“Oh?” Atreus asked with another glance back at her. “We are friends now, are we?”

“While my clothes are still on.” Cassandra said with an amused smile. “Certainly.”

Atreus felt his heart skip a beat at the heat in her voice, and he growled under his breath. “Menelaus warned me you were incorrigible of late.”

“My time away from my husband has made me voracious, it is true. It is hardly my fault you are the only one I can turn to for succor.” she demurred.

“I did not agree to be your ordained lover just for you to use me as you see fit, Cassandra.”

“You agreed because you would have been my husband were your path different, Atreus, and you agreed because you love Menelaus as a brother and he asked for your help in keeping me... relaxed. You are the only one we can trust to tell us the truth of the Kings’ courts.”.

“I skirt my oaths to do so, Cassandra.” Atreus reminded her grimly. “Oaths that have dire consequences when even loosely circumnavigated.”

“And I love you for the risk you take on our behalf, my Knight. Agreeing to validate Magellan was more than I might have asked for. The fact you are willing to stay with him is more than I ever expected.”

“His presence threatens to destabilize all of Graecia, if not the Hyperion cluster at large.” Atreus said grimly while looking toward the door through which Arthur had exited only minutes earlier, and once again recalling the ghost of an impression he’d felt during his delve. The power residue there had been catastrophic. More than even the Strategos of the Myrmidónes could hope to wield.

“We have survived worse than one pilot.” Cassandra said reassuringly.

“If only it were honestly that simple.” Atreus said with an exhale of the frustration he felt. “I cannot describe to you what he is, Cassandra, because I cannot make you think as I do—but he has enough psion density to make me want to help him. Even knowing what is happening, and even with my own Callandium-empowered defenses in play; I still feel that compulsion even now.”

“If he truly is so powerful, then why let him go?” she asked with an idle rest of her chin on her beautiful fingers. “Why not lock him in a cell, or vent him out of an airlock and be done with it?”

“Forgetting the strictures of honor that compel us to do nothing of the sort,” Atreus began with a flat look at his beloved, “the reality is that Magellan is hiding something. Something big. Something he thinks he pulled over me. For now, I am content to let him dwell in that false blanket of security. It will make him more liable to reveal whatever it is he’s hiding.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You… you don’t think he’s an agent of Terra, do you?” Cassandra asked in a voice that told Atreus he’d finally managed to break through her indefatigable confidence. “Because the only reason Terra would send an agent, would be—”

“—Censure.” Atreus finished grimly. “If they were looking at us for Censure.”

“We haven’t done anything to warrant that.” Cassandra said with what Atreus sensed as a spike of uncertainty. “We’ve abided by the unspoken mandates the Imperator enforces across the Humanosphere. There are Fringe and Verge nations far closer to Terra with far broader ambitions than us. True Multi-Stellar states, at that.”

“I agree it isn’t entirely rational.” Atreus said in his calmest voice. “But neither is it something we can entirely rule out. A pilot of Arthur’s caliber could change the balance of power across the entire sector. If you give that man a machine of worth, he’ll win wars by himself—or as close to that as an Eidolon pilot can get.”

“Is there truly nobody in Graecia that could match him?”

“With the right machine? I doubt there’s anyone in the Rim that could match him.”

“Not even Circe?”

“I’m not sure.” Atreus admitted.

“And he’s definitely a Freelancer?” Cassandra pressed.

“He was not lying about being a Knight-Errant.”

“...Hm.” Cassandra said at Atreus’ words, at the same moment as her uncertainty was subsumed by what he had come to understand was a feeling of calculation.

It was a feeling that often gave him cause to worry.

“Cassandra.” he said warily.

“He needs to accept my offer...” She muttered.

“Cassandra.” he said more intently.

“I would need to make sure he’s handled properly, of course…”

Atreus turned and placed his forefinger under her chin, lifting it up so he could look down into her eyes, each one like thunderstorms made into a window to the soul. “Cassandra.” he growled. “What are you scheming?”

“My House needs a Champion, Atreus.” his lover responded while reaching up to gently stroke his armored hand. “My husband needs a Hetairoi. My daughter needs a Knight. House Leos needs a Protector. We cannot afford to let any opportunity pass us by. House Drakos has all but defenestrated our ability to even approach Eidolon pilots to fight for us, and here one of the greatest in Graecia’s history has just fallen into my lap.”

“It’s too dangerous. We were just speaking on whether he was an agent of—”

“If Graecia is to be censured, we can do nothing to stop it.” Cassandra cut him off firmly, and lightly pushed his hand away. “If Terra wants to make an example of us for whatever slight the Imperator might concoct in his Callandium-mad brain, that’s Terra’s business. I cannot—I will not, in fact!—live my life like a child scared of their absentee father’s ire!”