Harlan went to guide Adina to breakfast as he would every morning, yet this time she was not alone and he didn’t recognize their mind.
His first instinct said to break down the door, but that was just paranoia talking.
Not that he could’ve knocked down a heavily warded door like that anyway.
He knocked politely and the unknown person opened the door.
She wasn’t happy to see him but she put on a kind face.
“Greetings child, we have been waiting for you.”
White hair with a few black and red hairs showed her age and her fire and dark alignments.
She wore a loose simple black robe held by buttons copper in color and designed on the back with the 7 white dots that showed her relation to Reino, she was a priestess.
“Adina, can I come in?”
“Of course.”
Harlan felt no fear, but he could tell she was apprehensive, he couldn’t be sure if it was how the woman would treat him, or how he would treat her.
They never really talked about religion, Adina knew Harlan didn’t believe in her gods, and she didn’t completely believe in his, they set this issue aside as not important compared to their friendship.
He sat on a simple but high quality wooden chair in front of a low table meant to hold drinks and finger foods.
The old woman was drinking a powerful smelling black drink that Harlan wasn’t sure of, she didn’t seem to enjoy the flavor if her face and constant adding of milk and cream were any indicator.
“So, this is the feared and hated Fomorian. You don’t seem quite so bad to my old eyes.”
“Thank you. I do not identify with them, they are my blood but they are not my kin.”
She made no sound, there was no shift in her posture, but Harlan knew Adina felt relieved after their little exchange.
“Now, you have a question for me, I can see that.”
“I was simply wondering what a priestess of Reino would be doing here in the morning.”
“I hoped that I could come to understand both sides of this conflict you are having with the Cato brothers before things escalate.”
There was a shift in his eyes, but he kept his tone friendly.
“While I cannot prove it, and the academy found no information, I believe they were involved in the assault on Adina. She is a very close friend to me, so I cannot let this go. But, I am also not going to make things worse, her wounds, furious as they made me, were clearly made for show.”
“My, that is quite the accusation. Do you have proof of this?”
“I’ve already said I cannot prove this, but I wonder, for whose sake are you here?”
“I am here for the wellbeing of all parties.”
“You can take this message back to whoever you are going to report to then.
Fill not the cup of wrath, lest you drown in it.”
“My, a threat? Is that the best you can do?”
“I figured that the only thing you people might listen to would be a quote from your own book.”
“Do you intend a theological debate with a woman who has devoted her life to it? There are many facets to each quote or verse that our gods have given us.”
“No, debates are for people who spend their time learning how to lie and speak weasel words while sounding like honest men. Can you tell me which part of your book justifies attacking a girl who cannot even see because she doesn’t want to be treated like dirt her entire life while also denying her the ability to be healed?”
“She should be glad a seer asked that she be allowed to live, she has a use still, what use do you have in this world?”
“Making things, protecting those around me who I care for. Someday it is likely to be killing things that should’ve died long ago to safeguard the lives of people who hate me.”
“Ah, a killer who hides behind flowery words?”
Harlan couldn’t help but laugh until his lungs had no air left for it.
The woman was not impressed and Adina was afraid.
Things had very quickly gone downhill in their conversation, the priestess and Cato both shared a trait that Harlan despied, their faux kindness that hid their contempt was like hiding a candle under a pile of dry leaves, it only made the flames larger.
“Sorry, I should’ve written down my flowery language, then I could use it to justify as much killing as I so desire.”
“I have come in good faith with the hope that you could be turned away from violence, I believe we should return to that topic.”
“There isn’t anything else to say, if they push me, I will push back, if they cross a line, they won’t know it, someday they will just die for it. It is best that both sides drop the issue before that happens, unless you have anything else to add.”
“A compromise, Adina wears her glasses that are being sent here,”
Adina was willing to wear them again at this point, Harlan walked her everywhere, and she liked that, but knowing that it was always moments away from turning into bloodshed was weighing on her mind.
The elder Cato was no small threat, but he would be gone next year when he graduated, at that point she would just stop wearing her glasses again since there shouldn’t be any other students she had to worry about actually being able to beat Harlan.
“And you cannot see her anymore, so you cannot taint her mind further.”
That, however, was unacceptable.
“Mother Brimstone, if you do not intend to make any real offers of peace, then you should just leave.”
