Chapter 23 #2
I push myself upright, stumbling as the heat warps the floor under me.
My legs barely hold. I keep my eyes trained on the door at the far end and I stumble toward it.
One step. Then another. Behind me, the arena whispers like a storm building on the edge of the horizon.
The corridor blurs as I walk. The door opens as I near it.
My arms are buzzing, my skin too tight, like I’ve been peeled and only barely put back together.
My heartbeat is loud in my ears—slow, but wrong.
The moment the heavy stone doors seal behind me, I stumble.
Sarai slips out of the shadows. She grabs my shoulders, but I flinch from the touch. I’m not sure where I end and the fire begins.
“Kay—?” She presses her palms to my cheeks, anchoring me anyway. “You’re burning up,” she whispers, dragging me to a low stone bench like I weigh nothing. “What the hell did they do to you?”
My robes cling to me, soaked through with sweat. I can’t unclench my fists. I try to speak, but nothing comes out. Is this a seizure?
Sarai kneels and reaches for the hem of my sleeve.
I jerk back. “Don’t—!”
Too late.
She peels the fabric back, and we both stare, eyes wide.
The marks run from my wrists to my elbows in elegant, branching lines.
They look like molten vines, flickering faintly red and gold.
The color moves, pulsing like veins with a heartbeat all their own.
Fire underneath my very skin. Sarai inhales sharply.
“That’s not normal.” She glances toward the door. “Caziel, the Ember Heir, should see this. He’s the only one who might know—”
“No—” My voice cracks. “They said not to… he can’t—”
But she’s already gone. I close my eyes.
Just for a second. My head pounds like the mother of all migraines is seeping into my skull.
I’m dying right? Getting Caziel isn’t going to change that.
He shouldn’t see me like this. Not when I know how much he cared about keeping me safe.
This isn’t his fault. It isn’t and he doesn’t need to see me like this. It would gut him. It would—
Then door slams open, and I know it’s him even before I hear his voice.
His footsteps are thunder.
“Where is she?” Sarai doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. Caziel crosses the room in seconds, and then he’s kneeling in front of me. “Kay.” His voice is low and sharp. Not angry, almost panicked. “Easy, sael. You’re trembling.”
“I’m fine,” At least that’s what I try to say. My teeth chatter through each syllable.
“You’re not.” His hand brushes my cheek, and I feel the restraint in his fingers—how badly he wants to gather me close. “You’re overheating. She needs cold water.”
Sarai is already moving, dragging a basin out of the washroom, filling it from a chilled tap I’ve literally never seen before with practiced urgency. I’ll have to ask about the water. Later. When I’m done melting.
“I can do it,” I say, trying to rise.
Caziel presses me gently down, I swear his fingers trace something against my back. It both helps anchor me and makes me want to whimper, “Let us help.”
The fire still whispers under my skin like it hasn’t left. Sweat beads on my brow, dripping off the end of my nose. I try for a nod, closing my eyes against the wave of heat. Caziel moves behind me.
“We need to get this off.” His fingers brush the clasp of my robes at the shoulder.
“May I?” I think I nod, but I can’t be sure.
He unfastens the garment slowly, reverently, like he’s afraid he’ll hurt me.
I swallow back a bark of laughter. He could run me through with a blade and I doubt it would hurt worse.
The fabric sticks to my back. Possibly from sweat, or maybe my skin is melting off. When he eases it down, I hiss in pain.
“Oh gods,” Sarai breathes.
“What?” I rasp.
Caziel says something low and dark under his breath. Daemari might not be a language I know, but cursing is universal. “It’s spreading.”
I twist to look, but Caziel catches my chin. His eyes are dark. Darker than I remember. There’s no whites at all, just deep, fathomless, heat. “Stay still. Please.”
The robe comes away, and the cool air hits my skin, but it doesn’t help.
It feels like someone carved open my spine and poured the sun inside.
Then I feel his hands again. Steady. Gentle.
Lifting me. I expect him to carry me to the bath.
He doesn’t. Caz sits down with me in his lap, holding me close as Sarai pours water into the basin.
My skin is blazing hot against his chest. But he doesn’t let go. Doesn’t flinch.
“You shouldn’t touch me,” I whisper. “I could burn you.”
“Burn me. I’m not afraid of fire,” he murmurs, breath ghosting over my hair. “Besides, it’s a bit late to worry about that outcome. I’m pretty sure you already did.”
I consider an apology, but it melts out of my brain before I can commit.
Sarai finishes filling the tub. “My Lord. The bath. Now.”
