A/N: In which I attempt to do penance for my previous offenses. This is a tribute to Fire Emblem canon. But it is only a tribute, not a direct following of the events in Shadow Dragon.
I use the spellings found in the American localization, with the exception of "Caeda," which I keep as "Sheeda."
Disclaimer: The following contains characters and concepts that are NOT the property of the author. They are the intellectual property of Nintendo, HAL Laboratories and their associates. This work of fanfiction is NOT endorsed by the original creators and is NOT in any way meant to insult the original work. The author has received NO monetary benefit from this piece of ****.
Kings are like stars: they rise and set, they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.
--Mahmoud to Hassan
Hellas by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The swordsman watched a young woman from across the expanse of an aging terrace. She ignored him and stared down the horizon.
In a moment, the late afternoon sun seemed to blink and grow dim. He called out to her, but she was already ducking behind a pillar. He did the same.
A flurry of sharp black lines struck the exposed wall between them. Violent impacts shook the stone column behind which he hid. Instinctively, he shielded his face and throat with his arms. The projectiles struck the rock and marble tiles, many rebounding in a fury, snapping and scattering. A fear gripped him and threatened to overrun him, but only in that moment.
Before the next volley hit, the young woman sprang up and vanished behind the inner battlement. He leapt over protruding arrow shafts and quickly followed.
Behind him, the barrage pounded against the outer wall of the fortress like iron rain.
He turned to the woman, intending to deliver a stern warning. There had been no reason for her to have exposed herself to the enemy.
But she stood, thoughtful, examining one of the arrows in her hand.
“Your Highness,” the swordsman spoke carefully. “Please, do not take such risks again.”
She looked up and offered an oblivious, cheery smile. “Don’t worry about me.” Then she twisted on her heel, her long hair flaring as she pivoted. The princess charged through the open doorway and down the waiting flight of steps. She wore her riding boots, which echoed heavily inside the corridor.
He followed.
Soldiers flooded the lobby below. Their bulky armor clanked as they rushed to secure their posts. The swordsman rounded a group of archers on their way up the stairs. He tracked the back of her head--that fall of sky-colored hair--through the chaos and frenzied shouting.
Torches lit the inner hallways where sunlight never reached, not even on the brightest day of summer. Now, in the middle of winter, the castle’s darkness was accompanied by cold and dampness.
She cut straight to the stables. Her horse waited there, pacing nervously. Her attendants had suited the animal for battle. At her touch, the steed immediately calmed.
Her hands had been made calloused by lance practice. They looked light in color compared to most soldiers’, but next to the soft ivory of proper court ladies, her hands were dark, tanned by the outdoor sunlight, by moments she had stolen from her court-approved schedule, from years of dodging her women-in-waiting and ignoring her parents’ expressed wishes.
“Your Highness.” The swordsman dropped to one knee, head bowed. “You can’t ride into this battle. The enemy has too many arrows.”
“Yes,” she said, “but iron arrows won’t dent my armor. Nor hers.” She stroked the mare’s forehead.
He paused for a moment. “Princess, there are too many of them. Even weak weapons are effective in great numbers.”
“Then we’ll fly higher than their arrows can reach!”
“Your Highness, with all due--”
“Don’t worry about me! And please rise. My knights are waiting.”
The swordsman did as he was told. The princess mounted her horse before he could offer assistance to her. Reluctantly, he stood aside and opened the gate.
She seemed to hesitate. She met his eyes. “Sir, thank you. Do your best.”
The swordsman bowed. She rode past him. She didn’t look back.
He turned to catch one last glimpse of her. The horse unfolded its wings. With a leap, it took to the air. Both horse and rider rose over the walls and disappeared from sight.
He closed the gate and headed in another direction.
By appearance, he was a young man, emerging from adolescence into adulthood. His face--smooth and free of any traces of a beard--had yet to lose its softness. He wore his hair short, though it was still a little too long for someone who carried a blade. The loose blue strands did not fully conceal his long lashes or gracefully shaped eyes. His complexion was not much darker than that of the princess who had just ridden out of the stables.
Yet this young man strode purposefully toward turmoil and bedlam, into a castle under siege.
The sky seemed to flicker. He looked up. Pinpoints of light hurled down from overhead. He ducked low against the nearest wall. Flaming arrows came down in a cascade, striking the open field behind him. The ground began to smolder with small fires. The swordsman looked to the sky again. One last arrow sailed down, punching through a banner that bore the royal crest. The flag tore from its post and hit the ground, the arrow run through it. Flames caught to the fabric, and the insignia began to crumble away.
The swordsman cast another glance heavenward. The sky was clear. He ran for the safety of the inner castle.
Darkness swallowed him, and he quickened his pace. Outside the windows, another round of arrows were being launched, each one a spark trailing smoke across the sky.
Turning through the corridors, running past knights and guards who were headed in the opposite direction, he pressed on until he reached the throne room.
Those who could not flee gathered here. Many were injured. He counted less than fifty able-bodied soldiers in the room. The front doors had been barricaded. They were working to cover the side entrances. At the center of the room, a lady in long robes gently laid down the body of a dead knight. She rose with crimson stains on her gown.
The swordsman kneeled before her. He had not expected that she would remain behind.
The situation did not seem right. She was not meant to shield any of these men--certainly not him. They were her shields.
“On your feet, swordsman. The enemy is nearly upon us.”
He dared to look at her face. The calm he found there startled him. He stood up.
“Come with me,” she said.
Her priestesses continued to tend to the wounded. Those soldiers still able to fight readied their weapons. Word had arrived: the enemy was inside the keep.
Two guards tried to block her path to the rear hallway. They looked nervously to each other, but the lady lightly placed her fingers to one of the crossed lances held in her way. The soldiers yielded at her touch, as a pair of tree branches would have. Lady and swordsman passed into the hall.
She led him up the stairs into the central tower.
“My Lady?” he queried.
“They assail us from the air.”
