crown of flames

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Chapter 30 – Scarlet's POV

Sleep didn't come easy. Not with Syraen's warning gnawing at the back of my skull like a slow bleed.

Full moon. Catacombs. Find my scale. Alone.

No pressure. Totally fine. I love impossible deadlines layered on top of post-combat organ rearrangement.

I lay flat for what felt like hours. Might've been ten minutes. Might've been midnight. Time didn't behave the same now that I wasn't using light to measure it. I had sound, breath, and the subtle rhythms of a building that never really slept.

The suite creaked like a living thing. Air vents whispered. Something—maybe the refrigerator enchantment?—cycled every so often with a throaty hum. Farther off, bootsteps echoed, the pattern of academy patrol rotating every fifteen minutes. I counted them. Failed to calm down.

Damian wasn't here. I knew that. I'd asked. Twice. Still, the memory of his heat clung to my skin like burnt resin. The way he moved in the training pit—fast, punishing—looped under my ribs. It was my imagination, but I kept bracing for the door to fling open, fire first, apology never.

Finally, I snapped. Or melted. Same difference.

Move, Syraen murmured, lazy amusement threading through her mental echo. You're chewing holes in yourself.

"I noticed," I muttered out loud.

Getting up blind is a whole ordeal. There's the roll, the hand sweep, the slide of feet to floor, the please don't dislocate a half-healed rib while standing breath. The marble was cool under my toes—good anchor. I kept one hand on the mattress until my fingers found the nightstand. Then wall. Trim ridge. Doorframe.

"Don't trip, don't trip," I whispered, because if I didn't narrate I'd panic, and if I panicked I'd light something on fire, and if I set the boys' million-credit suite on fire I'd never hear the end of it.

The hallway air was warmer, tinged with the faint cedar-steel scent that always clung to Draven. Past that: herbs, honey, clean linen—Devon. Under that: ozone and static. Dexter. Damian wasn't in the mix. My shoulders dropped half an inch.

See? Syraen purred. You can map a room without eyes if you stop trying to make the dark behave like daylight.

"You sound smug."

I am smug. I'm right.

The low murmur of voices drew me forward. It was the sound that did it—the way low male tones overlap and break apart. You could stack a thousand magic scanners in this place and still not get the kind of data simple listening does.

Devon's voice carried first: soft, rolling, healer cadence meant to slow heart rates. He must've been mid-story; there was rhythm in it. Dexter cut across him every few beats—quick, knife-bright darts of sarcasm. Draven spoke rarely, each word setting the pace like a metronome.

I hovered at the threshold. Didn't want to crash into a table. Didn't want to crash their… whatever this was. Guy decompress ritual? Post "we almost murdered each other" support group?

I tapped the doorframe with my knuckle.

Everything stopped.

"Scarlet?" Devon. Concern spiked sharp, like a shift in barometric pressure. "What are you doing out of bed?"

The corner of my mouth tugged up. "Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd crash the brooding-alpha party."

Dexter broke first. His laugh snapped through the quiet—bright, messy, not as mean as he wanted it to be. "Bold move, considering one of us tried to roast you alive twelve hours ago."

"Correction." I lifted my chin. "One of you failed to roast me alive."

That earned me two reactions: a sharp, contained exhale of frost from Draven's direction and a low whistle from Dexter like he was impressed I'd swung back.

"Come here," Draven said.

Not a question. Not loud. Still landed like a command coded into bone.

I hated how quickly my feet obeyed. But also? Relief. Because part of me was still braced for empty rooms and silence. Being summoned meant I wasn't unwelcome. Yet.

I edged forward until my shin nicked upholstered edge—couch. Before I could misjudge the turn, a hand brushed mine. Warm, broad, gloved—no, bare. Draven. The contact was brief; he didn't steer, just tagged my position and shifted to give me space to fold down.

"Sit," he said.

I lowered myself onto the cushion; the couch exhaled under me. Air tightened. People watching you when you can't watch back is a specific kind of exposure.

"You all sound like you're having fun," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "What's the topic? World domination? House gossip? 'Top Ten Ways To Make Scarlet's Life Impossible'?"

"Already done," Dexter said. "Step one: let Damian breathe."

A low, subterranean growl rumbled somewhere to my left. Draven, yeah. Devon's soft laugh sliced straight through it, weightless and disarming. "Ignore them. You hungry? Thirsty?"

"No." My hands curled in my lap. I tucked my fingers under my thighs so no one would see them shake. "Just… didn't want to be alone."

Silence. Not the pity kind. Worse—the kind where people actually feel what you said.

Something shifted on my right. Weight leaned closer; the cushion dipped. Dexter's breath brushed my ear, warm and faintly metallic with whatever sugar-laced energy drink he lives on. "You really shouldn't wander blind, Princess. Dangerous world out here."

I tilted my head toward him, heat prickling under my skin. "Why? Afraid I'll trip and fall into your arms?"

He hummed. Low. Appreciative. "Not afraid. More like… hoping."

My stomach did the traitorous flip thing. No permission granted. I opened my mouth to shut him down—

"Enough," Draven said.

One word. It pinned the room.

Static jumped in the air between us. When it faded, Devon cleared his throat. Peacemaker move. "Scarlet," he said gently, "you should rest. We've got check-ins in the morning. Faculty review, healer scan." A pause. "Paperwork, probably."

Not catacombs. Not yet.

