Page 203 of The Blood Rites

No.

Because I choose to.

The dome shatters in a hail of light, the pieces dissolving before they hit the ground. A dozen Overseers surge towards us, glass masks gleaming, skeletal hands outstretched.

Kael shoves me back. “Stay behind me.”

I grab his arm and pull him round to face me. “Run,” I say, desperate. “Please, Kael. I can hurt them. I can hold them off. I won’t lose you too.”

He looks past me at the swarm, jaw tightening. For a moment, I think he’s going to refuse.

But he looks back at me, his smile turning small and sad and certain. “I told you, you were dangerous.”

Then he’s gone. Into the shadows. He fades between one heartbeat and the next, vanishing beyond the chaos. The Overseers twist and writhe, searching for him for a few frantic seconds before turning back to me.

I try to ready myself, but there is no way to prepare for the press of their bodies.

They hit me all at once, an avalanche of hands and glass and static. I’m driven to the ground, knees digging into the wet sand, back arching as the weight of them piles on. One grabs my face and I smell the metallic tang of my own blood. Another claws at my ribs, fingers pressing so hard I feel the scrape of bone. A third catches my shoulder and squeezes until the world blurs with pain.

I scream, but the sound is lost in the swarm. Thunder cracks so close it feels like my skull is shattering, but the Overseers are relentless, trying to pull me apart.

I end up flat on my stomach, hands pinned above my head, spindly feet on my spine, crushing me into the sand. My cheek scrapes against grit, blood and rain mixing in the little hollow where my face is pressed. I try to move, to summon any kind of light, but the hum in my head is so loud, so vicious, that I can barely even twitch my arms.

And in that crushing dark, the world opens up.

Time slows to a trickle.

I hear her voice. Not booming. Not divine. Not even loud.

Right next to my ear, a gentle whisper.

“It could have been you, my Light.”

The words are warm, familiar, and for a fleeting moment, I almost give in.

But then I remember Marissa dying in my arms.

I remember Nyxen and Vaelis, and the way they never let go.

I remember Kael, and the last thing I saw of him before he slipped into the shadows: a smile that said goodbye.

And I say, “No.”

The word is tiny. But it’s the only thing I have.

The world reacts, and there is no word for what happens next.

The rain above stops, mid-fall. The hands pinning me freeze in place, then start to dissolve, not into dust or shards, but into nothing. The bodies of the Overseers, so heavy and solid a breath ago, start to lose their outline, splintering at the edges, then evaporating from the world. Erased, mid-scream. The humming that filled my ears goes silent in an instant, all the noise cut off at once, leaving only the sound of the sea and my own breath.

The effect radiates outward.

The blackness of the beach gives way to light as the world turns white-gold from the sand to the horizon. For one surreal moment, the entire world is made of sunlight born from me.

When the effect fades, there is nothing left of the Overseers—not even ash.

The storm resumes, but it’s just a storm now.

I roll onto my side, gasping for air, rain hitting my face in cold sheets. I try to stand, but my legs won’t hold me. I vomit in the sand, retching until my ribs hurt, then I retch some more.