It was a terrible thing to be alone as a monarch.  Anastasios knew this well, and after spending a fairly considerable amount of time within Leon’s Kingdom, he wondered if Leon knew it, himself.  The boy had his wives, of course, and a small core friend group, but he was hardly ever seen socializing with other members of his court.  Anastasios had never even seen him exchange more than pleasantries with many of his high officials.

‘This shouldn’t be allowed to continue,’ Anastasios vowed to himself.  ‘For the sake of his Kingdom, that boy needs to learn how to have fun!’

To that end, on as mundane a night as it could possibly be, Anastasios went to Leon’s villa upon the nine-peaked mountain, looking for the young man.  The villa was a rather small thing, not meant for long-term habitation but more than comfortable.

‘Hardly befitting a man of his station, though…’

Outside the villa, the Tempest Knights stood guard or patrolled.  Several dozen Tempest Knights had been killed over the course of the expedition so far, but the remaining four-hundred-some always made sure that at least a hundred of their number were on guard around the villa at any one time.

Given the size of the nine-peaked mountain, this was not easy, but they at least intercepted him in a time he found acceptable when he arrived at the base of the mountain.

‘They need more checkpoints, though,’ he mused as they escorted him up the mountain toward the villa.  ‘At least they’re being strict about not being allowed to fly around the mountain…’

When Anastasios arrived at his destination, he was ordered to wait in a hastily, but still fairly ornately-constructed pavilion just outside the villa.  It was small, Leon having ordered that his builders focus on other matters instead of his living conditions, but it at least ensured that his visitors weren’t completely exposed to the elements as they awaited entrance to the small modular villa Leon had designed.

The villa itself rested on a flat section of the mountain about two-thirds of the way up the second or third-highest peak.  The soil was rich and thick, nourished by the enormous red-barked and blue-leafed trees that covered the mountain range.  A small stream ran down the mountain nearby, nicely adding to the ambiance—the villa felt more like a small vacation palace than the permanent resident of quite possibly the most powerful and important figure on Aeterna at the moment of his departure.

While Anastasios waited, he spied one of Leon’s wives sitting on a rock by the stream, staring down into the running water.  The ‘moonlight’ of the Origin Spark far above cut through the blue canopy perfectly to practically shine a spotlight on her.  She looked divine, ethereal, inhuman…

‘Fitting, she isn’t human,’ he thought as he raised a hand and called out a greeting.

The Naiad—certainly only her public name, and one based on a title at that, if Anastasios recalled his dim knowledge of river nymph society correctly—for a moment didn’t even acknowledge his presence.  He was on the verge of awkwardly lowering his hand and taking the snub in stride, chalking the event up to the river nymph’s famous dislike of other humans.

However, she eventually turned and cast an almost baleful look at him.  It was an almost eerie sight, seeing such a gorgeous woman, lounging upon a moonlit boulder, framed by a picturesque forest, looking upon him with such disdain, such dismissiveness.  She was yet tenth-tier and he eleventh, but he still couldn’t help but feel small for just a moment when her eyes fell upon him.

That feeling vanished entirely as his noble training and long Imperial experience came back to him.  He felt a feather-light brush against his mental defenses, and he allowed it in, having no trouble sensing its source.

The nymph’s response was brutally succinct.

[Hello.]

Without waiting for another response, she turned away, her eyes once more falling upon the stream.

Anastasios sighed and finally let his hand fall.  He supposed every man had his preferences, and he was no stranger to the delights of an inhuman partner, but he didn’t believe such dalliances were capable of flowering into anything more, the gulf between human and inhuman was simply too wide.  He thought of the red wyvern and the Indradian, particularly—those two were lovers as far as he knew, yet nothing resembling ‘love’ seemed to have blossomed between them.

Regardless, he took her demeanor for the dismissal that it was and turned back to the villa just in time for the door to open and for him to be ushered within.

He was led by one of Leon’s secretaries—Gaius, his usual main secretary, wasn’t around, it seemed—through the somewhat cramped and narrow rooms of the portable villa until they arrived at Leon’s office.  The secretary opened the door and announced him.

