Chapter Text
Farewell Renais
Your warmth so cold in grief
Renais, my love, my land
Farewell in tears
Thy fate and future leave
In star-eyed children's hand.
— Words of the Manakete by the poet Teneth
Then:
Above the clatter of dragon-bearing banners rose the call of a triumphant war horn, and Eirika, first of her name, princess of Renais, and last in a bloodline spanning centuries, set down the quill with which she conspired against her kingdom. Her fingers trembled when she rolled up the parchment. The ink of the final lines smudged, some ancestor’s tearstains, but it did little to conceal her crime. Too prominent was the addressee’s name.
To converse with a lord from the south was not treason, not necessarily. But anyone else would stand trial before Myrrh’s Stone for the many letters she hastily locked in a drawer underneath her desk.
The war horn boomed a second time, a sound to herald a successful campaign. Eirika craned her neck, and instead of guilt, anticipation quickened her breath. Beyond the walls of Zanten, the capital of Renais and the true center of the world, rode a long column of horses. The cool sun reflected from harnesses, gold embellishments, and the helmets of the Restoration Brigade. They carried banners to join the many flags billowing above the capital’s battlements; a dragon of gold and white. For what other creature could possibly match the glory of Renais?
Eirika leaned farther into the window frame above her desk. The stones of Zanten were so wide that she just barely reached the outer edge if she stretched her arm all the way. She scanned the front row of the riders. She couldn’t be sure, they were still too distant to make out faces. But the figure at the front wore the crimson cape of royalty.
She knocked over her ink keg and had already dashed out of the room by the time it hit the lavishly carpeted floor. She flew down winding stairs and halls, caring not for the surprised gasps of servants in her wake. Her grin could have surely outshone Archanea’s sun.
He was back. Finally.
The heavy door to the inner battlements squealed, and she considered to reward the wooden barricade’s refusal to cooperate with a hearty kick, until at last the wild winds of late fall struck her face and she breathed the smell of victory.
Horns from the palace answered the call of the Restoration Brigade. The procession had passed the outer walls, accompanied by the cheers, chants, and threaded garlands of Renais’ citizens. Like a ceaseless canopy of colors, the garlands hung above the streets until Zanten was no more a network of cobblestones but of woven splendor instead. From the western gate to the queen’s plaza, they veiled the triumphant fighters, a laurel wreath and a grape bunch for each. And as Eirika tiptoed, and as the man on the white charger at the front brushed the crimson threads of a garland aside, she felt two halves melting back into one.
She waved. Ephraim had to have looked out for her – his eyes found her instantly amidst the growing crowd on the battlements. A grin just as wide as hers spread on his face, and he abandoned his entourage to gallop his horse along the final stretch towards the palace gates.
Finally, finally, he was back.
In her rush down the stairs leading to the yard, she tripped. An arm from behind saved her from a nasty fall onto the cobble, and she looked up to meet Seth’s frown.
“Careful,” he said. Eirika didn’t know whether she wanted to rebuke him for his even tone or throw her arms around his neck for a dance.
“He’s back,” she said breathlessly.
“And he wouldn’t be the only one devastated if you were to snap your neck in your haste.” Concern tainted Seth’s tone, but he was smiling too.
The whole world ought to be smiling on a day like this.
“The delicacy of my neck didn’t bother you in our training duel yesterday,” Eirika said. “Or the day before. Or really since you threw that stick at me on the lake shore when I was eight, and you and Ephraim had to carry me through the servant’s tunnel on the east side so father wouldn’t find out.”
Seth sighed. “You win.”
Eirika gave a mock-curtsy. “Race you downstairs.”
She was off before Seth could protest, vaulting two steps at a time. When she skidded to a halt in the yard, leagues before Seth, the clatter of hooves echoed through the wide, vaulted gateway, and her heart soared like the winged creature of her house’s crest.
Ephraim, first of his name, crown-prince of Renais, and heir to the dragon’s blood and banner, looked every bit the war hero of legendary days’ past when he drove his horse into the yard. His light armor shone, a golden gleam down to his cape brooch, and finely stitched dragons wound along the hem of his cape. The ancestry of Renais showed in his sharp face and eyes the color of emeralds sunken at sea, a twin face to the first divine queen. A twin face to Eirika’s.
