Leon stared at his retinue assembled around him.

“… and so that’s where we stand,” he finished, having just caught them all up on the events of the past couple of days and where they now stood in regard to the Director: still technically a part of Heaven’s Eye, but in a relatively precarious position and liable to leave in only a matter of months.

Looking around, he could see that his news had left most of his people rather introspective, but Anshu seemed almost annoyed, if anything. The Indradian muttered something in his native language that no one else could understand, though his tone was quite vitriolic.

Once everyone had had some time to process the information he shared, Leon continued, “I just want all of you to know that I don’t do this lightly. Heaven’s Eye, up to this point, has been good to us. But if it’s harboring a threat, then we have to respond. I have to respond. I won’t blame any of you if you want to bail now; being a part of Heaven’s Eye was a big reason that some of you joined, I’m sure. But know that if you stay, then I will always choose you over the guild. I will choose you over anyone else. I value each and every one of you, and if any of you are ever hurt, I will tear those that dared to lay a hand upon you limb from bloody limb.”

Alix was the first to respond. “I think I can speak for everyone in saying that we appreciate that sentiment, Leon. We’ve seen it several times already, and it’s not something we’ll ever take for granted.”

“You can, though,” Leon replied. “You’re my people. There are certain expectations that I hope I can live up to. And ensuring that all of you are safe, healthy, and strong is one of my responsibilities. I won’t ever abandon any of you for the sake of convenience—or anything else. But I also won’t force you to follow me. If you stay, though, I can assure all of you that these vampires are going to die screaming if I have anything to say on the matter. I won’t allow these threats to continue without answer.”

Surprising Leon, Anshu was the next to speak his piece. “Throwing in with vampires is vile. Those creatures should be exterminated! I’ll not have anything to do with any organization that endorses, directly or indirectly, blood sacrifice. If you’d advocated us to ignore these past couple of days, Leon, then I would leave. But I agree with your decision.”

“Thank you,” Leon replied.

“Same here,” Alcander loudly declared. “Just promise me one thing, Leon: when you find those vampires that are most responsible, save at least a little bit of the fun for us!” He clapped Marcus’ shoulder, but Leon noted that Marcus, while smiling, was a little less enthusiastic.

Helen and Anna remained with him, too, as did Alix, but during the entire meeting, Marcus barely said a word. In fact, he’d been remarkably taciturn since he’d been released from the hospital.

The meeting continued for a little while longer, with Leon shifting topics first to the preparations for their expedition to the Sacred Golden Empire, and for that, he needed quite a bit of assistance. First, he charged Anshu and Talal with procuring a yacht to take them north, and impressed upon them the need to remain together and in public at all times, to minimize the chances of being attacked on the street. Then, he told his retainers that they were each going to be receiving some new gear soon, and to get their measurements done for armor.

When they were finished with that, he dismissed them to see to their daily training, but before he could take off for Sid’s place, he was stopped by Marcus.

“Think I can have a moment, Leon?” the former nobleman asked.

“Sure thing,” Leon replied, and the two stayed in the dining room until everyone else had left.

Leon waited for Marcus to speak first, so he waited for a long moment. He didn’t rush the man, though, for Marcus sat in his chair, his eyes staring without focus at the table, his brow furled from intense thought.

Finally, Marcus turned to Leon and said, “I need to thank you again, but… just saying it doesn’t feel sufficient. I can’t overstate the relief I felt when I woke up in that hospital, knowing that you’d pulled me out of that place… Being attacked and kidnapped was humiliating, and that it was Kassia who’d done it makes it so much worse. And then… what they did to me and Alcander… Leon, thank you. This is a debt that can’t ever be repaid, but I’ll try anyway.”

Marcus spoke with some hesitation as he searched for the right words, but his final statement came with conviction. Leon had no cause to think that he was just saying the words for their own sake; he meant every single one.

But while Leon appreciated his words, he didn’t agree at all. “There’s no debt at all,” he said with a smile and a wave of his hand. “Those vampires were trying to strike at me through you. If you weren’t with me, then they never would’ve targeted you.”

Marcus just shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. I chose to follow you south despite you telling me of the powers arrayed against you. I continued to follow you after that vampire attack in the Wetlands. I’ve followed you for ten years, and while I can’t say that I’ve ever really felt that I would follow you forever, I have never been given cause to doubt my decision. But that’s changed; I do feel like I can follow you forever after this whole thing. I saw what you did for Asiya’s family back in Samar, but it’s another thing entirely to have you come after I was taken…

“Leon, I don’t blame you for what those vampires did. They’re responsible for their own actions, and you for yours. And you saved us. That’s not something I will ever forget. As long as you’ll have me, I’m yours. My sword, my bow, anything you need, you just have to say the word.”

