The next few weeks proceeded quite peacefully for Leon. Apart from some wedding plans he had to make with Elise, there wasn’t much he had to worry about. With Emilie on his side—at least, as much as she could be on anyone’s side—he was confident that he’d be able to join Heaven’s Eye in some capacity, and that meant he wouldn’t have to worry about getting established down in Occulara.

However, with the whole affair with the investigators and the scare that the threat of Emilie’s termination had given them fresh on their minds, Leon and Elise continued with their plans to be financially independent. The big money-makers they were going to rely upon were Leon and Valeria’s skill in enchanting, and Elise’s skill in management combined with her interest in growing exotic plants. Occulara was in a fertile region of the Ilian Empire, so they made plans to find some land and use it to grow their medicinal flowers, along with whatever else caught Elise’s fancy. She had a growing interest in growing grapes and other, more magical fruits to make wine, and that got Valeria excited, too. Leon, who drank wine only rarely, and never partook in anything stronger, didn’t share in their excitement nearly as much, but he was still happy that they could find something to do together.

Maia was left feeling kind of left out, though. She didn’t have many skills that could translate well into the civilized world. She could hunt and fight, but other than that, she didn’t know what she might be able to contribute. That sense of inferiority and uselessness, however mitigated by Leon and Elise, then resulted in a redoubled effort in her training. In her mind, if all she could do was hunt and fight, then she wanted to be damn good at both.

When it came time for Leon and Elise’s wedding, though, everyone set aside their goals and diligence for a few weeks. When the date arrived, it had only been two months since the investigators arrived, and almost four since Leon and Maia’s return from the Serpentine Isles—a staggeringly short period of time for planning a wedding, but they didn’t have much time left in the Kingdom, and so had to hurry a bit.

It was simultaneously a sumptuous and luxurious affair, while also retaining some air of privacy. The guest list was rather truncated, and that exclusivity, combined with the social statuses of Elise, Emilie, and Leon, made it one of the most prestigious and talked-about events in the Bull Kingdom. The King himself, and all of the free Paladins made an appearance, as did the immediate Royal Family—August, Stefania, Cristina, and Antonius, as well as August’s mother and the King’s favorite concubine, Isabella. Accompanying them were a handful of other familiar faces, including Asiya, Valeria’s friend from the Knight Academy, and Dame Maxima, the head of Princess Cristina’s personal guard, whom Leon met in the opening stages of the civil war. All were happy and congratulatory—at least, on the surface, Leon thought he imagined it for a moment or two, but he could’ve sworn he felt a few wisps of killing intent directed towards him from Princess Cristina, but the Princess was so chipper and happy the rest of the day that he put it out of his mind.

Several high-ranking Legates and Consuls, including Minerva—who’d been promoted to Consul of the East, succeeding Trajan—also showed up. Roland had also been invited, and so were a number of high-ranking Heaven’s Eye personnel, such as Ajax, Emilie’s brother.

In addition, a handful of the most important merchants, bureaucrats, and nobles from around the Kingdom were invited. Only two noble families who’d supported Octavius made an appearance: the Duke of Lentia, Gaius’ older brother, and the Duchess of Vesontio, both of whom had defected to August’s side during the civil war. In fact, in the course of welcoming their guests, Leon and Elise learned the Duchess of Vesontio and Prince August were in marriage talks, themselves.

That whole affair with August and Vesontio, assuming it worked out, struck Leon as almost ironically similar to the position Octavius had been in. Octavius’ mother had been the daughter of the powerful Duke of Valencia, and his mother’s younger brother had been the Earthshaker Paladin. Now here was August getting set to marry a Duchess himself, whose cousin was the Brimstone Paladin—the issue of the ongoing mass-revocation of landed titles aside, it was a powerful pairing, and likely ensured at least some stability would last out in the Western Territories, where Octavius’ support had been strongest and where the Royal Legions were still quashing dissent.

In total, there were only about a hundred guests, including Elise’s friends and Leon’s retinue.

