14 #3
My mouth goes dry as Riven speaks so casually, as if he hadn’t just said he would kill people to protect me.
Innocent people. His gaze crosses mine for a split second, and unexpected heat rushes through my veins, lighting me from the inside before pooling in my heart and below, mingling with my fear and turning everything into a toxic but intoxicating cocktail.
I’m terrified by what he just did. But gods help me if that isn’t hot as hells too. Or maybe something is just terribly wrong with me.
Riven saunters over to Beeatrisa, looking down on her with a cool, calculated expression.
“Come to think of it—it might be time I put you in your place, Priestess. Melody is the last silver elf. The only one who can retrieve ancient knowledge from books written in a language so old even my Dark Lord doesn’t speak them.
She can. She can also tear through a wall of wards within seconds—a skill unheard of.
She might be the most talented spell-weaver and breaker you’ve ever had the honor to teach at your university.
I suggest you treat her with the respect she deserves and welcome the opportunity to train a gifted woman like her… with open arms and a knee fall.”
Beeatrisa pales to the hue of fresh snow. “A knee fall?” she spits incredulously. I see her hatred burning like a torch in her aura, vying with the black of Riven’s flames.
Riven gestures elegantly to me. “It might be due. And a polite invitation—whether she wants to attend your university and translate some of your tomes in return.”
Beeatrisa barks a lifeless laugh. “The Dark Lord promised she would do that regardless. That was part of the deal that got her accepted here. Students train years to be enrolled, to earn that honor among the most elite and gifted. Proof they are worthy to be accepted and trained here.”
I grind my teeth. Caryan promised I would. He struck a deal on my behalf. So much for my freedom.
Riven shrugs before I can answer, again looking down at his dark-painted nails. “Well, you heard what I just said, didn’t you? There is no deal anymore. I already mentioned her outstanding talents, so she’s earned her place here.”
“You have no right. I cannot imagine the Dark Lord sanctioned this.”
He gives her a lazy smile. “Do not worry on my behalf. I am here now and not he, and I hereby declare that there is no deal anymore.”
“Call your lord!”
“You mean call my king.” Riven’s tone sharpens.
“This would be a foolish deed, priestess—one that might likely end in you being beheaded, and me also—probably following your fate, as no one orders a king around. I strongly suggest you strike a new deal before the chance is off and consider Melody’s generous offer. ”
My heart startles. What the hells is he doing? He wouldn’t really make her kneel to my feet, would he? Then I remember how he made Lyrian kneel before Caryan.
“The way I see it, there is only one way, Beeatrisa, if you want her.”
She looks at him as if he’s her personal nightmare made flesh. The flames flare, and her complexion turns ashen. I fear she might pass out.
“You will regret this, Lord of Nightfire.” She scowls, teeth clenched. “I don’t believe you’d dare burn this temple down for a mere half-mortal girl.”
Riven strolls closer until he stands right before her, towering over her tiny frame.
He leans down, words like silk but sharp as a knife.
“You are wrong. I will burn down the whole world for her if I must. Now I suggest you don’t test my patience any longer.
Get on your knees, High Priestess, and ask her to join this university.
Nicely. Now.” He points his forefinger at the ground right before my feet.
I don’t know what to do other than stare with a mixture of horror and a dark rush of ecstasy that dances along my spine. He would burn the world for me. The weight of what he just said leaves a burnt trail in its wake, embers glowing.
Words leave me altogether when the high priestess actually walks over and lifts her robe to kneel.
Her eyes say she’d like to flay me alive and burn me to cinders, but her voice is even when she asks, “Last silver elf, would you join my university to hone and sharpen the magic your noble heritage has gifted you with?”
“Yes,” I breathe, feeling awkward as hells. I try not to fidget or glance at Riven while I feel his gaze burning a hole in me. What the hells is going on? Why did he make her do this?
I haven’t even begun my time here, and I’ve already gathered an enemy—a very powerful one, thanks to him.
Another part of me can’t help feeling confused.
Why did he say what he said? Because he likes me?
Does he feel something for me? Or is it because I’m so important to this world that it elevates me above even a high priestess?
Because that’s how fae do it—enforcing ranks and making power plays for sport.
“There is more,” I say quickly while she rises. “Blair Alaric, the witch, will be tolerated here as well.”
