A small stone hovered over Leon’s hand, spinning through the air while slowly changing shape. Sphere to square to pyramid and then back to sphere, over and over again.
Leon had been practicing his earth magic like this for several hours. With the war with the Sunlit Empire over and a tentative peace with the Sentinels, he found himself rather flush with free time—though much of that time was monopolized by his family. He still had Royal duties to attend to, but for the most part, he could leave most of the work to his ministers, allowing him to take the time he wanted for more personal projects and hobbies.
In this case, he was finally able to return to practicing his meager skills in earth magic. It had been a long time since he’d seriously brushed up on his blacksmithing skills, too, his forging of Iron Pride notwithstanding. Sid was always insistent that he learned to use earth magic to make it much easier to actually create whatever it was that he wanted to create, but he was a far cry from having even a tiny fraction of the skill he’d need to become a truly great blacksmith.
Hells, even a weak fifth-tier mage who focused entirely on earth magic would have more skill in the element than he did, even if his mastery over fire and lightning was prodigious.
The exercise he’d been doing for several hours was designed to help apprentices increase their fine control over earth magic. It wasn’t particularly strenuous, especially for a tenth-tier mage like Leon, but he found that he enjoyed the practice. It was repetitive enough that he could perform it without expending too much brain power, allowing him to practice almost automatically while thinking about other things.
At the moment, though, he was mostly practicing his earth magic so that he could take some time just to himself in order to relax. Maia and Elise, eager for children, had been running him absolutely ragged whenever they had the chance—not that he was complaining, of course.
His choice of location to sit and let his mind wander while occupying his hands with earth magic practice was a balcony only a stone’s throw away from his workshop. It had an exceptional view of the lake, while also being nestled within the palace’s gardens to give it a spectacularly private feel—perfect for sitting alone and just letting thoughts come and go as they pleased.
But he was pulled from his thoughts when a knock came at the balcony door. With a sigh, he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to cover his irritation, then called for whoever it was to enter.
A moment later, the tau was shown through the door by a Tempest Knight and one of Leon’s secretaries. He bowed while Leon waved away the knight and his secretary; neither would go far, but they would still give Leon and the tau some space to speak in confidence.
Once the expected greetings were over, Leon wordlessly invited the tau to sit while he continued to manipulate the stone.
“An interesting exercise,” the tau said as he took a seat, sitting far more formally than Leon, who was leaning back into a soft sofa with his feet up on a plush ottoman. “Is there any reason for it?”
Leon shrugged. “Hones my skills while keeping my hands busy. I had some time to myself, but didn’t want to waste it.”
“Time to relax is never wasted,” the tau said with a sagely nod of his head. “You should never feel guilty for doing nothing when nothing’s happening.”
“Something’s always happening,” Leon countered. “My ministers are working to administer my Kingdom, my armies are supervising the repatriation of prisoners of war, my wives and I need to secure the succession… Is it strange to say that I feel guilty about having any time at all to myself? I hate the idea of paperwork, but I’m still the King, so shouldn’t I be doing… more?”
“No one man can run an entire Kingdom by himself,” the tau said. “No man should try.”
“Delegation,” Leon said as he cracked a smile.
“Hmm?” the tau whispered in confusion.
“Just something that people have tried to teach me,” Leon explained. “The role of a monarch isn’t to ‘do everything’. It’s to find the right people for the job and make sure they have what they need to do their job. As the King, I suppose it’s my job to manage my ministers, who will manage their branches, who will manage the Kingdom. I get it, but…”
“It still feels overly indulgent to sit around?” the tau finished.
Leon nodded. “I’m not going to complain about it, but… I still needed to feel like I was being productive.” He waved the hand that was keeping the stone aloft for emphasis.
The tau nodded in understanding.
“So,” Leon said as a moment of silence threatened to descend upon them, “you finally willing to give me a name? It feels impersonal and even a little rude to just always call you, ‘tau’.”
“A name…” the tau whispered. “I’m not sure. I’ve never really had one—my people don’t need them, you see.”
“Well, you should try one out and see how you like it,” Leon replied. “Apologies if I’m being overly pushy, but I’ve been having the importance of names impressed upon me of late…”
“Names for children?” the tau asked teasingly.
Leon gave him a cheeky look. That was, indeed, a topic that had been broached by his ladies, though he was quietly certain that baby names weren’t going to be needed for a while yet. His ladies were powerful mages in their own right, and factoring in his dual bloodlines… they’d be working on baby-making for a long time before their efforts would bear fruit unless one of them was supernaturally lucky.
“Hmm,” the tau hummed in thought. “There are a few sounds that come to mind immediately, but none can be made with the human mouth. How about Clear Day?”
“I’ll call you whatever you want me to call you,” Leon said with a smile, “even if you insist on just ‘tau’. But ‘Clear Day’ is nice; any particular reason for it?”
