Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ Fire Emblem Tellius Saga: Book 2 ❯ CHAPTER 61: HOME ( Chapter 30 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

A trio of brightly colored Crimean Royal Knights welcomed them at the docks. They had a vast stretch of parchment rolled out on a table before them, with sea-smoothed stones holding down the corners. A cold northerly wind blew the salty air in their faces, and two wore heavy cloaks over their armor.

The third, however, was cloak-less, and his red cheeks matched his hair and plating. Kieran jumped out of his chair when he saw them, knocking it to the ground. “Well if it isn’t the-!”

Ike cut him off with a stern look and a slicing gesture across his neck.

Kieran wasn’t known for his quick-wittedness, but he managed to pick up on this in time. “-my old rival!” he finished, jaunting down the boardwalk to throw an arm around Oscar. “Hey, guys!” Kieran called back to the other knights. “This is Oscar—the one I was telling you about!”

“The mercenary?” one of the knights replied, casting his curious eyes over the ragtag band. Kieran palmed himself in the forehead. Soren sighed in annoyance.

“Then these must be the mercenaries who-” the other knight began.

By now the mercenaries had reached the table. Ike threw his hands down on its surface in a business-like way. It was enough to cut off the knight’s conclusion. “We’re nobody,” he said firmly.

“Uh, we’re recording the names of the returnees…” the knight faltered. Both he and his comrade looked young. Their faces were still pockmarked and sprouting sparse hairs. In the gaps of their helmets, their cheeks looked rounded and boyish—clearly new recruits.

Ike turned to Kieran, ignoring the young knight’s effort to explain. “Mind if we slip in?” he asked with a conspiratorial smile.

“On one condition.” Kieran returned, wearing the violent, toothy grin that always made him look like he was challenging a wild beast and loving every second of it. “You’ve all got to stay with me tonight! We have so much to catch up on!”

“But Kieran.” Oscar escaped his friend’s vicelike arm. “Won’t you be staying in the local barracks?”

Kieran palmed his forehead a second time.

Titania chuckled under her breath. “Good to see you again, Kieran,” she said. “It’s heartening to see that some things don’t change.”

“Tell you what,” Ike spoke up. “Point us to the best inn in town, and you can buy us all drinks.”

Kieran grinned again. “I know just the place!”

The band of mercenaries—with the addition of their merry friend—sauntered past the table just as the breeze picked up and the paper escaped its stone weights. One knight rushed to hold it down while the other watched them pass, apparently at a loss. “Wait…Sir Kieran!” he called.

Kieran seemed to remember his duties, but he also didn’t seem to care. He waved over his shoulder. “Just take their names. You know what to do.” The knight reluctantly turned back the line of deportees. “Yeesh,” Kieran said less loudly, putting his arms around Boyd’s and Rolf’s shoulders as if they were his own brothers. “New recruits need so much hand-holding.”

 

After spending the evening with Kieran and listening to the latest gossip about Crimea’s reconstruction, the mercenaries slept soundly at the inn. Before he took his leave, Kieran vowed he would not go out of his way to report the Greil Mercenaries’ return to Crimea, but he said he would tell the truth without hesitation if asked directly by a superior. Ike accepted this, saying he would never ask him to sacrifice his honor as a Royal Knight.

They embarked south, enjoying the crisp air and fresh snow that always melted within a couple days. They passed through Delbray hold while avoiding the castle or any of the major cities. For obvious reasons, they didn’t call upon Lucia or Geoffrey. When they reached the jut of the Marhaut range, they took a pass southwest, and the volcanic hot springs offered respite from the snow that now collected day after day.

They were giving central Crimea—especially Melior—a wide berth. Arbor was still far away, but Rhys sent letters to his parents to notify them of their progress, and eventually the nervous son received a reply. After this, they travelled more leisurely, doing whatever mercenary work they could find as they went. They didn’t use false names, as Ike and Boyd had facetiously suggested, but they never introduced themselves as the ‘Greil Mercenaries’ if they could avoid it. They never sought privileges or accolades as the heroes of the Mad King’s War, and they never invoked Elincia’s name as a close friend.

With little chance to groom themselves during their deportation, the mercenaries now used these winter weeks to coach their unshaven faces into something more appealing, yet unfamiliar. Gatrie grew a full beard and Shinon a mustache and goatee. Boyd stopped shaving too, and although Ike told them they didn’t need to change their appearances or disguise themselves in any way, it quickly turned into game.

Mia pulled out the fake mustache she’d used in the Telgam Games, and sometimes she would wear it and introduce herself as Percival when they ran errands in town. Rolf wanted to shave his head on either side, leaving a mohawk, but Oscar forbid it, saying he would catch cold. Mist, who’d been growing her hair for months, began wearing it in two braids that bounced around her shoulders. Eventually even Ike started to participate, lettings his hair become longer and unruly and growing a short beard.

Titania, Oscar, and Rhys saw no point in changing their appearances either for fun or to avoid recognition, and of course Soren didn’t participate in the charade. He couldn’t sprout even a hint of beard if he wanted to, and growing out his hair would be superfluous considering it was already so long it reached the small of his back. But neither did Soren want to cut it, afraid he would look even more like a child if he did. For now it was easy enough to clean and could be kept out of the way. Each morning he tied it into two ponytails behind his neck, which then came together into a single tail behind his shoulders. For an added measure, the tied a fourth cord around the ends to stop them from fanning out.

