He didn’t hesitate for an instant, it was broken, the pact, was broken.

When he awoke Harlan collapsed on the floor, his hands hooked and he foamed at the mouth, his veins bulged just before he passed out and went limp, soulfire scorching his form without a drop of heat.

Harlan woke up, but the damage he felt on his soul was still severe, and he was locked down to a single body; rarely had he felt so vulnerable.

“Harlan, don’t move.”

He failed to listen, and pain shot through his body, causing him to cry out.

“Don’t cast any magic either, you’re weak. I’ve already been informed about what you’ve done, you damn fool.”

Sepul rubbed his gnarled hands together.

“Yet I would’ve done the same. You damn fool, you… You’ll notice some changes, your pact, it held back certain things, physically you are a Half-Fomorian, but yet you are also not. I can’t tell you what has changed, and I cannot use my magic to scan your soul. Any foreign mana could slow the healing process rather than help. As I’ve been told by The Darkness.”

Harlan moved his head and saw Shelly.

“I’m sorry, I’m just terrible with parties. Go pretend to have fun, keep your mother happy. Shame I couldn’t see her like you wanted.”

“The party is over already.”

She uncomfortably rubbed her hands together while she tapped her heels on the soft rug.

“Was I that unsubtle?”

“I’m the champion of the god of lies, I feel like I should be able to see some things coming. But yeah, unless you’ve got a bow in hand, you can’t be subtle, it’s just not in your nature.”

“I don’t want to leave you here, Adina isn’t even awake yet, and I’d just be worrying.”

“Adina is going to be fine, I’ve done what I needed to do. And I’ll be fine, I knew this was going to happen.

So go, your mother is just going to hate me more if I keep you any longer. Sepul, do you mind getting me home?”

“Even stepping through a gate would stress your soul.”

“Oh, that explains the drain arrays.”

After an hour more of sleep, Harlan was awoken by Sheron entering the room.

“You’re ruining my furniture with your sweat.”

“My apologies, I’ll pay for the cost to clean or replace it.”

“I know you will. But that isn’t why I’m here.”

Hellon had left, but Sepul was still there, watching over them.

“I’d like to apologize. For what I’ve said before.”

“Really, it’s-”

“Eliz- Dawn, she came to see me.”

“Really? I thought we both more or less agreed it was a bad idea to stir up the past.”

“Well, Elise knows Shelly, so it was only a matter of time before one told the other and I heard about it.

She’s just a poor secret keeper.”

“Or Elise had a reason to tell Shelly, knowing that it would get back to you.”

“That girl is ambitious.”

“She’s ignorant, but she’s smart, she wants without understanding the cost of getting things.”

“Do you try to sound profound? Or is this natural for you.”

“Hmm…”

Harlan closed his eyes.

“Can we continue this another time? I’m in no shape to keep talking for much longer.”

“Very well. Feel free to stay the night, or as long as you need.”

Harlan didn’t get the chance to thank her before he was sleeping again.

“Sepul, it’s been a while.”

“I don’t make a habit of keeping up with her friends.”

“You just didn’t like us much.”

Her tone was light, hoping to have an actual conversation.

“I liked May and tolerated the rest of you, barely.”

She made a sour face and left without replying, she’d rather not waste breath and ruin her mood further arguing with a stubborn old man.

The gods gathered again, demanding answers.

“YOU’VE SET THEM FREE?”

“Cecht, brother, calm yourself. They were only ever locked up by my choice, no need to drag everyone in here,. If you’ve got such a problem then ask your champion to just wipe them out.”

The ball of feathers and eyes stared at her with fury, but it was Anu who spoke next.

“She is right, despite your issues with our sister, no rules have been broken, it was not Aarde who demanded they be contained, but her. However, to wipe out a species, a prime species at that, would go against our duty. Things are likely to be hard for a time, and many will die, but they shall feed the plants, and the balance shall be found.”

“YOU’VE DONE THIS, YOU PLANNED IT ALL, TO-”

“To what end dear brother? I’ve done something which I’ve been free to do for a thousand years.”

