A week had passed, and Harlan had tried to see Ava, but somehow Breken was always there to give him a look telling him that now wasn’t the time.

Harlan was back at his peak, but he was a little disturbed by how his soul looked even if nothing felt wrong when he shifted or used other magic.

“Hawan. Lift, lift.”

He had spent the last two hours using telekinesis to help the children run through an obstacle course alongside their new foxes.

They were smart, but not people, and at present they weren’t supposed to be using magic on the children at all. He only convinced Autumn and Jaramis to accept them by saying they were meant to get the children away from danger and not for fighting.

“Are they not bored yet?”

“No, but they are going to crash after another 10 or 15 minutes.”

“I guess I should say goodbye to them then.”

“It’s not normal for them to allow guests there.”

“For the next week I’ll be taking over as the threat that must be hidden from or defeated for the officer training. They made me agree to follow orders and I couldn’t play favorites with Amber.”

A gate opened next to Harlan and his sister and the children wanted to see who it was.

“Train lady.”

“You can call her Autie Marigold.”

“Can you do magic?”

The siblings looked at the children and laughed.

Marigold smiled and ruffled their hair as she answered.

“Yes, I know a little.”

The twins looked at one another.

“Like Hawen?”

“I know more than your uncle.”

They had a look of amazement on their faces and asked to see her magic.

While they were distracted she talked with Harlan.

“I need that sword back. Take this one as a replacement.”

The blade looked nearly identical, and was made of a high purity shadowstone composite.

Harlan handed back the black blade.

“No questions?”

“It’s not like I made it. Xol gave it to me and now you are giving me another sword.”

She almost wanted to make a comment, but she was worried that Harlan would catch on to where it came from.

Instead she spoke to Autumn.

“Would you mind if I came around to watch the children sometimes?”

“If Harlan trusts you I’m sure you are fine. You should also ask about watching James. My mother would be thrilled to have a little help sometimes.”

“That would be wonderful.”

When the children were put to sleep Harlan gated himself to a military camp that would then arrange transport to another military camp.

He had heard a few things from Amber when he snuck in to tell her about Haldren.

Camp Foreign was a special camp where officers were supposed to be trained and at the same time train a squad of fuck ups into respectable soldiers. It was an oddity, most camps of this sort trained their officers by giving them good soldiers. If Harlan didn’t know any better he would assume Amber had been set there intentionally as a joke, but he had been told that after applications were sent to a local office they would be anonymized and then sent to central who would then assign based on openings.

Harlan was currently on a carriage with High Commander Enten, who was in charge of the division which her camp was a part of.

“Thank you for this.”

“The chance for them to learn under an archmage is rare, for one to come here willingly is even rarer.”

“What exactly should I expect from them? I know I will be the enemy combatant or hunter, but how much should I hold back?”

“The idea that you will need to hold back against a few hundred soldiers nearly ready to join the army in full is comical.”

“You are underestimating me or overestimating them. When Rosewell became queen she sent me to destroy noble homes, most of them I did without support from my own troops or from the national army.”

“Foot soldiers are nothing compared to higher ranked members of the army. Most at the camp are academy graduates as well.”

“How about this for the first exercise…”

They arrived at the camp with a great deal of fanfare.

Trumpets and banners of both House Fomoria and House Ragne.

Mages shot off displays into the noon sky. It was all a little much for Harlan, but as the newly titled queen’s dagger he had an important position within the nation and the high commander was a well respected man who did enjoy these things after his decades of service.

“Why do they call it camp foreign?”

“It was first run by a Golden. Back then it was camp 221, but eventually it got the nickname and it stuck. That’s how we name all of the camps, just a series of numbers until they earn a real name.”

“Not unlike a noble I suppose.”

“Perhaps that’s not an entirely wrong assessment.”

“I get the feeling you don’t like me.”

“You are sidestepping everything that I’ve had to do to get to where I am because of what you were born as and because you were picked by a god.”

