When Leon walked back into the throne room with Cassandra, Valeria, Elise, and Maia, they found that Anastasios was already there, a handful of powerful guards in Ilian colors standing not too far away. He was busy enthusiastically greeting the Empress and the Grand Druid, both of whom had beaten Leon’s group there.

However, as soon as they walked in, Anastasios turned toward them and exclaimed, “Leon! What a coincidence that you’re here, too!”

Leon smiled awkwardly, but before he could respond, the Grand Druid chided, “Don’t act like you learned he was here when you arrived, Anastasios!”

The Lord Protector glanced at his Evergolden counterpart, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. He didn’t respond, though.

“Lord Protector Anastasios,” Leon said as he walked over. “A surprise to see you here. But a welcome one, I think.”

“You ‘think’? Shouldn’t you be a little more concrete?” the Lord Protector asked teasingly.

“Why should he be?” the Grand Druid interjected again. “Surely he sees you as a threat, and I wouldn’t blame him at all.”

“Oh, not at all! Why Leon Raime and I are quite friendly with each other, aren’t we?”

Anastasios locked Leon in his pink, nebulous gaze, and his aura settled around Leon like a blanket. It wasn’t as heavy as it was the last time they’d met, but Leon could still feel it pressing down on him.

However, instead of bowing to this pressure, Leon simply replied, “I have no idea why you’re here, Lord Protector. And I wouldn’t want to interrupt; your conversation with the Grand Druid and Her Majesty looked quite engaging.”

“I was just thanking them for their hospitality and patience,” Anastasios replied. “Say, why don’t we catch up a bit? Let’s head out, if you’re free for a little while, and we can talk somewhere more private.”

“Hold on,” the Grand Druid indignantly responded, “you’re trying to pull this boy right out from under me!”

“He doesn’t look like he’s under you,” Anastasios countered. “In fact, he’s standing right over there, clearly not under you. Unless you were hoping to take him as a concubine, in which case I consider it my duty as a fellow man to rescue my endangered brother from your greedy clutches!” As he spoke, Anastasios moved to Leon’s side and laid a hand on his shoulder.

At the same time, the Grand Druid made her way to Leon’s other side and took his arm. “I have no idea why Leon would ever want to go with you; what do you have that could ever offer him? A rich life? He already has that. Leon, why don’t you stay here and get to know my granddaughter better?”

“Nonsense,” Anastasios said, cutting Leon off right as he was about to reply to them both. “Leon, have I told you that I have cousins and other female relatives of mine that have been asking about you? I know it can be a little awkward, but I think it’s still something we ought to discuss—”

“Enough!” Leon shouted, cutting the Lord Protector off and drawing quite a bit of attention from all the guards in the room. He quickly shook off both the Lord Protector and the Grand Druid and took a few steps away to get a bit of distance from them both. Then, he forced on a smile and said to the Empress, “Thank you for your invitation today. But I still have a bit of work that I must see to, so I’m going to take my leave.”

The Empress stiffly smiled and nodded, though with the Grand Druid staring at her, she didn’t audibly respond.

“If you’re leaving, why don’t you stop by my place—” Anastasios began, but Leon cut him off again.

“I’d rather not wait around,” Leon said. “I have no doubt that whatever business brought you here is important and will take some time to work out. As I just said: I have some work to see to, and I can’t possibly take up any of your important time. So, I must decline your invitation. But please do call upon me at the Heaven’s Eye enclave, I’d be more than willing to break a few words with you there.”

With that, Leon turned to his ladies, and together, the four of them made for the exit, leaving Anastasios and the Grand Druid glaring at each other, the Empress looking utterly mortified, and the Princess just looking confused.

Leon didn’t stick around and hurried them all out of the palace-tree and back to the guest house as quickly as dignity would allow. And then, he started to prepare for Anastasios’ inevitable visit.

---

“That was dirty,” the Grand Druid growled as she sat down in the nearest armchair.

“It was necessary,” Anastasios replied as he sat down next to her.

They were meeting now in a small private chamber set aside for the Grand Druid’s personal use instead of the meeting room that Leon had been twice now taken to. They were alone together, with not even their guards present. What they had to discuss wasn’t for any ears but their own.

“You still blatantly tried to steal him away from me!” the Grand Druid indignantly cried, though her indignation didn’t quite reach her scarlet eyes, which still stared at the Lord Protector with a great deal of affection.

