Chapter Text
In Almyra, they’re called heartsongs. The birthmarks that stretch across their chests, winding and twisting in a color that represents their partner. Almost everyone gets one, their purpose to guide you to your other half. It’s not necessarily romantic: your heartmate could be your best friend, or even someone in your family. The Almyrans believe they are the person who will make you strongest.
Khalid’s is beautiful, unique enough that his mother’s eyes cloud whenever he asks her about it. When he was very small, she had looked at him sadly. “A heartsong is a gift, but it is also a weapon. You must keep it secret.”
“But mom,” he tried to protest. His voice faltered at her expression. It was one he’d never seen on his ferocious mother’s face. One of sorrow, and fear.
“Please my love, guard your heart.”
It’s not only because his heartmate’s name, Byleth, is written in Fodlani print and his mother fears what the court will do if they know the enemy will one day make the crown prince strong. No, his song is also special because it’s two-tone. Beautiful markings dance across his chest, deep blue like the ocean he’s only seen in pictures. They wind around a disarming jade green, green like trees that cannot grow in his desert land. It’s exotic, more elaborate than the average heartsong, and once, when gazing upon it, his mother whispers the words, goddess mark.
She refuses to tell him what that means, but Khalid is good at finding answers, so he turns to the library instead. He learns then that only Almyrans have heartsongs. Other lands have their own ways to find their heartmate, the only common thread being that their partner’s name is written somewhere in their body.
People in Brigid call them fatelines. Usually spread across their face and necks, they often adorn them with painted designs. Dagda’s citizens guard theirs jealously. To reveal your mark is considered the greatest intimacy.
Fodlan’s people call them soulmarks, and they appear on their wrists. Simple, with delicate filigree or modest adornment. The more elaborate ones, usually found in shades of jade or mint green, are considered special. Goddess marks. It means that your beloved—for its always romantic in the Fodlani myth—is blessed by their goddess, Sothis.
Khalid imagines what they’ll be like. He imagines them caring, kind and gentle when his cousins are so cruel. He imagines them strong, strong enough to protect him from the viciousness of the Almyran court. He is a lonely child, different and derided for his Fodlan-born mother’s foreignness. But in thoughts of his heartmate, he finds comfort.
As a child, Khalid doesn’t much worry about whether his heartmate is romantic or platonic or something else entirely. But as he ages, he hopes he will one day find the love that his parents share.
They do not have to hide their marks.
When his maternal grandfather, Duke Oswald of the Leicester Alliance in Fodlan, invites Khalid to come to Derdriu, he jumps at the chance. Not only is becoming his grandfather’s heir the swiftest path to accomplishing his dreams of peace between Almyra and Fodlan, but also, his heartmate is in that strange and foreign land. Maybe he will get to meet them. Maybe they will walk beside him on the path he has chosen.
Still, this plan is complicated by his grandfather’s insistence that he take a Fodlan-sounding name. No one can know of his parentage, his grandfather says. But Khalid can read between the lines. No one can know he’s Almyran. Of course, this will complicate finding his heartmate, who is bound to have Khalid spelled across their wrist, but he imagines if he finds them, they’ll be the one person he can trust with his secrets.
His grandfather concocts a story about discovering a distant relation, elevating him to heir. Khalid takes language lessons, learns diction and pronunciation until his accent is gone. He’s coached in Fodlan history, and though there’s a part of him that regrets being stripped of his identity, he knows it’s not forever. He knows it’s what he must do to accomplish his dreams.
And so, as Khalid crosses the mountains that separates his native land from his new home, he trades away his name. In secret, in the middle of the night, surrounded by only his grandfather’s most trusted guard, Khalid becomes Claude, and his journey begins.
* * *
When Claude begins the term at the Officer’s Academy, all anyone can talk about are soulmarks. He imagines it’s common when a bunch of teenagers meet for the first time, but he can’t help but feel the same thrill of nervous excitement.
Rumors spread like wildfire as a few matches are found, but for the first time he sees the heartbreak of soulmarks as well. Felix Fraldarius and Sylvain Gautier are rumored to have each other’s names, but Sylvain flirts with every pretty girl he meets, while Felix’s expression grows more bitter. Hilda, a pink-haired girl in his house, with a bubbly personality and far more cunning than she lets on, quietly confides in him that she has gentle Marianne’s name on her wrist. But Marianne shies away from her whenever she comes near.
