The strategy room was tense. The holographic map of Calmarith hovered above the obsidian table, casting a blue, spectral pallor over the faces of the resistance.
The air was thick, a familiar sensation for those who fought the silent, psychic war against the King's iron grip. Every eye was fixed on the shifting, three-dimensional representation of the capital—a labyrinth of gleaming towers and shadowed slums that looked less like a city and more like a circuit board waiting to be shorted.
Eloi Raventhir looked immaculate as always, his suit pressed to razor sharpness, but there was a tightness around his eyes—faint lines etched by sleepless nights and the crushing weight of a nation's hope. They were ghosts fighting a machine, and the machine was finally starting to feel their touch.
"The Isolation Field is theoretically possible," Eloi said, his voice a low, precise instrument. He gestured to the shimmering perimeter line drawn around the capital on the map. "If Ogdi and Yleath combine their signatures at the Throne, they can invert the flow. But the backlash of sealing a nation—of essentially tearing a hole in the fabric of their reality and stitching it shut—would kill you both instantly."
"We need a capacitor," Yleath said. She was sitting on the edge of the table, her boots not quite reaching the floor, spinning a silver Calmarith coin between her fingers. The coin moved in impossible loops, obeying her gravity, not the world's. "Something to absorb the recoil."
"We have artifacts in the Vault," Kai suggested, playing with his knife, the blade flashing in the blue light. "Old relics. Cursed urns. I can dig up a dead saint's finger if that helps."
"Not strong enough," Solathe interrupted softly. Her voice, usually a soothing balm, held a rare note of finality. She stood apart from the others, a shadow in the corner, her presence radiating a calm, unshakeable power. "We need something connected to the origin of the Lattice here. Something royal. Something that carries the primal system of Oravus' structure."
Eloi sighed, the sound barely audible, and tapped a control on the table's console. The holographic map dissolved, replaced by a single, focused image that materialized in the air above the obsidian.
It was a Circlet.
But it wasn't made of the mundane gold or glittering jewels expected of royal regalia. It looked as if it were forged from solidified moonlight and deep shadows. It was a delicate, jagged band of silvery metal that seemed to shift and flow, the light bending unnaturally around its edges even in the static image. It gave the impression of liquid quicksilver held in a perfect, dangerous shape. In the center sat a single, void-black gemstone that drank the light around it, creating a point of perfect, terrifying darkness.
"This," Eloi said, his voice now imbued with a sense of reverence, "is the Crown of Silence. It was worn by the First Queen, Silena, the one who originally defined the borders of this country after spending years fighting the monsters that resided on it and humans who tried to claim their "part" of it afterward. It was designed to amplify one's control over an immense space's Lattice. But the legends say the user paid a price. Use it too long, and your mind is wiped clean. A hard reset."
Ogdi stared at it. He was the Editor, the one who could rewrite the basic structure of reality, but even the mere hologram made his skin prickle with a sense of antiquity and power. The Lattice around the image in his mind felt... heavy. Dense. It was not just an artifact, it was a node in the national consciousness.
He looked at Yleath.
She had stopped spinning the coin. It hovered frozen in mid-air. She was staring at the Circlet with an intensity that bordered on hunger. Her pupils had dilated, the nebula swirling within them expanding until her eyes were almost entirely black.
"It resonates," Yleath whispered, her voice husky, a sound of profound recognition. She reached out, her fingers brushing the hologram. "It's... quiet. Perfectly quiet."
Ogdi felt a strange pang in his chest. It wasn't the wound caused by the Exchange. It was... emotional. Unexpected.
He was, most of the time, a pragmatic creature—a planner, a cold mind who saw the world as a draft to be corrected. Yet, watching her, he felt a sudden, fierce protectiveness.
He imagined her wearing it. He saw the cold silver metal against her dark, unbound hair, the void stone resting on her forehead, an eye of perfect nothingness. He saw the chaos of her power—the constant, overwhelming noise of the universe, the millions of tangled psychic threads she heard every moment of every day—finally silenced.
The hunger in her eyes wasn't for power; it was for peace.
