Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Selene
The city blurred past the tinted windows, a streak of grey stone and rain-slicked asphalt.
Dane drove with a terrifying, silent focus. He wove through the traffic, taking corners fast enough to make the tyres protest, putting distance between us and Highspire.
I sat in the back. Beside me, Riven sat rigid. He hadn’t spoken since we pulled away from the kerb. He just watched me.
His eyes were blue again. The silver-threaded darkness was gone, locked away behind the mask of the consultant. But the exhaustion was visible now—bruises under his eyes, the tension in his jaw. He looked like a man holding up a collapsing ceiling.
He shifted, the handcuffs rattling against the leather seat.
“Selene,” he started, his voice rough. “You don’t know what you’ve done. If Korenth—“
“Shut up,” I snapped.
I turned my head towards the window. I couldn’t look at him. Seeing him meant remembering the ghost of his skin against mine. It meant seeing the partner who had saved my life, forced to exist alongside the accessory who had watched my father die.
“You’re under arrest, Ashborne. You don’t get to talk.”
He fell silent, leaning back against the seat and closing his eyes. He offered no resistance, and that hollow compliance scared me more than a struggle would have.
Varessia’s voice echoed in the quiet of the car, louder than the engine.
I hunted him because I thought he was the one who lit up the grid.
Eamon had died for me. He died for the daughter he was shielding, not the secret he kept. The surge I’d triggered in the Old Quarter—the night Dane and I were attacked—had been the beacon that brought the wolves to his door.
Dane took a hard left, heading into the Old Quarter. The streets narrowed. The shadows lengthened.
He parked outside my building. The engine idled, a low, steady rumble.
Dane turned in his seat. He looked at Riven, then at me.
“I’ll stay here,” Dane said. “Keep the engine running. Watch the street.”
It was a tactical choice, but it was also a kindness. He knew I needed to do this alone. He knew whatever happened upstairs—whatever truth I dragged out of Riven—was between the two of us.
“Give me an hour,” I said.
“You’ve got thirty minutes,” Dane countered. “If you’re not back, or if he tries anything…”
His eyes flashed amber. The wolf sat very close to the surface.
“I’ll handle him,” I said.
Exiting the vehicle, I yanked the rear door open and grabbed Riven’s arm. “Out.”
He stepped onto the pavement, unfolding his tall frame from the backseat. He towered over me, even in cuffs, even exhausted. But he let me steer him.
I marched him to the front door, unlocking it with fumbling fingers, then shoved him into the hallway. The stairs creaked under our feet. The air smelled of damp wood and old dust.
We reached my flat. “Inside,” I said, keeping my tone level.
Riven walked in. He stopped in the centre of the living room, his gaze tracking the space he had occupied only three days ago—the empty mug on the counter, the blanket on the sofa where I had slept alone.
I shut the door behind us.
“Take a seat,” I told him, gesturing to the hard-backed chair.
He sat. He looked at me, waiting.
I didn’t uncuff him. I wanted him to feel the metal. I wanted him to remember that I was the one with the power now.
“Varessia told me,” I whispered, the words tearing out of my throat. “In the lobby. She said she went to the Old Quarter hunting a flare. She said she killed Eamon because she was looking for me.”
Riven went completely still. He absorbed the words, his expression locking into a rigid, guarded mask.
“Is it true?” I demanded, my voice trembling with a rage I struggled to contain. “Did my father die because I lost control of my magic? Did you stand there and watch him die to protect me?”
He remained silent and turned his head, the muscles in his jaw working as he fought to keep the words locked behind his teeth.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the green leather journal, slamming it onto the table between us.
The sound cracked like a gunshot in the small room.
“He wrote in this two days ago,” I said, my voice shaking. “After the station. Before the lab. He wrote a letter to me, Riven. He dated it.”
I leaned in, bracing my hands on the table.
“You gave this to me. Which means you were there. You went to his house.”
“Yes,” Riven said. His voice was a rough whisper.
“Why?”
“At Duskfall Manor,” he said, his voice quiet but steady.
“When you told me Arin Brightleaf was your mother’s pen name.
I recognised the name immediately. The text I pulled from the library regarding Silverite was published over three hundred years ago.
For your mother to be the author, she had to be Aetherkind. She had to be one of them.”
His jaw tightened, his gaze dropping to the floor.
