Remille's Imperial Estate.

  The dim, flickering light of dozens of candles, melting down onto silver candelabras, barely pushed back the gloom in her vast, crypt-like bedroom. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight, but they could not block the acrid smell of burning wafting in from outside, nor the distant, anxious wail of sirens. Remille lay on her immense ebony bed, clutching a heavy crystal goblet. Beside her, on the crumpled, expensive silk sheets, a battery of empty bottles was already mounting—the seventh had just been drained. But the expensive, aged wine that used to bring oblivion, today only amplified the bitterness and clarity of her mind. A cold, clammy sweat streamed down her forehead, and her body was wracked with a fine, humiliating, uncontrollable tremor.

  She remembered the reports that had been brought to her after the raid: dry, emotionless figures of losses that were more terrifying than any scream. She remembered the mutilated, burning bodies of her elite wyvern lords, falling from the sky like shot crows.

  "Demons…" Remille whispered, falling back onto the pillows.

  In her mind, as in a nightmare, scenes replayed: the Russian tanks she had seen in Mugei's managraphs, crushing the barricades on Parade Avenue; faceless soldiers in black armor, bursting into her estate. And the finale, which now kept her from sleep: she, hanging from the gallows, while below, among the cheering crowd, stood those very same Russian diplomats. And they were looking at her with the same cold, indifferent curiosity.

  "You ruined everything. All of this is your fault!" — these words, which she now delivered to herself as a sentence, echoed in her mind.

  "Everything Ambassador Mugei said… he crushed me… I didn't believe him… I couldn't believe that I was the cause of such a catastrophic mistake." She desperately tried to find ways to prevent total destruction, but she knew she had trapped herself and the entire Empire. And from this realization, a primal, animalistic terror gripped her.

  "We can… we can still find a way to avoid this," she muttered through clenched teeth. "Yes… we could offer them some of our vassal lands. Resources. Gold… But what do these Russians actually want?!"

  Remille forced herself to remember every word of that humiliating ultimatum.

  "...to issue a formal apology… to pay reparations…" — these words, again and again, like a venomous incantation, spun in her head. "An apology?! Reparations?! To some barbarians?!"

  "...and to hand over all those responsible…"

  She froze. She understood. They didn't want land. They didn't want gold. They wanted her.

  All that remained was to either follow the path of war, which she herself had chosen, to its bitter end, or… No. There was no other path. To surrender meant to admit that her entire life, her entire belief in the greatness of the Empire, had been a mistake. She could not do that. Out of fear and helpless rage, she swept the empty bottles onto the floor, and they shattered against the marble with a pathetic crash.

  Estate of Lord Kaios. The same night.

  Unlike the feverish chaos and drunken despair that reigned in the palaces of the ruling clique, here, in the secluded estate of Lord Kaios in the old aristocratic quarter, there was a dead, almost sepulchral silence. Distant cries and the wail of sirens could be heard from outside, but the thick, tapestry-lined walls of the study reliably sealed them out, creating an island of cold, analytical calm. The lord himself, dressed in a simple house suit of dark, expensive cloth, sat at his massive oak desk. On the immaculately tidy tabletop lay only an inkwell, a stack of dispatches, and a single, almost extinguished candle, its weak light reflecting in his cold, expressionless eyes.

  He had just finished reading a coded message delivered half an hour ago by his most trusted agent from the First Department. It contained a concise but comprehensive report on the day's events: the devastating bombardment, the annihilation of the fleet and the garrisons, the panic in government circles. The information was so catastrophic and simultaneously so predictable in its madness that Kaios involuntarily felt not fear, but only a cold, weary disgust. He read how Remille and Ludius, faced with reality, had chosen to bury their heads completely in the sand. They had done nothing. No emergency meeting of the General Staff to assess the damage, no attempt to mobilize the surviving forces. They had only sent out a hysterical order to all garrisons to "stand to the last" and "avenge the barbarians," as if they were ordering a disobedient slave to be flogged.

  "Idiots," Kaios whispered, his voice almost inaudible, as he leaned back in his deep leather armchair. "Their arrogance has been their undoing. So be it."

