The Geiger counter clicks softly. The man steps forward through the falling ash and snow. There is barely anything visible but he must be on the right track. Has to be. The gray thing crunches underfoot. He can hear only his labored breath through the gas mask. He readjusts the one on the child in his arms. His arms are tired. He’s exhausted. He’s almost there. It has to work.

The child doesn’t react. His heart skips a beat.

“Hey. Hey, Elsa?”

He shakes her. She winces. She’s too thin. He has nothing left but he has a little more time. Surely, he has a little more time.

Sheer adrenaline pushes him up in the infinite gray expanse, the blur of that false snow. He knows what the silence means. His brain screams it but his heart refuses it. The slope goes up and up. He cannot give up. Elsa is still breathing. She doesn’t look like she’ll do so for very long.

He reaches a plateau. He finds the evac point. There are tents. A helicopter pad. Cots and barb wires and a guard post. They are all empty. They are all unmoving. Not a soul remains.

With a supreme effort, he walks up to the pad and wipes gray muck off the plastic panel. It shows the evac schedule. The last entry was meant to be today. It is barred with a black marker.

The man’s breath slows down as the seconds pass. He breathes in deep and every time, it sounds like he’s pushing a scream away.

The man walks around for another few minutes before he gives up. As gently as he can, he places his daughter on a picnic table. He wipes it first. It doesn’t matter but he still does it. There is a sheet of something with a shiny side on the ground at his feet. He shakes the dirt off and places it over her thin frame.

That’s it, really.

Fucking shame.

The man grabs for his side holster. There is a stubby thirty-eight there. Four bullets left. He bought it for home defense. Slowly, he places it on the table. Snow lands on the matte, pristine surface. He doesn’t have the courage yet. Elsa is still breathing. He wonders if she’s suffering at all. Maybe she is and he’s just being a damn coward.

The man waits while the snow continues unabated. He is lost. So very lost.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Elsa.”

Can’t cry now. Can’t do it first. Can’t break down.

He finally notices a woman standing a little away. She wears an elaborate azure dress. The filthy snow does not seem to touch her. She does not move.

Maybe he’s lost it already.

“Hello. Are you Death?”

“Not to you,” the woman replies.

He doesn’t understand.

An engine roars. A block, beetle-like object the size of a semi lands on the helipad a moment later. People in full black armor and full masks rush out. He is, for the first time in days, feeling hope. One of the soldiers plops in front of him. A light is shoved in his face.

“Can you talk, sir?”

“My… my daughter.”

“Ok, we got you guys. I’m going to give you something that will help, alright? Then you’ll need to come with us.”

“Sure, but Elsa—”

Something cold pinches his arm. Hot energy bursts through his veins. He suddenly feels awake. Alert. Lucid enough to see three other soldiers around Elsa.

“She’s critical. Three CCs of manadrene to stabilize then we need to get back. Milady?”

“You may go first. I will fly back.”

“Come on, let’s move.”

The soldiers pick Elsa though the father protests. He is ignored. That is fine. Elsa is breathing. He can see her chest rise.

The blonde woman stays behind. She watches the gunship lift and leave. She saved one more person. She wonders if it will make a difference. She wonders why she does not seem to care.

The woman takes a few steps through her domain, ending miles and miles away from the evac point. She now stands in a secluded valley seemingly untouched by the desolation. Green grass covers every slope under a grimy sky. She moves to a tree of incredible proportions reaching up. It already approaches the size of a redwood yet still bears the shape of a sapling. Cobalt leaves struggle to bring life back into a dying world.

The sovereign uses a claw to open her vein, She places a hand against the bark, which shudders. The blood print left behind is absorbed.

“Grow, my little World Tree. Grow.”

The World Tree hears High Likaean and it obeys.

***

“We have lost contact with the Midwest enclave.”

The president sighed. It was cold in the tiny chapel, deep below the earth. His aide shuffled back and soon left when he did not react. The president knew what he had to do. He had to walk to the command room, ask questions, call a meeting and discuss the same option he had discussed over the past three days with the same people to reach the same conclusion that there was nothing they could do. They could not go out. They could not even climb to the top of the mountain to verify the state of their receiver.

As safe as they were down here, they were trapped as well. To open the vault was to waste the efforts made to enforce secrecy. It was to expose thousands of America’s brightest minds to retaliation by those who had survived the first blasts, and there were still many. Who knew how many silos still waited out there, ready to spit their payload at the first sign of surviving authorities? He could not risk it.

