Twenty Three
I cling to the wall and watch the world end in pieces. The heat is thick enough to drown in. Every breath betrays me—skin burnt and blistered, lungs seared raw. The stone beneath my cheek pulses, shuddering in time with the wild river of fire that splits the chamber.
Kael walks like the world owes him a body. The shadow pouring off him is an animal force trying to claw its way through everything it touches. The lines of his form blur at the edges, blackness uncoiling and rushing outward in all directions, eating the light and gouging the heat out of the air.
Across the river, Atheron and Serraith wait. They don’t posture; they don’t bait. They stand together, separated by nothing but a span of open stone and glowing, swollen arteries that trail along the surface.
Serraith’s eyes are wild and bright. He laughs at Kael, at the world, at himself. The sound is high and unhinged, echoing off the walls in strange, stuttering rounds. Have the Rites finally broken him?
Atheron is motionless, arms folded behind his back, watching Kael with unbreakable focus.
Between them and us, the trial seems to be falling apart.
The fiery river swells and rises, twisting against gravity and sense.
The air above it churns with whirling columns of ash and shreds of vaporised stone.
Overhead, the ceiling creaks under the pressure, long fissures spidering down the walls and growing wider with each surge.
Kael steps to the bank. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't look back. I see his mouth move, but he isn’t speaking. He’s tasting the air, searching for weakness, hunting for blood. I want to call his name, beg him to come back, but my tongue is made of ash, and my throat won’t cooperate.
Vaelis is at his side. He’s a wraith compared to Kael—smaller, but somehow more dangerous in his stillness.
He crouches low, one hand pressed flat to the stone, the other held up, manipulating tiny slivers of shadow, cutting the currents in the air.
Every time Kael’s power surges too far, Vaelis redirects it—breaks its momentum.
They move together like it’s choreographed, but it isn’t.
Vaelis is holding Kael together. Keeping him from ruining himself, from disintegrating before the fight even starts.
I try to focus, but pain and heat blur everything. Sometimes the edges of things flicker, skipping frames. Sometimes my vision blacks out for entire seconds, only to snap back in a new position, like I’ve lost time.
There is movement beside me, sudden and rough.
A hand, blistered and blood-slick, closes around my forearm and the pain blinds me.
The hand jerks back, and a voice hisses with relief, pain barely leashed beneath it.
“You’re alive.”
Nyxen.
He moves sluggishly, struggling to stay upright, skin etched in burns.
His uniform is ragged, half melted, the flesh on his back blistered and cut.
I could be looking in a mirror. His hair is singed down to the scalp in places.
His shadows cling to him in shreds—half formed and oozing, lacking their usual bite.
He looks at me, then at my wrists. The ruined skin. The blood. The smell.
His face doesn't soften. It darkens. “You escaped the chains?” he says, voice rough.
I nod. It’s all I can do. I want to hug him, to collapse into him, but I am nothing but nerves and fire.
He doesn’t ask anything else. He just pulls me up—too hard, but I let him. I don’t know how he has the strength.
He keeps a hand on my arm, steadying me as I stagger upright, using the wall for support.
Across the river, Serraith is howling. He spins fire in his hands, but it’s not for show. The flames don’t leave his skin—they coil there like they're eating him alive. He bends them to his will, grinning as the fire races up his arms and into the air, where it curls and dives like angry snakes.
Atheron remains still. He regards the carnage with mild interest, gaze flickering only between Kael and me, never settling for long. He isn’t scared. He’s reassessing.
The fiery river pulses, growing thicker, brighter.
Nyxen leans in, close enough that I feel his breath. “Stay behind me. Do you understand?”
“I can fight,” I say, but it comes out as a whisper. I’m not convincing, even to myself.
He bares his teeth. “You can survive. That will be enough.”
I have no strength to argue.
He kneels, making himself a smaller target, his shadows rising as a shield for us both. I clutch at the back of his uniform, avoiding the worst of his burns, and slide down until I’m crouched beside him.
Vaelis and Kael move as one along the edge of the river, searching for a way across. Serraith tries to bait them, throwing slashes of flame at random. The fire burns so hot it splinters the air, but Kael’s shadows swallow it, turning it to cold and darkness.
The air seems to vibrate, like it’s about to snap.
Atheron calls out, voice calm. “You can’t win here, Prince. Surely you can see that?”
Kael doesn't answer. I’m not sure he could even if he wanted to.
Atheron shakes his head, almost sad. “You’ll destroy yourself before you lay a finger on me.”
