* * *

The second hand trembled, unable to overcome the heavy metal pin stuck right into the face of the massive floor clock. There, inside the mahogany case, the whole mechanism trembled faintly under the pressure of the tight spring, waiting for a new beat from the small cogs. But there was none - so the minute hand froze, and the hour hand fell asleep.

Once the great-grandfather of the owner of this place, angry at the servants bringing up new problems before he had time to deal with the old ones, ordered time to stop, and when it did not obey, for the first time, he stopped the mechanism with his own hand and, as befits a legendary ancestor, resolved all difficulties in a single second.

Although, they say, he simply threw the dagger at the clock, wanting at least a minute's respite from the business. It is also said that he did not throw it at the clock but at the thieving steward, who dodged it. But in the beautiful stories of ancestors and tradition, there is little room for thieving managers and much for pathos and splendid accomplishments.

The problems have hardly diminished since then. Even now, two hundred years after the origin of the tradition, a voluminous silk-embossed folder, yellow and therefore requiring prompt consideration, is frozen on the corner of the desk. But time has stood still, so why rush?

It froze for everyone - a clever mechanism paused the time of all the clocks in the palace - the great-grandfather of the owner of the place had appreciated his father's idea and was also talented enough to carry it out. And since some time, the pause has also touched electronics - in-house manufacturers have easily enforced tradition in telephones and wristwatches, ensuring the timelessness of the whole palace. Otherwise, what kind of tradition is it if it is allowed to be broken?

Alas, the clock will soon go again, continuing to count down the seconds, minutes, and hours, synchronizing with world time once the mechanism has been started. In the meantime, there is no time. Problems are frozen at the edge of the future, unable to slide into the present.

The prince had a wonderful state of inner peace that he did not want to lose, especially after a hard and exhausting job. It is true that to the uninitiated it may seem trifling and frivolous, but anyone who has ever made presents for his beloved daughter knows what hard work it is. After all, the wave of joy from the meeting, after the whirlwind of happiness from the boxes of gifts comes the time of trying on all the gifts and showing clothes to her beloved father. And try to dodge it!

However, in the second hour, the Prince tried to sneak out, citing extremely important clan matters that did not require any delay, and the faithful Amir immediately placed the yellow folder on the table with a look of mystery and a frown. It didn't help - Kseniya had resorted to the time-stop mechanism for the first time in three decades. The last time was sort of like another war...

In short, all the dresses were reviewed. And the prince made a dreadful vow to himself not to present more than three dresses at a time. The daughter went away to discuss the presents with her friend. Her father got up to start the time again... And then he thought and decided to indulge in another dozen minutes of the holiday, paired with his faithful friend. I did not want to talk about serious things. Unless it was something nice.

"How is my daughter doing?" Once again admiring the stopped clock, the prince asked.

"Pretty much," Amir shook his head, leaning back in his chair with pleasure. "It's easy to teach when the student knows what should lead to a mistake and what will be correct."

"What does it look like?" the prince became interested.

"She stands with her eyes covered. Sometimes for about an hour, sometimes all day without making a single attempt. But then it's all on the first try."

"That is, of course, good," the man at the head of the table said slowly, "but the body will not keep up with the mind."

"But her room in the infirmary is empty, thankfully," Amir shrugged, "a mistake at the rank of 'Teacher' is too high a cost."

"At what rank?!" The prince asked the question disbelievingly, not trying to suppress the emotions of pride and happiness.

"You'd think!" sniggered his sworn brother. "Before 'Veteran' I banned all that witchcraft stuff. If it breaks an arm or a leg," Amir snorted nonchalantly. "The healers have a few days' works to do. Oh, don't give me that angry look! Pain has to be felt before it can be brought to someone else."

"She is, after all, a little girl," grumbled the Prince, as if he himself had not grown up in the same conditions as a child.

"You decide for yourselves whether she's a weapon or a girl," Amir grimaced. "If she's a weapon, she must be able to defend herself. Or die before it falls into the wrong hands. If it's your daughter, then what the hell..."

"All right, that's enough," the Prince raised his hands conciliatory. "And her friend? Tai... what's her name?"

"Tai Ling," his sworn brother said with a wry glance at his friend. "Great potential. And with Ksyusha's advice... I guess we're teaching her together. Your daughter stops her when she's about to do something stupid and tear down half the range with us."

"Found out where we got this miracle from?"

