As he made his way back toward the square, pot hidden beneath his coat, a thought began to rise in his mind like a thorn pushing through skin. It nagged at him first, then grew sharp enough that he had to slow his steps.

  How did they know?

  Why had the soldiers cleaned that alley first, scrubbed it almost spotless, when other parts of the city were still smeared with dried blood. They carried the bodies away, yes, but everywhere else the stains remained. Only here, where Torvil died, where the golem fell, the stones were washed clean.

  It made no sense unless someone already knew what had happened there. Unless they wanted to hide it. Hide it from who. The people of Avenwall would never understand what they had stepped in even if they saw the remains. They would think it mud or ash or rot, not pieces of a summoned creature.

  So then, who were the soldiers hiding from.

  The answer crawled into his thoughts, cold and unsettling. Different factions in the army. Different orders. Different goals.

  Groups were acting without telling each other, some collecting bodies for study, others pretending to know nothing. Layers of secrets wrapped inside more secrets. A web so tangled he did not know where a single thread began.

  Where should he start unraveling any of it. Should he even try. Or should he leave this mess to Brann and the others. They were older, wiser, better at navigating the shadows of men and power. His path lay elsewhere. In his training. The grove. Torvil’s books.

  He stopped beneath the shadow of a ruined archway and swallowed hard. The scale of this was too large for one person. If the army truly hid from itself, then even soldiers would speak no whispers. No one would trust anyone. No one would talk.

  Finding secrets in that kind of fear would be impossible.

  He turned away from the square the decision made. He would leave the city. He would go straight to the grove. He would train until the world itself bowed beneath the strength he forged. Then he would search for answers.

  He slipped back through the winding alleys, keeping to the narrow paths until he reached the crack in the ground where he had climbed out. He pressed his hands to the edges, swung one leg down, and dropped into the darkness without hesitation.

  A mistake. A foolish one.

  As he fell he heard voices echoing through the tunnel. Boots scraping. Wood knocking against stone. He realized at once that he should have checked before jumping.

  Too late.

  He landed hard on his feet and stumbled forward, right into the torchlight of four soldiers. They held planks, hammers, and bundles of rope, all staring at him with wide eyes. No doubt they had been sent to reinforce the ceiling, patch the damage left from Brann and Therun’s fight.

  For one frozen moment everyone stared at each other.

  Riven’s heart thudded once, sharp as a spark striking dry tinder.

  The soldiers began to move.

  One of them stepped forward with a grin curling across his face. “What do we have here boys, looks like these tunnels have rats.”

  Another voice came from behind him, rough and impatient. “Tie him up quick. The captain will know what to do with him.”

  Riven stood very still.

  For a heartbeat fear jabbed through him, sharp and cold, but it faded almost as quickly as it came. The men had not raised their weapons. They had not barked alarm. They had not treated him as a threat. They saw only a child who had wandered where he should not be. A boy who had fallen through a crack…a stray.

  They had underestimated him.

  They had no idea what he was, no idea what Torvil had taught him, no idea of the will burning inside him now. As the soldiers stepped closer the truth settled over him with a strange calm. He had the element of surprise. Their confidence made them careless. Their arrogance opened a door.

  If he used his gifts quickly, wisely, he could escape before any of them realized what had happened.

  Riven lowered his gaze as if frightened, shoulders drawn inward, the picture of a trapped child. Inside him his power stirred, a small green spark warm as a heartbeat and ready to answer.

  Four men. Tools in their hands instead of blades. Narrow tunnel. Loose soil. Roots close above.

  He could work with that.

  He breathed slowly, letting their footsteps draw nearer. One man reached out to grab his arm.

  Good, Riven thought. Closer. Just a little closer.

  His fingers brushed the stone floor and he felt the vines beneath, thin threads winding through the cracks like sleeping snakes. With one whisper of will he could call them to life. With one breath he could slip through their grasp.

  They think I am helpless, he thought.

  Let them believe it a moment longer.

  Come on runt, the man grunted, yanking Riven’s arm and dragging him closer to the others. The moment his skin met the soldier’s grip, Riven felt a quiet spark of opportunity ignite inside him. This was the opening he needed.

  He had one trick that fit the moment perfectly. Torvil had shown him how to summon a particular bush that grew only in the deep groves, its branches covered in long curved thorns. Those thorns carried a natural poison, gentle enough not to kill, strong enough to paralyze for a quarter hour. Fifteen minutes. More than enough time to slip away before they even understood what had happened.

