Page 24 of The Blood Rites

“Yes,” the voice says, though it’s not coming from his mouth. It echoes from everywhere at once.

“Yes. This one.”

The words sound pleased.

His lips move, but the sound doesn't match.

“That light.”

The phrase stretches too long, distorted and crackling.

“Strange.”

The word curdles my stomach, curling tight around my throat. I try to breathe, but the air feels heavy and wrong.

He steps closer. His outline flickers—solid, then not. Almost translucent, threaded with veins of pink and gold that fracture like crystals beneath his skin.

“What are you?”

The question cracks like the splitting of the stone floor.

“What are you?”

Again. Sharper this time.

“I’m nothing,” I say. It’s what I’ve always said.

The boy smiles, but it’s unnatural.

“Nothing,” the voice repeats. Mocking.

The ground beneath us fractures in long lines of light. Through the cracks I see a vast nothingness, before a crystal bursts in to view, split clean in two. One half blazes pink, the other darkest blue. The colours shift. One half now glowing a blinding white, the other hollow and dark.

They strain towards each other but never touch.

The boy lifts his hand, letting it hover above my chest, and the space there glows faintly.

“That light,” the voice whispers.

The words echo now, mimicking the way he had said it before.

The sky begins to hum louder, setting my teeth on edge.

“What are you?” the voice demands, distorting and cracking.

His face flickers.

Marissa. Callen. Myself. The Shadowborn.

Light then shadow.

I reach out without thinking.

The moment my fingers brush the air between us, he recoils.

The white sky fractures entirely, splintering into light and shadow.

A ringing sounds as the world tears itself apart, the voice stretching thin and weak across the breaking space.