Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
KAY
The amphitheater yawns open before me; a bowl carved into the red cliffs beyond the citadel.
It’s older than anything else I’ve seen here—half-sunken, weather-worn, forgotten by time but not by memory.
Crumbling stone pillars rise in uneven rings around the center stage, each tier casting broken shadows that lean long in the dusky light.
An archway of black stone claws its way out of the rock, steam curling up out of the dark fissures.
Like it slammed down into the ground, the ripples bleeding out into the surrounding space.
I step down, boots echoing off glassy black stone veined with obsidian. Pools of still water collect across the arena floor, too dark to reflect the sky. But they’re not still, not really. They shift like something’s breathing beneath them.
There are people in the stands—Daemari, guards, maybe nobles—but I don’t look.
I can’t see their faces. Even if I could, the air is already shimmering with whatever protections twist the truth of what happens here.
They’ll see shadows. Glimpses. They won’t see me.
Good. I cannot see any of the other contenders.
I wonder if they’re already in the Trial.
I step up to the archway. Flames stretch upward, engulfing the stone in crackling energy.
The air hums once behind me. A shimmer catches my eye. The arena seals shut.
Alright then, I think, clenching my fists. Into the arch. Let’s go.
The flames around the archway pulse, flicker, and then collapse inward like dying stars. When they blaze again, they blaze black. I know this color. Caziel gave it to me once. A warning, or maybe a kindness. It washes over the arena like smoke, crawling up my skin and spine and memory.
I step through the arch, and everything goes quiet. I’m on the other side now, same arena, but there’s no staring audience, no hum of conversation, no air; just stillness. Like the world’s taken a breath and forgotten how to let it go.
The stone beneath my boots is wet. The puddle is full of something thicker than water.
Darker. I do not look down. A low wind whips through the space, curling around me, squeezing.
It is not cold exactly, but hollow. Like it’s been crying for too long and ran out of tears.
A memory of grief made real. A shudder wracks my spine. I close my eyes.
I just want to get this over with.
The first whisper comes from the pool at my feet.
“You don’t belong here.” The voice isn’t human. It isn’t even sound. It curls around my spine, threads into my thoughts like it’s always been there. “You’ve already carried too much. Set it down. Rest. No one would even notice.”
No figure. No source. Just the Obsidian Realm itself, slipping its fingers into the places I keep locked up tight.
I turn to look behind me and see the archway is gone.
The arena goes on for eternity. I move forward.
Another voice from another puddle. Then another and another, each one opening up a hint of a memory.
It starts small.
My old college roommate telling me that she was sorry, so sorry, it just happened one time, they didn’t mean for it to...
A slap from my foster mother, sharp and bright across my cheek, why would I assume I was going with them on vacation? They’d need to get permission from the state, and it was too much of a hassle. I should be grateful they took me in at all. They could’ve left me at the group home.
A piece of paper, wet with tears. We regret to inform you…no admittance.
Little cuts. Paper-thin. Familiar. Each one burrows into my skin like it never left.
I keep moving forward, eyes on the arch in the distance. I can’t explain why, but it feels like the right course of action. The air presses tighter. Harder. Whispers seem to reach for me. Thick, dark liquid laps at the toe of my boot.
The air conditioner clicks softly. The radio hums—some old classic rock song my dad insists is good music. My mother’s humming along, off-key. Her hand rests on the center console, thumb tapping the beat against Dad’s wrist where he’s holding the gearshift.
I’m eleven years old. My legs stick to the hot vinyl backseat of my parent’s sedan.
I have a book open in my lap, but I’ve read the same sentence four times.
I didn’t want to come on this trip. We were supposed to stay home.
I was going to build a dragon fort in the living room.
But no, we had to go Upstate. To the cabin.
No TV. No internet. Nothing but bugs and dumb trails and—
I huff and press my head against the window.
It’s hot. The glass burns my temple. I’m missing Jess Constanza’s pool party for this.
I’m missing the chance to show off how I can jump of the high dive now.
It’s the only thing anyone will talk about for the rest of the summer, and I’m stuck on vacation with my mom and dad.
“Kay,” my mom says gently, not turning around. “It won’t be so bad.”
I don’t answer. She has no idea what she’s talking about.
