Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Professor,” Dimitri said, his deep voice always sending a shudder through her body despite the distance she desperately tried to put between them. “It has been a lifetime, has it not?”

“It certainly feels like it,” she answered truthfully.

Two years had passed since the war ended, since the fragile, budding thing between her and the new king was crushed under her heel.

They had defeated Edelgard, won the war, and brought peace to a newly united Fódlan. They were heroes.

They were miserable.

Dimitri shifted to his other foot and tried to fake a smile, all teeth. It reminded her of their old tea times, when he awkwardly admitted that he struggled with facial expressions.

His discomfort was so palpable, she felt a pang of guilt for imposing on him. But staying at one of the city's inns with the weight of strangers’ gazes upon her, being toasted as the “Savior of Fódlan”... no, the thought made her sick. The privacy the castle provided was worth an awkward reunion.

His words were as rigidly formal as the stiff set of his face. “You look well.”

She snorted. This polite farce had gone on long enough. “No, I don’t.”

He dropped the fake smile. “No, you don’t,” he said.

The genuine regret in his voice made her heart ache. Despite armoring herself against such feelings, the time apart had dulled her memory of just how captivating he was. As dangerous as he was with a lance, his genuine earnestness had always been her undoing. It had taken less than five minutes for him to start chipping away at the walls she'd erected to keep him out.

She tried to inject her voice with the full indifference of the Ashen Demon. “Neither do you, Your Majesty.”

That wasn’t actually true. His complexion was healthier than when last they met, and his clothes stretched slightly across a body that had clearly filled out.

Despite her rudeness, a soft but genuine smile softened his face. “Indeed. Dedue never fails to remind me.”

His amiability was as infuriating as it was charming. She wished he would scold for her absence and failures, to hurt her as much as she had surely hurt him. At least that way, she could comfort herself with the fact that he had moved on.

But instead, he was kind, holding out an arm for her. “Well, I’m sure you’re hungry. I’ve had the cooks prepare your—”

“I need to go see Felix,” she blurted out, interrupting him.

He pulled his arm back, seamlessly transitioning the action into rubbing at the nape of his neck, an old habit of his that she found unfairly adorable. “Right. Of course. I’ll take you—”

“I know the way.”

She ran-walked away, her eyes fixed ahead, not daring to glance backwards and see what she was leaving behind. Because the truth that she alone knew was that the once-feared Ashen Demon, the so-called Savior of Fódlan, was nothing but a coward now.

“This is a nice spot,” she said, spreading out a blanket next to Felix. Head resting on her arm, she lay on her back and stared at the patches of blue sky through the boughs of a large maple tree.

Felix didn’t answer, of course. This particular conversation required her to do most of the talking. Fortunately, she had honed her ability to start conversations thanks to a year of traveling with Shamir before they parted ways—Shamir returning to her home and Byleth going anywhere but hers.

“For the record, I said they should put your memorial at the Garreg Mach training grounds, but the knights were afraid you’d haunt them if they had poor form.” The air was still as the bronze statue itself, not even a breeze to rustle the leaves. She sighed. “Yeah, you wouldn’t have laughed at that when you were alive, either.”

She confided in him about her decision to decline the archbishop position. Would he think she had done the right thing? No, he’d probably disapprove of her choice, she decided. For all his complaints about chivalry and his father, when the moment came to take up the mantle of Duke Fraldarius, he didn’t hesitate.

Knowing him, he wouldn’t have trusted anyone else to do it properly.

She tried to conjure his face in her mind, but time had worn away the memory like water over stone. But she could remember his voice perfectly, how his harsh tone softened as he grew to trust and confide in her.

I’ve spent all these years training for a duel with a corpse, he had said.

The words came into her head unbidden, a chastisement from beyond the grave. She too had devoted herself to a lost cause, gaining strength and skill to protect one who was already gone.

Dimitri’s period of rage and madness made much more sense to her now. If she had to endure Felix’s disapproving gaze every day and listen to him repeat her darkest thoughts, she wouldn't last a moon. And Dimitri had dealt with it alone for five years.

No, still dealt with it, mostly alone, and probably would for the rest of his days.

She refocused her attention back on Felix. That’s who she was here for. Speaking aloud felt silly, given that he couldn't hear her, so she opted to communicate silently through her thoughts.

Sylvain’s getting married; that's why I'm here. I think you would approve. The two of them together are a pain in the ass, but at least Claude doesn’t let Sylvain get away with the “good for nothing noble” act.

A familiar ache throbbed in her chest. She was happy for Sylvain, of course, but this wedding shouldn’t be happening. If she hadn’t been so useless in Enbarr, it would have been Felix waiting for him up at the altar instead of Claude. They would have been married years ago, probably.

“Where are you coming from this time?”

Byleth jumped at the unexpected voice, then groaned. Sylvain was the last person she wanted to see, but his presence was unavoidable. It was his wedding that brought her here, after all.

“Morfis,” she said. “They’ve got a new technique to slow bleeding from puncture wounds.”

She intentionally omitted that while she'd set off on her travels with Shamir, she'd spent most of the last two years on her own. That was sure to earn her an earful.

He had his hands in his pockets, his posture loose, but he didn’t fool her. His mind was always observing, calculating. He quirked a wry grin—more of a grimace, really. “Still determined to save everyone in the world, then?”

“Don’t presume to lecture your professor,” she said, even though she had long since abandoned any authority she’d had over him. “Is it so bad to want to help people?”

His smile sharpened into something predatory, and she realized that she had walked straight into a trap. “I know someone right here that could use your help.”

“Don’t start, Sylvain.”

She started packing up her things in a petulant huff, shoving her too-large blanket into a bag with unnecessary force.

But he gave her no quarter. “Whatever it is about yourself that you think he’ll reject you for, you’re wrong.”

“You can’t know that,” she snapped, and then cursed herself again.

She realized too late that he’d been fishing, and she had helpfully confirmed his suspicions. Even at the academy, he had been too clever by half. But now that he spent most of his time with Claude, conversation with Sylvain felt like playing chess blindfolded.

“At least tell him, Byleth. Give the man a choice, for the goddess’s sake. He’s barely living anymore. Death by a thousand cuts.”

It took only one cut to kill Dimitri, though. One moment of vulnerability to drive a dagger through his heart. Byleth should know; she’d seen it happen.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Felix—”

A wince flashed on Sylvain’s face at the mention of his former love’s name, gone so quickly she might have imagined it. “Felix was the last person who would want you to punish yourself for his sake.”

Sylvain was right, of course. No one had known Felix better. If she had been stronger, they would likely be celebrating their anniversary now, rather than planning a new wedding.

Ambushed by a targeted triangle attack of logic, compassion, and honesty, her mind swirled with self-doubt. She should tell Dimitri what had happened; it was only right.

And yet... The consequences could be disastrous. What if it resurrected the vengeful obsession he'd worked so hard to put behind him? Or worse, what if he blamed himself for her failure?

Since the war ended, she always reacted the same way when faced with the truth, and now was no exception. 

Without another word, she ran away.

Her callous escape didn't stop Sylvain from seeking her out the next day, though.

“Oh, Byyyyy-leeeth,” he called in a singsong voice that heralded mischief.

“Can I help you?”

“So sweet of you to ask, O benevolent Professor!”

Byleth sighed. “Let’s skip the part where you compliment me and offer me dinner, and get right to the favor.”

He pouted, but adopted a more serious tone. “I need to go hunting.”

Her early life on the road meant Byleth knew how to live off the land. She had eaten well during her travels these last few years. The furs and meat she hunted had also covered the cost of staying at an inn when she desperately needed to bathe.

Among the Blue Lions, Felix had probably been the most skilled hunter. Dimitri’s derogatory nickname hadn’t been chosen randomly; it was Felix’s wealth of experience boar hunting that inspired him to draw the comparison to the prince. He and Byleth had even taken several trips together during the war, when supplies ran low.

