The void was quiet again.
It always was, after moments like this—when the world shattered just enough to let him through, and then closed behind him in fear.
He lingered in the veil between realms, a place of silence and smoke where time curled in on itself like burned parchment.
But this time… he didn't leave entirely.
He watched.
The priestess had been dragged away, robes torn, wrists bound in flame-forged iron. Her face remained composed, but her soul... her soul was flaring like a wildfire under glass.
Fascinating.
Did she even know what she had done?
Did she understand who she had kissed?
Riven turned the memory over in his mind like a blade between fingers.
That moment—the moment her soul brushed his—it had sparked. Not in romance. Not in lust. Something rarer.
Recognition.
Not of love.
Of danger.
Of something her gods never warned her about because they didn't understand it themselves.
She had kissed the abyss.
And the abyss had blinked.
Riven drifted deeper into the veil, where echoes of the living murmured across threads of time. His brothers—if such things could be called kin—would laugh. They'd say he'd grown indulgent, curious. Human.
He wasn't.
Curiosity was not emotion. It was study. Strategy.
She intrigued him because she shouldn't have survived that kiss. Her soul should have fractured, burned out in purity, scattered into prayer dust.
But she didn't.
She burned hotter.
A holy flame. Untouched by corruption, yet unafraid to stand in it.
He had devoured kings, seduced saints, swallowed armies whole—but this girl… she resisted. Not with power. With will.
And now, a tiny piece of him lingered inside her.
Riven looked down at his own hand. The imprint of her soul still tingled faintly against his fingers.
Not affection.
Just… heat.
And that was interesting.
He could feel her even now, pacing in her cell, whispering prayers to silence the hum in her blood that would never go quiet again.
He smiled—cool and slow.
"She doesn't even know what I am," he murmured to no one. "She thinks I'm the danger."
A pause.
"She doesn't realize I'm the warning."
And yet… she summoned him.
She dared.
And that made her dangerous too.
""'
The cell was cold, but sleep still found her.
It dragged her down like water filling lungs—slow and heavy. One breath, then another, until the silence wrapped around her too tight to resist.
And then… she wasn't in the cell anymore.
She stood barefoot in a field of black sand beneath a silver sky. Light shimmered, strange and unreal, painting the dunes in ghostly blue. The air didn't move. No wind. No sound. Only the faint, rhythmic pulse of something ancient beating just below the surface.
Arielle turned, heart already racing.
She knew.
This wasn't her dream.
This was his.
Then he appeared—emerging from the void as if born from it.
Same black coat. Same silver-threaded hair. Same inhuman beauty. But this time, he wasn't distant.
He was here.
With her.
"Miss me already?" Riven asked calmly, his voice echoing in the sky like thunder spoken soft.
Arielle's spine straightened. "Get out of my head."
He glanced around the dreamscape. "Technically, you're in mine. Or perhaps we're both in the in-between. Hard to tell these days, given your kiss is still clinging to me like incense."
Her fists clenched at her sides. "I didn't kiss you. I made a deal."
His eyes flicked to her mouth—just for a second. "It tasted like more than a bargain."
She flinched. Just barely.
He smiled—slow and unreadable.
"There it is," he murmured. "The tremor. Still pretending you're unshaken?"
"You're an abomination," she hissed. "You were never meant to exist."
"And yet you summoned me. Whispered my name like a prayer when your god failed you."
She stepped forward, robes whispering over sand that shimmered like powdered glass.
"I would undo it if I could."
He tilted his head. "You hate me."
"I do."
"And yet you're here," he said, moving toward her—each step measured, like a hunter circling prey not out of hunger, but curiosity. "Sharing a dream with me. Letting me speak. Letting me… close."
He stood a breath away now.
Her skin prickled.
Her body screamed for distance, but her soul—traitorous, tangled thing—pulled tighter.
His voice dipped into something colder.
"Tell me, priestess. What do you dream of, when no one is watching? What does a soul like yours—burning so bright—crave in secret?"
"I crave nothing of you."
"Not even understanding?" he asked, brushing a single gloved finger through the air beside her cheek, close enough to feel, never touching. "Not even the truth behind that holy fire you carry like a crown?"
She snapped her hand up, trying to strike him.
But he caught her wrist—gently.
Like he'd expected it.
Their eyes met. Time stalled.
And there, in the center of this false world, she felt it again:
That pull.
That terrible, unholy thread winding tighter through her chest.
"You don't belong in me," she whispered, voice trembling.
