I kick off my boots, one at a time, and lean back against the door. My shoulders groan in protest. My back still burns—not like fire. Not like the Rite. More like something settled, deep under my skin. A second heartbeat, slow and rhythmic. I haven’t removed my tunic yet. I should. It’s damp with sweat and clings to me in the worst way, but I can’t bring myself to peel it off. The air feels heavy. Sacred, somehow. Like I’m standing in a temple, and I’ll shatter something if I move too quickly.
You’re still here.
The words echo in my head, but I can’t tell if they’re mine. George is already curled in the middle of my bed. He doesn’t even blink when I cross the room, just lifts his head and yawns, as if to say,“Took you long enough.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and run a hand down my face. The mark on my back hums again. Low. Constant. Not painful, but present. It’s almost unbearable, like someone lit a candle inside my bones and forgot to blow it out. I finally strip down to my under layers and unwind the bindings from my chest. Sarai showed me how to bring strips of fabric up over my shoulder for more support, there’s red lines in my skin. The bra experience even without the underwire. The fabric tugs against the scar tissue across my back. I ignore it. I don’t need the reminder, thanks.
I collapse sideways onto the bed and bury my face in the pillow. George thumps against my ribs and stretches across my side like a heating pad with claws. His fur is warm. A little dusty. He smells likesun and slate and something slightly unholy he probably rolled in earlier.
“You missed the whole dramatic breakdown,” I mumble into the pillow. “Thanks for your emotional support.”
He purrs and the mark pulses again. I go still. It feels… I focus on the tinging sensation… like a question. A low, subtle awareness, not from me, but meant for me all the same. I roll to my back and stare up at the swirl-covered ceiling. The Emberstone inlaid above me glows faintly, veins of warm red winding through slate. They pulse every few seconds, in perfect time with my own heartbeat. Or maybe it’s the mark’s. I don’t know where one ends and I begin.
“What do you want?” I whisper. The room doesn’t answer, but the hum in my spine deepens, curling low like something listening.I blink against the heat in my eyes. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t use anything they taught. I just… let it in.”
George shifts on my chest and nudges under my jaw.
“I didn’t think I’d make it out.” The mark pulses again. This time, gentler, like a quiet breath. “Part of me didn’t want to.”
I close my eyes. It’s late and I should sleep, I know I should, but sleep is where the memories live. Where she waits. Where her voice curls around me like warmth I cannot trust.
You can rest now.
You’ve done enough.
Let go.
I curl tighter beneath the blanket and focus on George’s purring. He vibrates in time with my heart, with the mark, with the emberstone above us. Slowly—finally—sleep takes me.
I’m standing in the trial again. Only this time, it’s empty. No false hospital. No comforting vision. Just obsidian stone beneath my feet and smoke curling across the horizon. In the center of the ring stands the version of my mother from the dream.
Whole.
Smiling.
Alive.
“You came back,” she says. I don’t move. “You could’ve stayed,” she continues. “They wouldn’t have blamed you.”
Her voice is soft. Familiar. It still shreds something in me, raking me bloody with sharpened claws of memory.
“It wasn’t real,” I whisper.
“But it was kind.”
“It was a lie.”
“It didn’t hurt.”
“It didn’t heal either.”
She smiles again, but it flickers and cracks. Like a reflection on water hit by wind. And with another blink she’s gone, melted into the ash and smoke. In her place the flame curls toward me. Tall. Lithe. Sentient.
Not cruel. It watches me like it has always been.
The center of it glows red-gold. A shape forms and I step closer, peering into the swirling surface of a mirror. It’s me, my reflection, but not. I’m sobbing. Bruised. Screaming into silence as tears track down my mottled cheeks. The image shifts and I’m sitting alone, back hunched as my arms wrap around the mound of my knees. My eyes swollen, lips pursed, but quiet. Another shift,whoever make this slideshow has a heavy hand with the transitions,and I see myself walking out of the stone arch, stepping into the ring. I blink into the sunlight, face pale. I run my gaze down my reflection, searching for the cracks. I didn’t look that calm. I couldn’t have. I—another shift and it’s me again wrapped in a blanket, lying flat on my back in my bunk, whispering into a quiet room while my cat patently ignores me.
I lift my chin.
