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It is a dark and starless night when Sylvain finds her at camp alone, chasing the ghost of their lost king. He appears like an apparition, and Ingrid wonders if she’s finally lost her mind. Five years have passed since the last time she saw him, the night before the monastery fell.
Sylvain is more handsome than Ingrid remembers. A hundred things bubble to her lips. She wants to tell him how unfair it is, for him to reappear after five years of silence as if nothing has happened. She wants to ask him why he has chosen now to return, and wants to ask him if he has heard from Felix. She wants him to tell her he missed her, but he probably found other ways to entertain himself, didn’t he? Her heart aches, and so she clenches her jaw instead. Still, she wonders what he has been up to after all this time. She knows he did not return to Gautier, much to the rage and shame of his father.
Ingrid’s voice is low and harsh when she finally speaks. “Did you know Edelgard was going to attack the monastery?”
Though Ingrid had transferred to the Black Eagles, too, neither the Professor nor Edelgard saw fit to inform her of the plans. They must have known that Ingrid was untrustworthy, and that she had only switched Houses to keep an eye on Sylvain.
“C’mon, Ing,” he attempts cheerily. It rings hollow. “You know me better than that.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she hisses, her eyes smarting. Her nerves feel raw and frayed.
Sylvain’s smile falters. Then, he exhales. “Yes.”
His affirmation is a knife. Ingrid half-expects the wound to bleed. “How could you betray the Kingdom like this? How could you betray Dimitri? And Felix?” How could you betray me hangs heavy in the silence.
“Dimitri’s dead, Ing,” Sylvain’s voice breaks. At last, the boy she knows reveals himself. “Even when he was still alive, he wasn’t himself anymore.”
She hates that he is right. When Edelgard had revealed herself as the Flame Emperor, something had shattered in Dimitri. He would damn Faerghus to satisfy his thirst for revenge, and Felix, for all his venom, would follow. They were distrustful of her now, too, uncertain of her loyalties despite her adamant protests that she did not know Edelgard’s plans. Galatea was minimally advised of the ongoing resistance against the Dukedom, and so instead Ingrid had followed a trail of bloody corpses for five years, chasing a ghost. What would it be like, to fight once more for the living?
“He is our king,” Ingrid replies staunchly. “Faerghus is our home.”
Sylvain reaches across the space between them, and takes her hand in his. It is rough and calloused and warm, and her chest aches at the familiarity. His voice is tight with emotion. “Ingrid, you deserve better than this.”
She withdraws her hand as if he burned her. “Do not put this on me.”
“You do,” Sylvain insists. His brows knit together almost like he’s in pain, but he does not reach out to her a second time. “You deserve more than to be married off to the highest bidder. You deserve to be able to make your own choices. We all deserve better than this. Edelgard and the Professor can change that.”
“She wants to burn the world down,” Ingrid argues, strained. “And you would help her do it.”
He wears his anger plainly now. “Yes.”
She crosses her arms in front of her chest and summons the dredges of her resolve. “I won’t help you.”
“Ing,” huffs Sylvain, clearly exasperated. “Even if he’s alive, you can’t seriously believe in what Dimitri’s doing.”
“My opinion is irrelevant.”
“Listen to yourself, Ingrid!”
Ingrid knows she is being stubborn, clinging to the last scraps of her tattered dreams. Believing that all this death meant something was how she has sustained herself for the past five years – hope that there would be a future at the end of it all, one where she might even be happy. He made her feel foolish.
“The Goddess Tower,” Sylvain says suddenly. “Did it mean anything to you?”
Heat rises in her cheeks at the memory. How could she forget? It haunts her still, the ghost of his lips on her skin, their bodies entwined in his darkened room, promises whispered into the crook of her neck. He had been so gentle with her, so reverent that she almost believed that he loved her. He was her first – of course he had to know it meant something to her.
“That isn’t fair.”
He presses on, undeterred. His voice is so low it sends shivers down her spine. “Did it?”
“Yes,” she says wretchedly.
Sylvain is so close she can feel the heat radiating from his body. “It meant something to me, too. That’s why I’m here.”
“Did it?” Ingrid repeats, a bundle of nerves in her throat. Fire rises in her chest, and her eyes burn. She feels pathetic, like just another brokenhearted girl he left in his wake. “I haven’t heard from you in five years, Sylvain.”
He brushes her tears away with his thumb. Shamefully, Ingrid leans into his touch, starving. She hates that she has missed him terribly.
It is so dark that Ingrid can barely see the outline of him. There is a desperate edge to his voice. “I was afraid I ruined everything between us. I think I did ruin everything between us. But Ing, there’s nothing left in Faerghus for us. I believe in what Edelgard is trying to do, but there’s no point in doing this without you.” She’s heard many of Sylvain’s lines, but this sounds unrehearsed. “I can’t do this without you.”
“Don’t.” Ingrid feels her heart flutter against his, vulnerable. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“But I do mean it, Ing. I’ve missed you. I miss you every day,” Sylvain amends, so quiet she can scarcely hear him over the blood in her ears. Tentatively, he draws her into his arms. She doesn’t pull away.
Ingrid can taste the honesty on his lips, and she drinks him in like she's drowning. She kisses him like he can fill the aching loneliness of the past five years spent in purgatory, and he kisses her back like he wants to fill the void. Always her, always for him. Always him, always for her. Everything was different, but somehow all the same. Ingrid knows she can reprise this role.
“I’m leaving for the monastery,” Sylvain tells her when they’ve broken apart. He presses his forehead against hers, and a wrinkle forms between his brows. “I need you with me, Ing.”
A small, choked sound escapes her. “Sylvain, don’t do this to me.”
“I need you,” he tells her. “I’ve always needed you. Especially now.”
Ingrid takes in a breath – the longest of her life – and follows.