The Capital of Solarion bloomed with firelight and false celebration.
High towers shimmered with silken banners, gold flares danced in the air like tamed stars, and wine flowed like blood across marble courtyards. Music filled every square. Nobles toasted to "Divine Order", claiming another victory—the quiet conquest of Dallis, now twisted in rumor, called a heretical stronghold of rogue magic.
They didn't know the truth.
They didn't know Vanila still lived.
And they didn't know that vengeance had already stepped through their gates.
Above the city, beneath the new moon, three masked shadows clung to the roof-spines of the palace.
Serra, her body laced with reflective crystal veins, wore a curved, opal mask with mirrored slits for eyes.
Kael, robed in ink-threaded shadow, bore a porcelain mask half-painted with tears and half with a smirk.
Caldreth, the exile, wore a blank obsidian mask—a face with no identity, only intent.
Each wore Shadow Cloaks, stitched from the skins of Nightwings, woven with mirage runes—invisible to sight, heat, and sound.
They moved like falling smoke.
The Break-In
They slid down the back tower wall, bypassed aether wards with Caldreth's sigil disruptors, and used Serra's refracted illusions to bend the light away from their bodies.
Within moments, they were deep inside the treasure vault of the palace, where the royal court hoarded stolen god relics, arcane contracts, and forbidden artifacts.
The air was thick with mana and pride.
Serra touched the wall, and her veins flared with Glassblood light.
Cracks spread across every surface.Every gem, every coin, every enchanted seal—fractured.
In seconds, the entire chamber was encased in razor-thin crystalline webs, each thread a mirror blade vibrating on her command.
"No one moves," Serra whispered. "Or they'll bleed on their own reflections."
They bypassed the treasures of kings. The false tomes. The relics still weeping with stolen divine energy.
And found it.
A sliver of Vanila's crest.Still pulsing. Still alive.Locked in a prism cage.
They took it. They didn't speak. Only ran.
The Escape
Kael was the last to leave the vault, but not before leaving ink traps behind—each one drawn with blood and emotion, charged with his rage and his grief. When Solarion guards rushed into the chamber, their armor cracked open like rotten fruit, overwhelmed by Kael's empathic ink sigils—Truthbreaking Runes that shattered their will to fight.
"Let them wear their shame," Kael muttered.
As they rose to the rooftops once more, explosions echoed behind them. The vault ignited. Flames danced in the towers, consuming greed and golden pride.
Below, nobles screamed. Guards scrambled. The celebration turned to chaos.
And on the tallest spire, the three stood together, wind howling behind them.
Their masks glowed faintly.Their cloaks rippled like dying prayers.And for a moment, they were myths.
Return to Refuge
By morning, they were back in Caldreth's canyon.
The crest shard sat on the table—still warm, humming with the heartbeat of Vanila. Serra collapsed onto a cot, her eyes still glowing faintly with glassfire. Kael cleaned the ink from his hands in silence.
But they didn't rest long.
Because they hadn't just stolen treasure.
They'd taken a prisoner.
A Solarion prison warden, gagged, chained, and locked in a resonance circle, now knelt before Caldreth's cold gaze.
Serra cracked her knuckles.
Kael inked a glyph of confession behind the man's back.
And Caldreth leaned in, mask off now, eyes sharp and empty:
"Tell us where they've put Vanila.""Tell us where the time chamber sleeps.""Or I let the girl behind me make you bleed memories through glass."
The warden trembled.
"B-Beneath the royal observatory," he choked out. "The chamber was buried in the old catacombs… sealed in a slowfold pocket. Only the king's timekey can break it…"
He began to cry.
Serra didn't blink.
Now they had the location.Now they had the shard.Now they had the fire.
The next step would not be a raid.
It would be a rescue.Or a war.