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Chapter Text

A Note from the Mittelfrank Opera Company:

Like many other operas, The Prince’s Wager is difficult to stage in this day and age. Improving relations with Almyra, together with heightened awareness of how women are portrayed, make the opera’s orientalism and misogyny painfully obvious to modern audiences. In an attempt to address these issues, some productions transpose the setting ever farther east, as if the opera’s faults could be excused if only we made the setting more exotic. A counterargument to the trend, this latest production presents the story in a setting more familiar to Fodlan eyes. Our intent is not to gloss over the problematic aspects of the opera, but to provide the audience with an opportunity to look at the story in a very different light. In this interpretation we hope the audience will see in this classic of operas not just the flawed attitudes of the past, but the threads of human experience that run through all times and all cultures: Almyran, Fodlan, or otherwise.

It is a very different kind of introduction from the one Dorothea sent some months ago: a note written quickly, as if she had dashed it off while annotating a musical score. She wrote that she had heard a rumor about a friend of ours that inspired her to work on a new production of an opera. She hoped Bernadetta and I would attend the preview, a special performance the night before the official opening. Usually, only critics and other important figures of the operatic world were invited, but Dorothea was extending the invitation to special friends. So, on the evening of the preview, Bernadetta and I arrive at the Mittelfrank Opera House. At the center of the grand foyer is Manuela surrounded by critics, fielding a flurry of questions about her involvement in Dorothea’s endeavor. The Brigid queen, too, draws an admiring entourage. At the top of the grand stair is Ferdinand instructing his children on noble etiquette at the opera, though judging by their faces, they have heard it all before. At the edge of the room are a man and a woman who look like Felix and Ingrid, though it’s been so long that I have to greet them before I’m certain.

We proceed into the theater and take our seats. The lights dim and silence falls. With a single gesture, the maestro brings forth a barrage of ominous chords from the orchestra. A chorus dressed in the robes of ancient Adrestian citizens gathers at the foot of a platform. At its top a man dressed as an ancient Adrestian official intones a decree: the princess Faradon will be the wife of the one who can answer her three riddles. Those who fail will be beheaded. The prince of Dagda has failed and will meet his fate at the rising of the moon. Seething at the impending bloodshed, the chorus surges to the palace gates, and an aged man is shoved to the ground. His female companion cries for help. When a dark-skinned man dressed in yellow rushes to their aid, my memory stirs: there is something familiar about this man’s costume, but I put it aside to keep up with the story. The man in yellow is astonished to discover that the aged man is his father, a fallen king, whom he thought dead after the conquest of their realm. The chorus clamors again; the executioner’s men sharpen the sword. All is chaotic and turbulent. Then the doomed prince appears. A hush falls upon the chorus, the frenzy of movement stills, the music fades to a whisper. Struck with pity, the crowd pleads for the Dagdan prince’s life. The dark-skinned prince, indignant, calls upon the cruel princess to show herself so that he may curse her.

As the murmurs escalate into shouts, the princess emerges on a balcony atop the stage: Dorothea, her hair pale as starlight, her gown crimson as blood, her head held high like an emperor in her own right. The pleas for mercy prove in vain: with a haughty flick of her wrist, she gives the command for the Dagdan prince’s execution and disappears once more into the shadows. The dark-skinned prince praises her beauty, and suddenly I know why he has stirred my memory: he reminds me of someone I have not seen since the capture of Derdriu.

In my disbelief, I am unable to follow the rest of the act. All I know is that by the end of it, amid a musical maelstrom, the dark-skinned prince has resolved to undergo Faradon’s challenge. The curtain falls. As we wait for the next act, Bernadetta and I share our incredulity. We agree that Dorothea’s intent is unmistakable: the friend in the rumor that inspired her is Edelgard, and the dark-skinned prince is meant to be Claude. But the idea of a romance between them is unthinkable.

As I say those very words, I remember a scene I have long forgotten. One afternoon, passing through the monastery gardens, I saw those two in the tea pavilion, so deep in conversation that the tea between them seemed an act. They were discussing ethics and politics, and Edelgard would have pulled me in if she saw me, so I hurried past. When I dared to pass by again it was evening, yet they were still conversing as animatedly as if they had just begun. Not long after that, Edelgard would ask me to go to Enbarr with her. She was determined to heed the cry of a world begging to be liberated. I wonder now if she would have walked another path, had she been free to heed a different call.

If she had been free. I think back many years to the day she summoned me to the imperial palace for the last time. There she told me of her intent to appoint Lysithea her successor, abdicate, and vanish from the public eye. Even with the stolen years of her life restored to her, she said, she never intended to keep the throne for long. She intended to follow the example of an Adrestian citizen who in a time of great crisis was given absolute power, resigned the moment the crisis ended, and returned to an ordinary life. She had built a small villa in a remote corner of Edmund territory, where her name was barely more than hearsay. As she told me of orange trees, paths lined with flowers, and terraces overlooking the ocean I wondered if there was not some unspoken pain she was hiding, for her to seek such a quiet life. She’d laid her past to rest at the end of the war: for the last ten years she’d been the image of a dedicated ruler, tireless in her pursuit of reform and justice. Not until the day she told me of her plans to retire did I ever suspect that any unhealed pain lay beneath that image.

She asked me to visit, saying that we would sit down and talk just like we did in those peaceful days at the monastery. I agreed. But the flow of time is treacherous. Years passed before Bernadetta and I finally made the journey. We found the town just as she’d described it: the cliffs, the vast expanse of the sea far below, terraces of orange trees, townspeople without a care for anything outside their walls. Just outside the town was a modest house in the ancient Adrestian style. We passed through the slender columns of the portico and found ourselves in an atrium with a small, shallow pool for collecting rainwater. It was simple but elegant. We knew for certain that it was hers. But she was nowhere to be found.

There were fragments of her presence. Garden paths littered with scarlet blossoms. A wall painting of a boy and a girl dancing. A terrace overlooking the sea, and a dagger thrust into the earth as if to mark a grave. When we asked the townspeople what had happened to the lady of the villa, they also had fragments, fragments of a story that we took for a tall tale until tonight. Tonight the opera supplies the missing pieces of that story. After all these years, I can finally piece together what happened to Edelgard at that villa by the sea.

Chapter Text

Beneath the fiery sunset sky, the ancient ramparts of Cimbron loom over the crowd gathered at the east gate. The traveler turns to his companion. “We’re just in time.”

They take up their positions at the edge of the crowd. Lively conversation fills the air with a dialect even the traveler has not heard before, so remote is this little town on the cliffs by the sea. Mindful of his own speech pattern, characteristic of Derdriu, the traveler asks a nearby stranger about the crowd. “We’re waiting for the Ice Princess,” the man replies.

“Ice Princess?” repeats the traveler’s companion, a young woman.

The Cimbronese man points to the top of the wall. “She’ll appear up there any minute now. She lives in a house just outside the walls. Never seems to leave it. Who she is and where she came from, who knows? But the way she carries herself, she could be a princess. One with a heart of ice, though. That’s why we call her the Ice Princess.”

“Is that the only reason all these people are gathered here?” the first traveler asks, feigning ignorance. “Just to see her?”

“No, no. Though I guess it depends on who you ask!” The Cimbronese man laughs. “She has a beautiful face. Cruel, but beautiful. Not long after she moved here, that pretty face sent rumors flying. Men started coming from everywhere to ask for her hand, sight unseen. So she made an announcement, like some government official. Whoever wants to marry her has to draw blood in battle against three opponents.”

“And if he loses?”

The Cimbronese man prods another man standing next to him and says something rapidly in the Cimbronese dialect. He holds out one hand with the palm facing down. Grinning, the other man puts his palms together, raises them over his head, and makes a chopping motion onto the first man’s wrist. The first man feigns a pathetic cry of pain. The traveler’s companion winces.

