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"Mom, Mom, I found a brother!"
The little blonde wonder in the snow-white dress hung on the arm of the imposing beauty.
"Where, my sweet?" She softly mumbled back, crouching down beside her.
The silver stitching of the dress touched the dust of the paved path, but the mistress of the precious garment was not concerned with material luxury - the happy smile of the green-eyed wonder was more valuable.
"Over there!" She pointed with confidence at the fence with the cupboard. She noticed her mother's gaze and hid her finger behind her back. "A grey van with a small window." The girl barely moved this time, managing to indicate the exact position with a glance and a twist of her chin.
"Amir," the lady turned her head slightly.
The brown-haired man with the short, neatly trimmed black beard bowed his head but did not budge. The five faceless, almost identical, sturdy boys in black suits ran off in the direction indicated.
"And most importantly - rah-rah! And sparks all around!" Meanwhile, the little princess hurriedly shared, throwing her arms up in the air and spinning around her mother.
The adult beauty, with a smile on her lips and a hidden longing in her eyes, was looking at the unimportant building at the edge of the clearing in the shadow of a huge circus tent. Shadows flashed under the structure, blocking all approaches and literally yanking the flimsy door open. One of the druzhina disappeared inside and reappeared a moment later - indeed, what's there to see in that nook? Sadness squeezed his heart - the vigilante shook his head negatively.
"You imagined it, sweetheart," she stroked her daughter's hair, "your little brother isn't there."
"But!" the girl frowned, but then it was as if the air had been blown out of her - she even hunched over a little. "I'll look, Mom. I'll find him!"
"You will, my dear." Mistress touched her forehead with her lips. "Would you like to go on a merry-go-round?"
"No," the princess sniffed her nose. "Shall we go home?"
"All right, but first we'll get you the tastiest ice cream!"
"That's great," she said, not happy at all, but the girl immediately corrected herself with a heartfelt, "Thank you!"
An ice cream man in a snow-white apron with a brightly colored fridge on wheels drove unobtrusively up to the couple. And inside the cooler, there was a lot!
The two adores, mature and young, walked slowly down the path towards the exit, circling the equally unhurried people, sometimes overtaking, sometimes letting themselves be overtaken. The ice cream melted slowly, in tiny pieces, in the girls' mouths. Behind them, also enjoying the ice cream, were six men, led by Amir, to whom the girl also generously bought ice cream. But they held the waffle cones more like knives, and they tore off pieces of ice cream when the girl turned to them - of course, smiling at them.
"And still he was there," the girl muttered, more out of spite as she stopped in front of the black minivan.
"It will come one day," her mother winked at her and gave her another kiss - on her adorable nose. "You're bound to find him."
"Yeah," the princess nodded sourly, glanced in the direction of the park behind her, stepped resolutely towards the car (the door slid aside as if by magic), looked at a dozen toys neatly strapped in her seatbelt, and clung to a large plush rabbit.
"Amir..."
Uncle Amir gently pulled the girl aside and handed her the angular toy with a sincere smile.
"Thank you!"
The princess as suddenly as bloomed a smile, froze, closed her eyes, and lost any emotion at all - as if she were asleep without dreaming. When she opened her eyes, she looked around carefully, stepped resolutely to the bench near the entrance, and hid the toy in the bushes behind her.
"It's for my brother!" The young adorable girl stated categorically.
"Good," her mother smiled sadly. "Amir, let's go."
The princess immediately flew up to the man and demandingly extended her arms towards him, remembering to smile shyly and coyly.
"Amir..." the older mistress snarled, but he was already circling the happily squealing brat in his arms and then just as deftly placing her in the minivan seat, fastening the strap.
It was as if the car had come to life: a second ago, there was no movement, and now two beautiful nannies were already grooming the young mistress, changing her shoes for soft slippers, wiping off the soiled cheeks. However, they did it silently and not touching, warily looking at the swarthy man near the car. Uncle Amir did not tolerate this kind of tenderness to the future warrior of the clan. And he did not care that the warrior was nine years old! But all their grumblings nannies wisely kept to themselves.
The door slammed shut, cutting off the young wonder with inches of enchanted steel and glass from adult concerns. The minivan blasted quietly with, giving way to a long cigar limousine - for the mother of the mistress and her companion. As soon as the doors slammed shut, a kind of magic literally shackled the park's visitors - couples, family groups, and lonely romantics suddenly lost interest in their activities, cages with wondrous beasts and rides, took on a detached and focused expression, threw candy and ice cream, books and tickets into the bins and headed for the exit. Clerks and ticket takers carefully stripped off their uniforms and threw matching jackets over their shoulders. The branches on the trees trembled, shaking humanoid clusters of leaves and twigs with long and heavy rifles to the foot.
