Chapter 143 Ashford Clearing - Riven's POV

Chapter 143 Ashford Clearing - Riven's POV
The rest of the evening passed quietly. We both knew tomorrow night was something large and unavoidable. Everything in our lives had been put on pause again while we prepared ourselves for it.
Inside, nothing was peaceful. It was more like I was holding my breath and hoping that I didn’t explode. It was even worse for Callista in some ways, because she could feel my turmoil mixing with hers.
At dinner, her mother called around to find out what she could on Alric and his family. Her father spent two hours on the back porch making calls I wasn’t privy to, and when he came back inside, he looked as if those calls had cost him something. There was no peace etched into his features, only the stare of a man who had tried everything and was floundering. Raze wasn’t much better. He had slept some on the couch, which told me he was at least comfortable here.
After everyone else had gone to bed, Callista and I stayed at the dining room table. We didn’t talk much. There wasn’t much left to say that hadn’t already been said, and the things that hadn’t been said yet didn’t need words exactly. She sat across from me with her hands wrapped around a mug that had gone cold an hour ago. I sat with my forearms flat on the table, looking at her. The bond was quiet again, but still very warm. 
At some point when I glanced away, she reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. I turned it over and held on.
We went upstairs around midnight and I lay on top of the covers the way I had the night before, counting her breaths until they evened out. Then I lay in the dark, letting the bond soothe me in the only way it could.
I didn’t sleep for a long time, but when I finally did, I didn’t dream of anything except darkness. 
Morning arrived before I was ready. I was up before everyone else and found my way to the kitchen, standing at the window with a pot of coffee brewing before I realized what I had even done. As it continued to pour with a hiss, I looked at the grass. It was dark from the rain. The trees in the distance were motionless.
Raze came up behind me, almost silently. “You look distraught.”
“That’s one word for it.”
He nodded and looked at the pot of steaming coffee. “You need to eat something. Coffee on an empty stomach when you’re jittery isn’t good.”
“I’ll be fine,” I mumbled.
But when he continued to stare at me with one brow arched, I thought better of it. He was right. I needed to eat. I had to fuel myself for tonight.
Callista's father came down next, and then her mother. Callista stumbled downstairs after a few minutes, still half asleep with her hair loose. She came to stand with me, her hand finding my arm before she had fully registered the room. I got her a cup of coffee and handed it to her.
Everyone ate, including Sabine when she managed to find her way to the kitchen. No one discussed the challenge or what would happen at dusk.
There would be time for that later. Right now there was food and the early morning haze. After breakfast, Callista's father looked at me across the table.
"Walk with me," he said sharply.
We went to the back garden. He stood in the middle of it, his gaze flicking from flower to flower, then to the trees. His head tipped back as he examined the sky.
"I'm not going to give you advice about the fight," he breathed. "You know more about fighting than I ever will."
"Alright," I murmured. “Then what do you want to talk about?”
“I’m going to tell you something that took me a long time to understand,” he said, pausing and licking his lips. "The thing you're most afraid of losing is also the thing that's going to get you through this. Don't shut it out in there to protect it. Let it in. That's what it's for."
I looked at him. He looked back at me with the steady expression of a man who had meant what he said and had no intention of adding to it.
“The only thing I’m afraid of is losing your daughter,” I chuckled. “I love her, even if it’s soon. She’s all I want.”
“I understand, but holding her at arm’s length could get you killed. Part of me feels that if you don’t embrace this bond fully, get the ceremony done, that it could be what leads to your end and hers.”
“What if—”
“My daughter’s visions have never been wrong,” he said lightly under his breath. “She was told that your bond could save you both. The demon may flip back and forth, trying to confuse you, but the Moon Goddess never lies. I don’t think he can impersonate her.”
He nodded once and went back inside.
I stood in the garden for a moment with the grey sky above me and the bond warm in my chest. He was right and I knew it, but fear had dominated my life for so long that I almost didn’t know my way out of it.
The rest of the day passed quickly. One hour before sundown, we drove to Ashford Clearing.
It was a neutral ground in the oldest sense and was a wide flat space between two pack territories that had been used for formal challenges for longer than anyone currently alive could verify. Old wards ran the perimeter, the kind that prevented outside interference and held whatever happened inside it firmly within its boundaries. No weapons or outside help, other than what you were born with, could be used once the trial began.
We parked at the tree line.
There were already people there and it was more than I expected. Word had spread faster than I had accounted for, and the crowd that lined the clearing's edge carried the energy I hated. They were here to watch and silently judge.
Carson was near the far edge of the crowd with his arms folded and a neutral expression. He saw Callista’s father, then grinned. 
I glanced to the side, finding my own adoptive parents there. It had been a while since we spoke, but I didn’t miss the way they looked at me, beaming with pride. They told me once after this all happened that I would always be their son. Once a Nightshade, always a Nightshade.
And on the far side of the clearing, already there and waiting, was Alric Voss.
He was my age and built like someone who had trained for exactly this. His shoulders were broader than mine, though he wasn’t necessarily bigger. 
His eyes found mine across the distance immediately. The demon in my chest moved.
He didn’t push or press, just recognition. I had felt the same recognition when Raze’s demon responded to mine, but so much stronger. That meant I was right. Alric was the other half to my demon. 
I felt Callista beside me.
She didn't touch me, but she didn't need to. The bond was enough, threading through the demon's cold recognition and holding its own against it without effort.
I thought about what her father had said.
Let it in. That's what it's for.
I exhaled slowly.
The tribunal observer at the center of the clearing raised his hand, calling both parties forward, and I looked at Callista one last time before I moved.
She looked back at me with clear, certain eyes.
"Come back to me," she whispered. 
“I’ll always come back to you,” I murmured before leaning in to gently kiss her.
Before she could hold on to me, I backed away and walked forward into the clearing.