Part 3. Cracks

  A week and a half with Bogumir — and Lelya caught herself doing something strange.

  She'd started noticing things. Small, insignificant things. The way he squinted slightly when someone said something stupid in a meeting — not a grimace, just a shadow. The way he always positioned himself to see both the door and the window — a habit hammered into his body over centuries. The way he was quiet when she worked, but quiet in different ways: sometimes he was simply waiting, and sometimes he was thinking about something of his own, and then his face looked older.

  A thousand years, she reminded herself. He's a thousand years old.

  But he looked twenty-five. And sometimes — sometimes — he smiled in a way that made those twenty-five feel true.

  That evening they were heading back from a meeting with a trade delegation from the Coastal Union that had run long. Outside the windows of Alnar, it was getting dark — the short autumn day surrendering to night.

  "You really pressed them hard," said Bogumir. "With that clause on customs duties."

  "You noticed?"

  "Hard not to. The ambassador nearly choked on his coffee."

  Lelya smirked.

  "He deserved it. He tried to interrupt me fourteen times. I counted."

  "Fourteen?"

  "I have a good memory for offenses."

  Bogumir snorted.

  "Remind me not to pick a fight with you."

  "Too late. You already called me 'strange' on the first day."

  "That was a compliment."

  "You said 'a statement of fact.'"

  "One doesn't rule out the other."

  They exchanged a look — and Lelya felt something warm spread through her chest. Not attraction — simpler. Lighter. The feeling that this conversation was right. That the words landed exactly where they should, without effort.

  "But then you slipped," he added.

  "What do you mean?"

  "When he started pushing emotions. The story about the starving fishermen. You softened."

  "I showed understanding. Those are different things."

  "They're the same thing." Bogumir stopped by a window, looking at the night city. "You showed that you can be pushed if someone pushes the right way. He'll remember that."

  Lelya stopped too.

  "Are you suggesting I be heartless?"

  "I'm suggesting you not show where your buttons are." He turned. "In negotiations, like in combat — whoever shows weakness first loses."

  "It's not combat."

  "Everything is combat. Just with different weapons."

  They stood by the window — Lelya in her usual work outfit (jeans, a silk blouse, a long cardigan), Bogumir in his unchanging dark T-shirt and jeans. From the outside they probably looked like an odd pair — a freckled redheaded girl and a handsome man with the mannerisms of a lazy predator.

  "How do you know so much about negotiations?" Lelya asked. "You've never worked in politics."

  "Never did. But I watched. Listened." He shrugged. "A thousand years is a lot of time to learn to read people."

  "And what did you read in me?"

  Bogumir turned to her. In the dim corridor his eyes looked darker — almost navy.

  "You're afraid," he said. "Not of enemies, not of the Citadel. You're afraid of not measuring up. Afraid that all these people who look down on you will turn out to be right. That you're just a girl who ended up in the wrong place."

  No one. No one had ever said that to her out loud. This was her secret — the fear she hid behind work, behind achievements, behind sleepless nights over documents.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "You're wrong," she said. Her voice came out steadier than she expected.

  "Maybe." Bogumir didn't look away. "But I see how you work twice as hard as everyone else. How you check every document three times. How you rehearse speeches in front of the mirror — yes, I heard through the wall."

  "You eavesdrop?"

  "Vampire hearing. Can't turn it off."

  Lelya should have been angry. Should have felt exposed, stripped bare. Instead she felt... relief? As if she'd been carrying something heavy — and someone had finally noticed.

  "It's not fear," she said quietly. "It's responsibility."

  "Could be." Bogumir tilted his head slightly. "Or it could be fear that you've named responsibility."

  "And what if it is?"

  "Nothing, really." He shrugged. "There's nothing wrong with fear. It's bad when it controls you. But you — it pushes you to work better. That's not a bad kind of fear."

  Lelya looked at him. At the handsome face, at the eyes that had seen too much.

  "You're afraid too," she said. "Of something."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Because you hide behind cynicism the same way I hide behind work."

  A long pause. Bogumir looked at her — and for the first time the mask vanished completely. Underneath was something old and tired.

  "Maybe," he said. "Maybe not."

  They walked to her apartment in silence — but it was a different kind of silence. Not awkward. Just quiet.

  At the door Lelya stopped.

  "You said 'maybe later.' About your story." She didn't turn around. "Has that 'later' come yet?"

  A long pause.

  "What if it has?"

  Now she turned.

  "Then I have wine. And I know how to listen."

  Bogumir looked at her — long, appraisingly. Then something in his face softened.

