Harlan gated back to the frontier in full gear.

“Sir Harlan Fomoria, reporting for duty.”

“I expect you to fulfill this mission as your uncle would, he is one of the best damn rangers I’ve ever seen, you are some pipsqueak with no military training. You are going to follow the orders of your superiors to the letter, or it is his ass. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Meet up with the rest of the team, they will explain the rest of the mission. Simple cleansing op, Fomorians are in the area, and we need them gone. They’ve killed two rangers before you, so make sure the two who are coming with you come back alive.”

“I will do everything in my power to ensure they survive and the mission is complete.”

“If you didn’t have a great deal of pull, I’d never let you near them, I don’t trust you any more than I do the rest of your kind.”

As much as he wanted to knock the man’s jaw off, it would reflect rather poorly on him and his uncle.

“Oh, and put on this uniform, out there looking like some kind of adventurer.”

In nearly any other situation, that would’ve been the final straw. So he reminded himself, he wasn’t going to be punished if he gave this man a piece of his mind, it would be his uncle.

“Sir, yes sir.”

Harlan made his way to a nearby tent where two other rangers and 50 soldiers were preparing for combat.

The strike commander pointed at him the moment he entered.

“Ranger Fomoria?”

“Yes sir.”

“Sit with your comrades, you will be on their team running spearhead while my men run support.”

“Yes sir.”

The two of them were older men, nearing retirement age, such a thing was like finding a set of unicorns.

“Ranger Fomoria, I’ve heard of you. You run village ops like this before?”

“Give me a refresher. Fomorians have flesh monsters and mind magic. If they touch you they can break your soul, their weapons are probably going to be soulsmithed, though in a different method from the kingdom’s.”

“Even the children are a threat. You can’t let a single one live, it is a mercy, they wouldn’t survive on their own anyway. Terrible, terrible work.”

“I understand. Has a cleansing op ever found non-hostile Fomorians?”

“I heard you were soft, always trying to make peace before the battles. Go out, try again. If nothing else, it will give us time to get in position. Cast the protection spells on your soul, each of the tribes is disconnected and sometimes they have something unique. We’ve never encountered a ranged spell that tears apart your entire body by unraveling your muscles and skin, but it could happen.”

“Huh. I’ll keep that in mind.”

It was deep in the woods, surrounded by arrays that Harlan could feel weighing on his mind, asking him to turn around.

Harlan walked up with his arms raised and his face clearly visible.

The soldiers wore armor made from bone, wielded machetes and daggers made from bone, if Harlan had to guess, their underwear were probably bone.

But instead of attacking him, they talked back and forth until the entire village was aflutter with murmurs.

An old woman, the matriarch, came to the forefront of the group.

“Who are you? How did you get here?”

“My name is Harlan Fomoria, but I was born as Darrath. I have no interest in a fight, but I came here with a group of soldiers, they are here to clear the area of you and yours.”

Harlan could see the mana moving through the air.

“I’m here hoping to negotiate. As I said, I don’t want to fight.”

“How are you outside of your lands, has your tribe's expansion spell reached so far?”

“Expansion spell? I know nothing of this. I am the result of terrible things being done to human women, the pact is maintained, but tattered in my soul. I am Fomorian, but half.”

The tone shifted quickly and they assaulted his mind. Had he not been so paranoid and had his mind not been strengthened by discovering some ‘truth,’ it might’ve distracted him enough for their spears and flesh monsters to land a hit.

Instead, Harlan skipped away and launched the signal flare.

Warspells rained down from a distance as Harlan began casting defensive spells.

When he lowered the wall of stone that kept him from feeling the heat he saw the bodies strew around.

50 soldiers came from the treeline, wearing heavy armor, shield and spear in hand.

For a people who couldn’t leave their lands, it was rather simple to launch spells from a great range and clear out the survivors.

Harlan saw the ashes in the air and smelled the burning of the village as he walked forward, feeling out the minds of the Fomorians, pointing out which ones were just faking death.

