Authors: Elana Johnson
“This won’t work,” I cried over the sound of the magic.
“Then stop it.” The High King threw his head back and laughed. He spread his arms wide, indicating his powerful magicians.
I searched for the break in the music, the crack where I could insert my voice and shatter the spell. The bass line was as solid as a cement foundation, and I detected nothing in the melodic line either.
Behind the smug form of the High King, Olive screamed. I tried to move past the High King to break the circle and stop the magic. The High King stepped in my path, impossibly tall and wide. “With your voice, Princess. My son claims you can reintroduce magic into the world without fear.” He raised his chin. “So use your voice.”
It sounded like both a challenge and a threat. My throat felt too dry to speak, let alone sing. My eyes widened. My heart pumped impossibly fast. I felt wild and trapped, the same way I had just before killing Gibson. I swallowed, trying to reign in my panic and re-lace my control over the seedlings of wicked magic with which he’d infected me.
“Stop it, Echo,” the High King taunted. He stepped to the side to reveal that Olive had fallen to her knees. She held her head in her hands, and convulsed. I glanced behind me, seeking any sign of Castillo. The hallways remained empty.
I turned back to the circle before me, found the hairline crack in the middle register, and opened my mouth to prevent this influential, old magic from destroying my sister.
I hesitated on the cusp of the note, feeling the wicked magic rush into me. It swirled with the dark power I’d been harboring since Gibson’s attack. I pushed the magic away, but it tangled, caught inside my eardrums. If I joined my voice to this wicked song-magic, there would be no return.
I looked from my sister to the High King, furious. “You planned this.”
“We all have our secrets.” He cackled again before joining his rich tenor voice to the spell-song, filling the empty spot and completing the melody that would sing Olive into the afterlife.
The wicked magic within me strained to come out. I fought against it as the most powerful voice I’d heard since arriving at the High Castle pierced my defenses. The High King knew how to use his voice to achieve the most complicated melodies.
I stood and watched, humming a protective spell to keep his evil magic at bay—and stop the magic spiraling through me from bursting out. But my song didn’t erase the sight of Olive writhing on the floor, or the sound of her screams as the wicked spell-song wove around her.
“Curse that mouth,” I heard someone say in Cris’s voice, but this time it wasn’t because I’d said something I shouldn’t have. Instead, it was because I couldn’t use my voice at all.
I searched for Cris among the magicians in the circle, but he wasn’t there. Castillo hadn’t arrived. No one was coming to help.
I couldn’t watch my sister suffer for another second.
I opened my mouth and sang. The discordant song surrounding me faltered under the influence of my golden spell-song of safety. Olive quieted in the center of the circle. The magician nearest me took the tiniest step backward, nearly breaking the circle. His eyes flickered to mine and held.
I increased the tempo of the music, trying to insert my protective magic before the damning notes of the destructive song could sound.
The magician steeled his gaze and kept his position, sending my safety song up into smoke. Tears pressed up my throat; Olive screamed again; somewhere, the High King laughed.
I began a chant Grandmother had sung to me while I suffered from the walking plague. It had eased the pain, chased away the fever, and wrapped me in comfort. My voice rose above the harmonies, swelled through the melody.
The High King’s spell-song changed with the addition of the chant, and this time half a dozen magicians turned to look at me. No one broke the formation, but awe and fear shone on their faces.
Sing!
I couldn’t tell if the thought existed inside my own mind, or if the High King had shouted the instruction to his magicians.
I sang, turning the chant into a refrain that wrapped around the rafters, circled through the wicked magic, looking for a way to save my sister. She stilled again, lifting her tear-filled eyes to mine.
I reached for her at the same time she stretched her hand toward me. I knelt to extend my hand past the circle of magicians, but I still couldn’t reach her. Olive’s tears fell; she sat back.
No
, my mind shouted as I continued to sing.
Don’t give up!
If the High King killed her with his song, the years of her life would be added to his; his wicked way of reaching for immortality.
Her mouth moved:
I love you. Let me go.
I couldn’t. I kept singing, though my chest felt too tight, my head too light.
