Harlan stretched and let out a great yawn when he got out of bed.

“I don’t think I’ve gotten such good sleep in a long while.”

He turned around and expected Mercedes to be there, since she said that she’d start sleeping in the bed with him.

Harlan didn’t think much about it and he went down the halls to get to the kitchen.

Yet he didn’t see a single person.

He couldn’t feel anyone around him, anything really, everything down to the insects were completely gone.

“Hmm… I’m sleeping, aren’t I?”

He closed his eyes and suddenly the world shifted around him.

The walls turned to bone and became covered in eyes.

Mouths spoke to him.

“I am Mindkiller, your mind is under my control, soon your body will-”

“No.”

The walls returned to their normal form and the Ascended was forced to manifest.

Its eyes lined up vertically and it shot beams from them.

But this was Harlan’s mindscape, and they simply bent around him.

Harlan raised his hand and obliterated its body, leaving just an eye and its optical nerves, which he then put into a cage to study.

Mercedes was in the room, sitting at the vanity while combing her hair.

Harlan repeated the stretches and yawn just as he had in that dream.

“You are awake.”

“I hope so.”

“You were still sleeping when I came in last night, so I decided to sleep on the other side of the bed.”

“That’s fine. Would you like help with your hair?”

“Do you know anything about a woman’s hair?”

“I could show you.”

“Fine, but please, don’t pull anything out.”

Harlan cast a spell to detangle and straighten it, in an instant there were no rats nests, and then he used telekinesis to braid it.

He decided on a halo braid, something which wouldn’t hang down as she worked and get in the way.

Mercedes looked in the mirror to find any hairs out of place or other issues with the braid.

“You do know something about hair then.”

“Three sisters, and most of my friends are girls… no, I guess they are women now.”

“Is that nostalgia I hear?”

“Did anything happen while I was sleeping? I had my mind invaded by a Faeborn creature that tagged along when I killed it inside the veil.”

“You seemed very sweaty, but nothing else was odd.”

“Very well.”

“I hope you handled that monster.”

“I’ll keep it for a while, it is interesting.”

“Just so long as it doesn’t interfere with your ability to rule.”

“I’m going back to The Wastes, a kiss before I go?”

She turned and gave him a quick peck before he stepped through a void gate.

Then she turned back and redid her hair.

The Halo braid was something that reminded her of the real Mercedes.

Harlan found himself back in the giant cavern that contained Scaleborn.

He walked down the main street back to the mansion, buying breakfast along the way.

When he reached the mansion Copperhead had clearly rushed to the front door to greet him.

“I wasn’t certain that you would return.”

“I’ve still got a duty to fulfill.”

“If you need more time to mourn, I understand.”

Harlan walked up to her and gave her a hug.

Through that bond she felt that he was alright, that he was content, he accepted what happened.

But he couldn’t hide the other parts of himself from her.

She saw a ball of fire and gnashing teeth, it screamed all manner of profane words and threats.

The ball was pinned to the ground by spears of shadow and void.

Within this place, she also saw the eye in a cage.

She motioned to it and Harlan returned a feeling of curiosity and security.

She returned a feeling of wariness and worry.

He broke off the connection.

“I didn’t expect you to do something like that.”

“I think that you couldn’t trust that I was alright unless I did.

Do you speak like that all of the time? It seems imprecise and open to confusion.”

“You speak like a child, if you continue, you would understand my feelings on a deeper level, and there would be no chance for misunderstanding. Now I ask with words, what was that inside of your mind?”

“A Faeborn monster, I killed it yesterday after it invaded my mind. It must’ve left something behind when it attacked me.”

“So long as you feel confident that you can keep it contained.”

“I do. It has a human base, so its mental abilities are foreign to it. Do you need time to gather your people?”

“I shall send out the messages, but in the meanwhile, I would like you to see the finished mural.”

“I am interested in that as well.”

Everything was beautifully carved and smoothed out, the scales felt almost real, they even had the slight slickness one might feel on a reptile due to the dampness of the cave and the oils they used to keep the carvings from degrading over time.

As they reached the end he saw the figure, and as he expected before, it was him.

