Riven's POV
I left Lyra kneeling over the fallen woman and ran straight into my father, my chest still tight with the sight of Elara collapsing, blood already dark against the stone floor behind me.
He stood at the end of the hallway with a dozen of his own guards behind him, his expression calm in a way that made my skin crawl, the kind of calm he only wore when he already believed he had won. Calm had never once been good news growing up in his house.
"Riven." His voice carried easily over the chaos still echoing through the academy, smooth and unhurried like the world around us was not currently on fire. "This ends now. Come home. Renounce whatever attachment you have built with that girl, and I will forget this entire embarrassing episode ever happened."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I
