Chapter 33 #2
I looked at him. The logic of his injury remained sound, yet the fire in his eyes burned absolute. He stated a fact. He intended to follow me into the dark regardless of my consent.
“Fine,” I said. “But you follow the lead. We fight smart.”
“I can do smart,” Dane agreed, a grim smile touching his lips.
I looked between them—the Shadow and the Wolf, battered and breathing hard.
“Then let’s go again,” I said, raising my hands. “Highspire wants a war. Let’s ensure we are ready to win it.”
Later that night, the stone walls of “Luxury Suite A” seemed to press in closer.
Torvin’s joke about the accommodation hadn’t aged well. The room was a monastic cell, stripped to bare rock and shadow. The air carried the metallic tang of the underground river.
I lay on the narrow bed, staring up at the rough-hewn ceiling.
My muscles ached with a satisfying burn from the sparring, but my mind refused to settle.
It kept replaying the moment the beam of light left my hand.
The terrifying volume of it. And then, the silence of a father who wasn’t there to see it.
Aelira’s words echoed against the stone.
Two halves of a whole. Sword and shield.
I had spent my life believing I was half-human—a dangerous anomaly Eamon had to hide and my mother sacrificed her life for.
In reality, I was simply an open circuit.
The missing piece was a weapon forged by the very monster who murdered my father.
It was a sick joke. Yet, during the sparring session, the chaotic flood of my magic only stabilised when it struck his shadow.
A shadow fell across the threshold. I didn’t reach for my magic; my skin hummed with recognition.
Riven stood in the doorway. He wore a fresh black t-shirt, his hair damp and dark against his collar. He looked like part of the darkness, only solid.
“You’re loud,” he said softly.
“I haven’t said a word.”
“You don’t have to.” He stepped into the room, the movement soundless. “Your magic is pacing the floor. It’s keeping me awake.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, turning onto my side to face him. “I can’t… I can’t turn it off tonight.”
He stopped at the edge of the bed. “Move over.”
I scooted back against the stone wall, making space on the narrow mattress. Riven sat down on the edge, resting his elbows on his knees, his head bowed.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of our breathing.
“You did well today,” he said, his voice low. “You controlled it.”
The praise hollowed me out. The adrenaline of the training faded, leaving me exposed to the grief I had been outrunning for days.
My throat tightened, a sharp ache that made it hard to breathe.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to force the memory of that day back down—the relentless hiss of the sprinklers, the cold spray coating the glass—but the image persisted.
“I never said goodbye,” I whispered.
The words tore out of me before I could stop them. The training had distracted me, but the stillness brought it back—the image of the glass cube, the water, the look in his eyes.
“To Eamon,” I choked out, dropping my hands. Tears spilled over, hot and fast. “In the lab… I focused everything on breaking the glass. On saving him. He looked right at me, Riven. And I just watched him die.”
Riven shifted, turning his body towards me. In the dim light, his eyes held a dark, steady gravity.
He reached out and covered my hand with his. His skin felt cool, dry, and calloused.
“He understood,” Riven said firmly. “He needed only to know you were there. He saw you fighting for him, Selene. That was the goodbye.”
He intertwined his fingers with mine.
The contact sent a jolt through me—a circuit closing. The restless prickle under my skin met the cool, grounding weight of his shadow. It brought a sudden balance. The noise in my head bled away.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes,” I breathed.
He lay down then, stretching out beside me. The bed was too small for two people, but we fit together as if we were carved from the same stone. We were inches apart, sharing the same pocket of air.
I studied his face in the shadows. The hard line of his jaw, the exhaustion bruising the skin under his eyes.
“I’m scared,” I admitted.
“Good,” Riven murmured. He reached up, his thumb brushing my cheekbone, tracing the line of my jaw. “Fear keeps you sharp. Arrogance gets you killed.”
“Are you scared?”
He was silent for a long moment. His gaze searched mine, intense and stripped of all his usual walls.
“I have spent over twenty years waiting to die,” he whispered. “I thought I had nothing left to lose. I thought I was just a weapon waiting to be broken.”
His thumb stilled on my cheek.
“But now… I am terrified.”
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because now I have a reason to stay.”
My heart stuttered. The admission hung between us, heavy and undeniable.
I moved before I thought, bridging the distance to press my face into the curve of his shoulder.
