Riven dreaded coming to Rennervation Demesne. It would have been fine if he’d been on a train as he normally was on journeys that took him across the breadth of Severance Frontier, but he was in a car. That meant navigating through the boundaries between Demesnes, and those were guarded by real people. He’d be questioned and interrogated. That would have been fine too since he could give Nivi’s reference, but his wounded state wasn’t going to help matters, and it wasn’t even worth thinking about Glaven. If his answers were found lacking, at best he’d be denied entry. At worst, they’d chain him up and hand him over to Orbray.

Which begged the question—were they all loyal to Orbray here, or did the Invigilator hold sway? Riven should have figured things out with Nivi before, but that wasn’t worth thinking too much over either. Hindsight always saw farthest after all.

Despite the rise of dusk, the fence became clear after a few more hours of journeying. Riven groaned as he neared it. It was guarded.

Two men held out their hands to stop him, though he had to do so anyway. The gate was firmly shut.

“Who are you?” The lead guard noted the wounds but without much interest. His eyes roved over the interior of the car, and his perusal was cursory. “Where did you come from, and what’s your purpose here?”

Riven patted his uniform. “Essentier business. Bit of a secret, but I’m working for the research facility at Lintellant. Name’s Setton. You must have heard of me.”

The men exchanged meaningful looks. Riven had considered long and hard on what his name could be, and he’d decided it was best to use the identity of the vehicle’s owner. He had no idea what the situation was in Rennervation after everything that had gone down in Providence, but it was best not to take chances. For all he knew, He’d be arrested as soon as anyone recognized him as Rosbel Morell’s son.

Besides, Rio had gone to such lengths to give him such a gift. It was only fitting for Riven to make the most of it.

“Where‘s your ID?” the lead guard asked.

Riven brought out some papers from the glove box and handed them to the guard. The other joined him, and the two of them looked it over as carefully as advocates going through tax fraud documents.

“Forty-two years old?” asked his interrogator.

“It’s my father’s car. I’m new to the Essentier business see, and haven’t exactly earned enough to get my own ride.”

“Right, you do look awfully young for your age.”

“Is this blood?” the other guard asked, staring at the bonnet.

Riven sighed. He got out of the car before they could tell him to get out of it. “Yes, it’s blood. My blood.” Riven limped closer to them, one hand massaging his leg just above the wound. “There was a bit of a fiasco before, and I’m honestly quite lucky to be alive right now.”

He tried not to swallow, or tap his feet too much, or give away any other sign that he was lying. Riven had played this scenario in his head over and over, trying to capture the perfect way he was supposed to explain himself.

“You do see this is highly irregular, right?” the first guard said, waving his documents at him. “High suspicious, if I’m being honest.”

“I understand. But I can explain. I don’t know if you’ve heard any reports or anything like that, but there is a migration of Deathless farther back. You wouldn’t believe how many there were, and I fell right into them. Trust me, it wasn’t fun. My escape is basically a miracle.”

“Where are you coming from?”

“Providence Demesne.”

The guards looked at each other again, and this time, their glance was more meaningful. They knew. How much though was the question, and whose side they were was the even more important one.

“It was nuts there!” Riven exclaimed. “I was told by Nivi—you know, Researcher-in-Chief Rorink—to get some Sept samples from Providence. It was insane!” He limped closer to the guard, looking around furtively to makes sure no one else was around to hear him. “They were fighting there. Essentier versus Essentier, blood on the streets and the entire city under curfew. They were killing each other. Don’t tell anyone though. It’s a mess and I don’t want to end up on anyone’s bad side.”

“You’re from Providence though.”

“Yes. That’s what I just said.”

“No I meant, you’re an Essentier of Providence. You escaped the fighting.” The guards were taking steps back, hands on their guns. “And now you’re thinking Rennervation can provide refuge. It can’t. Not for traitors.”

Riven held back his curse, he couldn’t deny he was from Providence when he’d shown them documents proving he was a resident of Providence. Or at least, a son of one. This wasn’t the route things had taken in his head, but maybe he’d been thinking too optimistically. Dangerous, really. Wasn’t there a proverb that if something could go wrong, it was best to assumed it would go wrong?