“I can’t just let Leon Raime fall into your clutches so easily, can I?” Anastasios inquired. “I have to admit though, that it took me by complete surprise that you arranged to meet with him so quickly. In my experience, Leon Raime turns down anyone who tries to recruit him like that. So I have to assume that he’s turned you down, too… which would also mean that I can still grab him. It’s not snatching when he’s not yet yours.”

“No, you won’t,” the Grand Druid smugly replied. “I have something far more valuable than anything you could possibly give him: a beautiful granddaughter. The Thunderbird’s blood will belong to my line, not to your people over in Ilion.”

“They didn’t seem all that affectionate today,” Anastasios countered as he reached over and laid his hand atop the Grand Druid’s and entwined his fingers with hers. “Besides, your granddaughter seemed to be down an arm. Are you so sure that she’s as great of a catch as you profess?”

“She’s my granddaughter,” the Grand Druid retorted as she held the Lord Protector’s hand tightly. “She’s as great as they come. I’ve already made my offer to him, and while dear Cassandra wasn’t that thrilled about it at the time, she’s since come around. If I were to order it, she’d take Leon Raime as a husband.”

“But he refused, didn’t he?”

“He refused before he left on his ill-fated expedition. He has yet to refuse me a second time. And no one refuses me a second time.”

“I seem to recall refusing you several times…” Anastasios gave the Grand Druid a cheeky smile, and she squeezed his hand hard enough to cause just a little bit of pain.

“Regardless, I suppose it doesn’t matter, does it? Which of us gets him. So long as that cretin down south doesn’t. I shudder to think of what might happen if that boy were to fall into the possession of the Sunlit Emperor…”

“Nothing good,” Anastasios concurred. “It might even be preferable if he were to be given to the Sky Devils, though that would hardly be ideal. Better to keep him here, where we can benefit.”

“Would it be ‘we’? Or are you just angling for yourself and your Empire?”

“It would be ‘we’. If we work together, of course. But if I manage to recruit him by myself…”

“You won’t.” The Grand Druid squeezed his hand again. “If we enter into a partnership on this, then we have to be of one mind. That boy’s blood can do a lot of good in our hands. We can’t let him slip out of our grasp!”

“That might be difficult,” Anastasios replied. “As I heard it, the Director of Heaven’s Eye has been busy alienating Leon—quite foolishly, I think. And he’s been getting himself mixed up in some of the darker powers of our universe. If we are to recruit Leon Raime, then now is the time, but this is also a critical juncture. We can’t let him be killed by vampires, or by the Director, or be snagged by the others. This requires a delicate touch.”

“Is my touch not delicate?” the Grand Druid asked as she stroked Anastasios’ palm for a moment.

“It’s plenty soft,” Anastasios smilingly replied, “but it’s not quite what Leon needs, I think. He needs someone who can treat him like a partner, not a vassal or a seed dispenser.”

“That rules you out, then,” the Grand Druid sniped.

“We’ll see,” the Lord Protector replied. “I still have my offer to make, after all.”

---

“What did you three make of all that?” Leon asked as he and his family collapsed in the guesthouse’s dining room.

Elise was the first to answer. “The Empress and the Grand Druid aren’t in agreement about us, so we shouldn’t press our luck by staying long in the Sacred Golden Empire. Cassandra seems a little older and wiser now than she did a month ago. And the Grand Druid and Lord Protector both really want you to join them, for reasons that we can only guess at.”

“The reasons are clear enough, though,” Valeria responded. “The both have things—‘legacies’ others have called them—that would respond to Leon’s blood, so they want Leon’s blood to activate these legacies. They’re trying to lure him in like a fish with whatever bright, shiny lures they can get their hands on.”

[Do you intend to join either of them?] Maia asked Leon.

“Not as yet,” Leon replied. “While it wasn’t the main purpose in coming here, I suppose I have seen enough of the Empress and Grand Druid to know that I don’t feel particularly strongly about siding with them, though I suppose they are still a valid option in case the Director drops the ball. I still don’t feel all that welcomed, though. The Empress, at least, clearly assumes that everything I find within her Empire is hers to take, while the Grand Druid has been eyeing me up like a prized bull she wants to sacrifice to her granddaughter.

“The Lord Protector meanwhile… well, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what he has to say for himself, but at the very least, the last time we spoke didn’t leave me with a glowing impression of him.”

