Page 33 of The Shattered Rite (The Sightless Prophecy Trilogy #1)

“Good,” she muttered, fingers flexing against the wall. “At least stone hasn't changed.”

Vaeronth stirred faintly.

I feel your fear.

“Not fear,” she whispered, exhaling through her nose. “Annoyance. At myself.”

A pause. Then, warm as coals: That too can be strength.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You and your wisdom. You know I’m standing here debating whether I’ve gone completely blind, right?”

The dragon said nothing to that, which felt ominous.

Her humor fractured then, just a little, the dryness forced. But she tightened her jaw and breathed through it.

Right now, falling apart wasn’t allowed.

Not yet.

It is not yet gone , Vaeronth said. But it will go. Piece by piece. You knew this.

“I didn’t know it would be now,” she whispered aloud.

She pressed her forehead lightly to the stone, breathing slow. Steady. One inhale. Two.

Her vision flickered again. Shadows where there shouldn’t be. Light failing in places her mind swore it should hold.

“I’m fine,” she muttered aloud, though no one was listening. “I’m absolutely not falling apart moments before a deadly trial.”

From the corner of her mind, Vaeronth’s voice was quieter now. Concerned.

You must not hide this from yourself, Eliryn.

“I’m not hiding. I’m compartmentalizing.”

The dragon’s silence, unimpressed, said more than words.

A shaky laugh left her throat. “Don’t look at me like that.”

I cannot look at you. I am housed within the vessel you wear like a necklace.

“Exactly. So stop sounding so judgy.”

She let the small, strained smile linger for just a heartbeat longer before straightening, pushing off the wall.

One step forward.

Another.

“I’m still moving,” she whispered. “I just might need you as my eyes.”

Her chest ached.

She blinked again, hoping it would pass. That the fog would recede.

But this time… it didn’t.

Half of what she could see—the left side—simply slipped away.

Almost all at once. It happened mid-blink.

One breath, and the room in front of her was murky.

The next breath the murk was halved.

Eliryn reeled, catching herself on the wall. She turned her head, trying to force her other eye to compensate, to anchor the disappearing edges. But it was like watching night swallow color.

Her left side saw only color-smudged light now. No detail. No shape.

She gasped, a sharp inhale she didn’t mean to make.

Easy, Vaeronth rumbled, low and deep in her chest. It is not death. It is a door.

“A door that closes,” she whispered.

Only so another may open.

She stayed there for a long time, breathing shallow and slow, memorizing the shapes of the room while she could still make them out with half a world’s worth of clarity.

The others had started getting antsy, stretching or pacing, but she sank down onto one of the stone benches near the wall and folded her hands in her lap.

The left side of her vision had dissolved into a haze of color and warped light.

Even the floor seemed to slope slightly, unbalanced by the clarity she’d lost.

She didn’t call attention to it. Not yet.

Across the chamber, she could hear muffled voices; two of the chosen muttering to each other, the rhythm of nervous energy passing between them like a thread being wound and unwound.

Whitvale was sharpening his blades against the stone wall’s edge.

Stormthresh paced near the far door, muttering prayers under her breath.

Garic hadn’t strayed far. He stood a few paces away, arms crossed, eyes occasionally flicking toward her. He didn’t speak.

Eliryn closed her eyes entirely.

Vaeronth, she reached again, more steady this time. This is only going to keep getting worse.

Yes, he said without delay. And yet you will not break.

Not yet. She muttered.

Not ever.

A pause passed between them. She opened her eyes and studied what she could. The blur had stopped spreading, at least for now. But her left eye registered only vague, abstract movement. If she turned her head too fast, her stomach lurched.

“I feel crooked,” she muttered under her breath.

You are changing, the dragon acknowledged. But that doesn’t mean it's bad.

“No one else would see it any other way.”

No one else is bonded to dragon and bound by prophecy.

Eliryn exhaled slowly, letting the warmth of Vaeronth’s presence expand within her. He didn’t fill the space with words this time, only with stillness. A kind of protective quiet, like being wrapped in wings beneath a dark sky.

Her hand moved absently to her chest, fingers brushing the pendant there. The warmth of it grounded her. The magic pulsed beneath her skin, quiet but alive.

Around her, time moved strangely, thick and slow, like honey poured over stone.

She waited.

And in the waiting, she began to gather herself. Not just strength, but certainty.

One breath. One anchor. One truth.

