The Storm King

Chapter 367: Confirming Position

It had been a week since Trajan died and Naiad left. Leon hadn’t done a damn thing of worth, to his immense frustration. He and Minerva were friendly enough, even more so now that they shared a determination to bring justice to Trajan’s killers, but he and her weren’t nearly so close as Trajan was to the both of them. As a result, Minerva wasn’t as willing to use Leon as Trajan might have been, trusting him less than the Prince did.

Leon could understand, to an extent. Under any other circumstance, he wouldn’t follow Minerva very far. He could respect her power, but she didn’t have the political power that Trajan did, and she hadn’t trained with him for more than a year as Trajan had. In short, Leon didn’t quite respect Minerva’s authority, though he still respected her much more than just about anyone else in the Kingdom.

Under his current circumstances, he deferred to her, trusting her wrath and her dedication to Trajan more than anything else. She’d expose Trajan’s killers and have them all made a head shorter, that much he was confident of, even if her methods weren’t quite in line with his own preferred courses of action.

And yet, she had told him to stay home while she put out fires and kept Trajan’s retinue together. It was a little insulting, and more than a little aggravating, but again, Leon could understand. He had no political clout she could use, as save for his rank of Legate, he had no official title or position in the government at all, let alone one that could be useful in the current circumstance. What was more, Minerva didn’t have the authority to move him around as Trajan did, so she couldn’t even leverage his rank as much as she might’ve wanted to. Leon’s entire worth in this case was in his home, in his personal power, and in his loyalty to Trajan.

In other words, there was little that occupied Leon’s time during the week following Trajan’s murder, despite how momentous an event it was. Even his typical routine of visiting Lapis and monitoring the investigations that had been running under Trajan had to stop, as those investigations were put on hold and Minerva didn’t want him taking risks by walking into the lion’s den, despite his own protestations.

To take up some of that newly-freed time, Leon stopped by the Heaven’s Eye Tower a few times and took a few walks into the city—he wasn’t prone to cabin fever, but he felt useless at home and needed to stretch his legs for a couple of hours a day. He played with the idea of inviting Alix or Elise along on these walks with him, but both had a lot more work to do in the wake of Trajan’s death than he did, which only added to his frustration.

On his walks through the capital, he found the place a lot less lively than it normally was. It made some degree of sense, since a Prince had been murdered in the city and no one felt safe anymore. Making matters worse, it reminded everyone of the conflicts between August and Octavius, and many of those that could leave the city did so.

Leon passed no judgment upon them. Had it not been Trajan who died, he might’ve even envied their freedom to leave in such a situation.

To take up even more of his time, he threw himself into his enchanting work, and in his desire to take his mind off recent events, he made a great deal of progress in his construction of a flight suit.

At the end of the week, he’d finished a new prototype. It was a similar design to his last prototype, relying on a leather vest, gauntlets, and boots, but he’d refined the enchantments a bit to give him much finer control over their output. Finally, he also added a few padded pieces of clothing just in case he ate dirt again.

Donning the garments and a helmet, Leon ventured outside and began to test the new design. First, he fed a small amount of power to his boots, activating the wind enchantments. Not enough to start to fly, but enough that he felt some amount of force pushing up on him.

He slowly began to crank up the power, and he rose a few inches off the ground. The wind generated beneath him was strong enough to create a small cyclone of grass, leaves, and dust around him, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was that he had gained some lift.

However, this kind of design had brought up questions for him in the past, such as what would happen to the stuff on the ground beneath him while he was flying. He’d need to fly quite high for the wind necessary to keep him aloft to not disrupt the people beneath him.

‘A concern for later,’ he’d thought at the time. He could further refine the design and find other ways to propel himself later, but right now his priority was to simply get off the ground and fly for short distances without breaking his face.

And it seemed he’d accomplished that much, since he was now hovering about half a foot off the ground without issues. The enchantments on his vest were doing their job keeping him stable, his boots kept him off the ground, and if all else failed, he had his gauntlets to steer and keep himself righted if he started to tilt.

