The Storm King

Teira was much the same as it had been when Leon last passed through it.  The Julian Road was flanked by large marble statues of heroic figures, all of which were painted.  The entrances to the city proper were gates built into triumphal arches, and everywhere Leon looked, he could see evidence of the city’s prosperity.  That it had been the site of bitter fighting when Brimstone and Minerva had come through could barely be seen thanks to the efforts of the Legion engineers who took pains to rebuild much of the infrastructure that had been damaged.  Only a few cleared areas where buildings clearly once stood spoke of the harm that had been done to the city.

Leon briefly wondered if the slums on the northern side of the city received such treatment.  He doubted that Minerva would consciously exclude them from any needed repairs for any reason, but he couldn’t help but wonder anyway.

As the Heaven’s Eye caravan wound its way through the city, Leon’s eyes were glued to the window.  The streets were crowded, and the people went about their business without any widespread fear that Leon could detect.  He didn’t have much emotional attachment to the city, but Leon was still glad to see that the seat of his family’s power for tens of thousands of years hadn’t been ruined.

When the caravan arrived at the Heaven’s Eye Tower, Leon, Valeria, Elise, and Maia all got out of their carriage.  Anzu was also brought out, and after letting Leon give him some head pats, he was led off to the stables while the caravan proceeded on to Ajax’s palace.  Elise had written ahead, so Leon knew they’d be staying with Ajax while they were in the city.  However, he wanted to stop by the Tower before doing anything else.

Upon walking in through the front doors, Leon paused.  He vividly remembered walking in almost five years ago, completely unsure of what he was doing, where he was supposed to go, or who he was supposed to talk to.  He’d been overwhelmed with the opulence of the Tower and its patrons and found himself completely lost.

And then he met Elise.  He’d been captivated by her from the moment he first saw her.  Standing there in the Tower entrance brought all of those memories pouring back, and Leon’s lips turned upward into a bright smile.

Elise slid up against him from behind, entwining her fingers with his.  Leon turned to her, his golden eyes locking with hers.  Neither said a word, but from the smiles they exchanged, they knew they were thinking about the exact same thing.

The moment quickly passed, and the group advanced further into the Tower.  Ajax was going to meet them in his office, so they made for the magic lifts in the back, ignoring the looks the wealthy-looking patrons gave them as they passed.  Elise was relatively well-known among the city’s elite after spending two years working in this Tower, and she knew she’d been recognized by several of the local nobles relaxing in the lounge.  But she didn’t once entertain the thought of wasting time to go around to greet these people.

Only a few minutes later, they were on the top floor with Elise knocking on the door of Ajax’s office.

Long seconds passed in silence as they waited for word to enter.  When none came, Elise gave the others a strange look and knocked again.

Once more, the door remained closed and no one permitted them to enter.

“That’s strange…” Elise quietly said.

“Is he not in?” Leon wondered aloud.

“Maybe…  It’s not like him to be far from his offices, though.  But now that I’m thinking about it, it is strange that he didn’t greet us downstairs…  Even if he were busy, there should’ve been someone waiting for us.”

“Do you think he thought we’d go to his palace and is waiting for us there?” Valeria conjectured.

“No, I specifically told him that he didn’t have to take off of work just for us and that we’d meet him here…”

Elise knocked again and again received no answer.

“Hold on a moment,” she said, quickly walking back down the hall and opening one of the smaller doors branching off of it.  “You!” Leon heard her call out. 

“Ah!  Lady Elise!” came the slightly panicked and surprised reply.

“Greetings!  I’m looking for my uncle, do you know where he might be?”

A moment later, Elise stepped away from the door as a young man—clearly one of Ajax’s secretaries—appeared.  He was rather slight of frame and build, but his dark brown eyes and easy-going smile gave an impression of a warm and intelligent young man.

“My Lady, there was a security incident last night, and I believe Lord Ajax is still dealing with it…” the man said, his tone one of utmost respect.

