Chapter 24
DAVEN
Daven took the long way home.
He kept the car in the upper lanes, moving through the clean arcs of Zephyr while the city flashed beneath them. Ryneth sat close beside him, eyes bright in a way that made Daven’s chest tighten.
Ryneth talked the whole ride.
“I sat there,” he said, voice quick, like he still tasted the lecture. “And it made sense. Like my brain clicked. Like I belonged in that room. You know what I mean?”
“Hm.” Daven kept his eyes on the road, but his mouth curved anyway. “You belonged.”
Ryneth glanced at him. “You sound smug.”
“That’s because I’m feeling pretty damn smug, aethera. Who was the one who brought you there?”
“Who was the one who brought me to Governance classes first?” Ryneth grumbled, shivering on purpose when Daven glanced his way. His cheeks were flushed.
Damn, he looked cute like this. Happy.
And that made Daven fucking happy too.
He thought about the run that morning, the cold air in his lungs, the rhythm of his feet on the empty lanes. Running usually cleared his head, but today it hadn’t.
The bath from last night lingered instead. Ryneth leaning against him, warm and honest in a way Daven hadn’t expected.
For once, Daven didn’t want to win anything. He just wanted to figure out what he wanted.
With Ryneth.
Ryneth huffed and leaned back, staring out at the skyline. “I used to look at buildings and think people like me built them, and people like you owned them.”
Daven’s fingers tightened on the wheel. Not quite the direction he’d wanted this conversation to go. Still, a glimpse into Ryneth’s mind was something he would never refuse. “And now?”
Ryneth’s throat bobbed. “Today I sat in a class where they talked about how buildings hold and how structures fail. And it made me wonder about a lot.”
Daven breathed in slowly as the mood in the car changed. “Such as?”
“Such as the mines we have on Düren.” Ryneth stared outside.
“They’re carved straight into the mountain faces without any protection.
There’s nothing to hold on to when you’re lowered down.
Sometimes people fall out of the lift and into the void.
It’s like they don’t care. Like they know how to force tunnels into stone and send people inside, but they never build a safe way out. ”
Daven watched his face as he spoke, the intensity in it, the way old memories still pulled at him.
“They say the rock holds,” Ryneth continued. “They say the mountain protects itself. But it doesn’t. When one section collapses, it takes everything with it. I understand why now.”
“Why’s that?”
He turned back to Daven. “Because there’s no shared load. No structure working together.”
Ryneth traced the edge of the dashboard with his finger. “When things collapse, it’s usually because everything was resting on one point.”
Daven’s mouth curved faintly. “You attended one lecture and you crowned yourself an engineer.”
Ryneth snorted. “I didn’t.”
“Well, you sound awfully certain. Perhaps I’m contagious.”
“No, you’re not, you ass.”
Ryneth shoved him in his side, and Daven feigned hurt with a chuckle as he parked the car.
“It just makes me think,” Ryneth continued as the elevator carried them up to the 200th floor of Daven’s penthouse.
His multi-slate lit briefly in his pocket. Ryneth stiffened hard enough for Daven to feel it, already reaching for it before the screen flashed a harmless class update. He let out a breath and shoved it away like he was annoyed at himself.
“Düren builds everything like that. The mines. The housing blocks. The factories. Everything’s one long wall. One single line. But if it cracks, the people inside carry the weight. It’s like—”
“The Ward?” Daven prompted when Ryneth trailed off.
“Yeah.” Ryneth hesitated, then huffed softly. “Or maybe I’m just talking nonsense after one class.”
“Highly possible,” Daven said dryly.
“Let me show you something.” Ryneth dropped his bag on the kitchen island and pulled out a large sheet of paper.
“You’re an artist now?”
Sticking out his tongue, he turned the paper around. “Not me. Cyprian. Look what he made me.”
Daven’s eyes flicked toward the charcoal drawing on the counter.
Damn. That looked… ominous.
Then again, Cyprian’s drawings always did.
“He told me he had a vision,” Ryneth said softly.
“Is that Düren?”
Daven studied the charcoal lines. A wall cut straight across the page in a thick black stroke.
On one side, a few figures stood in formation, sketched just clearly enough to make out the way they faced forward, keeping watch.
Behind them, the outline of houses crowded close together, roofs and walls pressed into one another as if space had always been scarce.
Beyond the wall, the paper was almost untouched.
Cyprian had drawn the line, the guards, the homes they protected, and then nothing beyond it.
The empty stretch on the far side pulled at Daven more than anything else, because it felt less like unfinished space and more like something deliberately left out.
