“… Sounds like a successful raid,” the Director said as Leon finished his report on what happened at Narses the Black’s castle. Speaking with the Director about his Eye had been the first thing on Leon’s to-do list once he and his people returned to Occulara, even with Elise needing him for planning his party. He and the Director met almost alone, with only Penelope there to hear the report; even Narses the White was busy organizing a relief force to be sent for the captives rescued from the blood farm below the castle. “The guild had some success of its own, though nothing quite so spectacular…”

Leon cocked an eyebrow, his interest piqued as the Director pulled a map of the Ilumerian Wetlands out of his soul realm.

“With dedicated searching, my accountants found quite a bit of misappropriated funds that Narses was hiding,” the Director explained, and Leon could hear the suppressed wrath in the old man’s voice in every syllable. “He used this funding to not only purchase a manor for himself out in the Wetlands, but also support a small cabal of personal followers.”

Leon moved a little closer to examine the location. “Has it been scouted?” he asked. “Do we know how—”

“No need to guess, Leon,” Penelope interjected. “I’ve already paid the manor a visit. I didn’t raze it to the ground, but I came quite close.”

“Huh,” Leon grunted in mild surprise. He wasn’t sure if he ought to feel elated that the problem was dealt with, or angry that people he didn’t quite trust took care of something that he wanted to see taken care of with his own eyes.

‘Though, Penelope’s fine,’ Leon thought. ‘I doubt she’d throw in with the vampires, even if her father’s not so above such methods…’

“Any good material discovered there?” Leon asked aloud.

“None that I could find,” Penelope replied. “I have a large contingent of demonologists crawling over the place as we speak, though. They should have a report on what they find by the end of the week.”

Leon frowned slightly, but he supposed that was about as much as he was going to get without going there himself, and he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to go that far. He had other concerns, Narses himself was dead, and he knew that the guild and the Ilian Empire’s demonologists were skilled enough to go over the place with a fine tooth comb.

With a deep sigh, Leon said, “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for in this case. Was he hiding anything else?”

“Quite a bit,” the Director replied. “Mostly standard-rate corruption, such as additional embezzled resources, but he had quite a few friends in the guild that I’ve taken the liberty of bringing in for questioning. It seems that Narses the Black managed to get his grimy fingers deep into my guild…” The Director practically spat the last sentence, and as far as Leon could tell, it was no joke.

Still, he couldn’t help but ask, “How much were you expecting, working with vampires?”

The Director glared at him and look about set to start arguing, but he paused a moment, his expression turning pensive. “I… miscalculated,” he admitted. “Bringing them in was a mistake. It won’t be repeated.”

That was all Leon needed to hear, especially now that he and the Director were much closer in power. “Good,” Leon responded. “What are the chances that there are more vampires laying in wait somewhere on the plane? At this point, they have to be running low on manpower…”

“Hard to say,” Penelope said. “If there are, I don’t think they’ll present much threat.”

“Don’t count on that,” the Director chided. “I’m tempted to make the same guess, but assume the worst and plan accordingly.”

Leon agreed in a general sense, but he couldn’t quite see the possibility of any more powerful vampires running around the plane that could pose much threat, especially since Narses the Black had implied as such before his ambush failed.

Xaphan, thoughts? Leon asked, calling into his soul realm.

Mmm, the demon hummed in thought. Amon was always someone who preferred quality over quantity, though he’d take what he could get. We’ve likely **canned his local forces, but if that’s the case, then he’ll resort to recruiting whoever he can. Or at least, he will if there’s still something here that he thinks he can strike at.

Unlikely, given our power.

True. He might write off this plane if I’m all he wanted, but this isn’t the last we’ve heard from that usurping, pretentious **boy, I guarantee it.

I’ll keep my eyes open, then.

You do that little pigeon.

Leon blinked. What? I’m a pigeon now, am I?

Without hesitation, Xaphan answered, Yes.

When did that happen?

Right now. I have decreed it. By order of a Lord of Flame, you are now named ‘Pigeon’.

No.

Yes. It’s done.

Maybe I should start calling you Little Ember? Or maybe Former Lord of Flame?

Mm. I’ll be magnanimous, human, and allow you to your inferior name. As prestigious and awe-inspiring as Pigeon is, you don’t deserve it.

Give me some time to recover from that massive disappointment.

Of course, human. My burns take long to heal, take as much time as you need.

