Somewhere beyond the high, yellow walls of the palace, something screamed.

  Liora didn’t hear it.

  A bit light on the security tonight. I almost feel insulted.

  Her world had shrunk to the width the palace compound and the jagged rhythm of her own pulse.

  She pulled herself over the parapet, dropping into a soundless crouch.

  The courtyard was vast and hauntingly still. Marble statues stood like silent sentinels, casting long, skeletal shadows over the perfectly trimmed hedges.

  Every patrol followed a rigid, predictable pattern.

  In this silence, the steady glint of silver plate armor served as the only ticking clock.

  A letdown indeed.

  The library sat ahead.

  A squat, domed fortress of knowledge nestled between two towers, its oak doors banded with iron like a secret someone was desperate to keep.

  Liora moved.

  She became a shadow among shadows.

  ?She pressed her back against the base of a weeping cherub, eyes locked on the patrol.

  ?One breath. Two... Seven.

  ?She mapped the gaps between their footsteps, calculating the rhythm of their route with cold certainty.

  Then she made her move.

  Her boots were silent, her black cloak a blur against the grey stone.

  She was halfway to the door when she felt the shift in the air.

  The sudden, sharp awareness of a hunter being hunted.

  She pressed herself against a fluted column.

  Stillness was her only weapon.

  A guard rounded the corner.

  He moved with the boredom of a man who had walked this stone a thousand times.

  He didn't see her.

  He should have seen her.

  But Liora’s boot caught a loose fragment of masonry.

  Skritch.

  In the vacuum of the courtyard, it sounded like a bone snapping.

  The guard’s head whipped toward her, his hand flying to his hilt.

  "Identify yourse-"

  Liora exploded into motion.

  There was no flourish.

  No warning.

  Her blade sang free, meeting his sword mid-draw with a jarring clink that bit into the silence.

  She didn't wait for a parry.

  She twisted her wrist, redirecting the steel, and drove her knife into the soft meat of his throat.

  The guard’s eyes went wide.

  His mouth opened, but only a wet, gurgling sound emerged.

  Blood, dark and hot, soaked into the white tabard emblazoned with the royal crest.

  He hit the ground with a heavy, metallic thud.

  Liora didn't linger.

  She wiped the blade on his sleeve in one sharp motion.

  But the mistake had already cascaded.

  Boots hammered against stone.

  Two more.

  Points for enthusiasm, boys. But you really should have waited for backup before running at this girl with a knife.

  The first rounded the corner at a dead sprint.

  He didn't shout; he swung.

  Liora stepped back, the blade whistling past her nose-close enough to smell the oil on the steel.

  She reached into her belt, flicked her wrist, and a throwing knife buried itself in the hollow of the guard’s throat, just above the gorget.

  He stumbled.

  He choked and fell.

  The second guard, older and scarred, skidded to a halt.

  He saw the bodies.

  He saw the girl.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  He didn't charge-he opened his lungs to alert the entire palace.

  Liora closed the distance in three strides, faster than a human should move.

  She slammed her palm over his mouth, muffling the cry.

  He fought back, swinging the heavy hilt of his sword at her temple.

  She blocked it with her forearm, but the impact sent a numbing shock through her arm to the elbow.

  Her vision flickered.

  She gritted her teeth, jammed her thumb into his eye socket, and pivoted.

  A brutal, sharp chop to the side of his neck ended the struggle with a sickening crunch of cartilage.

  He went limp.

  She lowered him to the ground, breathing hard.

  Three bodies.

  A sea of red pooling on the pristine white stone.

  The silence returned, but it was thin now.

  Fragile.

  Maybe I should have taken them out first before moving to the library...

  It dosen't matter anymore

  She sprinted to the library doors and pulled.

  Locked.

  "Dammit," she hissed. She ran back to the older guard, ripped the heavy brass keyring from his belt, and dashed back.

  First key. Nothing.

  Second key. Nothing.

  A shout echoed from the watchtower.

  They’d seen the blood.

  Third key.

  Click.

  Bingo. Easier than opening a jar of pickles.

