The Storm King

After the Legion messengers arrived to inform the Princess of Asiya and her family’s arrest by the Samar Kingdom, Cristina was in quite the state. But after a few minutes, and with a few exchanged words with Valeria, she pulled herself together, reasserted her Royal dignity, and departed the Heaven’s Eye compound to return to the Bull’s Horns.

Despite initially being completely distraught, when she left, Leon could see steel in her eyes, and her aura radiated with an undercurrent of killing intent. The Princess was furious, moreso than he’d ever seen before.

Valeria wasn’t much more composed, and as they watched the Princess and her guards depart, she seethed beside Leon, barely able to stand still.

“You want to go with?” Leon quietly asked despite already knowing the answer.

And Valeria knew that he knew the answer, and so didn’t verbally respond. Instead, she began to emit an ice-cold aura with far more blatant killing intent than the Princess had just shown.

“Go with them,” Leon said. “I’ll get Elise and Maia, and we’ll meet you at the Horns.”

Without wasting another moment, Valeria took off running after the Princess, and Leon hurriedly returned to the guest house. The entire way, he wondered just how he’d break the news, but no matter what the response might be from anyone—whether that be from Minerva, Aquillius, or anyone else—he was going to go after Asiya. He liked her—maybe not enough to call her a friend, but she was fun to have around, and he knew that Valeria and Elise practically thought of her as a sister.

There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to go after her, whatever the cost may be.

---

“We’ve received word already from the Sultan,” the diplomat Aquillius said to the gathered knights and Legion higher-ups. This included Leon, Valeria, Elise, and Maia, all of whom Princess Cristina, who was also in attendance, had insisted join the meeting.

It almost felt like old times, being there in the war room of the southern Horn. It was the same room where Leon had first met Prince Trajan, where he’d loomed menacingly despite sitting cross-legged on a raised dais while all of his commanders sat in proper seats.

This time, though, it was Cristina who sat upon the dais, while Minerva and Maxima stood off to the side. Aquillius sat just to the right of the dais, giving his report to the two rows of sixth-tier Legates and their adjutants standing behind them.

Aquillius continued, “They’re claiming that Dame Asiya and her family were conspiring against the Sultan, meeting with seditious members of their nobility with the purpose of forming a coalition to rebel against the Sultan and replace him with one of the previous Sultan’s younger sons.”

“When did this happen?” Minerva asked.

“Two days ago,” Aquillius answered.

“Why did they only send word now?” Cristina asked, the same steel that Leon had seen in her eyes now reflected in her tone.

“For two possible reasons,” Aquillius answered. “Either they wanted some time to prepare for our response, given that they arrested a knight in the service of one of our Princesses, or they simply didn’t realize they’d done so until now. I’d say the first possibility is more likely—they’re thinking we’re going to send someone after Dame Asiya to rescue her, and they might think that because she was with those arrested, the Bull Kingdom might be sponsoring rebellion in their Kingdom.”

“Or,” a high-ranking diplomat that Leon didn’t recognize sitting next to Aquillius suggested, “these are just trumped-up charges that they know are false, but are using to capture exiled dissidents, and they don’t want us coming after our knight, which might expose their duplicity and weaken their credibility.”

“No matter the case, they don’t want us going after Dame Asiya,” Aquillius replied.

“To the hells with that,” Cristina practically growled. “They took my knight. I want her back, and I want blood paid in recompense.” Aquillius shot her a shocked look, and she rolled her eyes and added, “I’d settle for just getting my knight back.”

“There has to be an official response,” Minerva stated, her tone cold and even, though Leon knew her well enough to see that she was just as furious at the Samar Kingdom as Cristina was. “We can’t just let them seize our knights with impunity.”

“Sending Legion soldiers across the Gulf will only incite another war,” Aquillius pointed out.

“They’ve always been weaker than us,” Minerva dismissively replied. “Their armies don’t stand a chance against us here in the Horns, and their navy is too small to cross the Gulf in threatening numbers. A good strike force can recover our knight and chastise them against making such rash moves again.”

