It had been a week. The funeral was small, just the people who actually knew her.
If some noble had shown up to pay their respects only to turn it into business, he was liable to kill them.
Harlan’s bracelet was seeding, whatever foul magic it needed was dried up and with it gone, Harlan’s mana returned to normal. Periwinkle left, she took the bracelet after telling him what it was going to be used for.
It didn’t make him feel better, that he was going to be the father of some new race, it just gave him something else to fail.
Rosewell and Esparella came to see Harlan.
“How are you holding up?”
“How is the investigation?”
“You don’t need to hear that right now.”
“I need to hear something.”
Relly hugged him.
“Sara was nice when I met her, I’m sorry that she is gone.”
“I’m sorry too.”
He spoke normally, his posture, the way he moved his eyes, none of it seemed wrong, he seemed unaffected by what had happened.
But Relly could see his mind, it was chaos, not a word could be made out. It was like a dark storm hanging over his head and it made her hair stand on end.
“If it makes you feel any better, yes, the investigation is going well. Haldren cannot escape this now, we are simply seeing if we can find enough other charges to-”
“Why don’t you just break the news to me.”
“Relly, why don’t you go out for a moment while I talk to Harlan.”
She looked at the only mother she had ever known, and there was a look Rosewell would not ever forget.
She was disappointed, angry, disgusted. Harlan grabbed her arm as she was leaving.
“Hey, Relly, it isn’t her fault, don’t be so hard on her.”
When Relly slammed the door Rosewell could feel the runes carved inside of it activating.
“Did you put veils in every room?”
“Tell me, I know it, but just say it out loud.”
“A count being behind the murder of two peasants, it isn’t enough to put him to death. Honestly, we are just hoping that we find something that can at least get him discharged from being house head. But we aren’t even sure of that. He likely did this knowing how much it would hurt you, but also that you couldn’t get the revenge you wanted through the law.”
“If I say anything, I’m just going to be incriminating myself.”
“He is going to expect you, he knows you are going to come after him, and he likely intends to kill you in self-defense.”
His posture changed, he crossed a leg over his knee and put an arm around the back of his couch.
“Harlan knew what you were going to say days before you said it. He just really hoped it wouldn’t be the case.”
“If you are not Harlan, who are you right now?”
“A little fragment of the main mind, able to do and feel at a lesser level than him. But I am not him, I lack what makes him Harlan. Thank you for coming, he really does mean that.”
He remained seated, sipping on his tea and eating a cookie until she left.
Yet just as quickly as she left, someone else arrived.
“Swap back. Sepul is here.”
The Harlan sitting there in his living room turned gloomy once again.
“How are you-”
“I’m consumed with anger, regret, guilt. I’m sure you know the feeling.”
Instead of just sitting there across from him, saying some harsh truth to him, he sat next to him, putting a hand on each shoulder and pulling him close.
“I am sorry, I truly am. She was not family, you shared no blood, but she was one of the first people who you knew after you got out. You hired her, you treated her well, and you loved her as more than just another servant. I’ve… I’ve known far too much loss. The first one whose loss truly hurt me, was my first wife.
She died peacefully of old age, we had 8 children. I know that what has happened has been a nightmare for you, and will be one for your enemies now.”
“What about your parents? Surely they died before her.”
“You must understand, I was born and raised under a wyvern king. They actively destroyed the culture that existed, made us live and die only as servants and resources. When my father was eaten alive for stealing an extra loaf of bread, I felt nothing. They stole our humanity. A thousand years of being nothing but slaves broke us, each and every one, and there was nothing to be done about it. Eventually I was exiled, I got too old be good food for him, the fat and lazy beast wanted tender meat. Then I became champion of light and I went back to kill that wyvern. I don’t even remember what its name was, or how it made me feel. I wasn’t getting revenge, I was just doing work, living as a servant to a new ruler. My first wife, I took her just for politics, she let me seal a peace treaty.”
Harlan wasn’t entirely sure Sepul could cry, but for the first time, he saw tears rolling down his cheeks.
“But she is the one who taught me to be human. Whatever you are feeling, however you are blaming yourself, it is not your fault. When you do what you do, I will do what I can to help you avoid the blowback.”
Harlan changed minds again, putting the lesser him there before he turned into a crying mess again, he had a week to grieve, to plan, now was the time for action.
Cram's General Store, the only one in the entire city owned by a human.
“Good evening. How can I-”
The Kalak who was running the store at the moment heard the bell first, and then caught the scent.
“What do you want?”
“I’m just passing through, thought I should get some toys for my siblings. I heard the ones here were very high quality. Do you make them?”
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“No, that would be the owner of the store.”
“Interesting. Would I be able to speak with him at some point?”
“He is a busy man, this is not the only store owned by him.”
“That’s fine. I can wait. You see, I have a business proposition for him. I can get him something he wants, and he can help me to get it.”
“You say you can bring him something, but you also need him to get it?”
“No. I can get it on my own, I am choosing to let him be involved. ”
“And what is this ‘thing’ that you can get him?”
“It isn’t something that can be said publicly. I’ll be back when the store is ready to close. Either bring me a message from him saying that he will meet me, or don’t. One path gets him what he wants, and the other is that I leave this place and never come back.”
Harlan stepped out of the store and found an area where he could go invisible before slipping back in with another customer.
Then he simply sat, and waited. He felt the mind under the building, Dearil was here, right under him.
One way or another, he was getting a meeting.
Sepul left through a gate, he didn’t want anyone to see him as anything but unflappable, crying just didn’t fit his image.
Harlan went back to his body at home when Adina came into the room.
She didn’t say a word, she just sat beside him.
