Chapter 50 #2
“I think I’ll pass. I’ve taken enough beatings lately.”
That earns the faintest twitch of his mouth. “You mean in Gilded?”
The bruise on my cheek aches. “You heard about that?”
“I hear everything.” He finishes his movement, twisting his torso in a way that should be impossible for a man his size, then faces me fully. “And yet you made it out because you pushed yourself, and another fighter might have gutted you for it. Don’t get lazy now.”
My mind flashes to the fight in the ballroom, the slap, the desperate scramble to drag people through the arch. I had been relying on instinct and adrenaline, not skill. Caziel’s training had been about survival, not mastery. Varo’s right. I hate that he’s right.
Still, I lift a shoulder. “I did fine.”
“Fine gets you killed in the later rounds.” He extends a hand toward me, palm open. “Come on.”
I arch a brow. “What, and give you the chance to throw me around the ring? Hard pass.”
His expression doesn’t change, but something shifts in the air between us.
“You’ll have to fight me eventually.”
I narrow my eyes, but my feet are already moving. George hops down from my lap in protest, flicking his tail and stalking to the edge of the ring. I step through the rope boundary and meet Varo in the center. His hand is still extended, patient and unyielding.
“Why eventually,” I say, slipping my hand into his. But Varo doesn’t answer. He pulls me forward—not hard, but enough to remind me he could crush me without effort—and positions me beside him.
“We’ll start slow. Hands up.”
The lesson is nothing like Caziel’s. Varo’s movements are precise and compact, each correction clipped and efficient. He doesn’t take it easy on me. Where Caziel would stop to explain the philosophy of a move, Varo just shows me again, expecting me to adapt. My shoulders burn within minutes.
“Your guard’s too low.” He taps the side of my arm, then hooks his foot around mine to correct my stance. “You’re giving me your centerline. If I wanted to, I could—”
I block his next move on instinct, and his mouth curves—not quite a smile, but almost.
“Better,” he says. “Again.”
We move like that for a while, me fumbling through adjustments, him refining them without ever raising his voice.
It’s a strange sort of camaraderie. He is intense, but not impatient.
Focused in a way that demands I meet him at least halfway.
At one point, he shifts behind me to guide my arms through a defensive block.
His palm brushes my wrist, and a flicker catches at the edge of my vision.
I turn my head just slightly, and for the briefest moment, his skin… changes.
It’s not like when Caziel drops his glamor, when it feels like the air bends to make space for something bigger, more dangerous. This is subtle, almost accidental. A ripple that smooths out the second I blink. I realize too late that I’ve gone still in his hold.
“What?” he says, dropping the contact and stepping back.
“Nothing.” I force a shrug. “You moved weird.”
His eyes narrow, searching mine like he’s weighing the truth of it. Then he waves me forward again.
“Your lead foot. Fix it.”
I do, but now my heart beats in my ears. That shimmer wasn’t nothing. I know what I saw, but didn’t Caziel tell me a glamor was like clothing? It would be rude to point out his perceived nakedness.
We circle each other, the slow scrape of my boots against the ring floor loud in the otherwise empty training space.
My shoulders ache from holding the guard he keeps correcting, but I grit my teeth and keep it steady.
Varo’s watching me the way a predator watches the exact moment prey tires enough to make a mistake.
He lunges, and I sidestep too wide, giving him my flank.
His hand darts out, not to strike, but to catch my wrist and turn it, forcing me to pivot with him.
And it happens again. That shimmer, crawling up his forearm like heat distortion off hot stone.
Except this time, it doesn’t stop at his skin, flickering over his jaw, sharpening his cheekbones, drains the warm bronze from his complexion into something too pale, almost iridescent.
His eyes catching the light in a strange way, no longer their usual dark hue but a pale, opalescent gleam.
I freeze. Not in fear, exactly. More like my brain can’t reconcile what I’m seeing.
“Why are you staring?” His tone is flat, but there’s an edge under it.
I shake my head, trying to play it off.
