Chapter 43
Forty-Three
“What do we do?” I whisper out of the corner of my mouth as we both slowly back away from the wardens, hands raised in surrender. Riven wordlessly curls a hand into a fist and I inhale sharply, grabbing his hand and forcing it back down to his side.
“Are you seriously considering using magic in front of a load of wardens?” I hiss, my eyes darting between him and our captors, Xavier watching on numbly.
Riven shrugs. “What does it matter? We’re damned enough already.”
I debate our very limited options, before letting out a frustrated huff.
Please tell me we don’t have to run again…
“I say we run for it,” Riven murmurs as we continue to back away.
Of course. Why do men love to run all the time?
“This is the last thing I wanted to do tonight,” I moan.
He gives me a pointed glare. “Well saving you from certain death wasn’t exactly high up on my list of things I wanted to do either, yet here we are.”
I narrow my eyes at him and he–
He winks at me.
We are literally about to be arrested at best—killed at worst—and Rivenéan Ashfell, Governor of Aethermere and general all round scary psychopath, winks at me.
It’s official. I must have definitely hit my head at some point.
“You ready?” he whispers.
“Ready for wh—Riven!”
He cuts me off by grabbing me and throwing me over his Gods-damned shoulder.
The audacity of this man knows no bounds.
With me slumped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, he turns and sprints away from the burning wreckage of the Division, the wardens chasing after us.
I thump his back in annoyance but he ignores me, maintaining a tight hold around my thighs as he ducks down a dimly lit side alley.
I look up and watch most of the wardens run straight past the junction a few seconds later, but a couple skid to a halt, their gazes catching mine as Riven takes another turn.
“There’s two still on your six!” I shout, and Riven squeezes my thigh in response, panting too hard to speak.
He diverts into another alley, this one almost pitch black, the only light dim at the end, guiding our way forward.
I lose sight of the wardens, but can still hear their echoing shouts behind us, and an idea strikes.
Just because I won’t use my magic to hurt them, doesn’t mean I can’t use it to evade them.
I close my eyes, trying to ignore the jostling of Riven’s gait as he thunders over the cobbles, and reach down into myself, summoning my magic. A blue aura starts to glow around my hands, illuminating the alley around us.
“What—are—you doing?” Riven chokes out.
“Just trust me!” I call back, and to his credit, he doesn’t argue further.
I focus on the walls of the alley rushing past us and take a deep breath before releasing my magic in a wave of raw power, aiming for the wall twenty feet behind us.
A mass of brick and wood explodes, forcing a plume of smoke and debris cascading through the alley, and I quickly cover my mouth with my hand before the dust hits us.
Riven comes staggering to a halt as the smoke surrounds us, blocking his view of the path ahead, and he spins.
I just have enough time to catch the result of my explosion though the smoke before he faces me the other way—an entire wall has collapsed into the alley, blocking the path completely. Riven lets out a breathless laugh.
“Brilliant, fucking, woman,” he pants, and I can’t help, but beam. It’s not the first time he’s said that; I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.
Angry shouts from the trapped wardens reach us and Riven laughs again, lowering me off his shoulder as he spins round, pinning me to the wall.
Before I can give him an earful about picking me up, he grabs my face and kisses me hard.
I melt into him, but I don’t let him off the hook when he breaks the kiss.
“If you ever pick me up like that again–”
“Oh come on,” he cuts in, “I reckon you secretly enjoyed it.”
I thump his arm half-heartedly and he cracks a devastating smile. “Okay fine, I had a vision that you broke your ankle running, so I figured it was the only way.”
I survey him through narrowed eyes. “Bull. Shit. You’re lying.”
“Maybe,” he murmurs with a sheepish smile, and damn me to the Voyd if that look doesn’t do sinful things to me.
I press myself back against the cold brick, adrenaline still sparking violently through my system, watching Riven’s chest which still rises and falls rapidly, the shadows clinging to the sharp lines of his face. For a moment, neither of us speak as we process what just happened.
His gaze drops to my lips for a second, but that’s all it takes.
The kiss is desperate this time, born of fear and fury and the knowledge that either of us could die at any moment.
His hand slides to my waist, drawing me closer, and I fumble for his collar, pulling him down to me like I can anchor myself to him.
Then his lips go still against mine.
Completely still.
“Riven?” I whisper, leaning back from his now rigid body. He’s completely frozen, like his breath has been cut off. His eyes are glazed and distant, and as the seconds tick by, his skin starts to drain of colour.
He’s having a vision—a bad one.
Riven abruptly tears himself away from me like he’s been yanked backward by invisible hands and my heart plummets.
