Page 106 of The Shattered Rite
No footsteps. No announcement. Just presence, sudden and cold, as if the room recognized his authority and made space for it.
His silver robes whispered as he stepped forward into the center of the chamber. The brass bell at his wrist did not ring.
“You are six,” he said, voice calm and cold as ever. “Six, where once there were many more. That alone is unprecedented.”
The silence deepened.
“You stand on the threshold of the third trial,” the steward went on. “This one will not test what lies behind you, but what remains within you. It will demand your strength, yes—but more than that, your clarity. Your will.”
A murmur passed between some of the others. Eliryn stayed still.
“This trial is not merely of blade or bone,” the Steward continued. “It is one of endurance. Of balance. A challenge that will break the arrogant and scatter the unfocused. If you are to lead, if you are to rise among the chosen, you must show more than wrath and readiness.”
Eliryn felt Vaeronth stir, a low pulse of heat in her spine.
He speaks truth,the dragon murmured.This is the trial that weighs a soul.
The steward stepped back, eyes scanning the six.
“In one hour, you will be summoned. Steel your bodies. Steel your minds.”
Then he vanished.
Not in a flare of light. Not in smoke.
Just… gone.
Eliryn stood for a moment longer, breathing in the quiet, feeling the hush ripple through the room like distant thunder.
Garic stayed close, his expression steady.
But still, they didn’t speak—not yet. Something told her they’d need all their words soon enough.
The room shifted slowly after the steward's departure, each of the chosen splintering off to their own quiet corners to prepare. Eliryn remained where she was, the hem of her soft tunic brushing the backs of her heels, her hands loose at her sides.
She didn’t move until Garic touched her shoulder in passing—No words. Just an offered tether.
Then he was gone too.
She turned toward the archway that she had come from, looking for her own spot to retreat to.
But the shadows shifted wrong.
She paused.
Blinking once, twice.
The hall beyond looked… wrong.
The torches that normally lined the far wall were dimmer than they had been minutes ago— no, not dimmer. Her eyes simply weren’t catching the full shape of the light. The glow was fractured now, a haze more than flame. The sharp lines that marked the floor’s edge had blurred into fog.
She lifted a hand in front of her face.
She could still see it.
Mostly.
Her fingers were soft outlines, washed in shadow, their edges flickering when she moved too fast. There had always been blurriness in her vision—an imbalance of sensation traded for something deeper—but this…
