Page 1 of The Blood Rites

Part One

One

The metal bands chafe my skin raw.

Both of them.

I drag my thumb under the edge of one and hiss under my breath as the metal shifts, scraping the same spot it always finds. The padding I slipped under them this morning is already soaked through.

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.