Chapter Text
Eyes in the dead still water, tried but it pushed back harder, knives in the backs of martyrs, lives in the burning fodder, cauterized and atrophied, this is my unbecoming…
(Selfish fate, I think you made me this)
Leo wasn’t sure what time it was when he woke; the sky outside his window was so dark as to prove overcast, and for all he knew it could have ranged from any point just after sunset to just before sunrise.
He sat up gingerly, rubbing his eyes to remove their stinging, wincing as the newly-knit skin over his torso protested. He hadn’t been especially coherent by the time he and Niles had made it to the Northern Fortress, but he had a few hazy memories of Flora working over him as he dipped in and out of consciousness.
Flora and Corrin, he thought with a rush of affection that he couldn’t quite contain. However fuzzy his arrival had been, he knew without a doubt she’d been there from the moment he’d come through the gate to when exhaustion had finally claimed him. She hadn’t a stave herself, but that hadn’t stopped her from digging her hands into the work, from scrambling for whatever it was Flora needed and didn’t have at hand.
Oh, but she had been brilliant.
Leo’s pride, of course, came with a dampening echo of melancholy. Never before had it struck him quite this damningly just how ready she was to leave her prison, not when he’d seen her slip into the role she needed to be in without a moment’s hesitation or insecurity. And it pained his heart to realize that his sister had grown into an adult, into a woman, and he’d hardly even noticed.
Thoroughly awake now, Leo scrubbed one hand over his face again, the other reaching for Brynhildr’s traditional place on his nightstand for want of a light. Whatever time it was now, they’d gotten to the fortress early in the afternoon and it didn’t seem like he’d had anything to eat since. With any luck, there’d be something left in the kitchen for him to scrounge up, even if the thought of traversing that many staircases left him preemptively exhausted.
His fingertips brushed against smooth, empty wood, and all thoughts of food vanished.
Leo’s eyes went wide, his heart surging with panic, swinging his head around to look at his nightstand. But for a glass of water and an unlit candle—without matches, of course, because when was the last time he had used something as mundane as matches to light a fire?—it was bare.
Ignoring the spasm that went through his torso again as he hurriedly swung his legs out of the covers, he yanked the nightstand’s first drawer open with a force that sent the contents banging against the front. A notebook, a few quills, an inkpot that thankfully hadn’t come uncorked from his burst of mania.
Leo scrambled from the bed with so little grace he banged his knees on the floor hard enough to bruise, leaving him muffling a cry of pain from old and new injuries alike. The second drawer proved empty, and the third.
A ragged gasp escaped him as he tried to force himself back up— check the blankets, and the pillowcases— but this time his abdomen seized entirely, a wave of cramps so strong it left him bent double and dry heaving.
“Leo? Leo!”
A cool hand landed on his forehead, both calloused from years of swordplay and soft from a life spent indoors. He thought to pull away, to protest, but all that escaped his lips was another anxiety-fueled gasp for air.
“Shh,” Corrin whispered, continuing to smooth a hand across his brow while the other settled on the nape of his neck. She was crouched before him, almost intimately close, and if she lowered herself fully to the floor she would have been sitting on his ankles. “It’s okay, Leo. Deep breaths. Just breathe with me, okay?”
Leo forced a nod before dropping his head to her shoulder. Corrin’s hand drifted back, tangling in his hair, while his own grip caught up in her shirt over her back in some attempt to ground himself in the rise and fall of her chest.
“Where is it?” he finally managed, long before his breathing had properly settled but when he had gotten enough air for a sentence.
“Where’s what?” Corrin asked, her tone still low and soothing.
His lungs started to pick up again and only sheer force of will left him with the ability to speak. “Brynhildr. I can’t—I—”
“Niles has it,” she said. “Okay? Don’t worry. You didn’t leave it anywhere. Niles has it.”
“No,” Leo said, his brain only deigning to supply him one image: Iago in the woods, Brynhildr in his hands, an almost bored expression on his face. “Iago—Iago has it, he took it—” Iago, Iago with Brynhildr, oh the destruction he could bring, forests raised inside the walls of Krakenburg, of the Northern Fortress, they were all in danger—
“Niles has it,” Corrin repeated firmly. “He showed it to me. Would you like me to fetch it for you?”
