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“Come in, Miss Varley. It is good to see you.”
Bernadetta scampers through the doorway, eager to be out of the busy hallway and gives the room a once-over. Seteth’s office is as quiet and cozy as it ever was, with a fire crackling in the fireplace and bookshelves fit to burst lining every wall. “You wanted to see me?”
“Indeed,” he says, closing the door behind her.
It’s a vague answer, even for him. She turns, and the look she catches on his face when she turns draws a stark contrast to the warmth the room exudes. “S — Seteth?” she asks, freezing in place, “Is there something wrong? Did I do something wrong?”
The way his expression immediately goes neutral isn’t the least bit subtle. “Take a seat, please. I promise you, everything is fine.”
Bernadetta stumbles into the chair — her chair, as she’s the only one who uses it consistently enough to have fixed the split seam that used to run along the side of its cushion — and draws her legs up into a crossed position. A nervous habit. “When things are really fine, there’s no need for promises, you know.” she points out. “I’d rather you just got it over with.”
Nervous eyes track his movement as he walks to his desk and nods, picking up a stack of letters. “Forgive me for being so vague,” he says. “Let me put some of your fears to rest. You are not in any danger, and you have not done anything wrong.”
She does not miss “some of.” Rather than being soothed, his words only make her sit up straighter, open her eyes wider.
From the way he pauses for a second, she’d guess he had picked up on her thoughts, but he doesn’t comment. “I… have a message to pass on,” he continues. “It is one that I wanted to deliver personally.” Shuffling through, he picks a letter out of the handful and passes it to her.
The gold in the wax seal glitters in the firelight. The family crest pressed into it nearly makes her heart stop. Varley . “F — father.”
Across the desk, Seteth watches her, one finger tapping out an unsteady rhythm. “As you know, all correspondence that originates from the noble houses passes through my hands first.”
She nods. He wanted to be here when she opened it, probably to make sure her father wasn’t up to anything.
He had allied himself with the Empire until the very end.
She hadn’t.
Of all things, what could he want with her now? She’d counted herself as good as disowned.
“Miss Varley?”
She startles where she sits, parchment taut in her hands. “Sorry, yes?”
Seteth sits with his hands laced together on the top of the desk, leaning in to speak to her. “You do not need to read it,” he says gently. “If you prefer, I will dispose of it and we will speak no more of the matter.”
“No,” she says on instinct, more to herself than to him. The mental image of her father chastising her flashes behind her eyelids, but she bats it away. “No. I’m okay. I can do this.” And before he can protest further, Bernadetta von Varley snaps the wax seal embossed with her family crest and begins to read.
“My dear Daughter,” it begins, “Your mother and I are glad to hear that you are well. It has been some time since we have heard from you. Nevertheless, even here we have heard of your accomplishments…”
Despite the way it makes her stomach turn, Bernadetta hangs off every word. The praises written on these pages are alien and yet fascinating in such a way that she can’t turn her eyes away, can’t stop reading. She savors every letter, and feels sick watching herself do so.
A quiet cough draws her attention, and she looks up. Seteth has busied himself with a budget report or some other bit of work equally as boring, but if she knows him by now, she knows it is a ruse. “It’s…” she begins, and he looks up at her expectantly.
Bernadetta skims the last paragraph once more. “ We expect your immediate return home, whereupon you will take over our duties as a Countess. Under our guidance, you will embody our family’s tradition of discipline and leadership… ”
“My father, he — he wants me to go home.” She folds the letter closed.
“ Oh ?” Seteth asks, half standing. When he reaches across the desk, she hands the letter to him and watches as he, too, skims through its contents.
She feels almost lightheaded. “They want me back.”
He nods in agreement.
“I don’t understand. I b — betrayed them. Seteth?”
He looks at her for a moment, contemplating, and hands the letter back to her. “Your parents,” he says, “hold no power now. Not under Her Grace’s rule. You, on the other hand…”
“They need me now,” Bernadetta says, finishing his train of thought. The realization makes her stomach bottom out. “They n — need me.” She holds her skirt in a white-knuckle grip.
“In a sense,” Seteth says evenly, having the good graces to stop at the mere implication of the uncomfortable truth that they both already know. “Ferdinand von Aegir oversees the Empire now, but Byleth would hand your family’s title to you in a heartbeat if you wanted it. They have no real power anymore. Remember that.”
