Chapter 34 #2
George purrs, deep and loud and insistent, like he’s trying to drown out every cruel thing I’ve ever thought about myself.
I let my head fall back against the wall.
Close my eyes. Breathe just once. The air tastes like stone and heat and the memory of flame but also fur and safety and something stubborn enough to find me no matter where I run.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until George stretches across my lap and lets out a contented little sigh, his weight grounding me like a stone in deep water.
The hallway is dim and quiet—one of the unused colonnades beyond the arena—but even here, the silence listens. The stone holds the memory of heat, the ghost of flame. Footsteps interrupt it. Soft, uneven. Slower than a patrol. I tense instinctively as a figure rounds the column.
She’s tall. Slender. Silver-threaded hair pulled back in braids that fray at the edges.
Her tunic is rumpled and her expression still scraped raw from whatever she just faced.
Sevrik Thorne. She reminds me of a fox. Playful, but unpredictable.
She blinks when she sees me. Or—no, not me, George. Her eyes widen.
“What is that?”
Her voice is hushed. Not fearful. More baffled awe.
I blink. “He’s a cat.”
She blinks back. “An ember kitten?”
There’s a beat where I just stare at her, unsure if she’s joking. Then I realize she’s serious. These Ember Maw beasts must have done a real number on the realm.
“No,” I say slowly, we’ve been here before. “He’s just a regular cat.”
She moves a step closer, as if she expects him to vanish. “But how? You conjured him?”
“What? No.” I shake my head, confused. “He’s real. From my world.”
Her brow furrows, full of wonder. “You summoned something that followed you through the mark. Through the Rite.” Her eyes are wide now, almost reverent. “That’s magecraft.”
“I’m not a mage,” I say quietly.
She crouches, gaze never leaving George. “But he’s still here.”
George, for his part, stretches his limbs and yawns, unconcerned by the awe he’s apparently inspired. The woman sits back on her heels.
“He doesn’t smell like this place,” she murmurs. “And he doesn’t listen to it, either.”
I’m not sure what that means.
We sit in silence for a moment. Her eyes flick to mine.
“I’m Sevrik.”
“Kay.”
Sevrik studies me. She’s still scraped open at the edges—whatever she faced in her trial clings to her like smoke—but she doesn’t try to hide it. Just lets it be.
“I didn’t think anything could follow us in here,” she says.
I run my hand down George’s back. “He always does.”
She doesn’t smile exactly. But her mouth shifts, like the idea of loyalty surprises her. Or hurts in a place she doesn’t show.
Then, after a moment: “Is that… normal? For your kind?”
“My kind?”
“You’re human.”
It’s not an accusation. Just a statement.
And a curious one at that. It occurs to me that Caz might know more about my kind because of his title.
His station. He’s probably had access to books and lore.
The Daemari might be in control in this world, the Vesperan relegated to less-than status, but that doesn’t mean every Daemari lives in a palace with access to books and magic and history.
“I guess,” I say. “For me, yeah.”
Sevrik looks down at George again. He’s curled tighter now, growling low like an idling truck in the middle of a dream.
“You can pet him if you want.”
Her hand is still trembling as she reaches out, pausing once, inches from my pet’s billowing, cloud-like fur.
“He doesn’t bite… hard.” I grin automatically, the joke a standard from the clinic, but Sevrik pulls back as if I slapped her. “That was a joke,” I tell her, “A bad one. Promise.”
“He’s soft,” she murmurs, like it’s a strange thing to notice as she runs her slender fingers through his fur. “I didn’t think real things were ever that soft.”
Something in my chest cracks a little.
“Thank you,” she says suddenly.
“For what?”
Her shoulders lift, then fall. A simple shrug for a non-simple answer.
She doesn’t stay long. Just a few more breaths of quiet.
But as she leaves, she doesn’t walk like a stranger anymore.
She walks like someone who might say hello next time.
Sevrik doesn’t look back, but I watch her go, a little stunned by how little that took.
No threats. No barbs. Just sitting. Talking.
Confused admiration over a housecat. It was so…
human. I stay where I am after she leaves.
George stirs, stretches like royalty, then drops his head back on my thigh. I rub behind his ears, trying to ignore the ache behind my ribs. The emptiness there. My body’s back. My mind mostly too, but my grief is still sitting in my chest like stone. Heavy. Cold.
