Harlan was still wandering that sick land into the night, though Charlin had recommended rest more than once.

“I’ve seen enough. I believe I know what to say.”

These words escaped him just as he staggered and fell.

He was in no state to travel, and the amulets didn’t work around The Scar, so Charlin brought him back to the camp where archmagi were trying to study what exactly happened.

If they could replicate even a fraction of this effect then they would have made anti-magic of their own design. Harlan wouldn’t know it, and Fomoria did know it yet, in part because Xol had been told not to teach it to him, but anti-magic was a catchall, and not all worked on the same principles.

During the night, he woke and got out of bed.

“Sir Fomoria, is there something you require?”

“I am stiff, I want to walk.”

“Are you well enough to do so?”

“I will manage.”

“Then I shall accompany you.”

“Very well.”

The archmagi weren’t much in a talkative mood.

There was a Ranger there as a military presence, a pale skinned woman, but she never got close.

She watched from afar, lacking subtlety; his instincts told him she was a predator,

“Charlin, can you make a stone bench for me?”

With the mountain that made up the valley gone, much more northern wind was coming through, and in the area near by the crops would suffer some, winters over the years would be more intense, yet he didn’t shiver at all.

“Charlin, are you cold?”

“No sir, our armors are loaded with a suite of environmental spells. I could dive into ice cold water or walk along lava, not needing breath or cover.”

“What do you think of all this?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

“It is not my place to have an opinion about what happened at Saltlick.”

“I won’t tell anyone, if that is what you’re worried about.”

“It is not my place to-”

“Fine.”

At the break of dawn, Charlin and Harlan moved away from The Scar until he could activate his amulet and then call for a gate.

Getting into The Scar faced less resistance than moving out.

A gate is opening a tunnel from one area to another, thus the mana density on the exit end matters little compared to the mana on the entrance side.

Rosewell canceled her meeting the moment Harlan called and brought him into the secure room where the actually important meetings happened.

Her reasoning for taking him to her bedroom before was that it would be considered less important and likely to be personal, but when it would eventually come out that he had been sent back into The Scar and had stayed with the archmagi who were studying it, then being brought into the secure room would imply that he was giving an official report.

Around the table were top military officials and royals, none of which knew Harlan’s weapon was nothing but a fabrication.

“Archmage Changeling, you may now explain what happened at Saltlick.”

“I have returned from my mission to find and destroy any remaining scrap from the LSFC-”

In an instant Lilly raised her hand.

Most weren’t happy that she was there, she was an adult, but only by age, her attitude was still that of a young woman who wasn’t often corrected, in part because she was actually right most of the time;

Harlan knew all too well how that felt.

“What is the LSFC?”

“Linear Soul Fission Cannon. If we ever get to more than a single unit, perhaps we will come up with a real name, but my report will show that making even a seventh issue likely won’t happen.

As I was saying. When I fired the cannon again, trying to see if I could cut through the entirety of the valley which rebel forces were trying to move through in a single shot, there was an incident with the weapon.

Fission refers to the splitting of certain things, pure elements are the result of what could be classed as fission magic. I will not be going into detail on the workings of the weapon, but because it works by splitting to generate power, directing the self-destruction of a soul, any deviation means that some of the power spreads outwards. If any of you have seen the aftereffects of The Cleave, then you can see what I mean.

Where the cannon itself was stationed is the least affected area, but down range of it was completely destroyed, and the blowback was enough to wipe out Saltlick and deaden mana in the area.

In the previous models I had never seen such a large scale failure, and I believe part of it was a chain reaction where the cannon itself, being used on living targets, which had not yet happened, caused the souls of every person killed to undergo soul fission. I knew this would happen, since I had tested it against soulsmithed items, but the resulting explosion was nothing compared to hundreds of human souls all at once and it had never caused a link between the beam itself and the targets, possibly because the soulsmithed items had no minds that could influence the weapon itself.”

Some of the people seemed to buy it without more explanation.

