The Storm King

Four and a half months had passed since Leon returned to the capital. It had been two years since he had left the Knight Academy, and it was time for the strongest of the trainees from his cycle to graduate and become full-fledged knights.

This year’s graduation was unusually large, with all of the usual high nobles from his year who were already third-tier coming back for their knighting ceremony, plus a number of trainees from other years who finally managed to reach the required third-tier, and a handful of common-born trainees from Leon’s year who did the same. Third-tier power and two years serving as a squire were the minimum requirements to graduate from the Knight Academy, but Leon actually hadn’t met these requirements. He’d been knighted mere weeks after leaving, after all.

Still, to prevent this from becoming an issue, the Legate of the Knight Academy had asked Trajan to have Leon participate in the ceremony, to pay some lip service to the Academy he’d come from. While it hadn’t been against any official regulations, when the Consul of the North knighted Leon, it had been an insult to the Knight Academy, and it soothed some ruffled feathers to have Leon show up for the ceremony.

Leon was happy to do so, as several of his friends were there as well. Charles, Henry, and Alain had arrived in the capital about a week before the ceremony began, but without a way to get in touch with Leon, the four had yet to reunite—there had been rehearsals, but Leon hadn’t gone to those. As a knight of Prince Trajan and a sixth-tier mage, he was only required to be on stage and be honored, not do anything involved enough that it needed to be rehearsed.

And so, decked out in the same black and silver ensemble that Elise had picked out for him and that he’d worn to the Royal Court—with his snow lion coat, of course—Leon arrived at the Knight Academy parade grounds accompanying Prince Trajan and his Royal entourage. Elise had gone ahead of him with a retinue from Heaven’s Eye.

When Leon stepped out of Trajan’s wheel-less carriage, he found the parade grounds packed. They were in the south-west part of the city, in the same field where Leon had first taken the entrance test to join the Knight Academy, but even with that in mind, Leon hadn’t realized the grounds would be so crowded.

The grounds were covered in thousands of seats, and there was a titanic stage on one side of the field, big enough to allow two or three thousand people to stand upon it comfortably. After the graduation ceremony would come the commencement ceremony for this year’s trainees who were going off to their squireships, so Leon had some passing familiarity with this scene. Still, for his commencement ceremony, there had been about ten thousand attendees. Now, he estimated there were easily twenty-five or thirty thousand people filling the seats in the field.

“Seems like this is the place to be, today,” Trajan muttered with a hint of disapproval as Leon joined him—being higher-ranked than Leon, Trajan had left the carriage first.

“There weren’t this many people last time I was here…” Leon observed, a misanthropic frown deeply etched onto his face.

“Makes a bit of sense,” said Minerva as she joined the two from another carriage behind the Prince’s, “there are three Princes attending this ceremony, so a lot of nobles and their retinues followed them here.”

“Three Princes?” Trajan asked in confusion. He thought that he’d have been the only member of House Taurus to show up.

“Did Your Highness not read the report that was shared amongst us?” Minerva asked as the rest of Trajan’s two-hundred-strong entourage filed out and joined their Prince and their sixth-tier Legates.

“I… may have skimmed it,” Trajan admitted.

“Prince Octavius’ squire, Gaius Tullius, was in the same year as Sir Leon, so he was obligated to come and knight Tullius. Since both Your Highness and His Highness were coming, Prince August felt compelled to come as well,” Minerva explained.

“Would’ve been nice if someone told me,” Trajan grumbled in a manner not entirely befitting a Prince.

“Someone did tell you. It was in the report that apparently wasn’t read,” Minerva said, though she lowered her voice for the sake of not appearing to openly criticize a Prince. They were surrounded by their own knights, but it was always best to be on the safe side in as politically charged a place as the capital, especially with so many courtiers and nobles in their immediate vicinity.

Trajan cringed a bit at his own negligence but entered the parade grounds anyway. He was the first of the Princes to arrive, so naturally he drew a lot of attention from most of the attendees. He smiled and greeted those who called out to him, but there were so many who did so that he could barely keep up as he walked toward the front of the seats close to the stage.

