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The battle was nearly lost, and Edelgard could already taste the promise of her own death, bitter like iron on her tongue. Before her, a sea of her fallen comrades lay at the foot of her throne. What little remained of her loved ones stained the soles of her boots and soaked the hem of her Imperial finery where the fabric pooled at her feet, brushing along the blood-soaked cobblestone. She took another step backwards and tried to catch her breath as she righted herself, standing tall, her head held high even in the face of defeat. The still-bleeding wound at her temple pounded like horses hooves against her skull.
For the past few hours, she and her imperial soldiers had been making their last stand against the Knights of Seiros. The only thing that stood between the church and the end of the five year war was Ferdinand von Aegir.
Frustration and desperation hung in the air around him. Strands of his golden hair, dyed nearly auburn with the spilled crimson of his fellow Adrestians, clung to the sides of his face, mixing with the sweat that dripped from his brow. Under the church’s banner, he had razed through her troops, slaughtering any who stood in his way as he sought her out. He had come to face her with one goal in mind: to end the Hresvelg legacy.
He cleared a path that led directly to her, slowly approaching like a hunter would his cornered prey. His lance was brandished before him, aimed at the empty cavity in her chest where her heart once lived.
“Edelgard,” he greeted her.
“Ferdinand,” she replied, tightening her grip on Amyr.
“It is over. It is finally over. Lay down your weapon.” His voice was strained with exhaustion, but his resolve was clear. She answered him with a resounding clang of steel against steel. She slashed out at him, but he parried her, catching her axe brutally against his lance.
Ferdinand pushed forward, meeting her strike for strike, but her own overwhelming exhaustion pulled at her limbs. Stubborn, stalwart defiance weighed her down like her body was full of wet sand. Hours, days, years of rebellion were finally catching up to her. She held her own for as long as she could, until eventually Ferdinand was able to wrench her axe from her tired grip, tossing it to the side.
Ferdinand exhaled, as if in surprise, releasing a breath he had been holding for far too long. He had finally managed to best her in a fight. How sentimental it must be for him.
“Enough, Edelgard. You have lost. Your entire army has been struck down. Hubert is gone. You are alone.”
The rising bile in her throat threatened to spill forth at the mention of her beloved retainer, her eldest and dearest friend, who stood by her till the very end. Without him, she knew she truly had nothing. He had made the ultimate sacrifice in her name. He believed in her unwaveringly, forfeited his life for her unflinchingly, and she had nothing to show for it except abysmal failure.
She hoped he would forgive her and still welcome her when she was reunited with him. She would be with him again soon, after all. Even if there was no afterlife—even if all she had to look forward to was a cold patch of dirt—with her dying breath, she would request to be buried alongside him. She knew Ferdinand would honor her final wish.
“But it need not end with more violence,” Ferdinand continued, his voice interrupting her grief and bringing her back to the present moment. There was a softness in his tone that wasn’t there before. It matched the compassion in his gaze. “Consent to being arrested and I will see that you face trial for your crimes. I promise I will keep you safe until then. They will not lay a hand on you.”
As Ferdinand studied Edelgard, unwilling to take his eyes off her lest she lash out at him again, he caught himself being drawn to the flush of her cheeks. Soft puffs of air escaped her lips, causing the hair that had fallen free from her styled updo to flutter against the curve of her jaw.
With a pain that reminded him of the miasma blast he had just suffered on the front steps of the palace, his heart surged in his chest as he finally, after five long years of denial, admitted to himself the depth of his feelings. The impossible longing to spend his life with her, all the while shouldering the fate of hers like a boulder across his back.
One word from her and it would all be over. The river of meaningless blood spilt on her behalf would finally stop flowing. Adrestia would be free from her family’s tyrannical rule. He would stop her, he would do whatever needed to be done, just as his father before him.
When they were young children—long before the fateful year at Garreg Mach Officers Academy that changed everything—the lords of the Seven Houses staged an insurrection, led by Ferdinand’s father, the prime minister, Ludwig von Aegir. They rescued the Empire from the monarchy that stood by as the common folk of Adrestia starved and perished in the streets of Enbarr.
