Aylar stepped through the destroyed doorway behind Leonidas with a feeling of pity mixed with anger. The Terrans that lived in Dawnhaven were her people, regardless of whatever assertions or prejudices may have existed in relation to their strength with the System—which she was fully aware of being just as guilty of, to her shame—and its myriad intricacies.

  Her eyes moved through the house’s interior with assessing intensity, noting the pictures set on small tables, and the various paintings and framed photos that dominated the walls. The ‘camera’ had been one of the few items of note to survive the Integration, and all manner of races had taken to its use with gusto—after it had been adapted for use with magitech, at any rate.

  “{Four years since we arrived, and still the same mistakes keep repeating,}” Aylar murmured in frustration, and glanced at Leonidas when he looked back at her with a quiet smile.

  “{It is a noble comportment you uphold, honored Princess, to be so aggrieved by the suffering of your most tempestuous subjects. Know that I hold such valorous adherence to magnanimity in great esteem.}”

  Aylar smiled at the words Leonidas offered her, and quickly suppressed an amused laugh. The way he spoke Haelfennyr was ridiculous, and although Ceruviel refused to explain where he’d learned such an ancient, shockingly noble dialect, Aylar didn’t mind too much. Every time he spoke, he invariably reminded her of gallant knights from old tales she’d read on Altera—not a bad comparison, given his path as an Archon.

  “John,” Leonidas called a moment later as they passed as a trio through the entrance. “Sonya. You and your family can come out now. It’s safe.”

  Aylar glanced at Ceruviel when the Dusk-Lord aligned herself beside her, and the pair of them turned to watch as four Terrans—two unmistakably teenagers, two clearly adults—stepped into view from where they’d been sheltering behind a large kitchen bench.

  The Princess-Royal’s eyes immediately scanned over the four, and then settled instinctively on the young girl, the eponymous ‘Sonya’, with a warm smile and unhidden interest.

  So, this is the alleged Saintess-to-be?

  The girl was certainly pretty, by Aylar’s reckoning, with naturally wavy auburn hair and a pair of wide, innocent grey eyes that observed the world with unveiled curiosity. She stood close to a thin, tall youth that Aylar mentally identified as ‘John’, who seemed to be taking a protective position in front of her. The pair were holding hands tightly, as if afraid to let go.

  The adults, meanwhile, were a study in stress: the woman, a tall and homely brunette, was clutching what appeared to be a cleaver in her right hand, while her husband, a gentleman of portly proportions, held what Terrans called a ‘crowbar’, gripping it with both hands and looking between the three ‘intruders’ worriedly.

  “Who are you?” he asked gruffly, voice tense with concern.

  “Friends,” Leonidas replied simply, his hands still in his pockets with that strange affectation of casual, easy confidence. “I’m the one who drove off those kidnappers, remember?”

  “I remember you, yeah,” the man said gruffly. “You’re the fella that came to the door—and then ripped that crazy bitch through it. How did you do that?”

  “Dad,” John said quietly, his eyes wide as he looked at Leonidas. “Dad.”

  “What, son?” the older man asked, glancing down at the teenager.

  “Dad, that’s him. You know, him. Achilles. The one they’re talking about.”

  The older man blinked at his son and then looked back up to Leonidas, who only produced his right hand and offered the family a lazy wave. It was fascinating to Aylar how reassuring something so innocuous could be when done with the easy confidence of a man like Leonidas. Did he have any idea how chivalrous he looked without any effort at all? It was baffling.

  At her side, she thought she heard Ceruviel suppress a snort, and ignored it.

  “Leonidas is my name, technically,” the self-same Knight said wryly. “But yeah. Achilles works if that’s easier. My friends call me Ace, so that’s fine, too.”

  “Can… can I call you Ace?” John asked hopefully, while Sonya looked between them with amazed eyes, and his parents glanced at the boy with a mix of exasperation and disbelief.

  “Sure, kid,” Leonidas said easily, and smiled in a way that seemed to ease the atmosphere all on its own. “I’ll call you John, you call me Ace. Sound good?”