Dimitri was an excellent hunter in his own right. He never would have survived five years on the run otherwise. She wondered if he had ever bartered for a room like she had, but the opportunity to ask him such personal questions had come and gone. Did he even enjoy hunting anymore? He had a soft heart and had been squeamish about killing since the war ended.

Honestly, all her students were capable of surviving in the wild— well, Mercedes might have struggled, but she was so kind that no one would turn her away. But Byleth was quite sure that Sylvain had never once spoken of hunting before.

“Do you even know how?” she asked.

“I mean, I understand the gist of it,” he said. “Find the thing, kill the thing. I can manage killing well enough, but it’s the finding part that I could use some help with.”

“What’s this about, Sylvain?”

To her surprise, his face pinked a bit as he averted his gaze. “These days it's considered kind of old-fashioned, but Faerghan tradition dictates that a groom go on a hunt before the wedding and present his spouse with a blanket or cloak from the pelt. I know Claude wouldn't care if I skipped it, but…”

Byleth nodded in understanding. A similar nostalgia had struck her after Jeralt’s death. She found herself yearning for the days of roasting apples over a campfire during harvest season or teaming up to put the newly hired mercs through their paces.

She hadn't appreciated the true value of those small moments at the time, realizing too late how priceless they were. A few days after her father’s funeral, Dimitri, always so thoughtful, remembered the stories she’d shared and persuaded the cooks to roast apples for her. Sometimes, he seemed to understand her feelings with a depth that surpassed her own self-awareness.

She scolded herself. Those happy times were a closed chapter of her life, and revisiting them could only invite heartache. But perhaps she could follow Dimitri’s example and help someone else create a joyful memory.

“All right,” she conceded. “Who all is going?”

The true question— is Dimitri going? — went unsaid, but she was sure Sylvain understood.

He ticked off their friends on his fingers. “Well, Ashe is busy, Annette doesn’t want to hurt anything cute… for my own safety, I don’t fancy being alone in the woods with Ingrid, and Dedue promised he would pummel me if I took Dimitri.”

She chuckled. “Sounds about right.”

“I need you! You’re the best hunter I know.”

Much like her unasked question, his statement included an unsaid now that Felix is gone hanging at the end.

“Fine, fine,” she said, but the ghost of a smile tinged her stern professor expression. “Meet me at the stables at dawn. Don’t be late.”

Twelve hours later, with an early Faerghus frost crunching under her boots, Byleth decided that the only thing she was killing today was Sylvain.

“You told me he wouldn’t be here!” she hissed under her breath.

An unrepentant grin stretched across Sylvain’s face. “Aha, I think if you recall my exact words, I said that Dedue promised to pummel me if I brought Dimitri,” he pointed out. “Soooo, hey! A silver lining! Something to look forward to when we get back, right?”

“You're going to have a black eye on your wedding day if Dedue gets his way.”

“Don't worry about that. Claude can heal it. You taught him, remember? He still has nightmares about it.”

For all his flaws, Sylvain knew exactly how to butter a person up. Reminding Byleth of her time as a professor was a sure way to get on her good side. It had been a grueling few moons grinding everyone's faith skills up to a D, but the comfort of knowing every student could at least cast Heal had been more than worth the trouble.

She sighed, temper defusing. A few stalls down, Dimitri readied his mare, humming a jaunty little tune. Something twisted in her chest when she noticed three javelins strapped to his saddlebag. For all she knew, bringing them was another one of Sylvain's schemes to entice her to come.

After what had been a run-of-the-mill auxiliary battle with her students, she’d wrested a rusty, ancient Gravidus from the hide of a slain demonic beast. Not wanting to squander such good fortune, she immediately started her star student training with throwing lances. Dimitri had been reluctant, worried about his accuracy and the possibility of striking an ally in the confusion of battle. But back then, he would never have refused his beloved professor anything. So he had trained with them exclusively for moons, until his range and precision were nearly equal to Claude's.

Those were precious times, both for the unshakable trust they shared, and for the small respite it had given him from the demons that plagued him. She watched him again now, smiling and feeding his favorite horse an apple. The prospect of a few days’ freedom from his responsibilities had him practically bouncing with excitement. She couldn’t bear to disappoint him; if she left, he’d know it was because of his presence.

“Sylvain, I swear to the goddess,” she said, trying to sound stern despite all her anger having dissipated. “Someday soon, people will replace ‘sons of bitches’ with ‘sons of Gautier’ when referring to assholes like you.”

He hoisted himself into the saddle with practiced ease, smile blinding. “No such thing as bad publicity, Professor!”

Any residual annoyance she felt melted away early in their trip. When two mercenaries in his company were having problems getting along, Jeralt always assigned them to some task that required a fair amount of travel, and Byleth was beginning to see why.

The entire first day was spent following a game trail through the sparsely wooded Faerghan countryside. Sylvain quickly abandoned his attempts to engage them in awkward conversation and surrendered to the soothing sounds of the forest.

The birdsong and steady clop of their horses’ hooves lulled her into a state of serenity she wouldn’t have thought possible after the tense reunion with her students.

Of course, she had long been aware of the calming effect a day like this could have. Dimitri and Byleth had shared many a leisurely ride in enjoyable silence.

It had become a habit at the academy when he was training for his paladin certification. They found solace in each other’s presence, and the rides provided a much-needed break from the stresses of their days, so they continued after his class change. She was more grateful than she could say when they resumed their ritual after the battle at Gronder. After he came back to her. No, she scolded herself, came back to all of them.

Apparently, their cherished tradition could soothe even the deepest of wounds, because they were still feeling unusually content as they lounged by the fire that night. Sylvain retired early, ostensibly to end the boredom of the day. But Byleth could tell he was scheming to get her and Dimitri alone. Normally, that would make her furious, but after the serene ride and the flickering firelight reflecting off Dimitri’s golden hair as the sun set, she found herself unable to muster any real outrage.

“This reminds me of my youth,” Dimitri said idly. “The days I spent with Glenn and my father.”

“Did your father do a hunt like this before he was married?” she asked, the words tumbling out as easily as they used to over chamomile tea.

“Yes,” he said, animated in a way she hadn’t seen in a long time. “In fact, the pelt he presented my mother with still adorns my bed. The tradition has a special place in my heart for that reason.”

“That’s nice.” From anyone else, such a tepid acknowledgement would probably sound insincere or uninterested. But Dimitri had always understood her stunted way of expressing herself. “I wonder if Jeralt did, for my mother.”

“What do you think of the tradition?” he asked, watching her with an intensity that seemed disproportionate to the idle question.

“It’s practical. I like that. Very Faerghan.”

“Indeed,” he said. “I know I shouldn’t play favorites, but now that we are one united Fódlan, I find myself clinging to the things that are uniquely Faerghan. Is that wrong?”

She considered, hand under her chin. “As long as it doesn’t prevent you from treating everyone equally, I think it’s okay to have a favorite.” The friendly atmosphere between them emboldened her, and she continued where she would normally have kept silent. “I certainly had a favorite student back when I was a professor.”

He leaned in towards her, elbows on his knees. The reflection of the fire made his blue eyes appear to dance. “Oh, really? Pray tell, who was this fortunate individual, to be so favored by our esteemed professor? I should like a word with them.”

Her facade cracked, and she let out a burst of laughter that surprised even herself. Dimitri’s smile was as exultant as if he had won another war. So warm, despite how cruelly she’d pushed him away.

Was it truly okay to laugh like this? To be happy? Sylvain and her other students were moving on with their lives. It felt… right. Had she been a fool all this time, holding herself back?

“Dimitri…”

A wind so strong it threatened to extinguish the fire whipped up a storm of dust around them. Byleth pulled her cloak over her face to shield her eyes.

“Professor, Your Majesty!” Ingrid called urgently before she even dismounted her pegasus. “Where’s Sylvain?”

The man in question stumbled groggily out of his tent. “What the hell, Ing?”

“It’s Claude,” Ingrid said. “He’s gone.”

