Page 136 of The Blood Rites

If I close my eyes, I can replay every instant of the trial. It felt like days, but it can only have been a few hours. The rain. The blood. Marissa lying on the glass as I left her. The scream as the trial ended.

That’s what gnaws at me now. It was familiar—Marissa, maybe. Or Morwen. The sounds blur together in my mind.

Too much pain. Too many voices.

I have to move.

I push to my feet, steadying myself against the wall before stepping into the corridor.

The Embrace feels haunted—not by ghosts, but by absence. Silence fills the space where people used to be. More than half of us are gone. The only sound—or is it a feeling?—is the faint hum of Mana. It feels like it’s under my skin. In the walls. Everywhere.

I almost turn towards Kael’s door. The urge comes sharp and immediate, but I kill it just as quickly.

Nyxen and Vaelis are stepping out of his room.

Nyxen looks worse than I’ve ever seen him—paler, hollowed, his eyes darker somehow. Vaelis holds himself with careful composure, as if nothing here has touched him.

We stop, a strange set of statues in the corridor.

Nyxen looks at me, then at my trembling hands, then at my face again. “You don’t look well,” he says.

Polite. More so than I expected.

“I’m doing just great, thanks,” I reply. My voice sounds brittle.

Vaelis tilts his head. His eyes are hard to read. They always are. “You should give him some space,” he says.

Kael.

I nod. I want to ask why, but I don’t want to sound desperate, so I let the words die in my throat.

Nyxen studies me, then nods toward Marissa’s door. “Why don’t you check on your friend instead?”

I don’t answer. I don’t need to.

They move past me, but Vaelis stops, just a pace away, and says, “We are grateful to you for ending the trial. You saved us—him.”

The words are flat, the gratitude barely recognisable.

“It was Alaris,” I murmur. “I did nothing.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Nyxen says. “You did something for Kael. We felt it.”

There is a pause.

Vaelis exhales softly. “But.”

I brace myself.

“Whatever this is between you and him—it’s costing him.”

The coldness of it gets under my ribs.

“He doesn’t know how to stop,” Vaelis adds, quieter now.

Nyxen’s voice doesn’t soften. “You don’t understand what he becomes when he breaks... and he will.”

I think I do. I feel it in my bones, and it terrifies me.