Larius wasn’t in the City Hall with his treasures the following morning, the dawn still yet to fully gleam on his gold and jewels. Instead, he stood outside on the stone steps, his eyes half-closed with sleep as he sniffed with disgust at the horse before him. A horse Arna immediately recognized.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, still drowsy as he turned to face them. “Leaving for Byska-Tatrá? Good, good.”

Neri bowed her head in greeting, already meaning to descend the steps and leave but Arna’s focus was on the person holding the horse’s reins. Eduard.

He dodged her stare, patting down his borrowed steed with Magna nowhere in sight. Bags lay at his feet, supplies carried on the horse to offer to the great Leader Larius, all watched keenly by the strange figure buried within the shadows of dark red furrows, arms folded and hands hidden within the loose sleeves.

“Off you go now,” Larius said, disgruntled at Arna’s hesitation to continue on.

Neri, now on the pavement, glanced up and finally saw Eduard. She blinked, a slight frown flickering across her face and she was quick to conceal it with another silent nod of acknowledgement. Eduard wouldn’t look at either of them.

The warrior spun on her heel, beckoning Arna towards her but the shapeshifter felt like the world was slowing down around her, the walls closing in. The cloaked figure had frozen when she had appeared, the darkness where surely the person’s face would be seemed to glare at her, analyse her, scrutinize her every movement, and her skin crawled.

“Come on,” mouthed Neri, knowing their presence was no longer welcome.

Arna finally joined her and they began their trek to Byska-Tatrá.

Larius called after them, “Safe journey, Neri of the Warriors’ Guild and her companion, Arna! I await your return.”

Neri’s step stumbled while Arna shot a look over her shoulder, seeing the smug smile on bloated lips, the strange aura radiating off the cloaked spectre, and how Eduard almost disappeared into the horse’s side.

“Keep walking,” Neri whispered, and so they did.

It wasn’t until they had left the boundaries of the city that Arna spoke. “Neri, something’s wrong.”

The woman picked up her pace.

“Listen to me – we can’t go back.”

Faster.

“Neri!” Arna grabbed the warrior’s arm, jerking her entire body backwards, and swiftly releasing her when she heard the sharp gasp of pain.

“Damn, you’re strong,” mumbled Neri, gingerly rubbing her wrist through the layers of clothing.

Arna swallowed down the fear rising like bile in her throat. “Neri-”

“We have a job to do,” the warrior told her, dropping her arm and her expression cold steel.

Arna shook her head. “No, this isn’t just a job. This is all wrong!”

Neri narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean? Eduard being there means little. He needs to trade with Polenya.”

“He wouldn’t look at us! Larius knew who we were, but he interrupted your introduction yesterday. That means Eduard told him about us - about me.”

Neri scoffed, not unkindly, but the doubt swirled in her green eyes as she started walking again. “Larius isn’t going to believe anything like that. If some man came in the middle of the night to declare he’d seen a transforming cat demon, Larius would laugh and deem him another one of the crazies.”

Again: the crazies… “Then why did he know about us? Why would Eduard even mention us if not to tell him?”

“Look, I don’t know,” sighed Neri. “But Larius wouldn’t even believe it.”

But there are people who will. Something hadn’t been right since last night and now everything screamed alarm bells at Arna. It had been pitch black and long into the night when a loud thud and shuffling of feet had startled Arna awake, a fresh chill tingled across her skin as she’d tightened her hold on the sleeping woman curled into her side. Someone had been outside their room last night, leaving the promised supplies of warmer clothes and food in the corridor, but then the lantern light had danced close, casting a long, flickering shadow beneath the door. Whoever it was had tried the handle, shaking it and cursing in a low hiss when the lock barred their entrance. Even when the corridor darkened again and the attempted intruder left, Arna did not rest and instead kept watch, listening to every creak and thump in the old City Hall.

“We shouldn’t go to Byska-Tatrá,” Arna announced, halting abruptly on the snowy trail they followed. Sparse trees trembled in the wintry breeze, the ground they trod swooping down and up like a rollercoaster, then around a mountain face to reach the cave named Byska-Tatrá. “This is a trap.”

“How can you possibly know that? How could Larius even prepare a trap in time?”

“Not Larius,” the shapeshifter told Neri’s back. “The job might be real; maybe there is a man who owes him. But from the time we spoke to him to this morning, something has been wrong. We are walking straight into their hands.”

The warrior stopped, arms held out wide questioningly as she looked back at Arna. “Whose?”

“Who are the crazies?” she asked rather than answering.

Neri rolled her eyes. “Weird people who mumble to themselves and hunt for some prophesised saviour of humanity…” Her voice drifted off, her eyes widening as she really looked at who stood before her. “Oh.”

“Do they have tattoos?”

Neri silently motioned to her own face, her fingers trailing the same path Arna knew too well from the melting sun and dripping moon at her brow, the black lines down her cheeks and along her jaw, to the thick collar-like band at her throat.

“Does Larius have connections to them?”

“Well, of c-course he does,” Neri stuttered. “He lets them roam the city and the mountains, and doesn’t question their actions as long as they give him something in return.”

“This is a trap,” Arna spat, each word pained and growled as she futilely searched the bare trees around them for any sign of an ambush. “We need to get out of here, right now.”

Neri’s hand clenched around her sword hilt. “How can they even know about you already? I didn’t see any crazies in the city.”

A laugh was her response, a dark and humourless laugh crackling out across the pure snow like snapping branches. “The Presagers have ears and eyes everywhere, young warrior. Larius and his Polenya are just another puppet for us to play with.”

The figure from the City Hall, the strange aura shrouded in countless red folds, stepped out onto the mountain path as if melding a human form out of mere shadow and bleak air.

