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Khalid is trying.
And somehow that feels like it's all he's doing.
Trying.
He's trying to keep his people alive. All of them. Leicester and Almyra both.
It's not going well.
The Empire is thankfully too focused on the Faerghus and the Church of Seiros to put too much effort into conquering the Alliance entirely, but the border skirmishes are getting bolder and without trade from the rest of Fodlan, it's growing more and more difficult to keep funneling funds into bolstering their military. Khalid's got excellent generals on his side, Judith and Holst and Hilda and others who've graduated from Garreg Mach. But it's not enough. Edelgard's got all that, and then something else. Something he had felt himself starting to figure out back before Edelgard turned coat and attacked the school, something he still only gets hints and whispers of.
Never enough to put it all together.
And the Empire's strength would only grow now that Edelgard has their old professor by her side again. Byleth is a beyond brilliant tactician, and it would only be a matter of time before Adrestria finished off Faerghus and turned its full might towards the Alliance to great a united Empire once again. He's been keeping up a brave face for his generals in their strategy meetings, but they all know it's a question of how much longer they can last, not a question of winning. Not without a miracle.
That isn't even the worst of Khalid's problems.
His father's generals want to attack Leicester, knowing as well as Khalid does that there's no way the Alliance can defend themselves on two fronts at once, not without great cost - cost that Khalid is not willing to pay. His father is holding them off as best he can, but sooner or later he will have to give in lest they depose him in favor of one of Khalid's more aggressive (and short-sighted) brothers. There's only so many times Khalid can ask his father for more time before the answer is no.
At least they grow enough food to keep the whole Leicester Alliance fed. It's the one small comfort he has as he walks back to his office after another incredibly depressing status meeting with his advisors. They are still holding strong, but five years of war takes its toll, and they have at most two more years before surrender becomes their best option.
His office is just as he left it, books piled everywhere, note paper covered with words in different hands (mostly his and Judith's and Lysithea's, never Hilda's), maps with pins marking known movements, all of it scattered and haphazard appearing, but everything exactly where Khalid knows it should be.
Except - there.
On the center of his desk is a small envelope, with Claude von Riegen written on it in a very familiar hand.
His secretary had given him no warning about the letter, and if it had come through official channels someone would have interrupted the meeting to alert him to it.
But still. It is right there.
Khalid turns it over.
It's still sealed. However it got here, it hadn't been read, or whoever snuck a look was even better at it than Khalid, and that seems unlikely - he had been taught by his father's spymaster.
It could be poisoned, a powder sealed inside the envelope that would kill him if he touched it or inhaled it. But if he had known Teach at all at Garreg Mach, that isn't her style at all - Hubert's definitely - but Byleth would never condone it. At least he hopes so. Because the curiosity is burning in him, and without any of his friends or advisors around to stop him, Khalid breaks the seal and pulls out the letter.
He reads it once.
Sits down.
Reads it again.
And he still doesn't know what to make of the short missive from his old professor.
Byleth says she has information for him and requests his help, but that it can't be risked in a letter; they must meet in person if he wants to know more.
On first glance, it has all the hallmarks of a trap - though whether it's to kill him or take him hostage, he can't be sure.
But that's not Byleth's style. And she's built reassurances into her offer. To keep it simple and quiet, they can each only bring two others with them. Otherwise, she seems to be giving him all the power in the situation, letting him choose the location and the date, only requesting that it be no more than a day's travel from Garreg Mach. She even implies that this meeting is being kept secret from Edelgard, her sovereign, which is certainly intriguing.
Especially after Byleth's mysterious disappearance in the attack on Garreg Mach and then her equally mysterious reappearance out of nowhere five years later. He wants to know how she had managed to stay out of everyone's notice for so long; every side had been looking for her for years. He wants to know why she stayed away for so long, only to come back, taking charge laying waste to Edelgard's enemies.
He wants to see Byleth again, just to see her. He had considered them friends, or at least on the way to it given Byleth's emotional distance from everyone around her.
And he knows he shouldn't; he should just ignore it. He really should.
Whatever understanding they might have had in his academy days, Byleth is the leader of the army trying to conquer one of the countries he is heir to, and he has to assume this is a trap of some sort, even if he can't yet see the angle. There is no way this is just a simple parlay held without Edelgard's knowledge. It's not possible; no one would reach across enemy lines like that just to chat, and Byleth isn't the type to defect, not after she'd already burned all her bridges with Seiros.
He should just burn the note and pretend he never saw it if he ever runs into Byleth again.
Nevertheless, he accepts. It might just lead to the miracle Khalid had been looking for.
Though his curiosity had always been his greatest weakness, and Teach had known that well. It might still be a trap.
