I stayed in Zariya that day, I didn't want to go back to Atarah and definitely not to my boyfriend.
He would try to convince me not to join the trials, try to keep me safe in his castle.
But I didn't want that, I got bored of doing nothing.
Honestly these adventures were probably gonna kill me one day, but I would rather die in a fight than die of boredom.
Riven and I were standing in the kitchen, I was expecting him to make eggs again, but he didn't.
He just grabbed two glasses of water, one for me and one for him.
"Do we have company?" The same guy as before walked in the kitchen and looked at me.
"Yeah, this is Stormi" Riven mumbled, he clearly wasn't eager to introduce me to him.
"Stormi" the guy nodded as he leaned against the counter. "I am Aaric, I'm his brother"
"Ah the future king" I smiled. I already figured he was Riven's brother, he looked a bit like him.
Riven was cuter though.
And the look on his face when I told Aaric that he would be the future king was priceless.
Riven always said he didn't really cared about being king, that he was fine with just being a prince.
But maybe he changed his mind about that now.
Aaric chuckled. "Yeah that's what people call me"
He looked back at Riven, who was looking at his glass of water as if it was the most interesting thing.
"How do you guys know each other then?" He asked.
Interesting, Riven didn't talk about me.
"We had a little fling" I shrugged.
"Oh" Aaric smiled as he looked at Riven. "Interesting"
Riven rolled his eyes but didn't respond.
"I will show you your room" Riven mumbled as he looked at me. He walked passed Aaric and me, out of the kitchen.
"It was nice meeting you" I looked at Aaric. He nodded. "Don't get him in trouble please" he said.
Oh Aaric, I was the reason he was about to get into trouble.
But I wasn't gonna tell him. Instead I nodded and followed Riven to my room.
It was a beautiful room, but as expected, pretty dark. This was the kingdom of shadows after all.
"So tell me about the trials, what should I expect?" Riven asked as he leaned against the wall.
"I don't really know what to expect, no one really talks about them"
Mainly because all of them died, except for one.
"Awesome, so we're basically going in blind" he said, pushing himself of the wall and took his shirt off in the meantime.
He was standing shirtless in front of me, it's been a while since I saw his chest, his body.
"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked. Not that I had much to complain about, but still.
"This is my room" he said as he unbuckled his pants. "And I'm going to sleep"
"No you're not gonna sleep in here" I quickly said, walking up to him and without thinking I put my hands on his belt.
I was trying to stop him from taking off his pants, but instead I was almost touching something I definitely didn't want to touch.
Riven tilted his head as he looked at my hands on his belt.
"Not that I am complaining.." he said "but I thought you had a boyfriend?"
I quickly took a step back, shrugged it off like nothing happened. "Yeah and that's exactly why you can't sleep in the same room"
"Oh and why is that?" He smirked.
"Because, like I said, I have a boyfriend"
He raised his eyebrow, buckled his belt again and shrugged. "Fine"
He didn't say anything else before he walked out of the room.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to come to him for help, but unfortunately I think he was the only one who could handle these trials.
Without getting killed.