  “Yeah!” John said happily, and then finally turned to look at Aylar herself and Ceruviel. When she saw the boy turn to her, Aylar offered him a warm smile and suppressed a wince when he frowned at her in distrust.

  “Who’re the knife-ears, Ace?”

  “John!” the matronly woman reprimanded him in a mortified tone. “Apologize!”

  Ceruviel did snort at that, in amusement, and Aylar felt her smile fracture a little at the casual slur. ‘Knife-ear’ was one of the most crudely disrespectful things anyone could say about Haelfenn, and she was suddenly glad neither Uriel nor her Royal Guard was with her.

  “It’s quite all alright, mistress,” Aylar said and stepped forward, reaching out to lay a hand on Leonidas’ arm to show connection, and hopefully alleviate some of the suspicion the humans were feeling. For good reason, she reminded herself. “I understand you’ve been through quite a lot today. I am only sorry I was unable to arrive sooner.”

  “I—Thank you, miss,” John’s father said gruffly. “I’m Patrick, and this is my wife, Elise. We’re the kids’ guardians.”

  “The girl is not yours,” Ceruviel noted, her voice cutting through the air with its usual coolly imperious, certain force of presence. “But I can feel your love for her. When did she come into your care?”

  “Her parents, well, they were our neighbors,” Patrick said quietly, and put his arm around his wife instinctively. “They joined a Noble’s expedition outside the city to try to get some levels and whatnot, to maybe join the Adventurers’ Guild, but…”

  “They didn’t make it,” Elise said softly, and looked down at Sonya. “She was orphaned, as far as we know, but Drew and Annie were always good to our Jon, and they were righteous folk. We couldn’t just let her go away! So, we—we took her in.”

  Sonya looked up at Elise’s words with a sad smile, and the motherly woman reached out to squeeze the girl’s shoulder, while looking defensively at Ceruviel. It was not a selfish act, but a claiming one: This girl is mine, the action seemed to say. She is my daughter as much as anyone’s.

  It was, to Aylar, an incredible piece of evidence for the depth of love Terrans could feel.

  “I doubt anyone’s going to care, Pat,” Leonidas said calmly, and smiled at the adults—easily his seniors by a decade or more—like they were old academy friends. “Ceruviel certainly won’t give a damn, at least.”

  Patrick and Elise looked at Leonidas in momentary confusion and then turned to Ceruviel. The Duchess smiled at them politely while the pair of Terrans stared at her for a long moment, and then both seemed to blanch upon recognizing who she really was. Aylar tried not to take that as an unspoken insult. Ceruviel was far more well-known among the day-to-day populace, just like Uriel. That was the point, after all.

  “D-D-Dusk-Lord!” Patrick said in shock, glancing down at the crowbar and then flinging it away with a distant crash of impact and saluting in the strange way Terran soldiers saluted, hand-to-forehead. “F-F-Forgive my rud—”

  “Hey, come on,” Leonidas cut in warmly, while stepping forward and giving Patrick a companionable smack on the shoulder, which seemed to jolt him out of his momentary apoplectic terror. “Steady on, man. She doesn’t bite, and she’s not even the most important person here!”

  “But, Mister Achilles, you’re still just a human like us…” Elise murmured, looking at Ceruviel with an expression of clear worry, and then back to Leonidas. It seemed, to Aylar, like the humans had already accepted him as ‘one of them’, responding to his Charisma with a comforted ease that she found enviable.

  “Sure, but she—” Leonidas said, and pointed to Aylar, who waved a little once again, “—happens to be Her Royal Highness Aylar Taleria Lux Fortuna Eldormer, Princess-Royal, Swordmaiden, and future Queen of Dawnhaven.”

  A moment of pure, disbelieving shock descended onto the quartet of humans at that particularly eloquent introduction, and then Sonya abruptly slapped John upside the head with enough force that Aylar felt herself tense for a moment out of reactive combat instinct, before immediately relaxing.

  “You big dumb idiot!” she shrieked. “You called the Princess of Dawnhaven a knife-ear, John Mattherson! You apologize to her right now!”

  Patrick and Elise watched the sudden explosion with the strangest mix of embarrassment, pride, and approval that Aylar had ever seen in Terrans, and even Leonidas, perplexing as the man was, seemed to find the reaction from Sonya perfectly normal—even outright endearing, judging from his wry grin.

