The mark on my wrist answers with a slow, traitorous pulse.
39
RIVEN
The scent of blood and incense still clings to the back of my throat as I march from the chamber where chaos rained.
Dawn hasn’t broken, but the city already glows—hundreds of torches burn along the causeways in a desperate imitation of sunrise.Auria hates the dark so much it will set itself on fire to keep it away.
Six guards fall into step behind me, their armour hissing with the rhythm of prayer.I lead them down through the under-levels, where the marble gives way to limestone and the hymn of the city turns into the hiss of steam.
“Knowing the girl, they’ve gone to the lower levels,” I bark at my obedient pets.“Keep your wits about you.You know what she is.”
We descend until the limestone gives way to grey rock.The path of destruction is easy to follow; a trail of fine, black ash marks the walls where her shadows slithered.The blackness is absolute, looking as if it has been cauterised into the stone itself.
My nostrils sting.A sickly, sweet scent of lavender overwhelms the tunnel, thick enough to gag on.I grip the rough granite, my fingers scraping the walls as I try to push past the suffocating perfume.
Behind me, the guards break rank.Their breathing comes in choppy, haggard bursts as they bend double, retching hard against the cloying air.
Pathetic.
“Get up,” I snap.“We have a job to do, and we aren’t going to do it with our heads between our backsides!”
They jolt upright, the glassy look in their eyes replaced by a sharp, sudden clarity.Their features pinch in unison—a row of predators fixed on their prey.My lip curls until my teeth are bared.
“That’s better.Now move!”
The Guild’s tunnels are scarred; the quake from the girl’s awakening has cracked the masonry and flooded the lower chambers.
Our footsteps slap against the stone as we follow the black marks to a cramped room where the walls are slick with damp and the air is thick with heat.
As my eyes adjust, I make out the faint violet lines of runes scattered across the stone.They were here.I can feel it.
“Search the walls.”I growl, my voice sending a shockwave through the enclosure.“Find a doorway!They must have gotten out somehow.”
A sea of soft lights appears as the guards illuminate the space with their palms.
“Here, sir!”one of them cries.
I barge through, reaching the guard who stands with his palm outstretched to the floor.The yellow glow emanating from the hole in his glove catches a golden twinkle on the ground.
I snatch the coin.My fingers grasping the cold, heavy metal as I force the guards hand over mine, using his light to inspect the detail.My thumb traces the pattern—Solan’s light crest engraved on both sides, a circle encrusted with the triangular rays of a rising sun.
It tingles through my gloves.The hair on my arms rises as if jolted by an electric current.The coin doesn’t just shine; it simplyis.It radiates an aura of absolute stillness—gelid and old, like the memory of an ancient star.
My jaw is locked tight.I can’t look away; the sight of something so ancient, so rare, in the hands of a mere scholar—someone who exists only in the shadows of Solan’s light.How isheworthy of this, when I have given everything?
I have only ever seen such a token in the hands of Uri, and he never let anyone forget its weight.
What does it do?And why was I never given one?
The feeling coiling inside of me illuminates everything I’m starved of: acceptance, power, control.I stare at the stone wall, contemplating how they used this to vanish.
“You—” I point to a guard.“—put your light on this wall.I need a better look.”
As he obeys, I run my fingertips over the cracks in the rock, searching for the entry point.The guards huddle close, watching with furious intensity.I snap my eyes shut to block them out, until their breathing is the only sound in the room.
I feel for the runes like braille, scanning section by section for a divot.Sweat slicks my brow.My lips pinch.There.
