Page 8 of The Blood Rites

Everything in me goes still as the Blessed leans closer, close enough that I can see the faint shadow of their features through the veil.

“What is this?” they murmur, low enough that the words don’t carry.

My mouth is dry. “I don’t know,” I say, hearing the lie in my own voice. “It’s always been like that.”

They don’t answer. Their grip tightens instead, thumb pressing into the break in the metal, testing it. Waiting. But there is still no light. No response.

The silence stretches long enough that I start to feel it, the attention shifting, the subtle awareness of the Offerings behind me, of the Blessed around us slowing, noticing.

Then the Blessed steps back slightly and lifts his veil, so he can look at me properly.

His eyes are sharp and searching. For a heartbeat, I’m certain he’s seen everything—that he can see straight through me, past the band, past the skin, into whatever it is that’s been sitting wrong inside me for as long as I can remember. But his expression doesn’t settle into recognition. It shifts into something else: confusion.

“You have no signature,” he says at last, voice flat with certainty. “No Mana at all.”

Relief hits so suddenly it almost makes me dizzy. “Yes,” I say quickly—perhaps too quickly—forcing my voice to remain steady. “That’s what I’ve always been told.”

He doesn’t seem convinced, dropping his gaze back to my wrist, thumb tracing the crack again, slower this time.

Light flares—small and contained. But there. I feel it before I see it, that sharp heat under my skin.

The Blessed stills completely, and this time I know he’s noticed. Something changes in his expression—not dramatic, not obvious, but enough to make my stomach drop. He leans in closer, voice lowering further. “The Mother Shard does not favour anomalies.”

The word lands heavy, final enough to close around my throat. I don’t move. I don’t speak. I barely breathe.

After a moment, he releases me. My hands fall back to my sides, numb and unsteady, the absence of his grip almost as jarring as the touch itself.

For a second, nothing happens; then a Guardian steps forward. I don’t see the signal, but I know there was one. He holds a shallow bowl in one hand, a thick brush in the other, the dark red paint catching the light as he lifts it.

My stomach twists. I’ve seen this before. I just never thought it would be me.

The Guardian tilts my chin up with gloved fingers. I catch a distorted glimpse of myself in the mirrored surface of his helmet—pale, tense, already marked once. The brush touches my skin, cold and biting as it drags across my face, cutting over the first line and completing the mark.

For a moment, I can’t breathe.

The Guardian steps back and the Blessed looks at me again, something unreadable settling behind his eyes, before he replaces the veil.

“The first is chosen.”

The words carry, not loud, but heavy enough that everyone behind me shifts.

I don’t turn. I don’t need to. I can feel every eye upon me, every shift in the air around me.

The circle has closed, and I’m at the centre of it.

Three

There’s a pocket of stillness as the Choosing marches towards its finale, and I am standing in it with nowhere left to hide.

The paint on my face dries under the sun, tightening until every small movement makes it crack. The red cross marks me clearly enough that I can feel it without touching it.

First Chosen.

A dead thing waiting to be moved.

The Blessed who tested me knew something was wrong. I saw it in his eyes before he hid it. I expect to be dragged up to the dais at any second. But no one comes. No one calls for chains. No one orders the Guardians to take me below, where questions end in screams, and death doesn’t even feed the Mother Shard.

At least, not yet.