Thane surged from cover like a thunderclap, his arm raised, magic already burning into existence around his knuckles. A pressure wave rippled through the air as he unleashed it—explosive force that struck the far wall and left cracks radiating like a spiderweb in the concrete. Shattered decorative glass rained down from a display case.
Bullets tore through the air, and Riven flinched hard, watching one graze the floor inches from Thane’s boot. But the elf didn’t slow. He advanced like a predator unleashed, all elegance burned away into fury.
Riven could’ve stayed down. Should have, maybe. But the sight of Thane exposed, throwing himself into the line of fire for him, jarred something loose. He wasn’t the same person Kieran had shot. He wasn’t helpless anymore.
He ducked out from behind the cabinet, heart in his throat, and scanned the corridor. A flash of movement—there. Kieran crouched half-concealed in the recess of a doorway, pistol raised again, lining up another shot.
Riven lunged, sprinting low. Kieran saw him too late and pivoted, firing—but Riven was already colliding with him, slamming them both into the wall. The shot went wild. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
Riven clawed for the pistol, his hands slipping against Kieran’s wrist. Kieran cursed, elbowed him hard, and they rolled—Kieran briefly gaining the upper hand before Riven slammedhis knee into the other man’s ribs. Kieran gasped, and Riven twisted the gun from his hand, flinging it across the floor.
Then it was fists.
Kieran struck him across the jaw. Pain burst white across Riven’s vision, but he refused to let go. He landed a punch of his own, catching Kieran under the chin. They grappled, each trying to pin the other down, teeth bared, hatred thick in the air.
But then—Thane was there.
He seized Kieran by the back of the neck and tore him off Riven like he weighed nothing, hurling him against the wall. Kieran hit it with a sickening crunch and crumpled, dazed.
Thane advanced on him with deadly calm, dragging him up by the collar and slamming him into the wall again. And again. And again.
“You’re the one,” Thane said, low and cold. “You shot him. You left him bleeding in the dirt.”
Kieran gasped, struggling, trying to throw a punch—but Thane caught the strike mid-air with one hand. “You’ve had this coming.”
He lifted Kieran by the throat. Riven had seen Thane angry before, but not like this. This was quiet, focused, controlled. The eye of a storm made flesh.
“I told myself,” Thane continued, eyes locked on Kieran’s, “that if I ever saw you again, I’d make sure I was the last thing you saw.”
Riven approached slowly, not sure whether to intervene. Kieran thrashed—but Thane didn’t flinch. He looked back at Riven.
“The gun,” he said.
Riven hesitated only a second, then retrieved it. He handed it to Thane without a word.
Thane took it and leveled it at Kieran’s leg.
Kieran, finally realizing what was about to happen, began to beg. “Wait, no—listen—”
The first shot was loud in the corridor.
Kieran screamed, his leg collapsing underneath him. Thane let him fall, but didn’t stop. He shot the other leg, and Kieran writhed on the floor, clutching at his thighs.
Riven stood there, rooted to the spot, breath shallow.
Then—two more shots. One arm, then the other.
Kieran howled in agony.
Thane ejected the magazine with a snap and tossed the pistol to the floor beside Kieran’s broken body. The silence afterward was deafening, broken only by Kieran’s ragged sobs.
Riven looked at Thane—and remembered the first time he’d seen him really fight. The icy precision, the ruthlessness. The way he moved like violence was second nature. No. Not second nature.
First.
This was what Thane had been made into. What the Hollow Hand had carved into him. A weapon in the shape of a prince.
And yet, disturbingly, Riven wasn’t repulsed. He wasn’t afraid. He was—