He felt heat rise unbidden to his cheeks. He quickly looked down at his notes, his charcoal stick moving frantically. He wasn't drawing a diagram. He was drawing the curve of the Circlet on a brow. He realized what he was doing and aggressively scribbled over it, turning it into a black smudge.
He hoped Solathe, with her unnerving empathy, hadn't caught the spike in his emotional signature.
"She would look... beautiful," he thought, the word echoing in his mind with the force of an absolute truth. "Like a Queen. The Queen."
"Where is it?" Ogdi asked, his voice a little rougher than intended.
Eloi's expression darkened, the tightness around his eyes deepening into an expression of grim frustration.
"That is the problem, Ogdi," the Prime Minister said. "It is not in the Royal Vault. The King is too paranoid. It is currently in the possession of the only man the King trusts absolutely with his life and his secrets."
The hologram changed instantly. The breathtaking, ancient power of the Circlet vanished, replaced by a human face.
It was a man who looked utterly, terrifyingly boring.
He had thinning grey hair, neat, wire-rimmed glasses perched on a small nose, and a weak chin. He wore a simple beige suit with a clip-on tie and a plain white shirt. He looked like an accountant who specialized in municipal codes. Or a librarian in a minor branch of the city library. He radiated an overwhelming sense of harmless bureaucracy.
"Valerius," Eloi named him, the tone heavy with distaste. "The Auditor."
"He looks harmless," Murik grunted from the corner. "Like a man whose biggest secret is cheating at solitaire."
"He is the most dangerous man after the King," Kai corrected. The thief's usual predatory smirk was completely gone, replaced by a look of stone-cold respect. Kai, the infiltrator who specialized in bypassing the world's most intricate security systems, rarely showed fear. "The Hollows are the King's hands. Valerius is the King's shield. He is a Nullifier."
"A Nullifier?" Ogdi asked.
"He doesn't have magic," Yleath explained, her eyes still locked on the space where the circlet had been. "He rejects it. The Lattice doesn't exist around him. If you try to cast a spell near him, it dissolves. If you try to warp time, it straightens. He is a walking dead zone."
"He keeps the Circlet in his private estate in the Gilded Sector," Eloi continued, tapping the console again, bringing up a blueprint of a heavily secured, neoclassical mansion. "He studies it. He is trying to understand how to destroy it so it can't be used against the King."
"If he destroys it," Ogdi said, "we lose our lock."
"Exactly," Eloi said. "We have a window. Valerius is hosting the Winter Solstice Gala tonight. It is his one concession to society, his one time allowing outsiders inside his shield. The estate is open to the King's elite for one evening."
"A party?" Murik groaned. "I don't own a tie. I barely own pants without holes."
"You're not going," Ogdi said, standing up. He looked at the image of Valerius. A man who negated reality. A natural counter to Ogdi's editing and Yleath's weaving.
"Kai, can you get us in?"
"I can get you invitations, security clearances, and tailored suits that won't make you look like you just crawled out of a sewer," Kai grinned, the danger returning to his eyes. "But getting into Valerius's personal vault? That's on you."
Ogdi turned to Yleath.
"We need that Circlet," he said. "For the plan."
Yleath met his gaze. The intense hunger in her eyes for a moment's peace faded, replaced by a steely, resolute determination that was far more potent.
"No," she said softly. "We need it because it belongs to me. I can feel it, Ogdi. It's crying."
Ogdi nodded, a flicker of understanding passing between them that transcended the tactical map and the military plan. He felt the weight of the mission shifting. It wasn't just a means to an end anymore; it was personal, a matter of destiny.
"Then we go get it," Ogdi said. "Tonight."
He looked at the image of the boring man in the beige suit.
"A Nullifier," Azad mused in his head. "An eraser. Be careful, boy. You cannot edit a page that refuses to be written on."
"Eloi," Ogdi commanded, his voice slipping into the Sovereign tone. "Get us the suits. Get us the maps. We are going to rob the King's right hand."
The clock had begun ticking. The Solstice Gala started at 7 PM. They had less than three hours to transform from rebel terrorists into the King's most sophisticated guests, and then, to perform the most impossible heist of their lives.