In the afternoon, Harlan looked over the designs and everyone started to manufacture their planes, showing the royal smiths each part that needed to be made and how they would be put together.
While this was happening, Harlan took Adina to the ruins of their home.
He tried to warn her that nothing was left, but it didn’t help the sinking pit in her stomach.
After a few minutes she jumped down into the basement and started digging through the stone.
“It survived.”
The small ornate box had been tarnished by the heat that went through the earth, and Adina had to force it open with brute strength.
Inside was a small locket that remained unharmed.
“What is that?”
“It was my father’s wedding locket.”
“When did you get that? And why was it in the basement?”
“I asked Balor to steal it for me months ago. I hid it because I wanted to protect it, but I didn’t want to open it, and I couldn’t wear it, since my father is certainly looking for it.”
She ran her fingers over it, fiddling with the small latch.
“It has a small painting of my mother. Open it for me. I can’t do it.”
Harlan grabbed it like it was made of glass, gently opening it.
“She looks like you.”
Now that it was open, all hesitation was gone, and she snatched it from Harlan’s hand.
She had long auburn hair and bright green eyes, she was almost a carbon copy of Adina.
“Not exactly, my features are a little softer, and I think my breasts are larger.”
Harlan didn’t know if he should laugh or not when she lifted her breasts up and compared them, but when Adina started, he joined in.
“I don’t know what I expected, she’s my mother, of course she looks so much like me.
You said we had a pet, show me.”
“Are you alright? Our house was-”
“Just a house. I won’t make you rebuild it by hand, and perhaps we can expand it with guest rooms so your family can visit, we can make a proper noble mansion.”
“Now I feel a little foolish. I was here last night, or I guess early in the morning, with Vivi, and I had to put her down while I cried for almost an hour over the loss of this place.”
“Home is where I am with you, we could put up a tent while you are building and I wouldn’t mind.”
He knew that she was lying, that she was holding it back, trying her hardest to accept it, but he wasn’t going to chide her for it.
Harlan picked her up in a princess carry, and gated them over to the park area just a few miles from the home
Adina climbed down from his arms and washed the ash from her clothes.
“Where is the pet?”
“Cover your ears and I’ll call it.”
Harlan pulled the sigil into his soul for a less painful shifting experience and gill-like openings appeared on his neck.
He breathed in deeply and exhaled through these holes, letting out a whistle that went on for miles, but more importantly, it could wake the dead by imbuing mana into the sound.
Though, dead was more of a technicality.
Adina hadn’t noticed the hill that had been added to the area, then the hill unraveled, she saw it was not dirt and stone, but scales and heads.
Harlan made his dragon to kill the wyverns, and then gave command of it to an archmage under the deal that he would get a portion of any wyverns it killed.
The golem was over a hundred feet long, had six wings, and seven heads, each with a crown of intertwined antlers.
On each head was a gem of a different color matching the six basic elements, and the last was clear.
Each of them had their two eyes as one might expect, but also a third eye that matched the variant eyes that Harlan had copied from Adina’s boon.
“What is her name?”
“Her?”
“I don’t know, it sounds right.”
It reached the main head with the clear gem down.
She felt the warmth of its breath, and the coolness of its hard face.
“We have to give it a name, right?”
“I was just going to call it a Fomorian Hydra.”
“How boring. Why not Tiamat?”
She didn’t know why she said that name, but they both felt a shift in the air.
As the scales of the dragon started to turn aquamarine, Xol appeared, runes and sigils shimmered to life cutting the space from reality
“What do we do? What was that? Should we-”
“If Xol showed up in an instant, and I know that feeling, something Fae happened.
If he wants help, he or Marigold will call me. But I think I should take you back to the palace.
Tell Rosewell that something has happened, and that I am uncertain if I shall be back soon.”
“Did I do this? It is because I-”
“Don’t worry about what might be, we don’t know why you said that name.”
“I hate dealing with gods and Fae.”
“I don’t care for them either.”
Harlan stood there for over an hour before Xol and Marigold came back, and shockingly, they came back with the dragon, which had slimmed down and grew in length to 160 feet.
All of its heads became one, and the gems had fused with the magical eyes, giving it 9 eyes, since it still had two for normal sight.
The wings were gone, but it didn’t seem to matter, as it simply swam through the air.
“What happened?”
“Tiamat decided to join our side, and will remain as guardian to your lands, provided you give her a large enough salt water lake.”
“That doesn’t really explain anything at all. What is Tiamat?”
“The Mother of Monsters.”
Harlan just gave him a long look until he chuckled.
