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Change came at dawn, enshrouded in morning fog.
The Loyalist Army of Faerghus rattled like caged chicken along the border between Charon and Blaiddyd. Skirmishes against the Adrestian army flared and died without resolution. Scouts returned every night with the same reports: a few enemy battalions probing their defences, waiting for nature to win the war for them.
Change came in the shape of a figure stumbling through the loyal sentries of Faerghus. Dedue collapsed in front of them before the horn stopped howling.
"His Highness is alive," were the first words that fell from his mouth as hands caught his weight and accompanied him onto a cot. Someone pressed a bowl of thin porridge into his shaking hands as he continued, "My companions and I freed him from the dungeons of Castle Fhìrdiad. I stayed behind to buy him time and… Lost sight of him. I apologise for my failure."
No one begrudged the exhausted man for anything. They welcomed the warriors from Duscur who had come with Dedue, and they ensured they weren't spared any comfort available.
Not long after, the leaders of Eastern Faerghus, loyal to the missing Crown Prince, gathered in the war tent. They huddled around a scarred table too small for them to rest their elbow on, bending over maps where the Kingdom was still whole. Count Charon, Count Galatea, Margrave Gautier, Duchess Ifan, Duke Rodrigue, and others sat while their heirs kept watch on their feet. Out of them all, Felix paced back and forth across the muddied soil.
"To hear that His Highness lives… Words cannot convey the lightness in my heart," spoke Rodrigue first. The lines that had carved themselves in the corners of his eyes since the announcement of the Crown Prince’s execution eased.
"Hold on, old man," Felix cut in, head snapping to his father with a frown. "We only know that he wasn't executed like that treacherous woman announced-"
"Death might have already found him elsewhere," muttered Count Charon grimly.
"Or he may have hidden himself," ventured another.
Margrave Gautier clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "A fugitive of this calibre won't be left alone for long in land held by the Empire."
"We don’t know if he’s still in Faerghus,” added Duchess Ifan, her voice the calmest of the crowd. “He could’ve crossed the border to the east or the south.”
“Regardless, we cannot sit idle. Whatever’s left of our Kingdom depends on His Highness' return,” declared Rodrigue.
"If we act rashly, we draw the Empire's attention to him when he's most vulnerable," replied Count Galatea, not unkindly. His pointed gaze swept the table.
"And yet, inaction may cost us the only chance we have," said Rodrigue with a tight voice.
"If we search for the Crown Prince openly, Adrestia will surely follow our lead..."
Ingrid stepped forward. "Then we shall cast a veil over their eyes."
Everyone turned to her.
She explained, unflinching, "If the Empire believes His Highness rides with us, they'll be more focused on us and less interested in a small force searching elsewhere."
Duchess Ifan arched a brow; Margrave Gautier parted his lips to speak, but Ingrid persevered, “Duke Fraldarius recovered Areadbhar before he fled the capital. With the suited armour, some enchantment, and heedfulness, we can make it seem as though His Highness is with us.”
"You propose we… Impersonate the Crown Prince?" Count Charon asked, weighing every word.
“Yes,” Ingrid replied instantly. “Our people will have hope. Adrestia will be distracted. We will search for His Highness without the Empire snapping at his heels.”
"This will make us a target of the Empire," another nobleman protested.
Ingrid lifted her chin further, eyes narrowed minutely. "We are a target of the Empire. Don't mistake the Emperor's disinterest for our continued survival for mercy."
Sylvain crossed his arms, shifting his weight onto one leg. His mouth smiled; his eyes stayed sharpened daggers. "I concur. Adrestia is waiting for us to weaken while it gorges itself on the suffering of the people of Faerghus. They aren't advancing because they know they can afford to wait when we can't."
"Unless we desire to kneel to Adrestia, everyone in this room is marked for death." Rodrigue pursed his lips; his gaze strayed toward Felix for a heartbeat. "Even then, some of us may not be allowed to live for the good of the Empire."
A shiver ran through everyone's souls. Nobody contested Ingrid's plan again.
---
Rodrigue had an old suit of armour once worn by the late King Lambert retrieved from its long-forgotten storage. No one asked when he had secured it, or how long he had kept it.
Scrubbed until it gleamed, the heavy plates chased with gold filigree and the Blaiddyd lion embossed upon the cuirass would have looked glorious on Dimitri. Instead, Ingrid, Felix, and Sylvain stared at it in tense silence, exchanging glances here and there.
