What Viktor feared most had, in the end, come to pass. If only he had noticed sooner—an almost imperceptible deviation, an off-beat weariness, a dissonant note in her body—he would have moved mountains, bent protocols, broken laws, rewritten science itself if necessary, just to keep that thing from reaching Antonella. He knew the exact moment when everything seemed to gather momentum, a period when their lives had grown dense, demanding, irreversible—yet that certainty remained locked away, unspoken, like a truth he dared not name. For Antonella had been, for so many years, the only source of warmth in his existence; to lose her, or even see her threatened, was to watch the world grow cold from within.
He remembered with unsettling precision: Antonella moving through the corridors of the residence as if parting the mist; Antonella laughing softly while their daughter practiced her first steps; Antonella—always so alive, so alert, so intensely present in the world. There was a light in her that sustained the gray days surrounding him, as if she held back storms he had never learned to name.
But at some point during that very time—so celebrated, so exalted—something had shifted. Nothing that could be singled out, nothing one could point to without seeming cruel. Still, Viktor had noticed. Her vitality hadn't vanished all at once; it had been drained away in silence, like a glow transferring itself without leaving visible traces. Now, seeing her pale—not the cultivated pallor of the upper castes, but a weary, dull, almost hollow paleness—stirred in him a discomfort bordering on contempt. Not for her—never for her. But for the unjust order of things, which allowed such abundance to coexist with such exhaustion. It was like watching the city lose one of its last colors while another, intact, moved forward—oblivious to the invisible cost it carried with it.
The weakness was not merely physical: she seemed to be sinking into her own bed, as if gravity had fallen exclusively in love with her, pulling her down with cruel zeal. Her skin—once firm and warm like freshly wrought, living metal—had grown too thin, too fragile, reminiscent of ancient leaves ready to crumble at the mere breath of a thought.
And her nervous system…
The first signs had been subtle: an almost imperceptible tremor in her fingertips, a slight delay when someone called her name. Now, however, her body was failing like a corroded circuit—lapses in response, a hand that refused to obey, a gaze that sometimes took a moment to find him again in the room, as if she had to cross a fog to remember who he was.
And her breathing… ah, that breathing.
It used to be soft and full, like the wind that gave life to the upper terraces of Alcahestra. Now it came in ragged gasps, as if every inhalation were a tense negotiation with the air itself—air that seemed to refuse entry, as though it, too, knew that something there was unraveling.
The signs ceased to be subtle.
They ceased to be mere warnings.
They became boundaries—the final, coldest boundary of all.
Viktor was devastated.
Devastated like the earth after everything that shines has been stripped from it. Devastated by the knowledge that, no matter how well he mastered engineering, no matter how skillfully he shaped lightweight metals, no matter how he controlled the imperceptible ethereal residue drifting over the city… there was no instrument, formula, or machine capable of restoring Antonella to the state she had once been in—alive, whole, present.
And the worst, the cruelest part of all, was that he knew exactly where the signs came from.
He recognized them.
They were recorded in the archives—not as death sentences, but as data. Clinical reports drafted with the meticulous coldness of science—documents Viktor should never have consulted at that stage of the investigation. Gernot—his mentor—had handed them over as if offering a neutral compendium; yet, upon opening them, Viktor knew: nothing within them would remain harmless.
The documents described the Danko lineage as an organism turned in upon itself. Individuals born of that bloodline carried markers of systemic deterioration from the very moment of embryonic formation: recurring metabolic failures, unstable immunity, and latent degenerative processes. The curse—if one chose to call it that—was not mystical; it was hereditary, inscribed in the cells, and predictable in its cycles.
There was, however, a recurring observation—almost lost amidst the charts and technical notes: pregnancy. The outcome was not always fatal; the records themselves took care to highlight exceptions—cases where the body had held firm, adapted, and survived. Precisely for this reason, Antonella’s case stood out as a painful rarity: statistically improbable, yet irrefutable.
When a Danko conceived under certain conditions, the system could collapse. Paradoxically, the fetus would show robust development—sometimes even above average—while the body sustaining it began to exhibit signs of progressive exhaustion, as if vitality were being redistributed according to laws that science merely described, never judged. The reports spoke not of blame, but of consequence. Some fell ill. Some survived. Others did not complete the cycle.
Viktor had read those findings with the inner resistance of a man who refuses to accept mere probabilities when someone irreplaceable is at stake. Antonella was not meant to be a tragic statistical anomaly. Not to him. That was the truth Viktor had discovered—not just about Antonella, but about the entire future of the Danko lineage.
Now, sitting beside her—watching the woman who had always brought balance to the household slowly unravel, like ancient metal exposed to the elements—Viktor felt something his logical mind had always refused to admit: there were laws that even science could not circumvent without a price. He had kept that report not as evidence, but as a silent omen he had never dared to name.
