– K Á R A –

I stared out across the sea. The cool salty air moved loose strands of my blonde hair past my cheeks. 

The traders shouted out across the deck behind me. The sails were down and we were making good time on the clear waves. Winter was coming to its end in Uccella after all. I had given them a hefty lump sum curtsy of the dead assassins guild members. But every now and then I would draw on my power from the skies and send it into the sails to throw us faster across the water.

The sailors called it will of the gods. I smirked thinking all the will in the realm to get to Kanton shores was right under their noses. Four more spans and I would touch the soil she was on. I pulled my dark hood lower over my eyes.

The traders kept a respectful distance to me but some were damn right staring.

My gleaming armour under the cloak and wolf-like furs that moved in the breeze made them stare. Then I would catch the wondering eyes with my own burning silver and they would quickly find interest in their work again. But one mortal in particular was becoming ever more obvious in her blatant interest.

The first officer, second to the merchant Captain, would find reasons to stay in my vicinity making a poor show of checking crates on the deck. When she stared at my back openly for the fourth time in a slither I sighed through my nose and turned to face the mortal fully.

"You can stop pretending! It is becoming tiresome." I called over to the woman in the dark, long brimmed hat. She wore the trademark navy overcoat of an officer and a well pressed white shirt.

But at my blunt statement she snapped her eyes over to me and lowered her parchment inventory. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Well?" I demanded.

She cleared her throat and glanced over her shoulder before taking a few careful steps across the deck to me. She was scarcely a few winters older than Tayah but that's where the comparison ended. 

"Apologies, it's just that–you seem to match the exact..." She swallowed and glanced at her boots before looking up again. "–description of a witch rumoured to be in Vayleron."

I stared at her evenly before a smirk cracked my lips. I leant back against the ship rail and regarded the wary mortal with flat hazel eyes and sharp features I'm sure most regarded as beautiful. But my interest in faces had ended the moment I fell for the recklessly stunning Tayah Ashrive.

"What if I were the one meeting such a description." I drawled with heavy amusement. "Would you have your superiors turn the vessel around?"

Her eyes widened and she gripped the parchment tighter. "No–I–of course not."

"Then what did you hope to achieve by asking me that question?"

She flushed and couldn't meet my eyes. They travelled over the armour on my chest and made me lose patience. I turned back to the sea bored with her frantic panic and heart rate already. The only heart I wanted to race for my presence was too far away–

"Did you truly end the thief guild master and the assassin guild master?" She suddenly murmured in a low tone over the winds. But of course I heard it.

I turned my head half over my shoulder.

"Yes, mortal."

I heard rather than saw her reaction behind me, but she still visibly flinched from the word mortal. I rolled my eyes over the waves below us. 

"I know it makes no difference to you–but thank you." She whispered, making my brows raise in surprise. I turned more fully to the mortal of nerves and fear. Her face was that of true earnest emotion–which was far too intense for my taste.

I shrugged a shoulder and held her heavy gaze.

"It was not for anyone in that city I did it for." I said simply.

"All the same. You took the lives of those who had taken many close to me and others on this ship. Now I can tell them it is true–"

"Listen, officer. I want no part in the fancies of ship wide fame. You can tell your men whatever you wish as long as it does not include them approaching me." I deadpanned.

This made her chuckle for some mad reason and she shook her head. "They will not dare to disturb a witch on board this ship."

I watched her silently for a beat. The witch temperament was almost insulting next to my power but clarifying that I was an immortal daughter of Odin was no better.

 "Good."

I turned back to the waters hoping for a longer time away from mortals and their ever overbearing need to have a beacon of hope. I sighed through my nose and drew my energy surging into the clouds above. The winds picked up again towards the sails and thunder echoed in the distance.

If I didn't get us there in less than four spans I was going to start throwing mortals overboard. 

The first officer did not bother me with looks and hovering after that discussion. I was at peace to glare over the horizon and dwell in my own thoughts. I'd even take the company of John and Kaden over these deluded, doe-eyed traders.

I had decided Kaden was bearable the moment he showed me the useful strategies of chess. But John Keavesmith still deserved an early grave. Especially when he put hands on Tayah through anger or jest. Every mortal that had ever so much as threatened her had usually been ended in less than a blink–but he was her closest and longest companion...

I let out a long breath and glanced at the clouds churning that carried us faster. Then I turned for the doors to my quarters leading below deck.

I took the planks downward quickly and pulled my hood lower whenever I saw the curious eyes of mortals pass me. The lanterns clattered against the beams overhead and I pushed my door open and pressed my back against it. I needed to find her again. If her immortality was still lost to her it would be up to me. Kanton was after all, a large continent. She could be in any number of costal clan towns.

I took Thanatos from my back and set it carefully down near the bed before pulling my Damandium cuirass of armour over my head. I kept my daggers at my hips and set my spear down beside my shield.

I sat on the wooden floor before the bed and and crossed my legs. Pressing my back straight against the backboard and placing my palms on my knees I focused my mind. I let my loose thoughts dissolve and let my mind call out to the one I sought. It was by no means instantaneous. I knew the light around me dimmed and the sun had set by the time I felt the call of her to her mind.

She seemed to drag me there.