  He only needed all four soldiers within reach and his own body clear of the thorns, it would require precision.

  The bush would come to his aid if he called it, but timing mattered. He needed every man close. Three already stood within arm’s length, but the fourth still worked near the wall, lifting a wooden beam into place. Too far. Too busy. If Riven summoned the bush now, that one would escape the effect, and the boy would end up fighting him hand to hand. Riven believed he could manage it, but why take needless risks.

  His eyes flicked to the man by the wall. He needed him here.

  So he opened his mouth.

  I guess the only one who works around here is long nose over there, he said lightly, tilting his head toward the fourth soldier. Is he slow or something, working while you three are having a chat?

  The man hauling a beam froze in place, annoyance flashing across his face. Another soldier let out a bark of laughter just before he slammed a fist into Riven’s back, sending the boy to his knees.

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  Look at the mouth on this brat.

  Riven winced but lifted his head with a crooked smile, eyes drifting once more toward the man by the wall. That was a good hit, he said. Too bad slow brain over there does not have the courage to try it himself.

  The soldier with the beam straightened fully now, face turning red. He dropped the wood with a sharp clack and stormed toward the group.

  Just hold on, he growled. I will teach this little rat a lesson he will not forget.

  Good, Riven thought as he lowered his gaze once more. Let them gather. Let them stand close. Let them keep thinking he was helpless.

  The vines beneath the stone tingled against his fingertips, waiting for his signal. The poison bush sat in his memory like a coiled promise.

  Almost time.

  The fourth man stepped close enough for Riven to feel the heat of his breath. That was the moment. Riven lowered his hand, palm open over the dirt, and let the spark inside him bloom.

  One soldier, the one who had barked the order to tie him earlier, noticed the change in Riven’s expression. The boy’s smirk was too calm, too sure for someone about to be beaten. The soldier’s eyes widened.

  “Wait”, he shouted.

  He staggered backward in panic, tripping over a loose board and crashing onto his back. That was all he managed before the ground answered Riven’s call.

  The thorns burst upward in a sudden whirl of branches and vines. The poisonous bush erupted beneath the soldiers’ feet, thorn tips gleaming with oily venom. Three men were caught at once, thorns sinking into legs and arms before they could even scream. Their bodies locked stiff as statues, each collapsing in a clatter of wood and tools.

  The fourth man, the one who had fell on his back, reacted on instinct. He kicked the vine with a heavy leather boot. The thorn glanced off the hardened sole, unable to pierce through, and the force of his strike bent the branch backward.

  Bent it straight toward Riven.

  The vine whipped past him with a sharp hiss. A thorn grazed his neck, a thin cut along the skin like the stroke of a cold needle. Riven gasped and stumbled away, hand reaching for the spot as a tremor of fear jolted through him.

  Not deep. Not a proper strike. Only a graze.

  But the poison was strong, even in small amounts. He felt a faint tingling spread beneath his skin, a slow warmth crawling along his throat like a serpent waking from sleep.

  Move, he told himself. Do not freeze now. Not here.

  The last soldier was still on his knees, scrambling to rise, face twisted in fury and fear. The others lay paralyzed, eyes wide and unmoving. The tunnel echoed with their ragged breaths.

  Riven had seconds before the poison in his neck spread further.

  He reached for the vines again, forcing steady air into his lungs. He could escape if he acted now.

  He had to.

  Riven forced the vines forward, willing them to coil around the soldier’s legs. They shot across the stone like snakes, but the moment they reached the man he was ready. The element of surprise was gone.

  The soldier seized a wooden crate with both hands, lifted it with a grunt, and slammed it down on the vines. The thorns snapped. The branches cracked…Riven felt the recoil of it like a blow to the chest. Before he could pull more power the tingling in his neck spread along his arms. His fingers stiffened. His palms froze.

  He could no longer move.

  The soldier spat on the ground. “Where is my sword? I’ll finish you right now. I don’t care what the captain wants. I hate your kind. It is because of druids I lost my brother. I will make sure you suffer.”

  Riven collapsed on the cold stone floor, breath shallow, eyes wide. His limbs would not answer him. He felt like a creature caught in a hunter’s trap, heart pounding while the body refused to move. The man strode to the supply cart, pulled free a sheathed sword, and turned back toward him with slow purposeful steps.

  “I’ll cut you up slow and let you bleed out, you little monster.”

