Silk & Sabotage

That Night – Mia's Room

The palace quieted after midnight. Walls that buzzed with power during the day now whispered with ghosts. Mia removed her earrings, one by one, staring into the mirror but not seeing herself.

Her thoughts kept circling back to him. To Lucas, and the way his lips almost met hers.

To the thing behind his eyes — the name he wouldn't say.

She turned to the bed.

And froze.

There, resting on the satin pillow, was something that wasn't there before.

A silk ribbon.

Black. Soft. Torn slightly at the edge.

She blinked.

No one knew about that ribbon.

She had worn it one year ago, on a night she never spoke of.

The night someone said goodbye and never came back.

And now—

here it was.

Tied delicately around a single folded paper.

Mia unfolded the note with trembling fingers.

One line.

Written in the same scrawl she used to tease for being illegible.

"You're not the only one who remembers."

Her throat tightened. Her knees nearly buckled.

Because she knew that handwriting.

Mino.

He was supposed to be dead for her or gone forever from her mind. .

The purpose of her life is to serve Lina Loas.

But the ribbon said otherwise.

So did her heart.

The next morning broke with alarm of chaos.

The silence was kind, but the truth wasn't.

The morning after always felt like a lie.

Mia sat beneath the pale glow of early sun, wrapped in a shawl too thin for comfort, staring at a breakfast she had no intention of touching. The palace courtyard was quiet — lavender bushes nodding lazily in the breeze, fountains whispering in tongues older than the kingdom itself.

It was the kind of morning people wrote poems about.

But all she could think about was a black ribbon folded inside her drawer upstairs — still warm from where her fingers had clutched it in the dark.

"You're not the only one who remembers."

She hadn't slept. Couldn't. Her mind was a carousel of shadows and voices she had spent an entire year trying to bury.

And now...

He was back.

Or worse — he'd never left.

Footsteps approached — soft, careful. Lucas.

"You're up early," he said gently, settling across from her. His shirt was half-buttoned, his eyes heavy with regret.

Mia gave a nod, nothing more.

"I didn't sleep," he admitted. "Kept thinking about last night."

So did I, she wanted to say. But not the part you think.

He reached across the table and poured her tea like it meant something.

"Mia," he began, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I just— I get confused, sometimes. I look at you and I see peace. I want that. I do."

She looked at him then. Really looked. The way his hand trembled just slightly. The way his voice cracked around the word want.

But peace was never what she wanted.

She wanted the storm that vanished a year ago with a smirk and a kiss and a whispered "don't wait for me."

"It's okay, Lucas," she said. "We're both pretending this is easier than it is."

He smiled at that — hollow and small.

"Do you remember the lavender field?" he asked suddenly. "That first day you showed me the palace gardens? You laughed when I tried to pronounce Sonhane right."

Mia's mouth twitched, despite herself. "You said 'Sofa-honey.'"

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I still hear you mocking me in my dreams."

And for a moment — just one — it felt safe.

Mia reached for her teacup, but her fingers brushed something else beneath it — something tucked, quiet and unnoticed.

She stilled.

A single black thread.

Thin. Familiar.

Caught under the rim of the saucer like it didn't want to be found.

Her breath hitched.

Lucas didn't notice. He was watching her lips like they might forgive him if he stared long enough.

"You're beautiful when you don't try to be," he whispered.

But Mia was no longer listening.

Because someone had been in her room.

And now... they were in her mornings, too.

He's watching.

He's close.

And Lucas doesn't know.

Mia stood up suddenly.

"I need air," she lied.

Lucas rose with her. "Walk with me?"

She hesitated. Then nodded. The thread was already palmed in her fist.

Let him think they were healing.

Let him believe this was still his story.

Because the real story was already writing itself in the shadows.

And it had Mino's name inked between every line.

Sometimes, distance is the only thing keeping a man from confessing everything he's done wrong.

Somewhere in the shadows the ghost was watching.

Mino Kael sat alone in the top floor of a decommissioned comms station in northern Avenhaim

The monitors made no sound. Just flickers of static and frozen frames — like old memories pretending to be alive again.

Technically, it was restricted. But nothing in Rica was ever truly locked to a man like him.

The light was harsh. The chair, metal. And still, he sat there like it was a throne.

One hand curled around a chipped ceramic cup. The other hovered near the screen.

Mia was on the footage.

She always was.

He shouldn't be watching this feed.

He had no clearance. No mission tied to her. Not anymore.

But he watched anyway.

The clip had looped twenty-two times.

She stood on a balcony. Lucas beside her. Red silk on her shoulders. A storm in her mouth.

They almost kissed.

But didn't.

And that — that hesitation —

it split him open like a damn blade.

He blinked, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

"What are you doing, Mino."

But the voice in his head never answered anymore.

It used to. Back when he had orders. Purpose. Control.

Now he just had ghosts. And guilt. And the image of her turning away — like she knew someone else was watching.

He took a long sip of the bitter coffee, letting it burn the back of his throat.

Lucas looked too gentle in the video. Too soft.

That was the worst thing about him — he always meant well.

Mino scoffed under his breath.

You're kissing her with my name on your hands.

He leaned back, staring up at the ceiling for a long time before reaching under the desk —

pulling out a velvet-wrapped box. The kind reserved for medals or proposals.

He opened it.

Inside — the matching half of the ribbon Mia had found.

Still intact. Still warm from the way he'd held it last night.

He hadn't meant to leave it in her room.

Not really.

But something inside him — some selfish, half-dead part — needed her to remember.

He needed to matter.

Even if he couldn't show his face yet.

Even if he was now the thing both of them buried just to survive.

A sharp buzz interrupted the silence.

His comm-link lit up with a private message.

Irina.

He sighed. Answered it.

"You're spiraling," she said, skipping any hello. Her voice was silk, always had been.

"This wasn't part of the timing."

"Does it look like I care about the timing?" Mino muttered, still watching Mia pause on the stairs — tilting her head, sensing something in the wind. Him.

"You promised to wait."

"I promised to play nice," he said. "I didn't promise to be numb."

Silence.

Then, softer:

"Does she know yet?"

Mino looked away from the screen.

"No," he said. "But she's starting to feel it. She's always been... attuned."

Irina sighed. "You're going to break, Mino."

"I already did," he said. "That's the whole problem."

The line clicked off.

He sat in the silence for a long time.

Just Mino. No Kael. No false suits or ribbons or medals.

Just a man with blood under his nails and a name that tasted like regret.

He pulled the ring from his pocket.

The one Lucas wore in private.

The one Mia had never seen.

He rolled it between his fingers like a coin.

And for one second, he let himself whisper her name.

Not like a curse.

Not like a memory.

But like a prayer he didn't deserve.

"Mia."