Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
KAY
The yard is empty when I get there. I’m early, and it’s still cold, the kind of cold that comes just before the heat wakes up and makes everything unbearable.
The air smells like smoke and metal. Not fire, old smoke, settled deep in the stone.
The kind that lingers in your hair, clings to your skin like it wants to keep you.
My arms ache. My ribs protest with every breath. My legs feel like they’re made of ash-packed mud. I press my knuckles to the edge of the sparring ring and breathe through it. I’m not sure what hurts more, my body or whatever the Obsidian trial hollowed out of me and left behind.
Across the yard, the others are starting to filter in.
I catch Lyra Iskar’s eye as she enters and she gives a small, acknowledging nod.
Elira Voss follows, violet-streaked hair tied up in a rough knot, ink still smudged on his fingers.
The others follow. Some quiet, some already murmuring in tight groups.
Varo comes in last, a towel slung over one shoulder.
His gaze flicks to me once, unreadable, then past me entirely.
The sparring yard smells like iron and sweat, though no one’s bled—yet.
We’re all lined up along the edge, boot soles scraping the stone in that nervous, restless way.
Morning heat hasn’t quite burned off the mist, but the ring is warm already.
It always is. I’m still sore from yesterday.
Still tired from Obsidian in ways I can’t name.
I pull my braid tighter. It’s already fraying.
Caziel appears like a ripple through shadow, silent and composed, his coat swept back to bare the curve of his arms. His eyes land on me first, but he doesn’t speak.
I swallow. My hands are already sweating.
He steps into the center of the ring, his coat draped over one shoulder, sleeves rolled to the elbow.
His voice is quiet, but it carries. It always does.
“Today’s focus is burn threshold.” Murmurs ripple down the line. Someone curses softly. I stay still. “You’ll train to the edge of your stamina,” Caziel continues. “And then you’ll hold. This isn’t about skill. Not today. This is about endurance. Flame endurance.”
His gaze moves over us, slow and sharp. I feel it when it lands on me—just a little too long.
“Some of you already know what that feels like,” he adds. “Some of you think you do.” He turns his back on us and walks to the edge of the ring. “You’ll go one at a time. Your marks will react or they won’t. The longer you can hold the better.”
That makes the nerves louder. A few contenders shift uneasily. I keep myself still as if I can escape detection. Someone moves beside me. I glance sideways at Varo. He doesn’t look at me.
“You ever done threshold before?” He asks out of the corner of his mouth, “One of your loverboy’s lessons?”
I shake my head.
His jaw ticks. “It sucks.”
“That’s helpful.”
He huffs something like a laugh, but it’s dry. Sandpaper and smoke.
“Most of us have trained for it since we were kids, holding the Flame.” A pause. “Don’t take it personal if it breaks you the first time. Let go when you need to, human. Shame is better than injury.”
I blink. That might be the nicest thing he’s ever said to me.
“Noted.”
Caziel lifts his hand, and a flame unfurls in his palm—bright, alive, eager.
It coils around his fingers like it knows him, a creature born of command and memory.
He doesn’t speak this time; he doesn’t need to.
Everyone already knows what this is. The silence that follows feels sacred, or maybe just dangerous.
Lyra steps forward first, steady as always, her jaw set in that unshakable soldier’s line.
The fire leaps from his hand to hers with a sound like a gasp.
It wraps around her wrist, testing her resolve, licking up her forearm until her skin glows in the dimming light.
She doesn’t flinch. Not until her knees begin to tremble and her breath catches.
Then, finally, she exhales, and the flame gutters out—obedient, almost respectful.
Varo moves next. The flame hesitates before it touches him, then burns hotter, whiter, as if provoked.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. The air between them turns to glass, warping his edges in the heat.
When he finally opens his hand and lets the fire go, it vanishes with a hiss that sounds almost like defiance.
One by one, the contenders step forward.
The fire shifts with each—sometimes curious, sometimes cruel.
It crackles for Caelthar, snarls for Sevrik, dances like laughter for Zyreus.
For some, it burns quick and clean, leaving behind only smoke.
For others, it lingers, reluctant to let go, as if tasting something it likes.
The smell of char and ozone thickens in the air. The crowd has gone quiet. Even the wind holds its breath. My pulse beats in my throat, sharp and loud as a drum. When the last ember fades and Caziel turns toward me, the world feels too still, like the moment before a storm breaks.