Mutely, she nods, grateful for her Queen’s support. Though she had eventually joined Byleth’s side, it had been much later than most of her peers. It had been the scariest — and one of the best — decisions she’d ever made. Sometimes
“Are you alright?” he asks. “This must come as a shock.”
“I never thought I would — would hear from them again,” she admits. Her own numbness at the development surprises her, but despite the lack of response, Seteth stands. “I’m not — I don’t know what to feel. I just…”.
“Go on.”
“I feel empty inside.”
As she stares at the floor, Bernadetta waits for a placating hand to land on her shoulder, but it never comes. Instead, when she glances up, he stands at one of his bookshelves, hand on his chin as he scans the spines. Finding the one he wants, he fishes it out, crosses the room, and leans against her side of the desk to face her more closely.
“Bernadetta,” he says softly. “There is something I have meant to discuss with you for some time. Are you prepared to listen?”
Swallowing the ache in her throat, she nods, not trusting what would come out of her mouth if she opened.
Gently, he pulls the letter out of her hand and replaces it with the book. “O —our book?” she asks with mild surprise, blinking up at him. “The one about Cichol and Indech? You’re sure?”
“Yes. I have given it some thought, and decided it was a shame to keep such a beautiful thing to myself. With your permission, I would like to add it to our library’s catalog.”
Bernadetta looks up at him at her side and blinks. “Now?”
“Yes,” he answers.
He’s trying to comfort her, in his own way. The simple recognition of that is enough to begin to lighten her mood a little. “You — you really think it belongs there?”
Seteth studies her for a moment. “I do. You are an extremely competent artist, Bernadetta. Your illustrations make it a thing worthy of being passed from hand to hand; otherwise, it would be likely to gather dust on a shelf for years.”
A blush rises to her cheeks at his praise. “Okay,” she says, looking down at her lap. It really is a pretty thing, and she’d worked so hard on it too. “Um, permission granted.”
He nods, satisfied, and pushes himself off his desk. She watches him as he walks to the door and pauses with his hand on the knob to look over his shoulder at you. “Are you coming?” he asks, as if the destination is obvious.
Bernadetta startles to her feet. “‘Coming’ where?”
“To the library,” he explains, and turns the knob.
“R-right,” she says, holding the book to her chest. “Of course.” Glancing at her father’s letter, she hurriedly tucks it into her pocket and resolves to put it out of her mind until later. For now, she wants to enjoy this moment.
Jogging out the door Seteth holds for her, she follows.
With no librarian and no students, the library stands empty.
It’s a lonely sight. One by one Bernadetta’s former classmates have returned home to their territories and political responsibilities. Even Annette and Felix, who had agreed to take on professorships, are away settling family matters. She would have never thought she’d wish for the sound of the sound of Annette giggling behind the books while Felix huffs, but here she is, among the musty shelves, feeling ever-so-slightly out of place in the world.
Seteth traces the book spines with a finger as he murmurs to himself. The children’s books are close to the floor, easier for tiny hands to reach, and he has to kneel to find the place he’s looking for. Bernadetta stands behind his left shoulder as he searches.
“Here we are,” he says, and holds a hand out to her. “‘Varley’ follows ‘Tyrell’.”
She deposits the book in his hand. “You — you're shelving it under my name?”
It slides easily onto the shelf, looking a bit out of place with its somewhat-clumsily-crafted handmade cover. “I hear you are an excellent writer as well. Let this be the first in your catalog.”
“But…!” she protests.
He waves her off. “I have no surname to file under anyways.”
His words give her pause. The fact that Seteth writes isn’t a secret, but until this moment, she’s never seen one of his books before. “You use a pen name?” she asks, somewhat surprised. “Why?”
“I prefer to keep my work and my hobbies separate, and no student would willingly read a book with my name on it,” he says, knees popping as he begins to stand. ”So, to answer your question: yes. It is not a secret I am bent on holding, however. You need only ask.”
Both of them know he doesn’t need the help, but Bernadetta lends him a hand as he heaves himself to his feet anyway. This close, she can see the unearthly flecks of gold that ring his pupils and match his circlet, and thinks of the many tales she read about the Saints as a little girl. “I guess it would be a little strange if Saint Cichol started publishing again, huh?” she says, cautioning a smile.
The grip his hand has on hers grows uncomfortably tight . Seteth looks down at her blankly.
“Pardon… me?” he says. The volume of his voice has dropped, but Bernadetta’s pulse ratchets up in response. “I am not sure that I heard you correctly.”
