Anna was sulking in her room when she heard the commotion. She was, at first, going to ignore whatever was going on. Her body felt like it was burning and freezing at the same time. Her mouth was dry. It was like having the worst hangover of your life at the same time you had a nearly deadly fever. But something in the panicked shouting made her get up and look out of the window.

It was an airship. But it was not the one they had arrived in. It was larger and it had cannons, a true battleship dirigible. There were no flags or logos that would give away its owners, but she knew immediately her time had come.

Heinz had been right there, and she could do nothing. Her powers too uncontrollable, and the man surrounded by his friends. Friends! Did they not know what he had done? While she had always seen Azucena first and foremost as means to her revenge, she had to admit the she did not seem like a bad person. Not someone who would be willingly friends with a murderer. The Brit, she was not so sure of. Anna had never seen her before, nor could really get a grasp of her, but she seemed a bit erratic and dangerous in a chaotic way. Neither of the women had anything to do with Heinz's crimes, but like he had not cared to avoid any collateral damage, neither would she.

Millaray appeared at the door, silently waving her to follow. She decided to play along for now, and went after the old woman. They descended the stairs and went to the kitchen, where the mother opened a small hatch on the floor. Below, Anna could see a rickety ladder leading down a narrow tunnel. As she hesitated, Laura climbed down, as did the jock from the safe house. Fernanda appeared in the room.

"Where's the boy?" Anna asked.

"Safe," said Millaray.

There were not many places he could be, Anna knew, and the most probable was aboard Cassandra's airship. How, and, really, why, had they gone through all the trouble to smuggle him out of the house without Anna not knowing. Did they suspect something?

"You need to go down," said the old woman, in a tone that accepted no excuses.

Anna considered her options. She could follow her instructions, and, with some luck, they all might be able to escape. But the assault wizards and whoever they were working for, were not after her or anyone else here. They wanted the boy. If they were here, they did not know where he was.

She made her decision and stepped aside.

For a few moments, Azucena's mother just looked at her with sadness in her eyes. "I hope you can live with yourself," she just said, and went down the ladder.

Living is the least of my worries. She walked out of the house, and lifted her hands. The wizards they had encountered previously had been a tad too trigger-happy, so it was better not to take any chances.

A group of people had descended from the dirigible and approached her. Some eight of them wore the black gear of the assasult wizards, but from behind them two other people emerged.

José fucking Ignasio, of course. She should have killed him after she got what she wanted.

The other person was a short hispanic man with a short hair and a goatee. He wore clothes that probably cost more than anything she had ever owned.

"Hello, lover," said the apprentice.

"I see you are the one to talk to here," Anna said to the well-dressed man, completely ignoring José Ignasio.

The man smiled. "Indeed, very perceptive," he said and motioned the squad to stand down. "Well, not really."

Anna took that as a sign to lower her arms. "You don't know where they are," she said.

The man's face was completely unreadable. "I assume you want to offer us a deal."

She nodded. "I want just one man. Heinz. Let me have him, and I will– fuck!"

The ground shook under her feet and almost knocked her down. The assault wizards formed a circle around their boss and the apprentice.

"I swear, I know nothi–" she shouted as a wooden tentacle shot through the ground.

"Get them to the ship!" the squad leader shouted, as the impromptu attack tree smashed into a magical shield. A disc of light shot through the air and cut through the wood. As the dead log fell down, another tentacle burst through the air just meters away.

Anna sprinted away from the house, barely dodging a hit from another wooden appendage.

Suddenly, two of the mage soldiers grabbed her arms and started dragging her away. "Hey!" she yelled. "I didn't do that!"

The wizard tried to hit her, but she grasped his fist. She could feel every muscle in her hand expand. The man yelled in pain as her grip crushed through every bone in his hand.

I guess I know what my core power is now.

Another soldier attacked her. She kicked. He flew back several meters.

"Stop!" the leader shouted. Everyone froze, but did not their their eyes off her. Two of the wizards were floating a glowing disc in front of them, ready to launch them at command.

"Well, you must be a fast learner", he said with a wry smile. "It would be a shame to kill such a promising sapling."

