Page 112 of The Shattered Rite
Not from ahead. Not from behind.
From all around.
She slowed—not in fear, but focus sharpening into something honed.
Shapes flickered at the edges of her vision. Her mother’s gaze, hollow with betrayal. Her grandmother’s hand, bloodstained and reaching. The blackened frame of her childhood home, burning all over again.
Every image whispered as it passed:
You’re still trying?
You should already be dead.
You don’t belong here.
Eliryn’s breath hitched. The illusions clawed deeper, not as fear, but as memory draped in deceit.
She knew this wasn’t real.
But gods, it felt real.
Tears burned at her eyes, blurring her already-failing sight into smeared shadows and trembling light. She hated the tears most of all.
“Not this time,” she whispered, voice raw.
Vaeronth’s voice stirred, low and steady, curling around her mind like a shield.These lies are hollow. Keep moving.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
She ran.
The illusions shrieked after her now, louder than the arrows, louder than her heartbeat. Her mother’s voice broke with fury. Her grandmother’s whispered disappointment. The ghosts of her village hissed like scalding water in her ears.
But her feet didn’t stop.
Arrows whined past. Two glanced her shoulder. Pain sparked bright and brief. She counted it as proof she was still alive.
And then—light.
The tunnel spat her out like a broken bird. She fell to her knees, scraping skin, her body heaving for air as the oppressive sounds cut off behind her like a door slamming shut.
Silence crashed down.
Eliryn stayed there, on her knees, gasping. Trembling. Slightly wounded.
But alive.
Slowly, the floor beneath her rumbled. The platform, hidden in shadow, began to rise. Stone shifted, gears turning somewhere deep beneath her feet.
The platform lifted her higher, until the arena sprawled beneath her—carved stone slick with blood and smoke, where shattered illusions littered the ground like glass.
From up here, she could see the whole battlefield.
And for the first time, it felt like victory.
Even if no one cheered. Even if no one cared.
She did.
