Cold wrath bubbled in Leon’s stomach, while his limbs jittered with restrained energy. In his clenched hand was Clear Day’s pearl, still trembling with frantic power. Though it was hardly a connection like what he shared with Maia, Leon could still feel a faint shadow of Clear through the pearl—which served only to underscore the depths of his suffering if the pearl was so active in this way.
Around him, his people were scrambling to locate Clear’s sporadic updates since Leon sent him out. Tracking him down on this plane wasn’t going to be easy, so they were starting with what little information he sent back before he went missing. Leon didn’t have much hope, however, unless Clear specifically stated someone was on him—in that case, however, he would’ve expected either the tau himself to contact Leon, or for one of his aides to bring the matter to his attention. Clear was many things, but a brave fool was not one of them.
“… first point of contact was at the local post offices,” Leon overheard one of the diplomatic secretaries say as he held out Clear’s first report to Anna.
“Hmm,” Anna hummed as she examined it. “He had no luck there. The local post is for official use only. They want all the visiting Lords to use their own runners or communications gear, it seems…”
The search continued, Leon glowering from the side of the room where he was out of the way but still prominent. He was only distracted from ominously looming over his people when his mother joined him.
“This man you’ve lost,” she whispered. “Tell me about him.”
Mastering his tongue to ensure his wrath didn’t come out too much, he said, “His name is Clear Day. He’s an Ascended Beast: a tau, to be exact. A bird native to the central region of my home plane. Known for valuing peace and promoting understanding. He first appeared to me unambiguously by using magic to infiltrate my dreams.”
“Your dreams?” Serana whispered, her tone a mix of skepticism and wonder. “I’ve never heard of such a power before!”
“He specializes in light magic, which only makes it stranger,” Leon replied. “I would’ve expected darkness to have such an effect.”
“The seven magical elements are not absolute,” Serana stated. “Many creatures possess strange and inexplicable powers. Ancient runes don’t respect our categorization either. And Universe Fragments do their own thing regardless of mankind’s power restrictions.”
Leon nodded in agreement. The Iron Needle in his blade broke all magical conventions, too, using lightning to achieve just about any effect. While it was choosy about how it portioned out its power, it was still proof that restrictions in magic could, if only with the tremendous power of a Universe Fragment, be removed.
“If it weren’t for Clear,” Leon continued, “establishing myself in the Nexus would’ve been significantly harder. Powerful cities acknowledged me as their sovereign thanks to his efforts. Kings, Princes, and other high aristocrats lowered their heads in my presence when I launched my first planar conquest only a couple years ago. By himself, he took more land for my Kingdom than five legions did. I would turn this plane to glass for any of my people, but for Clear… his loss would be an indescribable blow. I will not allow that to happen even if I must tear Belicenion apart with my own hands.”
Her words tinged by a wide smile, Serana said, “Spoken like a true dragon. I wish the rest of the Clans could’ve heard you just now; any doubts they may have about you would’ve vanished.”
Leon opened his mouth to instinctively deny that, but he caught himself. Even if he proclaimed no need to be accepted into the Great Dragon Clans, it felt good to be acknowledged anyway, especially by his mother of all people.
“Do you plan on staying here and letting all of your servants do the work?” Serana further pressed, her golden eyes sparkling with both mirth and implied challenge.
“I’ll do what I must,” Leon replied as Anna walked over.
“Your Majesty,” she said, her tone made rigid with formality. She only relaxed when Leon immediately grimaced and waved her formality away. “Leon,” she then said with a faint smile. That smile quickly died when she said, “Clear visited local post offices trying to find someone who could take a message to the Great Dragon Clans. Those post officers refused, so he found his way to several of the arkyards to speak with the yardmasters. They, too, refused to help him. In his final report, he mentioned hopes to find one of the welcoming officials who might have an in, while also trawling through several of the more heavily populated areas, hoping to find someone important he could befriend.”
“You sent him to contact me?” Serana asked with a wry grin.
“Yes,” Leon immediately replied. “I received your message from Fain and knew that you were in a bit of trouble with your Clan. So… I was hoping to make contact in a… subtler way than what played out.”
Serana grinned. “You should’ve announced yourself immediately and publicly. Give my father no chance to deny who you are.”
She likely could’ve continued in that manner, but Leon rolled his shoulder and interjected, “Anna, where was Clear’s last location?”
“Gossamer Sky,” the Paladin replied. “The second largest city on the plane connected by Lumenite strands to the arkyards above.”
“I’m going to head there and see what might be found,” Leon stated. “Perhaps nothing, but I’d rather be out in the field ready to act rather than stay here waiting for something that may not come.”
“We going incognito or in force?” Anna smoothly asked.
For a brief moment, Leon hesitated. His instinct had been to head down in force if only to send a message, but he held back. While that had been his first instinct, he preferred subtler actions…
“Incognito,” Leon stated. “Or something close to it. Paladins only, I don’t want to make a scene.”
“Understood,” Anna replied. “I’ll get the others ready.” With a slight bow, she turned and began barking orders at the rest of the diplomatic staff and her handful of men-at-arms she maintained as a Paladin.