~
In the late afternoon, the old studio seemed to breathe on its own, like an organism that had learned to survive absence. Viktor now used it only for brief meetings, measured conversations, and decisions that required neutral surroundings. Even so, the space had not forgotten what it once had been. Every surface remained impeccably clean—not from constant use, but from a care that bordered on the ritualistic. Brushes lay aligned at precise angles, like instruments that had already fulfilled their greater purpose. Rolled-up scrolls and canvases waited in silence—not for the work to continue, but for memory to take hold.
Picture frames were discreetly scattered throughout the room—silent fragments of Antonella at different stages of her life. In one, she was shown sitting on the floor of the town’s old library, surrounded by dense volumes on continental history; her fingers were smudged with graphite as she read about the Edrassil Revolt—the conflict that had split the northern empire following the disappearance of Archduchess Helena Vorensky.
Viktor remembered that night perfectly. He remembered the sound of her voice echoing softly among the bookshelves, explaining how entire cities had been consumed by winter and famine after the nobility set fire to their own fields to thwart invaders. Antonella spoke of the tragedy with a strange, almost intimate serenity, as if she had lived through it in another existence.
In another portrait, she appeared leaning over that same studio table—covered in ancient maps and books with worn spines—so absorbed in her reading that she didn't even notice she was being watched. There was always something melancholic about her when she studied the past—a kind of quiet fascination with the world's ruins.
Viktor’s gaze drifted to the far end of the table, where an old book lay open, its pages yellowed by time and slightly curled at the edges. He approached silently. There lay Antonella’s paintings: studies of light, hazy landscapes, cities buried under gray snow, faces that had never existed outside her imagination. There was something deeply intimate about those images. The brushwork was firm, delicate, and human in an almost painful way—as if each painting held memories Antonella had never managed to put into words.
Even the dust seemed to bow to that memory. Despite the air filters, it insisted on crossing technical barriers, drifting inside without ever causing harm, as if it carried no impurity at all. It was an ethereal dust—light, almost luminous—hovering in motionless shafts; it was disciplined not by containment but by choice, as though acknowledging some ancient, invisible authority. There was a silent resilience in it, an almost organic desire to remain, to avoid being swept away from memory. The studio was no longer a place of creation, but of preservation—not of objects, but of something Viktor could not yet bear to let fade away.
But on that day, nothing was quiet.
The air held weight.
The weight of an omen.
Viktor paced back and forth, trying to maintain his composure, yet tension spilled over in every gesture: the finger tapping the table, the rigid shoulder, the breath that came too short. He seemed made of fractures—accumulated tension, compressed fear, and a desperation held together by sheer pride. And his body betrayed even more than his movements. His clothes bore the marks of sleepless nights: the blue-gray linen shirt was rumpled, its collar undone with an almost involuntary carelessness. His coat, meant to command presence and authority, hung askew on his shoulders, defeated by his exhaustion. His hair, once combed with aristocratic precision, fell in loose strands across his forehead, revealing his lack of sleep and grooming. He was a man who, despite being clad in fine fabrics, exuded the raw truth of someone who could no longer tell where fear ended and exhaustion began.
The doorbell echoed through the house with a soft chime, followed by two light knocks on the front door. Viktor looked up immediately, as if he had been expecting it. Upon opening the door, he found Dr. Grisha Yeager standing in the pale daylight. The doctor wore a serene expression—a calmness that was almost irritating in the face of the silent chaos consuming Viktor from within. He was dressed with understated elegance: a thick, sand-colored shirt with sleeves rolled up to the forearms, an impeccably tailored dark vest, and sober trousers that reinforced his naturally restrained and observant demeanor.
The round glasses perched on his nose gave him the air of a patient professor—someone who chose every word with care. His straight black hair, parted down the middle, reinforced that composed air—that of a man for whom calmness was both a profession and an identity. Grisha *was* calm. Serenity personified. Almost irritating to someone as desperate as Viktor.
"Doctor," Viktor greeted him in a low voice, stepping aside to let him pass.
Grisha entered unhurriedly, as if afraid to disturb the atmosphere of the house. His eyes swept the room just enough to grasp the heavy air that hung there. Without saying much, Viktor gestured toward the hallway and led him to the studio. As they drew closer, the scent of paint, aged wood, and old paper began to fill the air once more.
...
“Tell me there’s hope for her.” Viktor’s voice broke before he could even finish the sentence. It wasn’t a request; it was a raw, desperate plea.
Grisha set his bag on the table, opened it with painful deliberation, and took a deep breath before answering.
