On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig [best books to read for success .txt] 📗

cluster behind Ayla, as though she is a shield, and I wonder how many of them she had welcomed—how many she had tried to protect with her poise and a well-placed word. Now, with the door shut against outsiders, she pushes back the hood of her cloak and draws something from the pocket. It is the letter I had sent, still folded.

“Show them,” Ayla says to me. “Show them what you showed me.”

I look at my audience, their expectant faces. Chakran faces. There is no scrim between us, nothing to hide behind—no way to pretend that my power is anything but what it is. So I take a deep breath and glance back at Ayla, at the letter on her palm. “Up,” I say to the soul inside. The paper wings stir as the note takes wing, fluttering toward the coffered ceilings.

The audience gasps. Candlelight gleams in their eyes as they watch the note circle the chandeliers. Is that fear or awe on their faces? After two passes through the lobby, I send the letter toward the door of the theater. As it swoops down the aisle toward the stage, a few people break into a run to follow it. Laughing, I lead them on a chase up the other aisle. When the letter comes soaring back through the opposite door, I send it up once more toward the closest chandelier. It circles once, twice, then dips toward the flame. I summon it back to my hand, the tail alight. Grabbing the letter with a flourish, I let it burn as I take a bow. The audience applauds, though I am the only one who can see the soul fly free.

Still, the soullight seems to shine in Ayla’s eyes as she turns to her companions. “You see?” she says, her grin triumphant. “Fighter, artist, savior . . . nécromancien. How can we help?”

Her joy surprises me—she seems so unafraid. “It might be dangerous,” I warn them. “I cannot guarantee Le Roi will enjoy the show.”

“I’m sure I will,” Ayla says, her hands going to the buttons at her throat. “It’s bound to be unforgettable.”

Before I can reply, she pulls off the heavy wool, revealing a Chakran sarong underneath. It’s a lovely one, woven of purple silk, but what catches my eye are the tattoos that unfurl across her bare shoulders. They are black against the pale gold of her skin, like shadows on a scrim, like ink on a page. “You were a monk before you were a shadow player,” I say, but she smiles.

“I am a monk and a shadow player. And if I ever come home, I will have a new sin to bear: cowardice. I am ready to put it behind me.” Ayla tosses her cloak in a corner and cracks her knuckles, as though prepared to work. “Now. What do you need?”

She looks to me, her expression mirrored by the artists behind her: musicians and singers, fire tenders, puppeteers. “The play is the Shepherd . . . the Swineherd and the Tiger,” I say slowly; there is recognition in their eyes. “But there will be some modifications. Do any of you know anyone who works at the boneyards?”

Several of the performers murmur, and a few nod. Then they all turn when a man speaks from the back of the crowd. “I do.” His voice is deep and rich—the voice of a singer—but when he steps forward, I recognize him. He has wiped the sweat from his brow and the muck from his shoes, but he cannot clean the deep grime from his gnarled hands. This was the man I had seen on my way to the salon, when I had been too ashamed to meet his eyes. “I work there.”

His words ring in the lobby like the deep tolling of a bell. I want to ask him what he did to be banished from the stage, how the king could bear to silence a voice like his. But I do not want to remind the others of the risks—nor do I want to think of them myself.

Instead, I take a deep breath and tell him what I need for the show. When he sets off into the night, the other performers get to work, some adjusting the lights as others unpack and tune their instruments. A painter starts on a poster for the easel outside the theater, and the singer reviews my changes to the original song. As the air rings with chatter and laughter and snippets of familiar music, the puppeteers wait. Some of them have their tools laid out on the stage—wire and paint and awls and gilding—but we are still waiting for the rest of our supplies.

I wait with them, and as the hours pass, I find myself trying to read the Old Chakran on Ayla’s tattoos. Excessive pride . . . lack of caution . . . “Careless of the well-being of others,” she adds when she catches me. “Deficient in compassion . . .”

“It’s hard to believe,” I say, embarrassed to be caught staring. But she only smiles, turning to face me.

“It’s tempting to say that I was a different person then,” she admits. “But I am the same person. I only try every day to do better than I am.”

“I know that feeling,” I say, returning her smile with a rueful one of my own. I can only imagine the sins I’d bear if I ever became a monk. Combative. Impulsive. Distracted. Obsessed. The words echo in my head as my thoughts begin to race around them. “What god do you serve?” I ask, trying to focus, but Ayla’s smile falls away.

“I serve the King of Death,” she says softly, and it takes everything in me not to recoil. Le Trépas serves the King of Death as well. But that is the only thing he and Ayla seem to have in common. Still, she is a good enough performer to recognize the tension in my expression. Her smile returns, sadder now. “Le Trépas has taken so much from all of us,” she says. “I spent