Page 164 of The Blood Rites

Kael looks like he might break apart. He balls his hands into fists, the veins on his forearms bulging like blue streaks of lightning. “No,” he gets out, voice rough. “There has to be another way.”

“There’s not,” I say.

“I don’t believe that,” he snaps.

Vaelis cuts in again, his tone calculated and indifferent. “This is senseless. The rules of the Blood Rites cannot be circumvented. Seventeen deaths. That is the only way to end it.”

I don’t care about any of this. Not really. I just want to hurt Atheron. To see his smile stripped away. To see him bleed.

Kael slams his fist on the table. “No!”

Vaelis looks at him, genuinely confused. “You are the Shadow Prince. You must win.”

Kael lets out a breath that isn’t quite human. “At what cost?”

The room goes silent.

“At any cost,” Nyxen says.

I look at Kael, but he’s struggling to meet my gaze. “I am no one, Kael. No one at all.”

His eyes meet mine, tears gathering before he blinks them back. “That is not true.”

“I have nothing more to say,” Vaelis says, standing and heading for the door.

Nyxen follows, but not before glancing at me. There is something in his gaze. Pity, maybe. Or relief.

The room feels suddenly airless. Kael sits there, head in hands.

I don’t go to him. Going to him now will only make the end cleave deeper. Instead, I let the silence hang.

“I won’t allow it,” he says, after a while.

I shake my head. “You don’t have a choice.”

He looks at me, broken. “There’s always a choice,” he says. “Even here.”

For a breath, I genuinely believe he means to challenge a god.

The hum climbs and a pressure blooms behind my eyes. She doesn’t like that.

He stands, taking a step towards me. For a moment, it looks like he might kiss me. But he doesn’t. He just leaves, the door shutting softly behind him.

I sit there on his bed, staring at the wall, wondering what it would feel like to win.

That was never meant for me.

The alcove where Marissa used to hide is smaller than I remember. Or maybe everything else has just grown too big around it.

There’s nowhere to stand without remembering her.

Kael has followed me here, shoulders hunched, tension making his muscles bunch. He slides down the far wall, planting himself on the floor, knees apart, his arms draped over them.

I stand in the centre, circling, desperate to find some sort of remnant of her presence, but the only person who has marked these walls is me. Kael proved that before the first trial. How long ago that seems. Mere days in reality.

I trace my fingers over the walls, remembering when she cried in here, and how small everything before this seems now that she’s gone. Forever.

Part of me thinks she’s going to come around the corner at any moment, but there are so few of us left, the Embrace feels barren.