Harlan walked the grounds until he noticed an outpouring of students that meant they had returned from camp.

He decided against talking to Amber just yet, she was probably tired and needed to freshen herself up.

He went to the gym instead to just lift weights, something to clear his head somewhat.

Before he knew it Bojana had walked in.

“Ah, a pleasant surprise to find you here.”

He set down the bar with 2 150 pound plates on it and sat up.

“I expected you would all want a nap and a shower, didn’t want to bother you until then.”

“I washed in the river before we left, what trouble have you gotten into while we were away?”

“You were only gone for a week, there isn’t much I can do in that time.”

“I want to fight you.”

“I’m not in the mood, maybe another day.”

He was still trying to stop being Formoria, he needed a little more time to unwind, otherwise he felt like he might actually hurt her; it was an unfounded fear however, she was a 4th year student who was built for combat on top of her natural physical boost due to being a beastkin.

“Fine, another time. Amber wanted me to tell you that she would be over after she got herself cleaned up.”

“I will be ready for her then.”

Not 20 minutes later Amber knocked on his door.

“So, how was your week?”

He said as he poured her a cup of apple spiced tea, he hoped that it would warm her up if she had been in a cold place, otherwise it just had the strength to wake her up.

“My group went to the frontier, we worked alongside a ranger to kill some Ice Wyrms, they were stuck in packs of 15, they’re about a foot long and as thick as your finger, swam through the ice like they were flying.”

She was clearly unhappy, she hung her head and had little energy behind her voice.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“The ranger was the leader, I was vice-leader, and the idiot got himself killed.”

“You blame yourself?”

“How do you think about Redmond when he is out there?”

“He already told me that life out there isn’t great, and my work has saved his life more than once. I know he tries his best, and sometimes he probably comes back by the skin of his teeth.”

“I thought of rangers as top of the line, almost impossible to take down. I saw 3 of them crawl under his skin and then come out of his eyes, I can’t stop thinking about how safe Redmond is out there. I don’t really want to burden you with this, but I don’t want to be a hypocrite, we are supposed to lean on each other.”

“I wouldn’t call you out anyway, everyone has the things that they can’t talk about, afraid that just saying them will make them more real. Did you get everyone else out safe?”

“Yeah…”

“Sepul. I’ve been his apprentice for a few days now, I don’t want to talk too much about him, but he has had more than I likely ever will, and he lost them all. If a 300 year old archmage and champion of light can’t save everyone, I think you can afford to not beat yourself up over someone whose actions led to their death.”

“If you lost somebody, could you just let it go?”

Harlan would’ve rather not answered, yet he had to.

“I am going to be honest, and you aren’t going to follow my example, because you are my big sisters and I should be following yours. But when the lich attacked, I decided to give up my life to try and save everyone.”

She chuckled.

“Yeah, I think you are right. When you did that I was upset to say the least, so I can’t really do that can I.”

They sat and drank tea, ate cookies, though they didn’t want to ruin their breakfast.

Amber rested her head atop his, he felt like he should be the one holding her if she is upset, but she just wanted to be sisterly, they never did get to really talk about his camping trip.

“Are you together with Adina yet?”

“You say it like it is just a matter of time, and do you even like her?”

“I don’t know how I feel about her, she seems nice, but I just don’t trust Reinoans. And really, it is a matter of time, you two look too close to not at least give it a try.”

“What if that try ruins the friendship we already have.”

“I don’t believe that is what really has you hesitating, come on, be honest with your big sis.”

He opened and closed his mouth, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was thinking with her, in some sense he had been trying to push that part farther ahead, and to push the bigger fears of his even farther back.

“I think both of us have no idea what love means, I’ve never felt that way about a girl, she doesn’t even know what a happy family should be. What if I am the wrong choice but she doesn’t know it because she hasn’t had friends before.”

“Think about this, if you don’t do it, then would you be upset if she found another boy.”

“No, if she is happy I am happy.”

“If your goal is always to make sure she is happy then how can you leave that up to another man? You don’t leave things half finished, and you shoulder more than you should. Is there another reason?”

He sat in silence for minutes, Amber gently brushed her hands through his hair.

“You don’t have to answer, we can talk about something else.”

“I am scared of what I am. What if my blood is just cursed, I am a successful experiment to find the right balance between Man and Fomorian. What if being more human leads to something terrible, what if I bring something into this world that just suffers for what it is, what if it just brings more bad into the world than good.”