The effects of a soul self-destructing were known, not well known, but enough people knew, it’d cut through just about anything, and the recommendation even by the royal guards and archmagi was to never even try to block it because there was no clear reason why some people had managed to do so.

For the better part of an hour, Harlan dodged questions.

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“Why have we never heard of this weapon? We are all high ranking generals, Princess Lilly is the someday royal head of engineering, yet never have any of us heard about your supposed LSFC?”

“I never wrote down any designs due to the worry of them being seen and replicated. I was 11 when I saw my first soul detonation, and I’ve wondered about weaponizing such a thing for many years.

But, after testing, both on the record, and then years later off of it, I decided that it was a dead end.

It was only after I researched pure elemental magic that I realized that I could perhaps apply certain principles to a soul weapon. This research nearly killed me many times, and I was only able to collect the data that I did because my physical body dying won’t kill me, much like advanced imbibing.”

He hadn’t really shown off advanced imbibing, mostly because he knew that people were going to try to replicate it and get themselves killed, which he would rather not have on his mind.

In time, he hoped that he could figure out how to do it completely safely so it could be carefully taught to others, but his reasoning for bringing it up now was nothing more than adding another concept that these people didn’t understand and whose link to the theoretical weapon couldn’t actually be verified, but that sounded reasonable.

When the meeting ended, they all seemed convinced that Harlan had built a weapon which malfunctioned, or rather, had reacted to a real world test differently than expected, and then, Harlan and Rosewell were the only ones who were left in the room.

“How much of that was actually real? I have a hard time believing that you made all of it up in a single day.”

“I’ve looked into trying to force soul detonation, but so far as I can tell, it can’t be done because Aarde doesn’t want people doing it. The world is set up in certain ways to ensure that those with power don’t get obliterated before they have the chance to use that power to influence the world and make memories which could be fed to Life. I’ve also looked into making pure elemental weapons, but… unless you want bombs to blow up entire cities and leave no life behind, I don’t even want to get into theoretical designs that I’ve never told another person about, not even Adina, and which have never been made physical.

If you do want those kinds of bombs, I refuse to make them.”

“You’re talking about Haldren, aren’t you? That was a pure element explosion.”

“I am. Pure elements are dangerous, and I won’t be party to anything involving them.”

“Very well, I understand. I just wanted to know if anything you said was based on a real weapon you’ve made or thought of making.”

“No, it was just made up of the parts of failed or purely theoretical projects mixed with technical terms that would sound right to people who assume that I know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Very well, that does at least clear up my worries about your idea coming out so quickly.”

“I’d like to go home now. I left Fomoria there and I don’t like that.”

“I would like you to bring my words to Miss Liat, tell her how sorry I am about her loss, and that if she would like, the title of knight is still available.”

Harlan scowled, angry words rose like bile through his throat, yet he cleared it with a grunt, he maintained himself.

“She wants to stop fighting, she wants something safe. For all I know, she’s already worked out going outside the veil to be with Yara and Fomoria.”

“Do you know anything about his ties with the academy?”

“No, Hirum mentioned it as a courtesy, that Fomoria might be getting his own archmage title for another project, but that I wouldn’t need to worry about sharing any land because we are both two different people in his eyes.”

“Hirum has kept us far away from whatever it is, but we know that it is a tower.”

“Bone white? Muscles between the plates?”

“Perhaps. For as good as the Unseen are, the tower is being built in land between several archmagi, completely locking it in on all sides, and each of them has given us warnings about trespassers being killed on sight if they stray from the main road that goes through the area.”

“Should I just ask if he’s building a Spire of Other?”

“I leave it to your discretion, but considering he is, or was, you, I find it likely that the straight forward approach is best.”

When Harlan returned to his castle, Fomoria had already gone, but Ava had been separated from Lugh.

“Harlan! It’s been so long. Ava is sorry and-”

“Lugh, I wanted to explain.”

