For all Leon’s anger and bravado fueling his power, he hesitated to meet the Sun King when he laid eyes upon the man himself. He was obviously furious, and his fifteenth-tier aura seemed to bend space around him; everywhere he set foot, the ground cracked and twisted as if reality itself couldn’t hold up under such pressure. For a man whose face seemed perpetually smiling good-naturedly, he wore fury with an almost frightening ease, speaking volumes to how such a man could have enforced his dominion over the Sun Lands.
Worse, Anushirawan didn’t come alone. At his back were dozens of Sun Lords, including those Leon had broken through with black lightning. Their combined aura had Storm Herald groaning, her superstructure stressed by their presence alone.
At least the Anax at Anushirawan’s side bore black burns in lightning patterns; if not for that, Leon might have found himself frozen in place as Anushirawan floated imperiously into Storm Herald’s hangar toward him.
But then he spoke, and the entire ark shook.
“Sometimes, I wonder if I have allowed my reputation to paint the wrong picture of me.”
He drifted closer, his cavernously deep voice seeming to echo through the ark from stem to stern.
“It can make people relax when they shouldn’t. It can make them treat me as a performing buffoon.”
His every word hit Leon like a hammer to the chest, and even at thirteenth-tier, Leon found himself weak in the knees. His vision wavered, and his sense of balance started going awry. It took more power than he would ever admit to just to remain standing straight.
“It can make them treat my decrees as jokes to be laughed at and discarded.”
The Sun King halted in the air about twenty feet away from Leon, hovering in the hangar where Leon stood on a platform close to the control room. Beside him were his Paladins, Valeria, Cassandra, and a host of Tempest Knights. The Jaguar was in the control room with more Tempest Knights, waiting out of sight, while Sar and Singer-in-Caves were in adjacent compartments with further reinforcements.
Not that Leon thought they’d do much, given the force that the Sun King brought with him.
The only ones who were truly ‘missing’ were Serana. Leon’s mother had disappeared somewhere while he was occupied with Clear, and Red had apparently gone with her.
“Leon,” Anushirawan growled, sending another tremor through Leon’s body and nearly knocking him over, “you attacked my Lords as they enforced my decree. You inflicted upon them grievous wounds that are not healing. You have VIOLATED MY DECREE BANNING VIOLENCE WHILE ON BELICENION!” As he shouted, Storm Herald shuddered even more, and several of the light fixtures in the hangar flickered. The Sun King drifted threateningly closer, and when he spoke, his voice was a wrathful whisper that sent such a bolt of terror arcing through Leon that the world itself seemed to lose all color. “What have you to say for yourself?”
It took titanic effort to suppress the shiver in his bones, and then even more to lock eyes with the Sun King.
‘Dragons don’t bow,’ Leon repeated to himself silently. ‘Neither do Thunderbirds.’
He clenched his fingers, the nails he still carried biting into his flesh. The pain helped to clear his mind, though the blood that they drew wasn’t welcome. Ignoring that bit for the moment, Leon let his own fury over what happened to Clear fill him with power and resolve. His heart, already racing from Anushirawan’s power, began to thunder in his chest, steadying his hand, sharpening his will, and calming his nerves.
“It was an emergency,” he said, his tone still and placid—forcefully so, so as not to tremble in the face of a wrathful Elemental King.
“An… emergency?” the Sun King asked, clearly not having expected that answer. For the briefest of moments, his aura abated, his expression colored by surprise. But then his anger returned, and with it, the pressure from his aura. “Explain yourself further.”
Those few seconds were a godsend to Leon, and he used them well. Control over his body was his again, and though he still felt like he was moving through molasses as the Sun King’s aura filled the hangar, the tremor in his limbs was gone.
“Maybe I should wait for your explanation,” he countered coldly, once again taking Anushirawan off guard.
“What?!” the Sun King responded. “You assault my Lords, and expect me to answer to you?!” He drifted even closer to Leon, only stopping once they were close enough that either of them could reach out and touch the other. “You d—”
Leon raised his hand and tossed the nails that had been hammered into Clear’s skull in Anushirawan’s face.
