Great worldbuilding of Adrestia and the imperial family.

Incredible story, you have a great understanding of the characters and likewise how to effectively write them. My only critique is that I believe where you use "gleam" you mean to use "glean", but grammatical errors are miniscule when surrounded by an excellent narrative.

Hey just wanted to make sure and I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this to you already but ai'm pretty sure Edelgard's mother's name is Patricia.

The emotional weight behind Ionius' reminiscing was well conveyed.

I liked this a lot! I'm a big fan of the memories you inject into the story, as well. Byleth's at the beginning was an interesting read.

Getting the names of her siblings and hearing the childhood stories from Ionius would have been amazing in game. Would have loved that as a secret bonus if you S-rank Edelgard in a previous playthrough on New Game Plus.

A great chapter packed with emotion for both sides of our beloved pair. Byleth is certainly ready to indulge in his darkness while Edelgard flies by the strength of her own light ignited by him.

Good and adorable, even when wrapped in such a cloak of misery.

always a joy reading this story
another great chapter here in enbarr
getting more time with ionius and getting all of byleth's feelings regarding el and her family was nice. the flashbacks and all that made me sad. so its all excellent

Really liked this chapter. I liked how you gave edelgard siblings names it suits them! love this chapter a lot looking forward to the next one!

That flashback involving best fire emblem dad trying to find Byleth was a very cute moment as well as said child actually feeling sad that he is not normal. I legit felt awful for him because all he wanted to do was just be normal like everybody else but people just view him as weird really weird. Tore me up inside. Not to mention the conversation and meeting between Byleth and Ionus was a fantastic look back to lil baby Edelgard as we got a good look at who she was BEFORE those damn experiments made her hair white and killed her siblings. All the scenes like that honestly make me wish they were in the game because they further expand upon the world to the extent that intelligent systems could definitely do considering this is their 3rd console fire emblem game. What we have in the main game is definitely good enough but stuff like this is what makes me like good written fanfiction. The conversation as a whole may me further appreciate El, including the fact of thinking of an El with brown hair being adorable. Just imaginin how their lives were before the experiments really helps expanding upon them as well as further strengthening the resolve that Byleth has to be with Edelgard. Plus I would think this is a pretty good call back to the fact that Edelgard talked to Jerelt while in this, Byleth spoke with Ionus, making it a kind of sort dads giving the children's blessing to marry lol. Lastly our small emperess dressed up in her post Time skip outfit was something I didn't expect for you to do at this point but hey an excuse to see her dressed up in her outfit that makes her boobs bigger is cool with me, especially with her hair down. Although apparently Bernadetta, post time skip is bigger then Edelgard in the chest department, which is shocking. Byleth having a favorite flower was a nice touch so overall, while it did take a while, the chapter was very soild and a good read. Still intrested to see what's gonna happen next and great job using new best fire emblem mom new Canon name. I can tell it must have been h*** trying to decide on whether or not to go with her Canon name or go with the fake one but anyway stay healthy and safe!

Great chapter

My god. The whole part with Ion and Edelgard was too sad. It was like my heart was getting torn out ;-;

They deserved better...

The feels.

Ouch that flashback scene where Byleth can't cry, just heartbreaking. Interesting reaction to his own anger Byleth has. Liked the Ionius scenes where he's recounting what El was like and I loved the garden scenes with Edelgard and Byleth. Take your time if you need, quality is worth it.