Page 93 of The Shattered Rite
Garic didn’t look at the man again. “The stakes are too high for most to not try and cheat one way or another.”
Silence lapped between them like low tide. Then, after a breath, they sat down side by side without speaking—her sword angled across her knees, his hands loose but ready.
Her shoulder brushed his once as they settled. Neither of them shifted.
She glanced toward the far door, where the air shivered.
Another soul, dragging itself toward survival.
She let her eyes half-close, letting Vaeronth’s quiet hum echo in her chest.
The air steadied. Somewhere in the stone, something took note. She let it.
Maybe not the castle at all. Maybehim.
Malric's eyes felt like an oath.
Interlude 6: Malric
“Witness is a kind of oath. Be sure you mean it.”—The Quiet Arts
He didn’t watch the door; he watched the way the room changed around her.
Air that smelled of coin and vinegar drew itself straight. Dust hung lower, more obedient. She stood, counted exits, didn’t sway. The marks along her throat answered her breath like a second pulse. Her shoulder—set like something torn and shoved back where it belonged—refused to broadcast the ache.
Then the older warrior: mountain-cut, scar-mapped. Not Malric's problem—until their forearms clasped.
Touch, here, is not courtesy. It’s a claim.
Jealousy flared like a struck match—small, clean. He let it burn to a steady pilot light, the kind that never admits it’s heat.
It should have been his shoulder she measured. His name traded for hers. His steadiness she set her breath to.
But the king liked mirrors.
"Be a shadow,"King Thalen had said. "Cull. Watch. Make it look like the trials are working."
If the king truly wanted her destroyed, he’d have risked counterfeit choosing, Malric’s name declared by the Flame, Malric inside the trials at her shoulder. Not this distance. Not this deniability.
Shadows don’t harvest truth. They ration it.
He’d already had to step into her path to make anything real. Their connection crawled. He disliked the pace.
Malric watched as they sat—her blade over her knees, the warrior’s hands loose and ready—and their shoulders touched, stayed. After a few breaths their rhythms matched without conscious thought.
The desire to edit the scene—remove the extra piece, claim the empty inches—moved through him like a cool decision.
He was good at removing.
He was not good at feeling.
The last time he let attention cross into attachment, it ended with a woman dead and a mission compromised. Not a lover; a lever he told himself he could hold without breaking. He misjudged. She died because he let himself be distracted; he almost followed her into death because rage makes men stupid.
After that, he learned to starve the part of himself that reached. He learned efficiency like a religion.
This was not efficient.
This was a slow, precise hunger he didn’t intend to starve.