“It changed all the variables. It meant the stories she wrote were actual recorded histories of a civilisation that truly existed, disguised as folklore. I had spent years hunting those exact truths. When the pieces locked together, I required undeniable confirmation. I went to your father to ask about her. I needed to understand your bloodline. And I needed to understand the connection I feel every time I stand near you.”
He met my gaze, drawing his shoulders taut against the cuffs secured behind his back.
“I thought he would fight me. Instead, he told me the truth. He told me things he kept hidden even from you.”
“What things?”
Riven looked up, his blue eyes searching mine.
“He told me he knew what I was. He said he had sensed me since the last time you visited him. He told me your magic settled when I was near—that my shadows gave your light a place to rest. He said you looked whole.”
Heat rose in my cheeks, a mix of memory and grief. Eamon had felt the healing. He had felt the connection.
“He told me seeing us at the station was just the confirmation,” Riven continued softly. “He said I was the Second Soul. The one who woke your Spark all those decades ago.”
I stared at him. The pieces clicked into place with terrifying precision.
The journal entries from over two decades ago… We had been tied together by that same moment of disaster for our entire lives.
A dozen questions clawed at my throat. What exactly ruptured? What was he doing twenty-three years ago that broke my life before it even started? But I swallowed the questions down. The mechanics of a two-decade-old disaster didn’t matter right now. Eamon did.
“So you talked,” I said, my voice tight. “You shared secrets. And then what? You just left him there?”
“I went to warn him,” Riven said, urgency bleeding into his tone. “I told him what Varessia is. I told him that after the station, she would never stop hunting him. She believed he was the source of the surge she felt in the Old Quarter.”
He closed his eyes for a second.
“I told him to run. I told him to pack a bag and leave the city before she sent a retrieval team.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Because he was tired, Selene. And he saw the tactical reality before I did.”
Riven leaned forward as much as the cuffs allowed, his voice dropping to a hush.
“He knew the walls he’d spent twenty years building to hide you were finally failing.” Riven swallowed hard. “He told me that if he ran, they would just tear the city apart looking for you. Giving himself up was the only way to end the hunt.”
A sob caught in my throat. He chose it. He chose to be the bait.
“I tried to argue,” Riven said, his voice cracking. “But my phone buzzed. The summons from Highspire. I had to go, or my cover was blown.”
“And Eamon?”
“He stood in that kitchen and he smiled. He told me that it’s time. Liora has been waiting long enough.”
The grief arrived as a heavy, suffocating tide. He didn’t die afraid. He died going home to her.
“He went into the other room and brought back the journal,” Riven whispered. “He handed it to me with a single command: keep you safe.”
Riven looked at me, agony in his eyes.
“He said the truth is in the book. The rest… you are strong enough to figure out on your own.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, tears spilling over.
“And then I left,” Riven said, his voice hollow. “I left him waiting for them. When I got to Highspire an hour later, Varessia was already celebrating. She told me they had him. He stayed home waiting for them.”
I wiped my eyes furiously. “The lab,” I said, my voice trembling. “You were there. Standing next to her.”
“I didn’t know they would move that fast,” Riven admitted. “I thought I had time to find him in the holding cells. But when I got to the Industrial Crescent, the machine was already running.”
“So you joined them.”
“I took my place at her side to find the weak point,” he said.
“I held my silence because I knew if I broke cover too early, Varessia would kill you the moment you walked through that door. I thought… I thought if I let you hate me, if I let you believe I was the monster, you would stay away. You would be safe.”
He looked down at the scorch mark on his chest, the evidence of my rage.
“I deserved your hatred, Selene. I let him die. I deserved every ounce of that fire you threw at me.”
My heart broke. The anger drained out of me. He hadn't sold Eamon out. He’d just walked into a slaughterhouse armed with his own guilt.
“You idiot,” I whispered.
I reached across the table. I touched the side of his face. His skin was rough with stubble, warm and real.
He froze, flinching into my touch.
“You didn’t deserve it,” I said, my voice trembling. “You didn’t deserve any of it.”
His mask crumbled. For a second, he just looked tired. So incredibly tired. He leaned his cheek into my palm, eyes slipping shut.
“I tried to make you run,” he murmured. “I tried to make you hate me so you would be safe.”
“You failed,” I said softly. “I’m still here.”
I stood up. I walked around the table to stand behind him.
I reached for the cuffs.