  However, he had no intention of acting rashly. For now, Ludius and Remille still formally controlled the army, intoxicated by years of easy victories. Any attempt at a coup would be immediately drowned in the blood of loyalist guard units. "No," he thought, like an old Chekist planning a multi-move operational combination. "For success, I must wait for the perfect moment. When one or two more crushing defeats finally sober up the generals. When the capital, cut off from sea supplies, begins to experience food shortages. When the people, weary of war, begin to grumble. When the empire itself weakens to the point that its elites, in a panic to save themselves, will come to me."

  Mentally weighing his options, Kaios turned back to the dispatches. Another detail bothered him: the vassal territories. Altaras was already lost. Kuze, according to reports, was also on the brink of rebellion. He knew perfectly well that discontent there had reached a boiling point. One more strike from Russia, and that fuse would ignite. And what then? Lead a coup in the midst of a total civil war? Become the ruler of an impoverished, plundered, chaos-ridden country, completely dependent on the handouts of other powers? Such a prospect did not suit Kaios at all.

  And then, in his cold, clear mind, a risky, almost insane, but only correct idea finally took shape. "If I can direct the Russians' strike… guide them to the targets… help them deliver a precise, 'surgical' strike against the key figures of the 'war party,' against the most fanatical generals… and then, at the moment of a complete collapse of command, present myself as the 'savior of the nation' who will make peace… Yes. It's possible."

  Focusing, Kaios took not parchment from a hidden drawer in his desk, but a thin, secure tablet. His fingers, accustomed to a quill, moved across the touchscreen keyboard with an unfamiliar but firm confidence. The message was short, encrypted, and devoid of emotion. "Target 'Megara' and 'Tyrant' have completely lost their grasp on reality. Propose accelerating the second phase. Ready to provide targeting data on key figures and objectives. Require guarantee of Empire's integrity and sovereignty after regime change. Awaiting confirmation."

  This was not a plea for help. This was a proposal for a joint operation.

  When the text was complete, he reread it several times and then pressed the send icon. Then he summoned his trusted servant and handed him a small, compass-like metal device.

  "Install this 'friend-or-foe' radio beacon on the highest spire of the estate. Immediately," Kaios ordered. "In the coming chaos, I must be certain that our… allies… recognize this house as a friendly objective."

  The servant nodded silently and melted into the shadows. Kaios walked to the window and looked at the distant glow of the fires over the port. He was not afraid of an airstrike. His confidence was based on cold calculation. He knew that in this Great Game, the winner is not the one with the most soldiers, but the one who, with the coldest blood, pulls the strings, directing the storm in the desired direction. And today, he, Colonel Belov, was once again pulling those strings.

  Kingdom of Altaras. The capital city of Le Brias.

  Princess Lumies stood on the high balcony of the royal castle, watching as two morning suns—one golden, one crimson—slowly rose above the horizon, gilding the rooftops of her native, yet now so foreign, capital. Her gaze drifted over the streets where life was timidly, like snowdrops after a long and brutal winter, beginning to reemerge. The sound of hammers rebuilding destroyed homes could be heard, along with the laughter of children playing in the square without fear for the first time in a long while. The kingdom was healing its terrible wounds, and it seemed the very air was filled with a fragile, almost painful hope. She ran her hand over the cold, carved stone railing of the balcony, trying to grasp the incredible reality: she and her father had truly returned.

  Her memory, like an uncontrollable force, carried her back to that fateful day when her world collapsed. The threats, the ultimatums, the demands. And then—the face of the Parpaldian ambassador, Kurst. His insolent, self-satisfied smirk as he, looking her straight in the eye, demanded her, the crown princess of Altaras, as a slave-concubine for his emperor. It was not just a demand. It was a ritual humiliation, a spit in the face of their entire thousand-year dynasty. She remembered how her father, King Taara XIV, who until then had tried to negotiate, to preserve peace at any cost, had leaped from his throne. His face, usually calm and wise, had turned purple with rage.

  "Get out of my palace, you jackal!" he had roared, his voice thundering under the vaulted ceilings of the throne room. "Tell your lecherous master that Altaras will never kneel! Never!"

  And then the war began. The Parpaldian fleet appeared on the horizon like a pack of sharks that had scented blood. Their elite guard units, having landed ashore, were annihilated in the very first battle. Lumies still remembered how her father, clutching his ancestral sword, had pushed her into a secret passage behind a tapestry.

