“I’m surprised you went with the morality option,” the Director said. “I would’ve thought that you realized by now that any words they might have about peace, justice, and morality were entirely self-serving.”

“Had to try,” Leon replied with a shrug. “Give them the option of letting me do my own thing. I didn’t think they’d take it, and I wasn’t surprised. The price they demanded, though…”

“The Grand Druid’s shouldn’t be too onerous,” Penelope said with a wry smile. “Unless you consider getting to bed a beautiful Princess to be a steep price to pay.”

Leon chuckled. “No, no, her ‘price’ wasn’t immediately heavy. I worry about what she might ask once we’re ‘family’, though.”

“Does that mean you’re going to accept her proposal?” the Director asked with a light scowl.

Leon gave him a pained smile. “Probably.”

“Hmm. That puts us in a bit of a bind. Heaven’s Eye is to be politically neutral, but a marriage like this between a branch Chief and an Imperial Princess would be a bad look. If it’s possible, delay any official marriage. Mollify the Grand Druid any other way you can. If you can get Princess Cassandra on side, then all the better.”

“We’ll see,” Leon whispered. “What are your thoughts on Anastasios’ ask?”

“Intriguing,” the Director replied. “I have to admit that I hope whatever you might share with him might also make its way to us, as well…” He gave Penelope a meaningful look, and she smiled rather wickedly at Leon.

“I wouldn’t mind learning what you know about Apotheosis, Leon,” she said. “Nor would I turn down the opportunity to get more of those Hesperidic Apples…”

Leon smiled again. “For the sake of our alliance, I’ll see what I can do. But my apples grow with the aid of my tree sprite retainer. I’m not loaning Tikos to anyone, so the yield on any apples you might grow won’t be nearly as great as mine.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” the Director said. “You have our research division, might as well put some of them to work on the task, no?”

“I already have many researchers working on a host of other projects. I hesitate to add more to their to-do list.”

“Even for something so critical?”

“Even for this, yes. I’ll have to speak with Tikos first to figure out how any transfer of apple seeds will work. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

“Good,” the Director practically cooed, his yellow eyes alight with greed and ambition. “Good.”

“Might want to close your mouth there, old man,” Leon quipped, letting a bit of his frustration out. “Stay like that for too long and you might start catching flies.”

Penelope giggled as the Director sent a toothless glare Leon’s way.

“To be a little more serious,” Leon continued, “I hope I don’t have to start treating all of my allies like transactional partners. What I’m going to be giving you, then, is quite the prize, and I’ll not be asking for anything in return. I’ll be doing this simply because we’re partners, and if that’s true, then when you thrive, so do I.”

“That is how partnerships work, yes,” the Director replied.

“Good,” Leon whispered. He reiterated, “I will not ask for recompense. I merely wish for the giving of Hesperidic Apples and knowledge of Apotheosis to be a gift. One to be remembered.”

“If you give me immortality, Leon,” Penelope breathed, “I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.”

“Indeed,” the Director intoned, not a trace of deceit to be seen in his statement.

Leon smiled and nodded. “Then we’re all in agreement? I should accept these offers? Purchase the support of Ilion and Evergold? Give body and seed to one, power and knowledge to the other?”

“Did you have to phrase it like that?” Penelope bemoaned.

“Yes,” Leon immediately replied, though he wore a teasing smile. “Yes, I did. This is a serious matter, so seriously is how I’m taking it. Much serious, need flowery language.”

“No, no you don’t. I’d rather not hear the word ‘seed’ come from you again in this context…”

Leon shrugged. “Have it your way. Some of us will be comfortable with our bodily processes over here, you can shelter everyone else.”

“Ugh, can we just move on?”

“If you insist. What concerns me is that there isn’t much we can do to actually guarantee either of their support. Or, I suppose, the Lord Protector’s support; the Grand Druid will support Cassandra no matter what, I think. But once I give Anastasios the knowledge and apple seeds he’s looking for, he can pretty much do anything.”

Leon shot Penelope a cheeky grin, which she studiously ignored.

“There won’t be anything other than his own word keeping him honest,” Leon added.

“Aren’t there?” the Director asked. “How would the Grand Druid react if she saw the Lord Protector going against his word?”

“Tear him a new one, I’d imagine,” Leon stated. “I was hoping for something… less dependent on her, though.”

