He found her in the field, and fate changed. But they still had much to learn about the past - and the future. A Fire Emblem: Awakening novelization.
~Cover art by Liirin Risun~
Tharja wasn't too pleased with the early-morning awakening, but nonetheless, she packed her belongings up and brought Elysa down the winding streets of the capital and to the shadows of the Plegian palace. A large courtyard, lined with rows of pillars, sat below a huge natural outcropping of sandstone rock. The palace sat on a plateau behind it. Lining the courtyard and parapets above, Plegian soldiers stood firm against the rising skyline.
"They're definitely up to something," Tharja murmured. "You've got your mother's intuition, you know that?"
"I mean, I did become a tactician somewhere along the line," Elysa gave her a wink. She had known Tharja for less than a whole day – within her memory – but the mage's presence already felt familiar and comforting. Someone was there who cared for her, remembered her.
But Chrom was like that, too. She started to push the thought away, but stopped herself.
Chrom. He'd better arrive soon. She prayed that Nowi and Gregor had found their way to him, and that the Feroxi soldiers hadn't cut the pair down somewhere along the way.
An elbow brought her attention back to the present. Tharja nodded towards the outcropping. "There," she said. "The exalt." Surely enough, Emmeryn was moving up the outcropping, flanked on both sides by Gangrel's soldiers. From this distance, it was hard to tell, but she seemed to be unharmed. For now, at least, Elysa thought grimly.
She glanced around. She and Tharja were standing off to one side of the courtyard, by a break in the wall that separated it from the city. The soldiers had clearly caught sight of them already, but a Plegian mage and a Grimleal were allies in their minds, and no one had come to bother the pair.
"Was my mother an optimist?" Elysa asked, earning her a raised eyebrow from Tharja.
"Was she what? She tried to kill herself once, if that speaks to anything."
Elysa winced. "Well, then maybe she and I are quite different. I have a plan – but it banks on a lot of 'what if's' and hopeful assumptions."
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"Now is not the time to be questioning your lord," he said sternly. Vaike grumbled something else incomprehensible under his breath.
Chrom's grip tightened around Falchion. He felt Lissa's hand cover it delicately. "Hey," she said, offering him a reassuring smile. "It'll be okay. Soon we'll be swapping stories with Emm on the way home." He looked at his sister gratefully.
"I pray you're right, Lissa."
His move was certainly risky, and Vaike's stilted comment did little to assuage his worries. It depended greatly on Basilio and Flavia's ability to get around the flank and get close enough to take the parapets, so that Chrom's group would be able to fight their way in from the other side. As far as he could tell, they were staying close enough to the outer wall for now to go unnoticed, but once they approached the courtyard there would be no way out of open engagement with the enemy.