“MY RETAINER,” he thundered, “WAS KIDNAPPED BY YOUR PEOPLE, AND WHEN I FOUND HIM, THESE WERE NAILED INTO HIS SKULL!”
He waited, ready to fight, but quietly hoping no fight would come. He just hoped turning the accusation around on the Sun King might buy him more time. To try and sell his attitude more and present less of a threat, he folded his arms across his chest, taking a strong posture that didn’t promise imminent violence.
For a moment that felt like a day, he thought he’d crossed a line. The look of blackest wrath on the Sun King’s face was far more appropriate for a Shadow Lord than a Sun Lord, let alone their King, and Leon was so convinced that the fifteenth-tier mage was going to attack that he nearly flinched. He didn’t flinch, but he certainly blinked when the Sun King moved.
Anushirawan, however, wasn’t looking at him, sparing him the internal humiliation. Instead, he stared at the nails that he’d grabbed with his magic and brought up to eye level. Leon had already cleaned all of his and Clear’s blood off of them, leaving them unblemished and ready for inspection.
“Where did…” the Sun King whispered, realization dawning on his face. He drifted to the side, landing next to Leon and restraining his aura somewhat. In a lighter tone, he asked, “Explain more clearly, please.”
Hoping his relief wasn’t too visible, Leon began, “I sent my retainer, a peaceful diplomat, into Belicenion, hoping to make contact with the Great Dragon Clans. He went missing some days ago. I learned of his location: a castle some distance from here…”
“Which castle?” Anushirawan asked. Leon described it for him, and the realization on the Sun King’s face only grew. “Roseguard…” he whispered.
Leon waited a moment for him to elaborate, but when he didn’t, he just pushed on. “I retrieved my retainer without loss of life, but found him with the castle’s healer, those roughly embedded into his head. With my retainer’s life ebbing, I took him back and made for my ark. I couldn’t stop for your Lords and took the only action I thought would ensure my passage quickly enough to save my retainer.” He took a deep breath and relaxed his posture—not to something servile, but apologetic, at least. “I… apologize for any injuries I’ve inflicted. It was not done out of malice, and I’ll work to make this right. I respect the peace of Belicenion and your right to enforce it.”
Some lingering heat resurfaced, and Anushirawan’s aura flexed for a second, nearly driving Leon to his knees. Most of Leon’s followers, however, were tossed backwards.
“That… What fell magic did you hit them with?”
“I—” Leon began, but a ruckus from outside the ark drew his and Anushirawan’s attention.
“… out of the way!” roared a familiar voice. “If you dare to harm a single hair on his head, I’ll—”
“He’s fine, dear sister.”
Forcing their way through the force Anushirawan had brought to support him came representatives of the Great Dragons, led by Serana and Jennifyr. With them were Varon, Nyra, and three others that Leon hadn’t yet been introduced to—undoubtedly representing the Red, Gray, and White Dragons.
“King Anushirawan!” Serana shouted as she stepped into the hangar, the Sun King’s Lords having, wisely perhaps, given her and the other six plenty of room. “You dare to come here and make trouble for my son! I’ll have your head if you so much as—”
“I’m fine!” Leon immediately interjected, his face twitching as he tried not to enjoy too much the reactions from those watching and listening to Serana’s very public declaration of kinship. “I think we can work things out peacefully!” He glanced at the Sun King. “Right?”
The Sun King pulled the nails into his soul realm and leveled a hard look at him. His eyes twitched to the dragons down below, and an ugly snarl momentarily flashed across his face.
“No violent action,” he growled, “can be taken against my people without retaliation. But… I will not press this issue so long as you compensate my Lords for their suffering, and me for violating my peace.”
“My retainer—” Leon started, but Anushirawan just as quickly cut him off.
“I will look into that. Do not push your luck, Leon. Even dragons can grow too arrogant.”
Taking the warning to heart, Leon dropped that matter, though he wasn’t going to forget it anytime soon.
“What compensation, then?” he asked.
Anushirawan thought for a moment, then said, “I’ve heard rumors of a new material coming out of the Storm Lands. A crystal.”