The only time he trimmed his hair was to keep the shorter sections in the front manageable, but he wasn’t about to cut them into bangs either. He’d learned long ago that concealment was an indicator of guilt and disguise an indicator of monstrosity. He had no choice but to display his Brand, and therefore he would be recognizable no matter what he did.

 That being said, recognition was rarely a problem the mercenaries faced. Very few people seemed to recall or care about the sell-swords who’d fought at Elincia’s side—and those who did care had incredibly skewed perceptions of the mercenaries.

One day they encountered just such a person. An artist was hawking ‘signed’ illustrations of the mercenaries on the side of the street, and the representations were exaggerated to say the least. Ike looked twice his age, three times as muscular, and half as intelligent—like some sort of barbarian hero. Mist, meanwhile, was a goddess in flowing robes, Titania some sort of fire demon whose hair burned Daein soldiers with tendrils of flame, and Gatrie a giant heaving a horse over his head with both hands.

Soren tried not to look at the pictures of himself, of which there were few (clearly he wasn’t a best-seller), but he couldn’t help but see the one in front. He was depicted as some sort of wraith, lost in inky blackness. In the picture, he was older, taller, and without any sort of mark on his forehead. 

Some of the mercenaries laughed and purchased copies of their own portraits. When the artist overhead the guffawing and peered more closely at his customers’ faces, his eyes bulged and his larynx moved up and down as if he were struggling to swallow.

Ike was clearly embarrassed (but not entirely offended) as he sorted through the various prints of himself. Soren sighed and skimmed through the images. Eventually he came to a small box covered in a red cloth, and the artist tried to stop him. Finally finding his voice, he squeaked: “That’s not for children!”

Flipping through the hand-sized paintings, Soren realized why they hadn’t been displayed up front. The first print depicted what appeared to be Lucia having intercourse with her brother Geoffrey. In the next, Geoffrey was entangled with none other than Queen Elincia, and in the third, Elincia inhabited a similar knot with Ike. A strange, sick panic seized him at the sight, but reminding himself these images were not evidence of reality, Soren flipped through the rest more quickly. They were more of the same: heroes of the war, nobles, mercenaries, and even laguz. Sometimes three or more were drawn into the scene, and sometimes the laguz were in their shifted forms. There were no images of him and Ike together, and only when this thought registered in his brain did he realize that was what he’d been looking for.

Soren had no desire to continue perusing the pornography, so he closed the box and glanced up at the artist, who looked equal parts embarrassed and defeated. Then he passed the box to Ike. “You may want to see this.”

Ike blushed deeply when he saw the images of himself. Stepping up to the artist, he growled in a low voice: “Burn these.”

“B-b-but,” he attempted to defend himself. “It’s j-just art. The p-p-people have a right…” Ike’s glare stunned him into silence.

“Don’t use our names again.”

The artist bobbed his head frantically.

“And show some respect for your queen.”

“O-of course. It’s b-because we l-love her…” His lips buttoned closed and his eyes widened when he realized he wasn’t winning this argument, at least not against Ike.

Turning to the rest of the company, Ike announced, “Come on, everyone. We’re done here.”

Oblivious to what had just occurred, the mercenaries sauntered away still laughing about the pictures they’d acquired. Despite the artist’s fear-stricken expression as he watched them leave, Soren had little doubt he would continue selling his full array of prints and paintings, regardless of Ike’s threatening.

 

The Greil Mercenaries crossed the Einst River into southern Crimea on the longest night of the year. Here they encountered hundreds of people celebrating with bonfires, dancing, magicians, snowball fights, and salty festival food. Stalls were stationed along the riverbanks, wishing lanterns sailed on the cold water, and couples ice-skated on a pond nearby. Musicians played their instruments with blue fingers and lips, but no one seemed to mind the cold.

Twisting through this merriment was a parade of priests who chanted and sang prayers for Ashera, Goddess of the Dawn, to summon the sun and lengthen the days again. People spilled coins into collection tins held by contrite-looking novices, while well-bundled children ran past their legs.

After enjoying the festival for a bit, the mercenaries moved on, intent on finding warm beds in the next town. On the way, they passed a temple glowing with the light of a thousand candles. A choir of voices was clearly audible, rising through the oak doors and stained-glass windows. Soren was surprised by the memories of Temple Asic that surfaced in his mind.

Soon they reached the town, which was still awake but far quieter than the festival grounds. Ike, Titania, and Soren went into the inn to purchase lodgings while the others unpacked the horses in the stables and explored the street. The windows and front desk were adorned with holiday trinkets, icons, and statuettes of the goddess. Sprigs of herbs hung from the ceiling, and the railing leading upstairs was draped in garlands.

Despite the warm atmosphere, the innkeeper behind the desk had a dour and distinctly un-festive visage. He was tall but stood with a hunch. His clothes were plain, hardly more than a smock, and his hair was thin and lank around his shoulders. Behind the desk was an entire wall of books, and he had a magnifying glass hanging from a cord around his neck like an odd piece of jewelry.

“We have a party of eleven,” Ike began, “We’ll take whatever rooms you still have for the night.”

The man didn’t greet them or show any sign of welcome. He ran his gaze first over their weapons and then their faces. His eyes ended their journey on Soren, and there they stayed. “No,” he declared gruffly.