“Mr. Viktor…” the doctor began, and that tone alone made the ground beneath Viktor’s feet give way just a little more.
The studio seemed to shrink; the air grew heavier. That was when light footsteps echoed from the hallway.
Élodie.
It wasn’t the first time she had crossed that threshold. Over the years, Élodie had ventured there on rare occasions—almost always too quickly, too hesitantly, like someone aware they were crossing a forbidden boundary. Viktor had always kept her at a distance from that space—not just physically, but from the very idea of belonging there.
Since she was little, any show of curiosity had been firmly suppressed. Viktor knew Antonella quietly encouraged Élodie’s interest in painting, though she always offered the same calm explanation: she claimed she never actually took the girl inside the studio—she would simply bring out a few supplies, and the two would paint together in other rooms of the house. Even so, Viktor never fully believed that version. Because, had it been up to him, Élodie would never have crossed that threshold. The studio had never been merely a workspace. There were parts of the house he considered off-limits to Élodie—spaces too heavy with the past, with silence and secrets, for her hands to touch.
But this time, something was different.
She walked calmly through the room, shedding her old caution, no longer seeking permission with her eyes. Viktor could sense the light weight of her steps on the floorboards—calm, silent, and almost too at ease in this small act of defiance. And that was precisely what unsettled him most: her serenity as she occupied a space from which she had always been kept away.
For Élodie, that step carried weight. The floor seemed to respond differently beneath her feet, as if acknowledging the exception. Memories flooded back—almost automatically—of the countless "nos": spoken without shouting, yet always final. *Don’t enter. Don’t touch. It’s not for you.* The studio had grown within her like a mythical territory, off-limits before it could even be understood. Now, standing inside, her eyes swept over everything with a restrained, almost reverent attention. The furniture possessed a deliberate rusticity—wood marked by long use rather than mere wear and tear. Nothing seemed chosen at random. There were edges softened by time, surfaces that held the faint traces of hands that had worked there for hours. It was a space that had been *lived in*—not merely inhabited.
Antonella’s presence revealed itself in details that needed no introduction. A forgotten cloth, folded with meticulous care. An easel adjusted to a height that wasn't Viktor’s. Small paint stains preserved as if no one had dared to clean them away completely. Élodie felt a subtle ache in her chest as she recognized—without ever having seen it before—that this had been her mother’s sanctuary when no one was watching.
Old art books rested on one of the tables: worn volumes with broken spines and pages marked by fingers that knew exactly where to pause. Élodie didn’t touch them. She simply noted each title and position in her mind, like someone taking a silent inventory. She carefully held onto that image, telling herself—without knowing when or how—that one day she would open them.
Not out of defiance.
But because, for the first time, she felt that this space belonged to her, too.
Even so, at that moment, she appeared in the doorway—almost silently, as if she knew she was crossing into forbidden territory. Her hair was tied in a loose braid, thick socks still on her feet, her fingertips slightly pink from the cold. Her green eyes—intense, yet too young to grasp the gravity of the space—swept across the room first, with caution and a sense of unfamiliarity, before finally settling on Grisha and her father.
Grisha turned and smiled at her. A full smile. Warm. Familiar. The kind only someone who had witnessed a child’s birth could offer. He relaxed his shoulders and inclined his head in a gentle greeting.
"Élodie?" he said, genuinely surprised. "Look how much you’ve grown... I haven't seen you in months."
His voice held a softness that seemed to speak directly to her heart. Élodie blushed slightly. She couldn't quite explain it, but there was something reassuring about Dr. Grisha’s very presence—as if he had been made to care for others.
"Dr. Yeager..." she replied, shy yet pleased.
"How can I help you?" Grisha asked gently, keeping his voice calm and professional.
"My mother..." Élodie began, but Viktor’s voice cut through her sentence before she could go on.
"Leave us alone!"
Grisha sensed the tension in that moment—of course he did—and his smile faded, shifting into something more professional, more protective. Viktor immediately stepped in, his voice taut as an overstretched wire.
"Élodie, get out!"
She furrowed her brow.
Viktor had always been abrupt when summoning her—blunt, rigid, unable to soften his authority. There had never been any gentleness in his voice when he spoke to her. Yet, this time, there was something different. Her habitual sharpness seemed shot through with something else—something unstable, almost out of control. Her tone remained harsh, yet underpinned by an unusual tension, as if an invisible fracture ran beneath every word.
Élodie paid no heed. She remained where she stood, her feet planted firmly on the studio floor as though that space—hitherto forbidden—finally belonged to her. There was no overt defiance on her face—only a silent, heavy refusal; she was too young to be fully aware of the weight she carried.
