The tavern was warm.
Sunlight filtered through the windows, catching dust in slow golden spirals. Somewhere beneath the floor, the furnace hummed faintly, and the scent of hearth-smoke clung to the air. It was the kind of morning that tried to pretend everything was normal.
Ilya didn't believe it.
He stood in the common room, rag in one hand, wiping down a table that had already been wiped twice. Yula moved a few feet away, broom in hand, scraping gently at the floor. Her arm was still wrapped in bandages, but she didn't complain. She hadn't, not once in the past few days.
"You missed a spot," she said without looking up.
"I didn't," Ilya muttered.
"You did."
"You can't even see from that angle."
She straightened, pointed at the spot in question with the broom handle.
Ilya scowled and wiped it again.
Yula smirked, then went back to sweeping.
The silence between them wasn't awkward anymore. It had a shape now. A rhythm. Sometimes Yula would hum under her breath, never a full tune, just fragments. Sometimes Ilya would glance toward the windows. But most of the time, they just worked.
He didn't realize how much he'd missed it, this kind of quiet. Not the lonely kind. Just... quiet.
A floorboard creaked behind them.
"Heyyy!"
Anna's voice rang through the hall like it had never known fear.
She hopped down the stairs, coat only half-buttoned, hair a mess of sleep and energy.
"Why didn't you wake me? You're already cleaning!"
"You sleep like you're in a coma," Yula said dryly, not looking up from the floorboards.
"I do not!"
"You drooled on the stairs yesterday."
Anna gasped in horror, scandalized. "You promised you wouldn't tell!"
"I lied."
Ilya watched the exchange with a faint twitch of his eyebrow. He hadn't even spoken yet and already felt like the third wheel.
Anna dashed into the center of the room and spun in a slow circle. "It's sunny out! Can we go to the sweets stall again? The one with the honey pastries?"
"Dima and Nadia went to the market already," Ilya said. "They'll bring something back."
"But it's boring here."
"You can help us clean," Yula offered, brushing a lock of hair back from her eyes as she leaned the broom against her hip. Her tone was flat, but the corner of her mouth curved just slightly.
Anna squinted. "That's not how fun works."
Without looking, Yula lobbed the broom toward Ilya. He caught it on reflex, frowning.
"She's your responsibility," she said.
"It's your turn," he replied.
"You're taller."
"That's not a real reason."
"I'm making it one."
Anna burst out laughing. "You guys are weird," that raw, unfiltered kind only children could manage.
It cut through the tavern like sunlight through smoke.
Yula's gaze lingered on her for a moment, then shifted, more carefully, toward Ilya. "No," she said with a dry breath. "He's the weird one. I'm perfectly normal."
Ilya looked up, mildly offended. "You're wearing two different boots."
She glanced down at her feet.
Then pointed at him. "Still taller."
And then—
The bell rang.
It wasn't like before.
The sound was lower this time. Deeper. A tone that didn't echo so much as vibrate through the bones. The floor under their feet went still. Even Anna stopped smiling.
Yula's broom dropped.
"No," she whispered.
Ilya was already turning toward the window. The bell wasn't a warning this time.
It was a verdict.
"That's the emergency bell," Yula said, tightening her coat. "I'll find Nadia and Dima—You two go to the basement now!"
There was something final in her tone. No room to argue. It wasn't panic in her voice. It was something worse, familiarity.
Anna looked between them. "You'll come back, right?"
But Yula was already out the door.
"Ilya…" Anna gripped Ilya's clothes tightly. "Don't—don't leave me again."
Then—
CRASH.
The tavern's front window exploded inward in a shower of shimmering shards. Ice speared through the frame, stabbing into the far wall with such force that the wood cracked around it.
Anna froze as she looked at the icicle that burst from the window.
Ilya pulled Anna to the floor just as another icicle slammed into the wooden beam above them, splintering the ceiling.
Wind poured through the broken window. But it wasn't wind like from the mountains. It was thin, too thin, laced with a chill that made breathing feel like swallowing knives.
Anna was crying now, soundless. Shaking.
A shadow passed across the floor.
Ilya turned.
Through the broken glass, something floated above the rooftops. A beast, but not like any he'd seen before.
It didn't flap wings. It glided, silent and smooth, as if carried by nothing. Its body was long, almost serpent-like, but made of glassy frost and swirling air. Its wings, if they were wings, shimmered with jagged icicles, arranged like feathers carved from winter itself.
It moved once, then its head twisted unnaturally, locking eyes with Ilya through the shattered window.
Ilya didn't wait.
He grabbed Anna's wrist and yanked her toward the trapdoor.
She tried to resist, stumbling. "What are you doing?!"
"Get in."
"No—I—!"
He opened the hatch and shoved her toward the steps.
"Ilya, stop—wait—!"
She reached up to him, but he didn't give her the chance to speak again.
He slammed the door shut.
Her voice didn't stop.
It came through the wood, raw, trembling, rising.
"Ilya! Don't shut me out! Don't leave me—don't—!"
Each word cracked like glass. Rage and fear blurred together. The sound of someone too young to understand that protection and abandonment can feel exactly the same.
He stood above the trapdoor, frozen for a breath.
Then turned and ran.
Up the stairs. Two at a time. His shoulder slammed into the room door, and his rifle was already there, propped against the window.
It was cold.
Not just in the room. The rifle itself.
Like it remembered.
Ilya grabbed it and stepped toward the window.
Outside, Crystalis was falling.
The streets below were flooded with creatures, misshapen, bone-pierced, gliding or crawling. Wings made of ash. Faces made of bark. Some flowed like liquid. Others clicked forward like broken gears.
Above them—
More shapes.
Some flew on wind alone. Some crawled on rooftops. Some had no legs at all, just pulsing masses of limbs, clawing through the fog.
He saw guards, soldiers, falling back in every direction. Astra flashing, shields breaking. Screams too far to matter.
This wasn't a skirmish.
This was coordinated.
Planned.
Guided.
Ilya raised the rifle.
And for the first time in his life—
He had no idea where to aim.