Neri drew her sword, the sharp blade glinting in the morning sunlight, but the figure didn’t even flinch. Hands pulled out of the loose sleeves, reaching up to slowly drop the crimson hood back.

A snarl ripped out of Arna’s chest as she fell into a defensive crouch, her entire body tense yet shimmering with the panic and fury rippling through her. The figure was a man, the tattoos perfectly etched into his skin just as Arna remembered from all those decades ago, the sinister smile tugging at his thin lips throwing her ever deeper into memories that she had tried to forget forever.

He laughed again. “We have searched for you for so long, and here you are! Landing right into our laps. You even accepted the assignment in Byska-Tatrá!” He brought a finger to his chin, thoughtfully tracing the ink lines burned along it. “Larius is such a disgusting creature, but I am quite glad it paid off to make him our toy.”

“Byska-Tatrá is just a cave with a small mining settlement,” Neri said, her tone deadly and threatening, her stance firm with her sword held ready in one hand.

The man nodded, clasping his hands together with a loud clap that made Arna recoil at the noise. “That’s the cover, yes. Larius lets us keep the caves and have free run of pretty much everywhere as long as we give him some glittering stones now and again.” He pointed at them. “That was your job. Pick up his next instalment, and then take a tiny amount of it to Atsylei to keep favour.”

“Seems things have changed,” hissed Neri.

He laughed again, the sound raking against Arna’s skin like hot blades. “I knew something was strange about your little friend, but Eduard really gave me the information I needed. A human morphing into a monster, all black fur and skull with glowing eyes? Larius doesn’t trust wild stories, but he realized my interest.” He winked, smile jagged and gaze sharp like a snake eyeing up his prey, strangling it slowly and enjoying every single second. “Let’s just say he doesn’t expect you back any time soon. I’ll take care of the stones unless, young warrior, you wish to complete your quest?”

Neri shifted uneasily, grip clasping tighter on her sword. “What?”

“You can always continue your assignment and return to Atsylei - unharmed. You don’t have to die needlessly for your companion.”

Arna blanched, all warmth running cold despite the new coat bestowed by the generous Leader Larius, and her blood freezing like ice at his words and the intention behind them. She rose out of her crouch and leapt forwards, putting herself between the warrior and the cultist, human hand shimmering in and out of focus as she held it out as if to stop the man approaching. “Don’t touch her,” she growled, knowing her eyes glowed ever brighter.

He dared to laugh again. “How wonderful! So, you will come willingly?”

Arna knew exactly, or at least she thought she knew, what being caught by the Presagers meant, but she could not and would not let Neri be just another victim because of her. “If you leave Neri alone.”

The black tattoos fluttered like the panicked wings of a trapped moth as his face twisted into another grating chortle. “Your concern is almost human,” he said, amused. “But if she doesn’t stand in our way, I don’t see why we can’t just…forget about her.”

“Arna, what are you doing?” she heard Neri whisper, harsh and fearful.

“Well?” the cultist prompted.

Arna straightened, trying to keep the unfathomable waver of her body under control, and leaned her head to the side to look at the warrior behind her with one eye, the Presager in her peripheral. “Take the stones and go home, Neri.”

Something crumpled in the woman’s expression, her grip slackening, her stance weakening. “W-what? You don’t think I can fight this jerk? I don’t need protecting from a crazy!”

Arna felt a light dim in her heart. “You can’t fight the Presagers.”

The man seemed to agree with an entertained chuckle. “Listen to your companion. You don’t stand a chance.”

Neri’s expression hardened. “I have a sword. What do you have?”

Arna answered for him. “He has magic.”

The warrior shook her head, her sword arm trembling but not lowering, the bandages on her other hand staining with fresh blood as she dug her nails into her palm.

“You’ve seen what your friend can do,” the cultist reminded her, still smiling. “The Presagers of old created her and the Presagers of today will use her. You can’t win this battle.”

“Go home,” Arna told her.

“Not without you,” she whispered, an edge of pleading sorrow in her tone.

“Neri, please. Please, go home.” She couldn’t lose her, she couldn’t have Neri’s death on her hands, she couldn’t watch the tainted magic take her away so cruelly.

“You are my home. You promised you would stay.”

The quiet words spoken so truthfully were daggers to her heart and she closed her eyes for a moment, shutting away the amber glow, swaying with the icy wind as if barely able to keep standing.

“I can protect you,” the woman continued, her voice hushed and low, knowing that the shapeshifter heard every single syllable clear as day.

Arna interrupted before the warrior could drown and take her with her, opening her unnatural eyes to meet watery green. “You are not strong enough.”

She saw, she felt, the way that statement broke Neri. Neri, the beautiful warrior and kind-hearted woman who tried so hard to be strong enough, to be worthy, to be someone who could protect what and who she cared for, gasped as if all her breath hurt too much.

“Seems we’re done here,” the man stated, all humour drained from his tone. He threw a small pouch towards Neri who caught it with distracted ease. “Take those stones and complete your quest.”

Arna turned away, trying to relinquish the hold that Neri had over her, trying to cut the ties, trying to steel her soul and return herself to how she used to be before she met the warrior. She needed to lay down the trust and love that had taken root in her chest, she needed to surrender before she couldn’t outrun fate any longer, she needed to keep Neri safe. The muted sound of metal landing in snow and desperate hands on her cloak stopped her from walking away.

“Neri…” She couldn’t look or her resolve would shatter, ending with her heart broken and her love dead. So, she closed her eyes and turned around, feeling those gentle yet calloused hands shift to rest on her shoulders, sensing that caring and beseeching gaze on her face. She leaned forwards, blindly pressing her lips to Neri’s forehead before pulling away. “Goodbye, moyo solnyshko.”

And then she followed the Presager, leaving the warrior behind.