Chapter 28 #2
He nods. “You stand before fire and let it see everything. All you are. No masks. No hiding. And if it chooses you, if you prove yourself worthy, you rise.”
I swallow. “But if not?”
He looks down, brushing his thumb lightly over my knuckles. “Then you are still seen. And that is not nothing.”
And somehow, the map between us feels less like a lesson in borders and more like an invitation.
He turns back to teacher then. Putting his right hand back on the center of the parchment. I try not to stare at him, not after baring my soul the way I did. I trace the lines of each finger with my eyes. His skin seems to shimmer over his knuckles. I blink.
“The true ruler of Crimson cannot simply command its Flame. They must know how to resist, adapt to, or outwit the other Realms. Infernalis is presently at peace, but we can’t have a leader that is susceptible to the magic threads of the other realms. Just like they don’t want a ruler who would fall to the flame.
Each trial tests a different quality. Strength is only one. ”
My mind races ahead. “So, the next trial—”
“Obsidian comes first. Sorrow before all,” he says.
That sobers me. Obsidian. Sarai mentioned them days ago. What did she say again? The realm of grief and memory?
“What does that even mean for a trial?”
“No one ever knows. That’s the point.” He closes the map and replaces it with a parchment covered in scrawled Daemari runes, each one annotated in his firm, angular handwriting. “Obsidian doesn’t break you with force. It asks. Reminds. Demands you carry weight you thought long buried.”
“It’s emotional.”
He nods. “Or worse. It can feel like being submerged. Lost.”
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the heat still rising off my bruised skin. “Like a dream.”
He’s quiet for a beat too long. “For some it is.”
He doesn’t have to tell me that for most it’s a nightmare. When I look up, he’s watching me. Not studying—not this time. Just… watching. Something in the shape of it twists through me, low and hot.
“This isn’t the part you usually do, is it?” I ask.
He leans back slightly, just enough that his tunic pulls against his chest. “No. I’m rarely the teacher.”
“Why me?”
Caz is silent again, longer this time. Then, very quietly: “Because I want you to live.”
The words settle over the table like smoke. Heavy. Unapologetic. Not a hope. A want. His.
I swallow. “Well. That makes one of us.”
“You don’t want to survive?”
“I’m not sure it’s an option.” My voice cracks before I can catch it. “I’m not exactly impressive with a blade. Not after only days.”
“You may not need to fight, but all Daemari have some weaponry training. Each trial begins when you step through the gate. It ends when you find your way out. The realm will try to stop that from happening. Any way it can. Using any tools at its disposal. It’s trying to outsmart you.
To overpower you. To trap you. And each trial will be timed.
You’ll have one hour.” He reaches across the table, resting his hand near mine.
“The Flame branded you for a reason Kay, there’s something you need to show Crimson and its people in the arena, whether we understand or not.
It has to be my faith that you will walk out the other end. ”
The air tightens between us. I look down at his hand, the blunt strength of his fingers, the slow curl of tension in his forearm.
My fingers twitch and he covers my hand with his.
Hot. Solid. The silence between us hums with warmth, but it doesn’t last. Caziel lifts his hand from mine slowly—like he doesn’t want to break the contact—and reaches for the scroll again.
The map of the realms stretches across the stone bench, the colors vivid even in the low light.
“If I don’t make it out,” I clear my throat, the words feel stuck there, like a hard piece of something I swallowed too fast. “I die? But if I do, I’m safe?”
Caziel shakes his head. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.
If you don’t make it out in the allotted time it is not a death sentence, but the realms can and often are violent.
You can very well die in them. Many have.
Anyone who completes the trial in the allotted time is then ranked by the Flame. ”
“Got it,” I nod. “The goal is to survive but get myself cut from the team.” I force a grin. “I have experience with that one.”
“Back to Obsidian,” he says, voice steady, teacher-like.
I blink. “Wait, what about Crimson? You said we start there.”
“You already passed the Flame rite,” he says, eyeing the brand marks looping up my bare forearms. “Obsidian is grief, loss, memory,” he continues.
“Not as you think of it—not a record, but a force. It clings. It presses. It reveals things you didn’t know you carried.
” His eyes flick to mine. “Or didn’t want to. ”
I shift uncomfortably. “So… grief school. That’s what we’re starting with.”
“You’re mocking it,” he says mildly.
“No, I’m—” I pause. “Okay, maybe a little. But I still don’t get how reading about a realm is going to help me survive it. It sounds like what I really need is a good hypnotist and a therapist. Or maybe some Xanax.”
He considers me for a long breath, then tilts his head toward the flame flickering in a shallow glass dish on the nearby table.
“Come here.”
I do, wary. He stands in front of me, the bench between us.
Then he holds out one hand over the flame and whispers something low in his language.
The fire shifts. It darkens. A strange ripple passes through it—not smoke, not shadow, but memory itself, bending the air.
The flame draws inward, coiling until it sits like a single strand of silk wrapped around his fingers.
No longer orange-red, but violet-black, with hints of indigo and something deeper still. My breath catches.
He holds the flame-thread up between us, then reaches his free hand to gently touch my shoulder. “You asked how I could help.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think—”
“Still yourself,” he says quietly. “This should not hurt. Physically, at least.”
I open my mouth to ask what he means, and to remind him that they told me the same about the last damn flame and look what happened next, but then his fire-touched fingertip presses lightly to the center of my chest. And I fall.
Not physically. Not really. But everything drops.
Time, air, sound—all gone. It’s like the elevator all over again, but this time there’s no heat.
All that’s left is grief. Not someone else’s. Mine.
I’m standing in a hospital room, fluorescent lights buzzing. The bed is empty. The bag in my hands is heavier than it should be. There’s blood on my sleeve. A voice is saying she didn’t make it, but it doesn’t sound like me.
Another moment: I’m nine, in the back of a minivan, staring out the window while a woman I don’t know signs papers at a social worker’s desk.
Another: I’m older, screaming into my own pillow so no one hears. I don’t even remember what started it.
Then silence. Then stillness.
A soft voice, his, pulling me back. I gasp. Sit upright. My chest heaves like I’ve just broken through ice. Tears streak my cheeks. I didn’t even know I was crying. The flame’s gone. Caziel is crouched in front of me now, close but not touching.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe.
“For what?”
“I don’t—I don’t know.” My throat is tight. “For all of it. For breaking like that.”
“You didn’t break,” he says softly. “You felt. Obsidian will demand that from you.”
I nod, slowly. “It wasn’t just memories. It was… like they knew me better than I did.”
“They do.” His gaze is steady. “Obsidian isn’t a realm that tests your strength. It tests your honesty.”
I wipe my face. “Great. My worst subject.”
A faint, ghost of a smile tugs at his mouth. “Then we’ll study.”
He stands, offers me his hand. This time, I take it.
Not because I need help up. But because I need to remember I’m here.
In my body. In this moment. In this strange, unforgiving, rainbow-colored hell where demons teach you to survive by knowing yourself.
And maybe, if you’re lucky, they hold your hand after.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it again.”