Even with all that had happened over the past week, Trajan’s death and Naiad’s sudden departure, Leon couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of child-like glee as he hovered there in the air. Perhaps it was his descent from the Thunderbird, but the sky called to him and he was going to answer.

He started to raise the power he was feeding into his boots and gain some height. This also kicked up a lot more dirt, but he knew that would die down after reaching a certain height. Assuming he could even reach that height.

There were a few heart-stopping moments as he climbed where he felt like he was about to lose his balance, but fortunately, his stabilizing enchantments held out, and he remained upright. He drifted a little bit over his villa, but the wind coming from his boots, while strong enough to lift him into the air, weren’t strong enough to cause any damage.

His experiment was cut short when he glanced down below and saw an alerted Anzu, who had been lounging in the sun in his front yard, and Minerva, Alix, and a few other of Trajan’s former knights waiting at his gate. They were all staring at him, and it suddenly struck him just how strange he appeared to be, hovering in the air like he was—not that he cared much when he was so far from the ground.

Reluctantly, Leon slowly cut power to his boots and he drifted back down to the ground. He pulled off his gear as quickly as he could and returned to his villa to let them inside.

“Leon!” Alix excitedly called out as she ran forward, letting her dignity as a knight in Trajan’s service —now Minerva’s, it seemed—slip. “How did you do that?!”

Leon was waiting for them at his front door, and he simply smiled and ushered them inside the villa proper without explanation. Anzu had been roused from his relaxation, and he trotted over, too, curious to see what was happening. Unfortunately, the griffin was now too large to come inside through the front door, but he was smart enough that when Leon pointed to the side of the villa, he happily scampered around toward the back.

A small addition Leon and Elise had made was a sliding floor-to-ceiling window in the main living room, right next to the dining table. Anzu was a bit too big to be let loose into the villa itself, as it was likely he’d break things, but he had a place to sit on the back porch and he could come inside through the sliding window if Leon was there to monitor him.

In this case, he obediently sat down next to Leon as the other knights took their seats at his table. Even then, he towered over everyone present and had to lower his head for Leon to comfortably rub it.

“So, what’s going on?” Leon asked as Anzu began to purr. He glanced around at the knights sitting at his table, first at Minerva, then Alix, and then at the remaining five knights.

“First of all, Sir Leon,” Minerva began in a solemn tone, “I want to know where you stand with us. Prince Trajan never gave you any official roles or units to command, but you are still a part of his retinue. Or were, I suppose…” Her final sentence brought out a brief but noticeable mournful frown to her usually stoic face.

Leon smiled and took a few moments to think before giving his answer. He’d already given his assent to let Minerva use his home as a base for planning things with the retinue, though he hadn’t seen her since. He supposed it was natural to seek confirmation before making anything official, since he figured his own lack of trust in Minerva was mirrored in her regarding him.

“I would like to think that I’m with you,” Leon eventually stated, choosing to be as direct as he could so there would be no confusion. “However, that would depend on you. I don’t have much connection to the Royal Legions without you, so if you don’t think you need me, I can just as easily go my own way…”

He saw Alix’s eyes go wide in surprise, but Minerva simply nodded in understanding. “Bold and direct,” the elder lady knight said appreciatively. “I like it. I would think of you as a comrade, if possible. We can’t let a sixth-tier mage of your caliber run wild, that would be disastrous for the entire Kingdom I should think.”

Leon chuckled a bit at her estimation of his abilities. He’d already intimated to Minerva that he would be with the rest of the retinue if they’d have him, but it seemed that she needed to hear him confirm that.

“That works for me,” Leon replied, but added, “so long as we’re going to do everything we can to make the Earthshaker Paladin a head shorter.”

A few of the knights looked a bit perturbed at such a direct statement, but Minerva brushed it off and said, “That’s what I want, too. To that end, I would like to offer you an official position in our structure, with your current rank of Legate intact.”