Claude for his part is claiming he’s one of the few without a soulmark, he bares his blank wrist to prove it. Far safer than to reveal his heritage by sharing his heartsong. Some of his classmates look at him with disdain when he tells them. Even more with pity. A person without a soulmate is often considered a sad and broken thing. In Almyra, they are seen as cowardly and weak. In Foldan, they’re seen as cursed. “Soulless” they call them, as if the absence of love meant the absence of decency.
Still, some understand.
Lorenz nods with satisfaction. “It’s a blessing in disguise. Nobles of our station cannot afford romantic dalliances. What if our soulmate was a commoner? I for one hope I never meet my soulmate.”
Despite Lorenz’s lack of tact, Claude is growing to like the people in his class. Not trust them of course, Khalid doesn’t trust anyone but his parents and Nader, but they are a caring, enthusiastic bunch. They make him feel…welcome.
He tries not to worry too much about what they’d think of him if they knew his origins.
* * *
Before term has started, while they’re still settling in and comparing soulmarks, he and the other house leaders go for an excursion in the woods. It’s Lady Rhea’s idea, something about bonding and teamwork, but it quickly falls apart when bandits attack.
Claude has been devouring every scrap of news around the monastery and neighboring village, and his information gathering comes in handy.
Thinking quickly, he tears away from the bandits, making plenty of noise as he races through the underbrush. He hears Edelgard’s disgruntled exclamation as she sees him running. She’d been preparing to fight, but soon he hears both her and the crown prince of Faerghus, Dimitri, chasing after him.
He winds and turns, trying his best to remember the local maps he’s been up late studying. Eventually they reach Remire Village. The rumor mill says the famed mercenary the Bladebreaker is in town with his company. Claude prays he’s in a generous mood.
Sure enough Claude finds him, a formidably looking man with sandy hair and a stern expression. They plead for his help, and he and his companion—who Claude assumes is the feared Ashen Demon—leap into the fray.
To his surprise, the Bladebreaker holds back, letting the Ashen Demon lead them against the bandits. They are in immense danger, but Claude is used to danger from growing up in the Almyran court, and he can’t help but use the opportunity to study her.
She’s something else. She can’t but much older than them, but her footwork has the practiced grace of a dancer. Quick and decisive, her sword sings through the air, but her face never betrays what she’s thinking. And if he notices that she’s pretty, that her hair is the color of the sea, well nobody needs to know.
With a cool head and uncanny timing, the Ashen Demon saves Edelgard’s life, and they route the bandits. The Knights of Seiros arrive—moments too late, Claude can’t help but notice—and their leader immediately identifies the Bladebreaker as Jeralt Eisner.
“And this must be your daughter! Her mannerisms are all you, my old friend.”
Jeralt seems incredibly put off by the new arrival. “Yes, this is my daughter, Byleth.”
For a moment, Claude’s heart sings. A thrill of joy and panic courses through him and he can’t help the involuntary flick of his eyes downward to her wrists. But her gauntlets cover them completely, and he isn’t rewarded with his own name.
Could this mercenary, this Ashen Demon—could she be his Byleth?
He has no idea if it’s a common name in Fodlan. He hasn’t heard it on anyone else before, but he’s only been in the country for a few months. The concern over whether this Byleth could be his heartmate tumbles over in his mind, and he almost misses Their Highnesses, the other house leaders, as they begin to try and recruit her.
He catches up quickly though, and soon they are walking together back to the monastery.
* * *
To everyone’s shock, Rhea makes Byleth the newest professor of the Officer’s Academy. And to Claude’s shock, she chooses his house, the Golden Deer, to instruct.
His heart thumps wildly at that. Even if she has Khalid on her wrist, she doesn’t know that means him. But still, maybe something inside of her, maybe their fated connection, is pulling her towards him.
He doesn’t totally know how he feels about that. She might be his heartmate, but there’s a part of him that can’t help but shield his heart, like his mother instructed him all those years ago. A lifetime of cruelty at the hands of others has made Claude untrusting and guarded, averse to giving anyone a weapon with which to hurt him. But as he grows used to Byleth’s kind but firm instruction, her peaceful expression when she invites him for tea, he can’t help but feel himself opening up to her.
