After Fomoria explained everything to Kel, she calmed down.

Even though they were Faun and Ibexian, something that might be love had formed between them.

He thought back to Adina, but his mind wasn’t darkened any longer.

Yes, he lost Adina, he didn’t have Darrath with him, and every day was a day closer to the reignition of the war with the Cast, but seeing children who could have a normal life, growing up and finding love, keeping with his teachings, trying to help people, it made what he lost worth it.

Anon came into his office to tell him that the twins had arrived.

“Are you crying?”

He got up and gave her a kiss.

“Thank you for telling me. Tonight, I want to take you out to a special dinner.”

“Oh, why?”

“Because I feel like it.”

“Oh, thank you then.”

She kissed him back, and he kept it going, and then she pushed him back.

Whether he didn’t notice her push or not, he continued longer than she liked.

“Don’t do that again.”

His heart was pounding in his ears,

He lowered his emotional sensitivity. He would figure out the implications of his sigil later; it wasn’t the first time some new power left him emotionally fragile..

“I’m sorry, I don’t… no, I do know what came over me. It won’t happen again.”

She slapped him.

“That makes me feel better. Control yourself.”

He was more angry with himself than she was with him.

The twins, Julius and Julia; he found it funny that people outside the veil also had a habit of naming their twins in the male and female forms of the same name.

He heard some about them, orphans, former slaves, strange children who had no friends outside of one another, rumors that they might be more than just siblings.

They wore nicer clothes than he expected, the orphanage wanting to put its best foot forward, hoping for more funding if the children gave an impression that they were well cared for.

However, Fomoria spent exactly as much as was required for each orphanage based on its needs already, and they were some of the most heavily monitored institutions in the nation, so getting more than what he thought they required wasn’t going to happen; perhaps a visit was in order, to remind them not to spend money on frivolous things to impress him.

Their hair was split, blonde on one side, brown on the other, much like their eyes, one yellow, one brown.

His first thought was that they were indeed just as strange as people said, but that it wouldn’t be fair to judge them just because they had swapped their clothes and Julius was dressed as a girl.

“Julius, Julia.”

They laughed when Fomoria correctly named them, looking up at him with their heterochromatic eyes.

“So you can tell?” “How did you know?”

“Oh, you do that too.”

“What does that mean?” “What do we do?”

“I knew a pair of twins inside the veil, they would talk after one another like that, sometimes finishing the other's sentence. Actually, I knew two pairs that did that.”

“Oh?” “Really?”

“Yes, now, let’s get you both dressed.”

He heard no sounds as they put on the shifting suits.

They came out dressed according to their sex, Julia in a simple suit, yellow on his left side, brown on his right, just like his eyes.

His sister wore a dress with the colors reversed to her brother.

They linked arms, bringing their brown side to one another.

“How do we look?” “Are we handsome?”

“You both have a unique style to you.”

They giggled and whispered to one another.

“Shall we move to the demonstrations?”

“Oh, yes.” “We can’t wait to show you what we can do.”

They arrived in a target range unlike what had been used for Jake, an outdoor range.

“I am told that you two can cooperatively cast, show me.”

He felt some link between them, a naturally occurring bloodline? Or were they someone's pet experiment before they were freed?

Twins often had a closeness that defied the biological formation of them in the womb.

It wasn’t always the case, and so far as his own research into it, it depended on how their souls formed.

If they started as two souls, they would have no special link, but if there was only a single soul which entered one of the fetuses and then split into the second, they would gain a sort of twin sense.

They spoke in a single tone, they moved their hands in perfect sync, and they launched a fairly sized chunk of earth across the range, turning the simple stone target to nothing but gravel and dust.

“Very good, quick, efficient, and almost no rejection caused by multiple people casting the same spell. Show me more.”

They cast more spells, turning the ground in front of them into sharp rocks and then launching them, putting up walls and statues, showing both how dense they could make something, and also how detailed they could be.

Fomoria wasn’t shocked when they suddenly turned around, linking their blonde halves, and fired a sustained beam of radiance at him.

The air heated up the longer they continued; radiance sustainment was minorly difficult, and they were losing focus.

When they nearly collapsed, they saw it, Fomoria had used one finger, a chantless, signless void spell had entirely blocked their assassination attempt.

He rushed forward, grabbing Julia by the throat before either of them could react with another spell.

