The room dissolved into panic. Guests shouted, shoving each other to get to the exits. A Lyrikan fell. A server dropped a tray of burning blue drinks.
Tarsus roared, “Secure the perimeter! Find out what that breach is!”
His entire security team, weapons drawn, formed a protective circle around him. Their focus was absolute, not on a social rival, but on the very real, very physical threat of a containment breach in his priceless collection.
I pulled my hand back. The components were gone, fused into the port. I’d have to thank Renna. If I ever saw her again.
I looked across the chaos. Through the flashing red lights and the panicked crowd, I saw Brevan.
He was looking right at me. He wasn’t panicked. He understood.
He turned and melted into the shadows of the exit corridor, walking away while every guard in the room was looking the other way.
He was gone.
The alarms continued for another thirty seconds, long enough for Brevan to be clear of the office wing. Then, as suddenly as they started, they cut off.
The main lights flickered back on. Dim, but functional. The red strobes died.
The room was a mess. Overturned chairs. Spilled drinks. Crying guests.
Tarsus stood in the center of it all. His face was beyond fury. He was perfectly, terribly calm. His security detail was already moving through the crowd, restoring order.
“A false alarm,” Tarsus announced, his voice carrying over the murmuring. “A minor system glitch. Please, everyone, return to your drinks. The staff will... clean this.”
He turned. His security team was already reassuming its positions. The crisis was over.
He scanned the room. His eyes passed over Valerius. Over the other guests.
Then they landed on me.
BREVAN
The office door’s locking mechanism was sophisticated, but not designed to stop someone like me. It was built to keep out staff, not a specialist. The slicer spike slid into the access port, fed it junk data for three seconds, and the lock clicked open.
I slipped inside and sealed the door, engaging the lock from the inside.
Tarsus’s office was exactly as advertised. Expensive. Ostentatious. And, just as Carys had predicted, the obsidian sculpture was sitting right on his desk.
It wasn’t under glass. It wasn’t in a vault. It was just... there. Displayed on a simple velvet cloth, the centerpiece of his private collection. The ultimate flex of power. He felt so secure in his own villa that he didn’t even need to protect it.
Thal’reth female figure. Forty centimeters. Fourth Dynasty period.
And hollowed out to hide the fourth Regalia.
I’d memorized every detail from Varrick’s intel. The smooth curves of the stone. The delicate features preserved across centuries.
I moved to the desk and pulled the padding from my jacket pocket. My pulse beat steadily. The chaos from the ballroom was a distant, muted roar. Carys had done her job perfectly. Now I had to do mine.
I carefully lifted the sculpture. The obsidian felt heavier than it looked, and cold. I wrapped it in three layers of impact-resistant padding, sealed it, and tucked it into the interior pocket I’d had custom-made for this.
The mission was complete. The sculpture was secure.
But standing in Tarsus’s office, holding the thing he’d murdered for, I felt something shift in my chest. This wasn’t just another artifact. This was justice. Payment for the Sovereign’s death. Proof that the Conclave’s careful plans could be torn apart by people they’d dismissed as irrelevant.
Now came the tricky part. Getting out.
I moved back to the door. I couldn’t just walk out. I needed to reset the lock, make it look like I’d never been here. Give us time to get off-planet.