The flight to China turned out to be remarkably successful, although it did not bring rich trophies or political promises. Only one child - a girl of her daughter's age, the one she had seen in the prophecy. But the girl's potential made up for all the inconvenience - strong blood was too rare, very reluctant to let genetically valuable material out of families, planning marriages and families for centuries to come so as not to degenerate.

Of course, wars, political alliances, and disgrace interfered with plans, blood could be diluted by marriages with the ungifted, and gifts could easily disappear and reappear across generations. Some branches were rejected outright, and the heirs of destroyed families were hunted for their Blood Power. But that was the lot of the clan's eugenics, a dull and stale job of pandering that was tried not to be remembered. Because it is somehow unpleasant to realize that a beloved spouse, casually met, found, and kept, is a result of the work of a whole department, working to make records of a hundred years old matchmaking turn into real love. Emotional attachment favorably influenced the power potential of descendants. It is only later when it will be necessary to turn the "beloved" wife into the "first" wife, the stubborn husband will be shown not a particularly pleasant truth in photos and video recordings... In general, geneticists are not liked.

But a prince is not a position where you can dislike something. So the trophy is extremely fortunate and has already been signed up for the same minor running around at the neighboring range. In six years they will have a big and beautiful love affair with a lot of children... In principle, this is enough for the prince, and the details about the life history of the foundling are not so important. The materials have probably been prepared for a long time, but if the leader of the whole clan decides to find out everything, he will be buried under a heap of trivialities. That is why information often lies dormant until it is asked for.

However, there is a difference between potential as a human being and realized potential. And if a girl has curbed her power, she is no longer just future kin but part of the clan's arsenal. One must know everything about one's weapons.

A standard power struggle. In the best traditions of Chinese princedoms - adults to the knife, children to slave pens. The girl was very lucky to be with us.

"And us with her," the Prince shook his head in agreement.

"By the way, some distant relatives have recently turned up. Great-uncles on her mother's side - I don't know what to call it in one word. They are offering a ransom, a respectable ransom."

"Fresh blood is more expensive," the older man brushed it aside. "Do they even get along?"

"I'll show you now," Amir smirked at something, activating the screen in the plane of the table.

In the center of the room, in front of a huge mirror, Xenia was arranging her friend's new hairstyle, just as she did with her favorite doll. The pretty Chinese girl smiled shyly at the reflection - and looked not at herself but at Ksyusha.

"They are," concluded the prince.

"Оh!" Amir exclaimed when he spotted the old servant in the frame. "There you are!"

"Look, don't touch the honored man..." the prince grimaced.

"No, no, I gave my word to retire him," Amir fussed. "I'm going to run, okay?"

And immediately rushed out the door.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

After a while, the screen showed the old man waddling rapidly towards the exit, and after about three minutes, Amir ran after him. The prince clicked the screen with mild curiosity, changing cameras and watching the chase. Here the time between glimpses was reduced to two minutes... And there were only three rooms and one passage... Hm, and now for some reason to the ground floor, and then by the next flight to the third and again to the second... Alas, another five minutes - and by an established tradition the boundary between the female and common halves separated them...

"I'm a little late," the prince commented to his brother, who was frozen on the threshold and turned off the screen. "I'll be back to work in five minutes."

"He was so annoying!" The old man came into the children's room, shut the door immediately, and leaned against the door with his whole body.

His rapid breathing indicated an uneasy distance for a respectable age, and the slight pallor on his face indicated the dangerous proximity of his pursuer.

"You should confess who you really are," Ksyusha replied in a calm voice, scrutinizing something on the two huge screens mounted on the wall.

If the prince could have peeked into his daughter's room, he would surely have been greatly surprised - primarily by the fact that he had recently seen Kseniya elsewhere, in a completely different occupation. Though come to think of it, the chase was going on throughout the entire space of the palace, girding all the floors twice, so there was time... Which does not at all explain the contents of the screens enclosed in green frames with a stylized ornament of the clan crest.

"You want me dead!" The grandfather was indignant at the suggestion. "They're like woodpeckers peek all brains out," the old man pecked his head several times with his fingers. "Grandfather, help me! Grandpa, give it to me! Granddaddy, do it!" he mocked. "There is no peace even in death - they go to the grave and complain! And if I hadn't put microphones there, what would they be doing then?!"

"Help would not have been out of place." With a glimpse, Ksyusha greeted her grandfather with a smile and went back to her concentrating clicking on the keys.

