The Imperial Palace, the Emperor’s Cabinet.
The same room. The same crimson curtains, concealing the dawn behind the windows. The same ruby crystal on the desk, only just extinguished after a long communication session with Kaelen.
Silence. Thick, heavy, saturated with the scent of wax and the crackling of dying candles.
Cassius sat in his chair, leaning back against the high backrest. His face was impenetrable. No anger, no surprise, not even interest. Only absolute, icy emptiness.
But his fingers, clasped on his knees, had turned white from tension.
He had been silent for five minutes already. Violetta, standing by the window, was the first to break.
“You heard what she said?” Her voice was unnaturally calm, but a taut string rang in it. “I was drinking ale with the dwarves when these mountains were still hills. She claimed she knew Axius the First. That she fought shoulder to shoulder with him.”
Cassius did not answer.
“It’s impossible,” Violetta said sharply, turning to him. Her violet eyes burned with a feverish gleam. “Axius the First died a couple of hundred years ago! No human, no mage, no creature known to us lives that long! Even dragons, even…”
“Even us,” Cassius finished for her.
She froze.
He slowly rose from his chair and walked over to the window. Dawn was blazing brighter behind the crimson curtains, but the study was still wrapped in semi-darkness.
“You’re right, Violetta. It’s impossible. So many years is a span in which empires crumble, seas dry up, and legends turn to dust. No creature can live that long.”
“Then it’s a lie!” she exhaled, seizing on his words. “She’s just playing with words. Using ancient names to frighten us.”
Cassius turned to her. There was not a shadow of hope or relief in his crimson eyes.
“What if there isn’t?” he asked quietly. “What if she is telling the truth? What if she really was there, at the Gates of Eternal Winter? What if her hand once rested in the hand of the founder of my dynasty?”
“Cassius, this…”
“It would explain everything,” he interrupted, and for the first time a living, uneasy energy sounded in his voice. “Her power that defies our laws. Her detachment, her authority over the forests, her… bottomless weariness. If she truly remembers Axius, if she saw the dawn of our Empire…”
He fell silent, and for a second his face lost its impenetrability. Something flashed across it that Violetta had never seen before — uncertainty.
“Then she is older than us. Older than our Empire. Older than any magic we know.”
Violetta stared at him, and her own anger began to melt, replaced by a freezing horror. She was used to seeing Cassius unshakable, certain of his superiority over any enemy. But now…
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“Do you believe her?” Her voice broke into a whisper.
Cassius did not answer. He turned back to the window, and his profile was as hard as if carved from granite.
“I cannot afford not to believe her,” he said at last. “If she truly is what she claims, then every step I take, every word I speak, must take that into account. If she is lying… then she is the finest actress I have ever seen. And in either case, we cannot ignore her.”
He fell silent again. The study was so quiet that the crackling of the embers in the fireplace could be heard.
“Kaelen reported one more thing,” Cassius continued. “After she threw out that phrase, she left the hall. And headed straight into the Rangal Forest. Alone.”
“Alone?” Violetta frowned. “Toward the horde?”
“She said she would ‘deal with the vanguard herself.’ Not with one detachment. With the vanguard. Thousands of riders.”
The silence grew even heavier.
“This is madness,” Violetta breathed. “Even if she is an ancient being, even if her power is immense… one against an entire horde?”
“Exactly,” Cassius turned to her, and a strange, cold fire ignited in his eyes. “And that is precisely why we will watch. Everything that happens in the Rangal Forest in the coming days will become our most valuable intelligence. We will see what she is truly capable of. We will see the limits of her power. Or their absence.”
He walked over to the desk and placed his hand on the dark crystal.
“Contact Kaelen. Have him send the best observers into the Rangal Forest. Not mages, not warriors — simple scouts who cannot be tracked. I want to know everything. Every step she takes, every movement, every blade of grass that trembles in her presence.” He paused. “No — I’ve changed my mind. Send her our best mages. The most capable ones. You will go as well, Violetta. I want your assessment of this guardian.”
“And if she… loses?” Violetta asked quietly.
Cassius froze. His face became impenetrable once more.
“If she loses,” he said, and there was not a drop of emotion in his voice, “then her power was only an illusion. And then we will simply continue the war against the horde. Without her.”
“And if… she wins?”
Cassius did not answer. He stared at the crimson dawn beyond the window, and his reflection in the glass looked like a ghost trapped in a cage of light and shadow.
“Then, Violetta,” he said at last, “our Empire will have to decide: are we dealing with a god we can use… or a god we will have to worship.”
He paused, and his voice dropped to a near-whisper.
“And I… I will have to decide whether I am ready to bow to a woman who once held my ancestor’s hand.”
Silence fell over the cabinet. Violetta looked at him, and her heart clenched with pain and fear. For the first time in many years, she saw Cassius not as a sovereign, but as a man. A man standing before a choice that could change everything.
“I will relay the order to Kaelen,” she said softly.
Cassius nodded without turning.
“And, Violetta…” His voice sounded hollow. “Before you leave. Find everything you can about the Gates of Eternal Winter. About Axius’s battles. About those who fought beside him. If she is telling the truth… her name must have been preserved somewhere.”
Violetta froze.
“You want to find her name in history?”
“I want to know exactly who I am dealing with,” Cassius replied. “God or actress. Legend or deception. I must know the truth. Before she decides my fate.”
She left, leaving him alone. Cassius stood at the window, gazing at the dawn, and his reflection in the glass remained motionless, like a statue.
In his head echoed the words Kaelen had relayed. The words spoken by the woman in the golden mask.
“Tell Cassius that his dynasty was built on bones I once helped gather.”
He clenched his fist, and his knuckles turned white.
She could be lying. She had to be lying. But if not… If she truly had been there, at the very beginning… Then everything he had built, everything he ruled, was nothing more than a grain of sand in her endless calendar. And he — merely a boy playing emperor on the ruins of her past.
And that thought was more terrifying than any horde. More terrifying than any war. More terrifying than death itself.
The room was empty. Only the crimson light of the rising morning spilled across the floor, and the ruby crystal on the desk glowed faintly, holding secrets that could burn an entire empire to ash.