Leon watched with gleeful, if quiet, fascination as six arks lifted off from the Ravens’ arkyards.  These six arks were the largest and finest vessels the Ravens had ever produced, the thunder wood that Leon had given them allowing the Tribe to increase the arks’ size and armor significantly.  These new arks had also been provided with storm crystals, but they had already been close to completion by then so the design hadn’t been impacted.

Despite this, these six arks represented the absolute pinnacle of what the Ravens could achieve.  Ten Lightning Lances to a side, and one of their largest Flame Lances as a main cannon on the bow of the ark.  With storm crystals and thunder wood, the Ravens had been able to actualize the weapon that they’d been testing when Leon first arrived in their Tribe, relieving the need to swap out parts after every shot.  Now, it could fire multiple times without much risk of the internal mechanics of the weapon melting under the heat.

All in all, these new arks would serve as fantastic auxiliaries to Leon’s Thunderbird destroyer.  The first he’d taken as his flagship while the second was essentially useless, the damage it had taken during the final battle with Sunlit buying it a long-term stay in the Ravens’ arkyards.  But with his one working destroyer—which was rapidly being repaired of all the damage and bypasses that the Sunlit Empire had implemented to get around the bloodline lock—and these new arks, Leon felt like his forces would practically be able to just walk into the Sunlit Empire and do what needed to be done.

Of course, ‘what needed to be done’ was something he still needed to define, but for the moment, he simply watched as these new arks lifted off from the arkpads for the first time, a powerful statement in his mind that the Thunderbird Clan was also on the rise.

“What do you think?” Frode asked Leon.  The ninth-tier Raven had been his escort during his visit, having taken the title of Lawspeaker from Asger only a couple months before.  Asger had been happy that his term as Lawspeaker was up, giving him more time to work with all the people that Leon had brought back from Occulara.

“I… don’t want to say anything until I see their capabilities myself,” Leon began before turning to face Frode.  “But what I can see now is encouraging, to say the least.  I’m very impressed.”

“We strive for the best,” Frode said.  “These new arks will be the tip of the spear for the Ten Tribes—at least until we build something better.  Their power is unmatched upon this plane save only for any arks of your esteemed Clan that the Empires yet have in their stores.”

“Good,” Leon murmured as he turned his eyes back to the arks.  The time was coming to finally put the Sunlit Empire down for good.  Months of preparation were coming to an end.  In only a matter of weeks, he expected the Jaguar to report to him that the army was ready to advance on his word.

But there was still some work to be done before then on his end; he still had to coordinate with their allies…

Leon didn’t stay much longer in the Ravens’ territory.  He enjoyed their hospitality and wished he could stay longer given the work being done by Valentina and Asger, but he had duties in the capital that he had to return to—duties such as supervising the first bloodline awakening ceremony that would be held in the purpose-built stadium that he’d ordered constructed.  It would be the first time that all Ten Tribes would be holding their bloodline awakening ceremonies together, which likely would have never happened had Leon not become their King.

So, after the ark commissioning, he departed for Stormhollow, but vowed to return as soon as he could spare the time.  He truly hadn’t been spending as much time with the Ravens as he’d have preferred…

---

Leon, mentally exhausted, collapsed in the chair that had been prepared for him.  At his side were Elise and Cassandra, the two looking tired but not quite as done with everything as he was.  The bloodline awakening ceremony had just taken place, and Leon, with his wives there with him, had done his best to participate as much as he could.

Fortunately, there weren’t any problems with the ceremony despite the participation of all the Tribes, and in the end, Leon’s Kingdom gained twenty thousand mages with awoken bloodlines.  They were still largely weak, being only first and second-tier, but in a few hundred years, it would be them who would be leading their Tribes.

Still, it had exhausted Leon, and his day wasn’t even yet over.

In front of Leon and his wives was a comm lotus and several large light screens.  The screens showed nothing but white light for the moment, but that would change once their meeting began in only a few minutes.

“Ready for this?” Elise asked with some concern as she laid a hand on Leon’s arm.

“Yes,” Leon groaned.  “Just wish I could take a nap or something first.”

