Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
KAY
Istep out of the ring and everything is too bright.
The sky above the amphitheater stretches cloudless and vast, like nothing ever happened.
Like the world didn’t just crack open inside my chest and ask me to bleed for it.
The silence hits me before the heat does.
No applause. No movement. No sound at all.
Just a thousand pairs of eyes. Watching.
I stand alone in the wide stone circle, blinking against the sting of light. The stone underfoot feels too smooth, too clean, too real. And I don’t. I feel like something that crawled out of ash and memory and grief.
The mark on my back burns. Pulsing down to the bone. My breath catches in my throat. I clamp my jaw tight to stop it from shaking.
Hold it together.
Just a little longer.
Someone stirs in the stands. A noblewoman fans herself with slow beats.
A child nearby clutches at their mother’s sleeve.
A soldier shifts their weight and glances at the Elders like they are waiting for confirmation of what they just saw.
No one comes forward. No one speaks to me.
And I can still feel the shadow of that false hospital room.
My mother’s voice. The warmth of her hands as she offered me peace.
I almost took it. I almost let myself stay.
I gave up the pretense of warmth for this cold welcome.
My fingers twitch against the front of my tunic, searching for the pendant beneath.
Still warm. Still humming. I focus on it.
Use it to anchor myself. You’re here. You made it back.
But grief hangs on me like a sodden cloak.
Not the old, distant ache I’ve learned to hide—but the fresh kind.
The kind that scrapes raw across my ribs and makes me wonder if my bones remember too.
My legs threaten to buckle. I lock my knees to stay upright. Do not fall. Not here. I don’t know how long I stand there before the silence shifts. A soft step. A brush of wind. I feel him before I see him. Caziel.
He approaches without a word. Not striding like a prince.
Walking. Steady. Real. He stops beside me—close enough that I could reach for him, if I weren’t afraid that touch might undo me.
He looks at me like he sees all of it. The weight I’m carrying.
The fire still etched into my skin. The choice I had to make.
“Kay,” he says quietly. I turn my head, just enough to look at him. The sun casts light across his jaw, but his eyes are shadowed. Watching me carefully. “You did it.”
My voice is brittle. “I think I broke something.”
“You are still whole.”
I think he means physically. Yes, physically I’m fine. Emotionally…
“It feels like I did.”
He doesn’t rush to comfort. Just watches. Listens.
“Where is everyone else?” I ask.
“They haven’t made it out yet, but they still have time.”
“I thought if I just went for it, I wouldn’t have time to be afraid.”
“And were you?”
I shake my head slowly. “Not afraid. Not that—” My throat closes. I shake my head, willing the words to come. “I almost—” Caz doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. “I’m not sure I came out the same.”
“You didn’t,” he says gently. “You shouldn’t, but that does not mean you are wrong.”
I nod like I understand. I don’t.
The stone beneath my boots feels too far away.
Like I’m standing on a ledge above myself, watching this broken version of me tremble in full view of a thousand strangers.
I keep my eyes on the horizon. I won’t give them tears.
Not here. But gods, I’m tired. It’s not just my body.
It’s the weight of what I carried back. The heaviness of memory still clinging to my bones.
The tenderness in the space where my mother’s voice still echoes.
Like the whole ordeal pealed back the layers of loss so it could bleed anew.
“I thought the worst part would be pain,” I murmur. Caz doesn’t speak. I shake my head. “It wasn’t. It was comfort. Being wanted. It felt like a mercy. And I—” My voice cracks. “I almost took it.”
He doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t tell me I was strong or brave. He nods.
“That is how it wins.”
The silence settles around us again. The crowd hasn’t moved. I don’t think they know what to do. Maybe they’re waiting for someone to tell them how to react. Maybe they’re scared to look too closely. I try to take a step, to put some space between me and the arch, me and Caziel. My knees buckle.
He’s there before I fall. One arm around my waist, the other bracing my elbow. No urgency. Just quiet strength, holding me upright like it’s nothing.
“Easy, Sael,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
I press my hand to his chest without thinking. His skin is warm through the fabric. Steady. Real. He doesn’t let me go down. He just turns with me, gently guiding us toward the edge of the arena. Away from the ring. Away from the eyes.
The crowd parts as we pass. But it’s not out of respect. Out of uncertainty. Out of fear.
