Page 134 of The Blood Rites

Alaris narrows his eyes and twists his wrist. The storm recedes a fraction, and a razor of wind materialises, warping the air around it. It forms a crescent so sharp it seems to glow.

He launches it at Atheron’s neck.

At the last possible instant, Maleiros moves.

He’s just a blur. A jet of fire propels him—a flash of red and brown—between Atheron and the razor. The wind strikes him full in the chest, cutting straight through. He doesn’t even scream—just collapses to his knees, blood spraying in a fan across the glass. He falls forward, gasping. He is dead before he hits the ground.

His body rises into the air, as so many have before it, peeling away to dust as the golden-red light of his life force spirals towards the Mother Shard. It seems to explode on impact with her crown, one final flare before it is swallowed.

The counter pulses, shifting from eight to nine.

Atheron is free. He stumbles but throws up a wall of fire between himself and Alaris. Through the flames, Atheron stares at him with something like awe, or maybe it’s just hatred stripped bare.

“You wasted it,” Atheron snarls. “You wasted your chance.”

Alaris staggers, the blood from his stomach wound slick and bright. “I had you though. You’re nothing—” He doubles over, retching.

Atheron roars, a sound more animal than human, and unleashes a river of fire straight at Alaris.

I throw myself between them, shield up, but the fire is beyond anything I have seen before. The heat knocks me off my feet, sending me tumbling backwards across the mirrored dais. I slide to a halt, tasting blood.

When I look up, the world is eclipsed in red. Alaris is engulfed, every inch of him burning, but still he fights. The wind rips outward, a hurricane in every direction, but the air is sucked away, feeding the fire, making it worse. I see Alaris’ mouth open in a scream, but I can’t hear it.

I push onto my knees and crawl, every moment fresh agony. I know I can’t save him, but I try anyway.

Atheron watches, arms crossed, smiling as if he’s just won a prize.

I reach Alaris and throw myself over him, rolling us both across the glass. I summon a shield, a dome of golden light so thick I pray it can starve the flames. But the fire rages on, eating us alive. Flesh bubbles on my back, the nerves burning down to nothing. I don’t care. I only care about Alaris.

I clamp my arms around him, smothering the flames as best I can. He shudders, then sags in my grip.

“Alaris,” I plead, throat raw. “Stay with me.”

He opens his eyes—pale, the colour leeched from them. “Did I get him?” he gasps.

I hesitate.

He smiles anyway. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Thought so.”

He grins. “Tell my sister—she was right. About the wind.”

“I will,” I say. Another promise I can’t keep.

His eyes lose focus—not slowly, but all at once, like something vital has slipped loose inside him.

The fight leaves him all at once.

Something in me just... stops.

Alaris’ body hovers slowly into the air. Scarred and ruined, a burnt-out copy of the boy I’d known.

His skin glows golden, his fibres unspooling, drifting away, carried by a phantom breeze as the golden-red light of his life force streams towards the Mother Shard.

The nine on the death counter twists, collapses, and becomes a zero.

If only that were true.

A golden slash carves itself beside it.