Chapter Text
The king of Almyra is nearing the fortieth year of his reign. Few kings are crowned young enough, or survive political intrigues long enough, to see such a year. The council of chieftains has tried to convince him to abdicate several times. He refuses every time. The son he wants to succeed him is in disgrace after being defeated in a certain battle in the west, and he needs time to recover his prospects. Of course, this isn’t what the king tells the council. He tells them that he’s in good health and that the kingdom is prospering, and there should be no haste to name his successor at a time like this. But the years pass, and age begins to take its toll on him. Finally the council decides that if the king refuses to choose, they will choose for him.
But with the issue of the succession being postponed year after year, the royal children have stopped competing for the favor of their father and the council, and started involving themselves in other factions within Almyra. The council can no longer choose without giving power to one of those factions. At the king’s suggestion, they establish a single competition to decide the heir to the throne. The king's children are assigned tasks, most of them intended to demonstrate loyalty to the throne and restore the unity of the kingdom. The first person to complete their task will become the next king of Almyra.
One of the princesses has been disappearing for months at a time to ride with her mother’s people in the northern steppes. This was the Almyrans’ ancestral land before they rode south into the plateau, conquered the city called Alhasa, and built their kingdom. Two hundred years later, the nomads in the north have mingled with other nomadic tribes and begun to build a kingdom of their own. They call themselves the Mumutan. Their raids on Almyra’s northern towns have increased in recent years, so the princess has been tasked with securing peace on the northern border.
Two of the king’s children have earned the support of different factions in the Almyran court. To all outward appearances, their task is simple: prove the loyalty of the factions’ leaders. But these nobles have a history of public disagreements with the king, and persuading them to profess their loyalty is a task none of the king’s other children envy.
One of the princes has been chasing battles across the kingdom and building up an army of soldiers who are loyal to him. He lacks the patience and the wit for anything but battle. His task involves taking charge of one of the ministries to prove his ability to govern.
Another prince has been traveling to the Athar Desert in the east. No one knows how he spends his time there, but he’s been asked to improve relations with the kingdom of Kusata, a strategically important neighbor to the east.
The youngest of the princesses was born to a concubine from Kyungmar, Almyra’s southern province. The elders there still remember life before the Almyran conquest, and there are always whispers that a rebellion is on the horizon. The rumors have only grown as the king’s health declines. The princess has been asked to use her Kyungmarian heritage to prevent a rebellion.
And I? I’ve been spending my days in the far western provinces. If the kingdom is going to fall apart, I may as well position myself in the region closest to Fódlan. I listen to the tasks assigned to my siblings and conclude I’ll be told to secure some sign of loyalty from the governors of the western provinces. Instead the council tells me to go to Fódlan and come back with the Flame Emperor.
The message is obvious: I have no place in this competition. Why else would they choose you: the one who defeated me at Derdriu and ruined my political prospects in Almyra? I’m expected to forfeit and quietly take a seat, and if I don’t, you’re expected to refuse me, if not kill me on sight. Needless to say, I'm determined to prove them wrong.
So that's why I’m here. Not for your hand in marriage, but for your help with a little political intrigue. I’d say I’m begging, but that’s not the situation you and I are in. So, Your Majesty, what do you say?
Only the sound of rain lashing the windows followed Claude’s question. The silence stretched on while he stood by the fireplace, one arm resting on the mantelpiece in a leisurely pose. The fire below cast his form into sharp relief: the goldenrod hue of his tunic, the dance of shadow and firelight across his face, the flash of gold at his ear. A flame leaped and caught a glint of green in his steady gaze. Throughout the silence his smile remained: humorless yet complacent, condescendingly patient.
Across from him in a tattered chair sat Edelgard, her arms crossed. Her face gleamed against her dark and somber attire, and the flicker of the fire was mirrored in her pale eyes. Her lips were pressed together in a thin, tight line of vexation.
“So this is the choice you present to me?” she asked, her voice low, tinged with defiance. “To marry you and send you away afterward, or to help you save Almyra?”