“You have no more rooms left?” Titania asked doubtfully. After all, this was a large inn, and both the stable and the adjoining lounge were half empty.

“I didn’t say that,” he returned.

“You won’t rent to us?” Ike asked, his tone serious.

“I don’t house mutts,” he answered, and his eyes were still on Soren, whose blood suddenly ran cold. “Bad luck. Bad business.”

Soren was acutely aware of Titania standing nearby and the dozen strangers lounging in the next room. He imagined the entire company would soon know the truth. His life with the mercenaries would end, and it would be due to a single ill-tempered innkeeper.

“Be reasonable,” Ike growled, “Our coin is as good as anyone’s.”

“Where’s your holiday spirit?” Titania asked, her arms crossed.

The innkeeper finally removed his gaze from Soren and glared at Ike and Titania instead. “You mercenaries?” he asked.

“Yes,” Ike answered, “As a matter of fact, we are.”

After thinking a moment, he declared: “I ‘pose you can stay, and any other man, woman, or child I ‘prove. But not this one.” He pointed straight at Soren’s face, and he had to fight the urge to retreat. 

“That’s completely unreasonable!” Titania exclaimed.

“How dare y-” Ike snarled. His fists were clenched and his eyes filled with righteous fury, but Soren cut him off before he could finish:

“It’s fine. I will leave.”

“No, you won’t,” Ike shot back. Turning his ire on the innkeeper, he leaned across the counter. “You’ll rent to all of us, or none of us.” Gesturing at Soren, he added, “This here’s just a regular guy and a damn good mercenary.”

Soren wished Ike would stop. He didn’t want to make a scene. He just wanted to slip away. “Ike, don’t-”

The innkeeper was unaffected. “Are you blind, boy, or just stupid,” he sneered. “Can’t you see his sin-ugly mark?”

That was it. Soren was finished. He felt he would rather die than stay here, listening to this a moment longer. But neither could he move his feet.

“So that’s it?” Ike replied through gritted teeth. “You have something against people with cute little tattoos? Goddess, that’s petty.” He shook his head as if disappointed. “It may not be my cup of tea, but you don’t see me criticizing your greasy mug, do you? You’ve got rooms; we’ve got coin. Are we doing business or not?”

They glared at each other for several seconds, but the innkeeper didn’t relent. “Get out then,” he hissed. “I don’t need your trouble or your blood money, wretched mercenaries.”

“Consider us gone.” Ike twisted on the spot. Soren found he could finally move and was right behind him.

“The nerve of some people,” Titania declared, strutting out as well.

They met Mist, Rolf, and Oscar, just outside. “What happened?” asked Oscar, clearly detecting Ike and Titania’s rage (and perhaps Soren’s mortification).

“We’re not staying here,” Ike answered. “The owner’s not too fond of mercenaries.”

“The worst kind of religious sort,” Titania added by way of explanation. “I’m sure he’s the type who thinks Crimea was freed thanks to his own prayers rather than the spilled blood of his compatriots.”

Oscar sighed. “Well, there will always be people like that. Rolf, Mist, let’s go get the horses again.”

“I’ll help you,” Titania offered.

Ike and Soren followed at a distance. Soren’s mind was still reeling from the confrontation, and he felt both grateful and unnerved that neither Ike nor Titania had mentioned he was to blame.

He supposed this confirmed his long-held suspicion that Titania knew what he was. Perhaps Greil had told her years ago, when he’d first joined the mercenaries, or perhaps she’d merely known the signs. (She’d lived in Gallia for five years, after all.)

“Are you okay?” Ike asked, stopping by a horse’s stall that was not their own. The others were making themselves busy several doors down.

Soren was certainly not okay. In fact, he felt like the scared, desperate kid he’d once been—shooed off street corners and kicked out wherever he dared enter. But he was not that child anymore, and he barred his true feelings from his face and voice. “There was always a chance this would happen,” he answered, “that we would meet someone whose prejudices are not outweighed by respect for or fear of a mercenary company.”

Ike frowned. “He didn’t say those things because Titania and I weren’t intimidating enough,” he countered, “He said them because he was a jerk. Most people aren’t like that. You can’t let it get to you.”

Soren peered into Ike’s eyes to see if he truly believed what he was saying. “You’re wrong. Everyone is exactly like him.”

“How can you say that?” Ike looked genuinely surprised. “After all the places we’ve been, the people we’ve met, the things we’ve seen…”

“Because I know what my life was like before the Greil Mercenaries,” Soren answered firmly, “and the world hasn’t changed.”

Ike seemed disturbed by this claim. “Maybe the world has changed,” he proposed in a quiet voice. “Maybe it’s changing right now.”

Soren released a small sad sigh. “I suppose I will find out… You’ll have to explain what happened to the others. They’ll know it was my fault, and they’ll know why… You should terminate my contract. I’m a hindrance to the functioning of the company.”

“What?” Ike barked an awkward laugh. “We’re not losing you because of that cheese-brain!”

“Ike!” Titania called from the entrance. “We’re going to find the others!”

“We’ll catch up!” Ike assured with a wave. Soren found himself wondering what Titania would tell the others when she found them. He must have been creasing his eyebrows, because Ike poked him gently between the eyes. “You don’t have to worry so much.”

“We have had this discussion before,” Soren observed, not willing to argue again.