  Liora slipped inside and threw the bolt home just as the first heavy boot hit the wood from the outside.

  The library was a cathedral of dust.

  Shelves stretched three stories high, packed with leather-bound tomes and scrolls wrapped in silk.

  The air smelled of old parchment and the tang of ancient ink.

  THUD.

  Dust shook from the rafters.

  THUD.

  The iron bolt began to groan, the wood around it splintering.

  My, they're eager tonight.

  She looked up. Time was her enemy now.

  Frank’s voice echoed in her mind: Red leather. Gold script. The Chronicles..

  She scaled the shelves like a ladder, her fingers digging into the wood.

  She was two stories up, heart hammering against her ribs, when the sound changed.

  CRACK.

  The door didn't just shake; it screamed.

  The top hinge snapped.

  Liora’s eyes raked the spines.

  Gold. Blue. Green.

  There.

  Red leather. Gold script. Chronicles of the Rising Sun Throne.

  She snatched it, the weight of the book nearly pulling her off the shelf.

  She dropped, landing hard on the floor just as the doors exploded inward.

  Guards poured through the wreckage, led by a commander in silver plate.

  His eyes swept the room and locked onto her.

  "Stop!" he roared.

  Liora didn't look back.

  Sorry, boys, I don't do overtime!

  She sprinted toward a dark archway in the corner, half-hidden by a heavy tapestry.

  As she neared it, a sound emerged from the dark.

  A screech.

  ?Now that is a very hungry-sounding 'hello'

  her grin widening.

  She plunged into the dark.

  The stable was massive, smelling of straw and raw meat.

  And there, tethered to a stone post, was the source of the sound.

  Princess Seraphine's griffin.

  It was a wall of white muscle and snow-colored feathers, eyes like molten gold tracking Liora’s every move.

  Its beak clicked in agitation.

  ?"Easy there, gorgeous," Liora whispered, her hands steady despite the literal wall of muscle before her. "You poor thing. Locked in the dark and forced to listen to those guards? No wonder you're cranky. Let's get you some fresh air, shall we?"

  Liora vaulted onto its back, wrapping one arm around its neck, the book clutched to her chest.

  "Get me out of here," she whispered.

  The commander burst into the stable. "Step down! Stealing from the palace is a sin punishable by annihilation!"

  Liora tied a black handkerchief over her face, her winter-blue eyes cold and steady above the fabric.

  She didn't argue. She didn't plead.

  She simply tightened her grip.

  The griffin’s wings snapped open-a ten-foot span of mythic power.

  "GET DOWN!" the commander screamed.

  The wings came down.

  The wind was apocalyptic.

  Guards were lifted off their feet and thrown like dolls against the stone walls.

  Books in the adjacent room were sucked into the air, their pages fluttering like dying birds.

  The griffin launched.

  It shot through the skylight in a single, impossible leap.

  The palace shrank to a toy model, the shouts of men replaced by the roar of the wind.

  Liora ripped the mask down, sucking in the freezing air.

  She steered the creature with her knees, diving toward the ridge where she’d left Mina.

  But as the trees rushed up to meet them, the air went still.

  The ridge was empty. Only a discarded book lie there in the dirt.

  Footprint. Drag marks. Three sets of prints-uneven, heavy....yellow goblins.If they’ve scratched her, I’m going to need more than just one dagger.

  Liora urged the griffin lower.

  Her eyes scanned the treeline until they caught a flicker of movement.

  Three yellow goblins, hunched and grotesque, were moving through the brush.

  One of them held a human ankle in a clawed grip, dragging a limp, unconscious form through the dirt.

  Mina.

  The griffin hit the ground like a meteor.

  The impact sent a shockwave through the forest, shattering saplings and sending a cloud of debris into the sky.

  The goblins recoiled, shielding their eyes from the storm of dust.

  Liora dropped from the griffin’s back before it had even stopped moving.

  She emerged from the settling cloud, her obsidian daggers already in her hands-blades so dark they seemed to swallow the forest light.

  Her signature weapon.

  She looked at the goblin holding Mina.

  Her voice was soft, cold and absolute..

  "Who said you could touch her?"