Nova and Anna slipped into the narrow service corridor, the faint hum of machinery echoing around them. As predicted, the path had been smooth—uncannily so.
No alarms. No patrols. No activated caras.
Anna glanced sideways at him, still catching her breath.
"I can’t believe that worked."
Nova didn’t respond, but the faint glow of residual Aether flickered across his fingertips. He had disabled every surveillance system they passed, cloaking their movent in seamless shadows.
When they’d run into the occasional guard, Nova had taken each one out before they’d even registered a threat. Quick. Silent. Precise.
Anna had watched it all with a mix of awe and disbelief.
"If you’d been on our side during the war, we probably wouldn’t have lost our territory. Or anything else, for that matter."
She murmured.
Nova kept walking, his steps quiet.
"Save your gratitude. You’ll have plenty of chances to repay it."
Anna didn’t argue. Her heart was still hamring from how clean everything had gone.
They turned the corner near the auction wing, dim light spilling into the corridor through a vented panel. Nova held up a hand. Anna stopped imdiately.
From around the bend, soft footsteps.
Voices.
Nova closed his eyes for a second, pulsing Aether through his ears, heightening the sensitivity.
"They said this is the last batch, right?"
One voice muttered.
"Yeah. We get this to the prep room and we’re done for the night. Just in ti, too. The client list for this auction’s looking heavy."
Another replied.
"Don’t drop anything. You rember what happened to Marvik when he mishandled that shard?"
"Yeah. Didn’t even get a grave."
Nova opened his eyes.
"Auction goods."
He said simply.
Anna stepped closer, whispering.
"If these are the final boxes, the master key could be with them."
"Or already inside."
Nova raised a hand, channeled a quick stream of Aether into the corridor’s lighting system. A second later, the overhead lights shorted out. The passage went dark.
The guards reacted instantly, fumbling to get flashlights and activate their visors.
They never got the chance.
Nova surged forward, faster than their eyes could adapt.
One hand clamped a guard’s mouth shut while his knee crushed the air from the man’s lungs. The next went down to a sharp strike to the neck, then another to the ribs. Every movent was efficient—no wasted motion, no sound.
Anna stayed in the shadows, watching with tight focus as Nova dropped the last of the guards, catching the man mid-fall and laying him down with quiet precision.
She stepped up beside him and knelt to check pulses.
"They’re alive. But we can’t hurt them too badly. Auction security’s got bio-sensors. If any of them flatline, the whole place will go on alert."
She confird.
Nova didn’t look pleased, but he nodded.
"Noted."
They turned to the boxes the guards had been carrying—four in total, each sealed with security bands.
Nova ran his hand along the side of one, letting his Aether seep through. Nothing stood out. He opened them one by one—scrolls, relics, containnt units glowing with faint power.
No master key.
Anna cursed under her breath.
"It’s not here."
Nova’s jaw tightened.
"That ans it’s already been taken in."
"We’re out of ti."
Nova shut the last crate and straightened.
"Then we go inside."
Nova and Anna crouched behind a slatted wall panel in the narrow servant corridor, the auction house visible through the thin vertical vents in front of them.
From their vantage point, they could see the elevated auction platform, the velvet-lined displays, and the crowd of buyers seated in crescent rows of plush chairs.
Sowhere above, the announcer’s voice echoed through the chamber with a practiced lilt.
"It’s already started. We’re cutting it close."
Anna whispered, watching the bidding board flash with numbers.
Nova’s eyes weren’t on the bidders.
His attention was locked on the center platform—on the small obsidian case secured in a multi-locked fra.
There was no mistaking it. The master key. Thin trails of Aether still clung to it, likely residual charge from whoever had moved it last.
"That’s the one."
Nova said.
Anna leaned in.
"It’s right in the center. No cover. No shadows. How do you—"
"Get ready to run."
She blinked.
"What?"
"When the lights go out, we leave fast."
Nova said flatly,
Without another word, he reached forward, extended his fingers toward the air vent, and pulsed Aether outward.
The effect wasn’t explosive—it was clean, controlled, and absolute. The light fixtures in the auction hall sparked, then died.
The displays shut off, the shimring walls of the platform faded, and the entire room plunged into a heavy, unnatural black.
Gasps erupted imdiately. Chairs scraped. Soone shouted. Then more voices joined in. Devices clicked on, glowpanels flickered—and failed.
Nova’s Aether blocked them all.
In the total darkness, the panic spread like wildfire.
Before anyone could orient themselves, Nova moved.
His body flickered as he accelerated forward, Aether pulsing beneath his skin. One step into the auction chamber.
Then another. In an instant, he was on the stage, invisible to the scrambling crowd.
His hands moved quickly.
First, he snatched the obsidian case—the master key. Then, just as smoothly, he swept up several other bags and display pieces, throwing them over his shoulder.
The noise would make them believe it was a broad robbery. Let them wonder what he really wanted.
He was gone again before anyone realized soone had been there at all.
Back in the corridor, Anna tensed as she saw a flicker of movent near the vent. Then Nova was beside her, silent as a shadow.
"Move."
He said.
They didn’t sneak out—they ran.
Nova kicked the servant hallway’s exit door open and pushed Anna forward.
As soon as they erged into the courtyard outside the auction house, Nova pulsed his Aether again—another burst that shut down lights and street-facing surveillance nodes.
The path behind them darkened, giving them cover.
Alarms began to sound inside the auction building. Whistles. Shouting. Confusion.
Anna didn’t look back.
"You think you took enough extra junk?"
"They’ll waste ti figuring out what I really wanted."
"Smart."
They kept running, weaving between marble pillars and glowing fountains now dimd by Nova’s interference.
Their boots hit stone, tal, earth. Anna stayed just behind him, heart pounding in rhythm with their footfalls.
Finally, she called out.
"You got what you needed. Great. Now how do you plan on getting off Clavacis with every enforcer chasing us?!"
Nova didn’t respond imdiately. His gaze scanned the distance, catching sight of a rising tower near the docking platforms where guest ships were held.
Then he spoke.
"We’re going to take a ship."
Anna stumbled slightly but kept pace.
"You an steal one?!"
Nova gave her a sideways glance.
"I prefer the term ’borrow without intention to return.’"
She laughed once under her breath—half nerves, half admiration.
They reached the shadow of the docking area. tal ramps led up to sleek personal vessels lined in neat rows, guarded lightly compared to the high-traffic zones.
Anna hesitated as they slowed, glancing back over her shoulder. Shouts were getting closer. Lights flickered back on in the distance.
"Which one do you want to take?"
Nova scanned quickly, eyes flicking between each ship before he settled on a mid-size cruiser in a dark hangar.
"That one."
He said.
Anna nodded.
"Then let’s fly."
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