The Storm King

Chapter 377: The Suspended Guard

When Leon heard that Elise had left the Heaven’s Eye Tower with Valeria, he immediately turned around and left. He’d gone there to speak with his lady and with Emilie, but the news of Elise being with Valeria instantly superseded that business. It’s not like he was expecting any assistance from Heaven’s Eye regarding the current politics of the Bull Kingdom, anyway, but the idea of Elise spending time alone with Justin Isynos’ daughter mere days after he disappeared greatly troubled him.

His head cleared a bit as he retrieved Anzu and began the rapid flight home. Valeria was Elise’s friend, and despite her familial connections, he remained skeptical that Valeria herself was involved at all with the business that had left his family ruined. Still, it was better not to take any chances, and he urged Anzu to go faster as they flew over the noble district. Anzu responded with a joyful high-pitched cry and flapped his wings harder, his wind magic carrying Leon and himself at such a swift speed that they landed in Leon’s front yard barely even five minutes after taking off from the square around the Heaven’s Eye Tower’s front door.

If anyone else had done what Leon and Anzu had just done, namely bypassing the front gate of the villa’s outer wall by flying or jumping, the villa’s defenses would’ve activated and hit them with enough lightning to fry an elephant several times over. However, Leon had taken a blood sample from both himself and Anzu and added them to the enchantments that defended the villa. The enchantments thus recognized them as friends, and the defenses were not activated. The only other people who could possibly enter the villa from above were Elise and Naiad, since Leon had used their blood in his enchanting work as well.

When they landed, Leon leaped off Anzu’s back and hurried toward the door without bothering to return Anzu to his stable. Anzu was happy with the arrangement and sprawled out on the grass, though Leon’s anxious attitude had the griffin’s eyes following him as he made his way through Elise’s gardens toward the front door.

However, before he reached the villa proper, the door opened to reveal Elise, smiling at Leon’s return but also clearly a bit worried about something from the way her brow had furrowed. Leon relaxed seeing his girlfriend physically fine, but he ran over anyway and took her into his arms in a brief hug.

“We have a guest,” Elise breathed into his ear as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Valeria?” he asked.

“Yes,” she confirmed with a tone of mild surprise.

“I came from the Tower,” Leon explained, and Elise nodded in understanding. She then turned around and let Leon inside.

What Leon found himself looking at was far from what he had feared, or even from what he’d expected. He’d feared that Justin Isynos had found out who he was and sent Valeria to do something to Elise to strike at him. On the other hand, he’d expected Valeria to simply be spending some time with a good friend while she had some time.

What he found instead was the silver-haired woman sitting at his dining table with her head resting face-down on her arms which had been folded over themselves on the table. Her hair was disheveled and splayed out over her arms and shoulders, completely concealing her face, and her dark blue and silver clothing was wrinkled and not entirely put on correctly, revealing far more of her shoulders, upper chest, and thighs than her shirt and skirt otherwise would’ve.

As Leon walked in, Valeria slowly raised her head off her arms and looked him over. Her eyes were unfocused and bloodshot, and she was rapidly blinking as if she couldn’t quite see straight. Her face was covered in tear streaks and what little make-up she wore on her lips and around her eyes had smudged.

She looked like a mess, to put it simply, and it took Leon completely by surprise. He glanced over his shoulder at Elise with a questioning look, but she brushed past him to sit back down at the table and take one of Valeria’s hands into her own, getting Valeria’s attention as she did so.

Usually, Valeria was impeccably well-dressed and perfectly groomed, with her hair either in a single braid or a loose ponytail, which combined with her stoic and taciturn nature to give her a great air of dignity and poise. This was such a departure that all hostility Leon may have felt vanished in the space of a single heartbeat, and he quietly returned the armor and sword he’d equipped when he left his villa not long ago back into his soul realm.

Leon stood there in the doorway not quite sure what to do with himself. Valeria was clearly going through something, and he had no idea how to feel, let alone how to conduct himself at this point. He occupied himself for a moment glancing out of a nearby window to make sure Anzu was fine, and when he saw his griffin lounging in the grass, he turned back to the ladies and, with a quiet, but deep sigh, he walked over and joined them at the dining table.