The role of the false prince fell to them; they neither led their Houses nor their absence from the battlefield would mark a significant loss of strength, not when one of them would wield Areadbhar like the real Dimitri would have done. Furthermore, they had known Dimitri since childhood. They were the best candidates to uphold the façade.
What remained was determining who would wear the false crown first.
"Sylvain's build is closest to the Boar's," Felix commented. He crossed his arms and fixed Sylvain with narrowed eyes. "It will suit you best until Annette creates the enchantments."
Sylvain raised his arms in mock surrender. "You can just say you don't feel at ease, Felix."
"I am at ease," Felix snarled, stopping short of baring his teeth.
"I shall be second, then," Ingrid inserted herself between them. Her fists tightened into fists, and a muscle in her jaw pulled. "His Highness and I… We used to trade places when we were younger. I attended his lessons in his stead."
"And I'll use this time to refine my lancework," Felix concluded.
Sylvain grinned. "And your manners."
"Don't push your luck."
The armour stood in the back, mute.
---
Crown Prince Dimitri, miraculous survivor of the Fake Saintess's treachery, couldn't simply reappear in the midst of the Loyalist army from one day to another. His return to life required a meticulous foundation.
The curtain rose on a lone man, hunched on himself and wrapped in a tattered cloak, who followed Gilbert into camp in the dead of the night. It continued with Sir Gilbert commanding the sentries to grant them passage, citing urgent matters that required Duke Fraldarius's immediate attention. The stranger at his side went unnamed, but the guards understood it involved him nonetheless.
By daybreak, the secret arrival was on everyone's lips. Soldiers of all ranks spoke of an informant forced to flee the Empire after their true loyalty had been discovered; others claimed it was the last survivor of a loyal House. Some even dared to hope that it was their liege returned to them by the hand of the Goddess.
The apex of the sun witnessed a man clad in the armour of the late King emerge from the command tent, flanked by the most powerful lords of Eastern Faerghus. Areadbhar burned to life in his hand.
Awe shuddered through the onlookers. A cry of pure happiness rose from an undefined direction. Men and women, soldiers and camp followers, knights and squires threw anything they held aside and ran to summon everyone they knew. His Highness is alive!, they shouted. His Highness is back!
His Highness! His Highness! His Highness!
"People of Faerghus!" Rodrigue shouted over the tumult. "Your Prince has returned to you!"
The crowd’s roar surged again, though it ebbed, if just a little, after Rodrigue raised a hand.
"By the grace of the Goddess, he endured what would have slain any other. He survived the chains of the fake saintess and the baying hounds of the Adrestia! So we shall let the Empire know this: Faerghus does not fall! We will reclaim what was stolen from us!"
Cheering broke like thunder. Soldiers pounded their fists against their shields. Camp followers lifted one another off the ground in joy. Some wept openly, falling to their knees and declaring the Goddess had answered their prayers.
YOUR HIGHNESS! YOUR HIGHNESS! YOUR HIGHNESS!
It was done. The audience had erupted in rapturous applause.
Sylvain grimaced, bitter bile sliding down his throat.
---
Pegasi and owls flew across Faerghus almost as swiftly as the people's voices. His Highness has returned to us, they whispered beneath the snow-laden boughs. The Goddess has delivered us unto salvation.
The slumbering spirit of rebellion that the Empire had believed destroyed blazed through the land anew. Word of the Loyalist army marching to Fhìrdiad to free the capital from the clutches of the Dukedom and the fake saintess poured from everyone's throats before the Lords and His Highness gave the order.
There was nothing they could do but satiate their people's burning wish for freedom.
The army began marching North. One day Ingrid rode at the helm, another Sylvain, and occasionally Felix. The late King's armour was enchanted, allowing all to wear it despite not possessing the proper proportions, preserving so the illusion.
Still, the armour weighed more and more on their shoulders with every league they covered. Villages merrily defied the forces of Adrestia, invigorated by the knowledge that the rightful heir of Faerghus was coming. When asked why they would endanger themselves and their loved ones, who, in the worst cases, had perished at the blades of the Empire while the Loyalist Kingdom army was still days away, the answer from the maiden, the wizened grandfather, the broad-shouldered youth, and the weather-hardened worker was the same:
The sons and daughters of Faerghus would rather die for their freedom than kneel before tyrants. Mother, be proud of me, for my land I bled. Father, do not grieve for me, envied are the dead!
