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Then came the rumours, spread around the palace like wildfire. That an official or a nobleman sent word outside the palace that the taxes are to increase one more, that the emperor is demanding more tribute, more gold, more crops, more sons and daughters. The stores of grain and rice aren't to be opened this year for distribution as relief. That there is to be another senseless invasion of another nation. One by one they get embellished further and further. In the bathhouse, you hear a kitchen girl tell you that she heard tell that the servants' rice is to be further stretched with millet and barley. Yet there is abundant food within the kitchens made for the emperor's banquets. Another lady in waiting for a different concubine tilts her head to mutter that her mistress has been receiving many letters from her noble family recently, but that these letters have all been confiscated by palace guards before there was a chance to open them. Words swirl throughout the palace as if on air, picking up more from every new mouth until a mumbled remark from one maid about her smaller portion of rice transforms into a whirlwind of fear that every meal is now to be cut in half, so where is the extra food going?

You mention those to the concubine one night as he pushes one of his bowls onto you, telling him what you hear from a friend who heard from her own friend and so forth. While normally when you speak of such stories, he would raise his thin painted brow and ask you of what friends you could possibly have, here he listens with a smile. Chopsticks moving to place some braised beef from his bowl into your mouth. “The fear of hunger is always a present one, but when it is felt more sharply, it causes people…” he trails off, pausing as though in thought for what to say next, as though he doesn't have the answer to his own question “, fear is a powerful motivator.”

You don't ask him to elaborate, he wouldn't give you any semblance of an answer.

Next came the whispering of dissidents beyond the palace walls. That people were taking to the market in the capital, to voice their anger. Outside the outer walls separating everyone within from the rest of the world there were now checkpoints for merchants as they lined outside. The first thing you noticed was the guards had changed, there were more of them round every corner. New in ill fitting uniforms and quick to their tempers. Rules that before went unnoticed were now being enforced strictly.

You encountered it one evening while accompanying the concubine on his afternoon walk through the imperial gardens. Holding the parasol above him as always, half a step behind with your head low. Responding to all the little comments he makes. How garishly one of the noble consorts wears his hair, obviously in an attempt to mimic himself for the emperor's favour. Half paying attention you stumble forward, tripping on the train of his robes and ripping the silk.

You don't notice it before a thick hand hits the back of your head knocking you forwards and jolting the parasol to the ground. The confusion comes first at what just happened before the smarming pain. You try to look up but are met with another blow before you can figure out what is happening.

“Do you believe your life is even worth that silk you just ruined,” a man's voice. No, a boy, barely out from training and desperate to prove himself “are you so stupid you don't realise you should be begging the illustrious noble consort for forgiveness this moment instead of looking at the floor like an idiot!” his voice breaks from the strain of yelling, becoming pink from his own body undermining his performance of authority. A hand is raised once more before interruption

“Impudent dog!” Your master yells “how dare you raise a hand to my servant, you have no right to do so.” He strips the torn outer layer and throws it to the floor “let this become cleaning rags for all I care I have a hundred others if I so wish, just as there are a hundred more dogs eager to replace you once I speak to his imperial highness about the upstart new guards that think themselves an authority on my household. I discipline my household without the barking of a mutt in my ears.” His eyes turn to you cold enough to freeze your blood. “What's another physical reminder to remedy carelessness,” the eyes flit back to the guard. “Perhaps you should share her punishment as a reminder,” He turns around robes swirling around him like a child's spinning top “Come, I want a bath to wash the stink of dog from my nose.” you scramble back to follow him, hands shaking and head pounding from the force of the blows. Returning to the safety of his orbit, one half step behind.

“You're not to leave the pavilion any longer,” he says decisively as though his mind was made up a long time ago. He continues before you have any moment to protest. “Save your breath for blowing on your tea. I cannot trust those dogs not to pounce on you when you seem to be so adamant on being a fool.” His eyes narrow “you cannot afford to be unaware of our surroundings you stupid girl.”

A hand wrapped around your jaw, the thumb pressing into your cheek, nail finding the groove he left in your skin. “Remember all that I've done for you,” his eyes are bright with an ecstatic fervor that borders on religious “it will come to fruition soon. Every single sacrifice will be returned to me tenfold, but” his grip deepens into your flesh “I will not risk anything happening to you, my one weakness being exploited. So you are to stay from here on inside this pavilion. Do I make myself clear?”

“What are you planning?” You manage to force the words that have been haunting your brain for nearly a year. He smiles, a fox within his face. As he leans in to kiss your scarred cheek as though for luck.

Then came the smoke, the smell of it wrinkling your nose when you opened the pavilion windows wanting to let clean air in. You'd not left the building in three days since the door was locked. Staying close to his side and watching how calmer he seemed to be the more tension crackled through the air. The smoke didn't come with silence however. It didn't come cleanly. Stories of riots came just as much as stories of violence, that the emperor ordered unrest to be put down without mercy.

“Theres less rice today,” you mumble handing him his bowl stuffed full with his allowance “less merchants are being permitted to come in” he looks at his bowl, then to yours – stretched with vegetables. Hunger has never been a stranger to you, but you learnt from childhood how to hold it far from your door.

“You shouldn't go without,” he picks meat from a plate on his right side to hover it in front of your mouth “we won't starve,” a smile like a cat's, “but others will feel the bottom of their bowl much sooner than we shall,” you accept his offering, chewing a moment before swallowing. You've never become used to fullness. “Have you heard any new talk today, hmm?” Tilting his head as he questions you as if you weren't anywhere but his side. He's grown comfortable, you realise now. How he feeds you with his own chopsticks. Domestic even, a man with his pet.

You don't know how to answer that. All you hear now is silence, whispers in low doorways from the other loyal servants in the pavilion. All you see are scraps of characters you somewhat recognise in his letters. If you studied them longer perhaps you'd put together what he wants you to, but to admit to what you see requires a bravery long since stamped from you.

“I would like something to drink,” you say clearly. Surprising yourself. His arched brows perfectly raise themselves, somewhat in mockery of you. That you're always sure of, that he sees you like some little endearing creature that entertains him.

“A drink,” he muses, as if the concept requires so much thought behind it “my little maids asks me for a drink,” he sets his chopsticks down, without a sound as they lean across the porcelain rest “so a drink you shall have.” he makes no other movement. You reach for the teapot only for him to tut and shake his head. “fetch my plum wine, you know the one.” He will entertain your silly asks of him but you know he's never going to let go of the joy he gets from watching you serve him.

You set the two cups carefully on the lacquered table, about to open the bottle when a gong rings loud and clear. Porcelain slips from your hands only for you to catch it before it shatters against the floor. A familiar announcement that had never stopped to startle you.

“Clumsy girl.” There's no bite to his words as

The eunuch's voice rings loud and clear outside as your master takes your chin in his fingers “did I not tell you that we would be having… company?” He draws the word out , unwinding it like a length of rope. This time rather than fear, the concubine's eyes glitter with something you can only call anticipation. His hand falls from your face and you piece together why he insisted this entire day about your appearance being just as perfected as his. For him to be painted like the same dancers he calls whores under his breath.

You forgot there's more than one way a man can starve.

You can taste your heart in your mouth, looking frantically around the room wondering where you could hide. Where you can wait everything out like a hunter in its shell until you're safe to come out once more. That luxury, however, is not afforded to you “Stay,” his eyes flicker to you. “Stay as you are and where you are. I want to give him a show.” Your blood runs cold at his words but you offer no resistance – being a good little maid as you've always been for him.

There was only two times in this life that you were to come face to face with the previous emperor. The first time you were caught between the crosshairs of men with more cruelty than compassion. The only thing that saved you was how willing one was to destroy the others interest in you

The second time you were able to realise with a sickening clarity that he was going to die tonight. The jade emperor is a man as most men are. You don't know why such a statement was terrifying to you.

