Chapter 11 #2
Romy’s freckled cheeks flush pink as she leans closer, eyes bright. “And the way you speak. I want to learn of that too. Being from Cups, you and Mr. Thorne sound differently than we do here in Wands, and you use such curious words.”
Heat prickles along my neck, and I let out a strangled laugh. “Sure, I can teach you some words.”
Nessa seizes Romy’s hand, then snags Celine’s, tugging them into a chain. She and Romy squeal in unison, bouncing up and down. Celine rolls her eyes and lifts her limp arm in solidarity and mutters an unconvincing, “Huzzah.”
Their laughter bubbles over the stall like soda foam, until Nessa blurts, “When can we start? Now? Tonight? How many lessons will it take? Every day, perhaps?”
I bite my lip, stalling. “I’m not sure how long we’ll even be in town—”
“The market’s closing,” Nessa insists, already gesturing around us. “The timing is wonderful.”
I glance around. Vendors are shuttering stalls, loading up crates, folding bolts of cloth. Across the sand, Declan and Tarek are helping a woman wrestle massive rugs into rolls, both of them sending up clouds of dust with every move.
“I don’t know…” I hesitate.
That’s all the opening they need. Nessa leans forward, pleading. Romy clasps her hands like she’s praying at an altar. Even Celine, halfhearted though the motion is, tilts her head and tosses her braid as their chorus of begging rises up.
“Okay,” I say, a little breathless. “Let’s do it.”
***
I pluck an orange tasseled cushion from a nearby stall and settle down on it in front of my teenage audience. Nessa, Romy, Celine, plus a handful of other curious girls, crowd in close, skirts pooling around them in a kaleidoscope of silks and beads.
At the very back, Dav looms like a human exclamation point, arms crossed, jaw hard, sword gleaming at his hip.
Tarek, in contrast, plops down at the end of the front row with all the enthusiasm of a puppy.
Declan sinks onto the rug beside him as Fennel joins and Cinder curls into a smoky comma against his flank.
The donkey stares at me adoringly, and I can’t help but smile at him.
“Welcome everyone,” I begin, voice wobbling before I catch it and push the sound into theater-kid projection. “I am so pleased you enjoyed our performance. I hope you also enjoy this lesson.”
The girls clap and squeal. Tarek whoops loud enough to make Cinder flinch.
“First,” I say, lifting a finger like a professor, “affirmations. They’re not spells so much as reminders. We repeat them to align our energy with what we want and how we want to be seen by the people around us.”
“Like scales for the voice,” Nessa offers eagerly, her bracelets chiming as she jots down notes on parchment.
“Exactly.” I snap my fingers, seizing the metaphor. “Except instead of do-re-mi, it’s I am worthy.”
I stand and pace in front of them like I’m leading a seminar at some chic Manhattan coworking space instead of a patch of desert sand.
“Okay. First rule of affirmations: no hedging. No I hope, no maybe, no someday.” I sweep my hand in a decisive little chop.
“The universe is not your flaky boyfriend. It doesn’t respond to wishy-washy.
You have to talk to it like it’s already listening. ”
Nessa leans forward, eyes shining. Romy scribbles furiously on her paper. Even Celine tilts her chin, pretending not to care while clearly taking notes when she thinks no one is looking.
“Second,” I say, “it has to be present tense. Not I will be brave. I am brave. You perform without fear. You command the stage and captivate the crowd. Speak as though it’s already happening.”
Nessa looks up at me like I have all the answers, like every word coming out of my mouth is sacred text.
And maybe I actually am helping. Someone like this, like me, would’ve helped me when I was younger.
If someone had told that girl she could change her life just by changing her language, by scripting a better story and wrapping herself in intention until she believed she was untouchable…
Maybe she wouldn’t have felt so invisible.
So unchosen. So small in rooms where no one cared to see her.
Maybe she wouldn’t have handed herself over to every boy who noticed her.
My chest warms, my spine straightens, and for once in this sand-scorched circus I don’t feel lost. I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
“Now, once you’ve written it, you speak it. Say it like you’d bet your life on it. That’s how you align your energy.”
Romy bites her lip, nodding so fast her curls bounce.
I sweep my hand like I’m conducting an orchestra. “Go on. Get to crafting your affirmation.”
For five minutes, the empty market fills with the scratch of writing and murmured affirmations.
Nessa mouths her words over and over, adjusting her phrasing until her lips form a triumphant grin.
Romy keeps scratching lines out and rewriting, her curls bouncing with every shake of her head.
Celine sighs like this is beneath her, but her hand moves steadily across the page anyway.
I float among the girls, dropping encouragement: “Yes, that! Say it louder.” “Good but make it more you. Less apologetic.” “Perfect. Own it.”
“Is it time to speak them aloud?” Nessa asks.
“Yes, whenever you’re ready.”
She straightens her back, rolls her shoulders like she’s stepping onto a stage, and declares, clear and sure, “I am worthy of being seen.”
“I am chosen,” Romy says, chin tugged higher by invisible thread.
“I perform without fear,” another girl murmurs, fingers clutching her parchment.
“I am a glorious warrior!” Tarek bellows, pounding his chest for emphasis.
From the back of the class, Dav throws up his hands and mutters something unfit for young ladies’ ears.
Declan laughs, claps Tarek on the back, and says, “Yeah you are, buddy.”
