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A week to the day after Dimitri found his first silver hair, Byleth miscarried.
“Do you want me to pluck it?” Byleth asked as she peered over her husband’s head. She stood on her tiptoes and shifted to see the silver among the gold catch in the light.
“Why would you do that?” Dimitri asked, turning around on his stool to face his wife.
Byleth stood between his legs, and ran her fingers through his hair. She smiled down at him. Dimitri rested his hands on her hips and pulled her closer.
“You remember when Sylvain started to find his? He lost his mind.” Byleth said with a shrug.
Dimitri laughed to himself. “And now look at him. He’s a silver fox.” They mulled over the walking irony that was Sylvain Gautier, as Dimitri moved his one hand up to the swell in Byleth’s stomach.
It’s a good thing we have this. Byleth could practically hear him say. “Are you going to entertain the Archbishop tomorrow?” he asked. “If you don’t want to, then I can arrange-“
“My love, I will be fine.” Byleth said. She pecked Dimitri on the corner of his mouth. “How many times have I had tea personally with the Archbishop? Both before and after becoming queen?”
Dimitri pulled her down onto his lap. “How could I ever doubt you.”
Rhea’s eyes shot down to her stomach. “You’re progressing well.” she said.
Byleth smiled and rested a hand over where her child was moving and kicking. “Thank you.” she said. “It’s a blessing to be this far along.”
Rhea poured the tea and the smell was earthy and sharp. Byleth reached for the honey and watched and the golden syrup dribbled into her green tea. The queen passed the honey pot to the archbishop, who gladly accepted.
“This is the furthest you’ve been?” Rhea asked.
Byleth knew it wasn’t asked out of malice. After all, she and Dimitri had been married for nearly ten years and they had yet to have a living child. It was not only a question asked by a friend, it was a question of international security. Yet, Byleth still felt a twinge of sadness and guilt in her chest.
“No.” Byleth said, shaking her head. “It’s not.”
Rhea arched one of her perfect eyebrows. “I’m truly sorry, my dear.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” Byleth took a deep sip of her tea, choosing to focus on the warmth of the drink instead of the phantom pains in her stomach.
“Once I return to the Monastery, I shall dedicate several masses to the health of you and your child.” Rhea said.
Byleth reached out and touched the archbishop’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Rosie, attend me.” Byleth said.
Rosie Duran, Ashe’s sister, nodded her head and approached Byleth while the other ladies-in-waiting began to chitter about with each other. Byleth went behind her dressing screen and let out a deep breath. She had only climbed a set of stairs to her chambers, and yet she was out of breath.
“My dress is too tight, help me unlace it.” Byleth said.
Rosie smiled and pulled the laces away from Byleth’s back. It wasn’t fast enough. Byleth gasped and doubled over. She gripped the table in front of her; her knuckles turned white. She felt like she was going to throw up.
“My lady, what is-“
Byleth felt pain shoot through her abdomen. “Goddess help me.” she breathed. Byleth reached under her skirt and felt between her legs. When she drew her hand back, it was coated in blood.
Rosie gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth. “My lady!”
Byleth sank to her knees, her eyes fixed on her hand. Rosie ran out from around the screen. The conversation of the other ladies fell silent.
“Someone fetch a physician! A healer! And a midwife!” Rosie called, she turned back to her mistress. “Someone tell the King!”
Byleth’s unbloodied hand shot out and snatched Rosie’s wrist. Rosie squeaked as she was pulled to Byleth’s level. “No!” Byleth’s voice was hoarse. “Don’t tell the King! He can’t know. He can’t-“
Byleth’s plea was cut off as another pain tore through her. She gasped and held on to her belly as if that would keep the child in.
A page arrived at the doors of Dimitri’s meeting room, his skin clammy and his eyes wide as saucers. The laughter among the nobles and Seteth died down. Dimitri rested his goblet down and rose from his seat. “What is it?” he asked.
