the fundamentals of faith healing as well as medicine. Gone were the days of collapsing into a pile of sacks and sleeping for days. In truth, the whole shelter was gone. An old man she had healed had offered them a building made of old stones with beds for the patients and even a bed for herself.

“Lady Flayn!” One of her assistants squeaked. “Lord Linhardt is down by the door.”

“Right, tell him I will be right there,” Flayn said, whipping her hands on her apron. She regretted that she had been forced to abandon her academy uniform. It had been such a prized garment, something that tied her to her friends in the Black Eagle house more closely… but there was nothing to be done for it. It would have been quickly ruined with the messiness of running her hospital.

In truth, she did not get down to Linhardt immediately. Three or four other people caught her and asked her for help before she finally made it to the door. Linhardt will understand, she told herself confidently.

When she finally got to him, he was reclining on a pile of cushions. He had taken to traveling around the city like many of the wealthier locals, on a palanquin with paid porters, sipping wine and reading or napping as he slowly trundled from location to location. He was reading now, and he looked up at her with a sleepy smile as she came out to him.

“Hello, Flayn.”

She sighed. “Hello, Linhardt. Is there something you need me for?”

Linhardt frowned. “Actually I was coming here to see if you needed help.”

Flayn grinned slightly. “That is surprising to me. I did not think you one to offer help freely. Do you not have your own projects?”

“Normally,” Linhardt replied. “But the materials for research here are limited, I’ve all but exhausted them.”

“What about overseeing the scribes, the assessors, the tax collectors?”

“Oh I made Bernadetta do that,” Linhardt said airily. “It isn’t as though her watchmen have anything better to do than shake down landowners for money. Considering that Edelgard stopped the attacks, I mean.”

Poor Bernadetta. Flayn could not help but laugh a little though. Her friend Linhardt was such a scamp sometimes. To think that she had thought to compare him to Batholemoi before! Even now he could scarcely bring himself to tell her that he had been concerned about her and had come to help.

“Well if you are as bored as all that-” She trailed off. Something had caught her attention.

At the end of the street, a great many people were approaching. Nearly a hundred souls, all moving as one, a great column of richly dressed Ghiscari with a tall palanquin in their midst, over five times the size of the relatively modest seat Linhardt used. They were marching straight for the hospital, straight for Flayn and Linhardt.

“Well, it seems neither of us will be bored much longer,” Linhardt observed, raising his eyebrows slightly.

The column came forward, fanning out into the courtyard in front of the hospital. They wore dyed silks with silver jewelry, emeralds and opals in their hair, and perfume. Goddess, their perfumes. It was almost overpowering, almost like a wall sweeping into her courtyard. Flayn’s nose wrinkled. Sometimes her sensitive sense of smell was more of a curse than a blessing.

A slender youth stepped forward. She (Flayn thought they were a she) had purple hair and a pleasant demeanor, and Flayn felt sure that she had seen them around Edelgard’s court. This was, this was…

“I am the one called Sweets,” she said, prostrating themselves on the ground in front of Flayn. “I am the beloved servant of Yezzan zo Qaggaz, Wise Master of Yunkai, as are all these with me, and I humbly beg you to heal my master with your sorcery.”

“Careful,” Linhardt said. “If Yezzan is here at all it is against the orders of Edelgard.” and going against Edelgard meant trouble. He did not have to say it.

“I can’t exactly send them away!” Flayn hissed. “What if they turn violent?”

Linhardt winced. “Just don’t promise them anything.”

Flayn drew in a breath. “My sorcery as you call it is not my own but a blessing of the goddess. I cannot and will not heal all. It has limits. I am a healer, not a worker of true miracles, and I cannot promise anything to you or your master.”

“Please, my lady, if you can only try.”

She wanted to help. That had always been her guiding principle. She had killed of course, when there was no other recourse, but she had always tried to save lives where she could. Humans lived such short spans as it was, the ending of life early seemed such abominable cruelty. But this man. Yezzan had been a slaver, a torturer, a perverse man who had delighted in keeping a menagerie. The stories that were told about him... It was no use thinking about it. She steadied herself and released the breath she had been holding.

“Take him inside,” she said. “And I will see what can be done.”

Preparing a place for Yezzan zo Qaggaz took longer than Flayn had expected. First, the room had to be cleared and cleaned, and then pillows had to be arranged for the man… and then they had to move the man himself to the chamber, twelve strong men laboring hard to move him through the doorway. If the perfumes had been overpowering, the stench of Yezzan was ten times worse. She could smell him a dozen feet away, a putrid deathly smell as though of a corpse filled with shit.

Then the curtain itself was drawn aside and she saw the man himself. Yellow rolls of rancid flesh, carefully cleaned and perfumed mere hours ago, yet already soaked with sweat. He has gotten worse, Flayn realized with some disgust. He is dead, or nearly so.

Her acolytes had gathered, faces wide-eyed and nervous. Yezzan had been like a god in this city in the times before Edelgard. A powerful figure who sat atop a pyramid, issuing orders that were changed into fact by his armies and workers and scribes. They whispered quietly. What was a servant of the captain-general doing, meeting with a man such as this? What was she doing even entertaining such a person?

Why was she doing this?

Sweets stood near at hand, lip bit in uncertainty and fear. She looked up to Flayn and then back down again.

“You care for him,” Flayn said. It was a statement rather than a question.

Sweets sighed. “He’s a good master.”

“You should not let the Captain-General hear you say that. There are no more masters in Yunkai.”

Sweets’ jaw flexed. There were many like Sweets, Flayn knew. Slaves who had benefited from the old system in a way. Sweets had been a bedslave if Flayn recalled correctly. A person who had been forced, abused… A part of her pitied Sweets, she could not help it. What could be more tragic? The world here had been so wrong, so evil, that even victims clung to their abusers. Flayn believed in Edelgard’s mission, however acute the suffering became in the short term.

“I had masters before Yezzan,” Sweets said, unprompted, her voice low and serious. “They used me. Trotted me out naked, forced me to lay with… all manner of creatures. Yezzan did none of that. He only wanted to collect all the freaks of the world to himself. ‘Freaks like me’ he would say,” she laughed slightly. “He liked me more because I was clever, and because I wasn’t afraid of him. He liked that I was ignorant too, that he could tell me stories of the places he’d seen and the things he’d done. I always told him that when he felt better he could take himself and his whole menagerie on a grand tour, that he could show all those things to me himself, but-”

She was crying now. Flayn touched her lightly on the shoulder and said a silent prayer. Goddess help me. She had almost resolved not to help Yezzan, but Sweets’ words had made her uncertain. Was he even half the villain the stories had painted him to be? Did that even matter?

She stood in the room with him and the twelve men who had labored to set him down. They were below the level of the street here, and the air was cool, but still, Yezzan persisted in his sweating. He smiled weakly at her.

All eyes looked to her.

“Clear the room,” she said, her voice small and uncertain. “Just me and Yezzan. And… Linhardt too.”

The courtiers looked uncertainly between each other. They were still loyal to the man, after everything that happened, she realized. They did not want to leave him alone with her. She almost laughed at that. She was a tenth Yezzan’s size, and he was dying anyway. What did they think she meant to do to him?

“Go,” Yezzan said, chuckling to himself. “Go. There is nothing anyone can do to me now.”

One by one the courtiers streamed out, each scent of perfume disappearing one by one until only the scent of death remained.

Flayn approached the mountain of a man cautiously, circling about him to where she could put her hands on his head. “You must be truly desperate to come to me, the servant of your enemy.”

“Desperate? Perhaps. But I do not view your Edelgard as my enemy.”

“Daenerys then?”

She reached out to the light within herself and prayed again. She could feel the energy that flowed into him from her hands, touching and seeking out any wound, any disease. There was so much damage. Organs crushed and bruised by fat, bones weakened and soft from sitting so long, and worst of all, the fluid. It pooled amid his body, great excesses of foul water pent up inside him like some great damn. The man was a blister, a filthy seething heap of sewage and rotting meat. Flayn had a heart made of stone, but at that moment it felt tight with pain. How has he lived like this?

“Queen Daenerys? No, She is not my enemy either. My only enemy has been disease, disease, and wasting. Nothing else has mattered to me for a very long time. I only ever sought… new sights, to distract me from the pain, from the smell, from the death that awaited me. Now that it is so near at hand, I do not even know that I fear death.”

He laughed. “Your Seiros, your Sothis, they would condemn me to death, yes? For my crimes of slaving?”

“Perhaps.” Flayn could not say what Seiros would do in this situation, nor was it particularly relevant. Seiros had powers and tools and responsibilities that Flayn did not. As for Sothis… Flayn had never even met her. She had been asleep long before Flayn had ever been born. She did condemn slavery, but what sort of punishment would she see as fitting, for a man such as this? She wished her father were here. He would know.

Yezzan sighed. “I could quote to you of the teachings of the Graces, the teachings of the Red Priests. They have said for thousands of years that the role of the Wise Masters is to be patrons, to be as parents to the slaves, to watch over them as a wise caretaker. And now they change their tune, so suddenly.”

“They depended on you for your support. Now they depend on us.” She withdrew her power a moment seeking to focus and calm herself before the real work began.

“That is a terribly cynical view, from one so young and so devout.”

Flayn smiled. “I am not that young.”

“No, perhaps not. But I do not see Edelgard or Daenerys as my enemies. I am poor where I was rich, but what does that matter? A man dies and another comes to take his place. My nephews are more distraught than I. In truth…” He wheezed. “In truth, my great regret is that I will never get to see if it all works. Your captain’s plan, I mean. I always felt as though this great rotting city… I resented it sometimes, I saw it as a prison. But I loved it too, even as much as I loved my own flesh. Huge, rotting, disgusting.” He smiled broadly. “But mine. I thought perhaps if your Captain could bring it back to life where no one else had been able to, that this might be like a kind of second life for me.”

Flayn closed her eyes. “And if you should live? What would you do then?”

Yezzan chuckled. “Do not tempt me. I know that you have your limits. All healers do, and I’ve suffered too much at the hands of too many to believe in miracles. But I would like to travel if I could. Leave behind my wealth and power, become someone new. Perhaps, if it is you who heals me, I should become a traveling priest for your Saint Seiros, eh?”

Flayn looked up to Linhardt, who stood by the door deep in thought. He raised an eyebrow, she smiled in reply… and then he nodded.

“I will secure the door,” he said, turning.

Flayn closed her eyes. Goddess. Mother. Sothis. Grant me the light. Grant me the power. She did not know if it was right, but she knew that it would be wrong to lie and leave him as he had been. If it is the goddess’s will that you perish, she said, it will not be at my hand. Her body grew almost weightless, her form became empty. There was nothing left to her but air and wind and power, blinding, rushing power. She could feel it, feel it like a rushing torrent of water coursing through her body, up her spine, and down her arm, into Yezzan’s body, burning and assaulting every broken, bleeding part of him...

Yezzan screamed.

Men were beating at the door now, yelling curses and threats, but Flayn paid them no mind, only reaching deeper, only pushing more, more, more. She could afford no distraction. She worked spell after spell. Restore, Heal, Renew, Reinvigorate… The light destroyed and the light rebuilt. Muscles, bones, organs. Impurity was burned away, connections were remade. More slams against the door, more threats. Linhardt’s feet slid and scraped as he pushed to keep the door sealed.

And then it was all over. Flayn dropped to her knees and let the light fade.

Men broke through the door, throwing Linhardt aside. Sweets was at the front of them.

“What did you do to him?” She demanded. “What did you...” Her voice faltered.

Yezzan rose to his feet.

The Great Yezzan had shrunk three sizes. Great folds of skin draped off him like cloth. He was breathing hard, gasping for air and looking out through wide-open eyes. The yellow of his skin had given way toward a darker, redder hue, and even the stench of death had faded. The whole room stood, transfixed by the sight of him standing… and then the moment broke. Yezzan stumbled, almost fell, and a dozen of his servants went to his side to help him stand.

Flayn wanted to lay down and sleep for a week. She fought off the urge and stood. “The Goddess saw fit to purge him of his illnesses,” she managed, “I’ve removed toxins, healed his wounds, purged him of...” She sighed. What was the word they used her? “...foul miasmas.”

Yezzan panted, his eyes huge and his chest heaving. “I...” his voice was different now, higher-pitched and less throaty. “I will live?”

Flayn smiled wearily. “As long as anyone.”

Chapter Text

The chanting was going to drive her mad if it had not already. From atop the pyramid, the sound of the masses was nothing more than a distant roar, a rumbling like thunder that rose from the earth. The people were singing, singing the praises of the Goddess, the harmonious cacophony was enough to fill her with despair.

How long had it been since she had believed in Sothis the Progenitor and her Saints? Five years? Six? Edelgard could barely recall that time. Had that been before or after Hubert had urged her to make common cause with Arundel? It must have been after, she thought, because she faintly remembered feeling horror at the idea of fighting against the Goddess herself.

Yes, it came back to her now. She had prayed for another path to open so many times, there in the dark. Her siblings had as well, while they lived, but one by one their voices had gone silent, or else turned to babbling madness… in the end, her voice had gone silent too, but she had not died. That was what had made her different. She had possessed the resolve to cut her own path free, whatever it took. If the Goddess would not free her, then the goddess had failed and deserved to be judged like the rest. Everything else she had learned of the church, of the evils they had committed, that had come later and hardened her in her rebellion, but her imprisonment had been the first of the Goddess’s failings.

She scowled. She despised dwelling on the past. Every memory of the darkness pulled and sucked away at her sanity like a great drowning whirlpool. A single thought of those times and she was back there in an instant, unable to escape, think, or reason… she refused to entrap herself there once again now that she was free. There was nothing to be gained in the past except sorrow. The future required all of her being, and she would find a way to get to the future she had seen, even from this strange new world. She could not stop. She would not stop.

