Chapter 14

  River rolled the satchel’s seam between thumb and forefinger; his thoughts sprinted ahead of the King’s calm instructions. No escort. No reinforcements. Just the three of them, their bonded, and whatever waited beyond the city walls. The shadows.

  A chill crept up his spine at the word. Another run-in with Philip felt… inevitable. All the steps that led here—training, whispers, that first audience—suddenly seemed far away, as if his mind had decided they were no longer worth holding.

  They were shown the door. Words sparked…but River barely heard them, let alone responded. He had almost started to believe they were safe, that the shadows were distant enough not to touch them. Then a firm hand clamped his shoulder and cracked the haze.

  He turned, startled, to find the King standing there, expression strangely gentle. “Take this. It will allow us to communicate: break the seal and speak,” the King said, placing a wooden box, boot-length, lacquered-smooth, into River’s arms. Before River could muster a reply, the monarch had already turned and vanished beyond the towering oak doors.

  River stood clutching the box, thoughts racing and also somehow going nowhere. Time blurred. The next thing he knew, he was outside the manor that had started to feel like home.

  And now, once again, he would have to leave it.

  William and Virella waited at the entrance. Grim, unreadable. He didn’t need to ask. They already knew.

  Before anyone could trade a single comforting word, there weren’t any, William pivoted and motioned them to follow. No explanations, just that familiar, unarguable gravity.

  They climbed a narrow staircase and turned into a corridor River barely remembered from the original tour. He hadn’t returned here since.

  At the far end stood a black door—unmarked, unimposing. Nothing about it drew the eye, and yet as William pushed it open, a thin chill crept into River’s chest, the kind that warns rather than bites.

  Inside, the room was modest, dim, furnished only with a few worn chairs and a wide circular table at the center.

  Virella lifted her hand. With a flick of her wrist, the wall torches whooshed to life—not yellow flame but ghostly blue, dancing too smoothly in the low air. The light washed the room in an underwater dusk.

  Calira’s voice cut clean through his mind, sudden and blade-sharp. “What happened?”

  River blinked. The question snapped his focus into place. The summons. The King’s words. The weight and shape of the task ahead—they all rushed back at once, stacked and urgent.

  He shook his head, still hunting for the first sentence. Calira didn’t wait. She stepped out of the tattoo on his shoulder in a soft flare of heat, taking her human shape. Hair like feathered fire fell down her back, catching the eerie blue glow and throwing it back warmer.

  The room went rigid. Heads pivoted.

  She crossed her arms, mouth set. “What happened?” she asked again, aloud this time, her voice was just loud enough to cut through the hush.

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  River exhaled and finally found the words. “We’ve been tasked to go beyond the city. Track the shadows. Report what we find… and live to do it.” Albert tensed beside him; Amalia folded her arms and gave the smallest nod, like a thought confirming itself.

  William stepped forward. “It’s not just recon,” he said, breaking the moment. “You’ll be far from support, with little backup if anything goes wrong. That’s why you’ll be going with more than training.” He bent under the table and lifted a small, rune-marked key—once bright silver, now more rust than shine.

  “Follow me,” William said, tone steady.

  He crossed to what looked like a decorative bookshelf, faded tomes, tinted glass, and fit the key into a barely visible seam hidden behind a carved lion’s crest. A soft click. The lid swung backward on hidden hinges… A pulse of cold air spilled out and brushed against River’s skin like a warning.

  Albert stared. “Of course there’s a secret door.”

  Virella conjured a flame. It left her palm and drifted ahead, a floating lantern of blue that painted the stairwell in soft frostlight. “This way,” she said. “Only a few have ever been allowed in.”

  They descended. The air cooled with every step, clean and mineral. The stair opened into a vaulted chamber lit by steady blue fire held in sconces, the ceiling high and ribbed like the inside of a shell. The stone was pristine, etched with the same rune patterns River had seen on the training armor.

  Arranged on stone pedestals—each cocooned behind a thin, shimmering ward—were objects unlike anything River had seen.

  A blade so dark it devoured light rather than reflected it.

  A set of silver bands that floated, unattached, turning lazily in the air.

  A medallion that pulsed gently like a sleeping heartbeat.

  A cloak that refused a single color, rippling through shades as if it hadn’t decided what to be.

  A twisted crystal orb cradled in bone.

  “And more,” William said quietly. “This is the Vault. Each of you will choose one item. What you take will be bound to you. Choose with care.”

  River’s breath hitched. These weren’t tools; they were choices that would echo.

  For a beat he couldn’t pick a direction to look in. Then his gaze snagged on something that, at first glance, barely deserved attention.

  A linen tunic. Dull color, loose weave, folded neat as laundry. Plain as a secret.

  He focused. With his primordial vision, the plainness peeled away. Runes coiled under the fabric in patient loops, pulsing faintly. Essence pooled around it, thicker and brighter than the air. He stepped forward, drawn without quite deciding. Fingers brushed the cloth; warmth buzzed up his arm, almost alive.

  This. He had plenty of firepower. What he lacked, what he always lacked, was control over it, finesse.

  Before he could say it, William stepped to his side. “Good choice,” he said, voice softer than usual. “That piece was mine. My father crafted it for me.” He touched the hem, memory flickering behind his eyes. “It works like Nymeira’s and Tessa’s armor: absorbing part of the impact and turning it into essence. You’ll regain essence faster in the thick of it.”

  River nodded. Exactly what he needed.

  He stripped off his old tunic—sweat-damp, familiar—and drew the enchanted garment over his head. The change was immediate. A hum built around his ribs, steady as a drum under the skin. Heat rolled across him, not scorching—comforting. Armor made of warmth.

  For the first time in a long time, he felt safe. Not invincible, not dumbly brave—just braced the way a door is when the bar slides into place.

  He turned to the others.

  Albert cradled a massive two-handed hammer, the head etched in runes that glowed a calm silver-blue. It looked absurd in his arms until it didn’t—until it fit.

  Amalia held a pair of slender daggers, blades gleaming bright azure, their metal like a cold breath filling the air. They made her posture change, looser and sharper at once.

  And Calira, of course, grinned, both hands wrapped around a crimson pendant that glowed with emberlight. Sparks skittered across its surface like it had its own small heartbeat. She lifted it to the blue fire, and the pendant answered with a warmer flare, as if pleased.

  River didn’t know yet what each item did—there would be rules, limits, prices—but something in the moment settled a weight inside him. The fear didn’t vanish. He wasn’t magically calm.

  But he was ready.

  Or, at least, closer to it than he’d been an hour ago.