Witcher Warrior Scholar Spy

“And so we have the Witcher,

Whose magic burns through all creation.”

She stood a mere foot from the edge of the cliff. The wind whipped around her, her onyx braid nearly unraveling with its force. Below, the rough waters beckoned her. They called her name. They craved her demise. It was as if a siren song was luring her closer, begging her body to meet the sharp rocks jutting out over the breaking waves. She stared out past the watery horizon, her blush-pink eyes taking in the violence of the ocean and allowing the temptation to seep into her mind.

She wanted to jump, to fall into a darkness so deep there was no coming back. It was a dream better left unsaid.

And then she took a step back, away from the flimsy barrier that separated her from the sea. Even as it called to her again, she shut it down. She pushed back against the call, a fierce look taking residence on her face. Because beyond the pastel sky, across the rough waters, a distance too great to cross away—that was where a vengeance yet taken lies.

Olea, a memory of a voice filled her head. You’re better off dead.

A wicked grin crossed her face, her eyes lighting up with the power of her Wells. Reaching out her palm, an indigo flame appeared. The fire of Agnes burned bright, consuming every ounce of power Olea fed it. She channeled her working up and up and up, until the purple flame created a pillar headed for the clouds.

“Goodbye, Babel.” Olea laughed, and it was a harsh thing.

The flames flickered, before exploding into bursts of fireworks, decorating the evening sky. As the sparks fell, Olea felt a snap resound in her chest. The force caused her to stumble backward, nearly sending her to the ground. She gripped her heart as pain radiated through her body. The fierceness of it was a shock to Olea’s system, the edge of her vision going black. Her veins exploded within her body, agony seeping out through every pore. Olea grit her teeth and waited, taking a rough, ragged breath. Forcing air into her lungs, powering through the pain.

As her mind returned to her, Olea braced her body.

There would be another wave—this she knew.

A moment passed. Two. As she relaxed her muscles, Olea forced her head as far from her body as she physically could. It was the right thing to do—because as that familiar feeling of dread sank into her, it turned her stomach and caused her to retch. As her mind was torn to shreds, the navy leather of her pants was misted with Olea’s dinner.

It was a different pain than the first wave, but Olea didn’t allow herself to think about it. If she had, she would have recognized it. The pain filled her childhood, her adolescence, and followed her to that very day. It was disappointment, and heartbreak, and betrayal. It was a dread unfathomed by someone well-adjusted—and Olea was anything else.

As the mental anguish subsided, Olea wasn’t consumed with grief. She wasn’t desperate to find the others. She had no regrets.

Olea knew, she understood what had happened: the Doom had come, it had consumed her ‘home,’ her ‘people,’ and her kingdom had been sealed away. Protected, but at the cost of the Well of Krohnic. There was only one way back from that.

But that was none of Olea’s concern.

Because it was gone. All of it. The last remnants of the threads connecting her to Contraria. To Babel. To the Well of Krohnic. Each of them evaporating into mist with the sealing of her homeland.

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Olea laughed, rough and unrestrained, as she probed her inner body with swells of magic. She found where the Well of Krohnic had once resided, within her left wrist. A connection forced at the ripe age of three. It was as empty as she expected. As Sierre had once told her it would be.

“Time is useless,” she rasped. “Time takes and takes and takes. I don’t need it.”

Once, in a time before Babel had ruined her, before the King had deemed her unworthy, before her friends had abandoned her, Olea would have mourned her kingdom. Would have mourned her mother, or her brothers, or, even, her father. She would have fallen to her knees and sobbed. Would have destroyed creation if it meant bringing them back. She would have fought for everyone who called Contraria home.

That was when she was a child, ignorant of the terror she would face at the hands of family and kingdom alike.

Thus, Olea would not mourn the kingdom that cast her aside, that closed their eyes to a child crying for help. She would not mourn her mother, who did worse than ignore her—who helped to ruin her. She would not mourn her brothers, who chased her out of their home out of resentment—with weapons and words both. Olea would not mourn Babel, a father who only ever tormented her. Who took every chance to strike her down. Who spent every moment together as a chance to mold Olea into something she was not. No, Olea would not mourn a man who never loved her.

As the absence of Contraria sank in, Olea couldn’t help but to feel free. Her sharp gaze went back to the distant horizon, and she sent her hatred across the sea, to the once bursting island her kingdom resided on—now, leveled to an empty field and overcome by darkness. House and home sucked up by Illustra. The forests bare and free of life. Every creature taken by the artifact, from the lowliest fly to the king himself. Still, she resented the lost kingdom. Still, she felt the dull ache in her chest threatening to surface. Still, the cliff called to her.

Perhaps, that was the worst part. The loss of those who had hurt her had not healed her.

Olea took one last look at the crashing waves, at the sharp edges of the rocks, at the height of the cliff. Her laughter had faded, but a wry smile remained. Olea’s gaze lingered for only a moment longer before she tore it away, turning her back to the cliff. The call of the ocean would not take her today. Olea took a step away from the edge, and though she paused, she did not look back. Instead, she took in the sight before her.

The winding path she had taken to get here, lined by trees that created a well-maintained canopy above the aged stone walkway. The forest reminded her of the forests of Contraria. And Olea was forced to consider that she was more sentimental than she’d thought as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the dagger strapped to her thigh.

Withdrawing the blade, the sheath holding it melted and sank into the leather of her pants, smoothing itself out so it was impossible to tell the sheath had ever been there at all. Holding the dagger in front of her, Olea pressed her lips together. She flipped her grip, so the end of the blade was angled toward her and she brought the tip to the center of her left wrist—where the Well of Krohnic had once resided.

Digging the metal into her flesh, Olea hissed in pain. Pulling back the dagger, Olea tilted her wrist, letting the blood drip onto the stones below.

“What the darkness claims, may it consume.”

It was a whisper in the wind, but there was power to her words. A promise.

In a smooth motion, Olea dragged her knife across her pants, wiping off the blood. Placing her dagger on her thigh, the sheath slid out of her pant leg and wrapped around the blade, securing it back to her thigh.

Olea used her now-free hand to press down on the wound with two fingers.

Within her, magic swelled and rushed out as she called to the Well of Agnes. The same indigo flames from earlier sprung out of her hand, wrapping around her wrist in tendrils of heat. Within moments, the pain of the flames outweighed the pain of the cut. Olea waited several seconds beyond that before removing her hand and releasing the spell.

The Wyldfire had left deep purple streaks wrapping around her wrist. The flames had cauterized the wound, leaving a magemark in their wake.

Dropping her hands to her sides, Olea was reminded of an old passage about magemarks that she had been made to memorize. Now, all she remembered about the passage was that, when she took more than a quarter hour to memorize it, a switch had been taken to her calves. One strike for every minute she took. Another two strikes for every failed attempt. For a while, she could recite the entirety of the book it had come from.

Olea took a deep breath, pushing down the memory. Then, she glanced over her shoulder—at the ocean, the cliff, the horizon—and she sighed.

“Pain will be the only memorial I hold—this will be all of Contraria’s legacy,” Olea declared to no one.