Page 210 of The Devil May Care

“You always have been,” he says.

This time, I don’t laugh. I can’t. His hand lifts to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, and I swear the contact crackles down my spine. He doesn’t kiss me—but the air between us is thick with almost. The wind moves over the balcony like a sigh, curling the ends of my hair and lifting the hem of my tunic. The heat from the Citadel below flickers against my skin like the breath of a sleeping dragon—warm and steady and ancient.

Caziel doesn’t move away. He stands close enough that his body heat blurs the space between us, the edge of his sleeve brushing mine. I can feel the weight of his gaze—not demanding, not greedy. Just… aware. Like he sees every version of me, even the ones I haven’t made peace with yet. I risk a glance up at him. His expression is unreadable in that infuriatingly regal way of his—but his eyes flicker with something softer than flame. Something quieter.

I close my eyes. And for just that breath—just that sliver of time—I let myself believe I could stay here. That the world could bend around us, instead of always pulling us toward ruin. When I open them, and he’s watching me like I hung the stars.

“You’re doing it again,” I whisper.

His brow lifts. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like that.”

He doesn’t look away. “I don’t know how else to look at you anymore.”

My heart stumbles, my throat tightens, but I don’t kiss him. I don’t move. I can feel it—subtle and unwelcome—the shift in the flame. The world is turning again. The moment’s about to end. When he reaches for me, I don’t flinch. I don’t brace. His fingers touch the end of my hair, it’s fallen loose from when I wove it up hours ago. He doesn’t say anything as he begins to unravel it, slow and careful. His thumb brushes my nape—just once—and the motion is so gentle it makes something in my chest ache.

“You’ve been bound up too long,” he murmurs. “I wanted to see you… free.”

The last of the braid loosens, waves tumbling down around my shoulders. I don’t move, afraid the moment will dissolve if I breathe too hard. His hand lingers in my hair, reverent. Like I’m made of something worth holding.

Caziel’s hands are slow. Careful. He unravels me like I’m a spell. Like if he tugs too hard the moment might break. One loop slips free. Then another. My hair falls in uneven waves over my shoulder, tangling in the fabric of my tunic. He doesn’t say a word and neither do I. If I do, I might cry, not from sadness. From something worse. From wanting. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be, but his fingers brush my neck, and I forget the name of every place I’ve ever called home.

The heat in my throat climbs, sharp and confusing, until I’m choking on the silence between us.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

His hand pauses, mid-motion, still tangled in my hair. “What don’t you?”

Everything.

Why I’m still standing. Why I’m not screaming. Why I feel like the girl who got on that elevator is dead and buried somewhere in a world that never mattered. Why it hurts more to imagine leaving him than it does to face the next trial. But mostly—

“Why it doesn’t feel wrong,” I murmur.

He says nothing. Doesn’t move. I lift my eyes, meeting his in the half-light.

“This is hell, right? Your words. A place built on blood and pain and hurt. And yet…” My voice thins. “Why do I feel like I’m standing exactly where I’m supposed to be?”

Caziel doesn’t answer right away. The firelight flickers against his jaw, gilding the angles of him like he was carved for this place. Maybe he was. Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t belong. And yet… I don’t feel like a trespasser anymore. Just lost. Spinning somewhere between the wreckage of who I was and whatever the hell I’m becoming.

“I mean—” I glance down, words fumbling. “That’s what the stories said. Back home. The Devil. Eternal fire. This was the warning.”

He finally speaks, his voice low and steady. “Maybe that’s what your world made of it. A place to cast shadows you didn’t want to name.” I glance up. He’s watching me, not with judgment, but a kind of gravity. Like he sees the cracks in me and isn’t afraid to look. “There is pain here,” he says. “Rot. Evil that festers. That poisons and spreads and bleeds into everything it touches.” I swallow hard. “But Crimson isn’t human Hell. It’s not punishment. It’s just… life. Life isn’t good or bad, Kay. It just is.”

I stare at him. At the man who once terrified me, now speaking like the sky cracked open in his chest. He shifts closer, and his voice softens.

“There’s a saying here: Even the darkest coals hold Emberlight.”

I whisper it back. “Even the darkest coals…”

“Hold Emberlight,” he finishes, with something like pride flickering in his eyes.

And I get it, maybe for the first time.

“I’m allowed to find peace here,” I murmur. “Even in the middle of this.”

“You should,” he says. “The others—they survive the trials by shutting themselves off. But you… you don’t flinch from feeling. You burn. And you keep going.”