The return to consciousness was slow, and for a long time, he didn’t even want to return to awareness.  He was warm, his head rested upon something soft, and he couldn’t feel any pain.  His mind was a little foggy, but he definitely remembered feeling something like spectacular pain before he… fell asleep?  Lost consciousness?  He wasn’t quite sure…

Despite his reticence, his conscious mind crept back in, and with it came his primary senses.  Something crackled nearby, and from the muffled sounds, he thought that someone might be talking, but he was in no hurry to open his eyes and confirm it.

He shifted a bit, trying to get into a more comfortable position, but the movement had the opposite effect and served only to further wake him up.  With a deep sigh, Leon realized that there was no returning to the land of dreams—not that he thought he was there anyway, his sleep had been blissfully dreamless—so he summoned up a titanic amount of willpower and cracked open his eyelids.

He found himself staring up at a cloudy sky—or rather, he realized as he did his best to look around while moving as little as possible, the ‘sky’ of his soul realm.  He wasn’t staring up at clouds but the Mists of Chaos, so far in the distance that even with his senses and awareness in his own soul realm, the mist seemed like a gray sheet rather than a roiling and churning mass of strange material.

But with this realization, the events that had unfurled in the minutes before his loss of consciousness returned, and his heart, until now beating at a particularly sedate rate, spiked with anxiety.  He had no idea how long he’d been out of it, and when he thought about it, the possibilities that meant chilled his blood.

Energy flooded his magic body as he bolted upright, his eyes finally opening fully and his awareness returning in its entirety.  He’d been sleeping upon a small bed that he’d built in his Mind Palace but had never used, but the bed had been pulled out into the main pavilion rather than in the small house that it had been in.  Nearby, Xaphan and the Thunderbird stood watching over him, apparently having been quietly talking until he started moving.

“Leon…?” the Thunderbird asked a little hesitantly, her human face scrunching up a bit in trepidation.

“Expecting someone else?” Leon asked, his hoarse voice doing a terrible job of projecting the confidence that he didn’t actually feel.  As he struggled to pull the sheets off of himself, he realized just how sore he was, though he supposed he ought to consider himself lucky that he wasn’t in the kind of pain that came with uncontrolled soul realm growth.  “What in the hells happened to me?”

“The Iron Needle,” the Thunderbird began, “reacted… unexpectedly when you ate a Hesperidic Apple.  It amplified the power the apple contained to an enormous degree, and it pushed back the Mists of Chaos.  Your soul realm grew to fill the gap but without enough of a foundation to remain stable.  Had you been any slower in filling your soul realm with power or expanding the landmass, your soul realm might’ve collapsed entirely when the Iron Needle stopped and the mist returned.”

Leon groaned as he finally extricated himself from those damned sheets and sat up fully on the bed.  “How did this happen?”

“I’m unsure,” the Thunderbird replied as she exchanged a look with Xaphan.  “We’re unsure, I suppose I ought to say.  The power of Universe Fragments is mysterious even to those who’ve studied them for millennia.  I forged my Adamant sword before I ever ate a Hesperidic Apple, which I think is the reason why the Iron Needle never interacted this way with me, before.  Have you ever eaten one of those apples with the Iron Needle in your soul realm before?”

“I don’t think so…” Leon replied.  “If I did, it was stored in its larger container…”

The Thunderbird tilted her head a bit as she mulled the problem over.  “Well, we can try and figure out what happened more easily now that you’re awake, but I think that you have other things that need to be addressed first.”

“Yeah,” Leon said as he pushed himself up to his feet, his strength rapidly returning.  “How long have I been out for?”

“Two months,” the Thunderbird answered.

Leon wasn’t sure whether he should be relieved or dismayed.  He eventually settled on hesitantly relieved; two months was a tiny fraction of the time that the Bull King spent comatose after his soul realm injury.

Still, he’d had such an injury before, and it had halted his growth for many years; he couldn’t help but feel his heart sink as he contemplated what the consequences of this might be.  So, to get a better idea of his current situation, he projected his magic senses.  They felt a little ‘stiff’, for lack of a better word, but he was gratified to find that his body had filled his soul realm back up with magic power, so there were no problems with actually using his power, as there had been in those hectic few minutes after eating those apples.

The first thing he became aware of was that his soul realm had grown by several times, going from twenty-five hundred miles to somewhere over ninety-five hundred.  He stared outward in abject shock—he hadn’t thought he’d be approaching the threshold of tenth-tier for years yet, but here he was, perhaps only five or six apples away from ascending to a new tier.

