Eight
I run with only isolation in mind. The world has shrunk to the corridor ahead, stone and silence suffocating me. I expect pursuit—Marissa calling after me, or worse, the sound of Kael’s footsteps stalking after me. But there is only the hum of the Embrace and the sharp echo of my own breathing.
I make it to my room, staggering across the threshold before slamming the door.
It rattles in its frame, and I’m suddenly homesick for a home I don’t have.
Everything here feels wrong. The bed is too tidy, the desk too uniform.
The books line the shelves like perfect soldiers, their empty pages a mockery of their bindings.
All that remains are the golden cracks—scars of my own making that refuse to go away.
I drag a blanket around my shoulders and sag to the floor, knees tucked, my arms locked tightly around them.
My skin is soaked, my hands ice-cold despite the fire beneath my ribs.
Heat floods my cheeks as my heart fights to slow down, and for a moment, I’m convinced it will give out.
How humiliating to die of embarrassment before the Rites even begin.
I don’t remember standing up, but at some point I’m upright again, my head against the cold wall.
Just breathe. In and out.
My stomach knots tighter and there is a knock at the door. A hesitant rap of knuckles, but it may as well have been a thunderclap.
I ignore it.
The knock comes again, this time more insistent. I hear her small, trembling voice. “Luceris?” Marissa calls out, her voice cracking.
She deserves better than this.
“I’m fine,” I call out, but the words come out too loud, the syllables jagged.
“I just need a minute.”
My own voice startles me. Too sharp. Too dismissive. Like a Guardian at the barracks. I hate it.
“Okay,” she responds, but it’s muffled. “Just—don’t let anyone break you, Luceris. Please.”
Her footsteps recede, leaving me.
I bury my face into the wall, covering my ears with my hands to block out all noise.
It’s not the humiliation from the fight. I’m used to getting hurt. I had just hoped to make it through without drawing attention to myself.
If anyone knew that my light could harm—
If I become a target, what then?
Winning this thing sounds too close to murder. Once was enough, and that was an accident. A man turned to ash on the wind. I never want to experience it again.
I want to survive. To protect Marissa. Callen too, if I can. I’ll sacrifice myself if I have to. That seems a noble way to die.
The knot in my stomach refuses to loosen. I keep thinking of Kael’s face, the way he looks at me as though he could peel back all my layers and steal my secrets.
There is another rap at the door.
“I said go away, Marissa,” I snap.
But the next knock is a single hard bang, not a question but an announcement: I am here and you will answer. I want to pretend I’m asleep, or dead—anywhere but here—but I have already spoken out.
The door handle turns regardless.
My head snaps towards the door, eyes landing on the lock. Undone. Redundant. Too late, I remember I never bolted it.
The door opens, and Kael steps in with the slow certainty of someone who already knows he won’t be refused.
He closes the door behind him with unnatural quiet. He stands there, eyes raking over my dishevelled form. Any hint of our fight is already gone. He looks vividly alive, the flecks of dried blood across his shirt only making him look wilder.
Neither of us speaks. I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, but it will not serve as armour for what’s to come.
Kael’s voice is low and strained. Whatever amusement he carried earlier is gone.
“What are you?” he asks, but there is no hint of amusement. It sounds like a demand—a warning.
I shake my head, eyes fixed on the wall. “I told you already. I’m nothing. I can’t do anyt—” My tongue trips, unable to dance around the lie.
“Horseshit,” he snaps. “I felt it. I felt something back there. I can feel it still. You are not powerless, so why are you pretending?”
“I’m not pretending,” I say, but the lie is brittle and he knows it.
The golden cracks seem to glow brighter in the dimness, impossible to ignore.
He steps forward, feet soundless, but I feel every shift of his weight as though his steps are shaking the ground beneath me. “I don’t believe you. Why pretend?”
Because I don’t want any part of this.
Truthfully, I miss the numbness of my lonely routine.
I had a plan. Become a Warden and be free of the bands. Unsuppressed. Invisible.
But I don’t say any of that.
Instead, I turn to face him. I try to glare him into retreat, but I’m struggling to stay upright.
“I don’t owe you anything," I snap, but the anger deserts me halfway through. “Just leave me alone.”
He doesn't move. Instead, he begins to look around the room with a cold, calculating interest. His eyes catch on the golden crack on the ceiling before jumping to the matching one on the floor. He cranes his neck, studying it.
