Chapter 16 #3
The ground crunches beneath our feet as we sprint through the camp, following the trail of scorched earth left in Fortune’s wake. Its embers glow faintly beneath the moonlight, charred footprints seared into the sand like a brand.
We weave around frozen fire dancers locked mid-spin and jugglers with their flaming torches suspended in fiery arcs.
A woman lurches toward a dropped tray of honeyed figs, the glistening fruit caught in the air like falling stars.
Ahead, heat curls into a shimmer where Fortune walks like a dream barely tethered to earth.
I don’t stop chasing, and Declan doesn’t let go.
But it’s not enough.
We reach the edge of camp just as she blurs into the dunes, her figure warping in the rising heat.
And then she’s gone again.
I slam to a halt, breath coming hard and uneven. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Declan sucks in a breath and scans the horizon, free hand braced on his hip. “Did she just—”
“Disappear? Yes.” I stalk forward, crumpling the scroll in my fist. “Because apparently two people trapped in a whole other dimension doesn’t warrant a proper conversation.”
Declan exhales slowly. “This probably doesn’t help, but I don’t think she’s ignoring you on purpose.”
“You’re right. That’s not at all helpful.
” With a groan, I let my head fall back.
“What do I have to do? What am I missing? I’ve played along.
I’ve said the words. I’ve lit the candles.
I’ve been patient and polite and open to signs and metaphors.
I’ve tried to be a teacher and a mentor, and all it got me was—”
The thought spikes sharp in my chest. I suck in a breath, shoving it down. I can’t go back there. Not to Nessa. Not if I want any hope of moving forward and fixing what I’ve broken.
“I’ve done everything I’m supposed to!” My voice rises with every word, until I’m screaming at the endless dunes. “And you still can’t manage to have a real fucking conversation?”
The desert stays quiet, frozen.
“Help me!” The plea rips from me like a wound torn open. A cry not just for rescue, but for acknowledgment.
The air shivers and swells with the scents of smoke and ozone. The ground pulses beneath my feet. Heat blooms, heavy and sudden, curling around me like steam.
Fortune steps from the shimmer where she vanished, her silhouette pulsing gold at the edges, her eyes flickering like twin torches.
Declan angles himself in front of me, a shield of quiet strength. His shoulders are squared, tense, ready to fight if he has to. Ready to protect me, even from something he doesn’t understand.
I press my free hand to his chest.
He doesn’t move. But he doesn’t stop me when I step closer.
“I need help,” I tell her. “That’s why you keep reappearing, right? That’s what you do. You help.”
Fortune tilts her head. The copper strands in her hair click together like bones.
“So help me now.”
“I did not bring you here.” Her voice crackles like wind through embers. “The Tower brought you to this realm. And when you are ready, you will heal it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. What does that even mean?
” I shake my head, panic rising like smoke.
“There’s real magick here. I’ve tried to use it to get us home, to help…
” I shake my head. “It keeps blowing up in my face. Literally. I just want to reopen the portal that brought us here. I want to fix what I broke, here and back there. I want to get us home.”
“I’ve worn that look before.” Fortune tilts her head and takes one slow step forward. “When you are ready—”
“I heard you.” The words slice out of me. “But I’m not ready. Not for what you’re talking about. I can’t heal this place.” My fingers squeeze tighter around Declan’s. “I don’t even know how to heal myself.”
Fortune’s gaze shifts to my injured hand, still red and tender from the spell that backfired.
Before I can pull away, she reaches out and gently cradles my hand in both of hers. Her touch is searing. I suck in a sharp breath, shoulders jerking as Declan tenses.
“I was once the balm on the blistered seams of our kingdom. You will be again.” Her jeweled thumb glides over the reddened skin, and the pain in my hand vanishes. My skin cools beneath her touch, the angry flush fading as if it had never been there at all.
She looks at me then. Into me. Every secret, every splinter, every carefully constructed layer I’ve ever used to hold myself together.
“The Kingdom of Wands was forged in sacred flame. Its fires once stripped away illusion, burning for truth—for what was real, and only that.” Her gaze sharpens, her eyes like twin flares.
“Now their flames dance for spectacle. They leap not to cleanse but to please.
Monarchs emerged and have bartered authenticity for applause and meaning for the polish of performance.
“Do you not see?” she murmurs, voice low and searing. “Is it so cloaked in prettiness and hidden beneath spell and spectacle that you do not remember? You have chased signs when the answer lives in your blood.”
I swallow hard, throat tight. Her words thrum in my chest, pressing against my ribs, against the walls I’ve built to prop myself up.
Fortune is speaking to every moment I performed instead of listened. Every time I embodied the look of empowerment instead of learning to do the work to achieve it.
My fingers curl around the scroll crumpled in my hand. The paper is soft with age, singed at the edges like it barely survived whatever truth it carries.
“I don’t know how to fix any of it,” I whisper. Shame grows hot in my chest, presses against the backs of my eyes. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Her gaze drops to the parchment. “That was written in the days when flame bowed to truth.”
I glance down at the smeared ink of the poem, the spell that made the torches leap and the world tilt. The one that didn’t feel like performance. That felt like me.
“It was never meant for spectacle,” Fortune continues, her voice the dull roar of a bonfire. “It was meant to reveal. To remind. To rend the veil between what is true and what is merely…pleasing.”
She looks at me again, and in her eyes, the flames dance wild and ferocious. “You have already done it. You’re the echo and the origin, but you cannot burn for that by which you are unwilling to be consumed.”
Like smoke curling into the sky, she begins to vanish. Her body flickers at the edges, the outline of her softening, rippling like heat rising from pavement.
“No.” It escapes me rough and ragged. Then louder: “No!”
Declan’s fingers slip from mine as I lunge.
“Don’t go! Don’t leave me with these riddles.” I charge into the shimmer. Each step forward feels like moving through oil as her figure continues to blur, melting like wax into the night.
I reach out and catch the edge of her robe—hot silk that unravels in my hand. Ash spills through my fingers, but in that final flash of contact, voices come. They’re soft and layered, echoing over each other.
…the wheel turns…
…for the real…
…the willing…
…truth must be chosen…
…and the self…
…unmade…
The heat fades. The shimmer dissolves. The scorched ground beneath my feet returns to sand as the night settles back into its former shape.