The Storm King
Chapter 1201: Two Weeks' Rest

There had been cheery mornings in Artorion over its hundred and fifty years, some of which were still talked about for the vigorousness of the celebrations carried out. It could never be said that Leon’s people didn’t know how to party, especially some of the more raucous Tribes like the Lions, Tigers, Jaguars, and Bears.

However, nothing in Artorion’s relatively short history had ever compared to the celebration that filled its streets as Leon’s fleet returned from the Demetrion Cluster. People filled the streets and drank, danced, and sang the praises of the warriors that Leon took to the cluster, and who now returned victorious. It was Artorion’s biggest and most important victory since the war with Terris, and back then, there hadn’t been nearly so many people living in the city to celebrate. Even the celebrations called for Elise’s ascension paled in comparison.

Leon himself proudly walked among his people, leading a parade through the largest streets. He walked down the streets on foot, eschewing any form of transportation as a show of humility—he wanted the focus to be on his soldiers and the commanders, not on him alone. While the honor of the Kingdom was his, it was won by them, and he wanted to share it with them as much as he could.

Of course, just walking amongst his people in the purest sense wasn’t feasible, not only for security reasons but also because Artorion was large and densely populated, and Leon couldn’t afford to halt the parade every few steps as his people swarmed to get a better look. Still, he got as close as he could, smiling all the while, stopping where he could get a moment in to touch the outstretched hands of his people.

With cheering in his ears and even more cheering in his heart, he led his people through the streets, down grand boulevards, under great triumphal arches, and ending in the grandest forum in his city. There, a great monument had been erected consisting of five enormous slabs of gleaming marble colored white and blue, the two colors separated by streaks of glittering gold. Inscribed upon the surface of the slabs were projection enchantments that filled the forum with scaled-down illusions of the arks that had been lost in battle—the casualties were light but not zero following the campaign on Demetrion itself. A list of the dead inscribed in light surrounded the monument in a circle, broken only at a staircase to allow Leon to ascend onto a platform at the center of the monument.

Once there, with thousands of his warriors surrounding him and thousands more citizens of his capital, he turned, smiling despite more conventional etiquette favoring a nobler, more austere and detached attitude from him in public. He raised his hands, wordlessly calling for quiet, and in moments, the roar of the forum died down. When he spoke, he did so knowing that his words were going to carry via enchantment not just through all of Artorion but to all of his Kingdom—at least, the part that was in the Nexus since even Aeterna was too far away to so casually communicate with, let alone Demetrion.

“We left this place twelve months and six days ago,” he began. “Our objective was clear: bring the entirety of the Kesken Cluster in line. Today, I announce that we have succeeded in this endeavor!”

He paused for effect, and a roar of triumph came not just from his assembled warriors but from all in his Kingdom who listened to his words. The ground shook with their celebration so much that Leon was almost afraid the city might collapse into the Aesii below and leave his capital at the mercy of the death zone’s poisonous mist.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and after a few seconds, the roar died down again.

He continued, “The Kesken Cluster, now called the Demetrion Cluster, will be the first step of our springboard out into the wider universe, and represents our first step back toward the planes that once belonged to us! The planes of our Ancestors, the homes and birthplaces of our Honored Ancestors, lie in wait! And with this victory, we are that much closer to our glorious return!”

Again, he paused, and again, his people rewarded him with a grand ovation, though this one took just a few seconds longer to die down.

Leon’s demeanor turned somber as the projections of the lost arks and the list of the dead around him flickered. “Let us not, however, forget the cost that we have paid to come this far! Even now, many of our brothers and sisters feast with their Ancestors tonight in Death’s Kingdom when they should be here, with us. Remember them. Honor them. It is their sacrifice that has bought us this victory more than anyone else’s.”

His third pause came with a long moment of silence, broken only by the forlorn howling of the wind as it blew through the Artor Valley. The universe itself seemed to mourn with them.

Finally, Leon brought his speech to a close. “Each and every one of you have made me proud! Carry yourself with pride, for you have brought yourselves, your Tribes, and this Kingdom, great honor! Go now, feast and celebrate with your loved ones! And if you have no loved ones, find some new ones to love! In a fortnight, we proceed to our next destination, and there, we will find greater honor!”

The crowd practically exploded as, with his words, the army accompanying him on this parade was dismissed, and the warriors began to slowly disperse out into the city. They had two weeks off after conquering nine planes in only a year—Leon was sure that there might be some trouble, but he felt that his people deserved to let off some steam in the wake of their great victory. Many of them already had their families in tow, having met up with them as they marched through the city. Leon, however, did not.

With the roar of celebration behind him, he took flight, accompanied by fifty Tempest Knights in their shining armor. Like shooting stars, they crossed from the forum to Westmount in an instant and landed in the largest of the courtyards in Leon’s palace. It was there that Leon’s friends and family awaited him. Even Anzu had beaten him back.

