Page 85 of The Blood Rites

I can’t even form the words.

Instead, I collapse sideways into his arms.

He doesn’t speak again, but his hand settles against the back of my head.

The room is silent except for our breathing.

Theon is dead.

The number burns behind my eyes.

Three.

Part Two

Twelve

Kael waits in the corridor just outside my room while I change shirts. His arms are folded, his body still but vibrating with impatience. I want to thank him for being there, for allowing me to break. But the words never come.

The Mother Shard’s magic permeates the air, crawling under my skin like it always does. I barely notice it anymore.

“You’re really something, you know,” Kael says after a long silence. His eyes stay fixed on the far end of the hall.

I laugh without humour, a rough bark that catches in my throat. “I don’t think Theon would agree.”

He tuts loudly, his disapproval plain. “You cannot save everyone. In fact, you should be doing quite the opposite.”

I shake my head. I want to ask him if he truly believes I’m capable of such a thing, but I don’t know that I wish to hear the answer. In any case, I already know that I am. Accident or otherwise. That killing power still lives within me, although I intend to keep it buried. Forever, if I have any say in it.

I watch the way his jaw tightens when I don’t respond, how the darkness just behind his eyes seems to writhe and shift even when he is at rest. Something in him feels contained rather than calm, even now, and I realise with some certainty that I am not afraid of it. Maybe I should be. Instead, it almost excites me.

The silence stretches again as I close the door behind me and join Kael in the corridor. I’m about to say something—anything, just to fill the space—when Lyssandra comes around the corner.

She moves towards me like a hunter closing in for the kill. Her hair is unbound, rippling down her back and catching the light. She looks beautiful, despite the fury in her eyes.

She stops just shy of us, and for the briefest moment, I think she is going to combust from the force of her own restraint.

She doesn’t speak at first. She just continues to stare, breathing hard through her nose. When the words come, they’re aimed solely at me—sharp, decisive, and poised to wound.

“You have taken from me,” she says.

It takes me a couple of seconds to consider what she might mean. “I’m sorry?”

“You have taken from me,” she repeats. “You and your stubbornness. You robbed me of my choice, my autonomy.”

I flinch as if struck. I want to defend myself; I almost tell her I did it for her, but the words taste like self-righteousness before they can even leave my mouth.

“How can you expect me to stand back and watch you all die?”

Lyssandra’s whole body recoils. Her eyes glaze over with rage, but her voice, when she speaks again, is steady and precise.

“We do not fear death,” she says. “We wait our whole lives for the chance to face it. You may think you know better, but you have no idea what it means to raise yourself for sacrifice. You think martyrdom is some sort of currency you can trade in to save us all, but you’re only making the debt larger.”

Kael straightens, shifting just enough to make his presence feel like a threat.

Lyssandra looks him up and down, her contempt plain. Her attention swings back to me as she raises her palm, slow and deliberate, before smacking it across my face.

I don't raise a hand to stop her. Maybe I deserve it.