Page 46 of The Scars of War
My stomach flips.
Famine.
I don’t need to ask.
Because I’veseenthis one before, not just in my drawings or my dreams, but on the scroll in Riven’s archive. I remember the way his voice dropped when he explainedit. How his fingers brushed over the ink like it meant more than the others.
It wasn’t just a warning. It was a pattern. A pull. And now it’s here. In the flesh. Burned into the walls of a place that was supposed to be sealed. “Why here?” I ask, voice sharper than I intend. “Why now?”
Riven doesn’t look at me. I don’t need him to. Because deep down, I already know…Whatever’s coming through the veil isn’t coming alone.
The fire burns low in the hearth, but it’s not for warmth. It never was.
Riven’s mansion was built to impress, to intimidate, not to comfort. And yet, we’re both sitting on opposite sides of this fire like it might hold something sacred between us. The shadows crawl up the stone walls, long and distorted like they’ve been unhinged from the bodies they once belonged to.
The room is too quiet. The scar on my thigh from earlier is still healing, a faint line that aches in the cold. I haven’t washed it away. Not because I forgot. Because I didn’t want to.
Across from me, Riven grips a crystal glass tight enough that the veins in his forearm are standing out. The decanter on the table beside him is already half-empty. He’s drinking like he wants the burn. Like he thinks it might keep him human…
I don’t think it’s working.
“You lied,” I say, quiet, even. “Not just about the prophecy. About me.” He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares into the flames like they might whisper a better version of the truth. “You knew I was drawing that sigil before it showed up. You knew it was Famine’s. You knew what it meant.”
“Yes.” The word is flat. Unforgivable.
I press harder. “And you said nothing.”
His jaw tightens, throat bobbing once as he downs the rest of the glass. Then he sets it down and leans forward, elbows on his knees, finally meeting my eyes. “I wanted to believe it wasn’t real. That you weren’t who they said, that if I could just keep you long enough, mark you deep enough, you’d stay.”
My stomach turns. “You thought you could overwrite fate with possession?”
He doesn’t flinch. “I thought I could delay it.”
“And now?”
He exhales. The kind of breath people let out before a gun goes off.“Now, I know better.”
The fire cracks, and something deep in the logs gives out, a burst of sparks shooting upward in a brief flare of orange. “I’m not a weapon,” I say. “I’m not a prophecy. I’m not yours to use.”
“I know.”
“Then what am I, Riven?”
His eyes flicker as he mentally measures how much of the truth I can take.
“You’re the key.”
I’ve heard it before, but never from his mouth in that tone, like it’s terrifying. He leans back, lets the shadows reclaim part of his face. “There’s something older than us. Older than the Horsemen. Older than Death, even.”
I blink. “I thought you were the beginning.”
He shakes his head. “We’re just the echoes of something that came before. Aspects. Shaped and sharpened. The core, the source, was locked away. Buried. Sealed”
“And I’m supposed to unlock it?”
His gaze is steady. “No. You are it.”
I laugh. Bitter. Small. “You think I’m some dormant apocalypse?”
