Chapter Thirteen: Ashen Borderline
That night, after the campfire died to embers and the sky above them pulsed with holes instead of stars, Arielle finally succumbed to sleep.
It wasn't restful.
In her dream, she was a child—no, not herself.
A boy.
Standing alone at the edge of a black throne room.
The walls dripped molten shadow. Screams echoed from somewhere too far to save.
And in the center… a man.
Tall. Crowned in flame.
Speaking words not with a voice, but with pressure that cracked the stone.
"You will never be loved. You were born to break, not to be broken. Emotion is a disease—eradicate it."
The boy knelt.
Bleeding.
And from behind, hands forced his head lower. Clawed fingers that might have been brothers. Or executioners.
A whip cracked across his back. Once. Twice. Again.
He didn't scream.
He never screamed.
He just stayed still, trembling.
And as blood pooled at his knees, the voice echoed again—
"This is how kings are forged."
---
Arielle woke with a gasp.
The fire was out.
The air around her buzzed with the residue of old pain, ancient rage.
She touched her cheek—and found it wet.
A single tear.
Not from fear.
From something deeper.
Sorrow.
But was it his memory?
A vision planted by the bond?
Or just a dream conjured by Hell itself to break her resolve?
She didn't know.
But when she glanced across the fire, Riven sat perfectly still, his profile etched in silver shadow.
Staring into nothing.
As if he hadn't slept.
As if he didn't need to.
As if he already knew what she saw.
And didn't care.
He walks like the world owes him worship. There's a silence around Riven that isn't empty, it's heavy. A kind of stillness that feels like it's waiting to consume you if you get too close.
He's cold. Not the kind of cold that begs for warmth—but the kind that makes you forget you were ever warm to begin with. His eyes don't look at you, they strip you. His words are surgical—sharp, precise, meant to cut just deep enough to leave a scar.
And yet... when he touches me, it's not just skin. It's soul. Like he knows things about me I've never dared whisper to the stars. He infuriates me. I hate how calm he stays while I burn under his stare. I hate that when I'm near him, I forget the mission, the holy, the good. I forget myself.
Riven isn't safe. He isn't kind. But he's the only one who's ever made me feel like I wasn't just an exorcist, a girl with holy fire—but something deeper. Something dangerous. Something... unholy was stirring.
-The Ashen Borderlands-
Where earth cracked and smoke crawled up from seams in the soil.
Where the wind didn't carry leaves, but whispers.
They walked for minutes, maybe hours—time fractured here. Trees grew sideways. Shadows fell in the wrong direction.
The further north they moved, the quieter Arielle became. Not from fear. From instinct.
Even her magic felt thinner here.
"It's a boundary," Riven said without looking at her. "Between reality and what's left of it."
They crossed an obsidian ridge, and there it was.
The first gate.
It wasn't made of iron or flame.
It was bone.
Two towering pillars of fused remains, melted skulls and ribs twisted into arcs, stretched toward a pulsing red sky. Between them: mist. Endless. Hungry.
And guarding it—a creature of pure wrongness.
It didn't have a face. Just mouths. Hundreds of them, opening and closing across its form like wounds that never healed. Each one whispered a different name.
Some of those names… were hers.
Arielle flinched, stepping back.
Riven did not.
He walked forward, slow and precise.
The creature's mouths shuddered, then hissed in unison.
"Hell has not summoned the light."
Arielle stiffened, her palm burning with defensive magic.
"She is not here to enter," Riven said flatly. "She walks beside me. She is mine to guard."
The creature's mouths twisted.
"You claim her."
Riven didn't blink. "I own her."
Arielle's breath caught in outrage—but she said nothing.
This was a performance.
He was proving to whatever ruled this gate that she wasn't a threat.
Or worse—that she wasn't worth threatening.
"She breathes like prey," the creature rasped.
Riven took another step forward. "And I devour predators. Do you want to test which of us is more ravenous?"
Silence fell.
Arielle had never seen anything more terrifyingly still than Riven in that moment.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Just cold.
Absolute.
The creature shifted.
Its mouths shut.
The fog split down the middle.
The path beyond glowed red.
Riven turned to her, unreadable. "Don't speak. Don't pray. And don't look back."
She followed.
Through mist.
Through silence.
Through the first true threshold of the damned.
---
They stopped only when the fog thinned and they stood before a ruined archway carved with a thousand names—some in angelic script, some in demonic runes.
Riven crouched to inspect one glyph, brushing dust away.
Arielle's voice broke the silence.
"You didn't have to say that. That you 'owned' me."
He stood, eyes steady.
"I didn't say it for you."
"No," she muttered. "You never do."
"Would you rather I let them tear you open?"
She didn't answer.
"Exactly," he said, and walked ahead.
---
Minutes passed. They reached a clearing where a stream ran black, the water hissing as it touched stone.
That's when she felt it.
A presence.
Wrong. Familiar.
Her legs locked. "Something's—"
It lunged.
A twisted spirit. Half-formed. Banshee-like. Clawed fingers, shrieking.
It aimed for her throat.
She flared her holy fire—too slow.
Riven was faster.
He moved like shadow.
One hand caught the spirit midair. The other drove straight through it—ripping soul from form.
He didn't blink.
Didn't snarl.
Didn't flinch.
Just erased it.
And when he turned to her, hands still dripping essence, he said one thing:
"Next time, listen to the silence."
---
That night they made camp beneath a hollowed tree.
Arielle stared at the sky. It wasn't stars above them.
Just burning holes.
She finally asked, "Why are you like this?"
Riven didn't look at her. "Like what?"
"Like you don't care if the world burns. Or if I die."
He was silent for a long time.
Then, "Because if I care, they win."
She frowned. "Who?"
"My brothers. My father. Hell itself."
Silence again.
Then softly, "And maybe you."
She turned to him.
He still wouldn't look at her.
But something had cracked.
Not enough to spill emotion.
Just enough to know it was there.
Burning beneath the ice.
Waiting.
And watching.