Chapter 87: Recount

Chapter 87: Chapter 87: Recount

"There is a sanctuary in the arms of someone who truly understands the weight of your scars." — Anonymous

The subterranean chamber had gone silent.

Not peaceful.

Silent.

The only sound was the slow drip of water somewhere behind the stone walls.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Riven sat on a low stone crate beside his discarded coat.

His right hand rested palm upward on his knee.

The skin across his palm was red and blistered, the aftermath of his failed attempt at casting Shadow Orb. Faint wisps of smoke still curled from between his fingers.

Nyx remained perched above him.

Her violet eyes never left his injured hand.

Riven stared at it.

Three seconds.

That was all he had managed.

Three seconds of stability before the spell had torn itself apart.

He had expected pain.

He had expected failure.

Those things were familiar.

What bothered him was how close he had come to losing control.

He flexed his fingers.

Pain shot through his palm.

He ignored it.

He had been about to reach for the spell tome again when the heavy stone door opened.

The scraping sound echoed through the chamber.

Riven looked up.

Lyra stepped inside.

She had a stack of administrative papers tucked beneath one arm.

Her expression was tired, but composed.

"Riven, I brought the revised schedule for your..."

She stopped.

Her eyes dropped to his hand.

The color drained from her face.

The papers slipped from beneath her arm.

They struck the floor.

"Riven."

Her voice barely came out.

She crossed the chamber almost immediately.

"What happened?"

Riven instinctively pulled his hand closer to himself.

"It’s nothing."

"Nothing?"

Lyra dropped to her knees in front of him.

Her hands hovered over his palm without touching it.

Her fingers were trembling.

"Your hand is burned."

"I’m fine."

"You’re smoking."

Riven glanced down.

A thin curl of smoke was still rising from his skin.

He paused.

"...Fair point."

Lyra looked like she wanted to scream.

Instead, she carefully caught his wrist.

"Tell me what happened."

Riven looked at her.

Really looked at her.

Her violet eyes were wide.

There was fear in them.

Not concern.

Fear.

She was genuinely terrified.

For him.

Something inside Riven tightened.

"It was an accident."

His voice was quieter than usual.

"I was testing the new spell."

"The one from the Silver Claw?"

Riven nodded.

"Shadow Orb."

Lyra stared at his hand.

"You tried to force a Tier Five spell through your body without knowing whether you could withstand it."

"I knew there was a risk."

"You knew there was a risk?"

Her voice cracked.

"Riven, you could have destroyed your mana channels."

"I know."

"You could have permanently damaged your nervous system."

"I know."

"You could have died."

Riven fell silent.

Lyra’s grip tightened around his wrist.

"You could have died."

This time her voice was barely above a whisper.

Riven looked away.

"I know."

The anger slowly disappeared from her face.

What remained was something worse.

Pain.

She gently turned his hand over, inspecting the burns.

"You always do this."

Riven said nothing.

"You treat yourself like you’re disposable."

His eyes lowered.

"You push until something breaks."

Silence.

"You get hurt."

Another drop of water struck stone.

Drip.

"You survive."

Lyra swallowed.

"And then you act like surviving means you were never hurt in the first place."

Riven’s jaw tightened.

"Someone has to keep moving."

"Why?"

The question caught him off guard.

Riven looked at her.

Lyra’s eyes were wet.

"Why does it always have to be you?"

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Because he had never considered the question.

He had always moved because stopping meant dying.

He had always fought because losing meant suffering.

He had always endured because nobody was coming to help.

That was simply how the world worked.

At least, that was what he had believed.

Lyra’s thumb gently brushed against the uninjured part of his wrist.

"You don’t have to answer."

Riven stared at her hand.

For some reason, that made it harder not to.

His chest felt tight.

His throat felt dry.

He could have lied.

He almost did.

But Lyra was still looking at him.

Waiting.

Not demanding.

Just waiting.

Riven lowered his head.

"My body..."

His voice caught.

He stopped.

Lyra said nothing.

Riven tried again.

"My body was never really mine."

The words felt strange coming out of his mouth.

He had never said them aloud.