The boy gulped. “It’s her majesty,”
Before the boy could even begin to speak again, Dimitri rushed past him and out into the hall toward’s Byleth’s chambers. Those in the palace halls stopped when they saw their king and moved to bow or curtsy to him, but Dimitri ran past them without even a second look. He heard Byleth’s cry when he was half way down the hall; it only made Dimitri pick up his pace.
Rosie screamed when Dimitri burst through the door. When she realized who it was, she sank into a curtsy. “Your majesty-“
Dimitri heard a groan from inside Byleth’s bedroom. It sounded like she was wounded, he had hoped to never hear that sound again. Dimitri was across the room in a second and he opened the door. Healers swarmed her bed, white and blue magic glowing above her from their hands. Byleth lay on the bed, sobbing. Towels, red with blood, lay scattered around her.
“Your majesty!” one of Byleth’s ladies said, a stack of towels in her hands. She tried to curtsy.
Byleth’s eyes flew open and she shook her head when locked eyes with Dimitri. “Dimitri…” her voice was broken.
Dimitri took her hand in hers and knelt at her bedside.
“I’m loosing it. I’m loosing it. I’m loosing it-“ Byleth said. A tear slipped down her cheek.
Dimitiri shushed her and pressed a kiss to her head. “You’re not. Everything will be fine, my love.” he turned to the healers. “What is it?”
“Preterm labor.” One said quickly. “Very preterm. We’re trying to stop it. Possible placental abruption.”
Dimitri felt like an icy knife had been shoved in his stomach. He looked out over his wife’s bed, and saw a swath of red so dark and saturated it was almost black.
“It’s no use,” Dimitri heard one of the midwives say, as she pushed some of the healers back, “I can see the feet.”
“What?!” Byleth pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her green hair was plastered to her forehead. “You have to do something! This can’t-“ Her words were choked off and she lowered her head in pain, her lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes screwed shut.
“You and I both know when a child is ready there is no stopping them.” the midwife said.
“But its not ready!” Byleth cried.
“I’m sorry, my lady.”
Dimitri blinked, and below him, Byleth looked exhausted, as if she had suddenly aged years. “Fine,” she rasped.
Dimitri hated this part. Of all of Byleth’s pregnancies, he had been in this position three other times before. All three ended as horribly as this one surely was going to. Twice for a too early child, born dead or barely alive. Only once did they have hope, and that was dashed quickly when the baby had come out limp and would not perk up for all the efforts of parents and doctors. The whole time Dimitri would hold Byleth’s hand, swipe her bangs out of her eyes, not focus on the midwives’ instructions to Byleth, look at anything other than the blood, pretend that everything was going to be fine, pretend he was hopeful.
The midwife held up something so impossibly small, and red, and yet solid in her hands. The midwife did not exclaim in jubilation. She instead walked around the corner of the bed and placed the red thing with four spindly limbs into Byleth’s arms.
“A little princess.” the midwife said, holding back tears.
The baby’s chest rose and fell as quick as a rabbit’s. Her eyes were sealed shut and her stomach was round with her organs. Her feet kicked.
Dimitri smiled. He was crying, and could not understand why. There was his beloved and their child. The child they had made together in her arms. A living child. Dimitri reached out and touched his daughter’s skin, she was already getting cool out in the open air. She could fit in his hand.
The baby’s movements slowed and became sluggish, and her chest stopped moving. Dimitri let his head hang, so Byleth could not see the tears that dripped down his cheek. Byleth sobbed.
Byleth had not made a sound since she had surrendered their child to their staff. They bowed as they accepted the tiny princess and began to prepare her for burial. Dimitri wanted Byleth to make some sort of expression, even if it were tears. Instead, she had slipped back into the mask of the Ashen Demon; her face blank. Dimitri rubbed circles into her hand with his thumb.
“Your Majesties,” a young healer said with a bow. Dimitri turned to him, barely older than a boy. With a nod, the king gave him permission to speak. “I am asking for your permission to perform an autopsy on the child. To discover why they…died.”