She says they can call her Byleth, but no one does. He settles on the nickname “Teach.” Its informal, somewhat intimate, which he likes both because she’s probably his soulmate, and because it annoys the clearly jealous Edelgard.
Teach, herself, is hard to read. He can’t tell if she likes the nickname, can’t tell what she’s thinking at all most the time. But he is getting used to her expressions.
Or maybe she’s growing more expressive.
She guides their class with expert leadership, skilled instruction, and a cool head in the face of the increasingly dangerous missions Rhea sends them on. And slowly, she begins to earn his trust.
Still, he’s never seen her wrists bare. He doesn’t know without a doubt that she’s his Byleth. But he hopes she is.
* * *
By the time the anniversary of Garreg Mach’s completion comes—and the grand ball that celebrates it—soulmates are the talk of the town once again. According to school legend, if two soulmates meet in the Goddess Tower on the anniversary, the goddess Sothis will grant their wish.
While most of the students know whether their soulmate attends the Academy by now, they can’t help but speculate. Plenty of pairs are still awkwardly dancing around each other—like Hilda and Marianne—and the students speculate on who will meet in the tower. On whose dream will come true.
On the night of the ball, Claude pulls Teach onto the dance floor.
Maybe he’s caught up in the romance of the stories. Maybe it’s because she looks beautiful.
Maybe it’s because he’s wanted to touch her for months now.
Whatever reason, he can’t help but beam at her nervous expression that slowly ebbs into delight.
They move in harmony, like they can’t imagine a better partner. Her gloved hands fit perfectly in his.
“Claude,” she says, breathless, her lips parted just slightly. She is flushed, and it’s all he can do to keep from kissing her. Instead, he spins her and is rewarded with a peal of laughter, as musical as a chiming bell.
It’s the first true and free laugh he’s earned from her, and he knows he’ll treasure this moment always.
It’s bittersweet when the song ends, and he has to release her. After a number of other students have twirled her around the room, she joins the small group of Golden Deer who are huddling on the edges of the dance floor.
“Professor! We were just talking about soulmates,” Ignatz greets her happily.
“Yes Professor, do you have a soulmark?” Hilda asks. Claude almost can’t believe it. How long has he waited for this moment, how long has be prayed for his suspicions to be confirmed?
Claude hopes, he hopes—
“No,” she says it casually, as if it’s the last thing in the world that she cares about.
But to Claude, the word shoots a bitter pain through his heart.
“Really?” Ignatz squeaks, clearly disappointed. Maybe she’s lying, Claude’s brain helpfully supplies. Maybe she’s concealing the Almyran name on her wrists—
In a smooth motion Byleth peels back her gloves. Bares her wrists to them.
“See? Nothing.” Her wrists are unadorned, just two smooth expanses of fair skin.
His heart aches just as surely as if she’d driven her sword through it.
He’s found her. After the joy of holding her tonight, of spinning her around the dance floor and letting her laughter sing in his heart, he knows she’s his soulmate.
The one person who believes in his dreams, who has the strength to cut down the mountain that separates the different sides of him.
He has her name on his chest, right above his beating heart.
The problem is, Teach doesn’t have his.
“I’m sorry,” Ignatz mumbles, face red with shame.
Hilda comes to his rescue. “That’s okay Professor. Neither does our fearless leader man Claude here.”
Byleth’s eyes find his, a touch of surprise on her face. Her eyes seem to ask—is it true?
But he can’t help but look away.
As soon as he gets the chance, he flees the ballroom.
Unconsciously, his feet bring him up the steps of the Goddess Tower. The very tower where soulmates are supposed to make their wishes. He has always watched the stars when he is upset, and he can’t help but seek their familiar comfort on this terrible, terrible night.
He’s heard of people with mismatched soulmarks. Take Ferdinand for example. He’s bashfully admitted that his wrist bears “Manuela,” but the rumor mill says Professor Manuela was quick to inform him her own wrist disagreed. He doesn’t know if it’s true, but cheerful Ferdinand had seemed depressed ever since. Apparently, he had idolized her since childhood.
Claude had thought it a sad fate when he first heard that bit of gossip. To love your soulmate for so long, only to have them unable to love you back.
And now, here he is.
The person who will make him the strongest, and yet, he means nothing at all to her.
