Chapter Text
A pleasant sea breeze drifted over the rooftop gardens of Castle Enbarr, carrying with it a certain sharpness in the air, the faint scent of salt. Standing alone at the rooftop parapets, Ferdinand considered that it was not entirely dissimilar to the winds over Boramas—nor was this scorching heat which always accompanied the height of summer through southern Adrestia, and which had driven all other company from the gardens.
Few tarried long in the open sun this time of year. Yet Ferdinand endured the heat gladly, his gloved hands resting lightly on the rough gray stone of the parapets. Even standing still, he’d worked up a sweat in this weather. Undignified, he supposed, but for once, he wasn’t bothered. He faced the far-off ocean, eyes closed, and breathed in deeply. He’d begun a list in his mind recently of things he’d once failed to appreciate. Here were two more: ocean smell, feel of wind against skin.
Opening his eyes, he removed his gloves, placed them on the low stone walls, and spread his hands out before him, palms down, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight hitting them directly. Staring at his still too-pale skin, his lips curled to an uneven smile. Manuela had joked recently that he’d tire of sunlight soon enough, with the oppressive summer heat bearing down in earnest. He’d laughed along with her, wondering if that was true but supposing it probably was not. So far, her prediction had not come to pass. Though he’d spent much of his youth outdoors, he hadn’t realized how dearly he’d loved the freedom of it until that right had been taken from him. Only two months he’d had it back now, and he knew it would be many, many more before the sensation became anything less than novel to him.
Of everything he’d lost, this, at least—the simple pleasure of standing beneath the sun—felt like a thing that could be reclaimed. His skin might freckle or even burn in the process of it, but he reasoned his appearance had been so thoroughly damaged already by his time in captivity that there was little use worrying for it. (This reason, of course, did not quash the worry.)
He moved unconsciously to smooth his hair behind his ear, then stopped the motion halfway upon remembering there was nothing there to touch. In the days following his release, he’d spent hours desperately trying to untangle the mats that had formed of his curls before resigning finally to lopping off most of the mess. He couldn’t recall his hair ever having been this short, nor could he recall having been so vain about its appearance—but now it was gone, he found himself unexpectedly bothered by the loss. Frustrated, he replaced his gloves and dropped his hands to his sides, flexing his fingers irritably within the fabric.
The emptiness of the gardens struck him suddenly, and for a moment every sight and sensation of nature became worthless. He’d never been one for solitude, not in his youth nor adolescence, and certainly not now, after having been so deliberately subjected to it. He felt his mood darkening and made to refocus his mind. Quieting himself, he listened intently for the ever-present sound of gulls, the hum of insects, distant chatter in the courtyards below—any signs of natural being. The flush of life within the garden’s multitude plants and flowers was, after all, what had drawn him to this place. And though he found every sound present, it wasn’t until he heard the creaking of the gates behind him that he finally felt himself relax.
“Isolated, quiet, inconspicuous—I might applaud your choice of venue if I believed for a moment that the decision had been a strategic one.”
Ferdinand found the smile that came to him at the sound of Hubert’s voice was the genuine thing—an occurrence not so usual these days as it once had been. He supposed there was a certain irony that his thoughts now could be so easily brightened by the presence of a man who had always fashioned himself a sort of walking shadow.
Turning around, he said, “A fine day to you as well, Hubert.”
“Oh, quite. Adrestia rots and Fódlan ravages her corpse, to say nothing at all of the state of her emperor,” Hubert said, a uniquely vicious smirk upon his face. “A fine day indeed.”
Ferdinand looked up to the sky, then raised his hands, though whether he meant the gesture in its praise or only to shrug, even he couldn’t have said. “It is as fine a day as any other.”
Hubert only shook his head, unamused, and then nodded in the direction of the gates to the inner garden. Ferdinand obliged the unspoken request. He went to the gates and waited for Hubert, carrying himself with all his usual indifference, to lead where he would.
