“I’ve got it,” I start, but my voice is breathless. Weak. Caziel steps behind me.
“No,” he says. “You don’t have to.”
His fingers find the first clasp, undoing it with careful precision. Then the second. Then the third. He’s so close I can feel the heat of him, not just from his body—but from the flame inside him. His breath brushes my neck. I fight not to lean into it. My skin prickles. The back of my neck, my shoulders, my spine. Something shifts.
When he reaches the last clasp, his knuckle grazes the bare line of my spine and that’s when it happens. A pulse—not from him, not from me—but from the Embermark between my shoulder blades. The wings. They flare. Not visibly, I don’t think—no light or fire—but I feel it. Like something inside me unfurls. Greets him. His breath stutters. His fingers still.
“Did you feel that?” I whisper, afraid to ruin it.
He doesn’t answer. He just slowly lowers his hand.
“You’re reacting to the Flame,” he says after a beat, voice unreadable.
I don’t think that’s all it is, but I don’t press. The moment is too fragile. Instead, I let the silk slip fully from my shoulders, pooling at my feet in a whisper of fabric. I step out of it barefoot, the stone warm beneath my skin, and walk toward the edge of the basin. The surface of the water glows faintly red. Reflected lava or something deeper—I don’t know. I only know I’m not afraid. Not here. Not with him.
“Do I need to say anything?” I murmur, pausing before the spring.
“Only if you want to,” he says, his voice closer now. “The Flame listens, but it doesn’t need words.”
I stare at the water. My heart stammers against my ribs. I am no longer a stranger in this place. I am no longer unchosen. Maybe this isn’t a claiming. Maybe it’s something more.
When I glance over my shoulder, Caziel has dropped his glamor. Horns. Tail. Emberbrand, glowing faint across his chest like a constellation only I’m allowed to see. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t try to explain. He just waits—bare, like me—like he’s showing me who he is, like he’s hoping I’ll stay.
The steam wraps around me like silk. A velvet fog clinging to skin and hair, turning the world soft at the edges. Caziel waits beside the water, his horns catching the glow from the lava pools, his eyes a flicker of heat and restraint. He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t rush me. He just watches.
It’s the strangest thing—how the most powerful being I’ve ever met makes space for me like I matter. Like this moment belongs to both of us. And maybe that’s what undoes me. For so long, I’ve fought for every inch. Every ounce of dignity, of safety, of breath. And now, I’m standing naked before a flame older than time itself, and there’s no fight left in me.
Only wonder.
Only want.
The rock beneath my feet curves gently into the spring. Caziel steps in first, the water licking at his calves, then thighs, the steam billowing upward as he moves deeper. I follow.
The warmth is immediate. Not scalding—perfect. As if it knows me. As if it’s adjusting around my body, not the other way around. The deeper I step, the more weightless I feel. Like the water carries things I can’t name.Grief. Rage. Loneliness. It soaks them from my bones. Caziel stops at the center. Waist-deep, arms loose at his sides. Waiting.
“You brought me here for a reason,” I murmur. “What do I do?”
He lifts a hand. Reaches out.
“Come to me.”
I do. There’s no hesitation. No voice in my head saying I don’t belong. Just him and this place and the Flame watching without judgment. When I reach him, he cradles my face between his hands. His thumbs sweep over my cheekbones, reverent. Like I’m made of something sacred. Something rare.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he says softly. “The flame sees what words can’t.”
He presses his brow to mine. His skin is warmer than the water, but not uncomfortably so. Like kindling, ready to catch.
“I feel…” I start, but the words catch. “It’s like everything is pulling tighter. Not bad. Just… intense.”
His breath hitches. “It is recognizing what’s already here.”
He means because the Rite has already marked me. The Flame already knows my shape. I wish he meant becausehedoes, that he also recognizes the tie lashing us together.
Instead, I rest my hands against his chest, right over the glowing lines of ember that spread outward from his heart. They pulse faintly beneath my fingers. And when I lean into him, the brand at my back responds again—wings rising invisibly, answering a call I never meant to speak.
“I don’t understand all of this,” I whisper. “But I know I don’t want to run from it.”
“You never have.”
