Chapter 25 #2
I open the storage chest. Uniforms dyed charcoal and edged in crimson sit stacked beside a sealed tin of salve and a rolled scroll.
It’s a schedule, crowded letters marching down the parchment—dawn drills, midday lectures, evening evaluations.
It feels like a sentencing. But every name has the same ink.
Equally doomed, equally obligated. It’s either written in my home tongue, or I can somehow parse the words.
I’m not sure which option leaves me more unsettled.
George leaps back onto the bed, circles twice, settles with a thump, and butts his head against my hip. I scratch behind his ears, more for me than him.
“Truth or hesitation,” I whisper, recalling Caz’s rules. “One keeps me alive; the other kills me.”
George blinks, unimpressed.
Footsteps pass outside, heavy, deliberate.
Voices murmur. No one peeks in. No one needs to.
They all know exactly where I am, and for the first time since the Trial I feel the full weight of being known.
I square my shoulders, lift the uniform, and start changing.
Flame chose me, Realms lie, but I will not be cowed.
My schedule lists training, but I have no way to tell time.
I follow the others out of the barracks because I don’t know what else to do.
They move with purpose, in pairs or small clumps, like they’ve been through this routine a hundred times already.
Maybe they have. I keep to the edge of the path, chin up, spine straight, trying to project something like confidence.
Or at least competence. George trails behind like a ghost, uninterested in the drill pit ahead.
“You could have stayed behind,” I tell him, but he ignores me.
I’m already sweating by the time we get to the training rings.
Crimson heat clings to everything here—even the shade.
The training ground is a stepped pit carved into the rock just beyond the barracks, with sun-scorched sand and a half-circle wall that catches every sound and throws it back like a challenge.
Despite the stone bleachers there is no audience. Just contenders. Just us.
The instructor, Captain Rehn, is a thick-set Daemari with hair like braided copper wire and a voice like a thunderclap. She paces the outer ring like a wolf waiting for weakness.
“You’ll pair off. Practice only. But I expect blood.” She scans us like we are tools, not people. “We learn faster when it hurts.”
I cannot tell if she means that metaphorically.
“Training blades or staffs only,” she continues. “No killing, no magic, no posturing. You are not enemies. The Rite will decide your fates individually. Your job is to survive until then—and maybe survive after. The best way to do that is to learn from each other.”
She’s every gym teacher I’ve ever known trying to convince rabid third graders that dodge ball is meant to be fun.
There’s always a pecking order. Always. The circle shifts as contenders glance around.
Eyes flick to me, then away. I brace myself, uncertain if I’ll be picked as an easy target or if I’ll go unmatched.
Please don’t pick me. Let me slip through this round.
“Pair off,” Rehn says. “I want sweat. I want bruises. I want you all limping by sunset.”
People move. Fast. Lyra and Elira grab partners immediately and I watch as the others form groups until only three of us remain.
Kaelen—a man who is easily seven feet tall—and Judgmental DipshitTM Varo, who strolls toward me with that same easy gait as always, twirling a wooden blade between his fingers, and me.
“Seems we’re stuck,” he says, mock-sighing. “Try not to cry.”
“I’ll do my best,” I mutter, unwilling to back down.
I grip the short, double-edged blade they handed me.
It’s lighter than I’d like, and the handle is too wide for my fingers.
Too easy to drop. Too easy to lose. I miss the dagger Caziel gave me.
Lesson learned, don’t leave it behind in my bunk again.
He smiles as he spins his blade in one easy arc, the motion fluid, almost lazy.
“The softling burns,” he says under his breath, low enough that no one else hears. “Let’s see if she bleeds.”
We square up under Captain Rehn’s glare.
My heart pounds too fast. My stance is off—I know it is—but I try to plant my feet and angle my blade like Caziel drilled into me back in those lonely, bruising sessions before the flame. I don’t feel ready. Not even close. But at least I don’t feel frozen. Varo’s grin is sharp.
“So. The flame-kissed human wants to play.”
“Just needed something to do with my morning,” I reply, voice dry, even as my heart pounds.
Rehn’s bark splits the air. “Begin.”
Varo is faster than I expect. And I expected a lot.
I block the first strike, barely, stumbling two steps back as my wrist jars with the impact.
Too soft. Too slow. The practice blade shakes in my hand.
I grit my teeth and steady it. He circles, loose-limbed, relaxed.
He is not even trying. Not really. Just testing.
“Didn’t expect you to stay upright.” I didn’t either.
He’s fast, but I’ve fought faster. Caz is faster, but he’s easier to read.
Maybe that’s by design. It feels disloyal to compare him to another.
Varo’s style is teasing. He feints and flourishes, like he wants to draw me out and then punish me for trying.
I stay compact. Defensive. Absorbing hits on the flat of my blade, never reaching, never rushing.
“You waiting for permission?” he taunts, swinging wide.
“No,” I grunt, ducking the arc. “Just watching you waste energy.”
