Leon’s first opportunity to speak with Santiago came the night the man was captured. The Heaven’s Eye convoy traveled through the raided village, but they couldn’t do much to help. They weren’t a relief column and didn’t even pack that much food for their journey, but here and there, some alms were given out and a few of the guards pitched in with some physical labor.

But for the most part, the villagers were on their own to rebuild. The convoy continued on to the nearest city, a settlement of ten thousand lying on a nearby river, where they resupplied, informed the local authorities of what had happened out in the hills, and set up camp for the night.

There wasn’t much the local authorities could do, either, since Santiago’s band wasn’t the only group of former soldiers-turned-bandits out in the brush, but Leon was glad to see at least some attempt at providing some relief was sent to the village.

But that also left him with a bit of a dilemma: what to do about Santiago and the rest of the prisoners. They offered to turn them over, of course, but security in a provincial town wasn’t that great, so Leon made the local magistrates another offer: he’d personally take Santiago and his remaining half-dozen bandits further in-country. He didn’t offer anything more than that, letting them make their own assumptions about what he meant by that.

After all, he wanted to recruit Santiago, and only if he couldn’t do that would he turn the man over to the Cortuban authorities. Of course, recruiting the man, a bandit and deserter, might be a headache unto itself, but Leon figured he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

The local magistrates wound up agreeing with his offer, paying Leon a nominal fee for transporting the prisoner. Then, Leon went to speak with the man himself.

Santiago was kept in strong anti-magic bindings within a Heaven’s Eye carriage that had been retrofitted to transport him, with the rest of his people being held in another carriage. So, Leon was able to speak with the man alone.

“Hey there,” Leon said in greeting as the Heaven’s Eye guards showed him into the large carriage. Santiago just made a somewhat exasperated face at him in response. “I was hoping we could talk some more,” Leon continued as he strode in and took a seat near the front of the carriage and got comfortable, Santiago restrained near the back.

“How much choice in this do I have?” Santiago asked.

“None,” Leon responded with a cheeky smile.

Santiago shrugged, and Leon took that as his cue to continue.

“I’ll be taking personal charge of you as we take you to Andalus,” Leon explained, referring to the capital of the Cortuban Alliance, which their caravan would have to pass through on their way south.

“I’m surprised,” Santiago replied. “I thought that you’d be dumping me off on the locals.”

“Would you rather I do that?” Leon wondered aloud. “Looking for a chance to escape from their lackluster jail facilities?”

A chuckle was Santiago’s response. “No,” he said. “They wouldn’t imprison me; they’d execute me as soon as they possibly could, and probably without trial. A sixth-tier mage like myself? They don’t have the capabilities to hold me, nor can they let me go. No, they’d just kill me and end me immediately.”

“Are you expecting similar treatment when we hand you off again?”

“More or less,” Santiago replied almost nonchalantly, giving off no impressions at all that he cared a single iota about his fate. “I’m not just a bandit, I’m also a deserter, and so will receive a deserter’s punishment. Such is life, I’m afraid.”

Leon paused in his questioning for a moment, pursing his lips in thought. He leaned back in his seat, staring at Santiago, taking in the man’s relaxed posture, his easy-going, somewhat self-deprecating smile, and his unfurrowed brow.

“Does it not upset you at all?” Leon finally asked. “You’re looking death in the face, and yet you seem like… well, like you don’t care at all.”

“As I said, Leon Raime,” Santiago replied, “this is life. Or do you disagree with my punishment? Or is it my demeanor that you take issue with? Should I protest and wail to the gods of this injustice? Should I demand that they deliver me from this fate?”

Leon quietly chuckled. “No, it isn’t the punishment that I argue with—traitors ought to be punished harshly, and traitors to a state are to be executed. I don’t disagree with that at all.”

“Then you think I’m too calm?” Santiago asked.

“Yes.”

Santiago’s smile widened. “Raging at you, the Gods, the Kings, the Conclave, none of it would change my fate, and I would rather die content than filled with fury.”

“Are you furious, though?” Leon inquired, his eyes narrowing as he finally started to approach the reason for his questioning. “Do you wish that your fate was different? Would you take a chance to live if it were offered?”

Santiago’s eyes turned in Leon’s direction, his gaze sharpening for a moment in seeming comprehension of what Leon was getting at. However, when he answered Leon’s question, he only answered the face-value meaning.

“What I wish hardly matters, but if you must know, yes, I am furious. Furious beyond words. Furious beyond my ability to express. Furious at you, at my country, at my fate, at gods-damned everything!”

Leon nodded, remaining silent as Santiago finally started to channel the rage that he claimed filled him.

“I was a loyal soldier!” he loudly declared. “I turn one hundred in three weeks. Of all that time, I’ve given eighty entireyears to my people, to my Kings, and to the Conclave! Only for me and my people to have been abandoned by the corrupt bureaucrats who refused us pay and supplies! Such is the reward for loyalty!