Caziel stands and walks me to it. I feel him unhook the last of the robe, and then coolness wraps around me as he lowers me into the water.
I gasp. My teeth chatter and ache against the frigid rush.
It hurts, but it also helps. The pain fades from burning to aching.
My fingers finally uncurl. Steam drifts up around me and still I cling to Caziel.
I sink deeper, and Sarai kneels beside me, her hands moving to check my back again. She freezes.
“My Lord,” she says. He’s still in front of me, my face cradled against his stomach, blocking out the light. Still watching me like the world might break apart if he looks away. Sarai’s hand hovers just above my spine. “The mark… it’s not just spreading. It’s shifting. Alive.”
His grip seems to tighten. “Describe it.”
“Wings,” she whispers. “Or fire pretending to be wings. Shoulder to shoulder. It’s like it’s watching me.”
A long silence.
Then Caziel murmurs, “It chose her. Fully.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, throat raw. Finding the words is a challenge but I force them anyway.
He lowers to one knee again, his fingers brushing the edge of my arm just above the water. “It means,” he says quietly, “you’re not just an anomaly anymore.”
“You’re officially a contender.” Sarai brushes a hair off my soaked temple.
I look at them both, eyes stinging, body trembling. “But I don’t want to”
“I know.” Caz.
“It hurts.”
“I know,” he says again, and there’s a catch in his voice. “And I swear to you I will—”
I cover his mouth with the flat of my hand. I don’t want him to risk a promise he won’t be able to keep.
The room is quiet. The water ripples around me, smoke and light dancing on the surface.
Sarai rises and steps back, giving us space.
Ripples laps against my collarbones, sloshing softly as I shift.
It should soothe me, cool me, but I’m still shaking.
Not from pain anymore—but from the ache beneath it.
The place the fire touched that isn’t skin or bone.
Something deeper. Something I didn’t know I had.
Caziel hasn’t moved. He’s still kneeling beside the bath, one hand braced on the floor, my forehead presses to the solid muscle of his thighs.
His other hovers near me, alternating between pushing strands of hair off my temple or skimming the line of my bicep.
It’s not like him at all to be this unsure. He always knows what to do.
“I don’t want to be alone,” I whisper.
The words barely make it out, but Caz hears them.
He’s already shedding his outer coat, the heavy ceremonial drape falling to the floor.
He kicks off his boots and pulls the crimson sash from his waist with one quick tug.
There’s no hesitation in the way he steps into the bath. No shame. No ceremony. Only purpose.
Water splashes up as he lowers into the basin behind me, legs stretching to either side of mine.
I feel the warmth of his chest before it touches me—radiating power, presence, something grounding.
Then he pulls me back. My spine presses to his chest. His arms wrap around me, slow and strong.
My head fits under his chin like we’ve done this a hundred times.
We haven’t. But it still feels like we have.
The moment his skin touches mine, the shaking gets worse.
He doesn’t flinch. He just tightens his grip, folding me into him like I’m something fragile worth protecting.
Like I’m his. I want to protest. I want to pretend I don’t need this.
That I didn’t just fall apart in front of an entire realm.
But I melt instead, sagging against him as my head tips back to rest on his shoulder.
His breath is ragged, and his voice—when it comes—is wrecked.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. The words barely touch the air. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Again and again, like a mantra he can’t stop. At some point the words stop sounding familiar. I don’t understand. Not fully. Not yet. But I know he means it. He feels it.
My fingers twitch in the water. My eyes blur. Everything pulses, light, heat, memory. I’m drifting until a voice breaks through, soft and familiar.
“She’s okay now,” Sarai murmurs. “You hear that, George? She’s okay.”
I don’t know if I’m dreaming it. But I hear George’s name, and it anchors me.
I think of his fur. His weight on my chest at night.
I think of Earth, and the smell of my old hoodie, and that one cracked mug I will never get rid of, not when I still remember mom sipping her coffee from it every single morning.
I think of everything I’ve lost. And how I’m not alone now.
Caziel shifts again behind me. His fingers trail along my arm, just above the glowing brand. He doesn’t flinch from the heat. He cups my forearms in both hands and presses his lips to the crown of my head.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs again, barely audible. “I should’ve stopped it. I should’ve known. I should’ve fought harder.”
My lips part, but no sound comes. I want to tell him he did enough, I’m still here, alive, but the warmth and weight of him around me are already dragging me under, somewhere dark and quiet and safe.
The last thing I hear is his breath in my ear, low and heavy, his chest expanding behind and around me. Breaking apart at the edges.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I swear I won’t let it hurt you again.”
And this time, when the blackness comes, I don’t fight it. Because I believe him.