Riven woke wrong.
Not slow. Not gradual.
He came back all at once, like someone had snapped a cord inside his chest.
Air tore into his lungs.
He gasped hard, shoulders jerking as if he’d been shoved upright, vision flashing white before collapsing into blur. Stone pressed cold against his cheek. The smell hit him next — iron, damp rot, old piss and blood — and with it, memory surged.
The dungeon.
The bars.
Kael—
“Kael!” Riven croaked, clawing at the stone. “Kael—!”
His head spun violently. The world tilted. He barely managed to push himself onto an elbow before nausea surged and he gagged, dry heaving, breath coming in ragged bursts.
Hands gripped the bars in front of him.
“I’m here,” Kael said, voice hoarse and immediate. “Riven. I’m here.”
Riven froze.
Slowly — painfully — he lifted his head.
Kael knelt just outside his cage, pale, bruised, eyes rimmed red with exhaustion. Real. Breathing.
Alive.
For half a heartbeat, Riven just stared.
Then he lurched forward and slammed into the bars, fingers hooking through iron as far as they’d go.
“You—” His voice broke completely. “I thought— they— I thought you were—”
Kael leaned in, forehead pressing briefly against the bars opposite him. “I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
Riven laughed — a sharp, cracked sound that turned into something dangerously close to a sob. His hands shook so badly he had to grip the bars harder just to stay upright.
“You idiot,” he rasped. “You promised. You promised.”
“I’m still here,” Kael said. “So are you.”
Something twisted in Riven’s chest.
Not pain.
Not fear.
Pressure.
It rolled through him like a tide turning — deep, heavy, electric — settling under his skin, coiling through his limbs. His heartbeat thundered, each pulse too strong, too loud, like his body was suddenly built for more than it had ever been asked to do.
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He sucked in a breath.
The air felt thick. Charged.
“Kael,” he murmured, distracted despite himself. “Something’s— something’s wrong.”
Kael stiffened. “What do you mean?”
Riven swallowed.
“I feel like…” He frowned, searching for the sensation. “Like I could break something. Like if I look at it hard enough.”
His gaze drifted.
Across the dungeon, half-hidden in shadow near the far wall, sat an old storage barrel. Cracked wood. Rusted bands. Forgotten.
Riven’s eyes locked onto it.
The pressure surged.
His breath caught — sharp, involuntary — and the world seemed to pause around that single point.
Then—
BOOM.
The barrel exploded.
Not collapsed. Not split.
It burst outward in a violent, concussive snap, wood shredding as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer. Staves flew. Metal bands screamed as they twisted apart. The sound slammed into the dungeon walls and came back twice as loud.
Kids screamed.
Someone shrieked.
Riven staggered back, heart hammering so hard it hurt, breath tearing in fast, shallow pulls like he’d just sprinted uphill.
“What—what the fuck—” he gasped.
From above, a voice barked sharply.
“HEY! QUIET DOWN THERE!”
Boots shifted. Metal clanged faintly.
The dungeon erupted into chaos.
Kids surged to their bars, shouting, crying, laughing hysterically. Someone started chanting incoherently. Someone else dropped to their knees, sobbing openly.
Riven stared at his hands.
They were shaking.
Not weak.
Charged.
He lifted his gaze to the bars in front of him.
They suddenly looked… fragile.
Like the barrel had.
Like something that could give.
“I can get us out,” he breathed.
He stepped closer, eyes narrowing, pressure gathering again — tighter this time, more focused.
“Riven—!” Kael shouted.
The word cut through the noise like a blade.
Riven hesitated, breath stuttering.
Kael grabbed the bars hard enough his knuckles whitened. “Stop.”
“Kael, I can—”
“Stop,” Kael said again, louder now. “Look at me.”
Riven did.
Kael’s face was drawn, eyes blazing — not with fear, but urgency. Calculation. The kind that only came out when things were seconds from going wrong.
“Right now,” Kael said, “you break these bars. Then what?”
Riven opened his mouth—
“Where do you go?” Kael pressed. “Up the stairs? Into how many guards? How many Awakened?”
Murmurs rippled again. Doubt crept in, thin and sharp.
Riven hesitated.
“I—I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we can’t just—”
“You just awakened,” Kael snapped. “You barely understand what you did. You’re already breathing like you’re going to pass out.”
Riven sucked in air, chest burning.
Kael’s voice dropped — deadly calm. “Up there, they’ve been doing this for years. They have healers. Enforcers. More Awakened than we can count.”
Riven clenched his fists.
“They’ll kill you,” Kael said quietly. “Not because you’re weak. Because you’re new.”
Silence fell in uneven patches.
The dungeon’s hum returned — water dripping somewhere, chains shifting, the faint grind of something mechanical far above. A thin line of grey light crept under a distant door, different from before. Morning, maybe. Or late cycle.
Riven sagged back against the bars, breath slowing with effort.
“…so what,” he muttered. “We just wait?”
Kael shook his head.
“No,” he said. “We pick the only moment that makes sense.”
He leaned closer.
“When they move us,” Kael said. “When they take us out of the cages. That’s when the balance breaks.”
Riven looked up.
“You choose the right person,” Kael continued. “One. You end it fast. Whoever they leave to guard us. Then we run.”
“Run where?” someone whispered.
Kael didn’t answer immediately.
“Every man for themselves,” he said finally. “We make for the wilds. No looking back.”
Fear rippled — but beneath it, something else sparked.
Resolve.
Riven closed his eyes, pressure humming under his skin like a caged storm.
“…okay,” he said hoarsely.
Kael exhaled — just a little.
Above them, boots moved again.
The light shifted.
And the dungeon waited.