He’s so wrapped up in his melancholy that he doesn’t hear the footsteps approach.
“Claude?”
Her voice is gentle, so gentle.
He schools his face into a grin.
“Teach! Tired of everyone asking for a dance? You were quite popular tonight.”
She makes a noncommittal sound. “Are you alright? You seemed okay when we danced, but you left quite suddenly.”
“Of course! Just sick of all the stuffy nobles. Where I’m from, the dancing is a lot more enthusiastic.” He hopes he’s not giving away too much, but he can’t help the lies spewing from his mouth. In his heartbreak, it seems his mouth is on autopilot.
“I see.” She doesn’t seem entirely convinced. “I thought it was perhaps because Hilda mentioned that…well, I know how hard it is not to have a soulmate.” A shadow crosses his eyes, and for this first time since her truth was revealed Claude thinks about what this must mean for Byleth.
In Almyra, not having a soulmate got you doubted and dismissed. In Fodlan, it could get you shunned.
He wonders if her initial coldness, if the walls she built around herself, was because people had rejected her before.
“Were people cruel to you? Growing up?”
She gives a small shrug. “Some. We traveled a lot, and whenever I’d make new friends, they’d inevitably ask. Friends would turn quickly to bullies, throwing stones and calling me ‘soulless.’” Her expression is neutral, but he can hear the old hurt in her voice. It’s a hurt he can relate to.
“My cousins were the worst bullies of all. So quick to dismiss me for something I couldn’t control.” Gone are his dreams of giving her all his secrets, but he can still give her some kernel of truth.
“Kids are cruel,” she says.
“Adults even more so.”
She hums her agreement, and together they gaze at the stars.
“There’s always been a part of me that worried, maybe they were right, maybe I am soulless. I’m not…normal. I’ve never been able to fit in with people like I wanted.”
He doesn’t open his mouth, doesn’t know what he can say, not when she is confiding in him like this.
“But I’ve always hoped, maybe it’s a blessing. Maybe it means I get to choose my path.”
Claude knows it’s not a blessing—for him it’s the furthest thing from a blessing he can imagine. But there’s also a part of him that can relate. After all, he’s always wanted to carve his own way.
“Do you have ambitions, Teach?”
She smiles, ever so slightly. Her eyes do not leave him, and she says, “Well more like a hope.”
He nods, contemplating her words. “Maybe a hope—a dream—maybe it’s better than a soulmate.” And this thought he clings to, this thought takes root.
“What do you dream of Claude?”
“I dream of changing the world. Of showing people that those beyond Fodlan’s borders are not dirty, untrustworthy mutts—that they’re just humans, as good and bad as the rest of us. That people who are different, whether they’re from Brigid or Sreng, whether they’re noble or common, whether their wrists are bare—that they’re still people. Deserving of compassion and equity and respect.” And this—telling her his dreams, holding onto the vision that has driven him his entire life—this is how he’ll survive the heartbreak.
She smiles. “That’s a beautiful dream. If you’d let me, I’d like to help you accomplish it.”
His words take him by surprise, but maybe they shouldn’t. After all, he may not be her soulmate, but her name is on his heart. She is destined to make him stronger.
“I would like that, Teach.”
“I don’t know if the magic works for two people without a soulmate, but maybe we can make our own wish for a brighter future. Maybe the goddess will grant it anyway.” Her expression is open and warm, hopeful.
“With you by my side, I don’t think I need the goddess.”
Her lips part slightly but then she composes herself, and smiles.
“I think it’s time I return to the party,” she finally says.
“I’m gonna stay out here a little longer. Night, Teach.”
“Goodnight, Claude.”
* * *
In the months that follow, he tries to harden his heart to her. He tells himself for awhile that she probably just isn’t his Byleth. That his heartmate is still out there somewhere. But as she coaxes improvement out of him in every area she tries, as she listens to his political theories with a patient, encouraging expression, his surety only grows. And he can’t push her away for long.
She has made her way under his skin. Has made her way into his dreams. He doesn’t know if he loves her—doesn’t know if he should love her—but he relies on her. And he believes in her.
When Captain Jeralt is killed, Claude goes to her. She’s holed up in her father’s study, eyes red and expression as lost and shattered as he’s ever seen it.
