“I used the correct term.”
He glances up, his eyes gleaming with that sick light I’ve come to dread.“Protective of whom, exactly?Herself or…you?It was your name on her lips, Kael.”
The question hangs between us like smoke.I force my jaw to unclench.“She’s responding to pain, not me.I happen to be the one who she has seen the most.It has likely painted me as her saviour.”
“Hmm.”He reads a line from my report.“Subject demonstrated signs of internal resonance; manacle runes destabilised.” He taps the parchment.“You see what this means, don’t you?”
“That her power and our containment draw from a similar source.”
“Yes,” Riven whispers.“Light and shadow—siblings pretending to be enemies.”His finger presses harder into the parchment until the skin whitens.“Imagine what we could do if we understood it.”
I know exactly what he means.Cutting.Opening.Peeling back layers until the divine shrieks.
“You plan to request another trial?With the Triarchs?”
“Of course,” he says, his tone dismissive of my questioning.“A phase no shadowborne has ever reached.Phase Three: Control through Communion.”
He looks radiant—a priest at the altar of his own obsession.“If she truly carries the goddess, we will wake it.I’ll have her on her knees before the Triarch by tomorrow.”
My throat tightens.“That soon?”
The corners of his mouth lift, baring wine-stained teeth.“Strike while she is weak.”
“What if she doesn’t survive?”
“Then we do what we always do, boy.We record the results and move on.What’s inside the Vessel is the objective, and if that proves unsuccessful, then its contents are secondary.”
There it is again—that word.Vessel.Contents.As if Seren’s soul means nothing.
It strips her of breath.Of will.Of blame.
He folds the parchment neatly, sliding it into a golden tube before sealing it with the crest of the High Commander.“I’ll deliver this to the Triarch myself,” he says.“They appreciate a…personal touch.”
Rather him than me.
“Your kind of touch,” I mutter.
Riven’s head snaps up, pulled from his fantasies.“What was that, boy?”
“Nothing, sir.”
He rises, circling me with that same warped fascination he showed her.“You’re pale, Kael.Perhaps you’ve been spending too much time in the shadows.”
I press my lips into a thin line.“As I said, sir.I’m tired.”
“Ah.”He stops in front of me, tilting his head.“Tell me—when she screams, what do you feel?Disgust?Pity?Or does she sound like a hymn?”
My breath hitches into short, shallow gasps.“I feel—” I say, measuring every syllable, “what any scholar should: curiosity and restraint.”
“Curiosity without restraint built Auria,” he replies.“And it will build the next age with her resonance—if she is truly the chosen one.”He leans close enough that the wine on his breath burns.“Don’t let sentiment spoil your gift.You were chosen for your mind, not your mercy.”
He pats the gold tube, his smile thin, the skin around his eyes drawn taut.“I’ll see the Triarch tonight.Prepare the girl for transport at first light.They will want to see her miracle up close.”
As I turn to leave, he calls after me, almost jovial.“And Kael?”I pause, my body already poised for the door.“Make sure she’s clean again.The Triarch prefer their relics polished.”
The door closes, muffling Riven’s laughter.I stand in the hall until my heartbeat stops ringing in my ears.
Clean.As if purity were anything but the residue of blood scrubbed from marble.