“The problem here is a matter of power,” the Director responded. “Then we need only seek to match them in power. If you and I were to manage to ascend to the tenth-tier, then the other Empires won’t be able to touch us—assuming the Lord Protector doesn’t achieve Apotheosis before then, of course.”

“Hmm. Of course.”

“I’m wondering why the Grand Druid didn’t ask for the same thing,” Penelope spoke. “Achieving Apotheosis is no small thing, I would’ve thought she’d be just as interested in reaching it as the Lord Protector. So why only ask for a marriage?”

“She’s probably hoping to reap the same benefits, just indirectly,” Leon speculated. “She might hope that I might share the secrets and apples with her after Cassandra and I get together. She might be hoping that I would share those secrets and resources with Cassandra, who would then pass them on to her.”

“And would you?” Penelope wondered. “Share those secrets and resources, I mean?”

Leon smiled at her, feeling almost insulted she’d even have to ask. Blond hair and red eyes flashed through his mind, and he momentarily contemplated leaving Cassandra behind on Aeterna, now that he’d finally agreed to the Grand Druid’s offer of hooking them up, and immediately hated the thought. If he were to take Cassandra as a wife, or even a lover or concubine, then he was in it for the long haul, he wasn’t going to leave her behind.

He quickly explained as much to Penelope, adding, “If the Princess wants to share whatever she might gain from me with the Grand Druid, I won’t stop her. She might be worried about her own family—a reasonable concern, in my mind. I’ll not stop her from taking care of them.”

“How generous,” Penelope whispered. “I’m sure the Grand Druid is practically rolling in delight. She got all the same as the Lord Protector did, along with a marriage pact.”

Leon scowled lightly. “She… just accelerated what was already going to happen, I think. I like Cassandra, and she likes me. So… yeah. We’re doing this.”

The Director hummed in thought, drawing both Leon and Penelope’s attention. “Let’s get this started, then, Leon. If we’re to guarantee our power and autonomy from the Empires, then we’re going to have to start immediately.”

Leon nodded in agreement, and the meeting was soon wrapped up after they discussed a few more logistical hurdles they had to surmount. Once that was over, Leon returned home to begin seeing to his part of these shadowy bargains.

—

Leon stood at the top of his villa’s short staircase leading up to his front door, just about his entire household out in the courtyard with him. Elise, Maia, and Valeria were there at his shoulder, Anzu and the rest of his retinue standing just behind him—Anshu being the only exception, as he was no longer in Occulara.

Even Red was there, Leon having dragged her out of her afternoon nap, though he did concede to her an allowance that she didn’t have to be in human form, so she was lying down on top of the stables in her massive red wyvern form, the building having long been reinforced enough to allow that when Anna’s two wyverns had taken to doing the same.

Along with all of Leon’s retainers and primary household servants—the laborers who worked out in the field weren’t forced to show up, so few of them did—a large contingent of Heaven’s Eye and Ilian dignitaries were assembled. They were led by Penelope and Anastasios, with the Grand Druid and her entourage standing at the front of the group, their eyes locked on the sky. Even Cristina, Asiya, and all of the Bull Princess’ knightesses were present, cutting striking figures even amongst their august company.

Of all the people in Leon’s home, only Nestor was missing, though Leon didn’t even want the golem-man present for this welcoming party.

They weren’t waiting long; the group had only been roughly assembled for about ten minutes before a relatively small, but incredibly fast ark came into view, flying through some distant clouds about a hundred miles distant. It was a familiar ark to Leon; he’d become familiar enough with it during the wyvern hunt he and Princess Cassandra had participated in together.

It was the Princess’ personal ark.

The call went out for everyone to get formed up into a proper welcome party, and about twenty minutes later, the ark had landed in Leon’s forecourt and begun to disgorge its contents.

First came Princess Cassandra’s guards, led by the familiar figure of Evgenia, the woman who’d led Cassandra’s guard detail into the Prota Forest. A dozen guards spilled out behind her, all dressed in resplendent golden ceremonial armor that seemed more designed to embody ideal feminine beauty rather than function as battlefield protection. They formed up before the ark’s ramp, awaiting the rest of the ark’s passengers.

