Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE: The Pen is Mightier
+
To the Concern of her Eminent Shadow, Mage Grandmaster of Plegia:
Do not mistake this parcel’s innocuous wrapping for an olive branch—I write to you today on the blatant premise of threat.
You are a stain. Setting your brigands loose on our borders, plundering our villages, slaughtering our men with your eldtrich magic—your violent charade has carried on far too long. The people of Ylisse say our enemy is Plegia, but I know this Plegia they fear is no country, no king, but a woman with sword and tome, hiding her face in the darkness.
This Plegia is a coward.
Grandmaster, I do not know your name, but I am certain the history books will make careful record of it once I’ve slain you where you stand.
If you are looking for a divination, some message from your blasphemous god, this is it. Your days are numbered. The next my Shepherds meet your brigands, I shall charge through their ranks and kill you myself.
I imagine you did not expect such words from me. Your people consider our age of Ylisseans demure, given the breadth of our Exalt Emmeryn’s grace. Should you carry the selfsame impression, hear me this: my sister may be merciful, but I am not.
May you revel in the feeling of your head upon your shoulders, Grandmaster. It will not be there much longer.
In Naga’s Name and Light,
Prince Chrom of Ylisse
Robin almost throws the letter away, as she’s done with the numerous other threats on her life that have shown up in her morning post--anonymous, messily penned things, full of hot air and fatalistic drivel about the wrath of the Fell God, Grima. But not this one. No, the Ylissean Prince is bold enough stamp his name and seal right on his foolish declaration.
She reads it again, mouthing the words wrought in his perfect cursive, but she can hardly finish without erupting into laughter. It takes a special kind of idiot to be this audacious—and Robin's invaded Regna Ferox in the winter.
“Something’s got you giggling.”
She looks up. Her pale shadow of a retainer has appeared in the doorway, his perpetual smile bright as the moon.
“Good morning, Henry,” Robin says. “You wouldn’t believe it—it seems I have a gentleman caller.”
“Oh, I’d believe that. You’re adorable, Lady Robin,” says Henry, stepping into the study. “Not as adorable as the Risen, though.”
“You flatter me. Come, look at this.”
He joins her on her reading couch and leans over her shoulder to glimpse the letter. “Milady, I know I don’t have the best social skills, but I don’t think that’s a ‘gentleman caller.’”
Robin nudges the letter into Henry’s hands. There’s something green and rotten caked beneath his nails, but since her breakfast is coming, she’s not going to ask what. “Here. Look at the sender.”
“Prince Chrom of Ylisse!” Henry shouts, and Robin gently shushes him. “Do you think he’s serious?”
“I think he’s very serious. That’s what’s so funny about it all.”
“Well, what’s next? Planning the offensive? Gutting him? That’d be fun.”
Robin takes back the letter and reclines on the couch, studying the obnoxious pen flourishes that melt off the Prince’s signed name. “I don’t know,” she says. “Is it worth it, expending all my tactical energy on a man I can’t remember ever fighting?”
“You lost your memories when you were young, right?”
“If I got into a schoolyard fight with the Prince of Ylisse in my childhood, Grima will it that someone on this court would have the pity to tell me. Pitiless people they are,” Robin quips. She hooks a finger beneath her lip, contemplating. “I may have an idea, though.”
“Does it involve blood?”
Robin winks at him. “Not yet.”
“Awh.”
She tugs on one of the bangles at his wrist. “Check on my breakfast for me? Zaya should have been here twenty minutes ago.”
“Can you tell me your idea first?”
“Later,” she says, waving him off. “I’m starving.”
Henry nods and kisses her gloved hand—something that started as a protocol, when he first came under her father’s employment, but has since become the sweeter of Henry's habits—then departs for the hall.
Letter in hand, Robin heads for her desk by the window. On better days, the lacquered teakwood picks up an even matte of sunlight, but with a new maritime campaign to plan, the wood is hidden under maps and inventories and a precarious collection of thumbtacks, their points up and gleaming like tiny blades.
Robin eases the letter down and sets a blank piece of parchment beside it. Her gaze flickers to her quill, a large Pegasus feather, sitting patient before a jar of ink.
“If it is a war you’d like, Your Highness,” she mutters, lifting the quill, “Then a war you shall get.”
+
To the Concern of His Royal Highness, Prince Chrom of Ylisse:
I have prepared quite a few words for you on this bizarre occasion of our correspondence, but I feel for an introductory remark, a succinct few shall suffice:
Kiss. My. Ass.
