Witcher Warrior Scholar Spy

“Once, there was a world

Taken in the night.

Shifted from one Perception to the next.

Stolen, adrift, trapped.”

Around Kuala, the rest of the caravan gives her a wide berth. They could still smell the death on her, she was sure. Kuala herself could still smell the metallic hints of blood that wafted off her clothes. Unlike Arkim, she had never mastered the mundane workings. She didn’t care enough to shape her mind into something that could allow her to excise the blood and grime from her body without stripping herself of her blood and the oils that kept her skin soft.

In the end, she simply waited for a real bath, with steaming water and soap. Which she was sure was irritating Arkim to no end. Because—

“Just stand still,” he growled, pointing his finger at her.

Kuala did no such thing, instead continuing to walk behind the wagon and drifting left and right as she moved—much like how a butterfly moves.

“Make me,” she said simply.

Kuala could feel the working suffuse the air, could feel the power brushing against her skin, and, briefly, her bloodlust called to her. It told her there was a target. There was blood to be spilled. That it was her purpose to spill it. She tamped down on the instinct and instead glared at Arkim.

“If you dry out my skin, I’ll take the rest of your hand.”

She said it simply, a promise mixed with a threat.

Arkim huffed. “Rude, when have I dried out anyone’s skin?”

Narrowing her gaze on the man, she waited for the surge of magic to crescendo, then watched as the dried blood and sweat simply fell away from her. It wasn’t a particularly brilliant sight, more like a dust cloud being left behind as she walked and then drifting off on the wind.

Rubbing her hands together, she felt the difference, but it wasn’t bad. Her skin was not flaky and dry like when she performed similar workings. It was fine.

“Maybe if you dedicated half as much time to combat working as you do to cleaning, you wouldn’t be so helpless in a fight.” Kuala grinned sharply, letting her cerulean gaze land on Arkim’s callus-less hands.

Wrinkling his nose, Arkim didn’t respond to Kuala’s goading and instead said, “What beast did you hunt for sport this time?”

Kuala snorted. “I don’t know, what tome did you consume for sport while I was gone?”

It wasn’t a total deflection—Kuala truly did not know the name of the beast she’d killed. She had noticed several aspects of many common animals, the most prominent of which made it a bird-panther-turtle hybrid. Its fur had been hard as stone, but once Kuala had broken through its carapace, its bones were brittle. Hollow, she’d come to find later after evaluating the corpse.

At the memory of the fight, she could feel the taste of blood on her tongue. She remembered the way her mana sung—the feeling of a working that married her body to the air, filling her with power. It allowed her to jump high enough to match the flying chimera’s height.

Once she’d returned to the caravan, Kuala gave a wry smile at the memory of Arkim’s aghast expression at the state of her being. She had been covered in black blood, streaked with sweat and grime. Kuala was sure that it was part of the chimera’s intestine that had formed the glob on her boot—that was now gone, thanks to Arkim.

Occasionally, the peacock had his purposes.

Kuala was watching the far horizon, clenching and unclenching her grip on Wrezgul as she walked. She wanted to be closer. She and Arkim could run faster than the caravan. They could have purchased steeds and raced across the lands. But patience and consistency were key, Kuala had to remind herself. Saving Contraria was a time-consuming affair; it wasn’t something that could be done in a fortnight. It wasn’t even something that could be done in a season, really. How long had they spent travelling now? Weeks?

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Taking a deep breath, Kuala attempted to calm her jumping nerves. There was only so much they could do. Rushing would just exhaust them. It would ruin their stamina and bode horribly for the fight against the Doom.

There was time. Contraria wasn’t going anywhere, after all. And Illustra had a century's worth of power stored in it. Enough for generations of Heroes to tackle the darkness consuming the island. Kuala snorted at the thought of fighting alongside her friends' children and grandchildren, at saving her kingdom, only to bring her father back and be older than him.

It had only happened once before, several millennia ago. But that was a tale of warning, not a tale of inspiration. Seventy-five years, that was how long Contraria had been gone. Three generations of Heroes of Exile fought together to save the country in a pathetic war that lasted a lifetime. Three generations, and when Contraria was returned to the world, everything had to be rebuilt. The dark miasma had fully consumed the island, from the smallest stone to the tallest tree.

