Page 47 of The Devil May Care

Her shoulders go still for half a breath. I press on.

“Or at the very least, give them a pamphlet. ‘So You’ve Been Abducted Into a Flame-Based Trial of Champions.’Maybe a little Q&A at the bottom.”

Still nothing. Just the whisper of fabric and the sound of my own adrenaline humming in my ears.

“You know,” I say, louder now, “I haven’t been marked. There’s no Brand. No magical flame tattoo. I checked.”

That gets her. A flicker in her posture.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says.

My mouth goes dry. “I thought that’s how the flame chose people.” That’s what they said in the full-castle meeting.

“It is.” She turns back toward me, folding complete, hands loose at her sides. “But it’s not the only way. And it’s never been the full truth.”

I blink. “Care to elaborate?”

She hesitates. I wait.

Eventually, she sighs.

“There are records. Old ones. Histories passed down through my people. In the earliest Rites, not all who competed were marked. Some were chosen. Some volunteered. Some were put forward.”

I narrow my eyes. “Put forward?”

She nods once. “By the court. Or the realm itself. Symbolically. Strategically.”

My stomach sinks.

“You’re saying they can force people into this.”

“Not officially. More like a nomination.”

“And people can turn down the nomination?”

She walks to the window and pulls back the curtain slightly. Sunlight spills across the floor in a golden wash.

Sarai’s voice is soft. “It benefits them to pretend it’s all the flame’s will. They can claim their hands are clean.”

“So no,” I rub my temples. “That’s not horrifying.”

She looks at me, and something flickers across her her face. Cracks in her resolve.

“Do your leaders never lie in your world?” She asks the question with the barest hint of humor so dry it pulls a laugh out of me. Ugly. Short. Real.

“The better question is do they ever tell the truth.”

She smiles. It slips in, uninvited, like a habit she forgot she had. And for the first time since she walked in, she looks like her again. Not a housekeeper. Not a warning. Just Sarai. It doesn’t last.

“You should be careful, Kay.” She straightens, refusing to meet my eyes.

“Yeah, I gathered that from the glowing murder pit.” And the lack of eye contact.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

She exhales through her nose.