Page 178 of The Blood Rites

Above us, the ceiling cracks. The death counter pulses as chunks of rock rain down, some the size of my head. One grazes Nyxen’s shoulder and he doesn't even blink.

Vaelis is on the ground, clutching his burnt arm as Kael and Atheron clash again. This time the noise is so loud it rattles my teeth.

I don’t know how long it lasts. Time stops meaning anything.

Nyxen nudges me, and I realise I’ve lost minutes. Maybe more.

“We have to move,” he says. “The river is unstable.”

I follow, dragging myself along, my arms dead weights.

Kael and Atheron are locked together. The two of them are a knot of fire and shadow, indistinguishable except for the white of Kael’s teeth, bared in fury and agony.

Serraith hounds Vaelis, both of them dodging and diving, exchanging bursts of flame and darkness. Neither can land a finishing blow.

Nyxen pulls me to a patch of higher ground, bracing us both against a spire of jagged rock.

Even as he watches the fight, his hand never leaves my shoulder.

The river is a living thing now—churning, white-hot destruction. The banks start to rupture, melting away. Overhead, the fractures spread, cracks radiating down the walls.

Serraith is laughing as he slashes at Vaelis’ head with jets of white-orange flame. Vaelis, limping now, deflects with scraps of shadow, barely hanging on.

Kael and Atheron collide again, and the force of it sends shockwaves through the space. The air peels away, a vacuum for a fraction of a second, and then it all snaps back with a thunderclap.

Everything shakes.

In the pause, Kael breaks free, hurling Atheron backwards. He stumbles to his feet, blood streaming down his neck and chest, his face half-melted by the heat. He looks at me again, and when our eyes meet, he nods.

Then he does something I have never seen before.

He drops his shadows.

He lets it all go.

It’s like watching a ruptured vein spill darkness into the world. The blackness spreads outwards, a ring expanding faster than thought, flattening everything it touches. The surrounding flames dim, choked out for the smallest moment.

Atheron reels back, shocked. So does Serraith.

Kael drops to his knees.

The Fireborn exchange a look. They know they can’t win this cleanly. So they stop pretending.

Serraith lets out a bark of laughter, and Atheron finally, finally, lets the fire do what it wants to do.

The river surges, tripling in volume before exploding upwards.

A wall of flame beyond comprehension. No longer a river. No longer a trial to contend with.

An execution instead.

The chamber gives way overhead, filling with a rain of debris. Nyxen shoves me down, pins my head to the floor, his own body covering mine. I smell burned hair and skin, and something else—Nyxen’s shadows, crawling into my mouth, my ears, my nose, an all-consuming icy blackness. I don’t know if it will save me, but I welcome the cold all the same.

The last thing I see before my vision is eclipsed is Kael, running toward me through the brimstone.

Reaching for me.

I don’t know if he makes it. I don’t know if any of us do.