“We used to watch the battles,” the first man says, “but they all end the same way. No one ever makes it past the second battle. So instead we watch the Ice Princess give the sentence. Will her latest suitor lose his hand? Will she finally get married? It’s the most excitement we’ve had in years!”

When he turns away, the young woman turns to the traveler and speaks in a low voice. “The crowd seems to enjoy the bloodshed. I find it quite disconcerting.”

He shakes his head. “I’ve never known popular entertainment to bring out the best in people. I’m just surprised she isn’t killing her suitors.”

Above the restless crowd the sunset sky is both serene and brilliant. The sun descends behind the towering walls, leaving clouds radiant with rosy fire in its wake. At the opposite end of the sky, amid clouds alight with silver, a full moon emerges from behind the mountains. A silent witness to the spectacle, it watches as the crowd parts for a young man dressed in fine clothes. His head is held high, his face set with determination. An elderly woman stands on her toes to see over the crowd and tells another woman beside her, “Look. That’s the face of someone who’s won.”

The murmurs of the crowd escalate into shouts: “Princess!” “Show yourself!” “What have you decided?” All eyes are riveted on the parapet above the gates. And then, at the top of the ancient walls, the Adrestian emperor emeritus appears in a blaze of glory: a majestic silhouette against the fiery sky, crowned by her long, shining hair. The sight is a marvel, a dream, a beauty almost divine, as if she shed the weight of humanity long ago to ascend to the Fodlan sky. Yes, thirteen years after their last meeting, she is even more beautiful and imperious than she was when she took Derdriu. But this time, the traveler thinks, he will prevail. The thought thrills him as he gazes up at her—and he suddenly finds himself struck with the thought that she makes crimson look like a mourning color.

Her suitor reaches out his hand to her, a gesture of doomed longing. From her lofty place, the solitary figure passes the eagerly awaited judgment with a single, sweeping gesture of her arm. Tearing his eyes away from the vision, the condemned man follows two cloaked figures around the corner of the walls. The emperor emeritus turns her gaze upward, seems to shudder, and retreats in silence. In the wake of her harsh silhouette, her presence seems to linger softly, like the perfume of jasmine filling the air of a summer evening.

“Claude?”

Claude snaps out of his thoughts. “Yes?”

His companion looks troubled. “Your eyes are like… fire.”

Before he can respond, a bloodcurdling scream splits the air. The wail that follows it is long and agonized, ending with a choked sob. A huddled figure stumbles out of the shadows, clutching the blackened stump of his wrist. The spectacle is over. The crowd begins to disperse, chattering as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

The young woman turns to her companion. “After what we have just seen, I do not feel comfortable staying here for the night,” she says. “Perhaps while it is still light, we can retrace our steps to the last town we passed.”

“Ah, but there’s so much I want to know about this Ice Princess business.” Claude shakes his head. “You could stay in Ruphol for a couple of days while I poke around. I’ll go back with you, at least.”

“Thank you, but I can find my way back on my own. I can see you are eager to investigate, and I would prefer to leave as soon as possible.”

Despite her words, she lingers. “I don’t suppose… No. It is too late to turn back, is it not?” Without waiting for Claude to answer, she continues, “Please be careful. I will see you in two days.”

He watches her leave. They have both acted according to the script, but that doesn’t stop the pangs of guilt. It is true; he has come too far to turn back. Now is the time to be like her. She would never let memories stop her. So he turns towards the gates and enters the town.

Though it is his first time in Cimbron, he knows its history. An ancient town, founded before the Alliance and Faerghus, it enters the historical record in the year an Adrestian emperor built a fabled villa on the seaside cliffs of northeast Fodlan. No trace of the villa remains except for the pattern of the town’s streets. The inhabitants are blissfully ignorant of the history they tread on, the history that repeats itself. As he traverses the town, Claude can see why the Adrestian emperor chose to retire here. The bloody spectacle notwithstanding, the town is the very picture of peace. White-stuccoed buildings lining the streets frame views of the sea. Wherever it is too steep to build, there are terraces of orange trees whose sweet scent drifts through the streets on the ocean breeze. On that same breeze the strains of a song reach Claude’s ears:

Once from the distant mountain
Poured forth fiery fury.
Cities bowed before her wrath
And she reclaimed what once was hers.
But barren lies the earth—
Nothing blooms amid the ashes.
The wandering wind sings and seeks
Flowers that would dance in its song.
When will bloom the scorched earth,
When will ashes blossom forth?

Claude exits the town through the west gate and finds himself in a meadow at the base of a promontory. At the top is her villa, though it is so small and simple that it barely merits the name. It is the quintessential Adrestian villa, from the tile roof to the slender columns of the portico.

A stone’s throw from the portico, he finally decides to acknowledge the man following him. “Of course,” he says. “What would a Vestra do without a Hresvelg?”

He turns to find the emperor’s confidant standing behind him. “Sharp as ever,” he remarks with a smirk. “In that case, you must also know what I am about to tell you.”

Claude raises his eyebrows. “Is that an implied goodbye I hear? We haven’t even said hello. I came all this way. Can’t an old classmate drop in for a chat?”

“You have been an enemy a bit more recently than an ‘old classmate.’”

“Derdriu was more than a decade ago, Hubert,” Claude points out. “The Alliance is history.”

“Indeed. But wherever your allegiance currently lies, it hardly matters. I will not allow you to disturb Lady Edelgard. That is all.”

“So she really meant to retire, huh? And here I thought she’d spend every minute of her life reforging the world.”

“What Lady Edelgard chooses to do with her life is none of your concern.”

“And all of yours. Well, you’ve been awfully subtle, but I can take a hint. Tell Edelgard an old classmate dropped by, will you?”

“I will do no such thing.”

The door opens while Hubert is still speaking. When Claude turns around, she is there, a rare expression of surprise on her face. “Claude,” she says simply.

“Your Retired Majesty,” he replies, inclining his head. “Or is it Your Majesty Emeritus?”

Hubert bows. “My deepest apologies, Lady Edelgard. He is just about to leave.”

“Not anymore.” Claude smiles up at her. “You haven’t aged a day.”

“And that silver tongue of yours hasn’t tarnished,” she returns, amused. To Hubert she says, “Thank you. But I’ll take it from here.”

Closing the door behind her, she leads Claude around the side of the villa and down into the terraced gardens. Across foliage and flora the descent of evening casts a deep blue shade cut by the gleam of large scarlet petals scattered across the stone paths. Beneath a trellis weeping with wisteria Edelgard seats herself on a stone bench. Claude takes the bench across from her. “You must have seen the spectacle,” she says.

“You put on quite the performance. And you’re sure no one suspects who you are?”

“Hubert informs me that they think me a recluse who used a magic formula to change her hair color to imitate the emperor.”

Despite himself, Claude laughs. “Is that a trend in Fodlan?”

She confirms it with an exasperated sigh. “The scion of House Nuvelle has certainly proved herself a capable entrepreneur.”

In the pause that follows, he notices that her eyes are the same pale color as the wisteria flowers. When she narrows her eyes, he remembers to guard his expression.

“During my reign,” she says abruptly, “I was privy to news concerning the Almyran court. I’ve heard nothing of a royal wedding. It surprises me that someone like you could still be unmarried after all these years.”

Her choice of subject startles him. “I’ll… take that as a compliment,” he replies. “For what it’s worth, I’m not unmarried for lack of trying.”

“Oh? So there was someone.”

He shrugs. “It was years ago. There’s hardly any point in—”

“Hilda.”

“Hilda?” he repeats, amused. “She hasn’t spoken to me since Derdriu. And not because I’ve been away.”

“I can’t imagine Hilda angry.”

“It takes a lot. And I did a lot. Summoning Almyran reinforcements, giving up the Alliance, and deciding to disappear from Fodlan—that’s enough to make Hilda angry.”

“So who was this person?”

