“Hmm, like this?” Valeria asked as she slowly drew runic circle after runic circle on a sheet of cheap spell paper.

“Yes, perfect,” Leon intimately whispered into her ear, feeling almost jealous at how quickly she was picking this up. She claimed that she wasn’t that great at coming up with enchantments on her own, but her penmanship and the speed with which she could copy an enchantment even after only seeing it once was incredible.

There wasn’t much time left until they left for the Central Empires, and they had much to do to prepare to leave, but there was always time for a little bit of enchanting work. Leon and Valeria had been working together in his workshop for months, and while their work occasionally descended into blatant flirting, it was runes that occupied the lion’s share of their attention.

During their shared time together, Leon got the impression that she wasn’t nearly as interested in the art of enchantment as he was, having only a passing interest at best, but he’d decided to share many of Nestor’s lessons with her, which she absorbed like a sponge.

It was almost a shame, in his mind. She wasn’t nearly so interested in enchanting as she was in the art of war, and yet she was so damn good at enchanting that if it had been anyone else with such skills, he might’ve been bitterly envious. As it was, he was just glad he could share in his passion with someone he loved; her talent was a happy bonus.

In their months together, she could already create his best Thunderblast spells as quickly as he could, as well as his white fire spells and all his flare variants. He suspected if he wanted to impart all of the enchanting knowledge he’d accumulated from Xaphan, Nestor, and the Thunderbird over the past five years, he’d be able to do so in only a matter of a few more months.

On this day, though, it seemed he was destined to not be able to spend that much time with her. They’d been working for only about an hour and a half before one of Elise’s servants came hurriedly knocking on the workshop door.

Annoyed, Leon turned away from Valeria and answered, only to be immediately told by the breathless and terrified young man that Princess Cristina herself had arrived unannounced at the villa and was demanding to see him. That got Valeria’s attention, who looked up from her own work and followed Leon back into the main villa.

Leon hadn’t had that much to do with Cristina since he’d helped to escort her and her mother out of the Royal Harem during the opening phase of the civil war. She’d stayed a guest with the Marquis of Ironford during the entire war, and he’d seen her only sporadically since then, with the greetings and congratulations she’d given him at his and Elise’s wedding being essentially the only time they’d ever spoken directly to each other.

But as Leon reminisced about the wedding, he did also remember something odd about her aura, a thin undercurrent of killing intent that had been directed his way. Cristina had been the perfect vision of a Princess, though—beautiful, modest, polite, and witty, so he’d been somewhat confused, but he’d largely put it out of his mind.

Now, however, his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he walked back into his villa.

Elise was with her mother at Emilie’s palace, and Maia was busy in the training room quietly meditating while maintaining three flying water dragons that orbited her body. That left Leon and Valeria essentially alone to deal with Cristina.

And Asiya, Dame Maxima, and half a dozen other knightesses, all of whom wore the armor of the Royal Guards.

As Cristina glanced over at him as he walked inside, for the tiniest of moments, her eyes narrowed in displeasure, and Leon detected that tiny hint of killing intent again, but then it vanished, like it had never been there at all. And then Valeria walked in behind him, and suddenly, it seemed like the sun itself had descended into his living room for all the radiance that Cristina suddenly showed. She beamed joy as she walked over to Valeria as quickly as her Royal dignity would allow, waving Valeria’s respectful bow aside so quickly that Leon was hardly sure that Valeria had started to bow at all, and pulling the silver-haired woman into a tight hug.

Leon was left there just past the door, completely ignored. He cast a quick glance back at Cristina’s entourage, but most of the knightesses were about as expressive as stone. Only Asiya cracked enough to let a sympathetic a slightly embarrassed smile grace her bronze features.

Out of respect for the Princess and Valeria, Leon gave them some time and didn’t listen in when it became obvious that they weren’t going to separate anytime soon, with Cristina pushing herself up onto her toes so that she could whisper into Valeria’s ear, who hurriedly whispered back, throwing Leon the occasional look of confusion. So, Leon just walked further into his living room and got everyone as settled as they were willing to be.

Five entire minutes passed as Valeria and Cristina whispered to each other, and those minutes felt like hours. But the two finally parted, and came to join Leon, Asiya, and Maxima on the sofas—the two knightesses being the only ones of Cristina’s entourage to take Leon up on his offer of refreshments and seats.