As if on cue, a knock came from the door, and a moment later, Talal poked his head into the room. He looked a little nervous, but still professionally stated, “Lord Protector Anastasios has arrived, Leon. He says he wants to talk in private.”

---

Leon stared at the Lord Protector sitting opposite from him, his golden eyes unwavering.

Anastasios stared right back, his nebulous eyes narrowed slightly by the confident smile he wore.

The two sat in the dining room alone, the guesthouse’s enchantments ensuring that whatever they spoke about, they’d not be overheard.

“You know,” Leon said after several excruciatingly long seconds of silence following them taking their seats, “when I said you could call on me anytime, I kind of assumed you’d do so in the next couple of days, not immediately after leaving the Evergolden Imperial Palace.”

“I was eager to enjoy your hospitality, see how it compares to mine,” Anastasios cheekily replied. “I have to say, it’s not quite as warm as I envisioned.”

“You thought I’d welcome you in?” Leon asked, his tone incredulous.

“Why not? Am I not a man worthy of welcome?”

“Most men who threaten me aren’t,” Leon replied. “You’re no exception.”

“What threats? I’ve levied no threats…”

“Let’s not play these games, they’re beneath us.”

Anastasios smiled at Leon, but didn’t respond, to Leon’s immense chagrin.

With a sigh, Leon asked, “So, what brings you here? An eagerness to taste my hospitality can’t have been the only reason.”

“Admittedly, it wasn’t. What I want is far more important. Far more consequential. Leon, I understand that you’ve been having some problems with the Director of Heaven’s Eye.”

Leon’s heart skipped a beat, but not out of surprise. The Grand Druid had already let loose that she knew of his current circumstances back in Occulara, and she was much farther away than Anastasios was. Since Occulara was within the Ilian Empire, he guessed that Anastasios had likely heard of his current disagreement with the Director even before the Grand Druid.

Anastasios continued, “Vampires are rotten creatures, not worthy of having in a civilized society, don’t you think?” Leon offered nothing more than an impatient smile as a response. Anastasios didn’t seem fazed at all, though. “Well, I believe that they’re unworthy of having in a civilized society. Leon, I want you to join my Empire. We can protect you from your enemies, even if that includes other Empires…”

“Nothing comes without cost,” Leon replied noncommittally.

“Indeed, nothing does,” the Lord Protector agreed. “If you don’t want to play games, that’s fine with me. There’s no one here for us to perform for, so why don’t I just get down to business? You’re of the Thunderbird Clan, the ancient enemies of this plane from eighty-thousand years ago.”

Leon smiled again, remaining silent.

“For those less educated, that might make you an enemy,” Anastasios stated. “For someone like me, that makes you a powerful potential ally. The simple fact of the matter is that the Thunderbird Clan hasn’t been a threat to our plane in an incredibly long time—so long, in fact, that I’d hardly consider them an enemy anymore, so long as they don’t show themselves to be one.

“Rather, what I’m more interested in are the things they left behind. Eighty-thousand years ago, they invaded our plane with magical technology so far beyond what we even have today that it boggles the mind. I want my Empire to have access to that technology. We have many samples that we’ve inherited from our forebears and have achieved great results in studying them. However, with your assistance, I think even greater strides can be made. And with great progress come great rewards—not just security guarantees, but power, wealth, support, whatever you might need, we can provide.”

“What kind of support?” Leon asked, his tone kept carefully neutral. If this was to be a negotiation, then he didn’t want to give anything away.

“The kind that is commensurate with what we might receive from you,” the Lord Protector replied.

“I’m an enchanter; I prefer to work with harder numbers than that. Let’s get specific: what assistance do you need from me, and what would you give me for that assistance? If the terms are good enough, then I might give you some aid even if the Director and I reconcile…”

“So you and the Director are having something of a spat?”

Leon gave the Lord Protector an exasperated look. “You already knew, don’t start playing coy. It’s going to take more than that to throw me off right now.”

Leon was in no mood for these political games. With the strength of both black fire and silver-blue lightning within him, at his fingertips, his tolerance for manipulation like this was at an all-time low.

Anastasios simply shrugged.

Restating his question, Leon said, “Let’s get specific, then. What do you have that you need help with?”