There is only one way to find out.
"Claude."
"Teach."
Her greeting is warmer than he expected, but Khalid doesn't bother hiding the wariness from his voice. He's still certain this is a trap somehow, he just thinks it might be worth the risk.
He needs it to be.
Hilda disagreed with him heavily; she thinks someone (not her) should focus on shoring up the Alliance's defenses while Adrestria is distracted by their campaign into Faerghus. She laid a whole plan out for him, putting actual effort into it, just to try to convince him not to bother with this meeting. It was impressive, as brilliant as he always knew her to be, even as she complained the entire time about it.
But he hadn't been swayed, and she will not let him go into danger without her, and so here Hilda is by his side.
On the other hand, Lysithea had been almost eager to come. Khalid has always thought she was at least as distrusting as himself, if not more so - scarred from a past that even he hasn't found out all the details of - but as soon as he showed her the letter, she insisted on coming along, as though she could read some secret from it that was invisible to him.
She wouldn't say what it was, only promising him that she'd explain after, if it didn't become clear at the meeting.
He feels like the three of them could take on almost any threat together - Hilda, getting up close and physical, shocking anyone who didn't know her well with the brutality of her strikes, Lysithea in the back with him, using magic to tear apart armored foes, and Khalid himself keeping the air clear. but Byleth is on a whole different level from most of the run of the mill Adrestrian generals, so he brings along a little extra backup just to be safe.
The location he chose is next to small lake northwest of the Bridge of Myrddin, still firmly in Alliance territory, but close enough to Garreg Mach to meet Byleth's request. There's no seating, no negotiation table, not even some convenient logs to sit on, after they're finished, there will be nothing left to mark their presence here. It's an utterly unremarkable spot, he didn't even know of the lake before Lysithea suggested it, and she only knew of it from how close it is to the edge of Ordelia territory.
It leaves them all standing around rather awkwardly, in two straight lines some handful of meters apart, each side carefully evaluating the other.
Byleth looks as neutral and unconcerned as ever, perhaps even pleased to see that at least these additional three former students of hers are doing well - or as well as they can be in the middle of a war. With her, she's brought Felix and Hapi; they certainly make a strange trio. Felix faces them with his standard glare, but it's no worse than it ever was in school. Unlike the other two, Hapi's got a smile on her face, though it's less friendly and more like 'I know something you don't'. It almost makes sense though, from what he remembers, Hapi talks more than the other two combined. And while, he isn't sure he ever saw Hapi and Felix ever interact at Garreg Mach at all, they flank Byleth with companionable ease.
He hadn't expected her to bring Lorenz; there's too much bad blood between Riegen and Glousester for anyone to think that would be a good idea, but it is odd that she didn't bring one of his old Adrestrian classmates, Lindhart or Dorothea might have made sense. And he couldn't imagine either of them being particularly 'rah, rah, glory to the empire!' no matter how fiercely they fight at Edelgard's side. At least those picks would make more sense than Felix, who he's pretty sure failed every diplomacy lesson at the academy.
But maybe things have changed.
Five years of war have have changed him and Hilda and Lysithea and everyone else he knew back then, and it's clear that both Felix and Hapi have changed physically over the last several years, though who knows if that translated to a such a momentous change in personality in them that they'd be the most diplomatic choices.
But not Byleth. She looks exactly the same as she had when he'd last seen her, her shockingly bright green hair still hangs loose and unstyled about her head, and she still wears the same blend of practical and impractical clothing. Even now Khalid can see Byleth's gaze turn towards the lake and look longingly at the fish splashing about.
"So where've you been the last five years?" he asks once the silence starts to drag on a little too long and it becomes clear that Byleth is waiting for something, not that he can tell what.
"Sleeping," she says, completely deadpan, but there's the barest hint of laughter in her eyes. He catches Felix rolling his eyes and a slight quirk of Hapi's lips. There's definitely a story there.
But before he has time to dig into it, a sudden noise comes from the woods to the east, someone trampling through the brush, struggling through the thick vegetation.
"Byleth, look what I found lurking about."
Yuri walks into their clearing, dragging a protesting Leonie with him. Khalid holds himself steady, waiting for Byleth's reaction before he throws the knife that just dropped from his sleeve into his hand. But Yuri has not finished speaking yet.
"She's got potential, just needs some better camouflage and faster reflexes."
Byleth hums appreciatively, and then turns to look Leonie directly in her eyes.
"How would you like to get revenge on the people who killed Jeralt?"
Fuck.
Nothing could have swayed Leonie's loyalty more effectively than that. A brilliant masterstroke, as Leonie stops struggling and looks at Byleth with eager hope. He's down one ally now, and with Yuri and now Leonie added to Byleth's side, they're outnumbered and overpowered. If they run now, Byleth might just let them go, but then he's learned nothing at all.
