Chapter Eight: The Witch of Ember Vale Forest

The flames welcomed them before the villagers did. Or what was left of them.

By the time Kael and the squad reached the outskirts of Unthir, the wind was already thick with smoke. The village had been a place once but now it was ash and claw marks. Thatched roofs hung half-torn, carts overturned like dead beetles. And circling in the smoke-choked sky was a single winged creature.

It wasn't just big. It was wrong.

Leather wings beat thunder into the air. The wingspan was far too large for its body, like a grotesque afterthought, giving it an unbalanced, almost unnatural silhouette. The beast soared above the rooftops with the ease of something that had hunted for centuries. Jagged scales covered its underbelly that glint under the glow of the fire.

Rellan barely pulled his horse to a stop before he leapt off and charged a smaller beast on the ground. The rest of the squad followed without hesitation, splitting off into clusters to engage the other creatures prowling the ruins. Steel met claws, arrows arced through the smoke, and the air filled with the grim chorus of war. The beasts fought back just as viciously, but the soldiers pressed in, trying to draw their attention away from the civilians.

Kael dismounted with less grace and more hurry. Ryze, already bleeding, stood in front of a half-burnt hut, blade drawn, guarding the doorway where Kael could just make out several villagers huddled inside.

Their eyes were wide, faces streaked with ash and terror. Ryze glanced back once to be sure they were still breathing, then pointed down the northern path toward what looked like a collapsed building.

"Your Highness." Ryze's voice held that clipped edge between habit and disbelief. She met his eyes just long enough to look relieved—and then immediately irritated. There was a question there, sharp behind the soot: What are you doing here? But she didn't ask it. Not with villagers crying inside the hut and something winged and monstrous overhead.

She turned slightly, eyes scanning the sky.

"Help the witch," she said, breath clipped. "She's been holding that shield for gods-know-how-long. I don't know if she can last much longer."

Her gaze flicked back to the hut, where small, terrified faces peeked through the smoke-stained wood. "I'll stay with them. They need a sword."

Kael followed her gaze, then looked toward the distant dome and the lone figure holding it up like her bones were the only thing keeping the spell intact.

He turned back to Ryze, eyes flicking to the blood on her armor. "Are you sure you can still protect them?"

"Not mine," she said, and there was no hesitation. "Faster, Your Highness. Go."

"Yeah," Kael muttered under his breath, already jogging forward. "Let the weakest guy on the field handle that. Brilliant plan."

Around the building that looked like a chapel, the air shimmered unnaturally, like heat haze over broken stone. There, on the other side of a translucent dome-shaped barrier, a girl stood ankle-deep in fractured tiles. Light bent around her, not harshly but like sunlight through water. Blood stained her lip. Her golden hair clung to her delicate face. And Kael, despite everything, couldn't stop staring.

She was beautiful. Not in the fragile way poets liked to pretend. She looked like she could unmake the earth if she decided it deserved it. And for a moment, Kael thought absently that this must be what a goddess looks like.

The winged beast banked sharply and descended. Its shadow passed over Kael like a falling curtain.

The creature hurled itself at the dome. Her shield cracked but she didn't flinch.

Her eyes found him through the distortion as if sensing him.

"Either help or run," she snapped, voice raw and impatient, as if he were the slowest-witted person she'd seen all week. "He won't wait, and neither will I."

Kael blinked. Her tone didn't match her face. Someone that pretty shouldn't sound that annoyed. Or maybe he just wasn't used to goddesses with sharp tongues.

Kael unsheathed his sword and didn't ask questions. The monster wheeled up again, screeched, then came down like a meteor. His blade met scale and sparked. It might as well have been a butterknife.

The girl—no, the witch—spoke again, this time in words Kael didn't understand. Her hand lashed out toward him, and a golden thread of light struck his chest like a whip. He gasped as warmth punched through his ribs.

"You'll burn out if you don't let it in," she shouted. "Take it!"

Mana flooded him. Not his own. Hers. It didn't just feel different—it sang through his limbs with a floral sharpness, too sweet and too wild to be anything but hers.

It wasn't pain. More like heat, or breath after drowning. The mana just... settled. No rush. No surge. Just there. Waiting.

It wasn't like drawing on the deck. This was immediate. Alive. Like someone was pouring lightning through his bones. His vision blurred. His hands glowed faintly.

Kael moved again.

This time, when his sword hit the beast's flank mid-dive, its armor cracked as fragments flew. Magic trailed behind the blade. He didn't think. He swung again. The creature screamed and flapped off, staggering in the air.

