“WHERE IS HE?!” she shouted. “WHERE IS VROTHGAR?!”

In the face of Ingrid’s wrath, the dozens of men and women in the hangar went completely silent, a palpable aura of fear settling within. They faced only two people: Leon and Ingrid—Leon had sent his friends and family to meet up with Gwarim, though they were still on call if anything with him and Ingrid turned violent—and yet none of them could muster an immediate answer.

“You!” she continued as a spear blazing with red-gold lightning appeared in her hand, blade pointed toward a sixth-tier mage who’d been directing some of the hangar workers when they arrived, and who had practically frozen with dread and terror writ large upon his face. “Deck Chief Johan! Is Vrothgar still upon my ark?!”

Emotions twisted on Johan’s face, most related to fear, but he still managed to muster a response.

“My Everlasting Lady,” he managed to whisper, “Strategos Vrothgar—”

“Afford him no titles!” Ingrid interjected.

There wasn’t a moment of hesitance on Johan’s part as he said, “Vrothgar departed this ark upon arrival six days ere and hasn’t returned since as far as I’m aware…”

The spear in Ingrid’s hand still crackled with lightning, but her expression minutely softened. “Was he accompanied by anyone else?”

With a little more confidence and a little less fear, Johan replied, “Several of the command staff left with him. Captain Arun, Deck Chiefs Ladra and Inossos, Flight Chief Rori… Master-at-Arms Braygor has assumed command in Captain Arun’s absence.”

“Inform him of my arrival,” Ingrid ordered, and Johan rushed to follow her directive, running for a metal staircase that led up to the hangar control room. Ingrid then stowed her spear, and her aura calmed. She looked at Leon and said, “There may still be traitors among my crew. It’ll take some time to fully clear them out.”

Her words did not go unheard by the rest of the hangar staff, and Leon noted that all of them studiously avoided his or Ingrid’s gaze.

“Get back to work, all of you!” Ingrid growled as she and Leon followed Johan up the stairs, but instead of venturing into the control room overlooking the hangar, she made for a thick set of doors, behind which was a magic lift.

Once the doors were closed behind them and the lift started taking them somewhere, Leon asked, “How much of that did you expect?”

“These are my people,” Ingrid said, anger still inducing much intensity in her tone. “Vrothgar couldn’t have stolen my arks without the help of some of my commanders, but most of the crew are still mine.”

A sage nod was Leon’s immediate reply. He observed, “It seems like they fled once they got here. I’d been expecting them to try and hold this ark against us.”

“Some still might,” Ingrid said in a tone that suggested such an attempt might be welcome, to an extent. Her electric blue eyes suddenly narrowed as she said, “This is taking too long. Someone’s delaying me.”

Without another word, she drew her spear again and, with a bolt of red-gold lightning, tore through the metal of the lift’s ceiling, halting its slow rise immediately. Another bolt afforded them entrance to the lift shaft, with multiple security enchantments activating as the blaring of alarms began filling the ark.

“Ignore those,” Ingrid said as bolts of lightning began to flash throughout the lift shaft. “They can’t harm anyone descended from the Moon-Jumping Fox, nor anyone escorted by someone who bears that power.”

“That seems… a little like a hole in your security,” Leon observed as he and Ingrid flew upward through the shaft, lightning bolts arcing around them the entire way.

“I never thought I’d be betrayed by family. Now, we go all the way up, through the blast doors, past two checkpoints, up a flight of stairs, through one more checkpoint, and we’ll be on the bridge. From there, I’ll have complete control over the ark.”

Leon nodded, falling in beside her. He was eager to see as much of the ark as he could, and the bridge was a contender for second-most desired, just after engineering. Its only real competition was any equivalent of a fire-control center that the ark might have.

