As the convoy had arrived in Ilion, Leon had been struck with the question of just how the Ilian people were to access their Emperor’s palace, as there didn’t seem to be any direct ways to get up to the raised island.  Now that he and the rest of those invited by the Emperor made their way through the grand multi-lane streets of the Empire’s capital, he was about to find out, and he couldn’t have been more excited.

The prospect of coming face-to-face with one of the most powerful people on the plane still had his heart rapidly beating from a great many emotions, but it was tempered slightly when he remembered a certain letter of introduction he still had stashed away in his soul realm.  The Grave Warden, under the guise of an envoy from the Ilian Empire, had left him with an address and a request to look him up when he arrived in the Central Empires, and as he traveled through Ilion, he couldn’t help but think about that letter.  The address the Grave Warden had given him was here in Ilion.

The convoy was only to stay in Ilion for about a week—not a lot of time, but more than enough for Leon to visit if he so wished.  But he wasn’t so sure that he wished to; at least, not until he was older and stronger.  Facing down the undisputed most powerful man on the plane without an idea of what he wanted from him had Leon feeling more than a little nervous, and he decided to ignore the invitation, for the time being.  If the Grave Warden wanted to speak with him, then he doubted the man would struggle to find him, but he wasn’t just going to make himself at the Warden’s service, especially not with the knowledge that he was almost certainly responsible for the downfall of the Thunderbird Clan.  Leon didn’t blame him for acting in self-defense with Jason Keraunos’ invasion of his plane, but it didn’t change the fact that his killing of the Storm King had led directly to the disintegration of the Thunderbird Clan.

As Leon wondered just what the Grave Warden might have in mind for him, worry slowly making its way through his heart, his carriage finally arrived at a relatively small fort on the south side of the Scamander River, close to the foot of one of the colossi that had been carved into the support pillars of the raised island.  The fort was only ‘relatively’ small, though, and was quite possibly large enough for a garrison of ten thousand if they packed their barracks tightly enough.

The carriages were led through half a dozen gates that wound through the fort, watched all the while by Ilian guards clad in heavy golden armor so bulky that they looked more like golems than humans.  Finally, they reached the Scamander River, and a bridge made of steel was magically extended across the water from the fort, allowing them passage across.

Once on the other side, they were escorted further down the road, past beautiful gardens and enormous trees with their glowing, multicolored leaves, and into the cavern directly beneath the raised island.

As soon as they crossed the threshold and the wards that scattered magic senses, Leon realized exactly how they were going to enter the palace.  Scattered about the cavern, directly beneath the four fortresses above, were smaller forts, each one heavily defended.  One of them had a perfectly circular hole in the roof of its tallest tower, through which a bright beam of blue light streamed into an identical hole in the cavern ceiling.  About halfway up that beam was a huge circular platform, just large enough to perfectly fit into these holes, and which was slowly crawling downward toward the tower.  It reached the tower as the carriages were brought to a halt, and Leon watched in fascination as what was obviously a magic lift disappeared into the tower, the blue light dimmed, and the holes in the tower and the ceiling closed.

It was a startling display of magic.  Leon had seen many a magic lift, but they had always been a part of larger structures, with walls around them to provide support and magic power.  To move a lift, especially one of that size, physically unsupported through the cavern… Leon could understand why the cavern was so inundated with magic power, more so even than the rest of the magic-rich city.

His group were summarily escorted into the tower, which was then revealed to essentially be housing for the lift, with a spectacular amount of magic power running through its walls.  They and their seventh-tier escorts boarded the lift, and with a surge of magic power that had Leon’s magic senses doing their equivalent of squinting at its radiance, the lift began to crawl up the tower.  The circular door in the roof spun open, and the lift kept going, supported only by the blue beam of light as it rose toward the door in the cavern ceiling.

‘What I would give to study this thing…’ Leon thought to himself.

Soon enough, they found themselves entering the cavern ceiling, carried up a metal tunnel for about a hundred feet, and finally coming to a halt at the bottom of a tall, cylindrical chamber.  Stairs ran the length of the chamber walls, with guarded landings at regular intervals.  Near the top of the chamber was the single, though extravagantly decorated exit.

Leon’s large group ascended the stairs, hundreds of eyes watching their every step.  As they moved, Leon noticed that every guard, armed and armored even more spectacularly than their comrades down below, seemed to operate as part of a pair.  Their armor was so big and bulky that he couldn’t identify men from women, and if he couldn’t hear their breathing, he might’ve thought that these people actually were golems.

They were then brought inside the fortress and escorted through the first level, their escorts amiably chatting with Cristina, Emilie, Damien, and Penelope the whole while, while Leon, Elise, Helen, and Anna brought up the rear, doing their best not to openly gawk at their surroundings.  Though they were being brought through a fortress, a military installation, the magic flowing through its walls still beggared belief, and the opulence on display lent it more of a palatial feel than anything.