The placid smile momentarily gave way to a grimace. “Not ‘save,’” Claude said. “I didn’t say ‘save.’ I said ‘help.’ Apologies it had to happen this way, but I think you were bound to find sooner or later that a political figure as revolutionary as the Flame Emperor of Adrestia never really escapes the public eye.”
Through clenched teeth Edelgard breathed a long and quiet sigh. “Suppose I choose to go to Almyra with you,” she said. “Then what? Am I to be a trophy for you to parade around?”
“Oh, don’t be so pessimistic, Your Majesty. You’ll be my honored guest. There won't be time for parading, anyway. The council may have set up this competition to strengthen the kingdom, but once someone wins, the others will be perfectly positioned to tear the kingdom apart. Like a cart tied to six horses, all pulling it in different directions. That’s where I’ll need your help.”
“Or I could marry you so you can leave me in peace.”
Claude lifted a shoulder in an apologetic gesture. “If it were up to me, I’d have given you a different option, but you got yourself into that one.”
“There’s no need for the implied apology. I don’t recall saying I had any objection to you.”
If Claude was startled, his wide smirk concealed it. “Well, consider me flattered.”
“If you wish to express your interest in Her Majesty,” Hubert said, speaking for the first time, “I request that you do so outside of my company.”
Claude straightened abruptly, frowning. “Wait, I wasn’t the one who said—”
“But that is not the matter at hand. I still fail to understand why I should not spare Her Majesty the trouble of this unpleasant decision.”
“Because I lost this wager, Hubert,” Edelgard said quietly, “and I won’t renege on my word.”
“Then the choice is clear, regrettable though it may be.”
“Marry him in order to send him away,” she murmured, gazing at Claude. He looked mildly amused. “It is the most logical choice. But he and I discussed certain matters before you arrived. Matters that lead me to consider the other option more favorably.”
The reticence in her eyes was clear, and with difficulty Hubert kept his silence. To Claude Edelgard said, “Tell me exactly the conditions under which I must accompany you to Almyra.”
“Certainly. You’re to come with me to the capital, Alhasa, and stay until I deem my reign to be secure, or until five years after my accession to the throne, whichever comes first. After that, you’re free to return to Fódlan. And I’ll never call on you for your help again.”
Again Edelgard sighed, her gaze sinking to the fire, and Hubert saw the familiar weariness that led her to seek a life far from the strife of politics, so desperately needed and deserved after all she had suffered for her ambitions. He seethed with indignation that Claude would dare disturb her dearly won peace, using her own word against her to make her a pawn in his scheme. Hubert’s decision, of course, was already made; he only waited for Edelgard to voice hers.
“I will go with you to Almyra,” Edelgard said at last, her voice heavy, “and I will detest every day of it until I can return to my villa again.”
Claude smiled, and though Hubert bristled, he noticed that his complacency was mingled with relief. “Thank you for indulging me, Your Majesty,” he said. “I think you’ll find Almyra… refreshing.”
Hubert cleared his throat. “I will, of course, accompany you both.”
“I’d be much more at ease with you there, Hubert,” Edelgard said. “But someone must guard my villa until I return.”
“Then my wife will remain behind while I accompany you. She is not one for tears and pitiful pleas. I will not allow you to travel alone with the one surviving person I trust the least.”
This description clearly pleased Claude, who remarked, “Well, if that’s not the highest compliment you’re capable of, I don’t know what is. That said, if you insist on coming along, I’d like some kind of assurance that I’ll be safe.”
“Very well. On my loyalty to Lady Edelgard, I will not harm you unless you pose a threat to Lady Edelgard’s life.”
Claude looked to Edelgard. “It’s the most you can hope for from Hubert,” she said.
“Well, then,” Claude said, holding out his hand. “Do we have an agreement?”
Edelgard rose stiffly and clasped his hand in hers. “Time is of the essence,” she said. “We should discuss our itinerary, Khalid.”