So the man sighed.

The chapel was peaceful. He only had his armored bodyguard with him as well as a secret service escort. No one else. He’d been told the place was necessary to keep the vampires at bay and he believed it but he also didn’t feel like praying much. One of the world’s greatest nations had been destroyed under his watch. Oh, they would rebuild. Probably. He would be long dead by then, away to join the hundreds of millions of his constituents who had died in the atomic fires and the aftermath. He was one of the greatest failures in the history of leadership. He wondered if there was a hell.

He was in the middle of yet another sigh when a tube of stone came crashing down the pews, shattering the wood with a dreadful crack. Dust filled the air. He was deafened.

Someone was screaming. Someone else grabbed him under the arm and pulled him away. The bodyguard in his enchanted armor.

The secret services were shooting at something. In this enclosed space the quick detonations hurt his ears something fierce. He pushed his hands to protect them by instinct. He saw a man fall, an icicle plunged in their eye socket.

Holy shit, they were under attack?

They were under attack!

HE was under attack!

Scrambling, he finally remembered to use his damn legs to help the bodyguard but the man turned away. Something plinked against his armor. The president looked back. His escort was dead.

The dust settled, revealing a woman in close-fitting black armor. Cold gray eyes watched him impassively. She seemed so calm after all this carnage. Blood had spilled everywhere.

The bodyguard whipped out a gun and shot but the bullet only found a shaky mirage that disappeared in a blur of cold light. More bullets pinged on his armor. He was fighting and pushing the president towards the heavy door at the same time. The president just let the bodyguard guide him. But then, there was no door, just the focused gray eyes.

The woman came from nowhere. She placed her hands around the bodyguard’s gorget. Her eyes turned black as the abyss and the president felt an unending, unfathomable and deep love coming from her. All would return to the cold embrace, eventually. Winter loved him. Winter would sing him back to sleep. Sleep…

“Not you,” the woman said.

The gate was held by a spell. The bodyguard stood, frozen solid and dressed in blue stalactites. The president felt lost.

Someone took his hand, gently guiding him to the altar.

“It’s been difficult.”

Well, obviously.

“You must be tired, depressed. Guilty.”

“Yes…” the president whispered.

“I do not blame you. You did not fire the first missiles. You did not make it happen.”

“I could have done more. Should have done more. I should have built more shelters for all those poor people” he commiserated.

“Yes, I agree. But you can still make a difference.”

He lay down on the altar as directed.

“I can?”

“Yes, you can. Close your eyes.”

“Alright.”

Something plunged in his chest. He felt a foreign object but it didn’t hurt, and then, he died.

***

Constance stepped away from the body. The chapel was desecrated. The protections fell.

Ariane moved in. A curtain of thorns appeared, then parted to let through a squad of heavily armored soldiers behind a man in strange armor wielding two sabers. He had a rifle strapped to his back. He stepped forward.

“Mistress. Please. Let me.”

Constance did not react when Ariane made Micah wait a little. The two knew the young Courtier had trained as much as he could. He was ready.

Ariane nodded, just as Constance expected. The newest Devourer practically vibrated with excitement. Constance could practically see the map of the complex unfold in his eager mind. He did love a good puzzle. The squad left.

“What of the civilians?” Constance asked.

“There are many scientists there. They can be put to good use. You could have spared this one,” she said, nodding at the altar. “He had much knowledge.”

“You already ate the vice-president.”

“Even so. Just admit you wanted to kill him yourself.”

“I will, of course, admit to nothing.”

The pair smiled with the familiarity of old partners in crime. Constance still felt a distance. A turmoil.

“You’re doing it, aren’t you?” she finally asked.

“Yes. I need time to digest everything, understand what I have become. We have cleared most of the old world’s hidden bases. Our government is stable. Almost half of the continent is already under our control. The World Tree is healing the planet. Everything is fine for now. I will sleep until needed or until I believe myself in full control. Loth has almost finished setting up everything.”

“And us? What will we do?”

“Rebuild. Expand. And do not die.”

“And no pigs on fire.”

Despite her power, it was still fun to watch Ariane check her angles. The thorns bristled in the far wall.

“I should have just let the whole accursed species go extinct.”