The sky greeted them in pink and orange, the sun a deep red.
Winged beasts and their riders approached from the distance. He estimated at least two hundred. Around them, the smoke rose from fires burning below. The battle had resurged. Those trapped inside the castle must have realized that they stood before imminent death. Conserving their energy would be pointless. They fought now with the last of their willpower. Soldiers in those circumstances, the swordsman knew, gave no ground while they still breathed.
He gripped the hilt of his sword. “Get back inside. I’ll hold them off.”
“I will assist.”
“My Lady--”
She turned to him. “This is my duty, as well.”
The riders formed a front line in the sky and came to a stop. Two hundred arrows were drawn, and two hundred bowstrings pulled taunt.
The Lady pressed her palms together and began an incantation.
The swordsman drew his sword.
The bowstrings released in a near simultaneous note and launched a storm of arrows towards them.
In that moment, the swordsman dashed in front of the priestess. Steel flashed around him. Arrow shafts snapped in half, thrown from their intended trajectories, and scattered across the stone floor. His blade moved at speeds beyond human capacity.
Before the archers could reload, the priestess had finished her chant. Bolts of light burst from the sky above and struck the front row of riders. A crack, like thunder, covered their cries. When the light vanished, the enemy soldiers and their winged mounts had plummeted back down to earth.
The second line moved up to take the place of the fallen. In unison, they released another volley.
Now, both swordsman and priestess moved. His sword dance struck down the arrows before they hit; her magic deflected the ones he could not reach.
While the archers reloaded, the priestess began another spell. The arrows flew at them again. But then, the projectiles spun off course, caught in a powerful whirlwind. They whipped in circles around the priestess, obedient to her command as she redirected their paths and fired them back at the enemy.
More units fell.
Her attacks took the form of light--divine, earth-shattering light. But each row of troops struck down was replaced by another. The arrows came again in wave after wave.
The swordsman continued his dance; his blade swung in precise arcs--impossibly fast. He knew that if he did not keep pace, they would not last.
As the sun set, the priestess’s light spells flickered and flared. Steel and magic fought arrows until the last winged mount and rider collapsed.
The sky lay clear before them. The floor at their feet was covered with broken arrow shafts.
Gasping for breath, the swordsman lowered his sword. His left sleeve had been split open, and blood ran down his arm. He realized only then that an arrow had grazed him.
The priestess reached for him and covered the wound with her hand. He felt warm. Beneath her touch, his flesh mended, the skin pulling together.
Without warning, the building beneath them shook. They both stumbled. He caught her by the arm to help steady her.
“Don’t lower your guard,” she warned him.
It was then that a large form seemed to leap over the edge of the roof. This was not a beast unto itself--merely the clawed appendage of one. The scales stretched, muscles tightening, as the rest of the body pulled itself over the ledge.
It breathed fire from an open mouth of sharp teeth. Its head was the head of a lizard; its body was covered with patches of grey fur and silver scales. On its back, an armored soldier rode in a saddle, reins in one hand, a javelin in the other.
The priestess struck first, an incantation flying fast from her lips. Lightning surged down from the sky and hit the beast on its head. It jerked wildly, head ducking down, and let out a high-pitched shriek that made the swordsman wince. The animal’s mouth was open wide; its wings stretched out, covering much of the platform with their shadow.
Head thrown back, the beast exposed its throat.
The swordsman leaped forward, sword raised. His target was the mount, but just then, the javelin flew. Taken by surprise, eyes widening, he twisted his body out of the way and swung down with his blade, severing the javelin in half. Both ends tilted upward, but the front end--with its needle-sharp head--spun and continued on a wobbling, altered path. It flipped, turning like the spokes of a wheel, and found its home in the heart of the priestess.
The swordsman turned, feet on the ground, and froze in place. For him, time slowed to a crawl. It slowed enough for him to watch her body jolt with the force of the blow--hair and long sleeves fluttering. He watched as she collided against the wall behind her. He watched her crumple and fall to the floor. She left a stain on the wall--dark red in the fading light--a stain of thick fluid that crept down, down, down…
He whirled around and faced the enemy, knowing that the battle was lost, yet he would not abandon his duty.
He jumped in and threw himself at the enemy. His sword came down with as much force as he could marshal, but a shield stopped it, rebounding his own strength back against him. He staggered, arms thrown into the air, just as the animal bucked up its head into his chest. He flew backwards and crashed into the floor. His body scraped against the stones until he managed to roll to his feet, numb to the pain.
The beast raised the tips of its wings, legs bent as if to take to the air. A single flap of its wings sent a current of wind strong enough to make the swordsman lose his footing for a brief second. The mount and its rider were airborne now, but the swordsman charged after them.
He jumped.
The leap was of superhuman skill. He soared after the winged beast, chasing it to its heights. Sword in hand, he swung, cutting a wide arc toward the sky.
The blade’s tip slashed the animal’s torso and shattered its breastplate. The animal wrenched itself backwards with a cry and began to plunge.
The swordsman twisted in midair and followed his enemy down as both beast and rider crashed into the platform. The floor rushed up to his feet. He landed in a solid crouch, the tremors from the beast’s impact shaking up through his entire body. Rising up, he saw the rider hop off the saddle. The soldier wore a helmet covering much of his face. He brandished a steel lance that he now used to lunge at the swordsman.
The swordsman narrowly dodged the attack. His blade clanked against the lance, deflecting it slightly off course. He aimed a cut at the enemy soldier’s neck, but the other man shifted, and the sword blade glanced off his helmet.
Stumbling, the swordsman tried to back up, but it was too late.
The lance thrust forward and impaled him through the abdomen.
He was dimly aware, a second later, of the wall slapping him in the back. At the moment, he felt no pain. But he smelled blood. His sword slipped from his fingers.
He couldn’t move. He only stared as the armored soldier removed his helmet.
He knew that face when it appeared.
It smiled.
Then the lance tore through him again as it was extracted.
Now the pain came.
His legs gave out.