Leon was right behind him, doing his best not to appear too noticeable. However, he did feel a few pairs of eyes on him, and when he glanced around, he noticed another reason why so many nobles had felt the need to show up to this rather mundane ceremony: both Elise and Emilie were in the front row, their heads turned around to see what all the fuss was about. Leon knew the former was going to be there, but he honestly wasn’t expecting Emilie to show up, as well.

Leon and Elise locked eyes and smiled at each other, but they did little else. There was a long aisle splitting the seats down the middle, and Elise and Emilie were sitting on the left side while Trajan and his retinue took the seats to the right. None of them save for Trajan, Leon, and Minerva sat in the front row, though, so as to save room for rest of the Royal Family and the highest of officials.

However, Leon wasn’t seated long before a young second-tier mage came running up to his group. The mage bowed to the Prince and said, “Your Highness, there’s a place reserved for you up on stage, if Your Highness wishes it…”

“Ah,” Trajan said, a little embarrassed. He hadn’t attended the rehearsal, either, and in fact, had never attended a ceremony from the Knight Academy, so he hadn’t realized they’d reserved a seat for him.

The mage then glanced at Leon and asked, “Would I be right in assuming that you, Sir, are Sir Leon?”

Leon nodded.

“Sir, there’s a seat on the stage for you, as well.”

Leon scowled a bit. He knew that there was a seat there for him from the information he’d gotten a few days beforehand, but he’d been hoping to slither out of it. Unfortunately, it seemed that fortune would not smile upon him this day.

‘Damnit, damnit, damnit,’ Leon repeated in his head, the eyes behind him exerting tremendous pressure.

Leon and Trajan rose and made their way up the stage and toward the seats, each with great reluctance. There they sat with about ten minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin. As they sat there, there was a great deal of whispered speculation among the crowd concerning just what business Leon had up there, sitting in a place of such prominence. Many knew him by sight as one of Trajan’s knights and the man that Elise was in a relationship with, but those in and of themselves were hardly reasons enough to sit with Royalty.

The crowd had little time to speculate, though as five minutes later, August arrived with both the Brimstone Paladin and Roland in tow, creating as much of a stir among the present nobility as Trajan’s entrance. As August and his retinue of several hundred walked through the parade grounds, many Legion knights and lesser nobles called out their greetings to him, though not nearly as much as responded to Trajan.

When August reached the stage, he directly took a seat next to Trajan and quietly made his greetings, with Leon behind both of them. Roland and Brimstone then sat next to Leon, rather pointedly leaving only a single seat left for Octavius. The Paladins exchanged smiles with Leon, though his was forced at best. No one spoke much with such attention directed toward them.

Just as the ceremony was going to begin, with the Legate of the Knight Academy literally waiting in the wings for Octavius to arrive as the ceremony couldn’t start without him, the last Prince finally showed his face.

Much like with the two previous Princes, Octavius’ appearance seemed to electrify the crowd, and Octavius could barely walk for all the nobles that came forward to give him their formal greetings. Octavius failed to contain his smile of triumph at the response to his presence, and it took his retinue several long minutes to force their way through the crowd of nobles so the Prince could ascend the stage.

Octavius’ smile grew cold when he stepped onto the stage, though, and saw that there was no room for either the Earthshaker or Sapphire Paladins left. Fortunately, it was only for a few seconds as a pair of first-tier mages sprinted out from behind the stage with two more chairs. Still, the Second Prince was not happy, though he didn’t show it as he sat down next to August as if everything was fine and dandy.

Finally, though, with the theater of the Royal processions over and done with, the Legate came out to the stage with a magical microphone—a metal rod with an opal powering a voice amplifying enchantment—in his hand.

First came the standard ceremonies and speeches that everyone expected—welcome to the Knight Academy, proud servants of the illustrious Bull Kingdom, honor to the Ancestors, blah blah blah. Leon was practically bored to tears within five minutes and barely paid any attention at all, though he did his best to not make it obvious.

