Leo woke the next morning as sunlight filtered through the material. He sat and rubbed his eyes, shaking his head. What a weird dream he’d had last night of talking to Prince Takumi from Hoshido about integrating the pegasus herds. What an utterly bizarre dream. There was absolutely no way in hell that Nohr and Hoshido would team up. The Hoshidans and Nohrians hated each other way too much to do that… They loathed each other. He knew that Prince Ryoma and Xander were surprisingly understanding of each other, but that was as far as it went.

  He got ready for the morning, only to be nearly bowled over by a Hoshidan soldier. She yelled something in Hoshidan before continuing on at a run.

  He just stared for a good, long minute.

  So the armies joining together hadn’t been a dream. They really were going to look for Garon and kill him. It was beyond strange to think about. He wouldn’t complain, as Garon was a madman that needed dealt with and killed, frankly. Nohr was a harsh place to live in, but Garon had only made things a thousand times worse. He didn’t remember a time before the king went mad, but according to farmers, Queen Katerina had really made things a lot better, at least until Xander had been born. She’d really helped them by using Brynhildr and its magic on the land, just as Leo did now himself. He felt bad that he wouldn’t be able to do much until King Garon was killed. The army would have to move at a painstaking pace as the logistics were a nightmare. The army had doubled in size essentially, possibly more since Hoshido had more able-bodied soldiers than Nohr did. He just… He would need to meet with Prince Ryoma and see about the logistics.

  He made his way to the mess tent where he got a meal and saw Prince Takumi poring over maps and other things. He hesitated before making his way over to the other prince. “Mind if I join?” Leo asked.

  Takumi blinked and looked up, then shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

  Leo sat down and looked over the maps. “What are you looking at?”

  “Well, I’m not the tactician for the army, but I’m a scout. I scouted ahead last night a fair bit and came back with a report to Ryoma. It looks like the army has been taken completely under our control. I didn’t notice anything strange about up ahead. I don’t think anyone is loyal to Garon. But…” He trailed off.

  “But what?” Leo stuck a forkful of food into his mouth as he listened. Leo was the tactician for Nohr’s army, so this sort of intelligence was important. Nothing strange did make sense. They had come from this direction only a few days ago. It would be odd if anything was out of the ordinary. They had most of the army with them, though some units had been left behind due to logistics and injuries. He wondered what would be so strange to Prince Takumi to bring it up in an intelligence report.

  “I started feeling sick. The land itself in Nohr is tainted. Magic the magic in the land is sick.”

  Leo stared, fighting to keep his mouth from dropping open. “What…does that even mean? How can magic be sick? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  Prince Takumi sighed. “I know I sound insane, but I’ve befriended the force of magic itself, at least in Hoshido. I can make it do things that most people wouldn’t even think of doing. Nohr’s very land is sick. Something is tainting the land and the magic that runs through it and that really explains why Nohr has such a hard time growing crops.”

  “That…doesn’t make any sense.” What was he going on about? Befriending the force of magic? Magic was a force, certainly, but it’s not like it had a conscience. It couldn’t think and act and choose what it did and what it didn’t do. Takumi was talking nonsense. And something tainting the land itself? That…did make some level of sense, though. Nohr was beyond difficult to live in because it was constantly cold. The clouds rarely ever left which made it hard for plants to get the light they needed to grow. Crop harvests were difficult. They had to rely on what nutrients existed in the soil. Hoshido was a land of bounty and sunshine… He felt jealous of Hoshido’s wealth and abundance, but he didn’t mention it. He could only imagine what would happen if he started talking about such feelings to the Hoshidan royalty.

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  Prince Takumi shrugged. “I know what I felt. Nohr’s land is sick. There’s some sort of bespellment on land. I wouldn’t be surprised if this bespellment is what causes Nohr to constantly be clouded and cold.”