  "I will hold them off. You are our last hope. Run, while there is still a chance! Save our bloodline, save our future!"

  The memories surfaced in fragments, as if in a feverish delirium: the smoking ruins of her native city, the smell of burnt flesh, the screams of people… And suddenly, in the very heart of this hell, everything changed. From the shadows, as if spawned from the night itself, strange, faceless warriors appeared. Their armor was dark, matte, without a single gleam, and they moved with a frightening, inhuman precision. Their weapons made a short, dry, air-tearing crack. And these men, who had appeared as if from nowhere, began to dispense their own brutal and swift justice. They were not like the heroes of legend. They were professional, ruthless angels of death, methodically annihilating anyone who wore the red and black uniform.

  It was all over in a matter of minutes. Then, she and her father, cloaked in rough robes, were evacuated under the cover of night. Somewhere in the open sea, they were picked up by a huge, gray ship, so large that their royal castle could have fit on its deck. The Russian Federation. Why? Why had this powerful, almost godlike nation come to their aid? This question still tormented her.

  Then came the helicopter. For Lumies, it was like being inside the belly of a gigantic, roaring metal insect. She watched with a mixture of terror and awe through the porthole as the ground fell away, as her native world turned into a patchwork quilt of fields and forests. And then began her acquaintance with Russia—a country that shattered all her perceptions of reality. Tall, glass towers that reached to the very heavens, which they called skyscrapers. The dazzling lights of the night cities. Every day she saw what seemed to her to be the embodiment of the highest magic. And this "magic," as she was beginning to understand, was the result of the human mind.

  She learned that Russia had gone to war with Parpaldia. And this fact struck her to the core. The Empire had made the most fatal of mistakes, daring to declare war on a country whose power was truly unprecedented. Lumies had seen the Russian intelligence reports: satellite images, intercepted communications, tactical analysis. She saw how Russia's troops won battle after battle with an incredible, almost insulting ease. The Russian losses were minimal. And she understood: this was the inevitable result of a collision between a 21st-century civilization and an arrogant, hopelessly outdated tyranny.

  Now, Lumies stood here, on that very same balcony, and looked to the sky. A hum, which had begun somewhere on the horizon, was growing, turning into a low, ground-shaking roar that seemed to vibrate the very stones of the ancient castle. She raised her gaze. Over the city, in a perfect, almost unreal formation, squadrons of Russian military aircraft were flying. Their honed, predatory movement was so precise and powerful that it took her breath away. This was not just a flyover. This was a symbol of unbreakable power and inevitable retribution.

  Below, on the streets of the capital, the people poured out of their homes. People whose faces had recently been contorted with fear, now, laughing and crying, greeted the Russian pilots, waving to them. Their ecstatic cries mingled with the roar of the engines, creating a deafening symphony of liberation. This moment became a symbol of a new beginning. Altaras was no longer afraid.

  And Lumies, standing on the balcony, looked into the distance. Russia had saved them. But it had also shown how terrible the power of human wrath could be, multiplied by the might of science. Her thoughts involuntarily returned to Esthirant, to Remille, who had condemned her own people to this war. "Now they will learn what it means to bring the wrath of a true superpower upon themselves," she thought without a shred of pity. And her gaze once again turned to the horizon, where the steel birds of vengeance were disappearing into the hazy clouds, carrying with them the fate of an entire empire.

  The Parpaldia Empire. The skies above the capital, Esthirant.

  Dawn over Esthirant began as it always did. The first, still-cold rays of the morning suns painted the spires of the imperial palace in a soft pink, and the night fog, rising from the sea, lazily crept through the narrow streets. But the familiar morning silence was suddenly shattered by a low, growing roar that seemed to make the very air vibrate. From behind a thick layer of clouds, as if predatory fish from murky water, dozens of dark, angular silhouettes burst forth. Their steel wings caught the first rays of the sun for a moment, glinting blindingly. For the first time in hundreds of years of its history, the capital of the Parpaldia Empire was under attack from the air.

  On the city walls, lookouts, their mouths agape, stared at this unprecedented, unnatural spectacle. And then panic, wild and all-consuming, overwhelmed them. But it was too late.