Ike nodded. “And I will always keep your secret. Always. There’s no need to tell the others what that creep said.”

“But Titania…”

Ike smiled comfortingly. “Sometimes I think Titania is wiser than the both of us put together. I trust her not to have loose lips.”

“Has she ever…asked you about me?” Soren surprised himself by asking.

“No.” Ike shook his head. “And I would tell you, if anyone ever did.”

For some reason, this was immensely comforting, and he trusted Ike was telling the truth. He finally started to calm down.

“Ready to rejoin the others?”

“As long as they will have me,” he answered softly.

“We’ll have you,” Ike assured. They exited the stable, and when they were outside he added, in a lighter tone: “I meant what I said by the way.”

“Which part?”

“It’s not ugly, your mark,” Ike explained. “It’s nice. I like it.” He kept walking, but Soren had frozen in his tracks.

He’d been so distraught, he had hardly paid attention to Ike’s rebuttal. “You called it a ‘cute little tattoo’,” he recalled, suddenly embarrassed. His cheeks felt hot despite the freezing air. After wondering (and trying not to wonder) for so long how Ike saw him—what he thought about his height, his body, his blood, and his accursed Brand—‘cute’ was a possibility that had never occurred to him in his wildest dreams. He couldn’t even decide whether it was good or bad.

Ike laughed and turned around. “I know it’s not actually a tattoo, but…” he finished with a shrug.

Soren forced his legs to move. Ike walked beside him as if expecting a response. “I thought you were merely mocking him, but now I see you are mocking me as well,” he finally managed to say.

“Not at all!” Ike pouted. “You wouldn’t be you without it.”

Soren had no idea how to respond to that, but he eventually settled on: “…No, I suppose not.” For a moment, he entertained the possibility of pointing out some aspect of Ike’s appearance he appreciated, but in the end, he couldn’t work up the courage.

 

They neared Arbor the next day, and Rhys stepped onto the road that would take him to his parents’ village. “I will return to the fort in a couple days,” he said by means of farewell.

“Nonsense,” Ike replied, stepping onto the road with him. “I’ve never met your folks.”

“And it’s been some time since I last paid my respects,” Titania added, joining Rhys on the opposite side.

“And you said you had an old staff to show me!” Mist chirruped.

“Well if everyone’s going,” Boyd said, trailing after her. “I don’t want to have to reclaim the fort myself. There were rats last time!”

At this, everyone started down the road, and Rhys grew flushed and sweaty. “No really, we haven’t the room for so much company!”

“We’ll camp out,” Gatrie offered with a grin, “or use the barn if you’re parents still have one. Can’t be worse than the last inn we stayed at—the one with the bed lice?”

“That was weeks ago, Gatrie,” Rolf corrected.

“Feels like yesterday,” the big man replied with a shiver.

Titania steered Rhys to the front while her steed walked beside her. “It’ll be fine,” she consoled him, and Rhys didn’t protest again.

  

Rhys’s parents lived in a cottage at the edge of town. The house was secluded and tumbledown, but that could be said for the whole village. Rhys grew more nervous as they got closer, and Soren wondered if he was embarrassed. “Big crowds aren’t good for them,” he mumbled, casting his eyes over the mercenaries.

“Just Titania, Soren, Mist, and me then,” Ike replied cheerily. “Everyone else can start setting up camp at the base of that hill there.”

“No,” Rhys cut in, and Soren was surprised to see his anxious eyes darted straight to him. “Maybe just you and Titania.”

“Of course.” Titania placed a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Lead the way.”

Rhys led the pair to the cottage, where smoke was rising gently from the chimney. Soren turned back to the others, suddenly uncomfortable. Despite working together for just shy of a decade, Rhys didn’t want him to darken his family’s doorstep. This was a precious reminder that Ike was wrong: he couldn’t count on the others accepting him as he did.

“Rolf and I are going to buy some supplies for dinner,” Mist said, distracting him from his thoughts. “We could use another pair of hands.”

Soren turned his gaze to where Shinon and Gatrie were fighting over a scrap of canvas trying to put the tent up. “Better than staying here,” he answered and followed them down the road.

 

The next day, Ike convinced the others to chop wood, shovel snow, scoop grain, draw water, and repair a crooked gate before they could leave. Rhys was flighty and embarrassed whenever he emerged, but most of the time he stayed indoors with his parents, whose faces Soren never saw. Rhys kept them away from the bulk of the mercenaries, and when they did come outside, Soren made himself scarce. If he wasn’t good enough to meet a couple of old codgers, then they were certainly not worth his time. When a few of Rhys’s aunts, uncles, and cousins showed up to welcome back their long-lost relative, Soren disappeared again (although it meant missing dinner).

He was glad, therefore, when the mercenaries finally departed. Rhys stayed behind, saying he would reunite with the mercenaries in a couple days. “We’ll miss you!” Titania called.

“Travel safely,” Ike added.

“Good riddance,” Soren muttered, not caring who heard him.

 

The fort’s woodland path was surprisingly not overgrown with brambles, which tended to grow each year if the mercenaries didn’t cut them back. It was also marked with a road sign that declared ‘Greil’s Retreat’ in white letters. The wood and paint were already faded, and Soren could only assume Elincia had had the sign installed shortly after the end of the war and the mercenaries’ subsequent disappearance.