With that, Leon felt Xaphan’s attention sink back down into his soul realm, leaving him feeling fairly aggravated, but in the same breath, a little calmer. The possibility couldn’t be ruled out that Amon had other vampires on the plane, but at the very least, he seemed to prefer smaller groups, relatively speaking. Leon didn’t anticipate too many dealings with vampires for the immediate future.

That thought brought out a wide smile, and he turned his attention to more important things.

—

Following his meeting with Penelope and the Director, Leon returned to his Tower. However, instead of heading to his office, he instead met with the lead engineer responsible for the MALL and had an hour-long meeting going over his observations of the platform’s performance.

The weapon platforms had performed quite well, their wheelless design allowing them to navigate the swamps of the Ilumerian Wetlands with ease when they weren’t stored in Leon’s soul realm. The vehicle crews, whose commanders were also a part of the meeting, were also quite complementary of the design.

However, there was always going to be room for improvement, and they hadn’t exactly participated in a pitched battle—they’d simply moved into position and fired a single shot each. The weapon platform would need more intensive battle tests before it could be deemed ready for wider production.

Following the meeting, Leon finally made his way back to his office, but upon arrival, he found Penelope already there, waiting for him. He’d been warned by his secretary, and sure enough, as he walked in, she was sitting in one of his office’s armchairs. She’d grown her usually-short black hair out in the past few years, and it spilled down her back like a silky waterfall, devoid of even a single curl. She smiled when he walked in, a charming, friendly look that told Leon she wasn’t here for anything particularly serious—or at least, nothing that had to do with Heaven’s Eye.

“Penelope,” Leon said as he slowly ambled over to a chair opposite his guest.

“Leon,” Penelope said, not rising from her seat, but giving him a friendly little wave. “How’re things going?”

“Fine,” he replied. “You?”

“Better now that we don’t have to worry about Narses stabbing us in the back.”

“Which one?” Leon sarcastically asked.

Penelope gave him a strange look. “Do you have a problem with Narses the White?”

Leon cringed slightly and said, “No. Joke that didn’t land—what’s going on, need something?”

With a quiet chuckle, Penelope asked, “I was a little more concerned about you.”

“Me?”

“You. You and your minions, anyway. The good Narses already sent his report back, and while Father didn’t have much to say on the matter, I was curious about how that encounter ended. Is everything fine in your retinue?”

Leon blinked in surprise. Asking about his wellbeing wasn’t something he ever would’ve guessed Penelope would do. But after a moment, he decided that he wouldn’t mind breaking words with her for a little while. He could use some outside perspective, anyway.

“Yeah, things were a little tense there at the end,” he said. “Bad Narses was involved in some unsavory stuff.”

“He was a vampire,” Penelope pointed out. “’Unsavory’ can describe just about everything they do.”

“True. In this case, it was more personal. He… murdered the parents of two of my retainers. Anna, being so harmed, couldn’t stop herself from killing the man.”

Leon did his best not to make it obvious, but as he narrated what happened, he carefully watched Penelope’s expression, looking for any hint as to what she was thinking. When he finished, she was quietly staring at the wall behind him, a thoughtful look on her face.

After fruitlessly waiting a beat for her to respond, Leon added, “Can hardly blame her. She lost her parents to that monster; I think revenge is understandable.”

Penelope scowled. “Someone like that shouldn’t have been on the mission to begin with! She was far too close to the suspect to be trusted to be objective! And now we’ve lost a valuable source of information on vampire activity on this plane!”

Leon frowned, but didn’t respond. She was right, and bringing Anna was his fault. He knew how she was likely to react, and he brought her anyway. But his intent was to kill the vampire anyway, so he figured it wouldn’t have mattered. He never would’ve thought that Narses would try to surrender, or that the other Narses would accept it.

‘At least there’s only one Narses now,’ Leon thought with some dark amusement.

“Depends on the mission goal,” Leon matter-of-factly stated. “Still, you’re not wrong. I wonder about bringing Narses in. How would that have gone down? How would Anna have taken that? Would she have resented it? Would she be happier for it?”

“That’s something I can’t answer,” Penelope replied. “And we’ll never know, now, will we?”

“I guess not…” Leon whispered. “If you were in her position, what would you have done? Do you even know?”

Penelope sighed. “My mother’s gone, though due to natural causes, thankfully. I can’t imagine what I would do to someone who offed my father. I’d be angry, I’d want revenge, but I don’t know how far I’d take it. It would really depend on the details. Were I in Anna’s exact shoes, I think I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I’d take Narses in. I don’t want someone like that running around the plane, and he undoubtedly knew many more people like him. Bringing him in represents the best chance to ensure that what I hypothetically suffered wouldn’t be repeated.”