He was wreathed in void, formless, undefined and odd in shape.

Through this void poked spikes of radiance, and this radiance was covered in jagged flames, like how one might draw a sun.

He was the pupil in this black sun, and he was surrounded by winged serpents.

On the ceiling and floor one could see two half suns.

“It is good.”

“I thought that the dawn you brought would be something kinder.”

“I don’t regret what I did, I regret that I needed to do it.”

“Even with so much power, there is always someone else.”

“That cannot continue forever. I will never die of old age.”

“Unless you die by other means.”

“That is possible.”

They stood there in silence for a time, taking in the details of the art.

“I’d like to see your magic.”

“When the others gather I shall show you our ritual magic.”

“Why didn’t you ever learn modern magic from Carmilla?”

She didn’t respond.

Harlan was in the middle of teaching the Cerest when Camilla entered the room.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were here, what a coincidence.”

“I could sense you outside of the door, you were listening in.”

“I was simply curious about your teaching methods.”

“If you wish to join the classes, speak with Copperhead.”

“Copperhead? Not Fangre?”

“I’ve decided that I trust her and I wish to further my bond with her, using a nickname is part of that.”

He saw her start to say something, but change her mind, and he felt jealousy in her.

“Mother has asked that I gather notes on Queen Fangre’s carvings, as well as observe you.”

“I take no issue with that, but be honest.”

“Are you accusing me of being a liar?”

“No. You did lie to me, at the start of this very conversation, you acted as if you hadn’t come here for me, and now you’ve admitted that you did come here for me.”

“Such a minor thing is hardly a-”

“A lie is a lie is a lie, it doesn’t matter if you lie by omission or by saying something false, a lie will remain a lie.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She sneered at him.

“That is a rather rigid definition.”

“Yes. Copperhead, I will be eating in a restaurant in the town itself. I wish to spend some time among the people.”

“Very well.”

Camilla tagged along, looking uncomfortable with the oversized chair that was provided for her.

It took a little longer to order than he would like, since they had to get one of the Cerast that actually spoke Godgiven well.

“I’ll have the charred mole with the noodle chunks.”

“Very well. And for the lady?”

“Do you have normal meats?”

“We have snake, spider, mole, Cave Chicken-”

“What is a Cave Chicken?”

“Large chickens, they hunt the tunnels for giant spiders, dangerous monsters.”

“Then something made from Cave Chicken.”

Harlan was interested in the other options though.

“How are the spider and snake prepared?”

“The snake is cut into discs and coated in root flour before being fried. The spiders are plucked and fried.”

“Quite a few fried foods then. I’ll have a small order of both of those.”

“We don’t chew, so the texture of crispy breading and the heavy seasoning of it is good for us.”

“Interesting.”

Harlan just sat there and waited for his meal, but in his mind he was examining Mindkiller.

“You came from Reino, right?”

It did not answer back.

“Can you talk? Even just as an eye, you should have that ability, you aren’t physical, you aren’t limited by that.”

“I have nothing to say to you, monster.”

“From where I stood, you were the monster. Can we not find some common ground?”

“You murdered me, now you hold me captive.”

“I think you will find the blame game goes both ways. I killed you in self-defense, and if you hadn’t broken into my mind in an attempt to steal my body, you couldn’t be held captive at all. I would consider both of us having tried to kill each other to be common ground, though I did win that fight.”

“Have you no shame? You are nothing but a butcher.”

“Perhaps there is no use for a zealous puppet, and I should just wipe you from my mind.”

He could feel the intense fear from it.

“Or you and I may converse without you trying to blame me for stopping you from killing more young men and women barely old enough to no longer be called children?”

“Yes, yes, we can speak. What do you need to know?”

“How were you there at the academy? It is beyond the true border of Reino.”

“That… I do not know.”

“Useless little cretin.”

“Wait! No, I know things.”

“Such as?”

“... I don’t remember.”

“You are broken, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know… maybe if I had taken control of you I would remember. I just know a few things.”

“We will speak more later.”

When their food arrived Harlan thanked the waiter.

“Why thank him?”

“Why not?”

“They are just doing their job.”

