“You what?” Leon asked in disbelief and some muted anger as Trajan paused at the door.

Trajan stared at the heavy dark red oak door, enchanted to prevent both any unauthorized entry and to help keep their voices from leaking out into the room on the other side, where several dozen secretaries and assistants to the Prince were working.

If he were going to explain himself before dragging Leon to this ceremony, then it had to be now, Trajan knew.

After several seconds of staring at the door, Trajan softly explained, “This Kingdom is five thousand years old. It was born in the fires of war, when my ancestor, the eldest son of the Sacred Bull, the First Bull King conquered all of his neighbors.”

Leon nodded. Artorias had told him this story many times in his history lessons.

“The one exception to this was the Great Plateau, where your ancestors, the Thunder Kings ruled,” Trajan continued. “No matter how much we pressed, our men simply couldn’t defeat you, not when your warriors were in such an advantageous position.”

Leon smiled. Hearing of the dogged tenacity of his forebears brought an unexpected welling of pride in his chest. When the conquering Bull Kingdom army had come to their doorstep, they fought for their land, at least for long enough to gain favorable terms in the subsequent peace. Even after millennia of decline, after falling from one of the most powerful clans in the Nexus to mere regional petty Kings on the edge of a lower plane, it took a great deal to make Leon’s ancestors admit defeat.

But Trajan wasn’t done; he hadn’t even gotten to his main point, yet. “Still, your loss was inevitable, the Great Plateau had only a fraction of the population and the Thunder King of the time hadn’t the confidence that his children could continue the fight after he was gone. So, after decades of the Great Plateau being under siege, he negotiated the surrender of his forces in return for extremely favorable terms. Given how fierce the resistance was, the First Bull King agreed to just about all of them to bring an end to the war.

“These privileges included your family remaining the Lords of the Great Plateau, though their title of Thunder King would be replaced with that of Archduke. In terms of noble rank, House Raime was second to none but House Taurus, the Royal Family. They were wealthy, with tax exemptions, huge amounts of land with vast mineral resources, and a soaring population in the centuries after the unification of the Bull Kingdom.

“What also came was a great friendship between the last Thunder King and the First Bull King, these two rivals fought so long against each other that respect was inevitable. As a result, the First Bull King gave one more privilege to House Raime: a member was always present whenever a member of House Taurus’ blood was awakened. For my Royal Brother, that was Archduke Kyros, and for me, it was Kyros’ father, Matthaios Raime.”

“I’d never heard about that, before,” Leon admitted with more than a bit of surprise. He supposed he could understand since House Raime’s own far older and more venerable Inherited Bloodline gave them quite a bit more knowledge on bloodline awakening than House Taurus, but Leon didn’t think that House Taurus knew about House Raime’s own Bloodline. At least, it didn’t seem that Trajan or any of the other Princes knew, Leon didn’t know about the Bull King himself. After five thousand years, though, he could understand if House Taurus’ knowledge on that subject was lost and why House Raime wouldn’t be too keen on reminding the Bull Kings about their power.

“For five thousand years, every Bull King after House Raime negotiated their surrender to the Bull Kingdom has had a member of House Raime there to assist with the ritual,” Trajan stated. “There has only been one exception: Octavius. Lord Alexander Raime was there to help with Prince Herculanus’ ritual, my brother’s eldest son, but after Herculanus’ renouncement of his claim to the throne and the apparent extinction of your noble House, there was no longer a member of House Raime to assist with the ritual when it came time to awaken Octavius’ blood about ten years ago.”

“And you want to fix this by having me present?” Leon asked. “You want to appeal to this tradition? It doesn’t seem to me that it’s widely known that this was a thing, and besides, I’m not about to go shouting my identity from the rooftops, so as far as most people are concerned, I’m just a Valeman. In that respect, I don’t see how my presence would be of help in any way…”

“There are those who know,” Trajan said, reminding Leon of when he told the Bronze and Brimstone Paladins about him. “And in those cases, your presence would add legitimacy to August’s claim.”

“I still do not like this,” Leon said with a deep frown. He didn’t like it when Trajan revealed his identity, either, but the man was a Prince and there wasn’t much Leon could do to refuse, especially since Trajan had kept him away from the palace for so long. However, Leon’s patience with Trajan dragging him into these political games was wearing thin—his appearance in the Royal court, his presence at the triumphal games, and now this. Admittedly, the first wasn’t exactly because of Trajan, but still. “This will be a private affair, I assume?” Leon asked, not quite up to flat-out refusing the Prince, despite everything.

“Of course,” Trajan replied. “Just August, the two of us, and the Bronze Paladin to act as a neutral witness.”

Leon clicked his tongue in displeasure, but he said no more. Since he’d never heard of something like this, he assumed that most people didn’t know that this was a tradition, but the things that were well-known that he had no clue about were legion. At the very least, Leon began to periodically emit his magic senses and kept a close eye on everything around them as Trajan led him out of his office and through the palace.

Of course, the palace was enchanted to prevent this kind of spying, so Leon didn’t see much until they left the palace itself and began to walk through the grounds and warren of administrative buildings. They weren’t followed by anyone save for about a dozen of Trajan’s assistants, at least as far as Leon could tell. After leaving the administrative buildings, the two walked alone, as the Prince ordered the assistants to wait on the outskirts of the palace complex for them to return.