"I just want the German." she said. "You can have the rest."

"And you know where they are?"

She nodded. "Take me aboard and I'll guide you."

"You don't trust us?" He again motioned the squad to stand down. "Wise. You definitely should not."

They started to walk towards their vessel. She followed.

* * *

The jungle beneath Azucena's feet felt strangely comforting and familiar. She had lived her childhood in the mountains, but they had taken frequent trips beyond the border to the the western end of the Amazonian rain forest, which had formed a backbone of experiences for the young girl. She had devoured Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones and even that weird 90s Lara Croft knock-off. Before the brief, if ultimately very faithful, period when she wanted to become and influencer, she had wanted to be an adventurer. A treasure hunter. And, in many ways, that is what she had ended up as, even if it was hunting down the scattered remains Necromancer's army in abandoned suburban areas, rather than exploring temples like this.

But here she was. She was about to enter the place that featured the most in her childhood stories: The Witch's Temple.

If she hadn't already double- and triple-checked that they were in the right location, she would have been doubtful. It was a very unassuming part of the edge of the jungle, which had no doubt contributed to the fact that it had never been discovered. That, and magic.

Their airship floated above a small clearing surrounded by mahogany and rubber trees, deceptively circular in shape. The soil was covered in shrubbery and mostly soft, save for the occasional sharp rock that struck through the foliage like a carnivore's tooth. The air was warm and damp and small streams of droplets slid down the large leaves of the surrounding botany. She could hear distant cackling of the local monkeys.

"No wonder the place has never been found," Heinz echoed her thoughts.

"If it exists," Cassandra countered. "We're not on the strongest footing here, evidence-vice."

It had not been a day since Azucena had fostered similar doubts – nay, she had been absolutely certain that the Witch was nothing more than a folktale – but now as she stood in the middle of the wet woodland dressed in what she could only call her Lara Croft attire, she was filled with an uncharacteristic sense of purpose. She would not accept failure, and for success, the tale had to be true.

She looked around for any signs of manmade structure. The clearing was unnaturally round, that was one clue, but not definitive, and the bushes and foliage could easily cover a small city. There was also a curious, almost pillar-like shape twenty or thirty meters down the hill. She pointed at it.

"That could be a totem," Heinz said thoughtfully.

They descended down and pulled the vines convering the tall bush. More bush. Azucena gritted her teeth. There was another similar structure not far away.

It turned out to be another bush. They continued their search.

"If it was easy," Heinz said after an hour, "the place would have been found and raided centuries ago."

That was, of course, true, but not as comforting as the scholar may have thought. If other, multitudes more experiences explorers and treasure hunters had not found the the temple, what chance did they have? They were not without means, of course, and had defeated the perhaps greatest arcane villain the world had ever faced, but she could not help but feel like she was way out of her depth.

They returned to the ship when the sun was but a sliver in the horizon. Azucena stared at her glass of wine and rubbed her finger against the rim, trying to somehow externalise her frustration. It was not working. No one else said anything else, either.

It had been clear that the would not be too much sleep that night, but Azucena was still unsure whether she was dreaming when she heard the voice.

Rayen, it called, using her old given name. She sat up on her bed and listened.

Rayen.

She was sure the voice was in her head. Her ears had not heard anything. Telepathy was not completely unfamiliar to her, but it was still creepy as hell every time it happened. She was not sure how to answer – speak or think? – when she saw the glow outside.

She got up and dragged herself to her cabin window.

Well fuck me sideways.

The green glow was emanating from a mound below, not far from the ship. They had turned that particular hill upside down, but discovered absolutely nothing. Now, she could see Inca symbols radiate light from below the soil and a clear circle that, no doubt, was the third entrance the explorer-murderer had mentioned. She quickly put on her clothes and exited her cabin, almost crashing into – Luca?

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I had him brought here," said Heinz, who was standing behind the kid. "I could not trust him to stay behind. I have my doubts about the German woman."

"Anna? Really?"

"There's something about her I'm extremely uncomfortable with. I just can't put my finger on it."

