Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CAZIEL
She is still asleep. I tell myself that is why I have not moved.
Why I am lying here like the dying embers of a Flame, watching the slow rise and fall of her breath instead of doing the ten thousand things that need my attention before sunrise, but it is not just that.
Something is different. Not in the room.
Not in the Realm. Her. Or it is me. Kay is curled into the blankets I pulled up around her hours ago, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other resting lightly over her sternum, right where the pendant lies.
As if she is protecting it. Or drawing comfort from it in her sleep.
The same way I draw comfort from the sight of her.
Everything feels quieter this morning. The kind of hush that follows a storm but does not promise peace.
My body aches with satisfaction, but also with something deeper.
A pull in my chest I cannot name. Like the flame is trying to tell me something, but not in words I recognize.
I rub at my jaw, resisting the urge to reach for her.
Resisting the urge to stay. I do not want to leave.
But I cannot ignore the shifting currents.
The Rite is moving faster now. The Viridian trial ended less than a full day ago and we have already lost several contenders.
The next trial could begin soon, and I need to be prepared.
For her. For whatever they throw at us next. And I need to see something.
The Rite markers in the Ember chamber will have shifted by now.
They always do. Small changes, subtle flares in the obsidian veins when someone rises in favor or falls behind.
They do not reveal everything, but they are a measure of standing.
Of possibility. After what she survived, after the forest tried to tempt her with lies and dragged her down into her own doubt, she did not just endure.
She fought. Maybe not physically, but weapons are the easiest way to push back.
I saw it in her eyes when she came back through the arch.
The uncertainty. The guilt. The stubborn, exhausted fire she does not even know she carries.
She still thinks it is luck that has gotten her this far.
She does not see what the rest of us are starting to.
She may not be Daemari, but she belongs here.
She is not just surviving the Rite; she is reshaping it.
I pull on my tunic, fasten the belt at my waist. My tail flicks once, restless. George lifts his head from the end of the bed to glare at me like I am the one disturbing his morning. He is pressed so close to Kay that I cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.
Typical.
“I’ll be back,” I mutter, mostly to myself.
Kay shifts in her sleep, not fully waking.
Just a breath of movement, a soft sound in her throat.
But it knocks the air from my chest like a blow.
She trusts me enough to sleep here. In this room.
In my bed. I cannot betray that. George uncurls himself, stretching his paws out as his ears twitch. His yawn shows sharp, white fangs.
“Coming too?” I ask him, and he hops off the bed, planting his rear end on my boot, tail twitching around my ankle. “Stick close,” I say as I wrap my glamor around myself like a worn cloak. There is no turning back. Not anymore.
The corridor smells of ash and oil; freshly polished, freshly scarred.
The kind of scent that lingers after too much has burned, too fast to track.
George is tucked beneath my cloak, curled along my shoulder like a living scarf, warm and unnervingly quiet.
He followed me to the door and down two corridors before I scooped him up.
The other contenders are used to George, but that does not mean that majority of the Daemari are.
I do not mind the company, but he will be safer out of sight. He does not seem to mind.
I walk fast. Not fast enough to seem evasive, not slow enough to draw attention. The Flame pulses, and I feel the call of it before the hallway even opens. The flame in my chest echoes the one bound in its heart, but I do not get that far.
“Ember Heir. Prince Caziel.” The voice is familiar. Weighted like stones wrapped in silk.
I turn. Elder Rhivus stands tucked into an alcove near one of the rune-scribed columns. Not the most senior, nor the most dangerous. Rhivus listens more than he speaks. And speaks only when he wants something known.
“Elder.” I incline my head, neutral. Not cold. Not warm.
Rhivus does not bow, he never does, but he inclines his head in a nod as he steps forward, smiling like we are co-conspirators.
“How long has it been,” he muses, “since a Rite stirred this much interest from the Vesperan and common caste alike? A real treat for the rest of us, no?”
George lifts his head beneath the cloak. I feel the tiny movement along my shoulder as claws flex against the clasp. Not enough to draw blood. Just enough to warn he is listening.