Leon’s quiet smile faltered a bit. He’d gone through waves of wanting a command and not wanting one, mostly based on his mood of the day. On the one hand, it would represent a real, tangible amount of power that he’d wield that wasn’t borrowed from Trajan, but on the other hand, it would give him far more responsibilities than he desired at the moment. If Minerva or Trajan had floated this possibility before the war with the Talfar Kingdom, he would’ve jumped at the chance, but in his current mind-set, he was a lot more reluctant.

Still, he didn’t outright reject the proposition.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“That would depend on what you want,” Minerva responded. “You’re well-known enough that some of Prince Trajan’s lower ranking knights would follow you, perhaps even enough to form a battalion. However, I think you have the skills and the will necessary to be a staff officer, and assist me in commanding the retinue as a whole. What do you want to do?”

That much was easy enough to answer, at least right now, so Leon didn’t hesitate.

“I want to concentrate on killing my enemies,” he said. “I want to find who they are and put a sword through their throats. I’m not entirely sure that my attitude would gel well with direct command, but I’ll defer to your wisdom in that regard.”

“No, that might be a bit of a problem,” Minerva said with a severe smile. She had the same mindset as Leon, but her responsibility and loyalty to Trajan’s ideals and the laws of the Bull Kingdom prevented her from acting too much on it. “Very well, I think I’ll make you one of my staff officers, someone who can fill in where he’s needed.”

“Am I needed right now?” Leon asked, his voice dripping with anticipation, but his eyes darted outside toward his workshop. He’d just gotten his flight suit working, and his primal instincts were telling him to fly.

“Not today,” Minerva said. “But I want to make it official in three days.”

Leon froze up a bit when she said that. Trajan’s funeral was in three days.

“… Got it,” he said quietly.

Minerva nodded, gave him a couple of seconds to compose himself, then continued. “I’ve decided that we’re going to throw in with Prince August. He’s in a bad place right now without Prince Trajan, and he’s desperate for allies. What’s more, he isn’t Prince Octavius.”

“How much is Prince Trajan’s own pledge of loyalty factoring in?” Leon asked.

“That’s certainly something to consider,” Minerva thoughtfully said. “From what I understand, Prince Trajan got Prince August to commit to certain policies and goals to weaken the nobility. An admirable goal, but right now what I want is justice and blood, not laws. Do you disagree?”

“I don’t,” Leon said. “If Prince August can give us some revenge, then I would agree with supporting him.”

“Justice, not revenge,” Minerva reminded him. “We’re civilized folk, after all, not savages.”

“I think there are more than a few in this city who disagree, at least where I’m concerned,” Leon said with a wry smile.

August knew Leon’s identity, and Leon felt it wasn’t particularly wise to openly oppose him, if only for that reason. Not that he was going to tell Minerva that, of course. On a personal level, Leon didn’t much care about August one way or the other, he simply didn’t know the Prince well enough to have formed much of an opinion.

“Ma’am, there have been some rumors that August was responsible for Prince Trajan’s death,” one of the knights spoke up. He was a sixth-tier man, one of Trajan’s highest ranked knights, but he was hardly in what could be called Trajan’s inner circle. Still, he was powerful and high-ranking enough that after the casualties sustained during the war with Talfar and in the ambush that killed Trajan, he got a promotion, of sorts. “It may not be the best decision to openly support Prince August…”

“We won’t do so openly,” Minerva said. “If I had to guess, those rumors were put out by someone who wants to isolate Prince August, first by assassinating his biggest supporter, then by blaming him for the deed.”

“What do the rumors say?” Leon asked the other knight.

The other knight glanced at him, sneered at Leon in a way that he must’ve thought subtle, then explained in an almost condescending way, “That there had been a disagreement between Prince Trajan and Prince August over the direction they were to take. That Prince August wanted to do various illegal things—the specifics depend on the person passing the rumor along—and in doing so secure for Prince August the throne. Prince Trajan apparently wanted nothing to do with it and was killed by August for it.”