“Yes,” Leo blurted, then immediately tightened his grip as Corrin shifted. “No. Don’t leave.”
“I have to get up to get you Brynhildr,” Corrin said, her tone still patiently even, without a hint of annoyance at his bout of hysteria. Some rational part of Leo’s brain that was still managing to tick away felt a wave of relief at that. “But if you want me to stay, then I will stay.”
Leo didn’t answer for a long moment, his chest still heaving, then finally shook his head. Corrin wouldn’t lie to him about Brynhildr. That meant it was safe. He, on the other hand, wasn’t sure how long he’d last without her. “Please stay.”
“Okay.”
As the minutes ticked by in silence, with neither of them moving despite how uncomfortable Corrin’s positioning had to be, Leo found himself slowly landing back in the world of logical thought. He realized, now, just how heavy and fuzzy his head was. No wonder he’d overreacted as badly as he had with the number of elixirs and painkillers he had to have in his system.
Iago couldn’t use Brynhildr, he reminded himself firmly. As terrifying as the mental image his brain had dredged up had been, it could never and would never come to pass. And here, in the safety of the Northern Fortress, Leo had no need of keeping the divine tome at hand for defending himself. It was a habit long since kept in Krakenburg, but one he could afford to neglect for now.
With one final, shuddering breath, he let himself relax.
Corrin must have felt the tenseness in his muscles ease, because she spoke a moment later. “Do you want me to help you back into bed?”
“I think—” Leo broke off, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay,” she said again, still running a hand through his hair. “I’m going to get the light first though, all right?”
Mortification stabbed into him as she straightened. Here he was, Nohr’s second prince, set to be knighted come winter, and he was acting like a child who had lost their beloved doll. “I’m sorry,” he got out through his suddenly thick throat. Gods damn him, what was wrong with him?
“It’s okay,” Corrin said, a match flickering to life under her fingertips and sending her into warm relief. Leo’s first thought was to wonder where she’d gotten the match from, and his second was a stunned realization of just how beautiful she was. How had he never noticed that before?
...Really, though, how had he not noticed? Her hair parted like ivory silk as she used her free hand to tuck it behind her ear and Leo found himself all but mesmerized by the motion. Had he been blind, he wondered? It was as though he’d spent his entire life seeing in grayscale and had only in that moment discovered the world had burst into color.
Corrin was speaking again, Leo noticed, though it took him a moment to drag himself out of his suddenly grandiloquent thoughts long enough to catch what she was saying. “...got here about an hour ago, but Flora said we ought to let you rest.”
“Who got here?” Leo asked.
“Elise, Xander, and Camilla. Niles sent word that you’d been hurt. Okay,” Corrin said, crouching down in front of him once more. “You ready?”
“Oh,” Leo said, then nodded.
Despite the fact that he was nearly a head taller than her now, she hoisted him up with an ease that was enough to make him blush. Briefly, he ended up with a faceful of her hair, smelling faintly of something light and floral. Ordinarily, Leo might have tried to work out just what flowers made up the scent, but at that moment he only found himself overwhelmed with how very Corrin it was.
His mattress had never felt more welcoming, he thought, his eyelids abruptly heavier than they had been a moment ago. No wonder Flora had recommended rest.
Once Leo was settled, Corrin loosed her grip on him, though she kept one hand resting lightly on his shoulder. “There we are,” she murmured.
Leo didn’t answer, because at that moment some urge gripped him so powerfully he was halfway through with the motion before he thought better of it. He still had a hand on the back of her neck, in just the right spot, and in that fraction of an instant he suddenly, desperately wished to surge up and kiss her.
And, for the second time in his life, Leo’s entire world fell apart at the seams.
What?
As soon as the warmth of desire had spread over him, it was replaced with a cold wash of nothing less than visceral horror—and then, worse yet, deadly, sickening certainty.
No, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut as if it would hide him from reality. Oh no.
