Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
KAY
Iwake to silence.
No training bell. No footsteps in the corridor.
No sharp bark of orders or clatter of weapons.
Just the unnatural stillness that means something’s already shifted and once again I’m sure I’m the last to know.
My stomach sinks. This is how it begins now.
No warning. No build-up. Just that awful quiet, like the world is holding its breath.
The kind of quiet that Caziel used to break—pacing at the edge of my awareness, correcting my grip, asking too many questions with too few words.
But he hasn’t come.
Not since I leaned in. Goddamn idiot.
I sit up slowly; legs stiff from yesterday. My tunic is half-wrung with sleep, boots still muddy from the last mock skirmish. No time to change. No time for anything. The light filtering through the high window is not soft. It’s green.
Verdant. Lush. Laced with warning.
The Viridian thread hums in my pendant, burning cold against my chest. Not painful, not urgent, present.
As if it’s reminding me, it’s already here.
Already part of me. I try not to think about how I got it.
Who I got it from. I am resolutely ignoring the way his fingers felt when they brushed mine.
How it twisted something inside me, warm and terrifying.
And how he recoiled like I’d hacked up a hairball in his lap.
The corridor is empty when I step out. I don’t bother checking the training yard.
No one will be there. The arena calls, and we all answer, willing or not.
The walk feels longer this time. I pass murals I’ve already memorized, stone etched with fire-script and war.
Even the embers embedded in the wall seem to flicker differently, green at the edges, like they know where I’m going.
The closer I get, the louder the hush becomes.
It’s a trick of the architecture, I think—how the sound narrows in the outer ring of the amphitheater.
I can hear my own breath, my own heartbeat.
Like the realm wants me aware of it. No crowd yet.
Or maybe they’re just not speaking. Maybe they’re watching me.
The arch stands at the center again, veined in living wood now, not stone.
Viridian magic twines around it like vines.
It looks more like a doorway to a fairytale than a battlefield.
Maybe that should scare me, but I was the kid who wandered into fairy circles as a kid hoping I’d be transported somewhere fantastical.
Probably should have made my requests clearer.
I stop a few paces back. The pendant around my neck flares once and goes quiet.
“Too soon,” I murmur. “I’m not ready.”
But I’m never ready, and the trial does not care.
I glance around the perimeter once, half-expecting to see Caziel.
Just a shadow of him near the stands, a flare of crimson armor or a glint of pitch-black eyes.
But the arena is empty. Of course it is.
I left him flinching. I leaned forward. He didn’t.
I shake the thought loose, as if I can. As if wanting someone you can’t have isn’t the least of my problems right now.
My fingers close around the thread in my necklace.
I press the pendant into my chest, feel the faint thrum beneath my skin. It’s enough.
I take a breath, straighten my shoulders, and step toward the arch.
The air thickens with green the moment I cross beneath it—rich with the scent of leaves after rain, fertile earth, sweet rot. Like the garden of a god who has never learned to prune.
And then, I’m through.
The first thing I notice is the silence.
Not empty, not dead, still. Like the world around me is holding its breath.
The second thing is the smell. Pine sap and crushed needles, sharp and sticky in the back of my throat.
Beneath that, something softer, sweet resin and something spiced like cinnamon.
It’s pleasant, nostalgic. The kind of scent you don’t realize you’ve missed until it’s already filling your lungs.
I blink against the shifting light.
The archway is gone. No stone, no flame.
Just forest stretching in every direction.
Tall pines reach for the mist-dappled canopy above, their branches arching high and tangled.
The needles are deep green, some dusted with silver, and they whisper against each other in a wind I cannot feel.
Pinecones litter the forest floor in neat spirals, too perfect to be natural.
I take a step forward, and the moss beneath my boots muffles the sound.
The light here is strange. Not gold or red like in Crimson, but pale and pearled—like dawn filtered through frost. Everything glows softly, like the world has been washed clean.
Peaceful. Serene. Too serene. There are no birds.
No insects. No animals at all. Only trees.
And the trees are watching me. Not literally, but I can feel it.
A slow, measured awareness, like the forest has noticed I don’t belong.
It doesn’t feel hostile. It feels curious.
Inviting. I don’t trust it for a second.