We move from affirmations to scripting, where I teach them how to describe what they want out of life so they can work on manifesting that reality.
Before I know it, an hour has passed. The class winds down in a flurry of parchment scraps, charcoal dust, and squealing voices.
The girls compare lines, trade compliments, and recite drafted manifestation scripts to each other with the urgency of people convinced they’ve just discovered the secrets of the universe.
I bask in it. In them. Their energy is giddy, golden, infectious. They hang on every word I say, their eyes wide as if I’m Prometheus and have handed them fire. I’m so damn proud of myself and of them I could burst.
I wave as the last cluster of girls drifts away from the market square, their laughter trailing behind them like ribbons. Nessa lingers, shifting from foot to foot, her bangles clinking softly in the quiet.
“Is everything all right, Nessa?”
“You’ve already taught me more than I dared hope for,” she says quickly.
“But…?” I prompt.
She lifts her chin. “But I think I want more than some of the others.”
My brows rise. “More?”
“I want to be part of the queens’ court,” she says, the words tumbling out in a rush.
“I can feel I’m meant for it. Perhaps I could even stand where the Player does now.
Or make a place of my own beside the queens.
” Her crystalline blue eyes gleam, already seeing herself on that smoke-wreathed dais.
“Can what you’re teaching me lead there? ”
I draw in a slow breath. “How do the queens choose their court? Tarek told me a little, but it’s different from anything I’m used to.”
Nessa nods. “Oh, yes. Each kingdom within Towerfall is quite different from the next. Here, there are seasons when petitions are heard—solstices, equinoxes. The Player sponsors performers. The guards sponsor those fit to rise within their ranks. The queens themselves sometimes choose from the floor, though rarely. Still…” Her voice tightens, determination lacing every word.
“They cannot pass me by if I am exactly what they seek.”
She reminds me of me at sixteen—desperate for more, for someone to see me, to choose me.
Back then, I believed if I could just be perfect enough, pretty enough, quiet enough, accommodating enough, someone would finally decide I was worth keeping.
I wish I had my rose quartz palm stone now, something cool and smooth to press against my heart, to remind me that these roiling feelings clawing their way up are just energy that needs redirecting.
That I can alchemize ache into purpose if I just breathe and believe hard enough.
“If I am perfect,” she continues, “they will have no choice but to choose me.”
Perfect. That cursed word. The one that drove me to crash diets and spending money I didn’t have. The word that dangled a carrot in front of me my whole life and left me starving for approval.
“There was a business course I took that called it ‘building a pillar,’” I tell her, smoothing confidence over my voice. “With your goal, your pillar would be one bold transformation that no one can ignore. What’s your work-in-progress?”
“I’ve been working with the fire dancers.
Not simply twirling torches or juggling flames—that’s child’s play.
I’m learning to take the flame into myself.
To eat it.” She lifts onto her toes. “If I can swallow fire and breathe it back out for the queens, they’ll see I’m not like the rest. They’ll see I’m fearless.
And fearlessness is surely needed amongst their court. ”
“Good,” I say. “But great is a piece that scares you a little. That’s when you know it really hits.”
Nessa’s hands tremble. “Very well,” she murmurs more to herself than to me. “Then I shall make it so.”
“That’s right you will.”
Nessa beams, cheeks flushed, before dashing off to catch up to her friends.
Across the square, Declan and Tarek are talking, their laughter low and easy. I brush sand off the cushion I borrowed, tuck it under my arm, and start toward the stall.
Dav’s shadow falls over me, and I groan. “I’m putting it back.” I hold out the cushion as evidence as I turn to face him. “I’m not stealing it.”
He folds his arms, his thick forearms crossing like stacked logs. “Boldness is admirable. Recklessness is not.”
“I didn’t tell her to be reckless,” I shoot back, clutching the cushion tighter.
“I am aware.”
Declan breaks from Tarek, striding toward us. His shoulders are squared, his dark eyes sharp with intent, and something low in my stomach flutters. He’s ready to throw a punch. Again. For me.
The thought makes me queasy and hot all at once. It’s brutish and gross and infuriating and, Lord help me, so fucking sexy.
Dav doesn’t notice Declan, or pretends not to, his gaze pinning me to the spot. “Until your next performance, you will keep to your tent unless escorted.”
“Because, despite everything, you still believe I’m a spy?”
His stare is granite. “Because you are a variable.”
Tarek lets out a snort that doesn’t lighten the tension. “He means you make things happen.”
“No,” Dav corrects, his eyes never leaving mine. “I mean she makes things change.”
A chill snakes under my skin despite the desert heat. My instinct is to flinch, but I square my shoulders instead. “I thought this kingdom liked spectacle.”
“It does…” Tarek says carefully.
“Until it doesn’t.” Dav doesn’t miss a beat. He turns on his heel and stalks off.
Tarek gives me a quick, apologetic shrug before jogging after him and motioning for us to follow.
“Whatever he said isn’t worth listening to.” Declan bends to pick up Cinder. “He’s pissed he can’t prove we’re spies.”
Fennel noses insistently at my hip. Without thinking, I dig into my pocket and slip him a carrot stub I took from the stall.
“Yeah, thanks.”
But my gaze lingers on Dav’s back, his words hanging in the air like smoke. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire, waiting for the chance to burn everything down.