“You think I’m a deserter?” Leon asked, the corners of his lips turning up in amusement. The King was staring at him with an expression of such seriousness that he almost took Julius’ words at face value and assumed hostility.

The King was silent for a long moment, and he took a few slow, ominous steps toward him.

Then, the older man smiled and exclaimed, “Absolutely not!”

The two chuckled a bit, and the King waved Leon further into the room, both of them taking seats in the plush armchairs around the small table.

As they sat, Leon asked, “So, has Dame Basina made any more slanderous accusations against me?”

“Many,” Julius replied, “though I’ll not repeat them. Nearly all of them would’ve earned you the death penalty if a trial were held, and you convicted…”

“… but I’m no longer a member of the Royal Legions,” Leon finished.

“Precisely. Your job was finished, as was that of Sir Sigebert. Dame Basina had no place ordering you to remain. Speaking of which, how about you tell me a story?”

Leon launched into the story of the campaign as he remembered it, though he expunged quite a few details that were a little more personal to him. His transformation he ascribed to a temporary curse applied by the ‘Serpent’, and Xaphan was only a summoned ally of Jormun’s that eventually turned on the pirate. By the time he was finished with his report, the King knew all the details that Leon felt he needed to.

“That’s… quite the story,” the King said, his somewhat more light attitude taking a hit when Leon spoke of the mass sacrifice on the second island, and dissipating entirely around the time Leon reached the part where he and Sigebert found Octavius’ body.

“That’s what everyone says,” Leon drily replied, though he didn’t say anything else, instead letting the King process everything that he’d been told.

After almost a whole minute, the King murmured, “Sir Sigebert had kept me up-to-date on most of that, but your fleet fell out of contact around the time you left the inhabited areas of the Isles behind. Sigebert was a fantastic Legate. He could’ve been a Consul, in time. And all of those in his fleet were brilliant servants of my Kingdom. They will all be missed.”

Leon silently nodded, unsure of what he could add to that. He didn’t quite agree with the King’s assessment of Sigebert, but he at least held some positive opinion of the man after he agreed to set everything else aside to go after Jormun.

The King sighed, and after a few more seconds, he said, “By the way, Leon, congratulations on your ascension. Eighth-tier is… well… it’s no small feat. And for a man like you… so young… There’s no way I can convince you to stay here, is there?”

Leon bitterly smiled and shook his head in the negative.

“That’s unfortunate for me,” the King said. “But, I suppose it’s the best choice for you. Not even twenty-one and you’re eighth-tier… This Kingdom is too small for you. You’ll need to find one that’s bigger or build one of your own.”

“I intend to do just that,” Leon whispered. “I don’t know when, but I’ll be heading for the Central Empires within the next few years. Hells, maybe I’ll even head out tomorrow, I can’t say for certain. But even once I get there, none of them will be my final destination. My goals are a little higher…”

The King laughed and clasped Leon on the shoulder. “Shoot for the stars, young Raime. I have no doubts that your aim will be true. And know that no matter what happens, you will find a friend with me, and with my descendants.”

He couldn’t speak for his descendants, Leon knew that, but he appreciated the sentiment anyway. He nodded to the King, and soon enough, he was on his way back to his villa. Unlike his departure following his resignation from the Legion, he didn’t feel ecstatic or free. He just felt kind of bittersweet.

The Bull Kingdom had been his home for years, now. It had been the home of his Ancestors for who-knew-how-many generations. He couldn’t say that his time in the Bull Kingdom had been that great overall, but there had been many good parts.

He’d met Elise here. He’d made friends here, some of whom he would never see again—they were doing their own things, and it had been a long time since he’d last seen them.

Most of all, his memories of Trajan would always be treasured. Trajan had been like a second father to him, even though they’d known each other less than two years.

And he was now set to leave this place behind for greater things. He couldn’t deny that it was a prospect that terrified him. So much was uncertain, so much wasn’t even strictly necessary. He could easily turn right around, head back to the King, and with one request, live his life for hundreds of years in peace and comfort within the Bull Kingdom.

But that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to venture down south to the Four Empires, and then ascend to the Nexus. He needed to find his mother and destroy Lord Kamran. He needed to build his family into a new Thunderbird Clan, and he wanted his kids and his descendants to have the best lives they possibly could, and to ensure that, he needed as much power as he could muster, even it meant taking the risk of leaving someplace that seemed reasonably safe. He couldn’t ever let his family be taken away from him as his father and Trajan had been, and he could easily see someone stronger than Justin eventually being sent here, and he rested on his laurels, he and his family would be massacred.

Even if the Bull Kingdom could give him the peace and serenity that the King offered—and given how the last almost five years had gone, Leon had his doubts—this place was not where his future lay.

It was time to leave.

—

When Leon and Anzu returned to his villa, he’d only been gone for about two hours. And yet, he found Elise and Maia in bed, passed out, their bodies so tangled with each other that if they shared the same skin tone, he thought he might have trouble figuring out where his lovers ended and the other began.