Leon was seated in an armchair when the door was opened, staring deeply into the fire burning in the hearth.  The young man’s face was set in the deadly serious expression he usually wore—he was expressive enough when speaking with other people, but Anastasios had long ago noticed that Leon’s face fell the moment he was no longer talking to people.  These days, the boy had grown ever more serious and contemplative—or so it seemed, for he still seemed to put in effort to not appear so around others.

Upon his announcement and entrance, Leon looked up, smiled pleasantly, and stood up to welcome Anastasios, showing a considerable amount of grace and hospitality.  Anastasios might’ve chided him for being too open when a monarch in his position should be more aloof, but when with friends, it was fine to cut loose a little.

‘That’s what I’m here for, anyway…’

“Anastasios, is something the matter?” Leon asked, his smile freezing on his face as serious things seemed to flash through his mind, and Anastasios couldn’t help but lament how business-minded Leon was.

“No,” he hurriedly assured Leon as the secretary closed the door behind him.  “I was actually hoping we could sit and talk, cup in hand, as men.”  With a theatrical flourish, he conjured a small pair of crystal cups and a matching decanter filled with a red, softly glowing liquid.  “Hardly a match for ambrosia, but delicious nonetheless.  This wine has been aged by the best vintners for more than a thousand years!”

Leon’s serious expression wavered, and it seemed like he was debating something internally.  Anastasios wondered if he was tempted to send him away.

“Come on, my boy!” he exclaimed.  “I merely want to get to know you better!”

A sly look passed over Leon’s face for a moment before it returned to more serious stoicism.  “That sounds like a fun time, Anastasios.  Would you mind if I invite one other?”

Anastasios’ heart fell a bit with the request—he’d wanted to help the young King unwind and start treating his subordinates more like family than vassals, for that was the best way as he saw it to keep them loyal.  However, when asked so directly, there was only one answer he could give.

“Of course, anyone you wish!  Wine shared tastes all the sweeter!”

When Leon told him who he wanted to invite, however, what little remained of Anastasios’ enthusiasm dried up, and he could only put on a front.  Leon’s choice of a third drinking partner made it clear he was using this opportunity for political reasons.

Not that Anastasios could blame him, but if Anastasios had known Leon would make this play, he wouldn’t have left his small house down in the city this night…

---

The tension was thick, the discomfort almost tangible.  Of the three men sitting alone in a small pavilion Anastasios had spontaneously created not far from Leon’s villa, gazing out over the wide Artor Valley, none spoke.  The only sound any of them made came from Anastasios, who fidgeted with the placement of the glasses and decanter on the small table made of fragrant wood between their cushioned seats.

Again, he stole a glance at Leon.  He admired the play, even if it came at his expense.

His stolen glance at the third drinking partner was decidedly less admiring—the Jaguar of the West, as he was called, stared back at him with about as much love in his gaze as was in Anastasios’.  It seemed that he was only present at Leon’s request, and wouldn’t have shown up otherwise.

Memories flooded through Anastasios’ mind as he carefully poured a finger of wine into each of the cups.  Before Leon’s ascension as King, the last time he’d been on Kataigida had been the ill-fated invasion eight hundred years prior.  The Jaguar wasn’t old enough to have participated in that clash, but his fleets had been the end of quite a few Imperial scouts in more recent centuries.  Many of Anastasios’ countrymen—his friends, his battle brothers, his mentors—had perished upon the blades of the Jaguar Tribe.

Peace had come between their peoples, but the wounds ran deep.  It seemed clear to him that the Jaguar of the West was filled with similar thoughts, if the way his pale yellow eyes tracked him unerringly was any indication.

When Anastasios finished pouring, he sat back, his hands empty.  The Jaguar remained motionless, leaving Leon alone to lean forward and take a glass.  His golden eyes shifted from Anastasios to the Jaguar, then brought the glass to his lips.

