As Leon woke up with Elise and Maia snuggled up against him, he couldn’t help but relish the moment, not wanting it to ever end. If any concept of heaven existed, Leon figured that he was living it right now.

Having both ladies in bed with him wasn’t anything new, he’d experienced this same exact scenario many times before Maia left. However, now… it was something else, something far more intense. The bond forged between Leon and Maia and the proposal he’d made to Elise had changed everything, even if nothing outwardly seemed different.

But as much as Leon didn’t want to leave that moment, it had to end at some point. They’d spent far more than twelve hours in bed—though most of that had been spent in a sex coma following their vigorous exertions—and Leon could hear Emilie’s servants moving about beyond Elise’s door. He vaguely remembered a quiet knock on the door the previous night while the three were in the midst of their passions, but all three had silently chosen to ignore it in favor of more carnal pursuits. Now that he was a little more even-headed, Leon figured it had simply been a messenger coming to inform them that dinner was ready.

His belly rumbled, though as a seventh-tier mage, food was more of an indulgence than a necessity. Still, his stomach had yet to realize that and was demanding he rise and find something to fill it. Leon was able to ignore this demand until Elise and Maia began to stir.

It took almost an hour for them to finally struggle out of bed, get ready, and then join the others for a late breakfast. Alix teased Leon a bit for his bedraggled hair, but he didn’t mind. Just being back in the capital had lightened his mood more than he’d thought was possible.

But after a while, his mood began to darken as he made more frequent glances at Valeria. The events at Calabria played out in his mind again, the feel of her lips against his as vivid now as it was back then.

And he knew that it was better to discuss all of what had happened between them with Elise and Maia sooner rather than later.

So it was that he found himself alone in a private room with Valeria, Elise, and Maia following breakfast.

“So, what’s so important that you had to pull us all aside?” Elise asked, her tone playful but masking an undercurrent of anxiety that Leon could pick up on.

Leon was quiet for a long moment, and when he glanced at Valeria, he could see that she was more than a little nervous, too. He’d asked if she was all right with having this conversation now rather than putting it off, and she’d reluctantly agreed.

“First of all, I suppose I should say that no matter what Valeria and I are about to reveal, we are not enemies.” Leon mostly focused on Maia as he said this, for he knew that if she thought Valeria was a threat to them, then she’d act without mercy, and he didn’t think he’d have the power to stop her before she did something irreparable.

“OK…” Elise said, her unease growing as her eyes flitted to Valeria in confusion. Maia, meanwhile, only silently nodded to Leon in acknowledgment, but he saw her eyes narrow in suspicion as they turned to Valeria.

“Valeria and I… um… well, I suppose you can say that our families have been made enemies by circumstances, but we’ve… the two of us have reached something of an accord…” Leon said, not quite sure how he should broach the issue. Fortunately, once that much was out, he managed to spit the rest out too, with Valeria pitching in here and there to further explain her father’s side of things.

By the end of their long, only somewhat rambling explanation, Maia and Elise had been completely filled in on how and why Leon’s father had been killed by Justin’s assassins.

Elise had known most of these events before from what Leon had told her before the civil war, so she wasn’t too surprised by this reveal. Maia, on the other hand, had been kept almost entirely out of the loop on this front, but fortunately, she kept to her tacit agreement and didn’t attack Valeria. Her aura had a hidden thread of killing intent, though, that Leon thought meant that if it weren’t for that agreement, Valeria would probably already be a red smear on the wall.

Leon lightly shook his head to get rid of that grim image and turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

“… You two have made peace, then?” Elise hesitantly asked, looking at Leon in steely expectation.

Leon quickly glanced at Valeria and waited for her to speak first. Given the harm he’d done to her, he wasn’t about to start making assumptions about her intentions.

“Yes, we have,” Valeria replied, surprising Leon with how unhesitating she was. “I… don’t want to be enemies with anyone, I just want to practice my magic in peace. So I’ll do whatever I need to do to maintain that peace and keep the people I love safe.”

Valeria warmly smiled at Elise, who smiled back, though the red-head’s was a little more thin-lipped and forced. Leon soon found out why when Elise turned back to him.

“The way you handled this was terrible. I can’t overstate that.”

Leon withered a bit under her gaze, but he didn’t try to deny it. She was right, and he deeply regretted his confrontation with Valeria.

“I can’t disagree. I made a grave error in judgment with how I approached this with her and it won’t happen again.”

“It’d better not,” Elise said, an icy chill in her voice.

“Please, that’s not necessary,” Valeria interjected before anyone could say anything else. “I understand why he confronted me like he did. Without knowing what I was capable of, it was best to project strength and take control of the situation as much as was possible. No permanent damage was done, I don’t even have any scars! So let’s not go making such a big deal out of this.”

