Page 5 of The Devil May Care

Maybe this is what it looks like—when the lights go out and no one tells you.

A few feet away is a large rock with a fairly flat top. I let myself sit, pulling my feet up too tuck under my thighs. My legs feel like jello, and I don’t want to faint dramatically into a lava pit. Or whatever kind of pit they might have in Hell. That’s what this place reminds me of, with the crimson sky, the heat, the ominous weight of uncertainty.

My hands go to my lap. My fingers knot together. I used to have a grounding exercise for moments like this—Five things I can see, four I can touch, three I can hear, two I can smell, one I can taste—but it’s hard to find a name for this sky. Harder still to smell anything past the heat. I bite the inside of my cheek until it stings. That’s something. Something real. Should I be able to feel pain in a dream/coma/death?

There’s a part of me—dark, familiar—that says: Maybe this is it. Maybe this is what happens to people like you when they stop trying.

I hate that part. But it’s persistent.

This isn’t a punishment, I think, not sure who I’m trying to convince. I did something good. I stepped in. I helped. And now I’m here—wherever here is—and who knows what happened to the dude in the elevator. Maybe they peeled the flesh from his bones and wore him like a hat anyway. Maybe they’re staring down at my unconscious body wondering if my stupidity is catching. In the silence, something in my chest breaks loose.

Of course I wasn’t meant to make it back.

Of course this is how it ends.

Not in glory. Not in fire. Just misplaced. Forgotten. Like final destination. I cheated death all those years ago and it finally caught up to me. Isn’t that what my therapist says? That I may reckless, unsafe choices because deep-down I think I deserved to die in that car?

My hand goes to my pocket without conscious thought. My phone screen is cracked, and it won’t turn on. No bag. Just the clothes on my back, my name around my neck, and the taste of adrenaline in my mouth. Even my coffee is gone. I wonder if that’s proof that I’m dreaming, or proof that this is real—that I dropped it during my free fall.

I glance at the horizon again.

Nothing moves. No birds. No plants. Just that thick, heavy silence like the world is waiting for something.

I lean forward, press my palms into my thighs, and whisper, “Well. Guess we wait.”

Because that’s the truth of it, isn’t it? If this is a dream, I’ll wake up eventually. If this is a coma, I’m not in charge. And if it’s real… well, Hell isn’t exactly what I thought it would be. I close my eyes tight. I breathe in, out. I just need a minute and then I’ll do something. Just a minute.

CHAPTER TWO

CAZIEL

The scent of scorched cedar clings to the air as I walk the gallery of flame. It is not smoke, not ash—this scent belongs only to Crimson, born of stone and molten marrow, of heat that never truly cools. The walls pulse faintly with light as I pass, flickering veins of ember deep within the rock, as though the palace itself is listening. Or perhaps breathing.

They will be waiting.

I hear them before I see them—noble tongues behind crimson-glass doors, murmuring in riddles and apprehension. The Emberbrand stirs. Two more marks appeared overnight. One in the city’s second tier, the other at the northern ridge. Neither bearer has slept since. The fever has already begun. They are eager. Afraid. Hopeful.

It is always the same when the Rite draws near. Each time the flame rises, the stories say, the court forgets its bloodied history in the promise of a new sovereign. As if a different shape of flame will burn more gently. Crimson is just, but brutal.

I do not pause at the threshold. I do not need to listen to know what they say.

Caziel was once the flame’s favorite.

Caziel is the lost prince.

Caziel will return.

They are wrong.

The chamber opens before me in a wide curve of obsidian and bone-laced marble, high windows casting fractured crimson light across the floor. The court is gathered in their robes and sigils—each one branded with desire, ambition, hunger. The banners above each tell a story of victory, power, history, but I know how many names have been erased from the record stones.

Their voices hush when I step through the archway. I give them nothing. No tilt of the head. No glance of recognition. Let them wonder if I heard. Let them imagine what I think. My boots echo across the stone. I do not quicken my pace. Let them wait.

At the edge of the dais stands Elder Solonar, hands clasped before him, expression as unreadable as ever. He nods once, a slow incline of the chin, but says nothing. I find that a mercy. We will speak later when the walls are not full of ears. Above him, the Flame Crown flickers in its suspended cradle, untouched since the last Rite ended.

They wanted me to reach for it. I never did.

I stop at the base of the dais, hands behind my back, gaze fixed forward. The hall stretches quiet. It was in this very chamber that my father summoned me after the Siege of the Thale during the Cobalt war. Where he told me my lover had been taken by enemy forces. Tortured. Left unburied in enemy lands while I bled for the realm. I stood here, still wearing the dust of battle, and listened as he called her death necessary.