He grins, and lunges in for real. We lock up, but he’s significantly stronger and better skilled than I am.
His wooden blade slides under my guard, catches me in the ribs.
Hard. My breath stutters, and I stagger, but do not drop.
I twist, pivot off the pain. My blade skims off the top of his thigh—barely—and he laughs.
“She bites.”
“You started it.”
He lunges. I brace and take the hit on my shoulder, the force driving me back hard.
Pain blooms, but still I keep my feet. I shove forward, pivoting awkwardly, and sweep my leg low.
He stumbles. Not much. But enough. I don’t have the edge.
Not in skill. Not in endurance. But I’m stubborn, and he hasn’t figured that out yet.
Another exchange—parry, strike, deflect.
I grunt as he gets under my guard, the staff kissing my ribs just above the burn scar.
My breath catches. I see it in his face—he felt that weakness.No time to let it show.
He’ll come for that spot again. I lunge, sloppy, and to my shock, the hilt of my blade clips his jaw.
Blood beads on his lip. He wipes it with a knuckle, eyes gleaming.
Rehn’s voice booms across the ring. “Break!”
Varo wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Lucky hit.”
“You keep giving them to me,” I say. He bares his blood-stained teeth at me in a grin, clearly remembering the last time I managed to land a blow on him.
All the way back in the glowing ring. It feels like a lifetime ago.
The other contenders are watching now. He swings again.
I deflect, clumsy but solid, and sidestep his follow-up.
We dance. Sort of. He leads, and I follow, trying to read the rhythm of it, trying not to show I’m already winded.
I try to breathe through the ache in my ribs.
Try not to suck in air like a waterlogged shop vac.
Captain Rehn’s voice cuts in. “Break.”
We step back. My blade lowers. So does his.
The other contenders are watching now. Not openly. Not obviously. But I feel it. See it in the turn of Lyra’s head. In Elira’s still hands, hovering over his notebook. I didn’t win. I didn’t even really impress anyone. But I didn’t fold. And in this place, that’s a language.
I’m still catching my breath when he appears at the edge of the ring.
Caziel doesn’t walk so much as arrive. One moment it’s just us and the sun and the sand, and the next he’s there, at the edge of the training pit, arms crossed like a carved statue come to life.
Cloak brushing the backs of his boots. Shadows curling just a little too long around him.
A flicker of motion runs through the contenders.
Not fear. Not deference. Just awareness.
A predator is in the ring now, even if he’s not baring teeth.
Captain Rehn gives the Ember Heir a nod and Caz steps forward.
“Circle up,” he says, and I frown. I thought he was training me, not all of us. It’s a dumb reason to feel jealous.
We move slowly. Warily. I’m still clutching my wooden blade, every muscle aching in time with my heartbeat. Varo wipes his mouth beside me, jaw clenched. I try not to grin. Someone chuckles quietly. Lyra watches everything, still as ever, and Caziel surveys us like a general inspecting the troops.
“You’ve all trained before. Fought before.
Some of you have killed before.” His voice carries like steel being unsheathed—calm, final.
“You know how to survive.” Then his eyes land on me.
“But the Rite doesn’t reward survival. It demands something else.
” He pauses long enough for the silence to stretch.
“It demands truth.” There’s a shift in the air.
Not tension. Something sharper. Like a line being drawn in flame.
I feel it settle in me like a second heartbeat. Uneven. Strange. Right.
Caziel drops his hand.
“This is the Rite for the Throne of the Realm. Our most sacred of ceremonies. It is the true test of leadership. Who is fit to lead Crimson? Who is our next Asmodeus? Who is the one meant to lead this realm and all her people?” I almost miss the shift in his voice—subtle, but there.
Less instructor, more… personal. He believes this. Every word.
“Each of you stands here because the Flame has not yet judged you unworthy. That is no small thing. The Rite is not meant to test your strength alone. Each trial will seek to break you—in body, in mind, in will. You will be tempted, torn, remade. Stay firm. Stay true. Resist. The Flame does not honor deception, nor does it pity the fallen. You are not here to impress me, nor the Elders, nor the crowd that hungers for spectacle. You are here to face yourselves. And when the last ember cools, it will not be your hands that decide who rises—it will be the Flame. There is danger in what lies ahead. But there is glory too, for those who endure it. Remember that when the fire comes for you.”
Then he turns and walks away. Just like that.
Captain Rehn claps her hands. “Break for water. Clean your weapons. Rotate pairs in thirty.”
The group scatters. But I stay there, in the center of the sand, heart pounding, Caziel’s words etched behind my eyes like brands of their own.
Truth. Want.
Two rules.
One shot.
No hesitation.
Lyra steps closer to me as I unlace my practice wraps. She doesn’t look up when she says, “Watch your feet, too.”
I blink. “What?”
“The ground shifts when we aren’t looking.”
She walks away and I let out a long breath.
Truth. Intention. And unstable terrain.
Great.