As he was stepping out of the taxi for which he had paid an outrageous thirty-seven kso, Ardi found himself in the midst of a veritable storm of sounds, voices and smells. He had the strong urge to glance back to confirm a suspicion, but he refrained… Instead, he walked unhurriedly down ...
2025-09-11 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostFinding Bazhen Eorsky turned out not to be so difficult after all. Ardi didn’t even have to enlist the help of the Black House messengers
Finding Bazhen Eorsky turned out to be simple enough. Ardi didn’t even have to enlist the help of the Black House messengers, which was lucky, since ...
2025-09-08 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as the rust-speckled key scraped into the lock, Ardi felt a stationary Star Shield brush against his consciousness. It was so intricate and complex that only a specialist on par with Professor Talis an Manish could have set it up. Edward Aversky had possessed considerable knowledge of def...
2025-09-04 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe Metropolis greeted the train from Shamtur with the familiar clamor of the platform crowd and the sharp, slicing whistles of the guards d
The Metropolis greeted the train from Shamtur with the familiar clamor of the platform crowd and the sharp, piercing whistling of the guards directing...
2025-09-01 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostCarriage after carriage, vestibule after vestibule, Ardan followed Mshisty. The man was of an unremarkable height, clad in a black suit that matched Dagdag’s severe patterns, yet the fabric spoke of a different story—of an expensive atelier and materials that were far from common.
Among...
2025-08-28 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post“Bless you, Ard,” the Governor-General remarked offhandedly. To anyone unfamiliar with the Fae tongue, the curse had probably sounded like a sneeze or a stifled cough. “Young man, perhaps you should go get some fresh air.”
“I-”
“My colleague can stay,” Captain Mokretsk...
2025-08-25 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostOnce again, Ardan was sitting in a comfortable armchair, reading a newspaper. Not because he had suddenly become deeply interested in politics, the news, fashion, or court gossip (or whatever else the paper might cover), but simply because there was nothing else available to read in the ...
2025-08-21 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdi was sitting in an armchair, watching the flames cavort in the fireplace. The firelight cast daring reflections that scampered through the room’s acrid gloom before beginning their intricate dances across the surface of the slightly murky windows. They weren’t murky because the windows ha...
2025-08-18 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostAside from an encounter with one of the Princesses of Winter, the journey to Shamtur proved to be nothing particularly memorable. Even the High Forest didn’t leave much of an impression on Ardi.
Throughout it all, however, he supported Tess’ childlike excitement as best he could. The re...
2025-08-14 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdi watched the platform recede into the distance—if you could even call it a platform, since it was little more than a small wooden staircase leading from the station to a similarly wooden landing. Because of its meager size, it couldn’t accommodate all the people who had come to see the tr...
2025-08-11 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Two tickets, please,” Ardi said, producing two banknotes and a few coins.
Tickets for the cinema cost an astronomical amount of money—one and a half exes for an adult and sixty kso for children. But firstly, Ardan had promised Tess, and secondly, ever since the first cinemas had open...
2025-08-07 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostZbig was leading the way, with Percy Kenbish an
2025-08-04 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post“I’ll be back by tonight,” Ardi whispered, pulling Tess into a gentle hug.
She was holding a length of fabric she’d bought yesterday at a shop near the Lake Port of Delpas. Shaia had promised to sew Tess a light summer dress before Ardan and his fiancée left for Shamtur. It was a b...
2025-07-31 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostArdi was settled in a wicker chair, his back pressed to the cool brick of the house, watching the sun bleed out across the west. There, at the very edge of the horizon, its last light was just catching the peaks of the Ralsk mountains that loomed over the Theocracy of Enario. That land, once no m...
2025-07-28 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe door opened, and a young woman appeared on the threshold—someone Ardi remembered as a little girl. They shared a friendship that had, for a moment, been overwhelmed by a sense of peril still ringing in their ears—carried in distant gunshots, the clash of steel, and the gnashing of fanged ...
