Leon breathed deeply as he walked away from the square, hardly believing that that had worked at all. He’d taken quite the risk in blasting the Blood Thunder Jaguar’s descendant with the Thunderbird’s lightning, hoping with little evidence at all that he would recognize it, or at least be affected enough not to continue the fight.
He was right, but he was surprised, relieved, and all manner of other similar emotions. He was mostly sure that he had more adrenaline coursing through his veins than blood, his hands shaking with excitement, incredulity, and lingering fear at what he’d just done.
‘It worked…’ he told himself. ‘It worked…’
Of course, he knew that that wasn’t entirely why the Jaguar had turned around—or at least, there was a ready excuse for the man: the approaching Imperial arks, likely bearing hundreds of the best warriors and most powerful mages that the Sunlit Empire could throw together on a few days’ notice.
The Jaguar had stared at him for long moments after being hit by his lightning, more than long enough for some of his subordinates to start looking a little concerned, but when that moment was over, he’d glanced at the incoming Imperial arks and ordered his thoroughly confused troops to fall back. Leon had watched them leave, smiling at the Jaguar as the ninth-tier mage stared back, regarding him from behind his jaguar head-shaped helmet.
In the end, once he and Leon were the only ones left in the square, he asked one final, quiet question.
“Who are you?”
Leon had let the question linger in the air for several seconds before finally answering truthfully, “Leon.”
They’d stared each other down for a few more seconds, and then the Jaguar turned and followed his warriors back to the docks. Leon had stayed in the square for a little while longer, practically leaning against the shattered fountain for support, noting that, at this point, his magic was the only one in the sky. The Jaguar had ceded him the heavens.
And now he made his way back to the Heaven’s Eye enclave as he did his best to project confidence and control, knowing that many eyes were upon him. Red returned along the way, but said not a word, simply falling in beside him.
When Leon returned to the enclave, he was met with a Penelope that looked irate, nervous, and scandalized all at the same time.
“Leon,” she greeted. “Think we could speak in private?”
“Make sure the Tower Lord is getting everything back to normal,” Leon ordered. “The Sky Devils are going to retreat, though there’s not going to be much fighting still until they’re gone. I want Heaven’s Eye in full order before morning.” He paused, then quietly added, “Give me a few minutes. Then we can talk.”
Penelope, for just a moment, looked like she wanted to argue, but when Leon removed his helmet and locked eyes with her, she relented. Leon knew what she saw: all the fatigue, excitement, and anxiety that he could feel.
With that, Leon made his way into the Heaven’s Eye Tower.
---
“Lord Jaguar, what is the meaning of this?!” Elina demanded as the Jaguar led them back aboard his flagship, the rest of the troops that had landed in Argos not far behind them, their subcommanders herding them all back to their designated transports. The battle in the air above the sea wall and on the sea itself had largely ended in their favor, so there was no opposition to their ordered retreat.
Their raid was a victory, though not entirely complete. Argos still stood, the city not quite sacked. They’d seized thousands of hostages that they could ransom back to the barbarians and seized quite a bit of material and magical loot, to be sure, but the city itself would survive this gentlest of sackings.
But the sea wall had been breached, the local Imperial navy now lay at the bottom of the sea, and thousands of Imperial soldiers were dead, and all for little comparative cost. That was a victory by any measure.
And yet, all the Jaguar could think about as he wordlessly made his way to his office on his flagship, Elina trailing him still barraging him with requests for elucidation, was silver-blue lightning, and the deep rumbling voice that filled his mind after it had touched his armor.
He’d only heard that voice once before, when he’d undergone his ritual for bloodline awakening. He’d visited his soul realm, and there confronted the Blood Thunder Jaguar itself. It had inspected him top to bottom, and in the end, merely said, “Acceptable.” In the hundreds of years since, the Jaguar hadn’t heard so much as a growl from the Blood Thunder Jaguar, until just a moment ago.