How uncouth of me! I know. Believe me, I can almost imagine the line of sweat trickling down your brow at the sight of a lady, Grima forbid, slinging such foul words across the page. My prayers for the poor soul who must dab your desolate head with their handkerchief.
No matter, I have reviewed your propositions to assassinate me, and I must convey with great regret, well-plotted as they were, that they have been denied. Should you wish to submit another request for my head on a pike, I believe the Plegian Royal Council will reopen their submissions in the autumn.
As I read your letter once more, I must say I find your perceptions of me rather humorous. You capture my visage in striking detail, yet you’ve somehow deluded yourself that I am the only Plegian sword upon the battlefield, the sole perpetrator of the bloodshed suffered by your “Shepherds,” as you call them. Such ardent fascination—dare I say obsession, Your Highness, could prove quite the chink in your armor.
What’s stranger is I cannot recall ever fighting you at all. You, Prince Chrom, must be rather unmemorable.
Still, do not take my tone for a jest. If you truly plan to challenge me, I am unopposed to crossing blades. Yes! Blades! I will do my most earnest to make this a fair fight. But do not expect a victory, Your Highness. One does not stoke a hornet’s nest and evade the sting.
In Grima’s Glorious Dark,
Mage Grandmaster of Plegia
P.S. My name is Robin. You’d do well to remember it when you’re begging for your life.
“This brazen woman,” Chrom mutters, snatching the letter back from Frederick’s hands. “The nerve of her!”
Fredrick sets his teacup gently on its saucer. “I did tell you it was unwise to send the letter.”
“As if I expected a response,” says Chrom, bristling. “Who replies to a threat of assassination? She should be cowering, stealing her bandits away from the borders to protect herself. Not bickering with me like some petulant child.”
This earns him the pop of an eyebrow from Frederick. “You truly think a piece of parchment could still a hundred swords?”
“More has been achieved with less,” Chrom scoffs. “Besides, the Mage Grandmaster—this Robin—is the backbone of the Plegian army. Compromising her should throw their forces into complete disarray.”
Frederick lifts the tea kettle and refills his liege’s cup. “Yet it appears she remains uncompromised.”
“I am well aware of that,” Chrom says, shaking the letter. “What should I do, now? Go on the defense? Head back to the border to kill her and be done with it? All I want is to keep my family and my people safe.”
“I know this.”
Chrom sets down the letter and closes his hands around his teacup. A gesture of smallness. Uncertainty. It’s unbecoming of him.
“I’m no tactician, Frederick. I can’t think about these things without the pressure of battle to spur me on.”
“Do you regret sending the letter?” Frederick asks, arching a brow.
“No,” Chrom rushes. His reflection stares back at him from the teacup, judging. “Perhaps.”
“I see,” says Frederick. “Lady Phila is dispatching an arm of her Knights to a wellspring near the border—per Cordelia’s scouting, another ring of bandits has been circling, looking for a way into the Temple of Naga. She requests your presence at half after noon to review the formation.”
“I doubt Lady Phila needs my counsel.”
Frederick stiffens. “The request came from Cordelia, Your Highness.”
“Right. Well, I’ll see to it if I can,” Chrom says. He slides his teacup, unfinished, and saucer to the center of the table. “In the meantime, I have another matter of strategy to attend to.”
“If I may speak freely—”
“You always may.”
Frederick takes a deep breath. “Thank you, Your Highness. What I was saying was that I don’t think you should respond to the Grandmaster’s letter. She’s…certifiably unhinged. Not to mention her unconscionable flair for cliche.”
“I’ll make note of it,” says Chrom. “Say, if I remember correctly, weren't you needed at the stables this morning?”
“You may simply dismiss me, milord.”
“You know you’re too good a friend for that,” Chrom remarks, the quirk of a smile on his lip. “Go on, then. Make sure Stahl hasn’t burned the place down and whatnot.”
Frederick exits with a bow. As the door clicks shut, Chrom picks up the letter once more. He runs a bitten nail beneath her name, so boxy and simple, penned in her post-scriptum.
“Robin. Like the bird,” he whispers to himself. It doesn’t suit you—Robin is far too lovely a name for some maleficent hag.
Well, he doesn’t know she’s a hag. Stories of her speak of youth, of a prodigy mage slinging lightning from the shadows. But he’s only seen her on the battlefield once. Through the fray, he caught spare fragments of her ornate coat, her jagged blade, her plumes of white hair matted with gore and grit. Never have they fought head to head.
