Chapter 54 #2
Caziel stiffens just as I do. His head turns slightly—too fast to be casual, too slow to be fear.
He’s listening to something I can’t hear yet.
And then I feel it. The Embermark on my sternum pulses once, hard, like a second heartbeat.
I gasp, clutching at the spot through the fabric of my dress.
It sears—not with pain, but with recognition. With demand. It wants something.
No.
It wants me.
“Oh,” I breathe.
Caziel is already rising, face carved in something between fury and grief.
“No,” he growls. “Not now.”
I rise too, unsteady. “What is it—?”
“The trial,” he says, and it lands like a thunderclap. “It’s calling.”
The world tilts. “Now?” But I already know the answer. Can feel the pull in each individual cell.
He nods once. “Argent doesn’t wait.”
My breath catches. The moment we just had—barely lived in, barely understood—already slipping through my fingers. And it hurts. God, it hurts. I want to scream. To grab his face and pull him back down and beg for just a little more time. But I can’t. The flame has decided.
He sees it in my face. How badly I want to run. How close I am to crumbling. And still—still—I don’t.
“Walk me down?” My voice is low. Steady. Something I didn’t know I still had.
He looks at me like I’m both a miracle and a curse. Then steps forward and cups my jaw, his thumb brushing along my cheekbone.
“Kay…”
But I shake my head. I both know and I don’t want to.
Not now. The flame coils sharp behind my ribs.
Tightens. Caziel’s face shifts. Not in panic—never panic—but in recognition.
He steps forward, steadying me with a hand at my back, and I realize I’m shaking.
My hair is still undone. My heart has been laid bare.
And I am being called to the flame. Argent. At least it gave me tonight.
We walk toward the arena in silence, but it hums between us—that fragile tether spun of almosts.
Almost a kiss. Almost something more. I can still feel the ghost of his breath on my skin.
Caziel doesn’t take my hand. He doesn’t need to.
The citadel stones feel warmer beneath my boots now, as if the ground remembers joy.
I’ve gotten used to cold and blood and the thrum of something broken.
This feels… unnatural in comparison. Like I’ve wandered into someone else’s story, and the ending hasn’t been written yet.
“Are all your dates like that?” I ask, trying to sound flippant. My voice comes out softer, stretched thin with the nerves coiling in my gut.
“Only the ones I hope survive the night,” he says, glancing sideways with a look that could burn worlds. Then he looks away, jaw tight, like the words cost more than they should and I read his real answer in the silence. Daemari don’t date.
The archway’s ahead of us now—taller than it should be.
Brighter. I can see it reaching for the crimson sky even as the arena walls come into view.
The flame is already waiting. But we’re not alone.
Sarai stands just beside it, as if she’s part of the stone.
Her braid is coiled like a crown, and her eyes flick to mine with a mixture of relief and warning. She steps forward before I can speak.
“I thought I might find you both here,” she murmurs, tugging a small pouch from her belt. “You’ve been summoned.”
I nod, and my throat tightens. Of course I have.
Caziel’s hand lingers at my back, just between my shoulder blades.
Not pushing. Just… there. Sarai moves behind me without being asked.
Her fingers are deft, undoing the remnants of my braid, and I feel strands of hair fall loose against my neck like rain.
She doesn’t speak while she works, but I hear the message in the gentleness of her hands: you are not alone.
“Argent?” I ask, swallowing hard.
She nods. “Joy. Chaos. Celebration. Illusion. It will try to delight you. And it will test whether you still believe you deserve it.”
Of course it will.
Caziel steps around in front of me again, and for a second, I think he might say something brave or reckless or comforting. He doesn’t. He just looks at me like he wants to memorize my face, and it’s enough to make my stomach twist.
“Hey,” I say, fingers brushing the back of his wrist. “You’re more than just a pretty face, too, you know.”
That earns me the tiniest half-smile. “So they tell me.”
“You told me it’s easier advice to give than take,” I murmur, repeating his words back to him.
“But I’m going to try anyway. This place—Crimson, the Rite—it’s not Hell.
Not really.” He looks startled. I lift my chin.
“You said there’s rot, yes. Pain. But also joy.
You told me one of Crimson’s phrases, but humans have one too. Only in the dark do we see stars.”
His throat bobs. “I didn’t think you were listening.”
“I always listen to the people I care about.”
Before I can say more—before I can even blink—the flame ignites.
It doesn’t roar to life. It explodes—a burst of prismatic light that engulfs the archway in dazzling, strobe-like ribbons.
Every color I’ve ever seen, and several I haven’t.
It whirls and flashes and dances, spinning shadows across the courtyard.
I take a step back. My heart skips. It’s not like the other trials.
This isn’t fear or sorrow or longing. This is… invitation.
Sarai’s voice barely reaches me over the song the flame has become.
“Whatever you feel… let it in. Let it all in.”
I nod.
And I step forward into the chaos.