Leon like the sound of that plan, but he understood why Aquillius just sighed and looked like he was trying to push a boulder uphill. He knew that Trajan had always believed the Samar Kingdom to be too weak to present a direct threat to the Bull Kingdom, but their southern neighbor had been at peace for more than a decade. They might see that the Bull Kingdom had just come down from an invasion by Talfar, ravaged by a civil war, and then mauled by the Serpentine Islanders, and thought that they might try to push against Bull dominance within the Gulf of Discord.

“That would require authorization by His Majesty, Dame Minerva,” Aquillius tiredly replied. “And I would caution against starting another war while we’re still recovering from the last one.”

“They are starting a war, Sir Aquillius!” Cristina insisted. “They took my knight! I won’t stand for it!”

“And we can’t let them trample over our sovereignty!” Minerva added.

“And we won’t!” Aquillius assured them, though it seemed his assurances were lost on Cristina and Minerva. However, with a glance around the room, he could see that they were resonating with many of the other Legion knights in the room—Minerva and Cristina may be willing to fight for Asiya, but there weren’t many others in the room who shared that willingness.

Aquillius continued, “There are diplomatic solutions. We’ll send a delegation to demand the return of our knight. We’ll get her back.”

“In how long??” Cristina demanded to know. “Before or after she’s been sold to some noble who wants a new concubine? Before or after she’s been executed for treason? Before or after she’s spent a year or more languishing in a tiny, filthy prison cell, being subjected to who knows what?!”

“Dame Asiya is strong, Your Highness,” Aquillius insisted, his tone calm and soothing even in the face of Cristina’s rising anger. “We’ll get her back long before any of that happens. No matter if she and her family are from the south, they’re still under the protection of the Bull King, and that means that they’ll be treated well.”

Cristina looked unconvinced, and Leon was, too. It had been more than two days since they’d gotten word of Asiya’s arrest—she could be just about anywhere within the Samar Kingdom by now. They could’ve put her on a ship and sailed her down the coast to one of their bigger and more well-defended cities, or they could’ve taken her to some black site in the middle of the unpopulated desert that made up the majority of the Samar Kingdom’s territory.

What Leon did know, though, was that every moment wasted on debate lowered their chances of finding Asiya. Already, he and Maia had both bathed as much of the Gulf in their powerful magic senses as they could, but hadn’t been able to find her or her parents.

He and his family were in the back, not quite participating in the meeting since they weren’t members of the Legion or any other Bull Kingdom government post, so he didn’t feel at all awkward about leaning into Elise’s ear and whispering, “I’ll meet you back at the guest house; I can’t stand listening to this any longer. I’m going scouting.”

Elise turned toward Leon, a look of reproach and anger on her face until a moment later when what he was saying clicked in her head.

“If anyone asks, we just decided to leave until they make a decision,” he said, and he nodded his head at Maia, who nodded back.

Elise lightly frowned in thought, then gave the two a nod of her own, giving them her tacit permission to leave. Valeria heard the quiet exchange, and she nodded as well, leaving them with no other obligations to anyone in the room. Together, they slipped out of the meeting, ignoring the few looks of surprise they drew as they left.

Once outside, Leon whispered into Maia’s mind, [Can you shadow me from the coast?]

[Yes,] Maia replied.

[They might’ve taken them west by ship, or south into the desert. Would the latter matter to you?]

[I would find it uncomfortable, but the sand is nothing more than irritating. I’ll be fine and my powers won’t be affected too much.]

Leon smiled.

[What if they’ve kept Asiya and her family in the city?]

[A possibility,] Leon admitted as they exited the Bull’s Horns and returned to Ariminium, [but not one I think likely. There aren’t many defenses down there—certainly not enough to repel even a single Legion, let alone us. The only reason I can think of to keep Asiya and her parents there would be as a provocation.]

[Maybe that’s what it is, then?]

Leon cocked his head in thought. [Again, maybe, but I don’t think so. Maybe there are war hawks in Samar who want war with the Bull Kingdom while they think it weak, and they’re trying to start something by arresting a Bull knight. But I think this is more of an internal issue that Asiya just found herself caught up in.]