“What?  What security incident?!” Elise demanded, a hint of panic entering her voice.  Leon could understand that reaction, for this was Heaven’s Eye, security incidents just weren’t supposed to happen here.

The secretary paused for a moment as he cast a suspicious look toward Leon, Valeria, and Maia, but with Elise still there silently pressuring him to answer, he must’ve figured that it wasn’t worth questioning them when Elise was right in front of him.  So, he joined them in the hall and began his explanation.

---

It was a day like any other for Ajax.  It was spent pouring over various documents that required his attention—mostly communiques from various nobles inquiring after their property.  There was a higher volume than usual, but he understood that there were a lot of people who were anxious about their valuables and other accounts they held with Heaven’s Eye now that the civil war was over.

Still, it was a lot to keep track of, as well as keeping all of Heaven’s Eye’s operations on the Great Plateau running smoothly.  But it was a job that Ajax took to remarkably well.  He enjoyed his free time, to be sure, but he wasn’t nearly so carnal or hedonistic as his sister Emilie down in the capital, taking new husbands and concubines whenever she started getting bored, but it was Heaven’s Eye that he lived for, and its great mission.

Ajax was working late into the night, for Elise and Leon were arriving sometime around noon the following day.  He wanted his plate to be completely clean for when they arrived to ensure that he could spend time with his niece and her lover.  Consequently, save for a relatively small complement of guards and a handful of Ajax’s own assistants, the Tower was completely empty.

Suddenly, a bright red light appeared near the front of Ajax’s desk and began silently flashing like a strobe.  Ajax’s heart almost stopped as it captured his attention.  He knew what that light meant, but he’d never seen it activated before.

It was the silent alarm.

Pressing one of his fingers down on the light, a light projection appeared in front of him like a screen, while his desk became covered in runic circles like a console, allowing him to control most of the major security enchantments that filled the Tower at his leisure.

Quickly sweeping most of the papers off his desk, Ajax pressed his fingers down in the center of several runic circles, and the light screen in front of him changed from pitch black to showing him the source of the alarm: the offices for the Heaven’s Eye blood mages on the fourth floor.  Standing behind the main desk was one of the senior blood mages, an older third-tier man who had forgotten more about blood magic than most people would ever learn.  Standing just behind him was a tall woman with strawberry blond hair, sharp features, and, from what the enchantments were indicating, an aura stronger than the fifth-tier.

Judging by how she’d managed to get into the Tower without him sensing it, Ajax guessed her power was much higher than the fifth-tier.

Clearly, she’d taken the blood mage captive.  He wasn’t even supposed to be working right now, and from the look of terror on the old man’s face, Ajax didn’t think for a moment that he was there willingly.

They were in the middle of some kind of ritual, with several glass orbs in front of the old man.  Single droplets of blood were suspended in the orbs, and the orbs themselves sat in the center of several enchantments that the old man was manipulating with his magic.  Most concerningly was that one of these orbs was wrapped in golden talons which symbolized the head of House Raime.  As far as Ajax knew, it was Kyros’ orb that was still gripped in those talons.

Ajax took all of this in in less than a second, and he activated a few more of the runic circles on his desk.  He didn’t sense anything in the Tower change, but he knew that the Tower’s defenses had been raised to their maximum level.  The magic lifts were locked down, the guard detail had been alerted, and a number of traps and weapons were brought online.

The one that most interested Ajax, though, were light enchantments hidden in the magic lanterns that illuminated the entire Tower.  With only a few quick flicks of his fingers, he could use those lanterns to fire beams of light magic and slice apart anything that he could see.

He would’ve done so immediately if the blond woman weren’t standing directly behind the old man, keeping him too close for Ajax to be comfortable firing the beams without hitting his own employee.

