When Harlan finally got the chance to leave it was almost time for breakfast, though he didn’t run into anyone that would question why he was coming from the wrong direction.
Along the way he saw Grenth with a false undead girl.
He had slimmed down and bulked up quite a lot since he last saw him.
The girl pointed at Harlan and Grenth was clearly unhappy with what he was about to do, but did it anyway because she asked.
“Harlan Fomoria, I challenge you to a duel.”
“Why?”
“To reclaim my lost honor.”
The girl behind him had her hands ready to cheer for Grenth, he thought it was cute.
“Listen, you aren’t going to win, and you can’t really force this duel. If you want to reclaim your lost honor, be a better person, your friend there seems nice, that is a good start. Have you spoken with Cynthia?”
“She has talked to me a few times, but why do you know that?”
“Because she is a good friend of mine, and I hoped that she would make you a better person.”
All of a sudden the girl was confused and looked between the two boys.
“So you aren’t going to fight Grenth?”
“I don’t think either of us would get anything from it.”
“But he has been training really hard for this, he needs to beat you to move on.”
“It seems to me like he is already doing fine moving past his loss, and that takes more strength than beating me ever could.”
He had shamelessly taken that line from a novel Yara gave him, a book meant to teach children who were young, but not too young, about confidence and overcoming failure.
“Are you sure you won’t fight him? Not even a little bit?”
“I mean, we could move a class real quick and arm wrestle.”
Harlan won without any issue, but the Ghoul girl seemed happy that Grenth was given the chance at least.
He moved to their table, his little encounter had made him the last to arrive.
“Good morning everyone.”
“First you miss breakfast, then you are late. What have you done to the real Harlan?”
“Ha ha ha, I have more important things to do than eat sometimes, Yara.”
“With how you put away food I find that somewhat hard to believe. Unless it was to help someone we know.”
“I can’t get into details. So, moving past that, do you and Liat want to be my guests to a royal gala?”
The sisters and Ximena went into a conversation between themselves.
Meanwhile Adina grabbed his hand and tried to do the same, blasting him with a white noise attack that he is sure would’ve caused anyone who didn’t cast soul defense spells every day to fall into a coma.
“Stop trying to talk, I’ll teach you later.”
“Sorry, are you alright.”
Harlan tightly closed his eyes and put his hands on his temples to try and soothe the pain.
Yet his pain wasn’t physical, it just took him a minute to think well enough to remember this.
By the time he made the pain subside the Golden were done talking.
“We would be delighted to come along, yet I believe it would be better if Ximena went in my place.”
“Alright, that works, I just didn’t think you would let her go on her own.”
“She will have you there, and I am sure that you will do everything in your power to keep her safe.”
“Why not me?”
Adina asked not out of any hurt feelings, she was just curious of his reasoning.
“Because I can’t protect you like I want to, it is the same reason I am not asking Zella to come along.
I am a nobody as far as nobles go, I’ve done a lot more than any of them got done at my age but I am still a first generation noble while some of these people will have favors going back a thousand years. The Golden have rules regarding them, Reinoan’s don’t.”
“Are you certain that you have nobody else you would invite? I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I don’t want to take away a spot from somebody else.”
“Ximena, you want to be braver, start by being confident. I am not inviting you or them lightly, if I didn’t invite you I might not have taken anybody with me.”
“Right. Thank you for this. I didn’t think I would ever need to use my formal wear, but now I am glad we were all forced to take it.”
“I guess I should probably get something higher quality made for me as well. I hate formal parties.”
Harlan could only vaguely tell them about why he thought he was going to be invited, everything he had done was under lock and key, it would likely be some form of treason to even talk about it too much even when everyone would know about it in a month.
Harlan went through the day thinking about what he had been told yesterday.
What he had read, and what he hadn’t read.
It would’ve been easier to think about this if he wasn’t constantly bombarded by the focus of so many people on him.
He didn’t talk under a veil when eating, it just wasn’t something he bothered to do, he never said anything too important anyway, he would be changing that.
Yet while he didn’t think it was too important that he would be going to a gala at the palace, not a single other student agreed with him.
He was suddenly being invited to be friends with any number of people he didn’t even know the names of, let alone care about.
Even Grandry tried to approach him, Harlan at least gave him a chance since he was a friend of Piceous.
Yet he could tell that the boy was only trying to climb the social ladder after realizing that Harlan was actually going places, so he gently broke away from the conversation with the excuse that he needed to get to his classes.
