Page 39 of The Shattered Rite (The Sightless Prophecy Trilogy #1)

“Some stars burn too brightly to be ignored. That’s why kings learn to snuff them out before they become constellations.” — Notes from the Ashen Court, Volume II

She walked away without looking back. Bare feet brushing over wind-smoothed stone, each step deliberate, even with the limp. Her silhouette, lean and poised, carved a striking line against the pale cliff’s edge.

If he hadn’t come, he imagined that she’d probably be in the air by now. Riding that great shadow wheeling overhead, free and blazing against the sky.

She looked born for it.

The long shirt and riding leathers clung to her like intention, not vanity.

Practical. Sharp. The kind of beauty that didn’t try.

The kind that happened when someone moved with purpose, not polish.

Her hair—reddish-gold, though the sun distorted it—shifted constantly in the wind.

Loose strands caught the light like copper wire.

And her eyes—blank, silvered, opaque—should’ve made her seem lost. But when they’d turned toward him, it hadn’t felt like blindness. It had felt like focus. Like she saw past the fog between them. Like she was watching what he didn’t say.

She saw me.

That thought lingered. Unwelcome. Unshakeable.

Malric exhaled slowly and turned back toward the path through the orchard, stepping from light into leaf-dappled shade.

He didn’t let himself dwell too long on the way her voice had sounded when she said her name. Soft. Vulnerable. Like she trusted him. He didn’t tell her he’d known it already—that he’d memorized it long ago.

Some truths didn’t need to be offered. Especially not to her.

He reached the castle through the side entrance few dared use. One watchman stood at attention. He knew better than to speak.

Malric moved quickly. Down the narrow staircase behind the western hall. Through the low stone corridor. To the door that always stayed unlocked for him.

His father was already waiting.

King Thalen. No crown rested on his head. No regalia. Just long steel-gray robes and the weight of power worn like second skin. He stood at a low table, maps and scrolls scattered like corpses. He didn’t look up as Malric entered.

“Report.”

“She’s settling in,” Malric said, voice steady. “Faster than expected.”

Thalen turned. His eyes, cold as old ash, locked onto his son’s face. “Explain.”

“She’s won the kitchens. Guards. Staff. Even the steward’s wary but watching. She has eyes now. Ears. People.”

“Too fast.”

Malric said nothing.

Thalen’s voice sharpened, each word precise as a knife. “She’s dangerous. Not for her strength. Not for the dragon. But because people want to follow her. That’s the danger.”

“She hasn’t done anything—”

“She was meant to rise,” Thalen said softly, iron under silk. “Dazzle. Gather attention. Then fall. Publicly. Violently. A symbol crushed before it could bloom. That was the plan.”

He turned fully now, and the cold in his gaze burned.

“But she’s rising too quickly. Gathering support from within my own ranks. We cannot let her become beloved before she becomes dead.”

Silence.

Malric felt the words sink into him like frost.

At last, he said, “I can keep her close. She trusts me.”

Thalen’s eyes flicked sharper. “Are you too close?”

“Not yet.” A lie. He didn’t even blink as he said it.

Thalen studied him for too long. Then he turned back to the table.

“You forget what the dragons were,” Thalen said quietly, almost musing.

“Why we killed them. Why I forged weapons like the ring on your hand. Their power would’ve undone everything I've worked for. She’s bonded, Malric.

That means we don’t know what she’ll become.

What gifts she’ll manifest. She’s untrained, unstable—and worse, she’s trusted .

That combination is a threat we cannot afford. ”

He paused, gaze distant, then continued. “I’ve already chosen who wins this trial. Someone loyal. Predictable. Someone I can control even after the Flame selects them. Power will stay in my hands, no matter what. But she—she’s a complication. A threat to us.”

Malric’s jaw tightened. His throat worked silently.

“Cut the threads,” Thalen said again. “Remove her comfort. Take her allies. Keep her desperate. Keep her small.”

“You want me to pick who to kill?”

“Her allies. Her comfort. The ones who make her feel seen. Guards. Kitchen hands. Anyone. End it.”

Thalen lifted the goblet, drank slowly.

“She is not to become a symbol, Malric. If she does, the others will follow. And if they follow her…”

He didn’t need to finish.

Malric’s jaw locked until it ached.

“You know your task.”

Malric bowed his head. Shallow. Sharp. Controlled.

Then he turned and walked. Step after step. Down the stone corridor. Toward his own chambers.

Eliryn's voice lingered in his mind like a knife still buried.

She said her name like it was a gift.

And now, he was meant to tear her world apart in return.

Malric reached his chambers without memory of the path. His ring burned cold against his skin, blood-forged and heavy, the mark of obedience. His father’s tether.

He braced both hands against the stone wall, breathing hard, muscles coiled tight beneath the black of his robes.

She shouldn’t have mattered.

She shouldn’t still be in his head.

But when she’d said his name—casually, lightly, like she wasn’t terrified—something in him had twisted. Unmoored. He’d told himself it was strategy. Leverage. That making her trust him would make it easier to end her when the time came.

She had looked at him not with fear, not with revulsion, but like she saw someone worth speaking to.

And that… that was the problem.

She was supposed to be a target.

Instead, she was becoming the focus of his fractured mind.

He pressed his forehead to the stone, let the coolness bite into his skin. Control. He needed control.

But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was her. On the rise, hair whipped by the wind, voice raw with exhaustion but still teasing him. Still standing.

She didn’t belong here. In the castle. In his mind.

She was hope wrapped in dragonmarks.

And Malric had been trained to kill hope.

But he didn’t want to.

Not this time.

“Damn you,” he whispered.

He should end it. Now. Sever the thread before it tangled him further.

Instead… he imagined her voice saying his name again.

He shoved away from the wall. Prowled the length of the chamber like a caged animal. His thoughts snarled inside his skull, no longer sharp and clear but circling back, over and over, to her.

He could feel her starting to trust him.

And it felt like poison.

Because if she asked—if she reached for him in earnest—he wasn’t sure he’d be able to refuse her.

He should do as his father commanded. Cull her allies. Break her down. Make her fear becoming more.

Instead… he wanted her to keep seeing him the way she had on the cliffside.

Like he wasn’t just a weapon.

Malric sat heavily on the edge of his bed, jaw clenched, teeth grinding.

She’s a threat.

He knew that.

And yet, she was the only person in years who made him feel like more than the blade his father had forged.

She doesn’t know what I am.

That thought helped. A little. But not enough.

Malric stared at the wall until the torch burned low.

And in the silence, a darker thought whispered beneath his skin:

If he couldn’t have her…

Maybe having her fear would be enough.

Either way, she’d belong to him.

He was already too far gone not to want that.

Not to need it.

Not to take it, if she didn’t offer.

His fingers flexed, aching for the hilt of his blade.

One day, she would learn exactly what he was.

And he wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to run from him.

Or into his arms.

This time, he didn’t resist the hunger crawling beneath his skin.

He let it burn.

And welcomed the ruin it promised.