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Chapter Text

Byleth had learned how to catch any kind of scent on the wind long before she’d ever swung a sword.

She could smell blood from a mile away, and death even further than that, she could chase the scent of a stream through dark forests and trees, and track game in much the same way.

She remembers the perfume in the air when her father had been killed, laced with poison and metal and death, and she remembers the crisp coolness of the air that sat high above the monastery, around the mountains overlooking the town below.

She remembers the smell of sweat and steel that always lingered in the Academy’s training grounds, and the way its stables reeked during incredibly hot days.

And she still remembers how he smelled on the night before he left: like tea and spice and sand, and the region of Fódlan that he’d hailed from smells very much the same, though she likes it less and less as time passes too quickly.

“They’re camped out to the south, nestled between Daphnel and Gloucester, and heading this way. Flying an Imperial flag.”

“Daphnel is still reeling from their last attack, Judith cannot stand — ”

“House Galatea and House Fraldarius sent some of their soldiers to back them up, I was told that Felix is leading one of the groups himself.”

Byleth looks up from the war map as Sylvain goes through the motions, explaining how his long-standing allies in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus are deploying to protect their Queen.

She’s still not used to the title, nearly two years later, and she wishes that Faerghus still had a King to support them.

They still mourn him, Dimitri, and the man he was before the war, and although Sylvain’s managed to unite them as best as he can, she still feels like a usurper that should have stayed her hand.

But with all three nations in shambles following Edelgard’s demise, they’d had to unite under a single banner, and they’d chosen to follow her blindly into the sun that hangs over Derdriu, a fearsome warrior Queen struggling with her own, special kind of demise that has nothing to do with the war.

You mourn them both, though only one of them has left this world behind.

She shakes her head to dispel the thought and the voice of the former goddess, for Sothis has been gone for seven years, and she had very little patience for trivial things like mixed emotions when she was still her own entity. 

It had confused her, Claude’s departure following their victory over Nemesis and the Phantom Elites, and she still remembers the flowery words he’d whispered into her ear as he’d pulled her into his arms and held on tight.

I love you. With everything I am.

He hadn’t even given her time to absorb all of the information, and by the time she’d processed what exactly had transpired, he’d been well on his way to wherever he’d gone.

She’s heard nothing since that day, not even a whisper, and she hopes wherever he is, he’s chasing his dreams, because she sure as hell isn’t chasing her own.

The sound of her name on Sylvain’s tongue pulls her out of her reprieve, and she snaps out of her trance to find her council watching her expectantly, the air in the room thick with whatever question they’d asked that required an answer from her.

“We need to know how you’d like to proceed with Derdriu’s forces. Should we send them to scout and reinforce our defenses, or should we wait and see what happens?”

Byleth catches his eye just a little too late, and she knows that he knows something’s pulling her focus.

Sylvain is intuitive like that, alarmingly so, and she’s certain he’ll call her out on it later, but he doesn’t dare do such a thing in front of every single one of their peers, because his feelings creep up on him too. 

She thinks it’s part of the reason why they bonded so quickly during the war, and although Sylvain’s ghosts are nowhere near as elusive as hers, they haunt him all the same, and he knows exactly where they are. 

“We still don’t know what they want, so does it make sense to wait?”

Dark brown eyes scan the room as the others on the council mull it over, and Byleth doesn’t need to prompt them to scramble for any sort of rebuttal, because Sylvain does a lot of that for her.

Lorenz answers first. “We cannot leave the fate of Derdriu up to chance, I think we need to send some soldiers out now.”

“Are you willing to ride alongside them, or should I send Leonie?”

“Leonie is needed here. I will lead them myself.”

“Can House Goneril send reinforcements?” Byleth follows up, her gaze flitting over to where Holst seems to be making plans in his head.

“I have a couple hundred camped out just outside Riegan’s old territory, I can have them marching by tomorrow morning.”

“And you will notify me if you’re in over your head?”

“Of course, my Queen.” Lorenz replies as her gaze snaps back over to him, his cadence sickly sweet as usual, and she can’t help but note the way Sylvain rolls his eyes because he can hold a grudge with the best of them. 

Lorenz has a mind for these things, and every single one of them knows it, but he is not above asking for help, and he jots down his own notes as he and Holst formulate a plan and Byleth lets her mind wander once more.

“You were in another world during the meeting today, is everything alright?”

The question is not unexpected, though Byleth has yet to come up with a decent answer, and she closes her eyes and sighs as Sylvain drags his lips down the side of her neck, not pushing but also not letting it go unanswered.

“The Imperial fanatics have been dormant since the end of the war, and yet here they are, popping up in Alliance Territory with nary a warning.”

