Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Selene
The door to my flat clicked shut, locking out the city, the station, and the lingering, cloying scent of Varessia Quinn’s perfume.
We came here because the surge at the station had left my magic dangerously unstable. Riven dragged me out before I could overload in public, insisting I needed isolation to bring the power back under control. But the tension followed us up the stairs, heavy and suffocating.
Riven stood in the centre of my living room. He looked too large for the space, a dark, rough shape against the peeling cream wallpaper. A low, restrained static radiated from him, charging the air and making the hair on my arms stand up.
I moved to the kitchen, needing something to do with my hands. I filled a glass with water, drank it, filled it again.
“She knew,” I said, staring at the sink. “Varessia. She knew the guard was augmented. She didn’t even blink when Orin showed the crest.”
“She knew because she paid for it,” Riven said. His voice was rough, tired.
I turned around, leaning back against the counter.
“The augmentation,” I said, piecing it together. “It’s connected to the alloy. The one you were looking for in the Archives.”
Riven met my gaze. The shadows in his eyes changed, restless.
“Silverite,” he said. “I think it’s the key to the Reapings.”
“My mother’s book,” I pressed, the memory of the diagrams in the study surfacing. “The text you stole explained the exact process.”
Riven exhaled, a sharp sound through his nose. He walked over to the small bookshelf, running a finger along the spine of The Tides Beyond the Veil.
”It contained the metallurgy,” he corrected. “She solved the formula for the alloy—how to make it stable. Varessia is the one who turned a scientific discovery into a harvesting tool.”
He turned to face me.
“I heard Varessia use the name years ago. She spoke of Silverite like a holy grail—a material capable of holding raw magic with perfect stability. When I saw the diagrams in your mother’s work…
I realised Liora had succeeded where Varessia failed.
When the shard was found at the docks… when the analysis came back as an unknown alloy…
I knew Varessia had finally achieved her goal. ”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“It acts as a superconductor for magic, Selene. It creates a channel so frictionless that magic flows perpetually once inside. I suspect their siphoning tools are built from Silverite components.”
Nausea curled in my gut.
A conduit. Like a transfusion. They were bleeding people dry to arm their soldiers.
He stepped closer, his gaze intense. “I believe they are using it to extract magic from a living host and redirect it. That’s why the victims are empty.
That’s why the guard was overflowing with power that wasn’t his.
They’re using Silverite to move magic from Calysteri to other races, like Umbrakynn. ”
“And Varessia is running it?”
“Supervising,” Riven corrected. “Varessia… she executes. And she is very dangerous.”
Her image took over my thoughts. I recalled the way she placed her hand on his lapel, a gesture marked by ease.
She brushed the dust from his coat, claiming a right to touch him whenever she pleased.
I resented the way he let her. An ugly knot of jealousy tightened in my chest. I tried to suppress the feeling, but I was too tired and too frayed to remain rational.
“She seemed to know you very well,” I said. I tried to keep my voice flat, professional, but it cracked, brittle and exposing.
Riven went still.
“We have a history,” he said.
“A history?” I held his gaze, refusing to let him deflect. “She looked at you like you were a pet she’d misplaced. Like she owned you.”
“She owns nothing.” The words were low, dangerous.
“Are you together?”
The question snapped out before I could stop it. Naked. Exposed.
Riven moved.
He closed the distance between us in two strides. I tried to turn my head, to look away, but his hand came up, capturing my chin. His fingers were cool, firm, forcing me to face him.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
I looked up, and the air left my lungs.
His eyes were changing. The icy blue was darkening, bleeding into a deep, midnight navy. And through the darkness, silver swirls began to ignite—slow, hypnotic spirals of light that throbbed in time with the frantic beat of my own heart.
It was the first time I’d seen it fully. It was terrifying. It was beautiful.
“I have known her for a very long time,” Riven said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated against my skin. “But she means nothing to me.”
I tried to move back, but his grip held me. Not hurting. Just anchoring.
“She is not the one my magic connects with,” he whispered. “She doesn’t pull at me. She doesn’t make the silence loud.”
His thumb brushed my jawline. A spark—literal and electric—jumped from his skin to mine.
