Mireya slid her boot from carpet to marble.
Nothing.
No heel click. No cloth whisper. No breath.
Her Silence hugged close—thin, precise. A sheath, not a storm. Wide Silence drew eyes. Tight Silence let her move.
She paused at a column and loosened her grip—just a fraction—letting in one chosen sound.
A guard's breathing, down the hall. Slow. Bored. Not alarmed.
Good.
She tightened the Silence again and walked.
The Sun Palace loved spectacle. Painted ceilings. Gold leaf. Sunbursts carved into everything that would hold a blade.
Two guards on this corridor. She'd mapped them. One posted by the vault. One farther back, pretending to patrol.
Mireya didn't look at faces. She looked at hands. Belts. Keyrings.
She stopped again. Cracked the Silence.
A faint scrape.
Cloth on cloth. Someone shifting behind a door—too careful.
She adjusted her path by half a step and kept going.
The vault guard stood rigid beside a darkwood door carved with sunbursts. Young. Clean armor. Jaw clenched like he was trying to prove he belonged here.
He didn't.
Mireya slipped into the shadow across from him and opened one chosen sound.
His heartbeat.
Fast. Fast. Fast.
Not bored. Nervous.
Good. Nervous guards made mistakes.
She watched the keyring on his belt. Tucked behind a sash. Half-hidden. A small precaution.
A small insult.
She drew a wire hook from her cuff.
Step out. Calm face. Polite smile.
The guard's gaze snapped to her because he saw movement.
"Lady—"
His voice tried to exist.
Mireya pinched the sound out of his mouth. His lips kept moving. No one would notice unless they were staring at him.
His eyes widened.
She lifted her hand in a gentle gesture.
Shh.
And: Don't make this harder.
He swallowed. His eyes flicked down—spear, belt, the place he might reach if he thought he could fight.
Mireya leaned in, close enough for him to see she wasn't trembling.
She allowed one sound to exist inside the Silence—her voice. Half a second.
"Stand very still," she murmured. "Or you'll faint."
He froze.
Good boy.
The wire slid under the sash. The keyring lifted free so smoothly it was insulting.
She held it up for one heartbeat so he understood what happened.
Then she turned away.
No running. Running made guards feel useful.
She walked to the vault door like she belonged there.
Because in a way that mattered, she did.
Third key. Small. Dull. Stained at the teeth. Used often. Trusted. Neglected.
Turn.
Bolt slid.
No sound.
Inside, the air cooled. Dry. Old parchment and expensive wax.
No gold piles. No treasure. Leverage.
Boxes lined the walls, seals stamped and cataloged. In the center: a pedestal beneath a glass case that shimmered faintly in torchlight.
Warded.
The sort of ward that screamed if touched wrong.
Mireya could mute screams. She couldn't mute a magical alarm woven into protocol.
Different laws.
She knelt at the pedestal base—stone, not glass, not seal. Bare fingertips. Cold. Clean.
One… two… three.
There. A tiny raised rune. A tamper mark placed where a cleaner's cloth would glide past without snagging.
Cute.
She pulled a small vial from her sleeve. Weak tea-colored liquid. No label. No flourish.
One drop onto the rune.
The ward hiccuped. Like a throat clearing.
Mireya didn't move.
No alarm.
She waited two extra beats anyway.
Then she lifted the case.
The treaty lay on velvet: parchment edged in hammered gold, rolled around a rod capped with sunstone.
Ridiculous. Beautiful. Dangerous.
She slid it into the inner pocket stitched along her thigh. Flat. Warm.
Done.
Which meant the world would punish her for thinking it was done.
She closed the case. Wiped the rune. Glove back on.
At the door, she cracked one chosen sound—casting it down the corridor like a hook.
Not breath. Not footsteps.
Metal on metal. Controlled. A blade set against armor.
Mireya put her eye to the seam.
She didn't see the corridor.
She saw fire.
A bloom of light from the throne wing—wrong, bright, too fast. It flashed against gold leaf like sunrise thrown from a bucket.
Then—
The palace roared.
Sound slammed in as if her Silence had been torn open from the outside. Ears ringing. Teeth vibrating. Air cracking.
Not distant. Not a tremor.
A fist through the hallway.
Mireya's hand shot to the latch. Instinct screamed: Silence—now.
But Silence didn't stop impact.
A second shockwave hit.
The vault door exploded inward.
Wood shards tore through the room. Seals shattered. Wax and paper rained down.
Something clipped her temple. Stars burst. Copper flooded her mouth.
Her Silence fluttered. Thinned. Failed.
Noise rushed in—ugly and loud: screams, stone cracking, boots on debris.
Mireya pushed up, blinked hard.
Treaty still against her thigh.
Good.
Corridor: smoke, torchlight smeared, people running in every direction and none of them thinking.
A bell began to ring—sharp, rhythmic.
Not just sound. Protocol hammered into metal and magic.
Lockdown.
Of course.
Mireya snapped her Silence back into place. Not full quiet—too much chaos—but enough to muffle the world into something she could move through.
She cut left into a service corridor. Marble to worn stone. Servants ran past without seeing her. Their fear filled the air like hot oil.
The blast had been internal.
Meaning the threat was already inside the walls.
And the timing—while she was in the vault—
Not coincidence.
A figure rounded the corner ahead, moving against the flow.
Not running. Walking with purpose.
Too controlled.
Mireya flattened into the shadow of a pillar and tightened her Silence until it clung to her skin.
The figure came closer in the smoke. Hood up. Hands bare.
Mireya watched the hands.
One hand clenched something bright.
A ring.
Thick gold. Crest cut deep: a sunburst around a crown.
Royal.
Her breath hitched—once.
The hooded head tilted, as if it sensed her.
Impossible.
It stepped toward her anyway.
Mireya's fingers closed around the knife she didn't have.
Too late.
The hand lifted.
And shoved her.
Hard.
Not a warning. Not an accident.
A full-body shove that slammed Mireya into the wall as the corridor behind the figure erupted in light.
Third blast. Closer.
Heat. Pressure. Stone vibrating under her palm.
For a split second, time lagged—her mind refusing to catch up.
In that heartbeat, a word cut clean through the roar.
Too close. Too clear.
"Now."
Not panic.
A cue.
Flare-light caught the ring again—sunburst crest—before the shockwave hit and the corridor vanished into smoke.