“Leon, I’m not going to spill my Empire’s national secrets so easily…”

“That’s a shame,” Leon sarcastically replied. “I was under the impression that you were actually asking for my help. Let’s say that I agreed to your proposal and signed on with your Empire. What powers over me would you suddenly have access to if I decided to spill your secrets that you don’t possess already? If you were to tell me your deepest, darkest secrets right now, and I were to betray your trust and start talking to other Empires or whoever-the-hells, then you could kill me or imprison me or confiscate my property or who knows what else, and I’m not yet a part of your Empire. So why are you playing so damned hard to get?”

“Because I want your agreement not to say anything,” Anastasios replied. “I want you to swear on your Mana Glyph.”

Leon shook his head. “That’s a heavy thing to ask. How am I to know if what you offer is worth such risk? You’re not even wetting my tongue, here…”

Oaths made on Mana Glyphs were incredibly rare—if such an oath was broken, then a Mana Glyph could be shattered, severely destabilizing a mage’s soul realm, usually to the point of preventing them from making any more progress at the very least. Since the connection between the body and the soul realm was anchored in the heart and the Mana Glyph, the consequences could even be much worse. Naturally, not all oaths are easily kept, and some could even be worded so as to be impossible to keep. As a result, oaths made on Mana Glyphs were rarely, if ever, sworn by anyone with even half a brain.

“Make this an attractive offer and I’ll actually give it its due consideration,” Leon said.

Anastasios stared at Leon for a long time, then retrieved from his soul realm two items. The first was a furled scroll, sealed with some kind of enchanted wax, some specific variation on the ancient rune for ‘lock’ pressed into the wax. The second was a severed hand, not at all touched by decay and pale from lack of blood, but still carrying with it just a hint of demonic power, enough for Leon to identify it as the hand of a vampire.

With a wave of his hand, Anastasios unsealed the scroll, revealing it to be the design for something that Leon couldn’t immediately identify, but had Nestor cry with some measure of enthusiasm, [That’s an ark engine! Looks incomplete, and what’s there is rather primitive, but it’s still unmistakable!]

“This is interesting,” Leon said as he tapped the corner of the blueprints for an ark engine with his finger, “but why don’t you explain the hand a little bit more?”

“It’s something I had taken from a vampire we drove out of its hole just a few weeks ago,” Anastasios replied. “Our internal security forces are very good at their jobs; vampires rarely find purchase within my Empire…”

“They found enough purchase to infiltrate Occulara,” Leon pointed out.

Anastasios grimaced, but added, “What you found was but a small operation compared to what has been discovered and dealt with in the last year alone. Vampires, being monsters of human origin, are an ever-present threat, and we’ve grown skilled in finding and dealing with them. Far more skilled than Heaven’s Eye, judging by what happened just a few days ago…”

Leon’s eyes narrowed as Anastasios deliberately trailed off, clearly trying to draw him in a little more.

With limited patience, Leon asked, “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing much. Are you familiar with Narses, Chief of Security for Heaven’s Eye?”

Leon nodded, remembering the giant blond man he’d specifically thrown party to get close to just before leaving for the Sacred Golden Empire.

“He was attacked in his home a few days ago,” Anastasios explained. “I don’t have too many details, but it’s clear that vampires were involved.”

Leon’s countenance darkened. Narses was a man he was hoping to draw into his corner, to support him against the Director. But it seemed in his absence, Narses was attacked by vampires—assuming Anastasios could be taken at his word, and Leon didn’t see any reason not to.

‘Did the Director have the man attacked by his vampiric allies?’ Leon wondered. ‘Or is this just a coincidence? Is it something the vampires did of their own accord?’

Aloud, he asked, “Are you giving these to me, or are you just showing them off?” Accompanying his question was a vague gesture at the hand and the ark engine schematic.

“You may have them,” Anastasios replied. “Not like they’ll do much good outside of our support, anyway. For now, I’ll leave you with my offer. Security, wealth, and privilege await you in my Empire, Leon. All for an oath of limited alliance.” He punctuated his statement by retrieving another scroll from his soul realm, this one unsealed. “When you make your decision, whatever it may be, do be sure to let me know. I’m unaccustomed to waiting for a response from an offer personally made, but for you, I’ll make an exception.”

Without another word, Anastasios calmly walked out the door, leaving Leon to unfurl the scroll and find that written upon it were instructions for getting a letter directly to Anastasios.

Quietly, he furled both the instructions and the ark engine blueprints, then pulled both plus the hand into his soul realm for later study. It seemed he had a lot to ponder, but whatever he eventually decided, it was clear he needed to get back to Occulara as soon as he could.