“I figured I’d see you again,” he said, voice scratchy.
She tilted her head. “You have a mouth on you.”
“Most people find it charming.” He let out a breath and gestured loosely. “Do you have a name, or should I keep calling you ‘clipboard lady’?”
Her mouth twitched. “Maris. You’re expected.”
He followed her down a different path this time, not the sweeping halls he’d first walked through, but narrower, colder ones—stone floors muffling footsteps, overhead fixtures casting soft light.
As they turned a final corner, Riven saw Thane standing outside a dark-paneled door, dressed in charcoal slacks and a fitted black shirt, his silver hair pulled back in a tight knot. He looked cold and unreadable, arms folded over his chest.
“Leave us,” Thane said without looking at Maris.
She gave a shallow bow and vanished down the hall.
Riven stopped a few feet away, not sure what to say. The air between them crackled—not the charged pull of last night, but the aftermath. A battlefield where the smoke hadn’t cleared.
“You slept?” Thane asked without emotion.
“Eventually,” Riven answered noncommittally.
Thane’s eyes flicked over him. “Then let’s keep you alive a bit longer.” He stepped closer, close enough that Riven could smell the faint trace of him. “Don’t speak unless directly addressed. The fewer people who hear your voice in that room, the better.”
Riven’s jaw flexed. “Because I’m embarrassing?”
“Because you’re unknown. No one knows what you’ll say, or who you’ll say it to. Trust is earned, not given.”
He wanted to argue, but there was no room in Thane’s voice for debate. Just like there’d been no room last night for anything but surrender.
Thane pushed open the door, and the tension inside hit like a wave.
Leron sat near the end of the table, flanked by sleek data displays. The Matriarch stood at the head, her presence immense despite her stillness. Asterian sprawled in a chair with practiced grace, drumming pale fingers along the polished table. His eyes lifted the moment Riven entered, and his mouth curved with amusement.
“Oh good,” Asterian drawled. “Thane’s stray has arrived.”
Riven didn’t react. He took a seat in the open chair beside Thane, who hadn’t spared him a glance since entering. The man’s focus was locked forward.
The door opened again, and Caerel entered, blood still drying on his sleeves. He didn’t sit immediately, just walked to the end of the table and rested both hands on the wood.
“I’ve been questioning our guest,” he said. “He’s alive. Barely. Everything he gave up points to Glint.”
Riven’s stomach dropped.
It wasn’t that he didn’t expect it—he had—but something about the cold way Caerel said it made it real. Made the danger press in from all sides.
Leron tapped a few commands into his tablet and pushed it toward the center. “I ran facial scans on the motel assailants. One of them’s in the city records as associated with House Glint.”
Thane’s jaw clenched. “That doesn’t make sense. Glint wouldn’t leave a trail like this. They’re arrogant, not careless.”
“They’ve always played dirty,” Asterian said with a lazy shrug. “They’ve moved Soulglass since before I was born.”
“Dirty, not suicidal,” Thane snapped. “This is the kind of trail that sparks House wars. No one’s stupid enough to leave fingerprints on something like this.”
Caerel gave a reluctant nod. “I don’t like it either. It feels…sloppy.”
The Matriarch finally spoke, her voice low and lethal. “Then what would you do?”
Thane didn’t hesitate. “Arrange a meeting with Glint. Neutral ground. If this is them, we confront them. If it’s someone else trying to start a war in their name, we don’t walk into the trap.”