“Hardly believable,” Leon said, ignoring the knight’s dismissive attitude toward him. As a ‘Valeman’, he was rather used to it at this point.

“It’s hardly believable because you knew Prince Trajan,” Minerva countered. “Not a lot of other people did, and that lack of familiarity makes the rumors believable. It’s only been a week, but there have already been a lot of nobles who used to be friendly with him starting to distance themselves from what they see as a sinking ship.”

“So then what are we going to do if we’re not openly supporting him?” Leon asked.

“I’m still working on that,” Minerva admitted. “For now, I expect that we’re going to be getting some visitors from Octavius’ side soon. I’ll make a decision when we know what they want, and if they don’t come to us, then I’ll make a decision after the funeral.”

“Got it,” Leon said.

All of their expressions were now quite somber. Discussing the Prince’s death was hard, even if their other business demanded that they move on as quickly as they could.

“There was something else I wanted to ask you, Sir Leon,” Minerva said, and she glanced meaningfully at the rest of the knights. There was a momentary pause, and then everyone started to get up and make for the front door.

Leon cocked an eyebrow at Minerva, but she simply shook her head and remained quiet until everyone else was waiting outside and they were alone.

“Yes?” Leon asked once the door was closed, not feeling particularly up to indulging in these games.

“Is there anything we can expect from the others in your… faction?”

“Faction? What faction do I have?” Leon asked in something akin to disbelief.

“Heaven’s Eye and that woman that was here the last time I stopped by.”

“Ah,” Leon whispered. Naiad hadn’t returned and Heaven’s Eye was bound to be politically neutral, so his answer wasn’t going to be what Minerva wanted to hear. Still, he took a moment to think over how to phrase things so as not to back anyone into corners or make decisions on their behalf. “I’m afraid that Heaven’s Eye won’t support August—or us, for that matter—any more than they can support anyone else. They won’t lock us out of business, but they won’t be going out of their way to provide us with aid.”

“And that other woman?” Minerva inquired.

“Expect nothing from her,” Leon said, offering no more explanation.

Minerva sighed in disappointment. “I thought as much, but I hoped. We’re very weak right now. Vulnerable. I don’t like being vulnerable.”

“Neither do I,” Leon said.

Minerva nodded, and the two sat there in silence for a long couple of minutes. Neither had anything more to say.

After she grew tired of it, Minerva rose from her seat, held out her hand to Leon, and said, “I shall take my leave. Thank you for your hospitality, Sir Leon, and I will see you in three days.”

“Thank you for coming, Dame Minerva, my home is open to you at any time,” Leon said as he stood up and shook Minerva’s hand.

Together, the two walked toward the front door.

“Shall we go to Prince Trajan’s funeral together?” Minerva asked.

“That works for me,” Leon replied.

“Then I will come pick you up three hours before,” she said, smiling at Leon as he opened the door.

“I’ll see you then,” Leon said, holding the door open for her.

Once Minerva and the rest of the knights were gone, Leon sighed as he glanced around at the main room of the villa. His heart was heavy and his mind was frustrated, though both were brightened a bit when his eyes fell upon Anzu, who was staring at him expectantly.

Leon laughed quietly, then walked over to his griffin and took him back outside. Anzu was nearing the boundary of what would be the fifth-tier for humans, which meant that he was getting very close to making his wings more than simply cosmetic. He was also quite large, more than half a ton at this point, with a lean, muscular body and standing seven feet tall at the withers. His white fur was bright and almost sparkled in the midday sun, while his feathers gleamed with obvious health.

He’d grown up magnificently, and thanks to the training from the Heaven’s Eye beastmaster, he was essentially ready to become a proper mount and war beast.

The sky called to both Leon and Anzu, and it would only take a little bit more time before they’d be able to enter the firmament together.

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