“Do mind you tone wh-”
“I will not. I would sooner die than live without Harlan, he is my first and only real friend, he would give his life for me, and I will not let that pigheaded bastard who was half of my birth take him away.”
It was taboo to say the least how Adina had spoken.
From insulting a member of the clergy by interrupting her to insulting her father in such crude words, it was enough to drive the woman to correct her.
She attempted a slap that Harlan caught.
“Monster, if you intend to keep that hand, you will remove it from me.”
Her eyes flared with mana and Harlan could feel a heat that would crisp the skin of a normal man.
“I could say the same for you.”
A mage tempered their body with every spell they cast, the mana that flowed through it bringing them beyond human limits, it wasn’t something taught, it was just an understood part of the world.
In her youth she had been a force to be reckoned with, her magic still held that power, yet the flesh was not so kind.
If a body could be 10 times stronger, then that would stay, yet if that same person was 90 years old then their joints would still ache, their bones would still be brittle, they might even become a threat to themselves as ability outpaced durability.
Her bones creaked as Harlan tightened his grip, he had no compunction about losing a hand, his sense of pain wasn’t human, but she had no desire to leave with broken bones or worse.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Can you afford to test that theory?”
Harlan had been using his left hand to cast healing spells and the room filled with the scent of burning flesh as they kept up their staring match.
The heat resided and the woman left the room, Harlan kept a void bolt at the ready just in case, he knew she was fuming both literally and metaphorically.
When she slammed the door Harlan allowed himself to fall to his knees, he kept up the facade, and it didn’t hurt him as much as a normal person, but he still let his skin be seared for over 15 seconds.
Adina helped him to get rid of the worst of it, but his nerves were completely shot, the burned tissue was below the fat layer and his muscles had suffered serious damage that needed more than two 14 year olds to fix.
His hand was covered in uneven pink tones and blisters that they removed as best they could.
“Let’s get you to the healers, I can’t believe that, that, WOMAN. I would’ve rather you broke her arm and just ended it.”
“I know, but that could only make things worse. This might still end without things getting worse. If she reports even more poorly because I hurt her badly enough that she needs a doctor then I wouldn’t feel right about it.”
“Just have your revenge, I don’t want to see you like this. Can you even feel your hand?”
“A few minutes at the doctors and I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t like that answer, yet what Harlan had planned wasn’t exactly something that could be overlooked like how the younger Cato had gotten in some trouble after that kingslayer dye was found in his pocket.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He would risk a great deal of consequences both personal and political in nature should he enact his plans.
Hellon happened to pass by when Harlan was heading to the medical ward.
She pulled him into the nearest class room and told whoever was inside to leave while she spoke to her students.
A blend of anger and disgust was clear on her face, yet the sadness was only known to him.
“Who did this to you?”
“That isn’t important, I just want it healed and put behind me.”
“If you don’t start talking I’ll… I will not see my students cooked like a roast hog and then tell me that things are fine. This is serious, if it was anyone else with such intense burns they would need the entire hands regrown, you still might need it regrown. Did Adina do this? Was it an accident?”
She was offended at the accusation that she would hurt Harlan.
“I am saying that nothing good will come from you knowing who did this, but, if things happen to escalate, I will tell you, because things will not be quiet once that happens.”
“If you do not tell me I am going to call Sepul here.”
Harlan didn’t really get what the threat was.
“Ok?”
She pulled a communicator from her pocket and Harlan wondered how she got one, they were just starting to manufacture them as they realized that any more decreases in size would be marginal at best.
He arrived as the space around him made quiet pained noises, he had punched through it with a bit more force than normal, yet not enough to set off the alarms in the academy and call anyone else in.
“Boy, have you done what you planned? Is this retaliation?”
“No, things might not be getting hot just yet, we will see. I don’t know why she even called you.”
“Sepul. Who did this to my student?”
He grabbed hold of Harlan’s hand for a moment.
“Ah, now this is familiar. How is that crone doing?”
“Violent and controlling, she got upset when Adina stood up for herself.”
“Still a zealot then. Hellon, I will keep an eye on this, it was Brimstone, this is why I said that Hirum should’ve made them pick another priestess. Harlan, keep going to the medical ward, I will be having a chat with Hellon here.”
It was not a large issue for Harlan to get his hand looked at and healed, though he would be missing classes for it.
His healer was a girl barely older than him, in the 3rd year the students would begin helping out around the medical ward to give them experience with a real person and to work on their bedside manners.