Puzzled by her persistence, he takes a moment to decide how to deflect. “I didn’t know for sure, myself,” he says finally. “She had some fascinating secrets,” he adds with a wistful smile.

“So you found them out and lost interest.”

“Not quite. It was more that her father didn’t approve.”

“You would let that stop you?”

“It wasn’t something that could be settled by sheer force of will, Edelgard. And on that note, while I’ll admit a twinge of envy at the quantity of your marriage prospects at our age”—Edelgard actually rolls her eyes—“I’m not too keen on discussing my own bachelorhood. Though I am, of course, flattered by your interest.”

“Don’t be too flattered. I wanted to ensure you hadn’t been married off to secure an alliance in a potential invasion of the empire. There’s still hope for negotiations, then. I had hoped to extend the hand of diplomacy to Almyra myself, but domestic affairs kept me occupied.”

That she would investigate his personal life with her political ambitions in mind, he is perfectly willing to believe; that her curiosity is purely political, less so. Nonetheless, he is happy to change the subject. “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” he cautions. “The Almyran court isn’t exactly talking about diplomacy of late.”

And from then on it is as if they are back at Garreg Mach in that pavilion, discussing politics, philosophy, and Fodlan history: her direct, incisive speech countered with his subtle, measured manner. He is reminded of the night of the ball, when, with Dorothea’s help, he stole her from her dance partner by snatching her hand while she was spinning. As they danced they bickered about etiquette and technique, unwilling to adapt to each other’s style yet intensely responsive. But if in the pavilion they could only discuss what they were taught, now, with more years behind them, they can speak of what they have learned, and of their differing approaches to life. “I don’t deny that there are benefits to being prepared for every eventuality,” Edelgard concedes. “But my experience convinces me that all the time you spend accounting for every possibility is time that you should spend ensuring you can’t possibly lose.”

“Ah, but if you prepare for every possibility, you’ll never really lose.”

“Nor will you really win.”

“So what would you have done if brute strength weren’t enough?” Claude wants to know. “If the Alliance fought you off at Myrddin and came all the way to your doorstep at Enbarr? I know it’s difficult to imagine, but humor me for a moment.”

“It’s not difficult to imagine. If you came face-to-face with me at Enbarr and defeated me, I would have told you to strike me down, walk away, and never look back.”

He was prepared for this answer, but not for the way she looks straight into his eyes and speaks, calmly, about being killed. “You wouldn’t have tried to negotiate?” he presses.

She rises and makes her way to one of the shrubs with large scarlet petals scattered beneath it. She bends down and picks one up, cradling it in her gloved hand. Claude realizes that what he thought was a large petal is a single flower.

“Of all the flowers in my gardens, these are my favorite,” she says. “When they die, they fall off the branches whole. There is no prolonged passing between life and death.” The flower plummets from her hand. “There are no parleys, surrenders, or negotiations for me, Claude. Only absolute victory and utter defeat. I would never consent to live in a world where my ideals were unfulfilled.”

“I see.” He ponders her words. Since she has clothed her words in poetry, his next words must be blunt. “Then you must either have many regrets, or none at all.”

Quickly she turns away. Behind her the moon, pale and reproachful, makes a shadow of her proud figure. While Claude considers how to press his advantage, she speaks.

“I read that this land was devastated by a catastrophe over a thousand years ago.”

A second time her choice of subject surprises him, but he follows along. “I’m familiar with the legends. A mountain went up in flames one day. The goddess punishing wicked humans, as usual,” he says dryly.

“I wonder what it was like for those who survived, to come back to their land and find it turned to ash. Changed beyond recognition.”

“I can relate. It’s not easy when someone high and mighty decides to set the world on fire.”

“And yet the land recovered. Flowers of all kinds grow on the slopes of that mountain now. But how long did it take for that to happen? And was it ever the same after that?”

Claude considers the riddle she has laid before him. “This is unexpected,” he muses. “Was the real Edelgard always this melancholy?”

“The ‘real Edelgard,’” she repeats distastefully. “There is no such thing. “The ‘real self’ is only an excuse people use to hide from their own weaknesses and failures.”

“That’s a harsh way to put it. Everyone has something they have to hide. I’m sure you can relate to that.”

“If I’ve learned anything about hiding my own secrets, it’s that they tend to reveal themselves in many other ways. When you think your motives are concealed, you can still make the mistake of being careless. For instance, you would have me believe that you came here to visit a former classmate. But I can tell from the timing of your arrival, the way you carry yourself, the look in your eyes, that you have a clear purpose.” She turns around to look him in the eye. “So, then. Why did you come here? What do you want from me, Claude?”

This is her way: to accelerate the pace of the game, and then intimidate him into showing his hand. He will not play along. His way is to deflect. It will be dangerous, but no more so than the wager that brought him here.

“Your hand,” he says with a smile. “I came here to marry you, Edelgard.”

Astonishment, confusion, and consternation all pass across her face in quick succession, ending with anger. She stiffens and holds her head high, the full image of the emperor she was. “Well, then,” she says, her voice low with suppressed ire. “Present yourself at the west gate tomorrow afternoon. There you will face my challenge. If you fail, you will lose your hand.”

Without another word, she stalks away, a petal trailing threads of moonlight as she carves her own path on the breeze. He has always admired that indomitable will. Soon he will have it for his own intentions.

The stakes are set. The pieces are falling into place. He has waited years for this, and finally, the game is on.

Chapter Text

The Mittelfrank Opera Company is ready for the second act. In a lighthearted interlude, three men dressed as government officials prepare for the trial of Faradon’s next suitor. They lament their task, dream of leisurely lives, and longingly imagine celebrating the princess’s wedding night. When they depart the stage, the simple backdrop rises to reveal an elaborate reconstruction of the imperial audience chamber. Atop the marble throne sits the emperor, Faradon’s father. The stairs that cascade from the throne are filled with the ministers of the court. The dark-skinned prince enters the stage. Three times the weary emperor urges him not to throw his life away; three times the prince asks to undergo the trial. The emperor resignedly abandons him to his fate. Dorothea, as the princess Faradon, makes her entrance. Her song gives shape to a solemn tale: “In this palace…”

The couple spends the morning preparing for the challenge. Married for over ten years, they have a rapport that few would consider affectionate. Nowhere is this more evident than in the words Shamir has for her husband on this particular morning:

“If I weren’t married to you, I’d say you intended to marry her yourself, seeing how much you hate even the idea of her getting married.”

It is equally characteristic of Hubert that he merely responds, “Marriage does not befit an emperor emeritus. Therefore, she will not marry.”

“And if she wanted to?”

“I should convince her otherwise. Or better yet, remove the groom from the equation.” He smiles thinly. “Do you perhaps think that she would consider marrying Claude?”

Shamir shrugs. “I don’t pretend to know what she thinks. And it makes no difference to me whether or whom she marries. But if she were to pick one, I’d put my money on Claude.”

“I will not allow you to forfeit your battle in his favor.”

“I didn’t say I was going to forfeit. Let’s just say he wins. At least he has a brain. Most of the suitors don’t. If I were her, I’d marry him just to keep suitors away. They don’t have to live together. He can go back to wherever he came from and she can stay here.”

Hubert disagrees. “If the risk of losing a hand won’t stop these imbeciles, then neither will an absent husband. I expect we will be cutting off hands for years to come.”

Shamir looks out the window at the villa. “She’ll never find peace in a life like this,” she remarks.

Her husband cannot deny it, but he stands by his duty: “It is the closest she has ever come to peace since Garreg Mach. And I will not let anyone disturb it. Least of all that conniving schemer.”

“It takes one to know one,” Shamir points out.

“True enough.”

She prods. “But let’s say she decides she wants something other than peace.”

“Very well. I will indulge the thought if you wish. On the day Lady Edelgard condescends to marry, our services will no longer be needed. We may as well do something utterly ridiculous with our lives. Go to Dagda and build a house by a lake, perhaps.”

