Tens of millions of silver coins and ninety-nine gold talents went into Leon’s soul realm. Accompanying them were more than a hundred different gems, from the most valuable diamonds and sapphires down to more mediocre amethysts. He had enough gems to independently power all of his enchanting work for a long time to come.

Once his vault was emptied, Leon and Ajax arranged to have all of those silver coins put into his account with Heaven’s Eye, raising his account value to about forty-five million. That, Leon thought, would be enough money to finance his enchanting experiments for quite a while. In fact, just thinking about that massive hoard of money was enough to have Leon practically walking on clouds with a massive smile on his face. That smile only got wider when he thought about the gold in his soul realm, in all of its shining glory.

But once he and his small party were taken to Ajax’s palace to rest and relax, his smile vanished, and his good mood began to sour.

The palace was, itself, not too dissimilar to Emilie’s down in the capital. It was a little bit smaller and lacked the gardens that Elise had cultivated, but it was more than enough for the four of them to have all the space they could possibly ask for. The stables, too, were open and luxurious, allowing Anzu to have his own tremendously comfortable cell.

Leon, Elise, and Maia all got a spacious suite to themselves, while Valeria was given one of her own, giving everyone all the privacy they needed.

“Sooo,” Elise seductively began once she, Maia, and Leon had gotten a little more situated in their suite and Ajax’s servants that brought in their luggage had left, “what oh what should we do now…” She sat down on the huge bed and leaned back as she hungrily stared at Maia and Leon, one of her hands slowly running over the soft covers and onto her thigh, pulling her dress up above her knees.

Maia needed no other invitation; she walked right over and roughly pushed Elise down onto her back. The river nymph’s hands began playing at the buttons and knots that kept Elise’s dress in place.

“I know exactly what we should do,” she said out loud, her voice acting as a potent aphrodisiac for both of her lovers.

Leon, however, couldn’t participate. He stared at the sight in longing, his lower head at attention and demanding that he join his two ladies, but he had something else he had to do first.

With as much willpower as he could bring to bear, he said in the strained tone of a man who didn’t want to leave but knew that he had to, “You two… have fun. I have something I need to do right now…”

Maia’s hands froze in place as she turned her attention away from Elise’s body and toward Leon as he took a few steps toward the door.

“What business?” she asked.

Elise joined Maia when she sat up as much as she could with Maia straddling her hips and pressing her back in the bed.

“Leon, we’ve barely touched each other on the entire journey north! You can’t leave us like this!” she complained, her tone more pleading than demanding or irate.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Leon replied as he gave the two the most loving and appreciative smile he could. “However, I need to speak with Valeria right now. I think she knows more about that mage that infiltrated the Tower than she was letting on. Even if she doesn’t, she was acting real suspicious back in Ajax’s office, and I just wanted to check in with her and make sure she’s all right before burying myself too deeply in either of you. I know that if I did that, then I’d probably be unable to tear myself away until tomorrow morning at the earliest…”

“Is this something you want to do on your own?” Maia asked despite knowing the answer. She could feel Leon’s emotional state though their connection, and she could feel his desire to be alone and his need for truth right now.

“It is,” he replied.

“Then go take care of it,” Maia replied as she pushed Elise back down into the bed covers. “I’ll keep Elise happy until you return.”

Before Elise could respond, Maia had her dress pushed to her waist from both ends to reveal her tantalizing underwear that seemed to be failing at its job, leaving strategic holes in places to give access to her most sensitive places. Without another word, Maia had her lips on one of Elise’s nipples and one of her hands buried between Elise’s legs.

And so, with Elise’s cries of pleasure ringing in his ears and a tremendous sense of regret and longing, Leon bottled up his titanic arousal and got out of the suite before his desires could distract him from what he needed to do.

It helped that once the door was closed behind him, all sounds were blocked and he could focus on the task at hand instead of Maia on top of Elise. A few quick seconds later he was back out of the rooms set aside for him and his ladies and was at Valeria’s door. After a few strong but patient knocks, Valeria opened the door.

“Hey!” she said in a cheery voice that wavered just enough for Leon to suspect its authenticity. “What brings you here? I’d have thought that the three of you would be immersed in each other right now…”

Leon smiled bitterly and replied, “Don’t make me think about that. We need to have a few words, and if you remind me of what they’re doing while I’m gone, I might not have the patience to stay as long as this might require.”

“OK…” Valeria replied as she opened the door wider and stepped aside. “Come on in.”

