Page 125 of The Blood Rites

The sky above is splitting open.

A rain of swords begins—sporadic at first, each blade a warning.

Then it breaks.

A storm of death.

Blades tear through the air in relentless sheets—from above, from the sides—ricocheting and screaming across the mirrored ground. One nearly takes my hand off as it skids across the surface, embedding itself in the pillar behind us.

I can barely hear Marissa’s screams over the sound of steel and shattering glass.

A sword hits a foot from where we cower, showering me in diamond-bright shards. I shield Marissa with my body, my good arm holding her close.

I think of Kael.

Is he still fighting? Is he bleeding? Is he—

I can’t see him. I can’t feel the cold snap of his Mana.

Nothing.

The only reassurance is the unchanged number on the death counter above.

Without warning, the mirrored outer ring splits. The cracks become chasms as the surface tilts apart in jagged pieces like a fractured cliffside. I lose my grip, slide down an incline, and nearly tumble off the edge. I catch myself at the last moment, seizing the hilt of a buried sword with blood-slick fingers. My palm catches against the blade just above the guard, cutting deep, but I don’t dare let go.

Marissa is above me—half a body length up the broken incline—clinging to a pillar slick with rain. Her face is bloodless, eyes huge. She’s bleeding from her calf, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

Across the ring, ten paces upslope, Callen hauls Morwen’s limp form away from the worst of the falling blades. He curses me with every breath. “You did this!” he shouts. “Everything your kind touches turns to ruin.”

I want to deny it. To fight back. But the words won’t come.

The rain returns in force as I haul myself toward the pillar beside Marissa, the sky black with the promise of more. Mana rises in me, but pain lances up my left arm, breaking my focus. The light sputters—forms—then collapses in on itself. I am too broken. The world too loud. All I manage is a pale shimmer, barely enough to protect us from the smaller fragments.

More swords fall, in clusters now. No longer a storm but a deluge, hundreds of razor-sharp tears pouring from the sky. Marissa screams as a sword clips her shoulder, tearing her uniform and scoring a perfect line across her back. I try to expand my shield—to cover more of her—but my strength wanes.

A dozen feet away, Callen shields Morwen with his own body, his face set in a mask of determination and hate. He channels his own Mana, and I see a flicker of gold and white—bright and fierce, the strongest I’ve ever seen him create.

But even that shield cannot take the strain, shrinking to nothing as a blade crashes against it.

In the chaos, I glimpse a Mana Echo: a girl, arms outstretched, pinned to the surface, bleeding out onto the glass. Her face is calm, but her eyes are open, unblinking, as the rain washes the blood away from her body. Next to her, a boy kneels, mouth open in a silent howl that never ends.

The swords keep falling.

Marissa clings to me, and I cling to her. I don’t know where Kael is. I need him. I want him here—with me. I want to scream for him, but the noise is all-consuming.

Then, abruptly, it stops.

The rain halts. The sky begins to clear. The only sound is the drip of water from nearby swords onto the mirrored glass.

For one laboured breath, I dare to hope.

Then I see it.

A final sword, larger than any of those that fell before, seems to descend from the heart of the pink crown above. It is beautiful in the way all cruel things here are beautiful. Its edges are so bright that they blind me. The sword falls in slow motion, as if begging the world to savour this moment.

It falls straight toward Callen and Morwen.

I look for Kael—one last, desperate time.