Sepul fidgeted in discomfort as Elise asked leading questions, but didn’t directly ask for Harlan’s magical knowledge.

Eventually he was nearly ready to make a choice, but it was Adina who spoke up first.

“Elise, stop doing that to Harlan.”.

“Excuse me? I’m just asking him about his life.”

“No, you are extracting information because you know he is upset and feels lonely since our family refuses to speak with him. Until I trust you, you are related to him by blood, and that does not make you family.”

“Adina, she was just-”

She slammed her hand on the table, the clattering of silverware left a silence that hung a little too long.

“Damnit Harlan, let me defend you from this vulture like you would me.”

“Lady Adina, why don’t you mind your own business, this is a family matter.”

Sepul found his words, and he spoke them harshly.

“Elise, you will treat her with respect, and you will treat your brother with respect. If you weren’t so impatient and bullheaded, you could get close to him like an actual human being and he’d give you anything.”

“But I was-”

“Young lady, do not think that I am blind or that age has dulled my mind. Apologize.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not to me, to Adina and Harlan.”

“But she-”

“Harlan, I am very sorry about my apprentice, but more than that, I am sorry for not stepping in sooner. Adina, I am thankful that you did what I did not. Elise, you and I will speak with your father and stepmother about how you continue to act.”

Fear shot through her.

“They don’t need to-”

“Clearly they do. Harlan, I’m sorry, let me gate you back to your home.”

They left without a word.

When they stepped back into their home and the gate closed, Adina immediately went to his side to calm him.

“Harlan, I know that this isn’t how you wanted to meet her but-”

He reached for a glass from the cabinet and she prepared for it to shatter against the wall, but she opened her eyes again and he just poured himself some water.

“I don’t want to fight her, I’m just tired of it.”

“Are you alright?”

He set down his now empty glass and started to rotate it.

“I’m just tired.”

“Would you feel better if I slept with you again?”

“No, it’s fine. Good night.”

Harlan laid in his bed in pitch darkness.

“Do you want to talk about it? I know that isn’t how you want to-”

“I’m tired.”

“Good night.”

Harlan didn’t reply back, and he didn’t sleep. He just stared at the ceiling.

When morning came Isha woke him up, unaware of what happened the night before.

“Breakfast is ready, and Sepul is here to see you with his apprentice.”

“She is my half-sister Elise, she told me last night.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

His tone was neutral.

“Are you feeling well?”

“I’m just a little tired.”

“Should I tell them to go?”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

Isha went downstairs and waited with Sepul.

“Elise, Harlan told me that you are his half-sister. This is pretty sudden, he had all of these plans and worries. But he is not acting like himself, so what did you do?”

“What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“Well I know Harlan didn’t screw this up, because he probably heard the word sister and then answered anything you wanted. So what did you do?”

“I don’t need to explain myself to the help.”

Isha slapped her..

When Elise swung back however, then Sepul had to step in.

“What are you doing? She hit me.”

“If you knew anything about Harlan, then you would know hitting her, no matter why, in his home, is a very, very bad idea. And you also started this by lying to her and trying to trick Harlan.”

“So I should just let her-”

“Remember exactly why we are here.”

His tone said that replying was not expected, and could only bring more trouble.

Harlan came down to find his maid staring down the woman he shared a birth mother with.

“Sepul, may I ask why you are here?”

“I told her parents about what happened, hoping that it would be something that they would act on, and they did nothing. So, before I decide on something, do you have any ideas for punishment?”

“She’s a grown woman, a spanking is too late. Come, follow me, she’ll learn her lesson about what she tried to do. Then we can speak over breakfast.”

Harlan led them through more than one gate.

“An empty city? Is this somewhere in the north?”

“Why did you want to learn my magic, and why didn’t you just come to me in good faith?”

“A mage gathers knowledge, do I need another reason?”

“And why didn’t you come to me?”

“You wouldn’t give up your magic to me for nothing and I don’t have anything to give you.”

“Tell me, where do you think we are?”

“Burn marks are fairly fresh, the walls look like they…”

Harlan spread his arms wide.

“This is what strength and knowledge without wisdom gets you.”

“We are in Haldren?”

“There is no life, this is not a city, it is an urn. Tell me, why do you want my magic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find a reason before you decide to trick me for some short term gain next time.”

Harlan wanted to cuss, swear at, and insult her. But his anger died on his lips, he was tired.

“Come for breakfast, or don’t, I don’t care.”

Harlan opened a gate and left the pair there.

Sepul shook his head at her for trying to open her own gate to leave.

“Do you see why I am not telling him who I am, and why I told you to keep your mouth shut?”

“I-”

“Quiet. You will speak when I say that you can. Harlan is not a mage, you can’t just bash your eyes or impress them with skill to get his magic, and until you know what he wants, you will not speak with him.

You may speak now”

“Come on, it was one bad night, I can still recover from this.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“I’ll pick you up in an hour. Feel free to spend the entire time pouting because you didn’t get your way.”

