Page 211 of The Devil May Care

My fingers find his hand without thinking, tracing the strong lines of his palm. Calloused, warm. Real.

“You know,” I say, trying to lighten the mood, “you’re more than just a pretty face.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “You think?”

I grin. “Yup. I’ve decided.”

His expression goes a little softer. A little sad.

“It’s easier advice to give than take,” he says, and I see the weight he’s still carrying. The part of him that believes he isn’t allowed joy. That his Emberlight burned out a long time ago. I squeeze his hand anyway. He doesn’t let go. He draws in a breath and the flame around us answers before he does. It shivers. Hums. I feel it in my spine first—an ache like my body is remembering something before I do. A tension. A pull. The Flame knows.

It’s waiting.

“Back home,” I say, quietly, “I used to sit in my car for ten minutes before going inside. Just… holding the keys. Dreading the weight of everything waiting for me on the other side of the door.” He studies me. “But I don’t feel that here,” I whisper. “Even when I should.”

Even when I’m bleeding. Even when I’m scared.

Even when I know I’m being set up to die.

“Crimson, this realm, it might be what your stories talk of—the fire, and the want, and the need—but it isn’t what your stories are. Very little in life is all good or all bad.

The moment teeters. His fingers flex at my scalp. I want to kiss him. I want to run. I don’t want to let go of this. Of him. Of the impossible stillness in the middle of a realm made of fire and ruin. Where his hand fits so easily in mine, and his voice sounds like something worth holding onto. But something shifts. A ripple. A wrongness. It shudders beneath my skin like a thread snapping taut.

Caziel stiffens just as I do. His head turns slightly—too fast to be casual, too slow to be fear. He’s listening to something I can’t hear yet. And then I feel it. The Embermark on my sternum pulses once, hard, like a second heartbeat. I gasp, clutching at the spot through the fabricof my dress. It sears—not with pain, but with recognition. With demand. It wants something.

No.

It wants me.

“Oh,” I breathe.

Caziel is already rising, face carved in something between fury and grief.

“No,” he growls. “Not now.”

I rise too, unsteady. “What is it—?”

“The trial,” he says, and it lands like a thunderclap. “It’s calling.”

The world tilts. “Now?” But I already know the answer. Can feel the pull in each individual cell.

He nods once. “Argent doesn’t wait.”

My breath catches. The moment we just had—barely lived in, barely understood—already slipping through my fingers. And it hurts. God, it hurts. I want to scream. To grab his face and pull him back down and beg for just a little more time. But I can’t. The flame has decided.

He sees it in my face. How badly I want to run. How close I am to crumbling. And still—still—I don’t.

“Walk me down?” My voice is low. Steady. Something I didn’t know I still had.

He looks at me like I’m both a miracle and a curse. Then steps forward and cups my jaw, his thumb brushing along my cheekbone.

“Kay…”

But I shake my head. I both know and I don’t want to. Not now. The flame coils sharp behind my ribs. Tightens. Caziel’s face shifts. Not in panic—never panic—but in recognition. He steps forward, steadying me with a hand at my back, and I realize I’m shaking. My hair is still undone. My heart has been laid bare. And I am being called to the flame.Argent. At least it gave me tonight.

We walk toward the arena in silence, but it hums between us—that fragile tether spun of almosts. Almost a kiss. Almost something more. I can still feel the ghost of his breath on my skin. Caziel doesn’t take my hand. He doesn’t need to. The citadel stones feel warmer beneath my boots now, as if the ground remembers joy. I’ve gotten used to cold and blood and the thrum of something broken. This feels… unnatural in comparison. Like I’ve wandered into someone else’s story, and the ending hasn’t been written yet.

“Are all your dates like that?” I ask, trying to sound flippant. My voice comes out softer, stretched thin with the nerves coiling in my gut.