UnSung

UnSung

Book Two of

The UnQuadrilogy

Krista Gossett

Independently published, © 2019, Krista Gossett.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including copying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author through publicly available channels.

Cover art by Krista Gossett

First print edition, 2019.

crimsonmoonchild.wixsite.com/kristagossettauthor

I dedicate this book to all the dreamers,

To the color blue,

And all dragons, asleep and awake.

PART ONE

PROLOGUE: A BARD'S TALE

1

The tales of bards are many for the lands of Melikai. The main mass of the desert continent of sand, of shadow, and all things there revolved around the sun.

There’s a city at its heart by the name of Ma’Keik and, in this place, sunlight couldn’t be more unfiltered. Like many of the cities in Melikai, it bloomed around precious pockets of water and dense copses of ancient desert trees, though some were tucked against the mountains in defiance of those borders said to be set by the Gods themselves. Ma’Keik was no less a neurotic little rebel of a city. It’s only reason for existing so long where it did was because it avoided the shadows as much as possible. So far from sea, so far from rock, with only some miracle of irrigation instigating its existence.

Gods, and the constant scorching of the unforgiving southern sun! Some unlucky northerner would redden in minutes and even the natives, with their skin slow-baked the color of Balenwall bronze pots, had the sense to keep covered against those midday rays. The adobe buildings favored by the natives were themselves bleached white against the absorption of those rays, colorful awnings keeping the harsh daylight from brutally assaulting the daytime traffic of the people bustling in the wide streets below.

Everything was bathed in the extremes, bleached or blackened and only in the wee hours of morning did Aiden, its newest resident, dare sit still on the rooftop to make these quiet observations. Perhaps even to pay the sun silent tribute for giving him one more day of freedom.

Aiden didn’t like to move during the day, always afraid someone would recognize him and return him to his master. Nothing his master had done had abused him against his love of rooftops and the sun would tell no master. He could bear the sun, grueling as it could be, for that small mercy alone. However, the shadows of Melikai offered no mutual solace. Since Aiden had arrived in this city, he had already begun to hear the mumbles of people disappearing in the night.

‘My brother was on a trade caravan to the east… never came home.’

‘My sister got up in the middle of the night. Haven’t seen her since.’

‘That bastard owes me money. Left his wife and kids to avoid paying me back.’

Whether they were related or not, people were growing anxious. It gave Aiden some small relief that so many darting eyes meant none were looking too keenly at him. They were far too worried about their own shadows.

Shadows here, shadows everywhere, all foreboding. Even in the north, people had balked at tales involving shadows. Tales of Marteia’s ‘shadow army’, the Sentinels, and the whispers of Arkhades still at large had inspired many a great tale and song, some Aiden had penned himself for, yes, he was a bard. An unusual sort, but is there any other kind?

Ah, but in Melikai, the people avoided anything at night that wasn’t illuminated by torchlight, for all was strange that couldn’t be seen. Indeed, for all of their avoidance of light during the day, they clung to it at night. The rumors of what stirred the Melakians had persisted, but all light fizzled on the weak strength of every whisper. All that was known was that the Blazing Moon Clan’s city of Seldimaar had gone dark and no one sent to find out why had returned either.

The people had prayed to their Fajja—the fickle Flame God—but the God had remained mysteriously silent. Resentment made whispers hiss like acid and who could blame them? A God who partied with his faithful, a fair weather God who disappeared when they most needed the comfort of flame, whose orgies and favors blazed hot and eventually left even the invited cold.

Aiden had slithered through the shadows of day, weaving unseen between these whispers, until the sun had set. As the sands cooled, he made his way up onto the still warm clay roof of the inn. It wasn’t until he’d scanned every vantage point that he hunkered down with his lute and plucked lightly at the strings, only stopping to scribble something in his notebook before reaching for the strings once more. Somewhere below him, he heard a groan, ambiguous in its nature of pain or pleasure. He allowed the twitching of a smile pull at the right side of his face before finding the notes he sought once more.

His eyes wandered up to the sky, sightless at first with his ears the slaves of his handiwork on the lute. Focusing on the star-dusted sky, he homed in on the large blinking of the blue star there. It gave pause to his dextrous fingers, his head tilting at the pull of a memory.

~Before the Rain God’s Ascension~

~Aiden’s Earliest Memories~

Many moons had passed since he had been in the cooler climes of the north, the Anders territory, the city of Orendon and the bulk of his life as a slave. Northerners didn’t allow slavery, but they did not pass their laws on the Melakians who possessed them. It was a lazy law and it only took semantics to bypass it: Melakians could not ‘sell’ slaves, but slaves could ‘offer their labor for free’ and they couldn’t be ‘beaten’ although they could be ‘disciplined’ as long as they weren’t flogged in public. Since Melakians had the monopoly on sticking their heads in the sand, the Andriens were left with sticking their heads up their own tight asses. Behind closed doors, or course, because there was always that odd sort of discretion to every kink. The more public the prude, the more pronounced the secret perversion, really.

Those backwards rules, though, were very likely the only thing that had let him see adulthood. While life in Orendon was cruel, life in Melikai might have ended him altogether. Aiden had few memories of his start in Melikai and fewer hopes back then that he’d live to make more.

Aiden didn’t remember a life before slavery. Wherever slavers could, they’d harvest orphans and toss them in the Incubators. Whatever children survived the Incubators, those closets they conditioned slave children in, it wasn’t a place they talked about even if they could. Each child was groomed only to a purpose or else died useless and feeble. Even then, no survivor was a success story, only alive in various degrees of failure.