Byleth stiffened and Dimitri turned away from the healer to press a kiss to his wife’s wrist. “The child is dead.” Dimitri said. Babies die all the time. Especially ours. “Let’s put the matter aside.”
The healer made a noise like he wanted to say something. Instead, he bowed and excused himself. One by one the other healers and Byleth’s ladies filed out of the room. Some curtsied and bowed to their monarchs, and others still chose to make their presence unknown, and filtered away like smoke. When the last one crossed the threshold, Dimitri bolted the door behind him. He turned, Byleth was finally looking at him, she gave him the briefest shake of her head.
Dimitri shifted from foot to foot. “Did you use a divine pulse?” It was horrible to even ask, but he had to know. He didn’t meet Byleth’s gaze, but the sound she made was enough to portray her feeling of betrayal.
“I tried.” Byleth croaked. “I tried to go back and rewind time. To see if I could do anything.”
“And?” Dimitri asked. He already knew the answer, if they were in the positions they were in without their child.
“I had to stop.” Byleth said. “I couldn’t watch her die again and again.” Byleth’s eyes were red. “Your face, every time…”
Dimitri crossed the room and pulled Byleth close to his chest. Her cold tears soaked through his shirt. “I’m sorry.” he whispered.
“It’s fate.” Byleth said. “Fate like all the others. Dimitri, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t we…?”
“Nothing is wrong with you.” Dimitri said. “This happens. This happens and it is horrible, but it happens.”
“You said that the other times, too.”
“We’re both still young.” Dimitri tried, later in the night.
It had been hours since the team of physicians, healers, and midwives had cleaned the room as best as they could. Yet, the scent of blood still clung to the room, metallic and decaying, masked by the scent of sterile cleaner. Byleth stared across her bedchamber where a bundle in tightly wrapped linen lay in a box. Her eyes settled on it, and did not see a point in moving them. She felt overly hot, but could no find the strength to kick her covers off.
“No. We’re not.” she said.
“You haven’t aged a day.” Dimitri tried again.
Byleth could not meet his gaze. Yes, she had not aged, and she chalked that up to a combination of good genes and her five year nap. But Dimitri had. His moves were slower and more forced than they had been in training. His one eye had grown strained from overwork. The silver hair. Dimitri was thirty-two. Byleth was thirty-six. And even if she hadn’t aged, her changes were still bound to be upon her and then all hope of children would be lost.
“Dimitri,” Byleth said, her tongue felt like sandpaper on the roof of her mouth as she prepared what she was about to say, “Do what is best for the country; put me aside.”
Dimitri’s eye blew wide. “Beloved-“
“Do you want to lose your kingdom?!” Byleth asked.
“You’re the reason I won it. It’s your kingdom, too.” Dimitri said.
“Then I don’t want to lose it, either.”
———————————————-
Byleth could not move.
She was hot. Like she had trained for hours in the sun, and she was just as limb-numbing tired. Her head pounded like a dull drum. When she could open her heavy eyes, her vision swam above her and she had to blink several times to focus.
Dimitri sat above her. At least, it looked like her husband, with his blonde hair and eyepatch. He smiled at her, sad and full of worry.
“Childbed fever,” someone in the room said.
But I didn’t have a baby? Byleth’s mind thought. There is no childbed.
Dimitri spoke and something blessedly cool was put on Byleth’s forehead.
“Your Majesty, we are doing everything that we can-”
Dimitri made a sound, like he was in pain. Byleth let her eyes slip closed. “Send for Lady Rhea,” she heard him say.
“Your Majesty, I will begin what I have to say by asking for forgiveness.” the healer said.
“That depends on what you’ve done.” Dimitri growled. He glanced over his shoulder and the healer gulped. Byleth had been fighting fevers for over a day now. It had taken Dedue and Sylvain together to pry him from her bedside and return to his own chambers for a meager meal that felt like ash in his mouth and a few hours of fitful sleep.