His light dimmed, but his anger had not.

“I don’t know what plan you have, or why you’ve done this, but I will find out.”

“You are free to illuminate whatever goals you believe I have, but this gathering is pointless.

My champion had an issue, I had two options, I could break the pact, or allow his child to die.”

“One life versus thousands.”

“If you believe that only one life was at stake, then you misunderstand, he would kill gods and upturn nations if he thought for a second that it would save its life.”

One by one they faded away, returning to their small worlds.

Harlan jolted awake.

The room was empty aside from Sepul.

“Shit, I need to warn them about-”

“The Fomorians? I doubt that they fared much better than you. Either they have been sleeping as long or longer than you. But either way, I’ve sent the appropriate warnings, none shall be taken by surprise in a sudden Fomorian invasion.”

Harlan took a deep breath and calmed himself.

“Adina is fine.”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t asking, I can feel her mind, she’s with Shelly right now.”

“She woke up an hour after you passed out again and has been in perfect health since.”

“I should’ve seen it coming, of course the Fae pact was going to cause problems. But I thought about it wrong, boon, curse, the language was different, I made a stupid mistake, I should’ve…”

“Yes, you should’ve, but you didn’t. Every failure is a chance to grow and learn. You are very lucky that the conflict of pacts was one which could be solved. Had you been Golden, it would be impossible, and you’d never have children with her.”

“I don’t believe in luck. It’s an excuse, a way to claim something should happen or has happened with no input from someone. I hate it, it’s no better than talking about talent.”

Sepul raised an eyebrow, Harlan’s voice was filled with venom towards those words, and it seemed sudden to him.

Harlan got up and walked around a bit, feeling stiffness in his muscles, he knew that he was weaker, the pact gave him his body as it was, and it wouldn’t take it away, but not all of what made a Fomorian stronger was physical.

He took a deep breath and shifted his body.

He dropped to the floor, feeling his split bone and burst blood vessel, turning back half way through.

Sepul just looked on but didn’t try to stop him, he had a look of pity on his face.

“I had to know, she warned me, she warned me of the cost. I can feel pain again, physical pain, not just mental or soul damage. I’ll need those pain-dampening spells, put them in my armor.”

“Those spells have limits, you’d be better served mixing potions.”

“Thank you.”

“Use them only as needed. Such substances are often addictive, not through alchemical means, but simply because they make the user feel better, lightens their senses, and makes the world seem a little less terrible.”

Sepul’s tone implied somber remembrance, and Harlan said nothing to continue that conversation.

“Am I healthy enough to move on my own?”

“Yes, your soul is fine, and you are free to check for yourself.”

Harlan closed his eyes and turned his sight inward, finding his soul to be… mostly there.

There was a wound, a scar, something that was once and now was not.

“I don’t feel it being gone, just the effects of it.”

“Cast some more simple magics, make sure everything feels right.”

Harlan conjured a small elemental ball on each finger, fire, water, air, earth, light, dark, void, radiance, ice, crystal.

“Even for a man of good health, the six elements and four advanced elements is impressive.”

Then just as easily as if made them, he moved the balls of void and radiance from his pinkies to his other fingers, and finally into each other, perfectly removing all of the magic without needing to cause any damage or leave a speck of dust behind.

“My mind feels clear, very clear.”

“It could be related to you being back to just a single body.”

“I’ve never felt like they’ve dragged me down before now.”

“You are splitting your mind, that focus is gone, that ability to process information is being used for another being.”

“I should’ve seen that, I should’ve felt it. Can you do this?”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“No, one would need either an invincible soul or a connection to the crossroads. I’ve neither, and though it may be possible to do so with soulsmithing, I’ve no interest in becoming a Lich.”

“You don’t need to be a Lich to do it.”

“Do you not realize you are a Lich? Each body is a phylactery, and you aren’t limited to just your own bodies, you can go into anything that holds your signature, like your golems. Though I suppose you are more an Egregore than a Lich.”

“It probably doesn’t matter what I get called. I’m going to see Adina, would you like to come?”

“No, I’ve got three days of work to catch up on.”

