Page 117 of The Blood Rites

Its stare strips me down to nothing.

It speaks again, but this time the voice is clear. The resonant voice of the Mother Shard, echoing in my chest. “You have no power here. This is my domain. You are my guests. This time—is a gift.”

It floats backwards, vanishing through the wall, and is gone.

There is absolute silence.

Alaris lies there, twitching. His body is already healing itself, the blood flow stopping almost instantly. The brightness in his eyes returns, but he looks at me with a kind of horror I’ve never seen before.

“What the fuck was that?” he whispers.

I have no answer. All I can do is sit there, staring at the place in the wall where the Overseer left. I feel small. Infinitesimal. Irrelevant.

In the end, we’re just ants to the Mother Shard.

Alaris staggers to his feet and wipes his face with a shaking hand. “Remind me never to do that again,” he says, voice ragged.

He leaves the Dome, shuffling like an old man.

I stay behind, surrounded by only my thoughts and the afterglow of too much Mana. I wonder why the Mother Shard bothers with the Blood Rites at all. She could just eviscerate us on arrival.

But she doesn’t.

She watches. She waits. She mourns.

Not because she cares—

But because something in her needs it.

Her sorrow isn’t grief.

It’s hunger.

And we are what feeds it.

I don’t want to see anyone, but the second I close my eyes, Morwen’s words keep surfacing in my mind.

You are already in the current.

She said we were bound. I feel it—pulling me somewhere dangerous, somewhere I shouldn’t want to go, somewhere I don’t think I’ll return from.

I don’t fight it for long. I go looking for Kael.

He’s in his room, but there are muffled voices coming from the other side of the door. I hesitate before knocking. I wish he were alone, but when I push the door open, Nyxen is there, pacing in short, restless lines. The moment he sees me, he stiffens, giving Kael a look that is unreadable. There is no joy in it—just calculation, maybe even disdain.

“Leave us,” Kael says, and Nyxen goes, though not before brushing past me with a warning glare, as if daring me to distract his prince again.

Kael sits on the bed, wearing only a black vest, hunched forward with his hands steepled in front of his face. The swirling tattoos trailing up both his arms look even more severe in the dim light. They seem to writhe over his skin, as though alive. He doesn't look up as I enter.

“You look exhausted,” I say, immediately regretting how stupid it sounds.

He shrugs, letting the silence settle. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough. “I’ve felt much worse.”

I stand there under the weight of everything unsaid. Suddenly, it feels wrong to be here, in his room. What am I even here for? Comfort? Fate? I almost laugh out loud.

I’m aching to fill the silence. But every topic feels too heavy. I say it anyway: “What will happen to you in the light trial?” I ask. “Atheron seems to think you’ll be weakened.”

Kael’s head comes up, eyes dark and hollow. Should I go to him? Place my hands on his cheeks and see if he leans into me? I stop myself.