Grisha noticed it first. The doctor followed the girl’s motionless stance with a gaze trained to spot the slightest cues: the stiffness in her shoulders, the way her breathing grew shallow—like someone deciding to stay before even grasping the reason why. There was something there that eluded clinical analysis; it wasn't ordinary disobedience, but a raw, almost organic instinct.
Grisha glanced at Viktor for a moment, already anticipating the impact. Viktor, in turn, felt a sudden, cold rush of blood. His authority hadn't failed him—it had been ignored. And that—within his own home, within the very room he had never allowed her to touch—felt less like childish rebellion and more like an intolerable violation. It wasn't just Élodie standing there; it was everything he had tried to contain for years.
There was a precise moment when Viktor considered repeating the order. The words were already forming—precise, final. But something held him back—not compassion, nor doubt. It was the unsettling realization that, for the first time, Élodie was not backing down. She wasn't lowering her eyes. She wasn't obeying. Her rebellion wasn't loud; it was motionless. And for that very reason, it was all the more unsettling. Viktor realized, with a silent scorn that set his jaw, that the girl was encroaching upon territories he had never granted her—and which, once breached, might never be sealed again. All that remained was to turn his face away, struggling to suppress the reaction provoked by that silent act of insubordination.
“Is something happening to Mama, Doctor?” The question slipped out—low and tight—cutting through the silence and interrupting the rigid train of Viktor’s thoughts.
Grisha stepped forward, gentle yet firm, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll talk later, all right?” he said—kind, yet serious. “Your mother is resting for now.”
It was a lie.
A half-lie.
A white lie.
The atmosphere in the studio—already heavy with the silent tension that had been building since early morning—grew thick, almost unbreathable. Grisha took a deep breath, looking away from Élodie like someone refusing to touch something too fragile to withstand another impact. Only then did he turn to Viktor. The doctor’s composed serenity did not waver, even in the face of the other man’s evident despair.
“The news… isn’t the best,” he said at last, with controlled gravity.
The silence that followed was so heavy it seemed to press the air against Élodie’s chest. She sensed—for the first time—that something was terribly wrong, something immense, hidden behind closed doors and words that always reached her as watered-down versions of the truth. Viktor closed his eyes for an instant—just one—before regaining his mask of composure.
“Élodie…” Viktor said, and the way he spoke her name held no tenderness. It was smooth, precise, almost clinical. “Why don’t you go see your mother?”
There was no warmth in the suggestion. No genuine concern. Viktor’s words hung heavy and artificial in the air—as if he were merely reciting something he had learned, an empty formality meant to get her out of the room as quickly as possible.
But Élodie could no longer focus on the friction hidden beneath that feigned gentleness. There was only the weight of obedience pressing down on her chest. For the first time, the thought of losing Antonella struck her with a concrete, almost unbearable force. A slow constriction tightened around her heart, stifling any impulse to confront the situation.
So, she obeyed.
She left the studio with short, silent steps. As she moved away, the silence of the house—once so familiar—felt strange and unsettled, as if the walls were breathing in sync with her mounting anxiety. She hesitated when she stopped before her parents' bedroom door. Only then did she realize she had been holding her breath for far too long.
Then, she slowly pushed the door open.
The room was bathed in a warm, dim glow—the kind of light that seems to breathe along with the room's inhabitants. It was a space that unfolded like a private palace, where time moved with velvet steps. Dark wood-paneled walls, accented with moldings reminiscent of aristocratic mansions, enclosed the room like silent guardians. Tall, imposing columns rose to meet a coffered ceiling, where recessed light strips added a modern touch, creating a subtle, elegant contrast between the classic and the contemporary.
Expansive windows, draped in heavy, dense curtains, framed the mountain landscape against the glass like a living painting. The whiteness outside seemed almost artificial—a counterpoint that made the golden warmth within feel even more tangible: the glow spreading across aged metal fixtures, the patient shimmer of the chandelier, and the soft, whispering shadows cast by lamps that touched polished surfaces with fingers of light.
At the center of this suspended world stood the bed—monumental, carved as if it had traversed centuries to arrive there. Its baroque curves embraced dark velvet upholstery—deep as a secret—upon which rested layers of earth-toned fabrics, soft enough to cradle even the weariness of time. The dark marble floor returned the light with the gentleness of water reflecting moonlight, while a neutral-toned rug cushioned the silence and tied the composition together like the final stanza of a poem.
It was in this setting—where the past conversed with the future—that her mother lay resting. Too pale, too fragile, she seemed almost an extension of the very light that enveloped her. Yet, upon hearing her enter, she smiled: a small gesture, but so radiant it seemed to shift the axis of the room itself. The shadows bowed in reverence, gold accents shimmered in response, and even the luminescent wall panel—that discreet glimpse of the future—softened its glow, as if understanding that there, in that moment, the entire architecture ought to become nothing more than a frame for that smile.
