After Marcus’ ambush, the Snow Lions changed their policies a little.  They had made it through the event without suffering any casualties, but Castor thought that it would be better to be safe than sorry and stopped allowing those few second-tier mages who were still going to class to continue.  They’d stay at camp in the gorge and train.

Leon was another story, though.  Castor had absolute faith in his abilities in the forest, so he didn’t attempt to restrict Leon’s freedom.  And, perhaps it was also because Castor realized that Leon probably wouldn’t listen to him anyway if he did try to stop him from going to his enchantment classes.

Regardless, no other unit would be able to repeat what Marcus had attempted, to catch a small group of Snow Lions out in the open far away from any reinforcements and try to force the location of the rest of the unit out of them.  In fact, he thought it was fortunate that Marcus had made his ambush attempt so needlessly complicated; if he and the other five third-tier mages had simply attacked the group in the forest rather than trying to lure Leon into an ambush, they probably would have succeeded in capturing most of them.

Leon was happy with the new policy, as it freed him from having to worry about the group on the way back to the camp.  Plus, both Castor and Alphonsus started accompanying him to fetch the daily supplies from where the Academy staff left them in their tower, just in case anyone tried to ambush them in the mornings or evenings.

So, Leon went to class the very next day after the ambush.  When he walked through the door of the enchantment classroom, Valeria was sitting at their table in the back and looked a little surprised at his appearance.

Leon walked right over to his seat and sat down, a subtle smile tugging at the corners of his lips.  The two sat in silence about a minute before Valeria’s curiosity got the best of her stoicism.

“So, how did you pull off that counter-attack?” she asked.

Leon’s smile grew.  He rarely allowed himself to indulge in bragging, but this time, he really wanted to.  “That trail I left was deliberate.  I doubled back and got reinforcements while you all were following it,” Leon responded.

“But how did you find us in that maze?  Were you leading us on then as well?”

“Didn’t have to.  I figured you four wouldn’t stop in the face of some mountains after chasing me so far, so I doubled back at the entrance to the maze.”

“But what about finding us?  We didn’t see that much, yet I got the impression that the maze was quite extensive…”

“It very much is, but my unit was able to find a way to the top.  Running along the top of the cliffs made locating your party a piece of cake.”

“Hmm,” Valeria said, amusedly grinning at Leon.  “Well, you no longer have to worry about me or Asiya.  We won’t be participating in something like that again.  At least, not until the FTX…”

“That sounds fairly ominous,” Leon observed.  “Aren’t you concerned that we’ll retaliate?”

Valeria leaned forward, her grin sharpening.  “You’re welcome to try,” she whispered challengingly, and Leon immediately wished that they were still taking Basic Combat classes.  He wanted to fight Valeria again.  At the very least, he began to seriously consider trying to convince Castor to make a play against the Crimson Tigresses, just for an excuse to pit himself against her.  He didn’t think he could just let this invitation go unanswered…

Leon ended up chatting with Valeria until the enchantment instructor arrived and began class.  The two went quiet as they focused on their lessons, but soon enough, they were given some free time to work on their skills in writing the runes.

“Hey,” Valeria began as the class split off into their usual cliques, “I’d like to ask you something.”

“Go for it,” Leon said, turning his attention to her while he finished drawing one nearly-perfect rune.

“I…” she said, her cheeks slightly reddening.  “Would it be alright if I called you a friend?”

Leon was completely taken aback.  They had fought more than a dozen times, so they knew each other well enough from a certain perspective, but they’d rarely spoken more than a few sentences at a time to each other since.  Still, he certainly liked her well enough.

“… Sure,” Leon replied after a moment of thought.  Valeria’s face, normally so impassive that it could’ve been carved from marble, immediately lit up with a breathtaking smile.

“Friends it is!” she beamed.

Leon, too, started grinning like an idiot once what he had just said sank in.  There weren’t many people he would consider friends, and he felt good saying that Valeria was one of them.

“So then, as friends, how about we spar again?” Valeria asked with shining eyes.

Without hesitation, Leon responded, “Sure!”

“Then how about this weekend, Asiya and I are going to her family’s estate in the city where they have a private training arena.  How about we meet up on the training field on Saturday and head over there in the morning?”

