“Got it,” I nod. “The goal is to survive but get myself cut from the team.” I force a grin. “I have experience with that one.”
“Back to Obsidian,” he says, voice steady, teacher-like.
I blink. “Wait, what about Crimson? You said we start there.”
“You already passed the Flame rite,” he says, eyeing the brand marks looping up my bare forearms. “Obsidian is grief, loss, memory,” he continues. “Not as you think of it—not a record, but a force. It clings. It presses. It reveals things you didn’t know you carried.” His eyes flick to mine. “Or didn’t want to.”
I shift uncomfortably. “So… grief school. That’s what we’re starting with.”
“You’re mocking it,” he says mildly.
“No, I’m—” I pause. “Okay, maybe a little. But I still don’t get how reading about a realm is going to help me survive it. It sounds like what I really need is a good hypnotist and a therapist. Or maybe some Xanax.”
He considers me for a long breath, then tilts his head toward the flame flickering in a shallow glass dish on the nearby table.
“Come here.”
I do, wary. He stands in front of me, the bench between us. Then he holds out one hand over the flame and whispers something low in his language. The fire shifts. It darkens. A strange ripple passes through it—not smoke, not shadow, but memory itself, bending the air. The flame draws inward, coiling until it sits like a single strand of silk wrapped around his fingers. No longer orange-red, but violet-black, with hints of indigo and something deeper still. My breath catches.
He holds the flame-thread up between us, then reaches his free hand to gently touch my shoulder. “You asked how I could help.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think—”
“Still yourself,” he says quietly. “This should not hurt. Physically, at least.”
I open my mouth to ask what he means, and to remind him that they told me the same about the last damn flame and look what happened next, but then his fire-touched fingertip presses lightly to the center of my chest. And I fall. Not physically. Not really. But everything drops.Time, air, sound—all gone. It’s like the elevator all over again, but this time there’s no heat. All that’s left is grief. Not someone else’s. Mine.
I’m standing in a hospital room, fluorescent lights buzzing. The bed is empty. The bag in my hands is heavier than it should be. There’s blood on my sleeve. A voice is saying she didn’t make it, but it doesn’t sound like me.
Another moment: I’m nine, in the back of a minivan, staring out the window while a woman I don’t know signs papers at a social worker’s desk.
Another: I’m older, screaming into my own pillow so no one hears. I don’t even remember what started it.
Then silence. Then stillness.
A soft voice, his, pulling me back. I gasp. Sit upright. My chest heaves like I’ve just broken through ice. Tears streak my cheeks. I didn’t even know I was crying. The flame’s gone. Caziel is crouched in front of me now, close but not touching.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe.
“For what?”
“I don’t—I don’t know.” My throat is tight. “For all of it. For breaking like that.”
“You didn’t break,” he says softly. “You felt. Obsidian will demand that from you.”
I nod, slowly. “It wasn’t just memories. It was… like they knew me better than I did.”
“They do.” His gaze is steady. “Obsidian isn’t a realm that tests your strength. It tests your honesty.”
I wipe my face. “Great. My worst subject.”
A faint, ghost of a smile tugs at his mouth. “Then we’ll study.”
He stands, offers me his hand. This time, I take it. Not because I need help up. But because I need to remember I’m here. In my body. In this moment. In this strange, unforgiving, rainbow-colored hell where demons teach you to survive by knowing yourself. And maybe, if you’re lucky, they hold your hand after.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