And with a twin smile to hers brightening his features, Ephraim jumped out of the saddle, even tossed his priceless lance at a befuddled stable boy. He met her running and used his momentum to seize her by the waist and spin her around until they were both drunk from laughter.
Still smiling, Ephraim returned Eirika to her feet. “My dearest sister,” he said, “how dare you grow even more beautiful in my absence? I fear to even imagine the many proposals you have stacked on your desk. Quick, give me their names. My lance urges for blood.”
“What a jester you are.” Eirika feigned to slap him, and Ephraim caught her hand, grinning. “Haven’t you had enough battle lately?”
“Hardly. It was mostly talk that won us this campaign.”
“That and the two thousand spears you brought with you.”
Ephraim’s smile grew devious. “All as planned. The rich granaries of Grado as well as Carcino’s wildlands are ours now. Reclaimed and restored to the embrace of house Renais. Council Dozla will be terribly bored with the plain folk in Carcino, but he can hardly complain about being given such a large territory to govern.”
“With land so far to the west, he will barely have time to join the council here. Much less continue his scheming with Council Garcia.”
“Like I said: all as planned.” Ephraim waved away the stableboy who still shuffled about with the royal lance, Siegmund, in his hands. “And what has my dearest sister been up to? Writing to her mysterious friend again?”
He turned over Eirika’s palm. Ink stained her fingertips. Ink from a conspiring quill.
Eirika froze, and for a moment she feared Ephraim could read every single traitorous word she had ever sent south out of the blemishes on her hand. She and Ephraim had shared cradle, sword, and mind from the first, and sometimes one of them moved even before the other asked for the wine carafe or the roasted ibex at table. Her letters were the single thing she kept from him. It had started as a game, and maybe he still thought of it as such. But looking back, she had too often laid Renais’ politics, military movements, and herself naked in these letters. Less than an hour ago she had meant to write about the first heralds reporting on the western campaign and how she yearned to reunite with her brother. If Ephraim so much as glanced the name she had written at the top of the scroll in her room – what he had threatened her nonexistent suitors with would be tame by comparison.
She needed all her effort to soothe his suspicions with a smile. “He is a much more engaging discussion partner than you are.”
“That so?” Ephraim wiped ink and evidence from her hand with his thumb. “One day you will have to introduce me to this mysterious poet.”
Eirika breathed an inward sigh. “It’s your own fault for staying away for so long. I couldn’t even begin to fill you in on everything that’s happened here.”
“I’m sure you will do me the favor and try anyway. Father…”
“Is heartbroken. You should have written him!”
“You should have written him and put my name under it. Even with all your extra practice, no one has ever been able to tell our handwritings apart.”
They both grinned. They had made it a game a few years back, to write a random sentence on a piece of paper and give them to Seth for inspection. Furrowing, and after a while quite tired of the game, he would guess who of them had written each version. They would grin to each other as they did now and exclaimed “Wrong again!” as though they had won a great political scheme.
Ephraim shifted to a more serious tone. “And father, is he…”
“The same as when you left.” Eirika snuck a glance at the knights that were trundling into the yard after Ephraim. Boasts and welcome chatter with palace staff kept them occupied, and none of them appeared to listen their way. But the king’s health was a sensitive subject.
Ephraim understood her glances and, with her in tow, ambled towards the vast y-shaped staircase leading into the palace proper in the most casual fashion.
“More importantly,” Eirika continued, “you missed Seth’s performance in the Pit. He sent six rounds of champions to the infirmary, you should have seen it. In the final round, they were coming at him three to one. The crowd was hysteric.”
“How did Seth get himself thrown in with the gladiators?”
“He may have lost a bet with me.”
Ephraim laughed. “You truly are merciless. I suppose they want him in the arena for this season’s finals as well.”
“If only. By now they must have realized he is of blood.”
