Leonidas settled into Ceruviel’s carriage in silence after helping the Duchess to board, and leaned his head back against the soft padding behind him while closing his eyes. The remainder of their meeting with the Princess had dealt with the political tension in the city, the patrol patterns of the Duskguard, and more immediate martial and civil concerns that he’d largely tuned out from.

Despite Ceruviel’s desires, he hadn’t managed to engage the Princess again for the duration of the meeting, and even if he had been able to, he doubted he’d have been very effective at ‘charming’ her the way his mentor desired.

A depressed fugue had slowly settled over Leonidas while the audience had progressed, and by the time they’d left; it had been all he could do to muster up a halfway genuine smile for the beautiful royal.

Aylar was a beautiful woman, by any measurement or standard, and was of her own value more than charming and interesting enough to catch his attention—and yet he’d wanted nothing more than to get away from her. The memories she stirred in him were as raw as they were painful, and only served to remind him that his entire adventure in Dawnhaven had lasted less than one day.

The timescale between being translated back to Earth and entering the palace was short enough that he’d have never believed it possible if he hadn’t lived it. To go from being essentially a vagabond in destroyed Miami to the Squire of an elf attempting to resurrect an ancient order, while also fighting in an arena, joining the Adventurers’ Guild, and having an audience with a Royal Princess?

It beggared belief, and he was living it.

Their departure from the palace was as clandestine as their arrival, and it wasn’t until they were well on their way that Ceruviel spoke.

“You’re brooding with such intensity that I can’t hear myself think, Achilles,” Ceruviel said from opposite him, and pulled him out of his own mind. “You’ve been brooding since we met the Princess, and it got so bad that even she noticed. In the short few hours I’ve known you, you’ve not struck me as the type to be so morose for no reason—so I will ask: what is it that haunts you?”

“I’m not ready to talk about that with you yet,” Leonidas said while opening his eyes, and fixing them onto Ceruviel’s own. “But I will say that Aylar reminds me of someone I lost recently, to an extent which is shocking.”

Ceruviel’s expression tightened when he began, but softened somewhat when he finished, and she let out a quiet sigh.

“I may not like that your obfuscation is interfering with my plans, but I appreciate your candor about that much,” the Duchess said with an acknowledging nod. “I promised not to push you, and I meant it; but I can’t have you shutting down on me randomly, Achilles. Your charm offensive has to be strong enough to make up for your deficit in strength.”

“Isn’t the point of this mysterious training to make that a moot point?” Leonidas asked wearily and shook his head. “I don’t even know how to charm people, Ceruviel. You keep forgetting that I may be gifted with passably attractive looks, but I am no casanova.”

“Passably attractive looks, he says,” Ceruviel snorted. “You are remarkably ignorant of your own good looks, Leonidas Achilles. Perhaps you should take the time to look at yourself in a mirror and understand why I find the idea of you being ‘passably attractive’ egregiously dishonest.”

Leonidas frowned at her, but the Duchess wasn’t done.

“Additionally, and while ignoring the fact that ‘casanova’ means nothing to me,” Ceruviel said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “as well as your annoyingly defeatist attitude, the simple fact is that you are charming by being yourself. For all your professed lack of confidence, Achilles, you exude the airs of a warrior-prince with baffling ease.”

“I was taught to portray confidence,” he said evasively, and while ignoring the fact that he was technically taught as much to rule, to some degree, as he was to lead warriors.

The two were more interlinked than he’d liked to admit, during his tenure on Elatra. Being the ‘Hero’ was as good as being an Emperor in many ways. He’d had Monarchs that were technically subordinated to him, after all.

“And I will sharpen those lessons to help you win the hearts and minds of nobles and commoners alike, as is expected for your Ambition and your Squireship.” Ceruviel leaned forward when she spoke, and jabbed her right forefinger at him indicatively. “We have one week to properly prepare you to dazzle Princess Aylar, and I intend on ensuring you start to do so even before seeing her again.”

“Why are you so insistent on this?” Leonidas asked with a flare of irritation and an aggrieved grunt. “I understand wanting her to ascend, Ceruviel, and I’m happy to help—but I can’t see what charming the bloody future Queen of Dawnhaven has to do with my path as an Archon. Once I learn what I need to, I have to leave anyway.”