Leon felt like his Ancestors were answering his silent prayers, there was no way he could say no even if he wanted to.  To spar with Valeria was one of the few things he’d enjoyed unashamedly since coming south.  The two made a few more plans about when and where to meet on Saturday morning, then, when the class ended, went their separate ways.

---

When Leon returned to the Snow Lions’ camp, he was greeted by Castor and a large group of Snow Lions ready to venture out and fight if anyone tried another ambush.

But there wasn’t another ambush; Leon made it back without incident.  Castor and Leon spoke a few words of greeting and went back inside the caves for a meeting.  They had to decide where to hold the next morning’s training, to continue their campaign to learn everything they could about the terrain of the Knight Academy.

Everyone else was split off for individual training.  The first-tier trainees meditated and the second-tier trainees practiced their archery or sparred amongst each other.  However, there was one man who wasn’t training: Alphonsus.

Alphonsus had barely filled his role as one of the men in charge of the Snow Lions since the training cycle began.  It had gotten to the point that there wasn’t a single trainee that wasn’t already loyal to his family that took him even the slightest bit seriously.  Most of the time, he was ignored except for the few unlucky individuals who were assigned to his squad for morning training.

When Leon came back to the camp and met up with Castor, Alphonsus was in his room wishing he could swap the stone slab he had to sleep on for a real bed.  His back ached and the humid chill made his skin crawl.  For the more than three months they had been there, Alphonsus had barely been able to sleep.  Try as he might, finding any comfort in the caves was impossible for the young nobleman.

But Castor, his long-time friend, had repeatedly told him that there were no plans to return to the tower.  After a while, Alphonsus had stopped asking and secluded himself where he didn’t have to pretend to be happy with the living arrangements.  However, even this wasn’t enough for him.  At the same time as Leon and Castor were debating where next to train, Alphonsus walked out of his room into the adjacent cavern, which had been used as the third-tier trainee’s meeting room.

“Al!” said a surprised yet happy Castor, a smile appearing on his face due to his friend finally showing himself.  “I didn’t expect to see you!”

Alphonsus took a seat on one of the three stone stools around their stone table, though he tried to touch as little of the slightly damp stone as he could.

“What’s up, my friend?” Castor asked.

“… I was thinking,” Alphonsus began, “we should return to our tower.”

Castor’s smile flickered, but he managed to keep it up.  He didn’t say a word, letting Alphonsus speak without interruption.

“I think it would not only boost morale to sleep in proper beds again, but we’d be able to participate in the inter-unit battles.  Such participation is expected of us, but instead we hide out here in the mountains like rats.  I want us to return to the tower, as a challenge to any who might wish to fight.  I want us to be proper trainees of the Academy, rather than a unit that isolates itself from the troubles of its world.”

“You… make some fair points,” Castor said once he was sure that Alphonsus was finished.  “Indeed, the inter-unit battles are a large part of the training we receive in the Academy, and I agree that we can’t truly be a part of them if we are this far removed.”

“Not like we can’t have this place as a secret refuge if need be,” added Leon, to Alphonsus’ shock and quiet appreciation.

“Then it’s agreed?  We can return to the tower?” Alphonsus asked, hardly believing his brief venting of frustrations actually achieved his goal.

“Yes, I think it’s about time.  I was actually considering it, myself,” said Castor.

“I’m fine with it.  Would be nice to sleep in a good bed again,” Leon softly muttered just loud enough for the other two to hear.

“Then it’s unanimous!  We’ll return to the tower!” Castor nearly shouted.  Alphonsus couldn’t believe his ears, but his mouth curved into an enormous smile anyway.

“But first,” Castor continued, dampening Alphonsus’ joy a little, “we should have a conversation about how and exactly when we should move.  Probably not tomorrow, but maybe Saturday or Sunday…”

---

It was with both boiling excitement and deep apprehension that Leon awoke the morning that he was to meet with Valeria and Asiya.  He wasn’t quite sure how the day was going to go, he was afraid that he’d make an absolute fool of himself, but he was looking forward to the day regardless.

[So eager, are you?] Xaphan teased as Leon got himself ready for the day.

Leon paused, sensing that Xaphan was about to try and undercut his excitement.  [Don’t ruin this for me, demon,] he silently growled.