Still, the knowledge slithered in, wound so tightly into his mind that he realized it had been there all along. Every moment a rush of heat had gone through him at the sight of her, every time he’d been just a little too aware of her proximity, every urge to reach out and touch when he, normally so closed off, would have never otherwise wanted to—
They stretched back, further and further over his life, until he reached that moment where those feelings hadn’t been there—
Back when he was fourteen, and he learned that Corrin was Kamui, and Leo shared not a drop of blood with her.
He had assumed—had hoped, he realized—that the sudden shift of his feelings regarding her had been simply that. Corrin wasn’t his sister, yet she didn’t know that, and he’d had to play at everything being the same when nothing in his life was the same anymore. He’d lost every semblance of normality and he’d had to pretend he hadn’t and surely that had been why he’d gone through six months afterward unable to look at her head-on without blushing and stumbling over his words.
But no.
Oh no.
It was so very much worse than that.
He loved her.
Gods help him, he loved her.
Corrin touched a hand to his forehead again and Leo nearly launched himself over to the other side of the bed, his eyes springing open. Seven hells, she’d never want to touch him again—or see him again, for that matter—if she had the smallest inkling of what had gone through his head just now. And she would have every right.
“You’ve got a bit of a fever,” Corrin said, her words concerned but light, still painfully oblivious. “Do you feel ill?”
Yes, Leo wanted to say, because for a moment he thought he might retch out of sheer disgust. Not at Corrin, of course—gods knew she’d done nothing wrong in all this. But Leo? Oh, Leo had been harboring some twisted facsimile of what romantic love ought to be for the better part of three years now, toward a woman who had spent all her life believing him to be her obnoxious, genius, adored baby brother.
Mutely, Leo shook his head.
“Okay,” Corrin said, then ruffled his hair in a gesture of perfectly innocent, sisterly affection. Leo resisted the urge to flinch. “I’ll let you get some rest, then, all right?”
“All right,” Leo managed, and somehow his voice sounded painfully normal.
Princess Corrin of Nohr—known to herself and to the world as Leo’s sister—straightened up, gave him one final smile, and left him to the depths of his corrupt affections.
~~~
Leo did not rest. He spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, counting back every moment he had so naively believed the love he bore for Corrin was nothing less than the same pure sentiment he had for his other siblings.
And now what? He could only wonder as dawn finally began to peer through his window. She could never know— gods above, he could never let on to her—but could he manage to keep such a thing a secret when it crept into and consumed every corner of his mind? Could he dare to even ever speak to her again when the thought would always linger at the fringes, threatening to lay waste on any fragment of their relationship that could possibly be salvaged?
How had he ever let himself come to this point?
Finally, just as the first vestiges of morning light reached his walls, the soft murmur of voices outside reached him. One was low, certainly Xander; the other was painfully, unmistakably Corrin, and Leo felt his heart lurch at the sound.
After a moment of indiscernible discussion between them, his door clicked open. Leo hurriedly feigned sleep; there was absolutely no way, shape, or form in which he was ready to face Corrin yet.
The gait that crossed his room was wrong, though, as was the hand just visible in Leo’s narrow field of view, now setting something down a half a foot from Leo’s head. He dared open his eyes a fraction more and found, beautifully, Brynhildr just returned to its rightful place on his nightstand. A rush of genuine relief washed over him for the first time since he’d left Castle Krakenburg the day before.
“Xander?” he whispered, his voice catching on the word until it came out as little more than a croak.
“Did I wake you?” Xander murmured in reply, withdrawing his hand from Brynhildr’s cover. “I apologize.”
Leo shook his head, though he wasn’t sure how visible the gesture was when he was buried in blankets up to his eyes. “I was awake.”
Xander crouched beside him, his face came properly into Leo’s field of view. “How are you feeling?”
Truthfully, even aside from Leo’s current mental turmoil, the answer to that question was pretty terrible. As the hours of the night had ticked by, he had almost been able to count as the soreness and exhaustion of post-healing injury had crept into the aches and pains of illness. Unsurprisingly, really—Faceless weren’t exactly the most sanitary of creatures.
Though the temptation to insist I’m fine remained, Leo finally shrugged and said, “I’ve been better.”
