Icarus flew down to the Witch of Vania'd hut. Standing beside a wisteria tree was the witch herself and her adopted daughter she won from Doureena so many years ago.
"The Witch of Grim is dead," the daughter said.
"By none other than Hacate herself," the witch shook her head, smiling to herself. "Power can be a anyone's downfall."
Icarus stood on the hut watching the women converse.
The witch's fingers traced the veins of the wisteria leaves, their edges browned by the kind of rot that comes slow, inevitable.
Her nails, long, yellowed things, dug just deep enough to peel back a strip of bark without breaking it. The motion was idle, practiced. She'd done this before.
Icarus shifted his weight on the thatched roof, and a loose reed snapped underfoot. The witch didn't glance up, but her daughter did, just a flick of dark eyes, then gone. The girl's hands were busy too, plucking petals from a bloom overhead, letting them drift into a clay bowl already half-full.
They were an odd family but a family nonetheless; the daughter even had contact with Kara.
Icarus moved silently, his bare feet finding purchase between the reeds as he slipped down from the roof.
The girl's petals made no sound as they fell, one after another, a slow cascade of violet against the bowl's rough interior.
"Do you think they'll br another war?" Icarus asked the two witches.
Both shook their heads.
"Not for a very long time. Nothing like what Apex did. Nothing like that for a long, long time," the Witch of Vania answered