Chapter 9
The air rippled as though fabric were being tugged, and then—without fanfare, without the crashing thunder that might have heralded another god—she was simply there. Twenty-five, perhaps thirty feet away, standing square upon the cobblestones with the calm poise of someone who had stepped through more worlds than one could name.
She was not divine like Mira, nor skeletal and dreadful like Micah had been. No—this woman was human, perfectly, warmly human. Her face bore the softness of age without surrendering vitality: rounded cheeks with a healthy glow, eyes bright and shrewd, and lips curved into the kind of knowing smile that could disarm or scold with equal ease. A crown of auburn hair, threaded with wisdom's silver, was neatly bound beneath the brim of a wide velvet hat adorned with a single plume of dark feathers. There was kindness in her gaze, but also steel—an authority earned not through fear, but through the weight of her presence.
Her body was plump, lush in form, carrying herself with both dignity and a faint humor in the curve of her stance. At five feet seven, she was no giant, yet her fullness and the deliberate grace of her bearing made her seem to occupy more space than her height alone would grant. She was, simply put, striking—cute and rounded, yes, but undeniably formidable.
Her attire, rich and regal in its own right, was a gown of deep sapphire velvet that caught what little light remained and drank it whole, trimmed with intricate golden embroidery that traced curling motifs along the edges of her wide sleeves and hem. A cloak of the same dark hue clasped at her throat with a brass medallion etched in runes, flowing down in layered folds that gave her the air of both judge and matron. Her gloves were fitted and the same blue as her dress, completing a silhouette that was at once practical and resplendent. She looked as though she had stepped straight from the halls of a tribunal court, robed not for war but for command.
Her eyes settled on Micah, and she let out a soft sigh—half amused, half weary.
"Oh, what a mess you've made," she said, her voice warm but lined with iron. "If I did not know the bloodline you hail from, I might have been frightened. But the Svyatokrov have always been… ravenous things. Terrible, yes, but hardly surprising."
Her smile lingered, though her tone grew quieter, more solemn, as though confiding a secret not meant for the world.
"I should not be here," she began, her voice rich, steady, but carrying the weight of forbidden steps. "The Grand Tribunal forbids interference. We are meant to watch, to judge, but never to touch the weave."
Her eyes softened as they fell on Mira's still form, and for a moment her proud composure trembled with something rawer—love, loss, reverence.
"But Mira…" She drew in a breath, her words quivering between duty and devotion. "Mira was not only my guide, not only my elder. She was my mentor. My teacher. The one who lifted me when I was nothing. The one who gave me a place, a voice, a self. Every word I speak, every step I take—it began with her."
Her gloved hand pressed briefly against her chest, fingers curling into the velvet as though to hold steady the weight in her heart.
"For that, I cannot stand aside. I owe her more than silence. I owe her everything."
She looked down at Mira first, her eyes lingering on the stillness of the woman who had once been her teacher, her guide, her anchor. A breath shuddered out of her lips, not quite a sigh, not quite a prayer, but something caught between grief and reverence. For a moment, her hand twitched, as though she longed to kneel, to lay a palm upon Mira's brow in final thanks—but she did not. She straightened, and when her gaze lifted, it was not to the past but to the boy—no, the man—crumpled at her side.
Her expression hardened, not with cruelty, but with the kind of steel one forged when sorrow had already burned away hesitation. She stepped forward, closing the distance between them, her skirts whispering against the cobblestone. "Mikhail," she said, his true name carrying a weight that made the air itself seem to listen. "I know you cannot yet understand what has happened. I know your heart is caught between despair and questions. But there is no time to linger here. You must rise."
She paused, crouching slightly, enough to meet his hollow, half-lost gaze. Her tone gentled, soft as a grandmother soothing a fevered child, yet there was urgency threaded through it like iron beneath velvet. "Listen to me. You have seen things no one should see. You have endured more than flesh and bone can endure. But you are not alone—not anymore. Your grandmother gave everything for you, and because of her, you are still here. Because of her, I am here."
Her hand hovered as though to touch him, then curled back into her chest, trembling with restraint. "I owe her my life. Mira was my teacher, my guide when I was nothing but a stubborn child in the halls of Elystin-Kraevan School of Witchcraft and Sorcery. She saved me from ignorance, from arrogance, from myself. And because I owe her, I owe you. Do you understand? I will not abandon you now."