That will change. Each has challenged the other’s life, and a duel is worth the price of their honor. Chrom has never been the sort to bask in violence, yet the thought of facing this quiet nemesis he’s made, of her blood sliding red down Falchion's steel, of her eyes—whatever color they may be—pierced wide with terror, sets a terrible thunder in his heart. His arms ache suddenly for his sword.
But without Frederick around to chide him, he picks up a quill instead.
+
The royal mail convoy is a junior Pegasus Knight, another one of Phila’s mentees. She can’t be more than fourteen, Chrom thinks, looking at her full cheeks and wide, bright eyes, her lashes caked with an amateurish amount of black pomade. As Chrom nears her, she ducks a foot behind her ankle in a tiny curtsy.
“Captain!” she exclaims. “Lady Cordelia was looking for you.”
“I’ve heard,” he says. He holds out a sealed envelope, and when she plucks it from his hand, her nose wrinkles. “I do hate to send you so far again, Anise.”
“It’s alright. I suppose I have to prove myself somehow.”
He frowns. “You’ll at least travel to the border with the rest of the Knights?”
“I don’t know,” Anise says, shrugging. “Lady Phila might have me stay behind. Like last time.”
“Well, the journey from here to the Plegian capital is not an easy one. I’d say you’re more than ready for a tougher mission,” he says, and an unsteady smile warms Anise’s face. “In fact, in our strategy meeting today, I’ll put forth my personal recommendation on your behalf.”
Her eyes sparkle. “Really?”
“Consider it my thanks.”
“You’re the best, Captain Chrom!”
Clutching the letter in both hands, Anise departs, a little rumble of dust in her wake as she heads towards the stables. Chrom can’t fight a chuckle. She reminds him of his sister, Lissa—all that bright, boundless energy coiled up in a tiny frame.
Chrom takes for his own path, towards the verdant flank of hillside that slopes down towards the Shepherds’ barracks. But he’s in no hurry. Springtime sun begets a detour through the garden, where the hydrangeas are blooming in snowy puffs along the walkways, bounding well-trimmed thickets of lily and gardenia. Between long rows of hedges, white trellised fences boast curlicues of jasmine vine. Dandelions and violets—mere weeds to some—poke out of every crevice in the walkway tiles. They are fortunate, here in Ylisse, to have such variety of blooms to celebrate the end of winter.
Chrom’s thoughts drift westward, and his face towards a spotless blue sky. Spring in Plegia must be so dismal, with only lengthening days to shine on an unchanging desert.
“You’re going to be late, strolling along at that pace.”
Chrom swivels. Exalt Emmeryn seems to be growing out of the lily stalks she stands behind—the creamy flowers match her gown to the very tint.
“Emm,” he says. “I didn’t notice you.”
She picks a lily and twirls it before her face, barely hiding a coy smile. “You never notice anything when your mind is elsewhere.”
“Forgive me, then.” He points a thumb behind his shoulder. “I’m on my way to a strategy meeting.”
“With the Pegasus Knights?”
“You’ve been talking to Lady Phila.”
“As I am often.” She walks around beside him, and as he starts his pace again, he offers a bent arm, which she takes. “Those girls do quite like you.”
“Hah! If only their steeds did.”
“My dear brother, I’m so sorry your childhood dream of becoming a Pegasus Knight couldn’t come to pass,” she says, a shimmer like laughter in her voice. She twirls her flower at its pedicel, and a shadow passes over her face. “Blame father for praying so hard for a boy.”
Chrom tenses, a chill building in his spine. Neither has ever been the sort to make light of anything regarding their father. He was a tyrant; he ripped open the healing gash between Ylisse and Plegia, then died without leaving any sutures. Emm rose to the rank of Exalt with nothing from him but the greening, hand-shaped bruises on her wrists.
She notices Chrom’s discomfort and gives his sleeved arm a gentle squeeze. “What I mean to say is, if you want to start looking for love, their ranks might be a fruitful start.”
"Gods, I don't think I'm ready for that."
“If you want my honesty,” she starts, “When you are ready, I think you should try for someone you’ll need to chase a bit—rather than the first person to chase after you.”
“Or: I could enter a clandestine romance with a knight sworn to protect me and never tell a soul but my precious little siblings.”
Emmeryn rolls her eyes—she’s never very proper with her siblings, and Chrom thanks the gods for it. “I hate to break your heart, brother, but Frederick’s had his eyes on Lady Cordelia for months, now.”
Chrom offers his sister a soft smile. “She’d be a wonderful Queen, Emmeryn.”
