Page 16 of The Blood Rites

Actually moving.

I stop walking for half a second, but no one notices.

The sun lowers gradually towards the horizon, spilling streaks of orange and crimson across the sea below. I stare at it, unable to look away.

In the Light Dominion, the Vein keeps the sky bright at all hours. Endless daylight. Endless gold. I grew up hearing stories about sunsets the same way children hear stories about monsters.

I never realised they were real.

The world darkens slowly around us, the last light clinging stubbornly to the water before finally slipping beneath the horizon.

Night follows behind it.

Not sudden. Not frightening. Just quiet.

Marissa lets out a soft, shaking breath beside me.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispers.

It is.

And somehow, that feels worse than the fear.

The bridge comes to an end without warning.

One moment there is only endless light beneath our feet and the low hum of the Mother Shard vibrating through my bones.

The next, solid ground.

Relief hits me so suddenly my knees almost give out beneath me. The burning sensation that had followed every step across the bridge begins to fade at once, retreating slowly from my legs until only a dull ache remains behind. I hadn’t realised how badly it hurt until it stopped.

The Heartlands stretch endlessly around us.

At first glance, the land looks empty. Flat stone and pale dust spread outwards beneath a colourless sky, broken only by jagged clusters of rock that rise from the ground like exposed bones. There’s no grass. No trees. No sound beyond the distant hum of the Mother Shard.

Nothing lives here.

At the centre of it all, the Mother Shard rises into the sky. Up close, she is almost impossible to look at directly. The crystal surface glows from within, soft pink threaded with veins of purple. The colours shift beneath the surface like something breathing beneath layers of glass. Parts of her are smooth and impossibly clear. Other parts are fractured.

Jagged dark-blue cracks spread across one side of the enormous structure, splintering through the crystal like old wounds.

I stare at them too long. Something about the damage catches beneath my skin.

The Overseers continue forward through the dust without looking back. Their forms flicker strangely against the pale light around us, robes shifting at the edges as though they aren’t entirely solid.

Marissa moves closer beside me.

“I thought it would be…” She trails off quietly.

“Different?” Callen mutters.

She nods once.

I understand what she means. For something at the centre of the world, the Heartlands feel strangely dead. And not in a peaceful way.

As we continue walking, I begin noticing movement at the edges of my vision. At first, I think exhaustion is finally catching up with me, but I see it again: a figure standing motionless beside a cluster of rocks.

I turn sharply, but the figure is already gone.