“I’m not.” I lie, “You looked different for a second. Thought maybe—”
He stops moving. Not the stillness of a man pausing mid-lesson—this is the kind of stillness that comes before a blade drops.
“What,” he says, each letter cut clean.
“Nothing.” I force a laugh, too quick, too thin. “Just a trick of the light, maybe. You’ve got the whole sweaty-warrior glow thing going—”
Before I can finish, his hand is around my throat. Not crushing, but firm enough that the ring tilts under my feet from how fast he closed the distance. His other hand is braced at my hip, keeping me from stumbling backward.
“Tell me,” he demands, words low and dangerous, “exactly what you saw.”
George lets out a warning chirp from the ring’s edge, tail puffed, but I raise a hand to keep him where he is. My heart’s pounding so hard I feel it in my fingertips.
“I’ve seen glamor shift before,” I manage, meeting Varo’s eyes. “Caziel’s does it sometimes. It’s like clothes, right? It can slip.”
His grip tightens—not painfully, but enough to remind me he could snap my neck before I draw another breath.
“No,” he says, and there’s no give in the word. “Not like that. Not for me. What you saw…” His gaze sharpens, searching my face. “It can’t be seen. Not if I want to stay alive.”
“Alive?” I frown, confusion warring with the awareness that I’m treading in dangerous territory. “You’re acting like I just saw your death warrant.”
“You did.” His voice is so flat, so certain, that my skin prickles.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The training ring feels too still, too empty, the shadows along the walls stretching like they’re leaning in to listen. Varo’s hand eases from my throat, but only so he can step back a pace, watching me like he’s measuring whether I’m going to bolt or lunge.
“You can’t unsee,” he says, tone low but deadly sure. “Which means you’ve already put a blade at both our throats, whether you meant to or not.”
I cross my arms, partly to keep my hands from shaking.
“Or,” I say slowly, “you could just tell me what I’m looking at instead of trying to terrify me into pretending it didn’t happen.”
His mouth twitches—not a smile, more like the ghost of one, bitter and sharp.
“Fine. But you don’t get to look away. You don’t get to pretend you didn’t hear this. When you walk out of here, you’ll carry it like a brand.”
And then the air ripples. It’s not a shimmer this time, it’s like watching a veil be yanked away, like someone snuffed out the version of him I’ve always seen and left the truth standing in its place.
Gone is the reddish warmth of Daemari skin.
He’s pale. Not the sickly, sallow kind, this is pale like frost under moonlight, an almost luminous sheen to his skin.
His hair looks whiter, starker against it, and his eyes, God, his eyes are not red at all.
They’re opalescent, milky white with shifting colors buried deep, like oil on snow.
No horns. No tail. No embermark curling over the chest like I’ve seen flash from Caziel.
“You’re not—” I start, but the words stick.
“Daemari?” he finishes. “No.”
I glance instinctively at the fence, though I know no one’s there.
“That’s not possible. The Rite—”
“—is Crimson’s,” he says, cutting me off. “And only Daemari may claim the throne. Which means if they knew, truly knew, what I am I wouldn’t be in this ring, would I? I’d be in a pit.”
My throat goes dry. “Then why risk it?”
He studies me for a long moment, like he’s trying to decide whether I’m worth the next truth.
“I’m not here to win for me, Kay Ward. I’m here to win for people who don’t get to stand in this ring. People who are stepped on and burned out and erased because of what they are.”
“The Vesperan,” I whisper, the word tasting dangerous.
His expression shifts—a flicker of shock, then caution. “You know our name.”
“Yes,” I say. “Sarai and… Isaeth.”
At Isaeth’s name, his jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look away.
“Then you know enough to understand why this stays between us. If the court knew—if the Asmodeus knew—my name would be a curse, and anyone tied to me would burn for it.”
I almost say Caziel wouldn’t let that happen, but the words catch. Because Caziel’s not here. Because Caziel’s father is the one who’d light the match. It doesn’t matter that I know these two have history. This is not my story to tell.
“So, you hide,” I say instead.