Sara and Adina had grown closer over the months since she moved in, Isha and her were glad to have another girl around, someone around their age who could ask them for advice, let them play the role of an older sister that they never got to be.
She didn’t want to burden Harlan with her own sadness, he didn’t want to burden her.
So they both sat in silence, waiting for the other to admit that they needed them.
Ava came in later, when the sun started to dip. And the three of them sat.
Then Zella, then his parents.
Eventually everyone was just sitting there, silently comforting the others around them.
Ava hadn’t sat on her fathers lap in years, but right now, she just wanted to be held.
Zella was the first to speak up.
“I think the first memory I have of her was when she kept betting how much I could hold with my hair.”
Then Harlan.
“She always said she wanted to see where I was going, how interesting my life was. She just wanted to see someone grow into greatness.”
Then Aida.
“She tried to teach me how to shuffle a deck of cards once. I never got good at it, but we had fun.”
Lugh took his boyish form.
“She made me a little hat once.”
Harlow had no stories to tell, for whatever reason, she latched onto him as a father figure, he gave her advice, but nothing that he could tell would lighten the mood.
Harlan left the room to get Isha, she needed to be a part of remembering her.
In Kala, Harlan returned to that general store, or rather revealed himself.
“Do we have a time to speak? Or am I leaving?”
The worker jumped back when he spoke, as he wasn’t here just a moment ago.
“Come tomorrow morning, just before opening. He will be available.”
“Thank you.”
Harlan stayed at a local inn, the first one he found that didn’t throw him out or try to charge an exorbitant fee for him being human.
He sat there during the night, watching the door until they arrived.
Once the Kalak snuck into his room to kidnap him, he released the sleeping air.
Though they were in and out too quickly for it to have its full effect, it did slow them down enough that Harlan more easily captured them both alive.
He woke the first of them after putting up his veils and binding them.
“You were quite sloppy. I’m just looking for a friend in these trying times.”
“I’ll never speak.”
“You see, me and Dearil, we met once before, he and I worked together. I just want him to help me kill a count. Count Haldren. My name is Count Harlan Fomoria, or if you would rather, Archmage Changeling.”
The man did not respond.
“I’ll just put you back to sleep and talk to your friend instead.”
The second of the pair was shorter by half a foot, his coat was more vibrant, he lacked the little nicks and scars of his partner.
“I hope you are going to be a bit more cooperative. My name is Harlan Fomora, I want to kill Count Haldren. I want Dearil to help me, because then your revolutionaries get to take credit for your cause, and I get to hide my involvement enough that it doesn’t get me killed.”
“Why tell me this? Why not just pretend to be someone else?”
“Because I worked with him once before, and he might trust me enough to go along with my plan.
I am doing you people a favor by coming here. So keep that in mind.”
“Humans, always so arrogant.”
“How humiliating is it that you people are forced to open your borders for people you hate because you are too weak to not be part of the Confederacy?”
The man snarled and attempted to bite Harlan, who simply backhanded him.
“If you are going to claim to be some master race, at least back it up with real power. What you are now is simply pitiful.”
He lowered his ears and whimpered, it was then that Harlan considered how young he might be.
“How old are you?”
“17.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, you aren’t so old that you should know better. You probably haven’t even been out of this city very often.”
“I’m not a child.”
“Yes you are. And so am I…”
Harlan sat and stared at the boy.
“I dislike violence, I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“Yet you want to hire us to kill a man?”
“Violence is something that I need for my goal. But I shouldn’t indulge in it.”
Harlan rubbed his thumb across his palms, imagining all of the blood that stained them, and how much more he would spill.
“Your friend, why was she killed?”
“I killed some mercenaries that the count liked to hire. But no, that’s not really it. She was killed because she was my friend, and because she wasn’t a noble, so he could get away with it. Have you ever lost somebody? This… this is my first time I’ve lost someone I really knew. I wake up thinking I’m going to see her making breakfast. When I sit down for dinner, I just gaze at the empty seat until my food is cold, then I eat without tasting anything.”
“Not like that. My grandmother died when I was young, but I didn’t know her well, she lived in a village far from here. We only met a few times and then we got a letter saying she was dead and that there would be a funeral.”
“I never knew my grandmother on either side, from both my blood family and my real family. I never really knew anyone but my parents and my siblings, everyone else was gone before I was born. I know I have a grandfather and a half-sister somewhere, but I haven’t found them yet, and I’m a little afraid of what it is going to be like when I do. Just another set of people for me to love and then lose one day.
Do you know about me?“
“I’ve heard your name, but I’m sure whatever we hear is more hearsay and rumor than truth.”
“I’m immortal, I’ll never die of old age. I’ve been thinking about that lately. Even if they live peacefully for the rest of their days, everyone I know and love is going to die one day, and I’ll be left behind to mourn them. If I have children, I’ll see them grow old without ever having gray hair myself.”
“We have a story about that. A man who is cursed by Fae to never die, he sees his family parish before his eyes, one after another. Eventually he begs the gods, anyone who would listen, to kill him, to end his suffering.”
“How does it end? Does he get what he wants?”
“In the story, he finds a witch who puts him in an eternal slumber. She is The Good Witch Sleep, he is The Dreaming Mourner. It is said that he has a good dream.”
“What is your name?”
“Kallen.”
“Even if things don’t work out, I am glad to have met you.”
They spoke throughout the night. Harlan knew it was a bad idea to get close. But the degree of separation, knowing that he could just leave and never see him again, it helped him speak more freely.
In the morning, Harlan went with the two men back to the general store and was led down to the basement which was built deeper than the store was tall.
Harlan had no weapons on him to give up before the meeting, nor was he wearing his golem armor or shifting clothes. This body was only on the level of a powerful human physically as well, if it died, Harlan didn’t want it to trace back to him.