In the week since he unlocked everyone’s auras, the results had been far lesser than Harlan hoped.

Looking at the numbers for who was attending even the regular magic classes was rather disheartening.

So he gathered his advisors, and D’if, to take suggestions about how he might improve this.

“Not enough people are interested in magic, even on a basic level.”

“Have you considered that you’ve made life too easy? Hardly anyone has to venture outside of the walls, so they don’t need to have personal power very often.”

“I’ve been thinking about making it a requirement that they all have some basic magic training.”

“State run training is looked down on, it would seem like you are trying to make them an involuntary army.

It would be worse with children, they hate to be told what to do, regardless of reasoning.

In Elfique, we were all forced into basic education, it worked, but I knew many people that hated every minute of it and constantly tried to avoid it. If you turn magic into that, you might damage your goals rather than reach them.”

“Joan, thank you for your advice. Mercedes, what do-”

“Big dick.”

Harlan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“D’if, unless that was a real suggestion that you intend to elaborate on, please just leave.”

“Magic enhances the body, mana cycling and all that. Removes blemishes in the skin, makes you grow taller and stronger, and it gives you a big dick.”

“I can’t believe he even invites you to these things, your constant disrespect towards-”

“D’if, get the rumor rolling. Getting rid of moles and pimples will get the younger people to learn, less popping hips and aching joints for the middle aged and elderly citizens. And yes, that factor of mages will attract the men, while the women can hear that it makes their fat distribution better for curvy figures rather than lumpy ones.”

D’if mocked Joan with his eyes.

With the thing that was actually bothering him gone, Harlan hesitantly asked if there was something else that he could help with.

“No. There is nothing more here that we cannot handle ourselves. I can tell you hate being here, so please, get to The Wastes or whatever is a better use of your time.”

“Mercedes, there is no need to get snippy. I am sorry that I haven’t spent much time here unless one of you call to tell me Castians are here. If there is something that you would like my help with, tell me.”

“You gave those women soulsmithed items. They tried to kill you, they won’t even say who hired them, and you sent them away with gifts.”

“The enemy of my enemy is not always an ally, but they can be a thorn in the side of my enemy.

When they return home with my gifts, their leaders may just decide that I am worth having as an ally.

Best case, I can start funneling power across the world and weaken the Castians on every front.”

“Worst case you are strengthening our enemies.”

“That is a risk I am willing to take.”

“It should’ve been something you consulted us on.”

“Mercedes, I thought that we had some understanding before, clearly not. My ultimate goal is to destroy the empire, if I need to crush a few other nations afterwards, then I don’t mind.”

“Your idea of what it means to be king is to kill your enemies, you are barely even here, I am running the city along with your mother while you do whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want means gathering strength for myself or for us all. The mines in the former territories are providing us with metals and gems that we are selling to Redhaven and-”

“Selling them at barely above cost by the time they get here.”

“The amount that we have gained in materials far offsets anything that I am selling more cheaply to Redhaven and the other nations we are allied with. Do you want more money? Is that it? Or do you want less work?”

“I want you here so when I ask a question I don’t need to waste time contacting you through an amulet. When was the last time you were in Falin? That minister from Redhaven runs the city, not you, we know only what she is telling us.”

Harlan didn’t want to argue, and he knew that she might well be right, Tatton betrayed his kindness, that Carmilla had not given warning was a telling sign.

“D’if.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send your men to Falin, spy on Liyana, make sure she is telling me the truth.”

“Should I hold off on the other rumor?”

“I hope you aren’t spreading rumors yourself and you are at least using contacts and proxies.”

“Of course, I’ve decades of experience with these things. But to me the best way to spread a rumor about-”

Harlan raised an eyebrow, waiting to hear how he would phrase it.

“Our physical prowess is to show it. That includes visiting brothels, the bath house, the tavern to get with women. I was planning to send my men to these locations and then have them make innocuous statements about why they are how they are.”

“How many do you have?”

“That are endowed? Three, not including myself.”

“You had more than three men.”

“You wanted me to spy on the nearby cities in the empire, I’ve only got so many men.”

“Have you started your recruiting?”

“Spies can take years to be good at their work, and if you are spying, you don’t want anyone that isn’t good.”

“If we worked together for a time, we might be able to manufacture a good spy golem. I’ve made soldiers, teachers, caretakers for orphans, I am sure we could do it.”

“Honestly boss? I don’t think so. Spying, lying, seduction, these are all things that take a bit too much thought. At best you’d be able to watch and listen to people, but to get someone talking takes a mind.”