Once everyone outside was dead, the ones left were in the underground cave system.

“There are… 8 of them, due to the close quarters of the situation, I am requesting that I be allowed to go down there myself.”

“Permission granted. Get in and get out.”

With a light on his finger, Harlan walked the halls.

Unlike the poorly dug tunnels he expected, the walls were smooth and covered with names, each and every Fomorian who died isolated from the rest of the world, a prison with no bars.

Though it was laid out like an ant colony, Harlan didn’t get lost, he was following the group as they made their escape, or at least hid.

Eventually he cornered them by using skip and then shifting the walls.

The oldest was 14, maybe 15, Fomorians grew taller than humans and their features matured more quickly, guessing was the best he could do.

“What is your plan?”

He didn’t answer, he just held up his machete.

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“I find the idea of killing children unacceptable. The most I can do is turn this place into a prison of sorts, convince the people above that you can be trusted to live. No, that might not work either.”

He didn’t come down there with a plan, yet his shadow did, and so she walked towards the children.

“Do you recognize me?”

“You are our god. I can… feel it.”

“How would you like to be freed of your curse? To roam the world as you were always meant to?”

“How?”

“I will take your minds, making you believe that this is not your village. You will go with my champion, he will pretend that he hasn’t taken part in slaughtering your people, and you will be raised to be better than your people.”

“He killed all of our parents.”

“They struck him first, is it not the right of the victim to defend himself? Especially from those who would attack one for simply being born in a manner they would rather not accept.”

She knew they were not convinced.

“Or my champion could finish here what has happened above.”

The oldest was given an order, capture was not an option.

So, when the younger children decided that it was acceptable, as they feared death, but not their current selves effectively being rewritten to different people, he raised his machete to fulfill his final order.

Harlan hated it, but he snapped his neck in an instant. Anything below a thousand pounds had little chance to fight back against his telekinesis.

“Mother, you may proceed with your plan.”

He came out of the tunnel with 7 scared children behind him.

The look he received from the other soldiers told him that they would not be so accepting of his god’s plans.

“Before anyone intends to take a stand against me. I’ve killed men for less.”

Suddenly it was a stalemate.

Then the rangers came back from the treeline.

“Oh, you gathered them up? Fine, if you don’t have the heart, I’ll take care of them.”

“No, they will be coming with me.”

“But they can’t leave, you know that.”

“These ones can, my god has made it so.”

“Your god?”

“I lied earlier. I am not Ranger Fomoria. I am Sir Harlan Fomoria, Champion of The Darkness, Half-Fomorian.”

“We have our orders.”

“And I have mine. Children, please go back to the tunnels. I’ll be right back.”

They wordlessly followed his order.

Harlan grabbed a dagger that was tossed at the group.

“I do hope you can give me time to call someone, see if this can be handled peacefully.”

“Your orders are to cleanse the village. Whatever job your ‘god’ gave you, don’t mean squat.”

“Ah, but you have it backwards. My duty to my god is beyond the orders of this nation. I’d rather not shed blood, so I will say again, do I have the time to make a call, see if I can avoid having to pull you all apart?”

The one ranger took the other aside and Harlan made his call.

It was early in the morning, Blackstone went into labor at past midnight.

So, he did feel a little bad calling Rosewell considering her father had become fully bedridden in the last week, his condition reaching a point where he could not hide it.

“Harlan, what do you want right now?”

“I have been given a mission by my god that conflicts with the orders given by the army. 7 Fomorian children have had their memories altered and their restrictions lessened. I am supposed to bring them to my orphan village. The soldiers seem to understand to fear me, but the rangers are contemplating attacking the children anyway.”

He could hear her sigh.

“Can’t you call me for something normal.”

“I’m very sorry, if I had someone else to call, I would.”

“I’ll send a royal guard with a decree that will give you legal custody of the children.”

“Thank you.”

Harlan put away his amulet and stood there at the entrance to the underground.