“Perhaps never,” I answer. “This year’s contenders are strong.”
“Some more so than others,” he murmurs. “But I won’t pretend I’m not enjoying myself.”
He strokes his beard. The gesture looks idle, but he is watching me the way fire watches dry wood. “I imagine you’re pleased with her progress,” he adds. “The human girl.”
My jaw tightens and George shifts. I place a steadying hand along his back beneath the cloak and feel his heartbeat race like a drum.
“She’s earned a small following,” Rhivus continues, “among the servants. The flame-sick. Even a few of the older bloodlines if the rumors are true.”
“She surprises, doesn’t she?” My grin shows my teeth.
He smiles back. “A rare talent, these days.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The only sound is the subtle rustling of George’s tail flicking against the inside of my cloak. Rhivus folds his hands behind his back.
“Of course, no amount of spectacle can prepare her for the Flame Crown. Even if she lasts to the end, but at least it livens things up.”
“You don’t believe she could lead.”
Do I?
“I believe she is clever. Tenacious. She is winning favor.” His voice grows quieter, but no less cutting. “But the Rite is not a stage for cleverness and she is foreign.”
“She has survived three trials,” I say, sharper than intended.
Rhivus does not flinch. “And perhaps she will survive more. But survival is not sovereignty. Our realm will not follow an outsider. Especially not one whose strength lies in disruption.”
George growls. Low. Faint. But real. The elder blinks. I move my hand again, this time not just to calm the cat, but myself.
“She would not be the first ruler born of fire and contradiction.”
There’s a pause, then, a twitch at the corner of Rhivus’s mouth.
“I suppose not.” He agrees. “But she’d be the first without her name etched in the archives.” George growls again. Rhivus tilts his head at me, but not at George. As though the cat does not fully register. “There are rumors you’ve grown… attached.”
It is not a question. I give no answer. I will not lie. Not about Kay, but I also will not put a bigger target on her back. It was the council, my father, who tasked me to watch her. They do not now get to punish us for it.
“Not the first time, is it.” His smile is cold. “Ember Heir.”
As he walks away, I feel George’s tail curl tighter around my side.
Not fear. Not even protectiveness. Solidarity.
Like he knows what it means to be ignored, to be seen as lesser.
I exhale, steadying myself. Let them underestimate her.
Let them dismiss what they do not understand.
I once did the same and I will not do it again.
The Flame greets me the way it always does, heat rolling in low waves, a steady pulse beneath the soles of my boots, as if the stone itself breathes with fire.
George slips past me as the door seals shut, tail high and swishing like he owns the place.
He pauses in the center of the room, nose twitching at the acrid tang in the air.
It is not unpleasant, but it has weight, metal, ash, the faintest undercurrent of oil and charred herbs.
The walls curve inward here; obsidian streaked with veins of red that catch the light and make the whole chamber seem alive.
The Flame-watch has always been a place that listens, and I feel that awareness on the back of my neck, as tangible as heat on skin.
George prowls to the far wall, claws clicking on the black stone before he stretches out and bats at one of the low vents.
The fire there flares brighter for just a moment, answering him as if he is a contender of his own.
He chirps at it and looks back at me, entirely unbothered by the intensity in the air.
I step farther in, letting the heavy quiet settle over me.
This is not a space I come to lightly. It is the realm’s memory of the Rite.
Its measure and its judgment. I have stood here in victory and in shame, watched friends rise and rivals fall, seen the basin flare white-hot when a contender’s flame burned out for the last time.
The stone remembers all of it. The center of the room holds the brass-rimmed basin, broad enough for me to stand inside.
Beneath its surface, a low fire churns like molten glass, its glow reflecting off the high dome of the ceiling.
The metal is warm even before I touch it, the familiar bite of its magic already pushing against my hand.
I draw a slow breath and let my palm rest on the rim.
The fire hums under my skin, as if recognizing me.
It is an old familiarity, but not a welcome one.
I have avoided this place as much as possible since my father took the throne.
Too many years of watching the Flame’s verdict bend to his will.
Too many reminders that the Rite was meant for blood and spectacle now more than worthiness.