You Will Live

Loyalty Defined

Distinctly aware of the impossibility of it all, Hubert followed behind the Hresvelg siblings—both of whom were very much dead in reality. Lady Edelgard glanced back at him on occasion with an unspoken concern blossoming in her violet eyes. He mustered a short nod to indicate that he was fine. Her hesitation to face forward again showed how little this illusory version of her believed him.

Hubert should have guessed that Those Who Slither in the Dark would be adept with crafting accurate imitations of the world as well as people.

The steps beneath him were the very same sturdy stonework that was legendary to Enbarr. Even slight imperfections were present to foster believability. Hubert watched birds swoop from one roof to another above them, and farther still, wispy clouds brushed against blue skies. He could smell bakeries and blacksmiths firing up their workspaces in the marketplace ahead. The taste of both hung in the air, and Hubert barely shook off the recent memories of the devastated capital. A breeze swept over the three of them while they descended to the main street together, Edelgard's brown ponytail fluttering on the wind along with Edmund's Adrestian red cape.

"Hubert," Edmund prompted him. He struggled to discern if this was a faithful replication of the eldest Hresvelg son or merely how Hubert himself remembered his considerate nature. "You still seem preoccupied."

"Nothing to trouble yourself with, I assure you."

"It is rarely true when you say that." Astute in his memory, if nothing else, Edelgard wasn't incorrect in a broad sense. She hesitated on the market street and looked to Hubert, eyes bright and imploring. "I only wish you would tell me so I would not have to guess."

"Lady Edelgard, you and your family are well." He deceived Edelgard often. To achieve her goals with minimal sacrifice, certain moral quandaries had to be disregarded. Only when he lied to preserve his own feelings did his heart wrench at the deceit. Hubert trained his expression to neutrality. "I could ask for nothing more."

A final lie to a figment. Hubert held nothing but disdain for nostalgia and laziness. To dwell in this existence that he knew was untrue would be the epitome of both, and a betrayal of the truths in himself and the life awaiting him.

In short, he could ask for markedly more. And Hubert intended to.

Strong and scarless, her open hand waited for his. The distant buzz of the marketplace fell silent, taking all the birds with it. Rushing wind remained as the solitary sound around them. Her false brother beside her was frozen in a patient smile. The cape suffered a similar fate and stayed unmoving in the gale. Hubert took a step back from him and the threatening image of his emperor and lifelong friend.

"Lady Edelgard, I do not belong here."

"You know that you do."

The wind picked up, howling, erasing every warm detail of the fake realm he had been drawn into. It corroded behind her in waves, houses and townsfolk succumbing to the inky black essence of forbidden Agarthan magic. It would reach them in haste.

"You are gone, my lady. Until my time has come, I cannot join you."

"No!"

She pulled her arm from Edmund's grasp, and his arm disintegrated at the shoulder. Crumbling violet so dark it was nearly black spread from the fracture and up to his face. At last, it broke his empty smile. Hubert took that smattering of relief for what little it could offer. He was acutely conscious of the need to retreat. Turning his back on Her Majesty presented quite a larger challenge than he'd evidently prepared for.

"I'm afraid so."

"We are meant to stay together!" Edelgard gripped his hand with both of hers, warping to the wicked claws of the inhuman form she perished in. Her voice twisted to reflect that cursed distortion. "This is our path."

"Edelgard, that path is at an end," Hubert pleaded, wishing his voice carried more conviction. "You wished for me to follow my own."

"Would I do such a thing? Or have you fallen for a trap?" A chill ran up his arms, and Hubert shuddered. It stung beyond just her words. Searing, blackened trails radiated from the cuts she left on his forearms. Her fair skin peeled away in sheaths as she leaned close to look in his eyes. "How loyal is the vassal that moves on?"

Pain overtook him, and Hubert failed to disguise the flinch. To pull out of her grip now would injure him further. Knowing this well, the fake Edelgard grinned as more of her face sloughed to the ground and she dug her claws into his flesh.

Then, through the frenzied gust around them, he heard a voice.

"—ther! Now's a bad time to quit being stubborn!"

The speaker was young and frantic. Her voice carried both a pang of regret and the soothing balm of home, of belonging.

"Georgette," Hubert said to himself first.

Edelgard's smile dropped at his recognition, in so much as he could recognize her partially exposed teeth as emotive.

"Believing more lies, are you?"

Ignoring the agony of the pretender's claws moving up his arms, he shouted to his unseen sister. "Georgette!"

"Amazing," Lin's voice pierced through next, breathless and weary but with that edge of fascination. Not even peril could dull it. "The hex should prevent him from hearing us."

"You said you would die for me," Edelgard rasped, "and you would leave now, when you can fulfill your vow?"

"You implored me to live for myself," Hubert answered, in spite of how unwise it was to humor the fraud. "That is my purpose my now."

Air rushed into his lungs, damp and acrid, and the illusion vanished in a blink. Reality was instantly recognizable. The underground city reeked of blood and earth, and Hubert winced at the ache still in his arms. A quick examination was plenty to see they were unmarked by the replica's scratches, but the discolored markings from his use of dark magic had reached up to his elbows.

"They should recede in a matter of days," Hanneman advised.

Georgie threw her arms around Hubert, almost knocking the breath from his lungs with the force of it. Hanneman was mercifully a family friend that needed no response from him.

"I thought you were gone," she murmured against Hubert's shoulder.

He recalled so suddenly that his sister was young in many ways. Years of her life were spent hidden away, and when she returned to the public eye, she marched into the battle of a lifetime. One where her brother almost perished. Based on the soreness in his arms, he would guess the hexed world was meant as a diversion until the insidious magical toxin worked its way to his heart.

Hubert held her as delicately as he could.

"I'm here."

Behind her, Linhardt held up a scroll Hubert recognized. Slightly singed and stained with dried blood in places, yet unharmed otherwise.

"We collected this from your friend," he presented a euphemism for the corpse, wrinkling his nose at the cold Agarthan. "You could have told us you were looking for Lysithea's cure."

"You intuited it," Hubert deflected, accepting help from Georgie in getting to his feet.

A sickening rumble thundered above them, interrupting their conversation.

"Javelins of Light," Hubert noted. Bringing such ruinous weaponry down on their own heads surely had a deeper motive than killing intruders. He could analyze that when he wasn't standing beneath presently crumbling debris.

"The exit," Hanneman urged them, waiting until they had all left to guard their backs. Georgie joined him while Lin led the way with Petra, who had presumably guarded the door as they freed Hubert. Neither of them had exchanged words since Her Majesty passed. Expressing gratitude for her protection would have to continue waiting. The city came down around them, and the best Hubert could do was keep up with the others.

There was no time to look for injured stragglers or deceased allies—or those who yet lived.