“When you think someone deserves no thanks for their work because it is work, it makes it easier to abuse them.”

“That seems like an overreaction.”

“So long as they do their work well and without undue complaint, they should be shown respect.”

She started poking at her meal, they served the chicken in large chunks along with a broth that still had the feet of the chicken in it.

Harlan meanwhile wanted to start by tasting the spider.

It… wasn’t for him.

The breading itself was good, but spiders didn’t have flesh like a crab, which is more what he hoped it would be like, they had goo inside of them.

For the Cerast, who didn’t chew, this wouldn’t be an issue at all, as they would place them in their mouth, lick the breading some for texture and flavor, and they swallow them whole.

The snake was much better, though all things considered, he expected a species of giant snakes, not normal sized ones.

“How can you eat that?”

“Which part?”

“The snake. I mean…”

Her voice lowered to a whisper.

“You are surrounded by snake people.”

Harlan responded in a normal tone.

“The first beastkin I ever met was an Ibexian, and he had no issue with eating sheep or goats.

They are not animals, they are people, it isn’t cannibalism just because they look similar. Would you like to try the snake?”

She tried a half-piece, but she wasn’t an adventurous eater, her palette was one of a human that was never pushed to desperation and who never missed a meal unless by choice.

After his lunch, he returned to the palace and watched as Fangre and some of her officials danced around in perfect sync to cast a ritual spell.

Well, as much of a dance as one could do without having legs.

They made three circles and it took them almost a minute, only to make a rather middling result.

A pillar of stone shot from the ground, reaching nearly a hundred feet in height.

“I see why you so desperately need this magic.”

Harlan punched the ground and shot up a pillar of similar size, though in a less controlled manner, in seconds.

“Very impressive.”

“Thank you. Are you going to tell me why you haven’t learned modern magic from Carmilla yet?”

She fidgeted and looked at Camilla.

Harlan noticed her nervousness and moved forward, encasing both of them in a veil.

“If you won’t say, then just tell me that, but don’t dodge the question.”

“Another time perhaps.”

“Very well. I will be back tomorrow to teach more, but I have another appointment not long from now, and I’d rather be there early.”

“Many apologies for my silence.”

“There is nothing to apologize for.”

Harlan put his hands out, palms up, an invitation.

She placed her hands on his, and both understood that there was no ill will towards the other.

He stepped back and opened a void gate.

“May I come along?”

Camilla looked ready to go, her mother asked her to observe, so she would.

“No.”

Harlan walked through the gate, the last thing he saw of her was the beginning of a pout.

He came out in a cave infested with Eolgi, and more importantly, one of his Others.

“How has it been coming along.”

“They breed based on how much food they consume. If we let them loose, they’d devour everything down to the roots so long as we kept them inside with underground rivers.”

“But there is still the risk of them just digging deeper, breaking containment.”

“I just want more time. They are useful as flesh, but if we could tap into their natural abilities, their instinct, I think they might be more useful than that.”

One of the Eolgi came up to the Harlans and rubbed its head on the Other’s leg like a cat expecting a scratch, and he did just that.

“Don’t grow too attached to them, they are weapons for us, not pets.”

“When we were nine-”

“The pig, the runt. We were upset when it was turned into ham after we begged father to raise it..”

“She was a good pig. But we understood then and now that it was a resource, not a pet.”

“We haven’t been split long enough that you should think any differently than me.”

“You would think so. But I think that the mind is too complex for us to really understand right now, and there are subtle things that change between us whenever we are made. Perhaps, my being here has made me gain an affinity for animals more than we had before. Eolgi aren’t very smart by the way, they are almost entirely balls of instinct. This one is different from the rest though, and I want to know why. If I can make the Eolgi smarter through breeding, if they can be domesticated, not just tamed, then we will have a great force on our hands.”

“Continue your research.”

Harlan’s next stop was The Tower of Prisoners.

Dantevius had declined to fight before, but he hoped to change his mind.

Breaking in wasn’t required this time, as he just openly bribed the warden.

The Goliath sat in his room and peeled potatoes.

He had no knife, the roughness of his hands and his power meant he just rubbed them off.

