Chapter 18 #2
Through the flicker, I see Declan lean closer, pulled toward the flame. “How does something like this turn to sand?”
As if in answer, heat flushes over my skin, threads through my blood, and everything narrows to a single pull.
To the flame. My fingers tingle, then glow with a light that isn’t mine.
A thread of smoke reaches from my palm to the flames.
Without thinking I move, following the smoke to the vision of what once was.
I reach for the nearest slender flame—an instinct to touch what feels like truth—and heat bites my fingertips.
The pain is fierce and instant. I snatch my hand back.
My touch ripples through the flames and, impossibly, opens the picture wider.
The flames carry us forward, winding through the caravan of the past. Children dart between the tents, waving palm fronds drawn in whiplike curls of flame.
The murmur of voices ripples through the air.
Two women sit together, passing a steaming platter between them.
A woman holds a cup to a child’s lips. A group of men roar with laughter, and one of them lifts a cloth to wipe his grinning face.
There are no rehearsals, no performances, no roaming guards.
Just life, simple and sacred, shaped from heat and memory.
The flames press onward, guiding us toward the center of camp, where the stage stands now. But here—in this memory of the past—there’s only the Tower.
A fire burns in the center of the altar, and gathered around it is a ring of flickering figures. They sit close, shoulder to shoulder, knees tucked beneath them. Smoke rises in glowing coils, curling through the space. The scents of cedar and cinnamon wind through the air.
Although I’m not a part of this vision, the flames pull me so close it feels like I am.
A woman leans forward in the firelight, her outline wavering. Her voice comes with the crackle of coals. “My husband left with the last full moon,” she says, thin and frayed. “He spoke no farewell. Walked beyond the reach of the kingdom and…never returned.”
She draws a steadying breath without looking away from the vision’s sacred flame. “Still, I set two places at my table.”
Her words fall into the altar fire like an offering.
The flames before her jump. Sparks lift and spin.
She holds out her hands, and one by one they drift down and settle on her outstretched palms. Her lips part on a sound that is half gasp, half laugh, and when she smiles it’s small and stunned and somehow whole.
Beside her a man’s outline bends forward, his figure rendered in a long, loping ribbon of orange light.
“When my brother took ill,” he says without looking up, “I bade him speak to the sun. Told him faith would mend what flesh could not. Belief alone would carry him through.” He pauses, and his eyes burn like lit coals.
“When he died, I told the others the wheel had turned as it must. I told myself to keep away from the Tower, that I did not belong. But the truth is, I fear it. I fear I do not deserve its mercy.”
He drags a fiery hand across his face. The motion doesn’t erase the tears of flame that fall in the heat.
The circle leans in, holding him with their silence, their presence and peace.
“I gave my brother hope. Sent him to the grave with promises I knew I could not keep. If I stay in the hurt, perhaps I can pay for the harm I caused him.”
The offering bowl before him stirs. A burst of sparks surges from the flames within.
A burst of bright golden motes that lift like fireflies.
One arcs toward him, and he lifts his hand as if catching a snowflake.
The spark settles into his palm. Grief shakes his shoulders as he presses it to his chest.
He inhales, and his spine straightens, eyes wide with a look caught between joy and wonder. A long, shaking exhale leaks out of him, and the sound carries the words like an offering: “Thank you.”
The man looks unmade and rebuilt at once. Whatever had been broken stitched back together by the Tower’s light.
One after another, the stories continue. People bare their truths. Some speak softly, their voices thin as thread. Others shout, raw and shaking. And each time, the Tower responds. Its flames consume their confessions and return light in exchange. A quiet kind of healing.
A deep ache breaks open and spreads through my chest as I watch them.
This Tower, this circle, this truth is what healing is meant to be.
Real and messy and unpolished. Spoken aloud with cracked voices and red-rimmed eyes.
People shaped by grief and guilt and the desperate hope that they are deserving of grace after the truth is known.
I’ve spoken so many words about healing, but I’ve never done this: Been soul searingly honest. Let myself burn. Trusted I’d still be whole on the other side.
I wrap my arms around myself, fingertips digging into my sides, trying to hold the ache in place.