“Rebellions take time.”

“Do you think that’s what this is?”

She feels him shrug against her back as she watches the sky through the window, shivering as the sea air wafts through where she’s got it cracked open.

“That’s sort of what it seems like.”

She can hear the concern in his voice without having to actually look, and she knows not whether his thoughts remain with her or with Felix. 

Sylvain has remained loyal to her through the duration of her rule, but Felix’s stubborn adherence to the Kingdom of old had thrown a wedge between them that has proven hard to expel, and she knows it’s because his ghost had been but a shell of the man he knew when he died…at the Emperor’s hand in the middle of the battlefield on which they’d exchanged practice blows years before.

Felix’s heart had broken that day, Sylvain had surmised, and there was nothing they could have done to prevent it, but his own heart had shattered at the sound of Felix’s rage as he took time to himself to say goodbye.

He’d fought alongside her army, sure, but she wonders often if Felix threw himself back into Fraldarius after the war as a way to sate his guilt.

All it is is a balm, this thing between them, something that keeps them both from unraveling entirely, and Byleth wishes that the world could give them both what they want, though she knows that the likelihood is low.

“If they ignite another war, Fódlan will not survive. It’s too frail and fragile to fight back.”

“You won’t let it get that far.”

“I should have never —”

“You had no choice . ”

Byleth turns over onto her back as Sylvain gives her room to move, and the space between them is charged as he swallows hard and sits up on one of his elbows, a still passive position that can change forms quickly if they don’t hash their thoughts out right away. 

“You did what you had to do with the cards you were dealt, and you haven’t failed us yet.”

“I never accounted for Imperial Loyalists coming out of the woodwork, that was never anything he was worried about.”

And just like that, the wedge between them rears its ugly head, and Sylvain’s fierce protectiveness over her manifests itself in the form of a scowl, one that he always wears when the topic comes up.

“There were a lot of things Claude was never worried about.”

The observation is an astute one, and not untrue, though Byleth hardly enjoys talking about such things on the heels of a joint effort to forget, and she reaches up to brush his hair out of his face as their own personal problems return in full force.

“Are you worried? About Felix?”

“Not any more than usual.”

“It’s been almost two years.”

“I know.”

Sylvain’s voice is small as he lays back on the mattress, his expression pensive even as Byleth feels herself starting to fade, and she can almost see the wheels in his head turning as she rolls over onto her other side and watches him, tracing nonsensical patterns into the sheets covering his chest as she waits to see if he’ll expand on any portion of their conversation.

But he does not elaborate, and although he remains steady as she closes her eyes in an effort to sleep, she feels him slip out from underneath the covers just as she drifts off, and his side of her bed is cold to the touch when she wakes up the next morning just before the sun.

“Are there any more insights with regards to their movements?”

“Not that the Savage Mockingbird has mentioned.”

Khalid scans the latest reports from across the border and wonders how far they’ve gotten since Yuri’s last correspondence, and although it’s not uncommon to find pockets of Imperial Loyalists scattered about, they have never quite reached this number.

He wonders if it’s a faction of Those who Slither in the Dark, and if Byleth is even aware of their resurgence.

She has to be, he thinks, for she has a close working relationship with Yuri as well, and one would assume that he's probably given her the same information that he’s given Khalid.

“Do you want to deploy more spies to help tie these loose ends together, or do you want to just leave it be?”

Nader waits patiently as Khalid turns the question over in his head, trying to decide if more spies will suffice or if he needs to mount a surprise attack, and dread twists around his spine as he considers both options.

“The fact that they are marching toward Derdriu is a point of concern. This is the first that we’ve seen of them trying to head north.”

“The Queen has done well to keep them contained closer to Adrestia, but there’s obviously a hole somewhere.”

“Blind spot?”

Nader shrugs. “Maybe, or a weak point . ”

“Byleth doesn’t have weak points.”

“Every leader has their weak points,” he huffs, his expression as stern as ever, “Even your precious teach .”

Khalid grimaces at the nickname, because it reminds him just how much he misses her, though he hardly thinks their reunion would be warm and fuzzy, all things considered.

She’d trusted him to be honest and he’d withheld information, and although she’s never been the type to hold a long-festering grudge, he’s not sure he’s ready to test the waters. 

He has a stack of unfinished letters to her sitting in a locked drawer in his study, ranging from clipped (“I’m still alive, and in Almyra”), to informative (“I’ve rightfully ascended my throne by birthright.”), to emotional (“I never meant to leave you in the dark this long , I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”)

But there’s a reason he hasn’t finished any of them, because he could write an essay explaining his logic, his intent, and his regret, and it still wouldn’t be the sort of summary she deserves.

