Page 176 of The Blood Rites

The whites of his eyes are gone, replaced by a bottomless, monstrous black. The shadow inside him erupts—not as the elegant, swirling tendrils I’ve seen before, but as a mass, a living storm with no end and no mercy. The darkness spills up and out, filling the space above and behind him, spreading across the stone and blotting out everything it touches. It’s not beautiful. It’s not even terrifying. It transcends both. I imagine it’s what monsters see when they close their eyes to sleep.

The world seems to strain beneath the effort of holding him in place.

He doesn’t speak. He just steps forward, and his shadow follows. Vaelis tracks him, keeping to his right.

Across the fiery span, the Fireborn are waiting, assessing. Serraith looks almost euphoric, vibrating with anticipation. Atheron is cooler, his smile brittle but dangerous. He’s already alight from head to toe, flames leaping from his body at random, coalescing into long, whipping tongues that snap and retreat.

I try to stand, but my knees are gone. I slide down the wall, watching. Every instinct tells me to get out, to run, to do anything except bear witness. But I can’t look away.

Twenty Three

I cling to the wall and watch the world end in pieces. The heat is thick enough to drown in. Every breath betrays me—skin burnt and blistered, lungs seared raw. The stone beneath my cheek pulses, shuddering in time with the wild river of fire that splits the chamber.

Kael walks like the world owes him a body. The shadow pouring off him is an animal force trying to claw its way through everything it touches. The lines of his form blur at the edges, blackness uncoiling and rushing outward in all directions, eating the light and gouging the heat out of the air.

Across the river, Atheron and Serraith wait. They don’t posture; they don’t bait. They stand together, separated by nothing but a span of open stone and glowing, swollen arteries that trail along the surface.

Serraith’s eyes are wild and bright. He laughs at Kael, at the world, at himself. The sound is high and unhinged, echoing off the walls in strange, stuttering rounds. Have the Rites finally broken him?

Atheron is motionless, arms folded behind his back, watching Kael with unbreakable focus.

Between them and us, the trial seems to be falling apart. The fiery river swells and rises, twisting against gravity and sense. The air above it churns with whirling columns of ash and shreds of vaporised stone. Overhead, the ceiling creaks under the pressure, long fissures spidering down the walls and growing wider with each surge.

Kael steps to the bank. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't look back. I see his mouth move, but he isn’t speaking. He’s tasting the air, searching for weakness, hunting for blood. I want to call his name, beg him to come back, but my tongue is made of ash, and my throat won’t cooperate.

Vaelis is at his side. He’s a wraith compared to Kael—smaller, but somehow more dangerous in his stillness. He crouches low, one hand pressed flat to the stone, the other held up, manipulating tiny slivers of shadow, cutting the currents in the air. Every time Kael’s power surges too far, Vaelis redirects it—breaks its momentum. They move together like it’s choreographed, but it isn’t. Vaelis is holding Kael together. Keeping him from ruining himself, from disintegrating before the fight even starts.

I try to focus, but pain and heat blur everything. Sometimes the edges of things flicker, skipping frames. Sometimes my vision blacks out for entire seconds, only to snap back in a new position, like I’ve lost time.

There is movement beside me, sudden and rough.

A hand, blistered and blood-slick, closes around my forearm and the pain blinds me.

The hand jerks back, and a voice hisses with relief, pain barely leashed beneath it.

“You’re alive.”

Nyxen.

He moves sluggishly, struggling to stay upright, skin etched in burns. His uniform is ragged, half melted, the flesh on his back blistered and cut. I could be looking in a mirror. His hair is singed down to the scalp in places. His shadows cling to him in shreds—half formed and oozing, lacking their usual bite.

He looks at me, then at my wrists. The ruined skin. The blood. The smell.

His face doesn't soften. It darkens. “You escaped the chains?” he says, voice rough.

I nod. It’s all I can do. I want to hug him, to collapse into him, but I am nothing but nerves and fire.

He doesn’t ask anything else. He just pulls me up—too hard, but I let him. I don’t know how he has the strength.

He keeps a hand on my arm, steadying me as I stagger upright, using the wall for support.

Across the river, Serraith is howling. He spins fire in his hands, but it’s not for show. The flames don’t leave his skin—they coil there like they're eating him alive. He bends them to his will, grinning as the fire races up his arms and into the air, where it curls and dives like angry snakes.

Atheron remains still. He regards the carnage with mild interest, gaze flickering only between Kael and me, never settling for long. He isn’t scared. He’s reassessing.

The fiery river pulses, growing thicker, brighter.

Nyxen leans in, close enough that I feel his breath. “Stay behind me. Do you understand?”