He hoped that he didn’t realize Harlan was on his free period.
When he made his way to his room he found Willow and Claudia were waiting for him.
“Do you have business with me?”
“Yes, we do.”
Claudia had not tempered her distrust of Harlan.
“Claudia, please be civil.”
“Then please, come inside.”
As Harlan always did he set water to boil and got cookies out of their containers and onto plates.
“What can I help you with today? Have you lost something?”
“As repayment for what you have already done I wish to give you advice for the gala.”
“You owe me nothing at all, if you came seeking favors I will be turning you away.”
“I know that despite what you asked me to do you sent my aunt letters and she has been replying to you. I did nothing for you in the end.”
“I said before, even if you don’t end up getting a response, just trying was enough.”
“Your payment was nothing at all from me, I believe it is best that I do something for you, I do not want you to have done your work for nothing.”
Harlan was about at the end of his rope, so he decided to be blunt.
“Oh? Have you been taking lessons from Miss Dyad? I don’t want anything, I don’t need anything, I am not helping people because I give a shit about favors or advice, I did what I did because it was the right thing and because you are a friend of a friend. If you want to give me advice then give it, but I would rather not be reminded of that day.”
She jolted back in her seat at his harsh tone and swearing.
“I am sorry, I am sure that doing what you did must’ve been hard, I did not mean to bring up bad memories.”
“I don’t even care about- Never mind, as I said, I will take your advice if you want to give it, but this is no trade, you owe me nothing and I do not want anything, if you want to talk then do it as one person to another.”
“If it is not because of what you did to that man then why would you be upset about that day?”
She looked at Claudia for answers and Claudia looked at Harlan as if asking him to shut up before he says something he will regret.
“Well, it has been a nice talk, but I think it is best that you both move along.”
He returned her look, he could’ve been petty and explained what her friend had done to him, but he left it, he was trying to be the bigger person.
“Willow, I believe it is best that we go. I told you that he would not accept your advice anyway, you know how people like him are.”
He held his tongue, yet his words sat upon it like molten iron.
He still held some hope of being friends with her once again, he categorized most people rather heavily, and despite what she had done he still placed her on the better side of a friend or for line.
When they stepped out of the room Harlan stuck his wall, breaking his hand and making the ward light up.
“Damnit.”
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He used his good hand to heal the broken with some help from Lugh.
“Why didn’t you just tell Willow what happened? Claudia is bad and she doesn’t deserve to be friends with her.”
“She might just be the way she is because of how she was raised, maybe she will grow up, I don’t know, but I don’t want to be her enemy. I just wish she could see that.”
“I don’t understand you, I don’t understand most people.”
“Lugh, I don’t understand people either, sometimes you just have to try your best.”
After another 10 minutes his hand was completely normal.
He was the first to arrive for dinner, he couldn’t get anything done while irritated as he was.
Amber was also there before her friends and couldn’t help but notice his constant sneer so she slid next to him.
“Do you want to talk?”
“Not really, but I will.”
“All the attention stressing you out? I’ve already got a bit too many eyes on me as it is, knowing I am going to the royal palace for a party has me on edge as well.”
“The gala is only the lesser of two things bothering me right now. Remember how Claudia has a problem with me?”
“Unfortunately.”
“She was there with that friend of hers, Willow. I may have fumbled my conversation, but I also could’ve gone harder on her. It’s been months since I last talked to Claude, so clearly he hasn’t been able to crack her shell of distrust either. I just don’t want her to be like that, we weren’t super close, but I guess she is the first friend I’ve lost, and she took her brother with her.”
“Sometimes you just have to accept that people grow apart, you can’t be friends with somebody who doesn’t want to be friends. I know it seems hard, but just let her go, you barely knew her in the first place.”
“I don’t want to give up on her, I know she can be better.”
“No, you don’t know that.”
“Everyone can be better if they understand what it means.”
Amber didn’t like what she was about to say, Harlan seemed so pure in that moment, he was just a boy who wanted his friends back.
“You can’t convince some people what being better is. Claudia, I am assuming at least, likes her family, she was raised properly to their standards and she isn’t going to just throw away everything she learned. Adina is a sad story, her family treated her poorly, she had nobody to support her. All of a sudden she has you, you don’t care about her eyes, you don’t care that she is from the enemy country, you don’t want her for her body, you are her white knight saving her from her life. You are her world and she would do anything for you, that is very dangerous and you shouldn’t think that Claudia needs to just see you for you, she is blind to who you are and you can’t fix that so easily. You aren’t giving up on her, she isn’t somebody that you can save from a wrong view, because she didn’t see it as wrong and she isn’t going to be convinced.”
