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Nerves ran high in the training grounds as new students from all across Faerghus prepared for their first lesson with the Archbishop. Despite her reputation for being much more easily approachable compared to her predecessor, she was still the Archbishop .
Still, the fact that she’d insisted on continuing to train students amidst her duties spoke to her dedication. Surely such a task would be easy to delegate, yet she chose to do the work herself year after year.
While some other students had taken to pacing the grounds or mindlessly swinging their swords, Angelo stood at attention, keeping his eyes on the large double doors. He’d lost track of the time since Garreg Mach’s bell had last rung, but the Archbishop was known to be punctual. All he could do in the meantime was focus on his breathing. He’d spent his life training with a sword for this moment. He’d make his family proud, and if he could impress the Archbishop, the most skilled swordsman in all of Faerghus, then it couldn’t get any better.
The students weren’t kept waiting long, for soon the doors swung wide open and in stepped the Archbishop. She was alone, not accompanied by her guard or adviser who’d been with her for the opening ceremony, and wore some simplified version of her official regalia. Her pace never wavered against the large heavy doors, and she strode in holding herself both sternly and elegantly.
A few paces in, she halted, taking in the new faces around her. It all had happened so quickly that most of the other students barely had any time to compose themselves. Angelo was the first to bow to her.
Her eyes caught his movement, and she shot an amused partial smile. Facing the group once more, she began, “Good morning. You may know me as the Archbishop, or as Lady Byleth. In here, you may refer to me as ‘Teacher.’”
What, no discipline for the slower, less reactive students? Angelo supposed that the job of setting students in line fell more upon the shoulders of the knights and her adviser than her own. Still, he had the opportunity to make an impression.
He bowed once more and spoke. “Your Grace, it is an honor to learn from you.”
She looked to him again, her eyes darting down to where a wooden training sword already rested against his belt. Her expressions were known to be more difficult to read than normal, but the amused uptick to her regal smile remained.
“A sword, I see. You appear prepared, so I assume you won’t mind stepping up to face me first?”
He froze, his face turning warm immediately. He shook his head, thinking he misheard. “Apologies, Your Grace. You’d like me to face…you?”
“Indeed. You carry a sword confidently. It so happens that the sword is my weapon of choice as well, as you have likely heard.” By now, the rest of the students stood at attention with equal looks of shock on their faces. Her Grace walked nonchalantly to the weapons rack, paying no mind to the many eyes following her. She retrieved a wooden sword, identical to his, and made her way back to the center of the arena. The few experimental twirls it made in her wrist appeared effortless.
Angelo locked eyes with the few faces he already knew at the academy. All they could do was shrug to one another. He waited to see if she’d really meant it. That he had to face her first before receiving any instruction or group training.
“Step into the center,” she commanded, and though her voice held no trace of a threat, he couldn’t disobey the power that it held. Slowly, he picked his heavy feet from the dirt and made his way down. All eyes shifted from her to him, watching for a reaction. Anything.
“Don’t be nervous,” she reassured him, and he believed her. He was here to learn from the greatest and should have considered it an honor to spar with the Archbishop. “What is your name?”
“Angelo, Your Grace.”
“Angelo.” She nodded, and his face flared with warmth. “Ready your sword.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he bowed and did as she asked, taking his starting stance of choice. Keeping his weight on the balls of his feet, he held his sword in both hands before his torso, balanced enough to switch to a single hand at a moment’s notice.
She took an eased stance as well, though much more relaxed than his. Her posture was nearly straight, and her sword rested in the hand behind her. Angelo supposed it made sense if she were to be the attacker, but how could she be so quick on the defense with such a starting position?
He watched her intently for any twitch in her movement, any change in her breathing, but none came. Before he could learn what it was like to truly face the Archbishop, the large entry doors behind her were thrown open with a loud crash.
A man strode in, more quickly and confidently than Her Grace had done only a moment ago. Though a regal coat and cape covered him, he didn’t quite appear freshly dressed. His dark hair fell loosely from what likely used to be a tight bun, and mud and dust littered his gaiters and riding trousers.
Her Grace’s eyebrows furrowed in frustration, telling Angelo that this was unexpected. She quickly turned to face their intruder, but instead of confronting him, she froze and dropped her sword.
Their intruder halted for a brief moment when she turned, but he quickly recovered and continued his stride right for the Archbishop.
The ordeal was puzzling, until the man pulled out a sword—a real sword made of sharp steel. Then it escalated to a threat.