‘Assuming they behave properly, this time,’ he thought with some bitterness.  His soul realm was still a bit of a mess, though, with the landmass he’d built being particularly ugly and in need of complete reconstruction as soon as he could get the time.  He’d have to do that to reinforce his soul realm’s foundations before even thinking about gaining power, but he was at least comforted knowing that he could do that in a matter of weeks, not years.

What concerned him more were the injuries he could sense in the barrier of his soul realm.  It felt thinner and weaker than it should in many places, and its surface was uneven as the Mists of Chaos pressed inward.  There were even a few small tears here and there where the mist was leaking in but thankfully hadn’t widened into much bigger problems.

Yet.

He had no idea how long those injuries might take to heal—decades, perhaps?  Longer?  He shuddered at the thought.  Having to hold off training for even just ten years after the campaign in the Serpentine Isles had been near torture, he wasn’t sure if he could take much longer than that.

However, as that thought occurred, his eyes narrowed as he turned back toward the Iron Needle.  “Have either of you tried to move it?” he asked.

“Of course not, boy!” Xaphan boomed.  “Touch a Universe Fragment whose loyalty, no matter how shaky, rests with someone else would be stupid as fuck!  What kind of empty-headed morons do you take us for?”

“Just asking,” he said, a little annoyed but otherwise completely unfazed by Xaphan’s reaction.  He summoned up some of his power and gingerly probed the Iron Needle’s small container.  It no longer had the black lightning bolt surrounding it, protecting it from his attempts to get it under control, so his magic settled around the container without any reaction from the Needle.

Leon telekinetically lifted it, then gently shook it around.

Nothing happened.  No reaction from the Needle.

With a relieved sigh, Leon set to work getting the Needle more secured.  He had the larger golden tube still in his soul realm, being seen to by the librarian golems, so he secured the Needle as best as he could in there for the time being.

If he could do what he hoped would be possible, he couldn’t allow the Iron Needle to interfere as it just had—or, he supposed, as it had two months ago.

With that thought in mind, he projected his magic senses outside of his body and found himself lying in bed in a dark room.  Judging by the furnishings, he guessed he was still in the temporary palace, but there didn’t appear to be anyone in the room with him.

He pushed down his desire to get back out into the world for the moment and turned toward the Thunderbird.  “The cause for this was because the Iron Needle amplified the power of the Hesperidic Apples, for some reason?”

“Yes,” the Thunderbird replied.

“So if I were to remove the Iron Needle from my soul realm, I shouldn’t expect this to happen again?”

The Thunderbird frowned, shrugged, and said, “I wouldn’t expect it, certainly…”

“Some time ago, I gave Justin Isynos a Hesperidic Apple to aid in fixing the damage done to his soul realm.  Would something similar help me?”

The Thunderbird glanced around for a moment, pondering his question.  Then she turned back to him with a smile.  “Yes, I’d say that they would aid you in this, assuming this doesn’t happen again.”

Leon grinned.  “I’m not taking any chances.  I still had seventeen apples to eat before this, so hopefully they haven’t been thrown away.”

“Then get out there and check,” the Thunderbird enthusiastically said.  However, as Leon turned toward his throne to do just that, the Thunderbird suddenly approached him from behind and threw her arms around him for a moment.  “It’s good to see you back up, kid.  You had me pretty worried for a while.”

Leon twisted in her grasp a bit and gave her a quick hug in return.  “Sorry about that.  Wasn’t intentional, honest.”

“It had better not be,” the Thunderbird said with relieved sarcasm.  She released him.  “Now, go handle the business of rebuilding my Clan!  Hop to!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m going.  What are you going to do, Xaphan?”

“Same thing I’ve done since you shit yourself, collapsed frothing at the mouth, and somehow hit both your head and your tiny, tiny balls on those stairs: just waiting here.”

Leon grinned despite himself.  “Truly, your productiveness would put even worker ants to shame, demon.”

“Indeed, it would.  Now go, young human!  This great Lord of Flame permits you to leave his presence!”

Leon chuckled and glanced at the Thunderbird, whose smile at his revival seemed to falter the more Xaphan spoke.  “Is it bad I kind of want to stick around now?” he asked.

“Go,” she replied.  “Leave disciplining this pile of wet kindling to me.”