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  Squadrons of Russian fighter-bombers were already on their targets. The air battle, if it could even be called that, lasted mere minutes. Twenty elite Wyvern Lords, the pride of the capital's air defense, were annihilated by R-77 "air-to-air" missiles, fired from an impossible distance. They never even saw their enemy. They were simply erased from the sky, one after another, and, engulfed in flames, they fell, leaving black plumes of smoke in their wake.

  And then hell began on the ground. High in the stratosphere, unreachable by any magic, flew a Tu-160 "White Swan" strategic bomber. Its bomb bay doors opened, and dozens of guided bombs plummeted downwards, gaining speed. This was not a carpet bombing. This was a surgical strike. Laser and satellite-guided bombs, one after another, rained down on pre-reconnoitered targets—the barracks, the headquarters, the ammunition depots of the main military camp north of the capital. A wave of fire, dirt, and twisted metal simply wiped the camp from the face of the earth.

  Meanwhile, while strategic aviation erased military camps from the stratosphere, strike squadrons of MiG-35s and Su-34Ms, operating at low altitude, methodically "worked over" the imperial fleet in the port of Esthirant. Kh-35U anti-ship missiles, guided by their active radar homing heads, descended to just above the water and, like steel sharks, found their targets with surgical precision.

  On the bridge of the ship-of-the-line Indomitable, Captain Valerius, a gray-haired veteran of a dozen wars, watched in horror as his world collapsed. He saw the lead dragon carrier, the Gryphon, suddenly shudder. A second later, its stern section, where the precious artifact "Tear of the Wind God" was located, was simply vaporized. A blinding flash of blue flame—and the rear third of the ship was gone. And then, with a second's delay, the magazines of magic powder detonated. The ship, the pride of the fleet, turned into a roaring volcano of fire.

  "HARD TO PORT! GET OUT OF THE HARBOR! ALL SHIPS—DISPERSE!" he roared, realizing that to stay at anchor was suicide. But it was too late.

  The next missile struck the side of his own ship. It didn't explode immediately. A red-hot piece of metal, ignoring their vaunted anti-magic armor, sliced through three decks like a knife through butter and detonated in the main powder magazine. The last thing Captain Valerius felt was not pain, but a monstrous, lifting wave of unbearable heat.

  On the ground, a true hell had been unleashed. Private Portis, a young man from a rural village who just this morning had been proud to serve in the capital guard, was now running in a terrified, uncomprehending daze. He saw the walls of houses collapsing like card houses from unseen blows. He saw carriages, pulled by maddened horses, flipping over, crushing people. Lost children called for their parents, and their thin cries were drowned out by the deafening roar. Shockwaves shook the ground, shattering windows, and a rain of debris—stone, wood, and someone's lives—fell upon the people's heads.

  He and his squad had tried to take up a defensive position by the barracks, but their commander, an old sergeant who just yesterday had seemed as unbreakable as a rock, now lay on the ground with his legs torn off, quietly weeping. The soldiers scrambled like ants in a ravaged anthill, and officers shouted orders that no one could hear. Thick clouds of acrid smoke and construction dust blanketed the sky, turning the city into a twilight hellscape.

  High above this chaos, in the sterile silence of a hermetically sealed Su-34M cockpit, the major with the call sign "Eagle-7" was making his second pass with cold professionalism.

  "Center, this is Eagle-7. Visual confirmation of target complete. Objective 'Shield-1' is fully suppressed," the major said, his voice even but slightly hoarse from the tension. "I repeat, target is destroyed."

  "Acknowledged, Eagle-7. Return to base in Altaras for rearmament," the calm voice of the forward air controller came through the headset.

  "Copy that. Setting course for base."

  The major smoothly put the aircraft on a return course. He felt neither triumph nor pity. Only a dull weariness in his stiff muscles and the cold satisfaction of a job well done. The work was finished. At least, for today.

  The Su-34M banked smoothly and, kicking in the afterburners, began to climb. Its dark silhouette for a moment blotted out the crimson sun, set ablaze by the fires below, and then disappeared, leaving behind a capital engulfed in flame and despair. The roar of its engines faded, replaced by the wail of fire sirens, the cries of the wounded, and the crackle of burning buildings.