Elise smiled while Cassandra softly giggled.  “Dealing with my family isn’t that bad, is it?”

Leon snapped his head to her and gave her a skeptical look.  “Your family is… lovely.”

She responded with an exaggerated scandalized look.  After a moment, though, she sighed and said, “I… can understand your hesitation.  But you don’t hate them, do you?”

“Of course I don’t hate them,” Leon soothingly replied.  “Your brother and sister I don’t know well, but your mother has been nothing but pleasant to me.  Your grandmother is also… enthusiastic.  She’s never once been bad to me, but she can still be a little…”

“Overzealous when it comes to her passions and desires?” Elise offered.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Leon agreed.

Suddenly, one of the light screens in front of them resolved into a flat image of the Grand Druid grinning unabashedly at them.

“Cassandra, my darling!” she immediately cried as Leon, Elise, and Cassandra almost jumped in surprise, all hoping that their words hadn’t been heard.  “And you, Leon and Elise, it’s so good to see you again!”

Leon breathed a quiet sigh of relief at the Grand Druid’s friendly demeanor, steadied his heart, and replied, “Wonderful to see you again, too, Grand Druid.”

“Please, Leon,” she replied, “just call me ‘grandmother’.”

Leon’s smile became slightly strained even as Cassandra covered her face for a moment and groaned, “Grandmother…!”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to say, Leon, my boy!” the Grand Druid replied as she leaned in closer, her face growing on the comm lotus’ projected light screen.  “You can say it, can’t you?”

“Say what?” the Lord Protector asked as his image resolved on one of the other two light screens.

“I’m bonding with my grandson-in-law!” the Grand Druid insisted.

“Spectacular!” the Lord Protector boomed, his aged face wrinkling further as he gave everyone a big, toothy grin.  “Nothing cements an alliance better than good personal relationships!”

The final screen flickered, finally adding the final guest for this meeting to show his face: the Director of Heaven’s Eye.  He looked a little harried and tired, the lines on his face seeming longer and deeper than Leon remembered.

“Hello, all,” he said.  “If it’s not too much to ask, how about we just jump right into things?”

“Now, now,” the Grand Druid chided, “impatience should be reserved for the young!  Aren’t we all old to be—”

“The situation demands impatience,” the Director said.  “I’ve received reports that the Sunlit Emperor and the Keeper of the Sentinels have met once again.  Though it doesn’t seem like an invasion force, armies are on the move.”

“Who gave you this information?” the Lord Protector demanded, his demeanor shifting immediately to stoic professionalism.

“Trusted sources,” the Director stated.  “Most of Keeper’s armed forces are marching south to link up with the Sunlit Emperor’s troops.”

Before any of them could continue, Leon interjected, “I reached the tenth-tier.”

The other three went quiet and stared at him, mouths agape.

“You… you ascended to the tenth-tier?” the Grand Druid whispered.

“Yes,” Leon confirmed.

“It’s true,” Cassandra added.  “Though my husband’s forces took some casualties in the campaign on the Sword, we’ve been hard at work to recover from those losses.  I’d say that even alone, we’d be more than a match for the Sunlit Empire.”

“… But the Sunlit Emperor doesn’t stand alone,” the Director quietly stated.  “Keeper stands with him.”

“If we work together, that won’t matter,” the Grand Druid stated.  “Honestly, I’m tired of Keeper, anyway.  I would be greatly reassured for my descendants if we could do something about the Sentinels before we leave this plane.”

“Leaving this plane?” Leon repeated.  “Should I take this to mean that you’re going to accept my offer to come with me when we leave Aeterna?”

“Maybe,” the Grand Druid coyly answered as her eyes shifted over to Anastasios.

“If we manage to achieve Apotheosis,” the Lord Protector helpfully explained, “itself something that we can’t just assume we’ll do…” he gave the Grand Druid a lightly reproachful look, which she laughed off, “… we might just go our own way.  Explore the universe ourselves.  We might also take you up on your offer, Leon.  We haven’t yet decided.  Either way, if we both manage to achieve Apotheosis, we will eventually leave Aeterna.”

