Chapter 13 #2
The frequency was familiar. It carried the exact same dissonance as the rogue asset Korenth had ordered me to hunt down—the one I had already erased from the board.
It also matched the stolen shard from the Calysteri victim.
The connection clarified the missing data, the secrecy, and Varessia’s sudden interest in power diversions.
This was forced evolution. Someone was manufacturing them.
The fight twisted. The Umbrakynn lunged forward with a snarl, landing a vicious strike directly into the Varkyn’s throat. The larger fighter collapsed, choking, shifting uncontrollably mid-fall. The crowd roared.
The Umbrakynn teetered, swaying on his feet. His eyes glazed over. The magic under his skin rippled, then convulsed. He looked moments from tearing himself apart.
That’s when Selene stepped out of the guarded booth.
Her face was tight, jaw clenched, eyes dark with fury. She stared at the Umbrakynn. At the glow. At the broken, twitching limbs. At the unstable magic rising like heat off his skin.
Recognition slammed into her.
Her magic cracked like a whip. It hit the room before I saw it on her face—a burning flare that sliced through the ambient magic like lightning. My heart stuttered painfully against the scar.
Selene’s control slipped. Her body tensed. Her power swelled, demanding release. She was about to blow.
I moved.
Shoving through the crowd, ignoring shouts and curses, I reached her as she pushed forward, one hand rising as if to strike. Her breathing was ragged. Her fingers trembled with raw, unstable power.
“Selene,” I growled, grabbing her arm.
She jerked, unfocused and wild. There was no time. I hauled her through the crowd, up the stairs, and out into the rain before everything broke.
The alley mouth spat us out from the fight pit’s raucous din, but the sudden quiet did nothing to calm her. Rain fell in sheets, washing over the slick cobblestones, mirroring the chaos churning within her.
Her magic flared in unstable currents, heat radiating from her skin and distorting the air. Her breathing came in quick gasps, small, panicked sounds tearing from her throat. Her eyes were wide with terror—she feared the power rising inside her.
Every uncontrolled burst hit me, a quick, burning throb that made the scar above my heart ache. She was seconds away from an explosive release.
I grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging into the wet fabric of her jacket.
“Breathe, Selene. Pull yourself together.” My voice was low, raw with urgency.
The words were wasted. Her panic spiked, her power flaring dangerously. Alive. Ancient frequency vibrated against my fingertips. I shoved her against the wall, not with violence, but with enough force to anchor her.
Her power lashed out again, stronger this time. It pushed against me, a physical force that made my teeth clench. My hand pressed against her chest, directly over her racing heart, over the nexus of her surging power.
Nothing. Her magic only rose higher, sparking against my skin. It burned, but it wasn’t enough. She needed something more. Something to ground her.
Instinct took over. I grabbed her hand, forcing her palm against my chest, over the old scar that guarded my own hidden power.
A jolt passed between us, an unexpected resonance. Her magic pulled—a seeking current. Time stretched, the rain an echoing hush around us. Her wet lashes framed eyes wide with shock. A shudder ran through her.
“Feel it, Selene. You can control it. You’re the one with the power.” My voice was a rough command.
Her magic steadied. The wild ripples in the air collapsed into a calm, concentrated density. Her breath evened out, fear receding, replaced by stunned confusion.
The pain above my heart transformed. A magnetic tether settled in my chest, a gravitational drag. Our magic drew inward, seeking proximity. She felt her power settle. I felt far too much.
I released her hand, but the pull didn’t stop. It lingered, an invisible thread tugging at me. I stepped back, needing distance; the current inside me tugged harder, resisting the separation.
This sensation was alien. Uncatalogued. Nothing in my training accounted for it.
I watched her in the dim, rain-streaked light. The raw vulnerability in her eyes. My power recognised her.
Selene stood on her own, still dazed. I turned away, jaw tight, fighting the instinct to reach for her again.
“Come on,” I said, voice lower than I intended. “You shouldn’t stay here.”
I braced for the argument. The snap. Instead, she simply nodded. That scared me more than her magic did.
I guided her through the alley, staying close enough to catch her if she stumbled.
The tension in my chest steadied with every step she took beside me.
She didn’t speak during the walk to the car.
Her shoulder brushed mine once, and she inhaled deeply; her body seemed to remember the earlier contact.
I pretended I didn’t feel that, either.
She sank into the passenger seat, the adrenaline finally abandoning her. I rounded the car and slid in behind the wheel, the engine purring to life—a steady contrast to the chaos we’d left behind.
I glanced at her. She stared through the windscreen, eyes glassy, fighting to stay present.
“Address,” I said, my voice low.
“Slate Street,” she whispered, the words barely audible over the drumming of the rain. “The Old Quarter.”
I put the car in gear. The rain followed us across the city, pounding against the roof until the crumbling stone facade of her building loomed out of the dark.
I took her up the stairs—three flights of uneven stone. When we reached her door, she worked her key into the lock with a shaking hand. I guided her inside, steadying her towards the bedroom doorway. She leaned against the frame, eyes half-shut.
“You’re home,” I said. “Rest. You’ll be all right.”