Amber expected a reply of some kind, but she didn’t get any and left once her friends all sat down with their food.
When his friends appeared he asked to not take part in whatever they were saying, his mind was a million miles away.
It was incomprehensible to him, friends were friends, they were always friends, that was just how things were supposed to be.
It felt wrong on a deep level for him to just accept what Amber told him, losing a friend was like them dying almost.
He ate his meal only because he knew what he needed to do afterwards and needed the strength, but he didn’t even know what it tasted like.
With glazed eyes and a hollow feeling he walked to his room and Adina was there just a few minutes afterwards.
He had her sit across from him and he explained everything.
He could feel the fury on her mind like a brewing storm.
“What should I do? Can I really just leave a friend behind?”
“She is no friend, she is a vile little witch spitting in your face and you are too soft to see that. I want to wring her neck myself, how did you just sit there and take it, WHY AREN’T YOU ANGRY.”
“I don’t want to lose anyone.”
“You never had her, that rotten little- ARGHHH. She spread rumors about you for weeks at least, about your sister, I’ve seen you ready to kill people for less.”
“She just needs to know better, I can’t make an enemy of somebody that just doesn’t know.”
“Everyone is like that, nobody is raised in a vacuum, but you let your head go empty because she pretended to be your friend. Where is that FIRE you have in your heart, that you lit in my heart.
You are passionate all the time, don’t go cold because you don’t want to lose something you never had. You would’ve done anything to help her and she threw mud on your name because she is not worthy of what you are, a genuine friend.”
Adina tossed Harlan’s reforming wooden ball at the wall a handful of times, only cracking with each throw.
“Is this what it feels like to lose somebody like that? I hate it.”
Lugh entered his childlike form and hugged Harlan from the side, followed by Adina.
“Don’t be sad, I don’t like sad Harlan.”
“She isn’t worth the time spent thinking about her. You invited me here so you can do something for only my personal benefit without asking anything from me, don’t beat yourself up or think you are anything less than a great friend.”
“Adina, is there anything you wouldn’t do if I asked you?”
She blushed until she looked like a tomato and stepped away with her hands on her cheeks, she knew he wasn’t that kind of boy, but she almost wished he was just so she could give him back something for saving her from a life she didn’t think was worth living.
“No, I don’t think there is. If you asked me to take my life I’d believe you had some reason for it.”
She could see he was pained by her response but didn’t understand why.
He just moved past it.
He would map her soul while Lugh tried to teach her soulspeak.
The job was incredibly boring, for her it would just be Harlan holding her hand for hours on end, so he figured she could either learn from Lugh or bring a book to read.
“Hi Miss Adina, I am Lugh. Can you hear me? If you can, shake your head.”
She did as asked, she could feel how happy Lugh was to be talking to her.
He had always been shy, he wanted to try to understand people before he introduced himself, though everyone in his friend group knew what Lugh was.
“I am excited that you are going to learn from me! I never get to teach people! Harlan does that, now we can talk to each other as well, it is going to be fun!”
She couldn’t help but giggle, she wondered if this is how Harlan was at one point.
There was a certain sense of peace as she listened to his rambling instructions, the only time Harlan was like this was when he was explaining some magical idea or concept to people, it was a time when he could put aside the rest of his problems and just speak with a genuine spirit of curiosity without restraint.
When the night was finally over Harlan was sweating.
“Alright, can’t stay any longer.”
She got up and instantly felt unbalanced, she had been sitting for hours without moving much.
Harlan caught her and said he would talk her back to her room to make sure she made it there safely.
This repeated the next day, and the day after that and the day after that.
He finished mapping her soul after 2 weeks, yet he continued for a 3rd week, he must’ve missed something, what else would explain what was happening?
The parts that linked with her eyes were normal, every change he made to it was either reverted after a few minutes as if he had done nothing or it didn’t do anything at all.
He could give her sight, his healing spells would catch, but then they would fade away shortly after.
He could tell she had faith in him, but he was becoming more upset the longer he worked.
When she left he began scrawling on the walls again, making notes and drawing runes that only made sense to him.
He understood that there was a deeper core to the soul, if he could take out a slice and if it wasn’t put back then it just grew back as it was supposed to be then that part must’ve been broken with her.
