Page 69 of The Blood Rites

Marissa looks to me, her eyes filling with tears.

“Please don’t fight,” she pleads. “We have to stick together.”

I nod, but my chest constricts and I can barely breathe. I taste blood in the back of my throat from biting my gums.

We walk in silence, following Callen’s trail through the dark grey maze of rocks. Part of me thinks we should hide until the strongest Offerings slaughter each other. But even thinking it makes me feel sick.

I wonder where Kael is right now. Whether he is dying in the sun somewhere, unable to take another step.

Somehow, I doubt that.

Marissa stumbles, but this time I catch her. We sink to the ground together, and I gather her into my arms. She shakes with every breath, her skin hot and cold all at once. I rock her, whispering softly into her hair.

In the distance, the golden oval on the Mother Shard shifts, aligning itself with us, fixed squarely on our position.

I look at it, and for a moment, I think I see an eye—ancient and powerful.

The enormous crashing noise comes again, this time much closer.

The world lurches beneath us.

Callen stumbles and catches himself against the rocks, hissing as a sharp edge slices open his palm.

Water cascades from the high rocks to our left, drenching us in cold spray as it meets the ground.

Above us, stark against the bright blue sky, a spiralling flow of incandescent golden-red light careens through the air towards the Mother Shard. When it collides with the shimmering golden oval, that ancient eye seems to blink, but sideways, like a book closing. Yet it doesn’t reopen.

What I thought was the eye of the Mother Shard is, in fact, a zero.

And now it is the number one.

I huddle with Marissa on the rocks, my gaze fixed on the distant one carved into the Mother Shard.

One of us is already dead.

Sixteen to go.

We decide to walk in the opposite direction of the noise. Callen strides a few feet ahead; his eyes fixed on the horizon, jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth.

The sun hangs at its peak, and the air feels thick with the stench of salt and sweat. The blazing, golden number one lingers to our left, a reminder of a wound—a scar defiling the beauty of the Mother Shard.

I gently tap Marissa on the shoulder, but she jumps and swings an arm out, catching me on the chin.

I cough, taken aback. Her eyes widen, and her hands fly to cover her mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” she exclaims. “I didn’t mean to. My mind was elsewhere.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “No harm done.”

Callen doesn’t even look over.

“We need to keep moving,” he says, but his voice is hoarse.

Marissa blinks, reorienting herself. “For how long?”

He shrugs, his shoulders tense. “Does it even matter? As long as it’s away from whatever just killed one of us.”

His eyes flick towards the Mother Shard, before he quickly looks away again.