Chapter 6 Orders From Distant Lands

• There were no snow-dusted borders here, no frostbitten winds or frozen lakes beyond the mountains. This country was warm, wrapped in sun and sea and salt-streaked air. Winter existed only as a story whispered by immigrants or imagined in foreign films. No one stocked fur-lined coats here, or thermal blankets, or thick gloves capable of withstanding subzero winds. So, I had to look far beyond the horizon.
• And every delivery came with risk.
• I used my grandmother’s old network—names scribbled in fading notebooks, contacts she'd quietly maintained with healers and traders across the globe. They knew the strange markets, the hidden channels, the ways to ship things discretely through backdoors and blind hands. For the right price, anything could arrive. I paid in advance. Always. No arguments. No haggling.
• I had no room to fail.
• Most nights, I sat quietly by the front window of my mother’s city house, watching the dark street beyond. Every pair of approaching headlights made my heart skip, every engine rumble put me on edge. I couldn’t afford to draw attention—not here, not now. A snow jacket in this climate? Strange. Thermal boots, fleece-lined gloves, insulated pants? Out of place. One wrong glance, one curious neighbor, and questions would follow.? Suspicious.
• I had to move with caution. Keep everything hidden.
• So, after each delivery was dropped—always late at night, always silent—I would slip the goods into the Domain. The front door of my home would swing open for no more than ten minutes. Then the boxes would vanish, the house quiet once more. Inside the Domain, the air remained bright and gentle, like early spring. The sun never scorched, never faded too soon, and I used that eternal light to charge the panels slowly. One unit at a time.
• The winter gear—boots, parkas, thermal liners—was packed neatly in sealed trunks within the villa’s cellar, each set labeled and sized. For myself, and perhaps… a few others. If I deemed them worthy.
• Because now, I was no longer the girl who opened her doors just because someone knocked.
• The fire had made sure of that.
• The letters still came. Folded with care, some carrying the faint scent of dried lavender—plucked, perhaps, from what remained of the old village garden. They weren’t just messages. They were echoes of a life I’d left behind. Of a girl I no longer was. They asked me to come back. Pleaded, even. "Come home, child. We failed to protect what was yours, and we carry the weight of it every day." Aling Mira had written twice—her second letter shaky, the ink smudged where her hand must have trembled. She said sleep no longer came easily, not since the fire. Not since the truth settled in. Even Felix, stubborn as stone, sent a line. Blunt and spare, yet edged with something like regret: *"We misjudged. We didn’t protect you. We should have." They wrote like elders who had failed a child, like guardians who knew too late that they had left someone in the cold.
• But I did not answer.
• I had learned. Too much kindness makes you soft. Too much giving makes you empty. And when the fire came, not one of them shielded my home. They watched it burn. Some even lit the match.
• I am not my grandmother. I was raised by her, yes—with gentleness, with patience—but I was also forged in her absence. I had to survive without her. Alone.
• And now, survival would come first.
• Even if that meant saying no.
• I still helped, when I could do so without drawing attention. But those small mercies came from instinct, not obligation. They came from me, not from what others expected of me.
• Let them call me cold. Let them say I had changed.
• I had.
• That morning, I stood in the courtyard of the Domain, rolling up the sleeves of my shirt as the spring-like sun warmed my face. The newest box sat at my feet, still sealed in thick brown tape. It had come just before dawn—a quiet thud on the steps outside, no knock, no signature.
• Inside was the latest piece: reinforced steel panels for my front door. Not enough to stop a bomb, but enough to make looters hesitate.
• I ran my hands along the panel’s cold surface.
• The lake had shown me what would come. Not just ice. Not just hunger. But people—twisted by fear, stripped of civility. Killing, stealing, devouring. The threat wouldn’t be the Freeze alone. It would be what the Freeze awakened.
• There would be no one to call. No police. No guards. No sanctuaries.
• I had to make one of my own.
• At the hardware district near the heart of the city, I kept my errands brisk. Gloves. Locks. Barbed wiring for the rooftop railings. Each item paid in cash, and delivered to an abandoned bakery two blocks from my house. A teenager named Paolo—brave and easily bought—carried each parcel with a grin, no questions asked. I tipped him well. He never asked why I needed such things.
• But he noticed.
• “Miss Lucy,” he said one evening, balancing a coil of metal on one shoulder, “you building a fortress or something?”
• I smiled thinly. “Something like that.”
• “Wish I had the money to do that,” he muttered. “They say the weather’s gonna get weird. Some scientist dude said snow might fall in the north next year.”
• I paused. “Do you believe that?”
• He shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe. But my mom’s already stocking rice like it’s war again.”
• Smart woman, I thought.
• “Tell her to store water too,” I said. “And seal up the windows.”
• He grinned. “So you are building a bunker!”
• I chuckled softly, more out of nerves than amusement. “Something like that.”
• He saluted me playfully and walked off, the metal bouncing against his shoulder.
• At night, I returned to the rooftop garden. My basil had sprouted again, vibrant and fragrant. Mint ran wild in its box, and the spinach clung stubbornly to life despite the heat.
• I leaned against the rail and let my eyes drift toward the cityscape. Lights flickered across buildings like dying fireflies. Somewhere far below, a siren wailed, distant and thin. The city was shifting—nervous, restless. People were feeling it, even if they couldn’t name it.
• I could.
• The lake had shown me.
• And though I hadn’t returned to it in days, the urgency hadn’t left me.
• The anxiety coiled beneath my ribs like a sleeping snake. Silent, but alive.
• In the Domain, I sat at the edge of the lake the next night. My legs folded beneath me, my hands resting on cool grass. The stars above flickered in familiar constellations—but I no longer looked to them for answers.
• The lake held everything I needed to know.
• Still, it did not speak. Not with words.
• Only with feeling.
• A ripple against the surface.
• A tightening in my chest.
• A warning.
• I closed my eyes, trying not to beg it for more. If the vision came, it would come. If not, I would wait. And prepare.
• Silently, steadily, I whispered into the stillness.
• “I’m not ready yet. But I will be.”
• The water shimmered in response. Not a promise. Not reassurance.
• But acknowledgment.
• Three days later, another letter arrived from the village. This one was longer. A trembling hand had tried to keep the lines straight, but they slanted and bled into the edge of the page.
• Lucy,
• Please… we know we failed you. We failed her too. Your grandmother would have never let things come to this. I see that now. We were afraid.
• We still are.
• But the air here is changing. The nights are colder. The birds don’t sing like before.
• We need you.
• We’ll welcome you back. You have my word.
• —Aling Mira
• I folded the paper neatly and slid it into a drawer. I didn’t tear it. I didn’t burn it. But I didn’t write back either.
• Let them feel the weight of silence. Let them sit in the consequences of what they had done.
• I would not be their savior. Not unless they earned it.
• And even then… maybe not.
• Back on the rooftop, I fitted the last of the solar lights into place. Their glow was dim now—barely enough to light a path—but once the Freeze began, when the world dimmed, they would matter more than gold.
• I pressed my palm to the cold steel of the newly reinforced door below.
• Locked. Bolted. Watertight. Secure.
• My home was still not a fortress. But it was getting closer.
• And I—heart steeled by memory, vision sharpened by betrayal—was becoming something harder.
• Not cruel. Not ruthless.
• Just prepared.
• They would not take from me again.
• Not my house.
• Not my Sanctuary.
• Not my life.