The speeches were over in relatively short order, and once he and his people were finished, the Legate stepped back to allow the trainees from the current cycle to take the stage. Leon was quite familiar with this part, as he’d done it just two years previously. The unit who won the FTX was right in the center, and the other nine units were off to either side. Unfortunately, it seemed that it was the Obsidian Cataphracts who’d won this year, and not the Snow Lions.

Following the commencement ceremony came the actual knighting ceremony for the returning squires. The trainees who were moving on to their squireships stepped off the stage and it was time for the returning squires to take the stage. Almost one thousand people emerged from the building behind the stage that the trainees had appeared from and began to make their way toward the stage with practiced efficiency.

The noble squires came out first, and Leon recognized most of their faces. Most of them recognized his, as well, and there were quite a few looks of confusion and some of understanding as the squires advanced toward the stage. Leon didn’t know it, but his absence from the rehearsals had been noted by many of the returning squires.

Leading the pack were the most noble of the squires, those being the children of Dukes. Tiberias and Gaius were the only two whose names Leon actually remembered, and while he had few antagonistic thoughts left about Gaius, he had more than a few toward Tiberias. He expertly reigned in his killing intent, though, and watched impassively as they led the group toward the stairs at the front of the stage, practically parading the graduating squires before the immense crowd.

Following them came the children of lower nobles in descending order, from Marquis all the way down to hereditary knight. Most of the nobles whose faces and names Leon bothered to memorize were in the Counts group, namely his two fellows who led the Snow Lions, Castor and Alphonsus. Marcus and Alcander, who led the Steel Century, the men behind the alliance that tried to take down the Snow Lions at the end of the FTX, were also faces that Leon recognized, and who clearly recognized him in turn from the way they stared in shock at where Leon was sitting.

Leon also found a few other faces in that group familiar, especially the two who led the Deathbringers along with Gaius, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall their names.

As they walked past, Valeria and Asiya both smiled at him, though the latter was far more cheerful about it, even giving him a short wave. They were in the group of children of hereditary knights as their parents were foreign to the Bull Kingdom and held no landed titles, though they were still of noble blood.

Behind the children of the nobility came the commoners who were graduating. Leon’s friends were in this group—as were a couple other Snow Lions that Leon recognized—and they all exchanged proud smiles and nods as they took their places upon the enormous stage.

“These young squires have served with faith and loyalty, honoring both their Ancestors and the Kingdom they call home!” the Legate said into his mic, his voice echoing throughout the parade grounds. “Come, now, Sirs and Dames, and bestow upon them their just rewards!”

At that signal, the knights that the squires had been assigned under rose from their seats and made their way toward the stage. There was one for every squire, about thousand knights in total, with the most noble of the squires in front and the commoners near the back. Octavius similarly rose and made his way over to Gaius right at the front of the group of squires.

The knighting ceremony passed quickly, with the squires taking a knee and their knights going through the motions. The knights listed the deeds of the squires during their two years, but with about a thousand people talking at once, Leon wasn’t able to pick out any details regarding anyone he knew.

Once it was done, the newly-made knights rose from their knees and stood proudly before the Kingdom. They were to be the newest generation of leaders in the Bull Kingdom, and the crowd thunderously applauded their approval.

Or they applauded for Prince Octavius, which Leon thought more likely, though there was certainly some genuine cheering in the crowd here and there.

“But these former squires and new knights are not the only ones deserving of honor…” the Legate stated, his rumbling voice quieting the surprised crowd. “There is one more man who is graduating from the Knight Academy today…”

Leon immediately began to sweat and shake in anxiety as the Legate turned his eyes in Leon’s direction. That one look filled Leon with more dread than he had felt in a long time, and his face immediately drained of color.

“Two years ago, Leon Ursus departed from this institution a third-tier squire, and today he returns a sixth-tier knight!”