He had rabbits in the sables bought and paid for, and he had gone through dozens of them in the last week, but as soon as he touched that inner core the soul violently sent waves against his soul.
He was on the ground vomiting again, he would need to set his defenses up again.
“Harlan, stop, you need to stop.”
“No.”
He retched again.
“I’m getting closer, I’m sure of it.”
“Go to sleep, it’s been 2 weeks of hard magic. You can’t keep going.”
“I’m fine.”
He reached into his pocket for an anti-sleep elixir and Lugh shattered the bottle before he could drink it.
“No, you, are, going, to, sleep, NOW.”
It was hard to not feel foolish when being scolded by his younger brother.
He moved the liquid into a mirror and saw his bloodshot and sunken eyes.
“Fine.”
He made his way back to his room and felt his body go limp and his vision went black before he reached his bed.
“You have been ignoring me, if you want what I will give then you shall do as I speak.”
He had many times when he could’ve or should’ve contacted her for his problems, but he hadn’t.
Sepul’s words about her not being honest, that it seemed she was somehow involved with the king, they stuck with him and he didn’t exactly trust her as much as he would like to.
“If you were me, would you trust you?”
“You’ve been tackling a problem beyond yourself, and you still choose not to ask my help. I dislike that I need to force you here, it burns my tongue to speak forcefully towards you who I so love and care for.”
Harlan felt that she was less offended and more hurt that she had to do this.
“I am sorry. I should’ve asked for your help. What can I do to make it up to you?”
“There is nothing to make up for, you have exercised your sense of self. It is still your choice to not ask of me, just as you might turn away my words now. I need you to kill somebody, in exchange I will give you that which you seek. That girl’s problem is deeper than any mortal can solve, but, you are not any mortal.”
“Who do I need to kill?”
He felt there was a lot that he was missing here.
She should have access to any number of people, man and beast, that were far beyond his power.
“After you return from the gala, my shadow will bring you to him. He wishes for a painless death, he does not trust that me and mine would grant such a thing, so I have volunteered your name. Use this week to ready the ritual needed for this. Do you accept this? There shall be no harm in not doing what I ask.”
“The harm would be to not help my friend, that I would not keep my word to her.”
“You are not ready to be my champion yet, I shall explain no further.”
He was with her for such a short time that he didn’t even have the chance to fall before he was back, he stumbled and grabbed his desk, swinging himself into the dark hardwood piece of furniture face first.
“Ow.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just got a little-”
Harlan emptied his stomach as nausea from the information The Darkness was sending him finally arrived.
Then he ignored whatever Lugh was saying as he began to manically write down instructions and sigils and runes across whatever paper was on hand.
He used all but a single piece of paper before he felt like himself again and the stack of unbound words and symbols written on both sides stood two feet tall.
“I need a shower.”
Lugh didn’t say anything, The Darkness had taken partial control over Harlan and he knew that, so he detached from Harlan’s belt and started cleaning up what Harlan left behind.
When Harlan got out of the shower he didn’t bother getting dressed, he just flopped into bed and went to sleep.
He found himself in that ballroom again, the woman had her face and spoke her words.
He always tried to pay attention but he barely remembered anything she told him.
“Have you had a rough day?”
“Rough month. I hope I can trust her enough to give me what I need instead of just pushing a power on me without explanation.”
“I know even if she gave you the slightest bit you would figure everything out, you are always so bright.”
He might’ve asked the question a dozen times, or perhaps he never asked it before, he couldn’t really know which was true, so he asked again, or for the first time.
“Who are you?”
“I’m nobody, just the regrets of a woman who had a better life than she deserved.”
“Are you my mother?”
“Ghosts aren’t people. Just bits of what made them up, if I am her then an autobiography is the person it is based on. I’ve never known so much of her, but I know enough that I hate her, I hate so many people.”
She wept from one eye with a furious expression on her face.
“I am sorry, it is hard to be myself.”
“That’s ok.”
They spoke of nothing, or perhaps it was everything.
She had already seen his life from his eyes, so she did not need to hear these stories again and again, yet it anchored her.
The whirlwind of emotions settled, it brought peace to her to hear him talk of the things that brought him joy.
She did not know when he might remember what happened here in his sleep, so she ended the night the same way every time.
“She might not have loved you, but I love you. I hope one day you can-”
Harlan woke up at a normal time, he took another shower, he sweat a lot in his sleep.
Then as he finished drying himself off and getting dressed he heard the bell telling students it was time to leave for breakfast.