“I — um —”. All of a sudden, the walls are too close, the bookshelves too tall and stifling. “B — because you wrote all those books about battle strategy, right? And, I mean, it would be weird if you just started publishing fables about yourself h — hundreds of years later…”.
“Indeed it would.” Seteth laughs breathily, but what is normally a comforting noise now makes her feel as if she’s gone and done something horribly wrong. “How — Byleth? Did she tell you?”
“No…? Seteth —” she squirms in his grip.
“Bernadetta, please ,” he says, more deathly serious than she’s ever heard him before. “Explain.”
“The book! I just — put two and two together. I didn’t even — even think about it until I drew you as Saint Cichol, and your crest and birthday and what you said about him and I being friends… I thought you were telling me. You know, without actually telling me, because of what was happening with Edelgard… Seteth?”
The look in his eye grows wilder with every word she speaks. Even during the war, she’d never seen him this unsettled.
Something in her hand pops. “Please,” she whimpers, “you’re hurting me.”
He drops her hand like it’s a hot coal, eyes gone wide. “Forgive me,” he gasps, and grabs the book back from its place on the shelf. Holding it in a white-knuckled grip, he shakes his head at her. “This was a mistake.”
“What?” Hardly before she has time to register what’s happening, Seteth is already blustering out of the library. “W — wait!” she calls, reaching, missing the end of his cape by a hair. “A mistake?”
He whirls, eyes wild. “The fault is entirely my own. I should have known better than to encourage you.” And with a few long strides, he’s gone.
There’s a slam as the library door closes. The resulting silence is deafening.
For a few seconds, it’s all she can do to stare at the spot he once occupied. Evidently, she had been wrong to assume that he had chosen to share that secret with her. The numbness she’d felt earlier begins to crack.
If it was a simple miscommunication, why does it hurt so much?
Seteth’s parting words ricochet in her mind, and unbidden tears slip down her cheeks, pattering onto the floor.
She pulls out her father’s letter. Memories surface in the whirlpool that is her mind: Father, trying again and again to make her worth something. Failure after failure, until he gave up.
She sniffles. She hasn’t changed at all, has she? Stupid, useless, can’t-do-anything-right Bernie. Why is she even here?
Wiping her tears away and hoping that her face isn’t raw enough to draw concern from any onlookers, Bernadetta retreats to her room.
As Seteth pokes at the fire, the logs hiss and pop in protest.
Picking up the glove, he tosses another log on, nudges the grate closed, and glances out the window where the first stars are starting to peek out from behind the storm clouds. He tosses the glove aside and stands to remove his boots and his damp outer layer. Then, he pulls up a chair. It’s not yet bedtime, and despite his long walk around the grounds, his mind is still racing too fast to try to fall asleep.
The book sits lonely on the tea table in the center of the room. With a sigh, Seteth reaches back, catching the corner with his fingertips, and pulls it into his lap. Chin on his fist, he crosses his legs and flips through the pages.
The illustrations really are quite something. They’re rendered in ink and watercolor, the paper slightly wavy underneath — they hadn’t had the resources to be picky with the weight when she made them — and it gives the whole thing a distinctly bespoke aesthetic that he quite likes. The pieces themselves are lovely too. Indech’s visage is kind and yet subtly steadfast. It isn’t accurate, but it’s enough to trigger his nostalgia; Seteth makes a mental note to pay him a visit now that things are settling down.
Cichol does not appear until the latter end of the book. Bernadetta portrays him in the church’s robes with lance in hand, but his perpetually tired eyes shine through, and the way he interacts with Indech feels authentic. Perhaps that is why he had not put an end to this sooner — her illustrations depict Seteth . Cichol, with his generic features and naive idealism, is a distant dream that has only ever existed in cold bronze and stone. He , on the other hand, is precious parchment and ink. Part of him must have recognized how long it had been since he had seen himself depicted so… ordinarily.
Seteth holds the corner of the page between his thumb and pointer finger and pulls it taut. Before him, the fire snaps.
If Bernadetta put the pieces together, others will too. It is a risk he cannot take.
But as he prepares to rip out the first page, the memory of her obvious anxiety when he’d put forward the idea of a collaboration surfaces. Seteth pictures her locked inside her room, worrying about what kind of illustrations would please him; long nights spent rendering him in careful detail; the way she had lit up at his praise.
He would have to be blind or a liar to deny the role he has taken on in her life. His approval means something to her.