Angelo quickly moved to step in front of the Archbishop, but she gently touched his arm and shook her head. He looked to her with confusion, but she didn’t speak a single word. Her gaze hadn’t even left the intruder, and it had shifted drastically from her sovereign expression before.
Reluctantly, he obeyed and stepped back. Other students who had begun to gather their arms stood down with equal bewilderment. The man who’d interrupted them chuckled. Was…was he mocking them? Angelo’s face fumed red. Who did this guy think he was, anyways? Waltzing into the middle of the Archbishop’s busy schedule as if he was entitled to her immediate attention.
To add insult to injury, he halted after a few paces and pointed his sword at her, a universal declaration of combat.
Her Grace spoke no words to agree to the man’s challenge, but she charmingly retrieved her wooden sword and traded it for steel to match the intruder’s. All the while, her gaze never left him.
“New plan, students,” she finally spoke. “Today will be a demonstration.”
Ah, so she planned to make an example of the man for disrespecting her so. She was the greatest swordsman in Faerghus, after all. And how many former Archbishops could also hold bragging rights over a title like The Ashen Demon ?
In response, the man only smirked, lowering his blade and taking a ready stance.
Before Her Grace could even ready herself, the man took off at her in a flash. The loud clash of steel on steel echoed across the walls of the training grounds moments later. Angelo could only register half of the movement that had occurred, yet Her Grace met his blade effortlessly.
And was she…smiling?
Angelo didn’t have a chance to catch her expression for long before the two of them were on the move again, side-stepping, lunging, pivoting and spinning faster than his eyes could follow.
As if enough surprises hadn’t happened that day, the doors to the training grounds burst open again. No effort had been made to be quiet, so it drew the attention of each student. They expected another intrusion, but this time only the gatekeeper entered. He’d announced each arriving student, guest, and noble, so Angelo suspected that this day was no different.
The gatekeeper panted heavily, as if he’d just sprinted from his post, but quickly tried to recover and stand straight. He opened his mouth to make an announcement, but a quick survey of the scene snapped his jaw shut. With that, he glanced around awkwardly and quietly bowed out, closing the doors behind him.
What had that been about? Wasn’t his job to do something about unannounced, unwanted visitors?
Throughout the whole ordeal, Her Grace and her opponent never took their attention away from one another.
In a way, Angelo began to feel like he was the one intruding, for the two paid no mind to anyone else present. The duel continued, with only the sound of grunts and clashing steel filling the space.
Their observation was interrupted again when the training ground doors opened for the third time unexpectedly, though now much quieter. The man who Angelo knew to be the Captain of the Knights of Seiros peeked his head in, then quietly slipped inside and closed the door behind himself.
He shuffled along the walls, doing nothing to apprehend the intruder.
Finally being fed up with whatever the hell was going on, Angelo approached the Captain. “Excuse me, sir, this man-” he gestured to the pair, still fighting, “-intruded on the Archbishop’s lesson. What’s going on? Why isn’t he being arrested?”
The Captain bellowed a laugh, loud enough to echo to the other side of the training grounds. “You can call me Alois, kid, and that man is no intruder!” Angelo’s brows furrowed, unsatisfied with the answer, so the Captain clasped his shoulder with a hand and elaborated.
“That’s her husband.”
Felix had some nerve, barging in unannounced for Byleth’s first training session of the year, but she supposed it was his payback for their last reunion in Fraldarius.
She’d come upon the Fraldarius estate late at night with no desire to sleep, snuck into their bedchambers, and brandished her sword before Felix had even planted his feet on the floorboards. He’d said she’d been lucky he slept with his sword beneath their bedframe. She’d said she wouldn’t have planned it any other way.
Now she supposed she had some explaining to do for her students, but all she could focus on in the moment was her husband. His clothes were worn from travel, but his body was not. In the brief moments that she’d reminisced on their last reunion, he’d already gained ground on her, forcing her to step back and trade her preferred nimble stance for a sturdy defensive one.
He smirked at her, knowing she hated being put into such a position. He’d planned on catching her off guard, but that surprise would only last one round. Her defenses fell, allowing him the victory.
After all, they had an audience.
“First round to Fraldarius!” Alois, whom she hadn’t noticed had entered, shouted.
The name Fraldarius could apply to either of them. But she knew who he’d meant, and the smug, victorious smirk on Felix’s face told her he knew as well.
Wordlessly, they re-centered themselves in the dirt arena and faced each other once again. She wasn’t going to give him a victory so easily, and he wouldn’t take one so easily either. In her mind, she tried to count how many rounds she was willing to go with him, and couldn’t come up with a single-digit number.