When he fell, he landed on something soft. He saw that he had fallen on her, on her bloodied gown.
He felt cold.
The sky dimmed. Above him, the figure of the enemy stood tall, his face a shadow. The madman, the warmonger--leaned closer, until his breath was warm against the swordsman’s ear.
“Let this be your coronation, Your Majesty. The brightest stars burn so bright because their time is brief. Anri, your glorious ancestor, ruled but for a day.”
He--the enemy--reached for something down on the ground, beyond the swordsman’s view. Then he straightened up to his full height. What he held in his hand shone dimly in the evening’s remaining light. It was an ornament of gold.
It belonged to her.
Warmth surged through him suddenly. The swordsman realized then that the light shining off the band of gold had not come from the sun as it slipped below the horizon.
She had not yet expired.
If she lived, he thought, then so would he.
The enemy did not see her spell, eyes only on the spoils of war as he began to move away.
The swordsman found that his fingers had curled around the hilt of his weapon. Strength flooded back into his body. His muscles tensed. He pushed against the ground and scrambled to his feet, knowing that this power would not last.
The enemy turned back with a look of mild surprise. It faded into amusement.
His first step was sloppy. The swordsman slipped on his own blood. He slammed the point of his blade into the ground so he could put his weight against it, so he could hold himself upright. His body shuddered when he tried to draw a breath; his midsection felt heavy. A sticky fluid blocked his throat. He coughed it out and colored the tiles at his feet a shade darker than blood. The taste of metal lingered on his tongue.
The enemy grimaced. “Your dear sister can’t help you anymore.” He raised his lance.
They struck, both nearly at once. The lance plunged forward, but the sword was faster. It struck two times to the lance’s one. The first cut came down and broke the lance at the shaft. The second slashed up and severed three fingers from the enemy’s hand.
The wounded man screamed. The gold tiara dropped from his other hand.
The swordsman darted in and caught the heirloom before it hit the ground. Then he staggered, trying to walk, until he collapsed against the short wall at the ledge. His arms and legs shook. Behind him, the wounded man didn’t stop screaming.
The swordsman sheathed his weapon and looked over his shoulder.
The enemy commander had an uncapped vulnerary in hand. A green light seeped out of the bottle and wrapped around his bloody stumps, sealing the wounds. Unfortunately for him, his severed fingers still lay on the floor. In his panic, he had not tried to reattach them.
He glared at the swordsman, features contorted by rage. With his good hand, he drew a dagger.
The swordsman pulled himself up until his body was draped over the ledge. He secured the heirloom by placing it on his head.
When the enemy charged him with the dagger, he jumped up and flung himself over the edge. He almost plunged to the earth, but his fingers caught onto something. Cloth burned against his skin. But it held, tugging forcefully on his arms, and put an abrupt halt to his fall. He was clinging to the royal flag that hung on the face of the tower. Below him lay the river.
Above him, the face of the enemy peered down.
That face grew another ugly smile.
Then, a blood-stained hand, two-fingered--only thumb and half of the index finger remaining--appeared, extended down in his direction. It was an offering.
The swordsman clutched the banner with his hands and planted his feet against the surface of the tower. This allowed him the room to draw his blade and slash the flag above him.
The fall felt like flying.
Just before the water hit, he was blinded by light.
Warmth enveloped him, and he was--
Several days later, in another kingdom, a small civilian caravan arrived at the capitol. It was allowed entry and given refuge at the royal castle. The identities of the travelers remained secret.
In the following days, more caravans arrived. Their members also took up housing in the area and stayed. Eventually, larger groups, on foot, crossed the border and set up destitute camps in the countryside. In a show of considerable charity, the king and queen dispatched troops and emissaries to the campsites to distribute supplies for the ongoing winter.
News spread. A neighboring kingdom had just been sacked by a warlord. The refugees were peasants, townspeople and merchants forced to flee the war.
The foreigners stirred unease among the citizens. Speculation fueled rumors.
Some of the refugees might have been soldiers or, incredulously, members of the nobility, now disenfranchised.
Could a few of them, also, be members of the deposed royal family?
Would their presence draw the attention of the warlord? Would he attempt an invasion of Talys next?
Through diplomatic channels, official news reached the capitol after a time. Then the king and queen of Talys issued a proclamation accepting the new ruler in Altea as the rightful head of that kingdom; they would also accept his word that the Altean royal bloodline was finished. No members of the old monarchy were thought to be alive.
The pre-dawn hours of the day after the announcement found a young man wandering alone through the walled gardens of the Talysean castle. Light swathed the pillars of an open walkway in grey and blue hues. He got his best thinking done on cold mornings when the air was still. Frost clung to the bare tree branches this morning.
Behind him, pounding steps--like those made by heavy riding boots against a stone floor--startled him from his brooding.
“Good morning, Sheeda--”
But she had no time for greetings.
“You must come.” She grabbed his arm and, offering him no chance to protest, ran back the other way with him in tow.
He did his best to keep up. Her sky colored hair was loose around her shoulders, long enough for some of those strands to whip him in the face as they ran. She wore her riding outfit, which included trousers and a red tunic that was meant to fit under a breastplate. The armor was elsewhere at the moment.
“What’s happened?” he asked, breathless.
Through hallways, she led him, until they reached a small, secluded yard. At its center, a tent had been set up. Armed guards stood posted around it.
She paused to take a few deep breaths.
“Princess?” he asked.
“He arrived less than an hour ago,” she said. “He requested an audience with you.”
“Who?”
After a moment, she found the right words. “Your decoy.”
He looked at the tent in the middle of the stone-lined courtyard.
“Our spies,” Sheeda told him, “said that the enemy soldiers spent a lot of time searching the river by the castle. The enemy seemed to believe that the prince was in the river, but they never found a body.”
“Then…”
“The official word is that Prince Marth was killed in battle. He was thrown from the tower into the river. From that height, no one could have survived. The waters are also partially frozen this time of year. It would be hard to find anything that had fallen in. Some are saying that the body might surface in spring.”
