Hanna didn't flinch; she merely rotated her wrist slightly.

  The hissing of steam turned into the cracking of ice. The bubbling soup froze mid-motion. It transformed into a monolith of gray-brown ice, from which frozen peaks of waves protruded like sharp daggers. The freezing power didn't stop at the pot. With a loud CRACK, frost raced across the polished wood of the table. White veins spread like lightning, forming complex, fractal crystalline patterns that encircled the plates and stopped just inches from Ema's hands. The air in the room cooled noticeably, and their breath began to steam.

  Ema gasped with a startled yelp. Instinctively, she wanted to jump back, knock over her chair, and run from that incomprehensible force, but Hanna caught her wrist with lightning speed.

  That touch shocked Ema more than the ice. She expected cold. She expected the deadly frost she had just seen on the table. But Hanna's hand was incredibly warm to the touch. It was soft, alive, pulsing with human heat and calm. That contrast between the visual destruction by frost and the physical feeling of safety paralyzed Ema completely.

  "You have nothing to be afraid of, dear," Hanna continued in a calm, steady voice, looking deep into Ema's dilated eyes. Her grip didn't loosen; it was the grip of an anchor in a storm. "This isn't fairy tale magic. It is a power that serves to do good. It is a gift, a responsibility handed to us by God himself long ago to keep this world in order when it begins to crumble. We call ourselves Architects. We are the ones who draw the boundaries of chaos."

  Hanna smiled, let go of Ema's hand, and the ice on the table began to melt slowly, naturally, as if it had never been there. "But we'll leave the history and theory lesson for tomorrow. It's been too much for you today. Why not use the rest of the evening to simply get to know each other better? Not as teacher and student, but as future friends."

  With a graceful movement, Hanna raised her crystal goblet of dark red wine, which looked like blood against the candlelight. "To your new life, Ema," she pronounced solemnly, raising the glass. "To finding the place where you belong. And to never, ever having to run again."

  With a trembling hand, Ema grasped her glass and clinked it against Hanna’s. The warmth of the wine immediately dulled the edges of her fear. The barriers began to fall, and Hanna transformed into the most entertaining companion Ema could have imagined. They chatted like old friends.

  About freedom: When Ema talked about skateboarding, about that feeling of flying through the city when the world around is just a blur, Hanna laughed sincerely. "That sounds so free! I almost envy you that simple joy of speed."

  About the irony of fate: "You wanted to study architecture?" Hanna remarked with an amused sparkle in her eyes. "Well, you see how ironic fate is. You will be dedicated to it after all, just on a slightly different scale. You will be designing reality itself."

  They laughed together, and Ema felt the accumulated stress washing out of her. Hanna's kindness was like a healing salve.

  When the bottles were almost empty, Hanna fell silent for a moment and stared into the void. "You know," she remarked melancholically, "in that city of yours... I was there once. Before all of this. I was there at a fair. I remember that colorful wheel, the smell of cotton candy, and that noise so full of life. It was a beautiful city, Ema. Truly beautiful."

  Ema felt a huge lump in her throat, but this time it was pure relief. For the first time since the massacre, someone confirmed that her home hadn't been just a phantom.

  "It was," Ema whispered, smiling sincerely at Hanna through her tears. "It was the best place in the world." In that moment, she felt she had found a kindred spirit in Hanna and finally found her home in this strange castle.

  When Ema went to sleep that night, her head throbbed under the onslaught of sensations, heavy wine, and fading shock. She lay in soft, fragrant duvets, her stomach full of good food for the first time in weeks, and the castle walls surrounded her like an impenetrable fortress. She should have felt like she was in a fairy tale, like a noblewoman who had finally found peace.

  But a dark, unfilled space remained in her core. Viktor.

  The thought came like a needle stab into an open wound. Where is he? Did he even survive? It was an anxiety that didn't stem only from his absence but also from her own body. Her organism, accustomed for years to a regular supply of chemicals, began to rebel. The alcohol from dinner started mixing with residual stress hormones and the absence of substances that used to keep her "afloat." She began to shake. Spots danced before her eyes, blood pulsed in her ears, and she smelled that strange metallic scent of chemical unrest. She pressed her face into the pillow to stifle a sob and fell asleep only towards morning, with the image of Viktor's indifferent yet protective eyes in her mind.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Morning woke her with the quiet rustling of fabric. A maid was already standing by the bed and, without asking, began dressing her in a dress of fine silk. Ema felt like a doll—it was comfortable, but at the same time, the total loss of autonomy chilled her.