The healer took a deep breath and held his clipboard like a shield. “I-I did an autopsy on the child.”
“You- WHAT?!” Dimitri jumped up and his chair crashed back, the healer staggered away. “Have my wife and I not suffered enough?! The child is dead and nothing will change it! Why hold onto it any longer?!”
“That’s the point, your Majesty! Surely one child should have lived-“
“HOW DARE YOU?!”
“YOUR MAJESTY, YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO ME! YOUR CHILDREN SHOULD HAVE LIVED. THERE’S NO REASON THIS ONE SHOULD HAVE DIED!”
Dimitri stopped. “No reason?” he asked.
The healer sighed. “Yes, your Majesty.” he said. “I was curious, why so many of your and the queen’s children….anyway, I autopsied this child. The child should have lived. She was perfect. There was nothing wrong. No deformities, no unformed organs, and the child was born alive, moving and trying to cry.”
Dimitri looked down. He had tried not to think about his daughter, her little, red body in his hand, her arms and legs waving about like bloody twigs. She had been alive.
“In fact, the child possessed the Major Crest of Blaiddyd.”
Dimitri’s head shot up. “What?” he felt like he had been punched in the stomach.
The healer nodded solemnly. “That extra strength would have helped her along- protected her from being born early or sickly, like all Blaiddyds before her, including yourself.”
Dimitri shook his head, and he felt hot tears in the corner of his eye. “She should have lived,” he said.
“Yes. She should have lived.”
“So, what does that mean?” Dimitri asked, his voice breaking. “Why did we loose her?”
The healer's eyes darted. “There’s no natural reason you lost your daughter.” he said. “Therefore, I believe something happened to the queen.”
Dimitri felt like electricity ran down his spine. “The queen?”
“Yes. The queen.” The healer looked away. “Your Majesty, I’m sorry to report this, but…the child was not expelled because she was already dying, and the queen has carried enough pregnancies to term that she does not have a ‘weak womb’ as some dub it- she would have lost more in the early stages if so. This child had high levels of toxins in her body. Riddled with them….I believe the queen may have been cursed or poisoned. She had been forced to lose your children.”
Dimitri took a step back. “All this time?”
The healer nodded. “It appears that way.”
Dimitri brushed past the healer. “I need to go to her.”
“It’s an infection.” a woman’s calm voice said. “I didn’t know she could possibly get sick.”
“She is mortal. Like anyone else.” a man’s voice said pointedly.
The woman hummed as if to avoid answering.
Byleth felt worse than when she woke up in the river after her long sleep. Her limbs felt like they had lead tied to them. Her stomach felt like she had been gutted. The whole time her body felt too hot, and she could not dare to exert herself.
“Drink child,” the woman said. Something cool was pressed to Byleth’s lips. She tried to suck it down, anything to help, but the woman had to tilt her head back for her. “You poor thing.” the woman said. “I am truly sorry, but it had to be done.”
“Had to be done? Rhea, what are you-“
Rhea sighed and let Byleth’s head rest back onto her pillow. Whatever the archbishop had given her, Byleth could feel its coolness spread through like a root system of a tree.
“She is like you and I, Seteth.” Rhea said.
Seteth sucked in a breath. “You cannot be serious.” He said. “How is that even possible. What did you do?”
“I did it for us, Seteth. And for Flayn. And for our mother.” Rhea said. “But what I did, I also did for her…however, I fear that I may have overstepped my place this time.”
“How?” Seteth’s voice was cool and even.
Rhea sighed and Byleth felt her manicured nails brushing her bangs away. Byleth fought the urge to swat them.
“She is like us. Her children would have been like us, like Flayn. And the poor Blaiddyd King…how would that look for him? How would that feel for him? And for her?” Rhea said. “She would have come back to us eventually, after the kingdom fell and her children murdered for their abilities. Why put her through such heartbreak?”
Rhea left Byleth’s side and Byleth cracked her eyes open and watched her go. Seteth looked pale.