In five minutes, most of the people had disappeared from the park - not into thin air, but into a dozen black cars that were loaded into a long black arrow of a mile-long motorcade. At the tip of that arrow, two turbocharged jeeps with oblique blades of blades were driving off to the side of the road to the roar of sirens everything that dared to come out to meet the head cars or was standing too close to the road. The prince of these parts would clearly not be pleased. That they had been to his town but hadn't come to visit, of course.
Driving fast is still waiting. And waiting and silence produce a conversation.
"I'm afraid for Ksyusha. It's like some kind of mania already. She's pointing her finger at the sky, and we're hurtling to the edge of the world," she said, looking out at the city flying by outside the window.
"Just once a month," Amir clarified as he looked at the other side of the city. "The princess benefits from new experiences, new places."
His voice sounded completely without any accent, low, with slight hoarseness, without any rush. It was easy to listen and lose the fervor.
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"But she is suffering!"
"We are all grieving," diplomatically replied the man, who cannot be called the Head of Security but whose life's work is to guard the princess.
On the one hand, it allowed you to say anything. On the other, it was better to protect those who were inclined to believe you, trust you and treat you well.
"Except for that b-bastard," the lady began to turn on him.
"Your husband wished the best for the Clan and the Family." Amir knew the words to say, which he would say not for the first time.
"Ex! Ex-husband!" The woman says it as if she were spitting.
"Raising an Oracle is always a pain and a search. The way you were brought up, Lady."
"My mother was taken from me!" The angry-beautiful Fury hissed in a silent rage.
"And you found her," the princess's bodyguard shrugged.
"At sixteen! All that time I grew up among...! " The lady interrupted the angry retort and regained her sweet, slightly distracted appearance in a moment. "I can't let that happen to Ksenia."
You don't want to lose influence over your daughter, remained unspoken by the man's lips.
"I'm sure the princess will find her brother very quickly," Amir said instead. "She already knows he's alive. She can see the images around her."
"Images with no date, fragments of places scattered around the world? What do you think my son will become? A traveler? Or an illiterate penniless tumbleweed?!"
"It means that your son will live a long life. Rejoice and give thanks to the Almighty."
"Would that life be happy? I would feel more secure if the boy was in care," the lady whispered.
There was silence in response. Because both Amir and the Lady knew that if they were concerned about the child's safety, the future Oracle would simply come up and ask why they were hiding her beloved little brother from her. And she would not search, straining the power of her gift, subjecting it to her will, putting it at her service - to herself and to the Clan.
It is an arduous path, thorny and painful to acquire the gift. Only through pain and anguish and grief for the native blood can it be nurtured. Tricks and stratagems will not help. The gift will follow the native blood to the very beginning of the story and reveal falsehood. But the prize is enormous. To fly like a bird over the canvas of history, looking beyond the horizon, tracing the threads of any person's life... Many would like this power - that only the Vedeneevs' female line passed down, making its way only to the one of a whole generation - and then not everyone.
Ten years ago, Kseniya's mother was sold to another clan. The elder sees the deal as a bargain - too weak was a gift from the youngest princess of the clan. She hated her family too much to stay with them under the same roof. Too many bad things had happened in sixteen years of pointless attempts to awaken talent. Too much envy was in the eyes of her siblings and cousins. Too much of that 'too much' for a fragile girl - for her misfortune, also of unearthly beauty.
The Vedeneevs decided that such a weakling had no chance of continuing the gift - all the more so for the second generation in a row. Which did not stop them from taking a truly royal payoff and at the same time dumping the unloved blood.
Sophia was not even sold as a wife - just another clan trying to work out the miracle of God's providence. The papers listed "genetic material - one unit", and taxes were even paid on the amount of the contract...
But then something happened that very rarely happens to business people. The head of the buying clan, inspecting the young and proud acquisition for the first time - mainly to see for himself what the annual budget had cost him - fell in love. Generally, people of this magnitude have no such disadvantage, preferring to act on the basis of expediency and a business plan, but here the scythe found the stone.
Because it is hard to ignore prophecy - especially when it is uttered by an authentic (three thousand-page report, a hundred pages of opinion, six pages of analysis, the treasurer's visa: "Take it") oracle. Sophia foretold that she would bear him a child of whom he would be proud.
Promises are not to be believed, but what is one to do when confronted with the truth - especially such truth? Something clicked in the head, winding the springs of an ancient mechanism from the caveman age - and the emotionless monster-man 'succumbed'.