I stood on a grassy plain on a hillside. The flowers of spring peaked in the grass and a forest lay beyond. Tayah walked leisurely into view from the crest of the hill and a smile broke across me like a long lost sunrise.

She returned it as her waves of brown hair seemed to catch in a wind to the side. I strode quickly to meet her and pulled her off the ground easily into my arms. She laughed into my neck and pressed her lips against me.

"Tell me this is not another of my dreams." I murmured with humour.

But it still got the reaction I wanted and she shoved me hard with a half glare. "I swear to the gods if you start again–"

I grinned and interrupted her with a quick kiss. Her frown melted and her smile returned.

"I know it is you." I told her with a slow smile.

"Good because I have news." She said more seriously. "I have my immortal energy back–I'm not sure if this was just a lapse or there was a cause..." She frowned.

I paused considering this.

"Odin claimed he had no hand in it. It could be your emotion driving the lapse–in the mortal realm it is harder to control immortal power."

"As I know." She murmured, scanning my face intently.

I grinned at this in knowing and she returned it. It made me want to bring her lips to me but there was something I had to know first.

"Have you made progress on your location?"

"Well we just escaped a Kanton clan and are heading West for another town I cannot pronounce." She said with a wry look.

"Escaped." I sighed, pinching my nose. "Why does this sound so much like the work of the Three Lions."

"Honestly the slavers had this coming–"

"You didn't tell me how you ended up with a memory of that fighting arena." I suddenly cut in, remembering how I identified the continent in the first place.

This made her take on a sheepish look and cast her eyes to the hills beyond. Then she turned to me and pulled my hand to sit down with her. "You'd better have a seat with me while I fill you in." It still made me smirk however dire the circumstance. She never did anything on the mortal realm without a story with it.

"Naturally." I murmured. We dropped down into the soft grass and she leant back on her hands watching me with those burning silver eyes.

"I may have fought as a competitor–not by choice!" She clarified when my eyes went wide.

"You what–with no immortal power?" I got out in a strangled voice.

"Yes and no. It came when I needed it to. And I saved a lot of innocent citizens caught up in the sport." She defended with a more fierce look. "The heathen responsible couldn't carry on breathing–not when he's using people for his own personal–"

"Tayah." I interrupted calmly.

Her fire fuelled passion came to a halt and she gathered her breath again before meeting my eyes.

"I understand. I'm glad you are safe." I stated slowly.

She finally nodded and her eyes thought of something else. Something that had happened. I frowned and she started smiling.

"What–"

"How are you with kids?"

I almost choked.

She started laughing and rolled back into the grass behind me. I stared at her like she had grown another head and waited for her to make sense.

"There's this local kid who was caught up in the fighting ring. He helped me when I was weak and injured." She clarified, looking more serious as I watched with open shock. "His name is Yanu and he's about ten winters old–he's sort of in our group now."

"I..." I shook my head and tried to find the words. "That sounds. Interesting."

She grinned again, unable to help herself.

"You can speak the Kanton tongue correct?" She asked easily.

"Correct." I stated, watching those bright eyes grow more amused.

"Then you can translate when you meet him. Because the only conversation we've had consists of names and pointing and I'm fairly sure he thinks Kaden will eat him."

I blinked. Before shaking my head with a chuckle.

"Tayah, you will never cease to surprise me."

She watched me nervously, pulling at some grass below her fingers.

"So, you are okay with this situation?"

I laughed and pulled her jaw up in my hand. "There is no situation. If this child kept you safe when I could not, I can only assume he has more sense than all of the Three Lions combined."

She scoffed but smiled back nodding. "I couldn't just leave him behind. And if I can ask him if his family lives I'd like to help him get back to them."

I nodded to her more serious. "We will deal with this when I track you down. Try not to make that task too difficult in the mean time."

"Try not to take too long." She retorted with a dark look.

I drew her jaw closer feeling the familiar burn and looking between her bright eyes.

"Not an option."

I kissed her slowly and surely. Feeling her practically sigh into my lips just as she would in the mortal realm. It made me question if it was our connection that allowed us to meet as we did. Such a bonded fate that even as immortals we crossed paths to reach each other–

She pushed me down onto the grass and raised her lips from mine.

"Well the kissing feels just as real." She murmured darkly, "–what about the rest."

I grinned, shaking my head before her. "You can have some patience and find out in person."

She pouted and caught a strand of my hair in her fingers. I watched her eyes trace the length of it and was lost in her beauty. She paralysed me. Even in an act as simple as this.

"Stop looking at me like that if you want me to behave." She grumbled.

I laughed beneath her and drew myself up quickly pulling her with me. She sighed and dropped her head against my shoulder watching the hills of her dreams before us.

"Is this place familiar to you?" I murmured, looking at the intense detail of forests and curving grassy mounds. 

"It was where I grew up." She told me easily. Nothing of the painful ghosts lingered in her voice and it made me smile. Those painful memories of her family and a burned village that drew her rage together so sharply wasn't here in this peace. It was a tranquil part of her mind now–a part no longer at war with itself. One that she shared with me.

"It's beautiful."

She nodded against my shoulder watching it and the sun falling upon it all.

"It is." She murmured.