The wedding itself was traditional by Bull Kingdom standards. Elise wore a long dress that hugged her body quite tightly, with a high leg slit and low cut that also left her arms bare, made of silkgrass and dyed blood red to complement her hair, which had been done into long waves that cascaded down her back, and ornamented with an emerald-studded golden tiara. Leon, using all his wisdom and humility, admitted to his lack of knowledge regarding fashion in the weeks leading up to the wedding, and so had made Elise’s day by asking for help in picking out his attire for the event. Elise, in an ecstatic fervor, brought Valeria on board, and together the two friends conspired to pick his clothes for the day. They eventually settled on a suit that seemed to have been made of silver thread that sparkled in the daylight, beneath which he wore a blue silkgrass tunic. His outer coat was adorned with pale sapphires, which Valeria said were meant to evoke the aesthetic of his silver-blue lightning.

They thought he looked quite dashing in it, so while it wasn’t something he would’ve ever chosen to wear under normal circumstances, he still wore it proudly and without even the tiniest of complaints.

Prince Herculanus himself, the King’s eldest son who’d forsaken his claim on the throne for the call of the Blood Priests, facilitated the ceremony.

A stone tablet was taken to the wedding location—a park within the noble district that Elise was fond of frequenting—whereupon Leon and Elise’s names were inscribed. The tablet was then copied and taken to Teira, to be stored within the tomb of Leon’s Ancestors, as were nearly all the other marital stones of his family. The copy was kept by Leon and Elise. Once that was done, Prince Herculanus bound them with silk, pronounced them husband and wife before the Kingdom and their watching Ancestors, and then prayed for their well-being—making for a mercifully brief formal ceremony, but the day wasn’t over, yet.

After the main ceremony was over and everyone socialized for a few minutes, with Leon and Elise’s respective social and professional circles offering their congratulations, came time for the games. Everyone, regardless of class or social station, participated in a race where they were encouraged to use physical force to fight to the front of the group, though few got too rough or took the race too seriously, especially with so many powerful mages and important men and women participating. Then, a number of volunteers stepped forward to spar for the entertainment of everyone—Alcander wound up the victor, though many of the stronger guests didn’t participate. Finally, the ceremony was capped off with a long feast, during which Leon and Elise walked around to speak with all of their guests and thank them for attending.

Throughout the entire ceremony, Maia and Valeria rarely left their side. Given the Bull Kingdom’s allowance of polyamory, the two weren’t looked down upon at all throughout the ceremony, even as they acted as Elise’s ladies-in-waiting throughout the day. Their dresses were less radiant than Elise’s, but Leon still thought that Maia’s simple sea-green dress and Valeria’s ice-blue were dazzling.

The final event of the day was an exchange of gifts between Leon and Elise. For the most part, their gifts were functional—Leon gave Elise a number of rare flowers that he’d heard she was interested in cultivating and that he’d subsequently bought, and a spectacular gold ring set with four emeralds that had been enchanted to enhance her earth magic, which was the element that she’d decided to devote herself to learning. Elise, meanwhile, gave Leon a number of specialized tools that would greatly aid him in enchanting.

All beautiful gifts worthy of their relationship, but the true gifts were those given in private, which were far more personal. Elise gave Leon an amulet that hung from a fine gold chain, set with a cloudy diamond and three lightning-shaped sapphires, which were enchanted to act like magic batteries he could draw from if he started running low on magic power. Leon had been in battle so many times and had so often run low on magic power that he was overjoyed to receive such a gift.

Leon, meanwhile, gave Elise a stylish coat that had been made from the substantial fur left over from the snow lion he’d hunted to awaken his bloodline. His father had made him a coat from that fur, and Leon now presented Elise with one of her own, tailored perfectly for her. Despite the time the fur had been buried underground and languished in Leon’s soul realm, it was still just as beautiful and lustrous as ever, shining brightly in the light of the setting sun.

Leon then surprised Valeria and Maia with coats of their own, each one subtly different in cut and style, though all had been lightly inscribed with enchantments that increased their toughness, allowing them to act as fairly light armor. It left Leon with precious little fur remaining, but in seeing the shared joy on Elise, Valeria, and Maia’s faces as they tried them on, he felt that every stitch had been worth it.

