Trisha straightened, fingers dancing over the strings. She didn’t pay attention to what music she played. Only her lyre’s power and the world pushing back mattered. The others struggled, straining to break free from her spell, but her control held firm. Stronger than their will, it suspended the people in the enthrallment of her song.
Everyone froze. Reike, her sword lifted before her chest, leg half in the air. Ernaut about to deal a blow. The boys, their white faces petrified in eternal terror, bodies frozen. Jaun’s dagger, partially pulled out; Dietric’s mouth opened into a shout, and Egard staring at the broken bow with a grief-stricken expression. The men on their horses, with their tails mid-motion. Flies and gnats, hovering in the air. They simplystood there, stuck, unable to move, all under her magic’s control.
Trisha almost grinned. The magic swirled around her, freed, reveling in its freedom. She relished this feeling. The endless exertion of fighting against her magic: gone. It exhausted her. To be on guard, never letting go. Not today.
The music grew with her magic. Yet, tiny fissures frayed the edges of her song. The sea beyond the hills crashed against the shore, the wind blew against the magic’s barrier, and the moisture on the ground yearned to the sky. Life couldn’t be held back.
Trisha’s mind raced while her music kept everything in stasis. What to do now? She hadn’t thought beyond this move. The bard had mesmerized them, including Reike and the boys. Their horses. But to stop now, and she’d free everyone—Annath, Ernaut, and their men.
They were furious. Their anger burned red-hot, the men wrestling to free themselves from her enchantment. They’d kill her. She didn’t doubt it.
Perhaps a slumber? No, it would put the horses to sleep.Stupid.She gritted her teeth. Had Trisha had the luxury of premeditation, she could have built the magic to skim over them.
Her legs trembled under the strain. The fissures became cracks, wind brushing her skin, a seagull’s cry breaking through. The pressure of her song pearled on her forehead, her clammy fingers slipping on the strings. She bit down a curse. If she didn’t come up with an idea, she would be the one to succumb under her own spell.
At each discarded scenario, her shoulders hunched. Her options diminished until only one remained. Trisha’s mouth dried. She’d reveal everything.
Her gaze flitted between Reike and Ernaut,between Annath Wolfbach on his sorrel horse and Dapple. This never-ending fight against her magic—to keep it leashed. What had it brought? Secrets screaming at her at night. Dream of a past she could never reach.
If she didn’t act today, she’d carry this decision with her for the rest of her life. Could never stop. A looping predicament. And did she want that, to travel these roads, keep running? Her mouth firming, Trisha made up her mind. For what was power if she let them bleed?
Reaching deeper than ever before, she called forth the song she’d never dared to sing. The music altered, the sound threading through the low valley, growing deeper. As it did, the sky darkened. The unnatural stillness shattered, fractured shouts breaking out. The previous enchantment released the others from its grip. The transition was almost too quick, the world darkening. For one breathless moment, Trisha swayed under the strain.And yet, all she felt was elation. Pure freedom. At last, cried a part of her. A part locked, hidden behind her control all these years.
Distantly, she remained aware of the men loading their bows, of Ernaut turning to face her. He took a step before Reike tackled the man to the ground.
They didn’t matter. She was stronger than them all. Never before had she allowed herself to become so entrenched with her music, pushing it out instead of reining it in. The notes shimmered visibly, not only to her but to everyone. But Trisha didn’t care. Didn’t mind. She let it all flow and became one with the power that belonged to her. Her reason for being in this realm. Her birthright.
Untethered, the music soared out. Trisha played the lyre. And it was glorious.
Warm and full, a flame that burned through Trisha like a torch. It sang, warning her of the loaded weapons beingreleased. A strum of her lyre, a sharp note, and the arrows fractured in mid-flight. The warm wood pressed against her chest, the strings sharp against her tips. The music burned in her hands. She freed it all. And the world heard. The bedrock, the trees, the ground. The sky.
When the sun rose above the ground for the first time, the fae gods opened their eyes, breathing out their song. This earth had listened. Though now cut off from their voice, an echo of it remained.
A heaviness, like a lead lid, descended, crushing Trisha’s mind and hands. Her fingers trembled as the sun and the wind fought her. Told her that this world had moved forward. Beyond the veil, time may stand still, but here it moved forward.
A possibility crossed Trisha’s mind, dancing across her brain for just a moment—a future where her song would fail. Could it?
A slow drumming reverberating in her heart eased her mind. The bedrock beneath whispered. Its yearlong rhythm continued. The roots of the rock stretched further than those of the trees. The land recalled and spoke to her. The stone carried a memory longer than the fickle wind or the trees. Its slow beat matched that of the Undying Lands, thumping in the tempo of the now-gone gods. The tune remained here under the thin northern sun. In the land that had called for her ever since her arrival.
The ground and rock returned her song. With her music, she dismantled, one by one, chord by chord, the threads separating the reality of here from the reality of there—the place beyond the stone circles. The stillness that hummed between the two places. Her two homes.
If she were to return to the Undying Land ever again, would the fae forgive her? Her lyre confiscated?Her life forfeited? But damn the cost or what it’d bring her. She was too tired to hide behind the lies.
It had mattered, but no more. She’d made her choice.
Enthralled by her power, scared beyond their wits, or perhaps held by the weight of her magic, the soldiers were transfixed in their places. Their horses, though, understood. They moved, skittish, nervous, sensing the overwhelming fracture of life as they knew it. And she pitied them a bit, pitied the men less. For they’d proven themselves to be beyond redemption.
She straightened her back and stood stronger. The night descended. The wind died. And the sea’s smells disappeared. The sickly sweetness of the Undying Lands threaded through the air. The sky had broken open. The dancing constellations of the faraway place beyond the veil, the stone circles and time, shattered the blue sky and the clouds. As the sun and its light died, something strange and alien threaded through the mortal world.
The barriers between the two worlds, separated by a circle of stones and the magic of the nameless gods, shattered apart.
Over the darkening sky, dancing stars appeared. Not those quiet, still lights she’d witnessed during the lonely nights in the mortal world. These were the fae stars, or a memory of them. She didn’t know, not exactly. Only that her magic had called for them, and they’d heard. A gentle breeze blew over her, stirred the blades and the reeds. An image of another place, its lush, dark grass superimposed itself over the heather, the wildflowers, the tuffs of grass. For a moment, two realities, two different places, shivered in the same existence, the same time.
Like two hearts beating, sharing the same body for the time she played her song—pulling and twisting andconverting the reality. Her song drew the stars of that distant place into her.
The people in the meadow—Reike and the boys, Annath and his men—were but shadows. Murky shapes flickering in between here and now. Even Trisha, her blood and bones, the sinews of her muscles, her breath, became something like a dream, barely here. Only her music wove through the air, cool and sweet, grounded yet gone.
She sent her thoughts out. A plea. A request. Not even half-formed. It was a risk. A chance. She hoped it would be heard.