His feelings for her had been genuine, truer than anything he could have ever told her, but his ascension to the throne had taken longer than he’d wanted, and he wasn’t about to inadvertently involve her when the ground beneath his claim had been so shaky.

It has stabilized now, and he’s found the extra time to look west, which is how he’d discovered the rotting floorboards sitting underneath the old Alliance.

Byleth has to know what’s happening, has to have felt that shift, but there’s always that chance that she’s unaware, and he’s not quite ready to risk letting her handle it on her own.

“No more spies, for now, but make sure our forces are prepared to deploy,” Khalid hums as he finds his last home on the map, circled in a green ink that sticks out like a sore thumb, “If they can’t fight them back themselves, we need to be ready to fly.”

“Stay back, your highness! We can’t risk losing you in the fray too!”

Ingrid and Byleth fly high over the carnage just outside Derdriu, where half of their army has already withdrawn because there are too many of them for their forces to fight back. 

Lorenz, Sylvain, Felix, and Holst have already been accounted for, as safe and sound as they can be, all things considered, but she and Ingrid had taken to the skies to try and find a hole or some sort of other out, hoping to the gods that they wouldn’t get shot down. 

Her army still fights valiantly, though most of her hope is lost, and she can see bodies in Queendom armor strewn about all over the place, limp and lifeless and drained of whatever blood they hadn’t  already spilled as the Imperial Loyalists march all over them. 

Though there’s nothing Imperial about them, for they wear the armor of liberation, of the Fell King himself, the reason for all of this violence.

And for once, she can’t fight them all back. Not even if she tried.

Her sword sings at her side, caked in blood and muck and grime, but it will be of no use here, not when their sheer numbers have exhausted every last one of her commanders.

They are significantly smaller, but her defenses are fading fast, and there aren’t enough of them to eliminate the threat today.

Weaken it, yes, but not eliminate it entirely.

Byleth snaps back to attention when her Wyvern screeches underneath her, fire burning in her belly as she sees something that her handler has missed, and the last thing Byleth sees as the beast jerks out from underneath her is a pair of bright white wings shrouded in gold.

Chapter Text

“And you are certain the entire threat has been eliminated?”

“I had my army do a final sweep of the area and they found no lingering pockets of rebellion,” Claude shrugs, noting how Seteth’s eyes narrow at his nonchalant delivery, “That’s not to say they aren’t around , but they are no longer taking up space between here and Gloucester.”

“How did you even become privy to this knowledge? My latest intelligence suggests that you and the Queen have not had any contact since the end of the War.”

“I have my ways, just as you have yours, Archbishop. You aren’t the only one with spies in Leicester.”

“The Queen was made aware of our affairs in Leicester the day after she ascended, there is not one person from the Church in the old Alliance that doesn’t have permission to be there,” Seteth scowls as his bright green eyes size Claude up, “I hardly think that you can say the same, your highness .”

He hisses the title, but Claude feels like that’s only because Seteth is fretting over Byleth, who’d emerged from the fight relatively unscathed, save for the injuries she’d sustained when she’d fallen from her Wyvern.

The beast had gotten injured as well, but had managed to fly back to the Derdriu with the rest of them, limping alongside Claude and his Wyvern Afet, crooning at Byleth to wake up.

Claude appreciates the protectiveness, for what it's worth, though now hardly seems like the time to bring it up. 

“I’m surprised you left the stone walls of the Monastery behind, the church of old always seemed to keep their distance with regards to the quarrels between lesser men.”

“Lady Rhea had her reasons, but they were not sentiments I ever shared.”

Seteth’s expression softens a bit then, and Claude wonders what it is he’s thinking about, his eyes darting away to give the man some privacy as he takes in the room around him.

The old council room looks much the same, though it feels a bit cozier than before, no doubt due to whatever design choices Byleth had let Hilda and Lorenz make when she’d taken up residence in Derdriu. 

The whole place feels a bit cozier, even the hallways and dining hall, but Claude has hardly had time to jump to any other sorts of conclusions, what with Seteth storming in three days after the battle with a bone to pick with him. 

Felix and Ingrid sought solace in Derdriu after the fight as well, though he’s hardly seen tip nor tail of either one of the Faerghan commanders.

He’s only seen Sylvain…pacing the length of the hall that sits outside Byleth’s rooms, the rooms that used to belong to his mother.

It’s unsurprising, how they’ve seemed to have bonded, though Claude knows not the extent of their involvement, and he’d rather not think about it, thank you very much, because he’s already got enough to worry about.

