Ksenija had sobbed. And then she’d stopped.

  Not because the hurt had faded, and certainly not because she’d learned any way to process things better. But simply because her eyes had no more tears to give.

  So she just sat in the corner of her room, knees tucked in and sore eyes on the ceiling. Her hideout had already been compromised—the Torgovyye knew about it, and Ksenija doubted they’d have any hesitation about using that information to come after her once they knew she was still alive.

  She should have found a new one, she should have avoided this place like the plague after it’d been spotted, and she had been scouting other spots to lay low since she’d been stabbed, but now she just didn’t care.

  It was stupid really, to endanger her own life because she was feeling sad, and she’d never have hesitated to call anyone who did so a fool before. And she wouldn’t now, either. Ksenija was a fool. A sad one, a tired one, but a fool nonetheless.

  A knock jarred her from her mind, and she jumped, sprung to her feet, and slid a blade out of her pocket. She looked at the door and saw it budge ever so slightly as it was knocked on again.

  Ksenija’s mind was racing. The Torgovyyes? No, despite how obvious it seemed, they wouldn’t knock if they were coming for her, they’d just jump her and that’d be that.

  Still, she didn’t know who it was.

  A knock came once more, this one more frustrated.

  Ksenija looked at the ladder, and then the door burst open.

  Two men entered the room; big, tall, and dressed in red and grey. Soldiers.

  Ksenija began up the ladder when she heard a call.

  “Wait!” the voice said, shrill and thin—that of a woman.

  She didn’t stop—she wasn’t stupid. But she did look down as she climbed. There she saw a scrawny old hag covered in as much fur as she was powders glaring up at her.

  “I’m here on behalf of a Mister Navtej Volkov!” she hurriedly added.

  That gave Ksenija pause, but only when she was at the top of the ladder. She looked down at the three strangers. “He sent you to break into my home?”

  “Your home—” she began, casting her eyes across the room and saying the word as if to use it here was a terrible stretch of its meaning “—was already quite hard to find. My men got a bit frustrated when you didn’t answer.”

  Ksenija glared at the uniformed idiots, then set her eyes back on the woman. She had a tongue half-way between that of the upper class and a commoner—characteristic in those who worked for the upper districts. “You’re paying for my door,” Ksenija told her, and didn’t feel the need to add that she was likely going to be vacating the place soon anyways.

  The woman’s lips curled, she looked at the door, back to Ksenija, took in a deep breath, and then nodded. “Very well, can you come down now.”

  “No. Why did Navtej send you.”

  She chewed on her lip a moment, clearly thinking up a great many slurs to throw at Ksenija, but ultimately chosing none. “I am Sofia Dragunova, the Sofia Dragunova..” she looked slightly irritated when she saw no recognition in Ksenija’s eyes. “Legendary stylist, I featured in Reznik’s—” the woman caught herself. “You’re not following any of this, are you girl?”

  “Why the fuck are you in my home?” Ksenija pressed.

  “The common folk have no culture…” she whispered to herself, seeming genuinely affronted. Sofia cleared her throat. “I am here to style you for the ball tonight.”

  “The Zimya ball?”

  “Yes, the Zimya ball, you simpleton.” she snapped.

  “Don’t talk to me like that!” Ksenija snapped back.

  “No, you don’t talk to me like that, you spoiled brat!” Sofia bit.

  The two glared at one another, the woman moved to turn her gaze away but Ksenija had already decided this witch wasn’t going to get the last word. “You look like you’re wearing a dead rat by the way.”

  She snapped her head back to Ksenija, opened her mouth to speak, looked at her guards, and noticed that she was, in fact, an adult arguing with a child. Her face reddened and she clutched her furs defensively. “Mister Navtej has decided—for reasons that are not my place to question—to invite you to the Zimya. He expresses his remorse for recent events and proposes the ball as your one last chance to meet. I have been tasked with the job of overseeing your appearance, and your arrival.”

  Ksenija drank that in and couldn’t help but smile. That was considerate of Nav. It was nice to know she still had him even if she no longer had Exia. Still, the Zimya was a thing for the upper districts. Ksenija did not imagine she’d have any luck fitting in there, not with a year’s worth of preparation, and certainly not with a day’s. She felt her belly churn. “I don’t uh…I don’t have anything to wear,” she said, eager for an excuse.

  “That has been handled,” Sofia said, and her lack of surprise was palpable. Now the men were wheeling large boxes into the room. “We have everything you need miss Lyubushkina. I am a professional after all.” With that, she strode across the room, reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a dress.