“And my people, who followed me into our new lives, were rewarded for their loyalty to me with death at your hand! So, yes, Leon Raime, if I had the breath to spare, I would curse out everyone, for everything that I devoted my life to was for nothing! Loyalty is for the dead! Had I just watched out for myself and not for anyone else, I think I wouldn’t now be on my way to death! I think I would be thriving, not at the mercy of… how old are you? You look like you’re about twelve, but that can’t be right…”

“I’m twenty-one,” Leon replied with a smile of pride that was almost the exact opposite of Santiago’s sudden look of utter dejection.

“Twenty-one…” the silver-eyed bandit muttered. “Can’t believe it. Beaten by a child. Absurd.”

“Such is the way of things,” Leon said with a shrug.

“Such is the way of things,” Santiago echoed, his tone despondent.

The two went quiet for a moment longer, and Leon rose from his seat. “I’ll leave you to whatever it was you were doing before I entered,” he said. Santiago merely shrugged, his more nonchalant demeanor now returned, and Leon left the carriage.

He empathized with Santiago’s position, but the man had just about killed any desire that Leon had to make him a retainer. It was much the same as when Kaouther practically threw herself at him, declaring that since he was strong, she wanted to join him in whatever way he saw fit. She did so entirely for power, and for that, he couldn’t possibly trust her, for what could he expect from her but betrayal or desertion at the first sign of someone stronger than him?

Likewise, after Santiago’s rant about his disillusionment with loyalty, Leon now had doubts about him. The bandit still had an impressive résumé, and if Leon could be assured of his commitment, then it would’ve been a no-brainer. Saving him from execution might’ve even made up for having captured him in the first place.

But if the man was done being loyal to anyone or anything, then there was no place for him in Leon’s retinue. He had no time for those he couldn’t trust.

—

“So, what do you think about him?” Elise asked as Leon walked back into their carriage. The town they were staying at had a Heaven’s Eye branch, but it was small enough that the branch was little more than a bank and a warehouse. The convoy had to make their own camp, but fortunately, the carriages were luxurious enough that it was hardly a problem for everyone to use them as shelter.

“Who?” Leon asked. “You mean the bandit?”

“No, I mean the lust phantom I sent after you to bring you back to my bed!” Elise sarcastically replied, though Leon could tell that she wasn’t entirely joking about wanting him back in bed, if the heated look she gave him for a moment was any indication.

But instead of taking her up on her tacit offer to put the conversation off for a while in favor of more pleasurable activities, Leon sighed, collapsed on a small pile of pillows in a corner, and said, “I don’t quite know what to make of him. I suppose ‘broken’ wouldn’t be wrong, but it still seems kind of wrong to use.”

“Do you still want him as part of your retinue?” Elise asked.

Leon lightly scowled. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?

“He went on a rant about how disillusioned he is with the concept of loyalty,” Leon explained, and then further explained the conversation he had with Santiago. “… and I could see it in his eyes that he wasn’t ready for anything that I might offer him. At least, not in that moment.”

“That’s unfortunate, but I can see how you see him as broken,” Elise remarked. “But is that really that much of a deal breaker? If he’s only about self-interest, then can’t you just pay him to be your retainer? You don’t even have to keep him on for that long, or give him any real responsibilities.”

“I’d have to have responsibilities for me to delegate any to him,” Leon pointed out.

“Are you saying you don’t have any responsibilities, husband?” Elise asked with a challenging smile.

“None that I care to delegate,” Leon replied, sending a challenging smirk of his own to match hers.

Elise slunk over, her eyes shining like emerald fire, lightly biting her bottom lip. She slid into Leon’s lap, wrapped her arms around his head, and then pressed her lips against his with fiery passion. But then, she pulled back, the fire still in her eyes, but a more business-like expression on her face.

“I want to see you succeed, husband,” Elise declared, slightly breathless. “Your success is our success. And having more powerful mages on our side is something to seek out, to strive for. A sixth-tier mage that has the experience of commanding thousands might require, I think, more consideration than just a single, brief conversation.”

Leon’s eyes narrowed. “Are you encouraging me to take a risk on a bandit?”

Elise shook her head. “I’m encouraging you to give your recruitment more thought. I understood your turning down that Samarid seventh-tier mage—she was too strong and too unpredictable. But I just don’t want you to ignore good men and women because you locked them into your first impression. Don’t make your choices so quickly. It’s all right to take more time to think these things over.”

With a sigh, Leon let his hands wander over Elise’s tight waist, and then pulled her in closer. He pressed his forehead against hers for a long moment, and then leaned back again.

After another moment of silence, Elise’s expression turned a little more nervous.

“I’m not advocating you to take this Santiago as one of your retainers,” she explained. “I don’t know the man and I have no real opinion of him other than he’s sixth-tier and he’s a bandit—hardly the best material to make a good retainer, but desperation can make monsters of all of us, and tarnished honor can still be redeemed. My concern is you, husband. You, and us.”

Leon nodded, a smile snaking across his face. “I’ll give it more thought,” he said. “I’ll speak with Santiago a little more. Maybe he’ll surprise me.”