“You can’t-”

He was gone, though really he was hiding under invisibility magic.

She was still his great granddaughter and he would not leave her here alone.

She walked the empty streets, the kingdom already cleared the place of bodies and valuables but they had little idea of what they should do with the husk.

It was one thing to build a city or repair one in such a state as this with sideways stalactites showing which direction the heatwave came from originally, but the real issue was people wanting to actually come back.

Haldren had no curse, the spirits had already been cast out as they didn’t know enough about why they died and it happened so quickly that only a few of them had wandered around afterwards, yet superstition was a powerful thing and there was no assurance that was good enough for most people.

It certainly didn’t help that the count, his only daughter, and his wife were all dead; the chain of succession was broken. A local baron had been promoted to count but he already had a city of his own.

So now this dead place stood as nothing but a monument to Harlan’s sins.

She sat down on a park bench and looked at shadows on the ground that showed where people once stood.

“You can come out now, I know you wouldn’t leave me alone here.”

“What have you realized by seeing this place?”

“Harlan is insanely powerful. Look, the wall was reduced to-”

“Never, ever repeat that to Harlan, or I will make sure you two are never in the same room again.”

“What?”

“What do you think about Harlan, explain to me, how do you see him?”

“Well, he is influential and talented and defensive and vengeful.”

“And why is he those things?”

“Well, he’s Fomorian, so that means he has talent and gives him a unique bargaining chip.”

“And the other two?”

“Well, after his time at the facility he had a mental breakdown for the next year or so and he never got over being put there.”

“You are almost there, why was he so upset?”

“Because they made him work long hours in isolation for three years and he felt he wasn’t compensated enough.”

Sepul sat on the bench next to her.

“He doesn’t give a shit about working, he can go weeks without sleep, and I’ve seen him do it.

Do you know why I am so upset with you? And why Adina is so upset with you on his behalf? Because he is family for both of us.

The fact that you would go after him when he is the most hurt and the most alone shows that you just don’t give a shit. You and him both lost your mother, but you were old enough to be hurt by it, and you hate your stepmother and consider your father a spineless fool. And you’ve also failed to ever really think about the cost of what you do. Harlan grew up on a farm, from when he was young took care of chickens and pigs and he helped with whatever else he could find, and he didn’t do it for anything but the fact that he enjoyed helping others.”

Sepul took a deep breath to steel himself for what came next.

“You need to speak to Harlan with an understanding of who he is, and you should do it soon.”

“I thought that I wasn’t supposed to talk to him?”

“He is hurt and I hate to suggest it, but perhaps you can use that to get back to neutral and then do this the right way.”

“What if I don’t want to talk to him?”

“You do.”

Sepul called Harlan to the city.

“What do you need?”

“I need you to forgive your sister.”

“No.”

He turned around to walk back through the gate, but Sepul grabbed his shoulder and had the strength to hold him back.

“You know that the way someone is raised, and what losses they encounter can shape who they are.

I am in no place to ask you for anything, but please, do the job her father and I failed to do, make her a better person, give her the chance to let her learn from her mistakes.”

Sepul felt that Harlan wasn’t resisting anymore.

“What do I do?”

“What did you do for me?”

“That isn’t the same.”

“I am not Eliza because I gained a new perspective and I reflected on the life that she lived.

She has a chance to do that while she is still alive.”

“I don’t want to do that for her.”

“Then do it for me, because I am watching my son and my daughter become estranged before my eyes and I can’t do a single thing about it.”

Her tears fell from his eyes.

“Fine, I’ll speak to her again. Join us for breakfast.”

“You didn’t eat yet?”

“I was waiting for her to come.”

Sepul’s heart was somewhat soothed by his response. Despite what had happened, it was clear that Harlan still wanted a relationship with her.

They sat around the table and Isha placed the reheated food back on it.

Harlan’s eyes laid heavy on the empty seat that Sara always sat in.

He clenched his fists when Elise took it.

“Was I not supposed to sit here?”

“No, it’s fine. That was just someone else's seat before.”

Adina grabbed his hands and undid his fists.

“Harlan, it’s alright. Elise didn’t know.”

“Oh, was this the-”

She saw the look in Harlan’s eyes, daring her to disrespect Sara’s memory.

“The seat of your friend who passed away. My condolences.”

“Isha, you should find another maid, one of the girls from the orphanage would be best.”

“It’s alright, I-”

“I can see that you are tired from doing twice the work, and when… when you leave, there will be nobody else. Lydia is old, she should be able to enjoy retirement with her husband. I don’t ever want to walk in here and not see people, and I don’t want to make golems for cooking and cleaning. This place needs life.”

“I’ll look for candidates today. They can stay in the guest rooms.”

“Isha…”

“They can stay in the cabins when they get the job, until then…”

“I understand, they can use the guest rooms until then.”

