Chapter 7 #2
Like something in me is waking up. Or waiting.
I hear the footsteps before I see him. Not the hard-soled echo of guards or the deliberate sweep of Caziel’s quiet power.
This is something softer. Sharper. Almost amused.
I lift my head just as he rounds the corner—tall, lean, dressed in storm-colored robes with bronze cuffs and a braid in his white hair so precise it makes my own messy curls feel like an insult.
“I’m heading back to my…” dungeon? Chamber? Hotel suite?
He stops a few feet away, tilts his head slightly, and studies me like I’m a riddle someone dared him to solve in one try.
“You’re still in one piece,” he says. “I suppose that’s a win.”
“Big win,” I mutter. “Didn’t even cry once.”
His smile twitches upward. Not warm. But real.
“Most do,” he replies.
I straighten, immediately on guard. “You’ve seen these things before?”
“I’ve seen many things.” His gaze drifts down the hall behind me, toward the still-glowing door. “Not all of them with quite so much ceremony.”
“Glad I could be the day’s entertainment.”
“Oh, it’s more than that.”
He steps closer—not threatening, not towering, but unsettling all the same. Like someone who has made a life out of not being surprised and doesn’t appreciate when the world changes the rules.
“You don’t burn,” he says. “But you left a mark.”
A mark on what? I want to scream, instead I force my lips to curve.
“Yeah, I’m good at that. Emotional damage in five seconds or less.”
Another smile. This one sharper. Almost proud.
“You’ll want to keep that to yourself,” he says. “There are those in this place who do not take well to uncertainty. Or humor. Or humans.”
“Noted.”
I cross my arms and level him with a look. “And you are…?”
“Solonar.”
“Are you another prince?” I ask. “Or just the chaperone with better hair?”
He chuckles. “I hold the title of Elder. I serve the court.”
“Which one?”
A pause.
“The one that still stands.”
I file that answer under ominous but important. Is there a court that doesn’t? One that has fallen? He glances back toward the room I just stumbled out of. Was he in there?
“They saw something.”
I stiffen. “They said I don’t burn. But I’m not unkindled.”
He nods once. “A paradox. My favorite kind.”
“Do you people ever say anything that actually means something?”
“We say many things. It is the listening that is tricky.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re really good at being cryptic. Is that part of the job description?”
He turns, gestures for me to walk with him. I do because the hall behind me still feels like it’s breathing.
As we walk, he keeps his pace slow and his voice conversational.
“If they truly thought you were dangerous,” he says, “they wouldn’t have sent a chamber of flame-bound mystics.”
“No?” I’m afraid to ask who they would—
“They’d have sent a blade.”
I blink. “That’s supposed to be comforting?”
“It’s meant to be honest.”
We walk in silence for a stretch. The air grows cooler, the stone lighter. I start to recognize some of the patterns on the walls again—twisting back toward the part of the Citadel that at least pretends to have guest rooms.
Solonar stops just before we reach the familiar curve of my hallway.
“If I were you,” he says softly, “I’d find out who your friends are. Before the Rite begins.”
I frown. “Wait, what?” Friends? Rite? But he’s already turning away, disappearing down another corridor like smoke slipping away on a gust of wind.
The door to my room is already open and Sarai is inside. She’s humming something low and rhythmic, not melodic, but soothing all the same. Her voice is soft, untrained. The kind of sound you make when you’re trying to take up space without disturbing it.
There’s a tray of food on the table. Another basin steaming gently near the wall.
A change of clothes laid neatly over the bench.
Sarai tucks a towel into the shelf with the kind of efficiency that says she’s been doing this a long time.
She looks up as I step inside and the door swings shut behind me.
“You’re back already.”
I try to laugh. It comes out hoarse.
“I don’t know what they expected,” I say, “but I think I disappointed them in a really interesting way.”
She watches me for a long moment. Then crosses the room and picks up the glass from the tray.
“Drink,” she says, handing it to me. “Before your thoughts catch up to your body.”
I don’t ask what’s in it. I take a sip. It is warm and sharp, like ginger and something mint-adjacent. Not bad. But not familiar either.
“Did they touch you?” she asks quietly.
“No.”
“Hurt you?”
“No.”
She nods like she already knew.
But her shoulders ease just a little.
“They talked in circles,” I say. “Asked if my shadow had ever spoken to me. If I’ve ever forgotten my name. If I’ve kissed the dark.”
Sarai’s lips twitch.
“Have you?”
“No. I mean—probably not. I would’ve remembered something that dramatic, right? I had an emo phase, but I doubt that’s what they meant.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she murmurs. “Crimson likes to blur the lines.”
“The lines of what? I drop onto the edge of the bed and rub at my eyes. “They said I don’t burn. But I’m not unkindled. Everyone here talks in circles, and I get zero actual answers.”
Sarai is quiet for a long moment.
Then she says, “That means they don’t know what you are.”
“Join the club.”
“You misunderstand.” She sits on the bench across from me. “The council does not tolerate lack of knowledge. They tolerate risk, fire, hunger, even pain and violence. But not mystery.”
“That’s… super encouraging.”
She meets my eyes. “You shook something loose.”
I swallow. “Is that why everyone’s watching me like I might explode?”
“No,” she says, softer. “That’s why they’re trying to decide if you’re worth breaking.”
The air in the room thickens. My breath catches.
“Cool,” I manage. “Love that. Any advice?”
Sarai purses her lips, white brows tipped together as she frowns. “The Flame and the Asmodeus rule crimson. Only those with magic, only those sparked, have the chance to…” she pauses, searching for the right word, “wield it.”
“So, the flame knows everything?” Except me?
“There are many who believe the flame knows all, sees all. There are many who believe the flame to be all-powerful.”
“Many.” I can hear the truth in the pauses between her words. “But not you.”
Sarai clamps her lips together. Stark white lashes sweep down to cover her eyes.
“I am not sparked. My opinion does not matter. I cannot commune with the flame. No matter my want, my desire, I will never spark it to action.”
“That doesn’t sound all-powerful to me,” The urge to clap my hand over my mouth practically chokes me. “Maybe we shouldn’t be handing out decision-making rights to something that doesn’t recognize very one.
“The flame leads our Rite of Ascension. It crowns our rulers. It speaks of the future. This I do not dispute.” I hear the word she does not add and I say it for her.
“But…”
She shakes her head. “You don’t need me filling your head with my own personal thoughts. Not today. The Flame sees, the Flame knows, the Flame chooses. If you are unmarked but kindled, the flame recognized you in some capacity.
“And that’s good?”
There’s a gap between her front teeth. I notice it as she bites down into her lower lip.
“For now, it means you’re safe. The Flame could have seen you as a threat and you’d have never made it out of the assessment.”
I think she wants me to focus on the safe part but it’s the first ones that clamor in my brain.
“You knew someone like me,” I say. “Before.” Her hands still. “I remind you of her.”
Sarai doesn’t speak for a while, then she nods. “She was smart. Beautiful,” she says eventually. “And she believed that kindness and compassion were more powerful than flame. More necessary.”
I think about the way the fire bent around me in the hall. How it seemed to wait. To listen.
“Was she wrong?” I ask.
Sarai stands. “That depends on the question you want answered.” She turns away and heads for the door. Just before she leaves, she looks back. “And Kay?”
“Yeah?”
Her gaze is careful. But not unkind. “If the flame ever does speak to you, don’t lie. It will know.”