Chapter One: The Last Journey
The rhythmic clatter of iron wheels on frozen tracks filled the night air, muffled by the heavy blanket of snow falling in thick, swirling flakes. Inside the lavishly appointed railcar, warmed by enchantments and flickering oil lamps, a young noblewoman sat in silence, her back straight but her hands trembling slightly. Clutched tightly in her arms was a small bundle of furs, within which lay her daughter — pale-faced, silver-blue wisps of hair escaping the careful bindings around her head.
Anastasia Shuvalova, daughter of one of Russia's oldest noble lines, tried to quiet the pounding of her heart. Fear gnawed at her, hope flickered like a fragile candle, and duty pressed upon her shoulders like a heavy mantle. Fear, hope, and duty warred within her — the fear of losing both husband and child, the hope that Mikhail still lived and waited for them, and the duty she carried as protector and mother. Her breaths were shallow, every rise and fall of her chest brushing against the downy fur collar of her traveling cloak, each inhale ragged and soft, almost echoing like whispers in the still carriage. The warmth of the railcar contrasted sharply with the cold weight pressing in on her thoughts. The rails stretched on endlessly beneath them, cutting through the Siberian wilderness — a road meant to lead her to safety, to reunion with her lover stationed far east, after the siege and fall of Port Arthur.
She glanced down at her daughter's face. Yekaterina stirred faintly, a content murmur slipping past rosebud lips. Anastasia gently stroked her cheek, ignoring the ache in her own chest. The child deserved a life of comfort, not exile. But fate had little regard for the desires of noble blood.
Outside the carriage windows, darkness loomed over endless snowfields, broken only by sparse clusters of pine trees standing like sentinels. Her thoughts churned — not with politics or the empire's fate — but with worry and longing. Letters from the front had stopped months ago. Mikhail's last message was hopeful but brief, and she had clung to its words as if they could carry her through the silence that followed. Every night, she wondered if he still breathed, if he even knew of their daughter.
She remembered the court — gilded halls filled with laughter and whispers behind fans, perfumed air heavy with intrigue. The court whispered of mystics and healers — Rasputin's name carried through salons in murmurs both reverent and suspicious, mingling with the scent of beeswax and rose perfume — but Anastasia had no patience for court intrigue anymore. She cared only for the man who had promised to meet her in Vladivostok, the man who had sworn he would return.
The rumors of unrest, the riots and violence, seemed distant echoes. The empire felt strained, uneasy, but from within the cocoon of privilege, such troubles still felt far away. They were whispers for others to fret over. For Anastasia, only one thing mattered: to find Mikhail, or at the very least, learn his fate.
The rhythmic sounds of the train shifted subtly — a change in tempo, the faintest note of hesitation in the wheels' song.
It slowed, grinding to a halt with a shrill screech of steel on steel. Anastasia's breath caught. Outside, muffled voices rose in confusion. Through the frost-covered window, she could see little, only the swirling snow and vague shapes of men disembarking from the forward cars.
A noble wizard officer in a richly adorned military cloak strode toward a blockade—a boulder and a landslide seemingly placed deliberately across the tracks. His wand was in hand, his stance commanding, as he confronted a ragged group of figures emerging from the treeline: bandits, deserters emboldened by chaos.
Anastasia clutched Yekaterina closer, heart racing, hearing but not seeing the confrontation. Shouts erupted in Russian, sharp and tense. And then — an explosive crack split the night, followed by a second louder blast.
The rumble of snow sliding from the mountainside began, accompanied by an eerie stillness and a sudden silence that seemed to press against the ears. The shadows deepened, the air became heavy, and distant cracks echoed like whispered warnings. The avalanche began.
The rumble of snow sliding from the mountainside filled the air with trembling vibrations that crawled along the floorboards. For a moment, there was a chilling silence — an impossible stillness — and then the crack of ice and roar of snow crashing downward consumed everything.
The front cars vanished beneath a wave of white fury, crumpling like paper under the unstoppable weight. Screams echoed from the forward compartments as metal twisted and splintered. The force hit their car moments later, flinging Anastasia and her daughter from their seats. Her vision blurred, the world spinning, cold air rushing in as windows shattered.
She had only enough time to think of Mikhail's name before everything was swallowed in snow and terror.
-
Anastasia's eyes fluttered open to darkness and weight. The scent of blood filled her nostrils, mingling with the biting cold that gnawed at her skin. In the distance, she could hear the faint creak of collapsing wood. Her body ached, pinned beneath shattered beams. The sharp pain in her side told her she was impaled, blood seeping out to warm and freeze all at once. She tried to move, tried to call out to her daughter, but her voice caught, strangled by the crushing weight and cold. Her vision swam with shadows and falling snow. Somewhere close, she thought she heard soft whimpers — Yekaterina.
Her little one had survived. But she couldn't reach her, couldn't whisper that everything would be all right. She couldn't say that she loved her more than anything. Anastasia's breath came shallow, eyes heavy, and with one last attempt to lift her hand, but the world faded into silence. Regret tugged at her heart, fear mingled with sorrow, and a faint longing for peace brushed the edges of her thoughts.