Undisturbed snow was piled on top of the sign and tiny icicles dangled from the bottom.  The path itself was clear except for the prints of mice and weasels. As they continued, they saw the pawprints of a fox and the trail of a hunter and two dogs, but there was no indication that anyone was going to and from the fort, which was a good sign it would be unoccupied.

When the trees thinned and the familiar walls appeared before them, the mercenaries released puffs of steam into the air with their laughter. “It’s good to be home!” Gatrie sighed.

The fort was indeed empty, and Soren wondered if Elincia had been sending regular patrols to keep it clear. “We should not stay long,” Soren advised Ike, “In case the queen’s spies check in on this place.”

“It’s strange to think of Elincia having spies,” Ike chuckled in reply.

“Well, she most certainly does.”

“If she has spies visiting here, couldn’t they have done something about the pests?” Mist interjected with a moan. “There’s more than last time!”

Ike grimaced and shook some rat droppings off an abandoned plate in the cupboard. “Well, there’s nothing to be done now but clean the place. Titania, Oscar, go into town for supplies, and keep an ear out for work while you’re there.”

“Yes, Commander!” Titania saluted.

 

In the days that followed, Titania, Shinon, and Gatrie got a job guarding a local mine whose foreman had stumbled across a gold vein. Meanwhile Soren, Ike, Oscar, and Boyd went on a quick mission to oust a bandit crew squatting in a noble’s vacant summer mansion. When this was done, Oscar, Boyd, and Rolf investigated claims of poachers on another noble’s lands. Mist visited the homes of sick and injured folk in villages around Arbor, sometimes with Ike or Mia as a guard. Rhys returned from his parents’ house, and he took a job with Soren, Titania, Gatrie, and Shinon to disrupt a false tolling operation nearby. (Apparently the local army outpost was getting a cut of the bandits’ earnings, so they hadn’t intervened themselves). And finally, Ike, Oscar, and Mia tracked down some noble’s heirloom that had been stolen during the war and traded hands several times since.

These jobs took them to towns and roads they knew well, and they encountered many common folk who recognized them and welcomed them back. Some knew that they’d fought in the war, but others thought they’d been killed by Daein soldiers in the first days of the invasion. All were glad to have the mercenaries among them again, and Ike tried to aid them as much as the landowners who offered better-paying jobs.

 

“Rumors will spread,” Soren warned Ike after he returned from the heirloom mission. “A royal promenade could come up that path any day now.”

He, Ike, and Mist were eating their lunch atop the once-new watch tower, but now the wooden beams were gray and splintering from age and neglect. The trio had lugged a tea kettle and ceramic pot of soup up here, along with three blankets and their own bundled bodies. A picnic lunch with a view—it was something they might have done when they were children. But here they were now, and despite his warnings, Soren didn’t really want this moment to end.

Ike was following Soren’s gaze to the mouth of the trail. “We’ll finish the jobs we have lined up,” he finally answered. “It’s still winter, and no one’s going anywhere fast. We have time.”

Mist was dozing off with a mug of tea between her feet and her arms tight across her chest. With her cheek resting on her knee, she hummed something that sounded like agreement.

“We could always let the queen find us,” Soren proposed tentatively. “If she wants to.” He had told Bastian their location in his most recent letter, and although he hoped the old spymaster was keeping his promise and didn’t share this information with Elincia, Soren couldn’t be certain. “Who knows—perhaps she will have work for us.”

Ike winced. “She has her armies of her own now.”

“There are some things that regular soldiers cannot be trusted to do,” Soren countered, “Take that toll bridge for example.”

Ike shook his head. “I don’t want to be Crimea’s secret operatives. Sounds like a mess we don’t need to get into.”

“I suppose…” Soren wished he could agree more wholeheartedly.

Once again Mist hummed her agreement. Her heavy lids rose and fell sleepily.

She and Soren were done eating, but Ike was not. He pushed aside his blanket to free his hands and tossed the edges so they covered Soren’s lap and Mist’s back but kept one corner across his legs. His exposed neck didn’t seem to mind the cold. Soren watched him stir a stick of bread into his soup to saturate it with the broth.

Then he leaned back to take in the view. There really wasn’t much of one, because the surrounding trees had grown so tall. This old fort was lost to the world, and he felt oddly safe here. Perhaps because of this, he couldn’t restrain the words that next came to his tongue: “Crimea could have been yours, Ike,” he said. Elincia could have been yours, he didn’t say.

Ike gave him a confused glance while he chewed. “What?”

“Why are we avoiding the queen?”

“You know why.”

“You gave up your lordship for this.”

Ike turned his face to the view Soren had just been appreciating, and then turned it to the fort where an occasional voice and muted clatter of the other mercenaries echoed inside. “This is enough.”

Soren was considering a new tactic, some way of pressing Ike for the information he wanted, when Mist stirred. Raising her head, she yawned and shook it gently. “Brother, I think Soren is trying to ask you why you didn’t confess your undying love for Queen Elincia and stay with her in Melior.”

Ike snorted and choked on his soup simultaneously. Sputtering, he wiped his face and moaned, “Not you too!”

Annoyed, Soren said nothing. He didn’t like being spoken for, even if what Mist had said was the truth.