"Mother?" Élodie whispered, drawing closer. "I... I came to see you."
And Antonella, her voice seemingly woven from silk and effort, replied:
"I’m so glad you came, Lodie. I need you."
~
Grisha settled into the chair across from Viktor with the deliberate slowness of someone who knew that any sudden movement might further fracture the room's fragile stability. The studio—motionless, suspended, almost like an organism that had forgotten to breathe—seemed to watch the two men, waiting for the inevitable.
Before Élodie appeared in the doorway, he had already opened his briefcase. Inside lay the latest test results, carefully wrapped in heavy paper and bearing seals that belonged to no ordinary medical routine. They were documents that felt too heavy for their size, carrying information no human being should ever have to read.
Grisha removed the stack of papers with the silent precision of a ritual and, after handing them to Viktor, closed the briefcase with a soft click. A small sound, harmless on any other day. Here, however, it echoed like a verdict... Viktor, for his part, took the results with fingers held too tensely, as if the papers were burning embers. It wasn't the first set of results. And deep down, he knew: each new page merely confirmed what he had feared since the very first sign had appeared on his wife’s body.
The air in the studio grew heavy. Ethereal dust motes seemed to hang suspended in alert anticipation, like an involuntary witness. Grisha took a slow, deep breath before speaking. Viktor knew that none of this would be simple. His fingers trembled—so subtly that perhaps even he didn't notice.
The memory of Antonella smiling years ago—vibrant, warm, her cheeks flushed as she wandered the gardens in the height of the season—struck him like a jagged spear. He could see her spinning, her wavy hair swaying with the movement, her laughter clear and light, filled with promise and a future that seemed infinite. And now... now she could barely hold a cup without her fingers faltering. Grisha took a deep breath and spoke softly.
"The tests confirmed it, sir."
Viktor didn't move.
He didn't even blink.
He simply swallowed, like someone trying to keep their body from collapsing.
"The syndrome... it has indeed progressed." The word fell between them like an impossible weight.
For an instant, Viktor didn't breathe. Or perhaps the air simply refused to enter. The world seemed to slip away, as if the ground had suddenly been pulled from beneath his feet—leaving him to plummet in a slow, infinite, inevitable fall. The confirmation wasn't a surprise, but a fresh, cruel blow that struck the very place where he still dared to harbor hope.
Inside him, something snapped with a silent crack. *Progressed.* The word echoed and multiplied, as if etched into the walls of his skull, reflected in the marble, the windows, and the columns surrounding him. *Progressed.* He felt his own identity begin to unravel. His title, his caste, his pride—everything turned to dust at the thought of losing Antonella.
His mind was cruel enough to conjure up flashes: her laughter, the way she called his name as if the world were less harsh than it truly was, the memory of the first look she had given him—the one that disarmed him in a way he would never admit aloud. And now, all of that was slipping through his fingers.
He had never seen the disease with his own eyes—only in scrolls, ancient treatises, and clinical notes that described its progression with academic detachment. He knew the outcomes, the statistics, and the stages, much like one studies a distant enemy. But knowing and facing it were different worlds, separated by an abyss no theory could bridge.
Viktor swallowed hard, unable to find words that wouldn't tremble. After all, what does one say when the universe announces it is about to tear away the person who gave your life meaning? The pain came in a wave he couldn't hold back—and with it, the guilt. Guilt for all the times he missed the signs, for thinking love was enough to halt the inevitable, for believing there was still time.
How could he bear it? How could he keep breathing knowing every second was becoming a countdown? Yet the reality was there, spoken in a low voice, and the entire studio seemed to have absorbed it. The syndrome had advanced. And Viktor’s world began to crumble from within.
"Is there any chance... just...?" Viktor asked, his voice a mere thread. He closed his eyes for a split second, as if begging the world for a moment of strength.
"Mrs. Danko is weak. Her body is functioning more slowly than it should... and that leaves her tired, off-balance, and sensitive to the touch."
Viktor collapsed. Not to his knees—not yet—but his expression shattered irreparably. His hands went to his face, then his hair, as if he wanted to tear the reality right out of himself.
"Doctor... tell me there’s a treatment," his voice faltered. "Tell me there’s something I can do. Some experimental drug, some procedure... anything."
Grisha sighed, and this time, even his precise, measured calm seemed to waver.
"Sir... the chromosomal instability is worsening faster than we anticipated." The telomeres are degrading far beyond the point of repair... and the nervous system has begun to lose integration. Fine motor skills... you’ve likely noticed.
Viktor remembered. He remembered the involuntary stumble last week. Her smile—sweet, yet strained—when she said, "I think I’m just too tired today." He remembered the nights she pretended not to be in pain. And the times she tried to climb the stairs alone and had to lean against the wall, breathing as if the air were escaping through cracks.