He hummed in appreciation.  “This is incredible, Anastasios!” he exclaimed.  “I hardly ever consume any wine, but this is far and away the best I’ve ever had!”

Anastasios internally preened, but with the Jaguar staring him down, he refused to loosen up enough to accept the compliment with nearly as much friendliness as he would’ve preferred.

“Thank you, Leon.  My people are the best winemakers in all of Aeterna.”

The Jaguar smirked, and the former Lord Protector couldn’t help but seize on the expression, competitiveness with his Empire’s perennial enemy, their grudges only so recently set aside.

“Do you disagree, Jaguar?”  It took a monumental amount of effort not to call him some diminutive, such as ‘kitten’ or some such.

A fiendish grin came to the Sky Devil’s face.  “My Clan happens to own nearly half the vines in Jaguar territory.  Our vintners are without peer.”  A wave of his hand followed, conjuring a small barrel inscribed with ice runes.  With a flick of his fingers, the barrel was opened, revealing four chilled bottles of a rather unappealing—to Anastasios’ eye, at least—blue liquid that sparkled in the silver sparklight.

“Should we finish our cups and compare?” the Jaguar asked, igniting a competitive bonfire in Anastasios’ chest.  He idled in response only so long as he needed to check his soul realm for every bottle of wine he had stored there.  If this was to be a war over the juice of the vine, then he would come armed to the teeth.

“Let’s,” he said, and he and the Jaguar reached for their cups at the same time.  Leon, between them, watched silently.

---

“… and nothing has ever felt the same since,” Anastasios whispered, his words coming tinged with deep melancholy.

“Nothing ever will,” the Jaguar commiserated.

Anastasios had to admit, Leon’s idea was good.  The young King had barely spoken a word throughout the entire drinking session, save to offer compliments to the makers of the wine they’d switched to, or to change a subject if they grew too heated—which Anastasios was mildly ashamed to admit, he got several times.

The Jaguar had, too, with nearly every topic they picked coming back to their peoples’ animosity toward one another.

Anastasios’ favorite play had a Sky Devil villain; the Jaguar’s childhood dream was to open a horse ranch with a cousin of his, who’d died in a clash with Imperial forces.  Both had lost nearly all of their friends and families to either side’s blades.

In the end, despite the lingering grief and bitterness, Leon managed to bring them together over this shared fact.  Their peoples were at peace now, and though it hadn’t come in time to save their friends and family, it would save countless others in the future.  An eighty-thousand-year-long state of war was not one that easily ended, after all, and anyone else ascending as King of Kataigida wouldn’t have been able to broker such a peace.

Once they’d both calmed, stories of their loved ones came.  Their glories, embarrassments, and all in between.  It was cathartic, in its own way.  Anastasios was grateful for it.  They’d ended with stories of their respective sisters, and Anastasios told of how his had once laid a seventh-tier wyvern low with a single shot from a longbow at nearly a mile away.  The Jaguar spoke of how his sister had managed to impress the entire Tiger Clan she’d married into by wit alone.

Anastasios raised his cup, now filled with some golden brew whose bespoke name he couldn’t recall, and said, “To your sister, Jaguar.”

“And yours, Imperial.”

They tossed their drinks back at the same time, Leon doing the same despite not making any toast.

The night did not stretch long after that.  Anastasios and the Jaguar departed only a few minutes later, and Anastasios couldn’t help but appreciate the way the cards had fallen.  He’d gone to the villa hoping to bond a bit with Leon and to get his mind off politics for a bit.  Instead, it was Leon who used it as a way to get him to make some measure of peace with the Jaguar.

With a sigh, Anastasios thought, ‘That kid.  I’m going to have to get him back for this.  Now let’s see, what do I have that could possibly get him drunk next time…?’

---

The Presiding Magus of Shatufan was, on its face, an enviable position.  The highest level of authority and prestige in the entire city, and given Shatufan’s position in the Finger Lakes region, de facto leader of the whole region.

It was not hereditary, nor did it automatically go to the strongest mage in the city.  Instead, it was the citizens of Shatufan who decided who among them was deserving of the title.

