Page 142 of The Blood Rites

Morwen’s body convulses. Her head jerks back, her jaw locking open in a rigid grimace. The entire hall falls silent. Every Offering stares, the light flickering overhead. For a heartbeat, time seems to stop, then reverse. The room stutters, and the last few seconds replay: Morwen sinking back into her upright position before jerking back again. Kael’s eyes widen—then settle again, and the loop continues.

I glance up. The Overseers are here—three of them, spaced in a triangle before me. But they are wrong, too. Their forms shimmer, the edges broken by rippling light. For the first time, they appear solid. I think I see an eye through the cracked glass of their masks. They, too, are caught in a cycle, shifting back and forth between substance and spirit.

Each time the loop runs, they appear inches closer, converging on us. On me.

The air in my lungs turns to ice as Morwen’s body shudders, then relaxes. The blue returns to her eyes, and she wipes her bloody palm on a cloth napkin as if nothing has happened. The cut is already healed. She blinks at me, confused, as if waking from a dream.

Then, all at once, the Overseers unfreeze.

They glide towards me, and the hall recoils instinctively, backing away, chairs scraping. All except Kael. He rises from his chair, stepping towards me. But the Overseers don’t see him—they only see me.

The closest one stops a foot from my face. Its mask ripples. I see my own face in it—but it’s all wrong. The features are warped, mouth stretched wide, eyes too large. The hum of its presence is a physical pain in my skull, making my teeth ache.

It speaks, but not with its own voice. The sound is the ancient, booming voice of the Mother Shard, inside my head and in my ears, stripped of all kindness: “You are tipping the balance.”

I stare at it, unable to move.

Kael doesn’t move any further. He waits, fury leashed in his eyes, ready to strike at the first sign of movement.

“Play your part, my Champion,” she says, softer. “Nothing more.”

The Overseers withdraw, returning to their wandering. The room relaxes, the Fireborn sinking back into their seats, the Shadowborn and Marissa returning to theirs. Kael comes straight to my side.

I sit there, numb, with no idea what I am or what I’ve done.

I think about Morwen’s blood message: The deep calls. A fracture comes again. Seek truth. Come to the shadow.

I want to ask an Overseer what it means, but they only speak in riddles.

Kael is speaking to me, but the words don’t reach me.

The world won’t settle.

“I have to go,” I say, though it’s aimed at everyone and no one.

Kael shakes his head, his eyes flicking across my face, panic breaking through.

I get up and head for the door without another word.

I leave the hall with Morwen’s words burned into my skull, and the awful sense that something has already claimed me.

I don’t want to go back to my room, but there’s nowhere else to go. The Embrace is a spiral of corridors with only one destination: isolation.

I close the door behind me, careful not to let it click too loudly. Every sound hits too hard—white-hot, splitting behind my eyes. The golden veins on the floor and ceiling seem dulled, as if the Embrace is dimming with me. I collapse onto the bed, not bothering to undress. I press my face to the pillow, trying to suffocate Morwen’s prophecy inside my skull.

I am bone-tired, but my nerves won’t release me. I lie on my back, watching the cracks above, counting the seconds between the dull pulses, willing myself to stop thinking.

When the knock comes, I almost don’t answer.

Kael stands in the doorway, backlit by the harsher corridor light. He hesitates, as if he expects to be turned away. I’m not convinced he would leave, even if I refused him. Am I terrible to think of him like that?

I sit up, pulling my knees to my chest.

He enters, closing the door behind him and latching it.

“You didn’t come,” I say, the accusation leaping from my tongue, sharp and unbidden. “After the trial.”

Kael’s jaw tightens. “I wanted to. Nyxen and Vaelis cornered me. They... think you’re dangerous.”