Relief and dread tangled in my chest.

"Yeah," I whispered. "You're probably right."

I pushed up to stand. That was ambitious. The floor tipped sideways; pain flared along my ribs. My knee buckled—

Arms scooped me off the drop. One under knees, one behind my shoulders. Smooth lift, zero strain on my bruised ribs. Devon.

"Whoa—" The word squeaked out before I strangled it.

"Relax," he murmured. Warm breath at my hairline. He smelled like herbal salve and sunlight. "I've got you."

I should've argued. Made a comment. Bitten him for it. Instead my head dropped to his shoulder like my body had decided we were done pretending strength tonight.

Dexter said something I couldn't track—sounded like "carried again" and "pack bonding"—and Draven made the warning noise he reserves for when he's two seconds from freezing someone's tongue.

Syraen stretched inside my skull, smug. Look at you. Carried like treasure.

Stop, I told her.

Make me, she purred.

I didn't bother answering. Devon's footsteps rocked me into a rhythm: down the short hall, left at the carved wall seam, through warmer air—he'd turned down my room's temperature earlier to help swelling. My cheek pressed against his collarbone. His heartbeat was steady. Mine eventually matched.

The last thing I caught before sleep dragged me under was Dexter calling after us, "If she vanishes, I'm shadow-tracking you, Empath Barbie!"

"I heard that," Devon called back.

"Good," Dexter said.

Cedar heat wrapped around what was left of me. My body shut down. I was gone before the mattress caught my weight.

One thought curled in the dark on its way out:

I wasn't ready for this.

For any of them.

And somehow I was already theirs.

---

Devon's POV

Scarlet was asleep long before I stood. I knew the exact moment—her pulse slowed, her grip on the throw blanket loosened, her jaw unclenched. She'd fought it. Of course she had. People like her don't surrender to unconsciousness easily; they check the exits first.

She'd leaned—without realizing it—against Draven's arm while we talked. Draven didn't move. Didn't shift away. Just let her rest there like anchoring prophecy refugees was something he did every night.

Dexter noticed. His eyes flicked to me, to Draven, to her, then back. Smug. Troubled. Planning. Always planning.

When her fingers twitched in her sleep—a fight reflex—it hit Draven like a physical blow. His jaw jumped. I felt the fragment of guilt slip off him sharp as ice. I let it go. I couldn't carry all of us.

"I'll take her," I said.

Draven didn't argue. That told me more than words. He adjusted his arm; I slid in, an easy scoop lift I've done a hundred times in field triage. Only this one mattered more.

She was lighter than I expected. Fever heat still lingered under the hoodie I'd shoved at her earlier. Her scent—smoke, singed quartz, citrus, copper—cut straight through the chamomile in my own clothes.

She stirred when I lifted. Not waking—surface reaction, body remembering impact. A thin sound pressed through her teeth.

"Easy," I told her, grounding tone, same one I use for kids coming off pain channeling. My magic warmed, instinct flickering to soothe. I didn't push it—it's rude to do emotional override without permission—but I let a little resonance hum out across my chest so she'd have something steady to match.

Dexter made a sound somewhere between a snort and a mutter. "Simp."

I ignored him. Mostly because if I didn't, I'd say something he'd weaponize for the next decade.

We left the den. Wards hummed in the corridor walls—low, healthy. Good. No intrusion. Her head settled against my shoulder; her breath ghosted the base of my throat in uneven puffs. I logged each one. Habit.

Anger slid in behind the steady focus. Not at her. At Damian. At myself. At the stupid academy politics that let a half-blind hybrid spar full-contact in a burnout state.

I swallowed it. Anger bangs around; she didn't need the echo.

My room opened with a mental tap. Cool air. Low lights—magically dimmed when pulse rates under threshold pass through. I lowered her to the bed slow, one hand still behind her neck until her head touched the pillow. She didn't wake. Good.

Blanket up. Shift fabric so nothing pinched the ribs I'd mended earlier. I ran a diagnostic thread just above her skin—no contact—checking inflammation, bone knit, internal bleeding (none active), neural flare (mild). The self-healing we saw in the rink? Still humming. I don't understand it yet. I will.

She murmured something. Not my name. Not any of ours. Too broken to catch.

"Syraen," I guessed quietly. "Or… Drizella."

My stomach tightened. I still hadn't asked. I wasn't sure I wanted the answer. Whatever that name meant made Dexter go sharpened quiet. That never ends well.

I brushed a stray curl back from her forehead. Faint scars patterned her scalp where old wounds had closed wrong and re-healed better. Someone patched her up a lot growing up. Someone without proper heal training. That stuck.

"You're safe," I told her.

It was a lie. No one's safe here. Not with prophecy breathing down our throats and Council eyes on our stats. But sometimes you don't speak truth. You speak what someone needs to sleep.

I straightened. Should've left. Couldn't.

There's a chair in the corner where I sit when patients stay in my room post-fieldwork. I made it three steps toward it. Stopped. Turned back. My hand found the edge of the mattress and stayed.

She shifted, fingers curling lightly like she was reaching. Instinct had me set two fingers in her palm. She closed. Not tight. Just enough.

It burned. Not physically. Something under the sternum, between ribs one and two, where empath resonance roots. I let her hold on.

Behind my ribs, my Fae blood told me bonds don't always ask permission. Sometimes they just happen. Sometimes you build them anyway.

I sat. Kept watch. Counted breaths.