And the wheels start turning in Khalid's brain. As far as he knew, Jeralt was killed by allies of Edelgard's; he never could understand how Byleth could choose her over the Church with that knowledge, not with how Jeralt's death had utterly wrecked Byleth. And now here she is, supposedly without Edelgard's permission or knowledge, promising revenge. He looks again at the allies she brought with her, Felix and Hapi, neither of them from Adrestria or have much to gain from allying with Edelgard. And now Yuri as well, another one who had no reason to love the Empire.
Has Byleth been working against Edelgard from the start?
He sneaks a quick glance at his friends. Hilda is vaguely bored, but still her hand twitches towards her axe, ready to fight the second anyone else pulls a weapon.
Lysithea though.
She's watching Byleth with interest, like she's already putting together the pieces that Khalid is missing. But before he has time to start wondering at that, Leonie answers Byleth.
"Yes, anything you need. Jeralt's greatest apprentice will not let him down."
Another eye roll from Felix, but he says nothing as Byleth holds out a hand and she and Leonie shake on their new partnership, and there's nothing Khalid can think of to stop it either. But he can still make his displeasure known.
"Back to your old tricks, eh, Teach? Little higher stakes than switching from one class to another at school this time."
She smiles, a slight thing, but a smile nonetheless, "We need all the help we can get."
"Oh, so now we'll get to the point of your little invitation?" he asks, already off-balance by losing one of his allies and desperate to get back on solid ground, but still he hides it the same way he always has, with jokes and too many words a refusal to show how nervous he is. "Quite clever really, sneaking that in without anyone noticing."
"Let me tell you about our enemy," Byleth begins.
And it's an impossible tale, the stuff of fairy tales and nightmares, worse even than the things Khalid had discovered about Rhea and Seteh and the church. A hidden, literally underground, society, more technologically advanced than anything ever seen in Fodlan, and from what Byleth describes, more advanced than anything that he'd seen in Almyra or from traders in other lands. And it only gets more impossible from there.
It is only now that she is telling them about her enemy's ability to disguise themselves so completely as another person that he remembers Tomas and Monica, and the rumors that swirled around their disappearances. Rumors that he had considered fanciful exaggerations, even as he had planned to dig into them at the time, all of that had gotten derailed by Edelgard declaring war. He shouldn't have let himself get distracted like that - he knew exactly where his notes on that still were - but there were so many other higher priority problems to deal with, and most of them hadn't gone away in the intervening years.
And then Byleth explains how her enemy has embedded several of their agents in among Edelgard's war council and army, ostensibly to help her achieve her goals and take down the church and defeat the dragons, but it's clear that their so-called help comes with a price - they expect to turn the Empire into a puppet government once the rest of Fodlan is conquered. Byleth details all she knows about their weaknesses and strengths and it doesn't amount to much. It's not just that they are technologically advanced; they're literally not human, and they hate all humans.
He can't help noticing how Lysithea's breathing grows more ragged as Byleth keeps speaking. He reaches a hand out to grab hers and squeezes it lightly, hoping it's enough to comfort or ground her or whatever it is that she needs. Her breathing is still unsteady, but it's calmed some and no one else comments or react to it even though he's certain a few of the others must have noticed. Yuri at the very the least definitely has, for all his mocking indifference, he notices everything around him. Khalid can recognize a kindred spirit.
"All we've got has come from the few survivors of their experiments and some escapees, but it's not much. We do have a few other leads that might uncover more information, but we just don't have the ability to follow up on that yet."
Suddenly it all clicks into place and Khalid knows that he's lost Lysithea to Byleth now as well. She never seemed the type to be motivated by revenge, but he knows her well enough to know she won't let this chance go, if nothing else, she will want to make sure that nothing like what happened to her can happen to anyone else, and he can't blame her.
"Our only advantage right now is that as far as we can't tell there aren't that many of them and they don't know we're onto them. The problem is that there just aren't that many of us either, not if we're keeping up the war against the dragons and Faerghus as well. I know it's a lot to ask, but we need help, and I need people I can trust working on this."
"You sure you can trust me?" he winks at her, deflecting while he tries to process everything she just dumped on them.
"More than most," is her succinct response.
He already knows Hilda will follow whatever he decides. If he walks away now, he'll probably get an 'I told you so' from her and she'll make him owe her a favor or two, but then she'll drop it. And if he agrees to follow Byleth along into this madness, Hilda will be right there with him, complaining the whole time, but doing her part nonetheless.