Kael skirts the near bank, his silhouette warped, the shadows at his feet turning to inky pools that reflect nothing.
Vaelis says something to him. Kael nods, just once, and Vaelis peels off. He hooks left, melting into the shadows that clamber up the walls. Kael crouches low, shadows flaring—then erupts.
Serraith’s eyes widen in delight, and he launches upward to meet Kael as he vaults the surging river of flame.
Kael hits Serraith mid-air, and the collision detonates heat and darkness across the chamber.
The impact knocks Kael back, but his shadows absorb the flame, twisting it around and spitting it back at Serraith.
The Fireborn lands in a crouch, fire whipping around him as he laughs with unrestrained madness.
Kael lands safely on this side of the river, but that doesn’t stop my heart lurching in my chest. He’s not in control of himself.
Atheron doesn't move. Just watches.
I try to catch details, but the world is spinning, and I’m not sure how much time passes.
At some point, Atheron steps onto the river of fire. He walks on the surface, a path of cooled stone forming under each footstep and melting away behind. He moves toward Kael with maddening ease.
Nyxen growls under his breath. “He’s going to try and take them both at once. Idiot.”
“Who?” I say.
“Kael.”
He’s not worried about Atheron or Serraith. He’s angry at Kael.
The moment Atheron places his foot on this bank, Kael lunges.
The two collide as fire and shadow fight for dominance.
Kael’s shadows reach for Atheron, but the heat is so intense that the blackness itself wavers and curls away.
Atheron grabs Kael by the throat, fingers sinking in past the skin, burning him from the inside out.
Kael screams—really screams—and his Mana falters a fraction.
Vaelis appears out of nowhere, slamming Atheron from the side, and breaking his grip. Atheron’s arm snaps at the elbow, but he doesn’t even flinch; he lets it dangle, dead, and keeps coming.
Serraith leaps in, all flame and teeth, pouncing for Kael’s exposed side.
Vaelis takes the hit, letting the fire eat through his chest and arm, gritting his teeth until blood beads at the corner of his lips. He rolls with the force of it, using the momentum to knock Kael out of the way and take the brunt of the assault himself.
Kael is up in a blink, rage and darkness pouring off him in waves. His eyes are still solid black, his body ringed in shadow, but the skin at his throat is blistered, bubbling and white.
He looks at me.
For a moment, I see nothing in him at all. Not Kael, not a prince, not even a monster. Just a black hole where a person should be.
He turns back to Atheron.
The Fireborn are waiting, smiling.
Above us, the ceiling cracks. The death counter pulses as chunks of rock rain down, some the size of my head. One grazes Nyxen’s shoulder and he doesn't even blink.
Vaelis is on the ground, clutching his burnt arm as Kael and Atheron clash again. This time the noise is so loud it rattles my teeth.
I don’t know how long it lasts. Time stops meaning anything.
Nyxen nudges me, and I realise I’ve lost minutes. Maybe more.
“We have to move,” he says. “The river is unstable.”
I follow, dragging myself along, my arms dead weights.
Kael and Atheron are locked together. The two of them are a knot of fire and shadow, indistinguishable except for the white of Kael’s teeth, bared in fury and agony.
Serraith hounds Vaelis, both of them dodging and diving, exchanging bursts of flame and darkness. Neither can land a finishing blow.
Nyxen pulls me to a patch of higher ground, bracing us both against a spire of jagged rock.
Even as he watches the fight, his hand never leaves my shoulder.
The river is a living thing now—churning, white-hot destruction. The banks start to rupture, melting away. Overhead, the fractures spread, cracks radiating down the walls.
Serraith is laughing as he slashes at Vaelis’ head with jets of white-orange flame. Vaelis, limping now, deflects with scraps of shadow, barely hanging on.
Kael and Atheron collide again, and the force of it sends shockwaves through the space. The air peels away, a vacuum for a fraction of a second, and then it all snaps back with a thunderclap.
Everything shakes.
In the pause, Kael breaks free, hurling Atheron backwards. He stumbles to his feet, blood streaming down his neck and chest, his face half-melted by the heat. He looks at me again, and when our eyes meet, he nods.
Then he does something I have never seen before.
He drops his shadows.
He lets it all go.
It’s like watching a ruptured vein spill darkness into the world. The blackness spreads outwards, a ring expanding faster than thought, flattening everything it touches. The surrounding flames dim, choked out for the smallest moment.
Atheron reels back, shocked. So does Serraith.
Kael drops to his knees.