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Chapter Text

I. 

In all his six years of living, or the years that he could remember, Ike could not recall being more grateful to return to the castle and his father’s side. As the most celebrated swordsman in Daein, surely his father wouldn’t tell Ike that the most powerful thing in this world was love. Perhaps his father would also let him practice wielding a blade to crush his enemies instead of limiting Ike to using a mortar and pestle to crush herbs for the elderly and infirm.

“Why can’t love be a form of strength, Ike?” asked Elena.

Mist scowled at Ike from their mother’s lap. Ike was almost willing to concede that perhaps some forms of love– a toddler’s attachment to her afternoon naps, for example– could be construed as strength. If by strength one meant screaming at one’s older brother until his ears bled.

“Love won’t help you subdue your enemies,” Ike said very reasonably.

“That is true,” Elena conceded. She did not speak the way adults spoke to children; she spoke as if Ike had things to say that were worth hearing. That was one part of the great love and respect Ike felt for his mother and usually prevented him from trenchantly disagreeing with her. Love being superior to swordsmanship, however, was where he drew the line. “Tell me– do you think the magic I use to heal this country is weak?”

“Of course not.” Ike was pitiful at magic, despite Elena’s best attempts to teach him. That meant it must be an advanced skill, even if one less interesting than swordsmanship.

Elena smiled. Ike could feel himself falling under the spell of its preternatural calming abilities, further convincing him that his mother’s way of existing, in prayer or not, must be magical, given his terrible resistance to all things magic. He only hoped his sister didn’t develop the gift.

“If my magic is strength, and it is a form of my love for this world despite its brokenness, then love must have power,” Elena explained. “That power is ultimately greater than the damage weapons can inflict, because it restores that which has been destroyed by blades drawn in greed and hatred and fear. Love is about overcoming, not subduing.” 

Ike said nothing. He’d learned that his silence made his lack of understanding fairly apparent without expending the energy to say so. 

“I believe you, Mother,” Mist quipped as she curled against their mother’s dress. 

“You don’t know what she’s saying anymore than I do,” Ike snapped.

Mist’s bawling made Ike’s relief keener when their caravan finally stopped. A moment after he jumped onto the familiar stone path to the castle, relief surged into joy, for his father appeared and lifted Ike into his arms, setting Ike down when he noticed a weeping Mist. Not for the first time, Ike sorely wished he’d thought twice about what he told his sister before it came tumbling honestly and immediately out of his mouth. 

“Did you miss me that badly, sweetheart?” Gawain asked Mist, a broad grin splitting his scarred face. “I thought you’d have forgotten your old man after your grand adventures across the country.”

With one arm, Elena embraced Gawain, and with the other, she gathered Ike close to her. Despite– or because of– Mist’s wet sniffling, Ike finally felt at home.

“Come, the time for tears is over,” Gawain insisted more sternly. “Or do you want your eyes to be as red as a laguz during the ceremony?”   

“I’m sure there’s a lovely dress waiting for you to change into,” Elena suggested, gently extricating Mist from Gawain’s neck. “Let me plait your hair before I go to the temple.” 

“You’re dressing up, too, Ike,” Gawain replied to whatever mutinous expression had crossed Ike’s face. 

“But–”

“Tactics, my boy. Tattered rags aren't so awe-inspiring outside the battlefield.”

When Ike entered his quarters, and he saw the twenty pieces of clothing he’d have to somehow assemble on his body, he wasn’t convinced that his poor imitation of a snobby aristocrat would cut all that impressive a figure, either. 

“We’ll spar later, won’t we?” Ike asked– no, pleaded.   

Gawain wasn’t looking him in the eye. 

Ike might have thought that his father’s attentions were occupied binding the copious straps on his tunic were it not for the remoteness of his gaze. On a man as sharp as Gawain, such a far-off look was unusual, almost… concerning.

“Father?”

Something in Ike’s tone brought Gawain out of his reveries. He became the man Ike knew again: decisive, efficient, and undaunted. He smoothed Ike’s hair before he adjusted the buckles on his own shoulder plates, which were utterly unlike his typical armor, more ostentatious than combat-ready.

“We’ll see,” Gawain replied. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he said, “the king has an announcement planned after the ceremony.” 

Given his mother’s lack of comment on the topic, Ike imagined this was privileged information, the kind of which is rarely received. He was quietly overjoyed before he realized a possible ramification of his father’s words.

“He’s not sending the Riders out on a mission, is he?” Determined though he was not to complain, to sound weak, Ike couldn’t help but add, “We just got here. I haven’t seen you since spring.”

The hardened planes in his father’s face softened like soil after an absence of rain. But he promised nothing. Gawain never made promises he could not keep, which was why Ike trusted him, despite the smaller windows of time they spent year after year in each other’s company.  

If his mother’s words had been true, then the strength of Ike’s love should have kept his father by his side or him and his sister and his mother in the castle instead of roaming the countryside to tend to the ill. But love did not prevent his mother from praying for Daein citizens across the far-flung provinces; love did not make his father’s service to the crown any less rigorous or all-consuming. 

Only Ike obtaining the power to fight Daein’s enemies alongside his father and for his mother– and possibly his sister– could do that. 

Ike thought about that upon entering his mother’s temple, not the finery of the throngs of citizens who had gathered supposedly for prayer. 

Ike thought about that as his father commanded him to mind his sister and his own manners before joining the Riders, who had their weapons at the ready despite their silk brocades pinned with enameled brooches.

Ike thought about that even when King Ashnard, exuding authority in his furred cape and pronged armor, entered the temple and all bowed before him.

Ike would have continued thinking about that had he not noticed his mother’s strange expression as she and the other white-shrouded clergy posed in supplication of the goddess. Although he had watched his mother perform countless rites, Elena’s distant and glassy gaze echoed Gawain’s blankness. That unsettling similarity prompted Ike to listen to the head priest, a man whose name he could not remember, when he otherwise would have ignored him, the way he had every other year:

“Today we remember the floods the goddess unleashed on our world almost a thousand years ago, and that we were chosen by Ashera to live when the cleansing waters washed all other continents away.” The head priest’s voice rose, clear and piercing as a church bell. “We were not saved because the goddess was merciful. It was because she ordained us with a holy purpose to lead the country of Tellius to righteousness.” The clergy beat their staves on the stone floors, the dull thuds echoing like a battalion of spears. “Not Begnion, the land of excess.” The tattoo of sacred wood on hard rock increased until Ike could not distinguish it from his own pulsebeat or Mist’s rapid breathing beside him. “Not Crimea, which dares to invoke the wrath of the goddess once more by allying themselves with subhumans– the very creatures we were pitted against.” As Elena raised her staff overhead in synchronicity with the other clergy, the dark rotunda overflowed with divine light. “We will remain strong and clean, unpolluted by profane unions.” 

Normally at this point in the ceremony, the priests and priestesses would mutter their incantations in voices too low for Ike to hear, and he would be forced to close his eyes and mumble along. Across the temple, his father would glare in reprimand, and Mist would impatiently fidget until they rejoined their mother.

Now, however, something new occurred.

King Ashnard rose to his feet, and the temple went as silent as the relics of the saints crumbling into dust beneath the concrete floor. 

The clergy’s light dimmed, including Elena’s. 

Then, the king spoke at such a volume the domed walls quaked:

“The nation of Daein will indeed be triumphant, our legacy outlasting any nation of human or subhuman! The heir to the throne will ensure that.”

“What heir?” Ike asked without thinking, for his four-year-old sister merely responded by looking as lost as he was. To Mist’s credit, she may not have heard his question amidst the furor that swept through the temple, the people’s confusion nearly as loud and far more chaotic than the preceding ceremony.

Ike’s attention was drawn from Elena, whose professional countenance betrayed no emotion, and Gawain, who sat stonily among his fellow Riders, to a knight who appeared in the length of the portico. For a moment, Ike was convinced that it was this warrior, striding steadily beneath the weight of his full-body black armor, who must be the heir to the kingdom.

But he wasn’t. 

The knight withdrew his red cape and pushed someone into the center of the ring of onlookers, as if this person was also tasked with performing a ritual.

But it was only a child. A child, Ike hazarded, not older than himself. Whether the child was male or female he could not say. They were pretty like the statues in the many temples Ike had visited with his mother, their skin as smooth and colorless as marble, their dark hair so long it partially merged them with the shadows, and their round eyes unblinking.

“Prince Soren!” King Ashnard announced. He never appeared so mighty as he did now, looming above his son from the amphitheater walls.

After a beat, so short Ike almost missed it, the Riders clapped their gauntleted hands, his father leading the charge. Then, the whole temple followed. As did Ike, Mist frantically clapping her tiny palms beside him.

King Ashnard offered no explanation before he vacated his seat, leaving the crowd to talk feverishly amongst themselves, their celebrations of the goddess’s grace largely forgotten. Ike was forced to turn to Mist, knowing that their parents would be busy tending to their respective duties.

“Since when do we have a prince?” 

Mist shrugged unhelpfully. “Will we have a queen next?” 

“The queen died years ago when the dragons attacked,” said Ike. “The prince was supposed to have been killed, too. He was just a baby.”

“How would you know?” Mist asked imperiously. “You were a baby, too.”

That was a valid point Ike would not verbally confer onto his younger sister. 

“His eyes are red,” Mist observed inquiringly. “So is the writing on his forehead.”

Ike vividly recalled the crimson mark on the pale brow. Then, his memories returned to certain mages they encountered during their journeys with their mother. Elena called them Spirit Charmers, mages with unique connections to apparitions that helped them call upon wind, fire, and lightning with their ancient tomes of spells.

Ike couldn’t hide his envy when he asked, “He’s already trained as a mage? He can’t be older than me.”

Mist only stared in confusion, prompting Ike to lead them through the throng while preventing his little sister, who only came up to his waist, from being trampled underfoot. As the cloistered darkness of the temple gave way to spacious columns, Mist sprang ahead, and Ike’s heart hammered at the thought of losing her before he discovered her clinging to the hem of Elena’s white robe.

“You were so pretty, Mother!” she gushed. 

Ike nodded.      

“I want to be a priestess, too,” Mist declared. “Here, in Pal-Paltry Temple!”

Ike did not desire that at all, and he was fairly certain that paltry could not be what the temple of the goddess Ashera was called, but he couldn’t remember its actual title for the life of him.

“Palmeni Temple,” Elena corrected. She glanced at the other clergy, their faces too drawn and pallid for Ike’s liking, before she said, “you are still too young to practice this level of magic.”

“But the prince is a mage,” Mist protested. “He’s a Spirit Charmer and the same age as Ike.”

Elena’s smile faltered for a second before it smoothed back out. “Is that so?”

“Where’s Father?” Ike asked instead of reprimanding Mist for restating this worrisome fact. “The king can’t send him out. Not yet.”

Elena’s silence was worse than her outright denial. 

Turning on his heel before his mother could speak, Ike raced toward the castle, where the Riders would surely convene with the king. After years of avoiding snide ministers and trying to catch his father unawares, to no avail, Ike knew all the hidden avenues and shortcuts to and from the castle. He was especially familiar with the brambled paths that nobody traveled unless they wanted to reduce their fine attire to muddy ribbons.      

That was why he had little reason to anticipate violently colliding into someone else.  

Ike himself received little damage from the encounter, which made him aware that he couldn’t have run into a courtier or soldier or goddess forbid minister. No, the only person this close to the stronghold who was smaller than Ike, apart from Mist, who was probably crying out for him in their mother’s arms–

“Oh, uh, sorry.” Ike immediately reached out to the prince, who lay sprawled on the forest floor. “I didn’t think anyone would be here.”

Prince Soren did not take Ike’s hand, and Ike heard his father’s past warnings as if he were presently growling them into his ear: titles, deference, and basic manners, boy. Ike’s inability to retain this information was why he suspected he’d never had an audience with the king, even though he was the firstborn son of King Ashnard’s strongest fighter.

Now, however, Ike had acquainted himself with King Ashnard’s heir by tackling him into the dirt. Prince Soren, who did not level Ike with the equal parts repulsed and outraged look aristocrats used when he ran too swiftly or spoke too brazenly; Prince Soren, who felt unusually bony and frail when their bodies made contact, despite the supposed strength of his magic; Prince Soren, who appeared to be frozen in fear.

“Did I hurt you?” Ike asked more urgently. He moved to grab Prince Soren. Prince Soren flinched so hard that had he not hurt himself during his fall, he’d surely pull a muscle now. Taking a step back, Ike said in a low, calm voice that surprised both him and the prince, “my mother can heal you. Let me bring you to–”

Prince Soren aggressively shook his head, but beneath the layers and layers of crimson robes, Ike caught him shaking. 

If there was any way he expected the peerless King Ashnard’s son to behave, a boy who had already gained the protection of the spirits, it was not with such painful vulnerability. What was almost more startling was how his own heart pounded in response. Ike steadied himself, clenching his fists– which earned him a shallow gasp from the prince and a strange tightness in his own throat– and then opening his hands. 

“I’m sorry,” Ike said earnestly. “I am often told to be more careful with my words, but I am not usually so clumsy with my body.”

Prince Soren made no reply. His huddled form was a wiry coil, moments from springing into the understory, no matter the thorniness of the bushes that surrounded him. Perhaps someone as delicate as him did have reason to fear Ike, were he not a prince and a mage, and Ike were not Ike. 

Ike reached for his pockets before he could consider the prince’s response. Or the fact that he had been forced to change into these awful robes. 

“I had dried meat in my other jacket…” Releasing the inner lining of his useless silk tunic, Ike focused on the prince. “If you won’t let my mother check you for injuries, then you should eat something. Running into you was like running into a… a curtain.” 

If Prince Soren was offended by Ike comparing him to upholstery, he did not show it. Instead, in his wide, bright eyes, there might have shone an element apart from panic: possibly confusion, maybe even surprise.  

“Come with me. I think I have leftover quinces and stockfish. That should tide us over before dinner.” 

This time, when Ike extended his hand, Prince Soren did not recoil. He may have even partially forgotten to be afraid as he intently studied Ike instead. However, he still neither took Ike’s hand nor spoke. 

“Can you move?” Ike asked. He could not easily dispel his unease when he noted how flawless Prince Soren’s complexion was, as if due to some enchantment, and yet how sunken his cheeks were, how strained the cords of muscle peeking out from his embroidered collar. Prince Soren still didn’t answer. “I’ll bring a healing potion and a sandwich.”   

It was only after Ike had twice pelted through the branches and vines that he wondered why Prince Soren might have been using his secret shortcut in the first place. 

Whatever reason he had appeared to no longer be important, for when Ike returned, Prince Soren had gone. 

Ike had almost forgotten about his concern for his father’s whereabouts instead of the prince’s when Gawain apprehended him in front of his quarters.  

“You still haven’t grown out of your habit of charging single-mindedly onward, I see,” Gawain said dryly, his weapon-calloused hand firmly closing around Ike’s shoulder. “No matter the location or the state of your dress clothes. Or what used to be your dress clothes.”

“You haven’t left,” Ike exclaimed.

“I am not leaving today,” Gawain assured him, and in his joy, Ike almost dragged his father onto the training grounds. 

Then, he remembered. “Why did the prince appear now, Father?” 

Gawain frowned. “That is the royal family’s business.” 

“Then,” Ike said, “why wouldn’t he speak to me? Is that because he’s royalty or magic?”

His frown transforming into an iron-jawed grimace, Gawain lowered himself onto his knees, staring Ike in the eye, and for the first time, Ike understood why his opponents feared his father. He himself felt a tendril of terror that he had never experienced, certainly not before his father, the valiant warrior who loved him.

“What did you tell the prince, Ike?” Gawain asked, his voice hard and cold. 

Once Ike recovered his voice, he said, “that I’d get him a sandwich.”

Gawain plainly hadn’t predicted this response. 

“And I apologized for running into him,” Ike felt compelled to add. “And knocking him into the ground.”

Gawain sighed. However, his exasperation was mixed with what Ike knew to be amusement and fondness. His father confirmed it when his hand migrated from Ike’s shoulder to his head, ruffling his hair.

“Your heart also has not changed,” Gawain noted. “It is still very much like your mother’s. If only you possessed her grace and restraint.” Before Ike could protest this both fair and unflattering description, Gawain told him, low and solemnly, “The prince does not speak.”

“What?” Ike asked beneath his father’s palm, which had since grown still. “Why?”

“That is the royal family’s business,” Gawain repeated, ushering Ike through the door to his room. “Before the day of the goddess is over, let us get some sparring in, hmm? Perhaps Ashera will bless you with a rare victory in the arena.”

Ike could not get out of his fancy robes fast enough. His shirt was half-way over his head when he asserted into the fabric, “I need no luck.”

Gawain chuckled. “Then you will need plenty of training instead, my boy.”

Chapter Text

II.

By the time he was nine, Ike had ample time to train with his father, because instead of making Ike accompany her and Mist across the countryside, his mother finally allowed him to remain at the castle. Ike had been shocked, grateful, and eager to spend more time with Gawain now that his parents recognized he was old enough to seriously learn swordsmanship. For the most part, that sentiment remained true– despite the repeated losses, injuries, and lectures.  

When Ike’s wooden sword snapped again, however, he roared in frustration. 

Then, he was staring at the sky. The tip of his father’s staff had swept his feet from underneath him, and Ike fell painfully onto the red earth. The way he had fallen countless times since he began his permanent residence at the castle. 

“Feel like getting back on your feet before dinner, Ike?” Gawain asked airily, twirling his staff in the dust. “Misdirected anger at your weapon instead of your technique works up quite the appetite.”

Resolutely lifting himself onto his elbows, Ike said, “You’re not letting me use weapons. You’re letting me use kindling.”

“You were a more adept kindling-fighter yesterday,” Gawain argued. Reading the wrathful desolation that must have made its way onto Ike’s features, he said more gently, “what determines the strength to win when faced with overwhelming odds, Ike? Like a swordsman with a lifetime more experience than you?”

Ike swayed only a little before he got back into a fighting position. 

“Practice,” he said reluctantly.

To his surprise, Gawain said, “No.” 

Because Gawain did not elaborate, Ike tried to strike him again. Like always, his father parried.

“Try again,” said Gawain. When Ike changed his approach, his father swiftly struck him down. “Not like that. What determines the strength to beat those stronger and more experienced than yourself?”

“Strategy,” Ike said despite himself, secretly hoping that his father would shut him down. He didn’t have a clue how to use strategy when he was still learning how to use swords, or twigs that barely passed off as them. 

Gawain guffawed. “Not a bad answer. Or the one I expected from you.” When Ike tried to use the terrain to his advantage, his father blocked his blow from below and shoved him back. “But no. What determines the strength to overcome, Ike?”

Giving into his impatience, discontent, and anger, Ike shouted and slashed at his father as hard as he could. 

His fingers felt like they were exploding in pain when Gawain struck the wood out of his hands, his ears throbbing as he listened to the practice sword’s hollow rotations, cutting the air before it buried itself in the soil at Ike’s feet.

“Blind rage is never the way to true strength,” Gawain told him severely.

“I know,” said Ike, even though he was struggling to see his father clearly through the haze of his emotion. He was mortified to realize that feeling was not rage– or what he hoped was some combination of rage and physical agony– when a tear slid down his cheek.