“Look, I know what a lot of the troops were saying during the war,” Ike finally explained, having composed himself. “But it was never like that between us. And I know a lot of the Crimean soldiers wanted me to keep leading them after the war was over, but… Being general was one thing. Being some sort of lord, being Commander of the Royal Knights, being… No.” He shook his head. “I never wanted that.”

Soren glanced at him doubtfully. “It would have been in your power to refuse without this charade.”

This response seemed to distress Ike, and Mist leapt to his aid, waking up entirely now. “Soren, Ike and I have talked about this before. Frankly, we don't know anything about politics, and this always seemed like the best way to remove ourselves without the possibility of being pulled back in or manipulated by anyone at court.”

Soren supposed Mist’s explanation made sense. He still wasn’t certain of Ike’s true feelings toward Elincia—and perhaps he never would—but had to admit hearing his denial was somewhat mollifying. “Very well. If this is how the company is to proceed, I will continue to support it.”

Ike resumed eating, and Mist rested her head again, although she didn’t drift off to sleep this time. Soren willed himself to relaxed as well. The warm food in his stomach and nest of blankets around him kept him comfortable despite the soft flakes falling beyond the shelter of the watchtower. Perhaps this is enough… he dared think, borrowing Ike’s sentiment.

  

After almost three weeks, the mercenaries packed to leave again. They had resupplied, rested, and earned a bit of coin here. They were leaving Arbor better off than they’d found it, and that seemed to raise everyone’s spirits. Titania had lined up a job in the adjacent hold, so they had somewhere to go and the promise of gold when they got there.

Soren was feeling so at ease, he hardly noticed when Rhys asked him to join him in the library before they departed. He was fidgeting with his hands, and there was a sheen of sweat on his brow that Soren had come to take for granted. He forgot to be suspicious until the moment Rhys withdrew a knife from his sleeve. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

The healer pushed aside a stack of books on the nearest shelf and stabbed the blade into the mortar between the stones. “There’s something hidden here,” Rhys answered, continuing to wiggle the knife.

“I assumed as much,” Soren replied, eyeing the powder that fell away. Clearly it had been chipped before. “But what is it, and why? Does Ike know about this?”

Rhys didn’t answer, and a moment later, the stone came free. Placing it on the shelf, Rhys withdrew a small burlap bag and sighed, “It’s still here.”

Soren didn’t get too close, although his curiosity was certainly piqued. “You put that there?”

Rhys nodded once and turned to him. He held out the bag, but there was something hesitant about the way he extended his arm—as if part of him wanted to stuff it back into the wall and pretend this had never happened. “Greil said to give this to you.”

Soren stared at Rhys a moment, trying to read his face and voice. Finding nothing useful, he took the bag and loosened the drawstring. Inside was a letter and another bag. The letter had his name on it in Greil’s handwriting and the words “In the event of my death” below that. The seal was broken, but it was hard to tell whether the wax had been undone by age or curious fingers. The small bag was made of gray-green silk, and Soren immediately recognized it as having once belonged to Elena. “What is this?”

“Coins I think,” Rhys answered. “I didn’t look inside.”

The weight and feel of the silk bag were enough to confirm Rhys’s claim, but it still didn’t answer Soren’s question. “But you read the letter,” he accused.

Rhys glanced down contritely. “War was upon us. Greil was acting strangely. We were burning records and taking everyone’s contracts. Then he suddenly gave me this bag, and I… I saw what he wrote before he put it inside. ‘In the event of my death’—how could I not read it?”

“Then you hid it in a wall rather than simply giving it to me?” Soren queried, hardly believing Rhys had it in him to act so surreptitiously.

“He must have known it never got to you…” 

“Well what did it say?” Soren asked, crossing his arms and resisting the urge to read it himself. Rhys was just as much of a conundrum as the letter, and he was the one that had to be dealt with first.

“Just read it.”

“I’d rather you tell me,” Soren countered, “and explain why you did not bring it to my attention the last time we were here, or indeed, any of the days since Greil’s demise.”

Rhys just shook his head.

Giving in, Soren finally unfolded the letter. The inside flap read, “For Ike’s sake, wait til I’m dead,” and the words were enough to give him pause. That had been Greil’s strategy to keep him from reading it before he passed. Soren wondered if it would have been enough to belay his curiosity. Clearly it hadn’t worked on Rhys, and Soren shot him an annoyed glare. Then, he pushed open the last fold and continued reading:

 

Soren, I’ll keep this simple. If Daein is in Crimea, they’ll be coming for me and I can’t guarantee I’ll make it. If you’re reading this, means I didn’t. Maybe it’s my time, and I’ve made my peace a long time ago, but I hate to think of Ike and Mist losing another parent. Elena dying was hard enough, especially on Ike, and losing you made the whole thing worse. So now I’m ord begging you not to run again. That boy loved you as much as anyone. Don’t know if you remember, but he held your hand every night those first few months. After Elena, Ike was the one with nightmares. When they passed, he didn’t talk about her or you again. Look, I’m not accu Just don’t leave that boy again, got it? Or I’ll haunt you worse than all your fears. Now, here’s something I should have given you a long time ago. X Greil

 

Untying the tightly knotted silk, Soren ran his fingers through the copper coins inside. There were a couple silvers in the mix, and yet the entire haul was hardly worth more than the silk itself. Soren suspected he knew what this paltry sum was, but to be certain, he pulled out the tiny note floating among the coins. It looked older than the letter.

