Page 196 of The Blood Rites

“Stay with me,” he says, voice quiet now.

I grip his forearm, nails digging into his skin, as I drag myself to my knees.

“I know what I am,” I manage to say, but it comes out as a slur, a question more than an answer. The words feel borrowed from the deep, and I do not know if I believe them.

Kael’s eyes go wide, but before he can reply, fire splits the world in half.

It happens so fast, there is no time to think—a sheet of orange-white heat barrels down the shore, carving the world into shadow and flame. Kael’s grip tightens. He tries to shield me with his own body, but the blast tears him off, hurling him backwards into the waves. I hear him hit the water and vanish.

I am alone.

Atheron stands by a stone pillar, perfectly composed. His right arm is a ruin; the hand gone, wrist burnt to a scarred, angry stump, but he holds it up as if daring me to pity him. Fire crackles along his arm, feeding off the wound, flaring wherever he gestures.

He walks towards me with the leisurely confidence of a man who has already won.

“Pathetic,” he says flatly. “You really have ruined him.”

He crosses the beach in slow, measured steps. I try to crawl backwards, but the sand is soft, sucking at my heels, and my arms won’t cooperate. The world is still spinning, my pulse misfiring in my throat, the afterimages of the blue-white ocean light filling my head.

Atheron closes the distance and plants a foot on my chest, pinning me to the sand. He crouches, his face inches from mine. The heat of his flames is unbearable, every breath drawing fire into my lungs.

He places the burnt stump under my chin like a grotesque knife at my throat. “Did you really think you could win this? That you could matter?”

I can smell my skin burning, but not yet catching fire.

He glances out at the water, where Kael is nowhere to be seen. “I do hope the Prince can swim,” he says, almost fond. “He was always meant to be the last.”

He sounds tired of this whole affair, as if even the violence is boring now. “But you ended up being very interesting.”

His eyes rake over me before settling on my face. “A piece left over from a darker time.”

He hauls me upright with his remaining hand and drags me to the stone pillar. He slams my back into the rock, and the impact knocks the air out of me. He pins me there, the stump against my throat, the other hand pressing into my sternum, holding me in place.

He begins to talk, his cadence slow, like a sermon.

“You don’t understand any of this, do you? The Blood Rites, the world, any of it. You believe in goodness, in what’s fair and just. You are a child.”

He waits, as if expecting me to argue, but I only stare back, the taste of the ocean still in my mouth. He shakes his head.

“I have watched centuries drown in blood and fire, Luceris. I have seen children like you die for nothing. The Veins must be fed.”

He leans in, his mouth close enough that I can taste cinders on his breath. “The alternative is chaos. The Fire Dominion is a barren desert as it is. Nothing will grow there. Without the Rites, the Dominions would collapse.”

He glances at my wrists, at the scars from bands that chafed for too long. “I bet the manacles took you right back,” he says. “Your people fear power so deeply they chain it at birth. Pointless, really.”

He lets out a long sigh. “‘The light only protects.’” His smile twists. “Well... not in every case.”

He lowers the stump but keeps his hand on my sternum. He stares at me, waiting for the fight, but I have nothing left. My limbs are numb and my mind is a haze of visions and voices.

He snarls, real emotion flickering across his face. “Say something!”

I try, but the words catch in my throat. I think of Marissa, of Alaris, of the cruelty this man has wrought here. I think of the Shardfather, chained and forgotten at the bottom of the world.

Atheron raises the stump, the flesh cracking, white-hot embers floating from the wound. “If you won’t fight for the Crown,” he says, “you can at least add to the count.”

He draws back, ready to strike.

But something in me snaps.