Date: March 17, 541 years after the Fall of Zanra the Treacherous.
Sleep came slowly. Ulviya lay on her bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling, listening to the town grow quiet beyond the window. The wreath the llama had given her had dried completely, its petals lying on the windowsill as thin, fragile dust. She thought about throwing them away, but something held her back. Perhaps fatigue. Perhaps a reluctance to move. Or perhaps that feeling that came to her sometimes at night, when silence grew too deep and thoughts too loud.
She closed her eyes and fell into darkness.
The first thing was a feeling of heaviness. Not physical—another kind, the kind that presses on your chest when you cannot take a full breath. Ulviya opened her eyes and for a moment did not know where she was.
The room was hers. The same bed, the same table, the same window‑hollow. But something had changed. There was no light. Outside the window, gray, thick gloom churned, and no ray could pierce it. The air was heavy, cold, and it smelled not of flowers and moss but of dampness and decay.
Ulviya sat up. Her body was sluggish, unresponsive, as if she had not slept but lain under a thick layer of earth. She looked at the windowsill and froze.
Hope, her little sprout, which she had tended for days, was dead. The stem was blackened, the leaves curled and hung like withered rags. Beside it, the two pots with Bagurai's plants—they too were dead. The soil in them had cracked, turned gray and lifeless. Only yesterday they had been green, alive. Now—ash.
Ulviya stood. Her legs were heavy, each foot feeling three times its usual weight. She went to the door, pushed it open, and stepped outside.
The town was dead.
The tree‑houses, so alive yesterday, now stood bare, black, their branches reaching toward the sky like broken fingers. The grass beneath her feet had turned to gray dust, and every step raised a cloud. The air was still, heavy, and in that silence nothing could be heard—no laughter, no arguments, no children's voices. Only somewhere in the distance, at the edge of hearing, someone was crying. Quietly, despairingly, as one cries when there is no strength left.
Ulviya walked forward. She did not know where she was going, but her feet carried her along familiar paths. Past the House of Crafts, where instead of light and fire there were only empty window‑hollows, black as eye sockets. Past the Garden of Memory, where the old trees had bent, broken, crumbled to dust. Past the square where children had played yesterday. Today it was empty. Only the wind—if it was wind—drove dry leaves across the ground, their rustle like whispering.
Then the gloom ahead began to thicken. It did not just swirl—it condensed into shapes, into pictures, into faces. Ulviya wanted to stop, but could not. Her feet carried her straight into that gloom, straight into those pictures, and she understood: they were for her. They had been waiting for her.
The first picture was familiar. A field. Large, endless, with sparse rye that refused to grow. The earth was dry, cracked, and wind drove gray dust over it. In the middle of the field, bent under the weight of a hoe, a little girl worked.
Ulviya recognized herself. She was five, maybe six. Her hands were calloused, her back ached, and ahead lay an endless row of beds. No one worked beside her. Father was at the tavern, mother at home, drunk, staring at one point. The girl worked alone. She had always worked alone.
The picture changed. A house. Cramped, dirty, with a crooked door and a leaking roof. Inside—the smell of cheap liquor, sauerkraut, and hopelessness. Father sat at the table, his face red, eyes murky. Mother stood by the wall, huddled, staring at the floor. And the girl—the same one—stood in the corner, clutching the hem of her shirt so tightly her knuckles were white.
"She is strong," the father said, his voice heavy, drunk. "She can work. Does not cry."
A stranger in dark clothes counted out coins. Father took them without even counting. The girl looked at her mother. Mother stood motionless, and there was nothing in her eyes. Only emptiness. Then she turned away.
Ulviya wanted to scream. Not then, in the past, but now, watching this picture. She wanted to break free from the dream, close her eyes, not see this. But she could not. Her legs would not obey, her eyes would not close, and she watched as the little girl was led out of the house, put into a cart, taken down a dusty road, and she did not cry. Only clenched her fists and stared at one point.
Then there was a square. Many people, noise, shouts. The girl stood with her head down, feeling them look at her, evaluate her, touch her. The stranger said: "She can work. Strong. Does not cry." Someone haggled over the price. Then a new voice, female, tired but firm:
"I will take her."
