Thane exhaled. “Estates built for the Houses—old ones, like Virellien—have protections laced into the foundation. Failsafes. Containment systems. Magical traps built into the stone itself, meant to be triggered only in absolute emergencies.”
He straightened slowly. “Yerin didn’t just set a lock. He found a way to use the estate’s own defenses. And he’s activated them.”
Riven swallowed hard. “Meaning?”
“Meaning this place is rigged to become our tomb.” Thane looked back at the blood-lit rune, the lines still glowing faintly on the concrete. “He doesn’t need to kill us himself. He’s going to let the House do it for him.”
Riven stared at the mark, pulse thrumming in his throat. “Then we’d better figure out how to beat it.”
“We don’t have time to break it properly,” Thane said, voice low and clipped. He was still crouched over the sigil Riven had drawn in his blood, but the flickering lights and the rumbling in the walls had made his tone sharper, harder. “I can’t analyze this line by line. The estate’s waking up.”
Riven stared at him. “So what do we do?”
“We destroy the sigil. That should be enough to sever the effect.” Thane stood, face pale but steady. “We break it.”
“How?” Riven asked.
Thane didn’t answer—just grabbed one of the old chairs pushed against the wall and slammed it against the concrete floor. The wood splintered on impact, the sound sharp and violent in the enclosed space. Riven flinched despite himself, not from fear but from the sheer force of it. For one stupid second, he caught himself staring—not at the chair, but at Thane. The effortless power in his body, the way the muscles in his arms flexed as he tossed aside the ruined frame.
Focus, idiot.
Thane bent and picked up one of the larger splinters. It was jagged and splintered, sharp enough to break skin, dark with varnish and age. He held it out.
“You’re going to use this.”
Riven didn’t move.
“You have to cut through the sigil. On my arm. Diagonally, deep enough to break the design’s integrity.”
“No,” Riven said at once. “I can’t—”
“You have to. I can’t do it myself—not at the right angle, not deep enough. It’s the only way.”
Riven stared at the makeshift weapon, bile rising in his throat. “I’m not— I’m not cutting you open like that.”
“Riven.”
He looked up. Thane’s face wasn’t cold, or even stern. It was open. Honest. “This is the only way I get my power back. And without it, we both die down here. You know that.”
Riven’s hands closed around the shard of wood before he even realized he was reaching for it. It felt too light for what it was about to do. He looked down at Thane’s arm, at the sigil carved across his skin. The lines of blood were drying now, but the magic still pulsed faintly through them.
He hesitated.
“Funny,” he muttered. “When I first came to House Virellien, I used to fantasize about this. Getting a weapon in my hand. Catching you off guard. Making you bleed.”
Thane said nothing.
Riven forced a bitter smile. “Guess fate has a twisted sense of humor.”
Then, carefully, he brought the jagged edge of the wood down to Thane’s arm.
He didn’t hesitate because he wanted to be cruel. He hesitated because he didn’t.
The shard dug into skin, biting deep. Thane didn’t cry out, but Riven saw the tightness in his jaw, the way his breath hitched through his teeth. Riven’s own stomach turned as he dragged the splintered wood down in a hard diagonal slash across the sigil, splitting the carefully carved lines apart. Blood welled instantly,red and vivid and too much. Thane’s hand clenched into a fist, but he didn’t move. Didn’t stop him.
The building trembled again. Dust fell from the ceiling. The failsafe, whatever it was, was coming closer to its final act.
Riven pulled the wood away, his own hand shaking now, and stepped back. “Is that enough?”
