Saturday, July 30, 4 S.E.

  Leonidas cut through the leaping Shadow Panther with a whine of his [Archon’s Psiblade], severing the creature’s head neatly from its neck and leaving its corpse to impact the ground after its fatal leap. With his [Psionic Focus] at play, the stealth capabilities of the Initiate rank manabeasts were painfully irrelevant, and he almost felt guilty at how easily he had culled them.

  “Done over here!” he called to Synthra, idly dismissing his bastard sword.

  “Done here, too!” Synthra affirmed from a few meters away, while striding back toward him through the underbrush. “Damned spiders, you’d think the first explosion would teach them.”

  “That would require higher brain function,” Leonidas said wryly, and won a rare grin from the Sorceress.

  “Hm. I suppose you’d be the expert in the lack, Achilles,” Synthra said with a smirk, and flipped her hair as she rejoined him.

  Leonidas shook his head and turned to track Bardulf, Parnym, and Aylar.

  They’d been hunting in the wilds around the Dungeon for the better part of a week by that point, and all of them had grown considerably. Even with the dispersal of Experience across the party, Leonidas had gained two levels, Bardulf and Synthra had gained one apiece, and Aylar had gained two as well.

  Parnym had removed himself from the party on and off when his experience had gotten dangerously close to its threshold, and the group of them had realized that the danger necessitated an end to their hunting. He and Synthra had found several clumps of Adept rank manabeasts in the area, and with Leonidas’ Archon skills combined with Synthra’s long-range firepower, they’d managed to pick off several of them without being overwhelmed.

  They’d been careful to watch for pursuit or signs of Braedon’s forces during their camp, and had moved their resting location to the mouth of the cave they’d discovered on the second day—confirmed by the System in Aylar’s Quest to be the Rite of Ascension Dungeon entrance. With their hunting done, all that remained was to recover their strength, take stock of their supplies, and finally undertake the Delve they’d been practicing for.

  “They’re coming,” he said to Synthra when he detected the approach of their Party’s mind-glows, drawing her attention from whatever thoughts had occupied her as she walked over to stand beside him, arms folded.

  “How do you feel?” she asked when she came to a halt, eyeing him speculatively.

  “In what way?”

  “About everything, Achilles,” she said in a surprisingly level tone. “You’ve been fine these last few days, but you still haven’t talked to me about what Aylar and I decided.”

  Leonidas sighed quietly and slipped his hands into his pocket by force of habit.

  “I’m not sure what there is to say,” he admitted honestly, his [Psionic Focus] remaining on alert as he met her golden eyes with his own. “You both have the right to your agency, Synthra. I don’t pretend to understand why the hell you’d be okay with sharing me, and I can’t say the idea sits well with me, but I’m not selfless enough to say I don’t like the idea, as guilty as it makes me feel.”

  “Guilty?” Synthra questioned mildly.

  “It feels selfish,” he explained quietly, and shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably.

  “Would you care for either of us less than the other?”

  “Of course not,” he responded immediately, and then sighed. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation. This isn’t normal for Terra. The entire idea of a Harem feels disgusting and demeaning,” he admitted.

  “Mm…” she mused, peering at him and then looking toward the approach vector of their companions. “You’re too full of yourself, I think.”

  “What?” he asked in surprise, blinking at her words in genuine bewilderment.

  “You seem to think this is all about you, your ability to care, your view on the definitions, and not about our choices.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “You aren’t selfish, Achilles. That’s not what I’m saying,” the Quarter-Dragon clarified calmly, her voice firm without being harsh. “My point is that you are obsessed with whether or not you should allow this. You’ve never paused to think about whether you should accept it.”

  “That’s the same thing,” he protested quietly.

  “No, it isn’t,” Synthra said calmly, still, and turned to place her right hand on his chest lightly, idly feeling his heartbeat. “Love isn’t about choice, Achilles. It isn’t about focus. It’s about respect, and it’s about mutual exchange. You won’t be able to give all of yourself to either of us—not because you aren’t a good man. We don’t doubt that. It’s because you’ve already given pieces of yourself to both of us.”

  Leonidas blinked at her and felt his cheeks heat faintly at the feeling of her palm on his chest, even through his shirt. Pieces of himself? He supposed maybe she had a point. His attraction to both of them was different, not unequal, just not the same. He liked them for entirely separate reasons, baggage notwithstanding.

  “I don’t love either of you, Synthra, that’s the prob—”

  “Who said anything about love?”

  “You just said—”

  “I told you what love is about, Achilles, not that you are in love. Divines, for all your prodigious talent, you really are a silly boy sometimes. I don’t love you any more than Aylar does, Achilles, but it isn’t about that.”

  “I…” he sighed, and shook his head. “I just don’t understand, Synthra.”