  On the ground, the agony continued. People scrambled through the streets in search of safety, staring with animalistic terror at the burning ruins.

  Esthirant, once the proud, unbreakable symbol of the Parpaldia Empire's might, now lay in ruins. And in the hearts of its inhabitants, along with the soot and ash, a new, all-consuming fear had taken root. It was not the fear of an enemy you could see and hate. It was an irrational, primal terror of an impersonal, almost divine power that had descended upon them from the heavens and judged them without entering into a dialogue. The war, as they knew it, was over. Retribution had begun.

  The industrial city of Duro, the manufacturing heart of the Parpaldia Empire.

  At that very same moment, in the center of Duro's vast city park, hastily converted into a concealed firing position, something resembling a desperate ritual to awaken an ancient god of war was taking place. The "Ixion" magic anti-aircraft cannon, a monstrous construction of black metal gleaming with a blue sheen and pulsating crimson runes, secretly smuggled out of the Mirishial Empire, was preparing for its first and final battle.

  Its massive, eight-wheeled carriage, resembling the base of a gigantic siege howitzer from a nightmare, was firmly locked down by hydraulic supports that hissed as they dug into the soft park ground. The entire structure, from its armored chassis to the targeting system, was covered in complex runic script and technical hatches. At its base, within an armored housing, glowed with unbearable heat its main component—a mana-plasma converter, a highly complex artifact that transformed raw magical energy into a weaponized charge.

  Above it rose the artillery piece itself: a long, segmented barrel, like the spine of a leviathan, rested on a complex gimbal mount that allowed it to rotate with a speed unnatural for such a behemoth. Along the barrel were several massive runic focusing rings, which now glowed dimly, awaiting the influx of energy.

  "We prepped the weapon as soon as we received the order, but the charging process isn't complete!" the gun commander, Harkas, head of the New Weapons Development Department, shouted. He could feel a cold sweat trickling down his back, despite the heat radiating from the installation.

  "I keep wondering, when the Mirishials say this weapon consumes 'a whole mountain' of mana, how much is a 'mountain' supposed to be?"

  "The engineer who consulted us said with a smirk that their standard magic reactor charges it in 'just a second'," one of his technic assistants replied with bitterness.

  The crew worked feverishly. The hum from six gigantic, sarcophagus-like magic accumulators, connected to the cannon by thick, sparking cables, grew, escalating into a painful, high-frequency whine. The air around the installation began to crackle, filling with the smell of ozone.

  "Magic energy charge at 99%... 100%! FULL CHARGE!"

  The mana-plasma converter flashed with a blinding white light. A crimson wave of energy shot down the segmented barrel, from one runic ring to the next, causing them to light up in succession like a string of Christmas lights. Around the muzzle, small balls of lightning, pure and untamed power, began to gather and dance.

  "Activating runic components! Initiating automatic incantation of the magic formula!"

  "Complete! Firing mode—maximum power! READY TO FIRE!"

  Harkas pressed his eye to the optical sight. In the crosshairs, he caught one of the dark, predatory specks.

  "Let this be a lesson to you," he snarled. "You shouldn't have underestimated the Parpaldia Empire!"

  With an incredible energy, as if pouring the entire resolve of his doomed nation into this single shot, Harkas squeezed the trigger.

  In an instant, not a projectile, but a blinding, coherent beam of pure magic flame erupted from the cannon's muzzle. Like the crimson spear of an angered god, it pierced the sky with unimaginable, silent speed, hurtling towards one of the dark specks of the bombers. The entire world seemed to freeze for a fraction of a second, and then the sound of the shot itself reached them—not a boom, but a dry, air-tearing crack, as if the very fabric of the universe had just ripped apart.

  High in the stratosphere, in the dim light of a hermetically sealed cockpit of a Tu-95MS strategic bomber, the aircraft's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ryabov, calmly monitored the flickering instruments.

  "Target in the drop zone in forty seconds," the navigator reported in a monotone.

  Suddenly, a monstrous, crushing vibration tore through the entire multi-ton fuselage of the giant machine, as if they had collided with an invisible mountain. The deafening wail of the "RITA" warning system blasted their ears, and the entire cockpit was flooded with an alarming, pulsating red light.