“Storm crystal?” Leon asked knowingly, producing a small amount from his soul realm.
The Sun King’s eyes narrowed as he examined the crystal closely. “Yes…” he whispered. “One hundred times your weight in this material to me, another hundred times to my injured Lords. They must also be healed.”
“That… is a considerable sum of material,” Leon observed.
“Replace it with Titanstone or Aurichalcum, or double it for Lumenite,” the Sun King offered.
As they spoke, Serana and the other six dragons flew up to join them, and Leon could tell they were interested in storm crystal, too, though they were keeping quiet about it. Eager to get this over with and not finding the punishment too onerous, Leon said, “I can agree to that. I can have that arranged within the hour.”
“We’ll wait,” the Sun King stated. “And… there’s one more thing, Leon.”
“Bombarding my son with conditions, aren’t you?” Serana challenged.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Anushirawan testily shot back.
Before his mother could compromise this tentative agreement, Leon asked, “What is that ‘one more thing’?”
With a thin-lipped smile, the Sun King said, “Don’t leave your ark. Stay here, and when my Games are over, remove yourself from my territory without delay. It is for my Games that I am not throwing you out right now.”
“I’ve always loved sports,” Leon said in a vain attempt to make light of the demand. “I’ll agree to that.”
“Good,” the Sun King said.
With that agreement, Leon sent for stores of reserve storm crystal to be brought out. Storm Herald had been modified to make use of the material, and as such, had plenty to spare. Leon just hoped nothing that incorporated it broke down before getting back to Artorion, as there wasn’t much left, and finding the right sand to make more out in the Void would be a pain.
Regardless, he was happy enough to pay to make this problem go away. Healing the black lightning burns, however, was going to be tricky. He didn’t know quite what the black lightning was, really, and so healing it might be beyond him. He had some draconic backup, and he hoped that would be enough…
Quickly, he followed through with the agreed-upon terms. Ryonos, the son of Prasinos, the Great White Dragon Clan’s Patriarch, aided in healing those Leon had injured with black lightning, though going from his expression, it was a complicated task. The young man started stealing odd looks at Leon as he fixed what Leon had done, but that, Leon figured, was a problem he could deal with later.
‘Later’, of course, being immediately after the Sun King’s departure as before even Serana could get a word in, Ryonos stormed over to Leon, grabbed him by the shoulders, and demanded, “What did you do to them?!”
---
It wasn’t with a heart lightened by justice that Anushirawan returned to his palace. If anything, his heart was heavier than it had been, if at least less wrathful. Instead, his mood had deteriorated quite significantly since he’d left, but it wasn’t Leon’s fault—rather, it wasn’t entirely Leon’s fault.
Peace was often broken on Belicenion, truthfully; it was impossible to keep completely when so many Lords came from so many different places. Most of those disturbances, however, were small and easily dealt with—crime from a temporarily swollen populace, usually amounting to no more than theft or the occasional murder. Lords were usually more circumspect, but many of Anushirawan’s subordinates often had to be sent out to maintain order, as Unax had been just a few hours ago.
Rarely were Anakes drawn into such unpleasantness, though. Still, none of his people were killed, and the injuries were healed and compensated. So long as Leon stayed in his ark, Anushirawan considered the matter closed. The involvement of the dragons had done some to influence that agreement, but irritation at their meddling was nothing new to him. Indeed, it was those rare times that he was forced to deal with the Great Dragons that he felt like he most understood Khosrow and some parts of his Law.
The real reason his heart was heavy, however, lay just beyond the door his feet had taken him to.
The nails Leon had thrown at him were familiar to him. They harkened back to old torture techniques of the Sun Kings that he’d largely done away with. These specific nails, however, had been given to him by Kamran, with the promise that they would, once slammed into one bearing an Inherited Bloodline, prevent that bearer from calling upon their Ancestor’s power until the nail was removed.
