Page 50 of The Shattered Rite (The Sightless Prophecy Trilogy #1)

“There are moments when history bends and it does not bend back.” —The Flamekeeper’s Annals

Before the next dawn, Eliryn was sent back to her chamber. No explanation. No verdict. Only a single sentence from the steward as he escorted them from The Hall of Scribes:

“The Flame will reveal its Sovereign at first light.”

Her room greeted her like a quiet observer. Firelight hummed low in the hearth. The air smelled faintly of juniper and iron.

She stood motionless for a long time, and then tried to settle and nap before whatever came next.

Then: “Vaeronth.”

I’m here.

“What if they name Garic?”

Then we will both stand with him in support.

“And if they name Whitvale?”

Then I will offer to burn down the throne itself, should you desire.

She managed the smallest flicker of a smile, though her throat burned.

“And if it’s me?”

A pause, then his voice was low, absolute.

Then we get to work.

She swallowed hard, pressing her palm over her sternum, where the faint warmth of his tether pulsed.

“I don’t know if I want it.”

I know.

Her knees gave out slowly, folding onto the stone bench at the room’s center. She could still feel the echo of every question they had hurled at her, every gaze that had weighed her like a stone in the scales.

“I don’t want to rule.”

And yet you might.

She closed her useless eyes.

“What happens after, Vaeronth? After they choose?”

Silence stretched for a long moment. When he answered, it was with something like reluctant reverence.

If it’s you… they will kneel.

The thought made her shiver.

She closed her eyes and didn't remember falling asleep, she only remembered stirring at the drifting waves of magic that seemed to cloud the room.

The room had been busy crafting her something worthy of facing the Flame and the thousands that would bare witness.

At first, she expected it to offer another set of leather leggings. Another battle tunic. But no.

From the wall, where unseen mechanisms lived, a form emerged.

The room did not give her battle leathers.

It did not choose the practical lines of a warrior, nor the simplicity of a rider.

Instead, when Eliryn turned toward the table, her eyes adapting to Vaeronth's vision, the garment waiting for her was nothing less than a declaration.

The gown shimmered dark as garnet in the hearth’s low light—a bodice sculpted in deep crimson silk, boned with blacksteel threading and adorned with intricate gold filigree.

The detailing curled like living vines over her ribs and collarbone, each twist of metalwork shaped into roses half-unfurled, petals glinting like pressed sunlight.

Gold chains looped from her shoulders, draping delicately around her throat before joining at the hollow of her collarbone, the fastening shaped like a dragon’s eye.

Beneath, the bodice flowed into a sweeping skirt of sheer black panels layered over blood-red silk, slit high to bare her thighs as she moved, a deliberate echo of both grace and threat.

Down the center fell a silk banner embroidered with curling thorns and a stylized dragon, its coils laced in molten thread, as if the creature had been stitched in fire itself.

Her arms were left bare, the gown designed not to conceal but to display: the twisting marks of her dragonbond glowed faintly along her skin, spiraling from wrists to shoulders, luminous against her gold and crimson frame.

On her back, where the shift dipped scandalously low, the full spread of her dragon’s sigil would be visible—an ancient script of scales and wings etched across muscle and bone, alive with the slow pulse of Vaeronth’s magic.

She swallowed.

A queen’s dress.

A conqueror’s armor.

A dragon’s legacy.

Not something worn by choice. Something chosen for her.

She rose from the bed and stepped toward it without further thought. When her fingers brushed the silk, it felt like flame.

And when she dressed, every chain, every clasp, every weight of gold whispered the same truth:

Tonight, the realm would see her.

Not as a girl.

Not even as a rider.

But as power made flesh.

Her dragon marks flared faintly along her skin, shimmering in the candlelight, almost as though the dress itself had called them forward.

When she reached for the boots the room usually offered her, she found none.

“Really?” she muttered.

Vaeronth’s voice curled around her mind, low and deliberate.

Barefoot… you look like a god returning.

Like prophecy draped in silk and thorns.

They will not remember your face, Eliryn.

They will remember your silence, and your marks.

And the sound of your steps, bare against stone, as you walk toward fate.

That earned a soft, almost bitter laugh from her. “Well. Practical as ever.”

She knelt beside the mirror, combing her fingers through her hair, working it back into warrior’s braids with slow, methodical care.

Each twist was an act of quiet defiance.