"No," he agreed. "But I am in you. And now, little flame—so are you in me."
Then he let her go.
She stumbled back.
And the dream began to burn.
The sky cracked open. The sand lit with holy fire. Her magic ignited around her like a storm—but he stood untouched.
Amused. Always amused.
Before the dream tore apart, he spoke once more.
"Next time," he said, "don't lie to yourself so loudly. I can hear it."
Arielle woke with a gasp, sweat cold on her skin, her heartbeat a hammer against her ribs.
She looked down at her hands.
They glowed faintly in the dark—traces of fire she hadn't called.
And still… she could feel the memory of his presence.
Of his voice.
Of the way her soul had responded to his.
She hated him.
She swore she did.
But something unholy had already taken root.
And it was growing.
---
-The next day-
The Temple of Ashen Flame was built atop the cliffs—where the air was thin and the gods could look directly into your soul.
Arielle stood barefoot in the sacred ring, golden chains around her wrists glowing with warded runes. The Priests of Judgment watched from the high stone steps, faces hidden behind white flame-etched masks.
This was her trial.
They called it The Purge.
The holy fire would test if she was still pure… or if something unclean now lived beneath her skin.
Arielle's breath was steady. Her knees, locked. But inside her ribs, something coiled.
He's not here, she told herself.
This is your body. This is your soul. He doesn't own you.
But the moment the fire lit—it began.
Flames erupted around the circle.
She didn't burn. Not exactly.
But she felt him.
A pressure at the base of her spine. A pulse that wasn't hers, threading through her veins. Her breath caught in her throat as the fire crawled toward her, brushing her bare feet—
And her magic flared.
Not golden. Not holy.
Dark. Crimson-edged. Wild.
A priest gasped.
Arielle clutched her chest as a jolt ran through her, her vision fracturing for half a second into something… else. Like her soul had been pulled in two directions at once.
A flash of silver eyes in the void.
Riven.
He wasn't watching with his eyes—he didn't need to. The bond thrummed now, alive, responding to her fear, her anger, her fire.
She staggered back.
And then a blade swung at her head.
The fire faded. The chains clinked to the side. A warrior priest had stepped forward, weapon drawn.
The next phase of the trial had begun.
Sparring in judgment.
Prove control. Prove purity. Prove she hadn't been compromised.
Arielle summoned her flame—but it surged wildly, knocking her attacker backward with a force she didn't fully command. Heat lashed from her fingertips, singeing his robes before she even made contact.
She fell to one knee, gasping.
They were watching.
He was watching.
And her body was no longer entirely hers.
---
After the trial, they locked her back in her stone cell.
But someone was already waiting for her.
Leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, robes dusty from travel.
Caius.
Arielle froze.
He looked… older. Taller. The soft lines of boyhood carved into the sharp edges of a man. Hair the same burnished bronze. Eyes still the exact shade of storm-lit dusk. But now there was strength in his shoulders. A quiet power in the way he didn't flinch when she stepped into the room, exhausted, sweating, and cracked open.
"Hello, Ari," he said gently.
The name struck something in her.
"No one's called me that in years."
"No one had the right," he replied.
She gave a tired laugh. "You shouldn't be here. They'll punish you for seeing me."
"I've already broken a dozen rules getting in," Caius said, stepping forward. "What's one more?"
She looked up at him—truly looked.
Memories rushed back like thorns—when she was fifteen, standing in the Sanctuary gardens, as he held her hand and confessed with shaking fingers. And how she'd let go. Told him her calling was higher. Holier.
She remembered the look in his eyes back then—raw and vulnerable.
That look was still there.
Just buried beneath a layer of years and heartbreak.
"You've changed," she said.
"So have you."
There was silence between them, heavy with everything unsaid.
Caius broke it first.
"I heard what happened. I came as soon as I could."
She looked away. "I don't need saving."
"I'm not here to save you," he said. "I'm here because I meant what I said back then. That I'd always be on your side—even when you hated me for it."
Her throat tightened.
"You don't understand what I've done."
"I do," he said quietly. "You kissed a demon's name. You gave something away."
She flinched.
He stepped closer.
"But I know you, Arielle. I know your fire. Your strength. And whatever lives inside you now—whatever he is… he's not stronger than you."
She stared into his eyes.
And for a moment, she almost believed him.
But deep inside, the bond thrummed again—faint but undeniable.
Like a whisper through her bones.
And she knew Riven had heard every word.