Riven’s face went pale, his eyes turning to shards of ice.
“Someone is here,” he breathed.
I looked at him, the realisation settling in my stomach like lead. This was his fortress. His home. The one place in the city Korenth and Varessia couldn’t touch.
And someone had walked right in.
The shadowsat the end of the corridor thickened and detached.
Three figures stepped out of the gloom. They were Umbrakynn—tall and lean—but they moved with the jerky, unnerving twitch of puppets on tight strings.
Augmented.
A nausea of stolen magic hit me first. It tasted bruised and angry, forced into bodies that weren’t meant to hold it, vibrating with a frequency that made my teeth ache.
Riven stepped in front of me, his body a rigid line of defence. The shock rolling off him was palpable, quickly hardening into an absolute fury. Shadow curled off his hands like smoke.
The lead guard smiled. It was a hollow, dead expression. His eyes swam with a milky film, the sign of a mind pushed too far by the infusion.
“Varessia sends her regards,” the guard rasped. His voice sounded wet. He tilted his head at an unnatural angle, answering the question burning in Riven’s silence. “Ah, you thought you were safe. But she always knew, Ashborne. She knew the day you bought the deed. She knew every time you came here to hide.”
Riven flinched—a physical reaction to the betrayal.
“She let you believe you had a safe space,” the guard continued, his tone mocking, channelling the woman who owned him. “She thought it was adorable. A little boy building a fort. But playtime is over.”
“She wants the girl,” he rasped, testing the edge of the knife with his thumb. “She said to bleed you dry.”
Riven let out a roar.
A shockwave exploded outward, displacing the sound.
I acted on instinct.
The guard lunged. Riven met him, catching the blade on a shield of solidified shadow, the impact ringing like a bell.
I stepped out from behind him. The Spark of Shadows buried deep in my own chest woke up, answering Riven’s proximity. It was a sliver compared to my Light, yet it was sharp.
I flung my hand out. A dark lash snapped from my fingers, wrapping around the guard’s ankle and sweeping his leg out from under him. As his guard dropped, Riven seized the opening. He thrust his palm forward, and a blast of pure, concussive darkness slammed into the guard’s chest.
It lifted him off his feet. He flew backward, crashing through the banister of the landing.
He fell to the marble foyer below. The impact was a wet, sickening crunch that left no room for survival. He lay still, his neck twisted at an impossible angle.
The second guard was on me before I could retract my hand.
He moved fast—unnaturally so. He grabbed my throat, his grip like a vice. The stolen magic in his veins burned against my skin, cold and searing. I gasped, clawing at his wrist, my vision spotting.
Riven saw it.
“No!” he roared.
He turned, but the third guard intercepted him, tackling him into the wall.
I was on my own. The guard squeezing my throat raised a knife. Icouldn’t overpower him physically; the augmentation made him too strong. I reached for the Light. My own power flooded my veins, hot and blinding. But the shadow inside me agitated, answering Riven’s rage across the hall. I grabbed that smaller, icy thread and threw it into the guard’s eyes.
It acted like a veil—a sudden, localised blindness.
The guard reared back, blinking, his grip loosening just a fraction.