As he sat down, Valeria’s eyes turned back to him and he finally saw some recognition in those deep blue sapphires. She seemed to panic a bit and did her best to pat down her hair into something a bit more presentable than the tangled mess it had become, but she swayed in her seat and she failed to tame the silver jungle. After a couple quick moments, she simply gave up and nervously smiled at Elise.

“How are you doing?” her red-haired friend asked. “Feeling a bit better now?”

Valeria took a couple seconds to respond as she cleared her throat and blinked her eyes clear, but then she quietly nodded.

Leon gave both ladies a questioning look. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have said that Valeria looked drunk, but she was a fourth-tier mage and alcohol had little effect upon her…

“I found our friend here at the Heaven’s Eye bar,” Elise explained, immediately banishing those thoughts from Leon’s head.

“You… must’ve gotten into some strong stuff, then,” Leon awkwardly said as his brain locked up on what to talk about.

“My… um… my father is missing…” Valeria explained, and Elise pulled her a bit closer so she could wrap an arm around her silver-haired friend’s shoulders for comfort.

Leon nodded in sudden understanding. He was a bit of a mess after Artorias had died, and though Justin didn’t seem to be dead, he could at least empathize with what Valeria was feeling right now with her father suddenly disappearing.

“I was… also…” Valeria tried to explain, but her voice caught in her throat and a few tears fell from her eyes. Elise rubbed her shoulders and whispered a few consoling words to her, and Valeria quickly pulled herself together enough to finish her sentence. “I… was also suspended… from the Royal Guard… And my knighthood might be taken from me!”

“Ahh… my sympathies…” Leon muttered as understandingly as he possibly could, which wasn’t much and even came out a bit sarcastic as a result. Fortunately, Valeria was a bit too drunk to notice, let alone take offence. She’d lost her father, her job, and her status all in a matter of days. She was one of the most composed people he’d ever met, but that much loss, especially in such a short period of time, could make anyone crack.

“It’s going to be all right,” Elise whispered to her still relatively drunk friend. “We’re here for you, you’ve still got us.”

Leon kept his face as impassive as he could, but inside he couldn’t help but grimace. He didn’t really want to be ‘there’ for Valeria, but he didn’t want her as his enemy, either. There was still a part of him that liked her—in a non-romantic way—and if they could be friends, he felt like he could probably live with it. In another life, he could easily see them being great friends, or even something more, but after what happened with Artorias and what he had learned about the fall of his House, he just didn’t see it happening.

And so, when Elise looked to him to say some comforting words, he found himself unable, and he remained silent even as her expectant gaze turned upset and angry.

[Leon,] whispered Xaphan from his soul realm.

Leon’s eyebrows shot up in momentary surprise at the demon’s sudden greeting.

[What is it?] he responded.

[Do you still like this girl?] Xaphan asked, his tone oddly neutral and lacking even a hint of mockery.

[No!] Leon emphatically declared. [What makes you even think so?!]

[Well, that over the top reaction definitely does,] Xaphan replied, momentarily letting his tone turn a little less serious. However, before Leon could reply, the demon continued, [I’m just saying, she’s still drunk right now. Will there ever be a better time to ask her questions? There’s a good chance that she won’t remember anything you talk about tomorrow morning…]

Leon frowned slightly as he thought about that possibility. With Valeria in her current state, there was also the possibility that she’d be more open to further questions, but if Leon were to ask, then he’d be taking quite the risk. There was no guarantee that Valeria wouldn’t remember the questions asked of her, and Leon didn’t think he’d be up to killing her, his own insistence that he didn’t like her notwithstanding. She could even guess who he was if he wasn’t careful with what he asked.

But the possibility that he could glean a few extra details from her right now was very appealing. How to ask the questions, though, was another matter entirely. Leon decided to think about it while talking about something else for the moment.

“Prince August has been arrested,” he said without any preamble or preparation.

Elise’s head whipped around to look at him in shock, but Valeria was still stuck in her own world, and her head came back to rest on the table.

“What?!” Elise replied.

