Bloodstained Memory
On the fog-choked sands of Starsand Shoal, Nicole fights against the Wild Hunt until she comes face to face with their new leader. He wears Varka’s face, his body clad in Bloodstained Armor, but Lumine’s voice cuts through the chaos: the real Varka died five years ago. While Lumine clashes with the knight, Nicole drowns in the reminder of a loss she has never truly survived. The Bloodstained Knight retreats into the mist with his forces, but his gaze lingers on Nicole long after she leaves. He does not know why her face wrenches at something inside him—only that he needs to know who she is.
Back in Nasha Town, Nicole rests in The Flagship, haunted by the sense that the world around her is wrong. She sifts through her memories of the events of the Nod Krai Archon Quest—the battle against Rerir and Dottore—and realizes with growing unease that none of it has happened in this timeline. When Lumine visits, she gently pieces the past together for Nicole: how she came to Nod Krai at Varka’s summons, their investigation into the Wild Hunt’s origins, the Abyssal Portal in Ashveil Peak that served as the source of all calamity, and the moment Varka walked into it to seal it shut. Reluctantly, Lumine also reminds Nicole of the brief, fragile romance she shared with Varka—a love that barely had time to bloom before it was buried. Nicole knows, logically, that she and Varka never had the chance to grow close in this world. But fragments of grief and devotion flicker at the edges of her memory, refusing to be dismissed.
Meanwhile, the Bloodstained Knight launches a surprise assault on Cliffwatch Camp. He overpowers Illuga’s squad and drags the young Lightkeeper into the dark. Flins, fiercely protective, alerts the others and begs Lumine for aid, dubbing the mastermind behind this new threat as the “Bloodstained Knight”. Nicole suddenly recalls Roland, a knight of Favonius from Mondstadt, the original Bloodstained Knight. Determined to uncover the truth, Nicole sets out for Mondstadt to consult Alice and Barbeloth, while Lumine and the others prepare to confront the Bloodstained Knight directly.
On the road to Mondstadt, sleep brings Nicole no peace. She dreams of Varka—his warmth, his voice, the love they once shared. The dreams are vivid, agonizing in their tenderness, and though a part of her insists they cannot be real, she knows that her love for him has always been true.
In Nod Krai, Lumine and Flins enlist Jahoda’s help to rescue Illuga from an abandoned Fatui laboratory in Ashveil Peak. But the mission is a trap as the Bloodstained Knight emerges from the shadows and overpowers them with devastating ease. He demands answers—who he is, why Nicole’s face haunts him, why Lumine looks at him with hatred and grief in equal measure. Lumine refuses to give him anything. She tells him, cold and merciless, that Varka died five years ago, and that he is nothing more than an Abyssal puppet conjured to mock the living. Enraged, the Bloodstained Knight unleashes an endless horde of Wilderness creatures upon them.
In Mondstadt, Alice and Barbeloth stare at Nicole in shock and disbelief. They confess that Nicole—the Nicole of this world—took her own life a year after Varka’s death. Grief-stricken and reeling, the two witches kept her death a secret from Lumine and the others. Now, faced with a Nicole who stands before them alive and whole, they can only conclude that she is a different version of Nicole—a Nicole from an alternate universe. Nicole tells them of the Bloodstained Knight, of the man who wears Varka’s face, and asks if he could truly be the Varka of this world. Sadly, the witches are unsure of this Varka attacking Nod Krai.
Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Durin, who brings word of the chaos unfolding in Nod Krai. Without hesitation, the witches transform Durin into a dragon, and together they (sans Barbeloth) race toward Ashveil Peak.
Nicole and Alice arrive at the Fatui laboratory just as Lumine, Flins, Jahoda, and Illuga are on the brink of being overwhelmed. The tide of battle shifts as the two witches step forward. The Bloodstained Knight, upon seeing Nicole, reaches out with something almost like longing. But Lumine and Flins block his path, their fury unrelenting. Steel clashes against steel until Nicole asks the others to stand down, realizing the knight’s true intentions.
The battlefield falls silent.
The Bloodstained Knight approaches Nicole, and as their palms touch, something cracks open inside him. His eyes—once dull and wine-red—flicker back to their true blue. Memories, long buried, surge to the surface like a drowning man gasping for air. He begins to remember everything.
He is Varka—the real Varka.
After he sealed the Abyssal Portal, he did not die—not truly. He was trapped in a void of darkness for months, suspended between life and nothing. When he finally clawed his way back to the world, he found Nicole dead. The grief that consumed him was so absolute that the Abyss slipped into the hollow spaces left behind. He became its puppet, its Bloodstained Knight, the leader of the Wild Hunt. Slowly, his memories faded until only the violence remained. But when he saw Nicole on Starsand Shoal, something within him stirred. He has been searching for answers ever since, attacking Lightkeepers not out of cruelty, but desperation.
He tells her, with a voice raw from years of silence, that he is happy to see her alive.
But Nicole, with tears streaming down her face, tells him the truth—that she is not his Nicole. His Nicole is gone. She comes from another universe, another timeline, where events had transpired differently.
Varka’s face crumples. Before the devastation can claim him entirely, Nicole reaches for him again. She tells him that in her universe, she loved her Varka with everything she had. And she knows that in every universe, she would find him.
And that in every universe, she would love him.
Varka feels the Abyss’s hold on him shatter. Freed at last, he allows himself to let go. He passes away in Nicole’s arms, his expression peaceful, his eyes fixed on hers. Around them, the Wild Hunt dissipates into nothing. Lumine and the others watch in silence as Varka dies for the second time—this time, for real.
His hand cradles Nicole’s face, trembling and impossibly gentle. He tells her that he loves her. That he will always love her, in every universe, just as she loves him.
Then his eyes close.
Nicole holds him for a long, long moment, her forehead pressed against his. When she finally closes her eyes, the world falls away.
She wakes against the cold stone of a wall near Favonius Keep, as though from a sleep that lasted an eternity. Her body aches. Her heart feels raw, scraped clean.
Then, footsteps approach. A voice, warm and familiar, tinged with amusement reaches her ears. She is in his usual napping spot, he tells her.
Nicole looks up.
Varka stands before her, whole and alive and here.
She cannot speak—cannot breathe. She only knows that she reaches for him, and when he settles beside her, she throws her arms around him and buries her face in his chest. The tears come before she can stop them.
Varka stiffens in surprise, then relaxes. He does not understand, but he does not pull away.
Nicole lifts her head and tells him, with a voice that does not waver, that she loves him.
Warmth floods his chest. He does not question it. Varka simply holds her tighter and says it back.
And there, in front of Amsvartnir, they share a tender kiss—a love finally given the time it was never allowed in any other universe. A love that will outlast them all.