[All I’m saying is that that redhead might have a little something to say about you going off with these ladies, I’d be a little more circumspect if I were you…]

[What would you know about it?] Leon countered.  [I’m not going to try and sleep with either Valeria or Asiya, they’re just friends.  Besides, they’re her friends, too, and I can’t imagine that Elise would be upset if I were to spend some time with them.  What’s more, demon, why should I listen to you about human affairs?]

[All right, all right little fuckboy, no need to try and shove yourself down my throat.]

[I’m glad you’re giving me permission not to do so,] Leon quipped.  [There’re few things I want to do less than get anywhere near your throat.]

[You have nothing to worry about, I doubt you’re even long enough…]

Leon tensed for a long moment, needing to summon a titanic amount of mental strength not to try and figure out a way he could strangle his demonic partner right that very second.  But summon that strength he did, and it was in silence that he finished getting ready, neither him nor Xaphan saying anything more.

As soon as the Senior Instructor dismissed them, Leon wasted no time saying goodbye to his friends and jogging through the mountains and forest to meet up with Valeria and Asiya.

Both were already waiting for Leon right where Valeria said they were going to be, at the training field where the road that led to their tower began.  And as soon as he saw them, any lingering anger, frustration, and resentment at his partner faded in the light of their welcome.

“Hey there!  Good to see ya!” shouted Asiya in her usual chipper attitude, accompanied by an energetic wave.  Valeria didn’t greet Leon out loud, but she faintly smiled and nodded to him.

Leon silently responded with a wave and nod of his own, and like that, they were off to the city with barely a second wasted.  Leon credited Asiya the most for that, because he sure as hells didn’t know what to say after the terse greeting, but Asiya practically attached herself to his and Valeria’s arms and almost dragged them toward the city, bubbling the whole way.

“Ooooh this is going to be sooo much fun!  I’m so happy you’re coming with us!” Asiya exclaimed.

“Uh… Thanks for inviting me.  I’m looking forward to some friendly training, myself,” Leon said, responding with as much politeness as he could muster.

“Drop that formality!  We’re all friends here, right?” Asiya said with a look of mock indignation.  

“We are…” Leon murmured as an embarrassed smile slowly crept across his face in complete disregard for his attempts to restrain it.  Somehow, even though he’d said the exact same thing to Valeria not too long ago, it was harder to repeat it to Asiya.

‘Probably because she’s just so upfront and in-your-face about it…’ Leon thought, but he could appreciate the ice-breaking.

“Good!  Now, since we’re friends, maybe you could answer a question of mine?” Asiya asked, her eyes narrowing mischievously.

“… Go for it.” Leon hesitantly said.

Asiya’s expression turned sly and her eyes darted to Valeria before continuing with her question.  “I think you know a friend of ours: Elise, the daughter of the Heaven’s Eye Tower Lord here in the capital.  I was wondering what your relationship is with her?”

Valeria instinctively turned to look at Leon, but she just as quickly looked away.

“I… We… Um…” was all he was able to get out for a few seconds, unprepared as he was for such a blunt question.  After Asiya continued to stare at him he realized that there was no getting out of offering at least some kind of answer, so he took a deep breath both to steady his own elevated heart rate and to find his tongue.

When he was ready to speak, he looked Asiya dead in the eyes and said completely honestly, “I don’t really know what we are.  We haven’t met that many times, and neither have we really clarified between us.  However, I like her.  And I’m… reasonably certain that she likes me as well.”

[Only ‘reasonably’?] Xaphan asked rhetorically.

Asiya remained silent for a moment after Leon said his piece, the sly look not leaving her face. 

“I see, you and Elise like each other but aren’t actually going out yet…” she finally said.  “Well, that’s good to know!”

After all that was said, she changed the subject to the classes they were all taking.  She had chosen dancing as her elective, and she had quite the passion for it.

Leon and Valeria were largely silent while she talked, but after some frustration, she was able to get them to loosen up and talk a bit by bringing up how Leon managed to escape from Marcus’ ambush.

About half an hour after leaving the Knight Academy, they arrived at the estate of the Samarid family in the central districts of the capital.  Out of the myriad palaces in the capital, the one built by Asiya’s parents was one of the most eye-catching, if only due to its radically different architectural style and building materials.

