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Hubert swears fealty to Lady Edelgard when she is fourteen.
Oh, it’s not the first time. The first time, he was nine and she was six, and she no more understood the words said to her than he did the words he was saying. The oath was common and childish, as such oaths always are, based on nothing more meaningful than the pedigrees found in Aegir stud books. He was given words to say and he said them.
The second time, when she is fourteen and white-haired, the words barely come at all. Hubert is used to speaking bluntly, not honestly, and the cold night air of Lady Edelgard’s balcony makes them both shiver. He talks instead of irrelevant matters: his hatred of his father, the treachery of Hevring, and the uncertainty of the future.
The last topic catches her attention, even with the nightmare still lingering on her furrowed brow. She says, “The future is not uncertain.”
“You will be emperor,” he agrees.
“I will be emperor.”
That is not the decision. That choice was made by their enemies when they released her back into the wild. Their favourite lab rat, to replace the tame Ionius.
“You have been at court more recently than I have,” Lady Edelgard says. She has not yet been allowed to return to the palace at Enbarr. “Where does the real power lie? With the regent — or the prime minister?”
“The regent,” says Hubert, without hesitating for a moment.
“When I am emperor,” says Lady Edelgard, and stops. There is a look on her face of raw, hollow despair. The melancholy comes upon her suddenly these days.
“When I am emperor,” she says slowly, “he will still be regent.”
For that matter, the prime minister will still be prime minister. Hubert nods.
“My father sits in his chambers and reads philosophy on consolation in grief. My mother — ” A quick, gasping breath, as if from being stabbed. “My mother is dead.”
“Yes.”
“This cannot be managed away. The Empire’s problems aren’t small; their answer can’t be small, either.” She bites her lip, contemplating the vastness of the work and the inadequacy of a single life. “But for now, let us say that Adrestia has no emperor.”
This is Hubert’s moment. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Lady Edelgard glances at him, her white eyebrows rising. It makes her look younger than she is, or, more accurately, younger than he is now used to her being.
“You doubt me,” she says. It is meant to sound firm, as if she is putting an end to all doubt, but there is a tiny crack in her voice, papered over by the proud lift of her chin.
Hubert swallows. Still nothing comes.
“Very well,” Lady Edelgard says. She turns her head away, staring out over the dark midnight gardens. Her posture is stiff even in her nightgown and her hands are tightly clasped in front of her. “You will speak of this to no one — ”
He drops to his knees and presses his lips to the stone slab before her feet.
“Hubert!” she says, startled out of her pride. “You’re going to bruise your knees.”
Shaking his head, he stays on the ground.
“You need not fear me,” she says painfully.
“Your Majesty,” he answers, “I don’t.”
Her silence is full. After a moment she places her hand on his head: a benediction. She has done it once before, when she was six and he was nine. She will do it once again, years from now, when the crown is on her head and the whole world is watching, but it will never matter as much as this private covenant.
“Rise, Hubert,” she says, then and now and one day. “Rise and greet your emperor.”