Letting go of the page, Seteth snaps the book shut and holds it for a minute. Then, before he can change his mind, he stalks to his bedroom, finds the key on the top of his shelf, and opens the locked drawer in his personal desk.
When the book is locked safely away and the key is once more hidden, he undresses for the night and crawls into bed, hoping to wake up to a clearer mind.
It’s the ninth bell that draws him out of sleep at last.
The previous day’s events must have taken a larger toll on him than he thought, but just as he had hoped, he wakes feeling lighter and refreshed. Running a hand through his hair, Seteth rolls out of bed and begins his day.
His morning routine is rote enough to give him the space to think. As he waits for the shower water to run warm, he decides that the first thing on his agenda is an apology. He spends the rest of the shower running through hypothetical conversations in his mind, and by the time he’s sat down for breakfast with Flayn, he’s resolved to explain his true identity and impress upon her the importance of its secrecy. The short meal is spent relaying all of this to Flayn, and once he has her blessing, he’s out the door and on his way to the block of dorm rooms.
The hallway for students of noble birth is silent and dark. Personally, he’s always thought that he’d prefer to have a courtyard beyond his front door if it were him. Perhaps with Byleth in charge, they will be afforded that choice. The thought puts a spring in his step despite what he has come here to do; in many ways, this — the dorms and this apology — are just another sign of the new, better future to come.
Seteth knocks on the door. When there’s no response after a few seconds, he knocks again.
“Miss Varley?” he says, trying not to raise his voice to a volume that would scare her, “There is something I need to discuss with you.”
Still no response. Perhaps she, too, overslept? He knocks a third time, louder. Nothing.
A cold, uneasy feeling worms its way under his skin. Hoping against hope, Seteth tries the knob. It turns.
He pushes the door open slowly, revealing the bed first, then the rest of the room, and steps through.
It’s empty. Completely empty.
Fighting down the mounting dread, he scans his surroundings. Craft projects litter every corner and laundry is tossed haphazardly onto the floor. It takes a few seconds of whirling, inspecting every corner before he spots a familiar piece of paper on top of the desk: her father’s letter.
Holding it one hand and paying no heed to the clean clothes he is trampling, Seteth walks to the closet and flings it open. There are several gaps, like she’d taken some out. Lying on the bed behind him are empty hangers, and several drawers have been left half open. None of it is conclusive evidence taking into account the amount of clutter that covers the floor, but it’s enough to send him spiraling.
“Shit ,” he hisses under his breath, pinching between his eyebrows. This is his fault.
No. He takes in an even breath. There’s nothing he can do to undo what has already been done, and that sort of thinking hadn’t done any good when Flayn had been taken from him anyway. He has to fix this , now.
Still, the panic is hard to shake. Seteth exits the room and walks, directionless. Who knows what she will do with the knowledge of his identity, beyond Garreg Mach’s walls? Bernadetta wouldn’t hurt a fly, but the Agarthans still lurk in the shadows and one careless word is all it takes to put them in serious danger. Anything could happen.
But another, larger fear pushes his selfish ones to the side: her father. Count Varley’s cruelty had been a rumor since before Bernadetta ever enrolled in Garreg Mach. Upon meeting the girl, he hadn’t wanted to believe it, but her refusal to leave her room for days at a time out of terror was all the confirmation he had needed. Since then, she has opened up to him about it in small ways, never addressing it directly. He’d never pushed. Now, he almost wishes he had. Perhaps if he had gotten her to open up, he could have shown her the reality of his cruelty.
The thought that he has driven her back there is crushing.
When his mind falls back into his body, Seteth finds himself in the second-floor hallway, staff offices on his left and right. The audience chamber lies just ahead, door ajar, and he breaks out in a sprint towards it. In the corner of his eye, he registers Alois stand up from his desk as he passes. Good , he thinks. They will need the knights.
“Your Grace,” he says as he pushes through the doors, paying no heed to the conversation he’s interrupting. Byleth is dressed casually for the day of rest, chatting with a couple of the housekeepers. “I must speak to you privately, immediately.”
All three of the women look at him with naked concern. After a beat, “I’ll speak to you later,” Byleth nods to them, and they take their leave.
As they pass, Seteth stops the one closest to him. “Portia”.
She blinks at him, bowing her head. “Can I help you, my lord?” Her hands are held together, clasped over her apron.
“Prepare a travel pack with two days worth of rations,” he commands, “and send a message to the stablemaster. Have my wyvern saddled at once.”
