"This is a golden opportunity for us," the woman told him. A slight breeze ran through her straight-cut hair, but the strands all fell back into place uniformly after the draft past her and brought to his nose the sharp scent of sweet herbs she wore.

"How?" Velderoth asked the tactician who had introduced herself as Edea earlier on after the bag over his head had been removed. Now that everything about their situation had been explained to him, his head was filled with new knowledge that wouldn't settle properly in his mind. Rather, learning about the larger forces at play in the present made him think that the present was anything but a golden opportunity. "We barely managed to get out of it alive. If it weren't for Cartalion coming in at the last moment with the reserve forces, we wouldn't have made it out alive. Magnus is just too strong for us to take down at the moment."

"Magnus," Edea said coolly, "is but a mortal and all mortals must eventually fall."

He tried to not fidget under her hard, unwavering gaze and only partially succeeded. ". . . why am I here?" There had to be a reason why an ordinary knight like him was being told secrets that hadn't been heard or whispered in Pantheon for years. A reason for why he of all people had been kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night to be secretly brought to a sanctuary heavily spelled to prevent any attempts at espionage or eavesdropping.

"Because I believe that you'll be one of our key players."

Velderoth snorted at that, and felt a bit of the tension decrease. "You're kidding."

"I am not."

"No, the person you want is Kyle – the Kaiser. He's the Protector of the Nova, the one who'll -" the one who'll solve all the problems, the one who'll be best, the one who'll always be better than me. But he didn't finish his sentence because of the large lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. It wasn't like him to be jealous of his friends. No, he was happy for Kyle.

Edea shook her head, the edges of her silver hair swinging back and forth like a pendulum. "I need a man with a motive, Velderoth. I need a man that will pretend to betray the Nova and join Magnus as a spy. A man that even an outsider would believe capable of betraying and abandoning everything he once held dear for power."

Velderoth slammed a fist against the table, not caring that Edea was his superior or a woman. "I would never," he hissed, "betray the Nova for something as – as trivial as that!"

"Power is not trivial," Edea corrected him, her serious and calculating eyes unblinking. "Only the idealistic and the foolish would refuse to acknowledge the importance power can have. And it is not about the good man you truly are – it is all about the image. We have reason to believe that the spies of Magnus still exist within Pantheon, collecting information and biding their time."

"All the priests were -"

Edea interrupted him impatiently. "Magnus may be an arrogant, power-hungry fool ignorant and incapable of anything that requires more thought than swinging his stolen sword around, but that does not change the fact that he still has people on his side. Intelligent people who can predict multiple moves ahead in this game of chess and see the future with accuracy. No, our enemy, be they Magnus or any of his allies, have their agents amongst our ranks and people. We must counter this and have one of our own planted within their forces, but a normal spy will not and cannot do the job. The Nova needs our spy to be a man with a motive and a back story based on the truth."

It was useless trying to reason with this woman. "Where do I come in?" he asked instead, intending to refuse to participate in her plans.

She leaned in closer, and the sharp, tangy scent of sweet herbs grew stronger with her nearer presence. "You will grow bitter. Feeling helpless at just how easily the tyrant defeated you and the two protectors of the Nova, you will be restless in your new crave for power. Having been jealous of your friend ever since he inherited a power that placed him far beyond what your skills could ever reach, you will realize that everything you have is not worth what you could gain should you abandon the Nova and join ranks with the tyrant. You will leave Pantheon and join Magnus, searching for power."

Essentially she wanted him to be a sleazebag. Velderoth's stomach turned – it was a scenario even he could actually believe and take to be the truth, no matter how much he wanted to deny it. "What if I refuse?"

"Then I give you a potion that erases your memory of this meeting and you return to your duties as an ordinary knight loyally fighting for the Nova," Edea shrugged and leaned back, her perfume fading slightly with the distance. "The path of a spy is a hard one that cannot succeed when one is forced onto it. It is a path that will never give any recognition or glory, but one that is filled with thorns and hate. All those that walk down it will lose a precious part of themselves forever for having lied to themselves as they lived their double lives."

This woman wanted to convince him to be a turncoat with that? That was the worst sales pitch he had ever heard in his life.

"But I know you'll take that path, Velderoth."

"How do you know? You don't know me."

Edea looked at him with her cool golden eyes. "I know enough. I know that you are a man who always wants to give everything and more for the sake of the Nova, that you want to protect those you love even at the price of being hated. You've lived by learning how to adapt and survive on your own and that makes it hard for you to trust anyone easily which is why your subconscious denies and disagrees with everything I tell you, even when I have the logic and facts to back my arguments. Right now you feel useless and powerless because of just how easily Magnus the traitor was able to defeat you, Kaiser and Angelic Buster and you wonder if it's because you were the weak link -"

Velderoth didn't want to hear any more of this. "Stop."

Edea did, much to his surprise. Her face was slightly flushed from her rapid analysis and her breath was heavy and unsteady as she tried to regain her lost oxygen.

