Page 101 of The Shattered Rite
And when she glanced back, he was still watching her with that same open, wondering expression, as if he wasn’t quite sure how someone like her had ended up here, but he was glad she had.
Tonight, she thought, she would let herself have that. Just for a little while.
She found a bowl, slightly chipped along one rim, and ladled the thick stew from the pot. It was rich with lentils and wild game, fragrant with thyme, onions, and something roasted low and slow. Her stomach clenched in answer.
Silas joined her with his own bowl, nodding toward the hearth in the corner. “Sit with me?”
She followed him over to the small table tucked beside the fire. Two old stools, legs uneven, but they didn’t wobble whenshe settled into one. A faded cloth lay across the table, clean but stained with old wine and memories.
For a moment, they ate in silence. The only sounds were the crackle of the hearth and the soft scrape of spoon against bowl.
It was Silas who spoke first.
“I hoped you would survive the Bloodfall.” He met her eyes, blurry to her, but his voice gave shape to the look. “But I’ve heard that the second trial would break men stronger than steel. And you… You looked like nothing had phased you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said quietly. “I bled like anyone else. I just… kept going.”
“That’s better than.”
She let the warmth of the stew settle in her chest before answering. “Four more didn’t make it.”
“I heard.” His expression sobered. “They say that even that number is higher than past trials.”
Eliryn made a noncommittal sound in return.
Silas cast a glance toward the doorway, as if to be sure no one lingered in earshot. When he looked back, his voice had dropped to a hush.
“There are rumors in the barracks. Some of the royal guard have stopped following orders altogether. Refusing to prepare for the next trial. They’re meeting in private, speaking up.”
Eliryn lifted her gaze to his. “Speaking against the trials?”
He nodded, once, deliberate. “And against the crown itself. People are tired of pretending this is about honor or tradition. Tired of letting magic die slowly while the crown prospers from it.”
She considered that, her breath moving slow and careful. “Do you think there’s truth to it?”
“I think,” he said quietly, “there’s truth in people reaching their breaking point. And that truth doesn’t need permission to exist.”
Silence settled between them, taut as a drawn bowstring.
“And if it turns into an uprising?” she asked.
He stirred his stew as though it might reveal an answer. “Then maybe Vireth will have to stop pretending that cruelty is just the way of things. And the rest of us will have to choose where we stand.”
“I didn’t ask to be chosen,” she murmured. “But maybe that doesn’t matter anymore.”
He met her eyes, something solemn and kind behind his expression. “It doesn’t.”
She looked down at her bowl, the stew blurring slightly in her weakened vision. “It’s strange.”
“What is?”
“This,” she said softly. “Sitting here. Talking like there’s still a world beyond these stone walls worth making better.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then: “Maybe there is. We’ve just forgotten how to find it.”
That made her throat tighten unexpectedly. She focused on the weight of the spoon in her hand. The warmth of the fire at her back. Real things.
“You sound like someone who’s already lost too much,” she said softly.