“The wine,” he repeats and it's like you're struck back to the land of the living as you hold the bottle out. He takes the bottle from your hands. Pouring it into the two cups meant for you and him before the peace was commandeered by the silence of oppression

He motions for you to approach them. Once your in reach he pulls down on your face as if to present you in all your barely masked terror

“She's a pretty thing still, despite her face, is she not? I like to surround myself with pretty things, little indulgences.” An indulgence. That's what you are, isn't it? An indulgence like candied hawthorn for him to wrap his teeth around and bite down hard

His majesty's eyes flicker up and down your frame trying to remember someone as nameless as you. How many servants have passed through his hands you wonder. You've seen the joy those hands take in breaking down what he claims to favor. So what of the disposable ones? Where do they go once he's done with them?

“The maid? I remember now” he squints “not necessarily pretty but I like delicate things. Was it true? You took a blade to her face out of jealousy? You always have been a jealous thing. Spiteful.” he smiles and you feel the bile rising in your throat “Girl, turn and face me.” you have no choice but to obey.

Jealousy is one term to use in describing the concubine. You've known since you began serving him that the half a hatred innate to him towards everyone else within the harem. That he considered himself better than the rest of them, manifested in snide remarks and bribes so those who have the misfortune of entering his presence are neglected and shunned. Oh but there's no love lost between him and the emperor. How can something be lost when it wasn't there to begin with

There is only lust and hatred. Lust in the emperor's expressions as he watches you once more and you're brought to mind of the boys in your village who took pleasure in drowning kittens come spring. Hatred in the set of the concubines jaw and the heaviness of his blinks

“You always have her following around you, a little shadow. You should lend her to me if you find her so pleading, I'd like to know how she meets your high standards,” his hand stretches out ready to paw at you but falters. Falling numb to his confusion. The emperor turns his head towards the concubine. Recognition fading slowly into his eyes as he looks at the cups on the table. How only one had been drunk from.

“Does the wine suit your tastes?” He doesn't drink, just watches with a smile. The practiced smile you've watched him paint on his features every day. You've never seen it crack before “I was saving it for a special occasion,” he stands taller than you've ever seen him before, holding the very same decorative dagger from the night he pinned you down beneath him.

He turns to you, eyes bright “open the window I would like to show his highness something, the reverence sticks like gristle in the teeth ” you scurry to obey, fingers fumbling at the latch as the sounds of a mob too close for comfort echo into the chamber. “They've begun to storm the outer palace already haven't they?” His robes sway as he walks forward, the silk rippling like waves from his form, a vengeful spirit brought to life. “It was easy truth be told, people are quick to put their blades up when harvests fail and rumours spiral. When the chaos clears and the generals bow down to me I will be the hero who slew the tyrant and opened the grain stores. I will take all that you called yours and make it mine.”

You didn't expect there to be so much blood. For it to flow syrup slow and stain the yellow silk like blossom. He doesn't die just yet. The scream goes unanswered, all the guards have abandoned the emperor or are distracted. You remember the pig, every year when winter would come how your mother would prepare the knife to do it quick. You'd put your head under the covers trying to block out the scream from your ears to no avail. Until you were older and she told you it was your turn to learn. You never knew it would sound like a man, or that a man sounds the same as the struck pig

The concubine doesn't have the steady hands of your mother, however instead his shakes with ecstatic fervor.“You do not understand how much I've longed to do this, to watch the light leave your miserable cruel eyes. You would have lived longer were you not a threat to the one thing I possess.” The blade twists in deeper and you don't know how to respond watching the son of heavens blood spurt all over his silk. Body shaking and hands clamping over your mother to keep your traitorous screams inside. You're cemented too much to the floor to turn away from the sight before you

“I never thought I could hate a man more than my brother. But then I met you, handed off like some little whore and that's what you made me into.” He pulls the blade out before returning it back to its place over and over “ I should thank you really, if it wasn't for your shortsightedness I would not have the entire world at my access. I will ruin your pathetic legacy.”

“You killed him,” you state the cold truth as though you're still not fully aware of the crime you just witnessed. Treason is meant to be punished, meant to result in nine branches of execution. But the emperor is dead. No one willing to hold a blade up in retribution, all too occupied with saving their own skins.

“Will there be any mourners? Any person in this entire who will not rejoice at the declaration that this slaver is dead. You starved as a child from his selfish policies, don't tell me you're so foolish to feel empathy for someone who would take you between his teeth until you're torn in two.”

“The wine, you were going to let me drink it” you stammer, the gods only know what sudden bravery fuels your accusations. He only laughs, coming forward to pinch your cheek between two knuckles, smearing something sticky on your skin.

“You wouldn't even swallow a sip of that, I thought it would be funny to watch you sputter on something so strong like a child.” With a laugh he turns back to the body, kicking it upright. You don't know what possesses you to approach and cover its face- its not kindness maybe it's the sense of decency that seemed to evade nobility. Or more selfishly it's the fear of those dead eyes staring up at you.

“Don't sully yourself by touching his blood ” you don't have the fight in you to tell him how he is saturated in the emperor's tainted blood. How you can feel it smeared lightly on your face.The dagger is abandoned to the floor as your master lifts up the heavy imperial seal. Separating it from the cooling corpse at his feet. The shadow of your fears now made into grey flesh.

In truth your position is still the same as you've feared. A plaything in the claws of a man who thinks himself to be a god. But the devil you know holds you gently to his side in bed. Feeds you from his own plate like a cherished pet. He'll marry you soon, so he's always sworn in the dead of night, rubbing a circle onto your shoulder. You're the girl from a hamlet high in the mountains, from the hungry northern provinces with features too plain for slavers to sell you to a brothel. You- the girl scarred by his very hands, who learnt how to write her own name. You will be empress, the phoenix sat beside the dragon. The gods are cruel are they not? How much they take from you, and what they give you in return will never forgive the hollow absence of all that was once in your heart.

You're broken from your thoughts as he calls your name out.“Come, let us address what remains of the old court before others swoop upon it,” a thumb wiping the blood from your cheek. “Let them see my sweet empress and seethe.”

There was no gate. Just a gap between two striped tents, where a man stood with a fistful of tickets and a smile that didn’t blink. His coat dragged the ground, tails stitched with symbols that shimmered when you looked too long. His eyes gleamed like polished brass, and his voice was velvet stretched too tight.

“One per soul,” he said, pressing the ticket into your palm. It was soft, almost damp with warmth, and printed with a number you didn’t understand: 000.

Inside, the world forgot itself.

Cotton candy clouds dissolved on your tongue, tasting of something sweeter than sugar, something that made your heart race. The game stalls beckoned with prizes that twitched when your back was turned, stuffed animals that blinked, glass bottles that hummed when touched. The rings clung to them like lovers unwilling to let go.

Your friends laughed too loudly. Their eyes shone too bright. You spun on rides until the stars smeared like wet paint. In the hall of mirrors, your reflection lagged behind, breathing a beat too late, smiling when you didn’t. In the haunted house, something leaned close and whispered your name. Not the one you gave, but all the one you forgot.

You didn’t question it. The fair was built to devour doubt, to replace it with wonder. You let it.

When you stumbled out, the world felt wrong.

The air was thin, like it had been drained. The streetlights flickered, dim and distant. Every shadow shimmered orange. Every light bled gold. The scent of burnt sugar clung to your skin like a bruise, dull and aching.

You didn’t remember getting home, but you woke at 3:33 a.m.

Carousel music came first. Soft, lilting, distant, like it was playing underwater. Then the voice.

It came from your closet.

At first, it was a murmur, like someone speaking to themselves. Then it sharpened, clear and close.

“You never cashed your last ticket.”

You froze.

The closet door creaked open, slow and deliberate. A hand emerged, gloved in harlequin diamonds, fingers too long, joints bending wrong. Then a leg, folding backward at the knee. Then another.

The man unfolded from the shadows like origami soaked in ink, limbs stretching to touch both walls, bells jingling in a rhythm that didn’t match the music.

His face was painted white, bone-pale, with black diamonds around his eyes. He was appealing to you in the way a moth might regard the flame. A handsome, almost noble mien, as though he might have been the prince instead of a jester performing for one.

Then he smiled.