“Why don’t you check with the research facility instead of throwing accusations. And before you start protesting, think about it for a moment. Sure, you could be right, but what if you aren’t? What if you were stopping me from actually completing an important assignment for the research facility and for Rennervation Demesne.”

The other guard shook his head. “How in the Chasm do you expect us to check?”

“Use the flash post. Send a message to Nivi Rorink at the research facility and use the codeword Riven. She’ll respond and you can rest assured that I’m not a fugitive from Providence.” Riven stared at them. They looked reluctant. Of course, he had forgotten a key ingredient in convincing potential enemies to back off. A threat. “Trust me, it’s much easier to send the message than to try and capture me.”

They did it. The guards held back their grumbles and mumbles as they activated their flash post machine and sent off a message with a gout of steam.

The guards and Riven waited after that. He once again found himself sitting on the bonnet of his car, arms crossed as he waited. The return message was taking its time, and his mind gnawed on itself with every possible reason it might be delayed or something might have gone wrong. Orbray might have sent a message to capture Riven, and the more-savvy-than-he-had-thought guards might have sent a message to get the nearest Rennervation Essentiers here to apprehend Riven. Maybe the local Invigilator was fully on Orbray’s side and was luring Riven into a trap. Chasm, for all he knew, the whole research facility might have been reduced to nothing but stumps and ashes, and Riven was walking into a trap.

Worse, he couldn’t check on Glaven. He’d stuffed his comatose brother in the trunk of the car so it wasn’t obvious he was lugging along a prone man. Wouldn’t do to give rise to the suspicion he was bringing a corpse in his back seat into their precious Demesne.

At times, Riven tried to make small talk. The weather was fine. The guards were happy with their lives. The Invigilator was a good woman. The Demesne was in relative peace. None of it went anywhere.

The message finally came back. They all started when the flash post machine rang to signal there was an unread message. The guards hurried into their little guard office, one of them pulling out the canister and the letter lying within. Riven’s heart thudded as he waited outside, and he tried not to imagine all the myriad contents that could have been in the message.

They came out, and his heartrate spiked like mad. The guards looked glum, and Riven wasn’t sure what to make of that. Damn anxiety was telling him to expect the worst but he had to hold onto hope.

“She says you get to go in,” the guard holding a rolled-up piece of paper said. “That you’re allowed to enter and no one is to stop you, and in fact, us and anyone else you meet along the way is supposed to help you in any way they can.”

Riven laughed. “What did I tell you?”

The other guard went to the gate and began sliding it open. It screeched a little as though the tiny wheels it trundled hadn’t been oiled in the last century.

“Will you be requiring any assistance, Essentier?” the first guard asked.

Riven hardly heard it. He was in the car, turning on the engine and getting ready to set off as fast as he could. “No thank you. I just need to get to the research facility as fast as I can.”

He pressed down on the pedal, and the car drove off. The research facility awaited him. One hurdle passed, and several more ahead, but he’d navigate those properly as well. He finally looked in the mirror as he left the guards behind, and past his ugly, bruised mug, the guards grew faint though their flabbergasted expressions stayed with Riven long after he had left.

It drove him much the way Sept drove the car.

#

When Riven finally reached Lintellant, he had to tell himself a few times that he hadn’t turned around on the road and ended up back in Providence somehow. The way his luck he was going, wouldn’t have been surprising at all. But Lintellant had become something akin to the city he had left.

Lamps using Sept threw light on nearly empty streets. Most people had gone indoors, and the few who were outside were either in a rush to get to their homes, or were the aimless destitute who had no real place to go. A few gangs of guards patrolled the streets, but otherwise, the sense of abandonment hung heavy in the air. Cars and rare horse coaches had been hauled off the streets, and the rails lining the streets were bereft of rail-carriages. Most of the windows were boarded up as well.

He could blame it on the fact that it was night, but no, the feeling of curfew was strong. Orbray’s war had caught up with Rennervation Demesne as well.