  “I—I didn’t know!” John said in a mild panic. “Oh shit, is she going to put me in a dungeon? Ace! I can’t go into the dunge—”

  Sonya kicked him this time, and John howled while grabbing his posterior.

  “What the hell, Sonny?!” the boy demanded.

  “APOLOGIZE!” Sonya commanded, while Aylar focused on not laughing as the tension bled out of her, and her [Heroine’s Will] assisted her suppression of mirth.

  “Mom!”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “She’s right, Johnathan,” Elise said gravely.

  “DAD!”

  “You should apologize, son. She’s a Princess,” Patrick concurred with an apologetic smile to Aylar, who waved a hand to show it was fine, before looking back to the teenagers.

  “Augh! Fine! I’m sorry, Your Highness!” John said with a hunted look. “I didn’t mean to—OW! Stop kicking me, Sonny!”

  “And the Dusk-Lord!” Sonya said primly. “She’s a DUCHESS!”

  At her side, Aylar could feel Ceruviel struggling not to guffaw.

  “Jesus! Fine! I’m sorry, Duchess, I didn’t mean to call you a knife-ear—OW! GOD DAMN IT, STOP!”

  “YOU SAID IT AGAIN!”

  This time, the Duchess failed to hold in her humor and laughed out loud—a beautiful sound, made more so by how rarely it was unleashed, like an echo of silver bells in the spring wind.

  That, more than anything else, seemed to visibly relax the humans.

  “You can stop kicking him, Sonya,” Leonidas said with quiet amusement into the growing calm that followed, and moved around to stand by Aylar and Ceruviel again. Despite herself, the Princess couldn’t help but take comfort in the Terran Archon’s proximity and the reassuring way he seemed to take quiet control of the chaos with charisma alone.

  His stature, poise, and easy confidence anchored the room in a way she couldn’t deny was befitting of a Sovereign, and she could see the effect ripple outward as the tension in the Terrans was eased by their Champion—shoulders lowering, and smiles returning. Where moments before there had been worry and measurable uncertainty, there was now something steadier: trust, fragile and tentative, but genuine trust all the same.

  On a more personal note, she was privately glad for his notably larger frame at her side as well. His height was a perfect complement to her own, making her naturally taller Haelfar physique seem less evident compared to the shorter-than-Haelfar-average humans before them.

  “I… okay, um, Ace,” Sonya said with a shy smile, and against all reason, grabbed John’s hand again tightly in both of hers, which only served to draw a look of confusion and happiness from the teenager. He obviously lacked a complete understanding of what was happening, but her reliance on his strength seemed to embolden something in him that made ignoring his no doubt bruised posterior far easier.

  “Now, I’m sure you’re all wondering what the fuss is about,” Ceruviel said as she stepped forward and caught the attention of all four Terrans with force of presence alone. The Archon’s hands clasped at her spine, and she regarded them with the passive lambency of her lavender eyes as she spoke. “I dislike needless blathering, so I will be direct: John revealed his Alphas to my Squire, Earl Latherian—” she gestured once to Leonidas, directing their eyes to him with surprise at the use of the title, before their collective attention returned to her as she continued “—and so did Sonya. This, unfortunately, was not as private as it should have been.”

  “I told you not to talk about that in public, son…” Patrick said with a quiet glance down to John, and then looked back to Ceruviel. “I apologize, um, m-my lady, if my son and daughter caused any issues—”

  “Phaw! Come off it, man. I’m not here to reprimand you for your boy being talented, nor were those paltry excuses for kidnappers. The reason you’re in this nightmare of a situation, frankly speaking, is because John there has a very, very special set of Alphas—only eclipsed by Sonya herself. Your children, Master and Mistress Mattherson, have the potential to be very powerful, with the correct guidance.”

  “Powerful?” Elise asked uncertainly, while gripping her cleaver for strength and looking down at the children. “That sounds dangerous.”

