Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
KAY
Iwake up disoriented by the dark until I realize I have a scroll draped over my eyes.
I must have fallen asleep reading. My limbs ache like I spent the night clawing my way out of stone.
I guess, in a way, I did. George curls into the hollow of my ribs, his fur warm and steady against my bare skin.
He’s purring like nothing is wrong. Like I didn’t just crack open the worst memory of my life and bleed it across a stage made of ash.
I should get up. I don’t. The others will be rising soon, washing up, wrapping their arms in training leathers like none of it touched them.
Because it didn’t. I’m the only one it got its claws into.
I was the only idiot who didn’t fight the memory, who didn’t know to anchor herself out of it.
The Flame has to be wrong. It’s a mistake that I made it through.
The pillow smells like old incense and dust. Not like my world. Not like the waiting room where I sat after the accident. Not like the cat carrier that held George during every move, every shift, every stupid clinic internship where he slept on my feet and made me feel like something mattered.
I press the heel of my hand against my sternum.
Right where the pendant rests. It’s warm again.
Humming. Like the thread of flame that curled around me in the trial is still there, tucked under my skin, waiting to be remembered.
Maybe it didn’t leave me behind, but it still hurts. And I am getting damn tired of hurting.
George stretches, claws delicately pricking my side. His golden eyes open just long enough to give me a look that says, Well? You going to keep sulking or are we going to breakfast? I sigh and nudge him gently.
“You’re a menace,” I whisper, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. “But you’re my menace.”
I’m the last to arrive. Thanks to my lazy wake-up, but even with ten sets of eyes boring into me, I can’t bring myself to regret it.
George is going to be pissed that the morning meal has been cleared.
The others are already spaced across the training floor.
Someone marked chalk symbols I don’t yet understand in a rough circle.
Emberlight trickles through the open arches, catching on the dust in the air, turning every movement into something holy or haunted.
Caziel is already directing paired drills—threshold maneuvering, I hear him call it.
Combat within liminal space. Fighting in close quarters, with magic active but restrained.
He said it mimics the sensation of being pressed between realms. Like breathing fire underwater.
I’m barely holding myself together and now I’m supposed to fight in metaphor.
I scan the others. Elira Voss is sparring with the silver-eyed contender, Rhovan, sweat beading down their necks, each movements fluid and fast. Lyra Iskar is moving like a storm, her staff sweeping with rhythmic control.
Even the quiet contenders, Kaelen and Nyxen, near the eastern wall seem composed.
Steady. They don’t look like they were gutted yesterday.
They don’t look like they’re still hearing the echo of their mother’s voice in a hospital room that never existed.
Varo leans casually against a stone pillar, one arm resting across his midsection.
He’s watching the matches, sure—but when my footsteps echo too loud on the stone, his gaze flicks to me.
Lingers.He doesn’t smirk this time. Doesn’t say a word.
The staff rack is to the left, freshly stocked. I reach for one and feel its weight settle into my palm like an accusation. I join the circle, slotting into an open space.
Caziel doesn’t even glance over. He’s speaking low to Lyra, guiding her form with one hand, correcting her elbow angle.
He’s neither harsh nor coddling. It’s the kind of voice I remember from clinic professors who actually cared if you passed.
When he finally walks toward me, it’s silent.
Measured. He stops in front of me and holds out a smooth, wooden staff.
The tension between us crackles. I take it.
He moves into position but doesn’t speak.
No warm-up. No adjustment. Just begins the sequence.
The same one I watched him demonstrate for the others: brace, sweep, feint, pivot, anchor.
I do my best to match him. But my feet are half a second behind.
My right arm falters during the feint. My left hip twists too shallow in the anchor.
He doesn’t say a word. Just resets. Does it again.
I follow. Again. And again.
By the fourth time, I’m panting. “If you’re going to teach me, then teach me.”
His expression doesn’t shift, but his posture sharpens—just a hair. “You know the form.”
“I watched the form.”
“You have done it before.”
“Not like this.”
He steps forward, his presence taking up all the space between us. His voice drops. “You’re waiting to feel normal again.”
