Page 200 of The Devil May Care

His smile is indulgent, condescending, as if I am a child who has missed the obvious.

“I am watching. The Flame tells me every heartbeat, every stumble, every flicker of hesitation. It speaks because I made it mine long ago.”

I almost laugh.Made it mine. As if the Flame could be possessed like a trinket. As if the soul of the Realm were his to chain.

“This is better,” he continues, tilting his goblet toward me. “To see you there, knowing each second could be the one she breaks. To watch you pretend you don’t care. That’s where the real artistry lies.”

I lean forward, holding his gaze, fighting the heat crawling under my skin.

“You do not know her.”

His brows rise in mock surprise. “I know the type. They all swear they won’t break, until they do. I don’t even have to touch her for the Rite to do my work. I’m simply directing the stage.”

Blasphemy, wrapped in velvet words.

“Directing the stage,” I repeat, tasting the words like ash. “Is that what you told the Elders during the Ember War? That you were directing the stage while soldiers bled out into the soil?”

The flicker in his eyes is small, but it is there, a fracture in the polished marble. His smile does not falter, but the tilt of his head sharpens, a predator’s focus.

“Careful, Ember.”

“Is that what lost us Isaeth? You’re direction?” I say, my voice low and even, though I can feel the heat pressing against my ribs. “Careful is what left Vesperan villages burning while you held court in your war room, claiming the Flame itself was your personal messenger.”

The room seems to tighten, shadows inching closer to his chair. He swirls the wine in his goblet, slow and unhurried, but his gaze pins me in place.

“It’s always fascinated me, your devotion to things that were never yours to keep.”

The jab lands, but I do not let him see it.

“Better than claiming what was never yours to take.”

For a heartbeat, silence. Then a chuckle, low and genuine, like I have told a joke he almost respects.

“Ah, Caziel. There’s the fire. I was wondering when it would stop pretending to be stone.”

My hands curl into fists against my knees. I tell myself to hold the line, to keep him talking. But my mind is not on him, it is on the fact that somewhere out there, Kay is in the arena. And if what he says is true, every second I waste here is one where she is in danger.

He leans forward, smile knife-sharp. “I’ve seen the look in your eyes when she’s near. You say I am wrong about her, but deep down you want me to be right. Admit it.” I meet his gaze and let the silence answer for me. He doesn’t give me the courtesy of space. Instead, myfather’s voice dips into that measured cadence he uses when he wants the words to linger, to rot in your mind long after they’re spoken. “She’s a curiosity, your human,” he says, rolling the word human across his tongue like it’s the punchline to a joke. “So very breakable. So very… instructive. I wonder how quickly she’d bend if I told her the right lies. Or truths.”

The heat in my chest flares so fast I almost forget to breathe.

“You will not touch her.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have to touch her,” he murmurs, smiling just enough to show his teeth. “A whisper here. A look there. Remind her she’s out of her depth, that everyone is only humoring her because of you. I could make her believe it, Caziel. I could make her thank me for the revelation.”

The Flame behind my ribs snarls. My nails bite into my palms.

“If you even try—”

He cuts me off with a lazy wave of his hand, as if I am nothing more than an impatient child.

“She’s in the arena now, isn’t she? Bleeding for a crown she doesn’t understand. You think I’d need to do anything at all? No, Ember. The Rite will do my work for me.”

And that is when I see it, the timing, the setting, the deliberate choice to summon me now. This wasn’t about council business. This was about keeping me here, away from the trials, away from her. Every second I’ve been in this room, she has been alone.

He watches me with that too-knowing smirk, the one that says he is measuring not what I will say next, but whether I will speak truth. My father leans back like a man settling into a good meal.

“Did you know, Caziel,” he begins in that low, velvety tone that always means poison is coming, “Umbral’s already begun. She might even be halfway through Gilded by now. Assuming she crawled out of the first in one piece. And she’s all alone. No Ember Heir to play the gallant hero.”