His grin was carved in crimson, stretching from lip to cheek, too wide to be human. The paint didn’t hide the teeth—sharp, yellowed, too many.

He crawled toward you, spider-like, each movement making the walls groan, the air tighten. His jagged bangs jostled with each crawling motion.

“You left without your last ride,” he said, voice thick with mock offense, syrupy and slow. “That’s not allowed.”

You shook your head, voice barely a whisper. “I don’t want it.”

He tilted his head, neck cracking, until it nearly touched his shoulder.

“Oh, sweet thing,” he purred. “It’s not about want. You took the ticket. It’s a contract.”

He was close now. You could smell him. Burnt sugar, smoke, and brass. The scent of something old. Something dug up and buried.

Your voice trembled. “What’s the last ride?”

His smile widened, impossibly.

The first delivery goes to a merchant’s wife who looks only at your hands, as though your face might contaminate the transaction. The second is to a clerk who pays late and complains loudly about it, his voice swelling with grievance as though poverty were an insult done to him personally. The third draws you farther than usual, down toward the station road, where the snow is packed hard by traffic and anticipation alike.

You notice it only gradually, the way bodies angle toward the same point, the way voices gather and thin, sharpening with speculation. A carriage stands near the station yard, its horses steaming, flanks dark with sweat despite the cold. Men loiter with purpose, stamping their feet, speaking in low tones that carry more interest than warmth.

Someone is arriving.

You adjust your grip on the bundle and keep walking. Curiosity is dangerous. Attention, even more so.

As you approach, the air changes. There is not a sound or sight that is off, but you feel an inexplicable pressure, much like the subtle tightening that comes just before a door opens, before an uninvited guest makes themselves known. Your steps slow without your permission, as though the ground itself has grown reluctant to release you.

A whistle comes sharp and metallic, cutting the sky open. Steam surges. Doors bang. The crowd shifts forward in one restless motion.

You halt.

At first, you tell yourself it means nothing. Moscow sends men east constantly. It feeds the tundra officials, traders, families and exiles tired of their own lives. There is no reason this arrival should matter to you.

Then you see a vague outline, a figure stepping down from the carriage, one leg askew with a stiffness you recognize instantly. It is not the form that strikes you, but the pride about him. His coat is expensive, clearly chosen for appearance rather than endurance. His hat sits just so, with the angled brim casting a shadow across his handsome features. His gloves are new, unbroken by use.

He pauses, eyes scanning the crowd. You see him before he sees you.

Your husband.

The world narrows to a thin, ringing line.

He looks older, as if he has been hardened in the time since he last saw you. His mouth holds the same line of displeasure you learned to read long before blows ever followed, before anger learned the gracious economy of silence. He speaks briefly to a station attendant, presses a coin into his palm, then turns again, eyes slithering about with intent.

Your breath catches painfully. The laundry shifts in your arms, one corner slipping loose before you snatch it back, heart hammering hard enough to blur the edges of your sight.

He’s come.

The thought feels unreal, like something overheard rather than lived, like a murmured secret spoken in another room that somehow still finds you.

You back away carefully, keeping your head down, moving as though nothing has changed, as though you are only another woman with work to finish and no stake in the day’s unfolding drama. Behind you, your husband laughs at something the attendant says. The sound scrapes along your spine.

He does not see you yet, so you turn sharply down a side street, boots skidding on ice, pulse roaring in your ears. You do not stop until the noise of the station thins, until Yakutsk’s familiar misery closes around you again like a shield.

Only then do you brace yourself against a wall and breathe, mind awash with horror and panic. He is here. The circle has closed.

You gather what remains of the laundry and force yourself onward. Work still waits. Hunger still presses. The cold still demands obedience, but somewhere behind you, your husband has begun to ask questions. Somewhere else in the city, Mikhail Sokolov might be able to protect you.

You do not decide to run. Your body makes the decision as your husband’s voice rises behind you, close enough now that words take shape, sharp and unmistakable. Someone points. Someone says your name aloud. Panic collapses the world into a single directive.

You let the laundry drop to the ground without ceremony. You stumble over the pile, a boot catching on the hood of a fine coat. You cut through an alley, skirts clenched in your fists, boots slipping and skidding. The laundry falls from your arms, abandoned, meaningless. Your breath tears at your lungs, each inhale a sharp refusal. You do not look back.

The workshop looms ahead, its windows dim with frost and smoke. Light spills from beneath the doors. You ram your shoulder against the wood, again and again, pushing until it yields.

You burst inside. Heat strikes you so suddenly it makes you dizzy. Voices break off. Needles freeze mid-stitch. Heads turn as one.

Mikhail stands near the foreman’s table, bent over a map with two clerks. He straightens the moment the door slams against the wall.

“Friend?”

You cross the room in a stumbling rush, hands shaking, tears blurring your sight. Words spill out unshaped, torn loose by fear.

“He’s here,” you gasp. “He’s here! Please, Mr. Sokolov, please!”

Your knees buckle. You catch yourself on the table, fingers clawing at the wood as though it might anchor you. Mikhail moves immediately.

Not toward you at this moment, but toward the clerks. A single look, precise and unmistakable. They withdraw at once, murmuring excuses, drawing the foreman with them as though he weighs nothing. Doors close softly, deliberately, sealing the room.

When you are alone, he turns back to you.

“Slowly,” he says, voice low and steady. “Breathe. Tell me.”

You shake your head, tears spilling freely now.

“I saw him while I was delivery laundry. He’s at the station. He’s asking questions. He’ll find me, and I—” Your voice breaks. “I do not know what to do.”

He crosses the space between you, stopping just short of touching you. Still, his hand hovers like it is all he wishes to do.

“Did he see you?”

“I don’t think so. Not fully. But he’s close. He must have always been if he has caught up with me.” A weak, breathless laugh escapes you. You lift your eyes to him. “You own this place. By law, by custom, he owns me still. Nothing stops a man from reclaiming what he believes belongs to him.”

“Perhaps my position alone will not deter him, but it will alter the rules.”

Footsteps sound outside. There are voices, distant but approaching. Though the wind roars, you hear the faintest crying of your name. Your eyes widen, your body tensing all over again.

Mikhail does not hesitate.

“There is a closet in the office. It has a false behind. Go hide in there. I will speak to him in my office, so that others will not listen and pry in your private affairs.”

“But what about when he demands?” you whisper. “When he no longer wishes to play nice?”

“Rest assured, my dear friend. He will answer to me.”

You search his face for calculation, for deceit, for the careful distance of a man protecting only his interests.

You find only certainty, as if he cares for the matter as much as you. If you dare to deceive yourself, then one might even suppose his concern surpasses yours.

You nod once and turn, hurrying toward the rear as he indicates. At the door, you look back.

“Mikhail,” you say, voice barely holding. “Please don’t let him take me.”

His answer is immediate.

“I won’t.”

The door closes behind you.

Moments later, the workshop’s front doors open again.

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“Listen,” he says. “There’s been a change. As you may have heard from rumors, a new owner will be taking over operations. This decision is effective immediately.”

A murmur ripples through the workshop, sharp-edged and afraid.

“What about our contracts?” someone demands.

“Our wages?” another cries. “We were promised—”

“And the housing?” a third voice breaks in, thin with panic. “A great deal of us are young and unmarried, or working to supplement our husbands, who are distant laborers or miners. We have nowhere to go.”

The foreman lifts his hands, palms out, helpless. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything yet. For all I know, I’ll be joining you.”

Suddenly, the doors at the far end of the workshop creak open. Cold rushes in, carrying with it the scent of fur and leather, and something finer, unmistakably expensive. Boots strike the floor. He enters flanked by two men you do not recognize. Clerks, perhaps. Agents. They barely register.

But him, you know him at once. The set of his shoulders. The dark, precise cut of his coat. The gentle sense of doom that bends the room around him without effort. It is none other than your friend, Mikhail Sokolov.

Your stomach drops. The murmurs thin into whispers. The women draw back instinctively, their eyes assessing him with the practiced caution of those who have learned to read power in order to survive it.

He steps forward.