Leon sat and stared at Marcus for an almost painfully long moment when the former nobleman finished. Finally, he just said, “I… don’t really know how to respond to that.”

“That’s fine,” Marcus replied. “I think in your position, I would just dismiss this entirely. I never thought I’d be where I am now, saying these words to you. I don’t expect a response, honestly. I just want you to know that I’m your man for the long haul. Whatever you need.”

Leon just awkwardly smiled and said, “Thank you, Marcus.” He didn’t know what else to say, and it seemed that Marcus understood, for he just nodded at Leon, then stood up.

The two didn’t exchange any more words, and Marcus went to the training room while Leon slowly walked out to his front courtyard, took flight, and meandered his way down to Sid’s workshop, Marcus’ words on his mind the entire way.

—

“Siiid!” Leon called out in a sing-song tone as he walked into her workshop, half in familiar playfulness and half in a forced attempt to drive out the thoughts that had occupied him the entire journey into the city. “You here?”

“Who is that? Who is that?!” he heard her shout from deep within her workshop where he could see some active furnaces and hear the sound of hammers on anvils.

“It’s Leon!”

A moment later, Sid came around to the front, her blacksmith apron on and covered in soot from the forge. “Ah! Leon!” she said, a joyous smile breaking out across her face. “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon… especially not after what you told me yesterday…”

“Ah, right,” Leon replied. “I hope I didn’t put you in too bad of a situation.”

“It’s fine. I agree with you: vampires shouldn’t be in Heaven’s Eye. Still, I’d rather be left out of this, but if push comes to shove, I’m on your side.”

“Thank you, it means a lot.”

“Anytime. So, I don’t suppose you came all the way here just to talk about some blood-suckers?”

“No, I didn’t.” As he started to speak, Leon walked over to one of Sid’s tables and conjured a few sketches for armor and weapons he’d been toying with over the past year or so. “I need arms and armor for my retinue, and I was hoping you could provide me some critique, if not outright assistance.”

Sid frowned in thought as she examined the papers, but then shrugged and said, “I can squeeze in a little extra forging. I’m mostly just supervising my apprentices, but they’re all getting good enough that they don’t need me to do that anymore…” She punctuated her statement by lightly socking Leon in the shoulder.

“Fantastic,” Leon said with a smile, ignoring the friendly hit and gesturing to his sketches. None of them were complete or finished in any conceivable way, but they still served to illustrate—literally—what he was going for when it came to his retinue’s new gear. So, without further ado, he jumped right into the technical discussion with his smithing teacher. “Now, then, I was thinking of using the wyvern bits I took from the hunt…”

—

Leon let Sid’s workshop feeling quite pleased. After talking with her for several hours and making many more detailed sketches, he felt like he was ready to start some real work on the suits of armor he’d need. And he didn’t just need to design the metal and scales of the suit, he also needed to devise detailed enchantment schemes for each suit, to bring them if not all the way up to par with his own pseudo-Adamant armor, then at least somewhat comparable in utility.

He had a lot of work ahead of him still, but before he’d left Sid’s workshop, she’d told him that after their talk, she wasn’t going to ‘just’ give him advice and critique, she also wanted to help with the actual forging, too, her interest and spark of creativity having been enflamed during their long exchange. With her help, Leon estimated that the three months he’d allotted for them to prepare for the northern expedition might not even be entirely needed.

When he got home, though, he found that his retinue was still training, so he decided to follow suit. He rather reluctantly set aside all thoughts about enchantments and the weapons he could create—especially his musings about a new Lightning Lance—and refocused on his own personal power. It had been a long time since he’d gotten stronger, magically speaking, and it was time to change that.

To that end, Leon checked up on his retinue first, and then headed straight for his personal meditation chamber. Once there, he cast himself into his soul realm, waking on his humble black throne. Without a word, though, he took flight and made for the deep pit where his transformation enchantment had been carved by the Thunderbird.

When he arrived, he found the place much the same as it had looked when the Thunderbird had finished it. The pit was tremendously deep, its sides covered in millions of glowing runes. Floating in the air throughout the pit were even more runes made of polychromatic light.

Leon drifted down the pit, his eyes flitting from one rune to the next, taking in the entirety of the enchantment. In the past ten years, he’d studied this thing many times, and his growing skill in the art allowed him to identify more and more of the enchantment as a whole. He still wasn’t even close to being able to replicate it without just directly copying it, but he could at least follow it reasonably well.

When he reached the bottom of the pit, he sat down in the center of the enchantment, the pit lit only by the glow of the runes around and above him. With the pressure of the stone around him and with how far from the surface of his soul realm he was, the bottom of the pit was almost oppressively quiet, and that was exactly what Leon was looking for.