 

Soren, we’ve been safekeeping these for you. Family doesn’t take family’s money. Keep up the good work. X Greil & Elena

 

These were the wages from the tannery that he’d given Greil for almost two years. Soren marveled at the bizarreness of seeing them again. Greil and Elena had pretended to accept the payments, Elena had died, Soren had left, and yet Greil had held onto them all that time. He couldn’t help but shake his head at the old man’s ideals.

Finally Soren looked up at Rhys again. “Well, isn’t this the part where you bleed excuses like a stuck pig? Or do you need me to get you started?”

“I’m sorry.” Rhys shook his head. “I shouldn’t have read the note, and I shouldn’t have hidden it. I disobeyed Commander Greil’s order, and I was a poor comrade to you.”

“I don’t care how you feel,” Soren shot back. “I want to know why.”

“I was afraid.”

“You’re still talking about your feelings.”

“I know. I’m trying to explain.” Rhys dragged his hand along the back and down side of his neck. “I was afraid what Greil said was true, and that he would be killed. I was afraid the company would be torn apart. If Ike was to become our leader… I thought the note indicated a crime against Ashera. I sought to protect him by smothering it.”

“A crime against Ashera,” Soren repeated. He hated those words almost as much as ‘Branded’. He took a step forward, and his hands curled into fists. Although he couldn’t look very threatening considering their height difference, Rhys faltered. He stepped back so his spine met the bookshelf, and his head sunk into his shoulders.

“Th-the Goddess defines love as that which occurs between a man and a woman,” he rushed to explain. “I had a bad feeling about Ike…and I thought the letter might be evidence that...” His voice trailed away until he shook his head, clearly embarrassed.

At first Soren was just surprised. But then he felt a tickle in his chest, and a moment later, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing. He wasn’t happy exactly, even though he was relieved. The anger was still there—perhaps even stronger than before—and yet, he couldn’t help but laugh at his own misunderstanding. “We were children,” he finally spat.

“I realize that. I am sorry.” Rhys clutched his head. “But if Greil still believed- And Ike had always seemed- No, it’s no excuse, but- Do you remember… It must have been your second year with us. Shinon dared Ike and Boyd to sneak into a brothel of all places. They were trying to persuade you to join them.”

“I remember,” Soren growled. It wasn’t a fond memory. Ike had been thirteen, Boyd fourteen. It’d been a hot, hormonal summer for the pair, but not for Soren. He’d been marking his height for over a year by then and painstakingly noting every way in which he was different. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I could never forget what I’d heard,” Rhys continued. “You were adamant in your rejection of their plan, so Boyd was trying to entice you with the promise of adult women. But Ike touted the merits of male and female prostitutes alike. The fact that he would even think such a thing…” He shook his head as if the scandal still rocked him. “I put a stop to the plan, but from that moment on…”

Soren had been so absorbed by his own refusal that day, he hadn’t paid attention to what Ike had been saying. In retrospect, Rhys was right—and yet, he was also very wrong. Suddenly thinking of Roark, old anger mixed with new. Soren’s fingers twitched in their eagerness to seize Rhys’s collar, but he resisted the urge. “Let’s get one thing straight: Commander Ike can love whoever he wants. Nothing he will ever do will ever be a ‘crime against Ashera’, and if that’s what you think, he doesn’t need the likes of you looking out for him.”

“O-of course, I-”

Soren’s rage wouldn’t leave him. “You’ve always wanted everyone to believe you’re so pious, so pure of heart, but you are just as full of hate and bitterness as anyone.”

“That’s not true-”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Soren turned to leave and was nearly to the door when he heard Rhys call in an airy wheeze:

“I know what it’s like to be a crime against the Goddess.”

Halting in his tracks, Soren looked over his shoulder in time to see Rhys slide down the bookshelf until his butt hit the floor and his torso fell limp. He’d actually passed out from the argument.

Soren was considering leaving him for someone else to find, but then he heard Titania’s voice in the hallway: “Rhys! Soren! We’re almost ready to leave. Rhys! Where are you? Soren!”

“Library!” Soren finally called, and Titania soon appeared.

“Picking a book for the road?” she joked, but her face fell when she saw Rhys’s body.

“He wasn’t feeling well,” Soren lied.

Titania flew to Rhys’s side. When Soren tried to leave again, she stopped him. “Help me take him to bed.”

Rhys was frail and Titania strong. She needed no help carrying him (not that Soren would have been much help anyway), but he resigned himself to the task of holding doors for her as she brought the healer to his room.

Setting him on the mattress, Titania brushed the damp hair from his forehead. “He’s burning up. I told him he was pushing himself too hard! Go tell Ike we need to delay our departure. I’ll fetch some water.”

Soren obeyed. Ike was sympathetic when he heard the news, and he declared the mercenaries would stay at the base another night. They unloaded the horses, and Soren put the letters and bag of coins in his own pack.

Looking at Elena’s signature at the bottom of the tiny note, Soren wondered for a moment if Ike and Mist would want to see their mother’s handwriting. But he banished the thought almost as soon as he conjured it. Such a thing would only lead to confusion and possibly make the siblings heartsore and morose. Taking the note back out of the bag, he decided to burn it instead. Then he took another look at Greil’s letter. There was no reason to keep it either. He’d already gotten Greil’s message, and he’d already determined not to abandon Ike. The letter was nothing but a liability, and with this thought in mind, Soren decided to toss it into the fire too.