Yet as the man stalked past, that stoic image was marred somewhat, for that close the change he himself had undergone was still apparent, both in the unnatural thinness of his face and the way his jacket hung slightly loose off his shoulders. Ferdinand had begun to fill out somewhat in the last weeks, if not near to where he’d been, then at least to the point the word “skeletal” could no longer be used to aptly describe him. The same could not be said for Hubert, whose frame could only kindly have been described as bony even before the war.
But all the same, where his body faltered, all evidence suggested his sharp mind had recovered quickly, and Ferdinand found that knowledge immensely comforting at the times he began to doubt the state of his own. Hubert was a reminder not only that they both had survived, but he served also as assurance that there would be an “after” someday just as surely as there had been a “before.” One need only consider that in the short time since his return to the capital, Hubert had exhibited such a miraculous turnaround that the man he’d been then seemed now only the product of some faulty memory.
It had been eight months to the day of his disappearance that the presumed-dead Marquis Vestra had barreled through the gates of the Imperial Palace at Enbarr looking as if he’d crawled his way right out of the grave, gaunt and haggard, his worn-through robes hanging off his frame. He’d held a weathered tome in his right hand, thumb stuck between the pages, as if readying to draw forth its power at the least challenge. The whole of the great hall had been shocked to silence—and it was just as well because when he finally did speak, his voice had been so weak from disuse that it had been difficult to hear his words. But then, it was Hubert, and anyone with even a passing familiarity would have known his demand before he’d opened his mouth.
“Show me to the emperor,” he’d said.
Ferdinand had been among the crowd. He remembered the whole of events quite clearly, despite his otherwise shaky recollection of those times, having only recently been recovered from captivity himself. Hubert had been a sight that day, skin sallow, eyes nearly bulging in his thin face, a tremor in his free left hand betraying the otherwise steady composure he held in his right. He’d looked like a shadow of himself, Ferdinand had thought.
Now, as he followed him through the gardens, Ferdinand reassessed. He’d judged too quickly. Better to look a shadow than to feel you truly had become one, he’d learned.
He wished it were easier to dispel the dark moods that had taken to settling in him of late. The seed of them had been planted in his prison cell but flourished in his freedom, and now they’d become a recurring trouble. Worse yet was the confusion which so frequently accompanied the change in his demeanor. Those solitary months underground where he’d been afforded only the barest necessities—and only that he might not perish suddenly for lack of them—had served to muddy his perception of time. The passage of it had swirled so often to nothingness, so that even in the present, to think of it often displaced him, and then he found himself unmoored, unaware, unable to separate past from present.
It happened now, staring at Hubert’s back as the two of them wandered between hedge walls and trellises, that Ferdinand saw double, reality interposed with the memory of his disastrous return from Arianrhod nearly a year ago. He’d followed after Hubert then, too, through Castle Enbarr’s twisting halls, nearly at a run. He’d reached out to him, to grab his arm, to stop him—
“Ferdinand,” Hubert said sharply, drawing him out of his thoughts. At once, Ferdinand recalled where they were. The image his mind had conjured of stone walls and arched ceilings fell away, and the bright sun flooded his vision. Hubert’s face was set in a scowl, head turned to look over his shoulder at the place where Ferdinand had grabbed at his elbow, fingers twisted in the fabric of his coatsleeve.
Immediately Ferdinand released his grip and stepped backward, face burning.
“My apologies, Hubert,” he said. “My mind was elsewhere for a moment.”
“Need I ask where?”
“No, I suppose not. No place I should like it to be, in any case.”
Hubert sighed. “You’ll serve her no use if you can’t keep your wits about you,” he warned.
“A momentary lapse, that is all!” Ferdinand straightened his posture and clasped his hands behind his back, staring resolutely at some distant point in the sky as he willed his embarrassment to fade. “It will not happen again. I assure you, I am well enough for the coming affairs.”