The words bring a smirk to Shamir’s face. “Your words, not mine,” she says. “And if it happens, I know a place.”

When Edelgard enters the atrium, it is radiant with the light of the afternoon sun. She designed this room after the atria of ancient Adrestian villas: the floor of black-and-white mosaic in geometric motifs, the open-air skylight with its small, shallow pool below, the walls painted with bright colors. To a stranger’s eye, those paintings are little more than ordinary scenes. To Edelgard they are memories of happier days. On one panel is the plain where three houses contended for victory in an annual battle; on another, the feast that followed; on another, Dorothea dancing amid a crowd of delighted faces. The largest panel depicts the night of a ball. If one cares to peruse the details he finds Hubert in the shadows, Lysithea at the dessert table, Ferdinand dancing with unnecessary flourishes, Constance brandishing a glass of bright blue champagne. Everything is just as it was on that night, except for the brown-haired girl and the blond boy dancing: a memory that never happened, at least not on that night. It just so happens that at this moment a shaft of sunlight has fallen on that particular panel, and Edelgard is reminded of her oath.

In this hall she’d sworn on the one thing sacred to her—if “sacred” was even the right word—that of all those who dared ask for her hand, she would consider none but the one who could prove himself capable of walking her path. She’d gazed unseeingly at her dagger the way she does so now, willing the memories not to flood her mind and make her weak. But they came then, and they come now.

In the library she taught him to dance. Late in the afternoon she’d been in a reading mood, but he couldn’t sit still, so she read stories aloud while he acted them out. When she read him a scene about a ball, he didn’t know what to do. So she taught him how to dance. Or tried, at least. He didn’t seem to know his left foot from his right. But her instruction was apparently so effective that years later, he danced so well that she didn’t recognize him.

In the reception hall at Garreg Mach he watched her dance. Late in the evening she was dancing with another student when, in the middle of her spin, Claude snatched her hand and took her partner’s place. For the rest of the waltz she berated him about his technique and the etiquette of social dance. When she turned to leave the dance floor, she saw him watching her with a face that looked nostalgic. It is an expression she can no longer remember, for now she can only ever picture his face as it was on the night he died.

In the Tailtean Plains she killed him. Late in the night he died cursing her with her childhood name. They were born to be enemies; the world could not abide both of them. And though she was the one who lived, in death he cast night upon her heart.

In the underground city her uncle’s impostor revealed the terrible truth behind what she had believed were the delusional ramblings of a man blinded by revenge. The impostor sneered that though he would never have his victory, he would settle for claiming her humanity. With his death, he said, she would be the most wicked of all life on earth, she whose hands were stained with the blood of allies and family. She mocked him for thinking he could make her guilty of her siblings’ deaths. She had forgotten, he replied with a vicious grin. Her stepbrother, her childhood friend, her classmate and rival, the last king of Faerghus… The professor dealt the final blow before he could finish, but it was too late: the memories of her long-forgotten friend came flooding back in a deluge that brought her to her knees.

If before she’d walked in a darkness that hid the sight of her path, hid her even from herself, now the glaring light of the moon showed her the truth of what she had become, the truth of the path that stretches before and behind her. That she and the professor brought the dawn of a bright future upon Fodlan, she will never question; she will never regret that. But she shivers at the price of her victory, the cursed fate of one who would set the world on fire: a path of ashes, a night that has no morning.

Edelgard sheathes the dagger. Let believers talk of sins and atonement. She embraced the flames long ago. Today she will face her former classmate, and he will learn what it means to play with fire.

Claude is at the gate at the appointed time. He remembers the Cimbronese man saying that no one watches the battles, but he is still surprised when Shamir and Hubert are the only ones present. They are dressed in battle armor; Claude has opted for the archer’s lightweight armor of his native country. “You look more like yourself in those colors,” Shamir comments.

“Thanks,” Claude says. “Where’s Edelgard?”

“Lady Edelgard has seen enough of these battles to know how they all end,” Hubert answers, emphasizing the word “all.”

“But it’s me.”

“All the more reason for her not to observe, I should think.” Hubert folds his arms. “The rules of the challenge are as follows. You will face at most three battles, each against a different opponent. If you are the first to draw blood, you will face the next battle. If your opponent draws blood first, you lose the challenge, and your hand. Shamir has agreed to go first. I will observe the battle.”

The first battle begins. Claude sees why the townspeople have lost interest: an archers’ battle is about deliberation and strategy, not direct confrontation. Since his opponent knows the cliffs like the back of her hand, her goal is to disappear from his view and land a hit from a direction he doesn’t expect. Swiftly he makes his way to the most protected spot he found when he scouted the terrain the previous night. From there he keeps an eye on Shamir while dodging her shots and occasionally firing one of his own. For a fleeting moment he does lose track of her, but he manages to dodge the throwing knife that follows. In the end he is the victor: an arrow grazes her leg when she moves a fraction of a second too late. She signals Hubert in the meadow below to indicate that the first battle is over.

Shamir and Hubert trade places as combatant and observer. When Hubert spins a lance, Claude draws his sword. Hubert will have the advantage of range, but Claude can compensate with his speed. Still, as they battle, he is impressed with Hubert’s facility with the lance.

“I find your decision to take up the challenge perplexing,” Hubert says abruptly. “Surely you realize that Lady Edelgard invented this challenge to discourage suitors, not to find a husband.”

“Either way, it’s a questionable move. A challenge with stakes like that only discourages reasonable people,” Claude points out.

Hubert smirks. “Do you exclude yourself from the reasonable, then?”

“Naturally. But I’m not just crazy enough to try. I’m also clever enough to win.”

“Whatever may happen, I have no intention of allowing you to claim your victory. I will do anything necessary to prevent it.”

“Ooh, a threat. I’ll just have to take Edelgard far away before you can figure out how you’re going to kill me.”

“If you think you can make her leave Cimbron, you are mistaken. She has her reasons for retiring from the public eye. Reasons which neither you nor I know.”

“Then she might also choose to leave retirement, for reasons you don’t know.”

“Dubious,” is all Hubert has to say in response.

Even after Claude wins, Hubert is hardly perturbed. “So you have managed to do what dozens have failed to do so far,” he muses. “A pity it will all be for naught.”

Claude sheathes his sword and returns to the west gate. As he awaits his final opponent, he lays his bow on the ground and listens to the voices drifting down from the ramparts above. With his unprecedented victory, a crowd is beginning to gather. Amid the chatter he hears someone singing the song he heard in the streets yesterday, the song of fiery mountain and scorched earth.

The flash of sunlight from her bronze armor and shield announce Edelgard from afar. When she arrives, the two combatants appraise each other in silence. She knows there is a method behind Claude’s apparent madness. Marrying her to advance his political standing is too brazen a move for the schemer she knows him to be, but she struggles to name another motive. For his part, he is struck by the thought that without the imperial diadem and the crimson on her armor or her shield, she seems less a retired monarch, more an exile. He remembers the way she appeared at the top of the wall yesterday. She appears the same way today. Cursed, the superstitious types at home would say. He wouldn’t put it that way, yet he is at a loss to find another.

Edelgard breaks their silence. “If you had told me at Derdriu that we would battle again someday, I would have believed you. But I would have imagined you’d come as king of Almyra, with an army at your back.”

Claude smirks. “Are you disappointed I came as a lowly bachelor prince?”

“If so, the disappointment is on your behalf. I admired your character. If the world hadn’t been what it was when we were at Garreg Mach, I might have sought your friendship. And perhaps more than that. But the time for that is long past.” She draws her sword. “I have drawn a line that no one will cross. Not even you.”

He draws his own sword. “I’m glad you put it that way. If there’s one thing I was born to do, it’s crossing lines.”