“You fancy Lady Cordelia? Since when? She’ll faint dead away if she hears you say that.”
And his smile falls. “I mean Lady Phila. For you,” he says. “Gods know any wife of mine would only become queen if…no. Perish the thought.”
“You’re maturing, Chrom. Quite a great deal,” Emmeryn replies. “That’s the only reason I’ll broach such topics with you.”
“Like death?”
“And love.”
Chrom looks out to the edge of the garden. “We really are going to be late.”
“Oh, worry not,” Emmeryn says, patting his arm. “My dearest Phila is admirable in her patience.”
+
Two Weeks Later
For as much as the Plegian League seems to revere her, Robin has never been fond of them. They are men, all but one—High Priestess Daiada, a cold, thin-lipped sorceress from the Tundralands with a penchant for swift executions—and Robin is a miniature against them, with only her padded coat and her words to hide her smallness.
There is little she wants from her father, but she often wonders if Grima couldn’t have spared her a few inches of Duke Validar’s height.
A gavel sounds throughout the Great Hall, pounding through the air down the curved vaults in the ceiling, and Robin rights herself in her chair. She sits to the left of her father, and him to the left of her Lord Uncle, the King. Gangrel’s stance betrays his title—he's all but melted into his council throne, his legs spread wide across the seat, one gauntleted arm draped along a velvet armrest the while the other serves to rest his head.
“Shall we begin with the reading of appeals?” Gangrel cries. A nasal quality colors his voice, one that makes him sound almost sniveling—but Robin hears it for what it is. All her life, she has been trained to peel apart words and tones, to root out the traitors among her ranks by virtue of wavering pitch and twitching fingers. Gangrel’s adenoidal lilt, she fears, is only prelude to a coming madness.
Robin stands and, as custom, regards her uncle with a bow at the shoulders. Unlike the rest of the Council, he bears no respect for her in his gaze. A sliver of a grin twitches at the corner of his mouth, and dread wrings her stomach—she has already lost.
She takes a shivering breath and turns her gaze out to the Council. Hope she grinds silently, the word sharp and metallic behind her teeth. Before any concession, she must try hope.
“Grandmaster? Your appeal?” the King pushes.
Robin clears her throat. “Let it be known, firstly, that this appeal is not mine alone, but the distillation of requests across the ranks of our forces, from our lowest of infantrymen to Grand General Mustafa himself,” Robin says. Her alto carries, but not so well as she’d like. “Our most dire need is provisions. We cannot be expected to fight if we are ill, or hungry, or sleeping beneath a cold night sky instead of a roof. I understand it has long been practice to hire independent parties to control our borders, but my Generals and I believe the funds channeled currently to mercenary hire might be better disposed to our existing militia. Perhaps such a change might allow us to draft more honest soldiers into our forces, instead of relying on blades whose loyalties are so easily swayed by the coin.”
She pauses, scanning, but the League’s faces are mostly unmoved. Only Mustafa offers her a nod to carry on.
“My request, given these conditions,” she continues, “is a fifty-percent slash of mercenary hire, with those funds, already expressed in the royal military budget, rerouted to new barracks halls and higher wages for all of our soldiers.”
“And what of the armory?” Gangrel trills. “Surely for such a sum, we’d invest more in our forges, our smithies—”
“I’ve reviewed the books, Your Highness. Our resources there are hardly in deficit. In fact, it would seem we’ve made quite the industry of bloodshed.”
“As the Fell God wills it,” says Gangrel. “These are funny words from you, Grandmaster. Your…prowess on the battlefield has become something of a fable in this land.”
“I have spoken only with pride,” she says, though a memory unfurling in the corner of her mind, a small, scorched hand reaching out through a crown of Arcfire flames, weakens her conviction.
“Then you’ll be delighted read our newest articles of war against Ylisse.”
“Our what?” she mutters. Her blood simmers—her uncle is a fool. Their skirmishes on the border are just that. Skirmishes. Hardly grounds for war. Ferox, for all its might and endurance, and the cold, aloof shores of Valm are the real threats, and he knows it. This is incendiary.
This is a test.
Robin glances to her father, looking for disapproval, but finds a glib mask of pride instead.
She cannot let this rattle her. She rolls her wrists, calming herself, imagining the anger in her body pushed out through her fingers like the first hot sparks of magic. “This is surprising,” she says, evenly. Eyes closed. “To think I thought you wrote your declarations in blood, not ink.”