Ulviya raised her head. A woman in a gray dress looked at her, and in her eyes there was not pity but something else. Understanding. Or weariness. Or something with no name.
"What is your name?" she asked.
The girl was silent. Afraid that if she opened her mouth, she would cry. And she never cried. Never.
"Very well," the woman sighed. "Come. The road is long."
She held out her hand. And the girl—the one who never cried, who never asked, who simply went where she was led—suddenly felt something inside her, frozen and numb, begin to melt. She took that hand and held it as tightly as she could.
The picture changed. A road, a cart, forest outside the window. The woman in gray—Eliria—sat beside her, silent. Did not console, did not pity, did not ask questions. Simply stayed near. And that was enough.
Then there were gates. Crooked, with a faded sign reading "Old Pine." Children in the yard—some playing, some working, some just sitting and staring at the sky. Among them, three. A red‑haired one, stubborn, with burning eyes. A quiet one, with blue eyes full of fear he tried not to show. And a girl with a sharp, intelligent gaze, who looked at the world as if reading it like a book.
The girl from the past—Ulviya—stood at the threshold, clutching Eliria's hand, looking at them. And they looked at her. And no one asked who she was or where she came from. They simply were. And that was enough.
The picture began to fade. The gloom thickened, washing away faces, voices, colors. Ulviya stood in the middle of gray emptiness, watching the orphanage vanish, her friends vanish, Eliria vanish. She wanted to shout, to stop it, but could not. Only clenched her fists, as she had as a child, and watched the world around her crumble to dust.
She woke drenched in sweat.
Her heart pounded somewhere in her throat, her breathing ragged. She sat on the bed, clutching the edge of the blanket with both hands, and could not understand where she was. The room was hers. The same walls, the same table, the same window‑hollow. But light… there was light.
She turned her head to the windowsill. Hope stood in its place. Its slender stem was green, strong, two tiny leaves reaching toward the sun. Beside it, the two pots with Bagurai's plants—alive, blooming. The wreath the llama had given her had dried, but its petals lay on the sill, and even in them she felt life.
Ulviya looked at the window. Beyond it was morning. The sun had just risen, its rays filtering through the leaves, falling on the floor in golden patches. The town was alive. Somewhere children laughed, someone called out, steel rang on the lower training ground. The air was fresh, smelling of pine and flowers.
A dream. It was just a dream.
She sank back onto the bed, closed her eyes, trying to calm her trembling. Her body was damp with sweat, her heart still racing, but the fear—the sticky, cold fear that had held her all night—began to loosen.
She lay like that for a few minutes, listening to her heart, listening to the town gather strength beyond the window, listening to Klii already calling her students together somewhere in the distance. Then she sat up, put her feet on the floor.
A wash. She needed a wash.
She left the room, went down the stairs carved into the trunk, and came to the small stream that ran among the roots. The water was cold, clear, and when she stepped into it, the first shock was so sharp it took her breath away. But she did not get out. She stood, feeling the cold wash away the sticky, heavy dream, the water carrying away the gray gloom, the faces, the voices, that house she had tried to forget.
She bathed for a long time, rubbing her skin until it was red, until she felt her body again become hers. Not the one that had been afraid, not the one that curled into itself, but the one that could stand, could walk, could strike. Then she stepped out, pulled on dry clothes, and without looking at the windowsill where Hope grew, headed to the lower training ground.
Klii was already there. Disaak, Ilnos, Viniya, Urdash, and Corvin stood in the center, warming up. Ulviya took her place in the line, and Klii, throwing a quick glance at her, nodded.
"Not late," she said. "Begin."
Ulviya took a deep breath. The air was fresh, cool, and in it there was no dampness, no decay. Only the scent of pine, flowers, and morning.
She raised her fist, tightened it, feeling the metal plates of the glove settle against her knuckles. Ahead lay a new day. New exercises. New pain. But she was ready.
The dream stayed there, in the gray gloom, somewhere far away where there was no light. Here, in this town, in this morning, on this training ground, there was life. And she was part of it. Small, weak, but alive. And that was enough.