Chapter 18 · The Price of Remembering

"Get your hands off me!"

Riven didn't just push me. He shoved me. Hard.

I flew back into the iridescent void of the contract, the impact knocking the wind out of my lungs. Gravity here was a joke—a suggestion at best. I scrambled up, boots slipping on a floor that looked like liquid obsidian.

"Riven, look at me!" I screamed.

He wasn't listening. He was staring down at his chest. The black-gold heart wasn't a metaphor anymore. It was a jagged, pulsing organ fused into his ribs, tearing through his shirt. Every beat sent a shockwave of gold light through the void, illuminating shards of memories floating around us like a broken mirror.

"It's eating me," he gasped.

The cold edge of the Enforcer was gone. He sounded small. Terrified. "Mara, it's taking everything."

I lunged, grabbing his wrists. His skin was searing—like he'd been standing in a forge. "I can stop it. I can break the heart!"

"Don't!" He choked out, his grip tightening on my arms, bruising the skin. "If you break it, the memories... they go back. But I might not. I might just be the shell they leave behind.