Harlan found himself in the endless sky again, and The Darkness was already there.

“Across thousands of threads, I have seen you do this thousands times, of those, you survive in-”

“Stop. I’m not going to let you control my choice by throwing numbers at me.”

“Then perhaps visions would-”

A familiar presence came, and they were no longer in Calli’s small world.

Fomoria was blinded in an instant by the mana flow within the world and Aarde not guarding him in any way from it; Calli wrapped him in clouds to protect him.

“Daughter, you were warned before, the Fomorian may make his own choice.”

The twin voices were overlaid, Aarde was in sync with Gaia, and both denied The Darkness the right to keep trying to stop him.

“Calli, you have chosen this one as your champion. Fomorian, do you accept the terms as laid out?”

Words flashed across his soul and it shook as Aarde forced all of the terms of her championship onto him along with an understanding of it.

“I do.”

“Calli, failure to uphold your terms is as damning for you as for him.”

“I accept my words and terms, knowing for him and for me.”

“Then you may grant your gifts to him. Daughter, you will not interfere with him, he is not your pet from this day onward.”

Harlan was healed by Calli back in the endless sky.

“I don’t want some large ceremony, and worry not, there would be any destruction around you when you awake.”

“I thought that was part of being a champion? Some sort of mana flooding that helped change someone into a champion and shift their soul into something immortal.”

“I could do it like that, but what’s the rush? Just breathe in, breathe out, and your soul will become the soul of a champion.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never had a champion. I didn’t even devise this method for making you my champion until just now, because I know you don’t want to destroy the home of your friend.

Now, I suppose I should ask, why now?”

“I know it might sound like I’m just reacting strongly again, that I’m making a rash choice, that I am just trying to regain control, but I don’t see it that way. I do want control back in my life, and that does require that I am stronger. I have thought this through, I’ve been thinking about it since you first offered it to me.

Now I’m looking at this through another lens. I think now that I didn’t want to be your champion because I didn’t want someone else to have control over me again, and that if I accepted, it would’ve been Fomoria making that choice so that I could be stronger. But this is my choice, no matter what else got me here, I am choosing to be your champion.”

“Alright. Now, for your first mission. I want you to make all the clouds above this city purple.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never gotten the chance to really send someone on a mission like this. And what do you think the people of the city are going to do? Will they panic? Or will they just accept it as something strange?”

Harlan woke up in reality again, not instantly feeling the difference in power.

Walking felt… wrong, like his hover was turned up too high and he was 50 pounds but still with his full force behind every movement.

Yet even after he turned his hover off completely, he found that he felt too light.

Normally this could be an issue, since if he made his body lighter with hover, he also couldn’t put as much force into his attacks, since no matter how fast he moved, weight increased force exerted on an object.

A feather at a hundred miles per hour was less deadly than a good sized rock moving at ten; generally speaking.

When he got outside, he meditated, something his new instincts told him was the right thing to do while his powers were constantly being given by his breathing.

After he was done, Harlan jumped, cracking the ground, but also sending him hundreds of feet in the air while unaided by any other magic.

When he landed, Cynthia was waiting.

“So, you’re a champion now? Very nice eyes.”

Harlan’s eyes were now emerald green, swirling in like a literal eye of the storm and occasionally flashing with merciful white lightning.

“Yes.”

“Good. I hoped you would.”

“You knew I was going to do that?”

“Yes. I might not be one seeking the throne, but that is by choice, I am perhaps the most devious of all my siblings. How else could we have gotten away with so many of our tricks? So, do you feel more in control? Does this power soothe your wounded pride?”

Her tone became scolding in the second half, and Harlan couldn’t help but feel like a child who had reached into the cookie jar.

“You shouldn’t need power to feel better. You should feel good because you have a wife that loves you, a beautiful daughter, and more power than almost anyone inside of The Veil.”

He couldn’t meet her eyes, but she put her hand on his face and made her look at him.

“But I also understand you, and I love you like a brother, I know you couldn’t ever be sated by just words, you need to feel change to feel better.”

