Leon hated Ilion.  Quite fiercely, in fact.  It was a city that even if he hadn’t had the nerve-wracking interaction with Anastasios that he did, he would never want to return to.

The city glorified in the death of his Ancestors and the downfall of his Clan.  The whole place was practically a living monument to the death of those who bore the power of the Thunderbird.  He couldn’t exactly blame them, but he still felt profoundly unwelcome in the city.

It really got started not long after the welcome party that the Emperor threw for the Heaven’s Eye convoy.  Fortunately, there weren’t any more summons to the Imperial Palace, but even still, Leon didn’t leave the guest house for the next couple days, not wanting to attract too much attention to himself after the subtle and not-so-subtle threats that Anastasios had levied against him.  But eventually, he and his family did get out for a while, trusting in the power of Heaven’s Eye and their lack of ill intentions to protect them from anything untoward.  Besides, even if the Ilian Empire was keeping an eye on them—and all of them were convinced that they were—they didn’t exactly have anything they wanted to hide.

So, as something of a date, Leon, Elise, Valeria, and Maia all went out for a walk through some of the more scenic parts of the city.  The city was massive and sprawled across the plains around the Scamander River, but that didn’t mean that there no green spaces—a great many public parks had been built for the pleasure of the Ilian people, and it was to the biggest and most famous of them that they initially went.

At first, Leon thought the park to be quite the beautiful space.  Fields of bright green, perfectly manicured grass surrounded a large grove of trees, with hiking paths extensive enough that it would take more than an hour to walk through the whole thing.

In other words, just the sort of thing he needed after being so long in the cultivated and urban world of the Ilian Empire.

However, things took a turn for the worse when they reached the start of the hiking trail.  It was a large courtyard, the entrance flanked on both sides by various monuments of mythical events in the history of the Ilian Empire.  And right at the beginning, Leon saw a huge sculpture of a man in armor standing victorious over a fallen humanoid figure with the head of an eagle.  There were other sculptures of other scenes from other times in the Ilian Empire’s long history, but Leon fixated on that one, dampening his mood enough that he didn’t really take anything in until he and his family had already entered the grove.

That alone wouldn’t have completely soured the day, but the hiking trail wasn’t just one singular path, there were multiple branches and loops that one could walk down, and at every fork in the path, there were rest stops with stone benches carved with intricate mythical scenes.  Many of these scenes showed the fall of the eagle-headed representations of the Thunderbird Clan.

Leon had been content to merely enjoy the day with his lovers, so his lack of speaking wasn’t that stark of a change, but as they continued on, Leon’s mood grew worse and worse, the reminders of the fall of the Thunderbird Clan seemingly being thrown back in his face with every step.

It was a strange feeling, and one that he didn’t even have in the Bull Kingdom.  There, for a long time he was regarded as a barbarian, a savage from the Northern Vales, a foreigner and an interloper.  However, there had always been enough people around who didn’t seem to care about those labels that Leon had never truly felt unwelcome in the Bull Kingdom.  The nobles had certainly made it clear that he wasn’t particularly appreciated, but Leon had always had people like Charles, Henry, Alain, Alix, Trajan, and others around him, helping him to settle in, even if he didn’t recognize that at the time.

But here… Leon didn’t feel like he belonged.  Anastasios had been the only one to really threaten him should he make moves against them, but with all the art around showing the death of the Thunderbird Clan, he couldn’t help but feel like if the citizens around them knew his lineage and the power in his blood, they would tear him limb from limb—or at least, call for his arrest and flee in terror at the sight of him.

The hike was cut short, Leon’s souring mood proving infectious—not that anyone was particularly happy seeing these carvings and monuments, either, but Elise, Valeria, and Maia were a little more determined to enjoy the day, and took a little longer to admit defeat.

When they found themselves back at the entrance to the trail, they found that in the half hour or so they’d been in the grove, recruiters for the Ilian military had moved in, dressed in blood-red uniforms, one of which was trimmed in gold, leading Leon to think that the man wearing it was an officer of some sort.