Her gaze swept briefly over the ruined streets, over the silent corpses and the air still trembling with the aftertaste of the choir. Her face tightened. "But the Tribunal is not blind. Already, their hounds will be moving—the Office of Inquest & Indictment will come. And when they do, they will not see you as a broken boy mourning beside his grandmother's body. They will see only what you became—the crown, the choir, the storm of souls. And they will not forgive it."
She leaned closer, voice dropping, words sharpened by urgency but cloaked in gentleness. "We must go now, Mikhail. You and your kin—your family—they must not be left here for the Tribunal to find. If they do, they will be taken, judged not for who they are, but for what you have done. And I will not let that happen."
Straightening, she extended her hand toward him, firm and steady. Her voice deepened, carrying the warmth of command, the kind that was less an order and more a promise: "Rise, Mikhail. Take what strength you have left, and come with me. There will be time for grief later, time for answers later. But not here, not now. Not while their shadow lengthens."
Her eyes softened once more, and for a heartbeat, he could almost hear Mira's timbre echoed in them—steady, unwavering, a shelter in the storm. "I will see you safely from this place, as Mira once saw me. This I swear. But you must trust me. Stand, child. Stand, and come."
"I can't… go," he whispered, but the words broke, trembling with more than frailty. His head turned, eyes dragging to Mira's still form beside him. The sight of her struck deeper than exhaustion ever could. His fingers twitched weakly toward her hand, skeletal in their tremor, as though the simple act of touching her one last time might anchor him. "Not without her," he rasped. "I won't… leave her here. I can't."
Tears welled, unbidden, cutting pale lines through the grime and soot on his cheeks. "She—she sang, and it stopped…" His voice faltered, memory colliding with disbelief. His chest heaved in shallow, uneven gasps. "The voices, the screaming, the light—it was all real, wasn't it? Not a dream, not fever, not madness." He squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to force the memory away, but the echoes of the choir still rattled his bones.
When his gaze found the woman again, there was desperation there, confusion laid bare. His lips trembled as though every word cost him blood. "What… what happened to me?" he stammered, voice raw, breaking apart like splintered wood. "What am I? No one—no one should be able to do what I did. I tore them out… all of them." His fingers curled against the cobblestone, weak and shaking, as if trying to dig into the earth to anchor himself. "I felt their screams—felt them rip through me like I was hollow, like I was… something else. Not a man. Not human."
He dragged in a ragged breath, chest rattling, eyes darting wildly as if chasing thoughts that refused to form. "What… what am I?" The words spilled out fractured, half-coherent. "This isn't real—it can't be real. None of it—" His voice faltered into a gasp, trembling as though the air itself betrayed him. He pressed his palms to his temples, shaking, as if he could squeeze clarity out of his skull.
"I don't… I don't understand." His eyes flicked to the sky, to the streets, to the corpses littering the stones. "This—this isn't possible. No one could—no one should—" The words tangled, breaking into stuttered fragments, lost beneath the sound of his own ragged breathing. His chest hitched, shallow and uneven, and the tremor in his arms spread until his whole frame quivered like a fevered child.
He shook his head in small, frantic jerks, eyes burning with disbelief. "I can't—" He coughed, the sound scraping raw from his throat, then rasped again, voice thinning to a whisper. "I can't leave her. Not like this." His gaze flicked to Mira's still form, and his face twisted as though the sight itself cut him open. "If she could see me now—see what I've become—she'd know… she'd know I'm a monster." His voice cracked, jagged with grief. "She gave everything for me, and I repaid her by turning into something she could never love. She'd never… never accept this." His words dissolved into a hoarse sob as his body sagged against the stones, hollowed by guilt and terror, the thought of her imagined rejection heavier than the ruin of the city itself.
"Boy," her voice cut through his spiraling grief, not cruel, but sharp as a bell struck in fog. "Get a hold of yourself."
She stepped closer, skirts brushing the stone, her shadow falling across him. Her gaze did not waver as it fixed upon his trembling frame. "Do you think Mira was blind? Do you think she did not know the storm that slept in your blood? She carried you from that place because she saw. She saw what you were, what you could become—and she chose to bear the weight of it rather than let the world twist you into something far worse."
Her tone softened, but only slightly, like steel wrapped in velvet. "You imagine she would turn from you now, call you monster? No. She always knew. That is why she took you away from where your fate was forged in iron and cruelty. Had she left you there, boy, you would have become more than a monster. You would have been broken, chained, turned into a weapon without mercy. What you did here is terrible—yes. But what you might have become without her would have been worse."