Leon nodded and focused his attention on his physical body and everything around it.  As he sat on his throne and closed his eyes, the last thing he heard from his soul realm was the sound of Xaphan’s head hitting the floor as the Thunderbird assumed her avian form.

---

Leon barely had the time to open his eyes before the door to his room was torn from its hinges; Maia burst in, her eyes wide, a smile rapidly coming to her gorgeous face.

[Leon!] she screamed into his mind as she rushed forward and threw herself down onto his bed.

He groaned in pain as her elbow dug into his stomach but otherwise made no objections to her show of affection.  A moment later, Elise, then Valeria, and then Cassandra filtered in.  Gaius poked his head in only long enough to give Leon a nod and to pick up the door and put it back into its frame.

For his part, Leon spent the next quarter hour buried in the arms of his ladies as they fussed over him and expressed their worry and relief.

Once everyone had calmed down, his ladies having taken seats on the bed with him, Leon propped himself up against the headboard and said, “So.  I’ve been led to believe it’s been two months.  What’s happened in that time?”

“Many things,” Elise replied.  “The Sunlit Emperor invaded the Sword.”

Leon’s eyes sprang out so widely and so quickly that they just about popped out of their sockets.  He stared at Elise for a moment wondering if she was joking, but Maia and Valeria laid their hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down.

“Losses were taken,” Cassandra added, “but many of the elders have crossed the straits and joined the fight.  Sunlit is in control over the northern half of the island.”

“What losses?” Leon asked.

“About a dozen of the older arks still in service,” Valeria explained as Cassandra gave her a pointed look.  “Twenty elders from various tribes have died and tens of thousands have been killed on both sides.  But Sunlit has been fought to a standstill.  Everyone’s scrambling to get their next offensives ready, but for the moment, no one has the initiative.”

Leon frowned as he turned his eyes westward, his magic senses now easily able to reach the shores of the Sword.  While seeing some of her explanations wasn’t easy given the scale, Leon was able to see that Sunlit forces were, indeed, swarming over the island.

“That’s a lot of people,” he observed.

“You can see them?” Valeria asked.

Leon nodded and said, “We can get into it in a moment, right now I want to know more.  That looks like hundreds of thousands of Sunlit troops; how is he able to muster that large of an army?”

“He’s apparently pulled as many soldiers off their posts as he could without leaving his Empire completely undefended,” Cassandra answered.  “The borders are still guarded by skeleton crews.  Since he attacked us, my grandmother and the Lord Protector almost got involved, but the Keeper has firmly and publicly decided to take Sunlit’s side in this matter.  He isn’t joining Sunlit in the assault on the Sword, but he’s called up the Sentinels’ armies and is threatening to intervene if anyone attacks the Sunlit Empire.”

Leon quietly swore under his breath.  “All right.  Sunlit can’t sustain this, not by himself.  Not against all Ten Tribes”

His ladies exchanged looks.

“What is it?” he demanded, his worry spiking.

Cassandra answered hesitantly, “Sunlit… has broken out some… it’s probably Thunderbird Clan stuff.  Arks.  Five of them.  Each of them is more powerful than anything we’re using.  The new arks can do damage, but only if they outnumber the Thunderbird arks.”

Leon growled in displeasure as he turned his attention back to the Sword.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t immediately locate these new arks, though he saw a hundred arks in total flying around above the island, both from the Ten Tribes and the Sunlit Empire.  More eye-catching was the apparent imminent beginning of a large naval battle off the eastern coast, with a massive Sunlit fleet about to meet a Tribal fleet of equal size.

“I need to get up,” Leon croaked as he struggled to rise again.  His body felt weak, but with magic flowing through his veins, his strength was returning.  Fortunately, though he’d been out of it for two months, it didn’t seem like he’d lost all that much muscle mass.

“No!” Elise insisted.  “Veto!  Wife veto!  You lay right back down!”

Leon stopped for a moment, but argued, “I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”

“You just woke up from an injury that seems to have damaged your soul realm!” Elise cried, her emerald eyes tearing up.  “We… we weren’t sure when you might wake…  And now you want to run off to war before you’re even fully healed!”

She slapped his chest a few times in loving frustration, but her blows came without any strength.  Despite that, Leon still sank back into the bed.

“Fine,” he said.  “Someone fetch Nestor.  Do we still have those Hesperidic Apples?  There should still be most of the harvest remaining, right?”

“Tikos took them,” Valeria said as Elise settled back down with Leon back in bed, though her red-rimmed eyes still glowered at him, silently threatening him should he expect to rise again in his condition.  “They wanted to test the apples for poison or some other kind of fault or tampering.  As far as I know, Tikos still has them.”