“And then…is anyone saying that the prince might have lived?”
“No. He died at the hands of a high-ranking field commander, who has already been rewarded for it. I doubt anyone truly believes that he could be alive.”
Mutely, he stared at the tent. It was cold here, he thought, colder than it was back home.
“Will you see him, Marth?”
“Yes.”
They strode into the yard. Sheeda nodded at the guards as one drew back the curtain for them.
The air inside the tent was no warmer than the air outside. A figure seated on a cushion in the center quickly moved to kneel before them, head bowed.
“It’s all right. Make yourself comfortable,” Sheeda told him.
When the young man raised his head, Marth looked down and saw his own face.
He wore what was left of an Altean uniform, a replica of the suits that had been custom tailored for the prince himself. Bandages bound much of his upper body. His face was covered with cuts.
“Your Highness.” The voice crept out softly. He held up a bundle of red cloth with both hands.
Marth accepted it. When he unwrapped it, he found his sister’s tiara. He was unprepared for the painful sting that struck him in the chest. It worked up into his throat, and suddenly he found that he couldn’t speak.
“It still shines, Your Highness. That is a sign of her magic. I believe your sister still lives.”
The face was exactly his. Though his twin never met his eyes, Marth felt a sense of unease.
When he was young, he had heard that one of his father’s men had raised a son at the king’s request. The boy was dressed in royal garb and made to look like the crown prince. At times when a threat was suspected, he posed as the prince during public functions while Marth remained safe in hiding.
The king had had a strong fear of assassination attempts on his only male heir, and he had been correct in such thinking. Assassins once attacked a convoy riding under the royal banner en route to Talys. They cut through many of the guards, but they were unable to defeat the prince’s swordplay. The attackers that survived fled and told stories in which Prince Marth was a swordsman of what could only be supernatural talent.
In truth, the prince had boarded a ship to Talys weeks before and had arrived there safely and in secret. But the rumors of his fighting prowess would make him less appealing as a target from then onward.
That had been a few years ago. This was Marth’s first encounter with his double.
“Is she a hostage?” he asked. The red cloth in his hand was marked with a fragment of the Altean crest.
“The agents of Dolhr do not know that you are alive, Your Highness. But I was told that Gharnef needs your sister to resurrect Medeus. Because of that, he won’t harm her.”
In the following silence, Sheeda nudged the prince gently. “That’s good news, Marth.”
“Yes. I know. I knew she wasn’t…” He stopped to collect himself. “But I never knew there was sorcery like this. He looks exactly like me.”
Sheeda looked at Marth. “I guess you don’t know the full story then.”
“My father never told me all of it.”
The princess knelt down and reached for Marth’s double. The swordsman let her undo some of the bandages around his torso. “See this wound? It’s partly healed. But…” She motioned for the swordsman to turn around. He complied. “It runs through him completely.”
“And yet he survived?”
“Our healers couldn’t do much more for him. Staves don’t affect him, and neither do elixirs. He took a fatal blow, lived, and now his body is healing on its own.” She began re-wrapping the bandages.
Marth stared at the swordsman’s back. “What are you?” he blurted out.
There was a heavy silence during which Sheeda paused in her work and gave Marth a mildly disapproving look. The answer came in a quiet breath.
“I am your servant, Prince Marth.”
He didn’t know why that unnerved him, but it did. “Who were you before then? Didn’t you have a life before my father made you a sacrifice to fall in my place?”
“No. None that I can remember.”
Sheeda tapped the swordsman on the shoulder, and he turned back to the prince again. Looking at his duplicate in the face, Marth suddenly realized what his father had done.
The prince dropped to his knees and bowed, both hands and forehead pressed to the ground. “For your service and loyalty, thank you.”
After a while, the prince lifted his head. The other prince--the false one--had a look of near panic in his eyes.
“Marth, I think you’re confusing him.”
The prince straightened up with a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. What I meant to say is…as of now, I am relieving you of your duty.”
Now it was the swordsman’s turn to bow. His voice trembled. “Your Highness, have I failed?”
“No,” Marth said. “You have fulfilled your duty as a servant of the kingdom. As your reward, I am giving you your life back. From this day forward, I will endure my own responsibilities.”
Sheeda placed a hand on the swordsman’s shoulder. “For all that you’ve done, the one who made you would be proud, I’m sure.”
He finally raised his head. “Your Highness,” he said to the prince. “Your sister. Her magic healed me. I know that she lives.”
For the first time in so many days, Marth smiled. “I’m glad,” he said.
After a number of days, the swordsman’s wounds had healed enough for him to travel. He prolonged his stay to spar with the prince in daily training sessions. During that time, he taught the prince a technique that could bring down armored and mounted units.
Before he left, the princess presented him with a headpiece as a gift. It was not made of gold or any other metal of much worth, but as she explained it to him, “It contains an element that is said to help sword fighters. If nothing else, it'll improve your luck.” She quickly added, “Not that you need it, of course! But it can only help you. Everyone can use a little luck.”
He left, in their care, a wounded wyvern that had carried him to the castle, a beast that let him press his forehead to its own in parting, a mount that could have taken him further, but one which he knew he could not care for.
The prince was an ousted royal with no assets. He could not even afford to pay back a dedicated servant for his years of service. The swordsman would leave Talys on a merchant ship with his sword, a clean set of clothes, some supplies, and a small purse of gold.
But when he admitted to Marth that he did not have a name, the prince had an immediate answer.
“Take mine.”
In the years that followed, the soldiers encamped in the Talysean countryside trained in secret. When the kingdom of Dolhr began expanding its territory into other nations, all of Archaneia felt the edge of Dolhr’s sword against their collective throats.
Into the turmoil, Prince Marth led his army with the aid of Princess Sheeda of Talys to liberate the land and the people he had once lost.
No one knows what became of his double, the swordsman with a face like an Altean prince.
