Page 24 of The Shattered Rite (The Sightless Prophecy Trilogy #1)

“Strength alone will not save you. But it may carry you far enough to choose something better.” —Letters of Eianya Rell, First Flamekeeper

The silence that followed was nearly holy.

Eliryn moved through a narrow corridor of glistening stone, its floor cracked but dry, the mist thinning with each step. Here, the air was cooler. Calmer. The scent of blood and smoke that had lingered in the maze’s heart faded to damp moss and old dust.

A breathing space. A lull in the storm.

She stopped beneath a broken archway and leaned her back against the cold wall, finally letting her sword lower completely. Her arms trembled, not from fear, but from sheer fatigue. Sweat clung to her spine. Her heart still hadn’t quite decided if it was done racing.

“Vaeronth,” she murmured, “am I crazy for still feeling overwhelmed by everything?”

The dragon’s voice coiled through her mind like smoke curling through rafters. Calm. Present.

No, young one. You are far from crazy. What you have faced has killed lesser-folk. Our bond gives you strength and your blood gives you an edge, but you are doing far better than even I could have hoped.

She let her head fall back against the stone, exhaling softly. “See, now that just makes me more nervous.”

Why?

“Because if this is me doing well, I hate to think what failing looks like.”

A pause. And then, dry as a winter wind: You would not still be standing.

Eliryn let out something like a laugh—a sharp, breathless sound. “Valid.”

She closed her eyes, breathing in slowly through her nose. Her fingers curled reflexively at her sides. Her knuckles ached from how long she’d gripped her sword.

“And you’re sure Malric is not part of the trials?”

I am not sure what role he plays. There are many things at work within Castle Othren. A pause, then more softly: But in that moment… he was not feeling malice. Not toward you.

She pressed a hand to her sternum, over the pendant. Her palm felt clammy against the warm metal.

“Then why do I feel like I’ve just made a mistake somehow?”

Because he, like you, has gone unnoticed for so long. And that commonality intrigues you both.

“I didn’t want to be intriguing.”

Your heartbeat said otherwise.

Eliryn blinked, frowning. “…Did you just make a joke?”

A beat of silence. I am capable of humor.

“That wasn’t humor. That was unsettling.”

And you’re awfully reckless for a girl who can barely see, Vaeronth replied, wry and fond.

She smirked despite herself, brushing damp hair from her face. “Fair enough.”

She let herself slide down the wall until she was sitting, sword resting across her lap. The weight of it felt unfamiliar now. Everything did.

“He unnerves me.”

There’s lessons to be learned in all things.

She let out a shaky laugh. “If I live long enough to learn them.”

We will.

The certainty in Vaeronth’s voice made her chest tighten. She didn’t believe it—not fully. But for now, she let herself borrow his faith.

For a time, they sat in silence, dragon and rider. Just breathing. Just listening.

But peace, like all things in the maze, was not built to last.

As she pushed herself upright and rounded the next corner, the quiet began to stretch unnaturally. No sound of stone beneath her leathered feet. No echoes. No distant shouts or monster roars.

It was still.

Too still.

She slowed.

“More illusions?” she whispered.

Likely. Vaeronth’s tone was guarded now. But not the same as before. These will be shaped by you.

Her brows drew tight. “By me?”

The trial already knows you can best beasts. Now it wants to see what you’ll do when facing your own fears.

“Oh, good,” she muttered. “Because those other monsters weren’t nearly personal enough.”

The corridor ahead shimmered; light folding in on itself, mist curling like fingers around her ankles.

And from the shadows stepped two women.

One was cloaked in the shape of a memory barely old enough to bruise.

Her mother, on her final day, bandaged and pale from the wounds she’d never recovered from, jaw clenched tight even in death.

Her clothes were bloodstained, scorched at the edges—the same ones she’d worn when she’d slipped away into the dark to steal armor for Eliryn, only to come home broken.

Eliryn’s stomach hollowed.

And beside her… was a stranger she somehow knew.

Straight-backed. Tattooed in sharp geometric spirals down her arms and neck.

Eyes like chipped obsidian. Not old, but not young either—aged by time, tempered by war.

There was no warmth in her face, only strength.

Her skin bore the faint shimmer of a rider once bonded, a power from within radiating around her.

Her grandmother.

Eliryn’s breath stilled. She had never seen her in life.

Only in faded sketches. Only in stories so painful her mother struggled to speak them aloud.

But now she stood in the flesh—or something close to it—wearing the face of a warrior who had once soared alongside dragons before falling with them into history.

Eliryn’s sword lowered slightly. Her heart shuddered.

“Vaeronth…” she breathed, her voice barely audible.