2025-07-24 23:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostArdi watched the chimneys of No. 17 on Stonemasons’ Street draw slowly closer, brick by familiar brick. The last—and, in truth, the first—time he had seen the house was in winter, when it appeared as a big, roomy, three‑storey dwelling, warm to the eye, with a broad yard. Back then, the...
2025-07-21 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostThey skirted a broad field and rode out onto the crest of a once-tall hill that had collapsed hundreds of thousands of years ago, forming a rocky bluff that hung like a brooding, furrowed brow a kilometer above Blue Lake. Here, just to the west and higher up, stretched the rails of the new branch...
2025-07-17 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Prologue
The spacious study welcomed the warm summer sun, which briefly visited the normally gray and unwelcoming Metropolis domain. Broad windows spanned from the gleaming, freshly scrubbed, lacquered parquet floor to the moldings that concealed the ceiling’s high cornic...
2025-07-13 21:04:30 +0000 UTC View Post“So for almost half a year, you were under the
2025-07-07 23:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostArdan watched the multiton stone slabs grind shut with a ponderous clang, sealing the grotto’s roof above his head. A hulking demon, several Cloaks, the Grand Magister, the half-orc, and the dwindling echoes of a battle gone mad were all left behind.
Ard found himself standing in the midd...
2025-07-07 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostSome time ago
“And what were you two chatting about so sweetly?”
“Ella invited you and Boris to a party,” Ardan said with a shrug.
Elena’s eyes narrowed even further, her expression growing more amused by the second....
2025-07-03 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostArdan only vaguely recalled what had happened after the dirigible had slammed into the Treasury building, tearing off a portion of its eastern façade before veering toward the Niewa.
He was pretty sure that he’d tried to keep himself anchored, clutching the cables lashing together the ...
2025-06-30 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostKeeping his gaze fixed on the gaping breach, Ardan mumbled uncertainly without turning toward the first mate. “What if we disable the engines? Then-”
“It won’t change a thing,” the first mate cut him off. “The wind is blowing us straight toward the capital, and those bastards de...
2025-06-26 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostFor a moment, the main gondola hall fell into silence, broken only by the crunch of shattered glasses beneath the intruders’ heavy boots. The vampire paid no heed to the alarmed and rapidly paling nobles, aristocrats, and businessmen. Until recently, they had been pompous and self-important, bu...
2025-06-23 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostAlla, despite her rather slight build, hoisted Ardi to his feet with such ease that he might have weighed nothing at all. For an instant, he felt the cool, steely grip of her fingers closing around his hand.
She was a mutant…
A mutant working in the Daggers division…
Ardan moved quietly across the plush carpet. Barefoot, he could feel the path more keenly, even if it wasn’t stone or moss, but only the tickling bristles of wool beneath his heels. Ardi bent his knees and crept along with his back against the wall, keeping his silhouette below his prey’s lin...
2025-06-16 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe initial wave of dizziness and nausea came on as subtly as the fact that the airship — its engines thrumming, puffing exhaust through its nozzles, its colossal propellers spinning — had already carved a path through the porous clouds and was now drifting among them, almost joining a slow p...
2025-06-12 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe driver braked at the very edge of a basin, which hid itself from prying eyes using the protective embrace of the towering hills surrounding it on every side. Those attentive giants had encircled the little basin, cradling it in forest groves, sheltering it with broad meadows, and gently wipin...
2025-06-09 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s ironic, Magister,” Milar, who’d apparently abandoned the idea of quitting smoking, said as he puffed on his third cigarette. At least the spring-summer weather made it so they could roll down the window and chase away some of the acrid tobacco haze. “A year ago, you first crossed ...
2025-06-05 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post“Ardi…”
Ardan was gazing out the window. Outside, the clouds were lazily marching across the azure sky that was painted with faintly-shimmering sunlight. There was so little time left until spring ended and the first day of summer arrived, and even less until the airship auction: it w...
2025-06-02 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post