If Haeresys was cold, the Palace itself was downright frigid.
She pulled her coat tighter around herself as she followed the Harbinger, forcing her eyes to focus on the back of his head. The stares from passersby were too much. She couldn't see their gazes but she could feel them, judging her, wondering why a foreigner was trailing behind the Second Harbinger…
Dottore, all the while, whistled a tune Karina vaguely recognized. Something Sébastien might play on the gramophone, back when the world was rose-tinted and…
What little she had in her stomach protested at the thought and she swallowed, pushing the acid back down. Not now. Certainly not in front of the Second Harbinger, at the very least. She could lose her composure later.
They arrived at a set of double-doors, large and imposing. Karina vaguely recognized the Fatui crest but other symbols remained unclear, unique to the region she would now call home. High above, she could just make out Common letters above the threshold, carved into the stone: If not us, then who? The doors opened of their own accord when Dottore made a sweeping gesture with his arm.
"Have fun, chevalier."
Karina gave him a wary look, unsure if she should thank him for escorting her. He was still reveling in her unease, a vicious enjoyment shining through the too-tight smile. Silence had gotten her this far. Best to keep it that way.
She expected him to follow her through the set of doors, as had been done throughout her stay in the Bastille with guard after guard, and all throughout her trial. Never alone. Instead, she crossed the threshold on her own and the doors shut behind her, closing with a resounding finality. If she listened hard enough, she swore she heard a cackle on the other side.
Nowhere to go but through, now, she supposed. Vaulted ceilings soared above, the architecture intricate and gleaming, as though made from the essence of ice itself.
It might be, she reminded herself. Cryo doesn't melt as long as there's power to sustain the form…
And what better power was there than that of an Archon?
Archons. She was tired of Archons, of their supposed benevolence. Of answering questions when she had so many that remained untouched, unspoken. Perhaps it would have been better to have simply left Fontaine altogether, left it all behind. The result would have been the same, she rationalized: no family, no occupation, no Vision.
At the end of the chamber was a figure in white she could only assume was the Tsaritsa. As Karina drew closer, she saw waves of white hair give way to a color she only ever saw the morning after snow fell. A blue so cold it seemed almost impossible to perceive.
Fogginess sat heavy in her mind and, operating on autopilot, Karina folded herself at the waist, right arm pinned over her chest. Deference was best, Karina considered, although her mind and body protested to the idea. The Tsaritsa was the only reason she was even alive, after all. Karina owed it to everyone, to her parents, to her sister, to at least try making the best of the choice she made.
"At ease," a soft voice commanded.
Karina shifted her weight and assumed parade rest, feet evenly apart and hands behind her back, resting at her beltline. Her gaze drifted up from the floor and to the dais, where the Archon stood, now facing her.
She drank in the singular figure before her. Like all Archons, the Tsaritsa's presence was tempered to protect mortals from observing more divinity than their minds could comprehend. It gave a notion that something was off but one could never pinpoint what, precisely. Both Hydro Archons, Naberius and Focalors, had a similar air about them, Karina recalled.
An overcoat made of sparkling alabaster graced the Tsaritsa, the tails slowly fading into an inky night graced with flakes of snow, hiding protective armor beneath, the metal shining. Her right shoulder encased in a paldron of gleaming platinum. A red sash cut across pristine white, from left shoulder to right hip, a sharp, shining star of Cryo over where one usually had a heart. She expected a crown upon the Archon's head, one just as sharp and jagged as the star, but instead, the Tsaritsa wore a tiara of unbroken platinum, filled with aquamarines. Stately but understated, given the finery Karina saw in her brief trip through the Palace.
A sword rested on the Archon's hip, never far from reach.
"I have been informed of the circumstances of your service and your losses," the Tsaritsa said. "And I believe there is little I can say, especially as a God of a foreign land, to comfort you. For that, I am truly sorry."
Karina felt something in her heart snap. Not one, not once in the past few weeks that weren't a blur of blood and memories and pain, had anyone avoided empty platitudes and false comfort in favor of honesty.
"Why?"
The word tumbled out of Karina's mouth, her lips and tongue clumsy from her silence.
"Why are you sorry? Why did it have to them? My parents, my sister…they didn't…no one should have died…"
What little resolve she had left disappeared, her limbs weak and heavy. Remnants of whatever she had last eaten churned in her stomach and her eyes burned as her vision blurred. Teargas training was less painful. The floor was ice cold beneath her as she crumpled like a puppet with her strings cut. Sobs wracked her body as she tried to hold back keening cries. The pain was no longer a powerful propellant but a burden, a reminder of her failure.
"This world is deceiving in its nature, Karina."
Colder hands found her burning cheeks stained with tears. The Tsaritsa was known to be as harsh and brutal as the lands she kept but She wiped away the drops with a gentleness that only stabbed Karina in the heart over and over again.
"It is cruel in its futility, crushing those who dare try to change their circumstances beyond their star-charted destinies." The Tsaritsa cupped Karina's cheeks and the mortal was distantly aware of the tingling of divinity, the closest thing she'd felt to her power since that bloody morning. "It is isolating to those who shine just a little bit brighter. But is there not a comfort in knowing you survived what others would not? In knowing that you understand, now, the true nature of what this world has to offer?"
Eyes as blue as a winter sky bore into her own. The pain in her chest was all but an ache now, dull but tight. Karina's head swam, her heart uncertain if she wanted to consider the words of another Archon, another god, when the last had all but written her off…thrown her to the wolves…
Karina found her hands clasped by the very hands that wiped away her tears and the two rose to their feet.
"I cannot answer your question, Karina, for it is one I have been asking for centuries," the Tsaritsa murmured. "You are, however, entitled to the full scope of the events surrounding your…situation…before you begin your service. Such a conversation truly requires the presence of another whom I—"
The Archon gestured to a discreet door, where Karina could just make out the bowed head of a deferential lady-in-waiting.
"Tea is served, moya Tsaritsa. The Doctor sent a missive," the servant held up what appeared to Karina to be a mechanical bird, its head turning this way and that like a curious finch. "He will join you shortly. Unexpected delays."
With a curt dismissal, the servant disappeared again as silently as she came. It was impossible to miss the steady exhale from the Archon, as though she'd expected as much.
"Whom it appears I will need to do without, for now," the Tsaritsa finished. "Come. We will discuss the details that Focalors so delicately hid from the rest of the proceedings at my behest."
A/N: This one will likely be slow to update but it's taking shape! Technically, I already have the second fic that accompanies this fic finished and posted over at AO3 but the rating is questionable and I would rather leave it where it is than risk bringing it here, etc. etc. Lots of liberties are taken and will be taken but I'll be sticking to canon where I can.
Thank you for your patience and support! See you in the next one!