Chapter 21 #2
It shrinks me until everything inside gets tight. The same tangled knot of anxiety I feel after launching a new class that flops, or a polished post on socials that gets three likes and one spam comment. All the rehearsing, the risk, the parts of me I lay bare reduced to someone else’s amusement.
Declan grabs for my arm in a quick, possessive tug. “Kneel.” His whisper is urgent. “Don’t give them anything.”
I draw in a breath and steady myself before turning and leveling my gaze on him.
“They’re going to decide our fate, and if we don’t speak up, we’ll never get the chance,” I say low enough for only him to hear beneath the laughter.
“At the very least, I want to be able to tell the truth before…” I shake my head.
I can’t bring myself to say it. “The people deserve to know what’s out there.
They deserve to know what’s happening to their kingdom.
It’s the only chance they have to save the Everspring and themselves. ”
Declan’s hand hovers, caught between the impulse to pull me down and the urge to stand with me. Then he rises. Warmth floods my chest. I am so full, I can’t hide my grin. He meets my smile with a light in his eyes that feels dangerously close to hope.
It’s almost enough. Almost. Then his admission, the fact that I am market research, slices back into me. The grin curdles, and I let it fall away.
He reaches for me, sensing my retreat, but I don’t take his hand. Instead, I fold mine into fists and clear my throat.
“We saw something in the dunes.” I try to speak over the laughter, but my voice is just another sound amid the chorus of jeers.
There’s movement behind me, then the boom of two men’s voices colliding.
Laughter dies. The crowd goes silent as every pair of eyes angles toward the two guards. Tarek jerks away from Dav, who drops his hand to his hip. Dav’s scabbard sings a long, metallic note as steel slides free.
Tarek plants both feet, wood creaking beneath his boots, and squares his shoulders. “I will speak on their behalf. Cut me down if you must, but I will not stand silent while the truth is snuffed out.”
Dav levels the blade so the tip catches the torchlight, a thin, lethal star. “You do not know what you are doing, Tarek,” he spits. “Soft-bellied, soft-minded…enchanted by the witch’s tricks.”
Tarek’s hand moves to his sword, fingers closing on the hilt, but he does not draw. “Better to be soft and true to the oath I swore—to protect the people—than to be hard and bought by coin and theater. My duty is to Wands, not to gilded pockets.”
He pivots and lifts his chin toward the audience, toward his queens and their court. “The Story Witch speaks the truth. They did not abandon the festival. They were drawn—pulled—by an idea long thought dead but now resurrected out in the dunes.”
Zephara’s body snaps forward like a whip, painted flames along her temples shimmering under the firelight.
“And we are to believe you, guard?” she hisses, and her fingers flex against the carved arm of her throne.
“Your compatriot is willing to slit throats for a good show. What makes your tale more exciting than his?”
Tarek’s eyes harden. “Does truth need a richer voice to make it credible? Or do we listen to whoever suits the court’s appetite?
” His stare flicks to Dav and then out over the rows of faces.
“If we will not protect what’s real because it hurts the story, then we are not guardians. We are actors in a lie.”
Solara raises her hand, and Zephara settles back in her throne. “Story Witch,” she calls, “what did you find?”
The Tower’s magick thrums beneath my ribs, and my voice rides that current, lifting my words until they land like thunder. “We found the Tower.”
A slow exchange of looks threads through the dais. At first, I think they’re astonished. Then I follow the way their gazes slide to one another, and the nuance of those looks, the pinched mouths and clenched fists, has me tumbling toward another conclusion.
Solara’s smile is small and careful. “Story Witch, you are mistaken. The Tower is legend.”
“The sand caved in, and columns rose from the dunes. We were inside the Tower. We saw the altar. The Tower showed us visions—the way things were before your families rose to power.”
The Player steps in like a director, waving her arms. “Blasphemy!” she cries. “She speaks of flames that have not burned in the memory of this court.”
“Go out past the Everspring,” I snap back. “You’ll find columns bigger than these rising from the sand. This stage, this whole amphitheater is a cruel imitation of the real place. A place that wasn’t built to worship performance.”
A tremor runs through the court as the crowd begins to murmur, soft and uncertain.
Declan squares his shoulders and calls out, “The Everspring is dying. One day, it will be gone for good. This land used to be a part of it. Has anyone asked why it’s failing or who profits from the inaction of letting it fade away?”
That line loosens something within the court. Expressions go tight. A man in an embroidered collar leans close to his neighbor. A woman with rouge-covered cheeks lifts an eyebrow and shows a smile that’s all teeth. Like dry brush catching flame, the accusations begin.
“They wish to see the return of the old ways.”
Another voice from the court cuts through the murmuring crowd, breathless and high-pitched. “An age without rulers? Anarchy!”
“This is Cups’ doing,” someone hisses. “A plot to see Wands drowned.”
The rhetoric swells fast, fear breeding fury, a fever spreading from mouth to mouth.
The sisters fall suddenly silent. Their faces drain to the pale of old bone, lips thinning. The stillness feels practiced, and my skin tightens with understanding: They know. Every person on that dais knows the truth.
My anger burns hot and bright. They are choosing power over the very lives of future generations.
Solara looks to the Player, who claps her hands.
“Let us not lose the plot,” she says, quieting the murmur.
“This is not a scholarly inquiry into legend. This is a question of betrayal brought before our queens. Our great, wise monarchs and their court will not fall victim to a tale told by the Story Witch. Is this not what she does?”
The murmurs settle into relieved exhales as the crowd buys what’s being sold. The Player’s job is to shape the audience, cue emotion, time the reveal, and hand the crowd exactly what will push them to the queens’ desired outcome. It’s clear how she’s kept her place beside the monarchs.
“Do you, people of Wands, believe we should take the word of this traveling conjurer?”
The answer comes in a roar of jeers and boos crashing like waves. The noise hits me so hard I gasp and clamp my hand around Declan’s.
Taking her cue from the audience, Queen Solara rises once more. “We have our verdict. Bring forth the pyre.”