The battles in the capital’s gladiator arena allowed only commoners to participate; a chance to win glory and more tangible prizes. At the end of each season, the victors of Renais’ major towns were awarded a knight title and the honor to serve in the royal army. About a third of Ephraim’s Restoration Brigade consisted of “Risen”, as they were commonly referred to. The high ratio of Risen Ephraim had gathered under his command earned him both furrowed brows from the council and an exponential increase in participants for the arena battles. Eirika had needed charm, a forged document, and three separate coats to smuggle Seth into the Pit, but the spectacle had more than made up for the trouble.
“I wish I had seen it,” Ephraim said as they reached the top of the stairs.
Seth, who had evidently not bothered with Eirika’s invitation for a race, awaited them with his hands folded behind his back. On first glance he appeared a stern man, and certainly he did his utmost to maintain that image. But no dignified posture in the world could erase how he had fought splash battles with them by the lake district, when they had been eight and the only crowns on their mind were the flowers they wove into each other’s hair.
“Ah, and there he is, the man of the hour!” Ephraim said. “Eirika tells me you are raking up the glory of the Pit?”
Seth straightened even further. “Only on involuntary account, Your Highness.”
Ephraim frowned. “Why the formality?”
“It seems… appropriate. Given your first successful crusade.”
Ephraim put an arm first around his and then Eirika’s shoulder. “The first of many, Seth. The first of many.”
Once more, things were as they should be. The kingdom of Renais stretched many miles farther to the west, the flags danced more proudly on their poles, and the first wagons of Grado’s rich harvest rolled into the palace for a feast. But above all, Ephraim was back, and their circle of three strode together through the palace’s entrance hall, teasing each other as though no time had passed at all. Eirika could not find a better reason to smile.
One time, Ephraim paused. From the head of the entrance hall, a statue of Renais’ first queen watched the comings and goings of her descendants with somber eyes. Despite the great mural in her back, a marvelous piece depicting dragon wings amidst swirling fires, stars, and worlds entire, her gaze was detached from the priceless collection of gemstones adorning the hall. A woman both cold and imposing. Divine.
The statue drew Ephraim all the same. With a chillingly foreign expression that highlighted his likeness to the queen more than ever, he studied the carved letters at the statue’s feet.
No fire is eternal but that of the dragon.
No world is eternal but that of written legend.
No kingdom is eternal but that of Renais.
Eirika didn’t need to step closer to know the inscription, they had made sure she could recite the words while she was still dangling on her father’s knee. There surely hid a message within, maybe a prophecy the marble woman had given the king of Renais on their wedding day, maybe a vow he had passed onto her on his deathbed. Eirika had always found them unnerving. Words too great for simple humans to alter. Or perhaps it was merely the fact that these letters had endured for over a thousand years while so many kings and queens had come and gone.
“It hasn’t changed since you left,” Eirika said. “Come, Em, I’m sure father wants to see you.”
“Yes. Of course.”
But it took Ephraim a long moment before he severed the spell that bound him to the inscription. And even when he did join Eirika on her climb towards the king’s chambers, his steps didn’t fall in rhythm with hers.
She scowled while Ephraim was questioning Seth on troop strength and training plans and promising fighters from the Pit. His command over the Restoration Brigade was getting to him. He had never liked the politics of handling an army before. More than once, his inquiries drifted to the southern lands, and Eirika missed a step.
“You know messages are always sparse,” Seth said. “And news are months old by the time they reach us.”
“But you know something.”
Seth nodded. “Word is the Pegasus Knights of Talys have abandoned both the Pheraen and Altean army. Even so, the strength of both kingdoms is not to be underestimated. The fertile land makes feeding an army easy.”
“Grado should even the scales in our favor,” Ephraim said. “I’m thinking about electing more than one Risen this season. Maybe the final five contestants, all together.”
“I’m sure they would be honored, though it hardly makes a difference. The rulers of Pherae and Altea are not only allies but close friends, it is said.”
“And both unmarried?” Ephraim raised a brow.
“Queen Lucina is refusing proposals for religious reasons,” Eirika threw in. These two wouldn’t shut her out of their conversation so easily. “Something about the five rulebooks of her goddess.”
“I didn’t take you to be interested in gossip from the south that doesn’t involve a great adventure.” Ephraim smiled. It struck her that it was the smile of a man who had killed. “Where you’re getting all that knowledge from is what I want to know.”
