This Isn't About Reya

Chapter Thirty-Nine

As night fell over the city of Dragotsennost', Luka Kharkevich, the Ram, the Tsar of War stood at his glass wall in the Tower of Victory. He watched as the snow began falling, the flakes dancing their way down from the clouds and coating the city in silence.

He thought about silence as he watched. He imagined what his city might be like if it were ever shrouded in perpetual silence.

He was disturbed by a knock on the door.

"Enter," he commanded without turning around.

He listened to it as it opened, and then the brisk footsteps approaching his desk. "What is it?" Kharkevich asked whoever had entered the room.

"My liege, we've received reports that the Archangels have returned to Aquilo-Nix."

It was one of the secretaries. Kharkevich reached up and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Which city did they arrive in?"

"They warped into Dragotsennost', my liege, but have since disappeared."

"Hmm," the Ram hummed. "Did they take a shuttle?"

"We don't believe so, sir."

Kharkevich nodded slowly. "And is there any word on Professor Alexandrov?"

"No, my liege."

The Ram let out a heavy sigh. "Anything else?"

"No, my liege," the secretary said again.

"Then you are dismissed."

The footsteps returned quickly to the other end of the room. The door slid shut with a dull thud.

Kharkevich watched the city for a moment longer. Then he returned to his desk and opened up a hardlight holocommunication with the assigned leader of the bledno-pauka, the special forces of the NSU.

The man was helmeted when he answered, his face hidden by spherical armor. "Your orders, my liege?" he asked through a low, electronic filter.

"Prepare the bledno-pauka," the Ram told him. "Tomorrow, I suspect we will be at war."

The helmeted man nodded curtly, and moved to end the transmission.

"One more thing," Kharkevich said.

The man paused, his hand hovering over the controls.

"Place a detachment just outside the pine forest where the meteorite crashed two months ago." The Ram squinted his eyes and scratched his beard at the man. "You know the one?"

The helmeted man nodded again. 

"The White Admiral's daughter will exit the forest before tomorrow's dawn. When she does, burn the forest to the ground."

"Yes, my liege," he replied, and the holocommunicator shut off. The hardlight dissipated into the air with a low fizz.

Kharkevich stood at his desk and stared at the space where the hardlight had been.

Behind him, night enveloped the city.

******

A crowd of teenagers stood at the gates leading from the lower wards out of Dragotsennost' later that night. Reya Chernykh's house was only a block away. Svetlana Jekaterine Ivanna Antoninov Nechayev stood at the front of them all and stared at the white plain in front of them. She stared past it and into the darkness of the woods ahead. Her hood was pulled low over her face, her hands in her pockets, her feet planted firmly on the snow beneath her.