  “It can be,” Aylar said, stepping forward before Ceruviel could eviscerate them for cowardice or something equivalent, knowing her blunt nature. “But it doesn’t have to be. John and Sonya are still young, but they carry staggering potential. My hope in coming here—our hope, really—was to offer you all sanctuary, while we help the children reach a higher level of strength, and potentially, give you the tools to better protect them in the future as well.”

  +{I was not going to eviscerate them for cowardice, you bleeding heart,}+ Ceruviel grumbled to her telepathically. +{I was merely going to highlight their lack of need for such dramatics.}+

  Aylar simply sent back a pulse of amusement to Ceruviel and said nothing.

  “Pat,” Leonidas said when the man still looked troubled. “John is special, and so is Sonya. I didn’t know about her, but I did know about your son, and I was the one who requested we come get all of you and take you somewhere safer. There’s no sense in staying here now, not when their potential has already been exposed. You aren’t safe. That’s the price of potential like theirs.”

  Johnathan looked at Sonya, and the pair nodded to one another before looking at John’s parents.

  “Mom, Dad,” John said with what Aylar considered to be quite a lot of courage, “we want to go with them. It ain’t safe here anymore, and we’d be able to get strong. I don’t wanna be scared of—of the new people anymore.”

  The boy had almost used another slur, Aylar suspected, and so she gave him a warm smile for not doing so. In reply, he blushed, and Sonya glared at him when he wasn’t looking—causing Aylar to smile wryly.

  Girls are girls, no matter the species. She’s impressively aware. He’ll need to be careful not to get on her bad side.

  “What sort of potential do they have?” Elise asked quietly, but firmly, looking between Aylar, Leonidas, and Ceruviel with a mother’s unyielding determination. When it came to her children, it seemed she cared little for the power of those she spoke to. Aylar found that, frankly, commendable.

  “John has the potential to become an Archon,” Leonidas said without obfuscation, shrugging his suited shoulders slightly. “He’s the only human besides me that we’ve heard of with the exact combination of Alphas required. Not everyone can walk that path. Archons are… special, in ways I’m not really able to explain. It’s more of a thing you experience than a thing you can explain. If John succeeds, he’ll be one of the most powerful Cultivators in Dawnhaven, one day, if not the continental US.”

  “Not without effort and considerable work,” Ceruviel added more bluntly, while eyeing the now wide-eyed young boy. “But, yes, he can achieve it.”

  “Will it… will it be very hard?” Elise asked, while Pat seemed content to let his wife speak for both of them.

  “Yes,” Ceruviel said with her usual blunt forwardness. “Extremely, given one of his Alphas needs to be evolved before he can acquire the Class properly, but not impossible. If he trains hard and diligently, your son will become the Second Archon of Terran blood. I will not deceive you and say he will be a match for Achilles,” Ceruviel continued while looking at Leonidas with a mix of fondness and exasperation. “My fool of an Apprentice is a monster, even by the standards of the world we came from… but yes, John will be a force to be reckoned with, no matter what.”

  “And, this training, could… could he die?” Elise asked with a tremor in her voice.

  “Not immediately, and not before being prepared for what he might face, but yes,” Ceruviel said with a gentler voice that only slightly surprised Aylar. “I am afraid that is an unavoidable risk of your new reality, Elise. That goes for all people, Terran, Haelfenn, and otherwise. This world under the System,” Ceruviel said without ever breaking eye contact, “will eat up and spit out the unprepared and the weak—it will grind them into dust and make them mulch for roving manabeasts. That is not hyperbole, Terrans; that is your new reality. That is the reason that power itself is the only line between civilization and annihilation.”

  Patrick and Elise seemed to understand that, based on Aylar’s quiet observation, because both of them straightened somewhat in instinctive understanding—Patrick especially, whom Aylar suspected may have been a soldier prior to the Integration.

  “That is why Dawnhaven exists. That is why we, the people of Altera, came here prepared. That is why Archons like myself and Achilles also exist. We protect, so the innocent can sleep without fear of the beasts that would make them a meal. Archons are, at their core, Knights—Knights that fight, not for territory or wealth or riches, but for the justice of their own hearts.”

  Elise’s hand seemed to loosen slightly on the cleaver as she listened, and Aylar took that as a positive sign.