The desperate ride back to the castle went by in a blur. Dimitri went to speak with Claude’s newly arrived parents—Byleth definitely didn’t envy him having to tell them they’d somehow lost the king of Almyra. Instead, she followed Ingrid and Sylvain up to Claude’s quarters in a daze.

Her breathing picked up as a number of horrifying possibilities flashed through her mind. Claude’s bloody corpse lying on the ground. Sylvain, broken, sobbing over the body.

No, no. Not again. She knew she shouldn’t have left the castle. Her Divine Pulse was useless now; it had been far too long since whatever incident had occurred. She’d relaxed her vigilance for one night, and her worst nightmare had come true.

Her question from earlier was answered with brutal honesty: no, Byleth, you do not deserve to be happy.

She was so lost in her brooding that Sylvain had to shake her out of it when they reached Claude’s quarters. The reality of the situation was much less frightening than the horrors her anxiety had conjured. There was no corpse, no blood, nothing that seemed out of place at all.

Well, for this particular room, anyway. There were stacks of books on nearly every horizontal surface, several open journals written in an indecipherable hand, and a few glass vials of dubious contents. Claude had been staying here, after all.

But he was nowhere to be found now. A cursory investigation had already confirmed that the rest of the castle had been searched to no avail.

Byleth ran her fingers along the desk. The candle was lit, a quill still resting in the inkpot. Claude’s reading glasses sat to the side of the letters he’d clearly been writing. She wasn’t terribly proficient in Almyran, but it seemed like his writing stopped right in the middle of a sentence.

In other words, very much not the desk of someone who had wrapped up a task and gone out on another errand of their own volition. But also not the desk of a person dragged out forcibly, either. And this room was at the end of a long hallway on the second floor of the royal castle. It wasn’t like some bad actor could have even made it this far with the heightened security for the wedding.

“He left on his own, but he didn’t plan to be gone long,” she said, summarizing her thoughts out loud. “Could he have left with someone he knew?”

Sylvain pursed his lips. “Or someone he thought he knew…”

“You can’t possibly mean…” Ingrid trailed off, horrified.

When he turned his gaze to Byleth, a complicated expression passed over his face. She imagined she looked much the same to her students after using the Divine Pulse to save their lives, wanting to shelter them from the pain of the truth.

But Sylvain couldn’t turn back time, and he couldn’t shield his professor from reality. He waved her over to the desk, where he was flipping through a battered journal. “You’re gonna want to see this, Byleth.”

With a crash, Byleth burst into the king’s quarters, eyes wild and expression terrified. When she caught sight of him, though, she froze. The important news she needed to deliver completely escaped her.

“Byleth, what’s wrong?” he said, or probably said, because Byleth could only see his mouth moving as she stared at his state of undress—bare chested wearing nothing but his riding trousers.

Without his tunic, the way the pants hugged his legs—and… other things—sent a blush crawling up her neck. He’d gained weight since she’d last seen him, and his clothes strained against his frame, as if they hadn’t been updated to accommodate his fuller size.

Where the muscles of his torso had once seemed carved from stone, now there was a gentle curve to his belly, a softness she longed to rest her head upon. A cute roll of fat spilled over his slightly-too-tight waistband, the first ever sign that his impossibly trim waist was, in fact, subject to the laws of physics. It would make a perfect handhold to pull him closer to her.

She’d had the chance to run her hands over his body only once before, back when he was all sharp edges and unyielding solidity. He would always be beautiful to her, no matter what. But this softer, healthier Dimitri was proving particularly distracting.

His face flushed scarlet when he followed her lecherous gaze. Hastily wrapping a blanket around himself, he looked like a child seeking his parents after a nightmare. His mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was at fault, even though she was the one that had practically kicked down his door in the middle of the night.

“My apologies!” he squeaked.

“Don't be ridiculous. I barged into your room.”

“Maybe, but I should have covered myself, or… or shouted a warning or something. Please forgive my unseemly appearance—”

Byleth’s soul finally returned to her body from wherever it had escaped to. “N-no, it’s not that,” she said, her own cheeks pink. “Well, it’s a little that. I’m sorry for staring. It’s just, well… you have a belly.”

He pulled the blanket tighter around his body in embarrassment. “W-well I have to spend a lot of time behind a desk these days. I've been trying to keep up with my training, but the meetings, and the paperwork—”

Jeralt used to laugh at Byleth's appalling attempts at compliments. As a child, she'd learned the hard way that other little girls didn't appreciate comments on the generous width of their shoulders, or the quality leather of their shoes. And now, possibly the most handsome man in Fódlan was rapidly developing a complex because of her clumsy praise.

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” she assured him.

“How else am I meant to interpret such a statement?”

Her flustered state made it hard to get any intelligible words out, but the alternative was letting his insecurities fester in the silence. “It’s just… you were always so thin, training yourself to exhaustion and not eating enough. With a little meat on your bones… well. Peace looks good on you.”

“You like… the way I look?”

Her face burned. Would they ever be able to have a normal conversation again? “I would have thought that was obvious from… before,” she said, looking everywhere but at him.

The void Solon had banished her to would have been preferable to this embarrassment. What had possessed her to say that? Now her thoughts were replaying the singular night of bliss before Enbarr, with Dimitri bare and panting below her, gazing at her like she was the only star in his sky. She’d had enough of this torture on lonely nights for the last two years, but now he was right in front of her, probably thinking about the same thing.

“Hubert!” she squeaked.

He gaped at her. “I’m sorry…?”

“Claude, I mean. He found…”

“Wow, the tension in here is so thick it might break the knife,” came the familiar drawl of Sylvain. “I am dying to know what I just walked in on, but that’ll have to wait.”

“Are you seriously teasing them right now?” scolded Ingrid.

Byleth cut in to defend Sylvain. “You know how he deals with things.”

Ingrid looked properly chastised. They had all watched Sylvain flirt, joke, and deflect his way through the aftermath of Miklan’s death. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest method of dealing with stress, but it’s not like Byleth had found a better one.

They had picked up Dedue somewhere on their trip across the castle, and Annette walked in a few minutes later, her bright red hair rolled into curlers.

“Anyway,” Sylvain said, obviously annoyed at being talked about as though he wasn’t there. “What Byleth was trying to say is that Claude has been reviewing the mountain of documents we recovered from Hubert’s office. And he’s uncovered some… concerning information.”

“Elaborate,” said Dedue, who had fetched a shirt and helped Dimitri into it before taking up his usual post at the king's side.

It didn’t escape Byleth that Dedue placed himself between her and Dimitri, like the king needed to be protected from her. She couldn’t blame him.

Sylvain opened a journal and conjured a flame in his hand to illuminate it. The ease with which he performed the action suggested he’d kept up his reason training. At the academy, she’d had to bribe him by agreeing to join him for dinner to get him to attend Hanneman’s seminar. But he took to it quickly after that, and she was glad that he still had that tool in his arsenal to keep him safe.

The flame exaggerated the shadows under Dimitri’s furrowed brow, making him look much older. It wasn’t long before he realized the journal was written in some kind of code. “What exactly am I looking at, Sylvain?”

“He’s finally been able to decipher some of Hubert’s journals. This is a list of names.” Sylvain pulled a piece of paper from the back of the notebook, Claude’s notes, and handed it to Dimitri. “Most of the names are crossed out, corresponding to people we killed in the war or before. Tomas, Monica von Ochs, Cornelia, Lord Arundel… but there’s one name left.”

“Myson,” Dimitri read from the page. His eyes instinctively darted to Byleth for only a moment before averting his gaze. “The one that—”

The one that killed Felix. Nobody said it aloud, but the words were deafening in the silence.

He cleared his throat, his time as king allowing him to maintain a state of level-headed professionalism. “If I remember correctly, he and a few mages retreated when the battle turned against them. They seemed to have no loyalty to…”

He trailed off. It was still hard for him to say her name.