Cristina sat across from Leon with both of the other knightesses on her left, leaving her right open in what Leon interpreted as a clear invitation to Valeria. When Valeria instead rather pointedly sat next to Leon, he felt that same flash of relatively weak killing intent from the Princess, and he felt like he was starting to piece together her apparent antipathy towards him.

When she spoke, though, she made the reason for her antipathy clear enough.

“I hear you’re trying to take away one of my sworn protectors, Sir Leon,” she said politely, though after his time around Trajan, August, and the others in the Royal Family, Leon was able to pick up on enough subtext to know that if she could spit those words with the kind of venom that was considered unseemly for her Royal person, she would’ve.

Instead of directly responding, Leon glanced at Valeria, who gave him an apologetic look and said in his stead, “No he’s not. As I told you, I want to go with him. I am his sword blade now, and I became his retainer because I wanted to. He did not force me into anything, he hasn’t ‘taken’ anything; I’m here willingly.”

Cristina’s eyes narrowed, never leaving Leon during Valeria’s entire spiel. Once Valeria was done, though, she demanded of Leon, “I asked Valeria to come back to my guard detail. She refused because of you. I want you to release her from your service before this journey you’re obviously planning separates us forever.”

Again, Leon looked to Valeria. It seemed to him that this was something he was better off staying out of, and Valeria seemed to agree, because she didn’t even wait for him to respond before she retorted, “Your Highness! Please, you’re my friend and I love you as I would a sister! Under any other circumstances, I would join you in a heartbeat, but I… can’t stay here!”

Finally, Cristina’s eyes turned back in Valeria’s direction.

“I love Leon,” Valeria declared, placing a curious emphasis on Leon’s name that had his eyebrows slightly rising. There was subtext there, and he was quite sure it was something that was none of his business. Valeria continued, “I also have desires of my own that are pulling me away from the Kingdom and along the same path as Leon. I’m sorry, Your Highness, but I simply can’t stay, not even if Leon were to release me from his service.”

The young Princess stared alternately at Leon and Valeria, her eyes narrow, her expression set in disapproval and anger.

But then her expression began to slide into acceptance, and Leon momentarily thought that whatever this was had ended.

Cristina immediately crushed that thought when she defiantly declared, “Then I’m going with you!”

Leon reeled like he’d been physically struck, and while Valeria’s reaction was a little tamer, she didn’t immediately respond, leaving Cristina to continue without interruption.

“Dame Asiya, I apologize for doubting you. You said that my request would be denied, but I thought I could convince them. I should’ve believed you.”

“There’s no need for that, Your Highness,” Asiya replied with a bright smile and a wave of her hand. “These two have been obviously pining away for each other for years; neither friendship nor Royalty was going to come between them.” She winked at Leon and Valeria, then went silent.

Leon finally coughed out a response to Cristina’s declaration of intent.

“You… want to come with… us?”

“Yes!” Cristina almost shouted. “You’re going to the Central Empires—everyone in the capital knows that. The Imperial lands sound wonderful, and I greatly desire to see them. Heading south with Heaven’s Eye and one of the Kingdom’s finest former knights is the best time to go.”

“I can’t imagine the King would agree with that—” Valeria began before she was cut off by Dame Maxima, who Leon knew had been Valeria’s mentor knight she squired for following their time in the Knight Academy.

“The King adores his youngest daughter,” the knightess said. “There are no laws or regulations preventing Princess Cristina from leaving, either. So long as she stays in contact with His Majesty—perhaps even acting as an official ambassador to the Ilian Empire—then she has every right to venture south, and His Majesty will not force her to stay regardless of his personal reluctance to see her leave.”

Leon laughed nervously, unsure if he ought to refuse or not. Generally speaking, he didn’t want people just inviting themselves along, especially people like Cristina who he didn’t know well. However, since it seemed Cristina was far more interested in Valeria, he decided to just shut his mouth and watch Valeria’s reactions.

Not for the first time he rued that he didn’t have the mental communication power that Xaphan had finally started to teach him. He was making some progress in it, but not enough to be useful, yet.

Valeria seemed just as conflicted and surprised as he was, and after a few more exchanges of her trying to talk Cristina out of joining them, she and Leon walked back to the enchanting workshop to talk in private.

