The Ishvalans were like an autonomous enclave—no national concept, no formal civil authority. Their name came from the saints of their faith, so they called themselves Ishvalans.
Ishval had many cities. At its center stood the Ishvalans' holy destination of pilgrimage—also called Ishval. The entire people were draped in a religious hue.
The war between the Western Nation and Ishval had dragged on for six years. The President and parliament had believed this small people would never hold out more than half a year against elite troops. Fate disagreed. In the first three months, the army's rapid advance stirred Ishvalan blood; resistance only grew fiercer. Even with State Alchemists in the fight, outcomes were hard to predict. By the third year, the initiator of the war was thoroughly faltering in Ishval: the Ishvalans had abundant quality gear and seasoned commanders. The national army was no longer steamrolling—if anything, it began to pull back.
In that situation, the government poured in more men, expanding from three army groups to five. The Eastern Nation, seeing the Western Nation commit heavy forces in Ishval, seized three cities in a flash and shaved a sliver off the country's map.
As founding grandees, the President and the parliament demanded State Alchemists formally enter the war. As more alchemists reached Ishval, the front finally began to crack again in the war's sixth year.
Night. Allen sat in a cottage reserved for officers and felt the whole thing was a farce. A nation attacking a larger-population people for six years without even reaching Ishval's capital? A joke. Even now, with scores of combat alchemists, the line still felt stuck. And somehow the Ishvalans, too, had alchemists—ones with tattoos on both hands.
"Major Allen, your dinner. Do you need anything else?"
A young soldier stood at the door, back straight, a small trolley at his side laden with food.
He looked excited, eyes locked ahead while stealing glances with the corners at Allen—the army's living myth.
Allen's six years had been nothing if not uncanny. He'd been in almost every engagement. Though the pace of taking cities had slowed to a crawl in later years, the body count after each battle was still high. Ranks like captain were rarely awarded in wartime—especially to those never leaving the front.
Last year, a report on Allen went to parliament—his exploits alone took over a hundred pages. Exaggerations or not, parliament and the President were impressed by the sheer scale. In five years, he had killed over a hundred thousand and under a hundred fifty thousand. Even Armstrong—the so-called human weapon—had only a bit over seventy thousand.
Under war's pressure, the government needed a hero to rally the troops in Ishval. Allen became the military's new star.
Last year, the President and parliamentary envoys came to the front to pin major's bars on Allen and award him a silver National Hero medal. The rank might seem modest, but everyone understood the laurels weren't his alone; if they made it too high, some would harbor thoughts.
Allen smiled and shook his head. The soldier, thrilled, pushed the trolley in and carefully set the plates on Allen's table. His eyes kept sweeping over Allen—full of yearning and awe.
Allen noticed and patted the young man's shoulder. "Good work." The soldier trembled with emotion. At a loss for words, he defaulted to what soldiers do: a sharp salute—so textbook you could have filmed it for training. Allen returned the salute with a grin. The soldier, reluctant to leave, wheeled the trolley out. As the door shut, Allen thought he heard a muffled cheer in the hall.
Dinner was lavish: a steak, a salad, a small serving of foie gras, and a glass of red. Allen used to clamor for rice every day; under the persuasion—and threats—of certain more forceful types, he'd finally compromised.
He ate quickly. In under fifteen minutes he was nearly done. He swirled the stemmed glass, knocked back the last, awful mouthful of wine, frowned, then shoved the desk hard with both hands and let the chair tip backward. In that instant a wooden spike shot up from the desk, skimming his jaw. Before he could think more, a thicket of spikes erupted behind him, waiting to impale the falling chair. Allen tucked a leg, pushed off the desk, and flipped horizontal through the air, arms opening to catch a shadow and crash them both onto the bed.
A familiar scent. Familiar eyes. A familiar body.
The woman pinned beneath him struggled, then settled on cursing the bastard on top of her. The way her body twisted lit an unholy spark in the hypersensitive Allen. He locked her wrists and kissed her at random.
"You filthy, despicable butcher! You pervert! Get off me!"
She bit the words out, but Allen didn't stop. After a while, the curses thinned to a whisper. One hand slipped free to wrap his back; the other tangled in his hair and pressed him to her chest.
Spring surged, unashamed.
After a long time, Allen lay on his back, smoking, staring at the moonlight outside the window. This was the Nth assassination attempt in six years. He glanced at the woman sleeping beside him, a little wistful, fingers tracing those seductive curves. Sometimes he wondered if this little minx came to "assassinate" him just to get him in bed. Otherwise, why always after dinner? If it wasn't about making sure he had the energy, wouldn't the dead of night make more sense?
The woman was the same girl he'd spared back then—the girl he'd almost killed. Elena.
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