Page 183 of The Blood Rites

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.