I let him lead me to sit on a stone bench near the upper tiers of the amphitheater.
I’m wrapped in a thick gray blanket that smells vaguely of citrus and smoke.
George found me the moment I left the arena.
He’s curled in my lap now, a dense, judgmental loaf of fur and attitude, purring so hard my thighs vibrate.
I’m not sure who let him up here. Or who’s brave enough to say no to him.
The blanket helps. So does the weight of my cat.
But I’m still shaking. Not visibly, maybe, not anymore, but there’s a tremor inside me that hasn’t stopped.
The kind that grief leaves when it doesn’t have anywhere to go.
The kind that hums in my ribs and makes me feel like even my bones are ashamed of what I survived.
Down below, another contender steps out of the flaming arch and the trial ring.
Zyreus with the blades. The one who looks like he’s dancing in the ring.
He doesn’t wobble. Doesn’t look like he cried.
His robes aren’t even wrinkled. Spine straight, he lifts his chin, sheathes his blade, and strides out of the arena like he’s walking out of a meditation retreat.
Great. Of course he looks fantastic.
I glance down at myself. Blanket. Cat. Haunted eyes. I look like a traumatized librarian.
George lifts his head and headbutts my wrist. I scratch behind his ear, and he rewards me by flopping over and exposing his belly, and immediately chomping onto my hand when I touch him
“Thanks,” I mutter. “Really grounding stuff.”
Another contender returns. Nyxen Vale this time and it’s the same picture.
They’re calm. Graceful. Perfectly composed.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think the trial was a very exclusive nap.
I pull the blanket tighter and try to sit straighter, but the ache between my shoulders drags me down.
Caziel stands a few paces away, leaning against a carved column like he’s not watching me.
Like he just happened to stop here. Even though he hasn’t moved since he brought me to this bench.
He hasn’t hovered. But he hasn’t gone. I catch him watching the arena, arms crossed, brow furrowed slightly—like he’s analyzing the pattern of the flame or studying something no one else sees.
“You don’t have to lurk,” I say, just loud enough for him to hear.
He glances over. “I’m not lurking.”
“You’re lurk-adjacent.”
A faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. It might almost be a smile.
“I’m making sure you don’t pass out.”
“Bold of you to assume I’d do it somewhere convenient.”
This time the smile almost makes it all the way to his eyes, but then we both look back down, and I watch another contender walk out of the trial. Not a tear. Not a flicker of pain. I don’t know if it’s jealousy or something sharper, but my guts twist in a painful wrench.
I lower my voice. “Did they all… come out like that? Whole?”
Caziel doesn’t answer right away.
Then, a nod, “Most.”
“Well, that doesn’t bode well for me.” I force a laugh, but it’s weak, thready. “We already knew I was the weakest link.”
He shifts toward me, eyes flashing.
“You’re the only one who let it in.”
I swallow hard.
“What do you mean?”
It’s an uncharacteristic move, the way he drags his hand through his hair. He looks almost human. I want to ask him to drop the glamor is just shifts and twists, but I don’t.
“You told me it was going to show me memories. Sadness. Loss.” I swallow past a thick lump at the base of my throat. “I can’t be the only one here with a history.”
“It’s not that.” Caz shakes his head. “You…engaged…with the memory.”
“Was I not supposed to?”
Isn’t that the whole point of the trial? When I said I wasn’t staying, when I turned and left, that was when Obsidian let go.
“Most contenders dampen their feelings. They ignore the memory using magic or meditation. I’ve heard some plug their ears or blindfold themselves.”
“They what?” If Caz knew me better, he’d be worried about the flat pitch of my words. Because what the fuck does he mean the others ignore the trial? Is that not cheating?
“It’s not cheating.” He says, raising a soothing hand like it will help, “but I thought you knew. It didn’t occur to me you’d…” he lets the sentence die. “Daemari are trained from birth to mute the influence of the threads, of the other realms.”
“Of feeling.” I counter, and he nods. “So, I’m the only idiot who almost got kidnapped by a sob story and a lie?”
That gets his attention.
“Stop.”
I blink. “What?”
“Stop doing that.”
He turns toward me, arms crossed, jaw tight.
“You faced what the Obsidian gave you without tools, without shielding, without tricks. And you are sitting here mourning that you did not come out looking polished enough for them.” His voice isn’t raised. But it’s not calm anymore either.
“I’m not—”