Harlan remembered casting the spell, saving what citizens remained in the city, he remembered seeing the blanket of gates cover his vision, and then nothing more.

It was cold.

“Oh, you’re awake already.”

Harlan felt a wet rag on his head.

“Sepul?”

“You did very well, putting up such a fast barrier, though you should be more careful with Calli.”

“She made a promise just before I cast the spell that it would work.”

“The promises of gods are no more reliable than those of man. She may have fully believed it would work, but there is no way she would know if you could survive the aftermath.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve channeled her for a spell.”

“Just the first time you’ve consented to it.”

“What happened?”

“Fomoria’s first strike severely damaged the mountain, and it was not costless. The arm tore from his body and refused to heal for a full day. Once the mountain suffered the blow, his Others and I broke apart the larger pieces and let them fall into the dozens of gates. Then, he tracked Nulson and Magruder.”

“Are they in custody?”

Sepul couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, Magruder became a stain on the hill where they intended to watch Yggdra be destroyed, and Nulson was killed by Fomoria.”

“You are sure, both of them are dead?”

“Magruder tried to use some crystals charged with war magic, but the Others quickly destroyed them, and I watched as they mercilessly pounded the man until there was nothing left larger than a tooth. I couldn’t exactly see how Fomoria killed Nulson, but I see no reason to doubt him, his anger was real, that much I can say.”

“Then… it’s over.”

“Yes, they are gone.”

“How many died in the city?”

“The population was around 140,000 at the moment if one counted merchants and other visitors, of them, 60,000 died. The city was decimated, half of all the buildings were reduced to their foundations, the castle will need a great deal of work done to bring it back to its original shape. Ironically, most of the damage actually came from when the arm was blown from Fomoria and landed on it. But, in a few weeks, the physical pieces will return to their proper shape, and in a few months, the arrays will be back to their proper shape.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Two days. I found you flayed, channeling her had actually blown your skin from your muscles, and you lost much of your blood. I do hope that we found all of the pieces of your armor, but the crystals couldn’t be saved. Still, Rosewell is going to replace them.”

Sepul stepped away, finding that Harlan was healthy enough to no longer need to be cared for.

“You should speak with her.”

“Where am I?”

“My home.”

Sepul helped Harlan get up from the bed and brought him out to the living room, where some of his family was waiting for him.

Viviane practically leapt from Adina’s arms and ran to him.

When she hugged his leg, she began to tear up as she felt a fraction of Harlan’s pain.

“Hey sweetie, it’s so good to see you again.”

He went down to a knee so he could hug her.

“Papa is ok. You don’t need to worry anymore.”

“You were sleeping and I kept pushing you and you kept sleeping. You wouldn’t do anything.”

“Papa just needed to rest, but I was fine.”

“Your red stuff was on the outside.”

“What do you mean?”

“All the stuff under your skin.”

“You let her see me while I was healing?”

Sepul didn’t much care for the accusation in Harlan’s voice.

“I had no hand in that. People who wander my halls aren’t supposed to find what they are looking for.

Her desire to see you overcame my arrays.”

“Childish magic is something I can understand. I’m sorry for my tone.”

“Very well.”

Elise next hugged him.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I’m sorry, I really am. I was a terrible sister, and-”

“If you are about to say that Fomoria talked to you about it, I would rather not hear it.”

“Then I won’t say it. I’ve kept away because I knew we last left one another on poor terms, and seeing you brought here in such a condition, I realized that I would deeply regret if you died hating me.

I don’t want to be my mother, but I’ve become her, a horrible, selfish woman, who considered nobody but herself and abandoned her family.”

Dawn was in the room, and though she made a tight fist, she couldn’t say that Elise was wrong to have such a view of her.

“I forgive you. I should’ve reached out to you instead of just leaving things as they were for so many months. Now, I do need to sit.”

Viviane pulled on his pants.

“I want to play.”

Harlan could hardly resist telling her yes, but Adina swooped in to save him.

“Not now. Papa is still very tired, but I should be strong by tomorrow.”

He got from noon until dusk to sit with his family, and Sepul brought the rest, except for Amber, who had to be brought by Fomoria.

