As the pronouncement of August’s sentence rang out through the chamber, many sat in stunned silence, others smiled with the glee of victory, while still others looked on in horror and dread. The death of a Prince was never something to be taken lightly, no matter who that Prince was or what they had done.
Leon and Minerva’s reactions, though, were significantly more muted than many others in the chamber. They weren’t surprised at the outcome and managed to carefully control their reactions—Leon remained stoic, while Minerva subtly glared at August, just as she would be expected to in this situation—August had just been ‘proven’ to have murdered Trajan, after all.
After announcing the sentence, the High Arbiter and her colleagues rose from their seats and quickly departed, letting the Assembly burst out into frantic conversation in their wake. Most everyone stayed seated until a couple dozen Royal Guards escorted August out of the chamber.
As soon as August was out of the chamber, Leon, Minerva, and the rest of their group were on their feet, pausing only for Minerva to lock eyes with Brimstone before turning and leaving the Assembly chamber. They were some of the first people out, since most of the other Assembly members wanted to socialize and discuss what had just happened amongst themselves. This suited Minerva and Leon just fine, though, since it meant that the rest of the Royal Palace was relatively peaceful.
Not a word was spoken in the group as they marched toward Trajan’s old office. They knew what was about to happen, and it weighed heavily on their mood. Treason was a weighty thing, and they hadn’t the support to give them the confidence to successfully pull it off.
Upon arrival at Trajan’s old office, Minerva almost broke down out of anger once the door was closed, and she wasn’t the only one.
“Those corrupt bastards!” she bitterly cried, slamming her fist down onto her desk in a struggle not to shout the words so loudly that the entire palace could hear. Her statement was echoed in several of the knights, who expressed their own frustrations in similar ways.
Leon and Valeria, however, retained their own natural stoicism.
“What now?” Leon asked, his tone suggesting that what he was really asking was ‘are you done?’
“Now, we make our move,” Minerva replied, her voice sharp and her face determined. “We tried the law, but Octavius has won the legal battle. He will win no more.”
---
It was a good day to be Prince Octavius. He expressed his grief at Prince Trajan’s death and the ‘revelation’, ‘fury’, and ‘disappointment’ that it was August who had done it, but his mood was decidedly more chipper, especially since several of August’s more fickle allies in the capital took the initiative to speak with him and express their shock at August’s actions following the trial.
But even with this victory, he couldn’t stay long. He had to keep up the mask of the grieving Prince, and so not long after Leon and Minerva left, Octavius followed suit, departing the Assembly chamber in favor of his own private apartments in the palace. There, he met with several of his most loyal supporters, including the Countess of Lindinis, the Consul of the Center, and both of his Paladins.
“What do you make of Dame Minerva?” Octavius asked the room. “Will she be a problem?”
“Possibly, Your Royal Highness,” the Consul said. “To my eyes, she was quite aggrieved at August, and responded in a pleasing manner to the High Arbiter’s sentence.”
“She should be watched anyway,” the Sapphire Paladin said. “She controls too many powerful knights for us to simply let her do what she wants.”
Octavius smiled. “I agree, she’s too great a risk, but she’s still a powerful knight and respected leader in her own right. If it seems like she’s going to be amenable, then there’s no need to do anything drastic. Just keep an eye on her and her associates.”
“What about Roland and Saturnius?” Earthshaker growled.
“Roland will be stripped of his title as Paladin the instant I become King,” Octavius said, clearly relishing the thought. “Brimstone… is too powerful and well-connected—the Duchess of Vesontio would be insulted if her cousin were to lose his title of Paladin—but if he behaves, then I will happily welcome him back into the fold.”
“Forgive me for the impertinence, Your Royal Highness,” the Countess said, “but the King still lives, and there is still a chance that His Majesty will recover. How long should we wait until ensuring the crown rests upon its rightful head?”
“I’m not too concerned about that, now that my bastard brother’s been taken care of,” Octavius serenely replied. “Whether or not my father wakes, I will hold the power in this Kingdom. After August has been made a head shorter, there’ll be nothing stopping me from consolidating my power here.”