He hadn’t dared to cross the heir to Gautier so soon after the fight, not when he wasn’t sure that his input would be welcomed. 

Fódlan’s focus has been moving on, moving past Edelgard’s war, so it makes sense to Claude that everyone has seemed to settle into their new roles, and him returning so suddenly and so out of the blue has thrown a wrench into those carefully calculated plans.

Lorenz, for his part, seems to have sussed his absence out, for he had easily been the one who had been the least surprised to see him, though they have not yet had the time to catch up.

Between seeing to the Wyverns and his multiple audiences with Archbishop Seteth, he’s hardly had time to himself, and what little reprieve he’s earned based on the palace’s merit system has been overshadowed by his thoughts of her ; battered and bruised and probably refusing to see him, if she’s even aware of his presence at all.

He’s not even sure what he’ll say when that fateful moment comes to pass, and he hardly wants to beg her to forgive him in front of a bunch of people.

He will , if she so requires it, but that’s not generally how he prefers to apologize, though he hardly thinks she’ll let him touch her after such a long time away.

“You said before that your intent in coming here was to declare your cooperation with the Queen. How can we trust that your people won’t stampede all over us the second we open the throat?”

“The same way we can trust that yours won’t do the same thing.”

Seteth chews on that for a minute as Claude drops his gaze to the war map before him, noting all the places where he recognizes Byleth’s chicken scratch alongside Sylvain’s sharp print and Lorenz’s loopy cursive.

The three of them have always collaborated well, despite both men’s tendencies to peacock, for they each have a knack for a different part of the planning process and respect each other enough to hash things out without much fanfare.

“I’ve always had a good working relationship with Holst, and with your backing and the Queen’s, our people are more likely to accept the inevitable.”

“ Our people,” Seteth scoffs, though there’s less acid behind his words than before, “They have never been your people, Khalid . There’s no need to lie anymore.”

His given name on the Archbishop’s tongue takes a second to sink in, but he takes it as a sign that Seteth may be coming around to the idea, something that his predecessor would have never even considered . 

“My mother is from Fódlan. I’m as much Fódlani as I am Almyran.”

“And you think that’ll be enough to sway the Queendom?”

“If the church and the Queen cooperate with me, yes.” 

“You do understand that such a drastic change won’t happen overnight?”

“Why do you think it’s taken me so long to get back here?”

Seteth rolls his eyes at that, and he wonders what all the man knows…he and Byleth weren’t exactly the “share your secrets” sort of friends back before the end of the war.  

But Khalid knows that things change , that people and relationships and dynamics ebb and flow, and with Seteth ascending around the same time as Byleth, it makes sense that she might have confided in him. 

A tentative knock on the door pulls Khalid out of his reprieve, and he’s surprised (though he’s not sure why) to see Sylvain slink in at Seteth’s call to enter, the man making a point not to look Khalid in the eye as he clears his throat and says his piece.

“The Queen is asking for you, she’s taking tea in her study.”

Khalid doesn’t particularly like the way envy twists around his spine, though he knows that he has absolutely no right .

“She’s awake? How’s her pain?” Seteth asks quietly, his concern palpable.

“Improving,” Sylvain nods, cutting himself off from elaborating as his gaze darts over to Khalid’s general vicinity, “And there’s no rush, if you’re busy, she’s asked for Lorenz and Leonie as well.”

“We were just finishing up, but she should speak to them first. They can bring her up to speed on everything.”

“You also need to find time to check in with Ingrid. She has plans to head back to her territory, but Felix is still too weak to travel. I’m not sure if she’s wanting to wait, or—”

“I’ll…take care of it,” Seteth replies as he picks up on the tension in the air, his eyes darting between Khalid and Sylvain as he clears his throat and stands up. 

At least if they get into it, the walls of the War Room are thick, though Sylvain hardly looks like he has it in him to fight, and his expression is steely as Seteth offers up his goodbyes and takes his leave, the heavy metal doors closing loudly behind him before Sylvain deigns to break the silence.

“She’s not ready to see you yet, and I humbly request that you not push it.”

“Humility has never really been your strong suit, Sylvain, so it’s nice to see that some things have changed.”

“Everything’s changed, though I hardly think you’ve noticed.”

He couldn’t be further from the truth, but his wariness is well-deserved, even if Khalid would rather they suss things out like men.

But he is an outlander, a foreign king, and they’ve had enough bad luck with monarchs to last them for generations, so Khalid steps back into the ring as just that, for he no longer has any power in this realm.

“How fare our soldiers?”

“There have been a few tussles across party lines, but things are starting to settle.”

“They are not strangers to cleaning up carnage, so if your guys need a break—”

“I’ve already got their work schedules sorted out, and they’ve been helping patrol the borders.”