Then, Sepul finally told Rosewell that Harlan was awake, and she wanted a meeting as soon as he was able.

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Which, considering he had spent the entire day doing nothing, he was ready when she asked.

Harlan was escorted from the gate room through to the ruined throne room.

Few arrays and wards were back up, but they didn’t worry about any more attacks. The enemies that they knew were dead, and if those in the shadows tried to strike, they would fight back without question.

But Harlan didn’t think about any of that, all he could think of was that the banners in the throne room had a much smaller banner over the top, not obscuring the crest of Ragne, but still, being over top implied greater authority for them.

The banners in question were a skull with a flaming eye on the forehead and surrounded by broken chains.

“No doubt you are wondering why I called you here.”

He nodded.

“I’m joining Fomoria. If it were not for him, Yggdra would be completely destroyed, Magruder and Nulson would’ve escaped, and honestly, I couldn’t turn down his deal.”

“What deal?”

“If you were to go outside, you’d see thousands of construction golems sent by him, clearing rubble, rebuilding the city. His Others subjugated the remaining golems from Nulson and Magruder, they killed or captured all of the mercenaries which were brought by those two, he returned Dagda safely to us. And he has given us aura techniques which, while we haven’t been able to completely verify the effects of, the examples given by this Others mean that the royal guard will remain unparalleled even in the case of anti-magic attacks like this again. I’m still queen, I will rule as I see fit, provided that I follow a few rules that he has set. So soon after the civil war, I know that I risk sparking another by the most significant of changes, removing the tiers of law, letting a commoner sue nobility as a noble would, removing laws that let nobles jail or fine them for insulting them, true or false. But with my capital in ruins, most of the royal military forces within the city killed, a quarter of the royal guard dead, and my position weaker than ever, I risk being killed by either a sibling or one of the dukes anyway.”

She tapped on her throne, waiting for his reply.

“Do you have nothing to say?”

“He was willing to kill everyone in the city to stop that attack. If I didn’t put up that barrier, the shockwaves would’ve killed anyone without an enhanced body. You would’ve had a tomb, not a capital.”

“But I would’ve had a tomb, not a crater. Haldren never recovered from your actions, but losing half the population here will be a blow that we can recover from.

And, true or not, he claims that he knew you would do what you did.”

“He explicitly told me before I went to deliver his demands that he didn’t need my help. I don’t believe he would’ve cared if everyone here died.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps? What the fuck kind of reply-”

Rosewell lifted a scepter, one he had not seen in some time, and Harlan could not help but kneel in silence.

“He made the hard call and he did it without any hesitation.

Setting up a city this large can take years, rebuilding what was destroyed will take months if not just weeks with his golems. He claims to have built a city as large as the inner ring of Yggdra in just nine months.

The quality of living for everyone within the kingdom will improve, he has promised that, and already he has deployed his people from outside the veil, He brought a wyvern whose breath did the work of a hundred healers, and she has freely healed the people as his Dague fed the survivors.”

Rosewell stopped for a moment to catch her breath, and Harlan couldn’t help but feel she was more trying to convince herself than convince him.

Over a thousand years of rule as an independent kingdom, and it ended on her watch.

No matter how far into a corner she might’ve felt, it was still her choice to give control to Fomoria.

Right or wrong would be a problem for the future, being seen as a coward who cracked or a queen who understood what was going to happen anyway, and decided to make the hard call for the sake of her people.

“In the time that it will take to bring this castle back to its glory, I would ask that you take Relly and protect her.”

She put down her artifact, letting Harlan reply.

“What about you and the rest of the royals?”

“If I left while the rebuilding was underway it would be a crushing blow to morale. My siblings are doing their parts with logistics or what have you, and they are too busy to spend a month sitting around, but Relly would quite appreciate somewhere that is safe, that she can relax. She doesn’t much handle stress well.”

“Alright.”

“Is that it?”

“I… I understand. Fomoria, he has resources, a lot of resources, and when the time comes, if they could stop him, they wouldn’t. Hirum has already sided with him, he’ll have Others teaching next year, his spatial mage will be teaching, he already lives on Learning Zone land. Sepul won’t get involved because it won’t be a matter of gods. Reino is on his side. The Confederacy has their own problems, and he’ll fold them in eventually. I just don’t see what else we can do.”