"And this... this is just the beginning, isn't it?" His voice came out as a ragged whisper.
"Yes," Grisha replied with genuine pain. "The next phase will cost her her muscles. Then... her senses. Sight, hearing... Her skin will become fragile. Fragile as wet paper. The pain will intensify. Her body won't be able to regenerate."
"She’s dying..." Viktor said. The realization pierced him with the biting cold of a blade.
Dr. Grisha didn't confirm it. But the silence confirmed it for him. The doctor stood up, took a step forward, and placed his hand on Viktor’s shoulder—a gesture of humanity, not professionalism.
"I will do everything possible, Viktor," he said firmly. "But... you need to prepare her. And you need to prepare your daughter, too."
"No! Antonella can't leave me." The words exploded out before he realized it.
Viktor shot to his feet, as if his body had been torn from the chair by a force that could no longer be contained within his chest. The movement was too abrupt for someone already breaking apart inside, yet he remained standing—like a cornered animal refusing to fall. His gaze, sharp and tense, reflected more fear than reason. “She can’t…” His voice faltered, tearing at his throat. He drew breath as if swallowing shards of glass. “That girl… damn it. It was Antonella who always wanted her, even with that whole cursed lineage.”
The words came out harsh, almost like a mistake he wouldn't allow himself to correct. Élodie appeared there not as a daughter, not as a promise—but as a decision that had been Antonella’s. Something Viktor had accepted because he loved the woman, not because he wanted the responsibility of another life. The priority was clear—painfully clear: Antonella was the center. Everything else orbited her will, her health, her existence. There was only the fierce urgency to protect Antonella, to keep her intact for just a few more hours, days, seconds. Élodie, standing there, was merely an unwanted presence, a variable that could make everything even more unbearable.
Grisha closed his eyes, letting silence settle between them before answering. When he spoke, his voice was low but firm enough to pierce the barrier of despair Viktor had erected around himself.
“Viktor…” he began, hesitating for just a moment, “you speak of Élodie as if she were merely a consequence, and not a life.”
At that moment, the formality he had used as a shield until then began to crumble.
"I was there when Antonella held her for the first time. When she decided to face everything—even the bloodline curse—because she believed that child deserved to exist. You both believed it, albeit for different reasons."
Grisha’s raw words struck Viktor with an almost physical discomfort. His jaw tightened. He raised a hand in a sharp gesture, as if he could halt the flow of those sentences before they took hold in the air—as if he wanted to erase them.
Grisha stepped forward—not to offer comfort, but to stand his ground before him.
"I know your pain is all about Antonella right now. I know your whole world has narrowed down to her. But don’t make the mistake of turning her into a shield to hide everything else. Antonella didn’t bring this child into the world to be hidden... and certainly not to be cast aside just when she would need you most."
Grisha drew a slow breath, weighing his words—not to soften them, but to avoid completely shattering the man standing before him.
"Tell her the truth. Not out of obligation... but because it’s the bare minimum of humanity Antonella would expect from you."
Viktor didn’t answer. Not because he disagreed. Not because he had anything to say. But because there is a point in human suffering where words simply cease to exist—where only two primal instincts remain: panic and denial. There, amidst the rows of ancient books and Antonella’s painting supplies, he looked like a man trying to hold back an entire continent with his bare hands while a fault line slowly opened beneath his feet.
"You don’t understand..." His voice came out broken, almost childlike. "I know. I understand the limitations, the prohibitions, the oath, all that bullshit from the Order... fuck the law. Fuck it all." "I can’t… I can’t lose my Antonella…"
The words shattered in the air, and Viktor—as if his body had finally remembered the weight it carried—let himself drop into the chair behind him. The seat groaned under the impact—not from force, but from defeat—as he collapsed, hunched over, crushed by the very act of breathing. He wept without dignity, without restraint—large, violent tears streaming down as if carving new paths into his face. The despair was so palpable that even Grisha, accustomed to witnessing the pain of others and the weight of grief, felt the air grow thin.
"There is a solution…" Viktor’s voice shifted, suddenly hardening like stone plunged into ice. "There is a way." He took a deep breath, forcing logic to cut through his sobbing. "I… I will take the Regression Test."
The silence that followed wasn't merely silence—it was a fracture in the world.
"No!" Grisha’s voice crashed down like thunder, tearing through the dimness of the studio.
Viktor jerked his head up, his eyes red as ancient blood. He almost hoped Grisha would yield, that he would offer him a lifeline. But the doctor turned toward Antonella’s test results on the table, as if he didn't trust himself to look Viktor in the eye.