“In the time before I caged the souls of the Fae, Tiamat was a fleshsculptor of sorts, she designed the Skinwalkers among other things.”
He just kept looking at him.
“Fine fine fine. Why don’t we sit?”
Xol moved over to the campfire and sat on one of the logs.
“In simple terms, gods may or may not exist as universal concepts.
Tiamat was a god of myth in my world, but this Fae is not that being, she simply stole the name to get the power it held, like wearing a new skin, it slipped into that form, and it became an entity known as Tiamat.
Aine, that name also appeared in the myths of my world, yet your moon has had that name since before the Fae arrived. And Aarde, in another language, it means Earth, not the dirt, but the planet.
What happened was that her soul was drawn to that body, because it had the capability to hold her soul, and it existed in a state between life and death. All she needed to do was have someone utter the name. Even as an incorporeal mass of energy, she could influence someone in a dangerous mental state.”
“We need to remove all the golems from the academy then. They-”
“No. This body, this massive beast you made and filled with gems, this is something that can contain the soul of a Fae. The golems in the academy would be reduced to dust if they tried to steal the bodies.”
“How can I trust her?”
“Because she made a pact with me, and because… Honey, why don’t you and Harlan talk.”
“I’m not sure that-”
Xol vanished into thin air.
Marigold sighed angrily as she sat down.
“He should’ve just said that he couldn’t tell you, he didn’t need to run away.”
“Can we talk about you avoiding me before?”
“No. But Vivi is a beautiful little girl.”
She awkwardly sat next to him, but finally she exhaled and threw her arm around him.
“Alright, fine. I didn’t want to see you because I don’t understand what I should feel for you now.
Nemain made you, you shouldn’t exist, and that might’ve been fine before I knew that, but I feel… or I felt, like you stole the life that Harlan should have and he is… well I don’t want to talk about how he is right now.
I think I should be upset, but it isn’t really your fault.”
“How does he feel about me? Because I spoke quite briefly with him the other day and if you said he hates me, I wouldn’t assume otherwise.”
“He doesn’t hate you, he just… something happened with him and his advisor. She got hurt, and she won’t let him do anything about it because the one that did it is just too far beyond his power.”
“Is there anything I could do for him?”
“Keep Adina and Vivi safe, he lost his son, and no matter what he might say, I think losing your daughter would break something inside him.”
“His son is-”
“He sent him away, Adina told you this, right?”
“Yes. But the way you phrased it made it seem like he died.”
“I’m sorry. Instead of out here in the wind, why don’t we go inside your home.”
Her reaction was far less subdued than Adina’s.
The sky darkened, every array which controlled the weather in the learning zone failed at once.
It started as a light sprinkle, but it wasn’t long before it came down heavy, like standing beneath a waterfall; lightning webbed the sky, the thunder shook the ground.
Tiamat tried to hide under the trees, fearing what would happen when the fury above struck down.
But the thunder never gave way to lighting, the sky, full of wrath and sorrow, kept its place.
Harlan put up a simple stone tent, not that it mattered, both of them were already drenched.
He put his arm around her and she laid her head on his shoulder.
“I remember all of it. Every memory from my children in that place, even in the rotten state I showed to you, I still saw them there.”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve put up better defenses.”
She shook her head.
“No, I think this is for the best. I gave you this place for some closure, but it was still here, and I held onto that. Build a new home, build something that is yours.”
The rain stopped suddenly as if one turned off a faucet.
Marigold started to hum and made the first movement for the creation sigil.
“No peeking.”
With a snap of her fingers Harlan was completely blind.
He heard the cracking of the earth as a new forest was rapidly grown, and the inland sea, 10 miles around and 900 feet deep, was carved into the earth, waiting to be filled.
Alongside it was a mountain where the ground from said hole had been moved.
“I guess I’ll need to explain this too, I hope I didn’t cause too much destruction with my tantrum.”
“This plot is 50 miles in a square, you can’t have done much beyond the borders.”
“If we are lucky, then you are right. Let’s find Tiamat.”
The dragon was curled up on the ground, shivering in fear.
Harlan landed on her body and patted her head.
“It’s alright now.”
“I’m not a scared animal, I was once feared as a-”
“You are shivering, would you like me to put up heating wards?”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Her eyes focused on him, and she tried to figure out his intent.
“Thank you.”
Hirum had come alongside three dozen archmagi.
And when they came, it was upon the very strange scene of Harlan consoling a giant lizard, one that none of them could recognize.
Marigold flew to them with a contrite face.
“I am very sorry, I meant no harm. Should I have caused any, I will do my best to correct it.”
There were looks of confusion.
“Hirum, who is this woman?”