“Come join the Air Guard!” the handsomest of the five recruiters called out to the passers-by.  “Do your part in keeping the Sky Devils in check!  Even now, their dread ships ply the Argonaut Sea, appearing from behind their misty shroud without warning, attacking our merchants, disrupting business, and looking for any and all chances they can seize to spill our blood!  Do your part to protect your fellow citizens and sign on with the Air Guard!  Train in war arks and win honor and glory in battle against the Sky Devils!”

The man continued on in the same vein, attracting a few people, from restless youths to older, but still passionate people to speak with the other four about enlistment.  Leon did his best not to listen, but it was hard not to when the idea that the Sky Devils were the remains of his Clan’s power base on this plane still ran unchallenged through his mind.

With a dejected sigh, Leon passed the recruiters and the crowd that was slowly gathering around them, trying with all his might to tune them out.

Elise, Maia, and Valeria did their best to get his mind off of these things, but as they moved through the city, Leon saw much more that kept his mood foul.  Most of the buildings made of stone rather than the strange golden metal of their towers were painted in various shades of bright pinks, reds, or yellows, but in the alley walls as graffiti, on benches, on decorative pillars and vases for the multicolored trees, shown in figurines in store windows, on posters, and so many other places, Leon saw either his Clan being slaughtered by the Brilliant Eleven, or he saw his Clan slaughtering innocents, prompting their destruction at the hands of the Empires’ founders.

There were other artistic depictions, too, of course, but it seemed clear that the fall of the Thunderbird Clan was essentially the founding myth for the Ilian Empire, and as a result, it seemed almost ubiquitous in its art.  At least half of all statues and paintings and other pieces of art that Leon and his family saw while they were out were either in celebration of the fall of the Thunderbird Clan, or showing the justifications for that fall.

Tyranny, murder, enslavement, carrying away women, all crimes under the sun that the Thunderbird Clan could commit, Leon saw them accused of in various ways in those few hours that he and his family were out of the guest house.

What made things so much worse was the fact that, thanks to Nestor, Leon understood that many of these art pieces were reasonably accurate, if exaggerated and distorted by time.  The crimes committed against the people of Aeterna were so great that eighty-thousand years later, the Thunderbird Clan was still remembered as the national antagonists, the devils that stood in opposition to all the good that the Ilian Empire had done.

It was easy for Leon to see the propaganda in all of this, especially since the Sky Devils were still apparently such a concern, but that didn’t make it feel any better to see.  By the time they returned to the guest house, Leon’s mood was so thoroughly ruined that he had no intention of heading back out into Ilion again until it was time for their convoy to sail down the Scamander River and head for Occulara.

He had plenty to fill his time with, anyway, so losing out on some sightseeing was hardly much to worry about.

Soon enough, the time came to leave Ilion, and for that, Leon couldn’t be happier.

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The Scamander River was enormous, with an almost unimaginable amount of water flowing down its channels and tributaries.  This meant that the convoy was able to take a single massive ship east, as they’d done for the first real leg of their journey when leaving Ariminium months ago.  Their ship this time was much more luxurious, leaving the passengers to spend three days in lavish extravagance as the ship sailed down the river.

On both sides of the river were more buildings, the city remaining unbroken save for the imaginary administrative lines drawn up by the Ilian government.  They passed through a dozen different cities, but looking out of the window, it wasn’t even remotely apparent aside from a few signs.

Leon, however, noticed when Occulara came into view.  The monolithic architecture of the Ilian Empire continued in Occulara, too, but the headquarters of Heaven’s Eye was not a thing easily missed, even to one used to such sights as the Imperial Palace in Ilion.

The headquarters of Heaven’s Eye was practically lost in a forest of golden towers, save for the fact that its primary buildings were so much taller.  Six enormous black towers, each one seventy or eighty stories tall and made of no material that Leon was familiar with, rose from the ground like lances, the top of the towers tapering off from the outside corners to the opposite.  They were arranged in a circle, the tapering of the top floors leaving them almost looking like they were ‘facing’ outwards, protecting the space between them.  If that were true, then it would’ve only been one function the towers served, for they were covered nearly from ground to roof in tall windows so opaque that they were only identifiable as windows by their regular placement and the fact that a couple of them were open.