A child ‘lucky’ enough to endure that moved on for evaluation. When the day came for a master to test Aiden, he’d been carted off like cargo and dumped on the hard cold floor of a room with riches his unworthy hands should never touch; indeed, things his own deprived eyes could not name as he had never once seen their like. His eyes, having only known bare floors and walls and ceilings, rooms without windows or furniture or even cloth, didn’t know where to land in a place packed so full of luxury. He barely registered that his master sat there, nearly blending in with the giant opulent chair he seemed sculpted out of.

He’d frozen as still as the man assessing him once he realized the man was no opulent ornament. Whatever imperceptible movements triggered dancing amusement in human eyes, the light betrayed it in the man’s where it wavered on the surface.

Even then, Aiden shook with uncertainty, those cold eyes offering no promise of a future. Aiden drew himself up, not in pride but presentation; he was tall for a child, but slight and weak, and even if he wanted to extoll his virtues, he had not been blessed with a voice to speak them. The master seemed in no great hurry to press forward, sizing him up at leisure. Something was decided in the spread of an enigmatic smile and he gestured for the boy to explore at will.

Perhaps because he was so young, he hadn’t thought twice. A cut leash sent him charging blindly for the nearest taste of freedom. Aiden had wandered around the master’s room while the man watched. In retrospect, it had been the most freedom he would have as a slave, a moment he might have savored more had he known. Had he known the weight of it was life and death, it might have dampened it far more. Instead, he had the memory of those discoveries that decided his existence trapped in the cold relief of the unknown.

The first thing he found was a calendar, the first he had ever seen.

It was no simple calendar, but a flat bronze panel with strange painted divisions. Many of the blocks had been marked with a dot of gold paint, but his eyes found the first blank spot. He traced the odd symbol there, one that you could follow unbroken forever, crossing over itself in the middle. Even being unable to read, he remembered the forms of those numbers and letters for later. He had always considered it his ‘birth day’ after all. 8 summers passed, on the 8th day of the 8th month (Altiveran) in high summer. For the first time, he marked any concept of his existence at all.

The next stop on his bold tour was to an exquisitely carved lute mounted on the wall with two sturdy pegs. He considered it his first love. The blond wood of its large body so perfectly flat on the surface, a belly so impeccably curved and rotund beyond it. His fingers caressed its lines, but his eyes held the impossible beauty of the intricate carving there. His hands abandoned the body on their new mission to trace it, but his efforts were foiled by the angry protests of disturbed strings. He drew his hand back, mesmerized by the vibration of the newly discovered strings as the sound died away. Tilting his head, he shyly slipped a finger beneath the smallest string and pulled it towards him until it sprung free, a pinging sound resonant with promise was his reward. His mouth had rounded as if to release the perfect stirring of his heart.

Aiden had jumped when his master burst out in laughter, but it was hardly surprising as to why. Despite the thread of terror at the cackling of this man, the still humming string brought him back to make the lute speak to him again. He had plucked at the strings, timidly at first, but the sounds found him, his muscles memorizing their place in the universe to make them again, and guided his fingers to help it sing. He pressed gently on its frets and plucked new chords, coaxing it to play as many harmonious sounds as it could. He bent those sounds and blended them into rhythm and from them strung together melodies. What melodies, he did not know, since he had never known music before.

All without knowing that before that revelation, he’d been marked for death.

A spindly bard who cannot sing… what will we do with you?

His master had been cruel in that assessment, but even before he was finished his musing, it was clear he had already decided. Those cold eyes glimmered ravenous for what marvelous gift Aiden didn’t even know he had.

Just like that, Aiden had been brought north to perform with the master’s traveling troupe, an honor if he understood it right. He had thrilled at the prospect of bonding with other performing artists, still naive enough to believe they might acknowledge him at all. The master himself had scarcely made appearances but make one mistake and you’d be dragged before him, they said. The sensory overload of this new life on the other side of the Incubators rattled him enough. One thing at a time, but less than ten, if not.

Aiden had never realized he had been kept an empty vessel until there was suddenly so much to fill it. So very much and no knowledge of how to filter it.

Yet the others were of no help, quick to home in on this mute little prodigy’s weakness, more than happy to leave him stranded in a sea of unfriendly faces to discover everything the hard way.

Days of practice, nights he felt suffocated and made his way to the roof where the millions of twinkling eyes watched over him until the sun sent them scattering.

That was when the strangeness crept in.

It wasn’t just the sudden change to his life. The strangeness, whatever it was, he knew right away was just off. If he had to choose a word for it, it was a color. It was always that color that seemed to unlock him and cause the whirring otherness to pulse in primal demand. Yet, it wasn’t the color itself. Visually, the color was a common one, found in certain skies, certain oceans, the fabrics in the markets. Those were flat, dimensional even, safe and known. Those were not the color that reached deep within him and stretched his soul into infinity…

He knew how strange it was. If he had any way to communicate, he had already known better than to ‘talk’ about the invasive color that bloomed on the edges of his being. Unfortunately, he was in no danger of having a confidante. The troupe would take their meals together in the food tent. He had heard their voices downgrade from boisterous to harsh whispering as he passed and open seats were suddenly occupied wherever he endeavored to sit. He had ended up in a misshapen folding chair with his tray perched over his lap. Whatever he had eaten that day had all tasted like the effort of unshed tears.

