Milar and Ardan burst out of the room and bounded up the broad staircase leading to the Imperial Archive’s main atrium. The workers and visitors they encountered along the way scattered in all directions, like river pebbles driven aside by the onslaught of a storm surge.
The white marble beneath their feet, partially covered by a gray carpet, blurred into a single grimy streak.
Wh...
2025-05-29 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostIolai took off his hat, revealing black hair threaded with snow-white strands. As though no one else existed but him, he sat down in a nearby chair, half-turning toward Ardi and Boris. Clad in a pristine white suit and a crimson shirt, he looked somewhat… odd and out of place. Even the slender Zahatkin and the inconspicuous Shestov managed to appear a bit less pompous and extravagant than the...
2025-05-26 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe road wound in serpentine curves along the hill where the Old Park district was situated. Boris, cracking jokes with a bright, playful grin, guided the car through turn after turn. Elena and Tess were chatting about something, their girlish laughter ringing out every now and then, interwoven with Boris’ easy baritone. Ardi watched the road ahead and glanced down the slope.
Another tu...
2025-05-22 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Hello, my dear friend.
I can’t say that these last few days have been drastically different from the ones before. I still spend most of my time with tutors and nannies. And while I can still tolerate the former, the nannies… With their ‘Your Imperial Highness’ this, ‘Your Imperial Highness’ that… I understand that they’re only doing their job, but... I supp...
2025-05-19 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post“Wake up, young… man. Or would you rather be addressed as ‘citizen of mixed heritage?’ I believe that’s the legal term for half-bloods these days, following the letter of the law.”
Ardan opened his eyes. He did so without much trouble, and just as little desire. He would have gladly slept a few more… Actually, how many…
“It’s early morning,” the same person inf...
2025-05-15 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s funny how things turn out, isn’t it, Speaker?” Indgar ostentatiously twirled an amulet between his knotted, massive fingers — they were thicker, in fact, than the arms of certain adolescent girls.
Ardan distinctly recalled mana...
2025-05-12 23:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdan slammed his staff against the floor, forming a Water Shroud around himself before he dove to the side. The Selkado fighter’s orange vortex of energy scorched the walls with flame and acid, causing the brickwork to drip down in a steaming, hiss...
2025-05-12 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostOnly now, after meeting both the Ragman and the Dandy, did Ardan notice the subtle similarity between these two individuals. And no, it wasn’t about their looks, since one resembled a...
2025-05-08 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post“You need to be faster, Ard! Faster!”
Aversky slammed his staff against the stone floor of the training ground. Almost instantly — faster than even a revolver’s discharge — his spell rocketed out. Ardi was certain that, if science had the means to measure the speed of thought, the spell cast by this Grand Magister of military magic would have barely lagged behind it.
His s...
2025-05-05 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post“I’m not so sure that this is a good idea, Magister.”
“Do you have a better one, Milar?”
“Not at the moment.” The captain, for what felt like the hundredth time, grimly reread the invitation.
They were sitting in an Eltir café. It wasn’t the same one Milar had first brought Ardan to several months ago, but a different one near the Dawn Garden.
From the c...
2025-05-01 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostArdan didn’t know what the inside of a real castle was supposed to look like. His great-grandfather’s stories had depicted them in various ways, but always with a hint of scorn. Aror had described castles from the point of view of those who’d seized ...
2025-04-28 23:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostStep by step, they drew closer to the top of the building. The rasping echo of heavy, exhausted footsteps scraped against the rough walls, where the paint was veined with cracks that looked like scars left there by some invisible, flesh-hungry paw with menacin...
2025-04-28 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdan opened the trunk and pulled out a valise made of worn, cracked leather and fitted with brass clamps — some blackened in places — and two little horn-like clasps that locked together in a tight, snapping embrace.
Ardi had to put in a fair bit of effort to pry them apart. Inside, he fou...
2025-04-24 23:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostMilar’s old “Derks” roared and growled, racing along the streets and avenues of the New City. It was one of dozens — hundreds, really — of cars humming over thoroughfares so wide that, by comparison, they looked like water striders scuttling across the surface of a frozen river. A river of as...
2025-04-24 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdi arrived at the classroom for his practical Star Engineering course (thankfully, the schedule he’d received at the start of the month was still valid) right at the appointed time. And yet, to his surprise, the doors were locked. As far as he could remember, Convel had never once been late for-
“You owe me a biscuit and some lingonberry juice, dear.”
Ardi turned ar...
2025-04-21 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe wind brushed against his muzzle while fresh snow crunched beneath his paws. The air squeaked around his ears, tickling his hide, and his nose caught the faintest, most elusive notes of his prey’s scent. The mountain goat was searching for water.
The young hunter had been following its trail for the last three hours. He’d stalked it slowly and carefully, hiding among cliffs and cra...
2025-04-17 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe shutters wobbled ever so slightly. The glass shook beneath a rainbow sheen, like a soap bubble moments from popping. The wind howled as though it were being strangled by invisible claws reaching out from the black belly of the sky.
