Healing class.

They were back to the higher stress rapid first aid tests.

Though this time it was a surprise, the students suddenly had the blocks of slime on their desks and were told they had 5 seconds to stop them from dying.

In such a short time nobody was able to identify which injury was killing it and they all failed, but that was to be expected.

This was repeated while they were doing the other rapid first aid tests with a second patient being brought over and the students needed to choose which one should be treated first.

The class has been learning ahead of schedule so Hellon decided they didn’t need as much of the repetition parts and they could move to the hard calls section as she called it.

After it was done Harlan’s hands were shaking.

He knew that they were just slabs of flesh, they didn’t even have a mind, but hearing Hellon yell out ages and names made his mind react as if they were really people.

His over empathizing with people was not just magical and when he worked he easily lost himself in what he was doing.

Ximena suffered worse than he did.

Her fists were clenched so hard that her knuckles went white and her teeth were chattering.

Adina was the one who had done the best out of the three of them in the end, she didn’t connect as easily as Harlan, while she also didn’t have the general fearfulness of Ximena.

She leaned back in her seat and just let out a sigh of relief.

“Ximena, you did good.”

“No, I didn’t, I was so close, I just kept panicking.”

Hellon came over to her.

“You’ll get used to it. You are failing now so that you can actually save a life when you need to, and sometimes you might need to make the call. Do I risk both people dying by trying to save them in order? Or do I just let one of them go? I can’t tell you how to be a healer, but you cannot delude yourself into believing that you won’t ever encounter this. That goes for all of you, I can see your mocking eyes, but she still saved more than at least half of you. Just because you can maintain a calm does not mean you are a great healer, just as losing your cool doesn’t make you a bad one, just one that needs to do better. Class is dismissed. Harlan, stay behind.”

Harlan had yelled at her during the class and everyone could tell he was tense the entire time.

Things moved fast enough to blur his distracted mind and he overreacted.

At least that is why everyone else thought she wanted to talk to him.

Instead it was something far more mundane.

She pulled a stack of papers from her desk and handed them to Harlan.

“I got that package back from your maid, I had somebody look at her, now you need to make the choice. Just use your signet ring here to pay-”

He was a fast reader, it was mostly just a legalese way of saying no refunds, so he didn’t bother with her whole speech.

He moved the little disk of magical wax with his telekinesis and it melted on with a touch of his ring.

“You could’ve waited for me to finish.”

“You just need my coin to pay for the procedure. That is all I need to know, at least, I hope you’ve explained everything to her well enough that that is all I need to know.”

“Yes, she is fully aware of the risks and the chance that the magic doesn’t actually heal her. There is supposed to be a spell for sterilizing people in a way that is easily fixed with the counter spell. I can’t say if it was malice or not, but that orphanage director had the doctors use something else and I cannot guarantee that it can be reversed very easily, this might be a coin pit that you just keep tossing gold into.”

“So be it. I will also be paying a visit to that man. I want to bury him up to his neck and let the vultures pluck out his eyes.”

“I do hope you mean that metaphorically.”

“Of course. If I have a legal case then that is what I mean.”

There was a little bit of ambiguity on whether or not that meant he would kill the man if he didn’t have a legal case, but she let it go.

A healer needed a steady hand and a strong heart, but they did not need to be good people, as Sepul so clearly demonstrated.

Warmagic went as one might expect, though Harlan had started adding his own personal flair to spells.

A lightning bolt that made a shower of sparks on hit wasn’t actually any stronger, but it was fun.

The same could be said about a fireball that was green or purple instead of orange.

War didn’t need to be boring after all.

He didn’t have a magical creatures class today so he had more or less 3 hours to do nothing if he so wanted.

He walked around in areas that he knew he would be seen.

He was waiting for somebody after all.

Finally, she arrived.

“Lady Dyad.”

“Harlan. Why don’t we have a private conversation?”

“I will entertain a public conversation or soul speak.”