“That’s all I was trying to say,” she replied. “And for you to keep in mind that not everyone is going to be fanatically loyal to you right from the start. Think about Anshu—if our circumstances were to deteriorate enough, I don’t think he’d stick around for you. We’re not paying him enough, and there’s no love lost between us.”

Leon’s smile slowly turned into a frown, knowing that Elise was right. Anshu was probably his most problematic retainer at the moment. Alix’s loyalties he was certain about, as he was about Gaius’. Marcus and Alcander he was a little iffier on, but he thought it would take quite a bit for them to abandon him. Anshu, however… Leon didn’t imagine it would take all that much for the Indradian to abandon, or even betray him. He wanted to believe in the man’s honor, but the fact remained that he was a former not-pirate and a wanted man back in the Indra Raj.

The last thing Leon wanted to do was to invite too many people into his retinue whose loyalties and commitments were in doubt.

“Not everyone I recruit has to be in for the long haul,” Leon whispered, and Elise’s smile widened. “I just have to temper my expectations and treat people with the respect and trust that they’ve earned. Not expect respect or loyalty from them until they’ve proven themselves.”

“Yes,” Elise whispered.

Leon rubbed the back of his head in thought. He could see himself taking Santiago as a subordinate, but he’d have to pay him quite a bit and not expect that much from him. Given that he surrendered quickly during the battle with the bandits, Leon didn’t even know how well he fought—though, he supposed that that could be easily remedied with some sparring.

“I’ll try to keep an open mind from here on,” Leon swore. Elise just smiled at him, still straddling his waist, and Leon didn’t hide the fact that his eyes were wandering her body, taking in the gorgeous sight of his wife in tight traveling clothes that hugged her body in all the right places.

Elise seemed just about ready to escalate their current state of intimacy, but then she paused just as she pressed her hands into Leon’s built chest.

“How are you doing, by the way?” she asked. “I know how excited you were to finally learn how to transform, and you were in the sky every waking moment you could after gaining the ability. But I haven’t seen you transform since that ugly business with Asiya. Should I be worried about this?”

With a chuckle, Leon shook his head and said, “It takes a lot of power to change my form. It takes pretty much all the power I can generate in a day just to transform once, and that’s not even getting into how magically-intensive it is to actually fly in that form. Or to fight. During all the time I spent learning how to move and fly about in that form, I wasn’t building up my reserves of magic, and even ate into them more than I should’ve. All of that culminated in five transformations in only a few days, along with a long flight, and a fair amount of violence to further expend my power on.

“I’m fine, love,” Leon finally declared, his voice filled with all of his affection for his wife. “I’m just letting my reserves build back up. I need to train and practice, but after all of that business with the Samar Kingdom, I let my reserves get dangerously low. I need to use a little more discretion with how I use that form, otherwise I’ll run myself ragged in no time.”

Elise raised a hand to cup Leon’s cheek, then tracing his jaw upward until she was pressing a finger into his forehead. “And how about what’s going on in here? All of this doing all right?”

Leon reached up to take her hand in his, then brought it to his mouth where he playfully kissed her fingers a few times.

Locking his gaze with hers, he said, “Nothing to report. Only the usual going on up here, so… not that much, really.”

“I’d hardly say that ‘the usual’ is ‘not that much’,” Elise shot back with a hint of genuine bitterness.

Leon took that hint seriously and sat up a little straighter, taking her head in his hands when she turned away for a moment.

“Are you doing all right?” he asked. “There something you want to talk about?”

She smiled somewhat morosely and leaned into him. “I don’t so much need to talk as just do more of this.”

Leon’s arms fell to her waist, and he held her close, understanding what she meant completely. The two had been married for months, but this moment felt like the first time in forever that they had been alone together. It probably hadn’t been that long, in point of fact, but the fact didn’t really matter; it felt like they hadn’t been spending as much time together as they should be.

“How much farther to Andalus?” Leon whispered into his wife’s ear.

“A few hundred miles,” Elise whispered back to her husband.

Leon smiled. At their pace, that was only three or four days away.

His smile faltered just a bit as he realized that that meant he had just three or four days to deal with Santiago—to decide if he wanted to recruit the bandit or turn him over to Cortuban authorities. And right now, he didn’t know what he should do.

But that also meant that he had only three or four days until the convoy would stop for more than a day, letting him spend some true quality time with his wife.

But until they got there, he could settle for this. Just laying back with her in his arms. They didn’t need to talk about anything, though he would love to hear her voice more.

Quietly, he told her that he would put off his work and his training for these next few days. For now, he was hers. Valeria and Maia certainly had their claims staked onto him, but right now, he needed to see to Elise’s happiness.

The two sat there in each other’s arms for a long time, not speaking anymore, just reveling in the other’s presence. But, eventually, their hands began to wander beneath clothes, and they started to undress. Soon enough, they were taking full advantage of their solitude, making love until each had been fully satisfied. Maia and Valeria later found them naked, wrapped around each other, blissfully passed out.