The Storm King

Alix’s fight started with a bang. Neither woman seemed willing to take the more defensive posture that Marcus and his opponent had, and so launched themselves at each other with all they had.

It made Leon fairly nervous, but it also gave him more than enough time to inspect Alix’s opponent’s fighting style.

When the two had entered the ring, once again, Talal didn’t instigate any betting, and Leon didn’t want to start anything. As it was, he already felt like, with how hatefully Talal was staring at him, this was starting to go too far, especially since the crowd was not on his side. Even with his people winning against the odds given by the people running the fights, it seemed that they were making more people angry than they were entertaining them.

Fortunately, it seemed that this fight was going to be over quickly, without a need for a second round.

Alix pulled back a little, letting her opponent hit her with a flurry of blows while she let her aura sag and her killing intent abate. To anyone else, it would seem like she was tiring or starting to feel the hits she was taking. However, Leon had fought alongside Alix for a long time, now, and had even taught her much of what had formed her personal fighting style; he could tell that she was faking, drawing her opponent in and enticing her to commit more and more to offense, to the detriment of her defense.

It was a risky strategy, and one that struck a stark contrast between how the fight had started less than a minute ago. But it seemed that her initial intent was paying off, as Alix’s opponent smiled viciously and began striking harder and faster, pressing Alix hard, who was busy keeping her hands up and dodging wherever she could.

And then, with less than ten seconds left in the round, Alix seemed to explode with magic power, with her retracted aura erupting from her with an almost physical force, laced with her killing intent. After even just a few seconds with it gone, her opponent was caught completely off-guard, and was subsumed completely within Alix’s killing intent; she froze with the instinctive terror of someone unexpectedly coming across some terrible monster that they knew without a shadow of a doubt could and very well might end their life.

Alix didn’t go that far, but she did take advantage of every microsecond that her opponent gave her, and slammed her fist first into her opponent’s liver, jabbed at a few key pressure points, and then swept her opponent’s leg out from under her, all in barely more than a second.

Alix’s opponent went down hard, and she didn’t get back up. She just lay on the floor of the ring, curling up and moaning in pain.

“Ha ha!” Alix shouted in triumph as she raised her arms toward the crowd, and then further toward the sky. Then, she wobbled a bit on her feet, the damage taken during her brief feint just now hitting her.

Without another word, but still with her victorious grin plastered across her face, she lowered her arms and staggered back over to Leon in her corner.

“Well done,” he said appreciatively as he helped her out of the ring and passed a healing spell into her hand.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” she replied as she pressed the spell into her forearm.

“Me? I didn’t do a thing other than watch you win,” Leon said with a laugh.

“Count it as inspiration, then. I remember you telling me how you did something similar during your time in the Knight Academy.”

“Yeah,” Alcander muttered next to her, a hint of bitterness in his voice. “He used it on us.”

“It was a good, if risky strategy,” Marcus added. “If it went wrong, though, I think everyone would be calling you a fool.”

“That’s why I waited until the round was almost over,” Alix explained with a prideful tone. “Didn’t want to spend the entire round getting my ass handed to me trying and failing to do that from the start.”

As they spoke, Leon glanced around the room and saw that Talal was just as furious as before, though Leon noted that it seemed his rage was only directed in his and his retainers’ direction; the fighters who’d lost to Leon’s people weren’t being shouted at or abused. Leon didn’t take that to mean much—Talal could still do that behind closed doors, for all Leon would know—but he at least took it as a sign that the oily man wasn’t completely filled with hate.

“Hey,” Leon interrupted as his retainers gushed over their wins, “let’s head back.”

“So soon?” Alcander complained. “We’ve only had one fight each!”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind staying a bit longer,” said Marcus. “Surely some friendly fights with people who aren’t trying to kill us can only expand out horizons?”

“The keyword there is ‘friendly’,” Leon noted, and he subtly nodded to the spectators around them. “We’re not in the friendliest crowd. Let’s head out before we step on too many toes.”