“Clear days always put me at ease,” the tau explained. “They’re somewhat rare around the Grave Warden’s sea, and I’ve come to associate such good weather with harmony and peace. If I’m to take a name, then I want it to remind me of those ideals.”
Leon smiled at the tau and said, “That sounds good to me.”
“Then ‘Clear Day’ it is,” Clear Day said.
They sat there for a long moment while Leon stared at Clear Day, mentally repeating his chosen name over and over again to imprint it into his memory. After a few seconds, though, he noticed Clear tapping his foot ever-so-slightly, and his red eyes never quite meeting his. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the tau was nervous…
“I hope I didn’t interrupt your business with talk of my insecurities and your name,” Leon said as he straightened up a bit and spoke with a more formal tone. “You must’ve come here for a reason; what’s going on?”
The tau lightly scowled and stared out over the water for a moment before answering. “I decided to come here for my own reasons. I wanted to see the universe and hoped to buy my way into your good graces by acting as your advisor.” He paused a moment to turn his head and finally meet Leon’s curious gaze. “I now find myself in a situation where I have to inform you of something you may not like.”
Leon fully straightened up and said, “Tell me.”
“I’ve mentioned a certain friend of mine before, one who wanted you to finish up your business soon. Do you remember that?”
“Yes,” Leon answered with a deadly serious look. “Your friend… the Grave Warden, I presume?”
“A good presumption,” Clear Day replied. “You’re right: the Grave Warden is the one who prompted me to reach out and offer my services. He… also said that he has need of your soon, and that he’s already broached this topic before with you…? I apologize, he didn’t give me the details.”
“He’s… said something about that before, yes,” Leon said. “A problem with one of his fellow Wardens on a nearby plane or something.”
Thoughts about Primal Gods and Devils raced through Leon’s mind. He also thought about the Divine Graveyard, where the bodies of these most ancient beings were interred, and where those few who yet lived were sealed and watched over by each plane’s Grave Warden. He recalled when Aeterna’s Grave Warden, Ambrose, last explained his request to him, it had been to visit another plane to investigate why that plane’s Grave Warden wasn’t responding to communication attempts.
Such a thing Leon imagined was incredibly dangerous, especially since by agreement between the Grave Wardens, no Warden could send a post-Apotheosis mage to any other plane in the Divine Graveyard without permission.
“How soon?” Leon asked.
“He told me that he will come to hear your answer in two months’ time,” Clear Day answered. “He told me to impress upon you his wish that all of your business has been taken care of by that time, just in case.”
“Almost sounds like he’s telling me to draft a will,” Leon muttered.
Clear grimaced slightly but said nothing.
Leon sighed as he turned the request over in his head. He’d been quietly hoping that the Grave Warden wouldn’t be making this request, especially since he wasn’t sure he could turn the man down even if the Grave Warden allowed him to. He vividly remembered his short encounter with the Primal God Krith’is, and the thought of a comparable Primal God or Devil being released upon an unsuspecting universe was… disquieting, to say the least.
But he’d only just finished dealing with the Sunlit Emperor and achieved peace for his Kingdom. He was getting used to not having any pressing business again, to not having some urgent thing demanding his attention that could easily get him or those close to him killed, to being able to spend hours with his ladies without much thought because nothing serious was otherwise going on.
The stone he’d been manipulating fell into his hand, his thoughts finally distracting him enough for him to forget to keep it in the air.
He snorted in amusement. “Well. I suppose I was just asking for something like this to happen,” he quietly said.
“It’s never a bad thing to take time for oneself,” Clear repeated from earlier, though this time with much greater regret. “One never knows what might come next and when such time might come again.”
Leon flexed his fingers and the stone shattered to dust. He tossed the dust over the balcony and said, “I suppose I’d better wrap everything up before he comes, then. Two months isn’t a lot of time…” Without another word, Leon got to his feet.
Clear bowed in apology and sprang to his feet as Leon rose.
With their conversation over, Leon and Clear Day left the balcony.
For Leon, while he wasn’t keen on heading to another plane, he was at least motivated now that he had a time frame to work with. The question now was how was he going to finish his business in two months.
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Leon stepped backward, letting the hammer taste nothing but air. His opponent was undaunted and advanced to close the gap, but Leon didn’t step back again. His fighting style revolved around aggressiveness, and he could only stand dodging around his opponent for so long. So instead, as his opponent advanced, he did too, darting forward to interrupt his momentum and rain a few blows down upon him.
His opponent was incredibly skilled, however, and blocked or dodged all of Leon’s strikes with apparent ease. But Leon only needed one opening—he was a tenth-tier mage, now, and his opponent was only ninth-tier, so just about any opening that Leon could exploit would likely end their bout.