Elise shot a glare at Leon, but then quietly nodded to her silver-haired friend. “If that’s what you want, Val, then I can let it go. But I won’t forget it.”

Maia seemed to growl at that, her face one devoid of amusement, but for a different reason. [It isn’t a big deal,] she said to all three, surprising no one more than Elise, whose head whipped around in surprise. [Leon acted to cut off a threat. If anything, what he did during that confrontation was too soft. Were I the one confronting you…]

Maia trailed off, but her threatening gaze and suddenly much more obvious killing intent was enough to finish her statement.

“No!” Elise shouted before Valeria or Leon could respond. “That’s not how people act! We are not beasts! We exhaust our options for peace, and only when we do should we resort to violence!”

Maia clicked her tongue in disagreement, not even bothering to point out how infrequently people followed Elise’s guideline. [Better to just end the threat, I say. Kill your enemies and be done with them.]

Leon cringed inside, knowing that he’d spoken those very words before. But it wasn’t just his regret for attacking Valeria that had him rethinking many of his habits and instincts; after going through the war and seeing how many people defected to August’s side, how his mercy and restraint had grown his forces, how often the senior knights had been right when they’d advocated for more lenient strategies to use against their enemies… He was starting to call many of his beliefs into question.

“There is something to be said for both schools of thought,” Leon stated before what looked like an inevitable argument kicked off. “There is no guidebook for us to follow in these things, and there’s no single answer that’ll solve every problem we have, not in civilized society. Killing everything that threatens you only works out in the wilds, not here—or so I’ve been told…” Leon’s pathetic attempt at a joke didn’t seem to land, for no one laughed. He cleared his throat and quickly moved on. “Things like that don’t work, not where people look out for each other and might seek revenge… Killing Valeria would only ensure that her family and those who back them will remain our enemies forever, while making peace with her could save us a lot of bloodshed in the future. In this case… I think it’s the better option.”

Maia scowled, but she didn’t argue the point. Leon found her expression quite familiar, recognizing many of his own failings in it.

Deciding to add her voice to the mix, Valeria said, “Lady Naiad, as I said before, I understand the desire to inflict violence upon me. If you choose to indulge that desire, I won’t blame you. But know that I am not your enemy. I am not Leon’s enemy. My father abandoned me at a critical moment, leaving me alone and vulnerable. I still love him, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m with all of you, now.”

Maia’s scowl deepened, and she replied, [So you say. Time will tell if you’re lying, and if you are, know that I will be the last thing you see.]

“Fair enough,” Valeria cheerily replied, showing not an ounce of fear at the river nymph’s threat.

“There will be no violence here!” Elise shouted. “I don’t want either of you fighting each other!”

“No one’s fighting here,” Leon said, looking between Maia and Valeria. “Right?”

“I’m not going to start anything, you know that,” Valeria replied.

[If you’re certain about this girl, then… I can restrain myself,] Maia said, haughtily turning away from Valeria in favor of pretending to examine a mural on the wall as if the silver-haired woman was beneath her concern.

“I suppose that’s the best we’re going to get…” Leon said as he frustratedly ran his fingers through his hair. He almost thought everything they had to discuss was done, and that they had gotten one of the best results they could hope for after revealing his and Valeria’s complete relationship, but when he looked up and made eye contact with Elise, he knew from her subdued glare that things weren’t quite as done as he’d hoped.

But it seemed that whatever was on her mind, Elise didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. She glanced at Valeria, grabbed her arm, then practically dragged her out of the room, silently telling everyone that their little meeting was over, at least for the time being.

---

Far to the west of the Bull Kingdom, across a great swathe of the Endless Ocean, lay the Serpentine Isles. Once, the main island chain numbered eight, but after the Bull Kingdom subjugated the islands, they numbered only five.

Almost a century ago, they were great shipwrights and sailors who made their living raiding the western and southern coasts of Aeterna. The Serpentine pirates were known and feared far and wide.

But the Bull Kingdom put a stop to that, slaughtering their pirates, burning their fleets, and executing the Jarls of the eight islands, destroying the three westernmost islands in the process. Now, the islands were ruled by Earls, rulers elected by the aristocrats of the islands and confirmed by the Bull King. The Serpentine peoples were pacified, their great skill in shipcraft turned to more mercantile pursuits, or building the smaller ships of the Bull Kingdom’s fleet. Their people manned the decks of merchant and Legion ships alike, providing the tribute that the Bull Kingdom demanded after their subjugation in timber, ships, and their young men.

Or so it was supposed to be…

---

Jormun smiled as the Earl was dragged out of his stone palace, built with white stone imported from the Bull Kingdom. With a quick nod of his head, Jormun gestured toward the nearby cliffs, from which the palace overlooked the city to the east, while the west was covered in jungle so dense and so dangerous that no one had ever managed to reach Muspell, the great mountain at the center of the island, the biggest in the entire island chain, by land.