Not to anyone.

He thought about telling her about his reincarnation, but he decided to hold off on that part.

"Before?"

Lyra’s voice was soft.

Riven nodded.

"When I was five, I was sold to a slave camp."

Lyra froze.

Riven stared at the floor.

"I don’t remember much about my parents. Mostly fragments. A cold room. People arguing. A wooden desk. Papers."

His fingers slowly curled against his knee.

"I remember being told that the debt had to be paid."

His voice remained calm.

Too calm.

"I was the payment."

Lyra’s eyes filled with tears.

Riven continued before she could speak.

"The camp didn’t care how old I was."

His breathing became slower.

"They only cared whether I could work."

His burned hand trembled.

"I learned quickly."

He looked at his palm.

"If your hands were bleeding, you kept working."

His voice dropped.

"If you were hungry, you kept working."

A pause.

"If you were scared, you stayed quiet."

Lyra’s fingers tightened around his wrist.

"Being noticed was dangerous."

Riven’s eyes closed.

"So I learned how to disappear."

The chamber seemed colder.

"I learned which guards were cruel. Which ones were lazy. Which ones would look away if you kept your head down."

A faint, bitter smile touched his lips.

"I learned exactly how much pain I could take before my body stopped responding."

Lyra’s eyes overflowed.

Riven opened his eyes again.

"When I finally escaped, I didn’t know where I was going."

His voice became quieter.

"I just ran."

He remembered the cold.

The hunger.

The endless nights spent hiding beneath ruined structures.

The fear that someone would find him.

"I became an adventurer"

"I spent years surviving."

He swallowed.

"No family."

"No home."

"No one waiting for me."

His eyes lowered.

"If I couldn’t find food, I went hungry."

"If I couldn’t find shelter, I slept outside."

"If I lost a fight, I learned how not to lose the next one."

His fingers tightened.

"I didn’t have anyone to fall back on."

He looked at Lyra.

"So I stopped expecting anyone to catch me."

The words hung between them.

Lyra’s lips trembled.

"And then Garreth came."

Riven’s expression changed.

The name alone was enough.

The walls around him cracked.

Not completely.

But enough.

"Yeah."

A quiet breath escaped him.

"Garreth."

For the first time, there was something unmistakably warm in Riven’s voice.

"He found me when I was still reckless enough to think surviving meant I was strong."

A small smile appeared.

"He hated that."

Lyra gave a tiny, broken laugh through her tears.

Riven’s smile disappeared almost immediately.

"But he stayed."

His eyes drifted toward the stone floor.

"He didn’t just teach me how to fight."

"He taught me how to live."

His voice shook.

Barely.

But it shook.

"He taught me how to eat properly."

"How to sleep without keeping one hand on a weapon."

"How to trust someone standing behind me."

Riven took a slow breath.

"He became the first person I ever..."

He stopped.

The words refused to come.

Lyra waited.

Riven looked down at his hands.

"The first person I ever thought would still be there when I woke up."

His voice broke.

Only slightly.

But enough.

Lyra’s eyes filled completely.

"What happened?"

Riven’s jaw tightened.

"The Umbral Wyvern."

The words came slowly.

Heavy.

"We had got some bad info during a quest."

Lyra’s fingers tightened around his wrist.

"An Umbral Wyvern?"

Riven nodded.

"One of the strongest creatures either of us had ever faced."

His eyes became distant.

He swallowed.

"Garreth knew immediately that we were outmatched."

His voice became quieter.

"But he didn’t run."

Riven’s fingers curled.

"The wyvern came straight for me."

His voice cracked.

"Garreth stepped in front of it."

Lyra’s breath caught.

"He took the attack meant for me."

Riven closed his eyes.

"I remember hitting the ground."

"I remember hearing him shout."

"I remember looking up and seeing him still standing."

A tear slipped down his cheek.

"Even after everything it had done to him, he kept fighting."

Riven’s breathing became uneven.

"He managed to bring the wyvern down."

His voice dropped to almost a whisper.

"But by then..."

He stopped.

His throat tightened.

"Garreth was dying."

Silence filled the chamber.