Leon nodded in understanding.

“But that’s something to decide when it happens,” the Lord Protector continued.  “For now, the Sunlit Empire and the Sentinels are the problem.”

“Let’s just go to war and finish this,” the Grand Druid insisted.  “To the Ashen Fields with this deliberation; let’s just end this whole thing!”

“And launch a devastating war that could bring an end to all of our Empires?!” the Lord Protector practically shouted.

“With all of us together, it would hardly do that, would it?” the Grand Druid shot back.  “We have the power, so let us use it!”

“I have to admit,” Leon said, “I’m siding with the Grand Druid on this one.  My forces are assembling.  We can launch an assault on Argos in only a couple of months with weapons that the Sunlit Empire will have never seen before.  I doubt they’ve regenerated the forces they lost on the Sword, so while I don’t think any war would be easy, I can’t see all of us working together losing this fight.”

“The ‘Keeper’,” the Director whispered, bringing all attention upon him.  “His title is not meaningless.  In full, it’s ‘The Keeper of Memory’, I’ll remind you all.  The Thunderbird Clan was based out of the Sentinels’ land when they yet ruled this plane, and the scars their toppling left upon that land remain to this day.  It is the whole point of the Sentinels and the Keeper to oppose the return of the Thunderbird Clan and to never forget the depredations inflicted upon them by those long dead.”

He paused a moment to give Leon an apologetic look, which Leon merely frowned at before nodding at him to continue.

“They hold the largest number of Thunderbird Clan ruins.  They could have kit that far outstrips whatever the rest of us have simply by virtue of occupying the center of Thunderbird power on Aeterna for so long.”

“Would they use any weapons they may possess?” the Grand Druid skeptically asked.  “I think it’s more likely they’d destroy all that they’d have rather than use it.  Their dogma would prevent them from using the weapons of their enemies.”

“That won’t stop them from resisting us fanatically,” the Director replied.  “No matter what, they’re going to be a problem, and if they’re involved, an easy victory is not something we can count on.”

“You make some valid arguments,” the Lord Protector said.

“There are other ways we can go about this,” Leon speculated.  “I don’t want to conquer these Empires…  Bear with me, I’m thinking out loud here…  I have in my possessions a few hundred thousand prisoners of war taken on the Sword, some of whom have been quite… cooperative.  They’ve told me stories of the Sunlit Emperor that make my skin crawl.”

Leon paused a moment and glanced at Cassandra.  She met his golden eyes with muted anger and understanding, her ruby eyes flashing with determination.  In another life, she might’ve been given to Sunlit to secure an alliance between the Sacred Golden Empire and the Sunlit Empire.

Now, however, Leon would die before allowing Cassandra and the Sunlit Emperor to so much as breathe the same air, let alone have her come anywhere even close to the Emperor’s harem.

“What is the most beneficial thing that can happen?” Leon asked everyone.  “The status quo has worked for a long time, hasn’t it?  Some kind of mediated peace would be the best, right?  Something that ensures the Sunlit Empire and the Sentinels don’t become destabilized hellholes that require military occupation, I think.”

“I don’t think anyone was advocating for long-term occupations,” the Lord Protector stated.  “Perhaps some regime changes, something that ensures that both of our sister Empires are less… unpredictable, and less zealous.  Make them more able to keep the peace that has lasted for so long between our Empires.”

“I was thinking along similar lines,” Leon said.  “A punitive expedition against the Sunlit Empire, culminating in the ending of Sunlit’s life.  After that, we support a new Emperor who is amenable to making peace with us.  Given what I’ve been told by many of the Sunlit officers in my care, those in Sunlit’s empire won’t be too unhappy to see him gone.”

“They may be unhappy to see a brokered peace between our peoples,” the Grand Druid mused.

Leon acknowledged her point with a quick nod of his head.

“Still,” he said, “what is our realistic goal for victory?  How do we go about securing it?  The way I see it, we have to answer the first one, and then determine if all of us go to war with Sunlit and Keeper, or if the dirty work is left to me and mine.”