“I… nevermind.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I could make a copy of you, but it wouldn’t be a golem, it would have your memories and act under its own will.”

“Great, how many can you make?”

“Making a new life like that, it isn’t right, it is a line that I don’t like crossing.”

“So how do you know that you can do it?”

“I have two brothers, one has my memories from before his creation, and the other is a clean soul without me.”

“It’s for the greater good. Information is one of the most important parts of a war, you can only plan based on what you know. Do you want to keep reacting? Or do you want to take hold of this war.”

Harlan tapped his fingers on the table.

“Find recruits, start with the pickpockets that I caught during the festival.”

“Very well.”

Harlan bid farewell to everyone and did as Mercedes said.

The Wastes were exactly what they sounded like, dead lands.

Harlan could see that once it might’ve been a forest, a giant one at that, calcified stumps were like mesas, their fallen trunks were like mountain ranges.

He made his way to one of these fallen trees and just felt it.

The size of such a thing was hard to even imagine when it was still alive, branches could’ve been large enough to build towns on.

It wasn’t a desert like The Sandsea, it was just… dead.

Harlan put aside the melancholy and continued to move towards Scaleborn, the capital of The Wastes.

The map didn’t help much, the entire area was brown grass and gray trees on a land of lakes.

He flew even higher and matched the map with the landmarks then dropped down to the large swirling hole in the ground that had dozens of smaller holes letting off hot air and smoke around it.

At the bottom of the hole there was only a single guard.

“Oh, you’re here. Welcome, King Fomoria.”

The Cerast moved aside and coiled up once again.

“How are you sure that I’m King Fomoria?”

“People don’t come here.”

Harlan found that the city was much more lively than he expected.

Cerast slithered from street to street, what they were doing or why wasn’t clear, but those that seemed most rushed carried tools for carving stone and large rolls of fabric.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for-”

“HE’S HERE.”

Those with the rolls of cloth all started moving to one location as the man’s voice echoed far into the cavern

A Cerast who wore a half cape with the crest of The Wastes rushed through the crowd to Harlan.

“You can’t go ahead yet.”

“Why?”

“A surprise.”

“Will I enjoy it?”

“Oh, Queen Maldrea is sure that you will.”

“Is there a place to eat here while I wait?”

“Of course, follow me.”

As he led Harlan down the street he noticed that many people wore horns fashioned from stone or perhaps the calcified wood from above.

“Why do they wear those?”

“The Horned King.”

“Who?”

The man seemed nervous.

“Rulers have horns, Queen Maldrea has horns, so now we have The Horned Queen.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Alright then. The restaurant?”

The man seemed to have caught his wandering mind and continued moving.

Harlan sat down and the people inside immediately gave him space.

He couldn’t hear them say anything, but many of them held their palms together with another.

“What is your name?”

“Ah… names, they are… difficult for us. In your words you might call me Gives-Words-For-Others.”

“If you stopped giving words as you say, would your name change?”

“No, get name, I got my name some time ago, it is mine now.”

“How would your name be in your words?”

“Not words, feelings. She said you don’t like feeling, said we can’t touch you like that. Call me Words.”

“Very well. What is good here?”

“She says you like meat.”

“I do like my meats. My body is one that takes quite a bit to keep going. Calorie dense and nutrient filled foods are needed.”

“Noodles, sauce, good meats.”

“Sounds good.”

Words cast a small sound spell, directing his speech to the chef.

“Oh, please, when you are here, do mind your volume, the echos bounce a long time here.”

Harlan repeated the spell, keeping his words directed only towards Words, the sounds would dissipate rapidly outside of a certain range.

“Good spell, she says you are very good at magic.”

“Yes. I am quite passionate about my magic, and I’ve spent much of my life around it.”

As they sat and waited for their food Harlan felt out the emotions of those around him.

He estimated a little over half of the Cerast were afraid, but the others held some reverence towards him.

As he prodded these emotions they reacted, staring at him and flicking their tongues, though this was a curious reaction rather than one of offense.

One of them got nearer, Harlan couldn’t help but compare them to a cat with their cautious and silent approach.

“Hello.”

The Cerast just looked at him for a time and then left.

Ironically, Words was not particularly conversational, so Harlan continued to just observe them.

He noticed that those who wore the horns were the ones that felt reverence, while those who fled at the sight of him, had bare heads.

Harlan looked for anything else, but the Cerast rarely wore more than bags from hip to shoulder, making an X pattern across their chests.

He didn’t want to stare, but he couldn’t help but notice some things about their bodies.

“Do your people lay eggs?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do you drink milk from your mother?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“Your women have breasts, but no nipples. It is odd, I can see no reason why you would have them, you don’t share human lineage like the beastkin.”