“Oh, right, sorry. Ava wants to explain that she forgives you and understands that she’s been too naive about the world and how your killing is only worse than to her because she feels guilty about being involved in the events that led to you being kidnapped by Ragne and thus going down this dark path.”

Both of them looked strangely at the small metal boy.

“I’ve been in her head for too long, so I felt what she was thinking. And I thought on my own as well.

Harlan, I’m young, but I’m not a child anymore, and I don’t like how everyone looks at me like one.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to say that. Oh, you should see this!”

Despite his words, his inflection and manner was still that of a child, that infectious joy.

From his body he pulled what seemed to be a claw.

“Fomoria gave it to me, but it’s hard to eat. And it sings, listen!”

Ava looked at him curiously, since Lugh had done the same thing to her.

“It sounds like… nothing. I don’t hear it singing.”

“That’s sad. She sounds so nice.”

“She?”

“Adamant. She’s the metal.”

“May I take the claw? I don’t like that you can hear it.”

“Hmm… No.”

Harlan had already reached out to grab it, and found himself frozen, his fingers only a hair away from it as Lugh pulled it back into his body for digestion.

“Fine. Ava, just, keep an eye on him. And I understand, no hard feelings for everything.”

“Good.”

“Is Liat still here?”

“Yes. Yara hasn’t left her side since she got here.”

“Fomoria?”

“He… I know he wasn’t mad at me, but something still felt very off. And when he was done examining Liat, he had this dangerous look in his eyes, more than normal for you two.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No, and Yara couldn’t get him to talk either.”

“I don’t think that we can worry about what might happen, trying to predict what he is going to do is just pointless.”

Had he his empathy still, it would’ve been clear from the first moment that she wanted to ask him something else.

Instead, he went inside.

Liat was in Amber’s former room.

Yara had kept herself up with worry, and was resting with her head on the edge of the bed.

“How do you feel today?”

“I missed her, she’s so bright and warm. I know she would’ve made a great mother.”

“Would’ve?”

“She didn’t want me to tell anyone. Just forget about it.”

“I can’t forget, but I can keep a secret.”

“Good enough.”

“I went there, to Saltlick, The Scar, whatever people want to call that place. I found Sam’s things.

The military wants to study everything, but they’ll be returned here as soon as possible.

And Rosewell wanted me to tell you how sorry she is, and that the knighthood is still open to you.

I said that you wouldn’t take it, but it is there.”

“She should’ve been the knight not me.”

He didn’t want to dwell on it.

“She asked you to come with her, didn’t she? Yara I mean.”

“I think I should. We talked about what I could do for work. He has a wyvern living in his city, it would be nice to have a caretaker. Or I could go to the library; she said it’s massive and they are friends with the owner.”

“Will you?”

“I’m tired, I’m going to rest more.”

She turned to face away from him.

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

The inner circle of the noble council gathered to discuss the events at Saltlick.

There was a back and forth about if this information could be trusted at all, but it came right from a turncoat general who was in the meeting in person, and he had shown his memories to the noble who he was loyal to.

Over half of these people believed the story once all of the details were read aloud and it started to make sense to those of them that understood at least half of what he said, then there was an important question to be asked.

How long before they use it again? If Harlan survived the first field test, then surely it was only a matter of time before he corrected the design. If it could cause a chain reaction enough to wipe out both the men in the valley and those far away in the camp, what would happen if it was used on a city? What would happen if they pushed too far and Ragne decided to retaliate with a show of force not unlike Sepul’s days-long assault that stopped the last beast war?

The debate eventually split on what the answer to this was.

Ultimately, The Noblists were throwing a tantrum, they wanted to rule how they wanted, as petty tyrants, and they were annoyed that someone was telling them no, putting limits on them.

Thus, they were cowards, afraid of the reproach that would come if they ever laid a hand on Harlan’s family in some attempt to get the information through kidnapping.

Blackmail wouldn’t work either, because Harlan didn’t fear it, anything that could be dug up could be easily shrugged off by the archmage.