Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
CAZIEL
The scent of scorched cedar clings to the air as I walk the gallery of flame.
It is not smoke, not ash—this scent belongs only to Crimson, born of stone and molten marrow, of heat that never truly cools.
The walls pulse faintly with light as I pass, flickering veins of ember deep within the rock, as though the palace itself is listening. Or perhaps breathing.
They will be waiting.
I hear them before I see them—noble tongues behind crimson-glass doors, murmuring in riddles and apprehension.
The Emberbrand stirs. Two more marks appeared overnight.
One in the city’s second tier, the other at the northern ridge.
Neither bearer has slept since. The fever has already begun. They are eager. Afraid. Hopeful.
It is always the same when the Rite draws near. Each time the flame rises, the stories say, the court forgets its bloodied history in the promise of a new sovereign. As if a different shape of flame will burn more gently. Crimson is just, but brutal.
I do not pause at the threshold. I do not need to listen to know what they say.
Caziel was once the flame’s favorite.
Caziel is the lost prince.
Caziel will return.
They are wrong.
The chamber opens before me in a wide curve of obsidian and bone-laced marble, high windows casting fractured crimson light across the floor.
The court is gathered in their robes and sigils—each one branded with desire, ambition, hunger.
The banners above each tell a story of victory, power, history, but I know how many names have been erased from the record stones.
Their voices hush when I step through the archway. I give them nothing. No tilt of the head. No glance of recognition. Let them wonder if I heard. Let them imagine what I think. My boots echo across the stone. I do not quicken my pace. Let them wait.
At the edge of the dais stands Elder Solonar, hands clasped before him, expression as unreadable as ever.
He nods once, a slow incline of the chin, but says nothing.
I find that a mercy. We will speak later when the walls are not full of ears.
Above him, the Flame Crown flickers in its suspended cradle, untouched since the last Rite ended.
They wanted me to reach for it. I never did.
I stop at the base of the dais, hands behind my back, gaze fixed forward.
The hall stretches quiet. It was in this very chamber that my father summoned me after the Siege of the Thale during the Cobalt war.
Where he told me my lover had been taken by enemy forces.
Tortured. Left unburied in enemy lands while I bled for the realm.
I stood here, still wearing the dust of battle, and listened as he called her death necessary.
I feel no heat from the Flame Crown now. It knows I have turned from it. The flame remembers who burned for it—and who it devoured for sport.
The Elders pretend to study their scrolls. House Kirel murmurs to House Orenn. The youngest of them—newly ascended, eager for favor—stares at me like a question waiting to be answered. I ignore them. They are waiting for me to speak. I will not indulge them. It is not I who the summoned court.
Eventually, my father will arrive, theatrical as always. And I will remind him, in front of his precious council, that I will not participate. I will not bend to tradition. The throne may find another heir—one more willing to spill blood for vanity.
Crimson may hunger, but it no longer feeds on me.
Let them whisper. Let the mark rise on every brow but mine. I will never kneel to a realm that forgets its dead.
My father arrives in silence. No fanfare.
No announced entrance. Just the flicker of the braziers along the throne path shifting as if even the fire is trained to turn toward him.
This time, they seem to bow as he passes.
My father does not walk. He glides—or so the poets say—though I know better.
He controls. Every breath, every step, every angle of his presence is curated to command.
He ascends the dais without hurry. The throne greets him without protest. The room bows to their Asmodeus. I do not.
“Caziel,” he says, his voice smooth as pressed velvet. “You grace us.”
The court pretends this is not a game. That his greeting is not laced with the expectation that I will now apologize for my absence from governance, from ritual, from tradition. I offer none.
“You summoned me,” I say.
He smiles, a small flick of the corner of his mouth. Not warm. Calculated. “Indeed. The realm stirs. The Emberbrand rises.” A pause. “Do you feel it?”
I do. We both know I do. But I do not answer. To admit I feel the pull would be to validate his hope. Or worse, his plan.
“The mark has appeared on twelve now,” he continues. “Including three of noble blood. Crimson prepares.” Crimson is always preparing. That is its rot. “Only one remains unmarked.” And he believes it should be me.
