Page 108 of The Blood Rites

I fall to my hands and knees, vomiting bile. My eyes won’t focus, but I hear nothing—no footsteps, no voices, not even the wind.

Lyssandra’s faint, shocked gasp breaks the silence as she starts to slip over the edge. She clings on, eyes wide and uncomprehending, as if her body has betrayed her faith by wanting to live.

The Fireborn are scattered across the stone, stunned or broken. I can’t tell.

I blink, and the only thing left inside me is static.

The silence is absolute.

The world is empty.

Time thins.

First, the silence ebbs away, overtaken by the sound of my own heart. Then sweat drips from my face and arms, each droplet sizzling on the cracked, burning stone beneath me. I’m hunched over, the skin on my arms blistered where the flames grazed me.

I force my head up. Across the field, the Fireborn are in various states of ruin—Maleiros is crumpled, unmoving; Serraith drags himself upright, but his leg is twisted in the wrong direction; Atheron is in a heap, eyes closed and unconscious, bleeding from a split in his temple.

But it’s not them I care about.

Lyssandra is at the island’s edge, her body sprawled, clinging to the slick stone with every finger, her boots skidding uselessly. Her face is slack with shock, her lips moving without sound. Her eyes are wide, her knuckles white as she tries not to fall.

The world shudders with a grinding roar. Golden-red light arcs through the air, merging with the Mother Shard’s crystalline crown. The death counter flickers, and the five becomes a six. Far in the distance, the Earth island splits open down its centre. It collapses inwards, then plummets into the cloud below. Rask is dead.

Our own island groans in protest, my Mana’s aftershock still destabilising the ground beneath us. With the mist blown clear, a thunderous crack echoes through the air. A huge wedge of the island begins to tilt, shearing away from the main body and taking Lyssandra with it.

I don’t think. I just run.

More stone splits underfoot, but I leap over the widening cracks. I land on the edge, arms outstretched, and catch Lyssandra’s wrist as she drops. The force of her fall yanks me flat onto my stomach, slamming me into the rocks. Something cracks inside me, and my vision goes white. A rib, I think. I almost let go out of reflex. The pain is excruciating. I can’t breathe. But I hold on, gasping, my fingers digging into her wrist.

Below us is nothing. Mist, empty air, and the cold promise of death.

Lyssandra looks up at me, her expression suddenly calm again. “You have to let me go,” she says, not pleading but merely stating a fact.

I shake my head, grinding my teeth together. “No.”

“You cannot save me,” she says.

“I have to.”

We hang like that, locked in a brutal tug of war. It feels like an eternity, but it is only seconds. My shoulder starts to burn, the muscles straining past what they can bear. The ground beneath me is smooth, offering no friction, and millimetre by millimetre, we slip closer to death.

“This is silly,” Lyssandra says. “You’ll die too.”

“I thought you said that was the point.”

From behind me, someone shouts my name. A familiar, rough voice. I turn my head enough to see Kael, battered and bloodied, sprinting across the unstable ground. For once, there is no elegance in his movements, just urgency and panic.

The ledge finally gives way. I don’t even have time to scream. I can only grip Lyssandra’s wrist tighter as we plunge into free fall.

We stop descending almost as soon as we begin. My body jerks violently, and she nearly slips from my grasp. I look up to see a smooth tendril of shadow wrapped around my ankle, the other end gripped in Kael’s hands, anchoring me.

“I’ve got you, little rabbit,” he grunts, but there’s no time to feel the relief of it.

We dangle in open air, a grotesque chain: Kael braced on the edge by sheer force of will alone, me hanging by a thread of darkness, Lyssandra’s fate in my hand.

“You cannot save everyone,” Kael says, eyes wild, teeth bared. “If you fall, I fall.”

“No!” I scream back, the word tearing free of my throat.