Nine years prior, Manuchehr had run a brilliant campaign, beating his ninth-tier opponent in debates and at the ballot box, handily delivering himself an electoral win.  Since then, he’d had to wrangle the different factions of the city to get anything done.  The faction that coalesced around himself was fairly small at first but grew every year as he did his best to peel off the more persuadable members of the others until his faction had a plurality within the General Congress.  Now, with the end of his ten-year term in sight, Manuchehr focused more on getting elected to the second of the four possible terms any one person could hold in their life, and possibly even growing his faction further.

If he could manage it, it would be an undeniable coup—no one had been reelected to the post of Presiding Magus in centuries, not even for a second term.

As Manuchehr glared at the polling report his faction had given him, he couldn’t help but scowl.  It was looking likely that he could lose his seat to Darius of House Azad, who’d built a coalition between his Lion faction and the Dolphin and Buffalo factions.

It was simply unacceptable, he had to turn this around.  He enjoyed flaunting his city’s power around foreign lands, especially around the Finger Lakes, and especially around the arrogant newcomers in the south, who’d come practically begging to his doorstep for his city’s acknowledgment, but to do so before the next election would only allow rumormongers and political cutthroats their run of the electorate.  He couldn’t leave the city until he’d secured himself a second term.

And if he didn’t… then as far as he was concerned, those other cities and especially the arrogant southern King could die in a fire for all he cared.

As he mulled over potential strategies, a knock at his door drew his attention.

“Enter!” he shouted in his people’s native language, not in the infuriating common tongue of the Nexus.

The door briefly opened, allowing the din of his many secretaries and election specialists outside to enter his office.  Then the door shut, leaving him alone with his visitor.

“Manuchehr,” said Jamshid of House Pishda, one of only three tenth-tier mages in the city.

“Jamshid,” Manuchehr responded, bringing as much cheer as he could into the greeting, a cheer that didn’t seem to be reflected in Jamshid’s demeanor.

Jamshid conjured a thin report in his hand, the color of the first page, red, denoting extreme urgency.  “Read this, have you?”

“Many are the duties to which I must attend,” Manuchehr testily replied.  “More specific you must be.”

“The crystal,” Jamshid clarified, his deep voice rumbling like an earthquake.  Manuchehr checked his growing irritation; Jamshid was not part of his coalition, and in fact, hadn’t yet weighed in on the upcoming election.  Angering him now could only spell disaster for Manuchehr’s already flagging faction.

“By the southern King, the one given?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jamshid stated, his tone tinged with deep annoyance.  “The report, you must read.  More of it we must acquire!  At any price!”

“Joking you must be,” Manuchehr dismissed.  “Refuse to buy it I would even if valuable the crystal is.  Business with a doomed city I would not sanction!”

“The city the Ocean King may destroy,” Jamshid replied as he took a few menacing steps forward, “but before it does, buy as much of this crystal we must!  The report, read!  Understand!  The benefits you must comprehend!”

Manuchehr scowled, but glanced around his office, finally locating the report after several seconds of searching.  When he did find it, he quickly scanned the summary on the second page, and his eyes went wide.  It had been nearly a month since he’d visited Artorion, more than enough time for the Ocean King to take notice, or at least one of his weaker subordinates.  Artorion could only have weeks left, perhaps they were even down to days…

“Accurate, this is?” he asked.

“Checked it myself, I did,” Jamshid confirmed.

Manuchehr sighed deeply, his second term seeming to vanish with the breath.  Such a potent material for storing magic power… he could not let slip through his city’s fingers.  If he did, then he could even be prosecuted for corruption if Darius was feeling particularly vindictive.  Doomed though Artorion may be, he at least had to get what benefits he could from the ignorant newcomers.  He was confident that he could get quite a bit, if their people were so ignorant and backward that they still allowed themselves to be ruled by a King.

He just hoped that trading with a city in the sights of the Ocean Lords to the west and south wouldn’t draw their attention to Shatufan, too…

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