Leon hesitated a moment before knocking on Helen and Anna’s door. Neither had given much actual reason to worry, but it had been a while since Anna had killed Casimir, and Leon needed to make sure they were doing all right. Bringing them back to the land of their birth was a part of that.

For however much it was needed, it seemed to at least be put to use, as the former ambassador to the Ilion Empire—a family friend who’d privately investigated their parents’ death and learned they were killed by a vampire, leading them to Casimir—had been present at the feast, as had a few others who had also risen in the years since who remembered their parents well.

Hesitating no longer, Leon knocked, and a moment later, Helen answered.

“Hey there boss,” she said after a moment of surprise, though she seemed completely at ease.

“Mind if I come in?” he asked.

“Sure thing,” she responded as she stepped back and let him in.

As Leon walked in, he gave their suite a quick once-over. As expected, though it was only a few doors down from his own, it was smaller, appearing to lack a conference room or a dedicated training room. As it was, it was still opulent and comfortable, but hardly a match for his suite.

“No training room?” Leon asked, looking for confirmation.

Helen cocked an eyebrow and gave him a half-smile. “No? Need a reason to know?”

“Can’t even give us a few days off, oh taskmaster of ours?” Anna asked as she left a bedroom and joined them out in the main room.

“Just want to make sure my people are in fighting shape,” Leon said with a smile and a shrug.

“If I’m fighting, then we’re all already screwed,” Helen whispered as she ran her fingers through her bright red hair. It had been green until not long before they accompanied the Grand Druid back to the Sacred Golden Empire.

“No reason not to be ready, at least,” Leon argued. “Screwed or not, better to know how to fight than not, yes?”

Helen scowled, but Anna quickly said, “As you say, though few of us have the inclination for such violent pursuits.”

“Knowing how to fight isn’t violent, it’s using your skills to visit violence upon others. Without pain, then training is like dancing. Just waving sharp bits of metal around instead of spinning around.”

“I think you need to work on that argument, I’m not convinced.”

Leon frowned at Anna, and after a moment, Helen asked, “Have anything for us, boss? I thought we were going to be kind of on our own for a few days until the Red Leaf ceremony.”

“Aye, that was the plan. Don’t know why I phrased it like that, still is the plan. I’m a little… I’m just… why don’t we have a quick sit?”

With both Helen and Anna giving him strange looks, Leon led the way to the nearest sofas and took a seat with Helen and Anna doing likewise on the sofa opposite him.

And there they sat in silence for a painfully long time as Leon fought to get his thoughts in order. Eventually, under the pressure of their expectant gazes, he asked, “How are… how are you two doing?”

“Fine!” Anna immediately responded, sounding almost offended at the question, but Helen took a much longer moment to answer. The now-redhead glanced at her sister, Anna’s just-as-new platinum locks gleaming in the light of their room’s glowing leaves.

“We’re… fine,” she eventually said.

“That pause wasn’t encouraging,” Leon pointed out. There was another silent pause, but this time it was more a result of Anna and Helen not speaking than Leon. So, after at least half a minute of awkward waiting, Leon explained, “Look, I’m not trying to pry. If you two say that you’re all right, then you’re all right. But I want to make sure that my team is as healthy as they can be, mentally and physically. Hate my insistence on training all you want, but it’s better to be ready than not, no matter what.

“And make no mistake: we’re going to need to be ready.” He glanced meaningfully at Helen. “All of us. And I need my people in top shape. My enemies, especially those I haven’t even made yet, aren’t going to wait patiently for us to train if they can help it. It will be our own power and the alliances we can make that will keep us safe—hopefully the former, I say.

“Now, it’s been a fairly… interesting few months. Magical ascensions, a few key breakthroughs in research projects, valuable finds following long expeditions, and rightful vengeance taken.”

Leon paused, giving his meaningful looks to both ladies now that he was getting to the crux of his visit. From the way they both tensed up, he knew that they had no problem figuring out why he was here now.

“So, I’ll ask again: how are you two doing? It’s been a few months since Casimir’s death. You’re my people, I’m your commander, and I will worry about your well-being even if given no other reason. Your lives are my responsibility, and more than that, I like to think that we’re at least friends.”

“You’ve saved our lives before,” Helen said, speaking slowly and clearly thinking over her words fairly carefully before speaking. “We… I would also like to think that we’re friends.”

Leon smiled.

“Same here,” Anna whispered.

“Then I hope that if anything comes up, if you two ever need help of any kind…”

“We know this,” Helen responded. “But I have to ask again, have you noticed something that prompted this?”

“Well, you two have seemed a bit… distracted. That thing with Nidar and Astar trashing the stables was rather eye-opening, and I’ve noticed you, Helen, haven’t been quite as energetic about our work as you normally are. You two just seem like you have a lot on your minds… some more than others…”

Leon made eye contact with them both, but he saved his more serious stare for Anna, who at least looked suitably contrite.

