Solon Hotel rose out of the N109 skyline like a cathedral built for the rich and morally flexible — all glass, steel, and predatory elegance.
Even from outside, I felt it.
Eyes. Everywhere. Invisible but unmistakably real — glances caught in glass reflections, interest disguised as boredom, curiosity honed to a knife's edge.
The air tasted different here: money, power, and the kind of danger that didn't need to shout.
Elara inhaled sharply beside me, just once. The heiress mask fit her well — jeweled, calculating, practiced.
Sylus stopped just short of the hotel doors and tilted his head toward her.
"It isn't too late to back out," he murmured, offering his arm like some dark parody of a gentleman.
She scoffed and brushed past him.
"Focus on yourself first."
But as we reached the entrance, she slipped her hand around his arm with effortless poise — the perfect heiress with her perfect guardian.
I followed a step behind, silent as a shadow.
The glass doors parted.
The whispers began.
"Is that—Sylus?"
"He hasn't shown his face publicly in months."
"Who is she with him?"
"That dress — she's old money. And the one behind her… that's not a servant's posture."
"Yes, I know a human weapon when I see one. Don't mess with her."
Their stares slid across me like cold beams of light, measuring, dissecting. Interpreting the uniform, the gait, the height.
That last comment almost made me laugh. Apparently this world had written in some of the qualities I'd honed in my real life… including my time "in prison," according to my forged background.
Good. Let them fear me. It fit our cover perfectly.
The grand hall was marble and gold hues, drenched in soft lighting that made the Protocores gleam behind their glass enclosures.
Rows upon rows — humming, pulsing, restrained.
Elara's breath caught softly. Mine did too.
We exchanged a look: Whoever was supplying these had an infrastructure that should not exist.
Sylus leaned toward her, casual and amused. "You already have their attention. Try not to look too pleased."
"I'll worry about that," she murmured, "when something here actually interests me."
Her gaze sharpened on the displays — weapons wrapped in pretty shells.
She glanced at Sylus. "Are you sure they'll take the bait?"
He smirked. "Depends on your performance."
A server approached and bowed. "Mr. Sylus, we've been expecting you."
Sylus barely acknowledged him. Instead he turned to Elara, retrieving a slim earpiece from his pocket.
He stepped in too close and secured it behind her ear, his breath brushing her cheek.
Elara didn't flinch.
"I trust you know how to play your part," he murmured.
He withdrew, slipping a sleek black card between his fingers and offering it to her.
"Try not to bore me."
She took it with bored detachment, watching as he walked off with the server, disappearing into a sea of velvet and marble.
The moment he was gone, she let out a slow breath.
I moved closer, half-step behind her — the proper posture of a retainer: vigilant, unreadable, dangerous.
We began to walk.
The first Protocore display we passed hummed wrong. Off-key.
Elara paused. So did I.
Before she could examine it further, a server glided into her path.
"Has anything caught your eye, miss? We have far finer items in the private collection."
Elara rolled Sylus's black card between her fingers like a bored aristocrat.
"Well, what you have on display is mediocre."
She tapped the side of her ear. "Sylus, can I use this card to make purchases or not?"
I didn't hear his voice. But I felt the ripple — a shift in the air like static: sharp annoyance trimmed with amusement, wrapped around the intention: Don't waste my time. Assert dominance.
Elara smirked.
She turned to the server. "One million. Wrap it up."
A beat. Then another shift radiated from her earpiece — colder, precise:
Raise it. Perception matters. Never look small.
Elara's eyebrow twitched. "Why?"
The next ripple was unmistakable: Mocking confidence. Showmanship.
I forced my expression to remain neutral.
Elara lifted her chin, smiling like royalty.
"Ten million," she declared, loud enough to carry. "Actually—" she swept her hand lazily over the entire hall "—I'll take everything."
A collective hush.
Then whispers exploding like sparks.
Somewhere in the building, Sylus's intention brushed my senses again — a smirk made of static.
He liked it.
Elara smiled.
I frowned.
A faint tremor rippled at the edge of my perception — not sound, not light, something thinner.