They didn’t need an announcer to leap at one another again. This time, she led, surging at him with full force. A predicted swift side-step moved him out of her range, and she pivoted her body to face him when she landed.
The stiffness in his legs told her he had gone straight from horseback to sparring with her. She made a note to bother him about it later. In the meantime, she could exploit his temporary weakness.
Fortunately, the technique-scolding went both ways. If they had privacy, he would’ve chastised her for opening with a move that exerted too much energy. But in this case, such a flaunting display had a purpose. Using her momentum from landing, she crouched down, gathered a handful of dirt in her free hand, and hurled it at his face.
Felix spat and waved at her impromptu dust cloud, and a swift closing in and disarming move from Byleth won her the round.
Now that Felix was the one sitting in the dirt, his competitive scowl replaced the overconfident smirk that he’d been wearing. Byleth knew she wasn’t the most expressive, but she couldn’t resist smiling at the sight.
“Second round goes to the Archbishop!” Alois shouted, followed by a few cheers from the crowd. Though Felix had never cared if a crowd was rooting for him, the annoyance on his face was poorly concealed, as always.
A part of her wished that Alois would simply refer to them by their first names like he did in private, but she understood the optics of the Captain of the Knights speaking of them so informally while around students. Although they were in public, Byleth never felt like they were just the Archbishop and Duke Fraldarius while crossing blades.
All the more reason to win this match and retreat from the public eye, if only for an afternoon.
Felix rushed her again after a quick recovery, unable to hide the vengeful frustration in the strength of his swing. A flash of blue illuminated the shield-shaped Crest of Fraldarius on his forearm before he struck, and the added strength pushed her back.
A gasp escaped the crowd. It hadn’t been the first time his crest had activated while sparring her. Their one rule while sparring—that there were no rules—existed for a reason, and they took advantage of it often.
Byleth hadn’t expected it so soon, however, and she stumbled onto her back in the dirt.
“Your Grace!” one of her students cried, and she caught movement from the sidelines.
She took her eyes off of Felix and threw her hand out in the student’s direction. “No, stay back!”
The urgency in her voice was both for the safety of her students and the determination to recover on her own. She recognized the student she’d challenged first, Angelo, as the one trying to aid her, but he halted in his tracks at her glare.
She turned her attention back to Felix, but the distraction had cost her precious recovery time. Her neck turned and felt the point of his sword on her skin. Two losses already.
“Duke Fraldarius takes the third round!”
One would think that being surrounded by students who looked up to her would’ve given Byleth an advantage in the fight, but it had turned into the opposite. She considered making an official decree—no one was to step in between the Archbishop and her opponent, especially if her opponent was him .
Neither of them could control when their crests activated, but she could control her magic and her environment. At the start of the next round, she hurled a fire spell at Felix before rushing around at him from the side. Felix was skilled with avoiding both magic and weapons, in no small part thanks to her teaching, but avoiding both was easier said than done.
She caught him off-guard to his right while the spell fizzled out against the ground. Her sword met his and slid up the metal with a ringing hiss. The audible shock from the crowd grew louder, but Byleth couldn’t bring herself to care how many had come to watch. If they’d come to learn, they’d learn who she was in her own element.
And the look on Felix’s face, the ever-showing determination underneath the sweat, dirt, and growing exhaustion on his face, kept her going. It’d been too long since she’d last seen it, and she didn’t yet know how long she’d get to see it before their duties pulled them apart again.
Her face must’ve softened, for his eyebrows raised suddenly. She wasn’t ready to end their contest yet, but she communicated what she could with a small nod.
I missed you .
And he responded in kind with a genuine half-smile, no scowl, no smirk.
I missed you too .
Then she sidestepped and elbowed him up from below, and just like that, the competitive air returned.
He avoided tripping backward like she had in the last round, but he’d stepped right into the remaining smoke from her spell. A quick bout of coughing was all she needed to rush in with her sword and pin him to the ground. After a long journey and a few rounds with her, his cape had been utterly destroyed.
“The Archbishop takes the fourth round!”
Her hair had fallen and was now cascading down to frame his face.
Alois could call all the rounds he wanted until nightfall. Byleth would always wait for the same two words from Felix to end their bout. I yield .
But he remained wordless amidst the growing fluster on his face, and seeing the question on her own, shook his head from beneath her before rising to his feet.
As he dusted himself off, Byleth realized that their audience had grown to include more than just students. Alois had come in, sure, but now kitchen staff, monks, gardeners, and knights lined the walls behind the pillars. Even Seteth stood close to the door, his arms crossed with both judgment and amusement.