  "WHAT THE HELL?!" Ryabov roared, instinctively grabbing the yoke as it was wrenched from his hands.

  "IMPACT ON THE STARBOARD SIDE! UNKNOWN ENERGY DISCHARGE!" the co-pilot shouted. "Engine number three is on fire! Number four is out! Thrust has dropped to thirty percent, we're being pulled into a sharp right bank!"

  The Ixion's beam had struck the outer right engine nacelle squarely. The armor, designed to withstand shrapnel from anti-aircraft missiles, had simply vaporized. The NK-12MP turboprop engine, the pride of Russian engine manufacturing, exploded, turning into a fireball and showering the fuselage and wing with a rain of red-hot debris. The giant bomber, the "Bear," a veteran of the Cold War, listed heavily, beginning a slow but seemingly irreversible spin.

  "Center, this is Bear-1! We're hit! Engines three and four are on fire! Trying to level her out on two!" Lieutenant Colonel Ryabov's voice over the radio, despite the wailing sirens and the vibration, remained like steel.

  At that same moment on the ground.

  In the Duro park, the crew of the "Ixion" erupted in a triumphant roar. Harkas, staring through the sight, saw one of the giant steel birds, spewing thick black smoke, bank sharply onto its wing.

  "I hit it! Gods, I hit it!" he screamed, weeping from a mixture of joy and hysteria. "Reload! Faster! We'll finish them all!"

  But their triumph lasted exactly thirty seconds. Aboard the A-100 "Premier" AWACS aircraft, circling hundreds of miles away, an electronic intelligence operator instantly detected a monstrous surge of non-electromagnetic energy.

  "Center, this is Berkut. I have the source of the attack. Grid square Delta-Seven. Transmitting precise coordinates to Sokol-3."

  The pilot of the Su-34M fighter-bomber escorting the strike group received the order.

  "Copy that. Engaging target," he replied coldly.

  His aircraft, breaking from the main formation, banked and, from a safe distance, launched a single Kh-31PD anti-radiation missile.

  For the crew of the "Ixion," it was inescapable. Harkas was just giving the order to aim the weapon at the next target when one of his mages let out a terrified scream. He looked up and saw a small, rapidly growing dot hurtling straight towards them. He didn't even have time to realize what it was.

  The supersonic missile struck the base of the anti-aircraft installation precisely. A massive explosion turned the unique Mirishial weapon, its crew, and all their hopes into a giant fireball.

  "Center, this is Sokol-3. Target destroyed. Resuming mission," the pilot reported matter-of-factly.

  High in the sky, the crippled Tu-95MS, trailing a thick plume of smoke, continued its desperate flight east. And the other bombers, now meeting no resistance, began the methodical destruction of the industrial heart of the Parpaldia Empire. The sound of their bomb bay doors opening became a funeral march for the city below.

  Her mind, again and again, returned to the moment the sky above her head had been torn apart by a thunderous roar. She remembered running out onto the balcony, her eyes met with a scene from the Apocalypse. The port in flames. Her fleet, her pride, turning into funeral pyres. And those dark, predatory silhouettes in the sky. "Not the ships of Mu," it hammered in her temples, "they were… different. Faster. More lethal. These are the machines of the Russians. The very same ones that pathetic merchant from Mu spoke of. And I… I didn't believe him."

  Remille knew—it was all her fault. Her pride. Her blind, insatiable faith that the mere will of the Empire could bend reality. She remembered the mutilated, burning bodies of her elite Wyvern Lords, falling from the sky like shot crows. The image was too vivid, too real. She shuddered and, with a trembling hand, poured herself more wine, draining the goblet in one go. But the bitterness of the drink could not drown out the bitterness of her despair.

  She pressed her hands to her knees, trying to stop the trembling, but her body would not obey. Thoughts of her own powerlessness, of her catastrophic mistake, ate away at her from the inside, like acid. The hot tears she had for so long and so contemptuously held back finally gushed from her eyes, leaving salty tracks on her pale skin. She wanted to scream, to sob like a wounded animal, but only a quiet, choked gasp escaped her throat.

  From outside, the screams carried. The entire capital was humming with terror. The noise penetrated even here, into her lavish, soundproof chambers, turning the estate into a fragile cage in which she could no longer hide from reality.