Leon thanked her and walked into the central lounge area of Valeria’s suite. Valeria closed the door behind him as he entered and took a seat in a nearby armchair.

“So, what’s this you need to talk to me about?” she asked, crossing her legs and staring at him with slightly anxious curiosity.

Leon took a deep breath, steadying himself so that he could think about what to say before jumping right in. He didn’t want to sound too accusatory, he wanted her to know that he still trusted her.

“I wanted to talk to you about the incident last night with Ajax and that shadow mage,” Leon said, and immediately he saw her relatively cheery attitude disappear. “I don’t want to make any assumptions, but I thought that you might have some insight to offer into the matter. Insight that you might not want to talk about in front of everyone else.”

“What kind of insight are you looking for?” Valeria asked, her body language growing a little more defensive as her legs uncrossed and she folded her arms across her chest.

“I don’t really know,” Leon replied. “All I know is that you reacted a little strangely in that meeting, and I just want to know why. You know that I’m committed to our agreement, and I want to make sure that everything is going all right. That there’s nothing that might threaten that arrangement.”

Valeria seemed for a moment like she was going to argue with him, but after a brief glare, she relaxed.

“You know, for someone so quiet and supposedly introverted, you notice more than I think most people might expect,” Valeria said.

Leon offered no more than a smile as a response.

After a moment, Valeria continued. “I don’t know anything for sure, that’s why I didn’t speak up back then. It’s mostly just a suspicion in the back of my mind, something that occurred to me that I can’t shake…”

“Go on…”

“I think that the man that broke into Emilie’s palace and the woman who broke into the Tower were both my father’s agents…” Leon leaned forward as she confirmed what he was starting to himself suspect. “… but I can’t say for certain. I’ve told you before that my father always kept me far away from his day-to-day business, even if he occasionally saw fit to update me on the mission as a whole.”

“I remember you saying that much, yes. What else can you tell me?” Leon kept his tone soft and questioning, implicitly leaving her the option to refuse if she wanted.

He was gratified to see that she did not.

“It didn’t really strike me when Lord Ajax was talking, but when Naiad told us about that man who attacked Emilie’s palace, things started to click in my head.”

“If you’ve got things clicking up there, you might want to get that checked out,” Leon muttered with a quiet chuckle, hoping to keep the mood light. He wanted this to be more of a chat between friends and allies, not an interrogation between enemies.

Valeria blessed him with a sarcastic smile before she continued.

“I wasn’t too close with my father’s agents, with the exception to Adrianos and Timotheos. They were close enough to us that my father adopted them. The rest… I only saw on occasion and had no formal introductions. However, the man Naiad killed sounded like Loukas, since he vanished around the same time as Naiad appeared in the capital. From the description of her appearance and her powers, I would guess that the woman last night was Rhea, another of my father’s seventh-tier mages.”

“Remind me, how many seventh-tier mages does your father have?”

“At this point, two: Rhea and Alexandros. Alexandros is a shorter, stockier man, with pale skin and dark hair.”

Leon nodded despite knowing that that description didn’t help all that much at this point.

“Do you have any idea what Rhea might’ve been doing?” Leon asked.

“My guess is as good as yours,” she replied.

Leon nodded as he considered the situation. “She found a blood sample from somewhere,” he thought out loud. “She obviously thought it was related to me, so she brought it here to Teira where it could be tested against the stored blood of the rest of my family…”

“I don’t think my father has any blood magic specialists in his service,” Valeria said. “I don’t think she realized that blood that old wasn’t useful if it hadn’t been magically preserved. If she did, she never would’ve risked such a thing. Or at least, I don’t think she would’ve. As a matter of fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t help but wonder why she targeted Heaven’s Eye, of all places. Surely Lineage Hall would’ve been a less well-defended place to target? Wouldn’t they also store the blood of your forebears?”

“That’s a very good point…” Leon said as he leaned back in his chair. “Maybe we ought to ask Ajax to look into any potential security breaches in the local Ancestral Temples?”

“That would probably be a good idea…”

“We’ll get that done first thing in the morning. So, she found some blood and brought it here to be tested. That might mean several things. First, it probably means that Teira was closer to wherever she found that blood sample than the Tower in the capital… or any other Ancestral Temple where my family’s blood might’ve been stored. If she targeted the Tower, then she had some reason to do so, and she also needed to kidnap a Heaven’s Eye blood mage to assist her.”