  Heinrich was already waiting in the hallway. "Respected Miss Ema, follow me. Lady Hanna expects you."

  He led her into a monumental hall whose walls were covered with portraits and scenes that took her breath away. Hanna stood by one of them, observing the morning mist in the garden.

  "Good morning, Ema. It is time for you to understand who you truly are," Hanna began in a soft but urgent voice and motioned for her to follow deeper into the gallery.

  "We are Architects. Our power comes from God, who may have left humanity, but didn't leave us defenseless. Perhaps out of pity, perhaps to see how his creation would become independent, he divided his power into shards and placed them into the chosen ones."

  They stopped at the first pair of paintings. In one stood a man who, with a gesture of his hand, set an ancient forest ablaze to make room for fertile soil. In the other, another man with a face in ecstasy summoned rain onto parched fields.

  "Look closely," Hanna said, her finger tracing the line of flames on the canvas. "The power of an Architect is, in its essence, a gift of absolute freedom. You can do whatever you want. You can create oases or let cities burn to ash. But from this unlimited freedom flows a huge, crushing responsibility. And not everyone can bear it."

  They continued on. The atmosphere in the gallery thickened. They passed a series of darker canvases radiating aggression and chaos. Scenes depicted tribal wars where armies didn't face each other with spears, but figures surrounded by raw energy. Lightning crisscrossed the sky; the earth tore open beneath the warriors' feet.

  "It wasn't like this in the beginning," Hanna commented on the scenes with slight disdain in her voice. "Architects initially despised each other. It was an era of ego. Everyone wanted to be a god in their own little tribe; everyone wanted to grab a piece of the world for themselves. We destroyed each other, wasted the gift on petty disputes and blood feuds."

  They walked further down the long corridor, their steps echoing in a quiet rhythm off the marble floor, until Hanna stopped at a monumental canvas that seemed to radiate heat and light itself.

  "But then we understood the truth," Hanna pronounced, sacred awe ringing in her voice. She swept her hand in a grand arc toward the painting. "We understood that the greatest strength does not lie in destroying others, in that mindless dominance, but in connection. In creating something that transcends us."

  Ema saw the great pyramids of Giza, but it wasn't a view she knew from history textbooks. In the painting, a man in a white robe stood atop the unfinished structure, arms spread to the sky like the conductor of a giant orchestra. Under his hands, massive limestone blocks didn't move thanks to whips and the sweat of thousands of slaves. They floated in the air, light as feathers, and with surgical precision, in total silence, slotted into place. The sand around them swirled in perfect geometric shapes, as if nature itself danced to his tune.

  "Here, the Order was born," Hanna whispered.

  They moved to the next scene, depicting the birth of Rome. It wasn't just muddy hills and simple shepherd huts. On the canvas shone a city in bloom, where Architects in togas stood over tables with plans that literally came to life. Ema watched in fascination as aqueducts and temples rose from clay, marble, and stone under the influence of their focused will, with such perfect proportions that they seemed otherworldly.

  "Here, the first Families were formed, and with them, civilization as you know it today," Hanna continued, guiding Ema past paintings where eras of humanity alternated—Gothic, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution—always with the subtle but firm shadow of an Architect in the background. "We solidified the foundations of empires, directed the flow of rivers so they wouldn't flood cities, built a world where it is safe for ordinary people to live. That is our task, Ema. To be the invisible hand that holds the world together."

  Hanna paused for a moment and looked at her hands, as if she felt that power in them right now.

  "We can change utter trivialities—heat water for tea or summon a summer rain so the harvest doesn't perish," she said, her voice now sounding deep and serious. "But we are capable of things that ordinary people, those without our gift, consider mere legends. For them, it is magic or the intervention of gods. For us? For us, it is just a craft. We are the ones who hold the pen and write the pages of history."

  They stopped at a painting of a dragon and a giant kraken sinking a ship. "Dragons?" Ema exhaled.

  "Maybe," Hanna smiled mysteriously. "When Architects rewrite reality as part of a ritual, ordinary people forget the original state. They accept the new reality as fact. But shards of truth sometimes get stuck in their subconscious. That's how myths, plays, and dreams are born."

  Ema's breath hitched. "Did someone... rewrite my city? Is that why it ended up the way it did?"