Chapter 22

  Once again, River was alone, his thoughts the only company in the suffocating silence. They drifted, unbidden, back to the goddess Syronia and the riddle she’d left stamped across his mind.

  He shall rise to rally kin.

  The final war must now begin.

  The words beat a steady drum. As far as he knew, he was the first new Primordial in centuries. Did that mean others would wake? Were they already out there, watching him from the dark?

  And if so would they follow him?

  The questions buzzed, a relentless swarm, and still no answers came.

  By habit more than hope, River reached along the bond. He didn’t expect much, but the absence still cut. No usual warmth. No steady thrum. What met him felt frayed—thin and distant.

  He tugged anyway, desperate for a whisper, a heartbeat, a thought. He slumped back on the cold bed. The hollow ache spread through his chest. For a brief moment he’d held everything he’d ever wanted; now it felt carved away, leaving only the ache.

  His essence flared, wild and jagged, betraying his emotions. Control slipped through his fingers like sand.

  He forced himself into the soul-strengthening rhythm Lud had taught him. Slow draw, slow release, gather, bank, repeat.

  The cycle repeated, again and again. His heart rate eased; the panic thinned; hours unspooled and his mind still refused to slow. Enough. He couldn’t stay here. Not another hour. Not another breath, spent with silence and doubt.

  He needed his friends. He needed Calira. Every minute tore at him like glass under skin. He pushed off the bed, crossed the room, and tried the handle.

  Locked.

  Anger surged—raw, stupid. For a heartbeat he pictured blasting the hinges and sprinting the halls. Logic arrived with cold water. The corridors crawled with Blightborn. With Philip. With Lucius.

  He wouldn’t make it. Not like this.

  He inhaled, shoved the fury down, and knocked. Calm, deliberate, on the cold steel door. The sound came back a hollow thud.

  “Lucius? Philip?” he called, letting boredom seep into the words. “Open up.”

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  Nothing.

  Then the lock scraped. The door creaked. Shadows shifted. River tensed—then forced it down. He leaned into casual. Philip filled the frame, yellow eyes glinting like banked embers. When Philip spoke, the familiar ice had an edge—something sour underneath.

  “I’ve been told to bring you to Lucius whenever you ask.”

  He turned at once, stalking into the corridor.

  River hesitated a beat, every instinct screaming to run the other way. He fell in step instead, matching Philip’s unhurried pace. Near the corridor’s end, a pressure settled on River’s chest—familiar and wrong, like an invisible hand pressing down.

  “Lucius,” he breathed.

  Philip’s head tilted. “Huh?”

  “Nothing.”

  Before he could knock, the door ahead swung inward on its own. Lucius stepped out, that ever-present smile stretched wider than skin should allow.

  “So,” he said, voice rich and needling, “you couldn’t stay away.”

  Something was off. The pressure intensified, heavy and damp. River shouldn’t have felt it so clearly, yet he did—corrupted essence bleeding from Lucius like a slow fog, nosing along his aura, looking for seams.

  River didn’t flinch. He lifted his inner guard, let the foul shimmer lick the edges without getting in, and held Lucius’s gaze.

  “No,” he said evenly. “I was bored. Thought you might enlighten me on our next steps.”

  Lucius gave a low, pleased chuckle. “Good.” Lucius flicked two fingers. “Philip—leave us.” A small, bitten-off sound came from Philip’s throat—there and then gone. He turned and melted into the dim.

  The door shut with a final thunk. Lucius beckoned. River stepped through without hesitation, though every muscle argued. At the back of the chamber, a map of Norvil covered the wall—black and silver lines etched into old stone, the capital and its ring of cities.

  “In your history books,” Lucius said before River could study it, “Norvil is a gift from Lady Luck. Your patron. Your pantheon’s heart.”

  River kept his face neutral and nodded once.

  “What they omit,” Lucius went on, stepping to the map, “is that Norvil was carved into obsidian heaved up during the war, obsidian laid over the prison where the True Gods were sealed.”

  He let it hang.

  “The city wasn’t chosen for beauty,” he said softly. “It was chosen because the veil there is thinnest. It lets them watch. My goal is to release them into the world again.” A beat. “If our plan holds, we’ll be ready in three months. I cant let chaos rule.”

  River forced a tight smile, hiding the storm within. “Three months,” he echoed. “That should be… enough.”

  If Lucius heard the strain, he ignored it. He clapped River’s shoulder, firm, possessive. “I knew you were the right choice.”

  River offered nothing back. He stared at a god who’d condemned a city and didn’t blink. No protest. No tell. On the surface, he was the perfect pawn.

  Inside, something clicked over.

  Three months. A clock now. A countdown to slaughter. If he couldn’t stop it, thousands would die—maybe more.

  He couldn’t run yet. Not until he knew more.

  Not until he was stronger.

  Not until he could tear the plan apart from the inside.

  Lucius turned back to the wall, already talking swarms and routes and chokepoints. River let the mask slip just enough to mouth a promise the god wouldn’t see.

  I’ll stop you.

  Whatever it takes.

  Then he arranged his face again. Calm, compliant, harmless.

  For now.

  Lucius hadn’t said it, but the map had: the prison lay beneath the palace. Good. He could work with that.