Ike had barely wiped it away when his father appeared before him. He brushed the wet corners of his son’s eyes, and Ike struggled to suppress more tears, even though he could recount few other instances in his life when he had cried.

“That’s enough for today,” said Gawain. Before Ike could explain himself, defend his moment of weakness, his father added, “Reflect on your answer as you practice your forms. I’m leaving in the morning.”

Ike no longer noticed the pain riddling his body. “You’re going on a mission?”  

That information itself was unremarkable; Ike had seen his father so infrequently over the years because of how often he was away on long military campaigns. However, Ike had never stayed at the castle while his father was out fighting for Daein. He had always been traveling with his mother and his sister. 

“I am.” Gawain sounded somewhat rueful, Ike thought. 

“How long?”

“That I cannot say.”

Ike didn’t know what to say, either, so he said nothing, staring at the spot where his wooden sword had implanted itself in the earth.

“You should also write to your mother,” Gawain advised. “I’ll deliver the letter when I return.” He grinned crookedly. “She tells me that Mist longs to hear from you and misses you dearly, even though like you she denies it.”

“I don’t miss her,” Ike said, but he had always been a terrible liar. 

His father heard the lie, and for once, he did not scold Ike for it. He even let him eat an extra serving during dinner and helped apply salve to his aching skin before bed, one that would numb the nerves but not prevent protective calluses from forming. By the time Ike woke up, Gawain was gone.

For a week, Ike practiced his swordsmanship in the arena. He had little else to do. There was nobody his age in the castle. The few times he ventured into town, the merchants’ children were too awed by his father’s reputation to simply talk with him. 

So Ike committed himself to a daily routine of rising early to hit straw-warriors with his wooden sword, eat breakfast, use his sword, eat lunch, use his sword, eat dinner, use his sword, not write to Mist, and sleep before the cycle restarted the next day. Although his dedication moved many of the previously skeptical castle-dwellers to respect his potential as Gawain the Invincible’s son, he felt that he’d come against a wall he could not surmount.

“That was a good strike,” said General Bryce. As the fourth most powerful Rider of Daein, Ike knew his words were no mere consolation, which made him feel lighter. 

“Thanks,” Ike said, and then he remembered to tack on, “General.”

“Perhaps there is hope for the future of our country,” General Bryce remarked a little too fiercely. Although Ike admired General Bryce for his sense of duty, he did not understand his devotion to the nation of Daein as if it was a person made of blood and flesh instead of a drawing on a map. 

“And here I thought the boy took more strongly after the Great Gawain’s fair lady,” said General Petrine, the third most powerful Rider of Daein. Her dark lips curled into a smirk. “Though perhaps I will still be proven right.”

Ike barely refrained from uttering the unusually fully-formed retort that he thought the general took more strongly after a trout than a human. 

Now that he was living in the castle, his father impressed more strongly than ever Ike’s need to act with respect, especially around the Riders but most crucially before the king should they cross paths. But Ike never saw King Ashnard. 

To avoid saying something he shouldn’t to General Petrine and getting himself impaled with a burning glave, Ike moved his training to a secluded niche in the courtyard, near the chapel and alcove. 

Once he was strong enough, he would speak his mind to the general instead of biting his tongue; once he was strong enough, he would join his father on his quests; once he was strong enough, he would write to his mother recounting what he’d learned instead of the hollowness he felt…

Ike must have gotten distracted and loosened his stance, because a breeze almost toppled him over. Then he realized it wasn’t a breeze, because an unnaturally strong gust of wind almost sent him flying into a tree. 

Digging his heels into the ground, Ike watched in wonder and confusion as scrolls of parchment unfurled on the gust. And he shouted when a book hit him in the face.

Ike glared at the object– a very old and heavy book that appeared to be about storms?– and shortly discovered who had attacked him with it.

It was Prince Soren, who looked as stunned by the discovery as Ike was.

Ike nearly thought that the prince had been something he and the citizens of Daein collectively imagined, because the day after Ashera’s ceremony, they didn’t see or hear about him again. Although Ike knew logically that Prince Soren must live in the castle, he also… forgot. Prince Soren hadn’t appeared at the castle dinners or in the brambled growth outside the fortress walls.

Now that Ike saw him again, he was relieved that Prince Soren appeared to be less gaunt and terrified. If anything, Prince Soren appeared wary but also slightly at a loss.

“My apologies, Lord Ike,” said Prince Soren, and now Ike was at a loss as well.

“You speak!” Ike remarked.

“Indeed.” Prince Soren’s soft timbre abruptly hardened. Ike had never heard someone so young sound so cold. “It is one of many basic human faculties in my possession.”

“So you do not limit yourself to spells that launch encyclopedias at unsuspecting swordsmen?” Ike replied, leaping over the low wall to return the tome.

Although Prince Soren took it, he did so weakly. He was staring at Ike with eyes wide and bewildered. “You are not angry?” He sounded more like Ike imagined the boy in the forest might have spoken.

“I am a little upset, but it’s not as if I haven’t been hit in the face recently.” Ike’s fierce and directionless blow yesterday had resulted in his straw dummy rebounding and body slamming him. “You seem more upset than me.”

Prince Soren neither confirmed nor protested this.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think you could speak,” said Ike. “But my father told me you couldn’t. I said I wasn’t very good with my own words, didn’t I?”

After a pause, Prince Soren said, “you remember.”

“Of course I do.” Although perhaps Prince Soren’s surprise was warranted– the last time they spoke, or Ike spoke to him, was three years ago. “Could you speak the whole time?”

Instead of answering directly, Prince Soren asked, “Do you typically speak to royalty in such a thoughtlessly blunt manner?” 

Conversation with the prince vaguely reminded Ike of sword fighting. He had to anticipate blows when he expected non-aggression and a staunch defense before he had even planned an attack. 

“I haven’t spoken to any royals apart from you,” said Ike. “Er, my prince.”

“Don’t call me that,” Prince Soren said, to Ike’s utter confusion.  

“So I can just call you Soren, then?”

And now Prince Soren was baffled in turn. Their ignorance seemed to be evenly matched. “...That’s what you want to call me?” 

“If it doesn’t bother you,” Ike said, shrugging. “I can never remember to use titles. You can just call me Ike, too.”

The volume of thoughts appearing to filter through Prince Soren’s mind was astounding, traces of them manifesting in the furrow between his dark brows, slightly warping the mark on his forehead as if it were written in crimson ink on a crinkled page. 

Before that reminded Ike to ask about the spellbook Prince Soren had used to magically wound him, the prince pivoted and walked quickly down the hall, his own manners cast aside. Despite what his father might have implied, Ike knew when it was wiser not to engage in a pursuit. He merely watched Prince Soren’s dark figure disappear before he resumed his training.

When another week passed, and Gawain still hadn’t returned, Ike revised his strategy and actively sought out the prince. That was almost as difficult as mastering his forms. Ike soon gathered that one of the reasons Prince Soren appeared to have been absent all these years was because he was proficient at hiding himself.    

Inspiration, or the benefits of a full stomach, struck Ike halfway into dinner. Tucking salted pork, cheese and bread into his pockets, he raced to the chapel, which was close to where he’d been training when Prince Soren appeared.

He learned that he needn’t have run when he discovered Prince Soren practically imprisoned beneath scrolls and books in the chapel’s library. That alone prevented him from racing off when Ike stomped through the silent chapel, if Prince Soren’s startled expression was any indication of his desired escape.

“All the time I see you practicing magic,” said Ike, sitting beyond the wall of books, “and never in the dining hall.”

He extended a napkin laden with food over the bookish barricade. From where he sat, he could smell the meat, salt, and yeast against the mustiness of ancient vellum and papyrus. Directly across from Ike, Prince Soren must have smelled it, too. 

“I’ve brought you food,” Ike said somewhat redundantly. When Prince Soren stared at Ike’s offering instead of taking it, Ike continued, “If being a prince means you’ve already had your meal, that’s alright.” Taking private meals in Prince Soren’s royal bedchambers made more sense than him simply never eating. “But I did promise you a sandwich, and I keep my promises.”

Upon Ike’s third bite of his half of the makeshift sandwich, Prince Soren hesitantly reached over the wall of books and took the remaining food. After Ike had swallowed, Prince Soren nibbled on his bread. Despite Prince Soren’s gingerness, the gusto in Ike’s appetite returned, and he ate more heartily than he had for some nights.

Noticing, Prince Soren remarked, less sharply than he’d spoken in the past, “perhaps you should put your own stomach first. Are you training yourself to the brink of starvation?” 

Ike knew unkindness: it was the chatter of politicians and aristocrats, the smiles upon their lips not reaching their eyes. Prince Soren did not smile– Ike did not know if he could– but somehow, his words were warmer. 

“No, I… I don’t care much for the food here. But I guess it’s finally growing on me.”

Prince Soren scowled. “Here, the people are stuffed with delicacies up to their gullets like suckling pigs.”

The acidity of his princely words and the vivid image they conjured startled a laugh out of Ike. “I had never thought of it that way. Maybe that’s why I miss porridge on the road with my mother and Mist. Who would have thought you’d need to get used to feasts?”

Fixated on slowly dismembering his sandwich, crumb by crumb, Prince Soren eventually replied, “I am unused to them as well.”

Ike was relieved that he had finished his half of their shared meal, because had he still been chewing, he would have surely choked. 

“But you’re a prince.”

“Did you witness me being weaned on honeyed wine within these halls?” Prince Soren asked, with more ice or fire Ike couldn’t determine. Each was suitably blistering.

What Ike could easily surmise was, “So you grew up outside the castle?”

“Yes,” Prince Soren said curtly.

“Why?”

Prince Soren sat beyond his shelter of texts, a mini library for him alone to occupy, with unsettling stillness, his food forgotten. 

“Surely you have heard the rumors,” he said in little more than a whisper.  

Of the gossip Ike had the mind to remember… “You mean you were raised where you could be protected from another attack by the dragon laguz.”

Prince Soren laughed. It was not a pretty sound. It flickered like silver and sliced through the lassitude of the chapel library like a knife. 

“King Ashnard had no intention of protecting me from subhumans,” Prince Soren hissed.

For the first time, he sounded like a true Daein. Ike preferred the way he was before. 

“You shouldn’t call laguz by that name,” he said. 

Prince Soren was vehemently unmoved. “It is what those beasts are, as all of Daein rightly knows. Even our beneficent holy men who love all of Ashera’s flock recognize this. Why should you think differently, my lord?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t call me that, either. Just Ike.”

“Why?” 

Ike could not determine just what Prince Soren was asking to know.

“Because I’m just… me,” said Ike. “Not whatever title my father’s skills have passed down to me. And laguz are simply laguz. They are who they are regardless of what we call them. Or that’s what my mother says in spite of the other clergy.”

Elena told him that time and time again: never let difference become hatred.

“Then what I am innately, regardless of my birth rank, was why I did not live here in the castle,” Prince Soren replied, not with hatred toward the other, Ike thought, but instead resentment directed toward… himself. “King Ashnard wanted a son who was special. I was not.”   

“But,” Ike said instinctively, his head muddled, “you’re magic. And his son.” 

“Sorcery and bloodlines have little clout when one is weak.” Ike didn’t only dislike Prince Soren’s words. He disliked how scripted and detached they sounded, as if he were convincing himself of that logic so that he would no longer feel the sting. “There is… another rumor. About the lengths to which the king would go to obtain strength. Why he is unconquerable.”

Ike lurched forward, and although Prince Soren started slightly, he did not seem afraid. 

Ike was glad for it; he had moved too hastily, he knew, but he had always wondered how the king became so strong. Even his father was only the second most powerful person in the land. When Ike had asked if he was certain that he could not best the king in combat, Gawain had laughed, almost bitterly, and said, “I cannot beat him, not as of yet.”

“What do you mean?” Ike asked Prince Soren.

Picking up a book that Ike had knocked over in his haste to get closer, Prince Soren said, his gaze  averted to the cover of his text, “He touched a cursed object that invested him with great power… and divested him of his sanity.”  

The wish flashed through Ike, as burning and brief as a meteor shower, to have that kind of power. 

It was followed by the more somber thought that perhaps this was why the king did not realize his desire for his son to live at his side sooner. 

Prince Soren would entertain no more of Ike’s questions. 

However, he also did not leave until the hour was late. 

Only when the candle had melted into a pool of wax, and Ike could barely see his hand in front of him, did Prince Soren very quietly rise from the cold floor. In the moonlight that spilled through the cut windows, Ike spotted the gray dust that mottled Prince Soren’s dark robes and the golden beads of cooled wax that dotted the flared edges of his sleeves.

Like that, Prince Soren was no longer a myth or a royal figurehead. He could be as disheveled as Ike and Gawain after their sparring sessions or Elena and Mist after plucking wildflowers for herbal remedies. 

Prince Soren seemed like a person, which Ike felt more powerfully when Prince Soren said, somewhat stiltedly, “goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Ike said in a strong voice. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

“I am often here,” Prince Soren said, almost wryly. “This is, after all, where I learned to be human.”  

Ike did not understand, but Prince Soren left before he could press. 

Despite Prince Soren’s claims about his semi-permanent residence in the chapel, Ike could not find him again amongst the shelves. Perhaps it was as unfortunate as a matter of timing. General Tauroneo, a close friend of his father who fought with him as a Rider of Daein before King Ashnard took the throne, heard of Ike’s training and decided to help in his father’s stead. Ike was initially overjoyed at his assistance… but he grew weary with each cut, bruise, and shattered practice sword. Most exhausting of all was being plagued by the incessant question, why wasn’t his father here to train Ike himself? 

“Lady Ena tells me Gawain will return soon to teach you his techniques,” General Tauroneo assured him. “Have faith, Ike.”

But Gawain didn’t return the day after that or the day after that, and then, Ike couldn’t find Prince Soren, either. Not in the chapel library or the dining hall or the vast, half-ruined wilderness forming the boundaries of the castle. 

Instead of asking General Tauroneo about his father, Ike resorted to inquiring about Prince Soren’s location. 

Never had Ike seen General Tauroneo look so flabbergasted. 

He almost got a blow in before the general recomposed himself, slashing Ike’s practice sword with his lance, and then asked suspiciously, “Why do you seek the prince?” 

“To talk,” Ike said simply.

“You have spoken to the prince before?” General Tauroneo asked disbelievingly.

Ike nodded. 

“What do you intend to tell him now?”

“I don’t know yet. Whatever comes up during our conversation.”

General Tauroneo glared as if he were running a particularly difficult battle scenario through his head. 

“You enjoy these conversations with the prince, Ike?” he asked.

General Tauroneo’s highly skeptical tone made Ike wonder if Prince Soren used his sharp tongue more liberally than he supposed, given Prince Soren’s reclusiveness. 

“Yeah.” Unlike most people Ike met, including townsfolk and aristocrats, Prince Soren spoke honestly, not worrying about how Ike perceived him. “He’s different.”

After a period, General Tauroneo said, “...I shall ask Lady Ena about the prince’s whereabouts.” He resumed his battle position, his immense lance raised overhead. “Now, focus on what is most important: your battle.” 

When Prince Soren failed to manifest, along with Lady Ena and General Tauroneo, Ike poured  his frustrations into his sword work, swinging again and again and again at no one. Then, one day, Ike looked over shoulder, which was tired and knotted, and Prince Soren was hiding at the edges of the courtyard, watching him. 

“I thought you left,” Ike huffed, too harshly. 

“This time you are angry,” said Prince Soren. His eyes flickered, almost tentatively. They were the same color as the dusk. “And I have not even pelted you with a Rexbolt tome.”

Ike paused midswing. “A Rex-what?”

“Advanced lightning magic.” Prince Soren’s clipped words suggested that he hadn’t yet gotten a grasp of it. 

“I’m not angry with you,” Ike admitted. “...My father is still away.” 

Prince Soren nodded, but he did not appear as if he fully understood. “Are you angry with him?”

“No.” Ike resumed his slashes. “Maybe. I don’t… Mother left me here so Father could train me, and when I was old enough, I would fight alongside him. But he’s gone, and I have no teacher. At least not one who wields a sword as well as he does.”

Prince Soren approached the courtyard. He didn’t wrinkle his nose at the sweat dripping off Ike or the dirt matting his clothes, unlike other nobles in the castle. Instead, he leisurely waited as Ike moved through his forms as if deaf to Ike’s grunts of pain, leafing through a different magic tome than last time, Elwind.

Even though Ike should have been exhausted, he felt suddenly restored. His spirits were so lifted that he told Prince Soren, “Spar with me.”

Though his face was half concealed by the curtain of hair that descended from Prince Soren’s bowed head, he still managed to convey his alarm and dubiousness.

“I won’t hurt you,” Ike promised. 

“That is not the problem,” Prince Soren argued rather strangely. “How well you defend yourself against weapons is completely unrelated to your resistance to magic.” 

“Then, you can use your magic to throw more books at me,” Ike suggested. “Or pieces of wood if your books are too precious.”   

“I would be of better help to you writing to your mother and sister to assuage your maddening loneliness,” Prince Soren declared. 

“You would help write my letter for me?”  

“To abstain from tearing you apart with wind spells, yes.”

Ike was stunned by Prince Soren’s earnestness and unclear as to what he did to earn him transcribing a letter to Ike’s seven-year-old sister. Ike hadn’t treated Prince Soren remotely as royalty ought to be treated, at least not according to how the court lavished King Ashnard with praise.

“You won’t tear me apart– I trust you,” said Ike. “And I bet you’ve been longing to use your magic against somebody. Not just old library books.”

Prince Soren was no longer skeptical and admonishing. Going stockstill, he resembled the boy Ike met three years ago, openly astonished. 

“...Very well then.” 

Thrilled, Ike got into a fighting stance, and Prince Soren opened his tome. His lips formed around words Ike could not understand, and gales of wind billowed around him, surrounding them both in a vortex. 

Sparring with Prince Soren was not like sparring with Gawain. 

Resolved not to hurt Prince Soren or even to best him, Ike discovered that they were not resisting each other so much as… learning to move in unity. 

Observing how Prince Soren’s wind magic flowed across the courtyard, Ike learned to strike with the currents as opposed to against them. Instead of attempting to conceal his approach with feints, he consciously telegraphed his intent. Prince Soren understood him immediately, choreographing his position relative to Ike’s footwork and sword trajectory. Their coordinated abilities resulted in three of Ike’s straw dummies being split down the middle, bits of hay scattered on the breeze.  

Ike was not so quietly exhilarated; Prince Soren was soundlessly amazed. 

However, they overextended themselves. Before Ike could regain his strength, he collapsed onto Prince Soren sword-first. Prince Soren automatically responded with a violent blast of wind.

Suddenly, Ike was immobilized, for Gawain had appeared, apprehending him by the wrist. His grip was unbreakable.

More startling, however, was Prince Soren being smothered by the knight in black armor.  

“Stop!” Ike said, vainly reaching for Prince Soren. His father’s grip slackened, and a quick glance in Ike’s peripheries showed Gawain’s surprise at his behavior.

The knight in black did not appear to be hurting Prince Soren, but he kept him imprisoned within his hold. 

“Do not forget how careful one in your position must be, Prince Soren,” he said. “You are not like them. You cannot afford to lack vigilance.”