Byleth couldn’t blame him. Every time she closed her eyes, she watched Edelgard’s bloody head roll helplessly into her boots all over again.

“What have you done?” a phantom version of Dimitri’s voice echoed in her mind. “You’ve ruined everything!”

She flinched at the memory, and Dimitri glanced at her in concern, searching her face. The Stony Ashen Demon took over her features, hiding the truth of her fears.

Sylvain flipped a few pages ahead in the journal, where Hubert had drawn a detailed map of Fódlan. The plans for their failed defense of Enbarr were scribbled in the margins. Byleth had found it macabre studying his notes, like looking through the eyes of a dead man.

After two years of ruling all of Fódlan, Dimitri probably knew every inch of this map by heart. So he spotted the unfamiliar landmark much quicker than she had.

“Shambala…” he read. “What is this place?”

“Claude thinks it is, or was, the headquarters of those mages allied with the Empire.”

Dimitri considered. “You suspect them because of their ability to take another’s face?”

Ingrid nodded. “The state of his room suggests he walked out willingly with a person he trusted.”

“Who could it have been?” Dedue asked.

“All the people who were replaced had disappeared for an extended period, then reappeared changed,” Dimitri said. “Everyone here has only left for brief times, usually in the company of someone else here that would have noticed…”

Sylvain and Ingrid looked awkwardly towards Byleth, the others following their gaze. 

“Shamir,” Byleth said.

“But she was with you, was she not?” Dimitri asked.

She felt distinctly like a naughty child confessing they had broken an expensive vase.

“For a while, yes,” she admitted. “But about a year ago, she wanted to visit home for a while, but I heard about some advancements in Enbarr, so…”

“How could you be so—” Dimitri schooled his expression, arm twitching in an aborted attempt to reach out to her. “We will discuss that another time. I am so sorry, Byleth. I know she was a treasured friend.”

His words were so earnest she had to swallow a lump in her throat that wanted to become a sob. It was so typical of Dimitri to think of her feelings at a moment such as this. After all this time and all her failures, he continued to treat her with such kindness.

Those were perilous thoughts, and they were also beside the point. She could mourn Shamir later, yet another life lost to Byleth's negligence that she would need to atone for. But Claude might still be alive.

She had to save him.

“It’s pretty far into Alliance territory,” Annette said, having pressed her way closer to get a look at the map.

“If I leave now, I can be there by daybreak and—” Byleth started.

“No,” Dimitri cut her off with a gruffness that made Sylvain and Annette shrink away.

But Byleth had never cowed before his harsh words before and didn’t plan on starting now. She crossed her arms and planted her feet wide. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean that you’ll stay here until we have a plan,” he said. “I’ll allow you to accompany us only if you promise you won't leave my sight.”

“Allow me?” She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “Do you really expect me to just wait around while one of my students is in danger?”

“I expect you to see reason.” He mimicked her posture, crossing his arms and looming over her. “It could not be more blatantly obvious that this is a trap for you, Byleth. It’s the Sealed Forest all over again. I foolishly watched you walk into that snare, thinking you invincible. But I don’t suppose you have another goddess in reserve?”

She recoiled from him as if he’d slapped her. Not knowing the full truth about Sothis, he had no idea just how cruel his remark was.

But she had also learned to be cruel, too, the moniker of Ashen Demon more fitting now than when she had merely been ignorant of her emotions. “If all they want is me, I can trade myself for him. You all will only be in the way.”

“I’m afraid you have given me no choice, Professor.” Dimitri’s tone had turned glacial, face stony. She would have preferred his manic rage to this coldness. “Dedue, confine her to her quarters.”

Dedue moved behind her, an unyielding wall at her back. At the very least, he was offering her the courtesy of complying with a little dignity. It was surely kinder treatment than most enemies of the king received. When she didn't move, he laid his hand on her arm, the touch gentle yet firm. They both knew that if he was forced to choose between her and Dimitri—well, that was no choice at all.

Still, she resisted, accustomed to Dimitri following her orders, not the other way around. “Don’t be absurd,” she said.

She cast her gaze beseechingly to her former students in turn, all of whom found different points of interest on the floor and wall to stare at.

She had no allies here, no one to stand by her. But why should they, when she had refused to stand by them all this time? While they had all moved forward, she remained a willing captive in the past.

“Dimitri, please,” she begged.

“I have to ensure your safety, since you refuse to do it yourself. Dedue, take her,” he said, turning his back to her with the finality of a slammed door.

For a moment, her mind reached instinctively for the threads of time, but she stopped herself. There was no chance of evading all her students to sneak out. They would be watching her like hawks.

Besides, she needed to conserve every bit of strength she had. The energy squandered just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation would be better spent on one more chance to save Claude.

She didn’t make Dedue drag her to her room, though part of her wanted to, so Dimitri would feel that much guiltier. But that wouldn't be fair to Dedue. She settled for scowling at his broad back while following obediently a few paces behind him. Inside her quarters, she perched on the edge of her bed, feeling like a child sent to the naughty step.

“You saved him from going to Enbarr alone that night,” Dedue said. “He is only returning the favor.”

“I know,” she admitted.

She did know that. With her blood cooling, the stupidity of running off on her own was obvious. Dimitri was right; it was the same foolhardy instinct that had led her to follow Kronya into a trap. But on the other hand, putting her student in danger because of her mistakes was simply not an option.

And this was the second time her negligence had cost Sylvain his happiness. If Claude died, she would…

“I just want to protect everyone.”

“I know,” he said, more kindly than she probably deserved, given the circumstances.

The two of them stared silently at each other until Annette slipped in the door a few minutes later.

Byleth’s heart ached at the imperceptible way Dedue’s face softened when Annette joined them. Dimitri used to have a soft spot for her like that.

“Are you sealing me in?” she asked, shocked to see her casting some kind of protection charm on the windows. “This isn’t necessary. I promise I won’t leave until tomorrow.”

Annette wavered for a moment, but continued her task. “Sorry, Professor. I trust His Majesty’s judgment.” In other words, she didn’t trust Byleth. To soften the blow, she hurried to add, “He’ll be too worried about you to sleep otherwise!”

Something told her none of them would get a good night’s sleep tonight.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed in the morning. Byleth and Dimitri were both too stubborn (and too convinced of their own blamelessness) to apologize, but they managed a civil, if awkward, conversation. Dimitri consented to Byleth’s accompanying them to Leicester, and Byleth in turn agreed to remain with the party at all times.

Most of the said party were giving her a wide berth after the heated debate in Dimitri’s room. Her recklessness and disrespect towards the king had not left a good impression with his guards, either. It was embarrassing, like she was an impudent child, made small among the towering figures of her former students, who had grown up in her absence.

To add insult to injury, the only one that seemed interested in speaking with her—well, speaking at her might be more appropriate—was Dimitri.

“I still cannot believe you were traveling all over Fódlan and beyond by yourself for over a year,” he said for probably the dozenth time. His pinched expression was a sure sign he was nursing a headache. “What were you thinking? I could have sent a guard if you’d only asked.”

She rolled her eyes. Being a single woman on the road could get dicey, but she'd been raised by the Bladebreaker, for the goddess' sake. He had left any knightly oaths he'd sworn at the monastery. And he made sure she knew how to fight drunk, fight cowardly, fight dishonorably. 

Her fighting experience was split pretty evenly between the battlefield and shadowy back alleys. Forget chivalry—the types of troublemakers mercs found themselves tussling with didn't acknowledge any rules of engagement. They were the kinds of brawls where you might emerge victorious, but never unscathed.

Messy fights, Jeralt called them, and nobody fought them better than Byleth. To suggest she needed a guard was downright insulting.

“Your knights have more important things to do than wander around the continent with your old teacher,” she snapped back.

“Would you stop that, Byleth!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the trees, startling her and sending a family of pheasants squawking into the air from a nearby bush. “You are not just my—”

Panic clawed at her throat. She couldn’t allow him to finish that sentence.

