Chapter 16 Sablehall
The night has come. The forest around the vault is unnaturally still. Even the wind feels like it’s holding its breath as I crouch behind the tree line.
Patrolling guards in sleek black uniforms and night-vision lenses. No flashy logos. No names.
Everything I wear is matte: gloves, suit, even the pins in my hair. A thin sheen of sweat lines the back of my neck despite the cold.
From the undergrowth, I pull a case the size of a small lunchbox. Inside is the gear I selected from the Guild armory.
EMP click puck. Limited range. One-time use.
Tension cable. Ultra-thin. 150 lb. capacity.
Liquid glass cutter.
I clip the case to my belt, heart pounding like a drumbeat inside my ribs.
Time to move.
There’s a weak spot in the fencing on the southeast corner. Not a flaw — a flaw meant error. This was intentional, a discreet utility access buried beneath a false patch of soil. Tex clocked it during recon.
I dig my gloved fingers beneath the mossy layer and find the edge of the steel grate. It groans faintly as I lift it — then swing it up on silent hinges.
Beneath, a service tunnel the size of a crawlspace. Barely lit. Air damp and sour.
I slide inside, feet first.
The tunnel is narrow enough that my shoulders scrape the walls. Somewhere above, I can hear the faint whir of a security drone moving across the courtyard. I keep low, counting the paces in my head.
Fifty-six… fifty-seven… there.
A small hatch door with a biometric panel.
I pull the fingerprint foil from my pouch — a print lifted earlier from a borrowed coffee cup in the Sablehall delivery truck. Another one of Tex’s little gifts.
The light blinks green. The hatch hisses open.
Behind it — a narrow stone stairwell, ascending into darkness.
The old stone stairwell narrows the higher it goes. I brush my gloved hand along the wall for balance. No creaks, no buzz of electricity. Just air and pressure and darkness.
When I reach the top, I crouch low and peek around the bend.
A hallway stretches ahead, gleaming with polished black tile. Thin, silvery lines crossing like a web.
Laser tripwires.
I inhale through my nose.
Okay. We trained for this.
I pull the guild tablet from my pack and activate the overlay. The interface flickers, casting faint light across the hallway. With a flick of my finger, I load the infrared grid map.
The tablet lights up — every laser thread glowing bright orange on screen.
They aren’t static. They move. Rotating in slow, hypnotic patterns.
Of course they do.
I strap the tablet to my forearm, sync my motion sensors, and wait for the Guild’s program to find the rhythm.
There. A ten-second window. I drop low and twist through the first set, breathing slowly as I pass inches from a beam that could set off a silent alarm and call down guards like hellhounds.
Twist. Roll. Slide. Hold breath. Keep moving. Breathe.
The hallway seems to stretch, each section harder than the last. At one point, I have to flip fully horizontal to slip beneath a pair of crisscrossing beams while hovering inches above a pressure-triggered tile.
My shoulder grazes a hair too close — and the light on my tablet flashes red.
I freeze. The sensors pause.
But nothing happens.
My heart doesn’t start again until I reach the far end and collapse, silent, behind a statue of some forgotten saint holding a sword.
The room ahead is a quiet kind of majestic — high ceilings, dark marble floors, recessed lighting casting gold shadows across polished surfaces.
It was built to impress and intimidate. A single spotlight shines down on the pedestal in the center of the vault, and in the middle of that, under a delicate bell of glass, sits the Sunrise Ruby.
Even from here, it glows.
I creep to the railing, crouching low as I unclip the compact rope coil from my harness. My fingers move fast and sure. I fix the grappling hook into a carved stone notch along the balcony ledge and give it a hard tug.
Secure.
I loop the harness strap around my waist and thighs, check the line, and then climb onto the ledge. My boots balance on slick marble. Thirty feet below, the vault’s pressure sensor floor surrounds the pedestal. No landing. Just hang and hope the tension in the rope holds.
I lean back gradually, letting my weight shift until I’m suspended fully over the drop. My heart pounds, but my breath stays steady.
In. Out. No fear.
I walk down the wall backwards, lowering myself hand over hand. The silence is broken only by the squeak of my gloves against the rope and the low whir of climate control above.
Fifteen feet.
Ten.
Five.
My boots hover inches above the floor. Close enough that I can see the tiny pressure sensors tucked into the tile seams. I twist slightly in the air, adjusting my angle until I’m directly above the case.
The ruby gleams up at me, blood red, impossibly smooth.