The blast door at the top of the shaft put up a much greater resistance to Ingrid than the interior of the lift, but after it shrugged off one of her bolts with nothing more than a burn mark, she sank her Adamant spear into the metal next to the door and flooded it with her magic. Leon sensed something resonate with his power, and what seemed to be an emergency runic circle appeared, glowing red-gold, next to the doors. Ingrid wasted no time activating the circle, and the doors then dutifully opened.

The room beyond was already filled with security officers, with one beginning to shout as the doors opened, “Throw down y—Queen Ingrid!”

“Get out of my way,” Ingrid practically spat, and the guards immediately stood down and made room for her and Leon to storm past.

As they marched through the relatively—at least compared to Storm Herald—narrow halls, Ingrid said, “Apologies in advance, Leon. I’d hoped that Vrothgar might still be here, and I could make my challenge immediately. Now, I fear I may have wasted your time.”

“It’s only a waste if you knew he wouldn’t be here beforehand,” Leon easily replied, not perturbed at all with his lack of involvement.

“Thank y—” Ingrid began, but as they turned a corner and came within sight of the first security checkpoint, a torrent of lightning spilled from the arm of a golem standing next to a door covered in shining white light.

This lightning was of little consequence, however, as Ingrid raised a hand and halted some with her power, while Leon didn’t even go that far, letting it strike him and arc over his body. He felt little more than a mild tickle.

Beside the golem stood several guards, but upon seeing Ingrid, they did what most others had done and rushed to stand down, dropping their weapons while one tried to silence the golem. He moved too slowly for Ingrid’s taste, however, and with a red-gold bolt, she ended the golem’s attack herself.

That turned out to be the last piece of real resistance they faced as they moved through her ark, however, as word was spreading that the person ‘attacking’ them was their own Despotissa. They moved through the ark quickly, every checkpoint in their way now opening the door for them.

When they reached the bridge, located in almost the exact center of the ark, they found most of the bridge crew there lined up against the wall, bound in dark chains. For a moment, Leon wondered if they were the same that Theron had been secured with in Khosrow’s Fane, but after a second look, he realized that they weren’t.

“What happened here?!” Ingrid roared. She hadn’t needed to speak so loudly as the bridge was much smaller than Leon would’ve guessed, with the consoles that controlled the ark’s various systems clearly separated from each other. The captain’s chair sat in the center of all of these work areas, while a larger and more ornate chair oversaw them all from the back. Right next to this throne were curtains that barely obscured a door leading to what Leon assumed were Ingrid’s private quarters.

“Master-of-Metal Rikard!” one of the officers immediately responded. “My Queen! He forced us to activate security protocols as soon as you arrived!”

“Braygor,” Ingrid stated as she walked over and, with a single thrust of her spear, freed his hands. “I want to know everything…”

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She began to free the rest of the bridge crew with Braygor narrating the events of the past few weeks as he saw them.

It began with Vrothgar returning to the ark late one night, the night before Archelaus had called Leon to help with Ingrid, and a night after her bender had started. She hadn’t made any announcements of what had happened between them, so the arks followed his command to proceed to Belicenion, though only after he’d assured them that Ingrid was onboard. As her husband, no one had argued.

It was only after they arrived that the truth became apparent, but by then, Vrothgar had brought more of the bridge crew over to his side, reasoning with them that since they’d already committed treason, then they might as well follow him all the way to the Gale Lands. Braygor claimed not to know how many officers were already in on his plot beforehand, but whatever the case, it had seemed like few were convinced and left the ark with Vrothgar on their arrival.

Rikard, however, was apparently left behind to watch out for her return, but fled immediately after he and several other security officers took the bridge crew into their custody and activated the internal security systems. What he was trying to achieve was hard to discern, but Leon had a feeling that Ingrid was going to hunt him down and rip her answers out of him.

“Swear your loyalty to me,” Ingrid commanded once everyone had been freed and Braygor had reached the end of his story.

Without exception, the rest of the bridge crew dropped to a knee and swore their loyalty to Ingrid. Once that was done, she turned her attention back to Leon.