“That is enough, Black Knight,” said Gawain, releasing Ike, whose arm throbbed. 

The Black Knight turned his concealed face to Gawain. “The prince is under my protection. Not yours, no matter how invincible you are said to be, Gawain.”

“We weren’t hurting each other,” Ike asserted. 

When the Black Knight turned the full force of his gaze onto Ike, he found himself shuddering. 

Prince Soren said nothing within the cage of the Black Knight’s armored limbs, and he remained silent as luminous bands and sigils emerged on the ground beneath his feet. Once the rune fully encompassed him and the Black Knight, they vanished in a beam of radiance. 

“What happened?” Ike gasped, racing to the spot where Prince Soren once stood. “Where did they go?”

“The Black Knight’s armor is enchanted by the goddess and takes him wherever he needs to be,” Gawain answered. “Which is more desirable when he is your ally as opposed to your enemy.”

“You were on a mission with him?”  

“...the king had a task for his two most powerful Riders.”

“Did you accomplish it?” Ike asked.

“No.” Gawain would speak no further until they were in their quarters. Once he had given Ike a vulnerary from his pouch, he growled, “What were you doing with the prince, boy?”

“Sparring.” Ike felt the potion repair his wind-seared skin. “But it wasn’t like a fight. We were… helping each other.”

Scrutinizing Ike, Gawain eventually asked, “Did you learn what determines the strength to overcome?”

“No,” Ike was forced to admit. 

“True strength means bonds, Ike. Bonds with others who can help you take down a more powerful enemy than either of you could prevail against alone.”

Ike thought about dogmatic General Bryce, taunting General Petrine, and most of all, the hostile Black Knight. “But the Riders don’t have that.” 

“No,” said Gawain. “We do not.” 

After an uneasy and sleepless night, Ike searched the grounds for Prince Soren, but he could not find him in any of the main parts of the castle. He spent the day scouring shadowy corners and empty rooms. If the Black Knight could transport himself anywhere, there was no telling where he’d keep Prince Soren under lock and key.

Ike only realized that he had broken the cardinal rule and encroached too far into the heart of the castle when he recognized Lady Ena leaving the throne room. Tucked behind a corner, Ike watched her bow before the open doors from which King Ashnard’s voice issued:

“Retrieve the boy for me once the Black Knight is done with him.”

“Yes, my king,” said Lady Ena. 

When the door closed, the expression that replaced Lady Ena’s previous calm was strange. Ike had never seen her look anything other than collected, perhaps a little morose. Now, she appeared torn between anger and something darker, more despairing.

Perhaps she knew about Prince Soren’s resentment toward laguz. As the sole laguz in the castle, Lady Ena unfairly received the scorn and derision of others, despite working close to King Ashnard. Ike trailed after her, both unwilling to let Prince Soren call her subhuman and let Lady Ena simply hate Prince Soren when there were as many kind parts of him as there were cruel. 

However, Lady Ena did not lead Ike to the prince. She lingered in a corridor where Ike knew, behind the wall closest to the throne room, there lay hidden the entrance to a tunnel that ran beneath the castle. When he was small, he’d snuck through the underground passage so his mother could not take him away. On the other side, he’d discovered the old dungeon. The absence of torchlight meant he recognized the bars of the prisons through touch alone. After Ike clawed his way back above ground, for the first time in his life, Gawain seemed ready to beat him. So, he never returned. 

But the way Lady Ena pressed her brow to the old stone, and spoke for a long time in a voice too low for Ike to hear, and turned away with the greatest reluctance… compelled Ike to go back down.  

He did not know what he expected when he staggered out of the tunnel: almost impenetrable darkness, surely, within which Prince Soren would be unfairly imprisoned as the Black Knight acted as his jailer. 

He almost could not believe his eyes when instead he saw Prince Soren illuminated by dim candlelight–

– and clinging to the bars of the cage containing King Ashnard’s steed, an immense, half-feral wyvern. 

Heart pounding so powerfully he could no longer hear the wyvern’s growl, Ike sprinted toward Prince Soren. Instead of appearing afraid, Prince Soren was fiercely whispering to the wyvern. But that did not calm the creature. Its scaled body spasmed, the slitted eyes flashed, the draconic muscles thrashed against its container, and the wyvern unhooked its jaw to take Prince Soren inside. 

“Soren!” Ike shouted because he was not fast enough– he wouldn’t make it in time.

Soren flinched as he whipped around, turning his back on the wyvern. He appeared more startled to be in Ike’s company than he was to be encircled by the wyvern’s mouth, its teeth angled toward him through the bars.

“Ike,” Soren breathed.

Then, he leapt at Ike, as if to push him away. Simultaneously, Ike pulled him back as the wyvern’s mouth snapped shut. 

Panting harshly from where he lay collapsed against Ike, Soren stammered, “What– where– why are you here?”

“To rescue you from the Black Knight - I didn’t expect King Ashnard’s mount! His wyvern is said to be as mad as he is.” Ike eyed the monumental creature. After failing to take Soren’s limbs or life, it slithered to the back of its cell, a scaly knot of rage and lack of reason. “How could the Black Knight leave you here and claim to be your protector?”

“He didn’t,” Soren answered coolly, but Ike could feel him shake before he rose to his feet.

“Then I understand even less, which I didn’t believe to be possible until now,” Ike said through gritted teeth. “Why are you down here, Soren?”

Soren said nothing, not even to reprimand Ike for dropping his title. Ike then realized that Soren had simply called him by name, too. 

“You could have been killed,” Soren seethed. 

Utterly incredulous, Ike gestured at the cell. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Striding away with what would have been angry stomping were it not for his slippered feet, Soren continued, “Do not think your bravery makes your recklessness any less counterproductive. I hurt you with my wind magic. Then, you are almost gravely wounded trying to save me from the monster Ashnard created.”

“That wasn’t your doing,” Ike said, realizing who Soren was upset with. “Just like me getting injured wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it was!” Soren shouted. “I knew better, but because you… weren’t like the others… you were the only one who…” 

Unable to continue, Soren lowered his head, his fists trembling in his robes. 

When the wyvern let out a low sound, not quite a growl, a desolate noise that Ike had never heard before, he took Soren’s hand. Soren finally raised his face to look at him, his expression unbearably sad as well as painfully hopeful.

“Let’s get out of here, Soren,” said Ike.  

Slowly, Soren nodded, and they left the dungeon. 

Chapter Text

III.

“It is a pretense, nothing more,” Soren remarked. “And to think that they are calling it a summit– the apex, the peak, the highest attainable point. If this is the height of our kingdom, then from here on we plummet.” 

When Soren glared at the courtiers preparing for the summit, Ike grunted noncommittally and angled himself between Soren and the heavy traffic flowing through the castle corridors. It wouldn’t be the first time a castle employee neglected to notice his slight friend, or worse, deliberately knocked into him. Both instances resulted in Soren using his sharp tongue to psychologically flay the other person alive, so Ike knew he didn’t need his protection. 

However, over the last year, he’d obtained several fingerbreadths in height over Soren. He was determined to make the most of his growth combined with the muscles he’d developed during his training. Soren, who fully knew this, rolled his eyes but also muttered a genuine “thank you” as Ike ushered them through the halls.

“This is why you have been dubbed ‘Prince Soren’s Unknighted Knight,’” Soren said about Ike’s behavior.

Ike blinked. “I have?”  

“Yes, Lord Ike.” Soren’s respectful address did not make his tones any less dry or amused. 

“I’d prefer it if I was your knighted one instead of the Black Knight,” Ike replied, not lowering his arm as they walked through the crowded courtyard.

“Do not cross the Black Knight, Lord Ike,” Soren said sharply.  

Ike was told this every time he invoked the Black Knight: stay away. Soren made sure Ike never forgot this for the same reason he insisted on using their proper titles when publicly roaming the castle. Both were matters of prudence, which Soren highly valued. 

Ike recognized the wisdom of his counsel, if begrudgingly. He knew he could not beat the Black Knight, not as he was now. The Black Knight wasn’t only the third-most powerful fighter in Daein, after King Ashnard and Gawain, nor was he simply entrusted with Soren’s protection:

He had also somehow persuaded Gawain to help train him in addition to Ike. 

“Paving the way for me to take over for the Black Knight would give my presence at the summit some value,” Ike said firmly.

“It has enormous value,” Soren countered. “Just because the summit’s mission of attaining continental peace is a farce doesn’t mean that you should feel less proud of being chosen to represent Daein alongside your father. It is a major accomplishment. You deserve this.”

Ike scratched his head, tempted to look away. Soren’s passion could be like the dawn: for the brief fraction of time in which it manifested, it was as inspiring as it was blinding, so powerful even Ike struggled to behold it directly. 

“If you keep talking like that, I’m going to think you’re trying to scare me off and keep me unknighted forever, So– Prince Soren.”

Soren chose to overlook that near slip-up. “When you are a knight, you will have to learn to take compliments. At least mine are true instead of fatuous flattery.”

“I know that,” Ike said, a little mollifying, although he hoped Soren could not recognize it. Soren had great pride, and as the years went on and the criticisms he faced for being the non-warrior child of King Ashnard grew, he also became more skilled at concealing his hurt. Even the ones Ike wished to heal. “And you should know that when I say you also deserve to represent our country, I mean it. I know of no one as well-versed in Daein’s history or imaginative with attack formations. You should be recognized for your brilliance, too.”

“You have become quite imaginative with your attacks, too, recently embracing the psychological,” Soren muttered, high color in his cheeks.

“Someday, you’ll also need to get used to telling compliments apart from assaults,” Ike said instead of patting Soren on the shoulder or ruffling his hair as he longed to. 

When Soren’s rosy complexion cooled and his expression iced over, Ike knew he was thinking about his father and his advisors. 

“That is not likely.” 

“What will you do while the summit is going on?” Ike asked, because reassurance, he knew from many previous attempts, was a vain effort. 

“While you represent Daein’s military might, I will endeavor to supplement the miniscule intelligence its elected officials possess so we might survive what is to come,” Soren vowed, heading resolutely toward the chapel library.  

With an outstretched arm, Ike redirected them. “Let’s get some food first. You never remember to eat.”

“Fine,” Soren huffed. 

As they proceeded to the dining hall, people warmly greeted Ike, gave Soren a wide berth, and sent more than the usual confused looks at the pair of them. Perhaps there were more newcomers to the castle today due to the political significance of the summit. Most of the castle-dwellers had developed some familiarity with the strange sighting of Prince Soren and Lord Ike, son of Gawain the Invincible. 

It had taken time. Once Soren openly wandered the castle, and it became known that he made up for his physical delicacy with verbal brutality, his friendship with Ike, who was generally affable if not especially decorous, struck people as puzzling.

But after the passing of years, courtiers and soldiers no longer stared at them in concern or whispered when they walked the halls together. At least they didn’t before today. 

Like always, Ike ignored them, stacking his and Soren’s plates high with pickled vegetables, mutton shanks, and pasties.

Like always, Soren glared and listened to those around him before he and Ike retreated to the sanctuary in the library. 

“Do you really think there’s going to be war, Soren?” Ike asked. “Isn’t Daein participating in the summit because we want to prevent going to battle?”

Soren didn’t look up from his thick book on the history of Tellius. “There may be Daein politicians who want to avoid conflict, but the one who will decide whether or not blood is shed is the king.”

There was so much Ike didn’t understand about the relationship between King Ashnard and Soren. A major element was the coldness and distance between father and son but also facts, figures, and timelines, like why Soren had only been brought to the castle now, why King Ashnard was so comfortable with those in the castle disdaining Soren and those outside the castle knowing little of his existence beyond praising their prince…

There were many other things Soren had revealed to Ike during their friendship. Soren didn’t only sequester himself in the chapel because he enjoyed the library, although that was a large part of it. Daein’s priests also taught him to speak multiple languages when he arrived at the castle, because no one else had taught him to speak even one. 

Why and how Soren hadn’t learned to speak before he was six years old was one of many questions that Soren would not answer.

“Prince Soren,” said Lady Ena, soundlessly emerging from the cloistered darkness.

Ike tensed. He hadn’t heard Lady Ena approach; perhaps her laguz nature increased her stealth.

Soren tensed because Soren always acted strangely around Lady Ena. But not in the way Ike thought he would, given his comments about laguz. Yes, there was evident dislike, but in Lady Ena’s presence, Soren also acted subdued, almost guilty. 

“The king would like you to prepare yourself for the Summit of Tellius,” Lady Ena told Soren. “He expects you to represent the monarchy alongside him as Crown Prince.”

Ike leapt to his feet.

Soren was still and speechless. 

“Why did he change his mind?” Ike asked, bewildered.

“That is not my place to say, Lord Ike,” Lady Ena replied sanguinely. 

“Tell him I will be there,” said Soren, quiet and seemingly calm. Ike knew better. Soren added in a whisper, “Lady Ena.”

Bowing, Lady Ena slipped out of the chapel as soundlessly as when she first arrived. 

Ike studied Soren. When Soren didn’t volunteer what he was thinking, Ike ventured, “Maybe the king is finally recognizing what good you can do.”

Soren laughed incisively. Then, he retrieved his text and poured over the page.

“Whatever this invitation symbolizes, Ike,” he said, “it is not a harbinger of positive change.” 

Ike almost had to bodily remove Soren from the library when he continued researching into the dead of night. The following morning, however, Ike nearly wished that they had remained where they were.

“It’s only proper that you accompany me and the warriors of Daein, Ike,” Gawain said absent-mindedly, polishing his sword to a high sheen. “And that the prince is accompanied by his sworn protector.”

Ike jostled his own blade in his belt, growling, “I don’t know why people bother calling me Soren’s unofficial knight. All I can do is walk down the hall with him, the way anyone could.”

“Prince Soren,” Gawain corrected him, strapping his boots. When he raised his head, his expression was not wholly disapproving. “And I doubt anyone could do that. The prince is not known for his warm and friendly demeanor.”

“He likes you.” It was true. Soren acted with the greatest respect toward Gawain. Ike hadn’t expected any less, despite Soren’s reputation. 

Gawain grinned, and Ike hadn’t expected anything less from his father, either. “I do not find him to be so unapproachable. Merely… strategic. He is a smart young man. He has to be.”

Ike paused, the pin for his cape pricking his thumb. “Because he is not a fighter who uses swords and axes you mean?”

“Yes, and no.” Gawain opened the door. “Let us hope that he employs his powers of intimidation tactfully against Tellius’s other rulers.” 

Ike nodded, and he was caught off guard when Gawain clapped him vigorously on the back, making him rock on his toes.

“This is also the chance for you to introduce yourself to the world, eh, my boy?” Gawain said, a twinkle in his gray eyes. “Ike, swordsman of Daein.” 

Ike exited the room and strode to the summit alongside his father with his head held high.

Although he had expected that they would convene in the throne room, a space he had still never stepped foot in, Ike’s father led them out of the stronghold’s walls. The winter winds were bracing, and snow fell softly onto the bailey. Sparkling flurries dusted the most diverse gathering of citizens of Tellius that Ike had ever seen. 

Closest to the stronghold were the Four Riders, dressed, like Ike was, in the black and scarlet armor of Daein. Ike was shocked more than he thought he would be at the sight of Soren sitting upon a slender throne. The Black Knight was stationed beside his charge, almost inhumanely still, the palms of his gauntlets resting on the pommel of his blessed blade. The seat next to Soren– King Ashnard’s throne– remained vacant. Soren acted oblivious to that fact. 

Instead, Soren quietly surveyed those gathered before him– from the royals stoically enduring the cold to the ministers muttering conspiratorially; from Begnion’s armored pegasi floating above the moat with their armed riders to Crimea’s steeds eating feed in the stables. Ike knew Soren was putting the pieces together, even though he couldn’t imagine what plans Soren was making. 

Like the Riders, Soren wore red and black, his robes adorned with Daein’s royal family crest. He looked as he always did when facing the public: composed, unreadable, and indifferent.

Ike recognized that as both his default offensive and defensive posture: don’t let others see that you are weak. 

“How easily the rulers of Tellius abandon their strongholds to answer my call!” King Ashnard’s voice boomed.

The pegasi’s wings fluttered, the horses whinnied, and all those congregated suddenly focused on the king. 

King Ashnard took his throne, and, for the first time, Ike saw him and Soren side by side. They looked somewhat similar– their ruthless gazes, the forest hues of their snow-spangled hair– and utterly different. With startling clarity, Ike understood why Daein marveled at how fine-boned and small Soren was compared to the strong and massive king, power radiating from beneath his fur-lined robes. 

While the other representatives bristled at King Ashnard’s words, a man dressed in the colors of Begnion, lithe and graceful, said calmly, “Individual nations cannot prosper when the continent as a whole suffers.”

“Well spoken, Lord Sephiran,” said a representative of Crimea, one whom Ike could not squarely place as a politician or warrior. He had the physique of a fighter but none of the raw energy of Daein’s combatants. 

“You are the advisor of the girl-child that the country of Begnion made their ruler?” General Petrine inquired silkily. 

“That is Empress Micaiah, General,” Lord Sephiran corrected, and Ike was stunned to realize the girl seated beside him, who was as small and even paler than Soren, was not Begnion’s princess: she was its ruler. 

The summit erupted into sounds of incredulity and conflict:

“Preposterous!” 

“You expect King Ashnard and the country of Daein to negotiate with a child?”  

“Empress Micaiah is a powerful Spirit Charmer, but most important of all, she hears the voice of the goddess herself!” 

“As a vessel of divinity, she plainly shows that it is Begnion’s destiny to save Tellius from strife and subhumans.”

Although he hadn’t noticed it before, Ike now recognized the mark on Empress Micaiah’s right hand. It resembled Soren’s, blood-red and hieroglyphic, but the character was not identical. Ike could not stop himself before he was craning his neck to see Soren. 

Although Soren appeared unruffled to those who did not know him, the white-knuckled grip he had on his throne betrayed his shock.

“Laguz are not our enemy here,” the ruler of Crimea interrupted. He was a man much older than the other monarchs, his beard colorless and his face deeply lined. “We must address our conflicts with each other if we are to avoid war.” 

Ike could feel the disdain of those from Daein and Begnion as if it were a physical thing, oily and suctioning like swamp waters.

King Ashnard leaned in, his smile wide and hungry. Soren reflected none of his father’s mirth as he sat like a statue beside him. 

“Your bared throat, King Ramon,” said King Ashnard, “will incite the beast king to sink his fangs in you as his tribe of wildcats devours your citizens.”

Crimea’s other representative pushed himself out of his seat.

Ike saw his father reach for the handle of his sword. 

King Ramon blocked his companion with his scepter, saying sternly, “we are here to prevent war, not precipitate it, Renning.” 

“My only allies are those who will build my power, not diminish it, so unhand your brother and let us test your greatest warrior against mine,” King Ashnard commanded gleefully. “Lord Renning Riddell, heir to the Crimean throne, against Gawain the Invincible, Daein’s strongest Rider.”

“This is how the seeds of discord are sown,” Lord Sephiran cautioned. “Careless blades carve fissures in the world that do not heal but erupt in violence, self-propagating and forever spreading.”