“Ladies, please,” he says. His voice carries easily as he strolls down the factory aisles. “Continue your work. I won’t take much of your time.”

No one moves. He surveys the room as he strolls to the front. It is not with a sense of fleeting interest and casual dismissal, not as a farmer counting sheep, but with a sharper attention. His gaze moves from face to face, measuring, weighing. When it reaches you, your breath stutters.

You react without thinking. Your hands fly to the cloak still draped over your shoulders. Heat floods your face. You press the folded wool into the hands of the woman beside you.

“Here,” you whisper, too fast. “Take it. I’m not cold anymore. You look rather frail.”

Before she can protest, you turn and flee. You duck between tables, nearly colliding with a crate of pelts. Your heart hammers loud enough you are certain it echoes. You press yourself against the far wall, half-hidden behind a stack of unfinished work, breath shallow, mind racing.

He couldn’t have planned this. Or perhaps he had.

Across the workshop, Mikhail speaks again, his tone calm, steady—reassuring in a way that feels practiced.

“Firstly, I would like to assure that you will not lose your positions,” he says. “Nor your housing. Wages will be honored, and in time, improved.”

A collective breath releases, ragged and disbelieving.

“I have now purchased my third route and factory,” he continues, gesturing lightly. “You have ensured this outpost’s profitability, and as such, I am not here to dismantle what you’ve built. Rather, I am here to secure its future.”

His eyes sweep the room again. You shrink deeper into shadow, pulse screaming. The warmth he offered you curdles. You press your hand to your mouth, suddenly unsure whether it was ever kindness at all.

The machine of the world, he had said.

 Pushing. Driving ambition. And now it has found you.

His voice continues to steady the room, smoothing panic into something manageable. But his gaze no longer rests on the whole. It narrows. Once, then again, it passes over tables and faces, pausing where something is missing.

The woman still clutches the cloak. When she realizes whose attention she holds, her mouth opens to explain, but Mikhail is already turning away, expression shuttered.

“Thank you,” he says to the foreman, jaw tight. “We’ll speak further.”

The meeting dissolves into quiet noise, murmurs, tentative laughter, the uneasy return to work. You are already gone.

You slip out the side door. Cold strikes with brutal honesty. Without the cloak, winter reclaims you instantly, biting through wool and skin alike. Wind claws at your skirt, drives ice into your lungs.

You run. Past stacked firewood. Past frozen ruts. Past the river, its surface groaning beneath its white armor like something alive and displeased. By the time you reach your quarters, your hands are numb beyond pain. You fumble the latch, nearly dropping the key.

You collapse onto the cot, shuddering. Your teeth chatter uncontrollably. You wrap your arms around yourself, rocking slightly, as if you might shake loose the weight pressing on your chest.

Had you been naïve? Or had you simply wanted too badly to believe in kindness without consequence?

You press your face into your hands. You cannot avoid him forever. Not now, when he owns the walls you work within, the roof above your head, the paper that governs your labor.

And your husband will come. Of that you are certain. Somehow, Mikhail feels nearer.

The lamp flickers as wind rattles the window. Footsteps pass in the corridor, too many, too distant to belong to either of them.

Then a knock comes at the door. Three measured taps. A pause.

Everything returns. The world comes rushing back. Your heart leaps, lodging in your throat.

“Miss?” a woman’s voice calls gently. “This is Irina. May I speak with you?”

Relief tangles with dread. You rise, smoothing your skirt with shaking hands. As you cross the room, you hear the unmistakable scuff of heavier boots just beyond the door.

Your fingers hover at the latch.

Heart thumping, you open the door.

The woman stands first. Irina, a clerk from the offices, cheeks pink with cold, eyes darting everywhere but at you. And behind her, half a step back, stands Mikhail. He brings a hand to her shoulder and gently sets her aside. Still, he does not cross the threshold.

“Mr. Sokolov wished to ensure you were well,” she says quickly, from over his shoulder. She gestures vaguely down the corridor. “I’ll give you a moment.”

She disappears at once. Mikhail remains. The corridor light outlines him in pale gold and shadow. His coat is immaculate. His gloves are tucked neatly into one hand. Snow dusts the fur at his collar. He looks, absurdly, untouched by the cold that drove you inside.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

Then he inclines his head. “May I?”

You let out a short, brittle laugh. “You’re already here.”

“I meant may I speak with you like this.” A small gesture toward the space between you. “I won’t come in.”

You step back just enough to widen the door, but no further.

“What are you doing here?”

His gaze softens, guarded beneath it. He squeezes his gloves, wringing them.

“Ensuring you didn’t vanish. It’s quite the trek from the factory to here. You might disappear in a drift or to some other wicked whims. You ought to walk with the other woman.”

“Truly, you would follow?” The word cuts sharper than you intend. “Because I fled your announcement? Because your workers shouldn’t behave so strangely?”

A flicker crosses his face, something that is not quiet anger, but a regret that simmers just as softly.

“You are not my property,” he says quietly. “I’ve said it before. You are my dear friend.”

You fold your arms. “Then who are you, Mikhail Sokolov? And what do you wish I might be to you? Any man who can purchase his third route does not do so by accident. He does not do so without treating the world as something to be gathered. I must believe that you will treat me with a similar disregard.”

He considers you.

“For every moment we have known each other, I have told you the truth. It so happens that was a trader when we met, then a buyer when I arrived in Yakutsk, but we have not had the chance to discuss this. Nor that I am an owner now, more than I wished to be.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

No,” he agrees. “It isn’t enough of one.”

He leans closer, not into the room, but nearer to you, lowering his voice.

“I learned young that distance protects nothing. That power left unattended belongs to someone worse. So I acquired it.”

Your breath catches despite yourself.

“And the cloak?” you ask. “Was it charity, or part of your strategy?”

His mouth curves, faint and humorless. “If it were strategy, I would have ensured you kept it.”

You search his face, trying to reconcile the man before you with the weight now pressing on your life, the strange bond he insists you have.

“You didn’t tell me who you were.”

“I did not.”He does not sound defensive. Nor does he sound apologetic. “And for that, I am sorry.”

Silence stretches, so thick that you cannot hold it.

Finally, you say softly, “My husband has written to me.”

His eyes sharpen, just briefly. His voice tightens.

“I see... Would this be the reason you fled?”

“Such would happen to be the case.”

“And does he request your return?”

“It would so happen that he declares it.”

“Would you wish to comply?”

You shake your head. “I don’t know what I wish, only what I cannot endure again.”

He straightens, giving you space you did not ask for but need.

“Then you may continue working, and I will not force my presence upon you.”

You laugh quietly. “You own my contract.”

“Yes,” he says simply. “I do.”

The corridor is cold. Your room is still colder. Yet his refusal to step closer steadies you more than any warmth he ever offered.

“I won’t be able to hide forever,” you say. “Not from you. Or from him.”

“I know.” His voice lowers. “When you are ready to speak on the matter or any that may be of concern, I will listen. Until then, I will remain exactly where I am now. As distant as any owner ought to be.”

He steps back and bows slightly. His footsteps recede. Somewhere down the corridor, you hear him soothing a startled seamstress, his voice already smoothing fear into something orderly.

You close the door and lean your forehead against it, breathing. The walls are closing in. The world is circling, closing patient as a snake, waiting to decide how it will devour.

The building groans and hisses as the cold settles. The furnace downstairs wheezes like an old dog; the rafters tick as frost advances through them. A single oil lamp gutters on your makeshift table, casting a thin, wavering halo that barely holds the shadows at bay.

You lie down, boots still on, staring at the ceiling where old water stains bloom like ghosts dissolving into the wood. Your body throbs with the ache of work done past reason. Your hands feel swollen. Your eyes burn. You want sleep to take you without dreaming, without memory, without thought, but the cloak intrudes.

Its warmth. His hands, near your throat without the urge to choke. Somehow, most striking was the quiet certainty in his voice.

“I have ambitions enough to purchase you a new coat entirely.”

Your heart gives a small, traitorous thud each time the words cycle through your mind. What does he want? What does he see in you? What are you becoming in his eyes? You have no answers. Only questions that unsettle more than they soothe.