Just a little more pressure, and…

No, this wasn’t right, this wasn’t what he thought, at least, he didn’t think that it was how he should be thinking.

A pair of 13 year olds who lost their parents, and it was probably his fault, it wasn’t right to kill them, that thought should’ve made him sick to his stomach, not been his first reaction.

He dropped Julia then healed her.

“Why? Why did you try to kill me?”

“Our mother…” “Our master…”

The pair had tired themselves out by holding their spell for so long.

“I’m sorry for your mother, but I don’t apologize for killing slavers.”

“He treated us well…” “We were his snowflakes.”

He hit them with a pep spell, they’d burn out later, but for now, listening to their slow talking annoyed him.

A pang of guilt struck him, he was being too cold, so he turned his emotions back up, trying to fine tune his mental state to what he thought was normal for him.

“Tell me, what happened?”

“She was serving his tea.” “You burst through the window.” “Glass in her throat.” “We found her hiding behind the couch.”

“I am truly sorry for your loss.”

“Kill us.” “Just end this.”

He brought his hand up, but he couldn’t fire a spell.

His mind was in conflict.

Logically, these were two talented mages, their ability to so easily connect with one another for cooperative casting and the quality of their attacks made it clear that they couldn’t be allowed to remain free to threaten those around him.

But emotionally, what would he have done if he was them?

He opened a void gate and stepped through it, beckoning them as he did.

The twins hesitated, of course they did, but fleeing wasn’t going to happen, so they followed behind him.

Snow crunched underfoot, but more than that, they heard the sounds of children playing in the distance.

“Where is this?” “Why did you bring us here?”

“These children, what do you see in them?”

“They are sick.” “So pale…”

“No, they are Fomorian, fully Fomorian. I went to their village, and I killed the adults, but I rescued them.

Why do you think I did this?”

The twins whispered back and forth.

“You are guilty?” “Murderer.”

“Yes, but it isn’t the same as your guilt. I-”

“We aren’t guilty.” “We are angry.”

“So you don’t lie awake at night, thinking of what could’ve changed. Thinking about if you were just stronger, faster, if you could’ve done something, anything to have saved your mother? You don’t have that voice gnawing away at you in your every waking moment, you don’t have that cold brick in your stomach?”

Neither of them could meet his eyes, sympathizing with their mother’s murderer was sickening.

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

“I spared them because if I didn’t, then in time, I would be forced to kill them.

I don’t want to kill anyone, but when people own other people, when they force themselves on others, when they corrupt their children, I don’t have a real choice.”

“You had a choice.” “Don’t excuse yourself.”

“You should pay attention to what people are really saying. I said that I don’t have a real choice.

I could’ve left them there to be killed by soldiers, I could’ve killed them myself, I could’ve spared the parents as well. But I cannot bring myself to do any of those things, because that is not the man that I am.

With free will also comes responsibility for one's own actions. Yes, I may have killed your mother, and she died as a direct result of my actions, but I am reacting to the suffering that the empire causes.

Would she want you to live as slaves for your entire life?”

“We had a home.” “We had everything we needed.”

“And what if either of you ever wanted to leave? What if you wanted to live your own lives?

What if your sister grew older, developed into a woman, and this master that you so loved wanted her, and she didn’t want him? What do you think that he would do?”

“He would-”

“Who is your father?”

“Master was.”

“And your mother, was it her choice to have you? Don’t answer, I have it coming now.”

An Other arrived with a book in hand after a few minutes.

“Your master, he was Grand Wizard Uldintal of Slazic, yes?”

They nodded.

“And do you recognize that this is his handwriting?”

“It could be.” “It looks to be so.”

“Read the marked pages.”

The words on the paper were not something any child should have to read about their mother, let alone ones barely starting down the path to adulthood.

They were an experiment, the only ones that lived weren’t still born after a dozen attempts.

Their mother carried each of what was so coldly marked as failures in the journal to term, and each time, she had to be impregnated with eggs again.

Their master had ensured that after his single success she could no longer have children because he took out her uterus for testing so he could try to find out how to replicate his experiments again.

They read older chapters, and newer ones, the past failures only mentioned in passing as the man they called their father lamented having to spend so much on products that kept dying in childbirth.