Think. Reason. What was to be done here?

Yezzan’s ‘miraculous’ healing had already passed into the stuff of legends. How close he had been to death, how well-regarded he had been, how charitable he now was, how openly pious… all points that perfectly fit the narrative of the birth of a Saint. Of course, the weak and huddled masses would cling to such a story rather than take hands with one another and rise to face the world.

“So Linhardt,” she said eventually, her head aching with pain. “Tell me of this new church of Cethleann? Tell me how you have somehow managed to create a religion with thousands and thousands of followers accidentally?” She resisted the urge to rub her temples.

Linhardt sighed from his position on the couch. What did he think she had called him here for purely social reasons? “Well, they had questions,” he said, “and I happened to be able to give them some answers.” He yawned and she wanted to slap him for impudence. “You should know me well enough to realize that I put basically no effort into this.”

“And what do you have to say for yourself?”

Linhardt frowned. “I did not think I would have to apologize for this. It’s a headache for you of course, but hasn’t this made your rule easier in other ways?”

Edelgard grit her teeth. Yes, yes it had. She resented it, but she could not deny the truth of the matter. Religion had ever been the tool of the strong holding power over the weak, and that had been her struggle here as much as anything. Yezzan’s followers were spreading his wealth throughout the city, earning goodwill and ensuring that the vile man would have a legacy in this city that could never die. The legacy of the ‘good slaver’ who repented of his vile ways. The line of supplicants that came to Edelgard’s court had been cut in half overnight, and from everywhere in the city came encouraging reports. Holdouts against her rule were folding, the common folk were tearing down the walls that divided the city of their own free will. The people of Yunkai were no longer Yezzan’s or Malazza’s or Paezhar’s… they were Cethlean’s, Seiros’, and so by extension they were Edelgard’s.

But she could easily enough see where this path ended. Yezzan would cement himself as a living saint and she would not be able to displace him. When they inevitably left Yunaki Yezzan would rule the city in all but name, five times as strong as he had ever been, uninhibited by rivals. The people would welcome him as their new overlord, as a living saint who had saved them and prevented them from needing to be strong...and then over the years that followed, every improvement that Edelgard had made would be like so much dust in the wind.

That had always been her darkest fear, the fear that she would not even dare to acknowledge. She fought to create a future she could not see, and when she was gone, her works would pass to another and who knew what they would make of it?

Edelgard grit her teeth. She hated feeling like this, hated that she could not even speak her mind to her own subordinates.

“I can’t have you focused on making a religion,” Edelgard snarled. “Or did you think I would notice how you’ve neglected your duties? You made Bernadetta do your paperwork? Have you even worked on a way home at all, or have you decided Yunkai suits you better than the Empire?”

Linhardt sighed. “Believe it or not, that has actually been my principal line of work. I have a few promising leads… the Dark Magic of this world is surprisingly advanced, all things considered. If you would like, I could show you-”

“No,” Edelgard said. “Thank you, Linhardt, and I...” She pressed her lips together. “I wish to apologize for my outburst now. It was unbecoming of one of my station, and you deserve more confidence from me.”

When had she become so erratic? This business with Flayn had set her on edge. She had to resolve it as soon as possible.

“Hubert will be arriving soon,” she continued. “You can demonstrate whatever you’ve learned to him.”

“Hubert is returning? Is Daenerys releasing him?”

“Daenerys is coming here,” Edelgard said. “Do not spread this abroad but a coalition has formed against our little kingdom here, and we need to ready ourselves for war.”

Linhardt raised an eyebrow at that. “Troublesome. But I will be sure that my affairs give you no cause of embarrassment.”

Embarrassment. Edelgard looked through the window to the street below, where the masses were dancing and singing. Chaos. Edelgard wished she could rejoice with them, but her heart felt only dread. She could practically feel the situation getting out of hand.

I need to put a stop to Yezzan she determined.

***

Ferdinand’s head ached. He felt as though his head had been caught between a hammer and an anvil, but the pain itself was nothing compared to the sluggishness, the torpor, the total helplessness. The fight had been two days ago, and only now did he find himself able to rise from bed and hold a conversation. He could remember the end of his fight with Cleon but everything after was a haze, a fuzzy time where everything was dim and dull and unclear.

Shahska and Melleezia had visited him, he knew. The dreams made everything uncertain but he felt confident that they had been there from the beginning. He wished he could blame them for his current state. He wished he could blame Edelgard or the Graces or even Cleon, but no, this had been entirely his fault. Of course Cleon would attempt to poison him. What other options did the Butcher King have? And now here he was, a weak, mewling babe, encircled by wolves that could easily devour him.

But he had little choice, and neither Shahska nor Melleezia had given him any cause for worry just yet. Astapor had been taken without further violence and Shahska had announced himself as Grand General of the armies of Astapor. That had been the deal Shahska had struck with Ferdinand, but Ferdinand had never thought the man would honor the arrangement if he had the chance to break it. He had scarcely believed that they could be so generous with him, all things considered. They hardly needed him or his meager army now, not really. Of course, it had been Ferdinand who had won the city but it would be easy enough to sideline him completely, make him a stuffed doll to sit upon the throne. That was what Ferdinand’s father had done to old Ionius.

But no, Shahska’s intentions were clear. Ferdinand himself would be crowned King of Astapor as soon as he recovered, and Shahska had been very respectful in his address and had involved Ferdinand in everything that he could be, under the circumstances. Ferdinand had even been visited by his captains, and they had confirmed the report as well.

A sound came at the door, and he half-rose, pulling himself up in his bed.

Shahska entered, glittering arakh by his side and a cruel smile playing about his lips. “So, our sleepy deer can finally rise from his bed? That is good news. I hope that soon he will be able to wear a crown as well.”

Ferdinand felt suddenly dizzy. He had risen too fast. But he willed himself to remain focused. Now was not the time to be weak. He could be weak later. He clutched the spear of Assal which had been propped up next to his bedside, its cool half stilling his mind and strengthening his body.

“I will be able to rise tomorrow, I think. I appreciate your patience, this poison, it...”

Shahska chuckled. “You drank enough Demon's Dance to kill a horse. Truly I can see why this divine blood of yours is prized among your people. But I have not come here to speak of such things.” Ferdinand breathed a sigh of relief. He had been half-afraid that Shahska had meant to keep him around as a consort to his daughter in an attempt to produce a crested heir. But if he was not insisting on that point now…

"I received a hawk from Meereen today," Shahska continued, leaning in. "The city of Meereen has fallen to your Dragon Queen.”

“Our Dragon Queen,” Ferdinand corrected. “The letter came just now?”

“Of course. It was addressed to King Cleon, you are Cleon’s replacement, and as you were indisposed I took the liberty to read it.” His one good eye crinkled and he passed the paper to Ferdinand.

Ferdinand swallowed, willing his eyes to read the words on the page. The Valyrian script, it was… not the same as Aedrestian script and though he knew it was a miracle he could read it at all, he found it difficult to read at the best of times. Now the words swam on the page, floating all about the room. He resisted the urge to put a hand to his head.

“I see,” he lied. “We can...” He paused. No, this would not do. He could not pretend to be strong now, it was not possible. He sighed. “I cannot read this. What does it say?”

Shahksa nodded. “Meereen has fallen, and they have received news of how poorly things in the city were going under our good friend Cleon. She wished to warn him that she would not tolerate such disorder and that furthermore, we are to expect enemies to be approaching from the south within the month. Iron Legions out of New Ghis, come to contain the threat that we pose to the slavers of the bay of Ghis.”

Iron Legions. He struggled to remember what little he’d learned of them. They were citizen-soldiers, of a finer caliber than the shoeless slave armies of Yunkai, or even the Unsullied of Astapor. To face them in battle while the city was still starving actively…

“They are coming here?”

Shahska’s smile tightened. “Yes, your Grace.”

Ferdinand closed his eyes and prayed again to Seiros.

Shahska laughed. “You should not be so glum, your Grace? Is this not what you wanted? A chance for you to show your quality, to win glory on the field of battle? Come. You have been in bed two nights and three days, and you are already much the better. By the end of the week, you will be as fine as you ever were, and we will strike out against these Iron Legions and show them that Astapor still has its teeth.”

Ferdinand sighed again. “I suppose.” He paused, and Shahska seemed to sense that he had something more to say. “Shahska... why did you keep me alive?” He asked after a moment. “You could have easily let me die, or crowned yourself, or...”

Shahska's eyes grew sharp. “What, is that what you thought I would do? Because I was some bastard-born Dothraki war slave? You looked at me once and thought, ‘ah, this gutter dog will knife me in my sleep,’ yes? That is what you thought? Tch. We dogs have our honor too. Besides, why should I want crown and scepter? I would sooner sit ahorse than sit a throne.”

Ferdinand bowed his head. “My thanks… General. And my apologies.”

Shahska bowed slightly. “Ah, there is nothing to forgive. But I fear that there are many tasks yet for me to accomplish, and you require rest. Am I dismissed?”

Ferdinand assented and the man left. As soon as the door closed behind Shaksa, he slumped into his pillows and closed his eyes. Tears leaked from him. He felt like one of those characters from the operas who existed to be smitten down by the Goddess for their hubris. Shahska was a bastard dog born a slave, and yet the man had more nobility than Ferdinand’s own father. He remembered Ionius sitting atop the throne, those dead eyes gazing out helplessly into the middle distance. He had felt pity for the man, sometimes, but mostly he had ignored him completely. How could he have been so blind to the suffering of another? How could he have been so proud of his family’s status, when it had come to be through treachery and cruelty?

He had not seen it as treachery, of course. He knew all the justifications that his father had peddled. Ionius had started the civil war. Ionius had lost. Ionius had been incompetent and grasping and had brought war. Ludwig had brought order. All obvious lies. Ferdinand had known them to be lies from the beginning, but he had always overlooked the obvious to spare his pride. The Nobility had been intending to coup Ionius for decades, and all Ionius had done was spring the trap.

For the first time, Ferdinand found himself questioning what had happened to all the concubines and their children. He had always assumed that they had fled into irrelevance, but the more he thought of it, the more naive he felt himself to have been. Fled into irrelevance. Give your father more credit than that. Aegir and Vestra were not men who left loose ends. His father had hunted them down and killed them. All except Edelgard. Yes, it made too much sense. Kill all the heirs except the young girl. Had they planned on marrying her to him? Or perhaps Hubert? Sothis, no wonder she hates me.

He closed his eyes and hoped he dreamed of happier things.

Chapter Text

“Behold! The Bounty of the Goddess comes to you even as it has come to me? How can I not give life to all I see when the Goddess has given me such a glorious excess of vitality?” Yezzan laughed and spread his arms wide, as though he were boasting of his physique. The crowd laughed, as they always did. Flayn and the healers had done what faith and medicine could, but he would always be tall and gaunt and covered in scars. But his ugliness hardly mattered to the people of Yunkai. Everywhere he went he met with cheers.

Thought perhaps the free bread and wine had more to do with that than any personal charisma.

Yezzan had renounced all his titles a week ago and had been touring the city like this ever since, freely distributing food and words of exhortation to all who would listen. Yezzan zo Qaggaz, wisest of the wise masters had perished, and only “Humble Yezzan” remained. Flayn stood not far behind him, listening to his speech with a sort of quiet bemusement. What a ridiculous man he was! Humans never ceased to surprise her.

“Why is now that the Goddess revealed her chosen servant?” His voice boomed across the square, deep and full of power. “Why did she not come earlier? I can already see that some of you ask this in your hearts. Do not ask such questions. Ask rather, why should she take pity on us at all when we have been such miserable, monstrous persons, scarcely even fit to be called human? Who can know better of the excesses of our people than myself? All men of Yunkai torture their fellow man, but none more than the Wise Masters, and none of them more than myself.”

He paused a moment in silence, as though reflecting on his crimes. He always did so at this point of the speech. Flayn wondered if he took the time to reflect on his crimes every time. But the moment passed, and then the great man rose his face toward the crowd with a smile. “Set aside such cruelty, such wantonness. Make yourself a slave of the Goddess, and no other. You have seen how the Chosen serves us all, and who is higher than her? Who has demeaned themselves more? Today, the world has been turned upside down and we will set all to right!”

The crowd cheered, and Yezzan stepped down from the stage, his cheeks red with the exertion of speaking and his teeth bared in a fierce smile. He was still recovering from his illness but he would hear no talk of rest.

“Well, what do you say, Chosen of the Goddess? Was my speech not your satisfaction?”

Flayn laughed somewhat uneasily. Chosen of the Goddess. What a ridiculous title. As though the Goddess would single such a person out for a task such as this. Even Seiros had only been visited the one time. Flayn had never so much as heard the voice of the Goddess. But she was mature enough to master her feelings, and so she smiled and nodded in reply.

“You did well, Humble Yezzan. I fear my speeches such as they are cannot ever match your gift for oratory.”

Yezzan laughed. “Of course, of course. You are small and I am large and my lungs exceed yours. In this one respect, I surpass you.”

Flayn only smiled slyly in reply. She was smaller now.

The carts carrying the food trundled forward, bound packages of flatbread and baskets of fruit being handed down to the eager crowd even before the carts came to a stop. People were cheering, eating, drinking, singing, and praising the Goddess. What a wonderful sight! Flayn had felt so insufficient to address the troubles of the city when she had started, but now they were making a real difference. Other wealthy men of the city had begun making offerings like this elsewhere in Yunkai. Merchants, former slaves who had become powerful in Edelgard’s new regime….

