Five
Without warning, the Overseers begin to emerge through the walls of the Embrace.
One moment the chamber is still, aside from the soft spill of the fountain. The next, dark shapes drift soundlessly through marble and crystal alike, their forms phasing into existence around the edges of the room.
Conversation dies immediately.
There are more of them this time—at least a dozen. They spread outwards with unsettling precision, forming a loose circle around all eighteen of us. Organised and deliberate, like spokes in a wheel, they herd us.
Nobody needs to be told to move.
The Offerings instinctively fall back towards their own Dominions, forming uneasy little clusters around the chamber. Marissa moves closer to me immediately, and Callen positions himself slightly behind us both without saying a word.
Across the room, the Fireborn remain near the fountain, broad shoulders loose and relaxed as they watch everyone else react.
They look almost entertained. The Shadowborn seem equally unconcerned, standing apart from the others with the same quiet self-possession they carried when they entered the chamber, while the rest of us look frightened enough to make up for it.
Marissa’s fingers brush mine before finally slipping into my hand completely. Her grip trembles despite the effort she’s clearly making to hide it.
I squeeze back automatically. It’s meant to reassure her, though I’m not certain I believe the gesture myself.
Without meaning to, my gaze finds him again.
The Shadowborn boy stands with his arms folded loosely across his chest, his posture relaxed enough to seem careless.
The others keep glancing towards the Overseers.
He watches everyone else instead, not nervously but cautiously, calculating as though he is already trying to decide which of us will survive long enough to become inconvenient.
Maybe he feels me staring, because his head turns slightly, and our eyes meet.
The contact lasts barely a second before I look away, but it still sends something sharp and unpleasant through my chest. Heat crawls beneath my skin, sudden and disorienting.
My heartbeat stutters, and I hate how aware of him I already am.
One of the Overseers glides forward into the centre of the room.
Its fractured face catches the light strangely, reflecting all of us at once in warped, broken pieces. The humming sound beneath its voice rises and falls like it’s trying to imitate speech.
“Champions,” it says.
No one speaks as the Overseer’s voice echoes through the chamber.
“The Rites will soon begin.”
The room stills further; even the Fireborn stop shifting.
“You stand within the Embrace,” the Overseer continues. “Here, life and death are suspended by the will of the Mother Shard. Pain may be suffered. Injury may be endured. But death shall not claim you in this place.”
A ripple of unease passes through the room. I feel it too.
The Overseer’s voice crackles strangely as it speaks, several tones overlapping slightly out of rhythm with one another.
“The Mother Shard restores what is broken. Flesh will mend, bones will repair, and time itself will bend beneath her authority.”
Marissa stiffens beside me. Callen swears quietly under his breath.
I barely hear either of them.
This is real magic. Not the scraps the Blessed play with back home, but something far older and far greater: regeneration, suspended death, the manipulation of time itself. The scale of it leaves me feeling suddenly small.
“Only one of you will survive the Rites,” the Overseer says. “Seventeen will return, in death, to our Great Mother.”
A low sound escapes someone across the room. A choked breath or swallowed sob.
The Overseer continues as though it never happened.
“You will remain within the Embrace for three human days before the first trial begins. During this time, you may prepare yourselves within the Dome. Use this time to train your bodies and strengthen your Mana.”
At the mention of Mana, something beneath my ribs tightens sharply.
“You will be given rest, sustenance and shelter. Our Great Mother provides for all her Champions.”
One of the younger Fireborn lets out a low laugh under his breath, though the older man beside him silences it with a single glance.
The dynamic catches my attention immediately. They aren’t brothers, not exactly, but something close to it. Authority sits naturally on the older Fireborn’s shoulders. Dangerous authority. The kind earned through violence.
The Overseer slowly raises its hands.
At first, they look human beneath the sleeves of its robes. Then the illusion shifts. Pale skin becomes something stranger, smooth and luminous like carved marble threaded with silver-blue cracks beneath the surface.
“There will be six trials,” it says. “A cycle of the elements, chosen at the behest of our Great Mother. Each trial shall continue until the count is true.”
Nobody asks what that means, but I think we already know.
“Death within the Heartlands feeds the Mother Shard. Your lifeblood, your Mana. Your strength and sacrifice will be transformed to feed the Dominions.” The fractured face tilts slightly towards us.
