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Storm Glass

Penulis: Phylicia Ines
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-08-25 09:13:16

The penthouse had been busier than usual all afternoon—staff moving with the brittle energy of people bracing for something. Ines had summoned Liora to the security office, where a wall of monitors cast cold light over a table stacked with personnel logs.

“You wanted to see me?” Liora asked.

Ines didn’t look up from the tablet. “Staff morale is dipping. Too much tension. Too many orders without explanations.”

“That's… your job, isn't it?”

“It was. Now it’s also yours.”

Liora blinked. “Why?”

“Because you’re the one they’re watching,” Ines said flatly. “If they think you’re cracking, they’ll lose faith. And faith is the only thing keeping them here when the pay isn’t enough.”

An hour later, Liora found herself walking the main service hall, offering small talk and an extra set of hands. She carried trays, helped fold napkins in the kitchen, and even learnt how to reset a jammed dumbwaiter from a surly maintenance tech named Pol.

“You’re not like the others,” Pol muttered as they worked
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  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   The Tail

    The rain hadn’t let up. Wipers swiped in a slow, metronomic rhythm as the convoy rolled through slick city streets.Liora sat across from Varian in the back of the lead SUV, arms folded. Wren was still at the hospital; they’d left two men outside her door.Bram’s voice cut in through the comms. “Two black sedans, three cars back. Haven’t lost us since we left.”Varian’s eyes flicked to the side mirror. “License plates?”“Fake.”“How many inside?”“Four in each.”Liora shifted. “Who are they?”“Not tourists,” Varian said flatly.“What does that mean for Wren?”His jaw flexed. “It means I have to decide in the next two minutes whether to lead them to her or lead them away.”Her voice rose. “Then that’s not a decision—”“It is if the second option locks you down somewhere you can’t leave.”Bram again: “One’s peeling into the left lane. The other’s closing.”Varian’s gaze stayed on her. “Choose, Liora.”“I’m not—”“Choose.”She swallowed. “Take them away from her.”He leaned forward. “Bra

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   Paper and String

    The hospital smelt faintly of lemon disinfectant, the kind that coated the air and clung to clothes.Varian’s convoy had taken a side entrance. Three men stayed in the hall while he stepped into Wren’s room.She looked up from her coloring book, eyes flicking from him to the paper bag in his hand.“What’s that?”“A puzzle,” he said, setting it on the tray table. “Thought you might like it.”Her brow furrowed. “Like… a jigsaw?”“Something like that.”It wasn’t. The box held a set of wooden tiles etched with geometric shapes. He spilled them out, arranging them in a crooked line.“You match them by pattern,” he explained, “but the trick is you can’t touch the same symbol twice in a row.”She studied the shapes for a moment—triangle, circle, sunburst—then began sliding tiles around with small, quick hands.Varian leaned on the side of her bed. “You’re fast.”“Gotta be,” she said without looking up. “The nurses don’t let you leave stuff out. If you don’t finish, it gets put away.”Within

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   New Lines on the Floor

    By the time Liora woke, the penthouse sounded different.Quieter. But not in the way of peace—more like the silence before a door bursts open.She stepped into the hall and nearly ran into Ines. The woman was holding a clipboard like a weapon.“Stay inside your room until the new cams are live,” Ines said without slowing.“What new cams?”Ines only lifted a brow. “Ask the boss.”The study door was open. Liora leaned against the frame. “What’s going on?”Varian didn’t look up from the bank of monitors. “Security overhaul. Every staff member’s background was re-checked. Routes to the hospital changed. Your phone—” he held out a new one, still in the box—“encrypted, location-locked.”Her voice sharpened. “Since when do I need my location locked?”“Since I found out I have a daughter,” he said flatly. “Every move you make now is a move she’s exposed to. I don’t gamble with my blood.”She crossed her arms. “This feels less like protection and more like a leash.”“If that’s what it takes, y

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   Handprints in the Wall

    The elevator ride to the penthouse was suffocating.Varian didn’t speak. Didn’t look at her. His reflection in the mirrored panel was a razor held steady.When the doors slid open, he stepped out first—long, hard strides down the corridor.Halfway to the study, he stopped.The silence broke with a sound like a tree splintering—his palm smashing into the wall.Plaster crumbled around the deep imprint of his hand, fingers splayed.Liora flinched.He didn’t even look at her. Just kept walking, disappearing into the shadows of the hall.Five minutes passed. Ten.She was still standing where the elevator had left her when he returned, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, face unreadable again. The storm was tucked away—but not gone.“Dates,” he said flatly.Her throat tightened. “Varian—”“Start from the day you left me,” he cut in. “Give me proof. And every missing year in between.”She wrapped her arms around herself. “I left because you—because your world was burning from the inside out.

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   No Surprises, Just Shock

    The rain still drummed against the car roof when Varian opened the car door for her.“Stay here,” he told Liora.Her head snapped up. “What?”“I said—stay. In. The. Car.”“Varian—”He shut the door on her voice, boots splashing through shallow puddles as he strode back toward the hospital entrance.Wren’s room was dim, monitors humming quietly in the background. She lay propped on pillows now, coloring with a blunt crayon, a cartoon sun taking shape on paper.She looked up as the door opened. “You came back,” she said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.Varian pulled the visitor’s chair closer to the bed. “Thought I’d check in on you. You okay with that?”She nodded. “Mama’s in the car?”“She is.” He studied her face, the delicate bones, the curve of her jawline… And then he saw them—tiny flecks of gray breaking through deep brown irises. The same storm-flecked pattern he saw every morning in the mirror.His chest tightened. “You’ve got interesting eyes.”Wren grinned shy

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   Like Floodwater

    The call came just after midnight.Liora’s phone buzzed once, then again, and she almost didn’t answer—Varian’s rules were already a chokehold. But the name Dr Patel on the screen yanked the air out of her lungs.“Dr Patel?” Her voice was a whisper, sharp with fear.On the other end, the cardiologist didn’t waste time. “Wren’s numbers are slipping. She’s stable for now, but her oxygen saturation dropped twice tonight. I thought you’d want to know.”Liora’s knees went weak; she pressed her back to the nearest wall. “I—can I come? Just for a little while? Please.”“I can’t make that call,” Patel said carefully. “But if you can get here in the next two hours, she’ll still be awake.”A shadow fell across her. She didn’t need to look to know who it was.“Who’s Wren?” Varian’s voice was calm. Too calm.Liora’s free hand curled into a fist. “My… cousin.”His eyes flicked over her pale face, her trembling fingers on the phone. “That’s the same cousin you went to see in the hospital?”“Yes.”“

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