Anushirawan had kept them in his office, but somehow, they’d found their way into Leon’s hands—and, allegedly, into the skull of one of his retainers. What worried Anushirawan more than that, however, was that the few nails Leon had ‘returned’ were but a fraction of what he’d been given. He’d already confirmed that the nails had been taken. Given the wards on his office, there was only one person who could’ve done it without his presence…
He didn’t knock on his daughter’s door and simply let himself in. He was immediately greeted by a moan from an adjacent room—she thankfully wasn’t doing anything untoward in the foyer or adjacent sitting room.
A pulse of his aura was enough to elicit a few muttered curses and the sounds of scrambling from the other room. When he walked in, he found his daughter smoothing out the wrinkles in her hastily summoned robes, but the three concubines she’d been enjoying the attentions of were standing off to the side, not a stitch of clothing between any of them.
“Leave,” he growled.
The three young men, none stronger than the fifth-tier, looked more than happy to get out as quickly as their legs allowed, but Deianira immediately commanded, “Stay. My father won’t be here long.”
Her concubines froze, terror flashing across their faces. Anushirawan didn’t have to repeat himself; he simply glared at them, and without a word, the three locked their eyes to the floor and slunk out.
When he turned back to his daughter, he twitched at the sour look on her face and asked, “I am here for serious business, my daughter.”
“When aren’t you here for serious business?” she shot back as she sprawled out over a sofa. “Can you hurry this up? I’m busy.”
“Look at me,” Anushirawan commanded sternly. His daughter complied, if only out of the corner of her eye. Even when following his directions, she had to get in some small rebellion… “Were you in my office?”
“When?” she innocently asked.
“Were you. In. My office?” he asked again, his tone slow and angry.
It seemed to strike a chord in her, as she stiffened and answered, “I’m in there all the time.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Looking for you,” she retorted. “Great Lord knows you’ll never come looking for me. Neither will Mother! I don’t even know where Mother is, and I’d wouldn’t be surprised to find out if she doesn’t know where I am, too!”
Anushirawan stared at her, momentarily stunned. “We’re… busy,” he said.
“Yeah,” she replied, offering no further comment.
His fingers twitched, brushing against one of the nails, the edges and point dull against his skin, but still returning his attention to the matter at hand.
“Did you take anything from within?”
“Bunch of stuff,” she flippantly replied. She grinned with challenge as she fully turned back to face him. “Mostly letters and other correspondence. Sometimes fleet reports. Other times, I’ll burn requests for aid from the undeserving.”
“Do not joke about this,” he growled.
“Who’s joking?” she challenged further.
“Did you take these nails?” he hissed as he held up the nail in his hand.
“Maybe,” she replied, her attitude still light and breezy.
That word broke the last of Anushirawan’s patience and cut through his confusion from her earlier words. He projected his aura so densely that furniture in Deianira’s room went flying, and the girl herself was frozen in place, sudden fear etched into her beautiful features.
“WHERE ARE THE REST OF THEM?!” Anushirawan roared.
Unable to move, unable to even speak, Deianira stared pointedly at a doorway. The Sun King marched over, dragging his daughter behind him with his magic. With her beside him, he located a safe that she’d quietly installed in her bedroom. He immediately took everything within, all the letters and boxes and even a rolled-up painting. He only relaxed when he opened one of the boxes and found the remaining nails.
His heart skipped a beat, however, when he noted a few specks of blood on one of the nails.
“You’ve used these.”
His daughter wasn’t able to speak, but he didn’t need her to.
“It seems that I’ve been too lenient with you, Deia. That will change in the coming months. You are confined to the palace until the end of the Games. After that… we are going to revisit this.”
He had other restrictions in mind, too, such as forbidding her from seeing her concubines, but for the moment, he was happy to simply have the nails back in hand. They were too important to have outside of his control.
Without another word, he left his daughter’s chamber, only releasing his hold on her once the door to her apartments was shut behind him.
He sighed with the door at his back. ‘Life leads to regret, that is inescapable,’ he mentally recited. He’d always found comfort in the more philosophical parts of Khosrow’s Law, but he found none this time. The nails rested heavily in his soul realm, waiting to be used.
‘He’ll demand just that,’ the Sun King thought, his heart sinking. ‘And I will do it. What other choice is there?’
Anushirawan left his daughter’s door, unhappily returning to his duty.
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