“It will not be me,” I say simply.
A beat passes.
His eyes narrow, just enough. “You still deny the flame.”
“I do not deny it. I am not marked. There is a difference.”
“And if it appears?”
“I have no interest in playing host to a throne that devours its own.”
A few murmurs ripple through the chamber. The word devours is one I have used before. It unsettles the elders. They prefer gentler terms. Sacrifice. Duty. Succession.
My father steeples his fingers. “You are the rightful heir.”
“No,” I say. “I am what remains.”
That gets him. Just a flicker in the jaw. The truth tastes bitter, even to him. The Flame Crown above us flickers faintly. It reacts to want. To hunger. To desire. My father ensured it would never call for me when he let Isaeth fall forgotten.
He follows my gaze. “You were born of it,” he says. “Bred for it. And whether you light the pyre or not, Crimson chooses. Not you.”
“The Flame chooses,” I correct. “And yet the brand does not rise for me.”
“Not yet.”
“I’ve told you. It never will.” Not anymore.
Silence blooms in the room like smoke. He stands to descend the dais. Slow, deliberate. One step at a time. A sovereign drawing close to his would-be successor.
“I know you still blame me,” he says, too softly for the others to hear. “For what happened during the siege.” My jaw clenches, but I do not turn away. “I did what was necessary to ensure the war was won. What you lost—what we lost—secured the realm.”
“She secured nothing,” I say. “She was discarded.” Forgotten. Her name left off the memorial stone.
“She was not Daemari,” he says evenly. As if that changes things. As if she didn’t belong to the realm. There are those who whisper Isaeth’s death was no accident. That the war with Cobalt was a convenient scapegoat. Some even wonder if the war was necessary at all.
“Do you imply she did not matter?”
My father does not flinch. “You speak as though the realm should be ruled by sentiment.”
I take a slow breath, shake my head. No.
“It should not be ruled by absence of it.”
My father’s mouth tightens.
“Your pain may feel real,” he says after a moment. “But it is not destiny.”
“I do not believe in destiny,” I answer. There’s an audible gasp from the council members. They’ll see my statement as blasphemous when the flame knows all, sees all, and yet they’ll do nothing.
My father lifts his gaze toward the Flame Crown. “Then believe in necessity. Loss is a price we pay in war.”
“No.”
The word is simple. Final. He looks back at me and smiles again. But this time, it is sharper. Calculating.
“Then perhaps,” he says, “you will find clarity in responsibility.”
And just like that, I know he is not done with me.
I wasn’t called here to enter the rite or defend my lack of brand.
I am to be an example. I brace for the knife he intends to plant between my ribs.
I know that look. It is the same one he wore when he sent me back to the front lines with lies stitched to my orders and betrayal folded beneath each command.
“There is a matter beyond the citadel,” he says, as though it is a minor footnote to prophecy. “A disruption reported in the Wastelands.”
My eyes narrow. “The Wastelands?” The barren desert beyond the citadel is monitored, yes, but few step into its inferno save to visit the true flame itself aside from the occasional bonding ritual, and most of those now happen inside the keep. My fists clench at my sides.
“A shimmer. A breach. One of the scouts felt it first—a pulse, unnatural. They found a figure not aligned to any realm. No markings. No soul-scent. No traceable bond to our planes.”
The court rustles again. My pulse stills. He enjoys this, my father. The way he parcels out chaos in perfect portions. He’s a true performer, unfortunately he seems to have fallen for his own fiction, and none seem willing to lay the truth at his feet.
“And?” I ask.
“She is mortal.”
Mortal.
Human?
The word thuds dully in my chest. It does not make sense.
Mortals have not crossed into the Nether in centuries.
And when they did, it was never through the Wasteland.
That region devours all, Daemari, Vesperan, Embermaw alike.
And there is no record of humans every making it through the veil of Crimson’s borders.
None can pass there, not without aid. Even the Vesperan need to be flame marked by another to be allowed safe passage.
“Perhaps her appearance is a mistake,” he adds, as if such a thing happens. “A misfired thread of magic. For now, she is unharmed. Confused. Alone.”
“Then send her back.”
He chuckles. “If only it were that simple.”