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Riven
There are embers in her hair.
Actual. Fucking. Embers.
And she’slaughing.
Silas has a bottle in each hand and no sense of shame, skipping beside her like he didn’t just help turn the east side of the village into a smoldering wreckage of banners and collapsed vendor stalls. Elias, shirtless and grinning, is still holding what I’mprettysure used to be a torch. Now it’s just a smoldering stick that smells like regret and festival wine.
And Luna—
She’s barefoot. Drunk. Radiant. Covered in soot and glitter and absolutely not sorry.
I want to scream.
Lucien is twenty paces ahead, jaw tight as he glances over his shoulder. Orin murmurs something to him too low for me to catch, but whatever it is, it doesn’t stop the judgmental look Lucien throws back. It says:Handle it.
Like I’m the fucking babysitter for disaster incarnate.
I cut across the road, fast and deliberate. My boots crunch through broken glass and ash, and I don’t care how many villagers are glaring at us from their ruined stalls or smoking rooftops. I don’t care that we’ve been exiled, that we’ll have to walk the long way through the valley now just to avoid being hunted. All I care about is getting those three menacesseparatedbefore one of them decides to relight the fire for “just a little more fun.”
“Enough.”
My voice slices through the haze of laughter like a blade.
Elias wobbles slightly, eyes bright. “Riven! Did you see—?”
I grip his shoulder, hard enough to make him wince. “You’re done.”
He grins. “You’re so hot when you’re bossy.”
“Iwillthrow you into a river.”
Silas staggers into me, unbothered. “Make sure it’s a sexy river.”
“You’re not helping,” I growl.
“I never am,” he says cheerfully.
Luna’s watching me, and that’s worse. Her eyes are wide, glitter smeared beneath them like war paint, and even drunk off her ass shefeelsit—my frustration, my fury. She’s reading every sharp breath I take like it’s a command.
“I didn’t mean to burn anything important,” she says, voice low.
“That’s not thepoint.” I step toward her, and the bond thrums like a warning, like it wants to twist around my throat. “You think because you’re powerful you can be reckless?”
“I think,” she says carefully, “that I was trying tolive.For a second. Without war. Without Branwen. Without you looking at me like I’m a goddamn liability.”
The last word lands harder than it should.
I stare at her, chest tight.
Silas coughs behind me. “This feels like a lovers’ quarrel. Should we—”
“No.” I don’t look away from Luna. “Split up.”
“What?” Elias asks.
“You heard me. You and Silas go with Orin and Lucien. Now.”