“I need to go check on Sylvain,” she said, tugging on her horse to sidestep the line and hurry into a trot.

As she escaped, she could barely make out his grumbling response. “Of course you do.”

Even in such stressful times, Sylvain cut a striking and graceful figure atop his mount. Jeralt had once told Byleth that Sylvain was one of the best riders he’d ever seen, a secret she would never dare to reveal to him lest his already over-inflated ego burst. Delilah, the glossy all-black destrier he rode, was a living testament to his skill. She was among the few faithful horses that survived the war.

She was the horse that had carried Felix’s body home.

But there were cracks in Sylvain’s unaffected facade if you knew what to look for, which Byleth did. His index finger tapped restlessly on the pommel of his saddle, and a muscle in his jaw twitched from how tightly he grit his teeth.

“If you think I’m too distracted to scold you, think again,” he said before she could even open her mouth.

“You can scold me all you want after Claude’s safely home.”

He turned to look at her fully. “This wasn’t your fault, you know.”

She pressed her lips together, not wanting to admit how Sylvain had seen right through her. On second thought, perhaps it would have been safer to take her chances with Dimitri’s lecture.

Luckily, the appearance of a party of Alliance soldiers over the crest of the next hill saved her from Sylvain's knowing gaze.

“Your Majesty, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, at your service!”

Lorenz had gotten no less dramatic since the end of the war. If anything, ascending to his father’s position had made him worse.

Still, he had dropped everything on short notice and brought them a powerful battalion without question or complaint. His bluster concealed a sharp intellect and a genuine desire to serve the people of Fódlan. That, and he actually had the skills to back up his boasting. His spellcasting was second only to Lysithea in Leicester, and he knew the terrain better than anyone.

Dimitri nodded in acknowledgement. “Lorenz. It is good to see you,” he said. “Your help and discretion in this matter are much appreciated. We have reason to believe the enemy will have mages skilled in dark magic, so if your forces can handle them while Sylvain and I press on—”

“Your Majesty, I must protest!” Lorenz interrupted, scandalized. “The soldiers of House Gloucester are without parallel! There is no need for the king to risk his life, least of all for Claude.”

The mostly one-sided rivalry between the two Golden Deer had started back at the Academy. It was almost comforting to know that some things never changed.

“Claude is now the king of Almyra,” Dimitri reminded him, “with whom our alliance is in its fragile infancy. If their king died in Fódlan while I stood idly by, there would no doubt be reprisal.”

Lorenz deflated. “Quite right, of course, Your Majesty. At least allow us to accompany you. There is no telling what foes will be waiting for you.”

“It would be my honor to fight beside you again,” said Dimitri.

“Well then, let us away!” Lorenz cheered.

His gleeful mood did not extend to everyone present, though. Besides the tension between their leaders, the Faerghan soldiers were wilting in the warmer temperatures, weighed down by their heavy armor.

So it was a welcome relief when a shout rang out from the front of the party hours later. When they reached what must have been the entrance to Shambala, Byleth tilted her head and squinted, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

A square face of a dull metal, darker than iron and covered in strange symbols, jutted out of the hillside. The “roof” of the structure barely came to Byleth’s hip; the rest of the structure disappeared underground. A strange humming filled the air and vibrated up through the soles of her feet, as if a gigantic beast was stirring beneath the ground.

Dimitri pulled up next to them, looking just as puzzled. “That is… not what I was expecting.”

Despite the tense atmosphere, Sylvain laughed. “That’s got to be the understatement of the century, Your Majesty.”

It was happening again.

Shambala was a labyrinth to traverse, but the combat they encountered was no match for their forces. There weren’t enough mages left in the shadowy group to put up much of a fight. Lorenz and his soldiers acquitted themselves well, mopping up any stragglers while Byleth, Dimitri, and Sylvain pushed on.

Everything went wrong when Myson emerged from a fortified chamber, knife at Claude’s throat. Naturally, Byleth's first instinct was to offer herself as a captive instead. The others, even Claude, were furious with her, but she knew in her rock of a heart that it was the right thing to do. The Fell Star, as they called her, had always been their primary target. This suffering was hers alone, a burden she wouldn’t share.

“How gracious of you, false goddess,” Myson said, beckoning her over.

But as soon as his skeletal hand closed around her arm, the other unleashed a volley of magical purple spikes into Claude’s back. The wail of pain that echoed through the chamber was all too familiar. It was the same spell that had killed Felix, and she was painfully aware that no attempts at healing would work. She’d searched the world looking for a way to protect against the dark magic these mages wielded and had come up empty.

Myson was beyond all reason and negotiation, driven by pure rage. A man with nothing left to lose was a dangerous, unpredictable foe. He hated humankind so much that only its complete annihilation would satisfy him.

Byleth reversed time again and again. It took a few attempts to realize that if they launched any spell or projectile at Myson, he would instantly warp away and kill Claude elsewhere.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, and it came away streaked with blood. Negotiating like a diplomat and scheming like a tactician had failed. It was time to return to her roots. Time to fight like a mercenary whose drunk-off-his-ass father skipped out on the tab and mouthed off to half the city watch. Time to fight messy.

She sheathed her sword and cracked her neck, releasing the pulse. With a grunt, she hurled herself at Claude as hard as she could. What she lacked in size, she made up for with speed, surprise, and pure grit. The impact threw Claude clear of the spell's range and surprised Myson just enough for the moment’s hesitation she needed. Dimitri’s javelin found his gut before he could warp away.

A hysterical laugh-sob escaped her. She'd finally done it, finally saved everyone.

Or so she thought, right before Myson unleashed his final gambit. His hand, still crackling with gathered magic, slammed down hard onto the floor. It was only then that she noticed the strange channels carved into the tiles on the ground. Purple miasma poured into them, flowing like water through branching canals. Gravity was no obstacle; when it reached the walls, it simply flowed up them, gathering speed and ever expanding.

“You will never enjoy your victory!” Myson shouted. “Let there be light!”

And in a blast of blinding radiance, the roof came down on them. She barely had time to reach for the pulse before Shambala became their tomb.

But it had almost worked. She could fix it. On the next attempt, she dove faster, yelling for Dimitri to launch a javelin the moment they were out of the way. But no matter how quickly she moved, Myson’s magic was too powerful. Even as he dropped dead like a stone, the spell had enough energy to activate the collapse.

Byleth lost count of how many pulses she wasted trying the same strategy over and over, making tiny adjustments in vain. She was so close. But the telltale exhaustion was steadily creeping in, reminding her she couldn’t do this forever.

Not only that, she was out of options.

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Sothis’ chastised her. You’ve got two perfectly good options right next to you, you dolt!

Confused, her gaze scanned the area but only found… Dimitri and Sylvain. The students-turned-friends that had always stood ready to follow her orders. Relying on them meant putting them at risk. But what choice did she have?

In Enbarr, she hadn’t trusted Dimitri. Fear kept her from reaching out to him. He'd told her once that he saw the glow of humanity in her. How would he react to finding out how inhuman she truly was? Would he hate her for failing to save Jeralt and Rodrigue despite the power of a goddess at her disposal?

Since the moment she'd chosen not to trust him, though, everything had gone to shit. She couldn't let another friend fall because of her fear. Even if they didn’t believe her, even if they thought she was mad, she had to try.

Time resumed. Myson’s footsteps clanged towards them on the metal gangway.

Without hesitation, she turned to Dimitri. He was already looking back at her.

“What is it?” he asked.

Every second was too precious to mince words. “We're going to lose.”

His eyebrows raised, but it was surprise, not disbelief.

“What do you need us to do?” Sylvain had come up behind her. She whirled around to gauge his reaction, but there was no skepticism, no suspicion. Only trust and devotion, from both of them.

“He won't be persuaded to stand down. He can warp, and his casting is faster than anyone I've ever seen. If we get Claude away from him, he uses magic to activate some mechanism that brings the ceiling down on all of us. Our only hope is to stop him from summoning that spell, but I don't know how.”