"You will not undergo the reversal," he said, every syllable as sharp as steel. "Forget it!"
"But…" The word stumbled in Viktor’s throat. "But it’s the only chance!"
Panic turned his voice into a dull blade, scraping against the edge of despair. Grisha closed his eyes. The pain in his expression didn't stem from doubt, but from an excess of certainty.
"A chance, Viktor…" He drew a deep breath. "Not a guarantee." One in a million—if the gods are generous. Do you really think the cost is worth the risk? For the love of all that is sacred, think!
He turned, and the room’s central light cast harsh shadows across his features, carving out an almost cruel firmness.
"If you’re detected, you’ll be hunted down. You, your entire family, and her lineage will be exterminated. The upper caste has tolerated the knowledge they extracted from you for years, but they’ve never stopped regarding the teachings of alchemy as heresy. Now that it no longer suits them, they’ll decree your extermination." He took a step forward.
"And if it works... what happens to Élodie? What will she live as? A broken creature, trapped between two states? You know that reversal isn't a cure. It’s ceaseless torment. A debt paid in flesh, every single day, until the end."
"I don't care!" Viktor exploded. "I’ll take care of her! I’ll teach her, protect her, hide her—I’ll do the impossible, Grisha!"
The weight of the situation seemed to amplify every syllable, making it impossible to maintain any semblance of formality. Viktor wasn't thinking rationally; there was no room for strategy or prudence. It was pure urgency, a blind force driving his body and his words.
"No." The answer was like a stone. "Because you’ll be dead before you even try."
Grisha stepped closer, his eyes icy and his expression hardened by a devotion to the truth.
"You’re already failing to look after your own daughter, Viktor. Turning her into a variable in an equation, a disposable piece... a lab rat. If you do this, I’ll report you myself!"
The words struck Viktor like lashes from a whip.
"You aren't in my shoes," he snarled, his desperation turning to ferocity.
"Viktor, for the love of the gods, look at the big picture." Grisha’s voice was trembling now—not with fear, but with indignation. "You’d be protecting her from pain... if you simply let her go."
He took a breath, like a man deciding whether or not to cross an abyss on foot.
"The reversal is brutal. It’s been forbidden for generations. Not even my ancestors—masters of alchemy, revered men—dared to push their study of it beyond the limit. You know what happened to those who tried. You saw the shattered families, the wasted bodies, the broken minds. The city still suffers. The residue lingers in the air, the hospital is overflowing... and yet, we manage to breathe only because engineering and faith work hand in hand."
"But if you break the final barriers..." His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "There will be no one left to rebuild anything."
Viktor stood motionless, his chest heaving as if weighed down by stones.
"So you want..." He laughed—a horrible sound. "You want me to ignore my wife's death?"
"Viktor." Grisha looked at him with sadness. — The chance of her body rejecting it, of the process destroying her from the inside out, of her mind being lost irreversibly... is overwhelming.
He took a deep breath.
— Stabilization is the ethical path. Let her go in peace.
But the moment he said it, the air shifted. Viktor slowly lifted his face, like an animal finally spotting an exit—or a way to wage war.
— Grisha... — He smiled without joy, without warmth, without a soul. — Do you think I don't know that?
Grisha went pale.
— Don't you dare...
— Oh, I dare. — Viktor stepped forward, his shadow stretching as if it held another creature inside. — You know alchemy as well as I do. Maybe better. Your ancestors were masters... I always knew. You tried to hide it, but Antonella trusted you. And I trust her.
He leaned in, his face nearly touching Grisha’s.
— So you’re going to help me.
His voice turned to poison.
— Because if Antonella dies... it’ll be your fucking fault!
Grisha took a single step back—not out of fear of the man, but in horror at what he was willing to become. And in that instant, it became clear that nothing in the world—not law, nor ethics, nor reason—could stop Viktor.
— I won't be a part of this. Forgive me! — Grisha blurted the words out like someone dropping a rope that was already burning their hands.
Viktor didn't hear the plea for forgiveness. Or he pretended not to. Or perhaps desperation had consumed his hearing, his blood, his sanity—because, in a single motion, he lunged forward. Not like an aggressor, but like a man fighting for the last scrap of air before he went under. He grabbed the collar of Grisha’s coat with both hands—fingers trembling yet fierce—and hauled him along with a strength that defied logic for someone who hadn’t slept, eaten, or breathed properly in days. With a brutal, almost primitive motion, Viktor slammed him against the closed door. The crash echoed through the room—deep and final, like a seal breaking.
The impact shook the entire space. Glass vials rattled on the shelves; some toppled over, shattering on the floor into razor-sharp shards. Paint jars, left half-open, gave way under the jolt, and their thick contents spilled across the floor in irregular blotches.
