The Grove fell dead silent. The remaining youths stepped forward one by one, their previous ambitions entirely crushed under the weight of mortality. They finished with mixed results. Thankfully, they knew their limits and didn't try to overreach.
All of them bypassing the Blood jades,a few did try subjugating Star stone ones, failed miserably, so with their eyes strictly averted from the temptation of the rare Omen-Bloods. They chose the pale-reed basket of Quartz.
There were no more fractured cores. No more blood spraying onto the pristine singing moss. There was just the heavy, exhausting, muscle-tearing friction of common binding. A River-Lizard that made a boy vomit river water. A Forest-Hound that left a girl gasping on her hands and knees. A Scorpion. A Mud-Snake.
