Harlan returned home just before noon. Dahlia was sitting outside, watching Ibery stretch wings and prepared to take a shot if she tried to run.
“Ready for our chat?”
“Yeah, I guess now is as good a time as any.”
“You should tell Ibery to go inside where she can be watched. I wouldn’t want her trying to flee, her people are so fragile.”
“No. I will not. She is free to move as she wants, if she makes a run to the border then you can capture her. Until then she is a guest. You will not threaten her, you will not find excuses to argue with her, and you will respect her privacy.”
“Very well.”
Harlan stopped only to tell Sara to watch out for couriers since he was expecting a letter from them in the near future and for Isha to bring down tea and finger foods.
Then it was down to the bunker and to a private room on the first floor.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“First order of business is the man who stayed with you for some time many months back. I have been searching for some time, but we have been stonewalled by the confederacy. Who do you believe him to be?”
“He said he was a merchant and inventor from the confederacy. We traded knowledge for knowledge. He had seen my toys through a traveler who brought one to him and thought it was an interesting object. Unfortunately he wasn’t a mage so I couldn’t teach him, but he was kind enough to give me designs in exchange for some knowledge on the process of making soul enchanted, sorry, soulsmithed toys. I kept a lot of secrets on the matter but he should be able to hand that information to someone with the right skills and make crude copies of what I can. His name was Darren, no last name.”
“Really? Is that so? Do you have any theory on why the confederacy refuses our requests for more information about him then?”
“I only knew him for the time he was here and from the letter he sent asking if he could come. I can’t even be sure that was his name. But he didn’t seem dangerous so I didn’t pry into him, not that I had the resources at the time to do such a thing.”
Dahlia was uncomfortable with the story. There wasn’t anything that stuck out as clearly wrong to her, but people didn’t hide a simple merchant for no reason, though the idea of the Kalak just wanting to spite the kingdom wasn’t off the table.
The story was helped by Rosewell’s treatment of Harlan, fudged reports on his psychological profile mixed with Cynthia teaching him how to get a rise out of people led to a false assumption that Harlan was still relatively immature and thus easier to fool.
“Thank you, I will look into this information. Next, it is about the letter you sent to Rosewell. She will reply that she cannot offer any information about the person you asked about but she wanted me to tell you that Relly is doing just fine, and that she will be released soon.”
Harlan let out a sigh of relief. Then he realized that Dahlia had read the letter he sent.
“Thank you, does she know when soon is?”
“I cannot say, she only let me say what I told you. Next I need to ask you about Breken, and his relation to your sister, Ava. How well do you know him?”
“Well enough I suppose. He taught me survival skills and how to use a sword properly, he has, as far as I know, treated Ava well. She seems to like him.”
“Are you aware of his background?”
“He said he was a mercenary. But I don’t think he liked talking about his past very much.”
“He was sighted entering the theocracy through a hidden passage near the river which separates them from us. Our consensus is that unless he made the tunnel, he had no reasonable way to know it was already there. But what is troubling is that he did not ever mention a tunnel leading into the theocracies lands, such information would’ve been quite useful for the war effort and we are investigating the possibility that he may be a traitor.”
“Traitor for which side?”
“That is part of the answers we seek. We have already spoken to Ava and she had no information on the subject.”
Harlan’s eyes flickered with monochrome flames for a moment before he took a deep breath.
“Do you have any other questions?”
“There is one more thing that I am supposed to help you with.”
“Fine.”
It was impossible for Dahlia to not notice his anger.
“Mind your tone, this is important even if you don’t agree. You are just as much of a mystery for many people as any other stranger, you have yet to attend a single proper noble function. Most don’t even know where you live to send an invite which you would surely ignore anyway. You sit here in the woods and create things, people talk, you don’t. I hope that your introduction to noble society at the end of the month goes well, but you must control yourself in a manner befitting a noble. Polite society demands that you pretend at normalcy.”
“And what if I decide that I don’t like the manners of other nobles? Who gossip behind my back and won’t even seek me out, I am not hiding out in the woods. I am sitting in my home and doing exactly the work the kingdom drilled into me for 3 years. And what do you know about nobles other than how to creep around their homes without notice?”
Dahlia slapped him. Harlan knew it was more of a sign of displeasure, there was no real strength behind it.
“You should understand very well, since I will not repeat this. Rosewell sent me specifically because I can empathize with you and your antisocial behavior. Did you ever think of the names each member of the royal family has? Each is named for a plant, the king named for a tree.”
Harlan and Balor went in circles thinking of what she was really saying, then Lugh gave them the answer.
“Dahlia is a flower.”
“So then?”
“Yes, bastard daughter of the royal family.” She curtsied.
“I was not allowed a normal life because of my blood. I was forced into a position that I didn’t want under implied threats of death. Yet what life would I have without this work? I would be the daughter of a farmer or a merchant? Maybe I would’ve been hungry my entire life and known nothing of magic? Maybe I would’ve died as the theocracies troops pushed beyond the border for a quick rape and pillage operation? Yes, we both were removed from our families. Yes we were forced to learn things. But I got out of it pretty well, all things considered. You did too. Quit your whining and accept that.”
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“So this is what they want me to be? A slave who loves their master?”
“Pretend, that is the best way for now. We cannot help her.”
“I will think on this.”
Harlan led her out of the bunker but he remained inside.
