She clapped her hands together, voice rising above the gossip and sweat. “Alright, my darlings. Are your ears ready for enchantment,” she paused, smile curling, “or chaos?”
The crowd roared, the next hour unraveling like a fever dream.
Her voice spun air into sea-woven silk, rebuilding it until song fell into sorrow. She began with lullabies, familiar notes from my childhood.
But from her mouth, they warped, haunting, laced with something other.
Then her voice changed.
The melody turned forceful, the tempo colder as a new beat ripped through the room. Gone were the songs of fate and love. In their place came disaster. Witches. Bloodlines hunted. Kingdoms bled to ash.
I shifted in my seat, straightening as the song drifted its notes directly to me, my heart plummeting when they reached.
She sang of a curse. Not just a misfortune, or a crossed lover, but one meant to stain, to poison, while wearing beauty as a guise.
Mine.
Three taps drummed against the bar top. Tap. Tap. Tap.
She hadn’t looked at me the entire time she sang, but now her gaze was locked, and I braced for the storm.
She knew. Who I was, what I carried. She knewexactlywho I was.
I glanced at Callum. His eyes were fixed, unblinking, his mug frozen near his lips. I jabbed a finger into his arm. “Cal?”
Nothing. His stare was still chained to Nezra on the bar. I looked to Reve, to his companions, all of them locked in the same trance.
All eyes on Nezra. Motionless.
The music had died, yet the silence remained. This wasn’t a charm. The eyes. The voice. The damned songs—
It was a snare.
Nezra was a fucking Liraern.
But Liraerns belonged to the depths, to salt and storm. So, what in the gods’ names was she doing on land?
She slid from the bar, and I was already on my feet, dagger braced in my palm before I even registered drawing it.
My blade swept across the room, cutting through shadows. “What did you do to them?”
She tilted her head, raven lifting from her shoulder, wings rattling as it flew into the rafters. Her cloak was gone, leaving the leathered armor top visible now.
Warrior, not performer.
“I merely wanted to talk, little bird.”
“That,” I jerked the blade toward the rafters, “is a bird. I’m neither winged, nor interested in conversation. You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
Her brow arched as her palms opened, and the runes inked into her gloves burned in the dim. Explaining the memory, the trance, the way she’d gutted my defenses without lifting a blade.
“Oh, you are many things.” Her smile cut deep. “But I know exactly who you are, Viper.”
Fuck. This wasnotgood.
So why did I smile as I asked, “How?”
She paced, hands folding neatly behind her back. The runes on her gloves pulsed still, violet bright.
