Another surge of pain ripped through Riven’s spine, sharper this time. He couldn’t keep the sound down—it tore out of himlike a snarl. His limbs trembled against the restraints binding him to the chair.
Lareth moved back into view, crouching so they were eye level. His face was pale, lit with disgust. “He doesn’t even see you. Not really. You’re just another warm body in the House. Another tool. Like the rest of them.“I’ll take being a tool over being a sadistic asshole,” he said, voice ragged.
Lareth didn’t flinch. He only tilted his head and gave Riven a look that was more pity than fury, which somehow made it worse.
“You think this is sadism?” he asked, almost gently. “This is restraint.”
His hand came up and two fingers touched Riven’s temple. Heat surged through him like molten wire, running down his neck and lighting every nerve it touched. It wasn’t just pain. It was memory—Lareth was digging.
Riven fought it with everything he had. Pushed back against the pressure with every scrap of shielding he’d learned in the Virellien training halls, every instinct that told him to lock it down. But Lareth was good.
Flickers of Thane’s voice broke loose—half-whispers, intimate moments, pieces of conversation Riven had never meant to share. Lareth’s breath hitched in a little laugh.
“Oh,” he said, eyes gleaming. “Now that’s interesting.”
Riven’s vision swam again. He felt exposed, cracked open. The pain hadn’t stopped; it was a constant now, like static in his blood.
“Stop…” he gasped, but it came out as little more than a breath.
Lareth finally pulled back. His expression was different now. Less annoyed, more calculating.
“You know things,” he said softly. “You’ve seen things. I could tear your head open and take all of it—but that’s messy. I prefer clean work.”
Riven slumped in the chair, breathing hard. His heart was trying to beat through his ribs.
“Let me make it easy for you,” Lareth continued. “Start with the warding system. The primary grid. Where’s the anchor point?”
Riven looked up, blood drying on his lip. He smiled through the ache in his teeth.
“Right up your ass, last I checked.”
This time the blow wasn’t magical. Just a fist. But it snapped his head sideways with enough force that he saw stars, and then nothing.
Riven wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Minutes, hours—maybe longer. Pain distorted things, bent time into strange shapes. He only knew it had been enough. Enough to leave him trembling in his restraints, his body slick with sweat, blood drying sticky against his skin. Enough that Lareth had grown bored of playing nice.
In this latest round, Lareth’s voice had turned almost philosophical. Calm, detached. “It doesn’t matter, really,” he’d said, as if they were discussing the weather instead of the raw nerves he’d just lit up again with current. “In the end, we’ll have everything we need. The estate will fall. Your little prince won’t be able to stop it.”
He circled Riven like a lecturer before a class of one, pausing now and then to wipe blood from his gloves. “What I don’t understand,” he went on, “is why you’re still bothering. You’re not even Virellien. So what is it? Pride? Guilt? Did they promise you a promotion?”
Riven let out a dry, broken laugh. It scraped his throat like rust. “Gods, you really don’t understand anything, do you?”
Lareth tilted his head slightly. “Enlighten me.”
Riven’s head hung for a moment, too heavy to hold upright. His shoulders ached with a deep, grinding kind of pain, muscles pulled taut from how long he’d been strung up. He blinked against the sting of sweat and blood in his eyes and lifted his gaze just enough to meet Lareth’s.
“This was never about being loyal to the House.”
Lareth arched an eyebrow, interest flickering at the edges of his expression. “Then what is it about?”
Riven exhaled shakily. “You think this is about who gets to sit on the prettiest throne in Atlantis? You’re stuck in that world, so you think we all are.” His lip curled faintly, not quite a smile. “But I’m not here because I owe House Virellien anything. I’m here because someone once looked at me and didn’t flinch.” Wary recognition shifted behind Lareth’s eyes. “And you think that’s worth dying for?” he asked softly.
“No,” Riven said. “I think it’s worth living for. I think it’s worth fighting for. Which is more than I can say for whatever it is you’re doing.”
That earned him a sharp backhand, the crack of it loud in the quiet room. Riven’s head snapped to the side, blood touching the corner of his mouth. He grinned through it, slow and crooked.
“Struck a nerve?” he said.
Lareth stepped back, smoothing his gloves again. “You’ll tell me what I want eventually. They all do.”
