The
echo of those who return is always present in the mind.
The door of the dacha burst open.
The night air rushed in like an icy wave, slicing through the
dense smoke that still floated inside the room. Sasha stepped out
first, almost stumbling, as if the world had suddenly changed its
gravity beneath his feet.
He struggled to breathe.
The cold of the taiga struck his face violently, but he welcomed
it. The air was clean, brutally real. No ritual smoke. No ancient
chants. Only the darkness of the forest and the immense moon
suspended above Kalmanka.
He leaned against the trunk of a birch tree.
His hands were trembling.
Not from the cold.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to erase the images that were
still pulsing inside his mind.
The steppe.
The horses.
The face of that woman.
Sora.
The name appeared again, as if someone were whispering it in the
deepest corner of his memory.
—Damn it… —he muttered.
The door creaked again.
Ksenia stepped outside slowly, still wrapped in the smell of burnt
resin. For a few seconds she remained motionless on the threshold,
watching him.
The moon illuminated her face with an almost supernatural clarity.
Sasha didn’t need to look at her to know she was there.
He could feel her.
It was a strange sensation. Familiar. As if her presence had
always existed somewhere in a forgotten corner of his life.
—Are you alright? —she finally asked.
The question sounded absurd in the silence of the forest.
Sasha let out a dry laugh.
—Alright?
He opened his eyes and turned toward her.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
—I just watched myself being pushed into a ravine in the middle
of a snowstorm… and you’re asking if I’m alright.
Ksenia did not answer immediately.
She stepped down the wooden stairs slowly until she stood in front
of him. The grass was damp with dew and the cold of the night seeped
through her bare feet.
But she barely noticed it.
Something inside her was still vibrating.
The drum.
She could still hear it, like an echo buried beneath her skin.
—I saw it too —she said quietly.
Sasha shook his head, as if trying to push the words out of
reality.
—No. You didn’t see anything. It was… suggestion. Smoke.
That damned drum. Shaman tricks.
But even as he spoke he knew he was lying.
He had felt it.
The fall.
The weight of the snow closing over his body.
The primitive terror of knowing that someone you trusted had just
decided your death.
Ksenia took another step toward him.
—And the steppe? —she asked.
Sasha remained silent.
—Was that suggestion too?
The wind passed through the forest clearing, making the tall pine
branches tremble. For a few seconds they both listened to the dark
murmur of the nocturnal taiga.
Sasha swallowed.
—That name… —he said finally.
It was difficult to pronounce.
—Sora.
Ksenia lifted her gaze.
Her eyes shone with an unsettling intensity.
—That was me.
The words hung between them.
Sasha looked at her as if he no longer recognized her.
—That’s impossible.
—I know.
—Then don’t say it.
But Ksenia shook her head softly.
—When I saw her… it wasn’t a vision. I wasn’t watching
someone else.
She placed a hand on her chest.
—It felt like remembering something that had always been here.
A shiver ran down Sasha’s spine.
—That doesn’t exist.
—Maybe not.
Ksenia looked at him steadily.
—But you felt it too.
Sasha wanted to answer.
He couldn’t.
Because at that moment an image crossed his mind again.
The warrior.
Tall.
Covered in dark furs.
His gaze fierce… and yet deeply bound to the woman standing in
front of him.
And the blue amulet shining on his chest.
Sasha looked away.
—Chinggis Yud… —he murmured almost without realizing it.
Ksenia froze.
The silence deepened.
—You saw his name too? —she asked.
Sasha didn’t answer.
Because deep down he knew the truth.
He hadn’t seen it.
He had remembered it.
Behind them, the door of the dacha slowly opened again.
Mariya appeared in the doorway.
The shaman woman seemed older than she had an hour before. The
moon traced deep lines across her face, and her dark eyes observed
them both with a mixture of compassion and gravity.
—The first memory is always the hardest —she said.
Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
—Because it breaks the life you believed you had.
Sasha turned toward her abruptly.
—What did you do to us?
Mariya shook her head slowly.
—I did nothing.
She raised her gaze toward the moon dominating the sky.
—I only opened a door that had been waiting centuries to be
opened.
Ksenia felt the air grow heavier.
—Why now?
The shaman took a few seconds before answering.
The wind stopped.
The forest seemed to listen.
—Because the earth has been awakened —she finally said.
Her eyes settled on Sasha.
—And when the ancient burial mounds are opened… the spirits
that guard them awaken as well.
Sasha felt a knot tighten in his stomach.
—The kurgan?
Mariya nodded.
—You are not the only ones who have found it.
The silence that followed was colder than the taiga air.
—Someone else is searching for what sleeps there.
Ksenia felt the echo of the drum begin to pulse again deep inside
her memory.
Mariya stepped back toward the darkness of the dacha.
—And when history awakens —she whispered—
she looked first at Ksenia, then at Sasha,
—it always tries to finish what it began.
The door slowly closed.
The forest fell silent.
But now they both knew that silence did not mean peace.
It meant waiting.
