Page 224 of The Devil May Care

The steam curls around him like smoke around a flame. I glance at his profile—strong and unreadable—and try to chase the nervous flutter building in my chest.

“What is this place?”

He doesn’t answer at first, watching the glow below us.

Caz doesn’t look at me when he speaks.“What do you know about the Flame?”

“That it burns.” I keep my voice quiet. “That it marks us? Powers the Rite? Chooses the ruler of Crimson. Makes glowy door things appear.”Honestly it’s kind of a pain in the ass, I think, even as heat pulses under my breastbone,and I think you guys give it way too much credit.

He hums—not disagreement, not approval, considering my words.

“Some believe the Flame is power. A weapon. A force to be controlled. Wielded.”

“But that’s not its purpose.” I frown.

“No.” He gestures out toward the horizon where the pulsing light deepens into a slow heartbeat. “The Flame just is. It knows the past, the present, the future. It reads truth and want and need. You can’t hide from it. Can’t lie to it. ”

I want to take his hand. I don’t. “Like a god?”

He shakes his head. “No. It doesn’t rule. It witnesses. It remembers who we are when we’ve forgotten. When we’ve lied to ourselves so long we don’t know what’s real.”

“Like a judge.”

“No. That’s us. We judge.” He glances at me then, the corner of his mouth tilting just slightly. “The Flame simply knows. It can guide those willing to listen.”

His words settle deep inside me, warm and oddly comforting.

“Is this where it began?” I ask. “This place?”

“Close,” he says. “The basin is one of the last places it still rises unshaped. Not fed through crystals or conduits or ceremony. It is old as the Realms themselves. Untamed.”

I stare out toward the basin as the wind lifts my cloak. It smells like memory here. Like burnt sugar and ancient secrets. I don’t know what I expected—but it wasn’t this.

“We come here when we need to remember what matters. When we want to be seen. Not by others. By the flame itself.”

The words settle into me like coals—warm, glowing, almost painful.

“And you brought me here?”

Caziel turns to me fully now, his expression unreadable, but there’s something in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Not sharp. Not defensive. He’s an open book.

“You’ve already been seen,” he says. “This is so you can see it too.”

My throat tightens unexpectedly. This isn’t about the trials. Not the mark. Not the throne. This is something else. Not a test, not a performance, an invitation.

I blink fast, as if that’ll clear the sting in my eyes. “I’m not sure I deserve it.”

He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t reassure me.

Just says, “Come.” And begins the descent toward the basin.

He leads me deeper into the cavern, our steps silent on the dark stone, the world narrowing to flickering firelight and the echo of heat. We pass under an arch of blackened rock—natural, I think, until I notice the faint shimmer of carved symbols along its underside. They glow faintly, only when Caziel walks beneath them. When I follow, they stay lit for a breath longer.

I don’t ask what they mean.

I don’t want to. I’m starting to suspect this place speaks a language older than words. And part of me is listening.

The stone basin we’d knelt by is only the beginning. Beyond it, the path widens into a ledge overlooking a much larger hollow in the earth—an open chamber where the rock has fallen away in steps and spirals, like a bowl carved by the gods. Lava moves below in slow, sinuous rivers, glowing orange and red beneath the black surface crust, and in the center of it all—a fissure. A great, dark wound in the earth that breathes light and heat.