The House on the Cliff
Four years passed. Four years during which Pollux, in the shadows of the southern cities, built something that Aethel Biotech would never understand—a family that functioned not on orders and codes, but on unshakeable loyalty. He founded WIS (Wings in Shadow) and became a man whose name was whispered with both respect and fear in the underworld and in polished corporate offices. Yet, despite the power he gained, his heart remained trapped in the pure snow of Skeldar.
When the massive gate of Kyrios's estate opened again after four years, he did not arrive as a confused fugitive. He came as someone who had finally and definitively mastered his own destiny.
The courtyard was quiet, covered in a fine, fresh dusting of powdery snow. Orion stood there, leaning against that same stone pillar, watching the figure walking toward him. Pollux wore a black traveling cloak made of modern fibers in which the surrounding shadows seemed to vanish, but his smile was the same—sincere and slightly sad, the one Orion remembered from their last farewell at the boundary stone.
"Four years, brother," Orion exhaled and hugged him so tightly that his bones creaked. "I was starting to believe you had completely dissolved in that southern smoke."
"Some bonds neither smoke nor time can dissolve," Pollux replied, and his hand automatically dropped to his pocket, where he could still feel the weight of the steel ring beneath the fabric.
The evening at the estate was full of quiet, deep conversations. Kyrios watched Pollux with unconcealed recognition in his eyes. He saw in him a man who no longer fought his technopathy as a disease but used it as a precise tool to protect those who have no voice in the corporate world. Aurora sat close to Pollux, listening with fascination to tales of the cities of steel and neon he had visited, but something else caught her interest most.
"I didn't come just to say goodbye for another four years," Pollux said when the fire in the hearth calmed and a pleasant gloom filled the room. "I found a place. It's an old, abandoned house on a cliff, above the southern border of Skeldar. It's ravaged by wind and time, lashed by storms, but the foundations are firm. I want to remodel it. I want it to be a place where we see each other more often. Where I no longer have to cross thousands of dangerous kilometers just to look you in the eyes."
Orion straightened up, a mischievous spark in his eyes. "A house on a cliff? That sounds like the ideal place for a messenger who needs a good view of the world. I promise you, brother, that I'll help you with it. I'll personally carry every single ash beam there if necessary, just so we can dine at the same table more often than once a decade."
Pollux looked at Aurora and Kyrios. "I promise we will see each other more often. WIS is my tool now, my strength, but that house... that house will be my true home. Halfway between heaven and earth, between my new life in the shadows and you."
That night, as a frosty silence spread over Skeldar, Pollux slept peacefully for the first time in four years without dreams of laboratories. He knew he was no longer lost in anyone else's inventory. He had wings in the shadow, but he also had an anchor in the house on the cliff, which would soon become a symbol of their shared future.
The Last Message
Several more years passed. Skeldar was slowly preparing for a relentless winter, and the first frost had already managed to numb the grass in the valleys. In the Kyrios clan's estate, a silence reigned that was different from years ago—one could feel the fatigue of endless waiting in it.
Aurora sat in the small hall by the window. Her gaze, once full of childhood expectation, was now calm, almost at peace with the world. She knew that time in the mountains flowed with a different, slower rhythm than down there in the South, where Pollux had lost himself in the noise and violence of the cities. She set her book aside for a moment and looked out the window as if trying to find the first snowflake. Just then, she noticed a strange, shorter figure standing motionless before the main gate, shrouded in a heavy coat. It stood as still and silent as a statue.
Aurora stood up abruptly from her chair and headed toward the courtyard, never taking her eyes off the unknown person.
The gate opened.
Aurora approached the unknown figure. It was a woman with a hood over her head, from under which blonde hair and red eyes peeked out. In her outstretched hand, she held something familiar. A piece of cold sheet metal on a scorched, broken chain. Aurora immediately took them into her hands.
Aethel Biotech. P.O.L.L.U.X. 00001.
They were deeply scratched, melted at the edges by heat, as if they had passed through a fire intended to erase everything they had ever been. The woman reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a short, crumpled letter. It was just an ordinary piece of paper, on which the smell of weapon oil, ozone, and gunpowder could still be felt.
Aurora unwrapped it with trembling fingers. The handwriting was stark, firm, and precise—exactly the way Pollux perceived the world through his technopathy.
"Snow does not reach everywhere. Down there, in the noise and smoke, I often searched for it to find the peace you gave me. But though snow does not reach everywhere, you were everywhere with me. In every heartbeat, in every silence I fought for. I leave as someone who found the way home, even though I will no longer reach your door."
At the end of the letter was a stamped imprint of a ring—the same one Aurora had once given him as a farewell. It was not enclosed in the envelope. Pollux had apparently kept it on his finger until the last second, as his only true anchor in reality.
Outside, an absolute, frosty silence reigned. Aurora pressed the tags hard to her chest, as if she wanted to catch the last remnant of his warmth, and closed her eyes. The unknown woman turned without a word and walked away.
"Wait, please," Aurora cried out after her, pain in her voice. "I don't even know your name! Please, tell me how my brother died!" Her words spilled through the valley.
The woman stopped. After a moment, she turned her head and took off her hood. From beneath it peeked curved crimson horns that matched her eyes.
"Ash," she said shortly. "I cannot tell you how he died, but I can tell you how he lived."