Page 97 of The Blood Rites

Marissa’s face pales, and she takes a few steps back. “I hate heights,” she grumbles.

“Everything will be fine,” I say.

“You said that last time too,” she mumbles.

The wind howls, and the ground shifts beneath us, as if jostled by an unseen hand. I can’t see any Overseers. No Mana Echoes either.

It’s unnerving. We are alone in the sky.

The gaps between the islands are dizzying—impassable chasms filled with floating chunks of rock, flat slates of stone and loose detritus. All of it spins in the shrieking wind.

“What are we meant to do?” Marissa says. She hugs her elbows, shivering against the cold. “We can’t even reach the other Offerings.”

Callen’s face hardens. “Maybe we’re meant to kill our own this time. Maybe the Mother Shard is trying to force our hand.”

“I don’t believe that,” I say, though I’m not sure I believe myself. “She calls us Champions. She spoke of power and glory in the Embrace. Survival. Not slaughtering the people we came in with.”

“What would you know about what the Mother Shard wants?” Callen snaps, kicking a loose rock towards the edge. “You’re the reason we’re in this mess,” he mutters, low enough that I’m not meant to hear.

I pretend not to hear him and look around for clues instead.

The two figures on the island to the left have made their way to the edge of their floating prison. The wind tears the mist thin enough to reveal flashes of dark green uniform. The Earthborn. Rask and Orla.

Do they intend to attack us every single trial? I’m sick of them already.

Panic prickles through me at the thought of what Orla might be able to do with all this loose rock, but they only stand there, gesturing sharply in the distance.

“We should stay put for now,” I say. “Maybe the trial will force someone else to move first.”

Callen spits over the edge. “I don’t want to stay with you,” he says, and something in my chest tightens before I can stop it. “I think the Mother Shard is angry, and you’re one of the reasons why.”

I stare at him, too stunned to speak.

Marissa looks at him with pleading eyes. “Please don’t do this, Callen. Please stop.”

“Why me?” I ask, because apparently I need to hear him say it plainly.

“You know why!” Callen sneers. “You—You’re not like us.”

It hurts more than if he’d called me a monster.

Marissa bristles. “He saved my life in the last trial. I’d be dead if not for—”

“Maybe you should be,” Callen interrupts. He stares at Marissa, voice low. “Don’t you see? There’s no mercy here. There’s just killing and waiting to be killed. The sooner we stop pretending otherwise, the better.”

Marissa flinches as if he has struck her, and something hot moves through my chest.

“What are you going to do?” I ask, trying to keep my voice soft.

“I’m going to find Morwen," he says.

The island to our right. Water, if the Mother Shard has arranged us like the Dominions.

“She’s—the Waterborn understand what matters.”

“And how are you going to get there?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Have you learned to fly?”

“I’ll work something out,” he bites back. “Better than waiting here with you. I’d rather be with people who actually believe in something.”