“There’s still Bronze and Penitent to consider,” Sapphire cautiously warned. She quickly walked forward and took Octavius’ hands in hers. She then looked into his eyes with her own almost watering up in worry, and her voice quivered as she said, “If you take the throne now, they’ll object, and I don’t think there’s a force in this Kingdom that can stop them if they move together. I don’t want anything to happen to you…”
“As I said, love, I’ll wait a while,” Octavius said soothingly, squeezing Sapphire’s hands in turn. Turning back to the others, he asked, “Where’s August being held and what does his guard detail look like?”
“He’ll be in the dungeons, and the standard guard detail of six fifth-tier knights has been doubled. A pair of sixth-tier knights have also been reassigned to guard his cell personally, along with the rest of the dungeon’s standard guards,” the Consul explained.
“Uncle, I want you to watch over August as well.,” Octavius said to Earthshaker. “Nothing is to happen to him until tomorrow. I want his death to be swift and very public. As a matter of fact, I want everyone here to be involved in keeping that dungeon secure.”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” Earthshaker replied, though his voice was a bit strained. He was a Paladin, not a lowly guard! Still, he understood the need and didn’t argue.
The others agreed as well, including Sapphire and Lindinis, even though Sapphire was also a Paladin and Lindinis didn’t have much ability to actually contribute to the guard detail.
“Good,” Octavius said as he settled back into a nearby armchair to relax, his years of work finally about to reach their completion. “I’m sure the entire city already knows but make a grand announcement about the verdict anyway. I don’t want a single person in the Kingdom to be ignorant of August’s guilt. And ensure that the 1st Legion is mustered and ready for anything that might happen. Tomorrow must be perfect, not a single thing is allowed to go wrong!”
---
Leon sat in his villa, silently enjoying the last few moments of peace he would have for a long while. He cleaned out his workshop of all his research, he undid most of his enchantments on his home, and he packed away just about all of his clothes into his soul realm. Once he was gone, Elise would temporarily move back into her mother’s estate; they would leave nothing behind that was worth taking.
All of this was because he did not believe that Octavius was above attacking his home in retaliation, and he wasn’t sure that Elise’s status alone would be enough to protect her. Emilie and her Heaven’s Eye guards, however, would be more than up to the task of keeping her safe.
With that taken care of, Leon’s only goal had been to make sure that nothing remained in his home that might have been of interest to anyone who might break in after he and Elise were gone. And to that end, he was of the mind that he succeeded.
Now, all he was doing was quietly sitting in a chair on his back terrace, looking out into his back yard, enjoying the quiet late afternoon ambience. It would all be shattered in just a few hours’ time.
Valeria had come with him back home, and she had likewise packed up most of her things. What she couldn’t live without she gave to Leon to store in his soul realm, and the rest of her possessions were to go with Elise back to Emilie’s estate. Once that was done, she began to quietly meditate in Leon’s meditation room, preparing herself for the first real test of her skills she had ever undertaken. Leon had given her a tremendously important task, and she was going to prove his trust was well placed.
When Elise came home, she found Leon and asked, “What’s going on?”
Leon looked at his lady standing in the back doorway, smiling when he saw her. However, as he registered her question, his smile disappeared, and he said, “We’re committing treason tonight.”
Elise nodded in understanding. She knew what this meant, Leon and Minerva had been planning this for a while, and as much as she hated the idea of being separated from Leon again, she accepted it. Leon wanted to do this, and she hadn’t the fighting skills to follow him.
“We’re not going to see each other for a long while after you leave, then…?” she asked, her voice inundated with worry.
“Probably not,” Leon said.
Elise sighed, her already worried mood growing even more melancholic. She didn’t say it out loud, but she knew that she and Leon might not see each other ever again once he left. He could easily be killed in the war to come, and no matter how much she reassured herself that he had survived quite a bit could alleviate her worries.
After a long moment of silence, she suddenly walked over to Leon, hiked up her long, black, almost skintight dress, and practically draped herself over Leon, straddling his thighs while her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders. She pulled him into a deep hug, which he immediately returned, holding her close.
They sat there for what felt like hours, simply filling their senses with each other, until Elise leaned back and pulled Leon’s face into her ample breasts.
“If we only have a few hours left before we’re separated, then let’s make the most of them,” she seductively whispered.
Leon needed no further encouragement, letting his hands fall from Elise’s lower back and down to her toned rear, where he grabbed ahold and stood up, easily lifting Elise, much to her delight. He projected his magic senses so he could keep his face right where Elise was holding it, then carried her to their bedroom where they began to tear each other’s clothes off.
