Leon stood before Gaius, Arellius, and the unknown woman for what seemed like an eternity as he stared at each in turn. Their combined forces had just rescued what few individuals remained of his unit from the Octavian forces that had nearly annihilated them, but Leon was still reeling from the loss of Lapis, the power he’d sensed from the forest only minutes before, and Valeria’s ascension to the fifth-tier, and he was finding it difficult to switch back into a more diplomatic gear.

“Well, Sir Leon?” Sertor Arellius asked. “Are you ready to talk? We can wait as long as is necessary, we understand that these circumstances are hardly ideal…”

Leon glared at the Legate, or former Legate, or whatever he was now. With the corpse of Lapis behind him and the bodies of the vast majority of his unit scattered around the field, talking was the last thing Leon wanted to do.

But he knew that there wasn’t much else to do right now.

“I can talk,” Leon said, at the same time giving Marcus and Alcander meaningful looks. The two were the only two noblemen from landed families left among the handful of survivors that he had now had in his unit.

“Wonderful!” Arellius leaped down from his horse with a joyful smile on his face, his armor gleaming in the late morning sun.

Gaius and the woman, too, dismounted, but they remained silent.

“So, let’s just jump right in!” Arellius enthusiastically said, his boisterousness seeming quite dissonant with the spattering of blood on his armor and the corpses that they were all surrounded by. “I’ve led my Legion here to fight for Prince August!”

Leon cocked an eyebrow at the Legate. “You’re Legion? I’d heard that you were replaced after our last fight.”

“Indeed I was!” Sertor punctuated his sentence with a booming laugh. “But replacing a Legate in a Legion they’ve led for decades isn’t so easy, especially when the Legate in question is unwilling!”

“And you were unwilling to follow the orders of Prince Octavius?” Leon looked at him skeptically. “Seems at odds with how you conducted yourself last time. As I recall, you called me and the rest of us traitors and swore that you’d destroy us.”

Arellius had the good grace to look embarrassed, but his exuberance quickly returned. “For that, I apologize! I was acting upon bad information and made bad assumptions! However, after a long talk with the High Arbiter following my dismissal, I have since recognized that the trial condemning Prince August was a sham set up by Prince Octavius!”

“A long talk, huh?” Leon responded, looking unconvinced.

“Let’s not get bogged down in details here,” the woman suddenly interjected. “The point, Sir Leon, is that we’re here to fight against Prince Octavius, and we’d like your support in doing so.”

Leon blatantly broke eye contact with her to glance around at the hilltop and its surroundings, covered by thousands of bodies of Leon’s unit and Octavius’ supporters alike.

“What took you so long?” he quietly asked, his words laced with killing intent. His eyes flickered to Gaius at the same time, though not Arellius.

“What do you mean?” the woman asked, her brown eyes narrowing in displeasure.

“You marched your people all the way here and watched as my unit was torn apart. All of my giants were killed fighting the people you threw at us! So. What took you so long that you couldn’t act sooner?”

Leon glared at the woman and she glared right back. Both began emitting killing intent and subtly reaching for weapons at their waists.

Fortunately, Marcus spoke up before either could draw.

“Sir Leon, I’m sure Her Grace was simply waiting for the best time…”

“She still could’ve made her move quicker. Maybe then we wouldn’t have lost so many.”

“The plan was to move when the 2nd Legion got into position,” she said, her tone if not quite conciliatory, at least devoid of anger or arrogance. “We were to make our moves at the same time. The timing was off for everyone, of that I’m aware, but at least you’re still alive.”

Leon scowled, but he could reluctantly understand waiting until the appointed time. It didn’t erase his anger at how long everyone waited, but he at least retracted his killing intent and took his hand off his weapon, with the woman doing likewise in response.

“I hope all that unpleasantness is over,” Gaius said, his voice mostly calm but with a slight shake to it that betrayed his nervousness about what had just almost happened, “because I’d like to get down to business.”

And so they did, though Leon was surly and barely communicative during the entire discussion. Of course, given his usual behavior, not many people noticed a difference.