For several long seconds, Ajax hoped he’d get a good angle, but the woman didn’t move from behind the blood mage.  Ajax eventually lost his patience and rose from his desk, though not before sealing almost every door in the Tower and preparing several other traps beforehand.  After he was done, only Ajax and the Heaven’s Eye guard detail would be able to move through the Tower with impunity.

As calmly as he could, Ajax strode out of his office and toward the lift at the end of the hall.

“My Lord!” someone shouted as he passed one of few other doors.

Ajax paused a moment to see who it was and found his sixth-tier head of security walking out of the security office.

“What’s going on?”

“Did you not see the silent alarm activate?” Ajax asked, his concern growing.

“No, My Lord,” the man replied.

Ajax didn’t take long to ponder what that meant.  Dealing with the threat was far more important right now, but it did make him raise his estimation of this woman’s capabilities.

“Someone’s taken one of our blood mages captive…” Ajax explained, quickly filling the guard in on the situation at hand.  “… grab your best people and come with me.  Have everyone else sweep the Tower for any other interlopers.  This is a breach of the highest level, so be careful.”

“Yes, My Lord,” the head of security replied as he ducked back into his office.

He was an efficient man, and in this situation, Ajax appreciated that above all else.  The head of security returned less than a minute later with his three guard-captains, all sixth-tier and decked out in some of the finest weapons and armor that Heaven’s Eye could afford to equip its personnel with.

“My teams are already starting their sweeps,” the head of security said as the five began marching toward the lifts.

“Good,” Ajax whispered, feeling his pulse start to quicken as they stepped into the lift.  They dropped to the fourth floor, all five of them preparing themselves on the way down for what they saw as an inevitable fight.

When the lift stopped and the doors opened, they spilled out into the blood mages office with a precision that would’ve shamed the Royal Legions.

Ajax seemed to be a lot less prepared than the guards, striding out of the lift as if he were walking in a park, but he was ready and able to call upon not only all of his immense magics, but also those of the Tower as well.

The scene that awaited them hadn’t changed from when Ajax had taken his eyes off of it.  Only about five minutes had passed, and the woman was still standing behind the old blood mage watching him as he performed some kind of ritual.

“M-My Lord!” the blood mage cried out as Ajax and his people stormed into the room.

“What is going on here?” Ajax demanded to know, his eyes locked on the woman, his brow rapidly furrowing in concern.  Now that he could put his eyes upon her, he could see that her aura roughly matched his own—she was a seventh-tier mage, and a powerful one at that.  Ajax flooded the room with his magic senses and was gratified to see his guards taking the situation deadly seriously.

The woman glared imperiously at Ajax as if she were daring him to challenge her.  She showed no signs of having been caught doing something off-limits and stood with the pride and confidence of someone who thought without a shadow of a doubt that they belonged where they were—or someone who thought that they were untouchable.

“I had some urgent business to take care of,” she coolly replied.  “Time is of the utmost importance and I couldn’t wait for the Tower to reopen in the morning.

Ajax smiled, but there was no mirth or welcome in the upturning of his lips.  Rather, his smile was predatory, a baring of his teeth in a primal threat to someone trespassing in his territory.

“Theokleos, are you all right?” he asked the blood mage, though his eyes never left the woman.

“Y-Yes, My Lord,” the old blood mage replied.  “This woman snatched me off the street and demanded I test this blood sample she brought!  She threatened my family if I didn’t comply!”

Ajax’s demeanor grew sharper, his hands glowing as they filled with his light mana.

“I’m terribly sorry about that, but lives depend on the results of this test,” the woman said.  She continued to stand there, unmoving even as Ajax’s subordinates began to creep closer and Ajax’s aura became more turbulent and violent.

“You can explain in a cell once we verify your identity,” the Tower Lord growled.  “No one takes my people prisoner and threatens their families!”

Without another word, the four guards surged forward, swords appearing in their hand as they made to secure the woman as quickly and painlessly as they could.

