The third chuckles. “Reckon she bruises easy.”
“Wouldn’t take much.”
Their tone is light, almost playful, but their eyes are not. My stomach turns. The little obsidian shard in my pocket suddenly feels less like a comfort and more like a joke.
I keep walking. One step. Two.
Then the third guard lifts his voice, just slightly. “No mark. No flame. Wonder what she is good for.”
“Depends on how she’s built. But we can guess.”
The breathy laugh stops me cold. Caziel, who’s been walking beside me, halts too. He looks at me first, assessing, and it takes me a solid minute to clock that his eyes are no longer human, the irises swallowed by swirling black. I swallow reflexively, my throat aching. His jaw shifts, or maybe it’s his glamor moving again. I force a smile. This is nothing. I’ve dealt with worse. Maybe not in a strange place where I’m pretty sure I’m woefully outmatched, but men are men no matter the species. Caziel doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The air shifts with him, pulling tight like a snare wire as he pins the three in place with one look.
The guards straighten.
“Ember Heir,” the youngest says, smile widening like he can bluff hisway out of it. Even as his voice cracks on the title. I may not be from here, but I know it holds weight. “We meant no offense.”
“Poor taste,” the second adds. “Curiosity, nothing more.”
Caziel looks at them for a long moment.
“She is under protection,” he says. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. The air tilts around him when he speaks—sharpens like a blade honed on bone. The guards go still.
“Apologies, my Lord,” one says quickly. “Just passing time with idle talk.”
“Talk carries weight,” Caziel replies. “You’d do well to remember that.” There’s no threat in his voice. Just finality. “Perhaps you need more duties if you have time to ruminate on acts of violence.”
“No, Sir.” The first guard shakes his head. “It won’t happen again.”
The guards bow slightly. Not deep. But deep enough. We move on. I don’t say anything until we’re through another archway, out of their sight, the low thrum of flame-lit halls surrounding us again. Then I exhale. Slow. Controlled. My hands are fists in my sleeves.
“They were joking,” I say. “But not really.”
Just like when they say it won’t happen again, they don’t mean it. They’ll just make sure Caziel isn’t around to hear them.
“No,” he replies. “Not really, but they won’t hurt you.”
I glance at him. His expression hasn’t changed, but there’s a tension in his jaw now. He felt it too.
“That’s… optimistic.”
“Optimism implies uncertainty,” he says again.
His voice sounds the same, measured and calm, but this time I hear something else beneath it. Not comfort. Guarded promise.
“You’re so sure they wouldn’t try anything?” I say, more quietly now.
We walk another few steps before he answers.
“No,” he says. “But I am sure I would not have let them.” I stop walking for half a second. Just long enough for the words to hit. He doesn’t stop with me. Just keeps going, slow, steady, like he knows I’ll follow. And I do. Because what other options do I have?
“You’re really bad at comfort, you know that?” I mutter as I catch up.
“I am not here to comfort you.”
“Right.” I walk in silence for a few moments, the heat of the city folding around us. “But thank you,” I add quietly.
The Daemari are not going to be my friends. Not at first. Maybe not ever. I’m too different. Too human. Too other. And whether they treat that with fear or fascination, it still leaves me on the outside. Alone. I glance ahead at Caziel. He hasn’t said a word. He doesn’t slow his pace, doesn’t look back, but I know he felt it too, that moment where something sharpened between us and the guards, something ugly. And still he stepped forward. Not with fire or fury, but certainty. They wouldn’t have touched me, not because they didn’t consider trying, but because he wouldn’t have let them.
