Page 37 of The Shattered Rite
The king wanted her broken last. Wanted her to suffer.
Malric… wasn’t sure what he wanted.
Around her, the others reacted like she was a storm crawling into human skin. One man whispered a prayer. Another stared as though she was a god that had noticed him.
And then her chin lifted.
Just enough.
Enough to make every muscle in him go still.
He was hidden—silent, masked by charm and stone. No one ever sensed him unless he allowed it. But she… she tilted her head like a hound catching a scent.
Her fingers brushed the pendant, the glow flaring just enough to make him feel watched. Not by her eyes. By something else.
Malric eased further back into the shadow, though his pulse did not slow.
This was the girl he’d been ordered to kill.
The Dragonrider.
The ruler’s words hissed in his mind:
“Let her be the last. Let her watch the others fall. Let her heart burn before her body does.”
His blade was steady in its sheath.
But the thought of driving it into her made something in him recoil.
Worse—he realized he didn’t want her dead at all.
And that meant one thing.
He wasn’t here to hunt her anymore.
He was here to see what she would do next.
To learn how she burned.
And when the fire finally came, he didn’t know if he’d be the one to stop it—
Or feed it until it consumed them both.
His gaze tracked her as she crossed the Hall, the pendulum swing of her shadow stretching across the flagstones like a blade being drawn.
Every step she took echoed in his bones.
He’d been sent here to be her ending.
And yet—watching her now—he could not tell if he wanted to be her executioner…
Or the knife she chose to wield.
Somewhere deep in his chest, something shifted.
Dangerously.
The others in the Hall looked away from her; he did not.
