Eleonora’s hands felt warm and comfortable to the touch and after remaining conscious for a few minutes despite the burning pain, the raging flames inside her body began to subside. Slowly but surely she was regaining her senses and the feeling throughout her body could only be described as otherworldly.

Upon looking at her own arms, she noticed all visible veins emitted a weak golden glow that seemed to pulsate along her heartbeat. She felt strangely light, while pleasant, it raised many concerns as she decided to question the goddess.

“What… what was happening with my body just now?”

“Just how the darkness repels the light, so too light repels darkness. What I did was to cleanse your soul from the ever growing hatred rooted inside of you, that seed of animosity would eventually grow into something much darker than you could ever imagine. Being one with the void, Lastraeous could easily take a hold of your body and use it as his vessel.”

Leona closed and opened her hands, she could feel a newfound strength within her.

“I take it that I’m free from his influence then?”

The goddess sadly shook her head.

“Unfortunately as he stands, he can still corrupt mortals in order to gain a measure of control over them. Despair, hate, sorrow, greed, fear, jealousy… many of these feelings can sprout a new seed of darkness within them.”

“So to deliver us from doom, light is needed to banish these dark desires?”

“While you are not entirely wrong, there are a few details that I must explain to you.” Eleonora extended both of her hands out as if imitating a weighing scale, as she raised her left hand a bright glow started to emit from the palm of her hand while the right had a swirling orb of darkness weighing down on her left hand. “Despite everything I’ve said, those feelings are an important aspect in the hearts of men, it inspires them to reach greater heights, but too much of it and it turns destructive. In contrast, too much light in their hearts and they might as well become complacent with peace, so a balance is needed between these two.”

She balanced both hands and clapped them together and both elemental orbs vanished in thin air. Leona stood a bit stunned by the excess of information she had to digest, all the goals she thought were aligned for her were all gone in a flash. She did indeed feel her magic was undoubtedly stronger than before, but if the cost was her to become a mere puppet of a god, she was more than determined to put an end to it. Her eyes locked into the goddess’ as she asked from the depths of her heart.

“Eleonora. Are you really on humanity’s side?”

A weak smile curled on her face as she replied.

“If not for you, my children. I wouldn’t even be able to exist. My powers may have weakened but not my zeal to keep all of you alive and safe. Men must be free to choose what kind of future they want for themselves.” She grasped the holy sword on the ground beside her before standing up, the towering divine figure looked down to the tactician like only a mother would to their child. “Leona, you are more powerful than you realize. Through your resolution you’ll be able to gather the people you need to put a stop to this madness and hopefully with time, I too can avenge my brothers.”

Eleonora looked at the frosty city of Londria far away. Leona followed her gaze until she noticed the storm clouds began to swirl ever more violently above the city and once she looked back to see the goddess, there was no one there. Only through a whisper in the wind was she able to hear her one more time.

“Stay strong Leona. Your light shall be the guide to many. As your mother was once to you.”

Upon closing her eyes, the tactician grasped the pendant on her chest as if it was second nature and the second she opened her eyes again she found herself inside the inn bedroom. The roof still above her head meant nothing terrible had happened while she was sleeping or at least she could presume she slept as there was no hint of fatigue in her body as she sat up on the bed, staring first at her own arms.

“...”

Noticing there was no visible change to her body, she decided to wear her clothes. She glanced around the room while putting on the garments , but only saw Krieg on his bed and Phoebe was nowhere to be seen.

‘I need to rethink my plans. If everything up until now was something Lastraeous planned in advance to further his goals, that can only mean one thing.’ She stood up and went to the window on the end of the room, while it was covered by the thick dark blue curtain, she decided to discreetly peek through the side to check the inn surroundings. ‘Whatever he is planning to achieve is close to completion.’

It was difficult to see much without almost any sunlight , Leona closed the curtain and headed to the doorway, before heading downstairs she looked once more at the sleeping knight and grasped the prismatic pendant.

“I’m off Krieg.”

She glanced around the hallway and seeing it was empty she headed downstairs to the restaurant area. It was mostly empty, just a few tables had customers getting their breakfast meal before heading off to work.

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“Oh, good morning Leo.” The familiar female voice called her out from the far left side of the room, Athena was peeking around the corner waving to her while Jano seemed to be getting her order. “Come here, let’s eat together. It’s my treat.”

The tactician’s eyes quickly glanced around and since none of the other customers were looking at her, she discreetly made her way over to the inventor’s table. On top of it, there was a mug filled to the brim with a familiar black hot liquid.

“Coffee?”

Leona muttered as she noticed the gentle waft coming off from the mug.

“Ah, is Miss Leona familiar with coffee?”

Jano held what seemed to be a toy tray in his hand while putting down a thin white ceramic plate holding a few circular toasted cake-like doused by a thick transparent liquid much like honey near Athena before also placing a knife and a fork on each side of the dish.

