Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KAY
The training hall is empty when I arrive.
Light slants through the arched windows in strips, painting the stone floor in fractured amber. It’s quiet in a way that doesn’t feel peaceful—more like the room is holding its breath. I know the feeling.
My legs ache, my wrist is still sore from yesterday’s too-ambitious parry, and I didn’t sleep much. I’ve been dreaming again. Not nightmares—just loud things. Fire. Teeth. That look in Caziel’s eyes when he told me he didn’t want the throne. I shake it off. Or try to.
He’s already there when I round the corner.
Standing near the far edge of the room in his usual dark training gear, hair pushed back, expression unreadable.
There’s something wrapped in dark cloth on the bench beside him.
My brain, traitorous and sleep-deprived, immediately thinks: gift? Which is obviously dumb.
“Morning,” I say, managing not to sound too breathless.
“It’s yours.” He doesn’t waste time, nodding toward the object beside him.
I step closer. The cloth is soft. Some kind of charcoal-toned velvet, worn but clean. It’s tied in two places with black cord. I glance at him before touching it. He says nothing—just watches me. I kneel and undo the cord, carefully unwrap the bundle and stare.
It’s a sword.
No—more precise than that. A short blade the length of my forearm, with a thin, double-edged design and a curved hilt that molds instinctively to my palm the moment I pick it up.
The metal is dark, almost black, but when the light hits it, I see a faint shimmer—red-gold, like embers sleeping beneath the surface.
A few characters—runes?—run down the center of the blade, etched so fine they almost disappear.
I can’t read them but I feel like I’ve seen them before.
When I touch the first one, it glows faintly beneath my thumb and the metal seems to heat.
“You had this made?” I ask, voice barely above a whisper.
Caziel nods once. “The Daemari blades are too heavy. Too long for your reach. I had this forged for you.”
My throat goes tight. I don’t know what I expected—but it wasn’t this. Not something so perfect. Not something made for me—not borrowed, not adjusted, not improvised—but crafted. My first instinct is to joke. To make it light. I lift the sword slightly and give a half-smile.
“If this is your idea of flirting, it’s working.”
Something shifts at the corner of his mouth. Not a full smile, but a dent in the armor.
“It’s not,” he says evenly. “It’s survival.”
“Ouch,” I mutter, but the blade feels too good in my hand to mean it. “Spare my feelings, why don’t you.”
I roll my wrist, test the balance. It sings along my palm. My fingers curve against the hilt like they belong there. Like this is what it’s been waiting for.Like maybe I’m not doomed after all. Caziel watches me closely.
“I can flirt if you’d like. Try the stance I showed you yesterday.”
I obey before I think, sliding into the ready position.
The weapon moves with me like breath. It doesn’t fight me the way the others did.
It doesn’t weigh down my arm or throw me off balance.
It feels like an extension of my body. I turn and strike, fluid.
The blade whistles through the air, clean, sharp, perfect. I blink at it. At him.
“Holy shit,” I murmur.
“You’re adapting.”
“You mean I don’t suck as bad now? Or you charmed it to save a lost cause?”
He steps closer. “Instincts are sharper when the tools fit the hands.”
I hold the blade upright for a moment, watching it catch the light. Then lower it slowly and turn toward him. I feels like an extension of my arm.
“You didn’t have to do this.”
His expression doesn’t change, but something about the silence behind his eyes softens.
“You’re expected to fight,” he says. “You should have a weapon made for you.”
“Do most Daemari have bespoke weaponry?”
There’s a heavy moment of silence. Then, “No.”
Just like that. Like it’s obvious. Like it’s nothing. But I feel it in my chest like something breaking open. I laugh—because I don’t know what else to do.
“You’re really not big on gestures, are you?”
“This is a gesture.”
I glance down at the sword again. Then back at him.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It really is.”
We start slow. Honestly, a relief, because I don’t think my pulse has come down since he handed me my gift.
Caziel circles me like a storm cloud that hasn’t decided whether it wants to break open.
One hand behind his back, the other resting lightly on the hilt of his own blade—not drawn, just present. Always present.
“Stance,” he says quietly.
I move into the position he taught me just a few days ago.
Is that how long it’s been? It feels like an eon.
The new weapon fits my grip better than I could’ve imagined.
My fingers find the curve of the hilt like I was born with it in my grasp, but something’s off in my shoulders.
I can feel it. Caz notices too. He steps in, fingers brushing against my spine, adjusting the angle of my posture.