Above it all, a faint curve marked the outer ring, stretching across the sky like a silent boundary.
He lifted his eyes to Ryneth. “What’s on the other side of the wall?”
Ryneth swallowed. He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. The sorrow in his eyes said enough. “You remember asking me what was on the other side of the wall?”
Daven nodded. Of course he did. Ryneth’s answer had haunted him for the entire night.
Nothing.
“Nothing,” Ryneth whispered, pointing at the drawing. “See? The Ward was the same way. One wall. One promise. They told us danger waited on the other side, so we guarded it. We believed it held everything back.”
“And now?” he asked.
Ryneth swallowed. “Now I look at Cyprian’s drawing and I see emptiness. And I think maybe the pressure was never there at all. Maybe it moved somewhere else. Maybe we were guarding the wrong thing.” He rubbed the back of his neck and gave a short laugh. “Or maybe I’m just overthinking things.”
“Explain.”
Ryneth nodded toward the drawing again. “If Concordant and Attica are working together… then Attica’s what everyone sees. They’re loud. Easy to blame. Easy to fear.” He tapped the page. “But Concordant moves through systems. Trade. Infrastructure.”
Daven watched him for a moment. “More people disappeared again this week,” he said. “And Yure thought that night by the tunnel they’d already set something in motion. Something bigger.”
Ryneth looked back at the drawing. “Then maybe Attica’s the distraction.”
Daven studied him. “You think Concordant avoids direct impact.”
“I think they’d rather move the pressure somewhere else.”
“And what happens when redirection fails?”
Ryneth looked at him. Really looked at him. “Then the storm hits.”
Daven’s mouth curved again, slower this time. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes.” Daven’s voice dropped. “Storms make it obvious what was already weak.”
Ryneth held his gaze. “And if Helion’s foundation cracks?”
Daven’s hand slid to the back of Ryneth’s neck and pulled him flush against his chest. “It won’t,” he said. “Now stop worrying. Let’s eat something.”
Daven set the pan on the stove and reached for the oil, grinning to himself when he felt Ryneth watching him from across the island.
“You can cook?” Ryneth asked.
Daven glanced up, one brow lifting. “Does that surprise you?”
Ryneth flushed. “Maybe a little. But it’s sexy.”
“Sexy, huh?” Taking out the fresh vegetables he’d had delivered after Ryneth left that morning, he set them on the counter. Granted, his fridge was usually empty, but he’d wanted to impress Ryneth.
Anything to be fucking sexy for him.
Always Ryneth.
He’d become the center of Daven’s life in such a short span of time.
Ryneth shrugged, but his blush had spread to his throat. “I just didn’t take you for someone who can cook.”
“That’s because you don’t know much about me yet, baby.” Daven grinned. “You know how big and hard my cock is, and how good I can fuck you, and—”
“Daven, stop.” Ryneth threw a pencil his way, which Daven barely dodged.
“Why?” Daven batted his lashes as he turned to stir in his pan with a grin. “I got you another surprise.”
“Yeah?”
Ryneth sounded… excited. Kid-like excited. That was new. Apparently the way to easing the snappy pressure in his aethera was by showering him with surprises.
Daven could do that.
“But you have to help me with the food first. Can you cut the carrots?”
Ryneth huffed and started for the drawers. “Of course I can. I used to help Mara cook, you know.”
“No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me about it?” Opening the fridge, Daven took out two beers and handed Ryneth one. He leaned back against the counter and took a swig.
“There isn’t much to say. I used to help her cook, is all.”
He became defensive again. Daven wondered why.
There were so many things he wondered about Ryneth.
“What’s your favorite dish?” he asked after they’d been cutting and stirring for some time.
Ryneth looked up. “What?”
“Your favorite dish.” Shouldering Ryneth gently aside, Daven grabbed the tray Ryneth had cut the carrots and onions from and put them into the pan to fry with the fish.
Ryneth let out a dry chuckle. “Daven, in case you hadn’t noticed, I didn’t really grow up in a family with much cuisine.”
Daven heard the sharp edge to his voice. “I did notice. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a favorite dish.”
“There was only one dish,” Ryneth said. “Mara made the same stew almost every night. I used to call it Mara’s stew.”
One dish? Okay, that was not what he’d expected.
Taking a swig of beer, Daven wiped his mouth with his sleeve, buying himself a moment to think. He suddenly felt like an incredible asshole. Not for asking, but for living in a world where a favorite dish had never even needed to be a question.
“It was good,” Ryneth said, nodding a little too firmly. “It had carrots and potatoes and lentils and anything really that was cheap and nutritious. What about you?”