  “If there was any sort of bespellment, I’m pretty sure I would know.” He tapped the little pin on his collar and brought Brynhildr out. “Brynhildr is a book that focuses largely on plants and the land… If there was bespellment, then surely I would’ve noticed while using it.”

  “Has she spoken to you before?”

  “Sp— What are you talking about? The weapons can’t speak.”

  Prince Takumi shook his head. “They all have spirits in them, all of the divine weapons. I talk to Yumi all the time.” He tapped the pin on his lapel and brought out the Fuujin Yumi. “I have a close bond with her.”

  “This all sounds like nonsense.” Prince Takumi had a lot of delusions going on. The divine weapons could and would choose their own holders, but it was different. He had never heard Brynhildr speak to him and he wasn’t aware of Kriemhild or Seigfried ever speaking to his siblings. It all sounded like nonsense. Magic could do a lot, but spirits in the weapons? Sentient weapons? It was all the babblings of a madman. How was somebody with such deep delusions so respected by the Hoshidan soldiers? He was one of the brightest sparks on the Hoshidan battlefield and the Snow Wings were a deadly unit. It seemed like all of them were genius-level intellect somehow, but Prince Takumi was just spouting nonsense.

  Um, actually… It’s not nonsense. Leo heard a voice in his head and whipped it around.

  “Who’s there? What bespellment is this?”

  No bespellement… Just me. He felt an energy pulse in his hand. We actually can speak.

  “Oh, so you’re finally coming out of your shell?” Takumi asked as he looked down at Brynhildr.

  I couldn’t before. It was too dangerous. I couldn’t risk letting something slip.

  “Letting what slip?”

  I still can’t tell you anything. Princess Elise will fill you in on everything eventually. She’s a Silence Keeper.

  “A Silence Keeper…?” Leo asked. That didn’t sound ominous whatsoever. “So if you’re talking to me only now, then why was the Fuujin Yumi able to talk to Takumi like that?” This still felt like a bunch of nonsense. But the voice was responding to him and carrying on a conversation fully. And Prince Takumi had responded as well, so it clearly wasn’t a delusion of some sort…

  My circumstances were quite different. A separate voice sounded in his head. Prince Takumi needed comfort and guidance after his mother died. I couldn’t just sit and watch him suffer after his mother died, and then after he lost his father and his twin sister… A sigh. A lot happened in the Hoshidan royal family that I couldn’t sit on my laurels about.

  Takumi nodded. “Yeah, she’s right. A lot happened in a relatively short period of time.” His voice was soft and shook a little bit. This still felt like some sort of madness, but Prince Takumi was backing up what this voice was saying. It was so bizarre to think that the divine weapons were truly sentient like a person. Honestly, having Brynhildr as support would’ve been nice… He just… Camilla could only do so much as one person when she had three siblings to support through Garon’s madness. Four if one counted Cami, but that was intermittent and they were often separated. He still felt so bad for her, as well as Flora and Felicia… Isolated in a northern fortress and kept under lock and key without any freedom whatsoever… Once they defeated Garon, he was pretty certain that Camilla would allow them to go home to the Ice Tribe. There was a lot they needed to do, but right now, just getting to Castle Krackenburg was the most important thing.

  “I still can’t believe this…” Leo sighed. “This all feels like insanity.”

  “I promise you it’s not,” Prince Takumi said. “The weapons just usually tend to sleep, according to what Yumi told me. There are a lot of secrets that they hold.”

  Leo put Brynhildr back to its pin and nodded. “I suppose that makes sense…” They were ancient weapons as far as he was aware. They went back to the First Dragons. They had been used by ancestors eons ago in order to create great power and keep people in line as well. Leo didn’t subscribe to trying to subjugate peasants as they were people, just trying to survive as well. The nobility relied on the peasantry to get their food and make their stores last the entirety of winter which was so harsh and unrelenting in Nohr… He still didn’t understand how they were on the same altitudes and had such radically different climates…

  Unless Prince Takumi’s words were true, something about the land being sick…