for a short moment, silence fell upon the battlefield as the beast’s lifeblood soaked the soil of the floating island. as it became clear the creature was dead, however, leon’s people sprang back into action.

    “see to him!” leon shouted at anna as he pointed at grandin. the guide looked barely conscious, the venom from the monster’s serpentine tail still evidently coursing through his veins. once anna acknowledged his order, leon turned his attention to the other casualties.

    four tempest knights had been killed by the beast; the state of their bodies after being ravaged by its darkness tendrils made it clear that there was no possibility for survival. the mall the creature destroyed, however, was a different story.

    fire poured from the broken machine as its magic power continued flowing into obliterated magical circuits. the war machine had been crewed by two tempest knights, only one of whom managed to extricate himself from the wreck, suffering only light injuries. the other remained trapped within, shouting in fear and pain as the fire slowly cooked him alive.

    the remaining giant in his entourage had already started wrenching open the wreck to save its comrade when leon shot over, his lightning magic arcing through his body, speeding him up. when he arrived, however, he switched over to fire, and seized control over the fire within the broken mall. he channeled it out through the holes that the monster had carved in the hull, drawing it away from his trapped knight.

    as the heat almost immediately died down within the cab, leon joined his strength to the giant knight’s and easily ripped away the wreckage pinning the knight within. having been pinned by his leg, the knight’s wounds hadn’t been apparent, but as leon and the giant hauled his wounded follower out of the mall, blood poured from his savaged leg.

    leon didn’t haul him far, hauling him several dozen feet away from the burning mall and laid him on the ground. the knight, now free of the mall, was quiet, though his face was scrunched up in obvious pain.

    “your strength does you great credit,” leon said, and the ghost of a smile flashed across the knight’s face. leon then turned his attention to his leg and pulled away the tattered remnants of his trousers to better look at the knight’s wounds.

    in short, his leg had been torn apart, and his other leg wasn’t uninjured either, though thankfully that had ‘only’ been horribly burned, which had the side effect of sealing any other wounds he’d suffered.

    after only a moment of observation, leon slapped several powerful healing spells on the still-bleeding leg as another tempest knight ran over and began applying his light magic to his wounded comrade.

    “we’ll get you patched up, runs-from-truth,” the light mage said.

    leon softly chuckled at the man’s name. he knew all of the tempest knights who’d followed him from artorion, and hearing the man’s name was always amusing—apparently, if the jokes he’d overheard when his party had rested were anything to go by, the knight had gotten his name for frequently misbehaving when he was young and having a habit of running away when his mother punished him for it.

    leon laid a hand on truth’s shoulder and said, “you’re in good hands. now just stay down and do what you’re told.”

    truth nodded gratefully as leon’s healing spells and his fellow knight quickly sealed his wounds, keeping him from bleeding out. his road to full recovery would take some time yet, but for now, his life was no longer in danger.

    the same, unfortunately, could not be said for the four other tempest knights who’d fallen in battle. their fellows took possession of their remains, and almost all of the relief leon felt in saving one of his people died at the sight.

    ‘four more to inter in the mausoleum,’ he grimly thought, his lack of cheer contrasting sharply with the almost out-of-place grin that another of his knights wore as he pulled one of his comrades’ remains into his soul realm for safekeeping. leon took no offense to his attitude, however, noting that the man was of the lion tribe. death in battle was something to be envied in their traditions.

    and that brought leon back to the final wounded man who needed attention, and perhaps the most important person in their party.

    grandin.

    he regarded the poisoned man with grim detachment. he needed him to reach the top of kavad’s lance before he was forced to return to artorion, and yet leon had to fight with the easy instinct to blame him for the casualties suffered. hunting the beast was his price, and one leon had agreed to, but with one of his knights’ blood on leon’s clothes and four more whose blood soaked the ground, it was hard to remember that agreement.

    it helped that grandin writhed in pain, giving leon some slight satisfaction, though he knew that, ultimately, the fault for all those injured and killed under his watch was his own fault.

    with a deep breath, leon refocused on the matter at hand. anna was busy tending to grandin, cosmo and felix acting as her assistants. gaius, alix, and valeria were keeping an eye on the monster’s body, just in case, while anzu and two more knights watched over the cave from which the beast had come. maia returned to leon’s side while the remaining knights formed a perimeter, securing their area from any other potential surprises the floating island may hold.

    as far as leon could sense, they were essentially alone on the island, their solitude disturbed only by small birds and insects, but maintaining watch was hardly a bad move.

    he was pulled from his thoughts by grandin groaning in pain and anna sternly telling him, “stay down, don’t try to move!”

