Page 142 of The Shattered Rite
He rose, taking a step forward. His cloak trailed behind him like a shadow given form. “Three Chosen. Three trials completed. And no clear victor yet. Curious.”
He circled slowly in front of them, his steps measured.
“I admit, I am… surprised. The Flame has not required more than three trials in nearly a century. And yet here you stand.” He paused before Garic. “An old warrior cut from stone. Your village once rebelled against my grandfather, did they not?”
Garic did not answer. The king only smiled and moved on.
Whitvale held himself tall even while kneeling, chin high, barely masking his pride. The king stopped before him. “And you… The blue-marked disciple of the Temple itself. I expect you’ve already prepared your acceptance speech.”
Whitvale smirked. “Only the final lines.”
A low chuckle from the king, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Then he came to Eliryn.
She met his gaze without faltering, even as the silence pressed in thick around them.
“And you.” The king’s voice dropped. “The last rider. Dragonblood. How strange that the Flame called for you.”
He studied her the way one might study a storm cloud; curious, but skeptical of its promise.
“Do you know why you were chosen, girl? Why now, after more than a generation of silence from your kind?”
Eliryn remained still. “The Flame doesn’t seem to answer to anyone’s timing, Your Majesty.”
That earned a few sharp inhales from the guards at the edges of the chamber but not from the king. He smiled, slow and unkind.
“No. It doesn’t. But it does respond to desperation. Perhaps that’s what you are- desperation made flesh.” He leaned slightly forward. “Tell me… does your dragon whisper anything useful, or is he just another relic barely clinging to breath?”
Her fists clenched at her sides. “My dragon is more intelligent than most of your court, I’d wager.”
The king’s brow lifted, amused. “Spoken like someone with fire in her spine. A rare thing these days. Rarer still when it's not snuffed out before it can be useful.”
He straightened, clasping his hands behind his back.
“Do you have anyone waiting for you, Dragonrider? Anyone to bury you, should this all go wrong?”
The wordburylanded like a blade tip pressed to skin. Notcelebrate.Nothonor.
Bury.
“No,” Eliryn said softly. “There’s no one left.”
The king exhaled. “How tragic. How… tidy.”
He turned, his voice rising once more.
“You are a relic. An echo of a bloodline that should have died out with your kin.”
Eliryn turned her gaze on him. “And yet, here I am.”
Let them fear that,Vaeronth whispered.
Thalen’s lips curled. “What is it the Flame saw in you, girl? Hope? Or hubris?”
“Perhaps both,” Eliryn said calmly.
Thalen studied her longer than the others. His voice was colder when he spoke next. “You are the only female contender in three generations to last this long. I wonder if that should trouble me… or amuse me.”
