August arrived in Calabria only three days after Leon, sailing in with a fleet so large that many of its ships had to moor themselves in requisitioned docks, run themselves up onto the riverbank, or simply anchor themselves in the river.

On the same day, the noble armies that had taken the land route to Calabria arrived, causing the Augustine forces around the city to outnumber the city’s inhabitants more than two-to-one. The army was so large, in fact, that most of the Legions and the noble retainers had to make camp beyond the city’s outskirts.

Leon met August down at the docks, leaving most of his higher-tiered Legion knights to keep the palace secure, just in case. There, he told the Prince of the Exarch’s surrender and gave him a brief rundown of the battle with Earthshaker. He’d already sent messengers with the same information, but he wanted there to be no misunderstandings between him and August.

It was a sentiment that August appreciated even though he didn’t seem too happy about it on the surface, and he didn’t speak much until Leon escorted him and the rest of the command staff to the palace, where they met with the Exarch. August quite graciously pardoned them for any part they played in acting against his people and released them from house arrest.

Given that they’d surrendered, this wasn’t unexpected. Leon, for his part, knew that it would simply be better for everyone if August left behind the previous administrators to continue governing Calabria after they departed, otherwise he’d be obligated to leave behind a military garrison to keep the peace.

After that, August and the rest of the command staff retired to plan their next moves. They couldn’t stay long in the city without risking putting a burden on their supplies, and they had to move quickly to reach the capital at the same time as Minerva and Brimstone.

Their only concern was what Octavius might do in response, as they had received reports that he still had a substantial force guarding the capital, one big enough to meet either of the Augustine armies in the field if he were so inclined.

---

Octavius stared out at his city, as he’d taken to doing after relieving Avidius, the previous Consul of the Central Territories. The sheer incompetence of those around him was stressful, and there was only so much he could do to compensate for their failures. Staring out at the majestic city that he possessed was one of the few ways he was able to relieve some of that stress.

He’d been doing it more and more lately, as news of mounting defeats kept coming in. After Earthshaker abandoned him, Octavius had barely been seen in public at all, spending most of his days in his private chambers and refusing to see most people.

He’d done great things, he knew that. He’d gotten rid of all the dirty-blooded people that were stinking up the palace, replacing them with those of proper breeding. He’d passed a few laws denying commoners the ability to be knighted, as well as several others that cemented the nobility into their proper place above the commons. He was slowly but surely returning the Bull Kingdom to what it should be, a Kingdom that valued its old traditions and ceremonies.

A place that valued respect.

But he wasn’t getting much of that anymore. He was surrounded not only by incompetents but also by traitors and men and women with weak hearts, many of whom had quit the capital when news that Duronius had been defeated reached the city. With August closing in and winning in both the north and south, the rats that were abandoning his ship were only growing more numerous. The only reason everyone hadn’t abandoned him, he knew in his heart of hearts, was because Sapphire was still with him.

As if his thoughts were a summons, the door to the terrace opened and Sapphire walked through, her light blue clothes hugging her body in all the right places, her golden hair glittering in the light of the setting sun.

“My Prince,” she whispered, her voice soft and supplicant, “we’ve received word from down south…”

She paused, hoping for some reaction from Octavius. He’d not even acknowledged her appearance, let alone seemed willing to have a conversation with her.

Her clear blue eyes slid past him and landed upon the city in the distance. Even from here, she could see the effects that the war was having—nearly thirty percent of the city’s inhabitants had fled, leaving great swathes of the city dark and bereft of people. Her heart sank as the thought that she’d backed the wrong horse played itself through her mind once more. It was a thought she’d been having more and more, lately.

“Octavius…” she murmured, hoping to get her Prince’s attention.

“I want my coronation to happen as soon as possible,” Octavius suddenly said, acting as if he hadn’t heard her previous words. “All the Court shall attend. I’ll have a parade, too, I want the people to see their new King. They’ve gone too long without a King, they need to know that everything is right with the world.”