“Of course I am,” I snap. “I’m still not convinced I wasn’t ripped apart yesterday.”
“That’s the point,” he says. “This drill mimics realm instability. When you are not centered, the threshold seizes on it. It warps your footing. Your mind. It will try to make you believe you are somewhere else—someone else.”
“Oh good,” I mutter. “More hallucinations.”
Caz doesn’t flinch. “The others handled it.”
And there it is. My grip tightens on the staff. “We already know I don’t belong here”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No,” I hiss, “but it’s what you meant.”
Something cracks in him then—not loudly. Not like the roar I expect. Just a subtle break in that cool control. He leans in.
“You are here, Kay. Not because of luck. Not because of pity. You faced something no one else did, and you did not break. You chose to feel it.”
I look away, throat tight. “And I’m the only one still bleeding.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But that does not make you weak.”
“Then what does?”
He’s quiet for a moment, the silence between us full of fire. When he leans in again, each word breaks over my lips in a fan of heated air. “Thinking you have to carry it alone.”
Training ends without a declaration. No final round.
No applause. Just a nod from Caz, and the tension that’s been coiled in my chest begins to ease.
The others drift away, some chatting in low voices, others lost in their own thoughts.
I stay behind, staff still in hand, George brushing against my ankles like he senses I need something to hold me in place. Or he’s hungry. Probably the latter.
“Walk with me?” Caz’s voice is soft. Not a command.
I nod.
George gives a grunt of protest, but follows, weaving around my boots.
We walk in silence at first, through the outer corridor and down into one of the winding halls near the Ember Chamber.
The light from the sconces always seems to flicker redder.
Like the walls are breathing. I want to ask why we’re going this way.
Tell him I really don’t need to see the mystical scoreboard again, but I can already feel the answer hanging in the air between us. Something has shifted.
He says nothing until we reach one of the quieter balconies that overlook the molten heart of the citadel.
You can’t see the Flame directly from here—just the occasional pulse of light where the heat seeps through cracks in the stone.
He turns toward me and holds out a small coil of shimmering thread.
I frown, but do not reach for it. “What’s that?”
“Last time I gave it without asking. I am offering now.”
It hums faintly in his hand, glowing. An ember stretched into a coiled line, wriggling like a caught worm, shimmering in shades of blue under the low light. Another thread.
I stare at it, throat dry. “What does this one do?”
“It’s grounding. Connecting.” He pauses, jaw tight. “A taste of what the next realm will offer. It’s not a command. Just an option. Use it or don’t.”
It’s a gift. But it’s also something else.
There’s a weight behind the offer. It’s more than a token, more than an assist, but I doubt he’ll tell me why.
His eyes are dark, unreadable. Caziel is always guarded, but something about this feels heavier.
More vulnerable. Like he’s given up pretending he can keep me at arm’s length, but he’s still not ready to say why.
I look down at the thread and think the worst.
He’s giving up on me. He thinks I can’t do this without magical training wheels.
The thought slices through me, sharp and stupid.
But it doesn’t manage to sink its teeth into me.
That’s not who Caz is. I think of the sparring sessions.
The endless patience. The way he stepped between me and everything that scared me when I didn’t even know I was afraid.
The way he looked at me after the trial, not like I was broken, like I was still standing.
The thread twists between us. It shimmers faintly, silver-blue, like a blade carved from silence.
I don’t ask how he got it, just like I didn’t ask last time.
The Obsidian thread was brutal. It left me hollowed out and empty and aching, but it was nothing compared to the trial itself.
Having a taste of what was to come… it was like peering through the keyhole of a locked door to see what’s beyond.
Like shaking the Christmas presents under the tree to see if Santa came through.
The discomfort now helps more than it hurts.
I can’t separate out truth from illusion in the trial itself, if I don’t know what the shape of the lie feels like.
And already this thread feels different. Quiet. Personal. Less horror and grief.
“Cobalt?” I guess and he nods. “For the next trial?” I wonder if it brings up memories for him. Bad ones he’d prefer to bury. The war, his lover, I wonder if he wishes he could forget every awful piece.