“Kay.”
I flinch.
Caziel’s voice is low, just behind me. I look up. He’s standing in the shadowed arch, not moving forward. His face unreadable, but his gaze burns.
“I didn’t—” I start, unsure what I’m denying, but feeing the need to all the same.
“Why are you hiding?” he asks. Not gentle.
I bristle. “I’m not.”
He steps closer, expression hard. “You didn’t come back to hide. You came back alive. And all I find is you curled up like you failed.”
I stand abruptly, knocking George to the floor. He grumbles but busies himself cleaning his hind leg.
“I just needed a minute,” I snap. “I can’t even look at the others. They’re fine. Laughing. You think I don’t see that? I needed two minutes to get my head on straight. Caziel, is that so much to ask?”
Caziel moves so fast I barely register it. One second away, the next, right in front of me.
“They’re lying,” he says, low and furious. “They might act like they don’t feel because they were trained not to. Because they were taught to dull it, or shield it, or turn their memories into weapons, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still cut.”
I swallow hard. “So, grow up because we all have problems?”
“No,” he says.
I try to look away, but he tilts my chin up, just enough to meet his eyes. “And you’re still here.”
That burns. My throat tightens.
“Then why does it still feel like I’m unraveling?”
Caziel lets his hand fall.
And for a moment, he just looks at me like he’s choosing between five different answers and hates them all.
Then he turns on his heel and says, “Come with me.”
I blink. “Where—?”
“To end this self-pity spiral.”
“Caz—”
“Bring the cat.”
He doesn’t wait.
“You can’t just drag me all over your goddamn castle,” I mutter, but it’s like talking to a wall and I’m already following him down the stone steps like a baby duck imprinted on a wolf.
The Ember Chamber breathes. I can feel it as soon as I cross the threshold—an almost imperceptible shift in the air, like stepping into a room that’s watching me.
I’m getting sick of this room. Caziel says nothing as we descend.
His steps are steady, his expression unreadable, but there’s a tightness in his shoulders I’ve learned to recognize. Not fear. Not anger.
Reverence.
George pads ahead of us, tail high, ears perked.
He should be anxious, the room is alive with heat and energy, the walls webbed with glowing emberstone veins, but he struts forward like he owns the place.
He even gives the towering flame a slow blink as he circles it, brushing the edge of his tail through a curl of fire.
The Flame moves. Not violently. Not dangerously. Just enough to lean into the contact. To acknowledge him. Or me. I stop walking. The Flame rises again, just a little higher than before, brightening in a pulse that sets the stones aglow.
“What the hell—” I whisper.
“It’s responding to you,” Caziel says behind me, his voice low and sure.
I turn. The air hums between us, alive. “That’s not normal, is it?”
“No.” His eyes flick from the fire to me. “It’s not.”
The heat curls around my wrists like breath. “Is this because of the mark?”
He hesitates. “I thought so. After Obsidian, I was almost certain. But today,” his throat works, “today I watched it happen.”
“Watched what?”
“The fire remembers what moves it.” His gaze catches mine. “You made an impression.”
A nervous laugh escapes me. “That’s poetic. And terrifying.”
“It is.”
George leaps onto the ledge, curling beside the base of the flame. It bends toward me, subtle as inhalation.
“Does it do that for you?” I ask.
He’s quiet a moment, and when he speaks again his voice sounds raw. “Yes. But not like this.”
My breath catches. “What do you mean?”
“I have given myself to the Flame a thousand times,” he says, stepping closer, his heat brushing mine. “In battle. In blood. In sacrifice. I have felt it burn through me, but it never has it reached for me.”
The firelight flickers between us. I can feel his pulse in the air, in my own chest. He looks at me then—really looks—and something sparks under my skin. The pendant at my throat flares warm.
“Then what does it mean?” I whisper.
He exhales hard. “I don’t know,” he lies. Silence settles, heavy and bright. The flame steadies, breathing with us.
“You’re not ready to tell me,” I say.
“No,” he admits. “But the fire will. When the time is right.”
His hand drops, though the space between us still burns. And still—it leans toward me. And so does he.