The knight and the initiate stood together and watched the world end.
Neither of them had known what was coming when they ascended the stairs of the White Keep’s western tower. They arrived separately, Malena, the initiate, furtively glancing over her shoulder every few steps to make sure no one was watching her, while the knight, Finn, had climbed the same path an hour before, walking with the confidence that his position conferred upon him.
Reaching the top, Malena drew a breath to steady herself, torn between her desire to see Finn once more and her fear of discovery. Only they wouldn’t be discovered. Not today, when every other soul in the White Keep was focused on the ritual unfolding below.
Finn smiled when Malena’s gaze met his. Anticipating her arrival, he’d removed his helm and gauntlets already. The rest of the starsteel armor encasing his body glistened like scales. “You made it.”
A blush warmed her cheeks. “It was easy with everyone else so preoccupied.”
“Shall we watch?” Finn held out his hand, and Malena took it, their fingers entwining.
The intimacy came naturally to them now, although the illicit nature of the touch remained thrilling. Relationships of any kind, romantic or otherwise, were forbidden between Consortium adepts and the Rivna Knights, who served as both guardians and judges of the adepts. And although Malena was only an initiate, the strength of her kull, the lifeblood that fueled her magic, meant she would achieve the rank of adept soon enough.
That is, if the ritual today succeeded. If it failed . . . then all the magic of Riven would fail with it. For years now it had been weakening, draining away like a river going dry. Today’s ritual might not be their last hope, but if it was not successful, their options were few.
Together, Finn and Malena walked to the edge of the tower. A crowd thronged the courtyard below, encircling a vast pool filled with a crystalline liquid—the Rift. Curved white pillars of hollowed bone framed the edge of the Rift pool, creating a canopy over its surface. In the spaces between each pillar stood a gray-robed adept, waiting for the ritual to begin. Rivna Knights flanked the pool, keeping the observers at bay.
“I’m glad you weren’t assigned that duty.” Malena indicated the knights below, whose names she didn’t know but whose faces she recognized as some of Finn’s comrades.
“Me as well. We drew straws for the duty. I lost.” A smile curved his lips as he squeezed her fingers.
She returned the smile, but it soon crumbled. The tension in the courtyard below reached them even up here, the anticipation of the ritual’s fate, the cost of failure. The Rift—the source of all magic in Riven—was dying. Even she, young
and inexperienced as she was, could sense it. When she first arrived at the White Tower a year ago to start her training, the pool at the heart of the Rift had glowed and shimmered like sunlight on water, even in darkness. Now the liquid looked dull, like the sky at twilight. Not that the Rift only existed here—this was merely the place where it opened to the surface. Its power ran through all of Riven, like a deep, unseen lake with thousands of rivers and tributaries branching from it. The pool was merely the opening to its heart.
“You’re afraid,” Finn said, and it wasn’t a question.
Malena shifted her gaze to the head of the pool where the Grand Chancellor waited, his hands folded in front of him, face hooded beneath his robe. A shiver caressed her neck. “Some of my teachers believe the ritual is dangerous. That what the Grand Chancellor plans to do is anathema.”
Finn arched an eyebrow, his gaze following hers until it came to rest on the Grand Chancellor as well. “I’ve heard similar rumblings. There are many in the order who don’t trust the Chancellor. Most don’t, in fact, and yet he never does anything to warrant our intervention. He knows the line and does not cross it.”
“He’s clever,” Malena agreed. “But I don’t know if he is devious.” What she did know was the way he made her feel whenever she stood in his presence—like she was trapped in a cage with a ravenous lion.
Finn cleared his throat. “They called Luther Jörgensvane clever as well. Before he became Luther the Terrible.” Luther the Terrible, the first and only adept to reject the Consortium’s creed of “Service Over Self,” who used his magic for ill gain and not in service of Riven and its people. It was Luther’s destructive reign that had given birth to the Order of Rivna Knights. Riven could no longer risk an adept following in Luther’s path.
“The Grand Chancellor is not another Luther,” Malena said, despite her reservations about the man. “He’s not seeking ultimate power. His passion might border on obsession, but that obsession is merely to restore the Rift. Something that benefits all of Riven.”