Despite his prodigal brush with the lute, he could not read music and he didn’t yet understand rhythm. He had needed to memorize the sounds, to use his own heartbeats to guide the tempos, to slow his heart with melancholia or speed it up with excitement. None of this adjustment period endeared him to the other dancers and musicians who found it a great bother to accommodate the kid. ‘Useless’ was a word he had often heard, a word that didn’t crush him as perhaps it was supposed to. If there was any truth to that, the master would not have suffered him to live. Yet he also harbored no illusion that the master would intervene on his behalf.

Ah, for all the friendliness of that first meeting, he learned the master’s smiles for the venom behind them. It did not take Aiden long to learn the steep price of insolence, the sting of the glass lash. The master’s eyes shined no less as Aiden’s blood splattered over the walls, but it was lucky for him that his soundless screams gave the master no additional pleasure. He was also under no illusion that the master was gentler simply because Aiden was a child; his master simply grew bored without the bevy of screams bolstering his cruelty. That Aiden’s arms were always spared damage were further proof of what the master demanded most from him.

That he was ‘spared’ was yet another ‘advantage’ that the other slaves saw as reason to hate him. It hadn’t been inaccurate then to think of himself as truly being the lowest on the ladder. It was one thing to be a whipping boy for kings, another thing entirely to be nominated unofficial whipping boy, poster child of punishment, for a troupe of scared slaves. All fortune was double-edged and once the master had seen through their accusations towards the boy to save their own asses, it had once more only served to make them more directly hateful instead. Those that weren’t killed for their hand in that treachery anyway. Yet even fear of the master’s wrath had not ended their schemes against him.

Sometimes his food would be inhabited by some living abomination. Sometimes, they’d outright trip him. Harmless pranks if the creatures were not poisonous and the ‘accidents’ didn’t happen near stairs.

Maybe it was the exclusivity of his thoughts that kept him from falling apart. Humans were social creatures and in reaching out even with negativity, he never felt invisible, never had the obligation to respond either. He would tuck away to himself at night and find comfort in the sounds, created a language that sprung alive at the movement of his fingers. Music was the universal language. They could hate him all they wanted but with his lute, they were moved against their will to the siren song of his soul.

The dancers had not given him the time of day, the other musicians had treated him cruelly for his illiteracy and his master had been little more than a loud-mouthed narrator and a friend to no one but his ‘crew’. The ‘stage hands’ were yet another semantical term for the slave drivers that were always there to remind them what they were really there for. They were no passionate nomadic group of artists, but slaves struggling to be of value. Slaves without value had a way of disappearing permanently.

~Many years after~

~Aiden’s late teenage years~

It might have been the miasma of isolation that made sure that the strangeness did not go away.

They were never allowed to leave their bunkhouse at night, but Aiden had his loophole with his commune on the roof with the stars.

It had been a clear night in Orendon, another night— the first night— where one bright blue star snagged his attention. Despite the chill in the air that night, he felt warmer the longer he gazed upon the star, the only thing familiar in this foreign land. The star seemed to shine not just from above him, but from underneath him, sandwiching him between its layers. An edge of panic crept through him as the star seemed to invade him, trying to swap places.

No! He mouthed the word, desperate to tell the star that it would swallow the town in his place and if he didn’t float away in an airless void where it sat, he’d simply plummet to his death.

His eyes stayed fixed in helpless horror as the gravity changed, next dreading the absurd feeling that his face might superimpose over that spot, a swap that horrified him no less.

Aiden’s nose twitched at the smell of burning lacquer. Realization lashed at him as his eyes went to the surface of his lute, the hand that had been resting against it ablaze with the blue flame that matched the star above. He smacked at the lute with the hand that wasn’t ablaze, trying to smother the bubbling scar there.

Aiden’s mouth circled in a silent scream as he knocked the extinguished lute away, flapping his arm in a panic. Any other time, he knew enough about fire to know that was the exact opposite of what you should do; sheer panic negated that bit of common sense as he flailed about in hysterics.

The cold blast of logic was the only thing that stopped the useless struggle— there was no pain. He held his hand in front of him, watching the azure flicker of actual fire, felt its very real heat warming his face. His other hand approached the one ablaze with timid deliberation, preparing to pull it away if it burned, but his hand passed though. The edge of his sleeve had not gone unaffected, singeing instantly. He jerked his hand away to blow at the smoking fabric, only to see that both hands were lit now. His face crumpled in soundless mimicry of a whimper of helplessness, longing eyes caressing a lute he might never be able to touch again.

The fact of the matter was this: magic was myth in the world then and even when it had been a thing in the past, spells needed words or wands, surely. Unable to speak with hands ignited, he was at a loss of what to do.

A big bald head popping up through the trap door of the roof was adequate to end the spell, but the relief was short-lived. The man’s eyes had homed right into the burnt surface of the lute, his face twisting in a sardonic smile.

You’re dead meat, kid. That lute was a gift from the Duchess of Callabry, the bald one said.

Aiden shook his head in silent plea but it only twisted the man’s smile more. Whether the lute was a gift from a duchess or whether it was found in a pile of cowshit, his punishment would be no different.

Which was why he had been so unnerved by the complete lack of reaction once the smug slave trader had dragged him and the burnt lute before the master. No, it was the serenity on the master’s face that caused the cold trickle of sweat on his neck to burn a painful acidic trail along his too-straight spine. How many scars would he count as old wounds tore anew and unmarred skin would know the sting of the lash? Would the bald one be the one to do the honor? That one seemed likely to let the whip carve so far into his back that the last thing he would taste would be the blood bubbling from lashed lungs…

Aiden bit down on his tongue to suppress the shiver that threatened to show weakness, making sure he did not curl back his lips from his teeth nor show defiance in his eyes. You did not show the master innocence and you did not show him fear. Surviving the master’s wrath was always about feeding him just enough.