He’s not rough, not pushy—just firm. Confident.
His hand rests lightly between my shoulder blades for a breath longer than necessary and my thoughts scatter like startled birds.
“You’re favoring your right side again,” he murmurs near my ear.
“I’m left-handed.” Is that a thing here? None of the other Daemari seemed to hold their weapons on the left, but they didn’t stop me when I did.
“I know. It will be an asset if you can protect your right side, too.”
He places his hand on my left wrist, guiding the tilt of my blade. My heart is beating fast, and it has nothing to do with combat readiness.
“You’re not breathing,” he says.
I suck in a sharp inhale. “Trying not to faint.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “From exertion?”
“Let’s go with that.”
“Yes, breathing will help.” The corner of his mouth twitches like he’s very much aware he’s a smartass, and I can’t tell if it makes me want to run or pull him closer.
We move into motion drills. Strike, retreat.
Pivot, block. I fumble the first few combinations.
They’re not hard, but every time he brushes past me to redirect my grip or correct my footwork, I forget what I’m doing.
His touch is precise, not lingering, but it burns, kicking up my pulse and stealing the air from my lungs.
At one point, he steps in behind me to adjust my stance again. His hands slide down my arms, nudging the bend of my elbows. My breath catches and he goes still. For a second, the room feels entirely too small. Then he clears his throat and steps back and my lungs burn.
“Better,” he says, like the moment didn’t just short-circuit my spine.
We reset. This time, I land a hit. A weak one—barely a tap to his side—but it counts. He doesn’t say anything, but I swear I see something flicker in his expression.
I grin. “That count as a win?”
“You’re still alive,” he replies. “So yes.”
We’re standing close—too close, probably—but I’m getting used to that.
The new blade sits in my palm like it’s lived there forever.
My knuckles are bruised, my stance is improving, and I haven’t tripped over my own feet in ten minutes.
Progress. But underneath it all, I still don’t know what I’m doing.
Not really. Not in the way that counts. I glance at him, careful to keep my voice casual.
“Do you think I can do it?”
He doesn’t ask what I mean. Just studies me, quiet and unreadable.
“I don’t know.”
Well, that’s honest. Even if it stings.
He adds, softer this time, “The point isn’t winning. Not yet. First we survive the Flame.”
My pulse skips.
“You mean the magic fire cult evaluation we’ve been circling for days now?”
His mouth quirks—half amusement, half grimness. “Roughly.”
“Is that where I get the brand?
“Most are branded before the Flame.” Most. He means all but me. “It appears on the body. Symbolic. It confirms the flame’s call.”
“So I haven’t been marked,” I say. “No glowy sigils on my skin. Unless I missed something.”
He nods once. “It would appear somewhere visible. The flame makes its choices.”
“And yours?” I ask, casually. “Did you wake up one morning with a mystical tramp stamp?”
His eyes meet mine—sharp, narrowed. Then they flick away.
“I—” He stops. Shakes his head, once. “It doesn’t matter.”
That catches me off guard. He never fumbles. I laugh lightly, trying to defuse it. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I don’t have any new markings. But to be fair, I can’t exactly see my own ass. Might have to get someone to check.”
That gets him. His entire body goes still, but his eyes widen. Not much. Just a sliver. But it’s enough to see his pupils blow wide, eclipsing the dark of his irises. His throat works. His hands curl into fists at his sides, jaw tightening like it physically costs him not to respond.
Oh.
Ohhh.
Okay.
So that’s where the line is. He feels it too.
For once, he looks away first. I shift, trying to hide the flush in my neck. I didn’t mean to shake him. Not like that. A tease sure, but…but some small, dangerous part of me is glad I did. He doesn’t respond to the joke, and when he finally speaks again, his voice is all cool control.
“If you’re unmarked, they can’t make you compete. Not without risking outcry.”’
“But they want to humiliate me at the Flame.”
“They hope for humiliation at the Flame. Public failure. Something symbolic.”
“To put the messy little human in her place?”
He nods.
“I’m also a warning, aren’t I. I’m not Daemari, I’m not worthy. I’m not enough.” He nods and I blow out a breath. “Great. Love that for me.”
He says nothing.
But his jaw clenches again, and I see it—anger. Quiet, controlled. But there.
It’s not for me.
It’s for them.
“So they want to humiliate me,” I mutter, “but you’re still teaching me.”
His gaze sharpens.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no honor in letting someone be unprepared. Not if I can help it.”