“That’s good.”

An awkward silence falls between them, and Sylvain looks like he has more to say, but his penchant for diplomacy outweighs any sort of irrational thought, which Khalid has to admit is impressive.

“You saved our asses out there, and we are grateful—”

“But—” Khalid cuts in, though it doesn’t deter him in the slightest.

“The shaky ground underneath her feet just started to stabilize, and you showing up here after nearly two years —”

“You think she’s going to crumble?”

Sylvain glowers at him then, and Khalid knows he’s overstepped, but the petty part of him that's annoyed by his protectiveness wants to see just how far he can push it, and Sylvain, ever observant, recognizes that almost immediately.

“She already crumbled, and you weren’t here to help pick up the pieces.”

“Would you have even let me?”

Sylvain’s eyes glaze over, and Khalid realizes he’s struck a nerve, though it doesn’t seem to be one associated with Byleth as he runs a hand through his hair and grumbles.

“Just…leave her be, keep your distance, do what you need to do, and then go .”

With that, Sylvain offers him the shallowest of bows, not leaving any room for a reply, and the air in the room thins out as the man takes his leave and Khalid sits back down to pick apart his thoughts.

“The Almyran soldiers have been nothing but cooperative, I’ve only a handful of tussles to report.”

“Of course they’re cooperating, their King commanded them to.”

Byleth winces as Leonie makes a couple of adjustments to her sling and slips it off, running through the exercises their healer had given her to help strengthen it as it healed, and Lorenz mirrors her expression as the bruised flesh comes to light, still tender, but not swollen like it had been the day before.

Leonie is the only one brave enough to force Byleth to go through the motions, and she’s also privy to every last one of Byleth’s poisonous thoughts; her feelings of resentment coupled with incredible relief that Claude’s corpse isn’t rotting somewhere far away.

Or Khalid, she supposes as pain shoots up her arm, settling quickly as Leonie stretches it and Byleth nods for Lorenz to proceed.

“Sylvain was heading down to the council room to summon Seteth like you asked, though there’s no telling how long it will take him to make his way here.”

“That’s okay, I just need to check in with him on a couple of things.”

Sylvain’s been splitting his time between her and Felix, though his last update had been incredibly vague.

She hopes that’s because they are hashing out some of their differences, for Sylvain has not spent a night with her since the battle. 

She makes a mental note to really check on him next time he comes calling, for his emotional state is just as fragile as hers, though she’s much better at hiding it.

He should go back with Felix and Ingrid, once they depart; live out his dreams, rule over his territory.

He’s already resented her once , and she doesn’t want him to resent her again, because underneath their questionable coping methods, they care for one another deeply, and the discontinuation of their dalliances won’t change that.

But he knows better than most how Claude’s departure had shattered her, and there’s a security in that that she’s not quite ready to give up.

She knows she doesn’t really need him here, not when she’s got Lorenz and Leonie and Holst, and if she can look past their differences and the obvious trust issues she’s incurred over the last two years, she’ll welcome Claude back into the fold as well.

Khalid.

The name still doesn’t taste right in her mouth, though it seems more in line with his personality, but she hasn’t wanted to see him yet, pointedly ignoring his pull during the waking hours even though she knows that he’d been the one to fly her home while she was unconscious.

She’s not ready to face them…all those tiny untruths, and truthfully she’s not sure she’ll be able to stay mad underneath his scrutiny, because her heart beats only for him.

Her false, fake, goddess-imparted heart.

“He was slated to meet with Cla— Khalid , and you know how long-winded he can be.”

Byleth nods as Lorenz’s even tenor pulls her out of her reprieve, violet eyes searching her face for any sort of discomfort before continuing.

“He wants to cut open the throat, mobilize trade, and send soldiers to help supplement our armies.”

“That’s ambitious.” Leonie chirps from her spot at Byleth’s side, only for Lorenz to scoff in reply.

“I’d advise you to make note of the man in question. Did you really expect anything less?”

“We expected the world out of him, and he left us all behind.”

Leonie is not wrong, and Byleth notes as much before coming to his defense, albeit a touch weakly.

“He’s always wanted things this way, Leonie. He’s always wanted to break down the walls between nations, this really should not be a surprise.”

There’s a part of her that is proud of him as she voices those innermost thoughts, that political thinking Lorenz has worked so hard to instill into her mind, and as per usual, Leonie and Lorenz find themselves on opposite sides of the debate, and Byleth can’t help but smile to herself as they start sniping back and forth, Leonie’s touch still gentle even as she’s spitting venom at Lorenz and he’s dishing it right back out.