The woman, as it turned out, was the Duchess of Vesontio, who had only pledged herself to Octavius once all of her neighbors had done the same. If she hadn’t, she said that her lands would’ve been invaded once the war began. She could only turn against Octavius now that the armies of her enemies were busy fighting for Octavius in the Northern or Southern Territories rather than assembling on her borders.

Or so she claimed; Leon wasn’t in the mood to take her at her word. Still, she’d made her move against Octavian forces and in so doing pledged herself to August’s side.

Gaius, on the other hand, Leon was a bit more impressed with. Even without receiving word of August’s acceptance of his older brother’s defection—he only learned of the Prince’s acceptance when Leon told him during the meeting—he still fought alongside Vesontio and Arellius to kill more diehard Octavian troops. If August hadn’t accepted, he and the entire Tullius family would’ve been branded as traitors by both sides.

As for Arellius, as Leon had heard from the former Spymaster, he’d eventually been relieved of command following his inability to keep August from escaping to the Eastern Territories, though the political concerns had delayed it a bit. However, once Octavius had finally committed to removing him, Arellius had already met with the High Arbiter and been told of the sham trial. Consequently, his Legion abandoned the capital before they could receive their new Legate.

What surprised Leon the most, however, was that none of them had received any kind of assurances from anyone affiliated with August that their defections would be accepted. Their actions during the battle were done completely of their own accord—and as that occurred to Leon, it suddenly made a lot more sense why they took no prisoners and waited until the 2nd Legion arrived so that they could ensure that no one loyal to Octavius or Duronius managed to escape.

By the end of their talk, they had mostly agreed to all work together, and that until Roland arrived, they’d share the responsibilities of command. It was about as fine a deal as Leon and his people could hope for. It was also decided that Gaius and Vesontio wouldn’t return to the Octavian camp, even though their cover was most likely still intact. It was too great of a risk to assume that no one within their retinues would talk, so the only way they could maintain the ruse that they were still loyal would be to stay away from the main Octavian camp.

So, Leon and his retinue decided to fall in with this ad-hoc army, at least until Roland managed to break out of the camp in a few days.

But now, Leon had several more immediate problems. The survivors of his unit, being noble retainers, unanimously decided to leave the war and go home. They had followed their Lords, and their Lords were now dead. They stayed only just long enough to recover the bodies of the Barons and several of the highest-ranking knights that had fallen and then they set off back to the Eastern Territories.

It was quite disheartening for Leon to see them go, but he had no personal connections with any of them, and so recognized that convincing them to stay was so likely to end in failure that it wasn’t even worth it to try. This left him with a ‘unit’ of five others, and that was including Anzu. At the very least, Marcus and Alcander agreed to continue their unofficial stay under his command.

The next issue he had to deal with was what to do with the giant corpses. After a few seconds of thought, he absorbed them all into his soul realm. He intended to return them to the Crater Tribe at some point, but leaving them behind didn’t feel right, especially in the case of Lapis.

Leon also spent about an hour searching the forest for the source of the incredibly powerful aura he’d sensed right as things seemed most dire. However, he wasn’t able to find anything. The power had seemed quite familiar to him, almost like Naiad’s, but for however much that excited him, it had also been different enough that he couldn’t be sure. After finding nothing, he chalked it up to being either some desperate hallucination or him simply missing Naiad so much that he mistook some other aura for hers.

That left the last of his immediate problems. Valeria. Leon wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with her, yet, and at the very least he wasn’t willing to do so until he’d recovered his magic reserves that had been expended during the battle. Her ascension to the fifth-tier made one thing crystal-clear, though: however he was going to handle the situation with her, he had to do it as soon as possible.

—

Leon stared out into the Mists of Chaos surrounding his soul realm. He was at the top of the mountain, sitting just in front of the door to the lantern chamber where his throne resided. Beneath him was first his vault, then Xaphan’s pavilion, and then followed by a new structure—essentially a simple stone box divided into cells for each giant—that housed the remains of the giants. Beneath the tomb was Leon’s Mind Palace in its entirety.

