La Signora paced her suite like a storm in heels, frost blooming and vanishing across the marble floors with each sharp step. Fury made her movements jagged; humiliation made them venomous.
She wanted to lash out at Tartaglia—Childe—the reckless show-off who only ever knew how to fight. If he'd been more careful, he wouldn't have walked straight into Kael's trap.
"You don't even realize you're being toyed with, you idiot," she hissed to an anonymous Pyro-Electro skirmisher who lingered nearby. "You think you're pulling strings, but you're only bait."
What burned her most, though, was Barbatos—the Anemo Archon. He had appeared at the worst possible moment: when La Signora had hoped to seize a prize. According to field reports the Fatui had managed to salvage, Barbatos's power that day had seemed... subdued. Roughly on par with Dvalin the Wind Dragon, not some impossible godlike force.
La Signora had seen Dvalin's power herself. She'd thought that, with the Tsaritsa's help and the trump card she possessed, she could have beaten the dragon into submission—if she'd been willing to accept the collateral. In other words, she had missed a golden opportunity to snatch the Gnosis.
The Gnosis—an Archon's heart.
She ground her teeth. The Fatui's chance to claim an Archon's divine treasure had been squandered.
"Did you at least catch his face?" she snapped at the skirmisher.
The man swallowed and shook his head. "Ma'am… I only saw the Archon had two long braids...and they were glowing."
Two braids? La Signora stared. Was she supposed to sweep Mondstadt for everyone with a braided hairstyle and ask, "Excuse me, are you Barbatos?" Ridiculous.
This whole fiasco—Tartaglia's blunders, Kael's mock weakness, the public spectacle—had her seething. If she'd known how dangerous Kael was, she never would've set foot in his crossfire. If she hadn't been sealed at the gate, would she have turned the tide? Would Kael have simply stood by and watched? So many what-ifs.
Even in Snezhnaya, discretion was a virtue. The Fatui could not afford to be publicly linked to the Abyss Order—or they would be reviled by every nation. La Signora's cold smile hardened. The Fatui would have to be more careful. And Tartaglia would learn to stop assuming things.
Departure, next morning.
At the city gates, Kael and his party stood ready to leave. Klee bounced on her toes, clutching a small bag of carefully wrapped sweets. Albedo adjusted his chalk-dusty satchel. Jean, Lumine, Paimon, Eula, Lisa, Barbara, and Kaeya had come to see them off. The air felt heavy with farewell and unspoken vows.
This was Kael's second real meeting with Kaeya; the first had been a few days earlier on a monster hunt. Kaeya's easy charm hid a practiced strength, but Kael had no interest in cultivating small friendships now. He had work to do.
"I can't believe you're leaving so soon. I haven't even gotten my revenge yet!" Eula huffed, folding her arms with theatrical indignation. She forced a small smile when Kael's gaze flicked to her. The city's acceptance—Barbatos's public defense—had changed everything for her. The Lawrence family might be reborn from its ashes; the cost had been unbearably high. She had taken lives—her kin—to cut out the rot. That truth curled in her throat, but she'd agreed with Jean that she'd leave for the countryside for a while, to hone herself and avoid the gawking eyes of Mondstadt.
"Well then," Kael replied with a small, wry smile, "if you're going to remember it, remember it well."
Barbara hovered shyly at the back, the quiet glow of her Hydro Vision reflecting in her gentle eyes. Kael gave a subtle nod to Jean. "We'll be going now. If anything happens, don't hesitate to reach out."
Jean inclined her head solemnly. "Thank you again. Mondstadt will be in your debt."
Kael answered with a half-shrug. "Maybe. For now, they'll probably forget in a week. People forget easily."
Jean did not argue. She understood the truth in that—which made the work of reform all the heavier. With Barbatos's blessing and Kael's influence, it was time to press change, to make Mondstadt remember the right things.
Klee waved, bright and chaotic as ever. "Captain Jean! Listen to Albedo and Kael! No blowing up the town while I'm gone!" Her grin showed she meant half of what she said.
"Klee, be good," Jean scolded, though her eyes betrayed fondness. "And don't make a crater in Liyue."
"I will!" Klee saluted and then immediately shoved a handful of candy into Paimon's hands. Paimon squealed with delight.
Lisa pretended to be stern—"Keep an eye on that child, Kael"—but her twitching brow betrayed amusement. If anyone could call her "auntie," it would be Kael, and she'd probably write him a stern letter about it later.