“Could you live with yourself after that?” Leon wondered aloud. “This person killed your father—in this scenario—and you’d be comfortable letting them live?”

“I did not say that. I… like to think that I’d do what duty demanded of me, regardless of how I felt. I think you made a mistake bringing Anna on that mission in the first place, I don’t blame her at all for killing the man, given what she suspected him of, what he was, and his attempted trap.”

“That’s just what you think you’d do, though,” Leon murmured.

Penelope frowned. “I don’t know what I’d actually do unless I were in the exact same situation, so guessing is all I can do. We can tell ourselves whatever we want, but we won’t know what we’ll do in a given situation until we find ourselves in it.” She slouched against the back of her armchair a little bit and added, “I will admit that it’s easy to sit back and criticize someone’s actions after the fact. It is a lot harder to do when in a given situation. But some things have clear-cut answers, and that’s why we have legal tribunals.”

“How many tribunals does Heaven’s Eye perform?” Leon asked. “This guild has always stuck me as a bit authoritarian, we don’t exactly have a lot of due process…”

“We rarely need to when we get enough evidence,” Penelope replied with a nonchalant shrug. She then fixed Leon in a serious gaze. “To cap off my point, I think that… if not forgiveness, then at least making the attempt to make peace with your enemies—situation depending—is for the best.”

“Easy to say…” Leon muttered.

“Yes, yes it is,” Penelope conceded. “But consider the fact that Anna got her revenge, and we were deprived of a gold mine of information on vampires. How is she doing, by the way? Is she happy that her enemy is dead? Does she seem better off?”

Leon frowned again. Anna had been completely silent on the way back to Occulara, hardly meeting anyone else’s gaze. She most certainly did not seem happy, and when they arrived back at his villa just a few minutes before he left for his meeting with Penelope and the Director, they ran afoul of Helen, and Anna almost broke down before her younger sister managed to pull her somewhere private.

When Leon didn’t answer, Penelope whispered, “I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then. I think I’ll just summarize what I’m thinking like this: what’s done is done. Bad things happen, and punishments need to be meted out. But it’s the living that deserve our concern, not the dead. Better to focus on what you can do for the living rather than trying to honor the dead with something they’ll never appreciate. If we can do more good than harm by taking our enemies in alive, or even making some kind of peace with them, then isn’t that the more moral thing to do?

“Big ‘if’,” Leon responded.

“It is,” Penelope agreed. “It’s hard to talk about these things in the abstract. Every situation is unique. But that’s just the way I try to live: focusing on what I can do to ensure the prosperity of those around me. And if vengeance won’t aid my in that goal, then how valuable is that vengeance, anyway?”

Leon didn’t immediately respond, remaining quiet as he turned her words over in his head.

“I suppose I’ll just leave it here, then,” Penelope said as their silence stretched out uncomfortably long. “It sounds to me like you have some business to deal with back home, but I’m glad for this chat. These were things I already kind of wanted to touch base with you on, so I’m glad we could take care of that.”

Leon hummed in acknowledgment as she stood up, but as she reached the door to his office, he quickly called out, “Penelope. Thanks for speaking with me. It’s good to get a little outsider perspective. It’s easy to get lost in one’s own head about things like this.”

Penelope gave him a strange look, but nodded and said her goodbyes, leaving Leon alone in his office with nothing but his work to keep him company.

Leon, however, had far too much running through his mind for work, so after less than half an hour, he called it a day and left. If there was one thing that Penelope was unequivocally right about, it was that he had personal business he needed to take care of back at his villa, and not just with Anna.

—

Leon watched in loving fascination as Valeria twirled about, swinging her glaive in ways that were more akin to dancing than proper combat training. Her light blue training attire was skin tight, showing off her voluptuous body, her silver hair swung behind her in a single loose braid, and her clear, sapphire eyes were closed in concentration. And yet, despite her closed eyes, she moved with absolute surety, and Leon could detect the tell-tale ripples in the training room’s ambient magic from her magic senses. She hadn’t noticed him, though, keeping her magic senses trained only on the area about ten feet from her in all directions.

This was obviously not combat training, but more keeping her body limber and in control. Dancing, she and Alix had often insisted to Leon, was one of the best ways to not only keep oneself in shape, but also to always be comfortable moving around.