My beautiful baby girl, Mama is sorry.
The bandits picked their way through the wreckage, boots crunching on snow-covered splinters and shattered glass. The eerie stillness of the wreckage, broken only by the distant groans of twisted metal and creaking wood, contrasted sharply with their crude behavior and coarse jokes. A man in a ragged coat laughed coarsely as he lifted a jeweled box from a crushed compartment.
"Careful," came a sharp voice. A wizard, his worn military officer's cloak hanging heavy with frost, glared at the looters. "You disgrace yourselves with jokes about the dead. Take what's valuable, but show respect. We're not animals."
Another bandit snorted. "Respect doesn't fill a man's belly. Maybe we'll find a woman still breathing… keep warm for the night."
The wizard's gaze darkened. "Enough."
Further down the line, another group of men called out. "Oi! We've got a survivor!"
The wizard's head snapped up, tension bristling in his shoulders.
They found her in the ruins of a railcar — a small girl, sitting beside the broken body of her mother, tears freezing on her cheeks. Her silver-blue hair was matted with frost, her breath shallow and ragged.
"Poor little thing," one bandit murmured. "Her ma's too gone to save. Shame." He reached forward to tug the child away, already imagining the reward they might get for returning a noble brat.
The wizard froze, his instincts screaming. The air around them shifted — a sudden drop in temperature, the snowflakes falling slower, heavier. He turned to shout a warning.
Too late.
The wind howled, rising into a scream as the blizzard descended. Bandits cursed and stumbled, panic flashing in their eyes as the temperature plummeted. One tried to run, another fumbled for his wand, but the white fury was already upon them. Ice cracked and surged, frost spreading across skin, metal, and stone. Screams cut short as figures vanished into swirling snow.
Only silence remained. Frozen figures lay twisted and encased in glistening ice, their expressions frozen in fear, like grotesque statues in a forgotten palace of frost. The wreckage stood eerily still beneath a heavy shroud of snow, and the oppressive quiet pressed down, broken only by the occasional creak of settling timbers. A scene of death, frozen in time.
She awoke in silence, her breath shallow and cold against chapped lips. The sharp crackling of distant ice filled her ears, and her limbs ached with stiffness, each movement sluggish and numb. Her small body trembled beneath the weight of ice and debris, yet her mind was anything but still. Two voices warred within her: the raw, frightened cries of a child — Where am I? Where is Mama? — and the cool, clinical observations of a soldier — This is wreckage. Survival instinct. Assess, act.
Her fingers, numb and clumsy, clawed at the snow and splinters around her. The biting cold didn't cut her as it should have; instead, it seeped into her veins, becoming something familiar, comforting, almost protective. Her breath misted, swirling in strange patterns that she did not yet understand.
Her gaze found the figure in the ice and shattered wood. The woman's pale face stared upward, frozen lips parted in what could have been her final attempt to speak. Her mother. And yet... not. Recognition twisted in her chest, a strange ache that neither side of her fully comprehended. The child felt longing and pain; the soldier analyzed the loss with detached curiosity. This woman mattered. Why does it hurt so deeply?
Confusion and sorrow welled up, tangled with helplessness. Her tiny body shivered, and the part of her that was still only a five-year-old whimpered softly, wishing to be comforted by warm arms that would never hold her again.
The snow muffled sound, but the crunch of approaching boots cut through the silence. She turned her head slowly. The faces were harsh, hungry, and cruel. One bandit's coarse laugh made her flinch; his rough hand grabbed her small arm.
In that moment, panic surged, tangled with cold calculation. Child and soldier merged — raw instinct honed by forgotten experience.
A tear rolled down her cheek, heavy and cold, freezing before it left her skin. It dropped soundlessly, striking the ground and forming a jagged stalagmite of ice that cracked upward with deadly precision. The bandit's breath caught in his throat — then stopped.
The air shifted, crackling with unseen energy as frost patterns raced outward across the wreckage. The storm returned with a deafening roar and a howl of wind that seemed to rise from the earth itself.
The snow thickened, swirling violently, as if called by her pain and fear. The wind screamed and whipped around her, carrying echoes of both loss and unspoken fury. Ice spiderwebbed across broken wood and steel, swallowing all in its path.
The bandits' shouts faltered, rising into panicked cries as frost took hold. Boots slipped, voices choked off mid-curse. The wizard's orders were lost to the gale, drowned beneath the roar of magic and nature colliding.
She stood in the center of destruction, a tiny figure against the vast, frozen wreckage. The power surging through her felt both alien and intimate, as though born from the very emptiness she now felt. In that moment, she recognized that the storm answered not just fear, but isolation and loss, reflecting the cold hollowness inside her. Frost clung to her lashes, her breath steady despite the chaos. Power pulsed around her, wild and cold, answering without command.
Her gaze drifted back once more to her mother's frozen form. The ache returned, sharp and cold, but this time it steadied her. I will not be weak.
Still, she did not cry again. The child's tears were spent. All that remained was silence... and cold, and the first faint glimmer of resolve, born from the merging identities of childlike sorrow and hardened instinct.
"So this... is love. Right, Tatsumi?"