And so ended Leon and Elise’s wedding. They spent practically the entire following week attached at the hip—or other places—reveling in calling each other husband and wife. Maia was usually not far away, and rarely was she ever clothed. Even Valeria got significantly more intimate with Leon, with both exploring each other’s bodies in any way they desired, though they had yet to cross that final line into sex.

Still, it was undeniable now that Leon and Valeria loved each other, and were together, which frustrated Valeria’s father. He and Leon met up once in the days following the wedding, when Leon and Valeria visited him in a small villa that Heaven’s Eye had arranged for him. He no longer needed constant attention from the healers, and he’d recovered enough to radiate the power of a first-tier mage, but he still had some trouble getting around.

As much as Leon hated it, he knew that Justin would have to accompany him and Valeria when they left the Bull Kingdom. He still struggled with the hatred he felt for the man, but Justin knew the Nexus and Lord Kamran far better than Leon; his knowledge would prove invaluable when Leon and his family and retinue finally began their journey to the Nexus.

With some reluctance, he included Justin in their plans to head south. He still planned on interacting with the man as infrequently as possible, though.

And so passed several months. Months filled with training. Months filled with expanding powers. Months filled with love and joy.

But after five months, it was almost time to leave, and so time for more concrete plans for the future to be made.

—

“I want to know everything,” Leon said to Nestor as he laid the map he’d copied from the Cradle out onto the table before the dead man.

He’d made some small modifications to his soul realm in the months since he’d returned from the Cradle after bringing Lapis and the rest of its comrades home. Just before the Thunderbird had announced her success in modifying the transformation enchantment, Leon had been questioning Nestor about the possibility of putting other magical entities into golem bodies instead of wisps, with the implied threat of stuffing Nestor into such a frame.

There were plenty of obstacles to overcome, enough that it wasn’t truly feasible, as Leon had learned in the months since, but he’d also decided to play with Nestor a bit and erected a life-sized statue of Lapis within his Mind Palace that loomed over Nestor, while simultaneously reminding Leon what his failures in leadership had already cost him.

But he wasn’t here speaking with Nestor to threaten him, now. Instead, he needed to have a better idea of what he needed to do upon arriving in the Central Empires. Already, he’d had several long meetings with Emilie, planning out their route south. The route she’d planned on was the same one that Elise and Anshu had both agreed upon—though the latter only reluctantly, seeming to want to disagree with anything Elise had said and only engaging her in conversation by Leon’s order. They’d travel south along the Naga River, then catch a Heaven’s Eye ship east to Ariminium, sail south along the Tyrrhenian River, make their way into the Ilumerian Wetlands, and then from there it was just one long boat ride through the rivers, swamps, and marshes until they arrived in the hinterlands of the Ilian Empire.

However, getting to Occulara in the Ilian Empire was one thing; what he did after that was another. He trusted Elise to get their immediate needs seen to—the purchase of a fairly large home, and then getting their business ventures started—but he had his own projects.

Namely, the many sites that had been marked upon the map within the Cradle. He’d had Prince Antonius look into them years ago, and he’d found out that nearly all lined up perfectly with cities within the Central Empires, leading him to believe that all of those sites had been found and plundered already. However, there were three sites within Imperial territory that didn’t line up with cities.

Leon’s interest primarily lay with those three sites, but he wasn’t going to take for granted the possibility that all of the sites had been discovered or completely ransacked. So, he needed to know from Nestor what each of these sites were. Given that the Raime family archives, Xaphan’s prison, and Nestor’s lab had all been marked on the same map, Leon wanted to reach those sites and ensure that nothing dangerous was being stored there, just waiting for some unlucky or nefarious person to stumble upon them. He didn’t know the exact details of his Clan’s invasion of Aeterna, but he knew at least that they had made a mess of the plane, and he wanted to clean up as much of it as he could before he left.

Doing so might even let him in on more Clan secrets that he might need in the future. While he wasn’t going to count on it, every site on the map could just as likely hold something fantastic that was just waiting for him to recover, or something dark and terrible that he needed to deal with.

Finding answers to all of these mysteries was exactly why he was now speaking with Nestor, along with learning more precise details of the Clan’s takeover of Aeterna.