“Thank you for accompanying me, Despot Leon. For now, I’m going to focus on reasserting my control over my arks. I won’t take up any more of your time with that. Once I find my treasonous husband, I’ll send for you so that I can make my challenge.”

With an imminent dismissal on her lips, she returned to her throne behind all of the bridge consoles, but as soon as she sat down, an enchantment activated.

Leon twitched, nearly drawing Iron Pride and ready to cut Ingrid free, but the enchantment turned out to just be a projection of a reasonably handsome, if rather unremarkable man standing before the throne with a proud, almost provocative smile.

“My darling,” the projection said, and Ingrid’s blue eyes suddenly blazed with fury, her red-gold lightning flashing around her hands as she shot back to her feet.

“Vrothgar,” she hissed.

The projection revealed itself to merely be a recorded message, however, as it didn’t react to her at all. “I’d say it would please me to see you again, but that would be a lie. No, from the moment I committed to this course of action, I have felt nothing but elation, as if the weight of a thousand mountains has been removed from my shoulders.” The projection’s eyes narrowed, and his grin became even more challenging. “I’d warn you against trying to find me, but I know you, so I’ll make this easy. I’m most likely in Basilissa Mikaela’s bed.”

Leon’s heart skipped a beat. He’d been led to believe that Mikaela was only a Despotissa, which would’ve implied twelfth-tier power. A Basilissa more likely than not meant thirteenth-tier, and despite his success against Triyr, he wasn’t eager to get into another duel with another mage of that level.

“If you come after me,” Vrothgar conclusively stated, “you’ll only find death. So for the sake of our daughter, stay away.”

With that, the projection winked out, leaving the entire bridge in silence, all eyes on Ingrid, who stood, frozen, staring at the empty space where the projection had been ‘standing’.

Braygor was the first among the crew to recover, the ninth-tier mage ordering them to stop standing around and get back to work. It took Ingrid several seconds more to collapse into the throne behind her.

“Thank you, Leon,” she whispered, all traces of anger and determination now gone from her tone. “I… have a lot to think about. I’ll be in touch.”

Despite the clear dismissal, Leon instead slowly walked closer to the throne and laid a hand on Ingrid’s arm. He let a slight buzz of her power run from him to her; not enough to cause any pain, but enough to underscore his words.

“If you want to follow through with the challenge, I have your back. Basilissa or not.”

Her eyes met his in an instant, measuring his confidence and commitment. He returned her gaze with all of that, and more. When he released her arm, she looked a little more relaxed, comforted a shade or two by Leon, but said nothing. Instead, she offered him a smile that he interpreted as almost apologetic, since she didn’t seem able to form any more words.

“Keep in touch,” he said. “Now, if that’s all, I’ll go and meet up with Gwarim and Theron.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, and with those words ringing in his ears, Leon left.

---

“That bitch ascended?” Gwarim exclaimed as Leon finished telling him of what had happened aboard Ingrid’s ark.

“That must have happened recently,” Theron added with a deep frown. “Last I heard, she was still only twelfth-tier.”

“We were told that she’s kin to the Gale Queen,” Cassandra mentioned. “If she has that kind of a backer, then sudden ascensions are hardly that rare, no?”

“In some cases, sure,” Gwarim said. “But to rise to the thirteenth-tier is as much a matter of skill as it is about power. To create solid matter out of nothing more than origin power and the Mists of Chaos isn’t something that downing a million bottles of ambrosia would help much with.”

“The Gale Queen herself is fifteenth-tier,” Valeria reminded. “Esmerelda may have coached Mikaela through it. Maybe trained her herself. Maybe done a lot more that we don’t know about.”

“And maybe not,” Theron said. “We don’t know, and the ‘how’ isn’t relevant.”

“True,” Leon agreed. “What matters is that Vrothgar now has himself a Basilissa as a patron and lover, and that complicates Ingrid’s challenge.”