The only sour note in all of it was Yezzan himself, and the few other Wise Masters who had joined in with the giving. Yezzan’s charity was born of his wealth and his wealth had been born of oppression and greed. Even now, his former slaves drove the carts, the gold came from Yezzan’s vaults, and the bread had been bought by merchants and ship captains who still held loyalty for Yezzan. The man could disavow his titles and dress in rags all he liked, but he still held much of his old power, and that power had been built on corruption and wickedness.

What a conundrum! Flayn wished father were here. He would know what to make of such a situation. He would be able to simply and clearly devise a solution. But for now… well, she supposed it was not that different from the discussion with the Graces and the Red Priests. The whys and whens and hows could all be discussed by scholars later. For now, the people were fed, and that was enough.

Starving men and women will eat today, she reminded herself. That cannot be a bad thing.

Cries of alarm pulled her away from her thoughts. Men and women were pointing, shouting at something behind her. Flayn turned to see the Black Eagle of Adrestia approaching, waving in the breeze over a column of a marching pavise column. At their front, almost a head shorter than any man in the column walked Edelgard herself, face as hard and immovable as glass. She wore the armored coat she had come to favor more recently, long-hafted ax by her side.

Flayn’s heart quickened. She had never grown close with the Imperial heir, despite her best attempts. Edelgard confronted life like a chisel pushing through stone. She had no vulnerability, no weakness no humanity. Well, that was unfair. Flayn knew that the other Eagles had closer bonds with Edelgard. But still, she always found herself feeling like the woman disliked her for some reason.

You have done nothing wrong, she reminded herself. Well, nothing seriously wrong. She had been missing meetings and ignoring her assigned duties, but if Edelgard had been angry with her, surely she would have said something before now. But why was she making such a show of force?

Flayn walked down from the stage to greet Edelgard and curtsied. “Captain-General,” She said, "To what do we owe the honor?”

Edelgard’s face remained frozen. “I had heard of your work and came to observe. Nothing more. You and I do not speak often enough.”

Flayn frowned. Why had she come with a small army then? But Flayn had no right to ask such a question. “Oh, I am sorry for that,” she managed. “But I hope you see that I have been engaged in very important work here.”

“You have,” Edelgard acknowledged evenly, looking out at the crowd without a hint of emotion. “You and Yezzan have made yourselves almost totally indispensable in a very short period of time.”

What did she mean by that? Yezzan came down to stand beside them and bowed deeply to Edelgard before speaking. “This humbled one is not indispensable, Captain-General. What have I truly done? Nothing, except encourage others to act. Ships bring in the food, merchants buy it from them, and teamsters bring it into the city to the people. All of…” He gestured broadly. “All you see here has been done by others. I am but a witness to the great work.”

Edelgard’s nostrils flared ever-so-slightly, and Flayn winced. She was angry, and Flayn did not know why. Was it such a bad thing, to bring bread into the city?

“If you are not needed,” Edelgard replied, “Then whatever became of the pilgrimage you said you would set out on? I heard about it from one of your servants, that you had some idea of becoming a traveling preacher, sharing the words of the Goddess.” Edelgard paused suddenly. “I assume your plans must have changed?”

“Ah.” Yezzan opened his mouth slightly before replying. “I would go in an instant, but there are no ships to take me. Tolos, Elyria, New Ghis. I could get so far, but I fear my journey would end there most… abruptly.”

“Unacceptable,” Edelgard said. “We have ships and wyverns. Surely we can escort you further afield. Volantis perhaps?”

Yezzan looked down. “If the Captain-General wills-”

“Hold on!” Flayn almost surprised herself with how angry she had become. The idea of losing Yezzan’s big booming voice frightened her. She needed the man, needed his contacts, needed his natural charisma. If he left now all their work in the city would be set back by weeks and weeks and she did not know that she would ever recover. “Isn’t there a war about to start? We can’t afford to be sending-”

“I think I know better than you what resources our army has available.” Edelgard’s rebuke caught her on her cheek like a whiplash. Flayn closed her mouth. But Edelgard was not done. “If you had been attending any of the meetings of the Black Eagles you would not ask such a question.”

“I have been busy.”

“And I have been patient. I have tolerated much from you and Linhardt, but really, even I have limits. Starting today, you and Linhardt will be present for every meeting. A war is about to start.”

Flayn was suddenly aware that the air had grown silent and tense. A hundred ears were listening to them.

“Anyway,” Edelgard said, breaking the silence. “That is all I came to say. I can speak to Yezzan about specific travel arrangements at a later date.”

She turned to leave. Flayn wanted to cry. She had been pushed aside like a leaf in a hurricane. They needed Yezzan. This plan of Edeglard’s was wrong. It was wrong, and she knew it, but she could not-

No.

“Edelgard,” Flayn said. “You are making a mistake.”

Edelgard pretended not to hear her. Flayn grit her teeth. “Edelgard, Yunkai needs Yezzan! At least for a while yet! I know you hate him because of what he was, but he is a different person now, and we’re being overwhelmed. I stopped coming to your meetings because I never made it past the swarms of people starving and bleeding on your very doorstep. I always had to stop and help. Maybe you never saw them, maybe you always flew down from the pyramid on your Wyvern, but they were there, they are there, and I have been constantly working to aid them, every day, every night… I am drowning in a sea of suffering, can’t you understand that? Can’t you understand how much work like this matters? Don’t you care??”

Edelgard did not turn immediately. Murmurs spread throughout the crowd like lightning, swelling and rising up like thunder. The Captain-General spits in the face of the Goddess’ Chosen. The Captain-General does not care. Bread for the people. Edelgard turned then, her eyes wide with surprise. Her men’s hands went to their weapons.

In a single, awful moment, Flayn saw it all happen before her mind’s eye. The people of Yunkai would riot. Edelgard would destroy them, but it would not stop there. Armies would come from the South. Yunkai would fall. It would be her doing.

But that never happened.

A great shadow fell over the square and all eyes turned heavenward. A dragon swept over the square, black as night and swift as thought. The black dragon wheeled in the sky and came back toward them for a second pass, slowing considerably. For a moment all the war and the Goddess were forgotten as all turned to gape. Wyverns had become a common sighting in the city, but the Queen’s dragons were leaner, faster, stronger, and they had never been so large when they had been in the city last. Drogon was larger than a wyvern now, and Flayn could just pick out a rider in silver and black clinging to its back.

Daenerys. The Dragon Queen.

“Clear a space for the Queen to land!” Flayn shouted. They needed to seize the moment, make the people forget what had happened. “Clear the Plaza for the Queen!” The people surged, stumbling over one another in their rush.

Daenerys touched down in the midst of them, Drogon’s huge wings nearly flattening Flayn as he righted himself upon the ground. He snarled at the commonfolk as they stumbled away, even snapping at one man who had been too slow. On his back Daenerys struggled, fighting to retain control over the monster.

Flayn stepped forward and put out a hand. Drogon turned toward her, great red eyes burning with anger… and then something like recognition passed through them and the rage was gone. Daenerys slid off the beast’s side and rushed to Drogon’s head.

“Are you unharmed?” The queen shouted. She was dressed in armor of plates now, with a wide smoky-black shield of steel strapped to her back and a winged helm upon her head. The armor had been fashioned to her form, thin and distinctly female in design, and Flayn could not help but see Daenerys as imitating Edelgard.

She giggled. What an absurd turn of events! “I am well. Have no fear.”

“Flayn has always had an extraordinary talent with wyverns,” Edelgard said, approaching from behind. Her voice suddenly sounded very tired. “I am sorry that I could not receive you at the pyramid, your Grace, I-”

Daenerys turned from petting her dragon and blushed. “Oh, do not worry. I am sorry for causing such a scene. I know I must have interrupted something very important.”

“No,” replied Edelgard and Flayn at the same time.

Chapter Text

Edelgard's heart was a tempest in a teapot. She would not, could not afford to let the Dragon Queen see how angry she was, how weak she had felt mere moments ago. She had been so strong when she had come into the square, so sure that she had read the situation correctly, that Flayn and Yezzan would never dare defy her openly. Flayn and Yezzan had the mob on their side, true, but what was a mob to twenty armored knights of Adrestia? They could not incite the mob against her without dying, and she knew that, and they knew that, and so the idea of them striking back at her had been an impossibility.

But Flayn had done it anyway. What did that imply? That Flayn had regained more of her power than had been suspected? That she was as strong a dragon and could challenge her directly? That Flayn had guessed Edelgard’s true intentions and meant to spitefully ruin her rule, even at the cost of her own life? Or had Edelgard completely misread the situation? Was Flayn merely an inept creature trying to follow the outdated teachings of Seiros?

She could not decide which of these options troubled her the most.

But she kept her face as still as porcelain. The Dragon queen had taken a brown mare and rode beside her, chatting away, blissfully heedless. Edelgard tried to follow her words but could not. She was too mindful of Flayn and Yezzan, who had been left back in the market square. That had been the Queen’s order, an attempt to quell the populace.

“Why are you so quiet, Captain-General?” Daenerys’ voice broke Edelgard from her thoughts.

She looked down. “I am sorry, your grace. I am not someone who converses easily. The other Black Eagles will confirm this report, I fear. You were speaking of this coalition that has formed against us?”

Daenerys nodded. “I am told that we will be outnumbered two to one in the field. They will be at Astapor in only a few weeks and Cleon cannot be expected to hold against them for long.”

“We have advantages. Your Unsullied, your dragons. My wyverns and mages.” Two to one odds. These Iron Legions were supposedly of superior quality, but Edelgard reserved her judgment until she laid eyes on them. If they were only superior when compared to the slave soldiers of Yunkai, that meant little enough, but if they were truly soldiers of quality… well, even then they would manage.

“The fleet troubles me more, particularly these claims of magic that can strike my dragons from the skies. Your man Hubert, he says that we will be starved to death by their fleets before their army ever reaches us. What do you think of this counsel?”

“A ruler who ignores Hubert does so at their own peril.”

The Queen nodded in complete agreement, and Edelgard felt a twinge of contempt for her. She should be more mistrustful, she should not be asking Edelgard to verify the words of her own subordinate... But no, that was unfair. The queen - Daenerys, was just a girl. Fifteen, friendless, without training, and without counsel, The miracle was that the queen had gotten as far as she had. She needed trustworthy allies. She needed friends.

“The coalition is not so mighty as they appear,” Edelgard replied. “They were rivals a few months ago, and have united now only because we have disrupted their trade. If the war becomes too expensive their resolve will fall into shambles.”

“The way you put it, it is almost like a pure battle of wills. Will our faction splinter first, or theirs?”

“I suppose.” Edelgard frowned. “But it isn’t really a matter of will at all. Perhaps you’d be willing to fight to the last, but what about your soldiers? Your servants? The people of the city? Most of them would suffer if New Ghis or some other neighbor conquered them, but if things get bad enough they might view it as a fair trade.” Yezzan’s ghoulish face leered in her mind’s eye. “It is a test of their resolve against our ability to keep our people fed.”

Daenerys did not reply immediately. She stared out at the city as they rode toward the great pyramid of Qaggaz. “Really, this is a beautiful street,” she said. “And the smells too, those are most refreshing.”

What an inane statement, Edelgard thought, but after a moment she saw the Queen’s point. The city for all its scars was at peace. Perhaps one building in ten was damaged, but almost all of them were at least part of the way to being repaired. Piles of spices were set out for sale in the open street, and money changed hands quickly. A beggar peered up at her and smiled with a broken grin and Edelgard could not help but smile back. For months Edelgard had been atop the pyramids, flying between key points of the city on Wyvernback and fretting endlessly about the Wise Masters and their loyalists… but here on the streets, the city lived and thrived. It functioned. The war would upset it all, of course, but the people would not forget these days of relative peace and prosperity. And freedom. Peace, prosperity, and freedom.

“I suppose it is,” Edelgard said after a moment. “The work has been exhausting, but we really, truly have made progress. I take it that things in Meereen are well?”

A cloud passed over Daenerys’ face. “Meereen is well,” She said, and seemed more confident for having said it. “Your Hubert has been indispensable.”

Edelgard smiled. “I have sorely missed him.” It would be good to have him back soon. She ached to tell him of the situation with Flayn.

“You have had others besides him,” Daenerys replied. “The girl in the plaza when we touched down... Flayn, I think her name is? She impressed me. I think that I must learn the ways of this Sothis as well.”

The unease in Edelgard’s heart had been ebbing as they rode away from the plaza but now it rose up to swallow her. She struggled to keep her composure. What would she do if the Queen herself came under Flayn’s influence? Worse, under Yezzan’s? The thought disgusted her, but she could see it happening all too easily. Despite the sun and the bright mood all around, Edelgard could feel the old walls of her cell closing in around her.

“Flayn is not what she appears.” The words were out before she knew that she had said them. “I mean to say that of all my subordinates, I trust her the least. She is… powerful after a fashion, and I believe she means well. But I have no interest in her giving a platform to that monster Yezzan.”

Daenerys seemed unbothered by this outburst. “Well, I am sure you know your own better than anyone. But I am curious as to why Drogon liked her so well.”

Edelgard did not trust herself to reply to that.

By the time that they arrived at the Great Pyramid of Qaggaz, word had already spread of their approach, and all the garrison of the palace had come out to greet them. Men of her own forces, men who had been trained by Ferdinand, and women and children too, squeezing in to get a glance at the Queen. The dragons circled above, tiny dots against the bright blue sky, accompanied by a few of her own wyverns.

“Misa! Misa!” the people cried, and Edelgard could suppress a small smile. Flayn had made herself into the people’s darling of the moment, but the Queen had been their first love. For her part, the Queen smiled and laughed and drank in the praise. She would hold them in her orbit for a little while longer. Perhaps Edelgard herself was getting caught up in her cause. Edelgard shook her head. What a thing to contemplate.