He’d finished the whole thing not long ago, but his soul realm was still only growing at a relatively slow rate. It wasn’t even halfway to being big enough to be considered seventh-tier, and from what Leon had been taught by the Thunderbird, he knew that if his Mind Palace was truly complete then his soul realm would start to accelerate its growth, propelling him to the seventh-tier in a matter of days, if not hours.

But his soul realm remained frustratingly static, even with his Mind Palace ‘complete’.

As a result, for the past few days, when Leon trained, he’d focused on adding small details to the Mind Palace—a mural here, a garden there. Small touches that helped to fill the place out, to help it feel not quite so empty.

But empty it did feel. It was a palace of more than a thousand rooms, but only Leon resided within. He’d added libraries, bathrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, ballrooms, everything that a functioning palace would need in the physical world, yet his soul realm didn’t respond.

If he never completed his Mind Palace, his soul realm would never grow big enough. Eventually its growth would stall out, leaving him stuck at the sixth-tier just as so many other mages were. He needed to figure this out.

But right now, in the wake of Lapis’ death, Valeria’s ascension, the loss of his unit, and that mysterious aura poking at the wound left in the wake of Naiad’s departure, Leon was in no mood to wander his halls adding tiny, meaningless touches to his Mind Palace. So, he just sat at the top of his mountain, staring at nothing in particular as he ruminated on how everything had gone wrong, on how everything just seemed wrong.

The past four to five months had been some of the worst in Leon’s life. Only the loss of his father could compare. Things had been about as close to perfect as Leon had ever had in his life before all of this had begun, but then he lost Trajan and Naiad on the same day, he couldn’t take immediate revenge, he was run out of his home and forced to leave Elise, the giants he’d called into service had all been killed, he’d lost Lapis, and now, finally, Valeria was gaining on him in power.

Leon’s thoughts were dark. All of the frustrations of the previous few months were weighing down on his mind, and with his soul realm refusing to acknowledge that his Mind Palace had been completed, it was all Leon could do to just sit at the top of his mountain and stare into the distance rather than…

Well, he didn’t know what. His instincts demanded violence, but Valeria was the only person around that he could direct that at, and in that respect, his pragmatism and personal feelings won out. He didn’t want to kill Valeria—at the very least, not until she’d told him everything he wanted to know about her family and their relationship to him and his.

It occurred to him that he was, perhaps, just trying and failing to focus on his Mind Palace issue to get away from his problem with Valeria, but he didn’t much care.

At least, he didn’t until he realized that the Thunderbird had been staring at him for who knew how long.

“Gaah!” Leon shouted in alarm as he bolted to his feet.

The Thunderbird laughed at his shock, then asked him with an almost derisive look, “What’s wrong, boy? You’re moping like a dog that isn’t being given food from the table.”

Leon scowled, then explained to the Thunderbird his Mind Palace issue. The rest he wasn’t quite up to talking about, and so he focused on what seemed most frustrating and least embarrassing.

“… and it just doesn’t feel right, you know? And the more I add, the more I realize that the more would have to be added to make it right, and it just doesn’t feel like it’s come together the way I wanted it to.”

The Thunderbird nodded her enormous avian head in understanding, then fixed him in her bright yellow eyes.

“Why do you think it doesn’t feel right?” she asked.

“Not a clue,” he replied. “I suppose because it isn’t detailed enough?”

“That may be true, I suppose,” the Thunderbird replied. “But, boy, have you ever considered that it’s too detailed?”

“I—” Leon began before cutting himself off. He stared down at his palace, soaking in all that he had built. Towers and halls and a mountain and a secret underground palace. Training rooms, gardens, enough space for hundreds of people with thousands of servants. Glittering marble, intricate architecture, detailed statues, and equally detailed murals.

In short, he’d built much in just over a year.

“Is it too much?” he quietly asked as he drank in the enormity of his creation.

“I can’t say, that’s for you to decide,” his Ancestor replied. “However, from what I’ve seen of your temperament, aesthetic choices, and from what you’re feeling right now, I’d say it does seem… a little overdone, no?”

“Maybe…” Leon muttered. He stared out at his palace for another minute or two, then began to walk down the stairs. He didn’t fly, he wanted to see it all for himself from ground level.