They had long since moved past the hour that was allotted to them as the twins tore through the book, page by page, chapter by chapter, trying to fit the man they knew with what they were reading, trying to find something that said this book was a fake.

But the phrasing, the references to specific events that Fomoria couldn’t possibly know of, it all pointed to what they believed being a lie.

They tossed the journal down and incinerated it with radiance.

“You two and I aren’t that different from one another. I wasn’t much older than you when I found out the circumstances of my birth and how I ended up with the only people I could truly call my family.”

“We’re monsters.” “Attempts at supersoldiers.”

“So am I. My mother was kidnapped, raped, and when I was born, the god that I am now the champion of helped her escape that and then killed her in the process. You can still hate me for what I did, I don’t blame you for that, but you read the last chapter, you know what he had planned for both of you, little better than breeding stock.”

The snow underfoot began to melt as his anger increased, his skeleton grew darker, making him take on a somewhat malnourished appearance due to their clarity through his skin.

“If you would like, you could stay here, far from me. This orphanage is under my brother, and the people who run it are good. You’d have three years before you’d need to leave, and when you do, you should know enough about life inside the veil to be able to live on your own.

I want you both to know that I can’t change what I did, and I wouldn’t change it, because killing that man was worth your mother’s life.”

They were angry at his words, they were angry at a lot of things right now, but they also felt beaten down, they felt that hurting him meant nothing anymore.

“Fine.” “Whatever.”

“Do you have anything from the orphanage you need? Do you have friends to say goodbye to?”

“We have nothing we need.” “Nobody liked us anyway.”

Fomoria revealed himself and spoke to Jerrah and Sherah.

Balor would forge a few papers, Julius and Julia would be citizens, and officially nobody could question that fact.

When he returned to Kor without the twins, there was some confusion.

“Mercedes, how much time do I have before the last student arrives?”

“Ah, well, you should’ve been here 30 minutes ago, she’s been waiting anxiously..”

“Go on, ask.”

“Those children… what happened to them?”

“They are in a better place now, I hope that they can grow into better people in their new lives.”

“Should I tell the orphanage that it was a training accident?”

He felt emotionally drained from dealing with them, old wounds that he thought he had accepted were fresh again, so he hadn’t really thought of his phrasing.

“They are alive, inside the veil, somewhere safe.”

“Right, of course.”

“I could show them to you right now.”

“No, I am sorry to have doubted you.”

The last child, Nana, a Plest, one who survived the poison sent by Auriel.

Her scales were an alabaster white that shone under the late morning sun.

These Plest were colder than their peers, something which he knew and had worked to correct, granting them an amulet of warmth to help regulate their body temperature.

Though evidently, it wasn’t enough considering how she was bundled up with a heavy coat, gloves, a hat, and a pair of pants that was specially made to cover her entire tail, which poked out from a hole in her dress.

She was both the first ranked student mage in the children's category, and the oldest of them at nearly 15, the cut off point before she would be in the next grouping of students.

Nana kicked her feet out, waiting for her king to arrive.

“I’m sorry to make you wait.”

“No, it’s fine. Thank you for picking me.”

“Technically I didn’t pick you, my instructor golems shared their data with one another and decided on various factors that I set up which 10 students were the best, then I had an Other pick five of them.”

“Oh.”

“Tell me, what is your speciality?”

“Healing and imbibing, but I can do all sorts of magic.”

“Why do you want to be a mage?”

“My brother… you saved me, but he was younger, he didn’t survive.”

He was readying himself for another twin situation.

“Do you blame me?”

She shook her head.

“My parents do, but I know more about magic than them, and I know how hard healing is.”

“Revenge against the Cast, is that what you want?”

“I just want to help people that I can so nobody loses someone like I did. Why do you think I would be like that?”

“Have you met the second and third ranked children?”

“The twins? Yes, but they didn’t seem to want to be friends with me, so I stopped after a week.”

“I am surprised that you tried for so long.”

“They seemed sad, and angry, I thought that I could help. You took extra time with them, could you help them?”

“I did what I could. Now I just need to hope that they learn the right lessons from what I’ve given them.”

“I hope they do, because I would like to try being friends again.”

“They aren’t here in Kor anymore, I sent them somewhere else where they might be better off.”

“Oh, are they in Falin?”

“They are inside the veil now. Did they ever seem like they were upset with me?”