Azucena considered his words. Anna had, in a way, been the odd one out, true. She was the only woman in the captives who had not been local. And she had gotten infected on purpose. Even the party had been her idea…

"Fuck," she shook her head. "I should have seen that coming."

"I might be wrong," he said. "But I felt it safer to take the boy with us… without anyone else knowing. Well, anyone else than your mother."

"I need to do this alone," she said.

"I know."

"Cassandra?"

"Still asleep."

Azucena nodded. She ruffled Luca's hair. She had never done that before, but somehow it seemed appropriate now. He smiled. "Keep each other safe."

"Of course. Not that there's much to keep safe from, in here."

Except maybe a ghost witch, she thought, but decided it was better to just keep quiet.

She descended to the bridge, lowered the rope ladder and went down the hatch.

The clearing looked like it was from a different dimension in the magical glow of the runes whose origin was lost to history. At least, in the public eye, as there were secrets passed down family lines that were completely obscured from the scholarly discourse. Even Heinz had probably never heard of this writing. Only a few of them looked familiar. Her mother had made her study them when she was a child, and at times she had been pretty eager to, but most of them had faded from her memory, and hadn't been ones used for enchanting long lost temples. She hesitates a bit to step over them, not knowing their function.

Nothing happened when she leapt over one. Azucena took a deep breath and lifted her leg over another. Still no reaction. She exhaled in relief. Whatever the function of these runes was, they were at least not booby traps, so the mysterious ghost of the Witch was not, at least yet, trying to kill her.

The hole mentioned in the diary was surrounded by another set of glowing runes. She stepped inside the creepy green lights and started directing her magic to form a disc below her. There were multiple ways to fly using magic, and its usefulness made it a skill many Corrupted learned at some point or another. Cassandra, for example, could fly by heating air and creating currents, but her ability was better suited for zipping through clear skies than the higher precision slow levitation Azucena could do with her ability of directly harnessing energy was better suited for enclosed spaces like this.

After feeling confident that she had energised the air molecules enough, she carefully stepped forward, and was held aloft by a soft cushion of invisible magical cloud. The atoms in her boots sole wiggled around and tickled as she took another step. Now, she was completely in the air, and in the gloomy radiance of the runes, could see the spikes at the bottom. She swallowed and closed her eyes.

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Step by step she walked down the empty chute until she reached a small ledge on the side. It was barely ten centimeters thick and half a meter wide, made of crumbly old stone. A tunnel led in from the protrusion. The door that had once stood there now laid almost unrecognisable on the ground.

Azucena walked in slowly, and the rubble on the floor made small noises as it was pressed under her feet. She conjured a small ball of light.

The corridor that led to the main hall was short, mere meters in length. The round room at the end, on the other hand, was considerably larger, with its ceiling reaching several meters high and a diameter so large you could fit in a helicopter. There were ten doors, including the one she had just entered from. On top of each door were carvings lines dotted with small circles. She immediately recognised them as Quipu knot symbols. The numbers were not in order, so a careless explorer without the knowledge of the writing could hardly guess the right one, even if they were aware of the Fibonacci sequence.

Inside the doorway was another short tunnel that ended in a spiral staircase. Azucena hoped the diary had been correct about the doors as her boot landed on the first step. The stone wobbled slightly, but held. Very slowly, she took another step, and another.

After the stairs, she reached another room, identical to the previous one. Except this time, it was the runes from the lost alphabet. Azucena cursed herself for never properly learning recall magic. Or the actual runes. Learning the runes, and not forgetting them to fill her mind with secrets of the social media algorithms would have been quite brilliant too.

She calmed her mind best she could and studied the markings again. From the doors upstairs she knew that they were not in a sequential order.

But that did not mean they were not in order at all. The grouping of the runes looked familiar. In her childhood, there had been a puzzle her mother had shown her. The doors were in the same sequence as how the game had started. She did not remember the whole solution, but she did know which symbol always started the combination. And the second number in the Fibonacci sequence was one.