Meanwhile, Leon felt his mother’s gaze on him, and he turned to acknowledge her.
“I’m going with you,” she stated definitively. “I’m not going to let anyone touch so much as a hair on my boy’s head, not when you’ve only just come back into my life. Besides, I need to stretch; my father’s kept me cooped up for far too long and I’m itching to crack a few skulls.”
“If all goes well, we’ll get Clear back without any skull cracking.”
“Do you believe all will go well?” Serana asked with an expectant look.
“No,” Leon stated.
---
The team hastily assembled in Storm Herald’s hangar. It consisted of Leon, Serana, his Paladins, Red, Maia, Valeria, and Cassandra. As the team got together, Red had asked to come with, and Leon hadn’t seen any reason to deny her. He noted that the wyvern was trying hard to work up the courage to talk to his mother, and if the situation were any different, he would’ve helped. As things were, he was focused only on Clear.
His wives, meanwhile, had insisted on joining him. If Elise were more confident in her skills as a warrior, Leon was sure she would’ve insisted, too. The team was starting to bloat, but he accepted them, too. Eleven people were still subtle enough for his purposes.
“So, what’s the plan?” Daryun pointedly asked. “Invisibility? Or just act like we belong and hope no one notices our power?”
“Invisibility on Belicenion won’t work well,” Serana scoffed. “You’d be offering yourself up to the Sun King to do with as he pleased if you went that route.”
Daryun almost visibly bit his tongue to keep from acerbically responding, and to head off any further friction, Leon said, “Then we’ll head down as a visible group and speak with some of the officials that Clear visited to see if they have any clues. No visible armor or weapons.”
The group nodded while Leon took his mother’s arm and dragged her a few steps away.
“What are you—?!” Serana hissed until she met Leon’s gaze, and his baleful gold silenced her tongue.
“You are my mother,” he said. “That gives you a lot of leeway. But I’ve noticed… certain behavior towards my people. I ask that you treat them better. These are my friends and family. These are people who would die for me. They deserve respect and dignity.”
For a moment, it looked like Serana was about to argue, her face contorting with anger. But then she relaxed, her lips curling into a nostalgic smile. “I… your father had similar words for me, once upon a time.”
Leon quickly sprouted a smile to match hers, but he kept his words stern. “Is this going to be a problem? My people should be celebrating that we’ve reunited, not cursing this for the problems it might cause.”
“I’ll warn you, my dear boy,” Serana said, “speaking like that to a dragon is a foolish thing. But since it’s you… I’ll make an exception and not turn you into ash. I’ll…”
She didn’t finish, her lips twitching as if unable to give voice to the words. She seemed like she was genuinely trying, however, so Leon simply said, “Thank you,” and spared her any further humiliation.
To the rest of the team, he asked, “Is everyone ready?” A chorus of affirmations was returned, so he said, “Clear’s in trouble, and we’re going to find him and bring him home! Let’s get moving!” The determination to find their missing compatriot shone from every face on the team, and Leon was assured that they all understood the goal of this mission.
Without further ado, he led the way out of Storm Herald…
---
Gossamer Strand was an enormous city, swollen by the influx of people here for the Games. The city didn’t take up as large a footprint as Leon thought a city of its size demanded, but it had been built atop a tall ridgeline, making space difficult to come by at the best of times. Still, this long and narrow city had made effective use of what space it had by building up instead of out, capping the ridgeline with dozens of enormous towers that each could have been a city unto itself.
Taking inspiration from the dense tower-filled cities on Aeterna, Leon had made sure that Artorion—and all other cities he’d built in the Nexus—tapered as they got higher. This ensured that light could reach the streets and not cast the entire city into shadow. This was less of a problem in the Nexus, where the Origin Spark hung perfectly centered in the sky, never moving, but it was something he was planning on implementing in any city he built out in the planes.
The reason why was perfectly illustrated in Gossamer Strand, for the towers in this city were thick and built close enough to each other that they were connected by walkways and bridges packed with vendor stalls and commuters. This left the streets—just as packed with people as the bridges far above—dark and uninviting.
This was the last city Clear reported on before going missing, so this was the city Leon took his team to first. Clear had visited the city with the reasoning that since it was connected via Lumenite to the arkyards closest to the dragon fleet, it would be the city they’d come to when they joined the Games. As an apparently human post-Apotheosis mage, it had been easy for him to get a meeting with the official, who was ‘only’ ninth-tier. Leon had similar luck.
Unfortunately, the official, stressed and impatient, had little time for Leon and his team. Given Leon’s power, he met with him, but gave terse and rather curt answers to Leon’s questions about Clear, revealing nothing at all about his whereabouts that Leon might use to find him.
After that official, Leon met with several other lower officials that Clear had also met with, but they, too, had little information that might help. In the end, they were forced to bring their search to a hopefully temporary halt…
---
Deianira shuddered in pleasure, her nails digging into her partner below her to the point of drawing blood. He hadn’t climaxed with her, but she hardly cared; his pleasure was secondary, and she even preferred it when he was left unsatisfied. A concubine, after all, lived to serve his mistress, not the other way around.