----------
End note: PSYCH. I regret nothing
I use the spellings found in the American localization, with the exception of "Caeda," which I keep as "Sheeda."
Disclaimer: The following contains characters and concepts that are NOT the property of the author. They are the intellectual property of Nintendo, HAL Laboratories and their associates. This work of fanfiction is NOT endorsed by the original creators and is NOT in any way meant to insult the original work. The author has received NO monetary benefit from this piece of ****.
-------------------
He Had Eyes Like Anri's
He Had Eyes Like Anri's
Kings are like stars: they rise and set, they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.
--Mahmoud to Hassan
Hellas by Percy Bysshe Shelley
-------------------
The swordsman watched a young woman from across the expanse of an aging terrace. She ignored him and stared down the horizon.
In a moment, the late afternoon sun seemed to blink and grow dim. He called out to her, but she was already ducking behind a pillar. He did the same.
A flurry of sharp black lines struck the exposed wall between them. Violent impacts shook the stone column behind which he hid. Instinctively, he shielded his face and throat with his arms. The projectiles struck the rock and marble tiles, many rebounding in a fury, snapping and scattering. A fear gripped him and threatened to overrun him, but only in that moment.
Before the next volley hit, the young woman sprang up and vanished behind the inner battlement. He leapt over protruding arrow shafts and quickly followed.
Behind him, the barrage pounded against the outer wall of the fortress like iron rain.
He turned to the woman, intending to deliver a stern warning. There had been no reason for her to have exposed herself to the enemy.
But she stood, thoughtful, examining one of the arrows in her hand.
“Your Highness,” the swordsman spoke carefully. “Please, do not take such risks again.”
She looked up and offered an oblivious, cheery smile. “Don’t worry about me.” Then she twisted on her heel, her long hair flaring as she pivoted. The princess charged through the open doorway and down the waiting flight of steps. She wore her riding boots, which echoed heavily inside the corridor.
He followed.
Soldiers flooded the lobby below. Their bulky armor clanked as they rushed to secure their posts. The swordsman rounded a group of archers on their way up the stairs. He tracked the back of her head--that fall of sky-colored hair--through the chaos and frenzied shouting.
Torches lit the inner hallways where sunlight never reached, not even on the brightest day of summer. Now, in the middle of winter, the castle’s darkness was accompanied by cold and dampness.
She cut straight to the stables. Her horse waited there, pacing nervously. Her attendants had suited the animal for battle. At her touch, the steed immediately calmed.
Her hands had been made calloused by lance practice. They looked light in color compared to most soldiers’, but next to the soft ivory of proper court ladies, her hands were dark, tanned by the outdoor sunlight, by moments she had stolen from her court-approved schedule, from years of dodging her women-in-waiting and ignoring her parents’ expressed wishes.
“Your Highness.” The swordsman dropped to one knee, head bowed. “You can’t ride into this battle. The enemy has too many arrows.”
“Yes,” she said, “but iron arrows won’t dent my armor. Nor hers.” She stroked the mare’s forehead.
He paused for a moment. “Princess, there are too many of them. Even weak weapons are effective in great numbers.”
“Then we’ll fly higher than their arrows can reach!”
“Your Highness, with all due--”
“Don’t worry about me! And please rise. My knights are waiting.”
The swordsman did as he was told. The princess mounted her horse before he could offer assistance to her. Reluctantly, he stood aside and opened the gate.
She seemed to hesitate. She met his eyes. “Sir, thank you. Do your best.”
The swordsman bowed. She rode past him. She didn’t look back.
He turned to catch one last glimpse of her. The horse unfolded its wings. With a leap, it took to the air. Both horse and rider rose over the walls and disappeared from sight.
He closed the gate and headed in another direction.
By appearance, he was a young man, emerging from adolescence into adulthood. His face--smooth and free of any traces of a beard--had yet to lose its softness. He wore his hair short, though it was still a little too long for someone who carried a blade. The loose blue strands did not fully conceal his long lashes or gracefully shaped eyes. His complexion was not much darker than that of the princess who had just ridden out of the stables.
Yet this young man strode purposefully toward turmoil and bedlam, into a castle under siege.
The sky seemed to flicker. He looked up. Pinpoints of light hurled down from overhead. He ducked low against the nearest wall. Flaming arrows came down in a cascade, striking the open field behind him. The ground began to smolder with small fires. The swordsman looked to the sky again. One last arrow sailed down, punching through a banner that bore the royal crest. The flag tore from its post and hit the ground, the arrow run through it. Flames caught to the fabric, and the insignia began to crumble away.
The swordsman cast another glance heavenward. The sky was clear. He ran for the safety of the inner castle.
Darkness swallowed him, and he quickened his pace. Outside the windows, another round of arrows were being launched, each one a spark trailing smoke across the sky.
Turning through the corridors, running past knights and guards who were headed in the opposite direction, he pressed on until he reached the throne room.
Those who could not flee gathered here. Many were injured. He counted less than fifty able-bodied soldiers in the room. The front doors had been barricaded. They were working to cover the side entrances. At the center of the room, a lady in long robes gently laid down the body of a dead knight. She rose with crimson stains on her gown.
The swordsman kneeled before her. He had not expected that she would remain behind.
The situation did not seem right. She was not meant to shield any of these men--certainly not him. They were her shields.
“On your feet, swordsman. The enemy is nearly upon us.”
He dared to look at her face. The calm he found there startled him. He stood up.
“Come with me,” she said.
Her priestesses continued to tend to the wounded. Those soldiers still able to fight readied their weapons. Word had arrived: the enemy was inside the keep.
Two guards tried to block her path to the rear hallway. They looked nervously to each other, but the lady lightly placed her fingers to one of the crossed lances held in her way. The soldiers yielded at her touch, as a pair of tree branches would have. Lady and swordsman passed into the hall.
She led him up the stairs into the central tower.
“My Lady?” he queried.
“They assail us from the air.”
The sky greeted them in pink and orange, the sun a deep red.
