“I don’t have to. Ask literally anyone. They all scattered like mice.”
The door opened with a quiet click.
Maris stopped talking immediately, straightening in her chair. Riven’s gaze was already locked on the figure stepping through. Thane, still in black slacks and a charcoal dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, throat bare. His hair was damp, as if he’d just washed away blood or sweat or both.
He looked tense, but there was a vibration to him beneath the surface, like something barely held back.
“Maris,” Thane said, voice sharp.
She rose immediately. “Lord Virellien.”
“No need for titles,” he said without looking at her. “Just leave us.”
Maris gave Riven a look that was part amusement, part warning. She offered a short, graceful vow and slipped out silently, shutting the door behind her.
Thane waited a beat before he crossed the room. His eyes swept over Riven, checking the half-finished dinner, the color in his face. Satisfied, maybe. But not comforted.
“There was no car,” Thane said abruptly.
Riven blinked. “What?”
“The one that brought you to the gates,” Thane clarified. “We checked every camera feed on every stretch of approach road, swept the forest perimeter. There was no vehicle. No tire tracks. No sign at all.”
The knot in Riven’s gut twisted tighter. “But there was. I was in it.”
“I don’t doubt you,” Thane said. “But I need more. Any detail you can remember. Anything to help us find the place they took you.”
“I didn’t see much,” Riven admitted. “I was weak. Bleeding. In the back of a truck, blindfolded most of the time. They carried me upstairs. Room was clean. Not new, just… sanitized. Big window with curtains drawn. I didn’t even get a look outside.”
Thane stepped closer, hands folded behind his back. His stare was sharp now, full commander.
“Think harder. There’s always something. A sound. A smell. A texture under your fingers. You were there for hours. Something stuck with you.”
Riven pushed himself upright, dragging in a breath. His head throbbed faintly from the effort of remembering, of shoving through the fog. The details were slippery. Hands lifting him. Voices low, indistinct. A sink. Towels.
And…
“There was a mural,” Riven said slowly. “On the wall. I remember thinking it was strange. A whole mural right across from the bed.”
Thane went still. “What kind of mural?”
Riven squinted, trying to summon the image. “A unicorn. Stylized. Very old-school—like it belonged in a children’s storybook. Blue sky, golden horn, a whole pastel fantasy.”
Thane’s expression didn’t change, but something in the air between them did. The silence turned heavy. Sharp.
“Was there a crack,” Thane asked, voice low, “in the horn?”
Riven looked up at him, startled. “Yeah. Diagonal. Almost like a lightning bolt. Faded, but definitely there.”
Thane didn’t move. Not at first. But his face—his face cracked.
Just a fraction. Just enough to make Riven freeze. “Thane?” Riven said carefully.
But Thane didn’t answer. He turned away and walked to the far end of the room, spine rigid, shoulders locked, as if holding himself in place by sheer will. He braced one hand on the windowsill, the other raking through his hair.
Riven watched, heart hammering. “What is it?”
Thane didn’t speak right away. When he did, it was quieter than Riven expected.