“I will do whatever it takes to ease your pain,” he vows. “Whether that means delivering you Kronya’s head on a platter, or just listening to you cry, I’ll do anything. Just tell me what you need.”
And maybe, just maybe, he makes her strong in that moment too. Because her expression shifts to determination.
“I want to avenge my father.”
“Then vengeance shall be yours.”
In return, she trusts him with Captain Jeralt’s journal, which raises as many questions as it answers. He reads it cover to cover, over and over again. He learns that Teach was born without a heartbeat. As a baby, she didn’t cry, she didn’t smile. She didn’t have a soulmark. “What did Rhea do to my child?” Jeralt wondered. “What did she do to her soul?”
Claude wonders too. He spends many a countless night in the monastery library, but there are no answers to be found in those carefully curated shelves.
* * *
The next month, they do defeat Kronya. Claude does help Teach get revenge on the woman—the creature—who murdered Jeralt in cold blood. But Kronya’s compatriot Thales is the one to deliver the final blow. And with Kronya’s life force, he casts a spell. Dark magic, a spell so terrible it makes Claude’s hair raise and a chill sweep over his skin.
And it’s hurtling towards Teach.
“Byleth—” Claude manages to scream, just as he realizes what’s happening.
Their eyes meet, and hers—they widen in an almost imperceptible panic. The void grows, black and terrible and hungry. He sees her lips move. He thinks they say his name.
Then the void consumes her.
He looks desperately between his friends, praying that Lysithea has an idea, or maybe Lorenz. Anyone, anything—they had to save her.
But his own expression of devastation and terror is reflected on all their faces.
In the distance, Thales begins to laugh. The Deer scatter, begin to pick off the reinforcements that have arrived.
But then—
A light splits the sky, and Teach is there, cutting herself free from the void with the shining Sword of the Creator. She is transformed. Hair mint green, eyes a beautiful jade that he knows, knows intimately and immediately. She is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and for a moment, even the cleverest Deer is struck dumb.
If ever there was a doubt that she was his soulmate, it’s gone. For now, it’s obvious why he bears a goddess mark. Teach is clearly chosen by the goddess.
She defeats the remaining men, forces Thales to retreat.
After, the Golden Deer crowd her, clamoring with questions like, what happened? And why do you look this way?
But it’s Claude that she looks at, weary, but shining. She says nothing, just gives him a smile that seems to say, we have dreams to accomplish, you and I. I will not leave you alone.
Then, she collapses.
Claude is so shaken that Hilda has to carry her back to the monastery. But they’re all so grateful, she doesn’t even complain once.
* * *
He barely has time to process her transformation—to research and study and figure it all out—when Edelgard is revealed to be the Flame Emperor. He now knows why she wanted Byleth so badly for her professor. It was the same reason he values Byleth so much. Edelgard had dreams of her own, and she knew they’d be easier with Teach.
But Byleth is his professor, and when Edelgard is revealed, Teach angles her body in front of him. Draws the Sword of the Creator without hesitation.
Edelgard escapes of course, Hubert warping them away at exactly the right moment. And Claude knows he won’t get another chance to understand what the goddess has in store for his Teach. Because war has been coming for months, and now it is upon them.
When Edelgard marches on Garreg Mach, soulmates are the furthest thing from his mind. He’s worried. They all are. But he has endless confidence in Teach. He knows—he hopes—that she will lead them to victory.
But she doesn’t.
She charges Edelgard in defense of Rhea, and she falls.
Falls into a chasm so deep, nobody could have survived.
He feels a shooting pain in chest as he watches. A searing sensation he’s never felt before. He’s heard that when your heartmate dies, your heartsong fades to black. It’s all he can do to keep from ripping his shirt open right on the battlefield.
He has to know.
But he still has dreams to accomplish, even if Teach isn’t there to walk beside him towards his new dawn. And he has friends he needs to keep safe.
It’s only later, as the Deer flee towards Derdriu, that he takes a few moments of privacy to slowly undo his shirt. He hesitates, wants to cling to the belief for a moment longer that maybe she survived.
Teach has been known to do impossible things before.
And then he opens his shirt and—
His heartsong is still shot through with cerulean and jade.
She lives.
And in that moment, it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have his name on her wrist. It doesn’t matter that she will never feel the same way for him. She is alive, alive, and he loves her.