The cameras flickered just once before the blackout.
One moment, the Royal Fashion Gala was a blaze of gold and flashing lights—dignitaries in gilded corsets and neural-thread suits murmuring under chandeliers; influencers whispering about who wore which house; stylists adjusting gemstone hems with trembling fingers.
Then the next, darkness fell like a silk sheet. A collective gasp echoed. Even the LED floor beneath the runway pulsed out.
And in that instant, someone screamed.
Not the elegant kind of gasp the upper tiers were used to.
This was a shriek. Raw. Panicked.
By the time the emergency lights blazed on, the front-row audience was already standing, murmuring—half curious, half frightened. A woman in House Letalis violet lay slumped across her chair, eyes wide open, her face frozen in silent agony.
Her dress — spun from living shadow fabric — thrashed and tore itself apart in glitching spasms, shrieking through the Threadsphere before disintegrating into ash.
Someone had hacked her design. From the inside.
"Security breach in Fashion Grid," said a synthesized voice overhead. "Lockdown initiated."
Sloane Lux stood motionless on the edge of the runway, the hem of her own gown shimmering with kinetic heat, absorbing ambient fear like fuel. Her fingers clenched around the miniature shears holstered beneath her sleeve — ceremonial, but still sharp enough to skin a collarbone if necessary.
She recognized the death glitch immediately.
It wasn't just an attack.
It was a message.
And in the city of Vatra — where couture gave you power, status, and abilities — someone had just declared war in silk and blood.
---
Three hours earlier.
Sloane Lux didn't believe in destiny. Only deadlines.
She'd arrived at the Gala not to be seen — but to watch. She had no official atelier backing her, no sovereign house to sponsor her designs. Her entire outfit was forged from reclaimed scraps and engineered thread she'd coded herself on stolen time and a rented loom.
Still, she wore it like it was House-born.
A matte-black sheath of kinetic obsidian mesh that absorbed light and bled heat. A hem lined with reactive feather code. Sleeves written in grayscale glyphs only visible under ultraviolet. It wasn't just a statement. It was a threat to the hierarchy.
Sloane knew tonight would either make her — or destroy her.
And in Vatra, fashion didn't just elevate the wearer.
It armed them.
Those in House Letalis wore death-thread, which could silence opponents by compressing vocal cords remotely. House Corvara's flame-spun silk allowed its wearers to generate bursts of heat and combustion. And House Myrrh — the most coveted of all — stitched emotional mirroring into their gowns, manipulating feelings around them like puppeteers.
But Sloane?
She belonged to no one. And in a world ruled by House guilds and sponsored heirs, that made her dangerous.
Just how she liked it.
---
"Try not to burn holes through the aristocrats," murmured a voice in her earpiece.
Sloane smirked. "No promises."
Ari — her best friend and illegal tech modder — watched from the shadows of the fashion grid's lower rings. "You see the front row yet?"
She scanned the crowd.
House Myrrh's heir, Cassien Myrrh, leaned in his corner seat like he was born to brood. He was dressed in the latest empathy-weave — a suit that shimmered depending on the emotion of whoever looked at it. For her, it pulsed in midnight blue.
Grief.
How poetic.
Cassien was the son of the woman who'd ruined Sloane's mother.
He didn't know that. Not yet.
But he would.
And when he did, he'd either offer her a crown… or try to kill her.
---
Backstage, models lined up for the final walk — all of them highbloods, injected with aesthetic enhancements that made them glow under nano-light. The final collection was rumored to be built on stolen threadcode, banned tech from before the Fashion Purge.
Sloane had already infiltrated the server.
She had five minutes until the final strut. Then the full Grid would be vulnerable. For a few seconds, everything connected to the Threadsphere — every fashion weapon, every security weave, every surveillance veil — would flicker open.
That's when she'd strike.
That's when she'd plant the pattern bomb — code she'd hand-written herself, capable of unraveling any corrupted couture.
But then…
The blackout hit first.
---
Now, in the chaos after the scream, Sloane moved fast.
She flipped her hem into stealth mode — a sequence of pattern glyphs hid her from facial recognition. Her boots retracted to silent steps. She weaved through the crowd, heart thrumming, eyes locked on the front row.
The woman who'd died — she recognized her now. Lady Juna of Letalis. A rumored code broker who'd recently defected.
The message was clear: No one defects. Not without consequence.
Which meant someone else knew what Sloane had planned tonight.
Which meant she was compromised.
Cassien Myrrh was already standing. His bodyguards encircled him like wolves in glass-fibered cloaks.
His eyes locked with hers for the first time.
And in that moment — something strange happened.
His suit glitched.
Not like a normal fashion code error. No — it shimmered violently in two colors at once.
Midnight blue… and crimson.
Grief and fury. Directed only at her.
Somehow, he recognized her.
---
The crowd surged. Security drones descended. The Threadsphere flickered, disrupted by too many unauthorized designs activating at once. People were activating their abilities — small sparks and bursts of kinetic flow illuminating the Gala like an electric riot.
Sloane turned to run.
But Cassien was already in her path.
His voice was ice. "You were warned not to come here."
Her lip curled. "Funny. I don't remember asking for permission."
He grabbed her wrist — not harsh, but firm. She felt the static hum of his suit meeting hers.
Two powers. Intertwining.
"Walk with me," he murmured. "Now. Or you'll leave in a bodybag."
"Tempting," she said. "But I prefer to exit in style."
He leaned close enough to whisper: "You're not just a rogue. You're the bomb."
Sloane froze.
He knew.
He knew she was the one with the pattern bomb code.
But how?
Only two people knew.
She pulled back, eyes narrowing. "You really don't remember me, do you?"
"I remember threats," he said. "Not orphans in knockoff couture."
Something inside her cracked — then calcified.
"Oh, you'll remember me soon enough."
And with that, she activated her hem override — a pulse of light that knocked him back just enough for her to vanish into the crowd, a flickering ghost of code and vengeance.
---
Tonight was supposed to be about proving her worth.
Now it was about survival.
And if Cassien Myrrh wanted war?
She'd give him the most beautiful, blood-threaded war the Grid had ever seen.