Amber didn’t have a good answer, she didn’t know about bloodlines, she didn’t know about souls, but, she believed in Harlan, so she found her answer eventually.

“You’ll figure it out, I’m not telling you to rush into a relationship, just that you deserve one when it does happen, so don’t run away. You’ve already done so much with souls and I am sure you will do more. I think you can find an answer, good or bad, if you have enough time.”

They sat there and just ate their cookies and drank their tea, both of them let out some of the things bothering them and leaned against one another for support.

Eventually the alarms rang, it was time to head out to breakfast.

“Do you want to eat breakfast here? I could have it ordered.”

“Nope, I think we both need to be around our friends, wallowing in what has us upset isn’t going to help either of us. Plus, I haven’t seen Zella in a week and I am sure you left something out.”

“Nothing important I think.”

When Amber and Harlan arrived they found Ximena and her friends, who Harlan wasn’t sure were his friends, were already sitting with both of their groups.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Harlan didn’t really know where to sit, Zella was boxed in between Bojana and Ibery, while Ximena was between the Golden Sisters.

He found himself across from Yara and Amber across from Liat, she had requested that the others move around so that when Amber and Harlan arrived she could be by her.

“So, Harlan, did you leave out the part where you got two more friends?”

“Well, I wouldn’t assume that they are my friends yet, but this is Yara, and this is Liat.”

Liat reached over the table to shake Amber’s hand.

“Yes, we are friends, we’ve shed each others blood in a good fight and then we spoke for a time.”

“I hope that you settled whatever differences you had with my brother, I would hate to have things escalate.”

Amber flared a bit of magic in her eyes to give a fiery appearance for a split second, Liat only laughed.

“And here I thought that he got his temperment from his blood. I think that we could be fast friends.”

She held her head in her hands and cocked it to the side as she spoke to Amber, mostly she wanted to know what he was like as a child.

“Should I be answering this stuff? She gives me a bad feeling.”

“Either she is trying to protect Ximena or Yara, probably both, so I give that bad feeling a pass. You know I am the same way.”

Yara and Harlan sat facing one another but not talking, he only spoke to chime in on Amber’s story of his life growing up.

They split up after breakfast, Harlan noticed as he went through his classes how a few people looked at him.

He wondered for a moment which event exactly set people off.

He noticed one girl was sneaking far less than subtle glances at him, she seemed afraid of him, so he thought it would be easy to get answers from her.

“Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk?”

The girl was from Ragne but he didn’t recognize the crest, likely a baron’s daughter that got a scholarship.

She put on a stoneface but Harlan could tell she nearly jumped when he talked to her.

“What might I do for you, Sir Fomoria.”

“You’ve been looking at me, a lot of people have, I just want to know what rumors are behind it this time. Was it the fight last night or what happened in my warmagic class.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Are you sure that is how you want to answer me?”

He wasn’t really upset, he would find out eventually what the issue was, but his glare said otherwise.

He saw her stoneface crack but not break, yet she still answered.

“People simply wonder how strong you really are, your other fights showed little of what you can do, that fight last night impressed the 3rd years and frightened the 1st years.”

“Are you afraid of me? If so I am sorry, have a nice day.”

She didn’t find the chance to reply before he was gone.

He found himself in warmagic again, though the test range/class area had changed, the other change was that this time there were no jeers, no ribbery about him and his cadre of female friends.

Harlan let his worst aspects stay in their cage while he was here, he wasn’t worried about them overflowing anymore.

Now that people saw him break a leg and then keep fighting for minutes longer with the fight only ending once he lost use of both arms along with all of the other sounds of bones crunching as he fought a Golden, people were afraid of him for what, and not who he was.

People already listened to rumors and stayed away from him, but now there were actual notes of his fight being shared, and those who liked to fight would come for him.

Today would be them using splitter type warmagic.

Their goal was to take out 20 targets while not causing more than 5 feet of collateral damage around them, warmagic was more than shooting the biggest target, it was also about many other long range spells.

Their previous lessons had taught them first how to try and make their magic cheaper without making it much weaker, then they learned restraint, now they would take that restraint farther.

“You will not be taking turns this time, we are on a mesa some 200 miles inside of the great desert, you all have the same task and plenty of space to work. I expect that there will be no more outbursts, Sir Fomoria.”

“Yes, I apologize for my actions.”

“Good. When any of you have exhausted your mana comes to me and you can rest a few minutes at the academy itself. We are beyond the range of its effects.”

The process for a splitter type was simple and it applied to more than just warmagic, if you can only cast one spell but you want many effects you just make a mass of energy in which you manipulate to cast your other spells from.