“There is no door in this world Milady Eirika cannot pry open,” Seth said.
“True, but usually it’s one of us who she uses as leverage.”
The two of them laughed, and although the joke had been made at her expense, Eirika was glad for it. Better than to explain her way past the fact that she had discussed the subject of the Altean queen in her forbidden letters. She mocked herself foolish. With Ephraim, dropping her guard came too naturally. She needed to hold her tongue.
She took the excuse of being offended by their joke to trudge past Ephraim and Seth while they discussed battle tactics. Ephraim had great plans to outfit his men with horses from Carcino, sturdy breeds drilled to run in formation and hesitate not even in the face of a shield wall.
Eirika stopped listening halfway up the stairs to the king’s chambers. They would expect her at the feast to celebrate the successful crusade, but she might sneak off an hour or two earlier to finish her response letter. Reaching her usual messenger would prove more difficult. Until now she had bribed him for his falcons with smiles and fancies of a dance with the princess during Winter Feast, but with the crown prince returned, he might think twice about who to set his goggling eyes on. The last knight who had flirted with Eirika had promptly found himself conscripted into the first line of the Restoration Brigade. She wondered if he had returned from Grado. But it was a fleeting thought.
“Even so it is madness,” Seth was saying. The door to the king’s chambers stood at the end of the hallway, and he lowered his voice. “There is a reason your father never rode against the south in the past twenty years.”
“The Black Knight.”
A chill ran through Eirika. Or maybe it was the wind hurrying through the wide halls that defended so poorly against winter’s cold.
“The entire High Circle of Tellius, felled by his hand,” Seth said. “All of Tarim destroyed. And those stories merely cover the deeds we know of. The land’s forest must be teeming with the ghosts he created in his wake.” He shuddered. Leave it to Seth to fear the ghosts of dead men more than the very real nightmare in black armor. “No man has killed as many as he has.”
“But he is a man. And men can fall to blade and age and illness. No matter how great they once were. There must come a time… You see it too, Eirika, don’t you?”
The look in Ephraim’s eyes chilled her more than the wind could. It told her, all too clearly, that he had found his goal. The granaries of Grado, the horses of Carcino, the Risen flooding to his army with ceaseless gratitude; they were all paving stones on his way. His way south.
There might be no door Eirika could not pry open. But there was no door Ephraim would not hack to kindling once he had set his eyes on the trophy on the other side.
She had found it amusing before, had shared a conspiring grin when he had poured nightshade powder into a guard’s wine to sneak into the armory. They had been ten. They had only known the battlefield from stories then, and there had been no letters to suggest the people of the south were people. But now…
“Let the south deal with the south’s problems,” Eirika said. “We have everything we need here. In Renais.”
Ephraim scowled. He could not hide the betrayal he felt at her words. “And that coming from you…”
Seth cleared his throat. “We’re here.”
And indeed, they had run out of hallway and room for discussion. Ahead waited the door to the king’s chambers. The wood had a crude, honest look, even though it allowed or denied entrance to the most powerful person in Renais, or likely the whole world. Ephraim straightened, and Eirika checked her fingers for remnants of ink, but Seth stepped away from the door.
“Aren’t you coming?” Ephraim asked. “You know father would never refuse you.”
Seth shook his head. “He has looked forward to your successful return for months. I will be waiting for you two here.”
Ephraim’s unease was palpable. Eirika felt it as an echo in her own chest. She didn’t dare squeeze his hand, but she did raise her fingers to knock, and a moment later, the open door beckoned them inside.
A table with a game of stones that hadn’t seen use in months occupied the center of the antechamber. Thick woolen tapestries and several layers of carpets fended off the cold of the palace, even though the cruelest winter months were yet to come. Two healers with magical teaching fluttered about, lost in their task of sorting through scrolls and leather-bound tomes. An herbalist sat at the table and was brewing tea from at least ten different types of rosemary. She only looked up from her work long enough to give a respectful bow of the head and confirm Eirika’s question that the king was awake to see them.
She shared a glance with Ephraim. Together they pushed aside the curtain leading to the chamber beyond.
