Page 128 of The Devil May Care

“You don’t have to go,” the Obsidian Realm says. Not her voice now—its. Soft and echoing, threaded with sorrow. “We can hold this for you. Keep you safe. Let you forget.”

“No.”

The image twists. I see myself in a dark room, older, smaller somehow. Alone. Unremembered. Unwanted. No fire. No trial. No mark. Just the silence of being forgotten.

It’s a lie.

“No.”

I survived without her. I built my life without her. Even if it hurts—especially because it hurts—I know who I am now. And I am not done.

“You can’t run from grief,” I whisper, opening my eyes. “It doesn’t work. I tried.”

The vision leans in—my mother’s face again, desperate now. Wide-eyed.

“Don’t go,” she pleads. “Please.”

I think of Sarai. Her laughter. Her sharpness. Her steady hands. I think of George, who’s probably somewhere causing trouble. I can’t let him be adopted by Varo. He’d turn insufferable. I won’t allow it. I think of Caziel—how he doesn’t look away from me, even when I’m ugly with pain.

“I don’t belong to this memory,” I say.

“You don’t belong in Crimson, either. You belong with me.”

I shake my head. Crimson is real. I might not fit their either, but I definitely can’t stay here, in shadow and false promises.

“I’ve buried grief and had it rot inside me. It doesn’t go away. It grows teeth.” My voice wavers—but I keep going. “You can’t kill it. Can’t outrun it. You feel it. Or it consumes you.” I take a step forward. “I’ve already been eaten. I know what that feels like.”

The arena shudders. A sound like cracking glass. The shadows howl. The room collapses inward, stone and flame and starlight twisting together like a storm.

I don’t move. I turn my back on all of it. The arch rises out of the ashes, a beacon. I’m half afraid it will vanish, but I step through without issue. The moment I cross the line, the air shifts. Black flame curls around my forearms like brambles, threading heat through my body—but it doesn’t burn. It sears cold. Through my skin, my bones, my psyche. Every sorrow I’ve ever buried presses outward from within. I can’t scream. I don’t want to. I chose this.

I remember.

When the flame recedes, I’m still standing. Shaking. Breathing. The torches return to red. The shimmer at the edge of the amphitheater cracks open. The Rite has ended. The scent of Obsidian fades, chased by firelight and breath. I’m back in the amphitheater. Marked. Whole. Still burning—but alive.

And I didn’t break.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

KAY

Istep out of the ring and everything is too bright. The sky above the amphitheater stretches cloudless and vast, like nothing ever happened. Like the world didn’t just crack open inside my chest and ask me to bleed for it. The silence hits me before the heat does. No applause. No movement. No sound at all. Just a thousand pairs of eyes. Watching.

I stand alone in the wide stone circle, blinking against the sting of light. The stone underfoot feels too smooth, too clean, too real. And I don’t. I feel like something that crawled out of ash and memory and grief.

The mark on my back burns. Pulsing down to the bone. My breath catches in my throat. I clamp my jaw tight to stop it from shaking.

Hold it together.

Just a little longer.

Someone stirs in the stands. A noblewoman fans herself with slow beats. A child nearby clutches at their mother’s sleeve. A soldier shifts their weight and glances at the Elders like they are waiting for confirmation of what they just saw. No one comes forward. No one speaks to me. And I can still feel the shadow of that false hospital room. My mother’s voice. The warmth of her hands as she offered me peace. I almost took it. I almost let myself stay. I gave up the pretense of warmth for this cold welcome.

My fingers twitch against the front of my tunic, searching for thependant beneath. Still warm. Still humming. I focus on it. Use it to anchor myself.You’re here. You made it back.But grief hangs on me like a sodden cloak. Not the old, distant ache I’ve learned to hide—but the fresh kind. The kind that scrapes raw across my ribs and makes me wonder if my bones remember too.

My legs threaten to buckle. I lock my knees to stay upright.Do not fall. Not here.I don’t know how long I stand there before the silence shifts. A soft step. A brush of wind. I feel him before I see him. Caziel.

He approaches without a word. Not striding like a prince. Walking. Steady. Real. He stops beside me—close enough that I could reach for him, if I weren’t afraid that touch might undo me. He looks at me like he sees all of it. The weight I’m carrying. The fire still etched into my skin. The choice I had to make.