King Ashnard laughed viciously. “It is a shame that your greatest warrior is absent, leaving only pretty words and a child to defend Begnion. Where is your prized General Zelgius? Why does he abandon his rulers in their crucial hour?”

Instead of taking offense, the way Ike thought he would, Lord Sephiran smiled, full of grace. “He is with us in the ways that matter.”

“Pretty, powerless words,” said King Ashnard, smirking. 

“My king?” Lord Renning asked tightly.

King Ramon sighed. “...Let us exhaust the urge to cross blades here, King Ashnard, instead of on the battlefield where lives will be lost.”

Speaking in fierce, whispered voices, the politicians, royals, and their guards crossed the grounds toward the list field, the ground frozen beneath their feet. 

Once Gawain left to prepare himself for battle, Ike managed to find Soren surprisingly free of the Black Knight. Remembering to keep a proper distance, Ike asked, his voice low, “So is this a good development or a bad one?”

“It is an unsurprising one,” said Soren, his lips barely moving as he faced the crowded stands. “For my father must have arranged for us to meet near the jousting area on purpose. He wanted to instigate fights with the most capable combatants of Crimea and Begnion. He must be frustrated, having only gotten one of the two. He was probably planning for my personal protector to cross swords with General Zelgius, but now he must settle.”

“Where is the Black Knight?” Ike asked, peering across the snowy grounds and failing to spot his dark armor.

“I do not know,” said Soren, sounding mostly unconcerned.

Ike watched King Ashnard sit high in the stands, glowering at the area where Gawain and Renning would do battle.

“The king’s frustration isn’t a good thing,” Ike gathered.

“No, Lord Ike,” said Soren. “It is not.”

It appeared that the Crimeans felt the same way. Ike watched as a battalion of knights gathered around Lord Renning, helping him with his armor and speaking solicitously. Lord Renning must have been their commander. Ike was impressed by the respect he so obviously commanded from his peers and students.

Ike’s father, on the other hand, stood almost in isolation on the opposite end of the list. Although General Bryce was with him, Gawain looked removed from atop his steed, not speaking to his fellow Rider to instead watch Lord Renning. 

Ike only determined where General Petrine was when she suddenly appeared between him and Soren.

“As loyal to the prince as ever, aren’t you, son of Gawain?” she asked. “How lucky for you, Prince Soren. Not all of us can be as well-liked as that little girl-empress, can we? Especially not those of us also born Daein and weak.”

“You’d best hone your tact, General Petrine,” Soren answered, “as your current strength level is insufficient to protect your head from my father’s wrath. O third -most powerful Rider of Daein - aren’t there only four?”

General Petrine appeared ready to flout Soren’s advice and attack him. Ike positioned himself in front of Soren before the horn was blown. Snarling, General Petrine joined General Bryce, the Black Knight, and King Ashnard. Before Soren could leave, Ike grabbed his elbow.

“What did she mean by ‘not all of us can be like Begnion’s Empress?’” Ike asked, thinking about the mark that also adorned General Petrine’s chest, like Soren’s and Empress Micaiah’s marked hand. “Why should you being a Spirit Charmer–”

“Later, please, Lord Ike,” Soren said, extricating himself to join his father and his official knight. 

Ike had no desire to wait until later, but he forced himself to sit close to the list field with the knights of the other nations. Lord Renning’s supporters scrutinized Ike carefully, especially a young man and woman. One carried a lance and the other a sword. Going by their ages, they must have been newly initiated into knighthood, and going by their identically teal-tinted hair, they must have also been siblings. 

Ike returned their long, searching gaze before he turned his attention to his father. He had never seen Gawain like this, fully immersed in his role as the first Rider of Daein. In his full regalia, Gawain twirled the blessed sword Ragnell as if it was weightless before drawing it back, posed for battle. 

Then, he and Lord Renning clashed, dynamic and lightning-fast.

Ike remembered viscerally why he admired his father so– his father was truly the greatest fighter he had ever witnessed. Gawain moved more fluidly, precisely, and cool-headedly than anyone in Daein.

But Lord Renning was a close second. He might have been, incomprehensibly, Gawain’s equal. That evidently shocked those in Daein and Begnion and made the Crimeans glow with pride.

The battle ended abruptly, in a flourish of moves too fast for Ike’s inexperienced eyes to see. The diamond tip of Lord Renning’s sword hovered over Gawain’s chest–

–but the edge of Gawain’s blessed blade was already pressed against Lord Renning’s throat.

The audience fell silent, although Ike could feel their tension ringing in his ears like a pressurized hum. Was it a mere joust or a battle in the truest, deadliest sense? 

Gawain answered that question when he removed his sword and offered his hand. 

On his back, Ike could feel equal parts relief and… dissatisfaction emanate from the crowd. What face was King Ashnard making right now?

Shaking Gawain’s hand and removing his helmet, Lord Renning said, “Well met, Lord Gawain.” 

Ike could tell that his father was surprised by Lord Renning’s behavior: his generous handshake, his friendly smile. “Well met, your highness,” Gawain said gradually, smiling back at him. 

“The reigning monarchs will now convene in the throne room,” Lady Ena’s voice chimed, clear and even. It was then that Ike realized King Ashnard had disappeared.

Lord Sephiran arose, and Ike pondered whether he was a fighter or versed in the magical arts. The way he moved was strange, not a gesture wasted. 

“Given her young age, I will represent the interests of Empress Micaiah,” he declared.

Lady Ena hesitated. Then, she replied, “Very well.”

“I will be present alongside my brother,” Lord Renning asserted.

“I’m afraid that is not possible,” Lady Ena answered.

“While our kings trade theories on how to defend the continent, let us ensure it in practice by sharing sword techniques,” said Gawain. “I see that there is much I could learn from you and Crimea’s ways, Lord Renning.”

Generals Bryce and Petrine looked affronted at the notion, but Gawain didn’t waver, so eventually Lord Renning replied, “So be it, Gawain the Invincible.” 

Ike could not follow his father as he left with Lord Renning and Daein’s Riders. For whatever reason, although most of Crimea’s royal knights also dispersed, the young lance wielder and swordswoman remained. 

“What of the senators?” a man from Begnion blustered. “Are we not also those who guide our rulers to lead responsibly?”

“King Ashnard desires a small and intimate audience,” Lady Ena replied, already starting to lead the gathering of politicians away. “You may retire in the Great Hall, where songs will be played by Daein’s finest musicians. The king will rejoin everyone during dinner.”

“We did not come all this way to watch fights and sample regional dishes,” another senator from Begnion grumbled, his gaze lingering upon Empress Micaiah. However, Lady Ena would not waver, and bitterly the sizable party– too sizable, thought Ike– of Begnion senators followed after her, accompanied by a smaller contingent of Crimean politicians.

Once the wintry grounds were almost abandoned, Soren asked, “Will you not go inside to warm yourselves with your subjects, Empress Micaiah… and Princess Elincia?”

The two Crimean knights tensed, and Ike reached for his sword automatically, compelling the knights to seize the handles of their weapons.

Before anyone could draw their blade, a girl with kind, nervous eyes exited her shelter behind the nearby treeline. She removed her hood, and Ike recognized the grass-green tresses of Crimea’s royal family. The girl did not, however, conduct herself with the confidence or magnificence of many royals. 

“I-it’s alright, Geoffrey, Lucia!” she stammered frantically, stumbling in her haste to stop her guards. “Please, let there be no more violence. Not least of all for my sake.”

Ike gazed back at the place where the girl emerged. “Why were you hiding in the… bushes?” 

“Is that anyway to speak to royalty?” Lucia snapped.

“Elincia Riddell is the not-so-secret daughter of King Ramon and heir to the throne after her uncle, Lord Renning,” said Soren. “Even though her father revealed her existence recently, I suspect he is not eager to subject his unprepared child to the tumult of international politics.”

Princess Elincia made the face that many did when they were shocked speechless by Soren’s candor.

“She’s standing right there, Soren,” Ike said in a poor attempt at diplomacy. “You can at least say your honest thoughts to her.”

“Is this how they teach respect in Daein?” Geoffrey asked severely. “Princes speak with barbed tongues and aspiring swordsmen without proper titles for their rulers?”

“Come now, Geoffrey, you and Lucia still call me Elincia, too, sometimes,” Princess Elincia interjected. “Perhaps they also grew up together.” 

“You’re kind, Princess,” Ike said before he could reconsider it. He hadn’t expected to meet other royals who were humble and humane enough to view their knights as their equals, the way Soren regarded him. 

Ducking her head, Princess Elincia flushed. Beside her, Lucia scoped Ike consideringly, and Geoffrey clutched his lance more tightly.

“Do not defend my own knight to me,” Soren told Princess Elincia sharply, international politics tapping into his harshness like nothing else. 

“He is a boy, not a knight,” Geoffrey argued. 

“You are the son of Gawain the Invincible, are you not?” Empress Micaiah asked Ike, who startled; he had forgotten she was there, her presence being so quiet and tranquil. 

“Yes,” he said, confused. He didn’t believe his father had ever introduced him to laypeople from Begnion, let alone royalty. “Do you know my father?”

“I only saw him today,” said Empress Micaiah. “Although your appearances are quite different, your hearts are similar. Confident and selfless.”

Ike wondered if he should be more flattered or concerned. “Our hearts?” 

“Yes.” Empress Micaiah spoke as if that were obvious. “Your heart, like your father’s, and like all beorc and laguz, has chaos within it, but yours is also very noble. Lord…?”

“Ike,” he supplied dubiously.

“Do not try to brainwash us the way you and your senators have turned the country of Begnion into a mindless cult,” Soren protested. “Maiden of the Dawn you may be, but you are not a Spirit Charmer who was blessed by the goddess. You were not born to bestow the people with the saving powers of your loving nature.”  

Instead of antagonizing her as he did Princess Elincia, Geoffrey, and Lucia, something about Soren caused the glassy sheen to leave Empress Micaiah’s eyes. She no longer gave off the impression of being prophetic and ancient. When she spoke, she sounded young and vulnerable.

“You’re… you’re like me,” she breathed. “But how–”

“We are nothing alike, you ridiculous girl,” said Soren.

“We are, and we aren’t,” Empress Micaiah said despairingly. “Your heart is so cold, chilled from the inside and out. I do not know how you draw breath. But… there is some warmth in you. It doesn’t melt - it burns.”

“That’s enough,” Ike said, sensing the tension rise so sharply in Soren, he feared something would break.

“Indeed it is,” said Geoffrey, stamping his lance on the frozen earth, his cooled breath ringing his face. “Lord Ike, son of Gawain. Your father may have bested Lord Renning, but you are not him. No matter what similarities the Empress of Begnion sees between you. Your father is exceptional, it’s true; but one man cannot save an entire nation from an absence of honor.”

“Geoffrey!” Princess Elincia said, horrified.

“What sanctimonious grandstanding,” said Soren. 

“If you want to fight and represent your ruler,” said Ike, wrapping his cold extremities around his sword handle, “I’ll happily fight to defend the integrity of mine.”

“I– Lord Ike!” Soren cried, also alarmed. 

“It won’t be a grudge match,” Ike assured him. “Lord Geoffrey is an actual knight, so I have no chance of beating him. But, like Father told Lord Renning, I would like to learn.” 

Geoffrey was surprised by this response, as were the other Crimeans.

“If that suits you, Lord Geoffrey,” Ike added.

Brandishing his lance, Geoffrey replied, “Lord Renning and Lord Gawain fought admirably without bearing the grudges of their respective nations. Let us do the same: representing our monarchs’ virtues instead of our own egos.”

When the fight began, Ike drawing his steel sword faster than he thought he could, he witnessed first-hand how differently Crimean warriors fought than those from Daein. Although Geoffrey used a lance and not a sword, his techniques were closely modeled after Lord Renning’s, privileging flexibility, speed, and repeated blows over bursts of immense power. 

Ike knew he couldn’t win. Not with Geoffrey’s years of experience, not against the reach of a lance-wielder, not with his chilled breath growing increasingly pained and shallow while Geoffrey’s remained deep and sure. Still, by enduring Geoffrey’s hits and swinging his sword as his father taught him, Ike endeavored to be a worthy opponent of the other nation and proponent of Soren. 

The duel came to a close when Ike lay flat on his back against the frost, the spear of Geoffrey’s lance resting against his sternum. 

Geoffrey helped Ike onto his feet. 

“Well met, Lord Ike,” he said genuinely.

“Well met, Lord Geoffrey,” Ike replied, flexing his frozen fingers.

“It appears that Daein’s swordsmen are the best of the bunch,” said Lucia with a small smile, her hand resting on her own sword pommel. “I hope that someday, when you have officially become a knight, we shall also spar as friends rather than enemies, Lord Ike.”

“That would be wonderful!” Princess Elincia said enthusiastically.

Soren said nothing.

“I look forward to that,” Ike said, withdrawing to Soren’s side. “Until that point, we should replenish ourselves in the dining hall.” 

The snow was falling faster and heavier now. It partially obscured Ike’s vision, but not so much that he couldn’t see how the snowflakes contrasted with Soren’s dark hair, his blood-red robes.

“Crimea’s knights are pretty impressive,” Ike mentioned with a sidelong glance at Soren, who did not appear impressed. 

“Noble notions do not determine whether one wins or loses in battle,” Soren answered.

“That’s true,” Ike said, “but Geoffrey’s did prevent you from having to use your wind magic. I know you were about to when he nearly impaled me.”

Soren did not deny that, readjusting the Elwind tome he had secretly tucked beneath his imperial robes. 

“It does not surprise me that you won them over,” Soren said after a moment’s pause. He glanced back at the Crimeans; Lucia and Geoffrey waited while Princess Elincia hand-fed Begnion’s pegasi, smiling and laughing. “...their princess seems quite taken with you.”

“Was she?” Ike asked honestly. 

Soren laughed softly. “A natural in swordsmanship you may be, but not in matters of fair maidens' hearts.”

Though Ike also believed that to be true, he asked, “How do you know that?”

“The fact that you have not noticed the appreciative glances merchants’ daughters and apprentice castle wenches have been sending you for over a year,” Soren said wryly. 

“You’re imagining things,” Ike said confidently. “But, on the topic of girl’s hearts and minds, why did Micaiah act so strangely around you?”

“I found her behavior to be overall irrational,” said Soren, walking into the castle too swiftly.  

“Soren.”

Beneath the torch lights of the bailey, it looked as if Soren did want to tell Ike the truth. Ike recognized that look, one he had seen his friend wear many times over the years when he was on the cusp of revealing something he desperately did not want Ike to know. Soren averted his crimson gaze, his hair draping over his brow. When he opened his mouth, Ike thought this would be the time where Soren told him what he was hiding. 

Like every other time, however, the moment passed, and Soren instead replied, “Get dinner without me, Ike. King Ashnard requires my presence.”

That was perhaps more surprising than anything else Soren could say.

“Why?” Ike asked, confounded. “What does he want from you?”

“I will tell you later, I promise,” said Soren, but Ike wasn’t reassured. Before he proceeded down the hall toward the throne room, Soren gave Ike one last look, and then he left, his red robes flashing beneath the flames. 

Ike was so preoccupied with the infuriated, helpless feeling that lingered long after Soren had departed, he was utterly caught off guard when someone approached him from behind and threw their arms around his waist. 

He almost stabbed his attacker before they cried, “Don’t tell me you’ve become a dour and serious knight, brother!”

Now reaching around himself with completely reversed intentions, Ike discovered Mist embracing him. She smiled tearily, her cheek pressed against his back even though it was damp with melted snow and sweat. 

She yelped when Ike lifted her from the floor and spun her in the air.  

“You’re here,” Ike said, amazed at his own joy. “You’ve gotten heavier, Mist.”

Mist had also gotten stronger, which Ike realized when she slapped his shoulder with real force.

“You may have learned the ways of the sword, but you still can’t speak to girls,” she complained as Ike carefully lowered her to the ground.

“You’re not the first person who’s told me that today,” Ike admitted.

A mischievous glint appeared in Mist’s eyes. “What princess have you offended? Is that why Mother insisted we rush over here, to prevent your thick skull from causing an international situation?”

“Where is Mother?” Ike asked, only a little ashamed when he whipped his head around to survey the empty hall. 

“With Father.” 

“And they just let you wander around the castle on your own?”

“I’m just as mature as you are, even though I’m younger!” Mist argued. “Mother’s been teaching me all about magic, you know… even if it’s mostly healing.”

“I should get Soren to teach you some offensive and defensive spells,” Ike mused aloud. 

Eagerly clutching Ike’s shoulder, Mist said, “Yes, you must introduce me to the prince! I can’t believe you two are friends, not with your clumsy tongue. Father must have trained you well.”

“Mother’s still got her work cut out for her with you,” Ike said half-jokingly, but he came to believe it when Mist pinched him sharply through his tunic and started dragging him to the dining hall. “Shouldn’t we wait for her and Father?”

“They’re busy,” Mist complained. “They wouldn’t stop talking since the moment we arrived. Father barely greeted me.”

Digging his heels, Ike asked, “Should we be concerned?”

Mist chewed her lip. “...I don’t know. Mother’s been a bit…” 

“Is she ill, hurt?” Ike asked, his heart beating wildly.

“No,” Mist said, shaking her head fiercely. “Just… distracted. She’s concerned about something. But she won’t tell me what.” 

“You didn’t write about that in your letters,” Ike said more accusingly than he intended.

“I didn’t want you to be concerned, too,” Mist argued miserably. 

Sighing, Ike patted Mist’s back and said, “We’ll ask her together after dinner. Mother and Father are probably already there since it’s supposed to be a big deal, with the Crimeans and Begnion in attendance.”

“Plus the king,” Mist added.

“Yeah,” Ike said, ignoring the confused look Mist sent at his dark tone. 

By the time they reached the dining hall, Ike felt lighter, Mist humming a soothing tune. Like other official functions, Elena sat with the clergy, dressed in her pearl priestess robes, and Gawain sat at a long table with his fellow Riders.

In the center of that table sat King Ashnard and Soren, Soren uncharacteristically speaking with his father. For the first time Ike had seen, King Ashnard paid his son close attention. More shockingly, he smiled, the bone-white of his teeth exposed. He squeezed his son’s shoulder– too hard, Ike thought, when he saw Soren grimace and shortly after conceal his pain. 

“Ike?” Mist asked loudly, as if she had asked it many times before.

“Hmm?”

Mist pointed to the chalice Ike had crushed beneath his fist. Ike released the dented metal and started eating his civet of hare. 

Mist, looking less enthused by her rabbit stew, gazed at the various monarchs and said, “Is that the Empress of Begnion? I can’t believe she’s as young as you and Soren– Prince Soren, I mean! Gosh, Ike, you shouldn’t have called him that in your letters– is the Empress talking to a bird?”

As Ike understood it, Empress Micaiah was indeed conversing with a small songbird that was pecking at the edges of her plate. He must have overlooked her companion when they were outdoors.

“She’s a bit… unusual,” Ike offered.

“I wonder if Begnion and Daein are planning to betroth her and Prince Soren,” said Mist. 

The hare’s leg split abruptly into halves of sinew and bone beneath Ike’s fingers. “Why would you say that?”

