Page 135 of The Blood Rites

One. Then zero.

The death count is ten.

Atheron approaches. He doesn’t rush me. He doesn’t need to. The fire coils around him, eager. “Was that it?” he asks. “Is it done?”

I want to kill him. I want to rip his heart out. I have never wanted anything more.

Somewhere below, I hear another scream, high, human, desperate. I think it’s Marissa, but it could be Morwen. It doesn’t matter.

There is a moment—just a breath—where I think this trial will never end.

Then I am gone.

I am in the Embrace, flat on my back, gasping for air. My body mends itself, becoming whole, but the pain stays behind, a ghost in every muscle.

I roll to my side and dry heave. There’s nothing in my stomach to give.

I sit up, and the world is quiet.

Too quiet.

I want Kael. I need him.

I press my face to my hands. A scream claws up my throat, but I swallow it down.

I survived.

But I am hollowed out.

Every trial takes something else from me.

Soon there will be nothing left to take.

Eighteen

My room is too quiet. The golden cracks in the ceiling throb with light, matching the rhythm inside my chest, but my eyes keep drifting to the door.

I am healed. My skin remembers nothing of the flames—only the older scars remain, buried deep, untouched by the Mother Shard. But the ghost of burning still crawls across my back, and the smell of melting flesh clings to the back of my throat. I can’t shake it. I let it happen.

Alaris should be alive. I let my guard down, and Atheron landed the only blow that mattered. I expected the trial to end after Maleiros’ essence was absorbed—when the death counter shifted. I don’t know why I thought that. I know nothing about what the Mother Shard wants. Alaris paid for that mistake.

Another mark I won’t be allowed to forget.

My hands still shake. I press them flat against my knees, trying to hold the tremor in. My fingers look foreign—clean, unbroken, stripped of the blood and cuts that marked them during the trial. The Mother Shard is efficient in her repairs.

My body is whole. The rest of me isn’t.

I glance at the door again.

Pathetic.

Before now, Kael always came to me. He would knock, then enter without waiting. He would look at me with those dark eyes, and I’d be lost in him. I want that comfort now.

I despise myself for it.

I’m embarrassed by how quickly my pain turns to longing.

“We barely know each other,” I whisper, like that should be enough to fix it.