“And so, several weeks later,” Hubert concludes, raising his cup, “I find myself in the capital of Almyra on an errand not for Her Majesty, but for Claude, to investigate how the political situation has changed during the year of his absence.”
His companion whistles. “Wow. That’s pretty wild. I thought there must be something big going on if you were here, but I couldn’t have imagined anything that big. So where are they now?”
“They await my report in a small town a day’s journey to the west.”
“I’m kind of curious: what are they expecting you to find? If they’re expecting the kind of undercover stuff you used to do back in the day, you don’t have a lot going for you. I doubt you’ve become fluent in Almyran on the way here. And no offense, but here in Almyra you stand out a lot more than I do.”
Hubert smirks. It was true; he’d barely seen her when he first entered the coffeehouse and seated himself in a corner, like a minor actor quietly taking his place onstage to observe the scene. So absorbed was he in his perusal of the diverse characters present, and in his enjoyment of the coffee, that he failed to notice the familiar figure attempting to catch his eye from across the room until she came to sit down across from him.
“That I cannot deny. Fortunately, Claude has not requested such thorough espionage. He expects, and I quote, ‘your impression of the general atmosphere,’” he says, with a Claude-like wave of his arm. “And yet I fear even that is beyond me in a culture to which I am utterly unaccustomed—to say nothing of the fact that Almyrans appear to be much more fluent in our language than we are in theirs. I suspect I am much more likely to be overheard than to overhear anything at all.”
He is, of course, exaggerating his ineptitude. He is well aware that the two men at the neighboring table have been trailing him all day, and paying keen attention while he recounted Claude’s conversation with Edelgard. He will report them to Claude the following day.
“Well, lucky you ran into me,” his companion says. “I can tell you that things have been tense, but stable. No one’s close to winning the competition for the throne, as far as I can tell.”
“I see. Where did you obtain this knowledge?”
“Oh, I’ve got friends in high places. You’ll see. So how are those two doing? I bet they’re sick of each other by now.”
Hubert clears his throat and sets his cup down carefully. “They are not on speaking terms, presently.”
“Wait, really?” his companion asks, startled. “What happened?”
Mindful of his neighboring audience, Hubert only smiles thinly. “It is to be expected, after a journey of several weeks with none but me for company,” he says mildly. “And you? What is the occasion of this unexpected reunion?”
“I’m here with Merry. You heard the news?”
“If there is news from the Empire, I have not heard it since we departed Lady Edelgard’s villa.”
“It’s the biggest news in Enbarr. Jerry escaped.”
“Jeritza?” Hubert stares at her. “But it is impossible to escape that part of the Imperial dungeons.”
“Well, apparently he had help. Lys’ letter to Merry said some dark mages were involved. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure it happened before you left Fódlan, because Merry and I have been chasing rumors across Almyra for months. And it took you, what, one or two months to get here? You’re sure you didn’t hear about it?”
“Lady Edelgard and I never heard. The remoteness of her villa means news is always slow to reach us. But something as portentous as this…”
His glance darts to the corners of the room as he imagines his hated enemies lurking among the shadows. ”Dark mages?” he murmurs. “Impossible. We annihilated those who slither in the dark. And even if they were responsible, Jeritza would never have heeded them. And yet you say they are in Almyra…”
He shakes his head. “Regrettable timing, with Lady Edelgard’s arrival. They had better keep their distance.”
“I hope so too.” His companion raises her cup, drains the last of her coffee, and stifles a sigh of satisfaction. “Well,” she says, “I’m expected back around this time of day. I’d better get going.”
The two emerge from the shadows of the coffeehouse into the bracing chill and the golden light of the winter sun: one as pale as snow, the other lifting her brown face in welcome to the sunlight. Hubert’s companion turns to him with a smile. “Nice seeing you again, Bert,” she says. “Tell Eddy and Claudester I said hi. Though I’ll probably see them when they arrive.”
“Indeed,” Hubert says. “Till then, take care, Hapi.”