“I have spoken with the Heir to the Throne Rosewell, she will be sending a decree that these children will be leaving with me. The rest of you are free to leave, there are no more Fomorians to kill. I believe the commander needs to stay so he can receive the decree. I want this to be above board.”

“Fucking Fomorian scum.”

“Hey, I could’ve just killed you.”

Harlan waited there with the commander, there wasn’t too much he could do but sit and talk.

“Sir Fomoria, can I know the circumstances of this… issue?”

“I was in the tunnel, and I sought another solution, as I cannot bring myself to kill children and my god had a solution to this.”

“Then their condition?”

They listened to Harlan’s every word and they stood in the ruins of their village without a word, a dazed look in their eyes.

“Their memories will be changed once they reach the orphanage, for now, they are just in a waking sleep.”

“You can change memories?”

“No. I can.”

Harlan didn’t know where she got the tea cup from, or if she was actually drinking from it. But it did add a certain elegance to her appearance.

The commander didn’t understand how, but he knew exactly who the shadow sitting next to Harlan was.

At that point, any fire in his chest was extinguished. As part of the army, he didn’t really need to worry about nobles seeking retribution for anything done under the orders of someone higher than him.

But her eyes, or rather the void where her eyes should be, told the man that she knew exactly what his speech would be, and Harlan didn’t need to hear someone berate him for what he was born as.

She didn’t say why she was here now, she did not try to curry favor with him by saying that she was protecting him from hearing vile words and lies levied against him. It was the actions such as this that had gained her the title of Mother.

The royal guard arrived through a gate without issue and confirmed that Harlan hadn’t murdered and replaced the commander with a body double. Their reasoning was fairly simple, Alder, despite being passed over for the throne, now held a position as a high ranking general. Such was the fate of royal children who lost the throne but still had traits and experience that made them worth keeping around.

But Harlan couldn’t understand why, since he really didn’t have any issues with the army, but he decided it was probably fine.

“Rosewell sends her regards, and would like to send additional support for your orphanage in the way of staff to watch these children.”

“I graciously accept her help in this endeavor.”

Were it another of the royal children, other than Cynthia that is, Harlan would’ve found a way to worm out of this, but since it was Rosewell, he was being genuine with his thanks.

Harlan gated the children to their new home and The Darkness finished her work.

When they woke up in their beds, they would remember a wyvern attacking their village and Harlan finding them as the only survivors.

He wondered, for her talk about free will and such, was this ok?

“Of course this is ok.”

“I dislike you reading my mind.”

“Of course you do, but this is just part of the cost of immortality, limitless potential growth to your power, and the ability to shape your fate.

I arrived when I did to prevent you from needing to make a choice. Your morals would say that the deaths of child killers were worth less than the lives of children. This is also a wonderful opportunity, now we have more Fomorians. The first I’ve convinced to join me in centuries.”

“Are there more free Fomorians out in the world?”

“No, they all lied to me, I knew that they did, but I had hoped the least likely future where they rejoined society was the one which would come to be. But these children, they are pure, able to be molded into people instead of monsters. Besides, you are going to need an army someday.”

“Do you see something in the future?”

“Not at all, and that is the part which scares me. Imagine you could see, no matter how dark it was, and then you found yourself looking down tunnels that are pitch black.”

He could hear the fear in her voice.

“There is something down that tunnels, and I do not know what it is. I can only assume it to be anti-magic in nature, otherwise I’ve not an idea of why I cannot sight it.”

“Like some kind of counter spell?”

“You shall learn of anti-magic one day.”

She stood there a bit too long, as if there was something else to say.

But instead she simply faded away.

Harlan was glad to be rid of this, and everything happened before he even had his proper breakfast.

In another few hours he would go ahead and bring people over to see little baby Tenebria, he had only gotten to see her because Blackston knew he didn’t go to sleep often, and more than that, he would do everything in his power to get Redmond back as fast as possible.