He smiles back. “A rare talent, these days.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The only sound is the subtle rustling of George’s tail flicking against the inside of my cloak. Rhivus folds his hands behind his back.
“Of course, no amount of spectacle can prepare her for the Flame Crown. Even if she lasts to the end, but at least it livens things up.”
“You don’t believe she could lead.”
Do I?
“I believe she is clever. Tenacious. She is winning favor.” His voicegrows quieter, but no less cutting. “But the Rite is not a stage for cleverness and she is foreign.”
“She has survived three trials,” I say, sharper than intended.
Rhivus does not flinch. “And perhaps she will survive more. But survival is not sovereignty. Our realm will not follow an outsider. Especially not one whose strength lies in disruption.”
George growls. Low. Faint. But real. The elder blinks. I move my hand again, this time not just to calm the cat, but myself.
“She would not be the first ruler born of fire and contradiction.”
There’s a pause, then, a twitch at the corner of Rhivus’s mouth.
“I suppose not.” He agrees. “But she’d be the first without her name etched in the archives.” George growls again. Rhivus tilts his head at me, but not at George. As though the cat does not fully register. “There are rumors you’ve grown… attached.”
It is not a question. I give no answer. I will not lie. Not about Kay, but I also will not put a bigger target on her back. It was the council, my father, who tasked me to watch her. They do not now get to punish us for it.
“Not the first time, is it.” His smile is cold. “Ember Heir.”
As he walks away, I feel George’s tail curl tighter around my side. Not fear. Not even protectiveness. Solidarity. Like he knows what it means to be ignored, to be seen as lesser. I exhale, steadying myself. Let them underestimate her. Let them dismiss what they do not understand. I once did the same and I will not do it again.
The Flame greets me the way it always does, heat rolling in low waves, a steady pulse beneath the soles of my boots, as if the stone itself breathes with fire. George slips past me as the door seals shut, tail high and swishing like he owns the place. He pauses in the center of the room, nose twitching at the acrid tang in the air. It is not unpleasant, but it has weight, metal, ash, the faintest undercurrent of oil and charred herbs.
The walls curve inward here; obsidian streaked with veins of red that catch the light and make the whole chamber seem alive. The Flame-watch has always been a place that listens, and I feel that awareness on the back of my neck, as tangible as heat on skin. George prowls to the far wall, claws clicking on the black stone before he stretches out and bats at one of the low vents. The fire there flares brighter for just amoment, answering him as if he is a contender of his own. He chirps at it and looks back at me, entirely unbothered by the intensity in the air.
I step farther in, letting the heavy quiet settle over me. This is not a space I come to lightly. It is the realm’s memory of the Rite. Its measure and its judgment. I have stood here in victory and in shame, watched friends rise and rivals fall, seen the basin flare white-hot when a contender’s flame burned out for the last time. The stone remembers all of it. The center of the room holds the brass-rimmed basin, broad enough for me to stand inside. Beneath its surface, a low fire churns like molten glass, its glow reflecting off the high dome of the ceiling. The metal is warm even before I touch it, the familiar bite of its magic already pushing against my hand.
I draw a slow breath and let my palm rest on the rim. The fire hums under my skin, as if recognizing me. It is an old familiarity, but not a welcome one. I have avoided this place as much as possible since my father took the throne. Too many years of watching the Flame’s verdict bend to his will. Too many reminders that the Rite was meant for blood and spectacle now more than worthiness.
George hops up onto the basin’s edge beside my hand, the pads of his paws unbothered by the heat. His whiskers twitch as he peers down into the molten glow, tail flicking in idle rhythm. I watch him, and for a strange, fleeting moment, I wonder if he can sense the chamber’s pulse as I do. Can he feel its subtle awareness, the almost sentient quality of its silence? The Flame-watch is not just a place for numbers or ranks. It is where the realm itself weighs its champions, and even now, even with my wariness, I feel the tug of that old compulsion: the need to see who stands where.
It is a dangerous impulse. The rankings are more than names. They are power, perception, the lifeblood of politics in Crimson. And in this chamber, the Flame does not lie. Still, I step forward.
I tell myself it is only to take stock of the Rite as it stands, to see how the others fared in Viridian. But the truth is heavier, lodged somewhere in my chest. I want to see her. I want to know her worth is recognized.
The basin’s surface is still and molten-dark, like a banked ember, but it hums under my skin. It is waiting. I press my palm flat to the brass rim. Heat licks at my hand, seeping through to my bones. The basinexhales a slow rush of firelight, and the surface ripples as though I have disturbed a pond.
“Show me,” I murmur.
The molten glow twists, brightens, begins to divide. Threads of flame unfurl from the center, some thick, steady, and sure, others wavering and frayed. They reach upward until they hang in the air above the basin like a constellation written in fire. Eight threads. All that remain. Three more extinguished in Viridian. I recognize their fading embers at the edges, sharp flashes that sputter once, then vanish entirely into the dark. The air always goes colder when a thread dies, even here in the heart of Flame-watch.
I scan the survivors, letting my mind catalog them by instinct. I know the signature of each contender’s fire, the subtle shift in hue or the rhythm of their burn. But it is the two at the center that hold my attention, and not by choice. Varo’s Flame burns hot and lean, all precision and hunger. The kind of fire that would burn itself to ash if no one reined it in. It is steady, too steady for him to be flagging now.
And beside it, twining, flickering, pulsing, is Kay’s. I expected to find her holding steady in the middle of the pack, but she is not. Her Flame is right there with Varo, the two of them neck and neck. If his Flame refuses to acknowledge her licking at his heels, her Flame refuses to yield even a fraction. There is something unruly about it, a restless edge, as if it refuses to be told where it belongs.
I should not be surprised. She has been doing this from the moment she stepped into the Rite—ignoring the script, finding her own way through—but seeing it here, suspended in the Flame’s judgment, makes it undeniable. Even as the council whispers their doubts, the realm refuses to echo them. The thought I have been avoiding edges closer:Could she win?
It is not a question I have let myself linger on before. My focus has been on keeping her alive, on maneuvering her past the next trap, the next trial. I have not truly looked beyond the finish. She was never meant to be here, a human in a Daemari rite, and yet she has taken everything thrown at her and turned it into something the others cannot match.
Could Crimson follow her?
