A flame no larger than that of a burning candle slowly undulated in his hand. It burned brightly, casting its reddish-orange light throughout the darkness of the early morning courtyard. The sun hadn’t yet risen, and he hadn’t turned on any of the magic lanterns, so his small flame was the only light around, save for the slowly brightening sky and dimming stars.

Ancon was beautiful in the morning, with cool, crisp air, colorful birds singing and flying to and fro, not to mention how perfectly manicured Heaven’s Eye kept their guest house’s courtyard, but Leon’s eyes were fixed solely upon the flame in his hand.

For days, he’d been putting in more and more time with his fire magic, hoping that maybe he’d be able to feel something different. Supposedly, his bloodline from the Great Black Dragon was less suppressed than before, but up until the battle with the vampires, he hadn’t been able to tell, and after what he’d experienced at the Serpentine Isles, he’d been fairly keen to just put it out of mind. Unfortunately, his little tousle with the vamps had brought the issue of his draconic lineage back to the forefront of his mind, forcing him to spend more time contemplating it.

During that fight, however, he hadn’t been nearly as emotionally charged as he’d been when previously channeling that power, as far as he could remember, and yet he’d still managed to channel black flame. But he hadn’t done so consciously, so he didn’t quite know how he’d managed it.

He’d been trying to puzzle out exactly how it had happened, and if he could now reproduce the feat with a little more dedicated study, but so far, he hadn’t seen so much as a single black spark.

‘Frustrating,’ he bitterly thought to himself. He placed absolutely no stock in any threats or desires that the Great Black Dragon had put forth, so he thought little of probing into this power that was supposedly locked in his blood. The power was a part of him as much as the Thunderbird’s lightning, and with that fire now unavoidably on his mind, Leon greatly resented that he couldn’t consciously call upon it.

On this particular day, he’d been struck with a bout of insomnia, not even able to get so much as a wink of the usual four hours of sleep that he allowed himself. So, he’d risen from bed, taking care not to disturb Maia or Elise, and went outside. He hadn’t been in a mood for anything more productive, and so sat down on a bench in the courtyard, conjured some fire in his hand, and stared at it. There he sat for hours, letting his mind wander wherever it pleased as he stared, transfixed, at the fire in his hand.

He didn’t move an inch until the sun finally crested the edge of Aeterna and cast its light upon the plane. Only then did he finally clench his fist, his heart unsatisfied, and look away. He didn’t rise from the bench, though, and instead cast his mind into his soul realm. He opened the eyes of his magic body and rose from his throne. He stood there for a moment, the long early morning hours of unfulfilling musings and mild explorations of his power leaving him feeling rather cold, empty, and melancholic at the almost tangible rejection by his draconic ancestor.

He glanced at Xaphan, who quietly burned in his pavilion. The demon seemed lost in a meditative trance, not that Leon wanted to talk to him right now anyway.

He then turned his eyes toward the distant Mists of Chaos. Somewhere out there was the Thunderbird, and while he thought he might’ve liked to talk to her right now, he didn’t really have that much to say that he wanted to bother her with.

Finally, his gaze found Nestor’s ruby on the nearby table, and the surrounding notes Leon had taken from Nestor’s enchantment lessons. Right next to the ruby was the journal that Leon had taken from Jormun’s transformation cave, the dead man still trying to unlock the enchantment he’d designed so many thousands of years ago.

Leon slowly walked over to the table, placed his hands upon it, and leaned over some of the notes, his eyes scanning the papers but not quite taking in what was written upon them. He took a deep breath, but it came out almost as a sigh, and he felt Nestor’s attention fall upon him.

“What’s wrong, kid?” the dead man inquired, his tone almost bored and resentful that it fell to him to ask, or possibly annoyed that Leon was bothering him.

Leon contemplated asking Nestor about the Great Black Dragon and that side of his heritage, but he refrained. He didn’t really want to talk to Nestor about those things, he’d rather save that for the Thunderbird—and even then, he wanted to save that talk for when he actually had something to say. He didn’t want to use his most helpful Ancestor as an outlet to vent his frustrations.

