Autumn had taken it the best of any of them, she had to.

She came out as a social butterfly, leaving behind most of her combat and magical training,

In part because she was expecting twins finally, Count Redwall had asked them to hold off on children until he could make a bloodline. Which took longer than he expected, but finally he made a stable bloodline. The twins part was unexpected but no one had an issue with it, when they were born they would have, in theory at least, a high tolerance to heat and fire, with a single fire alignment.

The bloodline was set in Autumn, Jaramis didn’t have a fire alignment and trying to add the bloodline to someone incompatible was a recipe for disaster, removing the light from Autumn was much safer.

Autumn was scared of the prospect of her soul being changed and it being passed down to her children, but things went off without a hitch, other than the deeply unsettling feeling she had for about a week after it happened while it was still binding.

She had gotten into the habit of setting the ends of her now red hair on fire in many colors since it wouldn’t burn anymore.

It was a great party trick to draw in influential but easily wooed people.

She had been going from party to party and keeping up on the news whenever she wasn’t spending her time with Jaramis, she tried to visit her family at least once a month.

She took the carriage to her family home, giddy to tell them that she was pregnant. And thinking if she should wait until Amber is back for vacation or if she should send a letter.

She didn’t expect to see a girl there Amber’s age chatting with Ava.

“Did you find a replacement for Amber already?” Zella confidently walked up to her with her hand out.

“You look a little different than he showed me, but you must be Autumn?”

“Than who showed you?”

“Harlan.” confusion was clearly knit on her face, she looked at her sister for an explanation. Ava answered.

“She was Harlan’s girlfriend wherever he is.” Zella went red in the face and Ava was rolling around in laughter.

Autumn found it much less funny. She narrowed her eyes at Ava, thinking it was a joke in poor taste.

“Explain, now.”

“She’s telling the truth, I mean about me knowing Harlan… not the um… other part.”

“Prove it.”

Zella grabbed her hand and initiated a soul link, flashing memories of Harlan at her.

Autumn reacted like everyone else had, tears and hugging, her bodyguards took a short while to be convinced that nothing was wrong.

Though in her mind she was trying to find out what the scheme was, as it turns out trying to involve herself in politics for the last 2 years had a negative effect on how she viewed people, especially those who didn’t ask for anything.

She had met very few people she could call genuine friends.

Until dinner came and the rest of the family that was still there could all talk at once, Autumn sat in the main room and subtly interrogated Zella about what all happened, sometimes asking trick questions to get her to slip up and reveal she was some kind of agent out to get them.

This didn’t work and she eventually decided that it was fine, and that he really was alright and had made friends. She had accepted the idea some time ago, she knew enough about the kingdom that they wouldn’t needlessly harm him if they could instead exploit him for all he was worth. Many noble houses were even born from this process.

Autumn had to leave before it got too late, she barely got away from Aida, so excited over being a grandmother that she was crying tears of joy since she had been told.

Eventually more months passed, she had heard through the grapevine that the royal family was holding a trial for a young man, 10 years of age. She knew, knew that is was Harlan, that he would probably be coming home soon, there was no reason they would just kill him. She read a lot of reports of how the army was using their new soul enchanted weapons, the official term used by the kingdom.

She knew who was behind it.

She almost wanted to tell the rest of her family, but she could’ve been wrong, but things could’ve gone poorly, she could be getting a letter that he had passed away instead of him being released.

Still, she prepared, if he came home she was going to be ready, she dropped ideas in the heads of other nobles about the boy who invented their new weapon manufacturing method, the boy who was helping to push back the frontier farther and farther each day, who through his effort the frontline against the theocracy was safer every day.

She didn’t know how much it could help, but she knew the daughter of a count who talked with the daughter of a baron who was betrothed to the son of a duke.

Someone along the way must’ve heard something, and they might plant the idea in someone involved in the trial.

And that was enough, she refused to be hopeless, instead looking forward to the future, to meeting him again, to having him meet her own children, to seeing how happy the rest would be when he finally came back.