Given how she moved with such grace, Leon could understand that much, at least.

He watched her move for almost twenty minutes before she finally stopped, panting slightly from her exertions despite her power. She opened her eyes, and only did she seem him leaning against the doorframe, watching her with a loving smile.

“Leon!” she exclaimed, a smile of her own lighting up her face before an emotional cloud immediately darkened it.

Leon knew exactly what that cloud was, and dispelling it was his purpose in coming here.

“Val,” he whispered as he slowly walked over, shutting the door behind him to give them some privacy. She didn’t fight him at all when he took her into his arms, pulling her into a tight embrace. He held her tight, only letting go once she returned her glaive to her soul realm and returned the hug.

“What… why are you here?” she stoically asked, her expression returned to its usual neutral state. Such an attitude was one that Leon hadn’t seen directed his way in a long time.

“Wanted to talk,” Leon responded. “Care to sit with me?”

Valeria hesitantly nodded, and Leon could tell that she was just as apprehensive about what he had to say as he was. But she sat down with him right there in the middle of the training room.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, Valeria clearly waiting for him to get to his point, while he breathed deeply, working himself up to what he had to say. When he finally did, he found that his body was flooded with emotional adrenaline, making his hands shake and his voice crack.

“I… I’m now older than my father ever was,” Leon said, unable to keep a steady tone. Valeria’s eyes widened in grief as he spoke, but he laid a hand over hers to bring as much comfort as he could. “Your f—Justin’s agents… when they came to our home, my father was thirty-seven, just a few months shy of thirty-eight. I… reached this milestone just a couple months ago. I am now, and will forever be, older than he was. My birthday just emphasizes that. It’s not one that’s easy to face.”

“Leon, I—” she began, but he raised a hand and cut her off.

“Just give me a minute or two, all right?” he asked. “I need to get through this, and I don’t think I can start again if I stop.”

She nodded, and he continued.

“I thought for a long time what I would do to those responsible. I still think of what I’ll do when I find ‘Lord Kamran’. Given the hostage he has, I don’t think I’m alone in this.”

Valeria gave him a nod of solidarity—her mother, Kamran’s adopted daughter, was still in his hands as far as they knew.

“But even though he gave me his boss’ name, I haven’t forgiven Justin,” Leon stated. “His part in my father’s death will never be forgotten. And I have to admit that the thought of facing him on my birthday is one that I can’t stand.”

As Valeria’s eyes began to water, Leon squeezed her hand and smiled comfortingly.

“But we have to look forward, don’t we? I don’t think my father would want me to get lost in mourning, or be blinded by vengeance. My future, so long as you agree, is with you. You, Elise, and Maia are the most important people in my life, and I want to make you three as happy as you can possibly be. I don’t relish the thought of interacting with Justin, but if it will make you happy for me to try, then I will. I love you, Valeria Isynos. If you want your father to make an appearance at this party, then… well, I say he can come.”

Leon considered himself fortunate that that was the end of what he had to say, because as the words passed his lips, Valeria flung herself into his arms, crying into his shirt—from joy or anguish or something else, he couldn’t tell. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her against his chest for the brief few seconds it took her to regain her composure and pull back, only a hit of red in her eyes and cheeks betraying what just happened.

“I love you, too, Leon Raime,” she responded. “I…”

“Don’t jump to anything just yet,” Leon said as she trailed off. He could see that she still desperately wanted her father to come to the party—or at least to visit them in the villa, even if it wasn’t during the party—but was conflicted about what he’d just said. She didn’t want to impose, he thought. “Just send him the invitation. Let’s not get caught up in a vicious circle of trying to please the other, where just as I accept that he’s coming, you revoke his invite, and I accept that change, only for you to reinvite him after I said it was fine. Let’s just send the damned invite and settle.”

She laughed, her joy shining so brightly Leon almost felt blinded. “I love you,” she repeated, the look she gave Leon making the three little words seem as long as a novel. Then, she sprang up and ran out of the room, though not before giving Leon a quick kiss first.

Leon just sat on the floor a little longer, basking in her joy. He’d already made the decision to spare Justin back in Nestor’s lab. He’d never forgive the man, as he’d told Valeria, but in the face of such joy, what use was his bitterness? It wasn’t like Valeria would ever accept her father not being in her life, and Leon could still minimize contact anyway. But a sacrifice or two, an hour or two in Justin’s presence here and there, was a sacrifice he could easily make for her happiness.