“That was a mistake on my part,” Anna said. “I shouldn’t have lost control of my beasts like that…”

“No, especially not with that bracelet. I’m not even close to being a competent darkness mage, but with such a tool I’d imagine that it was quite the distraction that had your wyverns going insane in my stables. I can’t have something like that happen again. That sentiment is many times greater if they are ever to become proper war beasts.”

Anna sighed. “Were you not right, I’d honestly be pretty angry right now.”

Leon suppressed a scowl. “It was my stables that were almost demolished. I don’t see how I’d be wrong in this instance.”

Any trace of defiance in Anna’s expression died in that moment.

It was Leon’s turn to sigh, especially when Helen started looking nervous.

“I don’t want to be the bad guy here,” he calmly stated. “I just want us all to be in top shape. I want us all to be happy and healthy. And as your employer, as I said just a moment ago, you two are my responsibilities, for all the good and bad. When you two are injured, mentally or physically, it’s my responsibility to make sure you heal. I hope it’s not too arrogant to say that when you fail in your duties, that failure is on me as well. And any failure on either of your parts is especially egregious because I know that you’re both far too competent to let such failures happen.”

Both ladies smiled a little bit as he reached the end of his spiel, but they were still looking quite put out. Regardless, Leon knew that being a leader meant that he sometimes had to kick his people in the ass if they were off-track, he couldn’t only be their friend and forgive their every mistake.

“We hear you,” Helen murmured. “I’ve… I’ll admit that I’ve been distracted.”

“Same here,” Anna muttered, her eyes unfocused and staring off into space.

Leon smiled sadly. “I came in here asking how you two were. I won’t ask that again. I just want you both to remember that if you ever need to talk, I’m here to listen. And if you want to talk to someone else, then I will do everything I can to facilitate that.”

“Thank you,” Helen responded, Anna still barely able to look at Leon. “If it’s all right, I think we’d rather talk about… this with some other people first.”

“That’s fine. I won’t ask anything of the two of you, so use this time we’re in Evergold to rest up and see to yourselves.”

“Thank you,” Helen replied, and Anna nodded as well.

With that, Leon stood up, said his goodbyes, and left his retainers on their own, feeling just a little unsatisfied. His more selfish thoughts were straying in Casimir’s direction, but he supposed he had answer enough, anyway. The two clearly weren’t happy. Their parents weren’t coming back. The world was safer without Casimir, but they would never hear the sound of their parents’ laughter again. They’d never be able to brag to their parents about their accomplishments. Even Leon, for all his family that had entered Death’s Kingdom, had at least some hope of finding his mother.

Casimir was dead, and as far as Leon could tell, Anna and Helen felt nothing but pain.

—

There was a small part of Leon that thought the Red Leaf ceremony, the religious festival that the Grand Druid had initially used as the pretext for inviting him to the Sacred Golden Empire, was just an excuse for the people of Evergold to have a big old party. It was more festival than ceremony, though one that was at least kicked off by a lengthy ceremony.

All of the leaves of the palace-trees, in the course of a single evening, turned red and fell from their branches. As many leaves as possible were then gathered up and ritually crushed by the Empress, the Grand Druid, and both Princesses, along with a host of nature mages. The resulting dust was scattered about the city, thrown from the top branches of the palace-tree.

That was the signal for a city-wide festival, during which it seemed the only people not working in government who were forced to work and weren’t either in food service or part of the many parades and other street entertainment were the nature mages, who had to see to the palace-trees and regrow all of their leaves before morning.

Leon was grateful to set all of his problems aside for the time being and wander the streets, accompanied only by Maia and Valeria—Nestor being left back in his guest suite and Gaius going off with Anna and Helen. He also noticed a number of Evergolden Imperial Guards in plain clothes following them, but he paid them no mind.

It was a fun night, even for him. Though he wasn’t that keen on remaining in public for long, and Maia and Valeria generally weren’t either, there were at least enough distractions and food to keep them moving onto the next street.

Still, all three returned to the central palace-tree not long after midnight and turned in, for the real meat of their visit to the Sacred Golden Empire was to come later the next day: the visit to the discovered ark.

To this ark, Leon was true to his word and didn’t take Helen or Anna, leaving them behind in Evergold. Aside from his ladies, he took only Nestor and Gaius.

The ark was twenty miles north of Evergold entangled in the root of a massive tree, revealed by a rift opened by an earthquake. It was in a relatively rural area, making it more than clear that something was up given the entire area had been locked down and practically turned into a new military base. Dozens of buildings and temporary housing for hundreds of soldiers ensuring the surroundings remained as secure as such a find demanded.

As they entered the site, escorted by both the Grand Druid and Cassandra, Leon was unsurprised to find even more soldiers inhabiting underground facilities built into the walls of the rift, inflating the number of guards into the thousands.