Instead of casting and firing off a nova bomb, they needed to hold it and have it fire off parts of itself.

Simple in theory and simple in practice however, were very different things.

By the end of class there was a not insignificant part of sand around the mesa that had turned to glass and plumes of dust filled the air.

Harlan hit 9 of the 20 required targets without too much collateral damage, but when he lost that little bit of control the difference was massive.

He could make big spells, and he could make small spells, yet hitting the sweet spot between them was harder than it looked for him.

After class they were back in the room where they always teleported from.

“What did you all learn today?”

“Controlling magic after you cast it is hard.”

“True, I expect that we will stay on this subject for at least a month, each of you has shown poor control in some way”

Sepul looked directly at Harlan as he said this.

“and that must be corrected before I teach you more advanced techniques to boost the power of your warmagic. I will not stand to see my students blow themselves up because I shortcut their teaching to match some schedule set by the headmaster. By the end of your time here you will do things right or I will start your next year with revisions on previous classes.”

Harlan wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his free time, he didn’t get the chance to find out if anyone else had free periods along with him, he couldn’t really go to the Dyad twins anymore; yet he had no choice in the matter, Claude was on a clear path towards the garden where Harlan liked to read.

“Harlan, I think we need to talk.”

“Do we?”

“I need to know, why did you say I should stay away from you, I am not leaving until I hear it.”

Claude was never a particularly forceful boy, so his sudden demand made Harlan chuckle.

“What did Claudia tell you?”

“What does she have to do with this?”

“How long has she had trust issues? Because she seems to be using my not asking for anything from other people when I help them as a reason for me secretly wanting something.”

Claude didn’t want to believe him.

“Do you want something?”

“I want people to stop looking at me like a monster, I want to help people, I am not looking for money or favors because somebody dropped their favorite dagger behind a dresser and failed to find it without help.

I don’t want what she implied that I did.”

“Ah…”

It took him a moment to sort his thoughts on the matter, Harlan didn’t mind, he simply went back to his book on horticulture.

“My sister has always been headstrong, I hope you don’t think ill of her for her actions.”

“If I thought my sisters friends were trying to do something to her I would’ve been far more forceful in making them leave her alone. She is wrong about me, but I don’t blame her.”

Harlan felt that Claude’s mind was knit with confusion over what he now knew.

“If you are thinking about being mad at her, don’t be upset until you hear her out, you’ve only got so much family in the world, don’t let me take any away from you.”

“I don’t understand you, most of the time you seem so ready to kill somebody over any reasons you can think of, you fight for other people, you fight for yourself. Then you are accused of something by my sister, she drives me away from you, and you just sit there and take it?”

“I have a long list of reasons I would kill somebody, but protecting someone close to you in a way that doesn’t hurt someone else would be a very stupid one. I know I can’t make people like me, maybe someday when she sees me for what I am she will tell you what happened and clear it up for both of us.”

Claude let out a deep breath and relaxed.

“I am not going to talk to her about this, I am sure she would say I am being manipulated by you.”

“Maybe you are?”

“You told me about when you tried to question if Tau was really just a spy, he said that there was nothing that can be done if you assume that everything is a lie from the start. So, I will not think like that, she will eventually learn that you are good.”

“I’m not good.”

“Then she will learn that you are not a threat to us.”

“I can be that.”

Harlan spent the next week like any other, he took his classes, he tried to keep making progress on the connection to the web without crossing the line of actually killing the subjects, for all his resolve he felt that doing such a thing would’ve been a real turning point for him, it was one thing to kill in self-defense, it was another to kill a bound man for the sake of research.

He sparred with Liat twice a day, once in the morning before breakfast, then again after dinner, they became a regular event for people to watch.

There were a few reasons why she wanted to keep fighting him, but mostly it boiled down to pride.

The other Golden treated her like a black sheep because of her hotheaded and overtly sexual nature, leading to the second point, most of the people who wanted to fight her were other students that wanted an excuse to touch her and she refused to be used in such a way.

She considered it a blessing that Harlan had the ability to keep up with her to some extent and yet he looked at her like a friend instead of a piece of meat.

Adina cheered him on every time they fought, she hated to see him hurt, but she had spoken to him about it, he was clearly consumed on some level with being stronger.

She could only lament her fortune to be stuck in love with someone so different from herself, she hated pain, she wanted to avoid it as much as she could, yet he threw himself into the fire at seemingly every chance he got.