Kraterok, the only settlement on the entire island big enough to be called a city, was the seat of power for the Serpentine Isles, as it was the one closest to the Bull Kingdom, lying on the eastern coast of the northeastern-most island. It had been built along a huge natural bay, so large that the remnants of the Bull fleet that burned within it seemed tiny in comparison, the fires that danced across even the biggest of their enchanted hulls looking like little more than candles in a lake.

Jormun crouched down behind the Earl as the nobleman was forced to his knees and forced to look at his city as Jormun’s pirates stormed through its streets, looting and burning, killing and raping with abandon.

“See that?” the Pirate Lord whispered into his ears, pointing first at the destroyed fleet, then at the burning forts along the coast. “No one’s coming to save you. You’ve lost.”

“Then… just… get it over with!” the Earl demanded, spitting a wad of blood onto the ground.

“No, no, no,” Jormun replied as he stood back up, his face contorting in displeasure. “Rolf! Fetch me that knife!”

A giant among men, towering at just over seven feet tall and built like a statue come to life, Rolf grinned and stepped out of the crowd of watching pirates, pulling a wicked-looking hooked knife out of his soul realm as he approached Jormun and the Earl.

“I’m not done with you, yet,” Jormun said, staring down at the Earl in disgust and taking the knife from Rolf. “You defied me one too many times. You no longer get to decide how you die.”

Jormun began to laugh maniacally as he ran his fingers through the Earl’s hair, before then taking a handful of it and pulling the Earl’s head back. Jormun then raised his knife and slashed across the Earl’s chest, slicing through his clothes and leaving his chest bare, with a long gash across his left pectoral muscle. Jormun then raised his knife again, laughing as he did, but before he slashed the Earl again, he paused. As if sensing the looks of the dozens of people behind him, Jormun turned to the rest of the crew of his personal flagship that had followed him to shore, his most trusted followers.

“What?!” he asked, his tone suddenly lightening up. Dozens of his crewmen were staring at him, several with looks of exasperation, others smiling in resignation as Jormun indulged his need for drama.

“He only defied you once, Jormun!” one of them shouted, smiling like everything was just one big joke.

“Once was enough!” Jormun insisted.

“Then just get it over with already!” another of his followers shouted, treating this show like it was only the opening of a play before it got to the good parts. “Come on, we still have to get those surviving ships stripped of their armaments before we can move on! That’ll take days!”

“All right, all right, you damn spoilsports!” Jormun chuckled as he turned back to the Earl in front of him. “Honestly, can you believe these guys? No patience for this dance, no desire to do things the right way. They just want to slash and burn and pillage, without care for the finer points of such serious matters.”

Jormun stood there with the Earl for a silent moment, just watching the fires spread through the city below them. Then, with one clean movement and not another word, Jormun used the hooked dagger to open the Earl’s throat and kicked him off the cliff and down into the streets hundreds of feet below. No one down there would notice, not with all the rest of Jormun’s thousands of followers doing what they do best down there.

“Show’s over folks, thanks so much for coming!” Jormun shouted, taking a dramatic and sarcastic bow as his followers cheered and clapped. “Now get back to stripping those ships! I want us able to proceed south in a week!”

Jormun and half a dozen of his closest comrades began to walk toward the palace. His crew, meanwhile, began to make their way back down the winding road toward the city, eager to complete their work and leave—and maybe to get a little plunder from the city as they returned to the ships. As they did, however, one sailor from one of Jormun’s other ships came sprinting up the hill as if a flock of Thunderbirds was on his tail.

“Jormun!” he shouted as he drew near. “Jormun! I bring news!”

“Eh? What is it?!” Jormun shouted back, only somewhat irritated at the distraction.

“The war in the Bull Kingdom has come to an end! Prince Octavius has been imprisoned!”

Jormun grimaced in displeasure. There weren’t many others with Inherited Bloodlines left in Aeterna for him to take. To accomplish his task without the use of beings with such powerful blood was just not practical. He’d been counting on their little civil war going on a little longer while he made the necessary preparations in the Serpentine Isles so that he could then take one of the Princes and finally finish what he’d started when he was cast deep below his home island so many years ago.

But it seemed that wasn’t an option anymore. Once one of those Princes settled into power, they’d be long gone, never vulnerable again. If he wanted to take one of them for himself, then he’d have to move quickly.

Jormun sighed, then glanced at his comrades, the six friends that had stood by him through and thin, the men and women who wanted him to succeed, the man and women who wanted to see the birth of a god.

“… It seems,” Jormun said, “that we’re going to have to pay a visit to the Bull Kingdom a little earlier than we’d planned…”