I pull the glass cutter from my hip pouch and flick it open with a click that sounds too loud in the stillness. Steady. I score a circle, then brace my gloved hand beneath it as I ease the pane free.
No alarms.
No weight shift.
Good.
I reach inside.
The ruby is heavier than it looks. Perfect in my palm.
For a second, I just stare at it. Thirty million dollars in my hand. Enough to change lives. End them. Start wars. But to me, it’s just a task. One more step toward proving I belong here.
I slip it into the padded case on my belt and place the replica. I begin to ascend, fast and smooth, hauling myself up by the rope. No celebration. No wasting time. The longer I stay, the higher the chance of someone noticing.
I back away from the ledge and unhook my gear, every movement precise. My pulse is still elevated, but adrenaline has sharpened me, not rattled me.
I’ve done it.
But it isn’t over yet.
I use the liquid glass cutter on one of the top windows. I slip out of the opening, feeling like Catwoman. I reattach the glass, rotating it to match, wiping away any smudges. From a glance, no one would ever know I’d been here.
I cross to the east side where the building backs up against a luxury office complex.
I measured the distance already, but it still doesn’t help my nerves.
I only have a minute in between the guards changing for this jump.
It’s eight feet across, a solid two-story drop.
I look around checking for guards, stepping back.
Deep breath.
Sprint.
Jump.
My boots slam against the gravel of the opposite rooftop and I quickly roll. A motion sensor light blinks on. I duck low and sprint to the service stairwell door. I pull pins from my hair and shove it into the keyhole, moving until I feel the familiar click.
I wrench the door open and take the stairs as quickly as possible. I stop at the second-floor office level, right above the street. Not wanting to risk getting caught on the lobby’s camera, I move my way to one of the windows, pushing it wide enough for me to slide through.
One leg, then the other.
I hang for a second, then drop into the alley below, knees bending, palms kissing the concrete to break the fall.
I’m out.
No alarms.
No alerts.
Just my footsteps fading into the night.
The Guild crest on the old chamber door shimmers faintly as I press my palm to it. It hisses open. The Guild chamber. Cold air. Dim lantern light. The scent of old parchment and steel. Smoke.
I move quietly down the stone steps, still in my stealth gear, hood shadowing my face. When I reach the floor, I pause.
They are all there. The four boys stand off to one side — Jace with a scowl permanently etched into his icy face, Luca smirking because I don’t think his face knows any other position to be in.
Tex still and unreadable, and Noah tapping at something on his watch with a glint of calculation in his eyes.
And then there are the others.
Ten masked Guild members in dark cloaks line the circular dais like silent judges. Their masks gleam — gold, fox-shaped, inhuman. All eyes on me.
Lucian stands at the center, unmasked, tall and perfectly composed in his dark coat.
“Isobel Ashthorne,” he says, voice cutting through the hush. “You stand before the Guild to confirm completion of your initiation task. Do you have the ruby?”
I don’t answer. I step forward and open the case from my belt. I open it slowly, revealing the Sunrise Ruby.
Gasps whisper through the room.
Lucian nods once. He steps down and takes the case from my hands with precision, setting it on the table. He extracts the ruby in between his fingers, the light catching on the faceted edges.
Even the masked ones lean in.
Lucian sets it on a scale on the table. One of the masked members holds some sort of device to it.
“Verified,” one of them says, the voice hollow through the mask.
“Confirmed,” says another.
Lucian looks back at me. His eyes are bright. I bask in it.
“You’ve done well.”
I don’t know what to say. My throat is dry. My body wants to collapse. But I stand straight.
Then, to my left, Jace scoffs. “She got lucky.”
“She earned it.” Lucian whips his head to look at him.
Another masked Guild member steps forward. “You’ve taken your first step, Isobel Ashthorne. But this is only the beginning. There will be more. Harder. Deeper. Blood and shadows. Prove yourself again… and you may yet survive us.”
I nod once.
A pause. Slow, echoing knocks — three — from the masked members’ staffs against the floor.
Acceptance.
Lucian steps back toward me, lowering his voice. “Go get cleaned up. And rest. You’ll need it.”
I turn, and as I climb the steps to leave, I catch Jace’s eyes — dark and stormy. Challenge. Intrigue. Maybe even… concern?
Good.
I don’t make it to breakfast. I barely make it out of bed.
Muscles I didn’t know exist ache. I slept like the dead last night and still feel half buried. But I drag myself into my uniform, pull my hair into a low bun, and shove my sore feet into boots.
Outside my room, the hallway is quiet. I don’t make it five steps before someone is suddenly there.