But… there were still some things that he thought he might be able to consult with Nestor about in relation to these matters…

“Nestor, I remember you saying that you’re not that great with healing magic, is that right?”

In as much of a noncommittal shrug as the dead man could give, he grunted, “Meh.”

“Is that… what does that even mean? You didn’t say anything,” Leon grumbled in annoyance.

“’Meh’ is ‘meh’, what does it sound like?” Nestor riposted. “But since you seem to be having trouble with the concept, allow me to elucidate. That means ‘to explain’, just so you know.”

“I know what ‘elucidate’ means,” Leon growled.

“Always good to make sure when it comes to you,” Nestor said. Before Leon could retort, he then elucidated, “My specialty is not healing magic, that much you’re well aware of. But my knowledge of the universe is paralleled by few, so I’d say my knowledge of the subject is probably greater than just about anyone you personally know, despite my lack of specialty.”

“And your knowledge of the human body is great, too?” Leon said.

“Meh,” Nestor repeated.

Leon, after rolling his eyes, asked, “What about blood magic?”

“Meh.”

“I’m sorely tempted to set you on fire again.”

With a sigh that was almost a groan, Nestor replied, “Fine, I’ll set aside the important work that I was doing and focus solely upon you. Is that what you want?”

“If you would be so kind,” Leon responded as he lifted a hand and let fire dance between his fingers, a clear threat to the dead man.

“All right, what is it that you want to know, specifically?” Nestor asked, his voice wavering only slightly with Leon’s display of power.

“The awakening ritual for the Thunderbird Clan,” Leon said. “I don’t know it well enough. I’ve only ever had it performed on me—and even then I hardly understood what it on a mechanical level—and I’ve only ever seen some fairly abstract and theoretical notes on it from the Teiran Archives. I want to know more about it in greater detail than those books can give me.”

Adopting the professional air of a teacher lecturing his student, Nestor asked, “Very well. I’m well-versed on that particular topic—anyone in my position would’ve known that ritual in as great of detail as was possible. It was the backbone of our Clan’s power, after all, and we couldn’t let it be forgotten. Do you have any specific questions about the ritual, or do you want me to just jump in from the very basics?”

“I was more curious about the specific magical mechanics behind the ritual rather than the potions or spells that are needed. What does the ritual do, not how it’s performed, is I guess what I’m getting at.”

“All right. Well, I suppose a good place to start is by repeating what I’m sure you’re already well aware of: human beings are not naturally magical creatures. Our bodies must adapt to magic in a variety of ways before we can truly use that power. In the case of Inherited Bloodlines, things get a little murkier.”

“Because we’re descended from beasts that were naturally magical?” Leon inquired.

“In a way, sure,” Nestor said. “Keep in mind that the universe is old, and humanity is widespread. Even if our Honored Ancestor had no descendants upon this plane before our Clan’s arrival, it’s been eighty thousand years since then. Every single person alive on this plane right now can probably trace their lineage back to our Honored Ancestor in some way, and probably hundreds or thousands of other terribly powerful beings, besides. So it’s less the descent, and more the passing down of power.”

“All of this I know already,” Leon said, but he kept his impatience out of his tone as much as he could.

“Then you know that we need a good kick to get our bloodlines to wake up?” Nestor asked.

“If by ‘a good kick’, you mean flooding our bodies with some other creature’s magic power, then yes,” Leon said. “It’s supposed to force our bodies to awaken our dormant powers as a way to try and defend ourselves from the foreign magic.”

“That’s really the gist of it,” Nestor responded. “That’s the concept around which everything else is built. All our spells, all our enchantments, all our potions that we use to awaken our bloodlines, are designed to enhance the chances of success, and the chances for survival. Just flooding the body with foreign power is an extremely brute force approach and prone to failure, but we’ve had millions of years to refine our technique. I can’t speak for the ritual you underwent, but the one I went through was essentially a guaranteed success. We could awaken our bloodlines safely and reliably.”

