All Chapters of Hidden Fire in the Snow: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The palace was now glowing with light, yet beneath that brilliance there lingered a strange, chilling coldness. Every golden carving on the walls seemed to mock me. Gurudev, now dressed in royal attire, stood with his head bowed. But the cunning look in his eyes had not changed. I stood at the top of the stairs and looked down at my royal garments. A diamond ring glittered on my hand, and a blue-stone locket hung around my neck. Everything was there—but inside me there was only a deep, crushing fear. “As queen, your first duty will be to sit upon the royal throne, Your Majesty,” Gurudev said. His voice was far more solemn than before. “That throne, forged with the blood of the Moreno lineage, has been thirsty for your touch for decades.” Slowly, I began descending toward the grand hall. With every step I felt as though thousands of suppressed sighs were buried beneath the carpet. At the far end of the hall, upon a raised platform, stood the enormous throne. It was not made

The color of the sky had then turned red like blood. The roar of the clouds sounded like the beating of some ancient drum. When Sophia raised her hand and commanded those giant mechanical birds, the entire palace area shook with a tremendous flap of wings. Those birds were not ordinary creatures; they were a special type of bio-mechanical drones created by the royal lineage, each of whose wings was sharp like steel.From a distance I saw that those mechanical birds had darkened the sky and surrounded my father’s helicopter. When the pilots of the helicopter realized that they were surrounded from all sides, they started firing randomly. But my birds were so swift that none of the bullets touched them. They began attacking the propellers of the helicopter together. Just as I wanted—the helicopter was not completely destroyed; instead its wings were broken and it lost control and was forced to crash onto a sloping place in the forest.Below, my father’s huge convoy of vehicles was t

Breaking the silence of the night, only the sound of crickets can now be heard in the forests of Quebec. In the distance, the blue flames of that palace fire are slowly beginning to fade. I am sitting on the grass, and beside me lies little Sofia, unconscious. Lucas—my familiar Lucas, yet in such an unfamiliar form—stands in front of me. His mechanical wings are now folded and merged with his back, but a faint blue glow is still flowing across his entire body.I keep staring at him in fear and amazement. He slowly walks toward me. With every step he takes, a kind of electric spark forms on the grass. He comes in front of me and kneels down. I try to move a little backward, but the gaze of his deep blue eyes stops me. Those eyes are still just as magical as before—the same eyes that once made me love him even after losing everything.“Sofia…” he calls. In his mechanical voice, the metallic harshness is gone, and instead a kind of softness has returned. “Don’t be afraid. I am still y

The red laser beam pierced the middle of Lucas’s chest, and a terrible mechanical scream echoed throughout the bunker. The blue glow of his body faded instantly and turned into a dark gray color. Lucas lost his balance and crashed against the wall. His huge wings collapsed onto the floor, like the final twitch of an injured bird.“Lucas!” I screamed and tried to run toward him, but Aunt pressed her laser gun against my forehead. The smile on her burned face looked more terrifying than fire itself.“Don’t take another step, Sophia!” Aunt roared. “I want that blue liquid of yours. That is the thousand-year accumulated life force of the Moreno bloodline. Rohing Singh was a fool; he truly loved you. But me? I only used you for this very moment.”I stared at her in shock. The woman who had protected me like a mother, whose tears I believed to be real—today she was about to become the murderer of my husband. My hatred began burning like fire.Lucas, lying on the floor, trembling in pain, s

When my tears fell on that child’s forehead, the entire atmosphere of the island seemed to freeze in an instant. A dark smoke began to come out of the child’s body. He was writhing on the ground in pain, and from his mouth came that familiar harsh scream of Gurudev. "No! These magical tears are weakening my virus! Sofia, what have you done?Throwing away the sword, I ran toward my child. Lucas somehow got up from the wall and stood beside me. With his mechanical hand, he gripped my shoulder. Both of us saw that from the form of that small child, Gurudev’s digital soul was trying to come out."Lucas, save him!" I screamed. "Free our child from this monster!"Lucas placed his right hand on the child’s chest. From his fingers, the blue data cables came out again and connected with the child’s nervous system. Lucas’s face was turning blue with pain. He had begun a direct fight with Gurudev’s powerful digital virus. The fans of his mechanical body were spinning loudly, sparks of fire wer