I must save her, save her, save her.
Around me, the light dimmed. The multiple melodies wafting through the room melded and echoed in my head. Another voice joined the fray—Grandmother.
I couldn’t make out the words, for she sang them in a language I hadn’t learned. I recognized the magic though—I’d felt it in my dream when I stepped onto the beach in Relina. I had felt it pulsing behind the locked door even as Grandmother cautioned me to find the key.
Her magic ballooned into something huge, a power that filled the room until it centered on Olive. She sighed and sank back, a smile gracing her lips. The sight of her relaxing into death stole my breath and stalled my chant.
The High King’s song continued; Grandmother’s magic faded; Olive’s chest rose and fell, rose . . . and fell one last time.
Go!
Grandmother’s voice in my mind sounded like a gong before her presence withdrew. I turned away from the ceremony and ran as fast as my bare feet would carry me. I burst out of the High King’s suite, my breath cutting through my throat in hard gasps.
Outside, the night sky held silence, but I could still hear the High King’s spell-song so loud, so clear, so dangerous. The harmonies swam through my head, the low notes colliding in my ears, sounding much the same as carriage wheels grinding against the earth.
The thought of the lands calmed me. I sprinted down the breezeway and into the gardens. I dropped to my knees and knotted my fingers in the grass. The cool strands provided just the anchor I needed to clear the damaging music from my head. The last strain to leave was the High King’s voice, singing the final, condemning note.
I sucked in a breath as silence descended upon me. My sobs shattered this new quiet, and after a few minutes a song of comfort filled the air. Something soft and feathery entered my mind, and I didn’t resist it.
A moment later, someone touched my shoulders. I looked up through tear-filled eyes to find Mari clutching me. “Come now,” she said with such compassion in her gaze my heart pinched. “Let’s return to your suite, Your Highness.” She helped me stand and gently nudged me in the direction of my wing.
“I miss my sister, too,” she whispered. “She’s why I’m here.”
Though my heart struggled to beat in a world where Olive didn’t live, I felt the pain in Mari’s words. “Tell me of her.”
“She got involved in some bad business, and I ended up coming here to protect her.”
“I-I’m sorry.” I hiccupped.
Mari gripped my hand. “You’re almost like a sister to me, Echo.”
Her words brought on a fresh wave of tears, and all I could think about was watching Olive’s chest rise and fall that last time.
#
Though the night ended, when I looked out the window the sky remained dark. Smoke clouded the air, and the chill of winter felt near. My insides raged as dark and cluttered as the weather.
I stood at the balcony door, fogging it with each exhalation. I reached up and ran a finger through the condensation. Cris’s face filled my mind, his kind brown eyes, his quiet strength, his care and concern for me.
I blinked and focused on the glass. I’d drawn a heart while thinking of Cris. I smudged it into nothingness as I sang a desperate location rhyme. As before, the rebound brought a blank image. I sang for Castillo, but he remained absent. I wondered what I expected him to do anyway.
I couldn’t stand to be alone with myself. I hummed a calming tune, which drove the pain from my soul long enough for me to fall asleep.
Cris sits next to my bed, his lyrical voice weaving the lore stories into vivid pictures that swim around me. He glances at me from time to time, concern and affection riding in his eyes. When I don’t stir, he returns to his book; his voice picks up where it left off in the tale.
When he grows tired of reading, he climbs into bed with me, holds me tight as he strokes my hair. I recognize the music he hums, though he gives no voice to the lyrics. It’s a melody of peace, of healing.
“Wake up, dearest,” he whispers.
I long to hear him sing fully, to feel the power he can wield. When I remember that he’s lost his power, a new hole widens in my already weakened heart.
Castillo enters, drawing Cris’s attention back to political matters. He joins his brother near the door, and they whisper about the village uprisings. The thought of Cris in the hands of men who wish him dead brings a sourness to my stomach I cannot swallow away.
He turns back to me for a moment, presses two fingers to his lips and holds them toward me in a good-bye. I try to wake, to tell him not to go, that he’s in much danger. I cannot move nor speak, and Cris leaves with Castillo.