She lunges before he has even finished speaking. As he dodges each of her attacks, the air itself seems to throb with the power behind her blade. Even without an axe, if she lands one blow, he will lose much more than just blood. “You should forfeit while you can,” she warns. “It would be a waste for you to lose your hand.”

“I agree. I’d rather you just gave me yours.”

“Why are you doing this?” she demands. “It’s beneath you.”

He smiles as best he can while evading her sword. “On the contrary. I just can’t resist a challenge. If you really don’t want to marry, you could just say so.”

“If it were that simple, I wouldn’t have had to invent this challenge. As it is, anyone foolish enough to risk losing a hand for the chance to marry me deserves his punishment.” She relents her attack to give her next words emphasis. “All I want is to live life on my own terms. What about that is so impossible for men like you to understand?”

He frowns. “I object to being lumped in with a group like that.”

“Then tell me what makes you different.”

He leaps back from her next attack to give his response some thought. “I’m like you,” he answers.

“Ridiculous.”

The scorn in her low voice, the fire in her eyes, the lethal grace of her every move are all so oddly thrilling that he briefly wonders if he is smitten with her. “I am, though,” he says. “At least for now.”

“I’m glad to hear you won’t be ridiculous for long.”

She lunges again. This time he stands his ground and raises his own sword to intercept hers. Even though she wields her sword with one hand and he wields his with two, the impact of the clash makes him stumble. She disentangles her blade to strike again. He parries and counterattacks, but she blocks with her shield. Now that he has begun his offense, she begins to look more like herself. “You know,” he comments, “I think you’re most beautiful in the heat of battle.”

“Save your pretty lies for a woman who will believe them,” she retorts.

“Lies?” he repeats, startled. “I evade, I obfuscate, I misdirect—but I don’t lie.”

As they continue to battle, crossing blades again and again, he realizes that he is wrong: she isn’t more like herself. She is less. At Derdriu he saw an eagle, high-flying and fierce. Here he sees a caged creature. There is something familiar about the sight, though not because he has seen it in her before.

Whatever it is, he doesn’t have time to reflect. His strength is no match for hers. Every clash is bruising. Seeing his confidence slipping away, she presses forward. She is keenly aware of the eyes of the crowd. They want to see her conquered, married, subdued. They are a closed-minded, provincial people who see an independent woman at her age and suspect an imbalance in the world. They do not know an ice princess from a Flame Emperor. She will defy them all and put Claude in his place. Slinging her shield onto her back, she grips her sword with both hands. With the next strike she disarms Claude. She closes in, he leaps back and drops to the ground—and an arrow whistles past her face, leaving an unmistakable sting in its wake.

She stops in her tracks, belatedly piecing together his scheme: his every move was calculated to bring him back to where he had left his bow before the battle. In an impossibly fast motion he must have practiced hundreds of times, he’d snatched up the bow from the ground and fired. Already he is approaching to offer her a bottle of medicine, saying, “Use this. It won’t leave a scar.”

She swipes at her cheek and scowls at the blood on her gauntlet. “Unbelievable,” she mutters.

Hubert steps forward. “It need not end like this,” he assures Edelgard, raising his hands in preparation to cast a spell.

Claude backs off, but after a moment’s hesitation, Edelgard shakes her head. “No, Hubert. I’ve sworn on the one thing I hold closest to sacred.”

“Whatever that is, it is not as important as your peace.”

“Stand down. This is an oath I will not break.”

“Something you hold sacred, something even Hubert doesn’t know about,” Claude muses. “What could that be?”

Edelgard sheathes her sword. “Unbelievable,” she mutters again. “Never will I take such a foolish oath again.”

“Better swear on it to make sure,” Claude suggests.

Her eyes flare. She looks as if she is about to draw her sword again, but then her expression changes and she snaps, “Don’t look at me like that.”

The look vanishes from his face. “Like what?”

“Never mind.” She takes the medicine from him and tends to her wound. The cut closes up instantly. “Thank you,” she says curtly.

When she hands the medicine back to him, he catches her hand. She yanks it away, leaving her gauntlet behind. Claude’s eyes narrow. “I’m not trying to make this difficult for you. Break your unbreakable oath if you want, but if you intend to keep your word, don’t act like a child throwing a tantrum because you’ve lost.”

For the first time, all trace of his humor is gone. For the first time she sees the face of the Master Tactician who, though she is called the Ice Princess, is truly ice. Though the crowd cannot possibly hear what is happening, they see enough to grow indignant. All raised voices fall silent, however, the moment Hubert glowers up at the walls.

Edelgard thinks quickly and comes to a decision. “Fine,” she says shortly. “Marry me if you dare. But when you leave Cimbron, I will not follow you.”

“Do you really think I risked losing my hand just to leave Cimbron by myself?”

“I see you want me to go to Almyra with you. But that’s not what you’ve won. I will do all that is required for a wedding here. A ceremony, vows, and a wedding night.”

“You’re coming to Almyra to marry me and staying there. I’m not going to play semantic games over this.”

“You shot an arrow at me in what I reasonably expected to be a sword fight,” she counters. “I fail to see how this is any different.”

After a moment’s pause, Claude heaves an exaggerated sigh, suddenly himself again. “Beaten at my own game. That’s fine. I came prepared to play it your way.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just what it means,” he answers evasively. “I could marry you and go back to Almyra without you. Or I could stay here and pester you until you either agree to come with me, or kill me. Since it’s all the same to me, I’ll propose a challenge of my own. An offer even Hubert won’t refuse. If you lose, you’ll come with me to Almyra and marry me. If you win, you can have my head.”

Her eyes widen. “Claude… What challenge would you stake your life on?”

He smiles. “You don’t know my real name.”

It is only a little more than a guess based on their brief discussion of Almyra the previous night. But the flustered look on her face confirms that she’d been far too occupied with domestic affairs to remember, if ever she’d been told, the real name of a foreign prince of little significance.

“Tell me my real name before dawn,” he continues, “and at dawn I’ll die.”

“No one is forcing you to do this.”

“No one forces me to do anything. You’re welcome to try and figure out my motives. But you might want to figure out my real name instead.”

She closes her eyes. She looks resigned, but to what, he cannot say. “Very well,” she says finally, opening her eyes. “I accept your challenge. If I lose, I will go with you to Almyra and marry you. If I win, you will die. By my hand. Do I have your word?”

“Better than that. My solemn word.”

He offers his hand. Her eyes never leaving his, she gives him her ungloved hand. His hand shifts in hers as he bends down to kiss her hand. She pulls away to signal Hubert against retaliating, and so she misses Claude’s expression when he straightens, turns around, and walks away.

Low in the sky to the east she sees the moon raising its reproachful head. His fate is sealed. She will kill him at dawn.

Chapter Text

During the intermission, Bernadetta hums the famous theme introduced at the end of the second act. She tells me that Dorothea once told her about this opera, famous not only for the tenor aria in the third act but also for the fact that it was left unfinished at the composer’s death, leaving another composer to write the ending. She and Dorothea aren’t fond of that ending, she says. They once spent an afternoon trying to rewrite it. However this ending unfolds, I hope it holds the answer to the question that the villa and the people of Cimbron could not answer: what happened to Edelgard and Claude at the end of their fatal wager.

Shortly after we return to the theater, the curtain rises on the third act. Against hushed, tense music and a dark backdrop glimmering with stars, a procession of heralds proclaims the princess’s decree: tonight in the city no one shall sleep, for on pain of death, the prince’s name must be discovered before dawn. Bleakly the chorus echoes the decree: no one shall sleep, no one shall sleep. Under a pavilion in the palace gardens the prince takes up the cry that becomes his celebrated aria. Blissfully he sings of the moment he will win, the moment the princess will become his. As the chorus laments the impending massacre, he anticipates the victory that dawn will bring. But he has made a grave misstep. Imperial guards lead his father and his father’s companion into the garden in chains. Faradon arrives, prepared to do what she must to ensure her own victory.