Worst of all, Riven felt as though he was being watched. As though his every move was being noted by people hidden behind rafters and walls, marking him down. He tried to keep his sight riveted forward and aimed at his destination, but truth be told, he couldn’t stop himself from looking around every now and then. Riven never caught any eyes shining back at him from the night’s gloom, but the sense pervaded. He’d been noted.

Something—or someone—awaited him.

Good thing about empty streets was that his drive was smooth and eventless. He didn’t have to slow down much, and never had to stop for traffic. Within an hour of entering the city proper, Riven had left its last houses behind and was nearing the research facility.

Yet even that didn’t allay his unease. The buildings of the facility were mostly dark, the windows giving no sense of what was happening outside. Only a few lights shone here and there, one of which Riven recognized as being Nivi’s office.

Riven stopped the car well before he reached the research facility’s gates. He turned off the car’s headlamp, then shut off the engine once he’d slowed it to a stop. Glaven was still sleeping in the back seat, looking at peace as though he was living a pleasant dream. Well, at least one of them was at ease.

Swallowing down the lump of disquiet lodging in his throat, Riven took some ammunition from his carpet bag, got out, and walked towards the facility’s gates, staying at the edge of the road and keeping himself under the cover of darkness. A few steps in, he stopped.

Shit, this didn’t look good. The whole facility was mostly shut off, and Riven couldn’t shake the feeling that he was expected. Which he was, given that he’d communicated with Nivi indirectly. But who had she told? Like Lintellant, the research facility was holding its breath, waiting for his arrival to set off a powder keg and blast everything to bits.

And he was alone. All alone. In the darkness, with the silence encroaching him from all sides, and lacking any kind of cover under which he could hide or take shelter, Riven was exposed. All he heard was the thudding of his heart growing steadily louder and louder, and he had to suppress a shiver. Scions, what he wouldn’t give to have fearless Glaven striding beside him like he owned the whole damn area and everyone in it.

Riven took a deep, breath. He couldn’t cower now. There was no Viriya to lead the way, no Rio to take the edge off his unease, no Mhell to stand there with steady reassurance, no Rose to lean on and expect things to be taken care of. No Glaven to make everything all right and take heart from.

No, Riven was alone. Riven had to do all of it on his own. He couldn’t depend on anyone now, but it all rested on his shoulders.

Riven found himself at the gate. There was no cover, so they must have seen him approaching from a mile off. He’d been too stupid to realize it was all a trap earlier, but it didn’t matter. He’d have to make do.

“Is there anyone here?” he called out. The guardhouse was dark like most of the rest of the facility. “I’m expected.”

Riven waited a minute for someone to answer. When none was forthcoming, he pushed on the gate and it slid backwards. Unlocked. That didn’t bode well.

He stepped inside, skin crawling. Why couldn’t they just come out and confront him head-on? This hiding and waiting in the dark was making his heart quake, his breaths come halting and jerky, driving him crazy. How long of this was he supposed to bear? Every step felt like it would be his last, and a shot would blast out from the gloom and make his head explode. Scions, his injured leg started to hurt worse than normal.

In all his boundless bravery and glory, Riven made his way to the front door of the facility without trying to hide. No surprise then, that they sprung the trap at the threshold, where light from a window above clearly showed him for who he was.

“Halt! Hands up where I can see them.”

The shout barrelled through the gloom like gunfire. Riven’s heart thudded like mad, but he couldn’t blame anything or anyone, couldn’t let go of another pointless curse. He was to blame here. What a brilliant idea it had been to walk right up to his enemy’s front door.

“Who are you?” asked the same voice that had told him to stop. “Tell the truth, and you might just come out of it alive.”

The voice wasn’t one Riven had heard before. Not in the research facility, nor anywhere else, and worse, there was an obvious undertone of malice that made his skin itch with the need to get away. Whoever it was meant trouble.

Riven cleared his throat. “I’m Riven Senolan Morell. I have business here in the research facility, and I was expected here. This behaviour is highly irregular, and if you don’t correct yourselves, I will have to report you.”

