Misha slowly turned toward him with her brows pulling together. "Sorry, but I’m only human. I have feelings. I’m not a cold-hearted creature like you."
King stared at her for several seconds, then he rose from the pillow and sat upright, his tail curling neatly around his paws.
[I am not cold-hearted nya.]
"Then you wouldn’t have said that."
[I watched you ignore three meals, two healers, and one extremely tired mage.]
"Elyes is always tired."
King considered it. [That one may not count nya.]
Despite herself, the corner of Misha’s mouth nearly moved.
King noticed it and naturally, he ruined it. [Grief is not a profession, Misha Apocalypse. You cannot devote your entire life to it nya.]
Her almost-smile vanished. "I’m not."
[You have barely left this room nya nya. The servants had to threaten you with Sebastian before you agreed to open the door.]
Her brow flinched. "Sebastian can be a little scary."
King rolled his eyes. [An excellent reason to abandon your responsibilities nyauh.]
Misha pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped both arms around them.
For a while, only the rain filled the silence. It tapped softly against the tall windows, steady and patient, as though it had all night to wait for her to say what she had been avoiding.
"Gramps asked me to take care of his son..." she murmured.
"I’ll leave my boy to you."
The words had never really left her. They remained lodged inside her, too heavy to swallow and too important to discard.
It had been a dying man’s wish.
[That boy is a grown man with functional legs nya. Keeping him alive does not require carrying him on your back.]
"I know..." She had already told herself the same thing.
Thinking it was easy but believing it was harder.
"He disappeared."
[He went looking for the old man’s body nya.]
Misha looked at him sharply. "You know where he is?"
[No.]
"Then how do you know?"
King’s golden eyes lowered toward the blanket gathered around her legs. [Because that is what sons do when they are not ready to accept an empty grave nyauh.]
The words came without mockery. That somehow made them hurt more.
Misha’s fingers curled into the blanket. She knew Kylo would probably never find Tobias’ body. Nyxie and Gerbaut’s bodies had vanished before their souls appeared inside her inventory. If Tobias had been taken the same way, there might be nothing left beyond the wall for Kylo to bury. Nothing except broken earth and the place where his father had last stood.
"My Soul Contract is useless," she muttered.
King lifted his head to look at her.
"I can barely detect souls. I wasn’t even given the chance to offer Nyxie and Gerbaut a contract. Now, grandpa Tobias is here too, and I didn’t do anything."
King watched her without answering.
That silence only made the frustration rise faster.
"It’s supposed to be my skill," she continued. "But Caleb keeps deciding everything. He chooses the souls, puts them into my Soul Inventory, and leaves me to find out who they are afterward."
There were days when Caleb being her brother made her want to find him. There were days when it made her want to strangle him.
This was becoming the second kind.
King released a long sigh. [You fundamentally misunderstand your own ability nya.]
"Then explain it."
[You’re saying that as though explanations are owed to you nya.]
"They are when the skill is inside my body."
King’s whiskers twitched. He looked almost offended by the logic, which meant he probably could not argue against it.
[Very well. Think of it as a game.]
Misha narrowed her eyes. "I already don’t like this explanation."
[You dislike most explanations that reveal how little you understand nya.]
"King."
He lifted one paw before she could interrupt again.
[Before you entered the Tower, Master prepared your character nya.]
Misha froze, then she frowned deeply. "My what?"
[Your character. Your build. Your initial configuration.] King spoke slowly, as if explaining something obvious to an especially disappointing child. [Surely even you understand those words nya.]
Of course she did. She had played enough games to know what happened before a character entered the field. Someone selected the class, assigned starting abilities, and tried to create a build that would not become useless after the tutorial.
The thought of Caleb doing that to her was deeply irritating.
"So he sat somewhere and chose my skills like he was making a game character?"
[In crude terms, yes.]
Misha stared at him. A strange image appeared in her mind.
Caleb sitting in front of an enormous character-creation window, looking through a list of abilities while rejecting anything he thought would be wasted on her.
"Too complicated. She won’t understand how to use this."
"Shasha will forget to activate that."
"No, she’ll hurt herself with this one."
Her eye twitched. She could almost hear him saying that.
King continued before she could properly become angry. [Master could not change who you were nya. He could not give you courage you did not possess, intelligence you had never developed, or discipline you had not earned.]
"Then what did he choose?"
[The Tower reduces people into measurable systems. Attributes, Traits, Classes, and Skills. It takes qualities already present within a person and converts them into usable functions nya.] His golden eyes narrowed slightly. [Master selected the qualities he believed were most likely to keep you alive.]
Misha thought of the Traits that had appeared since entering the Tower.
Analytical Thinking, Calm Under Pressure, Steady Hands, and Sleep Deprivation Resistance. None of them had sounded heroic, not even something simple and impressive like Swordmaster.
They sounded more like the qualifications listed on an increasingly miserable resumè.
"You’re saying Caleb chose those?"
[You posessed the foundation for many possible Traits. Master chose which of your existing qualities the System should prioritize and register nya.]
Misha looked down at her fingers. For a moment, she remembered her life outside.
Late nights, too much coffee, work piled up across a desk inside the laboratory while everyone else had already gone home, and holding herself together because no one else was going to do it for her.
She had never thought of any of those things as strengths. They had simply been habits she developed because life kept demanding more than she wanted to give.
Caleb had looked at those same tired, ordinary parts of her and decided they might help her survive.
Something uncomfortable tightened in her chest. She did not want to feel touched, she was still angry with him.
Unfortunately, emotions had never been polite enough to arrive one at a time.
"And Soul Inventory?" She asked.
King’s answer came immediately. [Master created it nya.]
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