Book One: Shadows of Fate
CHAPTER 1: The Gala
The champagne was expensive, the conversation cheap, and Della Steel had mastered the art of looking engaged while being utterly bored.
"Your father's foreign policy position is absolutely visionary," gushed Mrs. Pemberton, a donor whose net worth exceeded the GDP of small nations. Her diamond necklace caught the light from the museum's crystal chandeliers, sending prismatic reflections across the marble floor.
Della smiled with practiced warmth. "He'll be thrilled to hear you think so. The Senate vote next week is crucial."
She'd given this performance a thousand times. Senator Harrison Steel's daughter. Art history graduate reduced to political prop. She touched the stem of her champagne flute, the cool glass grounding her in the moment as Mrs. Pemberton launched into a monologue about trade agreements.
The Metropolitan Museum of Ancient Cultures had transformed for tonight's fundraiser. Medieval tapestries hung between contemporary art installations, an eclectic mix that somehow worked. Della had helped curate the exhibit—her real job, the one that gave her purpose beyond her father's political machinery. Here, surrounded by artifacts that had survived millennia, she felt connected to something larger than campaign donations and poll numbers.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Pemberton," Della said, deploying her most apologetic smile. "I need to check on the exhibition setup. You understand."
Before the woman could protest, Della glided away through the crowd. She'd worn the midnight blue gown specifically for these escapes—elegant enough to satisfy her father's campaign manager, dark enough to disappear into shadows.
The gala hummed with three hundred guests, their laughter and conversation echoing off vaulted ceilings. Security personnel dotted the perimeter, discrete but visible. Her father's people, mostly. She recognized the tell-tale earpieces and rigid postures.
But one man stood different.
Della noticed him near the古Egyptian exhibit, positioned where he could observe the entire room. Tall—easily six-three—with dark hair and a tailored black suit that suggested military precision rather than fashion. Unlike the other security who tried to blend in, he seemed to command the space around him simply by existing.
Their eyes met across the crowded room.
Grey. His eyes were grey like storm clouds, and for a heartbeat, Della forgot how to breathe. He didn't look away, didn't pretend he hadn't been watching her. The directness of his gaze sent electricity down her spine.
Then someone blocked her view—her father's campaign manager, Richard Chen, materializing with his usual impeccable timing and terrible sense of interruption.
"Della, the Ambassador from Jordan wants to meet you. Five minutes, then you're free." Richard's tone suggested this wasn't negotiable.
"Richard, I'm working tonight, remember? Museum curator, not campaign asset?"
"You're always both." He adjusted his glasses, a nervous habit that betrayed his otherwise smooth exterior. "Five minutes. The ambassador donates generously."
Della sighed. "Fine. But then I'm checking the restricted collection. We have pieces arriving tomorrow that need—"
"Yes, yes, your artifacts." Richard was already steering her toward a cluster of diplomats. "Just smile and be brilliant. It's what you do best."
The next twenty minutes blurred into a montage of handshakes and small talk. Della deployed her arsenal of charming anecdotes, discussed her father's environmental initiatives, and subtly redirected questions about his presidential ambitions. All while acutely aware that the grey-eyed stranger had moved positions three times, always maintaining line of sight to her.
Who was he?
Finally, mercifully, the ambassador excused himself to speak with other donors. Della seized her chance, slipping through a service door marked "Staff Only" that led to the museum's private wings.
The hallway beyond was blissfully quiet. Her heels clicked against polished floors as she walked past offices and storage rooms. She should return to the gala. Richard would notice her absence soon. But the restricted collection called to her—they'd received a last-minute addition tonight, something her supervisor Dr. Reeves had been cryptically excited about.
Della punched her access code into the keypad. The heavy door clicked open, revealing the temperature-controlled vault where the museum stored its most valuable pieces awaiting authentication and cataloging.
The lighting was dimmed for the evening, motion sensors triggering soft illumination as she entered. Rows of metal shelving held carefully wrapped artifacts, each tagged with acquisition numbers and origin information. She moved deeper into the vault, searching for the new arrival.
She found it on the center examination table, partially unwrapped.
Della's breath caught.
The artifact was unlike anything she'd ever seen. Roughly the size of a tablet, its surface appeared to be crystalline, but with a depth that suggested it contained more space than its physical dimensions allowed. Strange symbols covered every inch—not Egyptian, not Sumerian, not any ancient language she recognized from her master's thesis.