Eliryn of Lirin’s Edge.The Last Dragonrider.

Vaeronth, the Endbringer.

Half-blind. Half-lit.

But never broken.

The door at the far end groaned open.

Stone against stone, low and grating, a sound that cleaved the hush like a blade.

The steward stepped through, flanked by two guards in deep grey with faces obscured by mirrored helms. He moved without hurry, the bell at his wrist chiming once as he entered the room.

The chosen turned toward him, one by one. Fingers stilled on hilts. Even Garic straightened from his place near the wall, eyes narrowing as if bracing for something heavier than before.

Eliryn rose last. She could feel the world tilt slightly as she stood, her left eye offering only color and blur, a swirl of nothing that buzzed faintly at the edge of her concentration. But her spine stayed straight, and her hand curled once, steady, at her side.

The steward surveyed them with unreadable calm.

“Six remain,” he said, his voice carrying like wind across still water. “Six who passed through illusion and emerged intact.”

He let the words rest in the air for a beat. Then continued: “This third trial has showcased champions. But it has also culled even the most clever of chosen.”

Garic’s jaw flexed once. The youngest chosen, the boy, visibly swallowed.

The steward went on.

“You will not face this trial together. The path must be walked alone. One by one, you will enter. You will not see the others emerge. You will not know their fate until your own is decided. The next will not begin until the former has ended—by victory or by death.”

A ripple of unease moved through the gathered six. Eliryn felt it pass like wind through reeds.

The steward’s eyes swept across the chosen and stopped on Eliryn.

“Dragonrider,” the steward said. “You will be the first to face what lies beyond.”

Eliryn blinked once. “Wow. And here I was, just about to volunteer. Really took that opportunity from me.”

The silence that followed was heavy, but she let it hang. Someone—probably Garic since he was her only ally—let out a quiet snort from her right.

She felt their stares like weights across her shoulders: wary, curious, or maybe just quietly waiting to see if she'd fall.

The steward, to his credit, didn’t react. He only gestured smoothly toward the stone archway yawning open behind him. “Enter. Your fate awaits.”

Eliryn rolled her shoulders once, stretching the tension from her neck. “Not ominous at all. Love that.”

Then she stepped forward without hesitation, braid tight down her back, her steps quiet as breath. As she passed the steward, her voice dropped low, just for him.

“Next time, someone else goes first.”

Behind her, Garic’s quiet grunt of approval followed her to the threshold.

And then the stone door closed.

In her mind, Vaeronth stirred. Steady, Eliryn. Not all traps are meant to be walked into. Some wait for trust.

“Very vaguely put,” she muttered. “But thanks.”

And with that, she walked into the dark.

The door closed behind her.

The corridor she entered was dark at first, then flooded with a soft amber glow. The walls curved like bone, warm to the touch. The scent of heated stone and ash curled in her lungs.

She descended a short ramp and found herself in a chamber unlike any other she had seen since the trials began—an arena.

She stepped into the arena, and the world changed.

No walls. No roof. Just a sky of colorless clouds and jagged light, and below it—

It was a living thing. A labyrinth of blood-slick platforms and fractured terrain, part machine, part nightmare.

Barbs jutted from stone. Chasms breathed smoke.

Obsidian spikes curled like claws. Nothing was still.

The entire structure moved, constantly shifting- plates grinding, ledges retracting, new horrors unfolding with each second.

A gruesome obstacle course meant to cull.

Eliryn didn’t move right away.

She waited and listened.

The floor beneath her pulsed faintly, like breath drawn through stone.

Far ahead, a platform dropped into a pit, then reemerged on the opposite side with a grinding groan. Spears clattered into place above distant ridges, suspended in nothing.

She took a single step forward.

Her boot crunched down on something hard—then gave way with a sharp crack.

Glass.

She hissed, pulling her foot back slightly.

Shards glittered across the floor like frost, jagged and fresh. Some were stained with blood, none of it dry. The only way forward was through.

You’ve bled before, she reminded herself, jaw tight.

She crouched low, shifting her weight to move light and fast.

The first real step sliced through the outer sole. She felt it bite. Then the next, and the next—sharp edges pushing up through soft leather, deeper than they should. The boots her mother had crafted, once her comfort, were losing their protection.

“Vaeronth,” she breathed.

I will be your eyes, he answered, warm and steady in her mind. Three steps. Ledge. Far drop. Wind will try to take you. Crouch at the edge.

She obeyed.