Chapter 49 #2
The barracks are quieter than I expect when we file in, the echo of our footsteps swallowing the usual scrape of chairs and low chatter. No one rushes to grab food or water; we just drift to our bunks like soldiers returning from a losing campaign, each of us counting silent costs.
Varo’s isn’t here, but there are signs of him.
His cot is neatly made, as always. Tight corners, blankets folded with military precision.
My eyes snag there longer than they should, waiting for the sound of his boots, the way he fills a doorway without trying.
He’d been in the trial. I’m sure of it. I remember seeing him step through the arch—gold flames licking the stone.
I thought he walked out with the group… did I?
Lyra sits on the edge of her bed, unbraiding her hair with deliberate slowness, her gaze fixed somewhere past the wall.
She doesn’t acknowledge me, but she doesn’t avoid me either.
Elira, already stretched out, props a book against his chest and stares at the page without turning it.
The two of them had made it out without much damage, at least physically.
Rhovan sports a bruise darkening along his jaw.
He catches my glance and holds it for a beat too long.
I have a matching mark, I’d wager. I let the moment pass.
I drop onto my bunk with George curled against my ribs, his weight anchoring me in the real.
My body hums with that strange post-trial exhaustion—not the ache of muscle, but the soft, dangerous temptation to let my guard slip.
Gilded was supposed to be about pride, appearances, self-importance.
I’d expected something sharp, confrontational, like the fighting duo.
Instead, it crept in through comfort, the way warmth does before it lulls you to sleep.
I think about how easily I could have stayed.
How easily we all could have stayed. And how different that is from the first trials, where every instinct screamed at me to fight my way out.
That is what makes me uneasy now. I’m not sure where the danger ends and the rest begins.
“You’re looking for him.” Captain Iskar leans her shoulder into the arch of my door.
“Who?” My voice is light, casual. Too casual.
“Varo,” her mouth twitches. “You’re not subtle, Kay.”
“I just…” I start, then let it die. She’s right. There’s no point lying. “He was there, with us in Gilded. He left first.” I assumed he made it out. He was in the arena. I need to talk to him, even if I don’t know what I will say.
“He saw the way out before we did.” Lyra leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. “He doesn’t like to linger in any realm’s grip. It makes him restless.”
Something about the phrasing makes me pause. She knows him. From the Rite? Or from before? How many times have they fought the grip of other realms? I sound insane. Obsessed. But something keeps nudging at the edges of my brain.
“Has he done this before?”
Her gaze sharpens. “Survived? Plenty of times.” She pushes off the frame.
“You should worry about yourself, not him. He knows how to play the game.” Her eyes find mine, sweeping over my face like she’s looking for something.
“Although you’re good at that too, aren’t you?
Subtlety is your friend here, Kay. Use it. ”
She’s halfway back to her cot before I can press her.
I sink onto my own mattress, elbows braced on my knees, letting the ache of the day settle in.
My hands still feel the phantom weight of the arch’s stone, the strange pull of those gold flames.
The trials keep changing their shape, but the part that scares me isn’t that they twist the world around me, it’s how easily they try to twist me.
The barracks have gone still for the night, but sleep will not come.
George is a warm, purring lump against my side, his claws kneading the blanket like he’s working out all the indignities of being left behind in Gilded.
Every so often, he huffs—a sharp, indignant little sound—and I can’t tell if he’s annoyed with me or the world in general.
I scratch behind his ear. “Yeah,” I murmur, “I didn’t like it either.”
The room smells faintly of oil and metal polish from the armor racks.
Across the row, Lyra’s breathing is slow and steady.
Elira’s turned toward the wall, a book face down on the table beside his bunk.
But Varo’s bed is still empty. No boots under it.
No discarded tunic. Just a hollow space that makes my chest tighten.
It’s not the first time a contender’s been gone after a trial.
Sometimes the healers keep someone overnight.
Sometimes the Council calls them in. But this feels different, like the space itself is holding its breath.
And Caziel is gone, too.
The air feels wrong without him. Not tense.
Not sulking. Just, absent. Does he know about the trials?
Plural? He must. George shifts, stretching a paw across my ribs, and I pull him closer.
My eyes trace the shadows along the ceiling, the flicker of torchlight from the hall.
Two trials back-to-back. My muscles ache, my head is still full of Gilded’s golden haze, and now the people who’ve somehow become my anchors are nowhere to be found.
The Rite doesn’t take prisoners. And it doesn’t give them back.