Behind him, the witch kept chanting. Her voice wavered. Her knees buckled.

Then something shifted.

Kael's chest burned.

A hum grew in his ears, and the deck pulsed at his hip. A card slid up, unseen by all but him. Its edges shimmered with faint gold, and the image pulsed like it was breathing, an elegant figure cloaked in a cascade of blossoms, eyes closed. There was no number. No suit. Only a crown of petals, and an aura that hummed with quiet, impossible power: the queen of flowers.

It didn't just shimmer—it exhaled. Like something ancient waking up inside him.

[Status: UNLOCKED]

[Condition Met: Mana Resonance]

Kael stared at it, eyes wide.

"Fuck yeah," he muttered, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I got the Queen."

It felt right. Which was probably the most dangerous part.

He was too busy grinning at the glowing card to notice the incoming shadow until claws ripped through the air.

His passive card flickered into action. Two of Flowers: Counter Reflex. Before he even processed the threat, his body rolled instinctively to the side, dodging the brunt of the blow. "Nice save," he muttered, then turned a glance back at the fallen monster. That was close. Too close. If the card hadn't triggered, his arm would be somewhere else by now.

"Move, damn it!" the witch snapped from behind the barrier, voice laced with strain and fury.

The creature came down again, faster this time, wings churning the air like a storm of knives. It felt like being caught in a bird's fury, each swipe a razor sweeping for his head.

Kael swung again and missed. He was too slow. Way too slow. He gritted his teeth. A card wouldn't fix that, unless it could bend time.

Lightbulb. The UNO reverse card.

Reverse Snap.

The card shimmered in his mind, its effect blurry with probability. It didn't guarantee anything. It never did.

But if his feet weren't moving fast enough on their own, this might be his only chance. For now, he had the enchantment doing the heavy lifting, and from the look of it, the witch behind him wasn't going to be standing much longer.

He stole a glance. Her hands trembled mid-chant. Her knees were almost buckled. She looked like a breath would knock her over.

Kael weighed the risk. Quick math. Gut instinct. The kind of bet he lived for.

Screw it.

He reached for the card.

It glowed the moment his fingers brushed it—soft at first, then fierce. Numbers bloomed at the edge of his vision, ticking upward fast.

[Probability: 21%]

The beast dove once more. Kael barely had time to react.

Claws slammed into his forearm. He had almost offered the hand without thinking, as if daring fate to work. The beast obliged. Blades of bone sliced through skin with a wet sound, and Kael grunted, pain flaring—then vanishing.

It filled the cracks in his ribs like heat into frozen stone.

The wound sealed itself mid-air, heat surging through him as his muscles reknit. It was over before it had even hurt.

But the real surprise? The damage to the beast was almost nonexistent.

Kael hit the ground and rolled, heart racing.

"Shit," he thought. "So that's how the probability works."

His grip tightened around the hilt. The beast wasn't done. It came down again, screeching, claws outstretched, jaws opening for a final lunge.

Kael pushed off the ground with his newly healed arm and charged.

He ducked under the swing of its wing, planted his foot, and drove his sword forward with everything he had. The edge, still glowing faintly with the witch's mana, struck clean into the exposed underside of its throat. For a second, nothing happened.

Then the beast convulsed.

A gout of black ichor burst from the wound. The creature let out one last, gurgled shriek before crashing to the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

Kael stood over the corpse, breath catching.

"Not bad for the weakest guy on the field," he muttered.

Behind him, the witch fell to her knees just as the shimmering dome shattered, fragments of light dissolving into the air like glass dust. All that remained was her, trembling and exposed.

She stared up at him, face pale.

"I... can feel my power..." she whispered.

Kael blinked, confused. "What?"

She stared harder, her breath shaky. "I can feel it in you."

He hesitated, glancing at the Queen card still glowing faintly at his side. "Pretty sure not."

Her eyes narrowed like that wasn't nearly good enough. "I'm not playing with you," she hissed. "I can feel it—"

Then she collapsed, face-first into the dirt, her body finally giving in. The broken glow around her faded completely, the ground stilling.

Kael stood there for a beat, breathing hard. Silence stretched around him, heavy and waiting. The village held its breath.

They waited. Still afraid.

Then, slowly, he looked around.

Doors creaked open. A shutter slammed back against scorched wood. One by one, villagers began to emerge from their hiding places, out from cellars, under carts, behind the rubble. They stepped cautiously at first, blinking into the ash-choked light as if expecting another attack. But nothing came.

A child dropped a wooden bucket. Somewhere, someone whispered a prayer—not to the gods, but maybe to him.

It was over.

For now.