Chapter Fifty-Three
THE SCRAPE OF the lock was enough to send my stomach into knots.
I stood anyway. My body trembled, but obedience was safer than resistance. The punishment room was built for this type of confrontation. Every inch of it whispered of submission. Even the silence seemed to echo, as if the stone itself were waiting for me to break.
The door opened.
And Gabrial stepped inside.
The air shifted with him, pressing tighter. He never rushed. Each step was deliberate, his red coat brushing the stone floor like ceremonial robes. The scent rolled ahead of him—lavender, citrus, cedar oil. Not human. Not natural. A crafted mask meant to soothe while he carved you open.
His eyes locked on me, and I felt smaller, smaller, until the room itself seemed to bow with him. I dropped to my knees in submission just like I knew he expected.
“Sable.”
My name. Not a greeting, but a claim. A declaration.
“I trust you’ve had time to reflect.”
I bowed my head, lips sealed. My heart thrashed against my ribs, but he would only hear silence. He loved silence. He mistook it for surrender.
He began to pace, hands clasped behind his back. “I have decided on your punishment. I will not strike you. That is crude. That is how the outside world disciplines—violence and impulse. That is how the animals you ran to handle disobedience.”
His shoes clicked against the stone as he circled me, every step counted, measured.
“I am not crude,” he said. His voice softened, almost tender. “I am grace. I am order. Violence wastes beauty. And you, my flame, are beauty incarnate. But beauty must still be proven.”
He stopped in front of me, bending low until his face hovered close. His eyes bored into mine, endless and dark. His breath carried cedar and citrus, warm and cloying.
“You are too valuable to be marred,” he whispered.
“Too beautiful. But value untested is nothing. You will be cleansed. Brought before the Flame in full ceremony. Before the congregation, you will kneel, and the fire will erase the lies of the world. Every memory of your time away—gone. When you rise, you will be pure once more. Mine once more.”
Bile rose in my throat. To forget Zeke. To forget freedom. I forced my shoulders to sag, my gaze downcast.
“Yes,” I murmured.
His lips curved into a smile.
“There is more,” he continued, voice smooth as glass. “Zara and Malik will watch. They must learn what rebellion earns. They must see how it is corrected.”
The fury that flared in my chest nearly broke me. I wanted to scream. To claw. To tear him apart with my bare hands. But the words from the hidden note rang louder: Just obey and be patient.
So I forced a whisper past my lips. “I understand.”
His head tilted, studying me as though I were a sculpture with a crack. “Do you? Then tell me, Sable. Why?”
The question hung like smoke.
He resumed pacing, slow, circling me like a predator. “Why did you run? You were my flame. My chosen. And still you ran. Why?”
The truth seared the back of my throat—to save Zara, to save Malik, to save myself from you. But truth would kill me.
“I was weak,” I said softly.
“Hmm.” His hand brushed my shoulder as he passed, almost tender, almost mocking. “Weakness I can forgive. Betrayal?” He leaned close, his lips near my ear. “That is harder.”
He pulled back, eyes glinting like polished stone. “Did you know Tallis is dead?”
The floor tilted beneath me. My breath caught.
“He was loyal,” Gabrial said softly, savoring the words. “He risked himself to help you. And he died for it. Because of you. Because of your disobedience. His blood stains you.”
Images ripped through me of how he must have suffered at Gabrial’s hands.
My chest burned. I wanted to weep, to scream, to collapse. But I bit down until copper filled my mouth and let my shoulders slump, let sorrow fold me in half.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Yes,” Gabrial breathed. “You are sorry. You should be. Tallis’s loyalty became his noose, tied by your hands. But fire will cleanse you, as it cleanses all things.”
He straightened, looming over me. His gaze sharpened, carving me into pieces.
“And yet… there is another question. The one that matters most.”
He closed the distance until his shadow swallowed me whole.
“Did he touch you?” His voice dropped to a low, venomous murmur. “If that biker has tainted you—if you allowed yourself to be defiled like something common—then cleansing will no longer be sufficient.”
My heart stopped. My pulse thundered. The truth clawed at my throat. I wanted to spit it in his face—yes, Zeke touched me with kindness, love, with something you’ve never known.
Instead, I lowered my gaze. “No.”
“Look at me.”
I lifted my eyes.
He searched me, dissected me, hunting for the crack, the twitch, the confession. My body screamed, but I held still.
Finally, he smiled. Slow. Triumphant.
“Good. Because purity must be confirmed. Before the ceremony, you will be inspected.”
My skin crawled. My stomach clenched. I bowed my head deeper. “I understand.”
“You belong to me,” he said, his hand cupping my jaw. His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth. Almost tender. My skin burned where he touched me, but I didn’t recoil.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His smile widened, eyes alight with reverence and madness. He released me and turned toward the door. His coat flared, the red fabric whispering like scripture turning on a lectern.
“At the time of my choosing, when I am certain of your purity, you will face the Flame. And you will rise as mine once more.”
He paused at the threshold.
And waited.
The silence stretched, suffocating, until I felt his eyes crawling over me. He was testing me, watching for the slip, the flinch, the crack. My lungs screamed for air. My body trembled, but I stayed still.
Only when the last second passed without movement did he nod, faintly, as though pleased.
The door slammed shut.
My body sagged, trembling so hard my knees nearly gave out. My nails cut crescents into my palms, stinging.
On the outside, I gave him what he wanted—silence, obedience, submission.
But inside, grief and fury burned like a second fire.
The slam of the door reverberated through the chamber long after he was gone.
I stayed upright for as long as I could. My knees locked, my spine rigid, the posture of obedience he demanded. I stared at the symbols carved into the wall, at the faint soot smudging the grate, willing myself not to collapse.
Then my legs gave out.
I sank to the floor, my back sliding against the cold stone until I curled on myself. My arms wrapped tight around my stomach, not for comfort but to keep from shaking apart.
The smell of him still lingered in the air, burning my throat. I pressed my hand over my mouth, choking down bile.
Tallis.
The name hit me like a blade. My chest squeezed so hard I couldn’t breathe. Tallis’s quiet nods. The way he moved like a shadow, unseen but always present. The single night he whispered to me, Hold on a little longer, Sable.
And now he was dead. His loyalty twisted into a noose, tied by Gabrial’s words to my disobedience. My fault. My sin.
I dug my nails into my palms until pain cut through the grief. I couldn’t let it show. If Gabrial had seen me break, he would have feasted on it.
My body rocked before I realized it, small motions I couldn’t control. Silent sobs raked through me, the kind that leave no sound but wring the air from your lungs.
The grate in the floor stared back at me. I could almost feel the heat of imagined flames rising, see myself kneeling as he demanded, my memories torn out one by one.
“No,” I whispered into my hands. The word shook, weak, but it was mine. “No.”
The note’s words burned in my mind once again: Just obey and be patient.
I clung to them like rope. Help was coming. It had to be.
I forced my breath to slow. Forced my shoulders to still. Forced the trembling into something small enough to hide.
Because I had survived his salvation once.
And I would again.
But this time, I would not crawl out of his fire only to keep running.
This time, I would rise from it, and I would see him burn.