Page 64 of The Shattered Rite
She tasted it. “Silas.”
He inclined his head once, as if that settled a contract.
“You’re ready?” he asked.
“No. But let’s go before I change my mind.”
He led her in silence at first, his stride steady and precise.
“I’m guessing you can’t tell me what the next trial is,” she said after a while.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
A few beats.
“But,” Silas said, glancing sideways, “I can tell you what they call it.”
“Dare I ask?”
“The Bloodfall.”
“Oh, brilliant,” she muttered. “Is it named that because there’s an actual waterfall of blood, or do they just like to traumatize people early?”
Silas almost smiled. Almost. “I’ve never asked.”
“Right. Fewer questions, fewer funerals.”
Silas didn’t answer, which she took to mean that her joke was actually accurate.
They descended deeper, the air cooling, the silence lengthening.
“Do you ever get tired of escorting people to their probable deaths?” she asked.
“Orders.”
She huffed a laugh. “Have you considered a career change? Something less murder-adjacent? Baker, perhaps?”
“I’m not good at baking.”
She blinked at him. “That was a joke.”
“I know.”
“Stars above, there’s hope for you yet.”
Silas’s mouth twitched again. Once more, almost a smile.
The deeper they descended, the darker the stone. The motifs carved into the walls began to shift—from elegant dragons and stylized flames to something older, cruder. Symbols gouged deep into the stone, glinting with flecks of metal dust.
“I’ve never seen this part of the castle,” she murmured. “Even the air feels… wrong.”
“These lower halls are older than the royal line,” Silas said softly. “The trials were built into the bones of the mountain.”
“That would explain why it feels like the stone is listening.”
“I believe a great many things I don’t say aloud,” he replied, eyes flicking to the carvings. “Especially here.”