  She crawled under the heavy blanket and curled into a ball, like a frightened child, for the first time in her life desperately wishing that this whole world would simply disappear. But even here, in the darkness and silence, her nightmares pursued her: there she was, hanging from the gallows, and below, in the cheering crowd, stood those very same Russian diplomats, looking at her with a cold, almost scientific, indifference. The terror was so intense that she whimpered. This was the end. Her personal end. And the end of her world.

  "My lady!" a muffled but insistent voice from behind the heavy oak door tore her from her sticky, drunken stupor.

  Only one woman in this world dared to call her that, without using her full title. Elsa. The old handmaiden who had served her mother. The woman who knew all her childhood secrets, had seen her tears and her weaknesses. And so her voice now sounded like the touch of icy water.

  "Lady Remille!"

  "Go away!" her own voice cracked, despite a desperate attempt to make it firm. "I have no time for you! Leave me!"

  "My lady, it's urgent!" the voice behind the door repeated, insistent, almost pleading.

  Gathering the last remnants of her will, Remille, swaying, struggled to get out of bed. Her body was still wracked with a fine tremor. She walked to the door, leaning her hand against the cold wall.

  "What do you want?" she asked, opening it just a crack.

  The old handmaiden, her face full of anxiety and a deep, almost maternal sympathy, bowed low and offered her, on a velvet cushion, her personal platinum manacomm bracelet.

  "You forgot this, my lady. His Imperial Majesty is summoning you. He is holding an emergency meeting at the palace. Everyone is already assembled. They are waiting only for you…"

  Remille mentally rolled her eyes. "Ludius. Of course. When everything is collapsing, he calls for me, so I can make the brutal but necessary decision he's too afraid to make himself." This familiar, habitual irritation became the first life raft in the ocean of her despair.

  "Thank you," she forced out, taking the cold, heavy bracelet. Then, as if remembering how to regain control, how to become who she was supposed to be again, she straightened up, and her voice took on its icy, imperious notes: "Prepare my bath. With lavender essential oils from Mirka. And bring me very strong, black coffee."

  "As you wish, my lady," the handmaiden bowed again and, backing away, silently disappeared down the corridor. Remille closed the door and leaned her back against it. She slowly slid down to the cold marble floor. War. Chaos. Responsibility. All of it came crashing down on her again. But now, in this chaos, there was a purpose. She had to regain her composure. To wash away this sticky, humiliating fear. And to once again become that ice-cold bitch whom the entire Empire feared and hated. The one who forgave no mistakes—neither others', nor, especially, her own.

  Remille entered her bathroom. A warm, almost hot bath, infused with the calming essential oils of lavender, was already waiting for her. Sinking into it, she felt the life-giving warmth penetrate every cell, driving out the icy cold of panic. The tension slowly eased, but thoughts of the crushing defeat and her catastrophic mistake continued, like piranhas, to tear at her mind.

  After the bath, the old handmaiden, silently and respectfully, helped her dress not in a bright court gown, but in a severe, almost funereal, black dress. Upon her silver-ash, meticulously styled hair, lay a simple but authoritative platinum diadem.

  But even after composing herself, Remille felt a gnawing emptiness inside. Her mind was completely consumed by one thought: Russia. Fear of this power. Of its incomprehensible, absolute, almost divine might.

  She approached the mirror. The lady, proud and confident in her right to rule, was gone. In her place looked back a woman with dark circles under her eyes and a frozen terror within them. A woman whose mistakes had brought the entire Great Empire to the brink of ruin. But in the depths of this terror, something new was already being born. Cold, dark, and merciless. Hatred. Pure, concentrated hatred for those who had dared to destroy her world. And for herself—for allowing it to happen.

  She knew she no longer had the right to be weak. The tears had dried. In their place came an icy, ruthless calculation. "I understand now," she thought, looking into the eyes of her reflection. "We tried to fight them as if they were barbarians. But they are not barbarians. They are predators of a different order. And to defeat a predator, you must become an even smarter, more brutal, and more merciless beast."

  She slowly, almost savoring the sensation, ran a finger across her cold reflection.

  "I will make you pay. For everything," she whispered. And at that moment, the former Remille finally died. A new, far more dangerous monster was born.