The thrill of a steal never failed to set Haia alight. The pitter-patter of her feet across roof tiles, the shouts of the guards as she leaped from building to building, the thundering noises of boots scrambling to keep up—it painted a wicked grin on her face every time.

But today, she had stolen something far more dangerous than a noble’s prized parasol or a secret letter between an adulterer and his mistress. There were more guards on her tail than she was used to, and she felt her usual grin fade away quickly, replaced with a small, frustrated frown.

Haia glanced over her shoulder. Four Golden Guards at positions five, six, seven, and eight. Another one at three. One at nine. She turned around and cursed. One more at twelve, charging straight toward her. The guards had circled her.

As the guard at twelve barreled toward her, roaring like a (puny) dragon, Haia pulled at the shurikens clanking on her belt. She took one in each hand and flung them to her sides, nailing them straight into the hands of the guards to her left and right. Then, she drew her dagger from its sheath and dropped to her knees, sliding down the sloped roof, straight toward the guard coming at her. She slipped just under his reach, slashing at the back of his knee. He yowled, tripping over her carefully placed hand, splatting flat onto his face.

Haia’s chest vibrated with laughter. “Hope I didn’t ruin that pretty face of yours!”

Get her!” he roared to his comrades as she launched herself from one rooftop to the next. She noticed that one guard who had been far behind her had caught up, scrambling up onto the roof with his hands and feet. She ran past him hastily, crushing his hand with the heel of her boot, and grabbed onto a clothes line at the edge of the roof, turning it into a make-shift zipline. A spear whizzed past her nose as she made her descent onto the sloped rooftop, tumbling unceremoniously down the side as she tried to dig her gloved fingers into the gaps.

A hand grabbed at her foot as she grunted, shaking her leg violently to get her assailant off of her tail.

Sling, sling, chick!

She whipped out a dagger from her belt again, slicing at his hand until finally she grew tired of chasing it and stabbed it. The man released her, screaming as he clattered to the ground in a heap. Haia didn’t bother looking for long as she scrambled up the slope of the roof, making her way clumsily to the next one. This time when she landed, it wasn’t as smooth and a twinge of pain shot through her wrist as she tucked and rolled onto the ground. The voices of the guards grew uncomfortably close as she slunk out of the alleyway, attempting to blend in with the crowd. She made it past a few fruit stalls selling dragon fruit before a guard locked eyes with her and his face contorted in rage.

“OVER THERE!” he shouted. Haia took it as her cue to create chaos.

As if the marketplace wasn’t already full of mayhem, Haia raised hell by knocking into customers and shoving crates onto the path behind her. A terrified vendor cowered in fear, putting his hands above his head when Haia approached his stall. She grabbed a handful of apples and smirking beneath her mask, not that he could see.

“Mind if I borrow these?” she asked, chucking them at the guards without waiting for a response. The man only whimpered even more. Haia laughed maniacally. Oh, this was too much fun.

Splat, splat, splat.

Apple after apple struck their targets with perfect precision despite the stampeding crowd, forcing guards to their hands and knees as apples and people obstructed their vision. Taking advantage of the situation, Haia ran with the crowd straight onto a seemingly abandoned street. She ducked into the shadowy corner of an alleyway between two houses and collapsed on the ground in exhaustion. Stealing, as much as it was fun, was also a lot of work.

Haia peeled off her gloves, checking her left wrist for a sprain. Like she had predicted, it had swollen slightly from her awkward fall earlier. She scrunched her nose in pain while taking out a bandage from her pack. She had started to wrap the bandage around her hand when a blade found itself at the base of throat.

Haia’s pulse thrummed against the cool metal’s kiss, frozen in shock for a moment. Curse her for not scanning her surroundings before checking her wounds.

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“Any last words before I take you to her Majesty?” a gravelly voice croaked in her ear. The guard behind her smelled of sewage and sweat. He was probably one of the annoying men she had shoved into the open sewers on her trek from the Dragon Palace. Though Haia should have felt scared, an inexplicable desire to laugh overtook her. This was quite the turn of events, yes, a new thrill.

“Yes. Please tell her royal highness to kindly fuck off,” she said before jamming her right elbow into the guard’s stomach. He doubled over, breathless as she slipped the blade from his grasp with her sprained hand, a mistake that cost her some time. He grabbed for her unsteadily, face turning purple with rage.