“Julius, Love,” Sapphire repeated, the word ‘love’ leaving an ashy taste in her mouth, “Petrus has been defeated on the Naga. Leon Ursus has ascended to the seventh-tier, and most of the southern nobles and many of our Legions have now declared for August. They’re sailing north as we speak, they’ll be here in a week or less!”

“Ah, I see,” Octavius replied, his tone as light as if Sapphire had only said something about the weather. “Well, be sure to send a message to my uncle. If he attends my coronation, I’ll forgive him for leaving me. If he doesn’t, I’ll have no choice but to view him as a traitor and have him arrested and charged.”

“Petrus is dead, murdered by August’s pet savage,” Sapphire replied, her tone growing in strength and insistence, slowly demanding that Octavius actually listen to what she was saying. “There are other rumors about him, too…”

“I doubt that, my uncle can’t be killed, he’s the strongest man in the Kingdom,” Octavius breezily replied, speaking as if a child had just tried to tell him the sky was green rather than blue. “Find whoever relayed this blatantly false information and have them meet the headsman. They’re willfully spreading propaganda to weaken us and support my bastard half-brother.”

Sapphire didn’t move. She simply stared in disbelief at Octavius, wondering just where her Prince had gone.

“Your Royal Highness,” she began, her tone sharpening and her aura spiking, hoping that that would be enough to get Octavius to pay attention and treat these matters with the seriousness they demanded, “the traitors Minerva and Brimstone have defeated our forces in the north. They’ve gotten the Consul of the North to ally with them. They’re marching south! If we don’t do something quickly, then we’re going to be boxed in by August in the south and them in the north!”

“Send the troops we have to cut them off,” Octavius said, still not turning to look at his ‘lover’. “They’ll be exhausted after so much fighting. They’ll flee before our mighty armies like ice flees from fire.”

As a user of water and ice magic, Sapphire felt mildly insulted by his last statement, but she kept herself in check. But she knew that her days of sleeping with the Prince were over. If this was going to be how he acted, then she knew she was never going to be the Queen.

“Yes, Your Royal Highness…” she replied, not even bothering to relay the rest of her information about just how many people were fleeing the city or about how the noble and Legion troops they still had were hemorrhaging manpower as their people deserted faster than they could be replaced.

Instead, she turned around and left the Prince alone, an ugly look in her eyes. A number of possibilities flitted through her mind, from kidnapping the Prince and taking him into the Western Territories to continue the war there, to making her stand here in the capital. Whatever she decided, though, she wasn’t ready to declare this war a failure. She wasn’t yet ready to give up on her dream of being the Queen.

---

Emilie watched from the window in her office as the Octavian troops moved through the streets, hurriedly setting up barricades and other hasty fortifications. Some Legion magic engineers even went so far as to demolish abandoned houses and set up small forts within the city, as well as blocking off entire streets with stone walls a couple dozen feet high.

The city’s garrisoned army was getting ready for a siege, but that wasn’t all. She could see numerous ships leaving the lake and making their way north along the Naga River. There were only a few war galleys among the group with most looking more like appropriated fishing craft, but Emilie guessed these ships were ferrying troops north to meet Minerva’s south-bound army, but there couldn’t number more than twenty thousand even with all the ships she could see.

There were also many Legion soldiers mustering to the south of the city and setting up more fortifications in that direction, including laying the foundations for hasty city walls, which the capital had never needed before in the entire five-thousand-year history of the Bull Kingdom.

She sighed in dejection. If she had her way, she’d have leveraged the power of Heaven’s Eye to have Octavius deposed, but unfortunately, Heaven’s Eye was officially neutral in all political matters. If any of the other Kingdoms got word of Heaven’s Eye meddling in political affairs, the powers-that-be in the Central Empires would probably move against Heaven’s Eye. Her superiors would then lay her out to dry in order to save the Guild as a whole.

So her hands were tied. She couldn’t directly act against Octavius, no matter how concerned she was about the people of the Bull Kingdom—or, more specifically, about the man who she was certain would become her son-in-law relatively soon. The last thing she wanted was to see Leon killed in all this fighting. Already she could see the toll it was having on Elise, who was so depressed about not having directly heard from Leon since he left Ironford that she could barely work up the motivation to get out of bed most days.

