“The one-thousand-season exile,” the woman echoed, still pondering the needle. “You do know that we have been little more than slaves since then?” She reached up to touch her throat. It was bare, but the gesture referenced the chaos gems that the Chendas kings had used to silence the Majis for generations, cutting them off from their magic. “With our voicesstifled, it was difficult to pass down our own story. What little we know is woven into song.”
“Do you think those songs could help fill the needle with magic?” Ian asked.
“I do not know,” Lyra said, still holding the needle, rolling it between her fingers. “I myself do not know what parts of the song are truth and what are myth.”
Ian sighed silently, hiding his disappointment. He had no right to feel sadness that his idea would not work when he heard the grief in the other woman’s voice.
“But perhaps we do not need to know,” Lyra continued, speaking more to herself than to Ian. “Perhaps the truth in the songs will speak for itself, and the harmony can still be felt.”
She stood, approaching her fellow Majis.
Ian looked to Robin, unsure what to make of Lyra’s reaction.
Robin had her eyebrows raised, appearing equally as unsure.
Lyra returned, sitting back down next to Ian. “We will sing,” she said. “I do not know if it will work, but there are many of us here. Each of us carries different threads of our story, moments and words passed down in different ways from different parents and grandparents. It cannot hurt to try.”
Clutching the needle in her hand, she pressed her closed fist against her chest and looked out at the other Majis sitting around the fire.
A young woman a few stools down began to hum, setting the tone and rhythm. Around her, the other Majis joined in, each of them landing on the same pulsing note.
Then, an older man across the fire started to sing, adding melodic words above the communal hum.
Ian felt a wave of calm wash over him as the sound filled his ears from every direction. It was not the kind of calm that made him close his eyes or wish for sleep. Rather, he found himself leaning forward to listen, fully engaged in the beautiful moment.
Lyra dropped her fist from her chest, holding out the needle to the woman sitting on her right. The Majis woman took the needle, cradling it in her open palms. She examined it gently as she sang in the familiar but different words of her people.
Ian did not recognize this particular song, as he had only heard a few melodies from Aizel. But it somehow seemed like something he had heard all his life.
Around them, the smooth glass pebbles that hung from the nearby cottages glowed brighter, as if all the glass within earshot was affected by an influx of harmony magic.
Ian turned to Robin, wanting to see if she was experiencing this in the same way.
She, too, was leaning forward, her face relaxed in awe. The blue glow of the glass behind her reflected off her light hair, contrasting with the warm firelight that illuminated her face. Noticing the movement of Ian’s head, she turned to him. As she returned his stare, her face softened into a simple smile.
Ian still heard the song filling the air around him. He still felt the glowing warmth in his chest and saw the flickering brightness of the fire in the corner of his eye. But the only thing he could truly notice was the smile on Robin’s face.
His next inhale felt like the first breath he had drawn in years. This was the truest Robin he had ever seen. Her eyes, dancing with light, looking back at him. Her body, relaxed for a moment despite everything they faced, breathing next to him. Her smile, honest and radiant, filled with awe at the harmony surrounding them. This was both the young girl he remembered and the powerful woman he was coming to know. This was Robin.
Ian stared back at her, soaking in every detail of this moment before it passed him by.
She returned the stare, blinking softly in a way that said she welcomed his gaze.
If it had been just the two of them, Ian might have reached out to her. Might have voiced the doubt that had plagued his mind. The Robin then had wanted nothing to do with him. She had been too hurt by his father’s decision and never responded to a single letter he wrote to her. He wanted to know if the Robin now felt any different.
But this Robin in front of him was at peace. And the magic around them called him out of the past, into the present moment.
He turned back toward the flames and relaxed back onto the bench, bringing his body close enough to feel the shared warmth between them.
The song had changed now, seamlessly blending into one of the melodies that Aizel frequently sang to calm Celesta to sleep. The Majis villagers continued to pass the needle around the fire as they sang, each of them imbuing it with their memories and their song.
Chapter 24
Robin twisted the long stick in her hand, watching the hungry flames of the large campfire dance around the other end of it. The stick was fresh, twisted off a tree she had passed on her way to the distant fire that the bandits gathered around on the night before a raid. Everyone was present, except for Ian and Lane.
She had invited Ian to join them tonight, as he would be part of their usual harvestreign festival adventures.
He walked toward the fire, deep in conversation with Lane, and sat himself on one of the empty seats.