A year later, a daughter was born. By that time, only the genetics department was grieving about the reason for acquiring the girl, but, out of a sense of self-preservation, did not even remind superiors about the planned research program (love was not in the plans there, they do not do that with their lovers). The treasurer was quietly drinking his collection wine, scribbling some awkward verses on a sheet of paper - his mind, trying to combine the sum of money and the word "love", was doing strange things to the hardened cynic.
And the couple just enjoyed life, forgetting about boring genetics, so much so that Kseniya's gift would probably have been missed by the young parents, if only... If the young child had not guessed already in the first months of life, in which hand a toy, who is at the door (happy oohing - daddy has come) when the nasty doctor with the cold stethoscope will come (crawling under the blanket).
Truly, great joy came to their family, to their lineage. And her husband seemed to have abandoned his other wives (alas, politics) for her alone and literally did not leave his bed, showering her with attention and gifts. With what delight, two months later, she told her husband what they both already knew from the maternity doctor - a son!
And the maelstrom of elation and family happiness was repeated again. Until, during labor contractions, something completely incomprehensible happened. Instead of a maternity hospital - a grey hulk of an airplane stuffed with devices, loss of consciousness, birth in a decrepit ward, congratulations from kind grey eyes behind a green mask, a pleasant heaviness of a crying newborn in my arms. And the darkness, dispelled already in the familiar bedroom, in Moscow.
When she found out what her husband had done... she screamed so loud!
"The prophecy has come true," the husband smiled sadly, contemplating unmovingly the frenzy of a mother who had lost her son.
She tore half the house apart. She scratched his face ("virtuoso"!)... And then apathy set in... And only the ray of sunshine - her daughter - warmed her heart and soul. The lady was no fool, so the line managed not to cross, which allowed her to stay near her daughter and not in the street... and not underground. Sophia didn't want influence and power. She just wanted to be there for her. Because if she even tried to control Kseniya, turn her against her father, or bind her to herself, she would immediately be removed from the clan's future weapons.
"Master has sent a plane for you." His voice distracted her from her own thoughts. Indeed, 'Master' was much better than 'husband'.
"With Mistratov?" The beauty grimaced like a toothache.
Beauty and power in this world must have a master. Before, it was the in-laws, then the husband. Now the genetics department was timidly pushing through its candidates - thankfully very timidly indeed, humbly hoping for reciprocal affection. Not out of great romance - the master commanded it.
He had a sense of gratitude - otherwise, she would have borne children to the end of her days without seeing her daughter at all. But that could all change - if she meddled in the search with her gift or if she prevented her daughter from finding her power. And she longed to catch at least a glimpse of his image - a photograph in a document, a reflection in a mirror, in a window or a puddle, at least something! Not commanded - it is easier for a daughter's gift to consider an image from the future that her mother found than to find and hold her own...
"The master is concerned for your safety."
"Better by machine than with that asshole," the lady rubbed her temples tiredly.
Alas, great strength sometimes does not mean a sharp mind - and so a certain Mistratov, a 'Teacher' of the air element, considered the words of the genetics department not as a hint but as a direct invitation to play the role of a breeding bull. And simple words and explanations did not help at all.
"Not allowed," Amir said, drawing a line under the argument. The line beyond which a woman is not allowed to discuss the deeds of the men of the clan.
The private airfield appeared a dozen minutes later - with only one plane on the runway. They were waiting at the gangway - and, judging by the lady's facial expression. There was someone she did not want to see at all. However, once the lady was out the door, no one would have guessed that Ice Perfect was capable of experiencing emotion. And how could the animated soul of ice and silver give birth to such an immediate and agile child? The princess behaved as befits the knowledge imparted to her by her teachers of manners, but... Uncle Amir was there, so it was allowed to make a little mischief - among their own people. Those who wished to comment should have asked themselves first - how long would they survive against a 'Master' who had caught the threat for the target? That's it.
"Sonia, you are as charming as ever!" A very tall man in a co-pilot's uniform came out of the crowd and twirled the tip of his mustache. "And I have some champagne for you. And two glasses!"
Seeing that the Ice Queen was about to pass quietly by, Mistratov stepped towards her, but the lady moved sharply towards him, waving her hand.
An elongated fingernail with a swollen yellow droplet at the end hovered in front of his eye.
"Do you want me to tell you how you're going to die?"
The warrior slowly stepped aside, letting her pass.
"W-witch," he glanced angrily at the two ladies as they came up the gangway.
The little figure froze and slowly turned around.
"My brother will punish you," the little princess exhaled.
Mistratov recoiled, but almost immediately it was as if he had run into a wall.
"I'm not a brother, of course, but..." Amir whispered in his ear deliberately nonchalantly.
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Chapter 8
Power and Ice cream