“Wait.” I planted my feet on the wet grass.
Riven froze, half-turned. “Selene?”
“You said we were heading to the Archives,” I said, keeping my tone level. “This is a ruin. And I’m not following a stranger inside.”
I looked from the dark mouth of the tunnel back to Riven.
“I want to know who he is, Riven. And I want confirmation that this tunnel actually has an exit.”
Goran loomed in the doorway, filling the frame. He watched the exchange with solid, unblinking patience, leaving the explanations to Riven.
Riven stepped closer to me. He shifted the iron box to one arm and reached out with his free hand.
He took my hand, his fingers threading through mine. His skin held the chill of the rain, but the contact sent a jolt of warmth straight to my chest—that familiar, undeniable current.
“He’s the only reason I’m alive,” Riven said softly. The blue in his eyes was fierce, stripped of all deception. “He saved me when no one else would. Trust that.”
I looked at him. I felt the bond thrumming between us, steady and sure even in the chaos.
He trusted this man with his life. And right now, I had to trust Riven with mine.
“Okay,” I whispered.
I squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, hard.
We entered the shed.
The floor was covered in rotting leaves, but Goran kicked them aside, revealing a thick iron ring set into a flagstone.
He heaved it up. No groan of rusty hinges—the stone slab moved smoothly on hidden, well-oiled gears, revealing a set of stone steps descending into pitch blackness.
“The path is below,” Goran rumbled.
Riven went first, the box held tight. I followed. Goran came last, pulling the stone slab shut above us.
The darkness was total. The air instantly changed—cold, dry, smelling of stale earth and iron.
“Light,” Goran said.
A flare of amber light erupted from his hand, cast by an old-fashioned glow-stone he had fished from his pocket. It illuminated a long, narrow tunnel walled with bricks that looked older than the city itself.
The tunnel dead-ended at a slab of strange, dull alloy that seemed to swallow the gloom.
Goran halted.
“You’ll feel a pressure,” he warned. “Do not fight it. Do not reach for your power.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The wards will interpret it as an attack,” Goran said. “And they will kill you.”
He pressed his palm flat against the metal surface.
Clunk. Hiss.
The door swung open.
The Manor was gone and Varessia’s hunters were closing in, leaving us entirely dependent on a stranger who had materialised from the fog. But Riven trusted this man with his life, and the answers I desperately needed were waiting behind that door. I took a breath, the only way left was forward.