The two emerged a few hours later just as the sun was starting to go down. They found Valeria relaxing on a sofa, who immediately went beet red as she made eye contact with Leon and Elise. She was dressed for war, clad in steel plate that had been perfectly fitted to her body, with mail at her joints and gambeson padding beneath. Her helmet—which was sitting on the nearby end table—was completely close-faced with only two holes for her eyes, and she had tied her long silver hair back into a tight bun to ensure that it would all fit beneath it. On top of that, Leon had personally enchanted her armor to make it stronger and to ward it against elemental magic—plus a few small air enchantments so that she could still breathe and hear perfectly well despite its lack of requisite holes.
But her armor wasn’t the only new piece of gear she had—resting against her shoulder was a brand new glaive, with a haft of a heavy dark grey wood shaped with nature magic around a core of enchanted steel. The blade—made of Freezing Steel so that she could more effectively use ice magic once she ascended to the fifth-tier—was long and wide, and when she channeled her magic into it, its edges would glow with whitish-blue runes. These Leon hadn’t made, since his skills in water magic still weren’t quite up to that standard just yet.
“Everything all right, Val?” Elise asked with a mischievous smile.
Valeria declined to answer out loud, choosing instead to vigorously nod her head.
Elise giggled, glanced at Leon, and said, “I think we may have been a bit too loud.”
Valeria’s face became somehow even more flushed, while Leon seemed to be looking anywhere but at the silver-haired knightess, his cheeks rapidly matching hers in complexion. Of course, Elise took no small amount of pleasure in torturing her friend and her lover so, but unfortunately, she could see that the Heaven’s Eye movers had arrived, which meant that they were out of time.
“Leon, could you head outside and coordinate with them?” Elise asked, pointing out the window.
Leon nodded and made for the front door, leaving Elise and Valeria alone together. Elise, who had seemed so comfortable after leaving her bedroom, quickly tensed up, while Valeria was as uncomfortable as she had ever been. The two were good friends, but their relationship had grown a bit ambiguous since Valeria had moved in. They were still friends, but Valeria felt quite a bit of awkwardness with Elise still supporting the former starting a relationship with Leon. That awkwardness was turned up to eleven now that Valeria was going to be spending so much more time around Leon in the near future as his knight than Elise would be able to.
Fortunately, Elise knew exactly how to diffuse this tension; she took a quick step forward and pulled Valeria into a tight embrace, taking her silver-haired friend by surprise.
“I’ve already told Leon to come back to me,” the red-head whispered, “now I’m saying it to you. Don’t you dare die out there. You come back to me, too.”
Valeria pulled back just enough to stare into Elise’s eyes, and she could see the seriousness within them.
Elise gave her a wicked smile and continued, “I’m entrusting you two to each other, and if you don’t come back, I’ll hunt you down and drag you back to where you belong: here, with us. Got it?”
Valeria nodded. “I’ll keep him safe,” she said. “I can’t guarantee that he’ll do the same, given what Adrianos did, but I’ll do everything I can to keep us both safe.”
Elise smiled, then pulled Valeria just a little bit closer, turning their embrace into something far more intimate than it had been. “You’d better. When you do, maybe the three of us can do something fun together…”
At that moment, Leon walked back in, the movers at his back. He momentarily froze in the doorway long enough for the two ladies to separate before being seen by the movers.
He quickly walked over to Elise pulled her close, and, while the movers got started with moving Elise’s stuff back to Emilie’s estate, quietly asked, “What were you doing with Valeria? Not forcing her to do anything she didn’t want to, right?”
“Please, who do you think I am?” Elise shot back, her lips curling upward in a coy smile.
“A woman who pursues what she wants rather aggressively,” Leon retorted.
“Oh, hush.” Elise playfully pushed Leon back, and followed up with a, “Go get to work!”
“Yes, dear,” he said, giving a rare, full faced smile as he drank in the sight of her for what he knew would be the last time for what could very well be years. But he couldn’t linger, and he slowly walked back out into the front yard and let Anzu out of his stable.
Once he was gone, Elise and Valeria looked at each other, Valeria having recovered somewhat from Elise’s teasing. The two friends shared a nod of solidarity, and then Valeria joined Leon outside.
It was time to commit treason.
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