What did I tell you when I gave you use of this lute, boy? the master asked, the voice level, yet silky, enigmatic.

Questions were never a good thing. He had never been given a way to answer them. He had no education, no voice, but he willed the words with his eyes.

Treat this lute as if it were an extension of yourself, for surely it will be if it comes to any harm.

Even those incriminating words would be better said than the menace of silence. Unbroken silence sounded like undeniable guilt.

I have the words, I have them, but you never taught me how—

Ah, it was the thought behind those words that undid him that day. Something in Aiden’s eyes must have accused the master of his shortcomings. Before Aiden could finish the thought, the master’s face distorted with rage and he felt the hard slap of the master’s hand across his cheek. The master’s finger hovered a few inches from the red hand-shaped welt already forming, wagging in admonition as that chilling smile returned.

Remember your place, boy. You know what you have done must be done unto you. No words would absolve you from that, so don’t sour your face with regret for lack of a defense.

The master’s saccharine words dripped from that forked tongue and Aiden held himself in check against the current of emotion. A short nod from the master to the bald man summoned bile and panic.

The bald one dragged Aiden to his feet as he struggled uselessly against the hulking sadist’s grip. His feet slipped over the tile, failing to find purchase as he was dragged away. That useless mouth flapped with the hysterical questions he couldn’t ask.

Where are you taking me? What will you do?

Without the lute, without the strangeness, even without the star or the flame, Aiden finally felt loss and it was a damning thing. Surely, the presence of that emotion alone would spell his death.

Tossed like a rag doll in some dark, urine-scented cell, he wept against the dirty stone creasing his cheek. Voiceless sobs rasped on dry gasps of air, his fingernails grating as he dragged them over the floor in frustration. He longed for the lute, its abandonment striking a crueler blow than anything. He beat at the walls, clicked his teeth, fought the fear of silence until sleep took him.

They hadn’t even woken him before his punishment washed over him with painful clarity. The white hot surge against his right side and the smell of his own flesh cooking had been a rude awakening. He thrashed against the pain but several of the slavers held his limbs, hulking giants struggling to pin a boy barely 120 pounds soaking wet, while the damage was done. They shared a laugh as they flipped his tunic back down and slammed the door shut behind them.

When he could finally open his eyes again, he saw the black blood of his wound soaking through his cheap tunic. The drying blood and pus would be a whole other world of pain to peel away.

Aiden frowned at the bloody shape, noticing it was not some abstract burn. A brand. He struggled to see it but gasped through clenched teeth against the pain of that effort. He didn’t need to try again because he had seen enough. Even without full view, it would be the master’s mark, the crown of stinging thorns that was stamped onto his shipping crates.

A burn for a burn.

If the master had thought that the lute would become abhorrent to Aiden afterwards, he was wrong. Even though the lute had been repaired, the faint mark of the burn still left a faded outline beneath the new lacquer. When the master wasn’t looking, he dared to trace the lute’s own scar. Where tracing his own festering burn might have caused pain, tracing the lute’s brought only a humming in his head, a tingling on the tender borders of his wound, a calm to his mind. There was a secret there and a camaraderie, the shared whispers of a night where he had joined with a star.

To his surprise, isolation was not to be part of his punishment.

One of the dancers, a slave like himself, had been ordered to help him tend to the wounds. She had been young herself but closer to a woman still, reluctant to help the boy that was whispered to be cursed. He knew her face; not one of the mocking multitudes but one of silent guilt and fear on the edges, yet a feisty, rebellious nature underneath. Once her unfounded fears had tapered off, she became real to him. She started talked about herself nonstop, one-sided intimate bits that rambling often wrought. Perhaps she thought he was deaf too and perhaps she didn’t care. Although on occasion, she did ask him a question before realization that he couldn’t answer even if he wanted to would replace the pause with a blush and a nervous laugh before she babbled on again.

Unlike him, she had remembered a life before slavery. Her parents had even bothered to educate her before selling her off. She had seven other siblings, after all, and her family needed the money.

Whatever her motivations, it didn’t matter. It was the closest thing he ever had to a friend and hadn’t wanted it to end. He found himself agitating the wound, slowing its healing process, anything to keep her around.

That was how he had learned to read and write. Though perhaps it was too great a sin in the master’s eyes once he’d discovered. Perhaps it was another eye for any eye lesson; they had kept their secrets, so the master had moved in kind. He had remembered looking for her, being called to the master for some trivial change to the musical score, seeing that small human-sized shipping crate with the blood-saturated corner. It had taken days to put it together once she never showed up after.

Aiden had been careless, keeping a book in his travel bag. He had buried that book before they left that spot. It hardly mattered since he had memorized it as he did any other written word he could devour. He would be careful from then on, but not too careful, for he had no intention of letting the knowledge go unused.

The common alphabet was the new language he gave to his lute but the discordant notes, a code within the musical scales and the alphabet the dancer had given him had only brought the ire of the ignorant listeners who couldn’t make the connection. It was his tribute to her, his defiance to his master, and a link to their speech and his own, even if not a soul ever understood it.

~A Man Grown~

~The Child in Orendon~

As time passed, the night of the star’s bond had seemed no more than a dream. He began to make himself believe that the strangeness had been a fluke.