Alix and Alcander for a moment looked like they were about to continue to protest, but after a look around, Marcus spoke up in agreement with Leon. With great reluctance, the two got to their feet, and all four made their way toward the exit.

“Thanks for accommodating us, but we’re going to have to call it here,” Leon said good-naturedly to the fight manager on their way out, who spared him only the briefest of acknowledging glances.

At the door, Leon took a quick look back, noting that nearly everyone in the bar was watching them leave in a manner that had him feeling extremely exposed. He may be more powerful than everyone in the room combined, but the sheer weight of the social pressure put upon him and his people was deeply uncomfortable.

Talal, in particular, stared after him with a look of… well, Leon couldn’t quite tell, but he felt that this wasn’t the last time he’d see the Samarid.

Stepping back into the early night, he found that in his few second’s pause at the door, his three retainers had already immersed themselves in a lively debate about where to go and what to do next.

“… under good authority that it’s an extremely nice club,” Alix advocated.

“That may be the case, but a club is hardly my sort of place,” Alcander responded with a deep frown, his arms flexing with restrained energy. “Somewhere where I can hit some more people would be my choice.”

“You can hit people at a club,” Alix pointed out. “Just depends on how drunk you get, and how drunk they are. Might get us all banned for life, though.”

“Hardly matters; not like we’re planning on making it up to this city often,” Marcus countered.

“True,” Alix acceded, “but I’d rather not make a habit of getting kicked out of every fun place we visit on our way south.”

“If you don’t get kicked out, though, did you really have a good time?” Alcander inquired, and Leon honestly couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. Alcander then clapped Marcus on the back and added, “I think if it weren’t for our family names, we would’ve gotten kicked out of quite a few places back home!”

Alcander punctuated his statement with a booming laugh, and Marcus couldn’t help but join in.

After a moment, though, Marcus quieted down and said, “I’ve a hunger, though not for food. Did your source say this club is a good place to pick up some ladies?”

“I don’t know about ladies,” Alix said with a wry smile, “but she did say that it was a good place to find some seriously fuckable guys…”

“That’ll do, I guess,” Marcus said with a shrug. “Count me in for that club. Al?”

With a sigh of contemplation, Alcander replied, “Yeah, I’m in. If nothing else, there should still be drinks.”

In tandem, all three finally turned to Leon, eyes bright with expectation.

“How about you, boss?” Marcus asked. “Feel like staying out a little longer?”

There was absolutely nothing that Leon wanted to do more than to leave. He was fighting his embarrassment and mortification at the reception the four of them had received in the fighting pit, and the thought of staying out even longer in a place like a club did not appeal. However, the reason he’d accompanied everyone to begin with was to build up the bonds within his retinue, not so much for the ‘fun’ that he could have at such a place.

With tremendous reluctance that he hid as best as he could, Leon agreed, and the other three happily led him onward. All the while, he felt like he’d just made a terrible mistake.

---

“Had some fun out there, husband?” Elise asked with amusement as Leon walked back into the Heaven’s Eye guest house. Over his shoulder he’d easily draped the massive unconscious form of Alcander, while next to him, Marcus and Alix were stumbling with their arms over the other’s shoulders for support and balance.

“Fun, of a sort,” Leon grumbled as he unceremoniously dumped Alcander’s body onto a nearby sofa, where Valeria and Maia walked over to curiously inspect him.

“Ugh!” Valeria groaned as she immediately recoiled. “He smells like a brewery in the worst way!”

“Yeah,” Leon responded as he herded Marcus and Alix into seats of their own. “Not really sure what he drank, but I think he underestimated how effective it would be on a fourth-tier mage. Whatever it was, he drank a lot of it. These two weren’t any better.”

“What happened?” Elise wondered as she got up and walked over.