The air of sickness, of age, struck Eirika square across the nose. It had become worse since her last visit, and the tapestries hung before the windows to cast the room in a dimness that didn’t allow the smell to flee. It was a herald of the inevitable. She fought the urge to run back to her room and forget herself in forbidden letters from the south, and knelt beside the bed at the head of the chamber instead.
“Father?” she said. “Ephraim has returned. He won Grado and Carcino for us, father.”
King Fado lifted a battle-scarred hand, and Eirika clutched it. The scars did not bother her, she had known them since the days he had petted her hair and conjured secret pastries out of his sleeves. But the fingers of her father, fingers that until half a year ago had held scepter, sword, and the north of Archanea, were thin to the bone. Wrinkles deformed the skin into that of a half-rotten fruit. The sunken cheeks and the gray in his hair belonged to man beyond his years, who could hope to find heat in his bones only once more, in the embrace of his pyre.
But he was the dragon of Renais. And although trapped in an ailing body, the eyes settling on Eirika showed the keen mind yet undefeated.
“Eirika, my dear,” he said. “It pains me that you must see me so. Have you not more pleasant things to fill your hours with than to return to the bedside of an old man?”
“You’re not old, father. Only tired.”
He produced something like a wet chuckle. “Tired of this feeble body, yes. Have you done your lectures today? Are you handling your rapier well?”
“Knights from all across the kingdom will be green with envy once I leave the training yard to join their ranks.”
“Good. You know I could not be prouder. My beloved daughter. My eternal ruler.” He freed his hand from her grasp to stroke a loose hair behind her ears.
Eirika glanced at Ephraim, who remained by the curtains. In the shadows cast by tapestries of legends past, his face proved difficult to read even for her. Their father had yet to acknowledge his presence. He didn’t do so out of malice, surely Ephraim knew that, but…
“Father, did you not hear what I said?” she tried again. “Ephraim is back with us. He came straight here to see you.”
“Ephraim?” Her father struggled to lift his head from the pillow and part the dimness of the room with his aged eyes. “My son, step closer, please.”
Ephraim stalked towards the bed’s other side and knelt just as stiffly. All the same, he took the hand their father stretched towards him.
“I am glad to see you returned safely. I was worried my strength might not last until then. But to know you back home, it is a better remedy than all the tinctures these fools behind the curtain could pour into me. Were you successful in Grado?”
Ephraim did not ease despite the attempt at humor. “Yes, father.”
“Report.”
Detached and straight to the point, Ephraim relayed his crusade in Grado and Carcino. When he spoke of the opening skirmish in one of Grado’s cliff-sided towns, of raids against wheat-fat councils and demands of single combat hurled against him in Carcino, little of his enthusiasm from before seeped through. Their father listened with his eyes half-closed. Ephraim finished saying that the grain and the horses he had won would ensure Fado’s reign lasted another two decades, with no other nation brave or foolish enough to challenge them. And if his father so wished, he would restore other lands twice as rich to the dragon flag.
“You were always so ambitious,” their father said. “Always you would set your eyes on the sweetest apples, the ones that dangle from the slender branches up high. How many times did you fall and twist your ankle?”
“Once. And I learned from my mistake.”
“You learned to climb more shrewdly. But you never did learn when to stop climbing and remain with your feet on the ground.”
“All I do, I do in your name, father.”
“You may think me old and weak, but do not mistake me for senile. You were never a good liar. I know you desire the sweet fruits of the south. And I know you desire the challenge. But desire too fiercely and aspire too greatly, and you will lose sight of what matters.”
Ephraim pulled his hands back. His voice was as cold as the frozen ponds of the Azure Mountains. “Then you are dissatisfied with my victory.”
Eirika shook her head as a quiet warning to Ephraim. He was going too far. Despite the effort it cost him, and despite his face losing the last of its color, their father lifted himself halfway from the sheets to clasp Ephraim’s shoulder.
“You do me nothing but honor, Ephraim. I know you a capable leader and an exceptional fighter. You stride with the same fire I had when I was your age. That’s why I fear for you. Move without thought, and the fire will burn you. Seek not the fruit that is out of your reach but appreciate the ones that grow in your own garden. Be content.” He increased his grip on Ephraim’s shoulder. “Be content with second place.”