“Oh? Is that so?” the Duchess asked with raised brows.

“Of course,” Leonidas stated with a frown. “I have a Sovereign Ambition, and I want to create a place for my mad family to be able to live together in peace. More than that, I have an obligation to humanity, to fix—” he cut off from saying ‘fix what I broke’ and instead continued on a different track “—some small piece of the world, enough for the innocent to find a haven of safety away from all the insanity.”

“With what Army?” Ceruviel asked coolly.

“I don’t need an army,” Leonidas replied stubbornly.

“Oh?” she asked skeptically, “So you will fight every monster, predator, beast, or mad Cultivator that seeks to harm your people, all by yourself?”

Leonidas opened his mouth, paused, and then closed it with a grunt.

“I’ll teach them to defend themselves,” he said after a moment.

“That doesn’t sound like a haven of safety, to me.”

“They’re safe if they can defend themselves!” Leonidas insisted.

“So your citizens will also be your military?” Ceruviel asked critically before continuing, “Then what of your food needs? Weapons? Armor? Item maintenance? Settlement development? Potions? Reagents? Economy?”

Leonidas’ shoulders hunched a little in a defensive manner with every added element of a functional society.

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“I… I mean…”

“Gods of Altera,” Ceruviel said with a shake of her head and a pronounced sigh, “I forget that you are so inexperienced, sometimes. For all your promise, for all the blood I can see lurking behind the grim blue of your eyes, you are markedly naive in so many ways as well. Sometimes I feel as though I’m speaking to a hardened General, and other times you remind me that you truly are just a very talented, very gifted, but ultimately very inexperienced young man.”

Leonidas said nothing, and instead folded his arms and looked away.

“The next two weeks will be simple,” Ceruviel said in a firmer voice and in a tone that brooked no interruption. “We will work on your physical attributes from six to twelve, work on your mental attributes from twelve to three, and we will work on your Affinity and Core from three to six. When I depart for my duties at five, you will begin to study what I know of the System, Alteran History, Cultivation, and Statecraft from six to nine.”

Leonidas wanted to object, but Ceruviel narrowed her eyes when he opened his mouth, and he shut it with a ‘click’.

“From nine to eleven you will train with sparring partners of my selection. At eleven, you will bathe, have dinner, and then calm your body and mind. From midnight to five in the morning you will meditate, then have breakfast, and see to your own pursuits until I return at half past six in the morning.”

“What about sleep?” Leonidas asked impulsively, and while forgetting—at least for the moment—his prior objections.

“You will not need it,” Ceruviel declared with complete confidence. “I will teach you to circulate your Psi and Mana in such a way as to replace your need for active sleep, rest your body, and reinvigorate your mind. It’s a secret discipline only Psi users may make use of, and with your talent, will serve to greatly enhance your Cultivation as well.”

Leonidas reached up to rub his palms over his forehead, and sighed heavily. He had agreed to be mentored by Ceruviel largely because he knew the woman would help him gain power, and he’d wondered at exactly how she intended to do so. He’d assumed she’d come up with some manner of training regime, but he’d expected it to be over the course of several months.

This reminded him even more of the mad dash toward readiness Miranda had put him through, and he couldn’t help but feel a stirring of amused familiarity at the way in which the Duchess so ruthlessly approached developing him. Not only was she clearly interested in honing his literal Attributes, but she seemed intent on teaching him to be worthy of his Sovereign Ambition as well—and

“And the arena?” he asked with mild resignation.

“A proving ground. You will need proper stimulation to test what I teach you, and more than that, you will need to truly stoke the fire of your legend prior to the Princess completing her Rite of Ascension. My plans for you require it.”

“You keep mentioning plans, Ceruviel,” Leonidas grumbled. “What plans, exactly? Making me an Archon?”

“Before I answer, let me ask you something,” Ceruviel said instead. “I sensed sincerity in what you said earlier. You truly want to create a place safe for humanity, do you not?”

“Of course I do,” Leonidas said with a nod.