“A little over an hour ago,” Leon explained. “Apparently on charges of killing Prince Trajan. I think that the reason Justin Isynos may have fled the capital was to escape similar charges…”

At the mention of her father, Valeria looked up again and began trying to blink some of the bleariness out of her eyes. She clearly understood what Leon was saying because she stared at him for a few moments before grabbing a nearby glass of water and downing the entire thing.

“What… what was that?” she asked.

“I was told about Justin Isynos’ disappearance just before August was arrested. Many of August’s other subordinates have been arrested in recent days, and I think it’s safe to say that Lord Isynos may have been on that list.”

“No…” Valeria whispered. “No, my father would never be involved in something like that…”

It sounded to Leon and Elise like just something that any young woman would say in defense of her father, but if what Leon suspected about Justin was true, then slaying a member of the Royal Family was hardly something he’d be unwilling to do. However, Leon had to admit that if he were in Justin’s shoes, trying to have a Prince killed would be an exceptionally stupid thing to do, as it would draw a ton of unnecessary attention and had the potential to backfire terribly. Or at least, it would if he were operating on the assumption that Justin was still intending to be a public actor. If Justin was doing away with his cover, then it wouldn’t really matter what he did, though Leon failed to see how murdering Prince Trajan benefitted the man in any way. Adding onto that, Justin had left his daughter behind, so he doubted the man was simply abandoning his public persona.

He could easily see Justin being involved, but in this case, Leon agreed with Valeria and thought that Justin likely wasn’t involved in Trajan’s murder.

“I don’t think he did, either,” Leon said, drawing a curious look from Elise and one of gratitude from Valeria. “The general consensus between myself, Dame Minerva, and August’s own staff is that Octavius was to blame for Trajan’s assassination. I don’t think that Lord Justin had anything to do with Octavius, not when he was working so closely under August.”

“He didn’t!” Valeria insisted. “My father would’ve told me if he were doing something like that! He wouldn’t just leave… he wouldn’t just leave me here if he was…”

“Does your father keep you in the loop regarding his actions under normal conditions?” Leon asked, trying to phrase the question as inoffensively as he could. He didn’t want to be too obvious that he wanted information on Justin, but he also couldn’t just let this opportunity go.

“U-usually…” Valeria said, but her tone wasn’t at all convincing.

“How about the rest of your family?” Leon inquired as neutrally as he could. “Do you have much knowledge of what the rest of your family is involved in?”

The moment the question was out of his mouth, he realized that it had been a mistake. Valeria’s eyes immediately grew angry, and even Elise’s eyes took on a hard edge as she glared at Leon. Still, Valeria seemed to feel the need to respond.

“My family wasn’t involved in any of this!” she shouted.

“Leon, maybe we should change the subject?” Elise suggested, but the look in her eyes made it clear that it wasn’t a suggestion.

Leon almost agreed. He came so very close to letting the matter go. However, as he looked at Valeria, who seemed about ready to tear into him if he were to insinuate at all that her family was doing anything abhorrent or criminal, he decided to do something reckless and possibly incredibly stupid.

“I… don’t like asking these questions,” he admitted, “and I’m certainly not asking on behalf of anyone else. It’s just… there are things that I want to know for my own peace of mind.”

“What do you mean?!” Valeria asked, still angry and ready to drunkenly challenge Leon to a duel to maintain her family’s honor if she had to.

“I remember telling you that I met one of your clansmen in the Northern Vales, a certain ‘Adrianos Isynos’. Do you remember this?”

Valeria’s eyes widened a bit in recognition, and her anger seemed to cool a little with that remembrance. Elise, meanwhile, stayed quiet as she listened. She didn’t want to upset her friend when Valeria was in such a state, but she also wanted to know what Leon was getting at.

“I… do…” Valeria whispered. “What about him?”

“While he was in the Northern Vales, he made a terrible impression upon my father, to the point that it came to blows,” Leon explained, trying to keep things vague and only telling the partial truth. “My father later died of his injuries sustained during his fight with Adrianos…”

Both Elise and Valeria’s eyes went wide with that bombshell. Elise knew that Leon’s father had had been killed by his and Leon’s enemies, but she hadn’t known that Valeria’s family had been involved. However, what Leon said didn’t quite match up with what he had told her about his father’s death, and her glare intensified as she fought back the urge to interrupt.