  "You're strange," he said again. But this time it was definitely a compliment.

  "I have an excellent sense of humor."

  "And modesty."

  "Modesty is overrated."

  He laughed — quietly, almost soundlessly.

  "All right," he said. "All right. Lead the way."

  Part 4. Context

  The wine turned out to be good — red, aged. Lelya found it in the bar left behind by the previous tenant.

  They sat by the window — Lelya in an armchair, legs tucked under her, Bogumir on the windowsill, his back to the night city. Glasses half empty, the room dark, only the lights outside casting reflections on the walls.

  Lelya waited. Didn't rush him, didn't ask questions. Just sat nearby — and this silence was strangely comfortable. As if they'd known each other not for a week and a half, but much longer.

  "Novograd," Bogumir said at last. "Have you heard of it?"

  "The massacre of mages. A thousand years ago. Humans attacked the city and killed most of the population."

  "Seventy percent." His voice was even, almost indifferent. "Two thousand mages in a single night. I was there."

  Lelya didn't move. She knew the history from textbooks. The massacre of mages, the turning point after which mages took power in Monolith. Dry facts, casualty figures.

  Knowing about it was one thing. Sitting across from someone who remembered was another.

  "To understand Novograd," Bogumir began, "you need to understand what came before."

  He took a sip.

  "For two hundred years before the massacre, the same thing started happening across different countries of Alma. Humans began persecuting mages. Witch hunts — that's what they called it. Burning at the stake, drowning, hanging. Some out of envy, some out of fear, some simply because a neighbor had informed on them."

  "I've read about it."

  "Read about it." He smirked. "The textbooks put it dryly. 'Period of persecutions.' 'Casualties numbered in the thousands.' But they don't write what it's like to hide in a cellar while a torch-bearing mob searches for you."

  Lelya was silent. Not because she didn't know what to say — because she understood: words weren't needed right now. She just needed to listen.

  "Mages quickly realized: if they wanted to survive, they needed to take power." Bogumir gazed out the window. "In some countries it was bloody. In others — almost peaceful. Front men, puppet kings, shadow councils. By the time I was born, most of Alma was already governed by mages. Secretly, but governed."

  "And Monolith?"

  "Monolith was the exception." He turned to her. "Here, mages got along with kings. Didn't hide, weren't afraid. They'd made a deal centuries earlier — we help you, you let us live in peace."

  "Novograd."

  "Yes. A city for mages and their families. Three thousand people. Schools, shops, temples. An ordinary city, except the residents were mages." A pause. "We thought we were safe. That the agreement with the king would protect us."

  "What changed?"

  "The king died. A new one came."

  Bogumir fell silent, staring into his glass. Lelya noticed how his shoulders tensed — barely visible, but she'd learned to read him over these past two weeks. Learned to see what he hid.

  Strange, she thought. I've known him less than two weeks. Why does it feel like longer?

  Bogumir finished his wine.

  "His name was Vladislav the Third. A fanatic. He'd hated mages since childhood — maybe a nanny frightened him with fairy tales, or a priest wound him up. Doesn't matter. What matters is he gathered an army of fanatics like himself and sent them to Novograd."

  "Without warning?"

  "Without warning. At night. With new weapons — long-range rifles, just invented. We didn't expect it." He set his glass down. "Who prepares for war with those they consider allies?"

  Lelya stood, poured him more. Their fingers touched as she passed the glass — accidentally, for a second. Bogumir didn't pull his hand away. Neither did she.

  "And then?"

  "Then the survivors regrouped. Reorganized. Within two years the mages had taken power in Monolith." Bogumir picked up the glass. "Vladislav the Third died in his bed. Officially — of a heart attack. Unofficially..." He shrugged. "The Mage Council of Monolith joined the World Council. The story ended."

  "For some — it didn't end."

  "No." He looked into her eyes. "For me — it didn't end."

  "Tell me," Lelya said. "What you saw that night."

  Bogumir was quiet for a long time. He stared into his glass, as if searching for something there.

  "Are you sure you want to know?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  Lelya thought about it. She could say "I want to understand who I'm working with" — but that would be a half-truth. She could say "I'm curious" — but that would be a lie.

  "Because you've been living with this for a thousand years," she said at last. "And I think you haven't told anyone in a very long time. And sometimes you need to tell someone."

  He looked at her — long, searching. And something in his face changed. It didn't soften — it opened.

  "You're strange," he said for the third time that evening.

  "You're repeating yourself."

  "Because it's true." He smiled slightly — wearily, but genuinely. "All right. Listen."