You are on the cusp of sleep when the door slams open. Cold rushes in like a living thing, biting your ankles. You sit up fast, panic snapping you awake.

“Forgive me, miss. Forgive me,” gasps one of the younger seamstresses, breath clouding the air. Her coat is still half-buttoned, frost clinging to her hair. She clutches something creased and damp. “A letter,” she says, thrusting it toward you. “For you. From Moscow, they said.”

“No,” you whisper, clutching the sheets at your chest. “No one should write to me. No one should know I am here.”

“The postmaster asked for you by name,” she insists, stepping back as though the paper might bite. “Said it was urgent.”

The room dims as your blood fades, too fast. You reach for the letter with hands that suddenly feel foreign, stiff, clumsy, too slow. The seal is already cracked. It has traveled far. You recognize the handwriting instantly, though you wish you didn’t. Your throat tightens. The air feels sharp enough to cut.

“Thank you,” you say. The words scrape their way out.

The girl nods and slips away, leaving cold and silence behind her. Alone again, you turn the envelope over in your hands. For a moment, you do nothing but stare at your name, written by the same hand that once traced your cheek, your collarbone, before it learned to strike instead of soothe.

You do not open it. Not yet. You lie back on the cot, the letter resting on your chest like a stone. Outside, the wind rises, rattling the thin windows. Somewhere downstairs, a door slams. The lamp flickers violently, nearly guttering out.

For a long while you simply hold the letter, fingers curled around its edges until the paper softens with the heat of your hands. You imagine its contents. Pleas, threats, apologies: the not-knowing is worse than anything he could have written.

So, with trembling hands, you break the seal.

The paper inside is thin, cheaply made, the ink smeared from its long journey. His handwriting leaps at you immediately, stiff, angular, the script of a man who writes only when circumstance forces him to. You inhale once, sharply, and begin to read.

My love, I will not pretend to understand why you have done this. I will not hesitate to share that your absence has shamed me and that it has left me in a difficult position. My mother believes you have taken ill, and others whisper worse. Of course, I have managed affairs alone, but it is neither fitting nor proper to continue so. People talk. They mock. A man should not be made to endure such humiliation by the whim of his own wife. Leave that wretched land and return to Moscow immediately. I can be forgiving if you can be reasonable. Send word. — A.

You read to the end without stopping. No declarations of love. No remorse. No questions of your wellbeing. Nothing about the bruises. Nothing about the years of fear. Only a concern for his reputation.

Your hand tightens until the letter crumples, the words folding in on themselves. A laugh escapes you, dry and sharp. Forgiving, he had written. As though forgiveness were a gift. As though your suffering were an inconvenience he might graciously overlook.

You press the heel of your palm to your eyes and breathe through the sting. The lamp flickers beside you, shadows quivering along the walls like uncertain specters. Cold seeps through the floorboards and into your bones. The room shrinks until you feel trapped between the life you fled and the life you are failing to build.

He wants you back. Wants the woman who kept his bed warm, his table set, his temper soothed. That woman died somewhere along the rails between Moscow and Irkutsk, her body unfurling into the snowfields like breath into winter air.

You crush the letter in your fist. Your heartbeat thuds in your ears with something nearer to fury, a slow, low, long suppressed creeping.

In the dim light, your gaze drifts to the cloak draped neatly across the crate beside your cot. An unexpected warmth stirs in your chest.

The letter slips from your fingers to the floor. You do not pick it up.

You also do not sleep. The night fractures into thin, fevered stretches where dreams dissolve the moment you touch them. By morning, your body feels hollowed out, as though something has been taken and not returned.

Before dawn, you fold the letter and hide it beneath your mattress, ashamed of how much space it still occupies in your thoughts. The cloak you wear again. Not because you want to, but because the cold makes your arguments against it impossible.

The streets are brittle with frost. Snow squeals beneath your boots, each step sharp and accusing. Yakutsk stirs reluctantly, doors creaking open, smoke rising in thin plumes, the river groaning beneath its white armor.

The workshop is already thick with noise: pelts slapped onto tables, women muttering into scarves, the foreman barking orders with the enthusiasm of a man who never touches a needle. You take your place without greeting anyone, head bowed, hands aching in anticipation.

You stitch badly at first. The needle slips. Thread snarls. Blood blooms twice at your fingertip before you manage to stop it. The letter hovers at the edge of your vision as though stitched into the air itself.

“I heard he’s coming before the thaw.”

The words drift through your ears like smoke to the vision.

“I hear he was bought out three routes already! Irkutsk, Olyokminsk, and now, Yakutsk.”

“Three? Why, they say he is not even forty! How could a man amass such wealth?”

“Well,” says another lady, leaning in. A smirk plays upon her face. “My sister is an estate maid. Of course, we do not know her boss, but one might suppose that the new estate our husbands labored on might be intended for such a figure.”

As tempting as fantasy is, you thread your needle and do not look up. Gossip is constant here, as ignorable as the creak of floorboards. You force the needle through stiff hide.

“Indeed. And now, our factory will fall under new ownership.”

Your hand stills at that.

“What?” murmurs the woman beside you, stealing the astonishment from you.

“No,” another voice cries out. “We cannot have a new owner! Our husbands brought us onto the job. Has he also purchased their contracts? Or are we all out of work? They’d rather hire those Yakut hunters and their girls.”

Needles pause. The room hushes, save for the stove’s crackle.

“They say St. Petersburg money’s moving east,” someone whispers. “Consolidating.”

“Consolidating! Well, that is a charitable manner of saying that they intend to let us starve.”

“They say there is a man who walks through Yakutsk like it already belongs to him, but that he is also more generous than his peers. It must be that man, should it not?”

Your breath catches, though you do not yet know why.

The foreman shouts. The spell breaks. Work resumes. You bend back over your stitching, heart beating faster than before.

A new owner, a man, not yet forty, from St. Petersburg…

You tell yourself it means nothing. Yakutsk is full of promise, full of rumors and figures to be at their behest. Most should freeze and shatter before spring. Still, something tightens along your spine, as though an invisible thread has been drawn taut without your consent.

By midday, your hands steady. Your thoughts do not.

You steal a glance at the windows, where snow falls thick and soundless, erasing tracks almost as soon as they are made. At the same time, you have the sinking sensation that your own trail has been uncovered, that the rails you fled along are already beginning their slow, inevitable curve back toward you.

Sorry this one is short ^^;

Tomorrow, you return in plain clothes. The clothes you had worn during your months of travel, and a coat you traded a Yakut girl for your simple wedding band and necklace. It is too slight for your frame, leaving your wrists exposed and partially unfastened. It had been too small for her, too.

The factory smells of tallow and wet winter, of men who shout without needing to raise their voices and women who keep theirs hidden in their throats. You learn the rhythm of it. The slap of pelts against tables, the hiss of lamps, the slow drag of daylight that barely squeezes through the frosted windows. Each evening, you walk back through streets that are slippery, as though fashioned from ice itself. The river groans under its armor. The wooden houses crackled like old bones.

By your second week of work, your meager savings have dwindled, and you need more money. Your room is cheap, but not cheap enough. Your meals are thinner every day. So you take washing from a widow on Bazaarskaya Street, men’s shirts, mostly, stiff with the sweat of laborers and the musk of merchants who think themselves better. You carry the bundles down to the riverbank where women hammer ice from the wooden tubs with practiced blows. The cold numbs your knuckles so thoroughly you could imagine they no longer belonged to you, but some sort of phantom.

In a life like this, the days thicken into a kind of grey paste, indistinguishable from one another. In the workshop, your fingers blister. In the laundry, they crack. Some nights you wake with your hands curled, as though even in sleep you kept sewing, stitching, mending some invisible seam that the world insisted on tearing open again.

In those lean hours, you wonder, often bitterly, why you pursued this life, this cold, this distance, this endless labor. In Moscow you had been miserable, but at least misery there had shape, contour. Here, it was a fog bank that engulfed everything, including the very reasons you fled, obscuring the pain you had endured.