Cynthia hugged him and started getting strange looks from the guards who had come to find out what made the boom.

“Oh don’t look at me like that, he is my best friend, not my lover. Now, we can go inside and wait for Zella.”

“I need to do something else first.”

Harlan floated with almost no effort, and he began to spin, drawing the clouds which had already gathered by his championship.

The people worried, and most had gone to find cover when the clouds first gathered.

A flash colored the clouds as he stopped spinning a mix of wind magic and paint magic, which was made up from light and earth, and they became a vibrant purple, but they didn’t just overcast the city, the light inside of them made the city purple where it passed through the clouds.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

When Zella, she was confused, but felt no danger.

What she felt however, was the presence of another champion.

“You prick.”

Cynthia looked disapprovingly, since Sycamore was still with her.

“Sorry, Miss Cynthia. But I can’t even become a champion without you becoming some sort of double champion.”

“Technically I wasn’t ever a champion in the normal sense. Besides, I didn’t do this because you became a champion. I did this so I could take back some control over my life, and you are going outside of the veil anyway.”

“Ah, is that why the Greenfields could never find the champion? They thought that the champion just left back to The Confederacy, since she rarely ever has a human champion. You are actually still quite unique in that sense. Why do you need to leave?”

“That’s champion business.”

Despite her anger at Harlan, Zella couldn’t help but smile as the words left her mouth.

“Take pride in what you are, what you do, don’t worry about Harlan.”

“Zella, have you talked to Reet about you leaving? Is he going to go with you?”

His words stung at her.

“Cynthia, can you leave for a bit?”

“Of course. Come, Syca.”

“Can I see the Lions?”

“Yes, let’s go see all of the animals while we wait for your father.”

Once Cynthia was out of the room, Zella waited another half a minute to make sure that she wasn’t listening.

“I know that you are really close to her, but I’m not bringing her into my relationships.

I don’t think that it’s fair to me to ask Reet to leave his family for me.”

“Are you going to talk to him about it?”

“I think it’s better if I leave, then I can call him later.”

“Don’t do that to him. He’s lived so much of his life taking care of his family, and even his youngest sibling isn’t a child anymore. Don’t make him choose, but let him make a choice to follow you or not.”

“It’s been over a month since we last talked. I’ve been away for so long, I don’t even know what to-”

“You have your gate spell now, you can visit him whenever you want, even if you don’t bring him outside of The Veil with Fomoria’s help.”

“Can you go outside with your gate?”

“No. Lir doesn’t let people travel through The Veil without a good reason. A void gate bypasses it, and Anu’s champion is just allowed to come and go as they please because of the nature of their work. Get it? The nature of it?”

“Are you always listening to me?”

“I was doing this as much as I could before you became my champion, but now I’m going to leave a little piece of me in your head.”

“I can’t go outside without Lir’s permission. Can I transport people other than myself? How does my gate work?”

“Bolt gate turns you into lightning.”

“And?”

“I would avoid using it inside, not that it won’t find its way out anyway. But yes, you can bring more people into it, though there is a certain charge time. Did you understand that joke?”

“Yes electrical charge. What about-”

“Hey? Are you done talking with her?”

“Sorry, I was just trying to get some clarification on how her gate works. You turn into a seed, I turn into a bolt of lightning. Now I’m wondering how Brig’s mist gate actually worked, because it seemed to just teleport us. Calli, how does it work?”

“How would I know? I didn’t even know what a bolt gate would be until just now.”

“Did you make the spell up on the spot?”

“No, I just found out how it worked. I’ve never had to use it, but this gate existed with the previous god of wind.”

“What about void gate.”

“Don’t ask me about her abilities, she can be… defensive about such things.”

“Yes, I can be.”

“I don’t want you both in my head.”

“And I didn’t want you to be her champion, but here we are. I only came to prevent her from giving away my secrets, but you are now dead to me, expect no more help, traitor.”

Harlan didn’t even want to argue with her.

