Page 208 of The Blood Rites

I am pulled there, not with my body, but with every sense I have ever possessed. The cold is instant, and it’s the only thing that feels real. The ocean goes silent as the water draws back from the shore, revealing the old bones of the world—cliffs and reefs that have never seen daylight in living memory.

Then, from the horizon, the ice comes. It is not gradual. It is not slow. It runs from the edge of the sea to the heart of the Dominion in a single, merciless sweep. The cities vanish beneath frost; the domes and spires of the Waterborn glaze over, coated in white. Every river freezes mid-current as the harbours crack, ships impaled on spikes of frozen spray.

People run, but they are caught. Mothers with children, crews in the rigging, Blessed raising their hands in plea. All of them locked in a moment, preserved in ice.

The screams continue beneath the ice. Muffled. Trapped. Then even those fade.

Frost blooms across every surface until the Water Dominion resembles a jewel trapped beneath glass.

Beautiful. Frozen. Dead.

There is absolute silence as the world stops moving.

Kael’s fingers dig into my palm. I want to tell him I’m here, but I can’t. I try to look away, but the vision pulls me further in.

I see the Air Dominion next.

The floating cities tremble. At first, it seems harmless. A vibration. A shudder running through the enormous rings suspended above the clouds. Then the smallest islands break away. One. Then another. Then more.

Entire districts shear loose and tumble from the sky, towers and homes breaking apart as they fall. I watch them disappear into the clouds below. Seconds later, flashes of impact bloom across the distant ocean.

The larger islands begin to collide, stone screaming against stone as bridges snap and homes collapse. Crowds surge towards nowhere as the Dominion tears itself apart.

Lightning strikes. Not from the sky but from the islands themselves. Blue-white spears erupt from fractured foundations, splitting buildings in half. Every impact leaves crystal fractals crawling across the stone. The air fills with electricity, and people convulse where they stand.

Some burn; some vanish in blinding flashes; some rise, their bodies lifted into the storm as arcs of lightning wrap around their limbs and drag them screaming into the clouds.

The central ring fractures, and for one terrible moment it hangs suspended. Then it falls.

But it does not reach the ocean. Lightning catches it first.

A chain of blue-white current erupts from the broken ring, lashing outward to every remaining island and district. The whole Dominion flashes white, and for one impossible instant, everything is connected—rings, bridges, towers, bodies—held in place by veins of living electricity.

When the light fades, the world is different. The wind no longer obeys. The clouds glow from within. The remaining islands hang in the air, no longer steady, but bobbing slightly, suspended by chains of lightning that crawl between them like living veins.

The survivors rise. Not all of them, but some. Figures wreathed in blue-white lightning climb from the rubble. Electricity crawls beneath their skin. They stand amongst the ruins of their world and look upward, as though listening.

The Air Dominion is gone and something else has taken its place.

Kael’s hand tightens around mine, but neither of us speak because there is nothing to say.

I chose him. One life against the will of a god. And now the world is answering.

I try to scream, but I’m only a ghost.

Ruin’s voice cuts through. “New Crowns will rise.”

Their voice fills the world, louder than the storm, louder than the chaos. “New beginnings require endings. The strong will survive. The powerful will thaw.”

Kael’s hand is all I have. I grip it tight, as though will alone can keep me with him while guilt hollows me out.

We are powerless. We are witnesses.

I try to fight it, to do anything—to twist away, to hide—but it’s futile. Instead, I turn towards Ruin’s presence in the void. I feel its weight, its cruel serenity. “Take me instead,” I say. The words are barely a thought, barely a whisper.

Ruin’s answer comes instantly, no malice or mockery. It is just final. “You already chose,” they say. “The moment you refused the count.”

Something in my gut gives way.