Stage show after stage show, but then one was different. The song felt divergent from his usual skill as his fingers moved of their own accord, plucking a sadness from the strings that moved him to tears. Not just him but the audience: wet cheeks, trembling lips, stifled sobs. Those bewitched eyes blended with the clouds of the spell he unknowingly cast. His mind had detached from the task, his eyes scanning the crowd in search of something.

He had seen the pale blue eyes of that androgynous child, just a face in the crowd. Clear cognizant eyes that could see into him. The humming started in his head once more, the tingle, but as the notes ended and his master’s voice boomed out, the child was pulled away.

It had yanked him to his feet as if pulled by a string and the blue flame had poured from him, a liquid heat. He might not have noticed but for the muted calls of the word ‘fire!’ snapping him back into himself.

He might not have gotten the lash for it, but his eyes had snapped to his master, pleading with the unconscious guilt he couldn’t conceal. The show had gone on, but the promise of the lash had been waiting.

But the star had not gone and the blue-eyed child, he would never forget. Even as he passed out under the lash, his intense thoughts of them had made it no more painful than a long-awaited sleep.

~The Opportunity~

~Journey to Rathbern~

Aiden did not take the strangeness lightly anymore after that.

Even as the years passed, he was careful with the direction of his mind, fearing that delicious warmth that heralded the beginning of the blue flame.

Because of that, he had almost been insolent with his master when he had been sent to play for the fire dancers. Even in his mid-twenties, the mere mention of fire made him flinch. Yet outside of that gut reaction to protest, the master had only sweetened the pot.

He would be going alone. No troupe, no handler, no master, staying with a northern branch of the master’s retinue, but left to his own devices. It had to be a test but regardless of the intention, he had been conditioned. Even if he could have fled, he knew the master’s reach and he knew punishments worse than death. No matter what he thought of it, it seemed insanity to go against the master and turn down the opportunity to be surrounded by beautiful girls over his fear of the flame. Even if it did seem to steal a piece of him when it crawled under his skin like that…

Settling into a bare room in yet another bunkhouse, he’d had nothing but a worn bag of ragged clothing, the trademark purple hat and the precious lute, yet another boon he hadn’t counted on. A slaver a full head over his own six-foot-two frame had come for him, another surprise awaiting him. The master had sent along a matching purple half cloak and a jaunty costume suited to a royal bard, a sort of uniform befitting his new position. Made none the wiser, Aiden had to wonder about the importance of the dancers to necessitate such privilege. Not that his stage costumes weren’t always meant to flaunt the master’s wealth, but this one was no off-the-rack get-up. No, this one was made new especially for him. Once dressed, he’d been led the exit, given a map to the studio, and sent off alone.

Aiden had arrived well before the time the girls would be showing up, but he still didn’t quite believe he wasn’t being watched and didn’t want to risk the consequence of wandering. The door to the studio had been open and he had slipped in, stopping only long enough to realize no one was waiting to greet him. He had clutched his borrowed lute, strumming the five awkward notes that meant ‘hello’, jerking his shoulders up in the mockery of a self-amused laugh. His wariness of fire seemed ill-placed as his footfalls echoed through the long stretch of cool hallways. He fought the urge to shiver. Rathbern was much colder than Orendon, even thought it was only a half day’s journey north. He had been told the name of the instructor, had written it down— when he had been far enough away from the bunkhouse to not get caught— on the crude map he’d been given, but his hand had released its hold on the scrap of paper. Just like that, not only the name but the purpose of being there had slipped away.

Aiden had heard a barely audible scuffling. If he had a voice, he might have called out, but his fingers had different instincts and clutched at the lute, not so easily tempted to try the discordant tones of a language no one understood anyway. He held his ground for a moment, his ears keen for every sound and was rewarded by the sound of a familiar flick and hiss of an ignited flame.

Panic might have sent him fleeing, but his feet moved towards the sound, not away from it. The pulsing of his heartbeat almost made him miss the rhythmic sound of the flame, causing the hysterical edge of fear to mutate into curiosity.

Fire dancers, you moron. It’s what they do…

When he reached the door, he had poked his head around, timid even with reason screaming sense into him.

The sight of her was equal parts terrible and beautiful. She wasn’t the prettiest girl he had ever seen, but her body moved with far more skill than any dancer he had ever known. Even with her eyes closed, she moved with complete confidence, an endearing smile spread across that youthful face. Her glittering leotard, the warm tri-color of most flames, winked in the few fingers of light that filtered in from the high windows of the otherwise empty room, hugging a slender body that lacked the full curves of a woman in her prime. It was her hair that caused the most turmoil, impossibly long and impossibly red. In the light, it was flame. In the shadow, it was blood.

Could he break the spell she was casting? He wanted to find out. Slipping into the room, his fingers traced the tempo of her movements before plucking her song from the air. The girl didn’t break, didn’t even falter. In fact, it seemed that he fed her movements much like a flame. He wasn’t sure if his fears were teetering him towards the edge of madness or if he was truly seeing the sputter of blue flame alternating with the orange in her fire wand. He had felt the fear and excitement tremble through him, only glad for the tall stool in the shadows or he might have fallen to his knees.

Aiden had let himself be carelessly lured into the web she wove, the notes and her movements trailing almost tangible threads that wound them tighter and tighter. The last remaining thread of his reason, the one that told him to sneak away, had snapped and left him stranded in the fiery spider’s grasp. As hard as his heart pounded with her frenzied steps, even it betrayed him, the telltale tingle that marked his blood’s circulation no longer being granted to his feet.