She was somewhat rude and she treated him like a slime, which caused her teacher to give her a talking to while another student tried to heal his hand.
The class had been reduced to only two dozen students and they talked among themselves on how best to heal it until one of them recommended just cutting it off and making a new hand.
Harlan agreed and then it became an argument about who actually had to do it, they were still squeamish types who didn’t want to do it and somehow it hadn’t been trained out of them in the 2 years they had already been there.
So Harlan cast his own sleeping air spell on himself while Lugh made a vice grip around his hand and then had his blade amputate it cleanly as soon as he was fully asleep.
The students screamed and the teacher had to take over, Harlan had no worries about bleeding out.
His blood congealed with such speed that only repeated limb removal would put him at risk and beyond that Lugh tightly wrapped around his arm to restrict blood flow.
He dreamt of the woman again, she kissed his hand made it feel better, though he knew that outside of this dream it was probably sitting on the floor still.
He walked into the cafeteria with lunch half over, he had agreed beforehand to let the students try to heal him, but their antics wasted a great deal of time.
The teachers said he should never do what he did again, but also the students might’ve needed the shock.
The younger Cato was with Adina at a different table, despite what might seem sensible, he sat with them.
“Leave this place, monster.”
“Adina, if you are here of your own will I’ll leave with no questions asked, if you would like to go, I will ensure nothing stands in your way.”
She had had glasses on again, yet he buried that anger, he saw them as a sign of penance for being born.
“I am fine, Cato invited me over to say that while he had nothing to do with my attack, that surely the words of Brimstone would put an end to any ideas of a second attack.”
“Very good.”
He went to sit with his other friends and his sister who all wanted to know where he was, it wasn’t like him to miss a meal, let alone miss his classes.
“Don’t worry about it, even if I know saying that is just going to make you worry. I am told that Adina is now safe, so it was worth it.”
“You didn’t kill anyone, did you?” Yara asked.
“It looks like I won’t need to.”
“Well, I am glad you aren’t as violent as everyone keeps telling me.”
“I can be as violent as I need to be, but here I could solve things peacefully. I don’t want to go out of my way to hurt people without anything to gain from it.”
Before anyone could interject and switch the topic Yara and Harlan were having a chat about what would constitute going out of his way.
They hadn’t known one another for very long, but Harlan had started looking forward to talking with her, she was easy to speak to and she was very interested in friendly debates.
They never once raised their voices at one another, they didn’t get red in the face, they simply spoke a great deal with one another and wondered where one another drew lines.
For Yara she wanted to know what would be normal, and what would be extreme for people.
She always had a hard time speaking with others, they often found her constant questions and arguments annoying as they mistook her curiosity as conflict seeking.
For Harlan it let him clearly define what he believed.
It was one thing to think something, it was another to speak it and then think about why he believed it.
She had dulled some of his more violent ideas and helped him put to words why he felt the way he did about others.
He had a strong sense of what he wanted to be at this point, yet he didn’t want to be stuck in his ways either.
He felt his heart flutter when she laughed, and then he promptly buried that under fear of what that feeling could mean.
He finished his classes for the day and went to spar with Liat, he had been working on his spearman ship while she worked on her ability to defend herself.
Yara and Adina were always there, then there were a few people that he didn’t know and they never introduced themselves.
They were there to either watch Liat or to just watch people who were stronger than them.
She snapped his spear again, yet he had expected this and telekinetically grabbed the half that was behind her and struck her across the back with a nasty snap as wood met flesh.
“Good one. You keep fighting without using your full kit, always remember what you can do, but don’t overthink it so much, also, I never said the fight was over.”
A quick jab broke his nose, again.
----------------------------------------
Sepul punched through the wards and arrays to prevent such a thing, space screamed and the air itself cracked.
The cathedral within the neutral zone was spatially displaced so only those who knew where to find it would be able to, yet to him it was like putting a sign in front of a hidden entrance saying ‘please don’t come in.’
“Brimstone you contemptible old witch, come out here.”
Stone melted as a pillar of flame came from the corner of the room.
“You should not be here, demon, you have no right to be involved in anything we do. You’ve thrown away your allegiance to that place.”
From the perspective of reality the lance of flame traveled in a straight line, yet his whispers told the space that straight was not a truth, and it believed him.