Leon remembered the talk he had with Asiya’s parents the week before. They had told him that they were simply trying to return home and end their exile, not install a new Sultan. He couldn’t say if they were lying or not, but he was inclined to believe not—otherwise, they wouldn’t have allowed their daughter to come with them, in his mind. He figured this was just a ploy being used by the Sultan or someone close to him to get rid of potential threats outside of their borders. If Asiya’s family were taken out of the picture, then those in the Samar Kingdom wouldn’t have to worry about them soliciting Bull intervention in their politics.

A reasonable worry, he supposed, and if his guess was right, it was a tactic he might have to remember when he started to properly build his own state.

Leon and Maia made their way through the winding streets of the city until they arrived at the Heaven’s Eye compound. From there, they had access to the Gulf through nearby canals that allowed Heaven’s Eye merchant ships to directly enter and exit the enclave.

Operating almost with one mind, the two separated, with Maia making her way to the canal to melt into the water, while Leon returned to their guest house, where he undressed in their private courtyard and transformed into his avian form.

However, there was one last problem he wanted to try and take care of: his avian body was large and eye-catching—there weren’t many birds flying around that were twice the height of a full-grown man, after all. To that end, he wondered if his ring of invisibility would work on him in that form. He was much larger, and he had no finger upon which the ring could be anchored, but he felt it was worth a try.

He was in a hurry, so he only allowed himself a few minutes to experiment. Unfortunately, those few minutes were fruitless, as no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get the ring on his talon, nor could he get it to activate and shield him from view.

With a sigh, he pulled the ring back into his soul realm and filed the idea away for later. Being able to transform was one thing, but if he could figure out how to both transform and be invisible… His beak wasn’t capable of salivating, but he still felt the sensation of his mouth watering at the thought.

Without further ado, with a burst of wind magic and a mighty flap of his enormous wings, Leon took off from the courtyard and shot into the air more than a hundred feet above the city of Ariminium. That far up, he was hardly inconspicuous, but the vast majority of people only looked in front of them, not above, and the buildings in the city were generally more than two stories tall, further preventing people from staring. However, just in case, with a few more flaps of his wings, Leon vanished into the light cloud cover in the sky. There weren’t enough clouds to completely shield him from unwanted gazes as he flew southward, but he flew more than high enough that when he wasn’t covered by a cloud, from the perspective of someone on the ground without anything else to compare him to in the bright blue sky, he wasn’t notable at all.

Down below, he could sense Maia following his lead as he quickly left the Bull Kingdom’s waters and followed the coast first south across the Tyrrhenian River delta, and then quickly westward. The Samar port city wasn’t far, only a few miles away, so he arrived above it in minutes.

It was a starkly different city compared to Ariminium. Despite it being on the coast and having essentially the same building resources and general environment around it as Ariminium did, it was still clearly of a different architectural tradition.

Most of the buildings were only a single story, featuring high arches on those that were larger; dozens of tall, thin towers scattered throughout the city that were warded against magic senses; and on a hill about a mile inland lay what were obviously the palaces and offices of those who ruled the city. Most of the buildings in the city were made of either plain gray stone or local wood, but these palaces and important buildings were made of glossy black glass that glistened in the light of the afternoon sun. Much like the palace of Asiya’s parents back in the Bull Kingdom’s capital, Leon could detect a number of enchantments within the walls that altered how light interacted with the glass—most of it seemed to be absorbed, reflecting little; however, Leon knew that at least some light would pass through the glass walls, dying the interior in various shades according to the tastes of the inhabitants.

It was a spectacular style of construction, and one made even moreso by the grand scale some of these palaces were built in. The largest of the palaces was where he initially focused his attention—it had one large building sitting at the center of its complex, built with a square footprint of more than five hundred per side, with a large domed roof with a diameter of at least two hundred feet at its base sitting in the center of the building over what Leon assumed to be its main hall. Unlike the rest of the building, which largely retained its black color aside from a few brightly-hued highlights, the dome, while still made of the same glassy material, was entirely gold. In front of this main building was a large courtyard flanked by a many-columned peristyle, which covered paths and walkways to other, smaller buildings in the palace complex.

He could see dozens of people walking through and within the smaller buildings and courtyard, and from their appearances, he judged this building to be the central administration building for the city. Unfortunately, the main palace building was warded against magic senses, so he couldn’t see much more than that.