A flicker in the air, like a pulse searching for its own echo. Clean. Precise. Too intentional to be noise.
Not Onychinus tech at all. Something else. Someone else.
It slipped past me before I could fully catch it, leaving behind a metallic aftertaste in the back of my throat — like biting into a live wire.
My instincts sharpened instantly.
This wasn't just surveillance. It was directed energy — subtle, probing, delicate.
The kind of signature only someone highly trained could produce. Or someone born with it.
I exhaled slowly.
Elara was still speaking to the server, posture flawless, voice smooth, entirely unaware of the shift in the room's current.
Good. Better she stay unaware for now.
My job — my cover — was to stay behind her. But the thing pulsing through the hall wasn't targeting her.
It was… mapping.
Searching for patterns. Scanning me.
My pulse steadied. No fear — just focus.
I took one silent step back. Then another.
I slipped into the moving crowd like a shadow dissolving into darker shadows — the kind no one notices leaving because they were never meant to be seen.
Not a ripple. Not a whisper. Not even Elara glanced back.
Good. She needed to play her part. And I needed to find the source of that signal before it found me again.
—
Elsewhere in Solon Hotel —
The golden glow of overhead lights spilled across dark walls, cutting sharp lines through the lounge's elegant decor. Distant conversation from the banquet hall murmured like an afterthought — faint, irrelevant.
Here, the only sound was the soft clink of ice swirling in a whiskey glass.
Sylus sat comfortably on a deep leather sofa, one arm draped across the backrest. His fingers tapped idly against the rim of his drink, gaze fixed on the painting across from him: In Expectation.
Angels, demons, and the Reaper seated around a table — an empty chair waiting for its last guest.
The door opened. Heavy footsteps followed.
"Mr. Sylus."
Sherman's voice was measured, laced with practiced humility. He was escorted forward by two guards.
Too pale. Breathing too fast.
He stopped a few feet away, stiff, eyes lowered.
Sylus lifted his gaze. A slow smirk formed.
The air shifted.
He didn't move. He didn't need to.
A dark mist unfurled around him, black with veins of deep red threading through it like cracks in scorched stone. It moved slowly, luxuriously — like a predator stretching before the kill.
Sylus took a sip of whiskey, savoring it.
Sherman was yanked downward.
He crashed to his knees as invisible pressure slammed onto him, crushing the breath from his lungs.
The mist coiled around his limbs, tightening. His throat constricted under an unseen grip.
Sylus took another slow sip.
Sherman clawed at his own neck, tearing lines of blood into his flesh as he tried to grasp something that wasn't there.
The more he fought, the more he bled.
The more he bled, the more Sylus watched.
"My time is limited," Sylus mused, swirling his drink. "So let's skip the theatrics, shall we?"
Sherman gasped, "I— I didn't betray you—"
"Oh, I know." Sylus's voice was light, amused. "You're too much of a coward to do it on your own."
He rose, moving with deliberate, predatory ease.
Not impatient — entertained.
The mist tightened.
Sherman's forehead slammed against the floor with a dull thud.
"But whoever convinced you…" Sylus's eye flickered with interest. "They must've made an offer only an idiot would accept."
A faint glow ignited in his right eye.
The mist surged.
Sherman jerked, pupils dilating as memories tore free — unwilling, unfiltered.
Whispered promises. Hidden meetings. The exact second he believed he could betray Sylus and survive it.
He had been wrong.
Sylus chuckled quietly. "Ah. Their recruitment methods are still disappointingly old-fashioned."
Sherman's breath rasped harshly. His body trembled, mind scrambling for escape.
There was none.
"Sy… Sylus…" he gasped, voice shredded. "Don't think— with them around… you'll be cocky for long."
Sylus smiled.
A slow, knowing smile.
The mist tightened like a noose.
Sherman's final breath slipped out on a ragged whisper.
Then silence.
The black-and-red mist retreated into Sylus as if it had never existed.
Sherman didn't collapse — he simply… ceased.
Sylus took another sip of whiskey, unbothered, unhurried.
Satisfied.
There were fates worse than dying under his power.
But tonight, Sherman was lucky.