Shaking, she chose the door with the familiar sign and entered the corridor that ended in another staircase. She wondered what would happen if she had chosen the wrong door. Surely, there had to be a trap, but of what kind? If the stone step just gave away, she could still use her magic to cushion her fall, maybe even break it mid-air. This maze had to be built for magically able people, who else would seek out the Witch of the Inca?

She would not find the answer yet, as the stairs were as steady as the previous ones. The room that followed featured constellations, another hallmark of her childhood, and one she solved with ease. The fourth floor had no symbols at all.

Oh, fuck.

It could be these doors were in order. It could be you just need to know. It could be she just did not see the logic behind the room. Maybe there was a spell she lacked? There were many more options, but she only had one choice. Either right, or wrong. Wrong, and she might very well end up dead. She could return to the surface, and try to bring Heinz or Cassandra or even both with her. It had been a stupid idea to come alone. Had the Witch somehow muddled her mind?

With nothing better to do, she just walked into a random corridor. There they were, the stairs. They looked exactly the same as the previous ones. No hints there, I guess.

Behind the next door, the stairs had collapsed. She could make out a dusty skeleton on the bottom. The murderous explorer had gotten one of the locals to try the stairs at random? The next tunnel she explored ended in another set of caved in stairs, as did the fourth one.

In the end, only two sets of stairs remained intact. That increased her chances quite nicely.

But, of course, she chose poorly.

At least she had been correct in assuming that it can't be just a step that gives away and sends the hapless explorer to their death, it was a chainreaction that not only made her fall, the rest of the staircase also fell seconds after, landing on top of her. That was still easy to dodge, as she used her magic to soften her fall and form a shield that deflected the falling rocks. What she did not expect, was the the stairs were inlaid with magical runes that activated from the ambient force of her casting and started raining shards of pure energy on her, bypassing her protections.

Azucena screamed and fell on the rubble, barely rolling out of the way as the magical power of the trap intensified. Her arms were burning, as were her cheeks and thighs. The magic had burned deep and hard, but failed to cause any lethal damage.

She stood up unsteadily, and found herself in a larger corridor that swayed slightly down. Everything was plain gray rock. When she dragged herself down the tunnel, she felt a slight tremor. An earthquake? She was at least a hundred meters below ground, for anything on the surface to cause the rock tremble this far down, it would have had to be huge.

A small crack appeared on the rock in the ceiling and speckles of dust fell on her face. Whatever was going on, she had to hurry. Even though every step hurt like being pounded by a hundred small hammers, she picked up the pace and reached a larger chamber, almost spherical in shape. It had several round ledges, like the rows of a sports stadium. A web of pale magical light connected the floating figure of the Witch of the Inca to the walls.

The treasure hunter, now truly feeling like the polygon-shaped idol of her childhood, descended the shelves until she came almost face to face with the ancient entity.

"I have been waiting for you, Rayan," said the Witch.

"No, you haven't," replied Azucena. "Foretelling the future is impossible."

"Oh." The Witch's eyes grew round. "Figured that one out, did you?"

* * *

"You let her go alone?!" Cassandra yelled. She was furious. Not only for Heinz letting their friend put herself in mortal danger alone, but robbing her of the chance to be in mortal danger with her. And him. She was, in the end, a team player.

"I wouldn't have been able to stop her," Heinz protested.

"You could have at least tried!"

"Do you mean trying to stop Azucena when she has her mind set on something?" Heinz had the audacity to roll his eyes. He knew better.

"You did in the Necromancer's lair, all those years ago," she sighed.

"The emphasis on the all those years ago. We're not the same people anymore, no matter how much you wish we were."

The pyromancer snorted. "I wish no such thing."

A low humming sound emanated from somewhere outside the ship. "Is that the temple, again?" Cassandra said.

Heinz went to the window and froze. Cassandra followed quickly.

It was not the Temple, Cassanda saw. It was another airship, at least five times the size of her's. It was dark gray in colour, and huge cannons protruded from the steel-clad gondola beneath the enormous ballonet. Even with its engines turned off, it produced a consistent low frequency hum. The airship could fit, she estimated, a whole battalion of people.

"The assault wizards?" Heinz asked.