They weren’t waiting even a second before a handful of attendants emerged, each one dressed to the nines in the Evergolden fashion: long golden dresses and half a dragon’s hoard in jewelry. They took positions just to the sides of the ark’s door.

And then she stepped out. The Princess. And when she emerged, Leon heard several gasps ripple through the crowd, and he could understand why.

Were the Princess not an eighth-tier mage, she might’ve been crushed under the weight of all the gold she wore. A diadem on her head, looking made of pure gold and set with three massive emeralds just above her eyes; golden bands running up her arms, every band adorned with different colored glowing jewels, turning her arms into shining rainbows; a huge golden choker that covered her from clavicle almost to the jaw, again solid gold and set with many jewels. All of this was on top of her spectacular dress, made of glittering cloth-of-gold and set with hundreds of tiny sapphires. The dress trailed behind her for more than a dozen feet, and the attendants that had emerged before her immediately picked it up and carried the trailing fabric for her as she stepped off the ark.

She made a regal, Imperial impression, and with her hair done into an elegant updo rather than her usual ponytail or braid, she almost seemed a different person. Only the cloth-of-gold cloak about her shoulders that she’d taken from the black wyvern’s hoard five years ago and Sunlight that she prominently wore at her waist suggested her true martial nature—and even then, Leon doubted anyone but he and those on that wyvern hunt would take the cloak in that way.

Still, she acted the perfect Imperial Princess as she slowly made her way in Leon’s direction, stopping practically with every step to greet someone in her way, exchanging a few words with seemingly everyone. As she slowly approached, Leon found himself staring at her clothes, realizing that there were lightning bolts embroidered into the design so subtly that they only became apparent to the eye when the light struck the dress just right, appearing for just a moment before vanishing again as the Princess moved.

It took many minutes, but Cassandra managed to get through the crowd in Leon’s front courtyard, finally standing in front of him and the rest of his family. She smiled regally, pleasantly, charmingly.

But Leon saw in her demeanor a certain… hunger, like a lioness who’d finally cornered her prey and couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into its neck. He smiled back, making sure his eyes never strayed from hers. If she was going to challenge him like this, then he would meet it head-on.

They wound up staring at each other for what must have seemed an interminably long time to everyone else, the majority of whom had gone just as quiet as Leon and Cassandra stared at each other.

But finally, after longer than Leon cared to keep track of, Cassandra broke first.

“Leon,” she whispered, her melodic voice easily carrying throughout the forecourt despite the gentleness with which she spoke.

“Cassie,” Leon whispered back, feeling rather like a brutish barbarian after her, though the way her eyes lit up at his use of the name, he found that he didn’t care too much.

Together, and with Elise, Maia, and Valeria, they headed inside to finalize arrangements. This was the first time they’d seen each other since Leon left Evergold, and more than a month had passed since Leon had accepted the Grand Druid’s offer of marriage between himself and Cassandra, tacitly telling her about his future plans at the same time. Plans that would now include Cassandra, if the Princess wanted them to…

—

Cassandra collapsed on the sofa, her flashy arrival outfit vanishing into her soul realm with a flash of light, replaced with a tight gold shirt, even tighter black silk pants, and stylish black boots. She looked both exhausted and out of patience, though were she and Leon not among family, Leon doubted she would even show a fraction of that fatigue.

“Was the journey here that trying?” Leon asked as he took his seat on a sofa opposite the Princess, Elise, Valeria, and Maia sitting next to him. The Grand Druid slid into place right next to her granddaughter and wrapped an arm around Cassandra for support.

“There there,” the aged woman whispered, “it can’t have been that bad?”

“No, Grandmother, I love being treated like a doll being prettied up before being sold off!” Cassandra shot back, though with less force than Leon had feared she might express upon her arrival.

“Oh no!” Valeria sarcastically responded. “You poor thing! Being dressed up in so much gold must’ve been so demanding! You must have been so brave to face such a gruesome challenge and come out unscathed!” Leon’s silver-haired lover then dropped the sarcasm in favor of a mocking smile. “I’m sure there are starving orphans somewhere who would’ve killed to take your place.”

“They would be hard to find,” Cassandra venomously replied. “I don’t know how things worked in whatever backwater you’re from, but in my Empire, no one starves. Not even the local stray dogs.”