  “I know,” she said with surprising warmth, stepped forward, and raised herself up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “That’s why I care for you. You’re sweet, Achilles. You don’t see me as a vector for breeding; you see me as someone you want to cherish. I can feel that. I can see that. I don’t need love, not the way you keep insisting. I want you to court me so that I can see what kind of man you’ll be, but I know what kind of husband you’ll be already.”

  “But a marriage without love, it feels… it feels wrong,” he said, without a clear explanation for his reasoning. “It feels like I’m robbing you of that chance.”

  “You Terrans have very romantic notions about marriage, and I’ll grant you that I share them, as does Aylar, I think—but only in a perfect world. We aren’t in a perfect world, Achilles. This world is cruel, savage, and lethal, and if we aren’t strong, we’ll just die like the rest of the unfortunate souls that succumb. I want love, so does she, I believe, but that’s not the point of our theoretical union, is it?”

  “You’ve lost me again,” he admitted.

  “You don’t love us yet, Achilles,” she explained more directly, her golden eyes levelled on his blue with piercing intensity. “We don’t love you yet, but can you really tell me you haven’t fantasized about me? About Aylar? That you haven’t felt your heart stir when you look at us?”

  Leonidas opened his mouth, then closed it, feeling troubled. She wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t think it was as indicative as she believed.

  “Plenty of people fantasize, Synthra. That’s just nature at work.”

  “In your fantasies, did you see us as toys or as partners?” she pressed.

  “Partners,” he answered honestly, frowning at her when he did.

  “Necessity is the mother of action, Achilles,” Synthra said with a self-satisfied smile, and reached up to cup his cheek. “You will love me, one day. You will love Aylar, too. Because that is who you are.”

  He felt himself flush with embarrassment at her words.

  “I have Draconic instincts that make me want to do things to you, but I’m not ruled by them. I can acknowledge they exist without them diminishing my agency. I’m not some sex-crazed harlot,” she clarified with an echo of her usual haughty pride. “I’ve saved myself for my reasons, and if I choose to trust you with that intimacy, it is for my reasons as well. Aylar needs a strong King for Dawnhaven, and I need a strong Knight for myself. We are just as selfish as you, Achilles.”

  The Sorceress smiled wryly, and her shoulders shrugged.

  “We’re just more aware of our motivations. You can’t be afraid of what might not happen; you can only work toward what you would like to happen.”

  “I’d rather wait until the love was unequivocal,” he answered sincerely, reaching up to touch her hand with his, and eliciting a soft blush from the Sorceress when he did.

  “I believe that I can wait that long,” Synthra said gently, and her expression became more intent, “but can Dawnhaven? Can Aylar?”

  He turned at her words, toward where the mind-glows were drawing closer, and felt her hand leave his cheek as she took a single, meaningful step away and joined him in observation.

  “Your innocence is part of what I like about you, Achilles. You came across as so self-assured when I met you, but I like this vulnerable side to you. It makes me feel safe to feel as I do, actually—but your innocence cannot be used to dictate to your choices, not in this. I like Aylar quite a lot,” she said while flipping her hair in the way she did when feeling particularly secure in herself. “She’s a noble, selfless, genuinely kind woman. I didn’t agree to share you because I lack pride or agency; I agreed because I know she needs you, too. The only person that has yet to accept the cost of that, Achilles, is you.”

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  “When did you two even become so close? It feels like it came out of nowhere,” he said honestly.

  “We’ve been talking since the Arena,” Synthra said simply, her eyes moving back to his with a wry smile. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Achilles. You only see some of it through those blue eyes of yours. The world doesn’t stop living just because your consciousness can’t narrate it. We’re people, not objects. We choose. We evolve. We grow.”

  Leonidas sighed and shook his head, smiling faintly.

  “I feel like an idiot,” he confessed quietly. “I’m living every man’s fantasy right now, and all I want to do is not. It’s bewildering.”

  “That’s what makes you special, Achilles,” Synthra said finally, a wry grin on her lips. “You don’t see this situation as a right—you understand its immensity, our immensity, and you fear that you aren’t worthy. That is what makes you worthy of us, more than any might of arms ever could.”

  Leonidas fell silent at her words and watched Aylar, Bardulf, and Parnym emerge from the underbrush in a jovial mood, the Princess and Mender laughing at something Bardulf was saying with grand, jocular gestures. He mulled over what the Sorceress had said in silence as the trio approached, and his eyes narrowed faintly in thought. Ceruviel had a very different view, he knew, but she was also far more jaded.

  If he raised the idea of love, his Mentor probably would have called him a sap.

  It wasn’t a reflection of callousness so much as her pragmatic viewpoint, but he found himself taking faint comfort in Synthra’s words. The emotional intelligence she displayed humbled him, but not for the first time, he wondered if she truly did feel what she did—not because he doubted her self-awareness, but because he wasn’t sure he believed that what was evolving between her, him, and Aylar was grounded in reality.