For a breath, she thinks she’s disarmed him. Then Gangrel’s laugh, cruel and tinny, sounds at her side. “This was all your father, Grandmaster. I haven’t lifted a finger,” he says. “Though I’ll gladly lift my sword.”
+
Robin follows the King and her father to the throne room with the feeling of rocks in her stomach. She’s lost. Her men won’t be fed, and they’re going to war. Her vow to kill the Ylissean prince was little more than a game, but this is real. War. War, with Robin at the ravenous heart of it.
She will make so many widows. So many ghosts.
She wanted to be a professor. When she was a little girl, reading books to recover her knowledge of the world she’d lost, she decided that nothing would make her happier than to teach everyone in Plegia all the wonderful things she’d learned. Her father would not let her. Her Brand would not let her. Every day, she curses those six vicious eyes that bruise her the sun-coppered skin of her hand, that she can only dream to forget lie open and watching beneath her glove.
Gangrel stops halfway to his throne, the medals at his neck clanging as he spins to face her. Contempt sheens his eyes. “What. Was. That?”
“I beg your pardon?” Robin asks.
“You, wagging your tongue during the League council!” he exclaims. “Were you trying to make a fool of your King?”
“I gave only my honest judgment, Your Excellency.”
“Judgment? Your insolence borders on treason,” he snaps. He steps towards her, his rancid breath spraying over her face. “Don’t forget you only have your rank because of that mark on your hand. Were you anyone else’s daughter, you’d be slopping with the infantry.”
“Says our King from the slums.”
Validar holds up a black-tipped finger. “Now, Robin—”
“Silence, brother,” Gangrel snarls. “This is between me and the witch.”
Robin crosses her arms, hoping the folds of her cloak will hide her heaving chest. “I ask again—pardon?”
Gangrel picks at his teeth. “You heard me,” he says. He flicks something off his nail, and it narrowly misses her cheek. Disgust cinches her face. “You tried to make a fool of me, thinking you’re so smart, so tact. Your flowery words mean nothing to me. You mean nothing to me. All that matters here is the very thing you hide.”
“My brand.”
He grins at her, fresh blood shining along his gumline. “Your birthright.” He leans even closer, twisting his neck, but Robin is too paralyzed to move away. Madness is a hungry thing, and it has devoured him. “You will be their annihilation, Child of Grima—whether you want to or not.”
“And what hit to your pride is grounds for the Ylisseans’ annihilation?”
Gangrel tires of words—his palm is a searing iron as it strikes Robin’s cheek. Tears prick her eyes. She stumbles backward, a hand on her face, shame and rage twisting a vicious coil through her chest. And Gangrel laughs. Laughs until blood is dribbling down his chin. Until his head is cocked up to the windows in the ceiling, as if he wants Grima himself to hear him cackle.
Robin looks to her father, hoping for a shred of sympathy—at least a little diplomacy, if such feelings are beyond his grasp—but he is already lost to the castle’s shadows.
+
Robin’s room offers little reprieve. The late afternoon sunlight, waned to a placid cinnamon glow, feels like a taunt. Henry sits in the corner, his smile dimmed (never gone), and she sends him away at once, unable to bear even the slightest brush of her retainer’s lips against her knuckles.
She stalks over to her bed, hands raveled in her hair, nails scraping her scalp. Pain to hide the pain. Remember hope, she screams at herself, but hope is little against humiliation.
An envelope sits on her nightstand, addressed in a familiar, viny hand. She should think before tearing it open, use a letter opener or a dagger, but anger guides her fingers beneath the flap; she nearly rips the letter as she frees it.
To the Concern of Her Eminent Shadow, Mage Grandmaster Robin of Plegia:
Firstly, I am appalled that the name of such a kind and docile creature could be shared with a woman of your malevolence. Your mother must have many regrets.
Secondly, as my retainer previewed your last letter to me, he was mercifully sharp enough to remark upon your fondness for clichés. To think I almost thought you were clever! This is the only time you shall trick me, I assure you.
My armies are watching our borders carefully. If you are foolish enough to strike—know I’ll be there to put an end to it.
In Naga’s Name and Light,
Prince Chrom of Ylisse
Her lip quivers. She’s losing her grip and her power and they’re going to gods-damned war and he has the nerve to talk about clichés.
Across the room, her desk beckons, and she yields. She writes. Swiftly, furiously, she writes. Then she crumples her letter, and tries again, and again, until all she has left for the Prince of Ylisse is a curt paragraph and the thin, brittle hope that he might see the anger in her ink strokes.