[Fire Emblem Fates Novelization.]
Nohrian twins Princess Kassandra and Prince Norton have been estranged for six years: separated by stone, distance and hearts. When they're kidnapped by Hoshido and told of their true lineage, they're suddenly drawn...
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Captain Norton of Nohr
The crows followed us all the way back to Castle Krakenburg, swooping around my platoon with sharp cries. I glanced over my shoulder for the hundredth time, checking they hadn't managed to access the bodies on the baggage train. My men, riding in front of it, kept their eyes straight ahead: not looking at the crows, not looking at the dead.
Satisfied that the bodies were intact, I led us down the path to the castle wall. It looked ordinary from below, an empty circle of black stone. But when we reached the wall and dismounted, I took my men up the stone stairs.
At the top, we gazed down on the end of the world.
A great cavity yawned through the earth, one thousand feet deep and almost as wide so that it was all I could see before us. When I'd first come here, I'd believed that it was all a trick. There could surely be no castle -- only death.
Lit inside by thousands of fires behind grates, the hole glowed below a midnight sky. The castle, almost eight hundred feet down, was a shadowy structure against the orange light. Bridges crossed the inner walls, and guards marched on them with their lances held upwards, black beetles holding their threats towards the sky.
My men and I gazed into the abyss for a full minute. It was a fervent ritual after every mission; a reminder of Nohr's power.
No one broke the sacred silence until we'd descended from the wall and were standing upon dry earth again. Then my men released a unison of cheers. "May the dusk devour!"
"Send for an escort to continue with the baggage train," I said to the nearest guard on duty. "The heads will be impaled on the spikes of Windmire Grand Temple."
"Yes, sir."
Jakob, my butler, turned to me. "The wyverns are waiting for us, my lord. Are you ready?"
"I am. Men, mount up!"
My soldiers moved to their wyverns and swung themselves on board. Jakob paused to assist me, holding his hands like a step so that I could reach the saddle with the grace and poise befitting of a captain. Then he, too, mounted.
On my command, we took to the night sky. Our mission was complete.
***
We spiralled down, down, down, on our black beasts until we landed on the bridge closest to the castle entrance. A team of wyverns were being led away around the side of the building. A different group of people had arrived.
My heart constricted. Presumably, it was my other siblings, back from their visit to Kassandra. Both groups had left the castle at the same time just over a week ago, but I'd been hoping to arrive back long after they'd returned and been sent out again.
It seemed that fortune never favoured me.
We handed our wyverns off and walked the last stretch of the bridge. It was barely wide enough for our dragons to shuffle along, and with no barriers on either side, I could never help but think of how easy it would be for someone to lose their balance and die.
