Amber sat in her room, seemingly alone.

“I miss him.”

Durandal felt the same.

He wanted to be wielded by him, he wanted to be wielded by a hero again, and was left with the next closest thing.

His desire bled into her, confusing the line between familial love and the other kind.

It bothered her before, but she felt better about it now that he wasn’t around and making those feelings awkward.

A knock at the door.

“Amber, can we talk?”

Amber set Durandal aside, not wanting her thoughts biased by him, then opened the door for her.

Zella sat on the bed with her.

“Honestly, you are scaring the shit out of me.”

“I’m doing what I need to do. The gods have consistently failed, I’ve started really winning.”

“We’re hitting cities harder than ever, and more people are getting caught in the crossfire.”

“I know he never considered them to be so, but they are acceptable losses. If he hates me when he gets back because I didn’t fight like he would’ve liked, then at least there will be something for him to come back to.”

“You shouldn’t be fighting like this because he won’t be here to disapprove. You should be fighting-”

“Fairly? I don’t see Xol fighting fairly. He’s got his mental towers up, suppressing the emotions of the people to prevent revolts and make people fight against us. Harlan can’t stop them, he can’t even get near them because they assault his mind.”

The room turned pitch dark for a moment.

Amber took a deep breath.

“I know exactly what I’m doing.

I’m not making rash decisions because I’m angry, I just can’t keep holding back.”

Zella took Amber’s hand.

“Harlan, both of them, held back, but they didn’t fail because of it. You don’t need to go all out just to win, we’re not that desperate yet. Don’t let those wins go to your head, don’t become another heartless general who tosses soldiers at a problem and doesn't care about the consequences of their actions after they’ve won a fight.”

Amber hugged Zella.

“Thank you. I’m sorry I’ve been so tightly wound lately. It’s just… since-”

“I know. We weren’t on great terms, but knowing I might not get the chance to fix that is like a drake sitting on my chest.”

“I think I’m going to get some sleep. Again, thank you for talking some sense into me.”

Zella was feeling pretty good when she left.

Amber couldn’t believe that she bought that.

The volcano had been building for a while, and in that time the charges had been set.

She watched from a hill far enough away that she would hardly feel the heatwave, but she saw the volcano erupt.

She wasn’t heartless, she didn’t ignore the consequences, but she couldn’t fight like Fomoria, she couldn’t fight like Harlan, she could only fight like herself.

For Ragne, the acceptable civilian casualties were around 10% of a given area.

This was far above that threshold.

“Everything is ready, the soldiers are out of the blast radius, the bombs on the volcano and the surrounding area are primed. We are waiting for your orders.”

She looked down at the crystal linked with the explosives, and she thought to herself.

What went through her head was only between her and Durandal.

Maybe it was his influence on her, she could always claim that later.

The signal went out, and she saw the distant sky turn orange, then the clouds above turned black.

She waited, looking at another crystal linked with a series of mana sensor arrays in the area.

Once she began getting errors, fire mana readings above 100%, she knew that the area was full of pure fire mana, and detonated the second ring of bombs.

Zella was told in no uncertain terms what had happened, Anu watched the outpouring of souls.

She rushed to Amber, who was in Mercedes' office pouring over reports.

“How could you?”

“I don’t know. All of these reports are saying that the families of the controlled workers had been moved out of the area.”

“Mercedes?”

“What?”

“Is what Amber said true?”

“I received these reports and skimmed them before I sorted them. They haven’t changed.

An underground railroad like Harlan made? But why would Xol bring them back in such a way that we couldn’t see?”

Zella couldn’t get rid of the sick feeling in her stomach, but she didn’t think she was being lied to.

“Wait, how did you know that the area was full of civilians?”

“The Darkness told me, only after the bombs went off. She wanted me to learn a lesson about always double checking targets if I wanted to fight a war with minimized casualties.”

She had done no such thing, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone about Amber’s lies either.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“That sounds like something she would do. Do you… do you want to talk about it? You know that it wasn’t your fault, right?”

Amber put down the report she was reading and hung her head.

“I know. But…”

She took a deep breath.

“I’m the one that activated the bombs, I made the plans. Even if it wasn’t my fault, that doesn’t change what happened under my watch. Can you check on Fomoria’s class? I know we’ve been rotating teachers for them, but I’m busy trying to solve this. I need to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”

“Of course. And if you need to talk later, I’m sure I’ll be free.”

With Zella gone, Amber and Mercedes let out a sigh of relief.

“You made sure to destroy the originals, right?”

“Of course. I’m not an idiot.”

“I feel like an asshole lying to her like that.”

“She’s soft like your brother, she can’t understand. He somehow always tore out the teeth from the jaws of defeat. I’m not saying that Fomoria wouldn’t do this if push came to shove, he wiped a city off the map with a bomb before, but sometimes I feel like his plans, no matter how well made, were intended to work with a little bit of luck. We don’t have that luxury. Nor do we have the luxury of making her distrust us.”

“I know. But I wouldn’t call her soft, she’s just not quite as hardened as us.”

Mercedes finished putting away the falsified reports and Amber was walking towards the door.

“Did he ever mention me? I mean, after he came back.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I know that he was happy for us, but I can’t shake the feeling he might’ve held a grudge about Larenzac and I getting together while he was alone. It felt like I was betraying him.”

“He never said a word about it to me before or now. It probably didn’t bother him that much.”

“Why do you think he never came to see him?”

“He was busy or basically insane for most of his time back. And you were busy the entire time, you’re still busy.”

“I felt like collapsing when you told me he was gone, but I held on long enough to hear that he would be coming back eventually. Now he’s gone again, and I didn’t get the chance to tell him how I felt.”