“I am Marigold. This plot was once mine, and the home on it was burned. I reacted poorly to this news.”
More confusion.
“I don’t know who you-”
Hirum raised his hands, and his tattoos glowed, quieting the archmage.
“This is Marigold, Champion of Aarde, First Archmage, and Creator of The Grand Academy.
Lady Marigold, why are you here?“
“There was a containment breach in progress, so my husband and I had to fix it. While here, I asked to see my home, which Harlan had faithfully rebuilt as his, but during the attack, they burned it down.”
“A containment breach? How? I didn’t notice anything on the sensors.”
“Do the others with you know what a containment breach is?”
“We shall speak in private.”
Marigold explained the situation with Tiamat, and Hirum didn’t know exactly what to think.
Reviving one of the Fae gods to make it Harlan’s pet was insanity, but so much had been insanity of late, and so much of it directly stemmed from Harlan.
He left with the archmagi, and she would need to return in a day when the ones which bordered Harlan’s plot had put in requests for damages to be fixed.
Marigold stood on Tiamat next to Harlan, and the dragon trembled with fear.
“Don’t be a coward, the storm has passed.”
“The storm stands before me.”
Marigold patted her on the head.
“Be a good lizard, and the skies remain calm. Harlan, I have done what I can, the wood here will let you build whatever you wish, you have a protector.”
“If that other one, or you, if you need anything, you can always just ask me.”
“I will hold you to that.”
It was more stressful than he expected to go through what he hoped would take a few hours at most with Adina needing time to grieve their home and to introduce his new pet.
When Harlan returned to the palace, Safira and a few others of the royal guard were there to greet him.
“Ah, he lives.”
“I hope I didn’t interrupt your duties.”
“No, we were just standing around for no reason. What happened?”
“I showed Adina the ruins of our home and our dragon-”
“Your what?”
“When I helped with the wyvern swarm I made a hydra-like dragon, no sense in getting rid of it afterwards.”
One of the guard chuckled.
“The issue was that Adina named it, and in doing so, a Fae tried to steal the body, so Xol showed up, took it away, and then he and Marigold returned with the dragon, but it had changed forms. Her name is Tiamat.
Marigold asked me to show her the home that was there, which was once hers but I rebuilt board by board.”
Harlan’s tone turned sullen.
“That place had memories for her. I couldn’t leave her be. Regardless, once she was ready to go, I filled the inland sea she made for Tiamat and then came back here.”
“You are keeping a Fae dragon?”
“Xol made a pact with it, who am I to turn that gift away?”
The guard who chuckled before laughed.
“Awfully unstoic for one of you.”
“You mean ‘one of us’ Your primary title is that of Queen’s Blade, but you are a royal guard all the same.”
“Right.”
“I will take your report of events to the queen. There is a guest for you in the library, do not make him wait.”
Harlan bowed to them and left.
He did as asked, hurrying to the library.
Harlan went in and found his guest reading a book on crop rotations.
“Grenth?”
“Oh, you’re back. Do you have somewhere that we can speak privately?”
“Yes, come to my room.”
The boy… no, he was as old as Harlan, he was a man, even though Harlan more remembered him as a pudgy brat who seemed to have gotten on track last he saw him, followed him.
Adina was breastfeeding Vivi when they came in.
“What happened with-”
She quickly covered herself.
“You didn’t say you had a guest. Hello Sir…”
“I’m Grenth Greenfield.”
“Oh.”
“I understand, I believe when we last met you were still…”
“I was blind, I know.”
Grenth leaned close to Harlan.
“Should we wait, or…”
“You two are letting your sentences end with unasked questions too often. Adina is fine, anything you tell me you can tell her. Unless it is woman trouble, in that case, neither of us are likely to be a big help.”
“Well, no, it’s…”
“Talk, stop with the…”
“Sorry. I believe my uncle may be thinking of betraying the kingdom. Cynthia asked me to come here under the guise of visiting your newborn and reporting back.”
“You have two uncles.”
“Duke Greenfield.”
Harlan had been silent for a few minutes.
Suddenly he slammed the desk, leaving a deep imprint of his hand in the enchanted hardwood.
“Why did Cynthia ask you to come to me?”
“I saw things my father was doing, and I hoped that she might know something.
She said that she saw not dissimilar things from my uncle.”
“Use your words.”
Harlan was annoyed, greatly annoyed, trying to force himself to not tip over into rage.
Grenth gulped.
“I-I-I-”
Harlan took a deep breath.
“Take your time, think through what you are saying. I’m not angry with you, I am just worried about Cynthia.
If Oak and Birch are traitors, and she isn’t, then she is in danger, and Sycamore is in danger.”