"I have someone to help," the grandfather grumbled, taking a seat next to his granddaughter. "Is this a clan intranet?"

"Yeah," Ksyusha replied briefly as she continued deleting files from the clan's internal storage.

"How do you get access?"

"It's on a piece of paper by Daddy, under the keyboard," the girl brushed it off.

"What?!" the old man said in a voice of indignation.

"And the keyboard is in the clan's inner vault, under the protection of the guards."

"It still doesn't seem right," grumbled the grandfather, looking carefully at the names of the information she was deleting. "What's wrong with the daily reports from our new city?"

"Here it is." Kseniya clicked the keys, and the right screen changed to a satellite image of the edge of the city and a mass of forest cut by a wide road.

If you look closely - normal road life, no traffic jams or repairs.

"I still don't understand. Have pity on the old man. His eyesight is failing him," said the grandfather with a chuckle.

As if such a person could have a health problem...

"There, see that silver box coming? There. There goes the man who saved our name. And towards him, forty centimeters up on the screen, are three black SUVs, ours, the Clans'. They've been looking for him. They've missed him, and they're on their way back now. In six minutes, they'll see him and try to kill him."

"Stop, give me thirty seconds," Grandfather tensed, flicked the ledge on his wedding ring, and spoke distinctly: "Operational report on Baguievo."

"I've deleted everything."

"That's what it looks like to you." The ring was pressed to his ear, but it took six times as long to listen to the report, interspersed with dry clarifications. "I see," the old man shook himself, "came in, did the justice, robbed us, and went away. It happens."

"But he helped us?" the granddaughter cautiously clarified.

"There is that," the man didn't deny it, "but you're wrong to protect him by removing those papers. This man has made an attempt on your brother's life that should not go unpunished."

"He didn't mean to kill him..."

"It doesn't matter. The culprit treacherously entered the office and took our blood hostage," Grandfather shook his head sternly.

"But no one was hurt."

"But will suffer," the old man said instructively. "The head of the guard who allowed the assassin to reach the lord has lost his honor. He is already dead, though breathing. The greater the responsibility and reward, the harsher the punishment. Do you remember what I explained? And now he's apparently decided to take the enemy with him," he nodded at the online satellite map. "So leave those files alone, sweetheart."

"Your grandson is there," Kseniya said calmly.

"I know. I mean, Valentine is my grandnephew, and he's your third cousin. So we have to respond."

"No, there's another grandson. In the white car."

"Maxim?" After a pause, the grandfather said in puzzlement.

"Yeah," Ksyusha nodded, all the while diligently continuing to "erase" files - the system demanded to confirm the deletion of each one, frightening her with the irretrievability of its loss, so she had to methodically click the keys instead of the much more convenient: "Select All" - "Delete".

"Was he at Valentine's?" As if he couldn't believe it, the old man asked again.

"As you can see, the acquaintance was complicated," Ksyusha sighed and glanced intently at the satellite map, "and now Valentine's head of security wants to kill him."

"How dare he trespass on my blood!" The grandfather was furious, staring with hatred at the three black rectangles steadily approaching their target.

"Maxim didn't know it was his kinsman. Just as Valentine and his guards didn't know..." Ksyusha held out regretfully.

"Okay, give me a second." Granddad rubbed his temples forcefully, concentrating.

"I'll give you a full two minutes and fifteen seconds."

"Coordinator speaking," the grandfather whispered into the ring again, "Red priority. Baguievo, the Guard unit returns to the city."

"And I know what they'll tell you," Kseniya snickered.

An old man frowned beside him, listening intently to the answer.

"What do they mean, 'No possibility of cancellation'?" he hissed. "How dare they defy me!"

The screen went up in waves, the curtains shimmering with the power being unleashed outward. Even the girl shuddered at the wave of rage emanating from the angry monster in the guise of a gaunt old man facing the worst crime against his power. For there is no crime worse than dis-obe-di-ence.

"Grandpa, soon I'll have to lie about the fire I accidentally set..." Kseniya said with a slight tremor in her voice.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." The power was immediately taken in stride, leaving the rage in his gaze. "All right, all right, this anger-it's not for you, I'm sorry. We'll fix it now, don't worry. Come on, log out of the system."

"Entirely?" with a still frightened look on her face.

"Entirely," nodded the grandfather. "And give me the keyboard for a minute."