But it was what lay between these towers that Leon was far more focused on.  These six towers formed a hexagonal courtyard between them of great size, big enough that one of the fortresses that made up the Bull’s Horns could’ve fit into it with room to spare.  The courtyard was mostly empty save for a colonnade that ran along its edge, providing a covered walkway for people to travel between the buildings, and a small hexagonal building about three stories tall in the courtyard’s center that was surrounded by another colonnade.

Floating in the air directly above this comparatively tiny central building, appearing to be completely unsupported by anything, was what Leon could only describe as a gigantic hexagonal brick.  No windows dotted its sides, and no other decorations covered it, save for the glossy black material it was built out of.  It just hung in the air in the middle of the six towers.  When Leon tried to examine it with his magic senses to try and figure out just how it was floating, his magic senses were scattered before they even made it past the towers, leaving the mystery of this floating brick unsolved.  However, Leon guessed that if the Director were to be based anywhere, it was probably inside of that brick.  If he was correct, then there could be as many as five hundred or more people working inside of that thing, judging by its size.  More, if their managers didn’t care over much about their comfort as they worked.

Additionally, there were Heaven’s Eye Towers surrounding these six huge towers—three apiece.  Their architectural style was generally what Leon was more used to, being all white stone with blue roof tiles, and standing about twenty stories tall.  Each of these towers was connected to a boxy complex of buildings about five or six stories tall, and further out, the normal golden towers of the Ilian Empire rose.

Everything save for the black towers and the black hexagonal brick was about in line with Leon’s expectations, but he found himself quite taken by the sight of those towers and what floated between them.  As he stood on the deck at the front of the ship admiring the sight slightly under two hundred miles away, he sensed Emilie approach.

“Can you see Headquarters?” she asked as she slid in beside him.

“I can,” Leon replied.  “It’s quite a sight…”

“Indeed it is,” she replied.  “I haven’t seen it in more than a century, not since I left this place when I was much younger.  I’m looking forward to returning.  Maybe flex my new position on some old rivals if they’re still around…”

Leon’s mother-in-law wore a gentle smirk, leading Leon to think she was just playing around.  But he was still curious about what he ought to expect.

“How’s this going to work?” he asked.  “We don’t really have anything that resembles a plan, mostly just what we intend to do once we get there.”

Emilie nodded.  “That’s the main reason I came to find you,” she said.  “I’ve been in contact with the Director a couple of times and passed on my recommendation that he take you in as one of his Hands.  He’s agreed to at least hear you out, though between you and me, I don’t think there’s a chance in any hell that he’s going to let an eighth-tier mage slip through his fingers, no matter how aloof or uninterested he may act.  Even if he may despise you, but he can make use of your power, and to my understanding of the Director, that’s all he really cares about.”

“That sounds like it could be pretty dangerous,” Leon observed, understanding at least somewhat the pressure to recruit not only the most powerful people, but the right people.  “If he brought in the wrong person, they could probably wreak quite a bit of havoc within Heaven’s Eye…”

“A reasonable worry,” Emilie conceded, “but one born of ignorance, I think.  The Director has managed Heaven’s Eye for centuries, he’s mastered the art of recruiting people and maintaining his power.  At this point, whatever he says is practically law within Heaven’s Eye.  He’s ‘only’ ninth-tier, but within Heaven’s Eye, his power is neither matched nor challenged.  If there ever is any hint of challenge, he quickly nips it in the bud.  Despite all that, he’s a very straight shooter.  He only resorts to schemes when he thinks he can’t get what he wants in other ways—but don’t take that to mean he isn’t a talented schemer, it’s just a tool he rarely uses.”

Leon took a deep, steadying breath.  “Good to hear what kind of guy he is…  What more could I expect from this?”

“He’ll want to interview you one-on-one, I think.  I have no idea how long this will take, but the decision to take you on as one of his Hands is an important one, and he may not decide on it right away.  Regardless, as I said, it’s nearly guaranteed that he’s going to recruit you in some capacity, but you might want to get used to the idea of sitting on your ass for a couple of years while you build up some trust with him.”