“Leo is a noble after all.” The inventor took the knife and fork on each hand and began to slice part of the top of the stack. “Ah, Jano. Get another of the same pancakes I’m having for her, if you’d be so kind, don’t forget the coffee too.”

“That shall be done.”

He bowed shortly before heading off to the kitchen. Leona sat across her while being unable to take her eyes off the pancakes in front of Athena.

She could feel her mouth start salivating, even though she had never seen or eaten anything like it before, the sweet smell of the syrup alone was enough to make her crave the unfamiliar dish.

“Leo?” Athena was looking at her with her head slightly tilted near the table in order to look her straight in the eyes. “Something wrong?”

“Ah, no, no. Sorry, I was just looking at your food, I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.”

“Oh really? I thought it would be a common dessert amongst nobles.”

“I’m not sure if I quite fit that bill…”

While it was true that Leona’s family held both rank and riches to qualify them as nobles, she would barely hang out with other kids of her social status. Oftentimes she would instead take walks in the forest around the mansion while accompanied by her mother or maids while escorted by Krieg, or help her mother with the tinkering of other mechanical devices aside from firearms.

Other than that she would spend most of her time inside her father’s study, reading and learning about military tactics and literature that caught her interest, namely historical books alongside arithmetics and chemistry ones.

“Ah- no I mean- actually-”

Seeing how rude her remark was, Athena started to panic which affected her ability to speak properly. Thankfully Jano came just in time with another tray holding the cake-like dessert and a mug containing coffee, saving the inventor some face.

“Here’s your order, Miss Athena.” The chef had a faint smile on his face which made the mustache curve a bit upwards. “I hope you enjoy it, Miss Leona.”

The pancakes were doused with a generous amount of sweet syrup with a vibrant decorative red five thick pointed leaf on the very top of the dessert. On the side, the coffee left a trail of warm air rising from the black surface. The combination of the acidic and sweet aroma was enough to make her want to dig in as fast as she could.

“Excuse me.”

Leona held the fork and knife before she began to lead the short blade through the pancake’s soft surface. As she cut down a slice of the mountain of pancakes, the syrup began to seep in as she drove the fork through multiple layers of the soft flatbread. She contemplated the dessert with anticipation before swallowing the built up saliva in her mouth.

Both Athena and Jano looked at her with excitement in their eyes as it was rare to see someone try out that dessert for the first time since it is so famous throughout the people in the capital.

The moment the tactician bit down she could feel the soft sweet texture grinding gently against her teeth, the mildly sweet taste of syrup gave complexity and moisturized the otherwise dry cake batter. Leona naturally began to smile as she chewed with her eyes closed as to savor the taste which made both inventor and chef relax their shoulders.

“Oh that was a good bite.” Jano chuckled as he rubbed the right side of his mustache with his fingers. “I will now excuse myself, enjoy the dessert Miss Leona.”

She couldn’t even reply since her mouth was stuffed with pancakes and instead just nodded. Athena leaned back against the chair and finished the mug of coffee she had ordered to herself.

“I’m glad you liked it. It was rare to see Jano wait for a customer to start eating.”

After chewing through it, Leona took a sip of the coffee to down the rest of the pancake.

“Phew, I don’t remember the last time I had a sweet so good like this.”

“I only came to this place back when my father used to bring me and my brother here. It was almost a ritual at this point to come and eat at least one pancake before leaving for Akrapocalis.”

Only after slicing a part of the dessert Leona noticed the aforementioned vibrant red leaf used for decorating the dish.

“What is this leaf for?”

The tactician picked it up from the small stalk it had left. Upon closer inspection she noticed it was dried much like the leaves she would see from time to time in the middle of books containing herbalistic knowledge.

“Just decoration. I once asked the same thing to Jano and he said for the very first time a customer eats this dessert at his restaurant he makes sure to have it decorated like that.”

“Huh… that is awfully specific.”

“It’s because his wife used to do that. I heard from my father that before Jano became a chef, he was an adventurer, a really good one at that, but his wife was killed during an expedition to the Londrian mines by a frost golem.”

Leona’s eyes went wide as her hand even stopped moving the fork.

“A golem? I thought it was only a legend, after all it’s supposedly impossible to animate a golem through magic alone.”

“Me too. My father said the story came from Jano’s own mouth but I still have my doubts, if it really was a frost golem you’d think the kingdom would hunt it down or at least close down the mines, but nothing really happened as far as I know.”

“Interesting…”

The inventor took the last sip from her coffee and set it down on the table.

“But that is beside the point.” Athena shook her hand as she moved on from the subject. “I came here early so I could discuss with you some findings and a few concerns that I have regarding the air vessel we are working on. Since, well… if I’m to be completely honest, it’s not going well.”