The first guard staggers back to his feet and drives a fist into Declan’s gut. He doubles over with a sharp gasp, knees buckling, and they seize the opening. Three guards pile on, forcing his arms behind his back. Another pair of cuffs clanks shut.
Declan grits his teeth, chest heaving, sand clinging to his sweaty skin. His gaze never wavers from Dav. “Touch her again,” he growls, voice low and ragged, “and that sword won’t be enough to stop me.”
My heart squeezes so hard it hurts, but instead of letting it show I go sharp, biting. “Very knight-in-shining-armor of you. Too bad we’re both handcuffed like criminals.”
Dav smirks and tightens his grip on his blade like he’s hoping for round two.
“Well!” Tarek claps his hands once, the sound loud and absurd in the tension. “What say we all take a breath and not end one another before we reach camp?” He flashes a grin. “Besides, the queens will want their tongues before their blood. A legend risen from the sand? That’s worth more than bodies left to the dunes.”
He steps in and gently relieves the guard of me, looping his arm through mine like we’re heading to a ball, ridiculous as it feels with my hands chained behind my back.
Dav’s groan is deep and long-suffering. “For the love of the sun, Tarek. They defied the Festival of the First Flame. They vanished during their ordained hour. The queens and their court will decide their punishment.”
Tarek winces then gives me a sidelong glance. “The queens will be merciful,” he says like he’s trying to convince us both. “Probably. Maybe.”
The guards shift formation, flanking us with swords drawn but lowered. Declan is kept a few steps ahead, shoulders taut, fury rolling off him in waves under the silver wash of moonlight. Together, cuffed and bound, we’re marched back across the dunes toward the heart of the Kingdom of Wands.
Back to face the queens. Back to face judgment.
Twenty-One
We’re marched through the sand in a silence so loud it feels like its own indictment. Declan and I are a living cautionary tale paraded through the kingdom, and the caravan watches our punishment more closely than it watches a show.
Performers pause. Silks fall slack from fingers. Dancers extinguish their flaming hoops. A drummer’s stick clatters. The music dies, replaced by the sound of our footsteps and the rustle of people retreating.
“Are they—” an apprentice whispers under her breath.
“Shh,” a nearby performer snaps.
One by one tents close like eyelids. People flatten into shadow as if proximity alone could make them complicit.
I turn toward Tarek for answers, but he won’t meet my eyes. He shakes his head once, almost imperceptibly, and stares down at his feet.
My heart pounds hard enough that I feel it in my throat. The guards keep moving forward, their gripfirm, their pace unchanged as they drag us toward the stage.
It looms in the torchlight. The same one we’ve stood on night after night, smiling through smoke, playing our parts. I expect to be taken there again, have the kingdom called to bear witness. Bend the knee to the queens and put on a public show of repentance that feeds the court’s appetite for spectacle and lets the kingdom forget its truth.
At least, I hope that’s the worst of it.
“Please, Tarek, what will they make us do?” I ask.
He continues to avoid my gaze as he answers, “The queens and their court, they shall—”
“Hold your tongue, Tarek, lest a blade teach you how swiftly silence comes.” Dav’s hand drifts to the sword at his hip, the message clear.
At the center of the crescent-shaped dais with its dark stone polished to a mirror sheen, its edges etched with gleaming flames, the queens sit like statues against a backdrop of firelight. Solara in white and gold and Zephara in burnt orange with flames painted on her forehead and across the bridge of her nose to frame her eyes. Their court fans out around them, the elders of the Great Families that took control of the kingdom and extinguished its flame long, long ago. Each is draped in robes the color of fire and ash—scarlet, marigold, coal black—every hem lined in jewels, every collar sculpted high and sharp like rising tongues of flame. Their faces are painted or powdered or masked, and they sit bloated with authority, content to watch, to judge.
I see it now. This place is a mockery of the Tower. All the familiar shapes are here—the columns, the ringof flame overhead that mimics the sunlight, a stage at the center where the altar should be—but there’s no heart. Whoever built this knew exactly what they were doing. They took the Tower’s bones and dressed them up as spectacle, swapping living ritual for a neat display case. The Tower breathed. It burned. It healed. It held space for truth without demanding performance.
Here, truth is edited and repackaged and placed on display by those who profit from deciding which stories count. History is rewritten into tiny, digestible versions of events taught to children so subjugation feels natural and questions feel like trouble. Outrage is entertainment, dissent a plot point to be managed. These queens and their “Great Families” can keep the pageantry and the platform, they can vet the versions of reality that suit their power—but the truth has heat, and sooner or later it will burn through the hypocrisy.
“Kneel,” Dav orders as the guards shove us forward.
Spectators funnel in, taking their seats to see how our story will end.
Declan and I go to our knees on the stage. I brace myself and try not to flinch as one of the nameless guards steps forward and releases the metal cuffs around my wrists and then does the same for Declan.
Queen Solara sits with her chin balanced on her ringed fingers. Her posture is perfect—still, straight, sovereign. Her gaze is fixed and unreadable and as dark as the stone around us. Her braids are twisted into a crown that rises from her head like a ring of flames.
