Page 103 of The Blood Rites

Alaris shudders. “I can’t—”

Marissa’s body spasms, her eyes rolling back, and something breaks in me: a wild, thoughtless rage. Every breath feels like knives in my lungs—except one. A single breath comes clean and deep, like the eye of a storm, before the pressure crushes back in. I use it.

“He’s already gone,” I shout. “Please—”

He stares at me, and whatever is left of him crumples. He is not a killer. Just a friend with no other mercy left to give.

He steps forward.

“Fen,” he says, voice broken. “I’m sorry, brother.”

He lifts two fingers, and a concentrated blast of air punches straight through Fen’s heart.

The body staggers back, black goo leaking from the wound. It looks at Alaris, head tilted, and for a second, I think the real Fen is still in there. But then it crumbles, skin peeling away in ribbons, bones dissolving to dust. Black mist flakes off him and evaporates. Then the golden-red light of Fen’s life force pulls free and rises into the sky.

For a heartbeat, Fen’s essence trembles in the air, caught between two masters.

Then it tears free and flies to the Mother Shard.

The Overseer returns briefly, rising through the ground and bowing to Alaris before floating away.

The Mother Shard’s death counter flickers back to gold, and the number four becomes a five.

Marissa sobs, gasping for breath. I crawl to her, cradling her head in my lap.

“It’s alright,” I say, shushing her as I stroke her hair. “It’s over.”

Alaris falls to his knees, head in his hands, and wails.

No one speaks for a long time.

Lyssandra finally stands and places a hand on Alaris’ back. “He is free now,” she says, and it is both true and meaningless.

She helps Callen sit Morwen upright again, and the Waterborn return to their prayers.

I stare at the sky, the wind calm once again. The truth settles with perfect clarity: there is no escape. Only death. Only the slow, relentless grind towards the end.

The Mother Shard has placed us here, but in the end, it is not she who will kill us.

It is each other.

And next time, it might be me.

Fourteen

I don’t remember closing my eyes, but the world returns in fragments. It can only have been a few minutes. Marissa’s sobs blur with the wind, broken only by Alaris’ angry cries. The mist is thicker now, wetter, sticking my shirt to my skin.

I can’t stop trembling. There is a metallic tang in the air—blood. Mine? I can’t tell, but it sours every breath I take. To my right, Morwen is hunched forward, eyes wide and unfocused. Her lips tremble, her fingertips slick with something that shines black in the half-light of the mist. Blood stains her collar. She tries to press a hand to the wound at the back of her head, but her fingers slip, and she winces—as if surprised to find herself so breakable.

Callen is there in an instant, clumsy with panic. “What happened?” he asks, voice cracking.

He kneels beside Morwen, his hands darkening with her blood as he inspects her wound. She signs something, but I don’t know what it means.

“She hit her head when we were thrown,” Lyssandra says, translating for us.

Morwen tips her head back and tries to smile but only manages a grimace.

Lyssandra looks at the wound. “It’s shallow. It looks worse than it is.”