Finn grunted. “I don’t doubt his purpose. Only his methods.”
Malena didn’t reply; she merely watched as sixteen prisoners bound in chains appeared in the courtyard below. With their bodies clad in sackcloth and hoods over their heads and faces, it was impossible to tell who exactly they were—or whether they were male or female, young or old. All she knew was that they’d been found guilty of some crime or other, their sentence to be carried out here, in service of Riven and the magic that made this island nation great.
“I doubt them, too.” Malena swallowed the lump rising in her throat. As an initiate, she understood that magic required sacrifice. Each time she channeled the Rift, she felt what it cost her, the physical and mental toll it took on her to channel the power the Rift could provide. Often after a working, she felt like a sponge rung dry, empty and brittle around the edges. But
the small sacrifices of adepts were no longer enough to obtain the magic Riven required. The Rift needed more, a sacrifice on the level of that which had first created it, when the combined strength of the nine Titans slew Jörn, the World Raven.
A sacrifice of blood. Of life.
But the Titans’ defeat of Jörn had been through battle, one that had raged over the entire island of Riven, leveling mountains, gouging rivers and waterfalls, caving hills into cliffs. The two enemies had been equally matched, the brave, cunning raven against the nine giants. Jörn’s death had been honorable.
This, though. This was slaughter. No matter if the prisoners deserved it. Malena watched as one by one, each prisoner was placed before an adept standing between the pillars, forced to their knees with their arms secured behind their backs. Then each was given a draught of some dark, nameless liquid, a potion the Grand Chancellor and the most talented adepts of the Consortium had concocted for this purpose. The prisoners gagged at the taste but afterward fell silent, heads bowed, showing no sign of fear for what was to come.
When the first of the adepts drew a knife, the naked blade flashing in the sun, Melena turned away and walked to the far edge of the tower. She had no desire to watch what would happen next. Finn followed a moment later, coming to stand behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder.
“It is necessary,” he said, but his words fell flat.
Malena fixed her gaze on the castle in the distance, the city of Hàr Halda, capital of Riven. The valley between brimmed with color, rich pastures dotted with horses and cattle, green fields of corn and beans, and yellow fields of wheat. Homesteads with low, flat roofs resided here and there among the fields, the barns next to them large and painted red. The idyllic sight, the island’s beauty built from the power of the Rift, was almost enough for Malena to let herself believe Finn’s words were true. She leaned into his touch, her eyes slipping closed.
The first wet cough rent the air, the sound like a knife blade to Malena’s ears. She flinched, eyes flashing open as another sound joined the first, the prisoners dying one by one. Others followed, a cacophony of pain and suffering. Malena covered her ears with her hands, but the sound grew louder, unstoppable, until it was as if the earth itself was gasping.
At that moment, a tremble went through the tower. It rocked so violently that Malena stumbled forward, striking the ledge. Only Finn’s quick, firm grip of her waist kept her from tumbling over the side.
“What’s happening?” said Malena.
They ran back to the Rift, peering over the edge to the courtyard below, each holding the ledge as more tremors racked the tower. They ought to flee to the safety of the ground, only there was nowhere safe anymore. Thick white smoke poured from the Rift pool, filling the courtyard and spreading through the windows and doors of the keep. It moved with
purpose, like something alive, something with a will. A malicious one. Wherever the smoke reached a living person, it forced its way into their nose, mouth, and ears. And what it touched, it devoured. Skin blackened, peeled, and flaked away. The bones beneath turned to ash.
Malena choked on a scream, but the sound was drowned out by a series of booms that felt like the sky being ripped asunder. The sunlight turned to shadow, the wind shrieked over the tower, yanking Malena’s hair free of its braids. The Rift’s ruinous white breath had reached the valley beyond. Finn and Malena crawled on hands and knees to the opposite edge of the tower, drawn there by dread.
The valley was hidden from sight, the space filled with smoke. As it had with the adepts and knights in the courtyard, it consumed every living thing it touched; horses and cattle turned to ash, trees and grass to dust. How far would it go? When would it end? Distant eruptions echoed all around. Flashes of crystalline light in the distance. Whatever was happening, it wouldn’t stop here.