“That’s how nations make peace, right? By marrying their rulers,” Mist explained, delighted by the appearance of a dish covered in sauce, gilt sugar plums, and pomegranate seeds. “Or maybe the Crimeans will try to betroth their princess to him. But that wouldn’t be very tempting since the princess isn’t the direct heir to the throne…”

“Since when do you know about stuff like this?” 

“You’re not the only one who’s learned a lot.” 

At the end of the sixth course, King Ramon rose from his seat, and the dining hall fell silent. 

“I would like to offer a toast,” he said. “Peace, like victory, is never easy or instantaneous. Today, we begin the long journey of establishing harmony between our countries so that the whole of Tellius may be stronger.”

The ambassadors of Crimea immediately raised their chalices. Before Begnion could respond, there was an interruption from a source that Ike would have never anticipated:

“How could harmony make us stronger, King Ramon?” Soren asked, his voice young but commanding and clear. “Your people are divided on the matter of succession, whether the next rightful ruler of Crimea is your brother or your daughter. More importantly, they are rioting over your lenient treatment of the superpowered subhumans who dwell just beyond your borders, which you have only made more open to Gallians. The result of both issues has been an increase in disorder and violence throughout your country. Right now, Crimea is not a strong ally– it is an easy target, torn between the ideals of its rulers and the banality of its citizens.”   

King Ramon’s expression hardened, Lord Renning tensed as if preparing for battle once more, and Princess Elincia shook with fear.

The condemnation of Crimea’s politicians was so overwhelming that Ike was amazed to hear Empress Micaiah speak over it:

“We must stop this,” she pleaded, sounding both like a prophet and a scared child. “We must be unified, like Ashera and the Three Heroes when they stopped the goddess of chaos and permitted laguz and beorc to share what was left of our world in peace.”

“Where was that peace, dear empress, when your grandmother, the revered Apostle Misaha, was killed by the herons of Serenes, and your divine country burned their ancient forest to the ground in revenge?” Soren asked. “Hypocrisy aside, I do not see how a country that cannot defend its important leaders against herons, the most pacifistic of subhumans, can be an ally to any nation, let alone Daein. Faith does not protect one from greed and bloodlust, which you had the misfortune of experiencing when your newborn self was barely spared a dozen years ago.” 

Empress Micaiah was wide-eyed, her bird protectively nuzzling her throat.

Begnion’s senators unleashed a torrent of insults:

“Insolent child!”

“An exiled royal retrieved from the wastelands and hastily fashioned into a prince dares to act as if he belongs at the table? You have no place here!”

“Jealous creature, unblessed by the goddess!”

With a calm none of his countrymen possessed, Lord Sephiran asked, “Do you echo the sentiments of your son, King Ashnard?” 

With a hook of a smile, King Ashnard answered, “The boy has no strengths to speak of other than his cunning mind.” 

“I see,” said Lord Sephiran. “Then all that remains is delay.” 

“I do not accept that,” King Ramon said fiercely, and the world leaders launched into threats, trade agreements, negotiating borders, and refusals to capitulate on their stated goals. But Ike had heard enough. 

Jumping from his seat, to Mist’s alarm, he raced after Soren, who had disappeared in the chaos. Soren was exiting the front gates when Ike leapt into his path, the nighttime wintry winds whipping his back.

“What was that, Soren?” Ike demanded to know. 

“I used my cunning mind to give my father what he wanted,” Soren said acerbically. “Provocation and insight.”

“You can’t honestly want war,” Ike asserted. “The Crimeans are good people, and Begnion doesn’t deserve to be attacked. Why help Ashnard wage his war of weapons by starting a war of words?”

“War is inevitable, Ike!” Soren cried desperately, the winter winds tangling his hair and burning his face. “I wrack my brains and research every alternative, but I cannot find any way out of war so long as Ashnard wills it! And he doesn’t only will it, he hungers for it, like he hungers for all violent ends.”

“You can’t help him, Soren,” said Ike. “Even if he wants your tactics…”

“If your father went to battle for him,” Soren asked, “if your knighthood depended on it… if the enemy wanted my head… would you not fight Ashnard’s war?”

Ike felt his jaw knot, his blunt nails bite through the thick calluses on his palms. 

“That does not mean you have to,” he finally got out. 

“Of course I do, Ike,” Soren said earnestly. “Did you think I would passively wait while you were fighting on the frontlines? When Ashnard prohibits me from joining you on the battlefield with my magic, do you think I won’t come up with any tactic to assure your safety, no matter what it inflicts on our enemies or our ignorant people?”

“What have I done to earn such loyalty, Soren? Why am I worth you throwing away your values like this?”

“I have no values… only you.”

Soren said nothing else, and Ike did not know what else to say. So, he touched Soren’s shoulder and steered him out of the doorway, the stormy cold, the shards of ice that were searing Soren’s pale skin. When he did, Soren let out a sharp sound and flinched away.

Jerking his arm back, Ike asked, “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Soren said hurriedly, not so much touching his shoulder as cupping the fabric to his skin. 

His fingers moving faster than his conscious thoughts, Ike tugged at Soren’s collar. Climbing up the base of his neck were deep, purple-green bruises in a shape that Ike recognized through rare sightings alone. 

“It is nothing,” Soren snapped, futilely pushing at Ike’s hand.

“Did he threaten you?” Ike asked, examining the bruises keenly, even though he had seen far worse on his own body and his father’s and the other warriors of Daein. But this was different.

“Did I not explain my reasoning just now?”

“Why didn’t the Black Knight stop him?”

“So now you desire the Black Knight to be by my side more frequently than less.”

“You’re smart enough to know I won’t stop until I get an answer, Soren.”

Very gradually, Soren said, “Ashnard wants for me to be more than Daein’s tactical mind. And this is one of the ways he attempts to draw it out of me.”

Gazing long and hard at Soren and the tender skin he concealed, Ike replied, “We’re getting a vulnerary from my room. Come– I don’t want to hurt you, but I will stay in this frigid doorway for all eternity if you refuse to accompany me.”

Soren resigned himself to walking beside Ike. They walked slowly, despite the glares Soren received from Begnion and Crimean representatives, which then carried over to admonishing looks on Ike himself.

For all the talk of his strategic mind, Soren was almost comically shocked to see Elena in Ike’s quarters. 

“Mother,” Ike gasped as Elena strode over to him.

“Hello, Ike,” she said, framing his face with her hands. Ike was shocked to recognize that he was now the same height as Elena, seeing her eye to eye. After she released him with a bittersweet smile, she curtsied in her pale skirts. “Hello, Prince Soren.”

“Lady Elena,” Soren said uncertainly, bowing his head.

“What are you doing here?” Ike asked, surveying his room for signs of Mist or Gawain but seeing only Elena still wearing her priestess robes.

“...I wanted to speak with you,” Elena said, deliberative and opaque. 

“I will go,” said Soren, already staggering back, but Ike would not let him retreat.

“Can you heal Soren, Mother? I mean, Prince Soren?”

Soren opened his mouth to protest, but Elena scrutinized him, and he quieted. The boy he was six years ago, three years ago, surfaced from beneath the rigid exterior Soren projected, the cracks of an old and unforgettable fear that he would not name.  

“Do you desire that, your majesty?” Elena asked in the same tones she used attending to the lost and enfeebled country-dwellers, the perennial migrants of Daein.

“I do not wish to bother you,” Soren answered.

Shaking her head, Elena steered Soren to sit on the edge of Ike’s bed. She lifted her staff, and as she muttered her incantation, light emanated from the crystal and roots, radiating around Soren’s body. Although he held himself tensely, as the healing light twinkled around him, he relaxed into the restorative spell.

“Thank you, Lady Elena,” Soren said once the spell was complete. “Your son is very much like you.”

Ike didn’t know how to feel about that or whether he agreed.

Elena, however, smiled in perfect understanding. 

Chapter Text

IV.

“We are leaving Daein,” was the third thing Elena said after she and Mist returned from their most recent sojourn across the country. The first was the grave greeting she gave Ike, and the second was her instructions for him and Mist to follow her into Palmeni Temple, despite the fact that the grounds were nearly pitch-black. “As soon as your father returns, we will flee the castle.”

The part of Ike that recognized how integral his parents were to Daein, the part that had been dedicatedly training himself to becoming a Rider like his father, was deeply disturbed. The part that had spent the last three years after the summit watching agitation build in the castle and then spill out into the vitriolic, war-hungry attitudes of the townsfolk was unsurprised. 

Still, the enormity of this announcement– that their family would be leaving their home country, that Gawain would be deserting and betraying his kingdom, that even if they left they would not be safe– was difficult to accept.

Apparently, Mist was having trouble with that, too. It seemed that their mother had given her as little information leading up to this life-changing statement as she’d given Ike. 

“But, why, Mother?” she asked, the wavering edges of her usually willful words making Ike’s heart clench. 

“I know Father disagrees with the war,” Ike allowed– he disagreed with it, too. As time went on, he found himself agreeing with very little of Ashnard’s actions, to those in Tellius, to his fellow countrymen, and especially to his son. That had dampened Ike’s ambitions to ascend to the rank of Rider, but he reminded himself that he could serve and protect Soren when he became monarch– if Ashnard were to die, someday, although that day grew harder and harder to imagine. “But he could fight with the army instead of a Rider, like General Tauroneo does since he stepped down from directly serving the crown.”  

Elena shook her head resolutely and desolately. Then, she lifted her hands. “Do you know what this room is?”

Ike gazed again upon their surroundings. The section of Palmeni Temple into which Elena guided them wasn’t the public ceremonial space Ike was used to seeing. They had walked deep, deep into the vacant temple, below ground, amidst the cobwebbed cellars, before they entered a small room. A derelict bed lay under a sheet of dust, but more unusual was the writing that covered the stone walls in a tongue that Ike could not recognize. 

Then, Ike realized why this silent and bare room reminded him of the space beneath the castle where the feral wyvern dwelled.

“It’s a dungeon,” he said in a hushed voice.

Mist audibly startled, her head whipping disbelievingly from Ike to their mother, who nodded wordlessly.

“But this is a holy place!” she cried, immediately slapping her hand on her mouth to stifle her outburst.

“It is alright; no one can hear us within these walls, for they are enchanted to be soundproof,” Elena said sadly. Her hand migrated to the strange lettering, tracing the text with near reverence. “Before I met your father, I cared for a heron who was imprisoned here by Ashnard. She was an impossibly gentle and forgiving soul despite what the king did to her. We became friends even though we did not share the same language. Eventually, I learned her name: Lillia. She taught me many other things– like the song I passed onto you, Mist.”

Although Ike did not understand, Mist gasped in recognition.

“And–” Elena reached into her robes to withdraw her satchel. She perused its inner pockets before she retrieved a tightly-wound bundle of thick cloth. “–she taught me why the king cannot be trusted.” 

Peeling back the layers of coarse fabric, Elena revealed a medallion. The medallion’s appearance was unremarkable: the bronze had corroded with what appeared to be the passing of many years, rendering the metal a dull blue instead of vibrant, amber ore. 

What was jarring wasn’t the tangible qualities the medallion possessed, but the way it hummed, and Ike’s head spun, as if he’d been knocked against a wall– as if somebody had wrapped their hands around his throat and plunged him underwater. 

His senses were warped, his mind muddled, except for prickling aggression and unease.

Elena watched him knowingly, managing to somehow convey her complete trust and also hold the medallion at a distance.

“It glows,” Mist said wondrously; Ike could not see it.

“To you and me, yes,” said Elena; Ike struggled to hear her over the medallion’s pull. “Because we are balanced between the forces of Order and Chaos, not like this medallion. That chaotic energy was what King Ashnard wanted Lillia to release… to the point that he kidnapped her from the Serenes Forest and pushed her to her death.”

Mist whimpered, her hands knotted in her shawl. 

“This is why Ashnard is so powerful,” Ike said, Soren’s words ringing through the fog of his mind.

“At a great cost.” Elena wrapped the medallion once more in swaths of cloth, its magnetic aura disappearing. At once, Ike felt like he could breathe, could reason. “But it is capable of far worse.” 

“Worse than Ashnard plunging the entire continent into war?” Ike asked incredulously.

“Yes,” was all Elena said in explanation, the medallion tucked safely away in her clothes; it was almost as if Ike had imagined the bewildering, inconceivable object. “That is why we must leave. He will be looking more obsessively for the medallion now than ever. We are not safe here.”

“We’ve been traveling across Daein because of the medallion,” Mist realized. “You’ve been trying to keep it away from the castle.”

“And your father has been ensuring that Ashnard does not obtain on his missions.”

It suddenly made sense: where Gawain went so frequently, why he failed to please the king even though he was the most accomplished fighter their country knew. 

Despite all that his mother was revealing to him, Ike knew his parents, so he knew that this was not the first time they considered leaving the castle. They probably planned to do so the moment Lillia entrusted Elena with the medallion, and they probably considered doing it again after she had died. In the soundproof chamber, Ike could not even hear the whistle of the wind, the susurrant trees, insect chatter or birdsong. How had Lillia endured being trapped here until her death? 

As someone trained in the strategies and dogma of Daein’s army, Ike knew why his parents never left. 

Ashnard would have hunted them down, the same way he would do now if Gawain, his strongest Rider, and Elena, the priestess who had cared for Lillia, were to cross the country’s borders on the eve of a great war.

But they were not safe either way, because their country was on the precipice of a conflict that would expand across the continent and probably the many years to come. 

As if she shared Ike’s thoughts, Elena wrapped both him and Mist in her arms. Mist was only a little shorter than she was; Ike was now so tall that he overlooked his mother’s delicate shoulders, folding her in the protection of his embrace. 

“You can’t tell anyone, Ike, Mist,” she whispered. Then, she corrected herself: “apart from those you trust and value above all else.”

Once Ike knew that they were leaving beyond all doubt, it was difficult to tell himself to stand by, biding his time before his father returned.

One thing he did not wait upon was entering one of the two places he still could not go in the castle: not the throne room, but the solar suites that privately housed the royal family. 

Soren had been the one to insist that Ike never tread there. Although Ashnard was not the type to regularly reside in his bedroom, as Soren’s protector, the Black Knight had a room right across from him, and he never let those unpermitted cross into Soren’s chambers. 

But now that the Black Knight was gone on the same mission that Gawain was– to violently retrieve the medallion that Ike’s mother was carrying– 

“We’re leaving,” Ike said the moment he pushed the doors open. “Come with us, Soren.”

Soren blinked sluggishly, staring at Ike as if he were a figment of his imagination or the product of a dream. He had been doing what Ike expected, the very thing that had prevented Ike from seeing him for weeks on end: he was planning Daein’s attack. The immense floor of Soren’s bedchamber was covered with open books, crumpled and inky parchment, and scrolls that extended wall to wall. 

Coming out of his war tactics-induced stupor, Soren said, somewhat disbelievingly, “...you don’t mean you are leaving for the battlefield with Gawain.”

Stepping closer, Ike extended a hand, lifted Soren from the floor– he weighed practically nothing– and said, “My family’s leaving Daein, and you’re leaving with us.”

“You can’t,” Soren said immediately, enclosing Ike’s wrist with a weak fist. When he gazed up at Ike, he seemed so small, smaller than Elena, but perhaps, somehow, more resolute, more desperate. “He will find you, and if he doesn’t kill you, he will break you, Ike.”

“He can’t,” Ike vowed.

“He can,” Soren hissed, panic written plainly over his wan features. “He can break anyone, no matter how strong, how…” Fighting back his uncharacteristic hysteria, Soren said grimly, “he could even destroy your father.”

Refusing to believe that, Ike supported Soren’s arms– he was either so malnourished or gripping Ike so fiercely that he was trembling– and asked, “Would you go with me if I promised to protect you?”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Soren snapped, angry enough to try to tear himself away. Ike would not let him; if he did, Soren might fall in a rare moment of emotional gracelessness; if he did, Soren might never draw near him again.

“Ashnard’s looking for something my mother has, and he won’t stop until he gets it. It might even be what he’s going to war for.”

Instead of merely looking bewildered and outraged, Soren was, however minimally, intrigued.

“I think… it’s what made him so strong and mad in the first place,” said Ike.

“Lehran’s Medallion?” Soren breathed skeptically. “It’s a myth, a cautionary tale, not something your mother could miraculously and unbelievably have on her person.” At Ike’s look of utter confusion, Soren explained, “the medallion is said to contain the dark god that the goddess and the Three Heroes defeated a millennium ago. Because this god could not be killed, Lehran sealed it away, and it has been protected by Lehran’s kind, the heron royalty, ever since.” 

“My mother got it from a heron Ashnard kidnapped– Lillia,” Ike said urgently; Soren’s eyes grew wide. “She must have been the princess who was safeguarding the medallion.” 

Soren appeared to be reflecting on this fact along with other information Ike could not know; he was so focused that his slippered feet stepped all over his strategies, his research. The revelation that Soren reached was not what Ike expected. Ike knew Soren’s expression when he came to knowledge and was forming a plan of action– it was calm, decisive.

Now, Soren looked devastated. 

Even though Soren did not physically falter, Ike grabbed him immediately, asking, “What is it, Soren? What’s wrong?” 

Shaking his head, Soren said nothing, and then, he laughed; it was the most broken, mirthless sound Ike had ever heard from him. He felt as if a dagger had plunged into his stomach and twisted in his guts. 

“What is right in this goddess-forsaken country?” Soren gasped. Taking a deep breath, he regained his composure. “...you know that I’d follow you anywhere, Ike.”

“I know,” Ike said, because even though he could not begin to understand why, he knew that was true. Soren’s faith and loyalty to him was unyielding, even as Ike was asking him to leave the country he was someday to rule. 

A country Ike knew more than anyone else Soren held no fondness for. 

“If I go…” Soren said heavily, miserably, “...they might hunt you down more fiercely. The Black Knight–”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ike argued firmly, Soren’s arms still under his hands. “He won’t stop you from coming with me, Soren.”

“He’ll try.”

“But he won’t succeed.”

“You’re still no match for him, Ike,” Soren said, definitively and a little apologetically, to those who knew to listen for his subdued contrition. 

“But my father is,” Ike said, even though he wished that he was, too. But arrogance would not see him through this hardship or the challenges to come. 

Although Soren said nothing, he nodded. Then, after he had rolled up his scrolls, set aside his books, and heavily revised the plans he would give Ashnard’s war advisors, he told Ike what they must do. 

Elena was not displeased when Ike told her that he had asked Soren to come with them, nor was she disappointed by what Ike revealed about the medallion. She received Soren’s plans for their escape with gratitude. 

When Gawain finally returned, and he kissed Mist’s brow, fiercely embraced his wife, and listened to the plans Ike imparted to him, he wore a restrained smile and said, “I expected no less from you or Soren, son.”

Ike recognized the drop in title and what it meant. Then, when they were on the eve of departing, he asked, with some hesitation, “This is really what you want, Father?”

Gawain knew what Ike was asking him: about his reputation, his honor, all of which would be besmirched in what Soren described as a dehumanizing, scorched-earth. But there was no conflict in Gawain’s expression, no hesitance in his body language, not the faintest trace of regret. 

Steady and sure, he said, “I don’t fight for my country, Ike. I fight for my family.” Then, he pressed a gloved finger to his lips and crouched low. “Now, be silent. Here is the caravan.” 