I don’t know whether fae can have a heart attack, but if they can, Beeatrisa might. Her mouth opens and closes, though no sound comes out.
Her face flushes. “No witch ,” she spits finally. Before, I thought “half-mortal” was her most hated term, but clearly, I was wrong.
“You will accept her, too, or I’m out.” It takes everything not to look at Riven. I know he’ll be furious with me for risking everything for Blair. But I’ll deal with that later.
“You’re dying, human,” Beeatrisa seethes, stabbing a finger at me. “Only a blind man couldn’t see that the human world is eating you away. So you’re in no position to strike bargains.”
I shrug. “I’d rather die than be a slave again.” With that I turn away. I’m so done.
For a moment, there are only my footsteps and the churning of cicadas as I stalk to the portal, knowing I barter my, Aris’s, and Blair’s lives with each step. But I can’t leave Blair behind either.
A few seconds before I reach the vortex, I hear Riven’s voice, so quiet I know I only hear him because I’m half-fae. “You are going to accept the witch too.”
“I will not!” Beeatrisa’s words cut the night, followed by a high-pitched “No!” seconds later.
When I turn, Riven’s flames flare, licking the temple’s walls and almost swallowing it whole.
I startle as the temple, that beacon of light and healing, looks suddenly apocalyptic.
And a dark part in me can’t help but wonder whether this is some sort of foreshadowing.
A harbinger of doom? “I think I made it clear this is not up for discussion,” he says coolly.
“Do you know no boundaries at all? This temple is sacred!” Beeatrisa screeches as the stone darkens from his flames.
“The only thing sacred to me is my court and Melody. I will do anything to protect them.” Riven’s voice is calm, almost silent, and all the more terrifying for it. He means it. He would really burn the temple down.
“Are you going to burn it to the ground like that city in Palisandre, Lord Riven?” Beeatrisa asks with a mixture of undiluted hate and a kind of raw fear—I see it brimming in her aura, though she fights not to show it.
Palisandre, the kingdom of the elves. Whatever Riven did there must have been horrible. He once hinted he’d been forced to do terrible, unspeakable things.
Riven looks down at her, lilac eyes frozen while flames eat the stone. “Alas, my patience is running thin, High Priestess. Make your choice or I will take her back, and the ancient gods know you will have missed your chance forever.”
Finally, the high priestess’s eyes slide back to me, holding more hate than should be possible. “That witch will be tolerated if she contributes to this campus in the way she can. But you—prepare to spend so little time outside the archives you’ll forget what the sun looks like, half-human.”
Without another word she turns and walks into the temple. Her tiny frame is swallowed by the darkness inside, leaving me alone with Riven.
I look at him, the black flames doused. The normal fire has returned as he called his magic back.
The temple’s walls are unscaled, untouched.
His eyes soften as they take me in, but only slightly.
His aura is still veiled by that grayish mist. Shielding.
Caryan once told him how to veil his aura against my kind.
“Thank you, for helping me,” I say quietly.
He looks away, offering me his regal profile as he glances over the city at our feet. Up here, the song of the cicadas over the silence feels suddenly oppressive, Aris unusually silent in my arms.
I say, “Caryan will be angry if he learns about this.”
A sad smile graces Riven’s features. “Then let’s hope he doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?”I’m surprised. I’ve never heard Riven speak like this. Before I left a year ago, Riven would never have lied to Caryan, or, well, kept things from him. Whatever happened, things changed.
Riven looks back to me, and I wish more than ever that I could just read his aura, because too much lies in his eyes. But it’s the weariness that worries me most.
“What I mean is that you could think about the consequences first, then act, Melody.”
I take a step back from him.“A warning? You just show up and whisk me away. You could have told me that I was to speak to a rather nasty priestess, that you two were going to haggle over the conditions of my life as if it doesn’t belong to me.”
“Because it doesn’t, Melody,”he snaps.
I stagger back as if he’d slapped me.
“You are still Caryan’s slave,” he amends, baring his teeth at the last word. I know he doesn’t like it, but that doesn’t make it any less hurtful.
“Good to know that you think that way.”
Riven grimaces, massaging his temples as if he needs to rid himself of tension. “I do not think that way; do not twist the truth. It is a fact neither you nor I can just overlook.”
“You should have stayed out of it.”I turn toward that vortex.