“Caziel,” he greets smoothly, voice coated in that practiced warmth that is never truly warm. “I was beginning to think you’d ignore me.”
“I considered it,” I say flatly.
He smiles behind his teacup. “But you came. I suppose I should be flattered.”
“You shouldn’t.”
I do not sit. Instead, I brace my hands on the cool obsidian table, letting the silence breathe. Letting him guess why I graced him with my presence. It works.
He offers a scroll with an elegant flick of his wrist, sliding it down the table toward me. “Preliminary thoughts from the Elder quorum. Nothing binding, of course. Just… speculations.”
I do not touch it.
“I don’t need parchment to tell me what they think.”
Solonar arches a brow. “And what do they think, My Lord?”
“That I am a risk. That I have walked too far from the flame to be trusted. That I have let sentiment rot my edge.”
His smile widens enough to show his teeth. “You always were too good at reading a room.”
The truth is: I am not here for the scroll. Or the tea. Or the vague gestures of peace.
I am here because Solonar knows something has changed, and because I need to know what he suspects. Solonar does not press forcivility. He never does. That is the trick of him, never a sharp blade when he can use a dulled edge instead. Destruction wrapped in the illusion of safety.
He refills his cup, slow and deliberate, before glancing toward me with studied neutrality.
“She doesn’t know what you are, your true nature, does she?” he asks softly. The shift is subtle, but deliberate. No names. No accusations. Just a careful placement of a truth between us.
“No,” I reply. I do not offer more.
He nods once, as if unsurprised. “And what do you plan to do with that? With her?”
Something inside me tenses.
“I’m training her,” I say, which is the truth, just not the whole of it. “It was a task assigned to me.”
Solonar leans back. “You have trained many. Never like this.” I say nothing. “She still sees you with the glamor.” His gaze sharpens. “She thinks you are like her.”
My jaw tightens. “She does not. She knows we are different.”and yet the same in the ways that matter,my mind supplies.
“But she doesn’t know what you are.” His voice is low now, almost kind. “And when she does?”
I don’t answer because I don’t know. What happens when she sees the truth of me? When the human shape she’s grown used to shatters and she sees my true emberform beneath?
I doubt she will flinch, but she may look at me differently. I know what it feels like to be known and still left behind. Solonar sets his teacup down with a quiet chime.
“I’m not trying to undermine you,” he says, and he might even believe that. “But you’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
The silence between us splinters as rage bubbles in my gut. For years no one dared mention Isaeth. Her name was not recorded, she was not interred with rites and honors, she was forgotten, and now everyone sees fit to throw her back in my face.
“She was different,” I snap.
“Was she?” Solonar’s voice stays level. “She did not understand this world either. She thought you could change it.”
I flinch and he does not miss it. “I grieved her too, Caziel. Everyone who knew her did, but we cannot build futures on ghosts.”
My hands curl into fists against the smooth tabletop. “Don’t you dare compare them.”