“Do you have a crush on him?”

“No, not at all since we parted ways romantically. But he was a rock. I felt like I could tie myself to him and everything would just work out. Despite how long we were in a real war with the Cast, I felt safe in Kor with him. How long did Aarde say it would be before he’s back?”

“He won’t hit a planet for seven years at least. After that, he just needs to figure out how to leave and make his way back here. Honestly, I’d guess seven years and a month.”

Mercedes laughed loudly.

“I’m surprised you think he won’t be back in under seven.”

“Aarde is a prick, but I’m guessing they’ve got enough of a future sight to get that much right. Not that I said that to Sepul. I’m pretty sure he was going to actually kill Marigold.”

“As much as I enjoy talking, I think I’ve spent enough time. Thank you for trusting me with this ruse.”

“He trusted you, who would I be to not?”

Six days passed, and other than the normal missions, clashing against Xol’s forces that were finally on the back foot, destroying trade routes to force him or his other gate mages to transport things, and finding any secret bases or factories, things were normal.

She sat on a hill with Sepul, watching a forest engulfed in flames, Xol’s soldiers unable to escape the blaze unless they took the path that would bring them right to the pair.

“Harlan’s firebombs are stronger than last time.”

“He said he added powdered firesteel. They turn into burning dust that settles on surfaces and people. They can go minutes before they even start to cool.”

“That’s pretty good.”

“Something on your mind?”

“I’ve been wondering for a while. Why doesn't Xol use Others? He used them before he stole Fomoria’s soul, and he knows enough that he absolutely should be able to make more of them now. So why not?“

“I can’t use Others, Marigold can’t either. I doubt you could.”

“Why not?”

“It’s about mindset. Fomoria had no problem at all dying for others. Marigold is as selfless as someone can be without getting to that point, because deep down she believes that no amount of lives are worth the loss of herself and the lives she would save in the future. At least, that is why I believe that she can’t use them.”

“And you?”

“My ego is too great. I will be the highest power that there is, and I can’t accept another person just like me. It would just be a matter of time before one of us develops something to get the edge over the other and we kill one another to prove we are better than the other.

Maybe something changed about Xol, maybe he’s guilty over what he did and if he had an Other it would interfere with his plans.

Maybe he thinks too highly of himself now and he can’t risk that an Other would betray and replace him.

But my personal theory is that Fomoria won’t let him.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Fomoria didn’t turn into Xol when they changed souls, it clearly wasn’t a perfect swap.

If there was even the smallest grain of Fomoria still left inside of Xol, any Other he tries to make would undermine and eventually kill him. Before he returned, I was under the impression that this was already happening and that’s why he doesn’t seem to be as strong as he once was.

Yes, Xol did lose his nearly limitless supply of mana, but Fomoria had gained the ability to breathe in mana more like a magical creature or plant than a person, giving him a regeneration rate far above normal people. But I’ve clashed with Xol before, I know how strong he was, and something is holding him back, something that isn’t just Fomoria’s soul being weaker.”

“That makes sense. Or Xol hasn’t been able to make more Others for a long time already. I mean, other than Kleon and Dun’Kel, when was the last time he used one?”

“Another reasonable theory. Dun’Kel is… I would like to say around 1,200 years old. Kleon is far, far older, somewhere in the range of 12,000. It can be hard to know when it is Xol or someone else, all Liches look the same to me and before he and Marigold got together, he took on many names and appearances.”

“Fomoria told me that Xol invented the aura techniques of the Sects, and he gave guns to the original settlers of The United Territories.”

“That likely doesn’t even scratch the surface of his influence. Now I can’t even look at anything in history inside of The Veil or out without wondering if he had his hand in it. How much of my grandsons lives has been him. Did Harlan split into two because of Xol? Or was that just the uncontrollable power of the paradox left by Nemain? Did he and Nemain work together before? Was her capture part of his plan?”

Sepul’s gaze hardened and any joy from their theorizing was gone.

“Did he slaughter my family to set in motion the events leading to his birth?

The soldiers are starting to leave the forest. Has the prison been readied?”

“Of course. Let’s just hope our target didn’t die in that fire.”

It took slightly longer to find the leader than they expected as a result of his face sustaining disfiguring burns from firesteel powder, but they got their target and killed the rest.

Everything was going fine as they gathered information using a truth potion, but then a soldier rushed into the room with an urgent report.

“Can’t you see that we’re busy?”

“You need to see this.”

She rolled her eyes, thinking the young Dague was just overzealous after being asked to deliver a letter.

But she wordlessly read it, then handed it to Sepul, who did the same.

Both of them shared a look of stunned silence.

“You are certain of this? That this report is factual?”

The soldier saluted with his hand over his mark.

“They say that they saw it clearly with their own eyes. There was no mistaking it.”

“That’s impossible. Don’t say a word of this to anyone without a second report confirming it.”

The soldier ran away as fast as he could.

At most, Mercedes, Marigold, and Joan knew about it.

There was simply too many ways that this could be taken; few were good.

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

A tragedy.

There was no other way for Xol to explain it. He didn’t even want to believe that this was caused by someone, this must’ve been a natural eruption.

It wasn’t that it wasn’t a blow against him, there were factories and labs, but the biggest resource he had were people loyal to him.

For their safety, he brought them together, he brought their families.

As he searched the miles of glass and cooling volcanic rock, he found signs that this was no natural disaster.

The bombs left clearly unnatural craters surrounding what was the volcano.

His thoughts jumped to Jenny, she must’ve deployed missiles, burrowers perhaps, that caused an artificial eruption, then used magical missiles whose blast radius was far greater because of the pure mana in the environment.

350,000 people, gone in the blink of an eye.

He would avenge them, he had to.