Page 3 of The Shattered Rite
A tired smile tugged at Eliryn’s lips. “You get visions of the future, and I get blindness. Honestly? I feel robbed.”
Her mother chuckled—dry but warm. Eliryn hated that it still comforted her. “The blood always balances itself. Your sight is fading, yes. But that only means you’re meant to see in other ways.”
“Is that one of your visions?” Eliryn asked, only half-teasing.
“No,” her mother said, more quietly now. “That’s a mother’s knowing. The prophecy came to me long before you were born. I saw a girl with a pendant of black stone and a name spoken in fire. A rider without sight. The last hope for the realm’s magic.”
That stopped Eliryn. She turned her head slightly, as if it helped her see her mother more clearly.
“I’ve always known you were meant for more than this village,” her mother went on, voice barely above a whisper now. “Even when the dragons fell silent and magic began to wither, I knew. The night you were born, the stars paused in their dance. Even the moon leaned closer, like she wanted to see you for herself. The air smelled of rain though the skies were clear—that’s how the old ones said destiny announced itself.”
A long silence stretched between them, soft and heavy like snowfall. Eliryn thought of the old tales her mother used to tell—of skies lit with fire as great wings blotted out the sun, of magicflowing in every river and root, and of the day that magic began to die. She remembered believing those stories as a child, before the first hints of darkness clouded her vision, before she learned that her bloodline’s name was spoken with suspicion.
“When the Flame chose me,” Eliryn said at last, “I didn’t doubt it. Not even for a breath.”
She paused, the weight of memory pressing against her ribs.
“I felt it… like something ancient stirring in my bones. At that moment, I knew you’d been telling the truth. About all of it.”
Her mother didn’t speak, but her silence said enough. It always had.
“I didn’t want to believe you before,” Eliryn continued, voice cracking. “Because if the prophecy was real… then so was the ending. Your ending.”
She finally turned her face toward her mother fully, searching the blurry edges for something solid to hold onto. “I think part of me kept pretending you’d be wrong, just this once.”
Her mother’s hand slid to her cheek, warm and certain. “I hoped I would be. But the gods don't let us choose the path. Only how we walk it.”
Eliryn closed her eyes, pressing her face into her mother’s palm like a child again.
And for a moment, there was no prophecy, no trials, no fading sight—just the space between two heartbeats, shared.
“I’ll grieve you forever,” she whispered.
“No,” her mother said. “You’ll carry me forward. That’s different.”
The wind had teeth that night.
It howled through the cracks in the cottage walls, rattling the shelves and shaking the herb bundles strung above the hearth. Sprigs of sage, thyme, and dried starflower quivered in the draftlike they were shivering, shedding tiny flakes of brittle petals. The chimney whispered in a voice too old to remember its own words, a low, steady hum that seemed to carry secrets.
Eliryn couldn’t sit still. She paced the length of the hearth like a trapped bird—short, quick steps, fingers flexing at her sides. The fire crackled low, casting restless shadows across the stone floor that leapt and fell like they were trying to escape.
Her mother sat in her chair, silent. Watching—not with her eyes, which had long since turned inward, but with that strange, weighty awareness she’d carried for as long as Eliryn could remember.
“I should go instead,” Eliryn said for the third time. Her voice felt sharp against the quiet. “I can handle the forge. I can—”
“No,” her mother said, gently but with finality. “They spit on our doorstep yesterday. You think they’d stop at words if they caught you out alone?”
“They won’t help you either,” Eliryn snapped. “Not gladly. Not without cruelty.”
A silence stretched between them. Heavy. Familiar.
It reminded Eliryn of countless evenings before this one—her mother staring into the fire after a vision, her lips pressed thin, her gaze somewhere far beyond the walls.
“They won’t have to help,” her mother said at last. “I’ve bartered what I need. The forge is old, but the armor is sound. Dented, maybe. But strong.”
Eliryn turned sharply toward her. “Ma—”
“We both know,” her mother cut in, voice steady, quiet. “This is how it’s meant to go.”