Just like coming to this meeting itself, he is insane to even be considering agreeing to this. What is it about Byleth that makes all of them lose their minds and want to try to do something bigger than themselves? She's got the oratorial abilities of a particularly uninspiring rock; she might be a great listener, but her emotional advice is questionable at best.
But.
But if Byleth's not bullshitting, not just trying to lure him into some sort of bizarre hostage situation to force a surrender, he can't just walk away and ignore this enemy, one who hates him and everyone he has ever known.
Khalid can't believe he's thinking about joining her. He's gone insane. It's the only explanation. But he hasn't gone so mad that he's forgotten what's truly important: his people.
So he's got some questions.
"You lied to me about Edelgard not knowing about this meeting. She can't not know about this secret war you're waging and what you're willing to do to win it."
"She chooses not to know," Byleth explains. "They watch her too closely for her to be directly involved, but she supports what we're doing." Then she laughs, a dark chuckle, but still closer to a laugh than anything else she's done this whole time. "Hubert, though, he knows everything. He and Yuri were the ones to convince me to reach out."
Hubert. That darkly smug asshole who always shadowed Edelgard's every move, of course he's got his fingers in this pie as well. Though, it doesn't make sense that Hubert of all people would suggest making friends and recruiting allies. He'd always been so standoffish, keeping himself and Edelgard away from the more social aspects of the academy.
But more than how Khalid hasn't kept tabs on all of his old classmates enough to know who so many of his old classmates had become since the war started, he had never known Hubert to begin with. Hubert hadn't let anyone know him.
There is so much Khalid doesn't know. And he hates not knowing things.
"So what, we just up and defect and join Leicester to Adrestria just like that?" he says again, hoping that voicing these reasonable thoughts aloud will help keep the unreasonable ones in his head at bay.
"No," Byleth says. "Even if you all agree to work us, it can't have any obvious effect on the state of the war. The territories opposing Adrestria have to keep doing so at least for the time being."
"Oh, so instead our citizens just have to march out into the field and get slaughtered for the sake of your secrets?" He doesn't think Byleth would do that, but he never thought she would have joined Edelgard in the first place. He needs to be certain. Hilda hefts her axe menacingly to show her own displeasure.
Again, Byleth answers in the negative. "The war against Faerghus and Seiros is going to take a while; they've entrenched themselves well in their strongholds. It should be enough for us to make some progress against Those Who Slither in the Dark, as Hubert calls them, before we can claim victory there," she sighs heavily before admitting to the next part. "If we don't have a better solution and the war turns towards Leicester, I understand if this partnership needs to end."
Already Byleth is assuming he's going to agree. And unfortunately, she's right. He wouldn't be negotiating and working out these fine details if he wasn't.
"Then how do you explain our presence at Garreg Mach?"
"As far as anyone outside our own people know, you aren't there. You'll stay in Abyss when you're around, safely out of sight of any of our enemies and any Faerghan or Leicester spies," Yuri chimes in. "You'll have to keep up whatever regular appearances you've been making now; we can't let anyone think you've been kidnapped or that anything's amiss."
Hilda groans, reading between the lines; all they're doing is adding more work on top of their already heavy loads. But there's no way he can say no. There's no way that he can walk away from this and be able to look at himself in the mirror. And if he's right about Lysithea, she'd never forgive him for it.
"We're in," Khalid says.
Byleth's smile is larger than he's ever seen as they shake hands.
He doesn't want to say it's the start of a beautiful friendship, but it's definitely the start of something.
Byleth leads the way out of the clearing, with Hapi by their side as all of them make their way to Abyss to familiarize themselves with the finer details of their (now shared) enemy and their movements. Felix and Yuri take up the rear, trapping the Leicesterans between the Empire's agents. But oddly, it doesn't feel like they're held prisoner or in danger. It almost feels safe as they continue out through the woods towards the mountains and the cave systems that'll lead them under the monstery.
Suddenly Shamir drops out of the trees to join them. Leonie, Lysithea, and Hilda all startle at her sudden appearance, but none of Byleth's people do. Felix and Yuri both give her sharp nods of acknowledgement, while Hapi starts chattering to her as they walk. Once Yuri had found Leonie, Khalid had assumed that Byleth had the same thought he'd had, one extra person was barely a divergence from the rules set out. But she'd brought along two, an underhanded caution he hadn't expected of her.
Perhaps her collaboration with Hubert and Yuri means that Byleth is now more open to some of Khalid's more underhanded ideas, the ones that she used to try to steer him away from back at the academy. He hopes so because they are going to need every trick he has - and then some - to pull this off.
But maybe, just maybe, Khalid can leverage this partnership into something that can benefit his people - can save them from this endless fighting and destruction. This might be just what he needed, he just has to find his advantage.