He paused at Xaphan’s pavilion.

“What do you think, demon?” Leon loudly asked, knowing that Xaphan had likely been listening in—he and the Thunderbird had hardly been whispering, after all.

Xaphan’s fiery yellow eyes opened and landed upon him. The demon barely even moved, simply sitting in the firepit of his pavilion for enough time to make Leon feel quite awkward. So, instead of pushing the matter of his soul realm—for Leon had already realized what he needed to do as soon as the Thunderbird asked her question, he just needed to work up the nerve to do so—he asked a different question.

“Did you sense it, too?” Leon quietly asked.

Xaphan remained silent.

“Felt a lot like Naiad,” Leon said.

Xaphan stared at him, no words falling from his lips… if he even had lips for words to fall from, Leon wasn’t too sure on that front.

“I can’t be sure, but I’d be willing to bet that she was here, watching.”

Finally, Xaphan spoke up.

“I’ve felt various powers in the forest following you for a while, as I told you a few days ago. At first, they were only more of Amon’s vampires—or at least, beings associated with fire demons—but given they never made a move against you, they were undoubtedly weak and no threat to you. A day or two ago, those auras vanished—probably hunted down by what I sensed next. And that was a strange, yet familiar aura; one that caused the magic power that your fish girl left within you to resonate, the power that she left within you when you first met.”

Leon carefully nodded. He directed his attention to the area around his throne—specifically, his Mana Glyph. When he’d sworn to Naiad to mate with her and father her children, she’d left some of her magic power within him so that she could find him whenever she needed to. At first, he’d been able to do likewise with her since he’d left some of his power with her, but she seemed to quickly figure out how to prevent it, leaving him with little idea as to her whereabouts. Eventually, that power had faded into the background of his soul realm, and he’d quite forgotten about it.

But now that he stared at it, the little clump of transparent magic power floating in the air by his Mana Glyph, he could see it trembling.

“So she is here…” he whispered.

“It would seem that is the case, though I’ve little idea why,” Xaphan replied in an almost dismissive tone. “After all, your pathetic attempts to be assertive practically chased her out of your home. If she wanted to reveal herself to you, I think she would’ve before now.”

Leon grimaced, looking suitably chastened. He knew that forcing that decision on Naiad wasn’t the best course of action, but hindsight was always perfect and he’d just lost Trajan, so he wasn’t in the proper state of mind. Regardless of the circumstances, though, he knew he screwed up and deeply regretted being so sudden and not talking to her more openly.

“Have you learned from your **-up?” the demon asked, sounding for all the world like he was trying to be Leon’s father, which irked him a bit.

“Yes, asshole, I have,” Leon testily replied.

“That’s unfortunate, I was hoping to watch you ** up again. Though I suppose you’ll probably do that, anyway. You’ve a habit of doing so, after all, and I’d bet on it happening again with your silver knight girl.”

“Yeah, we’ll soon see,” Leon combatively replied.

“I put your odds of getting her on your side completely at less than five percent. Personally, I kind of hope she walks—she’s too good for you, anyway. I mean, a woman who advances that quickly and that devoted to mastering the martial arts? So far out of your league it isn’t even funny… not that I won’t laugh at it anyway.”

Leon bitterly smiled and nodded as he turned away from the demon and back to his Mind Palace.

“Back to my original question, demon, what do you think about this place? Too much?”

“Does it feel like it’s too much?” Xaphan replied.

Leon went quiet as he stared out at the majestic palace that he’d built. “I have to say that it does…” he murmured. He then walked away from Xaphan’s pavilion, ignoring the demon’s grumblings about the unceremonious departure, and proceeded down the stairs cut into the side of the mountain.

The only thing on his mind was that his Mind Palace would never be complete. As it was, he could easily see himself making constant small changes to what he had until the day he died, never truly considering it to be ‘complete’. He’d already been doing that on some level for several weeks before he’d initially thought it to be done, and there was no sign that that situation was going to change.