“I can understand and empathize.”

He waited for more, but Harlan said his piece.

“That’s it?”

“It’s unfair, but that’s life. I never asked to be taken from my family, nor did I ask to be sent to the academy or made a champion. I’ve gone with what life has given me and done what I can. You could’ve just as easily been born an orphan or blind and too poor to actually get it fixed or any number of things.”

“Fine enough answer.”

“Was that just a shittest?”

“You’re godsdamned right. Now when you get in there I expect not an ounce of favoritism.

This is the army, not the academy, we aren’t here to coddle children.”

“I gave my word.”

Harlan kept a stone face and stood tall as he walked behind the high commander and to a large stage where he could be seen by all of the cadets.

Near instantly he locked eyes with Amber. She was looking good, bit more muscle on her than when she was at the academy and a fiercer look in her eyes.

Enten cleared his throat and the array around the stage amplified his voice.

“Today you have a special guest. During this next week you will be running tests, monster subjugation, castle capture, anything else I tell you to do. This man here, Sir Harlan Fomoria, Queen’s Blade and Archmage, will be the monster, and he will be king of the castle. He believes that you are all nothing compared to him, and he intends to let you know that. So today we will begin with castle capture. This time every single one of you will go against him at once, if any of you defeat him, you all win. Gather your equipment, ready up.

Archmage Changeling, you have 30 minutes to prepare the field in any way you choose.”

Harlan didn’t say a word, he just went through a gate which led to the center of the area.

The area had been terraformed for training purposes, it contained hills and valleys and rivers and so on and so forth.

Amber kept her team low, she knew that others were likely to try assaults from on high, but Harlan would see and counter them in an instant.

“You sure walking through this creek is the best bet? And shouldn’t we pick up the pace before the other teams get the win?”

“We are downwind from Harlan. The mud will help hide our scent, the sound of the river will hide our noises.”

“The fuck? I thought he was a man, not an animal. Besides, we need to capture the castle anyway, we aren’t hunting.”

“No, we are being hunted. My brother is-”

“Whoa, your brother is the fucking necromancer?”

“My brother is my brother. I know how he thinks, how he fights. Those other idiots are going to walk into a slaughter, I just hope I can use our bond to get him to hold back long enough to capture the castle.”

“He’s one guy.”

“Actually he is about five that I know of.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Screams sounded out over the hills.

“That was just a decoy.”

“That sounded pretty fucking real to me.”

“He used the same sounds last summer when we hunted a skinwalker together.”

“I thought you were joking when you told us stories. You really did that?”

“He had been wanting to capture one for a while. Finally got a lead so we went out and got it.”

“Holy shit.”

“I’ll scold you for your language later. Now we need to-”

Amber put her finger to her lips and pointed at the woods.

A flock of birds two hills over flew away, then one.

“Oh shit.”

She hadn’t considered that Harlan would come after her first.

Amber made signs with her hands, warning her team that he was coming from the opposite direction.

He was not recognizable as himself.

He was long and slender, almost like a weasel, and on his back were two tentacles that she could see, which she knew meant there was at least one more.

Moments before he clashed with the rock and fire, a gate opened.

By the time Amber realized that he had opened the gate under the water, it was too late, two of the five had been struck.

It took 30 seconds before they were completely paralyzed. Harlan gated them to the shore so they didn’t drown.

The three remained back to back, they knew he could come from any angle he wanted, but he just sat there next to the two men.

“What the fuck is that and how do we get it away from them?”

“Harlan won’t hurt them, he’s already won.”

“I don’t know your brother and I don’t know his fucking dog either.”

“You aren’t getting it. Harlan won’t hurt them.”

Suddenly they all realized what she really meant.

“What the fuck.”

They said in unison.

“I feel like my mother complaining about the way you talk.”

Harlan stood between the two soldiers who could only move their eyes.

“You might as well surrender. You can’t use anything big enough to hurt me with them here.”