“Sorry to have taken your time… grandpa?”

“No, it doesn’t sound right.”

And like that he was gone, but Harlan knew he was happy to have heard it at least once.

Harlan stretched his body, feeling every little pop that banished stiffness, and then walked the hall to Shelly’s room, servants along the way giving him odd looks.

He knocked, and Shelly answered.

She hugged and pulled him into the room.

“You’re up, you’re awake, how do you feel?”

“Alright. Sorry I missed your party.”

“It’s fine, the whole thing is for my mother more than me. David and Parnell normally take me out and we camp the night in the woods with some prepared food and alcohol.”

“That sounds nice.”

“You’re free to come, you know.”

Harlan was about to say no, but Adina gave him a look.

“Sure, do you have a time planned already?”

“Tonight. Unless that doesn’t work for you.”

“No no, I’ll just get Adina home and-”

She brightened the colors of her eyes with mana in a quick flash.

“Or maybe she’d like to come along.”

“Well, if it isn’t an issue, I’d like to come.”

“Of course not, I’m sure there’s no reason not to have you with us. But… well, Parnell…”

“We will all be together, and it’s not like he’d try anything more than an off-color remark to two after Harlan broke his nose before.”

“He can be vindictive. I’m just saying don’t be shocked if you end up with sticks and mud in your hair when you wake up.”

“We’ll smell him coming.”

“Right, you keep talking about enhancement.”

Shelly’s heart rate rose and he could see her eyes shift away from his.

“Do you want enhancement? You’re being fidgety.”

“No no no, I couldn’t ask for that. But if there was a cost, what would it be?”

“Officially I’m not selling it, but the cost is loyalty to Ragne.”

“I’d rather pay in gold.”

“Five grand bars.”

“Oh, well, that’s… that is a lot.”

“It’s youth, five years to your life, and the physical power to crush stone and be nearly invincible to mundane blades.”

“I want to buy it for David.”

“I’m not selling it. I’ll do it for free though.”

“No, I don’t want you to do it for free. David wouldn’t like it, he’d feel like he owes you.”

“I understand, but I can’t charge you five bars. Two would be fine?”

“I’ll get it, can you do it by next week?”

“Is something happening?”

“He’s going to join the war, full time. I’m scared, he’s going to be leaving me and Parnell behind.”

“Where is he going to be stationed?”

“I can’t say.”

“Seven days, unless I’m called away on Queen’s Blade business, I’ll do it.”

“Alright, you should go prepare some things, a tent, bedroll, food, drink. Oh, and keep to simple magics, like what a child would use.”

“See you here at what, four, five?”

“Five is better.”

Harlan and Adina returned to their home to prepare, but as they were double checking everything, she spoke up.

“Shelly was lying about something. I know you heard her heart rate go up.”

Adina hadn’t said it to Harlan, she didn’t want to worry him, but it had taken quite a bit more time than she let on to get used to her new senses, it was overwhelming to hear the heartbeats and smacking of lips all around her at lunch.

“She can’t be doing it for bad reasons. Shelly isn’t that kind of person. Are you sure you’re fine to go tonight?”

“I’m three months pregnant, not six. You can barely even tell and I want to get out for more than family dinners and classes.”

“I’m just worried about what happened before.”

“I slept for a few hours, you’ve been asleep for half a week. Don’t treat me like I’m made of glass just because…”

She clenched her fist while she rubbed her stomach with her other hand.

“Why do you have to make me so damn angry?”

“It’s alright to be mad at me, it’s not just the baby doing it.”

“But I don’t know when I’m mad or if it's the baby making me like that. It’s scary to not feel control like that.”

“That Fomorian passion is built into us, it’s part of why we made good disposable soldiers. Fervor blinds us to pain, to danger, lets us give our lives with such ease. And that’s not getting into what it was like having Dawn tearing her mind apart inside of mine, misplacing her own anger, passing it on to me, demanding that I react to her past indignities.

You've been dealing with normal reactions in your life, you get angry when it’s right to be angry, I get angry at everything and need to second guess myself constantly to avoid hurting people.

