Chapter 17
Wren
He lets go of me completely then, fingers sliding away with a final brush against my skin that feels like a farewell and a promise all at once.
Heat flares at my other side before I’ve fully caught my breath, different from Sylvin’s precise chill. Riven’s presence has always been a kind of gravity, pulling attention whether you want to give it or not, and now that gravity focuses entirely on me.
I turn toward him because there’s nowhere else to look.
His eyes are darker now with pupils blown wide, a thin ring of crimson still glowing around the edges.
The wind has plastered his dark hair back from his forehead and there’s a fine dusting of snow across his shoulders where it’s clung to the dark fabric of his dress shirt.
He reaches up, thumb swiping at a tear track along my cheek, his touch incredibly gentle for a man who very nearly snapped Ryoden’s neck minutes ago.
“One month,” he echoes. “I find myself agreeing simply because you stand here and ask it of me.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then flicks back up. “Though I can’t promise to stay away during the duration.”
“Riven,” I start, not even sure what I intend to say, but he shakes his head once, a simple, impatient movement, as if he can’t afford to hear my own affection for him in return.
“Don’t,” he says, voice rough. “If you say anything remotely kind, I might take you over my shoulder and drag you out of here despite all your noble plans.”
The corner of my mouth tries to lift at that, a hopeless little flicker that dies almost immediately under the weight of everything else.
I don’t have time to decide how to respond before he closes the distance, one hand sliding to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair as he pulls me flush to him.
The kiss is nothing like Sylvin’s.
Riven’s mouth hits mine with pent-up hunger that’s barely leashed, fangs scraping lightly against my lower lip before he forces himself to slow.
I can feel the restraint in the way his fingers tighten in my hair and then loosen, like he’s fighting the urge to take more.
Heat coils low in my belly as my body remembers too easily what it means to be kissed by him, how fully he always worshiped every inch of me with those lips.
He pulls back on a shuddered breath, our noses brushing as his eyes search my face like he’s looking for something he’s afraid he’ll never see again.
“Try not to die, darling,” he says quietly as the crimson in his eyes flares up again. “I’m not sure I’d handle it well and your desire to save the people of this planet would be for nothing.”
He releases me slowly and stands back next to Sylvin. Naturally I look to Torryn next, who already closes the distance between us once more. I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.
His hand lifts halfway, fingers flexing in the air between us as if he’s still not sure he’s allowed to touch me.
The hesitation alone nearly undoes me. This is the man who has never once failed to position himself as my shield, and now he stands there, wary of overstepping when every other part of him is clearly screaming to pull me out of here.
I move that final half-step into his space, closing the gap for him.
The relief that flickers through his gaze is so quick most would miss it, but I feel it like a physical loosening of a tight knot in my chest. His palm comes up then, large and warm, cupping the side of my face with a tenderness that makes my throat ache.
His large hand spans from my jaw to my ear, thumb brushing a slow line along my cheekbone as if memorizing the shape of it.
For a second, raw anguish flickers across his face—there and gone in the space of a heartbeat, swallowed by the calm mask he wears as a king. His hand holds steady on my cheek even as his jaw tightens.
“I’ve never been able to deny you, and neither have my spirits. I’ve finally realized why,” he admits before lowering his lips to my ears. “You’re my mate, Wren. The other half of me.”
The confession nearly buckles my knees, but his arm wraps around me then, supporting me as he always has.
He pulls back and tilts my chin up a fraction before he seals his lips against mine.
Torryn’s mouth is warm and patient, pressing against mine with a gentleness that makes me ache.
He kisses me like I’m something to be cherished, not claimed, and like this might be the last time for a long time.
Heat pulses through me where his body brushes mine and it’s then that I realize the frost ring is gone, with his abundance pressed against me. I lean into him as his fingers lower to dig into my hips. When he finally breaks away, his breath is warm on my lips.
“Remember,” he says gently, “that you are not alone in any of this, no matter how far you walk from us.”
I don’t trust my voice, so I nod, a small, shaky motion.
With one last, searing look that feels like it pins me to this spot more effectively than any chain, he turns away.
The space around me feels suddenly too open…too exposed.
Sylvin’s hand lifts and the space behind him shimmers, bending in on itself, and a portal blooms. Cold spills from it in a sharp gust, even sharper than the storm that’s already here.
He takes one step through without looking back at first, then pauses just at the threshold, his profile stark against the pale light.
His gaze slides once more to Ryoden, to the tanks below, to me, and then he inclines his head like he’s reminding himself he’s agreed to this, no matter how much it pains him.
The portal swallows him a heartbeat later and seals behind him before fading entirely.
With it the wind returns to normal and snow no longer falls from the clouds.
Torryn doesn’t take the portal, instead he walks to the edge of the wall, his bare feet leaving prints in the snow. Then he glances back at me, golden eyes meeting mine across the distance. He smiles, small and sad, then steps up onto the parapet and jumps.
My breath catches as his body drops out of sight, but before panic can fully take hold, a hawk bursts upward from below the wall, wings snapping wide as it climbs into the clouds. Bronze and brown feathers flash once in the dim light before the sky swallows him whole.
Riven is gone almost before I can acknowledge it. I catch a last glimpse of him racing along the wall’s edge as a dark streak, and then he’s over the side and vanishes into the landscape beyond, too fast for even my eyes to follow.
The wall feels emptier with each departure, until only Azyric and Ryoden remain.