Ephraim did not respond.
The other wrinkled hand reached out to stroke Eirika’s cheek. “It is only now that I am trapped in this ailing body that I truly realize what strong and wonderful children I have.”
“But the blood of Renais is suited to rule. Is chosen to rule. You always said that.”
Their father had no answer to that. Weakened and more hollowed out by illness than ever, he sank back into his pillow. It was true, what Ephraim had said. Before all the other great houses of Archanea, before even the ancient bloodlines of Pherae and Altea, were they not chosen to rule above the common and the meek? Did they not have the divine birthright to guide the land towards prosperity? This knowledge was engraved into every stone in Zanten, into the songs they chanted during Matrim’s Day and the banner they carried into war, as far back as the motto carved into the pedestal of the first queen. Not once did Eirika even think to doubt it as anything less than truth.
Her father had shied no enemy to honor this calling, he had battled Pherae and the Empire of Tellius, when it had been a warring nation rather than a waste, and each time, the name of King Fado of Renais shone more gloriously. A warrior king without peer. Now he was denying Ephraim that very same glory? Then again, the husk biered on the sheets between them shared little resemblance with a king of legend.
“Be cautious,” their father said. “That is all I ask. You will have to be when you rule the land entrusted to us by the gods in my stead.”
“That day is still many years away, father,” Ephraim said.
“A kingdom needs a leader who can be strong for them. They need someone to rally behind with surety and vigor. As your knights of the Restoration Brigade have rallied behind you.” Their father paused, fixated only on Ephraim’s face. Whether he searched for future glory or mistakes, Eirika couldn’t tell, nor if the result of his search pleased him. Not even her rapier could have pierced the taut air of the chamber when he spoke. “One week from now, I will proclaim you regent king.”
Ephraim startled. He had not expected this. Eirika’s surprise mirrored his, and yet she found herself beaming as though overflooded with the joy he didn’t yet allow to settle in. Regent King Ephraim. After everything he had done to earn father’s approval, the crown was only one short week away. The turning point lay ahead. From there, the only direction was to rise.
“I am… honored,” Ephraim mustered.
“The celebrations will make today's feast for your return look puny,” Eirika said. “And poor Council Dozla will have to trek all the way back from his new residence after you just dropped him off there.”
Her father smiled. “Perhaps a long walk is just what he needs to liven his spirits. Eirika, will you lend your wit to your brother when he takes the crown? And make him see reason every once in a while, he never listens to me.”
“Of course!”
Her father squeezed her hand, and a hint of his old strength lingered, a strength to hold a kingdom. Then he did the same for Ephraim.
“My beloved children, you are destined for greatness. I knew it when I first held you in my arms, and I know it now. You are the blood of Renais. You are the blood of the dragon. I know that you will do honor to that legacy. No king could wish for more worthy successors. And no father could wish for more wonderful children.” His shoulders slumped, and with the breath he released, that hint of his old strength left. Once more it was a corpse’s hand Eirika was holding.
“Go now,” the corpse said with a weak imitation of her father’s voice. “Enjoy the time with your friends. Steal pastry from the kitchen trays like you used to. In a week from now, the world will bow to you.”
Somehow he seemed to include both of them when he said this.
Eirika climbed to her feet. In her mind, she was already tearing apart her letter and rewriting it with the most dazzling report of her brother’s conquest and coronation and all the great possibilities that were to come. They would have a good laugh about shoving all those rusty council members this way and that. Their faces when she ripped their arguments asunder had never disappointed her so far.
Her hand on the curtain, she stopped. Ephraim still knelt by the bed. And although his shoulders were shaking with effort, their father clutched his hand until nails dug into skin.
“Repeat your promise to me,” he whispered.
“It was true then,” Ephraim said, “and it holds now.”
“You must watch over her. You must. Be true to your promise. Be true…”
The stuffy room was suddenly cold.
There was no emotion in Ephraim’s voice when he answered. “I will.”
Then he rid himself of his father’s hand and, in a flutter of cape and curtain, went to prepare his ascension.