“We sent many advance scouts,” Nestor explained, after going on a lengthy caveat about how he wasn’t too concerned with the tactics of the invasions, having left most of that to his father, brothers, and sister in favor of continuing his studies. Leon just nodded and hurried him along. “I think it was about a thousand of our warriors riding in five arks. They weren’t our best, but they landed upon this plane with considerable force at their disposal, and prepared themselves for retaliation from the locals, or the Grave Warden. None came, so they spent a few years getting the lay of the land, interacting with the local states and heralding the arrival of our forces. When the main armies of our Clan arrived, the scouts had built up a base of support, and those who weren’t already on our side were summarily crushed.

“It was only when we had established full control over the plane, about six or seven years after the scouts had landed, I would say, that the rest of our leadership arrived.”

“This was during a time of Reconstitution for the Nexus, yes?” Leon asked.

“Yes,” Nestor replied. “The Nexus had already started to crumble, signaling that it was about to fall apart, with the pieces blasted into the Void to become new planes, and a new Nexus to form around the Origin Spark. This is always a process that takes centuries, though, giving just about everyone more than enough time to evacuate to the orbiting planes further out in the universe to wait for the new Nexus to manifest. But I digress.

“Once our leadership arrived, we set about establishing ourselves here. It was a primitive world, one without many of the creature comforts that many of our leaders were used to. It wouldn’t do to have even a vassal Strategos housed within what they might consider a shack, even if the locals called it a palace, so we had quite a bit of building to do.

“For most of our Clan, our golems that we brought served as labor enough to get us established, but for the leaders of the vassal Clans that followed us here, we had to conscript many of the locals to work on our projects.”

“I can’t imagine they were happy about that,” Leon said through gritted teeth.

“They were compensated well enough,” Nestor sniped back. “Money and positions were given to those who impressed us. We weren’t here to stay, we were only here to find a Universe Fragment. Once it was in our hands, we intended to leave for the next plane in the Divine Graveyard, and we had no interest in leaving this plane broken and dead.”

Leon nodded, remembering when Nestor spoke of this before. However, he wanted to know about the sites on the map, especially those three that didn’t become cities.

“What can you tell me about this points?” he asked.

“Fortresses, manufacturies, other places of import,” Nestor replied.

“So places that are likely to have been found?” Leon asked.

“I would say that’s a safe assumption,” Nestor replied. “The people of this plane rebelled against us after the death of my father, siblings, and the rest of the Clan leadership. With our weakened state and our vassals fighting amongst themselves, I would imagine that many of these places fell into the hands of the locals, who then used them against those of our followers who were left.”

Leon nodded again. It sounded like many of these places were likely to have been destroyed in the chaos following Jason Keraunos’ fall, but still, there were dozens of points; they couldn’t all have been destroyed.

“Tell me about these three.” Leon gestured to the map and to the three points absent cities.

Nestor hummed in thought. “I believe the one there in the south was where we refined Titanstone.”

Leon’s ears perked up. “You mean the stuff that was in the walls of that golden serpent colossus’ chamber? That is able to transfer magic with unparalleled speed and efficiency?”

“Yes,” Nestor replied. “The lossless conduction of magic power that Titanstone is capable of is essential for building any magical construct of note. Constructing arks capable of traversing the Void between even neighboring planes in any practical and safe manner is impossible without Titanstone.”

“It was only a refinery, though?” Leon asked, seeking clarification.

“Yes,” Nestor replied. “Titanstone ore is solid, while its refined form is liquid, though it retains its shape while magic is conducted through it. There were a few places we found on this plane where Titanstone could be mined, which was about the only resource that caught our attention, despite this place being known as the ‘Divine Graveyard’. You’d think a place with such a grandiose name would have more to it—”

“It had at least one still-living Primal God, thousands of others who were buried here, and that moon stone that poisoned you,” Leon pointed out.

“True,” Nestor conceded, “but those are hardly ‘resources’. More like artifacts that could be discovered. Anyway, Titanstone is fairly rare in the universe, and any deposit that can be found is precious, so once we found some here, we devoted quite a bit of time and effort into its refinement. And that’s where it we carried it out.”

“How big was the facility?” Leon asked.

“Not too big; we didn’t need that much space,” Nestor replied. “The refinement of Titanstone is more about finesse, and no matter how many mines you have, no single plane is going to have enough to warrant a large facility. The one we built there only required a staff of about ten trusted technicians, plus a few hundred golems for labor.”