Byleth wants that old dynamic back, wants to be able to bounce sarcastic comments off of Claude as the two of them (meaning Lorenz and Leonie) go at it.

But his sudden arrival hurts just as much as his departure did, and she’s not yet strong enough to weather that storm, nor does she think she can handle his presence so close to her fracturing resolve.

It will take time, and she hopes that Khalid will understand that, even if it feels like Claude didn’t take her feelings into account.

Things are different, and he is different, and deserves the benefit of the doubt, but Byleth still feels like she’s drowning, even on her best days, and a lot of that is kind of his fault. 

Chapter Text

The first time she sees him is three weeks after the fight, on her daily walk through the grounds of the palace.

He’s sparring with Cyril, bare-chested and proud, and Byleth can hardly look away to save her life.

He seems broader now, more rugged, even taller, though she knows that’s not true, but the air of a King suits him well, as does the sun when it hits him at certain angles.

“I didn’t bring my handkerchief, so you should close your mouth.”

She shoots daggers at Sylvain as he arches a brow and smirks, holding steady as she swats his shoulder as hard as she can with her injured arm.

The air around him seems lighter, as of late, and much less torrential, and she wonders if that has anything to do with Felix.

He and Ingrid are slated to leave within a fortnight, once he’s been officially cleared by the healers, but Sylvain has not told her whether or not he’s going with them, and she’s nervous about broaching the topic. 

He hates to be pushed, and he’ll make his move in his own time, but she hopes that if he still wants to stay, he’s not staying because he’s worried about her, and she snaps her attention back to him as Khalid hisses a foreign curse after a particularly nasty hit, his smile bright and beaming as he recovers and moves to strike again.

“Have you put much thought into whether or not you want to follow Felix and Ingrid back to Faerghus?”

“Ingrid wants me to go, but Felix thinks I should stay,” Sylvain replies, an affectionate lilt in his tone, “Though I’ve yet to determine whether that’s because he doesn’t want me around or genuinely thinks it’s the better choice.”

“What do your instincts tell you?”

“That he thinks it’s in my best interest to stay here.”

Their strides slow as they come up on Khalid’s direct line of sight, though Byleth makes a point to keep her eyes fixed on the ground in front of them as she hears the telltale pause of a soldier distracted.

She drops her voice low in an effort to keep the conversation between them. “Your father can’t run your territory forever.”

“It still technically belongs to him.” 

A comfortable silence falls between them as Sylvain presumably gathers his thoughts. “Plus your emotions have been an absolute wreck as of late, and you know how great I am at cheering you up.”

“Hey!”

She swats at him again and immediately regrets it, though her discomfort is overpowered by the weight of an emerald green gaze, and Sylvain looks over her head and presumably at Khalid before flashing a smile at her that’s all teeth.

It’s a teasing thing, and Byleth cocks her head to the side and taps her fingers against his chest as she looks up at him with a sad smile to match.

“If you want to go back, I’ll hardly hold it against you.” 

He chews on her words for a minute before stopping to look down at her. “That’s very kind of you, By, but I still need to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about? Your whole life is in Faerghus.”

His eyes dart past her again, and she wonders how close Khalid has gotten, though she hears someone draw a practice weapon and tries to relax. 

“A life I left behind to follow you.”

“Sylvain.”

It comes out in a whisper, and Byleth can’t help the way she stops and reaches up to cradle his cheek, something she’s done so many times before, and she can tell by the look on his face that he’s weighing his options.

“I swore my fealty to you, I can’t just up and leave.”

“Yes you can.”

“Byleth.”

“I don’t need you here, Sylvain. Lorenz can do everything for me that you did.”

Sylvain matches her volume and arches a brow in amusement. “Oh really? Everything? He’s not really your type.”

“Stop it! I’m serious!” She giggles, swatting at him again, but the moment of levity passes, and Sylvain looks almost scared as she tries to drive her point home.  

“I just mean from a strategy and political standpoint, we’re covered, and as far as me, and my emotions—”

“Byleth—”

“They’ve held you back for long enough.”

She doesn’t mean it in a bad way, but Sylvain looks almost offended as he digests what she’s saying and comes up with a rebuttal.

“You haven’t even talked to him since he got here, and what if he—”  

“I’m a big girl, Sylvain. I can handle it on my own.”

“But By—“”

“Don’t make me pull rank.”

Sylvain worries his bottom lip between his teeth and sighs, and she knows all sorts of scenarios are playing out in his head: with Felix, without Felix, against Felix.

In another life, they’d have made a lovely pair, maybe even in this one, had the war claimed Felix and Claude. 