At nightfall Claude takes up his post in the gardens, and Edelgard does not stop him.

The summer night is unbearably long, no matter what he does to pass the time. He tends to his weapons, he meditates. He contemplates the stars, he paces among the fallen flowers. Guilt pulls his gaze towards the town, its streets flooded with a ghastly, unnatural light; curiosity pulls it to the villa with its flickering light in the window.

No one sleeps, least of all she, pondering in her room the weight of her wager. She has long since lifted her eyes from the pages of the book with the word that could seal her victory. Her only sense of time is the slow but steady drift of the stars, each a diminutive flame shivering in some cosmic gale. She, too, shivers, not at the breezes that flow from her open window, but at the sight of the silent sentinel in the sky whose accusing light lays silver upon her gardens, upon the fallen scarlet blossoms that foreshadow the night’s violent end.

On the terrace at the gardens’ edge Claude imagines his victory. The thought of the wedding feast brings a smile to his face. Then he imagines sitting beside his veiled bride before the mirror and wonders, when she lifts the veil, what he will see in that mirror. Resignation? Resentment? And when he wakes her at dawn, what he will see when she opens her eyes…

He has seen more than enough to know that she carries some invisible burden within her, that something other than a desire for a quiet life led her to the edge of Fodlan. She is still flame, still seething with fire, but only part of her seems to be on earth, the other part of her far above in some tragic heaven beyond his grasp. He tells himself it is none of his concern; the wager that brought him to her has nothing to do with her heart. He must be like her, she who has never let anything stand between her and her ambitions.

Bracing himself on the parapet, he peers into the black abyss of the ocean below. In his exhaustion his head reels and oblivion soars up to meet him. He throws himself back, flings his gaze eastward to the dawn that cannot be far off. He hums, he sings in his native tongue. And as he sings he sees her descending through the gardens. Her hair, still loosely pinned up from their battle, gleams like jasmine in moonlight. When she arrives on the terrace, there is no hostility in her expression, as if the wager is temporarily forgotten.

“You were singing an Almyran song,” she says.

“You heard?” he asks. “In this wind, I doubt you could hear the beat of a wyvern’s wings.”

She hesitates. “Can you… sing another song.”

The way her falling intonation betrays her embarrassment is almost endearing. He beams. “Of course. I’ll sing for you all you want…”

She waits for the catch. When none comes, she says, “Thank you—”

“After we’re married,” Claude finishes.

Edelgard glares at him and changes the subject. “You were singing about the wind.”

“Sort of. It’s a folk song about asking the mountains for a wind to take away the singer’s sorrows.”

“As if wind could do such things,” she mutters, and the silver light is like a mantle of mourning upon her shoulders.

“I didn’t realize you knew Almyran,” Claude comments.

“I taught myself the fundamentals. I was serious about diplomacy with Almyra, you know.”

“But not serious enough to know my real name.”

“Perhaps you weren’t important enough.”

He winces. “With that bluntness, and a grasp of the language, you’ll fit in.” He hums tunelessly, weighing whether to press his luck. “You must know some Almyran names. You could guess.”

“I won’t stoop to guessing games. I will tell you one name only, and it will be your real name.”

He smirks. “I expected no less. Well, dawn’s not far off. Looks like I’ll be taking the win.”

“Don’t be so sure of yourself.”

“I can hope, can’t I? After all, the stakes are a little higher for me than they are for you.”

“You’re the one who set those stakes. And my life is also at stake.”

“I really have to remind you that you’re not the one who has to die if you lose? Unless… you think marrying me would be worse than dying? It won’t be that bad.” He looks at her intently. “I think we’d make a good match, myself. You must see it too.”

“I haven’t thought about it,” she says shortly. “It’s not going to happen.”

“You do know that no matter what Hubert is willing to do for you, he and Shamir won’t be able to get my real name out of people who don’t know it in the first place.”

“So you know, then, what I’ve ordered them to do.”

“Why else would I stay up all night?”

“Do you really think you’re less responsible for the townspeople’s suffering just because you’re sharing it?” she asks scornfully. “You’re making them pay for your pride.”

“You’re the one who only has pride on the line, Edelgard,” he snaps, suddenly ice again. “I’ve got other things at stake here. If I win this wager, I win my wager with my parents and the council.”

“I see. So this is about your political career after all.”

“Yes and no. As far as I’m concerned, the throne is just the means to an end.”

“As it is for anyone with worthwhile ambitions. And what end do you hope to achieve with the Almyran throne?”

“You’ll have to marry me to find out.”

She responds to his cold smile with a glare. “You and your endless secrets. The one pleasure I will have in marrying you is that you will never be able to keep a secret from me again.”

“I’m looking forward to showing you the real me,” he replies. “And learning about the real you.”

“I’ve told you before. There is no such thing. You may have a life I know nothing about. But if you think there is a ‘real self’ behind every side of me you see, you’re mistaken. They are all me.” Edelgard crosses her arms and advances slowly. “The girl who hired bandits to kill you was the girl who danced with you at Garreg Mach. The emperor who declared war on the church was also the emperor who dedicated herself to reforms for the sake of the people. The woman who retired to live a quiet life is still a woman who would kill rather than leave that life. And the bride who may be fire for you one night may be ice to you the next.”

It is as if the world has frozen and there is nothing between them, barely even air, for he is sharply aware of the warmth of her nearness. “That you would be fire even for one night… now there’s an interesting thought,” he murmurs.

“You must know by now that I have no real objection to marrying you,” she says, her voice low and thrilling. “But you insisted on making this a matter of victory and defeat. And I refuse to lose to you.”

“You could surrender. It’s not the same as losing.”

“You seem close to surrendering yourself.”

“I’m tempted. But my surrender will have to wait until our wedding night.”

“A pity you chose a night that will never come.” The spell is broken when she backs away from him and turns towards the gardens. “I see Hubert and Shamir have brought me my victory.”

Hubert and Shamir emerge from the shadows of the garden, hauling a struggling young woman onto the terrace. Her hair, brilliant green even in the light of the setting moon, makes her identity unmistakable. “She was in the next town,” Shamir reports. “The Cimbronese people saw her with Claude when he arrived.”

“So you had a traveling companion. But if I’m not mistaken, she was once more than that.” Edelgard turns to Claude. “Years after Seteth and Flayn failed to retake Garreg Mach, I heard a rumor that two individuals matching their description had fled to Almyra, aided by a member of Almyran royalty. Whoever it was, Flayn, I’m told he couldn’t resist your secrets,” she says, her voice hard with contempt.

Claude narrows his eyes. “Edelgard—”

“If the suffering of anonymous civilians will not stop you from forfeiting your claim to my hand, perhaps the suffering of a friend will make you reconsider.” Edelgard turns to Flayn. “You must know his real name. Tell me, and I will give you another chance to leave Fodlan. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what will happen if you refuse.”

Flayn meets her gaze unflinchingly. “Edelgard, if you know that Claude helped my brother and me take refuge in Almyra, then you must also know that I will not betray him. Not even to save myself, and especially not for you.”

“Let her go, Edelgard,” Claude says fiercely. “She wasn’t part of our wager.”

“She is now,” Edelgard retorts. “If you forfeit, you live, she lives, and I live the life I want. The choice is yours.”

He clenches his fists. His plan is unfolding exactly as he intended, yet he is still unprepared for the moment he knew would come, the moment he must become like her. But he cannot turn back when the end is so close.

He stares defiantly into her pale, blazing eyes. “I can’t forfeit… because I won’t have you.”

“Then there’s no need for further discussion. Hubert.”

Magic flares from Hubert’s fingertips, enveloping Flayn in darkness. At her cry, Claude snatches up his bow, but at the very same time, Shamir aims an arrow of her own at him. “Why?” Claude demands. “Why, Edelgard, does it always have to come down to violence with you?”

