Silk & Sabotage

Prologue: "Two Countries, One Wound"

They say Lina Loas and Rica have hated each other since before maps were inked.

It wasn't always about treaties or generals or stolen code.

It started with something simpler.

A corridor. A claim. A betrayal.

The Ruham Corridor — a narrow stretch of land where northern rivers kissed the southern cliffs — belonged to both.

Or to neither.

Depending on who you asked.

The Loasians call it sacred ground.

The Ricans call it theirs by war-earned right.

Both etched it into their national anthem.

And both bled for it more times than they care to admit.

To the north, Lina Loas burns like a myth.

An archipelago of jagged islands and jaggeder tempers.

They move in poetry and fight in whispers. Their capital, Sonhane, is made of breath and fire, and their people don't wear crowns—they wear history. Long, heavy, and unforgiving.

To the south, Rica waits like a blade.

Disciplined. Brutal. Stunning in its silence.

Avenhaim rises from steel and marble, and nothing is done without strategy.

In Rica, feelings are footnotes. Orders are gospel.

The two nations have signed peace over fifty times.

And broken it fifty-one.

They smile for photographs.

But under the table, their hands are always reaching for the dagger.

It's not just politics.

It's generational grief.

It's grandmothers who lost sons, lovers who disappeared into foreign cells, and children raised on bedtime stories where the other side is the monster.

And somehow, caught in the storm of it all — three names begin to rise:

Mia Veyra — a northern daughter with smoke in her lungs and fire behind her eyes.

Lucas Drax — the southern poster boy for patriotism and polished lies.

Mino Kael — the ghost no one truly sees, except when it's already too late.

They are not peacekeepers.

They are not saviors.

They are weapons, dressed as people.

And this story?

It isn't about heroes.

It's about the things we destroy when we pretend we're doing the right thing.

---

Classified: DAHLIA ENTRY #0017-A

Subject: Ruham corridor breach – anomaly report

Status: Red Zone / Eyes Only

"We thought she was loyal to the north.

He thought he could use the south.

But he... he forgot he belonged to no flag."

— Unknown handler, 2 days before Mino Kael vanished.

Notes:

Veyra observed crossing Zone 4 unguarded.

Kael's last confirmed sighting near Dahlia entry point.

Drax approved the corridor exchange under classified directive "R-52."

Outcome: Dahlia compromised. All operatives under review.

Request: Immediate blacklisting of codename: Ghostwaltz.

"History always remembers who fired the first shot.

It never remembers who loaded the gun."