The moon had long sunk to embers.
Cael stared at the woman lying next to him—Velastra, his Queen of Chains, his Queen of Wounds—naked and still, her breath low and even. The scent of blood lingered faintly between them.
As he cloth her, she noticed her skin, warrior-tanned and marked with power rather than scars, glowed in the candlelight. Her hair spilled across the pillow like black silk drowned in moonlight.
And for a moment—a heartbeat—she looked… human.
He watched her sleep, her clothes that he had fetched now covering her.
Cael sat quietly at her side, spine straight despite the ache in his back and thighs. The way she'd ridden him tonight—possessive, fierce, unrelenting—wasn't new. But something was.
Longer.
He looked at her mouth. Still stained red.
---
The morning light was thin and cold, bleeding pale across the marble walls. Silence lingered like frost in the corners of the room.
Velastra's eyes opened.
There was no softness in her awakening—no dazed blink or stretch of comfort. Her gaze snapped to the doorway.
Cael stood there, tall and rigid, the faint swell of bruises visible under his collar. His wrists were bound again, though loosely—he had re-chained himself as always.
"They are here," he said in his quiet, even voice. "Can I now open the door?"
She didn't answer right away.
Instead, she sat up slowly, lifting her hand to her mouth.
She looked down at her body. Clothed.
A smirk ghosted across her face, sharp as the edge of a blade.
She rose from the bed without modesty, walking toward him with the coiled grace of a predator. She stopped just inches from his chest, tipping her head up so her cold eyes met his.
"You woke up early," she murmured. "How disappointing."
Before he could respond, she leaned in.
And kissed him.
This time, it wasn't rushed or vicious. It wasn't blood and bruising.
It was new.
Her lips pressed to his like a seal, slow and firm. She let it linger—longer than necessary, enough to make his breath still, enough for him to feel the heat of her want and her command bleeding together. Her tongue found his with slow authority. Her fingers curled in his hair, holding him there—not violently, but undeniably.
When she pulled away, her voice was velvet laced with ice.
"Remember to win the trial."
She stepped back just enough to meet his eyes again, her expression utterly calm.
"Or else…" her tone lowered to a whisper, cruel and intimate, "on my wedding day, I will bury your mother."
He did not flinch.
He never did.
But she saw it—the faint flicker in his eyes. The weight behind the silence.
She reached down and unlatched his chains, letting them fall with a dull clatter to the floor.
Then she turned, looking at him.
Her hand met the door, and she pulled it open with all the weight of her title.
Cloaked guards, handmaidens, and court attendants stood ready on the other side. All eyes snapped to her, none daring to meet hers directly.
Cael followed, silent and barefoot, a shadow behind a storm.
Before Cael was left in the trial waiting room, Velastra dismissed everyone, her command unquestioned. The chamber emptied, yet she remained, standing before him with a quiet intensity.
She studied him—not as the predator, not as the one he sought to prove himself to, but as something far more profound. Something unspoken.
Then, softly, she spoke.
"If ever you feel the weight of defeat, raise your hand. And I will let the fire walk with you, not against you."
Her words did not offer mercy, nor did they diminish the trial ahead.
They were neither a command nor a plea.
They are a devotion.
And then, she was gone.
---
When immortals- royal, prominent and ordinary are all there, it was already bloodlight.
Flames crackled, their whispers threading through the sanctum like a chorus of unseen voices. Dusk had settled, casting deep shadows across the stone chamber where embers smoldered in braziers, their glow painting the faces of the assembled witnesses in hues of copper and gold.
At the heart of it stood Cael.
The Elder stepped forward, draped in ceremonial robes embroidered with fire-lit sigils. His voice carried over the chamber, unshaken, unyielding.
"Fire knows no weakness, nor does it grant mercy. Step forward and be forged anew—or burned away."
Cael knelt, pressing his bare palm against the obsidian floor. Heat thrummed beneath his skin as the sigil was placed upon his flesh—a brand of intention, a mark that bound him to the trial.
The chamber quieted. Then, the flames ignited.
A corridor of fire roared to life, its heat curling into the air like a living entity. There was no hesitation. Cael stepped forward, the soles of his feet grazing the scorching stone. His breath was measured, his body a vessel of endurance.
Embers licked at his resolve, flames teasing the edges of his robe. A misstep—one moment of fear—would be enough to shatter the trial's purpose, to cast him from the path without honor. But he moved with certainty, his gaze fixed ahead.
Heat pressed in from all sides. His lungs burned. Sweat clung to his skin like a second layer, yet he did not falter.
Then came the reckoning.
Fire-lit visions flickered before him—faces carved from flame, spectral remnants of his failures, his regrets. Shadows of the past whispered in tongues only he could understand. Weakness. Doubt.
But he would not break.
He reached forward, touching the heart of the flame. It did not consume him. It accepted him.
The final fire swelled, a pillar of roaring light. Cael stepped into it—willing, unshaken—and let the flames strip him bare.
When the fire receded, he stood, unbroken. Marked by ash, tempered by heat but not bleeding.
The Elder approached, anointing him with sacred oils that cooled his seared skin. A new name was spoken—a title borne from the flames.
"Rise, Cael. The heavens have deemed you worthy, and thus, you stand no longer as a mere consort, but as an equal—husband to Her Highness, Velastra. From this day forth, your name shall be spoken with honor, your place beside her unwavering."
The trial had ended.
He had survived.
The witnesses getting fewer, yet he stood his ground. His eyes searching for a presence, the one who wanted his victory above all, yet she is none. Somehow, an unwelcome sadness arises from his sigh.