The world feels too still, like the moment before a storm breaks. I take a step forward, but a hand catches my arm. Varo. His grip isn’t rough, just sure. A steadying weight.
“Don’t make the mistake they all did,” he murmurs, voice low enough to vanish under the crowd’s hush. “It’s a trick.”
I glance at him, pulse still hammering. “A trick?”
“It isn’t about stamina—or pain.” His gaze flicks toward the brazier, where the air still wavers from the last test. “The Flame doesn’t care how long you last. It’s will.
You can posture all you want, but if there’s nothing at the heart of you—nothing you want or need more than it hurts—you won’t hold it. It’ll snuff you out.”
I swallow, my throat tight. “And if I do have something?”
He exhales through his nose. “Then it’ll hurt worse.” His hand drops away. “You shouldn’t even try.”
For a heartbeat, I almost don’t. The air feels heavy, full of ash and warning.
Caziel stands ahead, flame alive again in his palm, its light cutting through the dusk like a heartbeat.
He doesn’t look impatient—just watchful.
Waiting. And maybe that’s the point. Not about proving Varo wrong, or anyone else.
Maybe it’s about seeing what’s left of me when there’s no one left to tell me who I am.
The flame leaps from Caziel’s hand to mine before I can second-guess it. I brace for pain—real, blistering pain—the kind that sears down to marrow like the first time I faced the Flame. My breath locks in my chest, shoulders tensing for the strike, but it doesn’t come.
The heat blooms, yes, but not as agony. It spreads through me like something alive and curious, tracing the map of my pulse, my ribs, my heart.
It feels me out, pressing at the places I’ve hidden, the cracks I thought I’d sealed.
It isn’t cruel. It’s consuming. Every thought, every defense, every ounce of defiance burns away until all that’s left is the quiet, trembling truth of me.
My vision swims. The edges of the arena blur, light and sound folding in on themselves. My knees want to buckle, but I can’t feel my body enough to fall. It’s not pain I’m drowning in—it’s emptiness. The flame drinks deep and leaves me hollow, drained in a way that feels almost merciful.
When it finally withdraws, the fire doesn’t die so much as slip back into the air, leaving my skin unmarked but my veins singing. I’m breathing hard, dizzy, but I’m still standing. Barely.
When it finally gutters out, smoke curls between my fingers like a secret.
My hand is shaking. My heart isn’t. Caziel hasn’t moved.
His hand lowers slowly, the last wisp of flame coiling through his fingers.
His expression is unreadable, but his eyes—dark, steady, impossibly bright—find mine.
For a heartbeat, they soften. Something like recognition passes between us, too brief to name. Then it’s gone.
“Next,” he says, voice smooth again, the Flame’s echo still threaded through it.
But even as I step back into line, the heat lingers in me—not a wound, not a burn, just a quiet, aching proof that it saw me.
The others don’t speak to me. They don’t look at me.
But I can feel their eyes. Not like before when they were waiting for me to fail.
Now they don’t know what to make of me. And neither do I.
I don’t run, but I do stride off with purpose.
Maybe if I look like I know what I’m doing, or where I’m going, no one will follow me.
I take the stone steps up from the arena, ducking into the covered walkway that rings the top.
The stone floor is cooler in this corridor, hidden in the shadow of a forgotten colonnade.
I fold myself into the alcove with my back against the wall, arms wrapped around my knees.
My training robes are damp with sweat and the mark still thrums along my spine, a low, molten hum that hasn’t quite faded.
I’m not crying. Not exactly. Just… trembling. Quietly unraveling at the seams. The ache isn’t just physical, it’s everything. Grief, exhaustion, confusion. I curl tighter around myself.
It was just training.
Just pressure.
Just fire.
Just more of the same shit I’ve been surviving for however long I’ve been here.
So why do I feel like I left something behind in that ring?
A faint chirrup cuts through my thoughts.
Then the soft tap of claws against stone.
George rounds the column like he’s been searching for me for hours.
He doesn’t run, he strolls. Regal, deliberate, and absolutely unimpressed with my condition.
His tail curls high as he climbs into my lap and headbutts my chin.
“Hey,” I whisper, voice rasping. “Guess I passed the smell test.”
He sniffs the edge of my sleeve and settles with a thump across my thighs, warm and heavy. Like a sandbag pinning me to the present. The tremors in my hands still.