“I should hope so.” Hubert turned away again and continued walking. “There will be no room for error when we convene at Garreg Mach. We must show the Kingdom and Alliance as many friendly faces as we’ve got.” He laughed dryly. “They’ve no love for me, but you always did play nicely with the other children.”
Ah, so that had been his aim in recruiting Ferdinand to the party traveling north to the monastery to negotiate an end to the war. He had wondered, given his uncertain fortitude these days. Still, he doubted his presence would offer any great advantage. He thought it unlikely their old classmates bore any lingering affection for those who still counted themselves a part of Edelgard’s forces, fractured though they’d become.
“If we must rely on the strength of old and broken bonds to see us through, I fear we have already failed,” he said honestly.
“Hardly,” Hubert said with a scoff, though he did not elaborate. Pushing past a wrought iron gate, he led Ferdinand to an alcove in the gardens enclosed by tall hedges. Set beneath an intricate pergola at its center was a patio table, empty now, though the wear of the metal surface suggested frequent use. By the familiarity with which Hubert strolled the grounds, Ferdinand surmised this was not his first visit. It was not until Hubert sat at the table and looked to him expectantly that recognition struck him, however.
“You and Edelgard used to take tea here, did you not?” he said, settling into the chair opposite Hubert. “Well, Edelgard did, anyway. I seem to recall complaints that your cup was often left untouched.”
“We still come here quite often,” Hubert said, allowing for a moment a touch of fondness to creep into his tone. It vanished just as quickly as he added, “And I don’t believe for a moment that she ever uttered a word of our meetings to you, be they complaints or otherwise.”
“Oh, no, not Edelgard. But Monica liked to serve her at teatime, and infuriating as she found your behavior, she was glad to report your ill manners to any party willing to listen. Is she...?”
“With the emperor, yes. We will not be disturbed.”
Ferdinand shook his head. “I find myself in a clandestine meeting with you, of all people, under the express instruction that Edelgard should not be made aware. Hubert, we are well past the point of my being disturbed.”
“Come now, Ferdinand. If I were orchestrating some nefarious plot outside Her Majesty’s knowledge, I would hardly bring you into those dealings.” He paused, smirked. “I have my own agents for that.”
“Do not tease,” Ferdinand said, frowning. “It only worsens my discomfort.”
Hubert looked away, arms crossed, his own unease evident in how rigidly he held himself. Quietly, he admitted, “There are no underhanded schemes here. Given her compromised state, I simply wished to avoid causing Her Majesty any undue stress. Her reaction to certain topics can be...troubling, to say the least.”
At that, Ferdinand felt a quick wash of guilt, though he was uncertain from where it had stemmed: on behalf of Hubert, for doubting him, or of Edelgard, because the truth was that he agreed with the assessment. He was well familiar with the change that could manifest in Edelgard’s person with almost no warning. She was never quite herself (owing to years of memories lost, he supposed), but most days now she was only quiet, observant, even curious. Then at times she seemed to suffer what could only be described as a waking terror which rendered her unreachable.
Their first reunion had been particularly awful, for the both of them. Before he’d even attempted to see her, Ferdinand had spent days mulling over the proper way to apologize for his multitudinous failures—for the fall of Arianrhod, for his inability to keep her from her uncle’s clutches after she’d been incapacitated, for everything his own father had put her through since.
When finally he’d gathered the courage to approach her, she’d looked to him with an offhand curiosity and asked quite simply who he was. Monica, who’d been at her side, had answered for him, and when Edelgard had heard his name, her calm expression had fallen away first to confusion, then to panic. In an instant she’d fallen to the floor, hands clutching her head and muttering under her breath. Monica had shouted an order at him, demanded he leave, and so he had.
He’d supposed he’d deserved the reaction, whatever had caused it. Perhaps his presence had somehow spurred Edelgard to recall what had led to her present circumstances and she rightfully blamed him. Or she might have looked at him and seen his father instead, and that too would have warranted such a response.