Leon quickly narrated the night’s events, starting first with the short time they spent in the fighting pits. By the time he finished with that, both Marcus and Alix, who’d interjected several times with their own slurred, drunken additions, had fallen asleep.

“… so we went out to a club.”

“A club?!” Valeria cried in disbelief. “You went to a club?!”

Leon shrugged, a look of muted disgust on his face. “Yeah. Yeah I did. Kind of wish I didn’t, but I did.”

“Was it really that bad?” Elise inquired, a smile of pity and skepticism spreading across her lips.

“Loud, harsh music, hundreds of people in too small a space, all dancing and shaking on one another? Not my scene. It’s clearly to other’s tastes, but not mine. Never mine.”

Leon, by this point, had collapsed into a nearby chair, and as he expressed his exasperation, Valeria walked over and hugged his head from behind.

“I think our little misanthrope protests too much,” she whispered as she winked at Elise. “Maybe we ought to take him to more clubs, see if we can’t get him a taste for the night life? Or at least raise his tolerance a bit?”

“A wonderful idea!” Elise enthused, which was immediately followed by a loud groan from Leon.

He pushed himself free from Valeria’s tight embrace and declared, “Never. Never again. Hate those places. No more.”

“I think it sounds like a lot of fun,” Elise protested with a teasing look in her eye. “And if you don’t want to come with, I’m sure there are plenty of other guys around who might want to act as our escorts—”

She was barely able to finish her jest before Leon shot to his feet, crossed over to her in the blink of an eye, picked her up quite handily, and tossed her down on a nearby empty sofa. Then, he crawled over her prone form, a lion about to take his mate.

But then, as their eyes drew level, hers glittering, baiting, his jealous and territorial, he paused, and his gaze turned a little more serious.

“Do you really want to go to places like that?” he asked.

“I want to go everywhere with you,” she quipped. But when his eyes narrowed slightly, she added, “It sounds like it can be a lot of fun if you go with people you enjoy being around.”

“I do enjoy being around them, for what that’s worth,” Leon quietly said, jerking his head back toward his three passed out retainers. “Well, when they’re sober.”

With a shout of triumph that interrupted Elise’s attempt to reply, Valeria leaped up and landed on Leon’s back, hugging him from behind.

“Gotcha!” she declared. But then her tone and demeanor changed to match Leon’s more earnest attitude. “I doubt either me or Elise will let ourselves go nearly so much as these three. I think you might actually enjoy yourself if you don’t have to worry about keeping an eye on your retainers, making sure they’re all right and aren’t starting fights or getting into trouble. That’s what you were doing all night, wasn’t it? Not cutting loose and having fun, but watching out for the people you’re responsible for?”

Leon sighed, giving no other answer than that, but with Valeria and Elise, no other answer was needed; they knew that was exactly what had happened. Leon had spent the night as the only sober person among a group of drunks and had about as much fun as that implied.

“Maybe not a club,” Elise then said, “but it would be nice to get out and about when we get the chance, especially before we leave the northeast. To my understanding there aren’t many large cities in the Wetlands and finding a place to have fun will be nearly impossible until we get to the Ilian Empire. Will you go with us, husband?”

Again, Leon sighed, and again, that was all the answer either Elise or Valeria needed. While he was of the mind that spending time with his lovers was never a waste, pushing outside of his social comfort zone was not something he was eager to do. But for them, he would, without any real hesitation.

Elise reached up and touched Leon’s cheeks, taking his head into her hands. She pulled him down to press her lips against his, but then just as quickly, pushed him back and turned her head toward Maia.

“And you?” she asked. “Fancy seeing what kinds of things good, wholesome people like us get up to at night?”

[If you expect me to ‘dance and shake’ on someone else, you’ll be disappointed,] Maia growled into all three of their minds. Her expression was one of stony indifference, but then it softened just a bit, and she added, [But I’ll go, too.]

