Chapter 8 #2
“Of course. Spoken to her too. She may have just arrived, but we all have our eyes, don’t we.” He crosses his arms, tone still light. “She’s quite the distraction. Doesn’t burn, but she stirs. That’s the word they’re using now. A spark that shifts the air. No one’s sure what it means.”
“It means nothing,” I lie.
Solonar’s gaze narrows, not cruel, not accusing. Just curious. Almost indulgent.
“Has she been examined fully?” he asks.
I frown. “She stood before the Flamebound.” Our scholars, one expert for each realm. They’d have known.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He steps closer. Only a half-step. But enough.
“Have you seen her?” he asks, voice quieter now. “All of her? Really looked?”
I say nothing.
Solonar lifts a brow. “Naked flame reveals all, doesn’t it?”
I roll my shoulders back. “You’re implying something.”
“I’m asking,” he says. “Perhaps the Brand doesn’t show as it does in us. Perhaps it lies somewhere… less visible.” His eyes follow the line of my throat to the neckline of my tunic where my own Emberbrand sits dark and red below my glamor.
The image flashes before I can stop it: Kay’s skin, pale where the sun hasn’t touched it, streaked with soot and desert grit, robe slipping from one shoulder in the haze of lamplight. The curve of her back. Her breath catching—
Enough.
I can’t say if she’s beautiful. Humans aren’t terribly different from Daemari, not in size or shape, especially not when we hold our glamour.
Big brown eyes with the stark whites, no flame visible in the depths.
Her hair is long, like so many of the Daemari, and it bends and curves as it falls down the arch of her spine.
She doesn’t’ appear to wear it in intricate twists and braids.
Maybe she reserves that for formal occasions.
Kay isn’t someone I’d look away from, but she’s human.
Fragile. Delicate. Without flame or want or magic.
I close my eyes, drag in a slow breath, and crush the thoughts of her. Solonar sees the tension. Of course he does. His mouth twitches.
“Easy,” he says. “It’s a fair question.”
“It’s a provocation.”
“More like a possibility.” He steps back then, granting me the space he so skillfully stole. “You’ve never been good at not caring,” he adds more softly. “Even when you tried.”
“She won’t enter the Rite.”
“Are you sure?”
His voice doesn’t challenge. It wounds.
“No,” I admit. “I’m not.”
Solonar nods slowly, like he respects the honesty. Like we’re on the same side.
“She came through the Wastes untouched,” he says. “Lived where flame dies. That alone makes her unusual. But she wasn’t just dropped at our gates, Caziel. Something brought her here. Something kept her alive. That deserves consideration.”
I glance past him toward the darker edge of the corridor. The flame in the wall sconces shifts subtly with my breath.
“If she’s marked,” I say, “it hasn’t shown.”
“Not yet.”
“Or it isn’t there.”
“Are you willing to stake her life on that?”
The question lodges beneath my ribs.
“I’m not willing to stake it at all.”
Solonar nods.
And then, carefully, almost gently, he says, “Then don’t let her stand alone.”
My gaze sharpens. “You’re suggesting she won’t be given a choice. That I should enter.”
“I may be wrong, but if I’m not…she’ll die if you don’t.”
I go still, holding my eyes, steady and unreadable. Not pushing. Just waiting.
I pull air into my lungs.
“If she steps into the arena—if this realm demands her blood—I will not let them take it alone.”
Solonar smiles. Not gloating. Not victorious. Satisfied.
“As I said,” he murmurs, “you’ve never been good at not caring.” And then he turns and walks away, flame catching along the hem of his robe in a curl of gold.
I stay behind and tell myself I have not agreed even as the fire under my skin begins to stir. Solonar’s words cling to me like smoke.
Then don’t let her stand alone.
He said it like an ally. Like a brother-in-arms. Like he was offering me a way forward.
But I’ve known Elder Solonar my whole life.
He never offers. He only guides. Quiet hands on the edge of the scale, never seen.
Never blamed. And I—idiot that I am—still want to believe we stand on the same side.
The side of Crimson. Whatever that means anymore.
And still I can feel the doubt unraveling under my skin.
What does he want me to do? What outcome does he hope for?
Would he have me compete? Would he see me rise, just to prove that I still can?
Would he call that mercy? I don’t know. And that—not Solonar’s smile, not the council’s talk of fire and tests—that’s what unsettles me.
I used to be certain. Now, all I have is flame. I guess I’ll go demand answers from the fire.
The old chamber is tucked behind the southern spire—unmarked, unwatched.
A reliquary, they called it once. A place for reflection.
For communion. It is neither public, nor is it forbidden.
It’s forgotten. My mother brought me here only once, when I was young.
She whispered stories into the stone walls about how the flame wasn’t just power—it was want, sharpened into something sacred.
“Flame for destruction is easy. Flame for creation? That’s devotion.”
Back then, I didn’t understand. Now, I’m desperate to.
The air inside is warm. Not the blistering heat of a forge or battlefield—just the steady pulse of something ancient.
A breath that never leaves. A heart that never stops beating.
The brazier sits at the far end of the chamber.
Low, open, flickering with a fire that gives off no smoke and needs no fuel.
Its light doesn’t fill the room—it folds around it. Careful. Respectful.
I approach with slow steps, my boots echoing off the obsidian floor. The walls are carved with the names of every champion who ever bore the Brand. Etched deep. Gleaming faintly.
Some were heroes. Some were monsters. Some were both.
And some never stood a chance.
I stop a pace before the flame and lower myself to one knee. Not tradition. Not prayer. It is the only thing that feels honest.
“I don’t know what you want,” I say softly. “If you want anything at all.”
The flame crackles. Not louder. Not brighter. Listening.
“I’ve never asked you for guidance. Not when I left the court.
Not when Isaeth died. Not when I let the Rite rise without me.
” Her name feels like an offering. A knife unsheathed.
“I thought refusing was enough. That removing myself would weaken him. That if I did nothing, he would eventually fall under the weight of his own ambition.” I exhale slowly.
“But the court still kneels. Solonar still whispers. And now…”
Now there’s her.
A human girl with grit in her voice and bruises under her eyes and a will like a blade.
She is not marked by flame, but she burns me with her presence.
And I cannot stop thinking about her standing in the arena, surrounded by creatures and powers she doesn’t understand, bleeding for a crown she never knew existed.
“She shouldn’t be here,” I whisper.
But she is.
I rise and pace the chamber, letting the names on the wall pass beside me.
Some of them I knew. One of them nearly became my own.
I stop beside the oldest section—rulers long before my time, chosen in eras where fire meant survival more than spectacle.
I place my palm against the wall. The stone is warm as I trace the lines of each letter.
“I know what Crimson has become,” I say. “I know what my father made it. Power without vision. Flame without mercy. Want twisted into something cold.”
The flame behind me stirs. A single ember arcs skyward, then vanishes.
I turn and step back toward the brazier, letting my hand hover above the flame.
It does not burn me. It never has.
“You can’t survive on fear alone,” I say. “And power, for power’s sake, is hollow. You know that. Don’t you?” The flame lifts, just slightly. I breathe in its warmth. “There must be another way.”
No answer. Just the same steady light. The same echo of heat I’ve always known.
But maybe that’s the answer. Because it hasn’t left. The flame still waits. Not for kings. Not for monsters. For someone who remembers what it means to want something beyond domination.
To want to protect. To want to build. To want love, and to let it be enough.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say quietly.
The flame shimmers. I know.
Doing nothing is no longer an option.