[Can you sense Asiya or her parents?] Leon asked to Maia, who was sitting just outside of the city’s relatively small port.

[No,] Maia replied.

Leon’s avian face couldn’t scowl, but he tried to, anyway. There were many buildings here that could house her, and there were no good ways for him to check. Unless… He was an eighth-tier mage, and one that lacked any affiliations that he might have to reasonably consider upon whom consequences might fall.

[Maia,] he whispered to his river nymph lover, [I’m thinking of making a scene to try and draw out someone important. Be ready for anything.]

[I’m with you, my mate,] Maia replied.

That was all Leon needed to hear. With a terrific clap of thunder that he guessed could be heard all the way back in the Bull’s Horns, he descended in a deadly dive upon the courtyard of this palace building.

In the center of the courtyard stood a large fountain, the center of which had been decorated with a tall flat-toped pillar that had been covered in geometric patterns. The pillar was big enough that he alighted upon it with little trouble, to the shock and panic of the nearby lower-tiered bureaucrats, who scrambled away from him as quickly as they could. He helped them in their flight by beating his wings a few times, filling the courtyard with great gusts of wind that picked many of the bureaucrats up and hurled them into the peristyle.

Almost immediately, a high-pitched alarm went off in the palace, and over the next half-minute, a complement of a hundred heavily-armed guards swarmed out into the courtyard, most brandishing spears about eight feet long. These guards were fairly strong, all things considered, being mostly third-tier or above, but Leon hardly felt threatened when they were led by only a single sixth-tier mage.

“Be careful!” the sixth-tier mage shouted in the common language, his accent pleasantly lilting and trilling in a way that Asiya and her parents hadn’t. “This thing is powerful! Defend the people and don’t provoke it!”

If Leon could smile, he would’ve. It was a good and honorable order, and one that endeared him to the guard captain. However, for his purposes, he couldn’t let that show in his behavior.

He fixed the guard captain in a steely gaze, his avian eyes locking upon the man as the full weight of his killing intent crashed down upon him.

To his credit, the guard captain remained standing, but his eyes went wide, his long, curved saber began to shake in his grip, and his knees grew noticeably weak.

Leon flapped his wings again, and accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder, sent a great gust of wind through the courtyard, throwing all of the guards back and sending many of their weapons scattering.

It was then that the great double doors of the main palace complex swung open, and an additional two hundred guards came streaming out. These guards were more heavily armed and armored, and were generally of higher tier, but none were strong enough for Leon to feel even a twinge of fear or anxiety.

Leading them was a striking man, dressed in red silk embroidered with gold; weaponless, but with a strong sixth-tier aura that gave Leon the impression he was a fire mage. He was handsome, had long, curled black hair, an impressive beard, and the air command about him.

“What is the meaning of this?!” the man roared at Leon, and Leon was unsure if he thought the great bird in front of him would respond, or if he was just expressing his anger and shock at what was happening. Turning his attention to the guards that were surrounding the central fountain and brandishing their weapons at Leon, he shouted, “We defend this city! By the order of the Sultan! All who threaten its people and its interests will fall by my hand!”

This man showed no fear at how obviously outclassed he was in terms of raw power, but any feelings of endearment in Leon fell away as the man conjured and hurled a great fireball at him. However, with only a single beat of his wings, the fireball burst upon a wall of air and was blown back in the man’s face.

It was hardly going to be a damaging blow, but it stunned the man long enough for Leon to make his move. He got the impression that this was a man important enough to know the goings-on in the city, so he erupted from the pillar with another wingbeat forceful enough to send the guards behind him soaring through the courtyard, and himself soaring above the rest of the guards.

The important man he targeted was fortunately not thrown back into the main palace by the backblast of his attack, leaving him open for Leon’s outstretched talons, which wrapped around him so quickly he barely had enough time to recover from the shock of his attack being reflected before he was being carried off into the sky.

At about a hundred feet up, Leon felt the man start to try to burn his way out of Leon’s talons, but to no effect. Leon’s fire magic was much more powerful than his, and the man succeeded in doing nothing more than slightly singing the scales covering Leon’s legs.

The rest of the people in the courtyard could only watch as Leon carried the man off into the sky, soon disappearing into the clouds and vanishing into the distance.