Diluc stood nearby, as always, half in shadow. He nodded once to Kael, expression unreadable, and turned away. Kael allowed himself a short, genuine laugh. Typical Diluc—always distant, always reliable when it mattered.
They set off. Albedo walked beside Kael, and soon, while the countryside blurred, the alchemist's curiosity could not be denied.
"Mr. Kael," Albedo said at last, voice hesitant, "you're not an ordinary person, are you?"
Klee cocked her head, wide-eyed. "Are you an elf? Or a magician? Or a flying guy?"
Kael laughed and tousled Klee's hair. "Not an elf, Klee. Not a magician either. Just… someone passing through."
Albedo didn't smile. He looked down at the ground, then back up at Kael. "Every time I'm near you, I feel a... disturbance inside me. My ambient energy stirs and becomes uneasy. It's as if something in me recognizes danger. I can sense fear in the power around you."
Kael's expression tightened, however briefly. For all his casual masks, he'd worked to keep his true nature concealed. Only a few—Barbatos and Morax among them—had any inkling. Lumine hadn't guessed. Albedo had.
"Interesting," Kael said softly. "Maybe you're just very perceptive."
Albedo's gaze was steady. "No. This is different. Even Barbatos does not cause this reaction. I suspect you are not merely a god-like being—you might be something far beyond the Archons."
Kael didn't deny it. He only put a hand on Albedo's shoulder, a rare, private gesture of reassurance. "As long as you don't try to uproot the world, you'll be safe. Do your work honestly, and we'll have no problems."
Albedo's face registered the unspoken warning. Jean's future plans, Albedo thought, were a fragile thread in a world of shifting powers. He knew, in the way artists sense storms in the air, that Kael's arrival meant things were changing. For better or worse.
"Ready?" Kael asked, voice light.
Albedo inhaled, steadied himself, and nodded.
Kael lifted Klee with one arm, set a hand lightly on Albedo's shoulder, and the three of them vanished in a breath.
They reappeared in Guili Plains—the same sparse plateau pocked with the crooked growths and ruined obelisks Albedo had studied in distant days. The air smelled of dust and old magic; the iconic lone tree rose against the sky.
Albedo's eyes widened. "This is Guili Plains," he whispered, as if confirming a memory rather than a location. "How did you—?"
"It's a shortcut," Kael said, smiling that enigmatic smile. "A few tricks and a little help from the ley lines."
Albedo closed his eyes and reached outward, trying to sense the flow of leyline energy. He expected the gentle, familiar currents of Liyue's veins, the well-tuned hum of Morax's domain. But instead he felt... a signature that made the hair on his arms lift: something vast, old, and comfortably indifferent. It was not merely an elemental resonance; it was a mark of something celestial.
He swallowed. The thought flashed through him like lightning: a being with that kind of command over space—over travel—could be one of the legendary Celestials. Or something similar. His calm, academic certainty shifted into a cold, unpleasant curiosity.
Could it be, Albedo worried, that Kael is not simply another god among many—but something that surpasses even those in the myths?
Klee, oblivious to the metaphysical tremors, skidded to a stop and pointed. "Ooh! Look! Rocks to blow up!" She clapped her hands in glee.
Kael looked back toward the distant mountains, eyes flicking to the skyline where the Chasm's shadow still clung. There are more ghosts to attend, he thought. More centers of rot to find and more Gnoses to secure. Liyue would be the first step of a long, careful ascent.
He inhaled the crisp air and, for a fleeting moment, allowed himself to feel the gravity of what lay ahead. Allies gathered. Enemies watched. The world had shifted in a single week—and would not return to what it once was.
Then Kael bent down, ruffling Klee's hair again. "Let's go explore. Albedo, try not to get too excited by leyline anomalies—I need your calm head."
Albedo forced a thin smile. "I will attempt to remain calm, though Kael, you make it difficult."
As they set off across Guili Plains, the land around them seemed to hold its breath. Somewhere beyond the horizon, the wheels of fate were already turning—slow, inexorable—pulling nations and gods into a new pattern.
And in the quiet after their departure, a cold ripple passed through the Abyss like a warning. Sora's chessboard had been interrupted. An opponent had appeared who moved with uncanny certainty.
La Signora clenched her fists in Snezhnaya and spat into the snow. The game had changed. And she would adapt, or she would not survive.
—end—
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