Chapter 46 #2
The curtains are closed but I don’t remember closing them.
Not tight, no, that would be too obvious.
There’s a narrow seam in the middle, a suggestion of dawn beyond it.
The light that slips through doesn’t behave like dawn-light, though; it doesn’t throw a slash across the floor or blind my eyes.
It hangs there, polite, like a guest who knows not to interrupt.
I chase yesterday, trying to hook it on something specific.
We trained until the thread started to hum louder than sense.
We argued. We didn’t kiss. We almost did.
He told me not to let anything take my will, and I said something flippant because if I didn’t, I might have said something true.
We lay down like this. We slept. Or I did.
He… did he? He looks like he did. He looks like he could sleep for a century.
The thought should make me laugh, but it lands wrong. A century is too close to forever and that is a trap I know better than to walk into.
“I should go,” I tell the room, which is safer than telling him. The barracks. The prep. The ritual of it will get my feet under me. Objects in motion stay in motion, objects at rest stay… that’s a rule I trust.
“I should go,” I say again, and my voice obeys the room, not me. Soft, aimless, a pebble tossed onto a velvet couch.
Caz doesn’t stir. Not the smallest twitch.
If I slip out from under his arm I won’t wake him, I think, and something like pride pricks my chest because once, I could leave any bed without anyone noticing.
The foster houses taught me that. The last place I lived before I stopped calling places home taught me it too.
I could lift a sheet, hold my breath, plant a foot on the floor, disappear like a thought.
I slide my hand along his forearm, intending to ease his wrist away from my stomach.
My fingers get distracted.
His skin is its usual heat—banked, contained—but under it I feel the slow, unbothered roll of muscle and a pulse that doesn’t care about my urgency.
The sensation is so familiar my body tags it as safe, and safe as stay, and there it is again: the re-labeling of things.
The Umbral thread doesn’t shove; it edits.
A memory I didn’t ask for floats up, the first night in the barracks when I couldn’t sleep and counted the cracks in the ceiling like constellations of things that would never be mine. I didn’t have this weight at my back then. I didn’t have a cat pretending to be a doorstop. I didn’t have him.
The thought is cheap, and the room loves it. It rewards me with a hush-lull I can feel in my teeth. I try a different tactic and give myself instructions with the sharp edges left on: Bend your knee, bitch. Move his arm. Sit up. Feet to the floor. Stand. Open the curtains. Say his name. Leave.
The list is neat. It should help. Instead, it looks like steps written by a person who has never completed a single task.
Something like irritation flares—small, defiant.
There you are, I tell it. Fight is a language I speak. Come on then. But as soon as it shows its face, the room gives it a pillow and a cup of tea and a seat by the fire. You can fight later, the warmth says. You deserve to fight later.
I could blame Caziel for this, for how easy it is to fold my spine back into the shape his arm wants. It would be convenient to make him the reason. He’d take it if I gave it to him. He’s too ready to believe everything is his fault. That’s another trap.
It isn’t him. He’s sleeping too deeply to be complicit.
It’s the way the air has been coached into kindness.
It’s the way the light refuses to sharpen.
It’s the way George has become metronome and mettle both.
Familiar and wrong, I think, finally putting the two words in the same sentence.
The wrongness is gentle. That’s the trick.
If it were sharp, I’d have already left.
I turn my head and look at Caziel from an inch away.
At this distance he’s just breath and skin and the dark line of his lashes.
I want to touch the pale skin at his throat, not to wake him, just to prove to myself the heat there is real and not part of the way the room is curating this morning for me.
I don’t touch him.
Not yet.
I test the word barracks again and it arrives stripped of its urgency, a sign with the arrow rubbed off.
I should go, I think, and the room doesn’t argue. It doesn’t need to.
The stillness shifts. It’s not obvious at first—just a hairline crack in the glassy surface of the moment—but it catches. Holds. The fire is still burning low in the hearth, each pop and hiss threading through my bones, coaxing me deeper into this calm. It’s hypnotic, the way the flames whisper.
But then— Crackle. Hiss. Pop.
And again. The exact same rhythm.
Crackle. Hiss. Pop.
I frown into the pillow, not moving, like the stillness has rules now and I’ll break them if I shift.
The fire plays it again. And again. Too perfect.
Too… looped. My gaze slides to Caziel. He’s still on his side, back to me, the rise and fall of his chest steady.
Almost too steady. His breaths are deep and even—until they aren’t.
The rhythm skips, then picks up again, flawless as if nothing happened.
My skin prickles.
I try to focus on George instead, who’s draped across my calves like a warm, purring anchor.
He always grounds me, makes everything feel real.
I reach down, running my fingers over his side.
And pause. His fur is soft, but the paw that curls against my ankle, the toe pads are pale.
George’s are charcoal-black. Always have been.
I blink hard. Look again. They’re still a soft, pale pink.
“What the hell,” I whisper under my breath. The fire whispers back in its perfect little loop.
I push my face deeper into the pillow, breathing slow, pretending the warmth is still lulling me when my mind is running in tight, careful circles.
This isn’t right. If this was real, the fire wouldn’t be looping.
Caziel wouldn’t breathe like a wind-up toy.
George wouldn’t have the wrong damn feet.
The room feels… aware now. Like it knows I’m paying attention.
The stillness isn’t quite as soft—it’s watching me. Measuring me.
Fine. Two can play that game.
I turn my gaze to the door. It’s closed, but the faintest shadow moves past. A figure, slow and steady, like someone pacing the hall. The next moment, the same figure passes again, same angle, same stride, same tilt of the head.
I almost laugh. Almost.
My pulse spikes.
Every inch of me wants to move, to throw off the blanket and test the floor beneath my feet, but the pull here is too strong, too clever.