But still, perhaps she had been too morose. She did not have a Thales or a Rhea or even a Ludwig Von Aegir to contend against in this world. Her troubles, real though they were, were nothing in comparison to what she had left behind.

An hour more and they were in peace atop the pyramid, sipping hippocras and eating skewered lamb, with trays of dates and figs to the side for refreshment. They would be feasting properly later, but Edelgard had guessed that the Queen would be wanting refreshment after such a long flight from Meereen. She had been right.

“It is a dreadfully long walk to the top of the pyramid,” Daenerys said. “I wonder how that man Yezzan ever managed the climb, even with a palanquin.”

“He didn’t.” Edelgard replied, “In fact, none of the Wise Masters left their pyramids if they could help it. It was a means of showing their wealth, their superiority. Anyone who wanted anything from them would have to come to them, and struggle to do so.”

“It seems to me that only a fool would wall themselves off from their people so,” Dany said. “That is why I use the pleasure houses on the lower tiers of the pyramid to hold my court.”

Daenerys’ tone bore no reproach, but Edelgard felt a hint of shame. She had never contemplated using one of the lower pleasure houses. The heights of the pyramids were better for the wyverns, and she had wanted to cement herself as the ruler every bit as much as Yezzan had been. But in so doing she had made herself unapproachable and superior even as Yezzan and her kin had been.

Edelgard thought of the sunlit street earlier and how much it had surprised her. She thought of Flayn and how quickly the girl had gained influence without her noticing.

Edelgard had grown out of touch with her own people. That was a bitter thought. She had never intended to be some austere overlord. She had wished to be nothing more than the first citizen of the Empire… but what did it really mean, if she kept all the titles and honors of the world she had intended to do away with?

No matter. Guilt was a distraction. She had determined her error and would cut a path to the future she desired.

“Your Grace!” A voice interrupted them from below. It was the majordomo, a man Edelgard had selected herself. He bowed deeply on the floor. “Your grace, this favored seneschal regrets interrupting your counsel, however, there is a man come, he claims to be a messenger.”

Daenerys and Edelgard shared a meaningful glance. Edelgard cleared her throat. “A messenger from the coalition?”

“From Prince Doran of Dorne. He bears a letter with that man’s seal, or so this one believes. The seals of Westeros are seen here only rarely. ”

Edelgard looked to her queen, and the queen nodded. “Send him in,” Edelgard said with a sigh.

The man came in with his two attendants, and Edelgard’s teeth clenched in anger. Ferdinand’s mercenaries. A part of her recognized that it had always been likely that they were spies, that them being agents of some distant prince was one of the less dangerous possibilities… but the greater part of her burned at their gall. If they had been less obvious she would have been less insulted. The messenger came forward and bowed.

The majordomo received a sealed scroll from the messenger and brought it to the Queen, who read it and then passed it to Edelgard. The letter was short enough. Daenerys’ former guardian had arranged a match between this Doran’s daughter and Daenerys’ older brother. The guardian was long dead, and Viserys’ corpse was only slightly warmer. Edelgard looked to Daenerys, only to find the girl looking back at her.

Well if the queen wanted her opinion, she would have it. Edelgard set the letter aside and addressed the messenger. “Unless this Princess of Dorne means to marry a corpse,” Edelgard said, “I am afraid you have journeyed in vain, sir.”

“Not so, Captain-General. The secret pact was struck between Darry and Prince Doran, but if Viserys cannot marry his daughter… then Daenerys can marry his son. That is to say, marry me. I am Quentyn, prince of Dorne,” he said. “And I will fulfill this pact if the Lady Daenerys wishes it.”

The man’s words were filled with confidence, but his voice and eyes were filled with fear. Of course, he was afraid. He must realize how ridiculous his offer was. Edelgard ruled her tongue, keeping silence. This offer was for Daenerys, and it must be she that refused it. Edelgard could only hope she had the sense to see the obvious.

The Queen paused half a moment before replying. “Thousands of miles and a great enemy fleet lie between myself and Dorne,” she said. “Your father should have sent a fleet if he wanted to bring me hence.”

“My father has a great army,” The man insisted. “Fifty thousands, to aid in your conquest of Westeros.”

A shadow passed over Daenerys’ face. “I find it strange that your sister was never dispatched to my brother in all those long years we spent in Braavos, in Pentos. He should have been across the narrow sea to greet her in a heartbeat.”

“He would have died. Robert was strong then and your brother had nothing. My father would have only doomed him. Things are different now. Robert is dead, his heirs are weak, and you wield fire and blood like the Targaryens of old. Surely with such might...”

“I am grateful to receive such a noble offer,” Daenerys stated firmly. “But I must first survive the next month, and then we may talk of conquest and marriage. Until then I will see that you are treated in a manner befitting your station - Captain-General?”

Edelgard nodded in reply. “Seneschal, see them put up in the pyramid of Eraz, with servants and provisions as needed.” The Great House of Eraz would not mind. The dead cared not what you did with their former belongings.

The Martell envoys left soon thereafter, and as they left Edelgard caught Daenerys smiling slightly as she watched them leave.

“You mean to accept him?” She asked. “You mean to leave here for Westeros?”

Daenerys blinked. “Of course. That has always been my intent.”

Edelgard held her tongue. This was not her fight. She had no reason to involve herself more than she already had. Edelgard herself intended to leave soon enough, what business did she have dictating terms to this girl?

“You disapprove,” Daenerys said.

“This Westeros, you don’t even remember it, why forsake everything you have here? Before this Quentyn appeared, you would have been arriving as a foreign conqueror.”

“I would not be a foreign conqueror. The throne is my birthright.” The Queen said it without thought. Birthright. Edelgard wished she was surprised by such a glib reply. But she had already known the queen to be naive, and most nobles were raised with such entitled expectations. Edelgard felt angry, not at Daenerys, but at whoever had taught her to fixate on some distant goal.

“You say it is your right, but who granted you such a right? The gods? To the people of Westeros, you are a claimant, nothing more or less. Here, the people in the streets call you mother, and that is only because of what you have done, not because of who your brother or mother or father was.”

Daenerys frowned. “I know that. I will not abandon the Bay until it is strong enough to stand on its own. But can you not understand to go back, to claim the seat of your ancestors? Is that not what you seek to do yourself? Besides, I know that the people of Westeros languished under the tyranny of the usurper, and whatever tyrant replaces him will be little better. I cannot abandon my people here, but I cannot abandon the people in the West, either.”

So young. So honest. Had Edelgard ever been so innocent? It seemed impossible. There was a similarity between them, but Daenerys viewed her bloody path without a hint of disgust. Did that make Daenerys a cruel tyrant, or a naive child? Edelgard thought of the work that awaited her back in Fodlan. It seemed distant now, like a scheme that had belonged to a different person. She almost wished she could never return, never betray the professor and all her Black Eagles. The very idea of contending with Thales, Rhea, and all their abominable wretches made her ache. She almost wished to stay in Ghis for the rest of her short life.

But her wishing did not matter. She had determined to save Fodlan and so she would.

“Perhaps we are the same,” Edelgard said, “But I am still not sure that I understand you.” Nor was she sure that she understood herself.

Chapter Text

he messenger was dressed in the uniform of Ferdinand's light horse, and that alone made Edelgard's heart clench. News from the campaign in the hills had been scarce and stale, and it had been weeks since their last report. She cursed herself for not paying closer attention. At any time she could have gone out to see to him with a wyvern, but…. In truth, she had been happy to put him out of her mind. Now those hills were to become the front of a war against the coalition, and Edelgard feared that everyone in the Bay of Ghis would pay the price of her negligence.

The messenger prostrated himself before them. Edelgard repressed the urge to rebuke the man. She despised all such displays of obeisance, but she would gain nothing by making a scene now. "Wise and Exalted Master of Yunkai, city of cities," the man began, and it was all Edelgard could do to resist rolling her eyes. "I come bearing word from Lieutenant-General of the Black Eagles and acting Regent of Astapor, Ferdinand Von Aegir."

Edelgard started. "Regent of Astapor?"

The messenger did not raise his eyes to look at her. "Yes, your Wisdom. It is the conquest of Astapor that I have come to report."

How? That Ferdinand would attempt such a thing, Edelgard did not doubt, but he had only had a few hundred men, even with the men he had picked up in the hills. Astapor was a crumbling ruin like Yunkai but the walls were still tall and strong.

"The people of Astapor had labored for too long under the heel of the tyrant Cleon, and many clamored for this person or that to depose him. The Lieutenant-General was one of the people named, and so Cleon challenged him to a duel, to set the clamorers to silence, and so Ferdinand defeated him ably and so claimed the city."

Edelgard's jaw flexed. Of course he went for a duel. Typical. How many times had he challenged her for rulership of the empire? She thought of how smug Ferdinand must have been when he received the challenge from Cleon and she bristled. But more enraging was the thought that Ferdinand may have set this all up intentionally. Did he mean to play the part of her rival in earnest? To cast himself as her equal and play for the Queen's favor?

She hated herself even as she thought it. Ferdinand was a fool, not a monster, and no doubt he truly had saved the people of Astapor from a frightening fate. No doubt his ambition had driven him to take Astapor but his kindness and heart for the people had as well. Edelgard thought of the situation with Flayn and with Daenerys and winced. Edelgard wished for once she could cast herself in the role of the hero. She felt cramped and controlled by her own disposition and mistrust. Until now she had trampled any opposition under her feet, but she did not wish for it to always be that way.

No, she would be cautious. Ferdinand needed to be handled carefully.

Another more terrifying idea occurred to her. "But what of the advance of the Coalition? The Forces of Ghis and Qarth must almost be upon the city by now."

"The Regent has set about the city's defense, and his busyness with this task is why this message has been so slow in the coming. His goodness asked to convey his sincerest apologies to you in this matter."

Apologies. Tch. Edelgard rose from the chair and picked up her ax.

"Y-your Wisdom," the man sputtered. "W-what message should I bring back to the Regent?"

"Spare your horses," Edelgard replied. "I will bring my message to him myself."

***
The horses in front of Ferdinand slacked their pace, and Ferdinand clicked his tongue in annoyance. Why were they stopping? These lands were not safe. The southern borders of Astapor's former territory had become a lawless land, not unlike the Red Hills the north where he had first been deployed. But greater dangers than bandits awaited them here. The forces of the Coalition, of New Ghis and Qarth and half a dozen other lesser powers, made camp but a few day's ride from here.

Their plan had seemed so simple plan back in the palazzo in Astapor. Ride a few days south, cut the enemy scouts blind. A host as great as the forces of the coalition could not move swiftly, and they would move slower still if they feared an ambush at every turn. That would buy time for Astapor to raise its defenses, time for Daenerys and Edelgard to march to their aid.

But the plan had gone awry and now they were prey and not hunters. Now it was him who feared an ambush at every turn. Three times they had clashed with the enemy, and three times they had been victorious, but there was a larger party that had come after them now. He had seen the light from their campfires at night.

How many did they have? A hundred? Two hundred? Against his fifty? In the end, the exact numbers mattered little. The coalition fielded tens of thousands and they would have riders enough to squash his fifty like a bug. Ferdinand had felt so proud of the few thousand he had cobbled together from Yunkai, Astapor, and the Red Hills, but they were nothing in the face of the force that came for them now. Ferdinand and his scouts had been planning on fighting their pursuers on a narrow ridge that their guide remembered from his youth. They had thought they could fight as they had in the hills, defeating forces three and four times their number, but the land was too strange and this sudden slackening of their pace filled his heart with fear.

He clicked his tongue and urged Assala forward to the front of their small party. Their guide was a boy named Pherez who had grown up in this region and claimed to know them as well as the back of his hand. When Ferdinand caught his eyes though, the boy only smiled apologetically.

"Why have we slowed?"

Pherez scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "The lands aren't the same as I remember, Master Aegir. This path should have had us near the old copper mines an hour ago, but I've not seen them yet."

"We're lost."

"Well, no. And yes. As long as we can see the mountain we're not lost, I can find a way back easy enough, but..."

He did not have to say the rest. The boy's memory was not so keen as he remembered. The boy might well have gotten them all killed! Ferdinand cooled himself. This was no time for blame. Pherez had been a skilled young recruit in the Red Hills and had proven himself a dozen times over. He was one of those common-born boys who fought and rode almost like a noble, but in the end, he was only common, and so it was Ferdinand who would bear the blame. He was in charge here. He had ordered this expedition, had pushed his men to come here. Pherez would never have volunteered to lead if Ferdinand had not asked.

They could still pull this off. They might still have some time. They might come upon a canyon, might be able to send a portion of their strength to lead their pursuers away while the greater part lay in ambush. He gripped the Lance of Assal. In a narrow space, he could fight ten, or even twenty…

He swallowed. No.

"We're heading back." He felt more confident for having said it. "We can double back over our own tracks, then split off at the river. With a little luck, we'll lose them there, and then we have a straight shot back to Astapor."

Retreat. It galled him. It went against everything that he stood for, everything he had stood for before now. But he thought back to how close things had been with Cleon and felt sure that he had chosen rightly now. He could not gamble with the lives of his men. If he could be sure that they could find a defensible position, or set an ambush, he might try to make a stand, but without knowing the territory...

He had made the correct decision, but that was only a cold comfort as they turned their horses around and plodded back up the dusty trail from whence they had come. The men could sense the shift in his mood as well. They had followed him into battle a dozen times or more at this point. They had always seen victory, they had always emerged as heroes, even against terrible odds, but the situation was different now. Before they had always been fighting against bandits, poorly equipped and poorly led, riding farm nags and fleeing at the first showing of real resistance. The coalition forces were of superior quality.

This time Pherez led them true, and soon only one great hill remained between them and the river. Hope blossomed in Ferdinand's heart. Would they do it? Would they give the Ghiscari the slip? Would his men be safe? A few minutes more would tell.