Most of the Samar Kingdom was covered by a harsh, sandy desert.  It lacked the stone quarries and vast forests of many of their neighbors, which meant they had to build with the only material they had in abundance: sand.  The common people lived in and occupied buildings of tan sandstone, but the rich and noble lived in sprawling palaces made of shimmering black glass, made by melting the sand into huge blocks.  The glass imported by Asiya’s parents was of the highest quality, with an uneven surface designed to appear like rippling liquid in the light.

Leon didn’t get that good of a look at the inside of the estate as the group immediately made for a separate building which Asiya told him was their dedicated training gym.  Within were a wide variety of weights and training weapons arranged around the walls, with a large open space in the center for sparing.  Additionally, Leon was able to sense that the magic density in the air increased by roughly half thanks to enchantments in the walls and floor.

“This is where you two are going to have to get down and dirty,” Asiya said with a suggestive wink.

Leon frowned a little at her phrasing and ignored her provocation.  “Are you not going to join us?” he asked.

“Oh!  No I won’t.  I prefer to watch…” she responded, giving him an odd smile.

Valeria wasted little time with words and immediately took a glaive from the racks on the wall.  After glancing once more at Asiya, Leon followed suit, a smile blooming on his face as he set aside his family’s sword that was nearly always at his hip and took a training sword of about the same size from the racks.  As he took a position in the center of the padded sparring ring about five steps from Valeria, Asiya took a seat a few steps from the edge of the ring to eagerly watch.

Without warning, Valeria lunged forward, bringing her glaive down in a powerful overhead strike.  Leon nimbly dodged with a quick side-step and answered her with a horizontal slash at the side of her ribs.  Almost faster than he could see, the end of her glaive appeared just in time to block his blade, the clang from the collision of the two weapons echoing throughout the gym.

Neither took a single moment for breath.  Valeria pulled the end of her glaive inward, slashing the blade of her weapon out at one of Leon’s legs.  Leon just barely managed to lift the leg in time to avoid falling on his ass and used it to take a step forward, increasing the pressure he was putting on Valeria’s glaive.  But, Valeria took a step back and spun on her back foot, deflecting Leon’s blade into the air and gaining some distance.

Leon had no intention of letting her keep that distance, so he lunged forward, stabbing at one of her shoulders.  Valeria responded by stabbing towards him in kind, trusting that her longer weapon would reach him first.  Leon, thinking that her assumption was correct, changed the direction of his lunge as best he could to deflect her counter.

Their duel proceeded like this for about ten more minutes, with each constantly trading blows and neither achieving any sort of advantage for more than the space of a single attack.  Their duel ended in yet another draw, with each landing hits that paralyzed the other’s primary arms at the same time, bringing the fight to an inconclusive ending.

Still, Leon and Valeria both left the ring with big smiles on their faces—and covered in sweat and with a few fresh bruises starting to appear.

“That was amazing!” admired Asiya.  “Where did you learn to fight like that, Leon?”

“My father taught me,” Leon answered.

“Ohhh, he must be an incredible warrior if he raised you to be so strong!”

“He… was.”

Asiya seemed to pick up on Leon’s implication, and she diplomatically changed subjects, and led them onward to her private wing of the glass palace.

Along the way, she encouraged Leon to talk more than he typically did, asking him a few questions about the Northern Vales that he did his best to answer.  Leon got into the conversation as much as he could, but he was constantly aware of the fact that Valeria wasn’t participating nearly as much in their conversation as even he was, let alone Asiya.

“… and I feel like I’ve been talking for so long!” Asiya exclaimed as she collapsed into an armchair in her central living room.

All around them, the glass walls rippled with light, the enchantments and natural properties of the material bringing in light from the outside and dyeing the walls in vibrant colors.  The hallways leading to Asiya’s private wing had glowed a deep sea green, but the walls in Asiya’s chambers were a bright red that darkened as it reached the ceiling, giving the impression of soft, indirect light shining on her walls.

Her furniture was more in the style of the Bull Kingdom, though, but without marble and white stone, it looked just a little out of place within.

As Leon and Valeria each took seats on lounges around a central table with Asiya, she gave them both slightly reproachful looks.  “Sooo, Leon, do you have any questions for us?  You have two beautiful girls here with you, surely there’s something you want to ask us about?”

Leon wasn’t quite sure what she might be implying, but he did have some questions for them.  “I suppose that there are some things that I’m curious about,” he admitted.  “You’re foreign to this land, aren’t you, Asiya?”

