The ballroom broke apart like glass under pressure.
Screams tore through silk and music as guests scattered, masks slipping, lies exposed. Champagne shattered against marble floors. Chandeliers swayed violently, their light slicing the chaos into gold and shadow.
This was no longer a masquerade.
This was a hunt.
Kael moved first.
He pulled Elaris low, a bullet tearing through the space where her head had been a second earlier. The crack of gunfire echoed, sharp and final. Somewhere behind them, a body hit the floor.
"Eyes up," Kael said, calm as death. "They're trained."
Elaris already knew.
Three masked figures advanced from the east corridor—white porcelain masks, identical steps, weapons hidden beneath tailored coats. Not guests. Not amateurs.
Assassins.
Her wrist-console pulsed silently, warnings flooding in faster than she could read. Signal interference. Security loops overridden. Someone had planned this perfectly.
"Crimson Coast likes theater," she muttered. "This is execution."
Kael pushed her behind a marble pillar as a blade flashed where her throat had been. He caught the attacker's wrist mid-strike, twisted sharply...
Crack.
The man dropped with a sound like snapped bone.
No hesitation. No mercy.
Elaris vaulted sideways, ripping a concealed blade from her boot. Her movements were clean, efficient—trained in rooms without witnesses. She ducked under a gunshot, rolled, and drove the blade into an assassin's side.
Blood stained silk.
Around them, the elite fled or fought. Syndicate heads revealed private guards. Mercenaries laughed as they fired. Deals died with their owners.
The Crimson Coast devoured its own.
Kael grabbed Elaris's wrist as the floor beneath them exploded in sparks. A fallen chandelier crashed down, missing them by inches.
"You still think disappearing is smart?" he snapped.
"I still think you talk too much," she shot back—but she didn't pull away.
Another assassin lunged.
Kael met him head-on.
They collided hard, bodies slamming into mirrored walls. Glass shattered, reflections breaking into a thousand versions of violence. Kael disarmed the man in three movements, ending the fight with brutal precision.
Elaris watched for half a second too long.
Not because she doubted him.
Because she understood him.
A gun cocked behind her.
Kael turned instantly. Too late.
The shot fired—
Elaris twisted, firing her wrist-pulse device. The blast knocked the shooter backward, his mask cracking, red spilling through the fractures.
Silence—just for a breath.
Their eyes met.
Something unspoken passed between them. Trust, sharp-edged and dangerous.
Then Xyren's voice cut through her comm, urgent and distorted.
"Elaris. Multiple heat signatures converging. This wasn't the main strike."
Her blood went cold.
"How many?" she asked.
"Enough to bury the ballroom."
Kael heard the shift in her breathing.
"Exit?" he demanded.
She pointed toward a service corridor half-hidden behind burning drapes. "Thirty seconds before they seal it."
"Then move."
They ran.
Gunfire chased them down the corridor as fire alarms screamed overhead. Smoke curled like claws, choking the air. Elaris rerouted power on instinct, slamming doors shut behind them, trapping attackers in collapsing sections of the hall.
A final explosion rocked the building.
They burst into a narrow passage, breath ragged, bodies close, heat radiating off adrenaline and blood.
For a second—only a second—the world held still.
Kael looked at her, eyes dark, unreadable.
"This," he said quietly, "isn't random."
"No," she agreed. "It's a message."
Somewhere behind them, the Crimson Coast burned.
And someone had just declared war.