"This is madness," Felix snapped one night, throwing his helmet at a corner of the tent. It bounced on the ground and rolled until it came to rest against a support pillar. "They're rebelling before they know the army's near. They're killing themselves over a promise of hope."
Sylvain and Ingrid traded a brief look. "We always knew the people of Faerghus looked up to Dimitri, especially with his uncle's misrule," Sylvain noted. "And with a formerly revered Saintess turning her back to Faerghus and imposing taxes that reduced the people into penury…" He exhaled. "We should have anticipated this."
Ingrid tore another sheet of parchment. "This changes nothing," she said as she dipped the quill in the inkpot and resumed drafting Dimitri's orders to the future Lords of Western Faerghus. "We chose this path. We knew this day would come. We merely didn't know when."
The quill cracked in her hand. Black ink bled down her fingers and across the page, and Ingrid swore under her breath.
Sylvain covered Ingrid's calloused hand with his. "You don't need to imitate Dimitri's habit of breaking everything in his hand, too," he joked, though his voice strained toward the end.
Ingrid glared at him with pursed lips.
Felix lifted the inkpot from the desk. "Give me that," he muttered. "I, too, can imitate the Boar's handwriting now-"
"Don't call His Highness that," Ingrid retorted.
"-And I knew this was a possibility when we approved the plan," Felix replied to Sylvain. He sighed, moving the inkpot out of Ingrid's reach when she swiped at it. "This doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Nobody is saying that you must," Sylvain replied with a shrug of the shoulders. He ducked as Ingrid leapt at Felix, and the inkpot sailed through the air right where Sylvain's head had been.
Sylvain watched his childhood friends brawl on the ground. He snorted and retrieved a fresh sheet of parchment and another inkpot from the supply chest. Those orders weren't going to write themselves, and he reasoned that a good old fistfight would get his friends out of their spiral.
---
As the Loyalist Kingdom army drew within sight of the walls of Fhìrdiad, however, doubt began to creep into the war tent.
"What if His Highness has abandoned Faerghus?" one of the lesser lords gave voice to everyone's worst fear during a council. "We're almost at the gates of the capital. Time is fleeing us."
"His Highness won't abandon his people," Rodrigue replied, steadfast.
"The Boar hasn't run anywhere," Felix corroborated as he sharpened his hunting dagger. "He's too stubborn for that. He'd sooner cross the Valley of Torment barefooted than leave the Empire to its devices."
Duchess Ifan swallowed a mouthful of mulled wine. "Your faith in His Highness is commendable, but that's not the second concern being raised. The moment we retake Fhìrdiad, people will have expectations."
Like His Highness ascending to the throne and making extensive public appearances went unspoken, though everyone in attendance understood.
Ingrid, seated at the head of the table to maintain the illusion, removed the late King's helmet during the discussion. Where the visage she had been born with should have been, a masculine face that could have passed as that of a younger King Lambert stared back at everyone.
"As you can see, as long as this armour is worn, everyone will see and hear the blood of Blaiddyd. We need only proceed with caution," she spoke with Dimitri's regal voice.
But where Ingrid's demonstration allayed the unease among the lords of Eastern Faerghus, it left Dimitri's friends and former classmates still unsettled.
"I feel guilty for what's happening," Ashe broke the awkward silence first during a small gathering that evening.
The group, comprising the best students of the former Blue Lion House, had converged on a tent that served as a makeshift kitchen to celebrate Dedue's recovery. The army had already eaten; laughter occasionally drifted in from the outside. Mercedes and Annette were whipping up a batch of cookies for everyone not called Felix. The others sat and ate their meals.
"What makes you say so, Ashe?" Mercedes asked while carefully shaping the dough into stars.
Ashe flushed and looked down at Felix's dinner, a hefty portion of roasted game. "It's just… They're following us because they believe Dimitri returned. In tales of knighthood, this would be the highest moment of the poem, but… It's a lie."
"This isn't a poem," Felix grumbled as he dug his fork in the bowl. Ingrid had hidden his sword with Sylvain's involuntary assistance earlier so Felix wouldn't vanish to train. Now he sat hunched over his meal like a surly child. "We're at war. It was that or letting Adrestia march unopposed sooner or later."
Ashe sipped some water. "I know that. Still, if I learned that the Prince I was following was someone else wearing his name and face… I'd feel betrayed."
