Some time ago, Yara was on her warpath against Clarita for the first time. She had returned from the Fae realm and fully embraced her powers, she tried to make things right. She destroyed the facility the Fae found her in, freed anyone she could, and killed everyone who gave her a reason to. But Clarita herself quickly proved to be much harder to track.

Her organization assumed some other geomancer with lattice abilities had come to wreak havoc on them. Likely as revenge for stealing their secrets, the few who hold that power were infamously protective about who was allowed to use it. Yara didn’t exactly leave any witnesses when going after any place she found Clarita was using. Along with her ability to disguise herself, Identifying Yara was almost impossible. Despite all of that, she was eventually found by another one of the lattice geomancers.

While they were not happy about their secrets being known by an outsider such as herself, they were rather understanding once the situation was explained. Yara’s goal to kill everyone involved in making her into what she became was considered an adequate excuse and she was offered official entry into their group. They taught her some new tricks that Clarita thought were too dangerous to give to someone not yet under her control. While the other lattice mages would not help further, they wished her luck.

Though her luck would eventually run out. After a nearly year long string of murders and dismantling anything of hers that she could find, the trail ran cold. Clarita caught on that someone was trying to find her and managed to cover her tracks. Yara remembered that day vividly.

Prince Yanadeyis found her, angrily stabbing a sharpened crystal into the body of a man who was supposed to give her more information. Instead he had slit his own throat to avoid giving anything up. Yara was a terrible mix of furious and distraught. The prince hated to see her like this.

Prince Sumai Yanadeyis had been caring for her ever since Yara arrived in his home. Others saw Yara as a perversion of the Fae, their very being twisted into something terrible and then forced into an innocent. Sumai however, saw Yara as someone who he could help. At first their relationship was purely professional, but then it became more than that. Sumai really couldn’t say what he saw in her, but the feelings were clearly mutual.

They tried therapy to make Yara move past her trauma. But it wasn’t something she could do, not when she knew the same thing was still happening to others like her. He knew her reasons were selfish and driven by revenge, but there was also a sense of justice that was driving her too. All of the Fae wanted an end to Clarita’s experiments. However much of Yara was Fae seemed to want that as well.

Despite their determination to end it, the trail had gone irreversibly cold. It took a lot for Sumai to calm Yara down enough to come home. It was a week more before she managed to finally stop being angry about it. Eventually, she just decided she would have to find a way to live with these feelings inside her. While the Queen and her subjects were always on the lookout, they were never able to dig up anything for a long time.

To describe what Sumai and Yara were to each other was not an easy task. Were they in love? Absolutely. Yet they would hesitate to call either one their spouse, nor would they consider getting legitimately married. Often Yara found herself doubting if she really did care about him, or it’s some byproduct of having been starved of genuine affection her whole life. Sumai often wondered the same, that her affection is just temporary and she would leave him once she realized it. Neither of them have admitted this to each other yet.

Despite this, they lived a happy life in a small isolated town in the countryside. Yara normally stayed on their property, though she sometimes came out to events in the town. The townsfolk were never aware of Sumai being royalty. As far as they knew, he was just a random Fae who moved in with a woman from a very diverse bloodline. Though Yara often wore a simple mask of her own making when in town, it was easy to pass off her unusual features as simply the result of genetics from a very mixed lineage.

She tried to move on, to put it all behind her and make something of her life. Night terrors, traumatic episodes, and a general lack of any proper outlet for the immense rage she had all prevented that. There wasn’t any way she could erase that, it had been the first eighteen years of her life. Even the most finely tuned memory erasure spells can’t get rid of that much without causing permanent damage to her mind.

During the initial investigations, Yara did find out how Clarita got hold of her. A child born to a pair of vagrant parents had to risk going to a back alley clinic to deliver her. Said clinic was run by one of Clarita’s goons who performed a basic test on her while claiming it was standard procedure. After Yara was shown to be an excellent candidate, both parents were promptly murdered and Yara was taken to a facility nearby.

Sumai never knew the details of what happened to Yara, even though his mother did know. He was aware asking Yara about it would make her re-live everything and while he knew he could go ask his mother, the fact that she would only tell him if he directly asked already said plenty. Yara even refused to learn the spell to bring herself to Memory Lane. There was only pain for her in those memories, she’d never move past it if she had a way back.

Things did seem to be getting better after a while. She was being a bit more social, her anger became less of an issue, and she even started to find hobbies to enjoy. She found plenty of joy in things like whittling and carving stone. Things were going well until another of her experiments showed up.

A man with the same mutations Yara had, though not the same powers. He was infused with various magical abilities geared towards investigation. She was hoping to use him to more quickly identify candidates and also find out who has been attacking her facilities. Unfortunately, the process was not as clean as it had been with Yara. The man was wasting away, but was still pushed to do the job he was forced into.