Elise, Valeria, Maia, and Cassandra were all there, and while Maia and Valeria were more stoic whereas Elise and Cassandra were giving him radiant smiles, he could feel from their luminous auras that all four of them were ecstatic to see him again.

With a smile, he consigned himself to their embrace, and together, they vanished into his private apartments, to not be seen again for several days.

---

With a moan of satisfaction, Elise stretched out on the bed as Leon collapsed next to her, not a stitch of clothing on either one of them, both of their bodies showing signs of having been roughly used.

“It… is so nice… to have you back,” Elise panted, her eyes half-lidded and her lips turned up with such a glowing smile that the Origin Spark itself seemed to fade in shame.

“You’ve got that right, sister,” Cassandra said. She lay next to them in a similar state of undress, her satisfaction having come minutes before.

In comparison, Maia was further away on the bed, still tied down with silkgrass cords, blindfolded and gagged, none of which was enchanted so the post-Apotheosis river nymph could easily break free if she wanted. It amused Leon to see her still lying so still, basking in the afterglow of their days' worth of activity.

Valeria was the only one not in bed and with at least some clothing on, even if that clothing amounted to nothing more than a robe of shimmering sea silk gifted to the family by Miuna. In her hands were various reports from the task force detailing exactly what had happened in the Demetrion Cluster, as well as all the metrics that the logistics officers would be pouring over for years to come.

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‘Light reading,’ Leon sarcastically quipped, though he was a little too blissed to say anything aloud for the moment.

“If only this wasn’t temporary,” Elise whispered forlornly, almost immediately dissipating the blissful atmosphere of Leon’s bedchambers. “I know that this is important, but… I prefer having you here.”

“It won’t be for so long,” Leon replied. “We’ll head out in… eleven days?”

“Ten,” Valeria corrected.

Leon blinked in surprise, not realizing that his reunion with his wives had taken four entire days, but he focused instead on the matter at hand.

“Well… in ten days, we’ll be heading out to the next cluster. It’s only three planes this time, and Anzu has said that all three planes have already been united under a single Emperor. Theoretically, this should make it easier to knock out—aim for the Emperor and all else falls into place. If they already have a governing system, it can be left in place and coopted. Easy.”

“Things are rarely so easy,” Cassandra noted as she rolled over, giving Leon an enviable look at her lust-inspiring body. “If they’ve united those planes, then they have arks, right? Void-capable arks?”

“Haven’t you been reading the status reports sent back to us?” Valeria asked, sounding almost affronted.

“You’re the Grand Archivist,” Cassandra retorted, “I trust my man enough to not need to watch his every move.”

Valeria snorted. “Right. Well, Anzu has specifically called out a significant fleet of arks in possession by this Empire. We may be looking at greater casualties in this battle than we did in Demetrion, which were already surprisingly light.”

Leon nodded slowly; he shared her concerns despite the rousing success that the conquest of Demetrion had been. Much of the glory belonged to Clear Day, as by the end of the campaign as a whole, nearly a third of the entire planar cluster had surrendered before his arks even arrived above their planes. More resisted, but as Leon’s fleets rampaged through them, the majority of those who remained gave in, surrendering to Leon. In practice, he’d taken direct control of only about twenty percent of the entire cluster, with the remaining eighty percent largely left intact, their governing bodies frozen in the state they were in at the time of surrender. That might lead to some friction, but at this point, two fleets were now garrisoning the cluster with a third already being prepared. Leon expected the cluster would have upwards of five fleets acting as its garrison when all was said and done, patrolling around the planes and keeping the peace within them.

“That’s also a good thing,” Leon said. The statement drew some questioning looks from his three unbound wives, though Leon imagined if Maia could, she’d be joining them. As it was, she could still hear them, and her head had also turned in his direction. He snapped his fingers, using his element-less magic to cut the silkgrass cords and remove her blindfold and gag.

“Aw, I wasn’t done with her yet,” Elise bemoaned.

“I can be tied back up,” Maia offered. “We don’t have a shortage of rope.”

Elise smiled as Cassandra lost herself in a bout of giggling. “Can I join in?” the former Imperial Princess asked.

“Sure!” the other two responded.

Valeria cleared her throat, drawing them back to the topic she wanted to address, to their mutual dismay. A pointed look at Leon was all the prompting he needed to continue.

“We have plenty of arkyards here in the Nexus,” he explained. “However, nearly all of those arkyards are devoted to building military arks. The arksmiths are doing wondrous work, but we have a notable deficiency in civilian and logistics-focused arks. We need transports, we need our people to buy and use arks to travel, should they have the resources.”

“That removes a lot of power from our hands,” Valeria warned, to which Cassandra furiously nodded in agreement.

“Maybe. We can control our people better if we monopolize ark travel in the Kingdom, but it also means that we are responsible for civilian travel, should it be needed. I’d rather give them some freedom and not worry about that than retain that control.”

