“I didn’t expect it to be today,” I admit. “The trial. I thought I’d have more time. The bell didn’t even go, I just knew.”
“I didn’t know either,” he says, quiet. “I’d have warned you if I could.”
“Your father?”
He doesn’t deny it. Just steps closer, kneels beside the hearth to adjust the flame, then stands again. When he turns, his expression is unreadable. He’s still glamoured. Still too perfect.
I want to ask him why. Instead, I let the silence stretch between us until it starts to feel brittle.
“Did I…” I stop. Start again. “In the arena, did I embarrass myself?”
Caz’s brow furrows. “What?”
“I just… everyone says the trials reveal who you really are, right? So, if I cracked, if I fell for the trap, what does that say about me?”
“It says you are human,” he says. No hesitation. “It says you still made it through.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I tell him, not in a world where “human” feels like an insult. Somethingwrong. “AndI don’t feel like I did.”
“You did though.” His voice is firmer now, and I feel it settle into something low in my ribs. “I did not mean human as an insult. The Daemari fall too.” He crosses to where I’m sitting and crouches beside the bed, not touching me, but close enough I can feel his warmth. “Do you want to tell me what you saw?” he asks.
I shake my head. He nods again, this time slower. “Then don’t. Not until you’re ready.”
I breathe out through my nose. “I’m not sure I ever will be.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
Gods, why does that hurt?I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. There’s something in his expression I can’t parse. Not pity. Not concern. Care. Real and steady. The kind that doesn’t demand anything back.It makes my throat tighten.
“I don’t know what I need,” I say, barely above a whisper.
He rises in one fluid motion. “You do not need to. You are safe here.”
I shift further back on the bed, pulling my legs up to sit cross-legged, and grab the folded blanket, laying it over my lap like armor. Caz moves to the hearth again and sits in the chair beside it, back straight, eyes on the fire. The silence isn’t brittle anymore. Just heavy.
I don’t know how long we sit like this. The fire crackles softly in the hearth. I stare at the floor like it might offer an escape hatch. It doesn’t. Caziel hasn’t moved. Still seated across from me, still watching without judgment, like he has all the time in the world. I hate how badly I want him to say something first.
Instead, I speak. Slowly. “It’s hard to explain.”
His voice is low, careful. “The trial?”
I nod. “It was… a lot.” Not untrue. Just not the whole of it. “I knew it wasn’t real,” I add. “I figured it out pretty fast. I just—sometimes even when you know a lie, it still gets in your head. Still feels like it holds some truth.”
A shadow crosses his expression, but he waits. Listening.
“It used you,” I whisper, the words dragging out of me. “That’s what is messing me up. I know you’re not whatever that was, but it felt real. And now every time I look at you—”
I stop there, too humiliated to finish the sentence. His brow furrows slightly, concern softening the edge of his jaw.
“Kay.”
I shake my head. “I’m not saying it well. I know you’re real. This is real. But the part of my brain that went through that trial hasn’t caught up yet. It’s like trying to breathe underwater. I keep gasping, expecting the air to be poison.”
“What did I do,sâl?” His shoulders tense. “How do I fix your trust?”
I shake my head again, sharper this time. “Don’t ask me that.”
A pause. “Okay.”
