“Then I guess I’m not like the others.”
“You’re not,” Lareth agreed. “You’re weaker.”
Riven’s smile twisted, feral now. “If I were weak, I’d be dead already.”
Lareth didn’t answer. He just turned and left the room, the door hissing shut behind him. The silence that followed was thick and suffocating. Riven let his head drop forward again, eyes closing.
He didn’t know how much longer he could take this. But he knew, with absolute certainty, that he wasn’t doing it for the House.
He was doing it for Thane. And he would not break. Not yet.
Chapter 60
They didn’t bother blindfolding him this time.
Maybe they thought he was too far gone to try anything. Maybe they were right. Riven’s legs shook with every step, his shirt stuck to him in patches of blood and sweat, and the throb in his shoulder had bloomed into something mean and deep-rooted. But his eyes still worked, and that was all he needed.
He kept track of the turns.
Out of the interrogation room—basement level, definitely—up a narrow flight of stairs with concrete walls. Past a creaking door into what looked like an older hallway, less sterile, more lived-in. The wallpaper was peeling. The scent of mildew and old wood. They passed what might once have been a parlor, and then another hallway lined with warped doorframes, shadows pooling in the corners.
Third door on the left.
The man dragging him—one of Lareth’s people, bigger than the others, silent except for the occasional grunt—unlocked it with a key from his belt. Shoved Riven through.
The door closed and locked again. Riven slumped to the floor where he landed, pressing his good shoulder against the wall as he exhaled shakily.
Still functional. Just barely.
He sat there for a long moment, breathing, waiting for the shaking in his limbs to ease. The room was dark, but not completely. A slit of late daylight edged around the curtain—somewhere up above ground level, then. That was something. He could hear wind outside, distant traffic, the muted hum of a world still turning. So close, it felt cruel.
Eventually, he hauled himself upright.
The room wasn’t large. Bed, dresser, small armchair in the corner. The same faded floral wallpaper as the hallway. A dusty lamp on the nightstand that didn’t work when he flipped it—either broken or just not plugged in. He moved slowly, taking inventory. No cameras that he could see, but he didn’t trust it. There was always something hidden with people like Lareth.
He crossed to the dresser. One drawer was cracked open. Inside were old papers—receipts, empty envelopes, a yellowed boarding pass from a defunct airline. Nothing useful. Another drawer held a half-empty pack of matches, a tiny silver letter opener, and a faded black-and-white photograph in a frame.
He paused.
It showed a man seated in a high-backed chair, his posture formal, like he was used to authority. Long hair swept back from his face, features too familiar. Thane. No—older. Sharper in the chin, more rigid in the eyes. Not Thane, but related. His father, maybe. Standing beside him were two boys—one clearly Thane, even younger, proud stance and furrowed brow, and the other a little more relaxed, mischief tugging at his smile.
Asterian.
Riven stared at the image for a long time, chest tightening.
This house had once belonged to someone. A family. A legacy Thane had grown up in. The walls still carried it, if you knew where to look. In the old wallpaper, the creak of the floorboards, the way sunlight caught the edge of the curtain and cast long lines of shadow across the room. And somewhere in it all, ghosts.Not the haunted kind—just memories pressed too deep to scrub out.
What must it be like, Riven wondered, for Thane to be back in this place?
To be held prisoner in rooms he might’ve once played in as a boy, walked through with his brother, argued with his father over gods-knew-what? Did it hit him like it hit Riven now—a strange ache behind the ribs?
He couldn’t picture Thane here as a child. Not really. But the idea of him walking these same halls—free, once—tightened something in his gut.
Was that the point? Was this why Lareth had brought them here?
Not just to trap them. To humiliate them. To dig into things deeper than knives or current ever could. Riven sank onto the bed, the photograph still in his hand, fingers pressed against the glass as if that could make sense of it.
He wanted to believe Thane was still alive, still fighting.