And it didn’t take long for Leon to make one—he caught his opponent’s hammer with his sword and was able to transfer enough force to knock his opponent off balance before following up with a lightning-fast strike to the solar plexus. His blade flashed with light and his opponent was knocked down gasping for air.
Leon stood over him triumphantly while their spectators clapped. It had been a good match, and all of those watching were powerful and experienced warriors and mages themselves, so all could see that this fight had been won by skill and not by Leon’s opponent throwing the match.
With a grin, Leon held out his hand, and the Jaguar took it, allowing Leon to pull him to his feet.
“Well fought, Leon,” the Jaguar said with a wide grin. “Well fought, indeed.”
“Right back at you; you seem to be becoming more and more comfortable with that weapon,” Leon said as he gave the training hammer a pointed look.
One of the treasures Leon had seized from Jormun back at the Serpentine Isles had been a hammer that controlled earth magic which had later been identified as once belonging to the Blood-Thunder Jaguar. Leon had been able to cement the support of the Jaguar Tribe by returning to them their Ancestor’s weapon, which had then been given to the Jaguar of the West to use. The Jaguar, however, had required practice with war hammers to feel worthy of using the weapon, and since Leon needed to speak with his close advisors anyway, he’d decided to kill two birds with one stone and had all of them come together to train and discuss their duties together.
Sparring, Leon hoped, would keep tempers cool and bonds close while they spoke on matters of politics and administration, while also helping them to keep their skills sharp.
“I must admit,” the Jaguar said as he and Leon walked back to the handful of others watching, “that I’m concerned about all of this.”
“I’d call you a fool if you weren’t,” Leon said.
“I’d call him a fool simply because a fool is what he is!” Solomon said with a good-natured laugh as he clapped the Jaguar on the shoulder.
Next to the head of the Tiger Tribe were Singer-in-Caves, Sar, Iron-Striker, and Ipatameni. These were his highest-ranked advisors immediately available to discuss his imminent trip to another plane.
“Is there any indication of how long you might be gone?” Iron-Striker asked, immediately bringing the jovial mood down slightly.
“None,” Leon said. “I suspect I’ll only receive more details from Ambrose once he actually arrives to formally ask me to do this. Until then… I can only speculate.”
“Quite rude of him, to take our King away at such a time,” Singer grumbled.
“While I don’t want to expend too much energy defending the man,” Leon responded with a light frown, “I will say that the threats he and his fellows guard are powerful enough to be a universal concern. Helping them to maintain the lid on those threats is an honorable thing to do, even if I’d rather it wasn’t me doing it.”
“If he asks, I will volunteer to go in your stead,” Iron-Striker declared, as did the others almost immediately after.
Leon smiled and waved down their enthusiasm. “I appreciate it, but I doubt he’d go for that. I suppose we’ll find out in two months. Until then, while I’m sure I have a lot to attend to, there’s actually one very important bit of business that I want to handle as soon as possible. I was going to leave this for later so that tensions between us and the Empires can cool, but I don’t want to leave without taking care of this, so…”
“What is this bit of business?” Sar asked.
“I can’t remember, have I told any of you about the stone giants that live in the far north of the mainland?”
The others answered him in the negative, though all were showing more signs of concern.
“Your Majesty,” the Jaguar said, suddenly turning more formal, “you can’t be considering heading back to the mainland already?”
“More than considering it,” Leon replied. “Besides, the Director has to be brought back to the mainland, and I’m sure many of my people wouldn’t mind seeing their childhood homes again. The land of the stone giants is right next to the Bull Kingdom, after all…”
“Allow me to join you!” the Jaguar asked as he fell to a knee. “If anything were to happen to our King, our entire Kingdom would be imperiled! I cannot allow this to happen!”
“You have your own duties here, Lysander,” Solomon chided. “Would you leave our armies leaderless when we’re still uncertain if peace will last?”
“The protection of our King is far more important!” the Jaguar insisted.
“I don’t disagree; I just ask if you’re the right one for the job,” Solomon said. “I can think of several others who might be more suited to the task.”
“As can I,” Leon interjected with a pointed glare. “The Tempest Knights will be more than capable of acting as my escort.” The Jaguar made to protest, but Leon held up his hand. “I made you my Marshal for a reason, and it wasn’t to abandon your post to follow me like a bodyguard. Leave the bodyguarding to my actual bodyguards.”
“I… have made my protest known,” the Jaguar said through clenched teeth. “I will pray to the Ancestors that you return safely, Your Majesty.”
“I’ll make it quick,” Leon promised. “Once I return, our power ought to magnify greatly. The stone giants are powerful beings and will prove to be key allies. Hells, I’ll probably even grant them all the same rights and privileges as any other Tribe, they’re just that valuable to me.”
The others looked quite shocked, but Leon didn’t receive any argument.
And like that, Leon’s immediate schedule was decided upon. It seemed that his days, short as they were, of feeling awkward at having nothing to do, were over—for the moment, at least.
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