Her face immediately falls into alarm, the expression echoed by Byleth and the other servant. “Of course,” she says, and picks up the pace as she passes through the door.
“Seteth, what’s wrong?” Byleth asks. Coming to his side, she touches his arm. “Where are you going?”
He shakes his head. Now that he’s here, the urge to vomit up all of his guilt is strong, but there’s no time for wallowing. “Miss Varley. She’s not in her bedroom — I think she has fled.” Taking her hand, he presses Count Varley’s letter into it.
Byleth’s brows draw together as she quickly scans it, expression growing angrier by the second. “I should have exiled him months ago,” she growls.
“No. This is my fault,” he says. The lump in his throat that has been growing steadily since he made the discovery suddenly becomes hard to speak around. “I — she deduced the truth about me. I reacted poorly.”
Byleth swallows, taking in the gravity of the situation. “Seteth.” Her hand travels down his arm until she’s twining her fingers with his. “She’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine,” she says softly.
Seteth squeezes her hand. “If I leave now, I may be able to intercept her.”
“Alois and I will organize the knights and do a sweep,” she says, dropping it. “Go, Seteth. Now. We’ll send a falcon with news, if there is any.”
“I don’t expect to be gone any longer than a full day,” he says quickly, and after a brief nod of acknowledgment, Seteth spins on his heel and begins the long jog to the wyvern pens.
Many hours later, he is nearly at the end of his rope.
He’s far enough out now that, if she really fled back to her family estate — which she had to have, because Byleth has sent him no word and it does not take that long to sweep the monastery grounds — he should be seeing her any minute now. He’s flying low, just above the tallest treetops, cold wind drawing tears from his eyes while he can hardly breathe through the scarf covering half his face. And even beyond all of that, keeping a grip on a flying, moving animal for hours at a time is exhausting.
Still, he presses Olive on and stands upright in the stirrups to stretch his legs as much as he can. He can’t afford not to see this through.
A flash of purple catches Seteth’s eye that, if he had not stood at that exact moment, he might’ve missed completely. He yanks on the reins, Olive screeching in protest, but the beast turns and circles.
Bernadetta and her mare are just off the side of the road, resting by a nearby river. By the time he and Olive land with a heavy thump , she’s already halfway through loading her supplies back into the saddle bags. Hurriedly, Seteth unstraps himself from his saddle, yanks his scarf down, and slides off.
In contrast to its owner, Bernadetta’s horse hardly startles as Olive lumbers to the river. Seteth, meanwhile, stumbles to the side of the road. Sensing defeat, Bernadetta drops her load and stares at him.
“Why are you —”
“I need —”
Both of them stop abruptly. Bernadetta toes at something on the ground. “Y — you first,” she calls to him.
Hesitantly he takes a step into the grass. When she does not move, he advances, slowly, like she is a deer he does not want to startle. “I owe you an apology,” he says once he’s within speaking distance. “Will you hear me out?”
She nods, her whole body tense like she’s ready to run at any moment. “Yes.”
He’d spent the entire flight going over this speech. “You caught me when my defenses were down,” he says, “ but that is no excuse. Allow me to say this: I am sorry. It was irresponsible to involve you in a project so personal as one centering on Indech.” He takes a step forward. “Please, return to Garreg Mach with me.”
Bernadetta stares at him for a second, and then shakes her head at the ground. “No. I won’t.” She says it like she’s trying to convince herself, too. “I’m going home.”
Despite everything, a seed of hurt lodges itself in his heart. He hadn’t rehearsed for this. “I thought you were content at Garreg Mach.”
“I know it’s just for my title; I’m not st — stupid,” she says. Her lip quivers. “But my father needs me. For the first time in my life, he needs me.”
The seed flourishes, and words spill out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Count Varley is a selfish, cruel man, unworthy of being called a father,” he spits, volume rising. “I cannot fathom why you would ever give him the time of day, much less submit yourself to his whims. Why throw away the chance you have been given; give up on your happiness? Why leave without a word? Help me to understand, because clearly I do not.”
By the end of his outburst, he’s almost pleading. Still, Bernadetta flinches. Seteth drops the tense stance he’d assumed in favor of one that is half-defeated.
Barely loud enough to be heard above the breeze, she sniffs, “But when my father gets angry, or he calls me useless, I understand why.”
“I…”.
He’s missed the point entirely, hasn’t he? It was never about the issue of his identity.
“Bernadetta, I have never been angry with you.”
