Page 66 of The Blood Rites

The mouth continues to move, but the sound is suddenly everywhere.

“You are not mine.” The Mother Shard screams. “You are fire in the sea, but the fire does not die. Wrong. All wrong.”

I want to run, but my body is staked to the void with shards of glass. Every time I shift, they tunnel deeper, anchoring me.

“I am starving. Hungry. You offer me nothing. Empty shell. Pointless flame.”

The glass dissolves, releasing me as it forms into a circular mirror. The fragments rearrange. I can see the faces of Offerings from the past. I see them burn and freeze and drown and scream. They rise from the ground, broken, their Mana drawn from them like unspooling threads, swallowed by a great crystal mouth. I see the Mother Shard, not as a goddess but as a cleaving wound, pulling on the strings of the world.

“You burn bright. Not food. Not food. Why do you torment me?”

I scream, but the sound never leaves me.

Without warning, the world flips and I am standing on a mirrored plain. In every direction I see jagged shards of white crystal. On the horizon looms a single obsidian tower, impossibly tall, stripping the light from the darkening sky.

I walk towards it.

Crystal shards impale my feet with every step, leaving a trail of blood in my wake, but it glows golden instead of red.

I cannot stop myself from moving.

At the foot of the tower, the crystal shards soften. They pulse in time with my heartbeat. It races faster and as it does, I am lifted, then slammed into the ground. Repeatedly.

“You are blinding. Mistake.” The voice is a roar of women and children and howling beasts. “Why have you come? Why do you forsake me?”

“I don’t know what you want from me.” I profess, but each word is a spray of dark blood from my mouth.

“Liar. Your blood lies.” The voice is pure and calm now. “They want you. You will burn.”

The mass of the tower becomes a soft membrane, pulling me in, devouring me. It squeezes me, wrapping me in layers of cold crystal until I feel my bones begin to splinter.

Golden light leaks from my skin, warm, and then hot. Hot enough to turn the crystal layers to steam. The tower shakes and I see cracks everywhere, rising up its length. The sky peels open like the lid of an eye, and I see light once again.

“It is not enough,” she says. “My Veins bleed out. My bridges fall. My world suffocates.”

The voice skips and stutters.

“Veins. Broken. Fall. Bleed. Not enough.”

My chest is so tight I cannot breathe. The golden light continues to pour from my skin, blinding and uncontainable. The tower shreds apart, fragments spiralling into the sky. A shadow emerges from the light—something ancient and black—its edges burn with dark purple flames.

“Who are you? You do not belong here,” shrieks the Mother Shard, her voice scraped raw with panic.

I try to shrink, to make myself disappear, but the light and the shadow will not let me. It sees me.

Then the world explodes.

I snap upright, lungs seizing, chest on fire. It is daylight—real daylight, familiar and merciless.

My hands are locked into primitive claws, digging into the hard rock beneath me. Sweat slicks my skin. It takes me a full minute to convince myself I’m awake, that I am really outside.

I am wearing the white uniform provided to me in the Embrace. My heart will not slow, and when I wipe my palms on my thighs, they still come away wet.

To my left, I see Marissa and Callen, strewn across the floor like scattered straw. I force myself to stand, but my legs are trembling and my head throbs with every step.

Somewhere in the distance, an Overseer is singing; its haunting wail reverberates through the air.

Just beyond, I catch sight of a Mana Echo—a girl engulfed in flames, her silent scream repeating endlessly as the fire consumes her. I have to look away.