  Two beautiful women, both willing to share him, both willing to marry him.

  On Altera, he understood, that wasn’t uncommon—hell, it was normal.

  But he wasn’t Alteran, he was a kid from Texas, and the idea of that sort of indulgence still clashed heavily with his foundational morals. The selfish part of him, the part of him that just wanted happiness, knew he was being stupid. The chivalrous part of him, the one influenced by his parents and grandparents, argued vehemently against what he was considering.

  He wished it were as easy as just turning off the conflict.

  Resolving established morality, however, wasn’t nearly that easy.

  “Ho there!” Bardulf called as the trio reached them. “All done here, then?”

  “Done,” Achilles agreed, looking over the group as they came back together. “I suppose we should look at the Dungeon properly, now.”

  “We should,” Aylar said in agreement, her expression faintly troubled. “We’ve been taking our time to prepare, but we cannot tarry any longer. Braedon will have returned to Dawnhaven, and if he does set off after us, he could snatch the Rite from under us.”

  “It won’t come to that,” Synthra said assuredly, and glided forward to link her arm supportively with Aylar’s. “It’s your crown, Princess. We’ll make sure you get it.”

  Aylar smiled at her warmly when she said it, and Leonidas shook his head.

  How did I ever miss this friendship blossoming? I must have been blind.

  “So are we returning to camp, then?” Parnym asked quietly, looking between them all. He’d opened up considerably in the days they’d been hunting, though the Mender still showed a subtle amount of deference he couldn’t quite shake.

  “We will,” Aylar said decisively, looking across them all and settling her gaze on Leonidas. “We’ll return to camp, make our preparations, and then strike into the Delve. We have hours of daylight left, and sleep remains distant for all of us. We should enter the dungeon and rest as needed inside.”

  The group nodded in agreement, and Aylar gently extricated herself from Synthra to hover near Leonidas. As if by unspoken agreement, the Sorceress grabbed Parnym and Bardulf firmly around the arms—drawing a squeak from the Mender—and started marching them toward the camp while loudly commenting on the way she’d obliterated the ebonsilk spiders.

  Leonidas watched them go with faint amusement and then turned back to the Princess.

  “Synthra spoke to you?” she asked him simply, while setting off toward the camp and drawing him with her as they intentionally lagged behind their companions.

  “She did,” he said simply, his hands in his pockets still. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know.”

  “A King’s Prime Consort is often a Queen’s greatest ally, Leonidas,” Aylar said simply, as if she were explaining the function of a cloud. “Sometimes that means having hard conversations in the Queen’s place.”

  “I hate that term, you know. ‘Prime Consort’. It’s so demeaning.”

  Aylar raised her eyebrow at him and then smiled and shook her head.

  “You can call it whatever you want, Leonidas. You understand my point.”

  “I know you two have already decided how this should go,” he agreed quietly while they stepped through the greenery of the forest. “It doesn’t mean I’m entirely comfortable with it, yet.”

  “Many men would be leaping at the chance to be sought after by we two,” Aylar said bluntly.

  “Many men are selfish assholes,” Leonidas replied disapprovingly.

  “I suppose I see your point,” Aylar said with a nod, and then appraised him thoughtfully. “But where does your heart lie?”

  “In confusion,” Leonidas said honestly. “Because on one hand, I want you both—on the other hand, it feels like selfish, indulgent male fantasy and I’m waiting to wake up and have my mother slap me for being a pig.”

  “My word, you are conflicted,” Aylar said with a soft smile. “That is strangely endearing.”

  “Synthra said much the same,” he grumbled, and then let out an aggrieved sigh. “This isn’t easy for me, Aylar. I know what I need to do—for you, for Dawnhaven, for all of us—but it isn’t as simple as doing it. There’s so much to consider. We’d be expected to have a marriage, a life, heirs. What if we never fall in love?”

  “Do you really think that a possibility?” she questioned without judgment.

  “I don’t,” he conceded, “but it doesn’t mean I don’t worry about it.”

  Aylar nodded and fell silent, walking alongside him quietly for a time, until she spoke again a few minutes later.

  “You Terrans have a concept called ‘soulmates’, yes?”

  “We do,” he confirmed. “It’s mainly rooted in Grecian theology, from when Zeus split all humans into two parts, but yes.”

  “I have my own views on it,” Aylar said thoughtfully. “Would you like to hear them?”

  “Of course,” Leonidas agreed.

  “I think ‘soulmates’ are not predestined great loves, as your people perceive them, but instead fated necessity. I think people are drawn together, not simply for affection, but for purpose. The way it is described here, a ‘soulmate’ is just someone you’re destined to be with—but I see that as fanciful. To me, a ‘soulmate’ is someone you are destined to achieve with. It’s someone you need, and someone who needs you, to create something bigger than either one of you can alone.”

