Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
KAY
Crimson doesn’t look built. It looks summoned. Conjured by ancient magic.
The streets are carved from molten stone that’s cooled to a shimmer.
The towers stretch like glass pulled in fire, curling upward in long spirals.
Banners flutter where there’s no wind. And the light—gods, the light—it pulses low and slow from beneath the street, like the city itself is alive and breathing.
We walk through it in silence. I trail just half a step behind Caziel.
Not because I’m being submissive or anything, but because he walks like the ground was designed to cushion his every step.
The world opens up around me like a gasp.
We step out of the shadow of the gate and into a vast, sun-struck square—alive with motion and color.
Stone streets shimmer with heat, dust catching in the air like gold.
Vendors call out in a language I don’t understand but somehow feel.
Their voices melodic, threaded with warmth and bite.
The smell of spice and smoke tangles with something sweet—roasted fruit, maybe, or incense burning low in brass bowls.
A fountain glows in the center, flame instead of water, its light painting everything in shades of red and gold.
If the Wastelands were charred and desolate, deserted, then this city is everything else.
Life and color and vibrant humming magic.
The people—God, the people. They look human, but only the way dreams do, familiar until you look too closely, until to meet someone’s gaze head on.
Their skin comes in every shade, but it’s alive with undertones the light can’t decide on—bronze that flickers like embers, ivory that gleams faintly like pearl, deep obsidian that glows with hidden heat.
People with hair in every color imaginable move through the crowd: molten copper, storm-blue, deep violet.
Some have markings that shimmer like veins of metal beneath the skin.
Some wear jewelry that hums faintly, alive.
Piercings glint. Tattoos shift when they breathe.
They’re dressed like they’ve stepped out of a storybook—breeches, tunics, long coats, belts heavy with tools or weapons.
Cloaks ripple in the warm wind. No phones, no cars, no distant buzz of electricity.
Just the rustle of fabric, the crackle of firelight, the murmur of barter and laughter. It’s medieval and mythic all at once.
I glance at Caz—and for the first time, I really see him.
His clothes match theirs: dark trousers, a deep almost-black tunic bound at the waist with leather, a cloak that falls heavy across his shoulders.
Somehow, it suits him too well, like he belongs to this place and it to him.
When I look too long, though, the air around him ripples—his skin flickering between human and something else entirely.
I wonder if that has anything to do with his title.
Or maybe it’s me. I notice because I’m human.
The crowd parts for him without question, and I trail after, trying to absorb everything at once—the sound, the heat, the heartbeat of a place that feels both ancient and alive.
For a moment, I forget to breathe. If this isn’t a dream, if it’s not a movie set or a fairground or some beautiful hallucination, then it must be the afterlife and it’s beautiful.
Every single person we pass turns to stare at me.
Not subtle stares, either. Not glances. Full-on, slack-jawed, whisper-in-their-language stares.
The kind that makes you check if your fly’s down or your shirt’s inside out.
Which, considering I fell through reality and probably have blood or dust on everything, is possible.
I feel my spine trying to fold in on itself.
So, I lift my chin, walk taller, and say nothing.
Pretend I belong until someone believes I do.
We pass a family on one of the walkways—two adults with long, layered robes and a child walking between them. The kid can’t be more than five or six in human years. He has wide, luminous eyes and a braid down his back the same color as obsidian.
When he sees my escort, he lights up.
“Look!” he tugs at the nearest sleeve. “It’s Lord Caziel!”
My babysitter does not smile, but his eyes soften. He slows to a stop and I follow suit.
The boy bounces on the balls of his feet. “Can I say hello?”
An adult murmurs something to him, but the kid has already darted forward with a grin that could break stone.
“Hi, Ember Heir! I watched your sword trial in training last week! I’ve been practicing. You moved like this—” He swings an invisible blade in a full-body twirl and almost spins himself into the pavement.
Caziel gives him a nod. “Hello to you too Zhael. Your form has much improved.”
The boy beams like he’s been knighted. The adult chuckles and catches the child’s hand.
“We should let the Ember Heir return to his duties,” he says, with a respectful tilt of his head, but dark eyes skip to me as they grip the child harder. Skin pulling white over bone.