“You’re going to help me!” Viktor bellowed, his voice shattered by panic and rage. “You’re going to save Antonella!” The words tore from him like flesh being ripped from teeth. “I won’t lose my wife! No! No! No!” Saliva trembled in his mouth, and tears streamed down unashamedly—not human tears, but the tears of a cornered animal.
Grisha tried to break free, but Viktor shoved him against the door again, with such force that the latch rattled and the wood vibrated from the impact.
“Look at me!” Viktor shouted, shaking him. “You studied the damn alchemy too, I know it! Don’t hide it from me! You think I don’t know about your scrolls? You know things you shouldn’t!”
Grisha was breathing rapidly—not out of physical fear, but from the pain of seeing his friend reduced to a shadow of his former self.
“Viktor…” he managed to say through clenched teeth. “Let me go.”
“I won’t let go!” Viktor roared, his face so close that his tears fell onto Grisha’s skin.
“If you don’t cooperate… if Antonella dies… I swear by the old gods, by the engineering that holds this world together, by the dust of lost bloodlines…” his voice dropped to an animalistic whisper, “…the blame will be *yours*.”
“Can you carry that? Can you live knowing that?”
The silence that followed was brutal.
Almost sacred.
With a slow, labored movement, Grisha placed his hand on Viktor’s wrist. Not to defend himself. But to make him feel something—the steady pulse, the humanity there.
“Viktor…” Grisha said, his voice trembling, strained by the violence of the assault, every word a struggle to utter. “You… you aren’t threatening me. You’re… begging.” And that… that hurts more than any blow.
Viktor faltered. His hands were still gripping Grisha’s collar, but the strength in them was dissolving like snow in hot water.
“I… I need her…” Viktor whispered, finally broken. “I don’t know how to breathe without her. I don’t know how… to exist without her. I can’t… I can’t…”
He fell to his knees. Literally. Like a rope finally snapping. Grisha stepped back just enough to breathe, but he didn’t run. Not from this pain.
“I know you love her,” Grisha murmured, his voice weary, ancient. “But love isn’t synonymous with possession. Nor with salvation. And, Viktor…” his eyes locked onto his, steady as stone yet full of mercy, “no matter how loudly your desperation screams… the reversal remains a sentence. Not a cure.”
Viktor stared at the floor. His hands trembled, coated in dust and tears. Grisha sighed—a long sound, heavy with an exhaustion that seemed to stem from ages past, as if he had inherited the weight of every alchemical mistake ever made.
“I won’t be a part of this, Viktor,” he said at last, his voice firm yet sad, like a verdict one dreads pronouncing. “And so… I have to go.”
He adjusted his coat with a strange, almost ritualistic care—as if preparing to leave were a way to shield himself from what hurt the most: abandoning someone already in freefall.
“I know the methods,” he continued, though his tone now held fatigue rather than threat. “And precisely because I know them, I cannot stay. I know what must be kept safe, what needs to be burned, what cannot fall into the inquisitors' hands. I know things no one should know. And you… you are about to cross a line of no return.” Grisha lowered his gaze and took a deep breath, stifling the urge to say more, to intervene further, to stop things from going any further. He gathered his belongings from the table with measured, almost silent movements—as if any noise might shatter the tension hanging in the room.
Then, he turned toward the door. He walked past Viktor—who remained on his knees, bowed under the weight of his own anguish—without the man so much as lifting his head.
"I’m leaving, Viktor."
A sombra de Grisha se estendia pelo chão em direção à maçaneta, deixando para trás apenas o som abafado da respiração ofegante de um homem implodindo de dentro. Mas antes de tocar a maçaneta, hesitou — um gesto pequeno, quase imperceptível, como um fio de humanidade rompendo de dentro de si. Ele não olhou para trás, mas sua voz saiu baixa, quebrada por algo que nem ele sabia nomear:
"… Voltarei em breve para ver a Signora Antonella. Nada mais."
Então ele abriu a porta e saiu. Ainda assim, sua presença parecia pairar no quarto como uma pedra no caminho de Viktor — um peso silencioso, impossível de contornar. Viktor olhou para cima a tempo de ver sua sombra desaparecer pelo corredor. E naquele instante, percebeu que Grisha havia levado mais do que apenas o desconforto da discussão com ele; ele deixou um limite para trás. Ele chegou perto demais de intervir, muito perto de cruzar uma linha que até agora conseguira respeitar.
Estava claro que não havia solução simples para a situação. Apenas a amarga certeza de que Grisha voltaria — e que, até lá, ele precisaria manter certa distância do que quer que pudesse acontecer. Não por indiferença, mas porque dar um passo além poderia colocá-lo diretamente em conflito com Viktor.
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