Ingrid set her fork down for a second. "The leadership of Eastern Faerghus stands with us. Fortune is on our side." Yet, her eyes dimmed.
The only one not clad in armour, Dedue set down his now empty bowl on the table. It wobbled. "I don't like this." He squeezed his eyes shut, brow knitting and a vein in his temple pulsing. His fingers tightened around his bowl. "His Highness… When I found him in the dungeons, he didn't wish to flee. I almost couldn't persuade him to leave the cell. He kept telling me to leave him and save myself.
I fear that, should he hear that another leads Faerghus with his name and face, he may decide his life has lost all its worth."
The soft thud of dough being worked against the table sounded far too loud.
Sylvain cleared his throat, then burst in a coughing fit. When it passed, he said, "Gilbert is looking for him with loyal knights. He's investigating the tales of a single man dispatching entire Imperial battalions near the border with Arianrhod. Whoever he is," he winked. "He saved villages."
Annette paused, cleaning her flour-covered fingers on her apron. "But could a man without a Relic-"
"The Boar could," Felix stopped her.
"I do not doubt that Sir Gilbert will find Dimitri," Mercedes said gently. She turned toward the oven and murmured a brief incantation; fire bloomed beneath the stone.
Spoons returned to scraping against bowls. The war waited outside, but, for now, the scent of baking cookies promised sweetness.
---
Ingrid had been tending to the horses in her disguise when the horns began to howl.
She seized Areadbhar, which she had taken to keep it close in case another assassin managed to slip through the patrols, in a heartbeat and sifted through her memories of the last council. They had decided to siege Fhìrdiad on the morrow, so what-
The sky cracked. A lance glowing white and blue speared downwards, shattering the protective barrier all at once. The ground shuddered, and a cluster of tents erupted into flames.
The attack had to have come from Fhìrdiad. There were few other explanations. The scouts had already reported that there were no Adrestian armies around or outside Fhìrdiad.
Panic and screams rolled through the camp. Horses reared, snapping at their reins. Pegasi beat their wings. Ingrid's eyes went upwards, where another discharge arched towards camp.
She vaulted onto her loyal pegasus Odecia and took flight.
Another blast flashed. Ingrid cleaved the sky with Areadbhar right as it passed above her. The crackling current split under the edge of the Relic, scattering in sparks.
Below her, Ingrid watched the knights of Faerghus reassemble and mages converging in a circle. A second later, a shield shimmered to life right beneath Odecia's hooves. The next bolt slammed into it, tendrils of energy dispersing onto the invisible surface like fingers grasping at nothing.
Ingrid hoped- knew the others would lead the army. They knew what to do.
More strikes sparked from tall pillars jutting within Fhìrdiad. Ingrid didn't recognise the craftsmanship- didn't recognise the pillars at all. They hadn't been there when she last laid eyes on the capital.
Odecia weaved between the cascade of lightning. Ingrid slashed at the ones that arrived close enough to almost graze her. Wherever Areadbhar tore through, the magic stilled in the air and died.
A blast shrieked right at her, Odecia caught in the act of climbing higher. Ingrid drove Areadbhar into it-
-The Relic drank its magic. Its blade blazed.
Ingrid could feel the lightning coiling on the tip of Areadbhar. It writhed furiously in search of release. If she didn't do anything, it would explode with all its strength.
With a cry, Ingrid hurled it back from whence it had come. The magic condensed into a sphere- she blinked, and it screamed back into lightning. It flew towards the capital this time, and it speared right through one of the pillars. It folded inward, and everything collapsed into dust crashing in the air.
Her arm pulsed. She ignored the feeling and spurred Odecia into the volley.
Not all the bolts of lightning she intercepted returned to their source. Most unravelled in frizzling embers. But those that did-
Another pillar fell. Then a third. A fourth-
Ingrid's body screamed from the effort. She paid it no heed.
She reached the walls of Fhìrdiad through a hail of arrows. None even nicked one of Odecia's feathers. She rode Odecia toward the gate, its portcullis lowered fully. The drawbridge wasn't up for reasons unknown to Ingrid.
Odecia, her faithful steed, didn't flinch when Ingrid urged her into the gate. She had been trained to trust the power of Luìn, which could turn its wielder into a fiery comet. This was nothing in comparison.
Dark scratches crawled along the length of Areadbhar. Ingrid drew her arm back. Right as she was about to crash, she thrust the Relic forward.