Caziel inclines his head in return. No fanfare. No stiffness. Just acknowledgement. We keep walking. I try not to react, but I can’t help it.
“Caziel,”
His name is still warm from the boy’s voice. He glances sideways.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “Didn’t mean to—I mean, I know names matter. I didn’t hear it, technically. That didn’t happen.” I swallow. Take a breath. “I can forget I heard it. Ember Heir sir.”
He’s quiet for a moment, a frown pulling the edges of his mouth. “You may use it.”
I blink. “Really?”
“I have already heard yours and I’d prefer you use my name to—you may use it.”
I wait for him to tack on a warning, a stipulation, anything—but he does not.
“Thanks,” I say. “Caziel.”
The name sits strangely on my tongue. Formal, but not stiff.
Powerful, but not cold. He wears it like it’s been heavy on his shoulders for a long time.
I glance back toward Zhael, the boy who recognized him.
He’s waving enthusiastically as his parents herd him away.
No fear. Just joy. If Caziel, Ember Heir of Crimson was just a figurehead, the kid might have known his name, but to feel comfortable running up?
To be known on site? That’s familiarity.
“He knew you,” I say.
Caziel doesn’t respond.
“Not just your name,” I add. “He likes you.”
Still nothing.
I look forward again. “That matters.”
“Why?”
“Because kids don’t fake that,” I say. “Animals too. They know when someone is good. Or at least trying to be.”
Another silence stretches between us. But it’s softer this time. It helps to know that, just maybe, I was not wrong to follow him. Or maybe I’m just trying to justify my complete lack of self-preservation skills.
The square feels different now.
Not louder—quieter, somehow, in the way a forest goes silent when something dangerous walks through it.
The Daemari still move, still speak and trade and laugh, but it’s more deliberate now.
Measured. I can feel their eyes on me even when I don’t meet them—curiosity and wariness twined so tightly they’re indistinguishable.
A woman with onyx skin and hair the color of molten gold pauses mid-conversation as we pass.
A vendor who was laughing a moment ago goes still, hand frozen over a pile of jeweled fruit.
A pair of guards lean subtly closer to one another, murmuring words I can’t translate but feel down to my bones.
The energy around them hums—too alive, too aware—and I realize I’m the variable that doesn’t belong.
Caz doesn’t slow. The crowd parts for him the way water breaks around stone. Cloak sweeping, stride even, utterly unfazed. He was made for this place—this realm that glows and burns and watches. I have to take two steps for every one of his to keep up. When I finally speak, my voice sounds small.
“They don’t like me.”
“They don’t know what to make of you,” he corrects, glancing down, eyes catching the light like flame through smoke. “Most of them have never seen a human.”
The words sink into me like cold water.
“Never?” My brows lift. “Not big on tourism?”
He glances at me. “From the other realms, yes. From outside of Infernalis, from other lands of Nether, yes, but not from other worlds. Not humans. You are an anomaly. They don’t know what to expect.”
“Well, they could maybe be less obvious. I’m about two seconds from crawling into a decorative fountain and pretending to be sculpture.”
“Please abstain.”
“Is that a formal request or just a suggestion?”
He doesn’t answer. But I see the barest flicker of something at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. Just the ghost of one’s shadow. He shakes his head once. “There are stories, of course. Songs, prophecies, warnings. But no one alive here has met one. Until you.”
It’s strange—the way he says it. Not until you arrived. Until you. Like the sentence ends with me, and he can’t see past that.
We cross through the heart of the market.
The air is thick with the scent of spice and smoke and something faintly metallic, like hot stone after rain.
A boy darts past with a basket of glowing fruit, and I flinch as the light grazes my arm.
My pulse still hasn’t settled from the way the Daemari look at me—like I’m both a miracle and a mistake.
I glance up at Caz again, at the way the edges of his form flicker when I focus too long. His glamor shifts like heat distortion, a reminder that he’s something far more than what he’s letting me see. Around him, the flame bends subtly toward his body, as if even the light recognizes him.
“And what do you make of me?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He doesn’t answer right away. Then, quietly—
“I’m still deciding.”