Illusions, Vaeronth whispered in her mind, quieter than before. But not of the maze’s making alone. These came from you.

Her pulse faltered.

“I didn’t summon them.”

Not consciously.

Her vision fluttered, ghosted and weeping. One moment the women blurred to smudges, the next, she could see the curl of ash at her mother’s sleeve, the shimmer of her grandmother’s tattoos. It felt like waking and dreaming in the same breath. Too sharp. Too real.

“Make it stop,” she whispered.

I cannot, Vaeronth said gently. You carry them.

Her mother stepped forward.

“You shouldn’t have gone,” her mother rasped, voice rough and worn. “I died for you. And you… burned it all.”

Eliryn flinched. Her throat closed. “I gave you rites. I honored you the only way I could.”

“You lit the match,” her mother whispered, eyes full of ache. “And left me in ash.”

She shook her head, weakly. “I couldn’t leave the house standing. They would’ve torn it apart. Desecrated it.”

“You left nothing,” her mother said. “Not even yourself.”

“No.” Her voice cracked. “That’s not true.”

But her mother’s hollow eyes said otherwise.

Eliryn’s chest seized as her grandmother stepped forward, circling like a hawk assessing weak prey.

“So this is what the line has become,” the elder woman said, voice not angry but heavy. Measured. “Half-blind. Half-formed. Shaking in the dark.”

Eliryn’s grip faltered. She felt small. So small.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she whispered. “I never asked to be chosen.”

“And yet here you are,” her grandmother replied. “Trying to carry a legacy you barely understand. You disgrace what came before.”

The words hit harder than a blade. Not fury. Not hatred. Just cold assessment.

Eliryn’s strength cracked. Not from anger. From grief.

“I’m trying.”

Her grandmother circled slowly. Closer now. “Trying won’t keep you alive. Trying won’t lead armies. You are not strong enough. Your eyes betray you. Your grip falters. You chase prophecy like a blind moth to flame.”

“I—” Her knees hit the stone. She didn’t remember falling.

Her vision faltered again—then cleared.

And in that moment, she saw both their faces clearly: her mother, broken by sacrifice; her grandmother, a legend turned shadow.

Eliryn bowed her head. The tears came, sharp and hot and unwanted.

“I know I’m not enough,” she said hoarsely. “But I don’t have anything else. There’s no home for me in the village without you. No safety. All I have now is trying to survive these trials.”

She looked up, throat burning, eyes stinging, sword trembling in her grip.

“I didn’t leave because I wanted glory. I never wanted to be chosen. I left our home in flames because I knew I would never be returning.”

Her mother said nothing.

Her grandmother tilted her head, and for the first time, something flickered behind her obsidian eyes. Not approval. Not disdain.

Curiosity.

“I’ll never be what you were,” Eliryn whispered. “But I found my dragon. My soul-bonded. And if the world means to burn me—then let it. I will meet you both in the flames.”

Silence stretched, long and painful.

Her vision blurred again. Mist turned the world to watercolor.

When it returned—the illusions watched her not as accusers.

But as judges.

And then, her mother whispered, soft as snowfall: “Go.”

Eliryn dragged herself upright. Slowly. Painfully. Her legs shook. Her hands shook. But she stood.

“I’ll carry you anyway,” she whispered. “As weight. As warning. Not as chains.”

And she stepped forward.

The air shivered around her. Mist unraveling. Stone warming beneath her boots. Behind her, the figures cracked and faded, leaving only echoes.

“…Glad to know judgment runs in the family,” she rasped, wiping her cheek with her sleeve.

You stood in your truth, Vaeronth said gently, quieter than before. Proud.

“She was so strong,” Eliryn whispered. “Both of them were.”

And now you are, Vaeronth said. Because strength is not the absence of pain. It is the decision to move through it.

Eliryn walked on, her body heavy but her steps steady. She let herself breathe.

“Okay,” she muttered. “One emotional breakdown down. How many more to go?”

Vaeronth wisely didn’t comment. But she felt his presence coil closer, protective and steady.

Her hand tightened on the hilt of her blade, the weight of it both grounding and sharp.

And then—laughter.

Not cruel. Not mocking.

Joyful.

She froze.

It was the kind of laughter she hadn’t heard since her seventh summer, barefoot and sunburnt, racing through the golden hills of Lirin’s Edge.

She turned.

And saw them.

Children. A dozen or more. Some she remembered from games beneath the orchard trees, others she barely recognized—faces she’d glimpsed only once at village gatherings. They danced around a bonfire, ash smeared on their cheeks, hands sticky with honey, chasing each other with wild abandon.

And at the front of the crowd… herself.