They kept walking until they reached the seldom-used northern side of the palatial island. Here could be found the forest that shrouded the King’s private villa, the old assembly chamber that Lapis had taken up residence within, as well as Leon and Trajan’s destination, a shallow stone dome built over a round pit about a hundred feet in diameter. Inside, the place was nothing special, essentially just a staircase leading about twenty feet down to the bare stone floor. The entire place lacked any furnishings or decorations; it was an almost harshly stark and spartan place, lit only by a hole in the center of the dome—not that that darkness really meant much to mages as powerful as Leon and Trajan, though.

Neither of the two men descended the stairs. The room was empty, they were the first to arrive, so there was no point in waiting in the dark when the outside was warm and only a little bit cloudy.

Seeking to make some kind of small talk to help the obviously tense Leon relax, Trajan said, “You know, the current palace complex used to just be a castle that protected these northern buildings. There are a bunch more buildings just like this ceremonial hall on this side of the island, old places where court was held, and the early Bull Kings lived. They were scattered all over the island and were much smaller than the buildings we use now.”

“Were they…” Leon muttered neutrally.

“… Yes…” Trajan answered, a little disheartened at Leon’s lack of enthusiasm. Trajan would’ve honestly preferred to leave Leon out of this matter, but this was also for the sake of preserving peace within the Kingdom, and August needed something to go in favor for once if he wanted to survive what was seeming more and more inevitable.

‘Not that Ursus would appreciate the distinction, I still insisted that he be here…’ Trajan bitterly thought to himself, and he could only comfort his anxious and guilty mind by repeating to himself that this was all for the Kingdom.

“The old castle was later torn down to make room for the current palace,” Trajan continued. “It wasn’t easy, given how warded the old-“

The Prince suddenly stopped, as he could see a pair of figures approaching in the distance. From their auras alone, one fifth-tier and the other seventh-tier, he knew that it was August and Bronze. August was dressed quite simply, in a plain grey long sleeve shirt and loose black pants while Bronze was clad in his omnipresent bonze armor.

“Trajan!” Bronze called out as he and August hurried forward when they realized that Trajan and Leon had arrived before them.

“Titus!” Trajan shouted as he went forward to welcome his old friend and nephew.

Leon remained quiet and stood by the door while the others made their greetings.

“Sir Ursus,” Bronze tactfully said to Leon as the Paladin approached the door.

“Sir Bronze,” Leon replied, not feeling like he was familiar enough with the man to use the Bronze Paladin’s actual name, but apparently that was enough as neither Bronze himself, nor August, nor Trajan made any attempts to correct him.

The four men, their brief greetings over, stepped inside the building. Trajan and August walked right down the stairs, while Leon and Bronze lagged behind a bit. Trajan walked with purpose, his every step taken with intent. August, however, was sweating, his eyes darted around, he nervously kept trying to crack his knuckles, and the only reason he kept walking down the steps was that Trajan was right beside him.

“Nervous?” Trajan asked him.

“How could I not be?” August replied. “What we’re about to do will be one of the defining moments in my life, as well as being not sanctioned by my father. He could technically charge us both with treason for this if he- when he wakes up…”

“There must always be two who bear the blood,” Trajan said. “Herculanus had his blood awakened years ago, but since he joined the blood priests, he won’t ever have children or a landed title. We need another person who can awaken the blood of the Sacred Bull, just in case something unexpected happens to Octavius.”

“Will Father see it that way?” August asked as they reached the floor of the pit beneath the dome.

“… He’ll understand,” Trajan said with a confident nod, though he felt much more unsure inside. But this wasn’t the time to be speaking of uncertainties, he needed to project confidence to assure his nephew that everything was fine.

“For what it’s worth,” Bronze said as he and Leon reached the floor just a few steps behind the two Princes, “I believe His Majesty would agree with Prince Trajan. Of course, if His Majesty does charge both of Your Highnesses with treason, then I would be honor-bound to arrest you, but I do not believe that His Majesty will do that. If Prince Herculanus had made his intentions known decades ago, then it would never have been in question if your blood would be awakened, since both Princess Stefania and Prince Antonius have bowed out of the running for the throne.”

“Thanks…” August said, his fears not particularly mollified.

Leon was, as usual, silent. He was curious about this awakening ritual, and now that he was here, he wanted to see it in action, to compare it to his own. To awaken his blood, Artorias had drawn runes upon his body with some kind of herbal paste, then fed him a potion to prepare his body, gave him the snow lion mana to drink after that, and then had Leon stay in a runic glyph drawn upon the ground while lightning spells powered by an ice wraith core channeled lightning magic into his body.

The strain of lightning tearing him apart on the outside and the lion’s mana ravaging him from the inside was exactly the kind of catalyst that Leon’s body needed to draw out the latent blood of the Thunderbird, and the power that flooded through Leon at the time was enough to push him from the first-tier to the second. Perhaps more important than that, though, was the vision that Leon received. He was pulled by his connection to the Thunderbird into his soul realm, four tiers before he was powerful enough to do so, and there he saw the Thunderbird for the first time.

Now, Leon was about to bear witness to another person awakening their Inherited Bloodline, and despite his initial extreme reluctance to attend, he was almost as excited to see the awakening process from a different angle as August was to undergo it.

“All right, then let’s begin,” Trajan said.