“Hmm.”
Thane didn’t pace, just walked forward with measured calm, each step deliberate and silent on the stone floor. The room wasn’t large, and he didn’t bother keeping distance. When he stopped, he was close enough for Riven to see the threadwork in the stitching of his shirt, the fine dusting of pale ink at his wrist, the way the light caught a small, nearly healed scar under one eye.
“You’re calm,” Thane said. “Brave, maybe. Or just stupid.”
Riven said nothing.
Thane’s gaze didn’t move from him. “What kind of man offers himself up to be collared for someone else’s debt?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Yes, I’m aware. What I’m asking is, why you? People don’t usually volunteer to be indentured unless they’ve already got one foot in the fire. She doesn’t strike me as the type who’d do the same in return.”
Still no answer. Riven kept his jaw tight.
“She let you do it, though,” Thane went on, as if commenting on the weather. “Didn’t try to stop you. That tells me what I need to know.”
Riven’s pulse thudded once, hard.
Thane stepped closer. “Love? Guilt? Some notion of legacy your dead father beat into your bones? What is it that keeps you here instead of running?”
Riven held his gaze. “I’m here because I chose to be.”
“An interesting choice.”
The space between them had narrowed without Riven quite realizing it. Thane didn’t touch him, but his presence pressed close, heavy and deliberate. There was something electric between them—not heat exactly, but the warning hum of a charged wire waiting to snap.
“You know what this means,” Thane said, voice just above a murmur. “You’ll work for House Virellien. For me directly, until the debt is paid.”
“And then?”
“Then you’re free. Not before.”
Riven nodded, the motion tight. “Fine.”
Thane didn’t step back. His gaze lingered for a beat too long, trailing down across Riven’s frame with no shame, no subtlety, just open curiosity. It wasn’t leering—it was worse. Like he was assessing a weapon. Or breaking one in.
“Take off your shirt,” he said.
Riven blinked. “What?”
“Not all the way. I want to see if you’re carrying anything—Soulglass scars, infestations, anything that might make me regret accepting you.”
Riven hesitated for half a second, then pulled the shirt off over his head, holding it loosely in one hand. Bare-chested. Shoulders square. Exposed.
There were marks on him—small scars, a faded burn near his collarbone, the ghost of a tattoo on his ribs that had been half-scrubbed into nothing. Nothing fresh. Nothing volatile. Just a body worn down by use, not broken.
Thane looked.
His gaze moved slowly, methodically, dragging across every inch of skin. It wasn’t clinical. It wasn’t indifferent. It was interested in a way that made the space between them feel too small, too charged.
“You’re thin,” he said at last.
“I’ve had worse.”
“But you’ve fought.”
Riven nodded once.