Her students whispered amongst themselves, and while Byleth was no stranger to fighting before an audience, sparring with Felix was more than just a fight. It felt strange to have others observing, betting on, and learning from something so intimate for them, but if one part of their relationship had to be public, she supposed she’d choose this over anything else.
She let out a frustrated sigh before turning back to Felix. Just as she thought, he wasn’t ready to call the match yet either.
Normally, during their training sessions, they’d slow down between their actual sparring to run drills, stretch, or break for water. But now they were jumping into one round after another. Byleth wasn’t unaccustomed to the nonstop movement, but she’d normally expect it during actual life or death combat, not training with her husband.
Though, she found sparring Felix much more challenging and thrilling than some measly bandits or demonic beasts.
When they started the next round, they both lunged at one another. Most who were present winced as the clash of steel pierced the air. Byleth herself grimaced, but couldn’t risk closing her eyes for too long.
Instead, she focused on how close Felix’s face was to hers amidst their stalemate. He never wore the stress of his title on his face, and the only thing that had changed was his hair, now dangling long and messily from his complicated bun.
Had they really been separated for that long?
The familiar crackling of lightning drew her focus back to the matter at hand. During her reflection, Felix had switched to a single-handed grip, and though she knew he wasn’t a novice with magic, she knew the few elemental spells he had at his disposal.
She pivoted just in time for a lightning bolt to strike the ground where she once stood. The dissipating energy in the air was palatable, but not nearly as much as the rolling thunder that crashed against her eardrums.
The noise, more disarming than the lightning itself, drowned out the growing exclamations among the crowd. But she couldn’t give in yet. She stepped into the electrically charged air and pushed through the numbing static on her skin. Her arm flared with energy as she swung her sword in anticipation for Felix’s strike, and the Crest of Flames illuminated the air between them before she struck.
Her crest renewed her energy at his expense. He winced but surprisingly held his ground, sliding his sword down the length of hers and circling to her side.
A hard tug on her own cape—damn her for wearing that to training—threw her back. She spun before he could pull her down and finished off the thin ripping fabric with a slice of her sword.
Coming face-to-face with Felix, she rushed in without another moment’s hesitation, slipped past his defenses, and held her blade a hair away from his neck. He froze, pinned between her and a pillar.
She’d take the victory today.
Byleth smiled confidently until the unmistakable cold touch of steel poked the back of her neck. The smug grin on Felix’s face confirmed what she already knew—he had her trapped with his sword as well, and they’d reached a stalemate.
“It’s a…a tie?” Alois hollered from the sidelines, but it wasn’t his declaration that mattered.
She kept her gaze on him, and couldn’t wish her smile away if she’d wanted to. Felix had traveled for days from Fraldarius territory and had jumped right into combat with her, and he’d won half of them. And he still didn’t look tired.
Her mouth opened to give him another victory against her, but he beat her to it.
“I yield,” he spoke firmly, and his smug grin softened into a smile. “Hey, Byleth.”
“Hey…Felix.” Her head tilted to the side, but before she could ask why he yielded, he dropped his sword.
It didn’t take her long to follow suit, and a moment later her arms flung around his neck. He huffed in surprise, but his arms quickly encased her as well. Self-conscious as she would normally have felt, propriety be damned. If they could watch her throw sword swings, dirt, and spells at her husband, then they could watch her embrace him in front of them too.
Seteth cleared his throat behind her, and she reluctantly unwound herself from Felix to face him and everyone else. A quick glance over revealed hushed conversations, exchanged bets, and barely concealed stares. Entertaining as it had felt, her patience was wearing thin.
“You are all dismissed!” she commanded, and the sudden boom in her voice must have shocked the staff and students into action. They couldn’t leave quickly enough. Some nearly tripped over themselves while gathering their belongings and herding out of the training grounds.
The sight made her chuckle, and she soon felt Felix’s presence at her side once more.
Finally, she addressed her adviser. “Seteth, please notify my former arrangements that I’ll be training for the remainder of the afternoon.”
“Understood.” He nodded. She’d make up the extra work for him later, not that he’d ever complained.
Turning her gaze back to Felix, the pressure of dozens of eyes fell from her shoulders. A similar relief peppered his amber eyes. His garments had been trashed, as her own had likely been as well.
“Another round?” He asked. “Until I win again.”
She chuckled and twirled her sword. “You’d have won the last one if you’d warmed up first.”