My heart punches against my ribs. Okay, play along. The elevator. The hotel. The conference.
“There were other people with me. In the elevator. A man, long coat, black eyes. He—he marked me—”
“Sweetheart,” the nurse cuts in, soft and pitying, “you hit your head. Badly. It’s not uncommon to confuse dreams with reality when you come out of something traumatic. That’s all it was.”
No. No, no, no. I can feel the pendant under my gown, warm and pulsing against my skin like a second heartbeat.
“I want to talk to the others,” I say. “The other people in the elevator. You said there were others, right?”
Her smile falters. Maybe she didn’t say it, but I press harder.
“I know there were other people with me. Men? Three of them? Maybe four?”
“I’m not sure,” she says. Too quickly to be true. “It’s probably best you don’t dwell—”
“Then bring me someone who does know,” I snap.
There’s a flicker. Not in her expression, in the lights. A pulse like before the power cuts out. Like a glitch in a screen. The beeping of the heart monitor marches on, in a soothing rhythm. Steady. Familiar. Human.
The nurse speaks gently, with that kind of trained calm they teach in grief training and psych wards. I was found alone. That I survived something no one should’ve. That my brain did what brains do: it invented a world, a narrative, a coping mechanism. One with glowing threads and fire that knew my name. I’m quite creative. Maybe when I’m back on my feet I can write it all down. Publish a book. Fantasy is popular. Especially romantic fantasy. Tell her about the Demon prince again?
I should argue. Demand proof. Rip off the covers and scream at them for being wrong. But my body’s heavy. And my mind—my mind is so tired. What if she’s right? What if it’s true? What if everything in Crimson was just a dream stitched from adrenaline and trauma? My way of making sense of the elevator crash, of the pain and confusion and fear?
Wasn’t that my first thought too? I was dreaming. Or dead. Or something. Comatose, maybe. Concussed. People don’t just wake up in new worlds. That is not a thing. Especially not worlds that seem to be built off rainbows, feelings, magic, and demons. Right?
What if there is no Kay of the Rite, no Daemari, no Flame? What if there’s no Caziel?
A flicker of grief pulses behind my ribs. It shouldn’t ache like that, not if he was imaginary, but I feel it. Deep and carved in. I reach up, fingers scrambling for the glass pendant at my throat. It’s not there. And yet I can still feel it humming against my chest. Not physically. But in the same way you can feel someone staring at you. In the way you know your name before someone says it. Like the prickles in a phantom limb.
I look down toward my ankle tucked under a starchy hospital blanket. I can’t see the thread in my boot, I can’t see a boot with the blanket, but there’s a throb there. A warmth. Like something waiting, watching.
The nurse is still trying to converse with me. Her voice is kind. Gentle.
“You don’t have to go back to that place,” she says. “You can stay. You’re safe now.”
I want to believe her, but there’s a pulse in my blood that I can’t ignore, and a weight in my chest that knows fire.
This isn’t real.And fuck the Rite for bringing me to another hospital. I’ve had enough of these places to last a lifetime, thank you. The nurse lays a hand on my arm.
“Kay. You’re safe now. That place you dreamed about doesn’t exist. You don’t have to carry any of that anymore. The pain, the fear. You can let it go.”
But it’s not a dream. I know pain. I know memory. I know grief. What I lived through in Obsidian… I did not make that up. That wasn’t fantasy, it was truth. And I’ve heard these words before. The lights in the hospital flicker. The nurse’s smile sharpens, like it’s been painted on.
“What were their names?” I ask. My voice is steadier than I feel. “The others. In the elevator. I wasn’t alone.”
She tilts her head, that same fake smile in place, but she doesn’t answer. She can’t. There’s the break. I just have to press my fingers to it and pry it open. The thread in my boot pulses. I reach for it without touching, hold it like an anchor in my mind. And then, under my breath,I whisper the words Sarai gave me. The translation as simple as breathing.
“By ash and breath and blood unburned,
what’s false shall fade, what’s true returned.”
The world shatters. Everything peels away, walls, light, the illusion of comfort. I’m not in a hospital. I never was. I’m in the trial ring. Pain arches up from my thighs to my spine. The nurse’s face begins to dissolve. Her features smear like wet paint, dripping down her jaw. Behind her, the hospital walls shudder. The window shatters inwards, like gravity inverting. The bed disappears beneath me. And I fall. Again.
This time the crowd is silent.
I’m on the stone again, the grit of the arena floor biting into my skin. The flame that rims the arena moves like it’s alive. It doesn’t roar, but leans. It stretches, curious and deliberate, crimson threaded with cobalt. It sways toward me, but it does not burn. It seems to be checking me over, listening to the thud of my heart. My pendant pulses in time. I am still here.
I can’t push up off my knees. Not out of weakness, but because I’m so tired. It feels like something inside me has been cracked wide open and my soft squishy bits are bleeding out into the dust. Everything hurts. But I’m still here.
