I had to stop this.
I let a sliver of shadow slip free—not the core, but the irritation. Controlled. Precise. It lashed out, wrapping around her wrist, solid and unyielding. I shoved her magic back, breaking the connection with a physical jolt.
The constriction vanished.
Varessia blinked, stepping back. She looked at her wrist, where my shadow had left a faint bruise, and then up at me. She didn’t look angry. She looked delighted.
“There he is,” she purred. “I was beginning to worry you’d gone soft working for Korenth.”
I exhaled slowly, my heart hammering a warning rhythm against my ribs. “I am not soft, Varessia. And I am not yours. Not anymore.”
“No,” she agreed, walking back to the fireplace where the shadows churned in the grate. “You’re a weapon in a glass case. But sooner or later, Riven, someone is going to shatter it.”
“I have orders,” I said, seizing the opening to retreat. “Korenth has assigned me to the police investigation. I am to embed at the station.”
She laughed—a short, dismissive sound. “He has you playing detective? How dreary.”
The amusement vanished, her expression hardening.
“Fine. Go to the station. Play his game. But keep your eyes open.”
“For what?”
“For the source,” she said. “Find whoever made that surge. Find them before Korenth does. And bring them to me.”
“Why?” I asked. “What do you want with them?”
“I want to see what they are made of,” she said softly. “I want to see if they can survive me.”
“I’ll find the source.” It was the only true thing I’d said all day—I just had no intention of bringing them to her.
“Do.” She waved a hand, a dismissal. “You know the way out.”
I turned and walked to the lift. My back prickled, sensing her gaze on me until the doors slid shut. I leaned against the metal wall as the lift descended, my hands shaking.
She was holding something back. It was in the weight of the room, in the way she looked at me—like a tool she had outgrown. Korenth spoke of containment, but Varessia spoke of potential.
I’d caught fragments of their arguments for weeks. Coordinates in the blind spots of the city grid. Massive energy diversions routed to nowhere. They were building something. A project. A facility. Something they didn’t trust me to see.
And it was hungry.
For months, the Calysteri simply evaporated—clean, quiet acquisitions. Fuel for whatever engine they were building. But now, the discipline was slipping. The missing weren’t just vanishing anymore; they were turning up dead. Seven bodies in a week.
Korenth was getting desperate. He was burning through resources faster than he could hide the ash. Even the asset I’d silenced was just another symptom of the rot spreading from the top down.
She wanted the source.
My orders were to find it, but the parameters had shifted. I was done acting as their bloodhound. I didn’t need to scour the city blindly; embedding with the police placed me perfectly within striking distance.
I needed to reach the anomaly first—not to play saviour, but to secure the leverage. I didn't know what had caused the surge, or why it had echoed so violently in my own chest. But if Varessia saw it as potential, and Korenth saw it as a threat, I had to ensure I reached it before they did.
TEN
Selene
The first thing that broke through the suffocating blackness was a sound. A high, monotone beep. A clinical metronome marking a rhythm that drifted in and out of focus.
Next came light. A searing white that forced its way through my heavy eyelids. It washed out the world, turning everything into a shapeless blur.