“Don’t sound like we’ve been conquered, or that we’ve lost anything. The greatest time in the history of Ragne was the time when Yggdra the First lived, because having the same good ruler for nearly a thousand years meant stability. Fomoria isn’t a collar on us, he’s a brace, keeping the kingdom from falling under people like my grandfather.”

Harlan walked out.

Once he was back home, he sat in his library, and he looked at the empty shelves.

He liked the idea of it, but he had yet to put forth much effort towards actually filling the shelves.

He thought about his life as a child, how much he loved reading that adventurers manual, all the monsters, the little stories.

How one night, that reading under the moonlight changed everything about his life.

It was that night that made him distant from his family, that made his sisters worry so much that they got together and made the family take a trip to Redwall.

That trip then got the attention of the royals, and the royals brought him to The Facility.

Where he intentionally killed his first man.

Where he made the first Ragnite soulsmithed items.

Where he made the first golems.

He had to make the call, was a safe world with Fomoria at the helm worth it?

As a man, the answer was no, Fomoria was a disaster waiting to happen.

But as a father, it was no choice at all.

Every fight that he had to fight, Fomoria could fight for him.

She would never need to worry about having to become Harlan, a killer, she could live in a safer world, and if things fell apart, he could still retreat to his home.

Harlan waited for it, for his truth to break, but it never came.

For him, doing what was right no matter the cost meant finally knowing when to stop, when the fight was actually over, when someone else was going to do better than him.

And of the choices he’d made in his life, this would be one of the hardest.

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

Fomoria gated back to Rosewell, carrying a man.

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know, one of the royal guard, but he was Nulson for a time.”

“So, he got away again.”

“No, Nulson is handled.”

“Magruder?”

Fomoria stepped aside, showing the other end of the gate.

“He attacked first, and so my men reduced him to a stain.”

“It’s over then…”

“It’s over. But, your city is in ruins. Let me take control.”

“Of the rebuilding?”

“Of Ragne.”

The royal guards all drew their weapons and began to ready their spells.

“I told you before, I would come one day, but I don’t need to conquer you. The jackals will be at your door, they will see that you are weak, that you’ve lost a third of your royal guard, that you had to call in my help to save the city.”

“Lower your weapons.”

All but Safira did as asked.

“Lower, your, weapon.”

“I cannot do that. So long as I believe Fomoria is a threat, I am bound to my duty as your guardian.”

“It’s fine, Safira is right, I do appear to be a threat, and it is only right that she be ready to protect you.

You can count on me for troops if any noble wants to try their hand, you can count on my golems to help clear the rubble and rebuild the city. I don’t want or need anything from Ragne, I intend to just give, and in exchange, you fly my banner, you accept my charter, and your enemies become my enemies.”

“It will risk another civil war.”

“Then it will. I have long since accepted that people are going to die in a war, and I can only try my best to ensure that I kill as few in the crossfire as I can.”

“What of my artifacts?”

“Everything that is yours will remain yours. I don’t want your artifacts,your mines, your fields, the research that your people do. Ragne will remain far more independent than the other nations which I’ve conquered, because this was my home, and with you on the throne, I can trust that it will not rebel.

When you are gone, maybe that will change, maybe it won’t. That will depend on the next regent.

So, get pregnant, or be ready to pass this one to your niece or nephew.”

“I would hope Relly-”

“No. Ragne needs a Yggdra. She could have a child holding your blood, but she cannot hold the throne.”

“Why?”

“Because, it is best to keep someone of your bloodline on the throne for at least the next two generations.”

Rosewell furrowed her brow.

“I thought you not to be so pragmatic.”

“I keep as many local rulers in power as I can, because it helps the cities remain stable.

Most nations I conquer are under Castian banner, they have changed hands more than once in the last century. Ragne has a history of over a thousand years, you’ve got cities and dukes and counts and barons and knights with their warbands. This place will take much longer to come under my banner in full.

Other than The North, I believe just telling them who my grandfather is and improving their lives would be enough. You have until I clear the city of threats to decide, then I withdraw my offer, and when I next come, I will not be asking.”