Valeria, for her part, almost locked up in shock. She didn’t want to believe that a member of her family was responsible for killing Leon’s father, but it suddenly made his interactions with her make so much more sense. Everything, from his initial wariness of her and the challenge he made on the first day of the Knight Academy to his increasing coldness after she confirmed that Adrianos had been affiliated with her family all became crystal clear to her, even in her not-quite-sober state of mind.

“Leon… I…” she whispered in horror. She had no idea what to say. If her own father had been killed by someone, she’d stop at nothing to gain her vengeance against the killers and everyone affiliated with them, and that Leon had suffered such a blow from an adopted member of her family wasn’t something she knew how to respond to.

“They got into an argument,” Leon explained, “I don’t know what about, I wasn’t there, but supposedly Adrianos and his companions had acted rudely to my father’s friend after the Paladin Roland had supposedly led them back south, and my father chastised them for it. I only arrived after the fight ended, when my father had already been mortally wounded.”

Elise’s eyes narrowed in suspicion; Leon was directly lying at this point, or maybe he’d lied to her when telling her about his father’s death, but she remained quiet for the moment to see where Leon was taking this. He had to have a reason, after all, he wasn’t the sort of person to just make something like this up… or so she hoped.

“I hope you don’t blame me too much for being a bit relieved when I learned that Adrianos went missing in the Vales, but I also hope you don’t blame me for being incredibly curious as to what he and those who had accompanied him were doing up there…”

Leon’s golden eyes locked onto Valeria’s and wouldn’t let her go. She couldn’t quite think straight under that pressure, even with the shock helping to rapidly sober her up.

“I don’t know…” she eventually whispered. Leon was momentarily disappointed, thinking that that was about all he was going to get out of her, but a few seconds later, she continued, “My father doesn’t tell me about things like that. He had a lot of things going on in his life, and I have my own duties to fulfill. He’s just… he has his own goals and I don’t have much to do with them.”

“What are these goals?” Leon pressed, his hands clenching up into fists as his aura began to grow chaotic and violent.

Valeria didn’t respond, still shocked as she was at this revelation.

“What could be so important that Adrianos would come back after the Paladin and the knight that he served had both left?!” Leon asked.

“I… can’t say,” Valeria muttered.

“Really?!” Leon almost shouted. He could understand it if Valeria legitimately didn’t know, as she was barely more than a child at the time, just as he was, but if she knew then he wanted her to say it. “He didn’t tell you at all what he was doing up there, not even who he was with?!”

“I don’t know!” Valeria shouted back. “I don’t know anything about that!”

Leon glared at her, his gaze not wavering for several long seconds. Valeria glared back, daring him to challenge her again.

In the end, Leon decided not to push it. For the time being, at least, he decided to take Valeria at face value and believe her when she said that she knew nothing. There would plenty more time for questions later, after he grew much stronger and could challenge Justin on his own.

He sighed, then whispered, “Very well. If you don’t know, then you don’t know.”

Valeria leaned back in her chair looking almost aggrieved, but slowly, her gaze turned apologetic.

“I’m… sorry about your father,” Valeria whispered. “I didn’t know… I can’t imagine…”

“What’s done is done,” Leon simply replied, his tone bringing the conversation to an abrupt end.

The three sat at the dining table in a long, awkward silence before Valeria eventually decided to try and leave to figure her situation out. She was effectively out of a job even if she was still technically a knight in the Royal Legions, and as a result she’d lost her barracks room. She also didn’t want to make things complicated with Asiya by continuing to stay at her estate as she had been for the past few years, so she wanted to find someplace to stay while she decided on her next course of action.

Elise, however, wasn’t about to turn her friend out on the street and offered Valeria one of their guest rooms—not the rooms that Naiad had used, however. Leon heard this offer, and even after Elise gave him a hesitant, questioning look, he didn’t say anything against it. Elise took his silence to be tacit acceptance and dragged Valeria over to show her where she’d be sleeping off the remaining alcohol in her system.

Leon stayed seated at the dining table lost in thought. With everything that had been happening lately, Valeria wasn’t the only person who had a situation to figure out.

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