The book slips in my sweaty hands. The spine is already cracked; I’ve read it so often.
It’s one of my favorites. I wish I could fall into the story instead.
Into a world of centaurs and fairies and unicorns and magic.
Then something moves. A blur from the ceiling of the car.
I don’t notice it at first. Just a twitch at the edge of my vision. Then I glance up and freeze.
The spider is black. Long-legged. Hanging from a silk thread.
It lowers itself onto my lap. My body reacts before I do.
I scream. High and shrill and sharp enough to split glass.
I jerk violently to the side, back arching off the seat.
My knee kicks the back of my father’s seat.
My book goes flying, pages fanned wide. It strikes the gearshift and my dad startles, twists the wheel.
His eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror.
“KAY!” he shouts.
Everything tips.
The tires screech. The car lurches sideways, swerving hard across the road.
My mother’s scream pierces the air. The seatbelt locks tight across my chest. I bite down hard on my tongue as blood and bile fill my mouth.
Sour, copper, foam. Metal crunches. Glass explodes like rain.
The world flips sideways, then again. Someone screams. Maybe me.
Everything is spinning, colors and sounds bleeding together until I can’t hear, can’t think, can’t stop.
We keep rolling. End over end. My stomach heaves.
My ears ring. Something warm splashes my cheek.
And…stillness.
It feels wrong. Too silent. Too final. Even as inertia keeps my belly pitching. I blink. Taste the blood in my mouth. I try to turn my head, but my neck screams in protest.
“Mom? Dad?”
I’ve been here before, I remind my adult self, steadying my breath. Maybe not in a cursed demon ruin, but close enough. I’ve been here before and made it through. I tighten my jaw. You want to see pain? Fine. I carry it. Every day etched into the marrow of my bones.
The silence after the accident is unbearable.
No sirens. No voices. No answer, just static on the radio.
Just the soft hiss of something leaking and the clink of broken glass falling like tiny bells.
I’m upside down, still strapped in. The seatbelt cuts into my collarbone.
Sweat drips into my eye. Everything smells like oil and dirt and smoke overlaid with a hint of copper, thick and sharp in my nose.
I don’t remember climbing out of the car.
I don’t remember the EMTs. Just flashes—hands on my shoulders, bright lights, my own voice repeating my name, my age.
The image around me shifts.
White sheets. Bleached air. The smell of metal and antiseptic. A dull ache behind my eyes. I wake in a sterile room, tubes in my arm, the rhythmic beep of machines ticking beside me like a metronome for my heart.
The walls are pale green. The ceiling is tiled and cracked.
My hands are bandaged. They itch under the too tight wrappings.
I don’t know where my parents are, but I’m alone.
I sit up too fast and pain lances through my ribs.
It reminds me of sparring with… the thought bleeds out of my brain, seeping from my consciousness.
Voices drift from beyond the curtain. Soft. Unaware.
“I heard she screamed and threw something. Poor dad couldn’t correct in time…”
“She’s just a kid.”
“Can you imagine? Causing that—and surviving? Poor thing just killed both her parents.”
Their words don’t register all at once. They’re like an intravenous drip. A slow poison.
Causing that.
Surviving.
Killed both her parents.
Those words are the ones that will slice deeper than the crash ever could.
I swing my legs off the bed. The floor is too cold.
My hospital gown flutters. I can’t even worry that people will see my days-of-the-week undies.
My feet are bare, but they hold my weight.
I lurch down endless halls that stretch and bend in ways they shouldn’t.
Every door looks the same, every nurse turns away.
I shout, and no one hears me. Or they choose not to.
My face is wet. Salt on my lips. I round a corner.
Her room is there, it’s not really a room, a curtain in a busy corridor.
My chest aches, my heart throbbing inside the clutch of my battered ribcage.
I just need to see her. My mom. She can’t be… they can’t be…I couldn’t…
I yank back the waxy green curtain. It rattles on metal bearings, and I wince but don’t slow down. I need my mom….
She’s alive.
She sits upright on the bed, rosy-cheeked and smiling like we’ve just come back from the grocery store. Her hair is brushed. There’s no blood. No bruises. She’s packing a small suitcase, folding clothes with familiar precision.
“Sweetheart,” she says, looking up. “There you are.”