The tears came then, silent and hot, carrying all the fear and grief I had held back for days.
Riven didn’t hesitate. He made a low sound in his throat, his arms coming around me, his hand tangling in my hair to anchor me against him.
I clung to his shirt, starved for this warmth, for the tangible proof that we were both still alive.
The magic flared around us, weaving a palpable cocoon of power that shut the stone room out.
I couldn’t see the surge of it through my tears, but I felt the visceral shift in the air—a harmony vibrating deeper than skin.
My Light sank into his Shadow, finding the quiet safety it had craved.
Three weeks ago, I saw him only as a weapon to be disarmed.
Now, tangled together, feeling the unyielding, steady anchor of his presence, I at last felt secure.
When my tears finally slowed, we remained close, sharing the same breath.
“We survive,” he whispered against my skin. It sounded like a vow. “That is the deal. We finish this, and we survive.
“We survive,” I echoed, my voice thick with exhaustion.
He pulled the rough wool blanket up over us. He wrapped his arm around my waist, gathering me flush against his chest, locking me in. His chin rested on the top of my head.
I settled into the warmth of him, the tension slowly bleeding out of my spine. The wetness on my cheeks began to dry in the cool air. The hum of his magic against my back was a lullaby, a constant reminder that my isolation had shattered at last.
“Tomorrow,” Riven said, the word a rough, sleep-heavy rasp. “We refine the route. We make sure.”
“One more day,” I whispered.
One more day to smooth out the plan. One more day to prepare for the end of the world.
I closed my eyes. The stone room was cold, and the Eclipse was waiting for us—but not yet. Not tonight.
Tonight, there was only this.
And here, in the dark, with the Shadow holding the Light, I finally slept.
The day before the Eclipse brought nothing to the Cistern but a deeper silence.
The atrium had transformed from a refuge into a war room. Aelira stood over the central stone table, studying the maps spread out beneath thick tomes and empty mugs. Liora’s hand-drawn schematic of the Old City foundations sat in the centre, the yellowed paper covered in Riven’s tactical notations.
Movement flashed in the eastern tunnel. Torvin and Karys emerged from the dark, looking tired, smeared with grime, and smelling faintly of stagnant water. They were returning from the final recon.
“Status?” Riven asked, his attention fixed on the map. He wore his dark field clothes, sleeves rolled back as he leaned over the table. The warmth from the night before had vanished, replaced by the hard, clinical focus of a man calculating casualties.
“The route holds,” Torvin said, wiping mud from his cheek. “The Old Storm Drains are clear. The water level is low enough to traverse, and the grating at the cooling intake hasn’t been reinforced.”
“It’s tight, and it stinks,” Karys added, sheathing her knife. “But the heavy wards don’t reach down that far. It's just baseline security. We can get to the boiler room intake before we hit any real resistance.”
“Good,” Riven said. “Then the infiltration vector is confirmed.”
He looked up, addressing the room.
“We stick to the plan we built. Once we are inside the perimeter, we split.”
He pointed to himself, Dane, and Goran.
“Team Anvil. We take the lobby. We breach from the service lifts and we make noise. We use magic, we use force, and we burn it down.”
Dane nodded slowly, though his eyes flicked to me with lingering unease. He didn’t like leaving my flank exposed, but he understood the tactical necessity.
“I’m the target,” Riven continued, his voice flat. “Varessia wants my head. If I go to the roof with Selene, I bring the entire elite guard down on her before she even reaches the objective.”
He traced the line of the lobby on the map.
“Korenth will be deep in the sub-basement, prepping the vessels for the alignment. He won't abandon the experiment—not after what happened the first time he tried to open the Rift. That leaves Varessia commanding the security grid.”
He tapped the main entrance.
“I have to be visible. I have to be loud. Her pride won't let her ignore my betrayal. If she believes I am leading a desperate frontal assault to kill her, she will come down to execute me herself. She'll pull the heavy security to the ground floor, leaving the roof exposed.”
“We make her look down,” Goran rumbled, understanding the tactic. “We draw the wolves away from the flock.”
“Precisely,” Riven said. “But first, we cross the threshold. We must assume my signature has been purged from the system. The perimeter wards will identify me as a hostile target. Any approach likely triggers the alarm.”