But it hadn’t, and Byleth watches as the long lost light in Sylvain’s eyes returns, followed by him cradling her face between his hands before crushing her against his chest and burying his nose in her hair.

“You’ve never held me back, By. I stayed because I wanted to.”

“And you’re well within your rights to continue to stay here, but I don’t want you to do it because you feel like I’ll die without you around.”

“Dying seems a bit dramatic,” he whispers against her, and his smile is so bright as he steps back and presses their foreheads together that she wonders what sort of weight has just lifted off his shoulders.

“I just don’t want you to forego your own desires because you think I can’t function without you.”

He brushes his thumb across her cheek and smirks down at her, his expression soft and friendly. “And I appreciate that, but I still want to think about it. Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” he replies simply, crinkling his nose before tipping his chin up to kiss her on the forehead, “and if I decide to leave, I want the record to reflect that nobody comes north to visit…so if he tries to break your heart again and I have to kill him, there are plenty of places to bury the body.”

Byleth starts to laugh, loud and bright, before she remembers they’re still in mixed company, but when she turns her head to see just where the others are, she comes up empty-handed, Khalid’s scent still on the wind as she sucks in a breath and wonders what exactly he expected.  

Of all the things Khalid von Riegan has done, he’s never really been one to jump to conclusions.

Sure, he'd gotten ahead of himself sometimes when he was a young man in the Officer’s academy, but even when Byleth was gone, presumed dead, he’d never once jumped to the worst possible conclusion.

Looking back, a lot of that may have been wishful thinking that stemmed from the naïveté of youth, a silly little crush, a promise whispered in private, all things that can have a drastic effect on a person’s mental and emotional state.

He should have known that leaving her behind would cause her muted emotions to run haywire, exacerbated by confusion and the stress of taking on a whole Queendom, coupled with whatever feelings she harbored with regards to him that would sit untouched until their next meeting.

He never expected her to wait, but there’s a part of him that wishes that her moving on without him wasn’t so public.

At the training grounds, in the council room, and he’s certain all over the rest of the palace, for discretion and the Heir to Gautier do not go hand-in-hand, and his presence seems to have unlocked some stupid and carnal need for Sylvain to stake a claim, especially now that Byleth is out and about every day. 

She eats most of her meals with Sylvain, they take daily walks through the grounds, and although there’s a part of him that enjoys seeing her so happy and in love, it smarts that her affection is not directed at him.

He’s not sure what he expected, but it wasn’t this, and he curses quietly to himself as she laughs at something the other man said, her eyes darting between Sylvain and Leonie at their table near the front of the dining hall as he drapes an arm over the back of her chair and leans in close.

“Your staring only adds fuel to that fire.”

“I’m not staring.”

“And I’m not Count Gloucester.”

“You’re not.”

Khalid rebuffs Lorenz with a deliberate sip of his wine, one he’d brought with him from Almyra, and he can’t help but smirk at the sour look on his face.

He’s still fun to pester, and it makes Khalid feel a little bit better, but the feeling is short-lived as Sylvain’s laugh soon follows.

It’s a booming thing, and one look at Leonie’s face tells him it’s at her expense before she decides it’s not the end of the world and joins in on the fun.

“I don’t know the extent of their involvement, only that it seems to have been carrying on for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Khalid asks with his mouth half-full, swallowing while he waits for the answer.

“At least a year.”

Lorenz is so matter-of-fact about the whole thing that it sets Khalid’s teeth on edge, and he knows he has absolutely no right to have an opinion about with whom the Queen spends her time, which makes it all the more frustrating.

“And they aren’t engaged or courting?”

“Apparently not.”

“So what, it’s just sex?”

“I don’t know, Khalid, but how about I ask her next time we have tea?”

“You’d do that?”

“No.”

Lorenz rolls his eyes and Khalid huffs as he watches Sylvain watch her, noting how his focus seems to waver whenever Ingrid or Felix walks by, though he quickly masks it in favor of remaining in her good graces as she turns her head to whisper something in his ear.

“You left all of us behind. I’m not quite sure what you expected.”

“I had to, you know that.”

“I do,” Lorenz nods, taking another delicate bite of his food, “and for the record, so does she,” he says as he turns his head to look at Byleth, “But you showing up here unannounced isn’t going to automatically undo everything that’s transpired over the last couple of years.”

“I told her I loved her.”

“And then you disappeared.”

Khalid turns the words over in his mouth and drops his gaze to the table, suddenly ashamed of how envious he feels.

Lorenz is not wrong, and he knows that if he brought the argument to Byleth, she’d probably say the exact same thing.