#
I jerked awake to the sound of the High King’s song. It took me a moment to realize he was not actually here, singing in my suite. I didn’t know how long I had slept, or what time of day or night it was.
Though I only heard silence, a wisp of magic touched my mind, luring me toward the door. I stepped into midnight on the breezeway and strode toward the courtyard where I trained the High King’s magicians.
Moonlight was the only trespasser. I stole across the square quickly and vanished into deeper shadows among the garden, which separated the main castle from my spire.
The tickle of magic danced around me, brushing against my ankles and teasing my hair. I couldn’t quite make out the song, but I realized I must have sung it at some point and it was ready to rebound. It urged me forward, through the grand hall with its staircase and the throne room behind, where I had been received upon my arrival in Nyth. My feet took me back out into the entryway and wove me through the maze toward the gate.
Two guards stood in front of the massive, closed doors, straight and tall and utterly unmoving. I wanted to stop walking and quickly retrace my steps, but the rebound of the spell-song pushed me along.
“I need to go out,” I said upon arriving at the gate.
Neither guard moved.
“Is it unlocked?” I took a step to move past them, and the left guard shot one hand out into my path.
“No one goes out at night.”
“I came in at night,” I responded, my voice strong and true. “The gate was open.”
“The situation in Umon is dire,” the guard said. “No one goes out or comes in at night.”
I lilted my head to the side and tried to see in through the guard’s eyeholes in his helmet. “Situation in Umon?”
“Village uprisings.”
The spell-song pushed against my back, wrapping around me and entering my ears. I recognized it as the location spell for Cris. The image that had previously remained blank flickered with light, showing Cris’s face with his eyes closed.
“I desperately need to go out.” My heartbeat spiked and my voice cracked. “I believe the Prince is out there.” I stood on tiptoe, straining to see through the solid gold gates.
“If he is, that’s his problem,” the guard said, drawing my attention back to him. “No one goes in or out.”
“He’s the High King’s son,” I said. “It’s everyone’s problem if he’s captured or killed.” I glared at him, making my face as unmoving as his, hoping the pulse pounding in my throat would go unnoticed.
He didn’t move to crank open the gates, yet they began to swing inward. My eyes widened as the gates did, as the guard spun with his sword raised. His partner edged closer to him, raising his right arm in a magical attack stance.
“Stand down,” a man said, squeezing past the opening gates. “I’m Castillo de la Fuenta.”
“Castillo,” wisped past my lips, more of a moan than anything else. He looked at me for a long moment before reaching for my hand. When we touched, safety engulfed me.
“The King is in need of your assistance,” he said, his voice a calming influence in my life. Castillo motioned the two guards through. “Come, the King needs you.”
“Lord, we’re to stay here,” the guard said. “No matter the reason.”
“You would let your king die?” Castillo challenged. I edged toward the open gate, afraid it might suddenly suck closed, trapping me inside while Cris remained outside.
“Well, no, we—” the guard stammered. “Our orders are to stay here, no matter the reason.”
“Come on.” The second guard lowered his hand and strode toward Castillo. The sword-bearing guard grumbled, but followed, and I slipped into the night behind them, driven by the rebound of Cris, unmoving and cold.
Castillo slid into step beside me. “Stay close, princess.”
“Oh, so you’re speaking to me now?” I asked, unable to stop myself. Right now, the magic led me in the same direction as Castillo, and so I went.
“Circumstances are not always what they seem,” he murmured. “You should know that.”
“Of course I know that.” A squirm of foolishness snaked through me. I followed the magic to the right, surprised when Castillo curved with me. “Where are you going?”
“To the King.” He seemed to be dragging his left foot. “Where are you going?”
I noticed he did not say the
High
King. “To Cris.”
“Then we’re going to the same place.” Castillo definitely favored his left foot, though he tried hard not to.
“Where is he?” The words felt stuffed in my throat, clogged and coated with alarm.
“Steady.” Castillo linked his arm through mine in much the same way he had in the compound.