“Alright, so think of casting the spell you know, hold that in your mind, think it into the sword.”

Ava did as asked, but it was another dud.

“Don’t worry. I’ll clear it. You can do it eventually. No worries.”

Harlan grabbed hold of the blade and focused on where the soul was still changing, then he simply cut out that chunk, when it returned to pure energy it simply went back into the soul.

Seeing how energy was maintained in body parts before fading and trying to return to the soul was something Harlan didn’t realize the usefulness of until rather recently, fueled by his miserly attitude he hated how much was being wasted as Ava filled multiple cores with what amounted to junk spells that were more dangerous to the user than the enemy. He experimented through the night to salvage them.

The first dozen gems burst much like an animal whose soul was manhandled in such a way, but after Harlan stopped the bleeding he kept at it until he figured out how to clear a soul of its knowledge.

He refused to share the information with the kingdom and only taught Ava while in the bunker to try and avoid Dahlia learning about it and telling them.

Harlan placed his hand on Ava and watched exactly what she was doing. The runes formed in her soul, or her mind. Harlan was still fuzzy on if there actually was a real difference, but he ignored that while he watched her.

She grabbed hold of the nearly cleared blade and pushed the runes into it, forcing her thoughts onto it.

“Oh, I see what you are doing wrong. Don’t force them onto the blade, I’ve tried enough offensive soul magic that I know the natural defenses will try and go against that. Just think about it, the blank soul is drawn to learn things, so it will tap into your mind and suck up whatever you are putting out.”

Since he still had a hand on her shoulder he could feel that she was briefly afraid when he mentioned the soul magic.

But he kept it to himself, he knew he was scary.

“Alright, one more try. Then I’m going to bed.”

“Really? It’s only…” Harlan cast a timekeeping spell.

“Oh, it is midnight. I’m sure you can do it this time. Just remember, this is a scalpel situation, not a hammer one.”

She snorted at her younger brother trying to sound wise, but she still listened to him.

Finally it was done.

She made a blade that could produce and move a fog.

“You did it! Want to test it out?”

She seemed conflicted for only a moment.

“Of course.”

She practically danced around the room, leaving a trail of fog behind her all the while.

Harlan told her once 10 minutes had passed.

“Thank you thank you thank you. Now I can make some improvements on that armor you gave me.”

“Be careful with that. You should check the soul inside an item before and after every spell or other bit of knowledge you add to it. I’ve tested the durability of gems by filling them to bursting, you don’t want to fill them too full.”

Harlan was glad he was here in the woods instead of at the mansion at the time, his family would never leave him alone if they heard he had to get his arm regrown.

“I am not you, I can be careful. But I will double check whenever I make a change, you can teach me that clearing things and I can change out the spells as much as I want then. It will be perfect.”

“You can also barely do soul searching with my spell. You are more likely to blow up a core than clear it, you don’t even know how to map out the functions of a soul yet. I can’t teach you everything right now anyway. Maybe you should go to the academy next year.”

“Nope. I have some tricks but I don’t want to be a mage, I’ll waste too much time doing that and I’ll never be a real swordmaster.”

“Well, give it more thought. You can do anything you set your mind on, and I can help with that.”

She ruffled his hair and walked upstairs.

Harlan followed behind. When the door to the house opened he wasn’t happy to see Dahlia waiting for him.

“Good, now that you are done, we need to talk.”

“Of course. Close the door on the way down.”

Harlan went to the workshop instead of the privacy room. Dahlia followed close behind, slightly confused.

“We can talk here. I want to do some things while I have time, time I didn’t expect to spend with you interrogating me.”

She scoffed.

“I am going to ask some questions, that is all. No need to make it sinister.”

“Alright then. Ask away.”

“Are you aware that Breken is not his real name? And that he is from the theocracy?”

Harlan was now annoyed, Ava seemed upset already, her relationship with him was as master and student but she thought she knew him pretty well.

“Fine, let’s go to the privacy room.”

Harlan started a kettle of water before sitting down.

“No, I did not know that. What is his name then? Did you find him? Is he alive?”

Dahlia glared at him.

“You spend so much time upset over people not giving you the benefit of the doubt but you accuse us of murder at the drop of a hat. No, he is not dead. Yes we found him. His name is, or according to him, was, Ezekiel.”