“Yes, I am,” Asiya replied.  “Looking for some kinship with a fellow ‘marked’ foreigner?”

Leon shrugged.  “Maybe,” he said.  In truth, he was just curious, and felt like talking about Asiya first would make talking to Valeria a little easier, even though the silver-haired girl had barely spoken more than a few words following their duel, though she was clearly paying close attention to the conversation.

“Well,” Asiya began, “as my name might imply, I’m from the Samar Kingdom.”

“Samar, Samarid?” Leon said.  As far as he knew, Samarid wasn’t just her name, it was also the word that the people native to the Samar Kingdom used for themselves.

“Yep!” Asiya confirmed.  “Names up here are important, only select people get more than one: nobles and foreigners…”

Leon nodded, understanding that idea quite well.  Commoners all received one name only, while nobles and foreigners all had two.  For nobles, those second names identified their families, while for foreigners, it identified their place of origin.  Some nobles also received third names between their given and family names if they were named after ancestors, and if those ancestors were still alive, the nobles were typically known by those third names.  Foreigners, on the other hand, were typically given names that reflected their place of origin, such as Leon’s ‘Ursus’ and Asiya’s ‘Samarid’.

It was a remarkably simple system, and one that was specifically designed so that everyone knew exactly what class someone belonged to just from their name alone.

“It’s a bit aggravating,” Valeria whispered.  “Some people can get weird about it, and think that they’re doing you a favor if they deign to speak with you…”

Leon frowned, thinking that she was talking about someone specific.  ‘Gaius, maybe?’ he wondered, but he didn’t speculate aloud, letting her choose whether or not to clarify these things.  However, it seemed that she wasn’t of a mind to do so, and remained rather quiet.

“Are you foreign?” Leon asked her after that moment of silence.  He’d thought that she was a Bull Kingdom native—she certainly had the same general skin tone as others around the Kingdom, but now that he was thinking about it, he didn’t recall ever seeing anyone but aged elders with silver hair since coming south.

“I am,” Valeria replied.  “My father moved our entire family from our home in Isynos, far to the southeast…”

Valeria continued to explain her family’s short history, but Leon had stopped paying attention at ‘Isynos’.

‘… Isynos?’ he thought to himself in stunned disbelief as his blood ran cold and his heart jumped into his throat.  ‘If she’s from Isynos, does that mean she’s connected to Adrianos Isynos?’

Leon tuned back into the conversation a second or two after Valeria stopped talking, and it appeared that his attitude had been noticed because both ladies were staring at him with curious expressions.

“…  Sorry, my mind went somewhere else for a moment,” Leon said, trying to play it off as lightly as he could, but Asiya and Valeria continued to look at him strangely.  Realizing that he couldn’t get out of this without giving some kind of explanation for his sudden behavior, he took several painfully long seconds to compose himself, to banish as much of the anger and grief that was welling up from within as he could and regain a more neutral expression.  He considered himself only partially successful, but he moved on anyway, asking Valeria, “You said you’re from a place called Isynos… did your family have to take that name like Asiya’s did with Samar?”

“Yes, we had to,” Valeria answered with an inquiring tone, not saying the words but asking all the same why Leon was curious about her name.

Responding to that unspoken question, Leon steadied himself and said, “When I was back in the Vales, I ran into someone with that name.  A man named Adrianos…”

As he finished his explanation, he subtly held his breath, hoping that this was just a coincidence, that Valeria, someone he’d just recently confirmed was a friend, and for whom he held feelings that he didn’t quite understand, wasn’t connected to those who’d murdered his father.  He didn’t know how he could take that.  He didn’t want Valeria as his enemy, he wanted her as his friend, and maybe…

‘Just my friend,’ he declared to himself as he fixed Valeria in his golden gaze, waiting for her response.

“Oh?” Valeria replied a moment later.  “You knew Adrianos?  He came with my family to this Kingdom.  He eventually left our service and signed on with the Paladin Roland, though…”

Leon’s heart sank into his feet, his fears confirmed.  He had to fight to hold back his scowl, and his cheeks felt like they were burning.  His heart raced, his arms and legs almost shivered from the adrenaline coursing through his veins, and all he could think of was that he had to get the hells out of here.

He felt like his world was about to crash in around him, and he needed time to deal with this.  Valeria, a woman he’d been growing close to over the past few months, was affiliated with his enemies.

---

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