The smoke still clung to the wind.
Arielle could smell the charred bones of the fallen behind them, even as the temple disappeared into the distance, swallowed by forest and fog. Her robes were torn. Her skin ached. Her hands shook—but not from fear.
From exhaustion. From the unbearable heat Riven carried beside her like a second sun.
She hadn't spoken since they crossed the scorched border, the secret path carved into the mountain's edge. He hadn't, either. Not really. Just walked in that maddeningly calm way of his, his black coat sweeping behind him like wings.
Finally, she broke the silence.
"You could teleport us. Why don't you just do it?"
Riven didn't even glance at her.
"Because this world would rip itself apart if I moved through it with you in tow."
She frowned. "That's dramatic. Even for you."
"You don't know the laws that bind this realm. I wasn't made to walk beside mortals. Every step I take with you this close... it offends the balance."
She snorted. "Everything about you offends the balance."
He smiled faintly. Not kindly. Not cruelly. "And yet you summoned me."
Her cheeks burned. She faced forward. "It was a mistake."
"Perhaps," he murmured. "But we're long past repentance now, priestess."
They walked in silence again.
The road sloped downward, thickening into a shadowed forest Arielle remembered from old scripture. The River of Pale Hands lay somewhere below—a place touched by both divine blood and demonic corruption during the first Rift War.
Fitting, she thought, that they would pass through it.
Her fingers brushed the necklace Maric had given her. Her mother's. It was warm against her skin, pulsing faintly, like it remembered something she didn't.
She tried not to think of Maric's last words. The blood in his mouth. The way he said Riven's name like it was both curse and salvation.
"Do you know what you are yet?" Riven asked without looking.
"I know what I'm not. I'm not yours."
"Oh, priestess," he murmured, stopping just long enough to tilt his head toward her. "You kissed me. You summoned me. You bear my mark in your soul. That's not possession... that's binding."
"It was to save a child."
"Intent doesn't erase consequence."
She stopped too, turning toward him.
"Do you enjoy this? Making everything a game?"
"No," he said softly, and his gaze was a blade of ash and moonlight. "I enjoy you."
She hated the way her breath caught.
"You feel it too, don't you? When I'm near. The weight in your blood. The way your flame reacts."
She clenched her fists. "That's the bond. Not desire."
"Isn't that what desire is? A tether you can't control?"
Silence.
He shifts his gaze from her to the oath in front of them.
"The veil isn't just torn," Riven said suddenly. "It's bleeding."
She glanced at him. "What does that mean?"
"It means time and space are weakening. Borders between realms are softening. Creatures long imprisoned are beginning to slip through."
"And they want me."
His gaze flicked to her. "They want what you are."
"What I am is a holy vessel."
He laughed. A low, dangerous sound. "You are no longer just holy, Arielle. Not after binding with me."
Her steps faltered. The ground shifted beneath her.
She turned to him sharply. "I didn't bind with you. I summoned you."
"We kissed Priestess."
"To save a child. It was an accident."
"Intent doesn't negate consequence like I told you."
She hated how he said that. Like he knew everything. Like her world was a game to him.
"Do you ever feel anything?" she asked.
Riven arched a brow. "Define 'anything.'"
"Fear. Pain. Guilt. Love."
"Love is a lie. Pain is a reminder. Guilt is for humans. And fear..." he stepped closer to her. "Fear is what you feel when I look at you."
She held her ground. Her voice a whisper. "I'm not afraid of you."
He leaned in. Just a breath. "Then you're a fool."
She turned and stormed ahead, fists clenched.
He followed, slower. Deliberate.
By midday, they reached the edge of the forest, where the sky turned gray and the wind carried whispers. The River of Pale Hands was just beyond the ridge. Arielle stopped to catch her breath.
"We'll rest soon," Riven said.
"Didn't realize you needed rest."
"I don't. You do."
She hated how he noticed things. How he always seemed to see what she tried to hide.
He tossed her a flask of water from his pack. She hesitated, then took it.
Their fingers brushed.
A flicker.
Not fire. Not light.
Something in between.
She looked at him then, really looked.
His face was carved from night. Eyes silver as a dying star. Not human. Not holy. Beautiful in a way that terrified her.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" she asked.
"Because you're starting to see it too."
"See what?"
"What you really are."
The wind shifted.
Far in the distance, the temple they'd left behind was still burning.
Arielle didn't turn around.
She only gripped her necklace, stepped forward—
And walked into the forest.
The journey had begun.
Night fell like a blade.
They made camp near a jagged cliffside, a broken shrine crumbled beneath their feet. Arielle lit a small fire with trembling hands, her magic flickering blue in the cold.
Riven didn't help.
He only watched her.
Watched the way she moved, how her jaw clenched, how the flame responded to her mood. Wild. Uncontrolled. Beautiful.
She sat near the fire, arms around her knees, staring into it.
"I don't understand you," she muttered.
"Good. That's the beginning of understanding."
"You don't believe in anything."
He looked up at the stars—those same constellations he'd watched through centuries of war, worship, and silence.
"I used to," he said. "Before I became something worth fearing."
She looked at him, shadows dancing across her face. "You could be more. If you wanted."
"And you could burn the world down if you stopped pretending you were pure."
Arielle stood quickly, her flame sparking to life.
"Don't talk to me like you know me."
He stood too, slower, deliberate.
"But I do. I feel every tremor in your magic. I see the way your light flickers when I step too close. You burn, Arielle. And one day, you're going to stop pretending you don't like the heat."
She was shaking.
From rage.
From truth.
From the fire inside her that only he could summon without touching her.
"Get away from me."
He stepped back, hand raised. "As you wish."
But before turning, he spoke, meeting her gaze—voice like sin, breath like winter.
"I will leave.But not without giving you something to think about."
He whispered a riddle:
"What burns, yet leaves no ash? What touches without hands? What takes more than your soul when it's gone?"
Then he starts to vanish into the dark.
And her flame burned hotter.
"Just remember this. You can pray all you want. But in the end... it won't be your gods who answer."
He left her with that riddle and vanished into the dark.
And her fire burned hotter.
But she didn't put it out.
She sat down again, breathless.
And watched it rage.
-FLASHBACK-
Arielle was fifteen when the priests first whispered the phrase.
They stood over her mother's body. Cloaked in white. Pale lips moving in silence.
She was taken by darkness, they said.
But Arielle knew the truth. She'd seen it. Her mother had burned alive—
Trying to protect her from a Rift Beast.
It wasn't the darkness that took her mother.
It was the Temple's refusal to help.
They called her a threat. A flaw in the prophecy.
But Arielle remembered the flame her mother conjured.
It looked like her own.
And ever since, she'd felt... wrong.
Like the light inside her wasn't the kind the Temple praised.
She was trained anyway. Sharpened like a blade. Praised for her obedience, not her questions.
Until one night, she overheard it:
"She has no shadow."
She never forgot the way those words felt. Like chains. Like prophecy.
Like a lie waiting to be proven true.
She carried it inside her. The shame. The fear. The wondering.
And now?
Riven had seen it. Smelled it. Tasted it in the air around her.
He knew she wasn't pure.
And part of her wasn't sure if she wanted to fight him for that truth—
Or thank him for finally saying it.