“They talked to the teacher about you, but I thought that their praise seemed fake, like they just wanted to be ranked higher for loyalty. Did they do something?”

He felt tired, he didn’t really want to talk about it, but something about Nana, about that gentle nature of her’s, her soft spoken words, her tone that showed genuine worry for the twins that she had failed to befriend, she seemed so innocent, and he didn’t want to lie to her.

Fomoria put his hand on her head and she jumped slightly.

“You are very warm, uh, um, your majesty.”

“Please, just call me Fomoria.”

“Why are you doing this? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“You seem like a good kid. Let’s get to the lab, I have a healing test already set up.”

“Oh, yes, that would be nice.”

It was a large cube of slime with various wounds simulated on the surface.

“You already know how to do these things, yes?”

“I do, but I haven’t ever seen a testing cube so large.”

“Go, start your work.”

She hopped to it, healing burns, closing cuts, setting broken bones.

For someone who likely had little, if any, training before now, she was quite good at it.

Nana hummed as she worked, whispering under her breath words of encouragement for the living, but non-sentient mass of simulated flesh.

“Where did you grow up?”

“Here in Kor.”

“What do your parents do?”

“My father is a cook, and my mother is a maid here in your mansion.”

“I notice that most female Plest tend toward maids or other service positions.”

“Mother says that we’ve had the role for as long as her knowledge of history goes, and that there is no reason to change things that work. They didn’t like that I was taking magic classes, but I told mother than a maid who knows healing magic was worth more.”

“Any issues at home?”

“What?”

“I’m just making conversation.”

“My father has never hit or yelled at my mother. Plest don’t do that, we like to talk out our issues before we become physically violent. I have no other siblings. I have no extended family that I know about. I don’t go hungry. Once someone tried to mug me, but the guards quickly stepped in.”

“So you’ve led a rather peaceful life?”

“Yes.”

She opened her mouth, but closed it before she could speak.

“But?”

“The cube is healed, we’re done.”

“But?”

She rubbed her hands together, anxiety flowed strongly from the lizard girl.

“I don’t want to be a maid, or a cook, or a tailor, or anything like that, but I think that my parents may shun me if I don’t do something that fits what they think of me.”

Fomoria hugged her and rubbed her back.

“Everyone has a choice in what they do and why they do it, don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness instead of permission.”

She wrapped her long neck around his.

“I don’t want to waste my life doing those things, but I don’t want to lose my people for stepping out of line.”

“Those who could be called my people, Fomorians, they are terrible monsters, I’ve killed more than I’ve spoken to. Do not let yourself be bound by culture and race, be Nana.”

She brought her head back and stared him in the eyes, moving back and forth, thinking.

“Thank you.”

Fomoria’s eyes went black.

The faceless city looked the same as it ever did, unchanging, silent, but full of false lives that mimicked laughter and joy.

“I was in the middle of something.”

“I know..”

“What do you really want to speak about?”

“Firstly, you are putting out empathic signals that are heightening the emotions that people feel, turning friendship and comfort into love, and turning anger into homicidal rage.

so be mindful and rein yourself back in. Secondly, Harlan has found your father.”

“What? Was he missing? Is he alright?”

“The one whose seed grew into you.”

“I would like to watch that execution.”

“Ah, but that isn’t what will happen.”

“What?”

“Right now, that man is trying to convince Harlan that his actions were in the past and that with the pact broken, he has changed who he is enough that killing him would only perpetuate a cycle of violence.”

“He can’t be that stupid.”

“His mind is being changed, not through just words, but by magic. The empathy of the purer Fomorians is stronger, and they are practiced in doing this.”

“I’ll save him, I at least owe that to him, and I’ll kill that bastard, he owes that much to me.”

“I warn you, he may not believe you to be right, he may choose to fight.”

“I can take him.”

The Darkness spread across the sky, hundreds of grins making up the stars of night.

“Go then, do what needs to be done.”

Back in reality, Fomoria pushed Nana back.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

“I do. It seems that my empathy has been out of control today. Apologies.

Now, I have something that is unfortunately more important than what I am doing today.

I will make it up to you and the others.”

He opened a gate, bringing her back to the mansion.

“Feel free to speak with the Others, I don’t know when I’ll be back, leave when you want.”

“Thank you. May I see your books?”

“Yes.”

He left through a void gate, heading where The Darkness told him to go.