It unnerved the man and woman who didn’t know Harlan to hear him speaking normally from his beastial body.

“Every second you waste here is another second you aren’t defending the castle.”

“Well, if you won’t move.”

Harlan slowly stepped towards them and then vanished from sight, Amber knew where he would be.

With her sword in his gut after a skip, Harlan hit the other three with his stingers.

“Don’t worry, it’s potent but flushes out of the system easily and it’s something I made myself, so it can’t kill you.”

Harlan stepped through a gate right onto another team of five, and then another, and another.

Meanwhile Dawn was at the castle controlling his armor, five on one, ten on one, it didn’t matter.

Harlan said that she should be getting more used to controlling a body before he made one for her.

She asked him to delay so she could spend more time with Amber since they had no idea when the next how long it would be before they met again after she served some time in the army.

Either they didn’t have a need for her and she’d be out after a few months, or they’d find a use for her and she’d serve the full two years active service with only two months off a year before she went reserve.

Or perhaps she’d like the army enough that she became a career soldier like Redmond.

It bugged her that she couldn’t talk crap about the ones she had beaten. She wanted to be a drill instructor, at least offer some tips while she broke that guy’s arm. Instead she was only allowed a preset series of insults.

Harlan had made a deal with Enten, he’d get some of his restrictions at the camp lessened if he did what seemed to be an impossible task of winning an all out battle. But Harlan never planned to let it get that far.

He could cover the multiple miles of the training area in 15 seconds with a gate, he could divine the position of the troops with ease, and it took a little poke to send humans into a paralyzed state for 15 minutes.

Half of them were wiped out by him before they reached the place, a tenth rushed ahead and Dawn beat them, and the last of them had to contend with the combined forces and the traps he set before the start of the match.

He had to hold back to avoid killing anyone, but they hit him with the full force of their magic.

When the last group believed that they won and entered the room to grab the flag, they made it a few steps before the small body he left above the doorway poked them just a single time and they didn’t make it out of the room. He could’ve won against them, but feigning a loss let him use that trap so it didn’t go to waste.

Enten and Harlan sat down for an after action meeting.

“Not a word.”

“I don’t intend to gloat. I actually respect you, so often people treat me like glass or a monster.

You are treating me like a snot nosed brat.”

“Then I’ll admit that you were impressive out there. Though it says a lot that even your armor is worth more than these cadets.”

“My armor is a unique piece of work. Even the ones made for my family and friends aren’t quite like it.

I noticed that my sister is not wearing her’s. I hope it is kept safely and not in some lab being picked apart.”

“I’m insulted that you would think that little of us. Yggdra the 15th ensured that anything made by you for your sister is kept far away from here.”

“Good. I think that you wouldn’t do anything, but I’ve seen more than enough nobles look at my armor with envy in their eyes.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“I don’t think I’ve said anything to flatter you.”

“You’ve made more than one remark that you see me as something other than the scum of the earth.

From what I can see, that is close to flattery.”

“It’s not. But I give off the image that it is.”

The high commander poured himself a cup of ice water, he didn’t drink during the day, and rarely at night.

“Why are you really here?”

“Because I wanted to see Amber.”

“Is that really all?”

“Of course. I wanted to make sure she was safe after the war started.”

“Ha, war. Nothing but a tantrum by a few dozen nobles held up in some mountains. We’ll have them dealt with in a few months.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. I had one body take a crack at the one in central, couldn’t get near the place.

Sky, ground, everything is covered in arrays, good ones.”

“Ah, the unending pride and arrogance of youth. One person rarely turns the tides, in this case, we’ve had master warders look at them and they decided brute force by thousands of mages will be faster.”

“We’ve gotten off track. Give me the report on my cadets.”

Each squad was given a tent, no matter what the number of men to women was, they shared it.

When Halran stepped inside the person there tried to give him a straight, but what she got was a broken hand instead.

Harlan looked at her, she was with Amber earlier, short pixie cut redhead.