That was back when Illustra only captured the people and their clothes.

The Tempus Squadron had to spend a decade roaming the island, creating workings that could pull seedlings from the guts of birds that flew overhead or turn soil that had long been dead. There were timelines forever locked to the people of Contraria after that endeavor, so destroyed were the futures left behind.

Kuala glanced at Arkim as he idly flipped through a book. Within his head were the blueprints of the great lantern. Illustra was no mere artifice. It was magic and technology melded together. But Kilkua had told Kuala the truth. Illustra was a hulking thing that had to be designed by a Scholar, crafted by a Witcher, and wielded by a Warrior.

Flinching at the thought, Kuala sent a prayer to Krohnic—and Mirage—that her curse would not prohibit her from wielding the lantern. It wasn’t, technically, a weapon, after all. It was a bit of a miracle that the artifact could be made at all.

Thinking back, Kuala remembered a late-night chat with Mara. They were intertwined in Mara’s oversized bed, Olea asleep to their side—Arkim and Shen were splayed back to back at the foot of the mattress.

“Father is taking me with him to Quoral soon,” Mara had said, her voice gentle as she stared at the ceiling.

Kuala hadn’t realized the gravity of the situation back then, being barely a teenager. So, she’d simply grunted in response.

“They want new terms to protect the Grotto. They say the risk of a Godling grows larger every Darkening.” Mara’s voice had shaken, but Kuala was already wrapping her hand around the princess’s palm.

“There are centuries before it’ll descend again. It won’t be a problem for your reign,” Kuala said, sure in the knowledge.

What a fool she’d been.

Mara had sighed. “There’s a thousand reasons it’ll be my problem, Lala.”

Kuala smiled at the memory of her nickname, of how fondly Mara had used it. How close they had been, both physically and emotionally, back then. That had all changed when Mara had returned from Quoral several months later. Thirteen and engaged to a prince from across the sea.

Heart aching, Kuala shoved the memory away. All that was left was the future. A future she had to save.

Maybe we should let a decade pass, Kuala thought bitterly. Just long enough for that man to marry someone else.

She still remembered the way her father had told her never to let her feelings for Mara become known, how he had scolded her, how he had taken her to the continent for a year to kill and kill and kill until her desire had dulled.

That was what Kuala had expected of Olea, as well. And maybe that was why it hurt so deeply, why it felt as if her heart was ripped from her body, when the other woman abandoned her. Because Olea hadn’t told Kuala not to love Mara. That night, and every night after, Olea had simply commiserated with the tragedy of Kuala’s affection. Olea, who was hard as stone, had softened only when Kuala let the steel of her voice dull. When she had cried about Mara’s engagement, about how it meant Kuala was destined to be alone.

Olea never said the obvious. That Mara and Kuala couldn’t have been together in any timeline—whether Mara was engaged or not. Mara was the First Princess of Contraria. It was forbidden for a descendant of a Hero to marry into the royal family. And aside from that, Heroes were meant to have descendants.

A Hero’s Inheritance was an odd thing. It didn’t technically require descendants, but if a Hero had a child, the oldest would always become one of the next Four Heroes of Exile without fail. And if a Hero didn’t have a child? Well, it left that lineage behind entirely. There were search protocols in place for such things.

One of them had been put into place before Babel was found to be the son of the previous Witcher—who had been thought infertile due to his wife never carrying a child. The Tempus Squadron had spent years plucking timelines out with anomalies before Babel’s mother had come forward, saying that the boy she’d raised was…not what she’d expected.

The search was known to ruin families’ reputations, the court casting them off like refuse. But Kuala didn’t give a rat's ass about that.

She knew she wouldn’t be having children. Not with anyone.

Quirking her mouth into a wry smile, Kuala watched the city on the horizon grow closer, step by step.

Soon, they’d find Shen. Shen and his plans. And that was all Kuala needed to keep her feet moving.