In my mind’s eye, I see Caz’s face. The way he looked when he gave me the thread. Not demanding, not expectant, but resigned. Like he knows something I do not. Like he’s already preparing for whatever’s going to happen to me. Like he’s afraid. That scares me more than anything else. I can’t shake the fear. I can’t. I can’t. I ca—
I drop into sleep without meaning too, and this time the dreams do not come.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
KAY
Sarai’s hands tremble as the bell tolls. She tries to hide it, keeping her movements sharp and functional as she tightens the leather wraps at my wrists, but I can feel it in the way she adjusts and readjusts the same strap twice.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me. “I begged them to let me be here for this one,” she says instead. “Cobalt is…”
She doesn’t finish. Just tucks a fold of fabric into place and reaches for the robe that marks me as a contender. Her silence is louder than any warning. The room is colder than usual. Or maybe it’s just me. The walls in the hall are lined with dull iron sconces, the candles inside too feeble to chase off the shadows.
Caz isn’t here.
It shouldn’t matter, but it does. I tell myself he’s giving me space, that he’s letting Sarai be the one to ground me because of what this trial is, the wounds it pries open for both of them, but part of me still wonders where he has gone. Wonder what this trial does to him. If evenhehas to look away for peace of mind. War does that. Leave indelible marks on the heart and soul of all it touches. War destroys, and the battles in Caz’ past are not so distant as to not still burn.
Cobalt.
The word buzzes in my chest, a taste of metal and fear. The realm that strips you bare. Where illusions dissolve, and only what’s realremains. I don’t know how an entire kingdom lives like that. I don’t know how I’m going to survive it.
When Sarai tucks my dagger into my leather belt, I slide the thread Caz gave me from the pocket of my coat and tuck it quietly into my boot. I don’t know why I hide it. It feels like something that should stay close, but not on display. I feel it hum, low and tremulous against my ankle, cold snaking up my shin. I pretend it is not fear making my breath shallow.
Sarai watches me me, but she doesn’t ask.
Instead, she places both hands on my shoulders, guiding me into a stillness I didn’t realize I’d lost.
Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, she says something in Vesperan. The words wind through the air like a song half-remembered, soft and melodic, tinged with grief. I don’t understand the meaning, but it resonates through my bones.
I swallow hard. “Say it again?”
Her eyes meet mine for the first time. “It’s an old blessing,” she says. “One from memory. We say it before we walk into truth.”
She repeats it slower this time, and I try to commit the shape of it to memory. I don’t ask what the words mean. Somehow, I think I already know. When the door opens, George is waiting outside.
“Sneaky little bastard,” I mutter under my breath, but the affection in my voice cracks down the middle. He trots up to me like this is just a casual stroll, not a march toward something I might not come back from the same. Two guards step forward, hands raised to block him.
“He can’t go any farther.”
George hisses.
“S’okay,” I say quickly, placing a hand on his back. “Can he walk with me to the gate?”
The guards hesitate, then relent. Probably because George looks ready to shred them and because everyone in Crimson seems to have a healthy fear of my cat.
“You have questionable timing,” I tell him as he pads beside me, “but I’m glad you’re here.”
I step into the hallway that leads to the arena, his fur brushing my ankles, the only solid warmth in a world that already feels like it’s dissolving. Sarai watches us go but she doesn’t say goodbye.
The archway sits in the center of the arena, ringed in glowing blue flame. It’s colder than the others. Its blaze shivers, not with heat but with something sharper. Something that smells like stone and static and rain that hasn’t fallen yet. Caziel isn’t here. Or maybe he is, sitting somewhere in the crowd just beyond my line of sight. I tell myself it’s fine.
I lie to myself a lot.
George brushes against me again, chirping, before he sits on his haunches. He can’t step through the stone with me. He has to wait here. I take a step forward. Then another. The cold blue fire parts around me like breath. And I start the trial
I wait for the shift. For the dizziness or flash of color, the drop in temperature or the smell of ozone. The telltale sign that the world has changed. But nothing happens. I blink. My boots are still on the arena floor. The worn stones, the crumbling amphitheater, the crowd overhead—all the same. No fog. No mirage. No trial.
