Page 21 of The Shattered Rite (The Sightless Prophecy Trilogy #1)

“Illusion wears your face best when you no longer recognize yourself.” —Kalevin Marr

The light swallowed her whole.

For a moment, she floated in silence.

Then the brilliance contracted, drawing inward like a breath held too long. She landed in a circular antechamber of black stone, the air thick with old magic that pulsed like a second heartbeat.

At the chamber’s center stood a low iron pedestal, embedded in the floor. Upon it: five weapons.

Each rested on its own carved sigil. Each radiated a different kind of promise.

A curved dagger—quick and cruel.

A twin-headed spear—balanced and long.

A longbow of glasswood—its string humming softly.

A spiked mace—blunt and wet with warding runes.

And a sword—slender, dark, and silent, with no ornament save a single etched star near the hilt.

Eliryn stepped closer.

A feeling washed over her, a sense of knowing that she was supposed to choose one of the weapons as her own.

She hovered a hand over the spear, then the dagger, but her fingers paused above the sword. Taking it in her hand, it felt nearly weightless. The etched star pulsed faintly, as if it had magic that recognized her.

“This one,” she murmured.

As her fingers closed around the hilt, the pedestal vanished. The floor trembled. The far wall slid open—stone folding in on itself, revealing mirrored corridors beyond.

Do not trust your eyes, Vaeronth whispered in her mind. The illusions here are old. Hungrier than most.

Eliryn scoffed softly, tightening her grip on the hilt.

“Well, that gives me a bit of an advantage, doesn’t it?” she said dryly. “I can’t trust my eyes on a regular day.”

The pendant at her throat pulsed with warmth—not quite laughter, but close.

She stepped forward.

The trial had begun.

For a moment, there was nothing. No floor beneath her, no ceiling above. Just weightless white in all directions—soundless and still.

Then the world snapped into place.

Stone slammed beneath her feet. Walls rose around her like jagged curtains—mirror-black obsidian, towering and curved. The air thickened with heat and the iron tang of blood. Flickering shapes skittered across the mirrored surfaces, shadows caught between flame and glass.

A great arena.

But not for sport.

This was a maze.

A vast, fractured warren of mirrored halls and angled traps, pulsing faintly with twisted magic. Somewhere far off, a scream tore through the silence—sharp, then abruptly cut short.

Then: stillness. Oppressive. Smothering.

Her pulse quickened.

Vaeronth’s voice was thinner now, like sound buffered by a thick wall. These illusions feed on fear. You mustn’t let them.

A low bell tolled. Once.

Twice.

It was official now; the other trial chosen must also be here somewhere.

She moved.

The floor sloped downward into a narrow corridor lined with mirrors. Her reflection blinked from every angle—some delayed, some too fast. One version of her stood still while she moved. Another turned left when she turned right.

Illusions.

An impossible breeze brushed her cheek, and she felt a pressure on her shoulder. A child’s laughter echoed and faded.

She kept moving, keeping her breath even.

Around the first corner: blood. Streaked across the wall. Still drying. No body. Just a single boot, and the stale tang of pain in the air.

She didn’t linger.

The second corridor bent strangely—an impossible angle, like the hallway had folded inward. Her stomach lurched as she stepped through.

A shape moved up ahead.

She froze.

Someone was there.

No—something.

A flicker of motion in the mirrors. Sharp. Fast. Inhumanley fast.

She drew still, sword steady in her hand, listening to the silence like it was a language she had once known.

Behind her, a reflection moved.

Not hers.

Her grip tightened on the hilt. “I’m getting very tired of ghosts,” she muttered, scanning the mirrored corridors.

The reflection stilled when she turned. Watching. Waiting.

“Come on then,” she said aloud. “Let’s find out who’s real.”

Nothing answered.

A whisper brushed her ear, so soft it felt like breath.

She spun—just as something lunged from the wall itself.

Her blade met it mid-strike, the clash ringing in her bones. Whatever it was—a creature of glass, or shadow, or both—it recoiled from the star-etched sword. She saw flashes of a distorted face: eyes too many, mouth torn too wide.

Eliryn. Vaeronth’s voice like steel on silk. Illusion cannot bleed. If it does, it’s real.

“Noted.”

It lunged again.

She dodged, narrow, precise. Not graceful, not flawless—she was no warrior yet. But her reflexes were sharper than they had any right to be. The bond helped her now, adrenaline churning with dragonfire in her veins.

She swept the sword through its middle.

A scream—shattered glass and cracking bone—and the creature evaporated into shards of light.

Silence returned.