The atmosphere remained so heavy that nobody wanted to talk, but it did give Elise time to see Harlan being himself. She was a little shocked that he would be so close with ‘the help’ even though she heard about it already. Elise didn’t expect that he would bend to Isha’s demands or that they could leave things unsaid but still understood each other.

Eventually she couldn’t take it anymore, she hated dinner at home where her father and step-mother would make vapid conversation just to avoid eating in silence. But seeing what the silence was really like, she understood why they did it.

“How long have you known Harlan?”

“Three years more or less.”

“How did you get close to him?”

“I didn’t do anything. When we first met I was still working under Redwall and I was petrified just being around him.”

She got a nostalgic look in her eyes.

“But then he made this little sheep golem, it was the cutest thing I had seen, but I nearly had a heart attack when I first saw it. It wasn’t that long after that Harlan was ready to move to his own place and he asked that I be put on the interview list. Fuck, I remember being so embarrassed, I thought he was in love with me and Garad had to explain to both of us what was being misunderstood.”

“I remember that all too well, does that sheep still work?”

“It roams around the house, my mother doesn’t swat it with the broom anymore.”

“How is she? I’ve barely seen her in months.”

“She’s doing great, she’s just getting old and sleeps a lot more.”

Harlan could see from the way her eyes got watery and she kept puckering her lips that she wasn’t ok.

“How long does she have?”

She let out a dry chuckle.

“I can’t get anything past you. I’ve taken her to the healers, they don’t expect her to go for two months.

I was trying to get the wedding done before then, but then…”

“You shouldn’t put off your life like that. She wouldn’t want that.”

“Well we can’t know what she would want, can we?”

Isha started bouncing her legs and then suddenly tossed a glass on the floor.

“Shit, let me-”

“I’ve got it. I’m sorry, I haven’t had the time to talk with you much, you shouldn’t need to be alone for this.”

Isha burst into tears at the table and Harlan rubbed her back while Adina went in for a hug, tears in her eyes.

Sepul and Elise shared a look, this had been a disaster and they did not want to step into this moment, so they left without a word.

Adina stayed with Isha in a guest room for the day while Harlan took care of cooking and cleaning.

She didn’t want her mother to see her like this because she knew that her mother was blunt and uncaring, every other time she brought up how she felt only proved it further.

While he was getting the clothes from the line, Kass approached him.

He paced back and forth, his mind was screaming at him to just say it and get it over with.

“I know the timing is awful, but I’ve gotten a letter that you need to know about.”

“Alright.”

“My brother is dead, I need to go back for the funeral. I got the letter a week ago, but I didn’t want to bring it up with everything else that was happening.”

“We should sit down to talk.”

They made their way to Kass’s porch. Something that Harlan enjoyed about his things was that they always made him feel like a kid due to how big they were. Then the thought crossed his mind, he wasn’t even 17. He might not be a kid, but he didn’t feel like an adult.

“I’d like you to use gate to drop me off at the border and take me back. But my family will handle the rest.”

“I… I don’t know what else to say.”

“You want to know how I’m handling it, and the answer is that I’m fine. We weren’t overly close, I became estranged from my family when I came to Ragne 15 years ago. I once said that things were complicated back home. The truth is that my father was Councilor Whitehorn, I didn’t want to get into politics, I wanted to farm. I didn’t even tell them I was leaving until I was gone and I already signed a contract for work.”

“You never wanted to open up before.”

“I’m a little… I don’t know, I’m not that sad, but when I try to be mournful I don’t remember when we were children, I remember everything we said before we left. That I was a coward, an idiot, that I was turning my back on the family.”

“You feel bad that you don’t feel worse.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s it. I am more upset about not having Sara around than my own brother.”

“My birth mother, I had this idea of what she should be, that I was robbed of having her. Then when I learned about her, I realized that I didn’t really care that she was dead. She was a mixed up person, but with the life she had, I don’t blame her entirely.”

“I guess you have me beat when it comes to a fucked up family.”

“You weren’t at breakfast, so you didn’t see Elise. I don’t think I want to get into it, but I’m glad you weren’t there.”

“Yeah… I wasn’t hungry, not sure why.”

“Grief makes people strange. Try to drink a tonic to keep up your strength.”

“Right. I’ll do that.”

The two men just watched the sun set in silence which was only broken by Kass getting a drink.

Eventually Kass decided it was time to go, after dropping him off Harlan went back to make dinner for the girls.

----------------------------------------

Yggdra felt the best that he had in at least a decade.

He tossed aside his cane and walked to his balcony after a few drinks.

“Safira, I’d like you to get Dahlia, I see how little time I have left, and I know that the boy hasn’t turned back the clock, my pact is still active. I need to apologize to her for how I treated her, the only child of mine whose mother I really did love, perhaps the only person I’ve ever felt real love for.”

“Are you certain you shouldn’t wait until you are sober?”

“I feel like this must be done in the spur of the moment before my mind starts making plans and treating her like a pawn again.”

“Very well.”