“Remember who you’re talking to.” He hears the fire in Edelgard’s voice. “I started a war that killed innocent civilians, crushed the Church of Seiros, and destroyed Fodlan’s ancient system of Crests and nobility. I conspired with monsters, lied to everyone I’ve ever known, and killed my stepbrother and childhood friend!”

“That doesn’t answer my question. You’re not the sum of your worst deeds—you’ve said as much yourself. That means that whatever you’ve done in the past, you still know you can take another path!”

“What do you know of the paths that are open to me?” she demands.

Again she signals Hubert, who gathers fire in the palms of his hands. “Wait!” Flayn cries.

Edelgard turns to her. “Have you changed your mind already? I should have expected as much from a being that isn’t even human.”

Flayn turns to her captors. “Please, let me stand.”

At a signal from Edelgard, Hubert and Shamir stand down. Using the parapet for support, Flayn pulls herself to her feet and looks up at Edelgard. “You are right,” she says, “I am not human. But that does not mean I cannot understand humans. I can see that something about you has changed. That you won the war, but you lost something of yourself.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion of me,” Edelgard snaps.

“But what you ask for, I will not give. Pity is all I have to offer you.” Flayn’s voice, so often like that of a child, now carries the gravity of one who has lived thousands of years. “You slew my kinswoman and drove my brother and me out of our home. I should hate you, and yet I feel only pity for you, now that I see what you have become. You, who are surrounded by the fire with which you reforged the world… I hope that Claude will show you a different way to see the world.”

“I’ve had enough of your condescension. Hubert—”

“Claude,” Flayn interjects, smiling sadly, “someday, I hope to see the world you’ve made. But it will not be until Fodlan can accept my brother and me again. And so, this is farewell… perhaps forever.”

Before Hubert and Shamir can stop her, she vaults over the parapet. Edelgard rushes to the edge of the terrace, but moments later, a wyvern with two green-haired riders soars upwards and swoops over the garden and the villa. “We can follow them on horseback,” Hubert assures Edelgard. “We won’t be far behind.”

He and Shamir turn away without waiting for a response. Edelgard’s voice stops them. “Let them go.”

“Lady Edelgard—”

Shamir touches his shoulder. “She’s made her decision. Let’s go.”

As the two depart from the terrace, Claude watches the wyvern diminish in the distance. “Seteth… I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “Flayn… Thank you.”

Edelgard unsheathes her dagger. “So all of this was just one more of your schemes.”

Claude draws his sword to defend himself, but Edelgard aims for the blade. In two strikes she disarms him. He draws his own dagger next. When the blades meet, she wrenches his out of his grip and tosses it away. In the glow of the lightening sky her face is pale with rage. And finally he realizes why she seemed to be mourning in crimson under the light of the reproachful moon, why she reminded him of a caged lion, why this fury is so familiar yet so unlike her. Why she seems haunted.

“Dimitri,” he says quietly.

“Do not say that name.”

In her voice he hears years of torment; in her eyes he sees the sleepless nights that preceded this one. But she collects herself quickly. “I’d wanted your name from Flayn. It seems I’ll have to settle with my best guess.” She speaks the name she’d come across in one of her Almyran books. “Is that your real name?”

The expression on his face—surprise, but without alarm—is answer enough for her. “Now, the truth about this scheme of yours,” she continues. “This is what I’ve deduced. Your defeat at Derdriu cost you your claim to the throne, and this is your desperate last bid: a wager with your parents and the council, that you would bring me to Almyra in exchange for the throne. But why did you involve the children of the goddess?”

“That didn’t have anything to do with the wager,” he answers. “I only wanted to see if someone who did so much good for humanity could really have so little regard for another race.”

“And you brought Flayn all the way here just to see that?”

“To see you.”

She stares at him in disbelief. “A ridiculously convoluted scheme. A wager with needlessly high stakes. This is the Master Tactician at his best?”

“No. Just a dreamer trying to imitate the one person he knows who saw her dream through.”

From his pocket he retrieves a flower: her favorite, the kind she’d used to tell him of her uncompromising ambition. Her disdain vanishes; the weight of an invisible burden bows her head. “You haven’t walked my path long enough to know its true nature,” she says. “I thought it would be the shortest path to peace. I thought I wouldn’t lose myself along the way. But after all these years, I now know that there is no end, and there is no regaining your humanity once you choose to throw it away. This… is the only way I know how to live now.”

She points the dagger at him. If before he saw fire in her eyes, now he sees ashes. “I see,” he says. “I wagered everything on your humanity, and all for nothing. I thought you were better than this. Maybe I even hoped.”

She is impassive to his reproach. “Will there be any retaliation from the king, the queen, or the council when they hear of your death?”

“No. They knew there was a chance I wouldn’t come back. It was the only reason the council accepted my wager.” He kneels down and bows his head. “So this is how it would’ve been… If I’d somehow made it to Enbarr to stop you, you would’ve accepted your loss like this?”

“Yes.”

“Then deal me the kind of death you would have asked of me.” He is calm and collected to the end. “Make it one cut.”

She hesitates. Two days ago, when she saw him standing at her door, it was like seeing a shaft of sun in the midst of her long night. But from the moment he dared to stand in her way, she knew how it would end. It was written in the stars of shivering flame, in the flowers strewn across her garden, in the silent reproach of the watchful moon.

She wraps her hands around the hilt of the dagger, raises it high, and plunges it down.

When I see how the opera ends, I realize that it cannot tell me what happened at the end of that sleepless night in Cimbron. I piece this ending together from my only clues: the dagger thrust into the earth like a grave, the villa abandoned, the fact that the people of Cimbron never saw the unknown prince, the Ice Princess, and her two guardians again. The townspeople themselves believe that the Ice Princess fell in love with the unknown prince, and that they live a quiet life together not far from Cimbron. And perhaps that is how the story would have ended, were Edelgard an ice princess secretly longing for the warmth of love’s fire, and not a Flame Emperor searching an ashen landscape in vain for a path of peace. But whether she fled Cimbron for a place no one would ever find her, or in silent numbness she looked out at the sea and decided that her path, too, would end there, I may never know.

Some would say that this is the curse her stepbrother uttered against her with his dying breath; others, that this is the punishment fated for those who choose the path of blood. As her teacher and friend, I do not have the heart to condemn her. I only wish she had been able to find what she was searching for.

Chapter Text

In the opera’s finale, the prince rebukes Faradon for her cruelty and forcibly kisses her. Overcome with emotion, she confesses that she has both loved and hated him since she first saw him. She asks him to leave the empire, but he offers her his life by telling her his name. As dawn breaks, Faradon and the prince stand before the emperor, the citizens, and the ministers of the court. Faradon declares that she knows the prince’s name: “His name is Love!” The chorus sings a joyful reprise of the prince’s aria, and the curtain falls to our applause.

Afterwards, in the foyer, Bernadetta tells me that she likes the idea of a romance between Edelgard and Claude, but the opera is just an opera. My heart is too heavy to tell her the story I have pieced together. When Dorothea enters the foyer and greets each of the attendees, Bernadetta and I have only a moment to speak with her. She is eager to hear what we thought about the opera, so we agree to meet tomorrow afternoon. Outside, Bernadetta says she would rather return home in the morning as planned, and asks me to pass along her apologies to Dorothea.

Dorothea and I meet at a cafe in Mittelfrank Square and seat ourselves at a table outdoors. I ask her about the rumor that inspired her production. Was it about Edelgard and Claude? Dorothea laughs. “Of course it was!” Dorothea laughs.

I ask her if she knows how the rumor ends. Her eyes widen. “I assumed they fell in love, even if it didn’t happen the way it did in the opera,” she says. “Is that… not what happened?”

I tell her about the visit to Cimbron. The fragments from the townspeople, the wall paintings in the atrium, the dagger like a grave at the cliff’s edge. Dorothea stares unseeingly at the table. “Well,” she remarks quietly. “I wonder if I would rather not have known how it ended.”

