The smell of old parchment soothed him. Faded ink, spine-worn leather, and the cold hush of a room carved in shadow and stillness.
Riven sat alone in the royal archive, his fingers trailing the curling script of a book once read to him beneath a winter moon.
His grandmother's voice echoed faintly in memory, reciting lines from The Ancient Origins of the Fae.
The same book, still preserved. The same inked tales of sky-born courts, of wars waged beneath silver suns, of kings who bled stars when struck.
He had removed his crown when he entered. Set it gently beside the candlelight.
Here, alone, he was not the heir. Not the monster carved into whispers. Just a boy, once. A boy who had sat cross-legged on floors of jade, listening.
The pages whispered as he turned them.
Then he heard voices.
Soft, feminine. He stilled.
Keira.
And Yvaine.
He did not rise. He merely leaned back into the shadows, eyes flicking toward the sound. Curious, not concerned.
He heard Keira's sharp inhale. The awe in her voice. Her small, suspicious questions. Yvaine's responses were gentle. Calculated. She was careful with the girl, as though she held a blade that hadn't yet remembered it could cut.
Then Yvaine's footsteps faded.
And she was alone.
Riven stood slowly. The candlelight caught on the silver thread embroidered into his collar, gleaming like runes. He stepped out from the alcove.
She turned, and she froze.
No crown. No guards. No armor to separate them. Just him, and her, and the quiet knowledge that she had once tried to bury a blade in his neck.
Keira bowed fast, too fast. "Forgive me, my prince. I was curious."
He said nothing.
"I'll leave," she whispered.
But she didn't. Not fast enough.
He caught her wrist.
"Don't walk away from me," he said, and his voice low, and cutting through the silence.
And then, gods.
She gasped, eyes wide. He saw it, the moment it happened.
Recognition.
Not of him. But of a life not hers.
Her breath hitched. Her body stiffened.
Riven's hand remained on her wrist.
He saw it then, her, but not her. Laughter in this very room. A girl leaning against him, throwing crumbs of stolen pastries at his face. Light pouring from the stained-glass windows like melted gems. Elya.
No.
He released her.
She backed away, eyes wild. And then she turned and ran, gown whispering behind her.
He didn't follow.
He simply stood there, staring at the place she had been.
"…What was that?" he muttered, closing his eyes, drawing in a slow, bitter breath.
It wasn't her. She wasn't Elya. That was impossible.
He had burned her body himself.
Had stood over the pyre, hands shaking with rage and something colder than grief. Her betrayal had cleaved a hollow in him, and he had filled it with silence.
Keira could not be her.
But then, why did the air remember her name?
Why did the shadows seem to lean forward when the girl passed?
Why did his mind splinter when she touched him?
Riven let out a groan and dragged a hand over his face. He turned back toward the alcove, the book left half-open beside his crown.
He didn't return to it.
Instead, he moved to the far wall, where a portrait hung in muted golds. The artist had painted it a century ago, an imagined scene of the Midnight Court's founding.
Fae lords and ladies in grand, sweeping robes. Riven's ancestor on a throne of roots. And just beside him, at the edge of the canvas, Aeren.
So young then.
So bright.
They had once been like brothers.
And then there was Elya.
And the war.
A rustle of armor broke the silence.
General Tharos suddenly entered, his frame blocking most of the doorway.
"My prince," Tharos said, voice like gravel over ice. "You must come. There's something you need to see."
Riven turned, expression hardening. "Now?"
"You know I am not to be disturbed when I am here," he said coldly. "Whatever it is had best warrant the interruption."
Tharos didn't flinch. "It does."
Riven exhaled once through his nose and followed.
~
When they reached the hall, the scent hit first, burned air, raw magic, the iron tang of blood beneath it.
The doors stood open. Inside, the other guards had cleared a wide circle around the convulsing figure on the floor.
A human.
A girl. One of the remaining 5 chosen. Pale skin mottled with rising welts, her limbs jerking in unnatural rhythms, her back arching so sharply it was a wonder her spine didn't shatter.
But it was the sound that turned the blood in Riven's veins to ice.
Not the screams.
The language.
Ancient. Cracked with time. Too old for mortal tongues.
"…e'sē haldirai'thel… Eltharion mardeth elir—"
Riven stepped closer. The words rang deeper now, echoing beneath the marble, vibrating in the air like a summoning. The girl's eyes had rolled white, but her mouth moved with terrifying precision.
No human could know those words.
No living Fae even dared to speak them aloud.
Not since.....
Tharos knelt, his massive form still as stone. "It began minutes ago. No magic cast. No contact. She was cleaning the musical instruments.Then this."
The girl cried out, choking on syllables that didn't belong in his throat.
Riven watched him for a long moment. "Has she ever been marked? Touched by a Seer?"
"No, my prince. She is from Farwater. A pig seller's daughter. No lineage. No Gift."
Yet here she was. Speaking spells older than most of the court itself. Words that hadn't graced Fae ears since the Old Courts burned.
Something cold and familiar coiled through Riven's chest.
"She's channeling," Riven murmured.
"Is that possible?" Tharos asked.
"No," Riven said. "It shouldn't be."
Then, without warning, the girl stopped moving.
Her body went limp.
And then slowly… impossibly… her eyes opened.
Not white now. Not brown or green.
Gold.
Old gold, rimmed in silver.
Eyes Riven hadn't seen in years.
The girl blinked. Once.
Then her mouth moved. But this time, the voice wasn't her.
It was older.
Colder.
Familiar.
"Did you think I would stay gone forever?"