But as they crested the hill, all their hearts sank. A thin black line of scouts bearing the harpy of New Ghis could be seen less than a mile distant, just beyond the river, their steel glittering in the sun. Worse than what lay ahead, though was what lay behind. In the far distance, on the edge of their vision, another black line stretched. The Ghiscari had split their hunting party in two, one before and one behind, and Ferdinand had nowhere to run.

Goddess, there were so many of them. The group across the river was a hundred and fifty if it was one, and the force behind them was three or four times that.

"Master Aegir," Pherez said, his voice nervous. "Your orders?"

His mind was empty. There was nothing. They were dead. A hundred and fifty could hold the crossing against his paltry force with contemptuous ease. If there were other crossings, east or west, Ferdinand did not know of them.

"Master Aegir?" Pherez asked again.

Ferdinand grit his teeth. "Well, what did you expect? We'll have to fight them. They split their forces so we'll have fewer to contend with than we expected." Fewer numbers but the terrain was against them. They would be surrounded and destroyed on the far shore. He would rather have faced double their number on some narrow mountain pass. But he could not tell the men that. "If we break the force across the river, that force behind us will be of no concern. They're hours and hours behind us and as we go North we'll know the terrain better. It will be hard riding but if we can make it to the garrison I left at the Green River Bridge there will be fresh horses and warm beds for all of us."

He spurred Assala forward down the hill. Madness, this scheme was madness. But what alternative did they have? Lay down and die?

They trotted their horses down the hill slowly, sparing their strength for the crossing and the fighting. Ferdinand's heart was in his throat, his spear light in his hand. He had never been the most pious noble, but he found himself praying as they advanced. Goddess, he breathed, Goddess preserve us.

They came to the river's edge and forged through the waters. Already the Ghiscari were assembling to meet them, bows at the ready. The scouts of New Ghis were citizens of the city who paid for their own arms and armor, and their kit reflected this. Clean arakhs of fine steel, plated coats of layered cloth, Cloaks dyed black and green, embroidered with images of the Harpy, the Graces, the Tiger of Volantis, or some other symbol Ferdinand did not recognize. These were not the beaten-down slave soldiers of Old Ghis. These were the soldiers of the Harpy reborn, proud and free and strong.

"Steady," he urged his men. "Steady." Arrows whizzed out among them, and Ferdinand heard cries of alarm, but he did not look back. Their light bows would have no effect at this range. "Steady!" He said again. "Save your strength for the charge, and let me be the tip of the spear!"

Soon the arrows would find purchase among his men, lightly armored as they were. But charging wildly through the shallows would exhaust the horses and ruin them for the journey ahead. They needed to reserve themselves for as long as possible. Ten feet, Twenty feet, Thirty feet...

An arrow screamed out toward him and he swept it aside with the Spear of Assal. "Charge!" He called at last, and as one his light horse surged forward, churning the waters. They were more than halfway across the river now, and the arrows were coming thick and fast. He swept aside two more, three more, and then he was among the enemy, dealing death with Assal left and right.

The first man he speared through the eye. The second died with a slit throat. The third attempted to gut him with an Arakh, but he dodged the blade and knocked him senseless with Assal's bone-white haft. In a moment's flash he realized that he had outpaced his men, that he was fighting alone, that he would die quickly if surrounded like this, but then Pherez and the rest crashed in alongside him.

Fighting between small units such as this was always the most brutal. When hosts numbered in the thousands, an army would break before losing even a tithe of their strength. In a fight between fifty and a hundred and fifty, however, men would fight and fight hard.

Horses and men screamed and died, blood staining the waters around them. Ferdinand charged on, fighting hard, fighting desperately. His crest was a point of light within him, burning hot and flowing out into his spear, flowing back into him and healing his wounds as fast as the enemy could make them. He had felt afraid before, but now he felt nothing at all except the weight of his spear and the sun upon his face.

He spun his spear overhead and brought its sacred blade down in an arc, beheading a man cleanly in a single strike. He whirled to find his next opponent… but there was none. The Ghiscari light horse were retreating, and his scouts were charging after them. Fifty, pursuing three times their number.

He looked behind. Perhaps twenty of his men remained behind, dying in the shallows or else slowed by their wounds. He saw young Pherez trying desperately to catch a horse. He wanted to turn back to help them so hard it almost hurt, but...

They needed to pursue. If the Ghiscari rallied they would all die. They were still horribly outnumbered, perhaps even worse than before, and a single captain who managed to maintain control would spend the end of all of them. Of course, riding down the enemy with such abandon bore its own risks. He momentarily recalled Seteth, sternly telling them the tale of Phillip the Tenacious, a duke of Faerghus who had taken more losses pursuing an enemy than he had taken in the preceding battle. But there was nothing for it. Risk had long ceased to be something worth considering. There was only one path to victory from here, and Ferdinand intended to seize it.

What came next was as fine and calculated as it was brutal. For nigh on half an hour they butchered Ghiscari scouts, riding them down by twos and threes. On two occasions a captain tried to rally, to gather his men around him, and both times Ferdinand cut through to the core of their party and struck the captain down. Any man the Ghiscari left behind, they slew on the spot. Death and slaughter, the business of war.

Ferdinand's arms and thighs ached with exertion when the fighting was done, and his men were just as weary. But there was no rest. They watered their horses, bound up wounds where they could, and then rode on to the north. Of the fifty who had ridden out with him from Astapor, Thirty-one remained.

He feared they would lose more before they made it to safety.

Chapter Text

Yunkai had grown cooler of late, but the Queen's court remained as hot as a sauna. No doubt the hundred courtiers in the chamber could be blamed for some of that heat. The Dragons could likely be blamed for more. They curled about the throne, huge, armored, and smoking. They were adorable. She knew they were just fire-breathing wyverns, nothing more. Simple beasts. But still, she could not help but feel wistful. Her father had told her of the rainbow-colored flights of the Goddess's children as they joined together at Zanado. She had dreamed of them so many nights. Some of them had breathed fire, even as her father had. She sighed. It did no one any good to think on such things, but she could not help her foolish heart sometimes.

Daenerys had fully taken charge of the city since Edelgard's abrupt departure. Most had assumed Edelgard would be returning swiftly, but whatever the situation in Astapor was, it had required further attention. The days since Edelgard had left had proved chaotic because of the arriving army, the preparations for war… but most of all because of the Queen herself. Daenerys Targaryen was a very different sort of person from the Captain-General. More formal, less reserved. The actual ruling had changed little; most of that had been left to Hubert, but the Queen spent most of her time entertaining herself and her ministers - many of whom were Flayn's fellow Black Eagles. A delightful change of pace, everyone agreed! But Flayn did hope that everything was getting done.

She approached to the appropriate distance and bowed deeply after the fashion of the Ghiscari, lowering her head to avoid looking at the queen directly. She would be expected to wait a moment here until the Queen recognized her and asked her to come forward. Protocol such as this had never been required in Edelgard's time, and Flayn had spent an hour with a few of the members of her court training for this moment. Compared to Edelgard's cool but evenhanded manners such behavior felt stifling, but it was very little for a woman of Daenerys' station to ask. Queens and Kings would have their due, or so Flayn had always heard.

"Rise, Flayn of Garreg Mach."

Flayn looked up. The Queen was smiling, and even as Flayn watched she rose from her throne and quickly walked forward with outstretched arms. Flayn almost laughed as the girl drew her into a hug.

Daenerys pulled away quickly enough. "I know I must seem overly familiar. But we have so little time to become acquainted with all the worries that beset us, so I thought it best to dispose of any ceremony as swiftly as possible. Don't you agree?" She smiled indulgently.

"I am never opposed to making new friends," Flayn replied, but she felt uneasy. It felt like such a scene to be in front of so many people at once. Flayn did not lack confidence, but the intrigues of a royal court were beyond her for now. She had the feeling, as she often did, that Daenerys saw her as a child, and that made her unpredictable. Was everything well between Edelgard and the Queen? Did the Queen seek support against Edelgard's faction at court? Did the Queen think she had such an ally before her now? Really it was fascinating to consider the possibilities!

Or it would have been if it had not been so very dangerous for all of them.

A loud sound cut off the Queen's reply. The dragons had stood up on their haunches and were now lumbering forward, using their wings like arms to crawl across the floor. Quiet panic swept the room as a hundred courtiers scattered away from the approaching monsters. Flayn only smiled. They clustered in around Daenerys and Flayn, their heat palpable, their huge, fanged mouths open and smiling as Daenerys petted them. One of them, Rhaegal, Flayn thought it was named, came near to her and Flayn laughed and scratched it under the chin. Adorable.

Out of the edge of her vision, Flayn could see Daenerys staring at her, her expression blank and curious. Flayn chose to pretend as though she did not notice. The dragons had come to them on some silent order of the Queens… was she also somehow sensing the dragon's interest in her? Did the connection between them flow both ways? And why did the dragons pay her so much attention anyway? Wyverns and pegasi had always loved her as well, but this felt different somehow, and she found herself racking her brains for any information about the dragons and their ancient master, the Valyrians. Blood of the Dragon. Now there was a term that felt all too familiar. The connection had even occurred to Linhardt, and he did not know even half of the story.

Rhaegal nuzzled her, pushing her back slightly and making her laugh with surprise. "They like you," Daenerys said, her voice calmer and quieter than before. "Even Drogon, and Drogon was always the wildest of my children." The great black dragon raised its head to smile down smugly at them, like a cat staring down at a litter of kittens. "None of them have been so tame before. I thought it might be your crests, the magic in your blood, but they did not react so well to Linhardt, and he said he had the same lineage as you."

Oh. Poor Lin. "I've always been good with beasts," She said, perhaps too quickly. "Truthfully I don't precisely know why. It is the same for my brother and my… other relatives." She should not have said that. But without father's reminders, it was difficult to stay in character. She had always hated all the deception and lies anyway. She sighed and chuckled, scratching Rhaegal's ears. "Perhaps there is something else that is special about me, that we've yet to discover."

"The people certainly seem to think so," Daenerys said

"That was an accident," Flayn said. "But it seems that the word of the Goddess resonated with the people of Yunkai." She was not fully paying attention to the conversation as well as it merited. She studied Rhaegal's scales, Rhaegal's eyes. For what? Did she expect to find some intelligence staring back at her? Why should she expect that?

"I have made an offering to your goddess, as I make offerings to all the gods," Daenerys said. "And I think I shall build a shrine for her in Meereen when we return. I have no doubt your goddess will spread there as well soon enough."

Edelgard would hate that. Seiros would hate that too, come to think of it. The Progenitor Goddess, worshipped alongside a dozen other beings who may or may not even be real? She was not sure her father would like that much either. But Seiros and father were not here, and as for Edelgard, Flayn did not know what to think. She had always been so reserved around Flayn until that near-disaster in the market square. Nothing she had said then had been wrong, exactly, but there had been emotion there too, an emotion that ran deeper than was justified by her words.

"That sounds lovely," Flayn replied. "The Goddess accepts all offerings." Did she? Well, Flayn liked to think so. But Flayn was out of her depth in so many ways, and everything she thought to attempt seemed doomed to failure.

Goddess, guide me.

***

"There, there. Just a little farther," he urged his horse. Assala snorted and kept on plodding forward, her proud head low and weary. He was weary too, they all were. But Astapor was in sight, and they would be there in only a few hours. They would be there before sunset if they were lucky.

Of the fifty men he had led to war, less than half returned, the others scattered or left behind or killed by the Iron Legion. The remainder had faces of ash and dead-eyed stares. They would need a month or two of rest before they would fight against as they had before.

Their expedition had been doomed from the start. It seemed obvious now. They were no longer in the red hills from which his riders had been recruited, they did not know the lands half so well and these were not bandits they were contending with. Scouts of New Ghis, trained and fielded far better than Ferdinand's irregulars, and in greater numbers… They had been outflanked, outmanned, and forced to flee. In the end, they had killed more than they had lost, but that hardly mattered. What were a dozen scouts, or a hundred? The enemy would advance on schedule. Ferdinand wished he could turn back time, undo his failures. Death was the inevitability of war, but even with his hard-earned lesson against Cleon, he had not truly understood that. Under the professor, their wars had always been like games, and for a time things had seemed that way here as well, but no longer.

We should have been welcomed by a party from the city, he thought with growing annoyance as they drew near. Shahksa should have been watching for their return. Where was he? What was he doing? Ferdinand tried and failed to quash the fear that Shahksa or one of his other generals had turned on him. They had all been loyal so far, but with thirty thousands bearing down upon Astapor, who could say which way their banners would blow?

Don't be a fool, he told himself. Don't be a fool. If Shaksa had betrayed him they would have known by now. He would have sent a party to receive them, and then killed him well outside the city, away from any who supported him. No, in truth Shahksa would have killed long before he even had set out on this cursed mission.

But what if Shahksa is dead? What if he was himself betrayed, what if he had to flee the city?? Ferdinand scowled and rode up to the city gates. The Red Walls of Astapor were taller and wider than the walls of Yunkai. Of the three great cities of Old Ghis Astapor had always been the poorest, but also the most martial and well-defended. The Unsullied had been a part of that, of course, but only a part. In ages past the Unsullied had rarely numbered more than two or three thousand, and it had been the citizen-soldiers of Astapor who had held the line, trained by the priests of the Lady of Spears and rewarded with land or gold for their service. Since the end of the Century of blood this service had fallen off, however, and the generation before Daenerys' coming had been so riddled with incompetent bootlickers that they thought they could hold their city with slave soldiers alone. Fools.

Ferdinand sighed. It served little purpose to despise the dead. He would have time enough for that when he joined them.

"Gatekeeper!" He called. "What is the meaning of this?"