“What would be the harm in speeding up the process with less lives lost?” Rhea asked. “Of course the lives lost were not zero, but…”
Seteth took a step back and bumped into the table. Byleth pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her head still lolled back. “You caused this? Didn’t you?” Seteth asked Rhea.
“What choice did I have? The tea is odorless, tasteless. I thought-“
“The tea?” Byleth whispered. To her it sounded like a shout. Rhea and Seteth faced her slowly. “The tea?” Byleth asked again.
“Your Majesty-“ Seteth said, rushing to her side. He tried to get Byleth to lay back down but she shoved his hand aside.
Byleth turned to face Rhea. Her head felt waterlogged and her tongue was heavy as if it were wrapped in cotton. “Did you kill my baby?”
Rhea stammered. Byleth shoved her covers back and rested one foot on the wooden floor. She swayed as she stood. She nearly vomited. Byleth pushed her other foot forward. Her hair hung in her eyes, but she could barely raise her arms to push them out of the way.
“I had tea with you. Then I lost my daughter.” Byleth said, shuffling towards Rhea.
“My dear, you are not well.” Rhea said. “It is your fever dreams playing tricks on you.”
“I’ve had weird dreams before, this isn’t one.” Byleth said. She reached out and grasped Rhea’s shoulders. The archbishop stiffened but did not push her away. She waited, holding her breath for what Byleth may do next. “It was the tea.” Byleth decided. “It’s the same one you always birng…” Byleth suddenly felt cold. “How many times have I had tea with you? And right after I lost…”
Rhea’s face softened. “My dear-“
Byleth wrapped her hands around Rhea’s neck and squeezed. Rhea gasped and ripped Byleth’s hands off of her. She staggered back, her headdress falling askew.
“You killed them?” Byleth asked. She stepped forward. Rhea shook her head. “You killed them?!”
“Byleth, please-“
“No!” Byleth shouted so loud her ears rung. “How could you?! Why did you-?!” Byleth swung, but Rhea ducked out of the way. Byleth leapt forward, and missed Rhea, she crashed into a chair. “YOU KILLED THEM!”
The door to Byleth’s chamber’s burst open and there stood Dimitri. Byleth’s knees buckled and Dimitri was next to her in an instant, brushing past Rhea and Seteth.
“Beloved,” Dimitri said, slipping his arms around Byleth’s shoulders. “Stop. You need to stop.”
“She killed them!” Byleth screamed. A sob wracked her throat. “She killed them,” her voice came out pitiful around her tears. “She killed them. She killed them.”
“What?” Dimitri looked at the Archbishop. “Is this true?”
The Archbishop opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Instead, she looked away. Dimitri saw red. For a second, he thought about wringing the Archbishop’s pretty, little neck with one hand while dismembering her assistant with the other. He would’ve asked if the murder of his children was worth it. But, Byleth stumbled forward. Her feet slipped on the floor. Dimitri’s hold on her was the only thing keeping her up.
Dimitri pressed a kiss to Byleth’s head and lowered both himself and his wife to the ground. He held her close and she turned away from Rhea and Seteth to bury her face in Dimitri’s chest. Dimitri rubbed circles into her shoulders and shushed her.
When Byleth had quieted to only sniffles, Dimitri pulled away and rose to his feet. He towered over the Archbishop and her assistant.
“The love I bear the church is the only reason you are not dead where you standing holding your entrails.” Dimitri said. “Leave my kingdom at once. If I hear word of you around here again, I shall kill you myself. Understood?”
Dimitri had not heard that tone in his voice since his days in the Monastery Killing rats.
The Archbishop bowed. “Of course.”
"I wish I had let Edelgard kill all of you." Dimitri said.
Rhea and Seteth said nothing. The door shut behind them and Dimitri faltered. He felt tears slip down his cheek.
“Dimitri…” Byleth said.
He could do nothing, but hold her as the truth weighed on them.