Page 209 of The Blood Rites

"This is the shape of that choice."

The words cut deeper than any wound from the trials. All of it. The murders. The sacrifices. We were given a choice, and we made it.

That’s the worst part.

I want to weep, but I don’t have the body to do it.

The vision lurches and time snaps back.

I am on the beach, gasping, knees in the sand, hands clutching at the world as though I can piece it back together. Kael is next to me, blood and rain streaking down his face. He is white to the lips, one hand braced in the sand, breath shuddering in his chest.

We made it through. The Blood Rites are over. Kael is alive.

But somewhere beyond the sea, entire Dominions are dying for us.

Ruin calls it a cost.

I wonder what the dead would call it.

Rain and blood and salt run into my eyes as I kneel in the sand. I don’t care who sees me like this. Kael is at my side, one hand on my shoulder. His touch is grounding, but I’m not sure if he means to hold me together or if he’s trying to keep me from flying apart.

Ruin stands a few paces away, the lines of their form no longer shifting as fast. They have settled into something almost human, tall and lean, but with a face that rearranges every time I blink. The eyes never match, and the mouth is a collection of different smiles, stitched together from strangers I’ve never met.

They pace the shore, bare feet making no mark on the wet sand. The rain flows sideways around their body, parting like a river around a stone.

Kael’s grip on my shoulder tightens, his breath sharp, audible over the hiss of the storm.

Ruin stops pacing and turns to us, hands behind their back. “Your prize,” they say, the words clear and ringing with finality.

They gesture, and above my head the air splits. Two crowns appear, spinning in place. One is white-gold, blinding, woven from light and glass. The other is black as the depths, a living thing of shadow and bone, always moving.

They spiral together, collapsing into two orbs of light and dark before tearing apart. The light drops towards me, strikes my brow, and passes through my skull into my chest.

The feeling is not power, but exposure. Every wall I’ve built, every lie I’ve told myself, it all peels away. The light in me burns so raw and bright that it hurts, fighting me before it settles.

I am a scar with a pulse.

The shadow follows a heartbeat later, sinking into Kael's chest. He gasps, and for the first time since I've known him, he looks surprised.

His eyes are wet, but it’s not rain this time. He’s looking at me like he’s already lost me.

Ruin watches us, and I hate how patient they look.

“Time for you to go home,” they say.

Kael stirs, as if waking from a nightmare. “No,” he says, his hand finding the back of my neck. “We don’t have to—”

But we do.

I stand, swaying. My limbs don’t want to answer me, but the new thing inside me is already hungry. It wants to fight. It wants to become.

I pull away from Kael’s grip. He lets go, but his hand follows, fingers twitching.

I turn on Ruin, all the anger in me boiling to the surface. “You call this a prize?”

Ruin smiles with six mouths at once. “This is more than you ever wanted.”

I bare my teeth and reach for the light. Not the safe, careful kind, but the uninhibited one that killed the Overseers. I let it run up my arms, burning away the rain, the pain, the fear.