Page 12 of The Blood Rites

Bells begin to toll across the upper ring. One after another, until the whole Dominion seems to vibrate with them.

People spill from doorways as we pass. Some bow their heads. Some whisper prayers. Some stare with wet eyes, as if our sacrifice has already made them better people.

I don’t look at them.

Mist gathers in the street.

At first, I think it’s heat rising from the stones, but the air cools too quickly as breath fogs in front of my mouth. The sun remains overhead, bright and merciless, but the light no longer feels warm.

The sound of humming begins. Three notes, rising and falling. It isn’t music, or the wind. But something older than both.

The crowd recoils as the Overseers arrive.

They drift through the parted street without touching the ground, robed shapes of dark fabric and fractured light, their forms shifting at the edges as if the world cannot decide how to hold them. Children hide behind skirts. Men lower their eyes. Women press hands to hearts.

One Overseer glides towards me. Tall and faceless until it comes close.

I bow before I know I’m doing it.

Its head tilts, and the surface of its face breaks into shifting glass.

I see myself in fractured pieces: one eye, half a mouth, the red X across my skin.

A faint light glows beneath it, but it’s gone before I can be sure.

The Overseer hums, and the sound moves through my bones.

My Mana stirs again, but not like before. Deeper. Familiar in a way that makes no sense.

The Overseer extends a hand. Its fingers are pale and almost translucent, more like marble than flesh. When they graze my wrist, its face ripples.

The glass shifts and distorts, and for one breath, I think it knows.

I feel as if everything in me is about to split open under that sound. But the Overseer only tilts its head, confused—angry, maybe. Or perhaps I’m imagining things that aren’t there. I hold still, heart racing, until it moves on to examine Marissa, then Callen. The crowd exhales, but I don’t. I can’t.

The Overseer glides back to the front of the circular formation, its presence unsettling. It begins to speak.

“You three. Very well.”

The voice is wrong. It comes from the Overseer and from everywhere else at once, crackling in the air and inside my skull.

“Come to me. Cross the divide. Meet with me.”

My stomach flips.

“The Rites await my Champions.”

The Overseer shudders. Its head jerks sharply to one side.

Another voice slips through and it utters a single word: “Come.”

The Overseer turns, retreating down the path. The circle breaks just enough for us to follow.

The Guardians step back and that frightens me more than anything. They’re afraid of these things.

Callen moves first. One step. Then another.

Marissa follows because there is nowhere else to go.