Or, at least, that was how Ferdinand’s father had explained it to him once Ferdinand was old enough to be influenced. Before he was executed by a group of rebels in Hrym territory while fleeing Edelgard’s advancing forces.
Ferdinand knew of some of his father’s faults. He wasn’t perfect, but what man was? Certainly Edelgard’s own father had his own sins to face once he stood before the Goddess for heavenly judgment.
Ferdinand truly believed that everything the late duke had done was for the good of the people of Aegir and for all of Adrestia. Now, as he himself stood before Edelgard, he too felt the burden of upholding justice. Ferdinand took no pleasure in ending the lives of his former classmates–former friends–but they had chosen to follow Edelgard on her warpath against the church. The Archbishop demanded their heads, and so they had forced his hand as judge, jury, and executioner.
“Leave me for Rhea if you don’t have the courage to finish this yourself, Ferdinand,” she rebutted, the Hresvelg blood pumping angrily through her veins. Her pride refused him before her mind had a chance to even consider his offer. “I am my father’s daughter.”
“And I am my father’s son!” Vitriol dripped from his lips as he spat back at her. He raised his lance, but she only held her chin higher. Despite having the height advantage, Ferdinand felt small in the presence of her determination. He wavered for a moment before remembering himself, remembering his duty.
With a heavy breath, he steeled his resolve. “Finish it, I must.”
Edelgard held her ground. She knew of the true evil lurking in the dark and in the blackened heart of Ludwig von Aegir. She knew of her family, experimented on and left to rot in the dungeons of the Imperial Palace. Of her own torment, her body sliced open and mutilated, her childhood taken from her and her innocence stripped away, forced to watch as each of her siblings expired, one by one.
She also knew, despite his father’s best efforts, Ferdinand could not be poisoned by his lies. By complete accident, Duke Aegir had raised a son that was ten times the man he ever was. If she could convince Ferdinand to see reason, if she could open his eyes to the truth, he would do what was right—whatever that may be.
Edelgard had no room in her heart for Goddesses. Instead, she placed her faith in Ferdinand von Aegir.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Ferdinand. You’re worth more than your father ever was.”
Ferdinand’s jaw clenched, a knee jerk reaction to his father’s memory being slandered on her duplicitous tongue. “Do not speak of my father!”
“Then let us speak of my siblings. Certainly you remember how your father led them—led me—to the dungeons, never to be seen again.”
“I…” Ferdinand’s breath caught, something like the beginning of realization flashing across his face as he hesitated again. “He never spoke of what fate befell the other Hresvelg children.”
“You’re not a naïve man, Ferdinand. You know what happened to them. You know, deep down in your heart, what he did to them.”
Shame wasn’t an emotion that Edelgard associated with Ferdinand, but she saw it spark in his eyes as he digested her words. She had found his weak point. As much as he loved his father, despite it all, he knew there were things that his father kept from him. The lies and actions of another man would torment Ferdinand for the rest of his life.
“In me you see them,” Edelgard pushed on. “Look at their faces in mine. Hear their screams, imagine their terrors, see their blood.”
There was something in Edelgard’s tone, a haunted look in her eye, that gave him pause. With only a few words, Edelgard has managed to chip at the foundation of Ferdinand’s worldview. His entire life, he had been unwaveringly loyal to his country and his father, convinced that his father’s actions had been honorable and just. Any evils he committed had been born of necessity, not desire.
But how could one possibly justify the execution of eleven innocent children?
“My father shook his head and told me not to ask.” Ferdinand mumbled to himself as his steps faltered slightly, tripping backwards, his lance lowering. His eyes drifted away from Edelgard to stare off at some distant memory.
“But I believe he did a proud and vital task, and in my father’s name…” he recited, as if to convince himself instead of Edelgard. His weapon hung forgotten and unwanted at his side.
