The blizzard in its beginning had looked so majestic from inside the café, in between the cups of wonderful Ziosan tea, but outside, the temperature had already dropped way below zero, and was still going to drop another dozen of degrees, the dusk was falling, and the wind was tearing scarves and hats off the few careless passersby who ventured outside in the evening, being dressed for daytime weather. The shuttles were becoming rare—everyone was rushing to take shelter indoors, behind thick walls and near generators, while icicles had formed on the narrow arches of the City-s buildings and passages between building over the past few hours.
Snow shrouded the multi-story structures in white phantoms—buildings with gothic vaults and narrow windows that let out little light onto the streets. Even here in the capital, they saved on street lighting.
When the well-equipped guards were escorting me to the shuttle, they were very surprised when I suddenly said I had changed my mind.
"I'm going back to Victoria. Without an escort." My voice was steady and calm, and my eyes held no sign of argument. "I don't need eyes at my back. Wait for me at the police post around the corner. Nothing will happen to me in ten meters."
The guards exchanged glances but eventually nodded. One of them, it seemed, tried to protest, but his companion promptly stepped on his foot. I was already disappearing into the snowstorm.
I hoped nothing had changed—that the old antique devices shop next to the gallery still had two exits and that the stingy owner, who lived above the store and never asked unnecessary questions, still stayed up late and never refused money. I wasn't wrong.
Snow swirled and winds howled in the alleyway where I slipped in. I had a weapon on me, but it was better not to stay here too long alone—I needed to meet up with Osmond and Amalia as soon as possible, even though I wasn't entirely sure those two weren't up to something. Thinking about it was unpleasant—when I imagined dying at Amalia's hands, something hot seemed to pierce me straight through the heart. I could only hope this wasn't my intuition speaking—ten lives had taught me that fate was inescapable, but also that loyalty and friendship existed despite the brutality of the empire's world.
At night, the streets of Noctemar became shadows of themselves—twisted labyrinths where emergency buttons on poles, meant for those stranded in the cold, didn't always work. After all, who would want to leave police headquarters to risk and help some fool who hadn't planned where they'd spend the night? If by day the City on Noctemar looked somewhat normal, by night its citizens relied on luck and prayed the shields wouldn't fail when They sent their drones, missiles, or came Themselves.
Breathing in the frost was getting difficult, so I pulled out my mask. The snow had turned into sharp little ice shards that pricked exposed skin like needles. A siren wailed, signaling the start of the usual night attack. No one knew where They'd succeed in breaking our shields and what damage that would bring.
Finally, a female figure emerged from the alley, masked and dressed in a Thermo Suit under a cloak—Amalia had prepared better than I had. But after all, the Queen Consort couldn't exactly show up at a gallery to visit the advisor's wife in a thermo suit, let alone with a Chrono-Harpoon at her belt...
She handed me a thermo cloak, which was just in time. She pushed back her hood, her dark auburn hair dusted with frost. When she pulled down her mask to speak, her lips curled into a familiar smirk, though they were pale and trembled slightly from the cold.
"You think ten lives have toughened you up so much you can walk the streets naked?" Amalia raised an eyebrow.
"Keep dreaming."
I stepped closer so no one would overhear us.
"Osmond isn't here yet?"
"As you can see." She sighed and shook the snow from her shoulder. "Maybe he got held up with some business."
A shuttle sped past, dropping off a group of people who hurried inside a multi-sectioned concrete building with snowed spires on every tier.
"We'll wait for him in that alcove over there, so we're out of the wind and don't draw attention."
Amalia nodded, and we both pulled our masks back on and moved toward the vaulted entrance of the old theater, whose this season's posters had faded from the frost. The blizzard and vailing sirens made the city feel alien, unfamiliar—it was hard to get used to. And after all, I had spent twenty relatively peaceful years on Retgaron. There, we were no strangers to Their attacks there either, though They usually targeted the laboratories and the Academy rather than residential quarters. And of course, the climate was less hostile, despite strong winds in winter that messed up with navigation and restricted our traveling schedules, if you were lucky enough to get to travel at all.
