He grit his teeth, his expression tightening as the movement stretched the freshly knit skin of his side. He remained silent, but the sudden, rigid set of his shoulders betrayed the effort. Even healed, the trauma of the blow remained deep in the marrow.
“Idiot,” I muttered, moving before I thought.
I reached out, my hand landing lightly on his forearm as he pushed himself off the bed. His skin was burning hot. He didn’t flinch; his muscles turned to rigid stone beneath my palm as he locked his knees, absorbing the shock of his own weight with silent precision.
For a second, we were right back where we were ten minutes ago—too close. The hum of my magic reached out, brushing against the dark weight of his. The sunlight seemed to vanish, leaving only the heat between us.
I looked up. He was staring down at me, his eyes wide and unguarded. I saw the fear there again, rooted entirely in this. In us.
I snatched my hand back, the heat stinging, and forced the sensation down.
“You’re still healing,” I said, my voice shaking slightly.
“The wound is closed,” he said, his voice hard as iron. He took a slow breath, letting his mask slide securely back into place. “Staying in bed solves nothing. If you want answers, Selene, come with me. There is something in the study you need to see.”
He nodded towards the door, effectively shutting me out. I crossed my arms, wanting to argue—wanting to push him back down and demand the truth about the guard, his scar, and the way he had just looked at me.
But he was offering a thread.
“Fine,” I said.
I stepped back, giving him space to move. He grabbed a cleanshirt from the wardrobe and put it on. A momentary pause in his hands was the only sign that the movement stretched the new skin at his side; his face remained a blank, porcelain mask.
The dark fabric fell into place, hiding the ink, the scars, and the silver glow. Armour back in place.
He walked past me towards the door—slower than usual, but moving under his own power without a slip. He paused at the threshold, the dry, detached mask of the consultant fully restored.
“Lead the way.”
He pushed openthe double doors at the end of the corridor. The room remained exactly as I remembered it from my sleepless wandering—dark wood shelves, the scent of old parchment, and a towering stillness.
Last night, it had been a tomb of shadows and moonlight. Today, it was a reservoir of blinding gold.
Golden beams sliced through the high windows, cutting through the floating dust motes like solid bars of amber. It illuminated corners I hadn’t seen in the dark—stacks of leather-bound volumes, intricate brass instruments on the mantle, and the sheer, overwhelming scale of knowledge gathered here.
The rest of the house held the stone-cold bite of the season, but here, the sunlight trapped behind the high glass created a dry, ancient warmth. It smelled of preserved paper and time—a stark, welcome comfort after the metallic chill of the Industrial Crescent.
He gestured to the oak table. It was already scattered with books—some bound in leather that looked older than the city we were standing in, others simple cloth.
We sat down close to the books, and to each other. The sunlight hit my back, soaking through my shirt, untying knots in my spine I didn’t know I had.
“What is this?” I asked, running a finger over the spine of a text titledThe Chronicles of the First Era.
“Context,” Riven said. His voice was stronger now, slipping back into that lecture-hall cadence he used when he was trying to control a situation. “You have power you do not understand. Power that reacts to emotion, to danger… and to me.”
I flinched, just a little. He caught it, his eyes darkening, but he didn’t stop.
“You need to know what you are looking at,” he said. He pushed a book towards me. It was open to an illustration—a depiction of figures standing amidst a landscape that didn’t look like Ravenholt.
“The Aetherkind,” he said quietly. “The old stories call them myths. Gods, in some cultures. They weren’t.”
“I’ve heard the name before,” I said, testing the waters. “They were a civilisation. Powerful.”
Riven nodded, his gaze fixed on the page. “According to these texts, they were architects of a magic capable of reducing armies to ash. They commanded power on a celestial scale, vanishing long before the first stone of this city was laid. A lost empire.”
He looked up, and for a second, the mask slipped. He looked tired. And lonely.
“I believe,” he said, the words measured, “that I might be one of them.”