I was born to kill, and that conflicts with what I was raised with. Our child is going to have that same dark impulse that I gained as I got older, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“Let’s just get through tonight.”

Harlan lifted both of their packs before Adina took her’s from him.

They moved back to Shelly’s home, or rather, her mother’s home, where Sheron was waiting for them.

“I was told you’d be going on her little outing. But I’d like our conversation to continue.”

“I understand.”

“See you soon.”

They kissed before parting.

Sheron waved Harlan toward her and they went to her office.

“Simply put, I’d like to apologize for our first meeting. And everything else that has happened since.”

“I was lucid enough to remember you doing that before.”

“Good. Moving past that, how has Dawn been? And in your estimation, is she well.”

“Those are rather vague questions. I assume you have a point.”

“It’s very strange seeing her again, she’s almost what I remember her as, but she’s softer, most of her rough edges are smoothed out. I want to know, directly from you, is she actually Eliza?”

“She has all of her memories, but the spell that saved her mind was cast by me as an infant. I wanted a loving mother, and she splintered. She is not the same person she was, I’ve irreparably changed her.”

Harlan began to bounce his leg, he was guilty, anxious, he didn’t like thinking about what he had done.

Good or bad, he had in effect killed her and replaced her with a softer copy.

He’d do it a thousand times to others if he needed to, but he would do that consciously, he didn’t even remember doing it to Eliza.

“Whether she is her or not is up for debate, but I think she’s another person who just has all of Eliza’s memories.”

It seemed like she had something else she wanted to ask, but didn’t, changing the topic and tone to something more professional.

“That isn’t the point. I have a friend, and this friend believes that he has something that could get him an archmage title, but he’s unable to finish it, and knowing that you know Shelly, he asked me to ask you if helping him was possible.”

“What is he researching?”

“Before that, I’d like you to sign this.”

Harlan looked it over, it was a rather simple contract, more or less stating that if he ever said anything about what they were going to talk about, then he would be liable for damages and it acknowledged that Harlan could not claim to be the inventor of such research.

He signed it with little hesitation, and then used his ring to place a piece of wax, sealing the contract, Sheron did the same, and then they she had him sign another so that they both had copies of it.

The forest they would be sleeping in was on the property, they didn’t want to really go to anywhere dangerous, they just liked sleeping outside.

As soon as they reached the clearing they always slept in David laid on the ground.

“Tired?”

“I only feel at peace with something hard at my back, beds are too soft, their raised platforms mean things could be under them.”

“I can’t relate. I feel just as well on a soft mattress as I do huddled with the roots of a tree.”

David didn’t say anything more, falling into a nap.

Shelly and Parnell were setting up their tents without a worry, it seemed this was common, so Harlan just shrugged and set up the tent for him and Adina.

It felt a little silly to him, with a few movements of his hands he could set up a stone building that had windows and then a little bit of carving could add other creature comforts.

But Shelly didn’t want him using magic that required signs or words.

May would take them camping and back then they had only the simplest magic, Shelly wanted to remember those times, before everything felt so complicated.

Without a thought Harlan shifted his hand to try and cut some branches for kindling and he yelped in pain, punching the dead tree in anger at himself, shattering the trunk, felling it.

“What happened?”

His hand looked mangled.

“Shit, how did this happen?”

“I’ll fix it.”

She saw how much pain it was causing him, the lack of the alchemical pain reliever adrenaline that normally filled his system as a result of the pact magic meant that tearing apart and restructuring his body hurt like it was supposed to.

He thought back to when he could still feel it, when he first learned shifting.

He had become sloppy, going to extremes of body modification instead of simple changes just because he could.

So he returned his hand back to what it should be, and a single finger became a talon that let him easily cut the branches to size.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I’m alright, I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine.”

“No cost to great, I did what I needed to do so Adina and our child would be free of my curse, I paid the price for my own mistake. I should’ve just seen it coming, if I just had more time, if I was smarter, if I wasn’t blinded to my own-”

“You always spiral out of control, then everything is your fault because you can’t see everything coming. That doesn’t help anyone, so don’t do it, the world doesn’t rest on your shoulders alone.”