It was Monica who’d explained to him later that it had been neither of those things. It was simply that in Edelgard’s last memory of Ferdinand, he’d been a child. To her mind, 10 years had passed in the blink of an eye, and to be told that the man standing before her was, in fact, the same boy who’d just yesterday been challenging her to play-fights in the courtyard (and losing quite badly) had proved overwhelming to her already fractured psyche.
The only balm to her ills seemed to be the passage of time. As the newness of her surroundings wore down and she became accustomed to the changes around her, those episodes became more infrequent and her recovery period afterwards much improved. But it was still difficult to see a woman of Edelgard’s strength reduced to such a state. Hubert in particular seemed to struggle with it, though Ferdinand had the sense enough not to press him on his feelings regarding the matter. He found it best to approach the subject with clinical distance, when it must be broached at all.
Here, he thought, it must. He folded his hands on the table and thought carefully how he might voice his thoughts without worsening tempers. Finally, he said, “Is it wise to bring Edelgard to the conference? Could we not send proxies in her stead? If she were to suffer a fit publicly—well, I worry that our enemies might seize upon any sign of weakness.”
He was was relieved that Hubert received the words calmly, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.
“Frankly, we have no choice in the matter. If she fails to appear, then it’s blatant disrespect. On the other hand, admitting her to be unwell is as good as telling the other powers of Fódlan that our emperor is not fit to lead, and that hardly helps our position. Better then to prepare her as well as we can.” After a considerable pause, he continued, “As for our ‘weakness,’ I daresay it’s quite obvious already to any who’d care to look, disregarding Her Majesty’s condition entirely. Whatever delays our destruction, it is not that.”
At this, Ferdinand scoffed. “Our destruction? Please! The situation is not so dire, surely. We have lost ground in the north, but Count Bergliez continues to defend the southern front admirably.”
“Bergliez is a power unto himself, but with his forces spread as thinly as they are, even he should have been forced further inland by this point. That the Alliance army hasn’t already beaten back the gates of Fort Merceus would be nothing short of a miracle, if one were inclined to believe in that sort of thing.”
“And if one were not?”
“Then one might wonder what the Alliance hopes to gain by delaying the Kingdom’s assault on Adrestian territory.”
Now Ferdinand felt as though they were talking in circles. The more Hubert spoke of their situation, the less he understood his aim. The conference at Garreg Mach was ostensibly intended to bring an end to the war, but if Hubert were to be believed, their time would be better spent devising a new plan of attack—or at least a stronger line of defense. Yet of all the Imperial cabinet, Hubert was the one who had advocated most strongly they accept the summons and return to the monastery, and he had undertaken the brunt of planning for it as well. To what end, though, if he believed their defeat inevitable?
But then, Ferdinand never had found much success in attempting to untangle Hubert’s thoughts. The man only ever conveyed precisely what he meant to reveal, and to push any further than that was to indulge an exercise in frustration.
“You make it sound so hopeless,” Ferdinand said.
“Oh, our situation has been hopeless for months. And yet, here we stand.” Hubert leaned forward, and in his face there was none of his dark humor or scathing appraisal, only an intense concentration. “If the Kingdom and Alliance were to join forces and set out to conquer Adrestia, they’d likely succeed, and the Church will push them towards it.”
“But if that truly is their desire, why sue for peace at all?”
“Make no mistake, these negotiations are naught but a piece of theater staged for the benefit of the Church. They’ll demand more in surrender than we can afford, and when we refuse, we’ll have given them just cause to eradicate our heathen state. They’ll have displayed their mercy and their might, all at once.”
“You grant them too little credit,” Ferdinand protested, “and you underestimate our own people as well. Adrestia is not so easily undone. What demand could they make that we could not meet? By your own word, we are on the verge of defeat regardless. Surely there is no price so terrible that we could not pay it in order to ensure our survival.”
