"Bloodlines of the Unknown"- A witcher tale

Kael stared at the empty graves, his mind piecing together what this meant. The bodies of the missing villagers weren't here. Either they had never been buried… or something had taken them. The village elder shifted uneasily beside him, his knotted fingers gripping the edge of his worn cloak. The silence between them stretched, thick with unspoken fear.

Kael exhaled, his breath misting in the cold air. This wasn't just a monster attack. It was something worse.

Something deliberate.

Kael crouched near the graves again, brushing the blackened residue between his fingers. It was fine as dust, brittle like burnt bone. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, testing the texture. Not natural decay. Not fire. Alchemical.

His gaze swept the graveyard, looking for anything out of place. There—half-hidden beneath loose earth, a shard of glass caught the moonlight. He reached for it, turning it over in his palm.

'A vial' Broken. The remnants of some concoction still clung to the inside.

Kael lifted it to his nose. A sharp, bitter scent. Familiar. A reagent used in preservation. And in reanimation.

His jaw clenched.

Someone had tampered with the dead.

He turned to the elder. "Who prepared these graves?"

The old man's face darkened. "Mira."

Kael's brow furrowed. "Where is she?"

The elder hesitated. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper—"Gone."

The villagers hadn't spoken of her before. Mira, the one who had buried the missing. Kael pressed the elder for more. Mira had been the village's caretaker of the dead, the one responsible for preparing bodies and ensuring they were buried properly. But one night, not long after the last disappearance, she had vanished. Her home left abandoned. Her tools untouched. No sign of struggle. No sign of where she had gone. She had simply disappeared.

Kael exhaled slowly. That wasn't a coincidence.

If the bodies were missing, and the one person responsible for them had also vanished. She had something to do with this. And if he wanted answers, he needed to find her.

----------------------------------------------------

Mira's home was on the outskirts of the village, past the rotting fence that marked the end of the farmland. The house was small, built of warped wood and stone, barely large enough for one person. The windows were dark, the door slightly ajar. No footprints led in or out.

Kael drew his steel sword. He didn't like this.

He stepped inside.

The air inside was thick, stagnant. The scent of herbs and dried flowers mixed with something sour—rotting meat. His eyes adjusted to the dimness. The house was undisturbed. Pots and jars lined the shelves, filled with alchemical ingredients. Dried roots, preserved fungi, strange powders. Kael scanned the room, looking for something—anything—that explained what had happened. Then he saw it.

A journal.

It lay on a wooden table, open to the last entry.

Kael stepped forward, his gloved fingers tracing the ink-stained pages.

And he read.

"The dead do not rest. Not here. Not anymore."

"I followed the rituals. I did as the old ways commanded. But they came back. They always come back."

"I hear them at night. Whispering. Calling. Begging me to finish what was started."

"I should have never touched that book."

"They told me to burn it. But I couldn't. Not when I saw what it contained."

"I am sorry."

"But I must see them again."

"I must know if it's true."

Kael's grip tightened around the journal. A book.

'Why is it always a book'

Whatever Mira had found, it had led her to this. And if she was still alive. He was going to find her.

Kael closed the journal and exhaled through his nose. This wasn't just a series of disappearances.

This were dark arts, necromancy. And Mira had been at the center of it.

His eyes flicked over the room again, looking for more clues. If Mira had vanished willingly, she had taken something with her. If she had been taken… there would be a trail. He found it near the back of the hut. A second door, slightly open. Leading into the forest. Kael stepped outside, his boots crunching over the frost-covered ground. The tracks were faint, but still visible. Footprints—small, hurried—leading into the woods. Mira's. And next to them a second set. Larger. Heavier. Following her. Kael adjusted the strap of his pack and followed the trail.

The footprints led deeper into the forest, where the air grew colder and the trees pressed in tight. The scent of rot was stronger here. Kael moved swiftly, his steel sword strapped across his hip, his hunter's dagger within reach. His previous self had been tracking prey for years—monsters, men, things in between.

This was no different.

The footprints continued, winding along a narrow, forgotten path. Mira had been running. The way her tracks pressed into the earth, the uneven spacing—she had been fleeing. And the other tracks—they followed with patience. Deliberation. Someone had chased her, but they hadn't rushed. They had known she had nowhere to go.

Kael's sharp senses picked up the shift before he saw it. The trees thinned. The ground leveled. And then—a clearing. At its center, an old stone altar, half-buried in moss and vines. Surrounding it, graves. But these weren't marked like the ones in the village. There were no names, no symbols. Just open earth, fresh and dark. Kael tensed. Something had been buried here. And then—unearthed. His grip tightened around his sword hilt as he stepped closer, his eyes scanning the surroundings. The scent of death was thick here, mixed with something worse.

Alchemy. Magic. A ritual left unfinished.

