The air inside is warm. Not the blistering heat of a forge or battlefield—just the steady pulse of something ancient. A breath that never leaves. A heart that never stops beating. The brazier sits at the far end of the chamber. Low, open, flickering with a fire that gives off no smoke and needs no fuel. Its light doesn’t fill the room—it folds around it. Careful. Respectful.
I approach with slow steps, my boots echoing off the obsidian floor. The walls are carved with the names of every champion who ever bore the Brand. Etched deep. Gleaming faintly.
Some were heroes. Some were monsters. Some were both.
And some never stood a chance.
I stop a pace before the flame and lower myself to one knee. Not tradition. Not prayer. It is the only thing that feels honest.
“I don’t know what you want,” I say softly. “If you want anything at all.”
The flame crackles. Not louder. Not brighter. Listening.
“I’ve never asked you for guidance. Not when I left the court. Not when Isaeth died. Not when I let the Rite rise without me.” Her name feels like an offering. A knife unsheathed. “I thought refusing was enough. That removing myself would weaken him. That if I did nothing, he would eventually fall under the weight of his own ambition.” I exhale slowly. “But the court still kneels. Solonar still whispers. And now…”
Now there’s her.
A human girl with grit in her voice and bruises under her eyes and a will like a blade. She is not marked by flame, but she burns me with her presence. And I cannot stop thinking about her standing in the arena, surrounded by creatures and powers she doesn’t understand, bleeding for a crown she never knew existed.
“She shouldn’t be here,” I whisper.
But she is.
I rise and pace the chamber, letting the names on the wall pass beside me. Some of them I knew. One of them nearly became my own. I stop beside the oldest section—rulers long before my time, chosen in eras where fire meant survival more than spectacle. I place my palm against the wall. The stone is warm as I trace the lines of each letter.
“I know what Crimson has become,” I say. “I know what my father made it. Power without vision. Flame without mercy. Want twisted into something cold.”
The flame behind me stirs. A single ember arcs skyward, then vanishes.
I turn and step back toward the brazier, letting my hand hover above the flame.
It does not burn me. It never has.
“You can’t survive on fear alone,” I say. “And power, for power’s sake, is hollow. You know that. Don’t you?” The flame lifts, just slightly. I breathe in its warmth. “There must be another way.”
No answer. Just the same steady light. The same echo of heat I’ve always known.
But maybe that’s the answer. Because it hasn’t left. The flame stillwaits. Not for kings. Not for monsters. For someone who remembers what it means to want something beyond domination.
To want to protect. To want to build. To want love, and to let it be enough.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say quietly.
The flame shimmers.I know.
Doing nothing is no longer an option.
CHAPTER NINE
KAY
“Imiss coffee,” I announce, flopping back onto the plush mattress.
Sarai glances up from where she’s refolding towels with far too much precision. “You had some yesterday.”
“That was not coffee. That was a cruel prank.” I should have known when she held the cup out to me with a gleeful smile. I’ve been here for a few days now, I think. Or at least three times I’ve fallen asleep and woken up still in Hell. Crimson.
“It was roasted bark steeped in lava water.”