Grenth calmed.
“There were notes in the fireplace, my father, perhaps because of his drinking, failed to burn them properly.
They were details about moving things from kingdom controlled territory to noblist territory.
Money, troops, equipment… criminals.”
“Blood gems.”
“Yes, I believe that is the reason why he is doing this.”
“I’m going to have my people look at this first, I don't want you to tell Yggdra yet.”
“You have people? I thought you just did things on your own.”
“I know someone who has people.”
----------------------------------------
Darrath had assumed that things would be worse.
He still woke up some nights teary eyed, wanting to see Harlan, but every night he got to sleep with his grandmother, and during the day she had more time for him than ever.
The other Pixies had a hard time warming up to him, since when he left he was a violent little beast, but Harlan taught him to be better.
A Pixie with amethyst eyes flew over to him.
“Ruby, do you want to play?”
“My name is Darrath, I keep telling you.”
He crossed his arms and harrumphed, causing her to giggle and cover her mouth.
“Sorry, I forgot again.”
“I think that you are doing it to make me mad.”
She giggled even more.
“Come play with us, you’re better at it than any of the other boys.”
“Fine, but only if you remember my name.”
“Oh, why don’t I do this?”
She pulled a necklace made from vines grown in the shape of his name and handed it to him, blushing as she did.
“Now I won’t forget whenever I see you.”
“You’re red. If you go out and play you’ll get sick, let me get grandma.”
“NO. I’m fine, really, it is just warm today. Let’s play.”
“Hmm… alright, but if you look weak out there I’ll make you go home and sleep.”
“Would you carry me there yourself? Would you tuck me in?”
“Papa wouldn’t let someone sick stay that way, he’d take care of them. He said I need to be even better than him, so I need to do at least that much.”
They went with the other Pixies into the treetops to play hide and seek.
One of the issues for them was their weakness, so Dawn had them start playing games to teach them how to better hide from others and attack from ambush.
An important rule in this, which made it different from when human children would play, was that they were allowed to use magic, and as their race naturally had mana sense, and they rapidly matured mentally, they all had some instinctual understanding of nature magic and dark magic.
Darrath leapt from tree to tree, casting a veil over himself so he could beat his wings a few times for extra air time without revealing his location.
He landed gracefully on the other tree, his claws digging into it, and then he climbed.
One of the other Pixies was on the other side, so he climbed down first, to get below the branch where the other boy sat, he and Thyst were the last ones remaining.
He moved slowly, he had watched him and noticed a pattern in his patrol that the boy himself didn’t realize, he focused more on looking up and to the right, and he never looked over the edge.
When the time came, he quickly moved up and around before pouncing on the startled boy.
But as he did, Thyst came from behind and tagged him.
One other part of this hide and seek, was that one had to touch their opponents back to win, everyone was predator and prey.
“HOW?”
“I know your every move, I’ve been watching you from the start, since I knew that you would catch everyone else before me.”
“That’s not fair, I caught more than anyone else, you just waited for me to win.”
She giggled and jumped a few steps back.
“But I won, and isn’t that what matters?”
“Yes, but… no.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Because you should win the right way. If you couldn’t beat anyone else here, and you just know how to beat me, then you are weak. Papa told me about him fighting people, and giant wolves, and wyverns, and frogs, he can beat anything. He said that I shouldn’t overspecialfy myself in one way, because that means I’m a one trick foal.”
“But you can only beat other Pixies.”
“No. I can beat boars and goblins. But papa said that I’m not supposed to be fighting, because I could get hurt.”
“What if I was in trouble?”
Fate was not a universal force, it held no sway over the events of Aarde, yet what followed was too perfect to be called mere coincidence.
The boy struggled and panicked under Darrath’s foot.
“HAWK.”
“Huh?”
A giant bird, 40 feet long with a wingspan of 60 feet, dive bombed them, grabbing Thyst the moment he took his eyes off of her.
He didn’t hesitate for a second to fly after them.
“CALL GRANDMA!”
She had become a second mother to the Pixie people, one more harsh, making them go to bed on time and work and learn, so they didn’t exactly care for her like Darrath did, but they still called her grandma.
When it swooped down it made a lot of distance between them, though Darrath was barely faster than it even as the beast entered a glide over the treetops.
Luckily, it intended to take his friend to its nest alive.
That didn’t mean it was pleasant.
When she started to hit the bird, it tightened its grip and crushed her chest, making her pass out and its claws scratched her, sending the scent of blood along its path for Darrath to follow.
He arrived just in time to see it toss her unconscious body down the top of a tree.