Ike had never been so tense. With the utmost care, he watched his sister and mother enter their caravan, heading for the southern border, toward Begnion. He wouldn’t imagine that this might be the last time he saw them, not even when Mist choked down a sob as she clung to his neck. 

After Mist and Elena had long disappeared, Soren gazed at him from beneath his cloak. Nodding back as he lowered his own hood, Ike set off with Soren southwest, in the direction of Crimea and Gallia. On foot, they crossed the austere hinterlands that encompassed the vastness of Begnion’s territories. 

Ike didn’t look back at his father.  

“He’ll be safe, Ike,” Soren assured him, panting as they began the mountain stretch of their journey after hours of walking across arid plains. “My father’s narrow-minded advisors will be watching for Crimean war vessels approaching Daein, not small merchant vessels departing for spoils over the Oribes. Mist and Elena also know the farflung provinces of Daein better than all of us, and they should be nearing Seliora shortly–”

Soren shouted in alarm when Ike lifted him off his feet and draped Soren over his shoulder. 

“Your words are true, but they are also growing faint,” Ike said, climbing over the increasingly steep cliff. “Save your strength for later. You will need it.”

“This is humiliating and unwise,” Soren grumbled, his face buried against Ike’s back; Ike knew then that he barely had the strength left to lift his head and reprimand Ike with a semblance of dignity. 

“You are as light as my sword,” Ike lied, inhaling deeply before he surmounted the next stretch of their mountainous path. When he felt Soren struggle, he said, “Let me do this much. Please, Soren. I’m… powerless to help anyone else I care about.” 

Soren grew still, clinging to Ike’s back. “I know,” he said after a time. “And… I’m sorry you are with me instead of your family–”

“I am not sorry,” Ike interjected, climbing higher.  

“They will be safer this way, even if it takes longer to reach Crimea,” Soren continued after a brief pause, an intermission to process Ike’s words. “Ashnard will hesitate on how to split his forces between pursuing the medallion, his errant champion, and his son–”  

“I trust you, Soren,” Ike insisted. “We will see my father, mother, and Mist in Crimea. I know it.” 

Soren said nothing else, waiting until Ike lowered him from his shoulder in the valleys. The sun had just begun to illuminate the emerald ridges, risking them becoming visible to Daein’s wyvern riders who watched the peaks.

Were it not for them running for their lives, Ike might have found the journey strangely nostalgic. He’d grown up outside the castle. He, Elena, and Mist had often trekked long distances on foot when caravans were not safe to ride, foraging and fishing when there were no villages to supply them, sometimes sleeping on sacks beneath the starlight. Getting used to his bed in the castle had been a trial, one more punishing for Ike’s back than it wasn’t.

Although Ike knew that Soren had also spent a great deal of his childhood outside the castle, it still provoked his curiosity, the ease with which Soren made his bed on a sheet and pile of dry reeds; lasted for half a day on a handful of berries, chewing bark when he grew hungry; and showed no fear even when they were surrounded by the wilderness, not a town or ramshackle house in sight. 

Ike knew that Soren concealed this information for a reason, but days into their journey, he gave into his curiosity and asked, “Where were you before Ashnard brought you to Daein, Soren?”

Soren sighed as if he expected this question. The dying embers of their fire exaggerated his delicate features, making them appear gaunt, skeletal– like the first time Ike saw him. “Ashnard did not bring me to Daein. The Black Knight did.”

That was surprising and worth at least ten follow up questions, but Ike knew better than to be distracted. “Where did he find you?”

The fire crackled, and Soren held his tongue until he said in a strained voice, as if he could not resist divulging it– the way he sounded when he revealed many things to Ike: “Gallia.”

“Gallia?” Ike said, stirring their fire too hard, causing the sparks to fly out and singe his hand. “You were with laguz?”

“There are human settlements in Gallia, which is where I was,” Soren said testily. That was nostalgic, too; Ike had not heard his defensive tones for some time, not deployed against him personally. “They were miserable, as one might expect in a country of subhumans.”

Ike refrained from chastising him, because he knew that Soren was making himself vulnerable enough to be truly wounded by even well-intentioned criticisms.

“I do not miss it,” Soren concluded.

“Obviously,” Ike said. Continuing to stir their fire so that the flames would gradually diminish before they had to leave, he asked, “What’s it like, Gallia? Apart from Lady Ena, I haven’t met any laguz. Definitely not members of the beast tribe.”

“It is a place we’d be better off avoiding,” Soren replied and refused to say more on the topic.   

The mountains seemed to go on forever; Ike only hoped that Mist’s and their mother’s path was more forgiving. To save on vulneraries, he and Soren suffered on their blistered feet and subsisted on edible plants they found at lower altitudes. The lack of heartier meals was harder on Ike than it was on Soren, who fussed and refused to be carried any further.

“Maybe we should take a more direct route,” Soren said when they retired for the night. “If we head straight for Nados instead of wasting time by Telgam–”

“You said passing by Telgam is more strategic,” Ike argued, digging his knuckles into his stomach to suppress the knots that formed there. 

Chewing the inside of his cheek, Soren said, “It’s a poor strategy if you pass out from hunger in the mountains.”

“I won’t,” Ike told Soren as much as he told himself. 

“Ike–”

“I’ve gotten through worse.”

Ike thought that they’d put the matter to rest, unlike his cramping stomach that would not let him sleep, but just as he’d believed Soren to be dreaming, his friend said quietly, “You do not know hunger, Ike.”

Ike turned on his bedroll to face Soren. “You do?”

Laying on his side, staring at Ike, Soren gradually nodded. “...none of my caretakers concerned themselves with whether I was hungry or full.”

The gnawing in Ike’s stomach drifted away; his focus was no longer on his own body. “Why not?”

As if Ike’s scrutiny was too much, Soren turned onto his back and whispered to the sky, “The first person who sheltered me was paid to do so. Her greed was not satisfied by royal coin. In fact, she lamented her fate, being saddled with me, and no amount of expenses she saved refusing to feed or clothe me could satisfy her.”

“Soren,” Ike breathed, his fist clenched on his burlap so hard, he could feel the twine thin.

“Until an old mage saw the mark on my brow, and paid her handsomely for the chance to train a Spirit Charmer like himself before he died,” Soren said dryly, as if his words were a source of amusement. “To him, comforts like food were secondary to magical skill. So devoted was he that I inherited his legacy that he did not even teach me to speak in a common tongue before the day I found him dead on his soiled sheets.”   

“Soren,” Ike said more firmly, raising himself onto his elbows.

“Why Ashnard sent the Black Knight for me when he did I do not know,” Soren said tonelessly, facing the dark, clouded sky. “Only that he sent him to get me when I had wandered for many hungry days throughout Gallia. The Spirit Charmer was a hermit, isolating himself from other humans to concentrate on his magic. When I was forced to leave his home, I was surrounded by beasts… and they did not care for my hunger or my helplessness. They did not attack me, as Daein’s people think subhumans do instinctually. No– they avoided me. They turned their backs on me. To them, it was as if I didn’t exist.” 

Ike was on Soren’s bedroll in an instant. For the first in a long time, Soren recoiled, as if still caught in the cruelty of his memories, so very slowly, Ike reached for him. He held Soren’s hand. The wind had blown away the clouds, exposing them to shards of moonlight, when Soren relaxed into Ike’s touch. 

“I will never turn my back on you,” Ike told him.

Soren did not answer right away. In the moonlight, Ike could see his dread and his sadness.

“I won’t, Soren,” Ike asserted, squeezing Soren’s hand, perhaps too tightly. “You know I mean what I say.”

“...of course you do, Ike,” Soren said softly, and although his temerity was not entirely satisfying, Ike felt calmer when Soren peacefully drifted to sleep. His own pangs of hunger abated long enough to assure he was rested enough for the next, arduous leg of their journey. 

Despite his fears of being detected by Daein soldiers, Soren finally allowed– or actively encouraged– them to stop at a town. Although he explained that it was judicious now that they were on the border of Crimea, Ike knew it was because Soren wanted Ike to have a real meal. The proof was when they parted with their precious gold for strips of salted venison, flatbread, and fruit preserves. 

Ike never tasted food so delicious, which Soren reminded him it was not. It took great effort to coax Soren to share even part of their provisions, which Ike felt extremely triumphant for doing despite Soren’s desires to ration their modest meal into morsels for the foreseeable future. 

As they rested against the dewy grasses that blanketed the foot of the hill, Ike asked, “Was the Black Knight cruel to you?”

Soren, who evidently hadn’t predicted this question, swallowed his mouthful of bread too quickly. He coughed while Ike slapped his back. 

Clearing away the tears of pain from his eyes, Soren said, “No. He wasn’t.”

“That’s good.”

Soren gave him an arch look.

“It is,” Ike said, determined to give off an air of neutrality. Although he wondered why the Black Knight, disdained by many in the castle for his power combined with his secrecy, would be decent to Soren when so many weren’t. “Maybe it means that he won’t try to drag you back.”

“He surely knew how bad Ashnard was the first time,” Soren reasoned. “It wouldn’t be out of character if he brought me back.”  

“He’ll go after my father,” Ike said, certain. “He still hasn’t beaten him. He won’t stop trying.”

That alone merited Ike’s respect for the Black Knight, the high esteem to which he held Ike’s father.

Gazing at Ike and then at their path, Soren pushed himself off of the loamy soil and said, “We’d better keep moving then.” 

When the sun was setting in the direction of Daein, transforming the cirruses into strips of gold and scarlet, Ike said, “I wish it had been Father who found you. That he brought you to us instead of the castle.”

Soren froze on the path, the russet hues to dusk outlining his face, his hair, his muted robes in warm, vibrant light.

“I wish the same,” Soren confessed in a small voice that betrayed his fear to even do so.  

The moment they stepped into Crimea, Ike felt a weight drop from his shoulders, although he knew better than to cease being vigilant. Soren was the same, sighing with relief even as he reminded them to hide who they were.

“Neither of us are identifiable on sight outside the castle,” Ike countered. 

“In the off-chance that Crimea has become more enlightened,” Soren counseled, keeping his hood low as they passed farmlands. “Even Crimeans aren’t so big-hearted as to greet a Daein swordsman and runaway prince with open arms.”

Ike wasn’t quite convinced of that when a driver offered them a lift on the back of his carriage. Despite Soren’s mute protests, Ike lifted him onto the bale of hay and sat beside him as the carriage took off toward the capital of Melior. Glaring at Ike from his nest of straw, Soren grumbled, “Of course Crimeans are your people. Trusting without a second thought, even though we could be bandits or wanted men, which we are…” 

Soren’s character assessment did not turn out to be entirely accurate when they sought a room in a hostel outside the city. As Soren surreptitiously paid with the modest coins they possessed, a tipsy man called out at Ike from his barstool, “So even whelps are playing at being soldier. Return the fucking sword to your dad, brat, before you cut yourself with it.”

Despite his crude words, the drunkard had a keen eye– Ike had gotten by without others detecting the sword beneath his cloak. Readjusting it on his back, Ike said nothing, aware that attention and a confrontation were the last things they needed. Soren looked as if he was at war with that knowledge and the strong desire to cast a wind spell and knock the drunkard off his stool. 

Barely concealed disdain became barely concealed incredulity when the drunkard’s companion, a huge man in a heavy suit of armor, shouted, “and before you hurt your beautiful companion! Come over here, fair lady. We skilled warriors know our way around mighty weapons.”

Soren looked torn between disbelief and a scathing rebuttal. Ike was torn himself, although his fleeting thought that Soren being mistaken for a woman could work to their advantage immediately gave way to him positioning himself in front of Soren, blocking him with his body. 

Staggering to his feet– the hulking flirt was also very drunk– the man complained, “As if you know how to treat a woman in bed, little boy!”

Peering around Ike, Soren said snidely, “I have my doubts that you know your way around a woman’s body, either. Perhaps you are operating under a long misunderstanding of what women look like from mistakenly bedding men.”

The blonde drunkard gaped at Soren’s soft, not girlish voice; the auburn-haired drunkard cackled madly and only avoided falling out of his stool with his preternatural reflexes.

“Sharp words from a waif who could be toppled by the fucking wind if it weren’t for silent and deadly over there,” he said, gesturing at Ike.

“You’re not looking so steady yourself,” Ike said before he could think better of it. “So you should put your tankard down before you do something stupid with it.”

Something stupid – and startling – occurred not a moment later as Ike automatically slashed away an arrow that appeared to manifest from thin air. The only indication that the auburn-haired man had loosened it was the telltale point of his fingers, his bow already withdrawn. 

“Guess I spoke too late,” Ike said, pushing Soren back, though less for his protection than to prevent Soren from entering the fray. He could already hear Soren muttering wind spells beneath his breath.  

“So maybe you’re not a total novice at the whole sword thing,” the vicious drunkard said, pushing himself to standing. “Or you’re just a lucky little shit. I know which I’d put my money on.”

“Drunk and destitute plus blind and pathetic,” was how Soren summed up the two warriors. “What a winning combination. No wonder you’re drinking yourselves into oblivion.” 

Ike didn’t have time to castigate Soren for his provocation because he was deflecting two more arrows, both aimed in Soren’s direction. His blood pumping, Ike prepared to forcefully respond – only the big man did so first.

“How could you treat a wilting violet of a girl like that, Shinon?”

“Gatrie, you fucking idiot, that smartass plainly said he had a teeny tiny cock!”

Unsure whether he should ignore the rough-housing or intervene, Ike’s decision was made when a stool was sent flying through the window, and the bar keeper threatened to call the authorities. Before he could draw his sword, however, a powerful woman wearing Crimean armor plucked Shinon’s volley of arrows out of the air. 

Soren immediately clutched Ike’s arm, trying to tug him to safety – until Gawain appeared, blocking Gatrie’s lance with his open first. 

“Father!” Ike said, too stunned and relieved to hold his tongue. 

Gawain, however, grinned broadly, his eyes shining as he tossed the lance back to Gatrie. Gatrie stared at him in awe. 

“So this is your son, Greil,” said the woman, also returning the arrows to Shinon, who appraised her far more approvingly than he did Ike.

“It is good to see you, my boy,” Gawain – no, Greil – said warmly as he ruffled Ike’s hair with one hand. With the other, he clapped Soren’s shoulder. Soren flinched, surprised at this intimate gesture. Greil acted as if he did not sense Soren’s discomfort, but his hand also did not linger. “I see you both took care of each other.” 

Ike nodded, struggling to find the words to convey how grateful he was that his father survived– while also holding back his burning question about whether Greil had reunited with Elena and Mist. 

“Who is your companion?” Soren asked, eyeing the Crimean knight with what would have been bland curiosity on anyone else. 

“This is Titania, an accomplished warrior who was once a knight in service to Crimea,” Greil said, his fondness no charade. 

“That is high praise indeed, for I have fared better sparring with members of the beast tribe than I did your father,” Titania replied with similar friendliness. She wore an expression that Ike was long familiar with being directed at his father, although it was devoid of the jealousy and resentment of those in Daein. Titania’s admiration for Greil was deep and true, and Ike knew why when she explained, “Greil did me the courtesy of not holding back when I challenged him to a duel only moments after I witnessed his skills in battle. Although he defeated me swiftly, I am happy to say it was not as effortlessly as the manner in which he disposed of Daein soldiers at Delbray.” 

Greil laughed as tension coursed through Ike like icy waters, Soren stiffening beside him. “It would not have been so effortless without your intervention, my friend.”

“I believe then you said it was because they were mere foot soldiers,” Titania quipped good-humoredly. 

Ike did not need to see Soren to know that he was in the process of formulating a dozen different plans, many of which likely involved their lack of involvement with this insightful Crimean warrior.

“You don’t strike me as the Crimean Royal Knight type,” Shinon said to Greil, openly assessing him.

“I’m not.” Greil adjusted his sword in his belt, the regal sheath of Ragnell replaced with an unadorned leather scabbard. “Self-preservation first, country second. You also strike me as the mercenary type.”

Shinon seemed intrigued, as did Gatrie, scoping Titania with far less objectifying admiration than he did Soren. Ike watched in awe as his father deployed a set of skills he rarely witnessed: fraternization. 

“Let me buy you both a drink to make up for my boys’ behavior!” Greil offered gregariously, leading Gatrie and Shinon back to their table while Titania furtively paid the bar-keeper for the damages, preventing further commotion.

Sitting on the sidelines of his father’s strange gathering of fighters, Ike learned a great many things: Greil had agreed to train Titania, which was why she followed him once her post in Gallia ended. Although Titania had no strong attachment to mercenary ways, she respected Greil’s disinterest in the upcoming war. He was only concerned with using his abilities to make ends meet for his family.

“It is a good ruse because it removes us from the heart of the conflict and is not entirely untrue,” Soren said later in his and Ike’s room. “But is it wise to work with a knight of Crimea, former though she may be?”

“It is her principles that Titania serves, not any nation,” answered Greil, sitting on the edge of Ike’s bed and sighing at the sensation of no longer being on his feet. Ike wondered how long and constantly his father traveled, as well as how many fights with Daein soldiers he had to face. He and Soren had gotten off relatively easy, which was likely what Soren planned when he determined their paths. “Allay your worries, Soren. I do not plan to tell her everything.”

Soren, unused to the informal address, nodded and forced down his complaints.

“You haven’t heard from Mother or Mist?” Ike asked, his knuckles rigid from being perennially balled into fists.

“No,” Greil said more darkly. “But Ashnard won’t bother with a priestess and a girl. He’d never consider that I’d entrust someone who wields no weapons with the safekeeping of the medallion.”

“Your mother and sister are crossing a greater distance,” Soren assured Ike, adding more hesitantly, “And they are safer in Begnion than we are currently in Crimea. Here is where Tellius is weakest. Melior will be where my father starts it all.”

“But it’s not where he plans to end it,” Ike stated with certainty.

Lifting himself up to stretch his legs and arms, Greil declared, “When your sister and mother arrive, we will go east to Arbor, to the very borderlands of Gallia if we have to. King Caineghis will not bow to Ashnard, but more importantly, he is merciful, and he will grant us passage if we request it.”

“There is no guarantee,” Soren said coldly.

“He will,” Greil insisted, his tone brokering no arguments.

“Are we supposed to run with the medallion forever?” Ike demanded to know. “Shouldn’t we return it to Serenes Forest, like you and Mother first planned?”

“Enough,” Greil barked, and Ike unwillingly fell back. With a heavy breath, Greil turned to the door, saying just before he exited, “for now, we maintain our cover: a countryless, cash-strapped band of mercenaries.”

When Greil left, Ike stripped out of his boots and overshirt and practiced his forms in the small space between his and Soren’s beds. It felt like there was a gulf between them after they slept within arms-length on their journeys, especially in the rare instances where Soren relaxed enough to doze off against Ike’s shoulder. 

“You will wear yourself out needlessly,” Soren said, watching him.

“You speak as if you won’t be devising strategies until the break of dawn,” countered Ike.

Soren could not debate that point. 

Ike did not know if it was from a lack of sleep or a lack of patience when Soren did little to mask his displeasure at Shinon and Gatrie joining Greil’s mercenary group in the morning. He himself had not landed squarely on a positive or negative response, although he verged toward the negative when Shinon said, “Don’t tell me these brats are also under your command.”