“Her magic doesn’t control mine, Selene. Not like yours.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “Riven…”
“You see it?” he asked, his gaze searching mine.
“Your eyes,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “They’re changing.”
“This is what I meant,” he breathed. “My magic reacts to you. It answers you.”
He lowered his head, his lips hovering inches from mine. The silver in his eyes flared brighter, a storm contained in a glance.
“And yours,” he murmured, “they’re changing too. They’re gold. And beautiful.”
The world narrowed down to the heat of his hand on my face and the silver fire in his eyes. I stopped thinking. I stopped fighting.
I leaned in.
His mouth slammed onto mine.
Riven’s lips were hard, demanding, but the moment they touched, the intent shifted.
He pulled back a fraction of an inch—just enough to breathe my air, just enough to let me run if I wanted to. It was a question. A silent, desperate request for permission pressed against my mouth.
I answered him by tangling my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and dragging him back down.
He groaned—a low, rough sound that vibrated through my chest—and the restraint snapped.
He devoured me as he kissed me. His tongue swept into my mouth, tasting, claiming, stealing the breath from my lungs and giving me his in return. He tasted of rain and storm air, and something purely, intoxicatingly male.
My hands slid down his shoulders, gripping the heavy wool of his coat, trying to draw him closer, but there was no space left between us. He pressed me back against the kitchen counter, his body a wall of solid, unyielding heat.
His mouth left mine, trailing a line of wet, open-mouthed kisses down my jawline. I gasped, my head falling back, exposing my throat to him.
He took the offer. His lips grazed the sensitive skin beneath my ear, his teeth scraping lightly over my pulse point.
“Selene,” he murmured against my skin, his voice fractured.
The power inside me surfaced with an unsettling sense of recognition. A vibration ignited deep in my marrow—a searing heat that raced through my blood to meet the cold, hollow pull of his power.
The air in the kitchen thickened, metallic and dense with the pressure of an impending strike. His hands slid down my back, purposeful and possessive, before settling on my waist. His thumbs dug in, bruisingly soft, then slid higher—up my ribs and over the curve of my breast.
I made a sound I didn’t recognise—a sharp catch in my throat. Riven froze for a heartbeat, his pupils dilating until they nearly eclipsed the silver magic in his irises. Then he growled, a guttural vibration of approval, and his hands moulded over me, solid and hot.
The magic surged. Sparks of golden light arced across my skin, visible through the fabric of my clothes.
They crackled and darted, jumping towards him.
His shadows rose to meet them, dark, velvety tendrils of smoke spilling from his skin.
They wound around my wrists and settled against my neck in a cool embrace that slid against the fever-hot snap of my own power.
The sensation was electric. It pulled at my core, a physical tug that left my knees weak. He pressed his hips into mine, his presence hard and heavy against my belly. The friction sent a jolt of raw need straight through me. My focus splintered. I wanted nothing more than to disappear completely.
He jerked back suddenly, his hands framing my face, forcing me to look at him. His chest heaved. His eyes were wild, the silver light spinning frantically in the darkness of his gaze.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasped. He fought his own internal tide, waiting for me to anchor him or let him go.
I looked at him—at the hunger, the fear, the raw need.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered.
Something in him broke. He kissed me again, and the world disappeared.
My magic erupted. A flood of blinding, golden light burst from my skin, filling the kitchen.
The light carried the same uncontained force that had threatened to level the station, a power that usually ended in ruin.
I expected destruction, but Riven caught it.
His shadows rose up, forming a dense, impenetrable sphere around us.
He constructed the barrier to hide the explosion and hold its force.
He was weaving a barrier, sealing us into a pocket of silence where no one could sense the flare of my power.
Inside, my gold and his silver mixed, swirling together in the air like ink in water, mesmerising and impossible.
We were the only two things in the universe.
Riven’s hands slid down to my thighs. He gripped me, his fingers digging in, and lifted me effortlessly.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling myself flush against him.
He carried me out of the kitchen, through the swirling storm of our own making, heading for the bedroom.
He lowered me onto the mattress, his body following mine with the absolute force of gravity.