Valeria hummed in disagreement, though she didn’t say anything more.

“After that,” Leon said, “we should only have one plane left, the last before we reach the Great Strand of Rhea.”

While the ancient Thunderbird Clan didn’t have complete control over all of the millions of planar clusters that made up the Great Strand of Rhea, they were certainly the largest power within it. Nearly a third of all ancient Thunderbird holdings lay in the immense Strand of planar clusters, with several thin bands of planes and planar clusters connecting the Strand to its neighbor further to the universal north, the Great Strand of Atreus—Atreus being a grandson of the Thunderbird and the second Storm King, placing the title in the hands of the Clan until Jason Keraunos’ disastrous invasion of Aeterna.

It was in the Great Strand of Atreus that the Thunderbird Clan had the heart of their power. Minos, Tiryns, and Kypros all lay there, as did all the other Thunderbird planes that Nestor had told Leon about. Thankfully, a band of clusters that led to the Great Strand of Atreus was relatively close to where they’d enter the Great Strand of Rhea from this short band of planes starting at Demetrion. It might take centuries, but ancient Thunderbird territory was growing steadily closer…

“We don’t know much about this last plane in the chain,” Leon continued, “but I’m confident we can surmount any challenge on it, and in this three-plane Empire, and be back well before the beginning of the Belicenian Games.”

“You’d better fulfill this promise,” Elise said as she wrapped her arms and legs around Leon. “I can’t stand to have you so far away.”

“I can’t stand to be so far away,” Leon replied as he pulled her closer. Cassandra then snuggled up on his other side, while Maia spooned up behind Elise. Leon gave Valeria an inviting look, but she silently chuckled and turned her attention back to the dreadfully thick report she’d been reading.

As he lay there with his ladies, Leon decided to take a more active role in the upcoming conquests. He’d missed his ladies too much over the past year, and he wanted to return to their arms as quickly as he could.

---

“It… hardly… feels… real!” Daryun grunted between sword slashes.

Leon deflected easily, though he was gratified to see that Daryun was being more aggressive. He was getting a better feel for the House Raime style, even if it wasn’t a perfect fit for his wind magic.

“You’re overstepping!” Alix shouted from the side. As Leon’s Swordmaster, she was the most knowledgeable about his family’s fighting style after him, and as far as he was concerned, the only other person aside from himself qualified to teach it. “Tighten that footwork!”

Daryun sent her a dark look, but Leon quickly stepped in and knocked him to the ground in his moment of distraction.

“And that,” Alix pressed, “is what happens when you overstep!”

“I wasn’t being serious,” Daryun stated as he took Leon’s offered hand. Leon easily pulled him to his feet. “I prefer fighting on horseback to fighting on foot.”

“That much is obvious,” Leon said. “How is your Scarlet Star doing, by the way?”

“Lady Anna is taking good care of him, for now,” Daryun responded.

“Good,” Leon whispered. “As for your feelings about your home, why does it not feel real?”

Daryun scowled as Alix brought them a pair of small tumblers filled with golden ambrosia. Looking almost out of control, Daryun tossed his back and swallowed the divine drink in a single gulp.

“Careful with that,” Alix warned. “I don’t think ambrosia is addictive, but… maybe some caution would do you good.”

Daryun blinked in surprise as she took the empty glass from him, but before he could say anything more, Leon nudged him, and he let the matter drop.

“It… I didn’t think the planes could be united so quickly,” he said. “And with so little bloodshed. It’s hard for me to believe that Imak and I put up nearly as much resistance as all the rest of the cluster did.”

“Is it so hard to believe?” Leon asked as he sipped his ambrosia. “We are stronger than those we went up against. Almost depressingly few are so principled as to resist against such overwhelming strength as what I brought to that planar cluster.”

Daryun sighed. “And this next conquest of yours… you’ll be there too?”

“Yes,” Leon said. “And so will you.”

That certainly caught his attention as he regarded Leon seriously. “I… had thought I was going to be left behind, to be honest.”

“You are still in need of training,” Leon conceded, “especially on some of the more bespoke weapon systems that you’ll be expected to master. Which reminds me, I need to get you properly equipped before we leave. But for the moment, I’d prefer to have some friends with me for this one.” He turned to Alix. “That includes you.”

With a smile of anticipation, Alix said, “Sounds like it’ll be like old times, Leon! I’m looking forward to it already!”

“Like old times…” Leon whispered. “Maybe. I guess. Whatever the case, we’ll knock this out, brush those Belicenian Games, and then get right back to the push! Rhea, then Atreus!”

Alix flexed in support as Daryun slowly, almost reluctantly nodded.

Their training session didn’t last too long before Alix bowed out to get back to her Tempest Knight duties. Leon, meanwhile, saw to getting Daryun armor and a new weapon. If the man was to fulfill a new position that Leon was considering, he’d certainly need something better than what he had now…