A little more than five months after returning to the Bull Kingdom, it was time to leave.  The investigators sent by Heaven’s Eye had finished their work and sent back their recommendation that Emilie not be punished, and then began making plans to return to Occulara.  Emilie herself was a part of those plans, and given the size of her household—notably, her huge harem of husbands and concubines—she had quite a bit of organization to handle, let alone her personal servants that would be accompanying her south.  They also had to make some accommodations for Justin Isynos, who wasn’t going to be left behind, despite a not insignificant temptation within Leon to do so.

Leon counted himself fortunate that he only had a handful of people to see to, because even that was enough to almost give him conniptions.  He and Elise had to organize and pack all of their possessions, turn over their villa for Heaven’s Eye to sell, and ensure that all of Leon’s retinue had made their own preparations.  Leon also had to undo most of the defensive wards he’d applied to the villa.

It was a lot of work, and a lot of coordination with Heaven’s Eye, but finally, the day came.  It was bittersweet, moreso even than when Leon departed the Royal Capital for the last time.  He was leaving behind the Bull Kingdom, his home for half a decade.  That he was bringing along most of the people that he’d made friends with and liked helped, but it was still leaving the familiar in favor of the unfamiliar, and it left him sad and scared, though not nearly enough of either to make him stop.

He was ready to leave, but from the way that everyone else acted, he guessed that his feelings weren’t entirely shared.  Most of his retinue still had family within the Kingdom, so he knew that things weren’t easy for them, but in the final week before they were set to leave, the atmosphere in his villa during training had become so tense that he’d just told all of them not to bother coming for training anymore and to spend their remaining days in the Kingdom relaxing.

For almost everyone, these last few days of relaxation came as a relief.  Anshu was the only exception, and it was easy for Leon to see why: he had no real emotional or familial connection to the Bull Kingdom, making him not only the most relaxed of any of them, but also the most eager to leave.

On their last full day in their home, Leon and Elise spent a lot of time in each other’s company, just enjoying their last moments in their first home.  Maia and Valeria were with them, too, but it was a little different, for neither of them had nearly as much connection to the villa as Leon and Elise did.

The married couple had picked it out and customized it heavily.  Though they’d only lived in it for a few years, Elise had grown quite fond of her garden, and Leon his enchanting workshop.  They’d made the place into their home, not simply a place where they lived, and now they were leaving it behind in the hope that the place they were going to now would lead to a better life.

Fortunately, Heaven’s Eye made the actual act of moving such a long distance fairly easy.  As Leon learned in several meetings with Emilie and several members of the Bull Kingdom’s Diplomatic Corps that he was unfamiliar with, if the journey was peaceful, then their huge caravan would reach Occulara in about six months.

That was a large amount of time in Leon’s mind—more than three times how long it took the Heaven’s Eye investigators to arrive.  But Emilie had to remind him that with all of her family, servants, and belongings, as well as the necessary entourage that would accompany Princess Cristina, they were bringing a small army of just over a thousand people.  It was a large undertaking, and to ensure they were moving safely, they’d have to move slowly.

Leon understood, but he still couldn’t help his shock.  At the very least, he was happy that with their route, they’d be heading through Ariminium again.  He was rather fond of the city, and he was hoping that the friends that he’d made in the Knight Academy were still there.  He hadn’t been able to see Charles, Henry, or Alain in years, and while he knew he could probably just ask the Legion for their whereabouts, he was so reluctant to do so for so personal a matter that he’d just run out of time.

When the time came to finally leave, it wound up being surprisingly easy.  There were no going-away parties—despite many offers from various influential people in the capital to throw one—they were just leaving without any fanfare.  Leon had said his goodbyes to those he wanted to, and he didn’t want to make this any harder than it already was.

Most of his family and retinue’s possessions were pulled into Leon’s soul realm.  There were still many pieces of furniture that would just be sold instead of brought all the way south, but everything of sentimental value, as well as everything within Leon’s workshop and all of the seeds and plant samples that Elise wanted to keep, he stored within his soul realm.  Most of everyone’s clothes and the like they packed more conventionally, so they wouldn’t have to rely upon him every time they needed to change into something else.

