She walked the halls of her home with a maid as she always did during this time of the day.

Her father required that she move around so she didn’t gain weight just as he said she was supposed to learn magic because every good citizen should know some, and as the daughter of a high saint it would not do to be useless in such a way.

Another maid came to get her, her father requested her presence.

She stood there afraid as the maid knocked on the door for her.

“Come in”

She was led to a chair across from her father who didn’t even bother to look up from his work as he spoke.

“You will be going to the academy, do not disappoint me.”

“Of course, Father.”

The maid then led her back to her room where trainers waited for her.

It would not do to have her reflect poorly on their house by failing tests or need to be led around by the hand as she was at home.

She was excited at first, then she felt the sting of the training rods.

When she got an answer wrong.

When she cast a spell wrong.

When she failed to guide herself around the house with sound magic.

When she fell down the stairs.

Yet she kept going, she would get to be in the outside world, she might even make a friend.

She just had to keep going, things would get better, things would be better, she kept telling herself as the bruises, barely healed, kept her up at night.

She awoke in her bed at the academy thinking back on what had happened the night before.

From the clock she could tell it was barely 5 in the morning, she just laid there in her bed until past 6, then she took a quick shower and went to Harlan’s room.

He opened the door and didn’t say a word, just put on a fresh kettle of tea and gave her some cookies.

It was something little, she had barely even thought about it, but every time she came in, no matter the time, he would give her something to eat and something to drink.

At home her intake was monitored to keep her looking exactly as she was supposed to, no, how her father wanted her to look.

She pinched her arm and felt the difference, Harlan never said it, but he did think she looked a bit thin when they first met.

He sat across from her and waited for her to talk.

The clock rang with the sound of bird song at 7, a modification Harlan had made himself since there wasn’t much wildlife so close to the academy, things didn’t like leaving the set areas they were in.

“What bird is that?”

“Cardinal, the males are a bright red with a pointed crest. They are pretty birds.”

“How sure are you that what you told me is real? I mean-”

“I’ve seen them, two of them at least. The Darkness, and Cecht, god of light. They exist in physical forms, I’ve met Aarde, though I couldn’t really tell what he looked like. Just his words were enough to nearly kill me. I’ve been inside a place outside of physical space as I spoke to The Darkness. I know what you are going through, you want to believe I am just wrong, but I’m not, you trust me too much to believe I am lying, so that is your last defense.”

“I just… I just can’t accept it.”

“That is fine. I’m not going to bully or belittle you.”

“Can you… You can show people memories, right? Do you think that would work on me?”

“I don’t see why not. I’ve never done it because I know that you still don’t like soul magic.”

“Show me things, anything that proves to you that they are who they claim to be.”

She saw some of his talks with The Darkness, at least little bits of them.

She saw Cecht’s forest and his form as he cowered before The Darkness.

She saw the Skoll as it came under the command of The Darkness and spoke through it.

She saw the messenger she had sent.

She saw how the grand saint appeared to him and the feeling he felt towards her.

She understood the meaning behind his feelings.

She leaned back in her seat and silently ate cookies and drank tea like a glutton.

It was time for them to begin moving to breakfast came and went, but she was still sitting there in silence.

“So that’s it. I’ve lived 14 years being lied to, millions have died attacking a place because enough people got tricked by Fae for it to become the truth to them.”

“It isn’t your fault, I am sure you want to blame yourself, but you really couldn't have known. Nobody ever wants to admit they have been tricked, and saying it in your country would’ve just gotten you killed. And the war? People find reasons to kill each other even without Fae tricks being involved. The beastkin don’t even openly admit that they follow gods and we nearly wiped out 2 species in a war over land instead.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“I just feel like such an idiot, like I should’ve known, everything my people have done shouldn't have happened.”

“Would you like to see one more memory? It might help you understand.”

“Sure, whatever.”

He showed her what he felt when he first heard he was Fomorian, how it changed the way he looked at himself, how many times he felt like a monster for the things that other people who just shared his blood did.

He hated himself for a time, sometimes he still did, but he eventually understood that he couldn’t be held accountable for what other people had done.

He didn’t command them to betray The Darkness, he didn’t command them to kidnap women, he didn’t command them to use undead to cause a famine.

He was from them but not of them.

Then, he showed her one more set of images.

She had reacted rather weakly to everything so far, she had seen many things for the first time, yet they brought her no joy.

So he showed her the things that brought him happiness.

She saw Ava playing with him when they were both younger.

She saw Amber dancing around the fire with him before they left for the academy.

She saw Autumn helping cook in the kitchen.

She saw Jarrik and Alana playing with the little fox golems.

