It was enough. I summoned the Light as a dense, solid weight. He was just another victim of Varessia’s needle, so I struck to incapacitate him rather than kill.
I smashed my palm into his solar plexus, releasing a concentrated pulse of concussive force. The impact threw him backward into the wall, driving the air from his lungs with a harsh whoosh. The light scrambled his stolen magic, short-circuiting the augmentation.
He slid down the plaster, his eyes rolling back in his head. He slumped to the floor, unconscious, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged breaths.
Down, but alive.
I spun around, gasping for air.
Riven had the third man pinned against the newel post. The soldier thrashed, trying to bring his weapon to bear, but Riven held him fast.
He was glowing.
His shadows were a storm around him, but beneath the darkness, veins of golden Light flared in his arms, amplifying his strength.
Riven screamed—a sound of raw, absolute rage—and drove his hand into the enemy’s chest, forcing the power out. Shadow to crush, Light to burn.
The man convulsed. The stolen magic in his veins overloaded, unable to withstand the pressure of Riven’s true power. He dropped to the floor, smoke rising from his mouth, dead before he hit the carpet.
The aftermath crashed back into the hallway. Thick. Ringing.
I stood there, chest heaving, my hands shaking uncontrollably. My magic buzzed under my skin, agitated and hot.
Riven stood over the body of the last guard. He was panting, his shoulders rising and falling with ragged breaths. His hands were clenched into fists, dark smoke still curling from his knuckles.
He turned slowly.
His eyes were wild, the silver swirls spinning so fast they looked like solid mercury. He looked at me, scanning for blood, for injury.
“Did they hurt you?” he choked out.
I stumbled towards him. He met me halfway, pulling me in hard enough to knock the breath out of me. His arms locked around my waist, crushing me against his chest.
I buried my face in his coat. He smelled of dark amber, rain, and the terrifying heat of being alive.
We stood there, clinging to each other in the wreckage of his fortress, shaking as the adrenaline crashed out of us.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered into my hair, his voice raw. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”
I held him tighter, listening to the frantic, thundering rhythm of his heart against my ear, knowing that nowhere was safe, and the war had just walked through the front door.
THIRTY
Selene
The hall went dead. Silence pressed against my eardrums, a ringing vacuum where the screams and snapping bone had been only seconds before.
Riven’s grip on me was desperate, his fingers digging into the back of my coat, but then he stiffened. The shift was instantaneous—from the frantic embrace of a survivor to the cold rigidity of a soldier. He recoiled, his hands sliding from my waist to grip my shoulders, pushing me to arm’s length.
His eyes were no longer wild. The adrenaline had vanished, replaced by a glacial clarity. The silver in his irises, usually drifting like smoke, was now still and sharp.
“We have to go,” he said. His voice was a low rasp, stripped of any relief. “Now, Selene.”
“The guards,” I started, glancing towards the mess of broken bodies on the landing. “If they reported in?—“
“It’s not the comms I’m worried about.” Riven released me, turning to scan the high ceiling of the manor, his jaw working tight. “The wards are shattered. The air is screaming with it. We just lit a beacon. The amount of power we used… Light and Shadow, entwined like that? It’ll bleed out into the atmosphere. Every sensor in Highspire, every distinct magical sensitive within ten miles will feel the tremor.”
He was right. Now that the adrenaline was receding, the magical pressure dropped, the air growing thin and brittle.
