Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They come for me at dawn. No knock. No voice.
Just the scrape of steel across stone as the door to my room swings open, revealing a silent, helmeted guard.
I nod like I was the expecting them. Like I’ve been up for hours waiting.
Like I slept at all. The robe left for me to wear I clutch in my fist; the heavy fabric wrinkled from how tightly I have been gripping it.
I pull it over my shoulders as I step into the hallway, the silence presses into me like a second skin.
No words. No explanation. Just a nod from the guard and the heavy thud of boot-steps as we begin to walk.
It’s not far. But it feels like miles. The palace is different this morning.
Still and reverent, like it’s holding its breath.
There are no servants in the halls, no whispers from passing courtiers.
Just the occasional flicker of torchlight and the quiet shiver of air that smells faintly of sulfur and smoke.
It reminds me of the funerals I’ve attended.
I don’t remember my parents’—my therapist says that’s okay—but I’ve been to enough.
The teacher that got cancer my junior year of high school.
The great-aunt of my college roommate. I recognize the same hollow hush.
Like everyone’s pretending they don’t want to look—at the casket, at the grief, at the truth—but they can’t help it.
I wonder if that’s what I am today. A body being walked to rest. Caz can’t tell me anything, but I got the feeling this is the end of it.
Right? If I make it through today, it’ll be over. Or at least the Flame stuff.
I rub the back of my neck.
You’re not going to die. That’s what Caz said. Or what he couldn’t say. His eyes told me the rest. They’re not trying to kill me today. Not yet. Humiliation is the first order of business.
The hallway opens to a spiral staircase, carved into the heart of the palace’s obsidian tower.
The walls here are older. Cracked and veined with molten gold.
I place a hand on the stone as I ascend, half for balance, half for grounding.
Each step echoes. behind me from the guards who won’t meet my eyes.
I think of Caz again. Of the way he looked when he told me he couldn’t speak.
Like the words were burning to ash in his throat.
Disintegrating before he could string them together.
I shouldn’t care that he was trying to protect me.
I’m not even sure I have any reason to trust him, but I do.
Because in all of this—the fire, the chaos, the blood—I started to believe he was a safe place.
I didn’t realize I’d built the idea of him like a shelter, but I did and now I have to trust him to hold firm even as howling winds and torrential rain threaten to drown me.
Or maybe that’s a bad metaphor. Maybe it’s a wildfire set to consume.
At the top of the stairs there’s a final door. Two guards pull it open and step aside and I see the chamber. The air shifts. Heat rolls out like a breath, curling around my ankles, sliding up my spine. It smells like ash and blood and something older than fire. Older than time. I step forward.
The room is circular. Vast. Cut into the mountain itself, the ceiling domed and glittering with veins of flame-bright ore.
The walls ripple like obsidian water, absorbing the torchlight.
This Caz was able to share. The seat of the Flame.
A hall for ceremony and prayer and hushed prophecy.
At the center, floating above a carved dais, is the Flame itself.
Not a torch or a brazier. It’s alive. Twisting and pulsing like a creature with its own heartbeat.
Gold and red, yes—but something else, too.
Something deeper. I can’t look away, my eyes pulled to its depth like a magnet to true north, a moth to the light. It hums. It sees. I swallow.
Gilded balconies ring the edges of the chamber. It reminds me of a theatre, but circular. Figures in robes fill them. Daemari nobles, maybe. Elders. A few contenders. The Rite itself is open to all who wish to view it. I wonder if today is the same. And above them all—on a high platform—him.
The Asmodeus. Seated like a king with too little feeling.
Gold drips from his cuffs. Shadows curl around his shoulders like a living cloak.
His eyes scan the room, sharp and hungry.
Watching. Caziel sits beside him. The Ember Heir is darkly beautiful.
Still. Silent. His expression carved from obsidian.
But his hands—his hands clenched, knuckles pulled white over bone.
He sees me. And for a moment, I forget to breathe. Forget the Flame, the Rite, the other contenders, I feel the pull toward him and him alone. I sway his direction before I catch myself. He shifts in his seat, was that a shake of his head? Does he feel the pull too?
