Desecration Chapter118: You Have A Terminal Case Of Scheming

I held my hand up to the ceiling of a room illuminated by the sunlight of early morning.

I closed my good eye. All I could see were blurs and colours shing together.

I opened it so I could see properly.

Five digits attached to a palm. That was all, a simple appendage that granted so much versatility. Society was built and maintained by the many hands of its population, uplifting one another through shared struggle.

Hoping to make the world better.

People were ant to create things that molded their lives into sothing unnatural, almost like a divine mandate, or an impulse. Agriculture and architecture and literature and—

I looked up at my hand and wondered what its purpose was.

That sa hand that gripped my blade to swing at so many monsters, the sa hand that dug the demon summoning ritual in the dirt.

They weren't calloused, entirely because of nd. That felt wrong sohow.

They'd been through so much, why would my magic steal the proof of their labour? All that training, all that pushing, and my palms were soft as linen. At least nd wasn't as good for dealing with scars. Those stayed.

Had a few new additions.

Like the one on my face, though that technically wasn't a scar. Apparently making new skin rather than supporting the body was too ti consuming and expensive in the presence of so many other injuries.

So Ken left it alone. Long enough that it had settled.

The upper right side of my head was a mix of exposed muscle and bone. My ear was gone, because the fireball hit just a few inches ahead of it before exploding. ant the side of my skull was exposed for all to see, and you'd see a bit of muscle the closer you got to my face before the bone was covered entirely.

I didn't have an eyelid.

I was surprised I still had an eye. Ken apparently saw that as important. So that maybe soday I could afford a better healer to get it back to normal. Him saying that made chuckle a bit.

He didn't find it very funny.

Xae was alive. That was good.

Girl deserved to find so solace after everything. Dying would just be unfair.

The crunch of an apple.

I turned my head to the side to behold a scarred woman of bronze complexion, chewing on my fruit as she stared at nothing in particular. This witch needed to learn the concept of boundaries. that basket of fruits left on the counter was ant for .

It was really quite rude. I didn't care enough to comnt.

"Did you know?" I said instead.

Umi glanced over and swallowed the apple mush what few teeth she had made. "That Rhode was going to hunt your party? Yeah, I've got a whole network of rats at my beck and call, rember? Didn't know Umoa was going to get involved though. Ruined the whole purpose of this exercise."

I stared at her. "Why?"

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Umi leaned back in her chair and humd. It sounded musical with the quality of her voice. She lifted her legs and rested them on my bedside. The woman of golden eyes looked over, hard to believe that was the natural part of the illusion she cast over herself.

For the short ti that I'd known her, she hadn't once covered her scars with magic. Modifying them to make her more attractive, sure, but never casted aside.

Would I have just as many co Armageddon?

"Because I don't know you." Umi shrugged. "Or rather, I don't know what you can do. Still don't, but I have a clearer picture, sothing to work with to help out the coven at least."

"That's it?"

"Simplest answer is usually the right one," she said.

I stared at her for a long ti as she took another bite of the apple, eventually turning away to face the ceiling. "What was the point? Surely you know I plan on leaving once the snow lted, so why put a test at all when it won't matter? Because you're a sadistic bitch?"

"Sothing like that," she chuckled. "But no, there was a reason. Everyone in the coven has so role that binds them to the city, in the ti since I founded my little dream we've never left the confines of this prison.

"But the world is so much larger than one city in the north, isn't it?"

"What's your point?"

She smiled. "Surely there are other covens, don't you think? Scattered across the empire like sinking islands. Wouldn't it be nice if soone built a few bridges to connect us?"

She took another bite of the apple. Chewing slowly while my mind churned with the implications.

"Are you trying to make a witch society?"

Umi snapped her fingers and pointed at with a sharp smile. "Exactly."

"Fucking why?"

"Thought you were a quick study," she chuckled. "What do you think would happen if the collective strength of every witch in the empire banded together? We'd actually be a threat and that hypocrite of a Caeser would be forced to the bargaining table. No more skulking in the shadows, no more conniving plans. No. More. Witch hunts."

She practically spat out that last portion.

I huffed.

"Assuming that actually works, what makes you think I'd be capable of that? Or that I'd even care to try?"

Umi shrugged. "It's more a shot in the dark than anything. Even connecting with one other coven would be a massive boon. But finding out if you're capable of that was contingent on your survival without help."

"So that I wouldn't be killed on the spot?"

Umi nodded.

"You saw Umoa. He's much further in the circles than the three that went to kill you, yet he struggled. Witches are rarely combat focused. I would know considering how many I've t. Tangentially? Sure. But we'd never be capable of competing with battle-mages in our circle.

"Combine that with the need to stay hidden? Well, assuming the other covens are about our strength, then you'd have about an equal shot at surviving them as those mages.

"But now I don't know if you would be able to muster that kind strength and I can't send you as a representative if you're just going to die."

"How sad," I scoffed.

"Which is why you're going to have that friend of yours guide you to her clan!"

I blinked. "What?"

Umi shrugged. "Can't send you out as you are, gotta get stronger. You're all about that aren't you? Go on over and train with them until you've at least hit the first circle. Even with how slow your progress has been, it shouldn't take more than a few years."

"I...why would Xae guide there?"

"You're all she has left," Umi said as though it were obvious. "People who just suffered trauma like this tend to latch onto whatever they can. They also like to distance themselves from places that make them rember. She won't even protest."

"You're sick, you know that?"

Umi grinned. "That's what it takes to keep everything from collapsing. The fact you haven't realized that yet is honestly impressive."

I didn't respond to that, because she was kind of right, wasn't she? I was trying to work with ideals in a world that needed flexibility. Moral flexibility. That was a creative way to call soone scum, was that what I had to beco? I went back to staring at the roof and let myself ruminate while Umi happily chewed on an apple that was supposed to be mine.

That wasn't the best of ideas, but I'd learned enough at this point not to let that shit fester.

So, Aira was dead.

I was surprisingly numb to that. I'd lost so much in not even a year, my entire life turned to a series of graves wherever I walked. A part of wanted to laugh, but I held it back. It didn't feel like a ti for laughing. It didn't feel like a ti for much of anything at all.

At least with Riri and Gar I mustered the energy to cry, but now it just felt...pointless. So much felt pointless. Why fight at all when my life was damned to suffering? If I was ant to keep losing people prematurely, over and over, then why bother? Everything I was doing was to survive, but was survival worth it?

Aira wouldn't want to give up, she'd embrace with a gentle hug and soothe my sorrows. A shoulder to lean on, a shoulder that was gone. What was I supposed to do with myself? I didn't know, and I wasn't sure if I cared enough to find out.

Everything was just so numb. I kind of liked that.

I'd live long enough for life to be livable, right?

Right.