“I can sense you bear some perplexing feeling of responsibility for what happened to your world, despite the fact I am quite certain you have zero control over the System, just like the rest of us—but your bewildering guilt aside, I would ask something more pertinent: This haven of yours, is it just for humanity?” Ceruviel asked with an unblinking focus. “If so, what of the rest of us? Would you leave us all to die while you safeguarded your own species?”

Leonidas blinked at her words, and felt his back come back to rest firmly against the seat again. Ceruviel’s question, while seemingly simple, had scored a fine blow against his resolve. He hadn’t really considered it, if he were honest with himself. He knew that he definitely felt responsible for the Incursion because, no matter what common sense or logical timelines told him, something about Azrageth’s dying words had inexorably scarred his psyche.

For all that it was stupid, foolish, self-destructive, and perhaps even a left-over guilt from his developed ‘Hero’ complex; he truly did believe that he was responsible for unleashing the System on Earth, and as a result, for killing the billions that had died in the wake of its encroachment. Earth, unlike many worlds on the Nexus from what little he’d gleaned, was far more peaceful and actively tamed than others.

As a result, the sheer brutality of an Incursion—especially with the emergence of monsters—had resulted in a calamitous loss of life across the planet, among billions of people who’ve never had to worry about anything approaching actual combat in their lives. When factoring in that conventional human technology had been all but worthless as a result of the Incursion, the death toll was likely over sixty percent of all human life on Earth.

If Leonidas was even partially responsible for that, directly or indirectly, then he did not simply have blood on his hands: he was swimming in an ocean of it. That was how he saw it, and it was against his nature to find excuses for doffing responsibility. If he had spared Azrageth, the Incursion may never have happened—and he’d had the chance to do so. He knew that. Whether or not it was true, he’d had the chance to check… and he’d chosen to kill the Demon Lord instead.

Regardless of any consideration, any worry, any absolving factors; he had chosen to kill Azrageth.

All the logical arguments in the world could not change that fact.

So what, then, did that mean for the races that had come to Earth? They were invaders in every definition of the world: colonizers who had chosen to transmigrate with the clear and active intent of creating new homes, new settlements, and even new nations upon his homeworld. He could see why his Grandfather hated them—and he could see why other humans would, too.

And yet… if he was by his own definition responsible for bringing the System to Earth, and the deaths that caused, then was he not also responsible for the peoples that had come with that Incursion? Certainly there would be some, or even many, that actively persecuted and warred with humanity—but what of the Haelfenn? They had chosen to integrate the humans of the Twin Lakes, even going so far as to give them pathways to citizenship and legitimacy.

He had seen humans partaking in the Slayer Trials, only a few years after their worlds had been irrevocably changed. Were the Haelfenn, then, solely conquerors and colonizers? Were they the enemy?

Were they unworthy of his protection? Were they invalid for participation in his envisioned sanctuary?

The faces of his Elatran companions flashed through his mind, and in that moment, he knew his answer—and all dissenting opinions be damned.

“No,” Leonidas said out loud. “No, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t turn away people that did nothing to harm me, and doom them to death. That just isn’t in my nature, no matter what others might think. If I have the power to keep people safe—no matter who or what they are—then I have a responsibility to do so. If innocents die when I could have saved them, then it’s as if I killed them myself. Many won’t agree with that, but I do believe it.”

Ceruviel’s gaze never left him, and after a moment, she smiled.

“And that, Leonidas Paendrag, is why I did not kill you when I learned your lineage,” Ceruviel said without blinking. “That is why I chose to have faith in you: that spark, that naive, stupid, boyish, wonderful spark of virtue that the world has tried—and failed—to smother within you. I sensed it the day we met, and I sensed it again now. You truly wish to know my plans for you, Achilles?”

Leonidas nodded, and felt his heart thump at the intensity of her gaze. There was something zealous, fierce, and even a little eccentric within the blazing lavender eyes of the centuries-old warrior he’d chosen as his mentor.

“This world is my home now, Achilles, and the home of all Haelfenn under my care,” Ceruviel said with a fierce passion. “We are aliens on an alien world, and we need a bridge to the people that were here first. Why is it important you do not merely impress the Princess, but charm her? Because no, Achilles, I will not simply make you an Archon.”

Ceruviel leaned back, and when she spoke, it was with a grin of ambition.

“If I have my way, I will make you our King.”