The Blood Rites (Blood Rites #1)

One

The metal bands chafe my skin raw.

Both of them.

It never lasts long enough.

They told me it would stop hurting once I got used to it. That the body adjusts.

Mine never did.

I tug my sleeves down over the cuffs and lean forward on the bench outside the barracks, elbows braced against my knees.

Heat presses down from above, baking the yard into a haze of dust and motion—steel flashing, bodies moving, voices breaking against the stone.

Beyond the walls, the Light Dominion sky burns gold, relentless and unchanging, the thin clouds breaking apart before they can dull it.

Everything aches. My arms from the drills, my legs from the circuit, the slow burn in my shoulders that never quite fades anymore.

I roll my wrist and immediately regret it. The skin beneath the band is hot, swollen, and pulled tight. I shouldn’t touch it, but I do anyway.

Pain shoots up my arm, sharp enough to steal the breath from my lungs—and something in my chest shifts with it, something I’ve been keeping down all day.

The bridge. The rain.

Him.

My stomach turns, and my fingers tighten instinctively around the band.

Don’t think about it.

The yard blurs at the edges. The clash of practice swords dulls, stretching until it isn’t steel anymore but something heavier, louder—

And I’m there again.

The rain came down hard enough to drown the city. It blurred the lamps into smears of gold and turned the bridge slick beneath my boots. The sun never stays gone for long—only when the sky finally breaks and reminds you what it can do.

Water ran down the back of my neck, soaking through my cloak, clinging cold against my skin. I kept my head down and walked faster, trying to reach the dorms. I didn’t see the Guardian until he stepped out from under the central arch and blocked the way.

“Luceris.” His voice was thick with drink. “You’re out late.”

My shoulders tightened. “Drills ran long,” I said. “I’m heading back.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’re always heading back. Never anywhere else.” His gaze dragged over me. “Don’t you have any friends?”

I kept my eyes on the boards between us. Safer that way. Don’t give him anything to look at.

“I need to get past,” I said.

I tried to step around him, but his hand shot out and closed around my right wrist. Pain flared where the band pressed into bone. Cold followed it, sharp and immediate.

“Inhibitium still sealed,” he murmured, thumb dragging slowly along the metal. “Good.”

The word sounded wrong in his mouth. I tried to pull away, but his fingers dug deeper, and my face betrayed me with a flicker of pain.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

His other hand slid up my arm, over damp fabric, following the line of my shoulder. I flinched before I could stop it. I always do.

They notice that.

“So jumpy,” he whispers, but the edge of it is sharp. “You’re always like this.”

My pulse thudded in my ears and the rain swallowed everything else—the city, the river, the world beyond the bridge.

Just him. Just his breath, hot and sour with ale, brushing my cheek.

“I need to go,” I said.

He shoved me back against the railing. Wet wood slammed into my spine, knocking the breath from my lungs.

“You’ll stay where you are,” he said, tongue darting out to lick his lips. “You know how this works.”

I did.

Don’t fight. Don’t make it worse.

“Please,” I said.

The word tasted like rust.

“Be quiet.” His grip shifted, rough and certain. “No one’s listening.”

His words made something sour coil in my chest. Not because they were wrong, but because they weren’t.

I went still.

Small. Stay small.

His hand moved lower. The bands hummed against my pulse and my skin felt too tight, like it didn't quite fit anymore.

Light protects. That’s what they teach us. Shields and barriers.

Not this. Never this.

The Guardian’s hand tightened as the river roared below us, swelling with the rain. His body pressed me harder into the rail and a broken sound slipped out of me. I could feel the weight of him through his breeches. He slowly ground himself against me and a pit formed in my stomach.

His breath was hot against my ear. “Shut your mouth,” he muttered, the words slurring together. “I prefer it when you don't make a sound.”

Something inside my chest gave. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a thin, sharp break.

Heat flashed through me—bright, violent, wrong. My skin prickled, every nerve lighting at once. The air shifted, tightening around us. The hair on my arms stood on end, and the band on my wrist began to vibrate.

I stared down as a thin line split the seal.

A crack.

The sound that followed was sickening—like stone tearing itself apart. The Guardian jerked back, eyes wide, staring at my wrist.

