“I wasn’t trying to be comforting.”
“Yeah, well. Noted.”
Silence again, for a while. Then Thane’s voice, quiet and firm. “Hold onto the pain.”
Riven blinked. “That’s dark, even for you.”
“It means you’re alive.”
He didn’t have a response to that. He let the words echo between them, carried through layers of old drywall and memory.
Chapter 61
The room was the same. Cold concrete floor, overhead lights that buzzed faintly, one of them flickering with that sickly strobe that made Riven’s head pound. The same chair bolted to the center of the space, with dark stains in the floor beneath it that he tried not to look at.
Lareth stood near the far wall, gloved hands clasped loosely behind his back, posture easy. Like this was a meeting he’d scheduled weeks ago, and now they’d finally arrived.
Riven’s stomach turned.
The guards maneuvered them forward. Thane didn’t resist, but Riven saw the way his eyes swept the space—calculating, already searching for weaknesses. It gave him a strange, bitter comfort. Even now, Thane’s mind never stopped working.
They were shoved into the chairs. Thane winced as he lowered himself, the movement tugging at the freshly carved warding on his arm. Riven instinctively shifted toward him before the guard stepped between them.
“Now, now,” Lareth said, smiling as he stepped forward. “Let’s not ruin the reunion.”
Thane’s gaze sharpened. “I wasn’t aware we’d met.”
That earned a grin from Lareth, wide and gleaming. “That’s the thing, Thane. I’ve been waiting for you to say something. A look of recognition, maybe. A flicker of guilt. But you haven’tgiven me a damn thing.” He tilted his head. “Starting to think you don’t recognize me at all.”
Thane’s mouth twisted, unimpressed. “I don’t make a habit of remembering low-life nobodies.”
The smile faltered, just a fraction. Enough to let the crack show. Lareth gave a soft, brittle laugh—thin and dry and almost childlike in how it trembled at the edges.
“Nobody,” he repeated, eyes narrowing, voice scraping low. “Is that all you think I am?”
“What else would you be?” Thane asked coldly.
There was a pause. A single breath where even the flickering light above seemed to go silent.
Then Lareth said, quiet and vicious, “A ghost.”
Riven’s skin prickled.
Lareth’s hand lifted, fingers flexing in a subtle, practiced motion. The air shifted. Magic slid through the room like oil over glass.
Then the spells holding Lareth’s appearance in place began to flicker.
It was small at first. A shimmer around the edges of his face. Then the contours blurred, skin warping as if heat rippled beneath it. The illusion faltered—hair darkening, mouth reshaping, one eye clouding over to a glassy, ruined thing.
And slowly, like a mask being peeled away, the man who’d called himself Lareth began to melt into someone else entirely.
Riven stared, breath caught in his throat, dread pouring into his chest like cold water.
He didn’t know who he was looking at yet.
But Thane did.
And the look on his face as recognition finally dawned was not fear.