We had been waiting for about half an hour when Amalia gestured at my cloak and raised her chin, silently asking if I was cold. I actually was. I was also anxious and could sense the other woman also found it fishy that Osmond hasn't shown up. It was unlike him.
Amalia pulled down her mask.
"It's strange that he hasn't come, but maybe something delayed or stopped him. I don't know where to look for that mysterious thing he wanted to show us. As far as I understood, it's materials with a bound old tracker, and he hid them at the Observatory because near the Network Arrows, location signals are always inaccurate. That's why Their drones crash there so often."
Amalia was slightly out of breath from her long speech in the cold and covered her face with her mask for a moment. I thought going there alone in the middle of the night was a terrible idea, but on the other hand, we had no clue what or who had delayed Osmond, and this might be our last chance.
The siren wailed continuously, now joined by another one with a distorted, unfamiliar voice. Amalia frowned.
"Just what we needed," she muttered with a sarcastic intonation.
I felt the air shift—not just from the cold. The street ahead was restless. Dark figures had gathered in an argument, their voices muffled but growing more tense with each word.
"Miners," Amalia whispered, pulling her mask down to her neck and tugging me deeper into the alcove. "See the patches and the harpoons?"
Oh, I saw them.
"We'd better not get in their way." I took Amalia by the elbow and pulled her back toward the arch, intending to slip out onto the main street where my guards were waiting for me at the police station.
But it was too late. Someone spotted us through the storm.
A shout, movement, a hand reaching for a weapon. I yanked Amalia aside, and we both dashed back into the narrow passage.
The wind lashed ice into our faces, blinding us and turning the night into an eerie white haze. The chase didn't last long—the blizzard was our cover, but in the distance, we heard shouts, gunfire, and saw lasers either taking down drones in the sky or targeting people on the ground. Someone was chanting in a ragged chorus, and then came an explosion that shook the ground, sending debris cascading from the nearest building's vaults.
By the time we reached the police station, we were both out of breath, frozen, our wet hair clinging to our faces. I glanced at Amalia—she looked composed, exhilarated. Ten years hadn't changed her; this one still loved adventure! That must have been why she chose her job.
"That was close, wasn't it?" she asked, suppressing an excited smile.
I shook my head, but the corners of my lips twitched. I hadn't felt this adrenaline rush in twenty years—it was one thing to have memories of it, sanded and rounded by the waves of memory, and a totally different thing is to experience it in this body, in my current real warm body. My heart was pounding, and my hands were trembling.
Guards rushed out to meet us, visibly relieved. I told them I had barely left the gallery when I bumped into Amalia—how fortunate!—when we heard the explosion. They were clearly glad that I was unharmed and that they wouldn't have to answer to the Council for losing am empress to the city strikes.
The shuttle whisked us to the Council in seconds, and Amalia and I parted dryly downstairs. The guards informed us that there had been riots in the City—miners who had brought representatives to negotiate new contracts had clashed with farmers, and there had apparently even been an ambush with explosives, prompting the police to call in all units and summon the Imperial Army squads.
The guards escorted me all the way to the door, and in our quarters, Theo was sitting in a chair, staring at the entrance as I walked in.
"You're rather late."
I excitedly began to tell how wonderfully I had spent my time with Victoria, how I had stayed late at her café, about tea and art, about our Retgaron lamps in the gallery, and, of course, about the explosion at the end of my journey. I wasn't a fragile damsel on Retgaron either, and I did not have to act like one distant explosion would send me in tears.
Theo wasn't listening very attentively; he only said that he had been very worried when he was informed about the explosion. He was distant, which stung unpleasantly, and every half hour he was given updates on the situation in the city. He listened, bewildered, then returned to bed to lie there with his eyes open. I tried to hug him, but he only kissed my forehead and turned away.
The unrest quieted by morning, and around five o'clock, all Their drones were shot down in the sky, and we fell asleep to rest for a few hours.
And the morning brought not only a gentle snowfall but also the cold news: Osmond had been found dead.