The unknown man laughed. “Hear that? He wants to report us!” Several others laughed alongside the man, all around Riven. His heart quailed, breaths growing shallower at the understanding that he was surrounded. “As if he’s going to live long enough to write a damned report.”

“Who are you?” Riven asked, trying to muster some steel in his voice.

“We’re soldiers from Ascension Demesne, and we were expecting you, Morell. Your little escapades everywhere were noted. You might have escaped Providence Demesne somehow, but this is the end of the road for you.”

“Big talk for a bunch of dogs.”

The shot that rang out after that wasn’t unexpected in the least. Riven caught sight of the rifle’s muzzle exploding in a flash but his shield was faster. The Essence came up in golden lines, the pressure shooting out of him faster than he could think, and the bullet cracked into his shield.

“Cursed Essentier!”

More shots rang out, bullets coming in from every direction. Riven didn’t even have to focus. His pressure shot out everywhere, golden lines tailoring the air to form a shield all around him. It took the impact, all the bullets leaving an array of white cracks. Worse, they didn’t stop. More shots sent thundered in, his shield taking the more damage. Tiny golden flakes began to fall off, fractures joining to form an array of lines criss-crossing each other.

Riven flattened himself on the ground, letting his shield evaporate. Bullets whizzed over his head, most hitting nothing though one of the men near him screamed. Idiots.

With a moment’s focus, Riven had drawn out his golden lines to form his Essence armour. In the next moment, he pushed himself off the ground and dashed forward. The door of the facility burst open, and more soldiers popped out, guns aimed straight at Riven’s head and chest. With his way blocked, he swerved past them as more shots rang out and headed out into the night.

“Don’t let him get away!” shouted the man.

They started after him, more shots heralding their rushing chase, and Riven did his best to run on. His injured leg was dying, but he had to keep going. There might not be any real cover for him to hide under, but the darkness itself was a cloak, and all he had to do was stop glowing like a damn beacon for them to shoot at.

If only he hadn’t been injured. Damn it all to the Chasm. Soon as he got some good distance between himself and the soldiers, he’d remove is Essence.

The opportunity to do so didn’t seem like it was coming any time too soon. Their shots still sounded too close, bullets hitting the ground like tiny meteors and whizzing past him with hardly any space to spare. A few even hit his armour, leaving little cracks.

What he needed was a distraction. A hiding spot. A single moment where he wasn’t in their line of fire.

Riven threw himself between two buildings, squeezing into the tiny space. Orbray’s guards crammed in behind him, but they had to do so in a single file, slowing their overall progress. He paused a breath to look back, just to see several running off to circuit around the buildings and cut off his escape from that end. Scions, things could never be easy, could they?

He pushed around a corner to turn to his left. His armour was making this difficult but he couldn’t shut it off. Shots still blasted in. He hadn’t come this far to be bored in his back with a Sept bullet.

Riven turned another corner, to the right this time, but dangerous noises stopped him short. Hushed voices and the scuffle of feet and bodies pressed closer together.

There were stairs to his left, but they ended several feet above the ground. Really? Holding back his curse Riven let go of his Essence armour, and focused for another second. His survival depended on this. If he was being honest, he was getting tired of performing stupid mental gymnastics just to make his Essence obey him.

Not that his Essence cared about his feelings. After another moment—damn, it almost seemed to wait on purpose until his pursuers were close enough to make his heart jump out his mouth—his Essence finally came out, the pressure pushing out golden lines to form a flat platform a few feet above the ground. Riven wasted no time getting on the platform, then pulling himself onto the stairs. They were metal, so he had to creep up to make as little noise as possible.

Beneath him, the two groups of Orbray’s arseholes finally met.

“Did you see him?” asked the first man.

“No,” said another, slightly wheezy voice. “Wasn’t he just ahead of you?”

The first man countered with another question. “How could you miss him? He had on glowing armour and everything!”

“I’m telling you Mon, he didn’t pass in front of us!”

