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The air in the Emperor's rooms smelled of ink and scorched wax.
Edelgard sat in the richly decorated chancery, having traded her axe for quill and parchment. A tower of paper stood conspicuously on one side of the elegant desk that served as her battlefield. She eyed it with disdain; every document amassed there bore the seal of Volkhard von Arundel. On its opposite side was a much smaller siege tower of requisitions and degrees written by her hand.
Leaning into the back of the cushioned armchair, Edelgard sighed and tilted her head to one side until her ear touched her shoulder. She stayed still for a few seconds before repeating the motion in the opposite direction. The taut nerves down her spine loosened somewhat.
The relief fled her immediately. Thales, while wearing the face of her maternal uncle, had sunk his spidery fingers into every facet of the Empire in her name. Trade, military, the fleet, diplomatic relationships between Enbarrs and the various regions of Adrestia... The man had wanted to pull everyone's strings, and severing them fell to her. After that awaited her the task to cull the numbers of those who ached to call themselves her advisors. Edelgard wanted none of them by her side.
Speaking of loyal advisors, the door opened to let the daughter and heir to the Ochs barony, Monica von Ochs, through. She was one of the two people Edelgard could trust to never plunge a dagger in her spine, the other being Hubert.
"Hail, Your Majesty. May the light of dawn always be propitious," Monica chanted, approaching Edelgard's desk with a bundle of scrolls in her arms.
Edelgard fought the urge to shake her head in her hand. "I haven't been officially crowned yet, Monica. You can spare me the grandeur," she commented.
"My apologies, Your Majesty, but I must refuse. You are already the Emperor of my heart, and every fibre of my being belongs to you."
Edelgard allowed herself a quiet exhalation. She did that often when Monica's admiration for her person overflowed. "I won't waste my breath on it, then. What have you brought me?"
"Declarations of support from the nobility in Enbarr," Monica said with pride, neatly settling the scrolls on the desk one by one. "Several Houses have pledged their allegiance to you, and more are preparing to follow. According to my calculations, everyone will be clamouring to acknowledge your peerless might by the end of this week."
"Thank you, Monica. I shall take it from here," Edelgard interjected. Monica beamed as if she had been highly praised. "I've heard that your father has sent to summon you again."
Monica's expression darkened for a moment. "Yes, I must depart for the barony soon. My father wishes me home ever since he received notification that I was rescued from my kidnappers."
“There is still much you can do for me while at Ochs. Distance from the capital need not mean idleness.”
Light imbued Monica's eyes. "Of course… The journey from Enbarr to Ochs isn't without stops. I can collect new signatures in your name and deliver them when I return to your side-"
Suddenly, she craned her neck, her eyebrows knitting together. "Your Majesty, do you hear that?" Monica asked.
"Hear wha-"
---
The capital of Adrestia smouldered.
Entire districts lay levelled, their once bustling veins reduced to shattered stone. The streets had opened up, spraying their entrails in every direction. The occasional cries for help and despair hovered over the ruins, but the only ones listening beneath the volutes of dust were corpses crushed under the skeletons of the gouged buildings.
The closer one travelled to the centre of Enbarr, the greater the devastation became. Where once proudly rose the wondrous Palace of a Thousand Windows, the Imperial Palace through which flowed the blood of the Empire, a crater had bored through the ground. Not a wall remained, not any of its many ramparts, and certainly not any of its distinguished glass windows. Of its numerous inhabitants lingered a redolence of pulverised flesh.
Many, unable to save themselves or unwilling to let their loved ones return to the Goddess's embrace alone, perished in the incoming hours as squadrons coming from the outside scrambled to assemble and navigate the crumbling city. Those who were found alive by fortune begged their rescuers to tell them what had happened. How Enbarr had fallen from one moment to another.
The answer was always the same. Death had descended from the heavens like javelins forged from the light itself.
Soon, as the tale spread across Fòdlan, voices began to whisper that Enbarr had been given divine punishment for its sins. And so they knelt to the Blue Sea Star, praying to be spared from the Goddess’s Wrath.