“Good thing defeating a Basileus in combat is something you have experience in, isn’t it?” Gwarim boisterously stated.

Leon smiled, but it was Elise who immediately replied. “I hope you’re not looking to throw my husband up against a thirteenth-tier mage without just cause?”

A shiver visibly ran through Gwarim’s body as he met Elise’s irate emerald gaze, and he shrugged silently before abruptly changing the subject.

“Leon, my friend! Carousing with my friends is always an enjoyable time, and I would’ve invited more of them if you hadn’t indicated you had some business with us! So tell me, why are we here?”

With a nod of his head and a smile he hoped projected confidence, Leon turned to Theron. “You are still a vampire despite the death of your demonic patron.”

Theron shrank slightly as his body language became more guarded. He crossed his arms across his chest and with his pale features set into a challenging glare, he simply said, “Yes.”

Unfazed by his behavior, Leon said, “I’ve had some dealings with demons before. I even have a fairly loose contract with a fire demon, myself.” Theron’s eyes widened slightly from the surprise while Gwarim outright stared with his mouth agape. “I’ve found his support to be invaluable in my rise to the position I now find myself in,” Leon pressed on, not giving them time to vocally respond. “I had some demonic issues of another sort early in my life—the rival of my current partner sent his contracted vampires to attack me multiple times—but after capturing one of these vampires, my partner and I figured out a way to reverse the adaptations brought on by vampirism. We used that cure to bribe the captured vampire into giving up all of her fellows, and she now works for me as a specialist in blood magic. The cure worked perfectly.”

“That’s…” Theron whispered. “How is that possible?”

“It required intimate knowledge of demonic contracts and the power of the contracted demon,” Leon explained. “Since the contracted demon was a long rival of my partner, and since he was a demon himself, he and my healers and blood mages found a way. In your case, since your patron is dead, that shouldn’t be an issue. We adapted the process for thunder demons last night, and I wanted to offer it to you.”

Theron leaned forward, looking like he was a hair away from accepting. However, he schooled his expression and leaned back in his seat. “What would the price of this be?”

[Ha!] Xaphan boomed within Leon’s soul realm. [Leave it to a merchant to think of everything as a transaction!]

[He’d be remiss to ask for the cost,] Leon shot back. [Nothing in life is free. Not even favors.]

“The price would be your friendship,” Leon said. “And, perhaps, access to your ‘consortium’, as you called it, if I require it. I have no pressing need to trade with the Elemental Plane of Lightning, but should it be needed, I want that option open to me.”

Theron blinked at him as if waiting for something more. When nothing else came, he sighed quietly and closed his eyes, his mouth moving almost imperceptibly, forming unspoken words.

When he finally spoke, he had more to say than Leon expected.

“I had not thought that such a thing was possible. I had thought that my condition was permanent. If you give this to me, Leon, you are returning more than you know to me. Being what I am is… I will only say challenging. To offer this cure to me for so little in return is… It requires more. Name your price, and I would pay it.”

“I already did,” Leon said.

Theron wasn’t convinced. Instead, a rather sly look passed over his face. “My territory is insecure,” he said, “but located in a strategic place. I rule over twelve planes that have easy access to several important trade routes within the Great Strand of Rhea.”

Leon blinked in mild surprise. After his conquests, his territory now lay at the edge of Rhea. Once he returned to Artorion, he was planning on throwing himself into training and expanding into the Great Strand. If Theron was going in the direction that he seemed, then he might get a head start…

“I’ve been quietly pondering seeking the protection of a Lord,” Theron admitted. “I was protected by Prontis until his death. Now I am on my own—a state many would kill for, but I am left to defend my territory against violent neighbors.”

“Yes,” Leon said, “you said something about a Despot on your border ending his life and his domain falling into chaos as a result.”

Theron nodded in confirmation, then fixed Leon in a gaze of deadly seriousness. “In return for that cure, I would offer my fealty. I will be your Strategos.”