“You’ll see.” He turned to leave, pausing just long enough to look back over his shoulder. “If you want to enter the lion’s den, Selene, learn how to hide from the teeth.”
FIFTEEN
Riven
The quarry rose ahead, a hollow carved into the world ringed by dark trees. The crisp air tasted of metal and impending rain. I killed the engine.
The ensuing quiet pressed down on us.
Selene climbed out, scanning the pale stone walls with suspicion. “This is isolated.”
I pushed my door open and joined her on the gravel. “That’s the point.” I moved closer, keeping my voice clinical.
Static was rolling off her—messy, untrained energy. If she didn’t learn to cap it, she was dead.
“The surge at the fighting pits,” I said, invading her space. “That kind of output… it is rare. Dangerous.”
I stepped inside her guard, standing a fraction too close. I needed her angry. I needed her control to snap.
“So tell me, Detective. With that much power at your disposal, why is your partner lying in a hospital bed with a broken spine?”
She froze. Then, the snap. Her power answered instantly, flaring bright beneath her skin, an intense pressure filling the air betweenus.
“Don’t you dare,” she spat, shaking, her voice thin with grief and guilt.
“You failed him,” I pressed, unyielding. “You have a weapon inside you that could level a city block, yet you let him break. You hesitated. And because you were weak?—“
“Don’t,” she warned. Her eyes shone like lit amber. The air around her began to warp.
“Good,” I said quietly. “Now reach for it.”
Her hand twitched with the impulse to strike. Instead, she closed her eyes, bracing herself. She reached inward, searching for the molten current looped beneath her ribs.
“It’s… it’s fighting me,” she gasped.
“Then fight back.”
The quarry became a cycle of strained breathing and frustration. She pushed. Light flared—wild, searing the stone at her feet. An uncontrolled bleed of energy threatened to burn us both.
She gritted her teeth, forcing the heat back. For a second, the glow dimmed, retreating beneath her skin. Then it rebelled. The magic surged back up, brighter and more violent.
“No,” I barked. “Push it down. Again.”
She glared at me, sweat slicking her hairline. She shoved the energy down a second time. Her arms shook with the effort. The light choked, receding to a dull ember—before erupting into a shower of sparks that jumped from her fingertips, scorching the earth.
She gasped, stumbling back as the magic flared a third time, thick and suffocating. She trembled with exhaustion.
“Riven—I swear?—”
“You can,” I answered. “Again.”
She grunted, magic arcing violently. She was losing it. The power was about to lash out, aimless and destructive.
I closed the gap, breaking the rule of distance. I placed two fingers against her sternum, right over the source.
It was a mistake.
The contact was a collision that slammed into me, bypassing myshields, my training, my discipline. Grabbing her was catching a live wire. Her magic didn’t burn me; it recognised me. It latched onto my shadow like a magnet finding iron.