And then, beneath the altar, he saw it.

It lay on the stone slab, open to pages of ink-stained symbols. The script was unfamiliar, but the intent was clear. This was necromantic writing. Forbidden. Kael reached for the book, careful not to touch the dark stains along its spine. Blood.

'Mira's? Or something else's?'

As he turned the brittle pages, his eyes locked onto a single passage:

"The body is but a vessel. A shell to be reforged. The will remains. The soul lingers. To call them back, one must only listen."

Kael exhaled slowly. Mira had tried to bring the dead back. And she had succeeded.

But where was she now?

A sudden sound snapped him from his thoughts.

A whisper. A breath. From behind him. Kael turned fast, dagger in hand and then he saw her.

She stood at the edge of the clearing, barefoot, cloaked in tattered robes.

But it was her eyes that struck him first.

Dark. Hollow. With a black hue in them.

Not from exhaustion. From something deeper. Something wrong.

Kael took a slow step forward, watching her carefully.

"You were the one who buried them," he said. "But they didn't stay buried."

Mira didn't move. Didn't blink.

"You wanted to bring them back."

Silence.

Kael lowered his dagger slightly. "Where are they now?"

Mira's lips parted. She spoke, voice barely more than a breath.

"They are still here."

A chill ran down Kael's spine. Because he suddenly realized she wasn't talking about the bodies. She was talking about the souls. And then, around them the graves began to stir.

Kael moved before the first hand broke the soil. His steel sword cleared its sheath in a single motion, the silver dagger loose at his belt. His body knew what to do before his mind even caught up. The earth shuddered as the dead began to rise. Rotting hands. Hollow eyes. Jaws distended in unnatural silence. Necromancy. True necromancy. Not just reanimated corpses—these things were bound. Shackled souls, tethered to decaying flesh. Kael had no time to think. The first corpse lunged. He met it with steel.

The Witcher's blade flashed in the moonlight, cutting through brittle bone and decayed sinew. The first corpse staggered, its severed arm twitching uselessly in the dirt.

Another came from his side. Kael shifted, his hunter's dagger in his off-hand, catching the creature in the throat. He twisted the blade, severing the spine.

A third was already upon him. No time for steel.

Kael raised his free hand—

"Aard!"

The shockwave burst outward, blasting the ghoul back into a crumbling headstone. Bone cracked. Flesh split. But it wasn't enough. They kept rising. Kept coming.

Mira stood at the edge of the graveyard, unmoving. Watching. Her lips moved, whispering in a language Kael didn't recognize. And the dead obeyed.

Kael shifted tactics. He stepped back, drawing his silver dagger. A weapon meant for monsters—and these things were no longer men.

The next corpse fell with a slash to the chest, its body sizzling where the silver met necrotic flesh. Another lunged. Kael ducked under its grasp, his steel sword flashing up in an arc, severing both legs at the knee.

They were endless.

A red light flickered at the edge of his vision.

Mira's hands. She was casting.

Kael had seconds.

He planted his feet, his left hand already rising.

"Yrden!"

The air shimmered as the binding glyph formed beneath him. The first corpse that stepped inside slowed instantly, its movements dragging like it was trapped in thick tar. Kael capitalized.

Steel cut. Silver struck. Fire burned.

"Igni!"

A burst of flame erupted from his palm, engulfing the nearest creatures. They shrieked, flailing, the fire devouring their cursed flesh.

But Mira did not flinch.

She only raised her hands higher and from the dark beyond the clearing, something else stepped forward.

It was larger. Taller. A stitched-together horror, its body made of multiple corpses fused into one. Its eyes glowed with hateful red light, its jaw barely holding together with exposed sinew.

This was her true creation.

Kael had one chance. He rushed forward, dodging the lesser undead, steel flashing as he carved his way through them. His lungs burned. His body screamed for rest.

He reached the abomination just as it swung.

Kael rolled beneath its massive arm, coming up behind it. The hunter's dagger struck first—deep into the base of its skull. It staggered.

'Not enough'

Kael shifted, switching his grip on the steel sword.

"Quen!"

The protective barrier snapped into place just as the abomination spun, claws raking toward his throat. The impact sent Kael skidding backward, but the shield held.

He needed something stronger. Something final.

Kael's breath misted. Not from exhaustion. From cold.

An **urge**, deep, primal, rose within him. A memory that wasn't a memory. A Witcher's instinct. His instinct.

The air around him shifted. The frost thickened. Kael raised his hand and something new happened. A burst of ice—sharp, raw, unnatural— exploded from his palm, hitting the abomination square in the chest.

The creature froze mid-step. Not slowed—stopped. Its flesh turned white with frost. Its limbs locked. Its joints cracked under sudden cold. Kael didn't question it. He acted. His silver dagger found the frozen skull and shattered it. The abomination collapsed.

