Page 10 of The Shattered Rite
“Fate doesn’t knock. It drags you by the bones.”—Caelen Vorr, last rider of the Hollow Watch
Eliryn didn’t speak. Not when the guards arrived, not when the villagers watched from alongside the dirt path, afraid to meet her eyes. Her breath fogged in the morning chill, shallow and controlled.
One of the riders dismounted as she neared—boots sinking slightly into the frost-hardened earth. His movements were smooth and practiced, like someone who had collected many things in his life: taxes, criminals, unwilling trial chosen. His armor was scuffed but polished, marked by long travel but worn with obvious pride.
His face was stark against the pale morning—sharp cheekbones, a dark braid looped over one shoulder, and anarrow scar splitting his bottom lip. He looked at her the way someone might study the edge of a blade—curious, not yet impressed.
His eyes lingered on hers. Not with sympathy. But recognition. Noticing the strange, blind fog that coated her irises—and the distaste she did not try to hide behind them.
“So,” he said. His voice was rough but even, like gravel under snow. “This is what the Flame has chosen.”
She said nothing.
Another rider, still mounted, gave a laugh—dry and cruel. “She’ll last just long enough to die in the depths of the citadel. The only mark she’ll ever leave.”
Eliryn didn't flinch. Her jaw tightened, just enough to ache, but she'd heard worse from her own village.
“Lead the way,” she said.
That caught them. Both of them, for just a beat. The first rider’s brows lifted slightly, as if measuring her again with new information. The second gave a snort but didn’t answer otherwise.
The third rider didn’t speak at all.
He remained still, hood drawn low, horse perfectly motionless beneath him. His presence was unnerving—not just silent, butabsent. As though he took up space without belonging to it. Eliryn couldn’t sense his attention outright, yet she felt watched.
Without a word, the first rider turned and gestured toward a fourth horse—tethered quietly behind the others. A compact, dark-coated mare with intelligent eyes. Her breath curled into the cold air like smoke, and she stood completely still as Eliryn approached.
No blessing. No words. Just the mare, waiting like a sentence handed down. Eliryn swung onto the saddle anyway.
Her fingers closed over the reins like memory—tight, but certain. Her mother had taught her well, even if her body had never left the village. She could feel the strength of the mare beneath her, the low hum of anticipation in its bones.
Behind them, her house was already burning.
The ember nests she’d laid—dried root-cloth, oil-soaked bark, birdflame twigs—caught fast. Smoke billowed upward in thick gray tendrils. The thatch had fallen in. She could hear the last groans of the beams as they collapsed.
The first rider paused to glance back. “What kind of girl burns her house down before she leaves?” he muttered—not to her. Not to anyone.
The second rider sneered. “The kind who doesn’t come back.”
She let the silence answer for her.
What kind of girl burns her house down?
The kind who can't afford to look back.
The road out of Lirin’s Edge passed quiet, shuttered homes. Smoke coiled into the sky, dark against the pale dawn. Silence accompanied the riders as they traveled forward.
They made no conversation.
By the time they stopped near a bend in the forest road, night had fallen in earnest. A fire was lit before Eliryn had the chance to dismount from her mare. The others gathered close to the heat, muttering in clipped phrases, inspecting weapons and saddles. Eliryn stood at the edge of the firelight, unsure if she was meant to join them, if that would even be allowed.
The silent rider approached.
He moved without sound. Not even his armor gave him away. He extended a blanket toward her, and she took it, their fingers brushing.
A chill went up her spine.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