Words was deep in thought at Harlan’s question, he had never thought for a moment about why their bodies were the way that they were.

Eventually bowls were placed in front of both of them, and their proportions were Cerast sized, enough for a half-dozen humans.

“Thank you.”

Harlan was confused about the silverware though.

He had what seemed like two forged iron sticks.

“What are the sticks for?”

“Hold them like this.”

Harlan quickly grasped the idea behind it, but would rather have a fork, the hands of Cerast were larger than his, and without shifting it was somewhat awkward to use them.

The noodles were long and coated in a heavy sauce that.

Because of the shape of a Cerest’s mouth and their lack of teeth like other peoples, they swallowed their food whole.

Words would grab a bundle of noodles and meat, dropping them right into his mouth to savor it before knocking his head back to swallow.

Harlan found it to be good, it was salty and spicy and had large chunks of meat and vegetables.

“What kind of meat was that?”

“Beef Mole, they grow large.”

“Hmm.”

With the meal done, both of them were handed a sweet milky concoction, the large cups were more like pitchers.

The other difference of the mouths of the Cerast was that even when closed they had a small opening that they could use to flick their tongue, and the shape when opened would cause a normal cup to make a mess.

So the cup with its pitcher-like spout on it was made to fit this small hole.

“This, I know this, that bitter black drink of Reino.”

“They have coffee inside of the veil?”

“I think that is what they called it.”

“Do you like it?”

“I never drank it, those from Reino were the only ones that used it. In Ragne we drank invigorating tea.”

“Please, try some. We roast the beans, grind them, and then leave them in cold water to soak. The strong black liquid is added to much milk and cream with some flavors.”

“What flavor is this?”

“Black bean.”

“Like the kind that would be added to rice?”

“What’s rice?”

“Are these black beans the same size as coffee beans?”

“No, they are long, we soak them in alcohol to extract the flavors.”

“Vanilla then. I like vanilla quite a lot actually.”

“I’m sorry, she speaks better with words than me, I don’t know them all.”

“But you speak Godgiven, right?”

“I took many months to learn your words.”

Harlan contemplated that they were not granted Godgiven.

Everything from humans to magical creatures just knew how to speak it, writing was harder, and required a little more effort, but it would still just come naturally as one spoke and aged.

The drink was pleasant, the bitter flavor of the coffee was cut by sugar and milk and the vanilla.

“What kind of milk is this?”

“Cattle Mole, we trim their claws to stop them from digging out of the farms.”

“Hmm…”

It was a little too sweet for him though, which fit with how Fangre acted at the festival.

He started to wonder if they processed sweetness differently or if they simply enjoyed it.

It felt like he spent half the day there before Fangre finally called him to her home.

The rest of the cavern system was rounded, but the royal estate cut out in a cube, a great deal of extra effort must’ve been taken to carve it out up to over a hundred feet high at the ceiling.

The entire underground was lit by what was called Sunflowers, though not the ones that Harlan knew.

They were not large yellow circles with black centers, these were small but densely packed almost like a moss and grew over every inch of the land that wasn’t used for something else.

Their pedals were an ethereal white triangle, with a blue teardrop in their centers.

The light of them was unlike daylight, it was cold.

Harlan felt it ever since he entered the place, it was wrong, the light made him uneasy.

He couldn’t help but remember the facility as he saw the smooth white stone that made up the pathway.

“King Fomoria, are you alright?”

“No.”

Fangre became worried.

“I’m sorry, if you need-”

“It isn’t your fault, and please, if you would rather, call me Harlan, and I will call you Fangre.”

“Would that help you?”

“Maybe. This place is cold, the light, it’s… nevermind.”

Harlan cast a spell, a small sun appeared over his head and let out a yellow light that painted his surroundings.

But Fangre was quick to extinguish it.

“Ah, my apologies, but no magic that I don’t know, please.”

It didn’t take an empath to know that she wasn’t worried about the fact she didn’t know the magic.

Inside of the blocky home she led him to a room full of Cerast.

“These are the ones I wish to learn magic so they can teach the people.”

“And you really will do that?”

“I am sorry that Tatton wronged you, but him I am not.”

“I made a deal, I will uphold it, I hope you can understand the spirit of my words rather than their letter.”

Harlan used the same tests that he had with the Canis, but whereas they had learned on their own, the Cerast constantly put their palms together, Harlan assumed this was to share tips.

“You are all quite a bit better than I expected, I had heard you were only good at odder magics, but you’ve absorbed the knowledge I’ve given faster than my students who knew the parts that built to these lessons.”