The Blood Thunder Jaguar had said a single word, one that sent tremors up the Jaguar’s spine and shockwaves through his mind.
[Thunderbird.]
The ancient Lord that had reigned over the stars, the dead god that all the Ten Tribes venerated, the progenitor of the only acceptable Bloodline that could rule over them all. The Jaguar could barely fathom it, a surviving member of that Clan. And, more than that, one skilled enough to compete with him magically on fairly even ground. The Jaguar had felt some frustration at the boy’s power and control over lightning during the duel, but with the reveal of his lineage, it all made perfect sense.
He didn’t care if it was a trick, though from the way ‘Raptor’ had conducted himself, he didn’t think it was. Besides, he didn’t think anyone could do anything that would fool his Ancestor’s senses.
‘No, that boy is a member of the ruling Clan! A Prince, in the hands of savages!’
The concept was terrifying, exhilarating, and above all, deeply concerning. The Jaguar knew only that he had to return to Raikos as soon as possible. His Tribe had to know that there yet existed a Prince of Thunderbird blood. He certainly wasn’t going to do anything that would extinguish that line, and suffering the mild humiliation of pulling back his forces when he could remain for another couple of hours if he had to was nothing compared to what he’d just learned.
As the Jaguar entered his office, Elina just behind him, her face red with anger at how long he’d been ignoring her, he ordered them left alone.
“What is it?” she demanded as the door shut behind them, leaving them alone in complete isolation, preventing even the most skilled spy from listening in. “What is going on in your head?! Why did you retreat?! Who was that?!”
The Jaguar locked her in his steely gaze, his face inscrutable behind his helmet. “Our future…”
---
Leon sighed as he stretched out on one of the sofas in the meeting room he and Red had commandeered. He wanted to stay out of the way as things returned to normal in the city, and he most certainly wanted to stay out of the limelight after his confrontation with the Jaguar.
Red stayed mercifully silent, not disturbing him as he first took a few minutes to stop and process everything that had just happened, and then as he retrieved Tikos’ lotus from his soul realm and briefed those back in Occulara about what had gone down over the past few days since they’d last spoken. He was left feeling a little apprehensive about his return given just how upset Elise, Maia, and Valeria apparently were—Tikos being quite diplomatic in its description of their response—but he was still alive, and he’d made some kind of contact with the Sky Devils that didn’t leave them mortal enemies.
Or at least, such was the case with the Jaguar. Leon got the impression that their politics were rather complicated at the moment from his short discussion with the ninth-tier Sky Devil, but he had to imagine that the Jaguar had more than a bit of pull with his people, and he didn’t think he was currently enemies with the Jaguar.
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For half an hour, he lost himself wondering just what was going to happen next. The Sky Devils knew of him, and he was inclined to, for the foreseeable future, leave the initiative with them. ‘Ten years,’ he thought. If they didn’t try and contact him in ten years, then he would start reaching out to them on his own—assuming this whole ‘raiding Argos’ thing didn’t spill over into a massive war between the Empires and their island. He had much on his plate already, and he needed to see to those he was already responsible for first and foremost.
It was with that thought in his head that a knock came at the door and, without waiting for a response, Penelope entered looking none too thrilled.
Red, on Penelope’s entrance, shot up from where she’d been quietly sitting on the floor, her arms lighting up with bright orange flame. Penelope paused a moment in the face of this hostility, her aura rising to match, and then exceed Red’s, until Leon stood up and used his own fire magic to suppress Red.
“We’re all friends here,” he stated more than asked. “No need for unpleasantness.”
[Maybe she ought to wait after knocking?] Red retorted, though she dutifully stood down anyway.
Penelope seemed more than willing to brush this off as she shifted focus to Leon.
“You have left quite the mess, haven’t you?” she growled.
“Have I?” Leon innocently asked as he slumped back down on the sofa. “Seems like everything in Heaven’s Eye ought to be fine; has the Tower Lord gotten things in hand?”