Ajax’s head of security reached her first.  He reached toward her with his empty hand, but even as his fingers were just about to brush her black, almost skintight clothing, she showed no sign of distress.  It became immediately apparent why as the head of security’s fingers phased right through her as if she weren’t there.

‘… Which she isn’t!’ Ajax thought, recognizing the wisps of dark smoke that wafted off of her body at the point of contact between her and the head of security.  She was a user of darkness magic, and the form they could see was nothing more than an illusion.

Without a moment’s pause, Ajax poured all of his magic into an omni-directional attack, letting light radiate from his entire body and fill the office with its brilliance.  Pure white light banished every shadow in the room, wrapping around columns and down behind the desk until the office seemed like nothing more than a featureless white void.  The only control Ajax expended in his use of magic was to protect his subordinates from his deadly rays, even though such wide-ranging attacks weren’t nearly so dangerous as more focused strikes.

He moved not a moment too soon, for his light also froze a pitch black tendril of smoky darkness just before it impaled his head of security in the back, rising from the floor like a stone spike.  Ajax only had to follow that spike into the one shadow that hadn’t been affected by his light and he had the true location of the woman.

Lunging forward at the shadow on the ground in front of the desk, Ajax reached out for it, intending to drag the woman out of the shadow and into his light.  Unfortunately, as his fingers brushed against the shadow, they stopped, unable to proceed no matter how hard he pushed.

The shadow shook under his pressure, though, and slid out from beneath his fingers and shot across the floor.  Ajax followed after it, his body almost becoming a beam of light as he dove after the shadow.

But he wasn’t able to move fast enough, and the shadow slipped under the door frame of the magic lift.

Ajax was stunned.  The defenses of the Tower were raised to their maximum level, that shouldn’t have been possible for only a seventh-tier mage!

But he didn’t let that stop him for long.  With his power and position, the doors were opened a microsecond later, and he raced into the lift.  He couldn’t see the shadow even as light continued shining from his body, indicating that the woman had slipped not into the lift compartment, but into the lift shaft itself.

Roaring in frustration, Ajax slammed the runic circle to take him down to the ground floor.  The lift moved almost pathetically slowly, and once it opened and Ajax stormed into the lounge, the woman’s shadow was long gone, if it had even gone to the ground floor in the first place.  Ajax’s eyes took in every detail of the room, his light banishing every natural shadow that existed, but still there was no sign of the blond woman.

Darting out of the front door—slamming it shut behind him—and into the square just outside, Ajax continued his search, but the woman was nowhere to be seen.

Ajax growled in dissatisfaction and went back inside.  He found several teams of his guards in the lounge waiting for him, half a dozen of whom seemed just about to open the door to join him outside when he strode back in.

As he did, the lift in the back opened and his head of security and two of his three guard-captains came walking out of it.

“I couldn’t stop the trespasser,” Ajax declared.  Keep the Tower on high alert until the morning.  Public operations are to be restricted to the lounge without exception until we either find her or determine that she’s not hiding somewhere in the Tower.”

“Yes, My Lord, I’ll see these orders relayed at once!” the head of security responded.

“Good.  I need to speak with Theokleos.  I want to know what exactly he was being forced to do…”

---

“And she wasn’t found?” Elise asked in alarm.

“I’m afraid not, My Lady,” Ajax’s secretary grimly replied.  “The guards have been sweeping the Tower all night and no sign of her was found.  The only thing we can conclude is that she managed to escape somehow, despite the Tower’s defenses…”

“How is that even possible?!” Elise demanded.

The secretary was at a loss as he couldn’t explain it even if he tried.  He was a paper-pusher, not an expert in the Tower’s defensive wards or in darkness magic.

However, there were a few aspects of this that seemed remarkably familiar to Leon as he listened.  His eyes drifted over toward Maia as he recalled something that she did soon after saving everyone from the vampires who attacked his villa.

She’d killed a darkness mage who’d managed to infiltrate Emilie’s palace that night.