Leon nodded, and went quiet for a moment. He essentially knew all of that already, but he needed a moment to choose his words as he drove at what he really wanted to know.

“And the ritual is necessary?” Leon asked. “In all those millions of years, have there ever been any members of the Clan that were born with their bloodlines already awake? Or who managed to use their inherited power without the ritual?”

Nestor went quiet for a long moment, and Leon wondered if he’d been too obvious. When the dead man spoke again, however, he didn’t say anything about the Great Black Dragon.

“… No,” he said. “The ritual was always needed.”

Leon sighed. After a couple seconds of thought, he decided to just ask Nestor what was on his mind, to the hells with his pride.

“Is there any way to undo the Great Black Dragon’s suppression on my blood?”

“I thought that was what this was about,” Nestor said. “That’s a difficult question to answer. Well, in a technical sense, the answer is obvious: yes, there is a way. In fact, there are many ways. But if you were to ask if any of them are particularly feasible, then I’d have to say no. You’re competing with the remains of a being that stood head and shoulders above nearly every other being that has ever existed.”

“But it’s only the dragon’s remains,” Leon pointed out. “Surely that means that its power over me isn’t as potent as it would be at its height.”

“That’s true,” Nestor conceded. “However, what you’re dealing with is still something far beyond you.”

“I don’t care,” Leon spat. “Maybe it’s hypocritical to say given how I’ve been treating our Clan’s legacy, but this isn’t some piece of magical engineering rotting in the ground somewhere, this power is a part of me, and in those few brief moments when I’ve been able to channel it, I’ve felt… well, I don’t know how to describe it, really. It’s always been in moments of great stress, and I’m not really aware of it at the time, but right now, looking back on it, I’ve always felt whole in those moments. Like chains that have always bound me are released for just a few seconds. I want these limitations gone, and I honestly don’t give a single wet shit what the Great Black Dragon has to say about it. I just want his suppression gone.”

Leon spoke with more and more ferocious passion with every word, and by the end, he was practically raging, even throwing his hands into the air and wildly gesturing out into the Mists of Chaos.

“Hells, right now, I think that if I could head out into all that fog and punch that bastard in the face, I would,” Leon growled. He paused a moment and slyly glanced at Nestor’s ruby. “Can I head out into the mists?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Nestor said. “The Mists of Chaos are essentially pure magical energy. The nature of the mist isn’t something anyone really understands, but in its raw form, it’s extremely dangerous. Without the protection of your soul realm, your magic body would be destroyed in its entirety in seconds.”

“And yet, that bastard and our Ancestor essentially live out there,” Leon pointed out. “They don’t have soul realms left, but they’re able to survive this destructive nature.”

“Yes,” Nestor replied. “How they do that, I’m uncertain, and they’re in no hurry to reveal their secrets to little old me.”

Leon gritted his teeth and stared out into the mist, hundreds of miles away from where he stood.

“I’m going to get rid of that suppression, even if I have to somehow literally kick his teeth in to do it,” he vowed, saying the words out loud but speaking more to himself than to Nestor. “Whether or not I use that power will be up to me. Not him.”

“Good luck to you, then,” Nestor responded, his tone making it clear that he didn’t think had much of a chance.

But Leon didn’t care. He’d find a way, one way or another. And he already had something of an idea forming in his head about something he might be able to try.

“Nestor,” he said, suddenly turning around, his tone lightening up so quickly that Nestor’s ruby seemed to dim for a moment in surprise.

“Hm? Yes?”

“Let’s set aside the standard enchanting lessons for the moment. I want to know more about ancient runes…”

---

Leon and Nestor didn’t make much progress, but that was fine with Leon. He had to head back out into the physical world soon enough, anyway, for he and his family were planning an excursion out to the ruins of the Thunderbird Clan to Ancon’s north.