“Things were never really out of hand here. It was easy enough to start shifting everyone back to their peacetime posts and to prepare to distribute aid once we were sure the Sky Devils were in retreat, but that’s not the point. What matters is that you very publicly interacted with the Sky Devils. That’s going to cause some big problems.”
“I sent them away,” Leon replied, pretending that he didn’t know exactly what Penelope was referring to. “The sack of Argos stopped early because of me.”
“You might not find many people grateful for that if news of who you are leaks. You had quite a few spectators to that little display.”
Leon frowned slightly, but he wasn’t too worried. “The Sky Devils attacked Argos, and since they did that, then there’re probably much bigger problems in the Argonaut Sea and Veins of Vigilance right now. I’m not worried about the public because they’ll be talking of those bigger problems, and anything they hear about me will have been filtered through so many official and unofficial channels that any truth of the matter will be lost. Likewise, anyone who’s anyone in the Sunlit Empire probably already knows who I am, so I have little to fear from revealing my identity. Any friction will likely arise if those at the top think me a threat if this spills out into a wider war, but I plan on ameliorating any of those concerns by returning to Occulara as soon as possible to properly take up my post, and not leave the city for a hot minute.”
“Have this all figured out, have you? Everything’s going to be all right, is it? Absolutely nothing unexpected is going to happen? Everything that the public talks about will not hurt you at all? Or Heaven’s Eye? You don’t know what’s going to happen! You can’t say that this isn’t a problem!”
“I’ve interacted with Lord Protector Anastasios and the Grand Druid. The people of the Empires—those who matter, anyway, those who have power—want me on their side, and they’ll, if not bend over backwards, at least indulge a few whims if I’m not posing a serious threat. They care about the peace and prosperity of their Empires, and so long as I can guarantee that I won’t upset those carts, then I’ll be fine.”
Penelope sighed in frustration and collapsed in an armchair across from Leon, looking about ten times as tired as he felt. She remained quiet for several long seconds, finally saying exasperatedly, “Whatever happens, it’s on your head. Do be a dear and ensure that you don’t drag Heaven’s Eye down with you when you next indulge a whim, yeah?”
Leon shrugged. “If you insist.”
“I do insist.”
“I can tell, you’re being very insistent.”
“Now you’re just mocking me.”
“I am shocked and scandalized! I would never do such a thing!”
Silence settled over them for a short moment, during which Penelope stared at Leon quite curiously.
“What’s going on with you, Leon?”
Leon laughed. “Buzzed on adrenaline. Huge case of can’t-give-a-fuck-about-Imperial-concerns right now, clashing with deep anxiety and insecurity about the future. Just saw the remnants of my Clan’s vassals sack a city, killing thousands and doing billions of silvers of damage, if not more, to the city. Just confronted a ninth-tier mage in front of the entire world and am worried about the response. I’m also really tired and kind of hungry.”
Leon saw Penelope’s face contort as she put in titanic effort to prevent it, but after a few seconds, she burst out laughing. After a few good guffaws, Leon joined in, letting his pent-up emotions vent.
When they were both done, Leon glanced out the window and frowned slightly at what he saw. “Looks like we don’t have much time for rest or relaxation right now: we have some guests…”
---
As Leon and Penelope emerged from the Heaven’s Eye Tower, they were greeted with the sight of a huge ark of such ostentatious design that not even the luxurious ark Cassandra took to the Scorched Fields could compare. The thing looked like it had been completely plated in gold, then embellished with glittering gemstones. It looked less like a war ark and more like a pleasure yacht built by someone desperate beyond measure to show off their wealth.
It hovered over the courtyard, slowly inching downward as a number of Heaven’s Eye personnel rushed about clearing space below for it to land, just in case it was going to. The Tower Lord was already waiting with a large delegation as the rest of the enclave’s personnel scrambled about, trying to go about their duties even as this ark descended upon them.