He went down to the deepest level, then went farther down to a room he dug out after the rest of the building was done. He had once tried contacting the mother in the darkness inside of the bunker itself, but the wards did not like that in the slightest.
He sat on the floor and was ready to contact her, then got up and paced around, sat back down, and repeated this for 10 minutes.
“Harlan, calm down. There isn’t any issues, I don’t believe she will hold a grudge. Just sit down and talk with her, it will be fine.”
“Right… Right, yeah.”
He let his mind go black and relaxed himself.
“My child, I had hoped you would come here with a mind full of joys. But here you sit, stewing in your anger. You are right to feel this, but you shouldn’t poison your mind with it. Please, sit and take a breath. I shall slow the flow of time.”
Harlan sat for a time, he had no idea if minutes or days had passed, but he felt like he found his center again.
“Thank you. I… I have questions I think I need answers to, and questions others need answers to.”
“Yes. and I can give you some of what is known. there is a price for this, but I believe you shall pay it.”
“What cost?”
“I will not ask it of you now, but I shall in the future. Should you wish that time you may renege on our deal without worry should that be your path. Now. Let us speak of your worries, of your fears. Of what you are, the words for others shall only come after the words for my child.”
“Thank you, I… I want to know, do I have a family out there? Is my mother gone?”
“I refused to answer this once before. But the time for truths is now. You are the result of twisted letters and laws, the breaking of the spirit of agreements made long before your birth. Generations were spent… breeding. The result is a person with some of the abilities of the Fomorians and yet able to leave their lands. Your mother was one of many who was taken against her will for this purpose. When the time came, and I saw your birth, I knew that there was nothing that I could do for the people who bound themselves to me. Yet the pact was not broken, not really. A wormy way to avoid my wrath, and I wish you to be my wrath. I wish you to be my kinslayer, to wipe them from this world like a cleansing flame. I saw what would happen in a time which you were raised as their first, you would usher in an age of blood, then there would be flames, and a new age would begin once more.“
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“Do you truly wish to know? To have any doubt removed?”
Harlan hesitated, the slow minutes passed with him in thought.
“I do. I want to know.”
“Then this truth I will say. She is dead, killed by shades after leaving you in the woods. I drove the shades to her so that they might lose you.”
Many thoughts went through his head, but he had a question he needed answered.
“Why did she take me away with her? Why not just run? Why did you do that to her.”
“Despite what you were made for, despite how you were made, despite what you represent. She could not leave her son. I convinced her to leave, I set up the escape despite knowing how it would likely end. I have foreseen this conversation, and I may only hope that this is a time in which you grow instead of consume yourself. She willingly gave her life to protect you, all I did was make sure she did not give her life without reason.”
“Have we had this conversation before? Have you been flipped back time when things don’t go your way.”
“I may see thousands of paths, but even I cannot reverse the flow of time. Nor can Aarde, nor any gods greater than them. Time is a god himself, and I have seen him unmake people, to completely remove them from time as if they never existed. It is a troubling experience to see history be rewritten in front of your eyes, to watch possibility collapse and then reform.”
Harlan decided the conversation had shifted beyond his understanding.
“I… I can’t even think about all of that. I am just going to ask about Aine, do you know the questions I am going to ask?”
“Yes, in order. I can contact Aine, though only on a full moon, her power wanes with the phases of the moon. The creation of their peoples is no different than the creation of the other pact species, after the godslaying, people were offered power, though for them it was an apology from Aarde to Aine. Any who hold a pact gives up some of their energy whenever they cast anything, this will help Aine recover more quickly. To break a pact you would need to have Aine and the pact breaker speak with one another and agree to break it without consequence. Your method… It could work, but I have not read her pacts. So I cannot say that it would be without cost. For them to speak with Aine themselves would incur a cost. A large group casting of a mind speaking spell that could breach Aarde’s mana sphere and into Aine’s. Though such a spell shouldn’t exist due to the restraints placed during the start of the second age. The Fae like to break them however, and there is a method without their help, though it is somewhat odd.”
“Wait. you mean like from Relly?”
“Yes, she is part of this puzzle. But the rest I must leave to you, I won’t give you all the answers. But if you can find the man of the first age who sits on a silent throne, he will answer much more than I can. For a cost. I believe that I have done enough for you already, so I shall end this now. Perhaps when we next speak I shall spill more secrets. But until that time comes, live a life. Do not cower from protecting what is yours in the ways which you can.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Harlan woke up. Ava was standing near Lugh and Balor, talking about something. Then she turned her head to him.
“How did you get in here?”
“Your younger maid is a pushover, I just had to make a few arguments. I wanted to see what you were doing.”
“I will have to talk to her about that then. No one is supposed to come down here unless I specifically take them down here or there is a threat to their lives.”
“Don’t be hard on her, I argued in favor of Ava coming here.” Balor said.
“So anyway, what were you doing? You were covered in dark mana and just sitting for a few hours?”
Harlan wasn’t sure how to answer. He wanted to just say the truth, after a time he couldn’t really think of an argument for why he shouldn’t.
“Talking to a goddess.”
“Fine, don’t tell me.”
She walked back upstairs after that.
“That was likely the best result. The existence of the actual gods can be a dangerous piece of knowledge if used improperly.”
Harlan decided to find out what time it was and eat something. He didn’t really have any super necessary work to do. So spending time with his family was a good enough way to spend his time.
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Every talk with him tangled and untangled a great deal of knots, yet the cause of them still eluded her.