Then, they met Emilie and Princess Cristina at the docks, where a huge Heaven’s Eye yacht awaited them, with just about everything they could ever ask for.  Many of them got their own rooms, such as the Princess and Emilie herself, as well as Justin, who still had to have some Heaven’s Eye healers nearby despite his improved condition.  Leon shared with Elise, Maia, and Valeria, but their cabin was large enough that no one felt like they were intruding or that they didn’t have enough privacy.  Leon’s retinue got their own rooms, too, but their rooms were much smaller.  There was even a large cell for Anzu, with two resident beastmasters.  Just about everyone else, though, had to share relatively cramped, though still comfortable and luxurious, quarters down below the main deck.

With the Princess aboard, the yacht would be escorted by a couple of Legion ships, which floated nearby, waiting for everyone to get aboard and to leave.

And so, the huge Heaven’s Eye yacht carrying Emilie and her family, Leon and his family and retinue, the Princess and her retinue, and the Heaven’s Eye investigators, left the capital of the Bull Kingdom.  There were no great crowds lining the Naga River waving them off, there were no throngs of great men and women to see off the Princess, a former Tower Lord, and the eighth-tier mage that had risen through the ranks of the Royal Legions so quickly.

Everyone just got settled into the yacht, and then it got going, just another ship among many that plied the waters of the Naga, notable essentially only for its large size.

With their Legion escort, they reached the southern coast of the Bull Kingdom within a mere four days, and then turned east toward Ariminium.  Throughout the journey, Leon couldn’t help but be reminded of several years prior, when, as part of the Royal Legions, he was assigned to the Bull’s Horns, the great twin fortresses that guarded the only eastern land route into the Kingdom, as well as Ariminium itself, the Kingdom’s third largest city, behind only the capital and Teira.  It had also been the seat of Trajan when the Prince had been the Consul of the East, and a place that Leon had spilled quite a bit of blood to protect, from dealing with smugglers and rebels to fighting off the Talfar invasion.

Leon was looking forward to seeing the city again, though there were also a lot of memories he had of the place that made him more than a little depressed looking back.  Minerva was in command of the Bull’s Horns now, having been promoted to Consul of the East, and he wasn’t going there as a Legion knight.  Things would be just a little too different for him to really feel comfortable in the city, despite his fond memories and desire to see it again.

Elise, Maia, and Valeria were quite effective at getting his mind off of the anxieties he felt as the yacht grew inexorably closer to the great city, and they did so in ways other than sex.  Leon and Elise took great pleasure in talking about nearly everything, from planning their future to discussing the current state of the Bull Kingdom that they’d both spent so much time in.  Maia was more concerned with talking with Leon about the things she delighted in reading, or in sharing with him her insights into water magic and having Leon in turn share the Thunderbird’s knowledge of the element with her.  Valeria and Leon, meanwhile, didn’t speak much.  They spent the majority of their time rather silent, simply enjoying each other’s company as they sparred or studied enchantments together.

Things picked up a bit when they arrived in Ariminium.  They were all given accommodations either in the local Heaven’s Eye branches, or in Cristina’s case, the rooms the Diplomatic Corps had set aside for visiting dignitaries.  Leon had a reunion with Aquillius, the de facto leader of the Diplomatic Corps and Leon’s former superior, as well as with Minerva herself.

It was simultaneously a happy and a depressing reunion.  Happy, for Leon was reminded of better days spent under Trajan’s wing, but depressing, for it made it crystal-clear that those days were over.  They were going to stay in the city for a while—at least two or three weeks—so Leon didn’t linger during the reunion.  Minerva and Aquillius had a Princess to see to, of course, and there would be other events and parties that they would hold with her in the city that he would likely be invited to, so he didn’t want to impose when their attention was better spent elsewhere.  However, before he left, he did make sure to ask after his Knight Academy friends, hoping that they were still around.