The old man typed in a new username and password with a knack untypical for his age.

"Why is the frame red?" Ksyusha wondered.

"It's because passwords under the keyboard are for spies and traitors," the grandfather answered dryly as he continued to work on the keys. "I'm taking up a couple of helicopters, our friends in Kazan` have just a couple of helicopters... And let's reconfigure the satellite and bring the picture a bit closer. We can't see anything..."

The picture to the right was sharply detailed as if jumping to the surface - the treetops, the power lines along the road, and the cars no longer looked like tiny bugs in a vast field - the model and body parts were quite distinguishable. The gaze of the celestial eye glued itself to the roof of the white SUV, keeping it one-eighth of the screen in the center.

"Ten minutes flight time, Grandpa."

"I know. But what if he can stall for time or move to the side? What if they want to bully my grandson and give me a chance to get him out?! You should never give up! Never!"

"Grandpa, this is your grandson..." the granddaughter said kindly and gently stroked her grandfather's hands.

"Yes, and as long as he is my grandson, I will protect him..."

"Grandfather. This. Yours. Grandson."

"And what?!"

"You can't kill him so easy," smiled Kseniya.

"So the helicopters will make it!" The grandfather said stubbornly as he continued to give commands.

"Don't, please don't. He'll knock them down."

"I don't understand you! What am I supposed to do...? Who... who will knock it down?!" The old man looked at her perplexedly.

"You trust me, don't you?"

"Always."

"Everything will be all right," the girl reassured the old man as she stroked his hand again.

Nevertheless, they kept staring at the screen with increasing tension, mentally counting down the seconds. There the black cars came around the corner, spotting the victim. The white car accelerated and swerved into the oncoming lane, hiding in the ditch. But the maneuver did not escape the hunters... And the victim decided not to run anymore - a lone figure separated from the car - no more than a centimeter on the screen - and marched towards the enemies.

"What the hell is that?!" The grandfather exclaimed as a bright spark clearly flashed in a circle near the figure. "Who taught him?"

"Simon," Kseniya answered contentedly.

"Simon who? Dolgoruky, Orlov? Vyazemsky?!" He was agitated, trying to keep from grabbing his granddaughter by the shoulders and shaking her gently.

"No, just Simon," she hugged her grandfather, "but he taught a little physics. And that's what my brother discovered on his own."

The unknown phenomenon shone brighter with each passing second, reflecting on the screen as a white dot, moving around faster and faster, tilting slightly and leveling up again, moving away from the wearer by several meters and coming very close to the body.

"You mean...? How did he find it?" the old man jerked.

"I have no idea." She brushed it off.

"And when?"

"Well, after he killed his captors, but before he shot down our plane. That's in between," Kseniya said, judiciously and clearly teasing her grandfather.

"You're going to tell me everything!" He gave the ultimatum in a tone that made bargaining impossible.

The ball, meanwhile, had grown to the same size as its owner but did not change its behavior, continuing to whirl around like a planet around the sun.

"Why isn't he attacking?" Granddad was nervous. "Now would be a good time, as long as they are in the car."

"What if they just came to talk and mean no harm?"

"Mistake," the old man gritted his teeth.

As he spoke, a line of flame shot out from the group near the three cars. At once, it crashed into a fiercely glowing orb, instantly turning scarlet and just as quickly returning to its former form.

"Does he get it now?!"

As it turned out - he did. The hand-held sun increased dramatically in size and flashed over our heads. Power lines rocked - silent and if you remember their size, eerie. Amid this glow, a few new flashes of fire were lost altogether, disappearing into the snow-white dots, petals shooting out of the tiny star. Meanwhile, scarlet-blue flashes of discharge streamed through the wires, shooting up into a bright glow. First in short waves and then in a single stream of short circuits, with blue-white arcs whirling intricately in the center of the attraction and steam for a kilometer in length. And then the same arc spewed out at the offenders, striking a dozen meters to the left and slowly stretching towards the cars, leaving a black trail of boiling and burnt asphalt.

"They'll go away!" the grandfather slapped himself on the knee.

"So be it. He's got better things to do." A dainty finger poked at the screen, where a bright blue stylus, in a shape of a giant lightning bolt, finished writing out the letter "M" and proceeded to the letter "A"...

After a huge number of digital media burned out due to an inexplicable technical failure, the mechanism of the palace clock counted down a new second again.

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Chapter 27

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