Velderoth felt naked in front of this woman, the woman who not only knew about his life but could read him as easily as a picture book.

At the same time . . . .

Everything she had said about him had also been correct. Velderoth felt like he had opened his eyes and realized that the sky had been green all along. All that she had seen in him was something he hadn't even known about himself.

"I'm just going to go undercover? Finding information?"

"Yes and no. You won't be an ordinary spy. The moment you 'abandon' the Nova for power you won't have any communication regarding your true mission with us. No one except a select number of individuals will even know that you are truly an agent of the Nova. You will prove to Magnus that you are loyal to him, doing whatever it takes to earn his trust. Anything."

She spoke those words so casually like she wasn't giving him permission to be a criminal for the sake of going undercover but merely stating the fact that Grandis had many moons of various sizes in the sky. The tactician was like a witch of ice, her heart colder and harder than anything in Grandis. "And then what do I do?"

Edea's answer was brutally to the point. "You fight on his side against the Nova."

"What?!"

"Right now, you joining his forces and becoming his henchman will make Magnus arrogant. He will believe that his attacks have shaken the morale of Pantheon up enough to encourage warriors to desert in search of power just like he did and his judgment will be clouded with his vanity. That will be enough to stop his attacks on Pantheon for a while, time bought which will be valuable in our Heliseum front. Your ultimate goal, however, will be to help us track down and pinpoint the majority of Darmoor's forces and find out whether Darmoor has any commanders other than Magnus, as well as his future plans."

Velderoth swallowed – or tried to. His throat and mouth had gone bone dry and try as he might, he couldn't force any saliva to appear. This was a lot of responsibility, and even more danger. If Magnus and his speculated allies ever found out his true alliance they wouldn't hesitate to kill him. Immediate death might even prove to be a blessing in comparison to what they would most likely do to him if the truth ever came out.

But he was a knight of Pantheon, dedicated to protecting the Nova just like the Kaiser was. This was a way of contributing, far more than he ever could as an ordinary knight.

In the end that was all he had ever wanted. To protect something he cared for.

His mind was almost made up. That left just one last but significant matter to clear and settle. "Will Kyle and Tear know? About me being a spy, that is."

Edea shook her head. "I will know, and the higher-ups in the chain of command will be informed eventually about your existence as a reconnaissance agent but if more are made aware of this then I am afraid that the plan may not be safe. For the sake of realistic reactions, you see."

So Kyle and Tear would think that he was a traitor. All of the Nova would think that about him – a power-hungry traitor. Even Fenelle would think badly of him now. The people close to him would be disappointed and heartbroken at his resolve. Maybe they'd be furious and call for his blood, a close relationship soured into hate. Just imagining the likely scenarios made his heart plummet past the bottom of his stomach.

"Keep in mind that I will also pretend that this meeting never happened until it is safe for you to reveal your status. You will be on your own, Velderoth. Like I've said, it's a hard, lonely path, and one that won't ever be fair to you. There's even a chance . . . ."

Edea faltered for the first time in their meeting. She bit her bottom lip, the only other noticeable sign of nervousness, before she continued off where she had stopped. "There's even a chance that you may be killed by soldiers from our army."

Soldiers like Kaiser and Angelic Buster, maybe? The two who had powers and used them to protect the Nova as effectively as he wished he could?

Well, even if they didn't know it, would never know it, he would be the one protecting them now.

Kyle was born into his destiny as the Nova's Protector Warrior. Velderoth would create his own destiny and make his own decisions.

"Like you said, Edea, I survived and adapted."

"Do you accept?" Edea's eyes glowed like golden ambers, fiery hot and intense. "You are aware and fully understand that once you take this path the only way out is victory for the Nova or death? That you will bear the burden and stigma alone?"

By taking this path he was ridding himself of the warrior's code of honour in the eyes of the Nova. Even if he survived he'd most likely be never trusted, the stain of his shadowy actions always remaining a stigma. He would be eternally discriminated and branded as a suspicious individual at the very least. There was also the very good chance that his execution or exile would be demanded.

If he survived it would mean that he had succeeded in his objective and that the Nova would be safe from Magnus and Darmoor.

The answer was obvious, if not clichéd in its martyr-seeking way. He would have gladly given his life as payment for that outcome.

"I do," he answered to all three questions. And Velderoth meant it with all his heart.

I interpret Edea as someone with everything about her hidden behind a wall . She's had to give up being Guardian, flee Heliseum and be tactician, and she's realized at a young age that in order to win the war they need underhanded tactics and shadowy ways, but she hides every other part of her that she feels won't get respect under an icy front in order to get respect, fear and loyalty.

Inspired by IA/150-P's song Underdog Supremacist and Bombing's 'Beating Cadaver', which you must read. Now.

Originally this was going to be either Velderoth/Tear or Velderoth/Edea for the Unusual Pairings Project . . . . but even for UPP this isn't a pairing. So I'll just write spin-offs for them and keep this one separate.