By now, Ardi had grown used to the almost indistinguishable seasons of spring and autumn in the Metropolis. Both came cloaked in a damp, piercing cold. The...
2025-04-14 23:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostArdan reacted first. He visualized the Ice Barrage seal and slammed his staff against the fake grass. Ildar followed only a moment later, a complex, cumbersome seal lighting up along his short wand as Ildar ran its tip along the trunk of a tree.
A moment passed, then another… and nothing happened. All three — Ildar, Ardan, and Senior Magister Paarlax — stood in silence...
2025-04-10 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostFrom the author: Make sure you don't miss the previous chapter, which was released ahead of schedule.
For a moment, a pregnant pause filled the office. Ildar — just as stout as Ardi remembered him to be from the Pnevs’ celebration, though the faint outline of his once-imposing build still showed — shifted his worried, puzzled gaze from Senior Magister Paarlax...
2025-04-07 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdi glanced at his watch. It was ten to six. He sighed and, holding onto his hat, surveyed the street with a dispassionate gaze. The Old Park seemed like an odd blending of every architectural style found across the Metropolis.
In equal measure, you might come across red-brick buildings straight out of the Factory District, the kind of snug ...
2025-04-05 12:36:33 +0000 UTC View PostThis time, the ride didn’t last long. They passed along Niewa Avenue, which was teeming and churning with the vigor of early spring. Vivid shop windows seemed to be competing with each other in splendor, and the people, in step with the boisterous stalls, boutiques, cafés, and restaurants, were strolling about in their fresh new outfits.
Ardi, who’d rolled the window down to let in t...
2025-04-03 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdan tapped his pencil against a sheet of paper. In front of him was the diagram of a creature from the Dead Lands that almost seemed to be staring at him reproachfully. It was an enormous cat, standing a meter and a half at the shoulders, with leathery wings attached in the same way as a butterfly’s, plus a reptilian tail. The beast inhabited areas near bodies of water, hunting mostly Maw-l...
2025-03-31 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostFROM THE AUTHOR:
IT'S BONUS CHAPTER (2 chapters at the same time) RELEASE MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MISS THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER
Ardan froze in place. Before him, scraping the ceiling with its horns, stood another product of Star Alchemy and the biological experiments of the Tazidahian Brotherhood. Its eyes glimmered, drunk on the scent of blood.
After he’d gaine...
2025-03-27 23:02:00 +0000 UTC View PostFROM THE AUTHOR:
2 chapters will be released tonight, so make sure you do not miss Chapter 86.
The old man held out his hand, and cards rained down from the ceiling. They fluttered on ethereal wings, like graceful swallows, and settled into a neat stack upon his hand. Anvar blew on them and, with swift, precise motions reminiscent of a cat swiping at a moth, sca...
2025-03-27 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Ardi and Milar approached the construction fence that separated the “abandoned warehouse” from the rest of the street, the first thing they noticed was the complete absence of any entrance. They hesitated…
“Put them on,” the captain commanded.
Ardan nodded in confirmation. The two partners simultaneously slipped on their glasses, and at once, a wrought-iron enclosure ...
2025-03-24 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostMilar drove as if a pack of starving demons and chimeras was chasing them. He cut across traffic, sliding through even the narrowest gaps between trucks, cars, and trams while running red lights, each time narrowly avoiding getting T-boned by someone coming from a side street.
Meanwhile, the few traffic wardens at the more complicated intersections behind them hadn’t even glanced at the...
2025-03-20 23:01:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe young hunter was lying upon the dense, brown fur of his biggest friend. Guta, breathing softly, was exhaling in short huffs that made his black lips curl amusingly each time the bear breathed out a warm gust of air. Ardi pressed his back against Guta. The little hunter’s lower left paw (unlike other beasts, his limb...
2025-03-18 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdan tugged awkwardly at the front of his jacket. It actually fit him fairly well, but he still felt… off. It was almost as if it had been tailored for someone else. It seemed a bit too fancy to him, even by Baliero’s standards. And yet, he had no real choice; even after the Black House finished sewing his new “official” suit, with the way his clothes wore out so quickly on the job, he...
2025-03-17 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdan watched the sun that was barely tinted with the first blush of dawn tenderly caress the fiery hair scattered across the pillow. Little rays of light, reflecting off the cheap, flawed glass, spread out in wide, shimmering pools along her cheeks, then trickled down in a faint rainbow toward her small, upturned nose.
Tess, still asleep, was comically cocooned in the blanket, pulling it...
2025-03-13 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdan, with Arkar at his side, leaped and dodged over the civilians sprawled across the floor, squealing and screaming in panic, and bolted out onto the street. Something incredible was happening on the narrow sidewalk, where a thin curb formed a frail barrier between the tiny roadway and the pedestrians.
The werewolf, who had assumed his Wanderer-like form (he was thankfully not much...
2025-03-10 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post