A long moment passed before a head appeared atop the battlements. "A thousand pardons, good master, but the gates are closed for the evening. If you have wares to sell you will have to apply at one of the inns outside the gate."

Ferdinand grit his teeth. Did this man not recognize the banner? Did he not know who ruled in Astapor? "And who are you?" He said. "Who is in command?"

"Oh, me, good master," the man replied. "That is, well. I'm in command, and my name is Terrens, Blessed Hawk of, well… Othorro, though he's dead. I-"

"Who put you in charge, and where are they?"

The man started as if seeing the banner for the first time. "Uh, well, Ferren, exalted Hawk of Othorro, but he's left on account of the Dragon that's arrived up at the Pyramid of Ullhor. He told me to close the gates at sunset, and well, it's set as I am sure you can see, I-"

"I am Ferdinand Von Aegir," Ferdinand said. "Lieutenant-General of the Black Eagles and acting regent of Astapor until such time as the Captain-General or the Queen appoints a new chief, and if your eyes are so weak that you cannot see the banner we carry, go fetch someone who can and then let us into the city."

Terrens, Blessed Hawk of Othorro, did as he was bid and let them in, though not without a thousand apologies and scrapes and bows. Ferdinand found it difficult to maintain his noble comportment. But it would not do to express anger at one so below himself, so he restrained his baser impulses and remained calm.

A dragon. That meant that the Queen was here. The news was bad, or perhaps good. Bad that he should have to receive his superior as he was now, good that it was Daenerys rather than Edelgard. Edelgard had never liked him before, and with this failure he would become contemptible in her eyes. But perhaps Daenerys would be no more understanding. The slaughter she had left in Astapor had been so complete it seemed hard to reconcile with the smiling girl he had seen in Yunkai. The so-called 'Good' Masters of Astapor were no more, destroyed branch, stem, and root, down the children. Ferdinand would not mourn them, not when so many others had died, but it was not pleasant to think that he had earned the ire of a Queen who could give such an order.

The city was quiet as he rode, and he could feel the tension building in his chest. Shahksa's lack of attention made sense now. The queen must have just landed, and all would be in chaos for hours. All had been in chaos before the Queen landed, in truth. There were still people in the city who starved, still sick beggars who sat in the street and stared hopelessly at him. It galled Ferdinand, but such were the pressures upon them, and things would soon grow much worse. Perhaps the Queen could save them. It seemed unlikely.

He had almost come to the base of the pyramid when he saw a pack of riders coming up the street toward him. He felt his heart sink as he saw their banner: The Black Eagle of Adrestia.

Edelgard rode at the front, encased in steel. Ferdinand could not see her expression, but he did not have to see it to know what she felt. She would resent him for disobeying her orders and going so far afield. She could likely argue that taking the city like this was an overextension, a short-term gain that might cost them the war. All reasonable arguments and that made it hurt all the more. Edelgard did not need rational reasons to hate him, she hated him already. Ferdinand could not say his intentions had been pure, but where there had only been foolish pride, Edelgard would see Ludwig's treachery. She would try to curtail him, perhaps she would even imprison him. It would be a mistake, especially at this junction, but Ferdinand would not even be able to blame her. Your father killed her mother, her brothers, her sisters.

What could he do to make her understand? What could he do to make her believe that he was not the same as his father, that he had always despised the underhanded tactics his family employed? How could he assure her that he knew his actions in Astapor to be a mistake? Could he vow to undertake some dangerous mission? Could he volunteer to lead the vanguard in the fighting that was to come?

No. That would not do.

He got down from his horse and knelt to her approach.

Whatever came next, he resolved that he would not fight her. He would take her orders meekly. It was the only way to prove his quality, prove that he was better than his father. All his other ideas had been filled with pride and hubris. Boasting, chest-pounding, oath-taking… that was the way he had always been before, and Ferdinand knew what it would look like to her. More of the same. More attempts to undercut her and plot treachery.

That had never been his intention. He had never meant to betray her, or even to steal her influence as his father had done. He had only ever meant to be her equal, a powerful and integral part of the Empire, every bit as important as his father without needing to rely upon backhanded scheming and cruelty.

Each in their own way, they had both been living in his father's shadow.

"Captain-General," said Ferdinand. "The city of Astapor is yours. I must apologize-" He paused. What was it he had to apologize for? He felt tired, he felt old. So many days of fighting without stop, without relief. So many lost friends, so much lost hope. Would she understand? He had to make her see, see that he was only a fool and not a villain. Goddess, please.

Steel shoes upon gravel. He looked up. Edelgard had dismounted as well. Edelgard was kneeling, touching him on the shoulder. "You are unbelievably frustrating," She said, a small smile on her lips. "But we can talk about that later, after you've rested somewhat."

Chapter Text

When Edelgard greeted Ferdinand in Astapor and he was not met with anger, it took all of his will to avoid collapsing on the spot. What came next, he did not remember. They took him to his quarters in the Low Palace below the Pyramid of Ullhor, and when he woke again it was night still, but not the same night in which he had fallen asleep. Every part of him ached, his heart most of all. Goddess, it is going to be like the time with the poison again. No, it would be worse than that. He had overused his crest, relied too much on its alacrity and healing.

The crests that ran in the line of the Saints did not burn their bearers as the crests that ran from the lines of the elites, but overreliance upon their gifts could render a crest inert for a time. Weeks, months, even years in the most extreme cases. His body would recover soon enough, but he would be little more than a normal skilled warrior for the next month at most, and by then the whole war might be over. He should have known this would happen. Weeks of constant fighting in the hills, that disastrous duel with Cleon, and then running to fight with the scouts before he had even completely healed? He would be lucky if there was no permanent damage done.

Ferdinand could have risen from the cot but he saw no reason to do so. He was weak, useless, and Edelgard would relish the chance to discard him. Intellectually he knew that was not completely true. Edelgard had been surprisingly kind when they had met earlier, and Ferdinand still had some talents and connections. She was not angry enough to waste his remaining capabilities. But his dreams of surpassing her, even his dream of being her equal, all were left in the dust.

Servants came in and fed him, set out fresh clothes for him. They would have washed him too but he refused that. He would wash himself at least. Cold water and lye soap without perfume. He wanted to stand before his peers without pretension. His mood improved somewhat as he broke his fast in his chambers. He had been too morose earlier. There was still work to be done, still so much. He would have purpose, he would have motion. Hubert had carved a niche for himself without a crest, so had Petra. He would demonstrate his quality to Edelgard. He would demonstrate his humility.

Footsteps in the corridor. Armored footsteps. Ferdinand drew himself to attention. Edelgard entered a moment later, accompanied by two wyvern knights. She was clad in the same armor she had worn the day before, but now that he was not so delirious with weariness he observed that it was of Ghiscari make, with bronze inlays in the plates that made it gleam like a dragon's scales. She carried a winged helm under one arm, as though she had been fighting recently.

"Are the wings for the Black Eagle, or for the Harpy," He said it before he knew what he was saying.

She frowned. "Does it matter?"

He blinked. "No, I suppose not." Why was he being so excessively stupid? "I am sorry," he repeated. "I should have sent word earlier. I meant to, I truly did, but-"

Edelgard raised a hand. "Quiet," she said. He closed his mouth. She sighed. "Look, just sit down, you're clearly still exhausted, and this conversation isn't going to be easier because you're suffering."

He sat down on one of the chairs, and she sat across from him. She turned to her guards. "Wait outside, if you please. I want to speak to Ferdinand alone."

Ferdinand and Edelgard stared at each other quietly as the two guards walked out. A part of Ferdinand wanted to turn away his gaze, like a dog staring away from its master, but he had enough pride remaining that he at least looked her in the eyes.

"Why did you do it?" Edelgard broke the silence, her voice, and expression cold.

"Take the city?"

"Yes."

He sighed and rubbed the side of his head and then sighed again. He knew well enough what the true answer was, but it cost him dearly to say it. "Pride," he said at last. "I wanted to prove I could do it. No other reason, really."

"When I first heard," Edelgard said, her words chosen carefully, "I had some idea you might be trying to subvert me. Become my rival in Daenerys' court, jockey for power, promote your own allies, and take over the cities from within."

"Like my father?"

She closed her eyes. "No. Nothing like that."

Ferdinand moved to reply but Edelgard cut him off. "I have identified flaws in my ability as a leader," she announced. "I have come to realize that I have been unreasonable in asking the Black Eagles to follow me without engaging with empathy. I have attempted to lead through ability alone, to present myself as invincible and unstoppable, but I fear this has made me seem cold and inhuman." She grit her teeth as if to weather a blow. "I've been harsher with you than with anyone."

Ferdinand paused, unsure what to say. He had notions of what he considered Edelgard's flaws, but this had not been one of them. Not exactly, anyway. "Too harsh with me? Considering how things have turned out in the city, and what you might guess about my intentions, I should think you would be more severe than ever. After all, I-"

"You ran off on a foolhardy crusade to make yourself a petty king."

Ferdinand deflated. "Yes," he said simply.

Edelgard sighed. "And I sent you away on a pointless bit of busywork to keep you away from the capital so I could sideline you and solidify my power base. It would be hypocritical to object to you playing politics when I meant to do the same thing myself."

"I overextended our armies."

"You gave Astapor a chance at freedom."

"Small comfort if we all die."

"That won't happen."

Ferdinand laughed. It made him glad to see that this new Edelgard had lost none of her confidence."I thought I was supposed to be the reckless one."

Edelgard pursed her lips. Normally she would respond to such a barb with one of her own, but this time she stayed her tongue. "I am not being reckless. We will make Astapor as ready as we can, and set it to hold as long as we can. If we hold long enough for Daenerys' Unsullied to arrive, we'll stand a better chance at winning than we ever could have with Cleon in power. If we don't hold..." she shrugged. "It will still have cost us less than a hundred other gambles might have."

"I don't want to abandon Astapor." Ferdinand felt a pang of embarrassment for having said such a thing. His face colored. Of all the things to be insubordinate about, he chose this? He looked to the window. Astapor practically glowed red in the light of the dawn. It was beautiful in its own cruel way, just as Yunkai had been."They named me their regent, and as such, I am obligated to defend them. To the last."

"Well," Edelgard said, surprised. "I suppose we will have to take care not to let the city fall." She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "I wonder sometimes if the only reason I did not trust you before was that I never really knew you."

"I don't think you were wrong to mistrust me then," Ferdinand supplied quickly. "...But you trust me now?"

Edelgard closed her eyes, turned, and looked away. "Does it matter? The Coalition is coming for us one way or another. I might not get along with you very well, but I know you won't betray me to the slavers, and regardless of your intentions, your little adventure here in Astapor has bought us time. If there was ever a time for me to appeal to your loyalty, this is it."

Ferdinand chuckled. "The slavers really do put Fodlan's struggles into perspective, don't they?"

Edelgard did not reply immediately. "Yes," she said. "They do. Even a man such as your father… Well, he only destroyed one family. Here such acts are routine, or were."

Ferdinand felt the shame from earlier rise up again and threaten to overwhelm him. Her siblings! All nine of them, and likely her mother too. "Edelgard, I'm so..."

"Sorry?" She turned back to him, eyes blazing. "Don't be. That's in the past and it has nothing to do with you. Grudges can carry themselves as far as I am concerned." She paused, a hint of uncertainty entering her voice, "That came across harsher than I intended. I only… I have no stake in the past. Neither of us was involved in what happened between our parents. You apologized for insubordination, and I did appreciate that."

Ferdinand nodded, feeling sure of himself for the first time in weeks. "To the future, then."

"To the future."

**

Of all the enemies Hubert had acquired over the years, none was so persistent as the blasted sun. He wished he were home in Adrestia, down near one of the canals where the shade and the water kept the air cool even in the height of summer, or at least inside one of the pyramids where the stone could suck away the heat of the day. But alas they were in the Bay of Ghis, and they were marching to war, and he refused to ride in some palanquin like Linhardt or Bernadetta. Such decadence ran utterly contrary to their purpose in the Bay. The queen clearly agreed, riding next to him on her Silver, dressed in armor as though she were actually a warrior and not just a figure of state. She and he would ride with the men, and sweat and suffer along with them.

Goddess, how he despised it.

Ten thousand, that was the whole of the Queen's army that marched to Yunkai. They had twice as many of that under arms, but most of them had been left behind to guard the lands around Meereen and Yunkai. Raids on the coast, longships in the rivers… The Coalition had forced them to make a poisoned choice. Leave armies at home and risk losing to the Coalition in the field, or gamble it all against the coalition army and leave their lands to be burnt and ruined.

Queen Daenerys had elected to defend what she could and attempt to fight the coalition at three to one odds. A gamble, to be sure, but Hubert could not claim it had been entirely wrong. They had advantages in the field. The Unsullied were truly impressive soldiers and performed even better when properly equipped. They had magic and dragons and wyverns and Edelgard and were fighting on home terrain. Three to one odds were miserable, but they were not unwinnable. Meanwhile, the home front was more worrisome. There were still enough powerful men in Meereen and Yunkai who resented the Queen, and if she had truly emptied the region of her loyalists, she might have returned to find the gates barred to them.

In the end, it was pointless to worry about. The die had been cast weeks ago and they would be watching it tumble and roll for weeks more before they truly knew what the best decision would have been.

The coalition's navy had made resupply difficult, and Hubert took no small pride that they were still able to march without excessive foraging in the region. Caches placed along the road ahead of time had kept the army fed on Meereen to Yunkai, and would feed them as far as the Red Hills. After that, things became uncertain, and there would be fighting there too. If they lost at Astapor they would be retreating with little in the way of resupply.

