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Byleth asks Rhea to attend to the Holy Tomb with them a week before the time of the Rite, when she knows Edelgard will be away in Enbarr for her coronation. By that time the dyes in their hair have started to fade and they have been wearing their hair pulled back more often, and training later and later into the day in order to avoid the archbishop’s eyes.
Byleth had rejected a tea time invitation twice now with the excuse they could not be expected to lead their students while not at their peak physically so while Rhea is noticeably suspicious about the sudden invitation to the tomb she accepts. For the sake of the Goddess.
If only Byleth could convince her this was all for that sake.
They try, they really do, down in the dark of the tomb that has only meant bad things for she or her students Byleth waits for a moment away from the eyes of the guards and with only Rhea watching drops the guise of mortality.
They had not expected the woman to fall to her knees.
“Mother,” she started in a voice Byleth has never heard before, that they recoil from, “it is you. I –”
“It’s not,” Byleth insisted, impatient, because the guards will be coming back and this is not the point. They do not - have never - had this kind of time! “I’m not Sothis. She only granted me her power.”
This time when Rhea looked up at her it was with eyes they recognized. Last time Byleth had seen such an expression their positions had been reversed and they had been the eyes of a god, towering over her; or perhaps it had been before then in the rain when Rhea had tied back her hair and finally shown Byleth the depth of her anger.
Byleth cannot deal with an enraged Rhea right now, not on the Archbishop’s own turf at least so they use the hand on Rhea’s shoulder they had given for support now to shake the woman, the other hand going to cover her mouth.
“Just, look. Look! I’ll show you.”
Byleth closed their eyes and willed the very depths of their mind to become reality, for the Beginning to form in earnest.
When they opened them again both they and Rhea stood before the throne.
“This was the last place I saw her,” Byleth explained, when Rhea – suddenly speechless and motionless – opts to do nothing but stare at the throne. “Solon tried to kill us both and he failed, but she wasn’t able to free us from his spell without giving me the last of herself.”
It still felt so new, talking about this. They were never brave enough broach the subject with Dimitri after the light came back into his eyes and Edelgard – well, they had been foolhardy in that timeline but not enough to risk the little they’d salvaged.
“You knew of my mother?”
Rhea finally spoke but when she did it was as if from a great distance.
“Yeah, I mean not about her powers at first, or even what she was,” Byleth admitted, “but Sothis was my friend and a great confidante. I think she –”
“Why,” Rhea asked, voice flat even as Byleth saw her mouth tremble when she turned toward them, “did you bring me here?”
“You wouldn’t have believed me otherwise.”
Rhea stepped toward them then, jaw clenched in a way that made it difficult to look at for too long; for fear her whole face might collapse and still Byleth let her do so, arms crossed, expecting a standoff.
They did not expect for Rhea to pass them by entirely, opting instead to bend down at their side and begin to unsheathe the sword there. Their reflexes were well honed enough that the dagger appeared at the archbishop’s throat before she could pull the sword out at any further but Rhea hardly seemed to notice and if Byleth had not been the first to draw back they would have drawn blood.
They watch as, still kneeling, Rhea merely cradles the sword in her arms as if it were a child. When she stands she holds it out to Byleth and, taking a moment to put away the dagger, Byleth accepts, taking it in kind before tossing it up with a twirl and into their dominant hand like they had so many times and so many lives before.
Only then did Rhea break.
“I would have preferred it,” she managed, albeit with some amount of labored breathing, “if you had simply cut me down where I stood back in the tomb I know and laid me there with my brethren.”
When the sword finally drew blood it was not at Byleth’s behest. Rhea’s hands, powerful as Byleth remembered from the life they had trained with her, opened so easily beneath the blade and the soft drip, drip of blood – the only sound in so much silence – seemed to keenly mimic the rainfall at Tailtean.
They dare not pull back for fear of injuring Rhea further, for this – some bleeding, mournful waif of a woman with only despair to offer up – this was not why they had come here, was not who they had expected to parley with.
Rhea, continuing even as Byleth’s mind reeled, pulled the point of the blade to her clavicle, eyes never leaving Byleth’s. “You must rectify this,” she demands, “in the only way you can. Carve out my heart and give me my mother’s back. Then leave us, for good.”
Rhea’s eyes then fell to the perfect, round center of the sword’s hilt, still in Byleth’s hands, and Byleth thinks oh.
That was what Rhea had tried to tell her before her untimely demise in Fhirdiad, what Edelgard had meant when after the battle with the Immaculate One she had ensured the dragon’s corpse it would still be of use to its beloved Fodlan.
Another truth of the world Byleth had to carry in Sothis’s place.
Stop, they wanted to shout. Help me carry this! Talk to me! but Rhea was still bleeding, palms buried in the sharp edges of the Sword of the Creator’s blade and only then did Byleth realize they were frightened.
Shaking her head, trying to back away, she said, “I’ve already killed you once, Rhea, I’m not doing it again.”
Not even that made Rhea give way so finally, desperately Byleth drops the sword. The Beginning is Their realm now and as she imagines gravity there so too does it affect the sword, falling from Rhea’s torn palms that are too wet and slick to hold on any longer.
Next, Byleth managed to kick the sword away. They could only wince at the keening noise the archbishop made, going slack even as Byleth tried to prop her up.
“Leave me! Useless child, if you cannot do this one simple thing then leave!”
They had thought they were beyond Rhea’s words. Beyond the hurt. But everything hurts here, and Byleth cannot tell whose it is or where it begins.
“What about Fódlan ?”
The question dropped from their lips, unbidden, and in that moment they did feel like a child.
Rhea peered up at them, bleary eyed. She had stepped away from Byleth’s outstretched arms and prostrated herself before the throne. Her face, now pressed against the rough stone seat, looked as if it might be hewn from obsidian itself.
“What about it? A land without the goddess. Forsaken.”
Byleth put a hand to their heart.
“A land without Sothis, yes, but still in need of protecting.”
Something sparked to life at those words, and just as quickly died out. Staring at Byleth in the same way she would stare at a stranger an admittance fell from her lips: “I have no desire to go back to a Fódlan without Her. Without hope.”
So that was Rhea's answer, though not the one Byleth had hoped for.
“Fine,” she grit out, bending down to pick up Rhea’s fallen crown; no, they corrected themself, fitting it on their head – the archbishop’s crown. “Stay here. Languish. But I won’t give up on Garreg Mach and the people there. I will protect them.”
With only one look back, Byleth stepped away from the Beginning and back into the Holy Tomb.