Ultimately, Zella decided to see Reet and talk with him in person, after she talked with Duke Greenfield.

“Champion of Anu, thank you for not rushing this meeting. I, as my father, and his father before him, have maintained the rules given by Anu to prevent the destruction of the ecosystem stemming from our magic.”

“Thank you, but I have been asked to look at your newest batch of seeds so Anu may ensure that you, even by mistake, have not broken the rules laid out for you. Should she find them dangerous, then there is not yet harm done, and it may be corrected.”

“Of course, I understand. Sir Fomoria, you may follow us to the doors of the lab, but you are not allowed to step foot inside.”

“Alright. And… I’m sorry to say this, but I’ve been asked to help Zella, and if you do attempt to hurt her, I would be required to kill you and burn your home. Calli said that I had to explicitly state this.”

“The god of wind?”

“Yes, I have also become her champion.”

“Is that why my city is purple?”

“Yes, she found it funny. The clouds will fade in time, the paint magic becoming so dispersed that it fails.”

Harlan couldn’t leave until Zella had safely left the city.

In the meanwhile, he called Adina.

“How are things at home?”

“Oh, you aren’t pouting anymore.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“You scared Viviane, she could feel your anger radiating off of you. What have you been doing since you stormed off like a child?”

“Don’t make it sound like I threw a tantrum for no reason at all.”

“You did. You couldn’t handle Fomoria giving me good advice for Vivi, and you couldn’t handle that he had dinner with Balor and your parents.”

“That’s not no reason.”

“I understand your reason, your family is wonderful, and I love them, but you can’t decide who they are and aren’t allowed to talk with. Fomoria, for whatever he’s done, isn’t a bad person, he still cares, and-”

“I know, I know. I talked with him, Cynthia made me.”

“You went to see her? You didn’t think that you could come to me? Was I untrustworthy because I actually talked with him and came to my own conclusion instead of your’s?”

“No, that’s not it at all. Zella decided to become Anu’s champion, and her first duty is to warn House Greenfield to not destroy the world with their plants, so I was sent ahead of her to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I also became Calli’s champion.”

“Oh. So, things are fine between you and Fomoria?”

“I’m not going to be angry at him anymore, I know that is unfair and I was projecting my own fears onto him.”

“You need to go to the capital, it’s under attack by Nulson, and that man who is obsessed with your wife.”

“What?”

“What?”

“No, not you, Calli just told me that the capital is under attack. I need to go.”

“Be safe.”

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

The royals were being gathered in a safe room, but Lily didn’t want to leave her workshop.

“Princess Lily, you cannot remain here.”

“And I’m not leaving. Brig will protect me if anyone comes in here.”

The old blacksmith had never stopped working for Ragne, and in time, he came to enjoy Lily’s presence.

“No sense in bein’ ‘ere, you ain’t gonna fight by me, you’d get in the way.”

Brig hadn’t worn armor or used a sword against another person in many years, but once Lily left the room he formed the sigil of defense and weapon, yet armor and sword felt wrong to him.

The chill of the cloudy ice didn’t bother him, but Brig just didn’t see himself as a warrior anymore, he had long since given up on the killing.

Yet now he became c

Then he sat on one of the anvils and began to sing songs of lost sailors.

Another knight entered the room.

“You must leave the workshop, the castle is being locked down.”

“So, you the fuckin’ bastard?”

“I don’t know what you-”

“Stagnant heart, still water, corruption. You got a sickly flow to ya.”

He moved toward the man, who abandoned the body.

The knight staggered and caught himself on the doorway.

“What am I… where?”

“Ya got your body snatched up. Now fuck off.”

The knight left the room in a stupor, not really understanding what happened.

When the fighting broke out in the castle above, Brig remained in the workshop, having faith that Lily would be fine, but she would be devastated if all of the things that they were making together were destroyed.

The walls began to crack, and Brig made supports of ice to protect the room.

Harlan was there, that much he was sure, but there were others he didn’t recognize the flow of.