When they set out, they did so with one of the horseless, wheelless carriages, but Leon didn’t ride in it. Instead, he rode Anzu, letting his griffin get in some much-needed exercise by following the carriage—it was illegal to fly in Ancon, which disappointed him greatly, but it also excited him more than a little to know that this wasn’t just a seldom-used regulation in Ancon, as it was in the Bull Kingdom, but a full-fledged Imperial law. In any settlement, it was a violation of the Ilian Emperor’s will that anyone take to the skies. Which suggested to Leon that there were quite a few mages around the Empire who could fly, enough that the law was needed here more than it was back north.

A threat and a challenge both, and at least for the later, he relished it. It made him feel kind of territorial, too, but that feeling was easy enough to ignore.

For now, at least.

But he wasn’t focusing on that right now; instead, it was the ruins that were occupying his mind.

When his short lesson on the ancient runes came to an end, Leon asked Nestor again about what the ruins here used to be. He had no hope that there was anything for him to find here if they were so well-known that the governor recommended he visit them, but he was still curious about what had been built here eighty-thousand years ago.

The ruins were a major city, Nestor had told him. One of the major staging grounds that the Clan had used to control the plane. But it wasn’t just any city, it was a place where the Thunderbird Clan exerted little direct influence. It was essentially the capital of a small province that had been delegated to one of their vassal Clans.

Leon was disappointed to learn that. It essentially meant that even if there were any long-lost things he might find, they probably wouldn’t directly pertain to his Clan. Instead, they would pertain to this vassal Clan.

Still, his excitement to see the place, while lessened, wasn’t gone entirely. It seemed that his excitement was shared, and exceeded, by his family. Maia, Elise, and Valeria were treating this like a date, and when he realized that’s what this was, he decided to lean into it.

So, he planned to stop at a couple other places on their way home: an early dinner at a fancy restaurant, followed by a short cruise on the lake. Without knowing more about the city, though, that was the extent he was able to plan on such short notice with the concierge that Heaven’s Eye assigned them for their stay.

Soon enough, they arrived at the ruins. The Imperial government was clearly serious about preserving the place, for the sprawling ruins were completely fenced off from the rest of the city, and the only way in or out was through one of a handful of lightly fortified gatehouses placed around the fence’s perimeter. Only the largest of these gatehouses, which was attached to what seemed to be a huge museum, was available for tourists to use.

But for all of that, the fence wasn’t enchanted against magic senses, and Leon drank in the sight of the ruins. Most of it was overgrown with vines, moss, and trees, but nearly all of those areas were little more than heaps of broken stone bricks. Eighty-thousand years was a long time, and not even stone would survive for so long in a place as long-inhabited as Ancon.

But the area directly next to the museum was more well-kept, and Leon could even see maintenance workers moving through the place, taking care of weeds and even using earth magic in a few places to shore up what needed shoring up.

These places were mostly buildings made of limestone, granite, and marble, capped with red ceramic tiles in a style rather reminiscent of the architecture of the Bull Kingdom. Their facades were garishly painted in gold, white, and blue, and if it weren’t for the fact that none of the buildings had any semblance of magic flowing within them, they might’ve even passed for buildings that were still inhabited.

But this maintained part of the ruins was fairly small—the equivalent of just a few blocks. The rest of the place looked almost like a wild plain, were it not for the heaps of bricks scattered around, or the occasional hint of the concrete road peeking through the grass.

[Hm,] Nestor grunted when Leon arrived and explained to him what he could see. [Seems like the palace didn’t survive. What a shame. Looks like their library is still around, though.]

[Keep an eye open for anything, even if there doesn’t seem to be anything at all to see,] Leon asked the dead man. [I can’t imagine anything’s survived here, and I don’t think the Empire’s just going to let us roam around, but just in case… if there’s anything that we, especially, need to see, be sure to let me know…]

[Will do.]