Dr Belitrov runs his fingers along the body's smooth, pale skin, gently tucking its hair back as he did mine.
"I hope you like it, zvezda moya. I have been told its hair is the exact same shade as your magic. As are its eyes, apparently." There is a hidden undertone to Dr Belitrov's voice. It sounds as light as it normally does, but like that glint in his eyes, I cannot place it. it is dark and heavy and laden with something that Dr Belitrov is trying to hide.
When he says the word 'magic', however, all is forgotten. Magic? Like Dr Belitrov's?
My words come out as "Mma?"
Dr Belitrov laughs his sad, laden, laugh and nods. "Yes, my beautiful Kaiserin. Magic. Observe."
He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a gun. It spits fire and death, and I have seen the guards kill many prisoners with them before. My instincts were right. I lift up an arm, perhaps to shield myself from my inevitable fate, or perhaps to hide my tears from Dr Belitrov's eyes as he pulls the trigger.
The bullet never reaches me.
Something courses through my veins. Fiery sparks rush throughout my body and come out of my hands, in a spray of periwinkle light. The bullet hangs in midair, engulfed in the very same light. It does not fall to the ground, and nor is it frozen by ice. It simply remains there, as if its will to move has been taken from it.
Dr Belitrov smiles reverently.
"The Kaiser of Motion is real. I-Ilise - my baby girl, you're coming home."
He turns back to me. "I am sorry, Kaiserin. Perhaps, when you awake, we will be together, not as doctor and patient, but as father and daughter." Orange sparks fly from Dr Belitrov's hands.
My eyelids grow heavy. The food!, I think.
It is the last thought I will ever think.
--
When I wake up again, I do not see the cold, grey walls of my cell. My stomach is still full. The night with Dr Belitrov was very much real. Something trails from my arm to the girl's. Dr Belitrov stands over me, scribbling away in that notepad of his. I shriek and buck against my restraints and try to call on the same magic that froze the bullet, but it does not come to me.
"Oh, zvezda moya. I am sorry it had to come to this. You must understand - you are the only thing that can save my beloved Ilise. Not even Yggdrasil, with all of its magic and science, can bring someone back from the dead. Only someone wielding the Kaiserforce - a Kaiserin, such as you, can do that. Please. Help me."
Dr Belitrov's eyes are filled with such pleading sadness that I cannot help but stop thrashing. The glint and the undertone - this is what they were. Sadness. Guilt. Regret. I want to speak to him, to reason it out, but my mouth does not permit me to do so. Instead, all I can do is scream. This pain - it floods my body and begins to tear at me, ripping shreds of my magic away from me. A thin stream of energy flows into the body next to me.
"I'm sorry. The process has begun. There is no stopping it. When it ends, you and my daughter will be as one, with she back in the realm of the living wielding your power-"
He does not get to finish his sentence. The platform door dings open, and armed men, looking very much like the guards, storm out into the room. They point their guns at Dr Belitrov.
"Halt the process, doctor. The president would hate for Yggdrasil to lose an asset as important as yourself. Be reminded that the Kaiser you currently have bound to a table is much more precious, and she takes top priority. Step aside. End this twisted experiment of yours, and you will be allowed to retire in peace with Yggdrasil funding. Our president guarantees this."
"NO!" Dr Belitrov yells. He pulls out his gun, and his other hand ignites with magic. "Do not forget your place, soldier! I have an affinity for Illusion magic. Come any closer and I'll have the lot of you stumbling out the window before you can even fire those guns of yours. You can take my life, but you will NOT take my daughter from me!"
"If you will it so, doctor."
Gunfire rings out. A storm of bullets descends on Dr Belitrov, ripping into his skin and drenching the trillium white of his lab coat in poppy red. Blood pours from his mouth as he falls to the ground with a sickening thump.
"N-no," Dr Belitrov says again. His conviction remains - I watch in horror as he slowly crawls towards the body of his daughter. his bloodstained right hand glowing with magic.
"I-if science has failed me, then I am forced to resort to-" He draws a sharp breath. "This. A father's love for his daughter. My affinity matters not. Only-"
"Only Ilise does."
I finish the sentence for him in Ilise's voice. In the time it has taken for the men to shoot down Dr Belitrov, my mind has started to become one with Ilise's. I see her memories - the times she spent with Dr Belitrov in the park, the breakfasts they had together and the books Dr Belitrov dedicated to her. And I know that a Kaiser, no matter how powerful, will never measure up to this.
Ilise's memories make me feel complete. It fills the gap, the gap that prevented me from remembering my words and their meanings. It allows me to speak. I feel the magic coursing through me once more.
I am not the Kaiser of Motion. I am Ilise. Daughter of Alexei Belitrov, scientist.
Daughter of Alexei Belitrov, a dead man.
"FATHER!" I cry out, my throat raw. There is a foreign power in me. It does not feel like the magic my father taught me to use. The magic that my father is currently using as he lays dying before me. Beside me, on an operating table, something fades away. That something was once me - us?
"Ilise. Zvezda moya. I- I am glad that I had the chance to see you one last time. Know that from this day to my last, I will always love you. That neither time nor death can keep us apart. And to you - Kaiserin - if you still remain, I thank you. Thank you for reuniting this old man and his daughter."
"FATHER! NO!" Dr Belitrov stops breathing. I can feel it. The movements of the world - I can sense it, as if they are one with me. The rise and fall of Dr Belitrov's chest is no more. But the soldiers. I feel them moving around, their fingers tensing around the triggers of their rifles. They will pay for what they did to Ilise's father - to my father.
I summon forth all my might. Blue light floods the room. The restraints binding my hands and feet snap open and hurtle across the room at breakneck speeds, embedding themselves in the walls and two soldiers. Their blood pours forth - just like Dr Belitrov's did when they gunned him down.
In the moments before the soldiers are pulverised by the wave of sheer kinetic energy, I feel them freeze up. They have lost the will to move, for they know that they will die.
I close my eyes, and smile as Yggdrasil falls around me.
--