I could lie. I could make it a joke. But I don’t.
“So did I.”
He breathes out shakily, eyes raking over me as if trying to be sure.
“You took… longer than expected.”
“I was chatting,” I say.
“With the trial?”
“With someone inside it.” I touch the pendant unconsciously, surprised when I feel heat still coiled there, gentle and grounding. “She offered to send me home.”
His entire body tightens. I glance up, not smiling—not quite—but something like it.
“I said no.”
Caziel doesn’t answer. But his hand lifts slowly, like he’s asking permission to touch me, and I step into it. His palm grazes my cheek, then my temple, then the edge of my jaw—like he needs to convince himself I’m real.
“What did she say?” he murmurs.
“That it’s not my fight. That I could leave. Go home. Be happy.”
“And?”
I let out a breath. “I told her I found joy in hell.”
He closes his eyes for a beat. Then leans his forehead gently to mine.
“You’re not supposed to say things like that,” he whispers. “You’re supposed to make it easier for me to let you go,sâl.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t promise that.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I’m choosing it. That’s different.”
A hum passes between us, not quite flame, not quite magic—but something. Something real. Right. I’m pulled forward into his chest, his arms banding tight around me. The arena vanishes. The trials. The flame. The impossible things I said back there.
“I’m here,” I whisper against the crook of his neck. “I’m here.”
Caziel exhales against my temple like it’s a prayer.
“I don’t know how you do it,” he says eventually, pulling back but keeping a hand at my back. “Every trial, you walk in uncertain. And then you walk out stronger.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen, literally, out of at least one. You meant to say shaken. Cracked. Doubting everything.” I grin.
His mouth quirks. “Even a cracked vessel can hold light.”
I blink. “That sounds suspiciously poetic.”
“It’s Crimson,” he says, half-smile blooming. “We bleed poetry.”
That makes me laugh—soft and choked and stunned that I still can. I lean into him a little more, grounding myself in the solid heat of his presence, the scent of smoke and something faintly sweet on his skin, like charred cedar. We’re still in the arena. I know that, people are watching, but I don’t care. I survived another trial. My chest is still aching from what I almost said in there. What I felt. What I chose not to take.
“You were beautiful,” he says quietly. “In there. I didn’t see it, but I felt it.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You felt me be beautiful?”