“You’ve been seeing Mary, haven’t you?”

“What gave it away?”

“She gives me that same advice. It’s fine if you don’t answer, but why are you seeing her?”

“Were, I was seeing her, but since I graduated, well, I can’t really expect her to listen to me whine about my mother anymore.”

“I’m sure if you asked she would continue, Mary isn’t just listening to people, she wants to help.”

Shelly started picking up the branches in silence, and Harlan left her alone with her thoughts, trying to give her space to figure herself out.

With the fire crackling, and the drink flowing for the three of them, Harlan abstaining because they hadn’t brought enough for him to get drunk on anyway, and Adina abstaining for obvious reasons.

“I’m glad you came. It’s fun to have someone new out here.”

“I’m glad to be here. The last time I slept outside was when I crashed my plane, so this is a little bit nicer.”

“What’s a plane?”

“Right, I haven’t shown it off yet.”

Harlan put up a veil.

“Now, obviously none of you can talk about this with anyone. But I’ve invented a craft able to carry people into the sky who have no magic. I’ve got a few designs, bombers, personnel carriers, but getting people out of the sky safely without having to land is a little more annoying, and then of course personal craft, one to seven people per with a little room in the back for light cargo.”

David chimed in.

“That’s great, you’ve got to show us.”

Harlan crafted a little model out of sticks and nature magic, then explained all of the parts and spells that he used to make sure it was easy to fly, safe, and not likely to cause trouble with magical creatures.

Those that lived above the clouds were almost invariably violent and prideful things that thought themselves the only masters of the sky, so putting a limit on height and speed, both that could be removed with the push of a button, would hopefully mitigate their rage.

“So why haven’t you shown them off yet? Still tinkering?”

“I honestly don’t know what anyone would want with them. Bombers would allow massive indiscriminate destruction by people with very little training, it would put too much power in the hands of people who haven’t had the time to comprehend it. They’d be able to take off and then keep flying for days with a payload of weapons that I’d rather not think about the power of. To an extent we limit ourselves because the damage to our own forces would be higher than acceptable, but with this, you could potentially fill it with poisons and fill a city before anyone understood what was happening. That same design could easily and stealthily haul weapons from one place to another, tracking transports would be a nightmare far worse than it already is with the existence of gate, but at least gate mages are all registered, so we know how many there are more or less. Anyone with the right knowledge could build one of these and-”

He looked around, David was seemingly enthralled, but the others thought things were a bit dark and Harlan was rambling.

“Sorry. Why don’t we roast a little bit of meat? Make some sandwiches.”

Shelly took another swig and yelled out in excitement.

“Need something to soak this shit wine up.”

Harlan and Adina chuckled, Shelly restrained herself quite a bit, sometimes for her sake since she disliked social gatherings and sometimes because she didn’t want to cause any trouble for her parents.

This here was more or less the only day she was allowed to just let go of her nobility that chained her.

With bellies full of meat and bread they started to drunkenly dance with one another, and though the others were a bit more wild, Harlan and Adina just gently swayed one another side to side, enjoying the fire and the loud sounds of their friends.

Despite the war happening, it had little effect on most people, it was quiet, cold, skirmishes and raids, but little more, and even their mountains began to be hammered day in and day out by Harlan’s long cannons, forcing negotiations to begin for a reunification.

This was the normal way it went, people got caught up in the middle, and then once one side got the clear advantage, enough that both sides already decided the winner, the talks could begin, and peace would return until the next time the nobles got restless about their privileges over the peasants being lessened.

Even still, Harlan enjoyed this moment, where he didn’t need to think about all of that.

Yet now he realized that he should’ve called Rosewell and said he was alright, even if Sepul probably told her already.

He pushed it off for tomorrow, war was hell, but it felt so distant that it wasn’t real for now.

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

The chieftain pulled his machete from the head of the last soldier and started barking orders to gather up the women and supplies.

With their freedom given back to them, they would use it to take what they believe was owed to them, with interest.