“Do it and I will be with my brothers and sisters in that cellar beneath the palace all over again.”
Ferdinand’s sense of morality and his sense of duty crashed against each other, a raging storm within him, leaving him lightheaded and foggy. Despite everything, he still felt honor bound to the late Duke Aegir, but ending the life of someone he loved was harder than he expected.
Love. He loved her. Despite everything, he loved her.
“The children, their voices… A man makes painful choices. He does what’s necessary, Edie.”
She tried to muffle the sound, but he heard her gasp at the use of the nickname that Dorothea had given her so many years ago. Had he ever called her that before? Why did it taste so sour on his tongue?
Did it remind her, too, of everything—and everyone—they had lost?
Ferdinand hadn’t made a conscious decision to drop his lance before his body acted of its own accord. With his hands free, he grabbed at Edelgard, gripping her wrists tight enough that the metal from his gauntlets dug into her skin.
“For Adrestia, my beauty. What choice but simple duty? We have a past to bury, Edie.”
His lips were on hers before she had a chance to refuse him, his arms sliding to wrap around her waist in a bruising embrace. He held her tightly against him, rendering her immobile, unable to pull away. Edelgard froze in surprise, not expecting him to touch her in such a familiar way. Not expecting his passion. Her fingers gripped and tugged at the fabric of Ferdinand’s jacket in an attempt to hoist him off of her, but he confused her struggling with submission. Crowding her against the edge of her throne, he loomed over her, taking what he desperately needed.
Every hard line of his armor and body pressed into her and she felt everything and nothing. The taste of Almyran Pine Needles lingered on his lips. Edelgard remembered the last time they had drank it together, sipping sweetly in the courtyards of Garreg Mach Monastery, before Ferdinand knew of the secrets and the lies and the truth and everything else that stood between them.
There had been no time for love or friendship for her back then, and now her time was almost up. Those Who Slither in the Dark stole her childhood from her, but she had never allowed herself to live. Avenging her siblings, freeing Fódlan from Rhea and her kin, dismantling the crest system and the nobility—she had lived for her ideologies instead of for herself—and she had never regretted it.
And yet…
In another reality, she could have. She could have let others in, she could have trusted more. She could have lived. With Ferdinand. With Hubert. With her fellow Black Eagles and her beloved professor.
But Edelgard could not turn back the hands of time. So she barreled forward, an object in motion always in motion.
With a sharp tug, she finally dislodged Ferdinand from her, and he stumbled backwards, looking at her as if he only finally realized what he had done. He fell to his knees before her and buried his head in his hands, unable to face her.
Edelgard regarded Ferdinand’s crumpled form, noting his distraction. Her hand silently moved to hover over the hilt of her concealed dagger, fingers twitching in anticipation. It would all be over soon. She would make it quick.
The calloused pads of her fingertips brushed against cold metal, nipping at her skin like frostbite. A shiver ran up her spine before she could suppress it. Her heart had already frozen over years ago, so why did it suddenly hurt anew, a wound reopened?
Seconds felt like minutes slipping away, until Ferdinand registered her hand gently placed atop his head in a comforting gesture. After a moment of indecision, he tentatively reached up and took it in his own, gliding his gauntlet across her open palm to intertwine their fingers.
Cautiously, he raised his gaze to meet hers. Without a single word uttered between them, they both offered their apologies and forgiveness. Ferdinand’s eyes confessed everything to her and her returning look answered his every unspoken question.
The commotion from the rest of the church’s forces approaching broke whatever spell had been cast over them. Ferdinand stood at the sound, glancing over his shoulder to gauge how much time they had left.
Not enough. Never enough.
“Go,” he whispered, finally releasing her hand and setting her free. He spoke quietly, afraid that if he declared the words too loudly, he would be forced to acknowledge that he had said them. Instead, he let them slip past him, turning a blind eye. He retrieved his lance and prepared himself.
Edelgard hesitated, realizing what Ferdinand intended to do.
“What will you tell them?”
“That I was not my father’s son after all.”