She shook her head. "This is above their paygrade. I'd say military, but there are no visible emblems."

Heinz swallowed and nodded slowly. "So, this is the people who pay them."

A flash from one of the cannons was followed by a loud boom. The missile barely missed their airship and exploded on the ground below.

There was no time to waste. Cassandra sprung into action. She half sprinted, half slid to the ladders leading down to the bridge and almost crashed into Luca on the way. She didn't bother climbing down, instead just dropping on the wooden floor below the hatch.

"We need to warn Azu!" she heard him yell. There was no time, she knew. Their best hope was to escape as quickly as they could and hope that those eerie runes down below were good for something else than a spooky lightshow.

Boom!

She was knocked off her feet as the second missile rattled the gondola. The smell of acrid smoke and the flickering of flames outside the window told her they'd sustained a direct hit. I just hope it's not the bloody engines1

Third explosion, this time from the ground directly below, accompanied her as she scrambled to the control console. Sit pulled the thrust lever and the engines spurred into action, coughing. The ship started to turn. They had taken out one of the jets.

"Fuck!" she shouted as she turned the engine off again.

"We need to get out, now!" Heinz yelled!

"No!" Cassanda protested.

"You have to leave the ship! There's no way we can flee with a busted engine and even less of a chance of fighting that behemoth of a warship!"

"They won't take us down," she said decisively. "They won't risk hurting the boy."

The scholar's head appeared through the hole in the ceiling. "You have a plan?"

Cassandra's mind raced. She needed one – and not just any plan, a very, very clever plan. Right now, their only advantage was the boy. As long as they had him, the attackers would stay their fire. Of course, they would try to board the dirigible, and even with her considerable skills in fighting an overwhelming enemy, they were still hopelessly outnumbered. Heinz could help, to a point, but what could the boy do? Tell them next week's lottery numbers?

Unless…

"How many are they?" she asked Luca, who was now peering down alongside Heinz.

He considered this, and said: "Two dozen."

Only two dozen? she mused. The battleship could easily fit twice that number of soldiers. Unfortunately, even a dozen assault wizards would be too much unless she could device some sort of advantage for them.

"There's a squad coming out of the ship," Heinz said through the communications tube.

"Any levitators?"

"Tw– no, make it four."

"Then that's only four we need to take down," she said. As long as the flying commandos didn't manage to get in, the others were basically sitting ducks. She ran to the small balcony next to the bridge. The wind lashed her face.

Four wizards were approaching at a steady speed. They were smart enough to keep distance between them, but clearly not expecting too much opposition. That was good nows, it meant their enemy was not entirely aware of the full spectrum of her capabilities. She had held back that night in Sao Paolo, and it had paid. She grounded herself on the railing, letting the excess magical energy emanage through the metal.

She closed her eyes and withdrew energy from within. This time, she did not hold back. The whole gondola started to shake as the ambient magical force flowed through her core. While she normally preferred small, targeted blasts, the attackers were to fast and agile to hit with such precise projectiles. She needed an area of attack.

Lightning struck. It was not an uncommon side effect of expending enormous amounts of arcane power. The wizards in midair hesitated. She had to strike now.

Rain of fire fell down from the sky. It was the largest firestorm she had summoned for over a decade, possibly ever. Lighting boomed. The wizards screamed in agony as the unnatural flames as hot as napalm ignited their clothes and flesh. For a few seconds, the night was as bright as day.

She felt dizzy and had to hold the railing for support. Someone had once compared using magic to sneezing. There was this uncomfortable feeling that preceded it, followed by a flush of euphoria. This was like sneezing a thousand-fold.

She could barely hear Heinz yell through the fog surrounding her mind. But something deep down in her lizard brain managed to react. He was telling her to hit the trust. She wobbled back to the controls and pushed the lever. The ship yerked forward. Then sideways. Forward again. The goddamn German had done it. He had somehow fixed the other jet.

They flew past under the other dirigible, constantly gaining speed. Heinz started to cheer and applaud, followed by Luca.

But as they passed by the battleship, an almost imperceptible bump of the airship signalled her they were not out of the woods yet. She was surprised she had already gotten so attuned to the vessel.