“The boy is my apprentice.”
Before she could start turning on more arrays and casting more spells the headmaster appeared.
Technically he wasn’t supposed to be there either, but Sepul was the original designer for half the arrays and wards that kept space from collapsing when distorted and he gave him the keys to backdoors in the spells.
As a second pillar formed he clicked his tongue and the mana froze, the spell simply dispersed.
While the building was stone, the land was the area of influence of the headmaster, he was as a god in this place, within limits at least.
“Both of you, explain what has happened.”
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know, you sniveling coward, she has assaulted my apprentice and the girl who belongs to this wretch has to be watched by him or else she risks another attack from them. You spoke your nice words about unity and preventing them from exercising their power here but you’ve done little more than stop the most surface level threats. Your in effectual and foolish ideas of them just dropping 1000 years of control over aspects of their children because they lost a war will only cause more suffering, I intend to put an end to that right now.”
Hirum flinched and called Xol.
Nobody noticed how he got there, it was as if he just started existing in that very spot without any distortion.
“Words spoken are truth and without blood upon them, shall we speak of the better days ahead?”
Everyone gathered around a very nice table and chairs that the lich pulled from the sleeve of his robe.
“The man of light wishes no blood shed, for now that the darkling has the eyes of a wolf and those against him are as sheep, the flock must be pulled back to its yard.”
Hirum could tell that Brimstone had no patience for the skeleton in front of her and yet she was too afraid to try and go against him.
“What he means is that if your people push him, then Harlan is likely to retaliate. Harlan is not going to just go after the Cato brothers, if he has something planned but he hasn’t done it yet then I fear they will lose their lives to him.”
“What can a boy 14 years of age do against us if we intend to bring one of ours back to the flock? The boy is dragging away a lamb and you ask that I let him be.”
Xol locked eyes with the woman.
“You’ve left the lamb afront of the wolf, now you dare act as the affronted when the lamb believes him a better shephard?”
“She is still ours, he has no claim over her.”
Now it was Sepul’s time to speak.
“We have already brought her citizenship to the final stages, all that is needed now is for her to formally accept it. He has claim over her because she wants him to, make her wear the glasses and admit you’ve lost. You have years to try and brainwash her a second time, but if you push, she will be lost forever.”
“Bullshit, he hasn’t the political capital to do such a thing and the man who sits on that throne has no reason to pull the girl over just to spite us. Unless…”
She put her hand on her chin and an evil grin rose on her face.
“Now, what has that boy done recently that would give that man reason to be involved? You’ve gotten his dark magic already, so he must have more uses?”
“You should be wary of these thoughts, obliteration is yet an option for the weakened state.”
“Oh? So you would go to war for hi-”
Xol’s eyes lit with green fire as she felt pressure across her entire body, the entire building shook under his might.
“There are others who hold claim of him, I shall not spill blood for nations, yet I hold contracts with beings beyond them. Facilitation of peace is to their benefit, yet violence is always an option.”
His lack of flowery words that needed at least some translation sent shivers down the spines of the woman and the headmaster.
Sepul had no compunction about wiping Reino from the face of the world, yet he didn’t want Harlan to pay with his life.
“Nobody here wants a war, If they did, you would’ve killed them already. Brimstone, I’ve said my piece, listen or don’t. Either you lose a single girl or you lose millions of people again and your nation is crushed under the weight of real gods. Unless her father is the most vindictive and self-destructive person on the face of Aarde this isn’t a real choice, if he is, then have your people put him down like a rabid dog.
Hirum, you need to put real guards around this place, I know you’ve got thousands of golems built already, stop worrying about these fools and put them on every corner unless you want everything that you should be protecting to go up in flames.”
It didn’t take more than 20 minutes for a contract to be drawn up, Adina would wear the glasses again but there would be no changes.
Xol had reached his hand over and pulled Adina’s father from his home to make sure there were no misunderstandings about what was happening and then he vanished after sending him home.
Xol sat in his recliner and his wife sat in his lap as he returned to a flesh and blood body.
“Rough night?”
She handed him a cup of cocoa that he had to reheat with magic.
“I wish people would stop interrupting our special nights. Did you finish the puzzle?”
“We’ve got about 40 thousand pieces left to go, but I wanted to wait for you to get back.”
He gave her a kiss on the cheek and she pushed him away before he got more whipped cream on her face.