Page 107 of The City Of Fractured Memory

Then his lips go still against mine.

Completely still.

“Riven?” I whisper, leaning back from his now rigid body. He’s completely frozen, like his breath has been cut off. His eyes are glazed and distant, and as the seconds tick by, his skin starts to drain of colour.

He’s having a vision—a bad one.

Riven abruptly tears himself away from me like he’s been yanked backward by invisible hands and my heart plummets.

“Riven?” I repeat, stepping toward him.

He doesn’t blink, a faint tremor running through him.

I grab his arm forcefully, my heart pounding. “Riven—look at me. What do you see? What is it?”

His eyes snap back into focus, finding mine, but the horror in them makes my stomach drop.

“Tell me,” I say slowly, voice shaking now. “What did you see?”

His jaw clenches and his throat bobs. And with a voice that sounds nothing like his own, thin and terrified, he forces out one word.

“Stryx.”

I can’t breathe.

“Stryx!” I scream into the darkness, but the only thing that answers is my own voice echoing back at me.

The door to our apartment is caved in.

Fragments of wood from the doorframe lie scattered around our feet with nothing but inky darkness looming ahead, the only light coming from the dying flames of the fireplace. The dim orange glow gently illuminates the chaos of debris; shattered glass phials, torn pages of books, Stryx’s armchair on its side, one of the legs broken.

I take a shaky step over the remains of the door and a sob escapes me, the sound reverberating loudly through the foreboding silence. Riven stumbles after me, barely able to stand, falling heavily onto the undisturbed sofa.

“Princess…gone,” he mumbles, swaying where he sits like he’s going to pass out.

My heart stumbles. Did he already know she was a princess, or has he just seen it? I lurch for him and catch his shoulders as he sways dangerously, almost falling on his face.

“What’s happening to you?” I ask shakily, gently prying his disheveled hair from his eyes. “I’ve never seen a seer deteriorate like this from a vision.”

He mutters something under his breath that I can’t make out. To anyone else, it would look like he’s horrifically drunk.

“Too. Many. Futures,” he gasps, raising a hand to clutch his head. “Too much…”

“Breathe,” I tell him as calmly as I can, and he tries, but it’s no use. His swaying worsens. I try to focus, stamping down on my growing panic so I can think straight. If he’s having too many visions at once, something needs to interrupt the cycle…

“Forgive me,” I grimace.

I slap his face. Hard.

He jerks back, still clutching his head, and I suck in a deep breath, instantly regretting my choice. But as he slowly turns his gaze to mine, his eyes are sharp, no longer vacant. He stares at me frozen, then suddenly takes a deep breath like he’s been holding it. He falls forward and puts his head between his knees, taking deep, steadying breaths.

“Thank…you…” he chokes out in between lungfuls of air. “That…sucked.”

“What did you see?” I whisper once his breathing starts to sound more normal again.

He slowly rises, swaying a little again, but his face is set in determination, his eyes focused. “Too much. Too many futures, too many possibilities. All of them…” He trails off, his face paling again.

“Awful?” I finish, and he nods, his mouth a grim line.