Each tie, a prayer. She left the ends loose down her back, the coppery strands streaked with deeper crimson as Vaeronth’s light shimmered faintly against them.

She did not braid her hair to look beautiful.

She braided it to be unbreakable.

When the knock came, she was ready.

“Dragonrider.”

The voice beyond the door was unfamiliar—a guard’s, but not one she recognized.

She crossed the room slowly and opened the door herself.

The man on the other side froze.

She watched him through the dragon-sight, through her stolen awareness, as he took her in. The gold, the crimson, the bare feet, the shining marks that traced up her arms and throat like living flame.

His throat bobbed once as he swallowed.

Then, carefully, deliberately… he bowed.

“My Lady,” he said, voice quieter now. “I… have heard the stories of the Dragonriders. Of the firstborn who walked barefoot into war, and left ash behind them. I do not know what the Flame will choose.”

He lifted his gaze, his expression fierce and reverent.

“But I hope it’s you.”

She felt her chest tighten, but she said nothing, only nodded once, sharp as a blade.

He offered his arm.

“I am to escort you to the Rite.”

Eliryn took his arm gratefully.

As they walked, the silence between them felt like a kind of respect. Vaeronth’s presence was heavy at the edge of her thoughts, but for once, he said nothing. Even he understood this moment was hers.

The square outside the castle gates was more crowded than Eliryn’s village ever had been.

From the carved terraces of Stonefell to the wind-raked steppes near Lirin’s Edge, people had come.

Banners of old families fluttered beside the patchwork cloaks of field laborers.

Children perched on shoulders. Merchants stood quiet behind their carts.

Even the nobles had left the balconies to stand among the people, eager to see who the Flame would choose.

All eyes turned toward the balcony above the flame-forged dais, where history would soon be made as a new victor was crowned.

Eliryn stood just beyond the towering doors, waiting.

She could feel the sun on her skin. The sounds of the crowd like a single, massive breath held in the body of the realm. When she saw Garic and Corwin waiting, when she heard the gathered city breathing as one collective body, the guard released her arm, stepped back, and spoke low.

“Walk well, Dragonrider.”

And then she stepped forward.

The crowd did not gasp when she emerged.

They went utterly silent.

Even Vraxxis, ever the serpent, was staring. Garic turned, his eyes wide, his jaw tightening—but whether it was with awe or something else, she couldn’t tell.

Eliryn stood alone now at the edge of the flame-forged dais, the sun gleaming off the gold at her throat, the marks along her arms glowing faintly, undeniably alive. Barefoot. Crownless.

And radiant.

High above, where the judges watched, King Thalen stood draped in black and silver, and the Flame itself waited.

Eliryn took her place beside the other Flame chosen, pretending as though no one watched her.

They wait for something they can believe in, Vaeronth said. Even now.

Eliryn swallowed. Her fingers curled at her sides. She wasn’t sure what she believed in anymore.

The doors opened.

Golden light spilled across the marble, and the guards flanking the entrance stepped back. A herald’s voice rang out above the crowd, amplified by spell and steel:

“Behold—the final three.”

The chosen stepped forward, Garic moving first. Eliryn followed, pace even despite the weight of every eye upon her.

Vaeronth showed her where the edges were, where the stone ended and the wind began.

The dais rose before them, a half-circle ringed with flame inlaid into the stone, its fire a constant burn, neither fed nor fading.

King Thalen stood at its center, robed in black and silver, the Flame’s light casting sharp shadows across his features. The three judges from the Hall of Scribes stood to one side. The High Flamekeeper stood to the other, her red and gold robes rippling like fire itself.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

The Flamekeeper raised her hands.

The fire in the dais flared, not brighter, not hotter, but taller, as if reaching up to touch the sky. Wind stirred the edges of Eliryn’s hair. Behind her closed lids, darkness still reigned, but she could feel it- the air shifting, the moment rising toward something sharp and irreversible.

“You have all come here to witness the will of the Flame,” the Flamekeeper intoned, her voice full and deep. “Three remain. Three who endured. And only one shall bear the burden of its choosing.”

A breathless silence stretched across the crowd.

Eliryn’s heart pounded behind her ribs, unsteady and hard. She could feel Garic’s tension next to her like static in the air. Vraxxis stood to her left, arms folded behind his back, utterly still.

They had made peace with the trial’s end, but not with this.

“Step forward,” the Flamekeeper commanded. “Each of you.”