Eliryn stood panting, the sword steady in her shaking hand.

“Next,” she whispered, throat raw. “Come on. I’ve got too many nightmares for that to be the only one here.”

The maze answered with silence.

She moved forward again, slower this time, sword angled low, senses burning.

In her mind, Vaeronth’s voice stirred.

You are more than your fear.

She didn’t answer him.

She wasn’t ready to believe it yet.

But she caught sight of a figure ahead.

“Hello?” she called, feeling foolish instantly.

The figure turned. A tall man in a hood. Familiar.

Too familiar.

It was Malric.

“Not real,” she muttered.

He smiled. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said in Malric’s voice. “You don’t belong here.”

“You’re not him.”

“No,” the illusion replied, stepping closer. “But we both know you want me to be.”

It lunged.

She dodged—barely—just as its face flickered: Malric, her mother, her own.

She struck. The sword moved with her, fluid and alive. The illusion shattered in a burst of ash.

She stood alone again, breathing hard.

You must not let it draw from you, Vaeronth said. The more fear you offer, the more faces it will wear.

She flexed her fingers tighter on the sword. Steel in hand, doubt in throat. Par for the course.

This was only the beginning and she could barely grasp the magic that was all around her, that would try and break her.

And deeper within the maze, she could feel it: something waiting. Watching.

The trial wasn’t only about surviving.

It was about unraveling.

Walls reared up, slick with moss, mist curling at their bases. The air thrummed, alive with rune-glow, alive with something watching.

A hiss echoed to her right.

She spun—nothing but shifting shadow.

Don’t chase echoes, Vaeronth warned.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” she muttered. “Unless they try to kill me first.”

A section of wall groaned shut behind her, sealing her in.

“Perfect. One way forward. I love not having options.”

She moved silently, balanced. The sword was becoming a familiar weight in her hand.

She turned a corner and froze.

A man lay crumpled, limbs bent at impossible angles. Blood soaked the stone around him. A dagger rested in his hand a little too neatly.

Eyes open. Unblinking.

Eliryn, Vaeronth whispered. Look closer.

She crept forward. The stillness in the body was too precise. Staged.

“It’s a trap,” she breathed.

The corpse twitched—first a fingertip dragging grit, then a ripple under the skin like rats running the length of a sack.

Joints popped wetly. The head rolled toward her and the mouth split—not opening, splitting—from the corners back toward the ears.

Gums peeled high, showing a second row of needle-teeth that hadn’t belonged to any human jaw.

She moved without thinking. Weight dropped. Back foot braced. Steel in her hand.

The thing snapped upright with a wire-yank lurch.

Eliryn slid inside its reach, low and fast, blade flashing once across the throat.

The edge met cartilage with a glassy skitter before giving —a hot sheet of black-red spilled over her knuckles, vinegar-sharp, coin-bitter. The creature didn’t fall. It lunged.

She pivoted on the ball of her foot, left shoulder tucked, brought the blade up under the jaw and drove. The point punched through palate; the hilt hit teeth with a dull clack. Bone gripped the steel. She twisted hard, felt something thin and crucial snip.

The body spasmed—hands clawing at nothing. She ripped the blade free, boots slipping on slick stone, then stamped its knee. Ligaments went with a rubbery pop; the joint collapsed. The thing folded, not like a man, but like a trap losing tension.

It didn’t bleed right. The sludge hissed where it touched the floor, smoking in hair-fine threads. Skin sloughed in wet sheets; the face caved from within as if fire were eating it from the bones outward. In two heartbeats it was a husk. In three, a heap of wet soot and teeth.

Eliryn held her stance, blade high, breath knifing in and out. Her wrist throbbed; her forearm was sticky to the elbow. The stench hit late—old pennies, hot vinegar, rot—and she gagged it back, eyes sweeping the dark for the next twitch.

Not a corpse, Vaeronth murmured, weight and heat in her mind.

She didn’t lower the blade. Not yet.

“That… shouldn’t have worked,” she murmured. “I’ve never even trained with a sword.”

And yet you wield it as if it remembers you, Vaeronth said gently. It’s in your blood, Eliryn. You are not only yourself now.

She looked down at the blade. It felt like an extension of herself, like it was meant for her alone.

“Will I always feel like I’m guessing?”

In time, the guessing becomes knowing.

A panicked sound echoed from the mist.

She pivoted at the shout.

A figure blew past her—wild-eyed, mouth chapped white with fear. “Run!” His shoulder clipped hers and was gone, boots skidding, the word ricocheting down stone like a thrown coin.

The wall to her left bulged.