“So, what do you think?” Leon asked.

“I think that we can’t exactly stop the Princess,” Valeria said. “After finally being freed from the Royal Harem, she now has a chance to travel the world. That has been her dream for her entire life—to break free from the constraints that have been placed upon her due to her station and go on the kinds of adventures that she read about in books.”

“But…” Leon protested, though he wasn’t sure how to articulate his response. He had an instinctual aversion to just letting people tag along and separating himself from those feelings to make more practical arguments for not letting Cristina come with wasn’t easy.

“I understand that she’s not particularly strong,” Valeria said—and it was true, Cristina was still only of the second-tier. Her bloodline hadn’t even been awakened, so as far as Leon was aware, she was hardly going to grow quickly, either. “She’s still a Princess, and she’ll bring many guards with her. Besides, her presence would hardly matter much since we’ll be traveling with a Heaven’s Eye caravan, which will have more security than I think the Bull King could provide.”

Leon scowled, still not wanting that responsibility, but neither did he say no.

“What do you want?” he asked her. “Set aside all other considerations, I don’t care much for the practical reasons for allowing or not. Just… what do you want to do?”

Valeria was quiet for a long moment. And then, she said, “I think Dame Maxima would come with, as would Asiya. Cristina is my friend, and Asiya is like a sister to me. For a long time, it was just me, her, and Elise in our friend group. And I have to admit that the idea of leaving Asiya and Cristina behind had been weighing on my mind. And Maxima was the knight who mentored me, so I know full well that she’s one of the most competent warriors this Kingdom has. It’s truly a shame that she’s been stuck in the Royal Guards; she could’ve done a lot of good during the war.”

“That sounds like a practical reason,” Leon said with a wry smile. “With me, my fiery friend, and Maia, I don’t think we need to worry too much about practical concerns so long as we stick to human territories. I don’t want to jinx us, but that confidence only grows when I consider that we’re going south with Heaven’s Eye. So that just leaves us with what we feel. Do you want Cristina, Asiya, and the others to come with us? No one else’s opinion matters—not the King, not any of the Princes, not a single other person in the Kingdom. What do you want?”

Again, Valeria was quiet for a long moment, but from her expression, Leon guessed that she was just working up the nerve to give voice to her desire. He could already see what it was going to be, so he resigned himself to have to suppress his own misanthropic instincts that were screaming at him to march back into the villa and deny the Princess her demand.

“I… want them to come…” Valeria quietly stated, as if she were scared the words were going to hurt her. “I don’t want to leave them behind…”

Leon nodded. “Then we won’t leave them behind. I know that Elise doesn’t want to leave Asiya behind, either, and having both her and the Princess with us on the journey will make her ecstatic. Maia won’t care, so if it came down to a family vote, she’d probably abstain.”

“Do you not want to—”

Leon silenced her with a gentle wave and shake of his head.

“Whatever people ask of me, my instinctual answer is to tell them no,” he admitted. “However, I actually like Asiya—I can see why you and she are such great friends—and I don’t dislike Cristina. What’s more, bringing them would make you and Elise happy, so if that’s what you want, then I would happily oblige.”

Valeria smiled, and gave Leon a hug and a kiss on his cheek.

The two went back inside to tell the Princess what they’d decided. It seemed they would have a few more guests on their journey south.

—

Cristina wasn’t the only visitor that Leon received that day. The Princess had been quietly joyous that she was being allowed to join their journey south, and so had left not long after to prepare herself and to inform everyone at the Royal Palace. Afterward, Leon and Valeria returned to work in the workshop, but their focus had been disturbed, and neither were all that productive.

It was almost with a glad heart that, when the villa servant knocked on the workshop door again to inform Leon of another guest, he left to go and meet them personally. Valeria this time elected to remain within the workshop, muddling her way through some of Leon’s older, less efficient, and more needlessly complex spell designs.

When Leon returned to the villa, he found someone that he’d almost written off: Gaius Caecilius Tullius. It had been more than half a year since Jormun’s defeat and Leon’s departure from the Legion fleets, and he hadn’t heard a thing from Gaius since then, aside from the thanks he received for sending Gaius the emeralds that had been set within the eyes of the golden serpent-man colossus.

“Gaius!” Leon exclaimed in surprise.

