The wind outside the academy windows carried the bitter sting of the new year, cold and fast, as if it couldn't wait to scrape everything clean.
Inside the headmaster's office, it was too quiet.
Heavy carpets muffled the ticking clock behind the desk. Books lined the walls. Everything smelled faintly of cedar, ink, and old tobacco, even though no one here smoked.
Lilya sat sideways in a high-backed chair, one leg crossed over the other, spinning a brass pen between her fingers. Across from her, the Headmaster rested his elbows on a leather-bound journal, eyes distant, hands steepled.
Instructor Anastasia stood near the window, arms folded, staring at the snow beyond the glass.
"Demon Years are early," Lilya muttered, breaking the silence.
"No," the Headmaster said softly. "They're punctual. For once."
Instructor Anastasia didn't look away from the window. "How about that boy?"
"Still intact," Lilya said. "Shaken, maybe. But he's learning fast."
"Too fast," Anastasia said under her breath.
Lilya looked over her shoulder. "You're talking like he's a loaded gun in a teacup."
"Because he is," Dostoevsky said, quietly. "And we intend to make sure no one shatters the porcelain too early."
Tick—tick—tickchhk.
A low machine at the corner of the office clattered to life. Small gears spun. A brass needle tapped against a flat metal plate.
A coded signal began printing on the scroll-fed paper.
All three turned.
The Headmaster moved first, pulling the ribbon free and scanning the short line of ciphered characters.
Anastasia read it over his shoulder. Her breath caught.
Lilya didn't wait to be told. She was already halfway out of the chair the moment she saw the message.
"Lilya," Anastasia said. "Wait for—"
But she was already gone.
Lilya didn't look back as she stormed down the hall, boots sharp against the marble floor, coat catching the draft like a trailing flame. The door shut behind her with a soft click.
Anastasia exhaled slowly, arms still folded. "You're really letting her go alone?"
The Headmaster didn't look up from the message still in his hand.
"She wouldn't stay if we ordered her," he said simply.
He set the paper down, and leaned back in his chair.
"Don't worry," he said. "The Wings of Nivalis isn't just for ceremony."
Anastasia said nothing.
But the silence that followed wasn't doubt.
It was trust.
***
The wind over the frozen plains of Nivalis didn't howl.
It screamed.
Lilya rode the storm like a blade through silk, her body pressed low against the missile-shaped Astra as it streaked above the ice. The engine's red core pulsed steadily beneath her, a heartbeat of magic and machinery combined.
She wasn't smiling.
Not this time.
The cold bit through her coat, but she didn't feel it.
She passed mountain ridges and wolf-choked forests in seconds, low enough to skim treetops, fast enough to leave thunder trailing in her wake. The world blurred into lines of snow and shadows, but her eyes stayed locked forward.
Ahead, rising in the distance like black smoke from a cracked hearthstone.
Even from this distance, she could see the fire.
Smoke poured into the gray sky in columns. Rooftops cracked. Shadows ran.
She didn't need to count them. Didn't need a strategy.
She'd fought in the Demon Years before.
"You picked the wrong district."
The edge of Crystalis blurred past beneath her, taverns, chimneys, shattered windows, blood-stained snow.
Lilya didn't slow.
Her Astra hissed beneath her, metal glowing with heat as the side-barrel systems rotated into position. Ammunition belts clicked. The targeting runes along the cockpit's side flared with pale red glyphs.
She circled once, high and fast.
Beasts crawled through the alleys, twisted things with too many limbs and mouths like melting steel.
They swarmed over broken carts, onto rooftops, down through windows.
The guards below had regrouped, but not recovered. Civilians huddled in corners. Some tried to run. Others didn't move at all.
Lilya dove.
The Astra's thrusters screamed as she dropped low over the marketplace.
The gun barrels spun, and she opened fire.
BRRRRRTTTT.
Rounds ripped through the air like gods grinding their teeth.
Three beasts near the south barricade dropped instantly, one without its head, another split clean down the spine.
Lilya pulled back, rose again, twisted into a wide arc. The Astra curved like a red comet trailing steel and wrath.
Two more down near the inn. One shattered against a second-floor balcony. Another crumpled mid-leap.
The crowd began to stir. Heads lifted. Eyes followed.
A boy hiding beneath a cart clutched his father's coat. "What… is that?"
From across the square, a soldier gasped. "That girl—?"
Lilya didn't hear them. Because there were more to kill.
The third pass was the cleanest.
Lilya cut between two rooftops, angling sharp to the west, her Astra nearly brushing the shingles. The turret barrels snapped into new alignment as the glyphs recalibrated mid-flight.
One of the beasts was scaling the bell tower.
Three civilians clung to the upper platform, nowhere left to climb. The creature's claws dug into stone, hauling itself higher, seconds from reaching them.
Lilya angled downward.
Her Astra screamed as it dropped fast, turbines burning red. She didn't open with her usual barrage, too risky. The civilians were too close.
She tapped her control glyphs.
The forward cannon extended with a mechanical hiss, a short-range, magic-round launcher beneath the nose of the Astra.
She dove just low enough.
Fired once.
BOOM.
The shot struck the stone just beside the beast, exploding with a shockwave of force and shrapnel.
It wasn't a kill shot, but it tore the grip from the creature's claws.
The beast lost purchase.
It fell.
Thirty feet down.
Hit the courtyard with a wet, metallic crack, twisting, unmoving.
Lilya pulled upward in a sharp arc, circling once above the tower. The civilians looked up, wide-eyed.
But Lilya couldn't stop yet.
She saw the collapsed Maul, smoking and still. The broken stalls. The torn cobblestones. The streaks of something black and steaming trailing off into alleys.
She saw the smaller ones too, those twisted, hyena-like shapes closing in on three figures at the center of the square.
A boy crouched nearby, checking Yula's pulse. She was still breathing, but unconscious, her coat scorched along the sleeve. She'd pushed herself too far.
Ilya stood with his back straight, rifle lowered, face pale under soot.
He knew he wasn't going to win.
But he was going to fight anyway.
Lilya's Astra shrieked overhead, trailing red and gold through smoke. Her form blurred as she twisted in midair, boots braced, wind howling in her coat.
Her barrels spun open.
BRRRRRRT.
A perfect triangle of death. Three bursts. Three beasts. Each one slammed backward mid-step, torn apart before their claws touched stone.
One tried to leap, and its head immediately burst like glass under pressure.
Another turned to flee. But it was too slow.
A magic burst from her secondary cannon struck just behind its spine. The shockwave tore the alley apart, bricks scattering like dice, dust curling into the air.
She dropped low on her Astra, circled once around the square in a spiral descent, a comet of judgment.
The last two beasts hesitated. But it didn't matter.
She fired again, and they dropped like carcasses in the snow.
It was over.
Not chaos.
Not relief.
Just quiet.
Lilya's Astra hissed softly as it lowered her into the ruins of the square.
She stepped off, dusted ash from her sleeve, and walked toward the two boys like it was just another training day.
They turned to look at her.
She didn't smile.
She just walked forward, slow, coat flaring behind her.
"Thought I told you to stay in one piece," she said lightly.
Then glanced at Yula's still form behind them.
"Get her inside," she told the boy. "Before she freezes."
He blinked at her. "Uh—right."
Lilya looked at them once more.
Then, with just the faintest grin tugging one corner of her mouth.
"Great job," she said.
Ilya didn't smile. But something behind his eyes flickered, barely, briefly.
That's not praise.
But not nothing either.