Still, I walk.
The path beneath me isn’t a trail so much as a suggestion. Flat stone slabs covered in pine needles, leading nowhere in particular. The forest opens and shifts around me, always just enough to let me pass. Always as if it’s showing me the way.
The pendant at my neck pulses in time with my heart. A low, quiet thrum. The Viridian thread stays cold and still. I glance over my shoulder. Nothing but more trees. No arch. No exit. No way but forward.
The forest thickens the deeper I go. Not with brambles or darkness, but with comfort.
A strange, creeping sense of ease. My breath comes easier.
The knot in my shoulders loosens. My boots don’t feel as heavy.
Even the pendant hum fades to a whisper, like the world doesn’t want to wake me from whatever spell this is. Which means it’s definitely a trap.
I don’t stop walking, but it’s getting harder to remember why I should be wary.
The forest smells like old memories. Family road trips.
Christmas morning. Fresh-cut wood in a neighbor’s fireplace.
Something aching rises behind my ribs, a longing I didn’t know I still had.
Not for a person. Not even for a place. For belonging.
That’s what this realm is feeding on. Not desire like lust. But longing. That bone-deep hunger for something I can’t name, something just out of reach, and it’s offering it to me.
You could stay here. That’s what the air is whispering. Let go. Rest. You’ve earned it.
I reach out and trail my fingers along the bark of a nearby tree. It’s warm. Not rough like I expect, but smooth as velvet, pulsing faintly beneath my touch. Everything pulses.
I snatch my hand back. Keep walking.
Up ahead the light filters in a different pattern.
Brighter. Softer. A clearing, I think. I can feel it pulling me.
Somewhere deep inside, a voice that still sounds like mine murmurs: What if it’s real this time?
What if this is the life you were meant for?
I press my fingers to the orb around my neck. It vibrates like a warning.
I close my eyes. Breathe in pine and sap and memory. And then I step into the clearing. The cabin appears over the rise like it’s always been there. A porch, a bench, a swing swaying slightly, as though someone just jumped off. I know it’s not real, I know it, but I still walk toward it.
The world here is so quiet it makes me ache.
The cabin door creaks shut behind me. Inside, it’s warm.
Light filters through the windows in soft, late-afternoon gold.
A kettle whistles on the stove. There’s a woven blanket draped over a worn couch.
A fire crackles, gentle and familiar. It still smells like pine needles and something sweet, something safe.
Like cinnamon toast and fresh whipped cream.
I move like I’ve done it a hundred times.
Walk to the stove. Pour tea into a ceramic mug I swear I’ve never seen before, but it feels like mine.
I wrap my hands around it, the heat blooming against my skin, grounding me.
Comforting me. On the coffee table is a book.
One I’ve read before, or maybe one I’ve always meant to.
The cover is smooth beneath my fingers. I sink into the couch and pull the fuzzy blanket over my lap.
The moment I crack the spine, I— what was I doing again?
Something important.
Something about a trial?
I frown. A forest, maybe? I remember stepping through fire, but that seems like someone else’s story now, someone else’s life.
Like a book I put down mid-chapter and never picked up again.
I take a sip of tea. It’s sweet, a hint of bitter lemon, and exactly how I like it. Everything here is just right.
And yet—something tugs at the edge of me. An itch I cannot scratch. A pressure building behind my eyes. The pendant is warm against the skin of my chest.
Pendant.
What pendant? Why is it warm?
I close the book and lean back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. The quiet presses in around me. Familiar. Too familiar.
You’ve earned this.
You could stay.
You deserve peace. After everything.
The cup in my hands is full of something sweet and steaming. The blanket over my legs is just heavy enough to make me feel grounded. And the sun has landed in the exact spot behind my shoulders to make me feel held. This is peace. Undeniably.
I should be suspicious. I know that. I’ve read enough books, walked through enough illusions to understand that things this good are never free. But my body has stopped bracing for impact. My jaw is no longer clenched. My ribs don’t feel like a cage anymore.
I could stay.
Just… stop.
No more trials. No more tests. I’ve earned this.
I curl my fingers tighter around the cup.
What would be so wrong with choosing rest? Haven’t I given enough?
Another thought. Sharper. Meaner.