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.”
Twenty-Two
They wheel out the pyre like a parade float, its weight groaning on iron wheels that squeal against the wooden planks. A team of guards strains at the ropes. “Heave! Pull!” they shout, shoulders bowed, boots skidding as they drag the monstrosity onto the stage.
The pyre rises in a pyramid of thick wooden beams stacked and bound tight, the gaps stuffed with bundles of herbs meant to catch fast and burn sweet. The scents roll over me even before the fire touches it—rosemary, cinnamon bark, something bitter and leaf green underneath that coats the back of my throat like bile.
This was always the ending they wanted—our ashes carried off on desert winds.
Zephara leaps to her feet, clapping and jumping up and down like a schoolgirl, her painted flames shimmering in the torchlight. “A pyre at last!”
Solara approaches the edge of the dais, chin liftedhigh. “These flames shall entertain the kingdom, and in their rising smoke, order shall be restored.”
Declan squeezes my hand, and my gaze finds his. His eyes are midnight-black, pulling me in with an intensity that feels like the only real thing in this nightmare of fire and spectacle. This kingdom, the crowd, the scent of herbs, the groan of the wheels, all of it is staged and hollow, but his gaze holds me steady, an anchor in the storm.
His mouth forms the shapes of words, but the sound never reaches me. The lumbering thud of my pulse drowns him out, matched beat for beat by the creak and protest of the pyre’s old iron wheels.
The Player, arms wide, drinks in the crowd’s roar and smiles. She plucks a torch from its holder, and the firelight catches the red slash of paint across her face. Her beaded necklace sways as she moves—a metronome ticking down the last minutes of my life.
“Take them to the pyre!” she shouts above another wave of cheers and applause.
Tarek jerks forward with a shout. “You must not see this through!”
The reaction is immediate. His fellow guards are on him, their hands clamping around his shoulders. Tarek thrashes like a man possessed.
“They do not deserve this! They have not lied! Go out into the dunes. See for yourself!” His words ride above the roar of the crowd.
Tarek slams his heels down as he moves forward, dragging the men who hold him and nearly breaking free. More guards swarm him, locking his arms, forcing him down.
“Traitor,” Dav snarls, stepping in close, blade flashing as he presses it to Tarek’s throat. “Do not make me add you to the fire. There would be no pleasure in watching you burn.”
Guards descend upon Declan and me, grabbing each of us and forcing us to the pyramid of wood. Declan’s grip tightens in a final, desperate squeeze before they pry our clasped fingers apart and wrench him away.
This is it.
We’re going to die.
It’s embarrassingly ordinary, the way my chest folds in on itself—an old, familiar collapse I’ve rehearsed so many times it feels like muscle memory. I’ve lived here before, in this suffocating corner where hope shrivels and self-pity takes root. Every failure, every betrayal, every door slammed in my face always seems to end with me curled around the ache, whispering that this is what I deserve. I am too much, not enough, too loud, too quiet. Always the problem, always the punchline. I can summon a thousand reasons why the universe delights in watching me break, and I cradle them like proof that my suffering is earned.
The universe has never been on my side. That isn’t news. What stings now is that I let myself forget it. The burning brilliance of my own naivete blocked out the shadows and let me believe that maybe I was finally on the cusp of change. That maybethis oncethe wheel would turn in my favor. When we first landed here, I should’ve just gone limp, rolled over, played dead, let the Kingdom of Wands take what it wanted. Every act of resistance since has been nothing more than stalling, a doomed performance delaying the inevitable.
The pyre’s shadow stretches like a beast across the stage, long-limbed and ravenous. Hands clamp down on my arms, bruising in their certainty, and I’m shoved forward so hard my knees slam against the beams. Splinters catch in my palms as they force me to climb onto the wood.
Every staggered step feels less like moving and more like surrender. Just as the last shred of fight drains from my body, the world itself starts to slow.
The air changes. Everything around me gives way to that placid, syrupy hush—the telltale sign Fortune is near. Sound lengthens into vibrating ribbons, motion smears like wet paint. The guards’ rough pushes move forward in frames rather than smooth assaults. The Player’s laugh hangs in the air, broken into bubbles of sound.
Fortune’s magick sparks in my chest. This is her. It has to be. She’s bending time, freezing it, swooping in to save us at the last possible second.