The documentation tag read: Origin Unknown. Carbon dating inconclusive. Discovered in unmarked site, coordinates classified.
Her academic curiosity ignited. This shouldn't be here, in a fundraiser venue's storage. This should be in a laboratory with a full research team. She leaned closer, studying the symbols. They seemed to shimmer in the low light, or perhaps that was a trick of the crystal's internal structure.
Della's hand moved without conscious thought.
The moment her fingers touched the artifact's surface, the world exploded.
Visions slammed into her mind with physical force. Ancient cities rising from desert sands, their architecture impossible and beautiful. Figures in robes performing rituals around an altar that blazed with light. Wars fought with weapons that bent reality itself. A voice speaking in a language she didn't know but somehow understood: "The key to what was, what is, what could be."
She tried to pull her hand away, but couldn't. Energy surged up her arm, through her chest, filling her skull with pressure and light and knowledge that humans weren't meant to possess.
Then—darkness.
Della gasped, stumbling backward. Her hand was free. The artifact sat on the table, innocent and inert. Had she imagined it? But her heart hammered and her skin tingled with residual electricity.
The vault's lights died.
Emergency backup systems should have kicked in immediately. They didn't. The darkness was absolute, the kind found deep underground where light had never reached.
"Hello?" Della's voice sounded small in the sudden silence. "Is someone there?"
A sound. Footsteps. Multiple sets, moving with coordinated precision.
"Dr. Steel." A man's voice, accent European but indistinct. "Please step away from the artifact."
How did they know she was here? How did they get past security?
"I'm not a doctor yet," Della said, buying time while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. "Just a curator. And you're not supposed to be here."
"Neither are you." A hint of amusement in his voice. "But here we all are. Now step away, and this can remain civilized."
Della's hand found her phone in her clutch. Dead. Completely dead, as if all power had been drained from it.
"The artifact isn't yours," she said, surprised by the steadiness in her voice. Campaign training had some uses—never show fear, even when terrified.
"It belongs to no one. And everyone." The voice was closer now. "You touched it. That complicates matters."
Red laser sights cut through the darkness, painting dots across her chest.
Della's survival instinct finally kicked in. She dropped to the floor as the first gunshot shattered the silence. The bullet sparked off metal shelving where her head had been seconds before. She crawled behind a storage rack, mind racing. The gala. Three hundred people. Her father. Security should be swarming this area.
Unless these men had disabled more than just the lights.
Another shot. Closer.
Then—a different sound. Impact, a grunt, the clatter of a weapon hitting the floor. The red laser sights swung wildly.
"Contact! We have—"
The voice cut off with a sickening thud.
Della's heart hammered in her throat. Someone else was in the vault. Friend or another threat? She pressed herself against the shelving, trying to become invisible.
Sounds of a fight. Brutal, efficient, frighteningly quick. Bodies hitting walls. A cry of pain, abruptly silenced. Then—nothing.
Footsteps approached her hiding spot. Single person. Measured pace.
"Della Steel."
That voice. She knew it somehow, though they'd never spoken.
"You need to come with me. Now."
The emergency lights flickered on, casting everything in red. The grey-eyed stranger from the gala stood before her, not a hair out of place despite having apparently taken down multiple armed intruders. He extended his hand.
"Who are you?" Della whispered.
"My name is Hilton Wade." His grey eyes held hers with unsettling intensity. "And as of sixty seconds ago, your life changed forever. We need to leave before more arrive."
"More? Who were those men?"
"People who want what you touched." He glanced at the artifact on the table. "People who will kill you for what you now know."
"I don't know anything!"
"Your brain does. The artifact ensures you can never unknow it." Hilton's expression remained neutral, but something flickered in those grey eyes. "I can protect you, or I can leave you here for the next wave. Your choice. But decide quickly—we have approximately ninety seconds."
Somewhere in the distance, alarms finally began to wail.
Della looked at his extended hand. Every instinct screamed this was insane. She should stay, call her father's security, trust the system.
But the visions still echoed in her mind. Ancient power. Reality-bending weapons. The key to what was, what is, what could be.
She took Hilton Wade's hand.
His grip was strong, warm, certain. He pulled her to her feet with effortless strength.
"Stay close. Don't let go." He moved toward the vault door with fluid grace, positioning himself between her and any potential threat. "And Della?"
"Yes?"
"Everything you thought you knew about the world? Forget it. Because none of it was real."
Then he opened the door, and chaos exploded around them.