For him, though, the real attention-grabbing stuff didn’t come until they reached the deepest part of the rift, where a small concrete castle—and given its appearance, Leon couldn’t think of it as anything less than a proper castle—had been erected. Once through the door, however, they went down a large magic lift into a truly massive underground chamber, easily comparable to any of the chambers in Tusk’s territory. This one, however, was even more impressive given its obvious artificial nature.

On the floor of the cavern rested the dead supercarrier, the tree roots that had once entangled it removed. Only its top and sides had been fully excavated, as the Empire was still building the proper infrastructure to get it off the ground, but even as partially buried as it was, and as obviously damaged as it was, it was still a sight to see.

The supercarrier was, in a word, massive. Nearly as large as Jason Keraunos’ ark, and larger by a wide margin than any other piece of military hardware built by the Empires in their long histories. Fully exploring the thing could take weeks, if not months.

Leon didn’t think they’d even have days. The Grand Druid just wanted his assistance in getting the thing up and running, which largely meant that he just needed to open doors and try and get any functional systems to respond to their arksmiths and military engineers, and he wasn’t so sure he could do that without plenty of time exploring.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to turn such a valuable piece of his family’s military legacy over to Evergold.

In their time alone, Leon had refrained from quizzing Nestor on his Clan’s arks, despite having received a primer from the Grand Druid on the flight over. He knew that this was a supercarrier, one of the Thunderbird Clan’s largest war arks, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask the man-golem for any more information in their guest suite, or even to talk to him much at all except to bark orders.

They’d agreed beforehand that it was for the best, but as Leon stood before the small section of the ark that had been forced somewhat above the ground, he couldn’t help but wish he’d been able to find some way to be confident any potential talk with Nestor couldn’t be spied on. Not even the dead man could guarantee that, not without attention-grabbing preparation first.

“Has there been any change?” Leon asked as he stared at the monstrously-large ark in wonder.

“None,” the lead Evergolden engineer, who’d accompanied him and all the rest upon their arrival, clarified. “So far, we’ve not yet managed to access any decks that have no physical damage allowing entry. All doors remain shut, no system remains operable.”

“Well, let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?”

From behind their group, a vaguely familiar voice quipped, “That’s what we’re here for, is it not?”

Leon glanced over his shoulder and saw that Stephanos, the man who’d so rudely approached Cassandra during the feast was standing there, surrounded by a number of rather civilian-looking men and women. He noted that all those in uniforms of the official Evergolden authorities were busy manning the various workstations and facilities built around the cavern to monitor and secure the supercarrier, but these particular folks had come out of a rather palatial-looking building built into the cavern wall.

“All the finest arksmiths in the Empire, come to analyze and take control of this utter marvel!” Stephanos continued, though Leon was rather displeased to see the man’s eyes lock onto Cassandra as he finished.

“Leon Raime, this is Stephanos,” the Grand Druid introduced. “He’s one of my Empire’s most reliable arksmiths…” She quickly introduced the other civilians with Stephanos, most of whom were themselves civilian arksmiths.

Leon, however, barely spared most of them so much as a glance. Only the eighth-tier Stephanos warranted his attention, especially since the man stared back at him with a look of such smug superiority that Leon felt a near-overwhelming urge to walk over and clock him in the jaw.

When the Grand Druid finished introducing everyone, Stephanos finally turned away from Leon and focused on Cassandra.

“Your Imperial Highness,” he said, the other arksmiths behind him remaining quiet and seemingly following his lead, “it’s such a pleasure to see you again in so short a time. My heart swells with gratitude just to be in your august presence!”

“Save it, Steph,” Cassandra growled. “We’re here on business.”

“Of course, of course,” ‘Steph’ replied, to Leon’s irritation. He stared probingly at Leon, Maia, Valeria, Gaius, and Nestor, his gaze only becoming marginally less like a glare when he reached the last. “I’m just confused as to what this group could possibly contribute that the best and brightest of our Empire could not.”

“Continue to wonder,” the Grand Druid shot back. “We’re heading in. You will follow, but not join.”

“Yes, Your Divinity,” Stephanos instantly replied, though again, Leon felt a slight hint of killing intent from the man.

“Now,” the Grand Druid said to Leon, “shall we get closer?”

“Yes,” Leon replied, eager to get back to business. As much as Stephanos concerned him, he was far more eager to get to work unraveling the mysteries of the supercarrier.

Without any more ado, the Grand Druid and the lead engineer led their procession, along with several guards and other engineers—Stephanos and the other civilian arksmiths following at a respectful distance—down to a steel ramp leading up to the crack in the supercarrier’s hull that had allowed access in the first place.

From up close, it was clearly not damage sustained in the fall, if the intense burns and melted edges of the hole were any indications, though given the hull was fifteen feet of enchanted and alchemically-enhanced steel, the hole’s very existence was evidence enough that it had been created violently rather than suffered in the crash.

He didn’t stop to examine for too long before the Grand Druid led them all into the two-thousand-foot-long supercarrier, and they began their explorations.