She let out a breath—a quiet surrender. “Riven…”
Whatever she intended to say dissolved into the air between us. I stepped back before I did something reckless. Like reach for her hand again. Or let her see how that strange pull tugged tighter the farther I moved from her.
I waited until her breathing settled into the heavy measure of exhaustion, then backed out of the room. I didn’t turn away immediately. I stood in the doorway, watching the rise and fall of her chest, shadows I had summoned still clinging to the corners of the room like watchful guards.
She was safe. For tonight, she was safe.
But as I grasped the handle, the ache in my chest intensified. It was a dead weight, a hook buried in the bone, dragging me towards her even as I forced myself to retreat.
I eased the bedroom door shut, sealing her in the dark. The latch clicked with a final sound.
I stood there in the hallway, my hand lingering on the brass knob. Beneath my shirt, the old scar across my ribs beat with a heated rhythm. I was a man of logic, of cold calculation. I understood enemies, strategies, and mission parameters. I did not understand this.
I gritted my teeth and turned towards the stairs.
I had to get back to the objective. I had to find the logic in this insanity.
But as I descended, I couldn’t shake the terrifying absurdity of it: walking away was like leaving a vital piece of my own anatomy behind, and I didn’t have the first clue why.
The frigid air of Highspire stung my exposed skin, but I welcomed the bite. It was a chilly morning, a clean slate. I wrapped my shadow magic tight against my ribs—a second skin rendering me insignificant, a trick of the light that kept eyes from lingering.
These streets of glass and steel felt sterile underfoot. Beneath the pavement, the district’s wards vibrated—a constant ache in my teeth. High-security entrances and private guards marked the perimeter, accoutrements of a district designed to keep the unworthy out and the useful trapped within.
I walked with purpose, each stride measured against the void. But inside, a less practised cadence disrupted my focus.
Her.
The memory of the fight pit flashed unbidden—Selene’s hand pressed to my chest, the terrifying rush of her magic colliding with mine. It was more than power; it was recognition.
My jaw tightened. I shoved the memory down, treating it like an infection. It was a consequence of the overload, nothing more. A distraction I couldn’t afford.
I reached Korenth’s tower. The private lift ascended in silence, ears popping as the pressure changed.
The office at the apex smelled of burnt dust and old, inert magic when I entered it.
Korenth Vhail stood by his dark wooden desk, his back to me.
“The local authorities,” Korenth said. He spoke softly, though the ambient magic in the room hummed with a restless, jagged energy. “Have you contained them? I prefer the MCIU kept on a short leash. Their noses are becoming… intrusive.”
“The ACD has them gridlocked,” I stated, stepping into the room. “They are chasing dead ends and filing paperwork. I ensured their curiosity remains expensive and fruitless.”
“Good. Keep them paralysed. I tolerate the ACD because they are bought. The rest are merely obstacles.”
He tapped a finger against the glass, tracing a line above the skyline. “Now, regarding the Lows. My monitors registered a distinct anomaly less than twenty-four hours ago. A short thermal spike near the fight pits.”
He turned to face me then, his violet eyes ruthless and sharp. “Did you feel it?”
I maintained a mask of perfect indifference. “I felt nothing.”
“Curious.” He stepped closer, his aura pressing against the air like a physical barrier. “My sensors tracked the resonance for three seconds before dampeners killed it. That is an ignition, Riven. A beacon. And you, my primary eyes in the district, missed it entirely.”
“My focus was on the police,” I said calmly. “As ordered.”
Korenth watched me. He knew a lie when he heard one, but he simply didn’t know which lie I was telling.
He turned back to his desk. I noticed a datapad sitting there, glowing with a stream of encrypted intel. The formatting was foreign; the encryption style distinct from my own reports.
The realisation hit me hard. He had other eyes in the Lows.
He was withholding information. The augmentation project—the dead guard, the stolen magic—was the main vein, and he was neck-deep in an expansion he didn’t trust me to see.
The thought sent a spike through my chest—sharper than jealousy. It was the instinct of a weapon realising it was about to be replaced.
Korenth looked up from the datapad, his focus narrowing to a razor edge. “If you feel anything—anything at all—you report it to me. Do not make the mistake of thinking you can handle a variable like this alone.”
I gave a single, rigid nod. And I lied again.
“Understood.”
Leaving his tower, the stillness of the corridor felt like a reprieve.
My mind sharpened, forcing the unwanted image of Selene’s golden eyes into the background.
Korenth had felt the surge. His other agents—whoever they were—were hunting with a desperation that trickled down from the very top. If Selene walked into Highspire leaking power like she did in the alley, they would dissect her.
She was an anomaly. For twenty years, I had existed in a vacuum, immune to connection, yet her presence had somehow breached that silence.
I needed to understand the mechanics of that pull before Korenth destroyed the source.
Helping her contain that surge was a reflex—a desperate bid to keep her off the monitors. But a temporary fix wasn’t enough.
I stepped into the lift, my spine rigid. She needed an anchor. She had to learn to bury that power so deep that even Korenth couldn’t track it.
This was about containment.
Practical. Necessary. Strictly professional.