Fortunately, it seemed their Legion was not only still in the city, but also hadn’t been deployed during the civil war.  Charles, Henry, and Alain had apparently stayed at the Bull’s Horns defending the Bull Kingdom’s eastern border throughout the entire war.

Leon was relieved, and had a message sent to them inviting them over to his guest villa near the local Heaven’s Eye branch.  Then, he finally left the Horns to spend the rest of the day resting with his lovers.

---

“This place is awwwful!” Asiya complained as she leaned back in her seat.

During the entirety of the first day following their arrival, Asiya had stayed with her Princess, ostensibly to protect her, but really—in Asiya’s words, at least—just to follow her around and afford her more authority by virtue of having followers.

Since Cristina was spending most of the second day locked in meetings with Aquillius, Minerva, and other high-ranking Legion officials and had almost three dozen other knightesses who could follow her around, Asiya was given the day off.  Consequently, she immediately went over to where Elise and Valeria were staying with Leon and dragged all three of them out with her to hit the town.  Only Maia stayed behind, who wanted to sleep in and get in some training.

Leon knew that she’d drop everything and come to them if the need for her power arose, but he didn’t think she’d be needed in that way; Asiya only dragged them all to some local chariot races.  After a couple hours spent watching the local teams race through the increasingly complex tracks, though, it was clear that she was thoroughly unimpressed by the spectacle.

“There’s a reason that there’s no large stadiums here,” Valeria pointed out in response to Asiya’s complaints.  “This city is hardly known for its strong sports offerings.”

“You’d still think a city with millions of people would have better racers…” the bronze-skinned Samarid replied as she laid her head down in dejection on the railing of their private box, not even bothering to watch the racers as they went about the track.

Leon wasn’t much of a chariot aficionado, but he’d been to a few races, and with his limited experience with the races back in the capital, he thought these showings were honestly not as bad as Asiya was making them out to be, but not anything special, either.  That didn’t stop the crowds from going wild when their teams took the lead, though.

“Most of the good racers get poached by the teams in the capital or Teira,” Elise pointed out.  “Ariminium doesn’t have many powerful teams thanks to all their players being pulled out from under them.”

Asiya sighed.  “I know that, but I was hoping they’d at least be enough to kill my boredom!  Though, I have to say, even this pitiful showing is better than staying cooped up in some damn conference room all day!”

“How is Princess Cristina, by the way?” Valeria asked with a cheeky smile.

“Probably getting close to resorting to murder,” Asiya sarcastically replied, smiling back at Valeria.  “His Majesty made it clear that if she was to go south under the banner of the Bull Kingdom, as she would have to if she wanted to go at all, then she’d have to endure acting as his representative.  And that means meetings.  Lots and lots of meetings.  I don’t envy her.”

“It’s not all that bad,” Elise said.  “When you’re the most powerful one in the room, it can be pretty fun making people dance the way you want them to.”

Leon almost wondered aloud if Cristina was the most powerful one in those rooms, with both Aquillius and Minerva present.  Ostensibly, she was, but in practical terms, he had his doubts.  He was wise enough not to ask that question aloud, though.

“Do you think I could convince her to ditch her duties and see the gladiator matches tomorrow?” Asiya asked.

“Are you asking just because you want to see the gladiator matches?” Elise inquired.

“Of course,” Asiya shamelessly admitted.  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want her to see them, too.  I mean, even in this place, even if they don’t have gladiators that can perform impressive feats of magic, then they at least have to be good-looking!  A couple of hot guys hitting each other in a sandpit, getting all sweaty and dirty…”

Asiya trailed off, but given how her expression changed, Leon thought that was probably for the best.

“By the way,” Asiya said, “my parents are here.”

“They are?” Valeria and Elise asked in unison.  Leon found himself more than a little curious, too, because he didn’t know that much about Asiya’s family.  He knew they came from the Samar Kingdom, but much more than that, he was woefully uninformed.

“They are,” Asiya confirmed.  “They’re supposedly trying to meet with some nobles across the gulf.  They tried playing coy, but I got them to tell me what they were planning during my going-away party a few weeks ago.”