He didn’t disturb them. The rest of his retinue was waiting around for him, with Marcus, Alcander, and Alix quietly training under Valeria’s supervision; Anzu was led back to his stable to be pampered by three Heaven’s Eye beastmasters; and Anshu leaned against the villa wall on the back patio, quietly watching small ships going to and fro on the river.

Anshu hadn’t been particularly open to the rest of his retinue on the return journey, keeping everyone at arm’s length and only talking to people when he absolutely had to. It didn’t surprise Leon that he was still being aloof. However, Leon knew that there was a lot he needed to do for the Indradian—the man had little in the way of spare clothes, he didn’t have a place to stay, he had no money, and he was stuck in a Kingdom with a completely foreign culture to what he’d grown up with.

So, after making his greetings and encouraging the others to keep training under Valeria, Leon pulled Anshu inside and sat him down with one of the Heaven’s Eye servants that Elise had working on the villa. The man was essentially Elise’s assistant—or so he described his job—so he was happy to help Leon with getting arrangements made for his newest retainer. The contract Leon had with Anshu was formalized, Leon gave him two months’ salary right away for the month-long journey from Kraterok and the current month, and had the assistant get some accommodations set up for him. That would take a day or two, though, so Leon lent Anshu one of his guest rooms until a more long-term solution could be found.

Once all that was done, the sun was beginning to set, so everyone else halted their training and came out to the living room. Marcus and Alcander checked in with Leon, then left for their own homes. Alix, having resigned from the Legion when she signed on with Leon and subsequently having been gone from the Kingdom for months, was technically homeless, though, so she wound up in Leon’s last available guest room.

And that left Leon alone with Valeria.

They sat at Leon’s dinner table, awkwardly not staring at each other, until Valeria finally broke their silent stalemate.

“You, uh… were quite talkative until now…” She didn’t look at Leon as she spoke, instead finding some fascination in one of the flowers that Elise used to mark the invisible line between the dining area and the leisure area.

Leon thought he understood what she meant: he’d fairly taken charge in sending his retinue off and getting them situated, and that involved more talking than he was generally used to, which was part of why the silence between him and Valeria was just so awkward.

But he knew why he went silent, and after everything that had happened during these past almost-five years, he wasn’t going to dance around it anymore.

“I care more about what you think of me than I do for their opinions,” he frankly admitted, “so I’m more careful about what I say. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and make you think less of me.”

A hint of red flushed into Valeria’s pale cheeks, and she suddenly found another flower very interesting.

“I… you too,” she sputtered.

Leon gently smiled and leaned back in his chair. He admired her. Her strength; her skill with a blade; her power; her dignity; her drive; her beauty. All of it, the whole package and each individual aspect of her. He admired it all.

“Want to go hit something?” he asked. The training over the past couple of hours or so had mostly been meditations rather than physically exercising or participating in combat training, so it wasn’t like she was just going back to what she’d been doing for a while.

“Ancestors yes!” she exclaimed as she stood up so fast she almost knocked over her chair.

The two made their way to Leon’s training room, and there they chose their training weapons of choice—a short glaive for Valeria, and a hand-and-a-half sword for Leon. Then, without a word, they faced off against each other.

It was by no means a fair match-up. She was still in the early stages of the fifth-tier, while he was well into the eighth. If this were a serious match, she would lose hands-down without serious extenuating circumstances.

But that wasn’t the point. Neither of them summoned their magic and kept their spar at the purely physical level. Neither their strength nor their speed was enhanced with magic, and that did a great deal to even out their little unspoken competition.

They started fairly slow, with Leon taking a more passive role and letting Valeria launch a few probing strikes. Despite his family’s fighting style relying mostly on quick, aggressive strikes, his defense was largely flawless during these opening moves, with his footwork keeping a good distance between them and his swordplay deflecting her every strike.

Valeria was clearly wary of Leon’s passivity, but as it became clearer and clearer that he wasn’t going to start attacking her, she grew bolder. Her strikes became more frequent, and it was only when she started to let her own defenses lapse that Leon struck.

A quick stab to rake across her ribs was his intention, but he overestimated how committed she had been to her strike, and she managed to pull back and twist out of the way, letting Leon’s training blade taste nothing but the cloth of her light blue tunic.

They smiled at each other as they each took a few quick steps back, letting the other fall back into their ready stances. Their eyes locked onto the other, their breathing intensified, and all the world around fell away. As far as either one was concerned, the world outside of the training room simply didn’t exist anymore. In their little world, only the other existed.

Their attention reached a boiling point, and they lunged at each other in unison. The large blade of Valeria’s glaive glimmered as she filled it with just enough magic power to activate its stunning enchantment; the blade shone like a shard of ice that caught the light of the sun. Leon’s blade shone just as bright, like a bolt of lightning frozen in time.

Strike.

Dodge.

Parry.

Riposte.

Slash.

Deflection.

Block.

Block.

Their world was darkness, and the only lights within were their weapons and the other’s eyes. The gold and sapphire never wavered from each other, not even as the pale white of the weapons clashed against each other again and again.

