Part 3. The Café on the Corner

  They sat in a small café two blocks from the Academy—Lelya and Roslava. Rain drizzled outside the window, the air smelled of coffee and cinnamon. Lelya was finishing her human university in parallel with the Academy, and these café meetings had become something of a ritual.

  "Mislav taught you today?" asked Roslava, stirring her latte.

  "Yes. Two hours on how we can be executed."

  Roslava smirked. "Varvara's lover. The Chief Mage's."

  Lelya choked on her coffee.

  "What?"

  Roslava watched with mild amusement.

  "Get used to it. In the Supreme Council, everyone's connected to everyone. Mislav is her trusted confidant and lover. Polina, Minister of Health, is an old friend."

  "And Shotsky?"

  "Minister of Education," Roslava nodded. "He was born in an era when people still said 'Your Excellency' without irony. Believes in tradition, in form, in long phrases. And what's most interesting, he knows how to be persuasive." Roslava snorted. "Varvara... is in love with him, though she pretends she isn't."

  "And him?"

  "He pretends he does not know." Roslava shrugged. "He and I are a couple."

  Lelya blinked.

  "Is this another strange mage rule—finding your partner on the Supreme Council?"

  Roslava laughed again—genuinely, loudly.

  "No. But when you work together for centuries, something's bound to happen."

  "So there's Varvara and her circle, and someone who's not with her?"

  "Perhaps..." Roslava answered evasively.

  Lelya understood and asked no more about that.

  "Tell me about yourself?" Lelya asked.

  "I'm the one people try not to provoke. I'm over a thousand years old. That has to be reckoned with."

  This wasn't boasting. Just a fact.

  "Varvara is clever," Roslava continued more quietly. "She keeps me close because I'm useful. And because it's more dangerous to have me as an enemy."

  Lelya nodded slowly. She was beginning to understand: this wasn't just ministries and positions. This was a chessboard where every piece was playing its own game.

  "And Svarog?" she asked. The name had come up in yesterday's lectures.

  Roslava was slightly slower to answer.

  "Minister of Defense. The most ancient active mage. Seven thousand years."

  "Seven thousand?"

  "Yes." Roslava was looking out the window. "To call him simply 'minister' is like calling the ocean a puddle. His name is still whispered with holy terror. Varvara respects him but keeps her distance."

  "Is he with her?"

  "He's with himself. With his shadow. With his war." Pause. "No one argues with him. Not even I."

  Lelya finished her coffee. Outside the window, the rain intensified; people ran along the sidewalk, covering their heads with newspapers and bags.

  Ordinary people. Who knew nothing.

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  "Why are you telling me this?" she finally asked.

  Roslava gave her a long look.

  "Because you'll need it. Maybe not now. Maybe in a year. But you'll need it."

  She stood, leaving money on the table.

  "And because... I find it interesting talking to you. You ask the right questions."

  She left. Lelya stayed, watching the rain.

  Arrangement of pieces. Political geometry. And she—still outside the board.

  But Roslava was persistently leading her inside. The question was—why.

  Part 4. Practicum

  Lectures on Alma's history always began with the Creators. With their silent interference and with their eternal absence. But from the first days, something else hooked Lelya—how races disappeared. Not magic, not heroism, but how entire peoples dissolved into memory, leaving behind only legends and empty cities.

  In the Hall of Illusions, she watched Kiudar-Muna being built: stone by stone, by the hands of Gerons whose names no one remembered anymore. The projection showed the builders' faces—serious, focused, alive. And then the camera rose higher, and the city shone beneath the moon that had been created especially for them.

  In the library, Lelya leafed through chronicles of races—Alvs, Olgs, Berlings. Entire civilizations compressed to chapters in a textbook. 'Left across the sea.' 'Returned to Shamaim.' 'Scattered across the world.' Three words—and thousands of years of history.

  At diplomacy practicums, Lelya shone. And today was her chance to prove it.

  The examination took place in the Academy's small hall. Twenty students, three instructors at a table. And—Lelya noticed out of the corner of her eye—one more person in the corner. A handsome young man with brown eyes, who didn't introduce himself and silently leafed through some papers.

  The assignment seemed simple at first glance: compose a response to a diplomatic note. A hypothetical situation—State A accuses State B of violating a trade agreement. It demands compensation, public apologies, and revision of trade zone boundaries.

  The problem: State B really had violated the agreement. The facts were against it. The evidence was ironclad.

  Most students were scribbling justifications. Some tried to dispute the facts. Some proposed partial admission of guilt.

  Lelya reread the note for the third time. Then smiled.

  Forty minutes later, she raised her hand.

  "Ready to answer orally."

  The chief examiner raised an eyebrow.

  "Orally? The assignment is written."

  "I know. But my answer sounds better than it reads."

  Pause. The examiner exchanged glances with the person in the corner. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  "All right. We're listening."

  Lelya stood, walked to the lectern. Twenty pairs of eyes watched her—some with curiosity, some with irritation.

  "State A accuses us of violating Article 12 of the trade agreement," she began. Voice even, calm. "And they're right. We violated it. Fact."

  Whispers in the auditorium. The examiner frowned.

  "But here's what's interesting," Lelya continued. "Article 12 was adopted seventeen years ago. During that time, State A has violated it eleven times. Eleven. I went through the archives—it's all documented. We never demanded compensation. Never demanded apologies. We silently accepted their violations because we believed: partnership matters more than the letter of the law."

  She paused, sweeping her gaze across the auditorium.

  "And now, when we—once, for the first time in seventeen years—stumbled, they demand public humiliation. Compensation. Boundary revision." Lelya tilted her head slightly. "This isn't justice. This is revenge for something else. And our response should not be an apology, but a question: why now? What changed in our relationship that you decided to play this card?"

  Silence.

  "We don't deny the violation," Lelya finished. "We ask: are you ready to discuss your eleven? Because if we're starting to count—let's count honestly. And then we'll see who owes whom."

  She returned to her seat.

  The examiner was silent for several seconds. Then slowly said:

  "You didn't answer the note. You flipped it."

  "That is the answer," said Lelya. "The best defense is when the opponent forgets they were the one attacking."

  The man in the corner wrote something in his notebook.

  After the examination, Lelya stepped into the corridor. Her heart beat faster than usual—the adrenaline from the public performance hadn't yet subsided.

  The door behind her opened.

  "Lelya, correct?"

  She turned. The man from the corner—the one with the notebook—stood in the doorway.

  "Yes."

  "Radimir. Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

  The Minister. Lelya straightened. The Minister of Foreign Affairs himself had been sitting at a student examination.

  "Interesting approach," said Radimir. His voice was quiet, with a slight rasp. "Don't justify—attack."

  "If the facts are against you, arguing with facts is pointless. You need to change the frame. Pose a different question."

  Radimir looked at her for a long time, appraisingly.

  Then he wrote something in his notebook, nodded, and went back into the hall.

  Lelya remained standing in the corridor.

  The Minister had written down her name.

  It could mean nothing—who knew how many students he saw frequently. Or it could mean something. She didn't know.

  But that evening, walking back to the dormitory past lit windows, she caught herself thinking: for the first time in these weeks of chaos, fear, and new rules—she felt comfortable swimming in all this.