“We shouldn’t have to do all the work,” Cassandra said as she gave her grandmother a meaningful look.  “Think about it; if the ‘Sky Devils’ were the only force for change, then doesn’t our Empire look either weak for not defending against them, or opportunistic for taking advantage of a weakened neighbor by interfering in their politics after suffering a great defeat?  We should be involved, even if it’s just an ark fleet and some high-level mages.  We need to be seen as a key player otherwise we’ll only invite disunity and suspicion.”

“I like the way you think, young Princess,” Anastasios said with a grandfatherly smile.

“Technically,” Leon corrected, “she’s a Queen.”

Cassandra grinned as she squeezed Leon’s arm.  Elise, too, wove her fingers around his in support of his statement.

Anastasios smiled in apology, then said, “I can live with Sunlit being deposed for a… more stable Emperor.  The Keeper will be a problem, though.  I can envision making peace with whoever replaces Sunlit, but I can’t imagine Keeper just giving up after we’ve done so much to make peace with our ancient enemies.”

“You don’t think there’s a chance he’ll see reason?” Leon asked.  “That he’ll see that we ought to not be fighting and lay aside his Empire’s ancient animosity?”

“I don’t,” the Lord Protector gravely intoned.

Leon frowned.

“Shouldn’t we try anyway?” Elise asked, her attention on Leon.

“The outcome is certain,” the Lord Protector insisted.  “The Keeper will oppose us so long as we support Leon’s Kingdom.”

“That is his choice,” Elise said.  “Let him make it.  We should try and talk to him, make him the offer.  If he doesn’t lay down his arms and sit this one out, then we act against him.  If we show him that we mean Aeterna no harm, and then he attacks us anyway, then we’ve won the moral victory.”

Leon nodded along, agreeing with her at least in principle.

“I can’t see this working,” the Lord Protector said.

“Neither can I,” the Grand Druid agreed.

The Director simply shook his head, but he made eye contact with Leon and said, “I’ll leave the decision to you, Leon.  Whatever you decide, Heaven’s Eye will follow.”

His statement drew some surprised looks from the other two tenth-tier mages in the meeting, though neither said anything.  Leon simply smiled and nodded in gratitude.

He squeezed Elise’s hand and said, “Then let me present a plan.  We try and get in contact with the Keeper.  We do what we can to make peace.  If he refuses, then nothing’s changed, has it?  Then we move on Argos, and after taking the city, proceed north with the defectors moving with us.  We won’t pillage and burn, and instead make it clear that we’re there to remove Sunlit from power.  Once that has been achieved, we will return home, leaving no garrisons behind.  The only thing, in fact, that I want to leave behind is peace.”

Leon glanced between the Grand Druid and Anastasios.

“The only thing remaining for that plan is what you two will do…”

“It’s a fine enough end goal,” the Lord Protector said thoughtfully.  “I… I suppose that I can support it.  Our armies won’t march against the Sunlit Empire, but I will move personally to ensure that our goals are achieved.”

“As will I,” the Grand Druid added.  “We don’t need to destroy the Empires, we only need to make them see reason.”

Leon nodded.  “I’ll get in touch with those who lead my prisoners, such as Commander Arcaion.  We can coordinate better as our expedition approaches its launch date.”

“This works for me,” the Lord Protector stated.  “For now, anyway.  I’ll need more details before we commit.”

“You’ll have them,” Leon promised.

“I’m in,” the Grand Druid declared.  “This’ll be fun, Leon my boy.  I look forward to finally having you back here in Evergold for a while once all of this is over.”

“I look forward to visiting, too,” Leon promised.

“Hopefully we’ll have some time for me to show you around more,” Cassandra said.  “You’ve never really seen the city, have you?”

“I suppose I haven’t,” Leon admitted.

“It’s a date, then,” Cassandra replied with a smile.

The meeting ended there with Anastasios and the Grand Druid leaving to prepare their small personal forces.  No large movements of armies, but at the very least, they’d be personally supporting Leon’s war in the Sunlit Empire.

The Director was on his side, too, though Leon noticed a strange look pass over the Director’s face as he left the meeting, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

It looked almost like… doubt, or possibly fear.

—-

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