  And Ksenija decided she would be attending the ball after all.

  ###

  “We need to protect the main gate by all means possible, they’ll try to overwhelm us there just like they did in Tsarnaya. It will be bloody, it will be a mass of bodies and magic, and death, but it will decide whether or not Snegovetska still stands by the day’s end,” Governor Kudrin said, tapping on the war table in front of him, and shifting pieces around.

  The reinforcements had come, and like the Governor had predicted, they were small and pitiful. Most of the War Mages in the Republic were far away, focused on the major fronts of the war—not even considering it a reasonable possibility that the war-lord pact might fall through.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  So they were stuck with all they had. And all they had were Mages who knew little of war with Voin.

  Sasha knew men who would have broken under such news, in fact her entire trip with the King had exclusively involved Governors who would be crushed under this pressure. Kudrin was not one of them. His eyes were hard as he talked them through their options, each one as grim as the last, however each word more steely still. It wasn’t that he was fearless or that he had any delusions as to their chances. It was that he was ready.

  Sasha imagined that it was that same readiness that possessed him—a Magnitude Eighty-Five Mage—to lead a charge against the late King. That Sasha could see the consequence of that in his absence of an arm should have stricken her with dread. It only hardened her resolve.

  Standing behind Kudrin was Semyonov—his son, apparently—with a hard face and harder eyes. Sasha had still yet to get a moment to talk with him.

  Next to Sasha was the only sitting person in the room—the King—his eyes floated over the war pieces like they might as well have been nondescript rocks. The King looked disinterested—and not in the mocking, nonchalant way she was used to, but in a way that made him seem a world away.

  Sasha was hoping the Governor had not noticed. Evidently, he had. “I apologize, your Grace, is this meeting boring you?” Kudrin shot, voice laced with a mix of frustration and anger. “Do you have somewhere else to be?”

  King Exia’s eyes drifted over to his slowly. “I do not believe I do, no.” was his reply,

  Kudrin gave Sasha a look that told her he was less than pleased with the behaviour of her ward, and moved on. “I believe we’ve already discussed most matters of import. This meeting is adjourned.”

  With that, King Exia got to his feet, and exited the room. Kudrin followed not long after, leaving Sasha and Semyonov alone in the war room.

  She set eyes on him, but his gaze was burning into the door behind her. “Fucking prick…” he hissed, and Sasha knew then that he was speaking of the King. “Whole city’s about to burn and he couldn’t give less of a shit.”

  Sasha’s words came out faster than she could think them. “He’s not usually like that. There’s just… a lot going on right now.”

  Semyonov set his gaze on hers now, frowning, eyebrow raised. “You say that like he’s your friend.”

  “I pay close attention to my wards,” Sasha said quickly, clarifyingly, and a bit too defensively for her own taste. “I’m just saying that you caught him under specifically unfortunate circumstances.”

  He weighed her words, and seemed to find them sturdy enough. Semyonov nodded, and then as if remembering that they hadn’t yet spoken, smiled warmly. “Sasha.” He grinned.

  “Semyonov,” she grinned back. “Son of the Viktor Kudrin, apparently,” she hummed. The tension died instantly, it always did. You learned to compartmentalise fast in a career of dodging shells and killing men.

  He went red in the face at that. “Yes, so my father insisted that I take on mother’s maiden name for service. He didn’t want me getting any preferential treatment through his achievements.”

  Sasha smiled, finding her respect for Kudrin grow at that. It was already on a neutral level rather than a negative integer purely due to him not taking one look at her breasts and screeching about how the fact that she was a Mage spelled the end of society. That he detached his son from his accolades actually had her liking this man.

  “I am actually Viktor Kudrin Junior, not Semyonov,” he clarified.

  Sasha extended a hand. “Well, nice to meet you Viktor Kudrin Junior,” she said.

  And he shook it.

  ###

  Ksenija hadn’t been invited to the meeting because she was a spy. That was smart enough on Kudrin's part. She knew the man didn’t trust her. That was also smart on his part. But he’d hired her regardless because he had no other options available. That was not exactly smart or stupid, just poor luck for the Governor.

  Still, it wasn’t like Ksenija wanted to be in the meeting anyways, she had much more pressing things she had to be doing, many more important people to see.

  Like the old man sitting right in front of her.

