An old folksong accompanied the snaps and cracks of the fire’s popping wood. The minor chord would have been terribly melancholy if the song’s hopeful lyrics didn’t balance out the melody. Benjamin’s voice, a haunting baritone that at times crossed into the poignant range of a tenor, soothed some concern from the sentinel’s faces.
Some. But not all.
After all, the only thing more unsettling than an undead skeleton was a singing, undead skeleton strumming a somber tune around a weak fire in the middle of a dark, desolate forest.
Helspira soldiered through a visible wave of discomfort, sitting straighter to get a better view. “You know,” she murmured, “I knew he was good with an instrument in Everferd, but he’s also an excellent singer. Is that his real voice? From when he was alive, I mean?”
“Yes.” A rare flicker of sadness shattered the foundation of Sikras’s charisma. “Best as I remember it, anyway. The spell that grants him speech is tied to my memories of how he sounds. How he used to sound.”
Helspira leaned forward. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—Are you okay?”
“Did Benjamin ever tell you the best part about being an undead musician?” he whispered.
Helspira nodded. “No calluses.”
A slow spreading realization oozed through Sikras’s chest. Blood and bone, was that theonlygood part about being an undead musician? Freedom from calluses? What kind of a life was that? The song’s increasing volume severed rising doubts, and Sikras buried his reservations under the sweet symphony and another layer of comfortable, absolving denial.
“I love this song,” came Helspira’s enraptured voice. “It was one of the first pieces of music that my parents and I heard when we fled Chthonia and entered Nyllmas.”
“Oh?” Sikras arched a brow. “No music in Pio Chamila?”
“Some, but not much. Not like this, anyway. A busker played this very song in an open market as we searched for work. Mum and Da didn’t speak a word of Siapharian; they could’ve been dancing to a song about carnal sin and savagery for all they knew, but Da still took Mum by the hand, and, for the first time, they danced without the looming threat of death weighing their movements. Those notes will always hold a special place in my heart.”
Sikras studied her features as she fixated on Benjamin, from the spark in her functioning eye to the way her smile stretched from pointed ear to pointed ear. Her chest swelled with an anticipated crescendo, and her delicate fingers curled around her blanket at the start of the chorus, but it was her enamored stare that drew his attention, like a siren’s song. “Where are my manners? Our bard may be undead, but chivalry need not suffer the same fate. Would you like to dance?”
Helspira freed a quick laugh, but a sudden wince as she gripped her stomach severed the sound. “I don’t know how fluid my moves will be.”
“We don’t have to move at all. We could just stand there, and ... and wait until we both fall in love with dancing again.”
Her cheeks flushed a pink hue that rivaled her hair color, and one corner of her lips tugged into a smile. “I think I may have already fallen back in love with dancing when we were in Everferd.”
“Yeah.” He knew he shouldn’t. With every fresh stab of dishonor, he should’ve stopped talking. And yet he rose, proffering her a hand. “Me too.”
She said nothing, only accepted his hand, her blanket falling to the ground when she stood.
Observing her flash of vulnerability, Sikras retrieved the blanket in an instant and wrapped it around her shoulders like a cloak. “Fashion and function. Mark me, soon this’ll be all the rage back in Vinepool.”
He could almost feel her gaze rake over his bony frame, and she reached to rub the thin fabric of his tunic between her fingers. She stepped into him, holding the blanket in place, arms resting against his chest. “I’m happy to share if you’re feeling a little exposed without the rest of your ensemble.”
What an unfortunate time to be a man who worshipped no gods. To whom did he pray that Helspira wouldn’t feel his wild heart hastened by the pressure of her body against his chest?
She leaned her forehead against his and closed her eyes, swaying in slow, sedated movements to the sound of Benjamin’s music.
Against his better judgment, his fingers spread across the small of her back, her skin warm against his cold palm. Blood and bone, if she remained this close, he would break. “Care to twirl?” he murmured into her ear, half hoping she would say no.
Without a word, she bunched the blanket into one hand to free up the other and stepped away, a silent invitation for him to guide her.
As soon as his arm lifted for her to spin beneath it, he winced. He had nearly forgotten the cleric onlybarelymanaged to heal the fracture before his body gave out.
Helspira paused mid-spin, wide eyed. “Your arm?”
“Afraid so.”
“Are you all right?”
“I think I might be dying.”
In the face of his theatrics, she laughed. “How fortunate that you have multiple lives, then.”