Haia stabbed him in the eye.

No witnesses to her weaknesses. That was the first rule Empress Mai had taught her.

The man collapsed on the ground with a thud, his unseeing eyes gazing up to the heavens. Haia ripped off the man’s fallen mask, cleaned her new blade with it, and added it to the belt at her waist, her personal arsenal of weapons always at her fingertips. She eyed the empty slots where her shurikens had once been, irritated that she would not be able to retrieve them like she usually could. No matter. Shurikens were cheap, and it was time for a restock anyway.

The thief’s eyes shifted about her surroundings one last time. She gave the guard’s body one last kick to ensure he was really dead before stepping over it. She peeked out from the alleyway, watching the clamor of the angry civilians who were now berating the Golden Guards’ for their incompetence. Many vendors had lost precious goods today, and their anger would not be soon soothed. Haia chose this moment to remove the cloak on her back, the one that gave her away as the Empire’s most infamous thief—the Silver Serpent. It was a name she had fashioned for herself and then spread in a rumor. She had never expected it to stick, but when it had, she had a cloak tailored with a serpent emblem stitched onto the back and had worn it for every thieving exploit since then. If Haia loved anything, it was being known for her crimes. Theatrics and spectacle were what she gifted to the civilians of the Empire, many of whom secretly supported her emptying of elite coffers.

Yet, at the same time, Haia valued her quiet time spent as a civilian and not a professional thief (and occasional Underground fighter.) So, when her day’s work was done, she removed the Silver Serpent’s cloak, shedding one of her many identities to return to the one she had been born with—Haia Kaneko, once an orphaned girl, now a strong young woman who had survived more than one should ever live through.

As she shoved the cloak into her pack, her wrist twinged with pain. This one would take a while to heal.

After putting away her cloak, Haia stepped into the light, brushing dust and dirt from her shoddily braided hair. Removing her cloak revealed her half-sleeved kimono-style tunic worn over loose black pants. As she walked past irritated vendors, she snatched a bamboo hat from one of the abandoned stalls, fixing it onto her head to hide her face. Not that anyone knew what she actually looked like. She always made sure to cover her face with a mask when meeting with clients and during her thefts. Still, her encounter with the lone guard had put her on edge, and she didn’t want any more close calls before she reached her apartment.

After walking in random directions to throw off anyone that might have been on her trail, Haia turned a corner to the middle-class district of Lo-ong, the district in which she lived. On any other day, Haia would have enjoyed the scenes before her. The weather was relatively hot, even for the summer, so that meant everyone was out of their house. Usually, Haia would be able to taste the humidity in her mouth. After all, Haan, the capital city, was known for its sudden rain storms.

But, today wasn’t one of those days. As a resident of Golden Dragon for the twenty-one years of her existence, Haia knew that when the sweltering heat came, not a single drop of rain would come down from the sky, as if all the water had been sucked out of the atmosphere. Today, no one carried their flimsy umbrellas as they strolled about.

Though most residents of Haan dressed in drab browns, grays, and earthy greens on a typical day, the nice weather had prompted much brighter colored attire. Haia admired the magenta ribbons decorating the braids of young girls and the sea of rainbow shirts adorned by the young boys playing tag on the street. Even their parents wore freshly washed, neatly pressed clothes.

After a couple of turns, Haia arrived on the street corner that led to her apartment. The front of her apartment building faced the alleyway’s wall rather than the main street, an unusual aspect that made Haia choose this particular location to be her home for the next six months (she could never stay in one place for too long.) People would be less likely to bother her if her house wasn’t in view of the public. Though she rarely had good lighting in her room, she didn’t mind it as long as she had candles for the evening. After all, she spent most of her time outside, scouting new spots to steal from and speaking with eager clients who needed something stolen but were too cowardly to do it themselves. It wasn’t like her room was anything but a place to sleep.

As she climbed the old wooden steps, giving a curt nod to the old landlord who was busy storing apples into crates for his shop, a strange scent floated into her nostrils. She sniffed once. Then sniffed again. That smell…she knew that smell. Haia immediately began sprinting up the stairs, vaulting over the landlord’s cat, which hissed and scrambled down the steps in the opposite direction. She clattered through the poorly lit hallway, throwing open the wooden door to her room, and sitting on her bed was none other than Empress Mai herself.