Malena and Finn reached for each other, finding what comfort they could as their world ended around them.
And it was an end.
But also a beginning.
The sacrifices that day—both intended and not—sated the Rift’s hunger to overflowing, giving birth to a second form of magic. A physical one. One able to be wielded by all, not only the few born with the ability to channel the Rift’s energy. This new magic was powerful, plentiful, and deadly. It changed the face of Riven and its people forever.
It was the magic of Ice.
The summons to the Fortune’s Den arrived the same way it always had: clutched in the talons of a once dead raven. Its eyes glowed with the light of the magic animating its body, white orbs casting halos on the windowpane as it tapped the glass with its beak. Once, twice, thrice. Then a pause, followed by another set of three strikes, as steady as a just wound clock.
Hearing it clearly across the small space of his apartment, Mars grumbled and sat up on the straw-stuffed mat, disturbing the tiger-striped cat snoozing atop his chest. Rooftop hissed before settling down in the divot left by Mars’s body. As the raven knocked again, Mars scowled at it. What was the point of having a hideout when Una’s messengers could find him regardless? No matter where he went in the city, the little shits could track him down, all thanks to the ampoule filled with his blood that he’d given his mistress ten years before, on the day he’d started working for her. She kept it inside a locked room deep in the bowels of her gambling hall, the headquarters of her business enterprise. Through a potent mix of magic and science, the ravens tracked blood to blood with the efficiency of a shark.
“Tell your lady I don’t work for her anymore!” Mars shouted at the creature. The raven stared coolly back at him, its dead, frozen gaze coaxing gooseflesh down his arms. Or perhaps that was just the cold air biting his bared chest, the blanket having slipped off his shoulders.
Rising unsteadily to his feet, his body sore from lying too long on a hard surface, Mars stumbled toward the window, shooing the raven away. “Go on, get out of here, bird.”
How he wished he’d succeeded in stealing that ampoule away from Una. He’d tried, the day after he’d completed his last contract, the day before he told her he was done working for her for good. But the blood she kept—one vial from each of her mercenaries—was too well guarded, even for him, the Shadow Fox, the very best agent in Una’s employ. In the end, he’d had no choice but to walk away without it, knowing it was just a matter of time before she used it to find him. And yet weeks had passed since then, months. Long enough that he’d started to believe she might have forgotten about him.
Apparently not.
The bird tapped the pane again, and it would keep on tapping until it either delivered its message or the magic that fueled its existence ran out. Mars briefly contemplated the latter option, but knew he lacked the patience to see it through. Una’s ravens ran on an entire shard of Ice, enough magic to last a week.
“All right, you little bastard, you win.” Mars yanked the window open, letting in a chill, salty breeze and the sound of gulls crying down in the harbor. This high up, he could see ships bobbing in the water like toys in a child’s bath, the sea
stretching out to a horizon blurred by the reddish streaks of the setting sun. He’d slept an entire day away without meaning to.
The raven held out its right leg mechanically. A card was clutched in its talons, the paper as black as its feathers. This close, the bird’s lifelessness was more apparent—the glossy coating of paraffin wax on its feathers, the metal hinges reinforcing its joints, and the brass knob embedded in its chest hiding the Ice compartment. Yet these anomalies paled next to the smoldering stench of its rotting flesh as the Ice slowly burned its way through the vessel housing it. Mars felt the magic at work in there like an itch beneath his skin, quickening the flow of blood in his veins.
Holding his breath, he grasped the card in one hand and with the other pushed the bird backward off the ledge. The raven flapped its wings, slicing him across the knuckles with one of its talons as it fell. A second later it rolled over midair, caught an updraft, then soared away, back to the Fortune’s Den.
“Prick,” Mars said.
At least Una had sent a raven, rather than a dozen guards to forcibly haul him back to her. For a moment, he considered tossing the card out the window as well, but he couldn’t quite convince his fingers to let go. He resisted looking at it, though, his eyes fixed on the harbor as thoughts rolled like waves in his head. More than a hundred docks, most of them with ships lashed to their long sides, cut narrow slashes through the dark water. People bustled about, setting the moorings, storing the nets. He ought to head down to the pier and book passage on a ship. Riven might be a small island nation, but positioned as it was between the great powers of Vest in the east and Osway in the west, it was crucial for trade and safe passage through the Murmurry Sea, which even in high summer was plagued with storms and rough waves. Mars had not yet saved the total amount of money he intended to before leaving the island forever, but he could afford to fall short of his goal if it meant escaping before Una sent even less polite messengers after him.