For more than an hour, Leon and Valeria sparred. Neither spoke a single word the entire time. In the state they were in, words were superfluous—their attention was wholly focused upon the other, and they knew that they were all the other was thinking about. Every little detail about themselves, the other saw, and they liked what they could see.

Both completely lost their sense of time with the other filling their attention. But, eventually, the spell had to break, and the final move came when Valeria rushed in with a vicious slash, which Leon blocked as he’d done many times before. However, her glaive caught on his sword’s guard, locking their weapons together, and their immediate responses of trying to pull apart only resulted in them pulling the other closer.

And there, they froze, their dance ended. Their gazes were still locked together, their noses practically touching. Their training weapons were forgotten, and their heads began to slightly tilt, then grow even closer.

Their lips brushed against each other, and it was like a dam burst. Leon dropped his sword, and Valeria did the same with her glaive, the weapons falling to the floor like unwanted waste. Leon wrapped his arms around Valeria’s waist and pulled her closer as he pressed his lips against hers. She practically threw herself into his embrace as she wrapped her arms around his neck, returning his kiss with passion.

Leon’s tongue pressed in past Valeria’s lips, and after a moment of seeming confusion, she opened her mouth to meet his with hers. Her hands roamed the back of his head, tousling and tangling his overgrown hair, while his hands wandered her back, starting by rising to her ribs, and then falling down to grasp her hips.

Both pressed themselves against the other as they kissed. Neither broke for long seconds, each communicating in the only way the other needed.

Valeria moaned with need, but then pulled back. Leon didn’t think he’d ever been quite so attracted to her as he was in that moment, even when he’d seen her earlier on his approach, but he didn’t follow her. Instead, he watched her as she pulled back, his eyes full of heat, almost a reflection of hers in gold instead of blue.

She’d practically draped herself over him, but as she pulled back, she withdrew both her legs and arms from his body. His hands remained at her waist, though, and she didn’t seem to mind at all, especially since her hands remained on his shoulders. Her eyes were still fixed solely upon his, too, and, like he was staring into a mirror, Leon could see a smile of pleasure and arousal playing across her lips.

There the two stood for several more seconds, communicating completely without words. They could understand their attraction clearer than ever before, and they knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was reciprocated. After what they had just shared, there was no need for speech. They wanted each other, and they could have each other.

It was Valeria who spoke first, her voice trembling with desire, yet tinged with sadness and regret.

“I… I’m not ready to go farther,” she said in a breathy whisper.

Leon’s smile didn’t even twitch. “Then we won’t,” he said.

They swallowed in unison, burying the needs their bodies were screaming at them to satisfy, each understanding without being told that those needs, while not about to be immediately satisfied, would be soon enough.

For now, though, they parted, quickly cleaning up the mess they’d made in the training room. Sweat was everywhere, and it seemed that in their dance, they’d accidentally knocked several of the other weapons to the floor.

Once cleaning that was done, they walked back out into the living room, and paused.

“It’s all right to tell the others,” Valeria whispered, pride edging into her voice. “I… I’m not going to have the same relationship with you as they do…”

Leon reached to her, taking her hand in his and giving her a reassuring squeeze. “I can’t say I’m not disappointed…” She playfully hit him on the shoulder as he gave her a sarcastic grin. “… but I understand. Ours isn’t the most common…”

Leon paused for a moment as he contemplated what he was about to say. He remembered what Marcus and Alcander were doing when he summoned them before setting out for the Serpentine Isles, he thought about the laws that allowed nobles to have harems essentially without limit, and he immediately decided to walk back the sentiment he was about to share.

“Well, I suppose the relationship I have with Elise and Naiad might be fairly common among the nobles, but I’ll never expect you to share yourself with them as they do with each other, and I know they don’t have the same expectations of you. So long as we all understand what each one of us wants, and what we’re willing to provide, then what we have will work.”

Valeria softly smiled. “Thank you,” she said, and she pushed herself up onto her toes and kissed his cheek, then kissed his lips.

As she fell back to her feet, Leon’s head followed her, and when their kiss broke, as he pressed his forehead against hers.

“Whatever you need, whether that’s time, or anything else, I’ll give it.”

“I know,” she softly, lovingly whispered, and then she finally pulled away from him.

And immediately, her face scrunched up in disgust as the stench of their sweat from the past few hours hit her, with Leon’s similar reaction following only a moment later. Their intimate moments finally over, they separated to return to their respective rooms and wash themselves.

Leon bathed quickly, and when he made his way into his bedroom, he found his bed to be a hot mess—even moreso than it had been when he’d returned from the Royal Palace, indicating that Maia and Elise had woken at some point and just continued where they’d left off. The sheets had been practically ripped off the mattress and the many pillows scattered about the room. Maia had clearly been tied down at one point, if the silk ropes draped about her were any indication, and both she and Elise were asleep again in another naked tangle of limbs.

Leon smiled as he undressed and joined his two sleeping lovers on the bed. He snuggled close, got comfortable, and then took a deep breath as he thought about the family he had.

Elise. Maia. And now, Valeria. It might be difficult, and there’d likely be hard times ahead, but they could make this work.

Tomorrow, the four of them would begin their future together.