The portcullis exploded outward in chunks of sharp metal. Ingrid plunged through the storm as the darkness enveloping Areadbhar poured into the structure, tearing everything apart. The soldiers posted behind the gate broke ranks and scattered.
Ingrid didn't bother with them. The rest of the army could deal with the disbanding defenders now that the way through was open. She pulled on Odecia's reins instead, aiming straight for Castle Fhìrdiad.
Cut the head, and the body shall follow. It was a common tactic in Fòdlan.
By fortune or the Goddess's favour, Cornelia was outside on a balcony overlooking the courtyard, a mere handful of guards protecting her. To her commendation, Cornelia didn't run even as Ingrid dove at her, Areadbhar flaring with power.
Cornelia lifted one hand. Blades of light cut through the air out of nowhere. Ingrid leaned low into the saddle, Odecia veering aside. Heat raked across Ingrid's shoulder.
In return, Ingrid spurred Odecia back towards Cornelia. The guards, cowards at heart, vanished into the castle.
Another spell roared at Ingrid. Odecia folded her wings; the blast screamed above her.
Ingrid gripped Areadbhar harder-
-Odecia surged upward. Cornelia staggered, blood spurting from her abdomen onto the floor beneath her feet. She fell onto her knees.
The sound of metal against metal rang somewhere in the distance. It had to be the Loyalist army entering Fhìrdiad.
As nobody stood to fight her for the moment, Ingrid guided Odecia down to the balcony. She dismounted the second Odecia's hooves landed with a clatter and faced the fallen saintess. The injury was too severe; Cornelia wouldn't live beyond a few more minutes.
Ingrid stepped closer, intending to grant her mercy, though Cornelia didn't deserve it. Her corpse would serve well enough as proof of the fall of the Faerghus Dukedom.
"I wonder… Which one are you?" Cornelia rasped suddenly. Her chest stuttered with every breath she took. "Perhaps… The maiden dreaming of knighthood, who used to switch places with the princeling in his childhood?"
Ingrid sucked air through her teeth. "How did you-"
"I knew the princeling well, knight. And pegasi do not suffer men," Cornelia smiled through crimson bubbles.
Her breath itched, and yet, Cornelia's eyes brightened. "I watched the borders for years." A wet laughter bubbled from her throat. "Troops vanishing overnight. Corpses found torn apart- all the work of a single man."
Her gaze locked onto Ingrid. "Until the darling prince returned, and the Empire… Started summoning all its forces to Arianrhod.
There hasn't been… A report since then."
Cornelia laughed. Laughed.
"Behold your greatest song, the loyal knight... Who, through adorning herself with her prince's face and crown-" Cornelia coughed more blood. "Guided her sworn liege to… A death without dignity..."
Cornelia crumpled onto the stone, where she wouldn't utter any more words. She died with a beatific smile unfitting of the burning end of the Dukedom.
---
The bells of Fhìrdiad hadn't stopped tolling since the last soldier of the Dukedom laid down their arms.
Even now, as twilight painted the capital amber and violet, their reverberations seeped through stone and mortar. The streets below the castle teemed with people still. Broken carts and shattered standards carrying the Dukedom insignia served as pyres beneath the darkening sky. The wind picked up the laughter and songs and carried them all over Fhìrdiad.
Ingrid and her former classmates stalled in a forgotten storage room of Castle Fhìrdiad, removed from the celebrations. Splintered crates stacked against the walls; rusted tools piled in a corner. Ingrid sat on a bench, her gaze fastened to her trembling hands in her lap, the skin between the joints cracked and red. The late King’s armour lay discarded in a heap.
She hadn't asked her friends anything; they had trailed after her wordlessly after she retired from the council with the Eastern Lords. They stood by her as Ingrid tore the armour from her body and fell in a ruin. Sylvain had hovered close the whole time, arms poised to offer comfort the second she collapsed. Now, he was massaging circles into her shoulder blade.
Despite her shallow breathing, Ingrid's eyes stayed dry as she recounted Cornelia's dying words.
Mercedes’s hands flew to her mouth halfway through the tale. Annette shook her head over and over through the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. Ashe stared at the floor, his face devoid of colour. Dedue struck the wall with a closed fist.
“She lied,” Felix snarled then. His shoulders rose and fell with each heave of his chest; his hands clenched the fabric of his sleeves until his knuckles blanched. “She announced the Boar’s execution when he escaped. You can’t trust her to speak the truth at any turn.”
