Page 121 of The Blood Rites

Sera Vayne claps her hands slowly in silent applause.

The false Kael pushes harder, teeth at my shoulder, and my skin splits as he bites down. The blood runs down my chest, and the black dust eats it hungrily.

A crack appears in the mirror, right in the centre of my forehead. It grows, crawling down the face of the mirror, splitting my reflection in half. The chamber shakes, and the dust rises, choking out the sliver of light.

The last thing I see before the mirror explodes in a shower of blood and glass is High Blessed Sera Vayne’s smile, impossibly wide, reflected over and over as the world tears itself to pieces.

I wake, gasping, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, fists clenched so hard my knuckles ache. The room is still, the golden cracks on the ceiling pulsing faintly. My body is whole. My body is my own. There is no dust. No mirrors. But my throat burns, and the taste of rot lingers under my tongue.

For a long moment I cannot move.

I curl into myself, smaller than I’ve ever felt, and wait for the world to feel real again. It never quite does.

I know then that nothing is healed. Nothing is forgotten.

I wonder, not for the first time, if I am already dead. If this is all I am now—what’s left after everything else is taken?

I am pulled from sleep, and this time, it is not gentle.

My eyes snap open to rain battering the glowing blue dome around me. Hexagonal prisms shimmer in the light, the same as in the second trial. The Mother Shard’s magic.

I’m not ready. My bones hurt, and my eyes sting from crying myself to sleep a second time.

When the dome fizzles away, I am instantly soaked. Rain hammers against every surface, slicing the air into ribbons. The ground beneath me hurts to look at; it is mirrored like my dream, the reflection lagging half a breath behind in some cruel game of the Mother Shard’s.

The rain is cold and relentless, running down my spine with a cruel tenderness. Every breath mists, ozone sharp beneath the downpour.

I scramble upright, my boots skidding on the slick glass. The Heartlands are now a series of three concentric mirrored rings, at least fifty paces across, each one raised above the last like giant steps leading to a central dais.

Morwen is visible to my right, a pale shape through the rain. Marissa and Callen are closer, both looking around, just as wet and confused as I am. The Heartlands are smaller now. Shrunk by the Mother Shard for this trial. And I know, with absolute certainty, that Kael is directly opposite on the other side of the arena. I need to go to him. Whatever happened between us last night, his side is where I want to be.

Above it all floats a crown of pink crystal, banded with purple, pulsing with sickly light. It hovers where the Mother Shard should be, the death counter upon it—a fat, vulgar, golden seven, daring us to try and shrink it.

I look to Marissa first. She has moved, crouching behind a mirrored pillar. She is already soaked, hair plastered to her face, arms wrapped tight around her knees. Her eyes find me, huge and shining, and for a moment all I want to do is call out her name. But the roar of rain against glass is so total that sound has no meaning.

Callen has already started in Morwen’s direction. He doesn’t look back. I guess the lines have been drawn.

A figure flashes on the middle ring ahead—a blur of grey and white. Alaris. He glides more than sprints, using the wind to propel himself recklessly along the glass. He moves too fast, a streak of motion, but I see the panic in the hunch of his shoulders.

On the lowest ring, moving like a hound on a scent, Atheron stalks around the perimeter towards us. He is unaffected by the cold, glowing from within. Every droplet that touches him turns to steam, great clouds trailing from him as he moves. He is alone. I scan for Maleiros and Serraith but only see vague shapes through the sheets of rain. Maybe they are fighting. Maybe they are only hiding.

Kael and his Shadowborn appear around the inner edge of the middle ring, coming this way. I stare at him, imagining him looking back at me. Looking for me. Knowing he’s coming steadies me somehow.

I turn my attention back to Marissa. I shuffle towards her, slipping every second step. The mirrored floor is so slick that each step threatens to launch me forward. I force myself forward, refusing to fall, and reach her in a dozen heartbeats.

She pulls me down behind the pillar, hugging me tight.

“Are you okay?” I ask, but the rain muffles it.

She just shakes her head and wipes her eyes with the heels of her hands. I want to carry her worry, but I can barely manage my own. “This place seems small. What do we do?” Her voice frays around the words.

She isn’t wrong. The whole arena is a nightmare of reflected faces. Every horizontal surface is alive with ghosts. The rain makes the mirrors blur, so everywhere I look, I see my terrified reflection staring back at me.

Here and there, Mana Echoes flicker to life—looped images of previous Offerings dying in ways I don’t understand. Above us, a girl crumbles and bleeds over and over atop the pillar we hunker behind. On the middle ring, a red-haired girl slips, smashes her face into the glass below, then does it again and again. Bodies litter the ground, bleeding across the mirror in pools that never seem to end.

Rainwater cascades from the ringed steps like a never-ending waterfall. There is nothing dry here, no grip. It almost feels like another water trial. Except that has already been and gone.

I grab Marissa by the hand and head straight for Kael. Safety in numbers. That’s what I tell myself. Kael promised me two trials ago that he would protect Marissa. I hope that promise still stands.