“Wonderful!” Elise shouted, and she pulled Leon down for another kiss. This time, she didn’t break it all that soon, and at the same time, Valeria wrapped her legs around Leon’s waist and pressed her face into his neck. Maia seemed to take that as a challenge, and her expression soon morphed into something predatory.

Leon watched her sashaying over from the corner of his eye, and even with Elise seemingly trying to suck his face off, his lips started to widen into a smile of anticipation. It seemed his night wasn’t even close to being over, yet. The only question that remained was how they were all going to get to the master bedroom without breaking their embrace.

A tricky riddle, but one that Leon was eager to solve.

---

Leon was awoken the next morning by loud, but respectful knocking on his bedroom door. Elise and Maia lay next to him, both stirring, but neither quite awake just yet. With a deep sigh, he disentangled himself from their limbs, dressed himself with clothes from his soul realm, and went to crack the door just enough to see who was outside.

It was a Heaven’s Eye messenger, who informed him of an invitation Emilie had extended to him to meet with the local Heaven’s Eye managers. He wasn’t that thrilled at the idea, but he figured that if Emilie was taking the time to send him the invitation, then it had to be worthwhile. He told the messenger that he’d be there, and then he shut the door.

Looking back at the bed, there was nothing he wanted to do more than crawl back beneath the covers and go back to sleep. But Maia and Elise were already stirring, and while some morning sex might be on the table, sleeping in wasn’t.

He sighed as he walked back over and sat down at the edge of the bed, remembering the previous night—or rather, that morning. He and Valeria had yet to go all the way, but they’d given each other a satisfying amount of physical attention while Elise and Maia went at each other. However, after some time spent focusing on each other, Valeria then left him with the other two, choosing to go to sleep in her guest room rather than stay with the three of them.

Given how much longer he, Maia, and Elise continued showering each other with affection for, Leon couldn’t entirely blame her for that, but he still wished she would’ve stayed. She would never share a bed with Elise or Maia in that way, but Leon couldn’t help but wish that things were different.

It was what it was, though, and for all his wishing, he wasn’t going to put any pressure on Valeria to change. As Elise and Maia awoke, the three kissed each other good morning—or good afternoon, Leon wasn’t entirely sure—and Leon properly got up and readied himself for the day.

An hour later, he was walking into the central administration building for Akhmim’s Heaven’s Eye branch, guided by a Heaven’s Eye attendant.

It was a far cry from the Heaven’s Eye Towers he was used to—while an important trade city, Akhmim wasn’t anywhere near important enough to warrant a Tower. The biggest difference was that it was just an administrative building, rather than the lounge-market-bureaucratic center that the Towers were, and while richly decorated, it wasn’t even close to the luxury that Leon had, by now, come to associate with Heaven’s Eye.

It wasn’t long before Leon was taken to the conference room where Emilie would introduce the local Heaven’s Eye management to him.

On his entrance, Leon was struck at how small the room was, with it seeming more akin to a sitting room with only about half a dozen plush armchairs arranged around a low, rectangular table rather than a large business conference room. There were several stacks of paper on the table, and three of the men sitting on the same side of the table were hunched over even more sheets of paper, quietly speaking with each other in tones low enough that Leon didn’t bother to listen in.

Of the three remaining people, all of whom sat facing away from the door, one was Emilie, who was smiling and laughing as Leon walked in, deep in conversation with another woman just to her right who was dressed all in black. The man to her left, however, Leon needed no introduction to, for he’d ‘met’ him only the night previous.

Leon froze just inside the door, his eyes wide with disbelief and recognition, then narrowing slightly in suspicion and antipathy. The others around the table quieted down upon his entrance and turned to face him. Emilie’s smile grew wider, and she warmly welcomed Leon into the meeting.

Talal, on the other hand, quietly rose from his seat and turned to face Leon, his expression morphing from one that reflected Leon’s disbelief, to one of deep fear and regret as the reality of Leon’s presence sank in.