“That blood mage was probably right, then; she must be desperate,” Valeria whispered as a look of concern fell across her face. “My father’s people don’t just do all these things because it’s convenient. They use bribery and coercion wherever possible. I can’t imagine that she couldn’t just come into the Tower and ask to have the sample tested…”

“Maybe that would’ve taken too long? If she’s as desperate as you think, then maybe she didn’t think she could afford to go through legal channels?”

Valeria began to frown as a new thought occurred to her. “Neither my father nor Alexandros were with her, at least as far as Lord Ajax was aware…”

“So where were they?” Leon finished her thought.

She gave him a deadly serious and fearful nod. “Rhea’s desperate and my father and Alexandros must’ve been… taken out of the picture somehow… That’s the only reason she would’ve done all of this without support and in the manner she chose.”

‘She thinks her father is dead…’ Leon thought as Valeria’s expression began to turn more and more towards fear than anything else.

“We can’t say for certain,” Leon quickly said, hoping to cut off whatever dark thoughts were brewing in her head. “Lord Justin is an eighth-tier mage by all accounts, I can’t imagine there’s much outside of the Central Empires on this plane that can harm him. We don’t know Rhea’s circumstances, or if this is even her.”

“But my father’s been missing for so long…” Valeria quietly replied. “I would’ve thought he’d have come back by now, but if he’s been…”

Leon rose from his seat across from her and slid into a seat on a sofa that was closer to her. He almost laid a hand on her forearm, but he thought that might’ve been a bit too much, so he stuck with a serious tone and an earnest gaze.

“Let’s not go making assumptions absent more conclusive evidence,” he said. “We don’t even know that was really Rhea. Lord Justin’s power is no minor thing, and if we should be making any assumptions, it’s that he’s still around and simply hasn’t shown himself for whatever reason.”

Valeria didn’t look too reassured, but she took a few moments to compose herself anyway. It was long enough for Leon to regret his choice of reassurances, for he essentially told her that Justin had willingly abandoned her rather than simply being unable to come back, and he was too embarrassed to try and correct himself. He knew he’d just dig himself deeper into that hole.

All he said was, “We’ll find him. We’ll find him.”

“I hope so…” Valeria replied as she slumped down into her chair, looking a little lost.

“Until then,” Leon said, not sure how to comfort her without seeming too familiar, yet still wanting to help get her mind off this, “what do you think we should do regarding Argent Palace?”

Valeria took a deep breath and didn’t immediately answer. After a moment, she pushed herself back up into a more attentive position and asked, “You said you have more private ways of getting into the estate, right?”

“That I did,” Leon replied.

“Then that’s what we should use. If Rhea is here and looking for you, then the best thing we can do is avoid her at all costs. Entering Argent Palace through the front gates would be like sending up a flare of your exact position.”

Leon hummed in agreement. “The problem there, though, is that the last time I got into Argent Palace, I must’ve tripped an alarm somewhere, because the guards protecting the place were alerted to my presence. So we’re going to have to inform them that we’re there, regardless.”

“When were you last at Argent Palace?” Valeria suddenly asked, a smile of intrigue blooming on her face.

“When I was coming south from the Vales,” Leon replied. “I almost got caught, but I got a few minutes to myself in my family’s archives before I had to bail.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Valeria said with a gentle laugh.

Leon almost joined her until a possibility suddenly entered his mind. Teira had the closest Tower to the Northern Vales. The bandage Rhea had had been burned, and he’d burned his home down as he left.

‘If they went north looking for their missing people…’ he thought, his face starting to twist in worry and dread. ‘Maybe… maybe they found my old home…’

He thought about the Forest of Black and White, how dangerous it was at night, the secrets it held. The map he’d found at the Cradle certainly revealed that there was something there that Leon had never seen even in all the years that he’d lived there with Artorias.

‘Could Justin have gone north looking for Adrianos and this ‘Timotheos’, then gotten into trouble up there? Is that why he’s been missing?’

“What is it?” Valeria asked, worry etched into her face as Leon went silent and a grave look began spreading across his features.

“Nothing good…” Leon murmured, momentarily contemplating not telling Valeria his suspicion. But the moment passed and he wasted not another filling her in on the possibility that just entered his mind.

“You mean…” Valeria whispered in dread.

“… I think your father may be up in the Northern Vales…” Leon replied. “And if Rhea’s as desperate as has been suggested, then he’s probably in some kind of danger.”