“Everyone needs alliances in here, Luceris.”
An alliance. With him. I don’t think so. I really would be a rabbit in a snare.
“What are these marks?” he asks, his brow furrowing.
I shrug, but the movement is awkward.
He drifts over to the crack and crouches, running a finger along the golden veins. “Did you do this?”
I shake my head too quickly. “It’s just a few cracked stones; this place is old.”
He looks back at me. The arrogance is gone, replaced by something like awe.
“My shadows can’t mark this place,” he says.
Shadows engulf his fist as he strikes the floor hard enough to rattle my teeth. But there is no dent, not even the faintest mark.
He looks at me pointedly. “But somehow, your light has.”
I want to laugh, to make a joke out of it, but fear swallows the attempt. I just stare at the cracked veins of gold, shame curling low in my stomach.
Kael stands up and squares his shoulders, stretching his hands towards the wall. Tendrils of shadow blossom from his fingertips, alive and wriggling. Their deadly thorns lash at the stone, trying to slice and tear. But the shadows dissolve into nothing on impact.
“Nothing,” he says, voice rough with disappointment. “Not even a scratch.” He shakes his head, irritated.
“What were you hoping to achieve?” I ask, unable to resist. “Did you want to ruin this place?”
He looks at me, dark amusement flickering in his eyes. “I wished only to see if I could.”
We stare at each other. The silence between us waits.
Kael drops into the desk chair and stretches out his long legs. He looks like he owns the room already. Planting his feet, he folds his tattooed arms across his chest, signalling he has no intention of leaving.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask, quieter now, as fear reasserts itself.
He seems to consider my question. “I want to know what you are. This was no accident.” His eyes are hungry for answers.
I shake my head. “I told you, they’re just cracks.”
“Do not lie to me!” he snaps, the edges of his irises pulsing with black smoke.
“I don’t know,” I stutter. “I just... it happens when I’m scared or overwhelmed or—” I almost say something I wouldn’t be able to take back, so I swallow it. “I—I can’t control it.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, face suddenly close as the light catches his eyes which have now returned to normal. “More lies,” he says. “That’s not how Mana works. It’s like breathing.”
He tilts his head, taking the measure of me. His hair falls across his forehead.
“You’re hiding something and I intend to find out what it is.”
I gulp, my throat suddenly dry.
I force a laugh, but it cracks. “Maybe where you come from. But it’s not the same for us.
We are suppressed with Inhibitium from childhood.
The moment our wrists can take a band, we are shackled and bound.
”“Do not proceed to tell me of suppression, Luceris. I am a Prince; I have shackles of my own.”
I blanch. I didn't mean to offend.
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, my heart rate spiking.
“Always so polite,” he says, a hint of that wicked smile pricking at the corners of his mouth. “You need to find a way to control your power Luceris—this one you claim you do not have. This is not a game. When the trials begin, so will the killing and there will be no mercy.”
“I know that,” I say, bitterness on my tongue. “I’m not naive. I know what this place is.”
I huff a sigh, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands. “I’m not pretending this isn’t a graveyard. But I intend to protect Marissa and Callen as best as I can.”
“And will you use your power then? Will you kill for them?” he asks. “I don’t intend to die here either. I have things to—”
He cuts himself off.
“I could be a shield for you in here, Luceris. Or I could be the knife at your throat.”
My hands are shaking, so I clench them tight to my sides, refusing to let him see my fear.
His stare lingers on me, intent and unreadable, and then, in a voice so soft I barely hear it, he says, “You’re trembling.”
I want to tell him to fuck off, but my mouth is too dry to summon it. “Why do you care?”
He doesn’t answer straight away.
Instead, he stands up, closing the distance between us, so close that I can make out flecks of gold in his pupils that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Because you bother me, little rabbit,” he says. “Something about you—” He doesn't finish.
He is so close now that I can smell the iron tang of sweat, the salt of dried blood and something else—something warm and unfamiliar. The combination is strangely disorienting.
“You’re too close,” I warn.
He leans in, not touching but close enough for me to feel the warmth of his breath on my face. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it already.”
I nod, my voice brittle. “I know.”
He moves as if to touch my face, but stops, fingers hovering in the air. “Show me,” he says, his tone almost begging.
“I don’t know how.”
“Another lie.” He smiles, but it is a jagged thing. “Fine. Then I’ll have to see it for myself.”