With a gasp, she collapsed on top of his muscular form, her body shining with the oil she’d had one of her other concubines to cover her with. Nuzzling into her concubine’s muscular chest, she reveled in her own satisfaction, her body relaxing in the way it only could after several rough rounds, which her concubine’s flesh bore marks from: she’d not only tied him to the bed with drake leather, she’d not held back from slapping and scratching his skin till it was red as an apple and bleeding in several places.
A distant bell smothered her afterglow, her face twisting with displeasure. ‘That had better be something important,’ she grumbled, already thinking of ways to do away with whoever might be disturbing her fun for anything less than grave news.
Reluctantly, she rose to her feet, her power banishing the shake in her legs, Khenall—the dual-bloodline boy she’d brought into her harem—already offering her a robe. The svelte boy was so cute that she almost amended her earlier command to ‘watch, but don’t touch,’ until another ring of the bell at her apartment door stole her attention away.
Traveling through her extensive apartments was quick, and soon, as she reclined regally on a lounge wearing nothing but the long golden robe Khenall had picked for her, her insistent guest was brought in: one of her handmaidens, shaking like a leaf as she kneeled before her Princess.
“M-Milady,” the girl, first-tier and not even two decades old, sputtered. “Y-You commanded…”
“Speak up!” Deianira commanded imperiously.
After a moment, the girl mastered her terror enough to stutter, “L-Leon Raime! He’s m-moved out of his ark! A-Asking about a r-retainer that w-went missing! He’s in G-Gossamer Strand!”
The girl fell silent. There was a lot of room left for detail, but Deianira had heard enough. She knew exactly what this was about. “He’s moving himself…?” she whispered more to herself than to her young handmaiden. “Bold of him to move so openly… even more so to question my father’s servants…”
She closed her eyes and thought about the little dove she had in her basement. A glance to the side showed Aelytha, her old governess and now her oldest and most loyal servant, standing in a corner of the room, ready to fulfill any command given to her. So buried in shadow and curtain was she that if Deianira hadn’t known she was there, she might’ve missed her.
“Clear Day,” she said to the woman. “Has it started?”
“The nails were applied several hours ago,” Aelytha replied without missing a beat. Her matronly face bent slightly with a comforting smile. “No one has held out for longer than three days after receiving them.”
“I’m concerned about how quickly the mongrel moved after his pet was given to the nails. Perhaps he has some way to know what happened?”
“Princess,” Aelytha whispered, “your palace has the highest wards that your father can design applied to it. There is no possible way for—”
“Then you would have me think this a coincidence? I would sooner believe Khosrow has returned from the dead, or that an angel has emerged from hiding to personally serve me! No, mongrels, if nothing else, have too many little tricks to underestimate… Have the pet moved. I don’t want him found in my dungeon…”
Deianira paused in her commands, her old governess not yet moving since, after a lifetime of service, she was acutely aware of her mistress’s command style.
“Move him…” Deianira continued after thinking over the issue, “… to Roseguard Fortress. I’d rather he be found there, if anywhere…”
“Roseguard?” Aelytha asked in surprise. “That is hardly a prison built for keeping a post-Apotheosis mage in custody…”
“No,” Deianira replied. “But it’s a small and out of the way. If the mongrel reorients that way, I’ll know that he can track his stubborn pet. He might even do me the favor of attacking it and enraging my father enough to punish him. Now that would be the best outcome…”
With her command given, Aelytha and the young handmaiden left Deianira’s chambers to fulfill her will, leaving the Princess alone to bask in her own genius. Leon Raime was about to run headlong into the perfect trap…
---
After several hours of running around Gossamer Strand, Leon found himself starting to succumb to the simmering wrath within him. They hadn’t found any sign of Clear Day yet, and he was tempted to start ripping pieces off of Belicenion and shaking them until his missing retainer fell out.
Hardly the best option given who was present on the plane, but it was a tempting thought, nonetheless.
Suddenly, he felt the tau pearl still locked between his fingers and his palm shudder and intensify, as if Clear had been taken out of a warded location…
Leon concentrated on the pearl, reasoning that since the pearl was connected to Clear, then with this boost in power, it might be able to lead him to his missing friend. He didn’t achieve immediate success, but after a moment of concentration, he began thinking about ways to enhance and shape the pearl’s power.
In just a few minutes, he’d concentrated his magic power and conjured a spell from nothing but origin power and Mists of Chaos and laid the pearl in the center of it. The already-pulsing pearl began to slowly roll along the paper as the enchantment activated, stopped only by an invisible barrier designed to keep it on the paper.
Leon looked out over Belicenion in the indicated direction and smiled. He could find Clear like this if he moved quickly enough, before his friend was put back into some more heavily-guarded location…
“Let’s move!” he said to his team as he launched himself away from Gossamer Strand.
They followed just behind him, racing to find Clear Day while they still could…
—-
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