If they had lost their faith in her because of her floundering inadequacy, it didn't show on their faces.

Sylvain traced his lip with a finger, deep in furious thought. It didn’t take long for his eyes to perk up with an idea.

“Your Majesty, how long does it take you to launch one of those things?” He gestured to the javelins at Dimitri’s side. The king scoffed, not even dignifying the question with an answer. “Yeah, okay, your speed won’t be a problem. But we’ll need to keep Myson talking for maybe… thirty seconds?”

“I managed polite conversation with Lorenz earlier,” Dimitri said. “This should be a piece of cake by comparison.”

Myson grinned as he approached them, black teeth bared with unhinged glee. “At last, we can finally give the foolish descendants of those beasts the lesson they deserve.”

“Insulting your guests?” Sylvain said with a tsk. “Tactless, really. Someone ought to silence that big mouth of yours.”

Claude didn’t visibly react, but his gaze sharpened. A moment later, he rearranged his hands in front of him slightly. Then they started to glow with… a healing spell?

Claude was no mage, not by a long shot. He could probably blow in someone’s face with more force than he could with Wind. Getting his faith magic to a D level had nearly put Byleth off teaching forever. Anyone else would have given up, but she was compelled to perservere by recurrent nightmares about dead students.

More to the point, what good would casting Heal do them now?

Myson was far too wrapped up in his own ego to notice the subtle communication.

“You’re nothing but animals performing tricks in the hopes of pleasing the goddess. You will never see the sunlight again!”

Sylvain made a show of rolling his eyes. “Geez, always with the monologues. Solon was the same way. Remember, Dimitri?”

Sylvain handed the reins to Dimitri as the light of a spell started to glow in his palms, too. Byleth remembered the ease with which he’d summoned a flame back at the castle—whatever he was preparing to cast, it was going to be a lot more than a light to read by.

Dimitri smoothly picked up the conversation. “Yes, I believe Solon claimed to be the savior of humankind. Tell me, Myson. Do you think yourself a hero as well?”

“None of my people are left to save. Your vile kind has destroyed them all. It is my vengeance you will suffer, beast—and oh, how you have earned it.”

“Yes, that is the way of revenge. Perhaps it was inevitable it would turn its cold gaze back upon me,” Dimitri answered, eerily calm. The captivating timbre of his voice was like a magic of its own, lulling the enemy into a false sense of security. Even Byleth was pulled in, momentarily forgetting her exhaustion and grief. “But I have walked this path before. Believe me when I say it leads to nothing but ruin.”

Myson spit. “I will not be lectured by vermin like you, human king! You will taste the wrath of the Agarthans!”

With his spell reaching full strength, Claude flicked his eyes to his right. Sylvain gave a nod, too subtle for Myson to notice through his self-aggrandizing.

It happened so quickly Byleth could hardly follow the movement. Claude twisted around and aimed his faith magic at Myson. The mage lifted his hands to retaliate, and her heart felt ready to break. It wasn't going to work. She had failed again.

But the brutal dark spikes never materialized, and she heard Myson curse. That hadn’t been a healing spell, after all. Claude had silenced him. That was much more advanced than the basic Faith she’d taught him at the academy. Apparently, when she had suggested that he continue studying white magic, he’d actually taken her advice to heart.

In the split second the mage was distracted, Claude ducked and rolled to the side he had indicated. Hardly a breath later, Sylvain cast a powerful Ragnarok around Myson. His resistance was too high for the spell to do much damage, but it cut off all avenues of escape. While he was trapped, it was all too easy for Dimitri to launch a lightning-fast javelin straight through the mage’s chest.

It had all been coordinated as precisely as a ballet, though none of them had uttered a single word.

Sylvain vaulted out of the saddle and ran to Claude. Byleth’s body slumped in relief, whatever adrenaline that had been keeping her upright draining out of her. Dimitri caught her in his arms before she hit the ground.

“W-where did you guys learn all that?” she asked, head swimming.

He smiled. In her unfocused gaze, his golden hair merged with the sunlight in the entrance behind him, giving him the appearance of an angel, a being of pure beauty and light. “From you, my beloved…”

The world was dark before he finished his sentence.

Hubert had proved a fearsome opponent; that was always the case with someone making a desperate last stand. Even as he died, he professed his faith in Edelgard. Byleth wasn’t sure if that was admirable or insane.

The Blue Lions and the rest of the Kingdom army paused to regroup in the large square before the emperor’s palace. Despite their success so far, a heavy gloom hung over them. The end of the war was close at hand, but none of them took any joy in the prospect of killing more former classmates.

Still, they had to walk this path to its conclusion, no matter what they faced. And so did Edelgard, who would surely throw everything she had at them. Knowing that, they’d entered the palace ready for anything, or so they thought. Nothing could have prepared for what awaited them in the throne room.

Edelgard, who’d spent five years fighting under the guise of freeing humanity, had transformed herself into a monster. Fireballs threatened to bring the ceiling down upon them before they even reached her, but Dimitri was a bright beacon leading them on.

He was so mesmerizing, so magnetic, that Byleth had to remind herself to stay focused several times during the battle. The memory of the previous evening sharpened her resolve. She wanted to share every night with him, to wake up every morning to his mussed golden mane and crooked smile.

He flashed her that smile before opening the massive double doors to the throne room, but it faded when he finally caught sight of what was left of his stepsister.

The Blue Lions held a collective breath, watching his reaction closely. Whatever his ghosts had to say on the matter, he shook his head to free himself from their screams.

“So...that grotesque creature was Edelgard…” he said, pain evident in his voice. “To be changed beyond all recognition… this is where her ideals have led.”

But Edelgard wasn’t completely unrecognizable. Byleth could have sworn her monstrous face pouted when faced with the professor she had always admired. It was a heartbreaking reminder that despite everything, she was just a girl.

Her students may have passed the age of eighteen while she slept, but they were still children in all the ways that mattered. Perhaps after the war, they could finally experience the peace and contentment that should have marked their childhoods. Even Edelgard, if all went according to plan.

Nothing went according to plan.

Another wave of reinforcements surged up from the lower floors, so a portion of the Lions were forced to leave the throne room and hold them off. The emperor’s armor was stronger than any of the most fearsome demonic beasts they’d faced. With only half the troops trying to break through it, it seemed an impossible task.

Edelgard's terrifying, monstrous form threatened to demoralize their army, but Dimitri kept his spirits up, his optimism and tenacity inspiring the same from others.

“No future is worth such suffering,” he said, voice clear as a bell, rallying his battalion. “We must defend the present... After all, it is all that we truly have.”

Their king gave them the strength to fight on, but the battle still proved difficult. When Edelgard finally shed the scales and claws of her strange form, Byleth and her students weren’t faring much better than the monster they’d just defeated. Dimitri limped up the blood-stained carpet.

And because he possessed more compassion than the rest of them combined, because he was the strongest person Byleth had ever known, he held out his hand to Edelgard.

Such an action would have been unthinkable only a few moons ago. But he had come so far, had beaten back demons no one else could have imagined in their worst nightmares. He had opened his heart despite the many times it had been broken.

And it cost him his life.

From the folds of her crimson cloak, Edelgard pulled out a dagger—the very dagger Dimitri himself had handed to her just days ago at their failed parley. And she threw it with deadly precision and force, right through Dimitri’s kind heart.

The Divine Pulse was pulling them backwards before Byleth even consciously thought to do it. This time, as soon as Edelgard's dagger flashed, Byleth threw her own. The two weapons collided in the air before clattering harmlessly to the ground.

Dimitri turned to her with a question on his face, but her answer was simply a gentle smile. Her secret could wait until later to be revealed. Together, they restrained the emperor, still thrashing in defiance until she finally fainted.

Byleth had foolishly thought that was the end of it.

They leaned on each other heavily on their walk out of the palace. When they pulled the heavy doors open, a shaft of light and warmth embraced them. Dimitri squeezed her hand affectionately.

