I don’t. Not yet.
He flips the latch, which is a strange, twisting mechanism that doesn’t look mechanical, more like it responds to intention, and the box opens with a soft, breath-like exhale. Inside, nestled in deep black velvet, is a dagger.
Calling it that feels…wrong. This isn’t a weapon. It’s a fucking relic.
The blade is short. Curved like a crescent moon. The steel is dark, almost smoky, etched from base to tip with symbols that match the ones on the box. They are meant for purpose, not beauty. It is beautiful, in the way a predator is beautiful just before it strikes. The hilt is wrapped in worn leather, darkened with age, smoothedby hands that probably haven’t belonged to mortals in a long time.
Riven watches me as I take it in. His voice is low. Controlled. “It’s called the Blade of Binding.”
My eyes don’t leave the dagger. “Yours?”
He nods. “Each of us has one. Carried from the beginning. They were made before names, before time, before the first veil dropped.”
I drag my gaze from the blade to his face. “What’s it for?”
His jaw flexes. He doesn’t speak right away. “To mark what’s ours,” he says finally. “To seal bonds. To make them real.”
“Like a blood oath.”
“No. Like a tether.” He kneels beside the fire, pulling the box closer. The flames behind him burn lower now, more focused like they’re listening. Like they know what’s about to happen.
“You said I had a choice,” I whisper. “That this wasn’t a claiming. That I wasn’t just yours.”
“You’re not,” he replies. “This isn’t about taking. It’s aboutchoosing.” He picks up the bladewith both hands, reverent, like he’s holding something sacred. When he offers it to me, hilt first, the moment stretches taut, waiting to snap. “This will bind you to me,” he says. “But not just me.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
His voice is quieter now. Measured. “There’s a ritual for each of us. The blade, the blood, the bond. If you offer it willingly, if you draw it yourself, you’re not just opening a connection between us. You’re unlocking something older. You’re drawing the others in.”
I blink. “The others,” I repeat. “You mean…”
“Yes.” He doesn’t say their names. Doesn’t need to.
Vale. Elias. Niko.
“They’ll feel it,” he says. “Every time you choose. Every time you bleed for one of us, the rest will feel the pull. The threads tighten. The prophecy tightens.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You can walk away,” he says. “It’ll hurt. But it’s yours to decide. There’s no bond without blood. No connection without consent.” That word lands between us like an anchor.
Consent.
It’s about power. Aboutwillingly stepping into the storm.I look down at the blade.
The moment I reach for it, my skin prickles with awareness. It’s as if the dagger recognizes my hand, and it’s been waiting for me longer than I’ve been alive.
I wrap my fingers around the hilt. And the world shifts. Just slightly. Enough.
The world goes silent. Light bends. My body doesn’t move, but something inside me wakes up.The blood in my veins doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It feels ready.
Riven says nothing. He doesn’t guide me. Doesn’t instruct. Just waits because he knows. This part must be me.
I lift the blade. The weight of it is strange…balanced, familiar, like a memory that was once carved into my bones and forgotten.
I draw it across my palm. Clean. Precise. Blood wells instantly, bright and thick, curling along my wrist, dripping onto the floor between us.
Riven exhales, like a man who’s waited centuries to breathe. And the fire behind him erupts. The air snaps. The glass windows hum. Something ancient and deepshifts under my feet, like the bones of the house are groaning.
