Twenty Four
Everyone is gone.
The world feels hollowed out by their absence, just a crystal shell with nothing inside but ghosts and the constant buzz of the Mother Shard’s power behind every wall.
Kael sits at the base of the fountain, legs splayed, back pressed to the marble. He stares out at the empty room as if he’s waiting for someone to come kill us both.
I sit a few metres away, cross-legged. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend I was meditating, but I’m not.
I’m cataloguing every change in his eyes, every twitch of muscle in his forearms, every shallow breath.
The hum of the Embrace is louder than usual—there are no Offerings to compete with the noise, no voices, no movement. Just the endless, heartless thrum.
It goes on for ages. When I finally speak, my voice sounds like someone else’s, cracked and small.
“So, this is it, then,” I say, but I don’t know what I mean, exactly. The Rites are almost done and everything feels like it’s teetering on the edge of something catastrophic.
It’s the end of us—of whatever we are. Things should never have gone this way.
Kael’s eyes flick to mine, and for a second, he looks almost sad, but he schools his features into amusement.
“Don’t start with that,” he says, voice low and hoarse. “Not yet.”
I want to make a joke, to make light of it all. But nothing comes. Instead, I hear myself say, “Did you know you can smell it when your own skin is burning?”
He blinks. “Yes.”
We stare at the floor. The lights in the ceiling throw fractured patterns across the stone. It’s beautiful, really. But I don’t care. I want to say something smart—or meaningful—but the only things in my head are fragments.
“I kept pulling on the chains,” I say, not looking at him. “Even when it hurt. Even when it was obvious it wouldn’t work.”
“Why?” he asks.
I can’t tell what he means by it, so I answer anyway. “Staying still was worse.”
There is a long pause. Kael stretches out his fingers, as if checking they're all still attached.
“We had a dog when I was young,” he says. “My father had his Blessed beat it until it never fought back. It just lay down and let you do whatever. He called that loyalty.”
He glances at me. “You’re not like that,” he says. “You fight back, no matter how much it hurts.”
I want to believe it’s a compliment. I really do.
“I just couldn't stand there and burn, even though my Mana wouldn't come.”
He goes very still.
“I didn't want to feel like nothing—again.”
The words hang. I feel foolish, exposed. I have to keep going. If I stop, I’ll never get it out.
“I never asked for anything,” I whisper. “That’s what they said. They blamed me.”
His jaw clenches, fine muscles twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“I stayed quiet. I did everything right. I promise.”
The last word is so childish it makes me want to vomit.
Kael doesn't laugh. He just slides closer and sets his hand at the back of my neck. The pressure is light, but it pins me to the world.
“Shh,” he says, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “It’s alright.”
His hand is warm and grounding.
“I believe you.”
The words are so simple. But they nearly break me apart anyway. I can’t look at him. If I do, I’ll cry. I want to scream, or disappear. So I change the subject instead.
“I don’t really remember what happened at the end,” I say. “Just the liquid fire. Vaelis’ hands. Then the lights flying away.”
Kael doesn’t move his hand. “Atheron and Serraith flooded the room. They used the lava to drown us. They knew I was going to kill them both.”
Lava. I didn't know what it was.
“Their duty was to protect me,” he says. “And they did.”
“You could have helped them, though,” I say, almost spitting it out. “You chose me over th—”
“And I would do it all over again,” he snaps.
His jaw works, teeth grinding.
“Why?” I say, louder. “Why me? Nyxen was like family. Vaelis—I don’t know, but you were friends. Why not—?”
He’s silent for so long I think he won’t answer. When he does, the words come out ragged and chaotic.
“The thought of losing you felt worse than anything else in that room.”
He looks down, ashamed.
I let out a sharp, broken breath. The hand at my neck stays steady. “It doesn’t make sense,” I say.
“I’m not asking you to feel the same.”
I want to say, I do. Or I might. Or I could, if I wasn't so ruined inside.
Instead, I ask, “What do we do now?”
He doesn't answer right away.
“I’m going to break the Rites.”
“And if that’s not possible?”
“Then I’ll make it possible.”
He turns his head and meets my eyes, the blackness in them packed full of pain.
“I don’t care what it costs,” he says. “I’m going to get you out.”
He says it like the world has no choice.
I look at him for a long time. There are so many things I want to say, but none of them are big enough.
So I just nod. Once.
And for the first time in my life, fear is not the only thing I feel.