But they both understood that Leon wandering around the swampy south was hardly the best of positions to be sending messages from, so Elise and Emilie were patient. Despite their worries, they had both been confident that he’d find a way to return home.

That confidence was paid off when an official declaration from August sent to her informing her about his move on the capital had been given a personal post-script from Leon asking her to tell Elise that he would be home soon and that he loved her. That quick word alone had been enough for Elise to leave Emilie’s palace and finally join her in the Tower.

“How long do you think he’ll be?” Elise quietly asked as she joined her mother at the window.

“A few days at the quickest,” Emilie replied. “They only left Calabria last night, Butterfly. He’ll be here soon, but they’re sailing against the current.”

Elise took a deep breath to steady herself for what the two were about to do, then backed away from the window to make sure she was ready. Emilie stayed there for a few minutes more, for she had no need to check to see if she was ready—she knew she was.

Only about fifteen minutes later, one of Emilie’s assistants poked his head through her office door and said to the two waiting ladies, “He’s here.”

“Send him in,” Emilie replied, her tone all business and lacking any sign of her usual frivolity.

“Last chance to back out…” Elise whispered once the assistant closed the door.

“Not a chance in any hell that’s happening,” Emilie murmured back.

Not even a minute later, the door was opened once more, letting in a man who appeared about middle-aged, but judging by his vigorous aura—which Emilie, with all her seventh-tier powers, couldn’t see through—indicated that ‘middle-aged’ was likely at least several centuries old. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he walked in with attractive confidence that showed he was perfectly well aware that he was the most powerful person in the room.

Despite this, when his clear gray eyes met Emilie’s bright green, they stayed there, not straying even a little. He didn’t leer at Emilie’s alluring figure, shown off by her tight, black formal dress. His eyes didn’t drift to stare at Elise, they stayed respectfully fixed on Emilie.

“Lady Emilie, a pleasure to finally meet you,” he whispered in the distinct sing-song accent of people from the Sacred Golden Empire.

“Doctor Vissarion,” Emilie replied, a smile breaking out onto her face, though it was one that lacked personal warmth. This was a business deal first and foremost, and it was one that could get her in a lot of trouble if too many people heard of it. “I’m glad to finally meet you, too.”

The two met in the center of Emilie’s office, where she introduced Elise to the doctor as well, who remained respectful and not arrogant in the slightest, despite the extreme difference in magical power—he was dealing with powerful members of Heaven’s Eye, after all, and Heaven’s Eye as a whole was far more powerful than he would ever be.

Once the three had taken their seats on a pair of sofas, the doctor wasted no time getting right down to business.

“So, to what do I owe the honor of a personal invitation?” he asked, his tone pleasant and inquiring.

“Oh, nothing too dramatic,” Emilie replied. “I merely wish to inform you that we’ve been contracted by a private party to ensure that you receive everything you need for your job.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. “I thought that Heaven’s Eye couldn’t fulfill my order. I believe that Prince August himself attempted to fulfill it, and you weren’t able to accommodate in a quick fashion…”

“That indeed was the case, but that was at least six years ago. With the intervention of this person—who wishes to remain anonymous—our options have… expanded…”

“Have they…” the doctor replied, his expression turning into one of understanding as he paused to think for several long seconds. Crucially, he didn’t ask about who this mysterious benefactor was or question the timing of this news. “So, you’re telling me that the final ingredients I need…”

“… are ready,” Emilie finished. “It took more than a bit of arm-twisting, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to finish with what we’ve collected in the past few weeks…”

With a dramatic flourish, Emilie retrieved a sheet of paper from her soul realm, written upon which were several dozen ingredients that were critical in the brewing of potions that could help repair a body’s connection to their soul realm.

The doctor took the paper and quickly examined it.

“I’ve actually gotten a few of these thanks to Prince August,” he said. “The Heartwood Amber, mana from a seventh-tier beast who focused on earth magic, and crystal powder from the mines on Tetsu island have all been acquired. The rest of this I need, though.”

“Then consider it yours,” Emilie replied. “And I wish you good luck in your endeavor.”