The morning that August’s trial was set to begin was dour, cloudy, and cold. Leon wasn’t too personally bothered by it, but it was hard not to take it as a sign of bad luck. He was suddenly grateful that he and the other ‘conspirators’ had amassed what force they could, for he felt surer than ever before that it would be needed.

Leon made his preparations quickly, showering, dressing in modest blacks and greys, and said his goodbyes to Elise. Valeria would be accompanying him to the Royal Palace as his knight, but Elise, as a prominent member of the politically neutral Heaven’s Eye, couldn’t attend.

He gave his lady a quick kiss and a hug, and she whispered for him to be careful into his ear. He made what promises he could, and then he stood by the door to wait for Minerva, who was set to arrive only a few moments later.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elise and Valeria huddled together, Elise holding Valeria’s hands in her own. His fire-haired lady had a look of utter seriousness on her face as she said something to Valeria, a look that then transitioned into one of entreatment. He couldn’t see Valeria’s face from his angle, and he wasn’t going to project his magic senses and let them know that he was watching, but he did see her nod and respond, though he couldn’t hear what was said. Apparently, though, it was enough for Elise, as she smiled, laughed, and pulled Valeria into a tight hug.

Once they parted, Valeria joined Leon by the door while Elise went back to her and Leon’s bedroom to finish getting ready for her own day at the Heaven’s Eye Tower. Valeria’s face was back to its regular stony impassivity, far removed from the significantly more open and chipper attitude she’d sported in the past couple of weeks, and she didn’t say a word to Leon once she joined him. They just stood there in silence.

Normally, Leon would’ve been perfectly fine with this; he had little to discuss with Valeria, and so long as neither made it awkward, then silence was something to be cherished in Leon’s mind. However, Elise’s behavior piqued his curiosity, and he desperately wanted to ask Valeria about it. Before he could do so, though, Minerva’s carriage arrived at his front gate.

“You ready?” he asked Valeria.

She nodded in response. She wasn’t armed, but Leon had a spare glaive tucked away in his soul realm, just in case. Unfortunately, Valeria didn’t have any decent armor, as much of the gear she’d worn during her time in the Royal Guard had to be returned after she was removed from her post. Obviously, Leon and especially Elise couldn’t let this stand, and so armor had been commissioned for Valeria at their expense—Valeria was Leon’s knight, and her gear, or lack thereof, was his responsibility.

Unfortunately, that armor hadn’t been completed, yet, so Valeria was clad in nothing more than cloth finery, with nary a single enchantment to be found amongst her clothing’s threads.

Leon nodded back to her and the two walked outside.

The ride to the Royal Palace was quiet and somber. What was about to happen would be the difference between them committing treason or not within the next couple of days, and it weighed heavily on their minds—especially so in Minerva’s case.

They found the Royal Palace more crowded than it had ever been before once they arrived. The Assembly had been called, so hundreds of the most powerful members of society had flooded into the city, along with all their retainers, servants, and staff, most of whom were now at the palace. Altogether, the city had probably grown by at least fifty thousand since Prince Octavius called the Assembly, and there were a good number of nobles and officials who had seats in the Assembly yet hadn’t been able to arrive with such short notice.

Leon, Valeria, and Minerva stepped out of the latter’s carriage and waited for the rest of Minerva’s entourage to form up behind them.

“Where do we go from here?” Leon asked as he took in the sight of hundreds of people scurrying around in the front courtyard of the palace, most seeming to have somewhere to go, but others leisurely stopping to chat in small groups around the courtyard’s edges and next to the bull statue in the center.

“The Assembly chambers are that way,” Minerva said, nodding toward the western end of the island.

“Any way we can get there without hewing our way through this mess?” Leon asked, indicating the crowded courtyard.

“They’ll move for us, of that I have no doubt,” Minerva said in a tone that indicated she’d very much like to test that theory out. However, after a moment’s pause, she added, “We’d be better served going around. Follow me.”

She led Leon, Valeria, and about a dozen others through the front gates, then a hard turn left into the closest building that Leon had never been in before. He didn’t get a chance to look around, though, as Minerva pressed onward.

As they walked, Leon’s head was on a swivel, constantly looking around them in an obvious show of anxiety. He hated crowds, and the followers of the Assembly members created one of the largest that he had ever had to wade through, and that frayed his nerves almost as much as anything ever had.

Fortunately, as a group of powerful mages, the crowds parted before them without much prodding on their part, and they quickly reached the Assembly chambers.

The building itself resembled a theater or perhaps a much smaller version of the arena. It could sit about two thousand people in a large terraced circle around a central stone platform, upon which had been placed five chairs facing another, smaller chair. The domed ceiling was unadorned, but a long frieze depicting the First Bull King’s conquests had been carved in the corner where the ceiling met the walls. Along the walls were a number of columns, each one carved into the shape of a man with the head of a bull holding either a sword or a scepter.

When Leon, Minerva, and the rest of their group arrived, much of the chamber had already been filled with those who were going to attend. Taking up one section were the Legion officers, made up of knights and a few Lords. Most of them were dressed in their green dress uniforms, but a good number had more humble or ostentatious attire. There were hundreds of officers present, nearly all Legates, but here and there were a few influential or well-connected Tribunes, and sitting at the very front Leon recognized the Consul of the Central Territories sitting between two more people whom he didn’t recognize but could guess at their high rank given their place of honor.

In another section sat the landed nobility, nearly all dressed as exotically or flamboyantly as they could. The entire section was a panoply of bright color that almost blinded Leon as his eyes swept over the crowd. A few of these Lords Leon recognized from their work in the Royal Palace, though he wasn’t well-acquainted with any. The rest of them were unknown to him, but he could guess as to their importance based on how closely they sat to the central platform.

