Chapter 32 #4
Riven’s hand slammed flat against the wood, silencing the room. “We can’t guess,” Riven said sharply. “If I’m wrong—if the Vessel simply absorbs your magic instead of rejecting it—you’ll just be charging his battery for him. We’ll hand him the key to the door.”
He straightened up.
“We need to test it. That Shard is a piece of my Vessel. It’s tuned to me. If I try to force my Shadow magic into it now… it should push back. It should repel me.”
He looked at Aelira.
“Is there a safe way to do this? Somewhere shielded that can contain the fallout?”
“And someone to haul you out if it blows,” Dane added, his voice grim. “If that Shard goes critical, lead-lined walls or not, we’re going to feel it in our teeth.”
Aelira nodded, her expression grim. “The Crucible. It is three levels down, lined with lead and dampening wards. It can withstand the output.”
“Then let’s go,” Riven said, looking at me, his eyes burning with a mix of fear and resolve. “Let’s see if I can break it again.”
The descent to the Crucible felt like walking down the throat of the city. The stairs were narrow and steep, carved from the raw bedrock, the air growing colder with every turn.
Aelira led the way, her hand glowing with a faint, pale light that pushed back the darkness. Riven followed, silent and focused.
I brought up the rear, my hand trailing against the damp stone wall.
We reached the bottom landing—a solid iron bulkhead door that looked strong enough to hold back the ocean.
Goran was already there holding the canvas-wrapped iron box.
“You and the others should stay back. If I’m right about what’s going to happen, the shielding in the room will hold. If I’m wrong… well, you won’t want to be standing in the doorway.”
The casual way he factored in his own death made my stomach twist. I wanted to argue, to physically drag him back into the corridor, but the certainty in his posture stopped me. He was already treating himself like a blast shield.
Goran grunted, eyeing the stone arches above us. “The foundations are old. Do not bring the mountain down on our heads.”
Aelira placed her palm on the bulkhead. The locking mechanism groaned, heavy tumblers shifting deep inside the metal, and the door swung inward.
We stepped inside.
The Crucible was a round containment cell, sealed behind a steel blast door and viewed through a thick, reinforced glass window set into the stone wall. In the centre stood a single pedestal of black basalt.
Riven entered the chamber alone. He unwrapped the canvas bundle, lifted the Shard from its iron box, and placed it on the central stone pedestal. He set the empty container on the floor at his feet.
Now that it was out, I could see the thing clearly—a jagged, ugly lump of fused Silverite and iron.
Riven looked up at the viewing window, locking eyes with me through the thick pane.
“Watch the feedback,” he said, his voice reaching us as a muffled rasp through the barrier. “I’m just going to tap the surface. Enough to test the resistance.”
He took a breath and raised his right hand. The shadows in the room responded, curling around his forearm like dark smoke. He didn’t hesitate. He reached out and pressed his palm firmly against the metal.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing.
Then, a sound tore through the room—a high-pitched, harmonic scream that set my teeth on edge.
The Shard shivered.
It began to vibrate with such intensity that the image of it blurred. The iron box rattled against the stone floor.
“It’s pushing back,” Riven gritted out, his muscles straining against the invisible weight. “The resistance is absolute.”
He pushed harder, forcing a pulse of Shadow magic down his arm.
The reaction was instantaneous. A shockwave of pure, invisible force blasted outward from the Shard.
The recoil slammed into him. It lifted Riven off his feet and drove him into the lead-lined wall before he crumpled to the floor.
The Shard sat on the pedestal, pulsing with a deep, bruising violet light, hissing as if it were freezing the air around it. But it was whole. Unbroken. Indestructible.
“Riven!”
I scrambled out from behind the glass window and into the room, running to him.
He was already sitting up, shaking his head to clear the fog. Dazed and winded, he remained upright. He stared at his hand—red and trembling, yet unburned.
His gaze snapped to mine, carrying a wild, victorious light.
“Nothing went in,” he said, pushing himself up from the stone floor. “It’s locked tight.”
Aelira emerged, checking the energy readings in the air. She looked at the luminous Shard with awe.
“The rejection was complete,” Aelira confirmed. “The Vessel refused the Spark. If you pour your full power into the machine’s core, Selene…”
“It will shatter the Extractor,” Riven finished, getting to his feet with a groan.
He looked at the Shard, now cooling back to its dark, inert state.
“It breaks the lock. And the Rift closes,” I whispered.
“Yes,” Riven said. “The theory holds. We have our counter-move.”
I looked at my hands. The hands that carried the Light.
“Okay,” I said, the fear in my stomach hardening into resolve. “Then that is exactly what I am going to do.”
My gaze landed on Riven.
“We have six days until the Eclipse,” he said, his voice low and steady. “We use every hour to prepare. We make sure that when we walk into that tower, we break the machine. And we survive it.”