Hubert was quiet. His countenance took on a quality very unlike him, pensive and unsure, and he seemed to debate whether he should speak. For the first time, Ferdinand detected the air of worry about him, and he began to glean the meaning of their meeting here, alone. Finally, Hubert spoke.
“Where do your loyalties lie, Ferdinand?” he said.
“What sort of question—!”
“It’s no trap. I know the answer.”
“With the Empire. If you know, then why ask?”
“Because it seems such a simple thing to you. You don’t question it. You take offense even at the suggestion it should be questioned.” He sighed. “We’re terribly unalike in that respect.”
“You are Her Majesty’s most loyal subject, Hubert. What do you mean to say?”
“Exactly that. I serve Her Majesty, and her alone.”
At once, he understood, and with the understanding came the sinking feeling in his gut, grief before it had been given reason to manifest. He said, “You believe they will call for Edelgard’s head.”
Perhaps the subject were less painful for Hubert to examine now that it had been laid in the open. He let out a sardonic laugh and said, “Oh, not all of them will be so bloodthirsty. I understand the king of Faerghus could have performed the execution himself months ago, had he the inclination. The archbishop, on the other hand...”
“What could Lady Rhea hope to achieve by demanding the death of our emperor?”
“Beyond personal satisfaction? Her grudge is no secret, Ferdinand.”
“Again, you grant her too little credit. Surely she is not so petty that she would knowingly thrust Adrestia into a war of succession. The echoes of that chaos would extend well beyond our borders and cause unrest through the entirety of Fódlan.”
“I grant that tyrant as much credit as she is owed. But perhaps you are right. Perhaps she is shrewder than that. Her Majesty is the sole survivor of the Hresvelg line. She leaves behind no heir. You suggest a war of succession might occur. I suggest the Church would generously abate that possibility by selecting a candidate of their own to begin a new line of emperors.” Hubert snapped his fingers, the sharpness of the sound underscored by the manic grin which suddenly overtook him. “No, no, I misspeak. The goddess, of course, will choose this new leader. The Church will only enforce her mysterious, and conveniently silent, will.”
Never had Ferdinand seen the man so animated as this moment, describing the probable downfall of their homeland and the death of the one he loved more dearly than any other. And it stirred within him a number of emotions all at once—fear, anger, sadness, confusion—but the sum of them was only a permeating exhaustion. The summer heat felt suddenly overbearing, and he wished he were indoors.
“Hubert, what is it that you want from me?” he said.
“Only to ensure that you understand the situation,” Hubert said, and Ferdinand was surprised at how badly he lied. All the same, he lacked the energy or the inclination to press him any further. He nodded and stood to leave, making no effort to mask the irritation he knew was plain in his expression.
“Then consider yourself understood,” he muttered bitterly. But as he turned away, Hubert caught his wrist, a brief touch which he released the moment Ferdinand froze in place. Now Hubert was standing too, hands flat on the table. There was a warning look in his eyes.
“Lady Edelgard cannot be lost, Ferdinand,” he said. “You’ve seen for yourself how Adrestia fares without her. If it should forsake her, then damn the Empire and everyone in it.”
Immediately—petulantly—Ferdinand replied, “Myself included, I suppose.”
“Do you think so?” Hubert said, and Ferdinand fancied he saw the hint of genuine surprise in him, though it might well have been imagined for how quickly it vanished. Hubert returned to his chair, motioned for Ferdinand to do the same.
Ferdinand remained where he stood.
Unbothered, Hubert continued, “Would you choose differently? I thought you a fool once; I won’t lie. But after all of it, after all you’ve seen and all you’ve endured, is that where you’ll set your trust?”
“My trust is where it ever has been: in Adrestia, and in the future Edelgard believed it should have.”
“Even if she does not live to see it?”
To that, Ferdinand had no response. He turned on his heel and left, back to the shelter of the castle’s stone walls and every shadow they cast. Hubert, he left sitting in the sun.