The first rule of the Floating District was simple: never look up.
Myrrha looked up anyway.
The sky above the Viren Docks churned like an open wound, deep purple clouds swirling in lazy spirals around the highstorm brewing at the horizon. Glassy rain pattered onto the metal roofs of the loading bays, sizzling as it hit the hot hulls of idle ships. Thunder echoed like the sound of gods dragging chains. The world was trying to break again.
Perfect cover for a crime.
She crouched behind a broken cargo hauler at Dock Twelve, fingers tapping the pulse regulator on her belt. The readings were erratic. Her heartbeat was too fast, too loud, too exposed. She could feel the vibration of the power grid under her boots, smell the buzz of ozone and smog, hear the whining hiss of the docking clamps cycling open for their next launch.
One chance.
She'd been watching the ship for six days. It was a Warden-Class skycutter, matte black with retractable sails, gold-lined wings, and a reinforced hull clearly built for rift travel. Whoever owned it hadn't even bothered to scramble the entry codes. Rich. Arrogant. Idiots.
She leaned out just far enough to glimpse the security pattern cycling across the boarding ramp. Four sentries, two on patrol, two guarding the bridge gate. Their armor was painted white with skyblue crests, Nivalyn military — standard issue. Civil security was off-duty for the storm. Even better.
Myrrha reached into her coat and pulled out the chip. Pale steel, dented, burned at one corner, but still functional. She hadn't even had to kill for it. Just a little memory drain. A second too long in the crowd. One touch. One whisper of her Riftglow.
It pulsed now behind her right eye, that sick gold ring sparking with heat. She grit her teeth and blinked the visions away. Not now. Not yet.
One sentry turned. She moved.
Silent steps. Low crouch. Two taps on the regulator to kill her noise signature. Across the gap in three seconds. Behind the console pillar. The closest sentry passed. She slid her blade from her boot — small, curved, jagged like a fishhook. Home-forged.
One breath.
Two.
The knife flicked out once, fast, clean. The guard dropped before he could even blink.
She didn't kill him. She wasn't that far gone. Not yet.
She grabbed his badge, slapped it to the console.
The ramp hissed open.
She ran.
The bridge was thirty meters ahead, sealed behind a double-lock iris door. The ship's name was etched above it in gold-and-rune script: The Zephyr Wasp. Even the name screamed arrogance. She smiled.
The second guard spotted her halfway up the corridor.
"Hey—!" he shouted, drawing his shock rifle.
She dove to the side, rolling behind a stack of grav crates. The bolt hit the wall where her head had been, sending sparks cascading across the hall.
"Unauthorized entry! We have a breach!"
She moved before he finished yelling. Tossed a flare orb to the left, ducked right. The flash lit the corridor in blinding white. His aim wavered. She closed the distance, slammed her knee into his gut, then drove her blade into the side of his helmet — just hard enough to short the visor's optics. He screamed. She kicked him down the stairs.
No time.
She jammed the access chip into the bridge console.
Nothing.
Her Riftglow pulsed again. Her vision blurred.
— The ship explodes.
— The door never opens.
— She gets shot.
— She flies.
— She burns.
— She lives.
She blinked.
"Override code N-77-Delta-Aurix," she whispered. "Civilian priority transfer. Emergency launch."
The console paused.
A chime.
"Code accepted. Initiating pre-flight sequence. Launch in sixty seconds."
The ship groaned to life. The engines began to hum. Sails flicked open like wings stretching after sleep. The gravity field stabilized with a crunch, and the lights flickered from red to blue.
She dropped into the pilot's chair and gripped the helm.
It was warm.
Like it had been waiting for her.
Below, shouting. More guards. More lights.
She saw the flashes through the viewport. They were prepping shock cannons. They weren't trying to capture. They were trying to erase.
Too late.
The Zephyr Wasp lifted from the dock in a burst of plasma vapor, engines roaring as the clamps released and the mag-streams kicked in. The city fell away beneath her like shattered glass, lights spinning into chaos as she punched the thrusters and soared into the upper skies.
The storm caught her.
Wind screamed. Lightning danced.
She laughed.
She didn't know where she was going. She didn't know who was chasing her. She didn't even know why the Riftglow was still burning so bright behind her eye.
But she knew this.
She was free.
And someone, somewhere, was going to regret letting her go.
The sky opened.
She vanished.