She grabbed his hand like she was going to shake it and Harlan stepped back a small amount to keep her at arm's length.

“I thought that you were going to try to convince me? Didn’t you want to trust me as a friend?”

“Did you intentionally use how I feel towards my friends to manipulate me? Are you still trying to do that?”

She could feel how hurt he was as he said it, he did not try to hide his emotions from her.

“I have done nothing wrong.”

“You didn’t deny it.”

“I cannot trust you, the others in my family agree. It would be best if you left him be, or else.”

“Or, else, what?”

He did not tighten his grasp, he did not react outwardly, but she could tell that he did not like being threatened and she was pulling on the tail of a sleeping Wyvern.

“Everyone has something to hide, there is always a skeleton in a closet. My siblings are good at digging them up.”

“My skeletons are not just mine, they should be careful they don’t stumble upon their own graves trying to dig mine.”

Harlan let go of her hand and left.

He sat in his room with the door cracked to tell others they could come to him to ask for his help with anything.

Mostly he looked over peoples notes and gave advice, he had a reputation as having very safe spells and while he wouldn’t give them away in their complete form, he would let people get just enough to figure it out if they were seriously trying to learn things.

He thought about how he mirrored the method used by The Mother without realizing it.

Knowledge was power, power was corruption, but wisdom could hopefully temper it.

He couldn’t remember which book he read that in, but he liked it.

He had read dozens of books since he and Yara started raiding the library and trading books back and forth.

Though he didn’t just read books, sometimes he would receive military reports.

These were things sent out to many mages to ask their opinion so they might replicate whatever was in the reports more quickly.

He had read about guns, the new weapon of the frontier, unknown people were giving them out to revolutionary elements and they were being reverse engineered by the kingdom.

He even had the chance to look at one once when it was brought to John who happened to be at Sepul’s home that morning.

Harlan knew exactly who made it.

Had he handed Dearil nothing at all, would it have made such a big change?

Harlan started reading reports of casualties, the numbers were published every week so people could watch out for their loved ones' names, all he needed to do was put in a request to have one sent his way.

It wasn’t just to punish himself, he just wanted to always remember that some of these deaths, perhaps every single one marked as death by gun, was in some way his fault, and it could never happen again.

Perhaps the best thing that had happened in the last month was that the king refused Harlan’s offer for stronger soul magic.

The casualties would surely be lower, but it just meant that the other side would be the ones dying more often, it wasn’t a solution, it would just be shifting to less visible deaths.

He was taken out of his thoughts by another knock on the door, not many people today.

The one who walked through the door was a shock however.

“Selen, I don’t see Wulrun with you.”

“I didn’t bring him this time. I think we should have a private chat.”

“Very well.”

Harlan telekinetically shut the door.

“I am surprised, don’t you have classes to teach?”

“No, I take care of soul magic and melee combat, both before lunch. Mostly I handle administrative work actually.”

“Oh, that is rather… mundane.”

“Yes, but, enough beating around the bush. Would you be willing to make a deal for the spells and methods used for creating those communicators? Currently we need to go through the official channels, every one of them, no matter shape or size, is going through the kingdom. Private mages haven’t cracked them yet.

I am just here to see if you are willing to set up a date where we can discuss this in the future.”

“Why?”

“Simply put, we, as false undead, do not trust humans beyond the ones we personally know. We cannot know if those communicators have a way to track what is said and by who, that is a very dangerous thing for us. The top leaders of The Couriers are private people and they would like amulets, but they refuse to buy them from the kingdom.”

“If you tell me how many I need to make, I could make them. But… I am not so sure about how much I’ve already shared with people.”

Shame, fear, sadness, anger.

Harlan felt these from her and he didn’t like the possible answers to why some of it was directed at herself.

Perhaps they wanted them because they knew something so they sent her knowing Harlan was fond of her?

Perhaps they just wanted to save the coin that would be spent on the communicators?

Perhaps they were planning something that they needed absolute security on, something terrible?