When she speaks again, it seems to be only to distract herself from the melancholy my story has brought upon her. “Stories don’t always end the way we want them to, do they?” she muses. “Like The Prince’s Wager. You know of the controversy about the ending, of course. I don’t know a single person who likes that ending. And yet, after all these years, I still pour my heart and soul into that opera and that role. Not because I think the opera is perfect as it is, but because maybe one day, I’ll convince the audience that Faradon and the prince deserve their happy ending.”

I ask her what she means. “I can’t change the opera, of course,” she says. “But I can encourage the audience to look at Faradon in a different light. On paper, she’s a cruel, cynical princess. But depending on how I portray her, she can be a sensitive soul who wants to protect herself, or a tragic heroine with a flawed sense of justice. My performance isn’t just about dressing up as Edie. Her ideals, her sense of justice, her melancholy are all in my interpretation of the role. And in a way, that can change the story.”

I admit that I missed the nuances of Dorothea’s performance. She laughs good-naturedly. “There’s only one way to make it up to me. Watch the performance tonight. It’s opening night, so I’m giving it my all.”

She rises. “That story you told me,” she murmurs plaintively. “Are you sure that’s the way it ended? Maybe Edie and Claude were never meant to be, but… oh, I so wanted them to have a happy ending.”

She walks away, humming the melody of that famous aria. Even without words, her voice gives an air of mournfulness to the music, searing into my mind the thought of the prince awaiting a victory that never came, and the emperor emeritus grieving the curse of her victory.

I have no wish to repeat the story that I know lies behind the opera, but Dorothea’s words about portraying Faradon bring me back to Mittelfrank for the opening night. The opera seen a second time, with a full house no less, is an entirely different experience. When I put the story aside, I see how Dorothea pours her heart into her portrayal of Faradon—of Edelgard. In her voice, her gestures, her bearing, are Edelgard’s pride, her pain, her longing for a path she can walk in peace. The ending is still a disappointment, though I suppose that is the opera’s true enigma: how its story should have ended.

The performance is a resounding success. There are standing ovations, cheers, cries of “Encore!” When it is all over, the audience pours into the foyer, filling the room with excited chatter. I am trying to slip through the crowd when, over the clamor of many voices, I hear one that stops me in my tracks.

They are not far ahead of me: the woman wearing a silken headscarf that conceals her hair, and at her side, the man with dark hair and sun-bronzed skin. There is no mistaking them.

I follow them outside, keeping my distance. They are talking about the opera: how the part about the servant girl was a little contrived, how Dorothea portrayed the princess, how the story should have ended. Their discussion is as spirited as it was when I saw them conversing in the tea pavilion so many years ago, and there is a warmth to their voices now that I cannot remember hearing then.

Absorbed in their conversation, they pause below a street lamp. I dart into an alley to remain unseen. Someone approaches from behind, and I whirl around. “I see you noticed them too,” Yuri says with a smirk. “Even in their own country, they’re a secretive pair, the Almyran king and his wife.”

The king’s identity, I should have guessed from the fact that relations between Fodlan and Almyra have improved so quickly. But the queen—

“Queen in all but name,” Yuri corrects me. “Her choice. Of course, the people needed something to call her, and they settled on ‘the king’s fire.’ But that’s another story.”

I ask him what else he has heard. “I’ve heard some stories about the wedding feast,” he replies. “They say the king sang and his bride danced.”

Would they really travel all this way just to see an opera? Yuri shrugs. “Don’t know. Don’t care. I just wanted to see if the rumors I’ve heard were true.”

I peer around the corner. The two are gazing at each other, smiling softly as if lost in the memory that brought them to this moment. Then, hand in hand, they walk away, and the moon lights the way for them. It is the ending I wanted for them all along. But what happened on that terrace by the sea for their story to end this way? What am I missing?

When I return home, I tell Bernadetta about the story I pieced together when we watched the opera, and about the couple at the opening night. I ask her what she thinks might have happened between them. In silence she considers the story I couldn’t finish. The threads are all there. Flame, ambition and ashes, exile; moon, shame and night, grief; ice, guile and wind, curiosity. Intentness veiled by armed wit, tenderness masked by fiery exchange. Bernadetta weaves them all together, and tells me how the prince’s wager ended.

“With this useless act of mercy… the same foolish mercy he might have shown me… I will put his curse behind me.”

Claude raises his head. Edelgard is on her knees, bent over the dagger she has driven into the earth. Shuddering, she presses her hands over her eyes. She is fallen from her tragic sky, her untouchable sadness, brought to her knees by the mercy that she chooses now, that she denied long ago. Mercy—that was what the moon had desired of her all this time; its vigil was not one of judgment but of hope that she would break her curse; and its reproach was not of a mortal enemy but of a brother. And for that revelation she weeps, she who thought there were no tears left in her.

She gathers herself and straightens, though her head remains bowed and her eyes closed. “Go,” she says, her voice brittle. “This isn’t kindness. This is… my…”

She trails off, unconvinced that the word that comes to her mind is the one she wants. “Penance,” she finishes hesitantly, but the moment she voices the word, she knows it is what she has been longing for.

Claude breathes in the salt-tinged air, touches the earth, feels the warmth of the rising sun. Again and again he tells himself that he is still alive. And when he is convinced, he sees the future that awaits him. He will leave Cimbron, return to Almyra alone, stand before his parents and the council to concede his failure to bring the Fodlan Flame Emperor to Almyra. He’d been determined to take her by force if he must. He’d told himself it would be no worse than what she had done. But now that he sees her as she is, he wants nothing from her, nothing more for her than to find the path she longs to walk.

“Thank you, Edelgard.” He winces at the coldness of his words. In vain he searches for other parting words, and settles for, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

She sighs. “I’d rather have your contempt than your pity.”

“Pity?” he repeats. “This isn’t pity.”

“Then what is it?” she asks, opening her eyes.

He is looking at her the way he did when they sat down under the wisteria, and when he won against her in battle. She took his expression then for arrogant certainty. Now she sees admiration. Enthrallment. And something she is hesitant to name, when she touches his cheek and sees how his eyes stir with embers at her touch. “You know what I’ve done,” she says softly. “You’ve seen what I am.”

“I have.” His hand is warm against hers. “And you’re human.”

It is not so much the words as it is the realization that he sees in her what she has been unable to see in herself for so long. And in the heat of emotion that follows she falls towards him, he catches her, and their kisses are of flame and ardor. How much is impulse born of the sleepless night, how much the fulfillment of things long left unspoken, neither knows. Tenderness unmasked, and ice thawed by her fire: they have fought and lost, wagered and forfeited, yet neither of them knows a defeat that was sweeter than victory.

In the silence that follows, they rest against each other. Around them the world is flaming with light and pulsing with promise, while they wonder if they are at the end of two separate stories or at the beginning of a new one. Finally Claude asks quietly, “Is this goodbye?”

Edelgard ponders the two paths that lie before her. One leads back to the villa, to the life she’d meant to live when she made Cimbron her home: a life of rest, among her gardens and her painted memories. The other path leads to an unknown land, but to a life more familiar to her: a life of challenging prejudice and custom, of pursuing justice and reform. And if she can trust what she sees in the eyes of the man who holds her now, she will not walk that path alone.

“Perhaps not,” she answers. “What I have been looking for, I won’t find here.” She looks at him intently. “I’ll go with you. I’ll see for myself what kind of world you intend to build.”

“And if it isn’t everything you want it to be? Will you leave?”

It is too soon to know whether what they have just found will last, but she will dare to hope. “I may find another reason to stay,” she offers.

Perhaps together they will find what they are both searching for. When they do, the moon in heaven will beam, and the wind will sing to her of sun, life, eternity. And in the light of mercy that newly illumines her world she will dance: she, risen from ashes into flower, at long last.