  He knelt beside Riven and drove the tip of the blade through the boy’s palm. Riven could not feel the pain, but he felt the warmth spill from the wound. Felt his strength slipping with each heartbeat. Panic fluttered inside him like a trapped bird. He tried to summon power, tried to whisper to the vines, but his body refused every order.

  He searched for any plan, any trick, any memory of Torvil’s teachings. Nothing came. No hidden technique. No sudden escape. He was alone in the tunnels. No one knew where he was. No one was coming.

  The soldier leaned over him, shadows cutting across his scarred face. Good. Go ahead and cry. These are your last moments.

  He drove the sword into Riven’s hip.

  Riven’s breath hitched, his body was strong thanks to the green but even he wouldn’t last long in this situation. Tears slid down his temples into the grit and dust beneath him. He felt the blood leaving him in a slow steady warmth. Darkness crept at the edges of his sight. His mind screamed for help, for Torvil, for Lysa, for anyone, but no voice answered.

  He had failed. He would die here beneath the city, unseen and forgotten.

  The soldier lifted the blade again, raising it for a deeper strike, and Riven felt his heartbeat falter. The orange stones in the walls seemed to dim around him. The air felt heavy, close, suffocating.

  No one was coming.

  Or so he believed in that final trembling moment.

  The blade came down again, cutting into Riven’s shoulder. Then again. And again. Each strike shook his body, yet the panic that had flared so brightly before began to fade. Hope slipped away like water draining through cupped hands. His vision blurred until the orange stones along the wall became little more than smears of light. His breath grew shallow. Slow. Distant.

  He would have begged the man to stop if he had been able to speak. He would have clawed at the ground if his hands had moved. Instead he lay still, a boy losing his strength drop by drop while the sword rose and fell in a steady cruel rhythm.

  Another cut landed. This one Riven felt. The poison was wearing thin, loosening its hold, his body having already broken it down faster than it had in the others. A burning sensation spread across his body, fierce and hot, a warning that his nerves were waking again. He was on the edge of fainting when something shifted at the end of the tunnel.

  A shadow moved.

  Riven forced his fading sight to focus. An old man stood there, thin as a withered branch, draped in filthy rags. His beard was tangled, his hair matted, and he looked as though he had not eaten in days. The old man lifted a single finger to his lips, a silent command for Riven to keep quiet.

  If I could talk, Riven thought bitterly, I would not be in this mess.

  Another cut pierced his side. Pain followed, faint but growing. His vision flickered a final time. Heat rushed through his blood like fire. Then darkness closed over him and he fell into it without a sound.

  When he woke, he lay propped against a wall. The air smelled faintly of old herbs and damp stone. A man sat on a crate near him, the same ragged figure from before. Riven blinked, dazed. His wounds no longer bled freely. Cloth bandages wrapped his palm, his hip, his shoulder.

  “I put medicine on them, the old man said. His voice was rough but strangely warm. I did not have much left, but I used what I could. “

  Riven pushed himself upright with a weak groan. “What happened to the soldiers?”

  The old man sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. I did what I could. It is not pretty work.

  Riven looked around. His eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light. The four soldiers lay scattered on the stones. Their bodies were twisted and still. Their skulls were crushed completely, the ground around them a thick smear of blood, bone, and clotted hair.

  “By the gods, Riven whispered. You got them good, didn’t you old timer.”

  The old man shook his head. “Serves them right for what they did to a child.”

  Riven stared at him. “What is your name, old man.”

  The man lifted his chin a little. “Joseph, nice to meet you.” His words faded as he studied Riven’s expression.

  “Riven”, the boy said quietly. “My name is Riven.”

  “Nice to meet you, Riven”, the old man repeated with a crooked smile. “Now tell me. Where do you want to go.”

  Riven blinked at him. “What.”

  “You must be heading somewhere”, Joseph said. “Don’t tell me you live down here. That would be sad.”

  “No, no”, Riven muttered. “I have a home, it is just... thank you for saving me, but why do you care.”

  Joseph gave him a steady look. “Well, Riven, you will not walk far with wounds like that. And soon soldiers will come to see why their friends are taking so long to fix this part of the tunnel. They will find you and kill you. Or something worse. I would hate to have worked for nothing, so I am taking you home.”

  Riven stared at him, mouth half open, utterly at a loss. Moments ago he had been sure he would die. Now he had this old ragged man speaking with the calm cheer of someone offering directions to the nearest inn.

  He almost wished the paralysis had stayed. It would have spared him from trying to understand whatever madness he had just stumbled into.