The bed is warm. My muscles are heavy. The quiet in this room feels better than it should, like breathing too much perfume until you can’t tell it’s choking you.
So, for now, I let it hold me. I keep my body loose, my breathing even, like I’ve been caught in its current again.
But my eyes stay open, sliding to each corner of the room.
Cataloguing every wrong note. The too-perfect fire.
The not-quite Caziel. The wrong George. The looping shadow. The repeating crackle of the fireplace.
The stillness hums, trying to soothe me back under. I let it. I let it think it’s working. Because now I’m sure, this isn’t a bed in Caziel’s chambers. This isn’t a morning-after.
This is the Umbral trial.
And I’ve just found my way out.
I don’t move right away. Not when the air is still thick with that stay-here, stay-safe pull.
If I break too soon, the magic will see me coming.
Instead, I make myself breathe like I’m half-asleep.
The way Caziel’s doing, only his isn’t real.
It’s clockwork. Too perfect. I’m careful when I shift my foot under George.
His tail flicks in slow, even arcs against my calf.
George never moves like that. His tail is a barometer—whip-fast when he’s annoyed, slow and lazy when he’s plotting my death. This is monotone.
My fingertips trace the blanket, feeling for something out of place, but it’s warm and soft and the urge to burrow back in is strong.
This isn’t normal exhaustion. My body is heavy with it, like someone poured sand into my bones.
The room hums in approval when I sink a little deeper into the pillow.
I let it. Let it think I’m folding. But I’m not. I’m counting. One, two, three, four.
And on four, I speak. “Caziel?”
No answer. Not a flicker in his breathing, not a twitch in his hand where it rests near my hip. I turn my head toward him. His hair falls perfectly over his brow, not a strand out of place. His jaw is smooth, no hint of shadow from the night before. No embermark, his glamor back in place.
“Caz,” I try again, louder this time.
He blinks. Slow. Like the thought to do it had to be delivered to him from somewhere else.
“Mm.” His voice is low, drowsy. Believable. But the magic is learning me now. The next breath he takes isn’t quite as perfect. The rhythm is off by a hair, like it’s scrambling to make him seem more real.
I keep my voice casual. “What time is it?”
He doesn’t answer. I shift onto my back. The ceiling has the faintest pattern, shadows shifting like water, ripples moving outward. It’s mesmerizing. It wants me to stare at it until I forget why I was looking. I shut my eyes.
“I should get up.”
The blanket tightens over me. Not literally, but in the way a dream pulls you back when you try to wake.
And that’s when I make my first move. Not big.
Just my hand sliding toward the book on the bedside table.
My fingertips brush the cover. It’s warm.
Too warm for a book that hasn’t been touched.
The air shifts again, like the room is aware I’ve figured out a seam in its stitching. I push harder.
“I need to go.”
The magic doesn’t like that. The fire flares, heat rolling over me, urging me to stay. Caziel’s arm slides back around my waist. It’s warm, firm, safe, exactly how I want it to be.
“Stay,” he murmurs against the back of my neck.
And for a second—gods help me—I almost do, but something in that voice rings wrong.
It’s smooth, but not deep enough. Not weighted the way his words get when he means them.
I turn my head, and for the first time since waking, I really look at him.
The glamor is perfect. Too perfect. I’ve seen the real Caziel up close—flawed, sharp-edged, alive.
He has horns, crimson skin, a playful tail.
This mirage is polished. Like a painting.
The blanket feels heavier now. Not just heavier, alive. The weave sinks around me like a warm tide, pulling me deeper into the mattress. I try to shift my legs, but the bed adjusts under me, swallowing me inch by inch. My pulse spikes.
This isn’t a cradle. This is a coffin. The magic is done pretending to be gentle. I wrench my arm free, elbow knocking against the side table. A book slides off and hits the floor with a thunk, but the sound is muffled, swallowed by the thick air.
“Let me go,” I snap, though my voice sounds far away, like I’ve been dropped into deep water.
The sheet curls higher, twining around my ribs. I shove at it, fingers clawing for purchase, but the fabric keeps slithering, finding ways to trap my arms again. The mattress dips under me, sinking like wet earth. The more I struggle, the tighter it grips.
“Not today,” I grit out.
I twist hard, rolling onto my side, shoving one knee forward until I feel my weight tip. Momentum keeps me sliding me toward the edge of the bed. The magic resists, clinging to my calves, but I hook my arm over the mattress edge and throw myself off.
I hit the floor shoulder-first. The breath punches out of me.
The sheet comes with me, still knotted around my legs.
Fine. Let it. I kick forward on my side, tangling and untangling as I drag myself toward the door.
The floor feels warped, sloping backward, as if the room is trying to tilt me into the bed again.
“George!” My voice is sharp, and for half a second, I think he won’t come, then his paws thump the floor beside me.
He meows, an odd, clipped sound, and wedges himself between me and the invisible slope.
I use him as my anchor. My hand fists in the loose fur at his scruff—not to hold him, but to steady myself—and I shove forward.
The doorframe looms closer.
I push myself over the doorjamb only for the hallway to stretch, the far wall pulling away like a rubber band. I run anyway, feet tangling in the sheet, bare toes slapping against the warped floor. The hall blurs. A shadowed arch flickers into being ahead, and something in me knows that’s it.
I dive.
The sheet snags on the edge of the arch but rips free with a tearing sound. My shoulder slams into stone, and then I’m falling forward—
—onto rough, sun-warmed ground.
The world changes all at once. The arena air hits my face, hot and sharp, smelling of ash and old smoke. Sound rushes back in, muted at first, then sharper. The low murmur of spectators spilling in. The sun is merciless, a brand between my shoulder blades.
The trial is over.
I made it.
I don’t know how, but I made it.