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Instantaneously, his departing words sink in. Dimitri had not told her outright to let go, but Edelgard knew what he had meant. The way his gaze lingered on her, the faint tremor in his voice as he spoke her name, the silence that followed—all of it carried a truth sharper than any sword.
Countless times she had watched him leave. Each time, he was riding toward the front lines, back to the war that had once united their fates and yet relentlessly kept them apart. This time, however, was different. This was the first time he did not promise to come back.
“El, listen to me. No matter how hard things get, you can’t give in, okay?"
Once, long ago, he had sworn to remain at her side. Back when they were still children bound by shared pain and fragile dreams, back when she had believed such words could defy the cruelty of the world. She remembered: a boy with blond hair framed his face in soft boyish strands and that shy blue eyes, stumbling over his own feet as she taught him the basic steps of a dance he swore he would master. He had held her hands with a hesitant gentleness, laughing awkwardly when he misstepped, but never letting go.
In those days, Edelgard had believed Dimitri would grow into a man who would always take her hands the same way; steady, warm, and unwilling to release them even if the world pulled them apart; a boy who would grow into a man determined to reach her, no matter how many walls or miles lay between them.
But, the memory of those days felt painfully distant now, as if they belonged to a different lifetime.
Perhaps it was selfish to wish for that promise to endure; even when the dagger he had once given her still rested at her hip. She had kept it through the years, through the shifting tides of war, through every separation and every clash. She told herself it was for practicality, for self-defense, for tradition. But deep down, she knew she carried it because it was his.
Was it too much to ask?
Her purple eyes searched the empty horizon. He was gone now, the rhythmic thunder of hooves long faded into the wind. Still, she had stood atop the high walls of Enbarr’s fortress until the blue and gold banners of the Kingdom’s army vanished from sight. The late sun dipped low, flooding the sky with scarlet and gold; the colors of her Empire, the colors of her resolve, and the colors of his eyes when they softened for her.
“Your Majesty,” Hubert’s voice came from behind, measured yet tinged with something she could not place. “It is time to return to the palace.”
She gave a faint nod, but her feet did not move.
Her hand drifted to the dagger’s hilt. The metal was cool beneath her touch, the worn leather grip familiar against her palm. The words he had once given her as a boy still echoed in her memory despite many years had passed.
"You’ve got to cut a path to the future you wish for, no matter what, El."
She had remembered those words countless times in the quiet of her chambers, wondering if he had truly meant them, or if they had been nothing more than a child’s promise made in ignorance of what the world would demand of them.
She almost wished he had never given it to her.
Not because she did not value it, but because it bound her to a hope she could no longer carry. If only to spare his heart the weight of a vow he could not keep… and to spare hers the quiet devastation of watching him leave without the words she longed to hear.
As the shadows deepened over Enbarr, the Emperor of the Adrestian Empire stood alone upon the battlements. Her fingers tightened around the dagger until the edge of the guard pressed into her skin. It was heavier than it should have been. Heavy with all the unspoken words, the fractured promises, and the lingering ache of knowing that for all their shared history, they were now standing on opposite ends of a war that neither could abandon.
Somewhere beyond the horizon, Dimitri rode into the dark, carrying his own silence. Perhaps remembering the day he had first placed that dagger in her hands.
And Edelgard remained, watching the last trace of daylight fade, wondering which would disappear first: the war between them, or the edge that had once been a bridge.