Leon glanced southward, his magic senses briefly projecting in that direction.  Ariminium occupied the north side of this eastern-most corner of the Gulf of Discord, but it was an enormous city, one with a great deal of strategic potential.  With it in complete control of the Tyrrhenian River delta, it also controlled essentially all trade from further south that came out into the Gulf of Discord, which was how nearly everything imported into the Samar Kingdom got to their cities, which were mostly located along the coasts on the gulf’s south side further west.  The Samar Kingdom had built a city of their own near Ariminium to the south, but it was a few miles down the coast from the river delta, and only boasted a population of twenty or twenty-five thousand.  It was a city that mostly served to ensure their interests were seen to in the gulf rather than to compete directly with Ariminium and was largely inhabited by wealthy Samarid merchants and those in their employ.

“Is there something going on we should know about?” Elise suddenly asked, sounding deadly serious, and Leon gave her a questioning look, though she didn’t seem to notice it.

“Not really,” Asiya replied with a dismissive hand wave.  “With their chances of becoming landed nobility here in this Kingdom now essentially nil, they’re just refocusing on getting their exile revoked.  So, they’re mostly just meeting with some of our extended family and others close to the Sultan.”

“That sounds kind of… dangerous,” Leon whispered, half to himself.  Exiles risked quite a bit returning home before their exile was formally and publicly revoked.

Asiya shrugged.  “Her Highness offered them some help, so we might be heading over there with my family to have a short meeting, using my parents as mediators.  Shore up relations with our southern neighbors on our way through, and all that.  Should help my family’s case.  My parents will be making first contact, though, and I’ll be going with them for that first meeting.”

“Why are they exiled, if you don’t mind me asking?” Leon asked.

Asiya’s face momentarily fell, but then cheered right back up a moment later.  “I don’t mind it, but my parents might.  They were close to the previous Sultan, and when he died, he chose one of his sons to succeed him, but many of the more powerful nobles in our Kingdom supported another.  Should sound pretty familiar, right?”

Leon nodded with a bitter smile.  The Bull Kingdom just got through a rough civil war regarding a similar question of succession, and he also knew that part of the reason why Prince Owain of the Talfar Kingdom had launched his own invasion of the Bull Kingdom a few years ago was because he wanted to dispute his sister’s succession to Talfar’s throne.

“The peaceful transfer of power is damned difficult,” he muttered.

“It wasn’t that bad for the Samar Kingdom,” Asiya explained in a cheery tone.  “The current Sultan is the one chosen by the nobles.  My family supported the previous Sultan’s choice of his son—the current Sultan was the previous Sultan’s… cousin, I think?  Regardless, he rose to power quickly when nearly the entire Kingdom save for the city of Samar itself declaring for him.  The previous Sultan’s son surrendered instead of resisting, and I think he was executed.  Most of his supporters were executed, too, but my family was fairly powerful, and many nobles were either their friends, or owed them favors.  The current Sultan decided to just exile them instead of taking their heads so that he could keep those nobles happy.  So, they came here, to the Bull Kingdom, where they could keep an eye on the situation back in Samar while also trying to build a new home here.”

“You sound remarkably chipper about the whole thing,” Leon said with a smile.

“Does she ever not?” Valeria quipped.  She then gave Asiya a sarcastic smile and added, “Honestly, Asiya, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little grumpier, you know!”

“It might, why take the chance?” Asiya said, her statement punctuated by the roar of the crowd as one of the chariot teams won a race.  When the furor died down, she added, “Besides, I think it would kill you to be a little happier, Grumpy Guts!”

Valeria’s smile grew wider, and she pulled Asiya into a soft headlock, and the two young women began to play fight in their booth.

Leon found it a far more entertaining show to watch than the chariot races, and Elise even mockingly started trying to get him to bet on either Asiya or Valeria to win.

Leon didn’t name any names, but he and everyone else had a good time, anyway.  Even if the chariot races were going to be boring, they could still make their own fun.

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