Harlan tried to decipher all of what she was feeling and find a logical reason that didn’t involve them having her do something she didn’t want to, he was no mind reader after all.

Yet he found no reasons that made sense to him.

She was never the type to be upset over somebody else knowing more than she did, so that shame and anger didn’t come from a sense of pride.

Fear, was it over how he would react? Or that their plans would fail? Maybe the fear was that Harlan would find out something they didn’t want him to know.

Sadness, this he was sure was fully her’s and it tied together with the rest.

He believed that she was sad over having to trick Harlan in some way, or, she was sad that she could not convince her superiors that Harlan didn’t need to be tricked.

She could see that he was deep in thought and this only heighted her emotions.

Yet she did not let a single one show on the outside.

“Why have you really come here?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t believe you want to be here, and I don’t believe you have come to me in good faith.”

He shifted into a more formal tone, this did not go unnoticed by her.

“Why do you think I am here then?”

“Simply put, I, as a mage who has been used in the past, do not trust others beyond the people who I personally know. You are not here of your own will and I do not trust the people who sent you here.”

Thoughts ran through her head about how to handle the situation now.

Her emotions ran higher, the direction of them did not change.

She was sad at, or for, Harlan, angry at somebody else, and afraid of them as well, while being ashamed of herself.

“I am sorry. I will return once I report to my superiors and the terms of our dealings with you are ready to be negotiated properly.”

“Thank you. And, make sure it is clear, I don’t mind helping, but-”

He noticed how much anger was in his voice.

Harlan took a breath and rethought what words to use, aggressive language was always something he had trouble not defaulting to.

He really didn’t want to be on bad terms with The Couriers, but he did not want them to think they could cross certain lines he had while they worked together.

“But, I have lines that I do not want to have crossed, using you against me like this is a line I do not want crossed again. They don’t need to tell me everything, but they need to be honest with what they are telling me or I will just refuse to work with them anymore. I don’t want that to happen, I want us to work together for a better future where Vampires and Werewolves and Ghouls and everyone else under your banner can walk in the sun without being worried about accusations of being monsters.”

“I will make sure things are clear and that we can hopefully remain on good terms with one another despite this misstep on our part.”

“No, on their part. I cannot believe you wanted to play the part you were given.”

She got up from her seat and gave Harlan a small bow before leaving the room.

Dinner was more mundanity, a lot of catching Claude up on what had happened that he didn’t know about and trying to make him not feel like an outsider for having left the group for months.

“So anyway, yes, I did have a chat with the king after the gala, but it was nothing too important.

We just hammered out more details regarding the communicators both for here and the Reinoans.”

He wondered how long it would take before somebody knew about him having another chat, not anything that was by itself harmful as a rumor, but he could get out in front of it hopefully.

“Really? I can barely wrap my head around them not being the enemy anymore. I’ve never liked them, but-”

He was about to apologize to Adina but she raised her hand to stop him, she understood what he meant.

“If peace is a real option, then I want to help with that. So I hope my kindness will temper their zeal. Fragile Peace seems to genuinely want this to work, so I will help them. A thousand years of war made it just a thing happening in the world instead of a serious matter unless you were involved with it.

Maybe if I was born just 50 miles farther west, where I could see the effects of the war more clearly, I would’ve grown up hating them.”

“What do you think about her? At the gala I barely saw the grand saint, I don’t think talking to her was a good idea either, it would be like talking to the king.”

Harlan knew that people were looking forward to his answer, either he said something that pissed off the Reinoans, or Ragnites.

“I think she seemed like a mature 13 year old girl. I didn’t speak with her very long and my talk was mostly business.”

He went with a rather non confrontational answer that satisfied nobody.

Harlan wanted to get a better impression of her before he decided anything.

The others at the table seemed to understand that Harlan would rather move away from the topic so they spoke of nothing of any importance until the meal was finished.

Everyone split up again, Harlan would be sitting in his room reading a book.

He would finally be looking into imbibing.