Shinon winced at the pronounced scrape and clatter of Greil’s chair on the wood floor, as did Gatrie, clutching his head. Titania looked unsympathetic. Soren was impolitely vindicated.

“Ike is still in training,” said Greil, “while Soren is strategist and staff officer of Greil’s Mercenaries.”

“I’m still in training?” Ike said in disbelief after they’d started their trek east. 

It was easy for Greil’s Mercenaries to find work– even if Ike was relegated to supporting the group from the sidelines. Although Soren spoke of it in denigrating fashion, he was not wrong when he identified a rise in crime and discord throughout Crimea. War neared, beorc protested the nearby laguz nation, and the schism in loyalty to the royal family deepened the closer Princess Elincia came to being of age.

This Soren told Ike to distract him from the sting of not quite being on the payroll of Greil’s Mercenaries. Soren oversaw this in his crucial role as bookkeeper. It surprised neither of them when his diversionary tactics did not succeed.  

“Are you not in training?” Greil asked Ike, parrying his blow so savagely Ike lost his footing and stumbled hard into a tree. “This is not Daein, Ike. Back there, you might be on the frontlines at the first chance the army got, but you would have commanded fools to their deaths and your own. You are young and inexperienced: you must be more skillful; you must be smarter; you must hold onto what little allies you have left, or else you’ll lose everything you hold dear.” 

Later, when Ike was binding his wounds, he felt a shock of cold salve on his shoulder.

He did not ease into the touch as he usually would have. Watching Soren perform pivotal duties for their group while Ike limped from his father’s brutal training regiments chafed more and more day by day. Although Ike did not mean to keep his distance, it grew nevertheless. 

“It is no wonder that you are getting thrashed so soundly if you are always this stiff,” said a kindly amused voice.

Ike finally peered around to discover that it was Titania administering medicine to his injuries.

“Thank you,” he choked out after his initial surprise. He took the salve from her and spread the cooling paste on his own wounds. “I’ve got it, Titania.”

Titania arched an eyebrow as Ike wrapped himself with gauze using a somewhat awkward but also familiar hand. “You trusted someone to tend to your injuries before, so much that you did not mind having your back exposed. Who did you think I was, Ike?”

“Soren,” Ike eventually admitted. 

Titania did not appear surprised, but there was an edge to her voice when she remarked, “I myself would find it very difficult to show him by back or injuries, given how readily he takes to calling me suicidally sentimental to my face… but then, you are both such serious young men. You surely have an understanding that I cannot fathom.” 

There were things Titania could have said, well-meaninged words, that would have raised Ike’s hackles: it was only natural for him, young as he was, to be seriously worried about the fates of his mother and sister; to be afraid of the encroaching conflict; to long to fight alongside his father. However, Titania was wise enough not to voice these platitudes, and Ike respected her immensely for it. 

Instead, she revealed, “The Commander is scared, you know. He feared that he would not see you alive again when I met him, even though he is not the type of man to say so. That is why he’s determined for you to have the time and space to prepare yourself instead of jumping into the fray like so many young soldiers who only wish to prove themselves. I know from personal experience and errors.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Ike, struggling to imagine an impetuous Titania. The image of her young and bleeding from a misjudged attack did not sit well with him.   

Titania smiled. “Then, I have succeeded. I grew. And that is what you will do, too, Ike. And Soren, I hope, for the sake of my own self-restraint.” 

Ike returned Titania’s medicine to her, and rather than struggling to lift himself from the rotting log, he raised a beseeching hand. Pleased, Titania helped lift him to his feet, amiably ignoring his grimace of pain. 

“My father was wise to train you,” Ike told her. “I already like you far more than his last disciple.”

Titania was genuinely heartened. “Your father is a good teacher because he endeavors to help his students realize their needs themselves. Although, as Deputy Commander, I do think there is something vital that our mercenary group is missing: a healer.”

Ike now knew why his father delayed: because he was waiting for Elena.  

“I know a good one,” said Titania, not noticing or choosing not to comment on Ike’s reticence as they headed back to the camp. “He helped save me from my past follies. And he could use the boost in morale.” 

Ike did not know if this would make said healer any easier of a pitch to Soren than Titania’s other ideas. 

“He doesn’t mean to be so rude.” At Titania’s look of confusion, Ike clarified, “Soren, I mean. Well, I guess he might not care about your feelings, but he’d never deliberately place you in a position where you could be hurt. He cares about the wellbeing of Greil’s Mercenaries.”

“I’ll try my best to arm myself with that knowledge,” Titania replied before they retired.

The healer she recommended, a sickly former priest named Rhys, was all too happy to leave his parents’ home and assist the powerful warrior he once nursed back to health. He dispensed healing spells to the rest of the party when he had the energy to do so– which was not especially often.

“And so our motley crew expands,” Soren dryly commented, observing Rhys sway while Titania helped him back to his tent. “Despite my warnings as the supposed staff officer.” 

“Join the club,” Ike complained as he chewed his stale bread.

It took a long moment before Ike realized that Soren was staring at him with something Ike hadn’t witnessed for a while: vulnerability. Before Ike could respond to it, Soren rose from his seat, cautioned a scowling Shinon and distracted Gatrie not to deplete their provisions, and returned to his tent. 

“That’s what he finally deigns to join us for?” Shinon growled, sipping from his wineskin, which Soren had previously excoriated him for using their funds to replenish. “To complain about people who actually pull their fucking weight while he tightens our purse-strings like nooses?”

Ike consciously relaxed the fist that instinctively formed as if around the handle of his sword.

“If only he were a woman,” Gatrie lamented, and before he could break into racy conversation, Ike decided to call it a night.  

Soren withdrew even more when Greil recruited three additional members for their mercenary crew. Only one was an experienced fighter. He was a young knight named Oscar, who was accompanied by his younger brothers, Boyd and Rolf. 

Ike could imagine the way Soren argued against employing yet another former knight of Crimea, although Ike was reassured when he could not remember seeing Oscar with Lord Renning at the Summit of Tellius. Ike knew that Soren wouldn’t have been swayed by Greil’s rationale that Oscar no longer served the crown, nor his emotional appeal that Oscar left his post after his father died so he could care for his brothers. That was why the orphans joined Greil’s Mercenaries. 

But Soren hadn’t told Ike this, because he rarely told Ike anything anymore. 

“Does Soren not like leek pottage?” Oscar asked solicitously, spying Soren’s absent spot around the fire. He sniffed the broth in his ladle. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have added so much pigeon…”

“Anyone who doesn’t like your cooking is an ass,” Boyd argued, slurping down his mouthful. “Like Soren.”

“Boyd,” was all Oscar said, but his cautionary tones were enough.

Thrusting his hand at Rolf, Boyd shouted, “He told the Commander not to take us in because Rolf was ‘dead weight!’”

Rolf, who hadn’t been bothered by his older brother nearly smacking him in the face with his clumsy gesture, did pale at that recollection, nearly upending his bowl onto his lap. 

Ike similarly doubted Rolf’s use to the company since the young boy rarely had the courage to even glance at a weapon. But he also supported his father’s desires to shelter the three orphans. Rolf was also roughly the same age as Mist. 

“That jerk doesn’t deserve to eat,” Boyd grumbled– and that struck a nerve.

“Soren means to do what’s best for our group, so never say that to him,” Ike snapped, to Boyd’s befuddlement and Oscar’s mild shock. Because Rolf looked close to panicking, he added, “we won’t kick you or your brothers out, so you can rest easy, Rolf. Or as easy as any of us, I suppose.”

“Ike’s right,” Oscar interceded when Rolf remained unassuaged. “The Commander is a good man and will not back down on his word.” 

“Let’s hope he doesn’t listen to Soren’s, because he doesn’t know half of what he thinks he does,” Boyd said defiantly. “Do you know what he said when the Commander was training me? ‘If you had more brains, you’d guide your attacks with your head instead of the head of your ax!’”

Oscar only somewhat hid his amusement. Rolf snorted and choked on his pottage. Ike slapped him on the back, earning Rolf’s wince and a watery but heartfelt “thanks, Ike.” 

Glowering, Boyd said, “That’s the last time I stand up for you.” 

Ike made some effort to get to know the brothers: Oscar was a formidable fighter, helpful with chores like cooking and cleaning, and he was kind, although his slyness often went undetected behind his pleasant countenance.  

Rolf gradually warmed to Ike instead of viewing him as a danger, which meant that he sought out either Ike or Oscar when he inspired Boyd’s ire. 

For all his bluster, Boyd was easy to befriend. He was happy to train with Ike– even though he could not help but brag about his status as a paid member of the crew, which resulted in brutal brawls with injuries all around. 

“Boyd fights like someone from Daein,” Ike said once he entered Soren’s tent. “Brute force instead of speed or stealth, unlike Oscar.” 

As such, Boyd would not have recognized when Soren startled at Ike’s entry. To possibly every other member of their camp, Soren would have seemed calm and collected while he observed Ike crossing his legs at the edges of his bedroll and laying two bowls of porridge by his feet.

But Ike sensed his tension, so he commented casually, “Don’t you want to evaluate their techniques for yourself? They’re not so bad when you get to know them. Definitely more tolerable than Shinon.” 

Soren scoffed, whether in agreement or disagreement Ike was unclear. 

“It helps that Oscar’s a great cook,” Ike said, depositing a bowl in Soren’s hand and sipping from his own. 

Stirring his porridge disinterestedly, Soren muttered, “I do not understand you or your father’s prejudice towards Crimeans and their inconsequential forms of aid, preparing porridges and spouting virtues.”

“Is that why you seclude yourself from them?” Ike asked, Soren’s body language answer enough. “This isn’t like the castle, Soren. You don’t have to hide away.”   

Soren obviously disagreed, but he did not say so. Instead, he consumed his dinner without relish, as if to maintain his strength alone. Ike had seen him eat more enthusiastically when his diet was limited to dandelions and wild spinach, anything that grew in Begnion’s mountain passes.  

“I miss traveling the country with you,” Ike admitted. “Having you at my side, even though our lives were in danger. Is that the wrong thing to say?”

“Our lives are still in danger,” Soren argued, but it was with light in his eyes, nostalgic, fond. “But… I miss that, too, Ike.”

“Then, come out and join me– us,” Ike entreated. “These are our people.” 

Soren lowered his empty bowl to the ground.

“For now,” he cautioned. “Paid killers are not unwavering allies. Your father knows this. It is why he does not speak of going to Gallia, because he must tread cautiously or lose his new, rag-tag army.”

“Yes, the bonds of mercenaries and countrymen are unreliable, and we cannot force anyone to stay,” Ike conceded, because he had grown up in Daein, too, where shared nationality did not equate to unity. “But we also cannot lose all faith before these people have even left us.”

With palpable vitriol, Soren replied, “Shinon degrades you despite being a drunk for hire, and Boyd represents our company even though he is a lesser warrior than you are.”

“Personal disagreements shouldn’t stand in the way of making good alliances,” Ike reasoned, chewing slowly on his steamed oats to prevent himself from elaborating on the drawbacks of his father’s partnership with their archer. “But I do appreciate you thinking I’m a better mercenary than Boyd.”

“That is obvious to anybody with eyes, seeing or not,” said Soren, waving a dismissive hand. “It is fine if you gain their favor, Ike. In fact, it is safer if you grow to command their respect, as your father does. But their opinions don’t matter to me.”

“Their opinions of you matter to me.”  

“Then, I shall endeavor not to let my conduct reflect negatively on you or your father–”

“Is that really what you think I mean, Soren?” Ike asked, a touch exasperated.

Soren did not seem to truly think so; however, he averted his gaze.

Ike followed his sightline to the unfamiliar configuration of his tent. It was replete with paraphernalia Ike knew Soren must possess as staff officer of Greil’s Mercenaries, but which he struggled to reconcile with his memories, his associations with Soren. Ike was accustomed to Soren amassing magical tomes and library books, not compiling ledgers with earnings and expenses, mission reports on their fighters’ performances, painstaking maps on the details of Crimea’s eastern region, not far from Gallia. 

Even the plain, dark mage garb he wore was strange, bizarre, because it wasn’t Daein’s royal colors stitched into the silk robes Ike still identified with Soren– even though it had been months since they left: since Soren sequestered himself in meeting rooms and his tent; since the two of them expanded to a party of ten; since Ike dedicated himself to train his hardest and gain his father’s recognition.  

“I’m sorry that I envied my father’s reliance on you,” Ike realized belatedly.

Soren, not anticipating this, hastily shook his head. With uncharacteristic clumsiness, he explained, “If you– bookkeeping is not being on the battlefield, Ike. There is no valor, to acclaim. No danger.” 

“Not according to Shinon’s threats,” Ike replied lightly before admitting, “I see what you mean. My father is protecting the both of us.”

Hazarding a glance at Ike, Soren said, “if I made you resent me…”

“Never,” Ike vowed quickly. He leaned forward on his knees when Soren rocked back on his heels, pushing their empty utensils aside. “Even if the others don’t understand you as I do, Soren, and they resent that, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Did I in Daein?”

“This is different,” Soren said, a little flustered. “Crimeans have superior moral character. Or so I’m led to believe.”

“I’m not interested in defending morals,” Ike asserted. “Only the people I care about: my family, my friends, you.” 

“And I you, Ike,” Soren said fervently, even though he still seemed reticent, withholding something.

“Then let the others see you not as indifferent. Let them see you for your virtues– your loyalty, your bravery, your irreplaceability. Our allies cannot only aid Father and me. They must also be willing and trusted to aid you.”

Soren laughed, a breathless, incredulous, almost overwhelmed sound. “You ask too much, Ike. The political ramifications of who you and your father are alone, let alone who I am–”

“I cannot protect us, Soren,” Ike confessed begrudgingly. “Father’s right. I’m young and inexperienced. That is why I cannot go after Mist and Mother, and why Father can’t rely on me alone to help him protect our family. I want to be stronger. This company will help. But also, I need you. So, I ask, go out there with me– and I will stand by you.”

When Soren could not summon a ready reply, Ike lowered his head. 

Eventually, Soren’s hand landed tentatively on Ike’s knee. 

“If you want my support,” said Soren, “I will always be there to give it, Ike.” 

“Thank you, Soren.”

For the first in a long time, Soren smiled, though somewhat sardonically. “Since when is that something you’ve had to tell me?” 

As Soren’s pale fingertips drifted back beneath his sleeve, Ike arose, stacked their bowls, and lifted the flap to Soren’s tent. Into the open tent issued the slurred lyrics of Gatrie’s bawdy ballad, the twang of Shinon’s bowstring, Rolf’s admiring exclamations, Titania’s stories spoken over the campfire. 

“I say it now so you’ll forgive me for making us wash our own dishes,” Ike told Soren. “Oscar’s already finished cleaning.”

“I prefer that we clean them ourselves,” Soren answered, following Ike out into the encampment. “Then, Oscar cannot badger me for recipes I prefer or funds we cannot spare for spices…”

Their band settled into a more comfortable, rooted lifestyle when they acquired a fort on the eastern edges of the kingdom. 

Soren called it ramshackle but not decaying and therefore an adequate stronghold. Shinon called him and Ike lucky to have someone else providing them shelter. Titania scolded Shinon and then argued with Soren over the going rate for their next job. Gatrie inquired hopefully about nearby taverns and villages. The three brothers argued over rooms, with Oscar seemingly arbitrating but actually negotiating for a room closer to the kitchen, Boyd and Rolf none the wiser. Rhys indiscriminately slumped over in the nearest cot to recover from his exhaustion. 

Greil took Ike out onto the grounds. 

“Now, we finally have somewhere more permanent to rest,” he proclaimed, admiring the scenery but also, Ike knew, gauging the perimeter of their defensive walls, the high ground their fort occupied, the natural fortifications of the trees. “We also have enough room for your mother and sister.”

Ike nodded, gazing southwest, where Mist and Elena might be traveling from Begnion.  

“I want you to co-lead the next mission with Titania,” said Greil.

Ike refocused his attention entirely on his father. “While you go after Mist and Mother?”

“Have you so little faith in me, yourself, or your mother and sister?” Greil complained. “Titania tells me that she finds you highly capable, and I have witnessed how well you fare against Boyd. It’s time that you are trained in commanding.”

Ike wasn’t sure if he wanted to be Commander. “That’s not…”

Walking through their labyrinthine walls, Greil beckoned Ike, who followed him into the deciduous terrain that was wholly unlike their previous residence in Daein. When Greil didn’t go for his ax and instead unsheathed a steel sword, Ike automatically adopted a battle stance. 

His father was a legendary swordsman, too capable a fighter for Ike to beat or settle into a draw. But he could better discern the components of his father’s techniques in comparison to Daein’s might and Crimea’s flexibility. 

Imperfectly emulating one of his father’s signature moves, a move that he had seen again and again during their training sessions, Ike became airborne.  

He tossed his sword overhead, making sure it had enough momentum when he leapt high to reclaim it. 

Seizing the handle before the blade spun into his hand and cut him, Ike swung down, using his form, velocity, and minor height advantage against his superior adversary.

Greil bore the blow, barely shaken, and sent Ike flying. 

Embedding the point of his sword in the earth to moderate the recoil of Greil’s powerful strike, Ike prepared himself to stew on another loss or endure another beating. He adopted a defensive position behind the guard of his blade, flexing his muscles to run– 

– Except, his father let out a raucous laugh.

Then, he sheathed his blade. Ike was compelled to do the same. 

“You are gaining experience, my boy,” Greil said, clapping a sturdy hand on Ike’s shoulder. 

Ike felt his inexperience in battle, in a world of conflict, when Soren rushed from the fortress and told him and Greil, “Melior has been attacked, and the royal family is dead.”

“What?” Greil barked, striding to Soren in three swift paces, his martial training showing in every rigid line of his body. 

Ike struggled to keep up as his father rushed back to their fortress, Soren racing more laboriously beside them. 

“That is what a group of merchants told me, who fled from the capital while Lord Renning repulsed a wave of Daein soldiers,” Soren explained, gasping for breath. “They do not know if he survived, but word is consistent around town that the king and queen were killed.” 

In their fortress, the mercenaries were torn between intervention and avoidance. 

“We should go and aid Crimea’s Imperial Guard,” said Titania, her voice trembling with rage and sorrow. “We must assist the survivors.”

“On the slim chance there are any,” Shinon drawled, tossing his sack of coins into the air. “More likely corpses that Daein’s foot soldiers are busy looting.” 

“Then all the more reason to go,” Oscar said sharply, clutching his lance. 

“The sight of mutilated castle wenches will be the stuff of my nightmares forever,” Gatrie moaned, shuddering.  

Rolf trembled as well, clinging to Oscar.

“We could take Daein,” Boyd said, uncharacteristic doubt threading his boast.

“When the most skilled fighters guarding the heart of Crimea couldn’t?” Soren asked scathingly. “We must stay away. Hopefully, now that Daein has taken the capital, they will delay further incursions into the country.”

“These are our people, my friends,” Titania seethed, looming over Soren, who was not dissuaded. 

“I agree with Titania that there is little hope now that the capital has been taken,” Ike replied, thinking about what this meant for not only hundreds of citizens that could not bear the brunt of Ashnard and his Riders’ attacks, but also the fates of Princess Elincia, Mist, his mother– 

– Which were not left hanging in the balance for long.