Her eyes glimmered, wet though her voice did not break. "Do not insult her sacrifice by thinking she loved you in ignorance. She knew, and still she gave everything for you. She chose this path—for you. And now it falls to you to walk it."
His head jerked faintly against the stone, eyes wide and glassy, trying to focus though they refused to hold steady. "What… she knew?" His voice rasped, climbing toward a hoarse edge. "But why didn't she—why is it that—" He broke off, chest heaving, words tripping over each other. "From where did she…? You're lying. You're lying, this is all a lie. I must be dreaming."
His breath hitched, and he tried to push himself up again, only to collapse back down, bones rattling with weakness. "My mother… my father—" his voice cracked, and he coughed, tasting iron at the back of his throat—"they died in an accident. And Noons—he took me in. That's the truth. That's what happened." His voice pitched high, desperate, the sound of a boy trying to claw back a life that no longer fit.
"She…" His eyes darted to Mira's still form, his lips trembling. "She knew I was a monster. She knew—" His voice broke off, strangled, before softening into a whisper that threatened to unravel him entirely. "And she still… she still loved…" His face twisted, confusion breaking against grief. "But why? Why would she—"
"No… no, wait. Yes. Yes, I—I come from a family of merchants. That's it. That's who I am. I'm…" His words stumbled into silence, his mouth working without sound, his eyes darting wildly as if searching the ruins for something solid enough to anchor him. But nothing came.
The woman's patience snapped. Her hand struck sharply across his cheek, the sound of it cracking through the night louder than it should have been. His head whipped to the side, eyes wide with shock, his spiraling words broken clean in his throat.
"Enough!" she barked, her tone carrying not just authority but the sting of truth. "You shame her memory with this sniveling. Do you think Mira raised a fool? Do you think she gave her life to protect some mewling Carnal?" The word Carnal dripped from her tongue like rot, her lip curling with faint disgust. "Those rootless creatures stumble through life blind, brittle, choking on fear of what they cannot grasp. But you—" She jabbed a finger toward his chest, eyes narrowing. "You are pure-blood—wizard born of an unbroken line, the Svyatokrov. That name is not merely heritage, it is burden, it is fire. For centuries your kin have stood apart, feared and revered, their gifts sharper than any blade. And yet, too many of them fell, consumed by their own hunger, dragged in chains to prison for the misuse of magic—for daring to grasp at forbidden arts others lacked the will to touch. Such is the legacy that shadows you: brilliance entwined with ruin, greatness twisted by darkness. For better or worse, boy, you are of that blood. You are Svyatokrov. Whether you can stomach it or not, the world will never let you forget it."
Her gaze hardened, but beneath it a glimmer of fierce protection glowed. "Your grandmother carried that truth in silence, and still she loved you—because she knew what you could be, not what you feared you were. She tore you from the grasp of those who would have broken you, from a family that forges its children into chains. She hid you among Carnals, cloaking you in their smallness, because there—only there—could you be safe from the fate that consumed the rest. She chose this path for you, boy. She bore the weight so you might live long enough to carry it yourself.
She leaned closer, her voice low, the disgust softening back into stern resolve. "So stop this pitiful whimpering. You are not dreaming. You are not a merchant's brat. You are not a Carnal. You are blood. You are legacy. And whether you accept it yet or not, Mira believed you were worth every drop of sacrifice she gave."
The woman reached into the folds of her cloak and drew out a beautifully crafted pocket watch. Its silver casing gleamed faintly, etched with intricate designs that mirrored the one his grandmother had entrusted to him, though this one lacked the same majesty, a lesser echo of that heirloom. The instant his eyes caught its likeness, her face paled, as if the weight of revelation pressed down on her. She snapped the watch shut, steadying her trembling hand. Reports of New York's calamity had already reached the Magistrate Tribunal of Magic, and the Office of Inquest & Indictment was preparing to move. Her gaze hardened as her voice cut through the air like a knife. "Enough—time to go. I'll explain everything later. We must leave, now."
Without another word, she seized Micah's arm, her grip firm as iron wrapped in velvet. The world around them fractured—air bending inward, light folding upon itself with a soundless shudder. Space rippled like water disturbed, then collapsed inward, and the ruined street, the corpses, the ruin of grief were gone.