    “i can... i’m...” grandin moaned as he tried to sit up and anna pushed him back down. “i have an... antitoxin... compound,” he finally managed to sputter. he glanced at the monster’s corpse, his face still locked in a tight grimace of pain. “i need some... toxin, though...”

    anna ordered felix, “bring me that snake tail!”

    felix scrambled to comply, and a moment later, the very serpentine tail that had bitten grandin and filled his body with venom was in his hands.

    in a flash of light, a vial of light blue liquid appeared in the guide’s hand, and after propping open the snake mouth and squeezing at the base of one of its fangs, a couple drops of remaining venom dripped into the vial, turning the color almost completely clear, leaving only a hint of blue remaining. without hesitation, grandin brought the vial to his lips and tossed it back.

    leon laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder for a moment, giving her a reassuring squeeze, before heading over to grandin.

    “who was he?” he asked.

    grandin didn’t immediately respond, and when he did, his voice shook with deeply-felt emotion. “my brother.”

    “is there... anything that can be done?” he tentatively asked.

    “he’s been like this for twenty-three years,” grandin responded.

    leon sighed. “take all the time you need. i’ll have some people watch the entrance, and then i’m going to check this place out. come find me when you’re ready.”

    grandin pinched his eyes closed and nodded gratefully. leon then turned away and ordered several tempest knights to the entrance of the chamber. the rest of his party he intended to have follow him as he explored the place, but anna whispered to him too softly for grandin to hear, “i... might be able to return that guy to life. maybe. possibly.”

    leon cocked his head in interest. “go on...”

    “i... don’t want to be too definitive with this because it probably won’t work,” she continued. “but if we used all of the anti-petrification salves we have, it might be enough to... undo that. i don’t want to promise anything, especially since it hasn’t been tested on something that’s been petrified for so long...”

    “broach it with grandin if you think it’s worthwhile,” leon said. “how long do you need? do you need anyone to help?”

    anna frowned in thought. “gaius and alix could help. i don’t need anyone else.”

    leon nodded, then ordered loudly for them all to hear, including grandin, “anna, gaius, and alix will stay here. anna has something she needs to check.”

    his former retainers, despite looking a little confused, followed his order.

    with that, leon and the rest of his party turned their attention to exploring the chamber, leaving anna to her thing with grandin.

    the chamber itself, while large, wasn’t that difficult to explore. the relief-covered walls made for something of a maze within the chamber, but leon found it easy enough to navigate without any wards keeping him from using his magic senses. he was disappointed to see that even as they pressed further into the maze-like interior of the chamber, they didn’t find even a single intact mural or relief. the beast had been profoundly thorough in defacing all of the art in the chamber.

    that apparent vandalism extended even to the floor, which leon realized as they walked through the maze, was covered in geometric lines that, at first, appeared to be little more than decorative. however, as he paid more attention to them rather than the defaced murals and reliefs, he realized that they were actually channels for magic to flow through. the lines were subtle enough that he didn’t think he would’ve noticed them if the murals were intact and taking his attention, but now that he had, he started tracing them. this was easy enough despite the claw marks disturbing them in regular intervals. what these lines were in service of, however, he couldn’t say.

    things became clearer when they reached the center of the maze. there was no furniture or anything there in the center, but all of the murals and reliefs—which looked like they would’ve been especially detailed before being defaced—had been vandalized with particular fervor, if the depth and length of the claw marks were any indicator. however, the lines on the ground were thinner and far more intricate here, and with nothing else to examine as far as he could tell, leon took in these lines.

    slowly, as his eyes swept over the lines and his magic senses spread throughout the chamber, adding additional detail to his mental map of the maze, the picture clarified, growing clearer with increasing speed as realizations hit leon like thrown bricks.

    the chamber wasn’t a maze—the walls were built to be glyphs in a massive enchantment. the lines on the floor acted as supplemental channels for magic to flow through while the massive enchantment was active, and to act as a method for the enchantment to be controlled from a distance, not unlike how ancient runes were controlled by directly manipulating ‘strings’ of magic.

    with this realization adding context, leon started to see resemblances in this wide-scale enchantment to his transformation enchantment. what he’d gained from krith’is was far more complex, let alone the refined versions he’d gotten from both the thunderbird and valentina, but the general shape and most of the anchor glyphs were there, if he squinted hard enough to see.

    the defacement certainly made the enchantment unusable, but as leon’s eyes widened in realization, they drifted from the lines on the floor to the largest relief in this center section of the maze.

    this relief, too, had been defaced, and apparently with the greatest amount of prejudice as far as leon could tell. and yet, he could recognize the shape of the thing barely discernable behind the scratches. he could see the cat-like body and the serpentine tail.

    most of all, he could see on its forehead the remains of lines, of a runic inscription that the monster’s defacement failed to cover up. the inscription was of a single rune, and while it was too heavily damaged for leon to truly tell what that rune was, he could see enough to hazard a guess.

    his blood ran cold at the thought, and he quietly ordered his people, “we’re leaving.”

    the monster’s body remained outside. he needed to check it out. he needed to see its forehead. he needed to see what might be there if he inspected it closely enough.

    he dreaded what answers he might find, and what further questions they might lead him to...