I square my shoulders. This is ridiculous.
He’s just a guy. A stoic, ornery, Demon guy.
A walking red—or at least gray—flag. And sure, he’s tall and brooding.
Thick dark hair with the perfect wave. Stormy eyes that see too much.
And I’ve known him for however long I’ve been here.
He’s been nice, sure. Or courteous maybe.
He is on my side—he brought me George, was outraged at the thought of me hurt for some Crimson Olympics—but do I truly know him? Do I truly trust him?
Yes. I shake my head against my inner voice.
She’s a little needy and has attachment issues.
It’s not her fault that she’s all-in on the fire daddy.
I’ll just gag her for the time being. Whatever happens, I’ll walk forward.
I’ll stand before the flame. I’ll play their game. And if I burn—I’ll do it on my feet.
The chamber is so quiet I can hear the drip of molten stone somewhere behind me. The floor pulses with heat, but the air is thin and still. Everyone is watching. Waiting.
One by one each contender is called forward. Their names echo in the chamber. I can’t see someone reading them, but at least it isn’t the crushing voice in my skull. I’m the only one left when my name is called. The first part. Just Kay.
I step forward.
The Flame doesn’t move at first. It hovers in the center of the dais—liquid fire in a loosely coiled shape, like it’s asleep. Or judging. Or both. I swallow hard and kneel, like the others did, even though every part of me wants to turn and run. But I don’t. I bow my head, trying not to shake.
I’m not Daemari. I shouldn’t even be here.
The silence deepens and the Flame. It responds. It doesn’t burn the way fire should. It thrums—a heat I feel behind my eyes, in my teeth, deep in the cage of my ribs. The flames slither toward me slowly, tendrils unfurling like smoke in water.
I feel the first lick of it just under my jaw. A flicker of warmth.
I just want this to not be in vain. I can handle pain, death, whatever, but I need this to be for a reason.
Please. I can’t have fallen through dimensions to Hell, only to be burned alive now.
I didn’t survive losing my parents, a decade in the foster system, and the crushing weight of student loans to go out like this.
I have to be worth more than that. Right? Dammit? I want to be. I have to be. I—
It strikes.
Fire drives into my forearms, both at once like whips forged of flame wrapping around my wrists, like chains of nettles with teeth.
I bite my tongue hard enough to taste blood, but I don’t scream.
I want to. The heat becomes slicing. Thousands of tiny cuts, glowing with fire, carving from the inside out.
The flame isn’t just touching me—it’s testing me.
Peeling me open like it’s reading every part of who I am.
My breath stutters. The crowd blurs. I see Caziel stand—abruptly, violently.
His hands are fisted. He’s trying to come forward. Someone grabs him.
He can’t speak.
Oh god, Caz.
He looks pissed. Upset.
I’m dying, I think, this is the actual end of my story, but we could’ve been something. Maybe. Given time. I hope he finds that. I want that for him. I want Sarai to be free. I want—
I hear my own voice. A low moan slipping out from between gritted teeth. My knees wobble. My skin burns and pulses, etched in something deeper than pain. The flame curls tighter around my forearms, then wraps around my spine like a vice. My entire body convulses.
Why isn’t it stopping? It hurts. Fire cutting through skin and muscle and down to bone. I want to claw my arms off. I want it to end. But some part of me—some stubborn, snarling scrap deep inside—will not let go. I will not collapse.
The fire surges once more—and then vanishes. Smoke lifts off my skin. I collapse forward onto my hands, panting, cheek pressed to the hot stone floor. Silence. Then a voice—not the Ember’s, but something deeper. The chamber itself, maybe.
“The Thirteenth is chosen.”
Gasps echo like shattering glass.
I lift my head. My arms glow faintly, the marks curling like living vines down both forearms. I don’t recognize the shape. I don’t understand what it means. But the Elders are staring. The Asmodeus is smiling. And Caziel is still standing like he is contemplating who to murder first.
The flame retracts. The trial is over. And I don’t feel victorious. I feel like something has been taken from me, carved out with heat and pain and need, and something else was put in its place. Something I can’t name yet.