“But you left.” When she looks up, he has to resist the urge to run to her and wipe her tear-stained face clean, just as he has done to Cethleann so many times. The knowledge that he has caused such inner turmoil is nigh unbearable. “You hurt me, and then you left me there.”
“It was never my intention to,” he breathes out. “I am so truly sorry. Please.” The wind brushes through the treetops. “Show me where.”
At her reluctant nod, he surges through the sea of grass gone stiff in the cold, cape floating on the breeze. Gently, he leads her off the side of the road and into a small circle of trees, a thin windbreak.
Shyly she lifts her right hand and removes the glove. Seteth takes her hand. Immediately he spots it — purple bruising where he’d crushed one of her fingers in his grip. The sight makes his stomach churn. “I am so sorry,” he breathes once more. Today, he is setting a well-deserved record for apologies.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs. He purses his lips and sets his own thoughts aside for the moment. Better to focus on what he can do for her now.
“Altogether my magic abilities are quite poor,” he confesses. “Flayn has only just managed to teach me a few spells through the years.”
“It’s not so bad,” she protests. “It looks worse than it is.”
Were it less serious, he could almost laugh — the bruising makes him sick. “Let me try anyway.” The “ it would make me feel better ” is implied, and a sense of relief washes over him when she nods her consent.
Centering himself, magical light begins to glow around their hands, almost seeming to warm the air. A short ways away, Olive huffs as he collapses on the ground, intent on getting a nap in before they take flight once more. The horse has contented itself with some idle grazing time. Like this, it’s almost peaceful. Normal. Just the two of them alone in the world.
As he works, she sniffles. “I don’t want to go,” she confesses, voice thin.
Seteth glances up to her, then back down to their hands. Her eyes shine with tears that threaten to spill over. “I would have you stay with us for as long as you wished.”
Gradually, the bruising melts away. Angry purple fades away, and Bernadetta looks visibly relieved. “Even now that I know your secret?” she asks.
Flexing her hand to test her mobility and seemingly feeling no pain, she slips her glove back on. “I have gone to great lengths to ensure that such a thing would never come to pass,” he sighs. “I was shocked that you had put the pieces together, and in the moment it felt as if Flayn and I were in danger.”
“Flayn, she — I always wondered why she was kidnapped,” she says, blinking with comprehension.
He tilts his head. “I do not understand why you did not broach the subject sooner.”
“Oh, I just — I just thought you probably wanted to be left alone. I wouldn’t want the attention. I thought since we were alone in the library, it would be okay.”
Whether it’s the use of magic or the conversational topic, he’s beginning to feel lightheaded again. “How long?”
“Well… we started the book before Edelgard declared war, didn’t we?”
Five years. Longer than five years, now. To think, she had known and he had been ignorant for so long. “And did you mention it to anyone?”
“Of course not,” she says. “I — I took longer to leave Edelgard than everyone else, but I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
He nods distantly. “I see.”
If she’s kept his secret for so long — and through the war, no less — what does he have to fear?
Seteth looks down at her. Her eyes are red and tired from what must have been a long, exhausting night on the road. Something inside him shifts.
“Perhaps this was for the best,” he murmurs. “There are so many memories I would like to preserve in writing, and you were an excellent partner.”
A cautious smile blooms on her face. It’s a lovely sight. “You want to make more books with me?”
“Nothing would make me happier,” he says, “but I think an introduction is in order.” Carefully, he changes his grip on her hand and shakes it. “My name is Cichol, though I prefer Seteth. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, miss…?”
“Bernadetta,” she says gaily. “Just Bernadetta. Seteth?”
“Yes?”
“I’m exhausted. Could you take me home?”
He softens. “Of course.” And when she falls against his chest to pull him into a hug, he doesn’t hesitate to reciprocate.
The following weeks bring many, many questions about his past. Though discussing so many old memories is often painful, Seteth finds that there’s a unique joy in sharing them with someone new. Bernadetta drinks up every story about him and her crest bearer with the kind of enthusiasm that only serves to encourage him to divulge more and more. The conversations serve as inspiration, too. Seteth has more ideas for new books than he’s had in years, and Bernadetta even has a few of her own.
In the end, the book does find a home on a library shelf. Bernadetta offered to make new illustrations, but after giving it some consideration, he refused. As the Agarthan threat is extinguished and Fodlan in an era of peace that it hasn’t seen for ages, when someone asks too many questions, Seteth merely lets them draw their own conclusions.
Being known , he’s beginning to think, is not always such a terrible thing after all.