The Cerast seemed happy, they put their palms together and at the end, Words was there.

“They are very glad to have been given these lessons, and they hope that you continue to teach them.”

“I will do what I said I would.”

After a few hours, everyone was tired, well, everyone but Harlan.

When he became a champion, The Darkness said that he would continue to grow his mana capacity so long as he lived, but she did not mention that ever since he became a champion, his mana increased at the peak rate as if he was forever a 25 year old.

He still burned up calories, or in more extreme cases, his body would turn on itself to recharge its mana, but the soul decided how aggressive it was for replenishing mana based on how much had been spent.

Harlan could throw out a hundred fireballs without having his body start taking food from his stomach, instead he was in the earliest phase of recovery, and he breathed in the ambient mana at no real cost to himself.

“You all look like you need to rest, we will stop for now.

Take it from me, magic is a marathon, not a sprint, you can do serious damage to yourself by pushing past your limits and trying to take shortcuts or to rush in your learning.”

Words once again spoke for them.

“They understand, and are grateful that you will not push them beyond their limits.”

“Can they understand me? Or are you translating this for them?”

“Hear, not good speak, bad words.”

“As he says, they can understand Common, but they are not fluent.”

“Common?”

“Ah, yes, you said Godgiven earlier. But we call it Common, the language of most people.

You’ll find other names for it around, but it matters little, we all understand what you mean when you use the wrong word, no, a different word. I meant no offense.”

“None taken. The magic of language is something that interests me, but whlie I know the origin, and the mechanics behind it are an unravelable mystery.”

“What is the origin?”

“Well, after the first age, to increase the speed at which the new species advanced, Aarde gave them a single unified language.”

“The first age.”

“The world has ended once before, Wyrmwood, th-”

“The star that fell from above and reduced the world to its beginning.”

“You know Wyrmwood?”

“We are from his blood. This land was shaped by his will.”

“He is the Titan of Aarde, not a god.”

“What is a god, really?”

“Just a moment.”

With black eyes, Harlan spoke with The Darkness.

“The Cerast, you said that they were made by Fae, right?”

“I allowed you to reach that conclusion on your own. Wyrmwood, when he fought the ancient druids, was injured, his blood fell to the land and remained after we reseeded the world. It took much time, but eventually that effect on the land led to the Cerast.”

“Why don’t they naturally have Godgiven?”

“They are animals, not a prime race, nor magical creatures.”

“I fail to see how they don’t fit either category. They are creatures that aren’t human, but they have all of the magic of a prime race.”

“Magical creatures are animals that have absorbed ambient mana from their area and gone through metamorphosis, prime races do not change throughout their lives, and they have the six elements but a limit on their lifespan. Cerast fail both of these classifications. They are not magical creatures, each of them is born and dies in the same body. They are not prime, because they were not designed to be a prime race.”

“Could they get that classification?”

“Unless you happen to know a Fae with power enough to paradox them into a prime race and will do so without also adding their own rules to them, no.”

“Couldn’t you or one of the other gods do it?”

“Technically, yes, but in reality, no. Aarde is the one who makes that choice, and asking Aarde for something so small would only distract them from their other duties. You also risk that telling Aarde about the Cerast would cause them to pay them more mind and come to the conclusion that an oddity such as them should be removed rather than made prime.”

“What about Periwinkle?”

She just laughed.

Harlan was back in reality.

“I ask again, what is a god?”

“How much time has passed?”

“Since when?”

“When did my eyes go black.”

“Just a few moments ago.”

“Alright. The answer is that a true god is a being that is directly tied to the life of a planet and regulates functions of the world, primarily the mana, but they control other aspects of life as well. The Darkness helps when designing and naming the new forms of magical creatures as they evolve, much of the life that exists now was made by her.”

Words was taken aback, he hadn’t expected such a straight forward answer.

“I mean that what we call gods are beings beyond us which control life, is Wyrmwood not a god for having made us?”

“Firstly, no, not by the definition given by true gods. Secondly, how do you know he played a part in your creation?”

“We are of his blood, we feel from him, we understand from him.”

“Inherited memory, a very interesting trait.”

Harlan’s mind quickly went to what he could do with such a thing, if it could allow him to more quickly manufacture golems, or if it was a secret that was already known to Tochter, and they used it in their cloning.

It didn’t matter, not yet.

Fangre approached, offering her hand.

“I would like you to see something.”

“Does it have to do with the men carrying tools and rolls of fabric earlier?”

“Yes.”

Harlan refused her hand, not wanting any psychic connection to form as they walked to whatever the surprise was.