I remain silent, hoping he can hear the thousand unspoken words my face speaks.He chuckles at the lack of response.
“Unclip her,” he commands.
Kael’s jaw tightens as he faces me, avoiding my gaze.The chain between my wrists tugs free with a reluctant scrape—metal murmuring against metal.Riven’s gaze slides over us both, then lands on me like a frost.
“Place her there.”He points to the table in the centre.Kael’s chest rises, his face hardening as he guides me forward and I sit, perching on the edge.
“Is she clean?”
“Yes,” Kael says through gritted teeth.
The table is colder than it looks.I perch on the edge, manacles anchored in my lap.Tendrils of shadow wrap around my legs, poised to strike.
“Good.”Riven claps his hands in delight, the sudden noise making me twitch.“Let us begin.”
As he approaches I turn my head.A keen, tangy smell escapes his parted lips, sending a surge of bile to my throat.
“Stand,” he commands.
I don’t obey.I sit there, chin raised high, bracing for the impact that will no doubt land.But it doesn’t.
“I said…stand.”
His words thunder through me.With reluctant legs, I stand.
“Remove the robe.”
I glance at Kael, desperate for a reaction, but his gaze is fixed on the floor, his jaw feathering.
My fingers fail at first.I hate it—hate that my trembling is as obvious as my loathing.I shrug the fabric from my shoulders, letting it drape at the crooks of my elbows.The air bites.The silver mirrors return me to myself a dozen times over: too thin, too pale.Shackled.
Riven circles.An idle finger traces my collarbone like a collector admiring a rare shell.He doesn’t rush.He lingers, deliberate, as if he’s cataloguing me.My skin crawls, hairs raising all over my body as his nail scratches.
“The rest of it,” he says, nodding to the fabric pooled in my lap.
My lips thin, my teeth clench, as I unwillingly do as he asks.The robe drops until I’m standing in a puddle of grey.The cold seeps into every inch of my exposed skin.
The corner of his mouth lifts, baring red-stained teeth as his finger returns.He traces the hollow of my throat before dropping lower, pausing as if searching for something beneath the flesh.He lets his hand hang there, waiting for a reaction.I don’t bite.
A wave of sickly-sweet, pungent air hits me as he chuckles at my facade.His finger slides to my chin, his nail cutting into the skin as he forces me to look at him.A true, blazing fire rages in his eyes—a forge burning with terrifying purpose.
“Lie down.”
There’s no point resisting, not when the resonance thrums like static.Ever the obedient pet, I do as he says.
He touches the rod to my wrist, just beyond the glow of the manacles.Light-forged metal meets my skin, and heat blooms.A needle-thin pain blazes at the contact, like raw exposure to the sun.My shadows surge toward the rod by instinct, only to be met by an invisible force.An ear-splitting scream rips through my skull—not mine, but someone else’s.
“Fascinating,” he murmurs.“I can see the darkness swirling beneath her skin.”He raises the slender rod, its tip engraved with a tiny sun.“Hold still.”
The manacles flare; light bleeding from the runes.Riven hums softly as the rod slides to my forearm, my shoulder, then the hollow of my throat.“Where do you go, little things?”
He isn’t looking at me; he’s studying my skin with warped fascination.“And here?”
The burning tip presses to my sternum, sending sparks racing through me.Riven chuckles, his amber eyes burning as bright as my insides.“That’s it, my darling…”
A crackling fills the air, like dry wood catching a match.The screams reverberating in my head threaten to spill out.
“Enough,” Kael growls.