“I can do that,” Leon said with a smile.  “There’s plenty for me to distract myself with.”

“I’m sure there is,” Emilie replied.  “I hear you’re making another version of your flight suit.  How soon until it’s ready?”

“A while, yet,” Leon replied.  “I’m working on a new propulsion system, and it’s giving me no small number of headaches.  If you were holding your breath to get one soon, I’d suggest you let it go, at least for a year or two.”

Emilie impishly grimaced.  “Damn,” she said.  “I was hoping to take to the skies like all of you have been doing.”

Leon smiled, remembering him and his family going for a brief flight while still in Ilion.  They couldn’t go too high or too far while in the city, but a bit of playing around in the guest house’s courtyards wasn’t illegal, thankfully.  Princess Cristina joined them with Asiya and Maxima, and they all had quite a bit of fun, though Leon limited himself to only riding Anzu rather than transforming into his avian form.  He didn’t know quite how well that might go over with the Ilian authorities, and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out.

“Anyway,” Emilie continued, “we’ll likely be put up in one of the apartments in those big towers.  Extremely nice places, probably the height of luxury in all of Aeterna.  But once we arrive, you, Penelope, Damien, and I will all have to present ourselves to the Director and the rest of the Board.  Expect that to take a few hours as I take up my new position.  Then I’ll meet with the Director, and then he’ll meet with Penelope and Damien individually.  When that’s done, you’ll be called for.  I can’t say anything with certainty past that.”

“Understandable,” Leon responded.  “Good to know at least that much.  What about the Princess?”

“I think she’ll be busy setting up an official embassy,” Emilie replied.

“In Occulara?  I’m a little surprised that she’s not planning on heading back to Ilion at some point for that.”

“She has the authority to set up the embassy wherever she pleases, and she wants to do so in Occulara.”

Leon shrugged and turned his attention back to the Heaven’s Eye Headquarters.  “Will all of our business be taking place within that floating brick?”

Emilie’s smile sharpened, like she was glad that Leon brought that up.  “That floating brick is officially known as The Heaven’s Eye,” she said.  “More colloquially, we just call it the Hexagon, to not confuse it with the name of our guild.  And yes, that’s where we’ll be meeting.  That building below it will ferry us up.  There’s a landing space for arks on the roof, called an ‘arkpad’, but that’s reserved for the Director’s personal use only.  Everyone else has to use the lift to enter the Hexagon.”

“And the Hexagon is where the Director usually works?”

“Yes.  It’s also where the Director lives.  He rarely leaves, only doing so for the most serious of reasons.  It’s also where the Board meets, though most of them work in one of the surrounding towers.”

“How many people are on the Board?”

“Only six,” Emilie responded, her smile turning prideful.

Leon returned her smile, saying with complete sincerity, “I don’t think I ever really understood just how much this promotion means, then.  Congratulations, Emilie.”

Emilie pulled Leon into a loose hug, and when they separated, they continued to chat a little bit longer about Leon and Elise’s plans.  Elise was already putting out feelers for a nice country villa where they could get to work on their farm, but they hadn’t found anything on such short notice.  If the worst scenario came to pass, they’d just buy someplace that was lacking, and then slowly build it up into what they wanted, though they were holding out hope for a place that was more in line with what they needed—as private as could be, space for Leon to make and test his enchantments, farming space for Elise’s herbs, and room for an alchemical workshop for Helen to use.  Not a lot of farms even here in the Ilian Empire had such spaces, but Leon was confident that they’d eventually be able to settle on a place.

Emilie, however, when she took over as the Chief of Acquisitions, would be living in one of the black towers, so Leon had to promise not to move too far away.  Emilie still wanted her family as close to her as possible.

But after that conversation was over, Emilie was pulled away by one of her secretaries.  With Occulara drawing close, she had more work to see to, leaving Leon to watch the headquarters of Heaven’s Eye coming nearer and nearer, and hopefully, his immediate future along with it.

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