“Bring them back,” Leon said.  “They worked fine.  It was the Iron Needle that did this to me…”

He explained as best as he could what happened, while at the same time, Valeria poked her head out of the door and had Gaius go and fetch Nestor and Tikos, who was apparently still near the palace conducting its tests.  Leon finished his explanation as Nestor arrived.

“Good,” Nestor said as the door closed and locked behind him.  “I was afraid that the horde of healers in the other room might’ve tried to force their way in if the door remained open much longer.”

“Nestor,” Leon said in greeting.

“Leon,” the dead man responded with mild amusement.  “You’re not dead.”

“Thanks for noticing, I did my best to appear not dead today.”  Leon waved the golem-man over and, without preamble, conjured the Iron Needle in its first, larger golden tube.  “Get this secured.  I can’t hold it in my soul realm and eat Hesperidic Apples until it’s been implanted in a sword.”

“Put it in the ancestral blade,” Nestor said, not immediately taking the Needle.

Leon frowned lightly.  “Not that simple—or so I’ve been led to believe over the past year.  Look, just secure it, all right?  I’ll be back to grab it as soon as I heal.”

Nestor grumbled incoherently, but he still walked over and laid a hand on the golden tube.  As a man without a physical body, existing only as a magic body stuffed inside an enchanted ruby, Nestor had no soul realm to store the Needle in—not that Leon expected him to try even if he did, he didn’t want to see what might happen if someone were to try and take possession of the Needle like that.

However, Nestor inscribed in light several runes onto the side of the tube, causing it to float in the air behind him and turn invisible.

“I’ll bring this down to the workshop,” Nestor said as he departed.

Leon nodded gratefully.

And with that, he managed to relax a bit as his ladies filled him in on more of what had been happening in the two months he’d spent laid out.

Iron-Striker, despite not having yet accepted Leon’s offer, had, by agreement of the Elder Council and Leon’s other ministers, been declared the regent.  Elise had made sure to stress that she had been in the Elder Council to speak on Leon’s behalf, though she got the impression that she didn’t really need to—the Tribes were quite adamant that while Leon had made his preference for Iron-Striker taking a position like this already known, this appointment was only until he woke up.  Now that Leon had woken up, Iron-Striker’s power as regent was now legally gone.

However, Leon wasn’t in any hurry to make that official.  He was sure that word was already spreading quickly that he was awake again, but with the military in the Jaguar’s hands and the government in Iron-Striker’s, he didn’t think he had much to worry about after only two months.

As they spoke, Tikos arrived.  As soon as it was shown into Leon’s room, its leafy hair ruffled and filled the air with a sweet scent.

“Good to see awake you, Leon!” Tikos said enthusiastically.  However, its demeanor fell a moment later.  “My apologies for the apples…”

“No apologies are necessary,” Leon replied.  “In fact, I’d like to finish them, if they haven’t yet been disposed of.  Other circumstances did this to me, but the apples might be able to aid in healing me.”

Tikos bowed slightly and conjured thirteen Hesperidic Apples onto one of Leon’s end tables.  “Had to destroy four to check them for dangerous,” Tikos explained.  “The rest are here.”

“Thank you,” Leon said as Maia took one and handed it to him.

Without giving himself time to hesitate or second guess himself, Leon took a bite, letting the unparalleled taste of one of the purest physical embodiments of magic power surge over his taste buds.

Everyone else was decidedly less enthused, however, and Leon found himself intensely watched by everyone in the room.  He paused a moment after taking that first bite and felt the serene power of the apple flow down into his soul realm.

Almost immediately, his soreness began to be relieved and he could sense the barrier of his soul realm already starting to mend as the apples’ power flowed in.  Thusly satisfied, Leon devoured the rest of the apple, and then a second.  Soon enough, all thirteen had been eaten without any immediate adverse side effects.  Leon could feel the power already going to work on his body, and he couldn’t help but get lost in the sensation.

His body relaxed almost uncontrollably, and he slid down into the bed.  His eyes grew heavy, and he felt his consciousness drifting again.  However, unlike last time, this time he could feel that this sleep wouldn’t last long—perhaps only a day or two.  His body just needed some time to heal, and it looked like it was going to.

He smiled as he drifted off, content in knowing that even if he didn’t heal completely, he’d shaved years, perhaps even decades off the time he would’ve otherwise had to wait.

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