"He gave me his sword."

Riven looked toward the weapon resting beside his coat.

"The same sword I carry now."

His eyes shimmered with tears.

"He told me to take care of myself."

A shaky breath escaped him.

"And then he asked me to end his suffering."

Lyra stared at him.

Riven’s face crumpled.

"I didn’t want to."

His voice broke.

"I begged him to stay."

Another tear rolled down his cheek.

"But he was already gone."

Riven lowered his head.

"So I did what he asked."

His shoulders began to shake.

Lyra’s eyes filled with tears.

Riven covered his face with his uninjured hand.

"I thought I was used to losing people."

His voice was barely audible.

"But I wasn’t."

He swallowed painfully.

"Garreth was the first person who ever stayed."

His hand trembled.

"He was the first person I trusted enough to believe would still be there when I woke up."

Riven’s voice finally collapsed.

"And then he wasn’t."

The tears came freely now.

He didn’t stop them.

He didn’t hide them.

For the first time, Riven allowed someone else to see what Garreth’s death had actually done to him.

Lyra moved without hesitation.

She wrapped both arms around him.

Riven froze.

For a heartbeat, his entire body went rigid.

Then his remaining strength left him.

His arms slowly came around her.

He pulled her closer.

His face buried itself against her shoulder.

The tears he had spent years refusing to shed soaked into her clothes.

Lyra held him tighter.

She didn’t ask him to stop.

She didn’t tell him to be strong.

She didn’t tell him that everything would be fine.

She simply held him.

Riven’s fingers tightened around the back of her clothing.

"I’ve never told anyone this."

The words were barely audible.

Lyra closed her eyes.

"I know."

Riven swallowed.

"I don’t know why I’m telling you."

Lyra rested her cheek against his hair.

"Because you trust me."

Riven went still.

Trust.

The word felt foreign.

Dangerous.

But so beautiful.

He had spent his entire life believing that depending on someone meant giving them the power to hurt him.

Yet here he was.

Exhausted.

Broken.

Vulnerable.

And Lyra hadn’t moved.

She was still there.

Riven slowly closed his eyes.

"I was scared."

Lyra’s arms tightened around him.

"I know."

"I didn’t want to lose him."

"I know."

"I don’t want to lose anyone else."

Lyra pulled back just enough to look at him.

Her violet eyes were red from crying.

"You won’t have to face everything alone anymore."

Riven stared at her.

She reached up and gently wiped a tear from his cheek.

"You’re not in the mining camp anymore."

Her voice trembled.

"You’re not running through the badlands anymore."

She rested her forehead lightly against his.

"And you don’t have to carry every memory by yourself."

Riven’s eyes closed.

For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to believe her.

Not completely.

Not yet.

But enough.

His arms tightened around her again.

And for once, Riven didn’t feel weak for needing someone.

He felt human.

The weight inside his chest did not disappear.

Garreth was still gone.

The years in the mining camp had still happened.

The scars were still there.

But for the first time, they no longer felt like something he had to carry alone.

Above them, Nyx watched silently from her perch.

Her violet eyes remained fixed on Riven.

She had been there from the beginning.

The daughter of the creature Garreth had fought.

The last living connection to that terrible night.

The creature Garreth had died fighting had left behind an egg.

Riven had carried it away.

He had protected it.

And when Nyx finally hatched, Riven had been the first living thing she saw.

She had chosen him.

In her own instinctive way, she had decided that he was her family.

Riven looked up at her.

Nyx clicked her beak softly.

Riven gave her a small, tired smile.

"You’ve been listening this whole time, haven’t you?"

Nyx chirped.

A quiet laugh escaped him.

It was small.

Almost fragile.

But it was real.

Lyra smiled through her tears.

The chamber remained cold.

The shadows remained deep.

Garreth was still gone.

Riven’s past had not changed.

But something inside him had.

For the first time, the memories did not feel like chains.

They felt like something he could finally share.

Something he did not have to carry alone.

And as Lyra remained beside him and Nyx watched from above, Riven realized something he had never understood before.

Survival had taught him how to endure being alone.

But trust was teaching him how to live.