— The Medved Abyss was raised nearly three hundred years ago. — the deep voice echoed through the hall's walls, as if each stone bore that ancient burden. — Records are scarce and fragmented. We do not know precisely who ordered its construction, nor whose hands carried it out. Some say it was the King of the Ursai, the last sovereign of the northern bloodline. Others claim it was Queen Anastasia herself, the Survivor, who raised the walls with blood and tears.
A reverent silence hung in the air, as the memory of the cursed sovereign seemed to drift through the room.
The professor, already advanced in age, seemed to be making an effort to awaken in the students the interest and commitment that his words carried. It's true that the topic under discussion was nothing new, but it had always been treated with the utmost respect. After all, the culture of a place says much about its past — and even more about its future. History is, ultimately, a reflection of human decisions, both in their positive and negative aspects. And about that, the old professor had no doubt.
— Of course, I was never one to believe in fairy tales.
A scornful, awkward smile escaped the elderly man.
— The fact is, this castle we now inhabit was built upon the first recorded Berlóga — the home of our beloved beasts... and, to this day, considered the Mother of our roots.
His voice paused, as if each word were an irrevocable sentence.
— Ironically, in these troubled times, we return to the place where it all began.
He paused for a long moment, and his eyes scanned the young people in silence.
— Does anyone dare to say the reason for our return?
The oval hall plunged into an almost suffocating silence. No student dared to answer. The question lingered like a verdict, and everyone knew the truth — total loss. A final move, an all-in where the winner took everything… and the loser lost it all. The people of the North lost.
The professor cleared his throat, breaking the silence.
— Miss Irina, perhaps you could enlighten us.
In the front row, a young blonde barely lifted her gaze. Her eyes, dark as the night, remained fixed on a notebook, the quill gliding swiftly as if the world around her were mere noise. There was something almost insolent in her posture. The old professor did not ignore it — and perhaps that was why he had thrown the thorniest question at her.
Without interrupting the movement of the quill, Irina raised her chin slightly, looking at him with transparent disdain.
— The Great Alliance. — she said firmly. — That was the cause of our defeat, Professor Anton.
A murmur rippled through the room. The old professor seemed uncomfortable, age betraying his rigid expression. The answer wasn't wrong, but it was… raw. He sighed.
— Very bold of you to blame the consequence and not the cause. I admit I wouldn't have thought of such a cunning response.
The class, however, remained divided. To many, the answer sounded incipient, even provocative. But the more one reflected on it, the clearer its simplicity became: the raw truth of a chain of complex decisions. In the end, the reason was nothing but a means… and the end had already been decided.
Bahhhhhh.
A bell rang loudly, vibrating through the stone walls and shaking the room from its stupor.
Many students stirred uneasily, quickly forgetting what had stirred them — after all, complexity is an invitation to forgetfulness for the ignorant.
But one boy, still immersed in Irina's words, remained motionless in deep thought.
His serious, composed posture made him seem distant — as if he lived in a world of his own.
He was, to his greatest misfortune, considered the most beautiful. A beauty that did not exalt him, but marked him. His curse was inscribed in beautiful and unique features — but it was the eyes, one as clear as the icy waters of the North and the other as dark as a starless night, that revealed the exotic difference attributed by many to the Goddess Lada* herself.
This duality made him a living paradox: cold and light in one, shadow and abyss in the other.
He was an unsettling flame burning in the middle of darkness — impossible to ignore, even when he wished to disappear. To the less fortunate, his presence was a cruel reminder of their own mediocrity, a silent affront that inflamed resentment.
— You little shit… where's your Vale? I'm starving today, and one plate won't be enough to satisfy Oleg the Magnificent!
The voice pulled him out of his reverie. He recognized it immediately. As much as he hated to admit it, that provocation had already become part of his routine — almost an unavoidable burden.
The boy slowly lifted his face and replied coldly:
— Go fuck yourself, Oleg.
Oleg — the rat, as he was called behind his back. He had a thin face, eyebrows permanently furrowed in fury, and an exotic kind of beauty that, instead of captivating, only emphasized his mediocrity. It was the kind of appearance that disturbed — more like a flaw disguised as an unusual feature.
But to the handsome boy's misfortune, where grace was lacking, strength abounded.
And it was precisely that brute strength that made Oleg a constant problem — a daily shadow rising over him like a cruel reminder of his vulnerability.
Oleg needed no excuses. He sought no reasons. The boy, handsome beyond measure, was the reason — a living, irritating target, flickering in the middle of the room like a flame that never stopped burning.
To Oleg, it was almost a daily mission to extinguish that light.
The boy smirked slightly, satisfied with the response he had been waiting for.
As he descended the steps slowly, he positioned himself in front of the room, wanting everyone to hear what he had to say — like a chant aimed at glory.
— I, Oleg the Magnificent, challenge you, Nikolai… to the Gulag.
The students witnessed, as they did every other day, the same story repeated constantly and eternally: the strong crushing the weak without mercy. Oleg was living proof that beauty meant nothing in that cold and dystopian world. In the snow that shaped their lives, these children were already born surrounded by walls of ice and stone — heirs to a history of terror, blood, and brutality, encouraged by the very world around them.
There was no room for love or passion there. To be beautiful, in that cruel land, was not a blessing — it was a flaw.