His song had ended in tandem with her movements, her steps having landed her a few feet directly in front of him.

He could see the surreal confusion when she opened her eyes as she must have realized that the song was real, but seeing her eyes had only cause his terror to renew. He knew those pale blue eyes, sometimes likened them to the ice cold waters of the afterlife. He stifled the urge to bite at his lip in guilt, knowing the cruelty of his thoughts weren’t fair. It wasn’t her fault that his fears were linked to that color. Not just that color. Something else struggled to make sense.

Aiden hoped his own eyes did not show that fear, but the girl’s own face was stoic as they held his gaze in silent assessment. Her head tilted the slightest bit and at first, he thought she started singing. Yet the toneless demand in those words was the cadence of speech and he realized she had asked him to play his lute again.

The girl watched his fingers with unabashed interest, swaying as the song advanced and changed. Aiden had seen the way his music could affect people, but he doubted she realized how pure her reactions really were. She did not frown as if she were pretentiously studying his skill nor pretend an enjoyment she did not feel. She was letting herself be carried along so completely that he nearly flinched when she had laughed and twirled in place before facing him again.

This time, she did not wait for the last note to stop its reverberation before she made another demand of him: his name.

At first, he had hesitated. Very few people ever showed a vested interest in him and any questions asked of him were usually promptly answered by the master. He would just smile politely, shrug, or nod. It felt like a cruel jab that his master had sent him alone after all, unable to communicate and left adrift under the scrutiny of people who might think him rude or mean or, Gods forbid, even realize he couldn’t speak and show him sympathy. As this girl watched, there was an expectation that left him painfully aware of how unprepared he was for the independence he always thought he wanted.

There was the language. His lute had a four octave range, covering the musical scale of A-G. The lowest range contained the basic letters, using only natural notes, and beyond that the next octave range covered H-N, the next O-U, and the last held the rest. It was a long shot for even a trained ear to recognize the rough code and its difficult maneuvers, but it had been the first bridge he’d had to connect the common speech with the one he had through music.

Desperation made him send a silent plea as his fingers plucked the five notes.

Her head did that slight tilt again and she frowned with thought, not judgement.

Do that again.

Those words brought a smile to his face as he gladly followed the order.

Her head bobbed at the sounds, a look of concentration on her face.

Your name is Aiden? she asked.

He had thrilled at not only her cleverness, but in the evolution of his voice into understanding. It seemed like a fluke, so he reassembled himself and told her more with those notes.

⎡I cannot speak.⎦

He wondered if that would be too much. He hadn’t paused in between the words due to his excitement.

She repeated those words and he nodded, excitement rocketing him to his feet to move closer. He realized his enthusiasm unnerved her as she stepped back so he stopped his approach, trying the notes again.

He wanted to gush on and on about the details, but he had disciplined his words, only mentioning that he had seen her before. She was at one of the shows, she wore a blue hat…

In truth, he feared that maybe it was only coincidence that her eyes were the same color as that kid, but it was the something he’d struggled for after he’d seen her eyes and he had to know. She was still a year or so away from the fullness of womanhood, but she was a far cry from the androgynous kid he saw that day.

His heart nearly stopped when she’d not only confirmed it, but remembered his purple hat, her words washing over him in currents. He was never more sure that those eyes were the same now, if only for the defiance rising in them. Yet doubt crept on the edges of his mind, as he’d broken a rule in self-preservation by trusting her. Should he have told her that? Would knowing he was a slave disgust her? He had already gathered that these girls were from the magical elite, wealthy girls from good families that he would do well not to get mixed up with…

Aiden didn’t have time to ‘speak’ again as the person whose name had fallen forgotten to the floor had appeared to tell them class would begin soon.

The girl had been shocked that he had been included in that invitation, but the teacher had laughed, explaining he was the musician that would be leading their piece in the festival.

He had watched her fumble through class. It was hard to believe that the exquisite dancer he had seen just before was the fallible and frustrated girl he saw then.

The class had gone on longer than planned and Aiden had hung behind to comfort the crestfallen girl, but a young man had come to take the honor. A boyfriend, if he had to guess from the way she had raced to embrace him.

The boy’s words he hadn’t caught, but when he heard the girl lament about how terrible she was, his fingers marked a reply before he could stop them.

⎡Not in the practice room.⎦

He wished he hadn’t said that at first, heard the confused boy make some offhand comment about why the bard was tuning his lute there. He barely had time to regret it as the girl began pulling them away to leave before turning and mouthing a ‘thank-you’.

Aiden felt bolstered enough to supply a wink and a nod, changing his mind. She was prettier than he gave her credit for.

He had taken his time heading back to the bunkhouse, no longer paranoid that his steps were being marked for time or length. Yet as light as his steps became, he warned himself that he couldn’t become dependent on that girl just because she understood him. At first, he even told himself not to talk to her, not to seek her out, but he knew those thoughts were useless the moment he tried to enforce them. He amended them. As long as he didn’t endanger her, there was no harm in being friendly.

The night air had grown cold. Though his sleeves were long, the fabric was thin and he stifled a shiver at the first night breeze to penetrate the inadequate layers.

Aiden’s eyes flicked thoughtlessly towards the sky, landing on the ominous powder blue of a bright star. His steps faltered before he came to a halt and, this time, he swung the lute away from him on its strap, not daring to risk the threat of another brand.

He held his hands away from him with the fingers spread. Was it the same star? Stars moved across the sky just as surely as suns and moons so it meant nothing that he wasn’t looking in the same direction as the time before.