Yet the idea of walking past the fish markets right now turned his stomach. For the past ten months, he’d spent his days there, up to his armpits in slimy guts and scales as he sweat and bled and stank his way through each day working for any fishmonger or fishwife willing to pay. Even now, after a good scrubbing with lye soap, he could still smell the stench seeping out from beneath his fingernails. No, he could wait until morning.
Are you sure? a voice whispered in his head. It was the same one that had taunted him since he left Una’s service. The voice of perpetual doubt, his closest companion these days, ever since his last job with Una had torn his world apart.
A breeze caressed his face, teasing the tips of the dark hair hanging unbound past his shoulders, hiding the shaved sides of his head. He brushed the hair back roughly, some of the strands catching on the frayed edges of the leather cuff fastened to his wrist. He needed to replace the cuff, along with the one on his other wrist, but he’d been putting it off. After all, he would no
longer have need for such accoutrements once he left Riven and the Rift of magic that lay beneath it—its presence both the blessing and the bane of his existence.
Slowly, and with a dull thud in his chest, Mars turned the card over and stared at the symbols etched on its black surface. Una never conveyed her messages in words, which could be read by anyone who might intercept one of her messengers. Instead, she used symbols that only the foxes of the Fortune’s Den were trained to read. In this case, a serpent coiled around a horned helmet with two wolves flanking either side. The picture was exquisitely rendered by an artist’s hand. Una took pleasure in all things beautiful and spared no expense, even for this scrap of cardstock destined for the fire once read. Then again, a lot of the jobs coming into the Fortune’s Den required a unique card, and in all his years as a fox there, Mars had never seen one like this. It wasn’t the combination of symbols so much—the horned helmet telling him the purpose of the job was intelligence gathering, while the wolves indicated multiple threats and the serpent a target both sly and dangerous. No, it was the coloring. Ice white. All save for the poison green of the serpent’s eyes, an indulgence by the artist, no doubt. One meant to catch the gaze and draw it in.
Ice white. Not gold or silver or bronze, but Ice. The color told the foxes the payout of the contract being offered, and while Mars had worked plenty of bronze and silver and even a couple of golds in his time with Una, he’d never once come across a job valued in Ice. The notion stole his breath away.
Una knows you well.
Mars shifted his gaze to the floorboard in the corner of the room, the second one from the end. It looked like all the rest around it, old and dirty, the nails loosened by time and wear. But beneath it lay a locked box, one guarded by the traps that were his specialty. Every herring he’d scrimped and saved and bled for these past ten months was tucked away inside it. Almost enough for passage off the island, and to set him up wherever he landed. A pittance compared to what Una was offering him, but it was honest money for honest work.
Rooftop rammed her head into his arm, distracting Mars from his thoughts. Acquiescing to the cat’s demands, he raised a hand to scratch behind her ear. For a second, he let the cat’s purr vibrate through his fingers.
No, he decided, Una didn’t know him at all. She only believed she did. Mars was leaving this land of magic and mercenaries behind once and for all. He wanted to live in a place so far from the sea, he never had to smell fish again. A place where dead things stayed dead, where no one would condemn him just because of the scars on his wrists, where the memories that haunted his nightmares would finally fade.
Only . . . the night was young, and he wide awake. He examined the image on the card once more, rendered in Ice white, the serpent’s green eyes seeming to fix on his with a stare so lifelike, he half expected it to slither off the page. Ignoring the summons might only result in Una sending guards, and there was no harm in hearing her out. His gaze shifted from the card to the line of blood across his knuckles where the raven had scratched him. It seemed a shame to waste even so small an amount of blood, and with the certainty that no one below would see him, he offered it to the Rift, summoning fire to his fingertips. As the card burned, the blood on his hand dried into dust and was no more.
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