That was the last moment she could remember being truly happy.

The silence outside was unnatural for the end of a victorious battle, let alone the final battle of a five-year war. The cheers and whoops that should have greeted their king never came. Then, a tortured wail split the air, a sound of complete and utter heartbreak.

Sylvain knelt beside a corpse; the mangled remains would have been unrecognizable were it not for the Aegis shield attached to its nearly severed arm.

“What happened?” asked Dimitri.

His voice was steady, but anguish surely lurked underneath his calm veneer. It must have been like reliving Duscur and Gronder all over, the third shield of Faerghus he'd watch die.

“A group of dark mages warped into the middle of our ranks,” Gilbert answered, face ashen. “Lord Felix’s quick reflexes saved us all. But their leader managed to get in a devastating spell before he warped away. The spikes that pierced him seemed to burn Felix from the inside out.”

The man who'd spent his life railing against chivalry had sacrificed himself for his friends. It was a far crueler fate than he deserved.

Byleth hazarded a glance at Dimitri, whose face was etched with pain, rage, and a weariness that would have toppled a person twice his age. He was safe, but at what cost? Knowing what the emperor planned for Dimitri, using another pulse was risky. But she knew what was coming this time. She'd be ready.

She could save everyone. She had to.

The pulse bought her a few extra minutes at most, so the changes she could implement were limited. Several plans started to take shape in her mind.

Her place was at Dimitri’s side; leaving him alone was out of the question. So the most obvious choice was to send her own battalion to assist Felix, which is exactly what she did. Without their backup, though, she and Dimitri were overwhelmed before they could defeat the enormous monster. One of its long, gnarled claws sliced Dimitri nearly in half.

Twice now she’d watched him fall to Edelgard. A familiar panic fluttered in her chest, remembering her futile efforts to protect Jeralt. Stay focused, she reminded herself. If she lost her composure, they were all doomed.

Sending only half of her battalion allowed Dimitri and Byleth to prevail inside, but the backup wasn’t enough to save Felix outside.

Sprinting to Flayn and instructing her to use Rescue to pull Felix out of the circle of mages was a disaster. Without his lightning-fast swordsmanship to cover the others’ retreat, it was a massacre—Ingrid, Sylvain, Annette, and Ashe all fell to the powerful blast of dark magic that filled the square.

Byleth’s body was becoming sluggish, a thin trail of blood trickling from her nose. One more time.

She ordered Dimitri to fall back and wait to engage the emperor until she returned, and his hesitation left him open to a Meteor from one of Edelgard’s mages.

She and Dimitri both went out to assist Felix, and Edelgard followed them to wreak havoc on their weary forces in the square. One more time.

Felix died. Dimitri died. Everyone died. Dimitri died… and died and died again.

Even the powers of a goddess didn’t allow Byleth to be in two places at once. And the point was quickly becoming moot after so many pulses. She was so weak it was a struggle just to lift her sword.

The truth flooded her veins like a deadly poison. There was no way to keep them both alive. She was going to have to choose.

The logical choice was to save Dimitri, of course. She knew exactly how to save him, where her success with Felix had been inconsistent. Dimitri was king, and Faerghus needed him. She needed him.

Her conscience gnawed at her, insisting that the last point was clouding her judgment. Felix had someone who loved him, too. And his life was no less important without a crown on his head.

But there was no time to deliberate. Her mind was fuzzy, and she could barely keep her eyes focused. She would save Dimitri; it was the only way out of this hell.

One more chance.

Time restarted at its usual pace. Before long, Edelgard kneeled before Dimitri, seemingly helpless. A boiling rage Byleth had never experienced before overcame her.

Edelgard was defeated. Even if she managed to kill Dimitri with that dagger, so what? The Empire was still toppled, and she would still die from her wounds.

The more Byleth thought, the more she was convinced that yes, this was all Edelgard’s fault. She allied with the mages who murdered Jeralt. She started the war that killed so many innocent people. She stabbed Dimitri through the heart when he offered her mercy. That woman was forcing Byleth to choose between the lives of her best friends.

She finally understood the all-consuming hatred that had driven Dimitri for nearly a decade. That same hate burned inside her now, and only blood could extinguish it.

This farce of reconciliation was wasted on Edelgard. This time, Byleth didn’t give her the chance to pull her dagger. Dimitri didn't even get to reach out his hand. The second the emperor’s knees hit the ground, the Sword of the Creator whipped out, severing her head in one satisfying slice. The throne was slightly elevated, so the bloody head, crown and all, rolled down the aisle and hit Byleth’s boot with a thunk. It took every bit of her willpower to resist stomping it into paste.

“What have you done?” Dimitri roared, pain, shock, and rage warring in his voice. “You’ve ruined everything!”

I know, she tried to say, but the darkness was already pulling her under.

As she blinked her eyelids open, a blurry, flickering image of her surroundings came slowly into focus. The phantom Dimitri yelling at her in Enbarr dissipated, replaced by the one she knew now—older, softer, and visibly worried. There were dark bags under his eyes, but he snapped to attention the moment she awoke.

“Byleth!” he exclaimed. “A-are you alright?”

The last time she’d woken up like this, after Enbarr, he had leapt to her side, pulling her into his arms, tears streaming down his face. But that was before. Now, he held himself back. His hands clutched the fabric of his trousers in a white-knuckle grip, close to tearing them.

“I’m okay,” she croaked, and he dove to pour her a glass of water. “I think.”

He was shaking so badly that he spilled half the water as he handed it to her, but it was enough to wet her throat.

“How long?”

“Just a day, this time.”

This time. Last time, it had been a week.

“Claude?” she asked.

“Safe and whole,” Dimitri answered with a genuine smile. “Everyone is, now that you're awake.”

The tension drained from her with a deep sigh. Her students were safe, their happiness protected. But it wasn’t thanks to her.

“Thank you,” she said. “Without you and Sylvain…”

“Stop,” he interrupted, firm but kind. He fidgeted and cleared his throat before continuing. “Byleth, I think we should talk about… everything. If you need more time to recover, I understand, of course. But we can't go on like this forever.”

Sylvain’s words came back to her unbidden. Tell him, Byleth. Give the man a choice, for the goddess’s sake.

In the same conversation, Sylvain had also told her that Dimitri would accept the parts of herself she thought unforgivable. Dimitri’s unhesitating trust in Shambala suggested it might just be possible.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

“Oh, uh…” He floundered for a second, brought up short by her quick acquiescence. “Ever since that day… since Enbarr, that is, you have not been the same. Is it because of what I said? Frustration and confusion got the better of me. I know that's no excuse, but—”

“Dimitri.” She rested a hand on his knee to silence him, and he looked down at it in surprise. “There’s something I haven’t told you. Something I should have told you back then.”

“About Felix?”

“About Sothis.”

He leaned forward and nodded for her to continue. She gathered her thoughts, unsure where to begin.

Well, it would probably make the most sense to start at the beginning: Jeralt's flight with a baby that never cried.

After the incident in the Sealed Forest, she could no longer hide having a connection to the goddess, but she had never revealed the true extent of her power to anyone. There had always been a lingering fear that she would be condemned as a monster when people discovered her stone heart and supernatural powers. She never wanted to be seen as the Ashen Demon again.

But this was Dimitri. When she cut through the sky with a new hair color, he had taken her into his arms and carried her home. After she’d spent two years pushing him away, he was waiting for her with an outstretched hand and open heart.

If nothing else, he deserved the truth.

Dimitri, to his credit, did not interrupt her increasingly unbelievable story, from not having a heartbeat to rewinding time to cheat death. Her lip was quivering when she finally related the miserable experience of watching her two friends die over and over again in Enbarr.

He took her hand in his, comforting her with a light squeeze.

“The guilt of my failure… has been overwhelming,” she finished.

