The room was small, square, and suffocating. No windows. Bare stone walls painted a sterile gray. A single bulb overhead buzzed faintly, throwing light that seemed to burn the eyes after staring too long. The air was stale, with a heavy taste of a place where guilt and tension were heavy.

  And there Riven sat at the metal table in the center, his shoulders sunk and his arms dead weights as they hung beside him.

  He was lean in frame. That remained unchanged. Yet his hair—once a crimson red and styled in a way common for royals—now hung gray and unevenly tousled, as if it had turned overnight.

  His eyes, once sharp embers that matched his hair, were nothing but pale smoke now, dull and unsettling. And his skin, where it once glowed with warmth, was drained to a chalk-white hue.

  He stared at the table as if it might give him answers. His expression wasn't blank; it was hollow. Hollow in a way that unsettled even the room itself as it got colder in response.

  Across from him sat a middle-aged man. His posture slouched, his uniform jacket wrinkled, his face carved by years of weary repetition, and his hair balding from the stress of too many cases or his nagging wife—no one really knows.

  "They died of smoke inhalation, but there were no signs of a fire, and Riven, if it wasn't for the identification gate at the front door, I would've thought he was someone else completely."

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  He thought as his eyes carried the weight of someone who'd seen too many tragedies and heard too many awful confessions. Yet his eyes didn't glare at the boy across from him; they carried no threats.

  No, he just gazed at Riven with tired patience with a look—only a man long past his breaking point could have.

  Though his partner didn't share his expression, in the corner stood a woman in a pantsuit. She was beautiful; her body was very feminine, which was even noticeable through the unflattering clothes she was wearing; her face was delicate, and her stature was short, yet she somehow stood tall against the wall like she was holding it up herself.

  She would be the picture of beauty if the expression she was showing didn't look like it'd been carved out of grief.

  Her arms were folded tight against her chest, nails biting into her skin, as if holding herself together was all that kept her standing. Anger and heavy suspicion twisted her expression, which was stained with tears she tried but failed to hide.

  And every time her eyes landed on Riven, they flickered with barely contained hatred. And lucky for him, he didn't look at her once, because if he did, she would have used the gun on her hip to shoot him dead.

  The silence stretched. The bulb continued to hum overhead, providing the only sound this room had since they walked in.

  Finally, the man spoke, his voice low, rough with exhaustion.

  "...Riven. Tell me what happened."

  The question hung in the air like a sentence.

  Riven blinked once, slowly, his pale gray eyes rising from the table to meet the man's. His lips parted slightly, but no sound came. Instead, smoke flowed as if he was releasing a puff from a cigarette that dissipated into the stale air as quickly as it appeared.

  But when he eventually found his voice, only three words came out, short and critical.

  "I killed them."