Page 123 of Hunger & Harmony

“Because you’re a Dissonant, Cadence.”

Raising my eyes from the music box, I meet her glossy gaze. She tries to smile, but her face quickly crumples.

“Your father and I both have family that interacted with vampires. Good and bad, it doesn’t matter. The past is the past, right? Or so we thought.”

She reaches into the music box again, lifting out the faded parchment.

“There was no mistaking it once you gave this to us.”

I frown in confusion, taking the piece of paper she offers. A part of me hesitates, unsure how much more can change me if I fold it open.

With my parents clutching each other, each of them laying a hand on me, I gather the courage. Slowly opening the paper, I read over the four sentences written in comically large and childish handwriting.

The paper falls from my shaking fingers.

For the last part of the lullaby stares back at me. The final piece of the missing, real prophecy.

29

PULSE

The music box twinkles softly. Along with it, I can almost hear her. A bard with a fierce spirit and a beautiful voice. With a dark-haired child swaddled in a peasant’s cot, a bastard disregarded. He was richer than any of the king’s heirs, though—power and gold pale in comparison to a mother’s love.

Silence harbors the end,

The crown will crack before it bends.

A song unsung will call her name,

And love will set the halls aflame.

No blood will bind, no voice will reign,

She’ll laugh and dance where once was pain.

Her pulse that calls the last-born heir,

The hollow throne and subjects stare.

For change comes cloaked in red and light,

The rhythm that disrupts the night.

A queen comes soft with shattered key,

And crowns a king that longs to be free.

The true lullaby fades out, and I clutch the paper tighter. These last four sentences complete it.

“I wrote this?” I ask, and my parents nod.

“You’d just started first grade,” my dad says. “Of course, we were proud that you were writing so well, but . . .”

I glance down at the big, rounded handwriting. It’s jarring compared to the words themselves. No wonder they were terrified.

“I’ll admit . . .we don’t know everything. Probably not even half of it,” he continues.

“We’d heard this word ‘Dissonant.’ They’d appear in human bloodlines touched by vampires,” my mom says quietly. “Firsthand accounts passed through generations. Warnings of children who had a particular connection with music, who could hear things others couldn’t . . .” She gestures to the paper. “That knew things you couldn’t explain. Even your grandma knew it when we showed her.”