Page 129 of The Blood Rites

Either way, I’m the one who cuts.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, voice thin but determined.

It feels like a lie.

She lets go and sinks back to the ground. I watch her, memorising the lines of her face, the trembling of her mouth. She is so alive, even now. I want to believe her. I want her safe. Here. Breathing. Untouched.

Another explosion lights the sky above—this one brighter, white and orange, reflecting in the mirrors. I see figures on the dais, wreathed in fire, trailing embers. The Fireborn are holding nothing back.

I get to my feet, the world pitching, but I steady myself. My left arm dangles, useless. With my good hand, I brush the hair from Marissa’s face.

“Don’t die,” she says. Her voice is a command.

“I won’t.”

I leave her there. Every step is a betrayal. I feel each one land. I will count them for the rest of my life.

But if I can find Kael, if I can help him, maybe that life will be long enough to matter.

I fix my gaze on the large step before me, slick and sharp. I start moving.

Each step is worse than the last. My shoulder grinds with every motion, the blood from my wounds leaving a trail behind me. The sun burns directly overhead, a savage eye that turns the mirrored ground into a second sky. There is nowhere to hide.

At the edge of the middle ring, I look back. Marissa watches me, unmoving. Her fate is a tossed coin yet to fall.

I say her name in my mind over and over, until the pain in my chest is louder than the pain in my body.

I keep going.

I will find my light on the way. My Mana. Whatever is left of it.

For him.

Or I will die trying.

The climb onto the middle ring is agony. The only mercy is that the swords embedded in the ring-wall double as footholds. Some are buried hilt-deep in the stone. Others hold by barely an inch. I pull myself up with one hand, the other tucked into my waistband to limit its movement, but even then, pain sparks through my shoulder.

The blood-soaked dressing around my palm leaves a red print on every hilt I touch. The blood mixes with the drying rain, pooling in the etched grooves before dripping onto the ground below. The arena is drinking me dry of whatever life I have left.

I haul myself over the edge. As I do, the sunlight shifts. It is less blinding now, or maybe I am simply getting used to it. It is a familiar ache—the same burn I felt training at the barracks. Sunlight bouncing off white stone walls until everything was on fire, until I could barely see through the sweat. I squint, letting my pupils adjust. My vision sharpens, colours intensifying as rainbow prisms dance at the edges.

With every step, the pain dulls just a fraction. The light does not weaken me. How could it? I was born under light like this. Raised in it. I use that to keep moving.

As I near the edge of the central ring-wall, the dais rises higher into the sky.

This trial is fucking rigged against me.

There is no way up. No swords piercing this ring. No footholds. Nothing.

Of course. The cruelty only reached the outer ring.

Above me on the dais, the shadow dome is still under siege, but the attacks are less frequent. Licks of flame whip over the edge, recoiling from the shadows.

Something falls—no, is thrown—from the dais, tumbling end over end. Against the glare, I cannot see what it is. I jump back, bracing for impact as the shape grows larger. At the last second, I see the grey uniform.

Alaris.

He is going to hit the ground hard enough to break. Without thinking, I throw up my good hand and channel. A curtain of golden light arcs from my palm, catching Alaris mid-fall—slowing him just enough that he lands with a hard thud instead of a fatal crash. He rolls, battered but alive.