“I am sorry for saying that. It was very rude. What is his current status, and what is being done to anyone who knows who he was? I know he was a mercenary, surely someone knew.”

“Currently he is imprisoned, normally someone of his skill level would be executed because of the risk of escape, but he turned himself in when he returned from the theocracy and has fully cooperated with our investigation. Nothing is to be done with those who knew who he is until we are sure who he is and if he is going to face punishment at all. He returned to the theocracy, according to him at least, so he could try and convince his still living brother to leave, turn traitor before the army crushed the theocracy. Instead there was a fight, and he killed his brother before fleeing back to us. All we can confirm is that yes a fairly high ranking soldier was killed in the theocracy. But their records are not open to us and we do not have blood to confirm relation.”

Harlan went through a gambit of emotions, angry he was in prison, happy he was probably not a traitor and even if Ava knew it might not be a problem, deep sadness that he killed his own brother, self doubt when he realized that he would be doing such a thing to his own family if he wiped out the Fomorians.

And Dahlia read him like an open book.

“From your reaction I am going to report that you really didn’t know anything. But seeing what you look like when you are honest. Why did you look different when I asked about the merchant from the confederacy?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Harlan, I would rather not call in a guilt seeker to question you. Who was that you were talking to?”

“I can’t say. I didn’t mention it before, but they weren’t human and they weren’t Fomorian.”

Harlan hoped that a vague statement followed by 3 truths would throw her off.

“We will talk about this again some day, I am quite sure of that.”

Harlan drank his tea and thought of what he could now do to pass the time.

He wished he had talked with Sindry before they left, he wished Ibery had talked to him, he didn’t want to wake up anyone else to talk with.

So he started working, he brought handfuls of mana gems from his workshop outside and started filling them. It was on his list of things he wanted to bring with him to the academy. He had no idea if they had mimic trees he could fill gems with or even if they knew about the process of working with cores.

He knew the kingdom gave them information but had no idea how much.

He also wanted to drop some of them off with Brig, so long as he could set them in an item he could have another mage actually put the spells inside while Harlan was away.

Maybe it was best to simply refer him to Redwall?

A problem to put on the backburner for now. He had a lot of time left until the sun was up, and he wanted to visit the mansion in the morning anyway. It was getting too close to the end of his time here but he had barely even interacted with Amber or Zella. Mostly just when he had a spare moment or it was meal time.

It was maybe another 30 minutes before he expected people to get up, he didn’t feel like it was enough time to do very much but he wanted to do something.

So he decided to look at the golems Dahlia brought with her.

The issue was as soon as he tried to touch him his sixth sense told him it was a very bad idea. So he just looked, he hadn’t thought much of it. But they didn’t carry swords. Just a series of rods, they were bright to his mana sense, but not in the same way as enchanted items were. Closer to how people looked to mana sense.

Soulsmithed then at least, but with what? Why not a sword instead?

He inched closer and closer, waiting for that buzzing sensation to tell him that now was the time to step back.

He repeated this many times, it seems they couldn’t learn when someone was testing them like he was. He was pretty sure that at least they were actually just golems and not real souls put into metal bodies.

Isha came inside followed by Sara this time.

They headed to the kitchen immediately to start cooking.

Harlan silently sat down in a chair near them.

“How is Reino?”

Both of them jumped a little and Sara got a mean look on her face.

Isha answered him.

“I don’t really know, I was very young when we came over. We already talked about this a lot, you could try and talk with my mother about it again.”

She was terrified of him and would answer everything as if her life was at stake.

He felt uncomfortable around her, and her him.

“I don’t think I will. You know how she is.”

“If you avoid her you will never get her used to you. I was the same way and look at me now, I can speak with you just fine. No more shaking at all.”

“What about your father? Is he around somewhere? Do you know anyone else from Reino who I could talk with?”

Harlan could see the dark look on her face when he mentioned her father.

“No, he was killed some time ago. And I don’t know anyone else.”

“What about Breken?”

“What would he know?” She was genuinely confused, Harlan felt bad about testing her reactions to some information.

“Sorry about that. I was gauging your reactions.”

Harlan could see a flicker of anger behind her eyes. He hadn’t ever seen her actually angry before.

“I am really sorry but I can’t talk about it. When I can talk about it, I will apologize properly.”

She still didn’t seem happy but she wasn’t going to voice it.

Harlan fled to check his carriage and golems.