But finally, they were led back outside, where half a dozen carriages awaited them—so large was the palace complex that to rely on walking around everywhere was to waste valuable time and be rather rude to the guests.  They had to get from the edge of the raised island to one of the central palace structures, where the main ballroom was located—and not, as Leon had been expecting, an audience chamber of the throne room.  This was a welcoming party, not a session in the Imperial Court.

The hall they were taken to was as grand as could be expected.  It was shaped almost like a theater, with an open ceiling to let the attendees bask in the light of the moon and stars.  A dozen golden rings whirled about above the building, filling the air with rainbow light.  The floor was pink rose quartz cut into a geometric pattern of diamonds of various sizes.

Upon his entrance, though, only one thing caught Leon’s attention: in the center of the floor, directly beneath the smallest light ring, was a huge statue of the Eleven Founding Heroes standing atop the fallen corpse of a gigantic eagle, rendered in spectacular detail.

Leon did his best not to react, but it didn’t seem he was that successful, as he felt Elise squeeze his arm encouragingly, and when he turned to look his wife in the eye, he found her giving him a supportive smile.  He smiled back and did his best to ignore the obvious celebration of his Clan’s downfall.

But that proved easier said than done.  He didn’t pay much attention as a flurry of introductions were made and his eyes just glazed over the many people he exchanged a few words with, the statue seemingly in sight at all times.

And finally, the time came.  The lights dimmed for a moment, horns blared, drums beat, and someone with an enchanted object or spell projected their voice throughout the hall, announcing the arrival of the Ilian Emperor.  The entire hall went silent, five hundred or more people immediately ceasing all conversation and turning their gazes toward the most magnificent set of doors in the entire hall.

They opened, and a large group of people entered the room, led by none other than Emperor Adam himself.

He was fairly young, as far as Leon could tell, with a smooth, boyish face closely shaven, light brown hair long enough to hang over his eyes if it hadn’t been lightly oiled and styled upward, and a youthful energy to his gait that had his bright red toga almost flowing behind him.  A thin diadem was set in his hair, silver and glowing with soft light.  The silver band was set with precious stones of all kinds, each one illuminated from within by magic power, with an enormous sapphire taller than the length of Leon’s finger made the centerpiece, positioned just above and between the Emperor’s eyebrows.

The Emperor was quite handsome, and wore an easy-going smile that seemed to disarm without difficulty.  Other than the diadem, he wore no jewelry, and even restrained his eighth-tier aura better than Leon thought necessary, yet he commanded the attention of every single pair of eyes in the ballroom…

… at least, until the old man walked in just behind him, and then, it seemed like all the air in the room had been sucked out, leaving it in stark silence.

His hair was long and silver with age, with a hairline that was only slightly receded.  His skin was wrinkled, but not so much that it overly damaged his handsome looks, nor his clear resemblance to the Emperor.  He was tall, but not overly so, and even beneath his loose-fitting clothes, Leon could tell that his body was banded and corded with powerful muscle.  He wore little else save for simple brown sandals, a long, stark white tunic that reached to just above his knees, and a sash about his waist and shoulders dyed in vivid purple.  Like the Emperor, he was clean-shaven, showing off his chiseled jaw and graceful, noble features.

His eyes, a strange shade of pink that he shared with the Emperor that looked almost like someone had pulled a pair of nebulae from the heavens and stuck them into his eye sockets, quickly scanned the room, taking everything in until they landed upon the feast that had been prepared for everyone to partake in.

Before even the Emperor himself spoke, the old man said fairly loudly with a voice as smooth as butter and as deep as the roots of a mountain, “Oh!  Buttered duck and garlic bread!  My favorite!”  He then separated himself from the Emperor’s group and practically skipped over to the table to begin partaking in the food on offer, while the people in his way moved as quickly and respectfully as they were able.

Leon could see why, for the man’s aura was beyond his ability to identify, and from the way he didn’t seem to even think about speaking before and walking away from the Emperor, it appeared that his rank was beyond reproach.

If he had to guess, Leon would say that despite what he’d been told on the way over, Lord Protector Anastasios, the grandfather of the Emperor and only tenth-tier mage in the entire Empire, had decided to join this little party, after all, and his appearance had so completely overshadowed the others that Leon was only vaguely aware of three more people who walked in behind the Emperor whose auras he couldn’t quite see through—ninth-tier mages in the Emperor’s service, no doubt.

Emperor Adam spoke a few words, but everyone was so conscious of the Lord Protector’s presence that even with his august rank, he didn’t draw many eyes.  Given the way that the monarch wrapped things up quickly, and how quiet the hall had become, Leon guessed that Adam was very well aware of that.  Fortunately, when Leon finally turned his eyes back toward the monarch, he seemed to be in good spirits about the whole thing, and was already locked in conversation with a pair of sixth-tier women splendidly dressed in deep crimson dresses.