“I’m not leaving.”

“I could get you a home, a cabin somewhere far from anyone else.”

“You want me somewhere that I might run into someone, and then they might become friends with me, and then in the worst case, the Castian army arrives, and they make an impassioned plea to save them.”

“You saw through that quickly.”

“I am done with my fighting days.”

“Then perhaps I could ask for another palm reading. There is something more personal that I’d like looked at.”

“Once I am done with these. You may help.”

Harlan used his telekinesis to peel the potatoes many times faster than Dantevius could do on his own.

“Well then. Love I presume?”

“Yes.”

He ran his hands along Harlan’s palms and hummed to himself.

Harlan felt something in the air shift, but this was not magic as he understood it.

He already knew it was Fae in origin, these people had been made by Nemain after all.

“Your hands are harder than they once were. You are closing yourself off from love, you are… lowering your standards? Is this right?”

“So far.”

He continued.

“I’m sorry for your loss. You would’ve come to love her, I feel it in the grooves. Her name… with a V perhaps?”

“Viviane.”

“And now a new lover, but there is not love there. You are afraid of her, she is a betrayer, she is broken and has been reformed. You worry that she is nothing but lies, that the culture she was raised in makes her unable to love like you do, that she sees her position as consort just as a means to gather power.”

“How do you actually read this from my hands?”

“This is a gift I use, not one that I understand. When I touch your hands, I simply gather visions, past, present, and future. As you don’t love her, she will never love you, that you consider what I am doing right now to be more important than your relationship, that is why it will fail.”

“I am not looking for love, I am just looking for someone to be closer with to pass the time.”

“Avatar of lies and change, you may tell me lies, but never tell them to yourself, such things upset the mind, distort one's views on reality.”

“Thank you for your time.”

“Just a moment longer, I see something…”

Dantevius looked at Harlan’s palms and rubbed them with his hands again and again, as if he were reading a book at night, and his glazed eyes were seeing the words but not truly understanding them.

When he was done, he let out a somewhat disinterested hmm.

“You may go now.”

“What did you see?”

“It isn’t anything important, though I thought a moment that it was.”

“What was it?”

“A woman, but she is not your love, she was simply someone who you saw once.”

When Harlan left through his void gate once more, Dantevius stepped outside of his cell for the first time in years.

He said his goodbyes to the guards and the warden, then he began his search.

Not one of them dared to even put up the slightest resistance, they all understood that he was there by choice.

Harlan returned to the home of the Cerast, and kept up with his teaching.

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

Sholl sat in front of Ur.

“You failed spectacularly. Not only did you not capture Harlan Fomoria, but you lost a city, thousands of men from the empire, and when Seraphallen went to finish your job, he encountered something that destroyed 5 of his fingers. Half of the stripe is under the control of that man now, because that wave destroyed many of our ports and our navy in the area so we can’t even move any force large enough to retake them, Hellik is going to need to be put down so he doesn’t unleash a plague across all of our people, and finally, you disappointed me. I have been your backer from the start, I have always thought that you would grow into your role, and were we not already down one Finger, I would take yours and find a new owner. I am sending you to the western front, Tochter, the nation of clones, they are in some sort of uproar, find out why, and report back to me. Your low power has its benefits, they will have a harder time detecting you.”

“I’m very sorry for my failures, but I never couldn’t known that-”

“Yes, you could’ve. You are a spy, not a fighter. But instead of spending months to get what you wanted, you rushed in to solve it as soon as you could by following along with the plan of other fools.

I admit my fault in this, my words before, they made you feel like you had no other choice but to get results quickly. But had you explained to me the importance of letting you go on a long term mission, six months, even a year would’ve been fine. Do not rush Tochter, take your time, wait for the right time.”

Sholl tapped on the war table he stood over.

“Hellik, he is really going to be killed for my failure?”

“We have found no cure, and he spreads it no matter how cold he becomes. If it was something that spread across different people, we could use a plague bearer, but it targets us. Fomoria is a dangerous man, to make something such as this.”

“Do you have a replacement in mind?”

“Yalda.”

Sholl couldn’t help but worry when he heard the name.