Communication in this new world was difficult but all accounts agreed that the Red City had come under siege, a force of thirty thousand beating upon its walls. Hubert wondered if that number was true. It seemed scarcely possible that such a great force could have been raised in such a short time, but the likelier answer was that New Ghis and Qarth had been plotting this campaign a long time between them, and Daenerys' conquest had only forced their hand.

"Hubert?"

He blinked. The queen was speaking to him.

"I had meant to ask what the mood amidst your Black Eagles was. I have met with them all myself, but I hardly know them as well as you. They are to be my officers in the coming battle, my frontline fighters. Their morale is good, you think?"

Hubert faltered. He had not been thinking of the Black Eagles. In truth, he did not truly know whether the Queen referred to the former students of Garreg Mach Officer's Academy or the men and women of the battalions that had come with them to this new world. Still, it did not matter much which group that Queen was asking after. The answer remained the same either way.

"I have the utmost confidence in the excellence of my fellow Black Eagles," he said, and he meant it. Their enemies were alien, strange, and evil, and whatever concerns he had of their loyalty would not be relevant in the coming conflict. They would fight and die if need be to see the war resolved in Daenerys' favor. In truth, he trusted them more in battle than in peace. But a thought occurred to him that made him uneasy. He had to think about how to say this correctly.

"Was there something that made you fear that their performance would be less than excellent?"

Daenerys seemed surprised by the question. "Oh no," she said. "Rather the opposite, really. I had the opportunity of observing their easy manners, and I confess that I wish my own officers had the same bonds of fellowship. Barristan is dutiful and Grey Worm is reliable, but they are such different people and have so little in common. I cannot imagine them meeting each other for drinks at the end of each day as your officers do."

Hubert frowned. He had not noticed. How had he not noticed that his officers were meeting? The idea that Daenerys had noted this behavior before he rankled. Not because he felt afraid of sedition, he trusted his Black Eagles as much as he had a moment before, but because his attention had slipped. A part of him knew that such mistakes were inevitable, that he had been busy, that he had been tired, but… still, he felt angry. He felt angrier with himself than the situation merited, he realized.

He suppressed the emotion. It would not do to be displeased in the presence of the Queen. He and Edelgard both depended on her to a degree for now and he had to maintain good relations.

"Captain-General Edelgard has always encouraged camaraderie between her officers." He said, "She eschews the usual trappings of rank and commands respect purely through personal ability." He bit his tongue. Perhaps Daenerys would see this as criticism. Perhaps it was. The girl did not have the ability enough to rule through example. In a sense, she was everything Edelgard meant to destroy, a girl who had felt entitled to rule because of her birth, who had destroyed so much through sheer incompetence.

But then, what had she destroyed that was of value? Not the old slaver elite, surely.

Distraction. He could not focus for the rest of the day, and a million things went less than perfectly. Something about that simple conversation with Daenerys had gotten under his skin and he could not understand why. But at the end of the day when the tents were all drawn up and the stars were out above, he found himself seeking out the camp of his Eagles.

They had picked out a tent near the center of the camp for their use, a plain white tent with flowers embroidered on one side. Hubert smiled at that. Bernadetta's touch, it had to be. His hand touched the edge of the tent flap and then drew back. A part of him felt afraid for a moment. Someone laughed from inside. What was he trying to accomplish here? He had other tasks to accomplish. There was-

"Hubert!"

He nearly fell over as someone bulled into him from behind. Caspar. Hubert grimaced.

"What are you doing standing outside the party tent for?" Caspar said. "It's kind of creepy! The party's already started, come on. Hey everyone, look who showed up!"

The Black Eagles cheered, and Hubert found himself pulled against his will from the dark into the light.

Chapter Text

Why had they left Bernie in charge?

They had all left weeks ago, and still, she couldn't believe it. Her? Bernadetta? What a horrible joke!

It had been one thing when they'd ordered her to organize the city guard. That had been a massive amount of work but at least that she could manage. It was all just numbers and logistics and following reports, and she could do almost all of it without leaving her office deep in the pyramid. There had been issues, of course, questions of ownership and questions of how to enlist guards from within the city while avoiding corruption, but again, she knew the solutions to these problems. Having a ruthless politician for a father had some advantages. The work had been enormous, but simple, and in some ways, she had even enjoyed it. She had an excuse to stay underground and avoid most people. What more could she ask for, really?

But of course, that had been when Edelgard and Linhardt and everyone else had been here to handle everything else. Now it was just poor Bernie! Well, and Dorothea. And Petra. But Petra was away trying to buy a fleet for Edelgard and wouldn't be back for a week yet. And Dorothea had just come from Mereen and hardly knew how to do anything.

Oh, she knew everyone else had gone off to the war, it made sense she was the only one left behind, the only one who was expendable. But surely they knew she'd mess everything up! Had they set her up for failure on purpose? Oh, no, they'd never do that to poor Bernie. How could she think that?

A knock at the door. She repressed the urge to squeak. "W-who is it??"

"Honored Seneschal Bernadetta, it is I!" A baritone voice boomed through the door. "Bronzed Hawk Azram of New Yunkai!"

Bernadetta breathed a sigh of relief. Just Azram, at least. She could trust him. He was an excellent soldier, who had thrown down his spear when the gates fell and helped them take the city. She had been afraid of his loud voice at first, but in time she had come to understand that he remained one of the most honest, forthright people in the whole city.

"When last we spoke," he continued, still speaking through the door, "You had expressed a desire to speak at length with your counterpart, the Honored Envoy Dorothea of the Captain General's companions. I had observed that she had done with her court for the day, and is now taking her evening meal."

Bernadetta blinked. "Oh!" She had been so absorbed in her work that she had lost track of time. "Yes!" She rushed to rebutton her uniform and tidy the papers scattered about her desk. "One moment!"

She opened the door a minute later. Azram beamed down at her, smiling his usual easy smile. Bernie felt the urge to run but repressed it. "Are you coming with me?" She managed.

"Of course! What sort of Hawk would I be, to leave my Master walking about the pyramid without a protector?"

Bernadetta let out a breath of air. Objectively, she knew that she was more capable than Azram in a fight if it came to that. The crest of Indech had made her capable enough in spite of her best efforts, and under the Professor her skills had been further honed. But she would feel better with him there, and besides…

"It is just as well, Azram. For you see, there were some oddities in some of the accounts coming out of the textiles district and…."

Half an hour later saw them arriving at a pleasure house built into the side of the pyramid. Opulence reigned, with naked harpies dancing up and down the pillars and the sound of running water trickling into a pool of fish. The air was cool, and the scent was fresh compared to the stuffy dampness of Bernadetta's dungeon. In the midst of it all, sat Dorothea, wearing dress after the style of the ladies of Yunkai, with jewel-encrusted gold peaking out from fine green fabric. She had a spread of delicacies out before her, even at this late hour.

For a moment, she did not see them entirely, and Bernadetta felt like she should run. Was this a trap? Was the food poisoned? Get it together Bernie!

She approached closer and cleared her throat. Dorothea's eye flitted up to meet hers and widened in surprise. "Bernie!" Dorothea said with surprise "I haven't seen you all day, where have you been?"

Haven't seen you all day. Bernadetta's fingers bolled up into little balls. Dorothea was angry with her, angry with Bernie! And who could blame her? Bernadetta was supposed to be in charge here, she was supposed to be using her connections and knowledge to make Dorothea transition into her role here in Yunkai. Dorothea had been away with Daenerys in Mereen, she was supposed to get help here, but Bernadetta had been too scared to come to court, too busy with all the other work, and now, and now-

"Come and sit, you simply must try some of the food I've had prepared. It's all cold now, but there's no reason to let it go to waste."

Hm? What? Was she not angry after all? Or was this a trap? The food might be poisoned. Her eyes wandered to the table. Fish cut into strips and fried with butter, egg, and rice dishes with steamed tomatoes, and the remnants of a roast pheasant. All cold by now, but she felt her mouth water slightly anyway. Had she forgotten to eat again? In spite of herself, she found herself sitting down across from Dorothea and serving herself a plate.

She paused a moment before digging in, biting her lip in uncertainty for a moment, before turning to her guard. "Azram, have you eaten? I-If you have, I don't mean to bother you, but. Well, there's a lot of food and it's very good and you should eat some if you can." She turned to Dorothea, suddenly afraid that she had violated some protocol and Dorothea would be upset. "This is, ah. Azram. Bronzed Hawk. He's a trusted leader of the guard. I thought he could-"

Dorothea's eyes sparkled. "Bern, you know that I of all people am not one to stand on rank. Please, Azram. Sit with us."

The soldier smiled and bowed and took a seat next to them. "There was a time that I would have never dared to dream of such a thing, eating delicacies on the pyramid of Qaggaz with the leaders of the city." He laughed lightly. "But I have been serving the Seneschal, rather, I have been serving with the Seneschal Bernadetta for some months now, so it should not seem so strange a thing. But then, the Seneschal does not arrange for such a feast as this. My thanks to you, Honored Envoy, for making such an arrangement."

Dorothea smiled, slightly. "I am not as virtuous as dear Bern," she said, without hesitation. "If fineries are in the offering I'm hardly one to turn them down."

Azram took a bite of pheasant and closed his eyes a moment as he chewed and swallowed. "This is a deep corruption," he said. "You are partaking in the Wise Master's decadence." He took a deep drink of wine. "Your Flayn says we are equal before the goddess, your Edelgard says that no man is above another." He filled his glass again. "but how are we to believe this, when you and your allies indulge yourselves so on the riches of the city?"

Bernadetta looked down. He was right, after a fashion. But she could hardly answer such questions. Once upon a time, her father had beaten a common boy half to death for only speaking to her. Edelgard had a vision for something different, and Bernadetta could believe it was better, but then, what did little Bernie know?

Dorothea laughed. "Oh, you're completely correct. If we kept employing so many cooks, if continued devoting so much land to wineries and so much gold to seasoning, that would be a great failure of this New Yunkai that Edelgard is building. But for now, we have barrels of wine, spiceries overflowing with excess, and cooks who have no one to appreciate their craft. I had the cooks prepare a feast for five hundred and invited a host of scribes and soldiers and such from the lower city. Might as well take the leavings of the Wise Masters and buy some goodwill."

She paused before addressing Bernadetta. "But really Bern, I need to understand what we're really doing here. Is the city secure? Can you and I really run things?"

Bernadetta took a moment to chew and swallow. "Erm. Well. Hopefully?"

Dorothea raised an eyebrow.

"Ahh sorry. I know I should have a better answer than that its just… Look, Edelgard had this whole plan, right? Divide and conquer. All the Wise Masters hated each other, so they carved up the city with their walls, each one sort of a little kingdom all its own. Edelgard killed most of the Wise Masters, or at least took their pyramids and their little kingdoms away. Paezhar and Lady Pazzo are the strongest ones left in the city now that Malazza's gone away, but Edelgard took all the pyramids around them so they're basically under siege if they don't do as we say."

Dorothea frowned. "Seems like a waste of time. Why not just get rid of them all at the start?"

"W-well, I think that was the plan, only she never really got around to it. We had our hands full after taking over! We had to figure out where all the stuff was, who knew where to buy food, and who could be trusted, and so on! We were going to get rid of them all eventually it was just easier to let them run their stuff while we sorted out the rest. We didn't want things going like they did in Astapor."

Azram nodded. "Even in the old days, some of the Wise Masters were known to be less wise, and less masterful. Paezhar, Lady Pazzo, Melazza? I would not call these people weak in Yunkai, I would not say we can ignore them, but…" He shrugged. "Next to Grazdan, or Yezzan? They are barely worth considering. The Wise Masters are for the most part dead or living at our hospitality. We have the weapons, we have the gates, we have the ports. There is little they can do to us directly, as long as we are guarded."

Bernie felt like she was going to throw up. "W-we have guards everywhere watching all the entrances to their domains, and we have a wyvern. We'll have two when Petra gets back." Not enough. Why had they all gone and left Bernie alone?

Dorothea sipped her wine thoughtfully. "Well, if you're watching the streets, someone should watch the Masters themselves. I can do that. I'm a fairly charming person, after all, and as mentioned we have a lot of fineries that need to be consumed." she said after a moment. "Paezhar, Pazzo,and Yezzan too. They are used to coming around to enjoy fineries at the great pyramids, no?"

"And... why would you do this?" Bernie winced. The idea of being around all those wicked people made her want to crawl away and hide.

Dorothea's smug smile returned. "I know better than most how to get a bunch of arrogant idiots talking."

—

Edelgard had come to view Yunkai, the city of their exile, with a sort of fondness. It was a stinking hive with deep poverty and degraded architecture, decorated everywhere with symbols of slavery and conquest. The imperial capital at Enbarr was its superior in basically every objective sense. Yet still, Edelgard could not help but find the city lovely. Yunkish food, people, life, she had come to love them all. She even had grown to appreciate the symbols of oppression that had been built into the architecture of the city. Whips, chains, harpys, and walls, always walls. They had been built that way to make the idea of liberation unthinkable, to grind the people of Yunkai down and force them to submit to the Wise Masters. But they had failed and were now almost like trophies of the new free Yunkish people.

In Astapor there was none of this beauty, none of this triumph.

Astapor had been wracked by starvation, plague, and civil war. The people stared out from their hovels with fear. Food and clean water were in short supply. Ferdinand had tried to bring food into the city, goddess bless him, but all the plantations that had once supplied grain had been burnt by Cleon's wanton raiding, and New Ghis had closed off the sea routes. Daenerys was bringing food over from Yunkai, but for every mouthful of grain they brought by the road, another mouthful was eaten by oxen. The Harpy still loomed over the city, chains and whips ready to oppress the people, and she had been joined by her consort, King Cleon, who had erected statues of himself on every street corner. The city was a gallery of failure, a grim reminder of what all their achievements could become if they left the bay to itself.

