Power in the Walls
DAWN
Of all the pets in the fae menageries, dragons were the rarest and most powerful. A dragon-bonded channeler’s access to flux would have been effectively limitless.
LORE TAVIS, ON THE NATURE OF FLUX, UNPUBLISHED
It made no damn sense. This food shouldn’t be here. The fire shouldn’t be dancing over fresh logs. The wine shouldn’t taste this sweet. Flux crystals in the chandelier threw blue light, warping all of it with a creepy glow.
Dawn’s stomach growled. Her body ached from the steep climb. The smell of roast meat and honey made her knees go loose. She carved off a slice of pork, shrugged, and took a bite. Salt. Smoke. Fat. A hint of something her tongue remembered but couldn’t name. Fuck. It was good.
“Think it’s poison?” she yelled down the table, chasing the bite with a long pull of wine.
Holloway grinned around a mouthful of fruit. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
Talia laughed. Even Riven’s shoulders had eased.
Lore moved down the table, pouring wine that never seemed to run out.
His hand brushed Talia’s wrist as he refilled her cup, and Dawn felt the girl’s heart skip.
Damn bond. She didn’t want to be in the middle when this mess between Talia and Riven and Lore came to a head.
The chandelier hummed overhead, crystals flashing. You didn’t need that many flux crystals to power a damn light. Dawn clocked it. Then she took another bite. Her head felt stuffed with cotton.
Today had sucked. This damned city. The elein conversation. Elanwei’s portrait. She wanted to forget. Let her guard down for once. Drink this fancy wine and worry about it tomorrow.
Holloway was telling a story about a drunk captain and a runaway wagon. Dawn smirked. She’d heard the story before—years ago in a bar in Gateway. He hit the punch line. Everyone laughed.
Ten heartbeats later, he told the same story. Same rhythm. Same grin. Same hand gesture. The laugh came again—on cue. Like the room was playing them a recording.
The fire popped. A shower of sparks leaped up—
—and hung frozen in the air for two heartbeats before they remembered how to fall.
Dawn frowned and shoved her chair back. The legs scraped the floor, the sound echoing too slow. So much for letting her guard down. She knew what this was, and she hoped she was wrong.
“Riven,” she said, kicking his chair. “With me.” He was already pushing back.
The heat of the dining hall dropped off quick. It just kept getting colder as they walked down a corridor. Behind them, muffled laughter echoed, rewound, played again.
“Feel here,” Riven said quietly, pressing his palm into the marble wall. Dawn did the same. The stone thrummed beneath her fingers, an undercurrent of energy buried in the walls.
“This is more than an illusion.” His jaw flexed. “It’s warping time. There’s only one person strong enough for this.”
He looked at her. Really looked, right in the eye. She blinked and looked away.
“You said Ehrue was dead,” he said quietly.
Dawn swallowed. “When I found her, she was drained. I tried to get her out, but those fucking monsters were everywhere—”
“I know.” His voice was soft. “We had to go.”
“But this—” Dawn pressed her forehead briefly against the marble, feeling the hum in her skull. “It’s her. Lore wasn’t lying.”
Riven’s voice rumbled on, deep and unrelenting. “She wouldn’t have chosen this. If it’s her, then Elanwei is using her. Channeling her dry.”
The implication hung in the air between them.
“Could you do it?” Dawn asked, turning to lean against the wall. “If that’s true. Could you kill Ellie?”
He looked away. “I don’t know.”
She was about to tell him she’d do it for him, when the bond flashed in her chest. Talia’s heartbeat was racing. Then a pinch on her left shoulder. Hard and desperate.
The signal they’d agreed on. Danger.
“Talia. She’s in trouble.” She barely got the words out, and Riven was already running.
The hall warped around them—doorways stretching, torchlight bending, floor gleaming too bright. They hadn’t gone far, but the illusion was trying to steer them off. Dawn shoulder-checked a door that shimmered into existence.
The banquet hall flared ahead, and they burst in together. Wet heat hit her like a wall, gluing her shirt to her skin. The room stank of wine and something sour—arousal and flux and rot.
Talia was on the couch, dress rucked up to the thigh, between the two men. Lore leaned back behind her, his shirt open and askew. Holloway sat on her other side, cheeks pink, hand half up her skirts. Lore was leaning forward, saying something in Holloway’s ear.
“Lore.” Riven’s growl rippled through the air. “Stop.”
Lore looked up with the widest smile. Like this amused him.
Like Riven’s reaction was funny. Dawn didn’t bother arguing with the fucker.
She lifted her revolver and shot the chandelier.
Flux crystals exploded in a cascade of blue and silver.
Shards of crystals fell like rain. Pinging off silver platters. Skittering across stone.
The illusion tore apart like tissue paper, and Dawn knew for certain it wasn’t just Lore. Illusion magic was Elanwei’s domain.
She and Riven locked eyes. He saw it too. A grim understanding passed between them. In the morning, they would free Dawn’s lost love—and kill Riven’s.