I’m glad Declan’s gaze is fixed on the memory playing out in flames. Glad there’s a wall of heat and smoke between us. If he looked at me right now, I don’t know if I could hold myself together.
Flaming grains of sand overtake the image—piece by piece at first, then in great, flaming gusts. They devour the oasis, stripping away the trees, the orchards, filling the rivers and canals. The ring of honest confessions fades like smoke on the wind, swallowed by the rising hiss of dust and heat.
What remains is a husk of what came before. A barren encampment bleached by sun and silence.
This burnt-out echo is the present. The kingdom we fell into.
Guards march through the camp in rigid lines, their armor sculpted from flame.
Villagers drift between tents—flickering shapes caught in the firelight—but something is off.
Their joy is too bright. Their smiles too wide.
They move like dancers performing steps they don’t dare stop.
Costumes shimmer into place. Silk spills down their limbs in ripples of flames.
Flaming jewels burn along their cheeks like frozen tears.
The vision shifts again.
The stage takes its place as Wands’ new heart, rising from the sand like a crown. On it, performers bow and twirl, movements perfect, rehearsed to each breath. They dance instead of speak. They spit fire instead of share truth.
Pain becomes performance. Confession becomes monologue. Applause replaces connection. And behind every perfect bow and beaming grin—they are silently breaking.
It’s in the tightness of their shoulders. In the tremble of their hands before they clap. In the flicker of panic in their eyes as they scan the shadows, hoping no one saw the moment their mask slipped.
In a kingdom built on performance, silence is safer than truth.
The flames flicker and morph as the next vision rises, conjured in coils of orange and gold.
My heart lurches in my chest, and I suck in a breath. “It’s me.”
The fire draws me in arcs of light—shifting, flickering, uncomfortably precise. She lifts her arms and lights candles, arranges crystals and herbs with meticulous care. Each movement is smooth and practiced.
Her head tilts.
She smiles. A carefully measured upturn of her lips, perfectly angled toward the glowing outline of her phone.
“I invite you to breathe. To trust the process. To be gentle with yourself.” Her voice, my voice, flows out in streams of fire and smoke, slow and honeyed.
Overly rehearsed. “And, of course, you must remember that healing is a journey, not a destination. Be kind to yourself as you go down this path.”
But I know the truth.
She hasn’t been kind to herself in years. This woman doesn’t know the meaning of healing.
She posts. The caption glows. It’s soft and lyrical and clean. I want to think this version of me mirrored in flame believes what she’s writing, but I know better.
The fire shifts, and the performance sloughs off like melting wax.
I watch her fold in on herself. The fire turns to smoke around her, and the only glow is the one from the screen in her hands.
She scrolls. Scrolls. Scrolls.
Searching for validation. Proof from others that she matters.
I know that she believes if she just keeps looking, the ache won’t catch up.
The image moves again. And there she is. There I am. She is a figure of motionless grief at a kitchen table made for two but with a single chair. She’s bent over a glowing screen, face caught in the silent scream of editing.
And then she breaks.
Flames erupt as she slams her fists against the table. The fire surges with her, violent and white-hot, reacting to her pain like it’s its own.
Her voice erupts from the flames, raw and ragged and undeniably mine. “Not good enough. Not good enough. You are not enough.”
The words tear through me. Hot tears sting my eyes as I press both hands to my heart like I can guard myself from them. Like they haven’t already carved themselves into the softest parts of me. The ache in my chest rises until I’m choking on it, until I want to turn away. But I can’t. I won’t.
This is me. This is what I’ve hidden from everyone. Even myself.
The flames ease, and in the center of the fire, she starts again.
She rebuilds the smile. Reapplies the mask. Smooths her clothes. Lifts her chin. Again and again.
Each time it takes longer.
Each time it costs more.
The burning light behind her eyes fades with every reset.
And still, she keeps going. Because she believes—because I believe—that if I let go even for a moment, if I breathe too deeply, if I let the pain rise, let the truth spill that the personality I’ve created, the version of myself I’ve pretended is real might collapse.
And who will I be without it?
So she keeps performing the part. I keep performing the part, hoping that eventually I’ll become it.
But I haven’t.
And witnessing her try—witnessing me try—is the most painful thing I’ve ever seen.
The Tower knows, and its fire draws that collapse too.