“That was certainly an entrance,” Elise whispered to him.

“You could say that,” Leon said, his eyes drifting back in Anastasios’ direction, the Lord Protector still filling his plate with a little bit of just about everything on offer, hardly appearing to mind anyone else who wasn’t directly in his way.  In stark contrast, just about everyone was giving him a fairly wide berth, his mere presence seeming to have thrown everyone off to the point that they were at least mildly uncomfortable.  The Emperor already had people practically lining up to try and exchange a few words with him, with everyone kind of just being drawn in his direction, while the area around his grandfather thinned out just as quickly.

The only real exceptions to these events were the smaller groups that were congregating around the leaders of Heaven’s Eye, and those around Princess Cristina—the Princess having the smallest group greeting her, though she didn’t seem to mind.  Glancing around quickly, Leon also noticed that Helen and Anna had split off from him and Elise, and were already chatting animatedly with a young woman with bright orange hair and eyes that almost glowed with a shade of gold that was rather like his own.

This orange-haired woman was dressed quite spectacularly, even for their environs, with crisp robes that showed quite a bit of skin, enough jewelry covering her limbs to fund a small city for a year, and beauty almost as radiant as her sixth-tier aura.  She and Anna seemed about the same age, but at their power levels, it was hard to tell for sure.  She was certainly speaking with Leon’s retainers like they were equals, not like they were her inferiors.

“Who’s that?” Leon asked Elise, nodding in the orange-haired woman’s direction.

“She looks like the ambassador from the Sacred Golden Empire,” Elise guessed.  “Not a lot of her people around today, but I think she’d have quite the entourage if this were a proper day in the Imperial Court.”

Leon nodded in understanding.

“Anyone else here that I should keep an eye on?” he asked.

“I can’t answer that as well as I would like, love,” Elise replied with a twinkling laugh.  “There are so many people here that even with my preparations on our way here, I’m still rather woefully uninformed about the Imperial Court.”

“I’m sure you’ve still got a much better understanding of the power dynamics in this place than I do,” Leon responded with a deferential smile.  “Anyone you think I should watch out for?  Or should we just go and join your mother and all of those people doing their best not to look like they want to lick her boots?”

Elise laughed again.  “The people I would look out for don’t seem to be present: anyone wearing armor or a uniform that isn’t a guard would be suspect, as they would be part of the Ilian military.  Other than that… hmm, let’s just try to mingle as best as we can.”

Without too much resistance, Elise steered Leon toward Emilie, and soon enough, they were immersed in the greetings that Emilie was receiving.  Leon was once again subjected to names and faces and names and faces and so on.  He was only slightly surprised when it seemed like many of these people knew who he was before they were even introduced, as he’d dispelled all doubt in his mind that they knew his convoy was coming as soon as they arrived in Ancon, if not sooner.  Many of these people had probably already learned about him, his power, his current position, and the position he was currently on track to get.  Perhaps consequently, they treated him quite courteously, and he did his best to reciprocate.

After about twenty minutes, though, he found his taxed mind seeking any kind of distraction, and he found his eyes drawn back in the direction of his retainers, and as soon as his eyes landed upon them, he froze for a moment as worry bloomed in his heart.  He did his best to keep his face as neutral as he could, but he knew that Elise, at least, could sense what was going through his mind if only through the brief tensing of his arm.

He saw the ambassador still locked in conversation with Helen and Anna, though their conversation seemed to have taken quite the serious turn.  The ambassador was speaking quite intensely, and was leaning in to whisper as quietly as she could and still allow both other women to hear her.  One of her bracelets was also emitting just a bit more magic than it was the last time Leon glanced in their direction, leading him to think that some kind of enchantment was at work to keep their words from being overheard.

Whatever was being said had both of Leon’s retainers looking deadly serious, though Helen looked a shade more terrified while Anna seemed to be working to restrain her fury.  The older sister’s aura even had a few hints of killing intent laced within it.

Whatever they were talking about was clearly of the utmost importance, and it was upsetting them both.  Only a moment later, though, Leon watched the ambassador hand each of his retainers a letter, exchange a few more words, and then walk away, whatever magic her bracelet was working dissipating at the same time.

Leon immediately began to turn in their direction, his immediate instinct being to see what was going on with his people rather than continuing to gladhand with these court rats, however, he’d barely even begun to turn before the crowd seemed to part around him and a deep voice asked, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything here.  Does anyone mind if I cut in for a moment?”

Leon glanced back in the direction of the speaker, almost ignoring it were it not for the quiet gasps that a couple of the others around let out.

And he found himself staring into the pink nebulous eyes of Lord Protector Anastasios, who stared right back at him.

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