“But understand this well: death must come at another’s hand or by the Heartlands themselves.
The island lives and breathes; it knows the Great Mother’s will, and it will not allow any of her Champions to violate its laws. ”
Cold settles heavily in my stomach as several people around the room exchange uneasy looks.
Marissa’s grip tightens painfully around my fingers.
“You will be granted one day within the Embrace between each trial. Time to restore yourselves. Time to prepare for what follows.”
The Overseer suddenly jerks mid-sentence, its entire body shuddering once—violently.
Then the voice that speaks is no longer its own.
“My Champions.”
The sound fills the room from every direction at once. The voice is soft and beautiful, but wrong enough to make every hair along my arms rise.
“I call to each of you,” the Mother Shard says through the Overseer’s mouth. “Show me your devotion. Show me your strength.”
The voice slides beneath my skin like warm water, and something inside me responds before I can stop it. Mana stirs violently beneath my ribs, and I clench my jaw so hard it hurts.
“Here in my Embrace,” the voice continues, almost tender now, “we are no longer divided.”
The Overseer’s head tilts unnaturally far to one side.
“In dream, we may commune.”
The words distort slightly near the end as the room begins to feel suddenly warmer.
“Come to... me. Walk... with... me,” the voice whispers.
A pulse of heat rolls through my chest so violently I flinch.
No. This is not the place.
The Overseer convulses once more before its original voice returns.
“You may now retire to your assigned chambers. The remaining hours belong to you.”
Then, together, all the Overseers begin to hum. The sound vibrates through the chamber in eerie harmony as they drift backwards towards the walls.
Bright Mother, see us.
The words echo softly.
Bright Mother, claim us.
A strange blue shimmer trails behind them like falling ash.
Bright Mother, take what you need so the world may breathe.
Then they are gone, passing soundlessly back through crystal and stone until only we remain behind. The silence afterwards feels heavier than the chanting did.
Marissa releases a shaky breath beside me. “Luceris…”
I barely hear her. My Mana is becoming harder to contain by the second. The pressure beneath my skin keeps building, hot and restless, responding to something in this place I do not understand.
Across the chamber, my eyes betray me again. The Shadowborn boy is already watching me. Not casually this time, but intently, like he’s noticed something.
Panic climbs sharply into my throat.
“What’s wrong?” Marissa asks quietly.
“I don’t…” I stop myself, forcing a breath through tight lungs. “I don’t feel right.”
“That voice,” she whispers. “I hated it.”
So did I. But that isn’t the problem.
Light pulses faintly beneath the skin of my palms, and I curl my fingers shut immediately. I need to get out of here.
“Where are the rooms?” I ask, too quickly.
Marissa points towards a corridor branching away from the main chamber, and I move before either of them can question me further.
The hallway blurs slightly as I walk, heat surging violently beneath my skin with every step, bright enough now that I can feel it pressing against my bones.
Not here. I need to snuff it out somehow.
I round the corner too quickly and collide hard with another body. The impact sends me stumbling backwards, but strong hands catch my arms before I can fall completely.
Black eyes lock onto mine.
Up close, the Shadowborn boy is somehow worse, beautiful in a way that feels immediately unsafe. His grip tightens slightly around my arms.
His expression changes—not anger, but confusion. His eyes flick downwards briefly, towards my hands, where the light beneath my skin flickers once, uncontrollably.
“Curious,” he says.
The word hits me like a knife between the ribs, and for one terrible second, I think he knows.
Pressure surges violently inside me again, and I wrench myself free before he can say anything else, staggering farther down the corridor and scanning the doors for my name.
Atheron Visconti.
Maleiros Harn.
Serraith Moln.
My vision blurs harder.
Marissa Ivern.
Then finally:
Luceris Navin.
I throw myself through the doorway and slam it shut behind me hard enough to rattle the frame. A metal bolt slides across instinctively beneath my shaking hands.
The moment it locks, the pressure breaks.
Mana tears out of me in one violent pulse.
Light explodes across the room.
I collapse to my knees as golden cracks burst through the stone beneath my palms, racing outwards in jagged lines while the shockwave seems to rattle the walls around me.
The release leaves me gasping.
For several long seconds, I can only kneel there staring at the ruined floor while my heartbeat slowly drags itself back under control.