In a third section sat the most powerful government officials, counting among their ranks everyone from former Exarchs to bureaucrats in charge of large parts of the Royal administration. This section was much smaller than the previous two, but arguably just as powerful, at least politically speaking. At the front sat the Chancellor and the Spymaster, along with an empty seat that Leon assumed belonged to the Chief Steward. Notably, none of the landed nobles that Leon knew sat on the advisory council were seated in this section, and instead chose to sit with their peers in the landed nobility.

A fourth section had been filled with people dressed in white monochrome robes. These people were stone-faced and serious, none smiling or chatting with each other, and their heads had all been clean-shaven. Sitting in front were Prince Herculanus and the Primarch of Lineage Hall, making it clear that all those behind them were blood priests.

The fifth and final section was the smallest, consisting of only two people: Princess Stefania and Prince Antonius. A third seat had been set aside, presumably for Prince Octavius, but was empty. As a matter of fact, now that Leon’s eyes had scanned the chamber, he noticed the conspicuous absence of any of the Paladins. Of the six current Paladins, none were present.

All told, this was the single greatest gathering of powerful people in the entire Kingdom, with hundreds of fifth and sixth-tier mages creating an aura so thick with magic that Leon was almost surprised he could still breathe. Attending most of these people were their personal assistants and secretaries, who were almost all forced to stand behind the seats in great crowds unless otherwise engaged with their superiors.

And even with all of this, the chamber wasn’t even close to being full, perhaps only reaching two-thirds capacity at the most. Many of the Assembly members were simply too far away to reach the capital in the short few days since Octavius had called the Assembly into session, which made it that much more obvious to Leon that this wasn’t going to go well, since the section of landed nobility at the very least should’ve been significantly less filled than it was, with most of its members too busy in their own distant lands to reach the capital with such short notice.

“Where do we sit?” Leon asked Minerva.

“Over there,” Minerva said, nodding toward the Royal section. Leon gave her a skeptical look, given that there were only two other people sitting in that section, with even their few subordinates not sharing the handful of empty seats behind them. “We’re Prince Trajan’s retinue, and since this is a trial about his murder, we have a place where he would’ve sat,” Minerva explained.

Leon still didn’t look convinced, but he followed Minerva anyway as she led the way through the chamber toward the Royal section. They drew some attention as they bowed to the two Royals and took their seats, but neither Stefania nor Antonius seemed to have any problems with the group joining them. Fortunately, no one else seemed to have any problems with it, either, and soon, what attention they had drawn shifted away.

The group sat in relative silence as they waited for the trial to get underway. Their tension was palpable, and the current circumstances didn’t lend themselves well to conversation. Even when Brimstone and Roland arrived and took their seats by Minerva and Leon, there was little talking amongst their group.

“Does he know?” Minerva asked Brimstone as the Paladin took a seat.

“He does,” Brimstone replied as he patted his breast pocket, and neither spoke another word to each other.

After a while, people stopped streaming into the chamber. Everyone who was going to attend the trial had shown up, save for Octavius, August, and the presiding Arbiters.

Octavius was the first of these last few to arrive, arriving with a grand entourage of several hundred knights, most of whom stood behind the Royal section. Leon was only mildly surprised to see Gaius among these knights, but given his placement, his position was far less prominent now that he was knight than it had been when he had been Octavius’ squire.

Octavius himself sat down next to his siblings, a strange look of subdued anger and grief on his face. They were there for August’s trial, to determine if he killed Trajan or not, and Octavius wore the appropriate mask for the event—or so it seemed to Leon.

Flanking the Prince upon his entrance were the Sapphire and Earthshaker Paladins, and they took seats next to Brimstone and Roland. It was all both Leon and Minerva could do to keep themselves from emitting any killing intent toward Earthshaker, even though their first instincts were to tear him apart with their bare hands.

Fortunately, they kept their composure, and barely even looked at the man they knew carried out Octavius’ order to kill Trajan.

The presiding Arbiters arrived next. Three men and two women, led by the deceptively slight and weak High Arbiter. She led her four colleagues up to the stone platform and sat down in the five chairs that had been set aside for them. All of them were dressed in flowing black robes, and all wore extremely serious expressions on their faces. Accompanying them were a couple dozen scribes who set up in small desks around the platform, ready to transcribe the entire affair and take mountains of notes regarding the proceedings.

The Arbiters were there to preside over the trial, and any decision they made would have to be confirmed by the gathered members of the Assembly. Still, the High Arbiter’s presence was enough to almost instantly silence the entire Assembly chamber.

“Let’s get this over with, bring out His Highness!” the High Arbiter said in a quiet but irritated voice that nonetheless carried throughout the entire chamber.

It took another ten minutes or so, but a number of Royal Guards soon arrived, carrying between them a figure that Leon managed to recognize as Prince August. The Prince was hunched over and seemed barely conscious, and once he was carried up to the last remaining chair on the platform, it was apparent why.

He was covered in bruises that were terribly hidden behind make-up and a loose-fitting tunic. His frame, recently made powerful and muscle-bound after awakening his blood, had thinned somewhat, and his face seemed gaunt and pale. It was clear, at least to Leon’s eyes, that he had not taken well to his treatment in house arrest.

Most of the Assembly chamber seemed shocked at August’s appearance, and many began to exchange hushed whispers amongst themselves.

Seeing his condition, the High Arbiter wasted no time. August would soon get a chance to speak his piece, and she would make sure he was able to describe any ill-treatment he may have received.

“Let’s begin!” her vigorous voice called out, officially beginning the trial.