“Let nothing and no one take your will,” he says quietly, and the flicker in his eyes tells me he’s not just talking about the trial.
I’m still catching my breath when he steps back completely, the space between us suddenly wide again. The Umbral thread still hums in my chest, but now it’s tangled with something else, something I can’t name, and don’t want to. His hand stays over mine longer than it needs to. We’re supposed to be practicing stillness, the kind that lets you sink past the surface noise and into the dangerous quiet of Umbral. But there’s nothing quiet about the way his thumb brushes along the side of myhand. Nothing still about the way his breath stirs the hair near my temple.
I should move. He should move. Neither of us does.
“That is the thread,” he murmurs, voice low enough I feel it more than hear it. “It will make you want to stay here. Forget the trial exists.”
His thumb makes another slow pass over my knuckles. My pulse hammers in the silence.
“You’re saying this is magic? Not us?”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Half magic. Half….” He trails off. “You have been running since you got here. The thread is giving your body permission to stop.”
I don’t think it’s the thread.
“Dangerous permission,” I say, but it comes out softer than I intend. His gaze dips to my mouth.
“Exactly. If you stop in Umbral, you do not start again.”
There’s a weight in his words, something that tightens low in my stomach. “You make it sound like letting it take me would be—”
“—easy,” he cuts in. “Pleasant.” His hand tightens on mine. “And fatal.”
The air between us has gone heavy. My thoughts are sluggish, the way they get when I’m on the edge of sleep, but sharper too, aware of every inch between us. Of how easy it would be to erase it.
“I think,” I say slowly, “you’re letting Umbral take you, too.”
His eyes flicker. Guilt, maybe, or something he doesn’t want me to name.
“It is a possibility.”
For a moment, neither of us moves. Then his tail sweeps along the floor, coiling lazily until the tip brushes my ankle. The touch jolts me more than it should, like a whisper against bare skin. I want to ask if that was an accident, but I know it wasn’t. The thread hums between us, urging stillness, urging surrender.
His voice is rough when he says, “That’s enough for today.”
It’s abrupt enough to cut through the fog. He releases my hand, stands, and steps back like distance is the only thing keeping him steady.
“Already?” I manage, trying to ignore the echo of his touch.
He nods once, clipped. “If we push further, we’ll both forget this is training.”
It’s not the words that make my stomach flip. It’s the look in his eyes before he turns away. Caziel doesn’t suggest more drills, and I don’t push for them. The thread hums faintly against my skin, a quiet weight in my pendant, and I know it’s still working on me. It’s harder to move. Easier to stay close to him. The fight drains out of me faster than I expect. Not because I’ve stopped arguing, but because lying here in his bed, with him propped up on one elbow and watching me like he’s waiting for my pulse to spike, is exhausting in a whole different way.
“Why change things up?” I ask finally, tilting my head toward him. “Why work with the thread? You made me figure out the others on my own.”
He exhales slowly, then turns to face me.
“Umbral is not like the others. This kind of magic does not challenge you. It smothers. It kills you before you notice you are in danger. You are human, not Daemari. That means you do not have the protections my kind are born with. If you step into that trial without knowing how to resist…You do not have the flame in your bones to shield you. I—” He stops, breathes in through his nose, and finally looks at me. “I cannot lose you, Kay.”
The words thud into my chest, heavier than I want to admit. Isaeth’s shadow drifts through my mind, uninvited, and I wonder if this is what he felt back then. Watching someone he cared for walk toward danger knowing he might never see them again.
The sheets are warm, and the air in Caziel’s room feels heavier than it should, like the moment before rain when the clouds press down just enough to quiet everything. We started our training sitting up, going over theory, but somewhere between his slow explanation of how Umbral creeps and the way his thumb kept tracing the inside of my wrist, I let myself sink sideways against him. Now my back is to his chest, his arm braced around my middle, holding me like he’s afraid I might slip away. George has wedged himself between our legs, tail thumping lazily against my thigh in time with his purr. The sound is hypnotic. I let my eyes close.
“You are exhausted,” Caz murmurs against my hair. It’s not a question.
“I am,” I admit. “Everything aches. And I’m frustrated. All that training,and it hasn’t mattered. Not once. We could’ve just…” I shift, turning my face toward his throat, “…stayed here. Together.”
The quiet sneaks up on me. One moment, I’m watching the lines of his face for any sign he’s hiding something else, the next I’m barely aware of the steady weight of his arm, the way his thumb traces small arcs against my side without thought.