“That’s not possible,” he said. “Inhibitium doesn’t—”

The rest dissolved in white as light tore out of me. I didn’t reach for it, didn’t shape it. It ripped free, wild and blinding, like something buried too long finally forcing its way free.

It hit him full in the chest and he screamed.

For a heartbeat I saw him—outlined in pure brilliance, every line of him etched in searing gold.

Then he came apart. Shards of light and flesh scattered across the bridge, over the railing, into the river below.

The smell hit a second later—burnt cloth and something worse underneath.

I stumbled back, gasping, my vision fractured with afterimages.

That wasn’t—

It couldn’t—

Fuck. The edges of the crack glowed faintly, the metal forced open from the inside.

It shouldn’t break. It isn’t supposed to break. If anyone sees—

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The thought cut through the panic. The Blessed. They won’t ask questions; they’ll see this and decide. The Choosing is just around the corner, and I won’t be able to hide.

My breath came too fast, too shallow, as the river roared beneath the bridge, swallowing what was left of him while the rain washed the blood away, as if it had never been there at all.

No one saw. No one heard. I yanked my sleeve down over the crack with shaking fingers.

Hide it.

Hide it.

Don’t think.

Just move.

If I didn’t look back, if I could keep this buried—

I turned and ran.

The mist in the barracks yard swims back into focus. My hands are clenched so tightly my nails have bitten half-moons into my palms. I force my fingers to loosen, slow and careful, making sure the movement doesn’t draw attention.

My sleeves are still pulled low. Good. Keep them there.

Voices drift through the yard—too loud, too careless.

Recruits move in and out of the barracks doors, shoving each other, laughing like nothing has changed.

Like no one is missing. But whispers still crawl through the barracks, slipping between conversations, turning quiet when anyone important passes. A Guardian doesn’t just disappear.

I keep moving when I need to, hands busy, head down. A Senior Warden glances in my direction, and my pulse stutters. When he looks away, I can breathe again.

Soon enough, the Blessed will start calling us in, one by one, looking for witnesses. For now, their attention lies elsewhere because the Choosing bell has begun to toll.

Low and heavy, it rolls across the city, through stone and skin alike, settling deep within my chest. The yard shifts. Not silent—but almost. No one wants to react first. People continue to drift in and out of the barracks, laughing too loudly, pretending they don’t hear it.

I’ve heard that bell my whole life. It still makes my skin crawl, even when it isn’t for me.

Although this time—

It is.

I swallow hard, but my mouth is dry. I’m eighteen on the records—barely turned eighteen—but it doesn’t matter. I’m old enough for the Blood Rites, old enough to be chosen. I will be called for testing, and I have no way to hide.

The bell tolls again, and I force my hands to steady. On paper, I’m nothing; hence, my fear—I’m the perfect candidate. An orphan with no power, no worth—and no one who would argue otherwise. Ideal cannon fodder for the Blood Rites. Except—

My fingers curl slightly against my palms. They don’t know about the crack. They don’t know what lives underneath.

A group of recruits passes too close, and when one of them laughs, sharp and sudden, I flinch.

Keep it together. Act normal. Like always—stay quiet, stay small. Don’t give them anything to look at.

The bell tolls again, and people start to move. Slow at first, then with purpose, drawn towards the sound whether they want to be or not. My heart is beating too fast. Being chosen... at least there’s a chance. Being discovered—

My stomach clenches. No. That won’t end the same way. A Blessed running their hands along my wrist, pausing, feeling it. The thought is enough to make my breath catch, so I don’t let it finish.

I stand from the bench and straighten my jacket, fingers brushing over the cuff without lifting it.

Still covered. Keep it that way.

The bell calls again, closer this time, and I step forward with the others, matching their pace and keeping just enough distance so that no one brushes against me.

No one pays me any attention; they rarely do.

I’ll pretend I’m exactly what they think I am: weak and forgettable.

That’s what they see. That’s what I need them to see.

Cracking the band was never my intention. But I felt it long before then—that hum under my skin, faint and buried. But not gone. Never gone. I’ve just learned not to listen, to keep it quiet, to keep it small, like everything else.

The crowd thickens as we move towards the sound. Voices drop. Shoulders tense, and no one meets anyone else’s eyes.

I keep mine forward.

Don’t think about the bridge. Don’t think about the light. Don’t think about what I did.

Just walk.

Stay small.