Mercedes swallowed. “Felix…”
“That traitor knew she was out of time,” he continued, voice sharpening. “She would have said anything to wound us one last time."
Wiping her cheeks with her sleeves, Annette nodded. “Y-yes. She would’ve said anything to disseminate despair."
“She… She wanted us to lose hope. That's it,” Ashe said.
Ingrid didn’t respond. She reached over her shoulder and closed her fingers around Sylvain's hand.
Dedue spoke then, his voice rumbling. “It's possible she spoke the truth.”
Felix whirled toward him. “You don’t know that.”
“I know His Highness was alone,” Dedue replied. He hadn't moved from the wall since hitting it.
"She lied," Felix repeated, raising his voice. His hands curled into fists as he looked around the room. "She lied, and if you're going to believe her, I won't stay here to listen to this."
He stormed out of the storage room, taking any further word with him.
---
As foretold by Duchess Ifan, obligations swept over them all like a tide and pulled them under.
In the days that followed the liberation of Fhìrdiad, Sylvain appeared on balconies, promising safety to the people of Fhìrdiad. Felix walked on the steps of chapels scorched by lightning, accepting the cheers ringing against the blackened stone. Ingrid visited the provisional tents where priests and bishops tended to the victims of Cornelia's cruelty, granting them faith.
Eventually, the moment came for the Loyalist army to advance South. The Empire was gathering its full might at the Silver Maiden, and they couldn't suffer a counterattack shredding its way through Faerghus.
Like their march toward Fhìrdiad, the land refused to bow to Adrestia any further. Villages that had endured with their heads down ripped the banners nailed to their entrances. Towns that had learnt to smother their fury and dignity dragged Lords from their halls and lynched them in the open. Sylvain discovered this upon finding Viscount Belinus's head nailed to a post outside the market square, crows picking at his eyes.
Still. They had a duty to uphold. A legacy - Dimitri's legacy - to preserve. Thus, they averted their eyes from the corpses people had strewn across the land and mended roads as they moved. They reopened the granaries where corrupted Lords had hoarded grain. They repaired houses and collected timber for the people to rebuild with.
In the end, they arrived at Arianrhod to find its gates thrown open. No Adrestian battalions waited upon the walls; no crimson banners hung in defiance. Commoners with hands wrapped in rags and cheeks hollowed by hunger bowed as the Loyalist army rode beneath the arch. Felix's gaze lingered on the mutilated bodies of Count Rowe and his retainers sprawled in the central square like an offering. Sylvain almost vomited at the now unrecognisable woman next to Sir Gwendal's remains.
The rest of Western Faerghus capitulated shortly afterwards. Messengers arrived from the surrounding territories before the Silver Maiden was fully secured, bearing scrolls heavy with names of forgotten branches of noble Houses pledging loyalty to the Kingdom reborn. Without the support of the Adrestian army, many families who had shaken hands with the Empire had ceased to exist at the claws of their own people.
Yet, Dimitri's seat was still occupied by a temporary substitute.
The council, with Ingrid playing the part of the crown that day, was pondering over unfurled maps when Gilbert entered, his cloak still stiff with frost and boots dusted with snow. He forewent saluting anyone.
"Sir Gilbert," Rodrigue began, rising to his feet over the council holding its breath. "Have you any information of His Highness?"
Gilbert looked at Rodrigue, silent, before exhaling and closing his eyes, head dipping.
A muscle in Ingrid's jaw tensed-
And the door flung open behind Gilbert. A messenger stumbled through, breathing through his mouth.
"Please!" she cried. "I need to speak with His Majesty at once! It's important!"
Ingrid stood up. "Speak," she managed to carve out of her mouth.
"Your Majesty- the Emperor-" she gasped again. Then, a smile split her face in half. "Emperor Edelgard is dead!"
A minor nobleman pushed a jug filled with water in her direction. She snatched it and drank straight from it. "She was assassinated," she continued as water dripped down her lips. "The army is in disarray. Battalions are abandoning their posts. Commanders are fighting for authority- some are outright fleeing...!"
Duke Rodrigue reached for the table to steady himself. Ingrid wished she could do the same because the hall was spinning before her eyes.
Edelgard was dead. The Empire was falling into chaos. And His Highness… His Highness was still missing.
What do we do now?