The wraith remains distant with his arms crossed over his chest, shadows beginning to slide up his legs to his torso.The gentle breeze catches the ends of his dark hair, tugging it across his forehead, but his silver eyes stay fixed on me, cool and assessing.
In a strange contrast, the clouds above begin to part and a ray of warm light is cast upon him.
“So,” he says, voice smooth as ever, but there’s a new edge threaded through it now, sharper than the rest of his earlier barbs. “You stand in a human city, under a human’s protection, with their weapons at your back and our deadline hanging over your head.”
He takes a few steps closer, stopping close enough that I can see the ink of roses and barbed wire tattoos twisting up his neck under the collar of his shirt.
“Get to your point, Azyric,” I sigh, growing weary of this game he’s so desperately trying to make me play with him.
I have no desire to continue this back and forth, pining after him and the brief moments of the true Azyric that he allowed me to glimpse beneath his mask.
If this is the version of him he wants to stick to, I need to adjust my reactions.
Ever since leaving that battle, I knew Azyric would take this the hardest and as nothing but a personal betrayal to him.
Every second that my soul ached to go back, it was always for four kings, not three, but he doesn’t want to hear that.
He doesn’t want to hear that I want to fight for us, despite how heavily his desire to believe the worst in me hangs over my soul. He only wants to believe this warped reality he’s concocted.
I swallow hard at that sudden clarity in my head.
It’s time I let him. I can’t fight for us alone, forever.
“You do enjoy making things difficult,” he adds, glancing once at the empty stretch of wall where the others disappeared, then back to me. “For yourself. For us.”
“I didn’t ask you to come,” I say quietly, because it’s the only defense I have left.
His mouth quirks, but there’s no humor in it. “No. You just walked away without a word and then planted yourself in the middle of our enemies’ stronghold. Forgive us for drawing conclusions.”
Convenient how he says us, when the others aren’t here to correct him. I don’t bother correcting him, knowing it would do nothing to help.
“If I’d stayed,” I reply, lifting my chin and refusing to cower under his accusatory gaze, “you wouldn’t be living now and judging me, Azyric.”
For the first time tonight, genuine concern flickers across his face.
The shadows lick up his chest and then settle again, as though they’re mirroring the jump of his pulse.
Then he steps in closer, close enough now that I can feel the chill emanating from his power, a different kind of cold than Sylvin’s—deeper and darker, like the absence of light and warmth.
His voice drops, losing the mocking softness and stripped down.
“Listen to me, Wren,” he says in a warning tone. “If you use what you are to help them butcher us—if you turn those threads or any power against our people on the battlefield—I will do what those three never will.”
The words punch the air out of my lungs in a rush. My eyes widen, truly shocked that this is where he led the conversation.
“I will stop you,” Azyric continues, silver gaze unblinking. “Even if it means killing you myself.”
Ryoden slowly walks closer to me until I feel his warmth at my back, a steady, quiet presence in the face of this threat on my life.
It isn’t the threat itself so much that startles me, but the way he says it so coldly and devoid of emotions. Just a simple statement of fact from someone who has already weighed the cost and is prepared to pay it.
As if he isn’t the one who found the perfectly shaped name that my soul latched onto.
As if he didn’t house me and threaten his entire council from even looking at me or questioning my presence.
As if I didn’t befriend his own sister and sit at their dinner table that obviously is only ever for family.
Has he forgotten all of that with such ease? Let alone the way he breathed me in like his life depended on it when he kissed me.
My fingers curl into my palms, nails biting into my skin as I try to hold back the pain that causes me. I don’t want to show him how much power he holds over hurting me.
“I don’t want to hurt any of you,” I manage to respond, hating the way my voice trembles. “That has never changed.”
“And I don’t want to watch you become a weapon used against us.” he answers in a snarl as heat returns to his cold eyes. “But my wants have never mattered much to you, have they?”
The words are biting and pointed, his hurt existing long before I ever left them behind. This pain has been rising within him ever since I refused to choose him over the others.
His shadows rise higher until they consume everything from his neck down. The words he uttered before kissing me come hurtling back.
I’ve been encased in my shadows because it’s the only thing that’s kept me from unraveling.
For a heartbeat, his expression softens with something like tired resignation, and I see the same thing I saw before—the man beneath the suspicion, exhausted by the title of king and by how much he cares for me in spite of himself.
“Prove me wrong,” he says finally, the silver of his eyes catching another ray of light. “Please.”
Before I can respond, the shadows swallow him whole. They surge up around his head, and then collapse in on themselves, leaving only a black stain on the snow that the wind quickly tears apart.
Emptiness greets me where they all used to be, and behind me, Ryoden is still there.
I feel the steady rhythm of his breathing, the subtle shift of his weight as he adjusts his stance, and the way the tension in the air has changed now that the magic saturating it has thinned.
Slowly, I turn to face him. Snow has settled in his dark hair, melting in uneven patches that leave damp splotches.
The marks Riven’s fingers left on his throat are already blooming in deeper red with a hint of purple, standing out starkly against the skin above his collar.
Those complicated green eyes take me in with a look I can’t quite read—some weighted mixture of disbelief, frustration, and maybe a reluctant exhaustion.
I drag in a breath that feels too thin for my lungs as the full weight of everything presses down on my shoulders. If I thought I felt the weight of the world before, I’m realizing the weight of love is even heavier.