Darrath was overcome with fury, not knowing if she was dead or alive, he could only kill the Hawk.
He thought of what Harlan would do. He’d probably go right through it by flying super fast and shooting out the other side.
But he was not Harlan, and shockingly, he returned his mind to a calm state and understood that.
Harlan told him more than once that anger was a bad thing, and he should do everything he could to not let it drive his actions.
Harlan would’ve shot through, but Darrath had to fight like Darrath, not like his father, he had to be better.
He wasn’t allowed to use the armor his father gave him when they played hide and seek, because that was cheating in the opinion of everyone he played with, but this wasn’t a game.
He was entirely silent as he approached the bird, and when it did notice him, it was too late.
He held his breath as he went through the eye and into its skull.
It was dark, wet and warm, all he could do was use what he understood about bodies to move forward towards the brain.
He stabbed and felt around until he found something that was wrinkly, with that in his hands, he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed until he didn’t feel the thrashing about of the bird any longer.
But his equilibrium was well developed, and he could feel it falling.
There wasn’t much space to get turned around going from the eye socket right to the relatively small brain, so he was quick to leave by flipping around and following the light.
He ignored the sound of it crashing into the ground and flew as fast as he could straight up.
Thyst was badly wounded by the two chicks, several fingers were gone and each of them stood as tall as she did.
Darrath dove in after her, stabbing and slashing at the babies who tried futility to grab him.
He moved in closer, and when one of the chicks missed its neck was vulnerable.
He moved his thrusting sword in a half-circle, opening it and drenching himself in blood, not that one would be able to notice considering what he did before.
But he left himself open, and the other chick was coming right at him.
He raised his arm, losing it meant living, and he knew that, because Harlan had no issue sacrificing limbs to land just a single attack or to avoid a worse attack.
But it didn’t really prepare him for the shock of it closing its beak on him and tearing it off from the elbow..
He screamed on the ground and was just as helpless as Thyst had been.
It pecked at him while he flailed, kicking and punching in his panic.
Then it stopped.
Dawn sliced just once, so quickly that Darrath hadn’t even seen it, and the chick’s head was removed.
It ran around like… well, like a chicken with its head cut off.
She knelt down to heal him.
“HELP THYST!”
“I’m not going to-”
He threw a punch, his armored gauntlet granting him enough strength to harm her.
She looked at his damage, other than the half of an arm he was missing, he would be alright, Pixies recovered better than humans, and the blood flowing from his arm was already slowing down.
“USE NATURE MAGIC, TIE OFF THE WOUND.”
He tried to use both hands for it, the phantom pain in his left arm was still there.
But he adapted quickly, a trait gained from Harlan’s part in their existence as a species.
Vines came from the hollowed out tree top and wrapped around the severed limb so hard that he broke what was left of it.
He awoke back in his bed.
He reached up with both hands.
It was almost perfect, but even if it was entirely perfect, anyone who had gotten a limb regrown would feel a wrongness in it the first few times, but it would fade, days, weeks, months, that was different between each person.
Dawn hadn’t taken her eyes off of him for an instant, and hugged him the second he woke up.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“But I had to save Thyst. Isn’t that good? Isn’t that what papa would do?”
“Harlan is an idiot, a stupid idiot, he is going to die if he never learns how to know when he can fight, and when he has to ask for help.”
“But I saved her. That is all that matters, right?”
“NO, GODS NO. YOU… you and him both need to know your limits, you need to value your life more than you do. What if I took a minute longer? You would’ve died, and then Thyst would’ve died. If you waited for me instead, you wouldn't be hurt, and she would still be alive.”
“She’s alright? Right? Where is Thyst?”
He tried to rush up from his bed, but fell to the floor. The cost of healing his gouged out flesh and broken bones wasn’t small, he needed food and rest before he was up and running around again.
“She is fine.”
Dawn lifted him up and put him back in bed, tucking him in.
“You and the others need to keep your playing below the trees, and you can’t leave the town anymore, not for a few weeks at least while I check what else is lurking out there.”
A few days later, Thyst came to visit.
She didn’t say a word for a while, she just cried into his chest while he ran his hands pat her head and told her he was alright, because that was what Harlan would do.
Her sniffling stopped and she pulled her head back before going in for a kiss.
He was very confused, and pushed her back.
“That is for people who are married.”
“Let’s get married.”
“No. Papa said that being married is for grown ups, and I should be a child for a while.”
Her great big amethyst eyes became teary again and he rushed to stop her from crying more.
“But when we are grown up we can.”
He reached his pinkie out to her.
“Pinkie promise?”
She accepted.
“Pinkie promise.”