It was through his magics that he discovered Yara and her location. Though he managed to hide it from them, he had no love towards her for dooming him to an early death. With his diminishing strength, he managed to slip away unnoticed and find Yara. It was then that he told Yara everything he knew about Clarita. Most important of all being her confirmed long term presence in Grict. He lasted only a day afterwards before succumbing to his condition.

Sumai didn’t want Yara to leave, but he knew it was pointless to argue. He wanted to come with her, but Yara refused. If Clarita found out about him, all he would do then is be a target. Neither Yara nor Sumai wanted that to happen. Yara would have to cut off all contact once she left, just to be sure. Sumai was worried that it would be the last time he would ever see Yara, or at least a version he could recognize.

It was there that her quest to find Clarita began again. The downtime did little to dull her skills as she frequently trained with her magic as a way to work off stress. All it took was a bit of research and finding a boat to get her to Grict. Then for the first time ever, she finally knew where to go. But as always, there was something in her way.

Time magic had been outlawed for a very long time. Not only for being dangerous, but because the god of time themself demanded it become illegal despite creating the magic in the first place. Time travel can obviously mess tons of things up, but even just slowing time had strange effects according to some. Whether they were speaking the truth or not, extensive measures were made to stop people from learning how to use it. Though plenty of records describing its capabilities still exist, albeit being heavily censored.

After hearing of what was after her, Yara did some research on the magic. One interesting fact she found was that a complete stopping of time was impossible. Time can be slowed down immensely, but never halted. This allowed Yara to form a plan to combat him.

In a fair fight, Yara had no chance. He could just slow things down and kill her in less than a second. Though Yara never had any intention of fighting fair. “Fair fights are for contests. There’s no obligation to be fair in a real fight.” was what she always thought. So that was why she made a trip to the yacht before coming here.

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Her eyes were fixated on him as he stood next to that strange thing beside him. In an instant, he was gone. In that same instant, Yara heard him screaming in pain as well as the sound of crackling electricity. She turned to see him standing near one of the traps she set up, twitching but not down. He had not built up as strong of an electrical immunity like she had, likely because he was more willing to go along with the process.

Yara had bought booby trapped devices that activate when they sense living things near them. Magic circuits are expensive but process things at such a high speed that even when time is slowed to a crawl, they work just as well. His time magic couldn’t protect him from those, although the traps do take time to recharge. But all Yara needed was enough time to land one clean hit.

She charged towards him with her staff ready to be brought down on his head. Before she could get close enough to finish the job, the strange being moved between them. Yara came to a stop and jumped back from the creature. Although she wanted to finish him off with her own hands, she decided using her magic may be the safest option here. She casted a quick spell with her staff, intending to make spikes erupt and impale him from below. Instead, the spikes were drawn towards the creature instead.

They shot up from the ground below where the creature was floating, which it easily dodged. Yara cast the same spell again and the exact same thing happened. She never had trouble aiming her spells before, Yara could only assume that thing was interfering with her very magic. She brought small crystals up from the ground and had them float beside her staff before sending them, towards the creature.

It did not even flinch as the spikes hit its strange body. They only barely broke the skin, most fell out right away. Yara now understood that it would take a stronger attack to do any real damage. It dodged the initial spikes, she thought it maybe indicated it saw them as actual threats.

The issue is she can’t throw a crystal spike that large so it has to sprout out of a surface. Which was hard with it being able to fly. She would have to be smarter about this one, also she needed to be quick. Best get rid of it before he was able to stand again and use more of his time magic.

Yara lunged towards the creature with her staff, but found her strike effortlessly blocked by one of its club-like arms. Yara reeled back and swung once more at the creature. Just before the staff would make contact, Yara sprouted a long series of serrated crystal spikes along the staff. The creature blocked it again, but now with enough force that the spikes dug into its skin. Yara pulled the staff down and away, sawing into the flesh on its arm.

The cut wasn’t very deep, but it must have hit something vital since glowing blue blood began to drip from its arm. It stared at its wound, seemingly surprised it was even hurt. Yara used this brief moment to make a spike shoot out of the ground and into one of its dangling legs. It smashed the crystal with its uninjured arm and immediately rose high above the ground.

Yara then had a strange sensation. She did not hear a word spoken from its mouth, but its lips were moving and she remembered having just heard something. “My presence here was a mistake. I will not die to a tactical error.” Then it shot straight up through the roof and flew out of sight.

“Thank the gods, I didn’t want to fight that thing.” Yara said as she looked towards her other opponent.

He was now standing up, though he looked exhausted from the electrocution. He tried to cast a spell but found himself unable to. Yara was glad he triggered that particular trap, it was a combination of electrocution and magic draining. He’d recover in a few hours, but for now he had no way to use his particularly annoying brand of magic.