“Maybe he turned it off or something,” someone suggested from the back.

Riven tried to keep himself small, breathing as slow and steady as he could. His damned heart still thundered though. Could the Scions give him one moment of ease and peace? Of all things, now he’d found out that one of these soldiers could think for a change.

“You’re saying he turned it off soon as he turned the corner, then ran past Hemp’s troops?”

“Or somewhere else.”

They all paused, and Riven didn’t need to peer over the railing of the stairs to know they were staring up at him. Shit. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t even think straight, not when his accursed heart seemed to have invaded his head, pounding right in his hears.

 Flash of brilliance. Riven smiled, closing his eyes to focus. Survival, survival. He could do anything in its name. Far ahead, in the direction he was supposed to have gone, a bloom of gold shot up after he directed the pressure shooting out of him.

“There!” someone shouted. There was a huge scuffle as everyone ran off towards the light. In moments, the area had sunk into silence.

Still staying still, Riven grinned. It had worked.

He rose, though staying bent over a little to keep his profile low. They might look dark, but who knew if someone was watching from one of the windows. He turned. The door behind him was locked, and even if he could get inside, he might not be able to find his way around. With the guards distracted, it was best he headed back towards the front door, and find his way from there.

With noiseless steps, Riven reached the bottom of the rung of stairs, then jumped to the ground. He cringed at the jolt in his wound, and at the thump, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“Freeze!”

Riven’s heart jumped into his mouth as the cold barrel oh a gun poked him in the back of his head. Unbelievable. How could he have been this stupid? He hadn’t even checked under the stairs. Scions, if the gun had been pointed anywhere that wasn’t immediately fatal, Riven would admit he deserved to get shot.

“We can talk this over,” Riven said. “Come on—”

“Shut up.” The gun pressed harder against his head. “One more word and I’ll blow your brains out.”

For a second, Riven could hardly think. He’d done all that just to get caught in the end. Ah, what in the Chasm did it matter anyway? This wasn’t a moment that needed much thought.

He closed his eyes, building his focus. The pressure erupted from him faster than a lightning bolt, his shield expanding out like a balloon blown up by a storm concentrating into a single point. The soldier went flying back with a shriek, landing with an even louder thump than Riven had.

No time to baulk or consider. Riven turned and jumped at the soldier, landing right on top and driving the breath from his lungs. Good. Now he couldn’t scream anymore. He had pointed his gun at Riven again, but his Essence armour was back in place.

“Don’t scream, and I might let you live,” Riven said.

“Screw you to the Chasm!”

Riven punched down. Wasn’t hard to make himself do it. The soldier might be defenceless but he was still a prat.

But the man took it in the face, and with surprising strength threw Riven off him as he tried to get up. Riven growled, then charged at the soldier again. The man tried to get off another shot, but Riven reached his wrist and rammed it against the wall, his gun falling to the ground. Riven’s shoulder rammed him into the wall as well.

“Last chance, bastard,” Riven hissed. “If you cry out, I’ll kill you right here.”

“What promise am I supposed to give you?” the man retorted. “As if you’d believe me if I said I wouldn’t tell anyone anything.”

Riven swallowed. The soldier wasn’t wrong. Riven couldn’t take the chance that the soldier wouldn’t blab. He had to find a way to silence the man, and the only way to do so, the obvious way of doing so, stared him right in the face.

 And the soldier knew it. That defeat in his eyes, that acceptance of fate, that indomitable set of his mouth, all said he was staring death in the face and found it wanting.

Riven stepped back, letting the soldier go for just a breath, then punched him in the face with all the strength he could muster. He didn’t hold anything back. Didn’t pause to think about it at all. Everything depended on him, and he wasn’t allowed to vacillate. He didn’t have the luxury to ruminate carefully on every matter.

The man slumped to the ground, and Riven took another step back. It was impossible to tell if he was dead, or simply unconscious. Riven turned off his Essence and headed back out. If the soldier was dead, this wasn’t the first person he’d killed.

The way things were going, it was unlikely to be his last either.