Aiden looked at the stars in the sky around it. To its right were a trio of reddish stars which made him think of the girl’s hair. Below it were two purplish stars barely more prominent in the star dusted sky, but they were stars like his eyes so that was easy to remember. He touched his own forehead where the blue one shared proximity to him and he gasped to feel the heat there, a warmth much more intense than skin could emanate even if he were sick with fever.

He looked at his hands and felt immense relief that they were not covered in flame. He also realized he had not been ensorcelled by the star at all, that he had been able to look at the stars around it rather than be held hostage. The realization only gave him strength to find the star once more.

It had not been as instant as before but once he found the red trio, he found the blue one once more and the matching eyes below confirmed it. This time, he welcomed the pull, concentrated on the warmth, inviting it. It was only enough to warm him against the chill of the night air, but he broke his eyes away from the connection, still feeling it working for him as he made his way to where he would take his sleep.

Aiden had been nervous that the girl would complicate things for him, that maybe she felt how special their bond was and would draw attention to it. He had been wrong and disappointed in the same turn. This was only his second experience with friendship, if that was what he could call the dancer that humored him before. It looked as if he was in no danger of making another friend though, as the distracted girl had kept her distance. He had watched with sympathy as she had continued stumbling through her practices for the next two weeks.

It wasn’t that he watched her with distant longing either. The other girls had certainly kept him busy simply for his being ‘exotic’, even though one of the girls was clearly a native of Melikai herself. The fact that he was a slave had never been divulged and he had basked in the alien phenomenon of positive attention. Only in small doses would he see those pale eyes meet his and feel a pang of regret that he didn’t even know her name.

Why didn’t he? He had heard the other girls use each other’s names and they certainly talked about her failures, but it was always with a venomous introduction of female pronouns and the unneeded implication of who ‘she’ was.

When ‘she’ had stormed into the room he was in on the end of that two weeks adrift, he knew that the stress had crested for her, so much so that she hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t alone as she paced and trembled. The powder blue of her body suit might have shaken him before but he had since made peace with the star that once troubled him, so he shifted his focus to the other anomaly glaring at him. He had seen her trembling shoulders set rigid in that way that would never allow the dance to flow through her. She made little sounds of frustration and his fingers found their way to the strings to tell her to relax, that she was blocking the flow.

He regretted being so critical when she spun, unable to hide the trails of tears on her cheeks. It wasn’t his business, he knew, so he tipped his hat in apology and silently promised her a song instead.

He wasn’t sure why he did it, not choosing a happy song to lift her but one sodden with melancholy. It coaxed the tears from her eyes faster than she could swipe them away and she gave up the fight to do so, only stifling her sobs enough to not drown out the sound of his offering.

If he thought he was the only one drawn in, he would have been wrong. The crying girl drifted towards him and when the song had ended, her fingers sought out the last vibrations and stilled them with her own fingers.

She must have realized the intimacy of that action but pulling her hand away had only served in brushing his own. A faint blush stained her cheeks as she smiled. Once more she surprised him as she announced that she was ready, that she was looking for another song, something different that she couldn’t quite explain.

Aiden waved her away, nodding to show he had a song in mind already.

The girl had not been lying and this time, her posture was unburdened as her eyes drifted shut.

Once more he was glad he could not speak or he might have made a noise when the flames of her wand had burned unmistakably blue.

She was back to being the secret goddess of the practice room, swaying as if she were the feminine embodiment of flame itself, freed of her body and whatever troubles plagued it.

This time, she was not the only one elevated. Whatever they shared had blinded him, but in the darkness he didn’t find panic now. Mental scenes laden with the tingling nostalgia of memory were the reward for the combined magic of his song and her dance. He struggled to find the meaning. How could those be memories when he truly did not remember them? But then why would they feel so familiar?

So swept up he was in the heightened chaos that even he did not remember when the song had ended with his fiery siren standing so close that her nose brushed his chin when her head lifted to see him. Her widened eyes mirrored his own inability to describe what had just happened.

She had jerked away so quickly that she flung her fire wand away. In a couple of awkward attempts, he retrieved her wand only to watch her flee, barely glimpsing cheeks stained as red as her hair.

Perhaps he should have left it at that. He wasn’t entertaining a romance with her. Whatever this was, he didn’t mistake it for something so basic nor as dreamy as some sign they were fated to be together. Nevertheless, she shared the color with him and his language besides. Even if she wouldn’t come closer than the distance between one side of a room and the next, he wanted to speak with her again. Never in those moments did he remember to simply ask her name. Never in those moments was anything so simple.

He had waited for her, but what happened after had blended in his racing memories. The strange scream, her blue fire consuming the room where one of the other dancer’s horrifically shredded body was discovered.

Never once did he think she did it. He could have attested to that. Except there was no one else there but the two of them. Once he had gotten her out of the burning building, she was already saying what he thought.

Flee to Melikai, she said. Flee to Melikai he did.

PART TWO

PART I: CITY IN SHADOW

2

~Aiden~

~Melikai- Present Day~

Aiden’s thoughts pulled away and he was still looking at the star that had sparked the memories of what brought him here. He had never gotten that girl’s name. The thought made him smile as so little else did these days. Sleep had never come easily and even less so as he suspected that someday he would be recognized and dragged back to his master. Even so, he thought that the little blue-eyed girl he had once entertained might still be a part of finding out who he was. Perhaps the romanticism of his trade just found more room to be entertained.

Perhaps he was simply addled by all this damn sun.