“Riven?” I repeat, stepping toward him.
He doesn’t blink, a faint tremor running through him.
I grab his arm forcefully, my heart pounding. “Riven—look at me. What do you see? What is it?”
His eyes snap back into focus, finding mine, but the horror in them makes my stomach drop.
“Tell me,” I say slowly, voice shaking now. “What did you see?”
His jaw clenches and his throat bobs. And with a voice that sounds nothing like his own, thin and terrified, he forces out one word.
“Stryx.”
I can’t breathe.
“Stryx!” I scream into the darkness, but the only thing that answers is my own voice echoing back at me.
The door to our apartment is caved in.
Fragments of wood from the doorframe lie scattered around our feet with nothing but inky darkness looming ahead, the only light coming from the dying flames of the fireplace.
The dim orange glow gently illuminates the chaos of debris; shattered glass phials, torn pages of books, Stryx’s armchair on its side, one of the legs broken.
I take a shaky step over the remains of the door and a sob escapes me, the sound reverberating loudly through the foreboding silence. Riven stumbles after me, barely able to stand, falling heavily onto the undisturbed sofa.
“Princess…gone,” he mumbles, swaying where he sits like he’s going to pass out.
My heart stumbles. Did he already know she was a princess, or has he just seen it? I lurch for him and catch his shoulders as he sways dangerously, almost falling on his face.
“What’s happening to you?” I ask shakily, gently prying his disheveled hair from his eyes. “I’ve never seen a seer deteriorate like this from a vision.”
He mutters something under his breath that I can’t make out. To anyone else, it would look like he’s horrifically drunk.
“Too. Many. Futures,” he gasps, raising a hand to clutch his head. “Too much…”
“Breathe,” I tell him as calmly as I can, and he tries, but it’s no use. His swaying worsens. I try to focus, stamping down on my growing panic so I can think straight. If he’s having too many visions at once, something needs to interrupt the cycle…
“Forgive me,” I grimace.
I slap his face. Hard.
He jerks back, still clutching his head, and I suck in a deep breath, instantly regretting my choice.
But as he slowly turns his gaze to mine, his eyes are sharp, no longer vacant.
He stares at me frozen, then suddenly takes a deep breath like he’s been holding it.
He falls forward and puts his head between his knees, taking deep, steadying breaths.
“Thank…you…” he chokes out in between lungfuls of air. “That…sucked.”
“What did you see?” I whisper once his breathing starts to sound more normal again.
He slowly rises, swaying a little again, but his face is set in determination, his eyes focused. “Too much. Too many futures, too many possibilities. All of them…” He trails off, his face paling again.
“Awful?” I finish, and he nods, his mouth a grim line.
“The Children of the Briar have taken the Irithys princess. Balance of probability—I’m assuming that must be your Stryx?”
I bite my lip, my hands starting to shake as I confirm with a nod of my own. A tear rolls down my cheek and he grabs my hand, his thumb gently stroking my cold skin.
“Do you know where they’ve taken her?” I whisper, my voice barely audible.
“Yes,” he says, his eyebrows scrunching into a frown. “They meet in the Mirror Cavern, that’s where they’ll have taken her.”
The Mirror Cavern? I give him a questioning look.
“It’s an enormous cavern deep inside the catacombs below the Memosyne,” he explains.
“It’s named that because there is a mirror, fifty feet tall, inside.
No one knows how it got there, but legend says that when it shatters, the Veil will fall.
It's a silly superstition, but it’s the reason why the Briar hold their rituals there. ”
Well, that’s not at all ominous.
I angrily wipe at my eyes, lifting my chin. “Then let’s go.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not that simple. The entrance to the catacombs is behind a secret door in the Archives. But if either of us set foot in the Memosyne now…”
He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. I know as well as he does we will be instantly killed the second we set foot in the Citadel, and that’s if we can even get near it without getting arrested.
The city is crawling with wardens out for our arrest; we barely managed to get back to the apartment without being apprehended.
“I will not leave her,” I grit out, my hands curling into fists as I push him away and get back to my feet.
He does the same, frustration eating away at his features. “Octavia, I don’t see how it’s possible. The Briar know I’ve infiltrated them, and after your stunt with the council, and now Xavier…I don’t see how we can make it to the entrance, even with magic.”
I start to pace frantically, pulling at my hair as I try to figure a way around this. There’s something in the back of my mind, scratching away at me, but I can’t recall–
I stop abruptly.
Riven gives me a wary look. “I don’t like that face. That’s your ‘I’ve got a dangerous plan’ face.”
I give him a small smile.
“Riven, there’s more than one entrance to the catacombs.”