  Leonidas blinked at that and mulled it over thoughtfully.

  It was a particularly Alteran way of viewing it, but it also made sense.

  “I think you and I are soulmates, Leonidas. Not because we are made for each other, but because circumstances, situations, and need have made us perfect for one another,” she explained, and looked at him with a depth in her gaze. “What do you think?”

  “It’s a compelling argument,” he said softly, thinking on her words and unable to prevent a small blush from coloring his cheeks. “It’s flattering, too. I don’t know if I agree I’m worthy of that kind of entitlement, but it’s a romantic notion.”

  “If you and I aren’t engaged to be married when I claim the Throne, Leonidas, you know what will happen,” Aylar said without judgment.

  “And what happens after, Aylar? What happens if we never fall in love? I’m not saying I believe that’ll happen, but—”

  “The girl that needed that kind of story is already gone, Leonidas,” Aylar cut in gently, but firmly. “I believed as you did, as recently as two weeks ago—but necessity culls all delusion. I believed as I did because of my privileges on Altera: a spoiled, sheltered life absent hardship or burden. I am no longer on Altera. Do I want to be loved? Of course I do, I want such dearly—but I want to protect my people, our people, far more than I desire selfish indulgence.”

  Leonidas glanced up as the terrain started to incline, and he distantly spied the flag that marked their campsite.

  “It’s a lot to surrender, Aylar. It’s a lot to risk. For both of us.”

  “And you have your ghosts, still,” she allowed gently.

  “And I have my ghosts, still,” he agreed in kind.

  “You were anointed as a Sovereign by the System itself, Leonidas,” Aylar said after a pause, and reached out a hand to halt him. “That means something. Whether in Dawnhaven or elsewhere, eventually, you will be the Sovereign you were forged to become. I believe that now more than ever, after learning about Elatra.”

  Leonidas furrowed his brows at her words, but didn’t interrupt.

  “However,” Aylar said more firmly, and searched his eyes with hers, “that does not mean that you need to do so absent a partner. I know what I am asking of you, Leonidas. I know what you fear. I know what you are dreading: a loveless union, children that will not know parents that truly adore one another, a bad example of love. I understand. These concepts have been explained to me by Terran advisors—but I want you to know that these fears are just that; fears.”

  The Princess stepped closer to him and, hesitantly, placed her armored hands on his chest, looking at his torso and the shirt that covered it, and then lifting her eyes to his.

  “I fear it, too,” she confessed to him quietly, in a faintly vulnerable voice. “But I fear not trying more than I fear failure. I do not fear death, not in service to our people, but I do fear never having the courage to try. I am asking you to risk your life for me, for my Crown, for my future—but also for the future of Dawnhaven. I am willing to give myself to you to secure that, Leonidas. Not because I am desperate, but because I have chosen to trust you—to trust in you.”

  Leonidas felt his heartbeat thundering in his chest, and he wanted to touch her in kind, though his hands wouldn’t move. Her face hazed in his focus, one part Aylar, one part Lyara, and he blinked away the hallucination. She was Aylar. He forced the image to solidify and suppressed his ghosts as he looked at her.

  “I could still fail,” he said to her quietly. “There’s no guarantee I can overcome Braedon.”

  “I know,” Aylar said to him without breaking eye contact. “But could you forgive yourself if you didn’t try?”

  Leonidas fell silent at that, and then after several moments, he took a heavy breath and let it out with a quiet sigh.

  “You know we can’t go back,” he said to her simply, his voice leaden. “Once we make this choice, Aylar, that’s it. The System itself may very well enforce it.”

  “I know,” the Swordmaiden said simply. “And I have no desire to be a bride of obligation, but that reservation is secondary to my duty. To our duty. You are already a King, Leonidas. I want you to be our King. Let me try.”

  Leonidas swallowed at her words, and finally his hands left his pockets, rising to settle on her cheeks as she instinctively leaned her head into his right palm.

  “I hear you,” he said reassuringly. “Just… let me think about it during the Delve. Just give me some time.”

  Aylar searched his gaze and nodded, pausing only to close her eyes and enjoy the feel of his hand.

  “No one has ever touched me this way,” she admitted quietly, with an edge of vulnerability in her voice. “Even if this is all that ever happens, thank you, Leonidas.”

  Leonidas smiled at her, and his thumb absently stroked her cheek as he watched her.

  “We still have a dungeon to conquer, you know.”

  “I know,” Aylar said quietly. “But let me enjoy this. Please? Just for a few more moments.”

  Leonidas smiled again and dipped his head.

  “As you wish, Aylar.”

  Leonidas and Aylar, Concept, Before the Delve

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