“Failure? Byleth, two people died that day, and you brought one back. Do you not see? That’s a miracle, not a failure,” he said. “It is not your responsibility to save everyone, particularly when they’re already gone. Trust me, if you have taught me one thing, it’s that we can’t take on every burden alone. Let me share yours.”

“That’s just it… After what happened with Claude, I now realize that had I trusted you more… maybe we could have saved Felix, together.”

He shushed her gently. “There’s no way of knowing that. You said yourself that sometimes fate cannot be changed. Besides, you cannot change the past, nor can you decide the future. All we truly have is the present. Our decisions now are what define us.”

He'd said nearly the same thing in Enbarr, and it eased the pressure in her chest the same way today as it had back then. But there was one more question she needed the answer to, difficult as it was to ask.

“You’re not upset that I… chose you?”

He grimaced slightly, but shook his head. “No. You were faced with an impossible choice, and you did what you thought was best. I could never be angry with you for that.” Laying a hand on her cheek, he added, “And, perhaps it is selfish, but… I’m happy to be here. With you.”

She held out her arms, and he fell into them willingly. She’d forgotten how comforting it was to simply be close to him, to breathe in the scent of weapon oil and the chamomile tea he still drank every day.

But it wasn’t enough. She craved his lips on hers with nothing between them, skin on skin.

With his face buried in her hair, she found the courage to ask what she had been wondering since she had killed Edelgard.

“Dimitri, the night before the battle… Do you still—”

He turned towards her to speak directly into her ear. “Yes.”

“I didn’t finish,” she said. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

He leaned back just enough to look her in the eye, brushing her hair away where his breath had mussed it. His smile was sly, knowing. “Do I still feel the same? Do I still think of you every second of every day? Do I still dream of holding you? It matters not, because my answer to any of those questions will be yes. Do I still love you? Goddess, yes, more than ever.”

The earnest romance of it all made her bashful, but his grip on her prevented her from burying her face under the covers the way her instincts compelled her to. “I… love you, too,” she said, much less eloquent but just as honest.

He crawled up the bed and rested her back against his chest, so they could stay close more comfortably. Outside her window, Sylvain and Claude stood at Felix’s memorial, heads bent close together.

“They remember him, but they’re able to move on,” she said. “How do you do that?”

“I think you can do anything, if you have the people you love at your side.”

“Is it really that easy?”

“It’s not easy, but it is that simple.” He gently led her to lay her head down on him, the thump-thump of his heart a welcome reminder of everything he’d survived to be at her side. “But rest for now, my beloved. We have a wedding to prepare for, after all.”

“Welcome to our friends from near and far,” said Flayn, a colorful Almyran sash draped over her white archbishop’s robes. “The goddess is glad to receive you all on this most felicitous occasion!” She bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet a few times before catching herself and resuming her straight posture. Byleth wondered if a sharp look from Seteth was responsible for the change.

“Two people coming together in love is always cause to celebrate, but today we witness the marriage of two cultures and countries as well, a union that will hopefully promote peace and understanding between our peoples. Of course, there is already much we have in common. In Fódlan, we believe the goddess alighted from the stars to bring life to our world. She rests now on the Blue Sea Star, awaiting the time she can return to her children. But she is not alone. The Four Royal Stars of Almyra are seated at the four corners of the sky, where they guide travelers and usher in each of the seasons, together forming the body of the king of gods. How lovely to know that, whether in Fódlan or Almyra, the same beautiful sky inspires hope in all who look to the heavens. Perhaps our divine beings have even crossed paths among the stars. I like to think they would be friends!”

Claude and Sylvain chuckled at their officiant’s exuberance. Noble weddings were probably much different from the simple ceremonies Byleth had witnessed growing up, but she was sure that the script had been heavily altered from the norm to accommodate the couple’s mixed heritage.

She hadn’t really given any thought to what the position of archbishop entailed before she turned it down. Thinking herself incapable and unworthy of leading anyone, she had dismissed the opportunity without ever considering it.

For the first time, regret crept into her heart. Making ceremonies and services more inclusive sounded rather enjoyable, actually. Flayn was obviously doing a fine job, but it could be fulfilling to help change things for the better, to mold the church into something Sothis could be proud of. Maybe Byleth would visit Garreg Mach after the wedding and offer her assistance.

It was nice, having a future to look forward to.

“Sylvain Jose Gautier,” Flayn addressed the groom, “do I have your permission to perform this marriage?”

“Absolutely,” Sylvain answered, eliciting a few chuckles from the crowd.

“Your Majesty, Khalid Al-Amin, known in Fódlan as Claude von Riegan, do I have your permission to perform this marriage?”

Claude remained silent, rocking on his heels and glancing around as if he hadn’t heard the question.

“He has gone to the library for research!” shouted one of the women in the Almyran party.

It was a shame that Byleth had slept through the wedding rehearsal, because she had no idea what was going on. Sylvain still had his easy smile fixed on Claude, and no one else showed any distress, so this must be some part of a tradition she wasn’t familiar with.

Ingrid stepped out of her pew and walked up the aisle, presenting Claude with an extravagant pendant in Gautier crimson. “May this gift demonstrate the resolve of Sylvain and his family to provide for you.”

Claude looped it over his head and inspected it appraisingly.

“Khalid, do I have your permission to perform this marriage?” Flayn asked again.

And again, he said nothing.

Petra yelled out on his behalf this time. “He is signing a treaty with Brigid!”

To Byleth's surprise, Dimitri detached himself from the audience, walking up to the altar clutching a piece of paper in his hands. He nodded at the grooms before clearing his throat and beginning to read. “May this verse reflect the depths of Sylvain's devotion, should you accept him.”

The paper must have been just for show, though, because his eyes stayed locked on hers throughout the entire poem.

There is a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have waited years and
especially if part of you never believed you could deserve the
hand held out to you, beckoning.
Love comes as a storm upon the sea,
with a distant yet familiar figure calling from far across the water
and that is the moment we have to choose to say yes
so that when we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find everything holds us, 
and confirms our courage,
because you want to live and you want to love
and you will walk across any territory and any darkness,
however fluid and however dangerous,
to take the one hand you know belongs in yours.

Tears were welling in her eyes by the time Dimitri folded the paper and tucked it into his coat pocket. Instinctively, her hand flew to her neck, pressing the cool metal of a concealed emerald ring into her skin. A reminder of her own courage confirmed.

Dimitri grinned, copying her gesture. He disguised it as a bow, but his hand was much higher on his chest than was standard, instead resting where her mother’s ring lay hidden as well.

“Khalid,” Flayn repeated, the words fuzzy in Byleth’s ears. “Do I now have your permission to perform this marriage?”

Claude hummed, resting his chin on a fist in a pantomime of indecision. Sylvain made an exaggerated show of adjusting his collar, pretending to be nervous for his groom’s answer.

As he returned to the audience, Dimitri bypassed his seat of honor in the front row and slipped into the pew next to Byleth instead.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

Her face flushed pink when his breath tickled the hairs on her neck. Even with the rings hidden, someone would surely read the news on their faces by the end of the night.

“In Almyra, one party is supposed to delay their answer, and the family of the other presents them with gifts, food, or poetry to convince them. It shows that they have considered their decision carefully and come into the marriage willingly.”

“A practical tradition,” she said. “In my experience, it does take a while to understand what one truly wants.”

At the altar, Claude finally answered, “Yes, I consent.” The crowd broke out in wild whoops and cheers as Sylvain draped a luxurious wolf pelt over his husband's shoulders. Even Flayn gave up all pretense of solemnity and excitedly clapped her hands.

(The spirit of the Faerghan tradition was fulfilled, even if Sylvain hadn't personally hunted the pelt. The king had gifted his precious heirloom to the couple, cryptically saying he would have another to adorn his bed soon enough.)

Dimitri used everyone’s distraction to take Byleth’s hand in his unnoticed. “True enough. But I have found that waiting makes the reward all the sweeter.”

Poem adapted from “The Truelove” by David Whyte