  

That evening, after accomplishing this task, Soren debated turning in for the night or going to Rhys’s room. Part of him never wanted to speak to the healer again, and another part of him wanted to march in there and demand to know what he’d meant with those final words. He had yet to come to a decision when Titania found him.

“Rhys is doing better now,” she began. “He told me you were having an argument when it happened.”

Soren mentally cursed Rhys’s impulse to share his feelings in order to feel better. It was terribly inconvenient. “What of it?”

Titania narrowed her eyes. “He said you were arguing about Ike.”

Soren glared in return. “And did he ask you to weigh in on the subject?”

“No, he would tell me no more than that.”

“Then it is none of your business.”

Titania crossed her arms. “He asked me to get you. He wants to finish whatever row you’ve started. But you’d better take it easy on him.” She raised a finger in warning. “He’s still recovering.”

Soren gave her a withering look. “We’ll see about that.” His internal debate now resolved, he headed toward Rhys’s room. Since Titania’s message had been conveyed, he was annoyed to feel her hand on his shoulder.

“Wait. Just, wait.” Her voice had become softer, and her face looked suddenly older in the candlelight. “I don’t know what you could be arguing about, but… Just know that I spent years jumping at the drop of a hat to defend Greil’s honor. I would do anything to enforce the esteem I thought he deserved. I believed no one could ever be as loyal to him as I was, which felt good, but it was also…exhausting. And he never actually needed me to do it.”

“Your point?”

“My point is—” she released his shoulder “—don’t be like me.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.” Soren walked away before she could stop him again, but he couldn’t deny her words had struck a nerve.

When he considered the years Titania must have spent pining for Greil, it made his own feelings toward Ike seem pathetic and cliché. He had fallen for the man he’d dedicated his loyalty to, and just like Titania, he was doing nothing about it. As he walked, he wondered if Titania suspected his feelings and that was why she’d said what she did.

Shaking the thought away, he proceeded to Rhys’s room. Here he found the healer sitting in bed with a pillow against his back. “I didn’t think you’d come,” was his greeting.

Soren closed the door, walked as far as the bedside table, and folded his arms, waiting.

“We can’t leave things as we did. I want you to understand…”

Soren still said nothing. He refused to make this easier for him.

“I don’t want Ike to be ostracized, because I know myself what it is like to be lost from Ashera’s grace.”

Soren scoffed to convey his doubt.

Rhys took a steadying breath. “My parents are not frail; I am. They are first cousins, and I am an abomination. It is against Ashera’s will that I was conceived.”

This was not what Soren had expected to hear, but he refused to look sympathetic.

“They are sick; it’s not their fault.” Rhys continued, shaking his head. “My mother suffers from delusions and my father compulsions. My family is poor, the village small. Their only comfort was each other...” He paused as if waiting for Soren to reply.

“I don’t care about your parents’ problems,” he finally said, “and it has nothing to do with Ike.”

Rhys seemed to sink deeper into the pillow at his back. “Aren’t you repulsed by me?”

“No more than usual,” was Soren’s reply, but he couldn’t pretend Rhys’s words weren’t eerily familiar.

Rhys’s mouth parted slightly, but he did not respond.

“So you are ashamed of your parents and ashamed of yourself. You think your lovely mother goddess disapproves of you, so you’ve vowed to live by her will, is that it?”

“I do try to…”

“But you are not a priest; you’re a mercenary. You may save more lives than you take, but the latter isn’t zero. Not to mention you are clearly willing to lie and steal to suit your interests.”

“I didn’t stea-”

“If you don’t pretend to be a saint, you may be more satisfied with not being one,” he concluded.

“You don’t understand…”

“Open your eyes, Rhys,” Soren growled in frustration, and his next words slipped out before he was prepared to voice them: “When I was a kid, I had to kill a priest before he could kill me. There is no honor in being devout. It doesn’t make you a good person.”

Rhys’s lips curled inward, as if in regret.

“Think for yourself,” Soren ordered, letting his tongue run away with him since he’d come this far. “A person’s existence cannot be a crime, and I guarantee Ashera doesn’t care about you, me, your parents, Ike, or whoever Ike does or doesn’t share a bed with. So give up trying to save other people from sin.”

His words collapsed into a silence that the room swallowed like a dark, gaping mouth. The candles at Rhys’s bedside flickered in the draft and glinted off the water in his cup. Soren felt as if his rage was seeping down his arms and out of his body through tiny trembling bursts at the tips of his fingers.

“Soren…are you alright?” Rhys asked, and it was certainly not the chastised response Soren was hoping for.

“This is the last we will discuss this,” he said and was surprised to feel his throat tightening.

Rhys gave one solemn nod, and Soren left without another word. He encountered no one on the way back to his room, and that was a relief. He couldn’t explain to himself why his throat felt raw and his eyes stinging, and he certainly didn’t want anyone else noticing it.

 

The next morning, Soren felt better. He behaved toward Rhys as he would normally, and neither he nor Titania commented on the previous night’s argument. Rhys’s fever had passed, so the company departed without delay. When the fort was finally lost from view, Soren felt relieved. He was forced to conclude that the old base had played with his emotions just like it did everyone else, and he was glad to be rid of the strange vulnerability.