Winged beasts and their riders approached from the distance. He estimated at least two hundred. Around them, the smoke rose from fires burning below. The battle had resurged. Those trapped inside the castle must have realized that they stood before imminent death. Conserving their energy would be pointless. They fought now with the last of their willpower. Soldiers in those circumstances, the swordsman knew, gave no ground while they still breathed.
He gripped the hilt of his sword. “Get back inside. I’ll hold them off.”
“I will assist.”
“My Lady--”
She turned to him. “This is my duty, as well.”
The riders formed a front line in the sky and came to a stop. Two hundred arrows were drawn, and two hundred bowstrings pulled taunt.
The Lady pressed her palms together and began an incantation.
The swordsman drew his sword.
The bowstrings released in a near simultaneous note and launched a storm of arrows towards them.
In that moment, the swordsman dashed in front of the priestess. Steel flashed around him. Arrow shafts snapped in half, thrown from their intended trajectories, and scattered across the stone floor. His blade moved at speeds beyond human capacity.
Before the archers could reload, the priestess had finished her chant. Bolts of light burst from the sky above and struck the front row of riders. A crack, like thunder, covered their cries. When the light vanished, the enemy soldiers and their winged mounts had plummeted back down to earth.
The second line moved up to take the place of the fallen. In unison, they released another volley.
Now, both swordsman and priestess moved. His sword dance struck down the arrows before they hit; her magic deflected the ones he could not reach.
While the archers reloaded, the priestess began another spell. The arrows flew at them again. But then, the projectiles spun off course, caught in a powerful whirlwind. They whipped in circles around the priestess, obedient to her command as she redirected their paths and fired them back at the enemy.
More units fell.
Her attacks took the form of light--divine, earth-shattering light. But each row of troops struck down was replaced by another. The arrows came again in wave after wave.
The swordsman continued his dance; his blade swung in precise arcs--impossibly fast. He knew that if he did not keep pace, they would not last.
As the sun set, the priestess’s light spells flickered and flared. Steel and magic fought arrows until the last winged mount and rider collapsed.
The sky lay clear before them. The floor at their feet was covered with broken arrow shafts.
Gasping for breath, the swordsman lowered his sword. His left sleeve had been split open, and blood ran down his arm. He realized only then that an arrow had grazed him.
The priestess reached for him and covered the wound with her hand. He felt warm. Beneath her touch, his flesh mended, the skin pulling together.
Without warning, the building beneath them shook. They both stumbled. He caught her by the arm to help steady her.
“Don’t lower your guard,” she warned him.
It was then that a large form seemed to leap over the edge of the roof. This was not a beast unto itself--merely the clawed appendage of one. The scales stretched, muscles tightening, as the rest of the body pulled itself over the ledge.
It breathed fire from an open mouth of sharp teeth. Its head was the head of a lizard; its body was covered with patches of grey fur and silver scales. On its back, an armored soldier rode in a saddle, reins in one hand, a javelin in the other.
The priestess struck first, an incantation flying fast from her lips. Lightning surged down from the sky and hit the beast on its head. It jerked wildly, head ducking down, and let out a high-pitched shriek that made the swordsman wince. The animal’s mouth was open wide; its wings stretched out, covering much of the platform with their shadow.
Head thrown back, the beast exposed its throat.
The swordsman leaped forward, sword raised. His target was the mount, but just then, the javelin flew. Taken by surprise, eyes widening, he twisted his body out of the way and swung down with his blade, severing the javelin in half. Both ends tilted upward, but the front end--with its needle-sharp head--spun and continued on a wobbling, altered path. It flipped, turning like the spokes of a wheel, and found its home in the heart of the priestess.
The swordsman turned, feet on the ground, and froze in place. For him, time slowed to a crawl. It slowed enough for him to watch her body jolt with the force of the blow--hair and long sleeves fluttering. He watched as she collided against the wall behind her. He watched her crumple and fall to the floor. She left a stain on the wall--dark red in the fading light--a stain of thick fluid that crept down, down, down…
He whirled around and faced the enemy, knowing that the battle was lost, yet he would not abandon his duty.
He jumped in and threw himself at the enemy. His sword came down with as much force as he could marshal, but a shield stopped it, rebounding his own strength back against him. He staggered, arms thrown into the air, just as the animal bucked up its head into his chest. He flew backwards and crashed into the floor. His body scraped against the stones until he managed to roll to his feet, numb to the pain.
The beast raised the tips of its wings, legs bent as if to take to the air. A single flap of its wings sent a current of wind strong enough to make the swordsman lose his footing for a brief second. The mount and its rider were airborne now, but the swordsman charged after them.
He jumped.
The leap was of superhuman skill. He soared after the winged beast, chasing it to its heights. Sword in hand, he swung, cutting a wide arc toward the sky.
The blade’s tip slashed the animal’s torso and shattered its breastplate. The animal wrenched itself backwards with a cry and began to plunge.
The swordsman twisted in midair and followed his enemy down as both beast and rider crashed into the platform. The floor rushed up to his feet. He landed in a solid crouch, the tremors from the beast’s impact shaking up through his entire body. Rising up, he saw the rider hop off the saddle. The soldier wore a helmet covering much of his face. He brandished a steel lance that he now used to lunge at the swordsman.
The swordsman narrowly dodged the attack. His blade clanked against the lance, deflecting it slightly off course. He aimed a cut at the enemy soldier’s neck, but the other man shifted, and the sword blade glanced off his helmet.
Stumbling, the swordsman tried to back up, but it was too late.
The lance thrust forward and impaled him through the abdomen.
He was dimly aware, a second later, of the wall slapping him in the back. At the moment, he felt no pain. But he smelled blood. His sword slipped from his fingers.
He couldn’t move. He only stared as the armored soldier removed his helmet.
He knew that face when it appeared.
It smiled.
Then the lance tore through him again as it was extracted.
Now the pain came.
His legs gave out.
