Page 86 of The Blood Rites

The sound is a perfect slap, crisp and echoing in the empty corridor.

Kael moves before I even register the pain.

It stings so much that my vision blurs, but I don’t react. I just stand there and take it.

Kael already has one hand clamped around her wrist, the other ready to break something. His voice is low and dangerous. “Touch him again and I will remove that hand from your body, Lyssandra.”

For a second, I think she’s going to spit in his face. Instead, she wrenches her hand free and takes a step back, tucking the loose strands of hair behind her ears.

“He does not require your protection,” she says, her tone now filled with a sadness that catches me off guard. “None of us do. We’re here to die. That’s what our faith demands. Your attempts to delay the inevitable are pointless and painful.”

“Maybe I want to delay it,” I say, my voice shaking but defiant. “Maybe I believe our lives are worth more than this.”

Lyssandra rounds on me.

“You don’t even know what you want, Luceris. You say you don’t want to be the reason for anyone else’s pain. But you can’t have it both ways.”

She lets out a wet laugh, perilously close to tears.

“What happens when someone comes for Marissa or Kael, and your light isn’t enough? Will you kill then? Saving one person only kills someone else, whichever way you spin it.”

“That’s enough,” Kael snaps, his voice on the verge of a roar.

Lyssandra simply tuts and crosses her arms. “Do not deny me my choice again, Luceris. It is not up to you.”

I want to argue. I want to tell her that being raised for sacrifice isn't the same thing as choosing it. But all that comes out is a strangled, “I’m sorry.”

She softens, just a little. “We are here now. We were chosen. We have this opportunity to choose for ourselves,” she says. “The current carries all things eventually. Fighting it only makes the drowning uglier.”

I don’t know how to respond. I can feel Kael’s hand on my shoulder.

Lyssandra watches the contact, her lips curling in the smallest, saddest smile. “The light and the dark,” she says, softer now. “I wonder which will win in the end.”

She turns and walks away, her posture bristling with leftover anger.

Kael lets out a long, shuddering breath. “I liked her better when she was praying.”

I let out a weak laugh. “I don't know what to say.”

He squeezes my shoulder again, just once. “You made a choice you could live with.”

I want to believe him, but I’m not sure what I believe anymore.

I wander the halls of the Embrace alone, searching for Marissa.

I find her before I find the words to comfort her. She’s folded into herself in a shadowed alcove off the main hall, arms hugging her knees, a child hiding in plain sight. I try to approach quietly, but she looks up the moment I cross the threshold.

Her eyes are red and swollen, the skin around them puffy and tender. She blinks at me, exaggeratedly, as though she can’t believe I’m real.

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice brittle and raw. “I just—I need to be alone for a second.”

I don’t believe her, but I don’t say so. I sit down beside her, our shoulders almost touching, and wait for her to start talking.

She doesn’t.

I run my fingers along the gaps in the stone floor. “Do you want to talk about it?” I finally ask, making my voice as gentle as I can.

She shakes her head, then changes her mind, nodding.