Page 14 of The Shattered Rite
“But do not mistake the trials for a game.”
Another pause. Longer.
“No spellwork. No names. No way out other than death.”
That final word echoed when he spoke it, more so than the others.Death.
“You will remain here until dawn. No food will be given. No comfort offered. Let your hunger teach you discipline. Let your fear sharpen your mind.”
He raised his hand. The cuffs shimmered and then unlatched—one by one. They fell like harsh whispers, clatteringin heaps on the hard floor.She should have felt relief. Instead, she felt an even heavier weight.
“You are free... for now.”
He turned, and the chamber grew colder with his departure.
No one spoke.
Eliryn flexed her wrists. The weight of the cuffs had vanished at once, but the magic had lingered, brushing over her skin like it knew her, before fading away.
She was free for the moment.
But not safe.
And tomorrow, the real trial would begin.
Chapter 5: The First Trial
"It is not the beasts that kill you. It is the moment you believe you will die.”—Recorded in the journal of a trial survivor
Eliryn didn’t sleep.
Not truly.
She tried to steady her breathing. Failed. This space was too cold, the silence too taut—thick with the tension of so many held breaths and unseen thoughts. Even without her full sight, she could feel the weight of the others nearby. Shifting. Whispering. Dreaming. Dreading.
She had backed into a corner, spine to the wall, one hand curled around the pendant beneath her armor. Its warmth pulsed faintly, like a buried ember. Steady. Alive.
In the village, her mother had told stories of magic—rare and strange, born of old blood and older promises. But Elirynhad never touched it. Never seen a spell cast, or a relic glow with purpose. The cuffs, the way they’d released with a whisper of power, had shaken something in her. A reminder that she was in a world she’d only heard about in fireside tales—a world she was no longer just observing.
Now she was part of it.
And still… apart from it.
She kept her head down, listening instead of watching. She heard the scrape of boots, the rustle of wool, the clink of someone’s hidden blade. Someone else whispered prayers in a tongue older than the capital’s stones.
Snatches of strategy drifted like smoke—boasts wrapped in nerves, fear lacquered with bravado. It was hard to tell how many chosen were in the hall with her; there were too many overlapping breaths and unsteady heartbeats.
Eliryn listened until voices blurred into shadow. Her mind floated at the edge of sleep but never fell in. Her body was exhausted. Her senses strained. But rest wouldn’t come. Not here. Not now.
When a horn sounded—low and mournful, like the cry of some ancient thing waking—she was already on her feet.
The doors of the hall swung open—one side heralding the return of the steward’s guards, the other revealing… something unknown.
A breath of air met them. Not cold, not warm—but dense with the scent of the earth. Deep earth. Eliryn inhaled deeply without meaning to. The smell was strange and grounding all at once: damp stone, mineral-rich dust, a trace of something old.
Not decay. Not quite. More like the promise of things that lived beneath.
No one spoke.