The two women stared at each other for a long moment, and Leon held his breath, wondering how the Grand Druid would take this display. Valeria and Cassandra’s words were barbed, to be sure, but they came absent of killing intent. Still, Leon couldn’t be sure that the tenth-tier mage wouldn’t take offense.

Fortunately, the older woman just laughed, and Cassandra and Valeria followed suit.

“About time you got here, you entitled bitch,” Valeria said.

“I needed to prepare to be in your presence, Val,” Cassandra replied. “I would’ve thought by now that you would’ve figured out that dry sweat isn’t a flattering smell; perhaps you never learned how to bathe?”

“Let’s not get too into this,” Leon interjected. “You two can trade shots all you want later, once we can get some training weapons into your hands. For now, how about we stick to the matter at hand?”

“Yes,” Cassandra responded as she turned to the Grand Druid. “I would like an explanation, Grandmother, as to why you saw fit to sell me off?”

“Are you disappointed with your match?” the Grand Druid inquired as she gave Leon an appraising smile. “He’s not the most handsome man I could’ve chosen, of course, but in terms of wealth and ability, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone better…”

“It’s not that,” Cassandra complained, “this has hit me like a bolt from the blue. I was given little time to prepare before Mother ordered me to come here. Now, what is this? Are we really getting married? Why would you agree to such a thing?” As she spoke, she turned her eyes in Leon’s direction, her red eyes demanding an explanation.

“I’m… looking into the possibility of brokering peace between the Empires and the Sky Devils,” Leon hesitantly answered. “As a guarantor of intent, the Grand Druid demanded that we be married. I… well, I like you, as we’ve established. It took some time, but I agreed to the proposal, on the condition that you also agree.”

“Hmm,” Cassandra mumbled, her eyes having widened at the mention of the Sky Devils. She took a moment to respond, and she seemed about ready to start roaring in anger. “Wait, wait, wait, Sky Devils? What in the Ashen Fields are you on about?!”

Leon grinned. “Many things. Peace. Saving lives. Preparing for Apotheosis. The Nexus. Greater understanding of magic power, and the realms of power and influence that lay beyond just this plane. A realm of power so great that it can build supercarriers and fleets of arks that traverse the Void with ease.

“Cassie. I like you a lot. I have a lot of work ahead of me, and while it’s going to be dangerous, it will be rewarding beyond the ability of any in Aeterna to measure. It will involve courting the Sky Devils, ensuring that the strife that my Clan brought to Aeterna is finally ended for good, and departing from this plane for the Nexus. My Clan once stretched across thousands of planes throughout the universe, and by the time I’m done, I would have it returned to that former glory.

“Will you join me in this?”

Cassandra laughed, though her expression had turned somewhat nervous. “You… already have your fair share of beauty, Leon,” she whispered as she nodded to Elise, Valeria, and Maia. “Do you have enough time left for me?”

Leon smiled. “I’ll make time. And to be clear, I will take no more wives after you, nor will I have concubines, lovers, mistresses, or what-have-you. You four—or three, if you turn me down, Cassie—are it for me. I will divide my time no further, and only for you four will it be divided.”

“A true romantic you are, Leon,” Cassandra replied sarcastically. “Has there been anyone more eloquent in asking a woman to be his fourth?”

“Human history is long and full of great people,” Leon stated. “I’m sure there have been people before me who make me look like a toddler trying to mumble out a few basic words. But that makes me no less serious. If you need some time…”

“No,” Cassandra said as she leaned forward, any fatigue in her expression vanishing as she stared at Leon. “I don’t need any time. I’ll give you my answer right now, Leon.”

Leon smiled back at her, forcing his expression to stay pleasantly neutral as he awaited her answer, his heart thumping louder and louder with every passing second that Cassandra dragged her answer out.

Finally, she laughed and said, “Yes, Leon! I can think of no one better to be my husband.”

Relief flooded through Leon, and he felt like he was about to melt into a puddle of staticky goo as his muscles, tensed up more than he’d realized, relaxed. But before that could happen, to the delight of Elise and the Grand Druid, Cassandra stood up, crossed over to Leon’s family’s sofa, and slid into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his, her clear inexperience contrasting sharply with her boldness of action.

Still, Leon responded in kind. It had been more than a month since he’d accepted the Grand Druid’s offer of marriage, but it was only now that he was truly realizing this was going to happen. He was actually going to marry Cassandra.