As Greil waited to form a plan, evaluating Soren and Titania’s warring counsels, Elena and Mist stumbled haggardly into the fortress. 

They brought the unconscious princess of Crimea with them. 

Ike barely had time to neutralize Oscar’s lance and Boyd’s ax before Mist hurled herself at him, Elena enfolding both of her children in her embrace.   

“You did not get yourself killed, brother!” Mist rejoiced, laughing wetly. “Did Soren prevent you from doing anything too foolhardy?” 

Unable to form a reply through the emotion choking him, Ike grasped his sister and mother as tightly as he could.

Elena kissed his face, pressing her tears to his cheeks.

Gradually detaching herself, she said, “we must get Princess Elincia to a cot. Although I healed her physical wounds, she has suffered greatly.”

“This is Princess Elincia?” Boyd was the first to ask.

“Who else?” Mist snapped, disentangling herself from Ike and swiftly wiping her tears. “Don’t just leave her on the floor! Use your showy muscles to put her on a bed so she can recover!”

Boyd gawked, so Oscar took it upon himself to carry the princess to a nearby cot. Rolf had alerted the debaters in the adjoining room, and Greil promptly barrelled into the room, lifting both Elena and Mist off their feet. Mist began to cry again; Elena soothed Greil with fierce whispers.

“We found Princess Elincia when we were making our way here,” Elena explained in Greil’s arms. “She was not far from the fortress.”

“Which means Daein’s soldiers may not be far, either,” said Soren, appearing beside Ike. 

“We couldn’t just abandon her there, Soren!” Mist protested. 

Soren very clearly wanted them to do just that, although he struggled to blatantly communicate that to Ike’s sister. 

“Why not?” Shinon asked, not fully entering the room. “It’s not our fight.”

Gatrie said nothing and ogled Ike’s mother, which would have compelled Ike to hit him if he knew his father wasn’t more than capable of doing so. 

“You did the admirable and difficult thing to do,” Titania told Mist and Elena. Although Mist did not know her, she preened. “As I’d expect from Commander Greil’s family.” Titania sounded both melancholic and overjoyed.

Seeing Mist’s quizzical expression and sensing the words on her tongue, Ike dragged her to Princess Elincia’s quarters. “You brought her here, so you should see that the princess is well.”

“Mother already said she healed her, didn’t she?” Mist argued. When Ike closed the door behind them, she admitted, “It was really frightening, Ike. Daein soldiers spilling out of Melior… Mother so concerned they’d recognize us, and… and…”

“You’re safe now,” said Ike. He willed himself to believe it as he glanced from an intact Mist to a relatively intact Princess Elincia. “The princess is, too, because of you and Mother.”

Shaking her head, Mist said, “There’s something wrong with the medallion–”

The princess awoke. 

Once the haze of sleep left her, she said disbelievingly, “...Lord Ike?”

“Since when do you know her?” Mist complained, too relieved to sound truly upset.

“Since three years ago at the summit,” Ike supplied.

As if she remembered what that implied, Princess Elincia panicked. Huddling in the corner of the room, she despaired, “I’ve been abducted by Daein after all… I’m so sorry, Bastian, Lucia… Geoffrey…”

“We’re not with Daein anymore,” Mist reassured her, greatly concerned. “You’re safe with us.” 

At Princess Elincia’s look of lingering dismay, Ike added, “We are also on the run from Ashnard, so you may not be so safe with us.”

“You’re the one who said we were safe in the first place, Ike–”

Greil entered the room, joined by Elena.

Princess Elincia’s dread not only returned but escalated at the sight of Daein’s former Rider.

Elena went to her first, touching her hand and saying calmingly, “We only want to help you, princess.” 

“I have always held more respect for your father and uncle than Ashnard and any of the warriors in Daein,” Greil said gruffly. Ike wondered, for a moment, what it had been like for his father to force himself to serve a king he despised so his family could be a little more secure. “I am deeply sorry for your loss.”

With a fortitude Ike did not know Princess Elincia possessed, she forced back her tears and said, “Thank you, Lord Gawain.”

“It’s Greil now.”

Princess Elincia blinked in surprise. “Of Greil’s Mercenaries? I… I was told to seek you out, if… I was told you might help me.”

Princess Elincia required safe passage to Gallia, which Greil was all too willing to provide. Announcing his plans to the mercenaries, Greil said, “Those who did not sign up to be so deeply enmeshed in this war need not join us, but war will consume the beorc nations of this country. Come with us to Gallia, and you may be safe.”

“I’m not running away to be protected by subhumans,” Shinon hissed. 

“Must all the beautiful women be royal or wedded?” Gatrie bemoaned too loudly. “What happened to simple, available village lasses–”

“You have taken care of us, Commander,” Oscar interjected. “This company is our home, not this country. So we shall stay with you. Right, Boyd, Rolf?”

Shrugging, Boyd said, “I am curious about beast people. Although they might eat Rolf.”

Rolf squeaked; Boyd made a similar noise when Mist pinched him in reprimand. 

“Are you sure you won’t go, Shinon?” Rolf asked the archer.

Squeezing the neck of his wineskin, Shinon replied, more gently, “You’d be better off sticking around with humans, too, kid.”

“I will go where you, Titania, and Lady Elena go, Commander,” Rhys vowed. “Although I fear I may not be much assistance… not when there is so much pain being inflicted onto this world. Goddess help us.”

“Indeed,” said Titania, gazing at Greil and his family without wavering. “We need each other.”

“We don’t need the baggage of the princess,” Soren declared remorselessly. “You know why I say this, Commander. Daein will find us.”

“Soren,” Ike said warningly– but even he did not know how Princess Elincia would respond. 

“You must have some sympathy for me, Prince Soren!” Princess Elincia said passionately and then immediately pressed her lips shut.

But her words had already echoed throughout the fortress.

They were followed by pronounced silence. 

“Who the fuck is she calling Prince ?” Shinon eventually asked, but his question was too unflinching. 

“I thought… the only prince was from… Daein,” Rolf volunteered when his brothers said nothing. 

Recovering his voice, Boyd asked weakly, “She’s joking, right? Short and irritable aren’t exactly royal qualities.”

“And what are, Boyd?” Oscar asked, genuinely curious.  

Boyd helplessly gestured at Princess Elincia, whose distress made it clear that she was silently castigating herself for her mistake.

“This,” said Soren flatly, “is why I believe the addition of the princess will be a grave error in judgment.” 

Despite Soren’s counsel, Greil proceeded to divulge everything.

“I don’t care if you worked for Daein, Commander– everyone’s gotta eat,” Shinon replied. “But there’s no damned way I’m begging subhumans for anything because of a spoiled princess and a psychotic tyrant’s equally fucked-up prince!”

“If Daein’s awful enough for even Soren to bolt, I’m definitely heading to Gallia,” Boyd countered.  

“I believe we have no choice, for Daein’s army has already discovered us,” Greil announced somberly, glaring out the windows. 

A frenzy of new panic, new momentum, new plans of action filled the fortress. 

Greil commanded Ike to lead their family and Princess Elincia to Gallia with the aid of Titania and Soren–

–while Greil remained with Shinon and Gatrie to distract the incoming siege. 

“You can’t, Father!” Ike argued. “I need to help you–”

“I am entrusting you with everything that matters, Ike,” Greil half-argued, half-pleaded . “You must trust me to help you protect them. Go with your mother and Mist. Go with the princess. Go with Soren.”

Although Ike did not want to, he did: with the remainder of Greil’s Mercenaries, he fought the contingent of Daein soldiers that pursued them to Gallia. 

He had almost crossed the border when the Black Knight clasped Soren’s robes and drew him back. 

“Stop!” Ike commanded, dizzy from the blood he had shed but also rejuvenated with his anger.

“No, Ike!” Soren cried.

He blasted Ike back with a burst of wind.  

Shocked, Ike struggled back onto his feet to cross the distance to the Soren. 

“I told you to spare yourself the pain,” the Black Knight told Soren. “This was how it had to transpire. You are not meant to be with the likes of them.”

Then, Ike heard his father say, “I thought you wanted a match,” and he and the Black Knight simultaneously discovered Greil approaching.

Although Greil was covered in wounds, he raised Ragnell at his former pupil.

“Which is your true desire, Black Knight?” he asked. “To serve the Mad King or surpass me?”

“That is not what this is about, Gawain,” the Black Knight argued. “The Mad King is not my master.”

However, Ike heard the Black Knight’s irresistible intrigue, the desire to prove himself in Greil’s eyes; it was like listening to himself speaking through a distorting, endless cavern of pitch-dark armor.

When the Black Knight drew Ragnell’s sister blade, the blessed sword Alondite, and he struck, Ike got ahold of Soren, dragging Soren behind him.

“We must stop them,” Soren demanded, clawing at Ike to get beyond the shelter of his body.

“We can’t,” Ike said, because his father hungered for this even though he also loathed it.  

When they appeared too evenly matched, Ike almost entered the fight himself. 

But, Greil delivered a long, grievous slash that cracked the Black Knight’s armor. Ike– and perhaps more so Soren– almost could not believe it when he fell.

Gazing somberly upon his former disciple, Greil approached Ike and Soren and said, “We must go to Gallia.”

However, the Black Knight had delayed them enough for Daein’s army to surround them. 

Ike lost track of Soren, and he could not find him no matter how much he slashed at the sea of weaponized bodies. They would neither part nor ebb. Through the agony of his stab wound, Ike heard Mist shriek, and she rushed over to heal Ike. The soldiers would not spare her their fury, even though she could not fight, even though she was a child. The tide of war engulfed them, Greil at the center of their dwindling island of wholeness, weak from the wounds the Black Knight gave him and clutching Elena desperately.

Ike almost did not recognize his mother’s cry; never had he heard her so devastated:

“No, Gawain!”

What followed was a roar Ike would never have recognized as his father’s.

His strength restored– no, infinitely enhanced– no, freed from the binds of honor, empathy, and respect– Greil decimated Daein’s troops.

With Ragnell’s holy blade, he decapitated, severed limbs, shredded sinew, and spilled organs from heaps of flesh. Pleas of mercy from those who once knew him as Gawain the Invincible did not lessen his massacre.

Ike only knew what was driving their father to such rage when Mist croaked, “the medallion.” He then saw the medallion as Greil approached, oblivious to who his children were to him. 

With the hand that was not clasping the medallion, Greil drew back his blood-soaked blade. 

Guarding against Greil’s blow, Ike was hurled back, Mist screaming in his embrace as they skidded past mounds of dismembered bodies. 

When Ike recovered his vision, spots of black dancing before him, Mist was leaning over him, trying to heal him.

She did not see Greil prepare to lunge, but even if she had, she would not have recognized that form, not the way Ike did, because Greil had trained him to identify killing blows.

But Greil’s sword never reached his children.

Instead, with a horror and anguish that emptied Ike of all other feelings, he saw Elena holding Greil– run through with his sword. 

“It is alright, Gawain…” Elena said so weakly Ike almost could not hear her. “You only wanted… to protect us… you are… forgiven.”

Somewhere, in the haze of his madness, Ike thought Greil could hear Elena, because he howled.  

“Mist.” Elena spoke with an urgency that Ike thought was the panic and pain of her mortal injury until he saw that Elena had pried the medallion from Greil’s grasp, but the madness had not released him. “Sing… the galdr…” 

Mist was heaving and trembling against Ike; apart from her sobs, she could utter no sounds.

Elena tried to sing, but her mouth was a pool of blood. 

“Please,” she begged Mist again.

Mist tried, but she gagged on her misery, her melody lost in a puddle of bile.

“It’s… alright,” Elena told her; she told Ike; she told Greil. “My loves…”

Ike thought he heard his father growl Elena through gnashed, broken teeth; he thought he saw tears streaming through the blood that masked his face. 

But Greil was already withdrawing his blade to strike his children, because Elena was dead.

Titania wept when she emerged behind Greil and brought down her ax. 

Ike’s parents fell with the other Daein corpses that were strewn across the Crimean borderlands. 

Despite his injuries, he helped Titania haul Greil’s body back to their fort. Oscar, only slightly more bloody and beaten than Boyd, wordlessly transported Elena on his steed, Rolf sobbing in front of him. Rhys tried to accompany Mist, but her desolation would not allow her to walk, so Boyd carried her home. 

Only when they had returned to the fortress did Ike rediscover Soren. Soren spoke with Rhys about how to prepare Greil and Elena’s bodies. His voice was so hoarse from casting spells that he had to whisper, and prior to obeying Rhys’s instructions for cleaning the wounded flesh, his pale fingertips were stained red with blood.

The next time Ike saw his parents, it was buried beneath loamy Crimean soil and crosses wreathed with white asphodels. 

Shortly before dawn, so like the colors of Daein but also different– vermillion, plum; dirt brown, wound bright– Ike returned to his quarters.

Soren was sitting on his cot. 

“Ike,” he said, relieved and agonized all at once. “Where were you?”

“Mist finally fell asleep,” Ike said, although in truth, she had been asleep for hours. He was the one who hadn’t been ready to leave her until his overshirt had finally dried of Mist’s tears.

Soren rose swiftly. “My apologies, I’ll go–”

“Stay,” Ike said, kicking off his boots and stripping out of his tunic. “Please, Soren.”

Nodding, Soren lowered himself back onto the cot.

Ike lay down, causing Soren to ease onto his side, his hair draped over the edge of Ike’s pillow. 

“We won,” Ike said. “The Black Knight is gone.”

“Can’t a mission report wait until the morning?” Soren asked quietly.

“You are the one who insists these things should be done in a timely manner.”

Soren waited a long time before he said, “you are now entitled to some say in that regard, Commander.”

Ike had not truly considered that eventuality. “Wouldn’t Titania be a better choice?”

“...You wish for her to remain with us?”

“Yes,” Ike answered earnestly. “She’s the one who saved us, including Father… when I was not strong enough to.” 

Soren did not respond, his exhalations so faint they were almost indiscernible. 

“What do you think, Soren?” 

“I stand by your call, Ike,” Soren told him, reaching out to caress the side of Ike’s face. 

When Soren’s thumb delicately outlined the corner of Ike’s eye, he realized that he was crying. He tried to rub away the tears himself, grinding his palms into his burning eyes, but their volume only seemed to grow, because Soren continued to gently brush them away.

Soren stopped only when Ike rolled them over, and he pressed Soren to him, so hard he could have bruised him. If he was in pain, like always, Soren did not indicate it. 

Instead, sinking bonelessly into Ike’s embrace, Soren said, “It is done, Ike. It is over.”

Ike struggled to believe that as he squeezed Soren and wept.  

Greil’s Mercenaries as they were formerly known were over. After Shinon and Gatrie hauled themselves back to the fortress, fragrant with a mix of Daein blood and booze, they renounced their positions.

“I’m not serving any little shit, even one related to Greil,” said Shinon. “May he rest in peace.” 

Although Shinon left without further word, Gatrie lingered, along with the young swordswoman who accompanied him.

“This is what your father wanted for you, Ike,” Titania asserted, sad, remorseful, and proud all at once. 

Rhys nodded in understanding and support.

Too raw and exhausted to contest that point, Ike asked the swordswoman, “Who are you?”

“Mia, reporting for duty!” she chirped brightly. “I’d like to stick around, too, if that’s alright, Commander Ike. I’d have been dead back there or apprehended with the rest of the mercenaries on Crimea’s payroll if Commander Greil hadn’t helped me out. He made you leader, so you’ve gotta be strong. Maybe even my destined rival.”

At this, Gatrie followed Shinon’s path out of the fort, mumbling, “another poor woman willing to overlook inexperience for a title and boyishly good looks…”

“You can stay.” Ike looked beside him. “Right, Soren?”

Evaluating Mia before returning his attention to Ike, Soren replied, “Yes, Commander. We’ll need to start recruiting again after… all that we’ve lost.”

“What will we do now, Commander?” Oscar asked. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Boyd asked, arms crossed. “Crush Daein.”

Mist flicked him without real petulance, though Boyd hissed from the bruises Rhys hadn’t recovered enough to heal.

“We barely survived last time,” Rolf argued. “And now, Shinon and Gatrie are gone…”

When a roar reverberated through the halls, Ike was almost convinced their next stint was over, but the cry was no product of a mad man.

In amazement, he watched as a pale tiger, a tawny wildcat, and a larger cat with a coat of cobalt surged into the meeting room. The tiger transformed into an immense man, the golden cat into a young woman, and the blue one into a man, agile and grinning– and from whose back Princess Elincia disembarked.

“I’m so sorry, Lord Ike,” she said. “If I had been faster, I might have reached King Caineghis in time to get help.”

“The king sends his condolences,” said the cobalt-furred cat laguz. “He knew of Gawain’s reputation. He was a fine beorc.”

“So you exploit his death to trespass here?” Soren asked.

The young woman growled, the immense lion glared, and the smile froze on the cobalt cat’s face.

“So this is Ashnard’s brood,” he remarked silkily. “Hmm, perhaps that’s why you smell so… off.”

“Yes,” said the young woman, her tail raised. “Wrong.”

Soren’s eyes were wide with anger, inflammatory rhetoric on the tip of his tongue.

Edging in front of him, Ike said, “This is a big party to send condolences. What else did your king have in mind– er, Lord…?”

“Just Ranulf,” he replied, amused. “King Caineghis’s right-hand man. And we’re not merely the messengers. Lethe, Mordecai, and I are here to help escort Princess Elincia back to her knights while our kingdom decides whether to intervene in beorc affairs more… directly.”

“I know you delivered me to Gallia, but Lucia and Geoffrey might still be alive,” Princess Elincia told Ike. “I don’t want to be powerless anymore. I must help them.”

Ike glanced at Soren.

Soren glared back at Lethe while Mordecai sniffed the air around him, puzzled. He would not meet Ike’s gaze.

“I don’t think we should just escape to Gallia either, Ike,” Mist said, quiet but firm. Tugging on her necklace, she revealed the medallion: the cursed object and keepsake of their mother, one Mist was so afraid of others touching, she slapped and kicked Boyd when he tried to carry her to safety. “... Mother and Father wanted to return this to the Serenes Forest.”

“To the herons?” Ranulf asked, eyeing the medallion curiously. “You do know they were famously exterminated by you beorc. Right?”

“Not all of us,” said Ike. “Are there laguz that know of them or how to find their forest?”

Ranulf’s tail flickered, but before he could speak, Soren said reluctantly, “the bird laguz– the hawk tribe of Pheonicis or raven tribe of Kilvas– would be best informed. But the hawks have a sweeping vendetta against all humans for the destruction of the heron kingdom, not just Begnion, while the ravens are notoriously susceptible to bribes from Daein.”

“It’s true that Naesala’s scum, but I have an in with King Tibarn,” Ranulf countered. “If that’s what you’re really set on doing, Lord…?”

“Just Ike.”

Ranulf exposed his fangs. “Ike, then.”

When Greil’s Mercenaries convened later, their decision to help Princess Elincia and return the medallion to the Serenes Forest was unanimous. Even with Soren’s input.

“Is this really alright with you?” Ike asked him. 

Reflecting, Soren said, “I told you, Ike: I will stand by your call… whatever it means for us.”