The room is dark except for the dull cracks of light worming across the ceiling. Kael’s body is next to mine on the bed, heavy with the kind of exhaustion you only earn by crawling through the abyss and making it out the other side.
I lie on my side, knees to my chest, so acutely aware of him that I can tell when his breathing changes, even in sleep.
He doesn’t make a sound. Not a snore, not a twitch.
Just breath, in and out, slow and deep. I want to listen to it forever, but every time I close my eyes, I see the river of lava, or Nyxen standing with arms wide, ready to be unmade, or Vaelis on his knees, refusing to be anything but loyal until the end.
The quiet is suddenly too much. Not gentle, despite the safety of the room, despite Kael beside me.
It is so big it presses into my head and makes my teeth ache.
The Embrace is alive, pulsing with the heartbeat of the Mother Shard.
It settles under my skin, burrowing beneath my ribcage. I can’t stand it.
I ease myself out of bed, careful not to wake Kael, though I know nothing short of violence would do it.
I rub my wrists instinctively. The skin is healed now, nothing there at all to mark what happened. But the memories are more persistent than the new flesh, and they refuse to go away.
The corridor is freezing on my feet. It’s strangely grounding—it makes the rest of me remember the present, not the past. I walk with my arms wrapped tightly around my torso, as if I’m keeping myself together through pressure alone.
The light in the hall is soft, almost pink, and the walls seem to reflect my shape back at me in a way they haven’t before—distorted and half-translucent.
The boy in the reflections is a ghost, drifting a step behind, never catching up.
I don’t have a plan. I’m just walking.
Halfway down a long hall, Atheron steps out of the shadows, silent and pristine. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to.
He blocks the corridor with the ease of someone who has never once had to hurry.
“Trouble sleeping?” he says, and his voice is velvet. Vibrating at a frequency that could lull or kill.
I stop moving, letting my hands go slack at my sides.
He takes a few steps closer, not predatory, not even really focused. Just moving through the world as if everything in it is for him.
“It’s not uncommon,” he says. “To break, this far in.”
I don’t know what he means.
His eyes roam my body, the way a collector appraises a trophy, not with lust, but with the deep hunger of someone who covets more than he needs.
He sighs. “The Prince is unstable. You know that, yes?”
I don’t reply. If I open my mouth, I’ll say something that will give him a reason to hurt me.
“He’s burned out, and now his bodyguards are dead too.” He leans against the wall, arms crossed. “You’ll be next.”
Still, I say nothing.
Atheron tilts his head, expression almost sad.
“You’ve noticed it, haven’t you? How you’re not the same as you were at the start? He’s making you weak.”
He says it like an old friend, or a teacher who only wants what’s best for you.
“If you have any hope of surviving, you’ll need to end him yourself,” he says. “Spare him the suffering.”
He pushes off the wall and steps closer, so smooth it’s like there was no movement at all. I don’t mean to, but I back up until my shoulder blades meet the wall.
He stops, standing too close. He doesn't touch me right away. Just lets the anticipation do the work instead.
“You’re not a killer,” he says. There is a fondness to his voice. “But you will be. The Mother Shard will see to that. She wants Champions. She makes monsters to see what she can get them to do.”
He raises a hand—slowly, almost caressing the air—and places it on my throat.
Not hard. Just there.
His hand is hot, a faint orange glow at the edges of his fingers. The heat crawls up my jaw and across my cheek. He doesn't squeeze. But I know he wants to.
“She would enjoy watching you kill him, you know.”
A thin flicker of fire slides up from his wrist, licking my chin before vanishing.
I am perfectly, terribly still.
My mind fractures. Old instincts surge—go limp, let it happen, survive by disappearing within yourself.
I almost let go. I almost vanish into that part of me that doesn’t feel pain, the part that would rather be invisible than fight.
But I don’t.
Marissa died in my arms.
Nyxen burned for Kael—for me.
The sound of chains rattles through my brain.
Enough.
Something in me rebels. Not rage. Not even fear. Just pure clarity: I am done letting people decide who I am.
I press my palms flat to his chest and pull on the thread of my Mana.
Unravelling it all.
The light is not careful. It is not a shield. It erupts from my hands in a raw, golden flash, the kind that cares nothing for control. It lifts Atheron and throws him into the opposite wall with a sound like shattering glass.
The floor fractures where the light meets it, golden fissures running the width of the corridor.
Atheron slides to the floor, dazed, his injuries already healing. He sits there for a moment, eyes wide, before he laughs. Not mocking, but real laughter—cruel and delighted.