She saw Wulrun leaping around trying to catch him as they played tag.

She saw Aida wiping a little bit of food from his face.

She saw Lugh in his childlike form trying to catch a butterfly.

She saw herself, and the emotions he felt when he saw her.

In theory she knew what she looked like, she knew what everyone else looked like.

But she had never truly seen anything, it was all accurate magic being used to show her what things were shaped like, but they had no color, for somebody would need to devote time to making a specific spell that sent back that information with color.

For the blind on the other hand, it was nearly impossible since they didn’t know what colors looked like at all.

Her eyes could never see, but her mind could view his memories with complete accuracy.

She was still somewhat in shock, her emotions were overwhelmed by knowing what she had been missing, what had, in a sense, been robbed from her.

“Can I see you?”

She asked with a quivering lip and on the verge of tears once again.

He showed her memories of looking at mirrors, she knew his face, his back, and his chest with full detail, she felt with his hands the scars that marked his failures, that he kept as reminders of his own hubris.

She could not hold back her tears any longer, happiness drove away her anger at what she had learned.

“I’m I pretty?”

She barely choked out.

“You are beautiful.”

They missed their classes for the next few hours.

He walked her around his room and held her hand, showing a nearly real time vision of what everything looked like from his point of view.

Somebody knocked on the door to just check on him and he had to explain what was happening under a veil. If the students from Reino learned what he was doing it would cause strife between them again.

The guard still looked suspicious of him since he could tell Adina had been heavily crying but she convinced him that it was fine and that she would make up the classes another time.

He had been told, yet not told why, that he was supposed to use a light hand when dealing with Harlan, so he let it go and they went back to what they were doing.

When lunch rolled around Amber appeared at his door to check on him with food on the way.

If he missed all of his classes, and he missed breakfast, then he was either dead, or he was hungry.

When she stepped inside she noticed how red Adina’s eyes were and moved to comfort her, she had gotten over her fear that Adina was playing Harlan and accepted her as a friend.

“I’m sure he will accept you one day, but he just isn’t in a good spot to be in a relationship with anyone, it isn’t your fault.”

Adina broke out of the hug.

“No, these are happy tears.”

“I knew he would accept you one day.”

She laughed until she was rolling around on the floor and Amber checked if there was the scent of wine in the room.

“Alright, now you can explain things.”

“My gods are false, my life has been a lie, and I know what I look like.”

Amber looked to Harlan with a confused tilt to her head.

“She asked me last night about gods, she was very upset, so she came here early and asked me to show her memories that prove it. Then to cheer her up I showed her my happy memories. We’ve spent the last few hours looking around the room through my eyes.”

“Harlan. If I said I wanted to leave the academy with you ”

“Do you want a room or do you want a cabin?”

“Cabin.”

“I’ll send a letter today saying to make one, it will be ready for you when we get there.”

She sat up on the floor and Amber gave her a hand standing up.

“I guess I should send a letter renouncing my claim to anything in Reino, no going back after that. You made sure everything was ready for me to be a citizen? Right?”

“Yep, just need you to sign a paper agreeing that you are doing so under no duress and that you aren’t going to be a spy. They wouldn’t let you in the army, but they wouldn’t bother you after that. But, you should probably wait for that. Things are going to get messy when you do that, but if you spend 2 months in Ragne you would be out of their reach for long enough to calm down.”

“Do you think you can heal my eyes? I mean, I guess we should meet with some doctors about it.”

“Do you mind if I look at your soul?”

“Go for it, it would be the most intimate thing we’ve done together.”

“That is a really odd way to phrase it, but alright.”

He turned his sight inside her and saw nothing wrong with her soul.

This was what he didn’t want to see.

There were no clear indicators of what was wrong, meaning he had to map out everything and then keep trying to heal her eyes to see what was working.

It could be lengthy, it could be painful, and it could mean he needed to rebuild her eyes more than once if she ended up colorblind or if there were issues with latency between the two or any other number of issues.

He had actually already looked into the process, though the books he was allowed to read on the topic were woefully under explained because they were more trying to scare overzealous healers away from doing an at home surgery because they thought it wouldn’t be a big deal.

They were a delicate organ, they needed to be perfect, he would settle for nothing less.

“We should visit the medical ward after dinner, I’ll go there on my free period first and see about setting a proper appointment.”

“Can I see my soul?”

“Sure.”

She once more received his sight, it was the most fun thing she had ever done, a whole world that she knew only through shapes now unfolded before her through his superhuman eyesight.

Soon the food arrived for the three of them and then Adina wanted to know what the food looked like, she wanted to know what everything looked like.