Mira's whispering stopped.

The remaining dead faltered. The spell weakened.

Kael turned toward Mira, his breath still misting in the cold air. His fingers tingled from the strange new magic. Mira stared at him, wide-eyed.

Not in fear but in recognition.

Finally the battlefield was silent except for the howl of the wind. The corpses lay still, their broken forms scattered among the frost-covered ground. Kael stood over Mira, the silver dagger glinting in the pale moonlight. His breath still misted from the strange power that had awakened inside him—the ice that should not have been. Mira knelt among the dead, her body trembling, whether from exhaustion or resignation, he couldn't tell. The black glow in her eyes had faded, leaving only a dull, haunted expression.

But she was not afraid.

She looked up at him, tilting her head slightly. "You're different," she murmured, voice hoarse. "You're not like the others."

Kael ignored the words. He had no time for riddles.

"The dead," he said coldly. "How do I release them?"

Mira exhaled sharply, her lips curling in something between amusement and regret. "You can't."

Kael pressed the silver edge of his dagger against her throat. "Try again."

A thin line of blood welled against the blade, but she didn't flinch. She only smiled.

"They are bound," she whispered, voice thick with something unspoken. "Not just raised, not just puppets… Their souls are chained."

Kael didn't lower the weapon. "Then unchain them."

Mira let out a breathy laugh, shaking her head. "You think it's that easy? That I could just… undo what's been done?" She glanced at the frozen remains of her abomination. "That's not how it works."

Kael's grip tightened. "Then tell me how it does."

Mira's dark eyes studied him, as if searching for something. And then, at last, she spoke.

"A life for a life."

Kael's expression didn't change.

Mira continued. "The souls are shackled through a binding ritual. To sever those chains…" She placed a hand over her heart. "The one who wove them must pay the price."

A sacrifice.

Kael narrowed his eyes. "You would die."

Mira nodded, calmly accepting it.

Kael searched her face, looking for deception, for hesitation. There was none.

The Witcher wasn't in the habit of trusting sorcerers after being a project himself, especially necromancers. But something about her eyes—they weren't filled with malice anymore.

They were tired. Haunted.

"I was never meant to live long," Mira said softly, her fingers tightening into the fabric of her robes. "When you play with death, it doesn't let you go so easily. But these souls… they weren't supposed to be like this." Her gaze flickered to the broken, frozen bodies. "They were lost, trapped between worlds. I—" She swallowed, her voice faltering. "I thought I was helping."

Kael's jaw tensed. He had seen this before , in his fragment memories. People who played with forces they didn't understand, convincing themselves they were doing good—until it was too late.

Until they became monsters.

Mira's lips quirked in a sad smile, as if she already knew what he was thinking.

"There is a circle," she said. "A ritual to reverse the binding." Her fingers trembled slightly as she gestured toward the center of the graveyard. "I can sever the ties… but once I do, the magic will take its toll." She exhaled. "There is no other way."

Kael didn't move. He simply watched her, expression unreadable. Then, finally, he lowered the dagger.

"Do it."

Mira let out a small, shaky breath. Then she stood, gathering what strength she had left.

Mira knelt in the center of the graveyard, drawing symbols in the dirt with trembling fingers. The runes glowed faintly, reacting to the remnants of power still lingering in the air.

Kael stood behind her, his silver dagger still in hand. Watching.

Waiting.

Mira placed her palms flat against the ground. The air shifted. The ground trembled. The dead stirred. Kael's grip on his weapon tightened. He would not let this be a trick. Mira's lips moved, whispering words in a language that made the hairs on Kael's arms stand on end.

Then—a sound like a thousand voices crying out at once.

Kael's vision blurred. The world tilted for just a moment, as if the air itself had been split open. The spirits rose from their decayed shells, swirling in a cyclone of pale light and then—they were gone.

The weight lifted. The dead were free.

Mira gasped, clutching at her chest. Her body trembled violently. Kael stepped forward as she slumped to the side, catching her just before she collapsed fully. Her breathing was shallow, her skin pale.

"It's done," she whispered. Her eyes flickered up to his. "Do what you must."

Kael hesitated.

For the first time that night, he did not know what to do.

He had killed necromancers before. He had never spared one. But this didn't feel the same. The wind had changed. The weight of the magic was gone. And Mira… Mira was just a girl now.

The glow in her eyes had faded. Whatever dark power had clung to her was broken. Kael stared down at her for a long moment. Then, silently, he sheathed his blade. Mira blinked up at him in shock.

"…You're not going to kill me?"

Kael's voice was quiet. "Not tonight."

Mira let out a weak, breathless laugh. "Then what will you do?"

Kael exhaled, standing. He didn't know yet. But as he looked around at the now silent graveyard, he knew one thing.

He would not let this happen again.