Chapter 65 A Task Undertaken
(Caelum Ashborne)
Caelum stiffened.
“The mark reacted,” Arkael said. “I felt it from here. When her flame flared, yours did too. Don’t lie to me and pretend you’re unaffected.”
“I never said unaffected,” Caelum replied. “I said I’m in control.”
The ember-flame narrowed, as if squinting at him through the distance.
“For now,” his father said. “But the girl’s awakening will accelerate from here. Her power will grow. Her bonds will tangle. She is young, untrained, tied to the Devil by blood and bite. The prophecy—”
“Should stay out of this conversation,” Caelum cut in, sharper than he meant to.
Silence.
The shadows in the corners shivered.
Arkael’s voice when it came next was softer—and infinitely more dangerous. “Watch your tone, boy.”
Old habits kicked in. Caelum lowered his eyes, inclining his head.
“Forgive me,” he said. “It’s been a long night.”
“It will be longer before we’re done,” Arkael replied. “Listen to me, Caelum. This is not just another mission. Not another game of deception at some demon’s court. This is what we have been waiting for. What I have been raising you for.”
Caelum’s throat tightened. Training in the embers. Whispers of the Queen who had burned for them all. Lessons on how to smile while lying. How to look a monster in the eyes and never blink.
“I know,” Caelum said quietly.
“The Emberborn have hidden in shadows while Apollo ruled from his stolen throne,” Arkael continued. “We’ve bled and starved and buried our dead in cold rock. We’ve waited for a sign. Tonight, that sign screamed through our bones.” A pause. “You felt her. Truly felt her?”
“Yes.” Caelum exhaled slowly. “She feels… wrong. And right. Like a song I knew as a child, played on a broken instrument. Off-key, but familiar.”
Arkael hummed low. “Then there is no doubt. She is one of ours.”
He didn’t add: And the Devil has her. He didn’t need to.
“What do you need me to do?” Caelum asked. The old Emberborn words rose in his mind without being called—For the flame. For the blood. For the Queen. They tasted like loyalty and shackles.
“Get closer,” Arkael said. “Closer than you already are. Closer than Apollo believes. She will be watched. Guarded. Desired. Your advantage is that you are… forgettable.”
Caelum snorted softly. “Thanks.”
“You know what I mean,” Arkael said. “You slip into rooms without notice. You produce whatever the Devil needs without being seen. You are shadow. Use that.”
Caelum leaned his head back against the wall, staring at the ember-flame floating in front of him.
“And when I’m close?” he asked.
A beat.
“When the time comes,” Arkael said, “you will bring her to us.”
The words settled between them, heavy and hot.
“And if the Devil objects?” Caelum asked lightly, because if he didn’t joke, he might think too hard about how impossible that sounded.
Arkael’s voice turned to iron. “Find a way. You are my son.”
“And his shadow,” Caelum said. “There’s the problem.”
He glanced at his other mark—the leash Apollo had scarred into his flesh. It hummed faintly, like it sensed the treason being spoken in its presence. The black sigil seemed to tighten across his skin, as if talons had just clenched around his bones.
“He trusts you,” Arkael said.
“As much as a snake trusts its own fangs,” Caelum replied. “He knows what I am.”
“He doesn’t know whose you are,” Arkael countered. “Not fully. Not yet. Do not forget that while you serve him, you belong to us.”
I belong to a lot of people these days, Caelum thought, but didn’t say.
“And if she doesn’t want to leave with me?” he asked instead. “If she refuses? If she’s… already too tangled up with him?”
The ember-flame flared, heat licking his skin.
“Then you will untangle her,” Arkael said. “You will make her want to leave. Charm her. Persuade her. Seduce her if you must.”
Caelum’s jaw flexed.
“You raised me to be a weapon, not a courtesan.”
“I raised you to be whatever our people need,” Arkael said. “If our Queen is in the Devil’s bed, then we need a sharper knife. You will get close enough to carry her out when the time comes. Or close enough to strike if she proves too dangerous.”
The idea of killing her slid between his ribs like a cold blade. He wasn’t sure whether the sick twist he felt came from his own gut—or from the ember-mark blazing in protest.
“She’s one of us,” he said quietly.
“She is Emberborn,” Arkael agreed. “But she is also bound to him. Do not let blood blind you.” A pause. “We cannot allow Apollo to keep the Heir and the throne. If she chooses him over us, she becomes our enemy.”
Caelum thought of the girl’s eyes when he’d glimpsed her in the hall. The wild fear. The furious spark. The way she’d clutched that fur to her chest when she stared down The Devil. He didn’t want to imagine those eyes going cold.
“Understood,” he said, because there was no other answer he was allowed to give.
The ember-flame flickered, dimming slightly.
“Caelum,” Arkael said, voice softer. “You are my son. I am not blind to what I ask. But you carry our people on your shoulders. You always have. This is no different.”
It was entirely different. But Caelum only nodded.
“For the Emberborn,” he said.
“For the Queen,” Arkael replied.
The flame contracted, collapsing into a single searing point before winking out.
Darkness rushed back, eager and possessive. Shadows closed in around Caelum, licking at his skin, trying to erase the golden afterimage burned into his sight. His demon mark thrummed a warning along his palm, like a jealous lover sensing another’s touch.
He stood for a long moment, breathing in the heavy heat of the palace, feeling two leashes tug in opposite directions.
From somewhere deep in the structure, far below and far above all at once, a pulse of fire answered his thoughts—her flame kicking again, bright and startled, like a bird hitting a window and realising it had wings. The stone corridor outside his alcove gave a subtle shiver, dust sifting from the ceiling as the wards adjusted, compensating for a power they had not been built to contain.
“Of all the rooms in all the realms,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. “You had to wake up in his.”
The shadows shivered around him, ready.
Caelum straightened, rolling his shoulders, smoothing his expression into the easy, lazy half-smile that made demons underestimate him. He let that familiar mask settle over his features—a little cocky, a little bored, exactly what a pampered errand-boy of the Devil should look like, not the Emberborn heir’s son walking a knife-edge.
“Fine,” he whispered to the distant, burning girl and the father who had just turned her into an objective. “I’ll get closer.”
He stepped forward and let the shadows swallow him, heading toward the part of the palace where her new flame had screamed loudest. The world narrowed to the glide of his bare feet over cold stone, the soft whisper of shadow over skin, and the twin heartbeats of two kings pulling him in opposite directions.
Between the Devil’s throne and the Emberborn’s war table, there was very little left of him that belonged to himself.
But whatever remained of Caelum Ashborne walked toward her anyway.