  “That is what I can offer John,” Ceruviel said with a look down to the wide-eyed youth. “A chance to be the master of his own destiny, within the scope of my Order’s ancient teachings. No more than that, but certainly not a damn bit less.”

  Silence followed the Dusk-Lord’s words when she finished, and then finally, Elise turned to Leonidas.

  “Do… do you ever regret it?” She asked, while looking at him searchingly.

  In response, the tall Terran smiled warmly and shook his head before speaking.

  “Sometimes, when Ceruviel’s whacking me, I question my life choices—but regret it? Nah. I don’t regret it for a second, Elise. A lot of people might think I’m mental for that, but… well, Ceruviel’s given me freedom of choice, within reason, in a world that robs you of agency and makes you a meal,” he explained with a slight shrug and the same warm, easy smile. “I’d be lost and probably halfway dead by now, if not for her. I don’t regret it at all, though I will say this: don’t fight a Hydra before first Tier. That sucked.”

  A round of genuine laughter filled the room at that final detail. Once again, Aylar found herself watching Leonidas: the ease with which he disarmed concern, the warmth with which he spoke, and the way he seemed to care—seemed to see the people around him, regardless of species, as his responsibility.

  Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, and she felt a slight flush around her cheeks and ears.

  +{The word you’re looking for, Aylar, is ‘Kingly’,}+ Ceruviel said smugly into her mind.

  She was saved from having to respond by John’s unexpected voice.

  “...I wanna do it, mom,” he said before anyone else could speak aloud. “I wanna become an Archon, or at least try.”

  “John—” Elise began, only to go quiet when Patrick gently put a hand on her shoulder. “Pat?”

  “It’s time, Elise. It’s too soon, but it’s time. We’ve been protecting ‘em from this screwed up new world for four years. We’re at the end of our tether. If John can find a way to live a better life, a strong life, that’s about the best we could hope for.”

  Elise’s eyes searched her husband’s, and then shimmered with tears that made Aylar’s own sting just a little as her empathic senses detected the woman’s worry.

  “Wh—what about Sonya?” Elise managed to ask, reaching up to dab at her eyes. “What about her? She’s not our daughter, but she may as well be, and I—I won’t let her get discarded, or—”

  “Sonya is another matter,” Aylar said gently, taking charge once more. “For her safety and your own, it is not something we can speak on outside of a secure space.”

  “Do you have somewhere in mind, your highness?” Patrick asked in a gruff way that told Aylar he was suppressing his own form of sadness.

  “The Dusk-Lord has generously offered to take you all in as guests in her mansion estate, until such time as safer accommodation can be prepared. I trust that will suffice to soothe your worries?”

  The humans’ eyes all widened in response to her words, and they—oddly—turned to Leonidas immediately, who just laughed in response, as warm as a summer rain.

  “Yeah,” he said to them as if he could read minds, “it’s just like something out of Bridgerton. You guys will love it.”

  That obscure, strange reference seemed more than enough for the Matthersons, who Aylar noticed perk up immediately.

  “Right then,” Patrick said, “we’ll just pack some bags and—”

  “No need,” Ceruviel said tersely. “I will send my Duskguard to collect your things, and you can sort them at the estate. We need to be going, before more trouble arises.”

  Aylar nodded in agreement immediately.

  “My carriage is waiting outside,” she said warmly. “Just follow close by me, and keep your eyes on me. Let’s not draw needless attention, okay?”

  “Is… is something bad gonna happen?” Sonya asked softly, and seemed to echo the fears of her entire family—adopted or not—when she spoke.

  Aylar pondered what to say that, and began to formulate her reply, but Leonidas beat her to it, bending to look Sonya in the eyes and grin at her with an easy confidence that she still couldn’t quite find a way to emulate.

  “Nah, kid,” he said with a rumble to his voice that Aylar found embarrassingly delightful. “Not a damn thing’s gonna happen. Not while I’m around.”

  And that, it seemed, was precisely what they needed to hear.

  Please comment on what you liked or with theories you have!

  Please Note: Chapters resume Monday, January 19th at 2100 EST. I do not post over the weekend.

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