When he fell, he landed on something soft. He saw that he had fallen on her, on her bloodied gown.
He felt cold.
The sky dimmed. Above him, the figure of the enemy stood tall, his face a shadow. The madman, the warmonger--leaned closer, until his breath was warm against the swordsman’s ear.
“Let this be your coronation, Your Majesty. The brightest stars burn so bright because their time is brief. Anri, your glorious ancestor, ruled but for a day.”
He--the enemy--reached for something down on the ground, beyond the swordsman’s view. Then he straightened up to his full height. What he held in his hand shone dimly in the evening’s remaining light. It was an ornament of gold.
It belonged to her.
Warmth surged through him suddenly. The swordsman realized then that the light shining off the band of gold had not come from the sun as it slipped below the horizon.
She had not yet expired.
If she lived, he thought, then so would he.
The enemy did not see her spell, eyes only on the spoils of war as he began to move away.
The swordsman found that his fingers had curled around the hilt of his weapon. Strength flooded back into his body. His muscles tensed. He pushed against the ground and scrambled to his feet, knowing that this power would not last.
The enemy turned back with a look of mild surprise. It faded into amusement.
His first step was sloppy. The swordsman slipped on his own blood. He slammed the point of his blade into the ground so he could put his weight against it, so he could hold himself upright. His body shuddered when he tried to draw a breath; his midsection felt heavy. A sticky fluid blocked his throat. He coughed it out and colored the tiles at his feet a shade darker than blood. The taste of metal lingered on his tongue.
The enemy grimaced. “Your dear sister can’t help you anymore.” He raised his lance.
They struck, both nearly at once. The lance plunged forward, but the sword was faster. It struck two times to the lance’s one. The first cut came down and broke the lance at the shaft. The second slashed up and severed three fingers from the enemy’s hand.
The wounded man screamed. The gold tiara dropped from his other hand.
The swordsman darted in and caught the heirloom before it hit the ground. Then he staggered, trying to walk, until he collapsed against the short wall at the ledge. His arms and legs shook. Behind him, the wounded man didn’t stop screaming.
The swordsman sheathed his weapon and looked over his shoulder.
The enemy commander had an uncapped vulnerary in hand. A green light seeped out of the bottle and wrapped around his bloody stumps, sealing the wounds. Unfortunately for him, his severed fingers still lay on the floor. In his panic, he had not tried to reattach them.
He glared at the swordsman, features contorted by rage. With his good hand, he drew a dagger.
The swordsman pulled himself up until his body was draped over the ledge. He secured the heirloom by placing it on his head.
When the enemy charged him with the dagger, he jumped up and flung himself over the edge. He almost plunged to the earth, but his fingers caught onto something. Cloth burned against his skin. But it held, tugging forcefully on his arms, and put an abrupt halt to his fall. He was clinging to the royal flag that hung on the face of the tower. Below him lay the river.
Above him, the face of the enemy peered down.
That face grew another ugly smile.
Then, a blood-stained hand, two-fingered--only thumb and half of the index finger remaining--appeared, extended down in his direction. It was an offering.
The swordsman clutched the banner with his hands and planted his feet against the surface of the tower. This allowed him the room to draw his blade and slash the flag above him.
The fall felt like flying.
Just before the water hit, he was blinded by light.
Warmth enveloped him, and he was--
---
Several days later, in another kingdom, a small civilian caravan arrived at the capitol. It was allowed entry and given refuge at the royal castle. The identities of the travelers remained secret.
In the following days, more caravans arrived. Their members also took up housing in the area and stayed. Eventually, larger groups, on foot, crossed the border and set up destitute camps in the countryside. In a show of considerable charity, the king and queen dispatched troops and emissaries to the campsites to distribute supplies for the ongoing winter.
News spread. A neighboring kingdom had just been sacked by a warlord. The refugees were peasants, townspeople and merchants forced to flee the war.
The foreigners stirred unease among the citizens. Speculation fueled rumors.
Some of the refugees might have been soldiers or, incredulously, members of the nobility, now disenfranchised.
Could a few of them, also, be members of the deposed royal family?
Would their presence draw the attention of the warlord? Would he attempt an invasion of Talys next?
Through diplomatic channels, official news reached the capitol after a time. Then the king and queen of Talys issued a proclamation accepting the new ruler in Altea as the rightful head of that kingdom; they would also accept his word that the Altean royal bloodline was finished. No members of the old monarchy were thought to be alive.
The pre-dawn hours of the day after the announcement found a young man wandering alone through the walled gardens of the Talysean castle. Light swathed the pillars of an open walkway in grey and blue hues. He got his best thinking done on cold mornings when the air was still. Frost clung to the bare tree branches this morning.
Behind him, pounding steps--like those made by heavy riding boots against a stone floor--startled him from his brooding.
“Good morning, Sheeda--”
But she had no time for greetings.
“You must come.” She grabbed his arm and, offering him no chance to protest, ran back the other way with him in tow.
He did his best to keep up. Her sky colored hair was loose around her shoulders, long enough for some of those strands to whip him in the face as they ran. She wore her riding outfit, which included trousers and a red tunic that was meant to fit under a breastplate. The armor was elsewhere at the moment.
“What’s happened?” he asked, breathless.
Through hallways, she led him, until they reached a small, secluded yard. At its center, a tent had been set up. Armed guards stood posted around it.
She paused to take a few deep breaths.
“Princess?” he asked.
“He arrived less than an hour ago,” she said. “He requested an audience with you.”
“Who?”
After a moment, she found the right words. “Your decoy.”
He looked at the tent in the middle of the stone-lined courtyard.
“Our spies,” Sheeda told him, “said that the enemy soldiers spent a lot of time searching the river by the castle. The enemy seemed to believe that the prince was in the river, but they never found a body.”
“Then…”
“The official word is that Prince Marth was killed in battle. He was thrown from the tower into the river. From that height, no one could have survived. The waters are also partially frozen this time of year. It would be hard to find anything that had fallen in. Some are saying that the body might surface in spring.”
