[ He can't wrap his head around it. In Fodlan and Almyra alike, he had kept his enemies closer than he had his friends, as precious few of them as he'd had. That others would disagree, would rebel, would do everything in their power to foil your plans so they can instead slide into power just seemed like the natural way of being, from the assassination attempts on his own life in Almyra to the mysterious way his late uncle had perished on the road to the quiet resentment of the Alliance, each noble vying for their own interests and scoffing at the young upstart that now led them all... ]

You really trusted them implicitly? [ His brow furrows. Is that how she lived her life? Is that why she can believe so heartily in nobility and dignity the way she can? Because she's been afforded the opportunity? ] That sounds... peaceful. Up until it wasn't, I suppose.

[ For the first time in his life, the thought occurs to Claude: had my parents failed me? Was there another way? A better way? ]

Our households were more -- cutthroat, I suppose. [ He casts his gaze downwards, thumb tracing the grain of the wood. ] Attempts on my life began when I was quite young. I was taught the only way around it was self-sufficiency, that the only person I could truly trust was myself. Which wasn't ultimately wrong, I'm sorry to say, but I did think that this must have been universal among nobles.

[ He'd let his guard down at the Academy. And then what happened? War. War, from the place he'd least expected it, from a classmate that he had a cheerfully antagonistic relationship with, but nothing beyond the merry yanking of pigtails. His grandfather, dead. King Dimitri, executed. The rest of his classmates scattered to the wind, leaving him alone to endlessly debate their sour fathers.

Trust only yourself, his mother had said, pressing a dagger into his hands. And damn her, she'd been right. ]