And wait.
The contenders don’t approach me, but a few look. One sneers. Another one nods once, like respect or warning. The last seat stays empty and Caziel stays standing. For a heartbeat, I wonder if he’s going to speak. Tell them it’s all been a mistake. Tell them I’m not one of them. Tell them he is.
But he doesn’t. He just stands there, watching me with that unreadableexpression, and I realize maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe no one does. And I’m starting to worry that if I don’t figure it out soon, someone’s going to get hurt.
Probably me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CAZIEL
The court begins to empty. Cloaks rustle, boots click against stone, whispers slip into corners like blades returned to sheaths. But I remain and I watch her. Kay stands near the edge of the platform now, not quite dismissed, not quite claimed. Her hands are steady at her sides, her chin lifted just slightly, her eyes tracking the exits like a creature planning escape—or war.
She looks nothing like the Daemari gathered around her. Smaller. Curved in places we are not. Softer, but not weak. The girl who snapped strange jokes in the desert—the one who mistook me for a hallucination, who stared too long and flinched too often—is still there. But she’s buried under something new. Steel.
I don’t know when she found it. Or if it was always there, waiting to be tested. She doesn’t move when they stare. She doesn’t shrink when the contenders throw their subtle glances like darts. She stands as though she knows they’ll keep looking—because she’s the only one here they don’t understand.
And I find myself wondering if she knows how to fight. Not just survive. Fight. Bleed. Move. Endure. Because that’s what the training will require. That’s what the Rite will demand. She won't face off against the other contenders, but the other realms will reach out. The threads of magic will aim to test her, break her, and the others… well, they’ve known from birth how to cut down the hallucinations with blade, magic, will.
If she doesn’t…
My hands curl behind my back. The other realms drown Daemari, Kay is human. If she doesn’t know how to protect herself, they will tear her apart. Maybe not physically, but emotionally. They’ll trap her in the twisted webs of illusion, of want, until she cannot pull herself out. Daemari can be trapped, but they can withstand the touch of the threads, the flame. Can Kay? Or will she splinter under the pressure?
The thirteenth seat remains empty. They tried not to look at it. The speaker never mentioned it by name. But everyone noticed, including the flame. It rose when she stepped into the circle. It watched her. Reached.
I did too and it wasn’t fear I saw.
It wasn’t bravery either. It was something more dangerous. Resolve. The flicker of her lip when she talked back to Varo, the blond. The way she shifted her weight so subtly, grounding herself. The absence of panic when her name was never said, but her place was clearly marked. She’s learning. Fast. Quicker than most, but it isn’t enough. That alone makes her dangerous. Not to them, to me. To everything I’ve refused to be.
I inhale slowly. The scent of ember and metal fills my lungs, and I remember Isaeth. The way she looked when she told me that silence wouldn’t save me.
“You think staying quiet keeps your soul clean,” she’d said. “It doesn’t. Silence is a choice, too.”
I thought stepping away from the Rite would stop the damage. But here we are again. The Rite is rising. The court is watching. And the flame is stirring for someone else. Someone who does not belong here. Who shouldn’t have survived the Wastes, let alone the Court. A woman with no allies who still refuses to look cornered. Does she have any idea what all of this means? Her very existence here, now, changes everything.
I take one step back, retreating into shadow. Let them finish their performance. Let her hold her ground. Because if I stand too close for too long, I might forget the vow I made. And I might step forward to claim a seat I do not want. I want my father’s reign to fall. I want him to watch a new order rise and no there’s nothing he can do to stop it, not with his only son refusing to be his puppet. I know he sees her as myweakness. Not for being human, but for being innocent. I couldn’t save Isaeth and it gutted me. Flayed me to the bone and poured acid in the wounds. Could I let it happen again? Knowing I could stop it?
The court continues to drain around me. Around us. The performers have played their parts. The audience has fed on tension and novelty. The fire has given them its flicker of prophecy, and now they return to their towers, to their strategies, to their knives. She doesn’t move until she’s told to. A quiet gesture from a crimson-robed official. A slight incline of the head.
She walks alone at first and then a figure joins her. A guard. A steward. I don’t know the face. They keep a half-step behind, not beside. A calculated distance. Not an escort, a handler.
She doesn’t look back. Not at the basin. Not at the contenders. Not at me. I watch her all the same. There’s tension in the line of her shoulders, but she hides it well. Her steps are sure. The dress drapes with an elegance it wasn’t tailored for, as if the realm itself has begun to adjust around her. And perhaps it has.
I don’t know what pulled the flame toward her. I don’t know what the Flame is waiting for, or why the thirteenth is still unmarked. The court thinks the seat should be mine. That I’m blocking the flame through sheer will, but it won’t last. Except the idea that she has stolen something from me—that she is here in my place, a disruption to destiny—
It doesn’t land. Because I never wanted the throne, not in a lifetime. I never meant to be part of this. I do feel the tug, deep in the marrow and flame of my blood, but not toward the Rite. Not toward the throne. Toward her. Kay. She is the one I cannot look away from.
Her silhouette disappears through the high doors. A final whisper rises from the court—soft, scathing, curious—and then the flame drops low, as if exhaling. I remain where I am. Alone. In the space between witness and participant. Between past and prophecy. Between the man I swore I’d never be and whoever I am now.
There’s one place that could give me answers. But only if the Flame feels like sharing. I wait until the dais is empty, the court cleared out before heading to the Ember Chamber, deep in the keep. The stone door creaks open beneath my hand. The air inside is dry and still. Warm, but not welcoming. The flame burns low in the brazier.
Unchanged. Unmoved. Untouched by the chaos it has caused.
I step inside and let the door seal behind me. It should feel different. Everything else does. The court has shifted. The Rite stirs. Kay stood in the circle and the fire rose for her. And yet this chamber has not changed. I walk to the brazier slowly, my boots silent on the dark floor. The basin glows with that same steady pulse, golden-orange and patient.
Too patient. Too quiet.
It infuriates me.