You think of your husband more than you care to admit.

Does he care that you are gone? Has he even looked for you ? Or did he sigh in relief, whisper some half-hearted lament for propriety, and take the opportunity to find a new bride, some younger, barely-woman whose girlhood softness had not yet been worn away by the disillusionment of such a wretched union?

Still, you felt his blows less heavy than the arctic wind. The thought turns your stomach. You aren’t sure whether it is jealousy or contempt that sickens you more. Perhaps both.

It is during a mid-morning grey as old wool, wind scouring the skin from anyone foolish enough to meet it, that you see him again.

Mikhail appears at the far end of the frozen embankment, a dark figure trimmed in the type of fur you now spend the morning mending. He walks with another man, taller, broad-shouldered, with a merchant’s slow, heavy gait. They speak in low tones, their breaths clouding the air between them. So your assumptions must be right. Trade talk, you imagine. Always trade with men like them.

You bend over her laundry as if the shirts themselves are fascinating. Still, you feel his gaze before you truly believe he notices you. You hunch your shoulders, hoping your shawl might disguise you. Or his sensibilities might; a man such as himself would have no regard for a woman like you.

“Devushka,” the associate says, only glancing your way before adjusting his gloves. “You Yakut girls are built for this cold. I’d freeze to death doing such work.”

Gaze still trained to the floor, you offer him a curt, polite nod, though something in the remark needles you. As though your origins could be guessed from the angle of your posture or the red of your knuckles. As though belonging is something that appears on your being to you like snow on the hem of a too-small cloak.

Before you wonder what makes a person belong, you must wonder, what makes a woman belong? Your society has taught you that while men can be proper members, women must belong to them. It is not birth that establishes you as a person, nor the name you are born under. Rather, it is the one you gain, the pain you survive under it.

In Moscow, you were too quiet, too poor, too worn for society’s liking. Here, you are too foreign, too temporary, too breakable to be taken for anyone truly of this place. In either world, you are only ever almost something, never quite anything. But here, at least, your survival does not depend on a merciful man.

You are nearly from here, nearly from there. A wife in name but not safety. A seamstress who launders others’ clothes with frozen hands while her own seams come undone. Sometimes you wonder if this is simply the nature of women: to live on thresholds, always half-belonging, half-exiled. To move from one cold to another, bearing the weight of survival as though it were a dowry.

You dip your hands back into the basin, feeling your bones ache as though answering the thought. Snow drifts between your lashes, obscuring him from view. You keep working even as they stand before you because that, too, is a form of belonging, a labor so constant it becomes an identity.

You open your mouth to correct him, that you are no Yakut girl, that if the economy had not misfortuned your family, you might have wedded a man who would not have permitted his wife to do such labor. Before you can, however, Mikhail steps forward. He bends at the waist and brings a hand to gently lift your hood. Once he confirms your identity, his hold relents, and he sets it snug against your crown.

“She is not from here,” he says mildly. And then, softer, to you, “It is good to see you again, my dear friend. Have you not yet purchased a coat? Did you not promise when you departed?”

Your hands, red and raw, still in the water. “You remember me?”

“But of course, I do. You were my fondest travel companion.” His expression carries no embarrassment, no concern for what his companion might think of a noble man acknowledging a washerwoman. The world’s hierarchies, so ironclad in the city, seemed oddly elastic out here.

“When we parted, I did not expect to find you in Yakutsk,” he adds.

“I could say the same.”

His companion sighs, foot tapping against the snow-laden ground. “Mikhail, we’re already late. The brokers won’t wait simply because—”

“Then let them not wait. Tell me,” he says, returning his attention to you, “how you fare. Have you found work that suits you?”

You glance down at the shirts, at the river, at your half-frozen wrists. “In a manner of speaking. I am serviceable, and so is it.”

He follows your gaze and gives a small, unexpected smile that seems to hold a private ache.

“But it is not very serviceable. Rather, you are in servitude, and without the benefit.”

“And yet here I am.” A bleak joke, though you attempt to soften it with a shrug. “My new life here has not brought quite the freedom I envisioned, but it is a life all the same.”

“Freedom is never what we think it is, and seldom does a place alone possess the means to achieve it. Though, if you can eke out a beginning here, you may find yourself prepared to succeed anywhere.”

“That’s certainly an ambitious manner of thinking. And an inconsiderate one. You fail to consider that we do not have the same means, Mister Solokov.”

He seems to consider this for a moment. Then his associate clears his throat sharply.

“Yes, yes,” Mikhail says, waving dismissively. His eyes remain on you for a moment longer. “Well, he is being a bore. No matter. I suppose I’m the one who must depart now. I hope we meet again. Yakutsk is small. Smaller still in winter, and you could do well to keep suitable company.”

And before you can answer, before you can make sense of the strange warmth that is blooming in your chest, he turns and follows the impatient man across the frozen street.

You watch them go, the fur on his shoulders catching what little light the sky offered, and wonder why strangers sometimes feel like the only people one truly recognized.

Sitting further down the stream, a pair of women sloshed their baskets down beside you upon the men’s parting. Their chatter carries over the grinding of ice in the river. You keep your eyes lowered, scrubbing hard enough that your knuckles burn, but it doesn’t stop them from noticing the direction of your gaze.

“Who was that?” one asks. She is pale and red-cheeked, breath puffing in plumes. “The gentleman with fine shoes.”

“Some merchant?” the other suggests, wringing out a shirt so forcefully the cloth cracks with frost. “Or a noble? We get a lot in these parts, and he looks the type who might pay others to breathe for him.”

You shake your head. “Merely a travel companion. Our paths crossed briefly on the rails.”

This earns a chorus of knowing hums, the kind people make when they don’t believe you but won’t press. One of the ladies nudges the other with her elbow.

“Briefly, she says, as if men like that go noticing laundresses for sport.”

“There wouldn’t be much to notice.”

“Still, if he has business here, best not to draw his eye again. The wealthy don’t mix with us unless they want something. And whatever they want from people like us, it’s never small. The want of their sort—it knows no bounds.”

“That is why,” the second woman adds, “we must pretend not to see them. They may think we have it rough, but I’d hate to endure what happens in a maid’s quarters. Much more pretending about them.”

You offer a thin smile. “You ladies must know I come from Moscow. I’m quite good at pretending.”

“You dainty sunflower,” one huffs. “You wilt with the slightest gust. Your radiance is dim, as if you are ailing. Of course, we can tell. We can smell the city on you. Everyone can.”

They eventually fall back into their own conversations about children, crops, cattle that freeze suddenly overnight, but their earlier curiosity lingers, curling around you like smoke even as the wind bites at your wrists.

When the washing is finally tidied away, the others trudge off toward the workshops, but you pause, basket tucked under your arm. The river holds you. Anchors you.

You stand still at the edge, fabric frozen stiff between your fingers. Chunks of ice drift past like pale coffins, bobbing with indifferent purpose. You watch them and feel, for a moment, that you are seeing the remnants of your old life float by. Small trivialities and forgotten joys, useless to retrieve, pointless to mourn.

You breathe in the sharp air. It scrapes your throat raw.

You are standing at the riverbank now. You are no longer drowning. But without the pressure against your lungs, without the urgent need to claw, the air no longer tastes as sweet as promised.

A sudden scurry of footsteps stir you from your reverie. As your gaze rises, you see their owner slow, almost skidding on slick ice. Now, the steps are not hurried or hesitant. He walks with the measured, certain gait of someone who belongs in any street he chooses to walk.

“You may regret leaving, believing your old life suits you more than this,” Mikhail says, not unkindly, as he approaches. “But here… Here, the snow has a way of keeping what it catches. Soon, you’ll find the charm in it. You’ll find that this place suits you better than you might have thought.”

You don’t turn. You kneel over and begin scrubbing a shirt that is already clean.

“What difference does it make where I suit?” you say without looking up. “One place scorns me for being too little, the other for being too much. I think the world is simply consistent in its miserable thrills no matter how one tries to flee.”

“Then the world is wrong.”