  “Please, please don’t hurt my family, I’ll give you anything you want, just leave them alone!” He begged. He was wrinkly, bald headed, long bearded, and with worn hands—a retired civil engineer.

  Ksenija looked behind him, around at his humble living room, and finally at said family—his wife and what seemed to be two grandchildren—they were cowering in a corner. That was the smart thing to do when Mikhail was standing over one, face hidden behind his mask, gloves on.

  His twin brother Maksim stood behind the man, still as a statue and ready for violence.

  “Relax, Sergei,” Ksenija told the old man with a warm smile, and very much not to her surprise, he did not at all relax. Something about having a giant Mage looming over you tended to do that to a man. “I have no need to hurt you. Not when you’ve been behaving so well already.”

  She set her eyes on the paper spread out across the table between them and leaned in closer in her chair. They were the old blueprints of Snegovetska, from a few generations ago. And Ksenija knew they had just what she needed within. So she scanned for it.

  “You’re with them aren’t you, you’re with the Voin bastards!” the man hissed. It was a trembling accusation, filled with more terror than anger, and yet he still voiced it. Ksenija decided he was a brave man. But not nearly as brave as he was stupid.

  “I’m not with anyone,” she informed him distractedly. “Nations pay, and I work.”

  That seemed to raise his rage. “So you’re a whore for money, so much so that you turn on your own country?!”

  Oh my, he was quite the bore wasn’t he. “Sergei, Sergei, Sergie, you old fool.” Ksenija ran her finger across the paper. “Why would I hold loyalty to a nation that’s held none for me.”

  “They say the Duke is coming, the Duke, you’ve heard what he’s done, every woman and child murdered in this city is going to be on your head!” he hissed.

  Ksenija met his eyes at that, and saw the man flinch backwards. “Is it, is it really?” she grinned. “If it’s not Voin’s Duke Ludwig drowning kids then it’s Bessmertnyy’s Major General Yakov burning women, not Snegovetska that’s falling, then it’s Eisenstadt being sieged. If the men of the world are going to kill each other anyways, I might as well profit.”

  Sergei’s lips trembled. He opened his mouth to speak. “You—”

  “—Shut up. I already have what I need, and you’re too thick to enjoy talking to,” Ksenija told him politely. She folded up the blueprint, got to her feet, almost turned around, remembered, then set her eyes back on him. “ Oh, uh, yes, so, Imagine something horrible, now imagine it being done to your family. That's what will happen if you speak of this to anyone.”

  Sergei looked sufficiently terrified at that, so she decided she wasn’t going to kill him.

  “Good,” Ksenija nodded, turned, and left.

  ###

  Sasha had been standing outside the King’s door for much longer than she’d have preferred to now. She’d been rehearsing her words in her head, she’d been trying to make sense of her own thoughts, and she’d made absolutely zero progress doing either.

  She drew in a breath, opened the door, and found King Exia sat by the window, eyes gazing far into the city. He turned his focus onto her, noted her presence, and moved to turn his eyes back to the city.

  “This needs to stop, now.” Sasha threw her words out.

  He halted his neck, then settled his gaze back on hers. Still the King said nothing. But that didn’t matter, because Sasha had more to say.

  “Death is coming for this city. For its countless people, for its wives, for its daughters, for its sons and fathers, and you are the only person that could even hope to stop it,” Sasha told him. “But I can’t trust that you can when you’re like this!”

  He still didn’t say anything, and this time it did get to Sasha.

  “I lied to the General!” Sasha snapped.

  And she did see the King’s eyes widen ever so slightly.

  He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that for me.”

  “I didn’t do it for you!” Sasha told him, hands vibrating with raw rage. “I did it because I felt that telling the truth was wrong—I did it because I believed you when you told me you would never again lie to me. Because I believed you. I believed in you. And it’s you this city needs, it’s you I need. You, and your shitty jokes, and your stupid grin, and your impossible attitude that really, really, does actually do my fucking head in. But it gets the job done. And I need a King who can get the job done. Please…”

  He met her eyes, and Sasha dearly hoped to see those blue orbs light up. They didn’t however, they just stayed there, dead as a still lake. “I’ll be where the fighting is,” he told her, voice hollow.

  Sasha inhaled, waited for more, saw that none was coming, opened the door, and left. She saw Semyonov on the other side, and he had eyes so grim that Sasha thought he might have been eavesdropping on her conversation.

  When she spoke, she found that the truth was much, much worse. “The Duke is here.”