Gaius had been standing just inside Leon’s villa from the entrance hall, staring into space, but when Leon called out his greeting, he turned toward him.

“Leon,” he said with much less enthusiasm, though for all that lack of excitement, Leon could detect not antipathy in his tone or aura.

“What brings you here?” Leon asked as he waved Gaius over into the living room.

Gaius took a deep breath, and didn’t respond for several long seconds, his face wearing a conflicted expression, as if he were wrestling with something in his head.

“It’s… not an easy thing,” he quietly said. Leon thought he knew what Gaius was talking about, but he didn’t interrupt to seek clarification. “I… I quit the Legion two months ago,” Gaius stated. “I did it just about as soon as the task force returned home.”

Gaius paused for a moment, so Leon decided to try to lighten his tension a bit by getting him talking about something else.

“It took them that long to come home?!” he said in genuine surprise. “What in the hells took so long? I thought the Legion was almost done in the Isles, and the King said he was going to recall the remnants of Sigebert’s fleet immediately!”

Gaius shrugged. “Returning home is a long and dangerous task, so Sir Sigebert’s remaining Legate convince the King to let us return with the rest of the battle group. We then took a long tour back to Kraterok. Dame Basina wanted to circle every island on the way home, giving everyone a good look at the fleets and the power of the Bull Kingdom. Parading so many ships around like that wasn’t easy, and then we had to wait an additional month in Kraterok so that the tribute they were gathering could be protected on the way back here. Compound all of that with some bad weather that slowed us down even more, and yeah, it took a while.”

Leon nodded in understanding. “I’m glad I left when I did, then…”

Gaius chuckled, visibly relaxing a little bit. “Dame Basina was not happy when she learned that you’d left.”

“I know,” Leon replied. “When I reported to the King, he told me she sent a report back to him saying that I’d deserted the fleets.”

Gaius nodded. “I think she was hoping the King would have the power and inclination to ‘hold that arrogant, disrespectful wretch’, as she called you, responsible for angering her.”

Leon just shook his head in disappointment. He was tempted to speak ill of her more, but decided that Basina was just not worth his time.

“Anyway,” Gaius continued. “I’ve spent most of these past two months back home in Lentia. Congratulations on your wedding, by the way.”

Leon nodded in thanks.

“Since my brother defected from Octavius to August, we have a bit more time to prepare, but it’s been made abundantly clear that our landed title will soon be revoked. My family is getting ready, but… it’s still going to be hard for them to adjust. Those emeralds you sent will help—thank you for holding up that promise, by the way—but there will still be a lot of adjustment for everyone. Which is why my decision is so damn hard.”

Gaius looked Leon in the eye, the golden-haired noble looking kind of like he hated himself for what he was about to say.

“Leaving my family during such a time isn’t something that I enjoy doing, but it’s the best for everyone. They don’t need me around, and I’d just get in the way if I were. I have no real future in this Kingdom without the benefits of my name, so I’ve decided to tentatively accept the offer you made me, Leon, assuming it’s still open and the benefits you can offer are good.”

Leon smiled. People that he could trust were rare, and after everything that he and Gaius had been through, he trusted the man about as well as he could anyone else who wasn’t related to him.

“Then let’s talk,” he said.

He and Gaius negotiated for almost an hour, and in the end, Gaius fully accepted Leon’s offer, joining his retinue. He was no longer a knight, but his salary wasn’t going to decrease too much from his time in the Legion—he and Leon settled on fifteen-thousand silvers per month, as well as the same benefits that Anshu was receiving, most notably the rights to renegotiate his terms upon ascension in magical tier and to break their contract for any reason if he wanted to.

Once their negotiations were over, Gaius didn’t stick around. Leon had informed him that they were going to head south in less than two months’ time, and Gaius wanted to spend as much of that time as he could with his family helping as much as he could with their transition from landed noble to ‘mere’ rich aristocrats.

Leon didn’t mind this—Marcus and Alcander were set to do likewise within the next couple of weeks, and Alix had already left to visit her family once more in the Northern Territories.

Once Gaius left, Leon just stood there in his entrance hall, quietly amazed and baffled at how the day had gone. He now had a whole bunch more people accompanying him south than he’d ever thought would be with him. And once he was done thinking, he decided that he kind of liked it.