“What’s your name?” Yara asked.

“Why do you care?” he said.

“Because you’re as much of a victim of her as I am.” she said.

“She gave us wondrous gifts and a purpose! We would have been so much farther ahead in the plan if you didn’t resist!” he said as Yara walked closer.

“You’re pathetic. I was worried about finding a way to even the playing field with you. But all I had to do was counter your time magic. Look at those swords, do you even know how to use those?” Yara asked.

He pulled out his two swords and swung at Yara. She blocked both strikes at once with her staff and kicked him in the gut. She swung at his left hand, breaking some bones and making him drop his sword. As he was reeling from the pain, Yara swung again and did the same to his other hand. She spotted a small blade protrude from the top of his hand beneath his sleeve as he tried to jab it towards her. She grabbed the blade below the tip and yanked it from his arm. To Yara’s surprise, the base of the blade was fused to his flesh and dripping blood from having been ripped out. She saw him kneeling on the ground clutching his bleeding wrist with the fingers that still worked.

“Take away my magic and I’m still deadly. She never saw the value of teaching us anything but our magic. That’s what she was trying to do, have us be nothing more than living puppets able to do only the one thing we were told to. Minimize the focus on anything not relevant, maximize the focus on what was forced onto it.” Yara said as she grabbed him by his collar. “You’re a one trick pony. The fact that you chose to follow her warrants no pity from me.”

Yara tapped her staff on the ground and created a small spike which she snapped off before dropping her staff and grabbing it. She then drove the spike right into his throat. He coughed up blood as he began to quickly bleed to death. Yara dropped his twitching body on the floor and began disarming the traps she had set up.

She left the bombs in the warehouse, planting evidence was nothing new to Yara. Though she did keep one bomb, an incendiary bomb. She walked back over to the corpse and placed the bomb on his chest. She won’t even get a body to examine once she found out about today. Yara set the bomb on a timer and walked outside. As she climbed into the car she brought, she heard the bomb go off. It should leave nothing behind but ashes.

The drive back to the fae district was calmer than she was expecting. Normally after a job like this, Yara was tense and either frustrated that she didn’t find a lead or determined to follow up on one. Now she merely felt focused. Like an animal preparing to pounce on some prey. No more fantasies of finally finding her, no more mucking about in dingy labs and bludgeoning middlemen, just a concrete answer on where she was.

Yara’s first instinct was to drive straight there. Just kick down the door and make an unidentifiable body. Had this just been another lead, she might have done just that. This time was different though.

From what that thing showed her, she’s currently operating under the alias of Meredith Gorde. A name Yara had heard before because that’s the name of the person who had been funding the reconstruction of the city for the past few years. A philanthropic messiah as the media said she was. According to the stories, she’s a self-made billionaire who was spending her wealth on making Grict the pinnacle of civilization. Yara, though, was able to see the real story.

Clarita is a madwoman trying to become the queen of a new species. She wanted to be worshiped not just as a ruler, but as a creator. She was making people like Yara to try and give this new race strength to compete with the others, eventually overwhelming them in the process. Grict was to be their capital once it began, after all of the other inhabitants were dealt with first.

Yara could see that her plan had no chance at succeeding. At least not within her lifetime. Clarita hasn’t even figured out how to not sterilize the people in the process of converting them. Not to mention an existential threat like that could cause all nations to band together to stop it. But how many will be kidnapped and tortured in her labs before then? Yara had to end this even if the plan itself was futile.

Yara needed to put more thought into this next move. Look up the building, see what kind of trouble she’d have to get through, find out where she needed to go, and plan an escape. She would be killing one of the most famous people in the city, no way the police and every bounty hunter in the city wouldn’t notice. She’ll need a clean way out of the city and back home. Chances are they’ll lock down the city once word spread. Yara needed to be out of the city within an hour after she left the building to avoid getting seen by checkpoints that will no doubt be set up at every exit from the city.

Queen Yanadeyis couldn’t give her asylum as per the rules that allow her fae to have their own district in the city. Too many relied on the fae realm to escape from crimes in the past. Not to mention her reputation would be irreparably damaged if they find out Yara was living with the prince. Which would also in turn draw bounty hunters and criminals out for revenge to get to her through Prince Sumai, which was a political shitstorm no-one wanted to get caught in.

Yara would maybe have to steal someone’s form to get out, someone with their ID and transportation with them. Yara now regretted beaching that boat, she could have used it to get past city limits at the very least. Yara considered making a deal with some of the criminal elements not affiliated with Clarita. They must have had a way to move in and out of the city quietly.

These were all problems she needed to work out before she assaulted the building. For now, she needed to rest up and start making plans. Yara waited years for this chance. Waiting a bit longer suddenly seemed like a good idea.