In fact, as he reached the upper halls of the palace, those that he’d set aside for his ‘personal’ use—not that there was much difference between that and non-personal given that his soul realm was hardly public—he began doing what he’d been doing during that time: aimlessly wandering the halls, lost in thought as he stared at his creation.

It was all beautiful, all of it exactly what he thought a richly decorated palace ought to look like, and none of it felt right even if he found it aesthetically pleasing. His Mind Palace was supposed to represent him, not how he saw himself, not who he wanted to be. The further down he walked in those halls, the more obvious it became that his initial strategy in building the place had been misguided.

The thought had been to have architecture reminiscent of the Bull Kingdom hiding an underground palace built with architectural styles that resembled the few Thunderbird Clan buildings he’d seen, much like how was a member of the Thunderbird Clan masquerading as a Bull Kingdom knight. He’d thought it made sense. But it wasn’t him, not who he was at his core.

He didn’t truly consider himself a member of the Thunderbird Clan. He never knew any of those people, he had no real personal connections with them aside from his father and the Thunderbird herself. In other words, he had no strong feelings about the Thunderbird Clan beyond how it related to him, and the same could be said for the Bull Kingdom. He cared about some people within it, but he was by no means loyal to the state or the ideas it represented.

Leon emerged from the palace about twenty minutes later from its lowest hall and stood at the base of the mountain, staring up at the palace. Without hesitation, he lifted his hand, swiped it across his vision of the palace, and causing nearly everything he’d built on the mountain to dissolve back into the mist that he’d used to create it, which rushed back into the clouds far beyond the island’s edge. He swiped again, and the underground palace joined it, leaving nothing but a hollow mountain. But even that wasn’t enough; Leon swiped a third time, and the mountain itself collapsed upon itself as Leon wiped the slate almost completely clean.

In a matter of seconds, his Mind Palace was brought down along with the mountain it sat upon. Leon kept a few things, such as the stone platform upon which his throne sat, his vault, Xaphan’s pavilion, the giants’ tomb, and the red and white checkered tiles that had always existed in his soul realm. All of it now rested upon a huge flat plain of lifeless dirt and bare stone.

Leon slowly walked back to Xaphan’s pavilion where both the demon and his Ancestor awaited.

“Wonderful, simply spectacular!” the Thunderbird said as she morphed into her human form, clapping her hands as soon as they formed. Xaphan didn’t speak, but Leon saw his shadow briefly nod its head in recognition of what he’d just done. “How do you feel, Leon?” the Thunderbird asked.

Leon paused near the pavilion and glanced around at the rocky plain, taking it all in and measuring his response. Once he was ready, though, a smile of abject joy and relief blossomed across his face.

“I feel light as air,” he exclaimed.

“Good, that’s how it should be,” his Ancestor replied.

“I can’t force these things, I can’t plan them out,” Leon continued to the Thunderbird’s glee. “I tried that, and it clearly didn’t work. I have to let it come naturally. Let it come in the moment.”

The Thunderbird nodded furiously, her bronze face alight with happiness that Leon understood without her having to explain.

“Planning works for some people…” she started.

“… but not for me,” Leon finished. “I’m not a man of a palace… or however it should be phrased—I’m not a ‘palace guy’, maybe? Whatever, to the hells with palaces. That’s not me.”

“What is ‘you’?” the Thunderbird asked.

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Leon replied. “However, right now, I have some other business I need to attend to… This hasn’t… weakened me, has it?”

“Do you feel weakened at all?”

“… No, but I haven’t tried throwing lightning bolts, either.”

“Your Mind Palace wasn’t resonating with you, and as such wasn’t giving you any benefits. You’ve lost nothing in casting it off. Notice how your soul realm hasn’t even shrunk?”

Leon refocused his gaze to the Mists of Chaos miles away, and indeed, they hadn’t moved any closer.

“That in itself is the biggest indicator that you’ve done the right thing, here. Now, what is this business you have that had you worried about possible weakness?”

Leon’s smile turned grim and he didn’t answer, at least not out loud. He knew what he had to do now, he didn’t need to talk to Xaphan or the Thunderbird about it. In his mind, he whispered a name.

‘Valeria.’