But he could find such quiet in other places, of course, but what those other places didn’t have was this enchantment.

The most important part of the enchantment were the parts that now directly surrounded him. The floating runes forming long, swirling bands of light were, themselves, mostly light runes designed to interact with his body. It was this part of the enchantment that anchored the entire thing on his bloodline.

They weren’t only light runes; he could see a few lightning runes in there, too. The Thunderbird had made some alterations to the enchantment in making it fit for his use, but there wasn’t a single fire enchantment to be seen in there. She had revised the enchantment to effectively target only the power that he had inherited from her.

He wasn’t upset by this, she could hardly be expected to know enough about the Great Black Dragon’s power to target it for stimulation. Leon didn’t, either, of course, but that wasn’t why he was here.

He sat down in the center of this great enchantment that allowed him to transform his shape into that of the Thunderbird, and watched the floating runes drift about, forming new glyphs, before separating again to form other glyphs. Almost absent-mindedly, he opened his palm and conjured a few arcs of lightning between his fingers. He didn’t have to push, he barely even had to summon it. The lightning was a part of him, as inextricably attached to him as his own hand. Hells, he could lose his hand, but his power wasn’t so easily lost—he knew that from personal experience, as the slight tingling in his left arm reminded him.

It took some concentration, but the silver-blue lightning that sparked and flashed around in his hand began to change in color, turning gold: the standard color of lightning mages. He hadn’t hidden his power like this in many years, not since the civil war in the Bull Kingdom. Back then, he’d enchanted part of the gauntlets of his Magmic Steel armor to aid him in hiding his power, but even then, it still took some amount of effort and concentration to do.

It wasn’t natural. Golden lightning, the standard for all lightning mages, the lightning naturally produced by nearly all creatures with power over the element, was something that he had to work to produce. But the Thunderbird’s lightning, that which could protect his mind from attack, came to him as naturally as breathing.

Leon closed his palm and his lightning vanished. A moment later, he opened his palm again, and therein burned a small orange flame.

This flame was the standard for all fire mages, indistinguishable by sight alone from the flame of a mundane candle or campfire. And yet, it was all that Leon could consciously conjure. The black flame of the Great Black Dragon was, despite being ‘his’, outside of his control, only ever showing itself when he felt found himself feeling extreme emotion.

Leon sat quietly in the center of that enchantment, wondering just what it was that he was missing. He alternated between fire and lightning, paying attention as much as he could to the way he was able to summon the Thunderbird’s lightning as opposed to golden lightning in an effort to compare to his fire magic, but no matter what he did, the answer eluded him; he just couldn’t conjure black fire.

He’d spent quite a bit of time working on this issue over the past ten years. His musings rarely lasted for longer than a few hours, but now, he had much more experience with black fire. He’d been conscious when he’d used it during the hunt for the black wyvern, though it had still been instinctual.

Leon sat there for three hours, lost in thought, before he finally realized: he was thinking too much.

The Thunderbird’s lightning came to him instinctually, and he had to work for the golden lightning. The same, he reasoned, should be true of his black fire.

He smothered the orange flame in his hand and forced himself to empty his mind. He kept his palm open, but no magic appeared within. But he called for his black fire anyway. He didn’t exactly expect it to answer or to dutifully come trotting out like a loyal dog, but he called all the same.

Nothing responded.

Leon paid extra attention to what was going on within his body. He quietly turned his element-less mana into fire mana, letting it inundate his body and fill him with its heat. But he summoned no fire.

For hours more he sat there, trying to copy with calmness and serenity what he’d done with anger and passion…

… only to realize that he was doing exactly what he’d been doing for years. He was still overthinking, trying to force it.

So, once again, he cleared his mind, and moreover, his body. He stopped transforming his mana into fire mana. He stopped thinking about fire. He just sat there, searching around within him for that burning feeling, that righteous heat that had demanded to be released when he saw Maia vanish into the black wyvern’s maw.

And, for just a moment, he felt something respond. It was like a coiled dragon slept in the pit of his stomach, and, in response to his probing, its sleeping head had twitched.

Leon held onto that feeling for as long as he could, and when he called upon his fire, he saw for such a brief amount of time that he almost thought he’d imagined it a tiny black fire in his palm. But he blinked and the candle-sized flame in his hand was again orange.

Leon closed his fist and tried to recapture that feeling, his heart madly beating with joy, but this time, he was unable to turn his mind off enough. He was elated, he felt like literally jumping for joy, but the hour after dampened his spirits. Nothing he could do roused that dragon, and the time came for him to stop before he saw another lick of black fire.