"We've got a visitor," she said to the communications tube. She had barely any magic left, but that didn't mean she didn't have a bit more fight in her.

Sound of creaking metal came from the outside and the ship started slowing down. They had taken down the engine. The escape had failed.

She hid under the console and waited. As he had expected, the infiltrator chose the balcony as their means of entry. A figure dressed in a red robe entered. That was not one of the assault wizards, and she had not seen such a garb before. That meant they were dealing with either someone completely new, or so well obscured she had not heard of them before. In either case, that lack of information put her at a serious disadvantage.

The only hope she had was the element of surprise.

Cassandra lunged at the robed figure. She grabbed them aroud the neck and used her weight and momentum to pull them down to the ground. It worked. They both landed on the floor and she rolled away, kicked at her opponent face simultaneously.

They grabbed her foot. She could feel the magic emanating from their hand. Her ankle cracked like it was made of sticks. The pain blurred her vision.

The figure got up and looked at her. A woman.

The darkness engulfed her.

* * *

Azucena and the Witch stared at each other in silence. Another crack appeared in the ceiling. Whatever was up there, had a lot of firepower.

"So, you know about the boy?" Azucena asked. She could barely stand from the pain.

"I can feel him. One has not been seen for a long time," the Witch hissed.

"What is he?"

"He is not… like us. He is what I've waited for."

"Can you be less cryptic? I am on the clock here."

The Witch let out a crackling laugh. "I have sensed that of the world of today. So much hurry."

"We're not dealing with horses and gunpowder anymore", Azucena said laconically. "Even you are not safe anymore."

"It is of no consequence. My duty has been filled. This is my destiny and I am happy to descend into oblivion. Such sweet release death brings me."

"Fine, just tell me what you know."

"That is, as it happens, what I am here for. I waited for the facade to crack. I knew one day, they would free themselves."

"Who?" Azucena asked with a noticeable tinge of irritation. She had had her share of these inscrutable oracles. Was it the magic they used to slow their aging that did that?

"The Primordials. The beings for whom magic is natural. The source of all our power."

"That's ridiculous! The magic is caused by a virus!"

"You speak of modern nonsense. It is the essence of their being that gives magic to us lower beings. It has ever been so."

"If it was so, we would know of it. Believe it or not, we had a pretty good run with dispersing information recently."

"Their masters would not allow it."

"The Primordials have masters?"

"Yes, they call themselves the Red Fist." The Witch paused for dramatic effect. Azucena hated when they did that, but let the ancient woman have her fun. "They have harnessed the power of the Primordials."

"What power is that, exactly?"

"To change the very fabric of reality."

If this was a movie, Azucena thought, this would be the part where all the flashbacks about Luca's actions would happen. It was unthinkable, well beyond anything she knew of magic, but it made sense. The weird graffiti on the wall. That had been what he thought a graffiti would be. It had been a glimpse to their world. He hadn't known which scratch off would win, he had made it so that the one he picked did.

"Why is he so strange?" she blurted out.

"Strange… or just different?" the Witch questioned. "You judge him by the experience of a human. He is not. Who knows what he sees? How he experiences the world around us."

Rocks started to fall from the ceiling.

"They will be here soon," said the Witch.

"Will you help me?"

"I already have. This is the extent of my power. Staying alive to warn you."

"But — what should I do?"

"It is beyond my means to predict the future. Even the Primordials are incapable of such a feat. The future is yours to make. " The Witch looked away for a while. "I can tell you this. Also long as power stays in the hands of the few – their power, your power – the world will always be… how do you say it? Ah, a shithole."

Before Azucena had time to reply, a hole blew up in the ceiling, and the magic sustaining the Witch dissipated in a heartbeat and her limp body fell to the ground. Azucena almost expected her to turn to dust or dissolve like in the movies, but instead, the body just… was there. Lifeless and pounded by falling rocks.

Two cables appeared from the hole in the ceiling and soon a pair of assault wizards followed. Tired and in agony, Azucena lifted her arms up. If they were already here, her friends above were either captured or dead.

Luca included.