Nikolai rested his arms on the desk in front of him. In that rigid posture, his fragility was finally revealed: the only flaw on the body of a god.
Even now, the eyes of the women in the room watched him with disdain, as if his imperfection were a smudge of ink on a perfect painting.
The crack of wood striking the foot of the desk echoed like a sentence, drawing laughter from the mediocre. It was always like this: every provocation, every gesture, was a reminder of his condition. Nikolai stood with effort. His right knee still throbbed with pain. The wooden leg creaked in the cold, revealing his limitation. But what else could he do? That piece of wood was all that kept him from falling completely.
Nikolai rose in the most Homeric way he knew, each movement calculated so as not to betray the weight of his pain. He walked firmly, though his wooden leg didn't grant him even the mercy of sensation. With each step, the risk of stumbling stalked him like a shadow.
He descended the few steps before him. The creak of the wood echoed through the hall, and with it came the muffled laughter of the boys. With each sound, mockery. But when he reached the last step without falling, a collective sigh of relief escaped the lips of the girls — just as loud as the bitter silence of the boys, disappointed not to witness his fall.
"I'm getting used to this damned thing…" he thought, feeling the sweat run down his forehead. But no one saw. To every watching eye, he remained upright, almost cold.
Still limping, he continued walking until he reached the door through which the professor had hurriedly left moments earlier, unconcerned with what was happening. His figure, even staggering, did not fail to impose presence. It was the burden of being Nikolai: even in pain, he could not stop being watched.
— Let's get this over with.
Nikolai opened the door, signaling for Oleg to act. Oleg still stared at him with an ironic smile, malice clear in his eyes.
Oleg moved toward the exit, followed by his gang of mediocrities. Each of their steps summoned the entire room as if it were a ritual. Laughter, provocations, hungry stares — the promise of yet another spectacle. There was no difference between watching a beaten dog or a humiliated classmate. To them, it was all the same. And the ritual repeated… like the day before, and the one before that, and the one before that one.
— Shall we watch the fight, Irina? — Zoya asked, leaning over.
— What for? — she replied without emotion. — You and I already know how it's going to end.
The two of them watched the room move, the whirlwind of boys eager for violence. They were so different, and yet still seen as the jewels of the class. Zoya, with her red hair and light green eyes, burned like fire; Irina, with her cold and distant demeanor, was pure ice. Fire and ice, side by side. The contrast only made them both more untouchable.
— Why do you think he puts up with it every day? After all, he can't even be considered a man anymore. — Zoya murmured, following the scene.
Irina didn't look away.
— He accepts this torture to honor his family's name. Even in his condition, he continues to face adversity. I don't think half the men here would do the same. To me, he's more of a man than the one who harasses him.
Zoya sighed, almost with a nervous laugh.
— Hmmm… you still like him?
— Shut up, Zoya. — Irina replied sharply, though her eyes didn't hide a trace of pain.
— He could never provide for me. That's not how things work. Just because I respect what he does doesn't mean I find him any less of an idiot than the rest of them.
Besides — she said, not hiding the sadness in her gaze — I don't think he'll survive the Berlóga.
Zoya fell silent. She never fully understood her friend: always rational, yet at the same time, full of emotion. Contradictory. Intense. As if she carried two opposing truths within her chest.
Nikolai didn't hurry.
He let everyone go ahead of him, walking in slow, measured steps.
On the outside, nothing betrayed him — his calm, almost lofty expression seemed like that of someone who appreciated every detail of the path.
But inside, it was the opposite: every step was a silent torture.
The constant pain gnawed at him, and the only way he had found to hide it was to walk as if he were the most arrogant of them all.
It never helped.
But it was still better than walking hunched, begging for compassion…
…from people who deserved only his sword.
When he finally crossed the doors to the outside area, Nikolai paused. To his right, the white vastness of the abyss opened up like a frozen ocean. The classroom was on the east side of the castle, and from there it was possible to behold the entire expanse of the fortress that, to him, was not just home, but refuge.
The Medved Abyss rose implacably from the White Mountains, a scar of stone and snow. It was a fortress so ancient it seemed to have sprung from the mountain itself, walls born from the womb of the earth. High cliffs guarded it like claws, and the constant cold wrapped it in an invisible armor.
At the heart of the citadel, the Fortress of the Nobles stood with its granite towers, sharp as spears pointed at the snowy sky. There rested the Great Trumpet, capable of echoing throughout the entire valley — a call that could herald the glory of victory or the weight of despair.
Ahead, the Abyss Wall stretched in cold stone, damp and almost alive. So tall that no battering ram would dare dream of bringing it down, so narrow it forced armies to march in tight lines, doomed to defeat before even reaching the gate. Beneath it, the narrow rift cut through the land: a dark river of icy waters, always in motion, guarding the secrets of ancient ambushes.
The valley around it was crowned by curved hills, natural walls that echoed the howls of the wind. By day, the fortress resembled a tomb of stone — austere, cold, inescapable. By night, by torchlight, it became a fragile refuge against the white eternity that swallowed it from all sides.
Even after seventeen winters looking at the same landscape, Nikolai still lost his breath. Each time he gazed upon the colossal architecture of Medved, he was reminded that he lived in a place made not only to withstand time — but to defy the very end of his race, the last stronghold of the Bear Tamers.
Goddess of beauty *