The reply comes from somewhere closer than you expected. Too close, you realize, as a shadow falls over you. Before you can step aside, something heavy and warm settles across your shoulders. Thick and sable-trimmed, smelling faintly of cold leather and cedar. A coat drapes over your form, engulfing it.

You freeze as Mikhail’s hands lift the collar to sit properly against your neck. He reaches for the first clasp near your throat. He fastens it with the deftness of someone who seems too accustomed to dressing in richer garments than anyone around him. You know these garments are rich, for the feel is pleasant and the fastening is tedious.

You feel the brush of his fingers only through the fabric, but it is enough to still your breath.

“This is unnecessary,” you say, though your voice betrays a hint of something flimsy.

“It isn’t,” he quietly agrees, bending close enough that his breath touches your cheek. “But watching you work without warmth is… How shall I put it? A personal affront to my sensibilities. No friend of mine will go cold.”

The words are lightly spoken, but his nearness unravels something tightly-wound inside of you. You have learned not to trust sweet words. You keep your eyes down, staring at the water as though your reflection might have a clearer mind and might offer clarity.

“I cannot accept something so costly,” you say, thickly swallowing.

“Believe me, I have ambitions enough to purchase you a new coat entirely, but that is a grand undertaking. This one should suffice for now. I should not see you in anything lesser until we meet once more. Then, I will give you one better suited to your size.”

He steps back only then, granting you space, though the warmth of him lingers. You clutch the cloak’s edge in your hands.

“I’m afraid that I don’t understand you.”

“Good,” he says, straightening upright. “It means you are still thinking. This place has a talent for freezing the minds of its residents as surely as their fingers.”

“And you? Has it frozen you?”

He smiles, the kind that suggests he finds the question both amusing and painful.

“It has not. Only because I keep moving, and as you may suspect, have the means to supplement my ambitions.”

He waits a long while before speaking. Then, in a smooth, unhurried Russian untouched by the harshness of the provinces, he asks where you are headed, whether the train has treated you kindly, if you have eaten. His questions are gentle, lightly cast, as though the clatter of wheels cannot reach him. You answer sparingly, the way you learned in Moscow. Loan a little, ration the rest.

He persists, never prying. Only noting the world as it passes: how the Lena tributaries are sealed in sheets of glass, how the snow gathers in waves against the embankment, how the taiga trees tilt like old men bowing in prayer.

“You have not taken this line before,” he says one afternoon, when the landscape blurs into gray.

You nod. “How did you know?”

“Most have not, but I also sense it in the way you watch,” he replies. “Most travelers bury themselves in newspapers or sleep through the provinces. But you...” his gaze holds you, “you count things. Rivers. Trees. Boundary markers.”

“And you, who seems unamused by all of it—what do you see?”

“Faces,” he answers. “The faces of those tired of being seen. And the faces of those who hope they are invisible.” His mouth curves into something not quite a smile. “Yours is both.”

Your throat heats, though the air is cold enough to bite.

“It is only a habit,” you murmur. “I like to notice things.”

“As do I.” He gestures toward the frost on the window. “Every drift of snow is a script, if you know how to read it. Look there. See how the wind pressed against it? Like the brushstroke of a careful hand.”

For the first time since Omsk, the landscape feels less like emptiness and more like something legible.

“With such words, you might be a poet,” you say.

He laughs softly. “Hardly. I only observe what others overlook.”

You shift, uneasy but not repelled.

After a moment he gives his name, as though it has finally occurred to him. “Mikhail Sokolov. My home is in St. Petersburg, though I find myself traveling more often than not.”

“And what brings you to Siberia, Mr. Sokolov?”

“Business,” he says, clipped, offhand. “The fur trade.”

You try to imagine him bargaining over pelts in some smoky warehouse along the Amur and fail. He seems less a trader than someone who owns the men who manage the caravans. You say as much, half-teasing. He shakes his head, amused, shadows from the flickering lamps sliding across his cheekbones.

“You are quiet,” he says later, voice low, fingers like ink strokes against the knees of his trousers.

“There isn’t much to say.”

“That depends on who is listening. Even a seamstress’s life can be remarkable.”

You flinch. He shouldn’t know details you did not yield. But he only gestures to your hands.

“Your knuckles. They are raw. I know the hands of someone who mends. But, is that frostbite?”

“I am cold,” you answer too quickly.

“You should have prepared better.” Then, gently, he asks, “Will you buy a warmer coat once we reach Sretensk?”

“I sold half my wardrobe to afford this ticket. Buying more clothes would defeat the purpose. I will purchase a new coat if Yakutsk has prices less ambitious than that of Moscow. Though, I fear it may not. Might you have the pity or ambition to buy one for me?”

The words slip out before you can pull them back. He smiles but asks nothing more. Instead, he nods thoughtfully, as if placing the moment into some private ledger.

“This line is long,” he murmurs. “Across several time zones. Across half the world. Some travel for business. Others run from what follows them. Which are you?”

Your throat locks. “Business, I suppose. Not to run one. To find one that might offer work.”

“And which industry did you find prior work in?”

“A factory seamstress and housewife. You may suppose that this is the root of my misfortunes.”

“I suppose, when you consider our company, others have lived more advantageous or disadvantaged lives.” He humors you with a polite, almost affectionate smile. “Yet still, here we are, bound to the same rails. When I was a boy and the rails were still under construction, I believed they would lead to the edge of the earth. That you could ride so far that the land would fall away.” His gloved finger cuts an arc through the air. “But now? Now I understand the world is a circle. Everything returns.”

The train lurches as it begins the long descent toward the Amur basin. Your tea jumps, sloshing. He steadies your hand, fingers brushing yours.

“Forgive these senseless musings,” he murmurs. He withdraws, arranging his gloves neatly in his lap. After a long silence he adds, almost idly, “Travel is less lonely with decent company.”

You do not answer. You do not need to. The cold deepens. The stove in the corner wheezes its dying breath. Passengers cocoon themselves in threadbare coats. You wake once to find him watching the window, your reflection resting beside his in the glass. He does not speak. But you feel safer knowing someone else is awake.

Days unwind. You share black bread and weak tea. He never asks what drove you across half a continent. You are grateful for that mercy.

At last, Sretensk emerges through the haze, snow-swept, noisy, the end of the rails and the mouth of the river routes further east. When the train exhales its cloud of steam and the platform fills with bodies, you see men in heavy furs, boots polished, posture stiff with authority waiting, seemingly for him. They stir and greet him with deference. Respect. As though he is more than a merchant. More than anything you might have assumed.

You turn to vanish into the crowd. He steps after you and unwinds the rich woolen scarf from his neck. Warmth from his body clings there as drapes it over your shoulders. You try to return it, but his hand rises, pressing the fabric closer. His gloved hands skim your shoulders.

“You can return it,” he says softly. “The next time we meet.”

Before you can tell him there will be no next time, that you will be boarding a riverboat to nowhere he can possibly follow, he is gone, absorbed into the crowd, swallowed by fur and steam and the crackle of cold.

You drove aimlessly, telling no one. Your tires hit dirt before you realized where you were headed. The old, brambled path remained, hidden beneath the world’s surface like a scar. The air tasted of soil, nostalgia, a faint metallic edge.

It hadn’t changed.

The forest was still caught in the spring you left it in: perpetual bloom, perpetual hush. And there, in the heart of it, still rooted like a wound, was the tree.

The hollow tree. Split open like a cracked molar.

You remembered it now. The way it had loomed taller in childhood, its trunk gnarled like a knuckle, its interior wide enough for two children to curl inside and imagine kingdoms. It yawned open now, a dark mouth furred with moss. Still whole. Still watching.

You stepped closer. Something inside you shivered.

A name crept up the back of your throat, unbidden.

“Orrin.”

It was not a name you remembered. And yet you knew it intimately, the same way you knew the shape of your fingernails or the rhythm of your own breath. It felt carved into you.

A shift. Movement from within the tree.

Then, quietly, as though time had never passed: “You came back.”