Of all the leaders left over from Edelgard’s War, Sylvain is the best match for the Queen, for his influence alone had been enough to sway Faerghus to cooperate after the demise of their King, and there is no denying that their friendship during the war had saved a lot of people a lot of trouble. 

He cannot fault her for finding solace in someone else during his absence, and it’s not like he hadn’t sought the same sort of comfort in Almyra.

Though the women from Almyra were hardly heirs to a Margravate giving away their affection for free, for each of them had some kind of ulterior motive, whether that be money, influence, or blood.

He shudders as he recalls a time where he nearly sired a bastard against his will, and he’ll never forget the look that crossed that particular woman’s face once she realized that her plan had been foiled.  

But Sylvain wants for nothing, his affection painted all over his face as he chats with Byleth and Leonie, brightening further still when Felix and Ingrid both make their way over to join in on the fun, and by the time they’re done talking, hardly anyone else remains, and Khalid hardly remembers the way back to his quarters.

“It’s good to see you, your grace. Freya nearly took my hand off this morning.”

The Wyvern grumbles before resting her head in Byleth’s hands, one eye open and fixed on her caretaker, a jolly older man named Malik that she’s almost certain is from Almyra, though she’s never thought to ask him before.

“That’s unsurprising,” Byleth replies as she goes to scratch the beast’s nose, smiling at the way Freya breathes in her scent, part of their ritual before their rides, “I’ve not been feeling strong enough to try and fly.”

“King Khalid has been taking her out to stretch her wings alongside him and his Afet, only because she’s been without a rider.”

Byleth can’t help the way her nerves bubble up inside as he points to Khalid’s wyvern and smiles. 

Afet has always been a beautiful thing, with her ice blue eyes and shiny white scales, quite a bit larger than the others in their pyre, and she must know that they’re talking about her, because she walks over to where they are, making a point to stop and sniff Freya, as if they haven't been sharing their space for weeks.

“A tempestuous beast. Prone to outbursts,” Malik muses, his expression far from wary as he grabs a couple of fresh fish out of the barrel close by and tosses them up for her to catch, “Though they’ve been getting along well enough.”

Afet hisses as Freya sidles over in an attempt to steal one of her treats, and Malik stops the conflict in its tracks by offering her the same thing, though she takes it right out of his hand.

“My father always used to say that Almyran War Wyverns were the most difficult to train, but there’s a reason they get passed down from generation to generation,” he pauses as Afet looks on, presumably intrigued, “There is no better ally to have during a fight.”

The white beast snorts and goes back to what she was doing, playfully nipping in Freya’s general direction before demanding another handful of fish.

Malik obliges, but tosses them further away just in case, and Afet looks like a cat stalking its prey as she makes her way over to where they landed and pounces. 

“Did you grow up in Almyra, then?”

“I was born there, and spent twenty-five years of my life in service to the Royal Family,” he pauses again, and Byleth wonders what sort of memory he’s reliving, “But that was a long time ago.”

“Did you know the King when he was little?”

Malik shakes his head and offers her a toothy grin. “Oh no, I left many years before King Khalid was born, back when his paternal grandfather still sat on the throne.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I fell in love with a woman from across the throat, and the King, at that time, was adamant that members of his house and his staff not fraternize with outsiders.”

“I see.”

“He gave me the option, and for that I am grateful, but I often wonder what would have happened had I stayed.”

An awkward silence falls between them and Byleth isn’t quite sure what to say, but Freya’s habit of coming up and nudging her as a request for attention allows for Malik to redirect the conversation.

“He’s usually out here by now. Likes to fly in the mornings, but it’s not the first time he’s been delayed.”

Byleth vaguely remembers seeing him at dinner, but the rest of her night is a blur, mostly because Sylvain had kept insisting that she have goblet after goblet of wine.

He wasn’t in her quarters when she woke up this morning, but she was tucked in and situated for maximum comfort, which is a Sylvain habit through-and-through.

It seems likely that he helped her back to her quarters and made himself scarce once he was certain she was comfortable, but she hasn’t seen him this morning to be able to ask, which is a bit of a deviation from their routine.

She’ll need to get used to it if he ends up leaving Derdriu, for their codependency has turned into a bit of a crutch, more so for her than for Sylvain.

“Were you wanting to wait for King Khalid, your Grace, or will you be flying alone?”

Byleth shakes her head in an effort to clear it as Freya nudges her again, and her answer comes easily, though she nearly chokes on the word as Malik watches her with renewed interest.

“Alone, I think.”

“I’ll get her ready for you.”

With that, he waves himself off, beckoning for Freya to come with him, and as they ascend into the heavens and she watches storm clouds start to come in from the north, part of her wishes someone would follow.