And things were only going to get worse in the near term.

New Ghis had marched its legions almost to their doorstep, and the starvation would worsen before it came better. A part of her wanted to tell Daenerys to leave Astapor and let it be conquered. The city had negative military value at the current juncture. Their enemies would bleed trying to hold it, and walling up in Astapor in a siege would be a death sentence. If Daenerys had stayed near to Yunkai they would have had more time to prepare and could have brought more of their forces to bear against a smaller coalition force that had further stretched its supply lines. But that would have been cowardly. Taking a more aggressive stance against the slavers was risky, but Edelgard refused to consign Astapor to slavery and death. She could not abide to see their chains forged anew. Neither could Daenerys and Edelgard loved her for that.

"Captain-general," Daenerys said, as they made their war council. "What do we know of the enemy?" She dressed in her ceremonial armor and that in combination with her tall chair made her seem a foot taller than she really was. She loomed over the map that had been spread out on the table between them. That was good. The Queen needed to be strong at this time.

"They're a coalition," Edelgard said. "Mostly from New Ghis but they have forces from all over the region. Monterys, Qarth, Volantis… there are even banners from Westeros among their number."

"From my homeland?"

"The Dornishmen identified them as Greyjoys from the western islands. They're likely here as mercenaries, nothing more."

"And what of their army?"

"The armies of the coalition have the advantage over us in both quantity and quality. Citizen soldiers were not as unbreakable as the unsullied and not as fearsome as wyverns or dragons, but they were all well-equipped and prepared for war in a way that most of our forces are not." Edelgard did not see a reason to sugarcoat it.

"But wyverns and dragons on the flank, with a front line of Unsullied? That will form a hammer and anvil that can break any army. Perhaps of all my dragons, only Drogon is fit for war, but he should be enough."

"Perhaps," Grey Worm said, "But there are divisions of Unsullied among our enemies as well, courtesy of Volantis. They were the greatest buyer of battle-slaves before the fall of Astapor. And their Unsullied will be better armored than ours. The Volantenes employ Qohorik smiths."

"They employ another old friend of yours," Edelgard said. "Dothraki riders, some castoffs of your Drogo's Khallasar. I understand that we have Qarth to thank for that arrangement."

Daenerys frowned. "Ironborn raiders, Dothraki outriders, Iron Legionnaires, and Unsullied on the frontlines. It does paint a grim picture. But you don't mean to suggest we withdraw?"

"I would counsel that we withdraw," Hubert said, "But this is a discussion that we have had before, and I do not mean to be insolent. The Captain-General believes that this is a salvageable situation."

"We'll fight them in the field," Edelgard said. She pushed several tokens onto the map, arranging them in a line just to the north of Astapor. "The edges of the city are impassible to their cavalry, so if we arrange our battle lines here they cannot flank us, whereas the city garrison can pepper them with missiles and sortie into their flank. There is also a slight rise here that will blunt their charge, so If we concentrate our most elite forces on the northern flank we should be able to hold. Their forces might be better armored but dragon fire and wyvern talons will break them eventually."

Daenerys nodded. "A strong position. But what if they don't attack?"

"Then we win," Ferdinand said. "They have some supply that they're bringing in by ship but that's coming at great cost so they would be forced to 'forage' by raiding the countryside. If they do that, well, we have wyverns. Put half a dozen wyverns in the air and you could kill three or four raiding parties every day. Even with their numbers advantage, they can't afford to take such losses."

"And perhaps more to the point," Hubert said, "It's politically untenable for them to wait. This coalition is not comprised of longstanding allies, they're a fractious bunch of rivals temporarily working against a common threat. If Qarth or Volantis hears that New Ghis is wasting time against the least of the three cities they mean to siege, it could fracture the coalition. That is why I favor a withdrawal. It plays to our strengths to draw out the fighting."

Daenerys nodded. "And I respect your counsel, Hubert. But I failed the people of Astapor once. I won't fail them again."

A childish reason. But Edelgard found herself getting carried along in her wake. If all her ambition died here, she would at least know that she had died in a worthy cause.

Chapter Text

"One measure of grain for each! Just one!" Flayn grit her teeth. The crowd was pressing in, and her guards were unequal to the task. They had brought in grain, trying to save people, but nowhere near enough. The people of Astapor were starving and the crush had become a lethal threat of its own. This was her fault. She had not been prepared for the desperation of the Astapori. She had come here with only a few more guards than she would have in Yunkai. Stupid. Stupid! "Stand back! Take your turn!" Her voice sounded shrill against the madness of the crowd.

A fight had broken out amidst the press. Two men fighting over a pale of grain, struggling until the grain fell to the ground. One man swung a fist at the other, and Flayn's heart leaped into her throat. There would be a fight, there would be a riot, there would

The man's fist never made contact. A mailed hand had seized him by the elbow and forced him to kneel. Edelgard. She had come up through the crowd, come behind them without her usual retinue. She held the larger man there, her force absolute, her golden armor glistening in the sun. The crowd went silent.

"You dropped the grain," she said. "Grain that could have fed a family, kept them alive for another day. You may as well have killed someone." The man's eyes widened and his breathing slowed. He was a handsome man, with black-red hair and bronze skin. But he was starving, his face had hollowed out and his eyes were deeply sunken. No doubt he expected to die, now.

Edelgard released him. "We cannot continue like this," she said, her voice loud and commanding the square. "We cannot kill our own over the scraps that are left to us. We have to hold together. We have to think as one. Bear burdens as one. You are not the slaves of this Master or that Master anymore. Cleon is dead. All the Grazdans are dead, great or otherwise. We live. We will outlive them all. This is not the last grain that will come to this city. I promise you that. Take what you need, no more."

Edelgard looked to Flayn. "Give me the measure. I want to help you distribute the grain."

Flayn handed her the measuring pale wordlessly. The rest of the distribution went smoothly, and the mob was too impressed by Edelgard's presence to attempt such a press again. There was not enough grain to go around, nowhere near enough, but they measured out allotments for an hour in the square. Every measure would save a family. Every measure mattered.

Flayn watched Edelgard out of the corner of her eye. Edelgard had always frightened Flayn, for reasons she could not completely understand, and that moment in the square with Yezzan had made her more unsettled. Flayn liked to think of herself as an adult in a school for children. She saw through most of the childish games they played. Ferdinand's absurd ego. Sylvain's clumsy flirting. Bernadetta's absurdity. But Edelgard was not so simple. She was obviously younger and less experienced than Flayn, yet still, Flayn did not have the faintest understanding of her as a person. There was a thick wall between them, an implacable facade that Edelgard kept raised at all times. She kept it up now, too, mechanically measuring out grain to the masses, measure after measure. No doubt that implacability was what made her so effective as a leader, but Flayn found it unsettling, too.

They finished, and Flayn was alone in the square with her small retinue and Edelgard. Flayn fretted, full of questions that she could not ask. How vexing! Perhaps…

"You were right," Edelgard said, breaking Flayn from her thoughts. "I have been out of touch. I have been ignoring the situation on the streets. It was true in Yunkai, and it was true here."

"No, I should have apologized," Flayn said. "I knew that you were right as well, that Yezzan could become a threat, that my actions looked suspicious. I just didn't know how to get things moving in a better direction without him and…"

Edelgard held up a hand. "I had my reasons, but my reasons were based on ignorance. This was the first time I came down to the streets without my retinue. It's a different viewpoint. These people have been crushed utterly. Crushed for generations, and crushed beyond any hope of standing again. It's a miracle that they are even alive. You were seeing that every day, and you were desperate to help them. Having spent even a day here, that much is obvious."

"Most people are like this," Flayn said. "Even if their conditions are better, like people in Yunkai, or even in Enbarr, they just don't have the power to change their circumstances one way or another."

Edelgard frowned. "That's because society traps them, not because they lack ability."

"Maybe."

"But regardless, in the present they remain in need. Is that what you would say?"

"Well. Sort of. But you're talking about how things might be improved in the long run. I'm more thinking of the now, because, well. We can't know what comes next. Maybe everything we build here gets destroyed by the coalition. Maybe the coalition gets destroyed instead. Maybe we lose but slavery never comes back in the same way and there's another revolt a generation later. You can't know how things go. But you can know that if you feed someone today, it's a good thing."

Edelgard did not reply immediately. "I suppose I understand what you're saying," Edelgard said eventually. "But I'm not focused on the long run. I'm actually a very impatient person. I want massive change, and I want it to come quickly. I'm greedy like that. But I think that in all my hurry I perhaps have not been really considering the human cost. When you try to change things quickly… things break. People break."

Flayn did not reply immediately. She had no idea what to say. This was the most Edelgard had ever said to her. Really, it was phenomenal, what they and Daenerys had achieved in the Bay of Ghis in these few short months. Hundreds of years of a culture of slavery upended in less than a year. It made her think of Fodlan, and how despite a thousand years of effort, Seiros had still failed to fix the deep issues there. Maybe the long life she and her family enjoyed had made them complacent. Maybe they needed someone impatient like Edelgard or Daenerys to move things along.

"Flayn," Edelgard said, interrupting her thoughts. "Do you preach here?"

"No," Flayn said. "That was Yezzan who did that. My voice is too weak. I don't have the words to say."

"You should find someone who can speak for you. Set them to teaching. These people need something to give them hope and bind them together. Daenerys can inspire them, but she won't be here forever, and while I have some ideas of how to bring everyone together… they are not workable here. These cities are too broken, too used to oppression and slavery."

"Would you be the preacher?" Flayn asked, "You're one of the best speakers in the Black Eagles."

"I could not do that," Edelgard said. "The goddess and I have a… troubled relationship."

"I can understand that," Flayn said. She knew that the Southern church had been complicit in the deaths of Edelgard's family. She could hardly blame her for holding it against the goddess. "There is a deep-seated rot in the churches of Fodlan. My brother is always complaining about this."

Edelgard grimaced in a way that Flayn found impossible to interpret. "Well," She said. "I don't think the same problems will emerge here, especially if it's one of our own setting things up. And whatever I might think of her, the goddess at least rejects slavery."

Flayn did not know what to say for a moment. This had been a very stressful conversation! But they had come to an agreement, at least. That had to count for something. Yes, this had been a positive conversation. "The Bay of Ghis has a way of making our disagreements seem small," she said.

"You are not wrong."

—-

The cool of the evening saw Berdandetta enjoying a late dinner with Dorothea and Azram. Dorothea lounged on the cushions like she had been born to it, a glass of wine in one hand. For her part, Bernadetta could not break her training, and she sat bolt upright on the couch like she was back in her father's dining room, tied to a chair.

"Anyway, so Lady Pelazzo's son has apparently been courting Paezhar's cousin. And there's been a development in the south quarter too," Dorothea paused to sip her wine. "Paezhar was complaining that his usual perfumes were out of stock, something I assured him I could remedy in exchange for a favor."

Bernadetta rubbed the back of her neck uneasily. "...I can't follow, I'm sorry." They had been holding these meetings every other night for a week, but Bernadetta could never follow Dorothea's explanations. She did not have the talent for gossip.

"Oh, well, I admit it's all a bit arcane, but Paezhar usually sources his perfume from a shop near the south docks. Your watchmen caught and executed a smuggler operating there a few days ago. And while you caught that smuggler for bringing weapons and armor into the city, there was perfume in the hold, recall?"

"So that smuggler was doing business with this shopkeeper that Paezhar goes to?"

"Yes. Well, and if his cousin is being courted by Lady Pelazzo's son, it's hard to view that as anything other than a political alliance between two of the Wise Masters. Weapons and alliances. And you were just talking the other day about how it seemed as though there were more and more people in Paezhar's district these days..."

Bernadetta frowned. "Oh… That does sound bad. But what do we do? We could raid his pyramid, but that would make the others panic, and if there's a general revolt among the remaining masters, then we wouldn't have the numbers, and Edelgard would come back and she'd be so mad!"

"Well, I have some ideas," Dorothea said. "But I wanted to ask both of you questions before I went further."

"Ask Azramn," Bernie said. "I spend all my time under the pyramid."

"The Seneschal is too humble," Azram said. "The city watch has become capable of running the city itself under her guidance."

Bernadetta had put a lot of work into that. Courts, training programs for officers. Intellectually, she knew it was something of an achievement, even if she had just been borrowing the structure from Adrestia's legal code. But really she had just been trying to minimize the amount of time she had to spend away from her room.

"Well, it doesn't cost me anything to ask both of you," Dorothea said. "How much do you trust Yezzan?"

"Oh! No way, not at all," Bernadetta said. "I mean I'm sure he's nice and all but every time I've met him I've been sure he was going to poison my food."

"You think that about everyone, Bernie dear."

"I mean yeah but still!"

Azram stroked his chin with his thumb thoughtfully. "I cannot say," he said. "He was a powerful man. He's powerful still, if for different reasons. I don't think he's capable of giving up power entirely, especially with his health returned so miraculously."

"I was thinking of sending him to these conspirators," Dorothea said. "These alleged conspirators."

Bernadetta felt fear spike within her. "I-is that a good idea? He could just as easily flip and be a double agent. Or denounce them when they're innocent to put us in a bad position. O- or they could figure out he's working for us and give him bad information. The masters have become very cautious since Edelgard purged their ranks a second time a few months back."

Dorothea nodded. "Well, ideally we should be able to verify what he tells us, and determine if he's lying."

"He is likely a good liar," Azram said. "Great leaders are always excellent liars."

Dorothea's eyes glittered. "Well of course Ram, but so am I. And Bernie's the most suspicious person I've ever met. If we go after the wrong Master we could ruin our position in the city, but we have to move against them if there's really a plot going on. We need something to break the current wall of silence, and I think Yezzan is the man for the job."