He could guess why she was pissed, so he grabbed her hand to heal it.

“Let me go you fucking monster.”

“A soldier's tongue.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Can you actually say a sentence without swearing?”

“Eat shit. I need to see a healer.”

“Your hand is healed, I could handle that bald spot too. Military hazing?”

“A goat showed up when we were petrified and nibbled on my hair.”

“Whatever you wash with, it did smell good.”

“The fuck?”

“I have a good nose, I wasn’t sniffing your hair. Also, a soldier shouldn’t wear perfume.

Even if I hadn’t divined you I could’ve picked up your scent from half a mile at least, tracked you for longer.”

“Fine, fu- fix it then.”

Harlan took just a few moments to start the spell.

“It’ll take 15 minutes, but it will be the same length as before, no problems.”

“My head is itchy.”

“That feeling will go away in another 30 seconds or so. Where is Amber?”

“She’s training.”

“Don’t you have set times for that?”

“She’s the only one here who trains between training, and those other three dipshits go to oggle her.”

“I suppose I should threaten them.”

“Nah. She’s broken bones on all of ‘em, they know the score. Speaking of, what is this gonna cost?”

“You are serving under my sister, so I’ll put it on her tab.”

“Nah, I don’t do that shit. Tell me the cost.”

“Or what?”

Harlan heard the edge in his voice.

“I didn’t mean to threaten you like that.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Keep her safe, that’s the cost. Do a good job, because if she dies, I’m looking into everyone around her and I don’t want for the justice system to make a ruling.”

Harlan lifted the flap to the tent, but stopped halfway outside.

“What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

“Short for Samantha?”

“No, dad wanted a boy.”

Harlan found Amber, and the three aforementioned dipshits who ogled her openly and without shame.

“Triplets? Really?”

“What’s it to you-”

They all leaned back one after the other, it was uncanny how much they resembled one another.

“Sir Fomoria, pleasure to meet you.”

“I heard you all went after my sister. Try anything while I’m here and I’ll show you how merciful she is compared to me.”

Harlan walked away to join his sister in her training.

They were running and jumping and crawling through mud together while they spoke.

“Do you like your squad?”

“Toddel is a coward but a damn good scout. Cald is a savant with wards. And Besten is strong as an ox but dumb as a sheep. Sam is a rebellious little shit and probably the reason I’m going to need to train another squad to pass the officers test.”

“Should I talk to her?”

“Nope, this is testing me, not you.”

“But doesn’t a resourceful soldier use everything she has?”

“Stay out of this, I’ll get through to her by force if I need to.”

”Alright then. How’s everyone else been? Tau and them.”

“Ibery’s getting into politics, learning at the academy gives her something to brag about while she tries to get votes.

Tau is… you should visit him. Adelwulf is in a place just like this, he’ll be leading soldiers into battle as early as next month. Bojana, I can’t say, something honor and a warrior’s place in the world, but she was pretty secretive. How’s Zella?”

“Doing good. We killed a wyvern together a little while back.”

“Great. Autumn?”

“Saw her and the kids this morning. Marigold also stopped by, said she wanted to watch them some.

Dad is doing good, gave him a check up. Mom made soup for me when I was sick, I think she liked that.”

“First time for everything.”

“Soul got damaged when I went a dozen hours of shifting and combat without a break.”

“Why were you fighting so long?”

“The war.”

“What war?”

“The civil one.”

Amber stopped running half way up a wall and fell to the mud below.

“What?”

“Yggdra died. Rosewell is queen.”

“Let’s go back to my tent and you can explain what I’ve been missing out on. I can’t believe they never told us anything.”

“I mean, I was introduced as the queen’s blade and I got a fancy badge on my armor now.”

“I was going to ask about that eventually.”

The triplets gave Harlan a look when he came in, they were unsure if they should be afraid or not.

Sam on the other hand had a chip on her shoulder, she hated losing.