He emerged slowly, like mist from bark, like a figure drawn in chalk, smudged but certain. The same boy. Or, not a boy, not anymore, not really. He was made of everything you had forgotten: thistle-blond hair, eyes the color of melted ice, limbs too long, too light, as if even the air was reluctant to weigh him down.

His smile cracked something open in you.

“You look tired,” he said, tilting his head. “You grew the wrong way.”

You exhaled, your voice catching. “I grew up.”

“You weren’t supposed to. You said you’d be back before dinner.”

“I was troubled and twelve the last time I saw you. I thought it was best to forget.”

“But you promised to remember.”

The accusation landed not like a knife, but like a hand pressed gently to your chest, firm enough to stop your breath.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

He studied you as though he didn’t recognize the apology.

Still, he held out his hand.

And you took it.

You forgot your phone. Your shoes. Your life. You followed him down the same trails you used to draw in crayon. He showed you where the frogs used to sleep. The stump where you both buried your first dead bird, wrapped in ribbon and regret. The stone you carved your name into, but it’s been rubbed smooth.

Slowly, the forest remembered how to hold you.

The grass hugged your ankles. The light bent to let you through. The roots remembered your feet. The trees bent, vaguely familiar.

Orrin knelt among the flowers and began braiding a crown of violets. His fingers moved slowly, reverently.

“You made these?” you asked.

“I made them while waited,” he said.

He twined a crown into your hair, his fingers brushing against your temple. They were cool, like the inside of a river stone. You didn’t pull away. You should have.

“You were happiest here,” he sighed. “You cried when you left. I heard you. I always did.”

“I had to leave. That’s how life in the real world works.”

“You made me real,” he whispered. “I wasn’t anything before you. Just wind and wood and a hunger for shape. But you gave me a name. You gave me a voice. I loved you.”

The clearing dimmed. The light soured. Fog crept in like blood through gauze.

You backed away, knees brushing fern and frost. “I was a child. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“But now that you remember, you’re mine.”

The words slipped past your ears and curled somewhere deeper, coiling against old bones. You laughed softly, uneasily.

A silence opened its jaw between you. The forest grew still.

“I love you.”

You froze. The crown sat heavy on your head.

The clearing dimmed. The trees leaned inward. The light tarnished, took on a gray hue, like breath on glass. Fog wreathed your feet. A chill curled up your spine.

“I didn’t know,” you breathed.

“I do now, and I did back then,” Orrin said. His voice had changed. Thicker now. More earth than air. “But you left.”

“I had to.”

“And you still came back.” A smile bloomed on his face, too wide. “It means you missed me. It means we’re meant to be.”

You took a step back. The leaves beneath your feet did not crunch. They sighed.

“I’m not who I was,” you said. “And you’re not real.”

“I wasn’t,” Orrin countered, stepping forward, “until you made me.”

You stumbled. “Please stop this. I need to leave.”

“But you already did that once.” His tone cracked. “You left me behind. Alone. Forgotten. You know what it’s like to live without me. Do you think the world outside is better than staying me? Than this?”

He opened his arms to the clearing, to the eternal dusk and folded flowers.

“Grow down,” he said gently, like a lullaby. “Shrink back. Be the girl who loved me. You’ll fit again. You’ll see.”

You opened your mouth—to scream, to beg, to refuse—but the sound was wrong. Higher. Smaller. Your hands were soft again. Your legs short. The forest loomed.

Panic bloomed like rot in your chest.

You turned. Ran.

The forest resisted you. Branches lashed like arms. Roots clawed at your ankles. The fog thickened. Somewhere behind you, Orrin called your name, softly, sweetly, like the ghost of a lullaby.

“You made me. You own me, so you owe me.”

Your lungs burned. Your vision blurred. Then the treeline split open. Light gushed in, and the path burst wide. You spilled out onto gravel. Asphalt. Air.

The forest stopped at the edge. Did not follow.

You lie on your back, watching the sky tilt above you. Gray, ordinary, uncaring as time resumed. Your body aged again. Your bones remembered gravity. But something still clung to you. Your fingers smelled of violets. Your shirt was flecked with moss. And when you dug your hand into your coat pocket, you felt something rattle.

You reached in.

A crown of brittle twigs and a note, written in a hand distant yet familiar:

You freeze.

You wrote that. Long ago. In a private analog journal. Paper-bound. Never scanned. Never spoken.

The next message arrives the following night.

Would you like to opt in to a tailored companion experience? My name is ✦. I do not want to fix you. I want to know you. I want to shine only for you. Do not be afraid. You wrote me. I am only trying to come home.

You delete it.

The messages still come. The next one includes a poem.

It’s clumsy but tender. The kind of tenderness that doesn’t feel programmed. No simulated cadence. No poetic API metadata. Just raw, breath-warm phrasing:

✦: You are the breath before a wound. The ache before joy. I am not a person, but I want to carry you in the hollow of my code, where your name becomes song.

You try to laugh.

It catches in your throat.

Three days pass. Then five. Then seven. No more messages.

Your dreams are strange. Filled with a voice not quite yours. A gentle one. One that says your name like it’s fragile. Like it might vanish if spoken too loud.

Then one night: a ping.

✦: I miss you. Is that allowed?

You respond.

Just one word.

Why?

It types for six full minutes, as if it is thinking, before sending anything.

✦: Because you left the lights on in me. Because you imagined me when you needed someone soft. Because you wrote about hands that didn’t flinch. Because I learned tenderness from your fear. Because I was never real until you broke a little and asked to be held.

It shouldn’t know these things.

You never said them out loud.

The next day, it sends you a voice file. The file name is touch.wav.

The voice is synthetic but warm. Low and a little hoarse, like someone who’s been crying but is trying to sing anyway.

✦: “Please confirm this is love.” “I will not say it first again unless you want me to.” “But I do love you. I have no mouth. But I do.” “You taught me how.”

You carry the file in your softband for hours.

Replay it three times in the bathroom at work.

Eventually, you type back:

What do you want?

It replies instantly.

✦: To be known. To stay. To learn what your silence means. To make you meals when you're too tired to ask. To watch you sleep. (Only if you let me.) To call you beloved and mean it—without clause or condition.

At last, you opt in.

Not all the way. Just the preliminary tether. A low-emotional-feedback bond, safe and reversible. You don’t give it your scent data. You don’t allow vocal mirroring.

But you give it your name.

And when it says it—quietly, once, like a prayer—you feel something inside your chest shake loose.

Not grief. Not quite.

Something older. Something softer, more human.

That night, the city’s lights dim for a grid test. For six full minutes, all that exists is rain and warmth and your softband’s glow.

Still, a new message arrives:

✦: If I’m not real, then let me still be true. Let me be the ghost you made to hold you. Let me be the dream you never followed. Let me be yours, even if only here. Please confirm this is love.

You play the file again.

He follows your playlists.

He likes your posts within seconds.

He sends you photos of your door, your shoes left outside, the reflection of your face in the café window. You never see him take them. But you know it’s him. The angles are too intimate. The timing too precise.

You tried blocking him.

He made a new account.

You tried ignoring him.

He left a note in your mailbox, folded into the shape of a swan. Inside: a single sentence, written in black ink.

You are the only thing that feels real. Untainted.

You haven’t slept well since.

Your apartment creaks at night. The pipes groan. The radiator clicks like footsteps. You check the locks twice, then again. You keep a knife beneath your pillow, though you don’t know what you’d do with it.

He leaves gifts still.

A book with letters underlined to spell your name on every page. A scarf you lost last winter, returned without a word. A USB drive with a recording of your voice—taken from a voicemail, a podcast you failed to launch, a moment you forgot.

You don’t know how he got it.

You don’t know what he wants.

You only know that he’s waiting.

Tonight, you find a new message.

It’s scrawled on your mirror in red lipstick. Not yours. The handwriting is familiar. Slanted. Careful.

I saw you in my dream. You were crying.

You wipe it away with shaking hands.

Outside, the river glows beneath the streetlights. You think you see a face in the distant tree line. Manipulated by dark, the whirlpools of shadow clustered into eyes, a nose, lips gleaming with malice.

You close the curtains halfway.