“This place may be still there…” Leon murmured as he stared at the point within the modern Sunlit Empire.

“That’s always a possibility.”

Leon lost himself in thought for a moment, wondering just what he might accomplish if he got his hands on a meaningful amount of Titanstone. The possible enchantments he could make with such a material…

He shook himself out of his reverie and pointed to the second point on the map, one in the north, in what was now the Sacred Golden Empire.

“What as this place?”

“A research facility,” Nestor said. “While our Clan didn’t bat our eyes at anything here save for the Titanstone, many of our followers were still impressed with what they found, and so we built a place where these findings could be studied and experimented upon. It was a place that fell under my purview, as the Lord of Storm-Shaping and Chief Researcher of the Clan. Unfortunately, I don’t think they made much headway during our half-century occupation. We catalogued a great many species of flora and fauna, but learned nothing of enough import that they thought to inform me.”

Leon shrugged. “If it hasn’t been found, I’ll still check it out. Who knows, maybe they did find something, and you were just never told for some reason? You were dead for a long time, after all.”

Nestor didn’t say anything, but his ruby dimmed and brightened for a moment in what Leon interpreted as a shrug.

“And that last point, what is it?” Leon asked. The final point that lacked a modern city at the same place was deep in the east, within the lands of the mysterious Sentinels, about whom Leon still knew precious little.

“That was our capital,” Nestor said. “It was a place of great beauty—these eastern areas were heavily mountainous, which appealed to our sensibilities.”

Leon nodded in appreciation. He, too, loved the wilder parts of the world—mountains, forests, and rivers were where he felt most at peace. He always felt just a little more uncomfortable elsewhere—especially in places where a great many people could be found.

“It was a mountain, within, but not attached to, the surrounding mountain ranges,” Nestor said. “The valley around it was miles wide, filled with gorgeous rolling hills of the deepest green, a warm, perfectly comfortable climate, and delightfully frequent thunderstorms. It was perfect. There, we built the capital of our occupation—not a city, but a number of dense palace complexes. They didn’t take up much land space, but were instead largely vertical structures, within which lived all of our Clan members who’d followed my father here. Our vassals were given fiefs and scattered across the rest of the plane, to help project our power and keep the locals in line.”

“A place like that…” Leon muttered in thought, “why was no city ever built there, then? If it was so beautiful, and it already had the infrastructure our Clan built, then why weren’t there any squatters who moved in after our Clan’s fall?”

“I can’t say,” Nestor replied. “However, there is something I wanted to bring up with you…”

“What is it?”

“Show me your map of these Empires along with your copy of my map. I believe that this place you intend to go, ‘Occulara’, is of some significance.”

Leon did as Nestor bid, and indeed, Occulara lined up with one of the points on the map.

“I can’t say if this place was found or not. I suspect it hasn’t, for what was there would’ve been enough power for the one who found it to rule this entire plane, and that clearly hasn’t happened.”

“What was there?”

“This place was our arsenal—not just a storage site for weapons, but also our arkyard—and all of the arks that our Clan and our vassals used to reach this place were kept there,” Nestor said.

Leon’s eyes glittered as he stared down at the dot on the map. He practically drooled with the thought of such weapons—the Flame Lances used by the Bull Kingdom were based on superior Imperial designs, and for all he knew, those Imperial weapons were just aped from whatever might’ve been found there. Maybe there was more to be found…

“I think I’ve found the first point I’m going to investigate…” he muttered.

Emilie had indicated to him that she would like to leave the Bull Kingdom within two months. It had hardly seemed like enough time, given everything that was involved in moving just Elise and Leon’s household, let alone a household the size of hers. However, now, it seemed almost like far too much time—a near eternity before he could start heading down to the Empires to investigate these locations.

Most of all, Leon wanted to see this arkyard. He needed to know if those arks were still there. If they were, then he quite possibly found how he and his people were going to reach the Nexus. Combined with the possibility of getting his hands on a lot of Titanstone that might still be at that refinery, and he was practically vibrating with excitement.

He couldn’t wait to start heading south.