“Corrin said you had a fever,” Xander said, then reached out to press his hand to Leo’s forehead. A displeased hum escaped him, his lips turning downward. “One of the royal healers is coming from Krakenburg,” he added as an afterthought. “We’ll keep you here until you’re ready to move.”
Leo forced himself to nod, despite the fact he had never wanted out of the Northern Fortress and away from all its revelations more in his entire life.
Still frowning slightly, Xander said, “Do you remember what happened? I’ve spoken with Niles, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
What Leo wanted to say was It came from nowhere, but he knew well before he spoke that such words would only carve Xander’s frown deeper. Logically, the third Faceless couldn’t have come from nowhere. “I didn’t…” he began. “I didn’t search the area hard enough,” he finally admitted. “I didn’t realize there was another Faceless and it caught me off guard.”
Xander sighed, looking away. “You must be more careful, Leo,” he said softly. “You could have been killed.”
“I know,” Leo said, rolling onto his back, torn between indignation and shame. How had that Faceless snuck up on him, anyway? He wasn’t careless, had never been careless, yet one could have only assumed so judging by the events of yesterday.
“I’ve asked too much of you lately, haven’t I?” Xander asked.
Leo glanced over at him again. “What?”
“Since Cheve,” his brother continued. “I should not have asked you to take command that day. You did well, and I can only commend you, but I should not have asked it of you.”
“What are you saying, Xander?” Leo asked, trying to force his thoughts into coherency. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Yes. It worked. And perhaps if I had asked you to come with me to Cheve on New Year’s Eve, that would have worked too.” Xander shook his head, grief for Asmund and Viola written in his eyes. “But I should not have to foist such things on your shoulders in the first place.”
“You’re not foisting them on me, Xander.”
“I should have gone to Diabola myself in the first place,” Xander continued, as if he hadn’t heard, before letting out a sigh. “Not that it matters now. I’m to leave in a few hours.”
“You’re going to Diabola,” Leo said, trying not to let the defeat in his tone show.
“Father doesn’t wish to keep Duke Wilhelm waiting. Iago is going to help me investigate.”
Leo only just managed to disguise a shudder before several things clicked into place at once.
Iago, doing his best to cast an unfavorable light on Leo in front of Garon two days ago. Iago, looking genuinely shocked and slightly worried when Garon had decided to send Leo anyway. Iago, appearing in the woods at the perfect, climactic moment of yesterday’s battle.
A third Faceless, which Leo knew had not been there moments before, just as he knew from a few weeks past that Iago had taken to the study of necromancy.
“Just to remind you that the next time it might not end so well for you, crossing me.”
Leo closed his eyes, sucking in a breath. He’d known for a long while now that Iago fell somewhere on the spectrum of disliking him and despising him, but…
Either this was a powerplay, one designed with enough clues left in for Leo to figure it out and take it for the warning it was intended as, or Iago had given up on subtlety and had outright just tried to have him killed.
He couldn’t decide which one was worse.
“I’ll let you know what we discover,” Xander said, oblivious to Leo’s alarming epiphany. “And in the meantime, rest. Your sisters are worried about you.” The faintest edge of a smile turned up his features. “Corrin found a spare bedroll and camped outside your door last night.”
Unceremoniously, Leo found himself drawn back to his even worse realization. A surge of affection went through him, quickly followed by another of self-loathing. “Tell her I’m fine,” he managed.
His next words stuck in his throat, only managing to escape once he told himself that Xander—and Corrin—would be as clueless to their second meaning as Leo himself had been only a matter of hours ago.
She could never know. Surely the day would come when Corrin would learn of her true heritage—that she had never been Corrin at all, but Kamui, and that her siblings had never been her siblings—but even then, on the off chance she ever deigned to speak to them again, she could never know of his less-than-pure affections. Whatever path she might follow in the wake of that knowledge, Leo would be always and forever be either her brother or her enemy.
Even if she could still care for him, the simple reality of Leo of Nohr and Kamui of Hoshido was laughably impossible even at the best of times.
So he spoke the words anyway, knowing they would come across as innocently as they always had and always would.
“And tell her I love her.”
Leo could only ask himself if that truth would always taste so bitter.
FIN