“I survive,” he corrects. “Because my survival is the only way to do what I came here to do. But now…” He gestures between us, meaning my seeing him, “…you’re a risk I didn’t plan for.”
“Lucky me,” I mutter, because humor is the only thing keeping me from thinking about how easily this could be another trial, another trick to break me open.
Varo steps closer, and his voice drops even lower.
“Understand this, Kay. Knowing me like this puts you in more danger than any arena archway. And if the Asmodeus so much as suspects…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.
He doesn’t have to, and for the first time, I realize just how sharp the knife edge is that everyone in Crimson seems to be walking—and how deep the cut would be if the court learned what I’ve just seen.
I lean back against the edge of the ring, crossing my arms tighter.
“Tell me something,” I challenge, “what changed? Why show me this now if it’s so dangerous?”
His eyes narrow slightly, like he’s weighing every word.
“Because you walked us all out of Gilded.”
“That’s not—” I start, but he talks over me.
“You could’ve left them,” he says, his voice sharp enough to cut. “You should have. It would’ve been easier, safer. But you didn’t. You dragged all of them through that arch, even the ones who’d have gladly seen you stuck there forever.”
“I didn’t get them all,” I say, thinking of Caelthar. I shift, uncomfortable under the weight of his stare. “Anyone would have done the same.”
“No,” he says flatly, stepping closer. “They wouldn’t.
Most wouldn’t. That’s the point. You had nothing to gain.
You could’ve let them fend for themselves and no one would’ve faulted you—not in this place.
But you didn’t. And I… noticed.” There’s something in his tone, not admiration exactly, but an acknowledgment, like he’s naming her part of a much smaller club than she realizes.
“I have to win this Rite,” he continues.
“Not for glory, not for the throne itself, but because it is time. There are people who will never even get the chance to stand in the arena. People who will be nothing more than ash under Crimson’s heel if nothing changes. That is what’s at stake for my people.”
I study him, really study him, seeing the tension wound tight in his frame, the way every part of him is built for fighting—not for himself, but for something bigger.
“And you think I understand that because I didn’t leave anyone behind.”
“I think,” he says slowly, “that you might be the only one here who would do it again, even for your enemy. And that makes you dangerous in ways the court doesn’t have a name for yet.”
Varo exhales, slow and deliberate, like he’s trying to bleed out the last of his restraint. Then he steps in, close enough that the edge of his shadow swallows me.
“You see it now,” he says, and his voice has dropped into something dangerous—something meant to stay between us. “You know what I am. That means you’re in this whether you want to be or not.”
My pulse jumps. “I didn’t ask—”
“No one ever does,” he cuts in, eyes flicking to the edge of the ring like he’s checking for listeners. “And yet here you are, holding something the court would kill for. Not just to use against me, against every Vesperan still breathing.”
It’s hard to swallow past the knot forming in my throat. I think of Caziel, the secrecy around his family’s history with the Vesperan, the quiet weight behind every mention of the Ember War. “They’d really kill me over this? Kill you? Surely, it’s a misunderstanding, right? If you can be called—”
“If it meant keeping the truth buried? Yes.” His answer is too calm, too certain. “And you won’t see it coming if they decide you’re a problem.”
The air feels heavier now, pressing in like the heat before a storm. “What do you need me to do?”
“You keep your mouth shut,” he says, but it isn’t just an order—it’s a plea. “You don’t tell Caziel, you don’t tell your friends, you don’t hint at it in a drunken slip. The fewer people who know, the longer you live.”
I cross my arms, trying to look steadier than I feel. “And what about you?”
Varo’s mouth twists, almost like he’s amused at the question.
“Me? I’ve been living under that noose my whole life. But you…” His gaze rakes over me, assessing, measuring. “You’re not built for hiding. So be careful. Because now, you’re not just in the Rite—you’re in my war.”
Something in my chest clenches at that. He’s right. This isn’t just a trial anymore. It’s a battlefield I didn’t see coming. I might be the grit of sand in the wheels, but none of this is about me at all.
“I understand.”