Leon could see the other few arks that had been flying toward the city had already arrived and taken up important strategic positions. The Sky Devil fleet was still hurrying out of the destroyed sea gate, but the Jaguar’s flagship was still in the harbor, covering them with its massive Lances. The three Sky Devil arks that had taken control of the sea wall were still there, too, but it seemed like no one wanted to commit to an aerial battle. All of the fighting so far had ended, so it seemed the Sunlit Empire was content to simply let the Sky Devils flee without putting their newly-arrived arks at risk when the rest of the city’s reinforcements were still days away.
As Leon and Penelope joined the Tower Lord’s delegation, the Tower Lord whispered to Leon, “This is the Imperial ark.”
Leon whispered his thanks just as a door on the side of the ark slid open, revealing a spectacularly handsome man dressed in a manner just as ostentatious as his ark. He was bedecked in sparkling silver plate armor with heavily emphasized shoulder pauldrons, and a comically large codpiece.
But as over-the-top as his ensemble was, Leon didn’t feel any desire to laugh—the man was smiling quite widely, but his aura was raging and laced with chilling killing intent. After getting to know the Lord Protector and the Grand Druid, Leon immediately recognized the man’s weighty aura as belonging to that of a tenth-tier mage.
This was the Sunlit Emperor.
The Emperor stepped out of his ark as casually as he would step off the gangplank of a ship, and he slowly glided down to the square, followed by several dozen more Sunlit mages, four of whom Leon identified as ninth-tier mages.
Once he hit the ground, the Sunlit Emperor was smiling so brightly that even with a sky overcast by clouds and smoke, he still looked as sunlit as his title claimed. Leon couldn’t help but feel himself relaxed slightly even with the Emperor’s furious aura pressing in around his shoulders.
“It gladdens my heart to see Heaven’s Eye so unscathed by today’s turmoil,” he intoned, his voice smooth and bright, without even a hint of gravel. “So stalwart a partner my Empire could never hope to deserve!”
Silence followed for a short moment, until Leon realized that, as the highest ranking Heaven’s Eye member there, it was his duty to respond.
“You flatter us, Your Imperial Majesty,” Leon replied, channeling the etiquette lessons that Elise had done her best to drill into him. He smiled pleasantly, though he felt more than a little ridiculous as the Emperor strode confidently, though unhurriedly, toward them.
“I but state the truth, Leon Raime,” the Emperor said.
Leon was only mildly surprised at this—he didn’t doubt for a second that the Emperor already knew who he was, but he thought that the man would play that information a little closer to his chest than this.
Without waiting for Leon to respond, the Emperor then turned to Penelope and his smile faltered for so short a moment that Leon thought he imagined it.
“Lady Penelope. Welcome back to the Sunlit Empire; we are joyous to have you back here after so long. Truly, you are a shining ray of light that brightens this dark day.”
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Penelope said, her voice strained.
Leon immediately clued into these two having a history more complex than simple professional familiarity.
“Tell me, My Lady, have you given any thought to my earlier proposal?” the Emperor asked, his attention so thoroughly locked on Penelope that Leon wondered if he’d lost track of the city around him.
Scowling, Penelope replied, “Perhaps you ought to see to this burning city rather than to me.”
“What is a city, compared to a beautiful woman?” the Emperor asked, though he did turn away from Penelope. He briefly nodded to the Tower Lord, then glanced back across the city. “It would gladden me if you, Leon, were to join me in the citadel tomorrow for a victory celebration. It seems the Sky Devils have wrought their carnage and sated themselves; they now retreat. Worrying news has reached my ear from across the sea, weighing down my heart greatly with thoughts of the war to come, but I would love if you could lighten it ever so slightly with stories of what happened here?”
The Emperor’s eyes landed upon Leon, deep brown and warm as a familiar hearth, and Leon knew then without a shadow of a doubt that the Emperor was counted among those who’d witnessed his duel with the Jaguar.