Page 67 of The Blood Rites

Her fate is just one of many available to me.

As the realisation settles over me, cold and undeniable, my stomach twists.

We’ve been unceremoniously dumped in the Heartlands.

The Blood Rites have begun.

And I am not ready.

The Heartlands look nothing like they did when we passed through them three nights ago, and if the Overseers are to be believed, no time has passed at all.

But the sun is shining now. So something has changed.

The sun beats down on me; its heat is suffocating, like summer in the Light Dominion. I can only imagine how the other Offerings are coping with the warmth, especially the Shadowborn.

I should not be thinking of him at all.

I need to focus.

The shore is a graveyard of dark stone and jagged rock teeth. Farther inland, enormous slabs of obsidian rise over one another in broken terraces that swallow the horizon whole. The only colour comes from the sky, a mottled blue that makes the slippery terrain shine. Scattered plants stick out of the cracks, stubborn flecks of green interrupting the grey.

Nothing here looks soft. Waves heave against the shore, spraying me with water that tastes of salt and something I am unfamiliar with. All around, steaming pillars of water burst from the ground in random spots, hissing and spitting.

I scan the horizon for friend and foe alike, but there is no one around, and the terrain is making it difficult to see. It’s just the three of us here, and neither Callen nor Marissa has stirred.

The emptiness of the shoreline leaves me untethered. The Overseer’s song continues to reverberate around us, but I cannot see its maker.

The Mother Shard is the only constant. She looms at the centre of the horizon, far in the distance in the middle of the island, a mass of crystal that seems to both eclipse everything and yet still anchor me. But even she looks different. Near the top of her towering form is a perfect golden oval, like the iris of some sort of divine eye, and every time I look at it, it seems to move.

I kneel beside Marissa and rouse her from her sleep. She wakes in a panic, her breathing ragged, her skin scratched from the rough ground. The marks don’t vanish though. Nothing heals here.

I wake Callen as well, only to be met with a resigned grunt. He shakes my hand from his shoulder and drags himself to his feet.

“We need to find cover,” I say as a gust of salty wind slams into us. “It’s too exposed here; I think we need to head inland.”

Callen grunts again. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything but mountains of rocks.”

Marissa lets out a small sob. “I think Luceris is right; we have to move.”

Callen shrugs, letting out a dejected sigh as he starts walking.

We follow behind, picking our way through the rough terrain. I don’t know where we’re going, only that standing still feels worse.

We need cover from the sun.

And from everyone else.

As we push inland, the rocks become more slippery and treacherous than I expected. It's like walking on wet glass, with jagged rock faces threatening to slice open our fingers.

Callen walks ahead in silence, glancing back every few steps.

My fingers are split and bleeding from the jagged rocks, but I do my best to ignore the pain. It’s strange to have wounds after days of miraculous healing.

An enormous crash echoes in the distance. The ground beneath us shudders with the force of whatever caused it.

Marissa slips. She hits the ground hard, catching her arm on the sharp edge of an outcropping.

She squeals and clamps a hand over the wound, but blood is already leaking between her fingers.