Perhaps he hadn’t been wrong though. Those events had certainly been a catalyst to his life changing so drastically. Stories would have most people want to believe that a fated one would be along for the ride but maybe that was just a very short-sighted assumption. Every pivotal motion in his life had been nothing more than a short push in retrospect.

He wondered if she got away okay herself, if he had been the coward to leave that girl to take the blame. It was a weak defense to simply say he had only done as she told him. He should’ve taken her hand and insist they run together, then and there.

Aiden looked at his hands, wondering how much blood was really on them. Was he a curse to dancers? His usually sure hands shook in the darkness as his eyes found them. They were only clear for a moment before his eyes blurred.

He shook away the dangerous emotion and scrambled to his feet.

Once he had pulled himself away from the path of those thoughts, he realized there was some sort of commotion below.

Aiden peeked over the ledge of the roof, making out a gathering of people, the waving of torch light casting frantic shadows over the alley below.

The city itself was lit in the night, large braziers always mounted against the buildings to illuminate the streets, but the Melakians never skimped on lighting. The only thing they feared more than the darkness was the rain. If the rare rains in the desert climes put out the fires… well, most didn’t bear thinking about it. Cities could become ghost towns overnight without light. Even well-lit and dry, most people didn’t chance a walk around at night. It wasn’t the threat of slavers or the nefarious sorts that usually lurked in shadows, but something far more sinister. Something that Aiden was just crazy enough to want to find out.

An unusual gathering of nervous locals was a good start.

Aiden tilted his head towards the murmured sound of voices down below, but even his slightly-better-than-average hearing struggled to pick up anything worthwhile. He slipped away from the edge, throwing his short cape over the lute strapped behind him and made his way down through the inn. The noises from the tavern drowned out any hope of catching snippets of the conversation as he made his way down the fire escape in the alley, still out of sight from the townspeople below. Once at the bottom, the voices were only slightly clearer from his vantage point along the wall but it was enough to hear the word that always piqued his curiosity these days.

Seldimaar.

It had been a prosperous city, a civilized yet oddly underdeveloped city for all of its wealth. It was its own fortress in a sense, the entire city having been carved through the expanse of the Karyskolé Mountains. It cut off the land trade route travel time between Melikai and the isolated but gem rich territory of Malderis by weeks, making it a merchant-rich hub.

Before the Darkness swallowed it anyway.

Aiden pushed away from the wall, ready to grab a drink in the tavern before turning in for the night but a hand as large as his own head clamped down on his shoulder.

Despite the immediate panic, he kept his face neutral as he faced the large man. Not many men dwarfed him, but this one did so by a full head and for one panicked moment, he thought maybe the man from the Rathbern bunkhouse had caught up with him. Even once he could see the faces didn’t match, he was still taken aback by an unnerving ease that he might have seen once in the face of his own master, a look that terrified him far more.

He didn’t expect the man’s voice to have a mesmerizing quality to it, an accent you often didn’t hear in the South, as that mouth moved with a confidence that threw him off guard. He didn’t want to trust this man, but his body was betraying him by relaxing with the cadence of each word.

I’d head inside, boy. Wouldn’t want to be caught in the storm…

Aiden looked up but the sky was clear so he frowned, but it was all he could do not to flinch at the sound of the same generic term his master also used for him.

Relax, Aiden. Anyone might use that term for a younger man.

The moment he gathered his wits and sought out the man’s eyes again, the weight of the hand and the man behind it had simply vanished.

With the man gone, the alien feeling of ease dissipated with it and now the word ‘inside’ seemed far more intimate with meaning than just ‘indoors.’ He grappled with an image flashing briefly on the back of his eyelids, a hole in a mountain side. Even pressing his eyes together once more, squeezing them tighter did not bring it back, but the man’s words still crawled slimy on his skin and he had the overwhelming urge to numb himself in drink. He wanted to forget every fixation with those seemingly innocent words that laid heavy on his overworking mind.

Aiden scarcely remembered holding up his finger to signal the bartender, shuffling his feet along the warped floorboards to find some corner of the boisterous scene. Even the busty barmaid that had bent further at the waist to deposit his glass than necessary had become a fuzzy faceless phantom, happy to disappear when he’d buried his face in the frosty skein.

From the back of the tavern, Aiden once more questioned his perception of time. The world was no longer a stranger to magic. Not since the Rain God’s throne had been filled once more. He looked for answers to the blue flame and found everything but. Even with magic returning, giant men weren’t wont to vanish into thin air. So either giant men did suddenly vanish or he was distracted to the point of missing some finer details. Drinking was supposed to dull the care he was putting into those thoughts, but the ale did little but make him drowsy and depressed. He made his way to the rented bed on the second floor, resting his lute across his scarred belly. There, he forced the common tongue of thought to take on the inharmonious notes of his musical language until sleep took him.

Wake up.

Aiden’s eyes snapped open at the sound of a feminine voice, seeing the face of the girl who sometimes plagued his waking thoughts.

Only, the moment he registered that face, it disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Aiden screwed up his face as he firmly raked his hand over it, feeling the tug of a single red thread that he had broken free from the edge of his embroidered tunic only to cling to the smallest finger.

He wasn’t a superstitious man but that was a pretty big fuck-you from fate. After last night, he considered the possibility that his homeland was somehow poisoning him to reason, twisting the blue-eyed girl into cruel mirages.

Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he looked around the nondescript room, sure that some other maddening sign was waiting to join the facetious, tacky stream of signs that glowed with the