60. Unraveled #2
“I have come to reclaim that which you stole from my bloodline.” He raised his hand, and that was all the warning she had before the world tilted.
The air around them shifted. Wind surged through the narrow alley like a gale. Auryn cried out as the force ripped her hood back from her head and slammed both her and Lu’ma against the stone wall behind them.
The parcel flew from her grasp, clattering to the floor.
Pain burst across her shoulders as the impact knocked the breath from her lungs.
Pressure lanced through her chest.
When her vision cleared, the Riven was already on her, one massive hand pinning her shoulders against the stone. The serrated edge of his glaive rested against her throat. With every breath that left her, fog appeared on the shining metal.
The scent from earlier intensified. Ancient magic, far older than anything she’d seen in Krystopolis—the spiced musk of old ritual burned into the very marrow of his being.
As he leaned closer, the flecks and shadows in his eyes came into focus.
Violet.
So much like Thessia’s.
Her chest tightened, but she clung to her resolve.
“Release me,” she demanded, forcing her voice to steady.
He removed his hand from her shoulder, but she still could not move. To her left, Lu’ma shifted. The blade at Auryn’s throat pressed a fraction closer.
“Take another step,” the Riven said without looking away from Auryn, “and I will end her life before you draw breath.”
Lu’ma froze.
“Why hesitate?” Auryn challenged. “Try it, Riven.”
She summoned her Weave, calling on the costly magic, ready to do whatever was necessary to escape. She could have Veilstepped, but she needed more room. She lifted her foot, ready to try, ready to pay a higher cost if needed.
Her thoughts splintered when he raised his hand and tugged on one of the pins in her hair. Silver strands tumbled free across her shoulders. And with them, Thessia’s golden braid.
The violet ribbon brushed against her cheek.
His hand moved toward it.
Fury filled her.
“Don’t touch it,” Auryn snarled. “Don’t you dare!”
“It is stolen,” he snapped. “Taking feathers or beads from the dead is one thing. But this—”
“It was a gift!”
His fingers brushed the frayed end of it. She twisted violently against his grip, the movement driving her collarbone straight into the edge of his glaive.
Steel bit skin, Auryn hissed as a thin line of blood opened across her collarbone.
Then she froze.
Because the Riven had gone still.
Very still.
Auryn looked down.
And watched in stunned silence as the exact same cut opened across his skin in the same place.
Mirrored.
Perfect.
From that wound seeped blood—not grey like a Glider's.
Silver.
Just like Auryn’s.
For the first time since he had appeared like a specter from a nightmare, the Riven’s expression shifted.
Shock. Disbelief.
The Riven’s gaze flicked between the twin wounds—hers, then his—as though he expected the illusion to unravel if he looked long enough.
It did not.
The silver blood welled at the same pace.
Fell in the same measure.
His grip on the glaive tightened.
Then stilled.
Again, he reached for the braid.
Auryn’s breath caught.
“Do not—”
His fingers brushed the violet ribbon.
The air shifted.
Not with wind.
With something older.
The magic in the braid did not flare. It did not strike. It did not roar.
It simply… was.
Immovable.
Absolute.
The Riven’s hand stopped.
Not by force.
By vow.
His pupils narrowed.
“Not taken…given…” he said. “The Lioness’s magic lives…”
The alley fell into a strange, suspended silence. Even the distant murmur of the Commons receded, swallowed in the gravity—the weight—of that truth.
Auryn could hardly breathe. Her resolve, her mask, her pride—even her fury—shattered all at once, broken on the rocks of those few simple words.
Her voice, when it came, was no longer the Sokar’s.
“Ro…did you see her…? You were at Stonewake…Kai—the Resh'Agar said as much…did you see her?”
Quiet. Trembling. Terrified now, not of the Riven’s talons but of the truth he would speak next. Her eyes stung, but could not have stopped the tears that begged to fall. For too long already — for too many decades — she’d held back her grief.
“Is she alive?” she whispered. “Thessia…is she alive?”
The Riven’s eyes fixed on the ribbon.
On the golden braid.
On the certainty he could no longer deny.
And in that single moment of distraction…
He forgot that silence was safer than truth.
He spoke.
“The lioness was whole when I took her from the battle at Stonewake,” he said.
The words fell between them before he could stop them.
“Injured…but able to recover.”
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Unforgiving.
“She lived…”
Hope—sharp and fragile—cut through her chest. She tried to lift her hand. To touch the braid like she so often did when the world felt far too heavy to carry without the Lioness at her side. But the Riven held her immobile. Helpless.
“You helped her,” she said, her voice unsteady now. “Unless—unless you are lying…”
And to her frustration, she did not know if he was. Her intuition, when faced with the depths of his violet gaze, lay dormant.
A beat as his hand moved away from the ribbon.
“The Riven does not lie,” he said, and something in him changed, then.
His sharp features were no longer fierce, but resigned. His colossal wings flared, his tail feathers shuddering. He removed the glaive from her throat and wrapped his fingers around her upper arm.
He could have snapped her bones.
Instead, he took a step back and pushed her towards Lu’ma.
Auryn was still stunned, immobilized with grief, with hope, with prayer. But Lu’ma—ever clear of mind—immediately warded them both.
The Riven watched, impassive.
“Leave, Sokar,” he said. “Take your portal to your tower of glass…and to your Skycleaver.”
He knelt down, picking up her parcel.
“N-No!” she protested, taking half a step towards him, gasping when he tossed the box at her with a hint of irritation.
She caught it, clutching it to her chest. He watched the set of her shoulders, the way her fingers trembled against the box.
“Coveting,” he said, “is a dangerous thing. The Resh’Agar will leave for war, as it should be. The Sokar will be left alone…” He spread his wings wide, straightening his shoulders. “But not unguarded.”
His wings flared again, and he turned to walk away. Dismissing her.
"Wait!" Auryn called. "We're not finished here. You did not answer me."
He didn't pause. Didn't turn.
Auryn took a step, but Lu'ma caught her elbow, shaking her head with a grave look in her eye.
'No, Your Radiance. You must not. That creature is—'
"He saw her, Lu'ma. I must know if…" but when Auryn looked to the Riven once more, he'd already melded into the shadows of the alley. "He's gone…"
'For someone so broad, he moves in silence,' Lu'ma signed.
The scar at the nape of Auryn's neck grew hot, and she reached up to touch it with a wince. A familiar voice growled in her mind.
A new enemy? Or have you tamed another monster, ember mine?
She did not answer the wolf.
But in her heart, she spoke the words she’d said to Kailorien so many years ago on the Emerald Moores—war is not something one can tame.
If he's come to fight, I will not give ground.
But I will find him again, and I will learn the truth.
All of it.