“And then…is anyone saying that the prince might have lived?”
“No. He died at the hands of a high-ranking field commander, who has already been rewarded for it. I doubt anyone truly believes that he could be alive.”
Mutely, he stared at the tent. It was cold here, he thought, colder than it was back home.
“Will you see him, Marth?”
“Yes.”
They strode into the yard. Sheeda nodded at the guards as one drew back the curtain for them.
The air inside the tent was no warmer than the air outside. A figure seated on a cushion in the center quickly moved to kneel before them, head bowed.
“It’s all right. Make yourself comfortable,” Sheeda told him.
When the young man raised his head, Marth looked down and saw his own face.
He wore what was left of an Altean uniform, a replica of the suits that had been custom tailored for the prince himself. Bandages bound much of his upper body. His face was covered with cuts.
“Your Highness.” The voice crept out softly. He held up a bundle of red cloth with both hands.
Marth accepted it. When he unwrapped it, he found his sister’s tiara. He was unprepared for the painful sting that struck him in the chest. It worked up into his throat, and suddenly he found that he couldn’t speak.
“It still shines, Your Highness. That is a sign of her magic. I believe your sister still lives.”
The face was exactly his. Though his twin never met his eyes, Marth felt a sense of unease.
When he was young, he had heard that one of his father’s men had raised a son at the king’s request. The boy was dressed in royal garb and made to look like the crown prince. At times when a threat was suspected, he posed as the prince during public functions while Marth remained safe in hiding.
The king had had a strong fear of assassination attempts on his only male heir, and he had been correct in such thinking. Assassins once attacked a convoy riding under the royal banner en route to Talys. They cut through many of the guards, but they were unable to defeat the prince’s swordplay. The attackers that survived fled and told stories in which Prince Marth was a swordsman of what could only be supernatural talent.
In truth, the prince had boarded a ship to Talys weeks before and had arrived there safely and in secret. But the rumors of his fighting prowess would make him less appealing as a target from then onward.
That had been a few years ago. This was Marth’s first encounter with his double.
“Is she a hostage?” he asked. The red cloth in his hand was marked with a fragment of the Altean crest.
“The agents of Dolhr do not know that you are alive, Your Highness. But I was told that Gharnef needs your sister to resurrect Medeus. Because of that, he won’t harm her.”
In the following silence, Sheeda nudged the prince gently. “That’s good news, Marth.”
“Yes. I know. I knew she wasn’t…” He stopped to collect himself. “But I never knew there was sorcery like this. He looks exactly like me.”
Sheeda looked at Marth. “I guess you don’t know the full story then.”
“My father never told me all of it.”
The princess knelt down and reached for Marth’s double. The swordsman let her undo some of the bandages around his torso. “See this wound? It’s partly healed. But…” She motioned for the swordsman to turn around. He complied. “It runs through him completely.”
“And yet he survived?”
“Our healers couldn’t do much more for him. Staves don’t affect him, and neither do elixirs. He took a fatal blow, lived, and now his body is healing on its own.” She began re-wrapping the bandages.
Marth stared at the swordsman’s back. “What are you?” he blurted out.
There was a heavy silence during which Sheeda paused in her work and gave Marth a mildly disapproving look. The answer came in a quiet breath.
“I am your servant, Prince Marth.”
He didn’t know why that unnerved him, but it did. “Who were you before then? Didn’t you have a life before my father made you a sacrifice to fall in my place?”
“No. None that I can remember.”
Sheeda tapped the swordsman on the shoulder, and he turned back to the prince again. Looking at his duplicate in the face, Marth suddenly realized what his father had done.
The prince dropped to his knees and bowed, both hands and forehead pressed to the ground. “For your service and loyalty, thank you.”
After a while, the prince lifted his head. The other prince--the false one--had a look of near panic in his eyes.
“Marth, I think you’re confusing him.”
The prince straightened up with a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. What I meant to say is…as of now, I am relieving you of your duty.”
Now it was the swordsman’s turn to bow. His voice trembled. “Your Highness, have I failed?”
“No,” Marth said. “You have fulfilled your duty as a servant of the kingdom. As your reward, I am giving you your life back. From this day forward, I will endure my own responsibilities.”
Sheeda placed a hand on the swordsman’s shoulder. “For all that you’ve done, the one who made you would be proud, I’m sure.”
He finally raised his head. “Your Highness,” he said to the prince. “Your sister. Her magic healed me. I know that she lives.”
For the first time in so many days, Marth smiled. “I’m glad,” he said.
After a number of days, the swordsman’s wounds had healed enough for him to travel. He prolonged his stay to spar with the prince in daily training sessions. During that time, he taught the prince a technique that could bring down armored and mounted units.
Before he left, the princess presented him with a headpiece as a gift. It was not made of gold or any other metal of much worth, but as she explained it to him, “It contains an element that is said to help sword fighters. If nothing else, it'll improve your luck.” She quickly added, “Not that you need it, of course! But it can only help you. Everyone can use a little luck.”
He left, in their care, a wounded wyvern that had carried him to the castle, a beast that let him press his forehead to its own in parting, a mount that could have taken him further, but one which he knew he could not care for.
The prince was an ousted royal with no assets. He could not even afford to pay back a dedicated servant for his years of service. The swordsman would leave Talys on a merchant ship with his sword, a clean set of clothes, some supplies, and a small purse of gold.
But when he admitted to Marth that he did not have a name, the prince had an immediate answer.
“Take mine.”
---
In the years that followed, the soldiers encamped in the Talysean countryside trained in secret. When the kingdom of Dolhr began expanding its territory into other nations, all of Archaneia felt the edge of Dolhr’s sword against their collective throats.
Into the turmoil, Prince Marth led his army with the aid of Princess Sheeda of Talys to liberate the land and the people he had once lost.
No one knows what became of his double, the swordsman with a face like an Altean prince.
----------
End note: PSYCH. I regret nothing